Many / One

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Compiled by JoAnn Kite

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Man and His Symbols
Carl Jung
Jung examines the world of the unconscious in this book, prompted by a dream of his that his work would be understood by a larger public. Other authors included in this work are M. L. vonFranz, Joseph L. Henderson, Jolande Jacobi and Aniela Jaffe

1 "The history of symbolism shows that everything can assume symbolic significance: natural objects (like stones, plants, animals, people, mountains and valleys, sun and moon, wind, water, and fire), or man-made things (like houses, boats, or cars), or even abstract forms (like numbers, or the triangle, the square, and the circle). In fact, the whole cosmos is a potential symbol." Aniela Jaffe, 'Symbolism in the Visual Arts'

2 "They (the Archetypes) are, indeed, an instinctive trend, as marked as the impulse of birds to build nests, or ants to form organized colonies." Carl Jung

3 "Myths of a religious nature can be interpreted as a sort of mental therapy for the sufferings and anxieties of mankind in general – hunger, war, disease, old age, death." Carl Jung

4 "Like all the higher forms of life, man is in tune with the living beings around him to a remarkable degree. He perceives their sufferings and problems, their positive and negative attributes and values, instinctively – quite independently of his conscious thoughts about other people." Marie Louise vonFranz, 'The Process of Individuation'

5 "Archetypes create myths, religions, and philosophies that influence and characterize whole nations and epochs of history." Carl Jung

6 "According to Jewish tradition, the whole of mankind was contained in Adam from the beginning, which meant the soul of everybody who would ever be born. The soul of Adam, therefore, was like the wick of a lamp composed of innumerable strands. In this symbol the idea of a total oneness of all human existence, beyond all individual units, is clearly expressed." Marie Louise vonFranz

7 “The ‘I Ching’ is based on the hypothesis of the Oneness of man and the surrounding cosmos.” Jolande Jacobi, ‘Symbols in an Individual Analysis’

8 "The circle (or sphere) is a symbol of the Self. It expresses the totality of the psyche in all its aspects, including the relationship between man and the whole of nature. Whether the symbol of the circle appears in primitive sun worship or modern religion, in myths or dreams, in the mandalas drawn by Tibetan monks, in the ground plans of cities, or in the spherical concepts of early astronomers, it always points to the single most vital aspect of life – its ultimate wholeness." Aniela Jaffe, 'Symbolism in the Visual Arts'

9 "Whether it is expressed in the prose epic of the Winnebago Indians, in a lament for the death of Balder in the Norse sagas, in Walt Whitman's poems of mourning for Abraham Lincoln, or in the dream ritual whereby a man returns to his yourthful hopes and fears, it is the same theme – the drama of new birth through death." Joseph L. Henderson

10 “Our psyche is somehow woven into the whole world, both outer and inner. All the higher manifestations of life are somehow tuned to the surrounding space-time continuum.”

11 "The organizing center from which the regulatory effect stems seems to be a sort of 'nuclear atom' in our psychic system. One could also call it the inventor, organizer, and source of dream images. Jung called this center the 'Self'….Throughout the ages people have been intuitively aware of the existence of such an inner center. The Greeks called it man's inner 'daimon'; in Egypt it was expressed by the concept of the 'Ba-soul'; and the Romans worshiped it as the 'genius' native to each individual. In more primitive societies it was often thought of as a protective spirit embodied within an animal or a fetish." Marie Louise vonFranz

12 “The mathematically precise arrangement of a crystal evokes in us the intuitive feeling that even in so-called ‘dead’ matter, there is a spiritual ordering principle at work.” Marie Louise vonFranz, ‘The Process of Individuation’

13 "If a single individual devotes himself to individuation, he frequently has a positive contagious effect on the people around him. It is as if a spark leaps from one to another. And this usually occurs when one has no intention of influencing others and often when one uses no words." Marie Louise vonFranz, 'The Process of Individuation'

14 "Our unconscious is attuned to our surroundings – to our group, to society in general, and beyond these, to the space-time continuum and the whole of nature." Marie Louise vonFranz

15 "The very numbers you use in counting are more than you take them to be. They are at the same time mythological elements (for the Pythagoreans, they were even divine). Carl Jung

16 “The circle has had enduring psychological significance from the earliest expressions of human consciousness to the most sophisticated forms of 20th-century art.” Aniela Jaffe, ‘Symbolism in the Visual Arts’

17 “The circle is a symbol of the psyche (even Plato described the psyche as a sphere).” Aniela Jaffe, ‘Symbolism in the Visual Arts’

18 “Meaning and purposefulness operate in the whole of living nature.” C. G. Jung, ‘Approaching the Unconscious’

19 “Somewhere, right at the bottom of one’s own being, one generally does know where one should go and what one should do.” Marie Louise vonFranz, ‘The Process of Individuation’

20 “Like the instincts, the collective thought patterns of the human mind are innate and inherited. They function, when the occasion arises, in more or less the same way in all of us.” C. G. Jung, ‘Approaching the Unconscious’

21 "Whenever a human being genuinely turns to the inner world and tries to know himself – not by ruminating about his subjective thoughts and feelings, but by following the expressions of his own objective nature such as dreams and genuine fantasies – then sooner or later the Self emerges. The ego will then find an inner power that contains all the possibilities of renewal." Marie Louise vonFranz, 'The Process of Individuation'

22 “One can reach the center directly from any point of the compass.” C. G. Jung, ‘Approaching the Unconscious’

23 "Synchronicity…means a 'meaningful coincidence' of outer and inner events that are not themselves causally connected. The emphasis lies on the word 'meaningful'." Marie Louise vonFranz, 'The Process of Individuation'

24 "If we are to see things in their right perspective, we need to understand the past of man as well as his present. That is why an undertanding of myths and symbols is of essential importance." Carl Jung

This body of quotes compiled by JoAnn Kite