The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man
283 THE PSYCHIC equality of all men is an unspoken assumption deriving from the individual's
original unconsciousness of himself. In that far-off world there was no individual consciousness,
but only a collective psyche from which gradually an individual consciousness emerged on the
higher levels of development. The indispensable condition for the existence of an individual
consciousness is its difference from other consciousness. One could liken the process of conscious
development to a rocket that rises up from the darkness and dissolves in a shower of
multicoloured stars.
289 The attainment of consciousness was the most precious fruit of the tree of knowledge, the
magical weapon which gave man victory over the earth, and which we hope will give him a still
greater victory over himself.
290 The fact that individual consciousness means separation and opposition is something that man
has experienced countless times in his long history. And just as for the individual a time of
dissociation is a time for sickness, so it is in the life of nations...The word "crisis," so often heard,
is a medical expression which always tells us that the sickness has reached a dangerous climax.
291 When man became conscious, the germ of the sickness of dissociation was planted in his soul,
for consciousness is at once the highest good and the greatest evil...If we reduced humanity...to a
single individual, we would see before us a highly differentiated personality who, after mastering
his environment with sublime self-assurance, split himself up in the pursuit of his separate
occupations and interests, forgetting his own origins and traditions, and even losing all memory of
his former self, so that he seemed to be now one thing and now another, and thus fell into a
hopeless conflict with himself. In the end the conflict led to such a state of enfeeblement that the
world he had conquered broke in like a devastating flood and completed the process of
destruction.
293 The sickness of dissociation in our world is at the same time a process of recovery, or
rather, the climax of a period of pregnancy which heralds the throes of birth. A time of
dissociation such as prevailed during the Roman Empire is simultaneously an age of rebirth. Not
without reason do we date our era from the age of Augustus, for that epoch saw the birth of the
symbolical figure of Christ, who was invoked by the early Christians as the Fish, the Ruler of the
aeon of Pisces which had just begun. He became the ruling spirit of the next two thousand years.
Like the teacher of wisdom in Babylonian legend, Oannes, he rose up from the sea, from the
primeval darkness, and brought a world-period to an end. It is true that he said, "I am come not to
bring peace but a sword." But that which brings division ultimately creates union. Therefore his
teaching was one of all-uniting love.
295 In classical Chinese philosophy there are two contrary principles, the bright yang and the dark
yin. Of these it is said that always when one principle reaches the height of its power, the
counter-principle is stirring within it like a germ. This is another, particularly graphic formulation
of the psychological law of compensation by an inner opposite. Whenever a civilization reaches its
highest point, sooner or later a period of decay sets in. But the apparently meaningless and
hopeless collapse into a disorder without aim or purpose, which fills the onlooker with disgust and
despair, nevertheless contains within its darkness the germ of a new life.
299 We must direct our patient's attention to the place where the germ of unity is growing within
him, the place of creative birth, which is the deepest cause of all the rifts and schisms on the
surface. A civilization does not decay, it regenerates...
300 That is the psychological law. My patient, in all probability, will not believe a word of it. At
the very least he will want to have experienced these things for himself. And here our difficulties
begin, for the compensation always makes its appearance just where one would least expect it,
and where, objectively considered, it seems least plausible...
301 It is so small and ridiculous that for modesty's sake it would rather give up the ghost at
once. Where, then, must we lead our patient in order to give him at least a glimmer of an inkling
of something different, something that would counterbalance the everyday world he knows only
too well? We must guide him, by devious ways at first, to a dark, ridiculously insignificant, quite
unimportant corner of his psyche, following a long-disused path to the longest-known illusion,
which as all the world knows is nothing but a fleeting, grotesque phantom of the night, and the
path is the understanding of dreams.
306 It is just the most squalid dreams that emphasize our blood-kingship with the rest of
mankind, and most effectively damp down the arrogance born of an atrophy of the instincts. Even
if the whole world were to fall to pieces, the unity of the psyche would never be shattered. And
the wider and more numerous the fissures on the surface, the more this unity is strengthened in
the depths.
C G Jung Collected Works vol. 10
283 THE PSYCHIC equality of all men is an unspoken assumption deriving from the individual's original unconsciousness of himself. In that far-off world there was no individual consciousness, but only a collective psyche from which gradually an individual consciousness emerged on the higher levels of development. The indispensable condition for the existence of an individual consciousness is its difference from other consciousness. One could liken the process of conscious development to a rocket that rises up from the darkness and dissolves in a shower of multicoloured stars.
289 The attainment of consciousness was the most precious fruit of the tree of knowledge, the magical weapon which gave man victory over the earth, and which we hope will give him a still greater victory over himself.
290 The fact that individual consciousness means separation and opposition is something that man has experienced countless times in his long history. And just as for the individual a time of dissociation is a time for sickness, so it is in the life of nations...The word "crisis," so often heard, is a medical expression which always tells us that the sickness has reached a dangerous climax.
291 When man became conscious, the germ of the sickness of dissociation was planted in his soul, for consciousness is at once the highest good and the greatest evil...If we reduced humanity...to a single individual, we would see before us a highly differentiated personality who, after mastering his environment with sublime self-assurance, split himself up in the pursuit of his separate occupations and interests, forgetting his own origins and traditions, and even losing all memory of his former self, so that he seemed to be now one thing and now another, and thus fell into a hopeless conflict with himself. In the end the conflict led to such a state of enfeeblement that the world he had conquered broke in like a devastating flood and completed the process of destruction.
293 The sickness of dissociation in our world is at the same time a process of recovery, or rather, the climax of a period of pregnancy which heralds the throes of birth. A time of dissociation such as prevailed during the Roman Empire is simultaneously an age of rebirth. Not without reason do we date our era from the age of Augustus, for that epoch saw the birth of the symbolical figure of Christ, who was invoked by the early Christians as the Fish, the Ruler of the aeon of Pisces which had just begun. He became the ruling spirit of the next two thousand years. Like the teacher of wisdom in Babylonian legend, Oannes, he rose up from the sea, from the primeval darkness, and brought a world-period to an end. It is true that he said, "I am come not to bring peace but a sword." But that which brings division ultimately creates union. Therefore his teaching was one of all-uniting love.
295 In classical Chinese philosophy there are two contrary principles, the bright yang and the dark yin. Of these it is said that always when one principle reaches the height of its power, the counter-principle is stirring within it like a germ. This is another, particularly graphic formulation of the psychological law of compensation by an inner opposite. Whenever a civilization reaches its highest point, sooner or later a period of decay sets in. But the apparently meaningless and hopeless collapse into a disorder without aim or purpose, which fills the onlooker with disgust and despair, nevertheless contains within its darkness the germ of a new life.
299 We must direct our patient's attention to the place where the germ of unity is growing within him, the place of creative birth, which is the deepest cause of all the rifts and schisms on the surface. A civilization does not decay, it regenerates...
300 That is the psychological law. My patient, in all probability, will not believe a word of it. At the very least he will want to have experienced these things for himself. And here our difficulties begin, for the compensation always makes its appearance just where one would least expect it, and where, objectively considered, it seems least plausible...
301 It is so small and ridiculous that for modesty's sake it would rather give up the ghost at once. Where, then, must we lead our patient in order to give him at least a glimmer of an inkling of something different, something that would counterbalance the everyday world he knows only too well? We must guide him, by devious ways at first, to a dark, ridiculously insignificant, quite unimportant corner of his psyche, following a long-disused path to the longest-known illusion, which as all the world knows is nothing but a fleeting, grotesque phantom of the night, and the path is the understanding of dreams.
306 It is just the most squalid dreams that emphasize our blood-kingship with the rest of mankind, and most effectively damp down the arrogance born of an atrophy of the instincts. Even if the whole world were to fall to pieces, the unity of the psyche would never be shattered. And the wider and more numerous the fissures on the surface, the more this unity is strengthened in the depths.
C G Jung Collected Works vol. 10
