The Red Book, page 64
I asked her, “So tell me, where do I begin? I feel their torment and mine at the same time, and yet it is not mine, both real and unreal.”
“That is it; and this is where separation should occur,” my soul replied.
“But how? My wits fail me. You must know how.”
“Your wits fail quickly,” she retorted, “but the Gods need precisely your human wits.”
“And I the wits of the Gods,” I added; “and thus we run aground.”
“No, you are too impatient; only patient comparison provides a solution, not one side taking a quick decision. It requires work.”
I asked, “What do the Gods suffer from?”
“Well,” my soul replied, “you have left them with torment, and since then they have suffered.”
“Rightly so,” I cried, “they have tormented men enough. Now they should get a taste of it.”
She answered, “But what if the torment also reaches you? What have you gained then? You cannot leave all suffering to the Gods or else they will draw you into their torment. After all, they possess the power to do so. To be sure, I must confess that men too possess a wondrous power over the Gods through their wits.”
I answered, “I recognize that the torment of the Gods reached me; therefore I also recognize that I must yield to the Gods. What is their desire?”
“They want obedience,” she replied.
“So be it,” I answered, “but I fear their desire, therefore I say: I want to do what I can. On no account will I take back onto myself all the torment that I had to leave to the Gods. Not even Christ took torment away from his followers, but rather he heaped it on. I reserve conditions for myself. The Gods should recognize this and direct their desire accordingly. There is no longer any unconditional obedience, since man has stopped being a slave to the Gods. He has dignity before the Gods. He is a limb that even the Gods cannot do without. Giving way before the Gods is no more. So let their wish be heard. Comparison shall accomplish the rest so that each will have his appropriate part.”
My soul answered, “The Gods want you to do for their sake what you know you do not want to do.”
“I thought so,” I exclaimed, “of course that is what the Gods want. But do the Gods also do what I want? I want the fruits of my labor. What do the Gods do for me? They want their goals to be fulfilled, but what about mine?”
This infuriated my soul and she said, “You are unbelievably defiant and rebellious. Consider the fact that the Gods are strong.”
“I know,” I replied, “but no longer is there any unconditional obedience. When will they use their strength for me? They also want me to place mine in their service. What is their payment in kind? That they are tormented? Man suffered agony and the Gods were still not satisfied, but remained insatiable in their devising of new torments. They allowed man to become so blinded that he believed that there were no Gods, and that there was only one God who was a loving father, so that today someone who struggles with the Gods is even thought to be crazy. They have thus prepared this shame too for those who recognize them, out of boundless greed for power, since leading the blind is not easy. They will corrupt even their slaves.”
“You do not want to obey the Gods?” my soul cried, astonished.
I answered, “I believe that has already gone on more than enough. Hence the Gods are insatiable, because they have received too many sacrifices: the altars of blinded humanity are streaming with blood. But dearth makes contentment, not abundance. May they learn dearth from men. Who does something for me? That is the question that I must pose. In no case will I do what the Gods would have to do. Ask the Gods what they think of my suggestion.”
Then my soul divided herself. As a bird she swooped up to the higher Gods and as a serpent she crawled down to the lower Gods. Soon afterward, she returned and said, troubled, “The Gods are outraged that you do not want to be obedient.”
“That bothers me very little,” I replied, “I have done everything to placate the Gods. May they do their share now. Tell them. I can wait. I will let no one tell me what to do. The Gods may devise a service in return. You can go. I will call you tomorrow so that you can tell me what the Gods have decided.”
As my soul departed, I saw that she was shocked and worried, since she belonged to the race of the Gods and daimons and forever sought to convert me to their kind, as my humanity would like to convince me that I belong to the clan and must serve it. When I was asleep, my soul came again and in a dream cunningly painted me as a horned devil to terrify me and make me afraid of myself. In the following night, however, I called my soul and said to her, “Your trick was recognized. It is to no avail. You do not frighten me. Now speak and convey your message!”
She answered, “The Gods give in. You have broken the compulsion of the law. Therefore I painted you as a devil, since he is the only one among the Gods who bows to no compulsion. He is the rebel against the eternal law, to which, thanks to his deed, there are also exceptions. Thus one does not necessarily have to. The devil is helpful in this respect. But it should not happen without seeking counsel from the Gods. This detour is necessary, or else you will fall prey to their law despite the devil.”
Here the soul drew near to my ear and whispered, “The Gods are even happy to turn a blind eye from time to time, since basically they know very well that it would be bad for life if there were no exception to eternal law. Hence their tolerance of the devil.”
She then raised her voice and cried loudly, “The Gods have mercy upon you and have accepted your sacrifice!”
And so the devil helped me to cleanse myself from commingling in bondage, and the pain of one-sidedness pierced my heart and the wound of being torn apart scorched me.
{15}152It was noon on a hot summer’s day and I was taking a stroll in my garden; when I reached the shade of the high trees, I met ΦΙΛΗΜΩΝ strolling in the fragrant grass. But when I sought to approach him, a blue shade153 came from the other side, and when ΦΙΛΗΜΩΝ saw him, he said, “I find you in the garden, beloved. The sins of the world have conferred beauty upon your countenance.
“The suffering of the world has straightened your shape.
“You are truly a king.
“Your crimson is blood.
“Your ermine is snow from the coldness of the poles.
“Your crown is the heavenly body of the sun, which you bear on your head.
“Welcome to the garden, my master, my beloved, my brother!”
The shade replied, “Oh Simon Magus or whatever your name may be, are you in my garden or am I in yours?”154
ΦΙΛΗΜΩΝ said, “You are, Oh master, in my garden. Helena, or whatever you choose to call her, and I are your servants. You can find accommodation with us. Simon and Helena have become ΦΙΛΗΜΩΝ and Baucis and so we are the hosts of the Gods. We granted hospitality to your terrible worm. And since you come forward, we take you in. It is our garden that surrounds you.”155
The shade answered, “Is this garden not mine? Is not the world of the heavens and of the spirits my own?”
ΦΙΛΗΜΩΝ said, “You are, Oh master, here in the world of men. Men have changed. They are no longer the slaves and no longer the swindlers of the Gods and no longer mourn in your name, but they grant hospitality to the Gods. The terrible worm156 came before you, whom you recognize as your brother insofar as you are of divine nature, and as your father insofar as you are of human nature.157 You dismissed him when he gave you clever counsel in the desert. You took the counsel, but dismissed the worm: he finds a place with us. But where he is, you will be also.158 When I was Simon, I sought to escape him with the ploy of magic and thus I escaped you. Now that I gave the worm a place in my garden, you come to me.”
The shade answered, “Do I fall for the power of your trick? Have you secretly caught me? Were not deception and lies always your manner?”
But ΦΙΛΗΜΩΝ answered, “Recognize, Oh master and beloved, that your nature is also of the serpent.159 Were you not raised on the tree like the serpent? Have you laid aside your body, like the serpent its skin? Have you not practiced the healing arts, like the serpent? Did you not go to Hell before your ascent? And did you not see your brother there, who was shut away in the abyss?”160
Then the shade said, “You speak the truth. You are not lying. Even so, do you know what I bring you?”
“This I know not,” ΦΙΛΗΜΩΝ answered. “I know only one thing, that whoever hosts the worm also needs his brother. What do you bring me, my beautiful guest? Lamentation and abomination were the gift of the worm. What will you give us?”
The shade answered, “I bring you the beauty of suffering. That is what is needed by whoever hosts the worm.”
1.April 19, 1914.
2.“All beginnings are difficult” is a proverb from the Talmud.
3.“To the greater glory of God.” This was the motto of the Jesuits.
4.See below, note 91, p. 515.
5.References to this God in the following pages are not in Black Book 5.
6.April 20, 1914. On the same day, Jung resigned as president of the International Psychoanalytical Association (The Freud/Jung Letters, p. 613).
7.April 21, 1914.
8.Jung later described the self-criticism depicted in this opening section as the confrontation with the shadow. In 1934 he wrote: “Whoever looks into the mirror of the water will see first of all his own image. Whoever goes to himself risks a confrontation with himself. The mirror does not flatter, it faithfully shows whatever looks into it; namely the face we never show to the world because we cover it with the persona, the mask of the actor. But the mirror lies behind the mask and shows the true face. This confrontation is the first test of courage on the inner way, a test sufficient to frighten off most people, for the meeting with ourselves belongs to the more unpleasant things that can be avoided as long as one can project everything negative into the environment. But if we are able to see our own shadow and can bear knowing about it, then a small part of the problem has already been solved: we have at least brought up the personal unconscious” (“On the archetypes of the collective unconscious,” CW 9, 1, §§43–44).
9.This paragraph does not occur in Black Book 5. On April 30, 1914, Jung resigned as a lecturer in the medical faculty of the University of Zürich.
10.May 8, 1914. There is a gap in the entries in Black Book 5 between April 21 and May 8, so the discussions referred to in the previous paragraph do not appear to have been recorded.
11.May 21, 1914.
12.Matthew 8:21–22: “And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.”
13.May 23, 1914.
14.These last two paragraphs do not occur in Black Book 5: In Transformations and Symbols of the Libido (1912), Jung wrote: “I think, belief should be replaced by understanding” (CW B, §356). On October 5, 1945, Jung wrote to Victor White: “I began my career with repudiating everything that smelt of belief” (Ann Conrad Lammers and Adrian Cunningham, eds., The Jung-White Letters [Philemon Series, London: Routledge, 2007], p. 6).
15.May 24, 1914. The lines from the beginning of the paragraph do not occur in Black Book 4.
16.Black Book 4 continues: “He is like one of the old saints, one of the first Christians who lived in the desert” (p. 77).
17.In the handwritten manuscript of Scrutinies, there is a note here: “27/11/17,” which appears to refer to when this portion of the manuscript was composed.
18.Black Book 5 continues: [I]: “I am scholastic?” [Soul]: “Not that, but scientific; science is a new version of scholasticism. It needs to be surmounted.” [I]: “Is it not enough yet? Do I thus not counter the spirit of the time if I dissociate myself from science?” [Soul]: “You are not supposed to dissociate yourself, but consider that science is merely your language.” [I]: “Which depths do you require me to advance to?” [Soul]: “Forever above yourself and the present.” / [I]: “I want to, but what should happen? I often feel I can no longer.” [Soul]: “You must put in extra work. Provide respite. Too many take up your time.” / [I]: “Will this sacrifice arise too?” [Soul]: “You must, you must” (pp. 79–80).
19.This paragraph does not occur in Black Book 5.
20.May 25, 1914.
21.Black Book 5 continues: “Ha, this book! I have laid hands on you again—banal and pathological and frantic and divine, my written unconscious! You have forced me to my knees again! Here I am, say what you have to say!” (p. 82). This is the one reference to “the unconscious” in Black Books 2 to 7.
22.June 3, 1915. In the interim, Jung wrote the draft of the preceding books of Liber Novus. On July 28, 1914, Jung gave a talk on “The importance of the unconscious in psychopathology” at a meeting of the British Medical Association in Aberdeen. From around August 9 to around August 22, Jung was on military service in Luzern for 14 days. From around January 1 to around March 8, 1915, Jung was on military service in Olten for 64 days. Between March 10 and 12, he served on the invalid transport (Jung’s military service books, JFA).
23.This sentence is not in Black Book 6.
24.September 14, 1915. In late summer and autumn of 1915, Jung conducted his correspondence with Hans Schmid on the question of psychological types. His concluding letter to Schmid of November 6 indicates a shift that signals a return to the elaboration of his fantasies in the Black Books: “Understanding is a terribly binding power, possibly a veritable soul murder when it levels out vitally important differences. The core of the individual is a mystery of life, which dies when it is ‘grasped.’ That is also why symbols want to keep their secrets, they are mysterious not only because we are unable to clearly see what is at their bottom. . . All understanding as such, being an integration into general viewpoints, contains the devil’s element, and kills. . . That is why, in the later stages of analysis, we must help the other to come to those hidden and un-openable symbols, in which the seed of life lies securely hidden like the tender seed in the hard shell. Actually, there must not be any understanding and agreement on this, even if it were possible, as it were. But if understanding and agreement on this has become generalized and obviously possible, the symbol is ripe for destruction, because it no longer covers the seed, which is about to outgrow the shell. Now I understand a dream I once had, and which greatly impressed me: I was standing in my garden, and I had dug open a rich spring of water which gushed forth mightily. Then I had to dig a trench and a deep hole, in which I collected all the water and let it flow back into the depths of the earth again. In this way salvation is given to us in the un-openable and un-sayable symbol, for it protects us by preventing the devil from swallowing the seed of life” (John Beebe and Ernst Falzeder, eds., The Question of Psychological Types, forthcoming).
25.Black Book 5 continues: “Hermes is your daimon” (p. 87).
26.Jung discussed the alchemical symbolism of gold in Mysterium Coniunctionis (1955/56, CW 14, §353ff).
27.September 15, 1915.
28.September 17, 1915.
29.In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche wrote: “The Self also seeks with the eyes of sense, it listens too with the ears of the spirit. The Self is always listening and seeking: it compares, subdues, conquers, destroys. It rules and is also the I’s ruler. Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother, stands a mighty commander, an unknown sage—he is called Self” (section 1, “Of the despisers of the body,” §1, p. 62). The passage is underlined as in Jung’s copy. There are also lines by the margin and exclamation marks. In commenting on this passage in 1935 in his seminar on Zarathustra, Jung said: “I was already very interested in the concept of the self, but I was not sure how I should understand it. I made my marks when I came across these passages, and they seemed very important to me. . . The concept of the self continued to recommend itself to me. . . I thought that Nietzsche meant a sort of thing-in-itself behind the psychological phenomenon. . . I saw then also that he was producing a concept of the self which was like the Eastern concept; it is an Atman idea” (Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, vol.1, p. 391).
30.In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche wrote: “You crowd together with your neighbours and have beautiful words for it. But I tell you: Your love of your neighbour is your bad love of yourself. You flee away from yourselves and would like to make a virtue of it: but I see through your ‘selflessness’ ” (“Of love of one’s neighbour,” p. 86; as underlined by Jung in his copy).
31.September 18, 1915.
32.In 1941, Jung noted: “The integration or humanization of the self, as has already been indicated, is initiated from the conscious side by making ourselves conscious of our egotistical aims, that means we give an account of our motives and try to form as objective a picture as possible of our own being” (“Transformation symbolism in the mass,” CW 11, §400). This corresponds to the process depicted here in the opening section of Scrutinies.
33.Black Book 5 continues: “which unites Heaven and Hell in itself” (p. 92). Cf. Jung, “Transformation symbolism in the mass” : “The self then functions as a unio oppositorum and thus constitutes the most immediate experience of the divine which is at all psychologically comprehensible” (1941, CW 11, §396).
34.In 1921, Jung wrote concerning the self: “But inasmuch as the I is only the centre of my field of consciousness, it is not identical with the totality of my psyche, being merely one complex among other complexes. I therefore distinguish between the I and the self, since the I is only the subject of my consciousness, while the self is the subject of my total psyche, which also includes the unconscious” (Psychological Types, CW 6, §706). In 1928, Jung described the process of individuation as “self-becoming” and “self-realization” (The Relations between the I and the Unconscious, CW 7, §266). Jung defined the self as the archetype of order, and noted that representations of the self were indistinguishable from God-images (ch. 4, “The self,” Aion: Contributions to the Symbolism of the Self, CW 9, 2). In 1944 he noted that he chose the term because this concept was “on the one hand definite enough to convey the sum of human wholeness and on the other hand indefinite enough to express the indescribable and indeterminate nature of this wholeness. . . in scientific usage the ‘self’ refers neither to Christ nor to the Buddha but to the totality of the figures that are its equivalent, and each of these figures is a symbol of the self” (Psychology and Alchemy, CW 12, §20).
