Consciousness

Man's capacity for consciousness alone makes him man.

"On the Nature of the Psyche" (1947). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of
the Psyche. P.412

Without consciousness there would, practically speaking, be no world, for
the world exists for us only in so far as it is consciously reflected by a
psyche. Consciousness is a precondition of being. Thus the psyche is endowed
with the dignity of a cosmic principle, which philosophically and in fact
gives it a position co-equal with the principle of physical being. The
carrier of this consciousness is the individual, who does not produce the
psyche of his own volition but is, on the contrary, preformed by it and
nourished by the gradual awakening of consciousness during childhood. If
therefore the psyche is of overriding empirical importance, so also is the
individual, who is the only immediate manifestation of the psyche.

"The Undiscovered Self" (1957). In CW 10: Civilization in Transition. P. 528

In the same way that the State has caught the individual, the individual
imagines that he has caught the psyche and holds her in the hollow of his
hand. He is even making a science of her in the absurd supposition that the
intellect, which is but a part and a function of the psyche, is sufficient
to comprehend the much greater whole. In reality the psyche is the mother
and the maker, the subject and even the possibility of consciousness itself.
It reaches so far beyond the boundaries of consciousness that the latter
could easily be compared to an island in the ocean. Whereas the island is
small and narrow, the ocean is immensely wide and deep and contains a life
infinitely surpassing, in kind and degree, anything known on the island-so
that if it is a question of space, it does not matter whether the gods are
"inside" or "outside." It might be objected that there is no proof that
consciousness is nothing more than an island in the ocean. Certainly it is
impossible to prove this, since the known range of consciousness is
confronted with the unknown extension of the unconscious, of which we only
know that it exists and by the very fact of its existence exerts a limiting
effect on consciousness and its freedom-

"Psychology and Religion" (1938). In CW 11: Psychology and Religion: West
and East. P 141

Our consciousness does not create itself-it wells up from unknown depths. In
childhood it awakens gradually, and all through life it wakes each morning
out of the depths of sleep from an unconscious condition.

"The Psychology of Eastern Meditation" (1943). In CW 11: Psychology and
Religion: West and East. P.935

Just as conscious contents can vanish into the unconscious, other contents
can also arise from it. Besides a majority of mere recollections, really new
thoughts and creative ideas can appear which have never been conscious
before. They grow up from the dark depths like a lotus.

"Approaching the Unconscious" In Man and His Symbols (1964), In CW 18: P.37

If one reflects upon what consciousness really is, one is deeply impressed
by the extremely wonderful fact that an event which occurs outside in the
cosmos produces simultaneously an inner image. Thus it also occurs within;
in other words, it becomes conscious.

From the Basel Seminar (1934)

It is just man's turning away from instinct-his opposing himself to
instinct-that creates consciousness. Instinct is nature and seeks to
perpetuate nature, whereas consciousness can only seek culture or its
denial. Even when we turn back to nature, inspired by a Rousseauesque
longing, we "cultivate" nature. As long as we are still submerged in nature
we are unconscious, and we live in the security of instinct which knows no
problems. Everything in us that still belongs to nature shrinks away from a
problem, for its name is doubt, and wherever doubt holds sway there is
uncertainty and the possibility of divergent ways. And where several ways
seem possible, there we have turned away from the certain guidance of
instinct and are handed over to fear. For consciousness is now called upon
to do that which nature has always done for her children namely, to give a
certain, unquestionable, and unequivocal decision. And here we are beset by
an all-too-human fear that consciousness-our Promethean conquest-may in the
end not be able to serve us as well as nature.

"The Stages of Life" (1930). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the
Psyche. P 750

Every advance, every conceptual achievement of mankind, has been connected
with an advance in self awareness: man differentiated himself from the
object and faced Nature as something distinct from her. Any reorientation of
psychological attitude will have to follow the same road.

"General Aspects of Dream Psychology" (1916). In CW 8: The Structure and
Dynamics of the Psyche. P. 523

Whatever name we may put to the psychic background, the fact remains that
our consciousness is influenced by it in the highest degree, and all the
more so the less we are conscious of it. The layman can hardly conceive how
much his inclinations, moods, and decisions are influenced by the dark
forces of his psyche, and how dangerous or helpful they may be in shaping
his destiny. Our cerebral consciousness is like an actor who has forgotten
that he is playing a role. But when the play comes to an end, he must
remember his own subjective reality, for he can no longer continue to live
as Julius Caesar or as Othello, but only as himself, from whom he has become
estranged by a momentary sleight of consciousness. He must know once again
that he was merely a figure on the stage who was playing a piece by
Shakespeare, and that there was a producer as well as a director in the
background who, as always, will have something very important to say about
his acting.

"Zur Umerziehung des deutschen Volkes" (On the Re-education of the Germans).
In Basler Nachrichten, Nr. 486, 16 November 1946. P.332

It suits our hypertrophied and hubristic modern consciousness not to be
mindful of the dangerous autonomy of the unconscious and to treat it
negatively as an absence of consciousness. The hypothesis of invisible gods
or daemons would be, psychologically, a far more appropriate formulation,
even though it would be an anthropomorphic projection. But since the
development of consciousness requires the withdrawal of all the projections
we can lay our hands on, it is not possible to maintain any
non-psychological doctrine about the gods. If the historical process of
world despiritualization continues as hitherto, then everything of a divine
or daemonic character outside us must return to the psyche, to the inside of
the unknown man, whence it apparently originated.

"Psychology and Religion" (1938). In CW 11: Psychology and Religion: West
and East. P 141

The reason why consciousness exists, and why there is an urge to widen and
deepen it, is very simple: without consciousness things go less well. This
is obviously the reason why Mother Nature deigned to produce consciousness,
that most remarkable of all nature's curiosities. Even the well-nigh
unconscious primitive can adapt and assert himself, but only in his
primitive world, and that is why under other conditions he falls victim to
countless dangers which we on a higher level of consciousness can avoid
without effort. True, a higher consciousness is exposed to dangers dreamt of
by the primitive, but the fact remains that the conscious man has conquered
the earth and not the unconscious one. Whether in the last analysis, and
from a superhuman point of view, this is an advantage or a calamity we are
not in a position to decide.

"Analytical Psychology and Weltanshauung" (1928). In CW 8: The Structure and
Dynamics of the Psyche. P. 695

And yet 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.

"The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man" (1933). In CW 10: Civilization in
Transition. P. 289

"Reflection" should be understood not simply as an act of thought, but
rather as an attitude. It is a privilege born of human freedom in
contradistinction to the compulsion of natural law. As the word itself
testifies ("reflection" means literally "bending back"), reflection is a
spiritual act that runs counter to the natural process; an act whereby we
stop, call something to mind, form a picture, and take up a relation to and
come to terms with what we have seen. It should, therefore, be understood as
an act of becoming conscious.

"A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity" (1942). In CW 11:
Psychology and Religion: West and East. P. 235

There is no other way open to us; we are forced to resort to conscious
decisions and solutions where formerly we trusted ourselves to natural
happenings. Every problem, therefore, brings the possibility of a widening
of consciousness, but also the necessity of saying goodbye to childlike
unconsciousness and trust in nature. This necessity is a psychic fact of
such importance that it constitutes one of the most essential symbolic
teachings of the Christian religion. It is the sacrifice of the merely
natural man, of the unconscious, ingenuous being whose tragic career began
with the eating of the apple in Paradise. The biblical fall of man presents
the dawn of consciousness as a curse. And as a matter of fact it is in this
light that we first look upon every problem that forces us to greater
consciousness and separates us even further from the paradise of unconscious
childhood.

"The Stages of Life" (1930). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the

There are many people who are only partially conscious. Even among
absolutely civilized Europeans there is a disproportionately high number of
abnormally unconscious individuals who spend a great part of their lives in
an unconscious state. They know what happens to them, but they do not know
what they do or say. They cannot judge of the consequences of their actions.
These are people who are abnormally unconscious, that is, in a primitive
state. What then finally makes them conscious? If they get a slap in the
face, then they become conscious; something really happens, and that makes
them conscious. They meet with something fatal and then they suddenly
realize what they are doing .

From the "Basel Seminar" (1934)

The stirring up of conflict is a Luciferian virtue in the true sense of the
word. Conflict engenders fire, the fire of affects and emotions, and like
every other fire it has two aspects, that of combustion and that of creating
light. On the one hand, emotion is the alchemical fire whose warmth brings
everything into existence and whose heat burns all superfluities to ashes
(omnes superfluitates comburit). But on the other hand, emotion is the
moment when steel meets flint and a spark is struck forth, for emotion is
the chief source of consciousness. There is no change from darkness to light
or from inertia to movement without emotion.

"Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype" (1939). In CW 9, Part I: The
Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. P. 179

The man we call modern, the man who is aware of the immediate present, is by
no means the average man. He is rather the man who stands upon a peak, or at
the very edge of the world, the abyss of the future before him, above him
the heavens, and below him the whole of mankind with a history that
disappears in primeval mists. The modern man-or, let us say again, the man
of the immediate present-is rarely met with, for he must be conscious to a
superlative degree. Since to be wholly of the present means to be fully
conscious of one's existence as a man, it requires the most intensive and
extensive consciousness, with a minimum of unconsciousness. It must be
clearly understood that the mere fact of living in the present does not make
a man modern, for in that case everyone at present alive would be so. He
alone is modern who is fully conscious of the present.

"The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man" (1928) In CW 10: Civilization in
Transition. P. 149

Every one of us gladly turns away from his problems; if possible, they must
not be mentioned, or, better still, their existence is denied. We wish to
make our lives simple, certain, and smooth, and for that reason problems are
taboo. We want to have certainties and no doubts-results and no
experiments-without even seeing that certainties can arise only through
doubt and results only through experiment. The artful denial of a problem
will not produce conviction: on the contrary, a wider and higher
consciousness is required to give us the certainty and clarity we need.

"The Stages of Life" (1930). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the
Psyche. P. 751

It seems to be very hard for people to live with riddles or to let them
live, although one would think that life is so full of riddles as it is that
a few more things we cannot answer would make no difference. But perhaps it
is just this that is so unendurable, that there are irrational things in our
own psyche which upset the conscious mind in its illusory certainties by
confronting it with the riddle of its existence.

"The Philosophical Tree" (1945). In CW 13: Alchemical Studies. P. 307

Everyone who becomes conscious of even a fraction of his unconscious gets
outside his own time and social stratum into a kind of solitude.

Mysterium Coniunctionis (1955) CW 14: P 258

Genesis represents the act of becoming conscious as a taboo infringement, as
though knowledge meant that a sacrosanct barrier had been impiously
overstepped. I think that Genesis is right in so far as every step towards
greater consciousness is a kind of Promethean guilt: through knowledge, the
gods are as it were robbed of their fire, that is, something that was the
property of the unconscious powers is torn out of its natural context and
subordinated to the whims of the conscious mind. The man who has usurped the
new knowledge suffers, however, a transformation or enlargement of
consciousness, which no longer resembles that of his fellow men. He has
raised himself above the human level of his age ("ye shall become like unto
God"), but in so doing has alienated himself from humanity. The pain of this
loneliness is the vengeance of the gods, for never again can he return to
mankind. He is, as the myth says, chained to the lonely cliffs of the
Caucasus, forsaken of God and man.

"The Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious" (1953) CW 7: Two Essays
on Analytical Psychology. P. 243