Dregs of Yore

 Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious “Our intellect has achieved the most tremendous things, but in the meantime our spiritual dwelling has fallen into disrepair. We are absolutely convinced that even with the aid of the latest and largest reflecting telescope, now being built in America, men will discover behind the farthest nebulae no fiery empyrean; and we know that our eyes will wander despairingly through the dead emptiness of interstellar space.” Jung voices his fear that not only will man’s intellectual richness prove insufficient to quell the poverty of his soul, but the greater man’s strides are in the realm of science and rationality, the further away from his roots he might wander. Perhaps the emptiness of the symbols and the subsequent death of the gods is a sign that the objective faculty of man’s psyche has become so self-loving, that it has managed to free(?) man from the grips of any truth that it fails to comprehend by means its very restrained, very skeptical...

 Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious “Dogma takes the place of the collective unconscious by formulating its contents on a grand scale...Almost the entire life of the collective unconscious has been channelled into the dogmatic archetypal ideas and flows along like a well-controlled stream in the symbolism of creed and ritual...Mankind has never lacked powerful images to lend magical aid against all the uncanny things that live in the depths of the psyche. Always the figures of the unconscious were expressed in protecting and healing images and in this way were expelled from the psyche into cosmic space.” Strange images break free of the collective unconscious and escape into the conscious realm to be weaved into a drama before the wonderstruck eyes of Man. It is the wisdom of the ancient mother and is made accessible to Man when he descends voluntarily into the depths, or is flung there when all order collapses into chaos. It is the light at the end of the abyss. Man confront...

Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious “What is true of primitive lore is true in even higher degree of the ruling world religions. They contain a revealed knowledge that was originally hidden, and they set forth the secrets of the soul in glorious images. Their temples and their sacred writings proclaim in image and word the doctrine hallowed form of old, making it accessible to every believing heart, every sensitive vision, every farthest range of thought. Indeed, we are compelled to say that the more beautiful, the more sublime, the more comprehensive the image that has evolved and been handed down by tradition, the further removed it is from individual experience.” Besides being of interest to readers keen to study psychology, Jung’s works are also of special appeal to anyone who is curious about the process through which religion came into being and sustained its hold over humanity until dethroned by the advent of the sciences and objective thought. The first 50-60 pages (roughl...