The Red Book

In studying his fantasies, Jung realized that he was studying the myth-creating function of the mind.51

it is very important that we experience the contents of the unconscious before we form any opinions about it.

“If we feel our way into the human secrets of the sick person, the madness also reveals its system, and we recognize in the mental illness merely an exceptional reaction to emotional problems which are not strange to us.”23

There is only one way and that is your way.

Just as Christ tormented the flesh through the spirit, the God of this time will torment the spirit through the flesh. For our spirit has become an impertinent whore, a slave to words created by men and no longer the divine word itself.204

To live oneself means: to be one’s own task. Never say that it is a pleasure to live oneself. It will be no joy but a long suffering, since you must become your own creator. If you want to create yourself, then you do not begin with the best and the highest, but with the worst and the deepest. Therefore say that you are reluctant to live yourself.

Jung wrote that it was a difficult task to differentiate the personal and collective psyche. One of the factors one came up against was the persona—one’s “mask” or “role.” This represented the segment of the collective psyche that one mistakenly regarded as individual. When one analyzed this, the personality dissolved into the collective psyche, wh

At the outset of Liber Novus, Jung experiences a crisis of language. The spirit of the depths, who immediately challenges Jung’s use of language along with the spirit of the time, informs Jung that on the terrain of his soul his achieved language will no longer serve. His own powers of knowing and speaking can no longer account for why he utters wh

Joy at the smallest things comes to you only when you have accepted death. But if you look out greedily for all that you could still live, then nothing is great enough for your pleasure, and the smallest things that continue to surround you are no longer a joy. Therefore I behold death, since it teaches me how to live.