Wednesday, April 29, 2009

An unconscious is a fact of revolutionary importance

"The recognition that we have to allow for the existence of an unconscious is a fact of revolutionary importance. Conscience as an ethical authority extends only as far as consciousness extends. When a man lacks self-knowledge he can do the most astonishing or terrible things without calling himself to account and without ever suspecting what he is doing. Unconscious actions are always taken for granted and are therefore not critically evaluated. One is then surprised at the incomprehensible reactions of one's neighbors, whom one holds to be responsible; that is, one fails to see what one does oneself and seeks in others the cause of all the consequences that follow from ones' own actions." [C. G. Jung, Collected Works (vol. 16), p.811; para. 1803]

"Our unwillingness to see our own faults and the projection of them on to others is the source of most quarrels, and the strongest guarantee that injustice, animosity, and persecution will not easily die out. when one remains unconscious of oneself one is frequently unaware of one's own conflicts; indeed the existence of unconscious conflicts is actually held to be impossible." [Ibid., p. 811-812; para. 1804]

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Escape requires becoming like God

"But it is not possible, Theodorus, that the force of evil should be utterly destroyed—for there must always be something opposed to the good; nor is it possible that it should have its seat among the gods. But is must inevitably haunt human life, and prowl about this earth. Therefore we should wholly endeavor to take flight to that place (of the gods); and such flight means becoming as like God as possible; and a man becomes like God when he becomes just and holy, through understanding. ... In God there is no sort of wrong whatsoever, he is supremely just, and the thing most like him is the man who has become as just as it lies in human nature to be." - Plato [Theaetetus 176 b-c]