This platform invites constructive discussion on Carl Jung’s concepts as we work through the strata of his “psychological excavation of the human psyche.”

THE TERMS “PSYCHE” AND “PSYCHOLOGICAL”

These two concepts unfold in Jung’s own words as follows:

The psyche consists essentially of images. It is a series of images in the truest sense, not an accidental juxtaposition or sequence, but a structure that is throughout full of meaning and purpose; it is a “picturing” of vital activities. CW 8, par. 618

Anyone who knows the abysses of physiology will become dizzy at the thought of them, just as anyone who knows the psyche will be staggered by the thought that this amazing mirror-thing should ever attain anything approaching “knowledge.” CW 8, par. 620

The psyche, as a reflection of the world and man, is a thing of such infinite complexity that it can be observed and studied from a great many sides. But one would be forgetting that the psyche is the only phenomenon that is given to us immediately and, therefore, is the sine qua non of all experience. CW 8, par. 283

All our knowledge consists of the stuff of the psyche which, because it alone is immediate, is superlatively real. Here, then, is a reality to which the psychologist can appeal—namely, psychic reality. CW 8, par. 680

Every science is a function of the psyche, and all knowledge is rooted in it. The psyche is the greatest of all cosmic wonders and the sine qua non of the world as an object. It is in the highest degree odd that Western man, with but very few- and ever fewer-exceptions, apparently pays so little regard to this fact. Swamped by the knowledge of external objects, the subject of all knowledge has been temporarily eclipsed to the point of seeming non-existence. CW 8, par. 357

I know that very many people have difficulties with the word “psychological.” To put these critics at ease, I should like to add that no one knows what “psyche” is, and one knows just as little how far into nature “psyche” extends. A psychological truth is therefore just as good and respectable a thing as a physical truth, which limits itself to matter as the former does to the psyche. CW 8, par. 806

The psyche is the starting point of all human experience, and all the knowledge we have gained eventually leads back to it. The psyche is the beginning and end of all cognition. It is not only the object of its science, but the subject also. This gives psychology a unique place among all the other sciences. CW 8, par. 261

[Bold added for emphasis]