Man must find the micro-macrocosmic connection. Detail from the southern constellations map by Stabius and Heinfogel, by Albrecht Durer, 1515. |
Jung said, nowadays more and more people, especially those who live in large cities, suffer from a terrible emptiness and boredom, as if they are waiting for something that never arrives.
Movies and television (1961!), spectator sports and political excitements may divert them for a while, but again and again, exhausted and disenchanted, they have to return to the wasteland of their own lives.
"The only adventure that is still worthwhile for modern man lies in the inner realm of the unconscious psyche.With this idea vaguely in mind, many now turn to Yoga and other Eastern practices. But these offer no genuine new adventure, for in them one only takes over what is already known to Hindus or the Chinese without directly meeting one's own inner life center. "
"While it is true that Eastern methods serve to concentrate the mind and direct it inward (and that this procedure is in a sense similar to the introversion of an analytical treatment), there is a very important difference."
Jung evolved a way of getting to one's inner center and making contact with the living mystery of the unconscious, alone and unaided.
That is utterly different from following a well-worn path, according to Man and His Symbols. The book was Carl Jung's last work before his death in 1961,
First published in 1964, it is divided into five parts, four of which were written by associates of Jung: Marie-Louise von Franz, Joseph L. Henderson, Aniela Jaffé and Jolande Jacobi.