Visions

“It is indeed a major effort–the magnum opus in fact–to escape in time from the narrowness of its embrace and to liberate our mind to the vision of the immensity of the world, of which we form an infinitesimal part.” – Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 579-580

“The starry vault of heaven is in truth the open book of cosmic projection, in which are reflected the mythologems, i.e., the archetypes. In this vision astrology and alchemy, the two classical functionaries of the psychology of the collective unconscious, join hands.” – Carl Jung, CW 8, Page 195, Para 392.

“Schizophrenics with visions and hallucinations have a better prognosis than those who hear voices. The latter are more enslaved by the unconscious.” – Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 63.

“I have had occasion to observe, in the course of my daily professional work (that… ) a dream, often of visionary clarity, occurs about the time of the onset of the illness or shortly before, which imprints itself indelibly on the mind and, when analyzed, reveals to the patient a hidden meaning that anticipates the subsequent events of his life.” – Carl Jung; CW 5; para 78

“We all must do just what Christ did. We must make our experiment. We must make mistakes. We must live out our own vision of life. And there will be error. If you avoid error you do not live.” – Carl Jung, Jung, C.G. Jung Speaking, p. 98.

“Actually you shouldn’t want to have visions, they should just come to, ‘May it be good, happy, favorable, and propitious.’” – Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 111.

“The Master speaks a ‘power word’ born of the richness of his vision, the disciple merely conjures with it.” – Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 59-63.

“It does not seem exactly probable to me that when Christ cuts off his shadow this is an immediate visionary experience, but chiefly a philosophical idea very drastically expressed.” – Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 553-554.

“Although since 1918 I knew that a terrible fire would spread over Europe beginning in the North East, I have no vision beyond 1940 concerning the fate of Europe.” – Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 285-286.

“Where is the wisdom of our old people, where are their precious secrets and their visions? For the most part our old people try to compete with the young. In the United States it is almost an ideal for a father to be the brother of his sons, and for the mother to be if possible the younger sister of her daughter.” – Carl Jung, CW 8, Page 788.

“It (music) expresses in sounds what fantasies and visions music express in Visual images… music represents the movement, development and transformation of motifs of the collective unconscious.” – Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 542.

“Tantra Yoga gives the classic localizations of thought: anahata, thinking (or localization of consciousness) in the chest region (phrenes); visuddha (localized in the larynx), verbal thinking; and ajna, vision, symbolized by an eye in the forehead, which is attained only when verbal image and object are no longer identical, i.e., when their participation mystique is abolished.” – Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 257-264.

“Your argument and the beautiful quotations make it very clear that Rilke drew from the same deep springs as I did–the collective unconscious. He as a poet or visionary, I as a psychologist and empiricist.” – Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 381-382.

“The fact, too, that the subject of these visions is very old and in confinio mortis suggests that a glance has been cast beyond the border, or that something from the other side has seeped through into our three-dimensional world.” – Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 611-612

“In any case, the clairvoyante’s visions lead us to the conclusion that she possessed the faculty of exteriorization, of seeing psychic processes as if existing outside herself.” – Carl Jung, ETH Lecture V, Page 26.

“As we can see from the example of Faust, the vision of the symbol is a pointer to the onward course of life, beckoning the libido towards a still distant goal—but a goal that henceforth will burn unquenchably within him, so that his life, kindled as by a flame, moves steadily towards the far off beacon. This is the specific life-promoting significance of the symbol, and such, too, is the meaning and value of religious symbols. I am speaking, of course, not of symbols that are dead and stiffened by dogma, but of living symbols that rise up from the creative unconscious of the living man. The immense significance of such symbols can be denied only by those for whom the history of the world begins with the present day.” – Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 202

That the imitation of Christ creates a corresponding shadow in the unconscious hardly needs demonstrating. The fact that John had visions at all is evidence of an unusual tension between conscious and unconscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Par 717.

If I have a vision of Christ, this is far from proving that it was Christ, as we know only too well from our psychiatric practice. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 375-379.

Actually after this vision Nicholas should have preached: “God is terrible.” But he believed his own interpretation instead of the immediate experience. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 375-379.

Since we are living in a society that is unconscious of this development and far from understanding the importance of the Christian symbol, we are called upon to hinder its invalidation, although some of us are granted the vision of a future development. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 133-138

In a situation where an approximation of the unconscious to consciousness is desirable, or vice versa, the unconscious acquires a special tone, which can express itself in the colourfulness of its images (dreams, visions, etc.) or in other impressive qualities (beauty, depth, intensity). ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 299-300.

If somebody has a vision it doesn’t mean that he is necessarily insane. Perfectly normal people can have visions in certain moments. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 380.

St. Paul was definitely not insane nor was his vision extraordinary. I know quite a number of cases of visions of Christ or auditions of a voice from within. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 380.

The fact is that real poets create out of an inner vision which, being timeless, also unveils the future, if not in actualities at least symbolically. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 386-387

As experience shows, the figure one sees is not necessarily identical with the person one identifies with it, just as the picture by an artist is not identical with the original; but it is obvious that the vision of Christ was a most important religious experience to St. Paul. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 380.

This is how you must live—without reservation, whether in giving or withholding, according to what the circumstances require. Then you will get through. After all, if you should still get stuck, there is always the enantiodromia from the unconscious, which opens new avenues when conscious will and vision are failing. ~Carl Jung, C.G. Jung Speaking: Interviews and Encounters, Pages 156-163

The self is a fact of nature and always appears as such in immediate experiences, in dreams and visions, and so on; it is the spirit in the stone, the great secret which has to be worked out, to be extracted from nature, because it is buried in nature herself. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 977.

The vision of the symbol is a pointer to the onward course of life, beckoning with the libido towards a still distant goal—but a goal that henceforth will burn unquenchably within him, so that his life, kindled as by a flame, moves steadily towards the far-off beacon. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 202

I may define “self” as the totality of the conscious and unconscious psyche, but this totality transcends our vision; it is a veritable lapis invisibilitatis [stone of invisibility]. In so far as the unconscious exists it is not definable; its existence is a mere postulate and nothing whatever can be predicated as to its possible contents. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 247.

We must do what Christ did. We must make mistakes. We must live out our own vision of life. ~Carl Jung, C.G. Jung Speaking, Page 98

After all, if you should still get stuck, there is always the enantiodromia from the unconscious, which opens new avenues when conscious will and vision are failing. ~Carl Jung, C.G. Jung Speaking, Pages 158-159.

But at this moment a messenger from the world (which by then was a very insignificant corner of the universe) arrived and said that I was not allowed to depart and at this moment the whole vision collapsed completely. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 357-358

I am essentially an empiricist and have discovered to my cost that when people do not understand me they think I have seen visions. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 121-122

In this vision we find the same principle as in Buddhism, the consciousness of what is happening as a redeeming principle. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 322.

Dante saw the mystical rose as the last vision in the Paradiso, where it embraced the whole Heavens. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 3rd March 1939

Visions are spontaneous phenomena which spring from the unconscious and are a-moral. A moral standpoint is introduced by consciousness, it is impressed by a certain atmosphere and declares the visions to be good or bad. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 7th July 1939

If you practice this art, there are certain thoughts which you can project at suitable moments. Mohammed seems to have been able to do this. His visions fitted the situation and corresponded to his own wishes. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 7th July 1939

In order to facilitate this inner vision we must first clear the way for the faculty of seeing. How this is to be done without psychology, that is, without making contact with the psyche, is, frankly, beyond my comprehension. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 14