Jung on the Devil and the Reality of Evil

Sue Mehrtens is the author of this and all the other blog essays on this site. The opinions expressed in these essays are her own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of other Jungian Center faculty or Board members. Honesty, as well as professional courtesy, require that you give proper attribution to the author if you post this essay elsewhere.

Jung on the Devil and the Reality of Evil

“… in the darkest Middle Ages…. they spoke of the devil, today we call it a neurosis.”

Jung (1933)[1]

the devil “… describes the grotesque and sinister side of the unconscious; for we have never really come to grips with it and consequently it has remained in its original savage state. Probably no one today would still be rash enough to assert that the European is a lamblike creature and not possessed by a devil. The frightful records of our age are plain for all to see, and they surpass in hideousness everything that any previous age, with its feeble instruments, could have hoped to accomplish.”

Jung (1946)[2]

“… Lucifer was perhaps the one who best understood the divine will struggling to create a world and who carried out that will most faithfully. For, by rebelling against God, he became the active principle of a creation which opposed to God a counter-will of its own. Because God willed this, we are told in Genesis 3 that he gave man the power to will otherwise. Had he not done so, he would have created nothing but a machine, and then the incarnation and the redemption would never have come about. Nor would there have been any revelation of the Trinity, because everything would have remained One for ever.”

Jung (1942)[3]

“… the historic events of our time have painted a picture of man’s psychic reality in indelible colors of blood and fire, and given him an object lesson which he will never be able to forget if—and this is the great question—he has today acquired enough consciousness to keep up with the furious pace of the devil within him. The only other hope is that he may learn to curb a creativity which is wasting itself in the exploitation of material power. Unfortunately, all attempts in that direction look like bloodless Utopias.”

Jung (1942)[4]

The subjects for these blog essays come from different quarters: from students’ questions, from the daily headlines, or from my reading in Jung’s works. This essay arose from this last, during my reading of the notes of Jung’s Dream Analysis seminar.[5] In discussing one of his cases, he noted how the patient refused to believe something about himself, stating it was impossible. Jung warned his students: “When we say that such a thing is quite impossible, just there is the place where the devil can come in.”[6] Jung was saying, in effect, that when, in our thinking, we limit possibilities, when we foreclose options, we are denying Jesus’ statement that “with God all things are possible.”[7] This led me to investigate Jung’s ideas about the devil, and that led to the wider issue of evil. In this essay I will examine, first, the reality of evil and devil, followed by a review of definitions, names and symbols for the devil, some of the devil’s qualities, how the devil shows up in life and in us, and, finally, the value and importance of the devil.

The Reality of Evil and the Devil

One of Jung’s major complaints about Christianity was its incomplete image of the Divine as all-good.[8] Ever true to his concept of an archetype as embodying both positive and negative poles,[9] Jung understood God as containing both goodness and evil, light and darkness.[10] He took exception to the Christian definition of evil as privatio boni,[11] merely the absence of good. Jung understood how this truncated image of the Divine came about, as well as its implications for humanity:

“ [in]… the Christian reformation of the Jewish concept of the Deity: the morally ambiguous Yahweh became an exclusively good God, while everything evil was united in the devil…. Thanks to the development of feeling-values, the splendor of the ‘light’ god has been enhanced beyond measure, but the darkness supposedly represented by the devil has localized itself in man. This strange development was precipitated chiefly by the fact that Christianity, terrified of Manichaean dualism, strove to preserve its monotheism by main force. But since the reality of darkness and evil could not be denied, there was no alternative but to make man responsible for it. Even the devil was largely, if not entirely abolished, … We think that the world of darkness has thus been abolished for good and all, and nobody realizes what a poisoning this is of man’s soul….[12]

At the time Christian doctrine was being developed, the culture of the Hellenistic world was very syncretic,[13] open to all sorts of ideas, including Gnosticism and Manichaenism, both of which posited gods of good/light and gods of evil/darkness.[14] Early church theologians reacted against these influences, declaring all such dualistic teachings to be heresies,[15] and then they went overboard in seeing the source of evil in the world not in God, but in man.[16] Hence we find these days multiple books responding to the question “If God is good, how come this … [some tragedy, sickness, catastrophe] happened?”[17] Jung would reply that God is not only good, and man is not the only source of evil. Bad things happen in the world and human beings are not the sole source for them. Jung was blunt about this:

Who says that the evil in the world we live in, that is right in front of us, is not real! Evil is terribly real, for each and every individual. If you regard the principle of evil as a reality you can just as well call it the devil. I personally find it hard to believe that the idea of the privatio boni still holds water.”[18]

Jung had many discussions with Christian theologians on this point, most notably with the English Dominican priest Victor White.[19] Like many religious committed to orthodox dogma, White could not accept Jung’s argument. Of course there is evil in the world! In Jung’s day he saw evil in the world wars, the Holocaust, and the Cold War with its omnipresent threat of nuclear destruction. For us, the depredations by ISIS/ISIL/Daesh in the Middle East, the chaos of the drug wars in Latin America, and the destruction of our global ecosystem by climate change are all forms of collective evil, while the various neuroses and psychoses are forms of evil on the personal level: “… in the darkest Middle Ages… they spoke of the devil, today we call it a neurosis.”[20] We consider some other names and symbols for the devil in the next section.

Definitions, Names and Symbols for the Devil

Jung refers to the devil in several ways: as aspects of God, as a force in life, and as a psychological phenomenon. “The left hand of God,”[21] “the left side of God,”[22] the “other side of God,”[23] “God’s own dark side,”[24] Satanaël,[25] God’s first son,[26] the Antichrist,[27] the figure opposed to Christ,[28] and “the counterpart of Christ that represents evil”[29] are some of the terms Jung used for the evil aspect of God. As a force in human life, the devil shows up as “the dark antagonist,”[30] “the principle of evil”[31] and the “ungodly intellect,”[32] while, in psychological contexts Jung felt the devil was “… the diabolical aspect of every psychic function that has broken loose from the hierarchy of the total psyche and now enjoys independence and absolute power…,”[33] “… the grotesque and sinister side of the unconscious…”[34] and, on the collective level, “… the objective psyche that held all the peoples of the Roman Empire under its sway….”[35] Given the manifold manifestations of chaos, destruction and warfare in our world now, we might extend Jung’s definition to our current global situation.

The principle of evil goes by many names, some of these Gnostic in origin, others deriving from ancient myths, legends or fairy tales. In ancient Egypt, the devil was called Set,[36] in Persia, Ahriman,[37] in Norse legends, Wotan[38] or Loki,[39] in ancient Greece, Mercurius.[40] The Gnostics spoke of the devil as the antimimon pneuma, the imitation spirit,[41] or Ialdabaoth, the Saturnine archon[42] or princeps huius mundi[43] who ruled the material world. Goethe called the devil Mephistopheles,[44] and the German author Spitteler referred to the devil as Epimetheus.[45] Jung took up this label, regarding

“The Epimethean principle, which always thinks backwards and reduces everything to the primal chaos… and would force back the light into the maternal darkness whence it was born…. a thinking in terms of ‘nothing but’ which reduces All to Nothing….”[46]

as devilish in its influence in human life. But not all the devil’s handiwork has a negative impact. While the devil is “the father of all tricksters,”[47] and thus the cause of trickery, deceit and deception, it also can be the agent provocateur that helps us live more fully into life.[48] I found this to be true in my own experience, as I got more in touch with the trickster archetype within me: I became much less susceptible to being gulled by con men, much more self-aware and discerning about people, and also more spontaneous in my lifestyle. Milton called Satan the principium individuationis,[49] the principle of individuation, and to the extent that our shadow side helps us become more fully ourselves, Jung agreed.

Western history and art have imagined the devil in many forms: as a horse,[50] as a chthonic deity with cloven hoofs, horns and tail, half man, half beast,[51] as a snake[52] or serpent, as a monkey,[53] the “ape of God,”[54] as a dragon,[55] as a roaring fiery lion,[56] as the night raven,[57] as the black eagle,[58] as the Leviathan,[59] as the goat,[60] as a shape-shifter,[61] and as an aerial spirit,[62] the “angel of light.”[63] The art of the Middle Ages and Renaissance was particularly vivid in depictions of the devil. They were equally imaginative in their analysis of the devil’s qualities.

The Devil’s Qualities

Jung noted that the devil has “qualities which give one pause.”[64] Being enigmatic,[65] worldly,[66] awkward,[67] wily,[68] savage,[69] immoral,[70] destructive,[71] cheating,[72] the devil, Jung said, “is something quite frightful!”[73]

Seen through the lens of psychology, the devil has the “character of an autonomous personality,”[74] which “… is greater than man’s consciousness and greater than his will.”[75] As the “animal side of the libido,”[76] the devil is “… that part of the psyche which has not been assimilated to consciousness…”.[77] While it might seem “wonderful and ingenious”[78] to us (think of all the amazing technological gadgets that our creativity has cooked up)[79] Jung warned that it is simultaneously “dangerously deceptive on account of its numinous nature.”[80]

Any archetype can fascinate us, because of its numinosity, and the devil is no different. Being autonomous, the shadow—our inner devil—can “insinuate itself”[81] into daily life and cause all manner of mayhem. Our environmental problems are just one of many examples of this. Which brings us to consider how the devil shows up in the world.

How the Devil Shows Up in Life

With its “fondness for sly jokes and malicious pranks,…”[82] the devil can lead us astray, and expose us to all kinds of torture,[83] from emotional tortures like “impatience, doubt and despair”[84] to more serious problems, “causing annoying accidents,”[85] divisive misunderstandings, even fatalities. As a “spoilsport,”[86] the devil is “… always sowing some seeds of mischief… to test human beings…”[87] cheating, and destroying “God’s good intention…”.[88] Exploiting our weaknesses, seducing and tempting, the devil worships power[89] and sows “unrest and strife”[90]—all with pernicious results.

Delusions,[91] division and fragmentation,[92] demonic dreams,[93] confusion, chaos,[94] and worldliness are some obvious results of the devil’s handiwork. Other signs are more subtle, e.g. concretism:[95] the inability to be open to the new, to expansion, change or new possibilities, extreme rigidity that forecloses options for growth and change. God reminded John of Patmos that He “makes all things new.”[96] Novelty, renewal, growth and change are hallmarks of the divine.

Related to concretism is what Jung termed “Epimethean thinking, a thinking in terms of ‘nothing but’ which reduces All to Nothing.”[97] Epimetheus, in Greek mythology, was given the task of apportioning all the gifts among the animals. True to his name (which means “afterthought”) he did not plan ahead, and so got to the final animal, Man, and had no gift left to give to humans. It fell to his brother Prometheus (whose name means “forethought”) to help him out, by stealing fire from Zeus (which didn’t turn out too well for Prometheus)![98] Why is Epimethean thinking devilish? Because it trivializes what is holy—imagination (Oh, that’s nothing but your imagination!), intuition (a womanish thing), creativity (But we’ve never done that before!), potentialities (That’s impossible!).

As I noted above, Jung recognized that the devil can appear when we regard something as impossible. When we fail to recognize our shadow side, for example, insisting that we could not possibly be gay, or racist, or sexist, or a terrorist, or a murderer, we open ourselves to devilish self-righteousness.[99] Similarly, when we passively accept a medical diagnosis, dismissing the possibility of a healing, we are providing an opening for the devil to enter our lives.

Jung saw the devil in his consulting room frequently, in his patients’ states of possession,[100] the conscious mind having been overwhelmed by the unconscious. Insofar as they reflect an inner conflict—a division within oneself—neuroses and psychoses can be the work of the devil. Similarly, Jung recognized that the devil might appear as “… autonomous complexes, which at times completely destroy the self-control…complexes behaving quite independently of the ego, and force upon it a quasi-foreign will.”[101] Jung’s description here made me think of the old adage “The devil made me do it?”—“it” here being some action or response that, in our usual conscious frame of mind, we would never normally do.

The Devil in Us

But, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit we do criticize others, projecting our inner devils out on to those with the “hooks” to carry them. We do get puffed up when we fail to recognize our shadow, with dire consequences. Jung explains:

“… By not being aware of having a shadow, you declare a part of your personality to be non-existent. Then it enters the kingdom of the non-existent, which swells up and takes on enormous proportions. When you don’t acknowledge that you have such qualities, you are simply feeding the devils. In medical language, each quality in the psyche represents a certain energic value, and if you declare an energic value to be non-existent, a devil appears instead….”[102]

Inflation, arrogance, egotism—these are faces of the devil we all might wear. As Jung reminds us “… the side we call the Devil… dwells in the heart, in the unconscious….”[103] and because “… we have never really come to grips with it… it has remained in its original savage state. …”.[104] “We … prefer to localize the evil in individual criminals or groups of criminals, while washing our hands in innocence and ignoring the general proclivity to evil. This sanctimoniousness cannot be kept up in the long run, because the evil, as experience shows, lies in man…”[105] that is, in us.

We don’t like to be told this. We want to think well of ourselves. Jung knew this. He admitted as much when he wrote

“… Under no circumstances, however, will my modesty allow me to identify myself with the devil. That would be altogether too presumptuous and would, moreover, bring me into unbearable conflict with my highest values. Nor, with my moral deficit, can I possible afford it.”[106]

Jung could spot his “moral deficit” because he was conscious and able to engage in self-criticism. “But because most people are devoid of self-criticism, permanent self-deception is the rule…”.[107] We deceive ourselves when we believe we are blameless, “good” people. We need to recognize the shadow and the myriad forms this inner devil can take.

But this does not mean we want to identify with the devil because it is an archetype, and identifying with an archetype is very dangerous: “It causes exaggeration, a puffed-up attitude (inflation), loss of free will, delusion, and enthusiasm in good and evil alike….”.[108] Rather we must “religiously bear in mind”

“the autonomy of this ambivalent figure… for it is the source of that fearful power which drives us toward individuation… We neither can nor should try to force this numinous being, at the risk of our own psychic destruction, into our narrow human mold, for it is greater than man’s consciousness and greater than his will.”[109]

Jung’s choice of words may cause surprise: religiously bear in mind? Is Jung suggesting that we respect the devil??? Yes, because it is an archetype, as this quote indicates, but also because it has value and importance in our lives.

The Value and Importance of the Devil

Typical of Jung, whose thought patterns often seem to diverge from our usual conventions, Jung would urge us to appreciate the Divine in all its fullness—both the good and the “bad.” These labels are our human judgments, and the ego mind is fallible. It does not perceive or interpret life from the wider/higher perspective of the Self. What value did Jung see in the devil? How might we think of evil as something positive?

First, as the quote above indicates, Jung saw our inner daemon as that force that “drives us toward individuation.”[110] That inner force that allows us to discern, to differentiate, to create, to respond spontaneously to the novel opportunity, to smell a rat, to wake up to aspects of life that we’ve been missing—this is the devil within, and in such ways our inner daimon fosters our living more deeply who we are. This association of the devil with individuation was not unique to Jung: John Milton, and the medieval alchemists before him, recognized the devil as the principium individuationis, the principle of individuation.[111] Thanks to Satan’s rebellion, human beings have the power of rebellion also. Had God not allowed Satan the freedom to rebel, humans would have been little more than machines, and “… everything would have remained One for ever.”[112]

Likewise, Jung reminds us that Satan taught man the arts and sciences[113]—hence his name “Lucifer,” the light-bearer,[114] the source of illumination. Paradoxically, the energy associated with blackness and darkness is the same energy that provided the enlightenment of knowledge, crafts, technologies and learning in human civilization.

Jung regarded the Lucifer myth as a “therapeutic myth.”[115] As a healing myth it fosters our coming to consciousness, in both positive and negative ways: via dream work, analysis, conscious work to become aware of our “inner city,” and via accidents, broken relationships, patterns of self-destructive behavior, and personal loss and turmoil—all of which are meant to be “wake up” calls for us to grow and change.

The devil within us provides us with initiative,[116] the impetus to do things, to start things, to challenge the gods: Eve ate the apple, in the “fall that made us great.”[117] Prometheus brought us fire, the one gift that sets us apart from the animals: warmth, heat, light, energy, and all our technologies have been built on this gift.

Finally Jung drew from Goethe’s story of Faust the realization that it “required the intervention of the devil”[118] to get Faust to recognize how much of his life he had missed. In this way the devil can be an agent provocateur, an intrusive, unwelcome, disturbing force that shakes us up, perhaps destroying long-cherished dreams (which we come to recognize in time really would not have served us), while also opening up new avenues of living. The devil within can be thought of as

“an autonomous dynamism, fittingly called man’s daemon, genius, guardian angel, better self, heart, inner voice, the inner and higher man, and so forth. Close beside these, beside the positive, ‘right’ conscience, there stands the negative, ‘false’ conscience called the devil, seducer, tempter, evil spirit, etc….”[119]

Our challenge, as persons working to become more conscious, is to discern which conscience is operative at the moment.

Conclusion

Will we take up this challenge? Having seen so many signs of the devil at work (e.g. World Wars I and II and the Holocaust, with millions dead, the Cold War with the ever-present potential for nuclear war, and so many patients without spiritual reserves to draw upon), Jung was not sanguine:

But he was not without suggestions for how we might address our situation: Each individual has the responsibility for taking up the task:

to endure the conflict between Christ and the devil “until the time or turning-point is reached where good and evil begin to relativize themselves, to doubt themselves, and the cry is raised for a morality ‘beyond good and evil’….”[121]

When, in the midst of the Cold War, it seemed the world was poised on the brink of nuclear war, his students asked Jung whether he thought there would be war,[122] his response was just this: “endure the conflict,” hold the tension within between ego and shadow, our good side and our evil side, in the knowledge that a resolution will come. As for the “morality beyond good and evil,” Jung could have been thinking of the ethical implications of depth psychology, a subject which his student Erich Neumann had explored in depth a few years earlier.[123]

Bibliography

Alcorn, Randy (2010), If God is Good, Why Do We Hurt? Colorado Springs CO: Multnomah Books.

Blech, Benjamin (2003), If God is Good, Why Is the World So Bad? Deerfield Beach FL: Simcha Press.

Brinton, Crane, John Christopher & Robert Lee Wolff (1960), A History of Civilization, vol 1., 2^nd ed. Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc.

Bulfinch, Thomas (1959), Mythology. New York: Laurel Books.

Hannah, Barbara (1976), Jung: His Life and Work, A Biographical Memoir. New York: G.P. Putnam.

Jung, C.G. (1973), “Experimental Researches,” Collected Works, 2. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

________ (1961), “Freud and Psychoanalysis,” Collected Works, 4. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

________ (1956) “Symbols of Transformation,” Collected Works, 5, 2^nd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

________ (1971), “Psychological Types,” Collected Works, 6. Princeton: Princeton University Press

________ (1966), “Two Essays on Analytical Psychology,” CW 7. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

________ (1960), ”The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche,” CW 8. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

________ (1959), ”The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious,” CW 9i. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

________ (1959), “Aion,” Collected Works, 9ii. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

________ (1970), “Civilization in Transition,” CW 10. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

________ (1969), “Psychology and Religion: West and East,” CW 11. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

________ (1953), “Psychology and Alchemy,” CW 12. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

________ (1967), “Alchemical Studies,” CW 13. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

________ (1963), “Mysterium Coniunctionis,” CW 14. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

________ (1954), “The Practice of Psychotherapy,” CW 16, 2^nd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

________ (1954), “The Development of Personality,” CW 17. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

________ (1976), ”The Symbolic Life,” CW 18. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

________ (1975), Letters, ed. Gerhard Adler & Aniela Jaffé. 2 vols. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

________ (1984), Seminar on Dream Analysis. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

________ (2007), The Jung-White Letters, ed. Ann Conrad Lammers & Adrian Cunningham. New York: Routledge Philemon Series.

Meyer, Marvin (2009), ”Introduction,” The Gnostic Bible, ed. Willis Barnstone & Marvin Meye. Boston: Shambhala.

Neumann, Erich (1969), Depth Psychology and a New Ethic. Boston: Shambhala.

Stevens, Anthony (2003), Archetype Revisited. Toronto: Inner City Books.

[1] Collected Works 10 ¶309. Hereafter Collected Works will be abbreviated CW.

[2] CW 16 ¶388.

[3] CW 11 ¶290.

[4] CW 13 ¶293.

[5] Jung (1984).

[6] Ibid., 556.

[7] Matt. 19:26.

[8] Cf. CW 18 ¶1555, CW 10 ¶879, CW 9i ¶189, CW 9ii ¶191, and Jung (2007).

[9] Stevens (2003), 79.

[10] CW 9ii ¶191, CW 11 ¶4, CW 18 ¶1537.

[11] Literally “a deprivation of good.”

[12] CW 9i ¶189.

[13] Brinton et al. (1960), 92.

[14] Meyer (2009), 5.

[15] Ibid., 8-9.

[16] CW 9i ¶189.

[17] E.g. Alcorn (2010) and Blech (2003).

[18] CW 10 ¶879.

[19] See Jung (2007) for the Jung-White letters.

[20] CW 10 ¶309.

[21] CW 11 ¶470.

[22] CW 18 ¶1537.

[23] CW 5 ¶89.

[24] CW 11 ¶697.

[25] Ibid. ¶249.

[26] Ibid.

[27] CW 6 ¶706.

[28] CW 9ii ¶79 note 28.

[29] CW 12 ¶22.

[30] CW 13 ¶295.

[31] CW 10 ¶879.

[32] CW 12 ¶119.

[33] Ibid. ¶88.

[34] CW 16 ¶388.

[35] CW 17 ¶309.

[36] CW 11 ¶470.

[37] Ibid.

[38] CW 9i ¶446.

[39] CW 5 ¶421.

[40] CW 9i ¶456.

[41] CW 11 ¶263.

[42] Ibid. ¶255.

[43] CW 8 ¶426.

[44] CW 6 ¶706.

[45] Ibid.

[46] Ibid. ¶315.

[47] CW 11 ¶620.

[48] CW 16 ¶491.

[49] CW 11 ¶470.

[50] CW 5 ¶421.

[51] CW 16 ¶388.

[52] CW 9i ¶567.

[53] CW 12, fig 67, p. 130.

[54] Ibid ¶181.

[55] CW 13 ¶246.

[56] Ibid.

[57] Ibid.

[58] Ibid.

[59] CW 9ii ¶178.

[60] CW 8 ¶332.

[61] CW 9i ¶456.

[62] CW 12 ¶119.

[63] CW 13 ¶289.

[64] CW 5 ¶89.

[65] CW 13 ¶271.

[66] CW 8 ¶426.

[67] CW 11 ¶252.

[68] Ibid., ¶658.

[69] CW 16 ¶388.

[70] CW 18 ¶1593.

[71] Jung (1984), 585.

[72] Ibid.

[73] CW 10 ¶879.

[74] CW 4 ¶727.

[75] CW 13 ¶437.

[76] CW 6 ¶457.

[77] CW 14 ¶252.

[78] CW 16 ¶384.

[79] E.g. computers, cell phones, antibiotics, automobiles, power plants—none of which is without harmful implications.

[80] CW 16 ¶384.

[81] CW 13 ¶429.

[82] CW 9i ¶456.

[83] Ibid. and CW 13 ¶3.

[84] CW 13 ¶139 note.

[85] CW 11 ¶619.

[86] Ibid.

[87] Jung (1984), 585.

[88] Ibid.

[89] CW 17 ¶309.

[90] CW 10 ¶374.

[91] CW 13 ¶139 note.

[92] Jung (1984), 369.

[93] CW 11 ¶32 note 12.

[94] CW 14 ¶252.

[95] CW 17 ¶312.

[96] Rev. 21:5.

[97] CW 6 ¶315.

[98] As punishment for stealing fire Prometheus was chained to a cliff and had his liver eaten out by day only to have it grow back by night; for the full myth see Bulfinch (1959), 22-23.

[99] Jung (1984), 556.

[100] CW 2 ¶1352.

[101] Ibid.

[102] Jung (1984), 53.

[103] CW 5 ¶89.

[104] CW 16 ¶388.

[105] CW 10 ¶573.

[106] CW 7 ¶4.

[107] CW 10 ¶843.

[108] CW 7 ¶110.

[109] CW 13 ¶437.

[110] Ibid.

[111] CW 11 ¶470.

[112] Ibid., ¶290.

[113] Ibid., ¶620.

[114] Latin lucis ferrens, lit. “bearer of light.”

[115] CW 11 ¶291.

[116] Ibid., ¶639.

[117] I heard this phrase from Rollo May, in a conversation we had in 1988. I don’t know if Rollo is the original source, or if he got it from someone else. If a reader has a printed citation for the original, I would appreciate knowing about it.

[118] CW 16 ¶491.

[119] CW 10 ¶843.

[120] CW 13 ¶293.

[121] CW 11 ¶258.

[122] Hannah (1976), 129.

[123] Neumann (1990). The translation into English first came out in 1969; Neumann sent Jung his German original in 1948, and Jung wrote an appreciative letter to him in December of that year; Letters, I, 514-515. For a short review of depth psychology and its ethics, see the blog essay “A New Ethics for a New Era: The Esoteric Ethics of Depth Psychology,” archived on this blog site.