certainly my special activity; but it is also a collective factor that has come into existence historically through the cooperation of many people and whose dignity rests solely on collective approval. When, therefore, I identify myself with my office or title, I behave as though I myself were the whole complex of social factors of which that office consists, or as though I were not only the bearer of the office, but also and at the same time the approval of society. I have made an extraordinary extension of myself and have usurped qualities which are not in me but outside me.
And: b
There is, however, yet another thing to be learnt from this example, namely that these transpersonal contents are not just inert or dead matter that can be annexed at will. Rather they are living entities which exert an attractive force upon the conscious mind. Identification with one’s of-fice or one’s title is very attractive indeed, which is precise-ly why so many men are nothing more than the decorum
a Collected Works, vol. 7, para. 227.
b Collected Works, vol. 7, para. 230.
70 Tantric Techniques
accorded to them by society. In vain would one look for a personality behind the husk. Underneath all the padding one would find a very pitiable little creature. That is why the office—or whatever their outer husk may be—is so attractive: it offers easy compensation for personal deficien-cies.
The basic problem is that one has lost a healthy respect for the need to mediate between the conscious and the unconscious, thereby (in one version) inflating the importance of the ego: a
To the extent that the integrated contents are parts of the self, we can expect this influence [of assimilation] to be considerable. Their assimilation augments not only the area of the field of consciousness but also the importance of the ego, especially when, as usually happens, the ego lacks any critical approach to the unconscious. In that case it is easily overpowered and becomes identical with the contents that have been assimilated.…I should only like to mention that the more numerous and the more significant the unconscious contents which are assimilated to the ego, the closer the approximation of the ego to the self, even though this approximation must be a never-ending process. This inevitably produces an inflation of the ego, unless a critical line of demarcation is drawn between it and the unconscious figures.
The problem of inflation occurs whether the ego is drowned in the larger self or the larger self is pretentiously assimilated to the ego: b
It must be reckoned a psychic catastrophe when the ego is assimilated by the self . The image of wholeness then remains in the unconscious, so that on the one hand it shares the archaic nature of the unconscious and on the other finds it-self in the psychically relative space-time continuum that is characteristic of the unconscious as such.…Hence it is of the greatest importance that the ego should be anchored in the world of consciousness and that consciousness should be reinforced by a very precise adaptation. For this, certain virtues like attention, conscientiousness, patience and so
a Collected Works, vol. 9.ii, para. 43-44.
b Collected Works, vol. 9.ii, para. 45-46.
Jung’s Warnings Against Inflation 71
forth, are of great value on the moral side, just as accurate observation of the symptomatology of the unconscious and objective self-criticism are valuable on the intellectual side. However, accentuation of the ego personality and the world of consciousness may easily assume such proportions that the figures of the unconscious are psychologized and the self consequently becomes assimilated to the ego . Although this is the exact opposite of the process we have just described it is followed by the same result: inflation.
Correspondingly, inflation is of two varieties, negative and positive, the former being when the ego is subsumed in the collective unconscious and the latter when the
And: b
There is, however, yet another thing to be learnt from this example, namely that these transpersonal contents are not just inert or dead matter that can be annexed at will. Rather they are living entities which exert an attractive force upon the conscious mind. Identification with one’s of-fice or one’s title is very attractive indeed, which is precise-ly why so many men are nothing more than the decorum
a Collected Works, vol. 7, para. 227.
b Collected Works, vol. 7, para. 230.
70 Tantric Techniques
accorded to them by society. In vain would one look for a personality behind the husk. Underneath all the padding one would find a very pitiable little creature. That is why the office—or whatever their outer husk may be—is so attractive: it offers easy compensation for personal deficien-cies.
The basic problem is that one has lost a healthy respect for the need to mediate between the conscious and the unconscious, thereby (in one version) inflating the importance of the ego: a
To the extent that the integrated contents are parts of the self, we can expect this influence [of assimilation] to be considerable. Their assimilation augments not only the area of the field of consciousness but also the importance of the ego, especially when, as usually happens, the ego lacks any critical approach to the unconscious. In that case it is easily overpowered and becomes identical with the contents that have been assimilated.…I should only like to mention that the more numerous and the more significant the unconscious contents which are assimilated to the ego, the closer the approximation of the ego to the self, even though this approximation must be a never-ending process. This inevitably produces an inflation of the ego, unless a critical line of demarcation is drawn between it and the unconscious figures.
The problem of inflation occurs whether the ego is drowned in the larger self or the larger self is pretentiously assimilated to the ego: b
It must be reckoned a psychic catastrophe when the ego is assimilated by the self . The image of wholeness then remains in the unconscious, so that on the one hand it shares the archaic nature of the unconscious and on the other finds it-self in the psychically relative space-time continuum that is characteristic of the unconscious as such.…Hence it is of the greatest importance that the ego should be anchored in the world of consciousness and that consciousness should be reinforced by a very precise adaptation. For this, certain virtues like attention, conscientiousness, patience and so
a Collected Works, vol. 9.ii, para. 43-44.
b Collected Works, vol. 9.ii, para. 45-46.
Jung’s Warnings Against Inflation 71
forth, are of great value on the moral side, just as accurate observation of the symptomatology of the unconscious and objective self-criticism are valuable on the intellectual side. However, accentuation of the ego personality and the world of consciousness may easily assume such proportions that the figures of the unconscious are psychologized and the self consequently becomes assimilated to the ego . Although this is the exact opposite of the process we have just described it is followed by the same result: inflation.
Correspondingly, inflation is of two varieties, negative and positive, the former being when the ego is subsumed in the collective unconscious and the latter when the
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