Symbols
“The
symbol awakens intimations,” Bachofen writes; “speech can only explain.
The symbol plucks all the strings of the human spirit at once; speech is
compelled to take up a single thought at a time.
The symbol
strikes its roots in the most secret depths of the soul; language skims over the
surface of the understanding like a soft breeze.
The symbol
aims inward; language outward.” TMD 103
The original intent
of symbols, however, can restore the divine-human image and heighten the mystery
of life and the experience of the
numinous within each and every individual.
Religious law then becomes a natural part of life, as the
conscious and the
unconscious are awakened and reawakened to life.
Hence in its
scientific usage the term "self" refers neither to Christ nor to the
Buddha but
to the totality of the figures that are its equivalent, and each of these
figures is a symbol of the self. BW 466
Since the
concept of the self is of central interest in psychology, the latter naturally
thinks along lines diametrically opposed to theology: for psychology the
religious figures point to the self, whereas for theology the self points to its
- theology's - own central figure. BW 466
The
Christ-symbol is of the greatest importance for psychology in so far as it is
perhaps the most highly developed and differentiated symbol of
the self, apart
from the figure of the Buddha BW 466
A
symbol is an image that expresses an essential unconscious factor and
therefore refers to something essentially
unconscious, unknown,
indeed to something that is never quite knowable. It
is “the sensuously perceptible expression of an inner experience.”
It is in the secondary instance made visible through the fact that it
activates and groups the material available for representation.
The archetype,
in itself unknowable, clothes itself, so to speak, in this material, just as a
primitive dancer does with animal hides and masks. In this
way a symbol is created whose nucleus is a nonrepresnetable,
consciousness-transcending
archetypal basic structure that emerges from the unconscious at different times
and in different places as a structured complex of images and leads to the
formation of religious and
mythological systems of ideas and representations. “So
long as a symbol is a living thing, it is an expression for something that
cannot be characterized in any other or better way. The
symbol is alive only so long as it is pregnant with meaning.
But once its meaning has been born out of it, once that expression is found
which formulates the thing sought, expected, or divined even better than the
hitherto accepted symbol, then the symbol is dead, i.e., it possesses
only an historical significance.” A symbol really lives only
when it is the best and highest expression for something divined but not yet
known to the observer. It then compels his unconscious
participation and has a life-giving and life-enhancing effect.”
Differentiated and primitive,
conscious and
unconscious are
united in the symbol, as well as all other possible psychic
opposites.
Whenever such a symbol comes spontaneously to light from the unconscious,
it is a content that dominates the whole personality, “forcing
the energy of the opposites into a common channel,” so that “life can flow
on … towards new goals.” Jung called that unknown activity of
the unconscious which produces the real, life-giving symbols the
transcendent function, because this process facilitates a transition from
one attitude to another. A still-living, genuine symbol can
thus never be “resolved” (that is, analyzed, understood) by a rational
interpretation, but can only be
circumscribed
and amplified by conscious associations; its nucleus, which is pregnant with
meaning, remains unconscious as long as it is living and can only be divined.
If one interprets it intellectually one “kills” the symbol, thus
preventing any further unfolding of its content. Scientific
hypotheses are also always symbols to begin with, to the degree to which they
refer to a set of facts of which a number are still unknown; when this set of
facts has gradually become sufficiently known, however, the symbolic aspect of
the hypothesis has merely historical significance. The more
significantly a symbol expresses an unconscious component that is common to a
large number of people, the greater its effect on society.
When one reflects on these formulations by Jung, it is easy enough to
understand the resistance of the churches to psychological interpretations of
their symbols that probe too deeply; the fear that the symbols might thereby be
destroyed was well founded. However, the insistence that they
should be believed as concrete facts was an unfortunate way out of the dilemma,
since it merely fed the rising doubts. The only way out of
this impasse, the only way that guarantees that the living quality of religious
symbols will not be prematurely extinguished, is through the realization that
religious symbols do not refer to material and concrete facts but to a
collective-psychic unconscious reality.
In proper language, concretizing the symbol, is what we call idolatry, so that
or whole religion from this standpoint is an idolatrous system.
Perhaps it’s because of this unconscious idolatry of our own that we see
idolatry in everybody else and smash their idols. That’s just
a little thought for the day. TMTT 132
Now people who don’t know anything about the spiritual reference of
symbols interpret them in gross matter and get involved in pretty gross
activities. That is to say, if you interpret the spiritual
symbol as concrete, then you get involved with the concrete action associated
with the concrete body and you have lost the spiritual message.
As Jung explained in Aion, Christian symbolism not only emerged from a psychic problem of opposites but this problem also characterizes its further development, as is already implied in Christ’s reference to the coming of an “Antichrist”. This problem of the opposites is emphasized by the synchronistic fact that the Christian aeon is distinguished astrologically by two fishes in opposition to each other. TGL