Black Books

Monday. The following are the minutes for Jung’s December 19, 1913, talk on “The psychology of the unconscious” to the Zurich Psychoanalytical Society:

For the primitives there exists an intimate relationship with Reality, which leads to a big specification of perception, which expresses itself in language through the absence of universal concepts.

This intensive connection with reality appears to us as concretism. E.g., the man has killed a rabbit is expressed through: he, one, animated, arrow etc. shot rabbit.

Hence, instead of the concept man a specific image.-There is not a simple plural, but e.g., in Guinea a Dualis, Trialis, ~adralis.

The original numerical value is obviously not arithmetic, but mystical, it is a character of quality.

This way an immense complication of language emerges.

There must always be e.g. for animals the following information: position in space, distance, direction; e.g., “table” needs the addition of: not animated, upright, wooden; e.g., I eat bread = I am breading or something similar depending on the type of food.

This concretism hinders the emergence of abstract concepts for a long time.

Shock is in negro language: coronary artery in the stomach tears. Anger: the human’s aching stomach.

Time: walking sun. Milk: the hunter does not eat. Scorpion: man watches and cries. Tarantula: bites man, he goes home and tells.

Here we can already see the interference of the subjective observer in the objective.

In the further development this leads to the primitive’s ability to add qualities to things against all the experience and to give random meanings to symbols. E.g., the corn is a stag, equally the stag is a feather or clouds, cotton etc. are feathers.

The inner psychological value has the same meaning as objective in reality. E.g., each disease, according to a primitive language, is an unfulfilled desire of the soul.-Only through participation mystique something becomes effective. E.g., venom does not kill in itself, but only the venom that is bewitched.-A psychological system is forced upon the things.

For the Chinese the death statue of the husband is still able to impregnate.

Hence the enormous importance of dreams, and there is no difference between dream and experience; the origin in the subjective prevails over the object.

There are causal effects.

Everything can be understood as a consequence of thinking, which falls together with the deed. If one would only act, nothing would be done.

That is why the ceremonies have to be done in a correct way.

Thus they are full of hallucination.

The inner world imposes itself the same way as the external world; hence effects on nature through words: e.g., not: the sun shines and lets grow, but: our father thinks.

Finding analogies is therefore a highly important activity.

It is sufficient to tell the myth and the effect told by the Myth will take place.

The myth was originally a healing formula through the power of the mind.

Magic of analogies to reach sublimation.

It follows from that: the primitive mind knows two mental activities: concrete rendering of reality, 2 . psychic interior world imposes itself on reality.

The aim is: to put the spiritual over concrete things.

To let oneself be killed for faith, i.e., to emphasize the importance of the spirit.  ~The Black Books, Vol. II, Page184, fn 184