[Good and evil still exist, but they are no longer so self-evident.] We have to realize that each represents a judgment. [But we must make ethical decisions.] Moral judgment is always present and carries with it characteristic psychological consequences…. [A]s in the past, so in the future the wrong we have done, thought, or intended will wreak its vengeance on our souls. [But when we realize that the basis for the judgment is uncertain, ethical decision becomes a subjective, creative act.] [T]here must be a spontaneous and decisive impulse on the part of the unconscious. [Sometimes people are involved in a conflict of choices.]
As a rule, however, the individual is so unconscious that he altogether fails to see his own potentialities for decision. Instead he is constantly and anxiously looking around for eternal rules and regulations which can guide him in his perplexity. [This is largely be blamed on education, which preaches unlivable ideals and never touches the question of private experience.]
Therefore the individual who wishes to have an answer to the problem of evil, as it is posed today, has need, first and foremost, of self-knowledge, that is, the utmost possible knowledge of his own wholeness. He must know relentlessly how much good he can do, and what crimes he is capable of, and must beware of regarding the one as real and the other as illusion. Both are elements within his nature, and both are bound to come to light in him, should he wish — as he ought — to live without self-deception or self-delusion.
In general, however, most people are hopelessly ill-equipped for living on this level, [though some can]. Such self-knowledge is of prime importance, because through it we approach that fundamental stratum or core of human nature where the instincts dwell. Here are those pre-existent dynamic factors which ultimately govern the ethical decisions of our consciousness. This core is the unconscious and its contents, concerning which we cannot pass any final judgment. Our ideas about it are bound to be inadequate, for we are unable to comprehend its essence cognitively and set rational limits to it. We achieve knowledge of nature only through science, which enlarges consciousness; hence deepened self-knowledge also require science, that is, psychology. No one builds a telescope or microscope with one turn of the wrist, out of goodwill alone, without knowledge of optics.
C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, pp 330-331
.2.
Jung’s Contribution to Our Time, by Eleanor Bertine, begins by stating that Jung found a way for each of us to find the central principle — a fixed point — to allow us to relate everything else in our life to. Today is a time of relativity to other relative things, Bertine says, but this is because it is an age in decay. Artists lead the way to perception, as usual: artists from the turn of the century were expressing their horror at the end of their internal order and certainty. The perception of disorder spread. Panic and nihilism bred more disorder and disorientation. Yeats said it long ago, with the clear and pitiless intensity of the perception of a true artist and an honest man. Our hope, in these lost times?
“The relatively few who will use the key [Jung’s key to the unconscious] will so gain in the weight and authoritativeness of personality which comes from being all-of-a-peace that they may become the grain of mustard-seed or the leaven which leavens the whole lump.” Jung’s Contribution to Our Time, by Eleanor Bertine, Page 29
“One generation, like our own, lives in a time of the degeneration of a form of civilization, when it is hard for the individual not to lose his way and fall into unmitigated evil. But if mankind does not destroy itself outright, another generation will rise to be fired with a new hope…. The new hope will flourish only to fail, [because the new people will forget our hard-earned lessons] and another time of breakup will inevitably sweep away that moment of security. However, whatever phase of collective culture may prevail, the individual may always use his own experience in it as a basis for the realization of the Self. Indeed, it is only by separating to some extent from the collective cycles of change and seeking the one sure center inside, rather than outside, that the individual can transcend his time and achieve stability.” page 29
.3.
Jung came to five basic conclusions on the religious side of the psyche:
1 — a spiritual element is an organic part of the human psyche.
2 — such elements are regularly expressed in symbols.
3 — these symbols reveal a path of psychological development which can be traced backwards toward a past cause and forward toward a future goal.
4 — this goal is expressed by images of completion in a whole Self which is unique for each individual, formed by integration of the ego and unconscious.
5 — this whole is characterized by all the qualities of numinousness, unconditional authority, and value which also belonged to the image of God.
Jung, Psychology and Religion