C.G. Jung: Everything is a Projection
Magic Lantern, 1720
[[ Who runs the projector of our dreams? ]]
“There is nothing in or of the material world that is not a projection of the human mind.“
Letter to V. Subrahumanaya Iyer
January 9 , 1939
Concerning your last question I want to say that I quite agree that there is nothing in or of the material world that is not a projection of the human mind, since anything we experience and are able to express through thought is alien to our mind.
Through experience and mental assimilation it has become part of our mind and thus it has become essentially psychic.
Inasmuch as a material thing does not enter our consciousness it is not experienced and we cannot say for certain that it does exist.
Whatever we touch or come in contact with immediately changes into a psychic content, so we are enclosed by a world of psychic images, some of which bear the label “of material origin,” others the label “of spiritual origin.”
But how those things look as material things in themselves or as spiritual things in themselves we do not know, since we can experience them only as psychic contents and nothing else. But I cannot say that material things or spiritual things in themselves are of psychic nature, although it may be that there is no other kind of existence but a psychic one.
If that is the case, then matter would be nothing but a definiteness of divine thought, as Tantrism suggests.
I have no objection to such an hypothesis, but the Western mind has renounced metaphysical assertions which are per definition not verifiable, if only recently so.
In the Middle Ages up to the 19th century we still believed in the possibility of metaphysical assertions.
India, it seems to me, is still convinced of the possibility of metaphysical assertions.
Perhaps she is right and perhaps not.
Letters, Volume 1
Page 255
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Concerning your last question I want to say that I quite agree that there is nothing in or of the material world that is not a projection of the human mind, since anything we experience and are able to express through thought is alien to our mind. Through experience and mental assimilation it has become part of our mind and thus it has become essentially psychic. Inasmuch as a material thing does not enter our consciousness it is not experienced and we cannot say for certain that it does exist. Whatever we touch or come in contact with immedi¬ ately changes into a psychic content, so we are enclosed by a world of psychic images, some of which bear the label “of material origin,” others the label “of spiritual origin.” But how those things look as material things in themselves or as spiritual things in themselves we do not know, since wre can experience them only as psychic contents and nothing else. But I cannot say that material things or spiritual things in themselves are of psychic nature, although it may be that there is no other kind of existence but a psychic one. If that is the case, then matter would be nothing but a definiteness of divine thought, as Tantrism suggests. I have no objection to such an hypoth¬ esis, but the Western mind has renounced metaphysical assertions which are per definitionem not verifiable, if only recently so. In the Middle Ages up to the 19th century we still believed in the pos¬ sibility of metaphysical assertions. India, it seems to me, is still con¬ vinced of the possibility of metaphysical assertions. Perhaps she is right and perhaps not.
letters page 255
jANUARY 9, 1939
V. Subrahumanaya Iyer
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