Grounded in the natural philosophy of the Middle Ages, alchemy formed a bridge: on the one hand into the past, to Gnosticism, and on the other into the future, to the modern psychology of the unconscious.
Carl JungRead
The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The mind oscillates between rational thought and irrationality, rather than simply distinguishing between right and wrong.
Carl Jung's quote suggests that our mental processes are not always straightforward or binary. Instead, they are complex, moving back and forth between logical reasoning and irrational thoughts, which implies that understanding human behavior and thought requires a nuanced perspective rather than a simplistic right-or-wrong judgment.
Themes
MindSenseNonsenseThoughtReasoningPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture about cognitive psychology, this quote can illustrate the complexity of human thought.
More from Carl Jung
All quotes →The majority of my patients consisted not of believers but of those who had lost their faith.
Carl JungRead
Complexes are psychic contents which are outside the control of the conscious mind. They have been split off from consciousness and lead a separate existence in the unconscious, being at all times ready to hinder or to reinforce the conscious intentions.
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We are in a far better position to observe instincts in animals or in primitives than in ourselves. This is due to the fact that we have grown accustomed to scrutinizing our own actions and to seeking rational explanations for them.
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From the viewpoint of analytic psychology, the theatre, aside from any aesthetic value, may be considered as an institution for the treatment of the mass complex.
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I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among those in the second half of life - that is to say, over 35 - there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life.
Carl JungRead
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