"It is the dynamic process of life itself - the continuous oscillation between opposite poles, between joy and grief, hope and fear, exultation and despair.
To give aesthetic form to our passions is to transform them into a free and active state.
In the work of the artist the power of passion itself has been made a formative power."
Ernst Cassirer, "An Essay on Man" (1944)
The Golden Thread
“The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate.
That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner contradictions, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposite halves.”
Carl Gustav Jung, "Aion; Contributions to the Symbolism of the Self" (1951)
Sons of God
“They are in themselves soulless beings who represent nothing but the thoughts and intuitions of their Lord.
Angels who fall, then are exclusively “bad” angels. These release the well known effect of “inflation”, which we can also observe nowadays in the megalomania of dictators: the angels beget with men a race of giants which ends by threatening to devour mankind, as is told in the book of Enoch.”
Carl Gustav Jung, “Memories, Dreams, Reflections” (1962)
Silent Running
"The human animal is characterized by two great fears that other animals are protected from: the fear of life and the fear of death…
He has to repress the realization that he is an animal, a creature of the earth, because this would undo his whole cultural world view.”
Ernest Becker, “The Denial of Death” (1973)
The Entrails of Power
“An earthly ruler can now unleash destruction surpassing all the plagues with which God visited the Egyptians. Man has stolen his own God. He has seized and taken for himself his armory of doom and terror.
The most audacious dreams of those earlier rulers in whom the desire to survive had become a passion and a vice, seem meagre today. Seen in retrospect, history appears innocent and almost comfortable. Everything lasted for so long then and in an unexplored world there was so little to be destroyed. Today there is only a moment between decision and effect, and, measured by our potentialities, Genghis Kan, Tamerlane and Hitler seem pitiful amateurs.”
Elias Canetti, “Crowds and Power, Epilogue” (1960)