[Carl Jung on the need the Dead Souls have for the Living.]

Later, when I wrote the Septem Sermones ad Mortuos, once again it was the dead who addressed crucial questions to me.

They came so they said “back from Jerusalem, where they found not what they sought.”

This had surprised me greatly at the time, for according to the traditional views the dead are the possessors of great knowledge.

People have the idea that the dead know far more than we, for Christian doctrine teaches that in the hereafter we shall “see face to face.”

Apparently, however, the souls of the dead “know” only what they knew at the moment of death, and nothing beyond that.

Hence their endeavor to penetrate into life in order to share in the knowledge of men.

I frequently have a feeling that they are standing directly behind us, waiting to hear what answer…

The Return of the Dead:

Amid the unprecedented carnage of the war, the theme of the return of the dead was widespread, such as in Abel Gance’s film Jaccuse. The death toll also led to a revival of interest in spiritualism. Mter nearly a year, Jung began to write again in the Black Books in I9I5, with a further series of fantasies. He had already completed the handwritten draft of Liber Primus and Liber Secundus.124 At the beginning of I9I6, Jung experienced a striking series of parapsychological events in his house. In I923, he narrated this event to Cary de Angulo (later Baynes). She recorded it as follows:

One night your boy began to rave in his sleep and throw himself about saying he couldn’t wake up. Finally your wife had to call you to get him quiet & this you could only do by cold cloths on him-finally he…

‎”At present we educate people only up to the point where they can earn a living and marry; then education ceases altogether, as though a complete mental outfit had been acquired. … Vast numbers of men and women thus spend their entire lives in complete ignorance of the most important things.” ~Carl Jung

A thinker should fear Salome, since she wants his head, especially if he is a holy man. A thinker cannot be a holy person, otherwise he loses his head. It does not help to hide oneself in thought. There the solidification overtakes you. You must turn back to motherly forethought to obtain renewal. But forethought leads to Salome. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 248.

The prophet loved God, and this sanctified him. But Salome did not love God, and this profaned her. But the prophet did not love Salome, and this profaned him. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 248.

Salome loves me, do I love her? I hear wild music, a tambourine, a sultry moonlit night, the bloody-staring head of the holy one—fear seizes me. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 264.

So—you see: even banal reality is a redeemer. I thank you, dear friend, and I bring…

Depression:

A psychological state characterized by lack of energy.

Energy not available to consciousness does not simply vanish. It regresses and stirs up unconscious contents (fantasies, memories, wishes, etc.) that for the sake of psychological health need to be brought to light and examined.

Depression should therefore be regarded as an unconscious compensation whose content must be made conscious if it is to be fully effective.

This can only be done by consciously regressing along with the depressive tendency and integrating the memories so activated into the conscious mind-which was what the depression was aiming at in the first place.[“The Sacrifice,” CW 5, par. 625.]

Depression is not necessarily pathological.

It often foreshadows a renewal of the personality or a burst of creative activity.

There are moments in human life when a new page is turned. New interests and tendencies appear which have hitherto received no attention, or there is…