Here’s what Carl Jung said about psychic danger and psychic epidemics.
This page is intended as a learning resource for educational purposes and only meant to offer an overview/introduction. Short quotes aren’t a substitute for source material, so if this page sparks your interest, explore more deeply by checking out Carl Jung’s books (Amazon).
On Psychic Danger & Psychic Epidemics (Carl Jung Summary)
The first few quotes below come from the interview above:
- “One thing is sure: a great change of our psychological attitude is imminent. That is certain. Because we need more psychology. We need more understanding of human nature, because the only real danger that exists is man himself. He is the great danger, and we are pitifully unaware of it. We know nothing of man, far too little. His psyche should be studied, because we are the origin of all coming evil.” — Carl Jung
- “Nowadays we are not threatened by elementary catastrophes. There is no such thing as an H-bomb. That is all man’s doing. We are the great danger! Psyche is the great danger! What if something goes wrong with the psyche? It is demonstrated to us in our days—what the power of the psyche is, of man. How important it is to know something about it, but we know nothing about it.” — Carl Jung
- “It is nowadays particularly that the world hangs on a thin thread, and that is the psyche of man.” — Carl Jung
As usual, I investigated further and landed on ​The Collected Works of C. G. Jung​:
- “The gigantic catastrophes that threaten us today are not elemental happenings of a physical or biological order, but psychic events. To a quite terrifying degree we are threatened by wars and revolutions which are nothing other than psychic epidemics. At any moment several millions of human beings may be smitten with a new madness, and then we shall have another world war or devastating revolution. Instead of being at the mercy of wild beasts, earthquakes, landslides, and inundations, modern man is battered by the elemental forces of his own psyche.” — Carl Jung
- “Nobody can deny that without the psyche there would be no world at all, and still less a human world. Virtually everything depends on the human psyche and its functions. It should be worthy of all the attention we can give it, especially today, when everyone admits that the weal or woe of the future will be decided neither by the threat of wild animals, nor by natural catastrophes, nor by the danger of world-wide epidemics, but simply and solely by the psychic changes in man. It needs only an almost imperceptible disturbance of equilibrium in a few of our rulers’ heads to plunge the world into blood, fire, and radioactivity.” — Carl Jung
- “It is my conviction that the investigation of the psyche is the science of the future. Psychology is the youngest of the sciences and is only at the beginning of its development. It is, however, the science we need most. Indeed, it is becoming ever more obvious that it is not famine, not earthquakes, not microbes, not cancer, but man himself who is man’s greatest danger to man, for the simple reason that there is no adequate protection against psychic epidemics, which are infinitely more devastating than the worst of natural catastrophes. The supreme danger which threatens individuals as well as whole nations is a psychic danger. Reason has proved itself completely powerless, precisely because its arguments have an effect only on the conscious mind and not on the unconscious. The greatest danger of all comes from the masses, in whom the effects of the unconscious pile up cumulatively and the reasonableness of the conscious mind is stifled … It is therefore in the highest degree desirable that a knowledge of psychology should spread so that men can understand the source of the supreme dangers that threaten them … It is my hope…to throw light on this fundamental problem for mankind.” — Carl Jung
You May Also Enjoy:
