/tag/polarity%20of%20opposites

5 quotes tagged 'polarity of opposites'

The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 14: Mysterium Coniunctionis
Author: Carl Gustav Jung, R.F.C. Hull (Translator)
Publisher: Princeton University Press (1963)
4-5

I would mention the eagle and toad ('the eagle flying through the air and the toad crawling on the ground'), which are the 'emblem' of Avicenna in Michael Maier1, the eagle representing Luna 'or Juno, Venus, Beya, who is fugitive and winged like the eagle, which flies up to the clouds and receives the rays of the sun in his eyes.' The toad 'is the opposite of air, it is a contrary element, namely earth, whereon alone it moves by slow steps, and does not trust itself to another element. Its head is very heavy and gazes at the earth. For this reason it denotes the philosophic earth, which cannot fly [i.e., cannot be sublimated] , as it is firm and solid. Upon it as a foundation the golden house2 is to be built. Were it not for the earth in our work the air would fly away, neither would the fire have its nourishment, nor the water its vessel.'3 \n \n 1 Symbola aureae mensae, p. 192\n 2 The 'treasure-house' (gazophylacium, domus thesauraria) of philosophy, which is a synonym for the aurum philosophorum, or lapis. Cf. von Franz, Aurora Consurgens, pp. 101ff. The idea goes back to Alphidius (see 'Consilium coniugii,' Ars chemica, p. 108) and ultimately to Zosimos, who describes the lapis as a shining white temple of marble. Berthelot, Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs, III, i, 5\n 3 Symb. aur. mensae, p. 200


Ride the Tiger
Author: Julius Evola
Publisher: Inner Traditions International (2003)
81-82

Already in Soren Kierkegaard, considered as the spiritual father of the existentialists, 'existence' is presented as a problem; with a special use of the German term Existenz, different from current usage, he defines Existenz as a paradoxical point in which the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal, are co-present, meeting but mutually excluding each other. So it would seem to be a matter of recognizing the presence in man of the transcendent dimension. (Following the abstract habit of philosophy, the existentialists too speak of man in general, whereas one should always refer to one or another human type.) Still, we can accept the conception of Existenz as the physical presence of the I in the world, in a determined, concrete, and unrepeatable form and situation (cf. the theory of one's own nature and law in chapter 7) and, simultaneously, as a metaphysical presence of Being (of transcendence) in the I. \nAlong these lines, a certain type of existentialism could also lead to another point already established here: that of a positive antitheism, an existential overcoming of the God-figure, the object of faith or doubt. Since the center of the I is also mysteriously the center of Being, 'God' (transcendence) is a certainty, not as a subject of faith or dogma, but as presence in existence and freedom. The saying of Jaspers: 'God is a certainty for me inasmuch as I exist authentically,' relates in a certain way to the state already indicated, in which calling Being into question would amount to calling oneself into question.


The Denial of Death
Author: Ernest Becker
Publisher: Free Press (1975)
14

One of the ironies of the creative process is that it partly cripples itself in order to function. I mean that, usually, in order to turn out a piece of work the author has to exaggerate the emphasis of it, to oppose it in a forcefully competitive way to other versions of truth; and he gets carried away by his own exaggeration, as his distinctive image is built on it. But each honest thinker who is basically an empiricist has to have some truth in his position, no matter how extremely he has formulated it. The problem is to find the truth underneath the exaggeration, to cut away the excess elaboration or distortion and include that truth where it fits.


The Origins and History of Consciousness
Author: Erich Neumann
Publisher: Princeton University Press (1954)
113

Nor, as we have said, is the division between good and evil present in the beginning.  Man and world have not yet been divided into pure and impure, good and bad; there is at most the difference between that which works, is pregnant with mana and loaded with taboo, and that which does not work.  But what works is pre-eminent, beyond good and evil.


111

The activity of instinct lies behind actions which the ego coordinates with its sphere of decision and volition, and to an even higher degree instincts and archetypes are at the back of our conscious attitudes and orientations.  But, whereas in modern man there is at any rate the possibility of decision and conscious orientation, the psychology of archaic man and of the child is marked by a mingling of these spheres.  Volitions, moods, emotions, instincts, and somatic reactions are still for all practical purposes fused together.  The same applies to the original ambivalence of affects, which are later resoved into antithetical positions.  Love and hate, joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, attraction and repulsion, yes and no, are at first juxtaposed and interfused, and do not possess the antithetical character they subsequently appear to have.\n\n Depth psychology has made the discovery that even today the opposites lie closer together and are more intimately connected than their actual degree of separation would lead one to suppose.  Not only in the neurotic, but in the normal person too, the poles are hard side by side; pleasure turns to pain, hate to love, sorrow to joy, far more readily than we would expect.  This can be seen most clearly in children.  Laughing and crying, starting a thing and then stopping it, liking and disliking follow fast on one another's heels.  No position is fixed, and none is a flat contradiction of its opposite, but both exist peaceably side by side and are realized in closest succession.  Influences stream in and out from all sides; environment, ego, and interior world, objective tendencies, consciousness, and bodily tendencies operate simultaneously, and all the while no ego worth mentioning, or only a very diminutive ego, arranges, centers, accepts and rejects.