CG Jung: They enjoy this atmosphere in which they can admire their beautiful feelings

It is common for very infantile people to have a mystical, religious feeling, they enjoy this atmosphere in which they can admire their beautiful feelings, but they are simply indulging their auto-eroticism.

– Carl Jung, ETH lecture 11 Jan 1935, Page 171.

I recognize this. I recognize how an opening or enjoyable or transcendent state can come with a certain feeling, and the mind then attaches to that feeling as something important and beautiful. It’s quite common. I also agree that it goes with the territory in a relatively early phase of the process, and that it can stay for a lifetime if not investigated.

We can spend a lifetime trying to hold onto, or regain, a certain feeling that we associate with something our mind holds as important. And when we investigate, we see that it’s just a sensation, associated with certain images and words.

When it’s felt and recognized as a sensation, and the images are seen as images and the words as words, that apparent compulsion to maintain or regain a certain feeling falls away. It doesn’t have anywhere to stand anymore. It’s revealed as created by the mind, and not having much more significance than that.

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