CIVILIZATION IN TRANSITION 
theosophical assertions. Credulity and lack of discrimination, which elsewhere would be vices, here serve the useful purpose of bringing together a collection of heterogeneous speculations on the Ufo problem. Anyone who is interested in the psychology of the rumour will read this book with profit, for it offers a comprehensive survey of the psychic phenomenology of the Ufo. 

757 

4. PREVIOUS HISTORY OF THE UFO PHENOMENON 
Though the Ufos were first publicized only towards the end of the second World War, the phenomenon itself was known long before. It was observed in the first half of this century, and was described in earlier centuries and perhaps even in antiquity. In the Ufo literature there are collections of reports from various sources which need critical evaluation. I shall spare myself this task and give the reader only two examples. 
PLATE v: Basel Broadsheet, I566 

4°° 

	758 	This is from a broadsheet written by Samuel Cocci us, "stu- 
dent of the Holy Scripture and of the free arts, at Basel, in the Fatherland," in August 1566. He reports that on August 7 of that year, at the time of the sunrise, "many large black globes were seen iIi the air, moving before the sun with great speed, and turning against each other as if fighting. Some of them became red and fiery and afterwards faded and went out." 
	759 	As the illustration shows, this sighting was made in Basel. 
The dark colour of the Ufos may be due to their having been seen against the light of the rising sun. Some of them were bright and fiery. Their speed and irregular motion are typical Ufo features. 
PLATE VI: Nuremberg Broadsheet, I56I 
	760 	This broadsheet relates the story of a "very frightful spec- 
tacle" seen by "numerous men and women" at sunrise on April 14, 1561. They saw "globes" of a bloodcred, bluish, or black colour, or "plates" in large numbers near the sun, "some three in a row, now and then four in a square, also some standing alone. And amongst these globes some blood-coloured crosses 
4°1 

CIVILIZATION IN TRANSITION 
were seen." Moreover there were "two great tubes"-three in the picture-"in which three, four, and more globes were to be seen. They all began to fight one another." This went on for about an hour. Then "they all fell-as one sees in the picturefrom the sun and sky down to the earth, as if everything were on fir~, then it slowly faded away on the earth, producing a lot of sttam." Underneath the globes was a long object, "shaped like a great black spear." Naturally this "spectacle" was interpreted as a divine warning. 
	761 	This report, as the reader will have noted, contains certain 
details already known to us. Above all the "tubes," which are analogous to the cylindrical objects in the Ufo reports. These, in Ufo language, are the "mother-ships" which are said to carry the smaller, lens-shaped Ufos for long distances. The picture shows them in operation, releasing U fos or taking them on board. Especially important, though lacking in the modern Ufo reports, are the indubitable quaternities, seen sometimes as simple crosses, sometimes as disks in the form of a cross, that is, as regular mandalas. There also seems to be a hint of the 3 + 1 motif in the dilemma of three and four. The militaristic interpretation is as characteristic of the sixteenth century as the technological one is of ours. The tubes are cannons and the globes cannonballs, and the shooting to and fro of the globes is an artillery engagement. The great black spearhead, as well as the spearshafts (?), seem to represent the masculine element, especially in its "penetrating" capacity. Similar things are reported in the Ufo literature. 
	762 	The emphasis on the cross motif is striking. The Christian 
meaning of the cross can hardly be considered here, since we are dealing with a natural phenomenon, a swarm of round objects in violent motion, shooting in opposite directions and reminding the reporter of a battle. If the Ufos were living organisms, one would think of a swarm of insects rising with the sun, not to fight one another but to mate and celebrate the marriage flight. Here the cross signifies a union of opposites (vertical and horizontal), a "crossing"; as a plus sign, it is also a joining together, an addition. Where the globes are coupled together to form quaternities, they have given rise to the crossed marriage quaternio, which I have discussed in my "Psychology of the Transference:' It forms the model for the primitive "cross 
4°~ 

FLYING SAUCERS: A MODERN MYTH 
cousin. marriage," but is also an individuationsymbol, the union of the "four." 
	763 	Columns of smoke rise up from the place where the cannon 
balls have fallen, reminding us of Tanguy's picture. The mo ment of sunrise, the Aurora consurgens (Aquinas, Boehme), sug gests the revelation of the light. Both reports have clear analo gies not only with one another but also with the modern sauce] stories and with the individual products of the unconsciom today. 
PLATE VII: The SPiritual Pilgrim Discovering Another World 
	764 	This seventeenth-century woodcut, possibly representing a 
Rosicrucian illumination, comes from a source unknown to me.1 On the right it shows the familiar world. The pilgrim, who is evidently on a pelerinage de l'ame) has broken through the star-strewn rim of his world and beholds another, supernatural universe filled with what look like layers of cloud or mountain ranges. In it appear the wheels of Ezekiel and disks or rainbowlike figures, obviously representing the "heavenly spheres." In these symbols we have a prototype of the Ufo vision, which is vouchsafed to the illuminati. They cannot be heavenly bodies belonging to our empirical world, but are projected "rotunda" from the inner, four-dimensional world. This is even more evident in the next picture. 
PLATE VIII: The Quickening of the Child in the Womb 
	765 	This picture comes from the Rupertsberg Codex Scivias) 
written by Hildegard of Bingen (12th cent.). It shows the quickening or "animation" of the child in the body of the mother. From a higher world an influx enters the foetus. This upper world has a remarkable quadratic form divided into three to correspond with the Trinity, but, unlike the latter, which is supposed to consist of three equal parts, the middle section is different from the other two. It contains round objects, whereas 
1 It was kindly placed at my disposal by D. van Houten, Bergen, Netherlands. [Later information suggests that it is a late 19th-cent. imitation.-EDlTORS.] 
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CIVILIZATION IN TRANSITION 
the other. two are characterized by the eye motif. Like the wheels of Ezekiel, the little rotunda are associated with eyes. 
	766 	As Hildegard's text states, the radiance of the "countless 
eyes" (there are in reality twenty-four in each section) means "God's knowledge," that is, his seeing and knowing, with reference to the seven eyes of God that "run to and fro through the whole earth" (Zech. 4: 10). The rotunda, on the other hand, are God's deeds, such as the sending of his son as a saviour (p. 127). Hildegard adds: "All, the bad as well as the good, appear in God's knowledge, for it is not ever clouded round by any darkness." The souls of men are "fireballs" (pp.i20, 126, 130, 133), so presumably the soul of Christ was also such a ball, for Hildegard interprets her vision not with reference to the growth of a human child only, but with particular reference to Christ and the Mother of God (p. 127). The square divided into three stands for the Holy Ghost entering into the child (p. 129). The procreative aspect of the Holy Ghost unites the Godhead with matter, as is clear from the sacred legend. The intermediate forms between spirit and matter are obviously the rotunda, early stages of animated bodies, filling the middle section of the square. There are thirty of them, and, however accidental this may be, the number 30 (days of the month) suggests the moon, ruler of the hylical world, whereas twenty-four (hours of the day) suggests the sun, the king. This indicates the motif of the coniunctio (0 and j) )-an instance of that unconscious readiness which later came to expression in Cusanus' definition of God as a complexio oppositorum. In the miniature the rotunda are fire-coloured, the fiery seeds from which human beings will sprout, a sort of pneumatic roe. This comparison is justified in so far as alchemy compares the rotunda to fish's eyes. The eyes of a fish are always open, like the eyes of God. They are synonymous with the scintillae) "soul-sparks." It is just possible that these alchemical allusions crept into Hildegard's text via the atoms of Democritus (sPiritus insertus atomis).2 Another such source may be responsible for the squareness of the Holy Ghost. 
	767 	The square, being a quaternity, is a totality symbol in al- 
chemy. Having four corners it signifies the earth, whereas a circular form is attributed to the spirit. Earth is feminine, spirit 
2 Macrobius, In somnium Scipionis, I, 14, 19. 
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FLYING SAUCERS: A MODERN MYTH 
masculine. The square as a symbol of the spiritual world is cel tainly most unusual, but becomes more intelligible when WI take Hildegard's sex into account. This remarkable symbolisn is reflected in the squaring of the circle-another coniuncti( oppositorum. "Squareness" in alchemy is an important feature of the unitary substance, the Mercurius Philosophorum sivI quadratus) and characterizes its chthonic nature, which it pos sesses along with spirituality (spiritus mercurialis). It is as mud a metal as a spirit. Correspondingly, in Christian dogma, th( Holy Ghost as the third Person of the Trinity does not remair a prerogative of the incarnate God, but may descend also upor sinful man. Though these ideas were not yet explicitly consciow in Hildegard's day, they were implicitly present in the collective unconscious, activated by the Christ/Mercurius analogy This reached consciousness in the next century, but had been clearly anticipated in the writings of Zosimos of Panopolis in the third century A.D. We must emphasize, however, that there can hardly be any historical connection between the two; it is more a question of the activated archetype of the Primordial Man or Anthropos. 
	768 	Equally characteristic of alchemy is the arithmetical struc- 
ture of the Holy Ghost: he is a unity, consists of two principles (eyes and fireballs), has three parts, and is a square. This motif is known under the name of the Axiom of Maria, who lived in Alexandria in the third century and played a great role in classical alchemy. 
	769 	The two human groups in the picture typify the fates that 
preside over the awakening of the soul. There are, as Hildegard says, "people who prepare good or middling or bad cheese." 3 The devil, too, has a hand in the game. The picture shows clearly, like the previous one, that the eyes and fireballs are not identical with the heavenly bodies and are differentiated 3 "You look further and see people on the earth who carry milk in clay vessels. From this they prepare cheese .. They are the people, men and women, who carry human seed in their bodies. From it arise the various generations of men. Part of the milk is fatty. It makes fatty cheese. This seed ... produces energetic people. ... In cleverness and discretion they master life and flourish in their works visibly before God and men. The devil does not find his place in them. Other milk is thin. This curdles into insipid cheese. This seed ... produces weakly people .... A last part of the milk is mixed with corruption, and the cheese that comes from it is bitter. This seed ... produces malformed people," etc. Scivias, pp. 128f. 
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CIVILIZATiON iN TRANMTiUN 
from the stars in the background. It confirms that the fireballs are souls. _ 
Summary 
	770 	From the dream examples and the pictures it is evident that 
the unconscious, in order to portray its contents, makes use of certain fantasy elements which can be compared with the Ufo phenomenon. In dreams i, 2,6, and 7, and in the painting of the Fire Sower, the connection with U fos was conscious, while in the other dreams and in two of the paintings no conscious connection could be proved. The personal relationship between the Ufo and the observing dream-subject was stressed in some of the dreams, but this is completely lacking in the paintings. In medieval paintings the personal participation in an epiphany or in suchlike visionary experiences is expressed by the visible presence of the recipient of the vision. This view does not fit at all into the programme of modern art, which is more concerned to put as great a distance as possible between the object and the spectator-like the Rorschach ink-blot, which is intentionally tachiste in order to avoid any suggestion of meaning and to produce a purely subjective phantasm. 
	771 	The dreams as well as the paintings, when subjected to care- 
ful scrutiny, yield a meaningful content which could be described as an ePiphany. In the Fire Sower this meaning can be recognized without difficulty. In the other cases an investigation in the light of comparative psychology leads to the same conclusion. For those unacquainted with the psychology of the unconscious I must emphasize that my conclusions are not the product of unbridled fantasy, as is often supposed, but are based on thorough researches into the history of symbols. It was merely in order to avoid overloading my text with annotations that I omitted practically all the references to source material. Anyone, therefore, who feels the need to test the correctness of my conclusions will have to go to the trouble of familiarizing himself with my other writings. The amplificatory method I have used for interpreting the meaning has proved fruitful when applied to historical as well as contemporary material. In the present instance it seems to me sufficiently safe to conclude that in my examples a central archetype consistently appears, 
406 

FLYING SAUCERS: A MODERN MYTH 
-- 
which I have called the archetype of the self. It takes the tradi- 
tional form of an epiphany from heaven, whose nature is in several cases markedly antithetical, e.g., fire and water, correspond. ing to the "star of David," *, which consists of 6. = fire and \l = water. The hexad is a totality symbol: 4 as the natural division of the circle, 2 as the vertical axis (zenith and nadir) -a spatial conception of totality. As a modern development of this symbol we would cite the fourth dimension in Plates II and HI. 
	772 	The masculine-feminine antithesis appears in the long and 
round objects: cigar-form and circle. These may be sexual symbols. The Chinese symbol of the one being, Tao, consists of yang (fire, hot, dry, south side of the mountain, masculine, etc.) and yin (dark, moist, cool, north side of the mountain, feminine). It fully corresponds, therefore, to the Jewish symbol mentioned above. The Christian equivalent can be found in the Church's doctrine of the unity of mother and son and in the androgyny of Christ, not to mention the hermaphroditic Primordial Being in many oriental and primitive religions, the "Father-Mother" of the Gnostics, and the Mercurius hermaphroditus of alchemy. 
	773 	The third antithesis is between A bove and Below) as in 
Plate Ill, where it seems to have been moved into the fourth dimension. In the other examples it constitutes the difference between what happens in the heavens and down below on earth. 
	774 	The fourth antithesis, unity and quaternity) appears united 
in the quincunx (PIs. Ill, IV), the four forming, as it were, a frame for the one, accentuated as the centre. In the history of symbols, quaternity is the unfolding of unity. The one universal Being cannot be known, because it is not differentiated from anything and cannot be compared with anything. By unfolding into four it acquires distinct characteristics and can therefore be known. This is not a metaphysical argument but simply a psychological formula for describing the process by which an unconscious content becomes conscious. So long as a thing is in the unconscious it has no recognizable qualities and is consequently merged with the universal unknown, with the unconscious All and Nothing, with what the Gnostics called a "non-existent all-being." But as soon as the unconscious content enters the sphere of consciousness it has already split into the 
407 

CIVILIZATION IN TRANSITION 
"four," that is to say it can become an object of experience only by virtue of the four basic functions of consciousness. It is perceived as something that exists (sensation); it is recognized as this and distinguished from that (thinking); it is evaluated as pleasant or unpleasant, etc. (feeling); and finally, intuition tells us where it came from and where it is going. This cannot be perceived by the senses or thought by the intellect. Consequently the object's extension in time and what happens to it is the proper concern of intuition. 
	775 	The splitting into four has the same significance as the divi- 
sion of the horizon into four quarters, or of the year into four seasons. That is, through the act of becoming conscious the four basic aspects of a whole judgment are rendered visible. This naturally does not mean that the speculative intellect could not equally well think up 360 other aspects. The four we have named are nothing more than a natural, minimal division of the circle or totality. In my work with patients the quaternity symbol crops up very frequently, the pentad very rarely, and rather less rarely the triad. Since my practice was always cosmopolitan I had plenty of occasion for comparative ethnological observations, and it struck me that the triadic mandalas invariably came from Germans. This seemed to me to have some connection with the fact that, compared with French and Anglo-Saxon literature, the typical anima figure in German novels plays a relatively insignificant role. From a totality standpoint the triadic mandala has a 4 - I structure as opposed to the usual 3 + 1. The fourth function is the undifferentiated or inferior function which characterizes the shadow side of the personality. When this is missing in the totality symbol there is too much emphasis on the conscious side. 
	776 	The fifth antithesis concerns the contrast between an enig- 
matic higher world and the ordinary human world. This is the most important polarity, which is illustrated in all the examples and can therefore be taken as fundamental both to the dreams and to the pictures. The contrast seems to be intentional as well as being very striking, and, if we take this feeling into account, appears to convey something like a message. The horizontal axis of our empirical consciousness, which except for psychic contents is aware only of bodies in motion, is crossed by another order of being, a dimension of the "psychic"-for the only state- 
408 

FLYING SAUCERS: A MODERN MYTH 
ments we can safely make about this other order refer to rh, psychic, something on the one hand mathematically abstrac and on the other hand fabulous and mythological. Now if w, conceive numbers as having been discovered) and not merel~ invented as an instrument for counting, then on account of thei: mythological nature they belong to the realm of "godlike' human and animal figures and are just as archetypal as they Unlike these, however, they are "real" in the sense that they an encountered in the realm of experience as quantities and thu: form the bridge between the tangible, physical world and the imaginary. Though the latter is unreal, it is "real" in so far as ii works, i.e., has an effect on us. There can be no doubt about it! effectiveness, particularly at the present time. It is not the be haviour, the lack or surplus, of physical things that directl) affects humanity so much as the idea we have of them, or thl "imaginary" ideas by which we are obsessed. 
	777 	The role that numbers play in mythology and in the uncon 
scious gives food for thought. They are an, aspect of the phys ically real as well as of the psychically imaginary. They do nol only count and measure, and are not merely quantitative; the) also make qualitative statements and are therefore a mysteriow something midway between myth and reality, partly discovered and partly invented. Equations, for instance, that were invented as pure mathematical formulae have subsequently proved to be formulations of the quantitative behaviour of physical things. Conversely, owing to their individual qualities, numbers can be vehicles for psychic processes in the unconscious. The struc· ture of the mandala, for instance, is intrinsically mathematical. We may exclaim with the mathematician Jacobi: "In the Olym. pian host Number eternally reigns." 
	778 	These hints are merely intended to point out to the reader 
that the opposition between the human worlcl and the higher worlcl is not absolute; the two are only relatively incommen· surable, for the bridge between them is not entirely lacking. Between them stands the great mediator, N umber, whose reality is valid in both worlds, as an archetype in its very essence. Deviation into theosophical speculation does not help us to understand the splitting of the world picture indicated in our examples, for this is simply a matter of names and words which do not point the way to the unus mundus (unitary world). Number, 
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CIVILlZA TION IN TRANSITION 
however, belongs to both worlds, the real and the imaginary; it is visible as well as invisible, quantitative as well as qualitative. 
	779 	Thus it is a fact of singular importance that number also 
characterizes the "personal" nature of the mediating figure, that it appears as a mediator. From the psychological standpoint, and having regard to the limits set to all scientific knowledge, I have called the mediating or "uniting" symbol which necessarily proceeds from a sufficiently great tension of opposites the "self." I chose this term in order to make clear that I am concerned primarily with the formulation of empirical facts and not with dubious incursions into metaphysics. There I would trespass upon all manner of religious convictions. Living in the West, I would have to say Christ instead of "self," in the Near East it would be Khidr, in the Far East atman or Tao or the Buddha, in the Far West maybe a hare or Mondamin, and in cabalism it would be Tifereth. Our world has shrunk, and it is dawning on us that humanity is one, with one psyche. Humility is a not inconsiderable virtue which should prompt Christians, for the sake of charity-the greatest of all virtues-to set a good example and acknowledge that though there is only one truth it speaks in many tongues, and that if we still cannot see this it is simply due to lack of understanding. No one is so godlike that he alone knows the true word. All of us gaze into that "dark glass" in which the dark myth takes shape, adumbrating the invisible truth. In this glass the eyes of the spirit glimpse an image which we call the self, fully conscious of the fact that it is an anthropomorphic image which we have merely named but not explained. By "self" we mean psychic wholeness, but what realities underlie this concept we do not know, because psychic contents cannot be observed in their unconscious state, and moreover the psyche cannot know itself. The conscious can know the unconscious only so far as it has become conscious. We have only a very hazy idea of the changes an unconscious content undergoes in the process of becoming conscious, but no certain knowledge. The concept of psychic wholeness necessarily implies an element of transcendence on account of the existence of unconscious components. Transcendence in this sense is not equivalent to a metaphysical postulate or hypostasis; it claims to be no more than a borderline concept, to quote Kant. 
	780 	That there is something beyond the borderline, beyond the 
410 

FLYING SAUCERS: A MODERN MYTH 
frontiers of knowledge, is shown by the archetypes and, mosl clearly of all, by numbers, which this side of the border an quantities but on the other side are autonomous psychic en tities, capable of making qualitative statements which manifesl themselves in a priori patterns of order. These patterns include not only causally explicable phenomena like dream-symbols and such, but remarkable relativizations of time and space whid: simply cannot be explained causally. They are the parapsycho. logical phenomena which I have summed up under the term "synchronicity" and which have been statistically investigated by Rhine. The positive results of his experiments elevate these phenomena to the rank of undeniable facts. This brings us a little nearer to understanding the mystery of psychophysical parallelism, for we now know that a factor exists which mediate~ between the apparent incommensurability of body and psyche, giving matter a kind of "psychic" faculty and the psyche a kind of "materiality," by means of which the one can work on the other. That the body can work on the psyche seems to be a truism, but strictly speaking all we know is that any bodily defect or illness also expresses itself psychically. Naturally this assumption only holds good if, contrary to thf popular materialistic view, the psyche is credited with an existence of its own. But materialism in its turn cannot explain how chemical changes can produce a psyche. Both views, the materialistic as well as the spiritualistic, are metaphysical prejudices. It accords better with experience to suppose that living matter has a psychic aspect, and the psyche a physical aspect. If we give due consideration to the facts of parapsychology, then the hypothesis of the psychic aspect must be extended beyond the sphere of biochemical processes to matter in general. In that case all reality would be grounded on an as yet unknown substrate possessing material and at the same time psychic qualities. In view of the trend of modern theoretical physics, this assumption should arouse fewer resistances than before. It would also do away with the awkward hypothesis of psychophysical parallelism, and afford us an opportunity to construct a new world model closer to the idea of the unus mundus. The "acausal" correspondences between mutually independent psychic and physical events, i.e., synchronistic phenomena, and in particular psychokinesis, would then become more understandable, for every physical 
411 

CIVILIZATION IN TRANSITION 
event would involve a psychic one and vice versa. Such reflections are not idle speculations; they are forced on us in any serious psychological investigation of the Ufo phenomenon, as the next chapter will show. 
412 

5. UFOS CONSIDERED IN A NON-PSYCHOLOGICAL LIGHT 
	781 	As I said at the beginning, it was the purpose of this essay to 
treat the Ufos primarily as a psychological phenomenon. There were plenty of reasons for this, as is abundantly clear from the contradictory and "impossible" assertions made by the rumour. It is quite right that they should meet with criticism, scepticism, and open rejection, and if anyone should see behind them nothing more than a phantasm that deranges the minds of men and engenders rationalistic resistances, he would have nothing but our sympathy. Indeed, since conscious and unconscious fantasy, and even mendacity, obviously play an important role in building up the rumour, we could be satisfied with the psychological explanation and let it rest at that. 
	782 	Unfortunately, however, there are good reasons why the 
Ufos cannot be disposed of in this simple manner. So far as I know it remains an established fact, supported by numerous observations, that Ufos have not only been seen visually but have also been picked up on the radar screen and have left traces on the photographic plate. I base myself here not only on the comprehensive reports by Ruppelt and Keyhoe, which leave no room for doubt in this regard, but also on the fact that the astrophysicist, Professor Menzel, has not succeeded, despite all his efforts, in offering a satisfying scientific explanation of even one authentic Ufo report. It boils down to nothing less than this: that either psychic projections throw back a radar echo, or else the appearance of real objects affords an opportunity for mythological projections. 
	783 	Here I must remark that even if the Ufos are physically real, 
the corresponding psychic projections are not actually caused, but are only occasioned, by them. Mythical statements of this kind have always occurred, whether Ufos exist or not. These statements depend in the first place on the peculiar nature of 
413 

CIVILIZATION IN TRANSITION 
the psychic background, the collective unconscious, and for this reason have always been projected in some form. At various times all sorts of other projections have appeared in the heavens besides the saucers. This particular projection, together with its psychological context, the rumour, is specific of our age and highly characteristic of it. The dominating idea of a mediator and god who became man, after having thrust the old polytheistic beliefs into the background, is now in its turn on the point of evaporating. Untold millions of so-called Christians have lost their belief in a real and living mediator, while the believers endeavour to make their belief credible to primitive people, when it would be so much more fruitful to bestow these much needed efforts on the white man. But it is always so much easier and more affecting to talk and act down to people instead of up to them. St. Paul spoke to the populace of Athens and Rome, but what is Albert Schweitzer doing in Lambarene? People like him are needed much more urgently in Europe. 
	784 	No Christian will contest the importance of a belief like that 
of the mediator, nor will he deny the consequences which the loss of it entails. So powerful an idea reflects a profound psychic need which does not simply disappear when the expression of it ceases to be valid. What happens to the energy that once kept the idea alive and dominant over the psyche? A political, social, philosophical, and religious conflict of unprecedented proportions has split the consciousness of our age. When such tremendous opposites split asunder, we may expect with certainty that the need for a saviour will make itself felt. Experience has amply confirmed that, in the psyche as in nature, a tension of opposites creates a potential which may express itself at any time in a manifestation of energy. Between above and below flows the waterfall, and between hot and cold there is a turbulent exchange of molecules. Similarly, between the psychic opposites there is generated a "uniting symbol," at first unconscious. This process is running its course in the unconscious of modern man. Between the opposites there arises spontaneously a symbol of unity and wholeness, no matter whether it reaches consciousness or not. Should something extraordinary or impressive then occur in the outside world, be it a human personality, a thing, or an idea, the unconscious content can project itself upon it, thereby investing the projection carrier with 
414 

FLYING SAUCERS: A MODERN MYTH 
numinous and mythical powers. Thanks to its numinosity, the projection carrier has a highly suggestive effect and grows into a saviour myth whose basic features have been repeated countless times. 
	785 	The impetus for the manifestation of the latent psychic con- 
tents was given by the Ufo. The only thing we know with tolerable certainty about Ufos is that they possess a surface which can be seen by the eye and at the same time throws back a radar echo. Everything else is so uncertain that it must remain for the time being an unproven conjecture, or rumour, until we know more about it. We do not know, either, whether they are manned machines or a species of living creature which has appeared in our atmosphere from an unknown source. It is not likely that they are meteoric phenomena, since their behaviour does not give the impression of a process that could be interpreted in physical terms. Their movements indicate volition and psychic relatedness, e.g., evasion and flight, perhaps even aggression and defence. Their progression in space is not in a straight line and of constant velocity like a meteor, but erratic like the flight of an insect and of varying velocity, from zero to several thousand miles per hour. The observed speeds and angles of turn are such that no earthly being c~uld survive them any more than he could the enormous heat generated by friction. 
	]86 	The simultaneous visual and radar sightings would in them- 
selves be a satisfactory proof of their reality. Unfortunately, well-authenticated reports show that there are also cases where the eye sees something that does not appear on the radar screen, or where an object undoubtedly picked up by radar is not seen by the eye. I will not mention other, even more remarkable reports from authoritative sources; they are so bizarre that they tax our understanding and credulity to the limit. 
	787 	If these things are real-and by all human standards it hardly 
seems possible to doubt this any longer-then we are left with only two hypotheses: that of their weightlessness on the one hand and of their psychic nature on the other. This is a question I for one cannot decide. In the circumstances, however, it seemed to me advisable at least to investigate the psychological aspect of the phenomenon, so as to throw a little light on this complicated situation. I have limited myself to only a few 
415 

788 
789 

CIVILIZA nON IN TRANSITION 
examples. Unfortunately, after more than ten years' study of the problem I have not managed to collect a sufficient number of observations from which more reliable conclusions could be drawn. I must therefore content myself with having sketched out a few lines for future research. Of course, next to nothing has been gained as regards a physical explanation of the phenomenon. But the psychic aspect plays so great a role that it cannot be left out of account. The discussion of it, as I have tried to show, leads to psychological problems which involve just as fantastic possibilities or impossibilities as the approach from the physical side. If military authorities have felt compelled to set up bureaus for collecting and evaluating Ufo reports, then psychology, too, has not only the right but also the duty to do what it can to shed light on this dark problem. 
The question of anti-gravity is one which I must leave to the physicists, who alone can inform us what chances of success such an hypothesis has. The alternative hypothesis that Ufos are something psychic that is endowed with certain physical properties seems even less probable, for where should such a thing come from? If weightlessness is a hard proposition to swallow, then the notion of a materialized psychism opens a bottomless void under our feet. Parapsychology is, of course, acquainted with the fact of materialization. But this phenomenon depends on the presence of one or more mediums who exude a weighable substance, and it occurs only in their immediate vicinity. The psyche can move the body, but only inside the living organism. That something psychic, possessing material qualities and with a high charge of energy, could appear by itself high in the air at a great distance from any human mediums-this surpasses our comprehension. Here our knowledge leaves us completely in the lurch, and it is therefore pointless to speculate any further in this direction. 
It seems to me-speaking with all due reserve-that there is 
a third possibility: that Ufos are real material phenomena of an unknown nature, presumably coming from outer space, which perhaps have long been visible to mankind, but otherwise have no recognizable connection with the earth or its inhabitants. In recent times, however, and just at the moment when the eyes of mankind are turned towards the heavens, partly on account of their fantasies about possible space-ships, and partly in a 
416 

79° 

FLYING SAUCERS: A MODERN MYTH 
figurative sense because their earthly existence is threatened, unconscious contents have projected themselves on these inexplicable heavenly phenomena and given them a significance they in no way deserve. Since they seem to have appeared more frequently after the second World War than before, it may be that they are synchronistic phenomena or "meaningful coincidences." The psychic situation of mankind and the Ufo phenomenon as a physical reality bear no recognizable causal relationship to one another, but they seem to coincide in a meaningful manner. The meaningful connection is the product on the one hand of projection and on the other of round and cylindrical forms which embody the projected meaning and have always symbolized the union of opposites. 
Another equally "chance" coincidence is the choice of the national emblems for aircraft in the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A.: respectively a red and white five-pointed star. For a thousand years red was regarded as the masculine and white as the feminine colour. The alchemists spoke of the servus rubeus (red slave) and the femina candida (white woman): their copulation produced the supreme union of opposites. When one speaks of Russia, one immediately thinks of "Little Father" Czar and "Little Father" Stalin. One also remembers all the talk about America being a matriarchy because the bulk of American capital is in the hands of women, not to mention Keyserling's ban mat about the "aunt of the nation." 1 It is clear that these parallels have nothing to do with the choice of symbols, at any rate not as a conscious causality. Comically enough-one must say-red and white are the nuptial colours. They throw an amusing light on Soviet Russia as the reluctant or unrequited lover of the femina candida in the White House-even if there is nothing more to it than that. 
1 See infra, par. 931. 
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EPILOGUE 
	791 	I had already completed my manuscript when a little book 
fell into my hands which I ought not to leave unmentioned: 
The Secret at the Saucers) by Orfeo M. Angelucci (1955). The author is self-taught and describes himself as a nervous individual suffering from "constitutional inadequacy." After working at various jobs he was employed as a mechanic in 1952 at the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation at Burbank, California. He seems to lack any kind of humanistic culture, but appears to have a knowledge of science that exceeds what would be expected of a person in his circumstances. He is an Americanized Italian, naIve and-if appearances do not deceive us-serious and idealistic. He makes his living now by preaching the gospel revealed to him by the Saucers. That is the reason why I mention his book. 
	792 	His career as a prophet began with the sighting of a sup- 
posedly authentic Ufo on August 4, 1946. At the time he had no further interest in the problem. He was working in his free hours on a book entitled "The Nature of Infinite Entities," which he subsequently published at his own expense. He describes its content as "Atomic Evolution, Suspension, and In· volution, Origin of the Cosmic Rays," etc. On May 23, 1952, he underwent the experience that gave him his calling. Towards 11 o'clock in the evening, he says, he felt unwell and had a "prickling" sensation in the upper half of his body, as before an electrical storm. He was working the nightshift, and as he was driving home in his car he saw a faintly red-glowing, ovalshaped object hovering over the horizon, which nobody else seemed to see. On a lonely stretch of the road, where it rose above the level of the surrounding terrain, he saw below him the glowing red disk "pulsating" near the ground only a short distance away. Suddenly it shot upwards with great speed at an angle of 30 to 40 degrees and disappeared towards the west. But 
418 

FLYING SAUCERS: A MODERN MYTH 
before it vanished, it released two balls of green fire from which a man's voice issued, speaking "perfect English." He could remember the words: "Don't be afraid, Orfeo, we are friendsl" The voice bade him get out of the car. This he-did, and, leaning against the car, he watched the two "pulsating" disks hovering a short distance in front of him. The voice explained to him that the lights were "instruments of transmission and reception" (i.e., a species of sense-organs) and that he was in direct communication with "friends from another world." It also asked him if he remembered his experience on August 4, 1946. All at once he felt very thirsty, and the voice told him: "Drink from the crystal cup you will find on the fender of your car." He drank) and it was the "most delicious beverage I had ever tasted." He felt refreshed and strengthened. The twin disks were about three feet apart. "Suddenly the area between them began to glow with a soft green light which gradually formed into a luminous three-dimensional screen." In it there appeared the heads and shoulders of two persons, a man and a woman, "being the ultimate of perfection." They had large shining eyes, and despite their supernatural perfection they seemed strangely familiar to him. They observed him and the whole scene. It seemed to him that he was in telepathic communication with them. As suddenly as it had come the vision v~nished, and the fireballs reassumed their former brilliance. He heard the words, "The road will open, Orfeo," and the voice continued: 
"We see the individuals of Earth as each one really is, Orfeo, and not as perceived by the limited senses of man. The people of your planet have been under observation for centuries, but have only recently been re-surveyed. Every point of progress in your society is registered with us. We know you as you do not know yourselves. Every man, woman, and child is recorded in vital statistics by means of our recording crystal disks. Each of you is infinitely more important to us than to your fellow Earthlings because you are not aware of the true mystery of your being .... We feel a deep sense of brotherhood toward Earth's inhabitants because of an ancient kinship of our planet with Earth. In you we can look far back in time and recreate certain aspects of our former world. With deep compassion and understanding we have watched your world going through its 'growing pains.' We ask that you look upon us simply as older brothers." 
419 

CIVILIZATION IN TRANSITION 
	793 	The author was also informed that the Ufos were remote- 
controlled by a mother-ship. The occupants of Ufos needed in reality no such vessels. As "etheric" entities they needed them only in order to manifest themselves materially to man. The Ufos could travel approximately with the speed of light. "The Speed of Light is the Speed of Truth" (i.e., quick as thought). The heavenly visitors were harmless and filled with the best intentions. "Cosmic law" forbade spectacular landings on earth. The earth was at present threatened by greater dangers than was realized. 
	794 	After these revelations Angelucci felt exalted and strength- 
ened. It was "as though momentarily I had transcended mortality and was somehow related to these superior beings." When the lights disappeared, it seemed to him that the everyday world had lost its reality and become an abode of shadows. 
	795 	On July 23, 1952, he felt unwell and stayed away from work. 
In the evening he took a walk, and on the way back, in a lonely place, similar sensations came over him as he had felt on May 23. Combined with them was "the dulling of consciousness I had noted on that other occasion," i.e., the awareness of an abaissement du niveau mental) a state which is a very important precondition for the occurrence of spontaneous psychic phenomena. Suddenly he saw a luminous object on the ground before him, like an "igloo" or a "huge, misty soap bubble." This object visibly increased in solidity, and he saw something like a doorway leading into a brightly lit interior. He stepped inside, and found himself in a vaulted room, about eighteen feet in diameter. The walls were made of some "ethereal mother-ofpearl stuff." 
	796 	Facing him was a comfortable reclining chair consisting of 
the same translucent, shimmering substance. Otherwise the room was empty and silent. He sat down and had the feeling that he was suspended in air. It was as if the chair moulded itself to the shape of his body of its own accord. The door shut as if there had never been a door there at all. Then he heard a kind of humming, a rhythmical sound like a vibration, which put him into a kind of semi-dream state. The room grew dark, and music came from the walls. Then it grew light again. He found on the floor a piece of metal like a coin. When he took it in his hand, it seemed to diminish in size. He had the feeling 
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FLYING SAUCERS: A MODER~ MYTH 
that the Ufo was carrying him away. Suddenly something like a round window opened, about nine feet in diameter. Outside he saw a planet, the earth, from a distance of over a thousand miles, as a voice he recognized eXplained to him. He wept with emotion and the voice said: "Weep, Orfeo ... we weep with you for earth and her children. For all its apparent beauty earth is a purgatorial world among the planets evolving intelligent life. Hate, selfishness, and cruelty rise from many parts of it like a dark mist." Then, he says, the craft evidently moved out into cosmic space. Through the window he saw a Ufo about one thousand feet long and ninety feet thick, consisting of a transparent crystalline substance. Music poured from it, bring"ing visions of harmoniously revolving planets and galaxies. The voice informed him that every being on earth was divinely created, and "upon your world the mortal shadows of those entities are working out their salvation from the plane of darkness." All these entities were either on the good side or on the bad. "We know where you stand, Orfeo." Owing to his physical weakness he had spiritual gifts, and that was why the heavenly beings could enter into communication with him. He was given to understand that the music as well as the voice emanated from this huge spaceship. It moved off slowly, and he noticed at either end of it "vortices of flame" that serv,ed as propellers, but they were also instruments for seeing and hearing, "through some method of telepathic contact." 
	797 	On the way back they met two ordinary Ufos travelling 
earthwards. The voice entertained him with more explanations concerning the attitude of the higher beings to mankind: man had not kept pace morally and psychologically with his technological development, and therefore the inhabitants of other planets were trying to instil into the earth dwellers a better understanding of their present predicament and to help them particularly in the art of healing. They also wanted to put Orfeo right about Jesus Christ. Jesus, so they said, was called allegorically the son of God. In reality he was the "Lord of the Flame," "an infinite entity of the Sun" and not of earthly origin. "As the Sun spirit who sacrificed Himself for the children of woe he has become a part of the oversoul of mankind and the world spirit. In this he differs from all other cosmic teachers." 
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CIVILIZATION IN TRANSITION 
	798 	Everyone on earth has a "spiritual, unknown self which 
transcends the material world and consciousness and dwells eternally outside of the Time dimension in spiritual perfection within the unity of the oversou1." The sole purpose of human existence on earth is to attain reunion with the "immortal consciousness." Under the searching eye of this "great compassionate consciousness" Orfeo felt like a "crawling worm-unclean, filled with error and sin." He wept, once more to the accompaniment of appropriate music. The voice spoke and said: "Beloved friend of Earth, we baptize you now in the true light of the worlds eterna1." A white flash of lightning blazed forth: his life lay clear before his eyes, and the remembrance of all his previous existences came back to him. He understood "the mystery of life." He thought he was going to die, for he knew that at this moment he was wafted into "eternity, into a timeless sea of 
bliss." 
	799 	After this illuminative experience he came to himself again. 
Accompanied by the obligatory "etheric" music he was borne back to earth. As he left the Ufo, it suddenly vanished without trace. Afterwards, on going to bed, he noticed a burning sensation on the left side of his chest. There he found a stigma the size of a twenty-five-cent piece, an inflamed circle with a dot in the middle. He interpreted this as the "symbol of the hydrogen atom." 
	800 	His career as an evangelist dates-true to form-from this 
experience. He became a witness not only of the word but of the Ufo, and was exposed to the mockery and disbelief that are the lot of the martyr. On the night of August 2 of the same year he saw, with eight other witnesses, an ordinary Ufo in the sky, which disappeared after a short time. He betook himself to the lonely spot he had previously visited, but though he didn't find the Ufo he met a figure who called out to him, "Greetings, Orfeol" It was the same figure he had seen in the earlier vision, who wished to be called by the name of "Neptune." He was a tall handsome man with unusually large and expressive eyes. The edges of the figure rippled like water in the wind. Neptune gave him more information concerning the earth, the reasons for its lamentable conditions, and its coming redemption. Then he vanished. 
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FLYING SAUCERS: A MODERN MYTH 
	801 	At the beginning of September 1953 he fell into a somnam 
bulistic state which lasted about a week. When he returned te his normal consciousness he remembered everything he had ex perienced during his "absence." He had been on a small "planetoid" where Neptune dwelt with his companion Lyra; 01 rather, he had been in heaven as Orfeo imagined it, with count· less flowers, delightful odours, colours, nectar and ambrosia, noble etheric beings and, of course, almost incessant music. There he discovered that his heavenly friend was not called Neptune but Orion, and that "Neptune" had been his own name while he was still dwelling in this heavenly world. Lyra showed him particular marks of attention, to which he, the reremembered Neptune, in accordance with his earthly nature, responded with erotic feelings, much to the horror of the celestial company. When he had dehabituated himself, with some effort, from this all-too-human reaction a noce celeste was celebrated, a mystic union analogous to the coniunctio oppositorum in alchemy. 
	802 	With this climax I will end the account of this pelerinage de 
l' ame. Without having the faintest inkling of psychology, Angelucci has described in the greil;test detail the mystic experience associated with a Ufo vision. A detailed commentary by me is hardly necessary. The story is so naive and clear that a reader interested in psychology can see at once how far it confirms my previous conclusions. It could even be regarded as a unique document that sheds a great deal of light on the genesis and assimilation of Ufo mythology. That is why I have let Angelucci have his say. 
	803 	The psychological experience that is associated with the Ufo 
consists in the vision of the rotundum) the symbol of wholeness and the archetype that expresses itself in mandala form. Mandalas, as we know, usually appear in situations of psychic confusion and perplexity.· The archetype thereby constellated represents a pattern of order which, like a psychological "viewfinder" marked with a cross or a circle divided into four, is superimposed on the psychic chaos so that each content falls into place and the weltering confusion is held together by the protective circle. The Eastern mandalas in Mahayana Buddhism accordingly represent the cosmic, temporal, and psychological 
423 

804 
805 
806 
807 

CIVILIZATION IN TRANSITION 
order. At the same time they are yantras) instruments with whose help order is brought into being.1 
As our time is characterized by fragmentation, confusion, and perplexity, this fact is also expressed in the psychology of the individual, appearing in spontaneous fantasy images, dreams, and the products of active imagination. I have observed these phenomena in my patients for forty years and have come to the conclusion that this archetype is of central importance, or rather, that it gains in importance to the degree that the importance of the ego is lost. A state of disorientation is particularly apt to depotentiate the ego. 
Psychologically, the rotundum or mandala is a symbol of the self. The self is the archetype of order par excellence. The structure of the mandala is arithmetical, for "whole" numbers are likewise archetypes of order. This is true particularly of the number 4, the Pythagorean tetraktys. Since a state of confusion is generally the result of a psychic conflict, we find in practice that the dyad, the conjoined two, is also associated with the mandala. This appears in Angelucci's vision of the synthesis of opposites. 
Its central position gives the symbol a high feeling-value, expressed for instance in Angelucci's stigmatization. The symbols of the self coincide with the God-images, as, for instance, the complexio oppositorum of Cusanus with the dyad, or the definition of God as a "circle whose centre is everywhere and the circumference nowhere" with Angelucci's sign of the hydrogen atom. He was marked not by the Christian stigmata but by the symbol of the self, of absolute wholeness or, in religious language, God. These psychological connections gave rise to the alchemical equation between Christ and the laPis Philosophorum. 
The centre is frequently symbolized by an eye: the everopen eye of the fish in alchemy, or the unsleeping "God's eye" of conscience, or the all-seeing sun. The same symbols are experienced today, not as external light-phenomena but as a psychic revelation. I would like to mention as an example the case of a woman who wrote down her experience in verse form (it had no connection with Ufos): 
1 For the physiological foundations see K. W. Bash, H. Ahlenstiel, and R. Kauf· mann, "Ueber Prayantraformen und ein lineares Yantra." 
424 

808 
80g 

FLYING SAUCERS: A MODERN MYTH 
Vision 
Light strikes the pebbled bottom Of a deep blue pool. 
Through swaying grass 
A jewel flickers, gleams and turns, Demands attention as I pass, 
A staring fish-eye's glance 
Attracts my mind and heart- 
The fish, invisible as glass. 
A shimmering silver moon, 
The fish, assuming shape and form, Evolves a whirling, swirling dance, Intensity of light increasing, 
The disk becomes a blazing golden sun, Compelling deeper contemplation. 
The water is the depths of the unconscious into which a ray from the light of consciousness has penetrated. A dancing disk, a fish's eye, swims down below in the inner darkness (instead of flying in the heavens), and from it arises a world-illuminating sun, an Ichthys, a sol invictus) an ever-open eye which reflects the eye of the beholder and is at the same time something independent of her, a rotundum that expresses the wholeness of the self and cannot be distinguished, except conceptually, from the deity. "Fish" (Ichthys) and "sun" (novus sol) are allegories of Christ, which like the "eye" stand for God. In the moon and sun appear the divine mother and her son-lover, as can still be seen today in many churches. 
The Ufo vision follows the old rule and appears in the sky. 
Orfeo's fantasies are played out in an obviously heavenly place and his cosmic friends bear the names of stars. If they are not antique gods and heroes they are at least angels. The author certainly lives up to his name, for just as his wife, nee Borgianini, is in his opinion a descendant of the Borgias of unhappy memory, so he, an earthly copy of the "angels" and a messenger bringing Eleusinian tidings of immortality, must style himself a new Orpheus, divinely appointed to initiate us into the mystery of the Ufo. Not even the Orphean strains are lacking. If the name is a deliberately chosen pseudonym, we can 
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CIVILIZATION IN TRANSITION 
only say e ben trovato. But if it appears in his birth certificate, then the matter becomes more problematical. Today we can no longer suppose that a magical compulsion attaches to a mere name, else we should have to attribute a correspondingly sinister significance to his spouse, or the anima. Much as we would like to credit him with an intellectually rather limited, naive good faith, it might be suspected that a "fine Italian hand" is at work. What appears impossible from the conscious standpoint can often be arranged by the unconscious with all the craftiness of nature: Ce que diable ne peut) femme le fait. Be that as it may, Orfeo's book is an essentially naive production which for that very reason reveals all the more clearly the unconscious background of the Ufo phenomenon and therefore comes like a gift to the psychologist. The individuation process, the central problem of modern psychology, is plainly depicted in it in an unconscious, symbolical form which bears out our previous reflections, although the author with his somewhat primitive mentality has taken it quite literally as a concrete happening. 
'*' 
	810 	This epilogue was already in the press when I received word 
of Fred Hoyle's book, The Black Cloud (1957). The author is a well-known authority on astrophysics, and I was already acquainted with his two impressive volumes, The Nature of the Universe and Frontiers of Astronomy. They are brilliant expositions of the latest developments in astronomy and show their author as a bold and imaginative thinker. The fact that such an author should resort to a science-fiction story aroused my curiosity, and I read the book at once. Hoyle himself, in his preface, describes it as a "frolic," a jest, and warns against anyone identifying the views of his hero, a mathematician of genius, with his own. No intelligent reader will fall into this error, of course. Nevertheless, he will hold Professor Hoyle responsible for the authorship of his book, and he will ask what it was that induced him to tackle the Ufo problem. 
	8u 	In his "yarn" Hoyle describes how a young astronomer at 
the Mount Palomar observatory, while looking for supernovae to the south of Orion, discovers a dark circular patch in a dense field of stars. It is a so-called globulus, a dark cloud of gas, which, it transpires, is moving towards our solar system. At the same time, in England, considerable disturbances are detected 
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FLYING SAUCERS: A MODERN MYTH 
in the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. The cause of this is calculated by a Cambridge mathematician, the hero of our story, to be a definite mass which, it then turns out, is located exactly at the spot where the Americans discovered the black cloud. This globulus, whose diameter is approximately equal to the distance of the sun from the earth, consists of hydrogen of fairly high density and is moving straight towards the earth at forty miles a second. It will reach the earth in about eighteen months. As the black cloud gets nearer, it causes first of all a terrible heat that kills off a large part of the life on earth. This is followed by a total extinction of light and a more than Egyptian darkness lasting for about a month-a nigredo like that described in the Aurora consurgens) a treatise ascribed to St. Thomas Aquinas: "Beholding from afar I saw a great cloud looming black over all the earth, which had absorbed the earth and covered my soul." 2 
	812 	When the light reappears again, there follows a period of 
terrible cold, which causes another appalling catastrophe. Meanwhile, the scientists in question have been shut up by the British government in their experimental location, where, thanks to the security measures they have taken, they survive the catastrophes. By observing certain remarkable ionization phenomena in the atmosphere they come to the conclusion that these are intentionally induced, and that in consequence there must be an intelligent agent in the black cloud. By means of radio they succeed in entering into communication with it, and receive answers. They learn that the cloud is five hundred million years old and is at present engaged in regenerating itself. It has taken up its position near the sun in order to recharge itself with energy. In fact, it is feeding on the sun. The scientists discover that the cloud must eliminate all radioactive substances, as these are harmful to it. This fact is also discovered by the American observers, and. at their instigation the cloud is fired at with H-bombs, with the intention of "killing" it. The cloud, meanwhile, has settled in a disk round the sun, consequently threatening the earth every six months with eclipses of several weeks' duration. The English naturally have a host of questions to ask the cloud, including the "metaphysical" question concern- 
2 Von Franz, ed., Aurora Con$urgens, Ch. 6 and commentary. 
427 

CIVILIZATION IN TRANSITION 
ing a greater Being of still greater age, and even deeper wisdom and scientific knowledge. The cloud replies that it has already discussed the matter with other globuli but is as much in the dark about it as human beings. It is willing, however, to communicate its own greater knowledge directly to mankind. A young physicist declares himself ready to submit to the experiment. He gets into a hypnotic condition, but dies of a sort of inflammation of the brain before being able to make any communication. The Cambridge mathematician of genius now offers himself for experiment, on the condition, accepted by the cloud, that the process of communication shall take place very much more slowly. In spite of that he falls into a delirium which ends in his death. The cloud, however, has decided to quit the solar system and seek out another region of fixed stars. The sun emerges again from obscurity and everything is as before, except for the tremendous destruction of earthly life. 
	813 	It is not difficult to see that the author has here taken up the 
Ufo problem so characteristic of our epoch: from outer space a round object approaches the earth and causes a world-wide catastrophe. Although the legend usually considers the catastrophic political situation, or rather nuclear fission, to be the indirect cause of the Ufo phenomenon, there are not a few people who suspect that the real danger lies in the appearance of Ufos themselves-namely an invasion of the earth by stardwellers, which might give an unexpected and probably undesirable turn to our already questionable situation. The strange idea that the black cloud possesses a sort of nervous system, and a psyche or intelligence to match, is not an original invention of the author's, since speculative ufologists have already arrived at the hypothesis of a "sentient electrical field," and also at the idea that the Ufos are provisioning themselves with something on earth-water, oxygen, small organisms, etc., just as the cloud charged itself with solar energy. 
	814 	The cloud causes opposite extremes of temperature and an 
absolute nigredo such as the old alchemists dreamed of. This illustrates a characteristic aspect of the psychological problem which arises when the light of day-consciousness-is directly confronted with night, the collective unconscious. Opposites of extreme intensity collide with one another, causing a disorientation and darkening of consciousness which can assume threaten- 
428 

FLYING SAUCERS: A MODERN MYTH 
- 
ing proportions, as in the initial stage of a psychosis. This aspect, 
i.e., the analogy with a psychic catastrophe, is depicted by Hoyle as the encounter between the psychic content of the cloud and the consciousness of the two unfortunate victims. Just as earthly life is largely wiped out by the collision with the cloud, so the psyche and the life of the two scientists are destroyed by the collision with the unconscious. For although the rotundum is a totality symbol, it usually encounters a consciousness that is not prepared for it and does not understand it, indeed is bound to misunderstand it and therefore cannot tolerate it, because it perceives the totality only in projected form, outside itself, and cannot integrate it as a subjective phenomenon. Consciousness commits the same gTave mistake as the insane person: it understands the event as a concrete external happening and not as a subjective symbolical process. The result is that the external world gets into hopeless disorder and is actually "destroyed" in so far as the patient loses his relationship to it. The author suggests the analogy with psychosis by the delirious state of the professor. It is not only the insane person who makes this fundamental mistake, but all those who take philosophical or theosophica~ speculations for objective realities and consider the mere fact that they believe in angels as a guarantee that such things exist in reality. 
	815 	It is significant that it is the actual hero of the story, the 
mathematician of genius, who meets with disaster. No author can avoid equipping his hero with some of his own qualities and thus betraying that at least a part of himself is invested in him. What happens to the hero also happens symbolically to the author. In this case it is naturally unpleasant, for it amounts to nothing less than the fear that a collision with the unconscious would involve the destruction of the most differentiated function. It is a widespread, in fact a normal prejudice that deeper insight into unconscious motives must necessarily entail a fatal disturbance of the conscious performance. The most that can happen is an alteration of the conscious attitude. Since, in our story, everything is projected outside, mankind and all organic life on earth suffer an immense loss. The author makes no particular to-do about this; it is mentioned only as a sort of byproduct. From this we may infer a predominantly intellectual attitude of consciousness. 
429 

821 
CIVILIZATION IN TRANSITION 
	816 	Presumably not altogether unimpressed by a hundred or 
more H-bombs, which might well upset its nervous system with their radioactivity, the black cloud withdraws as suddenly as it came. Nothing whatever has been learned of its contents, except that it knows as little about a metaphysical Supreme Being as we do. Nevertheless its intelligence proves unendurably high for human beings, so that it comes suspiciously near to having a divine or angel-like nature. Here the great astrophysicist joins hands with the naIve Angelucci. 
	817 	Understood psychologically, the story is a description of 
fantasy-contents whose symbolical nature demonstrates their origin in the unconscious. Whenever a confrontation of this kind occurs, there is usually an attempt at integration. This is expressed in the intention of the cloud to remain for some time near the sun, in order to feed on its energy. Psychologically it would mean that the unconscious draws strength and life from its union with the sun. The sun loses no energy, but the earth and its life, signifying man, lose a great deal. Man has to pay the price for this invasion or irruption of the unconscious: his psychic life is threatened with the gravest injury. 
	818 	What, then-psychologically speaking-is the meaning of this 
cosmic, or rather psychic, collision? Obviously the unconscious darkens the conscious, since no rapprochement) no dialectical process takes place between their contents. For the individual this means that the cloud deprives him of solar energy, in other words his consciousness is overpowered by the unconscious. This is equivalent to a general catastrophe, such as we have experienced in National Socialism and are still experiencing in the Communist inundation, where an archaic social order threatens our freedom with tyranny and slavery. Man replies to this catastrophe with his "best" weapon. Whether for this reason or from a change of mind (as seems more likely), the cloud withdraws to other regions. This means, psychologically: the unconscious, after gaining a certain amount of energy, sinks back again to its former distance. The final outcome is depressing: human consciousness and life in general suffer an incalculable loss through an incomprehensible lusus naturae that lacks all human meaning, a "frolic" on a cosmic scale. 
	819 	This in turn points to something psychic that is not under- 
stood by the present. Though the nightmare is over for the sur- 
430 

FLYING SAUCERS: A MODERN MYTH 
vivors, from now on they live in a devastated world. Consciousness has suffered a loss of its own reality, as though the evil dream had robbed it of something essential and made off with it, The loss consists in missing a unique opportunity, which niay never occur again, to come to terms with the contents of the unconscious. Although it was possible to establish an intelligent connection with the cloud, the communication of its contents proved to be unendurable and led to the death of those who submitted to the experiment. Nothing is learnt of the contents from the other side. The encounter with the unconscious ends bootlessly. Our knowledge is not enriched; on this point we remain where we were before the catastrophe. The only thing is that we are at least half a world poorer. The scientific pioneers, the spokesmen of the avant-garde) prove too weak or too immature to receive the message from the unconscious. It remains to be seen whether this melancholy outcome is a prophecy or a subjective confession. 
	820 	If we compare this tale with the naIvetes of Angelucci, we 
get a valuable picture of the difference between the uneducated and the scientifically educated attitude. Both shift the problem on to a concrete plane, the one in order to make us believe in a saving action from heaven, the other in order to transform this secret yet somewhat sinister expectation into an entertaining literary joke. Both, poles apart though they are, are activated by the same unconscious factor and make use of essentially the same symbolism in order to express the unconscious straits we are in. 
SupPlement 
Another recent book, a novel by John Wyndham called The Midwich Cuckoos (1957), attributes to a "thing," which is obviOusly a Ufo, a highly significant character. Of unknown but presumably extra-terrestrial origin, this thing casts a spell on a small, remote English village, causing man and beast to fall into an hypnotic sleep which lasts for twenty-four hours. The zone of sleep describes a circle round the village, and any living being that approaches instantly falls asleep when the magical line is crossed. After twenty-four hours everybody revives, and nothing seems to have happened-on the surface. 
	822 	Several weeks later peculiar discoveries are made: first one 
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CIVILIZATION IN TRANSITION 
and then another of the female population, and finally all its members capable of fecundation, are found to be pregnant. In due course children are born with golden eyes. When they develop, they begin to show signs of uncommon intelligence. Later it becomes known that the same miracle has befallen a village in Siberia, an Eskimo settlement, and an African village. In England, owing to the remoteness and insignificance of the locality, the village authorities succeed in hushing up a public scandal. The extraordinary intelligence of the children inevitably leads to trouble and a special school is founded for them. The amazing fact is discovered that, if one of the boys has learnt something new and hitherto unknown, all the boys know it, and the same is true of the girls, so that only one boy and one girl have to attend school. Finally the perspicacious schoolteacher can no longer doubt that the children with golden eyes represent a superior type of Homo saPiens. Their advanced intelligence is, moreover, coupled with a complete realization of their potential power for world domination. The question of how to deal with this menace leads to different solutions. The Africans kill the children immediately. The Eskimos expose them to the cold. The Russians, after isolating the village, destroy it by bombardment. But in England the favourite teacher introduces some boxes, apparently containing laboratory equipment but actually containing dynamite, into the schoolroom and blows himself up with all the children. 
	823 	The peculiar parthenogenesis and the golden eyes denote 
kinship with the sun and characterize the children as divine progeny. Their fathers seem to have been angels of the annunciation who had come down from a "supracelestial place" to take care of the stupidity and backwardness of Homo saPiens. It is a divine intervention that gives evolution a definite push forward. Or, to put it in more modern terms, an advanced species of man from some other planet visits the earth in order to make biological experiments with mutation and artificial insemination. But the modern Neanderthal is in no way ready to renounce the prerogatives of the ruling race, and prefers to maintain the status quo by the devastating methods which have always been his final argument. 
	824 	It is obvious that the sun children, miraculously begotten, 
represent an unexpected capacity for a wider and higher con- 
432 

FLYING SAUCERS: A MODERN MYTH 
sciousness, superseding a backward and inferior mental state. Nothing is said, however, about a higher level of feeling and morality, which would be necessary to compensate and regulate the possibilities of advanced perception and intellect. Characteristically enough, this aspect does not seem to enter the author's field of vision. It is sufficient for him that the children have a definite advantage of some kind over contemporary man. What if the children should symbolize the germ of some higher potentiality transcending the hitherto valid form of man? In that case the story looks very like a time-honoured repetition of the hero's threatened childhood and his early death through treachery. On the other hand there is something definitely suspect about these children: they are not separated individually but live in a permanent state of particiPation mystique) or unconscious identity, that precludes individual differentiation and development. Had they been spared an early extinction, they would have founded an entirely uniform society, the deadly boredom of which would have been the very ideal of a Marxist state. Thus the negative end of the story remains a matter for doubt. 
433 

VI 
A PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW OF CONSCIENCE 
GOOD AND EVIL IN ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
INTRODUCTION TO WOLFF'S "STUDI~S IN JUNGIAN PSYCHOLOGY" 

825 
826 

A PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW OF CONSCIENCE 1 
The etymology of the word "conscience" tells us that it is a special form of "knowledge" or "consciousness." 2 The peculiarity of "conscience" is that it is a knowledge of, or certainty about, the emotional value of the ideas we have concerning the motives of our actions. According to this definition, conscience is a complex phenomenon consisting on the one hand in an elementary act of the will, or in an impulse to act for which no conscious reason can be given, and on the other hand in a judgment grounded on rational feeling. This judgment is a value judgment, and it differs from an intellectual judgment in that, besides having an objective, general, and impartial character, it reveals the subjective point of reference. A value judgment always implicates the subject, presupposing that something is good or beautiful for me. If, on the other hand, I say that it is good or beautiful for certain other people, this is not necessarily a value judgment but may just as well be an intellectual statement of fact. Conscience, therefore, is made up of two layers, the lower one comprising a particular psychic event, while the upper one is a kind of superstructure representing the positive or negative judgment of the subject. 
As we might expect from the complexity of the phenomenon, its empirical phenomenology covers a very wide field. Conscience may appear as an act of conscious reflection which anticipates, accompanies, or follows certain psychic events, or as a mere emotional concomitant of them, in which case its moral character is not immediately evident. Thus, an apparently 
1 [Originally published as "Da3 Gewissen in psychologischer Sicht," in a symposium, Das Gewissen (Studien aus dem C. G. Jung-Institut, VII; Zurich, 1958). -EDITORS.] 
2 [In the original, resp., Gewissen, Wissen, and Bewusstsein. Cf. L. conscientia, scientia (from scire, 'to know'), conscius.-EDlToRS.] 
437 

CIVILIZATION IN TRANSITION 
groundless anxiety state may follow a certain action, without the subject being conscious of the least connection between them. Often the moral judgment is displaced into a dream which the subject does not understand. For example, a business man I knew was made what looked like a perfectly serious and honourable offer which, it turned out much later, would have involved him in a disastrous fraud had he accepted it. The following night after he received this offer, which as I say seemed to him quite acceptable, he dreamt that his hands and forearms were covered with black dirt. He could see no connection with the events of the previous day, because he was unable to admit to himself that the offer had touched him on the vulnerable spot: his expectation of a good business deal. I warned him about this, and he was careful enough to take certain precautions which did in fact save him from more serious harm. Had he examined the situation right at the beginning he would undoubtedly have had a bad conscience, for he would have understood that it was a "dirty business" which his morality would not have allowed him to touch. He would, as we say, have made his hands dirty. The dream represented this locution in pictorial 
form. 
	827 	In this instance the classical characteristic of conscience, the 
conscientia peccati ("consciousness of sin"), is missing. Accordingly the specific feeling-tone of a bad conscience is missing too. Instead, the symbolical image of black hands appeared in a dream, calling his attention to some dirty work. In order to become conscious of his moral reaction, i.e., to feel his conscience, he had to tell the dream to me. This was an act of conscience on his part, in so far as dreams always made him feel rather uncertain. He had got this feeling of uncertainty in the course of an analysis, which showed him that dreams often contribute a great deal to self-knowledge. Without this experience he would probably have overlooked the dream. 
	828 	From this we learn one important fact: the moral evaluation 
of an action, which expresses itself in the specific feeling-tone of the accompanying ideas, is not always dependent on consciousness but may function without it. Freud put forward the hypothesis that in these cases there is a repression exerted by a psychic factor, the so-called superego. But if the conscious mind is to accomplish the voluntary act of repression, we must presuppose 
438 

A PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW OF CONSCIENCE 
that there is some recognition of the moral obnoxiousness of the content to be repressed, for without this motive the corresponding impulse of the will cannot be released. But it was just this knowledge which the business man lacked, to such an extent that he not only felt no moral reaction but put only a limited trust in my warning. The reason for this was that he in no way recognized the dubious nature of the offer and therefore lacked any motive for repression. Hence the hypothesis of conscious repression cannot apply in this case. 
	829 	What happened was in reality an unconscious act which ac- 
complished itself as though it were conscious and intentionalas though, in other words, it were an act of conscience. It is as if the subject recognized the immorality of the offer and this recognition had released the appropriate emotional reaction. But the entire process took place subliminally, and the only trace it left behind was the dream, which, as a moral reaction, remained unconscious. "Conscience," in the sense in which we defined it above, as a "knowledge" of the ego, a conscientiaJ simply does not exist in this case. If conscience is a kind of knowledge, then it is not the empirical subject who is the knower, but rather an unconscious personality who, to all appearances, behaves like a conscious subject. It knows the dubious nature of the offer, it recognizes the acquisitive greed of the ego, which does not shrink even from illegality, and it causes the appropriate judgment to be pronounced. This means that the ego has been replaced by an unconscious personality who performs the necessary act of conscience. 
	830 	It was these and similar experiences which led Freud to 
endow the superego with special significance. The Freudian superego is not, however, a natural and inherited part of the psyche's structure; it is rather the consciously acquired stock of traditional customs, the "moral code" as incorporated, for instance, in the Ten Commandments. The superego is a patriarchal legacy which, as such, is a conscious acquisition and an equally conscious possession. If it appears to be an almost unconscious factor in Freud's writings, this is due to his practical experience, which taught him that, in a surprising number of cases, the act of conscience takes place unconsciously, as in our example. Freud and his school rejected the hypothesis of inherited, instinctive modes of behaviour, termed by us arche- 
439 

833 
832 
CIVILIZATION IN TRANSITION 
types, as mystical and unscientific, and accordingly explained unconscious acts of conscience as repressions caused by the superego. 
	831 	The concept of the superego contains nothing that, in itself, 
would not be recognized as belonging to the common stock of thought. To that extent it is identical with what we call the "moral code." The only peculiar thing about it is that one or the other aspect of the moral tradition proves unconscious in the individual case. We should also mention that Freud admitted the existence of "archaic vestiges" in the superego-of acts of conscience, therefore, which are influenced by archaic motifs. But since Freud disputed the existence of archetypes, that is, of genuine archaic modes of behaviour, we can only assume that by "archaic vestiges" he meant certain conscious traditions which may be unconscious in certain individuals. In no circumstances can it be a question of inborn types, for otherwise they would be, on his own hypothesis, inherited ideas. But that is just what he does mean, though so far as I know there are no proofs of their existence. There are, however, proofs in abundance for the hypothesis of inherited, instinctive modes of behaviour, namely the archetypes. It is therefore probable that the "archaic vestiges" in the superego are a concession to the archetypes theory and imply a fundamental doubt as to the absolute dependence of unconscious contents on consciousness. There are indeed good grounds for doubting this dependence: first, the unconscious is, ontogenetically and phylogenetically, older than consciousness, and secondly, it is a well-known fact that it can hardly be influenced, if at all, by the conscious will. It can only be repressed or suppressed, and only temporarily at that. As a rule its account has to be settled sooner or later. Were that not so, psychotherapy would be no problem. If the unconscious were dependent on consciousness, we could, by insight and application of the will, finally get the better of the unconscious, and the psyche could be completely remodelled to suit our purpose. Only unworldly idealists, rationalists, and other fanatics can indulge in such dreams. The psyche is a phenomenon not subject to our will; it is nature, and though nature can, by skill, knowledge, and patience, be modified at a few points, i.t can~ot be changed into something artificial without profound 
44° 

A PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW OF CONSCIENCE 
injury to our humanity. Man can be transformed into a sick animal but not moulded into an intellectual ideal. 
Although people still labour under the delusion that con- 
sciousness represents the whole of the psychic man, it is nevertheless only a part, of whose relation to the whole we know very little. Since the unconscious component really is unconscious, no boundaries can be assigned to it: we cannot say where the psyche begins or ends. We know that consciousness and its contents are the modifiable part of the psyche, but the more deeply we seek to penetrate, at least indirectly, into the realm of the unconscious, the more the impression forces itself on us that we are dealing with something autonomous. We must admit that our best results, whether in education or treatment, occur when the unconscious co-operates, that is to say when the goal we are aiming at coincides with the unconscious trend of development, and that, conversely, our best methods and intentions fail when nature does not come to our aid. Without at least some degree of autonomy the common experience of the complementary or compensatory function of the unconscious would not be possible. If the unconscious were really dependent on the conscious, it could not c~mtain more than, and other things than, con- 
sciousness contains. 
Our dream-example and many other cases of the kind sug- 
gest that, since the subliminal moral judgment accords with the moral code, the dream has behaved in the same way as a consciousness backed by traditional moral law, and that, consequently, ordinary morality is a basic law of the unconscious or at any rate influences it. This conclusion stands in flagrant contradiction to the common experience of the autonomy of the unconscious. Although morality as such is a universal attribute of the human psyche, the same cannot be maintained of a given moral code. It cannot, therefore, be an integral part of the psyche's structure. Nevertheless, the fact remains-as our example shows-that the act of conscience operates, in principle, in exactly the same way in the unconscious as in the conscious, follows the same moral precepts, and therefore evokes the impression that the moral code also controls the unconscious process. 
	834 	This impression is deceptive, because in practice there are 
just as many, and perhaps even more, examples where the 
441 

835 

CIVILIZA TlON IN TRANSITION 
subliminal reaction does not conform at all to the moral code. Thus I was once consulted by a very distinguished lady-distinguished not only for her irreproachable conduct but also for her intensely "spiritual" attitude-on account of her "revolting" dreams. Her dreams did indeed deserve this epithet. She produced a whole series of extremely unsavoury dream-images all about drunken prostitutes, venereal diseases, and a lot more besides. She was horrified by these obscenities and could not understand why she, who had always striven for the highest, should be haunted by these apparitions from the abyss. She might just as well have asked why the saints are exposed to the vilest temptations. Here the moral code plays the contrary roleif it plays any role at all. Far from uttering moral exhortations, the unconscious delights in spawning every conceivable immorality, as though it had what was morally repulsive exclusively in mind. Experiences of this sort are so common and so regular that even St. Paul could confess: "For the good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do" (Rom. 
7 : 19)· 
In view of the fact that dreams lead astray as much as they 
exhort, it seems doubtful whether what appears to be a judgment of conscience should be evaluated as such-in other words, whether we should attribute to the unconscious a function which appears moral to us. Obviously we can understand dreams. in a moral sense without at the same time assuming that the unconscious, too, connects them with any moral tendency. It seems, rather, that it pronounces moral judgments with the same objectivity with which it produces immoral fantasies. This paradox, or inner contradictoriness of conscience, has long been known to investigators of this question: besides the "right" kind of conscience there is a "wrong" one, which exaggerates, perverts, and twists evil into good and good into evil just as our own scruples do; and it does so with the same compulsiveness and with the same emotional consequences as the "right" kind of conscience. Were it not for this paradox the question of conscience would present no problem; we could then rely wholly on its decisions so far as morality is concerned. But since there is great and justified uncertainty in this regard, it needs unusual courage or-what amounts to the same thing-unshakable faith for a person simply to follow the dictates of his own conscience. 
442 

A PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW OF CONSCIENCE 
As a rule one obeys only up to a certain point, which is determined in advance by the moral code. This is where those dreaded conflicts of duty begin. Generally they are answered according to the precepts of the moral code, but only in a very few cases are they really decided by an individual act of judgment. For as soon as the moral code ceases to act as a support, conscience easily succumbs to a fit of weakness. 
	836 	In practice it is indeed very difficult to distinguish conscience 
from the traditional moral precepts. For this reason it is often thought that conscience is nothing more than the suggestive effect of these precepts, and that it would not exist if no moral laws had been invented. But the phenomenon we call "conscience" is found at every level of human culture. Whether an Eskimo has a bad conscience about skinning an animal with an iron knife instead of the traditional flint one, or about leaving a friend in the lurch whom he ought to help, in both cases he feels an inner reproach, a "twinge of conscience," and in both cases the deviation from an inveterate habit or generally accepted rule produces something like a shock. For the primitive psyche anything unusual or not customary causes an emotional reaction, and t~e more it runs counter to the "collective representations" which almost invariably govern the prescribed mode of behaviour, the more violent the reaction will be. It is a peculiarity of the primitive mind to endow everything with mythical derivations that are meant to explain it. Thus everything that we would call pure chance is understood to be intentional and is regarded as a magical influence. Such explanations are in no sense "inventions"; they are spontaneous fantasyproducts which appear without premeditation in a natural and quite involuntary way; unconscious, archetypal reactions such as are peculiar to the human psyche. Nothing could be more mistaken than to assume that a myth is something "thought up." It comes into existence of its own accord, as can be observed in all authentic products of fantasy, and particularly in dreams. It is the hybris of consciousness to pretend that everything derives from its primacy, despite the fact that consciousness itself demonstrably comes from an older unconscious psyche. The unity and continuity of consciousness are such late acquisitions 
8 that there is still a fear that they might get lost again. 
	37 	So, too, our moral reactions exemplify the original behaviour 
443 

CIVILIZATION IN TRANSITION 
of the psyche, while moral laws are a late concomitant of moral behaviour, congealed into precepts. In consequence, they appear to be identical with the moral reaction, that is, with conscience. This delusion becomes obvious the moment a conflict of duty makes clear the difference between conscience and the moral code. It will then be decided which is the stronger: tradition and conventional morality, or conscience. Am I to tell the truth and thereby involve a fellow human being in catastrophe, or should I tell a lie in order to save a human life? In such dilemmas we are certainly not obeying our conscience if we stick obstinately and in all circumstances to the commandment: 
Thou shalt not lie. We have merely observed the moral code. But if we obey the judgment of conscience, we stand alone and have hearkened to a subjective voice, not knowing what the motives are on which it rests. No one can guarantee that he has only noble motives. We know-some of us-far too much about ourselves to pretend that we are one hundred per cent good and not egotists to the marrow. Always behind what we imagine are our best deeds stands the devil, patting us paternally on the shoulder and whispering, "Well done!" 
	838 	Where does the true and authentic conscience, which rises 
above the moral code and refuses to submit to its dictates, get its justification from? What gives it the courage to assume that it is not a false conscience, a self-deception? 
	839 	John says: "Try the spirits whether they are of God" (I John 
4 : 1), an admonition we could profitably apply to ourselves. Since olden times conscience has been understood by many people less as a psychic function than as a divine intervention; indeed, its dictates were regarded as vox Dei) the voice of God. This view shows what value and significance were, and still are, attached to the phenomenon of conscience. The psychologist cannot disregard such an evaluation, for it too is a well-authenticated phenomenon that must be taken into account if we want to treat the idea of conscience psychologically. The question of "truth," which is usually raised here in a quite non-objective way, as to whether it has been proved that God himself speaks to us with the voice of conscience, has nothing to do with the psychological problem. The vox Dei is an assertion and an opinion, like the assertion that there is such a thing as conscience at all. All psychological facts which cannot be verified with the 
444 

A PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW OF CONSCIENCE 
- 
help of scientific apparatus and exact methods of measurement 
are assertions and opinions, and, as such, are psychic realities. It is a psychological truth that the opinion exists that the voice of conscience is the voice of God. 
	840 	Since, then, the phenomenon of conscience in itself does 
not coincide with the moral code, but is anterior to it, transcends its contents and, as already mentioned, can also be "false," the view of conscience as the voice of God becomes an extremely delicate problem. In practice it is very difficult to indicate the exact point at which the "right" conscience stops and the "false" one begins, and what the criterion is that divides one from the other. Presumably it is the moral code again, which makes it its business to know exactly what is good and what is evil. But if the voice of conscience is the voice of God, this voice must possess an incomparably higher authority than traditional morality. Anyone, therefore, who allows conscience this status should, for better or worse, put his trust in divine guidance and follow his conscience rather than give heed to conventional morality. If the believer had absolute confidence in his definition of God as the Summum Bonum, it would be easy for him to obey the inner voice, for he could be sure of never being led astray. But since, in the Lord's Prayer, we still beseech God not to lead us into temptation, this undermines the very trust the believer should have if, in the darkness of a conflict of duty, he is to obey the voice of conscience without regard to the "world" and, very possibly, act against the precepts of the moral code by "obeying God rather than men" (Acts 5 : 29). 
	Rp 	Conscience-no matter on what it is based-commands the 
individual to obey his inner voice even at the risk of going astray. We can refuse to obey this command by an appeal to the moral code and the moral views on which it is founded, though with an uncomfortable feeling of having been disloyal. One may think what one likes about an ethos, yet an ethos is and remains an inner value, injury to which is no joke and can sometimes have very serious psychic consequences. These, admittedly, are known to relatively few people, for there are only a few who take objective account of psychic causality. The psyche is one of those things which people know least about, because no one likes to inquire into his own shadow. Even psychology is misused for the purpose of concealing the true causal 
445 

CIVILIZATION IN TRANSITION 
connections from oneself. The more "scientific" it pretends to be, the more welcome is its so-called objectivity, because this is an excellent way of getting rid of the inconvenient emotional components of conscience, notwithstanding that these are the real dynamics of the moral reaction. Without its emotional dynamism the phenomenon of conscience loses all meaning-which is, of course, the unconscious goal of the so-called "scientific" approach. 
	842 	Conscience is, in itself, an autonomous psychic factor. All 
statements which do not directly deny it are agreed on this point. The clearest in this regard is the vox Dei concept. Here conscience is the voice of God, which often cuts sharply across our subjective intentions and may sometimes force an extremely disagreeable decision. If Freud himself attributed an almost daemonic power to the superego, although by definition it is not even a genuine conscience but merely human convention and tradition, this is in no sense an exaggeration: he was simply confirming the regular experience of the practising psychologist. Conscience is a demand that asserts itself in spite of the subject, or at any rate causes him considerable difficulties. This is not to deny that there are cases of lack of conscience. But the idea that conscience as such is only something learnt can be maintained only by those who imagine they were present on those prehistoric occasions when the first moral reactions came into existence. Conscience is far from being the only instance of an inner factor autonomously opposing the will of the subject. Every complex does that, and no one in his right senses would declare that it was "learnt" and that nobody would have a complex if it had not been hammered into him. Even domestic animals, to whom we erroneously deny a conscience, have complexes and moral reactions. 
	843 	Primitive man regards the autonomy of the psyche as demon- 
ism and magic. This, we consider, is only what one would expect in primitive society. On closer inspection one finds, however, that the civilized man of antiquity, such as Socrates, still had his daemon and that there was a widespread and natural belief in superhuman beings who, we would suppose today, were personifications of projected unconscious contents. This belief has not, in principle, disappeared, but still persists in numerouS variants. For instance, in the assumption that conscience is the 
446 

A PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW OF CONSCIENCE 
- 
voice of God, or that it is a very important psychic factor (and 
one which manifests itself according to temperament, seeing that it usually accompanies the most differentiated function, as in the case of a "thinking" or a "feeling" morality). Again, where conscience seems to play no role, it appears indirectly in the form of compulsions or obsessions. These manifestations all go to show that the moral reaction is the outcome of an autonomous dynamism, fittingly called man's daemon, genius, guardian angel, better self, heart, inner voice, the inner and higher man, and so forth. Close beside these, beside the positive, "right" conscience, there stands the negative, "false" conscience called the devil, seducer, tempter, evil spirit, etc. Everyone who examines his conscience is confronted with this fact, and he must admit that the good exceeds the bad only by a very little, if at all. It is therefore quite in order for St. Paul to admit to having his "messenger of Satan" (II Corinthians 12 : 7). We ought to avoid sin and occasionally we can; but, as experience shows, we fall into sin again at the very next step. Only unconscious and wholly uncritical people can imagine it possible to abide in a permanent state of moral goodness. But because most people are devoid of self-criticism, permanent self-deception is the rule. A more developed consciousness brings the latent moral conflict to light, or else sharpens those opposites which are already conscious. Reason enough to eschew self-knowledge and psychology altogether and to treat the psyche with contempt! 
	844 	There is scarcely any other psychic phenomenon that shows 
the polarity of the psyche in a clearer light than conscience. Its undoubted dynamism, in order to be understood at all, can only be explained in terms of energy, that is, as a potential based on opposites. Conscience brings these ever-present and necessary opposites to conscious perception. It would be a great mistake to SUppose that one could ever get rid of this polarity, for it is an essential element in the psychic structure. Even if the moral reaction could be eliminated by training, the opposites would simply use a mode of expression other than the moral one. They would still continue to exist. But if the vox Dei conception of conscience is correct, we are faced logically with a metaphysi~al dilemma: either there is a dualism, and God's omnipotence IS halved, or the opposites are contained in the monotheistic God-image, as for instance in the Old Testament image of 
447 

CIVILIZA nON IN TRANSITION 
Yahweh, which shows us morally contradictory opposites existing side by side. This figure corresponds to a unitary image of the psyche dynamically based on opposites, like Plato's charioteer driving the white and the black horses. Alternatively, we must admit with Faust: "Two souls, alas, are housed within my breast," which no human charioteer can master, as the fate of Faust clearly indicates. 
	845 	The psychologist can criticize metaphysics as a human asser- 
tion, but he is not in a position to make such assertions himself. He can only establish that these assertions exist as a kind of exclamation, well knowing that neither one nor the other can be proved right and objectively valid, although he must acknowledge the legitimacy of subjective assertions as such. Assertions of this kind are manifestations of the psyche which belong to our human nature, and there is no psychic wholeness without them, even though one can grant them no more than subjective validity. Thus the vox Dei hypothesis is another subjective exclamation, whose purpose it is to underline the numinous character of the moral reaction. Conscience is a manifestation of mana) of the "extraordinarily powerful," a quality which is the especial peculiarity of archetypal ideas. For, in so far as the moral reaction is only apparently identical with the suggestive effect of the moral code, it falls within the sphere of the collective unconscious, exemplifying an archetypal pattern of behaviour reaching down into the animal psyche. Experience shows that the archetype, as a natural phenomenon, has a morally ambivalent character, or rather, it possesses no moral quality in itself but is amoral, like the Yahwistic God-image, and acquires moral qualities only through the act of cognition. Thus Yahweh is both just and unjust, kindly and cruel, truthful and deceitful. This is eminently true of the archetype as well. That is why the primitive form of conscience is paradoxical: to burn a heretic is on the one hand a pious and meritorious aetas John Hus himself ironically recognized when, bound to the stake, he espied an old woman hobbling towards him with a bundle of faggots, and exclaimed, "0 sancta simplicitasl"-and on the other hand a brutal manifestation of ruthless and savage lust for revenge. 
	846 	Both forms of conscience, the right and the false, stem from 
the same source, and both therefore have approximately the 
448 

A PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW OF CONSCIENCE 
---- 
same power of conviction. This is also apparent in the symbolic 
designation of Christ as Lucifer ("bringer of light"), lion, raven (or nycticorax: night-heron), serpent, son of God, etc., all of which he shares with Satan; in the idea that the good father-god of Christianity is so vindictive that it takes the cruel sacrifice of his son to reconcile him to humanity; in the belief that the Summum Bonum has a tendency to lead such an inferior and helpless creature as man into temptation, only to consign him to eternal damnation if he is not astute enough to spot the divine trap. Faced with these insufferable paradoxes, which are an affront to our religious feelings, I would suggest reducing the notion of the vox Dei to the hypothesis of the archetype, for this at least is understandable and accessible to investigation. The archetype is a pattern of behaviour that has always existed, that is morally indifferent as a biological phenomenon, but possesses a powerful dynamism by means of which it can profoundly influence human behaviour. 
	847 	The concept of the archetype has been misunderstood so 
often that one can hardly mention it without having to explain it anew each time. It is derived from the repeated observation that, for instance, the myths and fairytales of world literature contain definite motifs which crop up everywhere. We meet these same motifs in the fantasies, dreams, deliriums, and delusions of individuals living today. These typical images and associations are what I call archetypal ideas. The more vivid they are, the more they will be coloured by particularly strong feeling-tones. This. accentuation gives them a special dynamism in our psychic life. They impress, influence, and fascinate us. They have their origin in the archetype, which in itself is an irrepresentable, unconscious, pre-existent form that seems to be part of the inherited structure of the psyche and can therefore manifest itself spontaneously anywhere, at any time. Because of its instinctual nature, the archetype underlies the feeling-toned complexes and shares their autonomy. It is also the psychic precondition of religious assertions and is responsible for the anthropomorphism of all God-images. This fact, however, affords no ground for any metaphysical judgment, whether positive or negative. 
	848 	With this view we remain within the framework of what can 
he experienced and known. The vox Dei hypothesis is then no 449