The Red Book by C. G. Jung

Author:C. G. Jung
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2013-10-02T16:00:00+00:00

Hell

Cap. xii

[HI 73] On the second night142 after the creation of my God, a vision made known to me that I had reached the underworld.

I find myself in a gloomy vault, whose floor consists of damp stone slabs. In the middle there is a column from which ropes and axes hang. At the foot of the column there lies an awful serpentlike tangle of human bodies. At first I catch sight of the figure of a young maiden with wonderful red-gold hair—a man of devilish appearance is lying half under her—his head is bent backward—a thin streak of blood runs down his forehead—two similar daimons have thrown themselves over the maiden’s feet and body. Their faces bear an inhuman expression—the living evil—their muscles are taut and hard, and their bodies sleek like serpents. They lie motionless. The maiden holds her hand over one eye of the man lying beneath her, who is the most powerful of the three—her hand firmly clasps a small silver fishing rod that she has driven into the eye of the devil.

I break out in a profuse cold sweat. They wanted to torture the maiden to death, but she defended herself with the force of the most extreme despair, and succeeded in piercing the eye of the evil one with the little hook. If he moves, she will tear out his eye with a final jerk. The horror paralyzes me: what will happen? A voice speaks:

“The evil one cannot make a sacrifice, he cannot sacrifice his eye, victory is with the one who can sacrifice.” 143

[2] The vision vanished. I saw that my soul had fallen into the power of abysmal evil. The power of evil is unquestionable, and we rightfully fear it. Here no prayers, no pious words, no magical sayings help. Once raw power comes after you, there is no help. Once evil seizes you without pity, no father, no mother, no right, no wall and tower, no armor and protective power come to your aid. You fall powerless and forlorn into the hand of the superior power of evil. In this battle you are all alone. Because I wanted to give birth to my God, I also wanted evil. He who wants to create an eternal fullness will also create eternal emptiness.144 You cannot undertake one without the other. But if you want to escape evil, you will create no God, everything that you do is tepid and gray. I wanted my God at any cost. Hence I also want my evil. If my God were not overpowering, neither would be my evil. But I want my God to be powerful and beyond all measure happy and lustrous. Only in this way do I love my God. And the luster of his beauty will also have me taste the very bottom of Hell.

My God rose in the Eastern sky, brighter than the heavenly host, and brought about a new day for all the peoples. This is why I want to go to Hell.

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