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Jung, C G - The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious - Prayer
Identifier
010986
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious – C G Jung
In the end one has to admit that there are problems which one simply cannot solve on one's own resources. Such an admission has the advantage of being honest, truthful and in accord with reality, and this prepares the ground for a compensatory reaction from the collective unconscious; you are now more inclined to give heed to a helpful idea or intuition, or to notice thoughts which had not been allowed to voice themselves before.
Then the helpful powers slumbering in the deeper strata of of man's nature can come awake and intervene, for helplessness and weakness are the eternal experience and the eternal problem of mankind. To this problem there is also an eternal answer, otherwise it would have been all up with humanity long ago. When you have done everything that could possibly be done, the only thing that remains is what you could still do if only you knew it. But how much do we know of ourselves? Precious little,to judge by experience. Hence there is still a great deal of room left for the unconscious.
Prayer, as we know, calls for a very similar attitude and therefore has much the same effect.