City and Soul

David Walczyk!C.G. Jung Institute of N.Y.!

[email protected]

On...!

Cities!and!

Soul

Jung on cities

culture_producing neurosis_detachment

mother_maternal wholeness_quaternity

“The cultural process that is characteristic of an epoch operates most intensely in cities, for it needs large agglomerations of men to make c i v i l i z a t i on po s s i b l e , a nd f rom t he s e agglomerations culture gradually spreads to the smaller, backward groups.” -cw10, 238

“The present is a thin surface stratum that is laid down in the great centers of civilization.” -cw10, 239.



“The city-dweller seeks artificial sensations to escape his boredom...” -cw10, 648

“From all this we city-dwellers, we modern machineminders, are far removed. Is not the fairest and most natural of all satisfactions beginning to fail us, when we can no longer regard with unmixed joy the harvest of our own sowing, the ‘blessing’ of children?...See how men slink to work, only observe the faces on the trains at 7:30 in the morning! One man makes his little wheels go round, another writes things that interest him not at all.” -cw7, 428

“But now it is too tight even for the city-dweller. Temptation surrounds him on all sides, and like an invisible procurer there slinks through society the knowledge of the preventive method that make everything unhappened.” -cw7, 430

“Nevertheless, it should be clear to everyone that such a state of degradation can come about only under certain conditions, the most important of these is the accumulation of urban, industrialized masses of people torn from the soil, engaged in onesided employment and lacking every healthy instinct, even that of self-preservation.” -cw10, 413

“Because of this he is in danger of losing all contact with the world of instinct, a danger that is still further increased by his living an urban existence in what seems to be a purely manmade environment.” -cw18, 493

“Rationalism and boredom are essentially products of the over-indulged craving for st imulation so characterist ic of urban populations.” -cw10, 648

“Nietzsche himself became a god; and this happened because he was no atheist. He was of too positive a nature to tolerate the urban neurosis of atheism.” -cw11, 142



“The city is a maternal symbol, a women who harbors the inhabitants in herself like children.” -CW5, 303

“The symbol-creating process substitutes for the mother the city, the well, the cave, the Church, etc.” -cw5, 313

“The meaning and purpose of this canalization are particularly evident when the city appears in place of the mother: the infantile attachment (whether primary or secondary) is a crippling limitation for the adult, whereas attachment to the city fosters his civic virtues and at least enables him to lead a useful existence. In primitives the tribe takes the place of the city.” -cw5, 313

The water and tree symbol, which we found as further attributes of the symbol of the city, likewise refer to the libido that is unconsciously attached to the mother-imago.” -cw5, 330



“From the circle and quaternity motif is derived the symbol of geometrically formed crystal and the wonder-working stone. From here analogy leads on to the city, castle, church, house, and vessel.” -cw9(ii), 352

“The city as a synonym for the Self, for psychic totality, is an old and well-known image.” -cw18, 269

Hillman on cities

on_the_outside on_the_inside

“The city then, is a story that tells us of itself as we go through it.” -city and soul

“Each and every thing in our constructed urban life has psychological import.” - anima Mundi: Return of the Soul to the World

“Their mother, Memory, needs cities for the sake of her daughters, that they may flourish, wildly, that they may be honored...” -City

“A city that neglects the soul’s welfare makes the soul search for its welfare in a degraded and concrete way, in the shadow of those same gleaming towers.” -city and soul

on_the_outside on_the_inside

“Yet what walks into the consulting room is the street.” -city and soul

“What would it be like to imagine the patient as a citizen?” -Patient as Citizen

We cannot inoculate the individual soul nor isolate it against the illness in the soul of the world.” -Anima Mundi: Return of the Soul to the World

Being ‘with it’ also means being in it.” -From Mirror to Window

Thanks!

Design

City and Soul