Originally Posted by
Tearsofaclown
And well yeah. Powers beyond our control. Jung nailed this. One of my favorite passages. Demons, Gods, etc. powers beyond our control like the unconscious.
"These inner motives spring from a deep source that is not made by consciousness and is not under its control. In the mythology of
earlier times, these forces were called mana, or spirits, demons, and gods. They are as active today as they ever were. If they conform to our
wishes, we call them happy hunches or impulses and pat ourselves on the back for being smart fellows. If they go against us, then we say that
it is just bad luck, or that certain people are against us, or that the cause of our misfortunes must be pathological. The one thing we refuse to admit is that we are dependent upon "powers" that are beyond our control.
It is true, however, that in recent times civilized man has acquired a certain amount of will power, which he can apply where he pleases.
He has learned to do his work efficiently without having recourse to chanting and drumming to hypnotize him into the state of doing. He can
even dispense with a daily prayer for divine aid. He can carry out what he proposes to do, and he can apparently translate his ideas into
action without a hitch, whereas the primitive seems to be hampered at each step by fears, superstitions, and other unseen obstacles to
action. T h e motto "Where there's a will, there's a way" is the superstition of modern man.
Yet in order to sustain his creed, contemporary man pays the price in a remarkable lack of introspection. He is blind to the fact that, with all his rationality and efficiency, he is possessed by "powers" that are beyond his control. His gods and demons have not disappeared at all; they have merely got new names. They keep him on the run with restlessness, vague apprehensions, psychological complications, an insatiable need for pills, alcohol, tobacco, food and, above all, a large array of neuroses.
A man likes to believe that he is the master of his soul. But as long as he is unable to control his moods and emotions, or to be conscious of the myriad secret ways in which unconscious factors insinuate themselves into his arrangements and decisions, he is certainly not his own master."