Digesting Jung: Food for the Journey - Inner City Books

The Inner Voice 115
The “wholeness of the group” sounds like an oxymoron, but it is
not; it simply designates our original state of unconsciousness, the
participation mystique that we all wallow in before we have differentiated
ourselves from the collective.
Differentiation is necessary because the call to become whole is
not heard en masse. In any group the inner voice is drowned out by
convention, and one’s personal vocation is overwhelmed by collective
necessity.
The primary question in speaking of vocation is always, “Do you
know who you are? Are you living your own way?”
Caveat: In modern times, Goethe and Napoleon heeded inner
voices that fueled their sense of personal destiny. So did Hitler and
Stalin, and so do many others diagnosed as psychotic, which just
goes to show that inner voices aren’t necessarily benign. Their interpretation
depends on a discriminating consciousness in those
who hear them.