A phenomenon which may be understood as follows:
This [identification with the collective psyche] amounts to an acceptance of “godlikeness,” but now exalted into a system. That is to say, one is the fortunate possessor of the great truth which was only waiting to be discovered, of the eschatological knowledge which spells the healing of the nations
CW7 ¶ 476This attitude is not necessarily megalomania in direct form, but in the milder and more familiar form of prophetic inspiration and desire for martyrdom. For weak-minded persons, who as often as not possess more than their fair share of ambition, vanity, and misplaced naïveté, the danger of yielding to this temptation is very great
CW7 ¶ 476Access to the collective psyche means a renewal of life for the individual, no matter whether this renewal is felt as pleasant or unpleasant. Everybody would like to hold fast to this renewal: one man because it enhances his life-feeling, another because it promises a rich harvest of knowledge
CW7 ¶ 476Therefore both of them, not wishing to deprive themselves of the great treasures that lie buried in the collective psyche, will strive by every means possible to maintain their newly won connection with the primal source of life
CW7 ¶ 476Identification would seem to be the shortest road to this, for the dissolution of the persona in the collective psyche positively invites one to plunge into that “ocean of divinity” and blot out all memory in its embrace. This piece of mysticism is innate in all better men as the “longing for the mother,” the nostalgia for the source from whence we came
CW7 ¶ 476