It had become clear to me, in a flash of illumination, that for me the only possible goal was psychiatry. Here alone the two currents of my interest could flow together and in a united stream dig their own bed. Here was the empirical field common to biological and spiritual facts, which I had everywhere sought and nowhere found. Here at last was the place where the collision of nature and spirit became a reality.

Yoga in Mayfair or Fifth Avenue, or in any other place which is on the telephone, is a spiritual fake.

All true things must change and only that which changes remains true.

Anthropologists have often described what happens to a primitive society when its spiritual values are exposed to the impact of modern civilisation. Its people lose the meaning of their lives, their social organisation disintegrates, and they themselves morally decay. We are now in the same condition. But we have never really understood what we have lost, for our spiritual leaders unfortunately were more interested in protecting their institutions than in understanding the mystery that symbols present.

The unconscious is not just evil by nature, it is also the source of the highest good: not only dark but also light, not only bestial, semihuman, and demonic but superhuman, spiritual, and, in the classical sense of the word, "divine."

One of the main functions of formalized religion is to protect people against a direct experience of God.

It is high time that we realized that it is pointless to praise the light and preach it if nobody can see it. It is much more needful to preach the art of seeing.

Once upon a time men were possessed by devils. Now they are not less obsessed by ideas

Our intellect has achieved the most tremendous things, but in the meantime our spiritual dwelling has fallen into disrepair.