The Opposites

The tension of opposites — light and dark, masculine and feminine, spirit and matter, conscious and unconscious — is, for Jung, the generative structure of psychic life. Heraclitus already names the principle: “the hidden harmony is better than the apparent”; panta rhei; the bow and the lyre are one through their opposition. Nicholas of Cusa names the theological formulation: coincidentia oppositorum, the coincidence of opposites in God. The alchemists name the operational form: coniunctio, the wedding of king and queen, sun and moon.

Jung’s claim is that consciousness emerges from and is sustained by the opposites’ tension, and that premature resolution — identification with one pole, suppression of the other — produces the inflation and subsequent reversal (enantiodromia) that marks the psyche’s self-correction. See unity-of-opposites, complexio-oppositorum, and circulatio for the operational forms.

Relationships

• heraclitus
• unity-of-opposites
• coniunctio
• carl-jung