ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the analogy, sometimes even identity, between the various myth motifs and symbols, and the possibility of human communication. Before the actual catastrophe, the signs of error announce themselves in atrophy of instinct, nervousness, disorientation, entanglement in impossible situations and problems. Medical investigation then discovers an unconscious that is in full revolt against the conscious values, and that therefore cannot possibly be assimilated to consciousness, while the reverse is altogether out of the question. People are confronted with an irreconcilable conflict before which human reason stands helpless, with nothing to offer except sham solutions or dubious compromises. The chapter examines whether the outgrowing, possibility of further psychic development, and whether getting stuck in a conflict was pathological. A Chinese can always fall back on the authority of his whole civilization. If he starts on the long way, he is doing what is recognized as being the best thing he could possibly do.
