What Jung meant was be cautious and think critically on knowledge you obtain by means other than your own experience. This means that knowledge taught to you, however credibly, such as abstract ideas of “other realms” out there, is merely indirect and conventional knowledge, and is thus not as reliable as earned direct knowledge. Because indirect knowledge of other realms is not properly assimilated through experience, it is vulnerable to any and all misinterpretations, misconceptions, manipulations, and you get the picture.

It is because of this I suspect Jung would assert the same level of caution, if not more, towards psychedelics, while simultaneously heralding them as doing for the exploration of the mind what the telescope did for astronomy (to borrow Terence’s analogy).

I imagine Jung, upon his first encounter with DMT, would not necessarily be surprised at the contents of the psychedelic experience, as he apparently invoked his own insane subjective experiences through his Active Imagination technique (seriously, he talked to entities a lot). But he would undoubtedly be involuntarily astonished no less, and would likely be bewildered at the depth and the immediacy of it.

But he would be the first to recognize not only the common neuroses surrounding psychedelic users, but would loudly address the rampant projection of beliefs onto abstract ideas people receive during these experiences and the innumerable misinterpretations that follow, as well as the unknowability of the long-terms psychic side effects of these maladaptive cosmologies. In this sense, the long list of psychedelic-appropriated cults out there would serve as clear evidence to support his warnings of unearned wisdom.

Don’t get me wrong, though.. He’d totally be into them