Introversion

“ Introversion is no child's play. It leads to abysses, by which we may be swallowed up past recall. Whoever submits to introversion arrives at a point where two ways part; and there he must come to a decision, than which a more difficult one cannot be conceived. The symbol of the abyss, of the parting of the ways, both were clearly contained in our parable. The occurrence of the similar motive in myths and fairy tales is familiar. ”

“ He had very little power of introversion, but he was sensible that his temperament was changing,—that he grew more cheerful and contented with life,—that a chasm somewhere was filling up,—just in proportion as his acquaintance with the old music-master and his daughter became more familiar. ”

“ So we see how generally [pg 244] self-chastisement, introversion and autoerotism are connected.
The turning away from the outer world and turning in to the inner, is required by all those methods which lead to intensive exercise of religion and a mystic life. The experts in mysteries provide for opportunities that should encourage introversion. Cloisters and churches are institutions of introversion. The symbolism of religious doctrine and rite is full of images of introversion, which is, in short, one of the most important presuppositions of mysticism. ”

“ The psychology of the neuroses has led to the concept of introversion, a province, therefore, which principally treats of morbid forms and functions of introversion. The sinking of oneself into one's own soul also appears exactly as a morbid losing of oneself in it. We can speak of introversion neuroses. Jung regards dementia precox as an introversion neurosis. Freud, who has adopted the concept of introversion [with some restrictions] regards the introversion of the libido as a regular and necessary precondition of every psychoneurosis. ”

“ That such introversion is not any easy thing, that it involves a habit of concentration and attention against which flesh and spirit alike rebel is known to all the mystics who have tried to reach it. ”

“ By this avoidance of total concentration on the sense world—though material obtained from it must as a matter of fact enter into all, even his most "spiritual" creations—he seems able to attend to the messages which intuition picks up from other levels of being. It is significant that nearly all spiritual writers use this very term of introversion, which psychology has now adopted as the most accurate that it can find, in a favourable, indeed laudatory, sense. ”

“ This temporary withdrawal into one’s self, which, as we have already seen, signifies a regression to the childish bond to the parent, seems to act favorably, within certain limits, in its effect upon the psychologic condition of the individual. It is in general to be expected that the two fundamental mechanisms of the psychoses, transference and introversion, are to a wide extent extremely appropriate methods of normal reaction against complexes; transference as a means of escaping from the complex into reality; introversion as a means of detaching one’s self from reality through the complex. ”

“ One is only too easily inclined to take such an impression lightly, and one admits so gladly the statements of the participators when they represent everything as simple and not at all serious. I dwell upon this impression at length, because it is important to know that an erotic impression after such an introversion, has a deep effect and is undervalued, possibly, by Miss Miller. ”

“ In introversion the libido sinks into “its own depths” (a figure that Nietzsche likes to use) , and [pg 270] finds there below in the shadows of the unconscious, the equivalent for the world above which it has left, namely the world of phantasy and memories, of which the strongest and most influential are the early infantile memory images. It is the child's world, the paradise of early childhood, from which a rigorous law has separated us. In this subterranean realm slumber sweet domestic feelings and the infinite hopes of all “becoming.” ”

“ There is a tendency to depart from inductive procedure toward a priori methods, where feelings and beliefs are criteria, and especially, as Fechner showed, to introversion. There is less control and regression first shows itself in the intellect, which is last to develop. ”

“ The medical witness testified that the dominant symptoms of the condition are extreme introversion and preoccupation with personal interests, a persecution complex, and an emotional instability which may be manifested by extreme exhilaration alternating with unusual depression or irrational outbursts. ”

“ The sensuous demonstrability of God naturally supports the religious process of introversion, because the human figure essentially facilitates the transference, for it is not easy to imagine something lovable or venerable in a spiritual being. This tendency, everywhere present, has been secretly preserved in the rationalistic theology with its Jesus historically insisted upon. ”

“ D, E, A similar simple introvert in course of eversion by the forward movement, not of its sides, but of its apex, as in the proboscidean Rhabdocoels = acrecbolic.
F, Acrecbolic (= pleurembolic) introvert, formed by the snout of the proboscidiferous Gastropod. al, alimentary canal; d, the true mouth. The introvert is not a simple one with complete range both in eversion and introversion, but is arrested in introversion by the fibrous bands at c, and similarly in eversion by the fibrous bands at b. ”

“ The introvert is the typical contemplative, predominantly interested in the inner world. His thinking is mainly autistic, dealing with the results of intuition and feeling, working these up into new structures and extorting from them new experiences. He is at home in the foreconscious, has its peculiar powers under control; and instinctively obedient to the mystic command to sink into the ground of the soul, he leans towards those deep wells of his own being which plunge into the unconscious foundations of life. ”

“ What for the extrovert is a phantastic and disturbing admixture in the unconscious picture, is for the introvert precisely that which has the most value, for it is the germ of the pure idea, and vice versâ; what for the introvert are merely concretistical "imperfections," survivals of a physical origin, are for the extrovert a most valuable hint, the bridge by which the unconscious can be united with the object. ”

“ The instant we got Introverted, everything that ordinarily leaks into the Place, wake or sleep, had stopped coming, and we were nothing but ourselves and what we meant to each other and what we could make of that, an awfully lonely, scratchy situation. ”

“ The born extrovert adapts by means of feeling, thought being under repression and relatively infantile. The introvert's natural adaptation is by means of thought; feeling being more or less repressed remains undeveloped. In either type the neglected co-function is behind the adapted function. This inequality operating in the unconscious, brings about a conflict, which in certain subjects amounts to a neurosis, and in others produces a limitation of individual development. ”

“ The elegiac reveries express the fact that a part of that love which formerly belonged, and should belong, to a real object, is now introverted, that is, it is turned unward into the subject and there produces an increased imaginative activity. ”

“ They talk of the theaters, the opera, books, pictures, the glittering press of life, as though a ticket to New York insured one these things. I talk of loneliness and discomfort, of the pinch of poverty. They speak of enlarged horizons; and I of the hall bedrooms which would bound the outlook of most of them. They glow with the thought of new friendships; and I dash their ardor with tales of isolation, of snubs in the effort to escape isolation, of tawdry relationships begun for the sake of mere companionship. But their eyes are always full of incredulity. ”

“ His introverted gaze analyses with elaborate minuteness the various motives at the confluence of which his active powers receive their impulse, and, with perverted sagacity, pursues the self-examination, until, bewildered in the dark labyrinth of his own nature, he escapes to the cheerful light of day by locking up his journal. ”

“ The introvert is always concerned with the endeavour to preserve the integrity of his ego, which results in a different attitude towards his own person from that of the extrovert, whose adaptation is made through his feelings, even at the cost of his own person. These few sentences indicate into what an extraordinarily difficult situation we should have been led had we considered our problem from the standpoint of the types. ”

“ Why, in the name of mystery, should he, who had not enjoyed companionship in his home since his sister had left it, who had not, save in a vague fashion when she left him solitary after one of her brief return visits, felt the need of companionship, be suddenly gripped with this desolating sense of loneliness? He could not understand it; and it was the more disconcerting on account of his inability to comprehend this obsession which fretted him, and prevented him from settling calmly to the ordinary routine of the lay. ”

“ We who speak glibly of the need of love for our neighbours as being before that for ourselves, would we share a bed, a room, or give hospitality to strangers even in our kitchens, after they had awakened us in the middle of the night by slinging snowballs at our bedroom windows? ”

“ There is a power in some minds of utterly shutting out externals— of withdrawing, the common functions from the organs of sense to assist the concentration of the introverted mind. At such a time the open eye is blind—it has become a mere lens, reflecting but not perceiving ”

“ How many plod onward, with eyes fixed on the ground, when they might be raised to the skies, seeing the glory of the Lord, which He has spread abroad over hill and meadow, for all eyes to behold! How many walk with introverted gaze, seeing only themselves, while their neighbor walks beside them, unseen, and needing their ministration! ”

“ The solitude of my apartment is not disagreeable to me, but tranquillity and reflection strengthen my desire of living in the country, because I think I could there adopt a consistent plan of doing good, and see its effects. In town one may be of use in a desultory way, but not to the same extent, or with the same pleasure. One is divided from the objects one serves. Those times are past when everything I saw, every person I met, every employment I engaged in, amused, improved, or interested [29] me. I no longer study character and seek friends; an indifference is creeping over me. ”

“ And "out of sight, out of mind" is true of their psychology. All of which makes it clear that to-day, as in no previous time, we must all stand or fall together. The old home privacy is for the most part gone, the old home isolation wholly departed. ”

“ According to this mode of expression collective psyche would be identical with "herd soul" in the individual; but the collectivistic psychology would be a highly differentiated adaptation to society. For the introvert the conscious real adapted function is thinking, which in the lower stages of development is entirely personal, but has a tendency to acquire a universal character of a collectivistic kind; his feeling remains distinctly personal so far as it is conscious, and collective-archaic in so far as it has remained unconscious or is repressed. ”

“ I was accustomed to isolation and thought I was content with it, but I find it more pleasant than I can make you understand to know there is one place in the world to which I can come, not as a stranger to an inn, but as one that is received for other than business considerations. ”

“ They lack anything individual and original, and are just as lukewarm and colourless as the conventional feelings of the introvert. Under these conventional disguises, quite other things are slumbering in both, which occasionally when awakened by some overpowering effect, suddenly break out to the astonishment and horror of the environment.
Most civilised people incline more to one type than the other. ”

“ However intimate you may be in any house you have no right, when an order has been given to exclude general visitors, and no exception has been made of you, to violate that exclusion, and [Pg 63] declare that the party should be at home to you. There are times and seasons when a person desires to be left entirely alone, and at such times there is no friendship for which she would give up her occupation or her solitude. ”

“ A horrible burlesque of family life is enabled, with all its inconveniences and none of its sanctity. People from different cities, with different interests and standards, are expected to “chum” together in an intimacy that begins with the eight o’clock breakfast and ends only when all retire for the night. No privacy, no isolation is allowed. If you take a book and begin to read in a remote corner of a parlor or piazza, some idle matron or idiotic girl will tranquilly invade your poor little bit of privacy and gabble of her affairs and the day’s gossip. ”

“ Work that is in the main lonely, and work that on the whole leaves the mind free, leads almost inevitably to daydreaming and introspection. These are essentials, in the housework,—monotony, daydreaming, and introspection.
Let us consider monotony and its effects. The need of new stimuli is a paramount need of the human being. Solitary confinement is the worst punishment, so cruel that it is prohibited in some communities. We need the cheerful noises of the world, we need as releasers of our energies the sights, sounds, smells of the earth ”

“ How do you treat the stranger? Do you adapt yourself and your surroundings to him, or insist that he shall adapt himself to you? How often does the stranger, the guest, sit in helpless agony in your circle (all of whom know each other) at table or in the drawing-room, isolated and separate, because all the talk is local and personal, about your little world, and the affairs of your clique, and your petty interests, in which he or she cannot possibly join? ”