The 2,000,000-Year-Old Man May Know Something

 C.G. Jung's "A Talk with Students at the C.G. Jung Institute of Zurich (1958)"
excerpt from C.G. Jung Speaking: Interviews and Encounters, 1977.

What is [wo]man to do with his [/her] passionate, primitive, chthonic nature?

Go to bed. Think of your problem. See what you dream. Perhaps the Great Man, the 2,000,000-year-old-man, will speak. In a cul-de-sac, then only do you hear his voice. The urge to become what one is is invincibly strong, and you can always count on it, but that does not mean that things will necessarily turn out positively. If you are not interested in your own fate, the unconscious is. The 2,000,000-year-old man may know something.

I have no trouble talking to primitives. When I talk of the Great Man, or the equivalent, they understand. The Great Man is something that reacts.

The way is ineffable. One cannot, one must not, betray it. It is like the way of Zen, like a sharp knife, and also twisting like a serpent. One needs faith, courage, and no end of honesty and patience. (359-61)