JEAN CAMPBELL  is a supermodel who from the outside looks to be living a fairy tale life. Stunningly beautiful, she has modeled on the international stage for brands including Alexander McQueen, Ralph Lauren, Louis Vuitton and Burberry. Of course, nothing is ever so simple (especially in fairy tales).

After experiencing a traumatic injury at a young age, Jean had to learn how to live with chronic pain. She underwent multiple surgeries, and confronted despair induced by the extreme physical and emotional challenges she faced. 

Shadowland is our This Jungian Life forum for exploring the lives of people who exist in the hidden places of our culture. Life with chronic pain is one of those hidden places: for many it is characterized by loneliness and fear. At home and at work, people with chronic pain conditions are often asked to mask the reality of what they’re experiencing. 

In this episode, Lisa and Deb explore the gulf Jean experienced between persona and shadow. In private, Jean searched for ways to cope with physical pain and suffering, whilst in public she built a successful career based on her exceptional physical beauty. 

According to Jean, embracing and befriending pain has been key in her path to healing. This is explored through a discussion of A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin, in which the protagonist, Ged, must confront and befriend his shadow:

 “Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky” (A Wizard of Earthsea).

Listen to Jean Campbell’s podcast, https://www.if-podcast.com/ 

Follow Jean Campbell: https://www.instagram.com/jean_campbell/

You might also be interested in our This Jungian Life episode on  https://thisjungianlife.com/episode-68-chronic-illness/

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Does the Demure social media trend offer a path to true elegance or reinforce restrictive norms in an extroverted world?

The Demure social media trend has become a countercultural movement that seems to promote elegance, modesty, and introspection in stark contrast to the flamboyant exhibitionistic behaviors often seen online. It forces us to question whether its rise signifies a return to refined values or a subtle form of oppression, as it compensates the extroverted behaviors that dominate modern society. By prioritizing simplicity, restraint, and authenticity, the demure trend resonates with introverts who value inner peace, emotional well-being, and a connection to tradition. While it offers a sense of self-control and empowerment, it also raises questions about elitism and the reinforcement of traditional gender norms, making it a complex and multifaceted phenomenon.

Prepare to discover what the Demure social media trend reveals about the intersection of cultural values, modesty, and self-expression, how the trend influences personal identity, emotional regulation, and the balance between public persona and private self, which aspects of the trend empower individuals and which may reinforce traditional or restrictive norms, whether embracing the Demure trend aligns with authentic self-expression or succumbs to societal pressures, why the Demure trend resonates deeply in a world increasingly dominated by extroverted ideals and superficiality…and so much more.

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How can the shared imaginal realms of Jung and Tolkien empower us to navigate our personal journeys and transform our understanding of self and community?

In exploring the uncanny shared imaginal realms of Jung and Tolkien, author Becca Tarnas uncovers a profound intersection of depth psychology and mythopoeic literature, revealed in their seminal Red Books. Amid the early 20th century's upheaval, both authors undertook personal and universal journeys into the psyche, employing active imagination to engage archetypes such as the shadow, anima, and hero. Their works, brimming with symbolic meaning and mirroring profound psychological truths, beckon us to contemplate transformation, individuation, and the potency of the feminine principle within. By crafting intricate narratives and psychological insights, Jung and Tolkien charted the inner landscapes of human experience, underscoring the universal struggles and spiritual depths that bind us all. Their exploration of nature, the environment, and the darker facets of the psyche showcase the transformative power of literal and metaphorical journeys, guiding us toward enlightenment and self-realization.

Prepare to discover what the psychological and creative processes behind the works of Jung and Tolkien reveal about the universal journey of self-discovery; how to access and interpret your own imaginal realms to deepen your understanding of the personal and collective unconscious; which aspects of Jung's and Tolkien's methodologies can be applied to enhance self-awareness and artistic expression; whether the challenges and insights presented in their works have parallels in contemporary psychological practices and personal development; why the exploration of imaginal realms is crucial for personal growth and the cultivation of a richer, more connected sense of community…and so much more.

HERE'S SOMETHING SPECIAL: You're invited to JUNG'S AMERICAN MUSE: THE VISIONS AND ART OF CHRISTIANA MORGAN, a live podcast recording on Saturday, July 13th, at 2 pm EST. Tickets are on sale now for $5. Christiana Morgan's visions and art were pivotal to Jung's understanding of the nature of the feminine. We're thrilled to welcome her granddaughter, filmmaker Hilary Morgan, as our guest. Hilary will share Tower of Dreams, her short documentary, and then discuss her memories and reflections on her grandmother's life. BUY YOUR TICKET HERE: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jungs-american-muse-the-visions-and-art-of-christiana-morgan-tickets-928055668487?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdsshcopyurl.

READ A COPY OF THE DREAM WE ANALYZE HERE: https://thisjungianlife.com/shared-imaginal-realms-of-jung-and-tolkien/ 

Rebecca Tarnas is an Assistant Professor in the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Her research includes depth psychology, archetypal studies, literature, philosophy, and the ecological imagination. She is an editor of Archai: The Journal of Archetypal Cosmology and author of Journey to the Imaginal Realm: A Readers Guide to J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (https://a.co/d/7zIUX4K). She is researching and writing a biography of Stanislav Grof, a co-founder of transpersonal psychology.

 For more information about Becca, check out her website: https://beccatarnas.com/

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Problems can pester, persist and plague. They range from short-lived to chronic, bothersome to heart-wrenching, resolvable to unalterable. Problems cause what Jungian analyst and author James Hollis refers to as the three As: ambiguity, ambivalence, and anxiety. Ambiguity arises when a problem is complex and confusing, demanding action without certainty. Ambivalence is a state of conflicted feelings, often related to immediate versus long-term gratification. Anxiety is worry and doubt about whether we can meet a challenge or achieve a desired outcome. Problems confront us with a basic choice: action or avoidance—but action without analysis can also be a form of avoidance. We must accept the situation, tolerate the tension, and observe external and internal factors before identifying options. Jung says, “The most intense conflicts if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm that is not easily disturbed. It is just these intense conflicts and their conflagration which are needed to produce valuable and lasting results.”

Here’s the dream we analyzed:

“I was pregnant, and I went to a cafe with my husband. I went away and had my baby. I went to a party where some family and friends were welcoming the baby. I cradled a small plastic box with a transparent plastic lid. There were about six spaces pressed into the foam of the box and my baby, which was a tiny bee, was in the right bottom corner of the case. As the party was ending, family members encouraged me to let the bee out of the case. My husband said to do what I thought was right. I opened the case, and we left the party hall, the bee flying above us. When we got outside, it flew away. I ran to keep up with it, and it flew to a huge wooden and plexiglass hive on the lawn. My baby bee flew to a bigger bee, circled it, and was imitating it, even getting onto the big bee’s back while it flew. I wanted to catch my bee but was intimidated by the bigger bee. They flew off in a swarm with others. My husband told me it was time to go. I walked away, and we drove away with my in-laws. When we were alone again, I couldn’t stop crying. My husband took me to the same cafe, but I could hardly walk because I was crying so much. The server said I looked good for just having had a baby. I went to the bathroom, sobbing and feeling very swollen all over. I looked at my puffy face in the mirror and felt like I looked new.”

REFERENCES:

Edwards Deming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming

Video: It’s Not About the Nail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4EDhdAHrOg

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Obsessions are unwanted, intrusive thoughts; compulsions are unwarranted, involuntary behaviors. Though different, they often go together, for compulsions pose as protection from the imagined bad consequences of obsessions. They tend to escalate, demanding more time and attention: spontaneity is sacrificed to schedule, desire surrenders to compliance, and aliveness is stifled by stiffness. OCD’s insistence on “rightness” attempts to deny feelings, especially anger, neediness, and desire, displacing them onto rigid exercise routines, midnight phone scrolling, finicky dietary convictions, and other attempts to serve performance and perfection. Marie-Louise von Franz, Jung’s close collaborator, says, “Every content of the unconscious with which one is not properly related tends to obsess one, for it gets at us from behind…You can either be possessed by a content constellated in the unconscious, or you can have a relationship to it. The more one represses it; the more one is affected by it.” When the unconscious is denied, it turns to unwanted forms of expression.

Here’s the dream we analyze:

“I am standing in a field in winter. The earth is cold and hard. I have a simple, woven cloth wrapped around my head and am carrying a basket in the crook of my arm. I am in the field harvesting potatoes. I work slowly and methodically, moving up and down the rows, but at some point, I realize that the crops I am harvesting are upside down. The potatoes sit neatly atop the earth, and it is only when I pull them up that I can see all the green parts of the plant. This realization doesn’t phase me, and I continue to harvest. As I work, I am aware of a sense of great peace. I bend to pick up yet another potato and realize there is no resistance, for the potato has no stem, leaves, or roots. It is a solitary object. I stand and hold the potato in the palm of my hand. It is fairly small and somewhat paler than the rest. All of a sudden, the potato sprouts small white wings, which begin to flutter. The potato hovers above my hand for a few moments and then flies away. I watch it against the sky and am suddenly aware that the sky has become a brilliant blue, whereas, in the beginning of the dream, it was a heavy, pearly grey that threatened snow. I awake with a feeling of enormous well-being.”

REFERENCES:

Nancy J. Dougherty and Jacqueline J. West. The Matrix and Meaning of Character: An Archetypal and Developmental Approach. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0415403006/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_CWV9HCTBJT9N9CPJZN7N

Nancy McWilliams. Psychoanalytic Diagnosis: Understanding Personality Structure in the Clinical Process. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1462543693/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_ZADS2EPQNM082KGVM76Z

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There is a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in. LEONARD COHEN

Jung’s system of typology—our characteristic way of orienting to the world—led to the creation of the widely used Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Jung observed four essential ego functions. Thinking and feeling are rational functions of assigning value and making decisions, and intuition and sensation are non-rational modes of perception and attention. Ordered hierarchically from most to least developed, our inferior function lies closest to the unconscious. It tends to manifest through tasks, people, and situations that throw us off balance: we feel confused, overloaded, and unable to get a grip. The inferior function pushes in through the cracks in ego’s efforts at supremacy and opens us to what is unknown and unlived. For Jung, however, this seeming weak spot in the personality was also “the treasure hard to attain,” for it is also the source of our aliveness, freedom, and fun.

Here’s the dream we analyze:

“I was swimming in the ocean at nighttime. I was surrounded by a school of gigantic, hot-pink jellyfish the size of hot air balloons. They were almost bioluminescent. I looked down and saw a massive sea creature rising from the depths. At first, I thought it was a blue whale. As it got closer, however, I realized it was the size of several blue whales and shaped almost like a man. I was filled with terror and awe and swam away to the shore. On the shore, I was talking urgently with Doctor Who. Suddenly, we were attacked by Daleks (a fictional alien species). As they flew toward us, we ran away toward the ocean. We didn’t go underwater; however, we ran on top of it. As we ran across the sea pursued by the Daleks, the jellyfish and whale man from before rose out of the water, running and flying around us to protect us.”

REFERENCES:

Lenore Thomson. Personality Type: An Owner’s Manual. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0877739870/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_1EXKNRD8Y9YNCHJH7AND

Marie-Louise von Franz, Lectures on Jung’s Typology. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G2CBJ0K/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_CWHRP65RJ41W03JKQW8N

Ann Ulanov. The Danger and the Treasure of the Inferior Function, Psychological Perspectives, 52: 9-53, 2009.

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Could the antidote to racism be enchantment? Chloe Valdary thinks so. Theory of Enchantment is a radical approach to anti-racism rooted in understanding that celebrates the complexity of the human spirit. Since racism derives from deep insecurities projected onto others, the work of enchantment includes shadow, acknowledges personal complexity, and affirms right relationship with self. Diversity need not be division, and inclusion does not discount differences. Empathy does not ‘fix’ but accompanies another’s suffering, and criticism can be used to uplift and empower. Valdary’s fulsome framework—from workshops to a self-paced online course--includes myth, literature, religion, and Jungian concepts. Theory of Enchantment reaches beyond conflict resolution for connection with universal principles of humanity, healing, and wholeness. It is a life practice and personal discipline that teaches that we can--actually—root everything we do in love and compassion.

REFERENCES:

Theory of Enchantment: a diversity training and inclusion program that teaches love: https://theoryofenchantment.com/

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Queen Elizabeth II is mourned around the world. The world saw stages of life live in and through her: from maiden to mate, mother to matriarch, elder to aged. She inherited her title but grew into her role, becoming a unifying image of virtue, service, stateliness, and constancy--wrapped in dedication and devotion. Above the skirmishes of ego-driven politics, the Queen balanced the mystique of majesty with human presence. She bore difficulties and disappointment with dignity, and in the 70 years of her reign modeled a standard of nobility that enabled her to preside over tumult and change. Elizabeth II first governed herself, enabling authentic representation of the archetype of queen in its beneficent aspect: steadfast, valiant, and faithful to enduring ideals of sovereignty. Queen Elizabeth II fulfilled the promise of the crown, ancient symbol of exalted life, conferring its possibility and promise upon subjects and admirers worldwide.

In Memoriam:

Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of

Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith

Here’s the dream we analyze:

“I am in the passenger's seat in a car with my partner. He is driving and seems anxious about something--talking and gesturing, but I can't remember what he said. We are going uphill on a tarred road--it is an unfamiliar setting. Suddenly a bird flies into his side window. He quickly opens the window and shuts it close again, tearing one wing off the bird. I am shouting at him "You have broken its wing," as we watch the bird fly away with only one wing. My partner is startled, and I am very sad and shocked. I am awakened by this shocked feeling. “

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The open road beckons: bigger, better, boundless. To see and to seek is a mythological theme with an American stamp, from wagon trains to memoirs and movies. Progress and mobility have long been associated with forging ahead and hitting the trail. Cars are personal capsules of autonomy and freedom: load, stop, and go according to wish or whim. Passing through and possibility are part of the road trip’s drift and direction. The traveler may hope for treasure, pleasure, or revelation—or be in flight from stasis, failure, and alienation. A road trip can be planned or spontaneous, solo or partnered, an initiation into the next stage of life, or an effort to evade it. Many are about relinquishing ego’s desire for a well-mapped destination and opening a path to psyche and Self. A road trip is an inner journey in the outer world. What will we encounter that reveals us to ourselves?

Here’s the dream we analyze:

“I was sleeping in my apartment in Brooklyn when I heard someone trying to break the door into the hallway from outside. I stood in front of the entrance door, waiting for whatever would come, thinking it was better to face it. The door opens, and two figures walk in: one is my father (dead by then), another a shape of a man covered feet to head by a black overall.”

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Hatred is a universal human emotion related to distancing and destroying. Hatred is anger, disgust, judgment, and contempt cemented into implacable permanence. Obsessive and inflating, hatred dupes us into feeling righteous and wrathful instead of small and wounded. Hating tricks us into projecting our disowned qualities onto an outer other, making the object of our hatred into an avatar for our own split-off instincts and desires. Our fixation fuses us in a darkly intimate way with “other,” the holder of a secret we are compelled to uncover, a truth we demand to rule. Hate hides the dread of discovering the depth of our own shadow—for it is self-hatred that we seek to encapsulate and eradicate. We can face our hatreds, let them inform us, and transform them into what is brighter and more alive.

Here’s the dream we analyze:

“I am walking and find a door that leads to a stairway. I am entranced by the stairs as they look like winding, ancient stone castle steps like in the movies. I enter and see that lining the walls up and down the stairs are cages - each cage contains a snake. As I walk down the dimly lit stairs, the snakes come alive and begin slithering, dancing, and reaching their heads up and out until a good third of each snake is out and getting closer to me. I am surprised to realize that the holes in the cages are big enough for the snakes to escape, but I am not afraid. I know the snakes will not escape completely or harm me, and I wonder why the snakes have cages at all. As I get to the bottom of the stairs, I am in a large room with books, jars, shelves, and tables. It is wonderous room, like Merlin’s workshop mixed with Dumbledore’s office. There is an older, tall man standing next to a younger woman, and they are looking at a book. I have interrupted them, they were not expecting me, but neither is startled. They both look at me with curiosity. I know I have nothing to fear but also don’t understand why I am there or where, exactly, I am. I am then standing next to them, and the young woman cries, “It has drawn blood! There is blood! Blood is drawn!” The man says nothing and calmly looks at me. I raise my hand and see a few drops of blood on my palm and know that I have been pricked by a needle. I didn’t feel the prick, and it does not hurt; I am surprised to see the blood. I suddenly know that the young woman is excited as the blood indicates that it’s her time to move on to the next level and that I am to take her place as this man’s apprentice. All of this knowledge washes over me as I look at the blood. I then become woozy, and my knees fail as I faint and fall gently to the floor.”

REFERENCES:

Robert J. Sternberg. The Psychology of Hate.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591471842/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_BMVXGVKJEAEW7H4DHGQS

Joshua Coleman. Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1529350824/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_QQAC0BW1X9177KHY07W2

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Dr. Donald Kalsched, Jungian analyst, teacher, and author, discusses his acclaimed work on childhood trauma; (see www.donaldkalsched.com for upcoming programs). When there is unbearable emotional pain in childhood, archetypal defenses dismember such experience and banish parts of it to the unconscious, where it remains as unconscious suffering.  Such suffering is manifested as pathological symptoms, i.e., dysfunctional relationships, addictions, narcissism, and more. The defensive system that takes over--a ‘self-care system’--is both protective and persecutory of the innocence and vulnerability hiding in the inner fortress, and thus the trauma survivor leads a false, generic life instead of a true, personal one.  He/she is unable to feel and be fully alive in the world—especially in intimate relationships. The potential for such aliveness lies dormant, like a seed in the prima materia of unconsciousness, waiting to be awakened and restored to the ego—but against great resistances thrown up by the defensive system. Often dreams lead the way in this process of self-recovery, reconnecting the dismembered parts so that exiled aspects of ourselves can come home and wounded hearts can heal.

Here’s the dream we analyze:

 “I enter my parents’ kitchen, where a group of people are ready to cook lion meat for me to eat. I’m not sure who the cooks are. They show me the different ways they can cook the lion’s meat (minced, in a stew, steak, or raw, sashimi style). Afterward, they show me a mask made of the lion’s face, which I have to wear after I eat the lion’s meat. I never get to actually eat the meat or wear the lion’s mask in the dream.” 

REFERENCES:

Donald Kalsched. The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0415123291/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_TTDKA7RX9NAHYNRGAFDJ

Donald Kalsched. Trauma and the Soul: A Psycho-Spiritual Approach to Human Development and Its Interpretation. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0415681464/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_ENFCXEKS1T3FV61WRMP7?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

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Compartmentalization is like a home electrical panel that separates power into different zones. It allows us to separate the charge carried by ideas, feelings, and actions without risking system overload. Compartmentalization lets us express concern about climate change yet fly overseas for a family vacation or care about animal rights and ignore factory farming. Such incompatible values and incongruent reasoning usually bypass the zone wired for emotional activation, allowing many daily activities and attitudes to operate smoothly. At the other end of the spectrum, compartmentalization can become denial, hypocrisy, or pathology, as when someone professing religious dedication engages in immoral or illegal practices. Our psychic wiring operates automatically much of the time in the interest of waking life governance, protecting us from the circuitry overload of indecision, doubt, and disorder. We also have the capacity to reflect on our values and activities, bringing them to consciousness and choice. 

Here’s the dream we analyzed:

“I am seeing this scene from the sky. There is a city in a desert. This city looks like a Mihrab or a prayer rug. It is like a niche, and it has a circle in its center. In my dream, at the top of this niche, there is a hidden or a secret door. Only some can go through this door, which opens to an exclusive world/chambers. I see a Monk in black robes going through the city and through this door. Then I hear, “the name of this city is Minoo.”

 [In all of the ancient world, including South Asia, when they spoke of “City,” they meant Minoo. Cities in dreams are also Minoo, an old Farsi word that means the heavens or realm of spirit. Mihrabs in ancient Persia were the birthplace of the Sun. They were caves where the goddess Anahita, the great water deity, gave birth to her son Mithra. Anahita was the original virgin mother, some scholars believe. These Mihrabs were often caves with water running through them and were temples of worship of Mithra and his mother.]

REFERENCES:

Carl Jung. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004FYZK52/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_RP4X5WF6HJTZXKNS280D

Mihrab: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihrab

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Karl Kerenyi collaborated with Jung in demonstrating the psychological meaning of Greek mythology. Kerenyi found in Hermes a representation of “a third way of living life, besides the Apollonian rational and the Dionysian irrational. God of jokes and journeys, thieves and magicians, the tricky Guide of Souls” arrives as a surprise. Like the quicksilver that is his Roman name, Mercury/Hermes appears on winged sandals, heralding the new. Hermes disdains regulation and law to deliver new ideas, dissolve opposites, and provide decisive experiences. Just as he alone traversed the realms--from the heights of Mt. Olympus to the underworld of Hades--Hermes now swifts his way from the unconscious to ego awareness. Hermes is the symbol of a living reality seeking conscious acknowledgment, the agent of creativity and transformation. How we perceive his message is not his interest. He is already gone.

Here’s the dream we analyze:

 “I’m on a piece of inhabited land, by the shore, with many others in a beach town. Some of the people I know, some I do not. Across the water is an island. It looks like Devil’s Tower in Wyoming (the one in Close Encounters of the Third Kind), but this island is lush, tropical, and Jurassic. It’s a beautiful day, close to sunset, and the view is gorgeous. All of the sudden, we all realize there are three enormous boats that look like cruise ships balancing on the edge of the top of the island. They’re huge, a third of the height of the island. One looks old, two look new. No one knows how they got there. There is a theory they went ashore when the water level was higher, but we all know that doesn’t make much sense... we would have seen them there long ago, but in this case, they just appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. We all realize they’re about to fall as they’re balanced precariously. As we anticipate an enormous crash, we take shelter. I can see them fall slowly off the top of the island to the base. There is a lot of destruction - so much dust and debris, and the sky gets very hazy. But I am safe. The next morning, we wake up, and it’s a beautiful day. The shape of the island across the water is totally different. It’s been totally reconstructed by the crash of the boats (which are no longer visible). The island looks a lot less ominous in shape. I look to my left and see that some of the debris from the island has landed in the water, which allowed for a bike path to be built from our land to the island, across the water. I realize perhaps this crash has actually improved things for the better, and everything feels calm and beautiful.”

 REFERENCES:

Karl Kerenyi. Hermes: Guide of Souls. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0882140949/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_FWG6RQ37RTQYF4X0MZGN

Rafael Lopez-Pedraza. Hermes and His Children. https://www.amazon.com/dp/3856307354/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_VA65WSXZ59B9ZECAREVK

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Can spontaneous art-making harness the power of imagery and symbols to promote emotional healing and self-discovery?

Mark Dean, Jungian analyst, professional artist, professor, and art therapist, helps us explore the profound connection between art-making and psychological growth, using imagery, metaphors, and symbols as bridges between our conscious and unconscious minds. Rooted in Analytical Psychology, this approach helps us identify and process complex emotions, experiences, and foundational attitudes, promoting positive change in our relationships and psyche. This work emphasizes the dynamic relationship between our inner and outer worlds and the limitless creativity this can bring forward.

Prepare to discover what Jungian art therapy is and its role in individuation, how imagery and symbols facilitate emotional healing, which techniques and methods are most effective, whether art can really serve as a bridge between your conscious and unconscious mind, why integrating creative expression into all areas of our life is essential for well-being…and so much more.

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HERE'S SOMETHING SPECIAL: You're invited to JUNG'S AMERICAN MUSE: THE VISIONS AND ART OF CHRISTIANA MORGAN, a live podcast recording on Saturday, July 13th, at 2 pm EST. Tickets are on sale now for $5. Christiana Morgan's visions and art were pivotal to Jung's understanding of the nature of the feminine. We're thrilled to welcome her granddaughter, filmmaker Hilary Morgan, as our guest. Hilary will share Tower of Dreams, her short documentary, and then discuss her memories and reflections on her grandmother's life. BUY YOUR TICKET HERE: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jungs-american-muse-the-visions-and-art-of-christiana-morgan-tickets-928055668487?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdsshcopyurl.

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Images of earth’s perpetual restlessness waves gently rock us, lift us up for an exhilarating ride – or inundate us in the terrifying phenomenon of a tsunami. Surfers surrender to the rhythm of waves, an embodied metaphor of attuning to the rising and falling of unconscious forces. Poseidon, Greek god of the ocean, was also the deity of destructive tidal waves, which can sweep us away and show up often in dreams. In physics, a wave is a disturbance that travels through space and matter, transferring energy from one place to another and, therefore, part of the fabric of the subatomic universe. From playful white caps on a summer’s day to waves that pound the shore as they break, waves are a potent image of energy and reflect inner psychic processes.

Here’s the dream we analyze:

“I am paddleboarding with my ex-boyfriend and several other people, mostly older adults. We are in a mountain lake, with an evergreen, tree-covered mountain rising from the lake behind us. The sun is out, and the water is calm. It feels pleasant. After some time passes, I notice several people quickly swimming to shore. The sky has suddenly drastically darkened, and I think it’s either about to rain or the sun is setting, so it’s time to leave. The water gets rougher now, too. My ex and I swim to shore, and I am surprised by how quickly and easily I am able to swim. When I get to shore, I notice that the older adults are struggling in the water. I want to help them, but my ex stops me. It is now that I notice that the dark sky is actually due to the fact that the mountain is completely on fire, and the fire is rushing down toward the water. I have to stand and watch, hoping all the older adults make it. The fire reaches the water, and the last of the older adults are thrust to shore. It is very dark now, and there is something beautiful about the fire. I want to get a closer look but am wary of getting near the water, which I know will be scalding. I get closer and try to take a picture, but at the moment I go to capture the image, the smoke obscures my view.”

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Kabbalah is an ancient Jewish mystical tradition that has captured the imaginations of people from widely diverse backgrounds, including Jung himself. Three weeks after his heart attack in 1944, Jung had an ecstatic vision, “…Everything around me also seemed enchanted…I myself was in Pardes-Rimonim, in the pomegranate garden where Tiferet and Malchut married. I also imagined myself as Rabi Shimon ben Yochai, whose mystical marriage was celebrated now. It looked exactly as the Kabbalists portrayed it. I cannot tell you how amazing it was…” Though Jung did not live long enough to explore the Kabbalah fully, his psyche was deeply affected by the images and philosophies which played an important role in his life during this crisis.

Like analysis, Kabbalistic methods cultivate an extraordinary receptivity to Self that illuminates the inner dimensions of the human soul, its unexplored potential, and our relationship to the divine. Its first written fragments surfaced in the 13th century, but the oral tradition reaches back millennia. Its primary symbol, the Tree of Life, reflects a rich cosmology that maps the progression of archetypal forces in the outer and inner world. It helps us track the flow of psychic energy as it descends from its animating source to archetypal image, thought, and finally to action. Like all images of the Self, it invokes the transcendental ordering principle that heals and facilitates individuation.

Here’s the dream we analyze:

“I’m in Putin’s inner circle. It’s attached to some other business place that I’m working in. I’m wearing a suit. He’s got an office, like in a 1920s socialist apartment building with tall ceilings. It’s not particularly high security, and I’m in it. The place is a bit messy. Putin is thin; he looks like the younger Putin, not the rounder face. One we see on TV. He’s getting medication out of boxes, and I see their statins, and I figure he’s got heart trouble. I take a seat on a sofa, and we’re talking; I’m thinking about how vulnerable he looks like a nice man; actually, I’m sensing that he trusts me, we have a good easy rapport. I’m wondering whether he knows I’m queer and what he would make of that; given the state of LGBTQ rights in Russia, I figure out that there are two pollutants, this real one behind the scenes and the one on TV. The one on TV has a body double, but the rest of the world doesn’t know that. I wonder how I’m going to keep this from the world and whether it will ever come out that I know him and how I would justify that to the media. I go to the bathroom off his office, and Putin’s bath is running. I gather that he is going to have a bath. I go back into the office, smoke a cigarette on the sofa, and we talk some more, and then I leave. I go to another room or to my friends are out of affection. I kiss my friend A repeatedly on the face, whose name I get wrong. She tells me her name is something else. It’s the first time I’ve heard her tell me the name that she says she is hers. I know her by at least two other names. I accidentally kiss her on the lips. The other friend B is there too, and then I realized that I have kissed B, not A. B asks me whether I’ve been smoking cannabis because there is a really strong smell on my breath. I think about the cigarette I smoked in Putin’s office and wonder how it could have left such a strong smell, and for context, she says the future feels unclear.”

REFERENCES:

Dion Fortune. The Mystical Qabalah. https://www.amazon.com/dp/157863752X/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_CNHVRG5XVEK52RWZMASB?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Erich Neumann. The Essays of Erich Neumann, Volume 3: The Place of Creation. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691603871/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_TMA84417K13TPNWG4DGV?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan. Meditation and Kabbalah. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0877286167/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_0HVCPYAXXW8DKHKYXMJJ

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A fiendish inner spirit can prompt behavior that defies self-interest and even common sense. In Edgar Allan Poe’s story, the protagonist acts on his diabolical urge to commit murder, followed by a self-destructive urge to confess it. Jung says, “If he has done it secretly, without moral consciousness of it, and remains undiscovered, the punishment can nevertheless be visited upon him…” The impulse to take irrational and even immoral risks can cause inner torment and lead to damaging actions. The trickster within tempts us to yield to impulse, succumb to negligence, or be recklessly perverse—simply for the sake of indulging the foolish or forbidden. Posing as merely mischievous, the imp of the perverse proffers a sense of power and grandiosity. He challenges us to meet him with the power of self-reflection, ego strength, and restraint, the components of conscious choice. 

Here’s the dream we analyze:

“I am with my wife and child on the North pole. We are in a small cabin. I don’t know why we are here or how we got here. It is not a familiar place, but I’m not surprised to be here. There is a blizzard raging outside. Inside it is dark; a fire is burning in a traditional cast iron stove. We huddle together by the fire. I am responsible for the fire. The door blows open, and I can see the white blizzard outside. I fear that my daughter will somehow be sucked into the blizzard. I manage to close the door. I search for firewood, but the cabin is dark and unfamiliar. I venture out into the storm and find some firewood. I return inside to tend to the fire. I find my wife and daughter asleep by the stove.” 

 REFERENCES:

Edgar Allan Poe stories online: https://poestories.com/read/imp

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Fairy tales are fierce narratives of human shadow and its transformation. Hansel and Gretel depicts raw childhood trauma: parents abandon their children in the forest in order to feed themselves. Then the children discover a magical, edible cottage, only to be entrapped by a cannibalistic witch. Everyone is starving, a metaphor for psychic insufficiency. The children’s loyalty to one another gives rise to strategy and bravery, yielding riches and redemption—the reward for engaging danger with valor. Marie-Louise von Franz, one of Jung’s closest collaborators, recognized that fairy tales are maps of everyone’s unconscious. This tale invites us to consider how we handle our internal hungers. What might we be starving for? Have we abandoned inner children to the wilderness of the unconscious? Does a witch within threaten to devour tender potential? Or can we, like Hansel and Gretel, rise above our primal forest with consciousness and courage and find the treasure of wholeness?

Here's the dream we analyze:

“I’m on an ocean beach looking out to my one-room house that juts out on a dock above where the waves break. The house could use some work and a coat of paint, but there’s a feeling of pride as I gaze over it. I look down and notice I’m wearing a peasant dress, which is not at all my style and better suited for a little girl. A craggy cliff looms to the left side of the beach. From around the cliff, two sea monsters appear swimming, nearing my house on the water. I wasn’t afraid of them, but watched them calmly. As they approach, they begin to rock the walls of the house, and I continue to watch powerlessly as they wrest it from its dock and tear it out to sea. The sea monsters retreat over the horizon and the house begins to sink. I am then inland but not far from the beach, at a pub in a seaside town. I see my parents in a booth, engaged in a fiddle contest. They are my parents, I know this to be sure, but they are monstrous apparitions, soft as puppets and with frightfully large heads. I try to tell them about my house and that it is gone, expecting some kind of comfort or perhaps an invitation to stay with them. They glance my way but they don’t acknowledge me or that I’m in distress. The fiddle contest goes on uninterrupted. The barkeep tells me that if I’m not there for the fiddle contest, then I will have to leave. The dream ends as I struggle to breathe.”

REFERENCES:

Night Shyamalan Film: The Visit, : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfQnRjkuvaY

Erich Neumann: The Origins and History of Consciousness. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691163596/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_050QS0734HKDZG2S7BJD

John Hill. At Home In The World: Sounds and Symmetries of Belonging. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1685030211/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_E3T32X59A0E42D239D26

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The daimon, a guiding spirit of individual destiny, was discussed by ancient Greek philosophers and still surfaces in books and movies like The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. Daimons were particularly linked to creativity and life force and described as lesser deities, divine messengers, and determinative fates. For Jung, “daimon” was a synonym for that part of the unconscious concerned with life purpose, and it spoke through intuition and dreams. Ego’s task is transforming the autonomous power of the daimon into authentic expression in life. Jungian analyst and author James Hillman says, “The soul of each of us is given a unique daimon before we are born, and it has selected an image or pattern that we live on earth. This soul-companion, the daimon, guides us here; in the process of arrival, however, we forget all that took place and believe we come empty into this world. The daimon remembers what is in your image and belongs to your pattern, and therefore your daimon is the carrier of your destiny.”

Here’s the dream we analyze:

“I am sitting in the front row of an academic lecture in a large auditorium. I can see my father sitting way back in the last row. A speaker is introduced. He begins to perform miraculous feats. For example, although he is an older man in his 60s, he successfully bench-presses over 500 pounds on stage. Next, he begins to levitate. While flying through the air, he proclaims that he is Jesus. He demands that everyone in the audience pray to him in worship. I do not pray to him. He goes around to each audience member and requests a prayer - all obey. When he appears in front of me, he demands a prayer. I hold up two sticks in the shape of a cross and denounce him. I state angrily that “Christ protects me” and that “this old man is not God.” At this point, I notice that my father (in the back row) is the only other person in the building not praying to the fraud.” 

REFERENCES:

James Hillman. The Soul’s Code. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0182Q5VQ6/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_PQMPE5QJ2S9FWVB3CTAK

Andrew Solomon. Far From the Tree. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0743236726/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_47WXXPMBZNTE88VHYTC7

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The word consider derives from Latin considerare, “to look at closely, observe.” Con means “with, together,” and sidus refers to “heavenly body, star constellation.” Observing the marvel of the stars with another is very different from engaging in conflict, “to contend, fight, or struggle.” Conflict summons rigid polarities: for or against, right or wrong, and winning or losing. Significant issues like abortion test our ability to tolerate ambiguity and anxiety without activating the polarizing defenses of judging, moralizing, or demonizing the other. Pregnancy, the archetype of potential life, carries profound emotions--and the shadow of what could be is limitation. Lack of internal or external resources limits our ability to birth many of life’s potentials. Bowing to life’s limitations also holds potential for conceiving new life.

Here’s the dream we analyze:

“I am in a dressing room/anteroom getting ready for my wedding. My mother steps in and makes some critical remark to me…something along the lines of “you’re never ready on time” or “you always leave things for the last minute.” Then she exits, leaving me alone with my father. We are getting ready together for the wedding. I ask him what all the guests are going to do while they’re waiting for us, and he reassures me that the rabbi of my synagogue will keep everyone entertained while we get ready. I then hear the rabbi leading all the guests in Jewish songs from outside. Back in the dressing room, my father and I are putting on tuxedos. I take out a box of studs for the tuxedo shirt and lay them out across some kind of table with a soft surface (like a little bed or mattress). The golden studs are spread out across this surface, and I begin to sift through them, but I’m unable to distinguish which studs belong to me and which ones belong to my father -- they look identical. I examine them in the palm of my hand and grow frustrated, being unable to pick out which one is which. Then I realize that I am not clean-shaven -- I have the same stubble that I currently have in my waking life -- and grow even more frustrated, feeling a sense that my parents never leave me enough time to get the things done that I need to get done. Then I wake up, asking myself: Why am I blaming my parents for my own time management problems?”

REFERENCES:

Katie Watson. Scarlet A: The Ethics, Law and Politics of Ordinary Abortion. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0190051728/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_3Q7EQVAVDHD0P85C2ZZ4

Jonathan Haidt. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion.      https://www.amazon.com/dp/0307455777/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_G79D9A2H4D384SDT8QVA

Daniel K. Williams. Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement Before Roe v. Wade. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0190053321/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_R1DFMY0C5YZW30F4W4T9

Sarah Hrdy. Maternal Instincts & How They shape the Human Species. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0345408934/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_J5M6DPS90SQ71WHWAGXC

Diana Greene Foster. The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, A Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having—or Being Denied—An Abortion. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1982141573/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_B8F181E6ZEZTVDRDCG7H

Edward Edinger. Ego & Archetype. https://www.amazon.com/dp/087773576X/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_BY4RK04790ZKXVHPMVV7

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Schools have existed across cultures and throughout time; the knowledge they transmit leads us out of childhood, shapes our values and world view, and grooms us for citizenship. Schools help us build ego strength and adapt to cultural norms, the goal of the first half of life and the first stage of individuation. School experiences also wound us, as Jung recalled in his memoir. Collective schooling instills the uniformity needed for a cohesive culture, but individual uniqueness may be lost. Individualized education—including home life--can enhance personal uniqueness or compensate for special needs, but lacks universal principles and methods. Education by example allows the influence of the unconscious to be most openly included—whereas in other methods its power may be unacknowledged or denied. Jung says, “I would say, in the light of my own experience, that an understanding heart is everything in a teacher, and cannot be esteemed highly enough.”

Here's the dream we analyzed:

“I am participating in some sort of arts class where most of the students are younger and less experienced than me. We are assigned a project where two art works are placed on each of the four walls. The teacher/facilitator puts on some very interesting music that I like and the students/participants are to dance around the space and interact with the art works in a semi-choreographed dance. There are art materials available if they choose to add to the works, or they can choose to just interact through semi-choreographed dance (pointing, touching, etc.) I make a conscious and intentional choice to sit to one side and observe and absorb rather than to actively participate. During the dance, only one of the participants, a black female, chooses to use the art materials to make changes to one of the paintings. She is frustrated when her colored pencil breaks almost immediately so all she can manage to do is sign her name to the painting. The song ends and the teacher/facilitator immediately expresses her frustration that I did not actively participate. She treats me as though I am a hostile, unwilling participant who chose not to participate out of fear, which is simply not true. She refuses to understand or believe that I had made a conscious and intentional choice. I offer multiple times to explain myself and she refuses to hear me, saying instead that we will move on to the next activity and I better participate this time. I become quite agitated and angry that she won’t listen to me, and say so: “Since you aren’t listening to me, I’m going to FORCE YOU TO!!” I then tell my story angrily in such a way that she and the class have no choice but to listen. I tell how in my readings and studies, I’ve come across two stories that are the reason I’ve done what I’ve done. The first is a story of a man who lived in Greenwich Village in the 70s or 80s who would throw huge, elaborate parties in his apartment, inviting 20-40 intentionally cultivated younger men. He would provide the food and the drugs and the music. Decades later, multiple people who had attended these legendary parties would all describe the scene the same way: that this man would never actively participate, but only sit in the middle and observe and absorb the goings-on. “Don’t you understand,” I scream to my classmates/participants and the teacher/facilitator, “You can’t observe and absorb if you’re focused on participating!!! There was a second illustrative story but I’m too worked up right now to remember what it was!” 

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Guest Machiel Klerk has worked with dreams and healing traditions worldwide; his new book is Dream Guidance: Connection to the Soul through Dream Incubation. Religions, shamanic practices, and depth psychology have recognized the significance of dreams and sought their aid. Dreams open into a deeply intelligent source Jung called the two-million-year-old man. This inner companion is interested in our development and life purpose, and he transports us nightly to worlds of vivid images, fulsome feeling, and embodied experience. Dream incubation invites these encounters into consciousness through a well-defined process: identify a problem, develop a question, and create a ritual of receptivity. Questions related to life direction are especially likely to elicit response. Record the dream immediately upon waking, reflect, and relate its wisdom to waking life. Everyone dreams, everyone is connected to this mysterious source, and everyone has something meaningful to live and give. Our dreams are willing to help us. 

Lisa’s Dream Incubation Question: What is the most important thing I should bring forward for this podcast?

 Lisa’s Dream

“There is a guy who is maybe on a skateboard; I am maybe on a bike and with Deb. We are following him. He is enjoying the speed bumps and the twists and turns in the road. I have a somewhat superior attitude. I am going very straight. I think that we are exactly the wrong people to be following him because we have such different approaches. He seems to really be enjoying himself. When we stop, he comes over and is speaking to me. It is clear he is attracted to me, flirting and telling me I’m beautiful. It is hard for me to hear, but I make myself stay with it. I make myself continue to meet his eye. I make myself say “thank you” and accept the compliment. I know he is totally sincere. He says he knows that one day I will be tucking him into bed. I respond that I don’t think that is going to happen, and he says he knows it will happen. I know that our lives are very different and he can’t really understand mine. I mention something about almost having gone to college in the South, but there were no gothic universities. This man asks me what that means, and I am noticing how “out of his league” I am. Still, I can feel his real sincerity and my own surprising attraction to him.” 

REFERENCES:

Machiel Klerk. Dream Guidance: Connection to the Soul Through Dream Incubation. Hayhouse, 2022. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1401968198/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_8EYVRAMB69SR8HFWQSJA or at: https://machielklerk.com/dream-book/#order

Book Depository: Free worldwide delivery of Machiel’s book: https://www.bookdepository.com

Jung Platform Free Online Dream Summit, https://jungplatform.com, June 23-26, 9:00 am PT – 12 pm ET. Click Summit, Dreams & Your Personal Journey.

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Awareness of death can help us create an intentional life—one that serves the movement of soul toward wholeness. Jung realized that although we experience death as “a fearful piece of brutality,” the unconscious images death as celebration. On a night train, after his mother died, Jung reported that “during the entire journey I continually heard dance music, laughter, and jollity, as though a wedding were being celebrated.” Our limited capacities and the conditions of earthly life preclude certainty about life after death, but Jung’s recognition of universal mythic patterns led to his theory of archetypes and a psychic reality beyond our grasp. We glimpse it in dreams, visions, precognitions, and synchronicities, and it can inspire connection with the infinite, which Jung considered life’s decisive question. For Jung, death was “an archetype rich in secret life, which seeks to add itself to our own individual life in order to make it whole.”

REFERENCES:

C.G. Jung. Memories, Dreams, Reflections.  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004X19L3E/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_BZYJF184D3ZSXT9WR3ZF

C.G. Jung. Collected Works, Vol. 8: The Soul & Death. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691097747/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_38HYESF2JQ13FB49H0E9

Von Franz, Marie Louise. On Dreams and Death. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812693671/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_ND8DQF0VKRXW8GQ9P9R7

Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers. The Power of Myth.  https://www.amazon.com/dp/0385418868/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_SB4EJWY02WJ8XGWCRF42

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While many of Hans Christian Andersen’s 19th-century stories have moralizing motifs, their universality and depth places them among ageless fairy tales. Although The Princess and the Pea and The Emperor’s New Clothes are social satire, they also depict psychic dynamics. A young prince searches but cannot find a mate—until a princess arrives one stormy night, soaking wet and mind-blowingly over-sensitive. Do opposites attract, or are they only contrasting representations of superficiality and entitlement? Andersen’s pen next delivers the famous emperor an even more pointed jab: a child, innocent of the contrivances of social status, blurts truth: he has no clothes! Perhaps each of us has an inner emperor whose shadow is on unwitting public display—and a wise child. If Andersen has little regard for self-aggrandizing conceits, The Ugly Duckling depicts compassion for suffering and the downtrodden. Despite abuse and exile, the ugly duckling responds to springtime’s jubilant beauty. He takes wing, answering the call to transcendence—which reveals his transformation. Swans are the divine bird—a royalty we may rightly aspire to. 

Here’s The Dream We Analyze:

“I am walking and see a headlight lying on the road (on a bridge) and a baby crawling beside it--the baby narrowly escapes from being hit by cars. I see a black and red Bugatti parked (owner of the headlight) and denounce the driver to my football coach, who is also a policeman. I remember the car’s number plate. I get a lot of attention due to this, and I greatly enjoy this. I start murdering people to get more attention. The first murder is with a pistol, the second with a revolver. I try to steal a gun from the football cafeteria for the third one, but I fear being found out by my trainer/policeman, so I end up throwing the gun into the changing room. I confess to him that I am the murderer. My trainer accompanies me to a field nearby where some of my classmates from school are celebrating my birthday. There is a pool. On our way there, I explain to my trainer that I committed those murders because I had become addicted to the attention and adrenaline. It is dark, and suddenly my trainer starts walking faster. There is a donkey chasing us. We manage to evade it and climb the fence. The donkey jumps over the fence and attacks me. I crawl underneath the fence and arrive at the spot where my classmates are.”

REFERENCES:

Hans Christian Andersen. The Complete Fairy Tales & Stories. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1626860998/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_86034741H5DFNZAHMH8D

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 LISTEN: https://thisjungianlife.com/episode-215-poison/

Can understanding self-sabotage empower you to overcome hidden barriers and transform your life?

Understanding Self-Sabotage is crucial for unlocking our true potential and overcoming barriers to personal growth. We can identify the unconscious complexes that hinder our progress by exploring internalized negative beliefs, fear of success, unresolved inner conflicts, and defense mechanisms like avoidance and self-handicapping. Through dream analysis, active imagination, and creative expression, we can transform self-sabotaging behaviors into opportunities for growth.

Prepare to discover what self-sabotage is and how it manifests in your life, how to identify and address unconscious drives and defense mechanisms that work against you, which Jungian concepts and therapeutic strategies can help transform self-sabotaging behaviors into personal growth, whether your fears and conflicts are rooted in internalized negative beliefs or unresolved inner conflicts, why understanding self-sabotage is crucial for achieving a harmonious and fulfilling life…and so much more.

HERE'S SOMETHING VERY SPECIAL: You're invited to JUNG'S AMERICAN MUSE: THE VISIONS AND ART OF CHRISTIANA MORGAN, a live podcast recording on Saturday, July 13th, at 2 pm EST. Tickets are on sale now for $5. Christiana Morgan's visions and art were pivotal to Jung's understanding of the nature of the feminine. We're thrilled to welcome her granddaughter, filmmaker Hilary Morgan, as our guest. Hilary will share Tower of Dreams, her short documentary, and then discuss her memories and reflections on her grandmother's life. BUY YOUR TICKET HERE: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jungs-american-muse-the-visions-and-art-of-christiana-morgan-tickets-928055668487?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdsshcopyurl.

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Pharmakon, the ancient Greek word for drug, can mean both “remedy” and “poison.” There is a close connection between poison and cure. Poison is stealthy, and takes us by surprise, whether through an unseen snake’s venomous bite or a ripe apple’s alluring disguise. Psychological poison glides past our defenses, pervades our being, and wounds us where we are most vulnerable. We participate in our poisoning through our own unknowing, from toxic cognitions and rigid fixations to self-doubt and self-sabotage. Poison can transform us by stinging us into building the immunity of increased consciousness and insight. Reason and objectivity can act as antidotes, allowing old attitudes to dissolve and new awareness to arise. Whether a poison is injected or ingested, we can use it for cure.

Here’s The Dream We Analyze:

“I am "cooking up" a batch of Xenomorphs (from the movie Alien) for a "client" in an underground lab. I'm mixing chemicals in a vat, and realize I missed a step...I call the client and am reassured it will still work, it will just take some extra time. The chemicals coagulate into a pink goo. The next day, I return to the lab and see swimming in a pool of water four adolescent xenomorphs. A male lab assistant tells me "This shouldn't have worked. They mutated and can only breath flesh." I see the adolescent aliens all have a caul of pink ectoplasm over their faces. The next day, I return to the lab and there is only one xenomorph, an adult, chained as if crucified to the back wall of a cell, wreathed in shadow. I peer at it from across the cell, and a white dove appears and flies across it. The alien's claw shoots out and snatches the dove from the air and crams it into its mouth. There is a great sucking sound, and I realize the alien is breathing the dove's flesh. My vision zooms in to the alien’s face. It regurgitates the dove's carcass, which inverts into a black cage of bone, and the alien screams. I am shocked awake.”

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From Homer’s Odyssey to the Wizard of Oz our native soil draws us home, whether home is a small Greek island or a simple Kansas farm. The soul has a natural longing to return to the place of its beginning and belonging. Home is a state of safety and changelessness; it is our foundational experience of original completeness, containment and care. As we mourn the loss of the familiar and face the unknown, homesickness generates neural activity similar to physical pain. Its underlying intent is to spur us into detaching from the familiar and investing in the foreign. Homesickness asks that we bear leave-taking and loneliness in service to belonging to a wider world, building new relationships, and the eventual realization that the soul’s true home is a transcendent source of personal being.

Here’s The Dream We Analyzed:

“I am walking up the street toward my apartment at night. Near my building I see a man with a small dog on a leash. The dog is a tiny Yorkshire terrier and the man is very large. He is wearing a long, dark trench coat and has wild black hair. He looks a bit threatening. The dog is on one side of the sidewalk, the man is on the other, and the leash is between them, blocking my path. I try to step out into the street to go around, but as I do, the man swings around and the dog runs around my legs. I get all bound up in the leash and am pressed up against the man. He puts his face right up to mine, like he might try to kiss me, and I see that he is the Devil from the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. He begins to blow some kind of smoke into my mouth. I think he is trying to get inside of me--to possess me or steal my soul. I blow the smoke back into his mouth and it forms a kind of ring that circles between his mouth and mine. I know that I won't have the strength to keep him out for very long.”

REFERENCES:

John Hill. At Home in the World: Signs and Symmetries of Belonging. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1685030211/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_VBGPAMVEX5X2DA2XB3HQ

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Vocation, once associated with serving God through service to others, is now most strongly associated with a career having personal worth. Vocation spans a range of needs and values:  commitment to making ends meet, striving for material rewards and social status, or the more internal satisfaction of research, helping others, and artistic expression. Freud considered love and work the cornerstones of our humanness, and Jung said, “In the final analysis, we count for something only because of the essential we embody, and if we do not embody that, life is wasted.” A discernment process is essential to determining the difference between a true calling and ego ambitions, what we want versus what we can have, and distinguishing dream from dedication. Ultimately, however, vocation is a state of being—so perhaps we can invest the work we have with a sense of call.

HERE’S THE DREAM WE ANALYZED:

“I was at the beach with my mother and grandmother. My mother was driving a red car. My grandmother in the passenger seat, me in the back. It was stormy; the waves were wild and aggressive. My mother was determined to drive as far as possible to find old family members who we no longer speak to, to enact revenge. I was silent. The waves were angry, the wind swirled and howled and rocked the car. She was on a mission.”

REFERENCES:

James Hillman. A Blue Fire.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060921013/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_M7PXWF54T0MRBEBPETQM

James Hillman. The Soul’s Code. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0399180141/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_DKSW982XDDP53F2WM610

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Jung interpreted religious traditions from the viewpoint of their psychological significance. The allegorical tale of the Prodigal Son illustrates Jung’s basic understanding of the structure and development of the psyche. The young prodigal epitomizes shadow qualities of ignorance, arrogance, and impetuousness. His dissolute indulgences show a lack of ego strength and land him in a pigsty. Repentant, he returns to his father’s estate, hoping for servant work. Instead, his father celebrates his homecoming. At this joyful reception, the older brother is aghast; he has been dutiful yet never so acclaimed. He is the embodiment of a respectable persona and adaptation—yet his ego-oriented sense of self seems to have a less enlivened connection with the father. Symbolizing the transcendent Self, the father provides redemptive eros and safe haven. Each of us has a shadow, an ego that tends to believe it’s our totality, and a transpersonal center that can welcome us home.

HERE'S THE DREAM WE ANALYZE:

“I am on the second platform of a four-tiered structure leading from a dock on the river to the top of a cliff. There are ladders and obstacles connecting each of the platforms. I am looking down at the water, which is raging and ebbing with monstrous waves. The water is a beautiful color of indigo blue, vastly wide and immensely deep. Boats are being tossed in the waves with the owners tethered to them by rope, desperately attempting to climb aboard but ultimately becoming swallowed by the crashing waves. I notice a small park ranger dinghy boat come out from a crack in the cliff face and set into the raging water in an apparent attempt to save the other boaters. The driver of the boat appears timid and frightened. I shout to a man next to me, "I used to have that job!" The boat is immediately capsized. I begin climbing up to the third platform and become paralyzed with fear as I climb the wooden pegs jutting out of the side of the cliff. I am aware that a slip would result in certain death. I realize that I have done this many times before and struggle before ultimately pulling myself up and over. A young Afghan boy comes after me, effortlessly scaling this obstacle and the next, reaching the top of the cliff. I realize that I was holding up a line of people! I think of the capsized park ranger and determine that I must go save him. I look into the water from on high and see his body, curled in the fetal position, bobbing in the water. I am transported down and reach my hand in to gather him and perform CPR. I am confused to find that all I pull out of the water is a long-expired cartridge from a firework or rifle. I begin the climb up to the second tier and at the threshold, there is a tangled web of rope that ensnares me. I am panicking when I hear little voices from below: "Wear it like a dress!" I ponder this for a second and then slip through the rope web as if putting a dress on and am securely on the second platform. I look below and see a dozen young girls; aged about five years old, all wearing matching black and white dresses. I realize that I must help them up and demonstrate the climbing technique: “Pretend you are a pirate!" I shout to them and demonstrate in an animated way the technique. They begin to climb, and I reach down, gathering them two at a time and pulling them to the second platform.”

REFERENCES:

Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version, Luke 15:11-32.

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Beth underwent gender transition from natal female to trans male and has since de-transitioned. In her early teens, Beth felt she was not like other women and began to question her gender. She saw people who were nonconforming, but although she adopted a non-binary identity in college, people still saw her as a woman. Beth became drawn to a masculine identity and associated transitioning gender with empowerment: she would be free from the perceived social constraints and physical vulnerabilities of womanhood. Beth’s parents, the therapist she saw a few times, and the surgeon all affirmed her desire to transition. Beth underwent testosterone therapy and top surgery to remove her breasts, sacrifices in service of liberation. In time, however, Beth discovered that physical changes did not transform her inner world, and her post-surgical chest remains numb. Beth says, “de-transitioning brought me down to earth” and into adulthood. She feels some of her urges to transition were healthy, and some were self-annihilating—and wishes she had had more help in differentiating her inner world from her gender expression. Beth hopes to be a voice for the complexity of gender transitioning.

Here’s Beth’s dream:

“I met a woman in a lush forest. The forest was filled with strange relics—an abandoned child’s playground, a little home, and abandoned campsites. I knew she was a detransitioner, but unlike me, she was proud, unabashed, and free. She told me I could be free like her once no one knew where to find me. Then she ran off into the jungle. There was an exhilarating feeling of freedom and hope.” 

 BEYOND THE BREAKING POINT

Music and lyrics by Wells Hanley ©2021

You were my lost lover
I tried for so long
just to find you here beside me
I was so wrong

I wandered darkened highways
I turned every stone
far beyond the point of breaking
but I was never alone

So afraid I would die waiting
How I hoped you would be there
and that you’d find me
out beyond the breaking point

So I swam in shark filled waters
I swam in despair
My flesh was eaten, bruised, and beaten
My blood was spilled everywhere

And as I sank down to the bottom
and my life began to fade,
you opened up your eyes
out beyond the breaking point

And as we gaze into the heavens
where we dwell among the trees,
you’re always with me

here beyond the breaking point

_____________

Music and lyrics by Wells Hanley ©2021

Singers: Laura Ann Singh at www.lauraannsingh.com and Rei Alvarez at www.reialvarez.com

https://www.iwrotethissongforyou.com/

https://www.patreon.com/iwrotethissongforyou

NOTES: 

Currently, there is limited research on the factors that correlate with detransition and the percentage of individuals who chose to detransition. Of the available studies, methods and definitions vary, suggesting a need to establish standardized criteria in the future. Five studies are mentioned below. One concludes, of 17,151 who identify as transgender and gender diverse people, 13.1% reported a history of detransition or going back to living as their sex assigned at birth. Another concludes that only 0.2-0.3% of patients expressed post-operative regret and requested reversal surgery. In another study, 6.9% of patients detransitioned. Additional research is necessary to understand these phenomena more fully. 

Boyd, I.; Hackett, T.; Bewley, S. Care of Transgender Patients: A General Practice Quality  Improvement Approach. Healthcare 2022, 10, 121. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare100 10121

Hall, R., Mitchell, L., & Sachdeva, J. (2021). Access to care and frequency of detransition among a cohort discharged by a UK national adult gender identity clinic: Retrospective case-note review. BJPsych Open, 7(6), E184. doi:10.1192/bjo.2021.1022

Littman L. Individuals Treated for Gender Dysphoria with Medical and/or Surgical Transition Who Subsequently Detransitioned: A Survey of 100 Detransitioners. Arch Sex Behav. 2021 Nov;50(8):3353-3369. doi: 10.1007/s10508-021-02163-w. Epub 2021 Oct 19. PMID: 34665380; PMCID: PMC8604821.

Narayan SK, Hontscharuk R, Danker S, Guerriero J, Carter A, Blasdel G, Bluebond-Langner R, Ettner R,  Radix A, Schechter L, Berli JU. Guiding the conversation - types of regret after gender-affirming surgery and their associated etiologies. Ann Transl Med 2021;9(7):605. doi: 10.21037/atm-20-6204.

Turban JL, Loo SS, Almazan AN, Keuroghlian AS. Factors Leading to “Detransition” Among Transgender and Gender Diverse People in the United States: A Mixed-Methods Analysis. LGBT Health. 2021 May-Jun;8(4):273-280. doi: 10.1089/lgbt.2020.0437. Epub 2021 Mar 31. PMID: 33794108; PMCID: PMC8213007.

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The Roman god Janus had two faces. They looked in opposite directions, representing dualities, especially beginnings and endings, past and future. Psychotherapy often begins by facing the past and understanding its influence on the present. Belief in the past as unalterably determinative, however, can imply that personal history is a single, all-powerful god—as if Janus fixed on yesterday. Jung took special interest in psyche’s purposive and creative energy—the face Janus turned toward the future. Incarnating our innate potential, which Jung termed the individuation process, is the process of engaging our capacity for growth and wholeness. Life’s road ahead has new possibilities, which is why we launch the new year in honor of Janus, for it is he who presides over all new beginnings. 

HERE’S THE DREAM WE ANALYZE:

The Magic Gown

“I’m in a dress boutique, watching as teenage girls try on bright prom gowns. They giggle, twirl, and take selfies. I need a dress too because I’ll be attending the prom as a chaperone. I go into a private changing room that doubles as a small bedroom. The dresses hanging for me to try on make me think of Little Bo Peep. Reluctantly, I select the least offensive option, a ribbony mauve number. I’m sure it’s going to look ridiculous, but when I step into it, it becomes bespoke black lace, elegant and perfect. I want to send a selfie to my husband. I try to frame my image in the full-length mirror, but a bed is in the way, and I can’t move it or figure out the angles. Meanwhile, my husband texts sweet portraits of our dog who recently passed away.” 

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The Garden of Gethsemane is the place of life crisis; it permits no escape or compromise. There, we suffer the agony of choosing between personal will or willing submission to something greater. Jesus’ companions could not stay awake, and God did not answer his prayers to be spared. We suffer dark and harrowing Gethsemanes alone. We may have to give up familiarity and safety for the unprecedented and unpredictable. We may ache from anguish and abandonment. Yet, to surrender voluntarily and consciously is to bow to a greater truth and yield to a higher power. In doing so, we transcend despair, resentment, and victimhood--and may find ourselves transformed. Gethsemane is a universal human story. If we can keep vigil and stay awake, we can hear the voice within. And say yes.

Here’s the Dream We Analyzed:

“I am on the youtube show, Good Mythical Morning. The two hosts are dumping buckets of spiders on me. They start with daddy long legs. I hunch over and can feel them tickling my back. Then a bigger black type of spider. Then the last bucket is scorpions. I stay hunched over, covering my head. With each bucket, I can feel the insects tickling me, but that’s it.”

REFERENCES:

This American Life (podcast): Shoulda Been Dead, https://www.thisamericanlife.org/50/shoulda-been-dead/act-one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndZ6B1EaJEs

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Moral injury violates our sense of justice, loyalty, and meaning—and creates a storm in the soul. Those who directly affect others’ lives are most at risk of suffering irreconcilable conflicts between behavior and belief: military, police, medical, educational, and other human service providers. The purported “cost of doing business” also calls us to confront institutional shadow--moral injury does not belong to the individual alone. The integrity of organizational and community values plays an important part in condoning morally distressing situations—and should play a role in healing the injured. Conflicts between actions and values are inevitable in life, and the core of being human is our unique capacity for choice. There is no way to escape shadow, and we are more than our mistakes. They are neither our totality nor our destiny.

Here’s The Dream We Analyze:

“I am standing near a well. I have to go down into it. When I am in the well, I am me, but I am also a slightly younger, stronger man. The cylindrical walls of the well are grim, dark. There is a cylindrical metal structure, and on the outside of this are two dead babies/toddlers and a slightly older one who is not quite dead but needs resuscitating. The water has been polluted as a result of the bodies. I shout, “Rocket up.” This is so the babies can be pulled up. I wake up and feel dark. As I think about the dream, it occurs to me that “Rocket up” could have been “Rock it up.” However, in the dream, although I didn’t see the structure move up, I imagined it going up at great speed.”

REFERENCES:

Jonathan Shay. Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0684813211/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_FVEHY95SXRA73DWABH7M

Film: Quo Vadis, Aida? https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B08YP6238S/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r

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We welcome Jungian colleague, psychiatrist, and historian Dr. Bert Price, whose research in Vienna during a 2019 international conference led to the discovery of new facts regarding the famous friendship—and break-up—of Jung and Freud. Following lively correspondence, the two men met in Vienna and talked for 13 hours. They continued over the next three days, and after attending the Wednesday night meeting of Freud’s Vienna circle, took a “spirited” walk to a tattoo parlor, stirred by the mythic significance of “marking" their newfound bond. 

The tattoo artist, Stefan Otto, was an Austrian sailor who had learned Chinese ink techniques while recovering from wounds in Tientsin (Tianjin), port city of Peking (Beijing), after the Boxer Rebellion. When Otto returned to Vienna, he was one of several tattoo artists in the Brigittenau District, home to an Austro-Hungarian naval river flotilla. Dr. Price discovered Otto’s tattoo catalogue while visiting the Heeresgeschichtiliches Museum, and saw it contained images of dragons remarkably like those in Jung’s later Red Book. Further examination of Otto’s log book (then a legal requirement) recorded a visit on March 6, 1907 by Herr Professor-Artz S. Freud and Dr. C.G. Jung. Both received "Kleine Drachenn Tatowwierung" (Small Dragon Tattoo). Dr. Price shares details of his important finding, providing new depth and understanding of the historic relationship between Jung and Freud.

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To hunt is to engage the opposites: the hunter must attune and align with nature in order to kill part of it. According to mythographer Joseph Campbell, “the basic hunting myth is of a kind of covenant between the animal world and the human world.” Myth and rituals of sympathy, sacrifice, and gratitude honor the age-old bond between man and animal: one dies so the other may live. If the hunter imposes will alone, hunting becomes ego dominance--sport or slaughter. In traversing the realms from human culture to nature’s archaic terrain, the huntsman echoes and honors the relationship between ego-consciousness and the unconscious. 

For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear...they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth. -Henry Beston

Here’s the dream we analyze:

“My extended family were in the process of relocating to a city named Boreham Wood in Tunisia (I checked, it doesn’t exist). It was a sort of fairytale paradise, blue skies, palm trees, and low-standing terracotta houses. They asked me to help with the move by driving my grandma’s electric scooter from Scotland through the desert. Strapped to the sides were two bags filled only with ice and rum. Once I arrived at the new house, I unloaded the alcohol but immediately felt the urge to leave and explore the area. It was clear my family wanted to celebrate my highly anticipated arrival, but I knew couldn’t stay. Instead, I took the scooter and drove into town, winding through the cobbled streets, past gothic arches and flocks of tropical birds. As I approached the city center, a large, dark castle rose in the skyline. At the gates, a young woman was weaving mushrooms from a hook to sell to tourists. I stopped and watched her but didn’t buy anything. I parked the scooter and entered the castle gates. The courtyard was bustling with young families eating lunch from long tables. I wandered around until I stumbled upon a group of disheveled-looking men dressed in grey robes and animal furs. They didn’t pay me much attention, but I was fascinated and struck up a conversation with what appeared to be the leader. He explained that they were a tour group from America called Warriors of The Soul that had been doing annual trips to Boreham Wood since 1992. I could see they had self-inflicted cuts all over their arms, some openly bleeding onto the table. He (the leader) explained that they were mostly vets, recovering addicts, and environmental protesters who were on a journey of healing together. I asked the leader if I could spend the day with him and was immediately invited back to a tower in the castle to see his studio. We left the group and walked to the base of the tower; from there, we climbed a seemingly endless spiral staircase, dilapidated and strewn with trash bags. I remember taking note of the exit signs. Once at the top, I was ushered into the studio. It was dark, cold, and filled with primitive paintings made from human blood. He drew his knife and explained that the canvases were waxed paper, as that allowed the blood to move more freely across the surface, unlike regular paper, which is far too absorbent. He then asked if I would donate blood for his next painting. At that point, I noticed a dead body under the drawing desk and tried to move the conversation back to the wax paper. I asked if the toxins were harmful if used when baking. This seemed to work, as he began extolling that yes, never use wax paper when baking. At this point, I turned on my heels and ran back down the stairs, bounding three at a time. He sprinted after me, brandishing the knife and laughing. I knew I’d be safe if I got to the exit signs, but they didn’t appear. Instead, the staircase began to climb again, twisting and turning like a rabbit warren. He started gaining on me and nicked my thumb with the knife, but eventually, I came to a window with a Brooklyn-style fire escape. I smashed the glass and shimmied down the ladder, my legs and thumb bleeding. As I descended, he laughed at me continuously. Once on the ground, I ran back to the scooter, only to realize I didn’t know how to get home. I couldn’t call because I didn’t have my phone and I couldn’t buy bandages for my cuts as I didn’t have a wallet. Then I awoke.” 

 REFERENCES:

Anna Braytenback, Animal Communicator. https://www.animalspirit.org/

 The Great Dance: A Hunter’s Story (documentary). Craig Foster and Damn Foster. https://www.amazon.com/Great-Dance-Hunters-Story/dp/B074G43NYT

Eleanor Wilner, Hunting Manual (poem): https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42971/hunting-manual

Eric Fromm. The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. https://www.amazon.com/dp/080501604X/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_JAETSJ4S52DE4N19XYC5

Yuval Harari. Sapiens. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0063051338/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_M4XT8Y4VQWPN43JZ8PEF?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Henry Beston. The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0140043152/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_YG8701XC4Q358473D67A

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TRY OUT THE TEMENOS DREAM INTERPRETATION APP FOR FREE: https://inf.temenosdream.com/eiNh/tjlmeta 

Can the synergy between AI technology and human expertise revolutionize dream interpretation, promote personal growth, and ensure ethical considerations in the age of digital psychology?

John Temple's AI dream interpretation app TEMENOS decodes dreams, providing insights into the unconscious. The app captures and analyzes dreams, offering immediate detailed feedback, relevant myths, images, and information on specific symbols while highlighting recurring themes. AI's ability to process large datasets allows a swift comparison of your dream series, revealing hidden patterns. While AI excels in objective analysis, human interpreters bring depth, non-rational insights, and emotional connection. Combining AI’s efficiency with human empathy may offer a holistic approach to dream interpretation. This synergy may open new pathways for exploring the unconscious, enhancing personal development, and enhancing analytic interventions. The future of dream interpretation may lie in balancing AI technology with human connection for a deeper understanding of dreams.

Prepare to discover what AI dream interpretation reveals about the unconscious mind, how AI and human insights can complement each other in dream analysis, which benefits and limitations AI brings, whether AI can replicate human intuition, why integrating AI technology with traditional methods might enhance personal growth and self-awareness…and so much more.

TRY OUT THE TEMENOS DREAM INTERPRETATION APP FOR FREE: https://inf.temenosdream.com/eiNh/tjlmeta

FIND A COPY OF THE DREAM WE ANALYZE HERE: https://thisjungianlife.com/ai-dream-interpretation/

HERE'S SOMETHING SPECIAL: You're invited to JUNG'S AMERICAN MUSE: THE VISIONS AND ART OF CHRISTIANA MORGAN, a live podcast recording on Saturday, July 13th, at 2 pm EST. Tickets are on sale now for $5. Christiana Morgan's visions and art were pivotal to Jung's understanding of the nature of the feminine. We're thrilled to welcome her granddaughter, filmmaker Hilary Morgan, as our guest. Hilary will share Tower of Dreams, her short documentary, and then discuss her memories and reflections on her grandmother's life. Buy Your Ticket Here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jungs-american-muse-the-visions-and-art-of-christiana-morgan-tickets-928055668487?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdsshcopyurl.

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We first encounter failure in learning to walk—we fall down, the root definition of failure. Coming up short is a lifelong experience that stretches from mishaps and lapses to shock waves that shake our lives. Failure can make us doubt our worth, shatter certainties, and fill us with shame. Failure punctures ego’s false sense of sovereignty. When we are out of alignment with inner or outer life, a gap opens, and we fall victim to ambition, misjudgment, or impulsivity. Failure is a call to self-confrontation, humility, and resilience. We can recognize the limits of our conscious attitude and our dependence on the unconscious. Failure can imbue us with a higher sense of purpose that is in service to a greater good, including our own.

Here’s The Dream We Analyze:

“A woman (like my wife, but more mysterious and mischievous) and I were given a mission. The Sun was setting, and we were told that if we traveled toward the sunset, or rather—since we were to leave in the morning—with the rising Sun to our backs, we would reach Norway. We came to a narrow, concealed canyon with train tracks, and the woman caused a cave-in that forced the train to stop. It was carrying some sort of ore. We met the crew without raising their suspicions, and they took us through the canyon’s closed, concealed entrance into their country. One of the crew pointed out in the distance a harbor full of the end product of the ore: beautifully and skillfully crafted boats. You had to be a citizen of their country to own one, but people from around the world came to rent them. He then took us into a wood-paneled room (like from a club in Edwardian England) and showed us a rapier and broadsword, also made from the ore. As he demonstrated how to use and care for them, I felt intimidated or unsure about being able to use them myself.” 

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Holding the tension between opposites was one of Jung’s foundational precepts. Although contradictory views are often a better witness to truth than one-sided conviction, beliefs and decisions often serve to relieve ambiguity, anxiety, and threat. Jung says, “The ego keeps its integrity only if it does not identify with one of the opposites, and if it understands how to hold the balance between them. This is possible only if it remains conscious of both at once. However, the necessary insight is made exceedingly difficult not by one’s social and political leaders alone but also by one’s religious mentors. They all want decisions in favor of one thing, and therefore the utter identification of the individual with the necessarily one-sided ‘truth.’” We need to suffer the tension a plurality of voices and views produces. Holding the tension of opposites grows consciousness, wholeness, and soul.

HERE’S THE DREAM WE ANALYZE:

 “I dreamed I had a little bird like a cockatoo who was my friend. He would press his head into my face to warn me of floods and bad storms. I hadn’t seen him for a while. I was at the cousins’ house in America and was reunited with my bird. We were affectionately putting our faces on each other when he stopped and pressed his head into my cheek for a really long time. I took this as a warning of a huge flood/storm. The house had a big safe room, and everyone went there. I realized that the furniture in my bedroom (in my own house, that I share with my boyfriend - except a very pastel version) wasn’t secured and threatened the integrity of the safe room. I ran to fix this. There was a time limit; a curtain would close, and a door would shut, leaving me locked in the bedroom if I didn’t get out quickly enough. The room was tilting up, and to tidy bits away, I had to climb the bed, which was hard to get a purchase on, and up the chest of drawers, which had all the drawers pulled out like stairs. Time was running out. On my way down the bed, I decided to close the drawers to stop the contents coming out. As I finished, the time ran out and the door shut - I was locked in the bedroom, alone, to weather this huge storm without any provisions or comfort. I wished my bird was with me but was also glad he was safe.”

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In Greek mythology, three Fates represented life forces beyond our control. One spun the thread of life, another determined its length, and the third cut it. Jung, however, understood that fate was also the external expression of an internal situation that had not been made conscious. In other words, we may unconsciously participate in creating our own misfortune and call it bad luck, injustice—or fate. How we orient ourselves to what happens to us is crucial, and working toward self-awareness helps us find a path between feeling powerless and seeking control. Ultimately, however, we are called to embrace life as it is, not as we wish it to be. This means moving beyond ego-consciousness to discover the inner center Jung called the Self. If we know we are part of something larger, we can accept our authentic nature, say yes to life in the face of uncompromising reality, and love our fate.

Here’s the dream we analyze:

“I am standing looking in the bathroom mirror over the sink. A man, who is now deceased, a former boyfriend from when I was 19 with whom I had a romantic relationship, comes up behind me and puts his arms around me. I lean back and relax into his chest. He is tall and strong, and it feels like we are a safe harbor for one another, even a part of one another. We share a feeling of complete trust and peace. I seem to know in the dream that he is no longer physically alive. Then the scene changes, and I am with another man in an apartment with clothes and musical instruments lying about. We are looking into the whites of one another’s eyes, trying to see one another’s souls. Our faces are so close our foreheads are almost touching. It feels like we are connecting soul to soul. It feels sublime to connect in this way. He is also tall and strong, but not someone I ever had an intimate relationship with. He was a member of my extended friend group, a musician who writes scores for movies, and who other musicians in our group referred to as a musical genius, but I have not seen him in years. Still, I don’t seem to be surprised in the dream to be sharing such a spiritual connection with him. The depth of feeling between us sweeps away everything else. I wake up from these two encounters feeling whole and fulfilled.” 

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Intimate attachments, workplace effectiveness, and stable social systems depend on our ability to rely on one another. Trust is the foundation of social exchanges and benefits, from affection to achievements. Erik Erikson mapped stages of human psychosocial development and found that establishing basic trust in the first 18 months of life was formative for later life.

Caring we can count on prepares us to go into the world with optimism and confidence, able to accept life’s uncertainties, manage anxiety, and tolerate ambiguity. Throughout life, relationships rest on being able to trust that the other is dependable, plays fair, and can safeguard our secrets and shortcomings. Trust does not make us naïve--it enables us to make commitments, attend to the world--and ourselves.

Here's the dream we analyze:

“My cousin and I were in a fast-food restaurant. There was a “bar” at the front where the workers worked behind the tills. We sat and ate the most disgusting food at the bar and watched the workers rush around. I thought to myself that this was a very unpleasant experience, watching people in a minimum wage job make disgusting food. Who would think to put stools at the checkout point? A man and his wife appeared on the stools beside us. He gave us a creepy smile then sneakily grabbed my cousin’s butt. She looked at me and whispered what just happened. I screamed at the man, saying something like, “Did you just sexually assault my cousin?!” Everyone in the restaurant looked at us. It felt threatening. He didn’t expect me to speak up. I threw my burger down, grabbed my cousin, and left. Something may have happened in between these scenes that I don’t remember, but my cousin and I ended up in a police car with two policemen. We told them what had happened in the fast-food restaurant and they asked for a description of the guy. We realized that the guy had followed us to the police car. The officers knew him and told us to stay in the car for safety. They drove us to a safe house which was a small, one-story, decrepit-looking building. Inside, the curtains were old, maybe from the 70s, and falling off the window. The place felt rotten and unpleasant. The cops said we’d be safe here. They were also staying here. I think they were in some sort of trouble. I looked out the window at the small garden, which reminded me a lot of my Nana’s back garden, which was surrounded by neighbors and a nice community.” 

 REFERENCES:

Erik Erikson. The Life Cycle Completed. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393317722/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_QGAGVQSDVVRDM7M1Q5MX?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

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Recent events in Ukraine have again put war at the forefront of collective consciousness. War’s destruction belongs to the mythic realm. Mars, the Roman god of war, was a primordial force whose altars were placed outside city gates. Although acknowledged, he was not accepted. His paramour, Venus, is warfare’s seductress, offering spectacle, pageantry, and glory.

Like all the gods of Mt. Olympus, Mars and Venus live in us as opposing forces of aggression and eros. We are charged with holding the tension of these impassioned opposites and making them conscious, lest we project shadow onto designated enemies or wage war internally as neurosis. We can stand in the complexity of conflict, suspend action, and allow the gods a place inside our psychic city gates. 

Here’s the dream we analyze:

“I had a dream me and my boyfriend adopted a child and were living in a rundown apartment full of darkness that resembled a studio we rehearsed in. Then we went to the balcony to watch missiles falling and exploding in the sky; my boyfriend was aloof to the situation. My first thought was, “this must be very exciting for the child because it’s like fireworks,” Then I realized that it’s actually really dangerous and life-threatening, so I grabbed the child and ran inside, leaving my boyfriend outside gazing at the sky. The room was pitch dark, and I could hear the voices of my mother and my brother talking about me; they were saying, “how is the baby going to survive without a shell”? Then I realized the kid has turned into a round egg in the palm of my hand, and the shell was dissolving like wet paper, leaving a bubble of fragile liquid with a fetus inside. I knew that any sudden movement could burst the bubble and kill the baby, so I tried to be as gentle and careful as I could.”

 REFERENCES:

A Terrible Love of War by James Hillman. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143034928/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_46A683TF2489P8WNSC8Y

Depth Psychology and a New Ethic by Erich Neumann. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0877735719/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_7W8QHPPGHMJ6SJ6RYS9R

The Moral Equivalent of War by William James. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1445529866/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_JF75M92ZS5N96ST1M49G

A Story Waiting to Pierce You by Peter Kingsley. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1890350214/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_BHEFTMVSZCJ6JF0X86N7

A Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M2YED0C/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_KGW7PQX1J4DH4WB2HQCF

RESOURCES:

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Forgiveness has long been the province of morality, virtue, and religious values. Psychologically, forgiveness requires the capacity to hold both the magnitude of the injury and the humanity of the injurer. There are doable steps toward this goal, beginning with acknowledging and mourning the wrong yet forgoing retaliation. Righteousness and anger provide only illusory power and can be chronic and corrosive.

Blame can thwart our ability to understand unconscious personal dynamics and prevent acceptance of universal human flaws and vulnerability. We can accept apology and remorse—especially if it has been accompanied by introspection and greater self-understanding. Forgiveness is less about the other than it is about liberation from victimization. Even when we can’t solve a problem with another, we can increase our inner resources and enlarge our hearts. 

Here’s the dream we analyze:

“I was a shepherd carrying a sheep that had been born, but it was obvious it was not going to live. I was taking it to a pond to drown it, to put it out of its misery—but I knew this was actually an act of love. The pond was in a Botticelli ‘Elysian field’-like environment, and most of the water of the pond was frozen over—so much, so a horse was slipping around on the surface. There were other birds and animals all around me, like a Botticelli painting.” 

REFERENCES:

Robert Karen. The Forgiving Self: The Road from Resentment to Connection. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0385488742/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_51MKHP5J0RNCC401GZDN

Edward Tick: Warrior’s Return: Restoring the Soul After War. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1622032004/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_CXPVMY2VVQBS66JD3T52 

Hannah Arendt. The Human Condition. https://www.amazon.com/dp/022658660X/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_JNEGRBZWC01ND6MCKY5X

The Forgiveness Project. https://www.theforgivenessproject.com/

Robert Enright. The International Forgiveness Institute. https://internationalforgiveness.com/

Desmond Tutu. Truth and Reconciliation Commission. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Truth-and-Reconciliation-Commission-South-Africa

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Jung says, “The more one turns to the light, the greater the shadow behind one’s back.” Unacknowledged shadow can increase vulnerability to coercive dealings and regrettable decisions. We may find ourselves scammed, ripped off, and left holding the bag. Why didn’t we see it coming? Mostly because our denied fears and desires create blind spots others manipulate. Advertisers, hucksters, and con men prey on our fear of danger and disapproval and our quest for security and status. Gullibility is marked by misplaced trust and willful witlessness. We may not pause to reflect, research a decision, or seek neutral counsel. It is often relieving to trust an external authority rather than bear the anxiety and responsibility of choosing. When we fail to see our own shadow, we may be unable to recognize it in others.

Here’s the dream we analyze:

“I am in a shopping mall with my wife. We pass by a booth that is an archery range, and I notice on a sign that I can fire off one arrow for free, but as I grab an arrow, my wife rushes me along, and the booth attendant says it’s not free. I’m disappointed but return the arrow. We then immediately walk into a store; the merchandise is not apparent. In a second, I am leaving the store alone. Near the exit, I realize I have a golden blade, like a letter opener or small dagger. I think to return it, but instead decide that since I almost walked out with it and stole it accidentally, I may as well pretend that’s what happened.” 

References

Stephen Greenspan. Annals of Gullibility: Why We Get Duped and How to Avoid It. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0313362165/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_5H0NDZJGST9PMC1GB1R9

Erich Fromm. Escape from Freedom. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BPJOC7W/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_P8AYDQWYQKPRF9TKJ3D5

Science Daily https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060523072353.htm

RESOURCES:

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The nature of reality may be a complex philosophical question, but from a psychological viewpoint, reality is largely a question of adaptation to the truths of our inner and outer worlds. How well do we manage psychic life and the electric bill? Science fiction writer Philip Dick pithily states: “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” Multiple realities challenge us. We live in shared social realities, from embracing niceties to being steeped in beliefs and a need to belong. We also may access the objective realities of verifiable facts and scientific data. And we experience subjective realities of emotion, intuition, and unconscious influences. We can feel our feelings, differentiate between levels of reality, and choose which to apply to a particular situation or decision. Unclouded acceptance of reality is medicinal.

Here’s the dream we analyzed:

“I found myself somehow back living in the attic of a property I managed years ago, an old parish house. I was very comfortable with this and glad to be there. A high school sweetheart came to visit unexpectedly, and we fell into our old way of being together rather quickly. We had been very close when young, and in real life, we maintained contact for years, though at the time of this dream, we had not spoken for a long time. I was excited at the prospect of rekindling our relationship anew as adults and was a little nervous. She asked where she could smoke a cigarette, and I suggested the roof. It was a warm, inviting night, and although I had quit smoking decades ago, I felt young again and accepted her offer of a cigarette. We were on a flat roof with a parapet. She went to sit on the parapet wall and purposefully leaned back, intentionally flinging herself off of the roof. There was a dreadful moment of suspended time before I heard her body hit the ground many floors below. Terrified, I started running down the flights of stairs toward ground level. At one of the landings, I encountered the building’s plumber, an older man I had known for years who was working on some old piping. I started to tell him what just happened, but he knew already, and with incredible calm, told me there was nothing to be done and to just forget about it. This hardly registered as I continued my frantic flight down the stairs, only to discover that the stairwell never ended or that I was somehow lost, even though there was only one way down. The further I went, lights were burnt out and the steps increasingly irregular, forcing me to slow down and test each step."

REFERENCES:

C.G. Jung. The Function of Religious Symbols. Collected Works, Volume 18.

William Glasser, M.D. Reality Therapy: A New Approach to Psychiatry.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060904143/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_YDK0SZAZS3Y5JB8X5QYJ

 RESOURCES:

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When the archetype of purity is activated, science and psychology intersect. Fear of contamination has deep instinctual roots, evidenced in universal facial expressions of distress and disgust. Religious rules and rituals of riddance have long been practical and symbolic protections against pollution, whether the threat is pathogenic, environmental, or moral. For Jung, this psychological dynamic “is the dissolution of the ego in the unconscious, a state resembling death. It results from the more or less complete identification of the ego with unconscious factors, or, as we would say, from contamination...we then feel in danger of being swamped or poisoned by the unconscious.” The antidote to contamination is often a form of cleansing. Today’s sanitizers kill germs and also restore a mental state of purity long associated with sacred inviolability. An ego strong enough to straddle the opposites of the physical and archetypal worlds can help us chart a balanced course between external threat and internal anxiety.

Here's the dream we analyze:

“I am in Mexico traveling with my mom, my dad, and my brother. We are invited to a child’s birthday party. As a gift/decoration, I bring 12 golden retriever puppies. They are all tied together on a long, thin, blue nylon rope. The rope is looped around each puppy’s belly, and there are a couple feet of rope between each puppy. When we arrive at the party, which is in a domestic courtyard, my father hangs the rope of puppies high on a wall in a square spiral shape. I express my concern that the puppies are hanging from their ropes, at which point my dad shows me that he has placed a brass-colored nail into the wall at each puppy node. The nails stick out from the wall a few inches; he explains that the puppies can sit on the nails. I agree with him, though it seems unrealistic to me that a puppy could be comfortable balancing on so small a surface. As I look at them, they are struggling to keep their perches though many of them are still wagging their tails. My father criticizes me for bringing home these 12 puppies and asks me what I am going to do with them. I realize I have nowhere to take them as we are all staying in a hotel room, and the smell of their pee and poop would overwhelm the rest of my family. I realize with some horror that i am going to have to kill them or just release them onto the streets, where they will suffer and slowly die of starvation and neglect. I wrack my brain for the right execution method. Drowning? Put them In plastic bags in the freezer? I am horrified at either prospect. I sit down at a table to discuss this with other party attendees. No one is taking me very seriously, but someone does scornfully point out that I have several other kinds of animals in groups of 12 that I also have to figure out how to dispatch in some way. I can’t remember now what all those animals were except a group of mice which are already shrouded and drowning slowly in a large glass ashtray on the picnic table. There is also a group of four dolphins--they are only toys, and their heads are like finger puppets. When I submerge them in a bucket of water, they seem to come to life. I continue to agonize about my responsibility to “do something” with all of these dozens of little animals and announce to the group that my inclination to kill the puppies is at least merciful and correct because they have been exposed to jet fuel which has permanently damaged their abdominal organs. Someone, an adult man I don’t recognize, points out to me that their abdominal organs are actually being dislocated and harmed because they have fallen off their impossibly small perches and are hanging from the little blue ropes. I take one off of the wall and look at his belly, which is red and distended, especially on one side. I feel sick with guilt and totally overwhelmed with my inability to either take care of or murder these sweet, patient, naive little dogs.”

RESOURCES:

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Nearly every civilization since ancient times has portrayed explicit sexual acts. Sexuality’s numinous aspect has long brought it into close association with spirituality and religion. The powerful potential of sexual arousal is central to being human and has seized today’s collective via the Internet. Porn is symbolic of the widespread merchandising of desire, from toys to trucks. The unprecedented power of image in today’s world can now drive what Lost Goddesses author Giorgio Tricarico terms our “desiring multiplicities” and quest for limitlessness. Pornography can be addicting, and Jung maintained that “There is no illness that is not at the same time an unsuccessful attempt at a cure.” Pornography could also be an attempt to achieve a sense of integration and wholeness through reconnection with the archetype of the goddess.

HERE’S THE DREAM WE ANALYZE:

“The Dragon Queen, a young blonde woman, was not the rightful queen and needed to be tamed. Everyone said to throw her in the furnace, but I couldn’t do that to her. She had become a sort of friend and had come to trust me. I came to her through a room where archery practice was taking place, a cave to the kingdom. An old friend was a centaur, and he was teaching me to shoot the bow and arrow. He had many tiny arrows, which he shot into the queen’s cave and missed. She came out and said, “Let me show you how it’s done.” I then captured her by tackling her with a black sheet. Then I sat on her and started massaging her legs vigorously. She started to relax. I then went to her arms and belly. She completely relaxed. Then I uncovered her, and she was ready to learn how to live in our society. One of the guys in the archery group took on the job of teaching her how to eat. He showed her a vision of all kinds of foods and nutrition but started with feeding her only sweets—all kinds of candy. I was worried and said so. He said that because she was a dragon, we needed to start out with feeding her that way.”

REFERENCES:

Giorgio Tricarico. Lost Goddesses. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1782205322/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_PBJVC0D9VDDC2TYZW516

Sharon Blackie. If Women Rose Rooted. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B098CXQLLH/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_3AQDWXGFMVJA105QAT1T

RESOURCES:

Learn to Analyze your own Dreams: https://thisjungianlife.com/enroll/

How can recognizing and mitigating the psychological effects of toxic leadership protect people from regressing and aligning with dangerous leaders before it's too late?

Understanding the effects of toxic leaders is crucial for fostering healthy organizational and societal dynamics. Malignant narcissism and large group regression can lead to destructive leadership, but by integrating psychological insights into leadership training and policy formulation, we can create environments that resist such toxicity. Education, ethical leadership, and community engagement are powerful tools that can counteract the negative influence of toxic leaders. Through informed action and collective effort, we can build resilient communities and organizations, ensuring a healthier and more harmonious society for all.

Prepare to discover what specific behaviors and traits define toxic leadership and its impact on group dynamics and individual well-being, how to identify signs of malignant narcissism in leaders and implement effective strategies to counteract their negative influence, which leadership styles foster healthy organizational cultures and promote emotional intelligence and ethical practices, whether your current organizational environment is affected by toxic leadership and what steps you can take to initiate positive changes, why understanding the psychological effects of leadership styles is crucial for personal development and the overall health of organizations…and so much more.

FIND THE DREAM WE ANALYZE HERE: https://thisjungianlife.com/effects-of-toxic-leaders/

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Dr. Connie Zweig, Ph.D., retired Jungian-psychotherapist and author, joins us to discuss her new book, The Inner Work of Age. She extends her well-known work on shadow into midlife and beyond and provides a map for uncovering obstacles to aging consciously. The transition from Hero to Elder, or role to soul, begins with releasing the ego’s identification with doing and reorienting toward the transpersonal center that Jung called the Self.

As we let go of outworn personas and roles, harvest the wisdom of our long lives, and break free of unconscious shadows, the Elder’s gift of authenticity naturally emerges. In this way, individuation, the deeper dimension of age, can be expanded along with our expanding longevity. This renewed purpose is the hidden promise of late-life. 

Here’s the dream we analyze:

“I was sitting at the front of a moving bus that was full of a friend’s family after a ceremony, maybe a wedding or a funeral. I was sitting facing backward so I could be part of the congregation. They announced they would shortly bring out my friend’s grandmother’s exhumed body for the dancing ritual. I wasn’t sure I’d have the guts to take part but wanted to wait until I saw her grandmother to make my decision. She was brought out in a sheer black veil, through which I could see her body had shriveled to a tiny frame, almost a skeleton but preserved as if she had been embalmed. Her family took turns joyously and carefully waltzing down the aisle of the bus with her, and everyone gazed upon the ritual with loving delight. I decided I would just watch this time. My friend was gently handed her grandmother’s corpse whilst sitting in her seat behind me. She held her in her lap and we had a conversation, during which my friend’s face and her grandmother’s became indistinguishable. My friend appeared both living and dead at the same time, her face hollowed and decomposed but animated and lively.”

REFERENCES:

Connie Zweig. The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1644113406/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_ZCW0Z73PAQTREBXS1206

RESOURCES:

Learn to Analyze your own Dreams: https://thisjungianlife.com/enroll/

Is the future relevant? Can we suspend immediate satisfaction in favor of our descendants’ quality of life? Legacy comes from the Latin root legatia: one who is sent on a mission [into the future]. It is an act of benevolent imagination to accompany our choices forward in time and take responsibility for their fruits – by facing the long future we have set in motion, we can choose wisely.

We are like King Midas, who nursed the satyr Selenius and was rewarded by the god Dionysus with one wish. Seduced by the fantasy of limitlessness, he wished that all he touched turned to gold. His elation gave way to horror as his touch turned fruit, meat, and wine into gold. Lacking foresight, he could not feel the reciprocity between the present and the future.

Late in life, Jung struggled with a vision of the future – humanity would ultimately destroy itself. Bearing this, he hoped analytical psychology could intervene. If only people would turn within and embrace the autonomous forces of the unconscious, the ego could be set in right relationship to the Self and the earth.

"Rather seek for yourself and your fellows the healing vessel, the servitor mundi, which you urgently need. For your state is perilous; you are all in imminent danger of destroying all that centuries have built up.”

CG. Jung,Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Once we accept the temporality of the ego and embrace our fragile mortality, we can find meaning in what we will leave behind for future generations. We come to understand that we can, in essence, become immortal through our legacies.

Here’s the dream we analyzed:

“On the way to our new house, big rocks are scattered across the way. When we approach the building site, we come to a man in his 50s who looks like a fisherman. He holds a snake and shows it to us. Then I see lots of snakes around him on the ground. I am really scared and try to move out of the situation as soon as possible. The man looks amused as if he challenged us. There is also an old woman beside the man, but her age is not determinable. I find an alternative way to get to the house with my husband. The other way is a bit longer. We climb big rocks where there is some water falling over the sides. I Don’t know whether we finally get out of the situation or not.”

 REFERENCES:

 CATAFALQUE: Carl Jung and the End of Humanity, by Peter Kingsley https://www.amazon.com/dp/1999638417/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_FTK8MZ6AC8J76ND77QTJ

MEMORIES, DREAMS, REFLECTIONS by CG Jung https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BW37JXE/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_GW7CM3KWS2CA3WHPHRQK

THE LONG NOW FOUNDATION, https://longnow.org/

 RESOURCES:

Learn to Analyze your own Dreams: https://thisjungianlife.com/enroll/

The Bible as sacred text serves as a source of revelation and wisdom about the divine. As mythology, the Bible establishes norms for daily life and organizes psychic life forces. For Jung, mythologies and religions are symbolic expressions of archetypal patterns that foster the development of consciousness. Mythology reveals the dreams of a culture just as dreams bring personal mythology to light. Jung said, “We must read the Bible or we shall not understand psychology.” The Bible is not psychological only, but unless it is also psychological, we may not be able to relate its contents to our personal lives. We, therefore, engage the mythos of Jonah and his whale of a tale a dream. Orienting to Jonah as dream in the world, a dream for the world, and a dream of each of us can help us better understand ourselves in the context of a greater whole.

Here’s the dream we analyze:

“I’m at my girlfriend’s apartment, standing in a hallway with several doors. All of them save one are closed. Behind them, I sense a tremendous power. I stop in front of one of the closed doors and open it, but I don’t cross the threshold. It’s either my girlfriend’s childhood room, or it is mine. I guess that I first believe it to be hers but then understand that it’s mine. The room looks quite innocent, but I sense a trap inside. I somehow understand that I may ask one question to the presence that lingers in the room and that the question will be answered. I also understand that if I enter the room and the force is benign, I may exit and come back as I please, but if the presence is not benign, I will never be able to leave once I enter. So I need to construct a question that operates on two levels at the same time: it must seem to be an innocent question, but with a hidden purpose to determine the nature of the force. I start to think but draw a blank. Then a question very clearly “drops down” into my mind, and I examine it. It’s not only a good question, it’s the perfect question, and I put it forth: “How can one know when it is enough?” The answer comes quickly, accompanied by the sound of gnashing teeth and crushing boulders, and all too clearly reveal the nature of this entity: “It can NEVER be enough!” I then understand that it is the devil who dresses his frustrated angst in these words, and the answer makes me completely uninterested in entering the room. I decide instead to continue; I’m done with the things that are here. So, I go to the room with the open door, and after a short period of preparation, I fly away. When I fly through the window, a strange thing happens: as I pass through the glass, I feel that my amber body is being cleansed. It is as if all the impurities that it has accumulated during the entire ordeal were stopped from passing through as if the glass was some sort of filter. As a result, I feel more free as I continue my journey.”

REFERENCES:

Joseph, Diele, FCR. Jonah: The Story of Us https://www.amazon.com/dp/1556053924/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_8SGRSZT47FB9YA4RN6PV

Hollis, James. Tracking the Gods: The Place of Myth in Modern Life https://www.amazon.com/dp/0919123694/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_VZMCVWT0D7FQ0880MW1W

Stein, Murray. The Bible as Dream: A Jungian Interpretation

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1630516686/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_HW0D3QRPE2HH0X20PM3V

RESOURCES:

Learn to Analyze your own Dreams: https://thisjungianlife.com/enroll/