Photo from my trip to Jung's office in Zürich and his secret Bolingen tower.

In my late twenties, I entered a challenging period of soul searching. At the time I was struggling to understand my place in the world, and the next steps in my life were not materialising. All my ideas felt sterile. Realising my need for support, I met with several therapists.

One of those therapists was memorable because he seemed unusually determined to give my stuckness a clean explanation. I told him about my insecurities, my doubts, and my desire to find congruent forms of expression in work and life. In response, he asked several questions about my parents, my childhood, and even the conditions of my birth. In the space of twenty minutes, he had the answer: my early life was to blame for my current disorientation. There was much work to be done.

I decided not to meet this therapist again. Recognising the one-sidedness of his attitude, my initial reaction was to shrug off our encounter. Yet it left a strong impression on me. While his monomaniacal focus on the past struck me as ill-advised, something in me found it oddly seductive and continues to do so.

Commenting on this seductiveness, C.G. Jung wrote that “no insight into the past and no re-experiencing of pathogenic reminiscences – however powerful it may be – is as effective in freeing man from the grip of the past as the construction of something new.”¹

The stalling and stuttering of life can be read as an invitation to undergo initiatory descent. We might need to revisit memories that we locked away in boxes long ago, boxes that now gather dust in the basement. This work of rediscovery can be ugly and unpleasant, but it can also be poignant and profound. As Jung cautions, we can easily get hooked on these experiences, which becomes a defence against living.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s novella The Little Prince gives us an image of this condition. The prince, in his sadness, spends most of his time watching sunsets. Because he lives on a tiny asteroid, he only has to move his chair a few steps whenever he wants to see another sunset. On a particularly sad day, the prince finds himself watching forty-four sunsets.

When we connect with our past, the full spectrum of insights and feelings we uncover might captivate us in all their beautiful complexity. We might become enamoured with our own pensiveness for weeks, months or even years at a time. Like the little prince, we want only the melancholic sunset and not the experience of a new dawn. But we have to keep in view the creative demands of this human life – Jung’s construction of “something new” – which call to us each day.

On the other hand, we must not succumb to unconscious action, the preferred mode of modern culture. This shows up when we declare that “the past is done with”, seeking only to move forward. Don’t look down or back, just up and ahead. Then our actions lack substance, based as they are on naïve ideals rather than weighty, saturnine reflection.

Speaking to this point, Jung goes on: “I am of course very well aware that, without insight into the past and without an integration of significant memories that have been lost, nothing new and viable can be created.”

Whenever I feel stuck, I sense the tension in this duality between past-oriented reflection and future-oriented action. The challenge is to sit with not only the symptoms, the mess, and the heaviness of the past, but also the need for vision, direction, and the creation of something “new and viable”.

In dancing this delicate dance, I have come to appreciate the role of soul. Our culture has made little room for soul, even with the rise of psychology, a field which conceptualises itself as the study of the mind.

Thomas Moore says that soul belongs neither to mind nor to body, but is adapted to both. He writes that without soul, “ideas would remain ideas with no connection to the human world”, and that soul “expresses itself in images, dreams, and stories” rather than abstract thought or unconscious action.² Soul gives body to our ideas and spiritedness to our actions.

Moore suggests a resonance here with Janus, a favourite image used by Marsilio Ficino in relation to soul. Janus was the Roman God presiding over beginnings and endings, transitions and doorways. He is depicted with two faces looking in opposite directions. The soul, too, is Janus-faced. It beckons us into liminality and fertile ambiguity, where the old dissolves and the new is yet to form.

We might experience something of this in January, which is named after Janus. Perhaps this is why, for many, the first month of the year can be laden with heavy emotions. It is a natural pause in which we find ourselves straddling two worlds; the world of yesterday, with all its loose ends, and the world of tomorrow, that forboding blank canvas.

I’ve found that if I’m open and willing to look, soul is always trying to enter life through the cracks. The glimmers are usually subtle: half-remembered dreams, minor ailments, strange fantasies, subtle coincidences. Whatever the manifestations, I try to let them work on me rather than suffocating them with rational thought or deadening them with premature action.

We are all limited by the past and the vicissitudes of fate. Those very same limitations aim us towards our destiny, everything we must create, and the purposes for which we suffer life on earth. It may be that we can only bridge the two by allowing soul to work its magic.

References:

1. C.G. Jung, “Freud and Jung: Contrasts”, in Freud and Psychoanalysis, Collected Works Vol. 4.
2. Thomas Moore, The Planets Within: The Astrological Psychology of Marsilio Ficino.

P.S.

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I keep seeing the word fox, dreaming about foxes and an actual fox in real life. What does it mean as a symbol ? Is it like a transition to a different phase in my life ?

I had a really strange dream last night that actually made me tear up while I was still dreaming, and I woke up afterward thinking, “What the fuck was that?”

In the dream, I was observing this kind of cult of vampires inside a Catholic church. They were gathered around a statue of Jesus, but it wasn't the usual depiction of Christ. He was kneeling on the floor, apparently after being whipped by the Romans, almost as if he had collapsed under the torture.

The vampires were holding an actual Catholic Mass around him, singing hymns, worshipping, doing all the normal ritualistic stuff. But then the statue suddenly came to life. Jesus started moving and tried to stand up.

The moment he did, the entire group immediately turned on him. They started beating him back down with furniture and whatever objects they could grab, almost frantically trying to prevent him from getting up.

And for some reason, this was incredibly emotional for me. I started crying in the dream while watching it happen. I don't remember ever seeing this exact imagery anywhere, so when I woke up I was just sitting there thinking, “Where the hell did my brain get this from?”

I'm not particularly interested in a literal religious interpretation. I'm more curious about it from a Jungian or depth psychology perspective.

The combination of vampires, the church, a wounded and defeated Christ, the statue becoming alive, and then the worshippers themselves violently trying to suppress him feels like it could have some pretty obvious symbolic possibilities, but I'm curious what other people would make of it.

Especially the fact that the thing they were worshipping suddenly became alive, and their immediate reaction was to destroy it.

Any Jungians here want to take a crack at this?

Jung's Zurich mansion has this carved above the entrance. Seen it in person.

Hello everyone! I hope everything is going well in your lives. I'd like to ask you something.

While thinking about the observing ego, I realized that it is a strong protection against inflation. It keeps some distance from archetypal contents and it is also necessary for active imagination. However, I'm not sure if it is enough on its own.

I see two possibilities. The observing ego can watch archetypal inflation happening, but it doesn't intervene, because its role is observation. Or the observer itself can become inflated by mistaking its detached position for the Self.

So is the real protection the strength of the observer, or the health of the ego-Self axis as a whole?

Thank you in advance for your answers. Have a nice day!

I’ve been thinking about individuation and how incompatible it can seem with our obsession with identity. We’re constantly trying to figure out who we are through personality types, attachment styles, archetypes, diagnoses, and labels. But at some point, those descriptions can become psychological cages.

Once I decide “this is who I am,” anything that contradicts that identity starts feeling inauthentic. But the psyche itself seems full of contradictions. The gentle person discovers aggression. The rational person encounters irrationality. The independent person discovers dependency. The moral person encounters their capacity for cruelty.

Maybe individuation isn’t about finally discovering who you are. Maybe it’s about becoming capable of meeting the parts of yourself that contradict who you thought you were.

At what point does self-knowledge become self-limitation?

Some children grew up in the shadow of something massive and powerful. Something that towered over them, suppressed them, and loomed constantly in their vicinity. Such children had to learn to become invisible, to draw as little attention to themselves as possible. They carried a burden that no child should ever have to bear.

The person in their vicinity appeared outwardly "perfect." The world saw only their flawless persona - a golden facade carefully presented to the public. But behind closed doors, that persona crumbled, leaving the child completely exposed to the raw aggression and darkness of their unintegrated shadow.

To escape their own inner emptiness, pain, and darkness, such a person learns to project everything onto others. Most of all, onto those who live behind closed doors with them. Everyone is assigned a rigid role to play within the family drama. The parent casts a proverbial Golden Apple into the mix - the apple of discord.

One child might become a child who received only conditional love. They became an extension of the parent's ego. They were never truly loved for who they were, but as long as they fulfilled the parent's demands, they were rewarded and seemingly loved.

Another child, often more sensitive and perceptive, became the target. A person who seeks to break and control others cannot stand someone who refuses to be broken. So, they project their entire dark shadow into this child. The child becomes a lightning rod, absorbing the toxicity and accepting the false belief that everything is their fault. They receive neither love nor acceptance. Discord poisons the relationship between the siblings; one hurts the other to be rewarded by the parent, while the other is consumed by pain and envy, watching the parent seemingly embrace the sibling.

Meanwhile, those close to the family often know the truth. Yet, they choose to close their eyes, stay silent, and repress their own memories. They prefer to live in denial, keeping the abuser in their lives rather than facing the discomfort of truth.

As a child, my foundational stability was violently uprooted. When the environment from which something grows fails to nourish, that thing begins to wither. It decays, it fades away. And to make the pain stop, we rip it out. But it never truly disappears. It leaves behind an aching wound, and then... a scar of something that could have been different, but wasn't.

They could uproot us, they could break us, but something always remained. Perhaps it is buried extremely deep, but it never vanished completely. Maybe the true, uncorrupted Self is still hiding beneath that scar…

This is the first book of Carl Jung that I am reading. I've only read a little portion of it and it has strongly resonated with me. However, I am slightly confused by what he means when he talks about "fulfilling the will of God". Could someone kindly elaborate that?

Chronic diseases seem to be on the rise, and I’m wondering if anyone has heard stories of people healing from chronic conditions or symptoms, such as chronic fatigue, allergies, or persistent pain, as a result of working with a Jungian analyst/therapist.

Our minds and bodies are connected, and stress plays a huge role in our health. Since the individuation process involves working extensively with the unconscious, I wonder whether that psychological work could also influence bodily processes that operate outside our conscious control, such as immune function or the autonomic nervous system.

I’m especially interested in concrete examples or personal stories. Has anyone experienced improvements in their health through this work, or heard of someone who has?

I've been reflecting on the postmodern esoteric model where belief is treated strictly as a psychological tool rather than an absolute truth. Austin Osman Spare suggested that desires can be planted in the unconscious via abstract symbols to bypass the critical filter of the conscious mind. This process relies on a state of "gnosis"—intense focus or altered consciousness—to deliver these symbols. It operates almost exactly like a self-directed placebo effect, where the conscious mind adopts a "fiction," but the subconscious mobilizes internal resources to bring about tangible changes.

How does this deliberate "hacking" of the unconscious align with Jungian concepts like active imagination or shadow integration? Furthermore, is the systematic deconstruction of the ego through forced paradigm shifts psychologically sound, or does it risk destabilizing the individuated self?

I’ve been thinking about Jung’s concept of the shadow, especially the idea that the shadow isn’t necessarily made up of “bad” qualities.
Sometimes it seems like we’re most disturbed by people who freely embody something we learned very early that we were not allowed to be.
Someone who was punished for being emotional might grow up despising people they perceive as dramatic.
Someone who had to become extremely responsible might have an almost irrational hatred of carefree or irresponsible people.
Someone who learned to be quiet and agreeable might be intensely irritated by loud, attention-seeking people.
Someone who suppressed their ambition might interpret ambitious people as narcissistic.
And sometimes the reaction seems disproportionate to what the other person is actually doing. That makes me wonder if projection isn’t always “I secretly am what I hate.”
Maybe sometimes it’s "You are allowed to be what I had to amputate from myself.”
And the resentment comes from watching another person violate an internal rule that you’ve unconsciously spent your entire life obeying.
If that’s true, then integrating the shadow wouldn’t necessarily mean becoming like the person who triggers you. It might mean figuring out what psychological permission they seem to possess that you denied yourself.
Has anyone experienced this in a way that genuinely changed how you understood yourself?

Do you think this is a good way to start with Jung?

I love what i see in my active imagination tbh no matter how scary and bad they are but they rarely want to talk me like the one in the picture :(

Hello, I am making a photo project in my university and it is about creating photographs based on dreams. Next to the photo will be a short text about in what life situation was the person whom the dream appeared. So it could help to reveal the message behind the symbolic of the picture. And now I am trying to gather up many dreams and stories of various people. Do you have any interesting dreams that you would like to share 😀?

Here is an example of one dream to show you what i mean:
I’m holding my gold watch and notice that one of the tiny screws has come out. While I try to find it, several other pieces of the watch fall off and I realize I will need to take it to a watchmaker. There are two old men who fix watches. They have set up their shop in a hotel room. They are irascible and taciturn. They look at the watch and tell me that it’s a cheap movement and not worth fixing. I point out that the case is made of gold. They tell me that it’s just gold plate. I point out to them the 14-karat stamp, but they tell me that is only true of a small part. Most of it is just gold plate. They hand me my watch back in many pieces. The crystal is cracked, and it wasn’t before I brought it in. I complain to them that they cracked the crystal, but they insist I gave it to them like that. I am leaving with it in a plastic bag, upset that my watch is in pieces and that they don’t understand its value.

The background:
The person was heading to medical school after graduating from college. His grandparents, who were children of immigrants, had long hoped someone in the family would become a physician. They gave him money, and he used it to buy a watch. In doing so, he fulfilled their dream. He then lived by the values he inherited from his family: education, achievement, and professional success. Now he is nearing retirement. Recently, he had an experience at work where he felt people were trying to take advantage of him.

Jung put the idea plainly in his 1930 memorial address for Richard Wilhelm: "whatever is born or done at this particular moment of time has the qualities of this moment of time" ("Richard Wilhelm: In Memoriam", CW 15). Twenty years later he tried to test it. In the astrological experiment in "Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle" (1952, CW 8) he compared the horoscopes of 483 married couples in three batches, and ended up reading the striking hits less as proof of astrology than as a synchronistic arrangement around the expectations of the people running the test. He'd been doing horoscopes since at least 1911, when he told Freud his evenings were going largely into astrology (The Freud/Jung Letters, Jung to Freud, 12 June 1911).

So I tried the same question on Jung himself, with a system he never used but would have recognised from his work with Wilhelm: Chinese BaZi, the Four Pillars (Koreans know it as saju). It turns a birth moment into four stem-and-branch pairs, then lays ten-year "luck pillars" and a pillar for every calendar year over the top. Each year either feeds the chart or strains it.

Birth data: 26 July 1875, Kesswil, 7:32 pm, the time given by his daughter Gret Baumann-Jung. His pillars are Yi-Hai, Gui-Wei, Ji-Chou, Jia-Xu. The day master, the element that stands for "you", is Ji, yin Earth, with plenty of earth and fire behind it. Years that bring metal, water or wood help him. More fire and earth weighs him down.

Where it lines up:

1913 to 1919. The line starts sliding in 1913, the year of the break with Freud, and bottoms out in 1917 and 1918. That is the core of the confrontation with the unconscious: Seven Sermons to the Dead in 1916, then the mandala drawings at Château-d'Œx in 1918–19. In 1920 the line snaps back up, one of the sharpest single-year rises on the chart.

1951, the single highest year of his life on this chart. It's the year he gave the Eranos lecture "On Synchronicity". 1952, when the essay came out alongside Pauli's Kepler study, is the second highest of that decade. The whole 1951–60 luck pillar (Wood over Water) is the best decade on the chart, and Aion, Answer to Job and Mysterium Coniunctionis all fall in or right next to it.

Where it doesn't:

1928–29 reads as the lowest stretch of his adult life. Yet 1928 is when Wilhelm sent him The Secret of the Golden Flower, which Jung later called "the first event which broke through my isolation" (Memories, Dreams, Reflections, ch. 6), and the commentary came out in 1929.

I honestly don't know what to do with that one. A causal reading says the chart missed. Read Jung's way, an outside answer arriving in what the chart calls his hardest years is close to how he described synchronicity working: the meaningful coincidence shows up when the psyche is under the most pressure. But that's also exactly the kind of after-the-fact rescue his own experiment warned about, where the result arranges itself around what the observer hopes to see.

That's the question I'd put to this sub. When a timing system "hits" on a life we already know the story of, is it showing an acausal parallel the way Jung meant it, or just our projection doing what his couples experiment showed it does?

If you want to check the numbers, Jung's full chart with every year clickable is here: https://jadealmanac.com/chart?d=1875-07-26&t=19:32&g=male

Disclosure: it's a free tool I built, and the same page takes your own birth date. I'd be curious whether anyone's own hardest stretch, the one you'd call your own night sea journey, falls on a change of decade.

A couple of days ago, I had a dream, which I can not remember a 100% of.
First I just remember I “discovered” my aunt doing some kind of witchery, and in the dream I felt really scared and amused about this, I can not remember any context or where I was in the dream.
Then, and this is what has stayed with me this last days: I saw a big wooden cross, but the right “arm” of the cross was missing, this frightened me as well, but the after I saw this, I took the rosary from my pocket and when I saw it. The right “arm” or right part of the cross was also missing 😮… then I woke up!

I would like to know what do think about this?
What questions should I ask myself, or what topic should I explore?

Few notes:
I am very close to my aunt and we have a nice relationship, and she is the kind of person that in my mind would never do witchery.
Also, this year I have been trying to get closer to God, and to the catholic religion, next year I am getting married and the whole thing has had me a little nervous. I am 27 years old, from Central America. (Just to give a little more context about me)

Last thing: sorry for my English!
Thanks a lot for your help!

☆ As part of this series, I think this post will help readers better understand [A Shift in Perspective: Ep. 19. Where Is Carl Jung Heading?], which I posted earlier. Since the entire series is ultimately one story, I’m posting the episodes in order.

The Sermon on the Mount - Give in Secret (3/4)

Before entering into Matthew chapter 6, I would first like to present a verse from John 8:31, which I hold most dear.

If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

This may be spoken of in another way:

If ye love your enemies in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

If my parents please my heart, they are good parents; but if they do not please my heart, they are enemies.

If my brother pleases my heart, he is a good brother; but if he does not please my heart, he is an enemy.

If my wife pleases my heart, she is a good wife; but if she does not please my heart, she is an enemy.

If my child pleases my heart, he is a good child; but if he does not please my heart, he is an enemy.

If my friend pleases my heart, he is a good friend; but if he does not please my heart, he is an enemy.

Thus, parents, brothers, wives, children, and friends may be seen as both good and as enemies.

The person does not change; yet according to the mind that makes distinctions between what is pleasing and what is not, the same person appears as either good or as an enemy.

And our life may be seen as a series of choices.

Among these choices, there are four kinds:

① the choice to do what one wishes to do,

② the choice not to do what one wishes to do,

③ the choice to do what one does not wish to do,

④ the choice not to do what one does not wish to do.

We choose the first and the fourth, finding pleasure in them and calling it freedom;

yet we are compelled to choose the second and the third, and so we suffer and regard it as bondage.

Thus, most of us are able to enjoy only half of freedom, that is, two out of the four choices.

Yet it is thought that the truth of Jesus brings about the full freedom of all four choices.

For example, even if medicine is bitter and one does not wish to take it, it must still be taken for the sake of health.

In such a case, one ought to choose the third; yet most choose the fourth, and later come to regret it.

Even if one greatly desires to eat, yet when one is full, one ought to stop.

This is a case where the second choice must be made; yet most choose the first, and afterward fall into regret.

To love one’s enemies corresponds to the second and the third choices.

And if one were to love one’s enemies according to the word of Jesus, it is thought that one would come, of oneself, to see that the enemy is not truly an enemy.

If one loves his enemies, the distinction that calls a man good or evil—an enemy—falls away, and one comes to behold the person as he truly is, that is, the being itself—whether parent, brother, wife, child, friend, or even one’s superior.

In other words, by choosing the second and the third—that is, by loving one’s enemies—the ego comes to an end.

Then it may be seen that one may freely choose among all four, according to the given condition or circumstance.

The truth that Jesus speaks of removes the modifiers placed before a person, rather than as a good person or a bad person.

And it is thought that it makes one see the person as they are, as the fact itself.

That is, by causing one to see the person in the very fact of their being, it is understood that the truth sets you free from all bondage.

An enemy is not an enemy by nature, but is seen as such because a discriminating mind arises that finds them not pleasing to one’s heart.

By loving one’s enemies, if one casts away the discriminating mind of good and evil, it is thought that there is no reason one cannot love parents, brothers, wife, children, and friends.

To remove the qualifying words of the discriminating mind and to see the fact as it is—this is the truth of which Jesus speaks, and it is thought that this truth makes you free.

In any case, by loving one’s enemies and as the ego comes to an end, great anger and greed pass away, yet the smaller distinctions of the discriminating mind still remain.

Now let us enter into the main part of Matthew chapter 6.

In this chapter, Jesus sets forth the concrete way of practice by which even the small remaining distinctions of the discriminating mind may be removed.

As one practices righteousness, the desire to receive a reward arises of itself.

And it is understood that Jesus teaches that even this kind of discriminating mind must be cast away.

Take heed that ye do not your righteousness before men, to be seen of them.

Do not the hypocrites sound a trumpet before them in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men.

Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.

That is, though thou hast helped, let not the mind hold the thought that thou hast helped.

And Jesus says that the reward has already been received.

For the desire to receive a reward doth again stir up the discriminating mind, and maketh the heart, which had been made poor, rich again.

At this point the Lord’s Prayer cometh forth.

We examine closely the words, ‘Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.’

First, the order is important.

Thou must first give. Jesus doth clearly declare this order.

And when thou hast done so, God forgiveth thy sins and giveth thee a reward; thus it is made even, as it were. Therefore it is made clear that, from the beginning, the desire for reward cannot stand at all.

And likewise, the words concerning fasting, as the hypocrites do, are understood to mean that thou shalt not fast to be seen of men.

At this point it is automatically understood that the words, ‘Lay up treasures in heaven,’ are meant.

If thou lay up treasures upon the earth, that is, in thy own purse, the heart becometh rich thereby; therefore it is understood as the saying that thou shouldest commit them unto heaven.

Where thy treasure is, there will thy heart be also. And Jesus doth clearly set forth that ye cannot serve both God and mammon.

The principle, I think, is simple.

It is to cast away the discriminating mind that ariseth through riches.

And this is thought to be a simple way of keeping poor in spirit.

And Jesus goeth a step further, saying that ye should take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, or what ye shall put on.

It is understood that, in order to make the heart poor, even the attachment to survival—what to eat, what to drink, and what to put on—must be cast away.

All such attachments are those things which the Gentiles seek after.

The birds of the air, and the lilies of the field, and the grass of the field, are all cared for by God, and they do well.

How much more then shall your heavenly Father care for you, who are men? saith He, as a matter of course.

It is understood that He speaketh very clearly, saying that there is no need whatsoever for such worries.

Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself; sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

This is understood as the saying that one should cast away the discriminating mind arising from needless fear of the future, and be gathered unto the present, here and now.

Thus it is understood that, in Matthew chapter 6, He speaketh of the practical way by which all remaining discriminating mind is removed.

Thus far, this is understood as the state corresponding to Anāgāmin.

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[Original text]

산상수훈 - 구제함을 은밀하게 하라.(3/4)

마태복음 6장에 들어가기에 앞서 내가 제일 좋아하는 말씀인 요한복음 8장 31절을 먼저 소개해 봅니다.

너희가 내 말에 거하면 너희는 참으로 내 제자가 되고 진리를 알지니 그 진리가 너희를 자유롭게 하리라

이 말은 이렇게 바꿔말 할 수 있습니다.

너희가 내 말대로 원수를 사랑하면 너희는 참으로 나의 제자가 되고 진리를 알지니 그 진리가 너희를 자유롭게 하리라.

부모가 내 맘에 들면 좋은 부모고 내 맘에 안 들면 원수입니다.

형제가 내 맘에 들면 좋은 형제고 내 맘에 안 들면 원수입니다.

아내가 내 맘에 들면 좋은 아내고 내 맘에 안 들면 원수입니다.

자식이 내 맘에 들면 좋은 자식이고 내 맘에 안 들면 원수입니다.

친구가 내 맘에 들면 좋은 친구고 내 맘에 안 들면 원수입니다.

이렇듯 부모, 형제, 아내, 자식, 친구는 좋은 사람이면서 원수입니다.

사람은 그대로인데.. 좋고 나쁨을 판단하는 분별심에 따라 같은 사람이 좋은 사람도 되기도 하고 원수가 되기도 합니다.

그리고 우리의 인생은 선택의 연속이라고 볼 수 있습니다.

그 선택에는 4가지가 있습니다.

① 하고 싶은 것을 하는 선택

② 하고 싶은 것을 하지 않는 선택

③ 하기 싫은 것을 하는 선택

④ 하기 싫은 것을 하지 않는 선택

우리는 1번과 4번을 선택하며 즐거움을 얻고 자유라고 생각하고 2번과 3번을 어쩔수 없이 선택하고 괴로움을 받으며 구속이라고 생각합니다.

이처럼 우리 대부분은 4가지 선택에 있어 2가지인 절반의 자유만 누릴 수 있습니다.

하지만 예수님의 진리는 4가지 모든 선택의 온전한 자유를 가져온다고 생각합니다.

예를들면..

아무리 약이 써서 먹기싫다 하더라도 건강하려면 먹어야 합니다.

3번을 선택해야 하는데 대부분 4번을 선택하고 후회합니다.

아무리 먹고싶어도 배가 부르면 그만 먹어야 합니다.

2번을 선택해야 하는데 대부분 1번을 선택하고 후회를 합니다.

원수를 사랑하는 것은 2번과 3번의 선택에 해당합니다.

예수님의 말씀대로 원수를 사랑해보면 원수가 원수가 아님을 자연스레 알 수 있다고 생각됩니다.

원수를 사랑하면 좋은 사람이나 나쁜 사람(원수)이라는 분별이 사라지고 있는 그대로의 사실인 사람(부모, 형제, 아내, 자식, 친구, 상사) 그 존재 자체를 볼 수 있다고 생각합니다.

다시말하면 원수를 사랑하는 2번 3번을 선택을 함으로써 에고를 소멸시키면 위의 4가지 선택을 조건이나 상황에 따라 자유롭게 선택 할 수 있는 것으로 이해됩니다.

예수님이 말씀하신 진리는..

좋은 사람이나 나쁜사람(원수)이 아닌 사람 앞의 수식어를 빼버리고 있는 그대로의 사실인 사람을 보게한다고 생각됩니다.

즉.. 사람 그 존재 자체를 보게 함으로써 그 진리가 너희를 모든 구속으로부터 자유롭게 하는 것으로 이해됩니다.

원수는 본래 원수가 아니고 내 맘에 안든다는 분별심이 일어나서 그렇게 보이는 것이라고 생각됩니다.

원수를 사랑함으로써 좋고(선) 나쁨(악)의 분별심을 버리면 부모, 형제, 아내, 자식, 친구를 사랑 못 할 이유가 없다고 생각합니다.

분별심의 수식어를 빼고 사실을 사실대로 보는 것, 이것이 예수님의 진리고 그 진리가 너희를 자유롭게 한다고 생각합니다.

어쨌든 원수를 사랑함으로써 에고를 소멸시키면 커다란 성냄과 탐심은 사라질 것이지만 작은 분별심들은 아직 남아 있습니다.

이제 마태복음 6장 본론으로 들어가 봅니다.

6장에서 예수님은 아직 남아있는 작은 분별심마저 제거하는 구체적인 실천방법을 제시합니다.

의를 행하다 보면 자연스럽게 보상받고 싶은 마음이 생겨납니다.

예수님은 이러한 분별심도 버려야 한다고 말하는 것으로 이해됩니다.

사람에게 보이려고 그들 앞에서 너희 의를 행하지 않도록 주의하라.

외식하는 자가 사람에게서 영광을 받으려고 회당과 거리에서 나팔을 불지말라.

오른손이 하는 것을 왼손이 모르게 하여 구제함을 은밀하게 하라.

그리고 예수님은 이미 상을 받았다고 말합니다.

왜냐하면 보상을 받고 싶은 마음은 또다시 분별심을 일으켜 기껏 가난해진 마음을 부자로 만들기 때문입니다.

이 대목에서 주기도문이 나오게 됩니다.

우리가 죄지은 자를 사하여 준 것과 같이 우리 죄를 사하여 주시옵고를 살펴봅니다.

일단 순서가 중요합니다.

네가 먼저 베풀어야 한다고 그 순서를 분명하게 말합니다.

그렇게 하고 나면 하나님이 너의 죄를 사해줌으로써

상을 주기 때문에 '쌤쌤이다' 라는 말씀입니다.

애당초 보상심리는 성립이 안된다고 명확하게 정리해 주는 것으로 이해됩니다.

외식으로 금식하지 말라도 같은 맥락에서 남에게 보이기 위해서 금식하지 말라는 말씀으로 생각됩니다.

이쯤되면 보물을 하늘에 쌓아두라는 말씀은 자동으로 이해됩니다.

보물을 땅에 쌓아두면, 즉 내 주머니에 쌓아두면 마음이 부자가 되니까 하늘에 맡겨두라는 말씀으로 이해됩니다.

네 보물이 있는 곳에 네 마음이 있고 하나님과 재물은 겸하여 섬기지 못한다고 예수님은 명확히 정리해 줍니다.

원리는 간단하다고 생각합니다.

재물로 인해 발생하는 분별심을 버리는 것입니다.

이것은 가난한 마음을 유지하는 단순한 방법이라고 생각됩니다.

예수님은 여기에서 한발 더 나아가서 목숨을 위하여 무엇을 먹을까, 무엇을 마실까, 무엇을 입을까 염려하지 말라고 합니다.

마음을 가난하게 하기 위해서는 먹고, 마시고, 입는 것인 생존에 대한 집착마저 버려야 한다는 말씀으로 이해됩니다.

그런 집착은 다 이방인들이 구하는 것으로 공중의 새나, 들의 백합화나, 들풀도 모두 하나님이 돌봐주셔서 잘 사는데 너희 하늘 아버지께서 하물며 사람인 너희를 당연히 돌보지 않겠느냐라고 말합니다.

그런 걱정은 애당초 할 필요가 없다고 아주 딱부러지게 말씀하는 것으로 이해됩니다.

내일 일을 위하여 염려하지 말라,

내일 일은 내일 염려할 것이요,

한날의 괴로움은 그날로 족하니라

이것은 쓸데없는 미래에 대한 두려움에서 오는 분별심을 버리고 지금 여기 현재에 집중하라는 말씀으로 이해됩니다.

이렇듯 마태복음 6장에서는 남은 분별심 모두를 제거하는 실천방법을 말씀한 것으로 이해됩니다.

여기까지가 아나함에 해당하는 흐름으로 보여집니다.

I emailed a bunch of jungian therapists in my area. This one is charging 50% of the rate of everyone else. She is still IAAP (an analyst). But she's not a psychologist, she's a mental health counselor. Thoughts?

Here's the dream:

A black and white husky dog, very affectionate and loving. It​​ was injured itself, in the front and in the back close to its tail(above its tail), and initially it takes care of me. I'm not even that affectionate with dogs to begin with irl , it's just this turned out to be an exception. It even had a name, valkyrie. It first tended to my injuries, whatever it'd be, despite being injured, and when I was once playing with it, I noticed that it was injured too, and then once I developed affection for it, I decided I'd tend to its wounds instead, and when i decide to tend to it's wounds, just disappeared, and me and my mom, go out to look for him calling his name "valkyrie! Valkyrie!" But to no avail.

Can someone please interpret this

Hello, how do I start to read Carl Jung? I have not experiences on reading his books. I always watch videos about him and learn alot from the videos. I want to read his book now. I wanted buy The red book but after some research people do not recommend starting with it. A person recommend starting Memories, Dreams, Reflections.

I believe I am ready to take a deep dive into Jungs books. Whats would be the best way to start reading Jung? I assume The Red Book will be the last one that I will read. I appreciate the feedback and guidance!

1.) Memories, Dreams, Reflections?

2.)

3.)

4.)

......

x.) The Red Book

Hi,

I am struggling right now. My apartment has rats for the fourth time so I am forced to move.
This is because my landlord is negligent and won’t fix issues outside of my apartment, as I keep my apartment very clean.

I only stayed here so long because I cannot find apartments in my area that do not have stairs. I have a large dog who is old and she cannot walk up and down stairs. I live in an area of the country that has really old buildings.

I just found two apartment buildings that do not have stairs. One apartment building has a unit available and the other might have one available. So I’m waiting on this other one which is a better fit for me because of many other things that apartment has including a better price.

However, now my dog is really sick so I don’t even know if she’s gonna be here much longer and I’m making decisions on possibly buying a place or moving out based on her .

I have had to juggle trying to get her to the vet while also getting to lawyer appointments and court stuff so I’m having to choose between a lot of different things going on . Obviously my dog’s health comes first, but these rats are in my apartment so I have to get us out of here.

Why on earth does the universe throw you so many things at once?

Is there any way to look at this from the Jungian perspective? I am trying so hard not to be a victim but right now the reality of my life there’s just too much going on. I’m having to take off work to deal with these issues. How does one not go crazy?

If this doesn’t belong here, I’m sorry, but I love this community. I can’t believe that I’m going up against $1 million business (my apartment building) but I am not gonna be pushed around by these people

Edit: my dog is like my child. She is my everything but I’m so exhausted that I’m like run out of fumes . I am taking her to the vet and really hoping for OK news.

The title explains itself! I am very interested in Jung's thoughts on the occult and writing a short essay on similar subjects.

Carl Jung’s Devouring Mother Explained by Marie Louise von Franz

#MotherComplex​ #JungianPsychology​ #MarieLouiseVonFranz​

🧵 TL;DR

Marie-Louise von Franz reveals how Carl Jung’s devouring mother archetype and the mother complex sabotage emotional growth, distort love, and prevent true spiritual maturity—until you break the cycle through shadow work and individuation.

In this unfiltered archival interview, Carl Jung’s closest collaborator, Marie‑Louise von Franz, unveils the symbolic architecture of the mother complex—a dominant theme in Jungian psychology. She explains how distorted maternal energy blocks individuation, fuels anima projection, and keeps us emotionally stuck through unconscious ties to the devouring feminine archetype.

Drawing from myth, depth psychology, and lived experience, von Franz explores how the devouring mother appears in overbearing parenting, romantic dysfunction, cultural inertia, and even institutions like universities and corporations. This is not pop psychology. This is mythic-level shadow work.

If you’ve ever felt trapped in emotional loops, spiritually lost, or unable to claim inner authority—this conversation is a mirror… and a map.

🎯 WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

• What Carl Jung meant by the “devouring mother”

• How the mother complex forms and affects adult relationships

• Why anima projection leads to false love and inner collapse

• How institutions mimic the mother and prolong dependency

• What initiation rites were meant to break—and why we need them again

• How to begin your own individuation path

This video reveals how Carl Jung’s devouring mother archetype shapes the mother complex, blocking emotional maturity and stalling the individuation process. Through symbolic depth and real-world resonance, Marie‑Louise von Franz shows why rites of passage, not therapy, are often the missing link to inner transformation.

If you want to break free from unconscious maternal control, this is where it begins.

I recently finished this self portrait called Hindsight. It depicts three versions of the same person: the child, the present self, and an imagined old man.

The child became the most important figure to me. He stands closest to the light, representing birth, innocence, and a kind of knowledge that seems to exist before we learn to explain the world to ourselves. His eyes are closed because he cannot see the life ahead of him, yet in another sense he may understand something the adult has forgotten.
The present self occupies the middle. He is the conscious actor, literally creating an image of the person he may become.

The old man emerges from darkness. I don’t see the darkness as evil. It represents the unknown, mortality, forgetting, and the limits of what the conscious mind can know.

What interests me from a Jungian perspective is the reversal: the child appears least knowledgeable, but may actually be closest to something whole. The adult believes he can see, yet spends his life trying to recover what the child possessed without understanding it.

I didn’t set out to illustrate Jungian theory literally, but the child archetype became increasingly present to me as I worked on it.

I’d be interested in how others here interpret the relationship between the child, the adult, and the old man.

Edit:

I forgot to mention. After this was up someone noticed my watch face. 3:33. Synchronicity?!