Author Archives: Symbol Reader

Symbolism of the Door

Posted on March 31, 2020

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” V. Woolf, A Room of One’s Own My favourite master of symbolism, J.E. Cirlot … Continue reading →

Posted in The Door, Uncategorized | Tagged ancient Egypt, archetypes, Bachelard, door, doors, doorway, false door, Poetics of Space, religion, safety, security, shelter, symbolism, symbols, the new, threshold, torii | 5 Comments

Egyptian Pyramids as a Symbol of Rebirth

Posted on March 28, 2020

“Ancient Egypt was an agrarian society, and the Egyptians’ view of the world was determined in part by agricultural life along the Nile. Each year, spring rains in the Ethiopian highlands fed the source of the Nile and eventually raised … Continue reading →

Posted in Osiris, Quotations, Uncategorized | Tagged ancient Egypt, benben, death, Duat, Egyptian mythology, Nefertum, Nut, Osiris, pyramids, rebirth, seed, the Nile, the sun | 7 Comments

Reading The Red Book (18)

Posted on March 22, 2020

“The stars whisper your deepest mysteries to you, and the soft valleys of the earth rescue you in a motherly womb.” C. G. Jung, Liber Novus We have reached chapter V of Liber Secundus, which is the second part of … Continue reading →

Posted in The Red Book by C.G. Jung, Uncategorized | Tagged alchemy, ancient Egypt, anima mundi, archetypes, C.G. Jung, Christianity, darkness, depth psychology, Egyptian mythology, Helios, khepri, Liber Novus, light, paganism, Philosophical Tree, scarab, shadow, sun, symbolism, symbols, The Red Book, tree, world soul | 5 Comments

Jung on the Light of the Darkness

Posted on March 20, 2020

The following passage from Jung’s Alchemical Studies (volume 13 of CW, par. 197) struck me today: “They [alchemists, seekers after truth] discover that in the very darkness of nature a light is hidden, a little spark without which the … Continue reading →

Posted in Quotations, Uncategorized | Tagged alchemy, archetypes, C.G. Jung, Democritus, depth psychology, disease, healing, light of nature, lumen naturae, nature, paganism, Paracelsus, symbols, transformation | 5 Comments

The Danaids, the Lernaean Hydra and Heracles

Posted on March 15, 2020

According to the Greek myth, the Danaids, fifty daughters of Danaus, were forced to marry fifty sons of Aegyptus, a ruler of Egypt. Forty-nine of them killed their husbands on the wedding night. The forty-nine heads of the men were … Continue reading →

Posted in The Danaids and Hydra, Uncategorized | Tagged archetype, archetypes, arrow, Bachofen, Chiron, Danaides, Danaids, Greek mythology, Hercules, Hydra, Lernean Hydra, magic, matriarchy, patriarchy, priestess, Robert Graves, symbolism, symbols, twelve labours, wounded healer | 6 Comments

The Feminine and the Masculine Revisited

Posted on March 9, 2020

I have always believed that the concepts of anima and animus need to be updated for our times. According to Jung, the anima is the image of the woman in a man’s psyche, while the animus is the image of … Continue reading →

Posted in Male and Female, Uncategorized | Tagged analytical psychology, anima, animus, archetypes, C.G. Jung, depth psychology, female, feminine, initiation, male, masculine, opposites, psyche, symbols, the Self | 17 Comments

Ancient Roots of the Symbol

Posted on March 6, 2020

The book Birth of the Symbol: Ancient Readers at the Limits of Their Texts by Peter T. Struck, published in 2004 by Princeton University Press, traces the ancient origins of the concept of a symbol. The author has this to … Continue reading →

Posted in The Symbol, Uncategorized | Tagged Ancient Greece, archetypes, C.G. Jung, Chaldean Oracles, Divine, enigma, gods, Iamblichus, interpretation, meaning, Nous, Peter Struck, Plato, Porphyry, Proclus, Pythagoras, sunthemata, symbol, symbolism, symbolon, synchronicity, theurgy | 2 Comments

Reading The Red Book (17)

Posted on February 28, 2020

Chapter IV of Liber Secundus is called “The Anchorite. Dies 1” and relates the first day of Jung’s encounter with a hermit monk, who lives in the Libyan desert. While reading The Red Book I was particularly struck by all … Continue reading →

Posted in The Red Book by C.G. Jung, Uncategorized | Tagged Alexandria, analytical psychology, anchorite, archetypes, C.G. Jung, darkness, depth psychology, Heraclitus, hermit, Jesus, Jung, Liber Novus, logos, night, Philo of Alexandria, silence, symbols, The Red Book, words | 9 Comments

Hermes in the Forest of Symbols

Posted on February 9, 2020

I. “…Hermesian reading is an open, in-depth reading, one that lays bare the metalanguages for us, that is to say, the structures of signs and correspondences that only symbolism and myth make it possible to conserve and transmit. To read, … Continue reading →

Posted in Hermes, Uncategorized | Tagged Adocentyn, alchemy, archetypes, Argus, Botticelli, C.G. Jung, caduceus, Carl Jung, Corpus Hermeticum, crossroads, dead, esotericism, Faivre, God, Greek myth, Greek mythology, guide, herma, hermaion, Hermes, Hermes Trismegistus, Hermetica, hermeticism, Hermopolis, magic, Marcilio Ficino, Mercury, messenger, myth, mythology, peacock, Picatrix, Primavera, psychopompos, Soul, symbolism, symbols, Thoth, Zeus | 6 Comments

Little Women 2019: A Short Review

Posted on February 6, 2020

Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women, experienced both enchantment and wretched poverty in her early years. Her father was an intellectual and member of the Transcendentalist movement, which meant that little Louisa met Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo … Continue reading →