Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Underworld in Finnish and Greek Myth

Posted on January 25, 2020 by Symbol Reader

I have been reading The Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert MacFarlane, which is a dazzling exploration of the author’s daring travels into the bowels of the earth. He devotes space to mining, caving, cave painting, Parisian catacombs, glaciers … Continue reading →

Posted in "The Underland" by Robert MacFarlane, Uncategorized | Tagged "The Dead", Acheron, Ancient Greece, archetypes, Cocytus, descent, five rivers of Hell, Greek myth, Greek mythology, Hades, Kalevala, katabasis, Lethe, myth, mythology, Phlegethon, Robert MacFarlane, Styx, symbolism, symbols, The Underland, the underworld, Tuonela | 5 Comments

Reading The Red Book (16)

Posted on January 19, 2020 by Symbol Reader

“In Paris, on a day that stayed morning until dusk, in a Paris like – in a Paris which – (save me, sacred folly of description!) in a garden by a stone cathedral (not built, no, rather played upon a … Continue reading →

Posted in The Red Book by C.G. Jung, Uncategorized | Tagged archetypes, becoming, being, C.G. Jung, Carl Jung, Dionysos, fate, individuation, instinct, Liber Novus, symbolism, symbols, The Red Book, tramp, zoe | 3 Comments

Reading The Red Book (15)

Posted on January 6, 2020 by Symbol Reader

“Your Hell is made up of all the things that you always ejected from your sanctuary with a curse and a kick of the foot.” Carl Jung, “The Red Book” The second chapter of Liber Secundus is entitled “The Castle … Continue reading →

Posted in The Red Book by C.G. Jung, Uncategorized | Tagged analytical psychology, anima, anima mundi, animus, archetypes, C.G. Jung, depth psychology, feminine, gender, Liber Novus, masculine, psyche, Soul, symbolism, symbols, The Red Book | 4 Comments

Reading The Red Book (14)

Posted on December 21, 2019 by Symbol Reader

Jung’s Liber Novus, better known as The Red Book, is divided into Liber Primus and Liber Secundus. The former was created on parchment and resembles a medieval illuminated manuscript. The reason why Jung decided to switch to paper in Liber … Continue reading →

Posted in The Red Book by C.G. Jung, Uncategorized | Tagged alchemy, analytical psychology, archetypes, C.G. Jung, depth psychology, devil, eye, individuation, instincts, joy, Liber Novus, Mars, red, rubedo, self-knowledge, symbolism, symbols, The Red Book, The Red One | 6 Comments

From Lascaux Cave Paintings to Greta Thunberg

Posted on December 15, 2019 by Symbol Reader

It fascinates me when similar ideas come to me simultaneously from completely different directions. The first revelation was a must-read article in The Guardian on how the cave paintings of Lascaux remind us that “in our self-obsessed age, the anonymous, … Continue reading →

Posted in Psyche, Uncategorized | Tagged archetypes, earth, ego, Ferdinand Hodler, Freud, Greta Thunberg, humility, landscape, Lascaux, narcissism, nature, painting, psyche, subject, symbolism, symbols, unconscious, Yeats | 7 Comments

A Reedeming Darkness of The Black Madonna

Posted on December 1, 2019 by Symbol Reader

“Underneath all our conditioning, hidden in the crypt of our being, near the waters of life, the Black Virgin is enthroned with her Child, the dark latency of our own essential nature, that which we were always meant to be.” … Continue reading →

Posted in The Black Madonna, The Dark Goddess, Uncategorized | Tagged alchemy, archetypes, Artemis, Black Madonna, body, Buddha, Buddhism, C.G. Jung, Chartres, Christianity, Cybele, Dark goddess, darkness, death, Einsiedeln, enlightenment, Ephesus, fertility, Gnosticism, goddess, isis, Lyons, Mary Magdalene, Montserrat, nothingness, paganism, Paris, Shulamite, shunyata, Songs of Songs, Sophia, Soul, spirituality, symbolism, symbols, tantra, Tara, Underworld, wisdom, womb | 7 Comments

Reading The Red Book (13)

Posted on November 3, 2019 by Symbol Reader

“In Mark 4.11 Jesus says to his disciples: ‘To you has been given the secret, mysterion, of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables.’” (1) Jung divided The Red Book into two parts: Liber Primus … Continue reading →

Posted in The Red Book by C.G. Jung, Uncategorized | Tagged apotheosis, Apuleius, C.G. Jung, Christ, deification, individuation, initiation, isis, Liber Novus, Lion, Mithra, Mithraism, mysteries, opposites, Sol Invictus, symbolism, symbols, The Red Book, Underworld | 7 Comments

“One Version of Events” by Wislawa Szymborska

Posted on October 23, 2019 by Symbol Reader

“If we’d been allowed to choose, we’d probably have gone on forever. The bodies that were offered didn’t fit, and wore out horribly. The ways of sating hunger made us sick. We were repelled by blind heredity and the tyranny … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized | Tagged poem, poetry, Polish poetry, Wislawa Szymborska | 8 Comments

Reading The Red Book (12)

Posted on October 20, 2019 by Symbol Reader

I. “You may call us symbols for the same reason that you can also call your fellow men symbols, if you wish to. But we are just as real as your fellow men. You invalidate nothing and solve nothing by calling us symbols.” … Continue reading →

Posted in The Red Book by C.G. Jung, Uncategorized | Tagged analytical psychology, anima, archetypes, C.G. Jung, Dark goddess, depth psychology, gnosis, Gnostic gospels, Gnosticism, Gospel of the Egyptians, Kali, Liber Novus, Mary Magdalene, Nag Hammadi, Salome, shadow, symbolism, symbols, The Red Book, the Self, transformation, unconscious | 1 Comment

Persephone, Lady of the Mysteries

Posted on October 7, 2019 by Symbol Reader

“Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.” William Blake, Proverbs of Hell Is one even allowed to talk about the gods of the underworld? For Rudolf Otto, a twentieth-century theologian, the holy or the numinous … Continue reading →