Tag Archives: unconscious

A Hymn to Plant Life

Posted on July 4, 2021 by Symbol Reader

While listening to a talk of Alan Watts recently, I was struck by one of his observations. He said that in Daoist inspired landscape painting was a statement against anthropocentrism, which sees humans as the crown of creation. In a … Continue reading →

Posted in plants | Tagged Alan Watts, archetypes, breath, C.G. Jung, dao, death, desire, East, Emanuele Coccia, ideas, life, logos, nature, Olafur Eliasson, philosophy, plants, prana, psyche, rebirth, seasons, Soul, symbolism, symbols, tao, unconscious, West | 2 Comments

Reading The Red Book (33)

Posted on April 5, 2021 by Symbol Reader

“One can certainly gain outer freedom through powerful actions, but one creates inner freedom only through the symbol.” C.G. Jung, The Red Book, Liber Secundus, chapter XX Chapter XX of Liber Secundus, the middle part of Jung’s Red Book, has … Continue reading →

Posted in The Red Book by C.G. Jung | Tagged analytical psychology, archetype, C.G. Jung, Christ, Christianity, cross, Hermes, Jesus, Liber Novus, Liber Secundus, magic, Moses, Nehushtan, prisca theologia, psyche, serpens mercurialis, serpent, snake, Soul, symbolism, symbols, the way of the cross, transcendent function, unconscious, unity of opposites | 3 Comments

Reading The Red Book (32)

Posted on March 21, 2021 by Symbol Reader

Chapter XIX of Liber Secundus (part II of The Red Book) is called The Gift of Magic. The Soul wants Jung to accept the gift of magic represented by “a black rod, formed like a serpent-with two pearls as eyes-a … Continue reading →

Posted in The Red Book by C.G. Jung | Tagged archetypes, C.G. Jung, Carl Gustav Jung, depth psychology, feeling, four functions, intuition, Kabbalah, Kether, Liber Novus, magic, magician, psyche, ring, sacrifice, sensing, serpent, solitary, Soul, symbolism, symbols, The Red Book, thinking, unconscious | 5 Comments

Reading The Red Book (31)

Posted on February 26, 2021 by Symbol Reader

“Little good will come to you from outside. What will come to you lies within yourself. But what lies there!” C.G. Jung, The Red Book, chapter XVIII (Liber Secundus) Chapter XVIII of Liber Secundus is called The Three Prophecies. The … Continue reading →

Posted in The Red Book by C.G. Jung | Tagged analytical psychology, Aquarius, archetypes, C.G. Jung, Chaos, eternity, Liber Novus, magic, mysticism, opposites, prophecy, psyche, psychology, religion, Rudolf Steiner, science, Soul, symbolism, symbols, The Red Book, timeless, truth, unconscious, vision, War | 6 Comments

Reading The Red Book (29)

Posted on January 10, 2021 by Symbol Reader

I. “Your sun will rise from muddy swamps.” II. “The lowest in you is the source of mercy.” III. “But the lowest in you is also the eye of the evil that stares at you and looks at you coldly … Continue reading →

Posted in The Red Book by C.G. Jung | Tagged analytical psychology, archetypes, C.G. Jung, Chaos, crucifixion, depth psychology, evil, good, language, Liber Novus, life, madness, Neo-Platonism, Nous, Phanes, psyche, shadow, Soul, symbolism, symbols, system, The Red Book, unconscious, words | 5 Comments

Reading The Red Book (28)

Posted on December 13, 2020 by Symbol Reader

“I see behind you, behind the mirror of your eyes, the crush of dangerous shadows, the dead, who look greedily through the empty sockets of your eyes, who moan and hope to gather up through you all the loose ends … Continue reading →

Posted in The Red Book by C.G. Jung | Tagged Anabaptism, animal, archetypes, Bergson, C.G. Jung, Chaos, Christianity, Cook, Ezechiel, Ezekiel, four, instinct, intuition, intuitive method, Liber Novus, madness, mandala, psyche, psychology, Soul, symbolism, symbols, tetramorph, the dead, The Red Book, the Self, the unconscious, unconscious | 3 Comments

Symbolist Art: The Mysteriarch (The One Who Presides over Mysteries)

Posted on November 1, 2020 by Symbol Reader

In volume V of Collected Works (Symbols of Transformation, par. 299) Jung quotes a passage from Goethe’s Faust, in which he hero must descend to the realm of the Mothers: “MEPHISTOPHELES: This lofty mystery I must now unfold.Goddesses throned in … Continue reading →

Posted in Mysteriarch | Tagged archetypes, art, C.G. Jung, Faust, George James Frampton, Goethe, mothers, Mysteriarch, psyche, sculpture, symbolism, symbolist art, symbols, unconscious, Underworld | 8 Comments

Symbolism of the Wetlands

Posted on July 5, 2020 by Symbol Reader

“I enter a swamp as a sacred place, a sanctum sanctorum. … My temple is the swamp.” *** “Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not in towns and cities, but in the impervious … Continue reading →

Posted in The Marsh | Tagged alligator, ancient Egypt, archetypes, Carl Jung, crocodile, Field of Reeds, goddess, Great Mother, James Hollis, London, marsh, marshes, moor, New Orleans, Nile, Pan, paradise, Paris, Soul, swamp, swamps, symbolism, symbols, Syrinx, Thoreau, unconscious, Venice | 12 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

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 →