The Archetypes

The Archetypes

The world of archetypes is the invisible world that we have never seen. Hypothesized to be the deepest realm of the psyche which has the potential to evoke images of a more or less predictable nature. They keep recurring world-wide in all people's psyche and have been reappearing from time immemorial. We know them from myths, Faery tales, sagas, legends and stories told the world over.
Images and events which are foreign and antithetical to science are at home in the souls - the quest for the treasure in a place hard to find that is guarded by powerful mysterial forces capable of casting spells, superhumans, supernatural beings, gods and goddesses, heroes and prophets. The psychic land where these potential forms exist is the collective unconscious. From it arise our inner objective experiences, our wisdom and our folly which are objective because they are not of our own lives or subjective. It is the realm of inherited psychic instincts and behavioral patterns.
The archetype is experienced in projections, powerful affect images, symbols, moods, behaviour patterns such as rituals, ceremonials and love. Jung compared the archetype, the pre-formed tendency to create images, to a dry river bed; rain gives form and direction to the flow, we name the river, but it is never a thing located in any place, it is a form but never the same, it is always changing but it is a river and we know that rivers ultimately flow into oceans, which is symbolic of the unconscious.
On another occasion Jung compared the archetype to a supersaturated solution which, at a given point in time, forms specific crystals around a nidus, breeding formations that are characteristic of that kind of supersaturated liquid and no other. One could compare such an archetype to the mythical King Midas and speak of the nidus of Midas. A nidus doesn't exist as a thing but as a powerful potential, a representative of the archetype.

The archetypal idea when actualized and experienced becomes a complex of ideas held together by the feeling tone common to all the individual ideas. Jung observed that there was prolonged time delay in responding to charged words associated with crucial conflicts. Complexes interfere with conscious performance - action, will, memory and associations.
A complex, according to Jung is the sum of all the associated ideas and feelings that are attracted to an archetype. The complex gives the archetype a form of expression, complex is powered by affect and it is feeling this affect which tells us that we are experiencing an archetype. Therefore archetype images are among the highest values of the human psyche and treasures of the motifs of mythology. Symbols are infinitely variable expressions of underlying archetypes and collective archetypes endow the personal individual with strong affect. The archetype is a tendency to form motifs; they are not inherited images but forms to which our culture and life experience give substance. They are a priori patterns for universal symbols that are characteristic of eternal human nature. The archetypal content of powerful language is metaphor. The metaphor, like the archetype, is an organizing symbol that facilitates depth of meaning. The form in which an archetype appears if a projection clothed and formed according to one's personal life experiences that are drawn from conscious and repressed unconscious elements.
"In the Seventh Book of Republic Plato tells of his famous parable of the cave as an illustration of his theory of eternal Ideas or Forms: man is compared to a creature living in a cave, bound immovably hand and foot. At his back is the entrance to the cave and all he can see are the shadows of the forms passing outside thrown on the wall in front of him …., mistakenly he believes the shadows to be the real things." Jung.
Jungians speak of being possessed by an archetype. In ancient times people spoke of being possessed by demons or Gods, now we make psychiatric diagnoses. Nevertheless people are possessed from time to time by mysterious invading power. To be possessed by an archetype image you are an inquisitor, or a Shi'ite Moslem terrorist, or a Nazi in Germany, or an Aztec sacrificer of human beings; or Dante seeing Beatrice, or first falling in love, or Mozart hearing the concerto in D minor, or you are in your most wonderful dream or most heroic fantasy.
The unconscious is not a demonical monster but a natural entity which as far as moral sense, aesthetic sense and intellectual judgement go is completely neutral. It only becomes dangerous when our conscious attitude to it is hopelessly wrong to the degree that we repress it, its danger increases. The inner world has two realms, the personal subjective unconscious which is what Freud called the unconscious, and the collective objective unconscious which Jung discovered. The personal unconscious is inhabited by images, memories, feelings and ideas which were once conscious but are now repressed, meaning not directly accessible to consciousness. The unconscious contains the whole range of our experiences from our noblest to our darkest. The collective unconscious is inhabited by motifs, ideas, images, personalities, moods, places, visions and spirits we have never known in day-to-day life, this we were born with. We psychologically create our personal unconscious after birth. We are not born with a clean slate in our mind, just as the biological nature of a person comes 'ready made' so does the psyche. At the interface between personal and collective psyche is the reflection of the archaic world still within us and the interface between consciousness and the personal unconscious is the shadowy realm of pre-consciousness where flows the river of the unconscious, the formless dreams that float through our minds when we are awake and when we are asleep. We can dip into this 'twilight' zone through meditation, deep thought and effortless reflection. Between consciousness and the outer world we interpose our persona. Our lives are directed by the motif powers of the unconscious more than we like to think.
The psychological 'types' are a part of broader dynamics of psychic energy which involve four archetypal figures. These figures work together in pairs, one of which is conscious and compensated by its unconscious counterpart.

Ego/Shadow

The first pair is 'ego' and 'shadow'. The 'ego' is the fragile, precious light of consciousness that must be guarded and cultivated. A healthy 'ego' organizes and balances the conscious and unconscious elements of the psyche; a weakened 'ego' leaves an individual in the dark, in danger of being swamped by chaotic, unconscious images, the 'ego' is the sense of purpose and identity. The 'shadow', which is always of the same sex, is the dark side of the person, characterized by inferior, uncivilized or animal qualities which the 'ego' wishes to hide from others. It is not wholly bad however, but primitive and unadapted; it can vitalize life if honestly faced up to.
Wherever good is, is evil, wherever shadow is, is light and substance. Shadow is the name of the archetype of the alter ego. It is more or less synonymous with what Freud called the unconscious but it is both personal and non-personal, 'I' and 'Not I'. We first know the shadow as the personal unconscious; all that we abhor, deny and repress, such as power, greed, cruel and murderous thoughts, unacceptable impulses and morally and ethically wrong actions, all the demonic things by which human beings betray their inhumanity to other beings. It is unconscious therefore we encounter it in other people, things and places where we project it. They have a fateful attraction to it, it seems that we have discovered where the bad stuff really is in someone else or somewhere else. But in the still depth of the collective unconscious dwells absolute evil; its model is hell, purgatory, pure torture, fiendish torment, terrorism indeed so dark we know they are malevolent, heartless and diabolical; it flourishes in mobs, in soccer games gone murderous, atrocities, war. Jung saw the Nazi holocaust as epidemic insanity, the eruption of collective evil into a deceptively ordered world. The Jews were the German shadow and became its scapegoats. This evil shadow still lurks in contemporary humanity and we are all capable of such regression.
"When evil breaks at any point in the order of things our whole circle of psychic protection is disrupted, action inevitably calls up reaction and in the matter of destructiveness this turns out to be just as bad as the crime and possibly even worse, because the evil must be exterminated root and branch. In order to escape the contaminating touch of evil we need a proper rite de sortie, a solemn admission of guilt by judge, hangman and public, followed by expiation".
"The terrible things that happened in Germany and the moral downfall of a nation of eighty millions are a blow aimed at all Europeans …"
"It has filled us with horror to realize all that man is capable of and of which therefore we too are capable. Since then a terrible doubt about humanity and about ourselves gnaws at our hearts". (Jung).
Almost everyone has at least one particularly hated person and this hated one is a remarkable clue to the most unpleasant parts of the hating one. When someone feels you are stupid, greedy, self-centred, power-driven, or thinks that you are the God who knows everything, he has put his finger on his own shadow. The shadow is inexhaustible. It is advisable to be able to eat your own shadow. If you can stomach your own shadow you can take on almost anything.

There is such a thing as a positive shadow which eats the negative shadow. In ancient Rome it was the custom of the conquering hero to ride triumphantly through the city, while by his side a wise man whispered into the hero's ear over and over "you are mortal, remember, you are mortal".
Jung writes in a letter:
"If Job succeeds in swallowing his shadow he will be deeply ashamed of the things which happened. He will see that he has only to accuse himself for it is his complacency, high righteousness, his literal mindedness which have brought all evil down upon him".
One of the problems of recognizing and facing our shadow, owning it and eating it and withdrawing it from projection is that the shadow becomes a serious problem to oneself. Withdrawing and acknowledging our shadow is only the first step, then there is long, painful negotiation with it. But it is quite obvious from dreams that when one faces a shadow which one has denied or run from, it diminishes in power and size and becomes a positive force.
"Our friends show us what we can do, our enemies teach us what we must do". (Goethe).
When we finally bring ourselves to see the shadow which we project as our own, we are literally appalled and overwhelmed by it - the evil out there is so plain to see. At the moment of taking it back within ourselves we are apt to be filled with self-recrimination, guilt and depression, no wonder we wanted to hang it on someone else. We withdraw our projection and our own shadow then becomes enormous, but after prolonged negotiation we are able to befriend the shadow. Even then it is not over because the shadow will always be there, part of our psyche. It is best if we make a truce with it for the shadow alerts us to particular kinds of danger or evil, it is our personal and collective ASIO. Others also have their shadow and they are hooks on which we hang our shadows. This does not liberate us from recognizing the legitimate shadows of the other, only now we know whose is whose. We do not have to be paranoid to have enemies, paranoia is projection of hatred and evil, almost anywhere, even without hooks.
Although the 'ego' is the centre of consciousness, it should not be confused with the 'Self' which is the final goal of the individuation process, the 'wholeness' of personality. The 'ego' which identifies with the 'Self' becomes inflated, dangerously 'God-like'. It will project its own irrational shadow onto others and identify them as evil. Jung regarded the mass psychosis of Hitler's Nazi Germany and its genocidal atrocities as occurring because the German 'ego' became inflated through its identification with the pure Aryan race and projected its collective shadow onto the Jews.
The individual patient in the early stages of Jungian analysis, who encounters the 'shadow', faces a crisis. The more he recognizes and withdraws from the 'shadow' projections the more he feels his 'ego' threatened. He begins to realize that whatever is wrong with the world is in himself and that he must learn to deal with his own 'shadow' and then be able to do something real for the world. Jung regarded the psyche as not confined to individuals only, but as also having a collective nature structured in the same way as the individual. This collective psyche formed the Zeitgeist or 'spirit of the age'. One example is the collective psyche shadow seen in Nazi Germany but it can be seen in any mass movement, trend or following, e.g. uncontrolled hooliganism at soccer matches.

Persona/Soul

The second pair is that of the 'persona' and the 'soul' image. The 'ego' is related to what Jung calls the 'persona', that part of consciousness which negotiates with the outer world on the ego's behalf. It is the 'face' we wear for society, conditioned by social class, job, culture and nationality, with often different 'personas' to suit different situations.
In Greek drama actors wore masks that turned them into the Dramatis Persone the actor becomes the person impersonated; the persona is the guise and manifestation of the role which disguises the personality of the actor.

The persona is an archetype; it is a functional complex that is necessary for adaptation to interpersonal relations, it is a show to show others the role we impersonate, it is a compromise between what we wish to be and what the surrounding world will allow us to be, it is the manifestation of interactional demands.
However the persona also conceals our true nature and disguises both our shadow and our finest ideals as it tries to approximate our ego ideal. The preacher may have one persona in the pulpit and another at home with his wife and children. The way we dress, move, talk, stand, the way we outwardly do everything is our persona. It is preferable to have only a few personae at our beck and call, two conspicuous ones are optimal, work and home, but if we have too many persona people will not know how to identify the one behind the mask.

In Jungian psychology self-realization and becoming who it is in you to become have a high priority. We are running the risk of becoming a society whittled down to mediocrity, honed to conformity and valued in statistical averages. We are becoming computerized, monopolized, bureaucratized; we are become hero worshippers at the temple of sham.
"Since it was man's unfitness - his being an outcast and an outsider on this planet - which started him on this unique course, it should not seem anomalous that misfits and outsiders are often in the forefront of human endeavour and the first to grapple with the unknown. The impulse to escape an untenable situation often prompts human beings not to shrink back, but to plunge ahead; moreover it is in accord with the uniqueness of the human pattern that the misfits of the species should try to fit in, not by changing themselves, but by changing the world … It is the unique glory of the human species that its rejected do not fall by the wayside but become the building stones of the new, that those who cannot fit into the present should become the shapers of the future". (Hoffer, Ordeal Of Change).
The 'persona' adopted is based on our superior functional type because it comes easier. Psychic health and equilibrium depend on a well adapted 'persona' because it makes social exchange possible, even the 'persona' of the rebel. The danger is in identifying totally with the 'persona' being nothing but the role one plays. The perfect 'persona' can lead to one-sided, rigid and alienated personality, where they are afraid of dropping the mask and finding nothing real behind it. Neurosis can arrive from wrong answers to life, from empty success and confinement with too narrow a spiritual horizon. It generally disappears by developing into a more spacious personality.
The unconscious side of the 'persona' is the 'soul' image. Jung used the Latin male and female names for the 'soul', animus and anima. The 'soul' image is always represented by the individual's opposite gender, the female anima in man, the male animus in woman. The 'soul' image is an archetype representing the whole of the unconscious, which is inherited, collective and ageless, but modified by ones actual experience of the opposite sex, especially parents. 'Soul' images appear in dreams, myths and fantasies, but they are also projected, giving a distorted impression of individuals of the opposite sex. The male's 'soul' image, the anima, appeared in many forms throughout the ages but always with the compelling and fascinating secret nature of Eros (love) as an archetype of life itself represented in images of earth and water. The woman's 'soul' image takes the nature of Logos (reason), a search for knowledge, truth and meaningful activity, often represented by images of air and fire. It is often projected onto men with whom the woman is emotionally involved e.g. father figures in a young woman, heroic men as she matures and comforting males as doctors or priests as she grows old.
Jung called Eros the great binder and deliverer and he anticipated a growing awareness of the androgynous aspect of our personalities. Each of us is both male and female; the unisex movement is an unfortunate extreme denial of the macho and the belle and a blurring of the contrasexual being as well. Man is not all man, woman is not all woman, the homosexual personality often infuriates individuals who deny like crazy anything but their conscious heterosexual life, hating and despising being reminded that within them is the personality of the opposite sex. This concept of anima and animus with a balance of both archetypes within the same person breaks with Freud's patriarchal concept of women as flawed, castrated males with penis envy.
However this animus/anima hypothesis is only partly the case. A man with dominant feeling function can be consciously Eros and a woman with dominant thinking function can be consciously Logos. An extreme feminist who projects negative animus onto the hated male seems to be the very image of the sexist male who projects negative anima onto the dangerous female. The misogynous male sees the hated female as his projection. There is always a hook on which to hang a projection but in essence it is a case of hating oneself, the projection of ones own contrasexual being. In love we love that part of ourselves which fits the other, until we see where it does not fit.

However, the contrasexual sides are not male and female but masculine and feminine principles for archetypes. Note also that the anima and the animus contain both positive and negative sides. The positive animus qualities of a woman are assertiveness, control, thoughtful, rational and strong compassionate behaviour; the negative animus qualities of a woman are opinionated, always gets the last word, ruthless and destructive. The positive anima qualities of a man are tenderness, patience, consideration, kindness and compassion; the negative anima qualities of a man are vanity, moodiness, bitchiness, and easily hurt feelings. However the Eros/Logos and Logos/Eros qualities do not always strictly distinguish the sexes, nor did Jung really say that they did, but unfortunately we are stuck with the male/female, masculine/feminine stereotypes.

The Self

This is the central archetype of wholeness and totality. It does not refer to the individual self but to the whole of the personality; ego, consciousness personal and collective unconscious. The self appears in dreams, myths and fairytales as king, hero, prophet, saviour; it appears as the magick circle, the square and the cross; it is the total union of opposites, it is a united duality as Tao and yang and ying, it appears as the mandala, it appears as the imago dei (the image of God) and is equated with the totality of self which is universally expressed and the power of this creation is within the self. Even if God has been pronounced dead the psychological God lives and is equated with supreme power and supreme being; it can be worshipped in many guises - machines, computers, material possessions, states, money, idols, icons, man, woman, child, animal, even atheism - all substitute and stand in for imago dei. Supernatural powers are attributed to whatever carries this image of the self. Whatever we are committed to in awe, in blind allegiance, or devoutly in faith is an expression of imago dei. Abstractions such as science may be reified versions of God. The psychology of the unconscious archetype does not say anything about the reality of the existence of God but only the psychic manifestations experienced by individuals.
We are now like primitive societies which have lost numinousity, (sense of sacredness) lost raison d'être and then decayed. Society now strips mystery and numinousity of all things so that nothing is holy. The number 'four' symbolizes wholeness or totality, the symbol of the self is the square, it is an archetype of universal occurrence. If you want to describe the horizon as a whole you name the four quarters of the heaven. The circle and sphere are natural symbols of completeness, their natural minimum division is a quaternity, the Circled Cross is one of the most ancient of all symbols. Imago dei is both God and shadow, good and evil, deity and devil. The archetypes are always the opposites, unified in the Self into wholeness.
"Age old magickal effects lie hidden in this symbol for it is derived from the protective circle, or charmed circle, whose magick has been preserved in countless folk customs. It is an obvious purpose of drawing a sulcus primigenius a magickal furrow around the centre of the temple temenos (sacred precinct) of the innermost personality in order to prevent an "outflowing" or to guard by apotropaic means (to ward off evil) against any disturbing influence from outside". (Jung) [The word temenos is Greek for a piece of land cut off as sacred domain, a sacred precinct or temple enclosure, set off and dedicated to a God. It is protected space set off as holy and inviolate and in founding a city an original sulcus primigenius was dug to create a protected temenos.]
Early in 1944, at the age of sixty nine, Jung fell and broke his foot, which was followed then by a heart attack. In a drugged state and close to death, he had an 'out of body' experience; he saw a tremendous dark block of stone in space, like a meteorite, hollowed out into a temple; the entrance led into the antechamber and he entered and saw a Hindu who had been expecting him. At that moment a face floated up from the earth, a Greek king from the Island of Kos, on which the temple of the healing God, Asklepios, was sited. As soon as the doctor, in the primal form as king of Kos, came in and said that he must return, the vision ceased. Jung resented coming back to life and he also worried that the doctor had appeared in his primal form because it meant a fatal exchange had been made, he felt that this meant that the doctor would die in his place and despite the warning the doctor said "don't worry, you're just hallucinating". On the day that Jung was allowed to sit up for the first time the fourth of the fourth, nineteen fourty four, the doctor took to his bed and died soon afterwards of septicaemia.
As he slowly recovered Jung had further visions and night after night he lived in a state of bliss. His experiences were utterly real with the quality of objective truth. After this illness and 'near death' experience, Jung's principal works were written. During his seventies, that strange "something" called the 'soul' was proving stronger than ever and Jung was prepared now to give it voice. He developed now the psychology of religion.
All the religious figures at every stage of history shared one thing in common, the inner experience of divinity. Jung called this experience numinous from the Latin numina (the presiding God). When the Shaman hears the voice of the Great Spirit, or the Christian mystic experiences the Christ within, both are referring to an archetypal wholeness, the archetype of 'self' represented as the spirit of God. All religions confirm the existence of "something whole", independent of the individual 'ego' and whose nature transcends consciousness.
What the numinous experience of inner divinity really points to is the process of individuation, the archetype of wholeness manifests itself also in dream, myths and fantasies, occupying a central position in the unconscious and tending to relate all other archetypes to this centre which is approximate to the God image. When the Christian faith speaks of salvation through Christ it is referring to the individuation process (salvation) and an image of wholeness or 'self' (God image, Christ). This individuation process is ritually dramatized by the Catholic mass in which the bread and wine symbolize Christ. The eating of Christ's body and blood in the Catholic mass not only commemorates his sacrifice and death but also symbolizes his resurrection and transmutation into the mortal body of his church.
Sacrificial dismemberment, death and re-birth are ritual steps of a transmutation process, also undergone by tribal Shamans from archaic times, even to this day. A Shaman's spirit leaves his body and goes on a visionary pilgrimage through which he experiences sickness, torture, death and re-birth, similar to Christ's passion and paralleling the soul's after-life voyage towards re-birth, in Tibetan Buddhism the Egyptian Book Of The Dead and many other religions. In other words, these spiritual experiences of death and re-birth communicate a process of becoming whole through sacrifice. The drama of the Catholic mass arose through the same psychic process underlying other ancient Pagan rituals.
From a psychological point of view, Christ is the Original Man, representing the wholeness of personality which surpasses and includes the ordinary man. Such titles are those of King, Messiah, Son of Man, the second Adam, Shepherd, Sacrificial Lamb of God, Fish and Fisher of Men. Jung defines the whole person as the Self. In the archetypal symbolism of the mass Christ represents the Self and the Mass itself dramatizes the individuation process. The mystery of the Eucharist transforms the soul of the empirical man, who is only part of himself, into his totalities, symbolically expressed by Christ. In early mystical Christianity Christ represented a totality that even embraced anima (or shadow side of man) but the Church later developed an extremely one-sided image of Christ who was conceived 'immaculately'; he was a redeemer, all goodness and light, who reflected a perfectly good father, a God opposing the devil and the dark forces of evil; and so the Shadow was excluded and Christ's symbol lost its wholeness and in a psychological sense created an opponent Shadow.
For Jung there was a problem that had been brewing for centuries, that is, how to free ourselves from the opposites of good and evil, spirit and matter, faith and knowledge. The Faust drama, a story of the 16th century German alchemist who sold his soul to Satan in exchange for diabolical powers exemplified the difficulties of individuation for persons in the Christian and scientific world. Western man's Faustian struggle with the dark side of human nature is rooted in the theological age-old problem; how can an omnipotent, all good God allow the existence of evil? God did not create the devil. The latter must be self-creating, implying that God is not omnipotent. Evil must therefore be created by man's choice, by his original sin, which Christ's sacrifice was meant to redeem.
Such an irreducible divide between good and evil means that the Christian community cannot unite the opposites found in nature. Most religions address the problems of good and evil, male and female, yin and yang, etc. Christianity equates the feminine, either with an immaculate Virgin Mary or the wicked temptress, Eve. The sexual nature of the feminine is darkened and repressed leaving the Christ figure so over-identified with life he inevitably casts a strong Shadow. An early sect of heretic Christian mystics, the Gnostics, had tried to complete the trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost to a fourth term, darker, mysterious, feminine dimension of nature.
In 1950 the Pope declared the doctrine of the blessed Virgin Mary's assumption a literal heavenly transportation and reunion with the Son as the Celestial bride. Jung saw this as the church's unconscious recognition of the fourth term and regarded it as the most important religious event since the reformation. From a Pagan point of view it certainly was the re-ascent of the Goddess into a position of primacy with a perfect Son.

The Hero Archetype

The hero's main task is to overcome the monster of darkness to achieve victory over the powers of darkness to bring triumph of good over evil and the dominance of conscious over the unconscious. Rites of passage and rites of initiation are associated with the mythological progression of the hero from a primitive trickster to a redeemer hero. The hero/myth cycle comes in six stages:

1. The miraculous humble birth.
2. Early superhuman power and strength.
3. Rapid rise to prominence.
4. Triumphant struggle with the forces of evil.
5. Fallibility to sin, pride and hubris.
6. Fall through the trial, heroic sacrifice and death.

The hero has been called the collective ego, another archetype of the collective unconscious.
Eventually everything runs into its opposite - shadow to hero, hero to shadow, trickster to redeemer, good to bad. This process is called enantiodromia, meaning running contrary wise, of everything turning into its opposite.


"Every psychological extreme secretly contains its own opposite or stands in some sort of intimate and essential relationship to it. Indeed it is from this tension that it derives its particular dynamism. There is no hallowed custom that cannot on occasion turn into its opposite and the more extreme a position is the more easily may we expect an enantiodromia, a conversion of something into its opposite. The best is most threatened with some devilish perversion just because it has done the most to suppress evil". (Jung).


We have therefore the cycle of initiation of the hero, hero redeemer, hero trickster. The hero is always at risk of regression, the low ebb being tricksterism and the high point redeemer. The cyclic flow is like a river. Hermes if both the wise man and the trickster, Ulysses is both hero and trickster. The trickster's characteristics are chaotic caprice, malicious prankishness and meddlesome cunning wit, he is both stupid and primitive, unconscious and non-conforming but also a genuine gold shadow, divine, demonic, good and evil. Enantiodromia is the balance of the yin/yang opposites.

The Wounded Healer

The wounded healer archetype is an amalgam of opposites. To see health and sickness as either/or is to create an arbitrary total separation. A wounded healer who sees the patient as wholly sick does not see the healthy part. When the doctor sees only the sickness in the other he assumes an all healthy role himself. The patient learns the sick role as a way of surviving this one-sided connection and the sick role can then become a way of life. At one extreme in the wounded healer archetype is the medicine man, Shaman, trickster, charlatan; at the other is the healer of the highest technical and human skills, in the middle is the balanced, centred healer. The wounds of the wounded healer who is unconscious of his own wounds may be stirred up when he devotes day in and day out to listening to and helping others in distress. His tendency to see the patient as all sick and all wounded blinds him to the inner physician. It is the health/sickness archetype which is the spectrum of all who are wounded.


In antiquity the entire art of healing was the domain of the divine physician.
"He was the sickness and the remedy. These two conceptions were identical. Because he was the sickness, he himself was afflicted, wounded or persecuted like asclepius or trophonius; because he was the divine patient he also knew the way to healing. To such a God the oracle of Apollo applies: he who wounds also heals". (Meier, Ancient Incubation and Modern Psychotherapy).
The 'I' of the balanced, wounded healer sees both the wounded and the healthy parts of the patient, not just organs and psychopathology, not just a bevy of neurotransmitters and disease, not as a soul-less body but all-being. It is the physician within the patient himself and its healing action is as great as that of the doctor who appears on the scene externally. Neither wounds nor diseases can heal without the curative action of the inner healer. Wellness is not happiness. Some happiness is just plain sick. Sickness is not necessarily depression or anxiety, some depression and anxiety is just plain healthy. Don't run for the medications but be patient for the medicine of misery and gloom may very well enantiodromia itself.

The Piscean Age and The New Age

The Piscean Age was also commented upon by Jung. The constellation of Pisces is pictured as two fishes joined to each other by a cord of stars. The fish on the left appears to swim vertically and the one on the right horizontally to the ecliptic (the ecliptic being the yearly great circle which the sun appears to trace in the sky of fixed stars). On the 21st of March the sun crosses the equator, making day and night of equal length, this is called the Spring Equinox in the Northern hemisphere.
At the annual Spring Equinox the sun comes back to almost the same position on the ecliptic but it slips back by a smaller cut every year and in 72 years the Spring point is one fourth degree further along the ecliptic. Jung showed that Christ's death occurred when the Spring Point is aligned with a star called Al Rischa (or the knot) where the cord linking the two fishes and the first fish itself begin. At about this time in 7BCE the star of Bethlehem appeared, being an unusual triple conjunction of the planets Jupiter and Saturn; with the sun it heralded the coming of the King, Jupiter, of the Jews, Saturn. Christ is symbolized by Pisces 1, the fish of the spirit, who announces the New Age. It is also intriguing that in this Age the fish is used as a name and symbol for Christ/God who became a man. He was born as a fish who had fishermen for disciples and said he had come to make fishers of men; he fed the multitude with miraculously multiplying fish, he was himself eaten as a fish - a holier food, his followers were known as 'little fishes' and the fish symbolism to denote Christianity standing for the name of Christ in Greek is also commonly known, yet there is no evidence that fish symbolism was consciously employed. It seemed to have happened naturally without anyone thinking about it.

As the Spring point moved along the ecliptic in alignment with the stars and Pisces 1, the Christian church grew, strengthened and developed its image of the unblemished, all good Christ, the king or all-powerful pancreator. But then, as the Spring point passed along the cord uniting the two fishes radical doctrines began to flourish, culminating in the Reformation and violent religious conflicts throughout Christendom. Christianity itself was disintegrating as Europe underwent the Renaissance, nationalism, people's revolutions, the discovery of science and now Neo Paganism.
Prediction of the Antichrist's coming were frequently made in this cord period, often dated as 1789, the year of the French Revolution, which, incidentally, was forecast by Nostradamus. Jung interpreted the coming of the Antichrist as a Shadow cast by the Christ image. The Antichrist was seen as an inexorable, psychological law.
In 1818 the Spring point reached the first star in the tail of Pisces II and we have now come to the enantriodromian, or mirror image, opposite of Christianity - the mirror of general anti-Christian ways of thinking - anti-Christian materialism which had been established by Charles Darwin and Karl Marx. Western thinking in the 19th and 20th century eliminated the mythopoeic imagination.
In a sense Faust has gained material power of science but lost his soul, western man no longer experiences the uncanny. The bridge of spiritual experience which once crossed the divide of opposites has collapsed because it has failed the empirical "cause and effect" test of science.

Alchemy

Jung's work in the last part of his life focussed on giving both worlds of science and mythopoeic imagination their due.
He found the historical equivalent to his own psychology in medieval alchemy, from Greek Khemia "art of transmuting metals". Alchemy had discovered its own peculiar solution to the problem of uniting opposites. He was the first to make alchemy psychologically accessible to the twentieth century by showing how alchemical symbols were similar to archetypal dream images.
Alchemy is called the "Hermetic Art", a secret or occult practice, named after the legendary founder of alchemy, Hermes Trismugistus the "thrice greatest Hermes". The alchemist's goal was to experiment with physical substances to transform base metal into gold. The philosopher's stone was the agent which would enable this to occur. The aim was not real material gold but philosophical gold, concerned not only with the transformation of inanimate matter but with their own spiritual transformation. Jung believed that alchemy stood as the 'Shadow' in compensatory relationship to Christianity. Christianity's one-sided dogma and inability to unite the opposites had alienated us from our natural roots in the unconscious. Alchemy extracts the shadow from sunlight and the sun ray from its shadow. The philosophers stone is produced by the unity of divine opposites, the sphere of divine unwillingness, non-being, death and the sphere of divine will, being and life. The sun and the shadow rotate casting their opposites; the God, Dionysius, sun's Shadow, killing and dismembering the alchemist (I kill and make alive), and the sun God, Apollo, raising the alchemist to eternal life (I wound and heal), which is exactly what psychoanalysis does.
In the Christ/philosopher's stone (lapis) alchemist equation, the alchemists saw their goal not only as assisting God to redeem man, but also to redeem God himself from matter. The one primarily in need of redemption was not man but the deity sleeping in the darkness of man. Jung recognized the alchemical work parallels the individuation process, the analytical task is identical to the alchemical endeavour because both the analyzer (the alchemist), and the analyzed person are patients who must undergo an inner journey. Both must confront the terrors of their own unconscious in a process that aims at total transformation; both are projecting their unconscious into the darkness of matter in order to illuminate and liberate it or to bring it to consciousness.
The alchemist is often depicted as working with a female assistant, the anima or 'soul' image. The materials they cook and brew can be compared with psychological equivalence e.g. sulphur is hot and desirous, silver retentive and touchy, iron brave and passionate, copper constant and sensuous, tin honest and lofty, lead detached and cruel, the slippery nature of mercury, with its invisible poisonous vapours epitomizes danger, tricks and deceptions of the entire world. The Spirit of Mercurius was the central figure through which the alchemical union of opposites is made possible. Mercurius is for Jung the image of the collective unconscious itself.
"I am the old dragon, found everywhere on the globe of the Earth, young and old, very strong and very weak, death and resurrection, visible and invisible, hard and soft; I descend into the Earth and ascend into the Heavens, I am the highest and the lowest, the lightest and the heaviest. I am dark and light … I am known and yet do not exist at all".


Alchemists experimenting in their laboratories reported confrontations with terrifying monsters in their reports and alendics. Jung recognized these monsters as archetypal images which described the psychic conditions of the alchemists undergoing states of depression, despair, passion, frustrated desire and so on. These could be paralleled to the stages in the individuation process during analysis.
Throughout the alchemists' recipes for making a stone, Jung found a constant theme of a "chemical marriage" between king and a queen (gold and silver) who unite, die and are re-born as a Siamese pair or Hermaphrodite. Jung studied the bizarre imagery of this marriage with immense difficulty in 1965 when his own wife died, while he was aged 80.

Transference

The marriage of king and queen describes analysis itself, especially the transference relationship between analyst and patient. Transference is the projection on to the analyst of feelings and ideas which are derived from introjected figures or objects in the patient's past, commonly parental figures. The patient repeats and re-enacts the past relationships with the analyst, the transference may be a positive one (falling in love) or a negative one (hostility and hatred). By analyzing the transference unconscious patterns become conscious to the patient. Counter transference occurs when the analyst projects his or her own unconscious contents on to the patient.


Looking at this problem from a Jungian point of view - for example, 'mother projection' - we note that in the collective unconscious we are in the archetypal world of humanity, finding ourselves in a living myth. When the patient says 'mother', thinks 'mother' or is unconsciously 'mother', the therapist is an interesting place. He will first see his patient, then her mother, and then her mother archetype and may well hear the archetype talking through his patient and exerting a power on the therapist as well. The archetypes appear in symbolic expression; the presence of the archetype is known by powerful feeling, - we are all born of mothers - which embodies transpersonal images and powers. The mother that is behind the real mother may be the great mother, the tragic mother, the terrible mother, the devouring mother, the cruel mother, the tyrannical mother, the wise old woman or others. Jung often used the metaphor of the cauldron as the container for the interaction of opposites and the interaction of real and symbolic people. A positive transference is a desirable state in which analysis flourishes but it is not a steady state and fluctuates. Whenever two people are in a close relationship transference is there; it is first personal, a reflection of real people and then non-personal, a representation of inner objects which are not part of our subjective life, come from the collective bin of humankind. These images live in mythology, faery tales, legends and heroic fantasies and in the heroic world of good and evil. They can be persons of the opposite sex, or of no sex, or of androgenous sex, or non-human beings. It is an unconscious projection of the repressed personal and collective images and transference can apply to people, things and ideas.
Looking at origins of transference we see that it begins with infantile relationships - for example, mother. Your real mother is unique in the world of mothers, it is not your mother when someone says "take that mother out of here". 'Mothers' are diverse, archetypal mother symbols abound, dark cave, milk, nurse, fruitful earth, the muse of creativity, Mother Earth, nature, the mistress of the elements, sovereign of all things spiritual, origin of life, Moon Goddess, perpetual renewal, creator, destroyer.


There are two worlds; the world of the 'I' and the world of the 'Not I'. The personal psyche is the 'I', the ego and the dimensions of it, (ego, superego and id in Freudian terms). You can understand that domain by understanding the patient's 'real world'. The deeper Self of the 'Not I' is the symbolic centre of life and our world, the Self, the inner, all encompassing archetype as opposed to 'self' meaning our personal self. This is the essence of the 'Not I'. The outer world and its repressed elements are know to us as the 'I', compared to that from within, the inner world of 'Not I' that is the collective unconscious. This 'Not I' transcends our personal being. The 'Not I' world of archetypes presents in its cast of thousands, anima, animus, shadow, good mother, bad mother, good father, bad father, wise old woman, wise old man, Satan, redeemer, saviour, bête nour, demons, monsters, king, queen, floods, storms, trickster, gods, goddesses, serpent, antichrist, tree of knowledge, tree of life, sun, moon, tornado, hurricane, earthquake, sacred mountain, mandala, trinity, Christ, soul, persona, re-birth, spirit, ad infinitum. There are so many forms in which archetypes appear because they are expressed in an infinite variety of symbols. The 'Not I' is an archetypal phenomenon.
"The more remote and unreal the personal mother is, the more deeply will the son's yearning for her clutch at his soul, awakening that primordial and eternal image of the mother for whose sake everything that embraces, protects, nourishes and helps assumes paternal form from the alma mater of the university to the personification of cities, countries, sciences and ideals". Jung.
"The father represents the world of moral commandments and prohibitions, although for lack of information about conditions in prehistoric times it remains an open question how far the first moral laws arose from dire necessity rather than from the family preoccupations of the tribal father … The father is the representative of the spirit whose function it is to impose pure instinctuality. That is his archetypal role which falls to him regardless of his personal qualities; hence he is very often an object of neurotic fears for the son. Accordingly for the monster to be overcome by the son frequently appears as a giant who guards the treasure. The archetypal symbol carries the same meaning for a large portion, if not all, of mankind - for example, Sky Father, axis of the wheel, father of us all, spirit and intellect; the Great Mother, physical matter, the Earth Mother". Jung.

The Alchemical Process

Jung interpreted some wood-cut illustrations from a 17th century alchemical text, the Rosarium Philosophorum, to describe the process of analysis in archetypal terms.

1. The Mercurial Fountain. The vessel in which the work takes place contains the divine water, the stars are the four corners of the four elements in separate and hostile states which need to be united as the fifth star over the fountain shows. These four elements are Jung's four functions and the fifth is the wholeness of the self. The stars on the vessel represent six planets, the triple fountain in its middle is the seventh, Mercury, and the mercurial fountain is a "chthonic" or underground counterpart to the Christian trinity. Mercurius is also the water in the fountain and symbolizes the unconscious; the process begins with disunion - a disintegrated and unredeemed state among the four elements or functions - redemption or wholeness will be affected through Mercurius, the integration of unconscious elements. Mercury as water can cause great elation and depression, just as the patient will experience in her analysis.
2. The king and queen are sun and moon, animus and anima, brother and sister. They are fully clothed, disguising their natural state. Their left-handed handshake indicates a sinister union. The left is the dark, unconscious side which suggests an incestuous marriage. In the right hands the king and queen hold branches with four flowers, the four elements. The Dove or Holy Ghost descends and unites them in a union which is also spiritual. Incest, the union of like with like, symbolizes marriage with one's 'being' becoming the Self in a situation. The king and the queen are the unconscious figures of the alchemist and his female anima assistant. In terms of the transference, this is the initial meeting of the analyst and the patient; the incestuous handshake indicates that unconscious infantile fantasies, originally invested in members of the patient's family, are transferred on to the analyst and provide the "primal matter" for the analytical work.
3. The naked truth. The king and queen now confront each other as they are, without conventional disguises. Both now have one flower each instead of two, symbolizing that two elements have paired off in a partial union. The naked contact represents the integration of the shadow with the ego and assimilation of the shadow brings a return of the body. This is the conjunction of opposites, the soaring eagle of the ego and the earthy toad of the shadow. Animal instinct and primitive consciousness merge without being repressed by fictions or illusions.
4. Immersion in the bath. The king and queen descend into the water, the unconscious, the immersion is a night sea journey or dissolution which returns them to dark initial state. The well is a uterus in which to be re-born. The king and queen are united "above and below" by the dove and also the water of Mercurius, the unconscious. King and queen - or spirit and body - are unrelated without the soul to bind them together. The dove and water symbolize the bond of the soul. The unrelated human being can achieve wholeness only through the soul.
5. The intercourse (coniuenctio). The sea now engulfs the king and queen. Coitus occurs in water, in the unconscious. They have returned to the beginning - the massa confusa or "unleashed chaos" - and at this moment the lapis (philosopher's stone) is conceived.
6. Death and putrefaction. The king and queen are dead and have melted into a being with two heads, the Hermaphrodite. After intercourse a state of putrefaction sets in, punishment for the sin of incest and conception. This is known as the nigredo (state of blackness) which requires the alchemist's self-cleansing. The nigredo indicates that psychic life stagnates when there is a blending of identity into the unconscious. It also represents the stage in analysis when projections are withdrawn. This enlarges the personality but can also lead to ego inflation if the ego identifies with unconscious contents and is thereby "polluted" by them. When the ego unites successfully with the unconscious soul image it will produce a new personality compounded of both, the Self or union of archetypal opposites.
7. Ascent of the soul. The soul departs from the spirit and body of king and queen in great distress. Unlike the usual idea of conception, it does not come from "above" to animate the body, but it leaves the body to mount heavenwards; later it will descend as a healing force and saviour, a parallel to Christ's 'second coming'. This is the soul-less stage in analysis when the patient has no sense of direction, as in schizophrenia. The decomposition of the elements, the four functions, has led to dissociation and collapse of the existing ego consciousness. The analyst, like the alchemist, must work ceaselessly at this stage to assist the royal couple's "resurrection".
8. Purification. The dew descends. The aqua sapientiae (or water of wisdom) - portending the divine birth. Illumination washes away the nigredo by an albedo (or whitening), like sunrise after darkness. At this stage of analysis, when the unconscious contents have been made conscious and theoretically evaluated, the patient usually believes the goal has been reached.
9. The return of the soul. The soul dives from heaven to breathe life into the Hermaphrodite. The two ravens at the bottom of the picture indicate that the pair of opposites still exist in the sphere of the unconscious. The winged and the wingless birds symbolize the double nature of Mercurius, the chthonic (earth underworld) and pneumatic (airy, upper world) sides. The patients at this stage will begin to integrate the opposites in their psyche and can view their body in a detached, far off way.
10. The new birth or rebis. The rebis or the "re-born" is the winged Hermaphrodite standing on the moon with snakes and a raven still present, which is associated with the devil. Why is the desired goal of alchemy portrayed in this monstrous form? Because alchemy is the "maternal darkness" and compensates for Christianity's "paternal light" and the goal is to become holy oneself, light and dark made one.

The importance of Jung's alchemical studies extends far beyond their relevance to analytical psychology and into the mystery of the "mind-matter" connection itself. Located prior to modern physics, alchemy crossed the divide between the psyche and matter, subject and object. As chemistry and physics developed out of alchemy into objective sciences, the psyche of the observer became specifically excluded from the objective material with which the observing scientists work. It was therefore only in the twilight, paranormal area that the mysterious union of psyche and matter could be emotionally experienced in our modern age. The alchemist had named this union the Unus Mundus "one world". It was this experience of the "oneness" that Jung attempted to elucidate through his concept of synchronicity.

Synchronicity

Synchronicity is an acausal meaningful relationship of an inner and an outer world event.
It is not the same as synchronous or coincidence. The synchronistic principle asserts a meaningful relationship with no possible cause or connection between a subjective experience within the human psyche and an objective event which occurs at the same time, but at a distant place, in the outer world of reality.
Jung found that he came against this phenomenon often and the connection of events by other than cause and effect is a central feature in modern, quantum physics.
To serve as an example of the difference between synchronicity and coincidence Jung cites the following stories:

1. "A wife gives a man a new pipe for his birthday. He takes a walk and sits under a tree in a park. Sitting next to him is a man smoking the same kind of pipe. He tells the man that his wife gave him his pipe for his birthday. The man says "mine did too". It turns out that they both have the same birthday. They introduce themselves. They have identical christian names". This is not synchronistic because there is no simultaneous inner meaningful subjective event.
2. "A dog suddenly barks and whimpers in the night and wanders bereft and aimlessly through the house. The next day it is found out that the dog's master was slain in another city at the very time the dog was seized by the paroxysm of crying". This is synchronistic because of the simultaneous occurrence of two meaningfully related, but not causall connected events.

"One does not need to produce ten thousand duck billed platypi in order to prove they exist. It seems to me synchronicity represents a direct act of creation which manifests itself as chance. The statistical proof of natural conformity to law is therefore only a very limited way of describing nature since it grasps only uniform events but nature is essentially discontinuous, that is subject to change, to describe it we need a principal of discontinuity. In psychology this is the drive to individuation, in biology it is differentiation but in nature it is the "meaningful coincidence" that is to say, synchronicity". (Jung).
Meaningful coincidences had always fascinated Jung. He looked for a theoretical concept which would account for such a paranormal chance phenomena as the I Ching. In 1930 he first used the term synchronicity to describe an "a-causal" (the connection between psychic states and objective events). He carefully distinguished synchronicity from the mere synchronism of events occurring simultaneously but unconnected in meaning. His earlier attempts to understand synchronicity were influenced by the classical idea of astrology, the "objective time moment". This supposes that a certain quality exists in a moment of time itself - "a time to be born, a time to die, a time to reap and a time to sow". Whatever is done at this moment of time has the quality of this moment of time. Qualitative time seems to "explain" why astrology and other forms of divination work.
But synchronicities are not always dependent on such a moment of time. Precognition, for example, does not occur in "same-timeness". Jung gradually abandoned the supposition of qualitative time. He concluded that since qualitative time was nothing but the flux of things and was just as much "nothing" as space, this hypothesis ends up in a vicious circle - "the flux of things and events is the cause of the flux of things and events etc.".
Jung went on wondering if there was any law or pattern of synchronistic events which could be contrasted with the Newtonian law of causality. He thought it possible to link his acausal principle of synchronicity with new ideas now emerging in physics, which also suggested an acausal paradox. Radioactive break-up appeared to be an effect without a cause. It suggested that the ultimate laws of nature were not even causal. The quantum physicist and Nobel prizewinner (1945), Wolfgang Pauli, was a close friend of Jung's and one of several scientists interested in Jung's views. A union of psychology and physics seemed entirely possible and Pauli stated that he had discovered the presence of archetypes in the scientific theories of Kepler.
Jung and Pauli agreed that the trinity of classical physics - time, space and causality - could be turned into a quaternity by adding synchronicity as a fourth term. Thus we have indestructible energy opposing the space/time continuum and causality; and constant connection through effect opposing synchronicity with inconstant connections, (very light quantum mechanics, the study of almost infinitesimally small sub-atomic particles states that there are discontinuities in the way the universe works).
This conflicted with Einstein's theory of general relativity, that the structure of space time is smooth and continuous. God doesn't play dice. Jung and Pauli said "perhaps he does but we don't know by what rules".
To what degree is synchronicity either subjective or objective or is it partly both? "Synchronicity takes the coincidence of events in space and time as meaning something more than mere chance, namely a peculiar interdependence of objective events among themselves as well as with the subjective psychic states of the observer or observers". Jung.
The relationship between observer and observed remains confused, giving rise to two understandings of synchronicity. In one version there is already an interdependence of objective events amongst themselves (planets, marriage, for example) observed objectively. Yet in the second version, involving the subjective participation of the observing psyche, the experimenter's psyche is also involved. The first version of synchronicity, with its objectivity, could be examined for an inherent theory of law; the second with its secret mutual connivance is unique and notably, it depends on and even brings to light the psyche of the observing subjects so that the individual's own psyche is mysteriously reflected in the objective material.

If synchronicity, in its broadest sense, has to be meaningful, then it must have a subjective component because it is impossible to separate meaning from subjective psychic activity. Yet in suggesting a form of synchronicity based on an interdependence of objective events amongst themselves, Jung also has shown the existence of a level of reality existing prior to human consciousness, implying an order and pattern in the cosmos, a transcendental meaning inherent to the collective psyche. Synchronicity postulates a meaning which is a priori to human consciousness and apparently exists outside man.
Jung's synchronicity concept was a major concept in the New Age thinking in the sixties. His efforts have contributed to making the study of religion respectable. Developments on the leading edge of quantum physics, quantum mechanics, the new cosmology, chaos theory, continued to fire the imagination with possible links between physics and the psyche.

Stages of Life

"Natural life is the nourishing soil of the soul. Anyone who fails to go along with life remains suspended, stiff and rigid in mid air. That is why so many people get wooden in old age; they look back and cling to the past with a secret fear of death in their hearts, they withdraw from the life process, at least psychologically, and constantly remain fixed like nostalgic pillars of salt with vivid recollections of youth but no living relation to the present. From the middle of life onward, only he who remains vitally alive, who is ready to die with life for in the secret hour of life's midday the parabola is reversed, death is born. The second half of life does not signify ascent, unfolding, increase, exuberance, but death, since the end is its goal. The negation of life's fulfilment is synonymous with the refusal to accept its ending, both mean not wanting to live and not wanting to live is identical with not wanting to die. Waxing and waning make one curve". (Jung).
The first half of life is a period where the ego becomes differentiated and separated from the self with which it was united at birth. At mid-life the ego has achieved a high point of conscious development in its separation from the self, in the second half the ego is drawn back into the self, the growing union of a highly conscious ego and of self creates an aura of wisdom. At death, as at birth, ego and self are one small one and the cycle is complete. To be conscious at the moment of dying may be the utmost completeness of living and the closest consciousness to eternity as one becomes one in Self imago dei the image of God into which the ego is submerged.
The first half of life is characterized by unfolding activity, striving for accomplishments and achievements, the acquisition of material things and, usually, the creation of a family. It is the time of developing maturity, reaching for personal power and an ever-widening expansion of life.
The second half of life is ushered in by the normal mid-life crisis, the transformation of life patterns to new challenges in the face of which many people become melancholy; not a few lose their way, life becomes meaningless, an existential void. In the throes of this angst individuals begin to re-think their lives, going back over the past, wondering where they went wrong, why they missed this or that golden opportunity and mourn lost relationships and loves, they fear death and they are unprepared for dying. Some parents experience the 'empty nest syndrome' where all the children have left home and suddenly the two parents sit looking at each other wondering "what has it been about?" "what happens now?" The mid-life crisis, even when it does bring on depression, anxiety, fear or despair, is a time of great challenge out of which come symbols of transformation tinctured with the sweet poison of nostalgia. Psychologically some individuals never pass the boundary of mid-life, their growth is arrested, new challenges are pushed away, inui sets in. The natural and normal introspection of mid-life hangs on, distorted in excessive rumination and retrospection. Like Lot's wife, looking back, they turn to pillars of salt, darkness comes over their existence and they are swallowed up by the past. A surprisingly large number try to live the second half of life as if it were the first half, perverting the normal grace of aging, hating wrinkles, bemoaning physical deterioration, sexual changes, aches, pains, illnesses, they hide or deny aging and instead clown their way through life playing perennial youth, seeking the thrills and action of being young. They are robbing themselves of the treasures of growing old which compensate for its frailties and infirmities.
Freud devoted his life to understanding the first half of life, Jung the second half. Mid-life depressions are fuelled by re-awakened adolescent despair and unresolved sexual conflicts. The way through this maze is not running from reality that actually is one's mid-life lot, and not by seeking intoxication of drugs, alcohol, promiscuous sex, greener pastures, power, glory, notoriety, new job, new wife, new lover, but by going towards the inner values, seeking development of what has been neglected, following the flow of life but not floating passively. It is a truism that we all fear death but when we fear death we also fear living. In worries about aging some people become obsessed by the four poisons of "If only", "What if", "Should have", and "Could have". Life tragedies are arranged by a power of events beyond individual control, aimless, homeless wanderers, street people turned out of mental hospitals, demoralized, impoverished who have lost their jobs, hungry and starving people, all are suffering in ways most people try not to think about. Nature is blighted, our toxic noxious wastes proliferate, our consuming society is consuming itself, acid rain, gluttony, greed, power, lying, cheating, spying, abound. Life's predicaments require an acquiescence to life as it is and the courage to examine that life and our part in it, to make of each day a life. But we must try to change what is evil and unjust. Those in the second half have a greater responsibility to remedy evils because they have had a longer stake in perpetuating.
Retirement absolves nobody of responsibility for life, culture and human values. Peace of mind, which comes from shutting off the past and letting the past bury their dead, does not diminish our living involvement in the present and the need to inquire wisely concerning this.
"Middle life is the moment of greatest unfolding, when a man still gives himself to his work with his whole strength and his whole will. For in this very moment evening is born and the second half of life begins. Passion now changes her face and it is called 'duty'; "I want" becomes the inexorable "I must" and the turnings of the pathway which once brought surprise and discovery become dulled by custom. The wine has fermented and begins to settle and clear, conservative tendencies develop if all goes well; instead of looking forward one looks backward, most of the time involuntarily, and one begins to take stock to see how one's life has developed up to this point. The real motivations are sought and real discoveries are made, the critical survey of himself and his fate enables a man to recognize his peculiarities but these insights do not come to him easily, they are gained only through the severest shocks". (Jung).
"Life is a constant struggle against extinction, a violent yet fleeting deliverance from ever-lurking night, this death is no external enemy, it is his own inner longing for the stillness and profound peace of all-knowing non-existence, for all-seeing sleep in the ocean of coming to be and passing away, even in the highest strivings for harmony and balance, for the profundities of philosophy and the raptures of the artist, he seek death, immobility, satiety, rest. If like Peirithous he tarries too long in this abode of rest and peace, he is overcome by apathy and the poison of the serpent paralyzes him for all time. If he is to live he must fight and sacrifice his longing for the past in order to rise to his own heights, and having achieved the noon-day heights he must sacrifice his love for his own achievement for he may not loiter, the sun too sacrifices its greatest strength in order to hasten onward to the fruits of Autumn which are the seeds of re-birth". (Jung).
"Life is like discourse of the sun, in the morning it gains continually in strength until it reaches the zenith heat of high-noon, then comes the enantiodromia: the steady forward movement no longer denotes an increase but a decrease in strength, thus our task in handling a young person is different from the task of handling an older person, in the former case it is enough to clear away all the obstacles that hinder expansion and ascent; in the latter we must nurture everything that assists the descent". (Jung).
To the end Jung went on seeking for "an answer to Job" - a reply to the spiritual dilemma facing modern man. He often retreated to Bollingen to be in the presence of wise old Philemon. Jung himself was now a mythic Philemon (the sage of Kusnacht). Due to the wide range of his thought Jung's influence extends far wider than the theory of practice of analytical psychology. It bridges the world of science, the testing of theories through impirical and clinical observation and that of divination, the realm of spirits and mythopoeic imagination.
But every like casts a shadow. Jung's critics have portrayed him as a dark figure, a tyrannical and viscous man, who wasted his wife's fortune; one who transgressed analytical boundaries and encouraged a court for adoring accolades. A person who was intellectually arrogant, submerging everything into his own theories and even that he was anti-Semitic, an accusation which is easy to refute.
At the age of 85, on the last evening of his life, Jung opened and drank one of the best wines in his cellar and died peacefully the following day, the 6th June 1961 in his house on the lake. A great storm broke across the lake in the hour following his death.
"From the middle of life onward only he who remains vitally alive, who is ready to die with life; for in the secret hour of life's midday the parabola is reversed, death is born. The second half o life does not signify ascent, unfolding, increase, exuberance, but death, since the end is its goal. The negation of life's fulfilment, synonymous with the refusal to accept its ending, both mean not wanting to live; not wanting to live is identical with not wanting to die; waxing and waning make one curve."

Bibliography:

1. "Practical Jung: Nuts and Bolts of Jungian Psychotherapy" by Harry A Wilmer Chiron Publications 1987
2. "The Collective Works of C J Jung" translated R F C Hull Bollingen Series XX Vols 1-18 Published by Princeton University Press
3. "Jung for Beginners" Maggie Hyde & Michael McGuiness Published Icon Books 1992

   Glossary:

   Active Imagination: a therapeutic technique which allows unconscious contents to be exposed in a waking state. It is like "dreaming with open eyes", but unlike the passivity of dreams, it demands the active participation of the individual. The images which arise may be elaborated through artistic and self-expressive mediums such as painting.
   Amplification: a method of interpretation in which the analyst assists the patient to connect an image in a dream or fantasy with universal imagery. The personal images are amplified by comparison with similar images and motifs found in myths and fairy-tales. By engaging in this process, a synthesis of consciousness and the unconscious, and of personal and collective, is attained. The individual is reconnected with the archetype expressed through the image and the unconscious content is made explicit.
   Analytical Psychology: Jung coined this term as early as 1913 to distinguish his approach from Freud's psychoanalysis.
   Apports: the paranormal and otherwise inexplicable production or transporting of material objects, as for instance in a seance.
   Archetypes: inherited, innate and a priori modes of perception, linked to the instincts, which regulate perception itself. The archetypes are primordial ideas, common to all mankind, and they express only through archetypal images. They are charged with emotion and function autonomously from the unconscious.
   Compensation: for Jung, the unconscious stands in a compensatory relationship to consciousness and functions to restore any imbalance or one-sidedness created by the conscious attitude. Repressed contents re-emerge in dreams, images and symptoms because "every process that goes too far immediately and inevitably calls forth compensation".
   Complexes: a collection of images and ideas with a common emotional tone which cluster around an archetypal core. They are autonomous and 'behave like independent beings'. Complexes are mediated into consciousness by the ego which can be overwhelmed by them (as in psychosis) or identify with them (as in inflation).
   Ego: the ego is the centre of the field of consciousness and gives the individual his or her sense of purpose and identity. It organizes the conscious mind, mediating consciousness with the unconscious. The Ego is the precious "light" of consciousness which must always be guarded.
   Extrovert & Introvert: the two poles of psychic orientation. In the extrovert attitude, energy flows outwards towards the world and is motivated and oriented by external, objective factors. Introverted energy withdraws from the world and is motivated and oriented by inner, subjective factors.
   Functions: Jung distinguished four properties of psychic energy which he terms the four functions, paired in two sets of opposites: thinking-feeling and intuition-sensation. The functions are the means by which we orient ourselves to experience. In any individual, one function is conscious (superior), Its opposite is unconscious (inferior) and the remaining two are partially conscious and partially unconscious (auxiliary). The functions combine with the two attitude types (extrovert and introvert), to give eight functional types.
   Hysteria: from the Greek for womb, hysteria was once diagnosed as a purely feminine disease. Psychiatry came to use the term to refer to neurotic behaviour In which the physical symptoms, e.g. paralysis or convulsions, derive from psychological rather that physical malfunction. Phobia, or extreme neurotic anxiety, is also a form of hysteria. Jung agrees with Freud that hysterical symptoms are a return of repressed memories in the personal background of the patient, and that they involve misplaced psychic energy, usually sexual. The form of the symptoms is itself symbolic of the nature of the psychological problem.
   lndividuation: the process of self- development in which an individual integrates the many facets of the psyche to become him or her self - an individual, a separate, indivisible unity with a sense of psychic wholeness.
   Libido: Freud's use of the term libido as "sexual energy" was extended by Jung to include psychic energy in general. He eventually dropped the term libido altogether in favour of "psychic energy' (see psychic energy).
   Mandala: Sanskrit for "magic circle'. Sacred, geometric paintings used for meditation purposes and characterised by a circle and a square which radiate from a central point. Jung interpreted them as an archetypal expression of the Self and wholeness. Mandala images often emerge In dreams and paintings during analysis.
   Mythopoeic Imagination: the myth-making imagination characteristic of primitive mentality but also, according to Jung, of the unconscious. It is to be contrasted with the discursive and directed thought of consciousness. It appears in non-directed fantasy thinking and dream images, and reflects the preconscious archetypal structure of the psyche.
   Neurosis: originally a "disease of the nerves'. Freud saw that this was not a disorder of the nervous system, but of personality, arising from the thwarting of instinctual drives. Beyond the broad distinction between neurosis and psychosis Jung does not attempt a comprehensive classification of neurosis. His analysis took the whole of the disturbed psyche as its subject, and he looked on neurosis as reflecting psychic imbalance. Neurotic symptoms may manifest a compensatory and teleological process of self-healing, since they direct the sufferer's attention to his or her psychic dis-ease.
   Projection: the unconscious displacement of psychic contents onto other people or objects. The projected contents may be unacceptable emotions and qualities or they may be beneficial and valuable. Both Shadow and Soul-image projections are carried by real men and women. The recollection and integration of projected contents is an important part of analysis and of the individuation process.
   Psyche and Psychic Energy: by psyche, Jung means the whole of our being, conscious and unconscious. His analytical psychology attempts to reveal a structure and dynamics of the psyche and to create a typology of psychic energy - attitudes, functions, types and so on. Psychic energy can flow in a number of channels - biological, psychological, spiritual and moral. It will change direction and flow into another channel if it is blocked in any one channel. A shift in the flow of energy has purpose and functions to maintain a balance in the psyche as a whole.
   Psychic Reality: a major concept for Jung. The psyche functions in psychic reality. Life is experienced as psychic reality, and even "illusory' experiences are real from this point of view. Both the inner and outer world are perceived by us in images, and as evidence of this, we tend to personify unconscious contents. So Christ, for example, is a collective image of the Self and has a real psychic force, quite independent of the historical question of Jesus.
   Psychosis: an invasion of consciousness by unconscious contents where the conscious Ego becomes overwhelmed, splitting the individual off from social responses and conventional reality. Consequently, it is difficult for psychotic patients to respond to psychotherapy. The same process that produces madness in one person may be allied to genius in another. Psychotic states can be part of religious conversion and intense inspiration.
   Schizophrenia: originally named dementia praecox, It was thought to be a disorder of body chemistry. it is characterised by a splitting apart of thoughts, feelings and actions. Jung acknowledged a physiological component in the illness but considered that its primary origin was psychological - the domination of personality by a split-off complex.
   Self: the Self is an image of the unity of the personality as a whole, a central ordering principle. "The self Is not only the Centre but also the whole circumference which embraces both conscious and unconscious; it is the centre of this totality, just as the ego is the centre of the conscious mind".
   Shadow: the inferior, uncivilized and animal qualities repressed by the Ego form a Shadow which stands in compensatory relationship to the "light" of the Ego. The Shadow is "the thing a person has no wish to be". It is of the same sex as the individual and can appear in dreams and fantasies or it can be projected.
   Soul Image (anima, animus): an archetypal, inner image of the opposite sex, the anima in a man and the animus in a woman. It appears in dreams and fantasies and is projected onto individuals of the opposite sex, most frequently in the experience of "failing in love". The Soul-image has a compensatory relationship to the Persona. It functions as a guide to the soul and offers creative possibilities for the individuation process.
   Teleology: teleological explanations seek an understanding in terms of purpose and end-goals, rather than a reduction to prior causes. Unlike Freud's psychoanalysis, Jung's analytical psychology frequently refers psychic functioning to such goals, as in the process of individuation.
   Transcendent Function: an archetypal process which mediates opposites and enables a transition from one attitude or condition to another. It is activated whenever consciousness Is engaged in the tension of opposites. Symbols carry such opposites and thus the transcendent function arises in the attempt to understand the elusive meaning on images and symbols. The function has a healing effect by bridging consciousness and the unconscious and by allowing an individual to move beyond one-sidedness.
   Transference: the projection onto the analyst of feelings and ideas which are derived from introjected figures or objects in the patient's past, commonly parental figures. The patient repeats and re-enacts the past relationship with the analyst. The transference may be a positive one (falling in love) or a negative one (hostility and hatred) By analysing the transference, unconscious patterns become conscious to the patient. Counter-transference occurs when the analyst projects his or her own unconscious contents onto the patient.
   Unconscious: in analytical psychology, as in psychoanalysis, the existence of the unconscious, with its own laws and functions, is presupposed. It is capable of autonomously affecting and interrupting consciousness. Jung posits both a personal and collective unconscious, both of which stand in compensatory relationship to consciousness. The personal unconscious consists of personal, repressed, infantile contents. The collective unconscious contains collective, inherited contents, the instincts and the archetypes. One of Jung's favourite metaphors for the unconscious is that of the sea. With its fluidity, its calms and storms, mermaids and monsters, it can be a force of either creativity or destruction. Jung considers the unconscious is primarily creative, in the service of the individual.
   Unus Mundus: the "One World". This phrase of the alchemists suggests the interpenetration of spirit , soul and matter. As interpreted in Jung's psychology, it describes the inter-relation of psyche and body. With the development of synchronicity, and the positing of a "psychoid substrate" of reality, this metaphor is carried into the inter-relation of psyche and matter. Jung hoped this would lead to a common ground for psychotherapy and physics.

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw (1856 – 1950)

İnsan Tanrının sonsözü olamaz.

Bir insanın zekası, bilgisine göre değil, bilgi edinme kabiliyetine göre ölçülür.

Akıllı adam, aklını kullanır. Daha akıllı adam, başkalarının aklını da kullanır.

Yaptığınızı, bir başka budalanın, bunları sizden beklediğini düşündüğünüz için yapıyorsanız, onun sizden bunları beklemesi de, sizin onun bunları beklediğini umduğunuzu sandığından ileri geliyorsa, herkes istemediği bir şeyi yapıyor demektir. O zaman ortaya budalaca bir durum çıkar.

The  reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Hatalarla dolu bir hayat, hiçbir şey yapmadan geçirilen bir hayattan daha onurludur.

Hegel: "Tarihten öğrenebileceğimiz tek şey; İnsanların asla tarihten hiçbir şey öğrenemeyeceğidir" derken haklıydı.

Yaşlanmadan akıllanmayı çok isterdim…

Her ruh, ikizini arar...

İnsanın kendini berbat hissetmesi, mutlu olup olmadığına önem verecek kadar boş zamanı olmasından ileri gelir.

İnsanların ölmesiyle yaşamın gülünçlüğü nasıl değişmezse, insanların gülmesiyle de yaşamın ciddiliği değişmez.

The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.

Ne korkunçtur, sonsuza dek kendinle baş başa kalma düşüncesi. Sizi seviyorum, ama kendimi sevmiyorum. Değişmek istiyorum; daha iyi olmak istiyorum, yeniden, yeniden başlamak istiyorum; tenimi değiştirmek istiyorum yılanlar gibi. Bıktım artık kendimden. Bir gün değil, günlerce değil, sonsuza dek kendime nasıl katlanırım? Bunu düşünmek bile korkutuyor beni: karamsar, kin dolu, susmuş oturmuşum bu nedenle. Siz hiç düşünürmüsünüz bunları?

Sorun çaresizlik değil,isteksizlik... İsteksiziz, çünkü çocuklukta bize uygulanan ilk şey, içimizdeki isteği öldürmektir.

Şaka, çok ciddî bir sanattır.

The liar's punishment is, not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe any one else.

Yaşlandığımız için oyun oynamayı bırakmayız, oyun oynamayı bıraktığmız için yaşlanırız.

Kızın iyi bir evlilik yaparsa,bir oğul kazanırsın,yoksa kızını kaybedersin.

Ruhun Aşkı Arayışı

Cupid and Psyche, by Antonio Canova, c. 1808, in the Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Güzellik ve aşkın tanrıçası Venüs(Aphrodit) , Yeryüzünde ondan daha güzel bir genç kadın olduğuna dair söylentiler duyar. Bunun üzerine küplere biner ve oğlu Cupid'i (Eros) kıza yollar. Ona der ki; "Bu kızı aşk oklarınla vur ve onu bu dünyadaki en çirkin yaratığa aşık et!"
Cupid annesine karşı gelemez ve oklarını alıp yeryüzüne iner. Tam kızı vuracakken oku elinden kayar ve sivri ucu parmağına batar. Cupid o an Psyche ye deliler gibi aşık olur ancak, annesinin emri de açıktır. Bunun üzerine kızın  evine bir mesaj gönderir.Bunun tanrıların bir isteği olduğunu ve Psyche'nin hiçbir ölümlüyle evlenmemesi gerektiğini bildirir mesajda. Ayrıca, dağın en tepesine gidip evleneceği korkunç canavarla yaşamasının kaderine kazındığını da mesajda ekler.
Psyche kaderiyle yüzleşmek için dağın tepesine gider ve ulaştığında da her yerin karanlık olduğunu görür.Birden etrafını ılık bir rüzgar sarar ve aslında bir sarayda olduğunu fark eder. Sıcak bir banyodan sonra uykuya dalar.Gece, Cupid onu ziyarete gelir. Geceler boyunca karanlıkta Cupid Psyche'yi ziyarete devam eder ve hep gün doğmadan ayrılır.Günler geçtikçe Psyche kocasını yüzünü merak etmeye başlar. Ya kocası gerçekten iğrenç bir canavarsa?
"Neden beni merak ediyorsun?" der Cupid. "Seni sevdiğimi biliyorsun ve tek istediğim senin de beni sevmen."
Psyche de görmediği kocasını seviyordur aslında ama, günler ilerledikçe onu daha çok merak eder.Bir gün kocası uyurken, bir mumu alıp Cupid'in yüzüne doğru tutar.Kocası o kadar güzel ve tatlıdır ki, bu görüntü karşısında elleri titrer ve elinden kayan mum Cupid'in omzuna düşer. Acı içinde kolu yanmış olarak uyanan Cupid aşkına kalbi kırık bir şekilde son sözlerini söyler.
"Seni sevmiştim ve tek istediğim bana güvenmendi. Ama güven gitiğinde aşk da gider!" bu sözlerle birlikte kızı terk eder ve annesi Venüs'ün evine döner.
Onu sinir kriziyle bekleyen Venüs, emirlerine karşı gelip bir de kıza aşık olduğu için oğlunu bir mahkum gibi sarayında tutsak alır.Günler ve geceler boyunca Psyche kaybettiği aşkını arar, ancak sonuç bir hiçtir. En sonunda Venüs'ün tapınağına gider ve ona yalvarır. Venüs ise hala daha çok kızgındır."Onayımı almak için sana vereceğim görevi yapmalısın!"der"Bu kutuyu al ve yer altına git. Oranın kraliçesine şunu sor, Persephone, güzelliğinin bir kısmını bu kutuya koyar mısın?, ardından kutuyu al ve bana geri dön."
Psyche görevi kabul eder ve yeraltına iner.İlerlerken bir ses duyar,"Bu parayı sandalcı Charon'a vermek için al ve bu keki de Cerberus'u(3 başlı köpek)geçmek için al. Sakın unutma! Kutuya güzelliği koyunca onu sakın açma!". Böylece görevi başarır Psyche, ama yolda geri dönerken merakına bir kere daha yenik düşer ve kutuyu açar. Kutuyu açtığı anda da derin bir uyku onu sarar ve yere yığılır.
Bu sırada Cupid'in kolu iyileşmiştir. Koluyla birlikte kırık kalbi de iyileşmiştir ve böylece içindeki aşk yeniden tutuşmuştur. Annesinin sarayından aşkını aramak için kaçar. Onu bulduğunda, önce yıkılır, ancak ardından üzerindeki yoğun uykuyu alır ve onu kendine geri döndürür. Kıza dönüp;"Bu kutuyu al ve anneme götür, tıpkı söz verdiğin gibi. Ben kısa zamanda döneceğim ve her şey yoluna girecek." der ve uçarak gider.
Cupid Jüpiter'e, tanrıların kralına, gider(Yunan mitolojisinde Zeus). Ona, Psyche'yi bir ölümsüz yapmasını ve evliliklerini kutsaması için yalvarır. Jüpiter bunu kabul eder ve Psyche'yi bir ölümsüz yapar. Ve böylece, Olimpos'ta yeni hayatlarına başlarlar.