Spiritual Warfare in Daily Life: The Battle of Thoughts

Table of contents

The Vicious Cycle of Sinful Thoughts

You wake up tired but duty calls and you must rise. Instinctively, you reach for your phone and look at messages or social media. You feel envious at people’s seemingly perfect lives. You glance at the news and see corruption, and scandals. And you feel irritated, but quickly mask it with a sense of pride, at least you are better than those people, you think.

You are stuck in traffic on your way to work, worrying about what you will say when you are late. Gradually, impatience and anger build, and you find yourself silently cursing the other drivers. But you manage to arrive on time. At lunch, you sit with colleagues who complain about low pay, greedy and corrupt rich people, and their desires for bigger houses, vacation plans, or the latest gadgets. They gossip about others. You join the conversation, not entirely because you agree, but partly to avoid feeling left out.

Back at your desk, you see a co-worker who triggers jealousy and resentment. He is better-looking, more popular, and earns more than you, even though you work harder than him. Whenever you approach him, he either avoids you or pretends not to notice. You offer to help a colleague with a task, only to feel annoyed when he doesn’t seem grateful.

After work, you head to the gym. You notice an attractive woman and your thoughts turn to lust, reducing her in your mind to an object of desire rather than a person. When she looks at you, you quickly glance away, a rush of embarrassment washing over you, as if she could see your thoughts.

On your way home, you see a homeless man and give him some money, but when he does not thank you, regret sinks in. Later, you greet a neighbour you barely know, but he doesn’t respond. You feel irritated and cannot understand why. By the time you reach your apartment, you are completely drained. A casual remark from someone you live with suddenly fills you with overwhelming wrath, and you lash out before shutting yourself in your room. You feel envious of how easily others seem to have it, but also cling to the thought that, in some ways, you are still better than them.

Hunger and stress take over, and you eat too much junk food, even though you have been trying to lose weight. You glance at that book that you bought long ago on self-improvement, but a desire to watch your favourite series or play a game takes over, sacrificing long-term fulfilment for short-term pleasure.

As night falls, the lustful thoughts from earlier in the day resurface, and you act on them through self-gratification, turning to erotic material. Immediately, shame and guilt follow. You feel angry at yourself for wasting the day, then sad as you realise how often you undermine your own efforts. You wonder why you cannot be kind, patient, and diligent, and instead fall prey to envy, wrath, and sloth. St. Paul’s words come to mind, “For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” At last, you resolve to do better tomorrow, and sleep takes over.

You wake up tired but duty calls and you must rise. Instinctively, you reach for your phone and look at messages or social media… and the cycle continues.

Waking Up to the Reality of Spiritual Warfare

In his book Spiritual Counsels, Volume III: Spiritual Struggle, St. Paisios the Athonite states:

All spiritual life is based on thoughts. Progress in spiritual life depends on our thoughts… The best enterprise is for someone to establish a factory of good thoughts. Then, even bad thoughts will be transformed into good ones by his mind. For example, when you look upon a person as a soul, as an angel, you can ascend angelically to heaven and your life becomes a festival. But if you look upon a person in a carnal way, you descend into hell.

St. Paisios the Athonite, Spiritual Counsels Vol. III: Spiritual Struggle

We live in two worlds: a physical one and a spiritual one. Yet it is a sad reality that far too many people today seem to be spiritually asleep. Many of us go about our daily lives unaware that from the moment we wake up until we go to sleep, we are engaged in spiritual warfare. There is a battle being fought for our very souls. This may sound extreme, but if we examine our thoughts, words, and actions, we can see how our values are constantly being undermined.

Consider setting aside a day, such as Sunday, without using your phone, or at least without internet access. The difficulty of doing so reveals much about ourselves: we become anxious and restless. We often cling to that which harms us, and diverts our attention from what truly matters. It is tragicomic: we sometimes seem to choose harmful actions deliberately, only to be surprised when they leave us feeling miserable. This shows a self-sabotaging and self-deceptive aspect of ourselves, one that is diabolic in origin. The term comes from the Greek verb diaballein, literally, “to throw across”, describing that which accuses, slanders, attacks, and seeks to divide (both within us and in the world around us). It is a pervasive force, touching every part of life. By contrast, the symbolic is that which unites.

John Milton writes in Paradise Lost, “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” In other words, our thoughts shape our experience of life: even in the worst circumstances, a disciplined and virtuous mind can find peace, while a restless or sinful mind can turn the best circumstances into misery.

Throughout our day, we gather all sorts of useless and harmful thoughts which we later struggle to get rid of, for they become deeply rooted in us. Thus, we constantly struggle with sinister thoughts, and cannot think clearly.

In our times, one of the greatest illnesses is the vain thoughts of worldly people. People can have all the good things in life except good thoughts. They are tormented simply through not facing up to things in a spiritual manner… When we accept whatever happens to us with a good and positive thought, we are helped; while on the contrary, we are tormented and come apart at the seams emotionally and physically when negative and evil thoughts prevail.

St. Paisios the Athonite, Spiritual Counsels Vol. III: Spiritual Struggle

Guarding the Mind: The Inner Fortress

French destroying Genoa. Royal 20 C.VII fol.19 – Grandes Chroniques de France

Sin is like a lurking presence, always waiting for a chance to catch us. Imagine your mind as an inner fortress, with the king at its central keep. The guards (your good thoughts) stand vigilant, defending you against the enemy (your evil thoughts), who is always present at the gates. Every sinful thought is like an enemy trying to break in.

We may feel protected within our impenetrable fortress, but the enemy’s assault is often subtle, not a frontal attack. If we do not keep careful watch, the walls may be breached at an unguarded corner, or a guard is bribed, and the drawbridge lowered in the night. Chaos erupts, and the king tries to escape, but the fortress that once protected him now traps him. With nowhere to go, he is captured.

But if you are conscious of every sinful thought and respond with humble prayer, such as “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”, you keep the fortress safe from the enemy. By saying protective prayers every time you are tempted, you make it far more difficult for destructive influences to gain entry into the inner fortress of your mind. Christ repeatedly calls us to be vigilant, so that we may fortify our “spiritual armour”, leaving no cracks through which evil may enter.

By contrast, when you allow sinful thoughts to accumulate, indulging in them and then forgetting about them, by the end of the day they form a heavy, dark mass that weighs down your soul. You find yourself crushed under the weight of the myriad dark thoughts that have filled your day: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. You feel overwhelmed, as if you were possessed by a dark entity that takes control of your personality and will, stripping you of both self-control and freedom—and these negative thoughts ultimately manifest as words and actions. As Carl Jung writes in Man and His Symbols, “We talk about being able “to control ourselves”, but self-control is a rare and remarkable virtue.”

Religion is a way of life, and one shows one’s attitude towards it through one’s actions. Habit builds character; we become what we repeatedly do. This is what Aristotle calls “habituation” in the Nicomachaen Ethics. Therefore, we should dedicate time each day to fortifying our spiritual armour through prayer.

Prayer is the best weapon we have; it is the key that opens the heart of God.

Padre Pio, In My Own Words: Advice and Exhortations

The Rosary, for example, is regarded by many saints as one of the most powerful means of resisting demonic influence.

Discipline is elementary to spiritual warfare, it is the daily practice of self-denial, the ability to maintain control and purposeful direction over one’s lower faculties. The key is to balance body, soul, and spirit—by, for example, rising early, keeping a strict schedule, working out, fasting, meditating, and praying. Such a person is not one the demons would want to approach.

In the Gospel of Luke we read, “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through the waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first.”

This passage warns us that simply getting rid of an unclean spirit is not enough. If we are not spiritually vigilant, it can return, stronger than before, with reinforcements, and intent on taking revenge. That is why it is essential not only to cast out evil but also to invite God in. Doing so requires inner purification and constant watchfulness. We must guard our souls with good thoughts, good words, and good deeds, while remaining aware of our weaknesses and vices that may creep back in.

Do not think you are perfect, for that leads to delusion. As St. Paul states, “If we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” Each of us carries a “thorn in the flesh.” We are fallen creatures, called to be perfect, which seems utterly unattainable and yet forms part of our lifelong task. We aim at a certain goal, but often “miss the mark”, like an archer missing a target. This is inherent in the human condition. Courage is not the lack of failure,but the willingness to keep striving for a better aim despite failure.

A soul who earnestly takes on the struggle against bad thoughts can attain to a more advanced state than another soul who may have had hardly any bad thoughts. That is to say, at first, she may have had ninety bad thoughts and only ten good ones, but because of her earnest struggle, she can achieve a better state than the other person who had ninety good thoughts and only ten bad ones.

St. Paisios the Athonite, Spiritual Counsels Vol. III: Spiritual Struggle

How Our Thoughts Shape Our Suffering

Portrait of the poet Frank – Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Imagine that you have just finished paying for your groceries. You thank the cashier and tell him to have a nice day, but he doesn’t respond. You feel upset, and negative thoughts arise, “What a bad person. Why would he do that?” You begin to ruminate on them. The next time someone greets you, you ignore him. Now he feels upset too.

Or you send a message to someone, and she doesn’t reply for a week. Each day, you ruminate on why she hasn’t answered, conjuring up all sorts of negative thoughts, until you finally send insulting messages and block her, only to discover later that she had been in a terrible accident. Or someone passes by you with a look of disgust, and you feel surprised and offended, not realising that the expression had nothing to do with you; he was simply caught in an unpleasant thought.

As Seneca put it, “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” The vast majority of life’s problems do not come from others, but from what we think about others. We often fail to see that what we despise in others is a reflection of ourselves, projected unconsciously. Thus, we see the enemy outside, when in truth, the enemy is within us.

Even if such actions were directed at you, it changes very little. We cannot control what other people will think, say, or do. We cannot live other people’s lives. When we realise that some things are simply outside our control, and accept that not everyone shares our mindset, we find relief.

What we can control, however, is how we treat others, to do good despite their reactions. If we act with goodness even when we are treated badly, it is likely that the other person will feel a sense of guilt, and may even seek forgiveness, thus changing his or her behaviour. Moreover, this helps one cultivate humility, which may be considered as the foundation of all other virtues and the starting point of spiritual ascent. For it was pride that changed angels into demons, and it is humility that makes men as angels.

Do not let your thoughts about others change who you are, or your cherished values. Whenever something like this occurs, replace the bad thought with a good one, such as “The poor guy must be having a bad day.”

St. Paisios states:

He who is doing refined spiritual work justifies others, but not himself, and the more he advances spiritually, the more he is freed, and the more he loves God and other people.

St. Paisios the Athonite, Spiritual Counsels Vol. III: Spiritual Struggle

The attention we give to bad thoughts begins to shape our words and deeds; these, in turn, reinforce those same thoughts, forming a vicious cycle that tightens around us like a cobra constricting its prey. It becomes increasingly difficult to break free from its grip.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Lord Jesus taught us that what truly matters lies within our hearts: in our thoughts, desires, and intentions. Appearances can be deceptive. A person may perform many generous deeds while secretly being filled with pride, feeling superior to others. One may speak with kindness, yet feel hatred beneath the surface. Or one may show affection and care, while inwardly being driven by lust or selfish desire. True goodness comes from the heart, not just from surface actions.

We must first cultivate good thoughts that guide us to perform good deeds, or else we risk falling into self-deception. The first thing we do upon waking is, in a sense, what we worship. Notice the first thing you do. Also, observe the thoughts that arise, whether they are negative or positive. Take a moment to pause, pray or meditate, reflecting on virtues such as humility, patience, and love. In doing so, you set the tone of the day and guide your actions towards goodness.

A single good and pure thought has more power than any ascetic exercise.

St. Paisios the Athonite, Spiritual Counsels Vol. III: Spiritual Struggle

Similarly, before sleep, take time to be grateful for what you have rather than resentful for what you lack. Express your love to God and your loved ones, instead of blaming or judging. Turn your attention inward—examine yourself, not others—and seek forgiveness for the harmful thoughts, words, and deeds you have had throughout the day. Each day must be lived for its own sake. As Christ states, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Marcus Aurelius writes:

The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the colour of your thoughts.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.16

Imagine bad thoughts forming a black and dense fog within your soul. The longer you stay with them, the quicker they spread through your body, until you are completely trapped in a cocoon of darkness, becoming blind, trapped, and filled with despair. Just imagine how much harm you do to yourself by indulging in dark thoughts! By contrast, good thoughts bring light in the soul that dispels the darkness. With much dedication and practice, this inner light begins to be felt not only by ourselves but sometimes also by others. Inner work radiates outwards, like ripples from a pebble dropped in water.

If you are not used to cultivating good thoughts, you will at first encounter an enormous resistance. It will feel like an impossible task—the psychological and spiritual equivalent of the labours of Hercules. But what you resist persists.

Talking Back: Cutting Off Intrusive Thoughts

Temptations of St. Anthony – Anonymous (Upper Rhine). Postcard

In Talking Back (Antirrhêtikos): A Monastic Handbook for Combatting Demons, the 4^th century Christian monkEvagrius of Pontus describes the thoughts by which demons assail the monk. He wrote this handbook in response to a monk’s letter seeking guidance in his spiritual struggle. Though meant for monastics, its teachings can benefit anyone engaged in spiritual warfare.

The strategy for overcoming these assaults is antirrhêsis (“refutation” or “contradiction”): the monk speaks a relevant passage from Scripture that contradicts—or as Evagrius puts it, “cuts off”—the intrusive thought. Hence the term, “talking back.” In fact, he suggests that nearly every thought that we have does encounter its opposite.

For example, a thought about showing charity may be “cut off” by a thought suggesting one act for the sake of vainglory (the desire for praise or recognition from others). The question is whether we stick with the first good thought despite the challenge of the second bad thought or whether the first thought is cut off and the second persists and sets us on a course of action.

Evagrius’ firsthand experience in fighting demons is the main source of his authority. He has fought them so effectively that even the demons fear him. Although he does not say so explicitly, his writings make it clear that he is a veteran spiritual warrior with extensive experience in resisting demonic attacks.

The book contains 498 biblical passages to be used during demonic conflict, divided into eight books corresponding to the eight primary demons that Evagrius claimed attack the monk: gluttony, fornication, love of money, sadness, anger, listlessness, vainglory, and pride. This classification later influenced the development of the so-called seven deadly sins.

Evagrius’ mastery appears in his ability to select carefully from the Bible the words that are most suited to demonic attacks, even though they are scattered and difficult to find.

Let us look at some examples.

Book 1.41. Against the thoughts that remind us of pleasures and of a table that has been filled with all good things and praise these things as better than the monastic life:

Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter!

Isaiah 5:20 (ESV)

Book 2.54. To the Lord concerning the demon of fornication that, through the passion of desire, imprints in my intellect the vision of an obscene form:

I called on your name, O Lord,
from the depths of the pit;
you heard my plea, ‘Do not close
your eye to my cry for help!’
You came near when I called on you;
you said, ‘Do not fear!’

Lamentations 3:55-57 (ESV)

Book 3.12. Against the soul’s thought that shows mercy to the poor, but immediately changes its mind and regrets the money that it spent on them:

Let your heart therefore be wholly true to the Lord our God, walking in his statutes and keeping his commandments, as at this day.

1 Kings 8:61 (ESV)

Book 4.40. Against the soul that, in the time of sadness, wants to find in prayer spiritual words:

Do not forsake me, O Lord!
O my God, be not far from me!
Make haste to help me,
O Lord, my salvation!

Psalm 38:21-22 (ESV)

Book 5.40. Against the thoughts of anger that are embittered against love:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?

Romans 8:35 (ESV)

Book 6.20. Against the soul that succumbs to listlessness and becomes filled with thoughts of sadness:

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.

Psalm 43:5 (ESV)

Book 7.20. Against the thoughts that compel us because of vainglory to make known our illustrious way of life:

Let another praise you, and not your own mouth;
a stranger, and not your own lips.

Proverbs 27:2 (ESV)

Book 8.2. Against the thought of pride that glorifies me and exalts me on the pretext that I am pure and no longer receive filthy thoughts:

Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes.

Genesis 18:27 (ESV)

Not Every Thought is Yours

Evagrius emphasises that the thoughts function as the means through which demons attack the monk, rather than being mere dispositions of the monk’s own soul or intellect. In other words, the attacks come from agents external to oneself, as opposed to the idea that these thoughts originate within the individual. The power of scripture comes from the fact that, although we recite it, it does not originate from us, but from a higher divine source which exercises authority over our thoughts.

Recognise that not every thought in your mind comes from you. Notice the words you speak when you look at yourself. Every act of self-hatred, self-rejection, body-shaming, or self-cursing is a verbal agreement with the diabolic. Apart from reciting Scripture, you must renounce these words, replacing them with, “I do not hate myself”, “I forgive myself”, “I forgive my body.”

Whenever you hear an inner voice that is judgmental and hateful, whispering things like, “Nobody cares for you”, “She doesn’t love me anymore”, or “God can never forgive me for what I have done”, you are engaged in spiritual warfare. If you give in, you risk becoming a tormented soul, as if you had consented to sign a contract with dark forces. The power of these contracts cannot be overstated.

The evil forces of darkness are powerless on their own. It is people who give them strength when they distance themselves from God, thus surrendering their rights to the devil.

St. Paisios the Athonite, Spiritual Counsels Vol. III: Spiritual Struggle

The Power of the Psalms as Spiritual Weapons

St. Anthony the Great and the Demon Who Came to Him in Repentance – Justin Popović

King David’s reputation as a warrior against demons rests on his reputed authorship of the Book of Psalms. In The Life of Antony by St. Athanasius, it is recounted that the devil tempted Antony with every kind of sinful thought—and even appeared as a woman to seduce him—but Antony did not yield to sin. Finally, the demon took the form of a black boy, declaring, “Many I deceived, many I cast down; but now attacking you and your labours as I had many others, I proved weak.” When Antony asked who was speaking, the demon answered that he was the spirit of lust, boasting that he led many into sin. Antony responded boldly, calling him despicable, black-hearted, and weak as a child, and invoked a Psalm: “The Lord is my helper, and I will look down on my enemies.” At once, the black figure fled, cowering before these words and afraid even to approach Antony again.

St. Anthony the Great, also used other means to repel demons, such as the sign of the cross, and the name of Christ, but biblical verses, especially from the Psalms, are his most frequent spiritual weapons. Similarly, Evagrius frequently quotes the Psalms. St. Jerome states, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” Indeed, Jesus Himself relied on Scripture to confront the devil’s three temptations during His forty-day fast in the wilderness.

The Art of Spiritual Discernment

In time of struggle, when the demons make war against us and hurl their arrows at us, let us answer them from the Holy Scriptures, lest the unclean thoughts persist in us, enslave the soul through the sin of actual deeds, and so defile it and plunge it into the death brought by sin.

Evagrius of Pontus, Talking Back (Antirrhêtikos): A Monastic Handbook for Combatting Demons. Prologue

Evagrius considers that one should refute an evil thought as soon as possible after it occurs to one, before it is firmly set in one’s thinking, if one does so, sin is easily and swiftly handled.

This idea, adapted to Christian ethics, comes from the Stoic concept of propatheia (“pre-passion”). Everyone experiences initial, involuntary emotional reactions (“first movements”), which we can either control and use for good or allow to develop into full-blown passions (pathos). For example, a sudden rush of anger at an injustice is a first movement. I can manage it and respond calmly, rebuking the offender appropriately. But if I assent to the impulse unreasonably and allow the full-blown passion of anger to develop, then I become guilty of the passion.

First movements can come from the body, such as sexual urges, or from external events, like hearing about an injustice. The Stoics called these external triggers phantasiai (“impressions”). We constantly receive many impressions, which we must sort out as true or false, guiding us towards virtue or vice.

Like the Stoic sage, the monk must exercise discernment in sorting through the thoughts and images that arise in the mind. Just as practical wisdom guides the judgment of everyday actions, discernment helps distinguish between holy and profane, clean and unclean thoughts. This practice is central to spiritual warfare.

Thus, antirrhêsis consists of identifying an impression as a demonic thought, a task that requires the gift of discernment, and to use Scripture in order to prevent a demonically inspired first movement from developing into a full-blown passion and thus into sin.

In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius of Loyola, a master in the discernment of spirits, presents discernment as the art of aligning oneself with thoughts and desires that draw one closer to God (consolation) rather than away from Him (desolation). The more we learn to recognise these two movements within the soul, the better equipped we become to make decisions in accordance with God’s will.

Sinful Thoughts Harm the Intellect

The goal of the Evagrian monastic, however, is not merely to avoid evil deeds; he seeks, remarkably, to prevent even the first movements that incline him to sin. Evagrius urges his reader to become not simply a “monastic man”, one who withdraws from sinful actions through ascetic practices that restrain the passions, but a “monastic intellect,” one who is free even from thoughts that lead to sin, and thus experiences “the light of the Holy Trinity.” This freedom is cultivated through the reading of Scripture, which elevates the intellect towards a formless, divine, and simple knowledge.

Engaging in persistent sinful thoughts harms the intellect, so that even after the initial passion fades, a lasting mental image remains, stored in memory, which clouds the intellect. This prevents one from achieving knowledge of God, and becoming a “monastic intellect.” Since demons are purely intellectual beings filled with hatred, they can recognise these patterns in our intellect and take advantage of our weaknesses. By targeting our mental faculties, demons seek to establish a psychological compatibility with us. They desire that their permanent patterns of thought become our patterns of thought. If you struggle with pride, it is because they aim for you to mirror their own prideful nature. In fact, most people have some type of psychological compatibility with the demons that afflict them.

Sources of Good and Evil Thoughts

The first part of Goethe’s Faust. Illustrator J.P. Laurens

Apart from Scripture, Evagrius identifies three sources of good thoughts capable of cutting off demonic ones. First, there is the angelic thought, which comes spontaneously from outside the person as a form of divine assistance (unlike biblical passages which are recalled intentionally). Second, there is the thought that arises from free will when it inclines towards the good. Third, there is the thought that proceeds naturally from human nature itself, which moves even pagans to love their neighbour.

By contrast, only two sources oppose the good thought: the demonic thought, which comes as an external temptation and is intrusive and obsessive, and the thought that arises from free will when it inclines towards the evil. Significantly, Evagrius states that no evil thought comes from our nature, for we have not been evil from our origin, since it is good seed that the Lord sowed in his field.

The Ego-Drama, The Devil, and True Freedom

Illustration for Milton’s Paradise Lost 2 – Gustave Doré

In the ego-drama, life revolves around me: I am the author, the lead actor, the producer, and the director. This is exemplified by Satan in Paradise Lost, who states: “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.” By contrast, in the theo-drama, God is at the centre of our lives. By surrendering ourselves to God, we paradoxically gain true freedom, and become ourselves. Self-realisation comes when you give yourself to a higher self that overwhelms yourself so that you become yourself. This is why we must struggle to align our will with the will of God. By restricting ourselves to what is good, our freedom is protected rather than limited. But if we cling only to our own will, we imprison ourselves in a cage of our making, perhaps golden, but useless.

When the devil whispers, “Do whatever you want”, it seems like freedom, but it is actually a trap. Ironically, we become less free, losing self-control and end up pursuing what harms us.

Freedom does not mean that we can do whatever we want to do. Freedom and obedience to God go hand in hand. When we live in the manner that God has created us to live, being obedient to his commands, that is freedom in the true sense of the word. A distorted view of freedom happens when we act independently of God, believing that we are in control and can create our own version of what is morally good. As a result, we end up becoming slaves to our passions and desires.

Fr. Vincent Lampert, Exorcism: The Battle Against Satan and His Demons

The Extraordinary Activity of The Devil

Saint Peter Martyr Exorcising a Woman Possessed by a Devil – Antonio Vivarini

In his book Exorcism: The Battle Against Satan and His Demons, Fr. Vincent Lampert, a practising exorcist, distinguishing between the extraordinary and ordinary activities of the devil. The extraordinary activities include infestation (the presence of evil in a location, object or animal), vexation (physical attacks), obsession (mental attacks causing nightmares, hallucinations, obscene or blasphemous thoughts, and feelings of insanity, depression, and exhaustion), and finally, possession (where an evil spirit takes control of a person’s body). Genuine cases of possession, he notes, are extremely rare—though they do occur. Most of Fr. Lampert’s cases involve the other three forms of activity.

Exorcists must reach moral certitude, ruling out all other explanations before concluding that a person is truly possessed. This caution is vital, as mislabelling someone could prevent them from receiving necessary medical or mental health care.

If you are going to give a talk on God, about twenty people will show up. If you are going to talk about the devil, two hundred people will show up. People always seem to be more interested in what the devil is trying to do.

Fr. Lampert writes:

Very few of us will ever have to be concerned about demonic infestation, vexation, obsession, and possession. Heads spinning, pea soup flying, bodies levitating, and someone crawling up a wall like a spider certainly gets lots of attention. The truth is that while much has been said about the extraordinary activity of the devil, very little has been said about the ordinary activity of the devil. The devil is far less to be feared in so-called manifestations than in the underground influence he exerts in souls that are not sufficiently instructed or well-tempered.

Fr. Vincent Lampert, Exorcism: The Battle Against Satan and His Demons

The Ordinary Activity of The Devil

Satan Watching the Sleep of Christ – Joseph Noel Paton

The devil has no need for dramatic effects. He moves subtly and stealthily, drawing us into a deceived way of seeing, understanding, and acting, but he does so in a way that seems entirely unnoticeable.

Fr. Lampert reflects on the four-stage plan of attack that the devil uses, as outlined by Fr. Louis J. Cameli in his book The Devil You Don’t Know: Recognising and Resisting Evil in Everyday Life. It begins with deception, which leads to division, then to diversion, and ends in discouragement. These stages represent the ordinary activity of the devil.

Deception is woven in daily life to draw us away from God. The last thing the devil wants is to frighten us so that we turn to God. As the French poet Charles Baudelaire famously remarked, “the devil’s cleverest ruse is to convince us that he does not exist.” When we dismiss demons, angels, and even God as mere superstition, the devil is at his happiest. Whether we realise it or not, separating ourselves from God places us within the kingdom of darkness.

For those who still acknowledge spiritual reality, the devil seeks to convince us that he is the good guy, disguising himself as an angel of light, and deceiving many. He promises what appears good, but delivers evil.

St. Paisios recounts that one night, as he was saying the Jesus Prayer, a bright light filled his cell. The ceiling disappeared, revealing a beam of light reaching up to heaven. At the top of this beam of light appeared the face of a blond young man with long hair and a beard, who resembled Christ. Then he heard a voice within him say, “You have been made worthy to see Christ.” But he crossed himself and replied, “Who am I, the unworthy one, to be made worthy to see Christ?” Immediately the light and the vision vanished, and the ceiling was still in place. This shows that if a person is not vigilant, the evil one can enter the mind through prideful thoughts, deluding him with fantasies and false lights.

Once we have bought into the lies of the devil, and our ego is inflated, then comes the fall. We should not be surprised that he now wants to sow division. The devil desires to divide people from God, from each other, and from their very selves. This is the essence of the diabolic: an inversion of order. By remaining trapped in the seven deadly sins, in addiction, or in infidelity, we experience inner brokenness. This, in turn, leads to the devil’s third plan of attack: diversion.

The goal is to make us lose our sense of purpose and direction. We begin to replace God with our ego and operate under the three guiding principles: You may do all you wish, no one has the right to command you, and you are the god of yourself. We come to believe we do not need God, and that we can create our own version of paradise here and now, according to our own truths. This way of thinking is dangerous. Without a stable truth or foundation, there is no clear direction. The result is moral relativism, where there is no objective standard of right and wrong.

Finally, we arrive at discouragement. Fr. Lampert compares this to the concept of acedia, a state of spiritual restlessness described in Christian tradition. In his book Praktikos, Evagrius of Pontus calls acedia the “noonday demon”. Acedia represents the final stage of the devil’s ordinary activity and is considered the most dangerous threat to the spiritual life and our journey towards God. It is the lack of joy and tiredness that shows itself on the faces of far too many people. Acedia speaks of depression, whose close neighbour is despair—the utter forsaking of all hope, where one loses the desire to continue living.

But do not lose hope, my friend.

Healing Inner Brokenness

Brokenness is a reality in all of our lives, and how we deal with it matters. Although broken relationships cannot always be repaired in this life, because of the unwillingness or inability of others, we can still seek our own healing. We can work to forgive others in our hearts, even if there is no possibility of face-to-face reconciliation.

If you are praying and hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that you too may be forgiven. Sometimes, we can forgive God and others, but struggle to forgive ourselves. It is essential to learn to forgive yourself as well. Forgiveness is the maximum expression of love.

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal… Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in any wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

1 Corinthians 13:1, 4-8 (ESV)

A common reason people lose faith is the belief that God has abandoned them in their darkest moments. Even Christ, when He was being crucified, cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Yet He had also said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” When we act with hatred, we block the darkness in our hearts from being removed. Imagine a house so cluttered that no one can enter. How could you welcome anyone inside? Similarly, when your heart is full of darkness, God cannot enter. But when you face injustice and great suffering—when you are despised, ridiculed, or mocked—and still act with faith, hope, and love, you are being purified. You are living in imitatio Christi, allowing Christ to dwell within your heart.

St. Paisios states:

When you accept an injustice and are prepared to justify your neighbour, you accept Christ himself into your heart, Who was often wronged and maligned. It is then that Christ cannot be evicted from your heart and fills you with peace and gladness… I can honestly tell you that the sweetest spiritual joy I have experienced has been through accepting injustice.

St. Paisios the Athonite, Spiritual Counsels Vol. III: Spiritual Struggle

If you have spiritual strength (that is, humility) accept that you are at fault, and do not speak. Let God justify you. If you do not speak, God will speak.

Do not waste your pain. Let your suffering transform you into the image of Christ and draw you into a deeper intimacy with God. The true difficulty lies in remaining virtuous in the midst of suffering. As Job, the faithful servant of God, exemplified. His wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.” But he replied, “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”

Salvation ultimately depends on grace, the free and undeserved gift that God gives us at various moments, to help us turn away from sin and grow closer to Him. However, God also permits us to experience suffering, so we can grow spiritually and acquire merit, a spiritual reward that comes from our virtue, attainable only during our earthly life, within time and space. After death, we can no longer obtain merit. Our soul then carries the grace and merits it has received in life, together with any sins that remain unrepented.

If our sins outweigh our grace and merits, we face eternal separation from God, which is called Hell. If our grace and merits surpass our sins, we enter Heaven. There is, however, a third possibility: a soul that is virtuous yet still imperfect cannot enter Heaven immediately. Instead, it exists in Purgatory, undergoing purification until it is fully prepared to enter Heaven, the realm of perfected souls.

It is important to understand that a person can suffer greatly and still gain no spiritual progress at all if he or she responds with hatred, bitterness, and pride. The two thieves who were crucified beside Christ show this. Both felt the same pain. One mocked and hurled insults at Him, the other said, “We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” The thief even robbed Paradise with his great repentance! Within a second, one can find oneself gone from Hell into Paradise, if one repents. Repentance is a baptism of tears; it washes one clean again.

Awareness of one’s sinfulness is the beginning of spiritual progress. The more a person examines himself, the more sins he sees in himself. When some people do not know what to say in confession it shows that they have not examined themselves carefully. Spiritual work has no end.

The more one progresses in the spiritual life, the clearer the eyes of his soul become, enabling him to see the magnitude of his sins with greater perception, which in turn humbles him and makes him more receptive to the Grace of God. The Saints who said, “I am a poor and miserable sinner”, knew it was true because the eyes of their soul had become like microscopes. The more they advanced in the spiritual life, the more their microscopic vision magnified to observe their sinfulness.

St. Paisios the Athonite, Spiritual Counsels Vol. III: Spiritual Struggle

A New Chapter Begins: The Past Is Wiped Clean

Sacramentum Poenitentia – Francesco Novelli

St. Paisios remarks that one of the most essential things in our modern times is for people to find a Spiritual Father, to confess to him, trust him and follow his guidance. Of course, one should choose his spiritual guide carefully and not entrust his soul to just anyone. Just as one seeks the best doctor for his physical health, he should also seek out a good Spiritual Director for his spiritual health, and go to him, the doctor of his soul, on a regular basis.

Confession and repentance go hand in hand. True repentance means that one is first aware of his or her sins, is pained by them, asks God for forgiveness, and then goes and confesses them. If one repents because one is afraid of going to hell, this is not true repentance. It must be out of love for God. This is how divine consolation arrives.

When we confess our sins, we place them in the hands of God, and the forces of darkness may no longer use them against us. By taking responsibility for our actions, we take away the devil’s power over us, which is why he works to keep us from confessing, filling us shame, fear of judgment, pride, with ideas that confession is outdated, and so on.

You may be tempted to fight the demons yourself, trying to outwit them. This is extremely dangerous, for you are setting up your ego against them, falling into pride, which is precisely what the enemy wants. You are stepping into their trap. This is not our battle to fight. It is God’s. We must rely on Him, for He is our ultimate weapon.

Sometimes we may think we able to conquer everything with sheer willpower. But when pride rises in our heart, we fall. The relapse can be so strong that the fall makes us sin even more, for “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Surrender to God’s will. As Jesus prayed to His Father, “Not my will, but your will be done.” We should be reminded of this daily.

Through proper confession and repentance, we receive forgiveness from God. The past is wiped clean, and a new chapter is opened. Anxiety disappears and serenity prevails. To find peace, one must discard the rubbish from within.

St. Paisios gives some advice to those struggling spiritually:

Do not fear. It’s a struggle, it’s real warfare, and we’re bound to suffer some wounds. But they’re healed through confession. You see, when soldiers are wounded in the course of a battle, they rush to the doctor, he binds their wounds, and they courageously return to the battlefield. In the meantime, they gain experience through their wounds, become more capable of protecting themselves, and avoid getting wounded again. The same holds true for us; when wounded in our spiritual struggle, we mustn’t be discouraged. Instead, we should rush to the doctor – our Spiritual Father – show him our wounds, be spiritually healed and continue the good fight.

St. Paisios the Athonite, Spiritual Counsels Vol. III: Spiritual Struggle

Some people refuse to go to confession because they fear they might sin again and thus deceive their spiritual guide. But that is not right. It is like a wounded soldier saying, “Since the war isn’t over yet and I could be wounded again, why should I have my wound taken care of now?” But he will bleed to death if he doesn’t bind his wound. When someone falls into serious sin, the sooner one goes to confession the better. If you have an open wound, will you let a month go by before tending to it?

Other people go to confession but are vague about their sins, or do not discuss the serious ones that are bothering their conscience, and they end up becoming tormented souls. When a person does not confess the truth to the Spiritual Father, who therefore in turn cannot point out his error to help him, he ends up being harmed all the more, in the same way as the patient who hides his symptoms and disease from the doctor.

One of the most important things in confession is to avoid justifying ourselves. For example, saying, “I gossiped about my colleague, but he deserved it.” A person who confesses while justifying himself never finds inner peace; the excuses only weigh on his conscience. By contrast, one who exaggerates his faults, and willingly follows a strict rule from the Spiritual Director, experiences ineffable delight through divine consolation.

If one confesses a sin without first seeking forgiveness from the injured person, he cannot find peace in his soul because he has not yet humbled himself. An exception can be made when the injured person has died or cannot be located. But if one sincerely desires to make amends, God forgives. There is also the possibility that God has hardened the injured person’s heart, because, should we be forgiven, we may just as carelessly fall into the same sin.

Once you have recognised your wrongdoing, grieved it, repented, and confessed, you should move on. Don’t get stuck there. Just keep it in mind so you’ll be careful next time you’re faced with a similar situation. The grief must be commensurate to your fault.

From Inner Brokenness to Union with God

By true contrition and selfless worship we can break through to meet the living, radiant Christ within our childish mental images – Elizabeth Wang

After we are forgiven by God through confession and repentance, atonement takes place, involving an effort to repair the damage caused by sin, often through penance, prayer, or acts of love. This restores the broken relationship and brings us back into union with God, leading to redemption: the deliverance from sin and the full restoration and healing of the fragmented soul. Throughout this process, God’s grace helps us to turn away from sin and grow spiritually, allowing for sanctification, the lifelong process of growing in holiness and becoming more like Christ. This spiritual journey is never fully complete in this life but is perfected in heaven, where we attain theosis, or perfect union with God, and experience the beatific vision—the ultimate state of bliss that believers will enter into when they see God face to face.

This is the Christian spiritual journey, where a person moves from inner brokenness towards wholeness and union with God.

We Live in Unprecedented Times for Spiritual Growth

The Damned Being Plunged into Hell (detail). Vestibule of Hell – Luca Signorelli

At present, it may seem that evil is winning and the forces of darkness are growing stronger and more numerous than ever. However, it is not that the demons have increased, for God’s creation of angels was a one-time act. Rather, we live in a time where people have become vastly more undisciplined compared to other times, and thus more susceptible to demonic influence.

In his talk Levels of Spiritual Warfare & Our Lady, Fr. Chad Ripperger states that God allows spiritual warfare for our growth, and that ultimately, demons serve as instruments of our purification and sanctification. Therefore, when are attacked we should not feel sorry for ourselves, but recognise that the area we are being attacked in is where we must become proficient in.

Scripture tells us, “Where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more.” In other words, in an age where people are unfaithful and undisciplined, God pours out extraordinary generosity upon the few who seek to follow His will. God desires to give grace, and this means we live in an unprecedented time to grow in holiness, a time that, perhaps, the saints foresaw and wished they could live in, for the degree of sanctity and abundance of grace available to us now was scarcely accessible in their era. Therefore, do not miss this unique opportunity, and fight each day.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.

Ephesians 6:12-13 (ESV)

Spiritual Warfare in Daily Life: The Battle of Thoughts

Many of us go about our daily lives unaware that from the moment we wake up until we go to sleep, we are engaged in spiritual warfare. There is a battle being fought for our very souls. This may sound extreme, but if we examine our thoughts, words, and actions, we can see how our values are constantly being undermined.

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The Psychology of Creativity

Not the artist alone, but every creative individual whatsoever owes all that is greatest in his life to fantasy. The dynamic principle of fantasy is play, a characteristic also of the child, and as such it appears inconsistent with the principle of serious work. But without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.

Carl Jung, C.W. Vol. 6: Psychological Types

Table of contents

Introduction

What does it mean to be creative? The word derives from the Latin creāre, meaning to create, bring forth, or give birth. Myths—eternally recurring patterns that express fundamental truths about the human condition—portray creation as the activity of the gods, who bring the world into existence. Thus, creativity was first understood as a divine, generative force.

The earliest recorded creation myths, such as those of the Sumerians, Babylonians and Egyptians, converge on an archetypal motif: in the beginning, only the primordial waters existed, symbolising chaos, out of which order emerges—heaven and earth, the gods, and eventually humans. From undifferentiated potential arises differentiation and actuality. Psychologically, this mirrors the process by which the unconscious (often symbolised by water) gives birth to consciousness. The human psyche is the womb of all the arts and sciences. As Carl Jung writes:

I am indeed convinced that creative imagination is the only primordial phenomenon accessible to us, the real Ground of the psyche, the only immediate reality.

C.G. Jung Letters Vol.1 (1906-1950)

From the Renaissance onwards, and especially during the Enlightenment, creativity came to be understood as a distinctly human capacity for imagination, innovation, and invention. At a deeper level, however, creativity involves bringing one’s inner nature into being, a task unique for each individual. In Jungian psychology, this process is called individuation—the lifelong task of becoming fully oneself by bringing the contents of the unconscious up from their dark waters into the light of consciousness.

Differentiation and Individuation

Individuation, however, cannot occur without prior differentiation. One must become psychologically distinct from others, including one’s loved ones, and avoid adopting another person’s psyche, values or identity in place of one’s own.

A common conflict arises when people try to tell others how to live, unaware that they are unconsciously projecting their own identity onto them. Naturally, there will be terrible resistances, because no one can live someone else’s life. In doing so, one violates not only the other’s individuality but also one’s own.

Rather than remaining unconsciously fused, one must establish a conscious relationship with others. This does not imply a withdrawal of love or care. On the contrary, fusion creates confusion, whereas separation makes genuine love possible. Each person must allow his or her own individuality to unfold, which is a painful process, for we are not only physically attached to those we love, but also psychologically bound to them. Letting go of these unconscious ties can bring loneliness, anxiety, and guilt; yet without this separation, psychological growth cannot occur.

In the first half of life, differentiation dominates as we build a stable ego through interactions with family, friends, school, work, and relationships. In the second half of life, the psyche naturally turns inward, focusing on aligning the ego with the Self, our whole personality. Failure to adapt to this shift often leads to a midlife crisis. Both differentiation and individuation continue throughout life; but one tends to dominate at each stage of life. One might say, with a little exaggeration, that life truly begins at midlife, until then, we are just doing research.

When the ego is not properly related to the Self, neurosis arises as a state of inner division; and in extreme cases, psychosis may result. Many people suffer from a profound disconnection from the psyche, or soul—the mythological and symbolic realm that enriches our life with meaning. To restore this meaning, we must reconnect with the Self, which represents the potential for attaining our true nature by making the unconscious conscious.

Though many seek wholeness, they theorise endlessly about the process, precisely to evade it. For we will do anything to avoid facing our worst enemy: ourselves.

The Divine Gift of Creative Fire

Human life seems naturally oriented towards growth. Like a seed that becomes a tree and bears fruit, we too seek to produce our own fruit, a symbol of our life’s work. At the same time, there is a tremendous waste of potential, visible not only in the unlived life of humans, but also throughout nature and the animal world.

The creative process is never without struggle. Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction. For new life to emerge, we must allow our old ideas, behaviours, and attitudes that hinder us from growth to be destroyed. This is a symbolic death and rebirth, a painful transformation that not many are willing to endure. But to refuse this sacrifice is to fall into stagnation and meaninglessness. Just as a snake must shed its skin to live, we too must undergo inner change.

A person must pay dearly for the divine gift of creative fire.

Carl Jung, C.W. Vol. 15: The Spirit in Man, Art and Literature

The ancient Greeks regarded inspiration as a form of divine madness, a gift from the gods. Through the aid of the Muses—personifications of human creativity—humans may briefly enter the realm of the divine and obtain the “creative fire.” But this gift comes with a cost: those who trespass the limits of mortality to claim what belongs to the gods must ultimately pay a price.

Across the world, myths of tricksters and culture heroes stealing fire illustrate the dual nature of creativity: it can enlighten, but also bring suffering. The most popular figure is that of Prometheus in Greek mythology. As Hesiod recounts in Theogony, Prometheus deceived the gods, leading Zeus to withhold fire from humanity. Out of pity for mankind, Prometheus stole the fire back, an act for which he was condemned to eternal torment. In his wrath, Zeus sought to punish humanity as well, commanding Hephaestus to fashion the first woman from earth, who would bring misfortune to man.

Hesiod revisits the myth in Works and Days, framing Prometheus’ theft of fire as the origin of human suffering. The first woman is introduced as Pandora (“All-gifts”), who carries a jar containing “countless plagues.” Prometheus had warned his brother Epimetheus not to accept any gifts from Zeus, but Epimetheus ignored the warning and accepted Pandora. Out of curiosity, Pandora opened the jar, releasing sorrow, disease, and death, thereby ending the Golden Age. Only one thing remained within the jar: hope.

In Prometheus Bound, Prometheus gifts mortals not only fire but also hope, and bestows upon them the arts that shape civilisation, thereby expanding their knowledge. Before his intervention, humans are described as having eyes yet seeing nothing, having ears yet hearing no sound. They drifted like fleeting shapes in a dream, lost, confused, wandering through endless days.

In myths, truths that occur internally are presented as though they were external events. Psychologically, the theft of fire can be seen as a symbol for the increase of consciousness, which may be described as the goal of human existence: to know oneself. Until we embark on this journey, we exist in a kind of limbo, drifting aimlessly. But, the acquisition of such precious knowledge comes at a heavy cost: the end of the paradisical Golden Age.

A similar truth appears in the myth of Adam and Eve. If we imagine being born in paradise and living there eternally, we would be like unconscious automatons, with little free will and no possibility for growth. By eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened, symbolising the dawn of human consciousness. However, they immediately felt ashamed and hid from God, who promptly expelled them from paradise, lest they eat of the tree of life and become immortal like the gods.

In his book The Courage to Create, American psychologist Rollo May considers the battle with the gods as a struggle with our own mortality. Creativity is a way of reaching for immortality. We know we must die, and each of us must find the courage to face death—but we also rebel against it. As Dylan Thomas wrote, “Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Creativity arises from this very struggle. Michelangelo’s writhing, unfinished statues of slaves, struggling in their prisons of stone, are a fitting symbol for our human condition.

Every infant experiences a fall from paradise—a kind of archetypal maternal womb or original wholeness—when leaving the comforting circle of the mother to develop an ego. Yet without this “fall”, there would be neither consciousness nor creativity as we know them. Thus, it can be seen as a “happy fall” or “fall upward”, moving us from the stasis of the Edenic state to the full richness of the human condition, where duality and the tension of opposites make growth possible. As Jung declared, “Only here, in life on earth, where the opposites clash together, can the general level of consciousness be raised. That seems to be man’s metaphysical task.”

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

The Good and Evil Angels – William Blake

In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake states that, “Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence. From these contraries spring what the religious call Good and Evil. Good is the passive that obeys reason; Evil is the active springing from Energy. Good is heaven. Evil is hell.”

The marriage of these opposites suggests that by reconciling them, we can transcend duality and go beyond good and evil. This constitutes the true religious experience, through which we may return to paradise, but on a higher level of consciousness. This journey is depicted by Blake in Songs of Innocence and Experience, where the individual falls from Innocence into Experience and seeks to grow out of the fallen condition into higher Innocence, a new Eden which transcends the original.

Blake reverses the traditional view of Hell as a place of punishment, instead portraying it as a realm of activity, desire and energy, writing that “Energy is Eternal Delight”. He walks among the fires of Hell, “delighted with the enjoyments of Genius, which to Angels look like torment and insanity.” In contrast, Heaven represents passivity, reason, and conformity. Thus, we can distinguish between two types of individuals, the energetic creators and the rational organisers, or the “devils” and the “angels.”

Psychologically, Blake’s Hell can be understood as the unconscious—the source of inner drives, impulses and creative urges—while Heaven symbolises the superego, the internalised social norms and rules taught by parents, institutions and role models. Both are necessary; problems arise when one dominates the other, such as acting out destructive impulses or succumbing to excessive conformity.

Blake writes, “He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.” In other words, repressed contents become dangerous, for they create neurosis, and can erupt uncontrollably. By bringing unconscious psychic energy into consciousness, potentially destructive impulses can be sublimated into constructive or creative expressions. In this way, fire becomes a symbol of the creative forces of the unconscious, the flames of inspiration, and perhaps even the means of salvation—for fire burns away everything that is superfluous, only the essential survives the fire.

Los and the Bard

One of the central figures in Blake’s mythology is Los, who is frequently associated to the labours of a blacksmith in his forge, heating metal in the furnace and shaping it on the anvil with his hammer—a symbol of creative work. His ultimate task is to redeem humanity from its fallen state through the divine spark of imagination, restoring man’s original vision of unity in a benevolent universe.

Los also takes the form of the Bard, a redemptive agent who has transcended the realm of Experience, having seen through the veil that conceals the benevolent unity of the universe, which for others appears flawed or evil. Having awakened, the Bard sympathetically cries out to the masses of the Earth, calling man to rise to his level of consciousness, suggesting that he too was once oblivious to such a vision. However, while all contain the capacity for this growth, not all achieve it, some remain in Experience.

The Bard realises that his fallen condition is not final but transformative. For without a prior fall, there can be no subsequent redemption. He also perceives time differently: past, present, and future exist simultaneously. This fusion of time belongs to eternity and stands apart from the ordinary, temporal condition of fallen humanity. It forms a vertical, timeless axis that intersects the horizontal flow of time at every moment, offering a still point within the ever-moving world.

Through creative work, we may at times enter the eternal now, a realm beyond space and time, where self-consciousness fades and we become fully immersed in the act of creation. This is the flow state. He who learns to live in the present is truly free from all worries, for tomorrow never comes.

Poetic Genius

For Blake, our true nature comes from what he calls the Poetic Genius. He writes:

That the Poetic Genius is the true Man, and that the body or outward form of Man is derived from the Poetic Genius. Likewise that the forms of all things are derived from their Genius, which by the Ancients was call’d an Angel & Spirit & Demon… As all men are alike (tho’ infinitely various), So all Religions & as all similars have one source. The true Man is the source, he being the Poetic Genius.

William Blake, All Religions are One

The Poetic Genius is the creative spirit within us all, which is of divine origin. It is the aspect of the psyche that strives towards unity. The word poet comes from the Greek poiein, meaning “to make” or “bring forth”. Thus, a poet is literally a maker, a creator. In Roman mythology, the genius was a personal guardian spirit present at birth, shaping one’s character and destiny, though today the term is usually used to describe someone of exceptional talent or ability. The ancient Greeks called this guiding spirit a daimon, and he who followed it could experience eudaimonia, a state of good spirit and fulfilment.

By attending to our true nature, we participate in the imaginative process and in the creation of our own myth; in doing so, we follow the path of the Poetic Genius. This creative spirit is the source underlying all art and myth.

Blake’s visionary work seeks to restore what the ancients called the Golden Age, not as a period in the past or future, but as the realisation that God and Man were one in paradise, and they still are, even though the illusions of the physical world often obscure this Unity. The visionary perceives it directly, and the great works of art affirm it. Blake saw the artist’s task as helping humanity regain Eden, to leave behind that state of delusion that we are separate from our spiritual nature. Art is therefore prophetic, revealing the true pattern of human life.

The Spirit of the Age

The artist must sacrifice himself to become the mouthpiece of the zeitgeist or spirit of the age. Modern art, for example, often shows alienation, anxiety, or disorder, reflecting what is happening in society. In this way, the artist gives us a distant early warning of what is happening to our culture. The question is: Can we decipher the meaning?

James Joyce writes:

Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.

James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Every creative encounter is a new event; each one demands an assertion of courage. The task is as arduous as the blacksmith’s labour of bending red-hot iron in his forge to make something of value for human life. Conscience is not handed down ready-made, but is created through the inspiration of the artist, who seeks to express the inner voice rising from the depths of his being, and in doing so contributes to the formation of the conscience of the race. This is no easy task; it is as difficult as forging in the smithy of one’s own soul.

Two forces are at war within the artist: on the one hand, the longing for happiness, satisfaction and security in life; and on the other, a ruthless passion for creation which may go so far as to override every personal desire. The unborn work in the psyche of the artist is a force of nature, pushing itself into existence, sometimes with little regard for the individual who serves as its vehicle. The creative urge lives and grows in him like a tree in the earth from which it draws its nourishment.

Jung writes:

Every creative person is a duality or a synthesis of contradictory qualities. On the one side he is a human being with a personal life, while on the other side he is an impersonal, creative process… Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realise its purposes through him. As a human being he may have moods and a will and personal aims, but as an artist he is “man” in a higher sense—he is “collective man”—a vehicle and moulder of the unconscious psychic life of mankind. That is his office, and it is sometimes so heavy a burden that he is fated to sacrifice happiness and everything that makes life worth living for the ordinary human being.

Carl Jung, C.W. Vol. 15: The Spirit in Man, Art and Literature

If the lives of artists are often so unsatisfactory, if not tragic, it is either because of some personal inferiority or inability to adapt, or because they are compelled by forces beyond their control, which compel them to create, willy-nilly. Jung writes:

I have had much trouble getting along with my ideas. There was a daimon in me, and in the end its presence proved decisive. It overpowered me, and if I was at times ruthless it was because I was in the grip of the daimon. I could never stop at anything once attained. I had to hasten on, to catch up with my vision… A creative person has little power over his own life. He is not free. He is captive and driven by his daimon… The daimon of creativity has ruthlessly had its way with me.

Carl Jung: Memories Dreams, Reflections

Creative power is stronger than its possessor. The true artist is the one who enlarges human consciousness. This creativity is the most basic manifestation of an individual fulfilling his own being in the world.

A work of art is something supra-personal. The work shapes itself. Thoughts and images arise that the artist never intended, even so he recognises that it is something within him speaking, his own inner nature expressing what he could never say deliberately. Here the artist feels subordinate to a power greater than himself and stands apart from the act of creation.

However, not all works of art come into being in the same way. Some are created deliberately, with the artist consciously shaping the material to express a specific intention. In these cases, the artist is fully identified with the creative process, and his will and skill are inseparable from the work itself.

Two Modes of Artistic Creation

Jung distinguishes between two modes of artistic creation: the psychological and the visionary. The psychological mode draws its material from the personal unconscious: crucial experiences, powerful emotions, suffering and passion, in short, the stuff of human fate. In the visionary mode, by contrast, the material is no longer familiar. It derives its existence from the hinterland of the human mind, as though it had emerged from the abyss of prehuman ages. These are the archetypes of the collective unconscious. Jung gives the example of Goethe’s Faust as an illustration of these two extremes. Part I belongs to the psychological mode, while Part II belongs to the visionary.

In the psychological mode, we rarely question the meaning of the material. In the visionary mode, we are unsettled and search for explanations. We are reminded of nothing in everyday life, but rather of dreams, night-time fears, and the dark, uncanny recesses of the human mind. Because of this, such works are often rejected by the public. Yet works that are symbolic fascinate us and grips us intensely, because a symbol remains a perpetual challenge to our thoughts and feelings, as we are unable to unriddle its meaning to our entire satisfaction. However, a work that is manifestly not symbolic appeals much more to our aesthetic sensibility because it is complete in itself and fulfils its purpose.

Visionary or archetypal art contain primordial images that are true symbols, that is, expressions for something real but unknown. When an archetypal or mythological situation emerges, it hits us with intense emotion, transporting us far above the challenges of everyday life. At such moments, we are no longer individuals, but the race; the voice of all mankind resounds in us.

Formation, Transformation,

Eternal Mind’s eternal recreation.

Goethe, Faust Part II

The visionary artist transforms personal experience into the shared destiny of humanity, turning the everyday into the eternal, and awakening the forces that have, from time to time, enabled us to find refuge from every peril and to endure the darkest times.

What is essential in a work of art is that it should rise far above the realm of personal life and speak from the spirit and heart of the poet as man to the spirit and heart of mankind.

Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul

This is the secret of great art. The creative process activates an archetypal image in the unconscious, which the artist shapes into a work that speaks to the present. By drawing a primordial image up from the unconscious and transforming it into a form the present can accept, the artist compensates for the one-sidedness of the age. In this way, art becomes a process of self-regulation in the life of individuals, nations, and epochs.

We tend to assume that strange archetypal visions come from deeply personal experiences, as if the artist were hiding their source. This easily leads to the idea that such art is pathological or neurotic, especially since visionary material can resemble the fantasies of the mentally ill. Yet, at the same time, psychotic works often contain a depth of meaning usually found only in the creations of a genius.

Reducing a vision to a personal experience makes it seem unreal and inauthentic, turning it into a mere symptom rather than a true creation. The chaos is reduced to a psychological disturbance, which reassures us and we turn back to our picture of a well-ordered cosmos. The truth is that it deflects our attention from the psychology of the work of art and focuses it on the psychology of the artist. While the artist’s psychology matters, the work of art exists in its own right as an autonomous complex and cannot be dismissed as just a personal association. At times, we must even defend the seriousness of the visionary experience against the artist’s personal resistance to it.

Artists who have fallen out of fashion are often rediscovered when our consciousness has evolved enough to understand them in a new way. Their meaning was always in the work, hidden in symbols, but only a renewal of the spirit of the age allows us to perceive it. Fresh eyes are needed, because the old ones could see only what they were used to seeing.

Obstacles in Creative Work

Man Carving His Own Destiny – Albin Polasek

In The Way of the Dream, Jungian analyst Marie-Louise von Franz recounts the case of one of her patients, a painter specialised in highly accurate and realistic portrait paintings and who strongly rejected what he called modern art, which he saw as destructive and senseless. Night after night he dreamt that he had to abandon his habitual style and begin painting inner, abstract realities. Whereas he had always worked in dark colours, the dreams insisted that he paint in bright ones. At the same time, he had, among others, one very disagreeable physical symptom; he was impotent. But as soon as he began to obey the dreams, his physical symptoms, including his impotence, disappeared. He was cured by completely changing his artistic style. He did not have to change his vocation. He had only to change his style.

People who wish to start a creative endeavour often encounter an inner critic that insists they are not good enough, or that they will never improve. This voice can be paralysing, leading many to give up before they even start, or to live vicariously through the creations of others. As a result, one may spend years, sometimes a lifetime, haunted by self-doubt. This inner critic is a manifestation of the shadow, containing one’s repressed aspects. Rather than escaping from its criticism, one must listen to it and acknowledge it. What we resist persists; what we embrace transforms.

The act of creation is not about making something completely new out of nothing, but the act of setting free and expressing the potential that already exists within us. By taking what inspires us and shaping it in our own way, filling it with our personal experiences, our latent potential is brought into actuality, which leads to the formation of our own myth.

What is your myth? It is your role on the world’s stage. Through it, nature expresses herself in you, and as your consciousness grows, it contributes to the evolution of human consciousness, of nature, and of God. Therefore, one should follow the path that nature has carved.

Another obstacle in creative work lies in creating merely to please others or to meet aesthetic expectations, without the work having any personal meaning. This is pseudo-creativity. It is a game in which the persona or social mask is being mistaken for the true self. Without engaging with one’s personal life, there can be no authentic encounter with reality, leading to neurosis.

Jung writes:

Neurosis does not produce art. It is uncreative and inimical to life. It is failure and bungling. But the moderns mistake morbidity for creative birth—part of the general lunacy of our time.

C.G. Jung Letters Vol.1 (1906-1950)

Those who rely on their creativity to earn a living face a harsh reality: they often have to set aside what is personally meaningful in favour of work that is less fulfilling but popular and socially approved. At times, they have no choice but to sacrifice their own desires, simply to make a living and survive. Moreover, unpredictable and prolonged uncertainty leads to despair. At times one feels abandoned by the Muses and unable to work. Society adds to the burden, often judging those who do not earn a living in conventional ways as lazy or worthless. Over time, this pressure leads to isolation and a decline in mental health. The artist, like any human being, needs the support of others.

The substance of a creative work does not come from the artist, but from the unseen forces that inspire it. The task of the creative individual is to awaken and give shape to what is already present in silence.

Chinese writer Lu Ji writes:

We [poets] struggle with Non-being to force it to yield Being; we knock upon Silence for an answering Music.

Lu Ji, Wen fu “Rhymeprose on Literature”

The ‘Being’ which the poem is to contain derives from ‘Non-being’, not from the poet. And the ‘music’ it is to own comes not from us who make the poem, but from the silence; comes in answer to our knock. The poet’s labour is to struggle with the meaninglessness and silence of the world until he can force it to mean; until he can make the silence answer and the Non-being be.

Creative people are distinguished by their ability to live with anxiety, even though a high price may be paid in terms of insecurity, sensitivity, and vulnerability, for the gift of “creative fire.” They do not run away from non-being, but by encountering and wrestling with it, force it to produce being. They pursue meaninglessness until they can force it to mean.

The true artist puts something of his own personal life experience onto the page, whether good or bad. Something that has moved him and carries meaning. This is authentic creativity. The unconscious does not care as much as what we come up with aesthetically as our intention behind what we do. What the unconscious appreciates is our attempt to bring its contents into the light of consciousness.

Art is not just about attaining unrealistic aesthetic perfection. There is beauty in imperfection. In Japanese culture, wabi-sabi sees imperfection as a form of art, a kind of flawed beauty, recognising that nothing is perfect. This is wholeness: an acceptance of the full spectrum of the human condition.

Creative people are archetypal Wanderers, navigating through the unconscious to bring its contents into consciousness. At times they may follow this process without difficulty, but eventually they encounter creative blocks, periods when new ideas or work seems impossible. These blocks can arise from overthinking, perfectionism, self-doubt, fear of failure, burnout, or pressure from deadlines and expectations.

Just as land must lie fallow to become fertile again, so too must we pass through a period of rest and barrenness. We are so accustomed to doing, that we have forgotten the art of simply being.

Not one care in mind all year

I find enough joy every day in my hut

and after a meal and a pot of strong tea

I sit on a rock by a pond and count fish

quiet untroubled days

nothing to do or change…

With 36,000 days

why not spend a few staying still?

The Mountain Poems of Stonehouse translated by Red Pine

Time makes us uneasy, for we regard it as our enemy in our insatiable striving for progress, fearing the changes it brings and the death that awaits us all. So, we find ways to “kill time.” But if we distract ourselves every time we feel even slightly bored, we make it harder to find meaning and stunt our creativity.

It often happens that during idle moments, ideas simply come to us. We do not have ideas, ideas have us. Inspiration can come in a sudden flash, completely absorbing us. This state of being carried away describes both the creative person and someone fully engaged in play. We say a thought “pops up”, an idea comes “out of the blue”, or it “suddenly hit me.” All describe the same thing: ideas rising from the unconscious into awareness.

When the creative spirit is absent, yet the desire to create remains, the artist may become deeply frustrated, blame himself, and sink into despair—sometimes unable to create for weeks, months, or even years. But creativity must grow at its own pace. To force the ego’s desires upon a natural process is like planting a seed and watching it obsessively, whispering, “Grow, grow, grow,” only to become frustrated when it does not. Great things take time to mature. Creativity demands both patience and passion, which share the same etymological root, pati, meaning “to endure”, “to suffer” or “to undergo.”

The creative spirit is far more likely to respond when we prepare for it, rather than blaming ourselves and daydreaming about endless could-have-would-have-should-have scenarios. Such behaviour acts as a defence mechanism: it is tempting because it relieves us of responsibility, projecting it onto some imagined Other who, we believe, for reasons unknown, refuses to help us. What we fail to realise is that this Other is unable to help precisely because we do not allow it to express itself. In this way, we escape from the growing anxiety that comes from taking responsibility for our own lives. Yet, ultimately, it is we who must decide to bring our creative life into being.

Rollo May writes:

But let it be said immediately that unconscious insights or answers to problems that come in reverie do not come hit or miss. They may indeed occur at times of relaxation, or in fantasy, or at other times when we alternate play with work. But what is entirely clear is that they pertain to those areas in which the person consciously has worked laboriously and with dedication… We cannot will to have insights. We cannot will creativity. But we can will to give ourselves to the encounter with intensity of dedication and commitment. The deeper aspects of awareness are activated to the extent that the person is committed to the encounter.

Rollo May, The Courage to Create

The encounter does not happen merely because we have changed subjectively; it represents, rather, a real relationship with the objective world. Genuine creativity is characterised by a heightened consciousness. The artist experiences joy, in contrast to fleeting happiness. Joy is the emotion that goes with heightened consciousness, the mood that accompanies the experience of actualising one’s own potentialities.

Courage is not the absence of despair, but rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair. If you do not express your own ideas coming from yourself, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself. Creativity takes great courage, because an active battle with the gods is occurring. We must always base our commitment in the centre of our own being, or else no commitment will be ultimately authentic. The emptiness within corresponds to an apathy without; and apathy adds up, in the long run, to cowardice.

The Unlived Life

Creativity must arise from your innermost self, not from fulfilling the expectations of others. You must follow your own path. A common regret expressed by those close to death is not having had the courage to live a life true to themselves; instead, they lived a life others expected of them. Moreover, they often speak not of deep regret over what they did, but over what they failed to do—dreams left unpursued and potential unrealised. This is the unlived life.

One of the most destructive things, psychologically, is unused creative power. If someone has a creative gift and, for some reason (fear, laziness, or conformity), does not use it, the psychic energy turns inwards and becomes poisonous. That is why we often see neuroses or psychoses as expressions of not-lived possibilities.

After Jung’s paranormal experience in 1916, when the dead appeared to him and told him, “We have come back from Jerusalem, where we found not what we sought,” he wrote the Seven Sermons of the Dead, after which they vanished. He later remarked, “From that time on, the dead have become ever more distinct for me as the voices of the Unanswered, Unresolved and Unredeemed.”

Jung writes:

Perhaps there is after all something to the idea that one chooses one’s life before birth. In this case there would be a connection between previous fantasies and a specific life. You may harbour a yearning for something during your life and have fantasies about the unlived aspect right up until you die. People often regret not having done something or other. If there were a continuation, according to the laws of the psyche an impulse would arise to realise these compensatory fantasies.

Carl Jung, Reflections on the Life and Dreams of C.G. Jung

Understanding Oneself

The Chasseur in the Forest – Caspar David Friedrich

In order to bring creativity forth, one must understand oneself, and the meaning and purpose of one’s life. But to seek one’s true vocation is like entering a forest where it is darkest and no path is visible. Authenticity requires uncertainty.

In the midst of such uncertainty, one may feel a hunch to do a particular thing, yet be unable to explain it rationally—not even to oneself, let alone others. Nevertheless, one feels compelled to follow it, for it may manifest as a visceral feeling accompanied by strong emotion. Intuition is a non-rational faculty. As a result, one is often seen as a fool or madman, for not only does one go against social expectations, but one is also unable to fully articulate why. This can create self-doubt, and eventually, one may give in and do what others believe is best.

The great decisions of human life have as a rule far more to do with the instincts and other mysterious unconscious factors than with conscious will and well-meaning reasonableness. The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.

Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul

Many of the difficulties we experience in life have their roots in childhood. Every child is creative, but the challenge is remaining creative as we grow up. For those who endured a difficult upbringing, the wounded child does not vanish—it carries on into adulthood, often causing struggles.

What are the earliest memories you have of your life? What is the earliest dream you can recall? There is a reason why they became imprinted in your mind. They have affected or shaped you in some way. We often assume that we know little of our childhood, but suddenly a particular smell, image, or moment triggers a long-forgotten memory, bringing with it a profound sense of nostalgia. Such memories do not disappear; they lie below the threshold of consciousness and can emerge at any moment.

Unacknowledged patterns often pass down the family line, which makes it equally important to understand our parents and ancestors, for in doing so, we come to understand ourselves. Jung confessed that a decisive factor in choosing his path was the knowledge that if he did not respond fully to his life’s purpose and challenges, then they would be inherited by his children, who would have to bear the burden of his unlived life in addition to their own difficulties.

We must examine the cards we have been dealt in life, and the peculiarities of our upbringing. For example, someone may have been involuntarily isolated from society for years, and the card life has dealt is that of the Hermit. Rather than regarding this as a misfortune, it can be understood as the constellation of an archetype, of which the person has become a living embodiment. Such a person may possess a rich inner life, yet struggle to adapt to the outer world, which is just as essential.

The point is not to speculate on how things could have been different, but to accept them as they are, then life will flow well. Otherwise, we suffer more in imagination than in reality. It is like placing heavy stones to block the natural flow of the river. Thus, the secret of life seems to be to accept it as it is. Paradoxically, the more we think about the meaning of our life, the more we fail to live life fully.

Towards the end of his life, Jung wrote:

Much might have been different if I myself had been different. But it was as it had to be; for all came about because I am as I am… I know only that I was born and exist, and it seems to me that I have been carried along. I exist on the foundation of something I do not know. In spite of all uncertainties, I feel a solidity underlying all existence and a continuity in my mode of being.

Carl Jung, Reflections on the Life and Dreams of C.G. Jung

Most of the time, when people say that life has no meaning, it is because they feel their own life lacks meaning and unconsciously project this emptiness into the world, constructing a philosophy out of their wounded self. It is not about finding the meaning of life in general, but one’s own subjective meaning. For this, it is essential to rely on intuition, emotion, dreams, and visions.

One should treat one’s fantasies as just as important and real as so-called “real life”. Jung writes:

The best way of dealing with the unconscious is the creative way. Create for instance a fantasy. Work it out with all the means at your disposal. Work it out as if you were it or in it, as you would work out a real situation in life which you cannot escape. All the difficulties you overcome in such a fantasy are symbolic expressions of psychological difficulties in yourself, and inasmuch as you overcome them in your imagination you also overcome them in your psyche.

C.G. Jung Letters Vol. 1 (1906-1950)

For Jung, one of the most powerful means of accessing unconscious material is what he calls active imagination, a technique that involves visualising various spontaneous scenes and engaging in dialogue with different aspects of yourself while fully awake. By dealing with the struggles that arise in your fantasies, the issues that would have been presented in dreams are confronted and worked out. In this way, dreams become more focused and concentrated and less repetitive.

The key lies in the “active” component: one must write down the session to prevent it from becoming mere passive fantasy. Though it demands deep concentration and solitude, active imagination is among the most effective methods for creative work and for the formation of one’s personal myth.

However, some people are not psychologically prepared for such a task and may become too absorbed in the flow of images, temporarily losing touch with the ordinary world. For this reason, one should be cautious.

Balancing Inner world and Outer World

During his confrontation with the unconscious, Jung knew he had to plunge fully into his fantasies. He needed to gain power over them, for he realised that if he did not do so, they might gain power over him. Moreover, he could not expect of his patients what he was not willing to do himself. He writes:

To the extent that I managed to translate the emotions into images—that is to say, to find the images which were concealed in the emotions—I was inwardly calmed and reassured. Had I left those images hidden in the emotions, I might have been torn to pieces by them.

Carl Jung: Memories, Dreams, Reflections

The unconscious can lead to creation or destruction. The more grounded one is, the better one is prepared to delve into the unconscious. As is often the case, one needs balance. Some are too lofty, immersing themselves in the unconscious and becoming possessed by it, while others are too grounded, denying its existence and yet still falling under its influence.

Nietzsche, who proclaimed himself the hermit of Sils-Maria, wrote in a draft of his final work, Ecce Homo, “I am solitude become man.” Lacking a firm anchor in the outer world, he possessed nothing more than the inner world of his thoughts—which incidentally possessed him more than he it. He succumbed to irreality, the quintessence of horror, and suffered a mental breakdown.

Jung writes:

Particularly at this time, when I was working on the fantasies, I needed a point of support in “this world”, and I may say that my family and my professional work were that to me. It was most essential for me to have a normal life in the real world as a counterpoise to that strange inner world… The unconscious contents could have driven me out of my wits.

Carl Jung: Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Only by attending to everyday duties can one gain a sense of sanity and liberation, which opens the door to a creative mood. Equally essential is the presence of others. Individuation occurs through relationships, not complete isolation.

von Franz states:

We are now discovering that the dream world is the most beneficent thing on earth, and that attending to one’s dreams is the healthiest thing one can do. But the dream world can also devour a person by way of daydreaming, spinning neurotic fantasies, or chasing unrealistic ideas. You only have to go into a lunatic asylum to see the victims of the dream world… The dream world is beneficent and healing only if we have a dialogue with it but at the same time remain in actual life. We must not forget living. The duties of real living must not be neglected… We call that dangerous aspect of the dream world the devouring unconscious, or the devouring mother. It can suck us away from reality and spin us into neurotic or even psychotic unreality.

Marie-Louise von Franz, The Way of the Dream

Solidifying one’s fantasies can make a big difference, whether through writing, music, painting, ceramics, or other creative forms. Otherwise, they remain vague and float aimlessly in the unconscious. Even if their meaning is unclear, paying attention to your inner contents influences the unconscious, which may respond with a dream. The dream is the voice of nature or the voice of the instinct.

Sometimes, your inner world appears to have a correspondence in the outer world, which are called synchronicities or meaningful coincidences. These events are acts of creation in time, that are somehow linked to your personal development. It is as though the universe itself acknowledges your effort towards self-realisation.

Suffering, God, and Meaning

Jacob Wrestling with the Angel – Gustave Doré

Our conscious attitude is crucial. Those who refuse to pay attention to the unconscious are influenced by it nonetheless, albeit in a negative way. In both cases, one may suffer, but in one case one suffers authentically and grows, while in the other case one suffers neurotically and remains stagnant or withers away. One unites, the other splits. Life leads the willing and drags along the unwilling. It makes a difference whether we say yes to our fate and fulfill it positively, or say no and are dragged by it against our will. The Self or God-image wants to become conscious through us. God wants to incarnate in us, and called or not, God will be present.

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.

Gospel of Thomas

To speak of suffering is very different from actually experiencing it. One cannot merely intellectualise it and say, “Suffering is indispensable for growth, and ultimately good for me.” No—when you suffer, it fills your whole being. You want it to end, and when it does not, you struggle and fight against it. Then, you grow.

Jung writes:

Now and then it happened in my practice that a patient grew beyond himself because of unknown potentialities, and this became an experience of prime importance to me. In the meantime, I had learned that all the greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally insoluble. They must be so, for they express the necessary polarity inherent in every self-regulating system. They can never be solved, but only outgrown.

Carl Jung, C.W. Vol. 13: Alchemical Studies

It is helpful to view life’s trials not as misfortunes that cause meaningless suffering, but as lessons life teaches you. Whether this is objectively true or not is beside the point. What matters is whether this perspective allows one to move from being a passive victim to an active agent in one’s own life. If it grants renewed energy to face challenges, and the courage to confront them, let it be so. And if one cannot accept a misfortune because it feels absurd or unjust, let that be so as well. One must follow one’s inner convictions.

An illness, whether physical, psychological or spiritual, may take away everything we once considered valuable. Most respond with despair, yet few consider that perhaps it is nature’s way of re-educating the person. As though the illness were nature’s way of saying, “You must become whole; only then will you be well.” Those who view illness as an opportunity for re-education often emerge healthier and more fulfilled than before. Perhaps God uses such trials to open our eyes, to show us a deeper truth beyond the fleeting things of this world.

Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl writes:

We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed. For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph… When we are no longer able to change a situation—just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer—we are challenged to change ourselves.

Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

It is the meaning of life that keeps us alive against even the most unfavourable conditions. If one continues to suffer and consciously accepts this suffering, and understands that one is doing something for the eternal in oneself, then one has made a conscious realisation that is essential. Consciously lived suffering seems to have a redeeming effect on the past and on the future of humanity’s collective consciousness.

von Franz recounts being consulted by a woman who had a schizophrenic episode and was in a state of profound despair. The woman said to her: “What is the meaning of my life? I am ruined. Even the medication isn’t helping me anymore. What meaning can you give to my life?” Von Franz replied: “You are suffering for God.” The woman immediately understood and responded, “Thank you, now I can live.”

Three weeks before his death, Jung wrote:

Nothing can be created without indebtedness, and only one who bears the cost can create. The person without indebtedness who renounces the world and refuses to pay life’s dues does not achieve individuation, because the dark God would find no place in him.

Carl Jung, Last Note: Reflections on the Life and Dreams of C.G. Jung

Creation always comes at a cost, a sacrifice that brings about suffering. Growth requires enduring inner conflict and moral burden. Without confrontation, there is no transformation, and hence no individuation. As Jung explores in Answer to Job, it is the guilty and burdened individual, not the guiltless one who avoids life’s demands, who is best suited to carry the continuing incarnation of God. In someone who seeks only light, the dark God would find no room.

The encounter between conscious and unconscious demands that the light not only illuminates the darkness but also understands it. Only if we wrestle with reconciling these opposites in our own unique way can we become whole and allow God to incarnate in us—not as pure light, but as the union of light and darkness on a higher level of consciousness. In this way, we contribute to the collective consciousness of humanity, nature, and God. This may be described as the supreme creative act.

The Psychology of Creativity

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The Psychology of the Restless Wanderer

Often alone, every first light of dawn,

I have had to speak my sorrows. There is no one living

to whom I would dare to reveal clearly

my deepest thoughts.

…

The weary mind cannot withstand wyrd [fate],

The troubled heart can offer no help.

…

He who has come to know

how cruel a companion is sorrow

To one who has few dear protectors, will understand this:

The path of exile claims him, not patterned gold,

A frost-bound spirit, not the solace of earth.

He remembers hall-holders and treasure-taking

How in his youth his gold-giving lord

Accustomed him to the feast—that joy all fades.

…

When sorrow and sleep both together

Often bind up the wretched exile,

It seems in his mind that he clasps and kisses

His lord of men, and on his knee lays

Hands and head, as he sometimes long ago

In earlier days enjoyed the gift throne.

But when the friendless man awakens again

And sees before him the fallow waves

Seabirds bathing, spreading their feathers

Frost falling and snow, mingled with hail,

Then the heart’s wounds are that much heavier,

Pain after pleasure.

…

Where have the horses gone? Where are the riders? Where is the giver of gold?

Where are the seats of the feast? Where are the joys of the hall?

…

How the time passed away,

slipped into nightfall as if it had never been!

Anonymous, The Wanderer (Exeter Book)

Table of contents

Introduction

In the Old English poem The Wanderer, composed anonymously in the late 10^th century, an exiled warrior mourns the death of his lord and kinsmen. He wanders alone across the cold seas, winter-sad and hall-sick, lamenting the destruction of his people and the passing of the joyful, and youthful days once spent in the mead hall—a place that offered warmth, community, and belonging. The hall that once rang with merriment now lies silent. It is more than just a building; it stands as a symbol of the centre of meaning, now left empty.

The Wanderer treads the path of exile, “a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief,” cut off from his homeland and kin. He reflects that no one can escape wyrd (fate, or more accurately, “that which comes to pass”), which is inexorable.

The archetype of the Wanderer appears as a figure of profound loneliness both outwardly and inwardly. His thoughts dwell on the “good old days” and the impermanence of worldly life. But he carries his pain silently, and despite his melancholy, he stresses the importance of wisdom and patience, for endurance in the face of loss. Ultimately, he concludes that true stability is found not in the fleeting world, but in God. For everything passes, but God does not change.

Wandering, as a basic pattern of behaviour, goes back to our oldest ancestors. But when survival is sufficiently secured for the psyche to turn inward, the Wanderer archetype is constellated, bringing something more existential and psychological than mere biological survival. Archetypes do not disappear, their form remains the same, but their content may shift, shaped by new conscious experiences.

Lack of Belonging

We evolved within small, interdependent groups in which each person played a vital role in securing food and safety. Days were spent wandering, foraging and hunting; nights were spent around the bonfire. The fire was not just essential for warmth, cooking and protection—it was the gathering place for social and cultural life, the centre of meaning. Here our ancestors shared food, planned for the coming day, and exchanged stories, dreams and spiritual beliefs beneath the vast night sky, where the Milky Way and stars shone brightly, untouched by artificial light.

Human genetic evolution has not kept pace with the rapid transformations of the modern era. Our biology remains fundamentally aligned with the simpler, more stable rhythms of hunter-gatherer life. Despite its hardships, it carried a profound sense of belonging. As social beings, we are wired to belong to communities where our contributions are recognised and valued. When that is lost, many sink into meaninglessness.

Anthropologists have long known that when a tribe of people lose their feeling that their way of life is worthwhile they may stop reproducing, or in large numbers simply lie down and die beside streams full of fish: food is not the primary nourishment of man.

Ernest Becker, The Birth and Death of Meaning

The Meaning of Wanderer

Landscape with Wanderer – Thomas Fearnley

The word wanderer comes from the Old English wandrian which means “to move about aimlessly.” Such a person drifts through life without a fixed home or direction, restless in the search for purpose and belonging, often with the urge to pack a bag and simply leave, to an unknown destination.

Ronin

In Japan a samurai became a ronin, a wanderer, upon the death of his master. A samurai was expected to commit seppuku after such a loss, for his identity was tied to loyalty to a lord. Those who failed to follow the tradition were socially dishonoured, and marginalised. The ronin drifted from place to place, some became mercenaries or rebels, while others managed to find a new master. In contemporary Japan, ronin is also used to describe students who have failed university entrance exams or unemployed individuals, reflecting the societal pressure and expectations surrounding academic and professional success.

Far-Sickness

The term wanderlust, rooted in German Romanticism, conveys a light-hearted desire to wander. In contemporary German, however, the word Fernweh (far-sickness) has become more common, carrying a melancholic undertone: a deep longing for distant places and the hope of eventually finding a place on earth where one truly feels at home.

Such people feel nostalgia for the “good old days” or the warmth of childhood, and sometimes experience an uncanny sense of déjà vu, as though certain moments have been lived before, or new places already seen.

The Wanderer longs for home, yet feels at home nowhere, dwelling in a liminal space between past and present, the familiar and the unknown. He is in this world, but not of this world, echoing what Lovecraft wrote:

I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men.

H.P. Lovecraft, The Outsider

Restlessness and Insatiable Desire

In Scripture, the archetype of the Wanderer is reflected in Cain, who, jealous of God’s favour towards Abel, commits the first murder and is cursed to be “a restless wanderer”, exiled to the land of Nod, whose name in Hebrew means “to wander.” In the 13^th century, the legend of the eternally Wandering Jew arose: as Christ carried the cross, a man mocked Him, telling Him to hurry. The unrecognised Saviour turned and said, “I go, but you shall be waiting here for me when I return.”

If there is one key characteristic of the Wanderer, it is restlessness, which appears as a constant need to chase the next thing, whether it be in the outer world (new places, careers, or relationships) or in the inner world (memories, dreams, and reflections).

One is tired of living in the country, one moves to the city; one is tired of one’s native land, one moves abroad; one is tired of Europe, one goes to America, and so on; finally, one indulges in a dream of endless travel from star to star. Or the movement is different but still in extension. One is tired of dining off porcelain, one dines off silver; one tires of that, one dines off gold; one burns half of Rome to get an idea of the conflagration at Troy. This method defeats itself, it is the bad infinite [endless progression].

Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or

Once something is achieved, the Wanderer is no longer satisfied, and seeks something else, ad infinitum. This insatiable desire is the cause of much of our suffering. One could say that the Wanderer cannot commit to anything, but he is certainly committed to wandering. The Wanderer is always in search of something, but once he finds it, he quickly sets it aside and continues his restless pursuit.

The outer Wanderer is caught in a paradox: when he stops moving, he feels imprisoned; when he moves, he feels momentarily free. He is condemned to wander for the sake of wandering, yet unable to find rest without feeling trapped. This may lead him to embrace a kind of romantic fatalism, accepting his seemingly inescapable condition.

We also wander within our own minds, conjuring imagined scenarios to escape reality, or become trapped in rumination, caught in a loop of negative emotions, past regrets, and perceived failures. In this way, we suffer more in imagination than in reality. The inner Wanderer may daydream, watching an endless stream of fantasies unfold like a movie, while ignoring the emotions hidden within these inner images, emerging exhausted, drained, and unfulfilled. This is passive fantasy. The unconscious figures remain locked up, crying out for freedom, and one is unable to nourish the part of oneself that is starving.

As Carl Jung stated, “We have been so busy with the question of what we think that we entirely forgot to ask what the unconscious psyche thinks about us.” In contrast to passive fantasy, active imagination allows the “I” to fully enter into the unconscious, experiencing it with the same intensity and presence as one would in a physical, external situation. Here, the ego does not impose its own meaning but instead surrenders to forces beyond its control, serving as an anchor between the outer and inner realms.

Similarly, in meditation, one observes emotions without judgment, acknowledges them, and allows them to be integrated into consciousness. In this way, our inner figures are nourished and brought to life—like a skilled sculptor who envisions the form hidden within a block of marble and carefully chisels away what is superfluous, freeing the figure from its “prison.”

Boredom: Our Worst Enemy

For Kierkegaard, the unreflective aesthete or pleasure-seeker sees boredom as his worst enemy, the root of all evil. Strangely, those who don’t bore themselves usually bore others, while those who do bore themselves amuse others. The people incapable of boredom are typically those who are busy in the world, but that is precisely why they are the most boring, the most insufferable of all. To wander without end is, eventually, to arrive at a dead end.

The 2014 study Just Think: The Challenges of the Disengaged Mind found that people would rather administer electric shocks to themselves than spend 6 to 15 minutes alone in a room with nothing to do but think. As Milton writes, “The mind is its own place and, in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven”, and as Pascal famously stated, “Man’s unhappiness comes from one single thing: not knowing how to stay quietly in a room.”

We often convince ourselves that boredom is bad, but the opposite is true. You need to be bored. When we are not focused on external tasks or goals and are left alone with our thoughts, the brain’s Default Mode Network “lights up”, and our minds begin to wander. We reflect on ourselves and on life, and begin to feel uneasy or think that something is wrong with us. But if we distract ourselves every time we feel even slightly bored, we make it harder to find meaning and stunt our creativity.

Digital Wanderer

Modern life is dominated by an unrelenting cycle of work and financial pressures, often sedentary and confined to a desk. In the few breaks we get, we instinctively reach for online content, numbing ourselves with short-term pleasures at the cost of long-term fulfilment. Too many drift into mediocrity, lost in distractions and shallow entertainment, until years pass and one realises that nothing meaningful has been built.

Despite constant connectivity through technology and social media, loneliness has increased. Superficial interactions and the lack of genuine belonging leave many feeling isolated. We compare ourselves to the highlights of others’ lives, mistake them for the whole truth, and grow increasingly alienated, creating unrealistic expectations for our ideal self while despising our real self.

To fill this inner void, some become digital wanderers, creating online personas and seeking attention. In real life they may go unnoticed, but online they can appear as heroes, until they return to daily life, when reality feels dull by comparison. Others become anonymous internet trolls, posting deliberately offensive or provocative messages to elicit strong emotional responses. Like Dostoevsky’s Underground Man, they are alienated, resentful and rebellious, attempting to assert control or influence in a world they feel powerless.

Silence and stillness make us uneasy, so we reach for more noise, more stimulation. We feel a constant need to “kill time”, treating it as an enemy in our pursuit of progress. But this only brings more suffering, more stress, shorter attention spans, poor sleep, and heightened anxiety and depression. Many endure unpleasant states of mind by distracting themselves, even if it means living in misery most of the time.

When one steps back and looks at life, it almost seems like a grand, tragic joke. Always running, running, running. What are you running for? Or better yet, what are you running from? Is it not, perhaps, yourself? Until one honestly confronts oneself, life as Schopenhauer writes, “swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and ennui.” Ennui is a deeper, more existential form of boredom, encompassing a profound dissatisfaction and weariness with life.

The Realm of Hungry Ghosts

Preta (Hungry Ghost) from the 12th century Hungry Ghosts Scroll. Kyoto National Museum

In Tibetan Buddhism, there are six realms into which consciousness can enter during the bardo, the liminal state between death and rebirth. These realms are part of samsara, the cycle of birth, death and rebirth, and reflect the karma and mental patterns we carry through life, shaped by our experiences and attachments.

The Wanderer’s insatiable desire can be compared to the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, where one experiences both poverty and fullness at the same time. Whatever you want you do not have to look for, but you find yourself possessing it. Yet this makes us more deprived, because we get satisfaction not from possessing alone but from searching. There is a fundamental insatiable hunger based on the realisation that we already have everything we desire yet we cannot enjoy it. Once you hold what you desire, the joy of having it fades, yet you cannot bring yourself to let it go.

It is as though you are completely full, but you love to eat, and so you begin to have hallucinations of the flavour of food and the pleasure of eating it, tasting it, chewing it, swallowing it and digesting it. The whole process seems luxurious, and you feel extremely envious of other people who can really be hungry and eat. This is symbolised by the image of a person with a gigantic belly and extremely thin neck and tiny mouth.

Lukewarm Souls and Limbo

In Dante’s Inferno, after passing the gate of Hell, which bears the inscription, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter”, one first encounters the Vestibule of Hell. Here dwell the “neutrals” or “opportunists”, lukewarm souls who took no sides in life, neither good nor evil, concerned only with themselves. Guilty of moral indecision, they endure a punishment that mirrors their wasted lives—endlessly pursuing a shifting banner, a restless futility that reflects their spiritual stagnation. By contrast, Limbo, the First Circle of Hell, is home to the virtuous but unredeemed. These souls endure no physical torment, yet wander without hope, in perpetual longing, eternally separated from God.

Colloquially, we say we are in a limbo when we are unsure what to do next, caught in a liminal state which is neither here nor there. Perhaps you have finished a project, but the next step is unclear; or you have lost your job, and the future feels uncertain; or you have ended a relationship and you do not know what comes next. It is as if life has paused, and you are waiting for something to happen, but it hasn’t yet. One experiences simultaneously stagnation, but also anxiety about what the future might bring.

Inner Yearning, Existential Crisis, Lifelessness

The Wanderer’s quest begins with a deep inner yearning, driven by existential angst and the desire to make sense of one’s life, as if one lacks something eternally firm within oneself. Often, we do not even have a name for what is missing, but we long for that mysterious something.

Fate leads the willing and drags along the reluctant. Each must fulfil the purpose for which one was born, willy-nilly, and that is unique to each individual. What seems meaningless to one, may be meaningful to another. There’s no recipe for living that suits all cases.

Perhaps one longs to discover one’s meaning but cannot, even after years or decades of wandering. The pain may become so great that one convinces oneself that life is meaningless, simply to escape the struggle. But the inner yearning does not disappear. Eventually, the Wanderer faces an existential crisis and begins to question the meaning of life.

Where am I? What is this thing called the world? … Who is it that has lured me into the world? Who am I? How came I here? Why was I not consulted, why not made acquainted with its manners and customs instead of throwing me into the ranks, as if I had been bought by a kidnapper, a dealer in souls? How did I obtain an interest in this big enterprise they call reality? Why should I have an interest in it? Is it not a voluntary concern? And if I am to be compelled to take part in it, where is the director? I should like to make a remark to him. Is there no director? Whither shall I turn with my complaint?

Søren Kierkegaard, Repetition: A Venture in Experimental Psychology

Even when outward appearances suggest all is well, inwardly one may feel lifeless. This emptiness drains the world of colour, making it seem desolate and barren. As within, so without: the external dullness mirrors one’s inner life. How can one perceive the beauty of the world if one is dead inside? In such a state, deserted places feel more like home, reflecting one’s inner landscape. Lord Byron writes:

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep Sea, and music in its roar;

I love not Man the less, but Nature more.

Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

Outwardly, nothing changes—the trees, birds, and landscapes remain the same—but one cannot take pleasure in them. This inability to enjoy life, known as anhedonia, is often accompanied by depersonalisation, a sense of detachment from oneself and reality. In extreme cases, this can resemble Cotard’s syndrome, a rare condition in which a person believes he is already dead or does not exist.

We cannot hope to heal the desolation around us if we do not first confront the desolation within. We worry endlessly about the state of the world, yet neglect to put our own inner lands in order.

The Grey Life: Inner Death

Dante’s Inferno. Plate XIV. Canto V – Gustave Doré

Not the Black Death, this time; the Grey Life.

Aldous Huxley, Island

While the Black Death was a sudden and catastrophic plague that caused death, the Grey Life points to a modern affliction that brings inner death: a pervasive dullness, a lifeless and meaningless existence marked by spiritual malaise.

Jung writes:

“I went into the inner death and saw that outer dying is better than inner death. And I decided to die outside and to live within. For that reason I turned away and sought the place of the inner life.

Carl Jung, The Red Book

The Archetype of the Zombie

Inner death is exemplified in the archetype of the zombie, which can be seen as a modern reflection of the restless Wanderer archetype. When we use the word “zombie” colloquially, we usually refer to someone who is mindless, exhausted, or going through motions without thinking, as if sleepwalking through life. The zombie is dull, lifeless, and decaying, reflecting the emptiness within.

In the book Zombies in Western Culture, John Vervaeke and colleagues explore the rise of zombieism as emblematic of the 21^st-century zeitgeist. The zombie has become an enduring symbol for the crisis in meaning. We are the walking dead. Zombies are a distorted reflection of modern humanity, representing the collapse of what is meaningful to us. They do not speak, they have nothing to say, showing their empty-headedness. They move in groups, yet remain utterly alone, without any sense of belonging. They have no home, and wander absently from place to place.

Zombies have an insatiable appetite. They eat brains (the seat of intelligibility), but no matter how many they devour, they remain brain-dead, demonstrating how one can take in knowledge without true understanding. Their endless hunger represents the existential state of being unable to make sense of the world. Zombies are not evil but driven by an instinctive craving. They act heedlessly, giving no thought to their own survival; in their pursuit of consumption, they will ultimately destroy themselves. If you come into close contact with a zombie, infection inevitably follows, and you become part of the horde, increasing their numbers—symbolising the contagion of mindlessness.

The Path of Exile and Loneliness

Tolkien wrote, “Not all those who wander are lost.” You became lost in order to find yourself. The Wanderer walks on the path of exile, isolated from others. He is a lonewolf because he feels lonelier being with other people than with himself. Social interaction does not equal belongingness.

I stood

Among them, but not of them; in a shroud

Of thoughts which were not their thoughts.

Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

The Wanderer may feel terribly lonely, lacking social acceptance or the temporary comfort of being liked by others. However, this acceptance often comes at the cost of one’s individuality. It is through developing the inner self that one can face loneliness constructively. Jung writes:

If a man knows more than others, he becomes lonely. But loneliness is not necessarily inimical to companionship, for no one is more sensitive to companionship than the lonely man, and companionship thrives only when each individual remembers his individuality and does not identify himself with others.

Carl Jung: Memories, Dreams, Reflections

The Wanderer must compensate for his one-sidedness by learning to remain still, to sit in silence, and to observe his thoughts. He must turn towards his neglected emotions and dreams, and write them down or paint them, making the intangible tangible. Through this practice, the unconscious contents become conscious, allowing for the neglected parts of oneself to become integrated. In this way, one gives birth to the true self, moving from fragmentation to wholeness.

By first connecting with oneself, one can build meaningful relationships with others. One must not try to escape from loneliness, but instead accept it as part of oneself. Krishnamurti writes:

We will do anything to escape from loneliness, to cover it up. Our conscious and unconscious preoccupation seems to be to avoid it or to overcome it. Avoiding and overcoming loneliness are equally futile; though suppressed or neglected, the pain, the problem, is still there. You may lose yourself in a crowd, and yet be utterly lonely; you may be intensely active, but loneliness silently creeps upon you; put the book down, and it is there. Amusements and drinks cannot drown loneliness; you may temporarily evade it, but when the laughter and the effects of alcohol are over, the fear of loneliness returns… The entity who tries to fill or run away from emptiness, incompleteness, loneliness, is not different from that which he is avoiding; he is it. He cannot run away from himself; all that he can do is to understand himself. He is his loneliness, his emptiness; and as long as he regards it as something separate from himself, he will be in illusion and endless conflict. When he directly experiences that he is his own loneliness, then only can there be freedom from fear.

Jiddu Krishnamurthi, Commentaries on Living: Series I

Buddha: The Awakened One

The Four Sights of Buddha, from a Laotian Temple

The young prince Siddhartha Gautama was sheltered by his father from all knowledge of suffering, for a prophecy had foretold he would become either a great king or a Buddha. Surrounded by a life of luxury and entertainment, he lived a life of pleasure until the age of 29, when he ventured outside the palace. There he encountered an old man, a sick person, a corpse, and finally a monk devoted to understanding suffering.

Deeply troubled by the suffering he witnessed, and inspired by the monk’s example, Siddhartha renounced his princely life to seek a path that might end human suffering. After years of meditation and asceticism, he attained enlightenment and became the Buddha, the “Awakened One.” He taught the First Noble Truth: that life is dukkha, arising from insatiable desire and attachment. While often translated as “suffering”, its meaning is broader. It encompasses physical and psychological pain (dukkha-dukkha), the suffering caused by change: ageing, illness, and death (viparinama-dukkha), and a subtler, persistent restlessness that remains even when desires and goals are fulfilled (sankhara-dukkha).

The Seeker Archetype: In Search of the Soul

Illustration from the Red Book – Carl Jung

While the Buddha realised and taught that true change comes from within, many Wanderers tragically spend their lives attempting to fill their inner void through external means. Jung writes:

I early arrived at the insight that when no answer comes from within to the problems and complexities of life, they ultimately mean very little. Outward circumstances are no substitute for inner experience.

Carl Jung: Memories, Dreams, Reflections

After a long period of aimless wandering, one may finally commit to the inner journey, and the archetype of the Seeker becomes constellated, beginning the search for one’s soul.

My soul, my soul, where are you? Do you hear me? I speak, I call you – are you there? I have returned, I am here again. I have shaken the dust of all the lands from my feet, and I have come to you, I am with you. After long years of long wandering, I have come to you again… the one thing I have learned is that one must live this life… Give me your hand, my almost forgotten soul. How warm the joy at seeing you again… Life has led me back to you. Let us thank the life I have lived for all the happy and all the sad hours… My soul, my journey should continue with you. I will wander with you and ascend to my solitude… I am weary, my soul, my wandering has lasted too long, my search for myself outside of myself… Like a tired wanderer who had sought nothing in the world apart from her, shall I come closer to my soul. I shall learn that my soul finally lies behind everything, and if I cross the world, I am ultimately doing this to find my soul.

Carl Jung, The Red Book

Jung stated that he had to accept that what he previously called his soul was not at all his soul, but a dead system. Therefore, he had to speak to his soul as something which did not exist through him, but through whom he existed.

The focus of life shifts from external achievements and aimless wandering to the pursuit of self-realisation and theosis (union with God). In the Grail myths, the Seeker appears as the knight in search of the Holy Grail, a symbol of the Self or total personality. Many embark on the quest, but only the pure and pious succeed in finding it.

The Wanderer wanders for the sake of it, while the Seeker roams with purpose, guided by a goal. The Wanderer may only reflect on his inner life, whereas the Seeker actively does inner work. The Wanderer carries an inner void; the Seeker builds upon an inner foundation.

Throughout life, we move between being a Wanderer and a Seeker, two recurring patterns of behaviours that emerge at different moments. The soul’s journey is not static; it is not a one-time thing that can be completed and resolve all difficulties. The greatest problems of life can never be solved but only outgrown. The journey unfolds through one’s daily duties, and there is meaning in every journey that is unknown to us.

Suffering is inescapable. But one can suffer meaningfully or not. Neurosis arises when we flee from the meaningful suffering that comes from knowing oneself. A neurosis is an offended god, or, as James Hillman writes in Re-Visioning Psychology, “our pathologies are calls from the gods.” In other words, when we repress a part of ourselves that seeks expression in the world, or prevent Nature from fulfilling her role through us, we are, in a sense, offending the gods. The Wanderer suffers neurotically, escaping from himself, while the Seeker suffers authentically, confronting himself. Few burdens are heavier than blind suffering.

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.

Gospel of Thomas, Saying 70

The vast majority of problems arise from within. That which we deny in ourselves is unconsciously projected onto others. We are always projecting both our good and the bad qualities, so that the world appears filled with the fragmented parts of our personality. Some people seem to hold our inner gold and we become instantly consumed by them, as if the very meaning of our lives depended on them. Others become “hooks” for our shadow, evoking anger, fear or disgust in us. It is essential to recognise these projections, withdraw them, and integrate them, for they are simply aspects of ourselves. Only then can we move towards wholeness.

We should not depend on others for our self-worth, for the most important relationship we have is with ourselves. We must not ignore ourselves, but learn to value, forgive and love ourselves just as we do others. By helping oneself, one is better equipped to help others. Hence the saying, “Love your neighbour as yourself.” Humility consists in knowing our limitations and getting the help we need.

The Seeker listens to his conscience, the inner voice that expresses the soul’s intent. The ancient Greeks personified this guiding force as the daimon, which remembers what is in one’s image, belongs to one’s pattern, and thus carries the essence of one’s destiny. Amoral and a force of nature, the daimon guides our actions in ways we may not fully understand. Even when others advise us against a path, we feel an inner conviction that it is the right one to take, something we cannot fully explain to ourselves, let alone to others.

Like the author of Ecclesiastes, the Seeker realises that power, fame, wealth, and pleasure are nothing more than a chasing after the wind. All these things vanish into thin air, leaving no lasting mark. Only the fruits of our work—the acts of love, wisdom, and service—endure. As Christ said, “By their fruits you shall know them.” The fruit serves as a symbol of the culmination of the individuation process: the ultimate goal and completion of existence, the fulfilment of one’s soul essence. Consciously lived suffering seems to have a redeeming effect on the past and on the future of humanity’s collective consciousness.

Jung writes:

The problem of crucifixion is the beginning of individuation, there is the secret meaning of the Christian symbolism, a path of blood and suffering–like any other step forward on the road of the evolution of human consciousness.

Carl Jung, Unpublished Letter (1936). From Gerhard Adler’s Dynamics of the Self

As Seekers, we may come to understand the meaning and purpose of our lives, yet this does not come without restlessness. It is the spiritual journey of the pilgrim, the cross we must carry on our individual journey towards consciousness, walking the path of the eternally alone. But as Jung wrote in a letter, “No matter how isolated you are and how lonely you feel, if you do your work truly and conscientiously, unknown friends will come and seek you.”

Every step forward along the path of individuation is achieved only at the cost of suffering. This is why, when we come into conscious contact with the individuation process, we experience it as being painful, even deadly.

More precisely, however, it is not the ego but the Self which seems at first to be wounded, and it is only when the Self is realised in a human being that the person begins to share in the suffering. Individuation is a heroic and often tragic task, the most difficult of all, it involves the suffering of the ego: the ordinary person we once were becomes burdened with the fate of losing himself in a greater dimension and being robbed of his fancied freedom of will. He suffers, so to speak, from the violence done to him by the Self.

For Jung, the Self is a God-image, or at least cannot be distinguished from one. The early Christian spirit was not ignorant of this, as the Church Father Clement of Alexandria writes:

Therefore, as it seems, it is the greatest of all disciplines to know oneself; for when a man knows himself, he knows God.

Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus: Book III

Acedia: Spiritual Restlessness

Monk in a Monastic Cell – Egron Lundgren

The Seeker suffers from acedia, a word meaning “without care” in Latin. It is often translated as sloth, but it is more than mere laziness. Early Christian monks described it as a state of spiritual restlessness. In the Praktikos, Evagrius Ponticus, a Desert Father, names acedia one of the “eight tempting thoughts”, and calls it the “noonday demon” because it strikes during the day’s hottest and most exhausting hours, when body and soul are most vulnerable to weariness.

It is as if the demon causes the sun to slow down—or even stop—so that the day seems endless. It distracts the monk, tempting him to pace his cell, gaze repeatedly out the window, and scan every direction for the other brothers. It fills him with resentment towards his surroundings and the life he has chosen, while making him long for easier places where his needs could be obtained without effort. At the same time, it shows him visions of a long life and the many hardships of the ascetic path, intensifying the test of his spiritual discipline. The demon employs every possible means to make the monk abandon the ascetic life. Evagrius considers this the greatest trial in the monk’s daily spiritual struggle—no other demon comes after this one. Once endured, the soul has faced its most intense temptation, and one enters a state of peace and unspeakable joy.

Shadow Seeker

One who is constantly seeking meaning, may, paradoxically, fail to find it. The shadow Seeker manifests itself as an obsessive need for spiritual growth and perfection, sacrificing instinct to ideals, health to work, and the earthly to the lofty. Such self-destructive behaviour often results in physical and psychological illness, ultimately cutting life short and preventing the very goals one hoped to achieve.

It is important to step back in order to get a bird’s eye view. In doing so, one may discover Ariadne’s thread and find a way out of the maze of the mind.

Who sits in utter Idleness

Shall come much sooner to the goal

Than he who runneth after God

With sweat of body and of soul.

Angelus Silesius, The Cherubinic Wanderer

This quote captures the paradox of mystical experience: spiritual progress is not achieved through frantic effort, but through inner stillness and surrender. An obsession with achieving spiritual goals causes the ego to get in the way of grace. Like watering a plant, growth must happen naturally; it cannot be forced.

The shadow Seeker’s excessive ambition makes him resemble Lucifer, who attempted to usurp God’s throne and was cast down into hell, or Icarus, who ignored his father’s warning not to fly too close to the sun and so plunged to his death. Both myths stand as warnings against hubris.

The shadow Seeker worships the idea of God, rather than cultivating a personal relationship with God. Religion becomes a label or cultural identity rather than a lived, existential commitment. One prays mechanically without conviction, gives charity to be applauded, wears sacred objects for aesthetic purposes, and treats these outward acts and appearances as the truth itself. When the representations of religion replace the reality of faith, it creates what Baudrillard calls hyperreality: outward behaviour is treated as the essence of faith, even though the underlying relationship with the divine is absent. The shadow Seeker engages with a mere copy of religion, yet believes it to be true.

In Filth It Will Be Found

We often search far and wide for treasure, unaware that it lies at home, within ourselves. This is a common motif worldwide. A man dreams of treasure in a distant place. He travels there but finds nothing. He tells another man about his dream. The second man realises that the treasure is actually at the first man’s home. The first man returns and finds it buried in a familiar spot.

As the alchemists stated, in sterquiliniis invenitur (in filth it will be found). What you need most is often found where you least want to look. But this is easier said than done. We resist confronting the despised or terrifying aspects of ourselves, and when we neglect or run away from the filth in ourselves, the unconscious responds accordingly by presenting us with nightmares, grotesque visions, or unknown figures chasing us down. These visions, however, are nothing more than fragments of our own psyche, carrying urgent messages we desperately need. Until we acknowledge them, we remain in misery, no matter how convincingly we pretend that all is well. Jung writes:

We know that the mask of the unconscious is not rigid—it reflects the face we turn towards it. Hostility lends it a threatening aspect, friendliness softens its features.

Carl Jung, C.W. Vol. 12: Psychology and Alchemy

The Monster You Fear Becomes the Saviour You Need

The monster you fear becomes the saviour you need. The archetype of the saviour typically comes from the place where we least expect, and he is frequently despised and rejected by others. It is precisely that which we repress that assumes the role of the saviour. This is the principle of psychic compensation: the repressed aspect carries the most energy—or libido—and therefore the greatest potential for growth. When the ego is exhausted, when one’s convictions and ideas are depleted, the psyche naturally overturns. Then up comes the other side, which is full of life, that which one has never seen, accepted, or lived—fresh and green as spring. But that is precisely what makes it terrifying, and also attractive, since it means a complete reversal of the whole personality.

Individualism and Individuation (The Self)

Some Seekers choose to dedicate themselves entirely to their inner journey, becoming yogis, hermits, or ascetics, in order to avoid the distractions of the world that hinder the growth of the soul. However, if taken to an extreme, it can become overly one-sided, reflecting another aspect of the shadow Seeker.

For Jung, individuation and individualism are mutually exclusive. To isolate oneself on a mountain and meditate alone is to be visited only by one’s own ghosts, and that is not individuation. The Self does not arise in isolation but in relationship. It manifests through our deeds, each of which forms a bridge between ourselves and the world around us. The Self is therefore fundamentally relatedness; it comes into being through connection with others and with life itself.

Jung writes:

One cannot individuate without being with other human beings. One cannot individuate on top of Mount Everest or in a cave somewhere where one doesn’t see people for seventy years: one only can individuate with or against something or somebody… Individuation is only possible with people, through people. You must realise that you are a link in a chain, that you are not an electron suspended somewhere in space or aimlessly drifting through the cosmos.

Carl Jung, Notes From the Seminar Given in 1934-1939: Nietzsche’s Zarathustra

Balancing Inner and Outer World

Procopius the Righteous Praying for Unknown Travellers – Nicolas Roerich

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, after spending ten years alone in the mountains, Zarathustra grows weary of his wisdom. Wisdom becomes a burden if it is not shared. Thus, like the evening sun that descends to give light to the underworld, Zarathustra begins his down-going into mankind.

The patron saint of Switzerland, Nicholas of Flüe, also known as Brother Klaus, lived with his wife for twenty years, and together they raised ten children. At the age of 50, however, he was seized by periods of inner restlessness and depression. In Volume 6 of her Collected Works, Marie-Louise von Franz describes his visions. In one, he saw four bright lights descending from heaven, revealing the place where a hut and a chapel should be built, and it was carried out according to his vision. His wife and children gave their consent for him to withdraw in this way, and they remained at peace with the decision, often visiting him at his hermitage. Brother Klaus never moved back with them.

From that point onward, he undertook a regimen of total fasting, sustained solely by the Eucharist, which he mysteriously maintained until his death, lasting twenty years. Despite his isolation, Brother Klaus remained connected to the world. Visitors described him as being in good physical condition, affable and content. He went barefoot and wore a grey robe, stood tall, and spoke with a manly but charming voice. He often kept his mouth half open, perhaps reflecting an attitude of awe-inspired inner contemplation.

We should not liken the saint to an eccentric who had misanthropically crept away and gone into hiding. Rather, his inner experiences were of more value to him than ordinary human existence. Jung remarked that Brother Klaus should be named the patron saint of psychotherapy.

On the brink of civil war, a pastor hurried to the well-respected hermit for help. Bound by his vow never to leave his cell, he entrusted the pastor with a message for the delegates, effectively averting the conflict. The contents of that message remain a mystery.

The shamanic calling often follows a spiritual crisis, marked by visions, dreams, or trance, and a need for solitude. This “illness” signals that one has been chosen for a sacred role. By descending into the Underworld and overcoming trials, the initiate undergoes a symbolic death and rebirth, gains wisdom, and ascends to the Sky Realm, becoming one who has awakened. The real work, however, begins in the return from Paradise to society, for the shaman’s mission is to serve and protect his people.

In Buddhism, monks withdraw from society to live an ascetic and contemplative life, yet they remain connected to the lay community. In the East, the word “monk” derives from the Sanskrit bhiksu, meaning “one who lives on alms.” By receiving food from the laity, monks practise humility, while in return offering blessings, guidance, and wisdom. This relationship is regarded as a sacred duty.

The Hero’s journey mirrors these patterns: it begins with a call to adventure, leaving the ordinary world behind. Separation brings anxiety, and in the special world the hero faces the dragon, a symbol of one’s deepest fears. By defeating the dragon, the hero experiences a symbolic death and rebirth, gaining insight and life experience. The journey continues with a return home, facing further trials, and bringing back the elixir—wisdom, love, or knowledge to share with others. Eventually, another call to adventure comes, and the cycle begins again.

This movement from the ordinary world of consciousness to the special world of the unconscious, and back again, expresses an ancient truth:

That which is below is like that which is above, and that which is above is like that which is below, to accomplish the miracle of one only thing… It ascends from the earth to the heaven, and descends again to the earth, and receives the power of the above and below. Thus you will have the glory of the whole world. Therefore all darkness will flee from you.

Hermes Trismegistus, Emerald Tablet

To ascend from earth to heaven alone is to remain too lofty, too one-sided. True wholeness requires a return to earth—to fulfil one’s duties and share one’s insights with fellow suffering beings. Like Kierkegaard’s knight of faith, such a person participates fully in worldly affairs, yet at every step makes the invisible movement of infinity, appreciating the beauty of existence and the simple joys of life.

The Ultimate Union of Opposites: Physical and Spiritual

Paradise in the Divine Comedy (The Empyrean) – Gustave Doré

Mystics across the world seek theosis, and a return back to our “true home” after our temporary exile in this world. They recognise that, despite the apparent differences of our physical forms, we are fundamentally one. To harm another is therefore ultimately to harm ourselves. Hence the golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, a principle found in practically all the world religions.

The longing for theosis makes the Seeker feel consumed by a fire that does not burn, captive in a prison from which there seems no escape, yearning for God and yet unable to find Him. Saint Teresa of Ávila writes:

I live without living in me,
and so great a life I hope for,
that I die because I do not die.

I now live outside myself
after dying of love,
because I live in the Lord,
who chose me for Himself;
when I gave Him my heart,
He put this sign on me:
That I die because I do not die.

This divine union,
and the love with which I live,
makes my God captive to me
and my heart free;
and it causes in me such passion
to see my God imprisoned,
that I die because I do not die.

Ah, how long this life is!
How harsh this exile,
this prison and these chains
in which the soul is enclosed!
Only waiting for the release
causes me such fierce pain,
that I die because I do not die.

Come to an end, life,
do not be a burden to me;
for by dying, what remains
but to live and delight in myself?
Do not cease to console me,
death, for so I ask you;
for I die because I do not die.

Poem by St. Teresa of Ávila

Like King Solomon, the Seeker knows that with much wisdom comes much sorrow. Yet the Seeker sometimes experiences a joy so profound that it surpasses anything the world has to offer. The greatest pain is often accompanied by the greatest bliss.

In the Enneads, the Neoplatonist Plotinus reflects on his experiences of mystical union with the One, expressing astonishment at having to return to his human body and everyday reality after such transcendent experiences. The physical world appears heavy, harsh, and limiting, while the spiritual world is light, gentle, and boundless. The difficulty lies in uniting these opposites harmoniously. This is the Great Work.

How, then, can these two opposites be reconciled? We might find a hint of this when Lord Jesus, fully God and fully man, suffers in the Garden of Gethsemane, falling to the ground and sweating drops of blood in anticipation of the passion that awaits him. He prays: “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” These words mark one of the most profound moments in Christianity, the struggle to unite human suffering with the divine will. This tension reaches its climax on the cross, expressed in one of Christ’s final words—the opening line of Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

The Seeker is willing to sacrifice the most valued relationships and accomplishments in order to surrender to the divine will, shifting the centre of life from ego or others to God—who alone quenches all insatiable desire, and in whom the weary and burdened heart may find rest.

The most powerful prayer, one well-nigh omnipotent to gain all things, and the noblest work of all is that which proceeds from a quiet mind. The more quiet it is, the more powerful, worthy, useful, praiseworthy and perfect the prayer and the work. To the quiet mind all things are possible. What is a quiet mind? A quiet mind is one which nothing weighs on, nothing worries, which, free from ties and from all self-seeking, is wholly merged into the will of God and dead to its own.

Meister Eckhart, The Talks of Instruction: Of the Most Powerful Prayer and the Highest Activity

The Psychology of The Restless Wanderer

The archetype of the Wanderer appears as a figure of profound loneliness, who drifts through life without a fixed home or direction, restless in the search for purpose and belonging. He has far-sickness, a deep longing for distant places and the hope of eventually finding a place on earth where he truly feels at home.

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The Fool Dances with Death

The Danse Macabre (or Dance of Death) is a late medieval motif that illustrates the universality of death. The constant famines, wars, and especially the Black Death in Europe showed how fragile and fleeting life truly was. Death was not a distant fate but a sudden, ever-present companion. This grim reality intensified the religious desire for repentance and salvation, but it also stirred a desperate craving for amusement and indulgence while life lasted, a final dance before the inevitable end.

Table of contents

Memento Mori

Michael Wolgemut, “Image of Death” from The Nuremberg Chronicle (1493),

A living skeleton, the personification of Death, leads people from all walks of life—pope, king, clergy, peasant, merchant, old and young alike—in one great chain dance towards the grave. Death is the great equaliser, for no one can escape its grasp. It strips away all power, wealth, and status. This image serves as a memento mori, which means, “remember that you must die.” It is a meditation on mortality, reminding us of the fragility of life and the vanity of earthly pursuits.

Shakespeare writes:

“For within the hollow crown

That rounds the mortal temples of a king,

Keeps Death his watch, and there the antic [the court fool] sits,

Scoffing at his state and grinning at his pomp;

Allowing him a little time

To monarchise, be feared, and kill with looks;

And then at last comes death, and with a little pin

Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!”

Shakespeare, Richard II

Death is compared to the court fool; there seems to be a kind of jest in death. Monks used to keep skulls in their cells to remind them of mortality. Though the skull is commonly seen as grim, it can also appear to be grinning. It is all that remains of a human being, a single bone, and it laughs.

Nowadays, many consider this morbid because we prefer to deny the reality of death. But as a natural part of human existence, death should not be feared. Philosophy, as Plato writes in the Phaedo, is a preparation for death. The foolish believe they will never die; the wise live as though they die a little each day.

“The premeditation of death is the premeditation of liberty; he who has learned to die has unlearned to serve.”

Michel Montaigne, That to Study Philosophy is to Learn to Die

In Somerset Maugham’s short story Appointment in Samarra, a retelling of an ancient tale, a servant meets the black-robed crone Death. The servant sees her make what appears to be a threatening gesture. Terrified, he borrows his master’s horse and flees to Samarra. That afternoon, the master confronts the crone in the marketplace and asks, “Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant this morning?” Death replies, “That was not a threatening gesture; it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see your servant in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.”

By wasting precious time and energy trying to avoid Death, one ultimately fails to truly live. In the end, it is oneself who betrays life. Until we learn to entrust ourselves to death, we cannot fully entrust ourselves to life.

The World is a Theatre

Fool and Death. Copy of Holbein’s Great Dance of Death by Alexander Anderson

While Death may appear at times terrifying and at other times playful, those he summons almost always tremble with fear. All except one: the Fool.

He joins the dance with a smile, laughing at the absurdity of it all. To him, the world is a theatre, and all men and women merely actors, each wearing different social masks to play their roles in society. He sees that people live only to make money, and that the highest goal is to land a respectable job. That people buy things they don’t need with money they don’t have to impress people they don’t like. That what matters are what others think of one and how well one fulfils social expectations. That love is reduced to marrying someone financially secure. That friendship is only useful when money is needed. That wisdom is just believing what most people say. That passion means speaking with great energy, but saying nothing of real value. That kindness is little more than saying something polite. And that piety means attending church every Sunday without any true, heartfelt belief.

Seeing all this—how shallow, hollow, and absurd it truly is—the Fool cannot help but to laugh. In this context, Kierkegaard writes:

“[W]hen I became older, when I opened my eyes and saw reality, I started to laugh and haven’t stopped since.”

Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or

Laughter and Tragedy

Roman mosaic from 2nd century A.D. With tragedy and comedy. Musei Capitolini, Rome, Italy.

The fool laughs at how seriously we take our lives, for in the end, no one gets out alive. Laughter and tragedy are often intertwined.

Nietzsche writes:

“Perhaps I know best why man is the only animal that laughs: he alone suffers so excruciatingly that he was compelled to invent laughter. The unhappiest and most melancholy animal is, as might have been expected, the most cheerful.”

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power

Till Eulenspiegel is a popular 14^th-century trickster figure in German folklore. In one story, he laughed and sang happily while labouring uphill, but when going downhill—where it was pleasant and easy—he wept and grew gloomy. When asked why, he replied, “When I go uphill, I think of going downhill, and when I go downhill, I think of going uphill.” In other words, he found joy when walking uphill in anticipation of the coming descent.

Laughter becomes more than a simple expression of happiness; it is a way to cope with and even transcend suffering. A cheerful heart is good medicine, and lightens the weight of our burdens.

We might shed tears not only from grief but also from overwhelming happiness. Laughter and tears are not always straightforward signals of joy and sadness. In fact, extreme emotions can flip our usual responses. As William Blake writes:

“Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps.”

William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Our modern age, dominated by relentless productivity and constant busyness, is indeed a tragicomic reality. We convince ourselves that our daily pursuits of money, prestige, and status are serious and meaningful. Yet, this frantic chase is often little more than a distraction from the true Great Work: the journey of knowing oneself.

Many of us fill our days with endless activity to mask our anxiety. This busyness becomes a way of running away from ourselves. By replacing deep emotional experiences with constant chatter, work, or ceaseless activity, we tend to grow emptier and lonelier.

Kierkegaard writes:

“Of all ridiculous things in the world what strikes me as the most ridiculous of all is being busy in the world, to be a man quick to his meals and quick to his work. So when, at the crucial moment, I see a fly settle on such a businessman’s nose, or he is bespattered by a carriage which passes him by in even greater haste, or the drawbridge is raised, or a tile falls from the roof and strikes him dead, I laugh from the bottom of my heart. And who could help laughing? For what do they achieve, these busy botchers? Are they not like the housewife who, in confusion at the fire in her house, saved the fire-tongs? What else do they salvage from the great fire of life?”

Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or

A random event, like a falling roof tile, can end everything, showing that all our rushing was for nothing. People caught in this frenzy fail to build anything meaningful or of lasting value. Like the panicked housewife who saved a small metal tool while her home burned down, they cling to the trivial and lose the essential. In the end, they are left with nothing of true value.

Regrets of the Dying, Unlived Life, Persona

It is easy to become lost in the routines of daily life, striving to please others and perform the roles expected of us. Only when we face death do our social masks shatter, revealing who we truly are for, perhaps, the first time. But often there is nothing but a void. By then, it is too late to embark on the journey of self-discovery, for the Grim Reaper has come to claim us.

In her book The Top Five Regrets of The Dying, Bronnie Ware writes that the most common regret expressed by those nearing death is: “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.” As people approach the end of their lives, they often speak not of deep regret over what they did, but of what they failed to do—of dreams left unpursued and potential unrealised. Psychologically, this can be understood as an expression of the unlived life. It reflects a life overly identified with the persona, the mask one wears to meet collective expectations, at the expense of the Self, the totality of who one truly is. Carl Jung writes:

“One could say, with a little exaggeration, that the persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is.”

Carl Jung, C.W. Vol 9.1: Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

When we ask the question, “Who are you?” people tend to respond in two distinct ways. One replies by naming his name, family background, profession, or hobbies—thus identifying himself through his social roles. The other falls silent, slightly unsettled by the realisation of just how profound the question really is.

As the end-of-life approaches, the illusion of outer success fades. What remains is the clear realisation of a missed chance to know oneself. If you stayed true to yourself, you remain at peace; if not, deep regret sets in.

We must cultivate an authentic relationship with our own mortality. Rather than seeing death as something distant, we should recognise it as an essential part of our being—always present, shaping our very existence. To deny death, to treat it as something that happens only to others, leads to inauthenticity, conformity, and distraction. But if we face our mortality, we can focus on what truly matters.

Change is difficult because we are creatures of habit. Even changes we have consciously planned in daily life are often resisted. Though we may understand that birth and death are two sides of the same coin, the real challenge lies in accepting our personal mortality. To accept death like birth, as part of life, is to become truly alive.

Archetypal Images of the Fool

Before exploring the relationship between Death and the Fool, let us first look at the different types of fools. While the archetype of the Fool—like any archetype—is in itself unrepresentable, we come to know its patterns and behaviours through its various archetypal images: buffoon, court jester, trickster, clown, joker, wise fool, natural fool, and holy fool.

Buffoon

Fool from Bernardus Silvestris of Tours’ work Cosmographia c. 1140

We usually use the word “fool” as an insult to refer to a simpleton or stupid person. However, one should not curse the fool, but rather learn to live by his rule. Sometimes we only play the fool, just to make others laugh.

We may view the buffoon as the most outwardly ridiculous of the fool figures. He offers no insight but performs slapstick comedy—pies in the face, slipping on banana peels, and the like. He dances absurdly, pulls silly faces, tickles or plays peekaboo. This is humour without reflection. Even infants laugh at it, suggesting it is among the most primal forms of comedy. The playful art of buffoonery is found across all cultures.

Court Jester

Laughing jester, unknown Early Netherlandish artist (possibly Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen), circa 1500

The greatest fools, however, are often cleverer than those who laugh at them. These professional or licensed fools—such as the court jester—stand with one foot in entertainment and the other in dangerous truth. Because he was considered a fool, the jester was allowed to speak truths that no one else dared voice to the king. To achieve this, he used humour, satire, riddles, and songs to make harsh realities palatable, skilfully disguising them with wit.

Since his words were deemed “foolish”, he was safe. But often, these were the most intelligent or honest words spoken at the royal court. He was granted legal license by the king to act as a fool, giving him a special protected status. To make this privilege known, the court jester imitated the king’s crown and sceptre with a cap ‘n’ bells and a fool’s sceptre. This freedom allowed him to operate outside the usual rules of hierarchy. Wrapped in performance, he could mock nobility, challenge the king, and expose hypocrisy—effectively reversing the roles in society.

The jester is a liminal entity: both an insider and an outsider. As the cultural anthropologist Victor Turner states:

“Liminal entities are neither here nor there, they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial.”

Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure

The jester is neither a servant nor fully a noble—he is both and neither. This paradoxical nature aligns him closely with the Trickster archetype. While not exactly the same, they belong to the same species.

Trickster

Till Eulenspiegel. Wissembourg Poster c. 1880 – Anonymous

The trickster and social outsider Eulenspiegel represents the cunning peasant who outsmarts townsfolk and tradesmen. His name means “owl mirror.” While owls often symbolise wisdom, in medieval Europe they were seen as bad omens. His wisdom lies in holding up a mirror to society, exposing hypocrisy by reflecting people’s foolishness, and forcing them, willy-nilly, to confront their shadow: the unknown or neglected parts of themselves. The best way to see your shadow is when someone else reflects it back to you.

“The trickster is a collective shadow figure, a summation of all the inferior traits of character in individuals.”

Carl Jung, C.W. Vol. 9.1: Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

Clown

Another professional fool is the clown, whose origin was influenced by 16^th century Italian Commedia dell’arte. Harlequin, a clever servant and trickster figure, takes his name from a demon in French folklore associated with the Wild Hunt. He is contrasted with Pierrot, the melancholic, sensitive figure who became the original white-faced sad clown archetype.

The colourful circus clown emerged in 18^th-century England, known for physical comedy and acrobatics. Clowns often blend humour and tragedy, highlighting the paradox of the human condition. Like Kierkegaard’s clown, who warns the audience that a fire has broken out backstage but is mistaken for a joke and met with applause—so the world ends, amid the laughter of those who confuse tragedy with comedy.

The exaggerated smile of the clown masks deep inner pain. This is known as the sad clown paradox: those who make others laugh often struggle with sadness, depression or trauma. Humour becomes a defence mechanism, concealing emotional wounds. This tension is reflected in the clown’s dual image—at times endearing, at others terrifying—as seen in the rise of the “evil clown” in horror and literature.

There are also sacred clowns, such as the Heyoka of the Sioux people of North America, who are always doing the opposite of those around them: saying “goodbye” when greeting someone, laughing in moments of sorrow, or riding a horse backwards. These contrarian behaviours are meant to challenge social norms, reflecting the community’s shadow side. The Heyoka are both feared and respected, for their role is sacred. They are similar to shamans or medicine-men. Only those who had a dream or vision of the “thunder beings” can become Heyoka, granting them great power but also great responsibility, for if they neglect their duties, they risk being struck down by the thunder beings.

Joker

A joker is someone who tells jokes or amuses others. But the joker is more than a comic figure. Introduced into playing cards in the United States during the mid-19^th century, he serves as a wild card, able to become any card in the deck. He exists outside of any fixed social role, capable of disrupting the natural order of the game, much like the court jester, who could invert hierarchies, mock the powerful and challenge the king.

The joker pops up unexpectedly, here and there, always elusive, as if he were saying, “Now you see me, now you don’t!” He is always making us wonder, “Where is the joker?” The joker lives in a liminal realm between the magical and the physical, being both playful and dangerous.

Over time, the Joker evolved into the villain archetype, embodying humour and chaotic fun, albeit in a maniacal way. He is tricksterish and has the wit of the court jester. His key trait is hyper-sanity, a heightened awareness of reality that is nevertheless perceived as madness. The Joker exists to solve what he deems a wide-spread social problem—the lack of awareness of the grand joke of life, and he thereby turns reality upside down and challenges the conventional notions of good and evil.

Wise Fool

Twelfth Night. Feste, The Clown, Mr Courtice Pounds – Charles A. Buchel

The great secret of the fool is that he is no fool at all, for he sees the truth that no one else dares to face, and thereby becomes wise. This paradox is seen in the figure of the “wise fool.” Socrates, for example, claimed that his wisdom arose from the awareness of his own ignorance. The wise fool hides wisdom behind a façade of madness. Such a person, identified as a fool by others, ultimately proves to be the true bearer of wisdom. Foolishness is the necessary compensation for wisdom; there is no true wisdom without folly.

Shakespeare’s professional fool Feste reflects on this role when he says to himself:

“Come on, wit, give me something good to say now! Those people who think they’re witty often prove to be fools. And I’m sure that I’m not witty, so I might pass for a wise man… Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit.”

Shakespeare, Feste from Twelfth Night

Madness, Wisdom, Folly

The fool figure seems to combine madness, wisdom, and folly. In Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Zarathustra visits a crowded marketplace, where a tightrope walker is about to perform. Addressing the crowd, he proclaims, “Man is a rope tied between beast and Übermensch—a rope over an abyss.” But the people fail to understand him and think he is mad. Meanwhile, the tightrope walker begins his work. At the midpoint, a buffoon appears, teasing and chasing him. The buffoon then leaps over the man, causing him to lose his balance and fall to his death.

Just as Zarathustra, Nietzsche’s inner wise old man, appears as an unannounced attraction, so does the buffoon. The tightrope walker moves between life and death, wisdom and folly, Übermensch and animal. But in the end, foolishness and death win, because there is no harmony between the opposites. This imbalance is reflected in the proclamation of the man-God which causes ego-inflation that leads to a fall; it aligns with the natural law of enantiodromia, where a one-sided attitude in consciousness eventually triggers its unconscious opposite to restore psychic balance.

Physical Deformity as Divine Gift

The dwarf deity Bes as depicted on a relief at Dendera

Those with physical deformities were often not regarded as cursed, but rather as touched by God, a belief that can be traced back to ancient Egypt, where dwarfs were revered as bearers of divine gifts. Owing to this sacred status, individuals with physical anomalies were often chosen to be professional fools in royal houses. Court dwarfs, for instance, made the king appear much larger and hence more powerful. Their appearance provoked both amusement and awe, evoking mythological beings such as the dwarfs of Germanic folklore (earth-dwelling spirits and master blacksmiths), as well as elves, kobolds, gnomes, and leprechauns from across European traditions.

Natural Fool

It was thought that those with physical deformities were also mentally deficient, which was often not the case. This confusion led to their association with the natural fool, a person who is naïve, childlike, or mentally impaired.

The word fool derives from the Latin follis, meaning “bellows” or “windbag”. The idea is that a fool is an empty-headed person whose words carry little weight, like air. Hence the association with terms like airhead, halfwit, or blockhead. But just as bellows feed a fire with oxygen to keep it alive and burning, the fool has a way of igniting something in us.

If there isn’t some fire in our life, we feel absolutely empty. It is what gives us thumos, the inner fire that drives us to do what is right. Only such fire can free us from our massa confusa, the tangled inner chaos that keeps us anxious, paralysed and oblivious of our inner conflicts. This darkness must be burned in order for new life to emerge, for out of the darkest depths arises the brightest light.

“Who in this mortal life would see

The Light that is beyond all light,

Beholds it best by faring forth

Into the darkness of the Night.”

Angelus Silesius, The Cherubinic Wanderer

The phoenix is reborn through fire. From the harshest reality, from senseless situations, from the deepest pain, resurrection is born. We know that life always finds a way through every situation. Although it is hard to recognise the light, it can come when everything is dark. To rise again is to not let hope fade.

The natural fool typically follows his instincts rather than social norms or rules. What makes him unique is that he is unconscious of his folly; he does not pretend to be foolish, but is perceived as such by society, often because of his unconventional behaviour or failure to conform to social expectations. Since he is considered too “simple” to lie, he often speaks uncomfortable or dangerous truths that many dare not utter. The professional fool imports the natural fool’s behaviour into his performance.

Fairy tales often portray the natural fool as someone dismissed as a good-for-nothing, laughed at, and ridiculed; yet he is the one who, against all odds, marries the princess and inherits the kingdom. He has complete faith in the process of life and throws himself wholeheartedly into everything he encounters. In doing so, he redeems not only himself but all those he meets. The fool dares to look where no one else will, rushing in where angels fear to tread. He follows the alchemical maxim, “in filth it will be found”, for it is in the most neglected places that the philosophers’ stone lies hidden. What you need most is found where you least want to look.

In the German fairy tale, The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was, the archetypal fool appears as young man who cannot feel fear. Determined to understand what it means to shudder, he sets out on a journey. He spends three nights in a haunted castle, facing ghosts, evil spirits, and supernatural challenges, yet he remains unfazed. He finds the treasure, redeems the castle, and marries the princess. “That is all very well”, says the fool, “but I still do not know how to shudder.” In the end, his wife, tired of his complaining, pours a bucket of cold water and fish over him—the fish wriggle on his body, and at last, he shudders.

Holy Fool

A God´s Fool Sitting On the Snow – Vasily Surikov

The purity and honesty of the natural fool shows something holy about him. This leads us to another type: the holy fool, well portrayed in Dostoevsky’s novel The Idiot. The protagonist, Prince Myshkin, returns to Russia after spending time in a sanatorium receiving treatment for epilepsy and “idiocy” (a historical medical term for neurological disorders). His honesty, innocence, and open-heartedness lead many to mistake him for a fool, sharply contrasting with the corrupt, egocentric, and materialistic society around him. Yet when people start to talk to him, they realise that he possesses deep wisdom and represents the Christian ideal of love.

In Eastern Orthodox Christianity, the yurodivy are figures of divine madness. They represent what St. Paul called “fools for Christ”, willingly enduring humiliation, radical poverty, suffering and even death in order to follow the path of truth and love, regardless of what the others say. Rejecting worldly possessions in favour of a spiritual and ascetic life, the holy fool becomes unstoppable, and thus profoundly threatening to the powers and authorities of this world. The holy fool “dies to this world” and gives birth to divine truth.

The holy fool, natural fool and wise fool seem to be the closest expressions of the original pattern and behaviour of the archetype, the Fool as precursor to salvation, transformation and individuation (the soul’s journey towards wholeness, in which the ego aligns itself with the Self).

Jung writes:

“There is a mystical fool in me that proved to be stronger than all my science.”

Carl Jung, Unpublished Letter (1936). From Gerhard Adler’s Dynamics of the Self

Self-Transforming Machine Elves

Numerous studies, anecdotal accounts and works—such as Rick Strassman’s DMT: The Spirit Molecule—have documented consistent encounters with entities during DMT experiences. Among these are beings that appear as clowns, jesters, imps, or elves—often described as childish, mischievous, toy-like, mechanical, or cartoonish. Terrence McKenna famously described them as “self-transforming machine elves.” They embody a combination of archetypes, such as the trickster, the fool, and the eternal child. The entities are often perceived as “more real than real”, and one frequently receives messages or insights from them.

These altered states of consciousness may induce ego death, where the sense of “I” dissolves and one merges with a larger whole, allowing contact with the archetypes of the collective unconscious. This experience can lead either to enlightenment or to “bad trips.” There is no shortcut to self-realisation.

The Purpose of the Fool

The Festival of Fools – After Pieter Bruegal the Elder

The fool is part of us, part of the unconscious. When we ignore him, we neglect something essential in ourselves. The purpose of the fool’s existence seems to be tied to the psychological well-being of a culture. Foolish behaviour, in all its forms across the world, is often marked by shocking or astonishing antics. Through this, the fool draws attention to what has been forgotten or cast aside. By exposing what society represses, he helps restore our one-sidedness and moves us towards psychic wholeness. In this way, the fool appears as an organic response to the psychological needs of the community.

On a more earthy level, perhaps it is simply necessary to poke fun at ourselves and our established social structures. Mankind has often become overly absorbed in the lofty pursuits of intellect, power, and status, while neglecting the humble, daily, earthy side of life. Dostoevsky writes in Notes from Underground: “To be too conscious is an illness—a real thorough-going illness.” This excessive introspection paralyses action and breeds self-loathing.

When we are too detached from reality, the fool comes to our rescue, grounding us again. The word human comes from the Latin humus, which means earth. To be human is to be humble, and down-to-earth. Within this lies a rich source of nourishment that heals us. This forgotten element must be restored. The fool does not ponder about the meaning or purpose of life; he simply lives it.

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are the classic duo of ego and shadow in Western literature. One is lofty, stuck in the world of imagination which he mistakes for reality; the other is earthy and grounds him. The two are opposites, yet they need each other, for together they become whole.

The Fool Dances with Death

Fool and Death. Copy of Holbein’s Great Dance of Death by David Deuchar

The Dance of Death was originally shown as a chain of people from all walks of life dancing with Death. But in the 16^th century, the artist Hans Holbein the Younger reimagined it as Death visiting each person individually—king, peasant, and everyone in between—dragging them away in a dance accompanied by music. This came to define the whole genre, inspiring many later artists to create their own versions.

Here, the fool holds a special place among Death’s victims. Death takes up the fool’s own instrument, the bagpipe, a wind-filled instrument. There is something in the fool that Death appears to admire, something he seeks to imitate. Death, too, likes to play tricks. He does not always come as grim and serious, but often laughing, and dancing, mimicking the fool. The fool dances with Death while holding a deflated windbag, as if about to strike him with it. His finger pressed to his lips hints at mischief or empty-mindedness. It is as though he mocks Death, challenging fate.

In another version of Holbein’s Dance of Death, Death not only leads the dance but also wears the fool’s costume, complete with cap ‘n’ bells. Death himself becomes the fool. The fool appears half-reluctant, half-entranced.

The fool from Basel’s dance of death by Hieronymus Hess

The relationship of death and the fool is ambiguous and paradoxical, based both upon their similarities and their opposition. At times, Death plays the fool and sometimes seizes him; they are alternately allies and enemies. Both laugh at human pretensions and the illusion of control over life, bringing down the proud and powerful whenever possible. Just as the fool often outwits wiser men, Death ultimately claims all living beings. Death’s unsettling grin mirrors the fool’s vacant smile or raucous laughter. Together, they embody two universal conditions that many prefer to ignore: mortality and folly. As “truth-tellers”, they show the hard truths hiding beneath everyday life.

The Lady and the Fool (left) The Lady of Death Masquerading as a Fool (right) – Hans Sebald Beham

In the first of two images by the 16^th century painter Sebald Beham, the fool stands beside a lady, symbolising attachment to worldly beauty. In the second image, the fool is replaced by death. The inscription above reads, “Death abolishes all beauty in man.” This contrast shows that death and folly are intertwined, perhaps even indistinguishable.

The fool’s joy in life dares to challenge Death’s dominion. Though Death always triumphs, it is never without a fierce struggle to overcome one of his most stubborn victims. For the fool embodies life, not death. He laughs at Death, and Death laughs back, but the fool still dances along the track.

Union of Opposites and Eternal Now

Copy of Holbein’s Great Dance of Death made by somebody pretending to be John Bewick, for purposes of caricature

The fool dancing with death represents the union of opposites, life and death, wisdom and folly—a characteristic of the Self. Like music, prayer, and meditation, a dance has no destination. It does not aim at a goal in time; it is done purely for its own sake. In the art of dancing, you are dancing to dance. This is genuine play, something done just for the joy of it, and not for some ulterior motive.

We need not constantly “kill time” or feel we have “wasted time”, treating it as an enemy in our insatiable striving for progress. Until we acknowledge this restlessness, the root of our anxiety, we will never learn what it means to be alive, to really live. To stop doing, and just be.

The truth is that the present moment is the only reality. We should focus on being with existence, and doing our duty, day by day. For we suffer more in imagination than in reality. The fool lives in the eternal now, for the past has passed and the future is yet to come. Rather than wishing things were different, he accepts them as they are. In this way, life will flow well. As Christ says, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Dance of Bliss and Maya

Shiva performing Nataraja. Bronze sculpture 12th century. Kolkata, Indian museum

In the image of Nataraja, Shiva as the cosmic dancer performs the Dance of Bliss. Here, once again, we encounter the paradox of the union of opposites. The dance is full of dynamic movement, and his hair flows wildly, yet his face remains serene and calm—capturing stillness in motion, order within chaos.

In one hand he holds a drum, by whose spiritual sounds the universe is created; in another, he holds fire, which destroys everything. A third hand makes the “fear-not” pose, offering protection, while the fourth hand signifies concealment and points towards his raised foot, symbolising the path to moksha or liberation from samsara, the cycle of birth and rebirth. His other foot crushes the demon of avidyā (“not seeing” or ignorance), a manifestation of maya, the magical veil of illusion that casts a spell over the world, making the transient world appear ultimately real.

The word illusion derives from the Latin ludere, meaning “to play.” The world is like a play in which all things dance between appearance and truth, an eternal game of hide-and-seek.

Like someone who thinks a play on stage is real, we too are caught in maya when we see the physical world as ultimate reality, forgetting the deeper spiritual truth that we are souls having human experiences. Awakening means seeing through the play, realising that the actor is God in disguise, and choosing to play along consciously.

Lila (Divine Play)

The fool lives in lila, a Sanskrit word meaning “divine play.” In Hinduism, Brahman is the ultimate, infinite and unchanging reality underlying all existence, beyond form and comprehension. Since God is complete and lacks nothing, there is no purpose or necessity for creation. Instead, the universe arises spontaneously out of joy and freedom. The world becomes the stage on which this divine play unfolds, with life’s ups and downs woven into the cosmic drama.

This spontaneous joyful playfulness is embodied in Krishna as the divine child, who is engaged in charming and mischievous acts, enchanting everyone with his flute and performing miracles. His actions have no fixed goals or purposes; they arise purely from lila. These acts transcend conventional morality, existing beyond good and evil. Nietzsche writes:

“Gods delight in making fun: even where sacred actions are concerned, it seems they cannot stop laughing.”

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

This is no mockery, but an expression of divine play. Even in the most serious or sacred moments, the gods may laugh and remain playful.

We may find sacredness in everyday human interactions, for each person, in his own way, reflects the divine. Chesterton writes:

“And now a great thing in the street

Seems any human nod,

Where move in strange democracy

The million masks of God.”

G.K. Chesterton, Gold Leaves

The Great Cosmic Joke

Fool’s Cap Map of the World (circa 1580) – Unknown

Life is like a game, and we shouldn’t take it too seriously. The first rule of the social game is: it is serious. Or, this game is not a game. Consequently, society tends to resist any suggestion that what we do might not be entirely serious. Alan Watts states:

“The standpoint of the fool is that all social institutions are games. He sees the whole world as game-playing, and that’s why when people take their games seriously and put on stern and pious expressions, the fool gets the giggles. Because he knows it’s all a game.”

Alan Watts, Lecture: The Joker

The art of the fool is paradoxical. He reveals that life is a game—of play, masks and illusion—yet he keeps the show going. He unveils just enough not to ruin the game. Conscious of playing within the illusion, he still plays along. Why this is remains a mystery. This is the great cosmic joke.

A game is not merely a trivial pastime, for it is, in essence, life itself. Just like the artist becomes wholly absorbed in the act of creation, or the actor loses himself in the unfolding of a role, so too do we become immersed in the drama of existence. The play of the supreme Self is like a passing illusion, as if God dreamt reality into being, and like a great actor, makes you forget it’s all a show, persuading you that it’s real and keeping you on the edge of your seat.

It is natural for people to take life seriously at times. But when the fool sees someone acting too serious, thinking himself extremely important, he can’t help but laugh. He knows that the more serious one is, the bigger the surprise—and the louder the laughter—when he realises it wasn’t serious after all. Then he shouts, “The joke’s on you!” implying that you never even realised you were the target of the joke all along.

Lovecraft writes:

“I cannot help seeing beyond the tinsel of humour, and recognising the pitiful basis of jest—the world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind.”

H.P. Lovecraft, In Defence of Dagon

In one of his most enigmatic sayings, Heraclitus wrote, “Aiōn is a child at play, playing a game with stones; the kingdom belongs to a child.” The term aiōn originally meant “vital force” or “life breath”, later came to mean “lifespan”, and eventually evolved into a dynamic or cosmic principle—Aiōn becoming a deity associated with eternal and cyclical time.

Human life, in its entirety, is like a child at play, and the divine authority ultimately belongs to this child. This echoes the saying in the Book of Matthew, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

While playing a game is unpredictable, and ever-changing, it is still guided by certain rules, strategies, and logic. Similarly, although life may sometimes feel chaotic, it unfolds according to an underlying order, reflecting Heraclitus’s view of the union of opposites in nature.

The Fool’s Journey

Symbolic Transformations of The Fool in Tarot – Eternalised. From The Psychology of The Fool

In Tarot, which is also known as the Fool’s journey, the fool is the first of the twenty-two Major Arcana cards, and is assigned the number zero. The journey to self-knowledge begins not with wisdom, but with folly. In the Red Book, Jung states, “The soul demands your folly; not your wisdom.”

The fool initiates us into the great mystery of life. Throughout this journey, he encounters different archetypes that are reflections of our inner world. By recognising the images that we project onto outer reality as mirror reflections of our own psyche, we come to know ourselves.

The fool walks happily, carrying no heavy burden. He has only a few belongings in his bindle, a simple sack tied to a stick, associated with the vagabond, wanderer, or pilgrim. Earlier cards depict the fool alternately as a beggar, madman, wild-man of the woods, or court jester. The fool marks the start of a new beginning, full of potential. The sun is shining brightly. Symbolically, day represents consciousness. Just as the rooster signals the coming dawn, the fool expresses a new awareness that is still hidden in the darkness of the unconscious.

The fool also holds a white rose, symbolising purity and innocence—qualities of the puer aeternus or eternal youth. The wind blows on his clothes, making him as light as a feather. He is lost in his thoughts of all the fantasies and wonderful adventures ahead and has his head above the clouds. A dog, representing his instinct, tries to warn him that he is about to fall off a cliff into the water.

When the fool falls, he does not die; instead, he begins his journey into the unknown, descending into the depths of the unconscious. The fall serves as a necessary compensation for the fool’s one-sidedness; he must become earthier, more anchored in reality.

Falling is a common motif in dreams, often expressing a compensation for ego inflation, which causes one to overestimate one’s importance and power. Pride comes before a fall. In an ancient Greek fable, Thales of Miletus was said to have been so absorbed in observing the stars that he fell into a well. One cannot truly comprehend the heavens above without first understanding what lies beneath one’s feet. As above, so below.

The Fool as Paradox

Laughing Jester – Unknown (left), Prince Myshkin – Ilya Glazunov (right)

Earlier we said that the fool helps to ground us in reality, but now he himself must be grounded. This is the paradox. The fool represents both the elements of air and earth.

We might say that the professional fool—who pretends to be foolish, but is in fact clever, spontaneous and quick—embodies air. Conversely, the natural fool, foolish by nature, is more instinctual and rooted in the earth.

But we could just as easily reverse this: the professional fool, tasked with bringing lofty people down to earth, takes on a practical, grounding role, while the natural fool drifts through life, oblivious and unburdened, light as air and detached from worldly concerns.

Paradox is the vital water of life our modern world desperately needs. We will go to almost any length to avoid its painful tension, but in doing so, we trap ourselves in meaningless contradiction. While suffering with meaning can be endured, meaningless suffering is unbearable. Contradiction is barren and destructive, yet paradox is fertile and creative. It is a powerful embracing of reality. Moving from opposition, which breeds conflict, to paradox, which is sacred and unites, requires a leap in consciousness.

The Transcendent Experience

To find peace one must recognise the conflict of opposites as part of life’s natural rhythm. Life is a river that simply flows. Like waves, we rise and fall. The awakened mind becomes detached, like a non-judgmental observer, understanding that neither happiness nor sadness will last. Like the turning of the wheel of fortune, life moves in cycles—at times you rise, and at others you fall.

Suffering begins when we cling to certainty, always seeking clear answers and rejecting opposing views. But when we stop seeing contradiction and start recognising paradox, something within us begins to heal. When the opposites are united, bliss arises. This is the true transcendent experience. Western traditions tend to emphasise unity (all is one), while Eastern traditions incline towards emptiness. Both are valid; they express the same transcendent truth, seen from different angles. The alchemists called it the unus mundus—the one world. The Gnostics, the pleroma—the fullness of being. It is the reality that unites all opposites, the ultimate sacred marriage.

The Fool Meets Death

A little more than halfway through his journey, the Fool meets Death, shown as a skeleton, what remains when we die and our body decays. Death wears black armour. Black, the absence of light, evokes night, which in nature brings darkness, danger, and fear of the unknown. Likewise, death is perceived as a passage into darkness, the end of visible life. The card bears the number 13, long considered unlucky in Western culture. Yet Death also rides a white horse and carries a black banner adorned with a white lotus. In alchemy, the nigredo or blackness, leads to the albedo or whiteness. Mortification gives way to purification; darkness transforms into light.

In Irish mythology and Arthurian tales, a knight is often confronted by an unknown warrior who demands he lay his neck on the block. If the young man has the courage to obey this fateful command, the mysterious figure casts down his axe and lifts his visor, revealing himself as a saviour of shining countenance. If one can withstand the trial of initiation, one is transformed and reborn.

Death is not an end, but a transition into another existence. The death of the old self and birth of a new one occur when we overcome a major trial in life and acquire the “treasure hard to attain” in the form of a higher level of consciousness. Only that which can destroy itself is truly alive. As the saying goes, “If you die before you die, then when you die, you don’t die.”

In the presence of Death, there are four figures with different postures, each reflecting a different response to death within ourselves. Lying on the ground is the fallen king—a common motif in alchemy, where the king is ritually killed, because he has grown old, sick or impotent. The kingdom (a symbol of the Self) cannot flourish under stagnant rule. As the saying goes, “The king is dead, long live the king!”—the old must die for new life to rise.

In contrast, the bishop stands before death with his hands clasped in prayer, representing faith, humility, and spiritual acceptance. The young maiden, however, collapses or faints, and has her head turned away. She symbolises grief or denial, and is unable to look at Death directly. Meanwhile, the child stares with awe and innocence, seemingly unafraid. He represents the puer aeternus, pointing towards vitality, renewal, and growth.

Conclusion

Fool and Death. Copy of Holbein’s Great Dance of Death – Janez Vajkard Valvasor.

There is much to learn from the image of the fool dancing with death. It reminds us to remember our mortality and not take our persona too seriously, but instead to seek our true self. To be like the fool who redeems everything he touches, and thus becomes the precursor to the saviour. To recognise the wisdom that comes from admitting our own folly; to understand that what we most need is hidden where we least want to look; to live in the eternal now and to see that life is lila—a mystery, a divine play, a great cosmic joke—and yet to play along and see the beauty in it. And finally, to embrace paradox over contradiction: life and death, wisdom and folly, play and seriousness. For it is through holding the tension of these opposites, on the journey of self-realisation, that we become aligned with the Self, complete the Great Work, and attain bliss.

The Fool Dances with Death

While Death may appear at times terrifying and at other times playful, those he summons almost always tremble with fear. All except one: the Fool. He joins the dance with a smile, laughing at the absurdity of it all. To him, the world is a theatre, and all men and women merely actors, each wearing different social masks to play their roles in society.

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The Buddhabrot: The God-Image of the Universe

There seems to be an ancient blueprint hidden in all things. A memory of wholeness. The unity that existed before the world inevitably fractured into duality.

This post is a collaboration of Dr. Harry Shirley and Eternalised.

Dr. Harry Shirley has a PhD in organic chemistry and research experience at the University of Oxford. Now an independent scholar, he holds a personal passion for Jungian psychology.

Citation:
Shirley, H. J. (2025). The Buddhabrot and the Unus Mundus: A Qualitative Exploration of Fractal Patterns and Archetypal Symbols. International Journal of Jungian Studies, 1(aop), 1-34.

Table of contents

Unity and Duality

The Creation and the Expulsion from the Paradise – Giovanni di Paolo

In the Book of Genesis, the Garden of Eden symbolises unity, a state of eternal bliss where there is no duality, and thus no conflict and suffering. The moment Adam and Eve are tempted by the serpent to eat of the fruit of the forbidden tree, they gained knowledge of the opposites: good and evil, and became like “gods”. They transgressed a sacrosanct barrier which led to their expulsion from paradise. This incident led to the fall of man into the world of duality, where the opposites clash together.

Myths are not just stories or superstition, but perennial and timeless patterns that express fundamental aspects of the human condition.

In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, the English poet and visionary artist William Blake expresses this duality well, writing: “Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human experience.” And Swiss psychiatrist and psychologist Carl Jung states:

“[M]an’s real life consists of a complex of inexorable opposites – day and night, birth and death, happiness and misery, good and evil. We are not even sure that one will prevail against the other, that good will overcome evil, or joy defeat pain. Life is a battleground. It always has been, and always will be; and if it were not so, existence would come to an end.”

Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols

Felix culpa

The Temptation and Fall of Adam and Eve – William Blake

Catholic tradition describes the fall from Paradise as the felix culpa, the happy fault or fall.

Psychologically, every infant is born integrated, in a paradisaical state (symbolising original wholeness), whereby one is completely submerged in the unconscious. This is primal unconsciousness, a state of non-differentation, in which we are not yet aware of our potential, which lies undiscovered and undeveloped. It symbolises the principle of individuation in the state of unrealised potential.

The infant’s individuality is in complete identification with the mother, who provides protection, comfort and nourishment. As the infant grows up and adapts to the world, he develops an ego (a sense of “I”), and undergoes disintegration: a necessary fall from wholeness in order to discover and experience our own individuality. This can be likened to the proverbial eating of the fruit from the forbidden tree (the felix culpa), a natural part of psychological maturation.

Nature seems to demand that we leave the mother and face the fire of life, a theme portrayed in many myths as the hero’s journey. Only then can we become our unique selves. It is as if each of us were born to fulfill a soul-essence that holds the meaning and purpose of our lives. Something like a “fall” is necessary and appears to be the sine qua non of self-realisation. Only through self-realisation can we be reintegrated, a lifelong task of reconciling the opposites that divide us.

It is not the light element alone that does the healing; the place where light and dark begin to touch is the most profound religious experience we can have in life. The goal is not perfection, but wholeness.

One is not born enlightened; rather, one must pass through the strife and suffering inherent in duality, and regain that paradisaical wholeness (heaven, nirvana, return to the Tao, etc.), but on a higher level of consciousness.

In short, we are born integrated, we disintegrate, and must reintegrate.

“Only here, in life on earth, where the opposites clash together, can the general level of consciousness be raised. That seems to be man’s metaphysical task.”

Carl Jung: Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Unus Mundus

The Macrocosm and the Microcosm. Frontispiece from Robert Fludd’s Utriusque cosmi historia (1617-1621)

The medieval alchemists and philosophers, particularly the 16^thcentury alchemist Gerhard Dorn, used the term unus mundus (one world) to describe the unified, underlying reality from which both the physical (earth) and the spiritual (heaven) worlds emerge. It is the ultimate hieros gamos (sacred marriage), which unites all opposites.

Carl Jung described the unus mundus as the underlying reality that unites both psyche and matter. Even though this is a metaphysical speculation, we can still get glimpses of this deeper reality. One such example being synchronicity.

Synchronicity

Jung collaborated with the Nobel prize-winning physicist Wolfgang Pauli on the concept of synchronicity, culminating in the joint volume The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche. They came to understand synchronicity as an acausal principle that transcends, space, time, and causality. Later, Jung’s essay Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle was published separately. In this work, he distinguishes between two key ideas: acausal orderedness and creation in time.

Acausal orderedness simply refers to patterns or orders in nature that are not caused, but simply are. For example, light travels approximately at 300,000 kilometres per second (186,000 miles per second). It is simply a law of nature. It is not caused by anything, it is just so. This is an example of acausal orderedness in physics.

Synchronicity would be the same thing, but an act of creation in time, something new happens in time. It is created on the spot, and is a unique event which will very likely not repeat itself. Synchronicity occurs when an inner image appears in the outer world, as if the boundaries between psyche and matter momentarily collapsed and became one. It is not just acausal, but also a meaningful coincidence of events that appears to be linked to our inner development and is in some way dependant on it.

To give an example of this, Jung once treated a highly rational young woman who was “psychologically inaccessible” and rejected the idea of the unconscious. At a crucial moment, she dreamt of being given a golden scarab. As she recounted the dream, a tapping noise came from the window behind Jung. Turning around, he caught a scarabaeid beetle—a rose chafer, the closest match to a golden scarab in the region—attempting to enter the room. Handing it to her, Jung said, “Here is your scarab.”

The experience broke through her intellectual resistance and helped her get in touch with her feelings, linking her dream world to waking life. Her ego died, and gave birth to a new self. This experience connects with the scarab as an important Egyptian symbol in the form of the archetype of rebirth and transformation. Thus, we see how synchronicity could be a manifestation of the deepest layer of reality where psyche and matter collide and become indistinguishable.

Mandala and the Self

Another manifestation of the unus mundus is the mandala (Sanskrit for circle), a sacred geometric symbol used for spiritual purposes and an instrument of meditation on the sacred wholeness of the world. For Jung, the mandala is an archetypal image which symbolises the wholeness of the Self (God-image or total personality). As a rule, it always contains a centre around which the rest is ordered, symbolising the Self as the organising principle of the psyche.

Jung writes:

“Only gradually did I discover what the mandala really is: “Formation, Transformation, Eternal Mind’s eternal recreation” … This insight gave me stability, and gradually my inner peace returned. I knew that in finding the mandala as an expression of the self I had achieved what was for me the ultimate. Perhaps someone else knows more, but not I.”

Carl Jung: Memories, Dreams, Reflections

In The Way of The Dream, Jungian analyst Marie-Louise von Franz states that in most religions, there is an allusion to a divine centre from which all order and organisation stem. If we were to speculate on the origin of dreams, we might say they emerge from this very centre. It sometimes appears within the dream itself as a mandala, an inner city, a circle, a square, or some other abstract formation. At other times, it takes the form of a particular figure—such as a divine saviour child, a wise old man or woman, or a symbolic animal. All of these point towards that ultimately unknown and unknowable greater centre within the psyche.

One might say that the true journey of life is the adventure of encountering the Self within. It is something we have to explore all of our lifetime, for nobody knows what the Self in one wants. The dreams are the messages from this master-pattern that guides us throughout life.

Mandalas appear universally across cultures with consistent geometric form and symbolism. Their circularity represents eternity, unity, and the cyclical nature of life; their symmetry signifies harmony and balance; and they are often structured as a quaternity. Examples include Buddhist thangkas, Christian rose windows, Hindu yantras, Native American Medicine Wheels, and Tibetan sand mandalas. These structures not only express order, they also create it.

Jung states:

“The mandala symbolises, by its central point, the ultimate unity of all archetypes as well as of the multiplicity of the phenomenal world, and is therefore the empirical equivalent of the metaphysical concept of a unus mundus. The alchemical equivalent is the lapis [philosophers’ stone] and its synonyms, in particular the Microcosm… If mandala symbolism is the psychological [or empirical] equivalent of the unus mundus, then synchronicity is its parapsychological equivalent.”

Carl Jung, C.W. Vol. 14: Mysterium Coniunctionis

Jung observed that the psychic images of wholeness which are produced spontaneously by the unconscious are as a rule quaternities, or their multiples (8, 12, 16, etc). That is why they generally appear in times of psychic disorientation in order to compensate a chaotic state or as formulations of numinous experiences. The mandala contains a mathematical structure, a detail which made Jung realise that the unconscious somehow avails itself of the properties of whole numbers.

Numbers and Psychoid

“I… believe that from the psychological point of view at least, the sought-after borderland between physics and psychology lies in the secret of the number.”

Atom and Archetype: The Pauli/Jung Letters (1932-1958)

Besides the quantitative numbers that determine the geometric structure of mandalas, there are also qualitative numbers that convey symbolic meanings beyond mere counting. For Pythagoras, numbers were not just tools for counting or measuring, but the fundamental principle of the cosmos. It is generally believed that numbers were invented, but for Jung, it is equally possible that they were discovered.

Number represents one of the most primitive archetypes, autonomous entities with their own life, that exist within the collective unconscious. More than anything else, it serves to bring order to the chaos of appearances. Number is the archetype of order par excellence.

It is a common misunderstanding that archetypes exist only within the psyche; they also exist externally, in the world around us. Jung uses the term psychoid (soul-like) to refer to the irrepresentable nature of all archetypes, which do not fully belong in the psyche, nor in matter, but rather transcends both and yet provides a bridge to them as the unifying element, the unus mundus.

By the time Jung was too old to continue on his work on numbers, he handed his notes over to one of his closest colleagues, Marie-Louise von Franz, who wrote the notoriously difficult book, Number and Time: Reflections Leading toward a Unification of Depth Psychology and Physics.

Von Franz was struck, particularly since the discovery of quantum physics in the early 20th century, that both the mind and nature have numbers built into their very essence. She explores how mind and matter are both structured by numbers, suggesting that the inner world and outer world are connected in the unus mundus.

She dealt with the numbers 1 to 4, concluding that they reflect the deep structure of reality itself: 1 represents a state of unity, non-differentiation and potential; 2 marks the origin of conflict or duality, which brings potential into consciousness; 3 signifies the resolution of that conflict through a synthesis, and 4 means the integration of the unconscious insight into human consciousness, enabling progress towards wholeness—a return to unity on a higher level of consciousness—which remarkably symbolises the human creation myth and the purpose of life.

Archetypes

Jung emphasised that archetypes cannot be visualsed in themselves, as they exist beyond space and time. What we see are the archetypal images: the wise old man, the fool, the hero, and so on.

Archetypes may be likened to what Immanuel Kant called noumena, things as they are in themselves, independent of how we perceive them. They represent the world as it actually is, beyond the veil of appearances. However, since noumena lie outside the bounds of sensory experience, they cannot be directly known. Thus, we are forever stuck in the realm of phenomena, the world as it appears to us, shaped and limited by our senses.

Philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus and St. Augustine argue that the intellect, as the highest faculty of the soul, must discipline the lower appetites in order to attain true knowledge, contemplate eternal truths, or reach union with the divine.

Until we do so, we remain—as Plato describes—prisoners chained in a cave, only seeing the shadows of the objects on the wall and mistaking those shadows for reality. The true world lies outside the cave, symbolised by the eternal Forms or Ideas, which can only be perceived once the soul turns toward the light, toward the sun itself, the Form of the Good.

With that said, fractals may offer a visual representation of what the archetype in itself could look like.

Fractals

The Mandelbrot Set. (Wolfgang Beyer, 2013). CC BY-SA 3.0. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Fractals are shapes or patterns that become increasingly detailed by repeatedly applying the same simple rule to a shape or number. With each repetition, the pattern grows more complex, yet the overall shape remains similar to itself at every level of zoom, a quality known as self-similarity. This process is recursive, meaning the same rule is applied over and over, with each step building upon the last. This repetition can go on infinitely, generating infinite complexity, and perhaps echoing the idea of an infinite cosmos as symbolised by the mandala.

The most well-known fractal is the Mandelbrot set, first visualised and studied in detail in 1980. It was created by iterating a simple mathematical formula and has quite literally changed the way we see numbers.

Jung would likely have found the visual similarities between mathematical fractal patterns and mandalas intriguing. At the end of his life, contemplating on the idea of rebirth, Jung wrote:

“I could imagine that I might compensate for my current life in the future by again being a pioneer, but in a different field, perhaps in the natural sciences.”

Reflections on the Life and Dreams of C.G. Jung by Aniela Jaffé

Fractals are not limited to computers, they arise in the natural world—in snowflakes, blood vessels, branching trees, lightning bolts, and neural pathways in the brain. Fractal patterns also emerge in psychedelic visions, schizophrenic experiences, and spontaneous symbolic expression. Their presence in both the inner world and the outer world suggests a deeper unity between psyche and matter, which supports the idea of their relationship to the unus mundus.

This brings us to the core of Dr. Harry Shirley’s study: the Buddhabrot.

The Buddhabrot

Buddhabrot from 20.000 (purple), 100.000 (blue) and 1.000.000 (white) iterations. (UnreifeKirsche, 2008). Public Domain. Source: Wikimedia Commons

The Buddhabrot was computed in 1993 by Melinda Green, and is a unique way of visualising the Mandelbrot set. Instead of mapping static boundaries, the Buddhabrot traces the paths of points that escape to infinity. By following these paths, it creates a new, interesting image. The resulting image is radiant and has an archetypal quality. Its shape resembles classical depictions of Buddha, hence its name. Though some argue it is simply a case of pareidolia, the tendency to see familiar patterns in something random, in order to make sense of chaos.

Whatever the case may be, sacred structures, ancient symbolism (such as alchemy and Kabbalah), visionary and psychedelic art, and even the art created by schizophrenic patients all seem to echo the Buddhabrot.

Here are a few examples for illustration:

Figure 1. Stained-glass window at St. Louis Cathedral, La Rochelle (France) by Lucien-Leopold Lobin

Figure 2. Mayan Tree of Life (Mexican Archaeology by T.A. Joyce, 1914)

Figure 3. The Assyrian Tree of Life, British Museum

Figure 4. Frontispiece from *The Hermetical Triumph or, The Victorious Philosophers’ Stone* by Limojon de Saint-Didier

Figure 5. Tree of dark and light from *Studium Universale* (1695) by Valentine Weigel

Figure 6. Large engraving of the polarities of macrocosm and microcosm from *Opus medico-chymicum (1618)* by Johann Daniel Mylius

Figure 7. Unio Mystica – Johfra Bosschart

Figure 8. The mountain of adepts from Cabala: Mirror of Art and Nature (1616) by Steffan Michelspacher

Figure 9. Arbor Cabalistica (Kabbalistic Tree), ca 1625. Private Collection

Figure 10. Art from a schizophrenic patient. From Artistry of the Mentally Ill (1922) by Hans Prinzhorn (Jung’s former patient)

Figure 11. Art from schizophrenic patient. From Artistry of the Mentally Ill by Hans Prinzhorn

Figure 12. Digital design of psychedelic art – *When I was Done Dying* by ermo-ink

These are merely a few illustrative examples, more can be found in Dr. Harry’s paper. As one might expect, not every piece of art will mirror the Buddhabrot’s structure perfectly. Many do not fit the structure at all, while others align with it with uncanny precision, and most importantly, in a manner that is both meaningful and symbolic.

Let us look at a brief example.

Detail. The first sefirot: Keter (Crown). It symbolises Ein Sof (the infinite source) which is associated with the divine name *Ehyeh Asher Ahyeh* (I Am that I Am). The “third eye” is flanked by angels.

We may associate the first of the ten sefirot (Keter or Crown) with the Crown Chakra (Sahasrara), known as the thousand-petalled lotus, symbolising the culmination of the spiritual ascent, where the yogi realises “I am That” (Aham Brahmasmi), that is: “I am Brahman”, the infinite and unchanging reality.

The Crown Chakra represents the union of Shakti—the divine feminine energy manifesting as Kundalini, the coiled serpent that rises from the Root Chakra (Muladhara)—with Shiva, the essence of pure consciousness. This sacred ascent culminates in moksha (liberation from the cycle of birth and death). The hieros gamos is the classical ending of the individuation process.

New Age depiction of Sahasrara (Morgan Phoenix, 2013). CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: Wikimedia Commons

In New Age thought, chakras are associated with colours. The Crown Chakra is violet (the colour with the highest frequency and shortest wavelength in the visible spectrum), while the Root Chakra is red (lowest frequency and longest wavelength). This reflects the ascent from dense matter to subtle spirit.

Detail. *Opus medico-chymicum (1618)* by Johann Daniel Mylius. YHWH at Buddhabrot’s “third eye” flanked by angels.

When God appears to Moses, he says, “I Am That I Am.” (Exodus 3:14). The Tetragrammaton, the name of God in the Hebrew Bible, contains four letters: yod, he, waw, he (transliterated as YHWH – Yahweh). There are three different letters, with the fourth being a repetition of the second. To that extent, the essential name is a triad. But since the letter “he” is doubled, the name is also a quaternity.

Jung often cites the ancient alchemical axiom of Maria Prophetissa, “One becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as the fourth.” This means that the number three, taken as a unity related back to the primal one, becomes the fourth. This four is understood not so much to have “originated” progressively, but to have retrospectively existed from the very beginning.

A similar notion is found in Taoism:

“The Tao gave birth to One,
The One gave birth to Two,
The Two gave birth to Three,
The Three gave birth to all of creation.”

Laozi, Tao Te Ching, 42. Translation by John H. McDonald

We can also compare the Buddhabrot’s “third eye” to Tantric descriptions of the third eye, described as a luminous centre with two petals, frequently emphasising its radiance and whiteness. At the centre is the symbol of Om and a triangle, and above the centre a flame-like form.

Depiction of third eye chakra (Ajna) from A. Avalon’s *The Serpent Power* (1919)

Could the Buddhabrot be a sign of a universal image that is present in archetypal images around the world? Perhaps, like the natural laws of physics, this has always existed. We are simply revealing what has been concealed.

Modern man can easily accept that the material world might be governed by mathematics, yet resists the idea that their mind is also governed in such a way. There is still much resistance to the reality of the inner world of the unconscious, it is disregarded as unreal or nonsense—a prejudice that inevitably leads to one-sidedness and neurosis. It is an old idea that what is within is also without, what is above is also below. The microcosm reflects the macrocosm. Thus, the increase of consciousness of mankind has an influence in the universe, which we may view as a living organism.

We might venture to say that the Buddhabrot is an image not just reflecting the structure of the Self like the mandala, but an image of the archetype of the Self, of which Buddha is an example of. It is the realised Self. We are, as if it were, granted a glimpse into what lies within the unknowable and eternal realm of the unus mundus. An image drawn by the universe. Thus, the Buddhabrot may represent the Self not as appears in dream, myth, or historical figures, but as a structure embedded in the fabric of reality itself.

Individuation

Carl Jung’s first mandala: Systema Munditotius, a pictorial cosmology of the vision conveyed in the Seven Sermons to the Dead (1916). The mandala portrays the antimonies of the microcosm within the macrocosm.

The Buddhabrot seems to align with motifs of the individuation process: tree of life, chakras, hieros gamos, etc. Although individuation is frequently depicted as a vertical and linear ascent, the spiritual journey is more complex. Self-realisation is not a linear evolution, but a circumambulation of the Self, a circular movement towards the centre.

Jung writes:

“The way is not straight but appears to go round in circles. More accurate knowledge has proved it to go in spirals… the whole process revolves about a central point or some arrangement round a centre, which may in certain circumstances appear even in the initial dreams. As manifestations of unconscious processes the dreams rotate or circumambulate round the centre, drawing closer to it as the amplifications increase in distinctness and in scope.”

Carl Jung, C.W. Vol. 12: Psychology and Alchemy

And:

“[T]he right way to wholeness is made up, unfortunately, of fateful detours and wrong turnings. It is the longissima via [longest path], not straight but snakelike, a path that unites the opposites in the manner of the guiding caduceus, a path whose labyrinthine twists and turns are not lacking in terrors.”

Carl Jung, C.W. Vol. 12: Psychology and Alchemy

Individuation is the soul’s journey to become whole, and leads to the realisation of the Self as a psychic reality greater than the ego. It is how individual beings are formed and differentiated, the goal being the development of the individual personality. By delving deep within oneself, one simultaneously discovers one’s role in the world.

“Individuation does not shut one out from the world, but gathers the world to itself.”

Carl Jung, C.W. Vol. 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche

While the goal is wholeness of personality, the true value of individuation lies in what happens along the way.

“The goal is important only as an idea; the essential thing is the opus [work] which leads to the goal: that is the goal of a lifetime.”

Carl Jung, C.W. Vol. 16: The Practice of Psychotherapy

The pattern of individuation is not just a human process, but is deeply embedded in nature.

“A plant that is meant to produce a flower is not individuated if it does not produce a flower, it must fulfil the cycle, and the man who does not develop consciousness is not individuated, because consciousness is his flower; it is his life, it belongs to our process of individuation that we shall become conscious.”

Carl Jung, Visions: Notes From the Seminar Given in 1930-1934 (22 June 1932)

Conclusion

The Buddhabrot does not reveal something new, but an old truth visualised through mathematics (number being the bridge between matter and psyche), showing the interrelation between science and psychology, spirituality, and mythology. These fields are not mutually exclusive, but instead overlap. In this way, the Buddhabrot may be seen as an empirical union of the logical and the symbolic.

Its alignment with motifs of the individuation process suggests that the soul’s journey towards wholeness is not just symbolic but fractal in structure, appearing both in the natural world and in altered states of consciousness. This suggests a deeper unity between psyche and matter, supporting the concept of the unus mundus.

Perhaps the Buddhabrot is one among many seemingly ineffable manifestations of the unus mundus, as encountered in psychedelic visions, schizophrenic art or spontaneous artistic expression. Each of which reveals the true nature of reality, the archetype or the Platonic Form, behind the shadowy veil of appearances. One might say that the Buddhabrot is an image of the realised Self, embedded within the very fabric of reality.

The Self is never fully attained, as it is a lifelong process. This aligns with Jung’s view of individuation as a circumambulation towards the centre, an insight drawn from his investigation of the unconscious. As the microcosm influences the macrocosm, and viceversa, knowledge of oneself influences the knowledge of the cosmos. The universe appears not just dead matter but a living organism, intimately bound to the human condition.

The unus mundus may be imagined as a kind of living entity, an Over-soul of humanity, or the source that contains the collective consciousness of mankind, to which the individual contributes the “fruits” of the soul gathered over a lifetime through the increase of consciousness, mirroring the tree’s natural tendency to bear fruit.

In this light, the Buddhabrot evokes the image of a pre-existent realm of unity, from which the soul descends into the bodily vessel. This descent is necessary to experience duality and its inevitable suffering, to reconcile the opposites, and ultimately return to that paradisaical state on a higher level of consciousness.

Dr. Harry Shirley continues his quest to uncover the numerical order linking mind and matter. His current work investigates anecdotal reports of Buddhabrot forms appearing as inner images, emerging spontaneously in dreams, psychedelic experiences and visions.

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The Psychology of Sin

“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.”

Romans 7:15-18

Table of contents

Introduction

Frontispiece and four scenes from the life of Saint John Gualbert

These profound words by St. Paul express the struggle between the desire to do good and the inability to carry it out, due to the power of sin within human nature. When he does what he hates, his very hatred of those actions shows his agreement with the law, that is, with God’s moral standards. The problem, then, is not the law itself, but the sin within us.

The fact that we wrestle with wrongdoing shows that something within still yearns for the good. This is our conscience, our inner sense of right and wrong. The word derives from the Latin conscientia, meaning “with knowing”, an inner co-awareness, as if both you and some inner witness recognise the truth of your actions. Thus, when you do wrong, you feel guilt—not merely because of external judgment, but because something deep inside your heart, knows it too.

Inner Split and Sin

The misalignment between our intentions and our actions is part of our daily life. For example, we may know that we love someone deeply, yet find ourselves acting with wrath towards that person. We want to be humble, but fall into pride. We intend to work hard or study, but give in to sloth. This lack of self-control reveals an inner split, an age-old problem that lies at the heart of the human condition. It is more than mere weakness; it is a symptom of sin. But sin is not just the breaking of moral rules. It is a rupture in our very being, a loss of inner harmony. Since this condition is something we all share, it cannot merely be seen as a personal sickness but as a universal aspect of the human condition.

The concept of sin as disobedience to God’s revealed law originates in Judaism, and later extended and developed in Christianity and Islam. By contrast, in traditions such as ancient Egyptian religion, Taoism, and Vedic Hinduism, sin is understood less as a personal moral failing and more as a disruption of cosmic harmony.

Hubris, Hamartia, Akrasia

In ancient Greek thought, “sin” was understood primarily as a disruption of cosmic, social or divine order. Hubris, a central theme in Greek tragedy and mythology, describes humans overstepping their limits through excessive pride or defiance of the gods. For example, Icarus shows hubris by flying too close to the sun despite his father’s warning, leading to his fall and death. Mortals who claim superiority over gods in skill also display hubris. To restore balance, Nemesis, the goddess of retribution, punishes such transgressions with downfall or disgrace.

In Poetics, Aristotle describes the tragic flaw or error in judgment that leads to the hero’s downfall as hamartia, which literally means “missing the mark”—like an archer missing a target. This emphasises that the flaw is not necessarily a vice but rather a mistake born of ignorance. Hubris is a common form of hamartia, because it represents a deviation from virtue, which Aristotle defines as the “golden mean” between deficiency and excess. In this case, the golden mean is healthy self-respect; the deficiency is insecurity; and the excess is hubris. Rather than a moral failure, missing the mark reflects the inescapable ignorance inherent in human existence.

In the Nicomachaen Ethics, Aristotle develops the concept of akrasia, which means “weakness of will”, or “lack of self-control”. It describes someone who knows what is right but is overcome by desire, does what is worse, and subsequently feels regret. He calls such a man “incontinent”, distinguishing him from the “vicious man”, who also does wrong but does not feel remorse for his actions. However, Aristotle believed that this weakness could be overcome through education and self-discipline. By cultivating phronesis (practical wisdom), developing good habits (“we are what we repeatedly do”), and practising virtue, one can strengthen the will and act in accordance with reason.

St. Paul: Flesh and Spirit

Unlike many Greek philosophers, who trust reason to overcome appetite (our untamed desires), St. Paul emphasises that human reason and effort alone are insufficient for true freedom from sin. Instead, liberation depends on divine grace, with complete freedom from sin only fully realised in the afterlife. The inner conflict is between flesh and spirit, a lifelong journey of aligning our will with God’s will. Our ability to deviate from God’s will comes from our fallen nature, which pulls us away from the spirit, the divine presence within us guiding us towards God.

The persistent difficulty, weakness, or suffering that St. Paul experiences is what he calls his “thorn in the flesh.”

The Meaning of Sin: To Miss the Mark

In the Old Testament, several Hebrew words refer to sin, but the most common is chatta’ah, which means “to miss the mark.” This term predates the Greek hamartia, and may trace its roots through oral tradition as far back as the 10^th century BC or earlier. Sin is understood as a moral failure, a deviation from God’s will that causes people to lose their way. It is also described in terms of rebellion, transgression, disobedience, ignorance and ritual uncleanliness.

The word sin first appears in Genesis 4:7, when God warns Cain: “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you.” Here, sin is depicted as a lurking presence, patiently waiting to catch someone, like a predator.

In the New Testament, the most common word for sin is the Greek hamartia, which retains the basic meaning of its Hebrew counterpart, rather than reflecting the Aristotelian concept of a tragic flaw. However, there is a significant shift in emphasis towards the inner attitude, an emphasis anticipated in God’s promise of a new covenant in the Old Testament, where the law would be written on the heart. Sin is no longer limited to outward acts like theft, murder, or adultery, nor to harmful speech such as lying, gossip, or blasphemy. Instead, as Lord Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, sin begins in the heart: in our thoughts, desires, and intentions. The law, therefore, is internalised, revealing that the true battleground lies within the self. In this way, theology and psychology become inseparable in understanding the nature of human sin.

Types of Sin

Expulsion of Adam and Eve (1791) – Benjamin West

The classic story of sin entering the world begins when the serpent tempts Eve, and both she and Adam disobey God by eating the forbidden fruit. This primal act of prideful disobedience, the desire to become like God, shatters their trust with God. As a result, they are expelled from Paradise, and this event introduces original sin, the fallen state inherited by all humanity.

Deviation from divinity is archetypally understood as the most ancient and grievous sin, symbolising humanity’s tendency to stray from the right path. According to St. Augustine of Hippo, the effect of original sin is concupiscence, the disordered desire that inclines humans to sin. As subtly as we are led towards the good, we are also led into the bad just as often. Temptation and the influence of dark forces are mingled willy-nilly into our daily lives. This leads us to commit personal sin, our daily choices that turn us away from what is good, true, and loving. These choices create separation, not only from God, but also from others and even from ourselves.

Carl Jung writes:

“Men would never have talked of sin and the forgiveness of sin had this not been a fundamental psychological fact that existed long before there were any laws. Deviation from the will of the gods was a preoccupation of humanity even in primeval times.”

C.G. Jung, Letters, Vol. I (1906-1950)

Personal sin can be further divided into sins of commission (doing something wrong intentionally) and sins of omission (failing to do something good, such as not helping someone in serious danger). Depending on its seriousness and intent, sin can either be venial or mortal. Venial sins are less serious offences that weaken our relationship with God, but do not break it. Mortal sins, however, are grave violations that completely sever our bond with God.

For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must be met: it must involve a grave matter, be committed with full knowledge of its seriousness, and be carried out with deliberate consent. Mortal sin leads to spiritual death, which is far worse than physical death, as it brings about eternal separation from God’s love—what is called hell.

“Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

Matthew 10:28

The Worst Sins

The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things – Hieronymus Bosch

The seven deadly sins—lust, greed, gluttony, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride—are well known in Christian tradition, with pride often seen as the worst, responsible for the fall of Lucifer and Adam and Eve. Hence the proverb, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” However, the Bible does not explicitly list these sins together. Instead, it presents a slightly different list of seven sins detestable to God, with the last being considered the worst of all. These are:

“haughty eyes [arrogance and pride], a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies [slander], and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.”

Proverbs 6:17-19

According to Christ, every sin can be forgiven except blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. This is the one “unforgivable sin”, because it represents a total, hardened rejection of God’s offer of salvation.

In Dante’s Inferno, those who commit violence, fraud, and treachery are sent to the deepest and most terrible parts of hell. These sins involve deliberate harm to others, showing a conscious decision to do evil despite knowing better. In contrast, the self-indulgent (people who give in to their desires without intending to harm others) receive less severe punishments, since their wrongdoing stems from a lack of self-control rather than deliberate malice.

The Vicious Cycle of Sin

The story of Adam and Eve reflects the universal human condition and helps us understand our own struggles with sin. After eating the forbidden fruit, they became aware of their nakedness and felt deep shame for the first time. This new self-awareness led them to cover themselves and hide from God, showing how sin introduces fear and separation in our relationship with the divine. When God found them, instead of taking responsibility, Adam quickly shifted the blame onto Eve, who in turn blamed the serpent for deceiving her. After God punished them and drove them out of paradise, they experienced guilt.

Similarly, when we sin, we feel the pangs of conscience, and guilt sets in. Guilt affects the soul much like pain affects the body. It is the debt incurred by our acts of sin, and somehow that debt must be paid. Instead of facing our guilt, many of us try to hide our mistakes or shift blame onto others, avoiding responsibility. We place the ego at the centre of our lives and hide our guilt beneath our pride. We resist God’s authority, as obedience to a higher power feels like a loss of autonomy. So, we chase the illusion of total freedom—the right to do whatever we please—including indulgence in all sorts of sins, which deepens the division within ourselves.

Rather than confronting our sins, we often escape into pleasure and distraction to numb the emptiness we feel inside. This pursuit of temporary comfort can easily spiral into addiction, an inability to stop engaging in something harmful to us. When we move through life without addressing our emotional turmoil, it becomes repressed, pushing unacknowledged emotions and desires into the unconscious. This, in turn, leads to further sin, creating a vicious cycle. The longer we remain trapped in this cycle, the harder it becomes to break free. Sin blinds you until, eventually, you no longer recognise your actions as sinful, they simply become what you do. Hell is that state of mind which has abandoned itself so completely to a given sin that it cannot act independently of that sin.

What once promised freedom has become a prison. Claiming to be wise, we became fools. Not only do our relationships with others suffer, but we also become isolated from our very soul. We become spiritually dead, and lose everything that once gave life meaning and purpose.

The Cry of the Soul for Growth

Anything that increases the gap between our actions and our intentions deepens our inner conflict and makes us feel worse. Anything that helps reduce the conflict brings healing. This struggle arises from the awareness that two opposing forces exist within us, each pulling in different directions. As Goethe wrote in Faust, “Two souls, alas! reside within my breast, and each withdraws from, and repels, its brother.”

When this inner conflict becomes too intense, it leads to suffering. It is the “cry of the soul for growth”, the suffering of a soul that has not yet discovered its meaning. Suffering is not an illness; it is the natural counterpart to happiness. We should not try to cure it, because it cures us. We should not try to get rid of it, but to experience what it means, what it has to teach us, and what its purpose is. Without meaningful suffering, there would be no self-knowledge, and hence no increase of consciousness. Jung writes:

“The boon of increased self-awareness is the sufficient answer even to life’s suffering, otherwise it would be meaningless and unendurable.”

C.G. Jung, Letters, Vol. II (1951-1961)

We should even be grateful for our suffering, though that is the last thing we feel when we are in pain. We are not used to looking at it that way. Only in time, we come to recognise its true value.

When we feel inner conflict, we often turn to distraction: entertainment, work, or constant activity, not to find happiness, but to avoid sitting with ourselves. Ironically, this leaves us feeling even more miserable.

“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.”

Carl Jung, C.W. Vol. 12: Psychology and Alchemy

Neurosis: State of Disunity

The denial of our inner division causes repression, which leads to neurosis, a psychological crisis caused by a state of disunity with oneself. Neurosis arises from a conflict between our conscious attitude and our unconscious contents; it serves as a means for the unconscious to make itself heard. Neurosis is the flight from authentic suffering, which can lead to emptiness or a loss of meaning in life. We all suffer. But you can suffer authentically or not.

“[E]very psychic advance of man arises from the suffering of the soul, and the cause of the suffering is spiritual stagnation, or psychic sterility.”

C.G. Jung, C.W. Vol. 11: Psychology and Religion

A neurosis can be a blessing in disguise, because it forces us to confront the parts of ourselves that we have neglected. Marie-Louise von Franz stated:

“A depression is a blessing of God… it is the greatest blessing somebody can have. Jung always talked about the blessing of a neurosis because it is the only way you are tempted to look within. As long as things go well, you run away from yourself. Or most people do.”

Marie Louise von Franz, Interview with Suzanne Wagner (1977)

Projection, Shadow, Sin

What we deny in ourselves does not disappear—it is projected onto others, showing up in how we judge or blame people. The shadow is the hidden or repressed side of our personality that holds feelings we reject. Sin is what happens when these hidden parts show up in ways that go against moral rules or our conscience. When we stay unaware of our shadow, it disrupts our behaviour and causes harm. The shadow is the wounded part of the psyche expressing itself. But it is also where healing begins, if we dare to face it.

“None of us stands outside humanity’s black collective shadow. Whether the crime occurred many generations back or happens today, it remains the symptom of a disposition that is always and everywhere present—and one would therefore do well to possess some “imagination for evil”, for only the fool can permanently disregard the conditions of his own nature. In fact, this negligence is the best means of making him an instrument of evil. Harmlessness and naivety are as little helpful as it would be for a cholera patient and those in his vicinity to remain unconscious of the contagiousness of the disease. On the contrary, they lead to projection of the unrecognised evil into the “other” … What is even worse, our lack of insight deprives us of the capacity to deal with evil.”

Carl Jung, C.W. Vol. 10: Civilisation in Transition

When negative aspects of ourselves are not recognised as belonging to us on the inside, they appear to act against us on the outside. Most of our struggles come from within. Projection occurs unconsciously, with certain people acting as “hooks” for what we fear or reject in ourselves. We see ourselves as innocent, and blame the “other.” But projections distort reality—they spin the illusions that veil our world. And what is being spun is a cocoon, which in the end will completely envelop us.

“Projections change the world into the replica of one’s unknown face.”

Carl Jung, C.W. Vol. 9.2: Aion

In a strict sense, one can only speak of a projection when there is a disturbance, such as repeated quarrels, persistent misunderstandings or idealisation. That disturbance is the very symptom signalling, “Now is the time to reflect.” The key question becomes, “Why does this person provoke such strong feelings in me?”

Projection involves unconsciously throwing your inner contents onto others in the outer world. Reflection is only achieved when you truly see in yourself that quality which either irritates you or fascinates you in the other, allowing you to reclaim and integrate it. When you withdraw these projections and acknowledge that the true source of conflict is within, you become conscious of your inner split and the healing process can begin. This is one of the most essential steps in individuation.

Anything we can name; we can deal with—and that is absolutely crucial. If we are conscious of our sins, we can strive to become more virtuous. The encounter with the shadow comes about of its own accord in any deep inner work. The open conflict it provokes is unavoidable and painful. We cannot force a solution to this inner conflict; instead, we must patiently hold the tension, with patience and fortitude, until, in time, a resolution emerges, though it cannot be predicted.

Sin must be carried consciously, so it doesn’t carry us. Jung writes:

“My sin has become for me my most precious task. I would never leave it to anybody else in order to appear a saint in my own eyes, always knowing what is good for others.”

C.G. Jung, Letters, Vol. II (1951-1961)

To reject sin is to reject our brother, our shadow—the imperfect being within who follows us and acts out the very things we are too cowardly or too decent to do. To deny him, is to deny ourselves, and this brings inner conflict and unrest.

Sin Against Your Own Individuality

When a person complains that he is always on bad terms with the people whom he loves, and that there are terrible scenes and resistances between them, you will see that he is almost possessed by anger. He has substituted his self-identity with the other person. Naturally there will be resistances because you cannot live for the other person, it is not only a violation the principle of individuality for that person, but it is also a sin against your own individuality.

These conflicts are important instincts: you have resistances and disappointments so that you may become finally conscious of yourself. If a person understands this, he will agree and not worry. He knows when he loves that soon he will hate. Therefore, he will laugh when he is going uphill and weep when he is going downhill. He will realise the paradox of life—that he cannot be perfect, and he cannot always be one with himself. It is our ideal to be one, but that is impossible and one-sided, the goal is not perfection but wholeness.

Sins You Deny, Control You

The Temptation of Saint Anthony – Michelangelo (based on Martin Schongauer’s engraving)

The sins you deny end up controlling you. Sin cannot be conquered by willpower alone. True repentance requires humility, but many are not willing to give up their pride or surrender to a higher power. Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less. When we cling to our illusions of independence, believing we can save ourselves or, worse, justify our sinfulness—we end up in despair. When one attempts to overcome sin through sheer willpower, it does not lead to freedom, but to the rise of pride: an inflation of the ego that inevitably causes a fall. And with every sin conquered by willpower, seven spirits of self-righteousness enter to take its place.

“When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.”

Matthew 12:43-45

The return of even worse spirits shows that when we make positive changes outwardly, without any inner transformation, we leave ourselves vulnerable to greater troubles, having built no strong foundation within. We need to be on guard, to stay alert—to keep watch. Staying spiritually awake means actively guarding the soul through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds; while remaining aware of our weaknesses and the dangers that may creep back in. Without this vigilance, the soul becomes like an empty house: clean, but unguarded and easy to invade.

We must be like the wise man who built his house on the rock. When the rain came, the stream rose, and the winds blew and beat against the house, it did not fall, because its foundation was on the rock.

When we hit rock bottom, there is only one way to go: up. The endurance of darkness is the preparation for great light. This is the stage of purification, known to the alchemists as albedo or “whitening”, the second stage within the Great Work. It is the washing away of impurities that weigh down the soul and bind it in darkness. This liberation is symbolised by the white dove.

Catharsis

Illustration of Purgatory: Lust from Dante’s Divine Comedy – Gustave Doré

Catharsis (or cleansing) was central to the rites of passage in ancient Greek mystery cults, such as those of Eleusis and the Orphic traditions. Initiates underwent a symbolic death and rebirth, which helped them experience self-transformation, overcome the fear of death and suffering, gain insight into life and the cosmos, and prepare the soul for mystical union with the gods.

Aristotle later used the term catharsis as the aim of a tragic play. He saw tragedy as poetic mimesis, an imitation of life not as it is but as it could be, which evokes powerful emotions like pity and dread in the audience. By watching the struggles of fictional characters, the audience is moved to confront these feelings within themselves. In this way, tragedy serves a therapeutic function, allowing people to release inner tension.

Dante viewed Purgatory as a place where souls undergo catharsis, purging their imperfections through a process called contrapasso, where the punishment fits the sin. The suffering mirrors the nature of the sin, helping the soul confront its sins and cultivate the corresponding virtue. The prideful are weighed down by heavy boulders; the envious have their eyelids sewn shut to block their jealous gaze; the wrathful wander in blinding smoke, symbolising the blinding effect of anger, and so on. This aligns with Jung’s concept of enantiodromia, where a one-sided attitude in consciousness eventually triggers its unconscious opposite to restore psychic balance.

The beginnings of psychoanalysis were nothing else than the scientific rediscovery of an old truth. Sigmund Freud and Josef Breuer introduced the idea of catharsis in early psychoanalysis through their joint work, Studies on Hysteria, defining it as the process of bringing repressed trauma into consciousness. By expressing these buried emotions, the root of neurosis, the patient could release inner tension and experience relief. Freud later adopted the phrase “talking cure” from one of Breuer’s patients, a term that became the foundation of psychoanalysis.

The Journey from Brokenness to Wholeness

In Christianity, the way out of the vicious cycle of sin begins with restoring our relationship with God through confession, also known as the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where we honestly admit our wrongdoing. While only mortal sins are required to be confessed, confessing venial sins is also encouraged, as it brings healing and strengthens the soul against the temptation of mortal sin. Psychologically, it is of the highest importance to remain conscious of one’s sins, and mutual confession effectively prevents us from becoming unconscious of them. As Christ said:

“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”

James 5:16

The next step is repentance: feeling genuine sorrow for our transgressions and deciding to change for the better. This opens the way for forgiveness through God’s mercy. Afterwards, atonement (or “at-one-ment”) takes place, involving an effort to repair the damage caused by sin, often through prayer, penance, or acts of love. This restores the broken relationship and brings us back into union with God, leading to redemption: the deliverance from sin and the full restoration and healing of the fragmented soul. In this light, one might say that every psychological problem is, at bottom, a spiritual one.

Redemption lies in a complete admission of guilt. In confession and during Mass, one repeats, “mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa” (through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault). This honest recognition of one’s faults intensifies the sense of personal responsibility, without evasion or excuse.

In Catholic tradition, the Blessed Virgin Mary is the advocate par excellence of all sinners, for her body was preserved from corruption and assumed into Heaven. In her, the flesh is sanctified, for God took on mortal flesh in her womb. She intercedes for us (that is, she prays to God on our behalf), helping the sinner to see his sins and recognise how his life has been distorted.

Out of honest repentance for sin comes divine grace. This is not only a religious truth but also a psychological one. Throughout this journey we rely on grace, the free and undeserved gift that God gives us at various moments, to help us turn away from sin and grow closer to Him. Where sin is great, “grace did much more abound” (Romans 5:20).

After redemption, we continue in sanctification, the lifelong process of growing in holiness and becoming more like Christ. This spiritual journey is never fully complete in this life but is perfected in heaven, where we attain theosis, or perfect union with God, and experience the beatific vision—the ultimate state of bliss that believers will enter into when they see God face to face.

Christian Spiritual Journey

Illustration from Thenaud’s Traité de la cabale

To summarise the whole process: Sin is the act of wrongdoing, which the conscience recognises, stirring a sense of guilt. Through confession and repentance, we receive forgiveness from God. Atonement restores our relationship with Him, leading to redemption—the healing of our fragmented soul. Throughout this process, God’s grace helps us to turn away from sin and grow spiritually, allowing for sanctification, the lifelong journey of becoming holy, culminating in the attainment of theosis. This is the Christian spiritual journey, where a person moves from inner brokenness towards wholeness and union with God.

The truth that we are all sinners should not lead to unnecessary guilt, but to humility. It is a shared reality that can draw us closer to one another. This is the first step towards transformation.

“If we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

1 John 1:18

The Psychology of Confession and Secrets

Confession aims at keeping our sins (or inner conflicts) conscious, and that is also the sine qua non of the psychotherapeutic procedure. Therefore, one has nothing to lose by consulting both a psychologist and a priest, for they complement each other in healing our soul and strengthening our spirit.

Just as a psychologist helps carry a patient’s inner conflicts, in Christianity it is the Saviour, Christ, who bears our sins and heals us through His sacrifice, for “by His wounds we are healed.” Christianity offers a double psychological benefit. First, it helps one remain conscious of inner conflict, namely sin, as the tension between opposing tendencies. In doing so, it prevents a known suffering from being repressed and turning into an unknown one, which is far more tormenting. Second, it allows one to lighten one’s burden by surrendering it to God, to whom all solutions are known. As Christ said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Thus, an intimate bond arises between the divine figure and man. Yet man should be bound through love not to God alone, but also to his fellow man.

Jung writes:

“The first beginnings of all analytical treatment are to be found in its prototype, the confessional… As soon as man was capable of conceiving the idea of sin, he had recourse to psychic concealment—or, to put it in analytical language, repressions arose. Anything that is concealed is a secret. In small doses, this poison may actually be a priceless remedy, even an essential preliminary to the differentiation of the individual. This is so much the case that, even on a primitive level, man has felt an irresistible need to invent secrets; their possession saves him from dissolving in the unconsciousness of mere community life, and thus from a fatal psychic injury. As is well known, the many ancient mystery cults with their secret rituals served this instinct for differentiation.”

Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul

A private secret can encourage inner development, as long as we are conscious of what we conceal. But if we remain unconscious of it, the secret becomes repressed, hidden even from ourselves. In such cases, it splits off from consciousness as an autonomous complex, leading a separate life in the unconscious, where it cannot be corrected or influenced by the conscious mind. This disconnection gives rise to neuroses.

Every personal secret carries a sense of guilt, even if it isn’t morally wrong. To cherish secrets and to restrain emotions are psychic misdemeanours for which nature finally visits us with sickness, that is, when we do these things in private. But when they are shared with others, they satisfy nature and can become even virtuous. It is only private restraint that proves unhealthy.It is as if humans have a right to see the flawed, foolish, and guilty sides of one another—because these are the very things we hide to protect ourselves.

It seems to be as much a sin in the eyes of nature to hide our weaknesses as it is to be ruled by them. Our conscience demands we stop pretending to be perfect and instead admit our flaws, no matter the blow to our pride. Until we do this, an invisible wall separates us from the real experience of being fully human, of being one among others. This explains the extraordinary significance of genuine confession, a truth likely known to the initiation rites and mystery cults of the ancient world.

“Give up what you have, and then you will receive.” Jung saw this as a fitting motto for the first stage in analytical psychology: confession. One must surrender resistance and fear of the unconscious and begin to observe the images and feelings that naturally arise from within. In doing so, we begin to rediscover what has been repressed or forgotten. Jung writes:

“Painful though it may be, this is in itself a gain—for what is inferior or even worthless belongs to me as my shadow and gives me substance and mass. How can I be substantial if I fail to cast a shadow? I must have a dark side if I am to be whole; and by becoming conscious of my shadow, I remember once more than I am a human being like any other.”

Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul

If the rediscovery of one’s wholeness remains private, it simply returns the person to the original source of neurosis: isolation and repression. Even conscious awareness, if kept to oneself, offers only a partial cure, as the state of isolation remains intact. Only through confession can one truly connect with humanity and be freed from the burden of moral exile. The aim of the cathartic method is full confession, not just knowing the facts in your head, but feeling them deeply and the actual release of repressed emotion. As may easily be imagined, the effect of such a confession on simple souls is very great, and its curative results are often astonishing.

Self-knowledge has a healing and liberating effect. Confession, repentance and purification from sin have always been the conditions of salvation. When analysis supports confession, it brings about a kind of renewal. Patients often dream of it as a refreshing bath, or see symbols of rebirth in their dreams and visions. These reveal that knowledge of the unconscious, and meaningfully integrating it into life, renews our vitality and breaks destructive patterns that lead to confusion and suffering.

However, confession must be a personal process, not a matter of letting others make you feel guilty for what you do not personally see as sin. Jung writes:

“The principle is that you have only to confess those sins which you feel to be sins. If you do a thing which everybody else might condemn as a sin but which you yourself feel not to be one, then you need not confess it, then it is outside of the moral question… and the church assumes no authority over it. Therefore so-called sins, particularly those of an erotic nature where one has no feeling of sin whatever, do not have to be confessed.”

Carl Jung, Visions: Notes from the Seminar Given in 1930-1934

This is not to say we should deliberately commit all manner of sins and simply convince ourselves they are acceptable. Rather, Jung points to an inner truth: the feeling of sin comes from our conscience, which is beyond conscious control. If an action does not evoke genuine guilt deep inside us, then it falls outside the realm of personal morality and does not require confession. Of course, this does not apply to the small minority of people who lack a conscience, like psychopaths or remorseless killers.

The Carpocratians, an early Christian Gnostic sect, believed that one must commit sins to be redeemed, because without sin, there is nothing to be redeemed from. They practiced antinomianism, the deliberate breaking of social and moral laws. According to their teaching, the soul must experience all aspects of earthly life, including sin, to fully overcome the material world and ascend to the divine. For them, gnosis—salvation through knowledge and experience—was the path to redemption. In contrast, the Encratites were strict ascetics who rejected all forms of indulgence. They followed a literal and rigorous interpretation of Christ’s example, emphasising purity and self-denial. Their goal was to resist the corrupt material world and attain spiritual perfection through renunciation and discipline.

One has to admit that few things are more uncomfortable than the full confession of one’s sins. No one in his right senses would suppose that, after sincere confession and repentance, he will never sin again. In truth, it is impossible to live without sinning “in thought, word, and deed.” It is not uncommon for someone who obsessively condemns sin and tries to avoid it at all costs to end up not in the Kingdom of Heaven, but in the consulting room of the doctor.

“We ought to avoid sin and occasionally we can; but as experience shows, we fall into sin again at the very next step. Only unconscious and wholly uncritical people can imagine it possible to abide in a permanent state of moral goodness. But because most people are devoid of self-criticism, permanent self-deception is the rule. A more developed consciousness brings the latent moral conflict to light, or else sharpens those opposites which are already conscious. Reason enough to eschew self-knowledge and psychology altogether and to treat the psyche with contempt!”

Carl Jung, C.W. Vol. 10: Civilisation in Transition

The Greatest Sin: Unconsciousness

Becoming more conscious is no easy task, as it reveals hidden inner conflicts or intensifies the ones we already know. This discomfort leads some to dismiss the psyche as unreal to escape facing themselves.

In fact, Jung considers unconsciousness the greatest sin because it blocks self-knowledge and prevents us from realising our true nature (the Self or God-image). Similarly, in Hinduism and Buddhism, suffering arises from avidya (meaning, “not to see”, “not to know”, or “ignorance”). And for Socrates, ignorance is the greatest evil, and knowledge the greatest good. The foundational maxim of philosophy is: “Know thyself.” Ignorance is not bliss; it is merely the illusion of peace. While it may provide temporary comfort, in the long run it can lead to the loss of one’s soul. What is repressed in the unconscious does not disappear; it waits, and returns with greater force.

Another danger lies in our ability to deviate from instinct or natural law, what theology calls sin. While this allows for spiritual growth, it comes at a cost: the loss of instinctive certainty, replaced by uncertainty. The problem is consciousness separating from instinct, as the conscious will replaces the natural impulse, and we become disconnected from our true nature.

“The great decisions of human life have as a rule far more to do with the instincts and other mysterious unconscious factors than with conscious will and well-meaning reasonableness. The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.”

Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul

But why on earth should it be necessary for us to achieve, by hook or by crook, a higher level of consciousness? Jung writes:

“This is truly the crucial question, and I do not find the answer easy. Instead of a real answer I can only make a confession of faith: I believe that, after thousands and millions of years, someone had to realise that this wonderful world of mountains and oceans, suns and moons, galaxies and nebulae, plants and animals, exists. From a low hill in the Athi plains of East Africa I once watched the vast herds of wild animals grazing in soundless stillness, as they had done from time immemorial, touched only by the breath of a primeval world. I felt then as if I were the first man, the first creature, to know that all this is. The entire world round me was still in its primeval state; it did not know that it was. And then, in that one moment in which I came to know, the world sprang into being; without that moment it would never have been. All Nature seeks this goal and finds it fulfilled in man, but only in the most highly developed and most fully conscious man. Every advance, even the smallest, along this path of conscious realisation adds that much to the world. There is no consciousness without discrimination of opposites. This is the paternal principle, the Logos, which eternally struggles to extricate itself from the primal warmth and primal darkness of the maternal womb; in a word, from unconsciousness. Divine curiosity yearns to be born and does not shrink from conflict, suffering, or sin. Unconsciousness is the primal sin, evil itself, for the Logos.”

Carl Jung, C.W. Vol. 9.1: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

It is the act of consciousness that gives the world its meaning and reality. Before that moment, the world simply is, but it does not know itself. Through the conscious man, the universe becomes aware of its own existence. This individual has awakened to both the inner and outer worlds. Only through such a person does the world truly exist in the fullest sense, as something known, witnessed, and made meaningful.

When Adam ate from the tree of knowledge, he was cast out of Paradise into a world of sin and death. But that moment also marked the birth of true consciousness, he gained the knowledge of the two opposites: good and evil. Without sin, there can be no development of consciousness. This is why it is called the felix culpa, the happy fault or fall. Had the first parents not sinned there would have been no fall, and no need for the still greater miracle of redemption.

Without sin there is no repentance, and without repentance no redemption. We also know that without original sin; the redemption of the world could never have come about. But we assiduously avoid asking whether in this very power of evil God might not have placed some special purpose which it is most important for us to know.

Certain Gnostics viewed the creator god as an evil demiurge who made man unconscious. A higher god sent his son as the serpent to awaken man and bring consciousness, thus freeing him from the primal sin of unconsciousness. This marks the beginning of redemption, the start of the process of individuation, which is why the serpent was sometimes equated with Christ. In contrast, the traditional Christian point of view is from the side of collectivity. The creator is good; it is Adam and Eve’s disobedience that is sinful.

Genesis treats the act of becoming conscious as a taboo, as if gaining knowledge violates a sacred boundary. Similar to the Gnostic serpent, Prometheus, who deeply cared for humans, defied the gods by stealing fire and giving it to man, helping humanity to survive, progress, gain knowledge, and thus fully awaken. He also taught the arts and sciences. For this, the gods punished him eternally.

“The development of consciousness is the burden, the suffering, and the blessing of mankind.”

C.G. Jung Speaking: Encounters and Interviews

Each step towards greater consciousness seems to carry a kind of Promethean guilt: something once belonging to the unconscious is seized and subjected to the conscious mind. The one who gains such knowledge undergoes a transformation that sets him apart from others. His consciousness surpasses the collective norm; he attains a godlike insight, yet becomes estranged from humanity. It is this very increase in consciousness that alienates him from others, who have not made the same inner journey. The pain of this isolation is the vengeance of the gods—one is, like Prometheus, bound to the lonely cliffs, forsaken by both God and man. Self-knowledge thus reveals its paradoxical nature: it is both a gift and a burden.

Jung writes:

“Man’s worst sin is unconsciousness, but it is indulged in with the greatest piety even by those who should serve mankind as teachers and examples. When shall we stop taking man for granted in this barbarous manner and in all seriousness seek ways and means to exorcise him, to rescue him from possession and unconsciousness, and make this the most vital task of civilisation?”

Carl Jung, C.W. Vol. 9.1: The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious

The experience of inner transformation is infinitely more important than political or social reform, both useless in the hands of those who are not at one with themselves. This is a truth which we are forever forgetting, because we are distracted by what is going on around us instead of examining our own heart. Every demagogue exploits this weakness, making great noise about the miserable state of the world, while overlooking the fact that the true root of the problem is man himself.

The psychotherapist cannot simply invoke the law and say, “Thou shalt not.” Modern man is tired of moral lectures about sin and guilt. Burdened by his bad conscience, he wants to know how he can be reconciled with his own nature, how he is to love the enemy in his own heart and call the wolf his brother. The psychologist must weigh possibilities, guided more by instinct and experience than by religious training and education. He recognises that there is something like a felix culpa: a person can be denied not only happiness, but also the very guilt necessary for true wholeness.

Integration comes only when both the light and dark within us are acknowledged and harmonised. Without the experience of the opposites there is no experience of wholeness. Only here, in life on earth, where the opposites clash together, can the general level of consciousness be raised. That seems to be our metaphysical task.

“Whoever can suffer within himself the highest united with the lowest is healed, holy, whole.”

C.G. Jung Letters Vol. I (1906-1950)

The Psychology of Sin

“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” These profound words by St. Paul express the struggle between the desire to do good and the inability to carry it out, due to the power of sin within human nature.

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The Psychology of God’s Dark Side

“I have landed the great whale; I mean Answer to Job. I can’t say I have fully digested this tour de force of the unconscious. It still goes on rumbling a bit, rather like an earthquake.”

C.G. Jung Letters Vol. 2 (1951 – 1961)

Table of contents

Introduction

In 1952, at the age of seventy-six, Carl Jung wrote Answer to Job in a single burst of energy and with strong emotion. He completed it while ill, following a high fever, and upon finishing, he felt well again. Jung wrote in a letter, “If there is anything like the spirit seizing one by the scruff of the neck, it was the way this book came into being.” The book explores the nature of God, particularly what Jung perceived as God’s dark side—a theme that preoccupied him throughout his life. This began as early as the age of three or four, when he had a dream of a subterranean God, “not to be named”—a terrifying revelation granted to him without his seeking it. Jung stated:

“This book has always been on my mind, but I waited forty years to write it. I was terribly shocked when, still a child, I read the Book of Job for the first time. I discovered that Yahweh is unjust, that he is an evildoer. For he allows himself to be persuaded by the devil, he agrees to torture Job on the suggestion of Satan.”

C.G. Jung Speaking: Interviews and Encounters

Answer to Job is part of Vol. 11 of the Collected Works: Psychology and Religion. Its motto, “I am distressed for thee, my brother” (II Samuel 1:26), sets the tone for what is likely Jung’s most passionate work. The origin of Answer to Job can be traced to Aion—written a year before—where Jung delves into the psychology of Christianity, particularly the Christ-Antichrist antagonism symbolised by the two fishes of Pisces. Yet while Aion is dense and heavily intellectual—Job feels like an eruption of the feeling function—an earthquake, a great whale, a fever. Jung speaks from the heart, wrestling with God as Job and even Christ did—both asking why God had forsaken them. Perhaps Jung asked the same.

Jung’s father suffered from religious doubts and died struggling with his faith—he did not really know God; he only believed in Him. Jung found this truly tragic. He later says that the problem of Job had been foreshadowed in a dream, in which he visited his long-deceased father. His father took a large Bible bound in shiny fish-skin, opened it to the Old Testament, and began interpreting a passage—but he did it with such swiftness and erudition that Jung could not follow.

When asked about the happiest moment and most beautiful experience of his life, Jung said it came one Sunday, after working hard on Answer to Job. He was sailing his boat and had dozed off. Then, his father appeared, patted his shoulder, and said, “You have done the right thing, and I thank you for that.” In that moment, Jung felt he had redeemed his father’s religious struggle.

Jung later remarked that he would gladly revise all of his books—except Answer to Job. That one, he said, he would leave untouched. In it, the theology first explored in the Red Book—the progressive incarnation of God, and the replacement of the one-sided Christian God with one that encompasses evil within it—found its clearest expression. This makes Answer to Job one of Jung’s most controversial works. Jung wrote in a letter that the book, “released an avalanche of prejudice, misunderstanding, and above all, atrocious stupidity.”

When Jung was once asked how he could live with the knowledge he had recorded in Answer to Job, he replied, “I live in my deepest hell, and from there I cannot fall any further.”

Jung emphasises that Answer to Job is not about what one believes about God, but rather what the history of symbols reveals about God. He makes it clear that he does not aim to announce a metaphysical truth. The book reflects his personal experience and is simply the voice of a single individual seeking thoughtful engagement from others.

Religion as a Psychic Truth

Alchemical illustration from Aurora Consurgens

Before we delve into the Book of Job, it is crucial to recognise that religion should not be seen as merely presenting physical facts. This often leads to conflicts: some people believe it to be true that Christ was born as the son of a virgin, while others deny this as a physical impossibility. Everyone can see that there is no logical solution to this conflict and that one would do better not to get involved in such sterile disputes. Both are right and both are wrong. The key is to move beyond the idea of “physical” truth. Religious statements reflect psychic truths, rooted in unconscious, transcendental processes, and cannot be proven physically—or else they would inevitably fall into the category of the natural sciences. Religions are based on archetypes of the collective unconscious. Ideas of this kind are never invented; they are rather spontaneous phenomena which are not subject to our will. “People don’t have ideas. Ideas have people.”

Job: The Oldest Book of the Bible

Illustration of the Book of Job – William Blake

The Book of Job is believed to be the oldest book of the Bible, possibly dating to the patriarchal era (2000–1500 BC), the time of Moses (around 1440 BC), or Solomon (around 950 BC). Others argue for a later date, based on its language.

The story centres on a righteous man whose faith is tested by Satan with God’s permission. Job loses his wealth, his servants are killed, his children die in a whirlwind, and he is struck with a grievous illness. Even his friends abandon him, insisting that God is just and that Job must have done something wrong—denying him even the basic solace of human compassion. His cries for justice go unheard, so that Satan’s cruel wager can proceed undisturbed.

Despite his frailty, Job knows he is confronting a superhuman being—powerful, yet easily provoked. He laments, “He multiplies my wounds without cause” and “He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.” Refusing to betray his conscience, Job cries out, “I desire to argue my case with God” and insists, “I know I am not what I am thought to be… You know that I am not guilty.” Aware of the vast disproportion between man and God, he pleads, “Will you torment a windblown leaf?”

Still, Job refuses to give up. He says, “I will never say that you are right; I will maintain my integrity until I die. I will cling to my righteousness and will not let go.” And finally, with a hope that transcends despair, he affirms, “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last he will stand upon the earth.”

What is most remarkable about Job is that, despite his suffering, he never doubts the unity of God. Yet within this unity, Job perceives a deep conflict—God allows the innocent to suffer. Still, Job is certain that somewhere within God, justice must exist. This paradox leads him to expect, within God, a helper or an “advocate” against God. Through it all, Job remains faithful. In the end, Yahweh calms down, and the therapeutic power of unresisting acceptance proves its worth. God honours Job’s struggle, restoring his family and fortune. Job becomes the archetype of the faithful servant.

Union of Opposites in God

The fundamental idea in Answer to Job is that the pair of opposites is united in the image of Yahweh. God is not divided but is an antinomy—a totality of inner opposites. This paradox is the essential condition for His omniscience and omnipotence. Love and Fear, though seemingly irreconcilable, coexist at the heart of the divine.

Jung found that the old medieval philosophers had an image of God that pointed to a complexio oppositorum(combination or union of opposites), or as Nicholas of Cusa called it, a coincidentia oppositorum (coincidence of opposites), which describes the coexistence of contradictory elements within one being. Job confronts this very dilemma and astonishingly, believes that God will help him against God, which presupposes a similar conception of the opposites in God. Yet such an opposition must be expected wherever we are confronted with an immense energy.

There can be no dynamic manifestation without an initial tension that generates the necessary energy. If we consider the deity as a living presence within human experience, then its origin must lie in opposition—in paradox. Yet the monotheistic impulse tends to construct a unified, anthropomorphic image of God, one that denies contradiction. As a result, it is strange—and even painful—for us to accept a paradoxical or contradictory image of the divine. But when we try to grasp what such full acceptance entails, we begin to understand why it evokes such fear and resistance. It is a difficult problem, but an ancient truth.

Abraxas

Jung saw the union of opposites in the figure of Abraxas. He writes:

“Abraxas is the God who is difficult to grasp. His power is greatest, because man does not see it. From the sun he draws the summum bonum [the highest good]; from the devil the infimum malum [the lowest evil]; but from Abraxas life, altogether indefinite, the mother of good and evil.”

Carl Jung, The Red Book

Abraxas is the figure that represents the union of the Christian God with Satan, and hence depicts a transformation of the Western God-image. Jung states:

“I understood that the new God would be in the relative. If the God is absolute beauty and goodness, how should he encompass the fullness of life, which is beautiful and hateful, good and evil, laughable and serious, human and inhuman? How can man live in the womb of the God if the Godhead himself attends only to one-half of him?”

Carl Jung, The Red Book

The Divine Drama: Yahweh and Job

The Book of Job forms part of the “divine drama” of Christianity. Yahweh’s wrath had long been known—he was an envious guardian of morality, especially justice, and demanded to be praised as “just.” This set him apart from distant gods like Zeus; Yahweh was intimately involved with humanity, forming a personal bond. As Psalm 89 shows, Yahweh swore to keep his covenant with David forever. Yet, he broke his oath. This feels like a profound betrayal—God failing in His integrity. A breach of such a sacred contract would not only feel like a personal betrayal but a profound moral injury. David’s response reflects this: “How long, Lord? Will you hide yourself forever? How long will your wrath burn like fire? … Lord, where is your former great love, which in your faithfulness you swore to David?”

Jung saw Yahweh’s demand for praise as evidence of a personality dependent on external validation, lacking self-reflection and, as a result, incapable of morality, which requires consciousness. Yahweh is not imperfect or an evil demiurge, but a totality that holds both justice and its opposite. His existence, despite his immense power, is fragile—dependent on human consciousness to become real. Without recognition, Yahweh risks collapsing into blind rage, hellish loneliness, and the torment of non-existence, followed by a gradual reawakening of an unutterable longing for something which would make him conscious of himself.

It is striking how easily Yahweh, without reason, had let himself be influenced by one of his sons, by a doubting thought, and made unsure of Job’s faithfulness. Satan is presumably one of God’s eyes which “go to and fro in the earth and walk up and down in it.” This echoes the Persian tradition, where the deceitful spirit Ahriman arose from a doubting thought within Ahura Mazda, the god of goodness and creation.

The experiment in the Book of Job, with a wager placed upon a powerless faithful man, is deeply disturbing. Yahweh’s actions seem so cruel that one might wonder if hidden motives are at play. Could Yahweh harbour some form of resistance against Job? But what does man possess that God does not have? It seems that man’s weakness has given rise to a higher level of self-reflective consciousness—something God, in his omnipotence, lacks. Could Yahweh, then, suspect that man holds a concentrated light He himself does not? Such divine jealousy might explain his troubling behaviour.

As Job suffers pointlessly, something begins to take shape in the background—a quiet compensation for his pain. Unintended by Yahweh, Job had secretly been lifted up to a superior knowledge of God which God himself did not possess. Had Yahweh drawn on his omniscience, Job would not have gained this insight—but then, much else would not have unfolded either.

Job perceives God’s inner conflict, and through this insight, he attains divine knowledge. By persistently bringing his case before God, Job becomes the very obstacle that forced God to reveal his true nature. When Yahweh says, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without insight?” he rebukes Job—but in truth, what Job says is very insightful. The only dark thing here is how Yahweh ever came to make a bet with Satan. It is Yahweh who darkens his own counsel. Yahweh projects a sceptical face onto Job, one he despises because it reflects his own, and fears it for its critical gaze. It is only in the face of such fear that one boasts of power and invincibility—to a broken man already crushed by divine brutality. Yahweh sees in Job a force not of man, but of God—an equal power that provokes him to unleash his full might.

Yahweh’s willingness to hand Job over to Satan reveals his doubt in Job, projecting his own tendencies toward unfaithfulness onto him as a scapegoat. God must have seen that Job’s loyalty held firm and that Satan had lost the bet. He must also have realised that, in accepting this bet, he had done everything possible to drive his faithful servant to disloyalty. Yet what surfaces is not remorse, but a vague sense of something that unsettles his omnipotence—the extremely uncomfortable fact that he had let himself be bamboozled by Satan.

The Creature Surpasses The Creator

The conflict intensifies for Yahweh due to an unprecedented factor, which is something that has never occurred before in the history of the world: a mortal man, through his moral behaviour, is unknowingly raised above the divine. The creature has surpassed the creator. To Job’s horror, he sees that Yahweh is not human, but in some ways, less than human. Yahweh’s actions, driven by unconsciousness, cannot be morally judged. This lack of reflection allows a conception of God where goodness and cruelty coexist without conflict.

The unconscious mind of man sees clearly even when conscious reason fails. The drama is now complete for all eternity: Yahweh’s dual nature has been revealed. Such a revelation, whether it reached man’s consciousness or not, could not fail to have far-reaching consequences.

Yahweh and Sophia

Icon of Divine Wisdom from St. George Church in Vologda (16th century)

When an external event touches unconscious knowledge, it can surface into consciousness. The experience is recognised as déjà vu (literally, “already seen”), a memory of pre-existent knowledge. Something similar must have happened to Yahweh: He begins to experience an anamnesis of Sophia, who, as described in Proverbs, was present alongside God during the creation of the world. Job explicitly states, “But where can wisdom be found?” As Job comes to know God, so too must Yahweh come to know Himself, and in doing so, attain a higher level of consciousness. For such self-reflection, wisdom is needed.

Just as Yahweh is legitimately united with his wife Israel, so too does he have a feminine pneuma—a spiritual force that pervades existence—from all eternity. This is comparable to the concept of Shakti in Hinduism and Chokmah, the second of the ten sefirot in Kabbalah. Similarly, according to legend, Adam’s first wife is Lillith—a dark correspondence to Sophia—Eve would then correspond to the people of Israel.

Abel: Foreshadowing the God-Man

If Adam, the original father, is a copy of the Creator, then Cain, his son, mirrors God’s son, Satan. Thus, Abel, God’s favourite, must also have his correspondence in a “supracelestial place.” However, Abel is met with an early violent death. He is not the authentic archetype of the son well-pleasing to God, but the first of the kind to be met with in the scriptures, foreshadowing Jesus Christ, the God-man.

Abel’s fate may reflect a deeper metaphysical event—perhaps a conflict between Satan and another son of God, one of “light” and greater devotion to his father. Egyptian myth, particularly Horus and Set, offers insights into this dynamic.

God Becomes Man

Transfiguration of Jesus – Carl Heinrich Bloch

Christ, the new son—whom God declares, “With Him I am well pleased”—will be both a mortal man like Adam, capable of suffering, and, unlike Adam, not merely a copy but God Himself—begotten by the Father, renewing the Father as the Son. Mankind is not, as before, to be destroyed, but saved. No new human beings are to be created, but only one, the God-man. For this purpose, a contrary procedure must be employed. The Second Adam, shall not, like the first, proceed directly from the hand of the Creator, but shall be born of a human woman. Genesis 3:15 (the protoevangelium) contains the promise of God to send a seed of the woman who would crush the serpent’s head and redeem humanity. Mary, the Second Eve, is chosen as the pure vessel for this birth. Her virginity, free from original sin, makes her a daughter of God, embodying the state before the Fall. Mary’s deep love reflects Sophia’s influence on Yahweh’s new creation. As Queen of Heaven and intercessor, Mary is the incarnation of Sophia.

Christ’s birth, though a singular historical event, has always existed in eternity within the pleroma, the realm where past, present, and future exist simultaneously. What exists as an eternal process in the pleroma repeats in an irregular pattern throughout time. For instance, Yahweh had one good son and one failure—Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau—reflecting a recurring archetype of hostile brothers. This motif, still present in modern variations, is a fragment of the divine drama.

God becoming man marks a world-changing transformation. From the beginning of Creation, Yahweh’s creation of man in His image prefigured this. In omniscience, God always knew man’s divine nature. Only recently are we beginning to realise that God is Reality itself, including man—a realisation unfolding over millennia.

Christ and the Hero’s Myth

Nativity of Christ – Vladimir Borovikovsky

The birth of the Son of God follows the hero’s myth. Christ is not intended as merely a national Messiah, but as the universal saviour of mankind. His birth aligns with classic hero motifs: the annunciation, divine virgin birth, and a rare celestial event—the triple conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in Pisces in 7 BC, interpreted by the Magi as the Star of Bethlehem. This event marked the beginning of a new era. Christ’s life also reflects hero themes such as the recognition of his kingship, the persecution of the newborn, his flight and concealment, his lowly birth, and the motif of the growing up of the hero is discernible in the wisdom of the twelve-year-old child in the temple.

Answer to Job

Christ on the Cross – Carl Heinrich Bloch

What stands out in Christ is his love for mankind. But, for Jung, there’s little evidence he ever reflected on himself, except in the cry from the Cross: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Jung writes:

“Here his human nature attains divinity; at that moment God experiences what it means to be a mortal man and drinks to the dregs what he made his faithful servant Job suffer. Here is given the answer to Job.”

Carl Jung, Answer to Job

This moment, where the human experience is felt so profoundly, also reveals the full force of the divine myth—both aspects are inseparable. Yahweh’s intention to become man, born from his encounter with Job, is fulfilled in Christ’s life and suffering—God becomes fully human and can now empathically see and suffer humanity’s pain. Suffering appears to be the sine qua non for the increase of consciousness.

Christ as Archetype of the Self

Christ Pantocrator from Saint Catherine’s Monastery

Religion is inseparable from myth, as it connects us to the eternal truths. Myth is not fiction but consists of facts that are continually repeated and observable. Christ’s life as a myth does not undermine its truth; but rather expresses its universal validity. As the God-man, Christ embodies the archetype of the Self, the union of opposites (divine and human), and the model for individuation. For the believing Christian, Christ is everything, but certainly not a symbol, which is an expression for something unknown or not yet knowable. And yet he is a symbol by his very nature. The figure of Christ embodies a profound human experience which resonates with the collective unconscious of humanity.

Christ would never have made the impression he did on his followers if he had not expressed something that was alive and at work in their unconscious. Ten of the twelve apostles died as martyrs for their faith—people do not die for a lie. Christianity itself would never have spread through the pagan world with such astonishing rapidity had its ideas not found an analogous psychic readiness to receive them. It is this fact which also makes it possible to say that whoever believes in Christ is not only contained in him, but that Christ then dwells in the believer as the perfect man formed in the image of God.

The Role of Satan

Illustration of Milton’s Paradise Lost – Gustave Doré

It is fitting that Satan (the adversary or accuser) later on received the name of Lucifer (Light-bearer). It was he who placed those obstacles in Yahweh’s way, which omniscience knew to be essential for the unfolding of the divine drama. Among these, the case of Job was pivotal, and it could only have occurred through Satan’s initiative.

Satan’s later ineffectiveness is explained by Christ’s vision in Luke 10:18, where he saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. This metaphysical event marks the final separation of Yahweh from his dark son, leaving Satan powerless in heaven and unable to manipulate his father. Although Satan is banished from the heavenly court, he has kept his dominion over the earthly realm—for now.

Christ’s death on the cross, prefigured by Abel, cannot be blamed on Satan. It was a fate chosen by Yahweh to atone for the wrong done to Job and to advance humanity’s spiritual and moral development. The significance of humanity is enormously enhanced when God becomes one of us. Jung flips the traditional understanding of Christ’s work of redemption: it is not an atonement for humanity’s sin against God, but a reparation for a wrong done by God to man.

Yahweh identifies with his light aspect and becomes the good God and loving father. While he retains his capacity for wrath, he now exercises it with justice. The attempt to secure an ultimate victory for good seems inevitably to lead to a dangerous accumulation of evil, resulting in catastrophe. In comparison to the end of the world as described in Revelation, events like the Flood or the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah are mere child’s play; this time, the entire creation is destroyed. As Satan is imprisoned for a thousand years before his final defeat, the destruction of the world cannot be attributed to the devil, but must be an “act of God.”

However, before the world ends, even Christ’s victory over Satan—the counterstroke of Abel against Cain—remains incomplete. A final, powerful manifestation of Satan is still to come. It seems unlikely that Satan would passively accept God’s incarnation in Christ. This would surely have stirred his jealousy, driving him to imitate Christ and seek to incarnate himself as the dark God. This plan will unfold through the figure of the Antichrist after the prophesied thousand years are over.

The Role of the Holy Spirit (Paraclete)

The Catholic Church believes that, with the help of the Holy Spirit, dogma can develop and unfold progressively in line with Christ’s teachings. Christ promised his disciples to abide within them, for we are made in the imago Dei (image of God). He further promised to send the Paraclete (helper or advocate) to lead believes into truth and facilitate the ongoing realisation of God in his children. The work of the Holy Spirit expands the process of incarnation. Christ, the firstborn, is followed by many brothers and sisters who, though not begotten by the Holy Ghost or born of a virgin, share a deep kinship with God through participation in Christ’s body and blood. Jesus stated in John 10:34: “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods?’”

God’s incarnation in Christ requires continuation and completion because, owing to his virgin birth and sinlessness, Christ was not a fully empirical human being. As St. John states, he represented a light which, though it shone in the darkness, was not comprehended by the darkness. Christ remained outside and above mankind. In contrast, Job was an ordinary human being, and the wrong done to him and humanity can only be corrected by God incarnating in an empirical human being. This act of expiation is performed by the Paraclete, for just as man must suffer from God, so God must suffer from man. Otherwise, there can be no reconciliation between the two. Psychologically, the Holy Spirit represents the individuation of mankind.

Conflict of Opposites and Redemption

The Darkness at the Crucifixion – Gustave Doré

Christian ethics, by creating insoluble conflicts that afflict the soul, brings man closer to a knowledge of God. Since all opposites are of God, man must bear this burden, and in doing so, he becomes a vessel for divine conflict. Suffering often arises from the clash of opposites, and while we hesitate to describe such a painful experience as being “redeemed”, the Christian symbol of the Cross reflects this struggle. The suffering Redeemer stands in the middle of the two thieves—one who goes to hell, the other to paradise. In their own way, these thieves were also redeemers of mankind, they were the scapegoats.

The Christian experience of redemption comes only through the most extreme and intense conflict, provided the individual does not break but accepts the burden of being marked out by God. In this way, the imago Dei is realised, and God becomes man. Even Christ, in the Garden of Gethsemane, felt the weight of this burden so deeply that he fell to the ground and sweat drops of blood. In his prayer, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will”, he expressed his deep desire to avoid the Passion (Latin for “suffering” or “enduring”) that lay ahead.

Privatio Boni and Summum Bonum

Jung found the idea of the privatio boni absurd, which sees evil as merely the absence of good. Psychological experience shows that whatever we call “good” is balanced by an equally substantial “bad” or “evil.” Likewise, the idea of the summum bonum requires a complement to restore the balance, or else man will be hopelessly split, for to deny the darkness is to deny half of oneself. Ignoring the darker aspects of ourselves only leads to their projection onto others, while confronting our shadow creates a more balanced and whole personality.

Enantiodromia

The Preaching of The Antichrist – Luca Signorelli

When God incarnates solely in his light aspect and sees himself as pure goodness, an enantiodromia is inevitable. This psychological law states that a one-sided tendency in consciousness eventually gives rise to a powerful counterposition in the unconscious, which, over time, asserts itself and takes control of consciousness. This may well be the meaning of the belief in the coming of the Antichrist, which we owe more than anything else to the activity of the Holy Spirit.

In these circumstances the potential starts flowing from the unconscious towards consciousness, and the unconscious breaks through in the form of dreams, visions, and revelations. Jung explores how Christ must enter the empirical and sinful nature of man, and how this might unfold, drawing on insights from the Books of Ezekiel, Enoch and Revelation.

Visions and Mental Illness

The Beasts of Revelation – Matthias Gerung

Visions should not automatically be dismissed as signs of mental illness unless there is clear evidence of a psychological or neurological condition. For Jung, visions like Ezekiel’s are archetypal expressions of the collective unconscious. They reflect a split between the conscious and unconscious, and are the psyche’s attempt to restore balance. Such experiences can occur in normal individuals as well—though not frequently, they are by no means rare.

The Book of Ezekiel

In Ezekiel’s vision, he sees four living creatures with four faces (human, lion, ox, and eagle). The quaternity is a common symbol of wholeness. Above them is a figure resembling a human, representing the quinta essentia or fifth element. Here Ezekiel has seen the essential content of the unconscious, namely the idea of a higher man, foreshadowing Yahweh’s moral defeat and his eventual desire to become man. What is more, in Ezekiel we meet for the first time the title “Son of Man”, which God uses in addressing the prophet, presumably to indicate that he is a son of the “Man” on the throne, pointing to the future revelation of Christ. The four cherubim on God’s throne, representing the evangelists, form the quaternity that reflects Christ’s totality, just as the four Gospels represent the foundation of his throne.

The disturbance of the unconscious continued for several centuries. Around 165 BC, Daniel had a vision of the four beasts and the Ancient of Days, to whom “with the clouds of heaven there came one like a Son of Man.” Here the “Son of Man” is no longer the prophet but a son of God in his own right, and a son whose task it is to rejuvenate the father.

The Book of Enoch

The Book of Enoch, written around 100 BC, goes into considerably more detail. It describes how the sons of God (or “Watchers”) descended to earth and took human wives, producing Nephilim (giants or fallen ones). These two hundred angels, led by Samyaza, taught mankind forbidden knowledge—among whom Azazel particularly excelled—advancing human consciousness to “gigantic proportions.” This inflation, however, triggered a counter-reaction from the unconscious, culminating in the Flood. So corrupt was the earth in the antediluvian period that the giants devoured mankind and eventually each other. Only after this did four archangels, seemingly by accident, hear the cries of men and discover the chaos on earth. This proves that the sons of God are somehow more conscious than their Father. The later draconian punishment shows that it was a significant event in heaven when two hundred sons of God left the paternal realm to experiment with human beings.

In Enoch, Sheol—the underworld—is divided into four hollow places for the spirits of the dead. Three are dark, but one is bright and holds a “fountain of water,” serving as the abode of the righteous. This division corresponds to a chthonic quaternity, which stands in contrast to a pneumatic or heavenly quaternity. The latter one consists of four faces of God, three of which are engaged in praise and prayer, while the fourth defends against “the Satans” (the adversaries) to prevent them from accusing humanity before the Lord of Spirits, thus preventing further experiments like the Job episode. These four faces are revealed to be the four archangels: Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, and Phanuel.

In addition, Enoch also encounters four “beings like white men,” one of whom hurls a star into the abyss. Azazel and his followers are bound and cast into the abyss until the end of days, when they will be cast into the fire forever. Thus, prefiguring Satan’s fall in Revelation.

When Yahweh addressed Ezekiel as “Son of Man”, it was initially a dark and enigmatic hint. However, in the Book of Enoch, the figure becomes clearer, described as an “inexhaustible fountain of righteousness”—a quality Yahweh lacks. Enoch had unconsciously given an answer to Job. As Job himself hints when he says, “I know that my Redeemer lives.” Just as Satan plays the role of accuser and slanderer, so Christ plays the role of advocate and defender. The title of “Son of Man” is fulfilled after Christ ascends to heaven and sends the Holy Spirit to reside in creaturely man.

Furthermore, Enoch and Elijah, the only two taken into heaven without dying, prefigure the bodily resurrection—believed to occur at the end of time. As ordinary humans, these individuals show that others, too, can have a vision of God, become conscious of their saviour, and attain immortality.

The Book of Revelation

In the Book of Revelation, written around AD 95, John witnesses the storm of the times, the premonition of a tremendous enantiodromia which he could only understand as the final annihilation of the darkness which had not comprehended the light that appeared in Christ. He did not see that the power of destruction and vengeance is that very darkness from which God had split himself off when he became man. One could hardly imagine a more suitable personality for the John of the Apocalypse than the author of the Epistles of John. It was he who declared that “God is light; in Him there is no darkness.”

In John’s first vision, Christ appears with eyes blazing like fire and a sharp-double edged sword coming from his mouth—an image more suited to battle than to love. Overcome by awe and dread, John collapses. But Christ says to him, “Fear not.” Later, the opening of the sixth seal brings a cosmic catastrophe and everything hides from the “wrath of the Lamb.”

John also witnesses the Second Coming: Christ returns on a white horse, His robe dipped in blood, and the sword again proceeds from His mouth to strike the nations. He comes to rule them with an iron rod. Christ defeats the Beast and False Prophet, and Satan—the great dragon—is cast into the abyss, and imprisoned for a thousand years. During this millennial reign, Christ rules, a period that astrologically corresponds to the first half of the Pisces aeon. After this period, Satan is released for a little while in order to deceive the nations—this symbolises the enantiodromia of the Christian aeon, leading to the reign of the Antichrist. Ultimately, after an unspecified period, Satan is cast into the lake of fire for eternity. The first creation disappears, giving way to a new and redeemed creation.

Prior to this, and strangely—as though it did not belong to the stream of apocalyptic visions—a woman appears in heaven, clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She is pregnant, and a great red dragon stands before her, intent on devouring her child. The child is born, destined to “rule all the nations with an iron rod”, and the dragon is cast to the earth. Yet for Jung, seeing the child as a son of vengeance seems inconsistent, as the Lamb already fulfills this role in Revelation, making the child’s role seem superfluous, though it likely couldn’t have been understood differently at the time.

This child, born from a sun-moon conjunction, is not Christ’s return but a new manifestation, a second Messiah who symbolises the union of light and dark, and thus represents our totality. He belongs to another, future world—hence, the child was “snatched up” to God and the mother is hidden in the wilderness. For the immediate and urgent problem in those days was not the union of opposites, which lay in the future, but in the incarnation of the light and the good, the subjugation of the lust of this world, and the consolidation of the city of God against the advent of the Antichrist, who would come after a thousand years to announce the horrors of the last days.

Although the divine child is already born in the pleroma, his birth in time can only be accomplished when it is perceived, recognised, and declared by man. It would be wrong to think of this archetype as merely repeating itself mechanically. Archetypal situations only return when specifically called for. The true reason for God’s incarnation in sinful man lies in His encounter with Job.

After Satan is thrown into the lake of fire, the Apocalypse closes, like the classical individuation process, with the symbol of the hieros gamos, the sacred marriage of the Lamb and His Bride, the New Jerusalem. The city is a perfect square, made of pure gold, clear as glass—representing absolute purity. From God’s throne flows the river of life, with the tree of life beside it, as a reminder of paradise and pleromatic pre-existence. The city represents Sophia, who was with Yahweh before time began and will reunite with God at the end of time. This union restores the original pleromatic state, symbolising one single hermaphroditic being, an archetype of the greatest universality. The solution here is not the reconciliation of opposites but their final severance, allowing the saved to identify with the light side of God. The marriage takes place in heaven, where “nothing unclean” enters, high above the devastated world. Light consorts with light. That is the programme for the Christian aeon which must be fulfilled before God can incarnate in creaturely man. Only in the last days will the vision of the sun-woman be fulfilled, marking the transition into the Age of Aquarius, estimated to occur between AD 2000 and 2200, and which will constellate the problem of the union of opposites.

“It is high time we realised that it is pointless to praise the light and preach it if nobody can see it. It is much more needful to teach people the art of seeing.”

C.G. Jung, C.W. Vol. 12: Psychology and Alchemy

In order to learn the art of seeing, we must integrate a good part of our own darkness, through painful self-reflection and shadow work, bringing the dark unconscious contents into the light of consciousness. The goal is not to remain mired in darkness, but to overcome it using goodness and moral strength. Otherwise, we shall not be able to assimilate the dark God who wants to become man, nor endure Him without perishing. This requires not only Christian virtues but also the wisdom that Job sought, which was not yet recognised by Yahweh.

The revelation was experienced by an early Christian who, as a leading light of the community, presumably had to live an exemplary life and demonstrate to his flock the Christian virtues of true faith, humility, patience, devotion, selfless love, and denial of all worldly desires. In the long run this can become too much, even for the most righteous. Even the saints cast a shadow. Irritability, bad moods, and outbursts of affect are the classic symptoms of chronic virtuousness. Not for nothing was the apostle John nicknamed “son of thunder” by Christ. Of course, this assumes that the same John authored the Gospels, the Epistles, and Revelation.

Jung writes:

“I have seen many compensating dreams of believing Christians who deceived themselves about their real psychic constitution and imagined that they were in a different condition from what they were in reality. But I have seen nothing that even remotely resembles the brutal impact with which the opposites collide in John’s visions, except in the case of severe psychosis. However, John gives us no grounds for such a diagnosis. His apocalyptic visions are not confused enough; they are too consistent, not subjective and scurrilous enough… Their author need not necessarily be an unbalanced psychopath… But he must have an intensive relationship to God which lays him open to an invasion far transcending anything personal.”

Carl Jung, Answer to Job

Like Job, John saw the fierce and terrible side of Yahweh. For this reason, he felt his gospel of love to be one-sided, and he supplemented it with the gospel of fear.

“God has a terrible double aspect: a sea of grace is met by a seething lake of fire, and the light of love glows with a fierce dark heat of which it is said, “ardet non lucet”—it burns but gives no light. That is the eternal, as distinct from the temporal, gospel: one can love God but must fear him.”

Carl Jung, Answer to Job

John outlined the course for the whole aeon of Pisces, with its dramatic enantiodromia, and its dark end which we have still to experience, and before whose—without exaggeration—truly apocalyptic possibilities mankind shudders. The four horsemen, trumpets, and vials of wrath in Revelation are still ahead, and modern threats like nuclear and chemical warfare echo the horrors described in the book. John foresaw many of these dangers in the final phase of the Christian aeon.

Not nature but the “genius of mankind” has knotted the hangman’s noose with which it can execute itself at any moment, this is just another way of speaking for what John called the “wrath of God.”

“Ever since John the apocalyptist experienced for the first time (perhaps unconsciously) the conflict into which Christianity inevitably leads, mankind has groaned under this burden: God wanted to become man, and still wants to. That is probably why John experienced in his vision a second birth of a son from the mother Sophia, a divine birth which was characterised by a coniunctio oppositorum, and which anticipated the filius sapientiae [the son of wisdom], the essence of the individuation process.”

Carl Jung, Answer to Job

Assumption of Mary

The Coronation of the Virgin – Diego Velázquez

Inspired by the workings of the Holy Ghost, Pope Pius XII announced the Assumption of Mary in 1950, affirming her ascent into Heaven. As the heavenly bride, Mary is united with the Son in the heavenly bridal-chamber, and, in her aspect as Sophia, with the Godhead itself. This points to the hieros gamos in the pleroma, and in turn implies, the future birth of the divine child, who will choose as his birthplace the empirical man. This metaphysical process is known as the individuation process, which runs its course whether we are conscious of it or not.

Jung considered this the most important religious event since the Reformation. The dogma symbolically fulfils John’s vision of the sun-woman, foreshadowing the incarnation in sinful man and easing the path toward wholeness by re-emphasising the feminine aspect of God, which includes the chthonic, or dark, side—an essential element seen as the missing fourth aspect of the Trinity. In this way, the Trinity is transformed into a Quaternity, a symbol of wholeness.

Union of Opposites and Individuation

18th century alchemical engraving based on the work of Basil Valentine

In severe times of conflict, Jung recommends to wait and see whether the unconscious will not produce a dream with a reconciling solution. In alchemy, the philosophers’ stone, a symbol of wholeness, is created through the union of the rubedo and albedo stages, which symbolise the sun and moon, and the hieros gamos of King and Queen. The figure that results is the hermaphroditic Mercurius. This is precisely the figure we encounter in the Apocalypse as the son of the sun-woman. He unites the coldness of the moon with the heat of the sun, serving as a catalyst of the union of opposites. This represents the alpha and omega of the process. “It has a thousand names”, say the alchemists, meaning that the source from which the individuation process rises and the goal towards which it aims is nameless and ineffable.

The image resurfaces again in the dreams of modern man, with no connection with alchemy, and it always has to do with the bringing together of the light and dark, as though modern man, like the alchemists, had divined what the problem was that the Apocalypse set the future. It was this problem on which the alchemists laboured for nearly seventeen centuries, and it is the same problem that distresses modern man. Everyone shares this tension, and everyone experiences it in his individual form of unrest, the more so the less he sees any possibility of getting rid of it by rational means. It is no surprise, then, that we are facing a crisis of meaning.

Everything now depends on man: immense destructive power is in his hands, and the question is whether he can resist the urge to use it, balancing his actions with love and wisdom. He will struggle to do so alone and needs the help of an “advocate” in heaven—the eternal child who brings healing and wholeness to the fragmented man. The Self, as an image of the goal of life spontaneously produced by the unconscious, represents the realisation of wholeness and individuality.This process is driven by instinct, which ensures that everything which belongs to an individual’s life shall enter into it, with or without the consent of his will.

It makes a significant difference whether one understands what one is living out, knows what one is doing, and accepts responsibility for one’s actions. Before the judgment of nature and fate, unconsciousness is never accepted as an excuse; on the contrary, there are very severe penalties for it. Hence all unconscious nature longs for the light of consciousness while frantically struggling against it at the same time.

The conscious realisation of what is hidden and kept secret certainly confronts us with an insoluble conflict; at least this is how it appears to the conscious mind. But the symbols that rise up out of the unconscious in dreams show it rather as a confrontation of opposites, and the images of the goal represent their successful reconciliation. Something empirically demonstrable comes to our aid from the depths of our unconscious nature. It is the task of the conscious mind to understand these hints. If this does not happen, the process of individuation will nevertheless continue—just like an acorn becomes an oak.

The difference between the “natural” individuation process, which runs its course unconsciously, and the one which is consciously realised, is tremendous. In the first, consciousness does not intervene; the end remains as dark as the beginning. We become its victims and are dragged along by fate towards that inescapable goal which we might have reached walking upright. In the second, the darkness is illuminated, and consciousness necessarily gains in scope and insight. Then, we walk upright toward our goal. The encounter between conscious and unconscious has to ensure that the light not only illuminates the darkness but also understands it. This aligns with Christ’s saying:

“Man, if indeed thou knowest what thou doest, thou art blessed; but if thou knowest not, thou art cursed, and a transgressor of the law.”

Codex Bezae, Apocryphal insertion at Luke 6:4

Here the moral criterion is consciousness, and not law or convention, The goal seems to be the increase of consciousness, the lifelong task of knowing oneself. Knowledge of ourselves leads to knowledge of God, and knowledge of God leads to a deeper knowledge of ourselves. The only thing that really matters now is whether humanity can elevate to a higher level of consciousness, but this is only possible through a deeper understanding of our own nature.

We can, of course, hope for the undeserved grace of God, who hears our prayers. But God, who also does not hear our prayers, wants to become man, and for that purpose he has chosen, through the Holy Spirit, the creaturely man filled with darkness—tainted with original sin and who learned the divine arts and sciences from the fallen angels. It is this guilty, burdened individual who is most suited to carry the continuing incarnation, not the guiltless one who stands apart from the world, avoiding life’s demands—for in such a person, the dark God would find no room.

The Challenge Ahead

Can humanity withstand the tension of opposites until they are finally united, leading to a new and more enlightened age, without succumbing to darkness and self-destruction? Only time will tell. For now, we must not despair, but continue doing our duty, and strive to become beacons of light for others navigating the same darkness.

The new enlightened age does not come without challenges. For when God becomes man and man becomes God, it raises the question: do we all become true God-men? Such a transformation could lead to insufferable conflicts and dangerous inflation, as ordinary mortals, still bound by original sin, would struggle. In these situations, it is helpful to remember St. Paul and his split consciousness: on one hand, he felt called and enlightened by God, while on the other, he saw himself as a sinful man who could not pluck out the “thorn in the flesh”.

“Even the enlightened person remains what he is, and is never more than his own limited ego before the One who dwells within him, whose form has no knowable boundaries, who encompasses him on all sides, fathomless as the abysms of the earth and vast as the sky.”

Carl Jung, Answer to Job

The Psychology of God’s Dark Side

In 1952, at the age of seventy-six, Carl Jung wrote Answer to Job in a single burst of energy and with strong emotion. He completed it while ill, following a high fever, and upon finishing, he felt well again. The book explores the nature of God, particularly what Jung perceived as God’s dark side, a theme that preoccupied him throughout his life.

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One Million Subscribers – A Reflection

We have reached ONE MILLION subscribers!

It feels utterly surreal. I have spent a few days reflecting on this achievement, and searching for the right words to express my gratitude. But words alone feel insufficient. I’m deeply grateful from the bottom of my heart to each and every one of you. Thank you.

Nevertheless, I would like to share with you a brief overview of how Eternalised started, my journey and some of my reflections over the past five years.

Before Eternalised, my channel was about personal finance and personal growth (I later reuploaded the videos in a separate channel). This was normal as I was studying Business Administration in university, and later started YouTube as a hobby. However, even before that I had made a channel concerned with the “weird, creepy, bizarre,” from lucid dreaming and unexplained human phenomena, to time travel and the future of human evolution. I have always had a desire to share knowledge and ideas with others.

After graduating and completing my internships in 2020, I was offered a contract in a financial consulting company. But, due to personal circumstances of life, I had to cancel it, and I was left home with nothing to do (If you want further details, I wrote about this in 2022).

During this time I started growing weary of personal finance, and my focused shifted more towards personal growth. I remember having made several Reddit posts that got a lot of attention, and I was surprised to see that people found some value in what I said. This made me want to share more valuable content to help others. Another thing that shifted my focus is that I had been listening to Jordan Peterson, and he sparked my interest in philosophy and psychology, especially with his talks on Nietzsche and Jung. For this reason, I remain very grateful to him.

On May 2020, I published my first video Jordan Peterson VS Friedrich Nietzsche | Is God Dead? And I rebranded my channel to Eternalised. I remember how excited I was to get up from bed in the morning and work on researching, making the script and editing the video. But as time passed, that excitement waned. They say that when your passion becomes merely work, it dies. But that is to be expected. The goal is to combine serious work with play (the senex archetype with the puer aeternus archetype). The first year and a half was tough, barely any views were gained for the amount of work I put in, but I remained consistent with my uploads – even though I was burned out. My videos finally gathered some attention, and eventually I got monetised. And the rest is history. I did not expect my hobby to become my full-time job.

YouTube daily views (May 24, 2020 – Mar 17, 2025)

Looking back now I am glad that I took the opportunity presented to me, and went with my gut feeling. I couldn’t imagine where I would be now if I didn’t. Everything seems to have happened serendipitiously, in such a way to make fertile ground for the birth of Eternalised. It is as if it chose me, rather than I chose it. One can only imagine how the future will be, but not how things will actually work out. To paraphrase Kierkegaard, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” The destination is not the goal, but the journey.

I would be lying if I said it was an easy and smooth journey. Working all these years, almost every day, and neglecting play, along with other personal issues, took its toll on my mental health, culminating only recently (Dec 2024). I was unable to pick up a book and read a single page. Psychosomatic symptoms would appear and I could not focus and had mental blockage. I was prevented from doing my work. And nothing is more painful to me than not being able to fulfill my duty. Of course, doctors would say it is normal and just due to stress. Which didn’t help much. I had a feeling that there was a psychological basis in this, part of a complex that was inhibiting my actions outwardly. It is as if something within me, which I had neglected, told me, “Alright, buddy. Enough is enough. I am going to put a stop to all of this.”

On one hand, I would feel the pangs of conscience when I took a break from my work. It felt undeserved, and a visceral uneasiness would overwhelm me, so much so that I would have to get back home and work. And as I progressed, the uneasiness would slowly dissipate. I imagine it as my personal daimon, who is amoral, it does not care about my feelings, but merely wants me to fulfill my duty or “soul-essence.” This is also probably due to a combination of high conscientiousness (achieving goals and completing tasks) and medium-high neuroticism (prone to melancholy, anxiety, stress).

On the other hand, I continued to endure unpleasant states of mind by distracting myself with work, focusing on tasks to feel a sense of accomplishment, even if I were miserable and burned-out most of the time. This doesn’t help, as my temperament is already inclined to melancholy. This is one of the reasons why I consider Kierkegaard, who often spoke of melancholy, as my favourite philosopher. Another reason is that it was through reading Kierkegaard that I was convinced of the value of religion, despite being a fervent Nietzschean. In The Sickness unto Death, Kierkegaard writes about the irony of selfhood: one can never truly become oneself without God, for without Him, one lacks something eternally firm. Paradoxically, true selfhood is only possible by standing transparently before God, whose higher self alone can overwhelm and complete our fragmented self.

I was faced with a contradiction. It seemed that no matter what I did: work or not, I would feel uneasy. As Jungian analyst James Hollis said in an interview:

Suffering is often caused by a clash of opposites. Should I help my family and honour them or grow and live my journey? The answer is, both. That is the difficulty. The hard thing in life is not to choose between right or wrong, but to choose between two things that seem equally right and true, both are costly. That’s a real life issue.

I was then reminded of my anima, the contrasexual soul-image or archetype of life within me. When I was feeling especially lifeless and during my dark night of the soul, I had an encounter with her dark side in my first active imagination session in 2022. She was angry and hostile towards me, and said:

“I sit here and guard you. I tend you in my garden. You are one of my flowers. You are a flower that I value, but you disgust me, you are rotten, decaying, I want you out of my garden. I will have you uprooted.”

I appeared as a rotten flower because I had been neglecting to exercise and take care of my body and health. Therefore, whenever I exercise and take care of my body, I imagine her happy as flowers bloom in her garden. She is happy and I am happy, and I feel alive, or animated.

I decided to share these active imagination sessions in a recently published eBook: A Brief Introduction to Active Imagination, and how this technique, which Jung considered the most powerful tool to access the unconscious, has helped me to find the images which were concealed in my emotions.

At first, I was hesitant to share these personal experiences, but if there is discomfort – I believe you should look into it, for there lies the shadow guarding the gold. What you most need is found where you wish to look. Hence the alchemical maxim, in sterquiliniis invenitur (in filth, it will be found). Most importantly, I thought it might help other people going through similar difficulties.

Starting on Jan 1, 2025. I seriously focused on physical exercise, lifting weights and doing calisthenics 5 to 6 times per week and walking at least ten thousand steps per day, to compensate for my psychological issues. I find it helpful to write down what I have done on a notebook calendar. The difficult part is to start. Later as it becomes a habit, you just go with the flow. As Lao Tzu wrote, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” This has helped me alleviate the psychosomatic symptoms, though they still reappear from time to time, in less intensity. Now I have to learn to take more rest days, as the goal is sustainability. At times, I feel miserable, but I am also more alive than ever – more in tune with myself, others, and the world.

Above all, do not lose your desire to walk: every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from any illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome than one cannot walk away from it… If anyone denies that health resides in motion, then I walk away from all morbid objections. Thus, if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.

Søren Kierkegaard, Letters and Documents. Letter 150 to his sister-in-law Henriette Kierkegaard (1847)

A sedentary life is the real sin against the Holy Spirit. Only those thoughts that come by walking have any value.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

Thanks to a friend, I stopped watching porn half a year ago, which was something I struggled for 10+ years. I also find value in celibacy (as I am currently single). Lust is always there, of course, but its effects on you can be lessened. It is like taming a wild beast. Or, as my friend told me, it is like a hydra. You shouldn’t try to fight it, for every time you cut off one of its heads, another one reappears. Rather, you should inspect it and study it. Eventually, it becomes bored and goes back to its cave to sleep. I realised how much of the porn industry is a war on the human mind. No wonder it is free, and why anyone can access it in a few seconds. The less we are in control of ourselves, the easier it is to control us. It is part of the ongoing spiritual warfare, whose effects are felt, even if it may be too subtle to notice its patterns. It is diabolic par excellence. The term devil derives from the Greek diábolos (“the one who divides”). This division not only occurs externally, but internally too. See the Psychology of the Devil for the characteristics of the diabolic: temptation, deception, division, diversion, addiction, obsession, oppression, loss of meaning, and finally, suicide. Knowing the demonic pattern is already half the battle. I also recommend the movie Nefarious (2023), which I think is the best depiction of how the diabolic operates in reality.

On January I started going to a psychologist (Jungian, of course!) for the first time, which I had neglected because of fear of being vulnerable or asking for help. In the sixth stage of The Hero’s Journey: Tests, Allies, and Enemies, a common barrier is the fear of asking for help, for being seen as less than capable or for possibly being rejected. Ironically, vulnerability becomes a key skill in resiliency, rather than a sign of weakness. The weekly 1-hour sessions with my analyst revolve around the interpretation of one of my recent dreams. This may seem like little. However, the less, the better – as the sessions become more focused and one delves into the deeper parts of oneself. It allows for depth in self-knowledge, rather than mere breadth and superficiality.

Moreover, no matter how much I may know about psychological concepts, they ultimately matter very little if not put into practice.

Carl Jung, Reflections on the Life and Dreams of C.G. Jung

Highs and lows are part of life. Many times I’ve been so frustrated that I thought to quit and leave it all, for some peace of mind. YouTube’s system is not sustainable. Every new video is expected to do better than the previous one. But that is not realistic. And YouTube shows you in the analytics when your video performs badly, and that demotivates you, because your livelihood depends on it. Every upload is unexpected. But, no matter how difficult it is, I know it is what is most meaningful to me, even if it causes suffering. For, as Carl Jung says,

Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate [or authentic] suffering.

Carl Jung, C.W. Vol. 11: Psychology and Religion, §129

And as Viktor Frankl says,

In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning such as the meaning of a sacrifice.

Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

Your meaning of life, of course, must be ethical and not directed to hurting others.

What really keeps me going, however, and what I cherish most are the comments from people around the world saying that my videos helped them in their difficult times, or at least helped them to understand themselves better, or that they have finally found like-minded individuals and do not feel so alone in their journey. We have to support each other, perhaps more than ever.

When I think about what is most meaningful in life, an image comes up, which I first learned about from one of Bishop Robert Barron’s Sunday Sermons: Have You Found Joy? This image is of the Rota Fortuna (or Wheel of Fortune) shown in medieval manuscripts. There is a king who lives on the rim of the wheel. On the top of the wheel, he is reigning and the kingdom prospers, then the wheel moves clockwise and you see how his crown falls, “I have reigned”, at the bottom is the dark night of the soul, “I have lost my kingdom”, and finally, he climbs back up to retake his throne, “I shall reign”. This represents, for me, all that is temporal (money, pleasure, fame, power, etc), or as the book of Ecclesiastes puts it:

I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Ecclesiastes 1:14

When you realise that you have been focusing on chasing after the wind, or that you have been numbing yourself with pleasure and it no longer fulfills you, you come face to face with the void of your inner being and there is no eternal core to anchor you in reality. What are you going to do when you got nothing? You become spiritually dead, but have to keep waking up, earning income for food, clothes, and paying the bills. You drag along like a lifeless zombie in your already difficult Sisyphean existence, an outward manifestation of never having known yourself.

The biggest danger, that of losing oneself, can pass off in the world as quietly as if it were nothing: every other loss, an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. is bound to be noticed.

Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death

And:

Anthropologists have long known that when a tribe of people lose their feeling that their way of life is worthwhile, they may stop reproducing, or in large numbers simply lie down and die beside streams full of fish: food is not the primary nourishment of man.

Ernest Becker, The Birth and Death of Meaning

Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death suggests that death is what we most fear in life, and thus we spend our whole lives repressing it. We construct “immortality projects” to avoid confronting our mortality. There is some truth to this, but it is not representative of all of humanity. What about those who commit suicide? Some people do not deny death, but prefer it over life. Spiritual death is worse than physical death.

I went into the inner death and saw that outer dying is better than inner death. And I decided to die outside and to live within. For that reason I turned away and sought the place of the inner life.

Carl Jung, The Red Book

When you go at war with yourself, you find peace, because you find yourself. The real competition is against your other self.

When I row competitively, it may look as though I am trying to beat the other rowers, but I am in fact engaged in a much more significant competition: the one against my other self. He didn’t want to learn to row. He didn’t want to do workouts, preferring instead to spend the predawn hours asleep in a warm bed… (“If you just quit rowing,” he would say in his most seductive voice, “all this pain would come to an end. Why not just quit? Think of how good it would feel!”). It is curious, but my competitors in a race are simultaneously my teammates in the much more important competition against my other self. By racing against each other, we are all simultaneously racing against ourselves, although not all of us are consciously aware of doing so. To race against each other, we must individually overcome ourselves – our fears, our laziness, our lack of self-discipline. And it is entirely possible for someone to lose the competition against the other rowers – indeed, to come in last – but in the process of doing so to have triumphed in the competition against his other self.

William B. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

As the Roman poet Juvenal wrote, as the first in a list of what is most desirable in life, “mens sana in corpore sano” (a healthy mind in a healthy body). Maintaining a healthy body is just as much a mental challenge as a physical one. It requires discipline over instant gratification, patience through slow progress, eating the right food, a balanced self-image, realistic expectations, avoiding overexertion and burnout, etc.

One must also, however, focus on the soul (your innermost being) and the spirit (your connection with God). These three parts of the human being – body, soul, and spirit – must be in balance, and they complement each other. But if you miss one, it it as if you miss 1/3 of yourself.

Prayer is important for me. I recommend that you make a space in your home for a prayer corner, a sacred place to be alone and contemplate. While praying, I sometimes feel “truly at home”, and an inner warmth that envelops my body. Other times, nothing happens. But I try to pray without a goal in mind, to be simply immersed in the prayer and in the moment.

Have you got a corner somewhere in your house where you perform the rites, as you can see in India? Even the very simple houses there have at least a curtained corner where the members of the household can perform the symbolic life, where they can make their new vows or their meditation. We don’t have it; we have no such corner.

Carl Jung, C.W. Vol. 11: Psychology and Religion

I often hear of people blaming God for not being there for them in times of distress and difficulty, and that is a major reason of becoming an atheist. I can relate as I have been an atheist-agnostic most of my life, only becoming a Christian in 2022. But if only we would shift from blaming God to asking Him for courage and strength to overcome our difficulties, unexpected things might occur. To suffer meaningfully allows the soul to grow.

The meaninglessness of suffering, not the suffering, was the curse that lay over mankind so far.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals

Apart from the temporal aspects of life discussed, there is something deeper, more stable, and more vital, within each of us. This is represented by the centre of the wheel. The centre is a symbol of the Self (or God-image). Our goal seems to be to unite our ego with this eternal centre, which the alchemists aptly represent with the philosophers’ stone (a stone is something solid, durable, resilient, immovable, etc.).

Religion helps to unite our fragmented selves with the God-image, which gives us a sense of totality. Buddhists deny the rim of the wheel in order to focus on the centre, similarly, Christians follow the maxim, “thy will be done”, surrendering or emptying one’s personal will to be filled with the divine will of God (kenosis). This allows for union with God (theosis). For me, Christianity is unique among religions insofar as it is God who descends and becomes man, to suffer for us, and offering us His hand, rather than us having to ascend to God and asking for His hand.

When you walk with God, you never walk alone.

Let nothing disturb you,
nothing shake you.
Everything passes,
God does not change.
Patience obtains everything.
Whoever has God lacks nothing.
Only God suffices.

Let nothing disturb you. Poem by St. Teresa of Ávila

To surrender to God is to fall back upon your soul, given by Him, and we must remember what this is. For within it lies our essence—the very reason we were born into this world. To surrender is not to rid yourself of responsibility, but to give you time to replenish your soul, and redirect you to what truly matters, like a lost ship finding its way back to shore.

According to Plato, life is a process of anamnesis (recollection or remembrance). Before birth, the soul existed in the realm of Forms, where it had direct knowledge of perfect, eternal truths. However, upon incarnation, the soul drinks from Lethe, the River of Forgetfulness, causing it to lose this knowledge. Thus, learning is not about acquiring new information, but about remembering what the soul once knew. Similarly, in Chinese mythology, before reincarnation, souls pass through the Pavilion of Forgetfulness, where an old woman, Meng Po, serves them a special tea. This tea causes instant and permanent amnesia, erasing all memory of past lives. Having been purged of all previous sins and knowledge, the soul is then reborn into a new body, its fate determined by the karma accumulated over its past lifetimes, and the cycle begins anew.

Dante and the River of Lethe – Gustave Doré

Empty your heart’s worries and let it be filled with God’s love. Know that everything will be taken care of, but that requires an act of surrender and sacrificing what you value (which is usually the temporal aspects). This provides relief from anxiety, suffering, meaninglessness and hopelessness. The Stoics called this apatheia (a– ‘without’ and pathos ‘suffering, passion’), a state of tranquility where one is not continually swept away by emotional fluctuations, but is content as one is, including one’s defects.

This may sound to some like a denial or escape from reality or the responsibilities of daily life, but it is actually an enhancement of reality. One still lives within the temporal realm, with the continual cycle of the outer circle, playing one’s role within the world’s stage, but that is not the primary thing. The primary thing is within you. You may lose everything: your job, your loved ones, your reputation, your health…, but nobody can take away the inner images within you.

You have to constantly remind yourself to be aligned to the centre, that gives you order in the midst of chaos, then you can experience ecstasy—you stand outside of yourself and are part of the eternal realm, without ceasing to be yourself and live in the temporal realm. Like Kierkegaard’s knight of faith, you must take a leap from finitude to infinity, and back again to finitude. Then you can delight in everything finite, even while knowing the bliss of infinity. Or as is written in the Emerald Tablet:

True it is, without falsehood, certain and most true. That which is below is like that which is above, and that which is above is like that which is below, to accomplish the miracle of one only thing… It ascends from the earth to the heaven, and descends again to the earth, and receives the power of the above and below. Thus you will have the glory of the whole world. Therefore all darkness will flee from you.

Hermes Trismegistus, Emerald Tablet

The meaning and purpose of life is unique to each one of us, and it seems to be the fulfillment of that eternal core within us, which since ancient times has been called the soul. But as Jung said,

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.

Carl Jung, C.W. Vol. 12: Psychology and Alchemy

I sometimes I think about what would have been most meaningful in my life if I was on my deathbed. What would I want people to think about me at my funeral? Heidegger’s concept of Being-toward-Death pops up—it is too easy to get lost in the everyday, until we face death and start to think about who we truly were, ironically, for the first time we actually live for ourselves, without spending time thinking about the approval of other people on who we are. All of our social masks fall off and shatter, and we are faced with the reality of our being, who we truly are.

If you have remained true to yourself and focused on the valuable aspects of life, you remain at peace, if not, you have deep regret. In my case, I doubt that I would be thinking about my outer achievements. I resonate deeply with what Jung wrote:

Outward circumstances are no substitute for inner experience. Therefore my life has been singularly poor in outward happenings. I cannot tell much about them, for it would strike me as hollow and insubstantial. I can understand myself only in the light of inner happenings. It is these that make up the singularity of my life.

Carl Jung: Memories, Dreams, Reflections

My deepest regret would be not having loved others enough, not having spend enough time with people I value, and having caused people unnecessary suffering.

So, love others and try to harm people as little as possible. And also, equally important, learn to love yourself.

Take good care.

With love,
Eternalised

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The Psychology of Knowing Yourself

Carl Jung published his book Psychological Types in 1921, introducing four functions of consciousness: thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition, and the two attitudes through which these four functions are deployed: introversion and extraversion. If one of these functions habitually predominates, it is called our primary or dominant function, which is paired with a secondary or auxiliary function. It was Jung who taught us that a rational function (thinking or feeling) is paired with an irrational function (sensation or intuition) to develop a conscious orientation, or as he put it, an ego-consciousness, that involve just these two differentiated functions.

On the other hand, the tertiary function is less differentiated, that is, less within our conscious grasp, and the inferior function is totally immersed in the unconscious, and thus a source of errors and complexes, but it also provides the bridge to the Self (the total personality) that the other differentiated functions cannot. The inferior function is carried by the anima or animus, contrasexual archetypes of the soul that can serve as tutelary figures, representing the “otherness” of the unconscious. They allow a relationship to develop between conscious and unconscious contents, with the potential to replace this tension of opposites with the harmony of wholeness.

The tertiary and inferior function would, in most people, remain potentials only, and are represented in dreams in archaic ways. In the second half of life, however, they press for integration into consciousness, to balance our one-sidedness and allow for wholeness, that is the lifelong task of individuation.

If you are unfamiliar with these concepts or need a refresher, it is recommended that you read the previous post, The Psychology of Personality Types.

Table of contents

Introduction

Image from Carl Jung’s Red Book (Four Functions of Consciousness)

Jung’s functions follow a fourfold structure, which is typical of the archetype of the Self. These functions follow the archetypal patterns of the four classical elements: air (thinking), water (feeling), earth (sensation), and fire (intuition). The Self is the quintessence (the fifth element) which unites all of the elements, or all of the forms of consciousness. We are dealing with the archetype of the differentiation of consciousness, which helps you to become who you are meant to be. But, for that we must go beyond simple identification, and few of us really do. Most of us live as if we were simply our parent’s son or daughter, husband or wife, disciple, and so on. In other words, people live their complexes as if they were reality.

If we are to embark on the journey towards consciousness, we must break free from these identifications. For many, the psychological nature is as yet unborn. Each of us is born into a particular family and culture, shaped by a typological bias, and we quickly learn that failing to meet the expectations and demands of others can lead to serious consequences. In a way, unless we are fortunate enough to be born into a family that aligns well with our natural type, we all make a Faustian bargain in childhood—trading our true, innate nature for power, knowledge and material gain, and we pay an enormous price for that later on in life.

Psychological types have to do with discovering one’s own unique orientation—something that can only emerge after sufficient disorientation. It is not merely a framework for casually labelling others from the outside; to do so would entirely miss its true purpose.

Psychological types make sense of the way one follows one’s individuation process, but it does not account for the many distortions of type that arise from substituting other functions to satisfy or defend against the type demand of an environment that hinders individuation. One may appear to be very successful on the outside, but in reality, suffer from inner fragmentation. The persona or social mask, a collective way of playing a role in the world, may have nothing to do with one’s true nature.

It is also best not to make a type diagnosis to someone who has not yet made a connection to the self that would be natural to him or her, because all you may be doing is noticing the “negative personality” that has swallowed up the patient’s true self. When neurotic traits are easily diagnosed in a patient, it suggests that what is being observed is not the person’s natural personality, but rather “a falsification of the original personality.”

Consciousness is the Human Being’s Flower

What does consciousness mean? It isn’t simply non-comatose, although that does help. In a seminar, Jung was asked, “Is not individuation, in our sense of the word here, rather living life consciously? A plant individuates but it lives unconsciously.” Jung’s answer was:

“That is our form of individuation. A plant that is meant to produce a flower is not individuated if it does not produce a flower, it must fulfil the cycle, and the man who does not develop consciousness is not individuated, because consciousness is his flower; it is his life, it belongs to our process of individuation that we shall become conscious.”

Carl Jung, The Visions Seminars (22 June 1932)

In allowing the subtitle of Psychological Types to be “The Psychology of Individuation”, Jung implied that the flowering of consciousness has something to do with the progressive emergence of the psychological types. Just as a flower represents the individuation of a plant, consciousness represents the individuation of a human being. If a person individuates—fully blossoms—the various functions of consciousness become the petals of that flower. In this sense, consciousness is the human being’s flower.

The Eight Function-Attitudes

Towards the end of his book on psychological types, Jung combined function types and attitude types to describe, in turn, eight function-attitudes. These were the psychological types in Jung’s original description. However, very few of us, even among psychologists, can recognise the eight function-attitudes described by Jung.

For Jung, the attitude type is the primary thing, and the function type serves as a secondary aspect that expresses the attitude in a specific way. Accordingly, he organised his general description of the types in terms of the attitudes, describing first “the peculiarities of the basic psychological functions in the extraverted attitude”, and then going on to “the peculiarities of the basic psychological functions in the introverted attitude.”

Let us then briefly describe them.

Extraverted Thinking

Astronomer Copernicus, or Conversations with God – Jan Matejko

The extraverted thinking type bases all actions on intellectual conclusions guided by objective data, whether external facts or accepted ideas. He elevates objective reality to a universal law, applying it to both personal and collective life. This embodies the entire meaning of his life. Just as this person subordinates himself to his formula, so too does he expect others to obey it too, for whoever refuses to obey it is wrong—he is resisting the universal law, and is therefore unreasonable, immoral, and without a conscience.

Extraverted thinking is interested in definitions that would hold true for everyone, according to ideas everyone might agree with. At their best, extraverted thinkers are statesmen, lawyers, practical scientists, respected academics, successful entrepreneurs. They are excellent at establishing order. However, the more rigid the formula, the more such a type develops into a tyrant who would like to force himself and others into one mould.

Activities reliant on feeling, like friendships, family time, and artistic pursuits, often suffer. Repressed potentialities eventually disturb conscious life, leading to doubt, which, when suppressed, breeds fanaticism—an overcompensation for uncertainty. No function can be fully eliminated, only distorted.

The more extreme a type is, the more active becomes the unconscious in terms of compensation. In such cases, an extravert thinking type’s personal concerns, health, social standing, and family interests are sacrificed for the ideal. Sympathy fades unless others share the same ideals, with close family often seeing only tyranny, while the outside world resounds with the fame of his humanity.

Extraverted Feeling

Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette – Auguste Renoir

Extraverted feeling is likewise oriented by objective values. This type detaches from the subjective and adjusts entirely to external influences. Something is deemed “beautiful” or “good” not out of personal conviction but to maintain harmony, avoid discomfort, or create a pleasant atmosphere. For example, a painting might be praised for its famous signature or to avoid upsetting its owner, reflecting an adjustment rather than insincerity.

The valuations resulting from the act of feeling either correspond directly with objective values or accord with traditional and generally accepted standards. As such they are genuine, and represent the feeling function as a whole. The extravert feeling type seeks to connect with the feelings of others, to create a shared experience, by reaching out to ‘merge’ in some way with the other person. This kind of feeling is very largely responsible for the fact that so many people flock to the theatre or to concerts, or go to church. Fashions, too, owe their whole existence to it, and, what is far more valuable, the positive support of social, philanthropic, and other such cultural institutions. In fact, without it, a harmonious social life would be impossible.

The extraverted feeling type suppresses thinking most of all because this is the function most liable to disturb feeling. Consequently, the unconscious of this type contains a thinking that is infantile, archaic, and negative.

Extraverted Sensation

Moonrise Over the Sea – Caspar David Friedrich

Extraverted sensation types have an exceptional grasp of reality, grounded in concrete experiences and objective facts. Their ideal is to be well adjusted to reality, and often have compelling experiences of the textures, smells, sights, sounds, and tastes of the world. They live fully in the present, valuing tangible reality and have little patience over abstraction or reflection. They are the masters at the details of life. They can read maps, find their way around a strange city; their rooms are neat and tidy, they are punctual and do not easily lose things, etc. Such types excel at being engineers, editors, athletes and people in business. They make great company because they pay attention to the external details, dressing well, keeping a good table with plenty of drinks for their friends, and so on.

Anything that comes from inside seems morbid. Only in the realm of tangible reality can they breathe freely. Their thoughts and feelings will be explained by objective causes or the influence of others. A change in mood is unhesitatingly blamed on the weather. Psychic conflicts are unreal—
“nothing but” imagination—an unhealthy state of affairs that will soon clear up when surrounded by friends.

In extreme cases the pursuit of sensation becomes all-consuming, and the individual develops into a crude pleasure-seeker, plagued by jealous fantasies, anxiety, and every sort of phobia.

Extraverted Intuition

Extraverted intuitive types tend to easily pick up on what is going on in the environment or in other people’s minds. They also have an extraordinary ability to seek out new possibilities, new fields to conquer, and their capacity to kindle enthusiasm for anything new is unrivalled. When entering, for instance, an empty house, they see what can be done with the space—the walls painted in particular colours, pictures in place, and even where the furniture will go. Sensation types see only what is in front of them. Intuitives see the same scene transformed. They have absolute loyalty to their vision and submit to its authority. Such types are common among entrepreneurs, investors, bankers, gamblers, hunters, etc.

The great danger for extraverted intuitives is that they will spend their time and energy on possibilities, particularly those of others, and never realise anything themselves. The very situations that seem to promise freedom or excitement quickly lead, once their possibilities have been exhausted, to the feeling of being imprisoned. Thus, they will leave and seek something new. Moreover, such individuals tend to pay little attention to their physical needs. They simply do not notice, for instance, when they are tired or hungry. Over time, this self-neglect can manifest in various physical illnesses.

Introverted Thinking

Plato. Detail from School of Athens – Raphael

The introverted thinking type is strongly influenced by ideas, though they have their origin not in objective data, but in his subjective foundation. He will follow his ideas like the extravert, but in the reverse direction: inwards and not outwards.

The introverted functions seek to match their experience of an object with the rich inner world of archetypal experience that is already present in the unconscious. Thus, one reflects on whether a particular idea really accords with one’s inner truth, regardless of what others might think of it. An intense relation to objects, which includes people and things, is secondary or almost completely lacking in every introverted type. Simply not pathologising introversion—seeing it not as an unhealthy and dysfunctional way to adapt to the world—may be one of the most healing things a psychologist can do.

An introverted thinker often struggles to know when to stop and feels the need to redefine everything from scratch, to the point that it becomes exhausting and hard to follow. Such people are typically oblivious to the objective requirements of, say, a relationship. It isn’t that they don’t love, but they are simply at a loss to know how to express it. Although they never shrink from thinking a thought because it might prove to be dangerous or wound other people’s feelings, they are nonetheless beset by the greatest anxiety if ever they have to make it an objective reality.

In the pursuit of his ideas, the introverted thinker is generally stubborn. He lets himself be exploited if only he can be left in peace to pursue his ideas. However, he will burst out with vicious, personal retorts against every criticism, however just. Casual acquaintances think him inconsiderate and domineering. To outsiders he seems prickly, unapproachable, and arrogant. But the better one knows him, the more favourable one’s judgment becomes, and his closest friends value his intimacy very highly.

The introverted thinking type is the proverbial “absent-minded professor”. This can be quite charming, but less so the more he becomes single-mindedly attached to his own ideas or inner images. Then his convictions become rigid and unbending, his judgment cold, inflexible, arbitrary. In the extreme case, he may lose all connection with objective reality and so become isolated from friends, family and colleagues.

Introverted Feeling

Introverted feeling types tend to have a calm appearance behind which there may be considerable inner emotion, character, or intellect. “Still waters run deep” is very true of such people. They are mostly silent, inaccessible, hard to understand; often they hide behind a childish mask, and their temperament is inclined to melancholy. As they are mainly guided by their subjective feelings, they are concerned with values that matter most to themselves, and their true motives generally remain hidden. People of this type neither shine nor reveal themselves. Their lack of desire to impress or influence others sometimes arouses a suspicion of indifference and coldness on the one hand, and stupidity on the other.

Wordless expression is a common feature of such people. They are more interested in solving an underlying feeling problem than in making communications to address people’s expressions of discomfort triggered by the problem. Extraverted feeling, by contrast, tends to be more communicative, using a stream of reassuring words to put people at ease.

Since introverted feeling types appear reserved, it might seem on a superficial view that such people, paradoxically, have no feelings at all. The feeling of such a person may express itself in a secret religiosity anxiously guarded from others, or in intimate poetic forms that are kept equally well hidden, not without the secret ambition of displaying some kind of superiority over the other person by this means.

The secret feelings are sensed as a sort of stifling presence that holds everyone nearby under a spell. This presence carries a mysterious power that can prove terribly fascinating to an extraverted individual, especially a thinking type, as it resonates deeply with the unconscious.

This type has a primitive and inferior thinking which tends to be reductive and concrete. Introverted feeling types often have a heightened sensitivity to “what other people think,” frequently perceiving others as harbouring negative thoughts, scheming, or plotting against them. This leads to fatigue, stress, restlessness, and irritability. Over time, their deep emotional intensity can deteriorate into a superficial and excessive need for control, expressed through vanity and authoritarian dominance.

Introverted Sensation

The introverted sensation type is guided by the intensity of the subjective sensation excited by the objective stimulus. For instance, when somebody comes into the room, he notices the way the person comes in, the expression in the face, the clothes, etc., every detail is absorbed. Outwardly, the introverted sensation type looks like a piece of wood with no reaction at all, and you do not know what is going on within him, but inwardly the impression is being absorbed. The quicker inner reactions go on underneath, and the outer reaction comes in a delayed way. These are the people who, if told a joke, are likely the last to laugh. Introverted sensation concerns itself primarily with finding order, organising experience, and monitoring the comfort of the body on the inside, seeking to avoid it from getting overstimulated, overheated, too tired, too hungry, or too filled with the wrong foods.

Such a type may appear as calm and passive or capable of rational self-control. However, this is really due to his unrelatedness to objects. Normally the object is not consciously devalued in the least, but its stimulus is removed from it and immediately replaced by a subjective reaction no longer related to the reality of the object. Such a person can easily make one question why one should exist at all, or why objects in general should have any justification for their existence since everything essential still goes on happening without them.

Seen from the outside, it looks as though the effect of the object does not penetrate into the subject at all. In extreme cases, the subject has an illusory conception of reality which goes so far that he is no longer able to distinguish between the real object and the subjective perception. Since his unconscious is distinguished chiefly by the repression of intuition, this type lives in a mythological world, where people, houses, mountains, rivers, and things, appear either as benevolent deities or as malevolent demons.

Introverted Intuition

Alexander Pushkin at the Seashore – Leonid Osipovic Pasternak

The introverted intuitive type, like the extraverted intuitive, senses future possibilities and potential outcomes, but focuses inward. These individuals look at the big picture in the unconscious—the collective unconscious—where the archetypal patterns that that move nations, religions, and epochs lay, even in the midst of apparently “individual experiences.” They often appear as seers, prophets, poets, artists, or shamans. As an artist, the individual reveals strange, beautiful, and whimsical things in his work. If not an artist, he is often a misunderstood genius.

On a more mundane level, such people are mystical daydreamers who struggle to communicate and are often misunderstood, lack self-awareness, and accomplish little. They move between images and possibilities, lost in the unconscious without forming personal connections. They are especially liable to neglect ordinary physical needs, and often have little awareness of their own bodily existence or its effect on others. To extraverts, they may seem detached from reality, lost in fruitless fantasies. Introverted intuitives are vague about real-world details, prone to getting lost, missing appointments, and being late. Their lack of bodily awareness also makes them inattentive lovers.

What the introverted intuitive represses most of all is the sensation of the object, and this colours his whole unconscious. It gives rise to a compensatory extraverted sensation of an archaic character, manifesting as compulsive neurosis with hypochondriacal symptoms, hypersensitivity of the sense organs, and obsessive attachments to certain people or objects.

The Most Difficult Types

Image from Opus medico-chymicum – Johann Daniel Mylius

Jung acknowledges that although both the introverted intuitive and the introverted sensation type are, from an extraverted and rationalistic standpoint, “indeed the most useless of men”, the way they function is nevertheless instructive. They are living evidence that this rich and varied world with its overflowing and intoxicating life is not purely external, but also exists within. In their own way, these people are the educators and promoters of culture. Their life teaches more than their words.

For Jung, the introvert intuitive is the most difficult type because he sees such uncommon things that he does not like to talk about them, and if he does, he is bound to be misunderstood. The introvert intuitive has one of the most difficult lives, but also one of the most interesting ones.

A Dinner Party with the Types

In Daryl Sharp’s book, Personality Types: Jung’s Model of Typology, he describes the eight different types of consciousness personified as guests at a dinner party. The hostess, appropriate to her role, embodies extraverted feeling, ensuring the gathering runs smoothly. Her husband, a quiet, slender professor of art history, excels at distinguishing subtle details in artwork. He represents introverted sensation.

An extraverted thinking lawyer is the first guest to arrive. An industrialist, well dressed but loud, and a greedy though appreciate eater, comes later. He stands for extraverted sensation. His wife, a quiet and reserved woman with mysterious eyes, exerts a strangely magnetic effect on the other guests with her introverted feeling.

An introverted thinking professor of medicine arrives next, absorbed in thoughts of his latest research, seemingly detached from the social atmosphere. He is followed by an extraverted intuitive engineer, who enthusiastically discusses his ambitious plans, which one suspects will come to fruition only if someone else carries them out. While speaking, he gobbles down his food without noticing what he is eating.

The final intended guest, a young and poor poet, forgets to attend entirely. Upon realising his mistake, he plans by way of apology to send the hostess a poem he was working on while the party was taking place, embodying the dreamy nature of the introverted intuitive.

Energies and Patterns in Psychological Type

In his book, Energies and Patterns in Psychological Type, American psychiatrist and Jungian psychologist John Beebe expands on Jung’s work on types. If the dominant function is extraverted, for instance, the traditional Jungian model would consider the auxiliary and tertiary functions extraverted too, and therefore the only one to carry one’s introverted side would be the inferior function. In Beebe’s model, however, he considers all eight forms of consciousness as part of our single, individual psyche. It is the effects of consciousness on personality, not types of personality. If the primary function is introverted, then the auxiliary will be extraverted, and vice versa. This natural alternation in our functions of consciousness is very adaptive: it keeps us from being too one-sided.

The eight-function model is not purely theoretical; it emerged from Beebe’s extensive study of his own dreams, fantasies, and behaviours, as well as those of his patients, drawing on over 50 years of experience in psychotherapy. Beebe came upon a fourfold shadow structure that complements the conscious counterparts, but are generally more negative and destructive in nature.

Only through direct experience of the types as one’s own, can one benefit from type theory. Otherwise, it merely becomes another way to learn from others about one’s identity. While there can still be value in discovering new energy for adaptation, it is not the same as individuation.

Jung had emphasised that the theory of psychological types should be used not as a way of classifying people but for “sorting out the empirical material” in therapy. This approach helps a patient identify where a particular complex lives in the psyche. When analysing a dream figure, it is useful to consider its type. In psychotherapy, a patient’s issue may be described as a thinking, feeling, intuitive, or sensation problem.

The goal is to match the appropriate function of consciousness to the situation. From this perspective, the development of consciousness involves the ability to summon the different functions at the right moments and in the right ways.

The Eight-Function, Eight-Archetype Model

Diagram 1: **Archetypal complexes** carrying the eight functions of consciousness. Beebe, J. (2005). Evolving the eight-function model. Bulletin of Psychological Type, 28(4), 34-39.

Beebe’s innovation was not only to extend the fourfold model to an eightfold model of personality, but also associating an archetype with each type. Jung had compared the inferior function with the anima or animus. Beebe gave an adequate name to the rest. To give an example of the eightfold model, let us consider Jung’s own type: introverted thinking intuitive.

Introverted thinking, the primary function, is represented by the hero or heroine, while the secondary function is extraverted intuitive, symbolised by the father or mother. The tertiary function is introverted sensation, represented by the puer aeternus or puella aeterna (the eternal child), and the inferior function is extraverted feeling, associated with the anima or animus.

1. Sir Galahad – Arthur Hughes, 2. Moira – Peter Birkhauser, 3. The Sun at His Eastern Gate – William Blake, 4. Untitled – Nick Hyde

These four archetypes belong to the ego-syntonic aspect of consciousness, that is, to the personality which aligns harmoniously with the needs and goals of the ego. Behind each typological position in the unfolding of consciousness, an archetype plays a role, guiding us to be heroic, parental, and even puerile and contrasexual, as part of what makes us capable of becoming aware of ourselves and the world around us.

These four archetypes belong to one’s mostly conscious orientation, which Beebe calls the ‘little-s’ self. This is the typology of one’s everyday self-experience, the basis of one’s ongoing consciousness as a person having one’s own standpoint with its inevitable strengths and weaknesses.

As for the other four function-attitudes, we enter the realm of the shadow, or what Beebe refers to as the ego-dystonic (or ego-alien) personality. This aspect develops in opposition to the ego and often appears disruptive or destructive to the ego’s goals.

The shadow is repressed because it is felt to be incompatible with a person’s moral values, holding onto feelings, motives, and desires deemed unworthy. Since it’s not accepted as part of oneself, the shadow can act autonomously, sometimes breaking free from repression to express the very impulses the ego has rejected. Watch what you hate—it’s pure gold!

Jungian analyst Marie-Louise von Franz writes:

“Jung had said that the hardest thing to understand is not your opposite type—if you have introverted feeling it is very difficult to understand an extraverted type—but the same functional type with the other attitude! It would be most difficult for an introverted feeling type to understand an extraverted feeling type… Such people remain to a great extent a puzzle and are very difficult to understand spontaneously. Here the theory of types is tremendously important practically, for it is the only thing which can prevent one from completely misunderstanding certain people.”

Marie-Louise von Franz and James Hillman, Lectures on Jung’s Typology

Beebe applied this idea to the situation within a single psyche, in which the antagonism is not between two people, but between two functions with opposite attitudes, seeking to express themselves within the same person. In this context, the shadow refers to having the same function but opposite attitude.

Continuing with Jung’s own type as an example, extraverted thinking, the opposing personality, challenges the hero; introverted intuition, the senex (Latin for old man) or witch, counteracts the good parent; extraverted sensation, the trickster, challenges the puer; and introverted feeling, the demonic personality, competes with the anima.

1. Untitled – Peter Birkhauser, 2. Head of an Old Man – Albrecht Dürer, 3. Loki with a fishing net on a 18th-century Icelandic manuscript, 4. Lucifer – Franz Stuck

The superior hero and inferior anima or animus functions form a vertical axis, which Beebe calls the spine of personality. This is the axis of our relation to self, which forms the core of our personality, and allows us to know who we truly are. It establishes both our greatest strengths and greatest weaknesses. Integrity comes not only from having appropriate pride in your strengths, but also in accepting your weaknesses, and holding that tension of opposites. This awareness is vital—it allows us to embrace the reality that we are both strong and weak, opening us to the paradox of living with both.

The auxiliary and tertiary functions have a horizontal axis, called the arms of personality. This is the axis of our relation to others, which is focused on how we care for others and are cared for by them. Some people define their whole lives according to the arms of personality, and have little curiosity as to who they are, but they are greatly concerned about how they treat others and are treated by them.

Let us now briefly look into each archetype.

Hero/Heroine

The hero or heroine archetype represents the superior function of consciousness, and the archetypal image for the development of the ego or self-identity which begins in early childhood. It is the area of strength and pride, because it is associated with a sense of competence and potential mastery. As such, it initiates individuation. The hero is the symbol of the greatest value recognised by us. He is the one who not only welcomes life’s challenges, but also takes responsibility to confront them. This requires autonomy and a need to separate oneself from the excessive superego expectations of others, whether it be from parents, colleagues or social institutions.

However, it is also possible to develop a superiority complex when one is too identified with one’s superior function. Identification with an archetype leads to ego inflation, and the goal of the psychologist is to loosen one’s excessive identification with the godlike archetypes, in order for one’s humanity to reveal itself, stripping off all false pretensions, and allowing one’s true personality to emerge.

Father/Mother

Return of the Prodigal Son – Rembrandt van Rijn

The father or mother belongs to the auxiliary function, it behaves like a parent, and is concerned with nurturing, fostering and protecting. Beebe primarily addresses male psychology, noting that the lack of fatherly energy transmission creates a hunger in young men to seek out older male figures who have something to transmit. This often leads to the conflation of the father figure with the archetype of the Wise Old Man in the minds of young people.

The archetype of the father goes beyond just the physical presence of the father; it includes the body of knowledge about fatherhood that he passes down, allowing his children to undergo an initiation process towards maturity and selfhood. A crucial aspect of a man’s masculinity is tied to how potent or impotent he feels in having something valuable to impart. This may represent the archetypal essence of fatherhood. It is important to recognise a man’s need to engage with what might be symbolised by the totem pole, representing a vertical succession of ancestors. Each man must receive love and guidance from his father, and, in turn, be able to pass this on to his own children.

The nurturing father archetype is associated with the auxiliary function, not the dominant function, so that, as the father archetype comes into play and becomes important to the man, he must loosen his identification with the archetype of the hero. The hero is forever proving his own mastery. The father, by contrast, seeks to help the people he mentors to feel and be more competent. He cannot fulfil this role if he remains in competition with them.

The confusion of the two leading functions into one is a very easy mistake to make in attempting type diagnosis.

Puer Aeternus/Puella Aeterna

The Paradise of Peter Pan – Edward Mason Eggleston

The puer aeternus (or puella aeterna) represents the tertiary function and is characterised by immaturity and play. The tertiary function is like the left hand of a right-handed person, sometimes original and creative, but always a bit unstable and at times weaker in its reliability than the inferior function. Even when the tertiary function shows talent, it tends to be acutely aware of its need for support or guidance from someone else, and is thus more associated with vulnerability than with competence.

The eternal child is someone who exhibits a kind of false individualism. Since he is special, he sees no need to adapt. This leads to an arrogant attitude towards others, fuelled by both an inferiority complex and false feelings of superiority. Such individuals often struggle to find the right job, as nothing ever seems quite right or what they truly wanted. The same applies to relationships. There is always a “but” that prevents the puer from making any real commitment. Their ideals are so far removed from reality that everything feels like it is not the real thing, leading to a form of neurosis, the “provisional life”, the strange attitude and feeling that one is not yet in real life.

Of course, the eternal child is not only negative, he can also bring the energy, beauty and creativity of childhood into adult life. It is, as Nietzsche puts it, the archetype that utters a sacred “yes” to life, the pinnacle of life-affirmation.

Anima/Animus

The anima (or animus) is tied to the inferior function, and for most people, it is a source of shame and embarrassment. Acknowledging and accepting this shame with a measure of humility is a crucial first step towards knowing oneself, finding integrity, and beginning to make a meaningful connection to the unconscious. If this doesn’t happen, the anima will be like a flower that hasn’t bloomed. Jung calls the anima “the archetype of life” because she gives a man the feeling that he is alive.

The anima is also a place of great idealism in the psyche. Thus, a person whose superior function is introverted thinking will often put a very high value on the goal of everyone in a group getting along together, although this person may lack any of the feeling skills to facilitate such an outcome. Conversely, an introverted feeling type may be drawn to champion the most abstruse strains of philosophy, even as he or she has to struggle to follow the more intricate twists of thinking.

The anima is a gateway to the unconscious—acting as the mediatrix to the Self. Jung recommends getting to know one’s anima as well as possible, especially during the second half of life. That is his therapy for the numerous anima problems: bad moods, resentments, obsessive longings for attachment, uncontrolled emotional outbursts. All of these, Jung says, are symptoms of “faulty adaptation to the inner world.”

Since the anima is concerned with how the man is relating to his deeper psyche, she will call attention to problems by sending symptoms from dread and depression to obsession and depersonalisation. Through these manifestations, the anima moves the ego to acknowledge the reality of the psyche. These symptoms tend to moderate when the anima is recognised as the bridge to the unknowable self, which the man must learn to respect.

When Beebe struggled with depression, migraines, and exhaustion, he dreamt of a glum Chinese woman sitting alone in an empty room. Her husband squandered their money on gambling and drugs, leaving her with nothing. The woman, his real-life laundress, was practical and efficient, embodying an introverted sensation type—focused on tangible, sensory matters. Beebe saw the husband in the dream as a less flattering side of his superior function, extraverted intuition, chasing possibilities and taking his energy into the world. The dream was saying, very specifically, that his introverted sensation was not getting anything from him. Beebe writes:

“I looked at what was happening with my patients in my developing psychotherapy practice. I was very excited to hear everything they were telling me, so much so that I was listening with bated breath, neglecting even to breathe properly. No wonder I came home to migraine headaches: I was retaining carbon dioxide. I made up my mind that I would have to attend to my breathing while listening to patients. This opened a series of spaces that allowed me to be aware of my body as I practiced therapy. I then noticed that in my body, as I attended to it, were clues to what was going on in my patient beyond anything dream interpretation could have revealed.”

John Beebe, Energies and Patterns in Psychological Type

Beebe noticed that if his stomach or chest felt tense, that was a signal that his patient was feeling “uptight”. By paying attention to these bodily sensations and discussing the feelings with the patient he was experiencing inwardly, relevant material would surface, helping to move the therapy forward. When Beebe helped the patient express the feelings his body had picked up, he would finish the session without a headache and feel energised, rather than depleted. This approach seemed to serve as a tonic for his inner life.

Later, a dream about the Chinese laundress showed her happier, as her husband had been taking her out for ice cream.

Opposing Personality

The opposing personality is the shadow of the hero, an area of frustration and challenge that fuels defensive character traits such as paranoia, avoidance, passive-aggressiveness and inappropriate seduction. This archetype is constellated when we feel our heroic superior function and its most cherished values are under attack, or when we are called upon to use the function-attitude it carries.

The opposing personality can be viewed as a tendency to become detached in relation to certain kinds of situations one doesn’t immediately know how to handle, or to ‘tune out’ in the face of affects one doesn’t know how to deal with. This consciousness can end up opposing one’s own best interests in perverse ways.

Until we look into the shadow of our superior function, we will tend to project the difficulty within us onto other people who might have certain “hooks” to catch the projection. Projection is always easier than assimilation. According to Beebe, the opposing personality is one of two places in a man’s psyche where his inner femininity, is likely to show up strongly. In the grip of this archetype, a man may make spiteful or hateful remarks or unleash a seductive charm whose purpose is to exercise control over others.

While the anima holds the potential for leading a man toward wholeness, the same cannot be usually said of the opposing personality. When the anima is projected onto a woman, a man may idealise her or want to marry her. Projecting the opposing personality, by contrast, will cause a man to see the woman in a negative or troublesome light as she seems to embody the man’s own antagonistic traits. Thus, the relationship that ensues is usually characterised by arguments and confrontations.

Senex/Witch

1. Bluebeard – Gustave Doré, 2. El Aquelarre (detail) – Francisco Goya

The senex is an archetype that shadows the good father that one consciously aspires to be when one tries to help people, while the witch is the shadow of the good mother. These are characterised by limit-setting and control, defending themselves by shaming and blaming and being overly sceptical or cynical. The senex is particularly paralysing to a woman’s animus, while the witch has a similar effect on a man’s anima. These archetypes discourage and disable others; they freeze others in their tracks and make them doubt that what they are doing has any value.

The child who experiences the disapproving or abusive parent can remain a part of us even as we grow into adulthood, causing a traumatic neurosis which is carried by the tertiary function as the wounded boy or girl.

The senex and the witch appear inwardly as the withering self-critic that seems to drain all the vitality out of the individual. Captured by this archetype, the remaining persona seems old, dry and absent of animation; all that remains is cynicism, a tendency towards depreciation, and despair. To hear this archetype’s repeated insistence on life’s lack of meaning, value, and future makes one realise how much this is the voice of major depression. In extreme cases, there can be the psychotic delusion that one has actually died and is rotting.

The special domain of knowledge or authority of the senex archetype is the old man who, metaphorically speaking, paces up and down inside each of us, waiting for his chance to put troublesome people in their place. The mythological image is the Roman god Saturn, with his sickle, who has become less an archetypal image of the harvest and taken on a more deadly aspect as the archenemy of the processes of youth, growth, and development.

Men identified with the senex are often harsh toward those identified with the puer aeternus, but their more typical interactions are with the trickster. The senex takes a grim pleasure in catching the trickster in deceit, reinforcing the senex worldview that people cannot be trusted. While the senex can be dogmatic and harsh, there is also wisdom in the way this archetype sets limits, despite its initially intimidating appearance.

People possessed by the senex archetype can often be hard to empathise with. It may help to realise that it is an archetype that emerges when a person feels their self-identity is in decline, and they are beginning to lose control of their life. As such times, the senex resorts to strategies that simulate heroism, often living in a fantastical world akin to Don Quixote, these fictions become the sole purpose and meaning of their lives.

The self-critical patient may relentlessly punish himself, but the therapist is usually not allowed to breathe a word that might expose the fictions by which the patient is living. However, one must challenge these fictions.

Trickster

Loki with a fishing net (per Reginsmál) as depicted on an 18th-century Icelandic manuscript (SÁM 66)

The trickster is the shadow of the puer or puella and represents manipulation, mischief, and paradox. This archetype poses a challenge for psychologists, as psychotherapy requires sincerity and vulnerability—traits the trickster lacks. The trickster resists having to do things the way others think is right, defying rules that attempt to uphold standards of behaviour and questioning the values of those who defend the standards.

Beebe observed that the trickster is often projected onto difficult male or female patients whose intense subjectivity seems to constantly undercut his efforts to help them with psychological understanding. When the trickster appears out of the psyche of a patient, it often reveals itself through its ability to create a double bind—a psychological trap in which the person receives conflicting messages, making it impossible to respond correctly. It is a situation where you cannot win, no matter what you do.

Another characteristic of the trickster is duplicity—the state of being double and deliberately deceptive in behaviour or speech. Patients who have aligned their survival strategies with this archetype can be quite duplicitous, urging their therapists to support personal choices that are actually harmful. The therapist must have integrated enough trickster of his or her own to be able to turn the double bind around and reverse the terms of the hard bargain that the trickster in the patient is seeking to impose.

Demonic/Daimonic Personality

The demonic personality is the shadow of the anima or animus, and consists of undermining oneself and others.These actions or judgments often seem surprising and mysterious, even to ourselves. When we act in a primal or destructive way, it is often through this archetype. The inferior function, if not addressed during the development of consciousness, is vulnerable to the demonic aspect of the unconscious.

Beebe gives an example of a man in his early fifties going to therapy because his whole psyche would be set vibrating simply by his father’s phone calls. At first, however, the patient did not know that his psyche was vibrating: his wife had to tell him, when she picked up the ‘vibes’, which she felt as painful and intolerable force fields.

The man eventually realised his father’s abusive behaviour triggered fear and rage, causing physical agitation. Setting boundaries with his father eased these symptoms, and he left therapy, but soon new difficulties arose. He began hearing an inner voice saying, “You’re nothing,” revealing his demonic personality.

He had to acknowledge his deep vulnerability when the inner voice spoke, recognising the same agitated, painful vibrations his wife had felt. This led him to connect with his anima for the first time. Until then, he believed in enduring unpleasant states of mind by distracting himself with work, focusing on tasks to feel a sense of accomplishment, even if it meant living in misery most of the time.

As an introverted sensation type, he realised that dissociating from his feelings and pushing through was no longer helpful. He returned to therapy, where he learned to confront and engage in dialogue with his inner voice. For the first time in years, he took a look at the big picture of his career, and saw that it no longer had the meaning for him that it once had. He made a career change to work that better aligned with his values and allowed him to contribute more meaningfully. In this way, the introverted intuitive demon that had plagued him became a daimon, guiding him to a higher level of integration within his own ethical perspective. The daimonic personality is the area of redemption that creates opportunities to develop integrity.

Conclusion

1. Hero, 2. Father/Mother, 3. Puer/Puella, 4. Anima/Animus, 5. Opposing Personality, 6. Senex/Witch, 7. Trickster, 8. Demonic/Daimonic Personality.

We may see these eight archetypes as different personalities within the vast theatre of the unconscious. They too have a role to play in our lives, seeking to express themselves outwardly. It is by integrating these archetypes of the collective unconscious that we truly become an individual. This process is at the heart of individuation. It is the journey of discovering your essence—who you were meant to be. While these archetypes have typical characteristics, they do not manifest identically in every individual but adapt uniquely to each person’s life.

By making use of all the eight forms of consciousness in the course of our lives, we move towards wholeness. When it comes to knowing ourselves, we must integrate the hero and the anima or animus, while acknowledging the limitations of the opposing and demonic personalities. In our relationships with others, we need to be in touch with the parent and child within us, while being mindful of the senex (or witch) and the trickster, whose influences can be both guiding and disruptive.

When we are able to translate emotions into images—that is to say, to find the images which are concealed in the emotions—we are inwardly calmed and reassured. However, if we leave those images hidden in the emotions, we might be torn to pieces by them. When an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. If we do not gain control over the images within us, we run the risk of them gaining control over us.

The Psychology of Knowing Yourself

When an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. If we do not gain control over the images within us, we run the risk of them gaining control over us.

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Carl Jung: A Journey into the Depths of the Soul

“My life is a story of the self-realisation of the unconscious. Everything in the unconscious seeks outward manifestation, and the personality too desires to evolve out of its unconscious conditions and to experience itself as a whole.”

Carl Gustav Jung (1875 – 1961)

The following passages are highlights taken from C.G. Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections and Reflections on the Life and Dreams of C.G. Jung.

Table of contents

Prologue

Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. Its true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above ground lasts only a single summer. Then it withers away—an ephemeral apparition. When we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilisations, we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity. Yet I have never lost a sense of something that lives and endures underneath the eternal flux. What we see is the blossom, which passes. The rhizome remains.

In the end the only events worth telling are those when the imperishable world irrupted into this transitory one. That is why I speak chiefly of inner experiences, amongst which I include my dreams and visions. These form the prima materia of my scientific work. They were the fiery magma out of which the stone that had to be worked was crystallised.

Recollection of the outward events of my life has largely faded or disappeared. But my encounters with the “other” reality, my bouts with the unconscious, are indelibly engraved upon my memory. In that realm there has always been wealth in abundance, and everything else has lost importance by comparison… Outward circumstances are no substitute for inner experience. Therefore my life has been singularly poor in outward happenings. I cannot tell much about them, for it would strike me as hollow and insubstantial. I can understand myself only in the light of inner happenings. It is these that make up the singularity of my life.

The Earliest Dream: Subterranean God

I had the earliest dream I can remember, a dream which was to preoccupy me all my life. I was then between three and four years old… In the dream I was in the meadow. I discovered a rectangular stone-lined hole in the ground. I had never seen it before. I ran forward curiously and peered down into it. Then I saw a stone stairway leading down. Hesitantly and fearfully, I descended. At the bottom was a doorway with a round arch, closed off by a green curtain… Curious to see what might be hidden behind, I pushed it aside. I saw before me in the dim light a rectangular chamber about thirty feet long… On this platform stood a wonderfully rich golden throne… Something was standing on it which I thought at first was a tree trunk… It was a huge thing, reaching almost to the ceiling. But it was of a curious composition: it was made of skin and naked flesh, and on top there was something like a rounded head with no face and no hair. On the very top of the head was a single eye, gazing motionlessly upwards… The thing did not move, yet I have the feeling that it might at any moment crawl off the throne like a worm and creep towards me. I was paralysed with terror. At that moment I heard from outside and above me my mother’s voice. She called out, “Yes, just look at him. That is the man-eater!” That intensified my terror still more, and I awoke sweating and scared to death.

For many nights afterwards I was afraid to go to sleep, because I feared I might have another dream like that. This dream haunted me for years. Only much later did I realise that what I had seen was a… ritual phallus… At all events, the phallus of this dream seems to be a subterranean God “not to be named”, and such it remained throughout my youth, reappearing whenever anyone spoke too emphatically about Lord Jesus… for again and again I would think of his underground counterpart, a frightful revelation which had been accorded me without my seeking it.

Consciously, I was religious in the Christian sense, though always with the reservation… “What about that thing under the ground?” … there is something else, something very secret that people don’t know about.

Through this childhood dream I was initiated into the secrets of the earth. What happened then was a kind of burial in the earth, and many years were to pass before I came out again. Today I know it happened in order to bring the greatest possible amount of light into the darkness. It was an initiation into the realm of darkness.

The Stone

The Orphan Stone. Telesphorus. Carving by Carl Jung

In our garden there… was a slope in which was embedded a stone that stuck out—my stone. Often, when I was alone, I sat down on this stone, and then began an imaginary game that went something like this… “Am I the one who is sitting on the stone, or am I the stone on which he is sitting?” The answer remained totally unclear, and my uncertainty was accompanied by a feeling of curious and fascinating darkness. But there was no doubt whatsoever that this stone stood in some secret relationship to me. I could sit on it for hours, fascinated by the puzzle it set me.

“The stone has no uncertainties, no urge to communicate, and is eternally the same for thousands of years”, I would think, “while I am only a passing phenomenon which bursts into all kinds of emotions, like a flame that flares up quickly and then goes out.” I was but the sum of my emotions, and the “Other” in me was the timeless, imperishable stone.

Emerging from The Mist

I had another important experience at about this time…. I had the overwhelming impression of having just emerged from a dense cloud. I knew all at once: now I am myself! It was as if a wall of mist were at my back, and behind that wall there was not yet an “I”. But at this moment I came upon myself.

Personality No. 1 and No. 2

I always knew I was two persons. One was the son of my parents, who went to school and was less intelligent, attentive, hard-working, decent, and clean than many other boys. The other was grown up — old, in fact — sceptical, mistrustful, remote from the world of men, but close to nature, the earth, the sun, the moon, the weather, all living creatures, and above all close to the night, to dreams, and to whatever “God” worked directly in him.

As soon as I was alone, I could pass over into this state. I therefore sought the peace and solitude of this “Other”, personality No. 2. The play and counterplay between personalities No. 1 and No. 2, which has run through my whole life, has nothing to do with a “split” or dissociation in the ordinary medical sense. On the contrary, it is played out in every individual.

In the course of my life it has often happened to me that I suddenly knew something which I really could not know at all. The knowledge came to me as though it were my own idea.

I learned that… religion was “a spiritual act consisting in man’s establishing his own relationship to God.” I disagreed with that, for I understood religion as something that God did to me; it was an act on His part, to which I must simply yield.

If one fulfills the will of God one can be sure of going the right way… One must be utterly abandoned to God; nothing matters but fulfilling His will. Otherwise all is folly and meaninglessness.

Suddenly I understood that God was, for me at least, one of the most certain and immediate experiences.

Student Years

The question of my choice of a profession was drawing alarmingly close. I looked forward with longing to the end of my school days. Then I would go to the university and study—natural science, of course. Then I would know something real. But no sooner had I made myself this promise than my doubts began. Was not my bent rather toward history and philosophy? Then again, I was intensely interested in everything Egyptian and Babylonian, and would have liked best to be an archaeologist. But I [did not have the] money… For a long time I could not make up my mind and constantly postponed the decision.

[During this time] I had two dreams. In the first dream I was in a dark wood that stretched along the Rhine. I came to a little hill, a burial mound, and began to dig. After a while I turned up, to my astonishment, some bones of prehistoric animals. This interested me enormously, and at that moment I knew: I must get to know nature, the world in which we live, and the things around us. Then came a second dream. Again I was in a wood; it was threaded with watercourses, and in the darkest place I saw a circular pool, surrounded by dense undergrowth. Half immersed in the water lay the strangest and most wonderful creature: a round animal, shimmering in opalescent hues, and consisting of innumerable little cells, or of organs shaped like tentacles… It seemed to me indescribably wonderful that this magnificent creature should be lying there undisturbed, in the hidden place, in the clear, deep water. It aroused in me an intense desire for knowledge, so that I awoke with a beating heart. These two dreams decided me overwhelmingly in favour of science, and removed all my doubts.

The inspiration suddenly came to me that I could study medicine… The choice seemed to lie between surgery and internal medicine… In preparing myself for the state examination… the textbook on psychiatry was the last I attacked. I expected nothing of it… the author called the psychoses “diseases of personality”. My heart suddenly began to pound. I had to stand up and draw a breath. My excitement was intense, for it had become clear to me, in a flash of illumination, that for me the only possible goal was psychiatry. Here alone the two currents of my interest could flow together and in a united stream dig their own bed. Here was the empirical field common to biological and spiritual facts, which I had everywhere sought and nowhere found. Here at last was the place where the collision of nature and spirit became a reality.

About this time I had a dream which both frightened and encouraged me. It was night in some unknown place, and I was making slow and painful headway against a mighty wind. Dense fog was flying along everywhere. I had my hands cupped around a tiny light which threatened to go out at any moment… I looked back, and saw a gigantic black figure following me. But at the same moment I was conscious, in spite of my terror, that I must keep my little light going through night and wind, regardless of all dangers… this little light was my consciousness… Though infinitely small and fragile in comparison with the powers of darkness, it is still a light, my only light. This dream was a great illumination for me. Now I knew that No. 1 was the bearer of light, and that No. 2 followed him like a shadow… I recognised clearly that my path led irrevocably outwards, into the limitations and darkness of three-dimensionality.

Psychiatric Activities

Dominating my interests and research was the burning question: “What actually takes place inside the mentally ill?” … From the clinical point of view which then prevailed, the human personality of the patient, his individuality, did not matter at all.

In many cases in psychiatry, the patient who comes to us has a story that is not told, and which as a rule no one knows of. To my mind, therapy only really begins after the investigation of that wholly personal story. It is the patient’s secret, the rock against which he is shattered. If I know his secret story, I have a key to the treatment. The doctor’s task is to find out how to gain that knowledge… In therapy the problem is always the whole person, never the symptom alone. We must ask questions which challenge the whole personality.

Through my work with the patients I realised that paranoid ideas and hallucinations contain a germ of meaning. A personality, a life history, a pattern of hopes and desires lie behind the psychosis. The fault is ours if we do not understand them.

The Woman Who Lived On The Moon

Regarding them from the outside, all we see of the mentally ill is their tragic destruction, rarely the life of that side of the psyche which is turned away from us. Outward appearances are frequently deceptive, as I discovered to my astonishment in the case of a young catatonic patient. She was eighteen years old, and came from a cultivated family. At the age of fifteen she had been seduced by her brother and abused by a schoolmate. From her sixteenth year on, she retreated into isolation… She grew steadily odder, and at seventeen she was taken to the mental hospital… She heard voices, refused food… and no longer spoke. When I first saw her she was in a typical catatonic state.

In the course of many weeks I succeeded, very gradually, in persuading her to speak. After overcoming many resistances, she told me that she had lived on the moon… This world was not beautiful, she said, but the moon was beautiful, and life there was rich in meaning… As a result of the incest to which she had been subjected as a girl, she felt humiliated in the eyes of the world, but elevated in the realm of fantasy… She became “extra-mundane”, as it were, and lost contact with humanity. She plunged into cosmic distances, into outer space, where she met with the winged demon… By telling me her story she had in a sense betrayed the demon and attached herself to an earthly human being. Hence she was able to return to life and even to marry. Thereafter I regarded the sufferings of the mentally ill in a different light. For I had gained insight into the richness and importance of their inner experiences.

Psychotherapy

[T]he cure ought to grow naturally out of the patient himself… I treat every patient as individually as possible, because the solution of the problem is always an individual one… A solution which would be out of the question for me may be just the right one for someone else… The crucial point is that I confront the patient as one human being to another… Analyst and patient sit facing one another, eye to eye; the doctor has something to say, but so has the patient.

For psychotherapy to be effective a close rapport is needed, so close that the doctor cannot shut his eyes to the heights and depths of human suffering.

Only if the doctor knows how to cope with himself and his own problems will he be able to teach the patient to do the same… The doctor is effective only when he himself is affected. “Only the wounded physician heals.”

Whenever there is a reaching down into innermost experience, into the nucleus of personality, most people are overcome by fright, and many run away… The risk of inner experience, the adventure of the spirit, is in any case alien to most human beings.

My patients brought me so close to the reality of human life that I could not help learning essential things from them. Encounters with people of so many different kinds and on so many different psychological levels have been for me incomparably more important than fragmentary conversations with celebrities. The finest and most significant conversations of my life were anonymous.

Confrontation with the Unconscious

After the parting of the ways with Freud, a period of inner uncertainty began for me… I lived as if under constant inner pressure. At times this became so strong that I suspected there was some psychic disturbance in myself… Thereupon I said to myself, “Since I know nothing at all, I shall simply do whatever occurs to me.” Thus I consciously submitted myself to the impulses of the unconscious.

The first thing that came to the surface was a childhood memory from perhaps my tenth or eleventh year. At that time I had had a spell of playing passionately with building blocks. I distinctly recalled how I had built little houses and castles… To my astonishment, this memory was accompanied by a good deal of emotion. “Aha”, I said to myself, “there is still life in these things. The small boy is still around, and possesses a creative life which I lack… This moment was a turning point in my fate, but I gave in only after endless resistances and with a sense of recognition. For it was a painfully humiliating experience to realise that there was nothing to be done except play childish games. Nevertheless, I began accumulating suitable stones, gathering them partly from the lake shore and partly from the water. And I started building: cottages, a castle, a whole village… As soon as I was through eating, I began playing, and continued to do so until the patients arrived; and if I was finished with my work early enough in the evening, I went back to building. In the course of this activity my thoughts clarified, and I was able to grasp the fantasies whose presence in myself I dimly felt.

Towards the autumn of 1913, the pressure which I had felt was in me seemed to be moving outwards, as though there were something in the air… In October, while I was alone on a journey, I was suddenly seized by an overwhelming vision… I saw the mighty yellow waves, the floating rubble of civilisation, and the drowned bodies of uncounted thousands. Then the whole sea turned to blood… I was perplexed and nauseated, and ashamed of my weakness. Two weeks passed; then the vision recurred… An inner voice spoke. “Look at it well; it is wholly real and it will be so. You cannot doubt it.” … I drew the conclusion that they had to do with me myself, and decided that I was menaced by a psychosis. The idea of war did not occur at all.

On 1^st August the world war broke out. Now my task was clear: I had to try to understand what had happened and to what extent my own experience coincided with that of mankind in general. Therefore my first obligation was to probe the depths of my own psyche… An incessant stream of fantasies had been released, and I did my best not to lose my head but to find some way to understand these strange things.

In order to grasp the fantasies which were stirring in me “underground”, I knew that I had to let myself plummet down into them, as it were… After prolonged hesitation… I saw that there was no other way out. I had to take the chance, had to try to gain power over them; for I realised that if I did not do so, I ran the risk of their gaining power over me… I could not expect of my patients something I did not dare to do myself.

Philemon and other figures of my fantasies brought home to me the crucial insight that there are things in the psyche which I do not produce, but which produce themselves and have their own life… He said I treated thoughts as if I generated them myself, but in his view thoughts are like animals in the forest, or people in a room, or birds in the air, and added, “If you should see people in a room, you would not think that you had made those people, or that you were responsible for them.” It was he who taught me psychic objectivity, the reality of the psyche… Psychologically, Philemon represented superior insight. He was a mysterious figure to me. At times he seemed to me quite real, as if he were a living personality. I went walking up and down the garden with him, and to me he was what the Indians call a guru.

The essential thing is to differentiate oneself from these unconscious contents by personifying them, and at the same time bring them into relationship with consciousness. That is the technique for stripping them of their power.

Particularly at this time, when I was working on the fantasies, I needed a point of support in “this world,” and I may say that my family and my professional work were that to me. It was most essential for me to have a normal life in the real world as a counterpoise to that strange inner world… The unconscious contents could have driven me out of my wits.

Nietzsche had lost the ground under his feet because he possessed nothing more than the inner world of his thoughts—which incidentally possessed him more than he it. He was uprooted and hovered above the earth, and therefore he succumbed to exaggeration and irreality. For me, such irreality was the quintessence of horror, for I aimed, after all, at this world and this life. No matter how deeply absorbed or how blown about I was, I always knew that everything I was experiencing was ultimately directed at this real life of mine. I meant to meet its obligations and fulfil its meanings.

The images of the unconscious place a great responsibility upon a man. Failure to understand them, or a shirking of ethical responsibility, deprives him of his wholeness and imposes a painful fragmentariness on his life.

My mandalas were cryptograms concerning the state of the self which were presented to me anew each day. In them I saw the self that is, my whole being actively at work. To be sure, at first I could only dimly understand them; but they seemed to me highly significant, and I guarded them like precious pearls. I had the distinct feeling that they were something central, and in time I acquired through them a living conception of the self.

I saw that everything, all the paths I had been following, all the steps I had taken, were leading back to a single point namely, to the mid-point. It became increasingly plain to me that the mandala is the centre. It is the exponent of all paths. It is the path to the centre, to individuation… I began to understand that the goal of psychic development is the self. There is no linear evolution; there is only a circumambulation of the self.

The years when I was pursuing my inner images were the most important in my life—in them everything essential was decided. It all began then; the latter details are only supplements and clarifications of the material that burst forth from the unconscious, and at first swamped me. It was the prima materia for a lifetime’s work.

The Work

As my life entered its second half, I was already embarked on the confrontation with the contents of the unconscious. My work on this was an extremely long-drawn-out affair, and it was only after some twenty years of it that I reached some degree of understanding of my fantasies. First I had to find evidence for the historical prefiguration of my inner experiences… my encounter with alchemy was decisive for me, as it provided me with the historical basis which I had hitherto lacked… Grounded in the natural philosophy of the Middle Ages, alchemy formed the bridge on the one hand into the past, to Gnosticism, and on the other into the future, to the modern psychology of the unconscious.

I had very soon seen that analytical psychology coincided in a most curious way with alchemy. The experiences of the alchemists were, in a sense, my experiences, and their world was my world.

I had stumbled upon the historical counterpart of my psychology of the unconscious.

My life has been permeated and held together by one idea and one goal: namely, to penetrate into the secret of the personality. Everything can be explained from this central point, and all my works relate to this one theme.

The Tower

Gradually, through my scientific work, I was able to put my fantasies and the contents of the unconscious on a solid footing. Words and paper, however, did not seem real enough to me; something more was needed. I had to achieve a kind of representation in stone of my innermost thoughts and of the knowledge I had acquired. Or, to put it another way, I had to make a confession of faith in stone. That was the beginning of the “Tower,” the house which I built for myself at Bollingen.

From the beginning I felt the Tower as in some way a place of maturation—a maternal womb or a maternal figure in which I could become what I was, what I am and will be. It gave me a feeling as if I were being reborn in stone… At Bollingen I am in the midst of my true life, I am most deeply myself.

Trees in particular were mysterious and seemed to me direct embodiments of the incomprehensible meaning of life. For that reason the woods were the place where I felt closest to its deepest meaning and to its awe-inspiring workings.

At times I feel as if I am spread out over the landscape and inside things, and am myself living in every tree, in the splashing of the waves, in the clouds and the animals that come and go, in the procession of the seasons.

I have done without electricity, and tend the fireplace and stove myself. Evenings, I light the old lamps. There is no running water, and I pump the water from the well. I chop the wood and cook the food. These simple acts make man simple; and how difficult it is to be simple!

In Bollingen, silence surrounds me almost audibly, and I live “in modest harmony with nature.” Thoughts rise to the surface which reach back into the centuries, and accordingly anticipate a remote future. Here the torment of creation is lessened; creativity and play are close together.

Visions

At the beginning of 1944 I broke my foot, and this misadventure was followed by a heart attack. In a state of unconsciousness I experienced deliriums and visions which must have begun when I hung on the edge of death… My nurse afterwards told me, “It was as if you were surrounded by a bright glow.” This was a phenomenon she had sometimes observed in the dying, she added.

It seemed to me that I was high up in space. Far below I saw the globe of the earth, bathed in a gloriously blue light… I knew that I was on the point of departing from the earth… The sight of the earth from this height was the most glorious thing I had ever seen… After contemplating it for a while, I turned round… Something new entered my field of vision. A short distance away I saw in space a tremendous dark block of stone, like a meteorite… It was floating in space, and I myself was floating in space… An entrance led into a small antechamber. To the right of the entrance, a black Hindu sat silently in lotus posture upon a stone bench… and I knew that he expected me.

As I approached the steps leading up to the entrance into the rock, a strange thing happened: I had the feeling that everything was being sloughed away; everything I aimed at or wished for or thought, the whole phantasmagoria of earthly existence, fell away or was stripped from me—an extremely painful process. Nevertheless, something remained; it was as if I now carried along with me everything I had ever experienced or done, everything that had happened around me… I consisted of my own history, and felt with great certainty: this is what I am… This experience gave me a feeling of extreme poverty, but at the same time of great fullness. There was no longer anything I wanted or desired. I existed in an objective form; I was what I had been and lived.

Something else engaged my attention: as I approached the temple I had the certainty that I was about to enter an illuminated room and would meet there all those people to whom I belong in reality. There I would at last understand… what historical nexus I or my life fitted into. I would know what had been before me, why I had come into being, and where my life was flowing. My life as I lived it had often seemed to me like a story that has no beginning and no end.

While I was thinking over these matters… an image floated up. It was my doctor. [He] had been delegated by the earth to deliver a message to me, to tell me that there was a protest against my going away. I had no right to leave the earth and must return. The moment I heard that, the vision ceased.

I was profoundly disappointed, for now it all seemed to have been for nothing… In reality, a good three weeks were still to pass before I could truly make up my mind to live again. I could not eat, because all food repelled me. The view of the city and mountains from my sick-bed seemed to me like a painted curtain with black holes in it… Disappointed, I thought, “Now I must return to the ‘box system’ again.” For it seemed to me as if behind the horizon of the cosmos a three-dimensional world had been artificially built up, in which each person sat by himself in a little box… Life and the whole world struck me as a prison… By day I was usually depressed… Towards evening I would fall asleep, and my sleep would last until about midnight. Then I would come to myself and lie awake for about an hour, but in an utterly transformed state. It was as if I were in an ecstasy. I felt as though I were floating in space, as though I were safe in the womb of the universe—in a tremendous void, but filled with the highest possible feeling of happiness. “This is eternal bliss”, I thought.

It is impossible to convey the beauty and intensity of emotion during those visions. They were the most tremendous things I have ever experienced… Although my belief in the world returned to me, I have never since entirely freed myself of the impression that this life is a segment of existence which is enacted in a three-dimensional boxlike universe especially set up for it.

I would never have imagined that any such experience was possible… The visions and experiences were utterly real; there is nothing subjective about them; they all had a quality of absolute objectivity.

We shy away from the word “eternal”, but I can describe the experience only as the ecstasy of a non-temporal state in which present, past, and future are one. Everything that happens in time had been brought together into a concrete whole… The only thing that feeling could grasp would be a sum, an iridescent whole containing all at once expectation of a beginning, surprise at what is now happening, and satisfaction or disappointment with the result of what happened. One is interwoven into an indescribable whole and yet observes it with complete objectivity.

On Life After Death

The Ascent of the Blessed – Hieronymus Bosch

I don’t know how it will be, existence after death. What happens to consciousness? … [It is] conceivable… that after death individual consciousness returns to a universal consciousness. But that is a great mystery. I feel quite certain, though, that the process of becoming conscious continues after death.

My burning interest now is of course the situation after death, what one can experience there. Are time and space necessary conditions? To experience something, two elements are required: the one having the experience – the I – and the object being experienced. We don’t know whether this distinction between subject and object is also present after death. This raises the question of whether we have consciousness after death and if so, how much. That is the big question: whether one dies with a developed consciousness or not. Or whether one then simply is, and is blown out into existence again by the great universal wind. Although the question of reincarnation seems reasonable to me, I cannot rationally understand how it would be possible.

If one believes in the possibility of reincarnation, the idea logically follows that those people who are reincarnated did not complete something in their life that they were meant to do.

What excites me most is insight… It is conceivable that in the “beyond”, after death, one will have unlimited access to insights. That is certainly possible, if we descend into a universal consciousness after death, into an existence beyond opposites, where the division between the subject having the experience and the object being experienced no longer exists. But such insights would still not be comprehensive. Because they would give information about facts and connections: i.e., breadth rather than depth. It would be a direct knowledge of things, without the limitations of space and time. Conversely, I see the recognition of that which gives one’s own life meaning, and insights that one has gained from this life, as knowledge attaining depth. Increased breadth of knowledge and acquisition of information would simply be an aid for such insights into the realm of depths.

That is probably why earthly life is of such great significance, and why it is that what a human being “brings over” at the time of his death is so important. Only here, in life on earth, where the opposites clash together, can the general level of consciousness be raised. That seems to be man’s metaphysical task.

The Meaning of Life and Suffering

The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not? That is the telling question of his life. Only if we know that the thing which truly matters is the infinite can we avoid fixing our interests upon futilities, and upon all kinds of goals which are not of real importance… The more a man lays stress on false possessions, and the less sensitivity he has for what is essential, the less satisfying his life… If we understand and feel that here in this life we already have a link with the infinite, desires and attitudes change.

Everyone has the possibility of achieving something particular… We must not make the mistake of thinking there is a specific panacea, one remedy for all. It is not about something defined for all. It is about doing one’s best in the position one is in, with those means one has… Someone who does something small to the best of their ability also helps humanity to progress. It is not about this or that, but rather whether my existence here in this three-dimensional system has answered the individual call. Whether I have engaged myself with whatever was meant for me, in order to fulfill my life’s purpose and complete the task that was assigned to me. And not just thinking or talking about it, without then actually doing it.

In my case it must have been primarily a passionate urge towards understanding which brought about my birth. For that is the strongest element in my nature.

True connection with other people, with the world, with the cosmos, is impossible unless we know what is going on inside ourselves.

Our task is to become conscious of the contents that press upwards from the unconscious… the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

We need to battle for our lives with all the fibers of our being, with the aim of achieving as much consciousness and knowledge as possible – knowledge about ourselves, about the world, about eternity. That is what gives meaning to life.

If we don’t accept our own destiny, a different kind of suffering takes its place: a neurosis develops, and I believe that that life which we have to live is not as bad as a neurosis. If I have to suffer, then let it be from my reality.

One cannot do more than live what one really is… Today I can say: I have been true to myself, I have done what I could to the best of my knowledge and conscience. Whether it was right or not, I cannot say. Suffering was inevitable in any case. But I want to suffer for those things which really belong to me. A decisive factor for me in choosing this path was the knowledge that if I did not respond fully to my life’s purpose and challenges, then they would be inherited by my children, who would have to bear the burden of my unlived life in addition to their own difficulties.

I have seen the fate of those who have not lived their own lives, and it is simply horrible. People who live out their destiny and fulfill it to the best of their knowledge and abilities have no reason for regret.

In psychology one has not really understood something until one has lived it. Just having a term for something means nothing. It needs to touch the heart or affect one’s life. A word has to get under our skin, sink in deep, so that it becomes part of us, that we live in it. Only when this is the case, when it is about more than words, does one know what the heart says and what the spirit thinks… only then is one faced with the problem of a conscious individuation process – a very difficult and often painful task. Everyone who experiences psychology in this way is isolated from others to a certain extent… But it is only when you allow yourself to be touched directly that deep life-changing consequences arise, and only then can one’s totality unfold. This is the true effect of psychology.

Retrospect

I am satisfied with the course my life has taken. It has been bountiful, and has given me a great deal. How could I ever have expected so much? Nothing but unexpected things kept happening to me. Much might have been different if I myself had been different. But it was as it had to be; for all came about because I am as I am.

I am astonished, disappointed, pleased with myself. I am distressed, depressed, rapturous. I am all these things at once, and cannot add up the same. I am incapable of determining ultimate worth or worthlessness… I know only that I was born and exist, and it seems to me that I have been carried along. I exist on the foundation of something I do not know. In spite of all uncertainties, I feel a solidity underlying all existence and a continuity in my mode of being.

When Lao-tzu says: “All are clear, I alone am clouded”, he is expressing what I now feel in advanced old age. Lao-tzu is the example of a man with superior insight who has seen and experienced worth and worthlessness, and who at the end of his life desires to return into his own being, into the eternal unknowable meaning. The archetype of the old man who has seen enough is eternally true… This is old age, and a limitation. Yet there is so much that fills me: plants, animals, clouds, day and night, and the eternal in man. The more uncertain I have felt about myself, the more there has grown up in me a feeling of kinship with all things.

Fin

A few days before his death Jung told the last dream he was able to communicate. He saw a great round stone in a high place in the full sun. Carved into it were the words, “Take this as a symbol of the wholeness you have achieved and the singleness you have become.” Then he saw a square and trees growing in it. The roots of the trees, intertwined with gold, enveloped him. It is as if nature were saying to him, “You have earned the freedom to move on. You have done your work. You have done it well and it will grow.”

For two days before he died, he was away in some far country, perhaps seeing wonderful and beautiful things. He smiled often and was happy. Jung died on the 6^th of June, 1961, in the midst of the great images that filled his soul. Soon after he died, there was a tremendous storm, and lightning struck his favourite tree in the garden.

VOCATUS ATQUE NON VOCATUS DEUS ADERIT

Latin inscription above the door of Carl Jung’s house in Kusnacht, Switzerland

Carl Jung: A Journey into the Depths of the Soul

“My life has been singularly poor in outward happenings. I cannot tell much about them, for it would strike me as hollow and insubstantial. I can understand myself only in the light of inner happenings. It is these that make up the singularity of my life.” – Carl Jung

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