Carl Jung on Overcoming Anxiety Disorders 2

Carl Jung and The Value of Anxiety Disorders 6

Why You Should Strive for a Meaningful Life, Not a Happy One 9

Nietzsche and Jung: Myth and the Age of the Hero 13

Carl Jung, the Shadow, and the Dangers of Psychological Projection 16

Carl Jung: What is the Individuation Process? 19

The Psychology of Self-Transformation 23

Carl Jung and the Spiritual Problem of the Modern Individual 27

Carl Jung and The Achievement of Personality 31

Carl Jung – What are the Archetypes? 34

The Myth of Meaning in the Work of C. G. Jung 38

Introduction to Carl Jung – Individuation, the Persona, the Shadow and the Self 39

Introduction to Carl Jung – The Psyche, Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious 44

Carl Jung and the Shadow: The Hidden Power of Our Dark Side 48

Carl Jung on the Unconscious and Dreams 53

Carl Jung and the Psychology of the Man-Child 56
Rapid Personality Change and the Psychological Rebirth 60
Carl Jung on Overcoming Anxiety Disorders
“The perpetual hesitation of the neurotic to launch out into life is readily explained by his
desire to stand aside so as not to get involved in the dangerous struggle for existence.
But anyone who refuses to experience life must stifle his desire to live – in other words,
he must commit partial suicide.” - Carl Jung, Symbols of Transformation

In the first video of this two-part series we discussed what Carl Jung believed the existence of
anxiety disorders, and other forms of neurotic suffering, can teach us about our way of life. The
cause of the neurosis, according to Jung, is always to be found in the present, in a conflicted
way of life in the here and now. The outbreak of the neurosis functions in a prospective manner.
It signals to us that the life path we are on is inconducive to our well-being, or as Jung wrote:

“The outbreak of the neurosis is not just a matter of chance. As a rule it is most critical. It
is usually the moment when a new psychological adjustment, a new adaptation, is
demanded.” - Carl Jung, Freud and Psychoanalysis

The road to recovery, according to Jung, does not require reliving childhood memories or
working through old family conflicts. For unless we were the victim of some sort of trauma, of
which we have yet to process, our childhood memories will not free us from our present
suffering. What is needed is a new attitude – one which entails a “wholehearted dedication to
life” (Carl Jung, Symbols of Transformation) and which makes “the powerful urge to develop
[our] own personality. . .an imperative duty” (Carl Jung, Freud and Psychoanalysis) We must
step off the sidelines of life and establish a uniform direction to our existence, in which we, and
not others, are the final authority.

“All the [energy] that was tied up in family bonds must be withdrawn from the narrower
circle into the larger one, because the psychic health of the adult individual, who in
childhood was a mere particle revolving in a rotary system, demands that he should
himself become the centre of a new system.” - Carl Jung, Symbols of Transformation

The first step in recovery, is simple in theory, but difficult in practice. We need a clearer picture
of who we are and where we are heading. We can no longer afford to falsify reality. Instead of
fleeing from our difficulties, denying our flaws, or blaming our lot in life on forces independent of
our control, self-acceptance must become the rule. For as Jung wrote:

“A neurosis…is not a disgrace…It is not a fatal disease, but it does grow worse to the
degree that one is determined to ignore it.” - Carl Jung, Civilization in Transition

While many people fear what they may see if they take an honest look at themselves, in actual
fact the practice of self-acceptance is liberating. No longer do we need to expend so much
energy denying our flaws and hiding them from our self and others. Instead this energy can be
used for its proper purpose of contributing to personal growth and promoting our recovery. For
the bold among us, Jung suggested that one way to gain a better picture of who we are, is to
turn to someone we trust for an honest assessment of our character:

“…one of the most important therapeutically effective factors is subjecting yourself to the
objective judgment of others.” - Carl Jung, The Theory of Psychoanalysis

In addition to becoming more aware, and accepting, of our current situation, we also need to
recognize where we are heading if we remain neurotic. For often those afflicted by anxiety
disorders, especially in the initial stages of the illness, believe that if they can avoid the things
which trigger their symptoms, then a relatively comfortable life is still possible. Symptom
management, not recovery, becomes their primary goal. But this path often leads to a hell of
one’s own making. For while avoiding the situations, activities, and life tasks that trigger our
symptoms may be of minimal inconvenience at first, over time, as many neurotics will attest, the
practice of avoidance snowballs until life becomes restricted in the worst of ways. For this
reason, Jung believed it was crucial for the neurotic to recognize that while recovery is certainly
not easy, it will in the long-run, prove far less arduous than remaining in the grips of a neurosis.
Or as Jung wrote:

“Flight from life does not exempt us from the law of age and death. The neurotic who
tries to wriggle out of the necessity of living wins nothing and only burdens himself with a
constant foretaste of aging and dying, which must appear especially cruel on account of
the total emptiness and meaninglessness of his life.” - Carl Jung, Symbols of
Transformation

Jung compared the task of recovery to climbing a steep mountain pass, while he suggested
those who never make the attempt are like individuals who sit on the pleasant valley road below
not realizing that a raging bull is heading directly for them. But so as not to be overcome by
despair in the recognition that no easy escape remains, we should remember that a neurosis
offers us the chance to discover a path in life that is far more fulfilling than the one we currently
tread. In fact, recovering from a neurosis can result in a level of psychological health, and a
degree of resilience, not found in those who never endure such suffering. A neurosis, in other
words, is only a curse if we remain forever caught in it, but will prove a blessing if we can find an
escape.

But the attitude change which is engendered by self-acceptance and the recognition of where
we are heading if we remain neurotic, is only the preparatory step on the road to recovery. The
real solution lies in action. We must stop being mere observers of life and “venture into the
strange world with all its unforeseen possibilities” (Carl Jung, Symbols of Transformation). At
this stage there is a tendency for those suffering from a neurosis to want to know exactly what
tasks they should be fulfilling and what path in life they should follow. But according to Jung
caution must be exercised in this regard, for as he wrote:
 “What direction the patient’s life should take in the future is not ours to judge. We must
not imagine that we know better than his own nature, or we would prove ourselves
educators of the worst kind…It is better to renounce any attempt to give direction, and
simply to try to throw into relief everything that the analysis brings to light, so that the
patient can see it clearly and be able to draw suitable conclusions. Anything he has not
acquired himself he will not believe in the long run, and what he takes over from
authority merely keeps him infantile. He should rather be put in the position to take his
own life in hand.” - Carl Jung, Some Crucial Points in Psychoanalysis

With that said, Jung does offer some general advice to help us avoid dead-end paths. Firstly, he
warned that the neurotic should be cautious of conformity. Some people are neurotic because of
an acute sensitiveness to the inadequacies of the dominant way of life in their society and
hence, so long as they strive for conformity, they will remain trapped in their suffering.

“So it comes about that there are many neurotics whose inner decency prevents them
from being at one with present-day morality and who cannot adapt themselves so long
as the moral code has gaps in it which it is of the crying need of our age to fill.” - Carl
Jung, Some Crucial Points in Psychoanalysis

These individuals, according to Jung, are not ill because they lack the ability to live like
everyone else, they are ill “because [they have] not yet found a new form for [their] finest
aspirations.” (Carl Jung) Instead of following the well-worn path of conformity such people:

“…are born and destined rather to be bearers of new cultural ideals. They are neurotic
as long as they bow down before authority and refuse the freedom to which they are
destined.” - Carl Jung, Some Crucial Points in Psychoanalysis

But not all who are neurotic fall into the class of the “bearers of new cultural ideals”. Many
people are neurotic simply because they are unwilling to face up to one of those tasks of life
which all of us, because of our shared human nature, naturally gravitate toward – be it the need
to pass on our genes, to cultivate a social life, to participate in some form of productive work, or
eventually to face up to our death.

“The young neurotic shrinks back in terror from the expansion of life’s duties, the old one
from the dwindling of the treasures he has attained.” - Carl Jung, Some Crucial Points in
Psychoanalysis

In these cases the question of conformity or non-conformity does not apply, recovery is simply a
matter of facing up to the life tasks we have for too long avoided, or as Jung put it:

“Previously, because of his illness, the patient stood partly or wholly outside life.
Consequently he neglected many of his duties, either in regard to social achievement or
 in regard to his purely human tasks. He must get back to fulfilling these duties if he
wants to become well again.” - Carl Jung, The Theory of Psychoanalysis

For those whose neurosis has led to a dramatic restriction in activity, the specific task which is
chosen is not too important. We just need to find something to aim at which can help effectuate
a transition from the inner realm of our doubts, worries, and intrusive thoughts, to the external
world of people, places, and things. A useful practice in this regard was recommended by
Jung’s colleague Alfred Adler. We should imagine our self free of the neurosis and also free of
the fear of social ridicule. In such a situation what would we choose to do, who would we want
to become? We can even turn to our dreams and fantasies for clues as to the direction our life
should take, for as Jung wrote:

“It would, in general, be a great mistake to deny any teleological value to the apparently
pathological fantasies of a neurotic. They are, as a matter fact, the first beginnings of
spiritualization, the first groping attempts to find new ways of adapting.” - Carl Jung, The
Theory of Psychoanalysis

As we begin effectuating the extroversion that accompanies recovery, focusing our energy on
living in the world, instead of primarily in our heads, our symptoms are likely to flare up. But, as
Jung points out,

“…whereas the neurosis and the troubles that attend it are never followed by the
pleasant feeling of good work well done, of duty fearlessly performed, the suffering that
comes from useful work and from victory over real difficulties brings with it those
moments of peace and satisfaction which give the human being the priceless feeling that
he has really lived his life.” - Carl Jung, General Aspects of Psychoanalysis

Many people, however, never heed the call of their neurosis urging them towards a more
fulfilling life, maintaining that before they can begin down this path, they must first conquer their
symptoms. But if we agree with Jung’s analysis, that our symptoms are primarily the result of
our choice to stand on the sidelines of life, then such an approach will likely fail. We have to
accept that recovery will only be achieved if we are willing to move forward in the presence of
our fear and anxiety. And in this regard, there is no formula for our deliverance, no advice that
will turn the meek into the brave, rather as Jung wisely noted:

“only boldness can deliver from fear. And if the risk is not taken, the meaning of life is
somehow violated, and the whole future is condemned to hopeless staleness.” - Carl
Jung, Symbols of Transformation
Carl Jung and The Value of Anxiety Disorders
“I am not altogether pessimistic about neurosis. In many cases we have to say, “Thank
heaven he could make up his mind to be neurotic.” Neurosis is really an attempt at
self-cure…It is an attempt of the self-regulating psychic system to restore the balance, in
no way different from the function of dreams – only rather more forceful and drastic.” -
Carl Jung, The Symbolic Life

Anxiety disorders, or what traditionally have been classified as forms of neuroses, are so
prevalent in the modern world that some suggest we live in an age of anxiety. But what is
causing so many people to suffer from anxiety disorders? The psychologist Carl Jung spent
much of his career trying to answer this question. Jung’s theory of neurosis, however, is largely
overlooked in our day where pills are seen as the panacea for virtually all mental ailments. But
Jung’s theory demands our attention because unlike the pharmaceutical model, which focuses
on symptomatic relief, Jung viewed the neurotic illness as signalling to us that a change in our
way of life is needed. If we merely mask the symptoms, and go on with life as usual, then we
impoverish our self, losing access to the crucial information that the neurotic illness provides.

“We should not try to “get rid” of a neurosis, but rather to experience what it means, what
it has to teach, what its purpose is.” - Carl Jung, Civilization in Transition

In this 2-part video series we will provide an overview of Jung’s theory. In this first video we are
going to explore what anxiety disorders can teach us about our way of life by examining what
Jung saw as their root cause. In part 2 we will discuss how Jung proposed we can escape the
clutches of our demons in order to return to a more flourishing way of life.

A defining feature of Jung’s theory is that the cause of the neurosis is always to be found in the
present.

“In constructing a theory which derives the neurosis from causes in the distant past, we
are first and foremost following the tendency of our patient to lure us as far away as
possible from the critical present…It is mainly in the present that the affective causes lie,
and here alone are the possibilities of removing them.” - Carl Jung, Theory of
Psychoanalysis

Jung was not denying that our neurotic suffering may have started in our childhood. Nor was he
overlooking the influence our upbringing has on our psychological development. Rather, he
focused on the present because he believed that what generated the symptoms of the neurosis
was a conflicted way of life in the here and now. Conflicts may have been present in our
childhood, but those conflicts have changed and are no longer the source of our present
suffering, or as Jung explains:

“It makes no difference that there were already conflicts in childhood, for the conflicts in
childhood are different from the conflict of adults. Those who have suffered ever since
childhood from a chronic neurosis do not suffer now from the same conflict they suffered
from then.” - Carl Jung, The Theory of Psychoanalysis

What is the nature of the conflict that leads to the neurosis? In his essay The Significance of the
Father in the Destiny of the Individual, Jung provides a quote by the Greek Stoic philosopher
Cleanthes which helps unravel this mystery.

“The Fates lead the willing, but drag the unwilling.” - Cleanthes

The Fates were the three weaving goddesses of Greek mythology who spun the threads of
individual destiny. Jung did not believe in gods or goddesses determining our fate, but he did
believe that each of us is presented with a series of life tasks, which are not of our choosing,
and so can be conceptualized as our fate. These tasks are a product of our evolutionary history,
our mortal nature, and the culture in which we live. Foremost among these is our biological drive
to pass on our genes. But others include the need to achieve psychological independence from
our parents, to cultivate a social life, to contribute to our community, to find a purpose, and
eventually to face up to death.

According to Jung we are naturally driven to accomplish these tasks. Our instincts, our nature
as social animals, the pull of conformity, and our ever-approaching death, all impel us in this
direction. But while we are naturally driven to achieve the tasks of life, we also have a tendency
towards inertia and self-sabotage or as Jung put it:

“[we] have a mighty dislike of all intentional effort and are addicted to absolute laziness
until circumstances prod [us] into action.” - Carl Jung, The Theory of Psychoanalysis

If we can get the upper hand on our laziness and display the courage to face up to the tasks of
life, then these tasks act as guides marking the path toward a healthy development. Fate leads
us forward. But if our laziness and fear get the upper hand and we neglect the tasks of life, then
they become chains around our neck. We become the ‘unwilling’, in the words of Cleanthes,
whom fate drags forward. The neurotic, according to Jung, is the man or woman who walks
among the unwilling, who has adopted, in other words, a faulty attitude towards the tasks of life.

When treating his patients Jung emphasized that the problem for the neurotic always lies with
their attitude. Achievement of the tasks being of secondary importance. For life can present us
with immense challenges which make it impossible to achieve a certain task – but this does not
destine us to a life of neurotic suffering. In such cases acceptance of the situation and a shifting
of our energy to another of life’s tasks is the appropriate reaction. But usually the obstacles
which impede us are not of an insurmountable nature. Rather what holds us back is a moral
incapacity, we are either too lazy or we lack the courage to face up to the challenge. Being
impeded in this manner is not unique to the neurotic as we all face times where our resolve is
tested. But what is unique to the neurotic is that rather than acknowledging their incapacities,
they choose to deceive themselves and to lay blame solely on the obstacles in their path. Or as
Jung explains:

“[The neurotic] draws back [from his life tasks] not because of any real impossibility but
because of an artificial barrier invented by himself…From this moment on he suffers
from an internal conflict. Now the realization of his cowardice gains the upper hand, now
defiance and pride. In either case his [energy] is engaged in a useless civil war, and the
man becomes incapable of any new enterprise…His efficiency is reduced, he is not fully
adapted, he has become – in a word – neurotic.” -Carl Jung, The Theory of
Psychoanalysis

In such a conflicted state our desire to achieve the tasks of life, and all the energy which impels
us in this direction, does not simply disappear. Rather, it seeks an alternative outlet. Or as Jung
explains:

“The energy stored up for the solution of the task flows back into the old riverbeds, the
obsolete systems of the past, are filled up again.” - Carl Jung, Freud and Psychoanalysis

In other words, if we cease moving forward in life, we tend to regress to more immature, or what
Jung called infantile, modes of adaption. And this regression in the response to the conflict, is
what generates the various symptoms of the neurosis – be it the pervasive anxiety, phobias,
compulsive behaviours, depression, apathy, or obsessive and intrusive thoughts. But as
uncomfortable as such symptoms may be, they serve an important purpose by alerting us to the
fact that we are descending down a dangerous life path. For while we regress psychologically,
our physical maturation does not cease and a glance in the mirror forever reminds us that we
are not keeping pace with the seasons of life and the inexorable march of time. The longer we
exist in this conflicted state, the less adapted we feel, and a vicious cycle takes over whereby

“retreat from life leads to regression, and regression heightens resistance to life.” - Carl
Jung, The Theory of Psychoanalysis

When caught in the grips of a neurosis, we are likely to wonder why we were cursed in this
way? What led us to react to the challenges of life in this inappropriate manner? Jung did not
see a single cause for this incapacity. Rather each case is unique. For some of us it can be
blamed on our genes. Certain newborn babies, Jung observed, display a “congenital
sensitiveness” (Carl Jung) which predisposes them to the neurotic attitude later in life. In other
cases, it is a poor upbringing:
 “There are indeed parents whose own contradictory nature causes them to treat their
children in so unreasonable a fashion that the children’s illness would appear to be
unavoidable.” - Carl Jung, The Theory of Psychoanalysis

But for most people it is an indecipherable combination of genetic and environmental influences
which is ultimately to blame.

Whatever the cause the crucial question is how to break the cycle of our neurotic suffering? If
we are willing to acknowledge our conflicted way of life, what can we do to resolve it? In the
next video we will explore Jung’s ideas regarding this question. As we will see his prescription
did not involve digging through the events of our childhood or working through what he called
the “boring emotional tangles of the “family romance”” (Carl Jung, Freud and Psychoanalysis).
Rather, Jung maintained that the best way to conquer a neurosis is through the construction of
something new – specifically a new attitude to life. We must look forward, not back.

“For all my respect for history, it seems to me that no insight into the past and no
re-experiencing of pathogenic reminiscences – however powerful it may be – is as
effective in freeing man from the grip of the past as the construction of something
new…no matter what the original circumstances from which they arose, [the neurosis] is
conditioned and maintained by a wrong attitude which is present all the time and which,
once it is recognized, must be corrected now.” - Carl Jung, Freud and Psychoanalysis

Why You Should Strive for a Meaningful Life, Not a

Happy One
“There is only one inborn error, and that is the notion that we exist in order to be
happy….So long as we persist in this inborn error, and indeed even become confirmed
in it through optimistic dogmas, the world seems to us full of contradictions.” - Arthur
Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation

The modern world is obsessed with the notion of happiness. It is seen as both the measure and
the goal of the good life, and as Sigmund Freud noted, much of what we do is motivated by the
all-consuming desire to be happy.

“…what the behavior of men themselves reveals as the purpose and object of their lives,
what they demand of life and wish to attain in it. The answer to this can hardly be in
doubt: they seek happiness, they want to become happy and remain so.” - Sigmund
Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents
But is this endless search for happiness really a healthy way to live? For if we are unhappy,
which for most people is most of the time, we will probably wonder what is wrong with us. Are
we not cut out for this world? Are the chemicals in our brain in need of a pharmaceutical
adjustment? Or rather, was Schopenhauer correct in suggesting that aiming at happiness is a
futile endeavor? Might we account our lives more fulfilling if rather than striving for happiness,
we devoted our energies to cultivating a meaningful life? In this video we will explore these
questions.

Happiness has not always been considered a target worth striving for. The root of the word
happiness, in most Indo-European languages, is luck or fate, implying that happiness was
originally viewed as something to be given and taken away by the gods, or by chance. It was
not thought to be attainable through human effort alone.

In the West it was Socrates who popularized the idea that happiness is the greatest good and
should therefore be the ultimate aim of life.

“What being is there that does not desire happiness? Well then, since all of us desire
happiness, how can we be happy? – that is the next question.” - Plato, Euthydemus

Socrates’ assumption that we should aim for happiness was widely accepted by the Ancient
Greek philosophers who came after him. The Enlightenment philosophers of the 17th and 18th
centuries, whose ideas laid the foundation for modern civilization, also adopted Socrates’ view
of happiness as the ultimate end. But while the Ancient Greeks tended to ground happiness in
the cultivation of virtue and personal excellence, some of the most prominent thinkers of the
Enlightenment tied the pursuit of happiness to the pursuit of pleasure.

“Happiness then is in its full extent the utmost Pleasure we are capable of, and Misery
the utmost pain.” - John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

The maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pain is the recipe that many in our day
use in the attempt to attain happiness. But structuring our life in this manner places us on a
hedonic treadmill. We spend our lives frantically running towards the goods, goals, events and
people whom we hope will imbue our life with the pleasure needed for a happy existence. Yet
upon attaining the objects of our desire, we quickly acclimate to our new conditions and return
to our default state of being. Or as the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer observed:

“…[striving for happiness] is like an unquenchable thirst: we may attain some brief
satisfactions, some momentary release, but in the nature of things these can never be
more than temporary, and then we are on the rack once more. So unhappiness, or at
least dissatisfaction, is our normal state of affairs.” - Arthur Schopenhauer, The World
as Will and Representation
In our more introspective moments many of us recognize the constant pursuit of happiness as a
grasping for shadows. But what is the alternative? If we abandon the pursuit of happiness, what
should take its place? In the remainder of this video we will make the case that we should
pursue a meaningful life, for as Carl Jung observed:

“…the lack of meaning in life is a soul-sickness whose full extent and import our age has
not yet begun to comprehend.” - Carl Jung, Structure & Dynamics of the Psyche

One of the main reasons in favor of the cultivation of meaning as our primary aim is due to the
inevitability of suffering. While most of our suffering is minor and manageable, we tend to ignore
the fact that we are forever at risk of descending into periods of great adversity – times in which
we are forced to contend with what Shakespeare called “the slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune” (Shakespeare). In these moments of crisis, it is meaning alone – not happiness – which
can provide us with the resilience needed to endure. “He who has a why can bear almost any
how” (Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols), wrote Nietzsche. Or as Carl Jung put it “…meaning
makes a great many things endurable – perhaps everything.” (Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams,
Reflections) Meaning, in other words, is the raw material out of which we can build our “inner
citadel”, or psychological fortress, from which we can navigate the chaotic currents of life.

But how do we cultivate meaning in our life? While no guaranteed prescription exists, some
approaches seem to be far more tenable than others. One approach that does not fall into the
category of tenability is the attempt to find meaning through the attainment of external goods
such as money, fame, status, or relationships. These goods can augment the quality of our life,
but it is unlikely they will imbue it with meaning. Many people develop a successful career, raise
a family, amass wealth and social status, only to discover, often around mid-life, that despite
their outward success their inward existence remains desolate and devoid of meaning. Or as
Jung wrote:

“A career, producing of children, are all maya [illusion] compared to that one thing, that
your life is meaningful.” - Carl Jung, The Symbolic Life

A far more practical approach to the pursuit of meaning is to focus on the cultivation of our
character. “What does your conscience say? ‘You shall become the person you are’”
(Nietzsche, The Gay Science). Or as the Presocratic Heraclitus put it: “Character is fate”
(Heraclitus). If we focus on becoming a more integrated and complete individual we greatly
increase our chance of finding meaning for two main reasons. Firstly, this approach is an
antidote to the stagnation and passivity which guarantees a meaningless existence. And
secondly, by striving to cultivate our strengths we will likely discover the ‘why’ or purpose to our
existence which is key to a subjectively meaningful life. To assist on this path we need to
discuss the role that goals play in this process.

The importance of setting goals for the sake of personal development is well-known. For just as
the stone can be shaped into a sculpture only through the force of a hammer and chisel, so too
our potential, or the development of our character, can only be actualized through discipline,
struggle, and exertion. To merely float with the tide of life promotes a weak body and a soft
mind. Hence, we need to learn to swim with the stream of life and strive and fight for worthy
goals.

“Foolish are those who…have no aim to which they can direct every impulse and,
indeed, every thought.” - Marcus Aurelius

While most are aware of the importance of goal-setting, many make the mistake of sacrificing
themselves for their goals. They believe it is the attainment of goals which builds character and
cultivates meaning, when in fact it is the continual struggle towards them which matters most.
This theme of the importance of incessant striving is foundational in Goethe’s classic tale of
Faust. For Goethe has Faust achieve self-realization only through his commitment to perpetual
struggle and strife.

“Who ever exerts himself in constant striving, Him we can redeem.” - Goethe, Faust

In continuously striving for goals it is crucial to keep in mind that our goals are only of value if
they contribute to the growth of our character. Sometimes our goals no longer move us forward,
as they may have only been appropriate for a stage of our development we have outgrown. At
the age of 20 the writer Hunter Thompson elaborated this advice in a letter to a friend:

“When you were young, let us say that you wanted to be a fireman. I feel reasonably
safe in saying that you no longer want to be a fireman. Why? Because your perspective
has changed. It’s not the fireman who has changed, but you. Every man is the sum total
of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a
different man, and hence your perspective changes…So we do not strive to be firemen,
we do not strive to be bankers, nor policemen, nor doctors. We strive to be
ourselves…The goal is absolutely secondary: it is the functioning toward the goal which
is important.” - Hunter Thompson

In following this advice – in relentlessly striving towards goals while continually modifying them
to facilitate the continued development of our character – we will place ourselves on a
potentially meaningful life path. Choosing this path requires that we abandon our obsession with
happiness and pleasure, but ironically in stepping off of the hedonic treadmill and exposing
ourselves to the struggles and strife required to cultivate character, we will likely attain the
transient state of happiness far more frequently than those who aim squarely for it. For as
Hunter Thompson wrote:

“…who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has
stayed securely on the shore and merely existed?” - Hunter Thompson, Security
Nietzsche and Jung: Myth and the Age of the Hero
“Here we have our present age … bent on the extermination of myth. Man today,
stripped of myth, stands famished among all his pasts and must dig frantically for
roots…” (Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy)

We live at a time where science and technology have diminished our physical suffering to a
remarkable degree. But can the same be said about our psychological suffering? For while our
life spans have been prolonged, and many diseases eradicated, this has not changed our
existential predicament. Just like every other man or woman to have walked this earth, we are
born, we will die, everything and everyone we know will turn to dust, and unless we are one of
the exceptional few, our legacy will live on for at most a generation. Dwelling on these facts
does not bring us joy. But if we dwell on these facts and at the same time feel that our life lacks
meaning then we will suffer from acute psychological pain.

But while science and technology have much to offer, there is no app, device, equation, or
pharmaceutical drug that can imbue our life with meaning. Rather this role has traditionally been
played by myth. The West, however, finds itself in a difficult position in this regard. For
according to Friedrich Nietzsche and Carl Jung, the decline of Christianity ushered the West into
a period of mythlessness in which it remains to this day. And this lack of myth, irrespective of all
the advances in science and technology, has made it harder for us to face up to our existential
predicament and increased our propensity for psychological suffering.

“Among the so-called neurotics of our day there are a good many who in other ages
would not have been neurotic—that is, divided against themselves. If they had lived in a
period . . . in which man was still linked by myth with the world of the ancestors. . .they
would have been spared this division within themselves.” (Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams,
Reflections)

How does myth help us shoulder our existential burdens and alleviate our psychological
suffering? Are myths not merely primitive attempts to explain the workings of the natural world
or fictional stories which glorify the origins of a culture? Have we not moved beyond our need
for myth with the rise of science? According to Nietzsche and Jung we have not. For science
and myth address different questions. The scientific method deals with cause and effect and
helps us understand the workings of the natural world. Myths, on the other hand, are narratives
which transmit modes of behaviour, patterns of action, and ways of experiencing the world, that
promote a healthy psychological development and a meaningful life. The myth, in other words,
embodies wisdom of generations past, offering solutions to our shared existential dilemma and
helping unite a culture under a shared vision.
When a society loses its myth, the members of that society do not lose their need to author
stories about their life. Rather this need is so integral to our well-being that it’s something we do
with, or without, the help of a myth. We emphasize certain past events, deny others, and even
fabricate certain elements of our life story and we do this to make sense of who we are and
where we are going. But when a society’s “horizons are ringed about with myth” (Nietzsche) the
process of constructing a meaningful life story, and one that promotes our psychological
development, is greatly facilitated. To understand how the myth achieves this feat we need to
examine the role of the mythological symbol. For it is the symbols of the myth that act in the
words of Nietzsche as “the unnoticed omnipresent…guardians under whose protection the
young soul grows up…”

Unlike a sign which points to, or represents, a known entity, a symbol in the words of the
Jungian scholar Edward Edinger “is an image or representation which points to something
essentially unknown, a mystery.” (Edward Edinger, Ego and Archetype) Religions are the
richest source of symbols. Whether it be the cross of Christianity, the mandala of Hinduism, or
the dharma wheel of Buddhism, the symbol acts in a teleologic manner, beckoning us forward
toward goals we only partially understand.

“It is the role of religious symbols to give a meaning to the life of man. The Pueblo
Indians believe that they are the sons of Father Sun, and this belief endows their life with
a perspective (and a goal) that goes far beyond their limited existence. It gives them
ample space for the unfolding of personality and permits them a full life as complete
persons. Their plight is infinitely more satisfactory than that of a man in our own
civilization who knows that he is (and will remain) nothing more than an underdog with
no inner meaning to his life.” (Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols)

The abandonment of myth has in part been a reaction against the symbol. Why should we
believe in something, that considered objectively, through the lens of our more enlightened
scientific mind, has no basis in reality? But the role of the symbol is not to help us manipulate or
understand the external world, rather its primary purpose is to help us develop psychologically
and it achieves this task irrespective of its external truth value.

“Considered from the standpoint of realism, the symbol is not of course an external truth,
but it is psychologically true, for it was and is the bridge to all that is best in humanity.”
(Carl Jung, Symbols of Transformation)

Not all myths, however, are of equal value, or appropriate to all stages of human history. Some
myths better reflect the struggles of men and women at different epochs and provide a better
set of symbols to help us deal with our existential dilemma. Nietzsche was not fond of the
Christian myth – he viewed Christianity as a life-denying myth in contrast to his more favoured
tragic myths of ancient Greece. Jung was less critical of Christianity. Christianity was one of a
multitude of religious myths which he saw as having great value for the individual:
 “The religious myth is one of man’s greatest and most significant achievements, giving
him the security and inner strength not to be crushed by the monstrousness of the
universe.” (Carl Jung, Symbols of Transformation)

While Nietzsche and Jung differed in their views on Christianity neither of them believed that a
return to the Christian myth was possible for the West. In his autobiography Jung recalled a
pivotal point in his life when this became evident to him:

“…in what myth does a man live nowadays? In the Christian myth, the answer might be.
“Do you live in it?” I asked myself. To be honest, the answer was no. For me it is not
what I live by. “Then do we no longer have any myth?” “No, evidently we no longer have
any myth.” “But then what is your myth – the myth in which you do live?” At this point the
dialogue with myself became uncomfortable, and I stopped thinking. I had reached a
dead end.” (Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections)

But with this loss of myth what has not been lost is our need for meaning and therefore the West
finds itself in a precarious position. For without a myth to help us author a meaningful life story
and unite the culture in which we live, many people, according to Nietzsche and Jung, will latch
on to collectivist political ideologies. These ideologies, encompassing their own sets of symbols
and rituals, allow those who follow them to feel they are contributing to something bigger than
their solitary self. But the worship of the state, in whatever form it takes, is the worship of a false
idol. For while collectivist political ideologies can relieve its followers of the burdens of their
individual existence, it is an inadequate replacement for myth. For statism does not promote the
healthy development of the personality. Rather the moral education it offers is one that
diminishes the value of the individual in favour of the collective. But to make matters worse, as
history has amply shown, the worship of the state does not produce cultural unity, but instead
breeds division, conflict, and death:

“The state is merely the modern pretence, a shield, a make-belief, a concept. In reality,
the ancient war-god holds the sacrificial knife, for it is in war that the sheep are
sacrificed…So instead of human representatives or a personal divine being, we now
have the dark gods of the state…The old gods are coming to life again in a time when
they should have been superseded long ago, and nobody can see it.” (Carl Jung,
Nietzsche’s Zarathustra)

If we agree with Nietzsche and Jung that collectivist political ideologies are an inadequate and
destructive alternative to our lack of myth, is the only remaining option to descend into a passive
state of nihilism? Nietzsche and Jung were adamant that such a response was inappropriate
and would only lead to a wasted life. For while we may be forced to accept the mythless
condition into which we were born, it does not follow that we must endure a meaningless
existence as a result.
 “It is a measure of the degree of strength of will to what extent one can do without
meaning in things, to what extent one can endure to live in a meaningless world because
one organizes a small portion of it oneself.” (Nietzsche, The Will to Power)

The need to organize our own small portion of meaning in an otherwise meaningless world is
why our age, in addition to being a mythless one, can also be viewed as the age of the hero.
The hero is the one who displays the strength of will to which Nietzsche alludes. Rather than
being overcome by the inner chaos that plagues those disconnected from an effective myth, the
hero faces up to this chaos and discovers his or her own solutions to the existential burdens of
our time. The bold few who take on this challenge return themselves to the world of myth. For in
striving to impose order on their own small corner of the world, they have chosen the
mythological path that is represented as the fight with the dragon.

“…only one who has risked the fight with the dragon and is not overcome by it wins the
hoard, the “treasure hard to attain”. He alone has a genuine claim to self-confidence, for
he has faced the dark ground of his self and thereby has gained himself. This
experience gives some faith and trust…in the ability of the self to sustain him, for
everything that menaced him from inside he has made his own. He has acquired the
right to believe that he will be able to overcome all future threats by the same means. He
has arrived at an inner certainty which makes him capable of self-reliance.” (Carl Jung,
The Symbolic Life)

Carl Jung, the Shadow, and the Dangers of

Psychological Projection
“The sad truth is that man’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 over the other, that good will overcome evil, or joy defeat pain. Life is
a battleground. It always has been, and always will be.” (Carl Jung, Approaching the
Unconscious)

Of the many metaphors used to describe a life in process, the metaphor of a battle is one of the
more appropriate. In this battle our own self is both our greatest ally and our greatest opponent,
with a dynamic tension existing between those elements of our personality moving us forward
into personal growth and those holding us back. Each person must also contend with the
potential for both good and evil that lies within. Whether our strengths and capacity for good get
the upper hand, or our weakness and capacity for evil, is very much a product of this battle
waged within the self.
Far too many people, however, set themselves up for defeat as they are unwilling to
acknowledge the destructive side of their being. Utilizing various psychological defense
mechanisms such people do their best to stay ignorant to their faults and weaknesses. In so
doing these elements of their personality are relegated to their unconscious and make up the
realm of the psyche Jung called the shadow. The shadow exerts an active influence on our
personality and affects our behavior in a myriad of unforeseen ways. When we behave in a
manner which is a product of our shadow, perhaps we treat someone poorly or take part in a
self-destructive behavior, rather than taking responsibility for such actions, most people make
use of the psychological phenomenon known as projection in order to avoid facing up to their
shadow. In this video we are going to explore the phenomenon of projection by looking at the
dangers it poses to the well-being of both the individual and society at large.

Projection occurs when we attribute an element of our personality, which resides in our
unconscious, to another person or group. We can project both negative and positive
characteristics, however, there is a greater tendency to project the former rather than the latter.
Sigmund Freud, who popularized the term in the mid-1890s, believed projection to be a defense
mechanism used to avoid the anxiety that is provoked when one is forced to face up to their
faults, weaknesses, and destructive tendencies. Jung’s view of projection was similar to Freud’s
and as Jung explains in Archaic Man:

“Projection is one of the commonest psychic phenomena…Everything that is

unconscious in ourselves we discover in our neighbour, and we treat him accordingly.”
(Carl Jung, Archaic Man)

Jung, however, stressed that projection was both an inevitable and necessary component in our
psychological development as it is one of the primary means by which we can gain an
awareness of elements residing in our unconscious. After projecting an element of our
unconscious, the healthy thing to do is to recognize the subjective origin of the projection, to
withdraw it from the external world, and to integrate this element of our personality into
conscious awareness. Only by withdrawing our projections and becoming aware of the faults we
previously projected onto others, can we ever hope to take corrective measures. This process of
withdrawal and integration is a difficult task for it takes courage to face up to one’s weaknesses
and dark qualities. But while difficult, this task is crucial in the battle of life, for failure to confront
one’s shadow leaves these elements free to grow in scope and influence. As Jung explains:

“[W]hen one tries desperately to be good and wonderful and perfect, then all the more
the shadow develops a definite will to be black and evil and destructive. People cannot
see that; they are always striving to be marvellous, and then they discover that terrible
destructive things happen which they cannot understand, and they either deny that such
facts have anything to do with them, or if they admit them, they take them for natural
afflictions, or they try to minimize them and to shift the responsibility elsewhere. The fact
is that if one tries beyond one’s capacity to be perfect, the shadow descends into hell
and becomes the devil.” (Carl Jung, Visions: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1930–1934)
Those who rely too heavily on projection to shield them from their shadow, who never strive to
question whether the image they hold of themselves is perhaps too perfect, go through life
forever in need of scapegoats or people on whom to blame all their problems. Often a friend or
family member is chosen as one’s scapegoat, but the problem with this choice is that it
irreparably damages and, in many cases, forces an end to the relationship. After driving one’s
scapegoat away, it is usually discovered that one’s problems persist nonetheless. This spurs
some to look within and to face up to the elements of their personality they have for so long tried
to deny. But rather than partaking in this internal reflection, most people merely look for another
scapegoat. In this process, it is often discovered, that the most effective form of scapegoat is
not any individual in particular, but rather entire groups of people.

This tendency of scapegoating to occur on a collective level can have dangerous consequences
for a society. Those unwilling, or unable, to face up to their shadows, are easy prey for
collectivist movements which have ready-made scapegoats in the form of political opponents,
members of different ethnic groups or socioeconomic classes. Scapegoating at the level of
collectives, or in other words projecting our problems on to groups of people who differ from us,
proves attractive for several reasons. It allows us to avoid the damage to our personal
relationships which occurs when we use someone close to us as a scapegoat. Furthermore,
given that our interactions with members of the scapegoated group are usually limited, we do
not risk awakening to the realization that these people are not nearly like the distorted image of
them we hold in our psyche. Scapegoating at a group level is made easier by the fact that those
in the scapegoated group, being composed of individuals with their own weaknesses and flaws,
may in fact behave in ways that provide legitimate reasons for indignation. Or as Jung put it:

“Not that these others are wholly without blame, for even the worst projection is at least
hung on a hook, perhaps a very small one, but still a hook offered by the other person.”
(Carl Jung, On Psychic Energy)

But as Jung recognized there is a tendency within collectivist movements to take this small hook
offered by one’s opponents and to hang on it virtually all that is wrong with oneself and the
world. When we cast a group of people in this negative light, seeing them as the primary source
of all that ails a society, it becomes possible to justify persecution, violence, and perhaps even
extermination of the group in question. Projection at the level of collectives becomes even more
dangerous as those in positions of power can divert attention away from their own activities, and
the harm they may be causing, by using propaganda, false flags, and other manipulation
techniques, in order to cast blame on to ready-made scapegoats.

Due to the terrible consequences that can emerge at both the level of the individual and of
society when we fail to recognize, in the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, that “the line dividing
good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being” (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn), it is of the
utmost importance that we strive to recognize our shadow qualities and to integrate them into
our conscious awareness. Only then will we be in an adequate position to evaluate the true
sources of evil in this world. On the other hand, if we fail to recognize the subjective origin of our
projections, not only will our own well-being suffer, but we will contribute on a global scale to
much unnecessary conflict. Jung went as far as to suggest that if psychological projection at a
collective level became too widespread, war would be the likely outcome. For he believed that
the greatest danger to human civilization lay not in the weapons we have at our disposal, but in
the inability to understand our own selves. For it is this ignorance, and the failure to face-up to
our own weaknesses and destructiveness, that causes what should be an internal battle to
manifest itself in the external world.

“. . .modern people…are ignorant of what they really are. We have simply forgotten what
a human being really is, so we have men like Nietzsche and Freud and Adler, who tell us
what we are, quite mercilessly. We have to discover our shadow. Otherwise we are
driven into a world war in order to see what beasts we are.” (Carl Jung, Visions: Notes of
the Seminar Given in 1930–1934)

Carl Jung: What is the Individuation Process?

Far too many of us are oblivious to the dangers that some of our behavioural patterns pose to
our long-term well-being. Instead of facing up to our problems, we either try and convince
ourselves that our issues are trivial and so can be ignored, or we pretend that the problems do
not exist at all. We can only delude ourselves for so long, as eventually what were once
manageable problems turn into problems of unmanageable proportions. For this reason, Carl
Jung maintained that a crucial first step toward self-improvement is simply to become more
aware of the reality of one’s situation.

Jung, however, is not unique in this respect as many philosophers and psychologists, both past
and present, share in this view. Where he is more unique is in his belief that not only do we
have to overcome our ignorance regarding the reality of our external situation, but just as
importantly we need to become more aware of what he called the reality of our psyche.

“What most people overlook or seem unable to understand is the fact that I regard the
psyche as real.” (Carl Jung, Answer to Job)

The psyche, in Jung’s view is not merely a by-product of a certain configuration of matter.
Rather the psyche is an irreducible, a priori fact of nature that should be considered as real as
the physical world, and just as impactful to our overall well-being. Most people, however, know
little of this world within.

One reason for this lack of knowledge can be attributed to our Christian heritage and the
associated belief in an omniscient god who not only knew if we were committing bad deeds, but
also if we were thinking blasphemous thoughts. While belief in such a god has dwindled, there
remains a tendency to repress elements of our personality which run counter to the moral
system of our day and thus to strive for a type of moral perfectionism.

Jung was no proponent of this ideal. Striving after perfection is like chasing after wind and far
from making us better people it in fact greatly hinders our development. The more we strive for
perfection, the further we fuel our dark side and lose control over how it manifests itself in our
day-to-day actions. In addition, if we constantly repress thoughts which run counter to the
dominant moral system of our society, we will never reach the deeper layers of the psyche, an
awareness of which can often substantially improve our lives.

“One should never think that man can reach perfection,” wrote Jung “he can only aim at
completion – not to be perfect but to be complete. That would be the necessity and the
indispensable condition if there were any question of perfection at all. For how can you
perfect a thing if it is not complete?

Make it complete first and see what it is then. But to make it complete is already a
mountain of a task, and by the time you arrive at absolute completion, you find that you
are already dead, so you never reach that preliminary condition for perfecting yourself.”
(Carl Jung, Visions: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1930 -1934)

The task of striving toward completeness, or what is also referred to as “wholeness of the
personality”, was of such great importance that most of Jung’s career was dedicated to
exploring this process, a process he would eventually call individuation.

Jung did not use the term individuation until 1921, however the seeds of this idea reach back to
his doctoral dissertation. In this dissertation, titled, “On the Psychology and Pathology of
So-called Occult Phenomena”, Jung attempted to explain his observations of a medium who
claimed to interact with spirits during seances. To account for this Jung hypothesized that the
manifestation of these spirits was the result of “splinter personalities” which lay dormant in the
unconscious mind of the medium but which were somehow brought to her conscious awareness
by the act of the seance. Rather than accepting that these “splinter personalities” emerged from
within, from the reality of her psyche, the medium believed they were spirits manifesting
themselves from a realm independent of her.

As Jung’s study of the psyche progressed he came to believe that the experience of this
medium was but one example of a more general phenomenon. All of us have unconscious
components which reside dormant in our psyche and as Jolande Jacobi explains in her book
The Way of Individuation:

“. . .it remained Jung’s untiring scientific and psychotherapeutic endeavor to work out a
methodological procedure for bringing these components to consciousness and
 associating them with the ego, in order to realize the “greater personality” which is
potentially present in every individual.” (Jolande Jacobi, The Way of Individuation)

It is important to note that the individuation process, according to Jung, is something that occurs
naturally, and does not require any initiation by the individual. As we age, the depth and
complexity of our consciousness increases, whether we are intentionally striving for this
outcome or not. The natural individuation process, however, does not advance in a smooth and
uninterrupted manner. Rather it often comes to a halt, or develops in a way unconducive to
mental health. When this happens, it is imperative for our well-being that we reignite the process
and return it to a healthy course of development – and this, the assistance or promotion of the
natural individuation process, is the main goal of Jungian psychotherapy.

A good way to understand the natural individuation process, which just happens, and the more
conscious way of individuation which Jungian psychotherapy promotes, is to consider the
analogy of the human body. Our physical bodies grow and develop on their own without
requiring our conscious awareness. We can, however, take a more proactive, conscious, stance
towards our physical development by exercising and eating properly. In the same manner we
can be more proactive in terms of the development of our psyche by taking certain measures
which help to accelerate the natural process of individuation:

“The difference between the “natural” individuation process,” wrote Jung “which runs its
course unconsciously, and the one which is consciously realized, is tremendous. In the
first case consciousness nowhere intervenes; the end remains as dark as the beginning.
In the second case so much darkness comes to light that the personality is permeated
with light, and consciousness necessarily gains in scope and insight.” (Carl Jung,
Answer to Job)

The best method to accelerate individuation is to record and analyze our dreams over an
extended period of time. Jung was greatly influenced by Sigmund Freud’s work on dreams, but
his views evolved and eventually came to differ in fundamental ways from those of Freud. Both
Jung and Freud agreed that dreams were a product of the unconscious. Where they were to
differ, however, was in their conception of what the unconscious was expressing through our
dreams.

“For Freud,” wrote Robert Hoptke “the dream was a psychological mechanism that
functioned to preserve sleep by expressing and thereby discharging unacceptable,
unconscious wishes in disguised form.” (Robert Hoptke, A Guided Tour of the Collected
Works of C.G. Jung)

It was Freud’s claim, that dreams are disguised expression of the unconscious, which Jung
found untenable. Dreams according to Jung are not hiding anything, rather they are undisguised
and spontaneous symbolic representations of the unconscious, or as he wrote:
 “[O]ur dreams are like windows that allow us to look in, or to listen in, to that
psychological process which is continually going on in our unconscious.” (Nietzsche’s
Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1934–1939)

The reason many people have trouble making sense of their dreams is because they do not
understand the language of the unconscious mind, which is purely symbolic. In his attempt to
decipher this symbolic language, Jung noticed a remarkable similarity between the symbols
expressed in the dreams of many of his patients and those found in the mythologies of cultures
past and present. To account for such similarities Jung proposed that the unconscious mind
contains transpersonal, or universal elements which are heritable and the product of one’s
biology, not their personal experience. The commonality in symbols found in dreams of different
people, and in myths of cultures past and present, can be attributed to the fact that they are
manifestations of these “identical psychic structures common to all”, which Jung would call the
archetypes. The word archetype in Greek means “prime imprinter” and as a colleague of Jung’s,
Aniela Jaffé, explained:

“With respect to manuscripts [the word archetype] denotes the original, the basic form for
later copies. In psychology archetypes represent the patterns of human life, the
specificity of man.” (Aniela Jaffé, The Myth of Meaning)

Individuation, therefore, is the process whereby one becomes increasingly conscious of the
symbolic manifestations of the archetypes, thus gaining knowledge of the timeless “patterns of
human life”. This knowledge is of great value for it provides us with an awareness that many of
our problems are not unique to us, but common to all of humanity. Simply knowing that we are
not alone in our suffering can often have a therapeutic effect as it provides us with a new
perspective:

“What, on a lower level, had led to the wildest conflicts and to panicky outbursts of
emotion, now looks like a storm in the valley seen from the mountaintop. This does not
mean that the storm is robbed of its reality, but instead of being in it one is above it.”
(Carl Jung, Alchemical Studies)

For those who wish to begin on the conscious path of individuation the first step is always the
same, we must as Jung put it “divest the self of the false wrappings of the persona” (The
Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious). The persona is the social mask we wear to fit
into society. Its formation begins early in life as the pull of conformity causes us to identify most
strongly with elements of our personality which are in harmony with the social values of our day,
while rejecting those that clash with social norms. The problem, however, is that many people
reach a point where they believe they are the social mask they wear and in so doing they cut
themselves off from the deeper realms of the psyche. It is imperative, therefore, for anyone who
wishes to take the conscious path of individuation to accept that their social mask represents
but a sliver of their total personality, for as Jung explains:
 “[O]ne cannot individuate as long as one is playing a role to oneself; the convictions one
has about oneself are the most subtle form of persona and the most subtle obstacle
against any true individuation. One can admit practically anything, yet somewhere one
retains the idea that one is nevertheless so-and-so, and this is always a sort of final
argument which counts apparently as a plus; yet it functions as an influence against true
individuation.

It is a most painful procedure to tear off those veils, but each step forward in
psychological development means just that, the tearing off of a new veil. We are like
onions with many skins, and we have to peel ourselves again and again in order to get
at the real core.” (Carl Jung, Visions: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1930 -1934)

The Psychology of Self-Transformation

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” (Henry David Thoreau, Walden)

Henry David Thoreau made this remark over 150 years ago, however, it is an observation that
still rings true today. Often this desperation is the product of nagging feelings that we are
wasting our life, accompanied by the frustration that despite our desire to make something of
ourselves, the years pass by, and nothing seems to change. Phillips Brooks commented that
those in this predicament “feel the thing [they] ought to be beating beneath the thing [they] are”
(Phillips Brooks). If we ignore these feelings for too long then we will remain forever haunted by
what might have been. In this video, we will explore how we can escape from a life of quiet
desperation and transform ourselves in a manner more conducive to a fulfilling existence.

“We cannot change anything unless we accept it,” wrote Carl Jung. The first step, therefore, is
to acknowledge that a change in our way of life is needed. An easy way to determine how
necessary it is for us to change, is to take note of how often we are afflicted by feelings of
regret, guilt, anxiety or depression. Jung believed that in the overwhelming majority of cases,
neurotic symptoms such as these are a direct result of an inadequate approach to life and act
as signals communicating the necessity of change.

“It seemed to [Jung] that the meaning of [neurotic] sufferings might consist in their
compelling a man to come to terms with the foundations of his being and with the world,
and thereby to gain a better knowledge of his limits and possibilities. . .Jung thus puts
the emphasis on the prospective aspect, giving neurosis a positive meaning and not
regarding it only as a burdensome illness. According to him, it can even act as a stimulus
in the struggle for the development of the personality and be, paradoxically, a curative
factor.” (Jolande Jacobi, The Way of Individuation)
When troubled by these negative emotional states, however, most people choose to take the
easy road. Instead of changing their behaviours they try to dull their feelings or flee from them if
possible. They take drugs, drink, or distract themselves by pursuing mindless pleasures. In the
long run, this only exacerbates the problem and Jung offered a warning to those who choose
this path:

“We may think there is a safe road. But that would be the road of death. Then nothing
happens any longer – at any rate, not the right things. Anyone who takes the safe road is
as good as dead.” (Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections)

After accepting that change is needed, the question becomes what type of change is most
conducive to a fulfilling life? In the mid-20th century, the psychologist Abraham Maslow set out
to answer this question. Unlike many of his colleagues who devoted most of their time to
studying the mentally ill, Maslow decided to do the opposite. He chose to study those who
excelled in life and this led him to an important discovery. The healthiest and most flourishing
among us are those who are “motivated by trends to self-actualization”, which Maslow defined
as “an ongoing actualization of potentials, capacities and talents, as fulfillment of [a] mission, as
a fuller knowledge of, and acceptance of, the person’s own intrinsic nature, [and] as an
unceasing trend toward unity.” (Abraham Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being)

Maslow was so convinced of the importance of self-actualization, that he made the following
bold pronouncement:

“If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be
unhappy all the days of your life.” (Abraham Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being)

But after years of stagnating, years in which our bad habits and destructive behavioral patterns
have solidified, how can we become self-actualizers? A quote, of uncertain origins, but often
attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson, provides some direction:

“Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit
and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.” (Ralph Waldo
Emerson)

The first step is the ‘thought’, and for those of us striving to live more fulfilling lives, this entails
the selection of an aim or purpose to our existence – for as Maslow pointed out self-actualizers
are very much defined by a life mission. In making this selection people sometimes get tripped
up into believing that this requires the determination of their true passion. The problem with this
approach is that it overlooks the fact that very often our passions follow the development of our
skills. Therefore, if you are uncertain of where your passions lie, it is unlikely you will discover
them through thought alone. Rather than delaying for too long it is far better to pick something
challenging, which sparks your curiosity, and not to worry about whether it is the perfect choice.
With that said, the sowing of the thought, or the selection of a goal, will only be of positive
consequence, if we ‘reap the actions’ and build the better habits which ultimately move us
forward in the pursuit of our aims. Having something to aim at is important not so much because
of the external rewards achievement of the goal will bring, but rather because of the
transformation it forces us to undergo. Pursuing a challenging goal requires us to leave our
comfort zone as we develop new skills, cultivate self-discipline, and in the process, discover that
we are not as helpless as we once thought.

The problem for many of us, however, is that we struggle in moving from the sowing of the
thought, to the reaping of the actions. Often people blame their inability to take productive action
on their anxiety, depression, fear, or a lack of confidence in their abilities. Before taking the
actions necessary to pursue their aims, such people reason, perhaps they must first rid
themselves of their negative emotions. This, however, is an approach often doomed to fail.

These negative emotional states are by-and-large the result of faulty behavioural patterns and
the avoidance of facing up to our fears and courageously taking on the challenges in our lives
that would lead to personal growth. Meditation and introspection alone will never cure us of
these feelings, rather we must learn that we can take purposeful action even when we are
feeling anxious, depressed, or fearful. The importance of purposeful action as a cure for our
troubled emotions is foundational to Morita therapy, a Japanese school of psychotherapeutic
thought. As David Reynolds, a practitioner of this school explains:

“…realign your life toward getting done what reality sends that needs doing. In other
words we advise you to focus more on purposeful behavior. Let the feelings take care of
themselves. What I think you will find is that when you get good at doing what needs
doing in your life, the feelings stop giving you such trouble. And even if your feelings
become troublesome, when you are involved in constructive activity, they remain in
perspective. Feelings cease to be the whole show.” (David Reynolds, A Handbook for
Constructive Living)

The ability to act even when we are not feeling up to it is one of the most distinguishing
characteristics of self-actualizers. For as Thomas Huxley wrote: “Perhaps the most valuable
result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do when it ought to
be done, whether you like it or not.” (Thomas Huxley) Furthermore, as Maslow wrote in Toward
a Psychology of Being:

“Self-actualizing does not mean a transcendence of all human problems. Conflict, anxiety,
frustration, sadness, hurt, and guilt can all be found in healthy human beings.” (Abraham
Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being)

Therefore, it doesn’t matter who you are, or what stage of life you are at, negative emotions will
always present themselves – the question is do you have the courage to act in the face of these
feelings or not? Those who find such courage will live far better lives than those who cower in
the face of their fears, for as Emerson wrote:

“Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

An effective way to gain the necessary courage to act in the face of your fears is to reflect on
the imminence of death. The Stoic philosophers suggested that those who become more aware
of just how brief life is will be far more likely to live in the most intense and courageous manner
possible, striving to take advantage of each moment. Steve Jobs, who was clearly a man of
action, recognized the power of this method:

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to
help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything—all external
expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in
the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going
to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” (Steve Jobs)

But awareness of our approaching death is a double-edged sword. If we delay too long in
instituting the changes required to live a more fulfilling life and instead of striving to actualize our
potential we fritter away our time, then awareness of our mortality will give rise to nagging, and
increasingly intense feelings of guilt and regret. We will have chosen the safe road, which Jung
called the road of death, and we will spend our remaining days fleeing from the fact that we are
wasting our life. In her book The Way of Individuation, Jolande Jacobi provides a warning of
what can be expected for those who choose this path:

“Any obstruction of the natural processes of development. . .or getting stuck on a level
unsuited to one’s age, takes its revenge, if not immediately, then later at the onset of the
second half of life, in the form of serious crises, nervous breakdowns, and all manner of
physical and psychic sufferings. Mostly they are accompanied by vague feelings of guilt,
by tormenting pangs of conscience, often not understood, in face of which the individual
is helpless. He knows he is not guilty of any bad deed, he has not given way to an illicit
impulse, and yet he is plagued by uncertainty, discontent, despair, and above all by
anxiety – a constant, indefinable anxiety. And in truth he must usually be pronounced
“guilty”. His guilt does not lie in the fact that he has a neurosis, but in the fact that,
knowing he has one, he does nothing to set about curing it.”(Jolande Jacobi, The Way of
Individuation)
Carl Jung and the Spiritual Problem of the Modern
Individual
As a practicing psychologist and keen observer of the Western world, Carl Jung noticed that
many people in his day were afflicted by debilitating feelings of insignificance, inadequacy, and
hopelessness. Over several chapters in Volume 10 of his Collected Works, Jung examined this
issue and came to conclude that such feelings were caused by what he called a “spiritual
problem”.

This “spiritual problem” continues to be an issue for many people in the modern world and its
widespread existence posses a great threat to the freedom and prosperity of Western societies.
For not only do those afflicted by it suffer as individuals, but as more fall victim to it, the stability
of a society falters and the potential for political and social unrest increases. Jung observed the
social ramifications of this problem play out first hand in the form of two world wars and the rise
of numerous totalitarian states. He was so appalled by these events that he tried his best to
convey his insights to others in the hope of averting similar occurrences in the future.

Jung believed that the emergence of this spiritual problem coincided with the declining influence
that traditional religions, most prominently Christianity, have had on Western societies over the
past several centuries. Casting aside these religions has had many effects, but the one which
Jung saw as most pressing, was the fact that it forced countless people to face the existential
dilemmas of human life without the helpful crutch of religious dogma.

“How totally different did the world appear to medieval man! For him the earth was
eternally fixed and at rest in the centre of the universe…Men were all children of God
under the loving care of the Most High, who prepared them for eternal blessedness; and
all knew exactly what they should do and how they should conduct themselves in order
to rise from a corruptible world to an incorruptible and joyous existence. Such a life no
longer seems real to us, even in our dreams.” (Carl Jung, The Spiritual Problem of
Modern Man)

In addition to the rise of secularism, Jung suggested that the development of modern mass
society also played a significant role in the emergence of the spiritual problem.

Modern society came into existence during the industrial revolution, when large portions
of the population were driven from small towns into big cities in search of work and
opportunity – instigating the birth of a mass society. While the development of a mass
society generated benefits through the intensification of the division of labor, it also
brought perilous problems. “This new form of existence…produced an individual who
was unstable, insecure, and suggestible.” (Carl Jung, The Fight With the Shadow)
The insecurity of the individual in a mass society is partly a function of the sheer quantity of
people which surround him. The bigger the crowd, the more nullified the individual feels. But this
insecurity was also instigated, according to Jung, by the rise of a rational and scientific mindset
which accompanied the industrial revolution, and over time, saturated more and more corners of
society.

In the 19th and even more so in the 20th century, social planners, politicians, and leaders of
various industries, mesmerized by the fruits which scientific inquiry was producing in the fields of
industry and medicine, came to believe that the methods of science could be used to remodel
society. The result of this movement was a massification of society, that is, an increase in
uniformity and a drastic decrease in the importance of the individual.

For in order to model and subsequently remake society based on scientific and rational
principles, the uniqueness of the individual must be negated in favour of statistical averages,
and the redesign of society enacted by a group of elites, or Technocrats, who view humans as
nothing but abstractions, homogenous social units to be managed and manipulated.

The perilous effects of this attempt to use science to remodel the individual and society, effects
still in play today, were described by Jung:

“Under the influence of scientific assumptions, not only the psyche but the individual man
and, indeed, all individual events whatsoever suffer a levelling down and a process of
blurring that distorts the picture of reality into a conceptual average. We ought not to
underestimate the psychological effect of the statistical world-picture: it thrusts aside the
individual in favour of anonymous units that pile up into mass formations…As a social
unit he has lost his individuality and become a mere abstract number in the bureau of
statistics. He can only play the role of an interchangeable unit of infinitesimal
importance.” (Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self)

The existential uncertainty brought by the decline of religions and the diminished importance of
the individual in mass society have combined to create a situation where the vast majority of
people view themselves as insignificant and impotent beings. This mindset can be very
detrimental for as Jung discovered, when the conscious attitude of the individual is deficient in a
manner which is detrimental to psychological health, the self-regulating mechanism of the
psyche will produce an unconscious compensation in the attempt to correct the faulty conscious
attitude, and bring the psyche back into relative balance.

Those suffering from a spiritual problem, due to their feelings of insignificance, lack the proper
levels of self-efficacy required for psychological health. Jung proposed that to compensate for
this deficiency the unconscious produces a compensation in the form of a strong hunger for
power.
 “The individual’s feeling of weakness, indeed of non-exist​ence, [is] compensated by the
eruption of hitherto unknown desires for power. It [is] the revolt of the powerless, the
insatiable greed of the “have-nots.”” (Carl Jung, The Fight with the Shadow)

A compensation can be beneficial if one is able to integrate the compensatory contents of the
unconscious into their consciousness, thus bringing more balance to their conscious mind and
an overall improvement to their psychological health. However, If the unconscious contents of
the compensation, which in the case of a spiritual problem take the form of a lust for power,
remain hidden in the unconscious, the compensation can prove extremely dangerous.

“If such a compensatory move of the unconscious is not integrated into consciousness in
an individual, it leads to a neurosis or even to a psychosis.” (Carl Jung, The Fight with
the Shadow)

If a compensatory desire for power is not integrated into consciousness, Jung warned that one
will become possessed by unconscious impulses for power, and thus seek it at any cost. Failing
to find it in their personal life due to profound feelings of impotence, such people are very likely
to gravitate toward collective ideologies, mass movements, and institutions which they view as
having the power they as individuals lack.

“If the individual, overwhelmed by the sense of his own puniness and impotence, should
feel that his life has lost its meaning…then he is already on the road to State slavery
and, without knowing or wanting it, has become its proselyte.” (Carl Jung, The
Undiscovered Self)

When this psychological process occurs on a mass scale, a society becomes highly vulnerable
to the rise of State tyranny.

Jung described this process in the following chilling passage.

“Instead of the concrete individual, you have the names of organizations and, at the
highest point, the abstract idea of the State as the principle of political reality. The moral
responsibility of the individual is then inevitably replaced by the policy of the State.
Instead of the moral and mental differentiation of the individual, you have public welfare
and the raising of the living standard. The goal and meaning of individual life (which is
the only real life) no longer lie in individual development but in the policy of the State,
which is thrust upon the individual from outside…The individual is increasingly deprived
of the moral decision as to how he should live his own life, and instead is ruled, fed,
clothed, and educated as a social unit…and amused in accordance with the standards
that give pleasure and satisfaction to the masses.” (Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self)

This form of dystopia occurred in varying degrees in the 20th century, and seems to be
re-emerging in the West today. While many people realize the dangers posed by the existence
of centralized states, most react to the growth of state power with feelings of hopelessness,
believing there is nothing that they as individuals can do about it. Jung’s analysis is profound for
the reason that he suggests that the rise of state tyranny is a by-product of the proliferation of
the spiritual problem afflicting the modern world, and thus can be subdued if more people learn
to resolve the spiritual problem affecting their own lives.

Jung held out hope that many people in the West were capable of achieving this, and saw
evidence of such potential in the growth of the field of psychology in the 20th century, and in the
increased desire of many to explore the depths in their psyche in search of self-knowledge.

“To me the crux of the spiritual problem today is to be found in the fascination which the
psyche holds for modern man….if we are optimistically inclined, we shall see in it the
promise of a far-reaching spiritual change in the Western world. At all events, it is a
significant phenomenon…important because it touches those irrational and—as history
shows —incalculable psychic forces which transform the life of peoples and civilizations
in ways that are unforeseen and unforeseeable. These are the forces, still invisible to
many persons today, which are at the bottom of the present “psychological” interest.”
(Carl Jung, The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man)

In times of desperation ancient peoples looked to the gods which inhabited the oceans, the
forests, and the skies for regeneration. In Jung’s view, the modern individual, for whom all the
gods are dead, must look to the forces within for answers to the spiritual problems which plague
them. In finding answers, he thought one will not only be curing the spiritual sickness which
afflicts them personally, but will also be contributing to the renewal of a world gone astray in the
darkness of State domination:

“Small and hidden is the door that leads inward, and the entrance is barred by countless
prejudices, mistaken assumptions, and fears. Always one wishes to hear of grand political and
economic schemes, the very things that have landed every nation in a morass. Therefore it
sounds grotesque when anyone speaks of hidden doors, dreams, and a world within. What has
this vapid idealism got to do with gigantic economic programmes, with the so-called problems of
reality?

But I speak not to nations, only to the individual few, for whom it goes without saying that
cultural values do not drop down like manna from heaven, but are created by the hands
of individuals. If things go wrong in the world, this is because something is wrong with
the individual, because something is wrong with me. Therefore, if I am sensible, I shall
put myself right first. For this I need—because outside authority no longer means
anything to me—a knowledge of the innermost foundations of my being, in order that I
may base myself firmly on the eternal facts of the human psyche.” (Carl Jung, The
Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man)
Carl Jung and The Achievement of Personality
In a chapter titled The Development of Personality contained in Volume 17 of his Collected
Works, Carl Jung provides a fascinating account of what he called the achievement of
personality, which he described as “the prototype of the only meaningful life, that is, of a life that
strives for the individual realization of its own law.”

Jung’s insights in this chapter, as we will see, are very pertinent in the modern world where
many people are falling under the spell of divisive collective ideologies, and in the process,
devaluing themselves as individuals.

While the term personality is commonly used to describe the set of qualities and traits which
form an individual’s character, Jung had a more specific meaning in mind when he wrote this
chapter. As he explained:

“The achievement of personality means nothing less than the best possible development
of all that lies in a particular, single being…Personality is the highest realization of the
inborn distinctiveness of the particular living being. Personality is an act of the greatest
courage in the face of life, and means unconditional affirmation of all that constitutes the
individual, the most successful adaptation to the universal conditions of human
existence, with the greatest possible freedom of personal decision.” (Carl Jung)

Personality, in this sense, is achieved by a very select few. So long as one lives a life more
concerned with conformity than individual development and authenticity, the seeds of
personality will obviously remain dormant:

“Only the sharpest need is able to rouse it. The development of personality obeys no
wish, no command, and no insight, but only need; it wants the motivating coercion of
inner or outer necessities.” (Carl Jung)

In other words, the impetus to achieve personality is some form of severe adversity which
awakens one to the existence of previously unrealized potentials, and forces one to realize that
the way they had been living is no longer adequate. Not everyone reaches such a point in their
life, for as long as one’s suffering and circumstances remain bearable, the individual will do all
he can to avoid the often burdensome and lonely process of developing personality.

As Jung explained:

“The saying, “For many are called, but few are chosen,” applies here as nowhere else;
for the development of personality from its germinal state to full consciousness is at once
 a charism and a curse. Its first result is the conscious and unavoidable separation of the
single being from the undifferentiated and unconscious herd. This means isolation, and
there is no more comforting word for it. Neither family, nor society, nor position can save
him from it…The development of personality is a favor that must be paid for dearly.”
(Carl Jung)

The development of personality is initiated when the individual, with conviction, decides to go
his own way.

“With the very decision to put his own way above all other ways he has already in large
part fulfilled his liberating vocation. He has cancelled the validity of all other ways for
himself. He has placed his law above all conventions.” (Carl Jung)

This decision is not met with an encouraging attitude from others, but ridicule and reproach.
Following one’s own path instead of the well-trodden path will in many cases make one’s
behavior appear foolish to the more mediocre. Describing the ridicule and resultant internal
conflict which manifests in the early stages of achieving personality, Jung noted:

“If he listens to the voice, then he is different and isolated, for he has decided to follow
the law that confronts him from within. His “own” law, everyone will cry. He alone knows
better – has to know better: it is the law, the vocation, as little his “own” as the lion that
fells him, although it is undoubtedly this particular lion that kills him, and not any other
lion. Only in this sense can you speak of “his” vocation, “his” law.” (Carl Jung)

In following his own law, even in the presence of constant derision from others, the individual
both frees and isolates himself from the masses, whose behavior is instinctively fashioned and
dictated by the social conventions of the day. Some may wonder why anyone would want to go
their own way, for social conventions, especially in more morally developed societies can help
maintain order.

Jung, however, believed it is not social convention in and of itself that is the problem, but the
tendency of people to follow it unconsciously. For when a society faces unexpected disruptions,
as they inevitably do, a population composed of too few individuals capable of autonomous
thought and action will find itself in a position similar to a herd of wild animals seized by panic
and terror.

As Jung warned:

“The fact is that the group, because of its unconsciousness, has no freedom of choice,
so that, within it, psychic life works itself out like an uncontrolled law of nature. There is
set going a causally connected process that comes to rest only in catastrophe…For
when new conditions not provided for by the old conventions arise, then panic seizes the
 human being who has been held unconscious by routine, much as it seizes an animal,
and with equally unpredictable results.” (Carl Jung)

It is individuals who have achieved personality and “thrust themselves up like mountain peaks
out of the mass” (Jung), who act as the much needed antidote to the hysteria that can so easily
possess and overtake the unconscious herd.

“…personality does not allow itself to be seized by panic…for it already has terror behind
it. It is equal to the changing conditions brought by time, and is unknowingly and
unwillingly a leader.” (Carl Jung)

While it is easy to look at the great personalities, past and present, with a sense of awe, it is
crucial to realize that the potential for achieving personality is not limited to a select few. The
inner voice which calls one to personality may be less audible in some than others, but it exists
in all nonetheless:

“In so far as every individual has his own inborn law of life, it is theoretically possible for
every man to follow this law before all others and so to become a personality – that is, to
achieve completeness.” (Carl Jung)

In concluding his profound exposition on the nature of personality, Jung admitted that ultimately
“what is called personality is a great and mysterious question”, and acknowledged that while he
has made a preliminary attempt at describing its nature, there is still much to be discovered.

Although the mystery of personality still remains with us today, we do know that the
achievement of personality has a liberating effect on both the life of the individual, and the
society in which such people are embedded. Therefore, in our tumultuous times, we can, with
Jung, put forth a cry for the rise of personality.

“Not for nothing is it just our own epoch that calls for the liberating personality, for the
one who distinguishes himself from the inescapable power of collectivity, thus freeing
himself at least in a psychic way, and who lights a hopeful watchfire announcing to
others that at least one man has succeeded in escaping from the fateful identity with the
group soul.” (Carl Jung)

“…just as great personality acts upon society to alleviate, liberate, transform, and heal,
so the birth of personality has a restoring effect upon the individual. It is as if a stream
that was losing itself in marshy tributaries suddenly discovered its proper bed, or as if a
stone that lay upon a germinating seed were lifted away so that the sprout could begin
its natural growth.” (Carl Jung)
Carl Jung – What are the Archetypes?
Is the mind of a newborn a blank slate, awaiting stimuli and input from the world to obtain
structure and form? Or does it have a pre-formed structure which influences how we experience
the world? This question has long interested psychologists and philosophers alike. Carl Jung,
the 20th century psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology, believed the latter to be the
case.

There exist, according to Jung, “identical psychic structures common to all” which are heritable
and influence the way all humans experience the world. Jung called these structures archetypes
and in this video we will provide a detailed introduction to Jung’s archetypes, explaining what
they are, how they influence our lives, their relationship to symbols and Jung’s ideas on the
connection between religious experiences and the archetypes.

Carl Jung, in addition to being a practicing psychiatrist, was one of the foremost experts on the
study of religious and mythological symbology. It was work in both these fields that led him to
the discovery of the archetypes. In studying the myths and religions of cultures past and present
Jung noticed that many of them shared similar patterns, themes, and symbols. This was
interesting in its own right, but what further piqued Jung’s curiosity was that some of these same
themes and symbols arose in the dreams and fantasies of patients who suffered from
schizophrenia. What could account for such similarities?

Jung proposed that the human mind, or psyche, is not exclusively the product of personal
experience, but rather contains elements which are pre-personal, or transpersonal, and
common to all. These elements he called the archetypes and he proposed that it is their
influence on human thought and behaviour that gives rise to the similarities between the various
myths and religions.

To properly understand the role of the archetypes we must first explain Jung’s conception of the
psyche. Jung described the psyche as one’s total personality, encompassing all one’s thoughts,
behaviors, feelings, and emotions. Jung divided the psyche into three major realms:
consciousness, the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious. These three realms
are not closed-off from one another but constantly interact in a compensatory manner.

The conscious realm is simply one’s field of awareness, consisting of those psychic contents
that one has knowledge of. In other words, any experience that enters one’s field of awareness
takes on the quality of consciousness.

The conscious realm of the psyche, while extremely important in its own right, is according to
Jung, dwarfed in scope by the unconscious realm. The unconscious consists of those psychic
contents which one is unaware of and Jung divided it into two main parts: the personal
unconscious and the collective unconscious. The personal unconscious, as the name suggests,
is particular to each individual. It consists of events of one’s life that are deemed insignificant,
are forgotten, or are repressed due to their distressing nature.

In addition to the personal unconscious there is a deeper and more fundamental realm of the
unconscious which Jung called the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious consists
of ‘psychic structures’ or ‘cognitive categories’ which are not unique to the individual, but rather
are shared by all, influencing our thoughts, behaviors, and the way we look at the world. In other
words, the collective unconscious is home to the archetypes. As Jung put it:

“From the unconscious there emanate determining influences…which, independently of

tradition, guarantee in every single individual a similarity and even a sameness of
experience, and also of the way it is represented imaginatively.” (The Archetypes and
the Collective Unconscious, Carl Jung)

Jung’s student, Erich Neumann, used the analogy of physical organs to help illuminate the
concept of the archetypes. Just as a body is structured by organs which are largely formed prior
to birth, so the mind possesses psychic organs which structure it, i.e., the archetypes.
Furthermore, just as the physical organs in most cases operate without one’s conscious
awareness, so do the archetypes. And most importantly, just as adequately functioning physical
organs are essential for a healthy body, a healthy mind is reliant on the proper functioning of the
archetypes, as Neumann explains:

“The archetypal structural elements of the psyche are psychic organs upon whose
functioning the well-being of the individual depends, and whose injury has disastrous
consequences.” (The Origins and History of Consciousness, Erich Neumann)

An important difference between the physical organs and the archetypes, is that while physical
organs can be directly observed with the senses, the archetypes cannot. The existence of
archetypes is revealed by the arrangements they produce in consciousness, namely through the
manifestation of symbolic imagery.

It is only through the interpretation of the symbols manifested by the archetypes that one can
gain an understanding of the archetypal pattern of the human mind. Edward Edinger in his work
Ego and Archetype, provides an explanation of what a symbol is, with respect to Jungian
psychology, by contrasting it to a sign:

“A sign is a token of meaning that stands for a known entity. By this definition, language
is a system of signs, not symbols. A symbol, on the other hand is an image or
representation which points to something essentially unknown, a mystery. A sign
communicates abstract, objective meaning whereas a symbol conveys living, subjective
meaning.” (Ego and Archetype, Edward Edinger)
While signs, by this definition, point to definite things which exist in the world, symbols do not
stand for things which exist in the physical world, but rather point to the existence of unknown
elements of the psyche or patterns of the unconscious. As Jung put it:

“Whenever we speak of [symbolic] contents we move in a world of images that point to

something ineffable. We do not know how clear or unclear these images, metaphors,
and concepts are in respect of their transcendental object. . . (However) there is no
doubt that there is something behind these images that transcends consciousness and
operates in such a way that the statements do not vary limitlessly and chaotically, but
clearly all relate to a few basic principles or archetypes.” (Psychology and Religion, Carl
Jung)

It is important to point out that the archetypes do not manifest the exact same set of symbolic
images for each person. Rather, the archetypes provide the structure, not the specific form of
the symbolic image. The specific form the images take differ from culture to culture and even
individually. However, as Jung stated in the passage just quoted the symbolic manifestation of
the archetypes “do not vary limitlessly and chaotically”. Therefore, as one takes note of, and
reflects on the symbols as they are manifested in consciousness, knowledge of the archetypal
structure of the mind can be obtained. Erich Neumann describes the role of the symbol in
producing knowledge of the archetypes in the following way:

“The form of representation peculiar to the unconscious is not that of the conscious
mind. It neither attempts nor is able to seize hold of and define its objects in a series of
discursive explanations, and reduce them to clarity by logical analysis. The way of the
unconscious is different. Symbols gather round the thing to be explained, understood,
interpreted. The act of becoming conscious consists in the concentric groupings of
symbols around the object, all circumscribing and describing the unknown from many
sides. Each symbol lays bare another essential side of the object to be grasped, points
to another facet of meaning. Only the canon of these symbols congregating about the
centre in question, the coherent symbol group, can lead to an understanding of what the
symbols point to and of what they are trying to express.” (The Origins and History of
Consciousness, Erich Neumann)

To provide an example of the types of symbols which are manifested by the archetypes we will
look at the archetype Jung called the Self. The Self is the central archetype and its role is in
unifying the other archetypal structures of the psyche. According to Jung, the importance of the
Self archetype coincides with the fact that it is the source of many of the symbols found in
religions and myths. Edward Edinger, in Ego and Archetype, reveals the wide array of symbols
manifested by the Self:

“[The Self is] expressed by certain typical symbolic images called mandalas. All images
that emphasize a circle with a center and usually with the additional feature of a square,
 cross, or some other representation of quaternity, fall into this category…There are also
a number of other associated themes and images that refer to the Self. Such themes as
wholeness, totality, the union of opposites, the central generative point, the world naval,
the axis of the universe. . .the elixir of life – all refer to the Self, the central source of life
energy, the fountain of our being which is most simply described as God. Indeed, the
richest sources of the phenomenological study of the Self are in the innumerable
representations that man has made of the deity.” (Ego and Archetype, Edward Edinger)

What is interesting to realize is that Jung believed that the various representations of deities in
myths and religions, both past and present, were at root symbolic manifestations of the Self
archetype. However, Jung did not in any way mean this as a reduction of god to a product of
man’s mind, rather as he wrote:

“This is certainly not to say that what we call the unconscious is identical with God or is
set up in his place. It is simply the medium from which religious experience seems to
flow. As to what the further cause of such experience may be, the answer to this lies
beyond the range of human knowledge. Knowledge of God is a transcendental problem.”
(The Undiscovered Self: The Dilemma of the Individual in Modern Society, Carl Jung)

Throughout Jung’s life he struggled with the question as to what the ultimate source of the
archetypes was. At times he suggested they arose in an evolutionary manner and were subject
to change over long periods of time. The following passage reflects this view:

“Man “possesses” many things which he has never acquired but has inherited from his
ancestors. He is not born as a tabula rasa, he is merely born unconscious. But he brings
with him systems that are organized and ready to function in a specifically human way,
and these he owes to millions of years of human development.” (Collected Works of
C.G. Jung: Volume 4, Carl Jung)

However, Jung also had sympathy with the idea that the archetypes may be similar to the
Platonic forms existing as a type of immutable, transcendental entity. As Jung wrote at one
point:

“Whether this psychic structure and its elements, the archetypes, ever ‘originated’ at all
is a metaphysical question and therefore unanswerable.” (The Archetypes and the
Collective Unconscious, Carl Jung)

Whatever their ultimate source, Jung believed that the archetypes play an immense role in the
lives of all individuals. By becoming increasingly aware of the archetypal patterns through the
symbols they manifest in the psyche, the individual experiences an expansion of
consciousness. Such an expansion, Jung believed, was of paramount importance, for as he put
it:
 “Man’s task is…to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the
unconscious. Neither should he persist in his unconsciousness nor remain identical with
the unconscious elements of his being, thus evading his destiny, which is to create more
and more consciousness. As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human
existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.” (Memories, Dreams,
Reflections, Carl Jung)

The Myth of Meaning in the Work of C. G. Jung

Aniela Jaffe was a Jungian analyst who worked as Carl Jung’s personal secretary in the late
1950s and went on to help author his autobiography. The extensive time she spent with Jung
made her one of the foremost authorities on Jungian psychology. In her book, The Myth of
Meaning in the Work of C. G. Jung, she examines one of the core themes which pervades so
much of the Jung’s work – namely the question of the meaning of life. (See our introductory
video to Jung here)

According to Jaffe, one of the reasons for Jung’s great interest in life’s meaning was due to his
experience as a practicing psychiatrist which made clear to him the dangers of a meaningless
life. As Jung explained:

“A psychoneurosis must be understood, ultimately, as the suffering of a soul which has

not discovered its meaning.” (Carl Jung)

And in a related manner Jung wrote:

“about a third of my cases are not suffering from any clinically definable neurosis, but
from the senselessness and aimlessness of their lives.” (Carl Jung)

For much of human history the question of meaning was largely satisfied by the existence of
myths and religions which provided narratives to explain the world and man’s role in it. In the
West, Christianity was for many centuries the dominant meaning giving myth. However, Jung
knew that by the 20th century Christianity had been in sharp decline for several centuries and
the accompanying rise of science made it ever more difficult for people to adopt myths which
told stories of supernatural beings. But with the fall of Christianity no myth rose to take its place,
and this according to Jung, was the reason for the increased prevalence of feelings of
meaninglessness in the West.

In The Myth of Meaning, Jaffe points out that while Jung was well aware of the problem of
meaninglessness, he did not believe that addressing the lack of meaning was a simple task. For
Jung there was no objective, or universally valid answer to the question of life’s meaning which
if conveyed to someone could turn a meaningless existence into a meaningful one. Rather life
meaning was to be discovered at a subjective or personal level, but this “man-made” meaning,
so to speak, would prove more than adequate according to Jung.

In discovering subjective meaning for one’s life, what one is doing is creating a myth, as Jaffe
explains:

“Every statement about meaning, whether it be an hypothesis or a confession of faith, is

a myth. . .” (The Myth of Meaning, Aniela Jaffe)

Therefore it is of the utmost importance that one find a myth to live by and Jaffe’s book explores
the myth that Jung developed to provide meaning for his own life. This myth Jaffe refers to as
the myth of consciousness, as she writes:

“Jung’s myth of meaning is the myth of consciousness. The metaphysical task of man
resides in the continual expansion of consciousness at large…” (The Myth of Meaning,
Aniela Jaffe)

By reading The Myth of Meaning one will learn the details of Jung’s myth of consciousness and
how such a myth can help those in the modern world who are plagued by a lack of meaning and
existential uncertainty. In the process the reader will also encounter great explanations of many
of Jung’s most important ideas, such as the collective unconscious, archetypes, and the
individuation process. For this reason, The Myth of Meaning is valuable to both those familiar
with Jung’s ideas and those new to Jungian psychology but interested in the question of life’s
meaning.

Introduction to Carl Jung – Individuation, the

Persona, the Shadow and the Self
“Individuation means becoming a single, homogeneous being, and, in so far as
‘individuality’ embraces our innermost, last, and incomparable uniqueness, it also implies
becoming one’s own self. We could therefore translate individuation as…
‘self-realization.’” (Collected Works of C.G. Jung: Volume 7, Carl Jung )

In this second video in our mini-series on the ideas of Carl Jung we are going to examine the
individuation process, a process Jung believed to be essential for a healthy functioning
personality. Such an examination will lead us to explore some of the parts of the personality that
Jung viewed as particularly important, namely the persona, the shadow, the anima and animus,
and the self. Before we go into more detail on the individuation process we will begin with a brief
overview of the relevant content from our first video on Jung.

Jung conceived of the psyche, or one’s total personality, as composed of a conscious and
unconscious realm. The unconscious realm he split into the personal unconscious and the
collective unconscious. The personal unconscious is largely composed of repressed elements
from one’s personal history, while the collective unconscious is composed of instincts and
archetypes which are common to all human beings. Archetypes can be viewed as evolved
cognitive structures which influence emotions, thoughts, and behaviors.

Archetypes provide structure to different parts of the psyche and the psyche functions optimally
when there exists a harmonious balance between these parts. Unfortunately, according to Jung,
few people function in an optimal manner. Rather most suffer from imbalances where some
parts of their personality suffer from inflation, or over-expression in consciousness, while other
parts suffer from deflation or underdevelopment whereby they lack proper expression in
consciousness. Imbalances, Jung believed, often lead to the development of neuroses and a
lack of vitality in life.

Working to bring about proper expression of the various archetypally structured elements of
one’s personality by confronting contents of the unconscious and thus obtaining self-knowledge,
is the purpose of the individuation process. It is important to note that this process occurs
spontaneously if unimpeded as contents of the unconscious naturally strive for outward
expression in the world, or as Jung put it “Everything in the unconscious seeks outward
manifestation”.

However, the problem is that while natural, most people get stuck at various stages of the
individuation process as they are unable to properly integrate into consciousness certain
elements of the unconscious. How to promote such integration when it does not occur naturally
was a question of deep concern for Jung. Through his patient analysis, research, and personal
experience he arrived at the idea that dreams provide the greatest opportunity to access the
unconscious.

As he put it:

“Dreams are impartial, spontaneous products of the unconscious psyche, outside the
control of the will. They are pure nature; they show us the unvarnished, natural truth, and
are therefore fitted, as nothing else is, to give us back an attitude that accords with our
basic human nature when our consciousness has strayed too far from its foundations
and run into an impasse.” (The Collected Works of C.G. Jung: Volume 10, Carl Jung)

Jung put enormous emphasis on the therapeutic effects of dream analysis. By recording and
analyzing one’s dreams, determining their meaning and relevancy, Jung thought one could
integrate unconscious contents into consciousness.
It must be noted, however, that dream analysis is not a simple matter, due to the often
confusing nature of dreams and the fact that quite frequently dreams express material which
can be difficult to incorporate into consciousness. The interpretation of dreams therefore must
be seen as a skill acquired through practice, and improved with an understanding of some of the
most important archetypes, archetypes which we will spend the remainder of the video looking
at.

Before looking at some of the archetypes which suffer from underdevelopment and therefore
may manifest themselves in dreams, it is important to first look at the persona. The word
persona was used in Roman times to signify a mask worn by an actor. In an analogous manner,
in Jungian psychology, the persona represents the social mask that each of us “wear” in our
interaction with other’s in society. Or to put it differently it represents the personality that we try
to portray to others.

While the persona plays an important role in promoting social interaction and communal life,
problems arise when people over-identify with their persona. As Jung writes:

“Fundamentally the persona is nothing real: it is a compromise between the individual

and society as to what a man should appear to be. He takes a name, earns a title,
represents an office, he is this or that. In a certain sense all this is real, yet in relation to
the essential individuality of the person concerned it is only a secondary reality, a
product of compromise, in making which others often have a greater share than he. The
persona is a semblance, a two-dimensional reality.” (Carl Jung)

Most people suffer from inflation of the persona, meaning that they over-identify with their
“social mask” to the detriment of other important areas of the psyche. In the course of the
individuation process one must come to the realization that the persona is not the totality of their
being, but rather only a small component of a much larger personality. Such a realization is
achieved by diving into the unconscious and mining from it the rich and meaningful contents
manifested by the archetypes.

The first stage in the exploration of the unconscious, according to Jung, is an encounter with
one’s shadow archetype. Over the course of one’s life certain personality traits elicit negative
feedback and even punishment from others. This negative feedback creates anxiety resulting in
these traits being pushed away from awareness into the unconscious where they form the
shadow – the “dark” side of one’s personality.

To become aware of and integrate the shadow into consciousness is often a difficult, and
sometimes heroic endeavour. But failure to do so can create chaos in one’s life. In the
darkness of the unconscious the shadow is far from impotent, but instead influences emotions,
thoughts, and behaviours, in a manner which is beyond conscious control. Often the shadow
finds expression through projections, whereby instead of seeing the disagreeable elements of
the shadow as residing within ourselves we project these traits onto to others.
Bringing elements of the shadow into the light of consciousness is crucial if one is to correct
some of these less desirable aspects of themselves. As Jung explains:

“Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he
imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied
in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. If an inferiority is conscious,
one always has a chance to correct it. . .But if it is repressed and isolated from
consciousness, it never gets corrected.” (The Essential Jung, Carl Jung and Anthony
Storr)

The shadow, according to Jung, is not only composed of negative traits. Rather, in the process
of over-identifying with the persona often people reject personality traits not because they are
harmful, but because they don’t fit with the dominant social attitudes of the day. Therefore, when
integrating the shadow into consciousness, one is also exposed to positive traits and creative
energies that can bring about a renewed sense of vitality to life.

“The shadow, when it is realized, is the source of renewal; the new and productive
impulse cannot come from established values of the ego. When there is an impasse, and
sterile time in our lives. . .we must look to the dark, hitherto unacceptable side which has
been at our conscious disposal.” (Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark
Side of Human Nature)

In addition to the shadow, another archetype which normally suffers from underdevelopment is
a contra-sexual archetype termed the anima in males and the animus in females. While the
persona is oriented outward, acting as a barrier protecting the ego from the external social
world, in an analogous manner the anima/animus is oriented inward, protecting the ego from
the sometimes threatening and overwhelming contents which emerge from the dark inner
depths of the unconscious:

“The natural function of the animus (as well as of in the anima) is to remain in place
between individual consciousness and the collective unconscious; exactly as the
persona is a sort of stratum between the ego-consciousness and the objects of the
external world. The animus and the anima should function as a bridge, or a door, leading
to the images of the collective unconscious, as the persona should be a sort of bridge
into the world.” (Carl Jung)

An encounter with the anima/animus is manifested in one’s consciousness as a meeting, in

dreams or visions, with a member of the opposite gender. Such a figure often arises during
times of severe psychic disorientation, offering guidance as to how to remove any psychological
barricades hindering the natural progression of the individuation process. Encountering such an
archetype can therefore signify the coming of a deeply meaningful period in one’s life, defined
by significant psychological transformations:
 “The meeting with the anima/us represents a connection to the unconscious even
deeper than that of the shadow. In the case of the shadow, it is a meeting with the
disdained and rejected pieces of the total psyche, the inferior and unwanted qualities. In
the meeting with the anima/us, it is a contact with levels of the psyche which has the
potential to lead into the deepest and highest…reaches that the ego can attain.” (Jung’s
Map of the Soul, Murray Stein)

After one encounters and integrates aspects of the anima/animus archetype into one’s ego, one
gains access to enter into the deepest layer of the psyche, the archetype of wholeness – which
Jung called the self and viewed as the most important of all the archetypes. Proper expression
of the Self is the goal of the individuation process. As Jung put it:

“. . . the self is our life’s goal, for it is the completest expression of that fateful
combination we call individuality. . .” (Carl Jung)

As the sun occupies the centre of the solar system, in an analogous manner the Self is the
central archetype of the entire psyche. The Self archetype acts as the unifying or organizing
principle of the psyche and is oriented toward a union of the conscious and unconscious realms.
Remembering from our first video on Jung that the centre of the field of consciousness is the
ego,

Jung noted that:

“the more numerous and more significant the unconscious contents which are
assimilated to the ego, the closer the approximation of the ego to the Self, even though
this approximation must be a never-ending process.”(Carl Jung)

As one increasingly identifies with the self they will notice a greater sense of harmony both
within themselves and with the world as a whole. In fact, Jung saw connection with the self as
so important that at various times he described it as “a treasure that would make [one]
independent” and a “link to the infinite”.

Jung came upon the existence of the self by exploring the universality of symbols such as the
quaternity and mandala, which in his words, “occur not only in the dreams of modern people
who have never heard of them, but are widely disseminated in the historical records of many
peoples and many epochs.”

“A mandala”, said Jung “is the psychological expression of the totality of the self.” Not only do
mandalas have an extremely long history and repeatedly show up in the imagery of many
religions including Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity, but Jung observed that with some of
his patients mandalas spontaneously arose “during times of psychic disorientation or
re-orientation.” Mandalas, and other “symbols of order”, Jung believed to be compensatory
symbols of wholeness which are manifested by the Self in times of crisis.

The individuation process which culminates in an identification with the self is, according to
Jung, crucial for the development of a healthy functioning personality as well as the expression
of the unique potential that exists within each of us. But along with these personal benefits, Jung
thought the process of individuation was essential for the well-being of society. Jung believed
that conformist societies, composed mainly of people who over-identify with their persona, are
easy prey for the rise of oppressive governments. Therefore it is essential for any lasting
positive societal change that increasing numbers of people, assisted by the individuation
process come to the realization that there is more to their being then the social role dictated by
the persona. A society increasingly composed of individuated individuals would not, according
to Jung, succumb as easily to the rise of oppressive governments:

“…in so far as society is itself composed of de-individualized human beings, it is

completely at the mercy of ruthless individualists. Let it band together into groups and
organizations as much as it likes – it is just this banding together and the resultant
extinction of the individual personality that makes it succumb so readily to a dictator. A
million zeros joined together do not, unfortunately, add up to one.” (Man and His
Symbols, Carl Jung)

Introduction to Carl Jung – The Psyche, Archetypes

and the Collective Unconscious
“Man has developed consciousness slowly and laboriously, in a process that took untold
ages to reach the civilized state. And this evolution is far from complete, for large areas
of the human mind are still shrouded in darkness.” (Man and His Symbols, Carl Jung)

These words were written by Carl Jung, a Swiss psychologist who lived from 1875 to 1961.

In this video and a subsequent one, we will examine some of Jung’s most important ideas
including his ideas on the conscious and unconscious realms of the mind, his theory of
archetypes and what he called the individuation process which he saw as a path to
self-knowledge and wholeness.

A key to appreciating Jung’s vast contributions to the field of psychology is knowledge of how
Jung conceived of the psyche. The word psyche originally meant ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’ but by the turn
of the 20th century increasingly came to refer to ‘mind’. In Jungian psychology one’s psyche
can be seen as their total personality and encompasses all one’s thoughts, behaviours,
feelings, and emotions.

Knowledge of the psyche, how it worked and how one could influence its functioning was of the
utmost concern for Jung. Broadly speaking Jung divided the psyche into three main realms:
consciousness, the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious.

The different realms of the psyche are not completely separate from each other but instead
continually interact in a compensatory manner. This dynamic interplay between the conscious
and unconscious realms of the psyche leads, as we will see, to the potential for personal
growth and change through what Jung termed the individuation process.

Before examining in more detail the unconscious realms of the psyche, we will first discuss
consciousness – that realm of the psyche most familiar to us. The conscious realm of the
psyche can be described as one’s field of awareness and consists of those psychic contents
that one knows. At the centre of this field of awareness was what Jung called the ego. The ego
is one’s personality as they are aware of it firsthand.

Or in the words of Jung, the ego:

“. . .forms, as it were, the centre of the field of consciousness; and, in so far as this
comprises the empirical personality, the ego is the subject of all personal acts of
consciousness.” (Carl Jung, The Portable Jung)

The ego plays a crucial role in each person’s life as it acts as a gatekeeper which influences
what contents of experience are reflected in consciousness and which contents are eliminated,
repressed, or ignored. The ego, in its role as gatekeeper, helps determine the content of the
next main area of the psyche we will look at – the personal unconscious. As Jung writes:

“There are certain events of which we have not consciously taken note; they have
remained, so to speak, below the threshold of consciousness. They have happened, but
they have been absorbed subliminally.” (Man and His Symbols, Carl Jung)

These events that have been absorbed subliminally occupy the personal unconscious. The
word subliminal translates to “below the threshold”, so what Jung means is that there are many
events that the ego represses or disregards, for various reasons, be it that they are too
distressing or simply forgotten or deemed insignificant. But these events do not disappear
completely from the psyche but instead occupy the personal unconscious and continue to have
the potential to influence one’s personality. It must be stressed that the unconscious realm is not
merely a receptacle for forgotten memories, rather as we mentioned earlier the unconscious
and conscious realms of the psyche dynamically interact, both playing an integral role in the life
of the individual.
One way that the personal unconscious influences one’s behaviour is through the impact of
what Jung called complexes. Many people are familiar with the term complex in psychology –
Sigmund Freud was famous for his idea of the Oedipus complex, while Alfred Adler, a
contemporary of Jung’s and Freud’s, stressed the importance of the inferiority complex.

Jung conceived of complexes as sub-personalities which have the potential to exert powerful
control over one’s thoughts, emotions, and behaviours. Or as is explained in the classic
introduction to Jung, A Primer of Jungian Psychology:

“One interesting and important feature of the personal unconscious is that groups of
contents may come together to form a cluster or constellation. Jung called them
complexes. . .When we say a person has a complex we mean he is strongly preoccupied
by something that he can hardly think about anything else. In modern parlance, he has a
“hangup.” A strong complex is easily noticed by others, although the person himself may
not be aware of it.” (A Primer of Jungian Psychology)

Freud, who was Jung’s mentor for a period of time, believed that a complex largely arose due to
traumatic childhood experiences, however, Jung was not satisfied with this explanation. His
dissatisfaction with Freud’s explanation led him on a search for what it was in the psychic realm
that gave rise to complexes, and what he was to discover was that the roots of complexes
resided in a layer of the unconscious that was deeper and more fundamental than the personal
unconscious, which he called the collective unconscious.

This discovery was spurred by extensive analysis of the unconscious material of his patients,
such as their dreams and fantasies, as well as his study of comparative religion and
mythology. What Jung noticed was that not only were there uncanny similarities between the
unconscious material of different patients but more interestingly there were also uncanny
similarities in the major mythological motifs and religious symbols of different civilizations. This
led Jung to propose that in addition to the conscious and personal unconscious realms of the
psyche, there existed another realm of the psyche.

As Jung wrote:

“From the unconscious there emanate determining influences…which, independently of

tradition, guarantee in every single individual a similarity and even a sameness of
experience, and also of the way it is represented imaginatively. One of the main proofs
of this is the almost universal parallelism between mythological motifs…” (The
Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, Carl Jung)

Jung’s idea of the collective unconscious was one of his most important contributions to the field
of psychology. What Jung was proposing was that in addition to the personal unconscious,
which is mainly composed of elements drawn from the individual’s life experiences, the
collective unconscious contains universal elements which are inherited:
 “We can also find in the unconscious qualities that are not individually acquired but are
inherited, e.g., instincts as impulses to carry out actions from necessity, without
conscious motivation. In this deeper stratum we…find…archetypes… The instincts and
archetypes together form the “collective unconscious”. I call them collective because
unlike the personal unconscious, it is not made up of individual and more or less unique
contents but of those which are universal and of regular occurrence.” (The Essential
Jung, Carl Jung and Anthony Storr)

According to Jung archetypes are psychic structures which are common to all humans and
constitute ‘the archaic heritage of humanity’. Archetypes can be described as cognitive
categories, or predispositions that humans are born with to think, feel, perceive and act in
specific ways.

It is important to note that Jung did not believe that one could directly perceive an archetype,
rather one can note their existence only by observing the images or symbols which are
manifested as a result of their existence in the unconscious. Archetypes shouldn’t be equated
with symbols or images instead archetypes manifest images and symbols along with various
other phenomena.

In the words of Anthony Stevens, archetypes

“[possess] the capacity to initiate, control, and mediate the common behavioral
characteristics and typical experiences of all human beings. Thus, on appropriate
occasions, archetypes give rise to similar thoughts, images, mythologems, feelings, and
ideas in people, irrespective of their class, creed, race, geographical location, or
historical epoch.” (Jung: A Very Short Introduction, Anthony Stevens)

Some of the archetypes that Jung examined included those of the mother, birth, death,
rebirth, power, the hero and the child, to name but a few. However, as Jung stated:

“There are as many archetypes as there are typical situations in life. Endless repetition
has engraved these experiences into our psychic constitution, not only in the forms of
images filled with content, but at first only as forms without content, representing merely
the possibility of a certain type of perception and action.” (The Archetypes and the
Collective Unconscious, Carl Jung)

The archetypes of the collective unconscious have a deep evolutionary basis and Jung
considered them to be inherited parts of the psyche. Jung thought it obvious that, just as the
body has evolved over long periods of time, so too must the psyche have evolved certain
predispositions and inherent tendencies as well throughout our vast evolutionary lineage:
 “Just as the human body represents a whole museum of organs, each with a long
evolutionary history behind it, so we should expect to find that the mind is organized in a
similar way. It can no more be a product without history than is the body in which it
exists. By “history” I do not mean the fact that the mind builds itself up by conscious
reference to the past through language and other cultural traditions. I am referring to the
biological, prehistoric, and unconscious development of the mind in archaic man, whose
psyche was still close to that of the animal.” (Man and His Symbols, Carl Jung)

While archetypes are formed over extremely long periods of time in an evolutionary manner and
are common to all humans, they express themselves differently in each person. In other words,
the archetypes interact in a dynamic manner with the individual experience of each person and
this leads to the formation of a unique personality.

Jung believed it was of paramount importance for each individual to confront and integrate the
contents of their unconscious, and thought the failure to do so would result in a fragmented
individual:

“For the sake of mental stability and even physiological health, the unconscious and the
conscious must be integrally connected and thus move on parallel lines. If they are split
apart or “dissociated,” psychological disturbance follows.” (Man and His Symbols, Carl
Jung)

This process of confronting the unconscious was, according to Jung, a path to self-knowledge
which he called the individuation process. As Jung commented:

“I use the term ‘individuation’ to denote the process by which a person becomes a
psychological ‘individual,’ that is, a separate, indivisible unity or ‘whole’” (Carl Jung)

The individuation process will be examined in more detail in the next video along with a number
of other important Jungian concepts such as the persona, and various archetypes which are
encountered during the individuation process such as the shadow, the anima and the animus,
and the archetype of wholeness, which Jung called the self.

Carl Jung and the Shadow: The Hidden Power of

Our Dark Side
“That which we do not bring to consciousness appears in our lives as fate.” (Carl Jung)
Carl Jung is famous for formulating the concept of the shadow, the portion of our personality
which, through the course of our life, is relegated to the darkness of the unconscious.

The Nature of the Shadow

“The shadow goes by many familiar names: the disowned self, the lower self, the dark
twin or brother in bible and myth, the double, repressed self, alter ego, id. When we
come face-to-face with our darker side, we use metaphors to describe these shadow
encounters: meeting our demons, wrestling with the devil, descent to the underworld,
dark night of the soul, midlife crisis.” (Connie Zweig, Meeting the Shadow)

While Jung is known for bringing the concept of the shadow to public awareness in the modern
day, this aspect of ourselves has long been recognized as a ubiquitous feature of human
beings. In 1886, before Jung made his mark, Robert Louis Stevenson created the now famous
story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In his story Dr. Jekyll represents the respectable part of one’s
personality, but when he transforms into Mr. Hyde, his shadow personality gains dominance
over him and wrecks havoc on his life.

Although the shadow is an innate part of the human being, the vast majority of us are willfully
blind regarding its existence. We hide our negative qualities, not only from others but from
ourselves. To do this we often criticize and condemn others to ensure our focus does not fall on
our own faults and destructive tendencies. We go through life with a false air of moral superiority
and a belief that while others act immorally and destructively, we ourselves are wholly virtuous
and always in the right.

“Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he
imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied
in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an
unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions.” (Carl Jung)

Making the Shadow Conscious

Some aspects of our shadow are the product of our evolution. We contain, like all animals,
instincts for sex and aggression that we tend to repress in order to adapt to the social mores of
the day. Some aspects of our shadow are the product of our upbringing. Personality traits and
impulses that elicited fear or anxiety in our parents or teachers, for example, caused them to
punish or criticize us; and so we reacted by repressing these characteristics. We put up
psychological defences to ensure they were not allowed expression, and thus these
characteristics were repressed into the unconscious. As all humans have a shadow, what
differentiates us from others is the degree to which we are conscious of it.

When our shadow remains unconscious, it wrecks havoc in our life. Repressed contents do not
merely disappear, but rather they function independently of our conscious awareness. In other
words, the shadow has the capacity to override our conscious ego and take possession of our
being, exerting control over our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. When this happens we can
be unconsciously driven into hard times, all the while remaining ignorant that these troubled
periods were self-imposed, and not the product of bad luck or fate.

“The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it
happens outside as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does
not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict
and be torn into opposing halves.” (Carl Jung)

The unconscious control which our shadow can exert upon us also accounts for the self
destructive behaviors so many individuals struggle with and are unable to control despite
consciously knowing they would be better off not engaging in such actions. Many addicts are
driven by their shadow, which accounts for the internal “war” which exists within them. One
moment they tell themselves they are going to give up their addiction and live a clean life, and
the next moment their shadow overrides their conscious ego and they enthusiastically seek out
the next drink, “hit”, or sexual release. As Robert Louis Stevenson notes in his book The
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, man is not one, but truly two; he has a conscious
personality and a shadow, each of which often battle for supremacy within his mind.

“Man has to realize that he possesses a shadow which is the dark side of his own
personality; he is being compelled to recognize his “inferior function”, if only for the
reason that he is so often overwhelmed by it, with the result that the light world of his
conscious mind and his ethical values succumb to an invasion by the dark side. The
whole suffering brought upon man by his experience of the inherent evil in his own
nature – the whole immeasurable problem of “original sin”, in fact – threatens to
annihilate the individual in a welter of anxiety and feelings of guilt.” (Depth Psychology
and a New Ethic, Erich Neumann)

In order to avoid being the victim of “shadow-possession”, we must become conscious of our
shadow qualities and integrate them into our conscious personality; accepting them with open
arms not as abhorrent aspects of our self, but as necessary and vital parts of our being. Toward
this end it is useful to realize that the task in life is not to become perfect, but to become whole.
And as wholeness entails both good and evil, light and darkness, the achievement of wholeness
in personality development requires we assimilate our shadow into our conscious personality.

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the
darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not
popular.” (Carl Jung)

However, as Jung alludes to in the above quote, this is extremely difficult. Most cannot and will
not admit that deep down they are not wholly virtuous, selfless, and good human beings, but
instead contain selfish, destructive, amoral and immoral impulses and capacities. Most would
rather deceive themselves with a blind optimism about the “goodness” of their nature, which
why most remain fragmented individuals who are ignorant of their inner depths.

“The meeting with oneself is, at first, the meeting with one’s own shadow. The shadow is
a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes
down to the deep well. But one must learn to know oneself in order to know who one is.”
(Carl Jung)

The Hidden Power of the Shadow

What is especially interesting is the idea that the shadow contains not just destructive aspects of
the personality, but also potent, creative, and powerful capabilities. During our development
certain traits and impulses were condemned by our family, peers, and educators, not out of care
but out of envy, fear, ignorance or jealousy. Our proclivity to abide by social expectations also
caused us to repress talents, innate abilities, and impulses which if cultivated and developed
had the potential to make us more effective beings in the world.

For example, it is becoming more prevalent today for psychologists to diagnose individuals who
question authority and show signs of extreme self reliance as being pathological, suffering from
a condition they call “anti-authoritarian” (see an article by Bruce Levine here). Individuals who
are too self-reliant in our increasingly collective and dependent society are viewed by many as a
threat. They are lone wolves amidst a flock of sheep, and they are attacked and ridiculed by the
herd because of it.

This is just one example of many regarding how our socialization into modern society handicaps
our development. The bottom line is that with our higher energies trapped, labeled by others
and our conscious ego as negative and bad, our growth can become blocked, and life, a
wasteland.

For the sake of our personal development, we must, therefore, become more aware of our
shadow and open our mind to the possibility that maybe we are not so friendly, righteous, and
moral as we think. We must consider that perhaps there are unconscious aspects of ourselves
driving our behavior “behind the scenes”. We must look down into our depths and realize that
our conscious ego is not always in control, but is often overtaken by the power of our shadow.

Once we become more aware of these dark aspects of ourselves, we must honor them and find
a way to integrate them into our life. In failing to do so, one will become weak and scattered.
One cannot serve two inner drives without dissipating his strength and energies. The shadow
must become a part of one’s conscious personality.

Is there a “Technique” to Integrate the Shadow?

 “There is no generally effective technique for assimilating the shadow. It is more like
diplomacy or statesmanship and it is always an individual matter. First one has to accept
and take seriously the existence of the shadow. Second, one has to become aware of its
qualities and intentions. This happens through conscientious attention to moods,
fantasies and impulses. Third, a long process of negotiation is unavoidable.” (Carl Jung)

As Jung notes in the passage above, there is no general technique to integrate the shadow. Our
shadow is unique, and thus, to integrate it requires we adopt our own unique approach. No
matter the approach we adopt, to properly integrate our shadow it is necessary to behave in
ways which run counter to the mores of society and our own conscious moral compass. Most of
our shadow qualities, after all, were repressed into our unconscious because we believed they
were unacceptable, either socially or according to our family or peers. A common technique in
shadow integration is to find a healthy, productive, or at the very least, controlled outlet for either
repressed aggression or sexual urges. Another is to ignore customs one thought to be
superficial or pointless, but previously conformed to in order to fit in. Another is to pursue a
passion despite all those around you pressuring you otherwise. These tactics can help us
separate ourself from the expectations and “conforming-eye” of others, and allow us to look
within, without judgment or condemnation, to discover who and what we really are.

If we can find a way to negotiate with our shadow, and allow it to “live” in our conscious
personality rather than repressing it, we will not only attain a more secure sense of selfhood, but
also more knowledge about what it is we really want in life. We will be more capable of ignoring
what others think we should be doing, more able to deviate from the masses, and thus more
prepared to commence on a path to fulfill our own personal destiny. The shadow, as Jung
mentioned, is the doorway to our Self. The many dare not descend into their depths, but this is
exactly what we must do if we are to become who we really are.

“The shadow, when it is realized, is the source of renewal; the new and productive
impulse cannot come from established values of the ego. When there is an impasse, and
sterile time in our lives—despite an adequate ego development—we must look to the
dark, hitherto unacceptable side which has been at our conscious disposal….This brings
us to the fundamental fact that the shadow is the door to our individuality. In so far as the
shadow renders us our first view of the unconscious part of our personality, it represents
the first stage toward meeting the Self. There is, in fact, no access to the unconscious
and to our own reality but through the shadow. Only when we realize that part of
ourselves which we have not hitherto seen or preferred not to see can we proceed to
question and find the sources from which it feeds and the basis on which it rests. Hence
no progress or growth is possible until the shadow is adequately confronted and
confronting means more than merely knowing about it. It is not until we have truly been
shocked into seeing ourselves as we really are, instead of as we wish or hopefully
assume we are, that we can take the first step toward individual reality.” (Connie Zweig,
Meeting the Shadow)
Carl Jung on the Unconscious and Dreams
Here are some great passages from Carl Jung’s book Man and His Symbols, which was written
just before his death, and was meant as an introduction to his work for the general public.

“Man has developed consciousness slowly and laboriously, in a process that took untold ages to
reach the civilized state (which is arbitrarily dated from the invention of script in about 4000
B.C.). And this evolution is far from complete, for large areas of the human mind are still
shrouded in darkness. What we call the “psyche” is by no means identical with our
consciousness and its contents. Whoever denies the existence of the unconscious is in fact
assuming that our present knowledge of the psyche is total. And this belief is clearly just as
false as the assumption that we know all there is to be known about the natural universe. Our
psyche is part of nature, and its enigma is as limitless. Thus we cannot define either the psyche
or nature. We can merely state what we believe them to be and describe, as best we can, how
they function.” (Carl Jung)

Consciousness is a very recent acquisition of nature, and it is still in an “experimental” state. It is

frail, menaced by specific dangers, and easily injured. (Carl Jung)

For the sake of mental stability and even physiological health, the unconscious and the
conscious must be integrally connected and thus move on parallel lines. If they are split apart or
“dissociated,” psychological disturbance follows. In this respect, dream symbols are the
essential message carriers from the instinctive to the rational parts of the human mind, and their
interpretation enriches the poverty of consciousness so that it learns to understand again the
forgotten language of the instincts. (Carl Jung)

A man likes to believe that he is the master of his soul. But as long as he is unable to control his
moods and emotions, or to be conscious of the myriad secret ways in which unconscious
factors insinuate themselves into his arrangements and decisions, he is certainly not his own
master…Modern man protects himself against seeing his own split state by a system of
compartments. Certain areas of outer life and of his own behavior are kept, as it were, in
separate drawers and are never confronted with one another. (Carl Jung)

Whatever the unconscious may be, it is a natural phenomenon producing symbols that prove to
be meaningful. We cannot expect someone who has never looked through a microscope to be
an authority on microbes; in the same way, no one who has not made a serious study of natural
symbols can be considered a competent judge in this matter. But the general undervaluation of
the human soul is so great that neither the great religions nor the philosophies nor scientific
rationalism have been willing to look at it twice. (Carl Jung)
And, speaking more generally, it is plain foolishness to believe in ready-made systematic guides
to dream interpretation, as if one could simply buy a reference book and look up a particular
symbol. No dream symbol can be separated from the individual who dreams it, and there is no
definite or straightforward interpretation of any dream. Each individual varies so much in the
way that his unconscious complements or compensates his conscious mind that it is impossible
to be sure how far dreams and their symbols can be classified at all. (Carl Jung)

Just as the human body represents a whole museum of organs, each with a long evolutionary
history behind it, so we should expect to find that the mind is organized in a similar way. It can
no more be a product without history than is the body in which it exists. By “history” I do not
mean the fact that the mind builds itself up by conscious reference to the past through language
and other cultural traditions. I am referring to the biological, prehistoric, and unconscious
development of the mind in archaic man, whose psyche was still close to that of the animal.
(Carl Jung)

We should understand that dream symbols are for the most part manifestations of a psyche that
is beyond the control of the conscious mind. Meaning and purposefulness are not the
prerogatives of the mind; they operate in the whole of living nature. There is no difference in
principle between organic and psychic growth. As a plant produces its flower, so the psyche
creates its symbols. Every dream is evidence of this process. (Carl Jung)

If, for a moment, we regard mankind as one individual, we see that the human race is like a
person carried away by unconscious powers; and the human race also likes to keep certain
problems tucked away in separate drawers. But this is why we should give a great deal of
consideration to what we are doing, for mankind is now threatened by self-created and deadly
dangers that are growing beyond our control. (Carl Jung)

Such messages from the unconscious are of greater importance than most people realize. In
our conscious life, we are exposed to all kinds of influences. Other people stimulate or depress
us, events at the office or in our social life distract us. Such things seduce us into following ways
that are unsuitable to our individuality. Whether or not we are aware of the effect they have on
our consciousness, it is disturbed by and exposed to them almost without defense. This is
especially the case with a person whose extraverted attitude of mind lays all the emphasis upon
external objects, or who harbors feelings of inferiority and doubt concerning his own innermost
personality. The more that consciousness is influenced by prejudices, errors, fantasies, and
infantile wishes, the more the already existing gap will widen into a neurotic dissociation and
lead to a more or less artificial life far removed from healthy instincts, nature, and truth. (Carl
Jung)

I have spent more than half a century in investigating natural symbols, and I have come to the
conclusion that dreams and their symbols are not stupid and meaningless. On the contrary,
dreams provide the most interesting information for those who take the trouble to understand
their symbols. The results, it is true, have little to do with such worldly concerns as buying and
selling. But the meaning of life is not exhaustively explained by one’s business life, nor is the
deep desire of the human heart answered by a bank account. In a period of human history when
all available energy is spent in the investigation of nature, very little attention is paid to the
essence of man, which is his psyche, although many researches are made into its conscious
functions. But the really complex and unfamiliar part of the mind, from which symbols are
produced, is still virtually unexplored. It seems almost incredible that though we receive signals
from it every night, deciphering these communications seems too tedious for any but a very few
people to be bothered with it. Man’s greatest instrument, his psyche, is little thought of, and it is
often directly mistrusted and despised. “It’s only psychological” too often means: It is nothing.
(Carl Jung)

I have more than once been consulted by well-educated and intelligent people who have had
peculiar dreams, fantasies, or even visions, which have shocked them deeply. They have
assumed that no one who is in a sound state of mind could suffer from such things, and that
anyone who actually sees a vision must be pathologically disturbed…We are so accustomed to
the apparently rational nature of our world that we can scarcely imagine anything happening
that cannot be explained by common sense. The primitive man confronted by a shock of this
kind would not doubt his sanity; he would think of fetishes, spirits, or gods. (Carl Jung)

Perhaps it may be easier to understand this point if we first realize the fact that the ideas with
which we deal in our apparently disciplined waking life are by no means as precise as we like to
believe. On the contrary, their meaning (and their emotional significance for us) becomes more
imprecise the more closely we examine them. The reason for this is that anything we have
heard or experienced can become subliminal—that is to say, can pass into the unconscious.
And even what we retain in our conscious mind and can reproduce at will has acquired an
unconscious undertone that will color the idea each time it is recalled. Our conscious
impressions, in fact, quickly assume an element of unconscious meaning that is physically
significant for us, though we are not consciously aware of the existence of this subliminal
meaning or of the way in which it both extends and confuses the conventional meaning. (Carl
Jung)

The general function of dreams is to try to restore our psychological balance by producing
dream material that re-establishes, in a subtle way, the total psychic equilibrium. This is what I
call the complementary (or compensatory) role of dreams in our psychic make-up. It explains
why people who have unrealistic ideas or too high an opinion of themselves, or who make
grandiose plans out of proportion to their real capacities, have dreams of flying or falling. The
dream compensates for the deficiencies of their personalities, and at the same time it warns
them of the dangers in their present course. If the warnings of the dream are disregarded, real
accidents may take their place. (Carl Jung)
Carl Jung and the Psychology of the Man-Child
“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”

Andre Gide
Marie-Louis von Franz, a Swiss psychologist, noticed a disturbing trend in the mid-20th century
– many men and women who were well into their adult years remained psychologically stunted
in their maturation. They occupied the bodies of adults, but their mental development failed to
keep pace. on Franz saw this as such a pressing issue that in 1959 she gave a series of
lectures on the psychology of the Puer Aeternus, which is Latin for “eternal child”. While
originally this term was used in mythology to refer to a child god who remains forever young, her
teacher Carl Jung had adopted the term for psychological purposes to describe the individual
who, like Peter Pan, fails to grow up. In one of her lectures von Franz describes the puer
aeternus as the individual who:

“…remains too long in adolescent psychology; that is, all those characteristics that are
normal in a youth of seventeen or eighteen are continued into later life, coupled in most
cases with too great a dependence on the mother.”

Marie-Louis von Franz, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus

Von Franz predicted that in the coming decades what she called “the problem of the puer
aeternus” would spread across the world and affect more and more individuals. Her predictions
have proven remarkably accurate – especially among the male population of the Western world.
Many young men are struggling academically, socially, spiritually, financially, and sexually. They
are living at home into their late 20s and 30s, choosing to remain in the comforting confines of
their parents’ care rather than testing the unknown waters of independence. Instead of striving
to create something of themselves, many prefer the familiar and comfortable virtual worlds of
internet, pornography, and video games. They are passive wanderers in life with no path or
purpose, save the pursuit of momentary pleasure to ease their suffering. Based on the scope of
this problem, it would not be far fetched to claim that the problem of the puer aeternus is the
primary neurosis of the modern age.

The purpose of this course is to provide an antidote to those who suffer from this problem. To
do this, we are going to provide an in-depth psychological analysis of the puer aeternus, and
building on insights from Carl Jung, Soren Kierkegaard, von Franz, and others, provide practical
advice on how to commence on a more responsible, enriching, successful, and independent life
path.

Before we examine the psychology of the puer aeternus, it is necessary to take note of the
conditions which have given rise to this social problem, and toward this end we must discuss
how a strong mother complex stunts the maturation of many today – for as von Franz notes:
 “A man who has a mother complex will always have to contend with his tendencies
toward becoming a puer aeternus.”

Marie-Louis von Franz, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus

Throughout our evolutionary history the mother and father have assumed different parental
roles. Mothers have always interacted with their children more than fathers. They maintain more
physical contact and are more nurturing, comforting, and empathetic to the physical and
emotional pains and needs of the child. This extremely intimate and close relationship with the
mother-figure creates in the child a lasting emotional mark, or a highly resistant psychological
bond psychologists call a “mother complex”:

“The child’s experience of the mother is internalized as a complex; an emotionally

charged cluster of energy beyond the control of the ego.”

James Hollis, Under Saturn’s Shadow

Fathers do not create this same bond of dependency with the child. Instead, their role, has
traditionally been to provide the developing child with resources and protection, but just as
importantly with guidance. More specifically, the role of the father has been to help the child
break free from their bond of dependency with the mother and so help him emerge into the
world as an independent and functional adult.

In most cultures throughout history individuals transitioned from adolescence to adulthood with
the help of initiatory rites of passage. The primary goal of all initiatory rites of passage,
cross-culturally, was to separate the youth from his mother, first physically, and then
psychologically. These rites were performed shortly after the onset of puberty, and were
instituted solely by the elder males of the tribe, the “cultural fathers”. Women were generally
banned from observing or participating in these rituals.

A typical rite of passage, as explained by Mircea Eliade in his book Rites and Symbols of
Initiation, proceeded as follows. In the middle of the night, the “cultural fathers” of the tribe,
dressed as gods or demons, would snatch the youth from his bed. This was the last time the
youth would see his mother, sometimes for months. The youth would be taken to a deep cave,
buried alive, or else plunged into some other sort of literal, or symbolic darkness. This stage
represented the symbolic death of the youth’s childhood: the loss of paradise and the joys of
irresponsibility. It was meant to the convey to the youth the message:

“You can’t go home again.”

Thomas Wolfe
Following the symbolic death of childhood, a ceremony of rebirth would be performed, marking
the young adult’s transformation to a more mature state of being. He was subsequently taught
by the elders the wisdom and knowledge of the tribe, and then sent off into the wilderness
where he would spend many months alone struggling for his survival. Upon his successful
return, he was welcomed back into the tribe as an adult member. The youth, from that point on,
was expected to have overcome his “mother complex”; immaturity and dependency were no
longer acceptable.

Given the intensity and sometimes violent nature of these initiation processes, it appears as if
our ancestors understood that separating a young boy from his mother was a monumental task
requiring deliberate measures. In the West today, there is no equivalent for these rites of
passage.

“It has often been said that one of the characteristics of the modern world is the
disappearance of any meaningful rites of initiation.”

Mircea Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation

Lacking “cultural fathers” and rites of initiation, the youth today must turn to their personal father
to provide them with initiation into adulthood. But unfortunately, not all fathers can supply their
children with this guidance, for to do so, the father must be strong and independent himself and
emotionally present in the child’s life. He must be able to show, by example, that there is
something worth seeking and struggling for in this world; for to successfully encourage a young
man to break from the comforts of childhood, he needs to be convinced there is somewhere
worth going.

“Sons also need to watch their father in the world. They need him to show them how to
be in the world, how to work, how to bounce back from adversity…They need the
activation of their inherent masculinity both by outer modeling and by direct affirmation.”

James Hollis, Under Saturn’s Shadow

In his book Finding Our Fathers, Sam Osheron cites an expansive study in which only 17% of
American men reported having a positive relationship with their father during their youth. In
most cases the father was physically or emotionally absent. Reflecting on this statistic, the
psychotherapist James Hollis writes:

“If this amazing statistic is even close to the truth, something large and tragic has
happened to one of the critical balances of nature.”

James Hollis, Under Saturn’s Shadow

A disruption in a critical balance of human nature is exactly what has happened. We live in the
epoch of the absent father, and many suffer greatly as a result. Young men are expected to
leave the comforts of home, to overcome their mother complex, and to sculpt a life worth living
all without the psychological support of a father. Is it any wonder that the problem of the puer
aeternus is so prominent in our time?

But the effects of an absent father are worsened by the impact this situation has on the mother.
For it produces a situation where, firstly, the mother tends to become more authoritative in her
parenting to compensate for the lack of a masculine figure in the child’s life. And secondly, a
failure on the part of the father to provide the mother with love and support creates in her an
emotional hunger which she attempts to satiate through her relationship with her child. This
situation creates the perfect storm whereby the mother becomes what Jungians call a
“devouring mother”. She overprotects and smothers her child and becomes involved in every
aspect of his life. It is often the case that such a mother, despite having the best intentions,
unconsciously manipulates her child into remaining dependent on her well into adulthood. And it
is often the case that the child willingly complies.

“Behold the secret conspiracy between mother and son, and how each helps the other to
betray life.”

Carl Jung, Aion

A child brought up in this manner, and thus never granted the opportunity to venture out on his
own, to stand up for himself, to fail and fix his own mistakes, or to make decisions for himself,
will develop into an adult crippled in his capacity to endure and overcome the inevitable
challenges and struggles of life. The healthy desire to adapt himself to reality and to individuate,
both of which entail fear, pain and conflict, will be replaced by his need to remain bounded to his
mother, whether it be his personal mother or a symbolic substitute in the world. If he does not
remain dependent on his biological mother, he may desperately seek to find in other women a
nurturing replacement, or else lose himself in the comforting embrace of an addiction. In other
words, when a child emerges into adulthood with a strong mother complex, he will not seek to
develop his independence and evolve his consciousness but rather will be possessed by what
Jung called

“…the spirit of regression, [which] threatens us with bondage to the mother and with
dissolution and extinction in the unconscious.”

Carl Jung, Symbols of Transformation

He will find himself in the service of sleep, and not the battle of life.

“…he hopes to be caught, sucked in, enveloped, and devoured. He seeks, as it were,
the protecting, nourishing, charmed circle of the mother, the condition of the infant
released from every care…No wonder the real world vanishes from sight!”

Carl Jung, Aion

In the next video we’ll provide an in-depth analysis of the psychology of the puer aeternus.
Following this, we’ll explore how the puer can overcome his problems in order to lead a more
independent and fulfilling life.
Rapid Personality Change and the Psychological Rebirth

“You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame; how could you rise anew if you
have not first become ashes?”

Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

How can we re-make our character? Can we become another as if born anew? Most models of
human development place tight bounds around our capacity for self-directed change. For we
are a conservative creature. We crave order and a have a deep need for a stable sense of self.
Change, according to these models, is best accomplished in a gradualist manner. We need to
focus on taking small steps each day in the direction of the person we wish to become. We
need to break down our bad habits, cultivate good ones and over time these small changes will
cumulate to produce impressive results.

This approach to self-change has a lot of merit and should be the approach that most people
use in their pursuit of personal growth. But this is not the only way that we change, nor is it
adequate for all situations. For while we are conservative creatures, we are also mortal
creatures with limited time and a limited capacity to endure suffering. Slow and steady change
works well if we have a solid foundation from which to build, but if we have descended too
deeply into our own personal hell, or if our life has become so dysfunctional that each small step
forward is quickly nullified by everything that is wrong with our life, then the gradualist approach
may not save us. Sometimes life requires radical change, not merely a change in a habit or two,
but a change of such significance that it leads to what is known as a psychological rebirth.
Fortunately, this type of change is possible and occurs in more lives than is often realized, or as
the psychologist Michael Mahoney explains:

“Rapid personality transformations do occur. . .[such change] involves enduring shifts in

people’s sense of themselves and their perceptions of the world. The phenomenon of
quantum change or rapid transformation deserves our continuing theoretical and
research attention. It appears to be more common than psychologists had assumed.
Moreover, we are wise to acknowledge the implications of such transformations for our
ideas about human possibilities.”

Michael Mahoney, Constructive Psychotherapy

But to what degree can this type of change be self-induced? While there is a lot of mystery
surrounding this process, the idea of the rapid personality transformation or psychological
rebirth has long piqued the curiosity of mankind. Modern psychology may not give this topic the
focus it deserves, but there are some clues we can look to regarding the mechanics of this
process which may help us unlock the riddle of our own transformation.
William James is one psychologist who spent a lot of time studying this phenomenon. Much of
what he learned is detailed in his book The Varieties of Religious Experience and it is from this
work that we can find our first clue as to what leads to a psychological rebirth. According to
James there is a certain type of person most susceptible to a rapid personality transformation
and it is the type of person most in need of one. Rapid personality transformations do not occur
very often to those content with life but instead are more likely to occur to those who have
reached the darkest pits of despair. Acute suffering, a prolonged state of depression, a
pernicious addiction, or utter disillusionment with life are the fertile soil from which the
psychological rebirth is manifested. Or as James wrote:

“The securest way to the rapturous sort of happiness of which the twice-born make
report has as an historic matter of fact been through a more radical pessimism than
anything that we have yet considered.”

William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience

Many, however, are those who descend into a living hell but relatively few are those who
experience the transformation of self that leads to a re-affirmation of life. What differentiates
those who remain locked in their misery from those who break free of it? By turning to myth, that
most ancient source of the psychology of man, further clues about this process can be
discerned. For the rebirth is one of the most common themes of mythology. Countless are the
stories in which a hero or heroine is presented with great challenges only to overcome them and
in the process to experience a radical transformation in their character. What many of these
stories share in common is the element of the sacrifice. The rebirth is only granted to the man or
woman who first appeases the gods. But we do not need a god to understand the necessity of
the sacrifice as there is a psychological explanation for why a sacrifice can engender a radical
personality change.

“Sacrifice always means the renunciation of a valuable part of oneself, and through it the
sacrificer escapes being devoured.”

Carl Jung, Psychological Types

The sacrifice is the difficult, but necessary step of abandoning an aspect of our self in order to
pave the way for the emergence of the new. The sacrifice is critical in the process of the rebirth
for the simple reason that often what keeps us locked in our problems is the inability to
recognize that ways of life that served us in our past may morph from promoters of our
well-being to the acute cause of our suffering. A sacrifice can take countless forms and may be
as simple as the ending of a relationship, the quitting of a dead-end job, or the breaking of an
addictive habit. The sacrifice is never easy if it is to be the type of sacrifice that can engender a
psychological rebirth. But as Nietzsche put it “the snake that cannot shed its skin perishes”
(Nietzsche, Dawn of Day) and so too the man or woman who never risks a break with the past is
destined to perish in the stagnation of their worn-out ways of being.
 “. . . the dying of one attitude or need may be the other side of the birth of something
new (which is a law of growth in nature not at all limited to human beings). One can
choose to kill a neurotic strategy, a dependency, a clinging, and then find that he can
choose to live as a freer self. . . A “dying” of part of one’s self is often followed by a
heightened awareness of self, a heightened sense of possibility.

Rollo May, Man’s Search for Himself

Sometimes the mere act of sacrifice will be enough to cure what ails us. Free from the chains of
our past we can look at the world with a new set of eyes and move forward with a new sense of
purpose and energy:

“. . .a painful sacrifice can be risked with a mighty effort of the will” wrote Jung. “If
successful . . . the sacrifice bears blessed fruit, and the [sacrificer] leaps at one bound
into the state of being practically cured.”

Carl Jung, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology

Not everyone, however, will find that the sacrifice alone leads to its own cure. In most cases the
sacrifice will initially have the opposite effect. Instead of curing what ails us and giving birth to a
new and better life order, the sacrifice will lead to disorder. For in sacrificing an old way of being
we are likely to discover that we have nothing to fill the void. The sacrifice will have cast us
down into the proverbial realm of chaos and here danger lurks. For on the one hand in complex
systems, such as the life of man, chaos begets new forms of order or as Mahoney puts it:

“…systemic disorganization appears to be an important antecedent to reorganization.”

Michael Mahoney, Human Change Processes

But on the other hand, there is always a risk that the chaos will overwhelm us and rather than
leading to a new and better life order, the descent into chaos will lead to a psychological
breakdown.

Some psychologists suggest that the psychological rebirth only differs from a psychological
breakdown by the end result. The stages that lead to a breakdown, in other words, often mirror
those that produce the rebirth. Or as Jung explains, the loss of balance that the sacrifice can
produce:

“. . .is similar in principle to a psychotic disturbance; that is, it differs from the initial stage
of mental illness only by the fact that it leads in the end to greater health, while the latter
leads to yet greater destruction.”

Carl Jung, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology

To diminish the risks of a breakdown an active approach is crucial. Like the heroes of myth, we
must view ourselves as explorers of the chaos, not passive observers who are merely pushed
and pulled by forces beyond our control. Our goal at this stage is to experiment with novel ways
of ordering our life in the attempt to the fill the void left by the sacrifice. But while novel forms of
order are crucial for the assent from the realm of chaos, experiments with novelty are stressful
and often accompanied by intense states of fear and anxiety. If we can recognize, however, that
this is a natural part of the process and not reflective of anything inherently wrong with us, we
may find it easier to push forward despite the turmoil that surrounds us, or as Mahoney
explains:

“. . .episodes of intense emotional distress and disorder often reflect natural (and, yes,
even healthy) expressions of an individual’s struggles toward reorganization. Such
struggles are not always successful, of course, but they may be viewed with substantially
less fear and impatience if they are construed as the activities of an open, developing
system in search of a “more extensive balance” with its world.”

Michael Mahoney, Human Change Processes

One set of skills that can make the difference between whether we emerge from the realm of
chaos as a twice born or whether the chaos forces us back to our old, or perhaps worse ways of
being, are re-balancing and relaxation skills. Practices like meditation, physical activity,
breathing exercises and other techniques of this nature can be crucial in our attempts to
navigate the chaos into which we have fallen:

“When new experiences destabilize one’s system,” writes Mahoney “it is valuable to
have skills in re-stabilizing and returning to a sense of safety and security. The more
often one practices and refines such exercises, the more competent one feels in risking
excursions toward the edges of unfamiliar experiencing.”

Michael Mahoney, Constructive Psychotherapy

In the end however, a voluntary descent into the realm of chaos is risky even if we arm
ourselves with tools that can make navigation of this realm easier. So knowing that a radical
personality change is possible and that a sacrifice may engender a psychological rebirth, do we
make the leap, or do we instead stick to the less risky approach of the gradualist method of
change? This is a question each of us must face for ourselves. But if we are already trapped in
our own personal hell, the question that may be more appropriate is whether not making the
sacrifice is perhaps the greater risk? For the realm of chaos is not only entered by means of a
voluntary sacrifice. More typical is an involuntary descent into these depths. If we persist in our
dysfunctional ways, if we remain in the words of Jung an “immovable pillar of the past” then
eventually the fragile order of our life may give way to chaos whether we like it or not. A sacrifice
of our old ways will be forced upon us, but an involuntary sacrifice is, according to Jung, an
“unmitigated catastrophe”; it is more likely to result in a psychological breakdown than a
psychological rebirth. Therefore, if we feel our life is moving in this direction, if chaos and
disorder are already creeping in, we may want to take control of the process and make the
voluntarily sacrifice that may save us from a more dire outcome:
“No one should deny the danger of the descent, but it can be risked. No one need to risk
it, but it is certain that someone will. And let those who go down the sunset way do so
with open eyes, for it is a sacrifice which daunts even the gods. Yet every descent is
followed by an ascent; the vanishing shapes are shaped anew, and a truth is valid in the
end only if it suffers change and bears new witness in new images, in new tongues, like
a new wine that is put into new bottles.”

Carl Jung, Symbols of Transformation