Episode 111 - Jung, UFOs & Aliens: The Truth is Out There
Release Date: 05/14/2020
This Jungian Life
You're invited to join us for a free Zoom seminar on Dreams and Art on Saturday, September 13th, at 10:30am ET. . --- Jung’s Red Book is the primary research record of his systematic experiments in active imagination after the break with Freud, combining calligraphic German text and paintings that document dialogues with his inner guides—especially Philemon and Salome—which became source material for his innovative psychological concepts: Psyche’s autonomy, the collective unconscious, the transcendent function, and individuation. The Red Book reveals the secret source of his...
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You're invited to join us for a free Zoom seminar on Dreams and Art on Saturday, September 13th, at 10:30am ET. . Holding the tension of the opposites means that when you’re pulled hard in two different directions, you don’t rush to choose or shut one side down—you keep both viewpoints in mind and let each be heard with equal rights, as if two people were debating inside you. If you can stand that pressure without fleeing, something new appears from the unconscious: a symbol or fresh idea that is a living, third thing that includes truth from both sides. This is the transcendent function...
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Imagination is a central organ of human perception, as vital as the senses, through which we access meaning, creativity, and the unconscious. It first appeared as an evolutionary leap that allowed humans to run mental simulations, project into the future, and innovate new tools, myths, and symbols. It operates voluntarily—when we actively plan, rehearse, or fantasize—and involuntarily, through dreams, hypnagogic images, and sudden inspirations. It offers insights we could not have predicted. Imagination provides the bridge between unconscious and conscious life, most present in active...
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Solutio is Psyche’s method to facilitate transformation: our rigid ego is softened in symbolic water, allowing outworn attitudes to unbind. We can see this reflected in dreams of oceans and baths, or a wall of our house dissolving. This can show up when we slough off our work persona or a creative depression brought on by retirement. Analysis itself—ana-lysis—a deliberate loosening, can deepen the process by offering a safe container to let go and yield to the process. The work is careful because the waters that purify (baptism or tears) can also drown us (psychosis or crowd contagion)....
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Jack and the Beanstalk is a symbolic prescription for psychological growth, teaching us to climb out of darkness, confront the giants within, claim the gifts of our unconscious, and transform our ordinary lives. Join us as we reveal the secret meaning hidden in the fairytale. Read along with the . LOOK & GROW If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
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Dreams about pregnancy and babies symbolize something new taking shape within us, like a creative project, a hidden talent, or a psychological shift that's quietly developing beneath our awareness. These images express the mysterious tension we sense during periods of growth, change, or potential, drawing our attention inward and challenging our current identity or circumstances. When our symbolic baby finally arrives in the dream, it reveals a hidden part of ourselves that is now ready to enter consciousness, creating both excitement and anxiety about how this new aspect will fit into...
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Carl Jung’s discoveries are woven into our common understanding. Introvert/extravert, shadow work, typology, persona, and synchronicity pop up in casual conversations all the time. Negotiating with our inner figures, now used by Internal Family Systems, was pioneered by him. Although we have adopted his ideas, few know how they were forged from his personal struggles. Today, we honor Jung’s 150th birthday by sharing stories from his life and how they shaped his groundbreaking insights. Find the dream we analyze . Find the books we reference . LOOK & GROW If you’ve been...
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The calcinatio stage in Jung's alchemy is about being put through inner fire—it's when the ego undergoes a kind of burning away of projections, illusions, and inflated ideas about itself. This stage often brings intense suffering, frustration, and confrontation with parts of yourself you'd rather avoid. It's about staying awake in the heat long enough to discover the truths behind your defenses. Sometimes it's like sitting in hell and roasting. This raw, honest suffering is necessary for individuation. It's not punishment—it's Psyche's way of depotentiating false structures so that...
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The Buddhabrot pattern springs from a simple algorithm: you take thousands of starting points, run each one through the same formula over and over, and chart only those whose values grow without limit—these “divergent” paths form the spectral Buddha-like silhouette. Once you recognize the pattern, you see it everywhere. It’s visible in the rosette stained glass windows of Notre-Dame de Paris and Chartres, numerous representations of the buddha, as well as in the Vāstu-Puruṣa-Maṇḍala used as blueprints for Indian temples, and in the ancient chakra symbols that are now so...
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Everyone faces a moment when they are tempted to sacrifice their true self to chase wealth, approval, success, or security, but doing so strips away their strength and leaves them hollow. To reclaim their lost agency, a person must embrace the uncertainty and vulnerability they've been avoiding. They must stand alone, undefended, and trust the wisdom hidden in their wounds. The Handless Maiden fairytale will help us understand the path back to wholeness. Read along with our dream interpretation . LOOK & GROW If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock...
info_outlineThe Pentagon recently released a film of a UFO made by Navy pilots. Although such credible documentation is new, UFO sightings go back to ancient times and surged after World War II.
Interstellar travel then seized the collective imagination, and the ongoing abundance of books, television shows and films signals the emergence of a new mythology. In his treatise “Flying Saucers,” Jung took a phenomenological stance, acknowledging experiences of sightings without concretizing them as physical or dismissing them as fictional.
Alchemists projected psyche onto matter at a time when its transformational properties inspired reverence and awe. Today, no matter what other truths are out there, UFOs reach “beyond the realm of earthly organizations and powers into the heavens, into interstellar space, where the rulers of human fate, the gods, once had their abode in the planets…”
Dream
I’m in a Catholic Church that is crumbling down with my mother and a priest. At the bottom of the building there are some wooden boxes and there is a big, brown female marsupial there. I am told by the priest to kill her, but I don’t want to, so instead I hit her repeatedly on the head with a book.
At some point she reacts and moves. She does not attack me but opens her mouth like a vagina, and before leaving she tells me: At least you won’t have kids that make you older and make you fat. She departs and I feel somehow relieved to have some definition about the topic of having children or not.
References
Jung, C.G. Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies(Amazon).
Harper, Patrick. Daimonic Reality: A Field Guide to the Otherworld (Amazon).