In Search of the Wild Man: Befriending Bigfoot
This Jungian Life
The wild man is an enduring archetypal figure worldwide, from Enkidu in Gilgamesh, to the Greek god Pan (worshipped in glens and woods), the Green Man in England, and Bigfoot and the Sasquatch in the US. Today’s guest, Jungian analyst Mike Box, has long-standing interest in this archetype and in male psychology, reflected in the 8-foot wild man statue he keeps in his waiting room. The archetype of the wild man compensates for a currently impoverished view of the masculine: stoicism and endurance without emotional expression or self-disclosure. In striving to conform to this...
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Jung vs. Borg: Staying Human in the Age of AI
This Jungian Life
Are we living through a tech-driven collapse of the ecology of mind? In his new book, Jung vs. Borg, author, psychologist and Jungian scholar GLEN SLATER Ph.D suggests that industrial disruption of the outer world is now being followed by a post-industrial disruption of the inner world. Yet, there is hope. Much depends on our capacity to remain conscious of the effect each stage of innovation has on the psyche and on the social and cultural changes that will follow. Becoming conscious of the non-neutral operation of algorithms and big tech’s focus on profit over people is crucial, for...
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Ritual: Finding the Center in a Turning World
This Jungian Life
As we confront the turbulence of rapid change, technological dehumanization, and cultural polarization, how do we reconnect to being and meaning? Best-selling author BRUCE FEILER returns us to ritual: world-wide, time-honored ways for people to come home to themselves, their communities, and the sacred. Ritual returns us to unity. Rituals use symbols to move and shape psychic energy for a group and its members. Energy expands as the unifying power of symbol is evoked and shared, an experience of extra-ordinary reality. Ritual mediates our relationship with the sacred, individually and...
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The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Power Without Wisdom
This Jungian Life
The tale of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice is a gripping story about loss of control and the timeless warning to be careful what you wish for. It sets out the archetypal theme of a magical shortcut that promises to bypass the difficult labor life asks of us. Such tempting shortcuts inevitably land us in trouble. The Sorcerer's Apprentice story goes back nearly two thousand years. In the tale of Eucrates and Pancrates, the Greek satirist Lucian recounts how the Egyptian magician Pancrates' apprentice stole his master’s spell, animated a pestle to carry water for him, and then lost...
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The Odyssey: A Jungian Journey Home
This Jungian Life
The Odyssey (the subject of a new Christopher Nolan film released on the same day as this episode), is the ancient Greek epic attributed to Homer and one of the foundational works of Western literature. This week, Jungian analyst ROBERT SHEAVLY joins Lisa Marchiano and Deborah Stewart for a Jungian exploration of The Odyssey. For Jungians, the Odyssey models a process of returning to the Self, offering a psychological map for the second half of life and the path to individuation. It asks us to engage with the profound question, what does it mean to come home to ourselves? Odysseus, our wily...
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Prayer and the Psyche: A Jungian Exploration
This Jungian Life
Throughout human history, prayer has been a constant. Jung referred to it as “not only one of the most original but also the most frequent means to change the condition of mind”. This week Jungian analyst ROBERT SHEAVLY joins Lisa Marchiano and Deborah Stewart for a Jungian exploration of prayer. Everyone at some point in their lives will pray (even if we do not call it that). When we reach out for help, or to express gratitude for life’s blessings, we are reaching for a connection with the eternal and the infinite. Prayer can be examined from the lens of...
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Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Individuation: A Jungian Reading of the Declaration of Independence
This Jungian Life
America’s Declaration of Independence has profoundly influenced the development of democracy and democratic movements all over the world, with its bold assertion: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This week Jungian analyst ROBERT SHEAVLY joins Lisa Marchiano for a psychological exploration of the Declaration of Independence, marking its 250th anniversary this Fourth of July. The Declaration...
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The Descent: A Jungian Exploration of the Underworld
This Jungian Life
In every culture and every religion, we find the concept of the underworld: sometimes located underground, and usually understood as a final destination after death. This week, Jungian analysts Lisa Marchiano and Deborah Stewart circumambulate the notion of the underworld and what it means for us psychologically. James Hillman’s Dreams and the Underworld offers a guide, linking our dreaming life to myths of the underworld. We discuss versions of the underworld in Etruscan, Mayan, Christian, Egyptian and Greek mythology, and explore how each culture envisions the threshold...
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The Absent Father: Jung and the Missing Masculine
This Jungian Life
A father who is unavailable - whether due to untimely death, a demanding job, family breakup, or simply an inability to step up and meet his children’s needs - may deprive his children of the emotional bedrock they require. They can struggle to access their capacity for aggression and creativity, or to build the self-esteem necessary for successful adult relationships. As many fairy tales show us, an absent father is sometimes experienced alongside an abusive mother, leaving a complicated legacy of emotional wounding to be worked through. First of all, the abuse must be confronted,...
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The Cry of Merlin: A Jungian Approach to the Wizard
This Jungian Life
Merlin, the mythical prophet, magician, and kingmaker of medieval legend, has lived in the Western imagination for centuries. Arthurian legend gives us more than the idealized government of the Round Table and the hero’s valiant quest for the Holy Grail—it also gives us Merlin’s darkness and power: sorcery, communion with nature, and the prospect of achieving our aims through shadowy transgression. This week, our special guest is Jungian analyst and friend DOUG TYLER. Doug guides us through Merlin’s role in Western culture, sharing some of his favorite stories and explaining the...
info_outlineIndividuation, the central concept of Jung’s psychology, is the foundational image and aspiration of Jungian psychoanalysis – and life. It is the theme of many a fairy tale, the sought-for treasure of a quest, and the “juice” that makes symbols compelling. Individuation has an innate developmental arc and a psychological trajectory that allows us to bring conscious intention to our own individuation process. However, vital transformational events are not simply occurrences ego alone can command; they are ultimately mysterious. They arise independently from the unconscious and what Jung termed the Self, the center, circumference and true center of the personality. In this episode Joseph, Lisa and Deb circumambulate and amplify the concept of individuation and images of the Self.
The Dream:
In the beginning of the dream, it's morning. I'm waiting for my father in the house where I grew up. We are about to drive halfway across the country to look at graduate schools. It is nearing afternoon and we still haven't left the house. I know from previous experience that it takes more than a full day of driving to reach our destination, which leaves me feeling anxious.
Now my parents and I are in the car heading down the highway. From the backseat, where I used to sit, I'm looking outside. We reach an empty stretch of road surrounded on either side by farmland. The sky is overcast- halfway between rain and sunset; I notice a few geese flying across the road from the left of my line of vision in a small V-shaped formation. Once they have reached the other side they circle back, flying in the opposite direction; they have doubled in numbers and form a more unified chevron.
I am standing in a field with my girlfriend. We are watching the dark shapes of the geese bobbing in the dusk. Suddenly they start to glow, one by one, as if each is carrying on their bodies a neon orb, similar to a brake light. I look down in the mud by my shoes and see a broken red light, one that could fit on a bike; I tell my girlfriend that the cracked object must have come from the geese. She agrees with me, which I find very reassuring.