UGLY DUCKLING COMPLEX: the painful path of transformation
This Jungian Life
We all understand the Ugly Duckling complex because we lived it at one time or another. Hans Christian Anderson’s famous tale paints a poignant picture of a child’s experience of rejection only because he’s born in the wrong nest. People who seem different or have not yet matured into their natural beauty endure a kind of scorn that can bring them to despair. The ugly duckling’s capacity to endure and find refuge once he is recognized by fellow swans can hearten us during the long winters of our lives. As an individuation metaphor, the tale dramatizes how many of us feel...
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SHADOWS & HIGH STAKES: understanding gambling
This Jungian Life
Understanding gambling illuminates the amalgam of desire, risk, and reward that defines our interactions with a capricious world. The lure of gambling, entwined within the fabric of human history, irresistibly draws us to its mesmerizing dance of fortune and chance. Exploring the gambler's psyche, we'll discover the psychospiritual elements that pull us towards Lady Luck. Gambling's allure is steeped in mythology. The concept of chance, the Moirai of Greek lore, the Roman Goddess Fortuna, and the I Ching from ancient China evoke the numinous aspect of luck, symbolically guiding us through its...
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WHISKERS of WISDOM: A Jungian Analysis of ‘Puss in Boots’
This Jungian Life
Something about a cat wearing clothes has captured our imagination for over 500 years, so it’s about time we tackle a Jungian analysis of Puss in Boots. Anthropomorphized felines have enthralled us for half a millennium, making Puss in Boots perfect for our discussion. From enchanting fairytales of yore to modern viral videos, our fascination with pets in human attire and mannerisms persists. Whether a parrot blurting expletives or a dog groaning human words, we’re captivated. Through Puss in Boots, we might better comprehend this instinct to imbue our pets with our psychological traits....
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ARCHETYPAL IMAGES: the soul's language
This Jungian Life
Thomas Singer, M.D., Jungian Analyst and president of joins us to decipher Archetypal Images and explain the essential role of A.R.A.S. in collecting and curating them. Archetypes, as cosmic blueprints, dictate universal patterns of the collective unconscious, transcending personal experiences and cultural variations. They mold our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Archetypal images are their visible expressions, emerging in dreams, myths, and cultural narratives, providing a visual language linking psyche to self. They adapt and evolve across cultural contexts. Archetypal...
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MEDUSA’S MANY FACES: The Evolution of a Myth
This Jungian Life
The symbolism of Medusa, one of three Gorgon sisters in Greek mythology, has fascinated artists, writers, and philosophers for centuries. Initially a monstrous creature with snake-writhing hair and a petrifying gaze, Medusa has undergone numerous transformations. The earliest known account of Medusa appears in Hesiod’s Theogony (c. 700 BCE), where she is portrayed as a mortal Gorgon sister with a deadly gaze. Ovid’s Metamorphoses (c. 8 CE) ascribes Medusa’s monstrous appearance to a curse from Athena, punishing her for desecrating the temple with Poseidon. Medusa’s terrifying image...
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The DARK TRIAD: tracking wolves in our midst
This Jungian Life
Understanding the Dark Triad can help us navigate mysteriously troubled relationships in all spheres of life. Psychologists coined the term to describe a trifecta of malevolent personality traits: narcissism, machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Although less sinister than any one full-blown personality disorder, it still affects the soul plagued by it and those in reach of its host. Narcissism has become a widely-discussed topic, often misused to describe anyone who is frustrating or displeasing. At its core, narcissism is a soul-sickness, with individuals exhibiting entitlement, devaluation of...
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SYMBOLIC MEANING of HAIR: what's your look saying?
This Jungian Life
The symbolic meaning of hair is both personal and cultural. It serves as an expressive medium through which we silently communicate. Sporting bed-head might convey a carefree attitude, while a polished prom-night hairstyle expresses maturity. Hair carries various announcements to our community. Its historical significance reveals ancient values that continue to influence our self-presentation. It is a malleable medium. Unlike body parts such as fingers or feet, it constantly grows, allowing for continuous transformation, and it resists decay. These universal attributes make hair an archetype....
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THE WHALE: a film about trauma, obesity, and the undying hope to connect.
This Jungian Life
We are born with a drive to connect meaningfully with our caregivers. When that is thwarted by fate, deprivation, or hostility, our psyche rallies, it redirects our instincts to the imaginal world where archetypal forces can care for us, and our intolerable feelings can be hidden in a cast of inner characters. We still long for compassionate connection, but the inner figures of our caregivers are intolerable, so sometimes the archetypal mother hides in food—and we follow. In the recent film “The Whale” starring Brendon Frasier, we meet his character Charlie, an English teacher...
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PAN: archetypal source of panic disorder
This Jungian Life
Piping through mountains and glens, the great god carries the relentless procreative power of nature. He symbolizes the archaic level of psyche from which all wild instinct rises; feared during war as his panic could undo even the Titans and attacked in the Common Era as the image of the devil. Half man and half goat, Pan’s untamed sexuality evoked rapture and impulsivity. As the god of shepherds, he ushered young men into puberty, introducing them to the spring rut in their flocks and their own bodies. In the first 30 years of the Christian era, Plutarch wrote that a sailor heard a...
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CAN JUNG’S HOME WITHSTAND REPURPOSING?
This Jungian Life
It seems that an intrepid consortium of impact investors, real estate developers, and the Swiss Tourism, Farming, and Dairy Products Oversight Authority have created a juggernaut heading for in Kusnacht and his famous tower in . The enterprise called Große Böse Wölfe Hinein Unterwäsche has announced its plans to finalize the acquisition of Jung’s estate and transform it. The modernization of revered sites is familiar across the world. Saddled with mounting maintenance costs and increasing government regulation, British Estates have been repurposed as luxury...
info_outlineIt seems that an intrepid consortium of impact investors, real estate developers, and the Swiss Tourism, Farming, and Dairy Products Oversight Authority have created a juggernaut heading for Jung’s home in Kusnacht and his famous tower in Bollingen. The enterprise called Große Böse Wölfe Hinein Unterwäsche has announced its plans to finalize the acquisition of Jung’s estate and transform it.
The modernization of revered sites is familiar across the world. Saddled with mounting maintenance costs and increasing government regulation, British Estates have been repurposed as luxury hotels and sacred temples into coffee houses. Ineligible for inclusion as a UNESCO world heritage site, the Jung properties were placed in a precarious position and seemed to be headed for a similar fate. The consortium has leaked plans to position the properties within a large compound inspired by the successful Disney Adventureland highlighting fairytale motifs.
While Jung himself might have delighted in bringing the archetypal themes in the Grimm’s tales to life, it is hard to imagine he would have tolerated the intrusion into his sanctuary, Bollingen. Analytic psychology has long understood the role of liminal spaces that straddle two states of consciousness. One could argue that the developer’s plans will likewise provide a transitional space between the quaint blend of medieval and Heimatstil Architektur of the original buildings with innovative technology and luxury hospitality.
Like Jung himself, this venture suggests a battle between the Voice of the Times and the Voice of the Depths. To capture the interest of the modern collective, focused on boutique experiences, the creative team is including a luxury hotel compound, a spa centered on historic Swiss folk remedies, children’s camps inspired by Jung’s boyhood experiences, and an immersive virtual reality-enhanced tour based on Emilie Preiswerk’s spiritualist practices.
Perhaps to mollify the expected outrage, the consortium plans to support the Analytic community by digitalizing the Jung library and reproducing artifacts from the homes for sale abroad. Finally, as a bow to the Voice of the Deep, there are plans to organize a nonprofit extension of the new corporation that will fund quantitative research into the efficacy of Jungian Analysis—a long-awaited tool to protect the integrity of analysis.
Holding the tension of the opposites, modernization vs. heritage, may help our community envision the transformation of the Jung properties as a kind of symbol that blends both values without diminishing either. Or we may find our memories, dreams, and reflections trampled by monetization and exploitation. Only time will tell.
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