INITIATIONS: universal processes that spark transformation
Release Date: 09/14/2023
THE STAR: Archetype of Revelation
This Jungian Life
We have looked to the stars to navigate our ships across night-shrouded seas. We have studied the stars to find their qualities in our character and divine our destiny. We have yearned for the stars as the gates of heaven where we hope to reside one day. Mysterious and inscrutable, humanity has ever projected the arcane depths of its collective psyche onto the sky and marveled at what they saw. Prepare to discover who the first astrologers were, why we require the night sky to encounter our depths, what the stars have meant to humanity across time, where we must seek to understand the legends...
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DREAM WISE: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams
This Jungian Life
Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams is a practical guide to interpreting your dreams. It is the fruit of our collective experience analyzing thousands of dreams and collaborating to create our podcast and Dream School. It is an answer to the collective call to know and be more. Jung understood the next stage of human development could only come from within, and dreams are the key to that living process. The images we receive each night express a symbolic language, carrying multiple levels of meaning, emotional energy, and archetypal patterns. The dream meets your personal history...
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Stoicism and Jungian Psychology: A Recipe for Resilience
This Jungian Life
Stoicism and Jungian psychology are a natural fit. The first invigorates and organizes the reasoning mind, and the second ensouls it. The amalgam of Stoicism and Jungian Psychology generates a natural resilience. It offers a frame to understand the interplay of reason, emotion, and imagination in service to inner growth. Integrated philosophical reflection empowers us to confront societal crises and develop autonomy through rational self-awareness. Inclusive Stoicism connects personal development to shared human values. The ancient discipline of clear thinking can heal us through narrative...
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Finding Our Way Back: Healing from Self-Betrayal
This Jungian Life
When we betray ourselves, we abandon our values, needs, or truths to gain approval or avoid discomfort. This leaves us disconnected, fragmented, and unsure of who we really are. These patterns often start in childhood, where conditional love or invalidation teaches us to hide our authentic selves to stay safe or gain acceptance. We see this in our daily lives—staying in unbalanced relationships, ignoring our emotions, overworking, or making choices that don’t align with who we are. We justify it, suppress what we feel, or take on others’ beliefs without realizing how much it costs us....
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ECSTATIC TRANSFORMATION: Activating the Archetype of Radical Joy
This Jungian Life
What does it mean to depose the ego and encounter the dismantling joy of the Self? Ecstatic transformation challenges our understanding of ourselves and breaks the boundaries of ordinary experience, leaving us questioning a lifetime of assumptions. It shatters our ego’s illusions of separation, shifting the foundation of our identity. It is the greater solutio where our ego and Self come face to face. This psycho-spiritual process is symbolized in the Dionysiac archetypal themes of death and rebirth through ecstatic states that transcend the rational, intensify emotion, and connect us to...
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WEDDING DREAMS: Symbols of Sacred Union and Inner Transformation
This Jungian Life
How does one reconcile and integrate opposing forces within to achieve wholeness? Wedding dreams symbolize the union of opposites that spans psychological, spiritual, and alchemical dimensions. Encountering the wedding archetype in dreams constellates an inner marriage that calls for synthesis of known and novel traits and attitudes—depicted as the merging of masculine and feminine aspects or encounters with shadow. Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams will help you understand and prepare for inner union: https://a.co/d/9EyMMgE Alchemy called this process the hierosgamos, or...
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DECISION ARCHETYPE: the power of sacrificing options
This Jungian Life
How do we navigate the forces within us to make choices that reflect our authentic nature? Every decision acts as a bridge between the conscious mind and the unconscious depths, connecting archetypal patterns to individual choices that define human experience. Each choice reveals inner conflicts and values, compelling us to confront both personal desires and universal forces within psyche. Decision-making is not merely logical; it is a convergence of intuition, cultural imprint, and raw instinct, calling for integration rather than domination by one mode of thought. In conscious choosing, we...
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SATANIC PANIC: The Archetypal Slanderer and False Memory Syndrome
This Jungian Life
What drives us to seek meaning in the shadows, and how do we discern the real from the imagined when fear and faith converge? The rise of the Satanic Panic in the 1980s drew upon ancient archetypal fears of evil embedded in the collective unconscious, merging with societal stressors like the emergence of fundamentalist Christianity in American politics and women’s increased participation in the workforce with the resultant rise of daycare use. The archetype of the Devil as slanderer can capture a community. Even as they are prompted to accuse others of devilish behavior, they themselves are...
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Jung and Gnosticism: Discovering a Universe Of Whole-Making
This Jungian Life
What is the ultimate path to inner wholeness, and how do we reconcile the tension between the spiritual and material aspects of our existence? Take up the journey to find your lost spark this fall at Dream School: Jung’s exploration of Gnosticism enhanced his vision of the human psyche. In the Gnostic myths, Jung recognized the modern inner journey—where the Self represents the wholeness we all seek, mirroring the Gnostic Anthropos, the complete human being. Individuation, much like the Gnostic quest for spiritual awakening, becomes a journey of reclaiming our hidden divine spark,...
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CULTURAL COMPLEXES: the hidden force in modern politics
This Jungian Life
How do unconscious forces shape our collective behaviors and influence how we navigate societal conflicts and personal identity? Free yourself from the collective nightmare—discover the wisdom of your dreams this fall at Political dynamics are deeply influenced by underlying psychological forces known as cultural complexes, which shape group behavior, reinforce divisions, and heighten emotional responses to societal changes. Tom Singer, editor and fellow author of , explains that these social psychology phenomena, arising from emotions and ideas, affect how individuals think and feel....
info_outlineThe archetype of Initiation is primordial, and its force guides our transformative transitions. For Jung, this change reshapes spiritual, emotional, intellectual, behavioral, and social dynamics. Rooted in his anthropological studies, Jung emphasized the vital role of formal ceremonies in fostering separation from parental influences and facilitating integration into adult communities. These ceremonies marked a clear transition from childhood and established an essential connection with the adult community, promoting the collaborative culture by containing unconscious forces. Derived from the Latin "initium," Initiation carries the power of new beginnings, urging us towards greater consciousness and understanding. This journey transcends personal experience, reverberating universally through significant life milestones that act as gateways to realms of human experience, driven by archetypal activations inherent to all. Initiation contains three universal elements: separation, liminal space, and reintegration. This process is approached through a structured and ritualistic path in modern Mystery Schools. It begins with transitioning from our outer lives, then identifying what is alien to our true nature, followed by a dedication to a greater vision. Once ushered into a sacred space, we are helped to recognize the price of being unconscious. When our character flaws are personified and confronted, a Hierophantic figure reveals sacred objects, symbols, and teaching. These, along with various practices, seek to activate the archetype of transformation. Embraced into a community dedicated to mutual growth, Initiates re-enter their daily lives, tasked to integrate a more expansive attitude of themselves and life. The loss of most formal initiations in modern culture leaves these archetypal forces with no aesthetic process to affect the individual. Expressed unconsciously, they emerge as fraternity hazing or surviving a violent gauntlet to gain gang membership. Various mythopoetic movements have attempted to restore initiations for sons and daughters, bar mitzvahs carry ancient themes into contemporary life, and Freemasons strive to maintain ceremonies that make good men better. The archetype of Initiation is still alive and potent, perhaps struggling to find modern idioms and values to carry its transformative power forward.
HERE’S THE DREAM WE ANALYZE:
“Someone is telling me my therapist has passed away; I'm shocked. They showed me a very brief obituary that showed she was 44 years old. I am saddened.”
RESOURCES:
Philadelphia Association of Jungian Analysts, ADVANCED CLINICAL PRACTICE PROGRAM: A case seminar for experienced clinicians to read, explore, and apply Jung’s concepts to clinical practice: CLICK HERE
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