Erich Neumann publicly proposed the concept of the ego-Self (or Self-ego) axis and began to sketch its implications in his 1952 Eranos lecture, "The Psyche and the Transformation of the Reality Planes. Edward Edinger popularized the concept writing, "It portrays the developmental relationship between the ego and the Self, Jung’s term for “the totality of the conscious and unconscious psyche [that] transcends our visions…” As infants, we embody an original wholeness, or Self-hood, out of which eg...
May 06, 2021•1 hr 5 min
In 1543, Andreas Vesalius dissected a corpse, thereby inaugurating a scientific attitude toward the human body. This new attitude taught us to stand aside from our identification and connection with the body and see it as a lifeless subject of inquiry. Such an approach brought obvious vital advances in science and medicine, but it also came at a cost. In the 20th century, philosophers such as Foucault and Derrida did for language what Vesalius had done for the human body. Their careful dissectio...
Apr 29, 2021•1 hr 37 min
Our colleague Puddi Kullberg, author of The Bad Mother , joins us to acknowledge motherhood’s shadow. A link to her paper is below. Our culture idealizes motherhood, but mothers everywhere have experienced themselves as bad in varying ways and to various degrees. Jung suggests that even truly harmful mothers can expiate their actions by becoming conscious of what they have done. If we can face even grievous mistakes, we can deepen into our ordinary, sometimes dark humanity. Confrontation with ou...
Apr 22, 2021•1 hr 13 min
The wellspring of consciousness has long been located in word. Once words were etched on clay or inked on papyrus, a new way of knowing was born. Writing ordered and expanded language, captured ideas, bloomed imagination, and preserved human experience. Writing is an encounter like no other with oneself and inner others, light and dark. Whether we meet the page in a personal journal or as professional necessity, we discover that ego alone does not do this job. Some days words leap like dolphins;...
Apr 15, 2021•1 hr 13 min
The splendid-feathered phoenix lives for hundreds of years builds its own funeral pyre, sets it on fire, and rises from the ashes after three days. The phoenix represents long life, conscious acquiescence to death, and assured regeneration. The fiery alchemical process of calcinatio leaves behind a white ash equivalent to salt, that which cannot be burned: life, soul, and Eros. The phoenix is usually depicted ascending in its joyful solar plumage of red, orange, and gold, indicating that when on...
Apr 08, 2021•1 hr 7 min
The fool in various guises has appeared since ancient times. The court jester seduces through comedy, song, and story. The dummling son of fairy tales wins the treasure with well-meaning ineptitude. Shakespeare featured fools in many of his plays, the Tarot deck begins (or ends) with the fool, and comedians have built careers on playing the fool. The fool punctures the posturings of others’ personas and egos, bests his “betters,” and transgresses social boundaries and conventional morality. The ...
Apr 01, 2021•1 hr
Swiss Jungian scholar Jager Schmallzenburger has recently released news of the discovery of Jung’s erotic stamp collection. Found tucked into the wall behind a bookcase, the box of stamps features uniquely rendered images of milkmaids from countries around the world. The milkmaid, symbolic of the archetypal feminine in the flower of fulsome youth, has long been prominent in the mythopoetic imagination of man. No one had previously realized that Jung, in addition to his many other interests, was ...
Apr 01, 2021•29 min
not chosen but is imposed and unwanted: a relational break-up, job lay-off, or deportation. Exile can affect the human spirit so powerfully that the ancient Romans used it as an alternative to execution. Alienation describes an internal state of deadness and despair--an uncanny valley that feels featureless, gray, and unending. It can manifest as depression, anxiety, addiction, and desperation—which can lead to violence against self or others. A return to feeling heals, movingly rendered in Va, ...
Mar 25, 2021•1 hr 10 min
Elliott Morgan, comedian and PhD candidate in depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute, joins us to explore humor and psyche. Elliott grew up a fundamentalist Christian in central Florida, and has gone from practicing holy laughter to creating HOLY SH*T, his comedy special on Amazon (also featuring Jung’s debut on the comedic stage). Elliott’s college major, zoology, prepared him to play Goofy at Disney World and Big Bird on Hollywood Blvd. A recovering Nice Person, Elliott draws on life ...
Mar 18, 2021•1 hr 25 min
Horses herd, birds flock, whales pod, and people tribe. The need to belong is as intrinsic to human nature as the need for food, touch, clothing and shelter. We belong to families, communities, ideas and ideals, yet must also separate from them in service to our own individuation. As we grow, we belong to teams and clubs, and find new homes in school and at work. Is the price of belonging rigid conformity and sameness, or is uniqueness valued and difference supported? We later express attitude a...
Mar 11, 2021•55 min
Like fire in a wood-burning stove, resentment burns long and hot: bitterness, frustration, and hostility. The fires of resentment are lit when we feel needy and vulnerable and feel wronged and rejected. This old human story is told in the biblical tale of brothers Cain and Abel. When Cain’s offering is judged inferior, Cain takes it out on Abel. He acts--and acts out—defensively to insulate himself from shame and culpability by killing Abel. Cain’s subsequent mark symbolizes the psychic price of...
Mar 04, 2021•56 min
The twenties are a period of emerging adulthood, a time to engage in the maturational tasks of finding one’s place in the wider world and forming intimate relationships. This stage of life calls for the ego strength necessary to make initial choices about work, intimacy, money, lifestyle and values. The protections and constraints of family, education, and culture are no longer unquestioned. It is time to engage life on one’s own authority: take appropriate risks, tolerate anxiety, weather disap...
Feb 25, 2021•1 hr 5 min
Subjective truths yield multiple realities—political and religious truths famously differ. Objective truths rely on independent realities—two plus two must ever be four, not five. Jung’s four functions of consciousness help us reconcile inner and outer realities. Sensation causes physiological reactions to untruths in ourselves and in others; our bodies are wired for congruence. We can also notice and name feelings, beliefs and desires: are we inflamed and defensive, or calm and considered? Our ...
Feb 18, 2021•57 min
While we welcome “good” feelings, we often try to banish “bad” ones like sadness, fear, vulnerability and shame. We may deny them by trying to “think positive.” We may attribute them to political wrongs or even the barking dog next door. If emotions have nowhere else to go, they become symptoms, complexes, and even physical illnesses. Avoiding negative emotions simply causes them to go underground and express themselves in disguise. Jung says, “Our emotions happen to us; affect occurs at the poi...
Feb 11, 2021•1 hr 5 min
The judgmental inner voice has volume, speed, pitch and range. It may appear as a perfectionistic critic, demanding taskmaster, or abusive bully. It also seeps in through the collective, with criteria for beauty, status, and wealth that are unrealistic and artificial. At its worst, this punitive, shaming complex incites self-destructive behavior, and has long been imaged by witches, warlocks, ogres and fiends. Most of us would never treat anyone as badly as we sometimes treat ourselves. This int...
Feb 04, 2021•1 hr 3 min
Kwame Scruggs inspires men through mythology, drumming and connection to community and culture. As a young man Kwame discovered his inner fire through African-based initiatory rites. He asked himself “What is it I really want to do? Not what could I do. What did I want to do?” His passion for myth and drumming led him to graduate studies and creating programs in which story is the catalyst for inspired manhood and realization of potential. Story, fellowship and rhythm create an alchemical mixtur...
Jan 28, 2021•59 min
The king is figured prominently in myth, religion, and fairy tale. This compelling archetypal image has roots in our earliest human beginnings, when the king embodied his tribe’s earthly vitality and supra-human connection to spirit. Today, the king symbolizes universal psychic functions; each of us has an internal ruler. Like Solomon, the king presides over standards of ordering and lawgiving that undergird processes of discernment and decision. As warrior, the king protects and defends the kin...
Jan 21, 2021•1 hr 18 min
The ability to choose and exercise will is a defining characteristic of humans. Only humans have enough energy available to consciousness to escape the rule of instinct. Jung says, “the realm of will cannot coerce instinct nor has it power over spirit,” so ego shall not dictate to psyche but find alignment with instinct and spirit, values and volition, before springing into pursuit of a goal. We must first choose to attend to ourselves, consider the size, worth, and cost of the goal—and then pra...
Jan 07, 2021•1 hr 19 min
Mythological Paths to Personal Potential Myths and fairy tales depict women’s initiation into authority and adulthood. Hades abducted Kore (maiden) into the underworld; Snow White choked on a poisoned apple and lay in stasis; Aphrodite punished forsaken Psyche with arduous tasks. As all were blossoming into the fullness of their beauty and fertility, all were also in thrall to innocence complexes that blinded them to realities of envy, aggression, and power, imaged as rapist, step-mother, and mo...
Dec 31, 2020•1 hr 8 min
Something's going on in Scrooge's soul...and it's tired of waiting for an invitation. Charles Dickens’ novella, A Christmas Carol , vividly portrays the journey to healing and transcendence. It was written in a fever, released on December 19, 1843, and sold out before Christmas. Ebenezer Scrooge’s visitations by the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come are vivid depictions of the path from trauma to transformation. As in psychotherapy, Scrooge revisits his past; by reclaiming the f...
Dec 24, 2020•1 hr 16 min
Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be unto all people. Luke 2:10 The divine child appears when least expected, new potential born from the womb of the unconscious. Helpless and blessed and against all reason, the divine child represents the creative union of opposites that births a new beginning. Every new beginning is a divine child, and mythological revelations since ancient times greet new psychic potential with awe and adoration. Miraculous birth signal...
Dec 17, 2020•1 hr 2 min
Is fantasizing helpful or harmful? Fantasy is the process of engagement with unconscious processes, from the depths of the mythic unconscious to the make-believe worlds of online gaming. In passive fantasy we receive products of the unconscious as charged internal images: nighttime dreams, trance states and visions. Passive fantasy transgresses natural law, the limitations of waking life, and cultural restrictions, for in the subterranean realms of psychic experience all is permitted. Active fan...
Dec 10, 2020•1 hr 3 min
Doubt disturbs us. Unlike the more defined polarities of ambivalence, doubt is pervasive, muddy, and ranges from crippling to constructive. We may doubt our capacity to meet a challenge, achieve a desired outcome, or make the right decision. At a deeper level, doubt can threaten our orientation to reality and erode our sense of self. Doubt can also help us prepare, increase our capacity to take risks and build confidence in our ability to prevail whether we win or lose. Doubt is about the future...
Dec 03, 2020•1 hr 3 min
We welcome Sonu Shamdasani, PhD, scholar and historian of depth psychology and Jung’s opus. His research and expertise were instrumental in bringing Jung’s Red Book to the public in 2009. Jung’s Black Books , the journals in which he recorded “my most difficult experiments,” have just been published. We discuss Jung’s encounters with figures and images from his psychic depths--experiences foundational to Jung’s subsequent work and which opened a portal to humankind’s imaginal mind and mythic sub...
Nov 26, 2020•53 min
The spider is a symbol of generative and destructive capabilities. As creator, spider spins the sustaining web of life. As predator, spider’s sticky web is an inescapable trap. Parents weave webs of familial ties, cultural norms, and generational patterns that contain—or restrain--their children. Emotional strings of attachment or enmeshment affect how—or if—a young adult child is released into the world. A net of comfort and connection can become a web of entanglement and stultification. The ta...
Nov 19, 2020•1 hr 6 min
QAnon is a recent iteration of a historical pattern: Romans persecuted Christians, Christians libeled Jews, and citizenries hunted witches. When existing social structures break down, psychological splitting ensues in an effort to counteract fear and re-establish certainty. Collective projections demonize a selected ‘other’ and tend toward lurid attributions of badness: pedophilia, blood drinking, and devil worship. At the same time collectives project their need for leadership and unity onto a ...
Nov 12, 2020•1 hr 24 min
Marie-Louise von Franz, Jung’s close collaborator, capped her public work in a 1986 lecture that summarized Jung’s signal contributions to understanding the human experience. Jung was concerned that rationalism, quantitative methodologies, and the objectification of people and animals had become one-sided, resulting in ethical and empathic deficiencies. He felt the over-development of professional personas—even among physicians and psychotherapists—led to avoiding authentic encounters. Sentiment...
Nov 05, 2020•2 hr 30 min
The hair on the back of our necks bristles in response to the horrors of the uncanny. Transfixed by shock, awe, dread and fascination, we can neither dare the dangerous darkness nor turn away. The mysteries of the unknown take us into realms of transgression and taboo. Enthrallment and abhorrence mix in encounters with all that is alien and dispossessed. We face our own human monstrosities and the traumas that create them. We also meet the dark, nonhuman otherness of the collective unconscious; ...
Oct 29, 2020•1 hr 2 min
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them! There are few more painful thoughts or frightening events than suicide, a phenomenon unique to the human species. Depression, rage, and powerlessness can overwhelm ego functions, leading someone to believe that escaping life is the only option. Affects of archetypal proportions can act like tsunamis in the psyche. What can help? A supportive other can offer protection, options, and hope. Willingness to engage in mental health an...
Oct 22, 2020•1 hr 2 min
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them! The world is the canvas on which we paint our lives. Through this lifelong work, we express personal vision, develop skills, and come to terms with the realities of our outer and inner worlds. The first major stage of adaptation, the transition from child to adult, requires readiness to separate from protective life structures in pursuit of outer world goals. It entails developing a strong, flexible ego devoid of overly negative o...
Oct 15, 2020•1 hr 15 min
