The Myth of Medusa: It takes a mirror…..
from Wikepedia
Carl Jung: Ten Quotations on Individuation
I will try to explain the term “individuation” as simply as possible. By it I mean the psychological process that makes of a human being an “individual”-a unique, indivisible unit or “whole man.” from a lecture at the Eranos Meeting at Ascona The Meaning of Individuation Prometheus bound Amphoriskos C6th B.C., Vatican City Museums What…
The Unknown Visitor: Vocatus atque non vocatus deus aderit
Marie Louise Von Franz, on the “Unknown Visitor” It seems to me to be one of the greatest contributions of Jung and his work that it taught us to keep our door open to the “unknown visitor.” He also tried to teach us an approach through which we can avoid the wrath of this…
Why did Jung chose Salome during active imagination for the Red Book?
A). Jung didn’t chose Salome — she chose him. B). Dancing women are hard to resist. C). He had an unconscious projection on Lou Andreas-Salome (friend of Nietzche, Rilke and Freud.) D). His anima made him lose his head. Lou Andreas-Salome, 1914 Salome Presented with the Head of St John the Baptist Leonaert Bramer 1630s…
“I am Elijah and this is my daugher Salome”
Elijah ascending in a whirlwind Giovanni Battista (1683-1754) As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. 2 Kings 2:11 (New International Version) I: Who are you? E: I am Elijah…
Hippity, Hoppity Easter is on Its Way
The Orphic Egg The egg is a germ of life with a lofty symbolical significance. It is not just a cosmogonic symbol — it is also a “philosophical one”. As the former it is the Orphic Egg, the world’s beginning; as the latter, the philosophical egg of the medieval natural philosophers, the vessel from which,…
Hail, children of Zeus!..
“Chaos at the Heart of Orion”; NASA title of Hubble photograph from Hesiod: Theogony 8th Century BCHail, children of Zeus!… Tell how at the first gods and earth came to be, and rivers, and the boundless sea with its raging swell, and the gleaming stars, and the wide heaven above, and the gods who were…
Seven Paintings of the Birth of Venus
Water is the commonest symbol of the Unconscious. Carl Jung, Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious According to Hesiod’s Theogony, Aphrodite was born when Cronus cut off Uranus’ genitals and threw them into the sea, and from the sea foam (aphros) arose Aphrodite.. Aphrodite Continuing on with the amplification of the myth of Hercules — what…
The Great-Grandfather of Hercules: Uranus
From Wikipedia:Uranus In the Olympian creation myth, as Hesiod tells it in the Theogony, Uranus came every night to cover the earth and mate with Gaia, but he hated the children she bore him. Hesiod named their first six sons and six daughters the Titans, the three one-hundred-armed giants the Hecatonchires, and the one-eyed giants…