You don't know Jung ... and it's his own fault. Jung concepts are frequently misunderstood by Pagans, both by those who love him and those who hate him. Part of the confusion surrounding Jung is due to his choice of terminology. Jung chose terms that -- at least when translated into English -- are commonly used to mean something very different than what he intended. In this series, I discuss five Jungian terms which are easily and commonly misunderstood: psychic, energy, self, individuation, symbol, and archetype. In this part, I will discuss "symbol".
I'm taking a break from my Jungian Pagan practice series to talk a little about Jungian terminology. Jung is one of the most used andabused thinkers in Pagan discourse. His concepts are frequently misunderstood, both by those who love him and those who hate him. Part of the confusion surrounding Jung is due to his choice of terminology. At times Jung could be very specific about what certain terms did and did not mean, and at other times he seemed to use terms in precisely the way that he said they should not be used. To make matters worse, Jung chose terms that -- at least when translated into English -- are commonly used to mean something very different than what he intended. I want to discuss five Jungian terms which are easily and commonly misunderstood: psychic, energy, self, individuation, symbol, and archetype. In this post, I will address the first two terms: "psychic" and "energy".
In my last post, I described 5 practical steps for doing dreamwork. In this post, I want to give you a real life example of a dreamworking I did after writing the last post.
[Note: This is a revised version of an earlier essay that appeared on the Humanistic Paganism blog.]
A couple of posts ago, I wrote about ritual creation as a form of Jungian Pagan spiritual practice. I described ritual as a kind of dance between the conscious and unconscious, in which the conscious mind gives form to unconscious energy or potentialities. Jung often used the metaphor of water to describe the vivifying energies of the unconscious. This water, wrote Jung, “comes from deep down in the mountain [the unconscious] and runs along secret ways before it reaches daylight [consciousness].” The place where it springs forth is marked by a symbol. This symbol merely marks the experience of the archetype, and it should not be confused with the experience (the water) itself or the archetype (the source of the water).
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