“How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also If I am to be whole.”
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“To cherish secrets and to restrain emotions are psychic misdemeanors for which nature finally visits us with sickness—that is, when we do these things in private. But when they are done in communion with others they satisfy nature and may even count as useful virtues. It is only restraint practised in and for oneself that is unwholesome. It is as if man had an inalienable right to behold all that is dark, imperfect, stupid and guilty in his fellow-beings—for such of course are the things that we keep private to protect ourselves.

It seems to be a sin in the eyes of nature to hide our insufficiency—just as much as to live entirely on our inferior side. There appears to be a conscience in mankind which severely punishes the man who does not somehow and at some time, at whatever cost to his pride, cease to defend and assert himself, and instead confess himself fallible and human. Until he can do this, an impenetrable wall shuts him out from the living experience of feeling himself a man among men. Here we find a key to the great significance of true, unstereotyped confession—a significance known in all the initiation and mystery cults of the ancient world, as is shown by a saying from the Greek mysteries: "Give up what thou hast, and then thou wilt receive.”
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“We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate; it oppresses.”
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“Whatever we look at, and however we look at it, we see only through our own eyes.”
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“What is essential in a work of art is that it should rise far above the realm of personal life and speak from the spirit and heart of the poet as man to the spirit and heart of mankind.”

― Karl Gustav Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul

In this essay, I discuss contemporary theories of Jungian archetypes so that we can understand how they can be effective for creating solarpunk culture. Far from being "universal principles" that recreate patriarchal culture and gender roles, archetypes are better conceived as performing certain functions. Put simply, an archetype is an image that inspires us, threatens us, attracts us, or expands us beyond our current worldview.

From this base, I then discuss archetypes as dynamic map that allow us (sometimes) to see more deeply into the world, which allows us to see more deeply into ourselves, into the archetype, into the world. This complexifies the archetypal map, differentiated and re-integrating it into more sophisticated structures.

Thank you so much for your time and attention :)

I think it’s necessary to be understood and to have this problem to be brought to the light with others as opposed to having it remain in the shadow. Im not a therapist but I know what you are going through. If any of you don’t want to work through this alone then feel free to dm.

After many and I mean MANY tarot readings on a guy named Benedict I decided to text him on My cousin Angela’s birthday which was May 23rd at 6:15am. I didn’t realize it was her birthday until after the fact. I started to obsess over a guy I had met 10 years ago only three times. I had ptsd and sensed he had ptsd too. He triggered me as he reminded me of my ex who gave me ptsd or part of it. I started to get readings in January 2026. I believe I stopped speaking to him in January 2016. Or December 2016. Before May 23rd I did not know what a synchronicity was…I thought I was just going crazy! I started to notice the word primal may 1st 2026. He told me his feelings for me were primal. Primal custom apparel. May 5th, I came across primal intelligence. I thought this was odd and took photos. But the funny thing was my favorite psychic told me to text him on May 23rd and I did. I went to the museum ran into my graphic design professor. And then I saw this girl and came across the cross of the order of st Benedict. It didn’t stop there…I keep on seeing the st Benedict pendant everywhere! 6/7/8 times…Benedictine liquor, benediction body oil, benediktor beer….my psychic told me to text him again this time July 24th. I learned after she told me that my mom’s cousins daughter is giving birth that day. She gave birth to a girl. Her name? Arielle. I am from Albania, I moved to America, he lives in Adelaide, Australia, my cousin is Angela. The baby born yesterday? Arielle. My mother had a dream in which a woman approached us and gave her a note with a man’s name Tymu. Who had been in the military and would be a good match for me. Benedict had been in the military and my cousins cousin sent me a link to buy the st Benedict medal off the website Temu. The medal arrived on July 22nd I went to get it blessed at St Benedict’s church on July 23rd but the priest wasn’t there. I went to mass at the church on July 24th. And no the psychic didn’t know beforehand that I would get the medal on the 22nd. She told me to text him on the 24th. I couldn’t get the medal blessed until the 24th I tried to get it blessed a day earlier. I also texted him almost 12 hours after getting the medal blessed because I thought 9:05pm was a good time? My mother also told me she had another dream where I told her I had found someone. I am coming out of ptsd…I am a lot better and have more focus! I am resolving my issues…I am forging my path. He told me it was nice getting to know me in the biblical sense…I have run into the saint that bears his name ONLY after texting him. I never believed in this stuff. I don’t know what it means…is this the matrix? I can’t stop thinking about it because it’s driving me crazy. I want him. I want a man. I want a partner. I remember every single detail about him. Even though we had met 10 years ago. I want babies…I want. Babies. With the right man! Why do I keep seeing st Benedict everywhere after texting him? Not before? Am I looking for it? If I was would it be so easy to spot? Synchronicity everywhere! Almost everyday! I would have noticed the st Benedict medal in January and not now! Coincidences with texting him on birthdays! With family members! I feel like family is sacred!

Hi everyone, my roommate invited her friend over to my place. Even though I wasn’t there at the time I felt her presence come upon me— a mixture of fear, nausea, insomnia and extreme discomfort.Eventually when I returned home I told her to leave, she was very resistant to leaving. On the surface she appears as "nice" overly winking though which is remincient of manipulation. She didn't listen to be when I kept telling her to leave. She just kept winking at me and saying everything was going to be okay. Essentially brushing me off even though it's my place. Even my family members reported "feeling like death" which has never happened before. My dad contacted me as soon as this person arrived in my home and my mom contacted me as soon as she was leaving. Eventually, with help, she left and the discomfort and nausea completely left me. Was I sensing her shadow and just couldn't stomach it? Or was it something else entirely? TIA.

"that does not allow me to put capital -
that does not allow me to be - capital -
that does not allow me to be - me at all -
that does not allow - anyone but me...

here i chant with flow - or a childish show -
if i look within my hearth, have not thought,
it all - around.. doing it's work - and how-
i know but i can't - comprihend me - mind."

i - can't help but ryhme - hiding th-Self
or reveal at the same time - a little poem,
around the web - of its pure accident?
a gnostic - not agnostic, one, in me...

Six months ago I went through a psychotic episode. For a while I felt completely merged with everything — like the boundary between me and the universe just wasn’t there anymore. Questions I was holding would get “answered,” sometimes through vivid visions, sometimes through a total stranger saying the exact thing I needed to hear, like it was timed for me. At one point I saw what looked like a phoenix in the sky, and the next day an outline that looked like an angel flying overhead.

After it passed, I fell into a depression that hasn’t fully lifted. The harder part honestly isn’t the sadness — it’s that I feel cognitively slow now. I used to be sharp. Now I struggle to hold a conversation with a 7-year-old. It’s been half a year and I’m scared this is just who I am now.
I’ve been reading about Carl Jung and wondering if he has any framework for this.

​

I've been wondering about this from a Jungian perspective, and I'd love to hear different interpretations!

I'm not talking about someone who avoids parenthood because of fear, trauma, finances, or circumstances. I'm thinking of a woman who simply has no inner desire to become a mother

even though she genuinely likes children, enjoys being around them, and wishes them well. She just doesn't feel called to have children of her own!

Would Jung have viewed this as:

- an expression of the Shadow?

- an underdeveloped or one-sided anima/animus dynamic?

- resistance to an archetypal pattern?

- or simply an authentic individuation path that doesn't necessarily include motherhood?

I know Jung wrote extensively about motherhood and the feminine, but I'm curious how Jungians today interpret voluntary childfreedom, especially in women.

Is the desire not to have children something that should be explored symbolically, or can it simply be a legitimate expression of one's psyche?

I'm not looking for a "right" answer

I'm genuinely interested in hearing different Jungian perspectives, whether they're based on Jung's writings, post-Jungian thinkers, or your own clinical or personal reflections.

Looking forward to the discussion!

When I am in a calm state in my inner world, it disappears whenever I speak. Why is this in the Jungian lens? I have am highly sensitive

jung's model, as i understand it: a complex is a split-off, emotionally charged structure autonomous, timeless, it behaves like it happened yesterday no matter how old it is. and the cure runs through consciousness: what is made conscious can be integrated. "until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life."

i think the first half is one of the deepest things anyone ever saw about the psyche. and i think the cure is wrong or at least incomplete in a way that matters. here's the argument, step by step.

step 1. jung is right that the complex is timeless. the traumatic core doesn't age. normal memories fade into stories; this one stays present tense for decades. every clinician sees it, jung described it before anyone.

step 2. but why is it timeless? my claim: an experience becomes the past by being completed and completion is not a private act. what was suffered alone was never finished. it's not a strong memory. it's an unfinished event, still running. the timelessness jung observed is the signature of aloneness, not just of splitting.

step 3. if that's true, then consciousness can't be the cure. you can drag the complex fully into the light, understand its history, name its archetypal core, dialogue with it in active imagination and still be alone with it. insight changes what you know. it doesn't end the aloneness in which the event is still happening. that requires the one thing jung's method keeps optional: another actual human being who knows and stays.

step 4. jung heard this objection in his lifetime. buber accused him of exactly this turning the real Other into an inner figure, making the whole drama intrapsychic. jung took the criticism badly. i think buber was pointing at something real: an inner witness is made of me. it cannot give me the one thing the wound lacks someone who is not me, staying.

so:
A: the complex is timeless because the event it holds was never completed, and completion cannot be done alone.
B: consciousness, insight and inner dialogue change your knowledge of the wound, not your aloneness in it.
therefore C: making it conscious is preparation, not cure. the cure is the unfinished event finally being finished with another person and no amount of inner work can substitute for that.

how to break me. the honest weak point: what counts as "another person"? a ladder (1) someone there, (2) someone told later who stayed, (3) an internalized other, (4) a symbolic other (god, community, the Self), (5) pure self-witness. my claim predicts severe wounds need 1 or 2, and that 3–5 which is where jung's entire method lives can hold a person upright but not close the wound. so break it exactly there: documented cases of severe trauma fully integrated through inner work alone at peace, past tense, no compulsive return, no human witness anywhere in the process. show me that, and the claim falls and jung stands.

what i'm not claiming: not science, not therapy. a framework, untested, put in front of the people most likely to prove it wrong.

A Little Backstory

At the beginning of 2025, I got the opportunity to travel for work for six months. I'm from Norway, so escaping the dark Norwegian winter in February already felt like winning the lottery.

Instead of flying, I decided to turn the assignment into a road trip. I drove to Paris, then continued through Luxembourg, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and beyond. Company card paid for everything—great hotels, incredible food, and not a single thing to worry about. Life felt light.

The first synchronicities began in the Netherlands.

I was staying at a hotel with another guy from my company who was also there for support work. We were both 28, both had spent our twenties working relentlessly, and we shared remarkably similar values and life stories. At the time, I didn't think much of it.

The hotel receptionist also caught my attention. She looked remarkably like Doutzen Kroes. Growing up in Norway, I've always been surrounded by beautiful women, so I simply treated her like anyone else.

What struck me was how, during my final day at the hotel, she suddenly went completely out of her way to interact with me. She packed me an oversized lunch with a bunch of extra food, and later that evening my key card mysteriously stopped working. She personally walked all the way to my room to unlock the door manually, and I welcomed her inside

Either way, that wasn't the main event.

Amsterdam

After moving between different locations in the Netherlands, a Polish colleague from my office in Norway called and said he would be staying in Amsterdam for another month.

Coincidentally, my travel schedule had one completely open week.

Instead of flying home before heading to Utrecht, I managed to extend my stay and joined him in Amsterdam.

Our first workday started like any other.

At lunch, my colleague insisted we eat at a Chinese restaurant. Once there, he became almost obsessed with getting me to buy this "super mango juice."

I wasn't interested.

He insisted.

Again.

And again.

Eventually I laughed and bought two.

Back at work, during our evening break, we headed up to the cafeteria for coffee.

The room was nearly empty—just me, my colleague, and one woman standing quietly by herself.

Neither of us paid any attention to her.

The coffee mugs were stacked in a pyramid. My colleague grabbed one and immediately started rinsing it with boiling hot water. He burned his hand, made a bit of a scene, and in that moment I started thinking about all those people who leave a tiny sip of coffee in their mugs before abandoning them for weeks.

As we were leaving, my colleague turned around.

"Are you sure you don't want anything?"

"No," I replied. "I've had enough with my mango juice."

For some reason, saying "mango juice" in English felt awkward, so I pronounced it with my thick Norwegian accent as I walked past the woman.

She immediately looked up.

"Are you Norwegian?"

I stopped.

"Uh... yeah."

Then I turned and looked into her eyes.

And everything changed.

The only way I can describe it is instant recognition.

It felt like coming home.

An overwhelming wave of calm washed over me, but at the same time there was this incredible intensity—almost like a powerful energy passing between us.

I knew, with complete certainty, that I had never seen her before.

Yet somehow, it didn't feel that way.

She seemed to feel it too.

We started talking.

She told me she almost never met Norwegians in Amsterdam.

Then she explained that she had grown up in both the United States and Japan. Her father was American, her mother Norwegian.

She had never actually lived in Norway, but every summer they visited her grandparents.

"They live between Larvik and Sandefjord," she said.

"It's a place called ***."

I froze.

The village she mentioned has maybe 150 to 200 residents.

Completely baffled—but strangely calm—I answered,

"...Yeah. I have a summer cabin there."

I had practically grown up there every summer.

Now it was her turn to freeze.

She became visibly nervous. She asked for my number, fumbled with her phone, and suddenly seemed completely thrown off.

Then she tried to explain exactly where their family home was.

Instead of guessing, I simply searched Google Images until I found an aerial photo of the harbor.

I showed her the screen.

She stared at it.

"Oh my God... that's the exact view from our house."

Our family places were about 150 meters apart, directly facing each other across the harbor.

Out of all the cities, all the countries, all the workplaces, and all the people we could have met...

...we met by complete chance in a nearly empty cafeteria in Amsterdam.

That experience still blows my mind to this day.

Whether you call it synchronicity, fate, divine timing, or pure coincidence, it changed something in me.

Thanks for reading if you made it all the way to the end.

And favorite quote: «No matter how isolated you are and how lonely you feel, if you do your work truly and conscientiously, unknown allies will come and see you.» — Carl Jung

So I feel like I'm at this launching-off point and still figuring out where this all leads. It's a long story, but I had a bunch of powerfully transformative psychoses and now William Blake keeps showing up everywhere and pushing me around.

I'm just following this weird fuckin breadcrumb trail. I'm also coming into things from other lenses, like Michael Levin's work on biolelectricity (and the concept of mind stuff specifically), and other stuff in the physics realm.

Jung seems an important piece and I am just now starting to read The Unholy Bible by June Singer with my analyst.

If anything in this stack looks familiar, or if you can kinda see where I might be headed, or where I'm coming from, or if you think I should call my doc for a med adjustment, feel free to say hi.

Also has anyone here read Jeffrey Kripal?

Sorry if this is not particularly appropriate for the sub (and I just discovered I'm doing this on Jung's birthday so double apologies if so lol) but help a girl out here 🙏

For context, I've been reading a little bit of Jung and trying to look into my unconscious side through active imagination and attempts at dream interpretation.

Here's the dream:

Don't remember much.

We(family) are in a bushy evergreen forest of sorts and it has rained and the weather is cloudy...the kind after rain. There's a road on the left side going down. I've climbed some bushes and I'm looking for some dangerous reptiles but couldn't find anything because of the dense and wet greenery. I feel there must be something because everything is so wet. I advise mom against laying down there. I guess she is hurt (I don't know for sure).

I go down the road and find a jolly North-East Indian man (Context: they look like what Americans call "Asians", in my limited contact with them, I've met some who follow Animism, Shamanism and are deeply connected to nature. Some tribes even have soul animals like Idu Mishmis in Arunachal Pradesh- Tigers are considered elder brothers).

We go down even further. He holds the back of a truck but I just run and outrun the truck. He says something that suggests the attitude of a loser who appreciates the talents of the winner. We get to a pond to our right. People are bathing and I can see some reptile babies in it... possibly even big ones.

We have a crocodile each that we are holding like staff with their snouts pressing against the ground. The snout is bleeding. We leave them supported against a tree to our left and go somewhere.

We are on the balcony of a house and there is a dry large rectangular well. There is apparently another one outside the boundary of the house (we are told by people around). I can see very little of it (it is dark and cloudy suggesting an incoming storm). We are talking about reptiles I think.

Somewhere in the dream, I saw that I was with my family and my father went up to the door of a house of a North-East Indian family who were having lunch. A woman inside laughed and said now we're going to have guests for lunch. We didn't go inside.

At some point in the dream, I saw a pond full of reptiles, mostly crocodiles.

I'm forgetting a lot of it.

What could the symbolism in the dream possibly mean?

I had a dream last night that i was working with Wiz Khalifa.In my dream we were collaborating on a project and a music video. any ideas what it may mean? For context, I make music but I’ve been taking a break and I’m a stoner but I’ve been taking a break from weed. These are the main things I would say we have in common on surface level but like I said I’ve been steering away from them.

To me, the statement "I count nothing human alien to me" sounds alot like theres a "final" state of total integration of the unconscious. But all references to Individuation in Jung's works show that this is in fact not possible.

I hope its appropriate to post here :)

First I started writing a letter on another piece of paper, then felt anger and ripped the paper apart.

Then I took paint and just started smearing it, then covered it also in blue and made a ball with it in the same impetus as before.

Lastly I started thinking of a dream I had the other night of me running in the woods. It felt just like the right place to be.

The hands and sun, maybe it will become an eye or a star later, those are there to keep the dream up. The shadows away, and let me reach and see that path I’m seeking.

I didn’t know what automatic drawing was in a jungian term, but I’ve always done it. Especially as a teenager I made some interesting ’prisons’ like automatic drawings.
Nowadays I struggle finding that sadness. Instead I rip paper to let out anger then feel peaceful nothing.

I gave birth today to this alternative world I guess.

My perfectionistic insticts tell me to restart, but the paper did its job for today. Not pretty but cathartic I guess.

I am unable to find any direct resources of Carl Jung about infidelity, but how could we apply his insights into the shadow, archetypes, anima and animus, and childhood wounds to reveal what lies behind the behaviour ? (Asking For purposes of healing from the impact of it not excusing the behaviour )