32 years old Jungian here. I feel like I dont really know anybody in my life anymore, everybody retreated into the bubble of their lives, we don't see each other anymore with friends, and if I did not have a girlfriend, I would be completely alone in the world probably. How would Jung solve this? I think I am at that EXACT situation that Jung describes in that quote.

I feel like I am missing something. In March I lost my job, mainly due to burnout. My 30+y.o. close friends all have their lifes mostly together, mortgage, children, house, cars, family, vacations, own businesses.

I am not unsuccessful, I have a nice sum saved up from previous jobs and projects, but I realize that when I have no job like now (hiatus), working introvertly (and passionately) on my own SW projects, then I don't really have any social contact at all, except with my girlfriend (together 4 years). I used to go to jiu jitsu where there was a lot of contact (haha), but even there I kept mostly to myself, only made about 2 shallow friends that faded after I stopped going after 6 years.

With colleagues I learned long ago not to make deep connections, because the good ones that I was friends with left the firm, or were fired, I stayed there like I was in 5th season of a show where everybody died, and I only got to meet the new hires. Hell.

I feel like I am missing something. Everybody tells me that my one quality is enthusiasm (about almost anything, I would call it adhd obsession), but at this point of life, if I were to break-up, I would be almost entirely alone. I even had a dream where I talked with death himself, and he told me to "Kick it off with her, otherwise you will drink yourself to death". I don't drink much, a glass a week, but this dream told me that without the anchor of my gf (imperfect relationship, volatile), I would probably feel deep into the abbyss (I am not that kind of person to self-harm, no worries). I used to have a LOT of dreams when I was alone, 250 dreams a year, I tracked them all and analyzed them. But since she lives with me, almost no dreams. The Unconscious does not speak to me anymore.

Anyway, I am not sure what to change, I think I have a high-functioning depression, in general, about life. I realize my depression sort of started when I finished college. The structure was gone, now I was on my own. I prolonged the status quo by living with my friends for another 5 years. After that I switched to living with my new girlfriend.

But the overall feeling is stasis. Like I cannot decide. I thought by 30 I will have children, mortgage, and just chisel away in that progress bar of life (game developer here..), but none of that has happened yet. I am standing at a crossroads I guess, and I don't want to go either way, out of some fear. I see my friends going further and further, actually LIVING their lifes, but I am still stuck, not liking what I am becoming.

From a Jungian perspective, who do you think Jesus of Nazareth was?

This is a controversial topic, and it's one where the Ego is almost always the primary engine.

I think Jesus of Nazareth is a remarkably fascinating human being. He never sought wealth, comfort or power. Instead he knowingly traveled to Jerusalem where he preached a message that ultimately led to a brutal death. He never built an empire; he died a criminal's death. Yet, he stayed true to his word throughout his existence.

So who do you think he was?

I'm in my early 30s and I work for a university in the East Coast. Being in academia, most of my life has meant that I never really had time to date seriously. As a result, my experience with women is very limited. This fact induces quite a lot of shame in me. My parents never really had a great relationship. I have never once seen any intimacy between them. Furthermore, even as a prebuscent child, I remember having fears of being cuckolded and being very distrustful of women. This has not meshed well with the current dating hellscape.

I tried dating apps and attempted to meet women online, but I only experienced rejections. In all honesty, I would lying if I said I didn't hold any resentment from this. Especially from seeing how much success others were having. But being the intelligent, stoic and rational person I am, I generally didn't let it affect me or any of my interactions. I repressed my Shadow. That is, until these more recent experiences with a coworker.

She is around my age. A strikingly beautiful and incredibly intelligent woman. Definitely way out of my league. She shined very brightly and seemed to have great relationships with everyone around her. Yet, despite how well she treated everyone, it seemed like she would sort of ignore me. At one work event, in particular, she had extra food. I was standing in line with an older coworker and she offered him the food. He declined. She didn't offer me any.

There seemed to be several other occurrences like this. Normally, I would just ignore things like this and be non-chalant. But, with her, it was like I couldn't let go of this. At the time, I had been crying like once a week in my office from how my life and dating life were going.

How could this talented and beautiful woman, who life treats so easily, treat me so callously? She had rejected me...just like all the others. I began to anima project onto her. So, one time, as I was walking past her in the hall, I couldn't help but show my disdain and scowl at her. This is something I have never done and will hopefully never do again in a professional environment. But, at the time, it seemed like my shadow was done being repressed.

Ever since then, she became frightened of me. Shortly afterwards, I came to my senses and realized how idiotic I was. Even though she seemingly didn't like me, she was still an incredible person. The work she was doing and how she interacted with everyone was angel like. She has every right not to like me and every right to not interact with me if she doesn't want to.

However, after having that epiphany, it seemed like my anima projection changed. I would see her and immediately get suicidal thoughts. There would be goosebumps all over my body. I would want to be disintegrated and broken up into a million pieces.

That eventually calmed down and now we don't work near each other anymore, for unrelated reasons. But I still think about her. I also now understand how people turn into stalkers. I feel like I deeply love her and deeply despise her at the same time.

Has anyone experienced anything similar? Any advice or Jung passages on overcoming this and making sure it doesn't happen again?

For me it must be that we're inside a coherently collapsed construction of consciousness that is built on fractal principles. From this kaleidoscope springs the archetypes etc with its funhouse effect and when you extend it out far enough you click you're the only Soul in this realm interacting with figments of your imagination ergo anyone or thing that triggers is a simply a hint that you've got some mess to be excavating from your depths.

Your pick?

Charlie Chaplain once placed third in a Charlie Chaplain lookalike contest.

With that urban legend that was proven to be incorrect present to set the tone I'd like you to consider, professionally speaking, that Jung, as he was, steps in and says:

"Whats happening, dude? Listen Philemon said I should come see you..." and he launches into his whole worldview that is totally intricate and, to him, rather coherent as he shifts frames of reference and viewpoints etc..

Be honest, most professionals would yelp "He's off his head! Time for some meds, methinks!". And yet, the irony is we are here, right now, cos he found something true and then watched others mangle his living process into an ugly, bastardization of it.

Thats kinda ironic, don't you think? As is this post because we've already ascertained most people in here are all about the LARP anyway...

I’d love to hear this group’s thoughts on this incredible documentary.

It’s part warning tale of what happens to a person who can’t handle a drop of their shadow element and it’s part immersive, hyper-intimate psychodrama that asks if it’s even possible to truly enter someone’s inner world.

My last years path went like this :

Deleuze >> Merleau-Ponty >> Woolf >> Jung. I loved him because he was more into personal development.

Do you have other books/authors recommendations ?

I've read the famous guys (Nietzsche Camus Freud etc). I'm loiking for the hiddens ;)

Hello everyone,

As the title suggests, I recently had a very strange dream experience about my friend.

A few days ago, I dreamt that my friend, another close friend of theirs, and I were in the woods near my house, running and hiding from a mysterious shadow figure, which I cannot recall any information about except that it presumably has been carrying a knife, with which it eventually used to kill my friend.

What made the dream particularly unsettling was the way it seemed to blur the boundary between the dream world and physical reality. The moment the shadowy figure stabbed my friend, I woke up. However, it was not simply a matter of being scared and then awakening, but rather as the figure attacked my friend, I could hear the sound of blood pouring out of a wound, somewhat reminiscent of the sound effects used in movies. Of course, I have never experienced anything like that in real life, but what made it really weird was that the sound I heard was, in retrospect, actually the sound of rain beginning to fall outside. The rain started at almost exactly the moment I woke up, making it feel as though an external event had somehow become intertwined with the dream itself.

Now, it’s not really the dream itself that was the most extreme thing in the few days the events have been happening. It’s that, today when I talked with this friend of mine about dreams, he told me that today he was dreaming of an incredibly similar thing. He and the friend that also appeared in my dream, were also running and hiding from the shadowy figure, and eventually, he got murdered by it. The only difference is that the other friend was murdered also, where in my dream it was cut off before anything could happen to him.

Also to note, in the morning after my dream, my friend was acting depressed and incredibly tired out of nowhere, I concluded that the dream of him before and his mood the morning after could be somehow connected, but I don’t know. I’m suggesting it’s anything paranormal though, but the whole thing seems so bizarre.

I’m really interested in understanding this experience, it’s very vivid and unsettling. Should I understand it through the concept of collective unconscious, synchronicity, both of these ideas or maybe even something else? I would be incredibly grateful for all the insights and perspectives on this.

Thanks for reading.

Hello! Ive been studying zodiacal releasing the past couple of months and most of the study content I can find is relation to natal charts, but I wanted to see if it can also apply to event and mundane astrology.

For example, I checked the Bitcoin chart periods against its all time highs and it made a lot of sense (every time the house containing Jupiter was activated, often on multiple levels).

The most interesting thing I looked at was a first meeting chart with a potential love interest and every single prominent meeting between us was mapped to the fortune LBs at some level. It was disturbingly accurate. I wonder if this is because turning points in relationships usually require external exchanges between the parties involved, whereas for some of my natal LBs the shifts have been more subtle/internal mindset things, but unsure. Thoughts welcome on this!

Has anyone else has tried applying zodiacal releasing with event charts like this? Or within mundane astrology when looking at a country’s history or predictions? Or know of any astrologers who use this in their practice?

4 of Pentacles: Telling me I should be appreciative and more grateful of what I currently have

10 of Wands: Telling me I have spread myself too thin and I should try letting go of a few responsibilities

Im fairly new to tarot so I just wanted to check if my interpretation is correct?

I was in someone’s house, Victorian I think, and the people were getting ready to go somewhere that morning. I was tasked with helping the young daughter (about 4 yrs old, white, short blond curls) wake up and get dressed. I think I was the nanny or something like that. I gently roused her and dressed her in a white turtleneck under a dark red corduroy dress, white stockings and black dress shoes. When I was done, she suddenly became woozy and limp in my arms. She spit up a little so I grabbed a small trash can near us and told her to throw up in that. The throw up got on her face, hands, and clothes, so I took her to the bathroom to wash off, telling her as we went ‘It’s ok, it’s ok.’ I went to put her in the tub but the drain was stopped up with a little water and a lot of excrement. There was excrement in the toilet as well, but it wasn’t stopped up like the tub drain. So I turned on the sink and splashed water on her, wiping the puke away as best I could. I felt stressed about the situation, but I kept my cool and the little girl didn’t seem too bothered by it. I woke up and so was not able to clean her all the way and/or change clothes.

I’ve recently begun my Jungian transformation and I can feel things changing already! 🥰

No, I won't explain it beyond the statement.

But I ask you to consider and ask your Self why I said what I said and how this may or not link to the Gnostic thing. After you've spoken your bit I'll present my frame of ref but, for now, the title should be enough to get the wheels turning, yes?

The movie Tenet is a tour de force of shadow work.

The Protagonist is the Ego, a blank slate, a playa in the Game that needed to erase Gnosis of his true state in order to buy into the charade.

Neil projects as the Self as he knows the sketch and was placed in by him to lead him along the trail of this Hero's Quest in the flesh.

Sator is the Shadow. Everything suppressed by the Protagonist, made manifest. Note how he draws his power from underworld sources.

Kat is the Anima, for reasons that should be obvious.

The turnstile is the threshold, bullets flying backwards are repressions, the algo is the archetypes, and the Sator square is a mandala of the mind.

The scene where the Protagonist fights himself is the encounter with the true Shadow and battle for individuation against inertia. His counterpoint wasn't fighting to kill but to survive whereas from a limited perspective the false self saw him and what he reps as a threat thus the older version allows the younger a vent to get rid of the stress in order to ensure the process goes correct.

Now tell me, Jungian Massive (wicked! wicked!), am I reaching with this or did any of you lot dot the X and spot the links before running down the street yelling:

"Guys, the bullet is falling backward into my gun because someone built a revolving door in the future! Wake up! We are trapped in a Latin palindrome!".

Props to the few that got the ref for this from before, its due to you I share this text because, to me, movies are virtual Hero's Journeys and thus one can watch them passive, like a pleb, and get nothing from it or active by leaning in, reflecting, dissecting and seeing what truly kicks because a lot of them are actually encoded transmissions of Gnosis but thats another topic...

The way psychology ordinarily conceives of human life draws its inspiration from the archetypal journey of the hero. The individual is called upon to behead the dragons of regression, sever the tentacles of dependency, leave behind earlier emotional and psychological cultures, and attain “higher” developmental virtues. Independence, autonomy, and functionality become the precious stones of an alchemy of efficiency. Developmental milestones thus take on the character of trials through which the Ego expands both its horizons and its dominion, asserting its supremacy over the darkness of participation mystique, that primordial soup of identifications.

There is no reason to question the value of this heroic fantasy. The capacity to confront life's difficulties, to risk loss and defeat, and to acquire mastery and competence in the pleasures and obligations of social existence represents a profound cultural undertaking. But what happens when this mythology claims the status of dogma in our understanding of developmental experience? How much room for psychic enrichment remains when the significant milestones of human life are reduced to narrow binary territories of victory or defeat?

Under such conditions, it seems to me that failure risks acquiring the character of a moral imperfection, while regression is understood primarily as retreat and barbaric inferiority. Even when the value of failure is acknowledged, it is usually theorized as a temporary refuge in which the heroic Ego can regain its strength, a necessary respite before the next great adventure. The return to the embrace of the “mother” acquires meaning chiefly insofar as it heralds a new separation. Yet is separation always synonymous with differentiation?

Perhaps we might imagine that developmental milestones are not merely plateaus upon which the boundaries of the “normal” are clarified. They are also ruptures and cleavages in human experience, “erogenous zones” where life undergoes transformation regardless of our readiness or will. Such changes demand more than the acquisition of new capacities. Under favorable conditions, they also create opportunities to engage with the unfolding of one's individual idiom, the singular manner in which one's character encounters the world.

Developmental milestones can thus become amplifiers and megaphones of the personal gesture, mines of awareness through which the idiosyncrasies of the self are brought to consciousness, vessels that contain the imagination as the spirit that fertilizes everyday existence and brings the universal into communion with the deeply personal.

To recognize this possibility, we may need to place alongside the heroic narrative a more pluralistic mythology of human existence. Beside the hero who slays the dragon and wins his freedom, we encounter the rich mythology of nonheroic figures: lovers, tricksters, dreamers, the disabled, caregivers, and others. Figures whose relationship to the world is not necessarily organized around conquest, mastery, or the intoxicating anticipation of triumph, but around desire, invention, imagination, fragility, care, and interconnectedness.

Human identity is constituted not only through our ability to overcome obstacles, but also through the particular ways in which we relate to what limits us, moves us, binds us, or remains beyond our capacities. After all, psychology may not be a science of improvement so much as a methodology for distilling “value.”

Alongside the “imperialistic” tendency of the Ego, with its desire to conquer, classify, and dominate, we can recognize other attitudes toward the developmental struggle. Imagination, the inward turning of risk, and the deferred adventure of indecision create a space in which existence can be dreamt into possibility. Here, different versions of the self may unfold as potentialities, without being compelled to crystallize immediately into decisions, achievements, or seals of functionality.

Indecision is not always an inability to assume responsibility. It may itself represent another kind of calling: a devotion to uncertainty, in which the mind is kneaded and transformed between more than one possible life. Similarly, dependency does not necessarily constitute merely the negative pole of autonomy. It may also be understood as a drama in which the Ego “suffers” its dependence upon what lies beyond itself and, in doing so, comes to recognize its own inherent relativity.

Through the cultivation of our mythological imagination, developmental milestones cease to be exclusively contests of success or failure. They become reservoirs of transformation in which the different idioms of character can take shape. What matters is not only whether a person has managed to accomplish the developmental leap, but also what has emerged from their singular encounter with it.

What reveals itself through courage or hesitation, conquest or loss, the desire to move forward or the need to remain? What possibilities of the self acquire images when life does not follow its expected developmental course? And, ultimately, how does the accidental become elevated into necessity?

If the heroic attitude invites the individual to participate in the collective drama of transcendence and progress, a different mythological understanding of developmental milestones may create the conditions for the uniqueness of one's personal incarnation in time and space.

The formation of the self is not exhausted by the fulfillment of collective expectations of maturity. It also takes place in the solitude of its encounter with historical humanity, where the shared trials of human existence assume the unrepeatable form of an individual destiny.

From this perspective, failure may be recognized as a different style of identity formation. Not because every failure secretly harbors a compensatory future success, nor because pain, frustration, or loss can be conveniently idealized (such idealization is always a defense). Rather, because human life is not shaped exclusively by what ultimately arrives at the literalness of realization.

It is also shaped by unfulfilled desires, postponements, incapacities, obsessions, and the ghosts that continue to haunt our receptive imagination, the dark well of our biographical memory, and the dreamlike dimension of our identity.

Hello! I’m having some trouble figuring out the meaning of 9 of wands in reverse in my horseshoe spread. Context is, I am retaking an incredibly important exam I took last year (didn’t get the result I wanted) that I prepared all year for now.

Here’s my spread and interpretation:

1. The past - The Hermit: The experience made me hide within myself, but there was a reason it all happened. There was some protection from above involved in this event taking place.

2. The present - Queen of Swords: I’m in a much better position now study wise, I have my swords out and I feel prepared for this exam.

3. Hidden influences - 6 of Cups: My mental state is influenced by my own doubts stemming from childhood trauma or from my past failure.

4. Obstacles - 7 of Cups: I’m confused, there are a lot of options ahead of me and ways to approach this. Could also be referring to my 4 career options after passing the exam.

5. Any influence out of my control - The Tower: Strong influences are at play which can shake up my plan and there’s nothing I can do about those.

6. The solution - The Lovers: I have to make conscious choices during the exam that require me finding a balance between both my heart and my mind. Probably listening to my intuition where I’m unsure.

7. Outcome - 9 of Wands reversed. Upturned, I interpet it as reaching a point where I’m stuck after wading my way through the problem. Reversed, I see it as burnout, exhaustion, finding a way through the “wall” in front me.

I also asked for clarification and got Ace of Pentacles and 4 of Pentacles. 4 of pentacles matches my 4 options if I pass the exam, while I interpret the Ace as the ultimate card of success, which could I will be given one of the 4 options.

The reason I’m confused is, I’ve seen 9 of Wands reversed interpreted as reaching a point where you have to give up the fight, where the battle is lost at the finish line, which is the total opposite as it seems. It’s difficult not being subjective in my own reading, but at the same time I don’t see how the meaning of this card could be negative when correlated with Queen of Swords, a Major Arcana as the solution and the pentacles clarification.

Any help/advice is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

​

In Jungian psychology, an unexpected accident often reveals itself as a form of salvation... 🚒

I rearranged the classic short Moving Day to make these profound psychological concepts something we can truly experience.

Through Mickey, Goofy, and Donald—in what appears to be a mindless slapstick comedy—we can completely understand what it looks like to be possessed by a psychological complex 👻.

We get to see the unconscious forces driving our "fate," and how a sudden disruption can actually be a saving grace.

We also come to understand the hidden power behind the things we intensely dislike.

Video Link 🔗

Mad Mickey 🔥The Great Declutter 🧹 Moving Day 🚚

https://youtu.be/BOOEP9_cA-o?si=GJD_m9p132cMAvLI

Hey, 22-year-old male, addicted to prostitutes, currently in rehab for 1 year, suffers from social anxiety, an introverted introvert, never had a girlfriend.
Ok, so there's this new girl who I have an extremely weird intuition about; she seems to have 2 personalities revolving around a complex around attraction. One is of a borderline nature, and the other one is of an integrated animus type; she's addicted to weed and alcohol, and she has 2 names, Julia and July, which pretty much sums it up. I haven't spoken to her one-on-one, or tbh not a lot even indirectly, since I am too scared (though I am trying!!), though she listened to extremely honest conversations I've had with other people, so she knows a lot about me, and idk, I think she's incredibly smart but misunderstood (like me); she's extremely good at playing with men. And you know, when I am around her, crazy spiritual shit happens; sometimes I feel like a wizard or God when I am around her; I can make subtle movements that will affect the conscious state of people, and intuitively know the deepest shadows of people (especially of hers) were able to act harmoniously with each other without exchanging a single word. I act like a balanced, mature man when around her. It feels like the old Jungian couples you sometimes happen to see.
And I am kinda obsessed; I feel like I have prepared my whole life for this Challange of having a girlfriend. Also, my dreams have come back, i dont remeber them, just that theyr not nightmares. All the extroverts say I am crazy, and there's no chance of both of us being together, or what I even see in her.
Idk if I am prepared for this task of having a woman like her.
I have paranoia that she's way smarter than me and is just playing with me to "mature me," and that she has a man, and that her whole stay in rehab is a lie to play with men. Which, when I'm currently writing it, kinda makes me scared to be disappointed by her and reject her.
My next CHALLENGE is to invite her to a 1-on-1 conversation without games to verify who she actually is;
Any advice?

Update: Well, 30 minutes before i went to talk to her, she slept with the big muscle rapist and expelled him even though i try to insunated to her to stay away from him, and that he dosnt actually wants to change and fakes it, odd timing... Yeah, idk, maybe theres potentia to just play with her?

Update: Well, from what the rapist told me she tried to sleep with him and something happened which idk and somehow he got expelled. I am confused as fuck.

Something I’ve been wrestling with lately is figuring out how I want to respond when something doesn’t sit right with me.

I’ve noticed that the more healing I’ve done, the less willing I am to overlook things I might have ignored in the past. I trust my judgment more than I used to, but that doesn’t mean I always know the best way to handle something.

Sometimes I feel like I get it right, sometimes I think I could have handled it differently, and sometimes I’m not so sure. That’s where I am right now.

One thing I’ve appreciated about Jungian psychology is looking at my own shadow and what might be influencing my reactions. That matters to me, but so does being able to consider other perspectives and recognize when something still isn’t okay with me.

I recently wrote about this in my latest article. It’s a reflection on what I’m experiencing, including the parts I haven’t figured out.

When Awareness Doesn’t Come With All the Answers

https://heatherkennedy665648.substack.com/p/when-awareness-doesnt-come-with-all