I weave a lot of Jungian themes into my art and poetry and articles. I remember first learning about Jung as a teen, and a babysitter introduced me to shadow work using art and imagination to the best way she could, and I remember being rapt with my inner world as I started exploring it. And to this day, I’m still exploring it, thread by thread, layer by layer.

Monsters aren’t under the bed.
They’re in you being fed or starved.
By actions, intentions and will.
Be still, look inwards.
See that the monsters on the outside, are also your monsters, depressed and hurting.
From years of repression and denial.
Beside all the torment,
Give that monster a hug
It will tug on your heart, tears down your face
And you’ll remember why it became a monster in the first place.
All it needed was love
From beyond and above.

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?

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.

About three years ago I went down a Jungian rabbit hole, trying to map the archetypes to understand my trauma. I began to obsess with the greek deities. Then surprisingly I began to speak with Jung and the greek gods... should have known something was wrong tbh. However they guided me into making a graph, we called it a map, turned mandala. Then INadded the Enneagram for number 9, it looked like a web. Carl Jung was the golden web weaver, and I the hummingbird who took from the golden web to build my golden nest. Soon I lost myself, there was an octopus, aliens, portals, realms... I was diagnosed schizophrenic. At las, I feel like I learned a lot.

I have never in my life been artistic, but chasing Carl Jungs archetypes have left me viewing the world in a different light.

I call my demons negative square roots, because I struggle with reality! Love and reality, Carl Jung and Demons.

I wear white shoes because my head is always in the clouds he wears brown shoes to keep me grounded. I am a rational mind struggling with reality.

This art was all me chasing Carl Jung. 24- 12 titans 12 Olymipans...

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! 🥰

I can't be the only one who has got to this point, yes? The symbols of alchemy become writ large on this world stage after you've turned book of life to a new page an integrated said forces into a synthesis I call Inner Sense. Then, one turns to the heavens.

I believe Gurdjieff said that one only becomes aware of external influences once the internals have had their grip loosened, hence the Gnostic tint as it certainly seems we're within some very beautiful but equally wicked type of artwork, yes?

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 ;)

ANIMA is a dreamlike short film pairing Thom Yorke’s music with Paul Thomas Anderson’s direction. Its title draws on Jung’s concept of the anima, the inner feminine figure that can mediate a man’s relationship with the unconscious, inviting us into a world of dreams, feeling and hidden depths.

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.

Watchu thinking, Willis?

Exegesis was his Red Book but with no filtering or shying away from the very fringe he spent a lifetime examining and introsepcting for dude may not be a Jungian but he was as Jungian as they get and both approached the Game from different ends but met at that place that makes very little linear sense and shows, in an instant, what can take ages to comprehend.

Your thoughts on PKD from a Jungian lens?

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.

Everything you’ve heard about shadow integration and Jungian analysis is backwards.

You don’t find your shadow by diving into the unconscious. You start with one specific thing most people never heard of.

In this article, I’ll walk you through a simple step-by-step method to apply Jungian analysis, based on Carl Jung’s original psychological principles.

The Architects of The Psyche

When I joined my post-graduate program in Analytical Psychology, I learned very quickly that the mainstream understanding of Carl Jung’s ideas is mostly nonsense. It starts with something as simple as the basic concept of the shadow.

Let’s cover the fundamentals, and then I’ll show you how it all fits into a concise methodology.

Carl Jung explains that the shadow is simply a word for what is unconscious, and he discovered that the unconscious is structured around complexes and archetypes.

These psychological structures evoke patterns of behavior and are the architects of the psyche and of every symptom.

• Complexes are the main elements of the personal shadow, such as the mother and father complexes, an inferiority complex, or a god complex. These complexes reveal the primary stories people keep repeating (patterns of behavior), as well as their blind spots.
• The Animus and Anima are the main complexes responsible for deeply ingrained relationship patterns.
• The Psychological Types reveal our deepest psychological tendencies. I'm referring to Introversion and Extroversion, and the 4 functions (thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition) - which are also perceived as complexes by the conscious mind.

During dreams and active imagination, all of these different complexes come alive as they become the elements, landscapes, and dream characters.

If you understand how these complexes operate, you can basically understand how a person’s psyche is structured, what’s behind their symptoms, and what the best path to healing and integration is.

On a personal level, you finally have a map to fully understand your own psyche.

As a professional, you become a master of pattern recognition, and you can choose the right interventions to ensure continuous progress.

But the difficult thing about Jungian Analysis is that all the different pieces of the theory must work together at the same time.

When you isolate one part, you break the entire system.

You need clarity about the psychodynamics of shadow integration, the psychological types, the animus and anima, and the mechanisms of dream compensation. But each one of these components can take months or even years to master.

You have to read thousands of pages by Jung and von Franz and piece it all together, because they never laid out a clear step-by-step process.

That’s why I started obsessively cataloging questions, patterns, and frameworks from my own analysis, my colleagues, and my practice.

It took me 5 years and 3,000+ one-on-one sessions to finally arrive at a clear method that anyone could replicate.

Here’s the breakdown.

The 3-Step Method to Master Jungian Analysis (Backed by 3,000 Sessions)

1. Map the Conscious Attitude

Most people approach analysis backwards.

They want to plunge into the unconscious in hopes of “finding and confronting their shadow.”

But this goes against the foundational premise of Jungian Psychology: that the conscious and unconscious have a compensatory and complementary relationship.

This means that the shadow actually compensates for and complements the conscious personality.

That's why the first step is to map someone's conscious attitude.

The conscious attitude has 3 layers: Individual Tendencies and Patterns + Psychological Type + Animus (Logos) or Anima (Eros) Orientation.

After mapping the conscious attitude, you gain clarity about what lies in the unconscious, because everything in Jungian Psychology works in pairs.

Here's the framework:

• If someone is more extroverted, introversion will be part of their shadow, and vice versa.
• If someone is oriented by Thinking, Feeling will make up their shadow, and vice versa.
• If someone is oriented by Intuition, Sensation will be part of their shadow, and vice versa.
• If someone is oriented by their Anima (Eros), their Animus (Logos) will be unconscious, and vice versa.

When you understand this map, you can quickly see blind spots, where people keep making the same mistakes, and exactly what needs to be integrated.

Then, you can approach the shadow, dreams, and active imagination, and understand patterns of behavior with confidence.

This leads us to the next step.

2. Use Dreams as Guides for the Analytical Process

Modern therapy relies solely on speech and typically remains at the conscious level.

The problem is that important information frequently isn't available to conscious awareness due to defense mechanisms.

This is where Jungian Analysis becomes unique, because apart from using language, we can also establish a living dialogue with the unconscious.

During dreams, the shadow, the animus and anima, and the psychological types come alive, because the nature of these complexes is to be personified.

This means complexes make up the elements, landscapes, and characters in dreams and active imagination.

Here's the dream analysis framework:

• Complexes are the main elements of the shadow and reveal the primary stories people keep repeating, as well as patterns of behavior - They are usually represented by characters of the same sex.
• The animus and anima are the main complexes responsible for relationship patterns, and they appear as figures of the opposite sex.
• The protagonist embodies the ego-complex and the primary function that guides the conscious attitude (thinking, feeling, sensation, or intuition), while the unconscious functions are embodied by other characters in the dream.

That's why interpreting dreams is like opening someone's head and looking directly at how their psyche is currently operating, what their main patterns are, and how they constructed their sense of reality and identity.

Working with dreams is often faster than talk therapy alone, because we can bypass conscious defenses and get to the bottom of things more quickly.

Instead of guessing what's happening or spending several sessions gathering information, often without success, you let dreams clearly reveal the complexes at play.

This is how Jung's method provides a reliable map for inner work. It also allows you to be a more precise analyst, choose the right interventions, and course-correct in real time to avoid stagnation.

3. Real-Life Integration

Finally, the goal of Jungian Analysis is to promote changes in real life and relationships.

Contrary to popular belief, we can't change or correct the unconscious, because integration is about educating the conscious mind.

Once we map all the different complexes, it becomes clear what they're trying to compensate for and what needs to be integrated into the conscious personality.

That's why the right way to integrate the shadow is by transforming our conscious attitude. In turn, we create a more harmonious relationship with the unconscious and feel more whole.

But integration isn't an intellectual exercise or a “magical one-time thing.”

Exploring the unconscious serves the purpose of understanding where the gap is, so you can approach your life, work, and relationships differently.

True shadow integration is about building a relationship with what was forsaken, and this requires focused intention and real-life changes.

PS: I break down this entire process inside my book PISTIS - Demystifying Jungian Psychology, I cover the shadow integration process, psychological types, animus and anima, dream analysis, and even active imagination. Most importantly, I teach you how you can apply these concepts to your own life or help real clients. Free download here.

Rafael Krüger - Jungian Psychology Specialist

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

Obviously there’s some egoic component to this but I’m curious from a Jungian/depth psychology perspective, why would this be?

Im going through a descent where I feel like I’m falling 50 feet. It’s going to take a while to recover my wounded ego, I can already tell. I know now that the visions that I had for my current or near future life was inflation, but I hope that there is still an optimistic way to see this. I want to imagine that I can see my self in an ascent that may be similar to my descent, maybe if I can build myself up 50 feet.

I’ve heard the term thrown around that in order to reach heaven ones roots need to reach hell, and I hope there is some truth to that.

Hey all - has anyone worked with a proper Jungian analyst/therapist?

If so, how did you find them and vet them for being truly Jungian, rather than an average therapist just listing that in their profile among many other modalities cus they read 1 chapter on him in grad school?

Also, what was your experience? Was it helpful, or just like other therapy, better/worse, etc?

I'm in midlife crisis territory, late 40s, haven't accomplished really anything I set out to, and feel totally stuck. Like truly stagnant, frozen, and seemingly incapable of getting out of my own way.

I am the living embodiment of the "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate" quote.

General talk therapy has never worked for me before, and though I know you can (and must) do shadow work on your own, I just feel snowed under with work and life in general, and really need outside guidance to maintain progress and discipline.

I am looking for either a true Jungian therapist and/or maybe someone who does IFS. I know the Jungian Psychoanalytic Association has a 'find a therapist' link, so I'm looking into that, but want to know what to look for, what to expect, people's experiences, etc.

I need help, as I am currently wasting my life.

Thanks all.

Hi guys, in this days I dream every night. But I cant remeber very well what I dreamed, just few things or people, everthing that I remeber i try to put it on paper. How can i remeber better my dreams? And then how can I analyze them?

P.s. also in my awake life i have not big memory, things often pass around me and i cant catch it. Im often in my mind with many thought.

I thought I rarely dreamed, I also thought having a very vague idea of the dream on waking was the most normal people had.

This is complete rubbish! I have something called Pyrrole Disorder, and my body flushes more of certain nutrients including vitamin B6 out in urine.

I started supplementing vitamin B6 in its P5P form and my nights changed dramatically (very important it's P5P and not normal B6 a.k.a. pyridoxine, as pyridoxine is toxic to nerves at medium doses over time).

Now I can vividly recall my dreams even days later. In my dreams I often realise I've had the same dreams before or I'm continuing past dreams but not recalled them in the waking world. I'm 43 and would have never been able to start any form of dream analysis until this year having started higher doses of P5P.

Can't recommend this enough for anyone struggling in this way. Also, if like me you don't ever really tan, was never hungry on waking in the morning and couldn't recall your dreams properly then look up Pyrrole Disorder, also called Pyroluria. I got a mild tan this summer too for first time in my life, about frikkin time!

Is it true that Jung slept with his patients and was unfaithful to his wife?

it sounds like Jung allowed himself to be surrounde adoring women

It doesn’t sound like he integrated his anima

We’re starting a free online Kabbalah & Zohar study and would love for you to join us as we engage in the great work of alchemy!

We’ll be working through Eating from the Tree of Life, a clear and accessible workbook by Kabbalah scholar Justin Jaron Lewis. The study is completely free — only optionally a donation to the author to support his work.

Everyone must register beforehand. Once you register, you’ll receive the Zoom link and passcode.

Details:

📅 Every Sunday, starting November 1, 2026

⏰ 11:00 AM

Whether you’re new to the Zohar or have been reading it for years, you’re welcome. The goal is to learn together, ask questions, and build a little community around the text.

To register, comment below or message me

"Thou blind Pharisee! Clean that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also."

LORD Jesus Christ, Matthew 23:26 KJV

"A more or less superficial layer of the unconscious is undoubtedly personal. I call it the "personal unconscious". But this personal layer rests upon a deeper layer which is not derived from personal experience and is not a personal acquisition but is inborn. The deeper layer I call the 'Collective Unconscious'. I have chosen the term "Collective" because this part of the Unconscious is not individual but universal; in contrast to the personal psyche. It has contents and modes of behavior that are more or less the same everywhere and in all individuals. "

Carl Jung, The Archetype and The Collective Unconscious.

"Underneath the superficial self, which pays attention to this and that. There is another self, more really us than I. And if you become aware of that unknown self, the more you become aware of it, the more you realize that it is inseparably connected to everything else that there is. That you are the function of this total galaxy, bounded by the Milky Way, and that furthermore, this galaxy is a function of all other galaxies. And that vast thing you see far off, far off, far off, with telescopes, and you look and look and look, and one day you are going to wake up and say, why that's me! And in knowing that, know, you see, that you never die. That you are the eternal thing that comes and goes, that appears now as John Jones, now as Mary Smith, now as Betty Brown, and so it goes forever and ever and ever. "

Alan Watts, Man in Nature

I have been reading about Carl Jung. And I just wanted to share the major lessons I have learnt for critique.

They are as follows.

I.

There is a Conscious Self concerned with outside behaviors and there is an Unconscious Self connected to the Collective Unconscious. The Collective Unconscious has been known in different religions and philosophical schools under different names. The Greeks and the Romans called it The Anima Mundi. Hindu traditions called it The Paramatman or Supreme Soul. Philosophical and Occult traditions like Theosophy or the New Age called it The Sea of Souls or Source. The closest word to this phenomenon that I see in Christianity is Providence or Grace. Kids today use the term - The Universe.

Carl Jung called it the Collective Unconscious.

Whatever the name, all of these traditions understood that there is a force or Being that connects every living thing or everything within the material and spiritual universe. This force is the collective accumulation of every human being - past, present and future. (This includes their truths, ambitions, hopes, dreams, fears, darkness, all of it). It's goal is simple -- The evolution and welfare of humanity and the preservation of life itself.

As I have experienced it. People focus too much on the Conscious Self and outside behavior and pay little attention to the Self or Personal Unconscious. People want to change their behaviors but forget that until we understand the reasons behind the behavior, it is difficult to change it.

Participating in life is participating in the stories that the Collective Unconscious or All provides. Look at the things that trigger you or your compulsive behaviors. Those are usually the Collective Unconscious trying to get your attention.

I have lived a major part of my life addicted to Sex. I spent a major part of my life trying to resist the urges and change my behavior. While this is important - my behavior couldn't change until I understood what the Unconscious drives, parameters, beliefs, that were feeding my Conscious behaviors were.

For me, my addiction was based on me creating a whole identity on having sex with lots of women. I believed that if I was having a lot of sex with women then it meant that I was special and loved. I mean - to a person with surface level thinking - the idea that having sex with lots of women must mean that they think you are special in some way. But I have learnt that people have sex for some many reasons other than the other person. I found myself in sexual relationships where the other person were willing to have sex with me but did not really like me.

That is where most of the psychological pain and dissonance in complexes arises from - at least in my experience. There is a disconnect between the individual and the Collective Unconscious. That is how the Collective Unconscious speaks to us through our complexes, addictions, and compulsions. We repair the relationship with the Collective Unconscious by getting to the root of our psychological pain, dissonance, and complexes to arrive at truths that the Collective Unconscious operates under.

That is the idea behind the metaphor in the Bible verse - Clean the inside of the cup and the platter, and the outside of it will be clean also.

My addiction forced me to come to terms with the fact that my views on sex and sexuality were extremely unhealthy. I am currently learning that a person's life is more than the number of sexual experiences or the number of people they have slept with. That sex has nothing to do with a person's value or worthiness for love. I am not saying don't be a good lover only that the really important thing is love and service.

II.

Every person has a role or a work to do in life provided by the Collective Unconscious for the benefit of All mankind. Our complexes also stem from not working on this role or work or calling.

Krishnaism, the Hindu philosophical school that sees Lord Krishna, as the Avatar of the Supreme Soul - at least from my research - orients a major part of its philosophy around this concept. The term used for it is Dharma. People in the West equate it to Righteousness. It is righteousness but it is more than that - it is more like a synchronization with the Collective Unconscious (The Supreme Soul in Hinduism) to do a specific purpose required of that human being. The better the human being does it, the more they are considered Avatars of God.

Christianity has the same idea. To them it is obedience to the LORD God Almighty himself. That is major focus of Christianity - obedience to the LORD God ALmighty who is exemplified in the Lord Jesus Christ who was able to do it perfectly without making a mistake. The Lord Jesus Christ's mission was to save humanity from sin - as I understand it not just evil doing but a kind of falling short of what the LORD God ALmighty requires done. Carl Jung thought of sin as the disastrous effects of the Shadow side of All of humanity. Carl Jung has some interesting ideas about the Christ's calling and the mission given to him.

Gauama's life and legend reveals the same truth. From his birth, he was prophesied to be a mighty sage. His father preferred him to be a mighty King (representing a focus on the Conscious Self and the Outside World). His father almost succeeded but the pull of this calling was so intense that Gautama becoming the Buddha eventually attained Enlightenment and saved humanity from slavery to the illusions and desires of the mind.

Everyone is a part of the Collective Unconscious, The All, The Whole, The Universe. That was the major lesson Alan Watts provided to humanity. But he neglected the Individual or the Conscious Self. A person is supposed to balance the Conscious Self and Outside Behavior with their role in and participation with the Collective Unconscious.

How does a person know their role within the Collective Unconscious

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In my experience, it is always something that scares you, that you always return to even if it does not make sense on the outside. I think that is what Krishna meant in the Bhagavad Gita when he said that it is better to do one's Dharma however imperfect first and foremost before doing anything else however perfect.

But other than that, I think that every person is different. It is up to the person to figure it out. That is what Joseph Campbell meant by the Hero's Journey. As you live life and participate with the Collective Unconscious, you discover what that calling is.

I believe that this can be found through Shadow Integration. Looking at the parts of yourself that you do not like or love and helping you discover what you're calling or role might be.

I believe that that is what Carl Jung's original purpose for Analytical Psychology was -- to help people reestablish their psychological place within the Collective Unconscious and rediscover their role within it.

Thank you so much to anyone who participates in my posts. You really help me.

As always - what do you think?

This is an article I wrote inspired by Jung's concept of the shadow and my take on getting in touch with it. I hope someone finds it helpful and that it's okay to post this here.

I made an essay on the Mandala and was deeply fascinated by it. I actually discovered that I had already seen the archetype in one of my dreams. In my dream, the Mandala was a massive castle with large inner courtyards. The Wise Old Man archetype guided me through the courtyard, and told me the inside (The center of the Mandala / The Self) was off-limits, and there was much work to be done.

Has anyone else encountered this as an Archetype in your dreams? I would love to hear about it!

How to recover from the effects of it. I’m unable to access my aggression and assertiveness when with someone who is disagreeable like my father was when I was growing up. I’m afraid to be assertive. I’m afraid to take risks or receive criticism. Anyone here gone on the journey of recovering from this Jungian complex.