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Core Jungian Concepts
VISIONARY IMAGINATION: Jung’s private journals

VISIONARY IMAGINATION: Jung’s private journals

We welcome Sonu Shamdasani, PhD, scholar and historian of depth psychology and Jung’s opus. His research and expertise were instrumental in bringing Jung’s Red Book to the public in 2009. Jung’s Black Books, the journals in which he recorded “my most difficult experiments,” have just been published. We discuss Jung’s encounters with figures and images from his psychic depths–experiences foundational to Jung’s subsequent work and which opened a portal to humankind’s imaginal mind and mythic substrata.

ADAPTATION: meeting life’s demands creatively

ADAPTATION: meeting life’s demands creatively

The world is the canvas on which we paint our lives. Through this lifelong work, we express personal vision, develop skills, and come to terms with the realities of our outer and inner worlds.

NEUROSIS: befriending our broken places

NEUROSIS: befriending our broken places

Jung says neurosis “must be understood, ultimately, as the suffering of a soul which has not discovered its meaning.” The purpose of neurosis is to help us discover our purpose.

SACRED SYMPTOMS: how does the numinous heal?

SACRED SYMPTOMS: how does the numinous heal?

Life crisis and trauma can also open us to the numinous: fairy tales, myths, and religious texts relate happenings of help when all seemed lost. Whether sought or suffered, something greater appears when ego yields. We can act on the guidance that is given, and may attain the healing gifted by experience of the numinous.

Intuition: Non-Rational Knowing

Intuition: Non-Rational Knowing

We all have intuitive experiences, from an occasional hunch to powerful gut feelings. Unconscious intelligence is a storehouse of instincts and wisdoms humankind has accumulated over millennia.

The Provisional Life: Redeeming the Real

The Provisional Life: Redeeming the Real

The provisional life might be defined as a vague malaise: current relationships, work, and lifestyle feel like placeholders until the ‘real thing’ arrives—someday.

Episode 123 — Every Hero’s Journey

Episode 123 — Every Hero’s Journey

The would-be hero first declines, then answers the call; he suffers tests and trials, succeeds with help from unexpected sources, and returns with the gifts of all he has learned.

Creativity: Drawing from the Inner Well

Creativity: Drawing from the Inner Well

The root of create, “to bring something into being out of nothing,” echoes divine creation. Ideas arise from mysterious sources, yet creativity is such an intrinsically human function that Jung considered it one of five human instincts, together with hunger, sexuality, activity, and reflection (a function of consciousness).

Dissociation: Encountering Our Inner Exile

Dissociation: Encountering Our Inner Exile

Jung discovered the psyche’s dissociative nature through his Word Association Test. Subjects would delay or make nonsensical responses to ordinary words associated with troublesome personal memories or traumas.