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DEATH: A Jungian Perspective

Jun 10, 2022

Photo Credit: Mathias Reding via Unsplash

Awareness of death can help us create an intentional life—one that serves the movement of soul toward wholeness. Jung realized that although we experience death as “a fearful piece of brutality,” the unconscious images death as celebration. On a night train, after his mother died, Jung reported that “during the entire journey I continually heard dance music, laughter, and jollity, as though a wedding were being celebrated.” Our limited capacities and the conditions of earthly life preclude certainty about life after death, but Jung’s recognition of universal mythic patterns led to his theory of archetypes and a psychic reality beyond our grasp. We glimpse it in dreams, visions, precognitions, and synchronicities, and it can inspire connection with the infinite, which Jung considered life’s decisive question. For Jung, death was “an archetype rich in secret life, which seeks to add itself to our own individual life in order to make it whole.”

REFERENCES:

C.G. Jung. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004X19L3E/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_BZYJF184D3ZSXT9WR3ZF

C.G. Jung. Collected Works, Vol. 8: The Soul & Death. 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691097747/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_38HYESF2JQ13FB49H0E9

Von Franz, Marie Louise. On Dreams and Death

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812693671/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_ND8DQF0VKRXW8GQ9P9R7

Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers. The Power of Myth. 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0385418868/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_SB4EJWY02WJ8XGWCRF42

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1 Comment

  1. Elizabeth Modena

    I have been listening to this podcast for 2 years now, and I believe I have listened to all of them. I am also a patron of yours, but have not availed myself yet of those benefits.
    I am 7 years in, of personal study of Jung. I finally started Jungian analysis earlier this year.
    I find this particular podcast to be the most profound, of all of your podcasts. I was astounded at first listening to it, now I just finished listening a second time.
    Lisa’s retelling of JB Priestly’s The Tower and the Birds, struck me on such a deep felt level, that I simply cried at its truth.
    Thank you to all three of you, for providing such a profound service to the general public.
    With gratitude, Elizabeth Modena

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