Symbolism: Wise Old Woman/Man

One of the primary Jungian archetypes; after dealing with the Shadow and the Animus/Anima, the Wise Old Woman (or for men, the Wise Old Man) makes her appearance. They are the archetype of wisdom, of the collective unconscious itself, of the Self. The Wise Old Woman is the great Earth Mother or the Wise Crone, the Wise Old Man is the Sage.

Wise Old Man: in men, the archetype of "meaning" or "spirit." Magician, master, teacher, moralist. The Self made flesh. First projected onto the father, it usually appears after a man integrates the personal part of the anima, but anima and Wise Old Man (or "soul" and "meaning") often appear together afterwards. He is her father but also her son. Identifying with this archetype produces the mana personality and a dangerous ego inflation. In Jung's fantasies, the prophet compensates the blind anima: "When you assume the anima is due to the preponderance of the differentiated function in the conscious, the unconscious is balanced by a figure within itself that compensates the anima figure. This is the old man Elijah."

- A Glossary of Jungian Terms

The figure of the wise old man can appear so plastically, not only in dreams but also in visionary meditation (or what we call "active imagination"), that . . . it takes over the role of a guru. The wise old man appears in dreams in the guise of a magician, doctor, priest, teacher, professor, grandfather, or any person possessing authority."

- The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales," CW 9i, par. 398

The wise old woman may appear as a grandmother; ones mother in old age; a goddess; a female figure depicting fertility; naked female with large breasts, vagina or buttocks; queen or princess; old woman who radiates wisdom, authority and unconditional love.

In general these archetypal figures offer guidance and feeling wisdom gleaned from personal and cultural experience. One may even note from the wise old woman, the signs of deep wisdom that is a synthesis of what has arisen out of the pain and strength of the women in your family, stretching back through time, but sometimes they push you beyond your fears to a new level of experience.

- Tony Crisp, Archetype of wise old woman – wise old man

What qualities then define the "Wise Old Woman"?  She embodies both qualities of light and darkness within one character.  The "Wise Old Woman" is kind, compassionate and wise, and also mysterious, magical and prophetic.  We see her in folktales as the protective old woman who comes to the aid of the hero and as the one who test the worthiness of that same hero.  We also occasionally see her as the unlikely hero in her own right.  She is the keeper of traditions and knowledge, the voice of nature, independent, and respected, eccentric, intuitive and instinctive.  She is the one to be listened to, for she knows the truth and can see through any illusion.  At times she is benevolent while at other times she appears detached, cryptic and even cruel.  She is both judge and jury and dispenses justice to those who are found by her to be unworthy.

Kathy Shimpock, Who is the "Wise Old Woman"? Exploring the Archetypes...

Crone is "a phase in which you can be more authentic, more capable of making a difference in your family and in the greater world. Life gives you experience, and when you draw from it, that's true wisdom. By the time a woman is in her crone years, she is in an amazing position to be an influence. To change things for the better, to bring what she knows into a situation, to be able to say, 'Enough is enough.' You don't have to just go along with things, which is often a part of the middle years. You're often something of a loose cannon."

- Jean Shinoda Bolen



See also:
Crone
Senex

Image by Robert Henri

Glossary: The Shadow

“Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions.”

- Jung


All the traits and personal qualities that are split off from the ego and left in the personal unconscious because they are incompatible with the way the ego sees itself, or wishes to see itself. Corresponds with Freud's unconscious. This can be the result of actively repressing qualities that one sees as undesirable in some way (weak, repellent, or reprehensible), or it can simply be the natural result of compensatory qualities being pushed down into the unconscious by the development of their opposites, as with one's dominant and inferior functions.

The shadow, along with the animus/anima, are common sources of projection; the more one denies a particular quality, the more one will hate it in others... and, at the same time, the more one will unconsciously act out those very qualities one despises (unconsciously to you, but others around you will be very aware of your acting out.)

One of the first tasks of individuation is to gather back to ourselves all the dismembered parts that we projected out into the world, onto others. Only when this task is complete can we progress to the more difficult ask of integrating the animus/anima.

But he who goes into the one and not also at the same time into the other by accepting what comes toward him, will simply teach and live the one and turn it into a reality. For he will be its victim. When you go into the one and hence consider the other approaching you as your enemy, you will fight against the other. You will do so because you fail to recognize that the other is also in you. On the contrary, you think that the other comes somehow from without and you think that you also catch sight of it in the views and actions of your fellow men which clash with yours. You thus fight the other and are completely blinded. But he who accepts what approaches him because it is also in him, quarrels and wrangles no more, but looks into himself and keeps silent.

- Carl Jung, Red Book

All we deny, fear, or hate in ourselves collects in the shadow, which appears in dreams as a frightening figure of the dreamer's gender (because it's part of his or her ego). "Realization of the shadow" means growing fully, emotionally conscious of the shadow's contents, a moral problem evaded by people whose respectable conscious selves deny the shadow and project it into personal, family, or cultural scapegoats. The shadow is often contaminated by inferior function/attitude, anima, etc., identification with the shadow produces a kind of amoral, inflated craziness.

- Craig Chalquist, PhD, "A Glossary of Jungian Terms"

The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real.

- Jung, "The Shadow," CW 9ii, par. 14

There is no generally effective technique for assimilating the shadow. It is more like diplomacy or statesmanship and it is always an individual matter. First one has to accept and take seriously the existence of the shadow. Second, one has to become aware of its qualities and intentions. This happens through conscientious attention to moods, fantasies and impulses. Third, a long process of negotiation is unavoidable...

Responsibility for the shadow rests with the ego. That is why the shadow is a moral problem. It is one thing to realize what it looks like - what we are capable of. It is quite something else to determine what we can live out, or with.

- Daryl Sharp, M.A., "Jung Lexicon"

If you imagine someone who is brave enough to withdraw all his projections, then you get an individual who is conscious of a pretty thick shadow. Such a man has saddled himself with new problems and conflicts. He has become a serious problem to himself, as he is now unable to say that they do this or that, they are wrong, and they must be fought against… Such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in himself, and if he only learns to deal with his own shadow he has done something real for the world. He has succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic, unsolved social problems of our day.

- “Psychology and Religion” (1938). In CW 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East. P.140

When people learn to know their shadow and to live their shadow a bit more, they become more accessible, more natural, more roundly human. People without shadows, who are perfect, inflict an inferiority on their surroundings, which irritates others. They act in a manner superior to the "all-too-human". That's why one is relieved when something nasty happens to them. "Aha!" we say, "Thank God, he's only human."

- Marie Louise von Franz

Taking it in its deepest sense, the shadow is the invisible saurian tail that man still drags behind him. Carefully amputated, it becomes the healing serpent of the mysteries. Only monkeys parade with it.

- The Integration of the Personality (1939)

Holidays and the new year

I hope everyone's holidays have been pleasant and full of joy! I've been having some difficulties keeping up with my daily postings during the holidays, and the new year is going to bring more responsibilities, so I will be reducing the number of posts I write for this blog. I plan on doing 2 or 3 a week from here on out, maybe more, maybe less depending on my schedule and if something strikes me.

Best wishes for the new year!

Glossary: Persona

A person’s mask. A socially acceptable façade one uses when dealing with the world, primarily based on one's dominant function. It’s “both a protective covering and an asset in mixing with other people. Civilized society depends on interactions between people through the persona…” “It is, as its name implies, only a mask of the collective psyche, a mask that feigns individuality, making others and oneself believe that one is individual, whereas one is simply acting a role through which the collective psyche speaks…” “To the extent that ego-consciousness is identified with the persona, the neglected inner life (personified in the shadow and anima or animus) is activated in compensation. The consequences, experienced in symptoms characteristic of neurosis, can stimulate the process of individuation.” (1)

There's a danger of confusing one’s persona with one’s self, especially if the persona has been well rewarded (or if one is an extrovert, as a result of the extrovert’s tendency to focus on the external world). A persona is valuable when dealing with the outside world but interferes with individuation if one identifies with it; in the same way that one’s animus or anima is one’s link with the unconscious, one’s persona is one’s connection with the outer world, and is positive only when it fulfills this task.

The persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is.

- “Concerning Rebirth,” CW 9i, par. 221

There are indeed people who lack a developed persona… blundering from one social solecism to the next, perfectly harmless and innocent, soulful bores or appealing children, or, if they are women, spectral Cassandras dreaded for their tactlessness, eternally misunderstood, never knowing what they are about, always taking forgiveness for granted, blind to the world, hopeless dreamers. From them we can see how a neglected persona works.

- “Anima and Animus,” CW 7, par. 318

When we analyse the persona we strip off the mask, and discover that what seemed to be individual is at bottom collective; in other words, that the persona was only a mask of the collective psyche. Fundamentally the persona is nothing real: it is a compromise between individual and society as to what a man should appear to be. He takes a name, earns a title, exercises a function, he is this or that. In a certain sense all this is real, yet in relation to the essential individuality of the person concerned it is only a secondary reality, a compromise formation, in making which others often have a greater share than he.

- “The Persona as a Segment of the Collective Psyche,” pars. 245f

A man cannot get rid of himself in favour of an artificial personality without punishment. Even the attempt to do so brings on, in all ordinary cases, unconscious reactions in the form of bad moods, affects, phobias, obsessive ideas, backsliding vices, etc. The social "strong man" is in his private life often a mere child where his own states of feeling are concerned.

- “Anima and Animus,” par. 307

There is, after all, something individual in the peculiar choice and delineation of the persona, and… despite the exclusive identity of the ego-consciousness with the persona the unconscious self, one's real individuality, is always present and makes itself felt indirectly if not directly. Although the ego-consciousness is at first identical with the persona - that compromise role in which we parade before the community - yet the unconscious self can never be repressed to the point of extinction. Its influence is chiefly manifest in the special nature of the contrasting and compensating contents of the unconscious. The purely personal attitude of the conscious mind evokes reactions on the part of the unconscious, and these, together with personal repressions, contain the seeds of individual development.

- “The Persona as a Segment of the Collective Psyche,” par. 247

(1) Jung Lexicon

Season of wonder

Happy Holidays...    :)

Expressing one's truth

It is true, of course, that inability to express oneself is a defect and in a deeper sense a fault in so far as it is incumbent upon people to realize their psychic contents whether in words, images, or deeds.

But since different types do in fact exist, and men and women besides, one simply cannot imagine any form of words or any image that could express a content with absolute validity and absolute conviction.

What is the most perfect and clearest expression for one person can be a dead formula or a bewildering complication for another.

This is due partly to the fact that human beings are defective in some way, but also to the fact that every conceivable expression is necessarily one-sided, for what is idea is not word and what is word is not deed, though all three should be one.

Such completeness and perfection is only a religious legend but unfortunately never a reality in the usual sense of the word.

- C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol I, Pages 230-231


Link:
"Carl Jung: It is correct to say that women are more dependent on the idea and men more dependent on the Primordial image."

The greatest unknown

Personality No. 2 is what modern depth psychology calls the unconscious – something in which we are all psychically contained and in which we all live, but which we really do not know; it is truly unconscious. It is so unknown to us that we cannot even say my unconscious; for we do not know where it begins or where it leaves off. Our dreams come from this realm. Contrary to various other schools of psychology, Jung never let himself be pushed into “explaining” this unconscious by way of a theory or a religious teaching; for him it always remained literally that which is unknown to us, of an immeasurable depth and breadth.

- Marie Louise von Franz, Dreams, p. 24

Arbiter Mundi

In Jung’s view big dreams are the primal substance in which all religions have their origin. Dreams also play an important role in the Old Testament. In the Middle Ages the church acknowledged that certain dreams can be sent by God, but admitted only those which were in accord with the teachings of the church; so dreams were censored. Jung did not accept this. He says, “Anyone who can square it with his conscience is free to decide this question as he pleases, though he may be unconsciously setting himself up as an arbiter mundi (judge of the world). I for my part prefer the precious gift of doubt, for the reason that it does not violate the virginity of things beyond her ken.” By these “things beyond our ken” Jung refers to the mysterious world of the unconscious, from which dreams emerge and whose depths we can never truly fathom.

- Marie Louise von Franz, Dreams, p. 30

Feeling one’s way into the dream

The problem of “weight and measure” appears also in psychological work. This motif often alludes to one of the difficult problems in analysis, namely the extent to which a dream motif should be taken concretely and/or the extent to which it should be taken symbolically. There is no rule for that. If, for instance, someone dreams that he is insulted by or insults someone who personifies the shadow, one does not know how far that person represents the inner shadow or to what extent the dreamer – taken concretely – should avoid the real person. This is exactly a problem of weight and measure. Jung says that one must feel one’s way into a dream; it is a question of feeling, which is a weighing and valuing function, a feeling-like distribution of weight and measure. The meaning of the dream is never found by logic alone.

- Marie Louise von Franz, Dreams, p. 90

Dialogues between equals

This is indicative of how much the interpretation of dreams depends on an exact agreement between the two partners. Jung suddenly felt that his dream meant him, his life and his world, and that he had to defend it against any theory derived from other presuppositions. It was for this reason that later he also allowed others the freedom which he claimed for himself; he never forced an interpretation on anyone. When it did not naturally click with the dreamer, when, in a sense, it did not produce an invigorating, liberating “Aha!” reaction in the latter, then the interpretation was not correct, or if, later on, it proved to be “right,” then the dreamer was not far enough along in his development to be able to recognize it. For this reason dream interpretation for Jung always remained a dialogue between two partners with equal rights and never became for him a medical method.

- Marie Louise von Franz, Dreams, p. 26

The mirror of our dreams

If one takes them seriously as subjective dramas, dreams constantly provide us with new insights about ourselves. Some intuitive arts, such as horoscopy, graphology, chiromancy, phrenology, and the like, can indeed also often provide surprising bits of self-knowledge, but dreams have a great advantage over these techniques in that they give us a dynamic, continuous, self-diagnosis and also clarify smaller fluctuations and momentary erroneous attitudes or specific modes of reaction. For instance, a person can, in principle, be modest, never overvaluing himself, but can become momentarily inflated as the result of some success. A dream will correct this immediately and in doing so will inform the dreamer not only that he or she may, as a general rule, be such-and-such, but that “yesterday in connection with that matter, you were on the wrong track in such-and-such a way.” Through constantly taking dreams into consideration something is produced which resembles a continuous dialogue of the conscious ego with the irrational background of the personality, a dialogue by means of which the ego is constantly revealed from the other side, as if there were a mirror, as it were, in which the dreamer can examine his own nature.

'- Marie Louise von Franz, Dreams, p. 5

Glossary: Subjective level

Interpreting persons and objects in one's dream as if they were inner personalities of the dreamer (i.e. a dream about one's husband is really about one's animus). This level of dream interpretation is more concerned with the dreamer's relationship to their inner world, as opposed to objective dream interpretation which is more concerned with their relationship to the outer world. These kinds of dreams are much more common than objective dreams; what is important is that the dreamer come to terms with complexes, etc. that are making trouble or need some attention.

Glossary: Objective level

Interpreting a dream in such a way that persons and objects are understood to represent the objectively existing persons or objects (i.e. a dream of one’s husband is actually about one’s husband). This is a fairly rare occurrence; usually, a subjective interpretation is the more accurate one. Sometimes, though, the dream is actually conveying things about the specific person or object. These dreams are often prophetic, and either provide the dreamer with important hidden information, or, occasionally, information about the future.

There is, additionally, a second kind of objective level that I have been encountering. It's almost a middle stage between subjective and objective levels of interpretation. In this case figures in a dream represent outer figures but not in a one-to-one way but, rather, are representative of a general group. For instance, dream figures of a certain type of popular woman can represent a general group of people in the dreamer's outer life that the they perceive as popular.

Glossary: Dream interpretation

Jung held that dreams have a structure, similar to a stage play or a book. This structure consists of four stages:

Exposition
Which sets up the drama, introduces the cast of characters and setting, and sets out the problem to be solved.

Development
The second stage of the drama, during which the drama unfolds. There may be some actions, or a journey, or task. This progresses the story until the third stage..

Culmination
A crisis point, to which the dream ego responds. The climax of the drama, in which there is a fundamental change in the situation.

Lysis
The resolution of the drama: either the result of the situation if it continues in the direction it’s headed, or a possible solution to the problem as outlined in the dream.

Jung considered the lysis the most important part of the dream because it showed where the dreamer’s energy wanted to go. Daryl Sharp writes, “Where there is no lysis, no solution is in sight” (Jungian Psychology Unplugged).

- The Third Eve (see link below "Jungian Dream Interpretation")


Links:
Jungian Dream Interpretation
10 Steps Toward Interpreting Your Dreams

Glossary: Enantiodromia

Whenever anything is taken to it’s extreme, it will flip over into its opposite. This is enantiodromia. “Cold things warm, warm things cool, wet things dry and parched things get wet.” (Heraclitus) “Everything arises in this way, opposites from their opposites.” (Plato) It’s typically associated with neurosis. The only way to avoid enantiodromia is by refraining from excessive one-sidedness; at the same time, an enantiodromia can also lead to a rebirth of the personality.

This characteristic phenomenon practically always occurs when an extreme, one-sided tendency dominates conscious life; in time an equally powerful counterposition is built up, which first inhibits the conscious performance and subsequently breaks through the conscious control.

- Definitions, ibid., par. 709

The grand plan on which the unconscious life of the psyche is constructed is so inaccessible to our understanding that we can never know what evil may not be necessary in order to produce good by enantiodromia, and what good may very possibly lead to evil.

- The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales, CW 9i, par. 397

Glossary: Individuation

The goal of Jungian analysis; the process of becoming the unique individual that you were born to be. The opposite of neuroticism. This is done by reclaiming and integrating all the lost, projected parts of ourselves. It doesn’t lead to a “perfect” person but one who is perfectly themselves. Some characteristics of people who have progressed far down the path of individuation are: a flexible and resilient personality, deep humanity, and an acceptance of oneself and others.

Individuation means becoming a single, homogenous being, and, in so far as “individuality” embraces our innermost, last, and incomparable uniqueness, it also implies becoming one’s own self. We could therefore translate individuation as “coming to selfhood” or “self-realization.”

- Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, Collected Works, Vol. 7, p. 171

The aim of individuation is nothing less than to divest the self of the false wrappings of the persona on the one hand, and of the suggestive power of primordial images on the other.

- The Function of the Unconscious, CW 7, par. 269

Again and again I note that the individuation process is confused with the coming of the ego into consciousness and that the ego is in consequence identified with the self, which naturally produces a hopeless conceptual muddle. Individuation is then nothing but ego-centredness and autoeroticism. But the self comprises infinitely more than a mere ego, as the symbolism has shown from of old. It is as much one’s self, and all other selves, as the ego.

- On the Nature of the Psyche,” CW 8, par. 432

In this way there arises a consciousness which is no longer imprisoned in the petty, oversensitive, personal world of the ego, but participates freely in the wider world of objective interests. This widened consciousness is no longer that touchy, egotistical bundle of personal wishes, fears, hopes, and ambitions which always has to be compensated or corrected by unconscious counter-tendencies; instead, it is a function of relationship to the world of objects, bringing the individual into absolute, binding, and indissoluble communion with the world at large.

- The Function of the Unconscious, CW 7, par. 275

The goal of the individuation process is the synthesis of the self.

- The Psychology of the Child Archetype, CW 9i, par. 278

Glossary: Neurosis

An inability to adapt appropriately to internal or external reality. A breakdown of the personality created by the psyche in order to bring the personality back to its limits when it’s gone to an excess, or, in the opposite situation, to drive it to achieve its potential. Caused by excessive one-sidedness of the personality, or by the refusal by the ego to undergo one’s authentic, necessary suffering. In youth neuroses generally result from the failure to adapt to the collective; in old age, from an inability to let go of one’s youth and take up one’s second-half-of-life tasks. Jung held that neuroses were an attempt by the unconscious to cure oneself.

I myself have known more than one person who owed his entire usefulness and reason for existence to a neurosis, which prevented all the worst follies in his life and forced him to a mode of living that developed his valuable potentialities. These might have been stifled had not the neurosis, with iron grip, held him to the place where he belonged.

- The Problem of the Attitude-Type, CW 7, par. 68

I no longer seek the cause of a neurosis in the past, but in the present. I ask, what is the necessary task which the patient will not accomplish?

- Psychoanalysis and Neurosis, CW4, par. 570

Overcoming evil

This creative spontaneity which springs from the essential depths or center of the personality is represented by a horse, and because it is a kind of semi-unconscious reaction, it is the one thing which can overcome the attack of evil when that has taken form, when it has combined itself with a certain intelligence and with the tradition of the past. We are now, to my mind, in such a situation. Mankind is not threatened only by brutal murderous impulses, though they do break out here and there, as probably always will occur where the mob gets wild and animal forces get loose. The real danger for us is when these forces combine with high scientific intelligence. In atomic physics they combine with the highest achievements of scientific knowledge. This combination cannot be compared practically, but our story says there is, in spite of everything, one thing superior to it: a return to the innermost genuineness of the depths of our own psyche with its invincible clairvoyance and natural knowledge. With that we can possibly overcome even these diabolical forces.

- Marie Louise von Franz, Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales, p. 294

The brutality of intellectual-ism

At this point it becomes easier to understand why Jung always required of analysts that they should ultimately work the most on continuing to make progress in their own individuation. In so doing, they take their analysands along with them on their journey, without trying to influence them directly (which would be an abuse of power). In an early letter, Jung even goes so far as to say that the therapist should only analyze the pathological aspect of the patient’s psyche. This is because intellectual understanding is destructive. Understanding (Latin comprendere), after all, means “taking hold of,” “grasping,” and thus corresponds to an exercise of power. When the patient’s being and destiny are at stake, one should relate to his unique mystery with wordless respect. As Jung said, “We must understand the divine in us, but not in another insofar as he is capable of getting on and understanding on his own.”

- Marie Louise von Franz, Psychotherapy, p. 8

Glossary: Coniunctio

A term from alchemy referring to the unification of the opposites; the sacred marriage. Symbolized by the marriage of the Sun and Moon, King and Queen, Animus and Anima; in religion, Christ and the Church, Shiva and Shakti. One of the main ways we experience the sacred marriage within is in the union of conscious and the unconscious in the process of individuation, but any time the opposites are united is a coniunctio. Connection by love. Out of a successful coniunctio, new possibilities are born. See also Heirosgamos, Syzygy, Unus Mundus.

The coniunctio is an a priori image that occupies a prominent place in the history of man's mental development. If we trace this idea back we find it has two sources in alchemy, one Christian, the other pagan. The Christian source is unmistakably the doctrine of Christ and the Church, sponsus and sponsa, where Christ takes the role of Sol and the Church that of Luna. The pagan source is on the one hand the hieros-gamos, on the other the marital union of the mystic with God.

- The Psychology of the Transference," CW 16, par. 355

Glossary: Eros

The psychological function of connectedness, relationship, and feeling; associated with the feminine whether in women or in the anima of men. When unconscious it expresses itself as a will to power. Eros is the feminine Yin: the moon, darkness, water, matter, intuition, emotion, the body, soft, curving, uniting, and Earth. Eros is concerned with the individual person and relationships. As everyone contains contrasexual traits anyone, male or female, can be characterized by eros. The psychological function associated with eros is the Feeling function. It's opposite is logos.

Woman's consciousness is characterized more by the connective quality of Eros than by the discrimination and cognition associated with Logos. In men, Eros… is usually less developed than Logos. In women, on the other hand, Eros is an expression of their true nature, while their Logos is often only a regrettable accident.

- "The Syzygy: Anima and Animus," CW 9ii, par. 29

Where love reigns, there is no will to power; and where the will to power is paramount, love is lacking. The one is but the shadow of the other: the man who adopts the standpoint of Eros finds his compensatory opposite in the will to power, and that of the man who puts the accent on power is Eros.

- "The Problem of the Attitude-Type," par. 78

Eros is a questionable fellow and will always remain so… He belongs on one side to man's primordial animal nature which will endure as long as man has an animal body. On the other side he is related to the highest forms of the spirit. But he thrives only when spirit and instinct are in right harmony.

- "The Eros Theory," CW 7, par. 32

Glossary: Logos

The psychological function of logic, reason, and discrimination; associated with the masculine, whether in men or in the animus of women. Logos is Yang: the sun, light, fire, air, spirit, practicality, reason, the mind, hard, straight, dividing, and Heaven. The meaningful word, logical decision or judgment, human intellect; divine reason, world reason, God's Word as the force which created the world; revelation. Logos is impersonal and not influenced by feeling; it’s concerned with the search for universal, impersonal truth as opposed to individual, personal relations. As everyone contains contrasexual traits anyone, male or female, can be characterized by logos. The psychological function associated with logos is the thinking function. It's opposite is eros.

Woman’s psychology is founded on the principle of Eros, the great binder and loosener, whereas from ancient times the ruling principle ascribed to man is Logos. The concept of Eros could be expressed in modern terms as psychic relatedness, and that of Logos as objective interest.

- Carl Jung, Aspects of the Feminine, Princeton University Press, 1982, p. 65

There is no consciousness without discrimination of opposites. This is the paternal principle, the Logos, which eternally struggles to extricate itself from the primal warmth and primal darkness of the maternal womb; in a word, from unconsciousness.

- "Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype," CW 9i, par. 178

After middle life, however, permanent loss of the anima means a diminution of vitality, of flexibility, and of human kindness. The result, as a rule, is premature rigidity, crustiness, stereotypy, fanatical one-sidedness, obstinancy, pedantry, or else resignation, weariness, sloppiness, irresponsibility, and finally a childish ramollissement with a tendency to alcohol. After middle life, therefore, the connection with the archetypal sphere of experience should if possible be re-established.

- C.G. Jung, "Aspects of the Masculine," p. 136

By Logos I meant discrimination, judgment, insight, and by Eros I meant the capacity to relate. I regarded both concepts as intuitive ideas which cannot be defined accurately or exhaustively. From the scientific point of view this is regrettable, but from a practical one it has its value, since the two concepts mark out a field of experience which it is equally difficult to define.

As we can hardly ever make a psychological proposition without immediately having to reverse it, instances to the contrary leap to the eye at once: men who care nothing for discrimination, judgment, and insight, and women who display an almost excessively masculine proficiency in this respect. . . . Wherever this exists, we find a forcible intrusion of the unconscious, a corresponding exclusion of the consciousness specific to either sex, predominance of the shadow and of contrasexuality.

- “The Personification of the Opposites," CW 14, pars. 224f

The Dog

As usual, whenever I'm working on an issue I end up synchronistically running across a bunch of related topics at around the same time. Since working on the The Cat series I found some interesting dog quotes. I will also be posting a meditation I had a while back about "cats" and "dogs." This is all particularly applicable to what we've been going through recently here in the U.S., I think.

Also, a random observation: I think it's really interesting how people who like dogs tend to very dog-like, i.e. more conservative, fall more in line with the old Emperor; while "cat people" seem to generally be more progressive, feminist, and to value independent thinking more. Symbolism in action!

The dog has lost his independence and become dependent on human beings. Both Saint Barnard and Saint Dominic were also servants of a master: Christ. This is the motif of the katoche. They are the prisoners of a special fate; every impulse to live their own life is controlled; they are really the dogs of Christ, serving him in this world and as dogs leading to hope of the other world. They are also responsible for keeping the flock together, since heretics are the wolves or "the little foxes, that spoil the vines."

These particular "dogs," however, have a negative aspect as well, for they served only one point of view; they did not deal with the problem of their time. Bernard was incapable of engaging in discussion with Abelard, he only "barked" at him! And Dominic "barked" at the Albigenses. We must not overlook the fact that this was the beginning of the Inquisition, which attempted to eliminate, through sheer power, every heretical movement. As a result, however, the religious confrontation became increasingly fanatic. Such a solution of the conflict is no solution; but at that time man was not yet capable of dealing with the problem in an individual, human manner.

- Marie Louise von Franz, Dreams, p. 101