Glossary: Assimilation

The process of integrating various external and internal contents into one’s conscious self (the ego) through psychotherapeutic practices.

Assimilation is the approximation of a new content of consciousness to already constellated subjective material… Fundamentally, [it] is a process of apperception, but is distinguished from apperception by this element of approximation to the subjective material… I use the term assimilation… as the approximation of object to subject in general, and with it I contrast dissimilation, as the approximation of subject to object, and a consequent alienation of the subject from himself in favour of the object, whether it be an external object or a “psychological” object, for instance an idea.

- Jung, “Definitions,” CW 6, pars. 685f

Glossary: Apperception

The process through which new experiences are enriched and given meaning by relating them to previous experiences. Jung differentiates from active apperception, where attention is given to the content, and passive apperception, in which the content forces itself on oneself, either from the external world or internally. (See also “assimilation”).

A rich child and a poor child walking together come across the same ten dollar bill on the sidewalk. The rich child says it is not very much money and the poor child says it is a lot of money. The difference lies in how they apperceive the same event – the lens of past experience through which they see and value (or devalue) the money.

- Christopher Ott

Sense-perceptions tell us that something is. But they do not tell us what it is. This is told us not by the process of perception but by the process of apperception, and this has a highly complex structure. Not that sense-perception is anything simple; only, its complex nature is not so much psychic as physiological. The complexity of apperception, on the other hand, is psychic.

- Jung, “The Structure of the Psyche,” CW 8, par. 288

In the former case [active apperception] we speak of “attention,” in the latter case [passive apperception] of “fantasy” or “dreaming.” The directed processes are rational, the undirected irrational.

- Jung, “The Structure of the Psyche,” CW 8, par. 294

Glossary: Apotropaic

Apotropaic magic aims to protect the user from evil (i.e. charms against the evil eye). Apotropaic thinking is a form of magical thinking, characteristic of introverts, that attempts to “protect” the individual from the influence of other people and external objects.

I have seen an introverted child who made his first attempts to walk only after he had learned the names of all the objects in the room he might touch.

- Jung, “Psychological Types,” CW 6, par. 897

The greatest thing of all

Don't get puffed up; the crystal clear, thirst quenching dream interpretation isn't from you, it's from the Self.

The art or music or poetry you produce; the brilliant ideas, the perfectly written paragraph isn't from you, it's from the Self.

Your beauty, or your intelligence, your charisma or competence, or any of your abilities don't come from you, they all comes from the Self.

For your small, limited, human all too human ego to identify with any of these is to take the abilities of the Gods as your own, and that is dangerous and wrong. The only thing that is of the ego is MORALITY; it is to make the hard, difficult, and painful choice to do the work that needs to be done, even if it's boring, even if it's burdensome, even if it's humiliating. That... and to keep reminding oneself that none of the great things that we accomplish come from us, but from that mysterious larger power that works through us; we float on it, rest on it, are held and carried by it. And when we act in harmony with it, it creates things which are great and beautiful, impactful and true. But this can only happen if ego does the one thing it can do; have the discipline to do the things necessary to allow the Self to speak and act through us. And that is the greatest thing of all.

Symbolism: Crone

"Hold Hakka Woman"

The feminine archetype of age, detachment, and wisdom. Wikipedia describes her as “a stock character in folklore and fairy tale, an old woman. In some stories, she is disagreeable, malicious, or sinister in manner, often with magical or supernatural associations that can make her either helpful or obstructing. The Crone is also an archetypal figure, a Wise Woman.” In Greek mythology the crone figure of Hecate has a close relationship with the Kore, Persephone; the two are connected to each other and form a yin/yang. Persephone herself becomes the Queen of the Underworld in her winter form.

In her positive aspect she’s the helper of heroines and heroes, keeper of wisdom (particularly of the other realm). Her responsibilities have ended and thus she is able to devote her time and energy to herself and her search for wisdom. The negative side of the crone is the dark, devouring witch, who destroys the new life trying to take root. She's the Fate who cuts a person’s thread of life; she’s the Fury of vengeance; she’s Death.

In thinking of the crone I’m reminded of the praying mantis, who I wrote a post about on my previous blog:


Zen Warrior

• Patience and balance, mindful movements.
• Fighter/warrior. Top of the food chain.
• Zen/Taoist qualities of patience, unassuming stealth, imitates nature, calm yet deadly, total focus.

Praying mantis symbolizes patience and balance, among other things. "[I]n China, the mantis has long been honored for her mindful movements..."

The Power of the Dark Moon

• Part of the cycle of life, yin/yang, the Tao. Specifically, the predatory, violent side.
• Women's power.
• Autumn. Also the cycle of life, the season of the harvest.
• The necessity of violence: it serves to protect the sustenance which is important for life. Part of maintaining harmony.

Concept of Yin/Yang

Asian Cultures strongly emphasize the connectivity of all living things and their societies are built upon this concept. The circle of life is the relationship of life and death, implying without one you can't have the other. This interrelationship is Yin and Yang... Without the predator/prey relationship there could be no environmental or world harmony...

Women Power

Most western cultures associate the mantis with women power. In nature, the female mantis has been noted to eat the male mantis if he hangs around after copulation. While in practical terms that also ensures the circle of life by providing nutrients for the next generation, this threatens the western man as a symbolic reference to women having power and using it to undo man.

Autumn

...In Japanese symbolism, the Mantis represents the season of autumn. Kobayashi Issa, one of the four prominent forefathers of haiku, used the mantis as a symbol of autumn in his poems... [W]hen we see a Mantis with these other autumn symbols, we see the circle of life being represented, in particular, Autumn, the season of harvest.

[Mantises] dine on insects that may be harmful to what you are growing... In nature, the mantis's role is protecting the crops, thereby, protecting the farmer and protecting an important ingredient in the circle of life sustenance... [W]ithin the circle of life, the Mantis requires violence of action in order to maintain that harmony….

The Praying Mantis is woman power. Contrast her to the Cat, who's feminine instinct and passion, and the blind girl, who's young and powerless. Like a plant, the Mantis is at one with Herself, capable of doing great violence with calm and dispassion. As women age, and they change from Girl to Crone, they stop caring what people think of them and start acting like the Mantis. This may be why such powerful women tend to terrify men, as black widows and praying mantises do. A man's story is different; he has to confront the black widow, or the mantis; he has to confront the devouring snake side, without fear, without destroying life - and without letting himself be destroyed - and come into himself as a man. But a woman has her own story; she has to become the independent Mantis/Crone, without running away from life, but to preserve it. Life needs the dark side as well as the light.

Without Atropos to cut the thread of life which had finished its course the entire web of creation would be threatened. But in order to mature into the Mantis, a woman has to develop the qualities of the Wise Crone: insight, detachment, a vision of the bigger picture, and the ability to destroy that which threatens the greater harmony of life. And in order to do so a part of her has to remain outside the sticky mess of personal feeling, not by running away from it but by living it, learning from it, and eventually being able to step back from it. As the I-Ching put it, "Retreat is not the forced flight of a weak person but the voluntary withdrawal of a strong one."

 

 

Posts:

"Baba Yaga and the Challenge of Darkness. Or, I Love the Smell of Manflesh in the Morning"


Links:
Animal Symbolism: Meaning of the Praying Mantis
The fearsome hunt of Mallt-y-Nos
Pray For the Preying Mantis


See also:
Dog
Wise Old Woman/Man
Senex


Part 1: The Kore
Part 2: The Great Mother


Image by Salvatore Ferracane

Symbolism: The Great Mother

The feminine archetype of life and fertility. In her positive aspect she is associated with “maternal solicitude and sympathy; the magic authority of the female; the wisdom and spiritual exaltation that transcend reason; any helpful instinct or impulse; all that is benign, all that cherishes and sustains, that fosters growth and fertility.” Her negative side is all that is “secret, hidden, dark; the abyss, the world of the dead, anything that devours, seduces, and poisons, that is terrifying and inescapable like fate.”

The mother archetype is seen in various guises:

First in importance are the personal mother and grandmother, stepmother and mother-in-law; then any woman with whom a relationship exists—for example, a nurse or governess or perhaps a remote ancestress. Then there are what might be termed mothers in a figurative sense.

To this category belongs the goddess, and especially the Mother of God, the Virgin, and Sophia. Mythology offers many variations of the mother archetype, as for instance the mother who reappears as the maiden in the myth of Demeter and Kore; or the mother who is also the beloved, as in the Cybele-Attis myth.

Other symbols of the mother in a figurative sense appear in things representing the goal of our longing for redemption, such as Paradise, the Kingdom of God, the Heavenly Jerusalem.

Many things arousing devotion or feelings of awe, as for instance the Church, university, city or country, heaven, earth, the woods, the sea or any still waters, matter even, the underworld and the moon, can be mother-symbols.

The archetype is often associated with things and places standing for fertility and fruitfulness: the cornucopia, a ploughed field, a garden.

It can be attached to a rock, a cave, a tree, a spring, a deep well, or to various vessels such as the baptismal font, or to vessel-shaped flowers like the rose or the lotus.

Because of the protection it implies, the magic circle or mandala can be a form of mother archetype.

Hollow objects such as ovens and cooking vessels are associated with the mother archetype, and, of course, the uterus, yoni, and anything of a like shape. Added to this list there are many animals, such as the cow, hare, and helpful animals in general.

- Jung, “The Mother Archetype”

The place of magic transformation and rebirth, together with the underworld and its inhabitants, are presided over by the mother.

- Jung, “The Mother Archetype”

(All quotes from “The Mother Archetype,” as posted by Lewis Lafontaine on Carl Jung Depth Psychology.)

She was the epitome of the maternal, an instinct fulfilled through pregnancy or through providing physical, psychological, or spiritual nourishment to others, the provider (food and spiritual sustenance), nurturing, Mother Nature, generous, Lady Bountiful, dependent upon her maternal role (after which her life lost its meaning), solid, dependable, fertile, long-suffering, unconcerned with status, envious or jealous only with respect to children, mixed feelings about feminism and the women's movement, relied on women friends for emotional support (vice her husband), did not choose her mate, just as soon cuddled as made love, huggy, preferred breastfeeding to intercourse, and tried to be indispensable.

 Library of Halexandria, "Archetypes"


See next: The Crone

Posts:

Attis' sacrifice

The Devouring Mother (the Negative Mother Complex)


Image by Paolo Veronese, "Ceres Renders Homage to Venice"

Symbolism: Kore

"Flora" by Gustave Jacquet

From Fine Art America


Woman as a girl; flower-like and innocent. She's the new life and renewal of spring to the Mother's fertile summer and the Crone's wise, austere winter. She’s largely characterized by her helplessness and vulnerability and is often required to undergo a nekyia, or descent to the underworld. In a woman, she’s an image of the supraordinate personality (an aspect of the psyche superior to, and transcending, the ego), or the Self; in a man she’s an aspect of the anima.

As a matter of practical observation, the Kore often appears in woman as an unknown young girl... The maiden's helplessness exposes her to all sorts of dangers, for instance of being devoured by reptiles or ritually slaughtered like a beast of sacrifice. Often there are bloody, cruel, and even obscene orgies to which the innocent child falls victim. Sometimes it is a true nekyia, a descent into Hades and a quest for the “treasure hard to attain,” occasionally connected with orgiastic sexual rites or offerings of menstrual blood to the moon. Oddly enough, the various tortures and obscenities are carried out by an “Earth Mother.”...  The maiden who crops up in case histories differs not inconsiderably from the vaguely flower-like Kore in that the modern figure is more sharply delineated and not nearly so “unconscious.”

- Jung, “The Psychological Aspects of the Kore,” CW 9i, par. 311

Demeter and Kore, mother and daughter, extend the feminine consciousness both upwards and downwards. They add an “older and younger,” “stronger and weaker” dimension to it and widen out the narrowly limited conscious mind bound in space and time, giving it intimations of a greater and more comprehensive personality which has a share in the eternal course of things... We could therefore say that every mother contains her daughter in herself and every daughter her mother, and that every woman extends backwards into her mother and forwards into her daughter... The conscious experience of these ties produces the feeling that her life is spread out over generations - the first step towards the immediate experience and conviction of being outside time, which brings with it a feeling of immortality.

- Jung, “The Psychological Aspects of the Kore,” CW 9i, par. 316

Another vulnerable goddess, like Hera and Demeter.  She adapted to the experience of powerlessness by responding with depression, acceptance, and only a diffuse awareness.  She fulfilled the dual figure of the Maiden (Kore or young girl) and mature Queen who claimed for herself whatever she wanted.  On the one hand, she was carefree, compliant, passive, acted upon by others rather than active herself, did not know “who she was” and unaware of her desires and strengths, malleable, innately receptive, adaptable (to meet a man’s wishes), and unaware of her sexual attractiveness, innocent, lacked passion, nonorgasmic, demure, youthful, vital, young in spirit, receptive to change, accommodating, conformed to circumstances or stronger personalities, open, flexible, uncertain of getting married (“bartered bride”), introverted or dormant sexuality, and the most indistinct and unthreatening of all the goddesses.  Sleeping Beauty or Snow White.  Persephone avoided anger but could become narcissistic, devious, dishonest, and manipulative.  Her work was unimportant until she entered the underworld and became Queen, whereupon she became possessive, creative, spiritual, psychic, artistic, unorthodox, deeply personal.  Only when she lacked someone to do things for her or someone to blame could she grow.

- Library of Halexandria, “Archetypes”


See next: The Great Mother

Symbolism: Senex

"Philosopher with an Open Book"

The archetype of the old man. Positively, the senex is characterized by wisdom, reason, self control, responsibility, and order. Negatively, he's the devouring father Kronos, characterized by cynicism, rigidity, conservatism, foolishness, and with a tendency to destroy the new life that's trying to grow. His opposite is the puer aeternus, and his female counterpart is the Crone.

The god Saturn-Kronos is image for both positive and negative senex. His temperament is cold. Coldness can also be expressed as distance; the lonely wanderer set apart, cast out. Coldness is also cold reality, things just as they are; and yet Saturn is at the far-out edge of reality. As lord of the nethermost, he views the world from the outside, from such depths of distance that he sees it, so to speak, all upside down, yet structurally and abstractly. The concern with structure and abstraction makes him the principle of order, whether through time, or hierarchy, or exact science and system, or limits and borders, or power, or inwardness and reflection, or earth and the forms it gives. The cold is also slow, heavy, leaden, and dry or moist, but always the coagulator through denseness, slowness, and weight expressed by the mood of sadness, depression, or melancholia. Psychologically the senex is at the core of any complex or governs any attitude when these psychological processes pass to end-phase. We expect it to correspond to biological senescence, just as many of its images: dryness, night, coldness, winter, harvest, are taken from the processes of time and of nature. But to speak accurately the senex archetype transcends mere biological senescence and is given from the beginning as a potential of order, meaning, and teleological fulfillment – and death – within all the psyche and all its parts. So death which the senex brings is not only bio-physical. It is death that comes through perfection and order. The senex spirit appears most evidently when any function we use, attitude we have, or complex of the psyche begins to coagulate past its prime. It is the Saturn within the complex that makes it hard to shed, dense and slow, and maddeningly depressing – the madness of lead-poison – that feeling of the everlasting indestructibility of the complex. It cuts off the complex from life and the feminine, inhibiting it and introverting it into an isolation. We must further conclude that the negative senex is the senex split from its own puer aspect. He has lost his ‘child’.

- A Jungian Essay on Bipolar Disorder


See also:
Lead
Puer/Puella Aeternus
The Tall Man

Image by Salomon Koninck

Symbolism: Puer Aeternus

Timothée Chalamet

Image from L'Uomo Vogue


The archetype of the eternal youth; in the case of men it's the puer aeternus; for women, it's known as the puella aeternus or the Kore, daughter of Demeter. The puer aeternus is characterized by disorder, intoxication, whimsy, and pure instinct. The positive side of the puer manifests as spontaneity, openness to change, renewal, and hope for the future. The negative side is childish, passive, irresponsible, with a tendency to waste their life "waiting for his/her ship to come in." His opposite is the senex.

The puer is a person who never grows up, who often has too great a dependence on their mother/father or a parent-like lover. They live a provisional life, fearful of ever being trapped or tied down while at the same time filled with fantasies of a future in which the world finally realizes their greatness. Because of this they often fail to accomplish anything, waiting for a future that never comes while their life passes them by.

The solution to this overly one-sided attitude toward life is living the senex, the responsible older man, or, in the case of the puella, the Mother/Crone.

[The world] makes demands on the masculinity of a man, on his ardour, above all on his courage and resolution when it comes to throwing his whole being into the scales. For this he would need a faithless Eros, one capable of forgetting his mother and undergoing the pain of relinquishing the first love of his life.

- Jung, "The Syzygy: Anima and Animus," CW 9ii, par. 22

The "eternal child" in man is an indescribable experience, an incongruity, a handicap, and a divine prerogative; an imponderable that determines the ultimate worth or worthlessness of a personality.

- Jung, "The Psychology of the Child Archetype," CW 9i, par. 300



Edit (12/18/19):

Was going back over my old blog, Queen of the Night and came across this on a post about Dionysus, who is one of the archetypal puer figures in Greek mythology (along with Adonis):

Dionysus men lack "real world" goals. They're questing for principles, and haven't yet discovered these principles. They enjoy resting or doing nothing-especially if alcoholic beverages are available. When faced with a decision they let their partner decide, saying, "I'll be happy with whatever makes you happy."

A Dionysus man has a close relationship with his mother-a "mama's boy." He's her "divine child," with a sense of specialness or destiny. In adult life, a Dionysus man may resent people not recognizing his specialness, e.g., when they expect him to do mundane work. He may have mood swings between low self-esteem and ego inflation. He may have substance abuse issues. "Wounding" is central to Dionysus. "Wounding" can be a life-threatening illness, e.g., cancer, which makes a man feel as if he has been dismembered and then reassembled as a new person. Or "wounding" can be a painful experience that forces an individual to break from "the flat ennui of numbing conformity to cultural and familial expectations.

Hmmmm... Sounds like someone I know (Puer-chan). Not surprisingly, the Dionysus man's ideal romantic partner is... Demeter. The Great Mother. No surprise there, lol.

Archetypal relationships: Demeter & Dionysus (Queen of the Night)

Posts

Attis' sacrifice


See also
Senex


Other sources
Problem of the Puer Aeternus, by Marie-Louise von Franz

Glossary: The Self

The greater being who encompasses the totality of oneself, both conscious and unconscious; the You behind the you. The entirety of one's psyche, from consciousness, to the personal unconscious, to the collective unconscious. The center of one's total being, which regulates one's life through dreams and synchronicities.

The ego shouldn't be mistaken for the Self; the ego is simply the "I" of the personality, the center of consciousness that experiences the world. The ego is simply one complex of many, that arose out of the background of the Self. The ego is to the Self as the individual human being is to the sun. The Self is often experienced by the ego as God.

The self is not only the centre but also the whole circumference which embraces both consciousness and unconsciousness; it is the centre of this totality, just as the ego is the centre of the conscious mind.

- "Psychology and Alchemy", Collected Works, Vol. 12, p. 41

The self appears in dreams, myths, and fairytales in the figure of the "supraordinate personality," such as a king, hero, prophet, saviour, etc., or in the form of a totality symbol, such as the circle, square, quadratura circuli, cross, etc. When it represents a complexio oppositorum, a union of opposites, it can also appear as a united duality, in the form, for instance, of tao as the interplay of yang and yin, or of the hostile brothers, or of the hero and his adversary (arch-enemy, dragon), Faust and Mephistopheles, etc. Empirically, therefore, the self appears as a play of light and shadow, although conceived as a totality and unity in which the opposites are united.

- "Definitions," CW 6, par. 790

The ego cannot help discovering that the afflux of unconscious contents has vitalized the personality, enriched it and created a figure that somehow dwarfs the ego in scope and intensity... Naturally, in these circumstances there is the greatest temptation simply to follow the power-instinct and to identify the ego with the self outright, in order to keep up the illusion of the ego's mastery... [But] the self has a functional meaning only when it can act compensatorily to ego-consciousness. If the ego is dissolved in identification with the self, it gives rise to a sort of nebulous superman with a puffed-up ego.

- "On the Nature of the Psyche," CW 8, par. 430

Experiences of the self possess a numinosity characteristic of religious revelations. Hence Jung believed there was no essential difference between the self as an experiential, psychological reality and the traditional concept of a supreme deity. It might equally be called the "God within us."

- "The Mana-Personality," CW 7, par. 399

The self is our life’s goal, for it is the completest expression of that fateful combination we call individuality.

- "Two Essays on Analytical Psychology", Collected Works, Vol. 7, p. 238