Symbolism: Lead

Saturn (Medieval book of hours)

I'm starting a new series on symbolism, one of the foundations of Jungian psychology. As I spoke to in a previous post, an understanding of the rich, complex world of symbols and their meanings is one of the most important things to master for anyone interested in analytical psychology. So here’s the first topic in the series: we’re going to take a look at the symbolism of lead.


Lead is the prima materia; the debased, contaminated original material that is the raw ingredient for the alchemists’ magnum opus. It’s associated with death, decay, and the deity Saturn/Cronus. One of the earliest metals used by humans, even back in the days of Babylon they were aware of its poisonous nature. Like most symbols, lead has a positive and a negative aspect. In its negative aspect it’s a dark, malefic material… at the same time, through burning it purifies corruption, as lead is transformed into that most valuable of metals, gold. Lead is the metal of redemption and transformation; it is the base, degraded material that’s both the carrier of death, and eternal, incorruptible life.

Lead has strong associations with Saturn/Cronus, and shares many of the same qualities: age, tradition, convention, structure, authority, and order. Negatively, Saturn and lead are associated with limitation, contraction, coldness, depression, loneliness, and harsh judgments. Positively, they’re associated with responsibility, self-control, and knowledge and wisdom.

Lead being the equivalent of Saturn, having a definite androgynous nature, is both malefic, and the worst events can be expected, and a purifier. Lead represents the impurities of metals and humans. Some say these are the vexations and troubles which God puts on people to bring them back to repentance. Others say these are just the troubles of life which man has to overcome in order to perfect himself. But as lead burns it burns all of the impurities with it which is why Boethus the Arab called it the water of sulphur. The tribulations of life are metaphoric with lead as they cleanse people of the imperfections they incur.

- Lead (The Mystica)

Saturn doesn't make things easy. That's the role of the taskmaster of the zodiac. Saturn commands us to get to work and to work hard. Discipline and responsibility are important to this planet, yet if we're eager to conquer the world, that's okay, too.

Much like Father Time, Saturn implores us to look at the clock (its glyph, after all, is the sickle of Chronos, the God of Time). Is there time for everything we want to do, or are there limits? Those limitations are important to Saturn, and we must learn to manage them. Restrictions are the province of this planet, as is any form of discipline or delay.

In keeping with the passage of time, Saturn governs old age along with the lessons it teaches us. Learning life's lessons is key to this planet, in keeping with its role as teacher. The majesty of older age also brings with it a certain sense of tradition, conventionality (our learned patterns of behavior) and wisdom, and Saturn is mindful of these characteristics. This planet applauds our perseverance and the fact that we've withstood the test of time (yes, time comes up once again). This senior status further brings with it a measure of authority, and Saturn lords over that as well.

Structure, order and the way in which we conduct our affairs are all ruled by this ringed planet. Contraction and the reining in of assets are also important here. Lastly, Saturn, again in its role as teacher, concerns itself with karma and the lessons which past experiences might bring.

- Saturn: Planet of Karma (Astrology.com)



Links:
Elemental Alchemy Symbols and Meanings (What's Your Sign)
Metal Symbolism (Ancient Symbols)
Saturn (Alchemical Lead) (Symbol Dictionary)
Saturn: Planet of Karma (Astrology.com)
Saturn In Astrology (Astrologyk.com)
Saturn : Lead (The Order of the Quest)


See also:
Senex

(Image from Symbol Dictionary)

Glossary: Symbols

“Every psychological expression is a symbol if we assume that it states or signifies something more and other than itself which eludes our present knowledge.”

- Jung, “Definitions,” CW 6, par. 817

“As a plant produces its flower, so the psyche creates its symbols.”

- Jung, Man And His Symbols



An image of something that is partially conscious, and partially unconscious. Symbols represent specific expressions of unconscious energy. When these symbols enter consciousness, the ego can then work with them to integrate a part of that particular expression of energy into the conscious personality. Contrast this with a sign: a symbol has a holographic quality, with layers upon layers of meanings and connections with other meanings, of which only a small portion are visible at any one time; a sign, on the other hand, simply represents something.

Symbols are important because they take unconscious, instinctual energy and transform and redirect that energy into a form with which the conscious self can work. Jung thought so highly of symbols and their importance in individuation that he named his one book for laymen Man and His Symbols; and the last year of his life was devoted to writing and organizing this book.

All symbols contain, assimilate, or transform (canalize) psychological energy (libido) and non-personal instinctual forces into different forms by converting an unconscious or instinctual process into a representation with which the ego can work and be fed by, thereby offering a steeper energy gradient than the natural instinctual one. They also unify opposites (because a true symbol is partly unconscious) on the level of the third thing or reconciling symbol, contain the rational and irrational, contain non-personal forces (dogmatic symbols do this particularly well), and transfer libido from being bound to the object to availability for the subject – a tremendous step forward. Symbol-making led to culture. In short, symbols make possible conscious assimilation of unconscious or instinctual forces.

- A Glossary of Jungian Terms (Terrapsyche)



Quotes by Jung

Psychic development cannot be accomplished by intention and will alone; it needs the attraction of the symbol, whose value quantum exceeds that of the cause. But the formation of a symbol cannot take place until the mind has dwelt long enough on the elementary facts, that is to say until the inner or outer necessities of the life-process have brought about a transformation of energy.

- “On Psychic Energy,” CW 8, par. 47

So you see, in a moment during a patient's treatment when there is a great disorder and chaos in a man's mind, the symbol can appear, as in the form of a mandala in a dream, or when he makes imaginary and fantastical drawings, or something of the sort.

- Evans Conversations, Page 21.

But besides that there is a thinking in primordial images, in symbols which are older than the historical man, which are inborn in him from the earliest times, and, eternally living, outlasting all generations, still make up the groundwork of the human psyche. It is only possible to live the fullest life when we are in harmony with these symbols; wisdom is a return to them.

- Collected Works 8, Pages 399-403.

I can easily say that (without blushing) because I know how resistant and how foolishly obstinate I was when they first visited me, and what a trouble it was until I could read this symbolic language, so much superior to my dull conscious mind.

- Letters Vol. 1, Page 42.

It is when we come to a summit in life that the archetypal symbols appear. These primeval pictures of human life form the collective unconscious.

- Modern Psychology, Pages 176-177.

It is the role of religious symbols to give meaning to the life of man.

- Man and His Symbols.

The symbol becomes my lord and unfailing commander. It will fortify its reign and change itself into a starry and riddling image, whose meaning turns completely inward, and whose pleasure radiates outward like blazing fire, a Buddha in the flames.

- The Red Book, Page 249.

Because I sink into my symbol to such an extent, the symbol changes me from my one into my other, and that cruel Goddess of my interior, my womanly pleasure, my own other, the tormented tormentor, that which is to be tormented. I have interpreted these images, as best I can, with poor words.

- Liber Novus, Page 250.

I had to recognize that I am only the expression and symbol of the soul.

- The Red Book, Page 234.

So is healing given to us in the unlockable and ineffable symbol, for it prevents the devil from swallowing up the seed of life.

- Letters Vol. 1, Pages 31-32.

I: "What my eyes see is exactly what I cannot grasp. You, Elijah, who are a prophet, the mouth of God, and she, a bloodthirsty horror. You are the symbol of the most extreme contradiction."

E: "We are real and not symbols."

- Carl Jung and Elijah, Liber Novus, Page 246.


(Quotes from “Carl Jung on Symbols and the Symbolic”)

Strength in the Shadow

The shadow doesn’t just consist of all the things we reject and vilify… It also contains all the things we say we aren’t, but really are. Our shadow isn’t just the rejected parts of ourselves, it’s also partly the shadow of the very things we hold dear.

If you hotly espouse a moral code you deeply believe in… you will probably do the very thing you say you hate. Because no one can be perfect, because there will always be times that we can’t carry out our values without great pain and difficulty, we lie to ourselves and tell ourselves we don’t do it.

The more we insist on perfection… the less perfect we will be, and the less we will be capable of seeing our failures. The more we hate unkindness… the less kind we will be, and the less we will be able to face our hatefulness and selfishness. The more we hate immorality… the less moral we will be, and the less we will be able to face our human weakness.

Perfection is inflation, it’s only suitable for the Gods. Facing and integrating our shadow gives our personality weight and strength; we can’t be pushed off our center, it gives us resilience and compassion, and connects us with each other in our human fallibility.

Criticism of Hillman

A lot of what he says is true; we've spent the last few hundred years emptying the world of soul until there's nothing left but a sad, withered little husk left. Hillman is passionate in his crusade to reverse that, and reinvest the world with soul. He's the instrument of the universe in bringing balance back to the world, which is not only admirable, it's also desperately needed. But in the course of his struggle it seems that he's gone too far, raising Dionysian soulfulness not only to a principle, but the only principle. In this way he's committed the only "sin" in Jungianism; becoming too one-sided.

To categorically reject any and all analysis, in every situation, is one sided and quite frankly, impossible. Even if it was possible, it would lead to a post-modernist horror where there literally is no reality to hold onto. Of course, Hillman himself didn't fully live this way, just as no other post-modernist does; to do so would mean you literally didn't believe that jumping off a building would necessarily lead your death, or at least injury. Nor would any post-modernist let their child walk alone across a highway.

Over and over again, in fairy tales and other stories, the one true evil on a human level is becoming too one-sided. True, the inhuman, ultimate evil which is shadow side of the Self exists but that is as much beyond us mere humans as the bright, God side of the Self. When humans become evil, it's when we go too far to one side or the other. To me, this is the main problem with Hillman's ideas. It would have been one thing to suggest that sometimes we need to go to an extreme, reject all thought and simply experience. But to categorically reject any and all analysis EVER strikes me as one-sided in the extreme.

To be honest I can't say whether he's right or wrong; maybe this was exactly what his daimon required of him. Maybe he was living his life exactly as he was supposed to. The only person who can tell if you're doing what you should or going down the wrong path is, in the end, you, and that's as it should be. But I do feel that, while he had a lot of valuable insights to contribute to society, his philosophy was inadequate... although that's probably true of everything.

Glossary: Archetypal Psychology

Picasso said, "I don't develop; I am." And the puzzle in therapy is not how did I get this way, but what does my angel want with me?

- James Hillman


One of the three schools of Post-Jungian psychology (along with Classical and Developmental Psychology), by James Hillman, a psychologist who trained in Jungian psychology and was the first Director of the Jung institute in Zurich.

In Archetypal Psychology the most important thing is the soul; the purpose of therapy is neither to "fix" a person, as if they were a broken car; nor is it to understand a problem, but rather to deepen one's experience of life through one's struggles and difficulties. Hillman called the world a "vale of soul-making" and felt that neuroses and psychopathologies were healing angels in disguise; their purpose - indeed, the purpose of one's entire life - was to help us grow into our destiny. He promoted the idea that we are born with an image of what we are meant to be, the way an acorn is born with the image of a giant oak in it's tiny seed.

Hillman was a vigorous critic of modern psychology, and modern society in general. He felt that psychology placed far too much emphasis on the mental hygienic aspect of therapy; by only focusing on trying to fix a problem, we fail to see what the illness has to teach us. He was also highly critical of the tendency in psychology to reject anything that wasn't sufficiently "scientific" which he called "scientism." This can be defined as the tendency to reduce everything to rational, causal factors, like poor upbringing, or chemical imbalances. In fact, he felt that society itself was sick - it had gone too far to the Apollonian, rational side, with it's soul-killing focus on efficiency - and that it would, in fact, be more accurate to say that the sickness in people today was from the society, not the other way around. What is needed, according to Hillman, is to reject all of that and give attention to all the things that caused us hardship and difficulty; according to him the soul shows us love by creating the very circumstances that lead to healing.

Archetypal psychology differs from classical Jungian psychology in that it rejects all attempts to interpret or understand neuroses, or other expression of the unconscious, like dreams. The image should be confronted and experienced simply as it was; any attempt to do otherwise would kill it. A part of this was his passionate advocacy of the importance of art for it's own sake. This is another area where he felt he diverged from Jung; Jung consistently rejected calls from friends and followers to exhibit artwork from The Red Book, insisting that it's importance was not in it's artistic value but as products of active imagination. Hillman by contrast felt that the importance of art was in it's value as art; as something which moved the soul.

The ultimate goal of psychology, however, is not to find answers and solutions to problems, but, rather, to deepen our experience of the problems themselves… The psyche is much broader than any of the perspectives it can take upon itself and is at bottom far more interested in the play of its own ideas than in the solution to psychological problems. The same can be said about the particular problems of each human individual, how to love, why to live, what to do with respect to money, family, sexuality, religion, etc. None are soluble, but rather the very fact that we ask them prompts us to go deeper into the caring of our soul. “The purpose of these eternal psychological problems” is, as we have seen, “to provide the base of soul-making.” Psychological ideas, for Hillman, are in essence, food for the soul.

- Sanford Drob, "The Depth of the Soul: James Hillman’s Vision of Psychology"

I think the first step is the realization that each of us has [a calling]. And then we must look back over our lives and look at some of the accidents and curiosities and oddities and troubles and sicknesses and begin to see more in those things than we saw before. It raises questions, so that when peculiar little accidents happen, you ask whether there is something else at work in your life. It doesn't necessarily have to involve an out-of-body experience during surgery, or the sort of high-level magic that the new age hopes to press on us. It's more a sensitivity, such as a person living in a tribal culture would have: the concept that there are other forces at work. A more reverential way of living.

--------------------------------

I'm not critical of the people who do psychotherapy. The therapists in the trenches have to face an awful lot of the social, political, and economic failures of capitalism. They have to take care of all the rejects and failures… You don't attack the grunts of Vietnam; you blame the theory behind the war. Nobody who fought in that war was at fault. It was the war itself that was at fault. It's the same thing with psychotherapy. It makes every problem a subjective, inner problem. And that's not where the problems come from. They come from the environment, the cities, the economy, the racism. They come from architecture, school systems, capitalism, exploitation. They come from many places that psychotherapy does not address. Psychotherapy theory turns it all on you: you are the one who is wrong. What I'm trying to say is that, if a kid is having trouble or is discouraged, the problem is not just inside the kid; it's also in the system, the society.

- Scott London, "On Soul, Character and Calling: A Conversation with James Hillman"

Anyone who justifies decisions by referring to the bottom line has something to learn from Treblinka.

For a candidate for political office to campaign on a platform of efficiency in government suggests the infiltration of fascistic ideas. Mussolini made the trains run on time – but at what cost.

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There is a secret love hiding in each problem.

Hard to believe, but the hypochondrias are taking care of us, the depressions are slowing us down, obsessions are ways of polishing the image, paranoid suspicions are ways of trying to see through – all these moves of the pathological are ways we are being loved in the peculiar way the psyche works.

The psyche is highly flammable material. So we are always wrapping things in asbestos, keeping our images and fantasies at arm's length because they are so full of love.

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If our civilization suffers from hybris, from ego inflation and superbia, psychology has done its part. It has been looking at soul in the ego's mirror, never seeing psyche, always seeing man. And this man has been monotheistic Reformational man, enemy of images.

Cure the symptom and lose the God. Had Jacob not grappled with the Daemon he would indeed have not been hurt, and he would not have been Jacob either.

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The lead horse does not run because it is whipped.

- In The Words of James Hillman: Psyche's Hermetic Highwayman (www.terrapsych.com)



Further Reading:

Hillman, James, The Soul's Code: In Search of Character and Calling
Moore, Thomas, Care Of The Soul - A Guide For Cultivating Depth And Sacredness In Everyday Life



Links:

On Soul, Character and Calling: A Conversation with James Hillman
The Depth of the Soul: James Hillman’s Vision of Psychology
In The Words of James Hillman: Psyche's Hermetic Highwayman
Working with Dreams: Depth Psychology Techniques of Carl Gustav Jung and James Hillman
This Talk of Soul: What Does It Mean?
Archetypal Psychology (Wikipedia)

Glossary: Association

One of the first steps of Jungian dream interpretation; the process of allowing ideas, qualities, etc. that are connected with the dream images into the dreamers mind. Associations are based on the personal experience that the dreamer has had with a particular symbol. For example one person may dream of a dog; they associate dogs with loyalty and unconditional love. Another person, who’s afraid of dogs, may associate them with violence and danger. Associations are always personal, which is one reason why dream dictionaries aren’t very useful.

When a dreamer has no associations to a particular dream image, or only the most shallow and meager ones, one should look at amplifications of the symbol in question.

Glossary: Abreaction

A therapeutic method of releasing the pain of a traumatic event by re-experiencing, and thereby defusing, the emotions associated with it. Jung himself gave up abreaction when developing his theory of the cause and treatment of neuroses.

I soon discovered that, though traumata of clearly aetiological significance were occasionally present, the majority of them appeared very improbable. Many traumata were so unimportant, even so normal, that they could be regarded at most as a pretext for the neurosis. But what especially aroused my criticism was the fact that not a few traumata were simply inventions of fantasy and had never happened at all… I could no longer imagine that repeated experiences of a fantastically exaggerated or entirely fictitious trauma had a different therapeutic value from a suggestion procedure.

- Jung, “Some Crucial Points in Psychoanalysis,” CW 4, par. 582

The belief, the self-confidence, perhaps also the devotion with which the analyst does his work, are far more important to the patient (imponderabilia though they may be), than the rehearsing of old traumata.

- Jung, “Some Crucial Points in Psychoanalysis,” CW 4, par. 584

Glossary: Autonomous

Not subject to control by the ego; existing and functioning independently, without conscious input. Used in reference to contents of the unconscious

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