Wotan, Woden, and Odin The supreme Germanic deity—known variously as Wotan, Woden, and Odin—presents a complex history of linguistic divergence, classical syncretism, and vivid literary adaptation. While the Roman historian Tacitus first recorded his worship in the first century CE by linking him to Mercury through interpretatio romana, the deity fully emerged as the cornerstone …
This article argues that the wolf is one of the most persistent and structurally overdetermined animal-symbols in human civilization because the historical encounter between man and wolf unfolded simultaneously on three inseparable levels: biological rivalry, social mirroring, and archetypal projection. The wolf therefore persists not merely as zoological memory nor merely as mythological ornament, but …
Introduction Hermann Hesse’s novel Steppenwolf (1927) and its film adaptation (1974) are readily interpreted through the framework of Carl Jung’s analytical psychology. At its core, the novel describes, through the main proponent Harry a failed individuation process, Hesse’s own personal crisis. The “Treatise on the Steppenwolf” as part of the novel functions as an internal …
Immanuel Kant saw the universe as a profound source of aesthetic experience, especially through the concept of the sublime, which he distinguished from beauty. Beauty reflects harmony between imagination and understanding, while the sublime emerges when we face something so vast or powerful—like the infinite cosmos or a violent storm—that our imagination is overwhelmed. This …
Saint Lucy’s life and legacy offer enduring lessons that resonate deeply in our contemporary violence and uncertainties. Her hagiography is an inversion of an archetypal hero’s journey: where the hero wins by overcoming power, the martyr triumphs through sacrifice. Lucia’s life serves as a reminder that resilience, kindness, and unwavering commitment to justice and faith …
Goethe and C.G. Jung “Faust I”, the Germans’ favorite drama is about a scholar who wants the impossible, who wants to know what keeps the world together at heart. Goethe’s Faust failed on this worldly question, which ultimately leads either straight to Augustine’s heaven or Dante’s hell. Therefore Faust needed and accepted diabolical assistance. But …
Last weekend I checked in for a three-day time-out at my local monastery to prepare for Christmas. The countdown to Christmas is on and for many, the Advent season is one of the most beautiful in the year. But! Have we ever realized, that this story with Mary and Joseph and birth of the Messiah …
The Monk is back. Two of the most famous paintings from Germany’s Romantic period are back on display at a central Berlin museum after a two-year restoration. I recently visited that exibition and appreciated the famed landscape painter Caspar David Friedrich. The making of a perfect piece of art has always been a purification process …
Last fall, I travelled all over Al-Andalus in the footsteps of philosophers, poets, warriors and great mystics Sufi’s like Ibn-Arabi. If you are interested in philosophy, science history and intercultural transmission of knowledge, Al- Andalus is your place and I invite you to read further. Al-Andalus represents a singular, tragic and wonderful moment of cultural …
I just came back again from the haunted and magic Languedoc-Roussillon, where I followed the footsteps of the Esclarmonde de Foix and the heretic Cathars. This essay will focus on Esclarmonde de Foix. Cathars, Catharism and its connection to the holy grail seen through the eyes of Otto Rahn, a shady self proclaimed archaeologist, who …
Dante is not just any poet. With his epic poem “Commedia”, in English “Divine Comedy” he created an Italian cultural Monument, a journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise full of symbols, archetypes, historical and allegorical references. The article wants to revisit the work of Poet Dante Alighieri from a Jungian view in the light of …
As a photographer, your eye is your lens. A Jungian understands, there are more than five senses. This essay gives a basic understanding, why excellent pictures (paintings or photographs) succeed.
Some say Sufism, or Tasawwuf as it is known in the Muslim world, is Islamic mysticism; others say it is the primordial mystical tradition, much older than Islam, using Islam as a structural frame as Gnostics usually did. In this article, we will use Jungian concepts, Sufi poetry, and myths to explore the relationship of female Archetypes and the Sufi path.
Perhaps Sufism is best defined as a universal path to union with God through self reflection – in Jungian terms individuation…
A recurring thought in books about Jesus is the thought that every time created its own Jesus. Jesus, like the virgin birth, the crucifix and resurrection, is a major symbol in the Jungian sense of the word, an abstract archetype one can fill with our own multiple meanings recognized in very culture, even non-christian. Now if we look for the many faces of Jesus, we may get access to him as a person,scholarly (theologically), from contemporary views, from other main religions, from sworn enemies of any religion and from the father of symbols – C.G. Jung.
The historical Jesus almost gets buried under his construction, even the catholic church rarely refers to him as real historic person in recent writings. Sometimes it seems that Jesus in the Gospel was also such a creation realizing the striking similarity of New Testament symbols with the Egyptian pantheon and myths. Those faces is what this article is all about. The best I have read in that regard about Jesus is from C.G. Jung, so lets start with him. Warning, this is just an essay but a rather lengthy one.
Goddesses (and Gods) have been worshipped throughout history. Already the earliest advanced civilizations had a rich set religious female spiritual and temporal archetypes which permeated every aspect of society. I want to invite the reader to follow with me the trail of Goddesses from the first advanced cultures until today’s global culture, from Babylon to …
This essay wants to explore the current interpretation of peace and hero myth, which symbolizes a personality formation which occurs only through struggle, suffering, and sacrifice…
Now, what is art anyway? To me art works are symbolic patterns, which have connotations that are unclear or hidden. They may have interferences with the Zeitgeist and references to the past…
I followed the footsteps of the Templars and the heretic Cathars. This essay will focus on their similarity with early Christian and Jewish Gnostic thoughts, in which C.G. Jung was very interested. Where did the Cathars came from and what were there beliefs? What was the mystic and symbolic importance of Mary Magdalene, who is still worshiped prominently there in Catholic Churches?
Arguably no other notable figure in history was as wrong as Freud was about every important thing he had to say. He was a favorite of the avantgarde from the begin of last century until its sixties, but while the theories of his contemporary colleagues, C.G. Jung, Adler and Wilhelm Reich aged well, little of …
Let’s say this is not an essay, but a fictional story. I was very pleased, that good friend of mine, who happens to be a catholic monk and Jungian psychoanalyst, accepted to be the god-father of my son. Since he lives somewhat remote on the country side – you guessed it, his home is a …
This essay is about Sabina Spielrein (1885-1942), female archetype of the Queen (in exile), or Russian Jewish Wise Woman connected with the two leading pioneers of the first hour – C. G. Jung and Sigmund Freud. I like to make the case, that she could have completed a triad in the theoretical development of psychoanalysis …
The history of time reflects culture – interconnecting temporal powers, religion and science. For millenniums priest were gatekeeper of time and calendar(s). Now scientists have taken over. Today we are able to contemplate beyond the creation of time, even beyond the big bang. I got the idea to this essay after I read a book, …
Akhenaten (Echnaton) is the most mysterious and interesting of all the ancient Egyptian pharaohs. In the following essay I will try to interpret what little is known about the androgynous pharaoh, who brought down the Egypt empire with his daring cultural and religious revolution, the enigmatic chief queen Nefertiti (Neferneferuaten), and his overpowering mother Tiye.
A scholarly fashion claims that only by coincidence Christ and not the Egyptian Isis or the Persian Mithras gained the upper hand as a world religion. There is some truth in it, but also an utter disregard of the attractiveness of Christianity at that time. This article will explore this question from a historical thesis, …
This article explores the psychological underpinnings of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” from a Jungian view. Carl Jung left a great deal of ambiguity surrounding his work. He understood, as long as there have been men and they have lived, they have all felt this tragic ambiguity and everybody must accept his or her “Shadow” during the individuation process. Ambiguity between good an evil, and a failed individuation is …
Jung has been often (rightfully) seen of being a contemporary Gnostic. However, the interpretations which Jung places on Gnosticism and the texts which Jung refers to on alchemy, were often Kabbalistic, so much so that one would be more justified in calling the Jung of the Mysterium Coniunctionis or Kabbalistic in contemporary disguise. One of the most serious and arguably criticisms against …
Recently I attended a catholic retreat in a Benedictine mountain monastery. The theme was: The wolf in us. We discussed the archetypes and myths of the wolf, a topic I had explored in great length before, their archetypes here and here. The point was raised, that the wolf represents greed, one of the seven deadly sins. What …
This is an extension of the last post: the archetype of the wolf. I am a hobby astronomer and fond of its older sister Astrology. So lets look to the Wolf from that perspective. The wolf is inherently pagan and shamanic, that means American Indian, Chinese, Egyptians, Babylonians should have big stakes in in its Astronomy …
In a few weeks, there is Whitsun, and I will make one of my occasional trips to the monastery. The rock monastery St. George is a development center of the Benedictine order in the Austrian Inn valley. From the monastery to the St. George mountain (Karwendel) on foot takes approximately one hour. The religious exercise will be lead by a Benedictine monk, who happens …
fallenAngel’s Fear is an obvious wordplay which crossed my mind after a blog reader pointed out that Bateson’s book Angels Fear: Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred might be of relevance to me. The title created immediately multiple associations and images, so I became curious and got the book. Bateson presents from a anthropologist view concepts and topology of structure- determined recursion – in a …
Maybe it’s because I am an “unchurched”, humanist religious person, but todays anti-religious tracts and rants do bore me. However, a new book of the primatologist Frans de Waal, raised hope for new insights: The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates. He made accidentally an interesting point – the reciprocal imago dei (God’s imago modelled after human) of todays … Continue reading
When I lived in California I listened often to the KFOG radio commentator Wes (“Scoop”) Nisker who happened to be also a comedian: “If you don’t like the news … go out and make some of your own”, was his frequent catchphrase. Comedians are often called jester, fool, trickster and clown. Very recently many European ( foolish) fools call an Italian comedian a clown. Because he … Continue reading
In his masterpiece The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien created what he called a “new mythos”. There is undoubtedly much in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings that invites us seeing it through the Jungian framework. However, on a closer look, comparatively few archetypes are present, and the main protagonist’s (Frodo’s) individuation arguably fails. A Jungian view must … Continue reading
Prelude The «Red Book» created between 1914 and 1930 can be described as a visual diary of dreams. Jung described this book – its language and emotions seem at times almost embarrassing – as important testimonies of his psychological and spiritual development. The psychoanalyst referred to his unfinished work as a !necessary but annoying ‘aesthetic … Continue reading
Sufism came recently into the CNN spotlight when Al Qaeda-linked Mali Islamists armed with Kalashnikov’s and pick-axes destroyed centuries-old mausoleums of saints in the UNESCO-listed city of Timbuktu. Sufism is historically known from the 5th century A.D on (first Sufi order was founded 657), and has survived as the only mystic (gnostic) religion the purges of the three fighting monotheist religions. This article wants … Continue reading
That movie title “Do the Right Thing” of Spike Lee would not fly today. Rather Raymond Chandlers “The Big Sleep”. Maybe. Something feels not right any more. Specifically the “Right” (as opposed to Wrong not to Left) is an endangered species. One has to decode first all the Western mental systems before separating Wright from … Continue reading
The Aquarius Age (aka New Age or New World Order) is a period defined by the passage of the spring equinox (literally “Equal Night”) into the Aquarius zodiac sign. What does the Aquarius age promise? What are its footprints? Is it the blue pill or the red – hope or despair? What had Jung to say…? … Continue reading
This article complements the concepts explored in my article “Archetypes of the Mature Masculine” and applies them to the other half of humanity—women. In doing so I apply the same principles, not in a mechanistic way, but in the spirit of Jung’s archetypes and their rationale. Lets start with a few words of C. G. Jung himself where he talks about the Anima.
Thomas Moore and Douglas Gillette adopted and extended Jung’s approach in their exploration of the masculine psyche by using the collective archetypes of the King, the Warrior, the Magician, and the Lover. Obviously those four male archetypes can be translated and mapped in female clusters of virtues, specific attributes associated with four major female archetypes: the Queen, the Mother, the Wise Woman and the (female) Lover found in history and myths. This has been done before. Continue reading
In another defining act of intellectual barbarism, “Islamist extremists” (term borrowed by AP – Activists, Islam fighters nor Islamists won’t do) in Mali destroyed a number of tombs in the ancient city of Timbuktu, which in the last year fell under control of a separatist insurgency. Home of the prestigious Sankore University, Timbuktu was an intellectual and spiritual capital and a centre for the propagation of Sufism (an Islam faction) throughout Africa in the 15th and 16th centuries. Its three great mosques, Djingareyber, Sankore and Sidi Yahia, recall Timbuktu’s golden age. “The destruction is a divine order,” said a spokesman from Ansar Dine, a radical outfit with alleged links to al-Qaeda. Ansar Dine or “defenders of the faith” in Arabic is group led by a prominent leader of the Tuareg rebellion in the 1990s which wants the imposition of strict Sharia law across Mali.The Associated Press Posted Jan 28, 2013 @ 07:32 AMSEVARE, Mali (AP) — Islamist extremists torched a library containing historic manuscripts in Timbuktu, the mayor said today, as French and Malian forces closed in on Mali’s fabled desert city. Continue reading
Recently I attended yet another team building “Engagement workshop”. It occurred to me, while I do understand that this sector in a well performing multinational corporation has rather particular objectives by its mission, why it has such multiple and interesting cultural contexts. Culture is something we all experience, but have great difficulties defining. I want in this article to align C.G. Jung’s … Continue reading
C. G. Jung had shown a pronounced and informed interest in Gnosticism and Alchemy. This is evident in the Quaternio Series of the Self in his book. “Aion”. In his early works “Seven Sermons to the Dead” (“Die sieben Reden an die Toten ”) and “The Red Book” (recently published) he perceived the outstanding psychological relevance of Gnostic insights. Was Jung really a Gnostic? I … Continue reading
The problem of evil has been a subject of interest in religion and philosophy. For our purpose here we want to approach the question in a inductive and psychoanalytic way looking at historic persons: Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot: what is evil and what is the cause of it. If we consider them evil – and I do – what … Continue reading
This article explores Wittgenstein’s Tractatus as a mystical, metaphysical insight in the light of Eastern philosophy, Catholic mysticism and C. G Jung. Please be gentle and read this as an (intuitive) essay not as a scholarly article. There are methodological implications of Wittgenstein’s doctrine of silence for transcendental philosophy, Zen Buddhism, psychoanalysis and metaphysics. Or there is a line from Lao-Tse to Wittgenstein, connected … Continue reading
The Newsweek article “A New Theory of PTSD and Veterans: Moral Injury” was probably the best article I ever read about PTSD – besides Shay’s Achilles in Vietnam. Yes most important factors may very well be moral injury, traumatic events and being betrayed by leadership. But, there is more – ethical, Jungian depth psychological and political circumstances: Villains don’t … Continue reading
Todays answer to aging of medicine, psychology and sociology (or the happy union of postmodern and materialistic society) is contrary to common sense and spiritual void: Accept to be incomplete and fragmentary and the own life – regardless of the question how incomplete, unsuccessful void it has been. Consume if you have money, don’t bother us if you don’t. To the contrary C. G. … Continue reading
Translation of my article “Gedanken zur Predigt in St. Ottilien 2012-11-18 The Death of the Ego as prerequisite to find God“ By fallenAngel This sunday sermon in St. Ottilien (2012-11-18-0915-konventamt.mp3) addressed an interesting line of thought: in order to experience God (via the Self), we need to kill the Ego in us. A very tough call indeed. “We … Continue reading
Last Saturday (yesterday). I went on a retreat (religious exercise) at the Benedictine monastery St. Ottilien with twenty others men and women looking after their private center and true selves: “Looking for the self” What do we know of the psyche and soul? The discussion was lead by two monks – the longtime Prior Claudius and … Continue reading
In Herman Hesse’s final novel The Glass Bead Game, which won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946, he introduces essentially a hypothetical meta game, which has been compared with a “neural network of cosmic mind”. This gave me the idea to probe today’s social and knowledge networks of the Internet as it were The Glass Bead Game, … Continue reading
For the uninitiated, Wong’s films seem pointless and confusing, which is reinforced by the director’s trademark cinematic indulgences, laggard pacing and minimalist plotting. However, upon closer inspection, it is easy to become intrigued by the rampant symbolism, the metaphor-laden dialogue, and the philosophical and psychological underpinnings of his films. Maybe its a problem of “if … Continue reading
As an unchurched catholic Christian, I’ve gained some of my most valuable insights into spirituality from Zen Buddhism. I’ve finally managed to stay with a daily meditation routine and encountered exquisite beauties and powerful insights which helped me to regain my footing in the current world in crisis crisis and cultural decay of the West and all their institutions. Continue reading
Mourning day remembering the crucifixion of Jesus. In the second year of pandemic. COVID-19 is far from over. We are at a crossroads, some argue. Their path will take us to a better world, they argue. The so-called free world is facing a critical decision: Are civil rights and freedom negotiable or not? High time … Continue reading
I have been silent for a while for various reasons, so I’ll start again sharing my Lenten “promise” again this year here. This is a special year, it might be the last lent for me, for us, for my father, for my son. Who knows, we are in gods hand now. We are a family … Continue reading
I have been silent for a while for various reasons, so I’ll start again sharing my Lenten “promise” this year here. Lenten promises should take us “out of our comfort zone” and should sharpen our heart. No meat, no alcohol, no cheese, no sweets, which is easy, cutting down on twitter is about as far … Continue reading
This blog, humbly following G.G. Jung, was viewed more than 110,000 times in 2015, close to 10.000 visitors a month, coming from 179 countries. Thanks for dropping by. This year begins in Europe with lies, fear and hate, and the future looks dim. On New years Eve, downright evil has happened, the wars spilled to … Continue reading
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