Jungian Archetypes and Symbols
INTRODUCTION This essay analyzes Sabina Spielrein’s most famous work, “Destruction as the Cause of Coming into Being” (Destruktion als Ursache des Werdens, 1912) . It envisions her neither as a premature Jungian nor as a dissident Freudian, but as what she truly was: an independent theorist whose dialectic of creation and destruction in transformation occupies … Continue reading
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 as a privileged symbolic convergence point, i.e. an Jungian archetypal vessel … Continue reading
A Jungian view of my astrophotography ‘The Veil Nebula‘, the universe interpreted though Maxim Gorky’s famous poem and the philosopher Kant. Immanuel Kant saw the universe as a profound source of aesthetic experience, especially through the concept of the sublime—like the infinite universe or a violent storm— which he distinguished from beauty. Beauty reflects harmony … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading