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What does a Jungian Pagan spiritual practice look like?  So far, on this blog, my writing has been highly abstract.  I'd like to get does to the practical side of things now.

A Jungian spiritual practice may take many forms.  What all of these forms have in common is that they bring together the rational conscious mind with the non-rational unconscious mind.  Dreamwork, for example, is not just dreaming, but upon waking, analyzing the dream and integrating the unconscious contents into one's conscious life. 

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  • Amarfa
    Amarfa says #
    I'll have to find my other resources. I wonder if it was one of Aidan Kelly's books that I found it in. I also have somewhere a
  • John Halstead
    John Halstead says #
    Thanks. Please do let me know what you turn up. John
  • Elspeth
    Elspeth says #
    Thank you - very clear, instructive article - so useful. You take great care to state that active imagination is different to luci
  • John Halstead
    John Halstead says #
    I have only done journeying once. I would think that with an effective guide, one who led you to your unconscious rather than pro
  • Elspeth
    Elspeth says #
    Thanks for putting this succinctly ie good journeying is being led into one's unconscious but most related exercises involve proje

[UPDATE 6/16/15: Jung's Collected Works can now be downloaded from Scribd.com.]

When I first started getting into Jung, I was lost.  I quickly discovered three things: First, Jung wrote a lotThere are 18 volumes of his Collected Works (not counting the bibliography and index) and they are not even complete.  Second, there is very little logic to the ordering of Jung's writings.  This is why electronic versions of Jung's writings are great: because they are searchable.  And third, electronic versions of many of Jung's writings are very hard to find.  I've previously provided a list of Internet Jung resources here along with a link to a torrent download of Jung's Collected Works. 

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It is one thing to sing of the beloved. Another, alas,

to invoke that hidden, guilty river-god of the blood. 

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  • D. R. Bartlette
    D. R. Bartlette says #
    This is a wonderful post. I love your statement that NeoPagans are modern society's "shadow." I will proudly take that title! I al
  • John Halstead
    John Halstead says #
    I agree with everything you said about the Horned God. It's still true that the Neopagan Horned God derives from the Wiccan Horne

Posted by on in Paths Blogs

"Scorn not the Gods: Despite their non-existence in material terms, they're no less potent, no less terrible.  The one place Gods inarguably exist is in our minds where they are real beyond refute, in all their grandeur and monstrosity."

-- Alan Moore, From Hell

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... and what the soul is, also
I believe I will never quite know.
Though I play at the edges of knowing,
truly I know
our part is not knowing,
but looking, and touching, and loving,
which is the way I walked on ...
-- Mary Oliver, "Bone"

 

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Posted by on in Paths Blogs

In the previous two posts, I set out to show how Jung’s archetypal psychology might be of interest to polytheists and deity-centered Pagans.  In concluding, I promised to discuss how Jung may also be of interest to earth-centered Pagans.

Jung’s earthiness is sometimes easy to miss.  It is quite possible to read a great deal of Jung’s writings, as well as a lot of secondary literature on Jungian psychology, and not find much concern at all with the natural world.  In fact, it is easy to interpret Jungian philosophy as being introverted to the point of solipsism.  And yet, one of Jung’s biographers confidentially calls him “earth-rooted” as well as “spiritually centered”.  People who knew him called often described him as “earthy”, referring to his physicality and vitality, as well as his simplicity.  Olga Konig-Fachsenfeld, for one, wrote that Jung's "earth-rootedness" was for her "the guarantee for the credibility of his psychology". 

In his personal life, Jung had an intense love of nature, simple rustic lifestyle, and solitude, reminiscent of the Transcendentalists.  Jung writes in his semi-autobiographical Memories, Dreams, Reflections that part of him always felt “remote from the world of men, but close to nature, the earth, the sun, the moon, the weather, all living creatures.”  His experience of nature bordered on the pantheistic:

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs

It can be difficult to discover personal meaning and purpose when we don't zoom out to get a big picture of the patterns and symbols in our life. One way we can discover the patterns and purposes of our life is by discerning prevalent Archetypes and symbols.

What is an archetype? An archetype is a template or original pattern from which copies are made. Psychologist Carl Jung, author Joseph Campbell, storyteller/author Clarissa Pinkola Estes, psychologist Jean Shinonda-Bolen and others are among those that have brought the concept of Archetypes into our consciousness. 

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  • Janet Boyer
    Janet Boyer says #
    Thanks for further sharing your perspective, John!
  • Janet Boyer
    Janet Boyer says #
    Hi John, As I mentioned in my post, others have built upon what Jung postulated (Myss, Shinoda Bolen, Carol Pearson etc.). concer
  • John Halstead
    John Halstead says #
    Actually, most Pagan and New Age authors who draw on Jung, do not build on his ideas, but rather present a stripped down version o
  • John Halstead
    John Halstead says #
    Technically, for Jung archetypes are not "patterns that are universally recognized [...] in myths, fairy tales, literature, and mo

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