The Healing Psyche

01/31/2025

JUNGIAN ANALYSIS FOR THE LIVING AND FOR THE DEAD: Lessons from the The Jaguar-Man in a Tomb

In a previous article that I wrote (“What The Death May Teach The Living About the Individuation Process”), I stated the hypothesis that archetypal images, carved on stone statues by an aboriginal group and located on a necropolis, could provide psychological guidance for the journey of life, death, and rebirth, specifically for the journey of the afterlife. It seems that each person and his/her spirit may have to go through the journey of living, dying, and rebirth. Therefore, the individual spirit of a human being may go through three phases; a) the living (“incarnated spirit”); b) the Death (“spirit”), and c) the Rebirth (“reincarnated spirit”).

You may be skeptical and question the relevance of talking about death and the afterlife when we are still alive and want to fulfill our individuation process. That is a reasonable point of view.
However, I would like to invite the reader to consider the following two issues: 1) that there are certain archetypal images, while we are alive, that appear in dreams, visions, paintings, sculptures, etc that will be, also, essential and relevant, after we die, during the journey to the afterlife. If we could determine what similar archetypal images are crucially relevant for both, the cycle of living and for the afterlife, then, each of us will have not only a much larger “vision and mission” about life and death but, also, less karma that would decrease the necessity to reincarnate. Those archetypally relevant (images), if related consciously during living, would contribute, first, towards enlightment, second towards decreasing the individual karma that forces reincarnation and, third, following Jung's thought about the afterlife, the spirit of a person who has died and who did not fulfilled, on earth, the Destiny (the archetypal endowments) that was given to him/her, will be forced, after death, to continue atempting to relate and integrate those archetypal images that were not realized during the living phase.
(To read more, go to: https://www.thehealingpsyche.org/single-post/jungian-analysis-for-the-living-and-for-the-dead-lessons-from-the-th ).

(Image Credit: Sacred Sites-Unesco-Martin Gray)

Jungian Analysis/Psychotherapy for the healing of depression, anxiety, and other emotional challenge

08/10/2023

ALUNA, THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS AND GOD
ENGLISH/SPANISH

“In the Dark Night of the Soul, Bright Flows the River of God” (Juan de La Cruz)

Human beings have been seeking to periodically experience the profound love towards the Divine as well as the intense beauty and ecstasy that comes with it. This union was sought by the poet, Juan de Yepes y Alvarez (better known as Juan de La Cruz - John of the Cross), and this article will focus primarily on understanding some sentences from a mystic poem that he wrote as well as amplifying them with the wisdom of the Kogi Indians and Jungian knowledge.

On a side note, I make the contention that a similar experience is reached by the individual, at some point, at the farthest end of the process of individuation and wholeness, during a Jungian Analysis that is methodologically conducted in the manner delineated by Jung, which was closely followed by his early collaborators (Von Franz, Hannah, Harding, Edinger, etc).

Now, a little bit about the poet, Juan de La Cruz.
Juan de La Cruz is considered one of Spanish literature's most important poets. His poetry was mystical because it described the paths that the human soul needs to walk towards union with the Divine. His sentences are full of God and pregnant with actions to consciously illuminate the dark side of God. For example, “In the dark night of the soul, bright flows the river of God.” Or, take a look at the following sentences taken from “Stanzas of the Soul That Suffers with Longing to See God”:

“I am not now living in myself,

And without God I cannot live:

For without God, I am also without myself.”

(To read more about this post and the interface between Aluna/Kogi Indians, Jung, and God, click here:
https://www.thehealingpsyche.org/single-post/aluna-the-collective-unconscious-and-god

04/18/2023

"OUR PANTING SOUL CLEAVES TO GOD..."
It is rather deflating and narcissistically painful for the so-called adult human ego to humbly accept that there is a colossal spirit that nourishes, guides and determines his/her life.
The mystical writer, Francis De Sales wrote the following:
“There, as the famished babe cleaves to its mother’s breast as though it would fain absorb it, so our panting soul cleaves to God as though to be forever absorbed in Him, and He in us!”
The industrialized fascination with visibility and the scientific discrimination against the soul has led the human ego to erase, from consciousness, the idea that there is a soul. The human ego has appointed itself as the primary and exclusive factor in the psychology of the individual.
Furthermore, God does not exist for a large segment of the population and, therefore, the experiential and practical idea that there is a God image in us that determines our lives, as Jung brilliantly demonstrated through the experience of Jungian analysis, has little acceptance and relevance in industrialized and technological societies.
The soul is absorbed in God, and God is in us, as De Sales concluded, is a timeless idea that many aboriginal and indigenous tribes may agree with. Take, for example, the cosmology of the Kogi tribe and the Sibundoy Indians in Colombia, South America. Their rich spiritual view of Nature and of people connects them deeply with the spirit world, the Divine in Nature and in themselves. Yet, many industrialized and technological nations easily live without the idea and/or experience of the Divine, let alone the possibility that it has a place in the heart and soul of the so-called modern people. The price to pay for this ignorance and systematic neglect is, I believe, the hefty psychological cost of depression, anxiety, despair, and meaninglessness.
When an individual pays daily attention to dreams and synchronicities, he/she discovers that the unconscious wants to complement the individual ego in order to follow a specific destiny suggested by the Self (the God Image in us, as Jung called it). And this is experienced as a defeat by the person because his/her ego has grown so accustomed to be and behave like a God i.e., making decisions, thinking all kinds of thoughts, fantasizing, struggling with all sorts of obstacles, etc.
The word, ‘absorb’ stems etymologically from the Latin absorbere, that is, “to swallow up, devour”, from ab “off, away from” and sorbere “suck in.” Therefore, “to absorb” means “to suck in” and “away from.” Then, God sucks in the soul, away from its separate state. The implication is that, on a daily basis, human beings unfortunately attempt to live independently and separately from God, and that the soul seeks subsequently to be absorbed or sucked in by God. Furthermore, here lies Jung’s crucial discovery of the religious function of the psyche. As Jung said: “If no one can point to any race, or even a tribe, which is quite free from religious phenomena, then I really do not see how one can justify the argument that religious phenomena are not genuine…” Following Jung and De Sales, the conclusion is that a human being becomes part of God, and that the soul is integrated into God. Our human identity is fully embedded in God, despite our sense of self and our conscious identity. Ego consciousness, the sense of self, or the personal identity, all of which gives the ego a sense of separateness -an individuality- is one of the aspects that remains from God’s absorption of our souls. Fortunately, one can actively and positively participate in the process of being absorbed in God: when an individual reflects and integrates responsibly and assiduously his/her dreams, he/she actively participates in God’s absorption process that De Sales and Jung described.
Another angle for understanding the idea of ‘the absorption of the soul in God’, could be done through the coagulatio stage of alchemy. According to Edinger (1985), “.....coagulatio belongs to the symbolism of the element earth…It is heavy and permanent, of fixed position and shape…Thus, for a psychic content to become earth means that it has been concretized in a particular localized form; that is, it has become attached to an ego.(p. 83, and see figure below).” Coagulatio corresponds to the process of incarnating, in a physical body, what the Divine has hinted at us in dreams, for example. In other words, incarnating the soul images from dreams into our daily lives contributes to the absorption of soul “in Him, and He in us.”

Check the original article at: https://www.thehealingpsyche.org/single-post/our-panting-soul-cleaves-to-god
Thank you

Jungian Analysis/Psychotherapy for the healing of depression, anxiety, and other emotional challenge

10/04/2022

WHAT THE DEAD MAY TEACH THE LIVING ABOUT THE INDIVIDUATION PROCESS:
A JUNGIAN PERSPECTIVE ABOUT AN ABORIGINAL NECROPOLIS.

Death was sacred to some aboriginal people in Colombia. Near the town of San Agustin and Isnos, the journey to death called for a necropolis to be built by unknown indigenous tribes. Approximately more than 2000 years ago, funerary mounds, megalithic, anthropomorphic, anthropozoomorphic, and zoomorphic statues, funerary corridors, and stone slab tombs were constructed beneath the earth! Earth mounds covered stone slab dolmens that contained the dead body of important people who had natural powers or occupied important roles in their tribe (Instituto Colombiano de Antropologia e Historia-ICANH, 2011). We know very little about who these tribes were and why they abandoned this area by the 14th and 15th century. The indigenous people who currently live near this area do not seem to have a direct racial lineage with these Colombian ancestors.
Why do these aboriginal people construct and bury these “death-related” sites underground? What is the meaning of the anthropomorphic, anthrozoomorphic, and zoomophic stone sculptures? This brief article attempts to provide a psychological hypothesis to these questions, from an Analytical (Jungian) Psychology perspective, in order to emphasize “ancestral wisdom” (Leon, 2010) of indigenous for modern times.
Read more at: https://www.thehealingpsyche.org/single-post/what-the-death-may-teach-the-living-about-the-individuation-process

11/21/2021

"JAMAYA PU'LAPUIN?": A Brief Archetypal Teaching from Wayuu Aborigens to Jungian Psychology.

“Jamaya Pu’lapuin?” (“How was your dream?”) are the first words with which the Wayuu greet each other daily. In contrast, when people from industrialized societies meet, they may say, “Hi”, “Hola”, “How are you?.” The greeting of ‘How are you?’ does not exist in the Wayuu language. An initial comparison of the greetings between these two groups of people may reveal the following: the Wayuu emphasize the primacy of the aa’in (soul) in life, which gets manifested in dreams, as well as the individual caring for the soul in another person’s life. Given the daily forgetfulness of the existence and subjective experience of the unconscious in the industrialized people, the word “You” in their greetings may be referring to the “Ego” and, less so to the integrated whole of the conscious and the unconscious. From a Jungian perspective, the Wayuu seem to be, initially, more interested in unconscious processes than “civilized people” are.
Therefore, Jungian analysts could learn, from the Wayuu aborigens, that the first question to be asked, when an analysand comes for the first time and to subsequent sessions to analysis, is “How was your dream?” (“Jamaya Pu’lapuin”). This is congruent with Jung’s writings and clinical practice where the centrality of dreams, as revealing the wisdom of the Self, was fundamental. There are exceptions, of course.
The Wayuu (“The People of the Sun, Sand, and Wind”) are an indigenous tribe that live in the desert of La Guajira Peninsula, which borders Colombia and Venezuela. They live in small settlements called “Rancherias,” which consists of five or six houses made of branches, corrals, and mud houses. Because their societal structure is matrilineal, each Rancheria is composed of people belonging to the same matrilineal clan. Some of these clans are, for example, the Aspushana (“Sour with Something”), the Epieyu (“Where Sleepiness is Felt”), the Jayaliyuu (“Eyes without Head”), etc. Furthermore, Wayuu children primarily bear their mother’s last name (and not the father’s), and each clan is identified with a symbolic drawing (“Kanaas”) that usually has a geometric shape that alludes to an animal, a plant, or a geographical place.
Therefore, the importance of images in Wayuu's cosmology is comparable to the primacy of images in Analytical Psychology.
According to Paz (2017), Lapu refers to a deity that, through dreams, conveys messages to people. Dreams help the Wayuu to prognosticate many of outer events, such as death, health, adversities, etc. The Wayuu seek signals in dreams on how an adverse event can be prevented. At night, the aa’in (soul) of a Wayuu wanders, and such travel is aptly described in dreams. In recent decades, and within the field of Analytical Psychology, there is a greater tendency to see dreams as a comment, primarily, of the “analytical field” and, less so, of the intrapsychic life of the individual. The Wayuu perspective that dreams are helpful comments or warnings about outer events, such as a marriage, taking a trip, buying a house, taking a new job, moving to another city, etc, is becoming, unfortunately, less relevant to Analytical Psychologists because of the idea that “subjective interpretations” of dreams are emphasized more than “objective interpretations.” A close reading of Wayuu’s cosmology may help Analytical Psychology to have a more balanced view and hold the tension of the opposites of viewing dreams subjectively and objectively. Therefore, next time we want to relocate to another city, change jobs, have more children and, (why not?) getting together with a friend, etc., let us consult a dream about it, like the Wayuu do.
Furthermore, the aa’in or Wayuu soul is a vital energy in each Wayuu aborigen as well as in any living organism (Paz, 2017). What would be a comparable Jungian ontological category that corresponds to the aa”in in the Wayuu? I believe, “Psyche.” The aa’in is fragile in children, while it is strong and consolidated in an adult. The aa’in develops and becomes stronger over the years and, during old age, the aa’in becomes progressively weaker until it departs the human body, which corresponds to the death of the individual. When an individual falls ill, this is due to the fact that his/her aa’in has departed for quite some time and, when an individual dies, his/her soul has departed and has never come back.
When a Wayuu dies, he/she goes to Jepira -the land of the dead-, a place where the dead Wayuu go after dying. According to the Wayuu, what dies is the body, but not the aa’in (soul). The aa’in continues “living” and transforms itself into yoluja -a spirit, a non human being. The belief that the aa’in continues living is in accordance with Jung’s view, and Von Franz’s studies (1984) on dreams and death re-affirm such view:

“It is in fact true, as Jung emphasized, that the unconscious psyche pays very little attention to the abrupt end of bodily life and behaves as if the psychic life of the individual, that is, the individuation process, will simply continue. In this connection, however, there are also dreams which symbolically indicate the end of bodily life and the explicit continuation of psychic life after death. The unconscious “believes” quite obviously in a life after death.”

The yolujas (the spirits of the dead) visit the Wayuu in their dreams. Dreams are the place where the dead interact with the living, and those interactions could be positive and/or negative. For example, a yoluja of a dead relative could help, in a dream, a living relative with healing, guiding, and warning signals. Moreover, a yoluja could provide, through a dream, valuable information about medicinal plants for healing. On the other hand, a yoluja could still steal the aa’i of a child and contribute, thus, to his/her death.
Moreover, the Wayuu divides life events in terms of opposites (male/female). Rain, which is essential for survival in the desert, is the result of the union of those opposites. Similarly, in Jungian thought, opposites play a fundamental role in the human psyche, and their balance contributes to ‘water’ psychological life.
Death plays an important role in Wayuu’s culture. When a Wayuu dies, he/she needs to be buried twice in order to be transformed into rain, which will water the new life on the Earth. The spirits of the dead (“Pulasu”) are sacred, and have a great influence on life and death as well as health and sickness. The Pulasu can be contacted through dreams, and dreams are the place where the world of the living meets the world of the dead. As I have previously published (Taborda, 2010), dream characters (from a Jungian perspective) and spirits in dreams (for indigenous people worldwide), can be ontologically understood as similar, and both communicate important information on how to live life.
What would be the epistemological impact on Analytical Psychology, especially for the practice of Jungian analysis, if dreams are understood, also, as the land of the spirits of dead ancestors (“yoluja”) and spirits of living people (“aa’in”) that interact with the aa’in of the dreamer? Imagine: if dreams are the central core of Jungian Analysis, as Jung indicated, what would Jungian analysts think about defining the fundamental practice of Analytical Psychology as the process of establishing, through dream analysis, a balanced relationship between the spirits of the dead and the spirits of the living, as well as a balanced relationship among the spirits of the living in order to live a meaningful and whole live. For some analysts, this approach will be a theoretical and practical regression in their pursuit of establishing Analytical Psychology as a scientific clinical practice, which may trigger fears of “going primitive”; for others, it may be a welcoming opportunity to create a racial and cross-cultural bridge to other people, aborigens, indigenous tribes and cultures, and their descendants. Analytical Psychology is struggling with issues of racial diversity and cross-cultural competency. Learning how to practice Jungian analysis with the help of aboriginal and native cosmology from a variety of cultures may be an answer to this struggle.

(Picture Credit: Wayuu Vibes)

05/25/2021

(English)
THE CONIUNCTIO
“The Coniunctio can...take...gruesome forms…” (Jung)

The search for wholeness, which will alleviate human suffering, calls for a conscious integration and balancing of many opposites (i.e consciousness/unconscious; love/hatred; joy/sorrow, masculine/feminine, etc) in life. Jung mentioned that bringing those opposites together creates a coniunctio. Unfortunately, when the ego unconsciously associates and identifies with certain psychological states (i.e., the ego of an impulsive individual unconsciously identifies with rage, for example, and, then, hits another person, or the ego of an alcoholic individual who unconsciously identifies with a psychological thirst and, then, drinks frequently), then, such individual has fostered a kind of coniunctio, between consciousness and the unconscious, that is not healthy, which has been described as a “lesser coniunctio” or “death coniunctio.” This is why Jung mentioned that a coniunctio can take gruesome forms; hence, the importance of developing greater consciousness so that a person is able to properly pause and choose what feeling, thought,or behavior he/she will express. Greater consciousness promotes a higher coniunctio.

(Español)
EL CONIUNCTIO
"El Coniunctio puede ... tomar ... formas grotescas ..." (Jung)

La búsqueda de la integridad, que alivia el sufrimiento humano, requiere una integración consciente y un equilibrio de muchos opuestos psicológicos (es decir, conciencia / inconsciente; amor / odio; alegría / dolor, masculino / femenino, etc.) en la vida. Jung mencionó que integrar esos opuestos crea una coniunctio. Desafortunadamente, cuando el ego se asocia e identifica inconscientemente con ciertos estados psicológicos (por ejemplo, el ego de un individuo impulsivo se identifica inconscientemente con la rabia, por ejemplo, y luego golpea a otra persona; el ego de un individuo alcohólico que inconscientemente se identifica con una sed psicológica y, luego, bebe alcohol muy frecuentemente), entonces, ese individuo ha fomentado una especie de coniunctio, entre lo consciente y el inconsciente, que no es saludable, y que ha sido descrito como un “coniunctio menor” o “coniunctio de muerte” (Edinger). Por eso Jung mencionó que un coniunctio puede tomar formas grotescas; de ahí la importancia de ser más conscientes para que, así, una persona pueda hacer una pausa adecuada y elegir y expresar el sentimiento, pensamiento o comportamiento más adecuado. Una mayor conciencia promueve un coniunctio más elevado e iluminado.

02/15/2021

"You cannot discover the inner source of security upon which your existence rests until you have been deprived of all external supports." (E. Edinger)
Jung's book, "Mysterium Coniunctionis", is a rich, profound, and exceedingly difficult book to understand and to 'put in practice' in daily living. Edinger mentioned the previous quote while giving a lecture about Jung's symbol of the "orphan." Psychologically speaking, the symbol of the "orphan" reminds us of the capacity to live with the help of inner resources, given the absence of external supports. A precondition for integrating and balancing the opposites in life, such as external/internal, masculine/femenine, etc., requires the decision of letting go of external supports, such as money, material goods, fame, approval, etc. The psychological integration of the "orphan" in our lives does not mean the denial of the painful, heart wrenching, and isolating experience that comes with "the orphan."
How would it be for you to psychologically integrate and balance in your life the symbol of the "orphan"?

Jungian Analysis/Psychotherapy for the healing of depression, anxiety, and other emotional challenge

01/21/2021

(English)
GOS IS AN AILMENT MAN HAS TO CURE (JUNG).
"God is a contradiction in terms; therefore, he needs man in order to be made One...God is an ailment man has to cure." (Jung)

According to Jung, there is a fragment of God in each of us, and that divine fragment contains opposites. While Christianity has exclusively understood God as 'goodness', Jung psychologically observed that God within us contains opposites (i.e., good and evil, for example). Christianity’s metaphysical perception of God and Jung's psychological view of God within do not coincide. A closer look at God within reveals, as Jung observed that, inwardly, God is sometimes unconscious of His own darkness and of His own dual nature. In other words, at times, He is unaware of his cruelty and evil side; at other times, He is aware of his benevolence and just attitude. This is God’s ailment. In order to reach a greater level of consciousness, God within needs the help of man’s ego. Human beings are able to cure Him: to the extent that human beings look within, and bring to consciousness the different aspects/opposites of God within us, then, He becomes more conscious and, in such process, also, each of us become more conscious of our unconscious life.

(Spanish)
DIOS ES UNA DOLENCIA QUE EL HOMBRE TIENE QUE CURAR
(JUNG)
"Dios es una contradicción; por tanto, necesita al hombre para ser una totalidad ... Dios es una dolencia que el hombre tiene que curar". (Jung)

Según Jung, hay un fragmento de Dios en cada uno de nosotros, y ese fragmento divino contiene opuestos. Si bien el cristianismo ha entendido exclusivamente a Dios como 'bondad', Jung observó psicológicamente que Dios dentro de nosotros contiene opuestos (es decir, el bien y el mal, por ejemplo). La percepción metafísica que tiene el cristianismo de Dios y la visión psicológica que Jung tiene del Dios interior no coinciden. Una mirada más cercana a Dios en el interior revela, como Jung observó, que, interiormente, Dios a veces es inconsciente de Su propia oscuridad y de Su propia naturaleza dual. En otras palabras, a veces, no se da cuenta de su crueldad y su lado malvado; en otras ocasiones, es consciente de su benevolencia y actitud justa. Esta es la enfermedad de Dios. Para alcanzar un mayor nivel de conciencia, Dios interior necesita la ayuda del ego del hombre. Los seres humanos son capaces de curarlo: en la medida en que los seres humanos miren hacia adentro y traigan a la conciencia los diferentes aspectos / opuestos de Dios dentro de nosotros, entonces Él se vuelve más consciente y, en ese proceso, también, cada uno de nosotros se vuelve más consciente de nuestra vida inconsciente.

Jungian Analysis/Psychotherapy for the healing of depression, anxiety, and other emotional challenge

12/06/2020

A Sentiment of Tranquility and Inner Balance when the Opposites are Balanced in Beauty.

Provided to YouTube by Epidemic Sound Sentient · Gavin Luke Sentient ℗ Epidemic Sound Released on: 2020-10-02 Producer: Gavin Luke Composer: Gavin Luke Music...

10/03/2020

WALK WITHIN AND YOU WILL FIND IT
"Knock on yourself as upon a door and walk upon yourself as on a straight road. For if you walk on the road, it is impossible for you to go astray." (Silvanus)
It is initially a leap of faith to walk inwardly. Soul provides the visual images that can guide the journey and, after many moons and suns, a poised heart reveals that, indeed, 'it is impossible to go astray.'

09/20/2020

HEAVEN IS ON EARTH!
A man had a dream he was asked by another man to put more emotion to his dance. Upon waking up and reflecting on the dream, this man realized he had, indeed, lived most of his life in a mechanical way and without much emotion. Then, he decided to embark in a life-long journey of putting more emotion into his daily activities, which led him to discover the music of his life, the rythms of his life cycles and, more importantly, to notice beauty in his inner and outer life.
The process of binding on this earth what has been suggested by heaven, in dreams, may help realize that heaven is, indeed, on earth!
There is a sentence, in Mathew 16:13-19, that says:
"I will give you the keys of the kingdom of Heaven: whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."
Let us not loose the opportunity to bind on earth what heaven has suggested to us in our dreams.

09/20/2020

Have you ever had a dream where a beautiful music was played and you were in awe of it? Or, a dream were you saw some mathematical numbers, and a sense of beauty was associated to them? It is as if your Psyche spoke about mystery of life.