The modern West is in decline. Economic stagnation, rising tax burdens, moral disorientation, political corruption, bloated bureaucracies, and soaring levels of poverty, drug addiction and homelessness, all point to a faltering civilization. While many agree that the West is faltering, explanations as to why vary; some blame the collapse of religion and the loss of […]

“Many are born; few live. Men without personality are innumerable and vegetate molded by their environment, like melted wax.” José Ingenieros, The Mediocre Man In the early-20th century, the Argentinian philosopher, physician, and essayist José Ingenieros wrote a book titled The Mediocre Man. In it he explores what distinguishes the mediocre masses from those who […]

“…the fairy tale is the great mother of the novel, and has even more universal validity than the most-avidly read novel of your time. And you know that what has been on everyone’s lips for millennia, though repeated endlessly, still comes nearest to the ultimate human truth.”  Carl Jung, Red Book Many people think of fairy tales […]

“And then comes the knowing that in me there is space for a second, large, and timeless life.” Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God According to Carl Jung the second half of life cannot be lived in the same manner as the first. “Whoever carries over into the afternoon the […]

“This is an exceedingly dangerous time and we are confronted with a problem which has never been known in the conscious history of man… This is not a light but a darkness; the powers of darkness are coming up…”   Carl Jung, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra According to Carl Jung, the primary forces which shape history are not […]

“We can see nothing today that wants to grow greater, we suspect that things will continue to go down, down, to become…more comfortable, more mediocre, more indifferent.” Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality In the late 19th century, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche observed that Western civilization was in a state of decline; it […]

“This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.”      T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men Throughout Western history, the idea of civilizational collapse has been bound up with visions of apocalyptic catastrophe caused by invasions, plagues, war, or natural disasters. But today, the greater danger may be a dark age of […]

“We have technology, convenience, security, and a measure of prosperity, but where is the beauty? Where is the beauty that we know we cannot really live without?”    John-Mark Miravalle, Beauty: What it is and Why it Matters In 2009 the late English philosopher Roger Scruton warned that “Beauty is vanishing from our world”, and that […]

Marie-Louise von Franz was a Swiss psychologist who closely collaborated with Carl Jung from 1933 until his death in 1961. One of von Franz’s primary topics of interest was fairy tales. For like myths, fairy tales contains timeless wisdom that teaches us about the human condition. Jung believed that so much wisdom was contained in […]

“Will men be able to give up toying with the idea of another war? It is now a question of existence or nonexistence. . .For the danger that threatens us now is of such dimensions as to make this last European catastrophe [i.e., World War II] seem like a curtain-raiser.” Carl Jung, Epilogue to “Essays […]