Digital Jung

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In this episode:
We discuss the interpretation of symbols and the importance of engaging them with our full emotional presence.

Let's make this a conversation:
Do you have a comment or  question about this episode, or about something you would like me to address in a future episode? Please contact me on Instagram (@digital.jung), Facebook (facebook.com/jungiananalyst), or Twitter (@Jason_E_Smith).

For more on living a symbolic life:
Please check out my book, Religious but Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life, available from Chiron Publications.

Sources for quotes and more:

1. All quotes from 'Man and His Symbols' by C.G. Jung.
2. Season 2, Episode 11: Growing Beyond Ourselves
3. The Old Woman in the Woods, Grimm's Fairy Tales.
4. Season 2, Episode 5: The Nature of Individuation

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Please consider leaving a review at one of the following sites:
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Music:
"Dreaming Days," "Slow Vibing," and "The Return" by Ketsa are licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

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Connect with me:
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For more on living a symbolic life:
Please check out my book, Religious but Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life.

Send Me a Note

In this episode:
We continue to consider the importance of letting things unfold in the psyche, particularly in connection with the practice of active imagination.

Let's make this a conversation:
Do you have a comment or  question about this episode, or about something you would like me to address in a future episode? Please contact me on Instagram (@digital.jung), Facebook (facebook.com/jungiananalyst), or Twitter (@Jason_E_Smith).

For more on living a symbolic life:
Please check out my book, Religious but Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life, available from Chiron Publications.

Sources for quotes and more:

1. Commentary on the Secret of the Golden Flower from 'Collected Works, vol. 13' by C.G. Jung.
2. Season 2, Episode 10: Letting Ourselves Be
3. 'Inner Work' by Robert Johnson.
4. Mysterium Coniunctionis from 'Collected Works, vol. 14' by C.G. Jung.
5. 'Encounters with the Soul' by Barbara Hannah.
6. 'Jung on Active Imagination,' edited by Joan Chodorow.
7. 'Religious but Not Religious' by Jason E. Smith.
8. Season 2, Episode 4: The Fact of Fantasy
9. The Practice of Psychotherapy from 'Collected Works, vol. 16' by C.G. Jung.
10. The Old Woman in the Woods, Grimm's Fairy Tales.

Like this podcast?
Please consider leaving a review at one of the following sites:
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Podchaser
...or support the show with a donation at Buy Me a Coffee (link below)

Music:
"Dreaming Days," "Slow Vibing," and "The Return" by Ketsa are licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Support the show

Connect with me:
Instagram (@digital.jung)
Facebook (facebook.com/jungiananalyst)
Bluesky (@digitaljung.bsky.social)

Subscribe to the Digital Jung Newsletter


For more on living a symbolic life:
Please check out my book, Religious but Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life.

Send Me a Note

In this episode:
We talk about the value of letting things happen and why Jung felt it was essential for the task of individuation.

Sources for quotes and more:

1. 'The Integration of the Personality' by C.G. Jung.
2. 'Tao Te Ching,' Translated by Richard Wilhelm.
3. 'Some keep the Sabbath going to Church' by Emily Dickinson.
4. 'The Spiritual Life' by Evelyn Underhill.
5.  'The Wisdom of Insecurity' by Alan Watts.
6. 'Religious but Not Religious' by Jason E. Smith.
7. 'The Cloud of Unknowing.'
8. 'Lost' by David Wagoner.
9. 'Oceans' by Juan Ramón Jiménez.
10. 'Love in the Void,' a collection of writings by Simone Weil.
11. 'Encounters with the Soul' by Barbara Hannah.
12. 'Visions Seminars' by C.G. Jung
13. Transformation Symbolism in the Mass  from 'Collected Works, vol. 11' by C.G. Jung.

Music:
"Dreaming Days," "Slow Vibing," and "The Return" by Ketsa are licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Like this podcast?
Please consider leaving a review at one of the following sites:
Apple Podcasts
Spotify

Or, if you are able, support the show with a donation at Buy Me a Coffee:

Support the show

Connect with me:
Instagram (@digital.jung)
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Bluesky (@digitaljung.bsky.social)

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For more on living a symbolic life:
Please check out my book, Religious but Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life.

Send Me a Note

In this episode:
We talk about happiness, and discover why Jung believed it was better for us not to pursue it. 

Sources for quotes and more:

1. Except where otherwise noted, all quotes from Jung are taken from The Art of Living in 'C.G. Jung Speaking.'
2. 'Tao Te Ching,' Translated by Red Pine.
3. 'A Wrinkle in Time' by Madeleine L’Engle.
4. 'A Room of One's Own' by Virginia Woolf.
5.  “The challenge I face is how to actualize the quiet eminence of our being.” ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel, 'I Asked For Wonder.'
6. Letter to Harriet Hardy from C.G. Jung ("Carl Jung on Happiness")
7. “...a civilization that has forgotten that man’s life should be sacrificial, that is, offered up to an idea greater than himself.” ~ C.G. Jung, in 'Collected Works, vol. 11.'
8. “Again and again I therefore admonish my students both in Europe and in America: ‘Don't aim at success..." ~ Viktor Frankl in 'Man's Search For Meaning.'

Music:
"Dreaming Days," "Slow Vibing," and "The Return" by Ketsa are licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Like this podcast?
Please consider leaving a review at one of the following sites:
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Or, if you are able, support the show with a donation at Buy Me a Coffee:

Support the show

Connect with me:
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Bluesky (@digitaljung.bsky.social)

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For more on living a symbolic life:
Please check out my book, Religious but Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life.

Send Me a Note

In this episode:
We look at how the attitude we take towards our dreams changes our experience of them, and affects our relationship with our inner lives.

Sources for quotes and more:

1. "The psyche is indistinguishable from its manifestations. The psyche is the object of psychology, and — fatally enough — also its subject. There is no getting away from this fact.” ~ C.G. Jung in 'Collected Works, vol. 11.'
2. S1 Ep. 20: Taking Dreams Seriously
3. "I share all your prejudices against dream-interpretation as the quintessence of uncertainty and arbitrariness. .." ~ Jung in 'Collected Works, vol. 16.'
4. "It is on the basis of theory, for instance, that I expect dreams to have a meaning. I cannot prove in every case that this is so.... But I have to make such an hypothesis in order to find courage to deal with dreams at all." ~ Jung in 'Collected Works, vol. 16.'
5.  The Peddler of Swaffham from 'English Fairy and Other Folk Tales.'
6. “I must content myself wholly with the fact that the result means something to my patient and sets his life in motion again. I may allow myself only one criterion for the result of my labours: does it work?” ~ Jung in 'Collected Works, vol. 16.'
7. “In many ways the journey seems to be a foolish gamble...”  ~ Thomas Merton in 'New Seeds of Contemplation.'
8. “The right way to wholeness is made up, unfortunately, of fateful detours and wrong turnings.” ~ Jung in 'Collected Works, vol. 12.'
9. “Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth...” ~ Jung in 'Collected Works, vol. 9ii.'
10. “Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things.... A certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf.”  ~ William James in 'The Will to Believe.'
11. “We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us” ~ from 'The Joseph Campbell Companion.'

Music:
"Dreaming Days," "Slow Vibing," and "The Return" by Ketsa are licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Like this podcast?
Please consider leaving a review at one of the following sites:
Apple Podcasts
Spotify

Or, if you are able, support the show with a donation at Buy Me a Coffee:

Support the show

Connect with me:
Instagram (@digital.jung)
Facebook (facebook.com/jungiananalyst)
Bluesky (@digitaljung.bsky.social)

Subscribe to the Digital Jung Newsletter


For more on living a symbolic life:
Please check out my book, Religious but Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life.

Send Me a Note

In this episode:
We return to the subject of fantasy and consider how we can ensure a healthy connection with this foundational function of the psyche.

Sources for quotes and more:

1. “The psyche creates reality every day. The only expression I can use for this activity is fantasy...." ~ C.G. Jung, from 'Collected Works, vol. 6.'
2. S2E4: The Fact of Fantasy
3. “Pure facts are in any case unstatable....” ~ Jürgen Moltmann from 'Jesus Christ for Today's World.'
4. "Jungian therapy, at least as I practice it, brings about an awareness that fantasy is the dominant force in a life." ~ James Hillman in A Note on Story from 'Loose Ends.'
5.  “An external emergency, such as epidemics or famine, can suddenly ‘charge’ the fantasy of a healer-savior..." ~ Marie-Louis von Franz in 'Projection and Recollection in Jungian Psychology.'
6. “Our unwillingness to see our own faults and the projection of them is the beginning of most quarrels...” ~ C.G. Jung from Depth Psychology and Self-Knowledge in 'Collected Works, vol. 18.' 
7. “Developing fantasy means perfecting our humanity. In this connection I regard religious ideas as of the utmost importance...”  ~ Three Versions of a Press Conference in Vienna from 'C.G. Jung Speaking.'
8. "These basic tales channel fantasy...." ~ James Hillman in A Note on Story from 'Loose Ends.'
9. The Road to Emmaus (Luke 24: 13 - 27)
10. “It is impossible to see the angel unless you first have a notion of it..." ~ James Hillman from 'The Soul's Code.'
11. “It is high time we realized that it is pointless to praise the light and preach it if nobody can see it. It is much more needful to teach people the art of seeing.” ~ C. G. Jung from 'Collected Works, vol. 12.'
12. “Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson in Art from 'Essays: First Series.'

Music:
"Dreaming Days," "Slow Vibing," and "The Return" by Ketsa are licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Like this podcast?
Please consider leaving a review at one of the following sites:
Apple Podcasts
Spotify

Or, if you are able, support the show with a donation at Buy Me a Coffee:

Support the show

Connect with me:
Instagram (@digital.jung)
Facebook (facebook.com/jungiananalyst)
Bluesky (@digitaljung.bsky.social)

Subscribe to the Digital Jung Newsletter


For more on living a symbolic life:
Please check out my book, Religious but Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life.

Send Me a Note

In this episode:
We discuss solitude, and the vital importance it plays in supporting our engagement with life and with the world.

Sources for quotes and more:

1. “I understand your wish very well, but must tell you at once that it does not fit in with my situation...." ~ C.G. Jung, in 'Letters, Vol II.'
2. “It seems to me that what goes on in the human being when he is by himself is as important as what happens in his interactions with other people…. ~ Anthony Storr in 'Solitude: A Return to the Self.'
3. 'Already the ripening barberries are red' -- poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
4. “Ultimately, and precisely in the deepest and most important matters, we are unspeakably alone.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke in 'Letters to a Young Poet.'
5. “We each inhabit our own separate world...” ~ Edward Edinger in 'Ego and Archetype.'
6. "The development of personality from the germ-state to full consciousness is at once a charisma and a curse..." ~ C.G. Jung from The Development of the Personality, in 'Collected Works, vol. 17.'
7. 'A Dwelling Place for Wisdom' by Raimon Panikkar
8. 'Forest Lake' -- poem by Edith Sӧdergran
9.  “No one yet has made a list of places where the extraordinary may happen and where it may not...." ~ Mary Oliver in 'Upstream.'
10. “the world from which we draw our wisdom, our lucidities, our power to act, our courage, is in this other world... " ~ Anaïs Nin in 'In Favor of the Sensitive Man: And Other Essays.'
11. 'Is my soul asleep' -- poem by Antonio Machado.

Music:
"Dreaming Days," "Slow Vibing," and "The Return" by Ketsa are licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Like this podcast?
Please consider leaving a review at one of the following sites:
Apple Podcasts
Spotify

Or, if you are able, support the show with a donation at Buy Me a Coffee:

Support the show

Connect with me:
Instagram (@digital.jung)
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Bluesky (@digitaljung.bsky.social)

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For more on living a symbolic life:
Please check out my book, Religious but Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life.

Send Me a Note

In this episode:
We discuss the experience of nature and its connection to the important work of individuation.

Sources for quotes and more:

1. “At Bollingen I am in the midst of my true life..." ~ C.G. Jung, in 'Memories, Dreams, Reflections.'
2. "Individuation is a process by which a [person] becomes the definite, unique being that he [or she] in fact is." ~ C.G. Jung in 'Collected Works, vol. 7.'
3. "Individuation is an expression of that biological process ..." ~ C.G. Jung in 'Collected Works, vol. 11.'
4. "Individuation is a natural process. It is what makes a tree turn into a tree...." ~ C.G. Jung in 'C.G. Jung Speaking.'
5. “Dreams are impartial, spontaneous products of the unconscious psyche...” ~ C.G. Jung in 'Collected Works, vol. 10.'
6. S1 Ep. 1: What is the Symbolic Life?
7.  "My self is not confined to my body..." ~ C.G. Jung in 'C.G. Jung Speaking.'
8. "Rather than taking us out of ourselves, nature coaxes us deeper inwards..." ~ John O'Donohue in 'Beauty: The Invisible Embrace.'
9. "The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps is because man is disunited with himself." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson in 'Nature.'
10. “In a standardized milieu, it is easy to lose the sense of one's own personality...” ~ C.G. Jung in 'C.G. Jung Speaking.'
11.  Just Looking at Photos of Nature Could Be Enough to Lower Your Work Stress Levels
12. When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer, poem by Walt Whitman
13. “I come to my solitary woodland walk as the homesick go home” ~ Henry David Thoreau, quoted in The Winged Life (ed. by R. Bly). 
14. “Love the world as your own self, then you can truly care for all things.” ~ Tao Te Ching 
15. "We shall not discover the real situation we are in, collectively as well as individually, if our hearts are not pure..." ~ Raimon Panikkar in 'The Rhythm of Being.'

Music:
"Dreaming Days," "Slow Vibing," and "The Return" by Ketsa are licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Like this podcast?
Please consider leaving a review at one of the following sites:
Apple Podcasts
Spotify

Or, if you are able, support the show with a donation at Buy Me a Coffee:

Support the show

Connect with me:
Instagram (@digital.jung)
Facebook (facebook.com/jungiananalyst)
Bluesky (@digitaljung.bsky.social)

Subscribe to the Digital Jung Newsletter


For more on living a symbolic life:
Please check out my book, Religious but Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life.

Send Me a Note

In this episode:
We discuss fantasy and explore the important role that it plays in our psychological life.

Sources for quotes and more:

1. “When you observe the world you see people, you see houses, you see the sky, you see tangible objects..." ~ C.G. Jung, from The Houston Films in 'C.G. Jung Speaking.'
2. S2E1: The Struggle of the Creative Life
3. Taoist parable from the Lieh-Tzu.
4. “Where Id was, there Ego shall be." ~ Sigmund Freud in 'New introductory lectures on psycho-analysis.'
5.  “From the psychoanalytic point of view it would seem that were reality more adequate, imagination might cease to dream.” ~ Mary Watkins in 'Invisible Guests.'
6. “It is true that there are unprofitable, futile, morbid, and unsatisfying fantasies..." ~ Jung from The Aims of Psychotherapy in 'Collected Works, vol. 16.'
7. “In sleep, fantasy takes the form of dreams..." ~ Jung from The Practice of Psychotherapy in 'Collected Works, vol. 16.'
8. “Wakefulness may be described as a dreamlike state modulated by sensory experience.” ~ Llinas and Pare, quoted in 'The Neurobiology of the Gods' by Erik Goodwyn.
9.  The Dhammapada, translation by Gil Fronsdal
10. “I try to funnel the fantasies of the unconscious into the conscious mind...” ~ Jung in Three Versions of a Press Conference in Vienna from 'C.G. Jung Speaking.'
11. “As a ship aground is battered by the waves, so we, imprisoned in mortal life, lie open to the mercy of coming events..." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson in Intellect from 'Essays: First Series.'
12. “We are immersed in beauty, but our eyes have no clear vision.” ~ Emerson in Art from 'Essays: First Series.'
13. S2E2: Encountering the Archetype
14. On Angels, poem by Czeslaw Milosz
15. “Developing fantasy means perfecting our humanity.”  ~ Three Versions of a Press Conference in Vienna from 'C.G. Jung Speaking.'

Music:
"Dreaming Days," "Slow Vibing," and "The Return" by Ketsa are licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Like this podcast?
Please consider leaving a review at one of the following sites:
Apple Podcasts
Spotify

Or, if you are able, support the show with a donation at Buy Me a Coffee:

Support the show

Connect with me:
Instagram (@digital.jung)
Facebook (facebook.com/jungiananalyst)
Bluesky (@digitaljung.bsky.social)

Subscribe to the Digital Jung Newsletter


For more on living a symbolic life:
Please check out my book, Religious but Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life.

Send Me a Note

In this episode:
We look at the value of the symbol and the transformative function that it holds for our psychological lives.

Sources for quotes and more:

1. “Symbols … are always grounded in the unconscious archetype, but their manifest forms are moulded by the ideas acquired by the conscious mind. ..." ~ C.G. Jung, from Symbols of Transformation in 'Collected Works, vol. 5.'
2. "[Symptoms are ] an attempt of the self-regulating psychic system to restore the balance, in no way different from the function of dreams – only rather more forceful and drastic.” ~ C.G. Jung from The Tavistock Lectures in 'Collected Works, vol. 18.'
3. Discussion of "Symbolic Attitude" from Psychological Types in 'Collected Works, vol. 6.'
4. Shakuntala, adapted from 'The Dance of Shiva and Other Tales from India' by Oroon Ghosh.
5. “We are amphibious creatures..." ~ Evelyn Underhill in "Mysticism: The Preeminent Study in the Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness.'
6. “With the coming of consciousness, cultural and psychological values began to compete with the purely biological aims of unconscious functioning.” ~ M. Esther Harding in 'Psychic Energy: Its Source and Its Transformation.'
7. “A symbol is a function of relationship between our human consciousness and that which is symbolized.” from 'Religious but Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life.'
8. “Strangest of all is the ease with which the vision is lost..." ~ Kathleen Raine, quoted in 'Beauty: The Invisible Embrace' by John O'Donohue.

Music:
"Dreaming Days," "Slow Vibing," and "The Return" by Ketsa are licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Like this podcast?
Please consider leaving a review at one of the following sites:
Apple Podcasts
Spotify

Or, if you are able, support the show with a donation at Buy Me a Coffee:

Support the show

Connect with me:
Instagram (@digital.jung)
Facebook (facebook.com/jungiananalyst)
Bluesky (@digitaljung.bsky.social)

Subscribe to the Digital Jung Newsletter


For more on living a symbolic life:
Please check out my book, Religious but Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life.