The main theme that has been occupying me recently is the spiritual dimension of love and its embodiment on Earth. This is why I am dedicating a series of articles to this topic; the present text is the first in that series. Everything began with my reading of Marie-Louise von Franz’s work on Amor and […]
Lately, I have been listening to a podcast featuring interviews with people who have had near-death experiences (NDEs). There is something deeply soothing and healing in hearing first-hand accounts from people who have glimpsed what lies beyond the “veil.” These stories help one remember who we are beyond the limitations of form, as well as […]
Since it has become clear that a healthy expression of empathy depends on a high degree of differentiation and the establishment of firm boundaries between the Self and others, it is important to understand how such boundaries are formed. This is the subject of the next section in Liz Greene’s book The Astrological Neptune and […]
The fifth part of Liz Greene’s book The Astrological Neptune and the Quest for Redemption is entitled “Psychoanalytic Neptune.” In it, the negative expressions of the Neptunian longing for fusion with the Source are explored through the lens of the psychoanalytic interpretation of hysteria—the dominant psychic illness at the time when Freud’s psychoanalysis emerged (and […]
“It’s easy to be a naive idealist. It’s easy to be a cynical realist. It’s quite another thing to have no illusions and still hold the inner flame.” Marie-Louise von Franz In three short sentences, Marie Franz brilliantly articulates what the union of the opposites of idealism and cynicism looks like. And this, unlike naive […]
The second chapter of The Astrological Neptune and the Quest for Redemption reveals how the mythological images “produced” by the archetype behind this planet are embodied in concrete psychological experiences, including pathological ones. The chapter is entitled Psychological Neptune, and at this point the reading becomes even more compelling, because we begin to recognize ourselves […]
The archetypal drama associated in astrology with the action of the planet Neptune unfolds between two figures: the redeemer and the one who seeks redemption. On one side, we find ourselves as sinners, longing to encounter a purer and more spiritually elevated Other—someone who can cleanse us of the imperfections and bodily desires with which […]
If we wish to understand what lies at the very foundation of human psychic life, we must first understand what archetypes are. They are those particular energetic nuclei from which our desires arise, together with the images and ideas that accompany them, and which we usually perceive first through projection. Different archetypes are sources of […]
I continue this series of articles on the theme of self-sacrifice by turning to its most radical expression: the sacrifice of our desire for an easy and carefree life. Another way of saying the same thing is to stop resisting pain and to mature. I will begin with a quotation from Jung, because self-sacrifice is […]
What follows from the fact that the compulsion toward self-sacrifice arises from the awakening of the immortal part of the soul, which in Jungian analysis is called the awakened individuational impulse (see The Path of Individuation and the Care of the Soul)? What does the incarnated god (the archetype of the whole personality) receive in […]
“Only by sacrificing what we have can we know what we have. Real sacrifice is made with the same definiteness and lack of bargaining that is involved in throwing something away We can do this only if we are forced by a greater power in us – a power stronger than the ego – that […]
Love, with its passion and pain, becomes an urge toward individuation.That is why there is no genuine process of individuation without the experience of love —for love both torments and purifies the soul.”— Marie-Louise von Franz Below is an excerpt from Marie-Louise von Franz’s book The Golden Ass of Apuleius: The Liberation of the Feminine […]
