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The Underworld in Finnish and Greek Myth
Gustave Doré, “Submersion in Lethe” I have been reading The Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert MacFarlane, which is a dazzling exploration of the author’s daring travels into the bowels of the...
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Hermes in the Forest of Symbols
Hermes from Boccaccio’s “Primavera” I. “…Hermesian reading is an open, in-depth reading, one that lays bare the metalanguages for us, that is to say, the structures of signs and correspondences that...
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Ancient Roots of the Symbol
The book Birth of the Symbol: Ancient Readers at the Limits of Their Texts by Peter T. Struck, published in 2004 by Princeton University Press, traces the ancient origins of the concept of a symbol....
View ArticleThe Danaids, the Lernaean Hydra and Heracles
According to the Greek myth, the Danaids, fifty daughters of Danaus, were forced to marry fifty sons of Aegyptus, a ruler of Egypt. Forty-nine of them killed their husbands on the wedding night. The...
View ArticleReading The Red Book (18)
“The stars whisper your deepest mysteries to you, and the soft valleys of the earth rescue you in a motherly womb.” C. G. Jung, Liber Novus We have reached chapter V of Liber Secundus, which is the...
View ArticleSymbolism of the Door
“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” V. Woolf, A Room of One’s Own My favourite master of symbolism, J.E. Cirlot …...
View ArticleReading The Red Book (19)
I. “… opening The Red Book seems to be opening the mouth of the dead.” James Hillman in James Hillman and Sonu Shamdasani, “Lament of the Dead: Psychology After Jung’s Red Book” II. “We need the...
View Article“Epidemics and Society” by Frank M. Snowden
We all feel the portentousness of the current moment in history. I was struck recently by a short passage from The Guardian article, which said: “… whenever crisis visits a given community, the...
View ArticleGilgamesh: He Who Saw the Deep
If you happen to have some time on your hands, I strongly recommend that you take a look at Ancient Masterpiece of World Literature...
View ArticleThe Salon de la Rose † Croix
I. “A call to arms for the worship of beauty, the Salon de la Rose + Croix (R + C) was founded in Paris by … Joséphin Péladan. … The Salon aimed to transcend the mudane and material for a … Continue...
View ArticleReading The Red Book (20)
“Neither good nor evil shall be my masters.” C.G. Jung, “The Red Book” Chapter VII of Liber Secundus, the second part of The Red Book, is called “The Remains of Earlier Temples.” It is preceded by a...
View ArticleThe Innocent Weaving of Stories
“To begin with, it is not true that the Gods dwell only in the Heavens, for all things are full of the Gods.” Iamblichus In this current season of Venus retrograde in Gemini I have been feeling a deep...
View ArticleReading The Red Book (21)
I. “We spread poison and paralysis around us in that we want to educate all the world around us into reason.” II.”The outer opposition is an image of my inner opposition. Once I realize this, I remain...
View ArticleOn Removing Racially Charged Images
The white domination – this tectonic plate that underlies the Western culture – is shifting radically, steering for a massive earthquake. I do not feel I possess the right to express my opinion on the...
View ArticleSymbolism of the Wetlands
“I enter a swamp as a sacred place, a sanctum sanctorum. … My temple is the swamp.” *** “Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not in towns and cities, but in the...
View ArticleMichelangelo’s Immortality
“Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole....
View ArticleThe Black Madonna of Hergiswald
One of the most stunning Black Madonna chapels in Switzerland is located near Lucerne on a hill with a view of the mountains and Lake Lucerne. It was built in the seventeenth century after a Capuchin...
View ArticleLilith
On the ceiling of the Sistine chapel we can see an atypical depiction of the serpent of Paradise. Michelangelo chose to portray the snake as a red-headed woman, undoubtedly Lilith. Why did Michelangelo...
View ArticleReading The Red Book (24)
Chapter XI of Liber Secundus is called The Opening of the Egg. Having sung his incantations, Jung kneels on the rug and carefully opens the egg. Completely healed, Izdubar appears in front of him. The...
View ArticleReading The Red Book (25)
“I know your shadow and mine, that follows and comes with us, and only waits for the hour of twilight when he will strangle you and me with all the daimons of the night.” “The Red Book,” chapter XII...
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