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 Our first responsibility as mythological thinkers is to cultivate discrimination, to take a step back and attempt to perceive the stories that are being played out in our culture, before we can begin to offer new ones. We must understand how we participate in those stories by our own willing – generally unconscious – acceptance of their primary themes.

I recently noticed a newspaper review (Grading the President) of yet another book about Barack Obama, and realized how much we all do this: give

An interesting question to me is the chicken or egg question. I get distracted by this question. What comes first, cognition or affect, thought or emotion? Do I choose to feel what I feel at some level, or does it just happen to me? How autonomous am I in determining the quality of my own life? Do I have emotions, or do they have me?

Historically, as we know, Plato thought that emotions were just one component of the mind, along with desire and intellect. Aristotle on the other hand, made emotion

#Wordsmatter

Glossary Digest #1 featuring: #Sanctuary, #Soul,
#Alchemy, #Communion, #Water, #Prosperity and #Light. eBook #26
by Willi Paul, Planetshifter.com Media

http://www.planetshifter.com/node/2337

Just Published by Fisher King Press

Love Matters for Psychic Transformation: A Study of Embodied Psychic Transformation in the Context of BodySoul Rhythms®

by Maja Reinau

From the Foreword by John Hill

Maja Reinau’s book Love Matters for Psychic Transformation serves as an excellent introduction to BodySoul Rhythms (BSR), a method created by Marion Woodman, Ann Skinner, and Mary Hamilton. BSR has been immensely successful, transforming the lives of many women who have participated in its p

Psychoanalyst and trauma theorist, Michael Eigen (2009), asserted that the depth psychological process of healing the traumatized soul is a sacrament, “a visible sign of an inward grace” (p. 9). This sacrament —experienced as symbolic contact with the potentially generative instinctual force of the Self—invokes the hope that is essential in addressing trauma and its associated malevolent self-defense system that functions autonomously, beyond the grasp of ego resources. Within the context of dep

“Everything psychic is pregnant with the future.” -- Carl Jung

"Ego and Intellect

The identification of ego with intellect contributes to this problematic conception of nature. It long slumbered in Christian theology as identification with an otherworldly God and a disdain for natural life: an image of self-rejection – one of the reasons guilt weighs so heavily in traditional religious ideas. Both are compounded through this identity, the idea of a Deity now yielding to science as it dissolves the

EXCERPT from my new blog post and interview with Dr. Joseph Cambray, Jungian analyst and Provost at Pacifica Graduate Institute:

"...Recent analyses of the fractal qualities that are inherent in Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings, which reveal Pollock had “spontaneously intuited a way to get at the optimal amount of fractal density.” It’s that kind of intuitive knowing from nature—not from a cognitive rational process—which, when they emerge in therapy and supervision, are art forms...."

Psychothera

In the world of dreams, one’s friends live forever, for they can be present at any time. In this way, I have expected the eventual visits of my close friend, who passed away this fall, in my dreams and in the recollections of him that occur to me.

With the alchemical signature of wholeness [1] of three and one, I present three dreams and a song from my content, culminating in a rejuvenation dream at the beginning of the year. In hopes of processing grief in a healthy way, I wanted to look at thes

“The world hangs on a thin thread; that thread is the psyche of man. How important is it to know something about it?” -- Carl Jung.

Jung analogized the difference in time-perception between consciousness and the unconscious through the idea of a million year old man. How would the time-awareness of such a being differ from our more temporal viewpoint? How do we treat him; how does he react to the changes taking place today?

In my last post, I outlined the major themes of my book as stated in the p

The brilliant use of alchemy as a symbolic language and process for psychological and spiritual development is arguably one of C. G. Jung’s greatest contributions to the field of depth psychology. While alchemy may appear to be a mystical—and mysterious—domain, Jung developed a powerful and inspired method for accessing it by entering into dialogue with the rich manifestations of the unconscious and applying it to our daily lives for transformation and growth.

“True knowledge of oneself is the kn

Dear Community,

We are excited to be here.

FYI: We have a free James Hillman Title for a limited time only from our site

"Beauty Without Nature - Re Imagining The City"

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More soon.

Thanks

Steve Stein

BetterListen! CEO

Much of psychological healing is devoted to healing the capacity to feel. Rilke, in his Elegy to Marina Tsvetayeva-Efron, writes of the “curious power that transforms us from living beings into survivors.” We do this by learning to feel and respecting feeling in others and ourselves.

We survive by feeling and continuing to feel. Dream images and symbols sharpen our capacity to touch vital emotions that may otherwise remain denied or repressed. To get through daily life, we often put instincts to

To thrive in today’s world, it is critical to be able to track emerging cultural stories that empower rather than limit you. One change I’ve noticed is the shift in the environmental and evolutionary sciences from a focus on “survival of the fittest” stories to narratives about ecological systems—a change that has influenced the thinking of economists, political scientists, and psychologists. A related movement in educational psychology argues that many of us experience a sense of powerlessness

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” ― Kahlil Gibran

We are all intimately familiar with suffering. And, while we might wish it away when it is painfully present, it is a normal part of human life, Dr. Lionel Corbett, M.D., Jungian analyst and professor at Pacifica Graduate Institute reminded me when I recently sat down for a depth discussion with him on the topic.

Etymologically, the word “suffering” comes from two Latin roots: su

"It is still three minutes to midnight," the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists wrote... announcing an update to its famous Doomsday Clock, whose estimate of the risk of global catastrophe has been ticking back and forth since 1947... The time has not changed since 2015, however, when the Bulletin's Science and Security Board last moved the minute hand, from 11:55 to 11:57. As the Bulletin's somber, sometimes scathing public letter makes clear, that is not cause for celebration." -- The Christian

Ever since I met Dr. Glen Slater in 2008, I have known him to be a particularly passionate and knowledgeable advocate of film. I often see his film reviews in Jungian and depth publications, and his background in clinical psychology and religious studies—along with his interest in technology and culture—make his commentary especially valuable.

In a recent interview, Glen and I sat down together for an intriguing depth discussion on Jung, individuation, and film, the topic of Glen’s FREE upcoming

The wise old man wrote, "If you fulfill the pattern that is peculiar to yourself, you have loved yourself, you have accumulated and have abundance; you bestow virtue then because you have luster. You radiate; from your abundance something overflows." Nietezche's Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1934 - 1939, Vol. II (29 Janurary 1936), p. 801.

Abundance comes from truth to self. If we water ourselves down, who we are and what we think, then we lose hold of our life and our very sense of

My new essay, Dreams and the Ineluctable Body, revisits an amazing moment in Jung’s professional life when he makes an accurate medical diagnosis purely on the basis of a dream given him by the patient’s doctor, i.e., no clinical notes, no direct observation of the patient. To this day, no one, not even Jung (this according to Jung in his later years), knows how he did it, even with all the confused explanations that he offered his medical colleagues at the time of his interpretation, and subseq

"A major shift in perspective accompanies today’s fast-paced super-highways of information. Jung's and Neumann's comparative studies of consciousness revealed patterns -- evolutionary swings in its focus throughout history. They saw such shifts as reflections of unconscious organizing and centering functions. Their purpose is to re-orient us at certain critical stages to the more diffuse aims of spiritual and psychological development. Until recently, those aims were the province of religion and

Ever feel lost, despairing, angry, and searching for answers? I have and found some answers through learning how to trigger my body's joy hormones.

• Dopamine rewards accomplishment: Having goals, a purpose, and actively achieving desired outcomes.
• Oxytocin rewards caring and belonging: Feeling connected to and supported by others; giving and receiving love in intimate relationships, friendship, or service to others.
• Serotonin reinforces status and feeling that you matter: Feeling valued by others an