Image of the World

Recent research suggests that rituals may be more rational than they appear. Why? Because even simple rituals can be extremely effective. Rituals performed after experiencing losses – from loved ones to lotteries – do alleviate grief, and rituals performed before high-pressure tasks – like singing in public – do in fact reduce anxiety and increase people’s confidence. What’s more, rituals appear to benefit even people who claim not to believe that rituals work. While anthropologists have documented rituals across cultures, this earlier research has been primarily observational. Recently, a series of investigations by psychologists have revealed intriguing new results demonstrating that rituals can have a causal impact on people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Sufism came recently  into the CNN spotlight when Al Qaeda-linked Mali Islamists armed with Kalashnikov's and pick-axes destroyed centuries-old mausoleums of saints in the UNESCO-listed city of Tim...

When I lived in California I listened often to the KFOG radio commentator Wes ("Scoop") Nisker who happened to be also a comedian:  "If you don't like the news ... go out and make some of your own"...

In her  biography about Carl Jung, Memories Dreams and Reflections, Aniela Jaffe, wrote about the question often posed in analysis : “Tell me about the space between us” When I was in Jungian analysis my analyst posed that question to me. The intimacy and honesty of the question of our analytic connection made my heart skip a beat and also took my breath away. I loved the depth of the question but it scared me to the very core to have to answer it. I resisted telling the  entire truth of my feelings at the time about the space between us, which were a mix of both devotion and disillusionment. I felt analytic validation and attachment, but I was unwilling to appear vulnerable by saying and I didn’t feel that all my feelings and beliefs were supported.

The feminine aspect of Deity is not alien to the Judeo-Christian-
Islamic traditions. The Bible reflects that Deity was honored as
female as well as male in ancient Israel and Judah, until Her shrines
were destroyed and Her priests and priestesses killed at the behest
of the patriarchal prophets.

The analysis of Horror is, like almost everything else related to the genre, paradoxical. Because the genre is so rife with archetypal imagery and taboo subjects, it seems that any attempt to ratio...

We seldom look back over the years of our lives and view them together as a comprehensive whole, but rather, most often, in retrospect, we see ourselves as having experienced a number of “turning p...

The unconscious is often trying to speak to us through irritating symptoms, foul moods and irritating people.

C. G. Jung had shown a pronounced and informed interest in Gnosticism and Alchemy. This is evident in the Quaternio Series of the Self in his book. "Aion".  In his early works "Seven Sermons to the...

In his masterwork The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien created what he called a "new mythos". There is undoubtedly much in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings that invites us seeing it through the Jungian...

The Jungian concept Unus Mundus suggests that human elements are simultaneously separate and unified. Unus Mundus is said to be the deepest part of our unconscious, the place where earth and heaven meet and are unified. There body, spirit, our souls and the world soul reunites. In effect, our inner world of fantasy, imagination and dreams are said to cross over into outer events. Jung’s Theory of Synchronicity or acausal connection of two or more physic phenomena, or meaningful coincidences suggests that these coincidences happen all the time to help us understand ourselves better.

Rather than calling it obliteration, Schopenhauer proposed that art and the creative could offer deliverance and that it should be elevated above mere consumer driven artisanry and decoration. He said that participation in art and the creative could in fact offer temporary deliverance from strife. Schopenhauer believed that participation in the creative could provide people with religious like experiences and salvation could be attained through aesthetic experiences. Carl Jung’s concept of participation mystique seems to describe this concept which is defined as a person or group of people who unwittingly place themselves under a kind of spell. The concept of  participation mystique was first introduced  by anthropologist Lucien Levy-Brühl. He described it as a state of being when we become one with others and are undifferentiated from the mass. A temporary abandonment  of cares, the voices in our heads gone, the envelopment into ”One voice”, as Springsteen described it, momentarily free.