Here are some of Carl Jung's most advanced theories: This anthology of essays by Jung and his colleagues yields great insights into Jung's school of depth psychology and the psychology of archetypes. This is a must read for any magician and other workers of the mind. One of the later essays reports the revelation that the visions of certain attuned minds answer to some of the images of the quantum realm drawn from experiments in quantum physics. Consciousness is a quantum phenomenon expanded to the human scale of size by the central nervous system.

I probably don't subscribe to Jung's theories now in the way I did in the 60s, but this is still a challenging, thought-provoking book ( )

Very interesting collection of writings about archetypical symbology and psychology. ( )

If anthropology is the study of what it means to be human, we may consider Jung as much an anthropologist as a formative psychologist, for he does well to remind us unabashedly of what man truly is – a thinking animal, but a chthonic animal nonetheless. Though we may like to think otherwise, civilized man is not so different from archaic man. “Thoughts … are a relatively late discovery of man,” he stresses, and yet, as Joseph Campbell points out, “consciousness thinks it’s running the shop. But [in fact] it's a secondary organ of a total human being, and it must not put itself in control. It must submit and serve the humanity of the body.” The “human body represents a whole museum of organs, each with a long evolutionary history behind it.” Truly, “Modern man is in fact a curious mixture of characteristics acquired over the long ages of his mental development. This mixed-up being is the man and his symbols that we have to deal with.”

Contemporary man “is blind to the fact that, with all his rationality and efficiency, he is [still] possessed by powers that are beyond his control. His gods and demons have not disappeared at all; they have merely got new names. They keep him on the run with restlessness, vague apprehensions, psychological complications, an insatiable need for pills, alcohol, tobacco, food -- and above all, a large array of neuroses.” In other words, “What we call civilized consciousness has steadily separated itself from the basic instincts. But these instincts have not disappeared. They have simply lost their contact with our consciousness and are thus forced to assert themselves in an indirect fashion.”

In short, our intimacy with the total psyche has been an unfortunate jetsam of evolved society. But Jung points out, “As a plant produces its flower, so [we know] the psyche creates its symbols. Every dream is evidence of this process.” Thus, through these symbols, through these echoes of the unconscious, we can again come to know and relate to the whole Self. Cultivating a relationship with these symbols means becoming more familiar with the unknown parts of one’s Self (and also with the selfsame struggles of ancient man). Jung reminds us that “the study of individual, as well as of collective, symbolism is an enormous task”, but with his help we find ourselves much closer to accomplishment. ( )

http://aras.org/ - a useful site with images, and interpretation, based on Jung's visual archetypes. ( )