Jungian Web Links

In recent weeks, in overlapping topics whose labels appear at the bottom of this post, I've been blogging about the psyche as mapped by Carl Jung, the Swiss psychologist who died in 1961. Through reading several books which I've mentioned in these posts, I have become convinced that Jung's insights speak volumes about our human capacity for spirituality — including my own Christian and Roman Catholic spirituality.

This post contains links to valuable information I've found on the Web concerning Jung's ideas.

The first link is to a lengthy but extremely readable article on "The Organization Leader as King, Warrior, Magician and Lover: How Jungian Archetypes Affect the Way Men Lead Organizations." This article, in addition to describing various organizational leadership styles in terms of Jungian archetypes, is a good introduction to the idea of archetypes in general:

Archetypes, in Jung's thought, are as basic as, and very similar to, instincts. They are power centers that are "hard-wired" into the psyche of every human being, whether male or female, that largely control, or at least provide channels for, our thought, speech and behavior ...

The purpose of this essay is to enlighten and empower male leaders and their male and female coworkers by describing how the positive and negative aspects of the King, Warrior, Magician, and Lover archetypes influence male behavior, the way men lead, and the way they follow leadership.

The second link is to the Symbol Watcher website, dedicated to "the search for meaning in cultural, artistic and dream imagery." A tasty appetizer for the smorgasbord of this site is the short, succinct "The Projection of Sarah Palin," which tells how the country has projected the archetype of the Great Mother upon the governor of Alaska, who has been tapped as the Republican nominee for vice president:

... the Great Mother is at once container, cherisher and guardian of life, as well as ruler, possessive controller/destroyer and seductress. ... we seem to have thrust some — if not all — of the Great Mother’s expansive powers onto Gov. Palin.

To me, the very fact that almost no one is neutral about Palin is indicative of the strength with which we are archetypally projecting an image onto her — whether or not we like the image! One of the advantages of a Jungian approach to understanding ourselves is that it allows us to step back and know that we are projecting. Giving full rein to our subjectivity and irrationality, then looking at it through Jungian eyes, can be the first step in reclaiming our reason and our objectivity.

My Roman Catholic faith calls me to be rational. The Church teaches the fundamental rationality of God above. Yet, paradoxically, for us the way to rationality can be through the chaos of the unconscious and its archetypal wisdom. Jungian Web links such as these may serve seekers as guideposts through the chaos and beacon lamps in the darkness.