#depth psychology

[shisasan]

[yourspiritguide-quotes]

People will do anything,

No matter how absurd,

To avoid facing their own souls

- Carl Jung

[allgirlsareprincesses]

Hi. Not sure if you've answered this before, but do you have a list of books to recommend on fairytale/mythic analysis?

So I finally have a real response to this question, but it's LONG, be warned:

First, it depends what you want to get out of your folklore study, what lens you'd like to use for analysis. And second, it's important to know that the practice of folktale analysis has changed over time, especially in the last ~15 years or so as the scholarly consensus has evolved toward decolonization.

For example, the common historical starting place was Bruno Bettleheim's The Uses of Enchantment. Candidly, I haven't read it yet for a few reasons: 1) It focuses fairly exclusively on Western European fairy tales like those of Grimm, Basile, and Perrault. 2) It assumes the primary audience for such tales are children. 3) It's a white man's perspective, and there are already enough of those to go around. That said, it's considered a foundational text for folklore study, so I'll probably get to it eventually. There are some modern authors who might be considered scholarly successors of Bettleheim, like Maria Tatar. I haven't read her books yet but I know she's also a powerhouse of Western fairy tale analysis.

Some other popular perspectives include the works of Carl Jung and his protégés in psychoanalysis, Marie-Louise von Franz and Erich Neumann. These are wonderful sources for learning about depth psychology and the universal unconscious which causes certain motifs to recur in storytelling across the globe and over centuries. Another popular author in this field is Robert Bly, who dove deeply into the concept of the Shadow as it appears in folk tales.

But for me, my favorite sources have been a collection of feminist authors who were active in the late 80s and early 90s, notably Barbara Fass Leavy and the incomparable Clarissa Pinkola Estes. While their work is pretty firmly grounded in second-wave feminism and therefore not very intersectional as we understand it today, they were the first to begin exploring interpretations of folk tales outside of a patriarchal context. I personally refer to Leavy's In Search of the Swan Maiden and Estes' Women Who Run With the Wolves more than any other books.

A lot of the most current perspectives are only accessible via blogs, like Jeana Jorgensen AKA The Foxy Folklorist, who often explores fairy tales through a Queer lens. Another brilliant voice working today is Helen Nde of Mythological Africans, who is doing the long-overdue work of decolonizing African folklore.

And while all these sources will help you develop a framework for analysis, still one of the best things you can do is read the tales for yourself. One of my favorite series is that of Heidi Anne Heiner of Sur La Lune Fairy Tales, who has amassed impressive collections of folk tales of the same type from around the world, making comparison easy. She also provides excellent footnotes that offer context to the versions and translations she's selected, and every tale has a source.

Outside of that, I like to read regional collections from indigenous scholars and native speakers: some editors will even include a copy in the original language along with the English translation, thus allowing others to "check their work." One of my favorite folkorists like this is Inea Bushnaq, who collects Arab folktales and again provides accessible cultural context. It's important to remember that most oral folktales which are now available in English were first recorded by colonizers, so the versions we have may be edited, mistranslated, or even maliciously altered to suit Western tastes. This is why seeking out versions from actual members of indigenous communities is critical.

Right now, I'm reading The Japanese Psyche: Major Motifs in the Fairy Tales of Japan by Hayao Kawai, and I'm next going to try Oral World and Written Word by Susan Niditch. I tend to just go where the spirit moves me, journal a bit, go down a research rabbit hole about a particular topic... it's fun. But whatever you're looking to get out of your folk tale study, rest assured you will never run out of material!

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

Erich Neumann - Depth Psychology and a New Ethic - Harper Torchbooks - 1973 (cover deisgn by Russ Patrick)

[themusewithinthemusewithout]

Hymn to the Rose by John Duncan, 1907.

But why is this beautiful company worshipping the Rose? The Rose (exquisite and fragrant as actuality but also symbolic) has been associated with many female deities through history. From the followers of the Egyptian goddess Isis to those of the Greek Aphrodite, the Rose became eventually identified with holy Mary and her higher spiritual essence. To follow the Rose, a mystical calling, is to believe in a psychological and spiritual development transcending earthly bounds, to allow an inner unfolding that makes one complete, a unique individual yet in connection with the whole.

[thesagittarianmind]

[bmtalbott]

“The word panic comes from Pan. He went about whistling or playing his pipe and frightening the shepherds. The shepherd's fear is like the stampede of the herds. Occasionally a herd begins to stampede for no obvious reason, it is as if they were suddenly frightened by something. That happens to us also; at certain moments in the midst of real nature one is suddenly seized with terror without knowing why. Sometimes it is a particularly lonely and uncanny spot, but at other times one cannot say what it is, a kind of animal fear seizes one.”

“It is the great god Pan that causes the panic terror. Then that nature demon became a great philosophical god on account of the transformation in the meaning of the name. The Greek word pas means all, the whole, and pan, the neuter, means the universe; and that meaning became attached to the god as the universal nature spirit.”

- Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Pages 580-581

[scarefox]

Really not a fan of the "we trigger you and pretend as if you are refusing to cooperate and you have 0 progress in the past 5 weeks, this is a waste of time" kind of therapy approach.... I know they do that intentionally to shake you awake and highlight your soft spots or old wounds. But it does feel shit af. And I am never 100% sure if they maybe actually mean it for real.

They suggested today that I have to talk to my father about all the stuff I hide from him. Which is: failed uni in the last bit, me being in therapy, me going in personal insolvency and me being queer. If I don't clear that up I will never be able to improve my anxiety disorder.... I resisted to that. He's a narcissist and helicopter dad. Me not telling this is giving me more peace. Sure it's stressing me but that's the lighter way than detonating multiple bombs that don't just hit me when they go off (him being pissed forever at me and my mom). Maybe I will tell him some day but not now and I will keep the lie about me finishing uni, at least that way he stopped pestering me about work. They also made it sound like I betray my father and he doesn't deserve that. I guess they tried to piss me off so that I show emotions that I swallow, but all it did was making me insecure and feeling like shit.

[eananoor]

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.

Carl G. Jung

[thejungianaion]

Here is an amazing collection of rare interviews with Carl Jung, restored visual-audio and colored by me.

[mysoulsecrets-blog]

Narcissist play nice when it's convenient, Someone who runs hot and cold acting like your best friend one day and ignoring you the next, but we as injf's are looking for consistency,

The relationship between a narcissist and an empath is one sided as Empaths are attuned to others’ emotions and are sensitive to feelings of other people. We tend to prioritize the needs of others ahead of our own and give without being asked. We feel deeply and feel good about helping others so much so that we absorb others’ emotions. Empaths tend to be overflowing with compassion for other people.Given our great amount of compassion, we as empath are prone to absorbing the emotions and energy of others. When we meet a narcissist, the energy we sense triggers something in us that ignites our need to comfort the narcissist, it’s likely that we empaths have formed a trauma bond with the narcissist, which can be hard to break out of or even recognize. the narcissists will discard the empath instantaneously—adding insult to injury for us empaths. The narcissist will be quick to find another victim so they can continue to get their narcissistic supply.

Because Everything for them is surface depth.

[shisasan]

A romantic, tender soul intoxicatingly drawn to the depth of shadows with a hidden taste for wicked and perversion. Who else feels this to their bones?

[yourspiritguide-quotes]

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is

to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being

- Carl Jung

[theidealistphilosophy]

The bigger you build the bonfire, the more darkness is revealed.

Terence McKenna, Source Unlisted.

[tmarshconnors]

"Everybody acts out a myth, but very few people know what their myth is."

Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology.

Born: 26 July 1875, Kesswil, Switzerland

Died: 6 June 1961, Küsnacht, Switzerland

[booksandwitchery]

Not long ago, if someone said I'd be ordering a Tarot deck this year...

...I would laugh in their face because I am a die-hard, science-loving skeptic incapable of blind belief in the supernatural. But my tarot card deck should be coming in the mail today and I'm f***ing stoked, even though I don't think the cards are going to cause anything mystical to happen.

For anyone who is familiar with my posts, it should be no surprise that I've encountered a lot of information about Jungian psychology, specifically the concept of universal human archetypes and the effort to balance the conscious and unconscious aspects of our mind. In Anthony Alvarado's DIY Magic, which I posted about last year, a whole chapter is dedicated to tarot even though the author himself admits that magical experiences are merely "subconscious structures of our own making." He assures his readers these experiences are not "any less powerful or capricious" despite having been created by our own minds. Excuse me, but I think that is f***ing beautiful. WHAT.

Alvarado says tarot cards are effective because of their human universality: "Anyone can do it; you don't need special powers. . .the tarot deck works because it is filled with ancient archetypal symbols. That they are archetypal simply means that they represent basic fears, hopes, dreams and desires that are present in everybody's life."

I've been chewing on this idea for a while now, including how it pertains to modern archetypal polytheism (deities as aspects of our own self) and secular witchcraft in general. My greatest "aha" moment was when I connected this idea of tarot cards to the first principle of Atheopaganism: "I understand that the metaphorical is not the literal.. . . we do not automatically accept our subjective experiences as having objective reality. Does that mean, then, that the meaning derived from such experiences is necessarily invalid? No, it does not." - Mark Green

In other words, though our experiences using tarot decks are subjective and do not involve the supernatural, the meanings we derive from these readings are valid. We created the meaning, as opposed to the meaning being paranormally inherent in the experience.

So, my fellow humans--if I talk about tarot in my posts (as I am likely to do now that I've learned that magic is, in a sense, actually f***ing real) I am using it in this domain of thought. I am not using the cards to predict my future; I do not think that any supernatural entities are in control of the cards (though if you do, that's fine too and I respect your beliefs) because as Carl Jung once said, "It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves."