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In the Middle Ages, a favorite image that occurs in many, many contexts is the wheel of fortune. There’s the hub of the wheel, and there is the revolving rim of the wheel. For example, if you are attached to…

I don’t know why it is that people talking about the flight of the artist always refer to Icarus and not to Daedalus. Icarus flew too high, the wax on his wings melted, and he fell into the ocean. The…

Time and space are gone in the enchantment of the heart.

Like a flower potential in its seed, the blossom of the realization of love is potential in every heart (or, at least, every noble heart) and requires only proper cultivation to be fostered to maturity.

Metaphors are used to point out past all knowledge to the experience of that which lives in you. If the metaphor is interpreted as a fact it’s misunderstood.

“The stress on the sexual character of the deity—whether male or female—is secondary and, in certain contexts, baffling. It was originally oriented toward the masculine to establish the superiority of the patriarchal societies over the matriarchal. . . . Folks in the…

Jung’s concept is that the aim of one’s life, psychologically speaking, should be not to suppress or repress, but to come to know one’s other side, and both to enjoy and to control the whole range of one’s capacities; i.e.,…

Pandora is another inflection of the idea of the woman who brings bounty into the world. The later, smart aleck, masculine-inflected story of Pandora—the notion that every woman brings with her a box of troubles—is simply another way of saying…

The whole world is a circle. All of these circular images reflect the psyche, so there may be some relationship between these architectural designs and the actual structuring of our spiritual functions. When  a magician wants to work magic, he…

The magic of the sacraments (made effective through the passion of Jesus Christ, or by virtue of the meditations of the Buddha), the protective power of primitive amulets and charms, and the supernatural helpers of the myths and fairy tales…

Many traditional societies regard magic as being originally the woman’s possession and the men have stolen it or taken it from them because it’s a woman’s thing.

The priest, saying Mass with his back to the congregation, is performing a miracle at his altar, much like that of the alchemist, bringing God himself into presence in the bread and wine, out of the nowhere into the here:…

And so let us turn now to the next great phase of development of this magical world of inspiration, wherein the Grail became the vessel of the Last Supper. For over what formerly had been but Celtic magic the baptismal…

From the Pyrenees to Lake Baikal, the evidence now is before us of a Late Stone Age mythology in which the outstanding figure was the Naked Goddess. And she can already be recognized in a number of her better-known later…

“Every failure to cope with a life situation must be laid, in the end, to a restriction of consciousness”  

Creation myths, furthermore, which, when read in their mystical sense might bring to mind the idea of a background beyond time out of which the whole temporal world with its colorful populations has been derived, when read, instead, historically, only…

Creation myths, furthermore, which, when read in their mystical sense might bring to mind the idea of a background beyond time out of which the whole temporal world with its colorful populations has been derived, when read, instead, historically, only…

Now, in these religions of the East, we do not have the idea of a personal creator who determines to create and so brings about an initial moment in cosmic history, and finally is there when the world ends. There…

Now, in these religions of the East, we do not have the idea of a personal creator who determines to create and so brings about an initial moment in cosmic history, and finally is there when the world ends. There…

The modern hero, the modern individual who dares to heed the call and seek the mansion of that presence with whom it is our whole destiny to be atoned, cannot, indeed must not, wait for his community to cast off…

Another name for this doctrine is the Doctrine of the Net of Gems, in which the world is regarded as a net of gems, each gem reflecting perfectly all the others. It is also called the Doctrine of Mutual Arising,…

All life has drudgery to it . . . Sometimes the drudgery itself can become part of the hero deed. The point is not to get stuck in the drudgery but to use it to free you.  

Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path.