Carl Gustav Jung and his legacy to spiritual psychology

The work of Carl Gustav Jung is a process of constant search, a wonderful alchemy between Analytical Psychology, anthropology and philosophy where he leaves us with concepts as interesting as “the collective unconscious”, “archetypes”, “synchronicity” or the bases of a spiritual legacy where a whole melting pot of ideas is hidden.

When we talk about famous psychologists, the first one that appears in most people’s minds is the iconic face of Sigmund Freud. However, for many, It was Carl Gustav Jung who managed to leave a much deeper mark on the study of personality and the human psyche..

It should be said that although Jung worked closely with Sigmund Freud for years, the latter’s focus on sexuality as a relevant factor behind human behavior was always a difficult pill for the Swiss psychiatrist to swallow.

In the prodigious mind of this free thinker, founder of Analytical Psychology, There were many more concerns that surpassed the theoretical bases on which Freud moved.. Despite being a practical and theoretical clinical psychologist, he dedicated most of his life to exploring other realms, to letting himself be enveloped by Eastern and Western philosophy, the arts, literature, astrology, sociology or even alchemy. . A legacy of knowledge not without interest that we want to talk to you about below.

The childhood dream that opened his eyes

C. G Jung once said that a human being is born three times. The first responds to the real birth, the physical one. The second occurs with the development of the ego, and the third is what shapes the birth of what he called “spiritual consciousness.” According to Jung, this last enlightenment will never occur if the person focuses exclusively on the ego, on their learned conditioning or on those rigid and unreceptive mental patterns.

However, It seems that the Swiss psychiatrist himself experienced this third awakening as a child thanks to a strange dream, symbolic as well as fascinating.. It was a large room with a red carpet where a strange being stood prostrate on a throne. It was a tree-like monster that sported an immense eye in the center. He was dressed in a man’s skin and barely reacted when little Gustav Jung approached him. However, shortly afterward he could hear the voice of his mother shouting at him from a nearby grave not to come closer, which was “the men’s dining room.”

Although at first that dream was received more as a fearful nightmare, It didn’t take long for him to awaken a deep interest in the world of dreams and their symbology.. Years later he was aware that that dream was like a call, like a direct invitation to investigate what psychoanalysts would later call “the unconscious.”

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Jung’s spiritual legacy

Although the clinical approach in which C. Gustav Jung worked was based on a very theoretical psychiatry, he was always clear that He did not want to be left with that reduced and limited vision of the field of human knowledge.. He soon incorporated into his theories roots from anthropology, concepts of art, spirituality and that cultural legacy where revealing ideas about the realm of the unconscious were hidden.

Jung studied in depth andl Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Gnosticism, Taoism and other traditions because for him, the spiritual constituted the very root of psychic life. One of its core axes was that to understand the human mind it was also necessary to study its products, that is, its cultural productionsIn turn, he defended on multiple occasions that all spiritual experience was essential to promote our well-being, something that Sigmund Freud did not agree with. In 1944 Jung published “Psychology and Alchemy“ to demonstrate how In many of our most common dreams they hide symbols used by alchemists, as well as mythological images that we all have rooted in our subconscious.

With these ideas, Jung reinforced the universal character of his theory of the archetype, also making a defense of the value of Spirituality as a tool to improve the mental health of modern man.

Carl Gustav Jung and the study of mandalas

C. G Jung, in his infinite passion for this knowledge rooted in our ancestral cultures, did not take long to discover the psychological effects of mandalas, while he addressed the study of Eastern religion.

As he himself explained on numerous occasions, The mandala responds to a sacred geometric design capable of provoking something revulsive as well as therapeutic within us.Every circle-shaped figure is not only a representation of the cosmos, it is a direct invitation to listen to our being, to restore harmony and promote awakening, growth.

Jung used mandalas with his patients to encourage them to listen to their inner voice.. It was a way to decentralize the ego, to break the noise of obsessive thoughts so that the person could find new routes of liberation and peer into a new state of consciousness.

In conclusion, The legacy of Carl Gustav Jung is undoubtedly one of the vastest, one of the richest in terms of knowledge, approaches and conceptions. Although his theoretical contributions are still very present in the field of psychoanalysis, today there is no shortage of those who prefer to focus only on his spiritualist ideas.

For our part, we invite you to discover all of their work, without restricting any area. Books like “The Red Book”, “Man and His Symbols” or “Memories, Dreams, Thoughts” They are testimonies of a multidisciplinary approach, of a melting pot of knowledge and awakenings that continue to inspire experts, the curious and the layman to this day.

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