Category Archives: Depth Psychology Basics
Harry Potter & The Spiritual Dimension of Play (“The Miracle of the Present Moment”)
“These are dark times, there is no denying. Our world has perhaps faced no greater threat than it does today.” These ominous and dreary words are the first ones uttered in the film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I. If you … Continue reading
“Tributes to Soul-Making” (“The Hadean Perspective”)
One of Mythfire’s favorite selections from psychologist James Hillman’s impressive oeuvre is all of five pages in length. Entitled Hades, Persephone, and a Psychology of Death, the passage can be found in “Dehumanizing or Soul-making,” the final chapter in Hillman’s Re-Visioning … Continue reading
Psych-eulogizing Clarence Clemons (“The Temple of Soul-Making”)
One danger in this and the previous entry is that of conveying the impression that an individual’s life may be reduced to a single mythological or psychological interpretation. Indeed, rather than suggesting that E Street Band sax man Clarence Clemons’ life … Continue reading
Posted in Depth Psychology Basics, Myth Basics
Tagged Anthony Stevens, Bruce Springsteen, Clarence Clemons, eulogy, James Hillman, John Keats, logos, mythologem, mythologizing, myththeme, pathologizing, personal myth, psychology, Re-Visioning Psychology, Scooter and the Big Man, soul-making, Temple of Soul
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Lez Get “Real” (“Psychologizing or Seeing-through‘”)
“The latest incarnation of Oedipus, the continued romance of Beauty and the Beast, stands this afternoon on the corner of Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue, waiting for the traffic light to change.”[1] The above quote from mythologist Joseph Campbell’s The … Continue reading
Posted in Depth Psychology Basics, Myth Basics
Tagged Amina Arraf, Bill Graber, ego, Gay Girl in Damascus, hermaphroditic consciousness, Hermes, James Hillman, Joseph Campbell, Legba, Lewis Hyde, LezGetReal.com, literalism, Paula Brooks, Power of Myth, psychologizing, Rafael Lopez-Pedraza, seeing through, shame, Tom MacMaster, trickster, Trickster Makes This World, Zeus
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The Enigma of Numbers (“From Three to Four – Part 2”)
Through these weekly blogs Mythfire generally aspires to do one of two things. Not infrequently, both aims can be found in a single blog post. The first is to introduce an idea from the field of analytical psychology and/or mythological … Continue reading
To Our Health! (“Historic Steps from Three to Four”)
“One, two, three; but where, my dear Timaeus, is the fourth…?”[1] Amid much fanfare earlier this month the United States Department of Agriculture, (USDA) unveiled a new food guide icon with the help of first lady Michelle Obama. Replacing the … Continue reading
Posted in Depth Psychology Basics
Tagged Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, Arab Spring, C.G. Jung, depth psychology, Edward Edinger, Ego & Archetype, feeling, feminine, food pyramid, four, my dear Timaeus, MyPlate, perfection, Pope Pius XII, quaternity, Robert Johnson, symbol, The Assumption of Mary, The Da Vinci Code, the missing fourth, The move from three to four, three, USDA, wholeness
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James Hillman’s Shift to Soul-Making (“From Anima-Mess to Anima-Vessel”)
Psychologist James Hillman is best known as the founder of archetypal psychology – a branch of depth psychology that developed out of and has found its place alongside Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis and C.G. Jung’s analytical psychology. And if there is … Continue reading
Copulative Conjunctions & Other Natural Phenomena (“Is Philosophy Dead?”)
Last week’s post took its inspiration from an interview Stephen Hawking gave just before the latest Google Zeitgeist conference where he made yet another bold proclamation: “Philosophy is dead.” Perhaps professor of philosophy Justin E. H. Smith was secretly voicing a … Continue reading
Heaven: Many Hints, One Hypothesis (“Paging Dr. Hawking”)
“I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.” Perhaps the most distinguished … Continue reading
Posted in Depth Psychology Basics, Myth Basics
Tagged Afterlife, Archetypal Experiences Surrounding Death, C.G. Jung, critical rationalism, death, dreams, Fairy Story, Heaven, hints, imagination, Marie-Louise von Franz, Memories, mythologizing, On Life after Death, prejudice, Reflections, Roger Trigg, Stephen Hawking, synchronicity
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