John p dourley biography of abraham

1The Mystics and Psychic Self-Containment

DOI: 10.4324/9781315796277-1

Jung's myth as the Mother myth

Jung’s psychology serves as an excellent resource for the interpretation of myth. It is so because myth, in whatever form, ranging from cosmogonic or theogonic statements on how the Gods and the universe were created to the interactions between specific deities and humanity, is an expression of archetypal energies. As such all myths invite their readers to experience in one’s psyche the energies they depict and personify as beyond the psyche. The introjection of the myth moves the individual to become a full participant in the drama it depicts by experiencing its truth in oneself.

Usually overlooked even by Jungians is the fact that Jungian psychology is itself a myth expressive of the foundational movements of the psyche and its extension to the world, humanity and divinity “beyond” the psyche. The dynamic of Jung’s myth describes the birth and fall of consciousness, and its return through death to its womb as a prelude to rebirth, now cast as the co-redemption of both Goddess and her child, the ego, in a cycle without end. This cycle is the primordial pulse of individual life and of the life of humanity itself. Effectively psychic life in Jung’s myt

•