The Art of Reflection

05/06/21 • 25 min

In this episode:
We explore Jung's thoughts about the capacity for reflection and why he sees it as an essential component of our humanity.

Sources for quotes and more:

"'Reflection' should be understood not simply as an act of thought, but rather as an attitude. It is a privilege born of human freedom in contradistinction to the compulsion of natural law...." ~ C.G. Jung from A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity (footnote, par. 235) in 'Collected Works, vol. 11.'
"It cannot be denied that our current age is a distracted one." ~ 'Religious but Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life.'
Episode 27: Working With Your Dreams
Discussion of bios and zoê in The Experience of God: Icons of the Mystery by Raimon Panikkar.
Discussion of events and experiences in Healing Fiction by James Hillman.
The Psychology of the Transference by C.G. Jung, 'Collected Works, vol. 16.' *
"[It is] indeed wonderful to see how human beings, besides their life in the concrete, always live a second life in the abstract...." ~ Arthur Schopenhauer in 'The World as Will and Representation.' *
'Concerning the Inner Life.' by Evelyn Underhill
Adaptation, Individuation, Collectivity by C.G. Jung in 'Collected Works, vol. 18.' *
'Memories, Dreams, Reflections.' by C.G. Jung
'The Rhythm of Being.' by Raimon Panikkar*

*Some quotes have been adapted to reflect gender neutral language. There has been no change made to the essential meaning of those quotes.

Music:
"Dreaming Days," "Slow Vibing," and "The Return" by Ketsa are licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
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For more on living a symbolic life:
Please check out my book, Religious but Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life.

In this episode:
We explore Jung's thoughts about the capacity for reflection and why he sees it as an essential component of our humanity.

Sources for quotes and more:

"'Reflection' should be understood not simply as an act of thought, but rather as an attitude. It is a privilege born of human freedom in contradistinction to the compulsion of natural law...." ~ C.G. Jung from A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity (footnote, par. 235) in 'Collected Works, vol. 11.'
"It cannot be denied that our current age is a distracted one." ~ 'Religious but Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life.'
Episode 27: Working With Your Dreams
Discussion of bios and zoê in The Experience of God: Icons of the Mystery by Raimon Panikkar.
Discussion of events and experiences in Healing Fiction by James Hillman.
The Psychology of the Transference by C.G. Jung, 'Collected Works, vol. 16.' *
"[It is] indeed wonderful to see how human beings, besides their life in the concrete, always live a second life in the abstract...." ~ Arthur Schopenhauer in 'The World as Will and Representation.' *
'Concerning the Inner Life.' by Evelyn Underhill
Adaptation, Individuation, Collectivity by C.G. Jung in 'Collected Works, vol. 18.' *
'Memories, Dreams, Reflections.' by C.G. Jung
'The Rhythm of Being.' by Raimon Panikkar*

*Some quotes have been adapted to reflect gender neutral language. There has been no change made to the essential meaning of those quotes.

Support the show

Previous Episode

Religious but Not Religious (Highlights)

In this episode:
I present some highlights and excerpts from a recording of a recent talk that I gave on my book, Religious but Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life.

Sources for quotes and more:

“Now, we have no symbolic life, and we are all badly in need of the symbolic life. Only the symbolic life can express the need of the soul — the daily need of the soul..." ~ C.G. Jung from The Symbolic Life in 'Collected Works, vol. 18.'
"Do we ever understand what we think? We only understand that kind of thinking which is a mere equation, from which nothing comes out but what we have put in..." ~ C.G. Jung from The Stages of Life in 'Collected Works, vol. 8.'
"All teems with symbol; the wise man is the man who in any one thing can read another." ~ Plotinus
"The religious symbol is used against the perils of the soul. The symbol functions as a sort of machine, one could say, by which the libido is transformed...." ~ C.G. Jung in 'Seminar on Nietzsche's Zarathurstra.'
“The individual, who hitherto has been caught in his personal entanglements, is then confronted with a problem which no longer represents solely his personal conflict but gives expression to a conflict that it has been incumbent on man to suffer and solve from time immemorial." ~ Jolande Jacobi in 'Complex/Archetype/Symbol.'
"Among all my patients in the second half of life -- that is to say, over thirty-five -- there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life...." ~ C.G. Jung from Psychotherapists or the Clergy in 'Collected Works, vol. 11.'
'Memories, Dreams, Reflections.' by C.G. Jung

Music:
"Dreaming Days," and "Slow Vibing" by Ketsa are licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Like this podcast?
Please consider leaving a review at one of the following sites:
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Or, if you are able, support the show with a donation at Buy Me a Coffee:

Support the show

Next Episode

Knowing and Not-Knowing

In this episode:
We look at the limits of a merely rational approach to life and the need to make place in our lives for mystery.

Sources for quotes and more:

“In our time, it's the intellect that is making darkness, because we've let it take too big a place...." ~ C.G. Jung from On the Frontiers of Knowledge in 'C.G. Jung Speaking.'
“A mercenary of our will to power, the mind is trained to assail in order to plunder rather than to commune in order to love.” ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel in 'Man is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion.'
Discussion of "instrumentally rational" in The Reenchantment of the World by Morris Berman.
“The experiment presupposes a distorted image of [the human being].” ~ Raimon Panikkar in 'A Dwelling Place for Wisdom.'
“There is no such thing as a baby.” ~ D.W. Winnicott from The Theory of the Parent-Infant Relationship in 'The International Journal of Psychoanalysis.'
“Everything hints at something that transcends it; the detail indicates the whole, the whole, its idea, the idea, its mysterious root...." ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel in 'Man is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion.'
The Cloud of Unknowing from the 'Classics of Western Spirituality' series.
"Understanding is a fearfully binding power, at times a veritable murder of the soul as soon as it flattens out vitally important differences...." ~ C.G. Jung from 'Selected Letters of C.G. Jung, 1909 - 1961.'
“Love can survive only if wisdom has an effective voice.” ~ Gregory Bateson from Style, Grace, and Information in Primitive Art from 'The Anthropology of Art.'