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Mandala Symbolism
Contents:
Mandalas.
I. A Study in the Process of Individuation.
II. Concerning Mandala Symbolism
Index
Originally published in 1972.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Mandalas.
I. A Study in the Process of Individuation.
II. Concerning Mandala Symbolism
Index
Originally published in 1972.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
131 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
13 people are currently reading
724 people want to read
About the author
C.G. Jung
1,875 books11.5k followersCarl Gustav Jung (/jʊŋ/; German: [ˈkarl ˈɡʊstaf jʊŋ]), often referred to as C. G. Jung, was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology. Jung proposed and developed the concepts of extraversion and introversion; archetypes, and the collective unconscious. His work has been influential in psychiatry and in the study of religion, philosophy, archeology, anthropology, literature, and related fields. He was a prolific writer, many of whose works were not published until after his death.
The central concept of analytical psychology is individuation—the psychological process of integrating the opposites, including the conscious with the unconscious, while still maintaining their relative autonomy. Jung considered individuation to be the central process of human development.
Jung created some of the best known psychological concepts, including the archetype, the collective unconscious, the complex, and synchronicity. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a popular psychometric instrument, has been developed from Jung's theory of psychological types.
Though he was a practising clinician and considered himself to be a scientist, much of his life's work was spent exploring tangential areas such as Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, and sociology, as well as literature and the arts. Jung's interest in philosophy and the occult led many to view him as a mystic, although his ambition was to be seen as a man of science. His influence on popular psychology, the "psychologization of religion", spirituality and the New Age movement has been immense.
The central concept of analytical psychology is individuation—the psychological process of integrating the opposites, including the conscious with the unconscious, while still maintaining their relative autonomy. Jung considered individuation to be the central process of human development.
Jung created some of the best known psychological concepts, including the archetype, the collective unconscious, the complex, and synchronicity. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a popular psychometric instrument, has been developed from Jung's theory of psychological types.
Though he was a practising clinician and considered himself to be a scientist, much of his life's work was spent exploring tangential areas such as Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, and sociology, as well as literature and the arts. Jung's interest in philosophy and the occult led many to view him as a mystic, although his ambition was to be seen as a man of science. His influence on popular psychology, the "psychologization of religion", spirituality and the New Age movement has been immense.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 16, 2012
Generally, I'd rather read other people's summaries and commentaries of Jung than read Jung himself, and this proved no exception. I just don't have enough interest in Jungian psychology to wade into his complex terminology and often turbid writing. It did have some good ideas and insights on mandalas and their construction, especially the second essay.
June 2, 2020
Definitely a significant point of research and discovery for its time.
September 22, 2025
JUNG EXPLAINS HOW MANDALAS ILLUSTRATE THE ‘COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS’
The Editorial Preface explains, “In his ‘Memories, Dreams, Reflections’ Jung tells of how he painted the first mandala, in 1916… But it was not until 1918-1919, when Jung was commandant of a British war prisoners’ camp in French Switzerland, that he began to understand mandala drawings… Indeed, Jung‘s discovery of the mandala provided the key to his entire system… ‘It became increasingly plain to me that the mandala is the center. It is the exponent of all paths, it is the path to the center, to individuation.’” (Pg. v)
He explains in his 1955 essay, ‘Mandalas,’ “The Sanskrit word ‘mandala’ means ‘circle’ in the ordinary sense of the word. In the sphere of religious practices and in psychology it denotes circular images, which are drawn, painted, modelled, or danced. Plastic structures of this kind are found, for instance, in Tibetan Buddhism, and as dance figures these circular patterns occur also in Dervish monasteries. As psychological phenomena they appear spontaneously in dreams, in certain states of conflict, and in cases of schizophrenia. Very frequently they contain a quaternity or a multiple of four, in the form of a cross, a star, a square, an octagon, etc. … In Tibetan Buddhism the figure has the significance of a ritual instrument … whose purpose is to assist meditation and concentration…” (Pg. 3)
He continues, “Its spontaneous occurrence in modern individuals enables psychological research to make a closer investigation into its functional meaning. As a rule, a mandala occurs in conditions of psychic dissociation or disorientation, for instance in the case of children between the ages of eight and eleven whose parents are about to be divorced, or in adults who, as a result of a neurosis and its treatment, are confronted with the problem of opposites in human nature and are consequently disoriented; or again in schizophrenics whose view of the world has become confused, owing to the invasion of incomprehensible contents from the unconscious. In such cases it is easy to see how the severe pattern imposed by a circular image of this kind compensates the disorder and confusion of the psychic state---namely, through the construction of a central point in which everything is related, or by a concentric arrangement of the disordered multiplicity and of contradictory and irreconcilable elements. This is evidently an attempt at SELF-HEALING on the part of Nature, which does not spring from conscious reflection but from an instinctive impulse.” (Pg. 3-4)
He goes on, “The ‘squaring of the circle’ is one of the many archetypal motifs which form the basic patterns of our dreams and fantasies. But it is distinguished by the fact that it is one of the most important of them from the functional point of view. Indeed, it could even be called the ‘archetype of wholeness.’ Because of this significance, the ‘quaternity of the One’ is the schema for all images of God, as depicted in the visions of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Enoch…” (Pg. 4)
He notes, “Whereas ritual mandalas always display a definite style and a limited number of typical motifs as their content, individual mandalas make use of a well-nigh unlimited wealth of motifs and symbolic allusions, from which it can easily be seen that they are endeavoring to express either the totality of the world, or its essential point of reference. Their object is the SELF in contradistinction to the EGO, which is only the point of reference for consciousness, whereas the self comprises the totality of the psyche altogether, i.e., conscious AND unconscious.” (Pg. 5)
He suggests, “The unconscious naturally does not produce its images from conscious reflections, but from the worldwide propensity of the human system to form such conceptions as the world periods of the Parsees, the yogis and avatars of Hinduism, and the Platonic months of astrology with their bull and ram deities and the ‘Great’ Fish of the Christian aeon.” (Pg. 26)
After a series of reproductions of mandalas in the book, he comments, “Our series of pictures illustrates the initial stages of the way of individuation. It would be desirable to know what happens afterwards. But, just as neither the philosophical gold nor the philosopher’s stone was ever made in reality, so nobody has ever been able to tell the story of the whole way, at least not to mortal ears… As these pictures are intuitive anticipations of future developments, it is worthwhile lingering over them for a long time, in order, with their help, to integrate so many contents of the unconscious into consciousness that the latter really does reach the stage it sees ahead. These psychic evolutions do not as a rule keep pace with the tempo of intellectual developments. Indeed, their very first goal is to bring a consciousness that was hurried too far ahead into contact again with the unconscious background with which it should be connected.” (Pg. 64-65)
He asks, “How can consciousness, our most recent acquisition, which has bounded ahead, be linked up again with the oldest, the unconscious, which has lagged behind? The oldest of all is the instinctual foundation. Anyone who overlooks the instincts will be ambuscaded by them, and anyone who does not humble himself will be humbled, being at the same time his freedom, his most precious possession.” (Pg. 66)
He adds, “The pathological element only reveals itself in the way the individual reacts to them and how he interprets them. The characteristic feature of a pathological rection is, above all, identification with the archetype. This produces a sort of inflation and possession by the emergent contents, so that they can pour out in a torrent which no therapy can stop.” (Pg. 67)
He recounts, “I first mentioned the mandala in 1929, in ‘The Secret of the Golden Flower.’ For at least 13 years I kept quiet about the results of these methods in order to avoid any suggestion. I wanted to assure myself that these things---mandalas especially---really are produced spontaneously and were not suggested to the patient by my own fantasy. I was then able to convince myself, through my own studies, that mandalas were drawn, painted, carved in stone, and built, at all times and in all parts of the world, long before my patients discovered them. I have also seen to my satisfaction that mandalas are dreamt and drawn by patients who were being treated by psychotherapists whom I had not trained.” (Pg. 68-69)
He goes on, “The individuation process, clearly alluded to in this passage, subordinates the many to the One. But the One is God, and that which corresponds to him is the ‘imago Dei,’ the God-image. But the God-image… expresses itself in the mandala.” (Pg. 70)
He reports, “Most mandalas have an intuitive, irrational character and, through their symbolical content, exert a retroactive influence on the unconscious. They therefore possess a ‘magical’ significance, like icons, whose possible efficacy was never consciously felt by the patient. In fact, it is from the effect of their own pictures that patients discover what icons can mean. Their pictures do not work because they spring from the patients’ own fantasy, but because they are impressed by the fact that their subjective imagination produces motifs and symbols of the most unexpected kind that conform to law and express an idea or situation which their conscious mind can grasp only with difficulty. Confronted with these pictures, many patients suddenly realize for the first time the reality of the collective unconscious as an autonomous entity.” (Pg. 77)
He concludes, “I hope I have succeeded in giving the reader some idea of mandala symbolism with the help of these pictures. Naturally my exposition aims at nothing more than a superficial survey of the empirical material on which comparative research is based…. [Mandalas] are instruments of meditation, concentration, and self-immersion, for the purpose of realizing inner experience… At the same time they serve to produce an inner order---which is why, when they appear in a series, they often follow chaotic, disordered states marked by conflict and anxiety. They express the idea of a safe refuge, of inner reconciliation and wholeness.” (Pg.99-100)
He continues, “we are driven to the conclusion that there must be a transconscious disposition in every individual which is able to produce the same or very similar symbols at all times and in all places. Since this disposition is usually not a conscious possession of the individual I have called it the ‘collective unconscious,’ and, as the bases of its symbolical products, I postulate the existence of primordial images, and ARCHETYPES. I need hardly add that the identity of unconscious individual contents with their ethnic parallels is expressed not merely in their form but in their meaning. Knowledge of the common origin of these unconsciously performed symbols has been totally lost to us. In order to rediscover it, we have to read old texts and investigate old cultures, so as to gain an understanding of the things our patients bring us today in explanation of their psychic development. And when we penetrate a little more deeply below the surface of the psyche, we come upon historical layers which are not just dead dust, but alive and continuously active in everyone---maybe to a degree that we cannot imagine in the present state of our knowledge.” (Pg. 100)
This book will of keen interest to those studying Jung, but also those interested in the religious symbolism of the mandala.
The Editorial Preface explains, “In his ‘Memories, Dreams, Reflections’ Jung tells of how he painted the first mandala, in 1916… But it was not until 1918-1919, when Jung was commandant of a British war prisoners’ camp in French Switzerland, that he began to understand mandala drawings… Indeed, Jung‘s discovery of the mandala provided the key to his entire system… ‘It became increasingly plain to me that the mandala is the center. It is the exponent of all paths, it is the path to the center, to individuation.’” (Pg. v)
He explains in his 1955 essay, ‘Mandalas,’ “The Sanskrit word ‘mandala’ means ‘circle’ in the ordinary sense of the word. In the sphere of religious practices and in psychology it denotes circular images, which are drawn, painted, modelled, or danced. Plastic structures of this kind are found, for instance, in Tibetan Buddhism, and as dance figures these circular patterns occur also in Dervish monasteries. As psychological phenomena they appear spontaneously in dreams, in certain states of conflict, and in cases of schizophrenia. Very frequently they contain a quaternity or a multiple of four, in the form of a cross, a star, a square, an octagon, etc. … In Tibetan Buddhism the figure has the significance of a ritual instrument … whose purpose is to assist meditation and concentration…” (Pg. 3)
He continues, “Its spontaneous occurrence in modern individuals enables psychological research to make a closer investigation into its functional meaning. As a rule, a mandala occurs in conditions of psychic dissociation or disorientation, for instance in the case of children between the ages of eight and eleven whose parents are about to be divorced, or in adults who, as a result of a neurosis and its treatment, are confronted with the problem of opposites in human nature and are consequently disoriented; or again in schizophrenics whose view of the world has become confused, owing to the invasion of incomprehensible contents from the unconscious. In such cases it is easy to see how the severe pattern imposed by a circular image of this kind compensates the disorder and confusion of the psychic state---namely, through the construction of a central point in which everything is related, or by a concentric arrangement of the disordered multiplicity and of contradictory and irreconcilable elements. This is evidently an attempt at SELF-HEALING on the part of Nature, which does not spring from conscious reflection but from an instinctive impulse.” (Pg. 3-4)
He goes on, “The ‘squaring of the circle’ is one of the many archetypal motifs which form the basic patterns of our dreams and fantasies. But it is distinguished by the fact that it is one of the most important of them from the functional point of view. Indeed, it could even be called the ‘archetype of wholeness.’ Because of this significance, the ‘quaternity of the One’ is the schema for all images of God, as depicted in the visions of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Enoch…” (Pg. 4)
He notes, “Whereas ritual mandalas always display a definite style and a limited number of typical motifs as their content, individual mandalas make use of a well-nigh unlimited wealth of motifs and symbolic allusions, from which it can easily be seen that they are endeavoring to express either the totality of the world, or its essential point of reference. Their object is the SELF in contradistinction to the EGO, which is only the point of reference for consciousness, whereas the self comprises the totality of the psyche altogether, i.e., conscious AND unconscious.” (Pg. 5)
He suggests, “The unconscious naturally does not produce its images from conscious reflections, but from the worldwide propensity of the human system to form such conceptions as the world periods of the Parsees, the yogis and avatars of Hinduism, and the Platonic months of astrology with their bull and ram deities and the ‘Great’ Fish of the Christian aeon.” (Pg. 26)
After a series of reproductions of mandalas in the book, he comments, “Our series of pictures illustrates the initial stages of the way of individuation. It would be desirable to know what happens afterwards. But, just as neither the philosophical gold nor the philosopher’s stone was ever made in reality, so nobody has ever been able to tell the story of the whole way, at least not to mortal ears… As these pictures are intuitive anticipations of future developments, it is worthwhile lingering over them for a long time, in order, with their help, to integrate so many contents of the unconscious into consciousness that the latter really does reach the stage it sees ahead. These psychic evolutions do not as a rule keep pace with the tempo of intellectual developments. Indeed, their very first goal is to bring a consciousness that was hurried too far ahead into contact again with the unconscious background with which it should be connected.” (Pg. 64-65)
He asks, “How can consciousness, our most recent acquisition, which has bounded ahead, be linked up again with the oldest, the unconscious, which has lagged behind? The oldest of all is the instinctual foundation. Anyone who overlooks the instincts will be ambuscaded by them, and anyone who does not humble himself will be humbled, being at the same time his freedom, his most precious possession.” (Pg. 66)
He adds, “The pathological element only reveals itself in the way the individual reacts to them and how he interprets them. The characteristic feature of a pathological rection is, above all, identification with the archetype. This produces a sort of inflation and possession by the emergent contents, so that they can pour out in a torrent which no therapy can stop.” (Pg. 67)
He recounts, “I first mentioned the mandala in 1929, in ‘The Secret of the Golden Flower.’ For at least 13 years I kept quiet about the results of these methods in order to avoid any suggestion. I wanted to assure myself that these things---mandalas especially---really are produced spontaneously and were not suggested to the patient by my own fantasy. I was then able to convince myself, through my own studies, that mandalas were drawn, painted, carved in stone, and built, at all times and in all parts of the world, long before my patients discovered them. I have also seen to my satisfaction that mandalas are dreamt and drawn by patients who were being treated by psychotherapists whom I had not trained.” (Pg. 68-69)
He goes on, “The individuation process, clearly alluded to in this passage, subordinates the many to the One. But the One is God, and that which corresponds to him is the ‘imago Dei,’ the God-image. But the God-image… expresses itself in the mandala.” (Pg. 70)
He reports, “Most mandalas have an intuitive, irrational character and, through their symbolical content, exert a retroactive influence on the unconscious. They therefore possess a ‘magical’ significance, like icons, whose possible efficacy was never consciously felt by the patient. In fact, it is from the effect of their own pictures that patients discover what icons can mean. Their pictures do not work because they spring from the patients’ own fantasy, but because they are impressed by the fact that their subjective imagination produces motifs and symbols of the most unexpected kind that conform to law and express an idea or situation which their conscious mind can grasp only with difficulty. Confronted with these pictures, many patients suddenly realize for the first time the reality of the collective unconscious as an autonomous entity.” (Pg. 77)
He concludes, “I hope I have succeeded in giving the reader some idea of mandala symbolism with the help of these pictures. Naturally my exposition aims at nothing more than a superficial survey of the empirical material on which comparative research is based…. [Mandalas] are instruments of meditation, concentration, and self-immersion, for the purpose of realizing inner experience… At the same time they serve to produce an inner order---which is why, when they appear in a series, they often follow chaotic, disordered states marked by conflict and anxiety. They express the idea of a safe refuge, of inner reconciliation and wholeness.” (Pg.99-100)
He continues, “we are driven to the conclusion that there must be a transconscious disposition in every individual which is able to produce the same or very similar symbols at all times and in all places. Since this disposition is usually not a conscious possession of the individual I have called it the ‘collective unconscious,’ and, as the bases of its symbolical products, I postulate the existence of primordial images, and ARCHETYPES. I need hardly add that the identity of unconscious individual contents with their ethnic parallels is expressed not merely in their form but in their meaning. Knowledge of the common origin of these unconsciously performed symbols has been totally lost to us. In order to rediscover it, we have to read old texts and investigate old cultures, so as to gain an understanding of the things our patients bring us today in explanation of their psychic development. And when we penetrate a little more deeply below the surface of the psyche, we come upon historical layers which are not just dead dust, but alive and continuously active in everyone---maybe to a degree that we cannot imagine in the present state of our knowledge.” (Pg. 100)
This book will of keen interest to those studying Jung, but also those interested in the religious symbolism of the mandala.
December 11, 2019
One word for me: Quaternity
September 3, 2020
fascinating and encouraging
Read
May 27, 2024"The sexual symbolism, which for many naive minds is of such capital importance, was no discovery for her. She was far enough advanced to know that explanations of this kind, however true they might be in other respects, had no significance in her case. She did not want to know how liberation might be possible in a general way, but how and in what way it could come about for her. And about this I knew as little as she. I know that such solutions can only come about in an individual way that cannot be foreseen."
"Our instincts have ridden so infinitely many times, unharmed, over the problems that arise at this stage of life that we may be sure the transformation processes which make the transition possible have long been prepared in the unconscious and are only waiting to be released"
"Our instincts have ridden so infinitely many times, unharmed, over the problems that arise at this stage of life that we may be sure the transformation processes which make the transition possible have long been prepared in the unconscious and are only waiting to be released"
Read
December 4, 2024The Quaternity: Hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, disordered thought.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews