The villain is the most captivating and intriguing of all archetypes. The hero would not exist without his darker counterpart, which reflects aspects of ourselves that we do not dare to acknowledge or confront, but which are present within all of us. 📨 ⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to newsletter⁠⁠⁠ ☕ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Donate a coffee⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⭐ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ✉️ Send me anything you like to my mailing address: Eternalised P.O. Box 10.011 28080 Madrid,...

The Magician is the most mysterious and fascinating of all archetypes. He is a person who has gained access to esoteric or occult (hidden) knowledge, bringing the spiritual to the material. Thus, he is an initiate of secret and hidden knowledge of all kinds. As the Emerald Tablet teaches us, “As above, so below, and as below, so above, to accomplish the marvels of the One work.” The Magician is often the mentor or guide to his people, and even to the king. Psychologically, the Magician is...

Numbers do not merely have a quantitative nature, but also a qualitative one (for Pythagoras they were divine). Numbers have life, they are not just symbols on paper. Several philosophers, alchemists and mystics throughout history have associated religious or mystical ideas to numbers. In ancient times, people associated mystical meaning to words and names based on their numerical value, which became the basis for 20th century numerology that seeks to understand personality through...

The Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung studied astrology for over 40 years, and was primarily interested in the way astrology could help to explore the psyche. For Jung, astrology represents the sum of all the psychological knowledge of antiquity. The notion of seeing mythic narratives through patterns in the heavens is one of the earliest attempts to link the outer world with the inner world. The well-known Hermetic dictum, “As above, so below,” is key to astrology. It is the...

Angels have fascinated human consciousness since the beginning of time. The word angel derives from the Greek angelos, which is the default translation of the Biblical Hebrew term mal’ākh (literally “messenger”). The angel is a messenger between God and mankind. Whether we talk about angels, daimons, djinns, fairies, or any other of such beings, they all hold something in common, despite their difference in appearance, namely, they are all archetypal images of the same fundamental pattern,...

The Wise Old Man or Sage is an archetype that is recognised by almost everyone, be it in stories, games, movies, or everyday life. In myth he is often shown as one living in isolation, meditating and living a simple life deep in a forest, in the mountains, or in other uninhabited places. The Wise Old Man is a lover of wisdom, and uses his experience to guide others. He is portrayed as a mysterious person or a wizard, in contact with nature and the numinous and unseen forces that permeate our...

The Quest for the Holy Grail has fascinated the Western consciousness for a long time. It epitomises the true spirit of Western man and is, in many ways, the myth of Western civilisation. It is a perennial and timeless pattern that expresses fundamental concerns of the human condition. The Holy Grail is a mysterious object guarded by a king in a hidden castle. It has been described as a cup, dish, or a magical stone that can provide healing powers, immortality, eternal youth, and...

Fairy tales fascinate us and give us a sense of warmth and home-coming that comes from the mythical realm of the imagination, a necessary complement to our everyday life. We are fundamentally story-telling creatures, and there is much we can learn by reflecting on the fairy tales heard in childhood. They seem almost magical because they connect us with emotions deeply buried within that cannot find expression in outer life, because as we grow up, the world of imagination is shunned by our...

The Devil goes by many names: Satan, Lucifer, The Great Beast, Beelzebub, The Prince of Darkness. He is the adversary, the accuser, the tempter, the deceiver, and the one who divides from God. The Devil is incredibly wicked and evil, but also intelligent and witty – he is the father of all tricksters – that is what makes him so dangerous. The English word “devil” derives from the Greek diábolos (“the one who divides”). Diabolic is the term in contemporary English. The Greek verb dia-bollein...

The fool is one of the most relatable, intriguing and recurring figures in the world. There have been fools who have caused surprise and laughter since time immemorial. We worship folly by seeing it in people and in the world and by willingly displaying it in ourselves. It is one of the timeless archetypes, which we all inherit at birth. Many of us suffer from the absence of the fool in our lives. Frenetic and upright, we take ourselves too seriously. As William Shakespeare said, “All the...

Nightmares. We all have them. But what exactly do they mean? Why do we have bad dreams? Is there any psychological meaning behind them? Nightmares are the source of much of the horror we see in stories, myths, movies and games. They are an encounter with the dark side of the unconscious, which often includes facing some of the most painful aspects of who we are. And one does not know what that part of oneself is, until one confronts it. Nightmares are the most substantial and vitally...

Shamanism is one of the oldest, if not the oldest system of healing known in the world. It forms the prototype from which many other forms of healing are derived, such as modern psychotherapy. The shamanic journey is an expression of the human condition, and despite the cultural differences around the world, the deeper structure appears to remain constant. A common thread seems to connect all shamans across the planet. An awakening to other orders of reality, the experience of ecstasy, and an...

We all have a particular personality type, and at the same time, we are all unique. To partake in the journey of discovering who we truly are, it is necessary for us to know our true and authentic personality. The quest to know ourselves allows us to better understand the complexity and intricacies of the human condition, improve our relationship with ourselves, with others, and with the world.    Carl Jung’s model of typology is not a system of character analysis, nor is it a way of...

☕ Donate a coffee ⭐ Support on Patreon The legendary figure of Hermes Trismegistus (Hermes Thrice Great) is the inspiration for the spiritual teachings known as Hermeticism. He is a syncretism (joining) of the Greek deity Hermes, the winged messenger of the Gods, and his Egyptian counterpart, the Ibis-headed moon god Thoth.   The Way of Hermes involved altered states of consciousness in which practitioners went through a training regime that involved luminous visions, spiritual rebirth,...

☕ Donate a coffee ⭐ Support on Patreon Philosophy is a mode of life, an act of living, and a way of being. Modern philosophy has forgotten this tradition, and philosophical discourse has all but overtaken philosophy as a way of life. Philosophy is not just an intellectual discipline, which can get abstract and divorced from the real world, but is most importantly a way of life that teaches us how to best live our lives.    Philosophy is a mode of existing in the world, which has to be...

☕ Donate a coffee ⭐ Support on Patreon The wounded healer refers to the capacity to be at home in the darkness of suffering and there to find germs of light and recovery. It is the archetype at the bottom of all genuine healing procedures. As long as we feel victimised, bitter and resentful towards our wound, and seek to escape from suffering it, we remain inescapably bound to it. This is neurotic suffering, as opposed to the authentic suffering of the wounded healer which is purified. The...

☕ Donate a coffee ⭐ Support on Patreon Hell is understood as the archetype of ultimate suffering. It is no imaginary place, but rather a state of consciousness that we all experience at some point in our lives. Hell is an unavoidable journey in life. In ancient mysteries or rituals of passages, the hero must descend into a dark place in order to give birth to a new consciousness and gain access to a new stage of life. It is the most profound psychological death and rebirth of the self....

☕ Donate a coffee ⭐ Support on Patreon Loneliness, emptiness, and anxiety – these are the main complaints American existential psychologist Rollo May encountered over and over from his patients. In 1953, May published Man’s Search for Himself, in which he explores these problems – that are perhaps more relevant than ever in our modern age.   When society can no longer give us a clear picture of our values and standards, of what we are and what we ought to be, we are then thrown back on the...

☕ Donate a coffee ⭐ Support on Patreon The term puer aeternus is Latin for eternal boy. Carl Jung used the term  in the exploration of the psychology of eternal youth and creative  child within every person.    It is an archetype, and like all archetypes, has both a positive and a  negative side. It can bring the energy, beauty and creativity of  childhood into adult life, or thwart self-realisation and doom us to  both unrealistic adolescent fantasies and experiencing life as a prison....

☕ Donate a coffee ⭐ Support on Patreon There is perhaps no figure in literature more fascinating than the trickster, appearing in various forms in the folklore of many cultures. Trickster is witty and deceitful. He is the timeless root of all the picaresque creations of world literature, and is not reducible to one single literary entity. Trickster tales have existed since ancient times, and has been said to be at the very foundation of civilisation and culture. They belong to the oldest...

☕ Donate a coffee ⭐ Support on Patreon Franz Kafka is one of the major figures of 20th century literature who  received little public attention during his lifetime. He dealt with  existentialist themes such as alienation, anxiety, disorientation and  the absurd.    His work is so original that the term Kafkaesque was coined to describe  the atmosphere of his work: the nightmarish, bizarre or illogical  situations.    Throughout his works we see the strange dream-like mixture of perplexity...

☕ Donate a coffee ⭐ Support on Patreon Alchemy occupies a unique place in the collective psyche of humankind. Swiss psychiatrist and psychologist Jung discovered alchemy and devoted the remaining 30 years of his life to studying it, which he practically dug up from the dunghill of the past, for it was considered pseudoscience, a forgotten relic of history and despised field of investigation which he had suddenly revived.    Alchemy allows one to achieve wholeness of personality, of...

📺 Watch on YouTube ⭐ Support on Patreon Projection is a psychological fact that can be observed everywhere in  the everyday life of human beings. It is an unconscious mechanism where  one ascribes one’s own motivations, thoughts, feelings, and desires that  are unacceptable to oneself, while attributing them to others. It is a  misalignment of the inner and outer world, because what one is inwardly,  one will see outwardly.   To really know who we are, we must concern ourselves with...

📺 Watch on YouTube ⭐ Support on Patreon Synchronicity is a term coined by Carl Jung which describes a meaningful patterns or meaningful coincidences of outer and inner events that cannot be causally linked. It occurs with an inwardly perceived event (dream, vision, premonition, thought or mood) is seen to have a correspondence in external reality: the inner image has "come true", bringing meaning to your life. When Jung was investigating the phenomena of the collective unconscious, he kept...