Jung's Psychology of Rebirth and Spring Rituals
Mandalas, Dreams and the Rediscovered Self
Feb 12, 2009
The psychology of rebirth is evident in many folk rites of spring.These spring rituals usually consist of two parts: a) the dissolution of winter, personified by minor deities and b) the welcoming of spring personified by a young girl holding a green branch. Such ritualistic farewells signal a decided transformation of the individual from fragmentation to wholeness, loss to renewal.
Jung sees this transformation as a necessary part of individuation, the process of psychic and spiritual growth in man. He himself was paralyzed by depression when, out of inner necessity, he made a professional departure from Freud. He was able, however, to work himself out of his depression through the rituals of rebirth: mandalas, dreams and the rediscovered self.
Rebirth, Spring Rituals and Mandalas
Jung sees mandalas as literally “birth-places,” giving form to something that does not yet exist. Creating circular, intricate mandalas, he finds in each a cryptogram of his inner state. Allowing himself to be carried by the current and relinquishing all desire for control, he eventually comes to realize that all paths lead to the centre, the mid-point of the mandala. The psychology of rebirth is a consistent process of discovery and rediscovery. Only by experiencing loss can the individual constellate his rebirth in the centre -- a new beginning and a new self.
Rebirth, Spring Rituals and Dreams
Man’s discovery of a wider meaning to his existence is made possible by attention to dreams. The total dream life of an individual points the way to an undiscovered self, a stranger buried deep within the layers of the psyche. By observing his dream life, man can detect a pattern that leads inevitably to the lost dimensions of the soul.
The rebirth of Jung’s lost self is most significantly illustrated in his dream of the magnolia tree. In this dream, he was wandering through the dark, sooty streets of Liverpool when he came upon a magnolia tree suspended on an island in the middle of the city. Everything around it was dark and foggy, but the tree blazed with light, a confirmation to Jung that he has found his centre; this discovery enabled him to move out of his depression, confident that his departure from Freud was indeed a move in the right direction.
Rebirth, Spring Rituals and the Rediscovered Self
So significant is the process of rebirth for Jung, he writes in The Undiscovered Self: The Dilemma of the Individual in Modern Society (New York: New American Library, 2006), that modern man is stifled to such an extent by the demands of contemporary society he is incapable of birthing his own truth. Self-knowledge has been displaced by State Knowledge and the stranger self, so vital for insight and rebirth, has been exiled to the margin.
Because of fragmentation and dissociation in the contemporary world, Jung states that sightings of UFOs have become modern symptoms of a universal need for oneness. In Memories, Dreams, Reflections (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), he claims that UFOs are metaphors of a lack in modern man—his inability to open up to the undiscovered potential within him. Flying saucers with their rounded shape, the shape of the mandala, are seen by Jung as symbols of the wholeness man craves for.
The rebirth in spring rituals is archetypal for Jung who sees in the renewal of nature a metaphor for man's rediscovery of meaning.
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