Symbolic Imagery and the Realm of Psyche

Authors

  • Susan L Schwartz

Keywords:

Psyche, Imagery

Abstract

When psychology takes up the study of religious imagery it engages in the quest for meaning; in this the psychologist differs little from those whose interest is rooted in faith or scholarship. Indeed, psychology has as its etymological root psyche, that is, soul, whose nature has been the focus of religious traditions from time immemorial. That religion and psychology have often been at odds is no coincidence, for they lay claim to the same territory: the relationship between the human soul and its experience in the world. The development of awareness is sought by bbth. The act of transformation spiritual, psychological and even physical, is at the centre of both religion and psychology. Thus the role of symbols as images leading towards transformatiÓn is as essential to analytical psychology as it is to the sacred traditions.

References

Jacob Needleman, "Psychiatry and the Sacred, " in On the Way to Self Knowledge, edited by Jacob Needleman and Dennis Lewis. New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 1976.

Memories, Dreams, Reflections, by C.G. Jung, translation by Richard and Clara Winston. New York: Vintage Books, 1965.

James Hillman. New York : Harper and Row, 1975, and The Dream and the Underworld* also by James Hillman. New York: Harper and Row, 1979.

Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion, translation by W. D. RobsonScott, revised by James Strachey, New York: Anchor Books, 1964.

Jung, Collected Works, Vol. 5, Symbols of Transformation, Para. 343-344, p. 231, Translation by R. F. C. Hull. Princeton : Princeton University Press, 1956.

Kundalini, The Evolutionary Energy in Man, by Gopi Krishna, with psychological commentary by James Hillman. Berkeley : Shambala, 1971.

Peter Shaffer, Equus. New York : Avon Books, 1974.

Karl Kerênyi, Hermes, Guide of Souls, translation by Murray Stein. Zurich : Spring Publications, 1976,

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Published

1984-06-30

How to Cite

Schwartz, S. L. (1984). Symbolic Imagery and the Realm of Psyche. Journal of Dharma, 9(2), 120–131. Retrieved from https://dvkjournals.in/index.php/jd/article/view/1437