

Can Angels Survive in a Disenchanted World?
2026-1-01 | 1h 9 mins.
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!Angels persist in dreams, scripture, and art, while modern institutions psychologize them into coincidences or flatten them into greeting cards. In this episode, we explore angels as autonomous psychic facts, reimagined from age to age but always carrying meaning across the unconscious threshold to the ego’s surprise and benefit. When we learn to welcome the sacred messengers and “…fear not, for behold…” they bring tidings that can right the course of our conscious life.What is gained, and what is lost, when angels are interpreted as natural law rather than moral ideals?How does discernment work when a message arrives with certainty and sweeps us into obedience?When the angel archetype constellates images of UFOs, aliens, or AI, what is it announcing about accountability and authority?Deb, Lisa, and Joe approach angels as symbolic forms, clarifying how Psyche can engage awe, fear, and meaning.They discuss:Angels as mediating symbols bridging the ego and SelfWhy angelic figures must be morally ambiguous rather than purely benevolentGuardian angels and the daimon as images of destinyThe difference between dreams and incursions, like premonitionsThe wisdom in Jacob wrestling the angelArchetypal inflation and its political analogsThe archetype’s modern costume changes from winged angel to technological evangelist Mentioned:It’s a Wonderful LifeGenesisThe Book of JonahExodusThe Book of PsalmsFlying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the SkiesThe Man WatchingHemi-Sync Gateway tapesRead along with the dream HERE.LOOK & GROWJoin THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOLDo you have a topic you want us to cover?WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.We've got totally NEW MERCH!We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.

Santa and Krampus: Why the “Nice List” Needs a Shadow
2025-12-25 | 1h 12 mins.
✨ The Gift of Dreamwork: Join This Jungian Life Dream School with 10% off from now until December 31st. Just use code HOLIDAY2025 when you purchase Dream School for yourself or as a gift. Learn more and enroll. * * * * * * * * * * * * * Santa Claus persists as a central figure who teaches children that their desires can be understood and met, on the condition of good behavior. The Christmas morning ritual is staged to delight and mystify: Santa crosses thresholds unseen, cookies are eaten, milk is gone, gifts appear. His all-seeing mind takes a moral accounting, drafts the nice-naughty lists, poses the threat of disappointment and the promise of reward, which makes Santa a temporary stand-in for conscience and, in Jungian terms, for the Self that can both nourish and demand.In modern life, the figure is domesticated and commercialized, making disillusionment feel like psychological collapse rather than a developmental step into adult sensibilities. The question becomes whether society can offer a path back to symbolic reality after childhood literal belief ends. What happens to trust and authority when adults manufacture proof, then later reveal it was staged? Which cultural institutions now carry the work of tending belief, and what incentives do they create? How can Santa be understood as both giver and judge, without sentimentality or cynicism?We discuss Santa’s mixed lineage, from St. Nicholas to Odin’s Wild Hunt; why Krampus keeps the punitive shadow alive when the modern Santa edits it out; Jung on the Self’s benevolence and threat; *Miracle on 34th Street* as a courtroom argument about psychic reality and the cane as a symbol of hope; *Santa Claus Conquers the Martians* as a comic attempt to restore enchantment and power to Santa; and the Grinch as an cynical indictment of holiday consumption.Read along with the dream HERE.Mentioned:Miracle on 34th StreetBabes in ToylandSanta Claus Conquers the MartiansHow the Grinch Stole ChristmasHarry Potter and the Deathly HallowsMemories, Dreams, ReflectionsThe Children’s Dream SeminarLOOK & GROWJoin THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOLDo you have a topic you want us to cover?WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.We've got totally NEW MERCH!We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.

Alchemical Mortificatio: How to Survive the Wintering of Your Life
2025-12-18 | 1h 15 mins.
✨ The Gift of Dreamwork: Join This Jungian Life Dream School with 10% off from now until December 31st. Just use code HOLIDAY2025 when you purchase Dream School for yourself or as a gift. Learn more and enroll. -----------------------------------------------------Mortificatio is an alchemical term for the moment a life-organizing identity collapses. We might call it burnout, divorce, depression, retirement shock, institutional betrayal, or a terrifying medical diagnosis. The alchemists called it “death,” and Jungians understand it as part of the psychology of transformation.Read along with the dream HERE.LOOK & GROWJoin THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOLDo you have a topic you want us to cover?WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.We've got totally NEW MERCH!We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.

How to Work with Denial: A Jungian Guide to Facing Reality
2025-12-11 | 1h 15 mins.
✨ The Gift of Dreamwork: Join This Jungian Life Dream School with 10% off from now until December 31st. Just use code HOLIDAY2025 when you purchase Dream School for yourself or as a gift. Learn more and enroll. -----------------------------------------------------People often mistake denial for stubbornness, self-deception, or moral failure. Denial is actually a primal psychological defense that attempts to regulate which aspects of reality are permitted to reach awareness. Today, we explore how denial operates within Psyche, why it activates powerfully in response to traumatic experiences and addiction, and how it relates to shadow, repression, and dissociation. Denial is a pre-verbal way of titrating overwhelming experiences by making them unthinkable and unsymbolized. The problem is that they are then stored in the subtle body and give rise to a host of symptoms. Programs like AA explicitly confront the denial of consequences by repeatedly sharing painful consequences within the meeting structure. Some psychoanalysts believe denial is the organizing defense in mania and borderline personality disorder. Art, films, analytic metaphors, and dreams can offer representations of the lost experiences, so the unformulated experiences acquire image and language. Denial can be viewed as a benevolent survival strategy, and yet, like most defenses, must be set aside for us to make full contact with ourselves and the world.Read along with the dream HERE.LOOK & GROWJoin THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOLDo you have a topic you want us to cover?WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.We've got totally NEW MERCH!We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.

Have We Ever Really Read Jung? Sonu Shamdasani on the Collected Works Crisis
2025-12-04 | 1h 10 mins.
✨ The Gift of Dreamwork: Join This Jungian Life Dream School with 10% off from now until December 31st. Just use code HOLIDAY2025 when you purchase Dream School for yourself or as a gift. Learn more and enroll. -----------------------------------------------------Jung’s translator and editor for the English edition of his Collected Works took it upon himself to alter more than 60% of Jung’s ideas to make the books more marketable. Finally, this will be corrected. Sonu Shamdasani and his team at the Philemon Foundation are meticulously researching Jung’s original documents, and the results will surprise and perhaps even shock us. There was far more to Jung and his insights than we were permitted to know, and all that’s about to change. So, fellow Jungians, hold onto your hats and get ready to meet the real Carl Gustav Jung.Read along with the dream HERE.LOOK & GROWJoin THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOLDo you have a topic you want us to cover?WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.We've got totally NEW MERCH!We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.



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