We can think of the self as a cosmic entity that emerges in human life and renews itself endlessly in its rotations through the psyche. Perhaps it relies on human individuals to become conscious of itself, to incarnate in the three-dimensional world of time and space, and also to rejuvenate itself and extend its existence. It subsists in the universe beyond the psyche. It uses our psyches and the material world, including our bodies, for its own purposes, and it continues after we grow old and die. We provide a home where it can emerge and reside, yet in our pride and ego inflation we take far too much credit for its genius and beauty.

The gods then are those archetypal force fields in which we swim, yet that transcend our conscious life and exceed our personal powers.

A complex is, simpy said, an idea with a lot of energy that knocks about autonomously in our psychic cellar.

One of the most wicked destructive forces, psychologically speaking, is unused creative power…If someone has a creative gift and out of laziness, or for some other reason, doesn’t use it, the psychic energy turns to sheer poison. That’s why we often diagnose neuroses and psychotic diseases as not-lived high possibilities.

Instead of relying on any particular group to authorise me or my exploration, it’s up to me to expand my mother tongue by engaging with my unconscious to work out for myself what my mythology is, what symbols matter and how I can put them together to feed my soul in an ongoing passionate and regenerative process.

However much visceral, imaginative or intellectual sense there is in someone else’s spiritual or religious tradition, trying to convert to or adopt a tradition that is not your own will not sort whatever drove you towards the alternative in the first place.

We are overcome with desire, struggling with the congenital all-embracing ache that lies at the centre of human experience, the ultimate force that drives everything else.

When one is ready to see the eternal flashing, as it were, through the latticework of time, one can experience mystery. This is especially so in art-work that carries mythological symbols that speak to us still.

Much of Jung’s criticism of both religious and medical therapy, therefore, was grounded in his conviction that the modern healing arts and the mainstream Western Christian tradition had severed themselves from the healing, that is whole-making, energies of the psyche.

Spirituality is about the experience, at the core of one’s being, of truth, power, and desire. It is the energy within persons that shape a person’s actions and ultimately a person’s life into a meaningful whole.