The Red Book of C.G. Jung - a reading and review - part 8 - Mandalas of the Self and the Whole
0Jung recognized that mandalas have a lot of psychological, symbolic and archetypal significance. They represent the totality of the psyche and direct towards the center, the self.
Whether religious or therapeutic, examples of mandalas across times and cultures have tended to display the same fundamental features - features which contain a lot of emotional content and deep symbolic and psychological significance. They help center the mind, whether as a maturation or healing process.
The self is linked symbolically to the soul, or the observer I AM consciousness, and its journey - the Hero's Journey - on many different scales of time and space. As above, so below, as below, so above. Mandalas are fundamentally connected to transformation, of symbolic death and rebirth, of unison of opposites - manifest in cycles.
There is however, a mandala of great significance in Jung's work. the Lapis Quaternio and how it fits in a fractal manner into the united whole, and into an eternal cyclical process. It is here, where Jungian Psychology, Gnosticism, the Law of One and the Hero's Journey converge in a fascinating way.
Walter Boechat. The Red Book of C. G. Jung. Routledge (Taylor Francis Group). London and New York. 2017.