Death as a Portal for Transformation (Jungian Psychology)

The key to ego-death in 3 parts (+ DOWNLOADABLE SUMMARY 📝)

“Death is psychologically as important as birth and, like it, is an integral part of life”

– C.G. Jung, ‘Alchemical Studies,’ para. 68

The Young Girl and Death (1900) Marianne Stokes

Alan Watts once said:

“We are trying to keep everyone alive for as long as possible, in good shape, and constantly entertained — all to avoid confronting the unknown.”

The unknown makes us uncomfortable.

The unknown makes us do weird things to avoid it.

A lot of people are restlessly animated by the dread of nothing. In 2014, the University of Virginia conducted an experiment where individuals were left alone for 15 minutes in a room with nothing but a red button that administered a substantial electric shock.

They were under no obligation and could wait peacefully if they wished.

43% chose violence (one person even pressed it 190 times).

Death is by definition nothing. The fact, as a society, we’ve repeatedly chosen to educate coming generations that they should be afraid of nothing is quite telling of the lack of wisdom the average person has access to.

60 years of research led Carl Jung to view death in a very different light.

It should be celebrated, not feared.

Here’s How Living Symbolically Transforms Your Life When Conventional Wisdom Fails You in 3 Parts…

(See end for downloadable summary 📝)

Part I. Symbolic vs Literal

There’s 2 types of death.

The one you’ll face once, and the symbolic death of ego you’ll experience (if all goes well) over and over and over again. The ego is our conception of self, ‘I.’ In order to operate in the world, we need this centre of gravity so that we can relate and make sense of everything around us.

There’s 2 problems with killing your ego:

1. Without it, you’d become a nameless husk.

and

2. You can’t.

Spiritual or “conscious” people who think they’ve killed their egos have only built an egotistical paradigm where they view themselves as egoless. This is obviously very ironic. What is more, it makes them more prone to egotistical behaviour.

“La plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous persuader qu’il n’existe pas”

“The finest trick of the Devil is to persuade you that he does not exist”

– Charles Baudelaire

If you’ve been around the internet for a while you may have noticed that it’s not always truth that gets the limelight. Shocking, intuitive, and emotionally triggering will always get more attention than the simple, clever, and, to all appearances, quite boring.

“Kill your ego” sounds better than:

“Work with your ego to build a mind that is not only sturdy, but adaptable.”

My new mantra is “be boring.” Whoever falls for the first will fall into what Alan Watts called “the biggest ego trap of them all.” What the American psychiatrist Scott Peck called “the road less travelled” awaits those who choose the unwatered-down version of life.

Part II. Why We Have to Die to Live

Here’s what they’re not telling you about the ego problem: