Stephen Farah, Author at Applied Jung

Happiness

I recently got to live out a long-dreamt-of fantasy. Specifically, a skiing trip in the Swiss Alps. There is some nuanced background to this fantasy of skiing. I would often refer to it in my teaching on the elusive nature of happiness. How desire and its realisation are characteristically discordant. In my classes, I would tell a long story about a hypothetical protagonist – the subject of my psycho-philosophical parables - imagining him or herself being happy once (s)he achieved her...

December 31, 2025

By Stephen FarahIndividuation, Living Meaningfully1 Comment

Dark Eros

I want to share some ideas and thoughts with you that emerged from the two lectures given by Thomas Moore on the eponymously named Dark Eros seminar series. Dark Eros (1990) (1) is Thomas Moore’s psychological reading of the works of the infamous Marquis de Sade (2) and application of this work to depth psychology. These ideas are startling and cannot but disturb the psychic slumber of even the dullest reader. They are illuminating – albeit a dark illumination, a kind...

April 2, 2025

By Stephen FarahConsciousness, desire and drive, Myth, Shadoweros, sado-masochism1 Comment

What is it about sex?

Eros and psyche may have decent chemistry, but, simultaneously, are awkward lovers and their love affair, challenging. (Not to put too fine a point on it.) One might legitimately accuse them of many things, which list does not include reason, harmony, or unity of purpose. Rather we might, not unfairly, recognise that, unlike few other things sex and sexuality have a capacity to knock us off balance, to displace our best intentions, to ruffle our plumage, and just generally to...

February 3, 2025

By Stephen FarahUncategorized5 Comments

Garden of Earthly Delights

This is a dream (from “S”) and its amplification by Stephen Anthony Farah from our first The Way of the Dream Workshop held in November 2024: Individuation through Dreamwork, presented by Byron Gaist. Dream I am standing in my house by a large window. I am holding on tightly to my little dog who creates a lot of domestic issues for me. My housekeeper (also a domestic image) is standing next to me leaning out the window giving water to some giant...

December 2, 2024

By Stephen FarahDream Work, Mandalas, Myth, UncategorizedDream interpretation, Jungian3 Comments

The Creation Myth and the Structure of Desire

This essay is a reflection on a few of the primary symbols from the biblical story of the Garden of Eden as seen through an archetypal lens. I focus on four specific symbols: God the Garden of Paradise/the Wilderness the Serpent the Forbidden Fruit, for which I will offer an archetypal analysis and psychological interpretation of the way in which they structure our unconscious creation myth. With any symbol it is important to keep in mind that it has both a subjective personal dimension and...

November 8, 2023

By Stephen FarahAnima mundi, desire and drive, Symbolsarchetypes, myth, symbols31 Comments

Modern Man in Search of a Soul

THE JUNGIAN BOOK CLUB NOVEMBER 2023 BOOK REVIEW written by Byron J. Gaist Carl Gustav Jung (1933) Modern Man in Search of a Soul Translated by W.S. Dell and Cary F. Baynes Published by Routledge, 2001, London and New York Taken together with his autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1962), his Two Essays on Analytical Psychology (1928), and the collective volume Man and His Symbols (1961), this book can be considered one of the seminal introductory texts on Jungian Analytical Psychology. Anyone who wants a quick,...

November 7, 2023

By Stephen FarahBook and Movie Reviews, Uncategorizedbook review, Jung5 Comments

Mercy! Possession by the Animus.

“Like the anima, the animus is a jealous lover.” G. Jung, CW7 ¶ 334 "The animus appears in many myths, not only as death, but also as a bandit and murderer, for example, as the knight Bluebeard, who murdered all his wives." - ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 280 I love you But I gotta stay true My morals got me on my knees I'm begging, please, stop playing games I don't know what this is 'Cause you got me good Just like you knew you...

July 17, 2023

By Stephen FarahAnima and Animus, Jungian Themes, Marie-Louise von Franz, Shadowanimus, shadow5 Comments

Consciousness: Articulating the Archimedean Point (part 2: metaconsciousness)

This is part two of Consciousness: Articulating the Archimedean Point. Click on this link to read Part 1 It is difficult to overemphasise this polarising dynamic of consciousness. Consciousness, for Jung, means consciousness of the opposites: ‘There is no consciousness without the discrimination of opposites’.[1] Jung’s preferred image here is the Ouroboros, an image of the opposites facing each other in conscious awareness, illustrating the birth of (meta) consciousness. Against this Jung considered ‘involuntary one-sidedness, i.e., the inability to...

May 18, 2023

By Stephen FarahConsciousness, Ego6 Comments

Consciousness: Articulating the Archimedean Point (Part 1)

I do not know whether it is desirable that consciousness should alter the eternal laws; I only know that occasionally it does alter them. (Jung, 1928/1966, ¶ 389) Consciousness is central to Jungian theory and application, both academically and clinically, this being the metaphorical Archimedean Point of the Jungian psyche[1], notwithstanding Jung’s perceived focus on the unconscious and the archetypal processes invoked by Jung to expand, amplify, and generally increase the vistas of the personality. Most importantly, for Jung a...

May 15, 2023

By Stephen FarahConsciousness, Ego4 Comments

The Solution: Memories, Dreams, Synchronicities

Wealth has always been an important symbol to me. And, to be clear, by “wealth” I don’t mean some nebulous expression of “abundance” in my life. I have often find myself smiling ironically when hearing evangelical preachers telling their congregation that Jesus wants “abundance” for them. No, I don’t mean “abundance”, I mean simply, financial wealth. Like Floyd Money Mayweather, it’s the greenbacks that impress me. I’m not dissing those other good things, like health, longevity, and procreation -albeit that...

March 20, 2023

By Stephen FarahDream Work, Synchronicity, Uncategorized15 Comments

Author - Stephen Farah