Modern Psychology: C. G. Jung’s Lectures at the ETH Zürich, 1933-1941
3 . Mandalas.
This third phenomenon, the circle or mandala, is one of the most remarkable in existence. Unfortunately it is very little known, although it is a fundamental expression of the human psyche.
Up till the present, this phenomenon has been given very little consideration, and yet mandalas occur all over the world.
Since man has existed, the circle has had its symbolic and magic meaning, we meet it everywhere, from the sand paintings of the Pueblos to the mandalas of the Chinese and the same basic elements are always present.
It is really necessary that we should realise that such things exist, even if we know nothing of them.
I have purposely used a case of Kerner’s and not one of my own in bringing this phenomenon to your notice, so that there could be no question of influence or suggestion.
When I was a student, I came across a girl of fifteen who was a somnambulist, gifted with second sight and she produced a circle very similar to the Clairvoyante’s.
She spoke of the central point as full of energy and radiant light and of the second ring as cold.
Whereas the Clairvoyante of Prevorst looked up on her circle as a wall, protecting her from the darts of the outer world, the magic circle has, from time immemorial, been used as a protection against the inner world, the world of spirits. ~Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Vol. 1, Page 42.