INSpiREzine Mandalas! | Page 42

Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist, explored the psychological effects of mandalas. He is credited with introducing the Eastern concept of the mandala to Western thought, believing that it was symbolic of the inner process by which individuals grow toward fulfilling their potential for wholeness. Jung used the mandala for his own personal growth and wrote extensively about his experiences.

“I began to understand that the goal of psychic development is the self.

There is no linear evolution; there is only a circumambulation of the self.”

- Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams and Reflections

“My mandalas were cryptograms concerning the state of the self which was presented to me anew each day…I guarded them like precious pearls….It became increasingly plain to me that the mandala is the center. It is the exponent of all paths. It is the path to the center, to individuation.”

- Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams and Reflections

Carl Jung introduced the idea of creating mandalas as a form of therapy when he discovered that the physical act of drawing a circle had a soothing effect on his patients. Jung said that a mandala symbolizes "a safe refuge of inner reconciliation and wholeness." It is "a synthesis of distinctive elements in a unified scheme representing the basic nature of existence."

Furthermore, he observed that patients, with no prior knowledge of mandalas or of each other, repeatedly and intuitively created similar images during the different stages of their progress. Jung was able to assess the progression of a patient’s psychological recovery by correlating it to their drawings. He determined that there was an underlying connection between individuals.

“In view of the fact that all mandalas shown here were new and uninfluenced products, we are driven to the conclusion that there must be a trans-conscious disposition in every individual which is able to produce the same or very similar symbols at all times and in all places.

Since this disposition is usually not a conscious possession of the individual, I have called it the collective unconscious.

- Carl Jung. Mandala Symbolism