C.G. Jung, On Spirals

The way is not straight but appears to go round in circles.

More accurate knowledge has proved it to go in spirals:

the dream-motifs alway return after certain intervals to definite forms, whose characteristic t is to define a center.

Psychology and Alchemy

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Spirals as a Circumambulation around a Center

The way to the goal seems chaotic and interminable at first, and only gradually do the signs increase that it is leading anywhere.

The way is not straight but appears to go round in circles.

More accurate knowledge has proved it to go in spirals: the dream-motifs always return after certain intervals to definite forms, whose characteristic it is to define a centre.

And as a matter of fact the whole process revolves about a central point or some arrangement round a centre, which may in certain circumstances appear even in the initial dreams.

As manifestations of unconscious processes the dreams rotate or circumambulate round the centre, drawing closer to it as the amplifications increase in distinctness and in scope.

Owing to the diversity of the symbolical material it is difficult at first to perceive any kind of order at all.

Nor should it be taken for granted that dream sequences are subject to any governing principle.

But, as I say, the process of development proves on closer inspection to be cyclic or spiral.

We might draw a parallel between such spiral courses and the processes of growth in plants; in fact the plant motif (tree, flower, etc.) frequently recurs in these dreams and fantasies and is also spontaneously drawn or painted.

Psychology and Alchemy

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