“The modern man is psychically ill. He suffers from a great hunger for meaning, which neither politics nor economics can satisfy” (Jung, Civilization in Transition, CW 10, para. 422). Jung’s observation echoes Max Weber’s concept of the ‘disenchantment of the world’, where the rise of rationalization and secular modernity has stripped life of its mystery, sacredness, and symbolic coherence. In Jung’s terms, “we have stripped all things of their mystery and numinosity; nothing is holy any longer” (CW 9i, para. 50), and this has led to a profound “devaluation of the psyche” (CW 18, para. 585).
In today’s technocratic and performance-driven culture, many find themselves plagued by anxiety, depression, loneliness, and a sense of alienation. The collapse of shared mythic frameworks created a void quickly filled by consumerism and external success—stimulating but ultimately hollow substitutes that fail to nourish the soul.
Jung suggests that only a return to the inner symbolic life can address the depth of this malaise, whereby meaning is not constructed by external systems but discovered through engagement with the inner world. “Meaning makes a great many things endurable - perhaps everything” (Jung, Man and His Symbols, p. 76), and, as Viktor Frankl - quoting Nietzsche - affirms, “those who have a ‘why’ to live can bear with almost any ‘how’” (Man’s Search for Meaning, p. 76).
Jung calls us to the symbolic life—an embodied practice of engaging with dreams, active imagination, and the archetypal realm. Marion Woodman emphasizes the body and somatic experience as a key portal to the unconscious, where spiritual images arise personally, and creativity fuels personal myth-making. “The sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being” (Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 326). This light is not found in external achievement but in the slow, sacred work of becoming whole. As James Hillman reminds us, “we are a storytelling species,” and meaning arises through symbolic engagement with psyche—not as a fixed answer, but as a living evolving process.
Written for @jungsouthernafrica
Image credit: "Forbidden Fruit" (1969) Leonora Carrington @leonoracarringtonestate
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