Mandala

The mandala — Sanskrit for “circle” — is, in Jung, the archetypal image of wholeness: a centered, ordered, typically four-fold symbolic figure that appears spontaneously in dreams, fantasies, and artistic productions during decisive phases of individuation. Jung first encountered the mandala as a psychological phenomenon during his “confrontation with the unconscious,” producing the mandala images preserved in [[jung-red-book|The Red Book]] before he had any scholarly acquaintance with the Eastern traditions that gave the form its name.

The mandala is load-bearing for the Jungian account of the self: its spontaneous appearance in the psyche indicates that an integrative structure is organizing around a center not identical with the ego. The quaternity — the four-fold structure inside the circle — is the mandala’s characteristic internal geometry.

Relationships

• carl-jung
• self
• quaternity
• individuation