The circle occupies a position of singular importance across the depth-psychology corpus, functioning simultaneously as cosmological symbol, psychological diagram, and ontological metaphor. Jung furnishes the most systematic treatment: in his dream analyses and alchemical studies, the circle appears as the fundamental form of the Self, manifesting spontaneously in imagery ranging from serpents and clocks to mandalas and round dances. Its recurrence across cultures — Tibetan yantras, the mundus of Roman foundation ceremony, the sacred hoop of the Sioux, the medieval quadratura circuli — is treated not as coincidence but as evidence of an archetypal substrate. The circle’s philosophical pedigree is equally weighty: from Plato’s Timaeus through the Hermetic axiom attributed by Jung to St. Augustine — ‘God is an intellectual figure whose centre is everywhere and the circumference nowhere’ — the form encodes totality, perfection, and divine immanence. Edinger and Neumann extend this into developmental psychology, contrasting the undifferentiated primal circle with the squared world of ego consciousness, while Pauli demonstrates how Kepler’s scientific imagination drew on the same archetypal source. Tensions persist between the circle as wholeness achieved and as containment imposed, between its celestial perfection and the human need to inhabit the square. The squaring of the circle — quadratura circuli — emerges as the central operative paradox: the impossible reconciliation of infinite and finite, spirit and matter, Self and world.
Already at the very beginning of our dream-series the circle appears. It takes the form, for instance, of a serpent, which describes a circle round the dreamer… The centre seems to be parti
Jung documents the spontaneous, multiform emergence of the circle in a dream series, establishing it as the primary symbolic carrier of the Self and its organising centre.
, Psychology and Religion: West and East, 1958thesis
the circle signified the Deity: ‘God is an intellectual figure whose centre is everywhere and the circumference nowhere’… The image of the circle — regarded as the most perfect form since Plato’s Timaeus — was assigned to the most perfect substance
Jung grounds the psychological significance of the circle in Hermetic and Neoplatonic theology, showing that its assignment to gold, the anima mundi, and the Deity constitutes a projection of the archetype of the Self.
, Psychology and Religion: West and East, 1958thesis
The word means a circle, particularly a magic circle. In the East, you find the mandala not only as the ground-plan of temples, but as pictures in the temples… The symbol of the mandala has exactly this meaning of a holy place, a temenos, to protect the centre.
Jung, as cited by Chodorow, identifies the circle with the Sanskrit mandala and the Greek temenos, positioning it as the universal form for protecting and expressing the psychic centre.
, Jung on Active Imagination, 1997thesis
‘You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round… all our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation’
Edinger deploys Black Elk’s testimony to illustrate that the primal circle represents undivided psychic wholeness, contrasting it with the alienating squareness of ego-bound modern existence.
, Ego and Archetype: Individuation and the Religious Function of the Psyche, 1972thesis
The observer is naturally always in the centre of that circle or cross. Thus one arrives again at the symbol of the cross within the circle… the so-called sun-wheel originated. The mana of man, of the earth, of the tree… was represented by the cross and the circle
Jung traces the cross-within-circle as a convergence of cosmic, human, and chthonic mana, arguing it is the archaic forerunner of the mandala and solar wheel symbolism.
, Dream Analysis: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1928-1930, 1984thesis
The circle reflects the shape of the eternal planets and of the great dome of the sky, connecting these with our earthly globe… the circle maintained its identity throughout… The zero, too, is similarly indestructible
Nichols argues for the circle’s ontological indestructibility — its inability to be divided into non-circular parts — as the formal basis of its symbolic equation with eternity and totality.
, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey, 1980supporting
The alchemists were fond of picturing their opus as a circulatory process, as a circular distillation or as the uroboros, the snake biting its own tail… the end returns once more to the beginning.
Jung identifies the alchemical opus circulatorium as a temporal expression of the circle symbol, mapping the cyclical return to origin onto the individuation process.
, Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self, 1951supporting
The overall design of this card, which is essentially a circle encompassed by a square, brings together earthly and heavenly reality… In alchemy, the miracle of self-realization… was called ‘the squaring of the circle.’
Nichols reads the World card’s circle-within-square as the alchemical quadratura circuli, equating the union of these two forms with the psychological achievement of individuation.
, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey, 1980supporting
One of their central symbols was the quadratura circuli (the squaring of the circle), which is no more than the true mandala. The alchemists not only recorded their work in their writings; they created a wealth of pictures of their dreams and visions.
Jung equates the alchemical squaring of the circle directly with the mandala, framing both as symbolic records of unconscious individuation.
, Man and His Symbols, 1964supporting
the round table, like the round dance, stands for synthesis and Jungian… in the round dance there is a circular circumambulation round the Lord as the central point.
Jung interprets the ritual round dance as a liturgical enactment of the circle symbol, in which circumambulation around a central figure performs the psychological act of integration.
, Psychology and Religion: West and East, 1958supporting
‘Deus est sphaera infinita, cuius centrum est ubique circumferentia nusquam’ (God is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere)… ‘God is an immeasurable and unmeasured circle which embraces the widest mind of man’
Von Franz traces the theological lineage of the infinite circle as a symbol for God through Pseudo-Aristotle, Alanus de Insulis, and Meister Eckhart, demonstrating the metaphysical depth that depth psychology inherits.
, Psyche and Matter, 2014supporting
In occult symbolism, the circle represents totality, infinity, eternity, and all there is. The dot in the middle of the Sun symbo
Cunningham situates the circle within astrological and occult tradition, identifying it as the universal sign of totality and linking it to the solar symbol whose antiquity she dates to pre-history.
, An Astrological Guide to Self-Awareness, 1982supporting
the reciprocal connection of the circumferential figure with a central figure… In Kepler’s view, the two figures are supposed to correspond to the circular form and the point form of the soul.
Pauli shows that Kepler mapped the geometric relationship of circumference and centre onto a psychology of the soul, revealing how archetypal ideas shaped early modern scientific cosmology.
, Writings on Physics and Philosophy, 1994supporting
the circle beautifully fits into the intersecting plane… as well as into the intersected sphere by way of a reciprocal coincidence of both, just as the mind is both inherent in the body… and sustained by God
Pauli presents Kepler’s use of the circle as an ontological hinge between body and God, the finite and the infinite — a philosophical manoeuvre that prefigures depth psychology’s own use of the symbol.
, Writings on Physics and Philosophy, 1994supporting
every point thereof is ‘turning toward the one,’ toward the center… the circumference is a curve every point of which is equally distant from a common center. This symbolizes a state of being in which absolute universality of viewpoints is attained
Rudhyar reads the circle’s geometric structure as a symbol of the perfected, equilibrated personality — every point in equal relation to the centre — aligning astrological philosophy with depth-psychological notions of Self.
, The Astrology of Personality: A Re-formulation of Astrological Concepts and Ideals in Terms of Contemporary Psychology and Philosophy, 1936supporting
‘the centre is unary, and its circle is ternary, but whatever is inserted between the centre and the circumference… is to be taken as binary’… the devil fabricated a circle of sorts for himself
Jung cites Dorn’s alchemical topology of circles to argue that the binary — the devil’s principle — disrupts the ternary order of the true circle, making the circle a site of theological and psychological contest.
, Psychology and Religion: West and East, 1958supporting
Imagine a circle with its center point ‘C.’ The circle is composed of all the points equidistant from C. The circle is there because all the points are there. If even one point is missing, the circle immediately disappears.
Nhat Hanh uses the geometric circle as a Buddhist illustration of interdependence, in which the existence of the whole depends absolutely on each constituent part — a non-psychological but thematically resonant use of the symbol.
, The Sun My Heart, 1988supporting
Aside from the circle, a very common yantra motif is formed by two interpenetrating triangles… In terms of psychological symbolism, it expresses the union of opposites — the union of the personal, temporal world of the ego with the non-personal, timeless world of the non-ego.
Jung establishes the circle as the foundational form in Eastern meditative geometry, with the yantra’s interpenetrating triangles functioning as secondary articulations of the union the circle already embodies.
, Man and His Symbols, 1964supporting
from it the new world of ‘Rome’ radiates in all directions like a circle from its centre. The ceremony and mythology of the circle run counter to the traditions concerning the city of Romulus, which was called Roma quadrata.
Jung and Kerényi establish the founding circle and the square as competing cosmological templates in Roman mythology, prefiguring the mandala’s circle-square tension.
, Essays on a Science of Mythology: The Myth of the Divine Child and the Mysteries of Eleusis, 1949supporting
The outermost and largest circle, which encompasses all the rest, is that of the whole human race… it is the task of a well tempered man… to draw the circles together somehow towards the centre
The Stoic concentric-circles schema of Hierocles presents the circle as a political-ethical topology of belonging, in which moral development is measured by the progressive drawing of all circles toward the centre.
, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987supporting
The arms of the Dharmakaya manifestation fill the innermost circle, surrounding the body; the forty hands of the Sambhogakaya fill the next-following circle — while the hands of the Nirmanakaya fill… the five outer circles.
Govinda describes the concentric-circle structure of Avalokitesvara’s iconography, demonstrating how Tibetan Buddhist cosmology maps emanating compassion onto a mandala-like circle hierarchy.
, Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism, 1960supporting
the horoscope consists of one circle only and moreover contains no contrast between two obviously different systems. So the horoscope too is an unsatisfactory analogy, though it sheds some light on the time aspect of our symbol.
Jung critically qualifies the horoscope as an incomplete parallel to the dream circle, noting its single-circle structure lacks the productive tension of a dual system.
, Psychology and Religion: West and East, 1958aside
The very circularity of things as they really are, rather than as the left hemisphere conceives them, might be a reason for hope. Linear progression versus circular
McGilchrist contrasts the right hemisphere’s experience of circularity with the left hemisphere’s linear processing, using the circle as a figure for holistic, non-sequential modes of understanding.
, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, 2009aside
KUKAOC; [m.pl.] ‘circle, ring, wheel’, also metaph. of circular objects, e.g. ‘circular square, wall around the city’
Beekes documents the Greek etymological root of ‘circle’ (kuklos), noting its early extension to metaphorical and architectural uses that inform the depth-psychological inheritance of the term.
, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010aside