The Seba library treats Metanoia in 7 passages, across 6 authors (including Jung, Carl Gustav, Peterson, Cody, Matthew Sharpe and Michael Ure).
The time is a critical one, for it marks the beginning of the second half of life, when a metanoia, a mental transformation, not infrequently occurs.
Jung defines metanoia as a ‘mental transformation’ characteristic of midlife crisis, establishing the term’s foundational meaning within analytic psychology.
, Symbols of Transformation, 1952thesis
a truly impossible dilemma arises when they can no longer imagine life with it either---the moment of metanoia, when the opposites of the spiritus contra spiritum paradox are activated
Peterson identifies metanoia as the pivotal psychic moment in the alcoholic’s crisis when the conflict of opposites forces a radical transformation of attitude.
, The Shadow of a Figure of Light, 2024thesis
this practice is not a return to (epistrophe) or rebirth of oneself (metanoia), as in the ancient and Christian models, but the paradoxical practice of freeing oneself from oneself.
Foucault explicitly rejects metanoia as a model for philosophical self-transformation, distinguishing his genealogical askesis from both ancient and Christian paradigms of inner renewal.
, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021thesis
this practice is not a return to (epistrophe) or rebirth of oneself (metanoia), as in the ancient and Christian models, but the paradoxical practice of freeing oneself from oneself.
Sharpe and Ure document Foucault’s deliberate contrast between metanoia as rebirth and his own model of self-estrangement through philosophical curiosity.
, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021thesis
REPENTANCE ( μετάνοια - metan
The Philokalia glossary identifies metanoia as the Greek term for repentance, situating it within the Orthodox patristic framework as a state of radical spiritual reorientation.
, The Philokalia, Volume 4, 1995supporting
the symptoms of unrest and doubt increased, until at the end of the second millennium the outlines of a universal catastrophe became apparent, at first in the form of a threat to consciousness.
Jung’s account of the transformation of collective consciousness across centuries provides the broader mythological context within which individual metanoia is situated as a microcosmic parallel.
, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 1963aside
Unaccountability is unhealthy. Unhealthier still is a value-system in which there is no place to rest our burden of guilt
Hausherr’s framing of guilt and compunction within therapeutic and theological discourse provides comparative context for the penitential dimension of metanoia.
, Penthos: The Doctrine of Compunction in the Christian East, 1944aside