The pyramid occupies a remarkably diverse terrain across the depth-psychology corpus, functioning simultaneously as cosmological symbol, architectural monument, psychic diagram, and semiotic figure. Von Franz reads the pyramid encountered in a trainee analyst's dream as a direct symbol of the Self — its 'radiant peak' a manifestation of God, its 'worthless garb of matter' the vehicle of divine immanence, a parallel to the ben-ben stone and the philosopher's stone of alchemy. Moore transposes the form into a structural diagram of the masculine psyche, positing that four triangularly-structured archetypal energies compose a pyramidal Self, and theorizing further that the masculine and feminine pyramidal Selves, placed end to end, produce the octahedron as the full Jungian Self. Derrida, in his philosophical reading of Hegel, seizes on the pyramid as the semaphor of the sign itself — the 'monument-of-life-in-death' in which spirit is conserved through matter, dialectics arrested in stone. Campbell contextualizes the pyramid as world-mountain cosmology, the Primeval Hill oriented toward the four compass points, while also noting the Eye of Providence at the pyramid's summit as a counterpart of the Eye of Vishnu. Rank identifies the sphinx-pyramids as the apex of tomb-building, where the animal and cosmic fuse. Together these voices reveal the pyramid as a polyvalent symbol standing at the intersection of Self, cosmos, death, and signification.
In the library
13 passages
the pyramid he dreamed of was also something divine; its radiant peak was even the manifestation of God, and in its worthless garb of matter, the hand of God could even be seen... the psychological significance of the pyramid in the dream as a symbol of the Self.
Von Franz identifies the dream-pyramid as a direct symbol of the Self, paralleling the Egyptian ben-ben stone and the alchemical philosopher's stone as an image of the immortal soul and the immanence of the divine within matter.
von Franz, Marie-Louise, Psychotherapy, 1993thesis
The sign—the monument-of-life-in-death, the monument-of-death-in-life, the sepulcher of a soul or of an embalmed proper body, the height conserving in its depths the hegemony of the soul... is the pyramid. Hegel, then, uses the word pyramid to designate the sign.
Derrida traces Hegel's appropriation of the pyramid as the master-figure for the sign itself, a monument in which life is preserved through death and spirit is housed within resistant matter.
Derrida, Jacques, Margins of Philosophy, 1982thesis
The four archetypes of boyhood, each with a triangular structure, can be put together to form a pyramid (see fig. 2) that depicts the structure of the boy's emerging identity, his immature masculine Self. The same is true of the structure of the mature masculine Self.
Moore employs the pyramid as a structural diagram of the masculine psyche, arguing that each of the four archetypes, triangular in form, assembles into a pyramidal Self encompassing both the immature and the mature masculine.
Moore, Robert, King Warrior Magician Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine, 1990thesis
We theorize that the Self-structure in women is also pyramidal in form, and that when the pyramids of the masculine Self and the feminine Self are placed end to end, they form an octahedron, an image that graphically represents the Jungian Self, which embraces both masculine and feminine qualities.
Moore extends the pyramid schema to a theory of the total Jungian Self, proposing that the conjunction of masculine and feminine pyramidal structures produces the octahedron as a geometric image of psychic wholeness.
Moore, Robert, King Warrior Magician Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine, 1990supporting
The Egyptian pyramids—themselves images of the central Mound—were oriented toward the four compass points, toward 'the four quarters.' Ancient maps were drawn schematically with this idea.
Moore situates the Egyptian pyramid within a cosmological framework as the architectural embodiment of the Primeval Hill, oriented to the four cardinal directions and expressing the ancient concept of world-center.
Moore, Robert, King Warrior Magician Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine, 1990supporting
The Eye of the Holy Spirit, here shown at the summit of a Pyramid of Creation, is a counterpart of the Eye of Vishnu mentioned in the Indian tale of the 'Humbling of Indra'.
Campbell reads the Eye of Providence atop the pyramid on the Great Seal as a cross-cultural symbol of transcendent creative consciousness, homologous to the Eye of Vishnu in Hindu cosmology.
Campbell, Joseph, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Metaphor as Myth and as Religion, 1986supporting
the animal tomb certainly reappears as cosmic temple-architecture in the Egyptian sphinx-tombs of the Pyramid age, the very object of which was to preserve the corpse to the utmost... the Egyptian sphinx-pyramids, where the animal character is combined with the cosmic.
Rank identifies the sphinx-pyramid as the culminating form of tomb-building where the archaic animal-tomb tradition merges with cosmic temple architecture, serving the fundamental aim of bodily and spiritual preservation.
Rank, Otto, Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development, 1932supporting
if we ask further for a symbolical art-form to express this idea, we have to look for it in the chief structures built by the Egyptians. Here we have before us a double architecture, one above ground, the other subterranean.
Derrida cites Hegel's reading of Egyptian funerary architecture — the pyramid as double structure above and below ground — as the symbolic form adequate to expressing Egyptian consciousness of the soul's independence from bodily death.
Derrida, Jacques, Margins of Philosophy, 1982supporting
The Pyramid of Zoser, IIId dynasty, c. 2900 B.C., the first large stone structure known to history.
Jung references the Step Pyramid of Zoser as a historical marker in the context of ancient Egyptian symbolism of life, framing it within his broader discussion of generative and creative power.
Jung, C.G., Dream Analysis: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1928-1930, 1984supporting
the pharaoh entombed in a pyramid is believed to have passed to eternity, so also the saint enshrined in such a tomb. Both monuments symbolize the world mountain, that 'mountain mother' from whom all living things appear and to whom they return in death.
Campbell aligns the pyramid with the Buddhist stupa under the shared archetype of the world-mountain, both structures encoding a passage from mortal time into eternity.
Campbell, Joseph, The Mythic Image, 1974supporting
He was a forty-year-old man of an English-speaking culture who had just passed his first examinations at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich.
Von Franz establishes the biographical and psychological context for the dream in which the pyramid subsequently appears as a symbol of the Self, grounding the amplification in a clinically concrete situation.
von Franz, Marie-Louise, Psychotherapy, 1993supporting
I am sitting in an open square place in an old town. A Jung man full of vitality and health, with golden blond hair, comes to me and tells me his dreams.
Von Franz presents a parallel version of the analyst-in-training dream — the same case discussed in Psychotherapy — here contextualized within the dynamic, temporal aspect of the Self rather than focusing directly on the pyramid symbol.
von Franz, Marie-Louise, Psyche and Matter, 2014aside
That things are activities and not just inert masses accounts for the power of all sacred places. The great pyram
Sardello gestures toward the pyramid as an instance of sacred-place power arising from an animate, soul-bearing conception of matter, though the passage is truncated and the argument remains undeveloped.
Sardello, Robert, Facing the World with Soul: The Reimagination of Modern Life, 1992aside