Renewal occupies a structurally central position in the depth-psychological corpus, operating simultaneously as a ritual category, a psychological process, and a teleological imperative. Jung grounds the term in the phenomenology of transformation: the rites of renewal he analyzes in Psychology and Alchemy are read not as primitive curiosities but as symbolic expressions of 'man's innate psychic disposition,' attempts to abolish the separation between archaic substrate and conscious life. Edinger elaborates this arc in his Mysterium Lectures, tracing the ego's demoralization and reconstitution as the precondition for what Jung calls the formation of a new dominant — a rebirth that is simultaneously personal and transpersonal. Von Franz situates renewal within the mythological necessity of the dying king, arguing that the power of civilization itself depends upon periodic sacrifice and revitalization. Nichols and Place, working through the Tarot as symbolic map, render the same dynamic visually: Death, Judgement, and the Sun each instantiate the pattern of ending-as-beginning. Eliade, though not a depth psychologist proper, supplies the ritual anthropology that undergirds the entire discussion — symbolic burial, immersion, and rebirth constitute a universal grammar of renewal. A productive tension runs through the corpus between renewal as interior psychological event and renewal as collective, ritual, or cosmic necessity. The former privilege individuation; the latter emphasize participation in transpersonal cycles. Both strands converge on the conviction that genuine renewal requires the death of an outmoded form.
The symbolism of the rites of renewal, if taken seriously, points far beyond the merely archaic and infantile to man's innate psychic disposition, which is the result and deposit of all ancestral life right down to the animal level.
Jung argues that renewal rites encode a depth of psychic inheritance irreducible to mere primitivism, making them indices of the collective unconscious itself.
, Psychology and Alchemy, 1944thesis
out of that reversal of centrality that the experience brings about, comes the rebirth that Jung speaks of as the formation of a new dominant. It is at this point that circular symbols appear, and the demoralized ego… undergoes a reconstitution.
Edinger identifies ego-dissolution followed by reconstitution around a new psychic center as the structural mechanism of psychological renewal.
, The Mysterium Lectures: A Journey Through C.G. Jung's Mysterium Coniunctionis, 1995thesis
those vital powers in us which we call 'God' are powers of self-renewal, powers of eternal change… everything is in a continuous state of self-renewal, a continuous rearrangement.
Jung identifies the divine as the psychic principle of self-renewal, locating the archetype of rebirth in the deepest stratum of instinctual life.
, Nietzsche's Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1934-1939, 1988thesis
renewal of, 355, 358f, 368f, 372f … dominants of, 325, 358ff, 367, 369f, 379 —, decay of, 362 —, historical, 370 —, mythical, 369 —, negative aspect of, 380 —, relativization of, 325
In the index to Mysterium Coniunctionis, the renewal of consciousness is catalogued as a sustained thematic concern, linked to the decay and replacement of dominant psychic structures.
, Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy, 1955supporting
the idea behind the division of power was to keep the two separate, so that the religious aspect should have the possibility of renewal, and organization should keep to its own duties.
Von Franz argues that the structural separation of spiritual and political authority preserves the conditions necessary for periodic religious renewal within civilization.
, Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales, 1974thesis
In this Tarot card, the idea of revitalization and renewal is more than hinted at by the profusion of new sprouts everywhere and by the way the hands and feet seem to be planted in the earth and already springing to new life.
Nichols reads the Death card's iconography as a symbolic enactment of renewal through the incorporation and transformation of what has died.
, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey, 1980supporting
Symbolic burial, partial or complete, has the same magico-religious value as immersion in water, baptism. The sick person is regenerated; he is born anew.
Eliade establishes the cross-cultural grammar of renewal as symbolic death-and-rebirth, grounding the motif in the universal ritual logic of immersion and emergence.
, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, 1957supporting
All things end but the cycles of the world teach us that all endings are followed by renewal.
Place articulates the cyclical cosmology implicit in Tarot symbolism, in which Death functions not as terminus but as the precondition of renewal.
, The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination, 2005supporting
the old king, when he is to be killed, is shut up in a hut with an untouched virgin and starved to death with the girl… at the moment of death the life spirit of the old king enters the body of the new king.
Von Franz documents the mythological logic of renewal through sacrificial regicide, in which the transference of vital power from the dying to the living enacts collective revitalization.
, Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales, 1974supporting
Resurrection. This means a re-establishment of human existence after death. A new element enters here: that of the change, transmutation, or transformation of one's being.
Jung distinguishes resurrection as a higher form of renewal requiring genuine transformation of being, not mere continuity of the prior self.
, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, 1959supporting
I am ceaselessly renewing myself. By consuming myself, I give my heat to every blade of grass, every animal, and all living things without exception.
Jodorowsky's solar monologue frames self-consumption as the principle of perpetual renewal, linking solar symbolism to the alchemical motif of continuous transformation.
, The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards, 2004supporting
dismemberment refers to a psychological process that requires a body metaphor… the process, while beheading or dissolving the central control of the old king, may be at the same time activating the pneuma that is distributed throughout the materializations of our complexes.
Hillman reads Dionysian dismemberment as the somatic-archetypal mechanism by which old psychic structures are dissolved and distributed into new life — a precondition for renewal.
, Mythic Figures, 2007supporting
A reunion of whatever kind always initiates a new beginning; it can never eventuate in the re-establishment of a former status quo.
Nichols insists that genuine renewal cannot restore the prior order but must issue in a qualitatively new configuration of conscious and unconscious life.
, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey, 1980supporting
Refreshment, renewal, or cleansing. Purification. Baptism. A desire to know the truth, to be open and honest, to communicate with nothing held back.
Greer catalogs renewal among a cluster of Star-card associations — purification, baptism, transparency — framing it as a quality of spiritual refreshment available after crisis.
, Tarot for Your Self: A Workbook for the Inward Journey, 1984aside
Renewal: exposure to the original conditioning context can also reverse the effects of extinction and revive the threat-inducing potential of the conditioned stimulus.
LeDoux uses 'renewal' in a strictly neuroscientific sense — the context-dependent return of extinguished fear responses — providing a biological contrast to the symbolic usage dominant in depth psychology.
, Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety, 2015aside