Carl Jung: Ten Quotations about Mandalas – Jung Currents

“In the products of the unconscious we discover mandala symbols, that is, circular and quaternity figures which express wholeness, and whenever we wish to express wholeness, we employ just such figures. ”

“Most mandalas have an intuitive, irrational character and, through their symbolical content, exert a retroactive influence on the unconscious. They therefore possess a “magical” significance, like icons, whose possible efficacy was never consciously felt by the patient.”

“ The “squaring of the circle” is one of the many archetypal motifs which form the basic patterns of our dreams and fantasies. But it is distinguished by the fact that it is one of the most important of them from the functional point of view. Indeed, it could even be called the archetype of wholeness.”

“My mandalas were cryptograms concerning the state of the self which was presented to me anew each day…I guarded them like precious pearls….It became increasingly plain to me that the mandala is the center. It is the exponent of all paths. It is the path to the center, to individuation. ”

“I had to abandon the idea of the superordinate position of the ego. …
I saw that everything, all paths I had been following, all steps I had taken, were leading back to a single point — namely, to the mid-point.
It became increasingly plain to me that the mandala is the centre.
It is the exponent of all paths.
… I knew that in finding the mandala as an expression of the self I had attained what was for me the ultimate.”

“In view of the fact that all mandalas shown here were new and uninfluenced products, we are driven to the conclusion that there must be a transconscious disposition in every individual which is able to produce the same or very similar symbols at all times and in all places. Since this disposition is usually not a conscious possession of the individual I have called it the collective unconscious.”

“In such cases it is easy to see how the severe pattern imposed by a circular image of this kind compensates the disorder of the psychic state– namely through a the construction of a central point to which everything is related, or by a concentric arrangement of the disordered multiplicity and of contradictory and irreconcilable elements. This is evidently an attempt at self-healing on the part of Nature, which does not spring from conscious reflection but from an instinctive impulse.”

“I began to understand that the goal of psychic development is the self. There is no linear evolution; there is only a circumambulation of the self.”

“From the very beginning the UFO reports interested me as being, very possible, symbolical rumors…
UFOS seemed to me to have a good deal in common with mandala symbolism…
The plurality of UFOs then, is a projection of a number of psychic images of wholeness which appear in the sky because on the one hand they represent archetypes charged with energy and on the other hand are not recognized as psychic factors…
The projected image then appears as an ostensibly physical fact independent of the individual psyche and its nature.
In other words, the rounded wholeness of the mandala becomes a spaceship controlled by an intelligent being.”