The Soul and Death

Irrespective of our individual expectations of what happens—if anything—in the “great beyond,” we pay a price, here and now, if we fail to come to grips with the reality of our own physical mortality. As Jung said, “Deviation from the truths of the blood begets neurotic restlessness. … [It] begets meaninglessness, and the lack of meaning in life is a soul-sickness whose full extent and full import our age has not yet begun to comprehend.” (Collected Works, Vol. 8, ¶ 815) “The truths of the blood” are those experiential realities that we inherit—both genetically and psychically—when our psyche enters our physical body. Due to our cultural taboo against reflecting on death, we are pressured to ignore our inherited wisdom, and our individual psyche falls out of step with the psyche of the Collective Unconscious. Jung…