Carl Jung’s Mysticism & the Psychology of Soul | Sarah Mergen

Sarah Mergen enters the mind meld!
Sarah Mergen is the creator of the podcast series Katabasis Anabasis, a psycho-spiritual, mythopoetic approach to the psyche and mental health (depression in particular).
She's also the mind behind some of the finest esoteric memes on the interwebs.
Sarah is incredibly well-read in not only the work of Carl Jung, but philosophy and the esoteric in general. In this one. we riff on Carl Jung's mysticism, the importance of going beyond theory and getting to direct experience, Catafalque by Peter Kingsley, ancient wisdom, where modern therapy can fall short and more.
Links for Sarah:
Instagram: / carljungmemes
Patreon: / nekyias
Podcast: shorturl.at/dhHN4
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[@drakosophos]

42:45 - Very great insight on her part. "Thus the more I speak of my thoughts and feelings-and specially my spiritual and mystical experiences-the more likely they are to evaporate, till in the end all is falsified and I don’t know what I’m talking about; whereas the more I speak of Where those thoughts and feelings come from the more consistently I see what I mean and mean what I see, and the more lucidly I express it.” - Douglas Harding

[@matthewmaguire3554]

Yes…Listening to talks like this, reading or doing practices and trying to relate them to consensus reality is like…Having been at a hysterical comedy show and the next day trying to recreate the humor and people are stifling a yawn to be polite… Treasures found deep in the forest melt by the time you reach Main St. and folks be to busy with chores to listen to your story.

[@jasg7017]

I felt validated hearing her say that when we try to intellectualize and breakdown the metaphysical experiences we have you kind of loose access to it.

[@FelipeArizola-mq1dz]

I went through something hard to communicate and spoke to a priest and he said that deep spiritual experiences are better to speak about them with a priest so they can authenticate them, whatever he meant by that.

[@allourvice]

I’m honestly awestruck at how articulate and informative she is. Can’t wait to delve into her work further. Thank you once again for featuring such an insightful guest, as well as contributing your own commentary, knowledge and experience.

[@user-ge2oh8nj5h]

She was so absolutely spot on when she said that trying to build a philosophy around the direct experience of reality can be very unproductive and even dangerous and also make it harder to access it again. The Buddha, unlike the Vedanta tradition, was very wise to avoid giving any theory on the nature of reality and actively discourage his followers to do so. That figure was wise as fuck! He just understood that all theories are just ideas and concepts made up by the human mind and as such, by definition, cannot contain the ultimate truth. It was an interesting conversation! Thanks!

[@shadow__weaver]

Sarah, thank you for making your video debut- you’re brilliant! Hope you come back and share more 🖤💫

[@Volhybo1t]

Wow, great interview 🎉😮

[@fraum778]

The Spirit of the Depths is not just speaking. He is Alive and Living. Howdy 🤠

[@spiralsun1]

Howdy indeed!❤

[@elizabethmansfield3609]

Why is this spirit a he? Or maybe, why is this spirit a “he” for you? Curious, not accusing.

[@NeonDungeon]

😊😊😊😊😊😊❤​@@spiralsun1

[@spiralsun1]

@@elizabethmansfield3609 people tend to project… as a shortcut. Thats a pretty perfect question. You are gifted. ❤️🙌 But I think you are aware. Just trying to make a friend. It’s hard to find friends who understand spiritual stuff well. Are you interested in languages?

[@Boardwalk_Channel9]

Usually reference to Holy Spirit in texts or literally Carl Jung's spirit. Genderless ex. ACIM

[@intothevortexwithdatorsapi4192]

My God! I only ever convey metaphysical concepts to this degree of fluency, ease, precision and depth when I'm channeling my Higher Self in light trance states. Your guest has a real gift for conveying borderline ineffable metaphysical concepts 🙏

[@CreativeCodex]

‘Meaning is that which exists beyond the literal.’ I love it! Great insight. Thanks to you both. The conversation was filled with thought provoking insights. Looking forward to getting to know Sarah’s work.

[@paulsimmons4064]

Incredible stuff! It was like being caught in an intellectual tidal wave-watching all these golden coins flash by while still being able to catch a few here and there.

[@leahsheridan7302]

I Simplified Yung's journey to be about the "as within so without ". Yung said you must go through your personal timeline and find the glitch, that age you tend to gloss over or remember by what people around you did, that is where you dig. You may be amazed at the lies you tell yourself to avoid seeing, persistance gets through. This is an epic journey within, a starting place is questioning your daily self, watching you be you, why do I do it. You may find funny habits etc. then you can keep what you like and truly question what you dislike.

[@vanilla_abstract]

Once again, my friends, the fabric of reality has united us here and imposed one simple yet significant obligation... "tickle the algorithm." Who are we to disobey? 👁🙏👁

[@littledidtheyknow4332]

I am pretty impressed. Love you guys. So much density of great insights. You can palpably feel all the abyss work that went into that perception. Thank you. Especially when it comes to Sarah's view on perception vs. depression. A lot of that comes out for example in Steiner's work. His lectures are deliberately designed to work on you inwardly, which means they can be often insufferably difficult to digest. And that generates inner movement/alchemy/work, burning out, so to speak, mental organs of perception. Relatively common in esoteric writings. Particularly well done in Steiner. And Jung sort of takes on some of that ability... Not to mention his work is.. guided by historical necessity. A separate question is how far we want to go into the way of suffering to achieve these types of things. And when we are or are not overusing this approach. Or is there something we are missing at any point to write ourselves into reality more smoothly. I should probably not listen to more of Sarah though, or I will develop some sort of crush, which is actually very surprising to me.

[@AFewAcresofSnow]

She is just incredible. Some of the people on here are a little too out there for me but Sarah has really made so much of this exploration make sense to me. Just subbed to her podcast and it’s really really something.

[@drakosophos]

1:18 - “There can only be genuine understanding when there is a genuine person.” - Zhuangzi 2:00 - I see you got my email 😉 This is an episode I’ve been wanting. Let’s go!

[@jmboUnreal]

great interview. divine timing. got Catafalque as a present yesterday and started reading it this morning.

[@DeadManVlog]

One more comment : just listened to the whole episode...some seriously helpful ideas explored here. Im going to have to relisten again soon too. 🌀🌀🌀🌀👏

[@AquariusGate]

I'm beyond mysteries. I'll give it a listen and play along, you know, pretending we dont see each other 😅 We see our humanity as some kind of pinnacle, few have rarely reached into the depths and thus realised the heights. No-one can argue that evolition had favoured the nervous system more than any particular species. This is the autonomous aspect of self we all grapple with on our path to enlightenment. We can access it and be unenlightened, but i find it interesting, that we are driven toward doing no wrong, wise or ignorant alike. We dont lile to look at ourselves, or be seen, in a bad light...for the most part. Im 54 this month and i can honestly diagnose an industrial sickness we have caused with obsessions of materialism. Scientific materialism has become the veil between worlds. It looks as if the cosmos is an information pattern, lifes spark only needs to be a transmission and our science misses the thing it is seeking, or is it? If nature is the unity of everything, the nature of the divine, reductionism and separating life piece by piece is us corrupting our nature, isn't it? Industrialisation is how thenworkplace becomes an impoverished environment. Economics, a divine feminine attribute, is turned into false accounting for a parasitic class to extract wealth from every transaction. Perhaps we deserve this life. Many people still view the virgin birth as magic or a godly miracle. No-one questions whether the immaculate conception is not symbolic of the birth of the man, who is not the same as the boy his parents made him. It all seems straightforward metaphorically.

[@VanessaAnn93]

Thank you. These are important and useful insights

[@jacobcullum9597]

That countdown was wild. First time I’ve seen a premier. Loving the discussion so far!

[@THIRDEYEDROPS]

Thanks for hanging!

[@J-Train]

Wow, this was so good! …as usual. Cheers mate. Just wish it were longer.

[@jimmoore3088]

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Melancholy Man... that's what I am

[@RhoArtMagic]

Omg, you guys. I’m in tears.And have a new reading list! Stay tuned. 😭🤩✌️✨💖

[@zacharyjones7616]

Pumped for this!

[@THIRDEYEDROPS]

✨🫶✨

[@drakosophos]

41:13 - Great thought process, and question! 🙋‍♂️

[@jamesdewane1642]

From 1:33:50, the discussion of language use reminds me a lot of how people learn languages. The Spanish phrase "o sea" can be rendered into English in a variety of ways, and i can't name a single English phrase that captures all the senses of it. But by repeated exposure, an analysis separate from your English categories and phrases allows you to recognize an "o sea" situation and correctly deploy it without reference to what you know in English. In the same way, spiritual writers are repetitive and apparently contradictory, they deploy looping, and then emphasize or de-emphasize a concept "arbitrarily" depending on context the reader is not (yet) aware of. Your understanding must be confounded to lead you to what you couldn't even suspect or imagine before. This may be why reading and re-reading of spiritual texts "absent understanding" is so commonly recommended. It may be re-patterning your mind in useful ways. ... and now i have to take a moment to reflect on news and advertizing

[@robertdabob8939]

I must say I've found Steve, Pauline, and James over at the Jung To Live By YT channel extremely helpful at grounding Jung in a more direct or lived understanding. Highly recommend them.

[@amandaterraflora]

Thanks!

[@THIRDEYEDROPS]

Thanks for the super my friend 🙏

[@Veliccia]

So good, thank you!

[@occultexaminer]

What an amazing show and a beautifully brilliant way to express the Mystery! Really hate that Sarah was cut off at the end....

[@DeadManVlog]

Excellent. I always listen to these first thing in the morning in England following premieres (as im asleep during the initial transmissions.) )

[@PANOP123]

Cool new intro sequence!!!

[@danlott2814]

GAAAAHHHH! Phillip! Sarah! This was an incredible conversation. The whole time that I was listening I was thinking about C.S. Lewis' attempt to "paganize Christianity", his novel Til We Have Faces, and how he was constantly trying to bring out the spirituality in small, normal, everyday things.

[@THIRDEYEDROPS]

Thanks my friend! Need to read more C.S lewis

[@nunyabiznizz4778]

One of my favourite chats yet, and now I have a long list of books I have to buy you rapscallions

[@rug0s0]

I love her instagram of Carl Jung memes!

[@THIRDEYEDROPS]

She’s even better in long form. She’ll def be a reoccurring guest!

[@rug0s0]

@@THIRDEYEDROPSexcellent!

[@svendhansen5427]

​​@@THIRDEYEDROPS You both come across very well and she is a germ and true seeker. "Seek and you shall find". I could recommend a book that inspired Carl Jung to writing an extensive foreword - "The Tibetan book of the Great Liberation". Antient Wisdom words can not directly express, as you fattom. 🙏

[@bluestar.8938]

Thank you Sarah Mergen and Mister Micheal, dear thirdy : )

[@MithraSemiramis]

50 minutes in, you're talking about a hypnogogic state!! 😻

[@WanderZen]

Be careful, for “if you look too long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.” And if you do not turn away, and, instead, willingly and intentionally hold its gaze, you will find that you have made a friend beyond ANY earthbound reality. The Shadow is your TRUEST Friend. A Manifestation is the complete absence of fear.

[@moniquelgrace1908]

Love this vibe great great great great great guest

[@christinaforras]

The act of experience at the center 🤩😍🥺I love that!❤

[@RhoArtMagic]

Listening again. ❤

[@VanessaAnn93]

You should watch Sam Vaknin's videos - he is not spiritual, but his insights into emotionally disconnected people are fascinating. My main takeaway is that narcs and borderlines need to be approached like they are traumatized children, because essentially that is what their emotional intelligence level is at. They were shamed too much or overpraised too much and can't take responsibility for the things they do as it would be too painful and they were never shown how to take responsibility properly or grow up and be accountable for yourself and how you act

[@sgmadwords3350]

Thanks Sarah you are so profound

[@allourvice]

That Dr. Iain McGilchrist mention. 👏

[@Boardwalk_Channel9]

Awesome, thanks for thoughtful interview, love that 10 years gone is fave Led Zeppelin song, and most important Jungian work "The Red Book" 🎉❤😊

[@drakosophos]

1:11:30 - This is an interesting concept, especially given that there’s a type of bee that will immediately fall to the ground and start crawling instead, or just go to sleep when you shut out the sunlight. They stop navigating, can’t get home.

[@cstoneconsultant]

Masterful. Everything is real and depression is a place. Ive been working on a system that’s answers the question of where do you go with Jung when you’re trying to access these archetypal energies. It’s based off Robert L Moore’s “dancing the 4 corners” system.

[@leahsheridan7302]

great chat as always... another perspective to mull over is a book by Nancy Wood, called "The man who gave Thunder to the Earth".

[@marcco44]

i ❤‍🔥❤‍🔥❤‍🔥 your channel, such deep insights in every episode👏👏🙏

[@THIRDEYEDROPS]

✨🙏✨

[@RhoArtMagic]

It seems analogy is as close to “reality” as human sensory perception can get. The dream within the dream. Thanks for the insight! 😊

[@CALCANEUS3535]

Another truly wonderful conversation! Around the 34min mark… made me think how often I try to explain to close others or try to grock for myself, experiences that cannot be adequately, much less exhaustively described by propositions. Only through being in participation with can this realm be known. Does that make any sense?

[@Will2Wisdom]

If get depressed over a job or a person you have a long long way to go

[@jamesdewane1642]

Woo-dipped! Gonna use that!

[@noahhuguenin3848]

I had a brain orgasm hearing "everything is real" That was the highest treasure I got from my long katabasis into nihilistic depression 💚

[@angelcandelaria6728]

Wow that moth thing hit my soul. Well said ❤

[@AquariusGate]

38:10 this lady is smart! I think here she's speaking about a difference in the weatern and eastern mind. Westernly we are taught to mimic information and not meditate on it. Eastern traditions are more meditative in meaning and the flow of expressions. We fragment our time instead of seeing outsrlves in a continuous stream of expression. Weirdly, our tradition leads us to a chaos of meaning. A chaotic nature of language is tamed by common agreement and this common wisdom is sort of what weve been building on. Associating words with our self and experience allows us to grow more or less attached ro the meaning over time. We explore how strongly the meaning resonates, looking for some unique tobe only we understand. Felt is how were known. Touch is all, every sense perception is a variation on it. Thanks fornthe interesting and widely ranging matters 🫶

[@petershelton7367]

When the present is causally discontinuous with the past we call it magic but mind is not bound by causality except on its own terms we decide what is fascinating and what is mundane we decide what suffering is but we do not decide what joy is. Because Identity is inescapablely the logos of being.

[@macronomicus]

There is a physics to the pathways of mind & the various conscious expressions, so there are some literal aspects in the "melting into pleroma" or "distant star".

[@nnonotnow]

Reconciliation takes a bridge. Be that bridge.

[@nathanpayne5009]

You should try to get Dr. Bernardo Kastrup on for a meld. The meeting between science and mystical seems apropos. There is a deep link there.

[@THIRDEYEDROPS]

Two episodes up on YT with him already, a third audio only ✌️

[@nathanpayne5009]

@@THIRDEYEDROPS Oh! Nice. I have to scroll.

[@nathanpayne5009]

@@THIRDEYEDROPS Right there at the top. don't know how I missed this! Tunneling can create interesting blindspots.

[@kliklaklote]

Went the full "hero" cycle quite A few times now. More must be possible :D What U let go is in your hands

[@moonolyth]

Like crow's grasping at shinny things in the dark. Then, ask if it was a dream? Do crow's have dreams?? Reading about burying oneself in the dirt, in a cave, in the dark is far from experiencing fancy words and banter however articulate, intelegent, the boudy is much more and that. Interesting cute. Would like to have heard more from her. But yah felt like I was taking a buble bath and forgot the water.❤

[@joecrowe7062]

I had a dream the other night,it was so real,I was at this lake and a guy said to me,that's Blake's lake we call it that because Blake disappeared there when we were kids,so we all say it's his lake,and my mind added they say its his lake as in he is still there somewhere,i awoke from the dream with the feeling that I knew Blake and lost him,idk sometes my dreams feel realer then here

[@Tzimtzum26]

Let’s go deep!!

[@jklol1680]

❤

[@ArifGhostwriter]

(Please consider split-screening, so that we can see both of you at the same time. You're having a conversation, which is in its own way more interesting than monologue. By not splitting the screen, you're missing the power & potency of presenting a (really fabulous) conversation. It's divested of its interest-potential, IMO.)

[@ItsameAlex]

cool

[@kellycorbeil9708]

We get it you know big words lol ❤

[@Kel-Micha-EL]

And let me know on that script by way ? Studio 2 and hahaha SS over everything

[@MissLizaYangonMyanmar]

Better to find the truth via the hard path than the easy path of drugs. That is not the way. I feel uneasy as I listen to some of your podcasts even if I love your work and guests so much. It just occured to me why something is off.

[@MichaelLowry67]

Psychobabble reigns supreme! Oh well, never mind.

[@BrendanTietz]

So strange, I had extreme depersonalization from 21-22 for about a year and a half. It was really fucking hard and no one knew what was going on. It started to bleed into derealization but luckily I came out of it. So crazy because I’ve never even heard of another person who’s experienced it.

[@drakosophos]

1:25:20 - This is not so far-fetched either. This can be witnessed on DMT, that connection with the star.

[@danielwalsh9057]

I think they talk bout relationships to reality rather than relationship to the source or God. We r not of this world we r just in it.

[@CourtesyPhone]

Hey Sarah if youre reading this, you should definitely reachout to Jonathan Pageau

[@AshleyGraetz]

"Man can accept God becoming man to save man. Yet can not accept Man becoming God to save himself." Vernon Linwood Howard

[@davegcomedy1267]

Hit that space, get you there😅

[@UrbanPovertist]

Has anyone heard about DMTX? They call it 'technology' there are many speculations to the 'space' entered.

[@ejenkins4711]

It is those that have exsperinced the pleroma sed the spark hiding in the abyss 🍀🦍💙

[@jusme8060]

What a unicorn of a woman.

[@corywolf8285]

The future an the past are a myth ✨🪶

[@drakosophos]

1:23:05 - Souls that do not achieve the principium individuationis dissolve back into “Outer Darkness” and Ones that do “become gods, creating worlds without number” Sounds like Jung is a Mormon. If he hung out with Huxley, who hung out with the Mormons, seems about right. And people think Mormons claiming they’ll become the gods of their own planets is so far fetched. To “become a distant star” is to be able to sustain all life, become ye as gods.

[@elliottjames671]

Yung worship

[@figure8analogy677]

Not even 10 minutes in and you already sprinkled in “throbbing” a few times😆 Easy Big Fella ; )

[@ericsims311]

😢 she is so easy to look at and listen to 😮😅

[@ItsameAlex]

me and this girl like ian mcgilchrist

[@UrbanPovertist]

1:37:54 i fell asleep woke few moments before here. Was a Jungian discus group. Hear me out.. it clicked 🤨. The Bible, is the key, or this is the key? Forget the religion and god part, 'Ye are gods'.. seven sins disrupt the energy. It all boils down to Power of Manifestation.. Ego is poorly understood, in an initiate the Ego is your soul. In human concept Ego is Pride 😉 confidence is Mastery, but you must be able to show the quality of work and perform on necessity, selflessness, pride less, etc

[@ItsameAlex]

ma and this girl like ian mcgilchrist

[@Viv-id9fr]

Would appreciate more time for your guest to speak.

[@johncarter1150]

All the mixed metaphors, 8 billion + "small" minds grasping.... seeking... living, dying.

[@joecrowe7062]

Geometric patterns changes the brain so you can understand new ideas,Gods language

[@user-pe9hc1ik4d]

Please do reach out if you people want to know why God doesn't talk back or why you always have bad spiritual trips ❤

[@UltimaEnigma]

🩷

[@michaelwagner8842]

Depression can cause psychogenic fever.

[@1walicki]

Sarah should be more precise and distinguish Objective/Subjective “Physical Reality” from Objective/Subjective “Non-Physical Reality”.

[@petershelton7367]

Depression has no up side when you recover you feel better but it doesn’t build any preventative learning except a tolerance to greater suffering. If you are not in depression your comments are irrelevant and have no penetration. A theory of depression is a theory of non-existence. That’s what it is an incapacity to identity the self. I think you have things upside down meaning is the observation or belief in causality. Internal meaning is simply the belief in causality within mind that one idea or feeling has a causal link to the next feeling or thought. I’m tired of these spiritual processes that make no headway without creating more and more divisions of what has to be undivided. The self can not be divided from any experience if it can then this needs explanation as it is not logically consistent. A spiritual inquiry can establish only one reality that is to say experience, universe and identity are labels for the same thing. If you consider these as existing independent of each other then you have made your experience less than primary as if you exist outside of yourself. It seems to me mind gets all of its capacity to manipulate ideas from experiencing and modeling the physical world. I’m not saying that the physical world is more real but that it is more mental in its structure than mind is in so far as mind routinely ignores causality and needs no formal structure to inhabit an alternate state. So we can observe the material world and make reasonable predictions about the future. I release the stone and it falls toward the earth but there are few circumstances where I can predict my next feeling or thought. So everything we conceive of as physical conforms to mental prediction and what we find correct about mental states is predicated by the physical environment but not by the conscious entity. Mind is the attributes of matter abstracted from context

[@BrenandiBal]

Ineffable- If Satan is the accuser, then Satan is I am/you are, God and heaven is ineffable in that I am not/you are not.

[@UrbanPovertist]

To use the knowledge behind a pay wall is to be part of the evil. To truly assist humanity and not self make things available. The enlightened community will assure all are taken care of

[@UrbanPovertist]

Did you really cut off her heart felt gratitude toward you at the end?? Evil 👿 That will effect your karma towards your success 😞

[@joebroart]

Lol what are you on about bro😂

[@BrianSullivanopus125]

I am so vey sad. Sarah Mergen has some very importnt things to say, but the 'interview' constantly degenerated into the podcasters monologue. Pease let the interviewee speak more.

[@THIRDEYEDROPS]

This is a two way conversation, not a lecture. Lucky for you she has a great podcast you can go listen to.

[@nnonotnow]

20 minutes in and you've done most of the talking. I definitely will check out her podcast. She's experienced beyond her years. There's much to learn from her.

[@geoffreynhill2833]

SEMAPHORE ALERT !!!

[@THIRDEYEDROPS]

Huh?