The Circle
Rotundum
Wholeness, without beginning or end.
The Circle: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
The circle is the simplest image of wholeness. Jung noted that the alchemists sought a rotundum, a round thing, and that Plato made the soul of the world round, as Aristophanes in the Symposium made the first human beings. It carries eternity, since it has no beginning or end, and protection, since it divides an inside from an outside, as the magic circle does.
In his last years Jung read the round “flying saucers” reported after the war as a modern mandala projected into the sky.
The Circle: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
The medieval saying that God is a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere, the halo, the ring, the round dance, the stone circles of the north.
In the Press’s Books
Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence was for Zarathustra “the marriage-ring of rings — the ring of the return.”
From the Sources
Timaeus says the Creator put the soul in the centre of the world's body and made the universe 'a circle moving in a circle, one and solitary', able to converse with itself and needing no other.
“And in the centre he put the soul, which he diffused throughout the body, making it also to be the exterior environment of it; and he made the universe a circle moving in a circle, one and solitary, yet by reason of its excellence able to converse with itself, and needing no other friendship or acquaintance.”
Plato, Timaeus, Timaeus's account of the making of the world's body and soul. Translated by Benjamin Jowett (Project Gutenberg eBook #1572). The text, read in part
Silberer, drawing on Keller's account of the old symbolism, writes that the circle symbolised the all and the eternal, the celestial unity of the all, and the divinity, while the number one, the single line or the sceptre, stood for its earthly copy.
“As the circle symbolized the all and the eternal or the celestial unity of the all, and the divinity, so the number one, the single line, the staff or the scepter, represented the terrestrial copy of the power”
Dr. Herbert Silberer, Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts (originally published as Problems of Mysticism and its Symbolism), Part II, Section IV, "Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry". Translated by Smith Ely Jelliffe, M.D., Ph.D.; Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1971, an unabridged republication of the work published by Moffat, Yard and Company, New York, in 1917 (Project Gutenberg eBook #27755). The text, read in part
Each passage is quoted from the text named, which the press fetched and read, and was checked word for word against a fresh copy of it; the link opens that copy. Passages are given as printed, without the editors’ footnote numbers, and with words broken across lines joined.
Where to Read
- Psychology and Alchemy, CW 12
- Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies (1958), CW 10
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
In the Glossary: Eternal recurrence.
Also among Shapes
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“The Circle.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/circle.
Symbols That Share Its Terms
The Eternal Return (Eternal recurrence) · The Door (The gate, the threshold) · The Ring
Nearby in the alphabet: The Chariot: The vehicle drawn by forces the driver must master. Cibatio: Nourishing the matter in the vessel, a little at a time. Circulatio: Round and round, until it is refined. The City: The ordered community, walled and centred.