The Crossroads
Where the ways divide and a choice is forced.
The Crossroads: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
The crossroads is a place of choice and of meeting, where one road becomes several. Jung counted it among the places of the mother and of the uncanny: Hecate was worshipped there, and in European folklore the dead and the witches gathered there and pacts were made. It is also a form of the cross, four ways from one centre.
The Crossroads: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
Oedipus killing Laius where three roads meet, the suppers left for Hecate at the crossroads, the herms of Hermes set up at Greek crossings, Legba who opens the ways, and the suicides once buried at crossroads.
From the Sources
Jeremiah bids the people stand in the ways, look, and ask for the old paths and the good way, and walk in it to find rest; but they refuse.
“Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.”
The King James Version of the Bible, Jeremiah 6:16. King James Version, Project Gutenberg eBook #10. The text, read in part
Socrates, retelling Prodicus, says that the young Heracles, at the age when a young man shows whether he will take the path of virtue or of vice, went to a quiet place and sat debating which of the two paths to pursue.
“…having reached that season in which the young man, now standing upon the verge of independence, shows plainly whether he will enter upon the path of virtue or of vice, he went forth into a quiet place, and sat debating with himself which of those two paths he should pursue”
Xenophon, The Memorabilia: Recollections of Socrates, Book II, Chapter I (Socrates retelling Prodicus on Heracles). Translated by H. G. Dakyns; preparer's note: first published 1897 by Macmillan and Co. 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
- Symbols of Transformation, CW 5, “The Dual Mother”
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
Also among Ways and Thresholds
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“The Crossroads.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/crossroads.
Nearby in the alphabet: The Crocodile: The devouring jaws of the depths. The Crown: Sovereignty, and the work completed. The Crystal: The form that is there before the substance fills it.