The Divine Child
Puer divinus
The future, not yet born into the world.
The Divine Child: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
The child archetype stands for what is coming into being: potential, a future not yet realized, the new whole that may arise from a conflict of opposites. Jung stressed that the mythic child is both small and mighty, abandoned and invincible, threatened at birth and yet surviving to change the world.
It is one of the most frequent symbols of the Self, and appears where a life is about to turn.
The Divine Child: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
Moses in the bulrushes, the infant Heracles strangling serpents, Hermes stealing Apollo’s cattle on the day he was born, Krishna, the Christ child, and the filius philosophorum, the child of the alchemists’ work.
In the Press’s Books
In Zarathustra’s first speech, “The Three Metamorphoses,” the spirit becomes a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child: “Innocence is the child, and forgetfulness, a new beginning, a game, a self-rolling wheel, a first movement, a holy Yea.”
From the Sources
Jung traces the dream-symbol of the soul's pregnancy to the primordial image of the hero-birth, and says that the child to be born signifies the individuality, which exists but is not yet conscious.
“…the primordial image of the hero-birth. The child that is to be born signifies the individuality, which, though existing, is not yet conscious.”
C. G. Jung, Psychological Types or The Psychology of Individuation, Chapter XI, 'Definitions', no. 48, 'Soul', p. 595. Translated by H. Godwin Baynes, M.B., B.C. Cantab; London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd.; New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, Inc. (Internet Archive OCR text). The text, read in part
Isaiah proclaims a child born and a son given, on whose shoulder the government shall rest and who shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”
The King James Version of the Bible, Isaiah 9:6. King James Version, Project Gutenberg eBook #10. 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
- “The Psychology of the Child Archetype” (1940), CW 9i, first published with Karl Kerényi in Essays on a Science of Mythology
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
In the Glossary: Three metamorphoses.
Also among Children and the Young
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“The Divine Child.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/divine-child.
Symbols That Share Its Terms
Nearby in the alphabet: Dismemberment: Torn apart, to be put together anew. Distillatio: Rising and falling again, until only the essence is left. The Dog: Guardian of the threshold, and faithful guide. The Door: The threshold between one state and another.