The Door
The gate, the threshold
The threshold between one state and another.
The Door: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
A door or gate marks a threshold: to pass it is to enter another state, and it may be guarded. Jungian writers read it as the opening between conscious and unconscious, and the locked or forbidden door as what one is not yet ready to know.
The Door: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
Janus, god of doors and beginnings, the forbidden door of Bluebeard, the gates of the underworld, “I am the door.”
In the Press’s Books
In “The Vision and the Riddle” Zarathustra shows the dwarf a gateway where two eternal roads meet; its name is written above it: “This Moment.”
From the Sources
Jesus says, 'I am the door': whoever enters by him shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture.
“I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”
The King James Version of the Bible, John 10:9. King James Version, Project Gutenberg eBook #10. The text, read in part
Over Bunyan's gate is written 'Knock, and it shall be opened unto you', and his verse says that he who would enter must first stand knocking at the gate.
“Now, over the gate there was written, 'Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.' [Matt 7:8] "He that will enter in must first without Stand knocking at the Gate, nor need he doubt That is A KNOCKER but to enter in;”
John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come, Part One, sections 59-60. Part One, delivered under the similitude of a dream; Project Gutenberg eBook #131. 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
- Arnold van Gennep, Les Rites de passage (1909)
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 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 Door.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/door.
Symbols That Share Its Terms
The Eternal Return (Eternal recurrence) · The Circle (Rotundum) · The Uroboros (The tail-eater) · The Ring
Nearby in the alphabet: The Divine Child: The future, not yet born into the world. The Double: Oneself met as another. The Dove: Peace, spirit, and the white light after the dark.