The Enchantment
The spell
Held under a spell, waiting to be released.
The Enchantment: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
In the tales a prince is turned into a beast, a princess falls asleep for a hundred years, a kingdom is turned to stone, until someone breaks the spell. Marie-Louise von Franz read these as pictures of a psychic content held in an alien, unconscious form, and the breaking of the spell as its redemption into consciousness.
The Enchantment: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
Sleeping Beauty, the Frog Prince, the six swans, the Fisher King’s wasteland, the spell of Circe.
In the Press’s Books
Canale’s manual treats bewitchment as a real affliction, and sets out how to discern it and heal it.
From the Sources
In 'Briar Rose' the sleeping princess opens her eyes at the king's son's kiss, and soon the king, the queen and all the court awake too and gaze on each other in wonder.
“But the moment he kissed her she opened her eyes and awoke, and smiled upon him; and they went out together; and soon the king and queen also awoke, and all the court, and gazed on each other with great wonder.”
Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm, Grimms' Fairy Tales, "Briar Rose". Text based on translations from the Grimms' Kinder und Hausmärchen by Edgar Taylor and Marian Edwardes. The text, read in part
In 'Jorinda and Jorindel' the young man dreams of a purple flower with a pearl at its heart, which disenchants everything he touches with it, so that he finds his Jorinda again.
“At last he dreamt one night that he found a beautiful purple flower, and that in the middle of it lay a costly pearl; and he dreamt that he plucked the flower, and went with it in his hand into the castle, and that everything he touched with it was disenchanted, and that there he found his Jorinda again.”
Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm, Grimms' Fairy Tales, "Jorinda and Jorindel". Text based on translations from the Grimms' Kinder und Hausmärchen by Edgar Taylor and Marian Edwardes. 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
- Marie-Louise von Franz, The Psychological Meaning of Redemption Motifs in Fairy Tales (1980)
- Marie-Louise von Franz, The Interpretation of Fairy Tales (1970)
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
Also among Unions, Spells, and Changes
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“The Enchantment.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/enchantment.
Nearby in the alphabet: The Eclipse: The light swallowed by the dark. The Egg: The whole in potential, before it opens. The End of the World: Destruction, revelation, and what comes after. The Eternal Return: All things return, endlessly: the heaviest thought.