The End of the World
Apocalypse, Ragnarök
Destruction, revelation, and what comes after.
The End of the World: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
Visions of the world’s end came often in the fantasies of Jung’s psychotic patients, and he read them as the collapse of an inner world. In Answer to Job he read the Revelation of John as the eruption of the dark side of God. The Greek apokalypsis means an uncovering: an end that reveals.
The End of the World: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
The Revelation of John, Ragnarök and the world renewed after it, the Kali Yuga, the Flood.
From the Sources
In Revelation's vision of the end, there is to be no more death, sorrow or pain, 'for the former things are passed away', and the one on the throne says, 'Behold, I make all things new.'
“21:4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. 21:5 And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.”
The King James Version of the Bible, Revelation 21:1-5. King James Version, Project Gutenberg eBook #10. The text, read in part
Interpreting the myth of the divine chariot, Jung writes that its catastrophe signifies the conflagration of the world and the deluge, after which the division of the God into many parts ceases and the divine unity is restored.
“The catastrophe signifies the conflagration of the world and the deluge, whereupon the division of the God into many parts ceases, and the divine unity is restored.”
Dr. C. G. Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious: A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido, Part II, ch. VI, "The Battle for Deliverance from the Mother" (on the mystic Quadriga of Dio Chrysostom). Authorized translation, with introduction, by Beatrice M. Hinkle, M.D.; New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1916. 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
- Answer to Job (1952), CW 11
- Symbols of Transformation, CW 5
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
Also among Death and Birth
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“The End of the World.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/end-of-the-world.
Nearby in the alphabet: The Egg: The whole in potential, before it opens. The Enchantment: Held under a spell, waiting to be released. The Eternal Return: All things return, endlessly: the heaviest thought. The Eternal Youth: The youth who will not be bound by time.