The Eye
Sight, awareness, and the eye that watches.
The Eye: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
The eye is consciousness and its light. Jung was struck by the alchemists’ image of the eyes of fishes and the sparks, scintillae, scattered in the dark matter, and read them as many small luminosities of consciousness in the unconscious before there is an ego to gather them.
The alchemists spoke of the oculi piscium, the fishes’ eyes, and of the scintillae, the sparks of the world-soul in matter, and Jung took them, with the many-eyed Argus and the eyes of God that run to and fro through the earth, as the first form of consciousness: not one light but many small ones, which gather into the eye of the ego.
The Eye of Horus, torn out by Seth and healed by Thoth, was the commonest amulet of Egypt and its sign stood for the parts of a whole; the evil eye is the same organ turned to harm, against which the Mediterranean still wears the blue eye.
The Eye: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
The Eye of Horus, the eye of God in the triangle, Odin’s eye given for wisdom, the evil eye, and the many eyes of Argus. The Eye of Providence in the triangle, on the dollar; Odin’s eye in Mimir’s well; the third eye of Shiva; the eye of the peacock’s tail; Emerson’s “transparent eyeball.”
From the Sources
The Book of Proverbs says that the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.
“15:3 The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.”
The King James Version of the Bible, Proverbs 15:3. King James Version, Project Gutenberg eBook #10. The text, read in part
Bulfinch tells how Argus, set by Juno to guard Io, had a hundred eyes in his head and never slept with more than two at a time, so that he watched her constantly.
“Now Argus had a hundred eyes in his head, and never went to sleep with more than two at a time, so that he kept watch of Io constantly.”
Thomas Bulfinch, Bulfinch's Mythology: The Age of Fable, The Age of Chivalry, Legends of Charlemagne, The Age of Fable, Chapter IV, "Juno and her Rivals, Io and Callisto". Complete in one volume, Project Gutenberg eBook #4928. The text, read in part
In the Sermon on the Mount the eye is called the light of the body: if the eye is single, the whole body is full of light.
“6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.”
The King James Version of the Bible, Matthew 6:22. 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
- “On the Nature of the Psyche” (1947/1954), CW 8
- “On the Nature of the Psyche,” CW 8, ¶¶ 388–396
- Zechariah 4:10
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
Also among The Body
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“The Eye.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/eye.
Nearby in the alphabet: The Eternal Youth: The youth who will not be bound by time. Exaltatio: Raising the matter to its highest degree. The Fall: The loss of paradise, and the birth of consciousness. The Father: Law, order, and spirit, and their hardening.