The Flood
The deluge
The waters that end one world and begin another.
The Flood: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
The flood returns the world to the waters, and a remnant survives to begin again. Jungian writers read it as the inundation of consciousness by the unconscious: a catastrophe that dissolves an order grown rigid, and the solutio from which a new one is made.
The Flood: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
Utnapishtim in the eleventh tablet of Gilgamesh, Noah and the ark, Deucalion and Pyrrha, Manu warned by the fish.
In the Press’s Books
The survival of catastrophe, and what outlasts it, is the matter of The Wisdom of Catastrophe.
From the Sources
Jung writes that the surging feeling of the impulse is projected mythologically as a flood that rises over all and destroys all that exists, so that a new and better creation may come forth from the destruction.
“That stifling, compressing feeling of the onward-surging impulse is projected mythologically as a flood which, rising up and over all, destroys all that exists, in order to allow a new and better creation to come forth from this destruction.”
Dr. C. G. Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious: A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido, Part I, ch. IV, "The Song of the Moth". Authorized translation, with introduction, by Beatrice M. Hinkle, M.D.; New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1916. The text, read in part
Jung calls Noah's journey a very close parallel: in the flood all living creatures die, and only Noah and the life he guards are brought to a new birth.
“A very close parallel is Noah's journey during the flood, in which all living creatures die; only he and the life guarded by him are brought to a new birth.”
Dr. C. G. Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious: A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido, Part II, ch. V, "Symbolism of the Mother and of Rebirth". Authorized translation, with introduction, by Beatrice M. Hinkle, M.D.; New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1916. The text, read in part
Ovid tells how Deucalion, beholding the restored world empty and the desolate Earth in profound silence, turned to Pyrrha in tears.
“The world was restored; which when Deucalion beheld to be empty, and how the desolate Earth kept a profound silence, he thus addressed Pyrrha, with tears bursting forth”
Ovid, The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Books I-VII, Book I, the fable of the Deluge. Translator: Henry T. Riley (Project Gutenberg eBook #21765). 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
- Symbols of Transformation, CW 5
- Edward F. Edinger, Anatomy of the Psyche (1985), “Solutio”
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 Flood.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/flood.
Nearby in the alphabet: The Five: The four, and the centre that unites them. Flight: Rising free of the ground, or fleeing from what pursues. The Flower: The centre unfolding. The Fool: The innocent who knows nothing and finds the way.