The Flower
The golden flower, the rose, the lotus
The centre unfolding.
The Flower: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
In 1928 Richard Wilhelm sent Jung a Chinese Taoist text on meditation, The Secret of the Golden Flower, and Jung found in it an undreamt-of confirmation of what he had seen in the mandalas his patients drew; he later said it was the first event to break his isolation.
The flower opens from a centre in ordered petals, and so joins the mandala and the Self; the alchemists’ rose and the lotus of the East carry the same form.
The Flower: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
The rose windows and the Rosa mystica of the Virgin, Dante’s celestial rose, the lotus of Buddhist and Hindu images, the flowers Persephone was gathering when she was taken, the blue flower of the German Romantics. See also the rose of the Materia Medica.
From the Sources
Jung notes that Plutarch already has the sun born in the morning from a flower bud, and that Brahma too comes from the bud.
“The guarding “in a modest bud” is an idea which has appeared already in Plutarch, where it is said that the sun was born in the morning from a flower bud. Brahma, too, comes from the bud, which also gave birth in Assam to the first human pair.”
Dr. C. G. Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious: A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido, Part II, Chapter VIII, "The Sacrifice". Authorized translation, with introduction, by Beatrice M. Hinkle, M.D.; New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1916. The text, read in part
In Longfellow's translation, Dante tells how Beatrice drew him, silent, into the yellow of the eternal Rose, which spreads and multiplies and breathes praise to the ever-vernal Sun.
“Into the yellow of the Rose Eternal That spreads, and multiplies, and breathes an odour Of praise unto the ever-vernal Sun, As one who silent is and fain would speak, Me Beatrice drew on”
Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, Canto XXX. Translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Project Gutenberg eBook #1004). 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
- Commentary on The Secret of the Golden Flower (1929), CW 13
- Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1962)
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
Also among Growing Things
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“The Flower.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/flower.
Nearby in the alphabet: Flight: Rising free of the ground, or fleeing from what pursues. The Flood: The waters that end one world and begin another. The Fool: The innocent who knows nothing and finds the way. The Foot: Standing on the earth; the point of contact and of wounding.