The Hand
Making, taking, blessing, and giving.
The Hand: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
The hand makes and takes, blesses and strikes. When Jung was at a loss after his break with Freud, he returned to a game of his childhood and built a village of stones by the lake, letting his hands lead where his head could not; he took it as the start of his confrontation with the unconscious. The right hand and the left have long carried the conscious and the unconscious, the favoured and the sinister.
The Hand: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
The hand of God reaching to Adam, the hand of blessing, the hamsa against the evil eye, the Hand of Glory of the thieves, and the laying-on of hands.
In the Press’s Books
The Hand of Glory is in the Symbolarium.
From the Sources
Jung says the hand has a phallic, generative meaning that plays a great part in the making of fire: fire was bored with the hand and so comes from the hand.
“We have seen in the previous chapter that the hand has actually a phallic, generative meaning, and that this meaning plays a great part in the production of fire. In connection with this phantasy, there is but one observation to make: fire was bored with the hand; therefore it comes from the hand”
Dr. C. G. Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious: A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido, Part II, Chapter IV, "The Unconscious Origin of the Hero". Authorized translation, with introduction, by Beatrice M. Hinkle, M.D.; New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1916. The text, read in part
The dying Jacob (Israel) blesses Joseph's sons by laying his right hand on the head of the younger, Ephraim, and his left on the firstborn, Manasseh, crossing his hands knowingly.
“48:14 And Israel stretched out his right hand, and laid it upon Ephraim’s head, who was the younger, and his left hand upon Manasseh’s head, guiding his hands wittingly; for Manasseh was the firstborn. 48:15 And he blessed Joseph”
The King James Version of the Bible, Genesis 48:14-15. 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
- Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1962), “Confrontation with the Unconscious”
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 Hand.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/hand.
Nearby in the alphabet: Green: The blessed greenness of living things. Hair: Strength and vitality, and what grows unbidden. The Hare: Quick, fertile, and of the moon. The Head: The seat of mind, and the oracle.