The Heart
The seat of feeling, courage, and conscience.
The Heart: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
When Jung visited the Taos Pueblo in 1925, its chief, Ochwiay Biano, told him that white men were mad because they said they thought with their heads; his people thought with the heart. Jung took the remark as a mirror held up to Europe. The heart is the organ of feeling, of courage, and of the conscience that weighs.
The Heart: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
The Egyptian heart weighed against the feather of Ma’at, the Sacred Heart, Pascal’s “the heart has its reasons, which reason does not know,” the heart of the Upanishads where the self dwells.
From the Sources
When Samuel looks for a king among Jesse's sons, the Lord tells him not to judge by countenance or stature, for man looks on the outward appearance but the Lord looks on the heart.
“…for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.”
The King James Version of the Bible, 1 Samuel 16:7. King James Version, Project Gutenberg eBook #10. The text, read in part
Frazer records that the Bushmen would not give their children a jackal's heart to eat lest it make them timid, but gave them a leopard's heart to make them brave, and that a Wagogo man eats the heart of a lion he has killed to become brave like a lion.
“The Bushmen will not give their children a jackal's heart to eat, lest it should make them timid like the jackal; but they give them a leopard's heart to eat to make them brave like the leopard. When a Wagogo man of East Africa kills a lion, he eats the heart in order to become brave like a lion”
Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: a study of magic and religion, Chapter LI, "Homoeopathic Magic of a Flesh Diet". Abridged edition (preface dated June 1922), Project Gutenberg eBook #3623. 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), “America: The Pueblo Indians”
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 Heart.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/heart.
Nearby in the alphabet: The Hare: Quick, fertile, and of the moon. The Head: The seat of mind, and the oracle. The Hero: The one who goes into the dark and comes back. The Hexagram: Two triangles joined: fire and water in one.