The Mandala
Sanskrit: circle
The circle with a centre, a picture of wholeness.
The Mandala: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
The word means circle, and names the ritual diagrams of Hindu and Buddhist practice. Jung found that his patients drew circular, often fourfold designs of their own accord in times of disorder, and that he did too: in 1918 and 1919 he sketched one in a notebook each morning and watched them change with his state. He concluded that the mandala is the psyche’s attempt to order itself around a centre, which he called the Self.
In 1927 he dreamt of a dark and sooty Liverpool with a round pool at the centre of the city, an island in the pool, and on the island a magnolia in blossom, standing in sunlight. He took it that the centre is the goal, and stopped drawing mandalas.
The Mandala: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
The Tibetan sand mandala, the rose windows of the cathedrals, the visions of Hildegard of Bingen, the zodiac, and the images of Christ in majesty among the four evangelists.
From the Sources
Jung pictures the assimilation of the unconscious as a drawing together of conscious and unconscious, in which the centre of the whole personality no longer lies in the ego but at a point midway between the two.
“…this assimilation can be thought of as a sort of approximation of the conscious and the unconscious whereby the centre of the total personality no longer coincides with the ego, but with a point midway between the conscious and the unconscious.”
C. G. Jung, M.D., LL.D., Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, Part II, Chapter III, p. 245. Authorized translation by H. G. and C. F. Baynes; London: Bailliere, Tindall and Cox, 1928 (Internet Archive OCR text). The text, read in part
In a passage drawing on Keller, Silberer writes that the circle symbolised the all, the eternal or celestial unity of the all, and the divinity, while the single line or staff stood for its earthly copy.
“As the circle symbolized the all and the eternal or the celestial unity of the all, and the divinity, so the number one, the single line, the staff or the scepter, represented the terrestrial copy of the power”
Dr. Herbert Silberer, Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts (originally published as Problems of Mysticism and its Symbolism), Part II, Section IV ('Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry'), following Keller. Translated by Smith Ely Jelliffe, M.D., Ph.D.; Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1971, an unabridged republication of the work published by Moffat, Yard and Company, New York, in 1917 (Project Gutenberg eBook #27755). 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
- “Concerning Mandala Symbolism” (1950), CW 9i
- “A Study in the Process of Individuation” (1934/1950), CW 9i
- 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
In the Glossary: Self, Individuation.
Also among Shapes
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“The Mandala.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/mandala.
Symbols That Share Its Terms
The Orphan (The abandoned one) · The Anthropos (The cosmic man) · The Centre (Axis mundi) · The Sphere (The round, the rotundum) · Squaring the Circle (Quadratura circuli) · The Quintessence (The fifth essence) · The Spiral · The Tree (Arbor philosophica)
Nearby in the alphabet: The Magician: The master of hidden powers, and their temptation. The Maiden: The girl carried below and returned. Melusine: The water-woman with a serpent’s tail. Mercury: The quicksilver spirit, the elusive heart of the work.