The Skull
Death remembered, and what outlasts the flesh.
The Skull: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
The skull is death made visible, and the remembrance of it. In the dream that Jung took as his first glimpse of the collective unconscious, he went down through the floors of an old house to a cave beneath, and found there bones, broken pottery, and two human skulls.
The Skull: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
The memento mori, Golgotha, the place of the skull, with Adam’s skull laid at the foot of the cross in old paintings, Hamlet and Yorick, the scholar’s skull on Saint Jerome’s desk.
From the Sources
Frazer reports that after the Aino bear feast the head is set on a pole until only the bare white skull is left, and that such skulls are worshipped because the spirits of the animals are believed to reside in them.
“…where it remains till nothing but the bare white skull is left. Skulls so set up are worshipped not only at the time of the festival, but very often as long as they last. The Aino assured Mr. Batchelor that they really do believe the spirits of the worshipful animals to reside in the skulls”
Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: a study of magic and religion, Chapter LII, "Killing the Divine Animal", section on the Aino bear festival. Abridged edition (preface dated June 1922), Project Gutenberg eBook #3623. The text, read in part
John's Gospel records that Jesus, bearing his cross, went out to the place of a skull, called in Hebrew Golgotha, where he was crucified.
“19:17 And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha: 19:18 Where they crucified him”
The King James Version of the Bible, John 19:17-18. 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), “Sigmund Freud”
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 Skull.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/skull.
Nearby in the alphabet: The Shadow: The side of the personality one does not wish to be. Silver: The metal of the moon. Solutio: Dissolved back into the waters. Sophia: Wisdom as a feminine figure beside God.