Is the Modern Psyche Undergoing a Rite of Passage?
| Author | Richard Tarnas |
|---|---|
| Format | Article |
TL;DR — Richard Tarnas’s essay arguing that the modern West’s rival stories of progress and decline are both partial, and that our era is better read as a collective death-and-rebirth.
Opening with Jung on a “metamorphosis of the gods”, Tarnas argues that the task depth psychology set for individuals — making the unconscious conscious — now falls on Western civilisation as a whole. He sets the Enlightenment story of progress against the story of a fall from an earlier wholeness and contends that each is correct within its frame but deeply partial, and that the two combine into a larger pattern resembling a rite of passage.
What it is: a speculative essay in Jungian cultural history by a writer known for archetypal astrology; interpretive, not empirical. Original venue and date not given in the file.
Where this came from
- A copy saved in October 2026.
25 pages. A PDF copy is held in Kyle’s private archive; it is not linked or shared here.