Moving From Literalism to the Symbolic Life

The Metanoia of Consciousness, Part 1 of 2

First published on Substack June 8, 2026

We are living in a time of increasing literalism. Everything is taken at face value. Symbols become facts, metaphors become doctrines, political opponents become enemies, and complex realities are reduced to slogans. Religious language becomes either rigid dogma or something to be dismissed altogether. Carl Jung repeatedly warned against the loss of symbolic understanding, because when symbols are taken only literally, we lose contact with the deeper life of the psyche. By literalism, I mean the tendency to mistake the symbol for the thing itself, the image for the living reality, and the outer event for the whole meaning. Literalism flattens the psyche. It takes language that was meant to open consciousness and turns it into a fixed object, a doctrine, a slogan, or, as we can now observe in the collective, a weapon.

This is especially dangerous when we approach religious, political, or psychological language. The Bible, mythology, dreams, astrology, and Jungian psychology all speak in images. They do not merely tell us what happened “out there.” They also reveal what is happening within us. When we read symbolic language only literally, we often miss the deeper invitation: to turn inward, to become conscious, and to undergo a genuine change of mind. That change of mind is close to the original meaning of the word metanoia. It is often translated as repentance, but it means far more than feeling sorry for something. Metanoia suggests a transformation of consciousness — a change in how we perceive, how we understand, and how we participate in life.

Carl Jung understood this profoundly. He saw that the psyche speaks through symbols, dreams, projections, religious images, myths, and archetypal patterns. To approach these images literally is to remain on the surface. To approach them symbolically is to enter into a living relationship with the unconscious. This is why projection is so central. When something in us remains unconscious, we tend to see it outside ourselves. We meet it in the partner, the enemy, the political opponent, the religious outsider, the leader, the villain, or the savior. The psyche places before us the very thing we have not yet recognized within ourselves. Literalism says the problem is out there; metanoia asks what the outer event, person, dream, or symbol may be revealing in us.

Symbolic Thinking Is Not Spiritual Bypassing — and It Does Not Eliminate EvilTo read life symbolically does not mean that outer events are unreal, or that injustice, cruelty, war, propaganda, and corruption should be ignored. Quite the opposite. Jung never taught a sentimental spirituality that bypasses evil, nor did he suggest that consciousness means floating above the suffering of the world. But he did insist that we cannot confront darkness consciously if we do not understand how easily we can become possessed by it when it remains unconscious.

This is where literalism becomes dangerous as it gives the ego certainty. It says, “I know who the good people are. I know who the evil people are. I know what God wants. I know what this symbol means.” Once the ego has that kind of certainty, it can justify almost anything. But symbolic life does not work that way. A symbol is alive precisely because it contains more than one level of meaning. It opens the psyche; it does not close it.

This is why I want to share Jimmy Dore’s recent interview with Tucker Carlson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TT3o9SzIvo

I also want to acknowledge Tucker Carlson for giving Jimmy the room to speak freely about his spiritual life. Whatever one thinks politically, it is rare in public media to hear someone speak seriously about dreams, Jung, God, the unconscious, and the inner life without being rushed or reduced to a soundbite. That openness allowed for something genuinely meaningful to emerge.

Every word Jimmy spoke about Jung felt meaningful and on point. For those of us who have spent years studying Jungian psychology, it is extraordinary to see these ideas reaching a much wider audience — not as abstract theory, but as living truth. Jung understood that the great crises of civilization are not only political or social, but psychological and spiritual. To hear that brought into a public conversation of this magnitude was deeply moving. I was also touched to hear Jimmy briefly mention my name, but more than anything, I am grateful that Jung’s work is being spoken about in a way people can actually feel and understand.

The interview was much broader than Jung. It was a wide-ranging conversation about politics, propaganda, war, faith, oligarchy, censorship, and the crisis of consciousness we are living through. But what moved me most was the way Jimmy brought Carl Jung into the conversation — not as theory, but as a living language for understanding our actual lives.

Jimmy spoke about going into his own unconscious through dreams, beginning with the dream of a black cat. In Jungian language, the black cat buried in the earth can be understood as an image of shadow — something instinctive, buried in the unconscious, feared, or not yet known. To begin Jungian work is to begin meeting the parts of ourselves we would rather not see and what Jung called our shadow. That often includes guilt, and guilt is difficult for a weak ego to contemplate. This is why Jung placed so much importance on strengthening the ego. We need enough ego strength to see the truth without completely demoralizing our spirit.

“Without guilt, unfortunately, there can be no psychic maturation and no widening of the spiritual horizon.” — Carl Jung, CW Vol. 10: Civilization in Transition, “After the Catastrophe,” par. 440

That is a hard sentence, but it is an important one. Guilt, when it is conscious and not merely neurotic, can become the beginning of moral development. It tells us that something in us has recognized a conflict between who we thought we were and what we are actually capable of doing, feeling, or becoming. This is why the encounter with the shadow can be so difficult. It asks us to bear the tension between our conscious persona or self-image and the less flattering truths that have been hidden, denied, buried, or projected onto others. The assimilation of shadow lasts a lifetime and is not something anyone of us can do overnight.

Jimmy spoke about shadow, projection, dreams, symbols, God, alchemy, mythology, and the need to make the unconscious conscious. That matters because Jungian psychology is not merely academic. It is not a set of ideas or ideals to admire from a distance. It is a way of seeing, and a way of living a life committed to growth — a way of recovering the soul from literalism. Literalism is the enemy of psychological development because it stops the process at the surface. Jung repeatedly emphasized that symbols are not mere signs or facts. They point beyond themselves. A snake in a dream is not simply a snake. A dragon is not merely a dragon. A dream lover is not necessarily the actual person. A political figure may be carrying the unconscious projections of millions of people.

Literalism says the dream is predicting an external event, while symbolic thinking asks what the dream is revealing psychologically.

Literalism says the partner is the issue, while metanoia asks what part of ourselves we may be meeting through the other.

Literalism says the politician is evil, while shadow work asks what has been activated in us collectively and individually.

The moment we become only literal, the symbolic process begins to die, because the image is no longer allowed to unfold beyond its surface meaning. Everything is reduced to a fact, and the living symbol becomes a dead object. A marriage may be an actual marriage, but it may also reveal a deeper union in the soul or a conflict within the psyche. A savior may be an outer figure, but it may also point to an inner authority, a longing for deliverance, or the Self with a capital “S,” which Jung understood as the central archetype of wholeness and the God-image within the psyche.

For Jung, the greatest spiritual question was not simply whether God exists as an object of belief, but how humanity experiences and understands the divine within the psyche. Here I am speaking psychologically: of the God-image as humanity’s inner experience of the divine — an evolving archetypal reality shaped by consciousness itself. This distinction matters profoundly. As a psychiatrist and depth psychologist, Jung was less concerned with metaphysical or theological certainty than with the symbolic reality through which human beings encounter ultimate power, meaning, morality, mystery, and the numinosum.

Religion has often portrayed God in anthropomorphic terms: as a heavenly father, judge, ruler, or purely benevolent authority. But Jung recognized that these images may reflect only partial stages in the psychological evolution of consciousness. To Jung, the divine could not be reduced to simplistic human morality. The God-image was not merely light, but totality. Within that totality exists paradox: creation and destruction, love and wrath, consciousness and shadow. Understanding this may be one of humanity’s greatest psychological and spiritual challenges, and it is also one reason literalism is so dangerous. Literalism wants certainty. Symbolic consciousness requires humility before mystery. Jung addresses this most profoundly in his book, Answer to Job, where he confronts the disturbing paradox that the divine image contains both light and shadow, and that human consciousness has a role in bringing that paradox into awareness.

Metanoia asks different questions. It asks what something means psychologically, what is trying to emerge into consciousness, what the symbol is pointing toward, what part of this belongs to us, and how our perception has changed. It asks what may be happening not only in the personal unconscious, but in the collective unconscious as well. Metanoia begins when we stop asking only, “Is it true?” and begin asking, “What does it mean?”

A person dreams of a flood, and literalism says, “A flood is coming,” while symbolic thinking asks, “What in my life is overwhelming me emotionally?”

A person falls in love, and literalism says, “I have found my soulmate. I must have this person,” while psychological inquiry asks, “What part of myself have I encountered through this person?”

A person becomes consumed by hatred toward a public figure, and literalism says, “That person is the problem,” while shadow work asks, “What has this person activated in me?”

The same is true of religious language. As Jimmy said repeatedly in the interview, when Jesus says “the Kingdom of God is within,” he is pointing toward an inward reality, not merely an external location, future event, or afterlife destination. When scripture speaks of death and rebirth, blindness and sight, the old man and the new man, it is speaking psychologically as well as spiritually, in the language of transformation. This is why Jimmy’s mention of Bill Donahue matters here, because Bill’s teaching has been important in our Jungian studies. I am including one of Bill’s videos we both heard recently, Understanding Yourself, because it speaks directly to this same issue. There are many talks on his YouTube channel that describe his understanding of Jung.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbKUwQxWg0A

Bill reads biblical language in a way that opens the symbolic and psychological dimension. He does not rush past the statement that “the Kingdom of God is within.” He stops there and asks, “What does it mean? What does it mean that the divine reality is inward? What does it mean that sacred language points not only to outer events, but to the structure of consciousness and the inner life of the human being?” That is the question literalism does not want to ask, because literalism keeps the sacred safely external, where it can be defended, argued over, institutionalized, or used to control others. Symbolic understanding brings the question back to the soul itself, where the God-image must be encountered.

John A. Sanford makes a similar point in Dreams: God’s Forgotten Language when he writes:

“Religious morality, such as the Ten Commandments, is a projection or exteriorization of our own inner truth, or Voice of God… the law of the soul is every bit as demanding as the law of society.” — John A. Sanford, Dreams: God’s Forgotten Language, p. 36

This does not make morality less serious. Quite the opposite. In other words, metanoia does not free us from moral responsibility. It asks us to become inwardly responsible to the living truth of the soul.

Bill also draws on Jung to make the point that the psyche cannot be reduced to brain matter or ordinary physical processes. Jung understood that dreams, memories, fears, intuitions, images, and numinous experiences belong to a psychic reality that cannot be explained by anatomy alone. In breaking with Freud, Jung became convinced that the exploration of parapsychological phenomena was important to understanding the human psyche. The brain may be necessary for consciousness, but the brain does not exhaust the mystery of consciousness. This is the difference between literalism and symbolic life. Literalism looks only at the visible surface. Symbolic life recognizes that the psyche participates in how we see, how we interpret, how we react, and how we create meaning. This does not abolish religion. It restores depth to it.

When religion remains only external, it can block the very inner experience it was meant to awaken. That is the tragedy of literalism. It takes a doorway and turns it into a wall. It takes a symbol that could lead us inward and makes it into something we argue about, defend, or use to make others conform to what we believe is true. Literalism keeps us identified, while metanoia begins to free us. Relationships, politics, and religion all expose the places where our convictions may be less about truth and more about fear — fear of being wrong, fear of being hurt, fear of losing control, fear of having to lose what we thought was real. Sometimes we would rather be right than be free. Yet freedom is the deeper invitation of this new Age of Aquarius, which Jung explored in CW: 9ii, Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self.

Jung once said, “Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge.” That one sentence reveals so much. Judgment is fast. Certainty is quick. But thinking — real thinking — requires the willingness to tolerate uncertainty long enough to let something new emerge. One of the easiest ways to recognize when shadow is involved is the presence of rigid certainty: “This is the only way.” “People like that always…” “That could never be true.” “I already know what this means.” The shadow does not like nuance or complexity. The shadow wants a verdict as it wants to believe morality can be dictated.

But the Self — the deeper intelligence within us — often speaks through new information that disrupts what we thought we knew. It may come through a dream, a conversation, a mistake, a contradiction, a relationship that does not follow the rules, or a moment of humility where we admit, “I may not have the whole picture.” To read life symbolically is not to escape reality. It is to enter reality more deeply, and to realize that outer events and inner life are not separate in the way the modern mind assumes. The outer event may be important, but the deeper question is always: What is happening in the soul?

Jung’s great contribution was not simply that he gave us concepts like shadow, anima, animus, archetype, and the Self. His greater contribution was that he gave us a way to recover the symbolic life of the soul. Without symbolic life, religion becomes dogma, politics becomes possession, relationship becomes projection, and the individual becomes trapped inside the narrow certainty of the ego. Metanoia is not merely changing an opinion. It is a transformation in the way we perceive reality. It is the movement from literal to symbolic, from projection to reflection, from certainty to curiosity. It is the moment the mind opens, the heart softens, and we begin to see through the surface of things.

Perhaps that is what our time is asking of us now — not more literal certainty, but a deeper change of mind; not more projection, but more reflection; not more slogans, but a more conscious relationship to the soul. In Part 2, I will bring this into the realm of relationship by exploring metanoia and the 7th House in astrology — the house of marriage, partnership, and open enemies — where the other so often becomes the mirror of what remains unconscious in ourselves.

- A REVIEW FOR WHEN THE OTHER IS YOU - “One of my favorite “big thoughts” lately is about how much we need books about the astrologically-examined life. That’s what happens when wise people share what happens when they actually USE modern psychologically-sophisticated astrology to deepen their own experience and speed their evolutionary path. If you’e interested in going beyond yet another astrology textbook and seeing what the future of our craft looks like, try WHEN THE OTHER IS YOU.”

— Astrologer and Author, Steven Forrest