What happens when the story that once gave your life meaning stops working?

In Episode 36 of Conversations for the End, I sit down with Jungian analyst and author D. Stephenson Bond to explore personal myth, the movement of psychic energy, and what happens when we find ourselves psychologically outside the stories that once oriented our lives.

Beginning with Carl Jung’s famous confrontation with the question, “What is the myth you live?”, we explore why the collapse of a personal or cultural myth can leave us feeling lost in the wilderness and why that disorientation may also mark the beginning of psychological transformation.

Drawing from his book Living Myth: Personal Meaning as a Way of Life, Steve explains personal myth not as something consciously invented by the ego, but as something that gradually emerges through our relationship with the psyche.

We discuss Jung’s theory of libido and its progression and regression, why psychic energy can suddenly disappear from careers, relationships, identities and ambitions that once felt meaningful, and what it might mean to “follow the lifelines of libido” when this happens.

From there, we explore dreams, active imagination, symbolic consciousness, the relationship between directed and fantasy thinking, and why individuation frequently involves allowing an established identity to be taken apart before something new can emerge.

Finally, we turn from the personal to the cultural. If myths themselves have life cycles, what happens when the dominant myth of a civilisation begins to lose its vitality? And could the myths that eventually reorganise a culture first begin quietly within individual lives?

A conversation about losing orientation, trusting the psyche, following what possesses genuine psychic intensity, and learning to live within myth while knowing that it is myth.

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 Introduction

02:14 What myth is modern man living?

03:06 Jung, Freud and the collapse of a cultural myth

05:51 Jung’s descent and the search for personal myth

07:07 Falling out of myth and entering the wilderness

09:30 Why human beings need myth

11:42 The modern midlife crisis and seeing through the cultural myth

14:48 Depression, anxiety and the loss of orientation

15:35 Living myth and Jung’s theory of libido

18:21 What happens when libido disappears from your life?

19:23 Progression and regression as the tides of psychic energy

20:20 Why psychological disorientation can be necessary for growth

22:59 “Psyche shows the way”

23:08 Dreams, active imagination and the defeat of the ego

25:00 Following the lifelines of libido

28:00 Symbolic resonance, intensity and where psychic energy is moving

29:44 Grief, complexes and being called into the depths

31:17 Being psychologically taken apart and rebuilt

33:47 Why the ego struggles to trust the psyche

34:34 The Self and the limits of conscious control

36:09 Why personal myth is not a life hack

38:13 Personal myth as a lifelong process

39:13 Symbols, rituals and the unfolding of individuation

41:56 Psyche wants to be embodied

42:54 The limits of psychological language

45:05 Why genuine individuation takes time

46:40 Directed thinking vs fantasy thinking

48:00 Play, imagination and symbolic consciousness

51:49 Has modern culture become dominated by directed thinking?

53:52 The life cycle of myth

55:05 The death and renewal of cultural myths

56:41 What myth is trying to emerge now?

58:08 The new myth and Edinger’s unfinished temple

58:55 Where to find D. Stephenson Bond

Find D. Stephenson Bond

Website: dstephensonbond.com

YouTube: D. Stephenson Bond

YouTube: History of Ideas

Books: Search D. Stephenson Bond on Amazon

Instagram: @conversationsfortheend

TikTok: @conversationsfortheend

YouTube: @conversationsfortheend

Spotify: Conversations for the End

Apple Podcasts: Conversations for the End

Title Music: Vines

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