The term puer aeternus is Latin for eternal boy. Carl Jung used the term in the exploration of the psychology of eternal youth and creative child within every person.
It is an archetype, and like all archetypes, has both a positive and a negative side. It can bring the energy, beauty and creativity of childhood into adult life, or thwart self-realisation and doom us to both unrealistic adolescent fantasies and experiencing life as a prison.
The puer is the man-child who refuses to grow up, take responsibility, and face life’s challenges, he expects other people, typically his parents, to solve all his problems. He tries to go as high as possible away from reality, ending up like Peter Pan, the boy who wouldn’t grow up, who lives in Neverland, a place where people cease to age and are eternally young. The puer aeternus is also known as the Peter Pan syndrome. This has become an increasingly common problem in our modern age.
Those who find themselves unable to commit to work, to form satisfactory relationships, to commit to the discipline of education, to carry the weight of responsibility, or who feel that their life has become meaningless, will find the integration of the archetype of eternal youth invaluable in their life.
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📚 Recommended Reading
▶ The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
https://amzn.to/3EuWMiW
▶ Puer Aeternus: A Psychological Study of the Adult Struggle With the Paradise of Childhood – Marie-Louise von Franz
https://amzn.to/3CnSAyK
▶ Now or Neverland: Peter Pan and the Myth of Eternal Youth : A Psychological Perspective on a Cultura – Ann Yeoman
https://amzn.to/3MiAN0w
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🎶 Music used
1. Smoother Move – Kevin MacLeod
2. Cryptic Sorrow – Kevin MacLeod
3. Mysterious Ambient Background Music – The Rake – CO.AG. Music
4. Trio for Piano Cello and Clarinet – Kevin MacLeod
5. Midsommar – Scott Buckley
6. Promising Relationship – Kevin MacLeod
7. Relent – Kevin MacLeod
8. Evening Fall Harp – Kevin MacLeod
9. Charms – Train – Sergey Cheremisinov
10. Charms – Waves – Sergey Cheremisinov
Support the artists:
CO.AG Music
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Sergey Cheremisinov – https://www.s-cheremisinov.com
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Kevin MacLeod – https://incompetech.com
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📝 Sources
– Puer Aeternus: A Psychological Study of the Adult Struggle with the Paradise of Childhood by Marie Louise von Franz
– Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung
– Now or Neverland: Peter Pan and the Myth of Eternal Youth by Ann Yeoman
– Jung on the Provisional Life https://jungiancenter.org/jung-on-the-provisional-life/#_ftn2
– Senex Play and Puer Play: A Jungian Interpretation of the Varieties of Recreation https://jungiancenter.org/senex-play-and-puer-play-a-jungian-interpretation-of-the-varieties-of-recreation/#_ftn23
– Marie Louise von Franz’s Puer Aeturnus: Lectures https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHX0CN3C0gE&list=LL&index
– Episode 125 – The Provisional Life: Redeeming the Real https://thisjungianlife.com/episode-125-the-provisional-life-redeeming-the-real/
– Episode 072 – Puer – Puella: Trapped in the Inner Child https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWVTqvlC1lg&list=LL&index=15&t- An
– Answer to the Question: “Why does the Puer Aeternus need to Work?” https://www.reddit.com/r/Jung/comments/su8boz/an_answer_to_the_question_why_does_the_puer/
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⌛ Timestamps
0:00 Introduction
2:36 Adult Struggle with the Paradise of Childhood
15:08 Senex and Puer
16:55 The Role of Play in Jung’s Life
19:24 The Puer Aeternus and The Little Prince
26:16 Integration of Puer Aeternus
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“Whatever one has within oneself but does not live, grows against one."
Transcript and artwork gallery: https://eternalisedofficial.com/2022/10/09/puer-aeternus-psychology
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be.
here.
now.
Twenty minutes in. I had some hopes for this, but it seems like the usual vague Jungian mumbo jumbo. The usual judgmental assessment of people who "psycho-analysts" deem inadequate and "maladapted". Doesn't anybody question Jung? Or Nietzsche? The more I learn about them, the more I wonder how much they really understand me or my world, or they're just projecting their own weird, idiosyncratic notions on everybody else. The more it seems like the emperor has no clothes. This obsession with them seems almost cult-like. I don't know. Maybe they have a useful insight here and there, but it really seems to me they're grossly over-rated It'd be interesting if more people who're really interested in truth and their own well-being, started honestly questioning them, if they have doubts.
Sounds like this life is ruined just have to hope there is a other go around cause this one is done already! No salvation from this
It's me!
Thank you
NPD!
NPD!
NPD!
Amazing work
This is just basically describing Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
I think this video describes in depth the true plague that is leading to the collapse of our society! Almost all of us that are now adults, have felt this thing, this avoidance of becoming a true adult. Some of us overcame it, yet so many have not! And more need to if we are to survive!
This is excellent content!
Thinking of bad shit all the time so when the bad shit happens it’s not as bad is pretty spot on.
This is based off what people think a grown man should act like by comparing everyone of them to a stereotype
Holy shit it's literally me
Marie-Louise von Franz is key to understand current psychological archetypes of men and women, which are essentially narcissistic archetypes. The metaverse will make things worse.
IMHO: thought-provoking and very well done presentation, but a warning for young viewers: this is 20th century thought and it shows. Don't just swallow it whole.
The great thinkers love to rescue us from our ignorance by "integrating" us onto a path of obedient citizenship. They use loaded terms such as "provisional life" that seem deep, but lack actual punch. Ironically these great thinkers have themselves seldomly produced anything of practical consequence and more often than not come from a privileged milieu that sheltered them from the daily grind of (manual) labour. A grind of which they basically know nothing and have thus no fear of.
Some people are doers, others are dreamers. We are not created equal. Some of this puer may be caused by autism, AD(H)D, childhood emotional neglect and who knows what else. There is more to this story and it doesn't have to involve convoluted abstractions like the archetypes. What one man calls a meaningful life I call a delusional waste of oxygen. Again, live your own life and don't listen too much to old men (and women) and that includes me.
7:18 Jordan Peterson also explains Puer Eternus using Peterpan. He even makes Tinkerbell a metaphor for Porn
So pretty much not taking a pill
But with that logic, aren’t these archetypes just intellectual fantasies themselves ?
And also, being grounded in reality, seems to be another way of saying be grounded in survival. Which, obviously we need to be grounded in too! But at the same time, if we’re too grounded in survival we can become almost feral, paranoid, anti social. There has to be a balance. Otherwise how is this world supposed to reach new shifts in consciousness if we can’t break out of thinking through those survival lenses of the brain.
I really like how awareness of basic reality and maybe an unwillingness to be an unrewarded, easily exploited pack-mule and doormat all your life is being pathologized here. Real convenient for those who want to try to disincentivize certain behaviors via emotional and psychological manipulation. Rather than, you know, actually reward those behaviors they deem to be desirable.
Imagine knowing what life is after is too late 😭💀 cease the moment!!!
But jung was a natural.
Man child for life 🤘
I use this energy wisely. My art thanks me
The prime motivating factor that is never explained in suitable terms, because it doesn't exist, is why should we want to participate in this garbage world, full of trash people and their piles of shit they call "accomplishments" and push back and forth in barter with each other? Literally nothing you can do will matter in any meaningful way, assuming it even outlives you yourself. I look around and all I see are systems of abuse we inflict on each other, carved out at the expense of others. There are no answers anywhere and even the actualization mentioned in this videos bibliographical references admit that they don't amount to anything more than "dumbing yourself down" (my quotes, not theirs). Only by ignoring the world of becoming one of those wretched "others" can we supposedly find a measure of contentedness? It must be nice to be able to be one of those that can manage it.
Fuck. This hits hard.
Went through a phase like this in college now that I've graduated things are changing
9:03 that sounds doomer AS FUCK
This is me 😐
Describes me. I have to change. I have started changing. I am changing.
Holy shit I'm 24 and this 100% describes me
This was really important and painfully difficult for me to hear. I fit the man-child archetype perfectly and it explains literally everything that has been happening inside of me and around me for many years. Thank u so much for this video
Great video, Amazing work
This is how they tried to program/doctrinate the youth with Disney's Peter Pan
Unfortunately, it worked
It's something else entirely to realise it's an archetype
Poke: Harry.
This channel is absolutely fantastic.
What requirements of the multi-generational family system must be made to limit or eliminate puer aeternus/aeterna and encourage Integration of the self?
Nice
Spell binding distillation of profound ideas and works in a single video !