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It is customary to associate the oedipal symbolism with the psychology of Freud, and the mandala symbolism with the psychology of Jung; but the fact is that these symbolisms are universal “archetypes” which manifest themselves in history and culture, in philosophy and literature, in religion and art, and even, I believe, in the hidden recesses of science itself. But of course the influence of these symbolisms in man's personal and cultural life is a matter of interpretation, while the interpretation itself depends not so much on the evidence which is discovered as on the question of what these symbolisms represent.
For the purposes of this article, however, I propose to explore the meaning of the oedipal and mandala symbolisms in terms of the “unconscious logic” which seems relevant to them. This will require a somewhat broader perspective of these symbolisms than their clinical importance seems to require. But we shall assume that the oedipal and mandala symbolisms have not merely a negative meaning indicative of neurotic conflict on the one hand and psychotic confusion on the other, but that they also have a positive meaning related to the fact that the “unconscious logic” of the mind expresses through them the universal forms of its unconscious symbolic processes.
We shall be concerned, then, more with the cultural than with the clinical importance of these symbolisms, and we shall attempt to show an “unconscious logic” in the meanings with which they are associated. Analysis of these symbolisms reveals the special quality of “transparency” or “immediacy,” and perhaps it is this quality which gives them their universal persuasiveness. It is already understood