JUNGIAN ANALYSIS FOR THE LIVING AND FOR THE DEAD: Lessons from the The Jaguar-Man in a Tomb

In a previous article that I wrote (“What The Death May Teach The Living About the Individuation Process”), I stated the hypothesis that archetypal images, carved on stone statues by an aboriginal group and located on a necropolis, could provide psychological guidance for the journey of life, death, and rebirth, specifically for the journey of the afterlife. It seems that each person and his/her spirit may have to go through the journey of living, dying, and rebirth. Therefore, the individual spirit of a human being may go through three phases; a) the living (“incarnated spirit”); b) the Death (“spirit”), and c) the Rebirth (“reincarnated spirit”) (Credit for the Image: UNESCO-Sacred Sites-Martin Gray).
You may be skeptical and question the relevance of talking about death and the afterlife when we are still alive and want to fulfill our individuation process. That is a reasonable point of view. However, I would like to invite the reader to consider the following two issues: 1) that there are certain archetypal images, while we are alive, that appear in dreams, visions, paintings, sculptures, etc that will be, also, essential and relevant, after we die, during the journey to the afterlife. If we could determine what similar archetypal images are crucially relevant for both, the cycle of living and for the afterlife, then, each of us will have not only a much larger “vision and mission” about life and death but, also, less karma that would decrease the necessity to reincarnate. Those archetypally relevant (images), if related consciously during living, would contribute, first, towards enlightment, second towards decreasing the individual karma that forces reincarnation and, third, following Jung's thought about the afterlife, the spirit of a person who has died and who did not fulfilled, on earth, the Destiny (the archetypal endowments) that was given to him/her, will be forced, after death, to continue atempting to relate and integrate those archetypal images that were not realized during the living phase. Unfortunately, and according to Jung, the 'dead' or the 'spirits of the dead' will not be able to integrate the archetypal messages because the opposite -being humanly alive- is not available to them for consciousness to be realized. This article will attempt to further discuss these ideas within the context of the statue of the Jaguar-Man that is located at the entrance of a tomb in a necropolis in San Agustin, Colombia.
The journey is not just about life; it is also about death, the afterlife, and possibly about the beyond (i.e., Rebirth). Therefore, the sculpture to be discussed in this article may provide important archetypal information for the living during the phase of living and dying; 2) that the dead, or the world of the spirits, as it is known in indigenous cultures, may provide valuable existential and psychological information to the living.
Jungian analysis has focused its efforts on the phase of living; however, Jung’s thoughts on the subtle body and the Philosopher’s Stone may enlarge the scope of Jungian analysis that includes, also, the phase of death, and rebirth. Therefore, rather than exclusively focusing and emphasizing the process of individuation during the phase of “living” life, Jungian analysis, with its emphasis on the collective unconscious and God Within, could broaden and facilitate the analytical process for the individual to go not only through the phase of life (the individuation process) but, also, to prepare AND continue for and during the phases of death, the afterlife, and the beyond, which may include resurrection, rebirth, and reincarnation.
There is a particular tomb statue (see Figure A), located in a necropolis, near the town of San Agustin, that I would like to focus our attention to (I previously wrote about it; see https://www.thehealingpsyche.org/single-post/what-the-death-may-teach-the-living-about-the-individuation-process ). No definitive scientific name has been assigned to this statue. However, It looks like a statue of a human being with fangs, possibly a Jaguar-Man.

Figure A
(Credit: Martin Gray at Sacred Sites/UNESCO)
HISTORICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL BACKGROUND
Duque (1963) provided a brief archeological review of the different expeditions that visited San Agustin and its statues. According to him, in 1797, Francisco Jose de Caldas viewed the statues as representing cultural aspects of a vanished indigenous tribe. On 1857, the Codazzi expedition saw San Agustin as a sacred place where indigenous people got initiated on transcedence, and the statues became symbols of social laws. On 1913 and 1914, the Preuss expedition concluded that the statues represented beings from an irrational and mythic world related to an spiritual world; furthermore, the presence of animal features on some of the statues, according to Preuss (1929), is related a religious belief that the soul and the spirit of the death incarnate on animals. On the 1936-1937 expedition, the Lavapatas Fountain (“La Fuente de Lavapatas”) was discovered.
Let us describe further the statue in question (see Figure A). According to Preuss (1929), the statue is the God of the temple. The statue has a height of 2.56 meters, a width of 1.14 meters, and a depth of 80 centimeters. The statue is a masculine representation, with closed eyes, naked, with an erect phallus surrounded a double cord, a wide collar, bracelets on their hands, a crowned forehead, and a stick on his right hand and a conch on his left hand.
Reichel-Dolmatoff, in his book, San Agustin: A Culture of Colombia, described the statue in the following way: ““The main image represents a monstrous being, half man and half beast…and measures more than two meters (six feet, seven inches) in height. The naked body is encircled by a double, cordlike belt with a complicated knot over the right hip, and the oversize head bears a ferocious face, huge pointed fangs protruding from the gaping mouth, and enormous, blindly staring eyes.”(pg 42). His conclusion was that the statue in question represented a man-jaguar: “The iconographic theme is almost always the jaguar-monster, a heavily compressed human body with bared fangs, glaring eyes, and flaring nostrils…representing a snarling feline. The posture of the body itself expresses the crouching, menacing force contained in this being. The tightly contracted arms and the short, powerful legs convey a mood of taut, aggressive power.” (pg 69-70). Furthermore, Reichel-Dolmatoff perceives the feline as an aggressive animal.
Throughout his book, Reichel-Dolmatoff described the statue as a representation of “a monstrous being”, giving it a negative connotation. Rather than describing the statue in a balanced manner, his negative anthropological view may not allow the reader to be able to see the positive side of the jaguar man and, subsequently, to have a balanced view of the jaguar man. An important reason to view both dimensions -positive and negative- of the jaguar man is related to the teleological and prospective function of the psyche. Psyche uses certain symbols (i.e., the jaguar man) to move forward the psychological life of individuals. I will be exploring this issue later, when discussing the psychological meaning of the jaguar-man symbol.
Another feature about the size of the statue that Reichel-Dolmatoff mentions in his book is that of the head and the jaw: “It is characteristic of …[the statues] that the internal proportions almost always show an oversize head, often representing a third or more of the total height of the statue” (pg 60). Moreover, Reichel-Dolmatoff mentioned the oversize of the jaw: “Combined with the heavy, hunched shoulders, this protrusion {of the head}, especially of the jaw, gives the statues a menacing lurch, which obviously was the sculptor’s intention.” (pg 64).
Similarly, the size of symbols in dreams sometimes appear out of proportion. Given that one way that the unconscious communicates with the ego is through dreams, when the unconscious wants to “empha-size” and bring significant attention to a psychological issue, it does so, among other ways, through the size of a symbol. I will be discussing in the section of the psychological meaning of the jaguar man, the psychological meaning of the “oversized head and jaw.”
According to Reichel-Dolmatoff, the cross-cultural relevancy of the jaguar motif among Latin American countries is noticeable: “...feline monsters are a recurrent motif in pre-historic, aboriginal art, especially in the so called Nuclear American area….which stretches from Mexico to Chile….” (pg 85).The presence of jaguar symbols across Latin American cultures, including but not limited to the indigenous cultures of Taironas, Chibchas, Sinu, Nutibara, Tukano, Paez, Desana, and Kogi may point to the presence of an archetype, which highlights the necessity to study the role of the human psyche on the sculpting of the statues. In the section of the psychological meaning of the jaguar man, I will say more about the archetype of the jaguar in the collective unconscious and the psychological significance of the jaguar across different cultures.
Furthermore, Reichel-Dolmatoff highlights the religious role of the jaguar: “ [The jaguar was] the central motif of an art that obviously expresses a deep-rooted religious idea” (pg 85). This religious dimension of the jaguar may be related to the Jungian concept of the religious function of the psyche and God within, both of which will be discussed below in the section of the psychological meaning of the jaguar man.
Moreover, Reichel-Dolmatoff states that, Colombian indigenous tribes perceive and embody the jaguar as the expression of life’s vital force: “The jaguar…expresses the vital energy… in nature…, with the seminal color of creation and growth…and the fertilizing power….essentially a power animal” (pg. 105-106). Reichel-Dolmatoff provides, for the most part, an external understanding of the jaguar; therefore, he limits his understanding of the jaguar as an external phenomena, which prevents him from seeing the inner or psychological dimension of the jaguar in the lives of indigenous people. I will provide, in the section of the psychological meaning of the jaguar man, a brief analysis of the inner or psychological meaning of the jaguar and its relevance for psychological growth for their descendants -people from Colombia- and for the rest of the world.
Another aspect that Reichel-Dolmatoff discussed was the relationship between shamans and jaguars, emphasizing the shaman’s ability to transform into a jaguar: “[T]the basic idea is that the shaman or witch doctor can turn into a jaguar at will, using the form of this animal as a disguise, sometimes in order to achieve beneficial ends, sometimes to threaten or to kill. The jaguar appears as a helper and a friend of the shaman’s, lending not only his exterior form but also his power -natural or supernatural- to the shaman’s quest” (pg. 106). It seems that the fundamental role of such transformation is, for the shaman, to receive help from the jaguar in order to perform his shamanistic healing or avenger activities. A psychological understanding of the relationship between the ego and the unconscious, specifically the intra-psychic relationship between the ego and the Self- the center of the individual personality- would give a deeper psychological understanding of the “help” or of the opposite approach from the unconscious towards the ego. A further psychological analysis of such “help” and “opposing view” will be discussed below in the section of the psychological meaning of the jaguar man.
Reichel-Dolmatoff briefly mentions the idea of the complete transformation of the shaman, after death, into a jaguar: “Eventually, after death, the shaman turns permanently into a jaguar and can manifest himself in this form to the living, again in a beneficial or maleficent way” (pg.107). How were shamans able to permanently transform their human spirit into an animal spirit? Although Reichel-Dolmatoff did not elaborate on this topic, there may be a relationship between such permanent transformation and the psychological idea of the “subtle body.” From an indigenous perspective, after the shaman dies (or perhaps while he is alive, as a gradual process?), it seems that his human spirit may become a jaguar spirit; from a modern perspective, an individual can transform his living body, while alive, into a subtle body and remain so after death. A further psychological analysis of the potential relationship between the shaman’s transformation into a jaguar spirit and the individual transformation into a “subtle body” will be briefly discussed below in the section of the psychological meaning of the jaguar man.
The statue is part of a tomb (See Figure B), and it is flanked by two other statues:

Figure B
(Credit: Pueblo Escultor: www.puebloescultor.org )
It is important to emphasize (Dellenback, 2012) that the tomb with its statues were originally buried beneath an artificial mound. Subsequently, in modern times, treasure hunters, archaeologists, and anthropologists excavated the tomb from the mound. Equally important, Dellenback (2012) provides a more contemporaneous and a more relevant description of the statue: "Great Coquero with Coca Implements." His label of the statue, as the Great Coquero, provides a greater indigenous context and, possibly, a more accurate and relevant understanding of the statue in question, which allows for physical and symbolic similarities with the poporos of indigenous tribe members of the Kogi Indians -the descendants of the Jaguar People, as they describe themselves- in La Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MEANING OF THE JAGUAR MAN
In order to understand the psychological symbolism of the statue in question (Figure A) and, to less extent, the tomb and the mound, the archetypal tools of Analytical Psychology (Jung) will be employed. The message from the death to the living, sculpted in the statue, could be explicated by an archetypal analysis of the statue in question.

A Jaguar Man (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
To begin with, Jung wrote about some of the issues that will be described in this article. For example, Jung wrote about death (‘The Soul and Death’, CW,8), rebirth (‘Concerning Rebirth’, CW, 9i), resurrection (‘On Resurrection’, CW, 18), reincarnation (‘A Psych. Commentary on the Tibetan Book of the Death’ CW, 11), and “Life after Death” (‘On Life after Death’, MDR). I will be discussing briefly some of Jung’s views on spirits, death, and life after death as well as trying to relate these topics to the archetypal message from the statue in question.
First, In the chapter “Life after Death”, from the book, Memories, Dreams, and Reflections, Jung offered some thoughts about life after death, and more importantly some ideas about spirits. There is a growing body of scientific literature that seeks to understand spirits and their ontological lives. For example, Koss-Chioino (2010) compiled and edited a journal issue that tackled the question, “Do Spirits Exist? Ways to know.” Alternative ways of knowing spirits were presented in the book. In the article, "The Reality of the Spirits", Turner (2003), from an anthropological point of view, encouraged the reader to seriously consider the possibility of the existence of spirits, like many indigenous tribes from around the world do. Furthermore, Mageo and Howard (2012) edited a book, "Spirits in Culture, History, and Mind", in which thet seek to give spirits an equal treatment to the Gods of the great world religions .
According to Jung, and from a psychological point of view, the unconscious could provide, both, a background for the belief in spirits and, also, some guide about life after death: “My hypothesis is that we can do so with the aid of hints sent to us from the unconscious -in dreams for example” (p. 301). This raises the possibility that the statue in question may have appeared in a dream, and that an aboriginal person sculpted it on a stone . We do not know that for certain; yet, it is likely that, given the psychological premise of unconscious determinism, the idea, thought, or the image behind the statue may stem from the unconscious. Therefore, what purpose did the unconscious have when providing to the sculptor’s consciousness the idea or image of a “person/jaguar with fangs” for a sculpture? And why to do so within the geographical context of a tomb located at a large necropolis? This article may try to answer these questions.
In dreams, at times, we are able to see people who have passed away, like immediate family members, relatives, friends, or acquaintances. From a Jungian perspective, these people are treated as symbols that represent internal psychological aspects of the personality. Taborda (2010), in his dissertation, “Spirits and Images in Dreams”, postulated that people who passed away and who appeared in dreams may be actual spirits. In other words, the spirits of people who have passed away or spirits of the dead may appear in dreams. Taborda (2010) attempted to give spirits, both an ontological and a symbolic reality. Furthermore, he concluded that the spirits of the dead appear in dreams to provide some psychological guide to the living. Similarly, Stephens (2020) in her book, “C.G. Jung and the Dead: Visions, Active Imagination, and the Unconscious Terrain” moves “...beyond the symbolic understanding of the dead in dreams, which signifies a departure from the traditional Jungian approach…[to] considering the dead as a literal presence in the psyche” (p. 4). Both Taborda (2010) and Stephens (2020) proposed to consider spirits of the dead that appear in dreams as ontological beings. In other words, spirits of the dead that appear in dreams are ontologically real, and may not be just symbols from the human psyche. The statue in question may serve as a message or a reminder of some archetypal message to the spirits that come to the necropolis. Such a message or reminder may be related to the archetypal forces sculpted in the statue -a message that will be discussed later on when analyzing the archetypal contents of the sculpture.
Jung wrote, in the following way, about the importance of immortality: “Death is psychologically as important as birth and, like it, it is an integral part of life… As a doctor, I make every effort to strengthen the belief in immortality, especially with older patients when such questions come threateningly close. For, seen in the correct psychological perspective, death is not an end but a goal” (CW 13, par 68). Therefore, the statue in question and some of the other statues located in the necropolis, near San Agustin, Colombia, may help us better understand life after death and, thus, help us “...strengthen the belief in immortality.”
Jung’s closest collaborator, Von Franz, also wrote about death. “On Dreams and Death”, Von Franz (1986) concluded, like Jung did, the following:
“It is in fact true, as Jung has emphasized, that the unconscious psych pays very little attention to the abrupt end of body life and behaves as if the psychic life of the individual, that is, the individuation process, will simply continue. In this connection, however, there are also dreams which symbolically indicate the end of bodily life and the explicit continuation of psychic life after death. The unconscious ‘believes’ quite obviously in a life after death.”

Rider-Waite Tarot Card (Credit: Wiki Commons)
Furthermore. Jung discussed extensively his views about the afterlife. His extensive work with dreams shaped his understanding of life after death: “Not only my own dreams, but also occasionally the dreams of others helped to shape, revise, or confirm my views on a life after death” (p. 305). Also, Jung asked us to hold the tension of the opposites between the symbolic and the ontological meaning of the communications from the spirits: “...One must remain critical and be aware that such communications may have a subjective meaning as well” (p. 304). Then, what is the ontological/literal message (not necessarily a symbolic one!) that the statues in the necropolis want to provide to human beings (the living) and to the dead (the visiting spirits)? That, in addition to the existence of a life after death, the archetypal message carved in the statue may be valuable both for the living and for the spirits of the dead, provided that we properly understand the archetypal meaning of the statue in question.
According to Jung, the dead in the afterlife want to learn from the knowledge of recently dead people. As an example, Jung used the dream of a sixty-year-old woman who died two months later, in which some of her deceased friends were waiting for a lecture, and the sixty-year-old woman turned out to be the lecturer. Jung concluded the following: “The dead were extremely interested in the life experiences that the newly deceased brought with them, just as if the acts and experiences taking place in the earthly life, in space and time, were the decisive ones” (p. 305).
Then, we may conclude that the statue in question contains important knowledge that the living aborigines could offer to the spirit of the dead. When the spirits of the dead come to visit the living -like the audience of the dead people, in the previous dream, coming to listen to the woman-, they may find important knowledge in the statue while they are dead. Such knowledge is of archetypal nature related to death (necropolis), which could, also, remind the living of crucial information about dying and the afterlife. Therefore, the statue may contain archetypal information for the dead and for the living.
It appears that the level of consciousness that each of us has achieved at the moment of death remains the same in the afterlife; yet, while we are dead, our spirits continue searching for knowledge during the afterlife. As Jung put it, after he wrote the Septem Sermones ad Mortuos: “Apparently, however, the souls of the dead “know” only what they knew at the moment of death, and nothing beyond that” (p. 308). Furthermore, if a person does not reach, while living, the level of consciousness and self-realization that he/she was endowed with, once the person died, his/her spirit will continue seeking such knowledge during the afterlife, and this is what Buddhism calls karma. Therefore, the level of consciousness that some people (who are alive) have seems to surpass the level of consciousness of the dead. About this, Jung stated, based on his understanding of the dead in dreams, the following: “It seems to me as if [the spirits of the dead] were dependent on the living for receiving answers to their questions, that is, on those who have survived them and exist in a world of change…The mind of the living appears, therefore, to hold an advantage over that of the dead in at least one point: in the capacity for attaining clear and decisive cognitions” (p. 308). Therefore, when the spirits of the dead return to the necropolis and observe this particular statue, the dead may be seeking answers to their questions. The statue in question may provide answers to specific questions that some spirits of the dead may be seeking; likewise, the living could obtain some archetypal answers to some of the profound questions they have while being alive. The content of such answers to the dead and to the living depends on the symbolic message engraved in the statue, which will try to elucidate below.
In addition, Jung believed that the level of consciousness in the land of the dead is determined by the level of consciousness that has been attained by humanity. Jung stated the following: “There are many human beings who throughout their lives and at the moment of dead lag behind their own potentialities and -even more important- behind the knowledge which has been brought to consciousness by other human beings during their own lifetime. Hence, their demand to attend in death that share of awareness which they fail to win in life” (p. 308-309). When we die, we seek to obtain the level of consciousness, given our own psychological endowment, that we could have possibly obtained when we were alive, but we did not.”
Jung arrived at this conclusion, based on his studies of dreams about the dead, one of which was a dream of a friend who had passed away. In this dream, the spirit of Jung’s friend came to learn about psychology from his own daughter, specifically to learn about the reality of Psyche, which Jung’s friend, in real life, was never capable of doing.
Another dream that contributed to Jung’s conclusion that the dead seek to obtain the level of consciousness that they could not obtain while alive was a dream Jung had of his wife, Emma. In the dream, Jung saw his wife studying the Grail. Before Emma died, she was doing research about the Grail. Unfortunately, Emma Jung could not complete her studies of the Grail before she passed away. Now, in Jung’s dream, Emma revealed to her husband that, as a spirit of the dead, she wanted to continue and complete her research on the Grail. In other words, “...[my] wife was continuing after death to work on her further spiritual development…” (p. 145-146).
Jung concluded:”The maximum awareness which has been attained anywhere forms…the upper limit of knowledge to which the dead can attain. That is probably why earthly life is of such great significance, and why it is that what a human being “brings over” at the time of his death is so important. Only here, in life on earth, where the opposites clash together, can the general level of consciousness be raised. That seems to be man’s metaphysical task” (p. 147).
Furthermore, it appears that, in the afterlife, the dead may not necessarily acquire a better understanding of life, according to Jung. Jung presented this hypothesis based on his research on dreams and other revelations from the unconscious. On one occasion, many years after his father passed away, Jung had a dream in which the spirit of his father appeared to him and asked him about marital psychology. As soon as Jung was about to give the spirit of his father an extensive explanation about marital psychology, Jung woke up. Soon after, Jung’s mother passed away, and it was then that Jung was able to understand an important aspect of the afterlife: “Evidently [my father] had acquired no better understanding in his timeless state and therefore had to appeal to someone among the living who, enjoying the benefits of changed times, might have a fresh approach to the whole thing” (p. 151).
As it was previously mentioned, according to Jung, greater consciousness is sought by the spirits of the dead. Therefore, the living and the dead seem to share a similar goal: consciousness. However, there seems to be a difference: While the living seeks to create greater levels of consciousness on Earth by holding and synthesizing the opposites, the spirits of the dead seek to obtain knowledge for greater consciousness. The living can create and realize consciousness through the opposites; however, the spirits of the dead can only visit the living to obtain knowledge about greater consciousness, yet the spirits of the dead cannot create greater consciousness. According to Jung, the creation of consciousness is bound to time and space where the opposites can be experienced and sinthesized and, therefore, the creation consciousness is the greatest gift of the living. However, the dead can only obtain knowledge about consciousness from the living, but the dead are not able to create it or realize it.
Then, what purpose do the statues serve, in terms of the realization of consciousness for the living and in terms of the acquisition of knowledge about consciousness for the spirits of the dead?
In order to answer this question, it is necessary to understand the statue in question and its context. One way to do this, from a Jungian perspective, is to understand the statues, the tomb, and the mound symbolically, like a dream. Therefore, perceiving life as a dream, we could simply imagine ‘the statue in a tomb, underneath the ground, within a necropolis’ and perceive it as a dream; here is the dream, then: “There was a mound in a necropolis and, underneath it, there was a tomb that has a statue of what it looks like a Jaguar-Man, flanked by two other statues.”
Now, in order to understand psychologically this dream (‘life as a dream’), from a Jungian perspective, an archetypal analysis of such a ‘dream’, through the method of archetypal amplifications, will be utilized. Simply put, gathering and analyzing cross-cultural, ethnological, religious, and anthropological images that are the same or very similar to each of dream symbol (see previously bolded words, such as ‘mound’, ‘necropolis’, ‘tomb’, ‘Jaguar-Man Statue’, etc) will be conducted.
In a previous article that I wrote (“What The Death May Teach The Living About the Individuation Process”), I already provided the psychological interpretation of this dream related to the symbolism of the necropolis, the mound (Figure 1), and the tomb (see Figure B), and I would like to refer the reader to that article in order to understand more fully this ‘life as a dream’. In essence, the necropolis may be the psychological or symbolic representation of the unconscious, specifically the psychological place that receives personality traits, points of view, emotional states, and ideas that are no longer helpful or that they are “dying or dead” in the process of individuation.
The symbol of the tomb adds a layer of specificity to the psychological process of dying; in other words, the content of the tomb and the architectural structure of the tomb clarifies the details and the specific information about “the dying or dead psychological aspects” during the process of living and dying, and the individuation process: who was the person buried? What role did he/she play in the aboriginal society? What personality traits were associated with the buried individual? The answers to some of these questions could help us understand, with greater detail, the psychological meaning of the tomb. Unfortunately, there is no available information about who was buried in this specific tomb at Mesita A (figure 1).
The mound is the symbol of a sacred place related to the dead and dying; therefore, the mound is the psychological symbol of the sacredness of dying and death. In other words, there is “sacredness” when the individual consciously allows certain aspects of his/her personality to die.
In summary, the statue, the tomb, and its location may be communicating the following psychological information: during the process of psychological development, there is a place that the individual needs to visit while alive, and that is the unconscious. When the individual ego consciously relates to the unconscious (“necropolis”), there will be certain psychological aspects that may have to die (“tomb”). This dying is a sacred (“mound”) experience because it connects the individual with the Self -The God image within.
A close look at the jaguar and the jaguar man, as psychological symbols, will add valuable information to further understand, with greater clarity and specificity, the psychological meaning, for the living and for the dead, of the statue of the jaguar man in a necropolis.
Let us take a look at the psychological meaning of the Jaguar-Man statue.
The statue of the Jaguar Man: the Aggressive Half-man and Half beast.
What is the psychological meaning of the jaguar?
According to Arkive (www.arkive.org), the jaguar or Phantera Onca is part of the wild cat family. The Phanteara Onca or Jaguar is a wild cat that has 'dark spots with golden brown to yellow fur.' It is a carnivore animal that can measure, from head to tail, 44 to 94 inches. It is the largest cat in Colombia and South America, and it lives in the jungle, the deep forest and near the water. Its name comes, from the indigenous name, yaguara which means "...a beast that kills its prey with one bound." The Jaguar is a crepuscular animal that is primarily active at dawn and dusk - a creature of the liminal space between day and night, between sun light and moon light. Yet, it is closer to night than to day. The Phantera Onca has the strongest bite of the wild cats and, as such, it kills its prey by piercing its skull.
The Phantera Onca or Jaguar, being a cat, shares some psychological symbolism with cats in general. From an archetypal perspective, according to panthera.org (www.panthera.org), "in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia, indigenous communities believe that jaguars can travel both in the physical and spiritual world, using sacred mountains as portals. Therefore, from a Jungian perspective, the symbol of the jaguar may represent the psychological capacity of the individual to travel in the world of consciousness and the unconscious. In other words, one of the psychological meanings of the Jaguar is that it may represent the importance for the ego to travel not only in the world of consciousness (the physical world) but, also, in the world of the unconscious (the spiritual world). The jaguar can guide us on connecting consciousness with the unconscious. Furthermore, indigenous people in the Amazons believe that shamans can turn into Jaguar in order to travel to the World of the Spirits, which is similar to the journey that each individual must take to travel to the unconscious where the archetypes and spirits become visible through our dreams.
According to Chevalier and Gheerbrant (1994), on their book, "Dictionary of Symbols", the Maya perceived the jaguar as the God of the Underworld and the God of the number Nine ('a manifestation of the land below'). From a Jungian perspective, the unconscious is usually represented by the Underworld, a world that is invisible and that is within; therefore, the jaguar is archetypally connected with the idea of the unconscious and,especially as a 'conductor of souls', the Jaguar may be the archetypal factor in the human psyche that guides the human ego towards confronting the unconscious. Lastly, the jaguar, as a 'solar deity', corresponds to the Sun's night journey in Maya culture, hinting psychologically to an ego - the light force in consciousness- that needs to daily travel to the unconscious -the dark realm of the unconscious.
According to Chevalier and Gheerbrant (1994), the Tupinamba tribe in Brazil gives jaguar-claws and eagle-talons to boys when they are born, and they regard the Jaguar as a sky dog that has 'two heads to eat the Sun and the Moon." Furthermore, the Yurucari indians from Brazil, recounting a myth, described how a hero, in his desire for revenge due to the killing of his own family by a jaguar, hunted all the jaguars. The last jaguar received help from the Moon and hid him, and 'this is why jaguars are nocturnal creatures,' which, once again, reinforced the psychological idea that a jaguar may be associated with an archetypal symbol of the unconscious -the dark and invisible realm in the human psyche. The Uitoto indians from Colombia hold the same belief about the jaguars being creatures of the night (Chevalier and, Gheerbrant, 1994), which can be regarded, from a Jungian perspective, as stating that jaguars may be a symbol of the dark -the unconscious.
Finally, there are jaguars with four eyes that are considered the spirits of darkness and the Underworld in some South American myths. The additional eyes 'represent the gift of second sight' (Chevalier & Gheerbrant, 1994), which may describe, from a psychological point of view, the jaguar as the unconscious symbol of inward looking or in-sight.
Following Von Franz (1999) and her book, "The Cat: A Tale of Femenine Redemption", the Jaguar may be considered, by analogy, an ambivalent psychological symbol between 'beneficience and malevolence'; therefore, from a psychological perspective, the archetype of the cat has a positive aspect (i.e., a guide between the physical/conscious world and the spiritual/unconscious world) and a negative aspect (i.e., a guide that seeks exclusively to keep individual either in the physical world or in the spiritual world, unable to find balance). In Egypt, the cat was a sacred animal because it was connected with 'man's spiritual life' and, possibly the Jaguar could be, also, associated with man's spiritual life. In other words, and from a Jungian perspective, the jaguar can psychologically guide the earthy/physical individual that is overly embedded in consciousness/physical life towards living a more spiritual life - a life where the individual is more connected with the unconscious, with the invisible world, with the World of Spirits. Moreover, the cat was associated with Ra, the Egypt God of the Sun and, as such, the Jaguar may be considered a masculine, earth representative of the Sun God. In other words, the jaguar may be more associated with the masculine side of the human psyche. In addition, the cat was also worshipped as lunar in Egypt, which can highlight, also, its femenine dimesion. Therfore, the jaguar may psychologically point towards the dual nature of human beings -masculine and femenine, and the need for psychological balance between these two forces.
Also, Von Franz mentioned that cat (and by analogy the Jaguar, in my opinion), is associated with 'the devil during the Middle Ages', with 'consciousness and all creative processes', and with 'inmortality.' This last theme of inmortality, given that a cat is able to see in the dark, confers cats a quality of 'seers...It posesses foresight and insight.' The psychological meaning of a cat in our Psyche, therefore, may be associated withe ego's capacity to look at the dark side of the personality -the unconscious- with the help of our dreams. The archetype of the cat (and the jaguar by association) may refer to the human capacity to look within, to see what is in the dark inner world and to derive insight and foresight about our lives.
According to Cooper (1978), on his book, "An Ilustrated Encyclopedia of Traditional Symbols", the jaguar was associated, in Aztec culture, with 'the powers of darkness in conflict with the solar eagle. Within Mexican culture, the jaguar was the messenger of forest spirits. Around the world, the jaguar was the form taken by shamans. The common denominator of these three cultural views, from a Jungian point of view, is that the jaguar is associated, first, with the unconscious (darkness), which is usually in conflict with consciousness (the solar eagle); second, the Jaguar as a spirit messanger (forest spirit) that appears in dreams conveys important information from the unconscious (the forest as a symbol of the wild unconscious) to consciousness, which also corresponds to the shamanic journey when the shaman travels to the Spirit World to retrieve important information to be used and applied to in the physical/conscious world. One can see, from studying the spirit of the jaguar within indigenous cultures, the similarities between the invisible world of the unconscious and the invisible world of the spirits, which requires further research, and which is beyond the scope of this article.
As an animal, the jaguar represents instinctual forces of the human psyche. It is an aspect of our animal nature. In common parlance, sometimes people say the following to describe certain behaviors that are irrational: “He behaved like an animal,” An individual that follows his/her impulses, that is highly spontaneous, and care-free has been described pejoratively as an “animal.” On a positive side, this individual can be described as “someone who follows the heart/instincts,” as opposed to someone who follows reason. A tentative conclusion can be made that the jaguar is, to some extent, the symbolic or psychological representation of following one’s own impulses/heart. Therefore, the stone statue at San Agustin describes a man who follows his own human impulses/heart. While Reichel-Dolmatoff perceives the jaguar as a “monster” because of the absence of reason and rational thinking, indigenous people may have seen the positive spiritual and psychological side of the human jaguar: the embodiment of the human impulses, feelings, and emotions/heart.
However, could we not make the same conclusion about any animal? The answer is ‘yes.’ Yet, a greater differentiation between the jaguar and other animals in terms of its specific features could add a more psychologically differentiated description of impulses, feelings, and emotions/heart. To begin with, due to the fact that the jaguar is a creature of the night, it may mean that it is more related to the dark and the less visible side of life, that is, in human terms, to the unconscious aspect of the human heart. Therefore, we could say, again, that the jaguar may be the symbolic representation of the dark (almost invisible) and unconscious side of the human heart. Furthermore, due to the fact that a jaguar is, for the most part, a nocturnal creature that roams around, one could conclude that the jaguar is a mobilizing and dynamic aspect of the unconscious. Reichel-Dolmatoff unfortunately projected the dark side of the heart unto the jaguar and described it as “monstrous and aggressive.” A closer indigenous perspective about the jaguar may emphasize, on the one hand, the importance of the human heart, as opposed to the overvalue of reason, critical thinking, and rationality and, on the other hand, it will bring our attention to those mobilizing and dynamic aspects of the human heart that are located in the unconscious. If we add the jaguar feature of being able to “see in the dark’, we could conclude psychologically that the jaguar is the mobilizing and dynamic aspect of the impulses/heart that can “see”, more clearly than consciousness, the contents of the unconscious - the contents of the soul.
Moreover, the yellow color of the jaguar is associated with the color of the sun. As such, the jaguar is considered a representative of the Sun God, here on earth. Unlike the moon, which is associated with the Feminine, the sun and its representative -the jaguar- is masculine. Therefore, the jaguar can be understood as the masculine mobilizing and dynamic aspect within the unconscious that can help an individual “see and be in touch with the contents of the unconscious.” Consequently, a jaguar-man is the human ability to see and mobilize, in a dynamic way, the variety of contents in the unconscious, especially those contents that are related to the deeper aspects of the nconscious -the Collective Unconscious . Or to put it on indigenous terms, the jaguar-man is the masculine dimension in every person that can see and be in touch dynamically with the deepest aspect of the Mystery -both the world of the spirits and the individual spirit within. For them, that person was the Shaman, the Taita, or the Mamo; yet, each of us has the potential to relate to the healer in us, to a greater or to a lesser extent, depending on one's own psychological endowment.
Therefore, and to say it in a similar way, indigenous people wanted to highlight unconsciously, and unbeknownst to them, through the statue of the jaguar man, the sacred importance of a psychologically masculine factor that is dynamically in touch with, and that mobilize, the deeper aspects of the Mystery -the spirit world and the spirit within (the Collective Unconscious). Jungian Psychology is equipped to look and describe more deeply such “dark side of the human heart” - the Collective Unconscious.
B) The Teleological Function of the Jaguar Man
According to Jung, the human Psyche has a purpose and meaning. Such meaning is what Jung described as the teleological function of the Psyche; a psychological life has grants purpose and meaning to human lives. The word, "Telos" comes from the Greek word, 'Telos', which means "...the end, limit, goal, fulfillment, completion." According to Jung, such telos is fundamentally associated with the incarnation of God in us or the incarnation of alife within us. In his book, Answer to Job, Jung showed that God is unconscious, that a human being -Job- helps Him to realize His unconsciousness, and that the fragment of God in each of us needs the human being's capacity for consciousness in order for Him to become conscious. God needs people in order to become conscious, through our individual process of becoming conscious -the individuation process. Therefore, the fundamental teleological task of every human being is the creation of consciousness, which God lacks. Our primary task in life is to help God to become conscious, according to Jung. From an indigenous perspective, the primary human task is similar: a balanced and integrated relationship with the Spirit World, with the Mystery.
In other words, the teleological meaning of helping God to become more conscious through our own process of individuation or of greater consciousness is experienced by a conscious participation of the individual on the process of becoming aware and of integrating into consciousness the contents of the unconscious. The purpose of the interaction between consciousness and the unconscious is to move forward the personality of the individual. The unconscious provides to consciousness complementary and compensatory information and experiences that seeks to complete and to center the psychological life of the individual.
If the Jaguar is the representative of the Sun God on the earth, as Reichel-Dolmatoff has previously stated, then, it can be hypothesized, from a Jungian perspective, that the teleological goal of the Jaguar Man (similar to the figure of Jesus Christ) is to help God (the Sun God, like the Christian God) to become more conscious, with the help of the human consciousness that comes from the interaction and relation to the Spirit of Human Jaguar, represented visually and embedded by the statue. From an indigenous perspective, the rituals and activities related to the statue of the Human Jaguar may have allowed them to respectfully connect and call to the sacred spirit force of the Sun God through its representative on earth -the Human Jaguar.
Then, what is the teleological meaning of the statue? In other words and from a Jungian perspective of 'Life as a Dream', what is the teleological meaning of the dream in question ("There was a mound in a necropolis and, underneath it, there was a tomb that has a statue of what it looks like a Jaguar-Man, flanked by two other statues.”)?
The statue of the Jaguar Man may contribute, from an indigenous perspective, especially to the psyche of Colombian people as well as the psyche of people from around the world, about an important teleological and archetypal message that could contribute significantly to the meaning and healing of the human psyche.
The meaning of the initial part of the dream is, as follows:
During the process of psychological development, there is a place that the individual needs to visit while alive, and that is the unconscious. When the individual ego consciously relates to the unconscious (“necropolis”), there will be certain psychological aspects that may have to die (“tomb”), and those aspects are related to ways of thinking, perceiving, and behaving that do not contribute to wholeness and that keep us separated from God in us -the Gods, the Mystery or the Great Spirit (according to indigenous tribes). This dying is a sacred (“mound”) experience because it connects the individual with the Self -The God image within or the Great Spirit in the World of the Spirits.
But, what about the psychological meaning of the Jaguar-Man? The Jaguar-Man refers to the psychological integration or incarnation of the features of the Jaguar that we have previously described: a) the Jaguar is the symbol of the instinctual force in the human psyche that helps people to become aware, to connect, and to continuously travel from consciousness to the unconscious. To put it in indigenous terms, the Jaguar helps human beings, especially Taitas, Mamos, and shamans to travel to the Spirit World; b) the Jaguar is the inner psychological guide or mentor that help the ego to travel to the unconscious; c) the Jaguar is the psychological symbol of the human capacity for inward looking or In-Sight; d) the Jaguar, like the cat, is associated with a spiritual life. In other words, the jaguar is the psychological aspect of the psyche that propel us to connect with God in Us (from a Jungian perspective) or to connect with the Spirit World (from an indigenous perspective); e) the Jaguar is more connected with the masculine side of the human psyche.
Therefore, the jaguar-man is the human ability to see and mobilize, in a dynamic way, the variety of contents in the unconscious, especially those contents that are related to the deeper aspects of the unconscious -the Collective Unconscious . Or to put it on indigenous terms, the jaguar-man is the masculine dimension in every person that can see and be in touch dynamically with the deepest aspect of the Mystery -both the world of the spirits and the individual spirit within.
The full understanding of the Life-As-A-Dream of the Jaguar-Man ("There was a mound in a necropolis and, underneath it, there was a tomb that has a statue of what it looks like a Jaguar-Man, flanked by two other statues.”) is as follows:
During the process of psychological development, there is a place that the individual needs to visit while alive, and that is the unconscious. When the individual ego consciously relates to the unconscious (“necropolis”), there will be certain psychological aspects that may have to die (“tomb”). Those dying aspects are related to ways of thinking, perceiving, and behaving that do not contribute to wholesness and that keep us separated from God in us -the Gods, the Mystery or the Great Spirit according to indigenous tribes. This dying is a sacred (“mound”) experience because it connects the individual with the Self -The God image within or the Great Spirit in the World of the Spirits. But who precedes, promotes, and guides this dying process of continuos consciousness of connecting with the unconscious in a conscious way? The Jaguar-Man. In other words, there is a masculine, dynamic, and instinctual force in the human psyche that, when integrated and incarnated into human consciousness, serves as an inner psychological guide or mentor for becoming aware of, for connecting to, and for continuously traveling, from consciousness, to the unconscious. The Jaguar-Man reminds us that It is important for the living to integrate or incarnate the inner capacity for inward looking or In-Sight towards the unconscious in order to connect with God in Us (to bring consciousness to an unconscious God - see Jung's book, 'Answer to Job') or to connect with the Spirit World.
The previous psychological information is extremely valuable for the living in order to prepare for dying and for the afterlife. A proper understanding of such information may help living individuals to integrate and incarnate human experiences that will contribute not only to the meaning of life but, also, to avoid an unnecessary karma of an unfulfilled life that may force the spirit of the dead to seek reincarnation. Likewise, when visiting the statue of the Jaguar Man, the spirits of the dead can obtained some important knowledge in the afterlife, as Jung described, for their own development, even though they would not be able to incarnate it. Then, then statue is, also, a gift for the dead who are visiting us.
The living and the spirits of the dead can benefit from the archetypal message embedded in the statue of the Jaguar Man. As Jung and Von Franz has previously shown in their writings about dreams and death, and the afterlife, when each of us die, our individual spirits will continue learning about consciousness during the afterlife. When the spirits come to visit the living, especially visiting the statue of the Jaguar Man, they will have an opportunity to learn the previously described message that the statue conveys.
Colombian people and the world in general may need to integrate or incarnate the masculine and dynamic forces of consciousness (the Jaguar-Man) that are within us, when connecting with the unconscious, despite the fact this process will require a psychological death with its concomitant conscious suffering, which is the price of wholeness during individuation.

Another Statue of Jaguar-Man, from San Agustin (Museo del Oro, Colombia). Credit: WikiCommons
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