---
title: "A Journey Through Meditation and Jungian Psychology: An Interview with Pim Vermeulen"
url: https://staging13.perseusarcaneacademy.com/post/a-journey-through-meditation-and-jungian-psychology-an-interview-with-pim-vermeulen/
date: 2024-10-19
modified: 2026-07-03
lang: en
author: "Perseus Arcane Academy"
description: "Introduction In this conversation with Pim Vermeulen, we dive into his personal journey with meditation and Jungian psychology. Pim opens up about how his practice began as a way to..."
categories:
  - "Eastern Traditions"
  - "Interviews"
  - "Meditation"
  - "Western Traditions"
tags:
  - "Jhanas"
  - "Jungian psychology"
  - "Meditation"
image: https://staging13.perseusarcaneacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/DALL·E-2024-10-19-13.23.22-A-serene-introspective-image-that-reflects-meditation-and-inner-exploration-set-against-a-backdrop-of-nature.-The-figure-sitting-in-a-calm-meditati.webp
word_count: 3601
---

# A Journey Through Meditation and Jungian Psychology: An Interview with Pim Vermeulen

## Introduction

In this conversation with Pim Vermeulen, we dive into his personal journey with meditation and Jungian psychology. Pim opens up about how his practice began as a way to end suffering and evolved into a deeper exploration of consciousness, spirituality, and self-realization. From his early experiences with meditation apps to more advanced practices like the Jhanas, and integrating archetypal work, Pim shares raw, personal stories of transformation. He reflects on the challenges and breakthroughs along the way, offering a glimpse into his ongoing journey of spiritual and psychological integration.

You can follow Pim on his substack [here](https://substack.com/@pimvermeulen/posts).

---

**PAA: Can you describe your initial encounter with meditation and what drew you to explore it more deeply?**

I encountered meditation out of a great desire to end my suffering. When I encountered it, I was in my twenties and suffered from severe burnout symptoms for a couple of years. I remember lying on the floor in my living room while reading a book, when I came across the concept enlightenment as the end of all suffering. I looked up to my ex-girlfriend and said to her something like: “That’s it, that’s the solution, from here on I will aim for enlightenment.” That’s when I started meditating with an app, and later with The Mind Illuminated as a framework for further development of my meditation skills.

**PAA: How has your journey as a meditation practitioner evolved since you first started?**

Quite a lot. I started mainly focusing on concentration practices, which naturally led me to learning and practicing the jhanas. However, over time my practice has naturally evolved towards either a practice of just sitting or more visualization-based practices, in which the latter is a form of dialogue/going on adventure with the archetypes that present themselves in awareness. Sometimes, often during times of uncertainty, I just need to re-connect with my personal daimon and ask for guidance. Meditation then becomes a way of re-opening the channel.

Being a father of a 6-month old boy though, my meditation practice is mostly based on daily life events. I see the world as a mirror of my own inner world, in which it always shows where there still is work to do. My daimon, the guide from above, makes sure that I can’t sit on my hands for he has a knack of pulling me into high intensity circumstances. And those circumstances often carry the exact themes in which I still get identified and emotional, so I see why these events present themselves.

It’s funny, the evening after typing this I came across this Tao the Ching quote (chapter 13), which summarizes my practice beautifully:

*“See the world as your self.
Have faith in the way things are.
Love the world as your self;
then you can care for all things.*

> This opening felt like a lightning strike to my nervous system and led me to spend 3 to 4 months in complete isolation, for I could not communicate with other people or function normally without feeling severely disoriented.
>
> Pim Vermeulen

**PAA: Can you share a pivotal moment or experience that significantly shifted your understanding of meditation or spirituality? **

I am one of those people who, after a long period of extreme suffering, simply “blew open”. That moment happened something like 5 years ago, during a retreat with friends at my home. The intensity had been building up for months and I spend most of the mornings crying in my sofa, until one evening something clicked and the dreamlike nature of reality showed itself. This opening felt like a lightning strike to my nervous system and led me to spend 3 to 4 months in complete isolation, for I could not communicate with other people or function normally without feeling severely disoriented. And because of the intensity of the shift, I suffered from extreme tremors which can still, fortunately in milder form, manifest to this day. 

Back then I felt that that was IT, but looking back, it was only the beginning. After a year-long void like state perception flipped into quite a wondrous view. I became quite inflated, felt enlightened, so both fortunately and unfortunately, after only 3 months life took care of this once again and I contracted Long Covid. This was such a hard ordeal for me, to lose my bodily strength once again after 5 years of burnout. I think it was this crisis that pulled me straight into the underworld. This was the beginning of a long period of wading through archetypal forces, visions, and intense personal trauma, while being in search of my soul. It was a humbling process, and it still is.

Anyway, I often feel as if I’m still integrating all that which was contained in that initial opening many years ago. Over time, it introduced me to my daimon, showed me why I’m reincarnated here on earth, what my individual purpose is and who I am as an individual manifestation of the one source. 

**PAA: Can you describe your personal journey through learning and experiencing the Jhanas?**

They came rather easy to me, which says more about my personal archetypal constellation than anything else. I first started learning the form Jhanas with the help of TMI as a manual and got to experience the 4 of them quite quickly. Not long after, I went to a rather strict 10-day Mahasi Sayadaw based vipassana retreat. But instead of following the instructions, my intentions were set on learning the 4 formless Jhanas with the help of a summary of particular Buddhist suttas. Those 10 days were enough to get a sense of them, and back home access to these states seemed much easier. Later on I heard about the Pureland Jhanas via Kenneth Folk and learned those too. 

**PAA: Before transitioning away from Jhanas, did you notice any limitations in this practice for your personal growth?**

Absolutely. The Jhanas are profound states to abide in, but they’re still states. Although exploring these realms gave rise to specific insights, they also were a movement away from the simple experience that is arising in this moment. If I’m honest, what I really wanted is to become free from this material reality in every way possible, and I saw the jhanas as a potential way “out”. Thereby forgetting that this is such a wondrous world that has so much to offer. So even though human suffering is sometimes tremendous, I now see it as a gateway to the development of human consciousness. As Rumi said, the wounds are the cracks where the light comes in. And humanity needs a lot of light right now. I think this is the biggest reason for me to transition away from the Jhanas, for I did not want to escape this reality anymore. If this right here isn’t enough, what is?

> That initial encounter frightened me deeply. I had heard of deities but never assumed them to be “real”, but in this encounter I experienced a force that was clearly not arising from my own personal unconsciousness taking hold of me.
>
> Pim Vermeulen

**PAA: What initially sparked your interest in Jungian psychology?**

Well, at one moment during my journey through the underworld (collective unconscious in the Jungian framework) a wolf-like being pervaded my personal consciousness. It would specifically come during full moons and almost force me to bite my wife in her neck during the night. That initial encounter frightened me deeply. I had heard of deities but never assumed them to be “real”, but in this encounter I experienced a force that was clearly not arising from my own personal unconsciousness taking hold of me. I knew then that I needed a different framework to deal with these encounters, after which my mentor pointed me to the work of Carl Jung.

It was a gold mine for me, because Jung, who personally underwent a long journey through the underworld (see the Red Book), built an entire psychological framework for dealing with these phenomena. In that sense, it’s a spiritual tradition built on our Western origins that incorporates not only the transcendental aspect, but the psychological aspects too. 

**PAA: In your transition, how did you begin to integrate Jungian concepts with your existing meditation practice?**

Jungian concepts were of enormous help to me, both in my own practice as in my work as a guide and therapist. Take the concept of the shadow for example, which I would define as the unconsciously supressed side of yourself that keeps you from realizing your own innate wholeness. This is a concept that is rarely focused on in Eastern traditions. Transcendence is a legitimate aim, but as we’ve seen, many spiritual teachers carry an enormous unconscious shadow with them, sometimes leading to harmful actions aimed at their followers. Jung’s work and my own psychological work, both with the help of therapist and guides as in daily life, have taught me humility. Whenever I get emotionally triggered, I know there is work to do. For identification only happens when I believe myself to be a separate self that is hurt by a person outside of me. This view, although the dominant view among humanity, is based on delusion when investigated thoroughly. But that takes humility, for we prefer pointing at the other or waving our pain away as illusion instead of retracting the projection and letting it burn inside of us.

Next to this, Jung’s work gave me inspiration on how to deal with the intensity of different archetypal forces. During my journey through the underworld, archetype after archetype would present themselves in my consciousness. They would greatly color my perspective of reality. They would “talk” through me, and I would write down what they had to say. Every archetype has both a light side and a shadow side, and both need to be completely felt and understood before I as awareness itself could dis-identify from the archetype. This sounds simple, but it always felt like “dying” in order to give rise to a new perspective. And it still does sometimes.

For example, one day I was flooded with non-specific dread. I felt as if the world could end in any minute. For months, I would feel this strange terror every day, and when I looked upon the world, I mainly saw its inevitable destruction. Later, that specific archetype presented itself as Apocalypse, which actually is activated in the collective unconsciousness right now. To see through its lens, and feel the annihilation of everything I held dear was a hard burden to bear. But I now see it was necessary, for Apocalypse has a light side too. It is the shedding of the snake skin, the bringing to light of all the old patterns and systems that have to abandoned by humanity to give rise to a new mode of consciousness. God wants evolution, the mythos on the screen of eternity is changing, and it would be foolish to resist this. We can only turn inwards and go through the transition ourselves to help the human species as a whole to prepare for the collective dark night of the soul that is to come. The apocalypse archetype never left me. Although I never talk about it with friends or family, it’s a humbling experience to know the world as you know it is going to change tremendously over the coming decades.

**PAA: Among the influential figures you mentioned (Jung, Hillman, Kingsley, Almaas, Levy), whose work resonates most strongly with your current practice, and why?**

I have developed my own style of practice based primarily on the work of Jung, Hillman and Levy. For the astrology nerds among you, I’m a virgo rising with my ruling planet mercury in the 1st house, which means the archetypal constellation of my personality is highly analytical but also Hermes-like in essence. Like the Greek Hermes, the messenger of the Gods, jumping between dimensions and receiving messages “from above” feels quite natural to me. That’s perhaps why the more visual-based approaches of Jung and Hillman resonate so much.

I think this is important to mention, because it’s often overlooked that we all are highly unique individuals, even though we’re all interconnected and arise from the same source. The wisdom of astrology was of tremendous help for me to understand how each individual has a unique soul code, a unique archetypal blueprint that defines deeply who they are. For example, I have a friend who is a scorpio rising and has a stellium of planets (5 in her case) in the earthy sign of capricorn. You don’t want to teach a person with this specific constellation the Jhanas, for she is all about feeling, feeling, feeling. Some people are made for magick and occult practices, others are made for feeling-based practices. Knowing your own unique archetypal constellation is tremendously worthwhile in that regard.

My daily practice is, next to having attention always located in either the heart or other parts of my body, to see the world as a mirror of my inner world. My inner world, as a reflection of the collective unconsciousness, contains a limitless amounts of archetypes that can be activated when triggered by external events. For example, the moment I became a father 6 months ago, the baby archetype in me became active. What I did not know but became clear through introspection was that my own inner baby suffered from post-natal trauma, as I was immediately taken away after birth to be injected while surrounded by a group of white cloak wearing doctors. To me this felt like dying, of which the reason why became clear later on. So when I feel that there is a degree of identification with a specific archetype, I know there’s work to do. This means that whenever I get identified, I try to sit afterwards and investigate what just happened. I sometimes literally ask my daimon where this pattern originates, which will sometimes give rise to spontaneous insights about the construction of the karmic pattern. But knowing the source is not enough, it demands to be felt thoroughly. And often, my body desires to move in specific ways too. It wants to do what it couldn’t do when the inner baby was traumatized. So in this specific example, I cried and kicked like a baby while letting all of it arise in loving consciousness.

James Hillman’s work taught me to always follow the symptoms, because these symptoms provide a gateway to the soul, which really is all about remembering who you are. In the previous example of the baby archetype, I received images that seemed completely separate from what happened to me as a baby. I saw myself standing on a stage, in front of an angry mass, who threw rocks at me. For my entire life, my neck wanted to turn to the right in meditation, but I never understood why. Now though, it turned to the right and revealed why it had to do so. There was an executioner standing there, and I was reliving a past life in which I was executioned for speaking my truths. This experience led to me feeling unsafe in groups in this life, as if I could be attacked in each moment, but I never knew why this would be the case. Now I knew.

It showed me the relation between past life events and current traumas. And it showed how past life trauma cyclically manifests itself in your life in order to heal it, as it immediately after my birth did. It taught me that reality is constantly being manifested as a reflection of your inner world, and if your inner world is divided and supressed, chances are that reality often feels unkind. When something “bad” happens to me, I never accept it as bad luck but try to see the reasoning behind it. Because it’s never based on coincidence. Psychological constellation, meaning that your own supressed sides manifest themselves in outer reality, is a thing, and once you see it, you see it everywhere. At the same time, neglecting the daimon’s call, that subtle inner voice that knows the way before you do, is a recipe for disaster. I’ve learned this the hard way many times. 

**PAA: How has Peter Kingsley's work influenced your understanding of ancient wisdom traditions and their relevance to modern spiritual practices?**

Kingsley’s work has broadened my perspective significantly. He clearly shows that our Western culture originates from civilizations that had unique spiritual practices such as incubation. Nowadays, we in the West believe that people like Pythagoras based his knowledge on rational thinking, but all of it was gifted by the Gods through building a bridge between the physical and spiritual dimensions. Kingsley’s work shows that we’ve forgotten the roots of our Western culture, and the consequences are not hard to see. Most of us have become blind to see that inventions are not ours to claim, but are gifts given to those who remember this ancient connection between humanity and the divine. And these gifts are never for them, they are to evolve humanity as a whole. Kingsley’s work taught me to reconcile my own experiences with a Western historical framework.

My own Western heritage became clear to me after having visionary encounters with Christian archangels. Before that, my mind was drawn mainly to Buddhism as a framework for my experiences. Nowadays, I’ve learned to embrace my own inner Christian myth. And I think we Westerners all should, for Christ is nowhere to be found other than in ourselves. 

**PAA: How do you integrate meditation techniques, including Jhana practices, with Jungian and archetypal approaches in your work?**

I work both as a guide and a Jungian analyst/therapist so integrating these techniques in my work come rather naturally. I mainly use meditation based techniques if a client is completely identified with the stories of the mind, while Jungian approaches are especially effective for people who have a tendency to spiritually bypass their emotions and shadow sides. In that sense, the combination of these two perspectives works wonders for both transcendence and psychological healing and integration. I only teach Jhana practices when people specifically ask for them. I prefer teaching people how to restore the connection to their inner world through active imagination practices and visualizations over teaching the Jhanas, for they tend to awaken their inner feminine aspects which are so highly needed in our world right now.

**PAA: How has your understanding of the "awakening" process changed since incorporating Jungian and archetypal perspectives alongside your meditation background?**

In the Jungian framework, there is a different term for the awakening process. It’s called individuation. And although it seems as if it implies becoming a whole individual, it also means to surrender one’s sense of self to the divine. Or to become a spoon in God’s kitchen drawer, as Jung himself put it. 

Years ago I believed there was a final enlightenment which would liberate me from all my problems. Now, I don’t see how there could be an end to the awakening process. On one hand, awareness itself never changes, on the other, reality as a manifestation of the same source constantly does. Like our galaxy that continuously expands, human consciousness continuously expands too. Our species is a work in progress, and I don’t see the inner work I do as an individual practice anymore. We’re all interconnected, which means that the inner work of one person can have tremendous effects on humanity as a whole. In that sense, I think that what we call awakening now is just the next step in human evolution. Nothing special about it. 

**PAA: Based on your unique background combining Jhana practices and Jungian psychology, what do you see as the most promising areas for future integration of meditation and depth psychology?**

I think that the missing aspect of most spiritual practices nowadays is the psychological aspect. All of us are inherently traumatized and many unconsciously use spiritual practices to escape their own wounds, while it are their unique wounds that offer the brightest gifts to both themselves and humanity as a whole. Jungian psychology and other depth psychology approaches have built a bridge between spiritual practices and psychology, which allows us to effectively work on the wounded aspects of ourselves that need to be re-integrated in our psyche as a whole. If we only focus on the transcendental side, both inflation and psychological projection come rather easily, of which both are tools that Wetiko, to use Paul Levy’s term, uses to keep us from realizing our innate potential. 

I’ve seen quite some people who have had legitimate awakenings but keep clinging to the notion that their own emotions are illusions. That it’s all a dream and therefore should not be taken seriously. This is a dangerous view, for it means that these persons see the potentially harmful unconscious actions that arise from being triggered are illusions too. I think that, with the slow re-awakening of the feminine half of the collective unconsciousness, the spirit of the times leads us to work on our deeply supressed feminine aspects. Feeling deeply, experiencing from the heart, not polarizing everything into opposites (which is the tendency of our masculine aspect), but seeing the world from a symbolical viewpoint: As a wondrous myth that is being played out on the screen of eternity, in which all our individual myths play a role. I think depth psychology and other Soul-based approached help us to re-connect with our co-creative potential and inner world. And the inner world is the basis for our external world.

**PAA: Really interesting to hear your experiences, thank you for sharing with us. **

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