Valentine’s Day and the Mystery of Fascination

What if the deepest romance isn’t fantasy — it’s consciousness? I am, and have always been, a romantic, but I am no longer willing to confuse fascination with love, and that distinction has changed everything for me.

In Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, Carl Jung wrote:

“A fascination of this kind is never exercised exclusively by one person upon another; it is always a phenomenon of relationship, which requires two people in so far as the person fascinated necessarily has a corresponding disposition. But the disposition must be unconscious, or no fascination will take place. Fascination is a compulsive phenomenon in the sense that it lacks a conscious motive; it is not a voluntary process, but something that rises up from the unconscious and forcibly obtrudes itself upon the conscious mind.”

Most of us know exactly what he means. Fascination feels electric. It feels fated. It carries the atmosphere of destiny, as though we have stepped into a moment that was waiting just for us. The other person seems illuminated. Conversation deepens quickly as something in us awakens and we become mesmerized by this person who suddenly feels significant beyond explanation.

And yet, Jung reminds us that fascination is not one person casting a spell on another. It is a phenomenon of relationship. Something in me meets something in you — a hidden disposition finds its counterpart — and this very rare encounter generates heat. I say ‘very rare’ because this does not happen that often, which is precisely why, when it does, it can possess us. The reason fascination feels so powerful is that it does not originate in the ego. It rises from below, from layers of the psyche we do not fully command. As he says, we do not decide to be fascinated; it happens. In that sense, fascination is humbling. It reminds us that we are not as self-directed as we imagine.

Fascination is not foolishness.
It is the psyche announcing that something meaningful has been activated. The person who fascinates us often carries qualities we have not yet claimed — or perhaps cannot yet imagine they belong to us — courage, vulnerability, brilliance, sensuality, wildness, even a kind of cheerful joy. We experience them as external because they are not yet fully developed within us. This is why fascination can feel divine and destabilizing at the same time. We are not simply attracted to the other; we are drawn toward a part of ourselves. They embody our unlived life. The intensity we are feeling is charged with projection, as projection is the way the psyche knows it will get our attention. A projection is either too high or too low — idealization or diminishment — and it always carries an emotional charge. Emotions, by the way, are not voluntary. When the intensity is disproportionate to the situation, we are in the realm of projection.

And yet fascination is not love.
Fascination is fire and evokes passion and urgency. Love is warmth and care. Fascination is sudden and consuming; love grows slowly in the light of awareness. Fascination can feel like a red-hot coal burning inside of us. Even standing next to the person, we feel aflame. Love is very different. It is like looking out onto a calm lake on a beautiful sunny day and feeling content. Fascination thrives in idealization; love survives even occasional disillusionment.

This is why Valentine’s Day can be bittersweet. Some will spend it alone, remembering a fascination that never became love. Some will feel the echo of someone who stirred them deeply but could not stay. Others will sit across from long-term partners with whom the electric charge has softened into something quieter and more enduring. There can be longing in all of these positions — longing for intensity, longing for stability, longing for what was, or what never quite arrived.

The question is not whether fascination happens. It will. The question is whether we can remain conscious within it.
Can we ask what in us is responding?
Can we become curious about what we are seeing in the other?
Can we allow the intensity without surrendering our center?
When fascination becomes conscious, it changes form. It may fade or it may deepen. It may transform into real love, or it may simply leave us more aware of another part of who we are. In either case, it has done its work.

To be a realistic romantic is not to abandon wonder.
It is to keep wonder and add awareness. To allow oneself to be stirred without becoming possessed; to feel the spark and remain grounded enough to see the other as a human being rather than a god or goddess. Real love is possible not in the absence of projection, but in the gradual withdrawal of it. It grows as we take back what we have placed on the other and learn to carry it consciously ourselves. And with knowledge of our astrology — especially our 7th House and oppositions — we can share that energy intentionally, coming into balance together.

On Valentine’s Day we celebrate love, but perhaps we are also honoring the mysterious currents that draw us toward one another in the first place. Fascination reminds us that the psyche is alive, that something in us still reaches, longs, and responds to beauty and possibility. That is Venus’s role within us — not merely romance, but the opening of the heart toward what feels meaningful. Whether you are partnered, remembering, or contentedly alone, the capacity to be fascinated means your heart is still capable of movement, and your unconscious wants you to know thyself. That, in itself, is something to honor. Romance is not the denial of reality; it is the willingness to meet reality and still choose to relate — aware, imperfect, and hopeful.

When the Other is You... read the KINDLE version of the Foreword, Introduction and 2nd chapter The Meeting Point of Fate and Free Will on Amazon.

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In 7th-house work, A guiding principle of this work is simple. The relationship is not the problem. The relationship is the mirror. The pattern is the teacher.

Each person is asked to own their part, even when the dynamic is painful or imbalanced, so the relationship can become a place of growth rather than repetition. This is not about becoming perfect or conflict-free. It is about learning how to stay connected without harm.

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“My favorite part about being an Astrologer is helping my clients become aware of the birth chart as a map of their soul which manifests from day 1. As Jung said, “We are not born tabula rasa, (blank slates).” You will understand this completely when you have a consultation. My goal is always to help you forgive the past and let go. You are in charge of living your individuality in a creative way that is life enhancing, instead of repeating endless patterns and feeling victimized by your fate.” — Re

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