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“Haunted: the Death Mother Archetype is a wonder of a book. Dr. Sherwood’s impeccable scholarship undergirds a transformative dance between the imaginative capacity of soul, and the harsh realities embedded in her subject matter.”
-Dr. Mary Harrell
Von Franz’s prodigious knowledge of fairytales from around the world demonstrates that the fairytale draws its root moisture from the collective realm. This volume continues where Volume 1 left off as von Franz describes the fairytale, “suspended between the divine and the secular worlds (…) creating a mysterious and pregnant tension that requires extreme power to withstand.” The resistance of the great mother against the hero and his humble origins, as well as the hero freeing the anima figure from the clutches of the unconscious are universal archetypal patterns. The spoils retrieved by the hero symbolize new levels of consciousness wrested from the unconscious.
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Volume 1 – The Profane and Magical Worlds
Volume 1 – Both paperback and hardcover – are now available. Fairytales, like myths, provide a cultural and societal backdrop that helps the human imagination narrate the meaning of life’s events. The remarkable similarities in fairytale motifs across different lands and cultures inspired many scholars to search for the original homeland of fairytales. While peregrinations of fairytale motifs occur, the common root of fairytales is more archetypal than geographic. A striking feature of fairytales is that a sense of space, time, and causality is absent. This situates them in a magical realm, a land of the soul, where the most interesting things happen in the center of places like Heaven, mountains, lakes, and wells.
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The Soul in Anguish presents a variety of approaches to psychotherapeutic work with suffering people, from the perspectives of both Jungian and psychoanalytic psychology. An important theme of the book is the impact of suffering—suffering may be harmful or helpful to the development of the personality. Our culture tends to assume that suffering is invariably negative or pointless, but this is not necessarily so; suffering may be destructive, but it may lead to positive developments such as enhanced empathy for others, wisdom, or spiritual development.
The Sacred Cauldron makes the startling claim that, for both participants, psychotherapeutic work is actually a spiritual discipline in its own right. The psyche manifests the sacred and provides the transpersonal field within which the work of therapy is carried out. This book demonstrates some of the ways in which a spiritual sensibility can inform the technical aspects of psychotherapy.
Lauren Sleeman, a Jungian and Transpersonal Psychotherapist, is the author of two novels. In Behold her quest is to bring the goddess tales of Greek and Celtic mythology to life again, especially the goddesses associated with the power of the Great Mother, and to acknowledge these strong archetypes and the sacred wisdom they bring to women’s lives.
Chiron Publications is pleased to announce the August 15 release of Behold, by Lauren Sleeman.
As a Jungian transpersonal psychotherapist, Jung’s symbols and archetypes inspired the mystical world of Sleeman’s novel, Behold. Alchemy also plays a significant role in this magical fantasy, a journey of personal and collective transformation. The many layers of archetypal consciousness in human experience are brought to light in a humorous yet “instructive” way.
Behold also resurrects ancient goddess wisdom and playfully rewrites myths and histories in which women are marginalized or silenced. Sleeman’s study of world religions and travels to ancient sites in Greece, Malta and the British Isles inform the sacred rituals in the story.
Emerging from “the Great Darkness” through a prism of light come two forsaken goddesses of antiquity—Lilith, the Great Mother and Crone of the Cosmos, and Hekate, Goddess of the Dark Moon and the Mysteries of Life, Death, and Rebirth. They stand at the crossroads between worlds as the Bringers of Transformation at a time of chaos. Hekate, the narrator of this tale, descends through the “aethers” under the watchful guidance of Lilith to portals of otherworldly realms, and incarnates on Earth to “guide the Souls of mortals…through the dark times ahead.”
Sleeman humorously rewrites classic tales of Greek and Celtic mythology to bring her delightful characters to life while resurrecting ancient goddess “knowing”—the Divine Femina. Conjuring magic spells and wielding their dark powers, Lilith and Hekate visit the Hellenic pantheon to witness Zeus in his demise, helping Hera and the goddesses beat the conquerors at their own game.
Descending to the Celtic Realm, Hekate befriends the Druids, who mourn their plight as the “black robes” threaten mortals with damnation, making them forsake their pagan beliefs. Hekate journeys with her lover Carnonos to festivals honoring Nature and the Otherworld. Descending to Earth through the time portals, Hekate incarnates alongside mortals. In ancient En-dor and medieval Ireland, she consoles women called “witches.” Hekate herself must go through the “Eye of Fire,” the alchemy of rebirth, to guide mortals to their Heart-Soul Wisdom. In the surprising finale, she guides her initiates (and the reader) through a powerful ceremony, ending her story with the promise of hope for the future.
Below are a few responses from Lauren about the content of the book.
1) We spoke earlier about the dark goddesses who are present in your book. Who are the dark goddesses and how does your work seek to reclaim them?
2) Your book has been presented as a feminine journey through consciousness. How does a feminine lens influence the perception of consciousness and the progression of a journey through it?
3) Witchcraft appears in your work, and have said that one intention of this book is to resurrect witchcraft from the pejorative. What would you say is the contemporary view of witchcraft and how does that differ from the vision of witchcraft in your work?
-Ashok Bedi, M.D. Psychiatrist, Jungian Analyst, author, Path to the Soul, www.pathtothesoul.com
“A wonderful exploration of the Jungian symbol and processes of individual integration, which beckon from within the cracks and potentials of our personal, cultural, and natural environment to become the goal of our experiences of wholeness. An essential read.”
-Sylvia B. Perera, Jungian Analyst, New York.
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Coming soon from Chiron Publications!
The Collected Works of Marie-Louise von Franz is a 28 volume Magnum Opus from one of the leading minds in Jungian Psychology. Volume 3 turns to the Maiden’s Quest within fairytales.
The maiden/heroine navigates a complicated maze of inner and outer relationships as she builds a bridge to the unconscious. The heroine contends with the animus in many forms like a devouring and incestuous father, demonic groom, the beautiful prince, an androgenous mother, a cold dark tower, and through conflict with the evil stepmother. Dangers and pitfalls await her as the conscious feminine strives to make connections with the unconscious masculine. The maiden is the undeveloped feminine and the promised fruit of her struggle with the animus is the coniunctio. Volume 3 is a masterwork of cross-cultural scholarship, penetrating psychological insight, and a strikingly illuminating treatise. With her usual perspicacity and thoroughness, von Franz gathers countless fairytale motifs revealing a myriad of facets to the maiden’s quest.
