The Jung Society of Montreal presents:
Cultural Complexes in Our Times:
The Russian/Ukraine War and Other “Cases”
Lecture by Thomas Singer, Jungian Analyst and Co-editor of Mind of State: Conversations on the Psychological Conflicts Stirring U.S. Politics & Society
Saturday, January 20
1 – 3 p.m. (Montreal, New-York Time)
This lecture will be given online via ZOOM
Our Uncertain World was born from the premise that we are in a period of ongoing change. The interlocking crises of COVID, national polarization, environmental disaster, and international war can undermine or even destroy the symbols, rituals, and mental structures that give meaning and coherence to our lives. These crises are explored in depth in the book’s three sections, Living with Personal Uncertainty over the Long Term, Social Turmoil: A Moment of Social change for Our Community and Our Nation, and Challenges Facing Our World: Grappling with the Environment, The Pandemic and War.
The authors of this book accompany the reader through the current challenges we face and examine new ways of adjusting to the existing condition of protracted uncertainty. The book encourages the reader to articulate their own challenges and develop their own language to write, speak, and live within the reality of uncertain times. Our Uncertain World provides tools for individuals and groups to formulate new perspectives and life strategies for the current reality.
Contributors
Part 1: Living with Personal Uncertainty over the Long Term
Part 2: Social Turmoil: A Moment of Social Change for Our Community and Our Nation
Part 3: Challenges Facing Our World: Grappling with the Environment, the Pandemic, and War
In March 2012, the Library of Congress and the Jung Society of Washington convened the first Jung and Aging Symposium. Sponsored by the AARP Foundation, the symposium brought together depth psychologists and specialists in gerontology and spirituality to explore the second half of life in light of current best practices in the field of aging. This volume, previously published by Spring Journal and featuring essays by James Hollis and Lionel Corbett, presents the results of the day’s discussion, with supplementary perspectives from additional experts, and suggests some practical tools for optimizing the second half of life.
This book seeks to map this terra incognita, especially with reference to the practice of Jungian psychotherapy.
Essays by: Lionel Corbett, Romano Màdera, Nancy Swift Furlotti, Murray Stein, Aurea Afonso Caetano, Miriam Stein & Anne Flynn, Jerome Braun, Deborah Bryon, Walter Boechat & Ana Luisa Teixeira de Menzies, Marcel van den Akker, Leslie Stein, Renée Cunningham, John R. White, James A. Fidelibus, Felicia Matto-Shepard, Susan Williams, Linda Carter & I. Joseph McFadden.
“The recent return of psychedelic compounds to legitimate research raises a host of questions about the therapeutic application of the drugs and the interpretation of the experiences they provoke. The papers in this volume offer important insights into the possibly unique contribution Jung’s system of analytical psychology can make to addressing these questions. Reflecting a deep appreciation of the complexity of psychedelic experience and a nuanced understanding of Jung, this volume will be essential reading as the field of psychedelic psychotherapy continues to develop.”
–George B. Hogenson, Ph.D., Senior Training Analyst, Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts; Past Vice President, International Association for Analytical Psychology
“All experience is translated into biochemistry. In what way is that venue a new modality for depth psychological material, and in what way does it cross ethical guidelines that have served well for so many years? This thoughtful collection of perspectives brings a Jungian lens to the question, and opens the door for more differentiated inquiry among therapists.”
–James Hollis, Ph.D. is a Jungian analyst in Washington, D.C., and author of numerous books, most recently, A Life of Meaning.
List of Contributors
Note on the Collected Works and the Red Book
Introduction
-Editors’ Preface – Leslie Stein & Lionel Corbett
-The Therapeutic Use of Psychedelic Agents: An Overview – Lionel Corbett
The Importance of Breakthroughs
-Beyond the Masks of Automated Experience – Romano Màdera
-The Path to the Transcendent Function: Dreams, Visions, and Psychedelics – Nancy Swift Furlotti
Psychedelics and Jungian Principles
-Can you Bear it? – Murray Stein
-Psychedelics: Another Tool in Analytical Work? – Aurea Afonso Caetano
-Integration of Jungian and Psychedelic Training and Practice: A Conversation – Miriam Stein & Anne Flynn
Indigenous Healing Perspectives
-Therapist’s Experience with Expanded States and Psychedelic Field: Perspectives Rooted in Jungian Psychology & -Shipibo Indigenous Healing Traditions – Jerome Braun
-Are the Use of Psychedelics Really Necessary? Deborah Bryon
-Ayahuasca and Amerindian Perspectivism: The Shamanic Experience in the Jungian Clinic – Walter Boechat & Ana Luisa Teixeira de Menzies
Establishing Intentions
-Search for Connection through Microdosing – Marcel van den Akker
-The Self as the First Principle for a Psychedelic Experience – Leslie Stein
The Setting
-Jung’s vas Hermeticum; Bion’s Container-Contained – Renée Cunningham
-The Range of the Jungian Frame – John R. White
Integration in Practice
-The Sacred Journey – James A. Fidelibus
-Active Imagination in Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy: Building Bridges to the Self – Felicia Matto-Shepard
-Sharing in the Field: The Art of Working Energetically with Psychedelics – Susan Williams
-The Combination Method: Use of Ketamine as an Adjunct to Analytic Treatment – Linda Carter & I. Joseph McFadden
-Index
Marie-Louise von Franz believed fairytales to be the purest and simplest expressions of the collective unconscious. Too often the interpreter regresses to a personalized approach, however, heroes and heroines are abstractions that embody collective archetypes. The innumerable variations within the same fairytale told in different cultures are like a musical theme crisscrossing humanity. In Volume 8, von Franz establishes that there is only one psychic fact to which the fairytale addresses itself, namely, the SELF.
Some fairytales emphasize the beginning phases of this experience by dwelling on the shadow, others draw attention to the anima and animus, while still others hint at the unobtainable treasure. This volume contains new and updated translations of The Interpretation of Fairytales along with Anima and Animus in Fairytales and combines them into a single volume, clarifying the Jungian approach to interpreting fairytales and offering a deep dive into anima and animus.
The anima and the animus deliver to consciousness the “life-affirming fruit.” Individuation requires engagement with these contra-sexual archetypes, but von Franz observes that “Anima and animus are not always happy to have this relationship—they lose part of their power when they are made conscious.” She further warns of the inflation resulting from possession by them and points out that the animus “loves to create an atmosphere of mist in which nobody can find orientation.” These are supra-personal elements of psychic life capable of breaking beyond the tendency of consciousness to become one-sided. This second section of Volume 8 provides an insightful explanation of a woman’s encounter with her animus and a man’s encounter with his anima.
Aurora Consurgens, the rising sun, is a vision forged in the pseudo-Aristotelian tradition that became a cornerstone of medieval Church doctrine and the centerpiece of the Dominican and Franciscan traditions. While its authorship has been shrouded in mystery and controversy, Marie Louise von Franz furnishes ample evidence that this was a final work of Thomas Aquinas, a Doctor of the Church. His vision begins with an anima figure of the Sapentia Dei.
This medieval alchemical text is rich in symbolism and offers a glimpse into how unconscious contents can be understood through their interactions with the material world. Marie Louise von Franz places Aurora Consurgens squarely in the tradition of visionary spiritual writings similar to the visions of Hildegard von Bingen or John of Patmos. Aquinas’s visions and his final commentary on the Song of Songs appear to have been the result of a state of ecstasy into which he fell just before his death. Marie Louise von Franz excavates a psychological treasure from his work.
Saint Niklaus von Flüe, the patron saint of Switzerland, was held in the highest esteem by both CG Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz. Jung even declared him the Patron Saint of Psychotherapy, due to the Saint’s deep inward reflections and profound experiences. His visions reportedly began while still in his mother’s womb and continued until his death. One of his later visions was a terrifying image of the face of God. Von Franz saw Niklaus as the shadow brother of Christ and wrote of him as the alchemical Anthropos, a universal man. His visions were an evolution of Christian mysticism.
Saint Perpetua was a young Christian woman put to death in 203 AD in the Roman arena at the age of 22. Her profound visions occurred days before her death. Von Franz penetrates these images, suggesting they were revelations of a new, Christian God-image breaking through from the collective unconscious into the animus of young Perpetua.
Marie-Louise von Franz is at her very best as she unravels the mysteries held within the visions of these two saints.
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.
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.
These nuanced discussions offer insights and reflections from leading experts – on psychology, politics, race, religion and more – to those of us struggling to make sense of our American political nonsense.
Drawn from the Mind of State podcast created by some of the co-authors and contributors to the New York Times bestseller, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, this collection is as relevant now as it was when Apple Podcasts featured it as “New and Noteworthy” in 2019.
The chapters are divided into five sections that reveal persistent themes underlying our increasing distress due to the interconnectedness of psychology and politics in the United States:
Contributors:
Part 1 FRAMEWORK
Chapter 1: Cultural Complexes and the Soul of America – Thomas Singer
Part 2 ACKNOWLEDGING DEATH, TRAUMA, LOSS
Chapter 2: We are all going to Die—Someday – Sheldon Solomon
Chapter 3: Ambiguous Loss & the 2020 Pandemic – Pauline Boss
Chapter 4: Our Collective Trauma – Judith Herman
Chapter 5: Acknowledging Harm & Repairing the World – Jessica Benjamin
Chapter 6: Living Unarmed – Megan Doney
Chapter 7: The Trauma of Syria – Anne Barnard
Part 3 WHY TRUTH MATTERS
Chapter 8: The Case for Radical Openness – Anton Hart
Chapter 9: The End of Truth? – Scotty McLennan
Chapter 10: Conspiracy without Theory – Nancy Rosenblum
Chapter 11: Nervous States & the Instability of Truth – William Davies
Chapter 12: Trump on the Couch – Justin Frank
Chapter 13: Delusions & Lies: The Mind of Trump – Michael Tansey
Part 4 ANXIETIES OF RACE & DOMINANCE
Chapter 14: Justice, Rage & Peace – Eric Ward
Chapter 15: Anger & Racial Politics – Antoine Banks
Chapter 16: Why Everyone Hates the Jews – Susan Fiske & Peter Glick
Chapter 17: The Perilous Path to Asylum – Hawthorne “Hawk” Smith
Chapter 18: Partisan Politics, Toxic Identities, Dangerous Divides – Lilliana Mason
Chapter 19: White Identity Politics – Ashley Jardina
Chapter 20: A “Syndemic”—Climate, Race & COVID-19 – Adrienne Hollis
Part 5 DEMOCRACY AT RISK
Chapter 21: Sounding the Alarm: Cultism and the Loss of Reality – Robert Jay Lifton
Chapter 22: Politics of Care – Deva Woodly
Chapter 23: Restoring Faith in Democracy – Eric Liu
Chapter 24: Can Voting & Democracy Survive the Internet? – Nate Persily
Chapter 25: Analyzing the 2020 Election – Michael A. Cohen
Chapter 26: Politics & the Teenage Mind – Lisa Damour
Part 6 THE IMPORTANCE OF MYTH IN POLITICS
Chapter 27: America’s Economic Myth – Betty Sue Flowers
Chapter 28: When Myth Becomes History – Jules Cashford
Chapter 29: The Symbolic Power of Trump’s Wall – Thomas Singer
Recommended Reading
Erich Neumann (1905-1960) was a student, close collaborator, and life-long friend of C.G. Jung’s. He moved from Berlin to Palestine in 1934 where he endured WWII with much distress. This provoked intense and depthful research into topics such as evil, consciousness, and creativity that would occupy his attention for the rest of his life— as well as challenge his friend’s (Jung) thinking in many ways. His writings are still valuable and ever so pertinent for our understanding of human nature and the changing developments that have resulted in “the eruption of the shadow and psychic chaos in today’s world.” (Jerome Bernstein)
Eternal Echoes, Volume 10 of the Zürich Lecture Series, offers the reader an overview of Neumann’s opus, which is large and multifaceted. Beginning with an introduction of Erich Neumann including a series of his active imagination watercolors, we see an intimate view into his internal process. The Jung-Neumann Correspondence examines evil as witnessed during WWII. The work Neumann focused on during this period resulted in his exploration of his own Roots of Jewish Consciousness, both Revelation and Apocalypse, and Hasidism.
From there we move into an exploration of his exceptional and iconic books, The Origins and History of Consciousness, and The Great Mother, and two papers “Mass Man and the Phenomena of Recollectivation” and “Narcissism.” Neumann continued his study of mythology and archetypes in Amor and Psyche: The Development of the Feminine.
Later in Neumann’s life, he wrote a number of books on creativity exploring its nature and source which began with his important early paper on “Mystical Man”: Creative Man, Art and the Creative Unconscious, The Place of Creation.
Neumann’s works lead us back to our ground of being, where we live with opposites that are fiercely alive, impacting our lives and cultures. His writings are comprehensive, clear and steeped in deeply felt experiences that help to place us on firm ground. Since many of his themes and concepts are universal—beginning with archetypes, myths, and images—this book is not only pertinent to Jungian psychotherapists but anyone interested in understanding the profundity of human nature and its development.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: Introduction: Who is Erich Neumann
A. Active Imagination and Paintings
B. Erich Neumann’s Watercolor Paintings
C. Concluding Thoughts
Chapter 2: Analysis of The Jung-Neumann Correspondence
A. Essential conflict
B. Jewish Psychology
C. After the War
D. Conflict in Zurich and Discussions of Evil
E. What is Consciousness?
F. Conclusion
Chapter 3: Analysis of The Roots of Jewish Consciousness, Volume One: Revelation & Apocalypse
A. Introduction
B. Neumann’s Introduction to Roots
C. On The YHWH-Earth Relation and Prophecy
D. On The Apocalypse: Heightening the YHWH-Earth Tension
E. On The Dangerous Ending of the YHWH-Earth Tension
F. On The Author’s Appendices
1. On Methodology
2. On The Foundation Stone and the Waters of the Deep
3. On The Composition of the Pentateuch
4. On Earth and the Symbols of the Elements
a. On Wind Symbolism
b. On The Body-Soul and Blood
c. On The Earth and Bull
d. On Circumcision and Passover
e. On Lilith
Chapter 4: Analysis of The Roots of Jewish Consciousness, Volume Two: Hasidism and its Psychological Meaning for Judaism
A. Introduction to Volume Two
B. On The Structure of the World of Inwardness
C. On The Transformation of Souls
D. On Life in the World
E. On The Human Being and the New God Image of God
F. On Hasidism and the Birth of the Modern Jew
G. Conclusion
Chapter 5: Analysis of The Origins and History of Consciousness and its Precursors
A. On Neumann’s Introduction
B. On The First Stage: The Matriarchal Uroboros
C. The Terrible Mother
D. On The Twin Brothers—The Strugglers
E. My Dream Related to The Hero
F. On Centroversion
G. On The Motif in The Myth of Osiris and Transformation
H. My Dream of Evil
I. The Ego
J. Neumann’s Terminology
Chapter 6: On Neumann’s Paper, “Mass Man and the Phenomena of Recollectivization”
A. The Second Coming
B. Conclusion 1
Chapter 7: On Neumann’s Paper, “Narcissism”
Chapter 8: Analysis of The Great Mother and Amor and Psyche: The Psychic Development of the Feminine
A. Introduction
B. An Overview of the Archetype of The Great Mother
C. The Feminine Mysteries
D. On Neumann’s Diagrams
a. Schema l: Map of the Archetypal World
b. Schema ll: Amplification of the Feminine and Masculine
c. Schema lll: Archetypal Feminine
D. On The Myth of Amor and Psyche
E. On The Interpretation/Amplification of the Myth
F. Conclusion
Chapter 9: Analysis of The Nature and Source of Creativity: Creative Man, Art and the Creative Unconscious, The Place of Creation, Six image examples
A. Dylan’s Self-portrait
B. Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa
C. Van Gogh
D. Mark Rothko
E. Henry Moore, Three Sculptures
F. Andy Warhol Self-portrait
Chapter 10: On the Paper “Mystical Man”
Chapter 11: Conclusion—Final Thoughts
Appendix: List of Erich Neumann’s lectures at Eranos in Switzerland
References
Index
Eva Pattis Zoja explores the psyche’s astonishing capacity and determination to regulate itself by creating images and narratives as soon as a free and protected space for expression is provided. A variety of examples from analytic practice with adults and from psychosocial projects with children in vulnerable situations illustrate how sandplay can be used in different therapeutic settings.
We don’t know where creativity comes from. Is it inspired from above? Welling up from below? Picked up from the air?
This book does not claim to reveal this secret. It does not attempt to reduce creativity to a “nothing but,” for example to explain it as a special ability of certain creative individuals with special abilities. On the contrary, it is about exploring the fullness and variety of this amazing power, which is the basis of all cultural, artistic, scientific and spiritual activity of man, without attributing it to a simple cause.
Roderick Main examines various ways in which C.G. Jung’s analytical psychology, developed during this same period, can be seen to challenge that dominant narrative.
After explaining the complex and ambivalent nature of disenchantment and the many different responses to it, Main shows how the Jungian process of individuation intrinsically fosters a culturally much needed reenchantment of the world, though in a way that also continues to acknowledge the role of both disenchantment and naïve enchantment. He then focuses in turn on Jung’s lifelong engagement with anomalous phenomena, his concept of synchronicity as a principle of acausal connection through meaning, and his implicit panentheistic metaphysics to show in greater detail how, contrary to disenchantment, analytical psychology affirms genuine mystery, inherent meaning, and relationship to spiritual or divine reality.
