The Journal of analytical psychology
September 1, 2008
Paul Bishop
6 citations
Jung's 1930 lecture 'Archaic Man' serves as a bridge between the early and later stages of analytical psychology. Unlike Lévy-Bruhl, Jung rejects the label of 'mysticism' for the 'primitive' viewpoint, instead arguing for a dialectical relationship between Self and World where subject and object are more closely interrelated than modern epistemology assumes. This conception foreshadows Jung's later concept of synchronicity, which he insists is a way of apprehending the world through meaning. The article examines the opposition between 'archaic' and 'modern' in Jung's work and surveys the status of the 'primordial' in other texts to foster further debate.
The Journal of analytical psychology
September 1, 2011
John Dourley
5 citations
This paper explores Carl Jung's and the alchemist Gerhard Dorn's concept of the 'unus mundus,' the unified ground of reality. It argues that Jung and Dorn identify this ground with an experience of divinity that is the common origin of both the individual and the whole of existence. The work notes the monistic and pantheistic implications of this experience and amplifies it through the medieval mysticism of Meister Eckhart and Paul Tillich's modern philosophical theology. The authors conclude that the Jungian psychological understanding of ground surpasses monotheistic consciousness and supports a new societal myth that identifies the ground as the source of all divinities. This myth, they argue, is urgently needed to alleviate the threat that monotheistic consciousness poses to human survival.
The Journal of analytical psychology
June 1, 2007
Steven M Joseph
3 citations
Carl Jung incorporated kabbalistic images and motifs into his writings on alchemy, Aion, and Mysterium Coniunctionis, and recorded a dream with kabbalistic symbolism after his heart attack. This paper examines Jung's ideas in relation to Kabbalah by distinguishing his imaginal approach from the Kabbalah's own noetic intention, presenting examples of how Jung understood or misunderstood kabbalistic material, surveying the Kabbalah as an imaginal noetic system focused on inner self-work to 'sweeten the harsh judgments of existence,' and differentiating Jung's psychical living symbol from the kabbalistic mystical symbol. A Hasidic teaching on verbal contemplative prayer illustrates the difference.
The Journal of analytical psychology
September 1, 2024
Robert McDonnell, John Moriarty, Ian Mc Cabe et al.
2 citations
Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, advocated using LSD to help alcoholics grasp the spiritual aspect of the 12-step program, writing a letter to Carl Jung detailing his own LSD use and success in treating alcoholics. Jung died a week after receiving the letter, before he could respond. The article quotes Jung's previous hostile opinions on psychedelics and asks whether he might have changed his mind, as he did on groups, had he seen the documented success of LSD with recalcitrant alcoholics.
The Journal of analytical psychology
September 1, 2023
Helge Michael Osterhold, Gisele Fernandes-Osterhold
2 citations
The paper examines the psycho-cultural shadow dynamics within the current psychedelic renaissance, questioning whether the West's intense fascination with psychedelics—from individual use and entheogenic tourism to capitalist commodification and ethical abuses by clinicians and shamans—reflects a deeper psychological and spiritual malaise in the modern Western psyche, as diagnosed by C. G. Jung. It proposes that these phenomena may stem from a Western cultural complex and uses the archetypal image of the Hungry Ghost from Asian traditions to illuminate these shadow aspects and suggest ways to address them.
The Journal of analytical psychology
September 1, 2024
Ginny Hill
1 citation
Carl Jung was skeptical about psychedelic drugs and wrote very little about them, but Aldous Huxley's 1954 account of taking mescaline, The Doors of Perception, impressed him enough to invite Huxley to Switzerland. Huxley declined, but his collaborator Humphry Osmond met Jung instead. British psychiatrist Ronald Sandison developed an explicitly Jungian approach to psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, working with Margot Cutner and connected to the Society of Analytical Psychology through Michael Fordham. Despite Jung's objections, Sandison and Cutner created groundbreaking protocols in the 1950s and were among the first to document spiritual rebirth symbolized in the birth experience known to many LSD therapists.
The Journal of analytical psychology
February 1, 2018
Nathalie Pilard
Intuition is central to C. G. Jung's work, practice, and philosophical legacy. Initially attracted to intuition as an extraordinary gift linked to the paranormal, Jung explored it in his early Zofingia Lectures and his 1902 study of occult phenomena. A major shift occurred in 1913 when he turned esotericist intuitions toward psychological use in his Red Book, incorporating intuition at the core of his psychology—both in practice through empathy and in theory. In his 1921 book Psychological Types, intuition became the first of four fundamental psychological functions alongside thinking, feeling, and sensation, establishing it as the most significant function of the psyche through rational argument.