Erel Shalit

Open letter to Stephen Hawking

2013-05-09T11:18:00.000-04:00

Dear Professor Stephen Hawking,

Based on your information and informed opinion, you have decided to join the boycott of Israel. Therefore, you have withdrawn your participation in the upcoming President's Conference.

There is much to criticize in regard to Israel, not the least the extensive settlements in occupied areas of the West Bank, in areas that are aimed for Palestine, whether as an independent state or in confederation with Jordan.

I assume that your decision is not only emotionally based, but founded on facts that you have gathered and analyzed, weighed against other events presently taking place in the world. In the past you have certainly proven yourself an independent thinker. Thus, I assume that you have not just succumbed to the pressure which you have been exposed to by the Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Since I am not aware of any other country that you have decided to boycott, or having expressed your esteemed opinion about, I would like to hear your opinion about the killings of tens of thousands in Syria, the indiscriminate firing of rockets from Palestinian area and by Hezbollah from Lebanon aimed at civilian Israeli territories, as well as your opinion about the anti-Semitic charter of the Hamas and the ethnic cleansing of the Jews that appear in the Palestinian Charter, and Iran’s expressed threat to wipe out Israel.

I would like to hear your opinion about countries, too many to enumerate, that are guilty of discrimination, ethnic cleansing, and human rights violations.

Because if you don’t, then you have singled out Israel, compromising your hitherto known capacity for independent thinking, given in to political pressure, parroting the attitude that the earth is flat, with a black hole in the middle, somewhere along the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean.

The Hero and His Shadow introduces a psychological perspective on the history, development and myths of modern Israel.

The realization of Zionism relied on the pioneer, who revolted against the Way of the Fathers and sought spiritual redemption through the revival of Mother Earth in the ancient land. Myth and history, psyche and matter are constantly intertwined in the birth and development of Israel, for example when in the Declaration of Independence we are told that pioneers make deserts bloom, the text actually says they make spirits blossom.

Pioneer, guardsman and then warrior were admired hero-ideals. However, in the shadow of the hero and the guiding myths of revolt, redemption, strength and identity-change, there were feelings of despair, doubt, weakness and fear. Where there has been renewal, lurks the threat of annihilation.

The suppressed aspects of past and present myths, which linger in the shadow, are exposed. The psychological consequences of Israel’s wars, from independence to the war of terror, are explored both on a personal note and from a psychoanalytic perspective, with social examples and clinical vignettes.

Shadow aspects of the conflicting guiding myths Peace and Greater Israel are examined. The mythological background of the archetypal struggle between Isaac and Ishmael, and the relationship between Jerusalem and the archetypal images of Wholeness and Satan are looked into.

The Hero and His Shadow & Requiem flyer

Heart and the (Philosopher's) Stone in Prague

2013-04-28T13:41:00.000-04:00

'Rooftops and Towers of Prague,' a drawing by
Petr Ginz, 1928-1944 (Yad vaShem).

Born in Prague, Petr spent his adolescence in the children's home in the Theresienstadt ghetto. He was murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau in the fall of 1944. In 2003, Ilan Ramon, the Israeli astronaut that perished in the space shuttle Columbia, took Petr Ginz's drawing 'Moon Landscape' (see below) with him from the Yad Vashem collection.

I had the wonderful opportunity to visit the Czech Society for Analytical Psychology, to deliver a lecture and a workshop on the Cycle of Life.

Following several years of experience with the impressive Bulgarian Jung Society, as well as visiting the groups in Poland, Estonia, and the Czech Republic, I can testify to the admirable devotion and seriousness found among the analysts, therapists and students in these countries. Their thirst for knowledge is a source of inspiration, and in only a few years the therapists in these countries have gained increasing psychotherapeutic experience.

It was a great joy to lecture to the members of the Czech Society, to an attentive audience of analysts and analysts to be, Jungian oriented therapists and students.

The weekend was particularly moving and meaningful because of Dvorah Kutzinski, who gave two related seminars – one on Erich Neumann’s Origins of Consciousness, and a seminar on Mozart’s The Magic Flute, including the screening of Bergman’s wonderful movie.

At 87, Dvorah Kutzinski, the Grand Old Lady of Jungian Analysts in Israel, is as sharp, witty and vital as ever. Coupled with her awareness of old age and death, she is full of life and energy, leaving many of us behind.

Her charismatic personality comes across in lectures and seminars, therapy and supervision, as her students, analysands and colleagues of more than fifty years will attest.

The person she is and her individual life are deeply intertwined with the history and culture of the 20th Century. She grew up in the house in which Kafka was born, with Max Brod, to whom we owe the preservation of Kafka’s manuscripts, among the weekly guests in their home. Her father, the philologist Prof. Zeckendorf, later one of the famous lecturers at Theresienstadt, predicted Kafka’s future long before his rise to fame.

After years in Theresienstadt and Auschwitz, she arrived at the shores of Israel, and met Erich Neumann. She became a close friend and his foremost disciple, making his writings accessible to generations of Jungians. And the Czech she hasn’t spoken for seventy years, emerged from the depths of memory. She was received, as she so rightly deserves, with great warmth and appreciation.

Regarding the whereabouts and recent findings about the Golem of Prague, I have been sworn to silence and cannot yet disclose anything. It will have to remain shrouded in mystery, until it eventually will emerge from the hiding place in the shadows of science. Let me only mention that the story about the golem of Prague, based on the legend of the sixteenth century Rabbi Loew from Prague, was revived at the turn of the century by several authors, notably Gustav Meyrink. Meyrink had been a bank manager, before turning to alchemy and Kabbalah. He was convinced that the Philosopher’s Stone was to be found in the Prague sewer system, and from serious research into this matter, I have found conclusive evidence that the stone probably is to be found in the nigredo of Prague’s shadow.

The Jewish Cemetery in Prague

Petr Ginz, 'Moon Landscape' (Yad vaShem)

Hebrew Book Week שבוע הספר העברי

2013-04-26T11:11:00.000-04:00

The yearly Hebrew Book Week began in 1926 as a one-day event on Rotschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv. It has evolved to outdoor book fairs held all over the country, during a week or often ten days, when books are sold at a discount.

Until June 16, Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return and The Hero and His Shadow: Psychopolitical Aspects of Myth and Reality can be purchased, in Hebrew and English, at a 30% discount in Israel, at Hebrew Psychology Book Fair.

שבוע הספר העברי התחיל בשד' רוטשילד בתל אביב, ב-1926, כארוע ליום אחד. מאז התפתח, ומ-1961 שבוע הספר מתקיים כל שנה בכל הארץ.

עד 16 ביוני, ניתן לרכוש את הספרים חזרה: סיפור של גלות ושיבה והגיבור וצלו: היבטים פסיכו-פוליטיים של מיתוס ומציאות בישראל ב 30% הנחה, באתר של פסיכולוגיה עברית.

חזרה: סיפור של גלות ושיבה מחזירה אותנו לנושא נצחי, דו שיח עם הנפש, והרי אנחנו יודעים

היטב מה קורה כשמשוחחים עם הנפש – אנחנו משתנים, התודעה מתרחבת, הבלתי אפשרי נהיה אפשרי, וכבר לא חייבים ללכת בדרך הקטלנית של האבות הקדמונים.

חזרה היא סיפור דמיוני של תרחיש שמתרחש בראשם של ישראלים רבים, קשור להרהורים קיומיים ופחדים אפוקליפטיים – ויחד אם זאת, התקוה והמחויבות שעולים מתהום הפחד. הסיפור אומנם מתרחש בארץ מתישהו בהווה, אך הוא קושר אותנו לנצחיות ההסטוריה בשילוב מארג של דיונים עם קפקא והיינה, וכך מקבל משמעות אוניברסלית.

Requiem returns us to an eternal theme, a dialogue with Soul, and we know quite well what happens when one dialogues with Soul—we change, consciousness is enlarged, the impossible becomes possible and we no longer are compelled to blindly follow in the deathly path of our forefathers.

Requiem is a fictitious account of a scenario played out in the mind of many Israelis, pertaining to existential reflections and apocalyptic fears, but then, as well, the hope and commitment that arise from the abyss of trepidation. While set in Israel sometime in the present, it is a story that reaches into the timelessness of history, weaving discussions with Heine and Kafka into a tale of universal implications.

Jungian Psychotherapy at Bar Ilan פסיכותרפיה יונגיאנית בבר אילן

2013-04-24T06:40:00.000-04:00

We are pleased to announce the opening of the fourth class of the three-year program in

Jungian Psychotherapy

Bar Ilan University, Continuing Education, Weisfeld School of Social Work

Dr. Erel Shalit, Academic Director

For further details, please click here

Studies are conducted in Hebrew, please see below

תוכנית תלת-שנתית לפסיכותרפיה בגישה האנליטית של יונג

מרכז אקדמי: ד"ר אראל שליט

תאריך פתיחה: אוקטובר 2013

מטרות התכנית

התכנית מיועדת להכשיר אנשי מקצוע למטפלים בפסיכותרפיה עפ"י הגישה האנליטית של יונג. התכנית תקנה היכרות מעמיקה עם תורתו של יונג ודרך יישומה: כולל הבנת נפש האדם המתפתחת בתהליך האינדיבידואציה שלו ובתוך סביבתו ושורשיו התרבותיים, החל מהילדות המוקדמת, הבגרות, אמצע החיים והזקנה. תלמד גם הגישה הסימבולית והטיפולית של הפסיכולוגיה היונגיאנית ואופן העבודה עם תכני הלא-מודע. ההוראה וההדרכה ינתנו ע"י מיטב האנליטיקאים היונגיאניים בארץ.

אוכלוסיית היעד

עובדים סוציאליים בעלי תואר שני לפחות; פסיכולוגים; פסיכיאטרים.

מספר מקומות ישמרו למועמדים בעלי תואר שני בתחומי הטיפול כגון, טיפול ביצירה ובהבעה וקרימינולוגיה קלינית.

מבנה התכנית

הלימודים יתקיימו במשך שלוש שנים במתכונת משולבת של קורסים תיאורטיים, סדנאות חווייתיות, סמינר קליני והדרכה קבוצתית; בימי שני בשעות 15:00-20:30 בשנה הראשונה ובשעות 13:00-20:30 בשנים השניה והשלישית. סה"כ 572 שעות.

סגל ההוראה

לעיון ברשימה המעודכנת של חברי סגל התכנית:

רשימת חברי הסגל והמדריכים בתכנית התלת-שנתית לפסיכותרפיה בגישה האנליטית של יונג

רשימת חברי הסגל מתעדכנת מעת לעת.

ועדת הוראה והיגוי

ד"ר יהודה אברמוביץ, ד"ר אבי באומן, גב' רינה פורת, ד"ר אראל שליט.

מרכז הדרכה: מר נתנאל פרי

מרכזת עבודות גמר: גב' תמר לנגבהיים

מטלות

קריאה רצופה של חומר מקצועי בעברית ובאנגלית.

הגשת עבודה בהיקף של 5-7 עמודים בסיום השנה הראשונה והשניה אשר תשקף את הבנת הרוח היונגיאנית.

בסיום השנה השלישית תוגש עבודה אשר בה יידרש שילוב של הבנת התיאוריה והגישה הטיפולית.

על הסטודנט להתחיל הדרכה פרטנית בשנה הראשונה ולהמשיכה עד לסיום התכנית. ההדרכה תינתן ע"י מדריכי התכנית בעלות של 250 ש"ח לשעת הדרכה. נדרשות 90 שעות הדרכה, אשר מתחלקות בין שני מדריכים, לפחות 30 שעות אצל כל מדריך.

לסטודנטים בתכנית מומלץ לעבור טיפול באורינטציה יונגיאנית.

תעודה

לעומדים בהצלחה בדרישות התכנית, תוענק תעודה המאשרת סיום לימודי פסיכותרפיה בגישה האנליטית של יונג מטעם היחידה ללימודי המשך של ביה"ס לעבודה סוציאלית ע"ש לואיס וגבי וייספלד, אוניברסיטת בר-אילן.

התכנית מוכרת ע"י האגודה הישראלית לפסיכותרפיה פסיכואנליטית.

התכנית אינה מוכרת לגמול השתלמות.

הרשמה

על הנרשמים לצרף:

טופס הרשמה
דמי הרשמה - המחאה בסך 250 ש"ח לפקודת אוניברסיטת בר-אילן
קורות חיים אישיים ומקצועיים (לימודים אקדמיים ולא אקדמיים, התנסות מקצועית ופרסומים)
תמונת פספורט
צילומי תעודות של התואר הראשון/השני
אישורים על ניסיון קליני של שלוש שנים

המועמדים המתאימים יוזמנו לראיונות אישיים.
המתקבלים לתכנית מחויבים לתכנית המלאה.

שכר הלימוד

שנה א' – 8,600 ₪ + 250 ₪ דמי הרשמה.
ניתן לשלם בשמונה תשלומים הצמודים למדד יוקר המחיה יולי 2013.
שנה ב' – 8,600 ₪
ניתן לשלם בשמונה תשלומים הצמודים למדד יוקר המחיה יולי 2014.
שנה ג' – 8,600 ₪
ניתן לשלם בשמונה תשלומים הצמודים למדד יוקר המחיה יולי 2015

להורדת טופס הרשמה לקורס נא לחץ/י כאן

:פרטים נוספים

לימודי המשך ביה"ס לעבודה סוציאלית ע"ש לואיס וגבי וייספלד אוניברסיטת בר- אילן

טלפונים: 5317265 - 03, 5318211 - 03

פקס: 7384043 - 03

אתר היחידה

Anonymous join Ahmadinejad to demand "wipe Israel off ..."

2013-04-06T03:36:00.000-04:00

Hacktivist collective Anonymous has announced a forthcoming cyber-attack on Israel set to "wipe Israel off the Internet.”

The date set for the attack is April 7, 2013 (in fact, the attack began several days earlier,targeting Facebook accounts).

April 7, Holocaust Memorial Day, is an indicative choice, and my only suggestion is to the members of the group:

Don’t be afraid, stand up, don’t hide behind the masks of anonymity.

Be brave, be honest, declare your aim: "wipe Israel off ~~the Internet~~.” You join not a few who think likewise, for instance the Ayatollahs who want to "wipe Israel off the map."

Do follow in the footsteps of Norwegian philosopher Jostein Gaarder, who writes, “We do no longer recognize the State of Israel. … We laugh at this people’s – the Jews – fancies and weep over its misdeeds.” Then, foreseeing the fulfillment of his wet dream he excels in triumphant compassion, exclaiming “Peace and free passage for the evacuating civilian population no longer protected by a state. Fire not at the fugitives! Take not aim at them! They are vulnerable now like snails without shells… Give the Israeli refugees shelter, give them milk and honey!” (From Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return, p. 15)

As a Jew, as an Israeli, who is not blind to our shortcomings and state my opinion openly (e.g. as a signature in a petition in HaAretz, April 4), I cannot but look around in bewilderment at this world, probably flawless were it not for "the laughable misdeeds of the Jews"...

As a small counter-contribution to the efforts of Anonymous to delete and erase, I will contribute half of my royalties from purchases of Requiem during April to Yad VaShem, the Holocaust Research and Memorial Center, which has the aim of bringing the victims of Genocide out of anonymity:

"And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name (a "yad vashem")... that shall not be cut off." (Isaiah, chapter 56, verse 5).

Blurbs from the back cover of Requiem:

Requiem returns us to an eternal theme, a dialogue with Soul, and we know quite well what happens when one dialogues with Soul—we change, consciousness is enlarged, the impossible becomes possible and we no longer are compelled to blindly follow in the deathly path of our forefathers.

Requiem is a fictitious account of a scenario played out in the mind of many Israelis, pertaining to existential reflections and apocalyptic fears, but then, as well, the hope and commitment that arise from the abyss of trepidation. While set in Israel sometime in the present, it is a story that reaches into the timelessness of history, weaving discussions with Heine and Kafka into a tale of universal implications.

You can help in my efforts by purchasing Requiem at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Fisher King Press (it can also be bought in all these locations in Hebrew edition)

To everything there is a season; a time of war, and now a time of peace

2013-03-22T08:27:00.000-04:00

Thank you President Obama for your visit in Israel.

You won the hearts of all. The truth is, the minds of most are already oriented in the same direction as yours: a majority of Israelis, even of those who voted for PM Netanyahu, prefer a viable Palestinian State alongside Israel to stalemate, and would prefer ploughshares to swords.

Impressively, you corrected some mistakes of the past – such as not to make negotiations conditional on a settlement freeze.

President Abbas, now it is your turn not to repeat the mistakes of the past: You keep insisting on a settlement freeze as a pre-condition for entering negotiations. When PM Netanyahu agreed to President Obama’s request and implemented a ten-month settlement freeze, you did not return to the negotiation table, but asked for more.

And if you were truly honest, you would recognize Israel as a (the) Jewish State (with a sizable Arab minority), just like the State of Palestine, doubtlessly, is an Arab State (which you prefer without Jews).

PM Netanyahu – this is your third government. Fortune has brought you yet another opportunity. In spite of your hopes and the expectation that you would win a giant election victory, you barely escaped embarrassing defeat. What seemed like an unalterable long-term trend toward the right, received a surprising blow, and the Israeli people clearly said, “We want change.”

This is the time to seek your place in the annals of the people of Israel. You probably wanted to be recorded in the history book of your father, the right-wing historian. But your father is dead, and now, as we celebrate Passover, in commemoration of liberation from slavery, you are free to abandon the too grand fantasies and enter into the freedom of realistic implementation.

Please do hold on to the sense of historical rights of the Jewish people to the entire Land of Israel, yet do also realize that this earth is shared between two peoples, each with its grandiose fantasies, wanting it all for themselves, but having to compromise in the balance of reality.

If, likewise, the Palestinian leadership, who adheres to the idea of Greater Palestine, abandons their written desire to actually cleanse this land of the Jews, then both sides may approach each other.

This is a golden opportunity. President Obama has expressed and demonstrated his firm commitment, and will provide the help the sons of Isaac and the sons of Ishmael need.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, you will have a strong majority behind you if you:

declare a stop of building in all settlements beyond the security fence, and a step-by-step process of “evacuation-compensation” of the Jewish settlers there, rather than wasting the country’s finances on settlements that in any case at some point will be evacuated; and
recognize the State of Palestine, within temporary borders.

You could then suggest the beginning of a process of negotiations of partial agreements, in which every agreed-upon step is implemented, rather than complete agreements, to be implemented only at the end of negotiations (which has not been successful).

It may be more convenient for the Palestinians to negotiate as a Palestine – Jordan confederation, which makes it more sustainable during interim stages, and puts the pressure off the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish State early in the process.

That way, areas of West Bank land not yet under Palestinian control can be handed over, step by step, to the Palestinian State, which together with Jordan can implement the necessary security to prevent rockets and other military equipment from entering, which might threaten for instance Israeli air traffic.

In exchange for the settlement blocs along the former Green Line (a few percent of the West Bank), in which the great majority of Israeli settlers live, Egypt could provide area in Sinai to enable the necessary expansion of Gaza, while Israel turns over part of Western Negev to Egypt.

Map by Shaul Arieli

Whatever procedures, processes and arrangements, this is the season and the time to be liberated from rigid conceptualizations. President Obama clearly showed the way, including learning from past mistakes. Many claim your government has a too strong right-wing element. That will not be a big problem; just like your mentor Menachem Begin, who signed a peace treaty with Egypt relying on the left, you can safely rely on a parliamentary majority in favor of peace. All it takes is a courage, creativity and leadership.

Happy Passover ! חג שמח

From the Arthur Szyk Haggadah

Further readings: The Hero & His Shadow: Psychopolitical Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel; Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return.

Internet, Transparency, Transiency and the Shadow

2013-03-18T22:16:00.000-04:00

This profound painting, The Geology of Time, by Susan Bostrom Wong, opened the article 'Destruction of the Image and the Worship of Transiency', in The Jung Journal: Psyche and Culture.

The Internet is a dramatic manifestation of the rapid and enormous changes that humankind is experiencing in the world of today (or tomorrow, before the sentence is finished).

It is still in its very early stages, but who can imagine that less than two decades ago, practically no one had heard about that reality, however virtual, of our world.

In 2006, 18% of the world’s population had already access to the World Wide Web. Within five years it had doubled, reaching 35%.

If today there are private companies the size of countries, there are phenomena, such as Google and Facebook, that have become entire continents, in that alternative world in which we live, called the Internet.

While in many ways the expansion of the internet seems erratic, chaotic and associative, it may well be a self-regulating system, moving towards increasing similarity with what we still might call “the real world”:

The future of the Internet technological revolution will continue to be made in man's image.

Three dimensional graphics will become more sophisticated, and virtual reality interfaces such as viewers and tactile feedback systems will become more realistic. The technology will be applied to innovative ways to navigate the Internet's information universe, for hyper-realistic gaming, and for group communications. There will come a day when you will be able to have dinner with a group of friends each in a different city, almost as though you were in the same room, although you will all have to bring your own food.

Virtual reality applications will not only better and better reflect the natural world, they will also have the fluidity, flexibility, and speed of the digital world, layered on the Internet, and so will be used to create apparently magical environments of types we can only now begin to imagine. These increasingly sophisticated virtual experiences will continue to change how we understand the nature of reality, experience, art, and human relations.

Retrieved from The Future of the Internet

The assets, advances and advantages of the Internet are innumerable. Yet, everything has its shadow(s). Often the shadows that we have ignored and supposedly left behind, jump up right in front of us and obstruct our free forward movement; take for example how environmentalists of the time welcomed the automobile,

In cities and towns the noise and clatter of the streets will be reduced, priceless boon to the tired nerves of this overwrought generation. … On sanitary grounds too the banishing of horses from our city streets will be a blessing. Streets will be cleaner, jams and blockages less likely to occur and accidents less frequent, for the horse is not so manageable as a mechanical vehicle.[1]

While the car has become a crucial means of transportation in our world, we may now, a hundred years later, be more aware of its disadvantages; more than a million people are killed around the world in road accidents, and an estimated 50 million wounded per year (World Health Organization).

The speed with which we access information impedes the ability to digest it; digestion is needed to turn information into knowledge, knowledge into understanding, and understanding into wisdom.

Much of what takes place on the Internet becomes transient – one website leads to the next, as we swiftly move on to something else that attracts our attention.

The Internet enables greater transparency, which often is desirable. But with transparency comes a certain loss of privacy, when everything can be forwarded and mass-distributed with great ease, sometimes intentionally, sometimes provocatively, and occasionally by mistake.

One recent example is an email, by mistake circulated to the students, compiled by one of the teachers at a High School in Kfar Saba, in which one student is described as “selfish,” another as “not particularly bright,” and another as “a big baby.”

In this case, what pertains to simple gossip, unworthy of being put on paper, was not only printed, thus becoming ‘a document,’ but distributed to all students, making us wonder what really keeps these teachers occupied; clearly not valuable education. Gossip – a word which interestingly comes from ‘God-siblings’ – sometimes makes aspects of everyday a bit juicier, shouldn’t be taken seriously. It shouldn’t become a document, and it shouldn’t become public. The shadow of gossip should be relegated to the secrecy of dark corners of dining-hall tables or coffee-shop chatter. But now, with the ease of pushing buttons, shadows are easily thrown out right there in front of us, penetrating the weakening filters of the ego and ego-judgment, fusing with the face of our personae.

Read more, e.g. Self, Meaning & the Transient Personality, Recollection and recollectivization, Destruction of the Image and the Worship of Transiency here.

Technology is not only here to stay, but we would rather not do without it. However, rather than a future in which man and machine struggle against each other, with a doubtful outcome, modern technology can be combined with the mystery of life and the magic of childhood, as for instance in Gal Sasson's Make-a-Play, a finalist in the Engadget Insert Coin Competition.

[1] Appeared in Horseless Age, “a popular magazine for automobile enthusiasts” published between 1895 and 1918; from Ann Norton Greene, “Horses at Work: Harnessing Power in Industrial America.”

Make a Play: Gal's high-tech puppet stage in semifinal

2013-02-21T08:19:00.000-05:00

Update: Make-a-Play has reached the final, which will take place in San Francisco, mid-March!

The Engadget website has announced a competition for the young, creative and innovative. The ten semifinalists have been elected, and now the public is invited to vote for the five finalists.

This is what Terrence O'Brien writes about Gal Sasson's Make a Play, which participates in the competition:

By Terrence O'Brien posted Feb 21st, 2013 at 2:00 PM

The students at ITP are constantly churning out creative projects that are unafraid to walk the fine line between art and tech. So its no wonder that Gal Sasson's Make a Play wound up as one of the semi-finalists in our Insert Coin: New Challengers competition. It doesn't hurt that the concept also combines two of our greatest loves here at Engadget: toys and Arduino. The name, it turns out, is actually quite descriptive. The microcontroller-driven stage allows anyone to quickly create a piece of miniature theater using handcrafted puppets and an impressive selection of buttons, knobs and switches -- all lovingly handcrafted out of wood on this prototype. The control panel can move the actors using two motorized carts, cue lighting, playback voice recordings and even activate special electronics embedded in the puppets, such as LED eyes in the demo video after the break. Any action can be recorded and fed to a companion computer program, where tweaks can can be made to the automation. Honestly, sounds like the sort of thing we wish we had a as kids.

You can vote here for Gal Sasson's high-tech puppet stage, or another competitor of your choice. Read more about the Engadget Expand Event in San Francisco, March 16, 2013.

פרויקט של גל ששון

Make a Play

משתתף בתחרות נושאת פרסים של אתר

Engadget

ההצבעה מאוד פשוטה:

נכנסים ללינק:

http://engadgetinsertcoin.brightcontext.com

ולוחצים על

'Vote'

Make a Play ל

(התחתון הכי שמאלי מבין הפרוייקטים).

James A. Hall, M.D., 1934-2013

2013-02-12T11:55:00.000-05:00

James A. Hall, M.D., 1934-2013

James Hall, M.D., who died on January 22 at his home in Dallas, was a prominent American Jungian Analyst. He graduated from the Jung Institute in Zurich in 1972., He was a founding member and first president of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts, and the author of important works on Jungian approaches to dreams and interpretation, as well as the introductory text “The Jungian Experience: Analysis and Individuation.” His writings span four decades.

Following a stroke, James Hall suffered for the last twenty-two years from "locked-in" syndrome. With Patton Howell he wrote the book Locked in to Life, which is described the following way:

“In 1991 while traveling in his professional capacity of Jungian psychiatrist, James Hall falls ill, beginning the rest of his life as a man who must deal with the limitations of being "locked-in," a form of stroke so devastating and complete that the resulting physical damage is considered a death sentence. In living his life with Locked-in Syndrome, Dr. Hall brings to bear the significant and formidable intellect of his professional training to consider questions, and answers, which only a man of his experience could entertain. James will begin a journey and over time, return to the Beginning of the Universe and find new understanding and his task of redemption. Written with his long-time friend Patton Howell, a forensic psycho-physiologist and President of PEN Texas, in eloquent text unhampered by ego or illusion, Locked in to Life is a book which will change your life in ways you cannot imagine.”

Together with James Hall, I had the honor to write an article, ‘The Complex and the Object: Common Ground, Different Paths’ (Quadrant, vol. 36:2, Summer 2006, pp. 27-42).

I pray that James, while bravely struggling when locked-in to life, will find some rest in the soul’s freedom from its earthly trap.

‘The Complex and the Object: Common Ground, Different Paths’

Abstract

While complex and object are part of everyday psychoanalytic discourse, the meaning of the terms varies with different approaches, and the relationship between the concepts is far from apparent. Specifically, in this paper the Jungian complex and the Kleinian internal object are compared. It is the view of these authors that the internal object is primarily related to the archetypal image, and the internalized object to Jung’s concept of imago. The complex is the central concept that in a well-defined model of the psyche dynamically unites the phenomena described by these concepts. Furthermore, while in neurotic conflict the struggle between the ego and autonomous complexes takes place on the battlefield of the subjective psyche, in the personality disorders the complex is projected ‘wholesale’ onto the external object, turning the other into a ‘complex-object.’

Introduction

The complex and the object have traveled along noticeably different paths through the history of psychoanalytic and clinical development.

While the complex was a central idea in the early conceptual space of psychoanalysis, it has since been reduced to a single core complex, carried by Oedipus. Even in Jungian psychoanalysis, which Jung at one point considered calling Complex Psychology, the complex has lost some of its vigor. Although Jung, in contrast to Freud, accounts for a large or even an infinite number of complexes, the concept is less in use today than in the early 1900s, when by means of the Word Association Test a plenitude of complexes were traced down and extracted from their hideaway behind every galvanic skin response. Since then, the complex has by and large been discarded in the shadow – which of course is the appropriate place for complexes, as they thrive and grow most significantly in the dark, outside of consciousness. Yet, the repressed tends to reappear, and as indicated by recent literature, the complex reemerges from the shadow (cf. Dieckmann, 1999; Shalit, 2002; Singer & Kimbles, 2004).

In comparison, the object has become a dominant in the collective consciousness of psychoanalysis. “‘Object’ was the term chosen by Freud to designate the target of the drives, the ‘other,’ real or imaginary, toward whom the drive is directed,” writes Mitchell (1981, p. 375).

While Freud did not use the term internal object, he did describe phenomena such as internal ‘voices’ and images (ibid.). Particularly in the aftermath of Klein, the term has become part of everyday psychoanalytic discourse.

We find that the two concepts, the Jungian complex and the post-Freudian internal object, while not identical, share common ground and embrace a shared space. James Hall says, “Object-relations theory is very close to Jungian theory in its conception of intrapsychic objects, which behave with some of the attributes of part-personalities. In this regard, the term intrapsychic object resembles Jung’s picture of a personified complex described in his doctoral dissertation in 1902” (1991, p. 49).

Does this mean that the complex and the object describe the same phenomenon, and are merely dialects of different psychoanalytic tongues? Are they manifestations of different perspectives on the same structure of the psyche? Or, are the complex and the object truthfully different psychic structures and phenomena?

Transference and the Individual in the Analytical Space

2013-02-01T05:09:00.000-05:00

The three Israeli Jungian societies held their first joint conference, February 14, 2013 with more than 200 participants.

For details of the conference (in Hebrew), follow this link.

כנס שלושת האגודות היונגיאניות, 14 בפברואר. לפרטים והרשמה

Noah's Ark, oil on canvas painting by Edward Hicks,
1846 Philadelphia Museum of Art

"It is perhaps characteristic of the intellectualist bias of psychoanalysis that rapport should appear to it to be mysterious. The concept implies that the natural attitude of one human being to another is to observe him with detachment as though he were a thing and that some mysterious extra process has to take place if they are to communicate. But perhaps it is really the other way round and rapport occurs naturally unless it is inhibited by such factors as the absence of shared symbols, suspicion on the part of one or both parties, or lack of imagination on the part of the therapist."

Charles Rycroft, A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis

The cover image of Enemy, Cripple & Beggar is a painting by Susan Bostrom-Wong, an artist and Jungian analyst in San Francisco.

With careful observation, you will find layers of images embedded in the human figure of this fine painting.

As with the human shadow, 'Emerging' represents the need to look within to find the vital symbols and hidden aspects of our evolving selves.

Another fine painting of Susan's, Out of the Fire, appears on the cover of Frances Hatfield's poetry book Rudiments of Flight.

Learn more about Susan Bostrom Wong's fine artwork

Ann Walker's Review of Enemy, Cripple & Beggar in Psychological Perspectives

Like a tree by the river: A journey through the land of worship and the wicked

2013-01-05T08:58:00.001-05:00

photo by Yoram Bouzaglo

People have come and they have gone, often arriving with great hopes and grand ideas, with beautiful dreams and the promise of redemption, not infrequently leaving with broken hearts, disillusioned and dispirited.

The author Nikolai Gogol, for instance, having burned the two first versions of Dead Souls, believed a pilgrimage to Jerusalem would redeem his soul and relieve him from depression and writer’s block.

Great hopes and harsh falls. Gogol was shocked by the noise and confusion in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, discouraged by the scenery and the environs. “Not only were my prayers unable to rise up to heaven, I could not even tear them loose from my breast,” he wrote in despair to Tolstoy.

painting by Benjamin Schiff

One early traveler was Abraham, son of Terah, the first patriarch, founder of the Hebrew nation. Four thousand years ago he departed from his father’s house and crossed the lands of Western Asia, moving up the Euphrates River. At the Assyrian city of Haran – the name of which, by the way, comes from Sumerian and Accadian, and means ‘journey – caravan – crossroad’ – Haran is now in present-day Turkey; there Abraham was told to go forth into the land that God would show him, and eventually he arrived at and crossed the Jordan river into the Land of Canaan.

“Get thee out of your country” says God in King James, and Abraham responds to the hero’s call and starts out on his journey. But the inner meaning of the outer act is lost in translation... the uncany combination of two separate words spelled the same way, "lech lecha" (לך לך) may mean 'Go thee', as well as 'Go into thee'...

Excerpts from a lecture, January 7, 2013, at the New York Center for Jungian Studies' "Jung in Israel," Sheraton Tel Aviv.

photo by Yoram Bouzaglo

95-year-old letter reveals Kafka's mouse phobia

2012-12-18T11:57:00.000-05:00

Haaretz journalist Ofer Aderet reported the following on December 9, 2012:

“A rare letter written by Franz Kafka 95 years ago has been purchased by the German Archive of Literature, at a public auction held this weekend. This letter was apparently part of the bequest of Kafka's friend Max Brod. A court recently ruled that this collection of manuscripts should be transferred to the National Library in Jerusalem, as Brod had bequeathed in his will.”

“The sale took place last Friday at the Kaupp auction house in Sulzburg, Germany, with the German archive managing to raise the required 96,000 Euros from private donors, wishing to remain anonymous. The four-page letter was written by Kafka to his friend on December 4, 1917, in the Czech town in which he was residing with his sister Ottla while recuperating from tuberculosis. In the letter, Kafka describes his fear of the mice lurking in his apartment, admitting that his phobia is irrational, and that psychoanalysts should look into the source of this fear. He suggests keeping a cat as a solution that is preferable to using mousetraps.”

While the contents of the letter have been published, “in books as well as on the Internet, the letter had not been publicly displayed before. The letter had changed hands several times over the last 30 years, passing between different private collectors. The German archive has now added the letter to its large collection of Kafka writings, and will put it on public display in April, in a special exhibition.”

“In all likelihood, the letter was part of the Max Brod bequest, which has recently been contested in an Israeli court. The parties to the dispute were the German Archive of Literature, the National Library in Jerusalem and the daughters of Max Brod's personal secretary.”

“A family court in Tel Aviv recently ruled that the entire Brod bequest be transferred to the National Library in Jerusalem. An attempt by lawyers representing Hoffe to obtain a temporary injunction to delay the transfer has failed, but they plan to appeal this ruling and the main decision.”

Mice generally refer to the powers of darkness, “gnawing at the root of the Tree of Life.” They evoke anxiety and “nocturnal worries,” as Marie-Louise von Franz says. Or, in Kafka’s words,

My reaction towards the mice is one of sheer terror. To analyze its source would be the task of the psychoanalyst, which I am not. Certainly, this fear, like an insect phobia, is connected with the unexpected, uninvited, inescapable, more or less silent, persistent, secret aims of these creatures, with the sense that they have riddled the surrounding walls through and through with their tunnels and are lurking within, that the night is theirs, that because of their nocturnal existence and their tininess they are so remote from us and thus outside our power.

Kafka provides a particularly touching and simultaneously powerful description of complexes in his (Never sent) Letter to Father. He was unable to uphold his own separate identity vis-à-vis his domineering father. It is amazing how in relationship to him the otherwise so highly cognizant Kafka suffered from a lowering of awareness, abaisemênt de niveau mental. Kafka says, in the beginning of his letter to father,

You once asked me recently why I claim to be afraid of you. I did not know, as usual, what to answer, partly out of my fear of you …,

And later he writes,

I acquired in your presence … a hesitant, stammering manner of speaking, and even that was too much for you … I could neither think nor speak in your presence.

Kafka is afraid and the fear paralyses him. The terrifying complex – Brod speaks of an “infantile complex” – directly attacks consciousness and detracts available energy from the ego. When in the grip of the complex, ego-consciousness and identity are impaired. Feeling is then no longer a value-judgement, and affect and sensitivity overtake us. We are overcome by fear, rage, or the like and tend to project.

Kafka feels his father exposes him by “indiscriminately” speaking about his son in front of others. He sees himself as the hardworking father who sacrifices all to his ungrateful son. The feeling of being exposed is common when a complex is activated, and complexes are activated by exposure.

Excerpted from The Complex: Path of Transformation from Archetype to Ego, ‘Frantz Kafka’s Letter to Father’ (pp. 92-103).

Kriegskindheit, War Childhood in Germany

2012-12-06T15:36:00.001-05:00

Kriegskindheit, a new book by Helga Thomas

Helga Thomas is a Jungian psychoanalyst and writer in Germany, with whom I have cooperated for a decade. We have worked together with the Bulgarian Jung Society, where Helga teaches, supervises and gives analysis.

The Bulgarian Jung Society provides a forum for the study, training and development of Jung’s analytical Psychology. I consider myself fortunate to have been involved with this group of devoted professionals. As liaison person between the International Association of Analytical Psychology (a position now held by Joann Culbert-Coen), I have witnessed a tremendous development taking place over the years. [For those interested, below find a summary of my presentation on the subject at the 1st European Conference of Analytical Psychology, held in Vilnius in 2009]

During my visits once or twice a year, I have experienced the warmth and openness, coupled with insight and reflection, that characterizes the Jungian psychotherapists and the Bulgarian Jung Society. This has also provided an interesting meeting ground between Helga as a German and me as an Israeli, an example of which was a seminar on the shadow that we gave together a few years ago, which inevitably was held in the shadow of history.

Helga was born in Berlin in 1943, and spent her childhood, until the age of fifteen, in the Soviet Occupation Zone. Her new book, Kriegskindheit, recently published in German and Bulgarian, is an attempt to work through her personal war childhood.

Back Cover Text

The mere act of writing down my recollections, which in part are already a result of working through these recollections, will not suffice. It is important for Erel to hold the letter that is addressed to him in his hands and to read it from the beginning all the way to the end. Yet, even that does not suffice. As I am sitting here in Sofia, I realize it does not suffice either for me to keep telling about it. No, not at all. I don’t need a person to listen to my story. Other people need to read my letter to Erel so that through my story they will be able to reconnect with their own deeply hidden (family) stories. I am visualizing images of well protected, beautifully decorated inner spaces… A new process has begun - not only inside myself.

From the Epilogue

Dear Erel,

I realize I have to add an epilogue. Yesterday, after finishing the concept of the letter to you, I read further in Sabine Bode’s book Grandchildren of the war. Heirs of the forgotten generation. In my own report it becomes clear how parents were silent and now you cannot ask them anymore.

I am a child of the war, not a grandchild, but I feel the same, and so I stay silent just as well… I don’t know whether this causes suffering for my children. I think I have told them about it and I have read good children’s books on this subject to them… sometimes all the three of us wept…

And Stefan asked his Granddad whether he had ever shot anyone to death in the war. My father responded honestly that he didn’t know. Only at the very end of the war he was in combat at the front. He doesn’t remember anymore because he was so badly injured that he almost died. It could have been, but he hoped that it was not the case. The truth? Repression? Illusion? A response appropriate to a child? His honest endeavor and concern at his grandchild’s question were palpable. I would never have dared ask this question! Perhaps for fear of being told: Don’t ask such a stupid question, of course I did, it was wartime, you would have used your gun as well! – and I would have been silent, fearfully, ashamed. Later I was ashamed that I had not asked.

***************************

Erel Shalit: Analytical Identity and Culture - Bulgaria

At the First European Conference of Analytical Psychology, “Dialogue at the Threshold between East and West: Past, Present and Future of Cultural Identity,” held in Vilnius, Lithuania, Dr. Shalit emphasized the need “to account for social, cultural, political and historical factors; cultural complexes and social complexities, as well as the wisdom and the psyche of the particular geo-psychological location,” in the development of psychotherapy as a profession. He outlined five factors to be accounted for:

I. The first factor pertains to the change in collective consciousness.

Liberation from a totalitarian regime, from an oppressive Father as dominant of the social collective consciousness, as well as its internalization in the mind of the individual, is not only a political process.

The psychological process to free oneself from both fear as well as reliance on external authority takes longer than the actual change of regime.

The way the principle of Father dominates consciousness, is reflected in the transference on to visiting analysts, as regards for instance reliance, expectation, apprehension and idealization, ambivalence, dependency vs. independence, etc.

II. The second issue is related to the first: While the unconscious is, axiomatically, the antithesis of consciousness, when the ideology of a prevailing, oppressive social collective consciousness claims that “matter is the beginning and the end of reality,” the courage it takes to turn to the soul and the unconscious is particularly noteworthy.

This personal courage and individual path is something that deserves profound respect. Initially I did not realize the extent of their courage, in spite of my sense of affinity to my Bulgarian friends and colleagues, because it was hidden behind their humbleness, and perhaps their respect and reliance on foreign authority. No doubt, though, that the senior members of the Jung society have truly been pioneers – the brave founders of the enterprise of introducing Analytical Ψ, with visiting analysts like myself and others as devoted assistants.

III. Third factor: with freedom and renewal come loss and abandonment – as Jung has stated, abandonment is a necessary condition, not just a concomitant symptom, of development toward independence. Bulgaria suffers from emigration, many young are leaving, many of whom are extremely talented. This means that you experience not only loss, but also have to ask yourself, how come you stay. What is it that binds you, prevent you from leaving – is it fear and failure that hold you back, or does some sense of motivation and meaning beyond your personal welfare induce you with commitment and devotion?

I believe one is confronted with questions pertaining to the relationship between the individual and society, in a way that is qualitatively different from many Western societies.

IV. The fourth issue has to do with the proximity to dreaming and the unconscious. There may be less layers of asphalt, of seemingly sophisticated defenses, that cover and smooth the surface of Mother Earth. She lies barer than in so-called developed countries. Therefore, the access to deeper layers of the soul is often more direct, more immediate. Consequently, we need to consider diagnosis in its cultural context.

Many years ago, as director of a community mental health clinic, I realized the difference between someone who shares suicidal thoughts with the social worker or the family doctor, vs. someone who expresses suicidal inclinations at the psychiatric hospital’s emergency room – it should of course all be taken seriously, but it may mean and indicate very different things.

Likewise, what in one society may be a psychotic manifestation of an ego overwhelmed by archetypal material, this may in another cultural setting reflect an openness to the collective unconscious and the archetypal realm.

V. My last point is that providing education of a profession that previously did not exist in a particular society creates, among other things, narcissistic fear, inflatedness and confusion – for instance, how many pioneering therapists or analysts do not believe that they are impostors, with only the persona of a therapist, without the weight of the ancestors, the forerunners, the traditions and formal learning, lacking the trust in an ego anchored within one's Self?

Out of the massa confusa, a wide array of therapeutic approaches emerge, and there is a lack of clarity of concepts – e.g. as regards analyst vs. therapist.

In such a fluid state of affairs, it is important to enable the development of a firm basis of skilful therapists, with an identity rooted both in their own culture as well as in analytical psychology.

Does Israel need a cease-fire agreement with Hamas?

2012-11-12T10:12:00.000-05:00

Cease-fire yes, agreement no

The Hebrew will follow the English העברית לאחר האנגלית

Attack on Tel Aviv bus

Hamas is a terror organization, openly aiming at the destruction of Israel, firing missiles with the intention of injuring and killing civilians, victoriously triumphant the more damage is inflicted on the detested enemy, whether child, man or woman, or the elderly.

Their goals remain unchanged, so any commitment from their side, as they have themselves stated, has very little value, and is valid only as long as it serves their purposes, for instance rebuilding their arsenal of weapons.

Yet, the ruling Palestinian Hamas government in Gaza carries responsibility of its own acts.

Israel should of course not act in an inhumane way and prevent the supply of electricity to Gaza, the greater part of which is supplied by Israel.

Execution of suspected collaborator in Gaza

The decision regarding supply of electricity should be in the hands of the Palestinian government in Gaza.

At the sounding of the “Red Color” alert, Israeli citizens have 15 to 30 seconds to find shelter from the missiles fired from Gaza.

I suggest declaring an exact date when the Red Color Alert will be connected to the switch which activates electricity supplies. From that moment, electricity will automatically be cut for 15 seconds at the firing of the first missile.

School in Ashkelon hit by rocket

Each additional missile will double the time of the electricity cut. The third missile will cut electricity for one minute, and after the tenth missile, electricity is cut for two hours and eight minutes.

Consequently, the length of the electricity cut will be determined entirely by those who fire rockets, or, more correctly, for the government that controls Gaza. They will know that the next rocket will automatically cause an electricity cut double the time of the previous one, and be fully in control of supplies – by the twelfth missile it will be eight hours and thirty-two minutes.

האם ישראל באמת זקוקה להסכם הפסקת אש עם החמאס?

החמאס לא מתכוון לוותר על מטרתו להשמיד את מדינת ישראל, לכן להסכם אין הרבה ערך.

אך כממשלה השולטת במדינת עזה, היא אחראית להשלכות פועלה.

מאחר ואין להגיב באופן לא הומני ע"י ניתוק החשמל, כאשר ישראל מספקת חלק נכבד מהחשמל, יש להעביר החלטת ניתוק החשמל לממשלת עזה.

בהשמע אזעקת צבע אדום, לזקן ולילד בין 15 ל-30 שניות למצוא מחסה.

אני מציע להכריז על מועד חיבור התרעת צבע אדום למתג שמספק חשמל לעזה. מאותו רגע, החשמל ייפסק אוטומטית עבור הטיל הראשון ל-15 שניות.

כל טיל נוסף יכפיל את זמן ניתוק החשמל. לאחר שלושה טילים, לדקה, לאחר הטיל העשירי, שעתיים ושמונה דקות.

לפי כך, אורך הפסקת החשמל לחלוטין בידיהם של יורי הטילים, או יותר נכון, לריבון בעזה, שיכול להחליט אם ירצה במו-ידיו, לגרום להפסקת החשמל לעזה בהכפלת זמן הניתוק לעומת הטיל הקודם. כך יידעו באופן מדויק מה השלכות שיגור כל טיל.

Whose words are empty, whose eyes do not see?

2012-11-10T02:25:00.001-05:00

Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas appeared recently on Israeli TV. His objective, as he said, was to influence Israeli opinion.

He declared that for him, the 1967 borders (well, they aren’t really borders, but the reference is to the cease fire lines 1948-1967) with East Jerusalem as its capital is Palestine, while the rest is Israel.

He also said that although he is a refugee from Safed in the Galilee, he had no intention to return to live there. This caused protests among Palestinian, assuming Abbas was relinquishing their so-called ‘right of return.’

However, Abbas soon clarified, in Arabic, that he has not at all relinquished this Palestinian claim.

President Shimon Peres responded by saying that Israel does have a partner for peace, while PM Netanyahu quickly dismissed Abbas’s words as empty.

True, when Netanyahu agreed to President Obama’s request for a settlement freeze to bring the Palestinians back to the negotiation table, Abbas refrained from returning to negotiations.

Following in the footsteps of Arafat’s infamous rejection of a peace agreement in 2000, and then opening a five year war of terror against Israel, Abbas later rejected then PM Olmert’s most far-reaching peace offer.

Leading up to and following its independence in 1948, Israel was attacked by several Arab states, and hundreds of thousands of Arabs fled. Many were called to do so by their own leaders, expecting a quick return, and many fled in fear.

Some had lived in the land for many generations, while others had arrived only a few years earlier (which is the reason that the UNWRA definition of a Palestinian refugee is a person who had lived in the area for two years).

Where the Arabs had the upper hand, the fate of the Jews were, to say the least, not fortunate.

In Palestinian counting, the off-spring of these refugees, and the spouses of their off-spring, and many needy in areas outside of what became Israel, are today counted as refugees, numbered in the millions, claiming a right to settle in Israel (which would then become part of a Palestinian State; according to the Palestinian Charter, the Jews are to leave).

Rather than resettling the refugees among their Palestinian landsmen, and creating a constructive identity for their off-spring, as has been the case in other parts of the world (including Jewish refugees from the Holocaust, and Jews who were forced to flee Arab countries, whose off-spring have shed any identity as refugees), the Palestinian national identity is permeated with a sense of being victims and refugees. The destruction of Israel has for many Arab leaders taken precedence over the building of Palestine.

So Netanyahu may be right.

But he is not very wise.

Netanyahu himself has not done anything to move toward reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinians. He has not taken his own words - reluctantly adhering to the idea of two states for two peoples, Jewish Israel and Arab Palestine - seriously. He has not done anything constructive, nothing to enable the renewal of negotiations. Every opportunity is taken to build more settlements, rather than caring for housing within Israel proper.

Mahmoud Abbas is an experienced politician, well aware of his intentions as well as his difficulties. He obviously sent out a trial balloon when he said he did not intend to return to his native Safed, touching on the Palestinian core issue, inevitably evoking protest and ensuing denial.

A more open-minded and creative leader than Netanyahu would respond affirmatively to Abbas’s courage to touch the most sensitive of issues for the Palestinians. In spite of Abbas representing only one of the two Palestinian governments (the other one headed by Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza), he should invite him to immediate negotiations, declaring a willingness to freeze settlement activities beyond the security fence the moment negotiations begin (i.e., not as a precondition, but as an immediate goodwill gesture).

Netanyahu might remain in power after elections, January 22, 2013. Whether he or someone else will form the government, President Obama will have an opportunity to play an authoritative and instrumental role, e.g. by appointing a combined team of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair – both respected by all sides of the involved partners – to parent negotiations between the hostile brothers, together with Dennis Ross, who recently has presented constructive ideas for a peace process.

This might be the ultimate timing - both to ensure that Iran will not attain nuclear weapons, starting a nuclear race in the Middle East, and for the Israelis and Palestinians to get back onto the track towards future neighborly relations.

Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return is on sale now for $14.95, and Enemy, Cripple, Beggar is on sale now for $19.95 or $30.00 for the pair when ordered directly from the Fisher King Press. You can also order The Hero and His Shadow: Psychopolitcal Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel directly from Fisher King Press. Phone orders welcomed, Credit Cards accepted. 1-800-228-9316 toll free in the US & Canada, International +1-831-238-7799

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Transiency and the Culture of Plastic

2012-10-27T06:30:00.000-04:00

From The Fisher King Review

Transiency and the Culture of Plastic

Our post-modern era is characterized by increasing dislocation and fragmentation. The sense of permanence and constancy of old, is exchanged for temporality and fluidity, i.e., a condition of transiency. Not only do cars, trains and planes carry us across continents faster than most people once could imagine – perhaps with the exception of Jules Verne and a few others, but we travel cyberspace in zero-time. Speed in the era of transiency, makes the soulful road of the wanderer seem hopelessly obsolete.

Likewise, we are over-exposed to stimuli, information and images: once upon a time we would sit down and quietly look through the pictures of the past, the reminders of our childhood, enjoy a memory, recall days long gone by, share thoughts and feelings from a time that could be brought alive by the one photo from that day. Today, we are flooded by digital photos, numbered almost into infinity. Rarely do we remain more than seconds to glance at each photo, and even more rarely do we return to them – often unaware that what warrants no return, loses its soul.

It is by reflecting on the events in which we partake that we induce them with depth and meaning, but speed and superficiality seem to supersede depth and reflection.

We are flooded with images, but the onslaught of external images disrupts the flow of internal imagery. Excessive exteriority impinges upon the imagery of interiority. Read more here, or at the Fisher King Press Newsletter.

If you are interested in reading other book chapters, encyclopedia entries, and published papers of mine, you will find a compilation at OPEN ENDS.

Certain entries require login. Username and password can be purchased by using PayPal, or at Hebrew Psychology ($15, 46.75 NIS).

Among the articles, book chapters and encyclopedia entries you can access by login are:

-- Erel Shalit, Silence is the Center of Feeling
-- Jerusalem as Metaphor
-- Worship of Transiency
-- Dreams in the Bible
-- Sacrifice of Isaac
-- Jerusalem encyclopedia entry
-- Story of requiem
-- Self, Meaning & the Transient Personality
-- Recollection and recollectivization
-- lakes of memory - review of adagio & lamentations
-- Jerusalem - Psyche & the City
-- with James Hall, The complex object

Eid Mubarak

2012-10-27T06:04:00.000-04:00

'Above all praise', by Benjamin Shiff. Read more about the artist,
and see more of his wonderful paintings.

I wish my Muslim friends, and all Muslims, a Blessed Eid, Eid Mubarak, a Blessed Feast of Sacrifice (Eid al-Adha).

The feast commemorates Abraham’s (Ibrahim) willingness to sacrifice his first-born son, Ishmael, who was sent away together with his mother Hagar.

For many Muslims, not Isaac but Ishmael is the son at the center of the drama of the Akedah, the near-sacrifice:

“Behind the Wall of Tears, the timeline descends from the mosque to the Temple of Jupiter to the pigeon-sellers, to the Temple and yet the one before, right down to the altar of worship and sacrifice. It is here, at the point of the needle, where history and legend merge at the very hub of indistinguishable uncertainty, that the awe-inspiring drama of the sacrifice of Isaac supposedly took place. What terrifying, formidable lesson did God want to teach Abraham, when he told him to go forth to the land of Moriah and offer his son Isaac for a burnt offering?

“Abraham does not question his God, with whom he has sealed a covenant. He binds his son Isaac and lays him upon the wood of the altar he has built. The son submits to the father, Isaac to Abraham, and Abraham to God – a weakness of character? Hardly, since Abraham has already proven his capacity to leave his father’s house, and no less, when he argues and negotiates with God to spare the sinners with the righteous in Sodom.

“Perhaps Abraham did not ask any questions because this was simply his adherence to the ancient practice of surrendering the first-born to the gods? The Scriptures tell us Abraham offered up his “only son Isaac.” Consequently, some Muslim scholars claim that not the little laughing one was to be sacrificed, but Ishmael the first-born, who was the only one who could be the only one of Abraham’s sons. Did not the God of compassion hear the lad who cries of thirst, expelled from his father’s house into the desert?

“Eli Shimeoni wondered, if Abraham argued with Terah when he left his father’s house and went forth to the land unto which God would lead him? What doubts pounded in his heart when he put the burnt offering upon his son, for him to carry the wood, some say cross, of his own sacrifice? Was this the wood of the sacred grove that so meticulously had to be cut down, as when Yahweh commands, “build an altar to your God upon the top of this rock, and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the Asherah which you shall cut down?” Without being asked, was little Isaac to carry the Lord of Hosts’ mighty struggle against Asherah, the goddess of the grove, on his shoulders? Was he to be sacrificed, bound to the mother of the morning star and the king of the evening, the mother of the twin brothers Shahar and Shalem – yes, Shalem, the Canaanite king-god and mythological founder of Ir-Shalem?

“The Biblical account is the skeleton of a drama, for the reader to flesh out with feelings, and to be dressed in the garb of interpretations. There is not a word of dialogue between father and son as they ascend the mountain of worship – is it the awe of fate, the brevity of speech when walking straight into inescapable tragedy, or is it the focused silence when you walk the line, stretched to its limits across the cosmic abyss? Or maybe it is the chilling coldness of mechanically executing daily movements, when you submit to invincible catastrophe, as when rather than waiting for the five o’clock bus, you are lining up at Umschlagplatz?

“Is this the story of the Jews’ submission to the father, in which the instincts of the sons bend to the fathers’ discipline, with the rabbis as a Halakhic fortress cementing the power of God, the Father? Or is it the callous need of fathers to castrate their sons, who on the one hand embody their future and bring the prospect to “multiply exceedingly,” but who on the other hand, by their very prime and youth, seem to hold the sword that separates the future from the past, determining who by water and who by fire, who will rest and who shall wander, as the poem recounts our disastrous fate on atonement day?

“In some legends, he recalled, Satan tries to prevent Abraham from carrying out the sacrifice. In his role as adversary, instigating toward consciousness, Satan introduces some healthy doubt into what otherwise seems to be passive submission. But in Biblical reality, it is only when the angel calls upon Abraham not to slay his son, that he lowers his hand, and puts away the knife with which he was ready to sacrifice his beloved son. He has passed God’s test of devotion, and the ram is offered in place of Isaac.

“But has he passed the human test of devotion? (From Requiem, p. 43ff)

Are we perhaps obliged to ask ourselves, once a year, or every day, “Do i pass the human test of devotion?”

Kafka’s unpublished manuscripts – soon to be revealed!

2012-10-14T09:00:00.000-04:00

After five long years, in what seemed frightfully similar to the eternity of a Kafkaesque Trial, Judge Talia Pardo Kupelman (K.) wrote,

"This case, complicated by passions, has been argued in court for quite a long time across seas, lands, and times. Not every day… does the opportunity befall a judge to delve into the depth of history as it unfolds before him in piecemeal fashion," opening, she said, "a window into the lives, desires, frustrations and the souls of two of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century."

The judge ruled that the library of Max Brod, Kafka’s close friend, be transferred to the National Library, in accordance with his wish and intention.

After his death in 1968, Brod’s secretary Eva Hoppe kept, and sold off, some of the important manuscripts. The remaining ones include, as Ofer Aderet writes in Haaretz, Brod's unpublished diary, notebooks with Kafka's writings, and correspondence of Kafka and Brod, among others with Stefan Zweig and Shin Shalom.

Remebering the death of Max Brod, 1968

An excerpt from Requiem - A Tale of Exile and Return:

Without forewarning, Eli Shimeoni found himself transposed more than forty years back in time, walking down Tel Aviv’s King George Street, sometime late winter or very early spring, if his memory did not escape him. He headed for Pollack’s antiquarian bookstore, which even as a young teenager he frequented as often as he could. He felt the thick and heavy air of old books was rich and wise, a comfort and a relief, a refuge from breathing the thick and heavy air of home, which he needed to escape. Those days, after the war of the days of creation, arrogance was in the air. Everyone seemed to fill their lungs with victory and invincibility. But young Eli kept breathing the air of threat and fear, doubt and concern, the compressed air that lay squeezed like the dust in the corners of his room and under his parents bed sofa.

The old bookshop granted an escape into a world of history books and timeworn atlases in which he could sail across the sea of time and continents, where fear and excitement and heroism were free and asked no price. It was a world of books that he could browse but never buy, an odyssey that could only be traveled, but never owned.

Sometimes his mind would play out heroic fantasies. However, unlike his school mates, he was neither the warrior who saves his country, nor the soccer player who leads his team into the world cup final, triumphantly circling the field wrapped in the national flag while an ecstatic crowd sings the anthem. No, his libido was lit by a raging fire, threatening the shop and its treasures from Heine to Freud as if this was Bebelplatz, May 1933. In sharp contrast to his usually slow, pale and shy ways, he would courageously run into the fire and save the most valuable of all the books and atlases and manuscripts.

But that grayish winter day, as he stood outside the window to see if everything was in place, his eyes caught sight of a letter, which must have been put there only days ago. He could not make out the German writing, only that it was addressed to Dr. Brod. His mouth got dry, searching for saliva, his heart pounded and his legs trembled as he entered the store to inquire with the old salesman who might have been much younger than he seemed to be behind those round glasses that always slipped down his nose, who told him that Brod had passed away only a few weeks earlier. Those were years that young Eli would swallow every scrap of paper or piece of knowledge or story by Brod or Kafka. He had even read Brod’s novel Tycho Brahe’s Path to God; though he had found the language difficult, or perhaps simply was too young to grasp, he had been intrigued by the conflict between the old and the new, past thoughts and new ideas. But he felt particularly grateful to old man Brod for being wise enough not to follow stupid Kafka’s request to burn his books – how could he want his books to be burned!!! Of course he could not know that books would be burned less than a decade later, but for sure he knew about Hananiah ben Teradion, the second century religious teacher, who broke the Roman law against teaching the Scriptures. When burned alive with his beloved, the forbidden Torah Scroll, he said to his pupils, “I see the scroll burning, but the letters of the Torah soar upward.”

Young Eli admired the courage of Dr. Brod, but could not really forgive Kafka for wanting to burn his books – only, perhaps, that he had asked in such a way that Brod would understand he did not really mean it. Eli had even seen old uncle Brod once or twice in the street, and tried to follow him without giving himself away, but was too scared that Brod would notice him and scold him and embarrass him and bring him shamefully home to his parents, so he had always made it the other way on Hayarden Street corner Idelson.

He often wondered about the friendship between Franz and Max, and so much wished that Franz would not have starved to death at such a young age – just imagine if he would have lived with Dora across the street of Uncle Max! Write one more book, please, just one!

Read Requiem (English; Hebrew).

As mentioned in Requiem, one of Kafka’s manuscripts that may be found among the thousands of pages in the boxes in the neglected apartment with abandoned cats in Tel Aviv’s Spinoza Street may well be the story - according to leaks, likely by a foreign expert on the Kafka material - about a rat, one among many in Prague’s sewage system. But “this rat had a complex, golden mechanical device, a precise micro-cosmos built into its mind.”

The rest is a story yet to be told, though some of it, as far as we have been able to gather, appears in Requiem (p. 57ff).

The Rope on the Eve of Atonement

2012-09-24T02:00:00.000-04:00

A legend tells us that when a person is created, s/he is tied to God with a string. If s/he sins, the string breaks. But repentance during the Days of Awe brings the angel Gabriel down to make a knot in the string, and the person is once again tied to God. Because we all sin once in a while, our strings become full of knots.

But a string with many knots is, clearly, shorter than one without knots. Therefore repentance brings a person closer to God and, evidently, is no repentance without a sin.

We cannot, so it seems, live a life without shadows, the completely pure, good and sin-free life. Such a life would be a clean and straight line. We spontaneously think of our string to God vertically, but if we imagine the line horizontally, the straight line characterizes life that has come to a standstill.

The knots of sin and remorse repair the torn rope and make it shorter. The knots show us the rope is no longer innocently unbroken. And the knots add width and curves and complexity to the string by which we are attached to the transcendent.

And the knots add knots – they link and connect, they bind and harden, they snare and ensnare, they complicate the passage but they enable holding on to the rope.

Not speaking about the professional sinner, sins are often committed unawarely, because we have not reflected well enough on our deeds, or when we have found ourselves torn by strife and conflict, or when “clouds have blurred our vision.”

Do the knots of sin and repentance really bring us closer to God, to the divine, to higher principles, to greater morality, to the Self as the ambassador of the divine in our souls?

Perhaps it depends on the manner in which we carry the burden of our sins, how we allow the sins we commit to affect us, to bring us out of innocence into greater complexity, how we reflect upon the sins we commit, how ably we respond – that is, what responsibility we take upon us, rather than the resolution and dissolution of crime and conflict.

The contact with our inner self may require the knots on the rope. Contact and knot are the same in Hebrew, kesher. The contact between human and transcendent upon which sins and shame, guilt and remorse are tied like knots requires, so it seems, that we hold the rope, in all its imperfection and complexity, with all its knotted tears.

Pacifica Graduate Institute and The Cycle of Life

2012-09-11T16:52:00.000-04:00

Ladera Lane Campus of Pacifica Graduate Institute invites you to participate in a Master Class with Erel Shalit

Space will be limited in order to accommodate ample opportunity for reflection and discussion.

Thursday, October 4, 2012, 1:30-4:30 pm followed by a reception and book signing 4:30-5:30 pm

The Cycle of Life: Themes and Tales of the Journey

A Master Class with Erel Shalit

To speak of a general, human life cycles to propose that the journey from birth to old age follows an underlying, universal pattern on which there are endless cultural and individual variations. —Daniel Levinson

In his essay 'The Stages of Life,' Jung discusses "the problems connected with the stages of life," claiming problem to be the kernel of culture and consciousness. Jung clearly aims at living theconscious life, just like Socrates declared the unexamined life not worth living. On our journey through the stages (or ages) of our life, we encounter the archetypal essence of each phase, and are challenged by the essence of meaning that we are requested to deal with on our journey. This presentation will explore crucial archetypal images of the journey and the stages of life, and tell some of the stories, with references to, among others, Pirandello, Kafka and Oedipus at Colonus.

Dr. Erel Shalit is a Jungian psychoanalyst in Ra’anana, Israel. He is a training and supervising analyst, and past President of the Israel Society of Analytical Psychology. He is Founder and Director of the Jungian Analytical Psychotherapy Program at Bar Ilan University. He is a past Director of the Shamai Davidson Community Mental Health Clinic, at theShalvata Psychiatric Centre in Israel. His most recent books are The Cycle of Life: Themes and Tales of the Journey(2011; the book received the Eric Hoffer Book Award Honors in Culture, 2012), Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return (2010), and Enemy, Cripple & Beggar: Shadows in the Hero’s (2008; the book was a nominee for the 2009 Gradiva Award for Best Theoretical Book, National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis). Entries, chapters and articles of his appear in several books and journals. He wrote the chapter on Jerusalem in Tom Singer (ed.), Psyche and the City. He is on the editorial board of Quadrant. For more information, visit www.eshalit.com.

Reservations and Cancellations
Advance registration is required. Space is limited to 50 participants.
The registration fee is $100 and includes the class, reception, and CEUs. To register, please call the Public Programs Department at 805.969.3626, ext. 103.

To obtain a refund on your registration fee, send a written cancellation request via email no later than the Monday before the class. Tuition less a $15 processing fee will be refunded. No refunds on your registration fee will be made after that time. In the event that the program is sold out with a waitlist, if you return your seat to our office, and if we are able to transfer your registration to someone on the waitlist, we will issue you a refund less the processing fee. Any registration transfers that do not go through our office will be assessed the processing fee onsite. A confirmation will be sent via email.

Pacifica’s Ladera Lane Campus
The class will be held at Pacifica Graduate Institute’s Ladera Lane Campus, 801 Ladera Lane, Santa Barbara, California, 93108.

Accommodations
A limited number of rooms are available for participants on a first-come, first-served basis at the rates below (plus 10% occupancy tax) at Pacifica’s Ladera Lane Campus.
$82.50 per night single occupancy (one bed)
$115 per night couple occupancy (one double bed)
$125 per night double occupancy (two twin beds)

Accommodations are simple, dormitory-style rooms with shared bath and shower. All reservations and changes in accommodations must be made through Pacifica’s Public Programs Department. Payment is due at the time of your reservation. Cancellation for accommodations with full refund is accepted up to 5 days before the event. Cancellations made 1-4 days before the event will receive a 50% refund. There will be no refund for cancellations on the day of the event.

Continuing Education Credit
3 Hours of Continuing education credit is available for RNs through the California Board of Registered Nurses (provider #CEP 7177) and for MFTs andLCSWs (provider #PCE 2278) through the California Board of Behavioral Sciences.

For more information and registration, contact:
Pacifica Graduate Institute
Public Programs
249 Lambert Road, Carpinteria, CA 93013
805.969.3626, ext. 103
publicprograms@pacifica.edu

The C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles presents:

2012-09-10T14:38:00.000-04:00

A Weekend with Erel Shalit

Friday, October 5, 7:30-9:30 pm
Saturday, October 6, 10:00 am-3:00 pm

Click to Register for this special event!

“To speak of a general, human life cycle,” says Daniel Levinson, “is to propose that the journey from birth to old age follows an underlying, universal pattern on which there are endless cultural and individual variations.” In his essay “The Stages of Life” Jung discusses “the problems connected with the stages of life,” claiming problem to be the kernel of culture and consciousness. On our journey through the stages of our life, we encounter the archetypal essence of each phase and are challenged by the essence of meaning that we are requested to deal with on our journey. The lecture will explore crucial archetypal images of the journey and the stages of life, and tell some of the stories.

Dr. Erel Shalit is a Jungian psychoanalyst practicing in Ra’anana, Israel. He is Founding Director of the Jungian Psychotherapy Program at Bar Ilan University. A training and supervising analyst, and past President of the Israel Society of Analytical Psychology, Dr. Shalit also served as Director of the Shamai Davidson Community Mental Health Clinic at the Shalvata Psychiatric Center in Israel. His most recent books include The Cycle of Life: Themes and Tales of the Journey; Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return; and Enemy, Cripple, Beggar: Shadows in the Hero’s Path. In addition Dr Shalit's work has appeared in numerous books and journals. He wrote the chapter on Jerusalem in Tom Singer (ed.), Psyche and the City. He is on the editorial board of Quadrant. With Nancy Furlotti, he is editing a forthcoming volume on The Dream and its Amplification.

Lakes of Memory and Burning Nights

2012-08-08T15:00:00.000-04:00

adagio & lamentation

ISBN: 9781926715056

poems by Naomi Ruth Lowinsky

Il Piccolo editions, Fisher King Press, 2010
Carmel, CA

Naomi Ruth Lowinsky was the first child born in the New World to a family of German Jewish refugees from the Shoah. Many in her family were lost in the death camps. It has been the subject and the gift of her poetry and prose-to write herself out of the terror, into life. Naomi had a special tie with her only surviving grandparent, the painter Emma Hoffman, whom she called "Oma." Oma showed her that making art can be a way to transmute grief, a way to bear the unbearable. The cover of adagio and lamentation is a watercolor by Emma Hoffman-an interior view of the Berkeley home where Naomi visited her often as a teenager. Oma tried her best to make a painter of her, but Naomi was no good at it. Poetry was to be her vehicle. Adagio and Lamentation is Naomi's offering to her ancestors, a handing back in gratitude and love. It is also her way of bringing them news of their legacy-the cycle of life has survived all they suffered-Naomi has been blessed by many grandchildren.

Download a free preview

A Review by Erel Shalit of adagio & lamentation, appears in the Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche, Summer 2012 (vol 6:3):

Poet and Jungian analyst Naomi Lowinsky’s journey of adagio & lamentation begins with a desire, a longing, a plea to Grandmother Emma Hoffman, Oma, to stop being dead, so she can talk about the light of morning and the light of late afternoon. Then, perhaps, the poet can grasp the meaning of the difference between the painter’s painted shadows, when she shapes emptiness, and like the creator, “there was light” (2010, 1).

And the journey ends at the threshold of summer’s tremor, when one might hear the sound of distant drums, or a helicopter, the anxiety that echoes deeply in the whisper of the gods in the living oak trees and the god of dreams—“is it a war machine,” or a fire, or memories to be penned (90)?

Even the ghost story poems contain beauty and sensuality; the complexes that are our ghosts may be “breaking into a million fragments,” but may, as well, in the oceanic turmoil and intensity of youth, “cause the trumpet vine on the back fence to flower for the first time” (5–6).

Read the full review

Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche is an international journal published quarterly for the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco, one of the oldest institutions dedicated to Jungian studies and analytic training.

Founded in 1979 by John Beebe under the title The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal, Jung Journal has evolved from a local journal of book and film reviews to one that attracts readers and contributors from the academy and the arts, in addition to Jungian analyst-scholars.

cover of the Jung Journal
(San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal)

Featuring peer-reviewed scholarly articles, poetry, art, book and film reviews, and obituaries, Jung Journal offers a dialogue between culture--as reflected in art, literature, science, and world events--and contemporary Jungian views of the dynamic relationship between the cultural and personal aspects of the human psyche.

Recollection and Recollectivization

2012-08-04T05:49:00.000-04:00

The 2nd European Conference on Analytical Psychology will be held in St. Petersburg, 30th August to 2nd September, 2012. Titled “Borderlands”, it is a contribution to the concept coined by Jerome Bernstein (Living in the Borderland: The Evolution of Consciousness and the Challenge of Healing Trauma), who will be the opening speaker.

painting by Hagit Shahal

In my lecture Recollection and Recollectivization: the transient personality in search of memory, I will look at ‘the never guilty mass man’ (Jung), of the post-modern condition, related to Erich Neumann’s concept of recollectivization.

On the dark, shadowy side of the postmodern condition, we stumble upon transiency and fragmentation, alienation and rootlessness.

Particularly, we may observe the relationship between the individual and the fragmented group, which constellates as a transient crowd formation. In the condition of recollectivization, ego and consciousness are lost in the group, however, in a way strikingly different from the early state of oneness with the group.

Recollection serves as an antidote to recollectivization, and may show us “how we should act when the libido gets blocked” (CW 5). A smell and a fragrance, a subtle taste “of a cake dipped in tea,” as Proust says, re-calling a childhood memory, a lost time, a forgotten era, and the recollection of ancient wisdom and the ancestors, may provide the individual, as well as the group, with an anchor across the boundaries of time, by means of linking back to past heritage, and serving as a bridge to future developments. Thus, recollection is a central aspect of the conscious, explored life.

The following is an excerpt from the lecture:

. . . when Carl Gustav Jung comes along, walking down those unfamiliar stairs in the dream of his now familiar multistoried house, descending to the cave cut in the rock, digging out the scattered bones and broken pottery, the very old human skulls call upon him from under the dust. “Then I awoke,” writes Jung. That is, those half disintegrating old skulls at the bottom of his dream woke him up, made him aware that ‘archetype is memory,’ memories that extend beyond the personal experiences of one’s individual life, reminding us to stir up the ancestors from the dust, to let them clear their rusty voices, so that we can hear the stories of the hidden treasures, and so that the ghosts that otherwise lose their shape in the mud, can regain their contours in complex dress.

…

There is flavor to memory, just like images flourish in our feeling. There is a smell and a taste to recollection, a sweetness and sentiments that arise when we look at a photo album, recalling the grains between the toes on childhood’s sandy shores.

For Marcel Proust, a spoonful of the tea and the taste of the madeleine brings him back to the memory of the old grey house upon the street, and “in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in [the] park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and of its surroundings, taking their proper shapes and growing solid, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, all from my cup of tea.”

The taste on the tongue and the songs in our soul and the bodies that tenderly touch each other’s hearts, may all be hastily swept away as we sweep the touch screen in a futile attempt to look at the ceaseless stream of digitized photos, no longer identified by name and place and date, but numerated into infinity; ‘the many’ has replaced ‘the one’, and we hardly return to pay respect, to spect-again, to re-spect by looking again, perhaps having forgotten that the soul resides in what we respect and revisit, in the sense of looking again, in the exploration of the experience.

Recommended in US Review of Books

2012-07-06T01:24:00.002-04:00

The Cycle of Life
by Erel Shalit
Fisher King Press

reviewed by Peter M. Fitzpatrick

"The perspective of life as a cycle lived through its stages enables us to bring the archetypal and the personal dimensions together."

While Sigmund Freud mapped out the psychosexual development of children to puberty through the oral, anal, phallic latency and genital stages, Carl Jung expanded the study of human development through the second half of life. Jung also expanded Freud's somewhat materialistic focus on psychosexuality as the source of the unconscious to include a vaster world of archetypes that emanate from our undifferentiated Selves through symbolic forms. It is the child's slow separation from the Great Mother archetype that allows him to incorporate the powerful unconscious energies of this symbol into a developing ego. The next stage, the "puer," or troubled teenager, carries this process further, adding the "fire" of his or her growing awareness of Eros to the "dismemberment" of the "unconscious" contents of the archetypes so that the ego can use their energies. A successful transition to adulthood entails a completion of the ego's ascendancy. But the ego must learn to surrender its role as "king" once old age begins.

The author engagingly illustrates Jung's conceptions of the power of the archetypal forces that inhabit our unconscious Selves, showing how they are dual, with both grandiose and terrible aspects. In accessible language, he maps out how figures from the Bible, Greek mythology, and fairy tales contain eternal truths on the mythic level where the Self at the core of our being operates. He explicates the dangers of becoming stuck in a particular stage, and cites actual cases of individuals he has helped make the transitions in his clinical practice as Jungian analyst.

RECOMMENDED
US Review of Books

Lakes of Memory and Burning Nights

2012-06-28T09:40:00.001-04:00

The following is an excerpt from a review of Naomi Lowinsky’s adagio & lamentation (Carmel, CA: Il Piccolo editions, Fisher King Press, 2010), which will be forthcoming in the next issue of the Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche (Summer 2012).

In the aesthetics of Lowinsky’s poems, the lamentations become simultaneously softened and sharpened. The Passover angel “passed over our house” and nobody comes to the door, and we understand that it truly is Nobody who comes to the door, fully dressed in nobody’s black mask (12).

At the center of this deep trail of poems stands “adagio and lamentation” (27), a prayer, a covenant with the dead, with the shadows, with the candles borne into the dark woods. The memories are dreams that come alive in the reflections in mother’s great lake, again, in “many shades of blue,” and in the duality that are the legs on which the conscious life stands, “playing two violins at the same time,” simultaneously being an old gypsy and a wild child. This is the mother who is able, at one and the same time, to know that she’d loved him and “were glad to be free of him,” the divorced husband (61–62). The contrasts and the contradictions that touch the senses and deepen the feelings, creating both complexity and unity, color every line of this beautiful work.

Erel Shalit