The Fisher King Review

Mark Winborn - Bringing the Blues to the Jung Society of Lafayette, Louisiana

fisherking@fisherkingpress.com — Fri, 24 May 2013 10:17:00 PDT

About Mark Winborn

Mark Winborn, PhD, NCPsyA is a Jungian Psychoanalyst and Clinical Psychologist. He received his PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Memphis in 1987 and his certificate in Jungian Analysis from the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts in 1999. Dr. Winborn is a training and supervising analyst of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts and is also affiliated with the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis and the International Association for Analytical Psychology. In 2011 he published Deep Blues: Human Soundscapes for the Archetypal Journey with Fisher King Press. Dr. Winborn maintains a private practice in Memphis, Tennessee where he is also currently the Training Coordinator for the Memphis Jungian Seminar – a training seminar of the IRSJA. Away from the office, he has played regularly with the Blue Blake Trio at Blues Hall on Beale Street and later with his own band – The Wolf River Travelers.

“My soul, where are you?" Civilization in Transition III

fisherking@fisherkingpress.com — Mon, 13 May 2013 00:58:00 PDT

Civilization in Transition III
IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL OF THE WORLD
NOV 1-2-3, 2013
Download Registration Form

“My soul, where are you? I call you - are you there? After years of wandering I come to you again…”(C.G. Jung, The Red Book, p. 232)

Since “SOUL” is impossible to define and can’t be anatomically located, it has been suggested many times that no such thing exists. But maybe soul is something beyond ordinary perception, in the same way imagination and creativity defy definition. World Soul is equally difficult to define, but we can imagine it in Earth’s history, direction, and creative expression.

Human consciousness is one of those expressions. How, and if, we use it determines our own soul’s path, and influences World Soul.

Many of us in the Jungian community have increasing concerns about the long-term effects of plundering Earth’s resources; conglomerates of unparalleled wealth and influence; climate changes of unknown origin or direction; bitter factions touting fear and blame; dizzying technological changes; increasing acts of violence; and other signals of a changing world order. We invite you to join us in considering individual responsibility for the new order we face, still unforged and uncertain.

With us will be Dr. Lynn Bauman, scholar, theologian, and author of The Gospel of Thomas: Wisdom of the Twin, whose grasp of ancient images brings a rare view of the symbols of world and personal soul; Dr. Bridgette Eggers, Zurich analyst and environmentalist, discussing what psychology and mythology can tell us about ecology, in Flowing Waters of Soul and Planet. Award-winning musician Jacqueline Hairston of the Bay Area will join us for soul and gospel music, along with analysts and conference leaders Wynette Barton of Austin & Nancy Qualls-Corbett of Birmingham. As we explore the meaning of this volatile transitional time, Austin analyst Priscilla Murr, Mexican Folk Art collector & specialist, will lead a Day of the Dead celebration on Nov. 1.

We will meet at Lost Pines Resort, Austin, TX, on the banks of the Colorado River in the Hill Country, beginning Friday morning, Nov 1, and ending Sunday, Nov. 3. In this invitation for meaningful presentations and discussion, we ask that you let us know as soon as possible if you plan to come. Early planning will help keep the conference as intimate and personal as our subject requires. Cost and accommodations are on the following page.

12 Continuing Education Units awarded to attending mental health workers.

Sponsored by the Foundation for International Jungian Training, Zurich.
Directors: Murray Stein, John Desteian, Nancy Qualls-Corbett, Wynette Barton, Judith Harris, Kathryn Cook-Deegan, Penelope Yungblut, Advisors: Paul Brutche, Stefan Boethius, Dariane Pictet.

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Civilization in Transition III

IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL OF THE WORLD

NOV 1- 2-3, 2013

Registration fee of $993 includes all lecutres and discussions, all meals, and Day of the Dead presentation, celebration and reception. ($1068 if registering after May 30.) $400 deposit sent with registration is refundable (less 10%) with cancellation before June 15. Remainder due on July 1. Conference is limited to 30 people, so early registration is suggested. Further information will be sent on receipt of registration or at your request. For all questions about the conference, contact Wynette Barton (512-262-1110, or wbarton2@austin.rr.com)

To hold your place, download this form and mail (or email) to John Desteian, 950 St. Clair Ave, St. Paul, MN 55105-3214, with deposit of $400. Sleeping accommodations should be made separately with Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort, Katherine.Zimmerman@hyatt.com (512-308-4642) at $164 per night (plus tax) for single or double room. To get this rate, notify Lost Pines (or Katherine) that you are with the Civilization In Transition Conference. If you prefer to share a room (at $82) but have no roommate, contact Wynette.

10% Off Coupon - Redemption Code: mythos

fisherking@fisherkingpress.com — Mon, 06 May 2013 19:57:00 PDT

In addition to our already discounted prices, save an extra 10% on your next order with the Fisher King Press online bookstore - www.fisherkingpress.com

During checkout use the following Discount Coupon Redemption Code: mythos

Share this mythos discount code with your friends and colleagues

This Fisher King promotion expires on May 12, 2013 - www.fisherkingpress.com

Live the Journey: From Predetermined Fate to Individual Destiny

fisherking@fisherkingpress.com — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:43:00 PDT

by Erel Shalit

Jung defines life as the “story of the self-realization of the unconscious. Everything in the unconscious seeks outward manifestation, and the personality too desires to evolve out of its unconscious conditions to experience itself as a whole.” (Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 3.)

The Cycle of Life describes some of the principal archetypal images at play as we navigate our journey through life. In each stage of life, there is an image, or rather a cluster of psychological themes that pertain to that particular period, such as the divine child and the orphan child. Usually, these themes and images do not correspond to actual events or traumata, but reflect internal, archetypal experiences.

The feelings related to being an orphan are universal, and a vital facet of growing out of certain states of childhood; sometimes, however, the archetypal image of the orphan may devastatingly strike a child by the traumatic loss of a parent. Traumatic experiences often cause fixation; the archetypal image becomes frozen in the psyche of the traumatized person, rather than serving as a transitory psychic constellation, eventually integrating into the fullness of the personality.

At times we might find ourselves struck by the disparity between a predominant archetypal image and the prevailing developmental stage, as for instance when we see a senex-child, that is, a child who seems to speak the old person’s tongue, rather than to be dwelling in the world of childhood play. Or, for example, a mother of four teenage children, all of whom thought of her as a ‘child-mother,’ immature and childish. Even when they were small, they felt that she wanted them to be parental children taking care of her.

The archetypal idea of a journey through life is outlined in The Cycle of Life, in which Jung’s theory of the stages of life, as well as other perspectives, are reviewed. A focus on the river of life as an image of the journey helps to illustrate the process of transformation from predetermined fate to individual destiny. Hermes, god of thieves and merchants, souls and roads, will guide us toward the Hermetic aspect of life’s journey, infusing the experience of life with meaning, when graced with those soulful gifts that alter life’s course.

Erel Shalit is a Jungian psychoanalyst in Ra’anana, Israel. He is the author of several publications, including Enemy, Cripple, Beggar: Shadows in the Hero’s Path, The Hero and His Shadow: Psychopolitical Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel, The Complex: Path of Transformation from Archetype to Ego, and Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return. Dr. Shalit lectures at professional institutes, universities, and cultural forums in Israel, Europe, and the United States.

Lowinsky on Grandmothers and The Motherline

fisherking@fisherkingpress.com — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:16:00 PDT

—Naomi Ruth Lowinsky, from The Motherline:

Every Woman's Journey to Find Her Female Roots

"Standing at the crossings of family history, generational change, and archetypal meanings, a grandmother locates her grandchild in the life stream of the generations. She is the tie to the subterranean world of the ancestors; she plays a key role in helping a woman reclaim essential aspects of her feminine self. Standing close to death, she remembers the dead. She tells their stories, hands down their meanings and their possessions. Often she is the first to tell her granddaughter the stories from her Motherline. Evoking the Eleusinian emotions of the life cycle, these stories return a woman to her place of emergence, reminding her that she is woman, born of woman. Telling these stories enacts an archetypal healing principle found in tribal cultures and in psychotherapy: the 'return to origins.'"

Slattery at Pacifica and Ojai

fisherking@fisherkingpress.com — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 15:37:00 PDT

Buy Now

On April 26-28, 2013 Fisher King Press author Dennis Patrick Slattery will be hosting a Writers' Conference, Pacifica Graduate Institute, April 26-28. He will give a pre-conference Riting Personal Myth Retreat for 3 hours. Then a 90 minute plenary talk on the Nature of Poetry.

On May 4-5, 2013 Dennis will be be at the Ojai Writer's Group: A two day Riting Myth Retreat May 4 (9-5) and May 5 (9-1).

Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting-Edge Fiction, Poetry, and a growing list of alternative titles. www.fisherkingpress.com

The Life of Buddha and Individuation

fisherking@fisherkingpress.com — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:55:00 PDT

"The life of Buddha is an example of individuation. He was privileged and enjoyed every possible means of comfort and pleasure, sheltered from want. What moved him to want to experience the world beyond his palace? He went into the world of ordinary people and found sickness, poverty, and suffering. It seemed he felt his life was not complete until he had experienced the dark and sordid side of life. Only then could he fulfill his destiny as a spiritual sage. His life illustrates the idea that we are not completed by being good or by having what seems like perfection. Individuation as completion means filling out all of our possible conscious experiences and being aware of our potential, the pleasant and unpleasant, good and bad." —Deldon Anne McNeely, Becoming: An Introduction to Jung's Concept of Individuation

“It's the environment, stu....!”

fisherking@fisherkingpress.com — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 18:19:00 PDT

by Dennis L. Merritt, Ph.D., Jungian Analyst, Ecopsychologist

(This talk was given at the Fordham conference, Jung in the Academy and Beyond: The Fordham Lectures 100 Years Later, held at Fordham University on October 26 and 27, 2012. It will be published in the Proceedings)

As Bill Clinton might say, “It's the environment, stupid!” Our devotion to science, technology and the capitalist system has culminated in a unique moment in the human relationship with the environment. Our species is at or near the peak of a prosperity bubble about to burst. We have exceeded the carrying capacity of the biosphere and we are still breeding. (1) We are overusing antibiotics and deadly bacteria are becoming immune to everything we have. (2) We are mining our precious water resources (3), coral reefs are dying as the oceans become warmer and more acidic (4), and most alarming, we are experiencing this as the very beginnings of the negative consequences of climate change. It will include massive droughts and floods, freak storms, the spread of diseases (5), famine, water wars (6), and the elimination of 30 to 50% of the species. (7) Experts tell us we may have but 10 years max to turn the Titanic around with regard to the most devastating aspects of climate change. (8) The apocalyptic conditions we are inexorably moving towards are truly in the archetypal domain, requiring an archetypal analysis and suggestions for dealing with it. Enter Jungian ecopsychology, a topic I have been writing on for the past 16 years, having just published the 4 volumes of The Dairy Farmer's Guide to the Universe—Jung, Hermes, and Ecopsychology.

I discovered Jung while working on my doctorate in entomology in Berkeley starting in 1967. My area was insect pathology, using insect pathogens instead of chemicals to manage insect pests; Silent Spring had made a deep impression on me. Eventually I came to realize the ecological and political dimensions of Jung's concepts, and was able to bring my two backgrounds together within the developing field of ecopsychology.

The Blind Side of Psychology is its Relationship with Nature

Psychology has been painfully late in addressing environmental problems. Jungian analyst and archetypal psychologist James Hillman summed it up in the title of his book: We've had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy--and the World's Getting Worse. (9) He noted that the environment we have ignored and mistreated is making its importance known to us through its pathologies, much like human pathologies made the reality of the unconscious known to Freud. (10) The collective psyche of our species is deeply disturbed by our collapsing faith in science and the redeveloping human limitations in confronting nature, and it has been more a heroic confrontation than an enlightened relationship. The field of ecopsychology began to emerge in the 1990s. It examines how our attitudes, values, perceptions and behaviors affect the environment. It calls for a reformulation of our political, cultural, economic and educational systems to enable us to live sustainably. Like deep ecology, it maintains that we are capable of a far deeper connection with nature which will serve as a natural basis for protecting the environment. (11) Jung, who died in 1961, recognized the magnitude of the shift in consciousness necessary for these things to happen when he foresaw a paradigm shift coming in the West, what he called a “New Age” and the “Age of Aquarius” (12), a shift which will certainly and necessarily have an ecological base.

Jungian Ecopsychology

There are two focal points from a Jungian ecological perspective for facing these issues. First is Jung's challenge to become more conscious, which for Jung meant to bring as much light as possible into the unconscious. It is clear this must now include greater consciousness of our niche in nature and greater awareness of environmental problems. This requires a knowledge of science as well as the archetypal dynamics of the apocalypse which will emerge ever more strongly, prompting more polarization in our society and a movement towards unreflective extreme religious positions. (13) The second Jungian ecopsychological focus is on the archetypal energies imaged by Hermes. Language and communication, Hermes' domaines, are being manipulated 1984-style by corporate interests using eco-propaganda, advertising, and “greenwashing.” One of the few hopes I have for humankind is for Hermes the communicator offering the possibility for easy and widespread dissemination of holistic messages and a new vision for humankind if we can develop one. Hermes leads the way or leads astray—it's our choice.

To develop a new vision I propose that we create a team of experts from all fields who can communicate well with each other as they provide a deep analysis of our problems as a species and develop a plan all the world leaders can get behind. This team would include ecologists, psychologists, economists, spiritual leaders, scientists, technologists, educators, and indigenous peoples.

There are many innate ecological aspects in Jung's system and in the practice of Jungian analysis that could be part of this vision. Jung talked about the people in our dreams as “the little people within” and emphasized the importance of being in relationship with them. This is an ecology of the psyche, quite the opposite of the conquering ego position presented by Freud. Freud described the relationship with our inner world much as he described our relationship with the environment. Within us is the “seething caldron” of the Id requiring a vigilant defense against the polymorphous sexually perverse inner child. With regard to the environment Freud wrote:

Jung challenged us to unite our cultured side with “the two million-year-old man within,” a goal that would help us use science and the arts to achieve an emotional, symbolic and spiritual connection with nature. (15) It would bridge a connection with the Native Americans and there deep and profound sense of oneness with Turtle Island—the North American continent. This dovetails with Jung's challenge to academia to incorporate a sense of the numinous. Without this, Jung said, we will never have a holistic educational system. (16) Carl Sagan, who as co-chair of A Joint Appeal by Science and Religion for the Environment, presented a petition in 1992 stating:

Deep ecology calls for the deepest possible analysis of our dysfunctional relationship with nature, and Jung offers this through his examination of the evolution of the God-image in the West. (18) Myths and religions help establish and maintain basic attitudes, values, perceptions and behaviors, especially with regard to women, our bodies, sexuality and sensuality, and nature.

Complexity Theory Applied to Jungian Concepts--Experiencing Universal Processes

Most exciting for a scientist like myself is the application of complexity theory to basic Jungian concepts. Complexity theory has been put on a par with relativity theory and quantum mechanics in terms of its revolutionary and transformative ideas. I see it as the archetypal feminine in the world of mathematics because it focuses on such issues as process, the irrational and non-linear, the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, and sensitive dependence on initial conditions. With a given that humans inhabit and cultures evolve through symbolic systems, increasing psychic energy in our complexes (“hangups”) causes them to morph and self-organize into a higher symbolic level, the archetypal. (19) Increasing psychic level at the archetypal level will cause it to morph and self-organize into the archetype of the Self which integrates all archetypes in the manner of an organism. (20) Using this approach, we can say that humans emotionally, symbolically, sensually and spiritually experience the basic dynamics of the universe, and by definition for our species to fully realize our niche we have to connect to ourselves, others, and nature in this manner. This involves creativity and the arts and a proper focus in our educational and psychological systems. (21)

Analyzing the Problem in the Collective Unconscious

Consciousness and every layer of the collective unconscious can be scrutinized for dissonance with regard to our relationship with the environment. (22) At the personal intrapsychic level, our relationship with the unconscious sets the pattern for our relationship with others and with nature, an example in complexity theory of scale invariance. Our family, especially attachment issues with the mothering figure, can lead to an anxiety, emptiness and a narcissism which consumerism and fundamentalist religions prey upon. Our national myths of the cowboy and conquering the wild West engender a conquering attitude towards nature and a religion of progress. Issues are compounded by the growing polarization in societies between believers and non-believers and the haves and have-nots. We are heading towards a dangerous period, especially in America, as it faces the archetype of decline—a problem for a country with an adolescent mentality epitomized by our myths of exceptionalism and the independent cowboy. Our hyper-independence makes us paranoid about any hint of socialism which many equate with communism. It is a revolutionary period (hexagram 49 in the I Ching) with the dangers of fascism increasing as economic, social and environmental conditions deteriorate. The Judeo-Christian religion established core values in Western culture which have little connection with nature, the body and sexuality. The Western Oedipal complex of human intelligence trumping the Great Goddess imaged as the Sphinx is poised to inflict the plagues of Thebes upon the entire planet and literalize John's apocalyptic vision. (23) Ecotheologian Thomas Berry described the Myth of Wonderworld as the myth of the West, now spread worldwide, as originating in John's Book of Revelation, the last book in the Bible. A thousand years of abundance and human perfections were supposed to precede the end of the created world. Humans decided to manifest the myth themselves when it didn't occur by divine grace. Berry writes, “The millennial myth was absorbed into, and found expression in, the modern doctrine of progress—which has seen humans trying to bring about this promised state through their own efforts by exploiting the resources of the earth.” (24) Jung challenges us to unite our cultured side with the primeval ancestors, what he called “the two million-year-old man within” at the clan and tribal level of human relationships. Such a person would have a relationship with the animal ancestor foundation of the psyche like an indigenous person speaks of spirit animals. The deepest disturbance in our collective unconscious will be at the animal soul level, because for the first time in the history of life on earth, one species will be responsible for eliminating 30 to 50% of the other species. And through the consequences of climate change we will decimate the basic requirements for our life as an animal: food, water, shelter and a relatively stable climate.

Aldo Leopold and Our Ecological Niche

Aldo Leopold described a science that deepens our appreciation of nature, helps us realize our ecological niche, and makes us aware of how we are destroying the environment. (25) We must realize that the climate change problem is a species problem, not just an American or European or Chinese problem. We must appreciate the unique niche of our species in nature as the only species able to use science and technology to violate the laws of nature and exceed the limitations nature brings about through restrictions of food, water, and the spread of diseases. This makes it imperative for our species to be conscious and wise in our relationship with nature and oriented towards living sustainably.

"We are the Origin of All Coming Evil"

From the more cultural perspective, our educational systems must make us more cognizant of our cultural evolution, the evolution of our religious forms, and the archetypal dynamics of the God-image within. Jung said we need more psychology, and famously added, “We are the origin of all coming evil.” (26) We have to teach a psychology that educates students about archetypes, the shadow and projection, and how to live a meaningful life, for Jung proposed individuation as the best antidote to consumerism. (27) The archetype of the provider side of the Great Mother with her desire for stability has captured our species aided by the wonders of science and technology giving us an abundance of food, clothing, shelter, cheap energy and good health. The fatal flaw is our lack of wisdom and a lack of collective social and environmental consciousness.

Corporations as Modern Day Monsters

Environmentalists and most scientists have been suffering from the Cassandra complex for several decades so the problem is not with science. (28) Jung's claim that big corporations are the modern day monsters (29) provides an archetypal take on corporations as persons and the Citizen's United Supreme Court decision. (30) The British Royal Society sent two letters to ExxonMobil in 2006 chastising them for funding organizations deliberately trying to confuse people about climate change, attempting to convince the populace there was serious disagreement among scientists about the human factor in climate change. One ad agency was the same one hired by Phillip Morris in 1993 to create doubt that second hand smoke can cause cancer as the Surgeon General's report in 1992 had indicated. (31) In a related story, I quote from the end of the 2012 Frontline program on PBS, “Money, Power and Wall Street”: “It's very difficult to change gods, and in the modern age, our god is finance. Except its turned out to be a very cruel and destructive god.” A very real aspect of a paradigm shift will entail a revisioning of the concept of corporations. They have the rights of a person but with no concern for children, grandchildren or the seventh generation; their only goal is to maximize profits no matter what. Corporations and large financial institutions are now above governments and international politics. Without changing the rights of corporations, strict oversight of financial institutions, and the elimination of tax haven shell-games, we are just rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic—they will always be several steps ahead of us. I describe on my blog also on this site how I see the film Hunger Games as an analogy to our present political situation veering towards fascism, defined as the union of corporations with government. This is conveyed in a quote attributed to Sinclair Lewis: "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross," not written by Lewis but expressing his sentiments.

Jung's Age of Aquarius will have an Ecological Focus

It will take the paradigm shift Jung described as a “New Age” and “Age of Aquarius” for our species to face and address the frightful realities of current and future environmental situations, our collective sense of guilt for the damage we continue to do to the planet and to the poor and disenfranchised who initially will suffer the most from climate change, and for our demonic role in the coming extinctions of millions of species on the planet. “Fate leads those who follow her, drags those who don't.” Jung said what is not brought to consciousness comes to us as fate. We can either consciously adopt an ecological perspective or let fate as ecological disasters eventually force such a perspective upon us, a perspective that will permeate all levels of human consciousness and behavior. To quote Jung, “We are beset by an all-to-human fear that consciousness—our Promethean conquest—may in the end not be able to serve us as well as nature.” (32)

Nothing is currently being done that is big and bold enough to address the gestalt of conditions that are producing climate change, conditions at the personal, cultural, social, political, economic, educational, and spiritual levels. I am firmly convinced that Jungian ecopsychology can make a significant contribution to this necessary dialogue. This has been the subject of my 4 volumes of The Dairy Farmer's Guide to the Universe—Jung, Hermes and Ecopsychology. Volume 1, Jung and Ecopsychology, examines the evolution of the Western dysfunctional relationship with the environment, explores the theoretical framework and concepts of Jungian ecopsychology, and describes how it could be applied to psychotherapy, our educational system, and our relationship with indigenous peoples. Volume 2, The Cry of Merlin—Jung, the Prototypical Ecopsychologist, reveals how an individual's biography can be treated as an ecopsychological exercise and articulates how Jung's life experiences make him the prototypical ecopsychologist. Volume 3, Hermes, Ecopsychology, and Complexity Theory, provides an archetypal, mythological and symbolic foundation for Jungian ecopsychology. I present Hermes as the god of ecopsychology and offer his staff as an emblem for ecopsychology. Volume 4, Land, Weather, Seasons, Insects: An Archetypal View (January 2013), describes how a deep, soulful connection can be made with these elements through a Jungian ecopsychological approach. This involves the use of science, myths, symbols, dreams, Native American spirituality, imaginal psychology, and the I Ching.

Two promising areas are the Earth Charter which promotes “a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace” (33) and the Transitions movement dealing simultaneously with climate change and peak oil. (34) Lester Brown's Plan B 3.O offers an astute and comprehensive analysis of environmental problems and many promising possibilities for tackling them in a Marshall Plan style.

Ten years is not a long time to bring about a paradigm shift, Jung's New Age, but the stakes are high. We are creating the conditions that will literalize John's dastardly vision of an apocalypse as he described it in the Book of Revelation.

Jung, Hermes, & Ecopsychology
The Dairy Farmer's Guide to the Universe Volumes 1 - 4
by Dennis L. Merritt

4 BOOK SPECIAL - Paperback Editions - $85.00

Notes
1. Ralph Metzner, 1993, “The split between spirit and nature in European consciousness,” Trumpeter 10, Winter 1993, p. 2.
2. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/experts-fear-diseases- impossible-to-treat-7216662.html retrieved November 8, 2012.
3. Lester Brown, 2008, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, W. W. Norton & Company, NY, p. 69-75, 173-174.
4. http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/05/31/us-climate-oceans-E54U1ZB20090531 retrieved November 8, 2012.
5. http://www.climate.org/topics/health.html retrieved November 26, 2012.
6. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/science/earth/09climate.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 retrieved November 26, 2012. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_sky_really_is_falling_20110530/ retrieved May 31, 2011.
7. http://www.climate-emergency-institute.org/species_loss_robert_m.html retrieved November 26, 2012.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/earth-faces-catastrophic-loss-of-species-408605.html retrieved November 26, 2012.
8. http://www.nationofchange.org/stand-still-apocalypse-13540083558 retrieved November 27, 2012. This is a "must read" summary on the negative effects of climate change.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/climate-chaos-predicted-by-co2- study-1676411.html retrieved May 31, 2009.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/07/climatechange.carbonemissions retrieved May 31, 2009.
9. James Hillman and Michael Ventura, 1992, We've had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy—and the World's Getting Worse, HarperSanFrancisco, a division of Harper Collins Publishers, NY.
10. James Hillman, 1992, The Thought of the Heart and the Soul of the World, Spring Publications, Woodstock, Conn., p. 89-130.
11. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecopsychology retrieved November 24, 2012.
12. Carl Jung, 1973, Letters, Vol. 1, 1906-1950, Gerhard Adler and Aniela Jaffe, eds., R.F.C. Hull, trans., Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, p. 285.
13. http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr/11/nation/la-na-tennessee-climate-law-20120411 retrieved November 24. 2012.
14. Sigmund Freud, 1929/l961, Civilization and Its Discontents, James Strachey, trans., W. W. Norton, NY, p. 39.
15. Carl Jung, 1977, C. G. Jung Speaking: Interviews and Encounters, W. McGuire and R.F.C. Hull, eds., Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, p. 396, 397.
16. Carl Jung, 1969, Psychology and Religion: West and East, Vol. 11 of The Collected Works of C. G. Jung [CW], 2nd ed., H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler and W. McGuire, eds., R.F.C. Hull, trans., Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, par. 735.
17. Carl Sagan, “To avert a common danger,” Parade Magazine, March 1992, p. 10-12.
18. Dennis L. Merritt, 2012, Jung and Ecopsychology, Vol. 1 of The Dairy Farmer's Guide to the Universe—Jung, Hermes, and Ecopsychology [DFG], Fisher King Press, Carmel, CA, p. 54-70.
19. DFG Vol. 1, p. 46-49; Hermes, Ecopsychology, and Complexity Theory, DFG Vol. 3, p. 87-132.
20. DFG Vol. 1, p. 35, 36; DFG Vol. 3, Appendix C: Self and Organism, p. 190-195.
21. DFG Vol. 1, p. 109-124.
22. Barbara Hannah, 1991, Jung: His Life and Work, Shambala, Boston, p. 17; DFG Vol. 1, p. 25.
23. Peter Redgrove, 1987, The Black Goddess and the Unseen Real, Grove Press, NY, p. xiv, xv, xviii-xxix; DFG Vol. 3, p. 151-153.
24. Nancy Ryley, 1998, The Forsaken Garden: Four Conversations of the Deep Meaning of Environmental Illness, Quest Books, Wheaton, IL, p. 207, 208; DFG Vol. 1, p. 134 note 9.
25. Aldo Leopold, 1949, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There, Oxford University Press, New York, p. 201-226; http://home.btconnect.com/tipiglen/landethic.html retrieved November 24, 2012.
26. Jung 1977, p. 436.
27. CW 18, “Return to the Simple Life,” p. 582-588.
28. Cassandra offended Apollo and was cursed with the gift of prophesy but no one would believe her.
29. Carl Jung, 1984, Dream Analysis: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1928-1930 by C. G. Jung, W. McGuire, ed., Princeton University Press, Princeton, p. 538, 539, 542, 543; DFG Vol. 1, p. 77, 165 note 87.
30. Citizens United was a landmark 2010 Supreme Court decision that overturned decades of restrictions on corporations and unions from contributing unlimited funds to political campaigns, claiming the restrictions violate First Amendments rights of free speech. Corporations are considered to be a person in this regard. The 2012 elections were the first to experience the effects of the new law of the land.
A "must see" 2003 documentary is "The Corporation," a film based on the book The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power by Joel Bakan, a University of British Columbia law professor. An excellent description of the film on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation_%28film%29) lists the sociopath traits of a corporation if indeed it were a person, which means that the business form dominating the world's economic systems is sociopathic, period. Running beneath the credits at the end of the film is a list of websites that elaborate on particular topics and offers opportunities to get involved in rectifying the problem.
31. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/sep/19/ethicalliving.g2 retrieved November 24, 2012.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/sep/20/oilandpetrol.business retrieved November 24, 2012.
32. CW 8, par. 750.
Prometheus was the Greek Titan who stole fire from the gods for human use, enabling progress and civilization. His punishment was to be chained to a rock and have his liver pecked out by an eagle, the emblem of Zeus. The liver grew back by the next day and again eaten, a scenario eternally reenacted.
33. earthcharterinaction.org
34. transitionnetwork.org

Copyright 2012

News Release: Land, Weather, Seasons, Insects

fisherking@fisherkingpress.com — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 11:03:00 PDT

News Release - April 17, 2012 - Just Published:
Land, Weather, Seasons, Insects: An Archetypal View — The Dairy Farmer's Guide to the Universe Volume IV
by Dennis L. Merritt

Land, Weather, Seasons, Insects explores the environment, with the Midwest as an example, using traditional Jungian and Hillmanian approaches to deepen our connection with the land, the seasons, and insects.

The Dalai Lama said how we relate to insects is very important for what it reveals much about a culture’s relationship with the psyche and nature.

"I had several Big Dreams in my last year of training at the Jung Institute in Zurich, including a single image dream of a typical Wisconsin pasture or meadow scene. This was the most beautiful landscape I have ever seen because it shown with an inner light, what Jung called a numinous or sacred dream. Since returning to Wisconsin I have let the mystery and power of that dream inspire me to learn and experience as much as possible about the land and the seasons of the upper Midwest, a process of turning a landscape into a soulscape."

"The means of doing this are presented in Land, Weather, Seasons, Insects: An Archetypal View, volume IV of The Dairy Farmer’s Guide to the Universe—Jung, Hermes, and Ecopsychology. This involves the use of science, myths, symbols, dreams, Native American spirituality, imaginal psychology and the I Ching. It is an approach that can be used to develop a deep connection with any landscape, meeting one of the goals of ecopsychology. Carl Sagan believed that unless we can re-establish a sense of the sacred about the earth, the forces leading to its destruction will be too powerful to avert."

—Dennis L. Merritt

Front Cover: A Monarch butterfly on Buddleia in Olbrich Gardens, Madison, Wisconsin. This “King of the Butterflies” is probably the best known of the North American butterflies and is the chosen image for the Entomological Society of America. The caterpillar feeds on the lowly milkweed, genius Asclepias, named after the Greek god of healing. The plant and the insect are toxic to most organisms. The insect is known for its uniquely long and complicated migrations. Photo by Chuck Heikkinen.

DENNIS L. MERRITT, Ph.D., is a Jungian psychoanalyst and ecopsychologist in private practice in Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A Diplomate of the C.G. Jung Institute of Analytical Psychology, Zurich, Switzerland, he also holds the following degrees: M.A. Humanistic Psychology-Clinical, Sonoma State University, California, Ph.D. Insect Pathology, University of California-Berkeley, M.S. and B.S. in Entomology, University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has participated in Lakota Sioux ceremonies for over twenty-five years which have strongly influenced his worldview.

Diagnosing the "Problem"

fisherking@fisherkingpress.com — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 17:27:00 PDT

Because guilt tends to hide behind other disturbances, we need clinical tools to help us bring guilt into the open where the real culprit can be seen and addressed. In our experience in our practices, guilt is never the presenting problem. We have never had a patient say, “I’ve come to get help for dealing with my guilt.” People who could define their main problem as guilt might as likely go to see a priest or rabbi rather than a therapist. The presenting problems of most people we see are anxiety and depression. Eventually, however, guilt often raises its ugly head. It is found hiding behind the anxiety and depression. Also fairly often the presenting problem is difficulty with relationships or concern with repeating patterns. Unrequited love is not an infrequent guest. Guilt also hides behind these painful experiences. In cases of unrequited love, the suffering soul almost always comes to the conclusion that there is something wrong with him/her, that he/she is not lovable. Ultimately, we find guilt behind repeating patterns. They feel guilty for being weak, for not being strong enough to alter the repetitious behavior. They feel inadequate to fix the recurring problem in their lives . . .
(from Chapter 5 of The Guilt Cure)

Lowinsky on 'The Art of Lament and Redemption'

fisherking@fisherkingpress.com — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 11:31:00 PDT

Naomi Ruth Lowinsky, Ph.D

Self Portrait With Ghost: The Art of Lament and Redemption

Lecture and Workshop presented by Naomi Ruth Lowinsky and hosted by Jung Cleveland and Braden & Associates

Download Registration Form

Date: 5/17/13
Time: 7 to 9 p.m.
Location:
First Unitarian Church of Cleveland
21600 Shaker Blvd.,
Shaker Heights, Ohio 44122

Lecture Description:

"Let us build the bond of community so that the living and the dead image will become one and the past will live on in the present…" — C.G. Jung

"Often I have such a great longing for myself. I know that the path ahead still stretches far; but in my best dreams I see the day when I shall stand and greet myself." — Rainer Maria Rilke

When you lose three children, your home and your country, how do you go on? If you are Emma Hoffman, a gifted painter in the impressionist tradition, you paint. Those paintings continue to speak of the redemptive power of art to Hoffman’s granddaughter, Naomi Ruth Lowinsky. Years ago, when she was in analytic training at the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco, Lowinsky had a dream in which she was told, "On your way to Jung’s house, you must first stop at your grandmother’s house and gather some of her paintings.” Lowinsky was the first child born in the New World to a family of German-Jewish refugees from the Shoah. She had a special tie with her only surviving grandparent, whom she knew as Oma. Oma taught her that making art can be a way to transmute grief and bear the unbearable.

A series of paintings, self portraits, portraits of family, landscapes and interior scenes of the houses she lived in reflects her lamentations, her wandering and her search for redemption. Lowinsky understood her dream to mean that she had to follow the path of her own creativity. She did not know then that the dream would turn out to be literally true as well. She would need to put her art — her poetry — at the service of her grandmother’s paintings. Her grandmother’s spirit would demand it. Her opus would need to intersect with her Oma’s, and together they’d make their way to Jung’s house.

This presentation is the result of an ongoing dialogue between Hoffman and Lowinsky’s art. She will weave together Emma Hoffman’s story and paintings, her poetry and prose and her reflections on Jung’s Red Book as an example of the “art of lament and redemption,” a form she calls Jungian memoir.

Lecture Goals:
1. Understand the psychology of the refugee
2. Understand the psychology of Jews who fled the Nazis and their descendants
3. Contemplate the experience of grief
4. Consider the uses of creative process in healing trauma

Speak, Muse
A Day with the Sister from Below
Date: 5/18/13 Download Registration Form
Time: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Location:
First Unitarian Church of Cleveland
21600 Shaker Blvd.,
Shaker Heights, Ohio 44122

Workshop Description:

In this writing workshop, Naomi Ruth Lowinsky will introduce her muse, the shape-shifting Sister from Below, and invite her to inspire your writing practice. With the Sister’s help, Lowinsky will facilitate an imaginative encounter with the stuff of your inner and outer life — your own Jungian memoir.

The Sister from Below is a fierce inner figure. She emerges out of reverie, dream, a fleeting memory or a difficult emotion as the moment of inspiration — the muse.  This Sister is not about the ordinary business of life: work, shopping or making dinner. She speaks from other realms. If you'll allow, she'll whisper in your ear, lead your thoughts astray, fill you with strange yearnings, get you hot and bothered, send you off on some wild-goose-chase of a daydream and eat up hours of your time. She's a siren, a seductress, a shape-shifter... Why listen to such a troublemaker? Because she is essential to the creative process: She holds the keys to the doors of our imaginations and deeper life—the evolution of soul.

Open to those who write and those who want to. Bring pen and notebook.

Workshop Goals:
1. Have direct experience of the creative process
2. Have direct experience of active imagination
3. Deepen self knowledge about inner experience
4. Deepen psychological understanding of writers and other artists

About Lowinsky:
Naomi Ruth Lowinsky, Ph.D., lives at the confluence of the River Psyche and the Deep River of poetry. Her book, The Sister from Below: When the Muse Gets Her Way, tells stories of her pushy muse. She is the co-editor of the new collection Marked by Fire: Stories of the Jungian Way. She is a Jungian analyst and the author of four books of poetry, including the forthcoming Faust Woman Poems. Lowinsky is the winner of the Obama Millennium Award, and her poetry and prose have been widely published. She is a member of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco and has led a writing circle there, called Deep River, for years.

eBook editions from Fisher King Press

fisherking@fisherkingpress.com — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 14:27:00 PDT

Now available directly from the Fisher King Press online bookstore - eBooks which can be downloaded to readers in any country of the world. Read on your computer and/or read on any eReader that accepts Kindle/Mobi, ePub, & PDF files.

ANDROID PHONES & TABLETS

KOBO READERS

KINDLE

The Dream and Its Amplification

fisherking@fisherkingpress.com — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 16:48:00 PST

The Dream and Its Amplification
Erel Shalit & Nancy Swift Furlotti (eds.)

Available June 15, 2013 - Advance Orders Welcomed!

The Dream and Its Amplification unveils the language of the psyche that speaks to us in our dreams.

We all dream at least 4-6 times each night yet remember very few. Those that rise to the surface of our conscious awareness beckon to be understood, like a letter addressed to us that arrives by post. Why would we not open it? The difficulty is in understanding what the dream symbols and images mean. Through amplification, C. G. Jung formulated a method of unveiling the deeper meaning of symbolic images. This becomes particularly important when the image does not carry a personal meaning or significance and is not part of a person’s everyday life.

Fourteen Jungian Analysts from around the world have contributed chapters to this book on areas of special interest to them in their work with dreams. This offers the seasoned dream worker as well as the novice great insight into the meaning of the dream and its amplification.

Contributors to this edition of the Fisher King Review include: Erel Shalit, Nancy Swift Furlotti, Thomas Singer, Michael Conforti, Ken Kimmel, Gotthilf Isler, Nancy Qualls-Corbett, Henry Abramovitch, Kathryn Madden, Ron Schenk, Naomi Ruth Lowinsky, Christian Gaillard, Monika Wikman, and Gilda Frantz.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. The Amplified World of Dreams - Erel Shalit and Nancy Swift Furlotti
II. Pane e’ Vino: Learning to Discern the Objective, Archetypal Nature of Dreams - Michael Conforti
III. Amplification: A Personal Narrative - Thomas Singer
IV. Redeeming the Feminine: Eros and the World Soul - Nancy Qualls-Corbett
V. Wild Cats and Crowned Snakes: Archetypal Agents of Feminine Initiation - Nancy Swift Furlotti
VI. A Dream in Arcadia - Christian Gaillard
VII. Muse of the Moon: Poetry from the Dreamtime - Naomi Ruth Lowinsky
VIII.Dreaming the Face of the Earth: Myth, Culture, and Dreams of the Mayan Shaman - Kenneth Kimmel
IX. Coal or Gold? The Symbolic Understanding of Alpine Legends - Gotthilf Isler
X. Sophia’s Dreaming Body: The Night Sky as Alchemical Mirror - Monika Wikman
XI. The Dream Always Follows the Mouth: Jewish Approaches to Dreaming - Henry Abramovitch
XII. Bi-Polarity, Compensation, and the Transcendent Function in Dreams and Visionary Experience: A Jungian Examination of Boehme’s Mandala - Kathryn Madden
XIII. The Dream As Gnostic Myth - Ronald Schenk
XIV. Four Hands in the Crossroads: Amplification in Times of Crisis - Erel Shalit
XV. Dreams and Sudden Death - Gilda Frantz

Attending the IAAP Congress in Copenhagen? - Don't miss the The Dream and Its Amplification book launching on August 21st at 19:00 !

The Dream and Its Amplification
Paperback: 220 pages (Large Page Format 9.25" x 7.5")
Publisher: Fisher King Press; 1st edition (June 15, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1-926715-89-6
ISBN-13: 978-1-926715-89-6

IAAP Congress Copenhagen August 2013

fisherking@fisherkingpress.com — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 16:05:00 PST

Welcome to the 2013 IAAP Congress in Copenhagen

by Joe Cambray, President, IAAP

In recognition of and honoring the pioneering psychological transformations, which C. G. Jung underwent beginning in the year 1913. These experiences were to make him into the figure we know as "Jung," and are documented in his Red Book. Further, we will look to how we as an evolving community have developed from these insights to become the Analytical Psychology of the 21st Century.

The IAAP’s triennial Congresses are unique, wonderful events, when our global community has the opportunity to come together for nearly a week of intense engagements, personally and professionally. Old friends are reunited and new friendships are forged in a convivial atmosphere. It is an affirmation of our vocational choices and a chance to celebrate our vision of the psyche.

For the past three years the Program Committee chaired by Robert Wimmer and the Organizing Committee chaired by Misser Berg have labored intensively to bring forth this remarkable gathering. It is a testament to them and the committees they have chaired that we are all here and able to participate in this extraordinary event. The great variety of offerings which you will have the chance to explore this week is a tribute to these efforts.

Several innovations will be offered at this congress. Electronic translations of plenary texts into all of the official languages of the IAAP will be made available through the kindness of our hosts, the Danish Society for Analytical Psychology (DSAP). Other languages will be accommodated as resources permit. Also, there will be a Master of Ceremonies for each day of the congress; the master will assist with the overall integration of each day and as a team for the Congress as whole. It is with great anticipation and pleasure that I and the members of the Executive Committee look forward to meeting you in Copenhagen for discovery, debate and revelry.

Click to learn more about and register for the 2013 IAAP Congress.

Guilt and Individuation - Always Pay!

fisherking@fisherkingpress.com — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 16:25:00 PST

“A wise man will know it is the part of prudence to face every claimant and pay

every just demand on your time, your talents, or your heart. Always pay.”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson[1]

by Lawrence H. Staples

The Jungian model for psychological growth and development is called individuation. It is the process by which we achieve our unique potential as an individual. All psychological growth is difficult and often painful. The Jungian way, however, is especially so because it requires us to sin and bear guilt. The path is strewn with guilt mines. We must step on many of them to complete our journey. The guilt that lies along this path creates a formidable deterrent.

Individuation describes a person’s “process of personal growth, of becoming himself, whole, indivisible, and distinct. Key attributes that describe the process of individuation emphasize: (1) the goal of the process is the development of the personality; (2) it presupposes and includes collective relationships (i.e., it does not occur in a state of isolation); and (3) it involves a degree of opposition to social norms that have no validity. The more an individuating person’s life has previously been shaped by the collective norm, the greater is his individual immorality.”[2]

Jung, of course, clearly saw the conflict between his developmental concept of individuation and collective mores. He knew that we couldn’t individuate without sinning and incurring guilt. He explains the consequences in a brief passage:

Jung was clear and emphatic that there is a high and demanding price of guilt to be paid when one gives up conventional life and travels the path of individuation. We cannot grow without suffering guilt. It’s a path that requires courage.

But Jung also offered ideas as to how this guilt might be redeemed:

Jung’s way is essentially the Promethean Way where “sin” eventually leads to something good for humanity. In order to accomplish our equivalent, we have to turn inward to the unconscious. We have to search there for what needs to be developed within ourselves in order to become the complete persons we are called to be. Only then do we have the capacity to give back the most we are capable of giving.

A similar idea is presented in Plato’s The Republic, in the allegory of the cave, where the philosopher king goes away to the cave, the symbolic equivalent of the unconscious, and returns to give his society the wisdom and the fundamental forms underlying life that he found there. An analogy are the vision quests of the shaman and medicine men of the Native Americans and other primitive tribal societies, who enter the world of the unconscious and bring back knowledge and skills that benefit their people. In Greek mythology, Prometheus went far away to where the gods lived, stole fire, and brought it back. He offended the gods and incurred guilt and punishment for his deed. But his guilty deed brought great benefit to mankind.

Learn more about Guilt and Individuation in Guilt with a Twist: The Promethean Way by Lawrence H. Staples and The Guilt Cure by Nancy Carter Pennington and Lawrence H. Staples.

Download a free PDF sample of Guilt with a Twist
Download a free PDF sample of The Guilt Cure

[1] Ralph Waldo Emerson expressed similar ideas in his essay, “Compensation.” He writes, “A wise man will know it is the part of prudence to face every claimant and pay every just demand on your time, your talents, or your heart. Always pay.”(Emerson, Ralph Waldo, Essays, New York, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1883)
[2] A Critical Dictionary of Jungian Analysis, Andrew Samuels, Bani Shorter, and Fred Plaut, Routledge& Kegan Paul, London and New York, p. 76.
[3] Jung, C.G., Collected Works, vol. 18, pars. 1094–1099.
[4] Emerson, “Compensation.”
[5] Jung, C.G., Collected Works, vol. 18, pars. 1094–1099.

Do We Need More Psychology?

fisherking@fisherkingpress.com — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 15:00:00 PST

Dennis L. Merritt, Ph.D.

In the famous 1957 BBC interview, C.G. Jung proclaimed, “We need more psychology, the human psyche must be studied! Humans are the source of all coming evil.”

Psychology is positioned to usher in a holistic approach to the study of the human psyche, our relationship to the environment, and a truly interdisciplinary educational system. As Jung pointed out, all we know and experience comes out of the psyche and all our systems, including science, have an archetypal base. The Dairy Farmer's Guide to the Universe: Jung and Ecopsychology series explores paradigms that can be appreciated and utilized within the academic community, paradigms that offer several perspectives on the mind/body connection, humans and nature, science and the arts.

Jung, the first psychiatrist to speak of biophilia, believed that a person not connected to the land was neurotic. Carl Sagan and other prominent scientists united with church leaders to proclaim that unless we develop a sense of the sacred in the land, all will be lost. James Hillman in his books The Thought of the Heart and the Soul of the World and We’ve had 100 Years of Psychotherapy and The World is Getting Worse challenges psychologists to ask themselves if they are part of the problem or part of the solution vis-à-vis our relationship with the environment.

Does our philosophical base and our psychological theories and practices encompass a regard for the most basic reality - the accelerating rate of destruction of the very fabric of life’s existence? Dennis Merritt's Jung and Ecopsychology series explores how Jungian theory and practice can provide a 21st century model for understanding the human psyche in relation to nature and how it can help establish a truly interdisciplinary educational system that cultivates and develops our connection to the land and creates a sustainable lifestyle.

The Dairy Farmer's Guide to the Universe: Jung and Ecopsychology Volumes 1-4

A significant contribution to evolving paradigms being explored by the new as well

as by the traditional areas of psychology.

What Became of Our Fierce Flowering?

fisherking@fisherkingpress.com — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 12:30:00 PST

The Faust Woman Poems
by Naomi Ruth Lowinsky

Available April 10, 2013 - Advance Orders Welcomed!

What became of our fierce flowering?

In the 1960s and '70s the long forgotten and forbidden Great Goddess roused herself from millennia of slumber and took possession of young women’s imaginations. That cast out She offered a Faustian bargain—She would rip you out of your narrow domesticated self image, thrust you into the wilds of sex, power and creativity, initiate you into the mysteries of Earth and Starry Heaven, but you would owe Her your soul. A generation of women followed Her. Some knew her as Feminism, some knew her as the Deep Feminine, many as both.

The Faust Woman Poems trace one woman’s Faustian adventures through that time. Most of a lifetime later the Great Goddess returns to the poet. As oceans rise and species die She demands Her due.

About the Author:
Naomi Ruth Lowinsky lives at the confluence of the River Psyche and the Deep River of poetry. The Sister from Below: When the Muse Gets Her Way tells stories of her pushy muse. She is the co-editor, with Patricia Damery, of the new collection Marked by Fire: Stories of the Jungian Way. In addition to the Faust Woman Poems, Naomi is also the author of three books of poetry, including the recently published Adagio & Lamentation. Her poetry has been widely published and she is the winner of the Obama Millennium Award. She is a member of the San Francisco Institute and has for years led a writing circle there, called Deep River.

Cover image Papilla Estelar is a painting by Remedios Varo, used with permission from the Varo Estate, © 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VEGAP, Madrid.

Product Details
Paperback: 90 pages
Publisher: il piccolo editions; 1st edition (April 10, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN: 978-1926715971

Galipeau on Approaching the World of Demons

fisherking@fisherkingpress.com — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 18:09:00 PST

by Steven A. Galipeau

As we try to understand the gospel stories in which Jesus casts out demons, it is helpful to remember the resemblance between Jesus and healing shamans. To Jesus, illness is often the work of demons. The healing process unfolds when a particular demon, or sometimes more than one, is driven out of a person. This may be perplexing to modern ears, but it is unfair to the gospel record and to other healing traditions to merely write it off as primitive thinking. Depth psychology in particular helps us see that early people did not have an inferior way of evaluating human nature, health, and illness. Rather, western culture has lost its ability to see a spiritual world consisting of both helpful and not-so-helpful spirits and demons.

Let us put it another way. Today children are closer to inner reality than most adults. When the sun goes down and darkness sets in, the world of demons and monsters comes alive for children. They peer from outside windows, they hide in the closets, under the bed, up in the attic, and down in the cellar. During the day these places contain the usual paraphernalia as any adult will gladly point out. Yet conversations with many adults indicate that when night falls even they experience fears and imaginative wanderings that normally do not arise during the day.

We can distinguish between daytime thinking and nighttime thinking. Ours is primarily a daytime-thinking culture. We like to see life as we know it when the sun is shining and the world can be seen objectively. If we, or our children run across the inhabitants of the night, we like to say it is “only” our imagination. We turn on a light to show our children (and ourselves) that there are only shoes and clothes in the closet, nothing else. We rely on daytime thinking. When it fails us, which is often the case, we lock our outside doors, clothes closets, attics, and cellars, and keep our feet from touching the floor around the bed until dawn the next day. It is in the daylight world that we excel, that we are productive and at home.

We are not at home in the nighttime world. Our attempts to contact the world of spirits compare feebly to those of shamans and religious figures of earlier cultures. Their myths and rituals describe nighttime reality at length. They are so at home in this world that they have even named its inhabitants. The figures of ancient Greek mythology and the Kachinas of the Zuni Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Arizona are good examples; helpful spirits aid healing and enhance human life, while unclean spirits bring illness and restrict life. Our “night life” is inferior, and as long as we tell ourselves and our children that our demons are not really there, or that they are “only in our imaginations,” it will remain so.

The idea of an inner world is very helpful in this regard. For in nighttime thinking it is this inner world that we experience. The characters that come from within us at night have their own life and their own stories. If we know their stories as depicted in myth and ritual, we are better able to know where our own lives are unfolding, and whether it is in a healing direction. The creative imagination can help enormously in bringing these inner realities into focus. We can become much more conscious of our inner dynamics and of how God might be moving within us.

The psychology of C.G. Jung goes a long way in explaining our nighttime world. In his life, as well as his psychological work, Jung spoke of how important it is to find the images behind our feelings and emotions. In these images Jung perceived common patterns and motifs that he called archetypal patterns. They are found not only in the inner life of modern people, but in ancient myths and rituals. The characters are gods, spirits, and demons of earlier times. More ancient people, including Jesus, believed it possible for individuals to be possessed by demons. The goal of the healer was to free the person from such influence and put him in touch with the spirit of healing.

In Jung’s psychology, a person comes under the influence of a particular complex that prevents the full unfolding of the personality. A man or woman may suffer from a mother complex, for example. Such a person lives by the values of his mother, and his feeling life resides in her psychology. He becomes ill, physically or psychologically, when this influence becomes so strong that other parts of the personality suffer. For healing to take place, the mother complex must be integrated, a process in which the psychotherapist can help. When at length a balance begins to come forth, the strain on the body is lessened.

Discernment in this inner world comes only with experience. Often inner figures that seem threatening at first are bringing healing, while those that seem good can be opposed both to healing and to God.

An example is the angel Lucifer, or “lightbearer,” who thought he could do a better job than God. Someone can be said to be possessed by Lucifer when, in the name of light, he claims to know the divine order of things in the face of solid evidence to the contrary. This demon plays on our human tendency to want to have life our own way. The stronger it becomes, the less likely it is that a person will hear God’s voice. Similarly, such a demon preys on the part of a person that likes to be cared for, stroked, and to be the center of attention. Very likely, such a person would carry on an “if” relationship with God—something like, “If things go my way and life is comfortable for me, I will believe in you.” Ironically, such a person invites discomfort and even illness: as we shall see, this is often the only way God can get our attention and help us see that we might have a demon.

Jung’s work bridges shamanism and western thought by taking shamanism seriously and demonstrating that a relationship to the vast inner world—the collective unconscious, in his phrase—is crucial to one’s health. Jung describes this inner world and its archetypal patterns in clear, modern language. For him experience is the key to understanding the inner life. He invites those in search of healing, or of God, to encounter this world through their personal experience.

Jesus was at home in the realm of demons, in nighttime reality. It was natural for him to talk about them in the course of his healing work. This is one reason why he taught that unless we are like little children, we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven (Mt 18:1-5). Children are close to the nighttime world; unless adults can maintain this same relationship, they will lose touch with the inner kingdom of heaven.

One reason Jesus was so at home in the night world had to do with the Judaism of his day. In the Jewish cycle of life, each day began at sunset, the time of darkness, and ended with the time of daylight. One lived first in night life and then in day life. The creation story in the book of Genesis begins in darkness. From darkness comes light. The Jewish calendar and all its feast days were based on the moon and determined by its cycles. Generally the moon can only be seen at night. Thus the ancient Hebrews, like most primitive peoples, were especially adept at looking into life at night.

From very early in its history, Christianity adopted the Roman calendar and began to base its year on the sun rather than the moon. The old lunar calendar was traded in for a solar one. This change symbolized the transition in consciousness that has permeated western culture. Modern science has benefited, but the type of healing ministry found in the gospels has suffered greatly. At times the Christian mystical tradition has pointed back toward the inner world and the mysterious ways of darkness: John of the Cross is noted for his sixteenth century work The Dark Night of the Soul. But such mystics are the exception.

Most modern Christians practice their religion along the lines of daytime consciousness. Whereas the Jews held their family meals and religious services beginning with dusk and the coming of night, most of today’s Christian services are daytime events. Those in the evening are held then for the practical reason of attendance rather than for any spiritual purpose. There are two exceptions. One is the Christmas Eve service, which, for a number of denominations, is the principal service of Christmas. Here is a great Christian service centered in the time of darkness. Its timing, though, is rooted in the ancient non-Christian winter solstice ceremonies rather than in early Christian practice. Still, it affords Christians an opportunity to come into some general contact with the spiritual mysteries of darkness and the night.

More recently here in the west there has been a movement to restore the great vigil of Easter on Easter eve. This does not call forth the popular response of Christmas, but there does appear to be growing interest in many churches. In very early Christianity the Easter vigil was the central service of the year. Following Jewish practice, it actually began with the setting of the sun on Saturday, lasting through the night until dawn the next day. For the early church the full mystery of Easter, the central event of Christian belief, was experienced as the time of darkness finally moved into the time of light. During this great service all baptisms were performed, and those baptized received the eucharist for the first time. The resurrection took place at night! At dawn the tomb was empty; Jesus was already risen.

This celebration of the great vigil of Easter continues in eastern Christianity. Westerners often have trouble becoming accustomed to an Easter service at night; many who attend a vigil service feel they have not been to church on Easter and return the following day for a daytime service. Certainly this inclination is largely due to custom. However, it is also due to our having become almost exclusively a daytime culture, out of touch with the side of spiritual reality that lies within nature’s cycle of darkness. Consequently we lack access to an important area of spiritual wisdom.

Nighttime thinking allows us to approach the world of demons. In his healing, Jesus used the same approach. Transforming Body & Soul: Therapeutic Wisdom in the Gospel Healing Stories examines his healing work more closely.

Steven Galipeau is a Jungian analyst in private practice in Calabasas, California and President and Executive Director of Coldwater Counseling Center in Studio City. A member of the C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles, he teaches in the analyst training program and lectures regularly in public programs on a wide variety of topics related to Jungian psychology. Steve is also the author of The Journey of Luke Skywalker: An Analysis of Modern Myth and Symbol.

Odajnyk on Meditation

fisherking@fisherkingpress.com — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 16:18:00 PST

by V. Walter Odajnyk, Author of Gathering the Light: A Jungian View of Meditation

At the beginning of the Christian era, the entire Mediterranean world was caught up in the throes of a spiritual ferment-not unlike that of our day. The Roman Empire had completed the eastward expansion begun by Alexander the Great and brought together the ancient cultures of the Near East and the younger cultures of the West. A cosmopolitan, secular, Hellenic civilization and a common language unified the entire region. The various indigenous traditional religions lost their hold on the religious feelings of their adherents. A merging of the gods and cults of different regions took place, and something like our New Age movement developed. That movement combined Oriental mythologies, astrology, Iranian theology, elements of Jewish biblical and occult traditions, Christian salvation eschatology, the mystery religions of Isis, Mithras, and Attis, Platonic terms and concepts, and alchemical imagery. Christianity itself was only one among many new religions of the time that held a radically dualistic view of the nature of reality along with an otherworldly goal of salvation. In ancient Rome, as in the United States today, every conceivable religion was represented, and many people wandered from sect to sect in search of novelty and transcendent I experience. It was even possible to travel to India and China in that quest.

Today, the religions of East and West have met once again. One of the significant results of that encounter is a renewed interest in meditation. I say "renewed" because meditation is not new to the West. Both Christianity and Judaism have a rich contemplative tradition. But beginning with the Renaissance, that tradition slowly began to recede as Europeans turned their attention toward the outer world-exploring the newly discovered American continent, studying different cultures, and pursuing an objective inquiry into nature. Thus, when the Eastern religions gained popularity in the West during the late 1960s and early 1970S, many Christians and Jews initially encountered meditation through Eastern teachings. Daniel Goleman, in the introduction to his book The Meditative Mind, describes the situation at the time. He states rather, meditation in the West had disappeared from common religious practice.) Goleman became intensely interested in meditation and as a graduate student in psychology went to Asia to study the meditative traditions in their original setting. He writes:

During the 1970s, and even more so today, a good number of believing Jews and Christians who were exposed to Eastern meditation began to look to their own traditions to rediscover and revitalize the practice of meditation in a Christian or Jewish context. Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, for example, made such an attempt with his book Meditation and the Bible, published in 1978. In a later book, Jewish Meditation, he noted that “as many as 75 percent of the devotees in some ashrams are Jewish and large percentages follow disciplines such as Transcendental Meditation. When I speak to these Jews and ask them why they are exploring other religions instead of their own, they answer that they know of nothing deep or spiritually satisfying in Judaism. When I tell them there is a strong tradition of meditation and mysticism, not only in Judaism, but in mainstream Judaism, they look at me askance.”(2)

Nevertheless, Kaplan admitted that even many rabbis and scholars were not aware that such a tradition exists. For since the Enlightenment, reference to meditation disappeared from mainstream Jewish literature, and even from Chasidic literature, where it once played a central role. Kaplan had to undertake a difficult scholarly task to rediscover the tradition of Jewish meditation, for most of the important texts on Jewish meditation had never been published and existed only in manuscript form stored in libraries and museums in different parts of the world. The manuscripts first had to be located, copied, and their often obsolete scripts deciphered. And even then, much of the material would have been incomprehensible to someone who had had no experience with meditation.

Although the once numerous and thriving monasteries of the Catholic Church are gone or stand empty, at least the classic texts on meditation have always remained available. Among these are The Cloud of Unknowing by an anonymous fourteenth-century author; The Ladder of Perfection by Walter Hilton; The Dark Night of the Soul by Saint John of the Cross; and The Interior Castle by Saint Teresa of Avila. The monasteries on Mount Athos, too, stand mostly empty, but the Eastern Orthodox Church has maintained a lively, if diminished, tradition of meditation with the so-called Jesus Prayer. The tradition is preserved in the Philokalia, a collection of writings by early Church Fathers. The Jesus Prayer (known in the West as Hesychasm) is associated with Hesychius of Jerusalem, a fifth-century teacher who stressed the value of repetitive prayer as a way of stillness and repose leading to a vision of God. The prayer consists of the unceasing repetition of the Publican's plea: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner." The shortened version of the prayer is simply Kyrie eleison, "Lord have mercy." (The technique is similar to the Hindu practice of japa, or holding the object of one's devotion constantly in mind through the ceaseless repetition of a divine name or a mantra.)

In spite of these still extant Christian meditative traditions, many contemporary Christians were led back to these pursuits by way of an exposure to Eastern meditation. One notable example is that of John Main, a practicing Catholic, who was taught mantra meditation by an Indian teacher in Malaya. He decided to become a Benedictine monk, and when he described his way of meditating to his novice master, he was told to stop. Instead, he was asked to undertake the more intellectual forms of meditation-discursive, conceptual, and imaginative. Then one day he read John Cassian, the teacher of Saint Benedict and Saint Thomas Aquinas, and recognized that Cassian's meditatio was essentially identical with what he had been taught by his Indian teacher. He began to teach this form of meditation in 1976 and founded a worldwide network of small meditation groups.

The most popular Catholic exponent of the contemplative life in recent years was the Trappist monk Thomas Merton. His Seeds of Contemplation, which appeared in 1949, was a widely read book long before Eastern meditation made its incursion into the West. But eventually he, too, became greatly interested in Eastern, particularly Buddhist, meditation, and on his fatal trip to Asia in 1968 (during which he died accidentally from electric shock), he even toyed with the idea of working with a Tibetan guru. Merton had a life-long interest in Zen Buddhism and wrote a number of essays on the topic.
The newly revived interest in meditation, however, is not limited to religion. Many people meditate for purely secular reasons: to improve their concentration or to obtain a sense of equilibrium, clarity of mind, and a general feeling of wellbeing. Others use various meditation techniques to activate, explore, and sometimes restructure aspects of their psychology.

Perhaps this broad interest in meditation is a presage of a Western cultural enantiodromia -- a turning away from the preoccupation with outer reality toward an exploration of the inner world. But for the moment, the Western scientific approach is being applied to meditation as well. Different forms of meditation have been subjected to experimental studies both inside and outside a religious context. The psychological, physiological, and neurological (EEG patterns) changes taking place during and after meditation have been described. Research has shown, for example, that even the most elementary meditation practice, repeating a mantra or focusing on one's breath, tends to have a beneficial effect on the immune system and to improve such conditions as hypertension, angina and arrhythmia, high cholesterol, anxiety, stress, chronic pain, phobias, and addictions. (More recent studies have demonstrated that meditation is not unique in obtaining these results; any form of deep relaxation has the same effects.)

The states of consciousness experienced during meditation have been compared with other unusual forms of consciousness, such as those induced by hypnosis or psychedelic drugs. Many of these early studies were published in Altered States Of Consciousness (1969), edited by Charles T. Tart. The Joumal of Transpersonal Psychology, founded in 1969 by Anthony Sutich, a close collaborator of Abraham Maslow, has been particularly receptive to research and essays on the physiology and psychology of meditation, and on mysticism and other religious experiences. Interestingly enough, research in both subatomic physics and astrophysics has led to a perception of the universe that in essence parallels the often paradoxical descriptions of the nature of reality in Eastern mysticism. The theoretical physicist Fritjof Capra has documented and illustrated these similarities in The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Modem Physics and Eastern Mysticism (1975). Since the 1960s a number of widely read psychologists and humanists have sought to integrate Eastern and Western psychology, among them Alan Watts, especially in Psychotherapy East and West (1961); Erich Fromm in Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis (1970), coauthored with D. T. Suzuki; Roberto Assagioli in Psychosynthesis (1971); and Abraham Maslow, particularly in his posthumously published book The Farther Reaches of Human Nature (1971).

Charles T. Tart, in Transpersonal Psychologies (1975), a survey of nine major Western and Eastern mystical traditions, acknowledges that the Western scientific approach has failed to deal adequately with the realm of spiritual experience: "The 'enlightened rationalism' and physicalism [the notion that ultimate reality consists of the interaction of matter and energy in time and space and exists independently of our perception of it] that have been so successful in developing the physical sciences have not worked very well in psychology. . . . Orthodox, Western psychology has dealt poorly with the spiritual side of man's nature, choosing either to ignore its existence or to label it pathological."(3) He therefore proposes the creation of "state-specific sciences," specific to different states of altered consciousness. Just as there are specially trained scientists in such areas as chemistry and biology, there would have to be specially trained scientists dealing with the observation and analysis of the experiences and states of consciousness characteristic of, say, hatha yoga, Zen meditation, telekinesis, LSD, and so on. The difference, of course, would be that the state-specific scientist would have to experience these conditions and observe them from "within," rather than from the outside, as is the case with the natural sciences. Jung faced this issue in the early decades of this century and simply opted for empiricism, the observation of experiential facts without regard to theory.

In a series of books, among them The Spectrum of Consciousness and The Atman Project (first published in 1977 and 1980 respectively), Ken Wilber has developed a theoretical framework that seeks to integrate the developmental and ego psychologies of the West with the spiritual and transpersonal psychologies of the East. The most recent effort in this vein, and one that purports to offer a "full spectrum" model of human development, is Transformations of Consciousness: Conventional and Contemplative Perspectives on Development (1986) by Ken Wilber, Jack Engler, and Daniel P. Brown.

I don't know whether Wilber is familiar with Jung's use of the color spectrum as an analogy for the range of psychic functioning. On the infrared end of the spectrum, Jung places the biological instinctive psyche, which gradually merges with its chemical and physical conditions. On the ultraviolet end, he places the archetypal images, which merge with the invisible-to-us realm of spirit. Thus: "In archetypal conceptions and instinctual perceptions, spirit and matter confront one another on the psychic plane. Matter and spirit both appear in the psychic realm as distinctive qualities of conscious contents. The ultimate nature of both is transcendental, that is, irrepresentable, since the psyche and its contents are the only reality which is given to us without a medium."(4) Wilber's spectrum is similar, for he places what he calls the preverbal, primary processes that are bound to the instincts at the initial state of the human life cycle, and of human evolution in general, and the transpersonal, archetypal consciousness at the most evolved end of the life cycle, and of human evolution. Although, like Jung, Wilber recognizes the limits of consciousness at the primary process level, he does not seem to acknowledge the limits of consciousness at the archetypal end of the spectrum.

With the current interest in Eastern thought and meditation, it is surprising how seldom Jung's contribution in this area is acknowledged. Jung played a major role in introducing a number of important Eastern texts to the Western reader: The Secret of the Golden Flower; The Tibetan Book of the Dead; The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation; D. T. Suzuki's Introduction to Zen Buddhism; and Richard Wilhelm's translation of The I Ching or Book of Changes. He sought to make these texts comprehensible by translating their basic philosophical concepts and religious images into psychological language and by drawing parallels with similar Western ideas and religious experiences. As early as the 1930S, he attempted to integrate Western and Eastern psychology, particularly with his notion of the Self as a central, mandala-like psychic structure with transpersonal characteristics. For his efforts in this regard, and because, unlike Freud, he refused to ignore religious and parapsychological phenomena, he was labeled a mystic and dismissed by mainstream psychologists. Today, Jung's work is more readily acknowledged, and yet his psychological theories are mentioned only in a peripheral way in the most recent studies of meditation and altered states of consciousness. It appears that Jungian psychology is a "state-specific science," and only someone who has undergone a Jungian analysis and training is able to apply Jung's theories in a meaningful way.

Gathering the Light is an attempt to do just that. It seeks, first, to bring to light the immense contribution that Jung has made to the comprehension and appreciation of Eastern religious thought and practice. Second, it applies the insights and discoveries of Jungian psychology to the study of meditation.

Chapter 1 chronicles Jung's encounter with Eastern thought and his attempts to make the Eastern worldview understandable in Western religious and psychological terms. A major part of the chapter is devoted to a discussion of the Jungian definition of projection and the relation of projection to the experience of enlightenment or Self-realization.

Chapter 2 describes the psychological processes that take place during meditation. By directing psychic energy inward, meditation activates the complexes and the archetypes, with different forms of meditation activating different archetypes and giving rise to different experiences and results. The topics covered include attention; concentration; "deautomatization," the freeing up of psychic energy that normally flows into our habitual responses; the role of the ego complex during meditation; the loss of body sensations; visions of light; and the psychological limits of enlightenment.

Chapter 3 discusses Zen meditation, which seeks to activate what Jung called the uroboric archetype of the Self: that is, the transcendent potential world of being that contains all the archetypes before they separate out and take on manifest form. In Zen this archetype is defined as Pure Consciousness or Formless Form. I apply the insights of Jungian psychology to the interior developments that take place in the course of Zen meditation: the effects of the posture and the focus on breathing and counting; the work with a koan; alterations of the ego complex; and the nature of satori. During the course of the discussion 1 introduce the concept of a "meditation complex" to account for the psychic structure and energy that appear when the ego gives up its unifying role of consciousness and before that role is taken over by the Self. (I use the term complex in the neutral way that Jung did, as a "feeling-toned cluster of psychic energy.")

Chapter 4 explores Jung's reservations about the practice of Eastern meditation by Westerners. He argues that there is a vast cultural and psychological difference between Easterners and Westerners, and that Westerners ought to widen their consciousness on the basis of their own psychology. He feels that psychotherapy is the appropriate Western method for the pursuit of this goal, and proposes active imagination as the meditation technique that best leads to the integration of the personality and the expansion of consciousness.

Chapter 5 delves into the relationship between meditation and alchemy. Without a knowledge of alchemical symbolism, certain Eastern meditation texts, like The Secret of the Golden Flower, are not fully comprehensible. Jung discovered that alchemy describes in prepsychological language the evolution and development of consciousness. Western alchemy, with its extraverted bias, projected this entire process onto the interactions of matter. Eastern alchemy, with its introverted focus, projected this development of the internal flow of energy within the body. The chapter concentrates on the final alchemical operation, coniunctio, in which the previously separated-out and "purified" opposite elements or energies are reunited and the goal of the opus is achieved. The product of this final union is described as the philosophers' stone or gold in Western alchemy and as the golden flower or the elixir of life in Eastern alchemy. Jung tended to see the symbolism of alchemy as analogous to the process of individuation and the goal of alchemy as the attainment of psychological wholeness. I revise his emphasis somewhat and demonstrate that alchemical symbolism also describes the psychological processes that take place during the course of meditation, and I view the goal of alchemy as the attainment of Self-realization or enlightenment.

Two appendixes follow the text. The first outlines Ken Wilber's criticism of Jung's concept of "archetype" and in response provides a fairly extensive description of what Jung meant by the term. The second examines a recently published translation of The Secret of the Golden Flower by Thomas Cleary. It compares the relative merits of Wilhelm's and Cleary's translations on several crucial points. In his notes to the translation, Cleary is highly critical of Jung's treatment and interpretation of the text. The chapter summarizes his concerns, responds to them, and, in turn, subjects Cleary's approach to a critique. Because Cleary has no real knowledge of alchemical symbolism, he does not realize the importance that the body and the emotions play in the meditation technique described by the Golden Flower; he thinks it consists primarily of mentally focusing inward toward the source of consciousness. A translation that does justice to the alchemical aspects of the book, therefore, has yet to appear.

As a psychoanalyst with an interest in meditation, I am often asked if I incorporate meditation in my therapeutic work. The answer is that I have been able to incorporate Jung's active imagination, which is a form of meditation, in my work, but not Eastern meditation. In active imagination, people are able to engage their complexes and troublesome affects in a direct way and obtain immediate therapeutic results. This does not happen with most Eastern meditation techniques, which require a period of arduous training and consistent practice before any significant psychological results become evident. Also, Eastern meditation, with some exceptions, does not deal with psychological or relationship problems in a direct way. People who come for psychotherapy are usually not interested in learning a meditation technique that may have a beneficial effect on their life in future years, because they are now seeking relief from psychic tension or pain that makes their present life difficult. In addition, not everyone is motivated by the aim of Eastern meditation, namely, a religious relationship with archetypal images, or, conversely, their demystification, or the experience of the ultimate ground of consciousness and being.

Eastern meditation, therefore, is not an aid to psychotherapy; rather, it is the other way around: psychotherapy can help a person overcome the psychological obstacles and personal problems that interfere with the successful practice of meditation.

Gathering the Light: A Jungian View of Meditation
by V. Walter Odajnyk

Gathering the Light remains a groundbreaking work that integrates Jungian psychology, alchemy, and the practice of meditation. It is one of very few, if not the only Jungian book that demonstrates that the alchemical opus is not only an analogy of the individuation process, but also a depiction of various experiential stages encountered in the course of meditation.

V. Walter Odajnyk, Ph.D. is a Jungian analyst, and serves as a Core Faculty member and is the Research Coordinator for Pacifica Graduate Institute's Mythological Studies Program.

Paperback: 264 pages
Publisher: Fisher King Press
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-1926715551

1. Daniel Goleman, The Meditative Mind: The Varieties of Meditative Experience (Los Angeles: Jeremy P Tarcher, 1988), pp. xxi-xxii.
2. Aryeh Kaplan, Jewish Meditation: A Practical Guide (New York: Schocken Books, 1985), p. vi.
3. Charles T. Tart, ed., Transpersonal Psychologies, (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), pp. 4-5·
4. C. G. Jung, "On the Nature of the Psyche," The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, vol 8, para. 420.

The New Year and Jung’s Stages of Life

fisherking@fisherkingpress.com — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 16:17:00 PST

by Erel Shalit

C.G. Jung introduced the idea of studying and defining the goals of the second half of life. Daniel Levinson thus considered him “the father of the modern study of adult development.”[1]

Jung originally published his essay ‘The Stages of Life’ in 1930,[2] about twenty years before Erikson drew his epigenetic chart of psychosocial development. Jung emphasized the contrary directions of man’s focus during the first and second halves of life. Whereas in the first part of life, the development of a firm ego that takes its foothold in the world predominates, in the second part of life, the individual must turn toward Self and spirit.

‘The Stages of Life’ appeared in 1933 in Jung’s book Modern Man in Search of a Soul. It had initially been published as ‘Die seelische Probleme der menschlichen Alterstufen’ in Neue Zürcher Zeitung in 1930, but was later revised. His ideas regarding the stages of life will be our point of departure and guiding light throughout our discourse.

When Jung set out to “discuss the problems connected with the stages of life,” he devoted several pages of this brief essay to discuss the notion of problem. He claims that problem is the kernel of culture and consciousness. “There are no problems without consciousness,” says Jung. Confronting a problem instigates toward consciousness, and due to the development of consciousness, problems come into existence.[3] Furthermore, Jung emphasizes the psychological truth that serious problems can never be fully resolved—if they appear to be, then “something has been lost.” The meaning as well as the purpose of problems lie not in their solution but, rather, in being constantly worked on.[4] Similarly, happiness and welfare do not lie in wait to be found at the end of the rainbow, but are aspects of the process and of our attitude, with sadness and misery appropriate company at times of pain, difficulty and loss. The journey entails both the road we take and how we take that road, our conscious attitude.

Unmistakably, Jung’s conceptualization of the stages of life pertains to living the conscious life.

The first stage of life concerns the child’s evolving consciousness, which is based on perceiving the connection between different psychic contents. However, lacking a continuous memory in early childhood, consciousness is sporadic, rather like “single lamps or lighted objects in the far-flung darkness.”[5] Only when there is continuity of ego-memories does the ego-complex constellate, with a budding sense of subjective identity, whereby the child comes to speak of itself in first person.

Problems arise, says Jung, with the psychic birth and “conscious differentiation from the parents” in puberty.[6] This is not only an external process. By internalization, the external limitations become internal divisions, for instance, between opposing impulses. That is, the rise of consciousness both creates and is the result of an inner division between the ego and the perceived other—whether that other is an internal instinct or an external object, an autonomous complex detracting energy from the ego, or a split-off shadow.

The period of youth entails the transition from what Jung considers to be the dream of an essentially problem-free childhood to the harsh demands of life. The problem may be external, due, for instance, to “exaggerated expectations, underestimation of difficulties, unjustified optimism, or a negative attitude.” Nevertheless, problems unmistakably may arise, as well, from internal conflicts and disturbances in the psychic equilibrium; Jung mentions the sexual instinct and feelings of inferiority.[7]

It is in youth, says Jung, that the individual needs to recognize and accept “what is different and strange as a part of his own life,” in spite of the desire to cling “to the childhood level of consciousness,”[8] that is, a wish to avoid unpleasure, and to regress into a conflict-free existence.[9]

Achievement and usefulness, says Jung, “are the lodestars that guide us … to strike our roots in the world,” to find a place in society, which is essential in the first half of life. Development of a wider consciousness, “which we give the name of culture,”[10] is left, however, for a later stage in life. Therefore, while the child struggles to shape its individual ego, the aim in youth—or young adulthood—is to gain a place in society.

Jung’s main concern as expressed in this essay is the arrival at midlife. “The social goal,” he says, “is attained only at the cost of a diminution of personality. Many—far too many—aspects of life which should also have been experienced lie in the lumber-room among dusty memories; but sometimes, too, they are glowing coals under grey ashes.”[11]

Jung notes that around the age of forty, a slow process of character-change takes place. Interests and inclinations alter. Simultaneously, however, moral principles tend to harden and grow rigid, “as if the existence of these principles were endangered and it were therefore necessary to emphasize them all the more.”[12]

Jung ascribed the neurotic disturbances of adults to the common desire to prolong youth, and a reticence to crossing the threshold into maturity. The neurotic is someone “who can never have things as he would like them in the present.”[13] Typically, the neurotic person projects the cause of his suffering onto the past or the future, and we often hear him or her say, “if only this or that would/would not have happened,” or “if only … then …” The cult of youth and the widespread difficulty of accepting old age, typify the pathology of our era.

The fear of midlife is not of death, claims Jung, but of the sun’s descent, which means “the reversal of all the ideals and values that were cherished in the morning. … The sun ... draw[s] in its rays instead of emitting them. Light and warmth decline and are at last extinguished.”[14]

However, it seems to me that ultimately the fishing rod of midlife fears does indeed dip into the lake of death, when light and warmth are extinguished. This, then, may be compensated by, for instance, what for many may be a reassuring faith and belief in existence after death, or, alternatively, the ambition to live a meaningful life. In his essay ‘The Soul and Death,’ published in 1934, Jung does state that,

The challenge in midlife is to come to terms with hitherto neglected features, sometimes conflicting with one’s conscious attitude and recognized values. Jung mentions, as well, how bodily characteristics of the opposite sex can be discerned in the older person.

The psychological and biological changes that a person undergoes in the second half of life may thus blur the distinction between male and female traits, though this may be a far cry from the erotic character of juvenile androgyny. Consequently, the man must now put his feminine substance to use, and, says Jung, the woman “her hitherto unused supply of masculinity.”[16] According to Jung’s Weltanschauung, certainly influenced by the Zeitgeist, the spirit of his time, he associated the masculine with logos and the feminine with Eros.

Thus, in midlife it may happen that “the husband discovers his tender feelings and the wife her sharpness of mind.”[17] These changes are dramatic and, says Jung, may lead to marital catastrophe. If so, I suppose that the wife’s sharpness of mind may be more threatening to the man, than showing his tender feelings would pose a danger to his wife.[18]

Jung expressed the essence of midlife transition beautifully when he says that, “what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.”[19]

In the second half of life, man must withdraw from external preoccupations, and seriously prepare for old age, death and eternity—which amounts to a (not necessarily formal) religious attitude. “An old man who cannot bid farewell to life appears as feeble and sickly as a young man who is unable to embrace it,” says Jung sharply and poetically.[20] Rhetorically he wonders if not culture, beyond the nature to which family and children pertain, is the “meaning and purpose of the second half of life.”[21]

To sum up, Jung’s ideas on the stages of life pertain to the development of consciousness as it manifests in the life cycle. The essence lies in the problem that faces the individual at each stage; a problem less to be resolved, but rather to be confronted and challenged. Jung thus emphasizes life as a process of becoming conscious, which transforms the experience of life into a living experience.

As the individual traverses the arc of life, he or she may be resistant to the problems posed by each transition, such as an expanding ego consciousness; striking roots in society; confronting the decline and integrating the opposites, including those of gender; and then death and eternity. Jung says that, “the art of life is the most distinguished and rarest of all the arts.”[22] For some travelers along the journey of life, the art of life becomes increasingly conceptual, for others more and more esthetic; for some minimalistic, for others increasingly abstract.

The second half of life should not merely be a repetition of one’s youth and young adulthood, but rather a period that enables integration by accentuating those matters of one’s psyche that have not been taken care of well enough.

Jung divides life into four parts. The Cycle of Life: Themes and Tales of the Journey elaborates on the respective stages less from a developmental perspective, but rather as an effort to extract the archetypal images at the core of each age.

[1] The Seasons of a Man’s Life, p. 4.
[2] Carl Gustav Jung, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, vol. 8, par. 749-795. NOTE: CW refers throughout to The Collected Works of C. G. Jung.
[3] CW 8, par. 750, 754.
[4] CW 8, par. 770.
[5] CW 8, par. 755.
[6] CW 8, par. 756.
[7] CW 8, par. 761, 762.
[8] CW 8, par. 764.
[9] Cf. Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, SE 18. The word unpleasure is “used to translate the German ‘Unlust,’ the pain or discomfort of instinctual tension, as opposed to ‘Schmertz,’ the sensation of pain. The pleasure principle is correctly the pleasure-unpleasure principle.” (Charles Rycroft, A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis, p. 174).
[10] CW 8, par. 769.
[11] CW 8, par. 772.
[12] CW 8, par. 773.
[13] CW 8, par. 776.
[14] CW 8, par. 778.
[15] CW 8, par. 800.
[16] CW 8, par. 782.
[17] CW 8, par. 783.
[18] As in some other instances, Jung’s formulation here is quite archaic. Sharpness of mind is not egodystonic to women, whether young or old. Also, many a young man today need not wait till midlife to expose his tender feelings.
[19] CW 8, par. 784.
[20] CW 8, par. 792.
[21] CW 8, par. 787.
[22] CW 8, par. 789.

Fisher King publishes another Master: Alvaro Cardona-Hine

fisherking@fisherkingpress.com — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 21:32:00 PST

the song less/on

A book of poetry by Alvaro Cardona-Hine

“Some of the best ever written . . .”  

--Tom McGrath in The National Guardian

 reviewing the haiku in The Gathering Wave.

“Cardona-Hine is far more tuned to silence than Eliot; there are no phases to his theology. He offers no disciplines, nor even Zen vacancies; he offers arrivals . . . This gentle poet has little to do with the hysterical attenuated surrealism which has in recent years dominated the better little magazines. Or with archetypes of the Great Mother or other theorizing . . . It is understandable that poets want to move out into the universe, to dream of being moles, to sink into mineral veins, to make wild dissociated images that dissolve the self. But Cardona-Hine preserves the sense of human self-hood, human wonder, adventure.”

–Benjamin Saltzman in Kayak  reviewing Words On Paper.

Alvaro Cardona-Hine was born in Costa Rica in 1926 and was brought to the United States by his parents in 1939. By 1945 he was writing poetry then went on to translate Cesar Vallejo, write novels, make a living as a painter, and compose music which has been performed in various parts of the country. He is the recipient of an NEA grant, a Bush Foundation Fellowship and a Minnesota State Arts Board grant. He lives with his wife, the poet and painter Barbara McCauley, in the small village of Truchas, in New Mexico, where the two manage their own gallery.

Product Details
* Paperback: 170 pages
* Publisher: il piccolo editions; First edition (Jan 1, 2013)
* Language: English
* ISBN-13: 978-1926715889
* www.fisherkingpress.com

Climate Change: A Jungian Perspective

fisherking@fisherkingpress.com — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 15:07:00 PST

A Jungian Perspective on the Most Important Issue of Our Time—Climate Change

by Dennis L. Merritt, Ph.D., Jungian Analyst, Ecopsychologist

(This talk was given at the Fordham conference, Jung in the Academy and Beyond: The Fordham Lectures 100 Years Later, held at Fordham University on October 26 and 27, 2012. It will be published in the Proceedings)

As Bill Clinton might say, “It's the environment, stupid!” Our devotion to science, technology and the capitalist system has culminated in a unique moment in the human relationship with the environment. Our species is at or near the peak of a prosperity bubble about to burst. We have exceeded the carrying capacity of the biosphere and we are still breeding. (1) We are overusing antibiotics and deadly bacteria are becoming immune to everything we have. (2) We are mining our precious water resources (3), coral reefs are dying as the oceans become warmer and more acidic (4), and most alarming, we are experiencing this as the very beginnings of the negative consequences of climate change. It will include massive droughts and floods, freak storms, the spread of diseases (5), famine, water wars (6), and the elimination of 30 to 50% of the species. (7) Experts tell us we may have but 10 years max to turn the Titanic around with regard to the most devastating aspects of climate change. (8) The apocalyptic conditions we are inexorably moving towards are truly in the archetypal domain, requiring an archetypal analysis and suggestions for dealing with it. Enter Jungian ecopsychology, a topic I have been writing on for the past 16 years, having just published the third of the 4 volumes of The Dairy Farmer's Guide to the Universe—Jung, Hermes, and Ecopsychology. READ MORE

News Release - Just Published - The Book of Now

fisherking@fisherkingpress.com — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 12:43:00 PST

The Book of Now:
Poetry for the Rising Tide

edited by Leah Shelleda

It is an honor to be the publisher of The Book of Now: Poetry for the Rising Tide. To Anita Endrezze, Crystal Good, Dunya Mikhail, Frances Hatfield, Jane Downs, Leah Shelleda, and Naomi Ruth Lowinsky, I would like to express my sincere gratitude, for allowing Fisher King Press to publish poets of such venerated caliber. It is my hope that your mighty voices encompass the entire world and your messages reach and touch the hearts of humanity as a whole. It is my hope that your most worthy offerings are genuinely received and deeply understood.
-- Mel Mathews, Publisher, Fisher King Press

Seven lyrical women poets, each accompanied by a study of their work, navigate our contemporary world. They travel to the depths of the psyche, experience exile, rhapsodize on the beauty of our planet, lament loss and celebrate renewal. These poets write courageously on what threatens us: climate change, war, mountain-top removal, loss of species, environmental damage, the scourge of cancer. They are witnesses, ‘Couriers’ who bring us their visions. As the tide rises they reach out to us in deeply personal and clear voices, each providing a unique experience in contemporary poetry.

* The Book of Now: Poetry for the Rising Tide
* Paperback: 110 pages
* Publisher: il piccolo editions; First edition (Nov 1, 2012)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 192671590X
* ISBN-13: 978-1926715902

Goatsong and Fisher King Press

fisherking@fisherkingpress.com — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 10:34:00 PST

Hermes, Ecopsychology, Complexity Theory

fisherking@fisherkingpress.com — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 11:22:00 PDT

News Release - Nov. 1, 2012 - Just Published:
Hermes, Ecopsychology, Complexity Theory:
The Dairy Farmer's Guide to the Universe Volume III
by Dennis L. Merritt

“Who ever does not shy away from dangers of the most profound depths and the newest pathways, which Hermes is always prepared to open, may follow and reach, whether as scholar, commentator, or philosopher, a greater find and a more certain possession.” —Karl Kerenyi

An exegesis of the myth of Hermes stealing Apollo’s cattle and the story of Hephaestus trapping Aphrodite and Ares in the act are used in The Dairy Farmer’s Guide to the Universe Volume III to set a mythic foundation for Jungian ecopsychology. Hermes, Ecopsychology, and Complexity Theory illustrates Hermes as the archetypal link to our bodies, sexuality, the phallus, the feminine, and the earth. Hermes’ wand is presented as a symbol for ecopsychology. The appendices of this volume develop the argument for the application of complexity theory to key Jungian concepts, displacing classical Jungian constructs problematic to the scientific and academic community. Hermes is described as the god of ecopsychology and complexity theory.

The front cover image is from a photo taken by the author of detail on an Attic Greek calyx krater by Euxitheos (potter) and Euphronios (painter) ca. 515 BCE. The gap between the horn-like extensions atop Hermes’ staff highlight his domain—the exchange and interactive field between things, as between people, consciousness and the unconscious, body and mind, and humans and nature.

Hermes, Ecopsychology, and Complexity Theory
The Dairy Farmer's Guide to the Universe Volume III

ISBN 978-1-926715-44-5
6 x 9
228 pages
Index, Bibliography
Publication Date November 1, 2012

DENNIS L. MERRITT, Ph.D., is a Jungian psychoanalyst and ecopsychologist in private practice in Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A Diplomate of the C.G. Jung Institute of Analytical Psychology, Zurich, Switzerland, he also holds the following degrees: M.A. Humanistic Psychology-Clinical, Sonoma State University, California, Ph.D. Insect Pathology, University of California-Berkeley, M.S. and B.S. in Entomology, University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has participated in Lakota Sioux ceremonies for over twenty-five years which have strongly influenced his worldview.