Jung And The New Age

David Tacey offers a theoretical and philosophical account of the New Age phenomenon and the archetypal imperatives that have brought it about.

David Tacey offers a theoretical and philosophical account of the New Age phenomenon and the archetypal imperatives that have brought it about.

Micah Toub faced quite a few psychological challenges when he was growing up. And two of his best guides through them – as well as the biggest causes of them – were his parents. Part memoir, part introduction to famous and infamous psychological concepts past and present, Growing Up Jung tells the story of a boy raised by two psychologists. It's an extraordinary coming-of-age story, replete with more sexual confusion and domestic dysfunction than even the average adolescent has to endure. And through the telling of that story, Toub is able to discuss such topics as why Freud's obsession with Oedipus threatens our chances today of being close to our mothers; the methods a Jungian psychologist might use to help a young man overcome sexual anxiety; and why it is okay to sometimes let your inner-murderer out for the night. Referencing the written works of the thinkers discussed, books that have been written about them, and relevant contemporary pop culture, Toub discusses and explains such topics as Synchronicity, Archetypes, and the Oedipus Complex, as well as lesser-known corners of the psyche, such as the Ally, the Dreambody, and what Jung called Active Imagination. And he is able to weave all this information seamlessly into his own story, because if there was a psychological problem going, it went Toub's way. Call it synchronicity. And if you don't know what synchronicity is, see chapter 5.

John Newport delivers a comprehensive study of the impact of New Age beliefs on contemporary culture - and on Christianity itself - while also offering an effective, biblical antidote to today's worldview crisis. After first surveying the historical development of the New Age worldview, from ancient times through important tendencies in nineteenth-century America to recent Far Eastern influences, Newport explores in depth eleven key areas of the New Age worldview and contrasts each area of belief with the traditional biblical worldview.

This revolutionary reassessment of Jung's research, conclusions, and character asserts that Jung falsified his key research in developing the theory of a collective unconsciousness. Noll also reveals evidence that Jung founded a profascist religious cult in which he intended to be worshipped as an "Aryan-Christ", propagated racist and ant-Semitic theories, and practiced polygamy for much of his life.

Edited by Murray Stein and Thomas Arzt, the essays in the series Jung's Red Book for Our Time: Searching for Soul under Postmodern Conditions are geared to the recognition that the posthumous publication of The Red Book: Liber Novus by C. G. Jung in 2009 was a meaningful gift to our contemporary world. "To give birth to the ancient in a new time is creation," Jung inscribed in his Red Book. The essays in this volume continue what was begun in Volume 1 of Jung's Red Book for Our Time: Searching for Soul under Postmodern Conditions by further contextualizing The Red Book culturally and interpreting it for our time. It is significant that this long sequestered work was published during a period in human history marked by disruption, cultural disintegration, broken boundaries, and acute anxiety. The Red Book offers an antidote for this collective illness and can be seen as a link in the aurea catena, the "golden chain" of spiritual wisdom extending down through the ages from biblical times, ancient Greek philosophy, early Christian and Jewish Gnosis, and alchemy. The Red Book is itself a work of creation that gives birth to the old in a new time. This is the second volume of a three-volume series set up on a global und multicultural level and includes essays from the following distinguished Jungian analysts and scholars: - Murray Stein and Thomas Arzt Introduction - John Beebe The Way Cultural Attitudes are Developed in Jung's Red Book - An "Interview" - Kate Burns Soul's Desire to become New: Jung's Journey, Our Initiation - QiRe Ching Aging with The Red Book - Al Collins Dreaming The Red Book Onward: What Do the Dead Seek Today? - Lionel Corbett The Red Book as a Religious d104 - John Dourley Jung, the Nothing and the All - Randy Fertel Trickster, His Apocalyptic Brother, and a World's Unmaking: An Archetypal Reading of Donald Trump - Noa Schwartz Feuerstein India in The Red Book Overtones and Undertones - Grazina Gudaite Integrating Horizontal and Vertical Dimensions of Experience under Postmodern Conditions - Lev Khegai The Red Book of C.G. Jung and Russian Thought - Günter Langwieler A Lesson in Peacemaking: The Mystery of Self-Sacrifice in The Red Book - Keiron Le Grice The Metamorphosis of the Gods: Archetypal Astrology and the Transforma­tion of the God-Image in The Red Book - Ann Chia-Yi Li The Receptive and the Creative: Jung's Red Book for Our Time in Light of Daoist Alchemy - Romano Màdera The Quest for Meaning after God's Death in an Era of Chaos - Joerg Rasche On Salome and the Emancipation of Woman in The Red Book - J. Gary Sparks Abraxas: Then and Now - David Tacey The Return of the Sacred in an Age of Terror - Ann Belford Ulanov Blundering into the Work of Redemption

Recent years have seen a spectacular rise of the New Age movement and an ever-increasing interest in its beliefs and manifestations. This fascinating work presents the first-ever comprehensive analysis of New Age Religion and its historical backgrounds, thus providing the reader with a means of orientation in the bewildering variety of the movement. Making extensive use of primary sources, the author thematically analyses New Age beliefs from the perspective of the study of religions. While looking at the historical backgrounds of the movement, he convincingly argues that its foundations were laid by so-called western esoteric traditions during the Renaissance. Hanegraaff finally shows how the modern New Age movement emerged from the increasing secularization of those esoteric traditions during the 19th century. This ground-breaking publication is compulsive reading for all those involved or interested in the New Age movement.

The twenty-first century could well be Jung's century, just as the twentieth century was Freud's. Jung predicted the demise of secular humanism and claimed we would search for alternatives to science, atheism and reason. We would experience a new and even unfashionable appetite for the sacred. Educated people, however, would not return to unreconstructed religions, because these do not express the life of the spirit as discerned by modern consciousness. The sacred has developed a darker hue, and worshipping symbols of light and goodness no longer satisfies the longings of the soul. The new sacred cannot be contained by the formulas of the past, but nor can we live without a sense of the sacred. We stand in a difficult place: between traditional religions we have outgrown and a pervasive materialism we can no longer embrace. These changes in our culture have come sooner than Jung might have imagined. In his time Jung struck many as eccentric or unscientific. But his works speak to our time since we have experienced the full gamut of Jungian transformations: the unsettlement of Judeo-Christian culture, the rise of the feminine, the onslaught of the dark side, the critique of modernism and positivism, and the recognition that the Western ego is neither the pinnacle of evolution nor the lord of creation. A new life is needed beyond the ego, but we do not yet know what it will look like. The outbreak of strong religion and terrorism are signs of the times, but these are expressions of a distorted and repressed spirit, and not, one hopes, genuine pointers to the future. What the future holds is uncertain, but Jung's prophetic vision helps to prepare us for what is to come, and this will be of great interest to analytical psychologists and psychoanalysts, as well as to theologians, futurists, sociologists, and the general reader.