Remembering Dionysus

Dionysus, god of dismemberment and sponsor of the lost or abandoned feminine, originates both Jungian psychology and literature in Remembering Dionysus. Characterized by spontaneity, fluid boundaries, sexuality, embodiment, wild nature, ecstasy and chaos, Dionysus is invoked in the writing of C. G. Jung and James Hillman as the dual necessity to adopt and dismiss literature for their archetypal vision of the psyche or soul. Susan Rowland describes an emerging paradigm for the twenty-first century enacting the myth of a god torn apart to be re-membered, and remembered as reborn in a great renewal of life. Rowland demonstrates how persons, forms of knowing and even eras that dismiss Dionysus are torn apart, and explores how Jung was Dionysian in providing his most dismembered text, The Red Book. Remembering Dionysus pursues the rough god into the Sublime in the destruction of meaning in Jung and Jacques Lacan, to a re-membering of sublime feminine creativity that offers zoe, or rebirth participating in an archetype of instinctual life. This god demands to be honoured inside our knowing and being, just as he (re)joins us to wild nature. This revealing book will be invigorating reading for Jungian analysts, psychotherapists, arts therapists and counsellors, as well as academics and students of analytical psychology, depth psychology, Jungian and post-Jungian studies, literary studies and ecological humanities.

Dionysus, god of dismemberment and sponsor of the lost or abandoned feminine, originates both Jungian psychology and literature in Remembering Dionysus. Characterized by spontaneity, fluid boundaries, sexuality, embodiment, wild nature, ecstasy and chaos, Dionysus is invoked in the writing of C. G. Jung and James Hillman as the dual necessity to adopt and dismiss literature for their archetypal vision of the psyche or soul. Susan Rowland describes an emerging paradigm for the twenty-first century enacting the myth of a god torn apart to be re-membered, and remembered as reborn in a great renewal of life. Rowland demonstrates how persons, forms of knowing and even eras that dismiss Dionysus are torn apart, and explores how Jung was Dionysian in providing his most dismembered text, The Red Book. Remembering Dionysus pursues the rough god into the Sublime in the destruction of meaning in Jung and Jacques Lacan, to a re-membering of sublime feminine creativity that offers zoe, or rebirth participating in an archetype of instinctual life. This god demands to be honoured inside our knowing and being, just as he (re)joins us to wild nature. This revealing book will be invigorating reading for Jungian analysts, psychotherapists, arts therapists and counsellors, as well as academics and students of analytical psychology, depth psychology, Jungian and post-Jungian studies, literary studies and ecological humanities.

Women and Dionysus links repression of the Dionysian spirit in Western culture with the rise of the patriarchy over the course of two millennia. It effectively draws aconnection between Dionysus and women throughout history, with examples from cultures both past and present, and the author’s own experiences. Maggy Anthony explores Dionysus’ role as god of the vine, creativity and passion, and his impact on art and literature. The book examines the Dionysian influence on creative older women, including Georgia O’Keeffe, Martha Graham and Marguerite Duras; examines Dionysus in mythology, history and religion; and considers connections to mysticism and the Renaissance. Anthony goes on to explore how women’s expressions of creativity through healing, wine-drinking and dancing were condemned in history, and how modern African and Latin American rites contrast with Western traditions. Finally, the book looks at ‘outbreaks’ of modern Dionysian spirit - from Haight-Ashbury to the Burning Man festival - and speculates on its future. This unique study will be essential reading for academics and scholars of Jungian and post-Jungian studies, and for analytical and depth psychologists, particularly those with an interest in female individuation, creativity, and spirituality.

The spiritual malaise regnant in today’s disenchanted world presents a picture of “a polar night of icy darkness,” as Max Weber wrote already a century ago. This collective dark night of the soul is driven by climate change-related disasters, rapid technological innovations, and opaque geostra­tegic realign­ments. In the wake of what policy analysts refer to as “Westlessness,” the post­modern age is characterized by incessant distractions, urgent calls to responsibility, and in-humanly short deadlines, which result in a general state of exhaustion and burnout. The hovering sense of living in a time frame that is post-histoire induces states of confusion on a personal level as well as in the realm of politics. Totally missing is a grand nar­rative to guide humanity’s vision in the midst of a world crisis. Thinkers, scholars, and Jungian analysts are increasingly looking to C.G. Jung’s monu­mental oeuvre, The Red Book, as a source for guidance to re-enchant the world and to find a new and deeper under­standing of the homo religiosus. The essays in this series on Jung’s Red Book for Our Time: Searching for Soul under Postmodern Conditions circle around this objective and offer countless points of entry into this inspiring work.

Honor the Spirits and Deities of the Otherworld & Receive Their Blessings This book is an invitation to connect with the spirits that you sense around you, honoring them and sharing their stories so that they may live on and so that you may become your truest self. Within these pages, you will discover that you can interact with deities, your Beloved Dead, and the Fae, leading to growth and expansion both spiritually and emotionally. Learn to reach out beyond the mundane world and commune with other realms of existence. Explore hands-on techniques for working with intention, developing your own Place of Power, and negotiating with the spirits that you contact. With dozens of exercises as well as instructions for beginners and experienced spiritual practitioners, this book is a guide to initiating and sustaining relationships that are more powerful than you could ever imagine.

Jungian Arts-Based Research and "The Nuclear Enchantment of New Mexico" provides clear, accessible and in-depth guidance both for arts-based researchers using Jung’s ideas and for Jungian scholars undertaking arts-based research. The book provides a central extended example which applies the techniques described to the full text of Joel Weishaus’ prose poem The Nuclear Enchantment of New Mexico, published here for the first time. Designed as a "how-to" book, Jungian Arts-Based Research and "The Nuclear Enchantment of New Mexico" explores how Jung contributes to the new arts-based paradigm in psychic functions such as intuition, by providing an epistemology of symbols that includes the unconscious, and research strategies such as active imagination. Rowland examines Jung’s The Red Book as an early example of Jungian arts-based research and demonstrates how this practice challenges the convention of the detached researcher by providing holistic knowing. Arts-based researchers will find here a psychic dimension that also manifests in transdisciplinarity, while those familiar with Jung’s work will find in arts-based research ways to foster diversity for a decolonized academy. This unique project will be essential reading for Jungian and post-Jungian academics and scholars, arts-based researchers of all backgrounds and readers interested in transdisciplinarity.

The Descent of the Soul and the Archaic explores the motif of kátabasis (a "descent" into an imaginal underworld) and the importance it held for writers from antiquity to the present, with an emphasis on its place in psychoanalytic theory. This collection of chapters builds on Jung’s insights into katabasis and nekyia as models for deep self-descent and the healing process which follows. The contributors explore ancient and modern notions of the self, as obtained through a "descent" to a deeper level of imaginal experience. With an awareness of the difficulties of applying contemporary psychological precepts to ancient times, the contributors explore various modes of self-formation as a process of discovery. Presented in three parts, the chapters assess contexts and texts, goddesses, and theoretical alternatives. This book will be of interest to scholars and analysts working in wide-ranging fields, including classical studies, all schools of psychoanalysis, especially Jung’s, and postmodern thought, especially the philosophy of Deleuze.

These poems reveal Price's healing from the crippling traps of childhood and the rejection of the conformity required by modern American life.