Spiritualism And The Foundations Of C G Jung S Psychology

Charet uncovers some of the reasons why Jung's psychology finds itself living between science and religion. He demonstrates that Jung's early life was influenced by the experiences, beliefs, and ideas that characterized Spiritualism and that arose out of the entangled relationship that existed between science and religion in the late nineteenth century. Spiritualism, following it inception in 1848, became a movement that claimed to be a scientific religion and whose controlling belief was that the human personality survived death and could be reached through a medium in trance. The author shows that Jung's early experiences and preoccupation with Spiritualism influenced his later ideas of the autonomy, personification, and quasi-metaphysical nature of the archetype, the central concept and one of the foundations upon which he built his psychology.

Jung's explanation of the religious tendency of the psyche addresses many sides of the contemporary debate on religion and the role that it has in individual and social life. This book discusses the emergence of a new mythic consciousness and details ways in which this consciousness supersedes traditional concepts of religion to provide a spirituality of more universal inclusion. On Behalf of the Mystical Fool examines Jung's critique of traditional western religion, demonstrating the negative consequences of religious and political collective unconsciousness, and their consequent social irresponsibility in today's culture. The book concludes by suggesting that a new religiosity and spirituality is currently emerging in the West based on the individual’s access to the sense of ultimacy residual in the psyche, and seeking expression in a myth of a much wider compass. This book will be of interest to scholars and students at all levels who are engaged in the expanding field of Jungian studies. It will also be key reading for anyone interested in the theoretical and therapeutic connections between the psyche and religious experience.

Jung’s lectures on the psychology of Jesuit spiritual practice—unabridged in English for the first time Between 1933 and 1941, C. G. Jung delivered a series of public lectures at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. Intended for a general audience, these lectures addressed a broad range of topics, from yoga and meditation to dream analysis and the psychology of alchemy. Here for the first time are Jung’s complete lectures on Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises, delivered in the winter of 1939–1940. These illuminating lectures are the culmination of Jung’s investigation into traditional forms of meditation and their parallels to his psychotherapeutic method of active imagination. Jung presents Loyola’s exercises as the prime example of a Christian practice comparable to yoga and Eastern meditation, and gives a psychological interpretation of the visions depicted in the saint’s autobiographical writings. Offering a unique opportunity to encounter the brilliant psychologist as he shares his ideas with the general public, the lectures reflect Jung’s increasingly positive engagement with Roman Catholicism, a development that would lead to his fruitful collaborations after the war with eminent Catholic theologians such as Victor White, Bruno de Jésus-Marie, and Hugo Rahner. Featuring an authoritative introduction by Martin Liebscher along with explanations of Jungian concepts and psychological terminology, this splendid book provides an invaluable window on the evolution of Jung’s thought and a vital key to understanding his later work.

Jung’s psychology describes the origin of the Gods and their religions in terms of the impact of archetypal powers on consciousness. For Jung this impact is the basis of the numinous, the experience of the divine in nature and in human nature. His psychology, while possessed of a certain claim to science, is based on depths of subjective experience which transcends psychology and science as ordinarily understood. Jung and his Mystics: In the end it all comes to nothing examines the mythic nature of Jung’s psychology and thought, and demonstrates the influence of mysticism and certain religious thinkers in formulating his own work. John P. Dourley explores the influence of Mechthild of Magdeburg and fellow mystics/Beguines, and traces the mystic impulse and its expression through Meister Eckhat and Jacob Boehme to Hegel in the nineteenth century. All of these mystics were of the apophatic school and understood the culmination of their experience to lie in an identity with divinity in a nothingness beyond all form, formal expression or immediate activity. Dourley shows how this is still of relevance in our lives today. The book concludes that Jung’s understanding of mysticism could greatly alleviate the conflict between faiths, religious or political, by drawing attention to their common origin in the depths of the human. Jung and his Mystics: In the end it all comes to nothing is aimed at scholars and senior research students in Jungian Studies, including religionists, theologians and philosophers of religion, especially those with an interest in mysticism. It will also be essential reading for those interested in the connection between religious and psychological experience.

In this book Alfred Ribi reaches back across two millennia, gathering and engaging an extraordinary collection of writings. With authority and fluency, Ribi draws together the antique texts of Hellenism, Gnosticism, Hermeticism and Alchemy, and illustrates how these nurture the visionary work of C. G. Jung. Into this tapestry Alfred Ribi weaves personal insights gained over half a century of experience as an analytical psychologist. He illuminates how the dreams and visions of modern individuals intertwine with the tradition that Jung indicated to be a spiritual antecedent of his psychology. This is the second volume of a two-volume work. The first volume, The Search for Roots: C. G. Jung and the Tradition of Gnosis was published in an English translation in 2013. That volume served as a general introduction to the more detailed and multifaceted exposition presented in this second volume. This volume is addressed to serious students of Hermeticism, Gnosticism, and the works of C. G. Jung. It will richly reward those who give it their diligent attention. About the Author Alfred Ribi was born in 1931. He studied medicine in Zurich, followed by specialization in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy FMH. In 1963, he began analysis with Marie-Louise von Franz—a close associate of C.G. Jung—and subsequently worked for many years as a colleague with Dr. von Franz. He is a diplomat of the C.G. Jung Institute, Zurich, where he has served as Director of Studies, a teaching and control analyst, and a lecturer and examiner of the Institute. He is past President of both the Foundation for Jungian Psychology and of the Psychological Club in Zurich. The book was edited and includes a Foreword by Lance S. Owens. It was translated into English by Mark Kyburz.

The unique contribution of this work is essentially threefold. First, it provides a theoretical framework for the study of synchronistic phenomena—a framework that enables us to view these phenomena in relation to Jung's model of the psyche and his concept of psychic compensation. Second, this book explores the significant role that these events played in Jung's life and work. And third, by way of a careful examination of the synchronicity theory in relation to the process Jung terms individuation, an examination in which considerable case material is presented, the specific import of this seminal concept for Jung's psychology of religion is disclosed.