Journal of Jungian Scholarly Studies
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The Work of Redemption: King Lear and The Red Book
Full text linkThe Red Book by C. G. Jung remains an unexplored analogy for William Shakespeare’s King Lear. Jungian critics of the play have mainly emphasized Lear’s extraverted rationality versus his need to foster introversion and love. Jung’s visionary experiences suggest an additional pattern: a departure from an initial state of psychological dysfunction, an encounter with unconscious forces, and a return that reflects inner progress. Within this tripartite structure, the two works share many themes and image patterns; but whereas Jung achieves genuine individuation, Lear’s progress is more akin to enantiodromia than to the ideal that The Red Book proposes—a balance or unity of opposites in the creation of a new third state of being
Lioness Dreaming: A Somatic Approach to the Animal Ally
Full text linkThe essay uses transpersonal and Jungian psychologies to describe a profound encounter with an aging lioness in the South African bush. It explains somatic dreaming as a practice of intentionally dwelling with exceptional experience by focusing on the bodily responses of the dreamer and the vivid somatic aspects of the dream images, or figures, as embodied others. The autonomous figures of what transpersonal psychology calls an exceptional human experience (EHE) and Jungians describe as a numinous waking vision (in contradistinction to a night time dream) are both deeply strange and strangely familiar. What are the possibilities and challenges of somatic dreaming while awake? How might such an approach evoke and express soul? The author contends that hosting living images in and with the body can be powerfully transformative, altering the course of one’s life
The Hero Versus the Initiate: The Western Ego Faced with Climate Chaos
Full text linkThe chaos caused by the global climate crisis is in the news in many forms and has also entered the consulting room: clients are increasingly naming their fear, despair, rage, and experience of impotence in the face of the unknown. This paper builds on the work of G. Albrecht and J. Bernstein, to investigate how we can face our feelings about climate crisis and live through this time without resorting to unhelpful defenses that block our ability to be present, engaged and effective. It examines the unconscious beliefs, habitual patterns, and defenses of the Western ego, which it presents as the mindset of Economism and the Capitalocene, and investigates its identification with the hero archetype. It pays homage to indigenous analyses of the issue in the work of J. Forbes and I Merculieff, and draws on the work of eco-ethical thinkers such as K. D. Moore, J. Butler, and A. L. Tsing, to suggest that the archetype of the initiate may be a better guide as we move into the uncertain, contingent future
Dancing the Wild Divine: Drums, Drugs, and Individuation
Full text linkFor complex reasons, Carl Jung was apprehensive of ecstatic rites in which participants dance to hypnotic drumming and transcend normal states of ego. He was also strongly opposed to the use of LSD, mescaline, and other psychotropic agents often used in such rites, cautioning that psychedelics facilitate access to unconscious energies one is ill-equipped to absorb. This paper represents a challenge to Jung\u27s thinking on both issues. Drawing upon recent research in shamanic studies and the once-again blossoming field of psychedelic research, D. J. Moores demonstrates the limitations of Jung\u27s caution and argues for the value of ecstatic rites in depth work
Tracking Prudence: What an Iconographic Trail Reveals about Western Culture and its Pathology
Full text linkIn the Middle Ages the cardinal virtue Prudence is revered and her depiction widespread. In the modern era, however, few Westerners esteem Prudence or can recognize her iconography. This article traces the evolution of the archetypal image of Prudence beginning in the fifth century through art and literature. By the modern era the formerly multifaceted Prudence becomes narrowly characterized as cautious or prudish, evidenced in popular culture (e.g., film). Her value might appear negligible. However, archetypal Prudence reemerges in Jung’s paradigm. The lens of depth psychology further reveals the current presence of archetypal Prudence within western culture, especially its prevalent pathological presentation, which may have implications for western culture’s sustainability. Prudence, as a virtue rooted in human neurobiology and the archetypal psyche, seems crucial to navigating the current manifestations of cultural and ecological chaos, perhaps demonstrating one of humanity’s current psychological tasks: to bridge human consciousness with Nature
Editor\u27s Introduction
No full textChaos and Interdisciplinarity, the theme of this volume of the journal, reflects the topic of the June 2019 conference of the Jungian Society for Scholarly Studies held in Asheville, North Carolina. I doubt that anyone imagined how relevant the topic of chaos would be, several months later, as we go to press in March 2020. At the Spring Equinox, which reminds us of the fundamental fact of ceaseless change, humanity is facing the social, cultural, economic, and political chaos created by the COVID-19 pandemic. We do not know what the future holds. It is said that the opposite of chaos is order, but kindness may be its true opposite, or its antidote and medicine, when chaos is painful, when it spreads, disease-like, among persons. Kindness takes little effort, but it begins with attention—and attention is scarce when chaos reigns. Chaos distills attention into the present moment and draws the heart toward the thoughtful action one can take in the only moment there is. Then one chooses to be kind or cruel, generous of soul or miserly. Momentary acts of kindness are more than momentary medicine: they are a tincture that dissolves into the chaos and, when recollected hours, days, or months later, soothes our response to it. “Performing random acts of kindness and senseless beauty,” a popular motto years ago, is a flawed idea. Kindness should be intentional and habitual, a generous impulse from one soul to another. Better: Perform intentional acts of kindness and enduring beauty. And so, at this moment, I name the great acts of kindness that made the 2020 volume of the journal possible: our terrific editorial team, especially Heather, Lisa, Matthew, and Peter; our generous peer reviewers; and the artists, poets, and scholars whose work is featured in these pages. The contributors explored the topic of chaos from a rich array of disciplines, including anthropology, art history, biology, climate science, complexity theory, cultural studies, ecology, economics, ecopsychology, ethics, folklore, genetics, literature, mythology, neurobiology, psychedelic research, religious studies, and shamanic studies. Methodological approaches include arts-based research, autoethnography, case study, hermeneutics, and phenomenology. May our work be a contribution to a thoughtful world and a reminder that beauty is always worth creating.
Elizabeth Èowyn Nelson, General Edito
Archetypes: The Contribution of Individual Psychology to Cross-cultural Symbolism
Full text linkWhen a patient reports a dream or undirected fantasy in psychotherapy, classical Jungian technique includes, among other things, comparing this material to that of cross-cultural symbolism (CCS). The validity of this aspect of the method hinges on what we think the origin of CCS is. If we believe that the lion’s share of such content comes from specific universal tendencies of the individual psyche, then it is reasonable to look to CCS as a source of clinical interpretive information. If not, however, the method loses credibility. An examination of this comparison reveals that some discussions about archetypes have been plagued by a false dichotomy of biology vs. emergence. Addressing this problem helps to organize various theories about archetypes that compare CCS into a more productive dialogue
Re-membering Beauty: Rape Culture, Femicide, and the Shadow
Full text linkThis paper reviews and summarizes the author’s inquiry into rape culture and femicide using an arts-based approach and narrative autoethnography. It is based on the author’s experience of losing a friend who was sexually assaulted and murdered in the fall of 2014. Using art, personal narrative, and community engagement, the author establishes a healing practice that not only helped her transform her grief into compassion but also raised her community’s consciousness about this important topic. The author proposes that such integration of art, narrative, community engagement, and healing practice is capable of impacting individual and collective consciousness