Journal of Jungian Scholarly Studies
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Psychedelic Drugs and Jungian Therapy
Full text linkThe authors review the history of and recent research on the psychotherapeutic efficacy of psychedelic drugs. Psychedelic drugs appear to provide access to unconscious material and, when used in a therapeutic context, may cause deep and longstanding psychological change. The psychological effects of psychedelic drugs are reviewed from the perspective of Jungian theory. A series of clinical vignettes illustrates the archetypal aspects of hallucinogenic experiences
Fike, Matthew A. Four Novels in Jung\u27s 1925 Seminar: Literary Discussion and Analytical Psychology
Full text linkGeneral Editor\u27s Introduction to Volume 14
No full textWelcome to the 2019 Journal of Jungian Scholarly Studies. This volume marks an important milestone in the history of journal, the first year in which it is being hosted by the University of Alberta to enable wider accessibility and influence in the community of scholars interested in Jungian ideas. Great thanks go to Dr. Alexandra Fidyk and Professor Luke Hockley, as well as the fine staff of the University of Alberta’s Library Publishing Team, for making this partnership possible.
Essays in the 2019 volume reflect the theory of emergence, the theme of the 16th annual conference, in June 2018, of the Jungian Society for Scholarly Studies held in Portland, Oregon. Emergence is a feature of complex and adaptive living systems, from the microscopic to the macroscopic, studied by scholars in the natural and human sciences. Jung’s 1916 theory of the transcendent function anticipated emergent phenomena: the tension of the opposites, he said, creates “third thing . . . a living birth that leads to a new level of being, a new situation” (CW 8, par. 189). Thus it is no surprise that contemporary Jungians have turned their attention to the exploration of emergence articulated by our sister disciplines in much the same way Jung himself was fascinated by the scientific discoveries of his time.
In keeping with the theme of the 2019 volume, and thanks to the artful suggestion of Matthew Fike, the six scholarly essays are arranged in three pairs suggesting an emergent order. The first pair begins with Susan Courtney’s exploration of the medieval symbol of the salt-point and its component elements—circle, square, and point. The salt-point is an image of the Self that emerges, over time, to produce coherence of body, soul, and spirit. Courtney explores five kinds of time that shape human experience, from our standing in earth-bound time to our interconnectivity with eternal, archetypal forces. The themes of time, timelessness, and the journey toward the Self are the subtext of the second essay, in which Lisa Pounders uses the lens of alchemy to analyze the vivid, unprecedented bone paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe that were produced when the artist discovered her soul’s home in northern New Mexico. Pounders demonstrates how creating visionary works rooted in a specific landscape reflects as well as fosters the emergence of symbolic material that transcends time and space.
The second pair of essays turns from personal and artistic themes of emergence to the presence of emergent phenomena in political life. Inez Martinez examines the cultural and religious roots of toxic patriarchy in the U.S. through literary analysis of Charles Brockden Brown’s 1798 novel Wieland or the Transformation, An American Tale. She argues that President Donald Trump’s followers, socialized to worship a Judeo-Christian almighty father that divinizes narcissistic traits, easily embrace his claims to unlimited power, obedience, and adoration. Elizabeth Nelson’s essay on toxic masculinity describes what may be called the devouring father in the western tradition. She argues that the puer-senex dyad reveals this wound through the omission of pater (Latin, father). The essay explores the impact of generative fathering on communal life expressed in a male developmental triad puer-pater-senex that is parallel to the female developmental pattern maiden-mother-crone.
The final pair of essays returns from the chaotic nigredo of communal strife to the promise of fresh, restorative emergent processes. How can human participation with the continuously creative psyche fuel the transformative practices we need to bring about a more healthful future? Bianca Reynolds offers one possibility: the utility of a Jungian theoretical framework for the creation of play texts. As a case study, she explores the contemporary family homecoming drama in Tracy Letts’s August: Osage County and Reynold’s own original play, Eventide. The second essay in this pair, by Douglas Thomas, explores Dream Tending, a method of working with dreams that treats the images as living entities from the timeless archetypal world of the mundus imaginalis. Thomas points out that the vital dimension of a dream-centered life is play, which offers significant psychological value after the exodus from childhood. Play opens the potential space of new meaning—for individuals, communities, and cultures.
The six scholarly essays individually explore the theory of emergence and, in their sequencing, enact emergence. We continue the practice of including poetry and art, paired with the essays and poems, since they too offer images of emergence. A separate section includes all of the art selected for this year’s volume, accompanied by the artist’s statements about the work.
On behalf of the members of the editorial team who have worked so tirelessly to create this volume, I welcome you to Volume 14 of the Journal of Jungian Scholarly Studies.
Elizabeth Èowyn NelsonGeneral Edito
Her “Symbols of the Desert”:: An Emerging Alchemical Impression in the Bone Paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe
Full text linkEmploying C. G. Jung’s theories of the transformative nature of the unconscious in collaboration with his understanding of alchemy, this paper analyzes a number of Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings featuring bones that were created during a 15-year period following her introduction to northern New Mexico. The analysis circulates among events from O’Keeffe’s life, the works of art themselves, and potential associations to alchemical concepts. The intention is to illuminate and deepen not only an appreciation of the artist’s visionary work but also an understanding of what alchemy has in common with Jung’s theories regarding psychological transformation. More broadly, the paper suggests that an ongoing engagement with art-making is a practice that can also function as an alchemical transmitter “of unconscious contents that are seeking expression” (Jung, 1938/1967, p. 82). Put another way, an attentiveness to creating works of art has the potential to enable the emergence of symbolic manifestations from the unconscious that evoke and facilitate psychological development
Emergence Through Playwriting: Jung, Drama, and Creative Practice
Full text linkJungian artistic criticism is a thriving field of scholarship, with strong representation in the literature across numerous disciplines. However, there is relatively little Jungian representation in critical studies of dramatic writing. This essay adopts the dual perspectives of playwright and dramatic critic to argue for the utility of a Jungian theoretical framework for the creation and analysis of play texts. Such utility is demonstrated through analysis of a case study genre, termed the “contemporary family homecoming drama.” C. G. Jung’s theories of individuation and the psychological complex provide the theoretical framework for this discussion, along with a post-Jungian understanding of emergence theory. The central argument is substantiated via critical case studies of Tracy Letts’s August: Osage County and Eventide, an original play. This essay proposes a model for a Jungian playwriting methodology, transferable to other playwrights wishing to create drama within a Jungian framework
Connecting the Image of God as Almighty Father, Narcissism, Trump, and Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland
Full text linkGiven Jung’s understanding of emergence as unconscious materials unattended emerging into lived life, the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States calls for analysis of unconscious collective attitudes. Trump’s enthusiastic supporters embrace his narcissism, including his claims to almighty power, obedience, and adoration, claims characteristic of the God image of the Judeo-Christian Father almighty. This essay proposes that Americans socialized to worship that image of God have not been aware that they are divinizing narcissistic traits. Charles Brockden Brown’s novel Wieland or the Transformation, An American Tale (1798) portrays such a God and a phantom narrative unveiling murderousness in the narcissistic divine Father-son relations. Brown concludes with a call for the development of “juster notions” of divinity. Recognizing the latent murderousness in the narcissistic image of God the Father almighty potentially leads to recalling that projection and collectively accepting responsibility for inner murderousness
Book Review: Rinda West, Out of the Shadow: Ecopsychology, Story and Encounters with the Land.: University of Virginia Press, 2007. ISBN 9780813926568
Full text linkThe Salt-Point: Kairos Emergent from Chaos
Full text linkThis paper presents the medieval symbol of the salt-point, a dot in a square in a circle, as a functional blueprint for the emergence of the transcendent self—the person fully entangled with an inner yet higher authority that is experienced as a state of grace. Jung had intuited this self-organizing movement, individuation, through the metaphor of squaring the circle, a continual refinement of the chaotic solutio of bitter salts of experiences and memories toward an end point of coherence of body, soul, and spirit. The salt-point is explored through a fresh perspective of an emergent dissociability of time and psyche through the images of chaos, kronos and Ananke, Aion, kairos and Metanoia, and cosmos. The idea of a salt solutio of time is presented side by side with concepts such as probability and time salt crystals
Dream Tending and Play: The Vital Dimension
Full text linkDream Tending is a system for working with dreams that draws from elements of Jungian psychology and archetypal psychology, focusing on encountering dream images as living entities. The element of play is a vital but unarticulated aspect of Dream Tending, which merits exploration. The concept of play has been a significant topic for psychologists such as D. W. Winnicott, as well as contributors to the fields of social history and philosophy such as J. Huizinga and H. G. Gadamer. This article reviews the theoretical basis of Dream Tending emerging from the ideas of Jung, Hillman, and H. Corbin, and then applies the idea of play as developed by Winnicott, Huizinga, and Gadamer to the Dream Tending skills set. It concludes with a discussion of the clinical implications of focusing on play as a mediator of what Corbin referred to as imaginal space
Puer-pater-senex:: Toxic Masculinity and the Generative Father in an Age of Narcissism
Full text linkThere is a suppurating father wound in the Western psyche that has manifested today in toxic masculinity and regression to patriarchy embodied in political strongmen. The wound is represented mythically by a recurrent classical theme of fathers who destroy their children rather than nurturing them—who, in fact, refuse to become fathers in any real or meaningful way. The wound also is inscribed in contemporary archetypal theory by an omission: Hillman’s (2005) discussion of the puer-senex tandem names youth and elder but without the crucial role that mediates them, pater. Restoring the archetypal father to this tandem, one who values beneficence not brutishness, creates the more stable triad puer-pater-senex, a triad that is parallel to the female developmental pattern, maiden-mother-crone, drawn from goddess traditions. Supporting the emergence of the generative father, and seeing where he already exists in contemporary culture, can detoxify masculinity and help us recognize and confront toxic patriarchal leaders