C.G. Jung: His Myth in Our Time

Steven B. Herrmann, PhD, MFT Author of "Walt Whitman: Shamanism, Spiritual Democracy, and the World Soul" When Marie-Louise von Franz asked C. G. Jung if his views were similar to those of shamans, he is said to have laughed and exclaimed: "Well, that's nothing to be ashamed of, it is an honor!" (13) The reader might be wondering what she means by "similar" here. Jung never claimed to be a shaman and he avoided the projection of the archetype of the medicine man whenever it came his way. Although Jung was a great healer, he was not a shaman, nor did he claim to be a medicine man. He viewed himself rather as an empirical scientist and psychiatrist and instructed his patients, and readers of his works, not to identify with the shamanic archetype, but to relate to it consciously through the process he called "active imagination." What von Franz has to say about shamanism and Jung is quite interesting, even if she does not penetrate deeply enough into the correspondence between Jung's myth and its meaning for our times and shamanism. In chapter one "The Underground God" she argues that the process of psychic transformation that Jung went through was a process in the collective psyche "in preparation for the new aeon, the Age of Aquarius." The secret of Jung's earliest childhood dream from the age of three, she says, "stamped" his whole life and "became his fate" (37). Insofar as Jung was moreover a "hermeneut, an interpreter who translates the symbolic dream-letters the patient receives out of his own psychic depths during the night," she suggests that "Jung's work resembled that of the old shamans and medicine men among primitive peoples" (65). In chapter five "The Journey to the Beyond," she writes: "The shaman is frequently both the seer and the poet and of his people and in the trance-state may speak in verse" (101). "Among many people," she adds "the shaman discovers, over and over again, his own songs and melodies" (102). "As a shaman often suffers from the plight of his people," she continues, "Jung was afflicted with dreams of bloodbaths and catastrophes in Europe" (106). Von Franz's comparisons between Jung and shamans start to sound elitist and ethnocentric, however, when she argues, that while "shamans and medicine men of primitive peoples keep their experiences to themselves and hand them on only to younger shamans... Jung never thought of keeping his discovery to himself, in order to strengthen his prestige. Instead he taught this way of dealing with the unconscious, which he called `active imagination,' to his patients" (111). I do not know where she came up with this comparison and to anthropologists it might sound offensive. "Unlike the shamans," she adds in this context "Jung did not attempt to enter this world in a trance-state, but rather in full consciousness and without any diminution of the individual moral responsibility which is one of the attainments of Western culture. This is something new and unique," she s

Pure Pleasure Reading Marie-Louise von Franz is always an inspiration. She is tremendously insightful and that is demonstrated here, if not as much as in the books that she wrote on topics of her own choosing - The Problem of the Puer Aeternus and her interpretation of The Little Prince by St Exupery for one great example. It is a pleasure to read such a clear thinker and to read her life of C.G. Jung. Picking up a book by Marie-Louise von Franz and coming to her from the political news of the day is like being washed clean of the dirt and the filth that we are all immersed in. "We were sunk in evil and knew it." (*) "We live today in the age of psychopathy, when the psychopath rides in the limousine of the visiting head of state or is the head of giant corporations. Today the psychopath is celebrated and appears nightly on our TV screens instead of being shunned and forced to slink through the filthy alleys of our cities, as in the past." - James Hillman, paraphrased. In such an age, Marie Louise von Franz, C.G. Jung and their fellow explorers of the human soul -- and the human unconscious -- are vital - with their unflinching descriptions of Absolute Evil, Radical Evil, known to the Church as the devil and their implacable resolve to counter 'major evil' -- the evil of the concentration camps and the ovens. The same 'major evil' that has returned under the Neocons of the US at the start of this twenty-first century. Returned and led half the US population down the road of the Germans after 1933 towards 'mass psychosis' and the (unconcscious) urge to start a world war. When the unthinkable has become normal - the routine use of murder, torture-to-death, death camps with 27,000 missing muslims -- Where are they? Can they be released or are they in mass graves? --, genocide, war crimes - the Afghan 'convoy of death', crimes against the laws of war - the use of death squads in Iraq and now Afghanistan-- the 'El Salvador Option' -- and the creation of the infrastructure for a police state in the US. Laurens van der Post - "We must demand psychological illumination from our politicians. Otherwise they may spar with their own shadows, projected on 'the enemy'." "The human being who starts by withdrawing his own shadow from his neighbour is doing work of immense, imediate political and social importance." - Matter of Heart - Part 9/10, to end of Part 10 - @7:08 v=meNT56CqtLE#t=07m08s Marie Louise von Franz - "Withdrawing our shadows from projection." "The only way to cope with evil is if each person will confront their own evil. If benevolent preaching would work, we should have been out of the trouble long ago." - Matter of Heart - Part 10 - @ 7:50 v=MdPSPXMToOE (*) Events today are not generally worse than in the last eighty years - 1930s Germany, followed by World War 2. The difference today is that we have the internet and we can, if we choose, see completely through the attempts to manipulate us; manipulate our views, our thoughts, ou

This book artfully traces Jung's psychological development as it revealed itself in his dreams and in his indefatigable labors to understand symbolic images. Since Dr. Jung and Dr. von Franz have dug very deep into the spirit of our Western culture, the book is a revelation. It artfully plumbs the nature and evolution of the Western spirit. The accusations against Jung of all manner of malign actions are not dealt with in this book. These accusations have been dealt with extensively from every perspective elsewhere. References to many of the discussions are given in the text or notes. I know for a fact that Dr. von Franz was not unaware of some of Dr. Jung's weaknesses. This book is not a whitewash. That discussion is just not within the scope of the book. It should be said, this book is not a biography. The book is a consideration of the mytho-poetic images and dream images that Dr. Jung dealt with in his personal and professional life. Dr. von Franz submits the images to intense scrutiny and in the process elaborates upon many of the emotional challenges that a modern Westerner confronts in his own soul. The book is profound, penetrating, and challenging. It is another example of the scintillating exposition of symbolic material that we have come to expect from her. Dr. von Franz was forty years younger than Dr. Jung and she was his closest collaborator in the last two decades of his life. For many Dr. Jung is a towering figure in Western thought and it must have been overwhelming for this young and gifted woman to work so closely with him for so long. From their close collaboration follows one aspect of the book that will put some readers off. Dr. von Franz is not always judicious as a writer in restraining her expressions of admiration for Dr. Jung. This seeming lack of editorial restraint can sometimes have the opposite of the intended effect. Something else in the book may bother a number of first-time readers. Dr. von Franz uses frequent and extensive citations of Dr. Jung's works. For some readers these many citations may make the book too fractured and derivative. For me, this was not a major problem, especially on re-reading. It is important to note, that Dr. von Franz and Dr. Jung put great demands upon the reader. The demands are both intellectual and moral. They both write about the life-long endeavor to accommodate the will of the Great Other, however conceived, in one's individual life. This book is not a light biographical sketch. Personally, I never tire of reading the insightful and challenging work of this author.

This is Jung from the inside, by one of his most talented and most authentic followers. It is not just the dry facts but deep personal experience. All life is story and this is Marie-Louise von Franz's story of Jung as she knew him. An invaluable work.