Erich Neumann: Jacob and Esau - Now available!

Jacob returns to the Holy Land after 20 years in Haran. He sends angel-emissaries to Esau in hope of a reconciliation, but his messengers report that his brother is ready for war, with 400 armed men. Jacob prepares for war, prays, and sends Esau a large gift to appease him.

That night, the family of Jacob crosses the Jabbok River, while he remains behind and encounters the angel that embodies the spirit of Esau, with whom he wrestles until daybreak. Jacob suffers but vanquishes the supernal creature, who bestows on him the name Israel, “he who prevails over the divine.”

The Biblical account seems then to condense time, possibly indicating the significance of the proximity between the struggle with the angel and the meeting with Esau. Upon lifting his eyes, it says, Jacob saw in front of him Esau and his men, and bowed to his brother. Esau embraced him, and the two brothers kissed and wept in each other’s arms. Having found grace in his brother’s eyes, Jacob insisted on giving Esau his gifts, for “I have seen your face, as though I had seen the face of God.” 

Based on this verse, Neumann elaborates on God and Esau, shadow and Self. In fact, this is the peak of his psychological study of the hostile brothers within the human soul, and forms the basis of his new ethic.

Silhouette by Meir Gur-Arieh. 
Copyright Meira Gur-Arieh Kein

In 1934, Erich Neumann, considered by many to have been Carl Gustav Jung's foremost disciple, sent Jung a handwritten note: "I will pursue your suggestion of elaborating on the 'Symbolic Contributions' to the Jacob-Esau problem . . . The great difficulty is the rather depressing impossibility of a publication." Now, eighty years later, in Jacob and Esau: On the Collective Symbolism of the Brother Motif, his important work is finally published.

In this newly discovered manuscript, Neumann sowed the seeds of his later works. It provides a window into his original thinking and creative writing regarding the biblical subject of Jacob and Esau and the application of the brother motif to analytical psychology.

Neumann elaborates on the central role of the principle of opposites in the human soul, contrasting Jacob's introversion with Esau's extraversion, the sacred and the profane, the inner and the outer aspects of the God-image, the shadow and its projection, and how the old ethic - expressed, for example, in the expulsion of the scapegoat - perpetuates evil.

Mark Kyburz, co-translator of C. G. Jung's The Red Book, has eloquently rendered Neumann's text into English. Erel Shalit's editing and introduction provide an entrée into Neumann's work on this subject, which will be of interest to a wide range of readers, from lay persons to professionals interested in Jungian psychology and Jewish and religious studies.

Erich Neumann was born in Berlin in 1905. He emigrated to Israel in 1934 and lived in Tel Aviv until his death in 1960. For many years he lectured and played a central role at Eranos, the seminal conference series in analytical psychology. His writings include Depth Psychology and a New Ethic, The Origins and History of Consciousness, and The Great Mother. The correspondence between C.G. Jung and Neumann was published in 2015.

Erel Shalit is a Jungian psychoanalyst in Israel and founding director of the Analytical Psychotherapy Program at Bar Ilan University. He is the author of several books, including The Cycle of Life: Themes and Tales of the Journey, Enemy, Cripple and Beggar, The Complex, and The Hero and His Shadow - available at Amazon, Fisher King Press, and other online book sellers.

Mark Kyburz specializes in scholarly translation from German into English and is the co-translator of C. G. Jung's The Red Book (2009). He lives and works in Zürich, Switzerland.

This unique book can now be ordered from Amazon (hard copy, paperback and kindle), Book Depository, Barnes and Noble, or directly from Chiron.

A wood cut by Jacob Steinhardt.
Copyright Yosefa Bar-On Steinhardt. 

Containing A Jungian Light: The Books of Erel Shalit - by Steve Zemmelman

The following is an excerpt from the introduction of Steve Zemmelman's comprehensive review of five of my books, in the latest issue of Spring Journal (which is a particularly interesting issue; for content, see here).

I am deeply grateful to Steve for writing so beautifully - this comprehensive review is a poetic paper in itself.

Dr. Steve Zemmelman

Containing A Jungian Light: The Books of Erel Shalit

by Steve Zemmelman

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born.

Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn

Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn.

Dance me to the end of love.

I was listening to these lyrics from a song by Leonard Cohen during the time I was reading Erel Shalit’s books for this review, and it struck me how well these poetic lines capture the essential tension between fragmentation and wholeness as they reference past, present and future. They orient the listener to limitation and in so doing suggest a depth of meaning that can only come from facing the inevitability of mortality and the potential for redemption through love. The tune in which the lyrics are embedded is a lamentation with a distinctly Jewish sensibility. It leaves me moved, tearful, despairing and hopeful, all at once. It is soulful, satisfying, and true. It seemed so fitting a soundtrack for a day in which Shalit’s work was so much pulsing through me.

Introduction

It has been my great pleasure over the past year to have studied the body of Erel Shalit’s written work. While at first it felt like an overwhelming task to creatively review a body of work by a highly regarded and prolific colleague, I approached the task I was invited to take on as a unique opportunity for learning and creative reflection.

The effort was more than amply rewarded. In his books one encounters a master interpreter of Jung’s many contributions to depth psychology illuminating a wide range of topics in ways that both present Jung’s foundational psychological thinking and amplify his mythopoetic approach to the soul. Jung’s work navigates between the empirical and the imaginal, engaging with each perspective as both an impetus for and a limitation to the other. Shalit’s work stands solidly in this territory, taking Jung’s original, creative thinking and building upon it, simultaneously enlarging it and nailing it down. While the density of his writing style can be challenging at times, requiring the reader to slow down and ponder the meaning of the words, more often Shalit’s words sing with a poetic, intuitive perspective that grips the reader and leaves him in a state of deep appreciation for the opportunity to contemplate an issue or problem from a new, more enriching, vista.

His books should find their way into many courses on Jungian psychology and analytic training programs as they offer both clear explications of basic concepts without falling into the trap of overly concretistic definitions, as well as thoughtful and scholarly interpretations and amplifications that illustrate and deepen the ideas being discussed. In addition, seasoned analysts can also learn much from these books, about themselves and their patients, and can make good use of these books in teaching this material to others.

• • • • •

In addition to his integration of Jewish knowledge into analytical psychology, Shalit writes as an Israeli deeply troubled by the polarizations in the Middle East, turning the lens of analytical psychology toward the forces and tensions that have shaped Israel from the time of its socialist pioneers in the early 20th century to the present. He makes extensive use of the concepts of projection and shadow in their many forms to call for more humane and just relations between Jews and Palestinians that echoes the call for integration of the shadow by his fellow countryman and first generation Jungian analyst, Erich Neumann, which one finds in his classic work, “Depth Psychology and a New Ethic.” One sees also in Shalit’s work a deep wrestling from the point of view of Joseph Henderson’s ideas about the cultural complex as links are drawn between the intrapsychic and social/cultural dimensions of life.

• • • • •

To read the full review, please do purchase the current issue, or enter a subscription to Spring Journal

If you are interested, you find my books on Amazon. You can also find several of them at the Fisher King Press online bookstore, where you can pay by credit card, PayPal, and your Amazon.com account. (That’s right, you can now pay for your Fisher King Press book orders from the website with your Amazon.com account.)

Forthcoming this fall: 

Erich Neumann: Jacob and Esau - On the collective symbolism of the brother motif

Edited and with an introduction by Erel Shalit

Translated by Mark Kyburz