Turbulent Times, Creative Minds - A review by Ann Casement

Turbulent Times, Creative Minds

Edited: Erel Shalit and Murray Stein

This reviewer of Turbulent Times, Creative Minds was introduced to the work of Erich Neumann decades ago by his close friend, Gerhard Adler, who thought highly of him. 

In complete contrast, Michael Fordham was critical of Neumann’s thinking on the child and told this reviewer he doubted that Neumann had ever encountered an actual child – thereby enacting an actual experience of the opposites. In addition, the profound Jung thinker, Wolfgang Giegerich, has also written critically on Neumann. 

In order to experience Neumann’s thinking at first-hand, this reviewer participated in the 2015 conference held at Kibbutz Shefayim to mark the publication of the correspondence between Jung and Neumann edited by Martin Liebscher. The current skillfully edited book arising from that conference is an homage to the exceptional personal and professional relationship between Jung and Neumann, including in its pages masterly chapters by Lammers, Mendes-Flohr, Shalit and Stein. 

The book ranges over such vital topics as the New Ethic linked to the eternal problem of evil (Stein’s in-depth thinking is outstanding here), the ego-self axis, sibling rivalry, the German-Jewish experience, Eranos, religion, clinical issues and art. The Jung and Neumann families’ memories and contributions add noteworthy personal touches to this highly recommended volume. 

Ann Casement, 

Licensed Psychoanalyst/Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute

                             

This volume of essays by well-known Jungian analysts and scholars provides the most comprehensive comparison to date between the works of C.G. Jung and Erich Neumann. Reflections are based on their extensive correspondence recently published, their differing cultural backgrounds, and the turbulent times surrounding their personal and professional relationship. Among the many specific subjects discussed are Jung and Neumann on art and religion, their views on the problem of evil, and clinical aspects of Neumann’s work. Also included are personal memories of both Jung and Neumann family members.

Sections:

I. The Correspondence (1933–1960)

II. Cultural Backgrounds

III. Troubled Times

IV. The Problem of Evil

V. Neumann and Eranos (1948–1960)

VI. On the Arts

VII. Clinical Contributions

VIII. On Religion

IX. On Synchronicity

X. “Memories from My (Grand)Father’s House”

Available on Amazon, Chiron and other book sellers.

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Jacob and Esau 

On the Collective Symbolism of the Brother Motif (2nd printing)

by Erich Neumann

cover image by Meir Gur Arieh 

title page image by Jacob Steinhardt

Turbulent Times, Creative Minds: Erich Neumann and C.G. Jung in Relationship - from the Introduction

Excerpt from the Introduction

With the recent publication of the correspondence between C. G. Jung and Erich Neumann, the personality and significance of Neumann for analytical psychology heaves into view more sharply than ever before. 

Although Neumann’s classic works, such as The Great Mother and The Origins and History of Consciousness, have been widely read and appreciated inside and outside of Jungian circles, his full range of works and his vibrant personal qualities as an intellectual leader in the field fell sadly into the shadows following his early death in 1960 at the age of only fifty-five. 

Had he lived another thirty years to the ripe old age of eighty-five as Jung did, his name and contributions would be far more widely recognized among his analytic colleagues and in the world at large. Now with the publication of the extensive correspondence between Neumann and Jung and thoughtful contributions by scholars such as those included in this volume, the stage is set for a Neumann renaissance.

Neumann was clearly a star in the Jungian firmament during his last decade of life and was recognized as one of the most brilliant exponents of analytical psychology. Beyond that, he made genuinely original contributions in works that extended depth psychology’s range of application to areas of history and culture that Jung himself, as a pioneer, had not been able to work out in a systematic way. 

While the focus of many of the papers in this volume is on the relationship between Neumann and his mentor, others consider topics that represent original and groundbreaking expansions into territories such as cultural history, art, and religion.

...

The relationship between Jung and Neumann can be compared to that between Freud and Jung. Both involved an older senior mentor figure and a young aspiring student. A similarity between the two relationships lies in the fact that Neumann never conceded his intellectual independence, just as Jung had claimed similar autonomy vis-à-vis Freud. A difference is that Jung, in the position of mentor, was considerably more encouraging and supportive of Neumann’s individuation process, which inevitably included differences of opinion, than Freud had been of Jung’s. ...

Jung and Neumann shared roots in a common culture in central German-speaking Europe, with a shared love of the poets Goethe, Schiller, and Hölderlin and an education (Bildung) among great German philosophers such as Kant and Schelling. But they were also each indelibly steeped in their distinctly different heritages. 

Jung was a Swiss Protestant Christian, quite secularized as an individual but bearing the religious influences of his culture and of numerous pastors and theologians in his immediate family background. Neumann was a Jew who grew up in Berlin in a nonobservant family, and as a young man he looked to elements in Jewish culture for his identity and sympathized with Zionist ideas about a homeland for the Hebrew people in Palestine. 

Upon discovering Jung—they met for the first time at Jung’s famous Berlin seminar in 1933—Neumann quickly realized that Jung’s analytical psychology and his discovery of the objective psyche could offer a means to recover more of the profound value and meaning of his Jewish heritage. They could thus each separately but also in fruitful dialogue share an appreciation of the depths of the archetypal layers of the psyche as explicated in their separate cultures and envision general trends in and threats to humanity. The basis for collaboration was present despite what would turn out to be quite sharp cultural differences. ...

Contents:

Introduction (Erel Shalit and Murray Stein) ix
I. The Correspondence (1933–1960)

Uncertain Friends in Particular Matters: The Relationship between C. G. Jung and

Erich Neumann (Martin Liebscher) 25

Companions on the Way: Consciousness in Conflict (Nancy Swift Furlotti) 45

Neumann and Kirsch in Tel Aviv: A Case of Sibling Rivalry? (Ann Lammers) 71

II. Cultural Backgrounds

German Kultur and the Discovery of the Unconscious: The Promise and Discontents of the German-Jewish Experience (Paul Mendes-Flohr) 83

Basel, Jung’s Cultural Background and the Proto-Zionism of Samuel Preiswerk (Ulrich Hoerni) 95

The Cultural Psyche: From Ancestral Roots to Postmodern Routes (Erel Shalit) 111

III. Troubled Times

Carl Jung and Hans Fierz in Palestine and Egypt: Journey from March 13th to

April 6th, 1933 (Andreas Jung) 131

1933—The Year of Jung’s Journey to Palestine/Israel and Several Beginnings (Thomas Fischer) 135

Jungians in Berlin 1931–1945: Between Therapy, Emigration and Resistance (Jörg Rasche) 151

IV. The Problem of Evil

The Search for a New Ethic: Professional and Clinical Dilemmas (Henry Abramovitch) 167

Erich Neumann and C. G. Jung on “The Problem of Evil” (Murray Stein) 185

V. Neumann and Eranos (1948–1960)

Neumann at Eranos (Riccardo Bernardini) 199

“Dear, dear Olga!” - A Letter to Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn (Julie Neumann) 237

VI. On the Arts

The Great Mother in Israeli Art (Gideon Ofrat) 245

Jung, Neumann and Art (Christian Gaillard) 261

The Magic Flute (Tom Kelly) 299

A Brief Comment on Neumann and His Essay “On Mozart’s ‘Magic Flute’” (Debora Kutzinski) 309

VII. Clinical Contributions

Erich Neumann’s Concept of the Distress-ego (Rina Porat) 315

Can You Hear My Voice? (Batya Brosh Palmoni) 333

Neve Tzeelim—A Field of Creation and Development (Rivka Lahav) 347

VIII. On Religion

Erich Neumann and Hasidism (Tamar Kron) 367

Theological Positions in the Correspondence between Jung and Neumann (Angelica Löwe) 385

IX. On Synchronicity

Toward Psychoid Aspects of Evolutionary Theory (Joseph Cambray) 401

X. “Memories from My (Grand)Father’s House”

Introduction 411

Some Memories of My Grandparents (Andreas Jung) 413

Memories (Ulrich Hoerni) 415

Memories (Micha Neumann) 417

Memories (Ralli Loewenthal-Neumann) 421

Memories (Debora Kutzinski) 425

A Response (Thomas B. Kirsch) 429

Remembering the Mamas and Papas (Nomi Kluger Nash) 433

Memories of Max Zeller (1904–1978) (Jacqueline Zeller) 437

Bibliography

About the Contributors

Available at Amazon, and at Chiron

Turbulent Times, Creative Minds: Erich Neumann and C.G. Jung in Relationship (1933-1960)

Erich Neumann at his desk

Now Available!
Turbulent Times, Creative Minds 

This volume of essays by well-known Jungian analysts and scholars provides the most comprehensive comparison to date between the works of C.G. Jung and Erich Neumann. Reflections are based on their extensive correspondence recently published, their differing cultural backgrounds, and the turbulent times surrounding their personal and professional relationship. Among the many specific subjects discussed are Jung and Neumann on art and religion, their views on the problem of evil, and clinical aspects of Neumann’s work. Also included are personal memories of both Jung and Neumann family members.

Sections:

I. The Correspondence (1933–1960)

II. Cultural Backgrounds

III. Troubled Times

IV. The Problem of Evil

V. Neumann and Eranos (1948–1960)

VI. On the Arts

VII. Clinical Contributions

VIII. On Religion

IX. On Synchronicity

X. “Memories from My (Grand)Father’s House”

Available at Amazon, and at Chiron

***********
Jacob and Esau 

On the Collective Symbolism of the Brother Motif (2nd printing)

by Erich Neumann

cover image by Meir Gur Arieh 

title page image by Jacob Steinhardt