Imitation and the Archetypal Adult

In The Cycle of Life: Themes and Tales of the Journey, I mention five pathologies that I relate to the idea of the Archetypal Adult. In this brief presentation I mention an additional one, which Jung speaks about – imitation. In the Red Book he writes, “The new God laughs at imitation and discipleship.”

In Two Essays in Analytical Psychology he writes,

"The human being has one faculty which, though it is of the greatest utility from the collective point of view, is immeasurably detrimental from the standpoint of individuality; the faculty of imitation. Collective psychology can never dispense with imitation, for without it the organization of the masses, that of the state and of society, is quite simply impossible. Society is organized, indeed, less by law than by the propensity to imitation, implying equally suggestibility, suggestion, and moral contagion."

            

Imitation is a shadow-side of the self. The Self means authenticity, and in its wholeness it includes its opposite – imitation.

This beautiful ten-minute video, which you can watch here, was created by Karol Domanski and Adam Kosciuk.

Erich Neumann: The Roots of Jewish Consciousness

With the publication in 2015 of the important correspondence between C.G. Jung and Erich Neumann (edited by Martin Liebscher), there has been something of a Neumann renaissance. A major international conference was held in 2015 at Kibbutz Shefayim, with participants from more than 25 countries, and in 2016 a symposium was held at the Pacifica Institute in California. 
Neumann’s slim but brilliant book, Jacob and Esau: On the collective symbolism of the brother motif, was recently published by Chiron in collaboration with Recollections. 
A volume of essays by prominent Jungians, as well as members of the Jung and Neumann families, has also een published by Chiron/Recollections. It is edited by Erel Shalit and Murray Stein, Turbulent Times, Creative Minds: The relationship between Erich Neumann and C.G. Jung (1933-1960). 

Ann Conrad Lammers

Soon, in late 2018 or early 2019, Routledge will publish Neumann’s major treatise on The Roots of Jewish Consciousness in an impressive two-volume set (Volume 1 on the psychological significance of revelation, Volume 2 on Hasidism), edited by Ann Lammers, and translated by Mark Kyburz with Ann Lammers. This work, written between 1934 and 1945 but never published, is a treasure trove, a wealth of pearls. Although Neumann mined its themes in several of his Eranos lectures, the work as a whole holds a unique place in his opus.

Further announcements will be posted as the work of translation and editing progresses, but here is a taste of Neumann’s writing:

... for Hasidism the world consists of a great, diffusely distributed creative nothingness, whose points of concentration, in varying degrees of power, reshape and form this unformed energy and cause it to shine. These points of concentration are the world's individuals, created in the tzimtzum, having a smaller and greater circumference and varying energy charge. They can also diminish or increase the extent and intensity of their radiance, depending on the level they attain, that is, their ability to enter into contact with divine nothingness.

Read more about Erich Neumann's The Roots of Jewish Consciousness
Read more about Erich Neumann's Jacob and Esau: On the collective symbolism of the brother motif
Read more about Turbulent Times, Creative Minds: The relationship between Erich Neumann and C.G. Jung (1933-1960)

Cover painting by Mordecai Arnon

Cover image silhouette by Meir Gur Arieh

Etching by Jacob Steinhardt

Renewed website

Renewed website

You are invited to visit my renewed website, here. You will find links to YouTube presentations, material on Jung and Neumann, my books, and useful resources.

Thank you for your interest – any and every comment or correction will be appreciated!

The Dream and its Amplification on YouTube

The Dream and Its Amplification unveils the language of the psyche that speaks to us in our dreams.

We all dream at least 4-6 times each night yet remember very few. Those that rise to the surface of our conscious awareness beckon to be understood, like a letter addressed to us that arrives by post. Why would we not open it? The difficulty is in understanding what the dream symbols and images mean. Through amplification, C. G. Jung formulated a method of unveiling the deeper meaning of symbolic images. This becomes particularly important when the image does not carry a personal meaning or significance and is not part of a person’s everyday life.

cover image A Giant Dream from an original painting by Howard Fox

You can now watch a 16 min video of The Dream and its Amplification on YouTube.

The Dream and Its Amplification 
Contents

I.                      The Amplified World of Dreams: Erel Shalit & Nancy Swift Furlotti

II.                    Pane e’ Vino: Learning to discern the objective, archetypal nature of dreams:  Michael Conforti

III.                   Amplification:  A Personal Narrative:  Tom Singer

IV.                   Redeeming the Feminine: Eros and the World Soul: Nancy Qualls-Corbet

V.                    Wild Cats and Crowned Snakes: Archetypal Agents of Feminine Initiation: Nancy Swift Furlotti

VI.                   A Dream in Arcadia:  Christian Gaillard

VII.                  Muse of the Moon: Poetry from the Dreamtime: Naomy Lowinsky

VIII.                Dreaming the ‘Face of the Earth’: Ken Kimmel

IX.                   Coal or Gold?: The Symbolic Understanding of a few Alpine Legends: Gotthilf Isler

X.                    Sophia’s Dreaming Body: The Alchemical Mirror of the Night Sky:    Monika Wikman

XI.                   “The Dream Always Follows the Mouth”: Jewish Approaches to Dreaming: Henry Abramovitch

XII.                  Bi-Polarity, Compensation, and The Transcendent Function in Dreams and Visionary Experience: A Jungian Examination of Boehme’s Mandala - Kathryn Madden

XIII.                 The Dream As Gnostic Myth: Ronald Schenk

XIV.                Four Hands in the Crossroads: Dreams in Times of Upheaval -  Erel Shalit

XV.                  Dreams and Sudden Death: Gilda Frantz

"The Dreams and Its Amplification is a wonderful book for anyone interested in their inner life, their dream life and how the unconscious gives us a map to our lives. 14 different authors, all Jungians, give us a peek into the everyday workings of an analytic practice and dream amplification. Each voice is unique, no two analyst work in exactly the same way, but a common thread runs through the chapters. They all tell us that dreams are important, we need to pay attention, we need to honor this gift from our psyches. If we pay attention and honor our dreams we will be rewarded with a deeper and more meaningful understanding of who we really are beyond our egos.

This book is for both professionals in the field of psychology and the general public. It is accessible, moving and informative. We are given new ways to think about our dreams. If you wake up and ask yourself, "What the heck was that dream about?" this is a book for you. If you have wondered what goes on in those 50 minutes behind closed doors, this a book for you. If you have a curious mind and an open heart, this is a book for you."

Susan BW

Available on Amazon

Murray Stein: Outside Inside and All Around

A new book by Murray Stein

In these late essays, Murray Stein circles around familiar Jungian themes such as synchronicity, individuation, archetypal image and symbol with a view to bringing these ideas into today’s largely globalized cultural space. These are reflections for our time, drawing importantly on the works of C.G. Jung, Erich Neumann, Wolfgang Pauli and a wide range of contemporary Jungian psychoanalytic writers. The general thesis is that all of humanity is connected – to one another, to nature and to the cosmos – and no human being should be left out of the picture of postmodern consciousness.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 – Outside Inside and All Around

Chapter 2 – Synchronizing Time and Eternity: A Matter of Practice

Chapter 3 – Music for a Later Age: Wolfgang Pauli’s “Piano Lesson”

Chapter 4 – A Lecture for the End of Time

Chapter 5 – “The Problem of Evil”

Chapter 6 – On Psyche’s Creativity

Chapter 7 – At the Brink of Transformation

Chapter 8 – Failure in the Crucible of Individuation

Chapter 9 – Imago Dei on the Psychological Plane

Chapter 10 – Jungian Psychology and the Spirit of Protestantism

Chapter 11 – Archetypes Across Cultural Divides

Chapter 12 – Where East Meets West:The House of Individuation

Chapter 13 – The Path from Symbol to Science

Chapter 14 – Cultural Trauma, Violence, and Treatment

Chapter 15 – Hope in a World of Terrorism – An Interview with Rob Henderson

Chapter 16 – When Symptom is Symbol

 

Available at Amazon and at Chiron

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

Cover image from a silhouette by Meir Gur Arieh

An introduction on YouTube to 

Jacob and Esau - on the collective symbolism of the brother motif 

Encouraged by Jung, in his book on the collective symbolism of the brother motif, Neumann began outlining ideas that he eventually would develop in some of his major works, such as Depth Psychology and a New Ethic. Neumann uses the story about Jacob and Esau to illustrate the polarities in the human soul, between introversion and extraversion, profane and sacred, the moon and the sun, both in Jewish tradition and universally, and the need to integrate the shadow, as illustrated in Jacob seeing both God’s face and his hostile brother in his struggle with the angel. In Jungian terms, we see the inevitable conjunctio of Self and Shadow. 

The book can be seen as a brilliant midrash, retelling and interpretation of the Biblical motif of the brothers.

Etching by Jacob Steinhardt

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

Kafka’s (Never Sent) Letter to Father

An excerpt from the beginning of the chapter 'Kafka's (never sent) letter to father,' in The Complex: Path of Transformation from Archetype to Ego:

"A more vivid description of a negative father-complex than Kafka’s (Never sent) Letter to Father can hardly be conceived of. Mairowitz refers to it as an “uncanny level of self-revelation.” Kafka had intended to actually hand over the letter to father by means of his mother, hoping to clear up their relationship. Max Brod , however, makes it unmistakably clear that

    in reality the opposite would probably have happened. The explanation of himself to his father that the letter aimed at would never have been achieved. And Franz’s mother did not pass on the letter but gave it back to him, probably with a few comforting words.

   Kafka primarily identified with his maternal ancestors, the Löwys, whom he saw as representing sensitivity and intelligence. However, he also found in himself 

    a certain Kafka foundation [shrewd and aggressive in business] that, however, just isn’t set in motion by the Kafka will to life, business and conquest, but by a Löwy spur that operates more secretively, more timidly, and in a different direction, and which often fails to work at all. (Italics mine)

That is, his father identification was not activated, due to his lack of extraverted (business) and aggressive (conquest) energy (will to life). While Franz Kafka was extremely sensitive and introverted, his father, on the other hand, was extraverted, depicted by Franz as

    a true Kafka in strength, health, appetite, loudness of voice, eloquence, self-satisfaction, worldly superiority, stamina, presence of mind, knowledge of human nature, a certain generosity.

Lest we be tempted to believe Franz idealized his father, he quickly corrects this erroneous impression, adding that father also possesses “all the failings and weaknesses that go with these advantages, into which your temperament and sometimes your violent temper drive you.”

Max Brod and others have pointed out and criticized Kafka’s description of his father for being exaggerated. He says,

    Here and there I feel the perspective is distorted, unsupported assumptions are occasionally dragged in and made to fit the facts; on what appear to be negligible, immediate reactions, a whole edifice is built up, the ramifications of which it is impossible to grasp as a whole, which in fact in the end definitely turns on its own axis and contradicts itself, and yet manages to stand erect on its own foundation.

Of course Kafka’s description is exaggerated, self-contradictory and yet “stands erect on its own foundation!” This merely reflects that we are dealing not with a scientific description of the object, as if there were such a thing, but with Kafka’s imago of his father, and seemingly unbeknownst to himself Brod here draws the very contours of an autonomous complex.

Kafka’s father is perceived through the tinted lens of his complex, and as complex and object interact in the psyche, perceptions will be drawn into the complex and cluster around its core. This does not necessarily mean that Kafka’s view of his father is entirely wrong or distorted. Portraying his father, Kafka himself says, “I am speaking only of the image through which you influenced the child.”

....

Contents:

I. Complexes - The Historical Link                               

Introduction                                                                                                           

The Complex in the History of Psychoanalysis                                                  

A Plenitude of Complexes                                                                                      

Jung’s Personal Complexes                                                                                     

Complex Psychology                                                                                              

The Complex as Path and Vessel of Transformation                                              

The Complex – Cluster, Core and Tone                                                                  

Archetype and Ego                                                                                                 

II. Oedipus – The Archetypal Complex                           

Freud, Jung and Oedipus                                                                                         

Oedipus - The Myth                                                                                                  

Hero and Complex                                                                                                   

Mars and Eros – the Drive of the Complex                                                          

Mother Self – Father Ego                                                                                        

The Primal Scene                                                                                                    

The Sword and the Shield                                                                                       

The Complex Path – From Archetype to Ego                                                       

The Wounding of Oedipus – Ego Defences and the Autonomous Complex           

Oedipus’ Journey                                                                                                    

From Delphi to Thebes - From Archetype to Ego                                                    

Patricide at the Cleft Way Crossroad                                                                       

The Riddle                                                                                                              

The Cancerous Complex                                                                                         

III. The Complex in the Shadow                                   

The Autonomous Complex                                                                                     

The Complex and the Call                                                                                      

The World Parents                                                                                                 

The Archetypal Core of the World Parents                                                             

The Abandoned Child                                                                                             

A Mother Complex                                                                                                  

Kafka’s (Never Sent) Letter to Father                                                                 

The Tower of Babel                                                                                                 

Inflation                                                                                                                  

Hubris                                                                                                                     

The Tower of Babel                                                                                                

The Inflated Ego - The Emptied Self                                                                       

Integration of the Complex                                                                                   

Castration at the Gateway to Individuation                                                      

References                                                                                                        

      Available on Amazon 

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