Book Review: The Dream and Its Amplification

Book Review: The Dream and Its Amplification by Erel Shalit and Nancy Swift Furlotti

by Robin B. Zeiger, Ph.D.

One of my earliest childhood memories is of a dream. As a psychologist, avid dreamer, and writer, I remain in awe of the power and depth of dream analysis. I invite my patients, supervisees, friends, and family to share dreams. And I welcome my dream world into my heart and soul.

Again and again, dream work offers a window into the personal and collective soul. The Dream and Its Amplification by Erel Shalit and Nancy Swift Furlotti , Fisher King Press, 2013, is an excellent tribute to this deep soul-work from a Jungian perspective. Shalit and Furlotti present us with a series of essays by experts in the field. Yet, rather than reading a dry text filled with psychological jargon, we are treated to writings that are aesthetically pleasing. The chapters are short and appear deceptively simple. Yet, as I digested the book, I often felt as if I was reading good poetry. The words and images continue to resonate; beckoning us to travel deeper within.

At times Jungian writers are accused of being too esoteric. The writing is filled with jargon and hard to digest concepts. In contrast, Shalit and Furlotti frame the book with an excellent introduction to dream analysis easily understandable and translatable to real life. We are offered a window into the world of dream amplification and active imagination. This is followed by fourteen chapters authored by a diversity of writers. The reader is introduced to symbols, archetypes, personal stories, diverse dreams, and poetry. There are also several inspiring illustrations. I am looking forward to referring patients and supervisees, as well as colleagues to this collection.

One of my favorite images from the book comes from a chapter entitled The Dream as Gnostic Myth by Ronald Schenk Schenk reflects on the journey:

For the gnostic, the present state is only a sojourn, and a journey of transformation is required. The journey is one of travail, involving a wandering through the unredeemed world, often imaged as following a meandering trail, gathering lost or forgotten “sparks” or aspects of the soul. The journey need not be one of space, but rather than of time, representing stages of transformation.

I invite the professional and the lay-person alike to join the journey of dream amplification via this excellent collection of essays.

Robin B. Zeiger received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology in 1985 from the University of Illinois of Chicago. She has practiced as a clinical psychologist and supervisor and is currently training as a Jungian analyst in Israel. Robin enjoys dialoguing and journeying with her dreams via art, writing, and sand-play.

The Dream and its Amplification, and other books by Erel Shalit, can be purchased at Fisher King Press, Amazon and other book sellers.

The Last of the Unjust

Lanzmann and Murmelstein

January 27 is the international Holocaust Remembrance Day. Many cinemas will show Claude Lanzman's recent film "The Last of the Unjust", in which he interviews Benjamin Murmelstein, President of the Jewish Council in the Theresienstadt concentration camp ghetto. The crucial question of the role of the Judenrat is brought to the foreground. This question was raised, as well, by Hannah Arendt, and though I personally am greatly appreciative of much of her important philosophical work, I cannot accept her critical position vis-a-vis those Jews who so cleverly and ruthlessly were exploited by the Nazis, put in untenable positions, often finding themselves between collaboration and trying to save as many victims as possible.
Watch the trailer of Lanzmann's film.

“Shoah” is a masterwork of reflexive filmmaking, in which the conditions of its production are inseparable from its artistic and moral substance. The subject of “Shoah” is, as Lanzmann has said, death. The subject of “The Last of the Unjust” is life. The miracle that it conjures is that of survival. It’s a miracle that anyone came out of the camps alive. It’s a miracle that Murmelstein, in his position of terrifying proximity to barbaric overlords, was able to save as many Jews as he did—and to save himself. It’s a miracle that Judaism itself, as a religion and an ongoing element of history, survived.
From Richard Brody's post in The New Yorker. Read the full article.

The Tranquility of Terror

Theresienstadt was established as a 'model ghetto', "in order to save face in regards to the outside world" (Eichmann). The first deportation to the Terezin (Theresienstadt) ghetto too place Nov. 24, 1941.

While the Jews in Theresienstadt gave manifestation to the height of spiritual survival in the shadow of evil, it was, and was meant to be a hoax from the beginning.

The perversity of deception in the service of evil compounded into the dust of the extermination camps, but on the way, “to the East,” as the Nazis deceptively called the transports to the death camps, Theresienstadt served as a model of deception.

The Red Cross visited the 'town' in June 1944, prior to which the Nazis intensified deportations, and the ghetto was "beautified." Some inmates were dressed up and told to stand at strategic places along the carefully designated route. Shop windows along the route were filled with goods for the day, and the day's abundance in the candy shop window made life in Terezin seem sweet.

The day of the visit

Not the day of the visit

The Red Cross reported dryly that while war time conditions made all life difficult, life at Terezin was acceptable given all of the pressures. The Red Cross concluded that the Jews were being treated all right.

Inmates in Theresienstadt - also not the day of the visit

Approximately 158,000 Jews were brought to Theresienstadt. Approximately 90,000 were transported onwards to the extermination camps, of whom about 4,800 survived. About 35,500 died of hunger and illness in the ghetto (among them my great-grandmother).

Of the 12,121 children (born 1928 and later) brought to Theresienstadt, 9,001 were sent to the death camps. 325 survived.

When Helen Deutsch, the psychoanalyst who had left Vienna for the United States in 1935, wrote her important 1942 paper “Some forms of emotional disturbance and their relationship to schizophrenia,” introducing the concept of the as-if personality, the poet Leo Strauss wrote, in Theresienstadt, what in its subtle simplicity to me is one of the most spectacular poems, ‘Als-Ob,’ As-If. The English translation from the German is from Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return:


I know a little tiny town
A city just so neat
I call it not by name
but call the town As-if

Not everyone may enter
Into this special place
You have to be selected
From among the As-if race

And there they live their life
As-if a life to live
Enjoying every rumor
As-if the truth it were

You lie down on the floor
As-if it was a bed
And think about your loved one
As if she weren’t yet dead

One bears the heavy fate
As-if without a sorrow
And talks about the future
As if there was – tomorrow

Erel Shalit's books can be purchased at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Fisher King Press.

Shared Realities: Participation Mystique and Beyond (edited by Mark Winborn)

'Emerging'
by ©Susan Bostrom-Wong

'Emerging' appears on the cover of Enemy, Cripple, Beggar. Another incredible painting by Susan Bostrom-Wong will appear on the cover of the forthcoming volume of Fisher King Review, edited by Mark Winborn.

Shared Realities: Participation Mystique and Beyond

Mark Winborn (Editor), Fisher King Press (forthcoming, early 2014)

Shared Realities: Participation Mystique and Beyond brings together Jungian analysts and psychoanalysts from across the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. Jung’s concept of participation mystique is used as a starting point for an in depth exploration of ‘shared realities’ in the analytic setting and beyond. The clinical, narrative, and theoretical discussions move through such related areas as: projective identification, negative coniunctio, reverie, intersubjectivity, the interactive field, phenomenology, neuroscience, the transferential chimera, shamanism, shared reality of place, borderland consciousness, and mystical participation. This unique collection of essays bridges theoretical orientations and includes some of the most original analytic writers of our time (approximately 320 pages).

Contents:

Introduction: An Overview of Participation Mystique 

     Mark Winborn

Negative Coniunctio: Envy and Sadomasochism in Analysis

     Pamela Power

Trauma, Participation Mystique, Projective Identification and Analytic Attitude
     Marcus West

Watching the Clouds: Analytic Reverie and Participation Mystique
     Mark Winborn

Modern Kleinian Therapy, Jung’s Participation Mystique, and the Projective Identification Process
     Robert Waska

Songs Never Heard Before: Listening and Living Differently in Shared Realities
     Dianne Braden

Variants of Mystical Participation
     Michael Eigen

Participation Mystique in Peruvian Shamanism
     Deborah Bryon

Healing Our Split: Participation Mystique and C.G. Jung
     Jerome Bernstein

The Transferential Chimera and Neuroscience
     François Martin-Vallas

Toward a Phenomenology of Participation Mystique and a Reformulation of Jungian Philosophical Anthropology
     John White

Conclusion
     Mark Winborn

A Year of Wisdom

@Benjamin Shiff: Doves of Peace

 

 

"Does not wisdom call? And understanding put forth her voice? She stands at the top of high places by the way, where the paths meet. She cries at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the entrance of the doors. To you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man. O you simple, understand wisdom; and, you fools, be you of an understanding heart." (Proverbs 8)

@Susan Bostrom Wong

Joseph Campbell says,

The mirror, reflecting the goddess and drawing her forth from the august repose of her divine non-manifestation, is symbolic of the world, the field of the reflected image. Therein divinity is pleased to regard its own glory, and this pleasure is itself inducement to the act of manifestation or “creation.” 

"When the mirror is dim, the soul is unclean.” (Japanese proverb)

@Benjamin Shiff: Magic City

Erel Shalit titles 15-45% off directly from Fisher King Press

"The Hero and His Shadow- A Necessary Companion to Ari Shavit's 'My Promised Land'"

Psychiatrist Carl Jung wrote in The Red Book of the distinction between “The Spirit of the Times” and “The Spirit of the Depths”. We see this vividly demonstrated when we put Ari Shavit’s acclaimed new book My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel alongside Erel Shalit’s classic work, The Hero and His Shadow: Psychopolitical Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel.

The former takes us through the history of the heroic creation of Israel, including the darkest “shadow” behaviors of the Jewish state in the 1948 massacre of the Arabs of Lydda.

In the latter work, Erel Shalit tells us why.

This is no simplistic psychological analysis. The brilliance of this Israeli Jungian analyst is that he offers no easy solutions, plumbing the paradox of the necessary heroic identity of the Jewish state, and yet, around every corner is the shadow of every hero: the beggar, the frightened one, the part of all of us that is dependent on forces outside of our control.

It is also very important to note that Erel Shalit’s book is fascinating reading for anyone interested in the inner workings of the soul. On one level Israel is the backdrop for the author to explore how shadow, myth, and projection work in all of us, regardless of our life circumstance, nationality, environment, or history. It even includes a comprehensive glossary of Jungian terms that has some of the best definitions I have ever encountered, and hence a find for readers new to Jung.

And, of course, for people who are fascinated by the scope and depth of the story of Israel, this is a simply great read. It stands alone, but read as a companion to Ari Shavit’s My Promised Land, Erel Shalit’s Hero and His Shadow gives us The Spirit of the Depths in all its dimension. We may not be able to resolve the Arab/Israeli conflict, but we can learn many things from this brave, complex Israeli author, that we can apply to healing the inner and outer wars in our own lives.

Reviewed by Elizabeth Clark-Stern, author of On the Doorstep of the Castle, Out of the Shadows, and Soul Stories.

American Icarus and America on the Couch by Pythia Peay

Pythia Peay is an acclaimed author and Huffington Post and Psychology Today blogger on psychology, spirituality and the American Psyche.

She is the author of forthcoming AMERICAN ICARUS: A MEMOIR OF FATHER AND COUNTRY and AMERICA ON THE COUCH: PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON AMERICAN POLITICS AND CULTURE

American Icarus: A Memoir of Father and Country is the psychobiography of my greatest generation father, Joe Carroll – a flier, a farmer, a dreamer, and an incurable alcoholic – and the American myths that shaped his epic life. In search of the father I’d never really known, I interviewed psychologists and historians, and set out to learn about the people and places who made him and the times he lived in: Altoona and the Pennsylvania Railroad, World War II and the Air Transport Command in Brazil, Buenos Aires, the start-up airline El Al in newly independent Israel, TWA and 1950s Missouri and the cultural upheavals that would drive us apart, Mexico and Corpus Christi, Texas.

America on the Couch: Psychological Perspectives on American Politics and Culture is an inspiring and enlightening collection of interviews with some of the world’s leading psychologists on the historical, archetypal and psychological background of such enduring issues as immigration, war and violence, addiction, the presidency, American-Israeli relations, the economy, the environment, and the classic myths of independence and individuality that shaped my restless, sky-faring father and his homeland. Contributors include James Hillman, Marion Woodman, Erel Shalit, Tom Singer, Andrew Samuels, Mary Pipher, Robert Jay Lifton, Judith Jordan, Nancy Furlotti, Harriet Lerner, Ginette Paris, Luigi Zoja and many more.

1950, Joe Caroll, Pythia's father, in Israel,
standing in front of El Al Airline's first DC 4.

Visit Pythia's Facebook page.

To pre-order your copies of American Icarus and America on the Couch, please visit the Indiegogo site, where you can view the book video, and a "Gallery" of over forty photos and three excerpts from each book.

Read one of Pythia's classic interviews on the American psyche was with Jungian thinker James Hillman on a "Shift in Ages," and his vision of America's future.

Heine's Birthday, December 13

Heinrich Heine was born December 13, 1797, in Dusseldorf. Besides his essays and poetry, he is so well known for instance for his saying ‘Where they burn books, at the end they also burn people.’

The monument by Micha Ullman at Bebelplatz,
where the Nazi book burnings began

The following is a paragraph from Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return

Wandering off in reverie, E. S. came to recall some of those great men, such as Heine, who at the end of their days tried to search their way back, to remember where they came from. True, Heine had said that there was no need for him to return to Judaism, “for in fact I have never abandoned it.” Shimeoni was not really convinced, yet felt embarrassed to argue with good old Heinrich. His prophecy that where books are burned, they will ultimately burn people, was inscribed at the very centre of his psyche. Just like “God was quite delighted by His composition of the woman’s body,” as Heine said, Eli could not but be delighted by H. H.’s Song of Songs. And who knew exile better than Heine, “Does not the oak grow higher in one’s land? Do not the violets sway more gently in that dream?” And was it not Einstein who had said that we Jews had been “too eager to sacrifice our idiosyncrasies in order to conform?”

BBC: Memories pass between generations

Odin with the Corpse of Mimir, painting by
Georg Pauli (1855-1935)

The Norse god, or giant, Mimir, the rememberer, tells us that The Well of Knowledge and Wisdom is guarded by Memory 

The following article appears on BBC 

'Memories' pass between generations, by James Gallagher, December 1, 2013

Behaviour can be affected by events in previous generations which have been passed on through a form of genetic memory, animal studies suggest.

Experiments showed that a traumatic event could affect the DNA in sperm and alter the brains and behaviour of subsequent generations.

A Nature Neuroscience study shows mice trained to avoid a smell passed their aversion on to their "grandchildren".

Experts said the results were important for phobia and anxiety research.

The animals were trained to fear a smell similar to cherry blossom.

The team at the Emory University School of Medicine, in the US, then looked at what was happening inside the sperm.

They showed a section of DNA responsible for sensitivity to the cherry blossom scent was made more active in the mice's sperm.

Both the mice's offspring, and their offspring, were "extremely sensitive" to cherry blossom and would avoid the scent, despite never having experienced it in their lives.

Changes in brain structure were also found.

"The experiences of a parent, even before conceiving, markedly influence both structure and function in the nervous system of subsequent generations," the report concluded.

Family affair

The findings provide evidence of "transgenerational epigenetic inheritance" - that the environment can affect an individual's genetics, which can in turn be passed on.

One of the researchers Dr Brian Dias told the BBC: "This might be one mechanism that descendants show imprints of their ancestor.

"There is absolutely no doubt that what happens to the sperm and egg will affect subsequent generations."

Prof Marcus Pembrey, from University College London, said the findings were "highly relevant to phobias, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorders" and provided "compelling evidence" that a form of memory could be passed between generations.

He commented: "It is high time public health researchers took human transgenerational responses seriously.

"I suspect we will not understand the rise in neuropsychiatric disorders or obesity, diabetes and metabolic disruptions generally without taking a multigenerational approach."

In the smell-aversion study, is it thought that either some of the odour ends up in the bloodstream which affected sperm production or that a signal from the brain was sent to the sperm to alter DNA.

______________________________

It is sometimes surprising how easily we forgot, or how limited we are in an era of specialization. Freud's phylogenetic endowment (e.g. as regards primal scenes), and Jung's entire concept of archetypes, pertain exactly to what here is called "transgenerational epigenetic inheritance."

We might say that Archetype is Memory.

Marcel Proust (1871-1922)

For Marcel Proust, a spoonful of the tea and the taste of the madeleine brings him back to the memory of the old grey house upon the street, and “in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in [the] park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and of its surroundings, taking their proper shapes and growing solid, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, all from my cup of tea.”