Assisi Vision Lecture - Will Watson's Grandchild Write Poetry?

Assisi Institute: The International Center for the Study of Archetypal Patterns The Assisi Vision Lectures 2016 Assisi Institute: The International Center for the Study of Archetypal Patterns invites you to this next in a series of Assisi Vision Lectures, a teleseminar series featuring leaders and scholars of the depth psychological communities from around the world whose work furthers our understanding and appreciation of Psyche and the global significance of archetypal patterns.  If you weren't able to make it to the previous Vision lectures, you can get the links to the recorded sessions. June 16, 2016 8:00 - 9:30 PM EDT Will Watson's Grandchild Write Poetry? Erel Shalit, PhD - Israel We are all witnessing, as well as taking part in the enormous leaps in the cyber development of our era. We have handed over the progress of the world to the brilliant minds of tomorrow, whose bright vision is counterbalanced by apocalyptic fears of the future. The children and the young of today are born into tomorrow's world of multiple realities, and a seemingly boundaryless space of associations and virtuality.   This forces us to reconsider ego-boundaries, reality-testing, soul and interiority, and to discern the pathologies of our era, such as 'photographic reality,' and the transient personality.  N.B. Watson in the title refers to IBM's superior artificial intelligence computer. He (?) can read millions of documents within seconds, and is a Jeopardy quiz winner, having instant access to more encyclopedias than most of us know exist. Dr. Erel Shalit is a Jungian psychoanalyst in Tel Aviv. He is a past Presidentof the Israel Society of Analytical Psychology, founding Director of the Jungian Analytical Psychotherapy Program at Bar Ilan University, and past Director of the Shamai Davidson Community Mental Health Clinic, at the Shalvata Psychiatric Centre in Israel.  He is the author of several books The Cycle of Life: Themes and Tales of the Journey; Enemy, Cripple & Beggar: Shadows in the Hero's Path; The Complex: Path of Transformation from Archetype to Ego; The Hero and His Shadow: Psychopolitical Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel, and the novella Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return; and with Nancy Swift Furlotti, he has edited The Dream and its Amplification. He is the editor of Jacob and Esau: On the Collective Symbolism of the Brother Motif, a previously unpublished book by Erich Neumann, and Turbulent Times, Creative Minds - Erich Neumann and C.G. Jung in Relationship, co-edited with Murray Stein, as well as the author of a forth coming book on The Human Soul in Transition, at the Dawn of a New Era. Register Today! Register for individual teleseminars for $20 or save and register for the series for just $69 (All teleseminars are recorded and available for listening at your convenience) Call us today to register!  (860) 415-5004 Visit our website for more exciting programs and free webinar and teleseminar offerings! www.assisiinstitute.com The Assisi Institute: The International Center for the Study of Archetypal Patterns | (860) 415-500

Europe’s Many Souls: Exploring Cultural Complexes and Identities

Europe’s Many Souls: Exploring Cultural Complexes and Identities

by Joerg Rasche and Thomas Singer

ISBN: 9781935528746

454 pp.

What is going on in Europe? In this book a number of outstanding Jungian Analysts explore the Cultural Complexes and Identities of their European homelands and nations. This is a new approach to old questions: What makes a people feel at home? How do their traditions and narratives form a cultural Self and identity? How do they differ from one another? Exploring cultural complexes as a part of answering these important questions requires knowledge of history, economics, sociology, anthropology, geography, psychology, religious studies, literature and poetry. But as every complex is built around an emotional core, the study of how cultural complexes live in the psyche is not limited to these disciplines. Each author and reader engages in a confrontation with their emotions, prejudices, and projections. The shape that the ideas and feelings of a cultural complex take in the psyche can be inchoate, rapidly shifting and yet paradoxically long standing, and often quite immune and impermeable to the reason that traditional disciplines of thought would impose on them. These cultural complexes do not necessarily provide a coherent or linear sequencing of facts and events because that is not how they actually exist and function in the psyche of individuals and groups. At the same time, cultural complexes shape what it means to be a citizen of a particular city, region, or country of Europe. They contribute to Europe’s Many Souls.

Contributors Britain-Jules Cashford, Greece-Evangelos Tsempelis, Russia-Elena Volodina, Spain, Olivia del Castillo, Czech Republic-Martin Skála, Poland-Malgorzata Kalinowska, Switzerland-Angela Graf-Nold, Germany & Russia-Gert Sauer, Serbia-Marijana Popovic & Jelena Sladojevic Matic, Denmark-Pia Skogemann, Italy-Caterina Vezzoli, Austria-Maria Kendler, Italy-Marta Tibaldi, Europe-Joerg Rasche, Europe-Erel Shalit, Europe-Kristina Schellinski

*****

Praise for Europe’s Many Souls Qualities of passion and intellectual coherence co-exist in this extraordinary book, itself a product of history, politics, psychology and—often—personal experience and suffering. But what about the timing? Europe is in its deepest crisis since the Second World War and, in the absence of any credible solutions from conventional politics, depth psychology and the idea of cultural complexes are entitled to step into the breach. There is more: By assembling authors from so many different nations, Joerg Rasche and Tom Singer have created a special European union before our very eyes. They, and their stellar team of authors, have not only analysed the continental lines of conflict and war, but have also made noteworthy contributions to the achievement of peace-in-diversity. PROFESSOR ANDREW SAMUELS, AUTHOR OF A NEW THERAPY FOR POLITICS? This is a remarkable and original book and should be read by all those interested in Europe from historical, personal and cultural perspectives, including the roots of European conflicts and their implications for present-day issues. The authors are Jungian analysts or academics from different parts of Europe, and the book’s theoretical underpinning is the concept of cultural complexes, exploring their relevance, dynamics, positive and shadow aspects in individual countries. The editors, Joerg Rasche and Thomas Singer, and the publisher, Spring Journal Books, are to be congratulated for their vision in publishing at this time a book of high quality essays when contemporary Europe is in flux: struggling with its identity; with who belongs and who is excluded; with managing more flexible boundaries, especially challenging with the huge influx of refugees seeking sanctuary in European countries. JAN WIENER, DIRECTOR OF TRAINING, SOCIETY OF ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY, LONDON; FORMER CO-CHAIR OF THE IAAP, EDUCATION COMMITTEE WITH RESPONSIBILITY FOR EASTERN EUROPE. This book on Europe and its cultural complexes is both profound and perfectly timed. The individual articles are outstandingly written by authors who have a deep understanding of Jung and analytical psychology, and know how to connect that knowledge with the problems that Europe faces today. The viewpoints represented are essential to understanding the history of the different European countries and helpful in understanding why they are in such turmoil now. I highly recommend it. THOMAS B. KIRSCH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY.

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTIONS THOMAS SINGER JOERG RASCHE I. SOUL, IDENTITY, AND CULTURAL COMPLEXES IN INDIVIDUAL EUROPEAN COUNTRIES 1 BRITAIN BRITAIN: AUTONOMY AND INSULARITY IN AN ISLAND RACE JULES CASHFORD 2 GREECE THE INNER RIDDLE OF “GREEK PSYCHIC DEBT” EVANGELOS TSEMPELIS 3 RUSSIA THE MYSTERIOUS RUSSIAN SOUL ELENA VOLODINA 4 SPAIN THE CATALAN VAULT: THE TRANSFORMATION OF A PERSONAL AND CULTURAL COMPLEX OLIVIA DEL CASTILLO 5 CZECH REPUBLIC THE FOREFATHER CULTURAL COMPLEX BETWEEN KAFKA AND MEYRINK: WHY DIDN’T JOSEF K. GET TO THE CASTLE AND WHY DID ATHANASIUS PERNATH ENTER A ROOM WITHOUT A DOOR? MARTIN SKÁLA 6 POLAND THE SUFFERING HERO AND MESSIANISM IN A POLISH CULTURAL COMPLEX MALGORZATA KALINOWSKA 7 SWITZERLAND SWITZERLAND’S “INTIMATE TRAGEDY”—JUNG’S “BASIC ROUGHNESS” COUNT KEYSERLING’S ENCOUNTER WITH JUNG AND SWITZERLAND ANGELA GRAF-NOLD 8 GERMANY AND RUSSIA ABOUT TWO CULTURAL COMPLEXES THE GERMAN COMPLEX OF SUPERIORITY AND THE RUSSIAN COMPLEX OF FEELING ENCIRCLED BY HUNGRY BARBARIANS GERT SAUER 9 SERBIA BELGRADE: LIMES AND THE CITY HERMENEUTICS OF BELGRADE’S SOUL MARIJANA POPOVIĆ AND JELENA SLADOJEVIĆ MATIĆ II. DAUGHTERS OF THE ASIAN PRINCESS—THE FEMININE IN EUROPE 10 DENMARK MOTHER DENMARK PIA SKOGEMANN 11 ITALY QUEENS, SAINTS, HERETICS, PROSTITUTES: WOMEN IN ITALY CATERINA VEZZOLI 12 AUSTRIA SISI: A FIGURE OF MULTIPLE PROJECTIONS MARIA KENDLER 13 ITALY THE “SMALL MOTHER COMPLEX” AND THE ROYAL FEMININE MARTA TIBALDI III. THE GREATER EUROPEAN FAMILY: CULTURAL COMPLEXES IN ALL EUROPEAN COUNTRIES 14 EUROPE THE JEWISH ANIMA: ABOUT THE CHRISTIAN-JEWISH COMPLEX IN EUROPE JOERG RASCHE 15 ISRAEL MY EUROPEAN ANIMUS EREL SHALIT 16 EUROPE THE GHOSTS OF TWO WORLD WARS: IS THE REPLACEMENT CHILD PART OF A CULTURAL COMPLEX IN THE EUROPEAN PSYCHE? KRISTINA SCHELLINSKI 17 EUROPE EUROPE AND ISLAM: A PARADIGM OF ACTIVATED CULTURAL COMPLEXES JOERG RASCHE

Contributors’ biographies: Thomas Singer, M.D. is a Jungian analyst and psychiatrist. After studying religion and European literature at Princeton University, he graduated from Yale Medical School and later trained at Dartmouth Medical Center and the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. Dr. Singer is editor of The Analytical Psychology and Contemporary Cultural Series for Spring Journal Books, where he has developed a series of volumes exploring cultural complexes around the world. He is current President of National ARAS, an archive of symbolic imagery (ARAS.org). His writings include articles on Jungian theory, politics, and psychology, and he has written and/or edited the following books:Who’s the Patient Here? (Oxford University Press, 1978, with Stuart Copans), A Fan’s Guide to Baseball Fever (Elijim Publications, 1991, with Stuart Copans), The Vision Thing (Routledge, 2000),The Cultural Complex (Routledge, 2004, with Samuel Kimbles), Initiation: The Living Reality of An Archetype (Routledge, 2007, with Thomas Kirsch and Virginia Beane Rutter), Psyche and the City(Spring, 2010), Ancient Greece, Modern Psyche: Archetypes in the Making (Spring, 2011, with Virginia Beane Rutter), Placing Psyche: Exploring Cultural Complexes in Australia (Spring, 2011),Listening to Latin America (Spring, 2012), and Ancient Greece, Modern Psyche: Archetypes Evolving (Routledge, 2015, with Virginia Beane Rutter). Dr. Joerg Rasche, Jungian analyst, trained in Berlin and Zurich where he studied sandplay therapy with Dora Kalff. Dr. Rasche is a child psychiatrist, working in private practice in Berlin. He served for many years as president of the German Jungian Association (DGAP) and was vice-president of IAAP. Currently he is president of the German Association for Sandplay Therapy (DGST). Also a trained musician, he has published many papers and some books on mythology, music, sandplay therapy, and analytical psychology, as well as serving on the board of various Jungian journals. Dr. Rasche has taught in Central European countries for many years and is a training analyst for IAAP. Dr. Rasche was honored for his work on reconciliation between the Polish and German people by the Polish President who presented him with the Golden Cross of Merit. He gives concerts and lectures around the world. He is married and has three adult children. Jules Cashford studied philosophy and literature, and trained with the Association of Jungian Analysts, in London. Her books include The Moon: Myth and Image, The Mysteries of Osiris, a translation of The Homeric Hymns, and, co-authored, The Myth of the Goddess. She has made two films on Jan van Eyck. Evangelos Tsempelis grew up in Athens, Greece. Co-founder of Stillpoint Spaces (www.stillpointspaces.com), Evangelos currently lives in Zürich, where he works in private practice as a psychoanalytic counselor. Elena Volodina (IAAP, RSAP) lives and works in Moscow, Russia, where she maintains a practice as a Jungian analyst. She is a senior lecturer in the Department of Analytical Psychology at the State Academic University of Humanitarian Sciences in Moscow. She also serves as a visiting/teaching analyst for the Bulgarian Jungian Developing Group. Olivia del Castillo (Spain) is a clinical psychologist, training analyst, supervisor, and former president of SEPA. She is actively involved in teaching and disseminating analytical psychology in Spain and in writing and publishing articles. Ms. del Castillo is in private practice in Barcelona and Madrid. Martin Skála is a Jungian analyst and supervisor who studied psychology at the Charles University in Prague, in the former Czechoslovakia. He is a board member of the Czech Society for Analytical Psychology and a member of the International Association for Analytical Psychology. He also serves as head of Psychopompos, a center of depth psychology in Prague where he lectures and offers workshops. Malgorzata Kalinowska is a Jungian analyst (IAAP IM) and a founding member of the Polish Association for Jungian Analysis. She works in private practice in Czeladz, Poland. Malgorzata studies relationships between trauma and culture, especially in the context of Central European history. She focuses on the transcultural dimension of analytical training and translates books on analytical psychology into Polish. Angela Graf-Nold, Ph.D., born in Freiburg i. Br./Germany, has lived with her Swiss husband and family in Zürich since 1974. She studied psychology at the University of Zürich, specializing in the history of psychology and psychotherapy, especially in Switzerland. She held several research positions in various departments at the University of Zürich, including the Department for Child Psychiatry and the Psychiatric Clinic (Burghölzli); from 2004–2010, and she worked as a researcher and Philemon scholar at the Institute for Medical History at the University of Zürich on the edition of C. G. Jung’s lectures at the ETH (Swiss Federal Institute) Zürich. She is also a licensed psychotherapist in private practice. Her publications include a history of child psychoanalysis (Der Fall Hermine v. Hug-Hellmuth: A History of Early Child Psychoanalysis, Verl. Intern Psychoanalyse, 1988), as well as book chapters and articles about Sabina Spielrein and other controversies and debates about Freud and Jung with other pioneering academic psychiatrists and scientists of their time. Gert Sauer is a psychotherapist and Jungian psychoanalyst who likes to wonder about the miracles of the human, animal, and cosmic psyche. He harbors the sometimes crazy notion that there are issues in individual and collective crises that can be understood by persistent, careful attention. Desperately fighting with his own and others’ blindness, Gert Sauer works and teaches in Freiburg, Germany, as well serving as a senior analyst and supervisor at the Institute for Analytical Psychology in Stuttgart. He has been married for fifty years to Rodtraud, with whom he has three children and five grandchildren. Gert and Rodtraud support the development of analytical psychology in Eastern Europe in the hopes of increasing Western understanding of Eastern Europe and Eastern understanding of Western Europe. Marijana Popović, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, and supervisor, as well as a member of the International Association for Analytical Psychology. Her Ph.D. dissertation was on the use of fairytales in psychotherapy. She is a member of the European Association of Psychotherapists (EAP) and a member of a Serbian Developing Group. Since 1998, she has worked in the field of psychological assessment and psychotherapy, and she translates Jungian literature from English to Serbian. Jelena Sladojević Matić, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, and supervisor, as well as a member of the International Association for Analytical Psychology. Her Ph.D. dissertation was on “The Shadow and Its Importance in Analytical, Therapeutic and Diagnostic Work.” She is a member of the European Association of Psychotherapists (EAP) and a former president of the Serbian Developing Group. Since 2000 she has worked as a psychotherapist in private practice. Pia Skogemann is a Jungian analyst in private practice in Denmark. She has an M.A. in religion from the University of Copenhagen and is a founding member, teacher, and supervisor at the C. G. Jung Institute Copenhagen. She is the author of numerous articles and books, including Where the Shadows Lie (Chiron, 2009) and The Double Coniunjctio Tales (Daimon, Schweiz, 2013). Caterina Vezzoli is a Jungian analyst in private practice, living and working in Milan. She is a member of CIPA Southern Institute, a training analyst at C. G. Jung Institute Zürich, and a visiting supervisor in Tunisia. She is a teacher and supervisor at different institutions and at the University of Milan. Maria Kendler, originally Austrian, studied German literature at the University of Vienna and worked as a high-school teacher for several years. In 1994, she moved to Switzerland, studied psychology at the University of Lausanne, and today is a psychotherapist in a private practice. Maria Kendler practices and teaches sandplay therapy in several European countries. Currently, she is president of the Swiss Sandplay Society (SGSST) and is editor of Sandspiel-Therapie, the Swiss-German journal for sandplay therapy. Marta Tibaldi is a Jungian analyst of the Associazione Italiana di Psicologia Analitica (AIPA) and of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP). A training analyst and supervisor in Rome and Hong Kong, she is also Training Supervisor of C. G. Jung Zurich and Liaison Person of the IAAP Developing Group in Hong Kong. She is the author of many articles and essays. Her recent publications include Oltre il cancro: Trasformare creativamente la malattia che temiamo di più(Moretti & Vitali, 2010) and Pratica dell’immaginazione attiva (La Lepre, 2011). She is the author of the blog “C. G. Jung’s Analytical Psychology between Italy and China” (http//: martatibaldi.blogspot.com). Erel Shalit is a Jungian psychoanalyst in Israel and past president of the Israel Society of Analytical Psychology. He is Founding Director of the Analytical Psychotherapy Program at Bar-Ilan University. He chaired the Jung-Neumann Conference in 2015 and has authored several books, among themThe Cycle of Life; Requiem; Enemy, Cripple, Beggar; and The Hero and His Shadow. He edited, with Nancy Swift Furlotti, The Dream and Its Amplification, and with Murray Stein, Turbulent Times, Creative Minds—Erich Neumann and C. G. Jung in Relationship. Kristina Schellinski, M.A., in Political Science/Literature, graduated from the C. G. Jung Institute in Küsnacht, Switzerland. She is a teaching analyst/supervisor with ISAP, Zürich and a member of the C. G. Jung Institute, and she served as an International Civil Servant for UNICEF from 1983 to 1998. Schellinski has a private practice in Geneva and is a consultant supervisor with the Geneva University Hospital Department of Psychiatry. She has published in international journals and is currently writing a book on the replacement child. An excerpt from "My European Animus": ...  My parents never met in Germany. At thirteen, my mother was thrown out of the illusion of enlightened Mosaic assimilation. The light was turned off, crashing into the black hole of shattered glass at Kristallnacht, walking through the night in the streets of her childhood’s Hamburg. She never really arrived at morning’s light, perhaps because she didn’t meet Dr. Brod. For the rest of her life, she would wait for him, always prepared, dressed up for his arrival. My father, a broken link in a long chain of rabbis, crossed Nazi Germany on his way to work on a farm. He was saved by an unknown, righteous officer at the Gestapo HQ, who shouted at him that German word, which otherwise evokes such horrendous connotations—herauss, get out! And so I learned that just like evil dwells in all of us, the spark of goodness may be found in evil’s darkest cellar. My father was a man who set out on his road but never arrived at his destination. Thrown into disarray by the losses, his mother turned into the ashes of Auschwitz, his grandmother dying in Theresienstadt’s shadow of deception, he tried to create a life for his offspring. On his way to the kibbutz in the Land of Israel, his wings had lost their wind and his legs, stifled into clay, remained stuck in the charred earth of Europe. ...

The coming of death and life - from Navajo mythology

From Aileen O'Bryan: Navaho Indian Myths

Now the earth, which had been stretched, became solid, and the rivers flowed. Trees grew along the banks of the rivers, and flowers grew at the foot of the mountains with the rocks and the cliffs and other trees above them. The Mother Earth was very beautiful.
p. 31
But just when everything on the earth was good and beautiful the people saw the first death. They remembered what the Sun had said. He had claimed the lives of all the living in payment for his light. The people wondered where the dead would go. "Is there another country?" they asked among themselves.
Now there came two beings called Alke'na ashi, Made Again, who looked like the Yei. They were sent to the East to look for the dead body. They returned and said that they had not seen it. They were sent to the South and they brought back the same report. They were sent to the West and the North without success. They were asked to look into the Yellow World where they had come from. As they were about to start they felt the flesh around their knees pinched; but they went on. They had a strange feeling of sound, like a rale, in their throats. They felt rather than heard this sound, but they went on. Then there was a sensation in their noses, like an odor, but they went on to the place of emergence, and they looked down. Way below them there was someone combing his hair. He looked up and gave a little whistle, and they both experienced a strange feeling.
When the Alke'na ashi returned from the lower world they said that they had seen the spirit of the one who had died. They told just what they had felt and seen.
They warned the others saying that they must not try to return to the Country of the Past for it was not well to experience such sensations nor to see such things; and if in the future someone were to hear a whistle when no one was about that whistle came from an evil source, and a prayer should be said at once. If anyone should be so unfortunate as to see their double, or the form of a near relative in a vision, it would be a sign that dangerous things were about to befall them. Should this happen a chant must be held and prayers said in order to ward off the trouble.
The First People thought a great deal about this person's dying.
It had been First Man's and First Woman's plan to have everyone live forever. There was to have been no death. They could not understand this thing; and they were not satisfied.
First Man and First Woman got a piece of hard, black wood. They made a smooth pole of it, and pointed it, as an arrow is pointed.

p. 32
Its length was the distance from a tall man's fingertip to his heart. After this pole was fashioned they dressed it; and they carried it on their shoulders to a lake. It was their plan to cast it into the water, and if the pole floated to the shore there would be no death; but if it sank down into the water, then death would remain. Now just as they raised it to cast it into the water the Coyote came to them. They saw that he carried a big stone ax. As they cast the pole into the water he threw the stone ax, saying: "Unless this stone ax returns to the surface there will be death." Now the stone ax remained in the lake, but the pole which First Man and First Woman had shaped and dressed returned to the shore. So it was decided that, although there would be death among the people of the earth, sometimes the very ill would recover because the log had floated back to the shore.

Netanyahu exposed as the neo-fascist leader he is

For quite some time we know and have seen how Netanyahu’s extreme right-wing leanings have guided him through years of destructive leadership. But even opposition leader Itzhak Herzog was willing, perhaps for political as well as personal reasons, to give Netanyahu a last chance to turn the tide of history.

Herzog’s attempt to join the government was probably as naïve as it was desperate. And Netanyahu played a simple and clever political trick, now ending up with the feral Avigdor Lieberman as his Minister of Defense, nailing down what is the most extreme right-wing government in Israel’s history.

Netanyahu, who prior to the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin marched behind a symbolic coffin of the PM-to-be-murdered, and who carries the moral if not the criminal guilt of instigation, has now finally accomplished the political goal of a neo-fascist government –based on an authoritarian rather than a democratic state of mind, narrowly ultra-nationalistic and on the path to destroy the institutions that keep the vulnerable democratic balance of society intact. This includes the legal system, as well as the military, who, not surprisingly to most democratic-minded Israelis but perhaps surprisingly to outsiders, is a bastion of broadminded, ethical and civilized leadership.

Much of Israeli society is surprisingly healthy. But pathology is nearly always stronger than health. And so, particularly under the extremist leadership of the master-trickster Netanyahu, the extremist groups among the most fanatical settlers, have received an informal position of instrumental leadership, due to the consent of the political leadership. Those are the state-threatening extremists that the Deputy Chief of the General Staff bravely spoke about on Holocaust Remembrance Day. And it is NOT this brave soldier’s pointing the finger at the problem that serves Israel’s enemies, but the horrors of those extremists that Netanyahu is unwilling to reign in.

General Yair Golan

Rather than reigning in the extremists, such as the so-called hilltop youth, the neo-fascist government of Netanyahu wants to reign in the voices of sanity.

hilltop youth

But there are many voices of sanity in Israel. Even though Herzog has grossly failed as leader of opposition, many of his thoughts are right. Thus, for instance, the Palestinian have several times rejected the possibility of statehood, a state in peace with and alongside Israel, falling victim to their own desire of ethnic cleansing of the Jewish population and replacing Israel with an Arab state. Thus new ideas and solutions, including disengagement from civilian occupation, must be raised.

This is the hour where the voice of sanity must be raised not only by the general public, not merely by the opposition (even in its hour of crisis), but even by those who have kept their sanity and democratic state of mind within the coalition. Right-wing Likud MK Benny Begin has already done so, calling the idea to appoint Lieberman Minister of Defense ‘bizarre.’ The time has come for deposed Minister of Defense Ya’alon, as well as the center-right party Kulanu to leave the coalition, and expose the neo-fascist right-wing under Netanyahu’s leadership for what it is – destructive in every way to Israel as a civilized, peace-seeking democracy.

the many voices of sanity

Two of my books relate particularly to the psycho-politics of Israel, The Hero and His Shadow, and aspects of the Israeli experience, Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return (also in Hebrew). All of my books (including in Hebrew) can be purchased at Amazon, where you also find brief reviews of several of the books. Any interest in my books is a welcome gift to me, and hopefully, a contribution to the reader as well.

Jacob and Esau - now in French translation

En 1934, Erich Neumann quitte l'Allemagne nazie pour la Palestine. C'est alors qu'il élabore, en correspondance avec C. G. Jung dont il est un fervent disciple, et en marge d'une longue méditation sur le hassidisme, ce texte fondamental sur Jacob et Esaü. A partir de Bereshit (Genèse) et des midrasch, les jumeaux ennemis sont décrits comme un couple d'opposés. L'un, Jacob, introverti et lunaire, représente le monde intérieur et sacré ; l'autre, Esaü, extraverti et solaire, le monde extérieur et profane, celui de la puissance. L'un, Jacob, représente le peuple juif, et même la " quintessence du juif ", l'autre, Esaü, le domaine des nations. Cependant, chacun constitue l'ombre de l'autre, son bouc émissaire mais aussi son complémentaire, et leur réconciliation porte la promesse d'une totalité recouvrée. A travers deux grandes figures bibliques, Erich Neumann montre ainsi que la psychologie analytique - à la différence de la psychanalyse, et grâce au concept d'inconscient collectif - permet de comprendre de façon non réductrice la culture et la religion d'un peuple. Cet ouvrage doit être considéré comme une incitation remarquable à la redécouverte du judaïsme.

Amazon France

Intermezzo

During the Jung Neumann Conference April 24-26, 2015, we had an opportunity to hear the Kibbutz Choir perform. Thanks to Hugh Milstein, here is a brief clip from their performance.

For those of you who have the opportunity, I will be chairing a Jung Neumann symposium which will be held, June 24-26, 2016, at Pacifica;

Creative Minds in Dialogue: the Relationship between C. G. Jung and Erich Neumann

The symposium will feature internationally acclaimed speakers, including Riccardo Bernardini, Lionel Corbett, Nancy Furlotti, Ann Lammers, Lance Owens, Rina Porat, Susan Rowland, Erel Shalit, Evan Lansing Smith, Murray Stein and Steve Zemmelman.

The recent publication of the correspondence between C.G. Jung and Erich Neumann has brought renewed interest in both the creative relationship between Jung and Neumann, and Neumann’s contributions to Analytical Psychology. Months before his own death, Jung mourns Neumann as his “friend and companion on the way,” elsewhere saying that he only had two friends, Victor White and Erich Neumann.

The symposium will celebrate the unique contributions of Jung and Neumann, with original presentations. Murray Stein and Riccardo Bernardini from Eranos will be among the several prominent presenters, on topics ranging from creativity, art, Jung/Neumann and their impact on culture and the post-modern world, to anima and the great mother, and God, good and evil.

The presenters will also lead discussions, with the participation of the attendees.

For further details, please click here

Newly released: Erich Neumann, Jacob and Esau: On the collective symbolism of the brother motif, available at Amazon.

Forthcoming: Turbulent Times, Creative Minds: The relationship between Erich Neumann and C.G. Jung (eds. Erel Shalit and Murray Stein).

The Cycle of Life - David van Nuys interviews Erel Shalit - transcription

You can now listen to David van Nuys from Shrink Rap Radio interviewing Erel Shalit about

The Cycle of Life

You find the audio interview on the Shrink Rap Radio website.

A transcription of the interview has now also been uploaded, here.

Painting by Benjamin Shiff

A Magnificent Book for All Interested in the Journey of Life

by Lori Goldrich, Ph.D., Jungian Analyst and Clinical Psychologist

It is with great pleasure that I review Erel Shalit’s marvelous book. To begin, I feel so moved by the synchronous events that led to his finding of the book’s cover, or “face.” Benjamin Shiff’s painting “Life” and the meaning he gives for this marriage of book and painting are quite exquisite. “The candle’s soft light of life is poised against the painful inevitability of burning out. Yet, as long as they burn, there are shades and colors; there are the distinct faces of transient existence, and there are those of obscurity, hidden in distant nature; there is a lyrical melancholy, as well as a tense harmony…Only an unlit candle will never burn out. A fully lived life extracts the awareness of its finality.” These words are like pearls for the journey he takes us on in The Cycle of Life.

I also appreciate the ground he creates by discussing fate and destiny as a “primary tenet,” or underpinning of his book. When we let the tides of our fate and our destiny flow together into a union of opposites, meaning can be found. What begins as our fate can so often become a part of our destiny, which he so aptly discusses in his book. I have found this to be an important foundational principle, both personally and in my analytic work with patients. “On our journey through life, an incessant tension prevails between predetermined fate and free will, between archetypal patterns as opposed to individual distinctiveness.” So well stated!

Erel Shalit truly succeeds in describing the different stages of life in a way that keeps the reader interested and engaged. The weaving of psychological and theoretical perspectives from Freud to Klein to Winnicott to Neumann to Jung, and others, along with the wisdom from various disciplines including philosophy, literature, religion, and myth, is presented in such a way that both clinician and layperson can deepen in experience and knowledge. I especially appreciate his discussion of how the focus on archetypal images and experience can release the energy that lives in the deeper stratas of the psyche to assist in the transformation of psyche, body and spirit.

I also want to share a personal delight while reading Erel’s book. I always enjoy exploring the precise meaning of Hebrew words, and I so enjoyed his inclusion of this for select words and names. It “makes the connection between word and image comparatively close.” It is also reflective of the depth of attention he brings to his writing.

Erel Shalit has written a truly magnificent piece of work. It is a book for all those interested in the Journey. At the beginning of his book, he offers us the image of the “river” and writes from Plato, “While the river preserves its identity, it is incessantly moving and changing, simultaneously being and becoming.” As I read his book, I can truly experience the being and becoming on the journey of life.

'Life' by Benjamin Schiff