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When problems seem overwhelming, the Trickster archetype often is called for. I’ve long been fascinated by its potential for liberation or con artistry. In fact, my doctoral dissertation looked at Trickster figures in books like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Catch-22, and Invisible Man. Dionysus, in my new book, Persephone Rising, is one also. This blog is triggered by Donald Trump’s candidacy, but it actually is about much more. All the attention on him suggests to me that the Trickster arch

"I tried to give expression to the process as it formed in me. I followed the unconscious directives without preconception as to where they might lead, allowing them as far as possible to create their own picture. The result was both a story and an example, an analogy, of Jung's model: a description of how psychic energy flows toward unconscious aims through the elaboration of ideas." --  A Mid-Life Perspective: Conversations With The Unconscious

Jung began his empirical investigations of the psy

Dr. Lance Owens has dedicated the past thirty or more years of his life to studying C.G. Jung, whose willingness to engage with and understand his visionary experiences has transformed so many lives. Owens has also recently become profoundly interested in the life and work of Erich Neumann, who was arguably one of Jung’s most gifted students, and who eventually became a close friend of Jung’s. Through the influence of Jung, Neumann made his own creative and compelling contributions to the field

I would like to conduct a psychological experiment.

Major Presuppositions

       Computational Theory of Mind

       Reductionism

Methodology

       Binary

       If Then (Diamond Flowchart Symbol)

The If Then in computer systems \ intelligence is Jean Paul Sartre's... "Humans are condemned to be free..." What Sartre was saying is that Humans must make choices; as do most, if not all, biological organisms.

Supposition

If

The conclusion that Jean Piaget formulates; namely, that the direction of biological

So excited to share with you our newest publication! It is coming Monday June 6, 2016.

The mandate of Inner City Books has always been to publish Studies in Jungian Psychology by Jungian Analysts, and "to promote the understanding and practical application of the work of C.G. Jung."

Title #144 is an invitation to an individual experience of word and image.

More soon -- watch this space!

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In 1990, the renowned depth psychologist and author Thomas Moore published a book entitled Dark Eros: The imagination of sadism. In this book, Moore offers a series of extraordinary insights into the deeper aspects of sadism that regard our darker nature as a reflection of the soul. It is this relationship between sadism and nature that I’d like to ponder here.

Moore proposes that there is a difficult necessity we encounter in our own impulses to be agents of cruelty, corruption, domination, and

Islamophobia in America: A Case Study

of the Scapegoat Archetype  

"A majority may not impose its religious values on others, nor limit minority religious rights. The fact that a majority of Americans do not share the beliefs of a minority faith does not make those beliefs and practices any less protected. Unless all Americans are assured of religious freedom, the freedom of all Americans is in question...Good citizenship includes the civic duty to uphold religious freedom for all. Religious l

The idea of limitless growth is the most destructive myth of our times, began Dr. Vandana Shiva, in her inspiring plenary talk at “Climates of Change and a Therapy of Ideas,” Pacifica’s recent 40^th anniversary conference held on the Ladera campus in Santa Barbara, CA.

Vandana Shiva, who trained as a physicist at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, is Founder and Director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology and for Navdanya, the movement for seed saving and ecolo

I have joined this site because I would like to communicate some of the extreme experiences I now feel free to relate to others.

I am approaching seventy years of existing in whatever this is.
I am a retired secondary school teacher.
I experience bipolar one disorder.

My first institutional psycharistic intervention occurred in my early twenties. My second occurred a few years later. A major depression was experienced following this second intervention and I attempted suicide by hanging only to gain

He was Busy Mouse, Searching Everywhere, Touching his Whiskers to the Grass, and Looking. He was Busy as all Mice are, Busy with Mice things. But Once in a while he would Hear an Odd Sound. He would Lift his Head, Squinting hard to See, his Whiskers Wiggling in the air, and he would Wonder.

So begins the ancient story of Jumping Mouse and the Sacred River, an Amerindian story, published in Seven Arrows (1976) and handed down by Cheyenne Elder Hyemeyohsts Storm to the rites of passage guides at T

A book review of Evan Hanks book A Mid-Life Perspective: Conversations with the Unconscious: A Subjective Study of Science, Religion, and Consciousness

Individuation, the blossoming of individuality, is one of the major themes of Jungian psychology. Jung’s empirical observations of his own and his patients’ interactions with the unconscious contents of the psyche led him to conclude that the concept of individuation was a key to understanding and making sense of this experience. He also recognize

...Whether confronting, petitioning, courting, speaking more directly or wooing, the theme here when walking one step in front of the other into a quest for new consciousness, healing and wholeness, is that this is a relationship we are entering and engaging—and thus we proceed accordingly. So by all means introduce yourself!  Give thanks, inquire with patience, persistence, grace and humility. Perhaps with impatience?! Make a plea, offer a prayer, lament the distance you feel between yourself a

Medicine person Wanbli Mato, (Frank) Eagle Bear, tended to the extraordinary healing of thousands of people in his lifetime with the ritual use of sacred stones. These stones, material embodiments of the Anima Mundi, or Soul of the World, he carried in various places inside his own body, and were the prima materia with which he channeled healing for the soul and body.The stones literally spoke to him and helped him see the ailment of the afflicted person then guided him to the appropriate medici

rummaging through the dust bins I found this poem based on a dream, which I wrote almost 2 years ago. At the time the ending didn't fit or feel quite right.

Perhaps evidence that feelings like language or dreams are not static ? Yet there is something also eternal.

Almost two years later this ending feels more accurate/complete. Maybe that is as good as "it" gets?

Between 21st and 24th April this year, I attended the conference ‘Climates of Change and the Therapy of Ideas’ held at the Pacifica Graduate Institute, Santa Barbara, California.

The conference featured a number of philosophically and psychologically oriented speakers who have featured before in this blog such as Richard Tarnas from the California Institute of Integral Studies as well as political activists like Chris Hedges and Vandana Shiva.

Part of my reason in travelling so far to this confere

(This is a blog post I wrote for the Jung Society of Utah, and can be found in its entirety here.)

Projections change the world into the replica of one’s own unknown face.”
– C.G. Jung

Projections are images we have of others, which are generated by the psyche and based in our own fears, desires, impulses, and unresolved issues, most of which are unconscious. Jung wrote, “We must bear in mind that we do not make projections, rather they happen to us.” Projection happens when we are “certain we kno

Part Four – 1999 to the Present

The man who crawled under a hail of bullets in 1992 to save the Sarajevo Haggadah is profoundly sad. He says Bosnian culture survived the war, but he’s not sure it can survive the peace. Enver Imamovic doesn’t know what the fate of the Haggadah will be, and he knows that the government doesn’t care.

The 1995 peace agreement that ended the Bosnian war split the nation along ethnic lines into two semi-autonomous parts linked by a weak central government and guided by

"Overwhelming evidence found by an international team of scientists have shown that humans have altered the Earth to the point that the Earth has entered a new geological time period, a press release by the Australian National University (ANU) said on Friday... The exact starting date of the Anthropocene remains uncertain, although it is likely to be around the middle of the 20th century, at the start of the nuclear age and a time of accelerating population growth and rapid industrialisation."  

Ecotherapy: Nature Reconnection as a Powerful, Transformational Healing Practice: A Short Interview with Linda Buzzell

by Bonnie Bright

If the name, Linda Buzzell, sounds familiar to you, it’s no surprise—particularly if you are moved as I am by the growing ecological crisis that is unfolding around us. Linda Buzzell, MA, LMFT, PDC (Permaculture Design Certificate) has been a psychotherapist for more than 30 years and has specialized in ecopsychology and ecotherapy since 2000. She co-edited the 2

If we take the alchemical maxim "As Above, So Below" seriously, we should be able to find correlations between the structure of the psyche and other natural systems. This should also apply for the domain we call the shadow.  In my own work I have extrapolated the biological relationship profile we call parasitism onto the shadow of the psyche and found great similarities.  The active component of the shadow can be seen in terms of parasitic relationships.  Here is a video where I lay out this th