6.4.26 | Jorge Luis Borges: The God’s Script | Free Reading Discussion
“The God’s Script,” sometimes translated under the title “The Writing of the God,” is a 1949 short story by the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986). The story concerns a Mayan priest who is imprisoned with a jaguar; the priest comes to realize that his god has hidden magic writing within the jaguar’s skin. “The […]
5.7.26 | Thomas Singer, MD | A Field Guide to American Cultural Complexes: The Battleground of the Splintered American Psyche | Free Reading Discussion
Many Americans today feel overwhelmed and overburdened by the relentless flood of conflicting narratives surging through society. Every headline, opinion page, or dinner-table discussion seems to throb with urgency, distortion, and division. The more implausible the story, the more powerfully it grips the psyche. We are living in a crazy-making environment. Here is an unsettling […]
4.2.26 | Marie-Louise von Franz | C.G. Jung’s Rehabilitation of the Feeling Function in Our Civilization | Free Reading Discussion
This is the provocative, final lecture given in 1986 by Marie-Louise von Franz, a lifelong colleague of C. G. Jung and an accomplished scholar, teacher, analyst, and author. Her theme is Jung’s critique of twentieth century western culture for overvaluing the scientific method and rationalism at the expense of empathy and differentiated relatedness. She argues […]
3.5.26 | Marie-Louise von Franz | The Inferior Function | Free Reading Discussion
In this volume, two world-renowned psychologists, Marie-Louise von Franz and James Hillman, give detailed accounts of C.G. Jung’s personality types. In her essay, “The Inferior Function,” Marie-Louise von Franz shows the inferior shadow side of each of the eight kinds of typical functioning, while James Hillman differentiates in his essay, “The Feeling Function,” genuine feeling […]
2.5.26 | Erich Neumann | The Psyche and the Transformation of the Reality Planes | Free Reading Discussion
The Israeli analytical psychologist Erich Neumann, whom C. G. Jung regarded as one of his most gifted students, devoted much of his later writing to the theme of creativity. This is the third volume of Neumann’s essays on that subject. Neumann found his examples not only in the work of writers and artists—William Blake, Goethe, […]
11.6.25 | Marie-Louise von Franz | The Cat: A Tale of Feminine Redemption | Free Reading Discussion
The Cat is a Romanian fairy tale of some complexity and great charm. It is the story of a princess who at the age of 17 is bewitched-turned into a cat. She must remain in that form until an emperor’s son will come and cut off her head . . . . eventually a simple-minded […]
10.2.25 | Rafael Lopez-Pedraza | Dionysus in Exile | Free Reading Discussion
The internationally renowned Jungian analyst Lopez-Pedraza diagnoses the psychological illness at the core of modern society–the loss of embodied soulfulness in individual’s lives. In this study of the Greek god Dionysus, he offers insight for a cure. Dismemberment and cannibalism, Prometheus and Titanic nature, mystical experience, the communal aspect of Dionysiac worship, jazz, flamenco, and […]
9.4.25 | Euripides | The Bacchae | Free Reading Discussion
Considered by many to be Euripides’s most important work, The Bacchae has been rousing audiences since the fifth century BC. Appearing in human form, the Greek god Dionysus has come to seek vengeance on his mortal cousin, Pentheus, King of Thebes. The Greek ruler has proclaimed that, far from being the son of Zeus, Dionysus […]
8.7.25 | Henri Corbin | Mundus Imaginalis | Free Reading Discussion
Henry Corbin (1903-1978) was a groundbreaking French philosopher, theologian, and Islamicist whose visionary work unveiled the power of the imaginal realm. Corbin’s unique approach synthesized Islamic mysticism, Western philosophy, Jungian psychology, and the perennial wisdom traditions to illumine the transformative potency of creative imagination. His penetrating insights into the mediating realm between matter and spirit […]