C. G. Jung: His Myth in Our Time (Studies in Jungian Psychology by Jungian Analysts) [Paperback]

Marie-Luise von Franz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1998 | Series: Studies in Jungian Psychology by Jungian Analysts

Both a unique biographical portrait of Jung, as a person and as an intellectual pioneer, and a history of the growth and development of one person's creative powers, this book is a facsimile edition of a volume originally published in 1975 .

Editorial Reviews

Review

References to hippies superficially date this volume. After all, it was first published in German in 1972, with the English translation originally appearing in 1975. However, as is the pivotal point of Dr. von Franz, who worked with Jung for many years until the latter's death in 1961, Jung's life quest continues to represent-as the subtitle reads-an archetypal myth for our times. In their tuning into the symbolic and "shadow" aspects of the psyche through Eastern religions and drug experiences, the flower children unwittingly shared an affinity with the founder of analytical psychology.The Swiss analyst's probing into the individual and collective unconscious and synchronicity (non-random coincidences) also resonated with many physicists and philosophers. Ironically, Jung's holistic ideas were perhaps least appreciated by those in his own field; some psychologists referred to him as that "muddled mystic"! As it turns out, his interactive therapeutic techniques, as well as appreciation of the creative potential of the unconscious, are more in tune with contemporary thought than Freud's authoritarian, repression-oriented psychoanalysis.Though too dense with detail to serve as an introductory primer on Jungian psychology, this longtime colleague has masterfully interwoven biography, dream analysis, and other key concepts in evaluating Jung's legacy. -- From Independent Publisher

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Inner City Books (February 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0919123783
• ISBN-13: 978-0919123786
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #165,238 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #69 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Professionals & Academics > Social Scientists & Psychologists

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An inspiring and personal biography of a great man., June 26, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: C. G. Jung: His Myth in Our Time (Studies in Jungian Psychology by Jungian Analysts) (Paperback)

This is Jung from the inside, by one of his most talented and most authentic followers. It is not just the dry facts but deep personal experience. All life is story and this is Marie-Louise von Franz's story of Jung as she knew him. An invaluable work.

19 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars an extended study in idealization, September 1, 2001

By 

Craig Chalquist, PhD, author of TERRAPSYCHOLO... (Bay Area, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: C. G. Jung: His Myth in Our Time (Studies in Jungian Psychology by Jungian Analysts) (Paperback)

The author, who is one of THE most under-rated and under-written-about female theorists who studied under Jung (where is there a substantial biography for her??), is always brilliant to read, her work packed with fascinating insights and an almost superhuman erudition. This book is no exception.

At the same time, however, it gets nowhere near the quality of her other books. Propped up by endless quotes from Jung's supposedly autobiographical MEMORIES, DREAMS, REFLECTIONS, a book I often go back to but always with the knowledge that it's been heavily censored, von Franz sustains a justificatory tone throughout that is embarrassing to read.

At one point, for instance, she deals with the accusation that Jung had anti-Semitic tendencies, perhaps because he had some shadow issues to work on. She quashes this notion strenuously and puts it all down to Jung's "optimism" and tendency to say too much (not to mention his opponents' projections...always a good place to go when defending one's allies). God forbid that Jung should cast a shadow!

It saddens me that von Franz so seldom struck out on her own without checking in with Jung first or crediting him with the tremendous innovations she brought to his thinking. But nowhere is her unwillingness to question Jung more evident here, where scarcely a paragraph escapes the praise piled high on the Great Man's head.

That he was a great man, a truly daimonic genius who gave us the golden key to transpersonal symbolism, does not change the fact that he was a human being who could be narcissistic, irritable, arrogant, impatient, misogynistic, intolerant, racist, bad-tempered, and downright cruel to the women he supposedly loved.

When I write I often refer to teachers who've impacted my insights about human nature; ordinarily, it would be inconsiderate for me to bring in their human flaws and blind spots. But were I to undertake a biography of any of them once they had shuffled off the mortal coil, it would be incumbent upon me not to whitewash them. You will find many interesting observations about Jung's life in this book; but the picture it offers of him is thoroughly one-sided.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pure Pleasure, November 26, 2009

By 

Expat of (Dalkey, Ireland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: C. G. Jung: His Myth in Our Time (Studies in Jungian Psychology by Jungian Analysts) (Paperback)

Pure Pleasure

Reading Marie-Louise von Franz is always an inspiration. She is tremendously insightful and that is demonstrated here, if not as much as in the books that she wrote on topics of her own choosing - The Problem of the Puer Aeternus and her interpretation of The Little Prince by St Exupery for one great example.

It is a pleasure to read such a clear thinker and to read her life of C.G. Jung.

Picking up a book by Marie-Louise von Franz and coming to her from the political news of the day is like being washed clean of the dirt and the filth that we are all immersed in. "We were sunk in evil and knew it." (*)

"We live today in the age of psychopathy, when the psychopath rides in the limousine of the visiting head of state or is the head of giant corporations. Today the psychopath is celebrated and appears nightly on our TV screens instead of being shunned and forced to slink through the filthy alleys of our cities, as in the past." - James Hillman, paraphrased.

In such an age, Marie Louise von Franz, C.G. Jung and their fellow explorers of the human soul -- and the human unconscious -- are vital - with their unflinching descriptions of Absolute Evil, Radical Evil, known to the Church as the devil and their implacable resolve to counter 'major evil' -- the evil of the concentration camps and the ovens. The same 'major evil' that has returned under the Neocons of the US at the start of this twenty-first century. Returned and led half the US population down the road of the Germans after 1933 towards 'mass psychosis' and the (unconcscious) urge to start a world war. When the unthinkable has become normal - the routine use of murder, torture-to-death, death camps with 27,000 missing muslims -- Where are they? Can they be released or are they in mass graves? --, genocide, war crimes - the Afghan 'convoy of death', crimes against the laws of war - the use of death squads in Iraq and now Afghanistan-- the 'El Salvador Option' -- and the creation of the infrastructure for a police state in the US.

Laurens van der Post - "We must demand psychological illumination from our politicians. Otherwise they may spar with their own shadows, projected on 'the enemy'." "The human being who starts by withdrawing his own shadow from his neighbour is doing work of immense, imediate political and social importance." - Matter of Heart - Part 9/10, to end of Part 10 - @7:08 v=meNT56CqtLE#t=07m08s

Marie Louise von Franz - "Withdrawing our shadows from projection." "The only way to cope with evil is if each person will confront their own evil. If benevolent preaching would work, we should have been out of the trouble long ago." - Matter of Heart - Part 9 - @ 9.10 v=meNT56CqtLE#t=08m20s

(*) Events today are not generally worse than in the last eighty years - 1930s Germany, followed by World War 2. The difference today is that we have the internet and we can, if we choose, see completely through the attempts to manipulate us; manipulate our views, our thoughts, our politics via the media - the main stream media (MSM). That makes for some very hard reality to face.

There is a reason that C.G. Jung said "I am not concerned about the world. I am concerned about the people with whom I live. The other world is all in the newspapers. My family and my neighbours are my life -- the only life that I can experience. What lies beyond is newspaper mythology." Yet today we listen to the news and we read reports of mayhem, murder and the foulest evil from all around the globe. Even harder, we see it daily on our TV screens.

This does not make us happy. It does not make us healthy. It does not make us whole. But we have a duty to bear witness to it and to try, each in our own way, to act to the very limit of our personal endurance -- but no further -- to stand against it. While remembering that what is important first is our family, our wife or husband, our children, our friends and our town; that if we are not healthy we cannot help any other. And there are many others who need and deserve our help, not least for what has been done to them in our name.

So we must hold these opposing ideas in our minds simultaneously - we must be healthy, we must care first for our own family. And we must do what we can to help others who need it.

Which, perhaps, is why Jung also said "I get a great deal of satisfaction from growing my own potatoes." Growing our own food in the earth, with our own hands, connects us to that earth and to this blue-green planet and to everything on it. It connects us to the web of life, 'of which we are merely a strand'.

It makes us whole.

As does reading and watching on video Marie-Louise von Franz.