Press Release: Requiem: New Fisher King Press Publication

With Great Pleasure Fisher King Press is pleased to present:
Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return by Erel Shalit

Dear friends and colleagues,

I am pleased to share with you the announcement of my newly published novella, Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return, in which I have fictionalized my ruminations on issues of exile and return.

The razor-sharp edge of religious beliefs and national conflict, of shadowy projections and existential anxiety, that characterize Israel and its neighbors, gives rise to a particular blend of archetypal fate and personal destiny, of doubt and conviction, despair and commitment, of collective identity and personal choice. However, I do believe that the essence of my wonderings reach beyond the shores of the eastern Mediterranean or Jewish tradition. I believe the tension between a sense of exile and return, belongingness and estrangement, are universal aspects, certainly in our post-modern world.

While Israeli reality provides the external context, the story serves, as well, as a metaphor for the exile and return of the soul, which necessarily is a journey through shadowy valleys.

I invite anyone in our Jungian community who so wishes to comment or discuss issues concerning Requiem, to be in contact with me, at shalit@orange.net.il

With gratitude,
Erel Shalit

_____________________________________________________

Erel Shalit is a Jungian psychoanalyst in Ra’anana, Israel. He is a training and supervising analyst, and past president of the Israel Society of Analytical Psychology. He is the author of several publications, including Enemy, Cripple, Beggar: Shadows in the Hero’s Path, The Hero and His Shadow: Psychopolitical Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel, and The Complex: Path of Transformation from Archetype to Ego.

All of Erel Shalit’s titles and many more Jungian psychological publications are available for purchase at the Fisher King Press Online Bookstore or by phoning 1-800-228-9316 in the US and Canada, or 1+831-238-7799 from abroad.

Requiem ISBN 978-1-926715-03-2 can be purchased directly from the Fisher King Press Online Bookstore.

Phone orders welcomed, Credit Cards accepted. 1-800-228-9316 toll free in the US and Canada, International +1-831-238-7799. www.fisherkingpress.com

 

Fisher King Press / PO Box 222321 / Carmel, CA 93230 /
Phone: 831-238-7799 / info@fisherkingpress.com / www.fisherkingpress.com

Daughters and Well-meaning Mothers

This past summer, Daryl Sharp of Inner City Books contacted us, explaining that he had edited a manuscript for Kehinde Ayeni. Daryl suggested that the manuscript was a real winner and encouraged us to consider it for publication. We had a closer look and soon contracted to published this body of work. We are now pleased to announce the publication of Kehinde Adeola Ayeni’s Feasts of Phantoms.



Feasts of Phantoms
a novel by Kehinde Adeola Ayeni
ISBN  978-0-9813939-2-6, 346 pp

How is a well meaning mother to protect her daughter from a culture where the birth of a baby girl is met with despair because the only future open to her is that of sexual assault and teenage pregnancy, which would doom her to a life of illiteracy and poverty as it has doomed her lineage before her? Genital mutilation has many causes but at the root of all of them is fear. A fear that pushes a mother to do the unthinkable to a daughter that she loves? What does a scapegoat do with the fate she has been handed? Accept it and roll with it, or reject it? How is she to reject it when the acceptance of her role is needed for her culture's psychic equilibrium? In the theater of the mind where all springs forth, is there such a thing as an innocent victim, and a victimizer? 'Feasts of Phantoms' is a novel that explores these questions, and more.

about the author Kehinde Adeola Ayeni, MD., a public health physician, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst was born in Nigeria. A mother of two children, she is in private practice in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Her first novel 'Our Mother's Sore Expectations' explored the plight of women under dictatorship government in Nigeria. Dr. Ayeni founded the Foundation for Indigenous Development and Advocacy (Foundida.org), a nonprofit organization whose goal is that every Nigerian child has at minimum an elementary school education, and she works closely with Educare Trust Fund based in Ibadan, Nigeria (Educaretrust1994.org).

Feasts of Phantoms can be purchased directly from the Fisher King Press online bookstore.

Press Release - Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return

With Great Pleasure Fisher King Press Announced the Publication of

Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return

a novella by Erel Shalit

Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return

a novella by Erel Shalit

Official Publication Date: January 2010
ISBN 978-1-926715-03-2, 106 pp

Requiem returns us to an eternal theme, a dialogue with Soul, and we know quite well what happens when one dialogues with Soul—we change, consciousness is enlarged, the impossible becomes possible and we no longer are compelled to blindly follow in the deathly path of our forefathers.

Requiem is a fictitious account of a scenario played out in the mind of many Israelis, pertaining to existential reflections and apocalyptic fears, but then, as well, the hope and commitment that arise from the abyss of trepidation. While set in Israel sometime in the present, it is a story that reaches into the timelessness of history, weaving discussions with Heine and Kafka into a tale of universal implications.

Erel Shalit is a Jungian psychoanalyst in Ra’anana, Israel. He is a training and supervising analyst, and past president of the Israel Society of Analytical Psychology. He is the author of several publications, including Enemy, Cripple, Beggar: Shadows in the Hero’s Path, The Hero and His Shadow: Psychopolitical Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel and The Complex: Path of Transformation from Archetype to Ego.

Dr. Shalit lectures at professional institutes, universities, and cultural forums in Israel, Europe, and the United States. One of his popular lectures includes Requiem and is the basis for Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return.

Lecture in Washington, DC on Creativity & Soul

The Jung Society of Washington will be hosting a lecture by Lawrence H. Staples

Friday, December 4, 2009

Event Title: THE CREATIVE SOUL: Art and the Quest for Wholeness

Where: Memorial Hall, 5200 Cathedral Ave., NW, Washington, DC

Friday, December 4, 2009

Time: 7:30 PM - 9:00 PM EST

Import this event into your Outlook calendar

What: Lecture
Who: Larry Staples, Ph.D.
When: Friday
Fees: $15:00, members in advance; $20.00, general; $10.00 sen/stu
Register for this event at www.jung.org

This lecture is about art in all its myriad forms-painting writing, sculpting, composing, etc., and how it serves our quest for wholeness and helps restore parts of us that were lost in the process of socialization.

In his book, The Restoration of the Self, Heinz Kohut wrote at length about psychically wounded people and the therapeutic methods he used to help them. He found none more effective, or so essential, as creative work. He found, importantly, that it made no difference whether the creative work was deemed good or artistic by any standards; the simple process of doing creative work helped restore the self. It is as if nature plants within us a built-in remedy for our worst affliction, the affliction of being separated from large parts of ourselves. We experience this separation as a kind of inner civil war that divides us internally. It produces the pain and suffering inherent in any civil war, whether in our internal world or outside. It seems that the human urge to do creative work is a compensa-tory impulse and blessing, which arises from the psychic civil war that wounded us. In my own work as a psychoanalyst, I have witnessed the truth of Kohut's findings. I have watched patients grow in wholeness as they began to work creatively in a variety of media that helped them recover and restore lost aspects of themselves.

The lecture will draw upon paintings by Frida Kahlo to demonstrate the contribution of art to the restoration of self and the attainment of wholeness. This lecture is also for people specifically interested in creative processes---writers, artists, composers, teachers, thinkers. Staples will share his insights based upon years of observing his clients, their art, and the creative processes that produced it. He discusses psychological factors that both block and trigger creative production. He also suggests techniques for unleashing creative work as well as unblocking it.

CEUs will be offered for this program.

Larry Staples, Ph.D., is a Jungian Analyst in private practice in Washington D.C. He is a diplomate of the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich and holds a Ph.D. in psychology. He is a member of the International Association for Analytical psychology (I.A.A.P.), Association of Graduate Analytical Psychologists (A.G.A.P.), Jungian Analysts of Washington Association (J.A.W.A.) and National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis and the American Boards for Accreditation and Certification (N.A.A.P.). Larry is the author of two books, Guilt with a Twist: The Promethean Way and The Creative Soul: Art and the Quest for Wholeness. A third book about guilt's role in depression, anxiety, and paranoia is due to be published in late fall. He has also written a number of articles about the psychological problems of midlife. Special areas of interest include creativity, guilt, and midlife. He holds AB and MBA degrees from Harvard.

Seduction and the Fisher King

A great deal of seduction has been called for to lure me away from the selfish pursuits of fortune, fame, and a vast array of many other vises that I once believed could relieve my existential angst. I must confess that Fisher King Press is the child of one of these many selfish forays.

Several years ago ‘by chance’ I met a Jungian and began analysis. We worked together for about 18 months before I gained the courage to leave a well-paying career and the security of an antiquated identity behind. The analysis continued and within a few weeks of leaving this old life, I brought a dream into our session. My analyst suggested a dialogue with one of the dream characters. Little did I know that this would lead to the expansion of my miniature world, the writing of eight novels, and much more.

The writing, like so many other things before, overtook me. I didn’t care about publishing a book. I only wanted to write, to create, to selfishly express myself (and my ‘self’) and for several years I enjoyed the good fortune of just this, living in Europe, frequenting cafes in Italy, France, Switzerland, Ireland . . . encountering characters and weaving tales.

People would ask what I did for a living and my answer would be “I used to be a John Deere tractor salesman.” “Yes, but what do you do now?” “Oh, I just live, just enjoy life now.” “Yes, but you must do something with your time?” “Well, okay, I write.” “A ha, so you are a writer!” “No, I’m not a writer. I just write.” “What do you write about?” I’d hesitate and occasionally answer, “I write about dreams. Every morning I get up and write about my dreams, and then I write about life, about how dreams . . . well, about how dreams intersect our lives, our waking lives, how they are tied together . . .”

I sincerely meant what I said, about how dreams intersect our lives and so forth. I believed it and at the same time couldn’t completely understand it, as is often still the case. But that was part of the fun, knowing and not-knowing, being in that in-between place, where the mysterious takes holds, where one cannot wrap one’s mind around an idea or concept and instead simply must follow the words and images.

So, I continued to follow the words and images when they came in dreams and when they came in waking life. I also continued to explain to others of how I once was a tractor salesman, and then on into the writing thing. Finally one day I got tired of having to explain about who I once was and how now I wrote, but no, they could not read my writing, and no, I had never published a book . . . So, I sent query letters to a few publishers, expecting to be received with open arms, but quickly learned that I might well spend the rest of my life waiting for someone else to say yes, waiting for someone else to validate me, my existence, who I was becoming, and I said the heck with all that!

Soon after came Fisher King Press and the publication of my first three novels - The Malcolm Clay Trilogy. Then, having successfully published the trilogy, it was time to publish another author, so up went a basic website and not long after came a query from John Atkinson and we contracted to publish Timekeeper, Atkinson’s novel/quasi-memoir, a coming-of-age tale, describing the experiences of a 14-year-old runaway boy’s hardships, victories, and all the inspirational people who guided him on his journey and helped him to triumph over illiteracy. Critics have since praised Timekeeper as a deeply moving book written in the spirit of Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees . . .

But what about Jung, how do Jungian publications fit into the Fisher King scheme of things? Well, over the years, I’ve enjoyed the pleasure of building meaningful and lasting relationships with several Jungian analysts and I also hold a deep respect for the many Inner City Book publications that have brought understanding to the darker periods of my life. So, it was time to obtain a Centerpoint newsletter and send out a query to the listed Jungian societies and organizations.

April Barrett, executive director of the Jung Society of Washington was quick to forward the request to Lawrence Staples and we soon agreed to publish Guilt with a Twist: The Promethean Way. Erel Shalit and Enemy, Cripple, Beggar: Shadows in the Hero’s Path came next. From there, kind of like following words and images, things began to unfold, and what was originally created from an unconscious inflation to serve my own selfish desires, Fisher King Press finally became what it was meant to be – ‘Self’ Serving.

The Malcolm Clay Trilogy is available at the Fisher King Press online bookstore and my other novels will be published as the years unfold, where you’ll learn about what a rotten ol’ buzzard I can be in my endless pursuit to reclaim soul, or should I say, be reclaimed by soul. Sure, there’s some goodness in me too, but . . . well, enough about ‘me’ and ‘I’ and all my selfish exploits, and please don’t hold this against the other Fisher King Press authors whose worthy publications deserve to be widely read.

Over the next few months, we will also be adding a few new fiction titles to our growing list, including Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return, a novella by Erel Shalit; Main Street Stories, a novel by Jungian analyst Phyllis LaPlante; and Feasts of Phantoms by Kehinde Adeola Ayeni, a novel that addresses the degradation of the feminine in one of its most shadowy extreme forms. A more detailed description of these titles are posted below. Information can also be found at the Fisher King Press Online Bookstore.

As with our previous publications, I hope you enjoy these new offerings.

Best wishes and kind regards to all,

Mel Mathews
Fisher King Press

_________________________________________________

Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return
a novella by Erel Shalit
ISBN 978-1-926715-03-2, 100 pp
Publication Date: January 2010

Requiem is a fictitious account of a scenario played out in the mind of many Israelis, pertaining to existential reflections and apocalyptic fears, but then, as well, the hope and commitment that arise from the abyss of trepidation. While set in Israel sometime in the present, it is a story that reaches into the timelessness of history, weaving discussions with Heine and Kafka into a tale of universal implications.

Erel Shalit is a Jungian psychoanalyst in Ra'anana, Israel. He is a training and supervising analyst, and past president of the Israel Society of Analytical Psychology. He is the author of several publications, including Enemy, Cripple, Beggar: Shadows in the Hero’s Path, The Hero and His Shadow: Psychopolitical Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel and The Complex: Path of Transformation from Archetype to Ego.

Dr. Shalit lectures at professional institutes, universities, and cultural forums in Israel, Europe, and the United States. His current lectures series includes Requiem - Notes from Professor Shimeoni’s Lecture and Reflections on Exile and is the basis for his most recent publication: Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return.

Publication Date: January 2010
Learn more about this forthcoming publication by clicking on the following link to the Fisher King Press online bookstore: Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return


_________________________________________________

Main Street Stories
a Novel by Phyllis LaPlante
—ISBN 978-0-9813939-1-9, 220 pp.
Publication Date: January 2010

Tales intertwine in the small town of Massey, Texas, whose quiet streets seem to breed infidelity, betrayal, mental illness, and violence, in Phyllis LaPlante’s highly entertaining character driven novel Main Street Stories. The townspeople love gossip even more than high school football. Nadine Coulter, a divorced hairdresser, fulfills her sexual desires with a much younger lover, while fretting about her teen-aged daughter who is quickly earning a bad reputation. Janice Tuttle commits suicide by drowning. Joe Eliot hallucinates enemies and nearly kills his brother-in-law. Did Danny Tomlin actually kill his illegitimate child? Wayne Pickens is whipsawed between the demands of his religion and the urges of his body. Dorothy Harmon agonizes over her lesbian lover's penchant for young girls. Adam Robbins, the preacher's son, is perpetually on the make, living out the shadowy un-lived life of his father . . .

Phyllis LaPlante is a certified Jungian Analyst and Licensed Clinical Social Worker. She received her diploma from the C.G. Jung Institute of New York. She teaches Jungian theory and practice in Washington and Philadelphia and is a member of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts and the Philadelphia Association of Jungian Analysts, and the Jungian Analysts of Washington Association.

Publication Date: January 2010
Learn more about this forthcoming publication by clicking on the following link to the Fisher King Press online bookstore: Main Street Stories


_________________________________________________

Feasts of Phantoms
a novel by Kehinde Adeola Ayeni
ISBN 978-0-9813939-2-6, 346 pp
Publication Date: January 2010

In a culture where the birth of a baby girl is met with despair because the only future open to her is that of sexual assault and teenage pregnancy, which would doom her to a life of illiteracy and poverty as it has doomed her lineage before her, how is a well meaning mother to protect her daughter from such a fate?

Genital mutilation has many causes but at the root of all of them is fear. A fear that pushes a mother to do the unthinkable to a daughter that she loves?

What does a scapegoat do with the fate she has been handed? Accept it and roll with it or reject it? How is she to reject it when her acceptance of her role is needed for her culture’s psychic equilibrium?

In the theater of the mind where all springs forth, is there such a thing as an innocent victim, and a victimizer?

Feasts of Phantoms is an exploration of all of these questions.

Kehinde Adeola Ayeni works as the medical director of a Detroit community mental health center, writes books and runs a nonprofit agency to raise money to educate children in her home country of Nigeria. Dr. Ayeni graduated from the College of Medicine University of Ibadan in 1986, and completed part 1 of the fellowship training in Public Health at the College of Medicine University of Ibadan. She graduated from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan where she completed residency training in Psychiatry in 1999. She has a private psychiatry and psychotherapy practice.

Publication Date: January 2010
Learn more about this forthcoming publication by clicking on the following link to the Fisher King Press online bookstore: Feasts of Phantoms

Two Popular Jungian Publications

Two popular psychology publications for your consideration:


Living in the Borderland: The Evolution of Consciousness and the Challenge of Healing Trauma

by Jerome S. Bernstein

Living in the Borderland addresses the evolution of Western consciousness and describes the emergence of the 'Borderland,' a spectrum of reality that is beyond the rational yet is palpable to an increasing number of individuals. Building on Jungian theory, Jerome Bernstein argues that a greater openness to transrational reality experienced by Borderland personalities allows new possibilities for understanding and healing confounding clinical and developmental enigmas.

In three sections, this book charts the evolution of Western consciousness, examines the psychological and clinical implications and looks at how the new Borderland consciousness bridges the mind-body divide. It challenges the standard clinical model, which views normality as an absence of pathology and equates normality with the rational, and abnormality with the transrational. Jerome Bernstein describes how psychotherapy itself often contributes to the alienation of many Borderland personalities by misdiagnosing the difference between the pathological and the sacred and uses case studies to illustrate the potential such misdiagnoses have for causing serious psychic and emotional damage to the patient.

This challenge to the orthodoxies and complacencies of Western medicine's concept of pathology will interest Jungian Analysts, Psychoanalysts, Psychotherapists and Psychiatrists.

About the Author
Jerome S. Bernstein is a Jungian analyst in private practice in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is also the co-editor of Spring Journal's recently published C.G. Jung and the Sioux Traditions.




C.G. Jung and the Sioux Traditions: Dreams, Visions, Nature and the Primitive

by Deloria, Vine / Deloria, Philip J. (EDT) / Bernstein, Jerome S. (EDT)

In the winter of 1924-25 while visiting the U.S., C. G. Jung visited the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico where he spent several hours with Ochwiay Biano, Mountain Lake, an elder at the Pueblo. This was a seminal encounter in Jung's life. It impacted him psychologically, emotionally, and intellectually and had a sustained influence on his theories and understanding of psyche, as witnessed by his reference to Mountain Lake in one of his last letters written shortly before his death.

Dakota Sioux intellectual and political leader, Vine Deloria Jr., began a close study of the writings of C.G. Jung over two decades ago, but had long been struck by certain affinities and disjunctures between Jungian and Sioux Indian thought. He also had noticed that many Jungians had perceived this relation as well and were often drawn to Native American traditions. And, while Deloria never hesitated to critique others’ appropriation of Native culture, he also saw in this phenomenon something deeper and more interesting: the possibility that these philosophical systems might, at a deep level, share crucial affinities.

This book, the result of Deloria’s investigation of these affinities, is written as a measured comparison between the psychology of C. G. Jung and the philosophical and cultural traditions of his own Sioux people. Moving between Jung’s writings and Sioux tradition, Deloria constructs a fascinating dialogue between the two systems that touches on cosmology, the family, relations with animals, visions, voices, and individuation. He does not shy away from addressing the differences between the two and the colonial mindset that characterized Jung’s own cultural legacy. In this sense, Deloria offers a direct “speaking back” from the cultural position that Jung so often characterized as “primitive” in his writings.

Vine Deloria Jr. passed away in 2005 and this, his last book, resounds with the wit, vigor, and range that marked his writing. It makes a signal contribution to Jungian Studies, while simultaneously illuminating the possibilities and pitfalls in efforts to transcend intellectual and philosophical boundaries.

These and many other Jungian Publications are available at the Fisher King Press Online Bookstore.



Be kept up to date on many new publications - register with our secure site at www.fisherkingpress.com

Phone orders welcomed, Credit Cards accepted. 1-800-228-9316 toll free in the US & Canada, International +1-831-238-7799.

Fisher King Press to Donate to NAAP

$5 per book donation to the NAAP!

Enemy, Cripple, Beggar: Shadows in the Hero’s Path is 1 of 3 finalists for the Theoretical category of the 2009 NAAP Gradiva® Award.

For every copy of Enemy, Cripple, Beggar purchased from the Fisher King Press online bookstore from Oct. 10th to Oct. 24th, 2009, $5 will be donated to the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis.

Enemy, Cripple, Beggar: Shadows in the Hero’s Path, finalists for the Theoretical category of the NAAP Gradiva® Award.

In Enemy, Cripple, Beggar: Shadows in the Hero's Path, Erel Shalit provides new thoughts and views on the concepts of Hero and Shadow. From a Jungian perspective, this Fisher King Press publication elaborates on mythological and psychological images. Myths and fairy tales explored include Perseus and Andersen's The Cripple. You'll also enjoy the psychological deciphering of Biblical stories such as Amalek - The Wicked Warrior, Samson - The Impoverished Sun, and Jacob & the Divine Adversary. With the recent discovery of The Gospel of Judas, Dr. Shalit also delves into the symbolic relationship between Jesus and Judas Iscariot to illustrate the hero-function's inevitable need of a shadow.

“Highly recommended for both personal reading lists and community library collections,” says Midwest Book Review:

“It's the most basic component of story telling the Hero and the Villain. Enemy Cripple, Beggar: Shadows in the Hero's Path takes a look at this basic concept and why it is so appealing to readers. Going to the basic psychology of the tale and how ancient stories led the way, and how they evolved through the years with mankind, Enemy, Cripple, Beggar provides an informed and thoughtful perspective concerning literary good and evil alongside society's norms and mores. An original work by Erel Shalit, Enemy Cripple, Beggar is a unique blend as a literary and psychology manual, making it highly recommended for both personal reading lists and community library collections.”

The following is a link the Fisher King Press Bookstore or phone 1-800-228-9316

About the Author
Erel Shalit is a Jungian psychoanalyst in Ra'anana, Israel. He is a training and supervising analyst, and past president of the Israel Society of Analytical Psychology (ISAP). He is the author of several publications, including The Hero and His Shadow: Psychopolitical Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel and The Complex: Path of Transformation from Archetype to Ego. Articles of his have appeared in Quadrant, The Jung Journal, Spring Journal, Political Psychology, Clinical Supervisor, Round Table Review, Jung Page, Midstream, and he has entries in The Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Dr. Shalit lectures at professional institutes, universities, and cultural forums in Israel, Europe, and the United States.

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The Sacred Prostitute & Awakening Woman

The Sacred Prostitute: Eternal Aspect of the Feminine
By Nancy Qualls-Corbett
ISBN 9780919123311, 20 illustrations. Index. 176 pp. 1988.

When the Goddess of Love was still honored, the sacred prostitute was virgin in the original sense of the word (one-in-herself), a person of deep integrity whose welcome for the stranger was radiant, self-confident and sensuous. Her purpose was to bring the goddess' love into direct contact with mankind. In antiquity, human sexuality and the religious attitude were inseparable. The Sacred Prostitute: Eternal Aspect Of The Feminine is solidly based on Jungian psychological principles and powerfully illustrates how our vitality and capacity for joy depend on restoring the soul of the sacred prostitute to its rightful place in our conscious understanding. The Sacred Prostitute is engaging reading that provides a great deal of thoughtful observations on the nature of human sexuality and its relationship to the well-balanced personality and the health and stability of human society. -- Midwest Book Review

Nancy Qualls-Corbett, Ph.D. is a diplomate of the C. G. Jung Institute, Zurich and is a practicing analyst in Birmingham, Alabama. She is a senior training analyst affiliated with the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts.

Click this link to Order The Sacred Prostitute from Fisher King Press.


Also by Nancy Qualls-Corbett

Awakening Woman: Dreams and Individuation
ISBN 9781894574020 By Nancy Qualls-Corbett with Leila McMackin. Index. 160 pp. 2002.

When you face the truth that your familiar psychological territory is no longer your moral, spiritual or emotional home, and the road ahead twists through a dark forest—then you know the experience, both terrifying and exhilarating, of the refugee who slowly becomes the explorer. In this unique collaborative work by an analyst and her analysand, a woman in midlife learns to understand her dreams, visions and emotions, and especially the kinship between sexuality and spirituality, thus acquiring an authentic sense of self.

Click this link to Order Awakening Woman from Fisher King Press.

Remember, now through October 5th, 10% of all retail purchases made from the Fisher King Press online bookstore will be donated to The Philemon Foundation.

Phone orders welcomed, Credit Cards accepted. 1-800-228-9316 toll free in the US & Canada, International +1-831-238-7799. www.fisherkingpress.com

While awaiting Jung's Red Book, why not try something Green?

While patiently (and impatiently) awaiting C.G. Jung's Red Book, why not try something Green?

Guilt with a Twist: The Promethean Way
by Lawrence H. Staples

Promethean Guilt* is the guilt we incur for the sins we need to commit if we are to grow and fulfill ourselves. Those sins that benefit us could not be committed without a creative, Promethean spirit that is supported by an obstinate and irreverent insolence toward authority that is informed by a love of freedom.

* Jung talked about Promethean guilt in his Collected Works (CW7, par. 243n). Here Jung was talking about the state of inflation that analysands often reach when they begin to experience an increase in consciousness as a result of insights that come from accessing the collective unconscious. Jung goes on to say in the note that “every step toward greater consciousness is a kind of Promethean guilt: through knowledge, the gods are as it were robbed of their fire, that is, something that was the property of the unconscious powers is torn out of its natural context and subordinated to the whims of the conscious mind. The man who has usurped the new knowledge suffers, however, a transformation or enlargement of consciousness, which no longer resembles that of his fellow men.” This results in a loneliness, the pain of which “is the vengeance of the Gods.”

Lawrence Staples is a diplomate of the C.G. Jung Institute, Zurich, Switzerland, and also holds AB and MBA degrees from Harvard. In addition to Guilt with a Twist: The Promethean Way, Lawrence is author of the popular book The Creative Soul: Art and the Quest for Wholeness.

Here’s a direct link to Guilt with a Twist at the Fisher King Press website.

Remember, now through October 5th, 10% of all retail purchases made from the Fisher King Press online bookstore will be donated to The Philemon Foundation.

Phone orders welcomed, Credit Cards accepted. 1-800-228-9316 toll free in the US & Canada, International +1-831-238-7799. www.fisherkingpress.com

Fisher King Press to donate 10% of sales to the Philemon Foundation

In celebration of the The Red Book publication, Fisher King Press will donate 10% of all retail sales made from our online bookstore to the Philemon Foundation. That’s right, 10% of all retail purchases (less taxes and/or shipping) made now through Oct 5th, 2009 (9/19/09 -10/05/09) from the Fisher King Press Online Bookstore will be donated to the Philemon Foundation. This 10% donation will be based on All titles sold from our website, not just on sales of The Red Book, but ALL titles we currently offer, including gift certificates.

The Philemon Foundation is a non-profit foundation dedicated to preparing for publication the Complete Works of CG Jung. To support a most worthy cause and at the same time purchase a few quality books for yourself, family, and friends, visit our online bookstore .

Many thanks for your consideration and support,

Fisher King Press

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THE RED BOOK
Now Shipping!!!

The Red Book
by C.G. Jung / Edited by Sonu Shamdasani
416pp, Hardcover
List Price $195.00
ON SALE FOR $165.00
Click to order directly from Fisher King Press



Product Description
The most influential unpublished work in the history of psychology. When Carl Jung embarked on an extended self-exploration he called his “confrontation with the unconscious,” the heart of it was The Red Book, a large, illuminated volume he created between 1914 and 1930. Here he developed his principle theories—of the archetypes, the collective unconscious, and the process of individuation—that transformed psychotherapy from a practice concerned with treatment of the sick into a means for higher development of the personality.

While Jung considered The Red Book to be his most important work, only a handful of people have ever seen it. Now, in a complete facsimile and translation, it is available to scholars and the general public. It is an astonishing example of calligraphy and art on a par with The Book of Kells and the illuminated manuscripts of William Blake. This publication of The Red Book is a watershed that will cast new light on the making of modern psychology.
212 color illustrations.

About the Author/Editor
Sonu Shamdasani, a preeminent Jung historian, is Reader in Jung History at Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College London. He lives in London, England.

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Enemy, Cripple, Beggar: Finalist of NAAP Gradiva® Award

Enemy, Cripple, Beggar: Shadows in the Hero’s Path
is 1 of 3 finalists for the Theoretical category of the NAAP Gradiva® Award.

In Enemy, Cripple, Beggar: Shadows in the Hero's Path, Erel Shalit provides new thoughts and views on the concepts of Hero and Shadow. From a Jungian perspective, this Fisher King Press publication elaborates on mythological and psychological images. Myths and fairy tales explored include Perseus and Andersen's The Cripple. You'll also enjoy the psychological deciphering of Biblical stories such as Amalek - The Wicked Warrior, Samson - The Impoverished Sun, and Jacob & the Divine Adversary. With the recent discovery of The Gospel of Judas, Dr. Shalit also delves into the symbolic relationship between Jesus and Judas Iscariot to illustrate the hero-function's inevitable need of a shadow.

About the Author
Erel Shalit is a Jungian psychoanalyst in Ra'anana, Israel. He is a training and supervising analyst, and past president of the Israel Society of Analytical Psychology (ISAP). He is the author of several publications, including The Hero and His Shadow: Psychopolitical Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel and The Complex: Path of Transformation from Archetype to Ego. Articles of his have appeared in Quadrant, The Jung Journal, Spring Journal, Political Psychology, Clinical Supervisor, Round Table Review, Jung Page, Midstream, and he has entries in The Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Dr. Shalit lectures at professional institutes, universities, and cultural forums in Israel, Europe, and the United States.

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"The Word Made Flesh" - a presentation.

Oct. 10th, “The Word Made Flesh” a presentation at the San Francisco Jung Institute Conference on The Living Symbol.

CONFERENCE:
The Living Symbol In and Out of the Consulting Room - Maria Chiaia, Naomi Lowinsky, Richard Stein, Bryan Wittine, Suzanne Wagner
Saturday and Sunday, October 10 & 11, 2009
9:30 am – 3:30 pm

Reserve for this event at San Francisco Jung Institute

"Symbols act as transformers"
- C.G. Jung (CW Vol. 5: 232)
Living symbols are messages from the depths of our being to our conscious "I", messages that reveal mysterious things about ourselves and our lives. Psychotherapists across traditions have found that symbolic images open the way to the creative possibilities of the unconscious. We discover these images through free association, dreams, fantasies, creative productions, and within the relational field between analyst and analysand. They evoke fascination, awe, fear, joy, upset, disorientation, but are inevitably transformative when we approach them with respect and attend to them in a contemplative way.

In this conference five Jungian analysts with different approaches will speak to their experience of living, transforming symbols in their lives and clinical work. What does the living symbol look like in clinical practice and in life? How does the symbol enter our psyche, and what does it do once it becomes known? What are the spiritual implications of symbols? Through lectures that include theory, art, poetry, and clinical material, the speakers will offer their unique perspectives on the ways symbols guide processes of growth in and out of the consulting room.

The Word Made Flesh - Naomi Ruth Lowinsky

It is as if the poet could still sense, beneath the words of contemporary speech and in the images that crowd in upon his imagination, the ghostly presence of bygone spiritual worlds, and possessed the capacity to make them come alive again. As Gerhart Hauptmann says: "Poetry is the art of letting the primordial word resound through the common word." - Jung, (CW 5 p. 303)

Our medium, in analysis, is language: the spoken word. Like poets we seek the "primordial word." We are engaged in the Promethean art of bringing life, fire, libido back to our analysand's word: so the word is made flesh; the symbol comes to life; the God is renewed.

When a person stumbles into analysis, she is typically split off from the surge of her libido, cut off from the meaning of her words, severed from her authenticity and from her Gods. She is incarcerated in taboos and constrictions that block her feeling, steal her breath, smother her fire.

If the analysis goes well she will find her way back, through the circumambulations and meanderings of the analytic conversation, to her own primordial word. She and her analyst will create a private language, a personal Tarot deck of living symbols, born of their shared wanderings in her internal landscape: her Gods and demons, dreams, memories, wounds, and longings. This is the stuff of her soul. Together they come to know what moves her, what excites her, how her words become flesh. Perhaps she will find a creative form in which to manifest the power of her personal symbols.

I propose to tell the story of such an analysis, the one I know best – my own – and to reflect on how language and poetry expresses the living symbol: the word made flesh. A series of poems about my analytic experience will structure the talk.

Naomi Ruth Lowinsky, PhD, is an analyst member of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco and a widely published poet. Her book on creativity, The Sister from Below: When the Muse Gets Her Way, has just been published by Fisher King Press. She has published a collection of poems about the analytic experience, Crimes of the Dreamer. She is the poetry editor of Psychological Perspectives, teaches writing classes in many settings, and is in private practice in Berkeley.

Jung's Red Book, available from Fisher King Press

THE RED BOOK
Now Available for immediate shipping!


The Red Book
by C.G. Jung / Edited by Sonu Shamdasani
416pp, Hardcover
List Price $195.00
ON SALE FOR $169.95
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Product Description
The most influential unpublished work in the history of psychology. When Carl Jung embarked on an extended self-exploration he called his “confrontation with the unconscious,” the heart of it was The Red Book, a large, illuminated volume he created between 1914 and 1930. Here he developed his principle theories—of the archetypes, the collective unconscious, and the process of individuation—that transformed psychotherapy from a practice concerned with treatment of the sick into a means for higher development of the personality.

While Jung considered The Red Book to be his most important work, only a handful of people have ever seen it. Now, in a complete facsimile and translation, it is available to scholars and the general public. It is an astonishing example of calligraphy and art on a par with The Book of Kells and the illuminated manuscripts of William Blake. This publication of The Red Book is a watershed that will cast new light on the making of modern psychology.
212 color illustrations.

About the Author/Editor
Sonu Shamdasani, a preeminent Jung historian, is Reader in Jung History at Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College London. He lives in London, England.

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Honoring the Assumption of Mary

An Introduction to Re-Imagining Mary by Mariann Burke

Re-Imagining Mary is about meeting Mary in image and imagination. It is about the Mary image mirroring both an outer reality and the inner feminine soul. My first meeting with Mary began with an experience of Fra Angelico’s Annunciation (Cortona). I cannot account for my unusual response to the image except to say that, at the time, over twenty years ago, I was studying Jungian psychology in Zürich, Switzerland and was then probably more disposed to respond to the imaginal world. One day as I sat in my basement apartment reflecting on a picture of his Annunciation, energy seemed to surge through me and lift me above myself. Tears brought me to deep center.

Fra Angelico. Annunciation (ca. 1433) Museo Diocesano, Cortona.(1)

It does not matter whether my experience was religious or psychic. The two are very similar since any religious experience always affects our psyche and changes it. It was as if I was restored to my truest self. This was an awakening for me, not an ecstasy. Far from leaving my body-self, I seemed to recover it. At the time I had no desire to study Art History or Iconography. Instead, wishing to stay in the world of the symbolic, I returned to the Biblical inspiration for the image in St. Luke.

This is what St. Luke tells us about Jesus’ conception:

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the House of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. He went in and said to her, “Rejoice, so highly favored! The Lord is with you.” She was deeply disturbed by these words and asked herself what this greeting could mean, but the angel said to her, “Mary, do not be afraid; you have won God’s favor. Listen! You are to conceive and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High.” (Luke:1:26-38)

I had read this passage many times but it was soon to take on richer meaning.

Since we know nothing of Jesus’ conception and birth, legend and myth “fill in.” The word ‘myth’ comes from the ancient Greek word ‘mythos’ meaning ‘word.’ Both ‘logos’ and ‘mythos’ mean ‘word.’ While ‘logos’ refers to rational thinking, ‘mythos’ describes poetic or intuitive thinking. “Biblical accounts of Jesus’ birth and resurrection are ‘mythos.’ Biblical historical facts of his life are ‘logos.’ Both are true.”(2) Myths or mythos express truth closer to life’s meaning than facts. Myths resonate in the soul. For example, stories about the quest for the Grail resonate with all “searchers.” We long to experience the Holy, the numinous. The Annunciation, the birth in the stable, the shepherds’ adoration, and the journey to Egypt, all of these give valuable insights into our personal spiritual journey. And the artists who have painted these scenes have provided us with “windows” into depths unknown perhaps even to them . . .

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Mariann Burke is a Jungian analyst in private practice in Newton, MA. She holds graduate degrees from the University of Pittsburgh, Andover-Newton Theological School, and the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland. She has done graduate work in Scripture at Union Theological Seminary and La Salle University. Her interests include the body-psyche connection, feminine spirituality, and the psychic roots of Christian symbolism. She is a member of the Religious of the Sacred Heart (RSCJ)

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1.The work of art depicted in this image and the reproduction thereof are in the public domain worldwide. The reproduction is part of a collection of reproductions compiled by The Yorck Project. The compilation copyright is held by Zenodot Verlagsgesellschaft mbH and licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fra_Angelico_069.jpg
2. Seminar notes by Dr. Richard Naegle, Guild for Psychological Studies, San Francisco, 1995. In St. John’s Gospel “Logos” refers to the eternal existence of the Word. See also Karen Armstrong, A Short History of Myth, p. 31.

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The Father Spirit: At the Turning Point

an article by Bud Harris, Ph.D.

A Guide for Rediscovering and Renewing
the Foundations of Fatherhood

The Father Spirit at the Turning Point

As I was reflecting on Fathers' Day this year and developing the material I'm going to use in a Fall lecture and workshop, "The Father Quest: A Guide for Rediscovering and Renewing the Foundations of Fatherhood," I was moved to write the following article. I titled it "The Father Spirit at the Turning Point." Good friends who publish Western North Carolina Woman magazine included it in their June issue; every year their June issue is "Honoring the Y Chromosome." Because of the enthusiastic response to the article, I've decided to share it with you. I hope that you will find it inspiring and enriching.

A few mornings after Christmas my wife and I were sitting at the breakfast table with my daughter. While I slowly sipped my tea, she was explaining how the slump in the economy had impacted their holidays. As a family of five with three children, finding their income reduced substantially had ushered in a holiday stress that was new to them. When she finished talking she sighed and added, "I've given up any hope that we can leave our children any better off than we were."

I was shocked by the discouragement in her voice. Leaving our children better off than we were when we started adult life has been a major part of the American Dream for as long as I can remember. I don't know how old that part of our dream is but I'm sure my father, who lived through the Great Depression, devoted much of his life to it. For his age-group, being sure your children went to college was considered a guarantee for the chance at a better life. My father's generation came out of the depression, World War II and the atomic age with a colossal yearning to create a healthy, sound world. They wanted their children to have lives that were smooth and prosperous. As we lived into the nineteen fifties our society and our families tried to make problems taboo. We wanted to have certainties. Or, rather, our parents wanted to have them for us even as the world was spiraling into the chaos of the nineteen sixties. I don't blame them for their longings because I know they were born out of the fear and traumas they endured and their desire to create a safer world for themselves and their children. Yet, this longing eventually became the root of their problems as it narrowed their perspective on life and now it has become the root of our problems as we have concretized the symbols of well-being onto financial success and material abundance.

I can easily remember that in the nineteen seventies our societal goal was to have more leisure time for our families and recreation. But, as we moved into the recession and energy shortage of the early nineteen eighties our old economic terrors began to re-emerge and we refocused on becoming workaholics; the trend-setting movie of that decade was Wall Street, famous for the speech in it that "greed is good." Instead of being a warning, this movie forecast the future.

The fear, anxiety and profound challenges that had caused a generation of men to become our "greatest generation" left them so wounded that they were unable to train and mentor their sons to be capable of meeting new challenges. My father and my coaches and teachers were more concerned that we be able to get "good" jobs than they were with teaching courage and the importance of character. They had lost track of the fact that the world is always spinning into a future of new challenges that we can rarely predict. This kind of a world can only be met effectively when we have learned something about the importance of having character, which includes love, openness, courage, integrity, and the respect for creativity. The dream of our Founding Fathers was to create a country where individuals could experience freedom, dignity, respect, equal protection under the law, the right to a representative government, the right to worship according to our own conscience and the pursuit of happiness. While this vision was imperfectly implemented it was the most profound social vision in history.

Let us remember now that the reason we call these men the Founding Fathers is no accident. In archetypal terms it is the positive, inspiring Father Spirit that calls for transformation, a renaissance of the spirit of the times in the culture or in each of us. From the perspective of Jungian psychology it is the positive Father Spirit that has called me to transform myself and grow through and beyond the crises in my life, and it is the positive Father Principle (both coming from the same archetype) that demands I must give a personal response to new life and a protective field for it to grow in. This is an important part of the definition of father love whether it is to mother and child or to the concerns of culture. It is the responsibility of father love to build a place for new life to thrive in.

Let us remember also that every archetypal image has a negative, destructive side as well as a positive, nurturing one. There is a negative destructive Father Spirit that we must watch out for. We have seen this image pictured in stories and movies. Darth Vader may be the one that is best known, or the father whose son committed suicide in Dead Poets' Society. Of course, some of us have experienced personifications of the destructive father spirit personally if our father was abusive or supported the Great Santini approach to sports, confrontation or aggression. The negative father spirit is also one that is fearful, afraid of being overwhelmed by life, and is therefore afraid of change, new life, and creative potentials. When we are possessed by this spirit we live in the illusionary hope that the way we did it in the past will be the best way to do it in the future.

These descriptions of the negative father spirit remind me of the experiences of an old college friend. We went to Georgia Tech and he majored in industrial engineering. His father owned a plant that produced concrete blocks. My friend looked forward to the day he could join his father and uncles in the family business. After his graduation his father said he wanted to teach him the business from the ground up and he started him at a low-paying, nasty, back-breaking job in the plant. In reality, my friend learned to hate the business and the true nature of his father that he discovered in the process. He realized his father had no respect for his intelligence or achievements in a tough university, and little respect for his desire to be close to him. And he was unable to nurture his son's ability to bring a new spirit of creativity into the business. His father's interest in maintaining his power and superiority was more important to him than his love for his son.

When my daughter spoke to me a few days after Christmas, I was too surprised to answer her very well. But after thinking about what she said I realized that we are at a turning point in history. I believe that we can leave our children and our grandchildren better off than when we entered adult life. But I also believe that our quest today is to leave them better off spiritually than we were. We can teach them more about reality than we were taught. We can help them learn while they are still in the safety of our love that life is full of uncertainty and anxiety, faith and nagging doubts, profound emotions, health and sickness, love, despair and grandeur. Our goal should not be to help them search for security but for competence in adult endeavors and for meaning along with the kind of passion that is soul deep rather than settling for the good life based on materialism. We must also teach by example or our efforts will be without substance.

If we are going to leave them better off spiritually than we were, we must be living a life supported by a spiritual purpose that is more profound than appearances, the security of fundamentalism, practices that help us avoid looking into our own souls, or the naïve answers of groups immersed in positive thinking. We should be able to show by how we live that we are aware of our ability to confront our deepest fears and hopes, our joys and sorrows, our wounds of love and how we've failed our own ideals at times. And, as our children mature we must be able to share some of what we've learned from these experiences.

The new president we've elected symbolizes a turning point. So far, he is facing our many problems with foresight and intelligence. I'm impressed that he doesn't see war as the solution to every problem ranging from cancer to terrorism. It is about time we learned, or relearned the lesson from our Founding Fathers, that masculine strength, wisdom and courage, when used in support of life's greatest principles, can overcome the efforts of mighty empires whose major focus is on power and commerce.

Our new president is a symbol of the new potential that has been aroused in our country. But, he is not a savior and he knows it. We must answer our own call to transform our model of living into one that isn't based on the fear of losing our never-ending material growth. The Father Spirit at its best calls us to look for balance and depth, for spiritual growth to balance our material growth and spiritual depth to provide the meaning that can give purpose and support to our lives-because neither the material alone nor the spiritual alone can give us the needed fullness of life.

We are also in a dangerous time. When great new potentials are born, the forces of the old order are threatened and fight back. Just as King Herod slaughtered the innocents, all of the new creative potentials he could get his hands on, the voices of conventional wisdom, of fear and the status quo, will fight viciously to retain their power and control. But, this is an era for men to live with new courage, creativity and love-in the support of life. I am looking forward to seeing my grandsons live into this world, and I want to do everything I can to help prepare them for it and it for them.

The Father Quest:
Rediscovering an Elemental Force
by Bud Harris
ISBN 978-0-9810344-9-2
Available from your local bookstore, a host of online booksellers, and directly from Fisher King Press
Call 1-800-228-9316 to order by phone.

Press Release: Two New Inner City Titles

INNER CITY BOOKS is proud to add TWO NEW TITLES to its substantial, acclaimed canon of Studies in Jungian Psychology by Jungian Analysts:

125. AN AMERICAN JUNGIAN: In Honor of Edward F. Edinger
(Ed. George R. Elder and Dianne D. Cordic). Illustrated.
ISBN 978-1-894574-26-6. 288 pages. Sewn. Index. $35/£20

This extraordinary compilation brings together essays and reviews by Dr. Edinger together with appreciations by others of his work and interviews with him. None of it has previously been published in book form.

Edward F. Edinger was such a significant presence in the worldwide Jungian community that this volume can only begin to assess his greatness as an interpreter of Jung’s work and his dedication to the significance of Analytical psychology—but it well illustrates his worth.

Contents include:

• Bibliography of Edinger books and electronic media
• An American Jungian: Transcript of the acclaimed video,"A Conversation with Edinger," by Lawrence W. Jaffe
• A Guide to the Writings of Edward F. Edinger, by Robin Robertson
• Edinger Essays and Reviews:
• An Outline of Analytical Psychology
• Paracelsus and the Age of Aquarius
• Ralph Waldo Emerson: Naturalist of the Soul
• Individuation: A Myth for Modern Man
• The Question of a Jungian Community
• Archetypal Patterns in Schizophrenia
• Tributes to M. Esther Harding, Eleanor Bertine, Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz
• The Psyche and Global Unrest

* * * * *

126. JUNG UNCORKED: Rare Vintages from the Cellar of Analytical Psychology—Book Four
Decanted with Commentaries by Daryl Sharp (Toronto)
ISBN 978-1-894574-27-3. 160 pages. Sewn. Index. $25/£15

This volume concludes the author’s adventurous Uncorked series (see titles 120, 121, 123) explicating various essays in C. G. Jung’s Collected Works. Each chapter presents spirited passages from an essay in one volume of Jung’s CW, with experiential commentaries on their psychological and contemporary relevance.

Contents:

• 9ii The Shadow
• 10 The Undiscovered Self
• 11 Yoga and the West 39
• 12 Religious Ideas in Alchemy 48
• 13 The Philosophical Tree 55
• 14 The Components of the Coniunctio 62
• 15 In Memory of Sigmund Freud 75
• 16 Principles of Practical Psychotherapy 87
• 17 The Development of Personality 108
• 18 Symbols and the Interpretation of Dreams 115

The entire catalogue of Inner City titles are available for purchase online at www.fisherkingpress.com or call 1-800-228-9316 to order in the US or 1-831-238-7799 from abroad.

Politics of the Soul: Enemy, Cripple, Beggar

an in-depth review by Joey Madia

Written by Erel Shalit, a noted and extensively published Jungian psychoanalyst practicing in Ra’anana, Israel, Enemy, Cripple & Beggar is a treasure for our times. Vital and applicable to both lay people and experts, the book flows seamlessly and spirally from scholarship, to textual interpretation, to case studies, and the analysis of dreams. Shalit draws on an impressive breadth of scholarship and myths/fairy tales, looking at both history (e.g., the Crusades or Masada) and story.

The book first discusses the key aspects of the Hero, considering Byron, the work of Robert Graves and Robert Bosnak, the Bible, and Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, among many other sources.

I take as my starting point the condition of mythlessness in the modern world, as expressed by Jung and reinforced by Campbell and how it is limiting our vision and ability to cure an ailing world rife with war and economic/environmental woes.

If ever we needed to consider the role of the Hero, it is now.

Consider the mistaken mythologizing of the death and wounding, respectively, of Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch. While both are certainly heroes, the government’s and media’s manipulation of their circumstances (used to try and justify an unjustifiable war) bring to mind David Mamet’s Wag the Dog, the 1997 film adaptation of Larry Beinhart's novel, American Hero.

The people love their heroes and their construction for societal consumption by the government and the media has become no less than a High Art.

Shalit says, on p. 24: “In society, the hero may be the messenger of hope who lights the torch of democracy. Sometimes it is amazing how, at the right moment in history, the heroism of a nation, spurting forth through layers of oppression, creates dramatic changes and overthrows worn-out regimes.”

Might this apply to U.S. president-elect Barak Obama? Many people think so, and many more find themselves hoping so. Then again, there are many who see him as the shadow, using the term antichrist, and finding similarities between he and Nicolae Carpathia in the Left Behind series.

If ever we needed to consider the role of the Hero, it is now.

Consider the current fascination with Superheroes in the age of CGI and comic book cinema. Just last night I watched Christopher Nolan’s record-shattering The Dark Knight, which takes as its thesis the complicated interrelationship of the hero and the shadow. Given the death of Heath Ledger, who played the Joker, the notions of the Hero are expanded to the realm of the Artist and his or her relationship with Pain.

When Shalit writes, on p. 95, “…life thrives in the shadow; in our detested weaknesses, complex inferiorities and repressed instincts there is more life and inspiration than in the well-adjusted compliance of the persona,” I think that his words bring Ledger’s death into sharp relief. As an acting teacher who works almost exclusively with teens, many of which see Ledger’s “dying for his art” as a form of heroism (an interpretation with which I disagree; it discounts the necessity of craft in preventing such tragedies), I think it is more important than ever to examine carefully the Hero’s role and relationship to the shadow.

The shadow is Jung’s term for the unconscious, the “thing a person has no wish to be” (p. ix). His early experience of his own shadow is, to me, some of the most compelling and useful text in his Memories, Dreams, and Reflections.

The hero must go into the shadow (the forest, the depth of the sea, the desert, the cave­—Plato’s or the Celtic Bard’s) to retrieve his soul. The shadow is a place of misery, calling to mind Schopenhauer’s ideas about life being mostly pain and sorrow and Campbell’s advice to “follow your bliss” [sat chit ananda].

Much of what Shalit centers on as aspects of the Hero are present in the shaman, who also has “one foot in divinity, one in the world of mortals” (p. 33). The journey into the netherworld (often to retrieve or heal the soul), the returning with precious gifts of knowledge, the responsibility of re-integration into the community (see Mircea Eliade’s comprehensive works on shamanism), all parallel the hero’s journey. The modes of the vision quest and the alchemical transformation are, further, symbolically manifested in the landscape of the fairy tale.

Pursuing this idea, Shalit, in the tradition of Robert Bly’s Iron John or Bruno Bettelheim’s Uses of Enchantment, ably presents and dissects a number of fairy tales, myths, and Biblical stories in the course of the book.

“Nixie of the Millpond” is presented without commentary. The myth of Perseus, however, is told with commentary from a wide variety of sources mixed in. It would be valuable to watch Clash of the Titans (1981) after reading this section, as it brings Shalit’s analysis visually to life. Page 47 lists eight traits of the hero myth to guide the interpretation. I would add a ninth—the use of magical items (such as Athena’s shield, Hermes’ sword, and the three gifts of the Stygian nymphs, all of which are given to Perseus to defeat the Medusa).

I have used these same basic elements of the hero myth for the past decade in my theatre workshops with youth and in my books on using drama in the classroom.

If our youth are to break the limiting conventions of societal and governmental structures that have put the planet and its inhabitants in a place of crisis, they—and those who guide and educate them—must understand the Hero and Shadow both.

On p. 65 Shalit writes, “Collective consciousness constitutes a threat by its demand on compliance with rules, roles and regulations.” The mythological fighting of dragons and monsters by the Hero is most clearly articulated to me by Joseph Campbell, when, in various books and interviews, he talked about Nietzsche describing the cycle of life as beginning as a camel loaded down with the requirements of parents and society. The camel then goes into the desert (one of the hero landscapes I mentioned earlier) to become the lion, who must slay the dragon whose scales all say "Thou Shalt." This dragonslaying, certainly a noble and necessary undertaking, situates the Hero as the classic warrior, akin to Michael the Archangel and St. George, but when the fighting is done, the warrior must put down the sword. Whether we speak of the Vulcans comprising the Bush administration (as author James Mann terms them) or an abused child who grows up to wage ongoing battles even on a landscape of peace in a more stable family situation, this is a notion well worth focusing on. I think of the Roman general Cincinnatus, who moved back and forth between sword and plow and the dwarves of the novels of Dan Parkinson, who switch the hammer from one hand to the other as necessary in times of peace and war.

The hero struggling with the shadow often projects onto a demonized Other because, as Shalit reminds us, “Since shadows easily lend themselves to projection [see pgs. 97–101 for the three types identified by Jung], they are discovered so much more easily in the other than oneself” (p. 84). This is, of course, the source of most of the ugliness in the history of Humankind.

The Biblical explorations/interpretations presented are a high point of the book (see, for example, p. 63 on the Virgin Mary) and begin in earnest with the section on the shadow. The etymology of both biblical and mythological names given throughout add much to the discussion.

Shalit uses Oscar Wilde’s “doppelganger novel,” Picture of Dorian Gray, to explore the notion of shadow in terms of our duality, as Dorian is projecting his shadow onto the canvas. Duality—war/peace, animus/anima, masculine/feminine, dark/light—is prevalent throughout the book.

The second half of the book deals with the Enemy, Cripple, and Beggar of the title. The Enemy (the projection onto the Other that is really the shadow in oneself) is explored through such Biblical figures as Amalek, Samson, Jacob, and the key figures in the trial of Jesus. The section on the Fathers and the Collective Consciousness, dealing with Caiaphas, the Sanhedrin, Barabbas, and Judas, is fascinating reading. The connection of the father and the son resounds on many levels, including the relationship of Jesus/Judas as being nearly inseparable.

The Cripple (one’s weaknesses and inner wounds) is explored through mythological/fictional figures such as Hephaestus, Ptah, Oedipus, Quasimodo, and the child in Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Cripple.” There are case studies here that serve many of the same functions as the analyses of the myths and fairy tales, and will appeal to those interested in the dynamics of Jungian analysis. Certain aspects of the second case study reminded me of Don Juan DeMarco (1995), the film starring Marlon Brando and Johnny Depp, especially considering that love (Eros) is the means to heal the Cripple, as articulated so well in this book.

The final section deals with the Beggar (the “door that leads to the passageway of the Self,” p. 225), which is the Inner Voice or Daemon. Shalit deals here with the notions of alchemy that so fascinated Jung. I was intrigued by the story of King Solomon as the wandering beggar and Shalit’s exploration of the life of the prophet Elijah.

In closing, I want to mention the cover art, a painting titled “Emerging” by Susan Bostrom-Wong, an artist and Jungian analyst. Shalit asks the reader to examine the images embedded in the human figure. It is well worth the time to do so. Like the book itself, the longer you look, the more you will see.

I urge educators, artists, and those in search of new paths toward a life well-lived to buy this book. I know that one of my own heroes, Joseph Campbell, certainly would.

Erel Shalit's Enemy, Cripple, & Beggar: Shadows in the Hero's Path and his previously published book The Complex: Path of Transformation from Archetype to Ego can be purchased at www.fisherkingpress.com or by phoning Fisher King Press directly at 1-831-238-7799. Also available from Amazon.com and from a host of other on-line booksellers.

This review of Erel Shalit’s Enemy, Cripple & Beggar: Shadows in the Hero’s Path was written by Joey Madia of New Mystics. New Mystics is an online Arts community founded in 2002 by Joey Madia, playwright, poet, novelist, actor, director, artist, musician, and teacher who promotes the work of a group of cutting edge writers and artists. To learn more about New Mystics, Joey Madia, and his most recent publication Jester-Knight visit www.newmystics.com.

Give me that old time religion. It’s good enough for me . . . Or is it?

Perhaps that 'Old Time' religion has failed us, or at least the deeper meaning of symbols and metaphors have been lost to misinterpreted literalism and that 'old king,' religious fundamentalism. Blindly following old time beliefs and attitudes in their many forms and guises is following our forefathers right over the cliff and into a vast sea of disillusionment and meaninglessness. Will we repeat this by following along with a host of fundamentalist ideals, the endless pursuit of materialism at the expense of our ecology, and other forms of meaningless neurotic suffering, or we will be moved to willingly and consciously suffer the unknown, until these old time religious symbols become alive within and take on authentic meaning as opposed to being a useless, lifeless, hand-me-down relic?

Instead of completely running away from, or blindly following, perhaps we could begin to question these old religions and fundamentalisms, begin to confront and dialogue with these calcified God-Images, and find that lost nugget of gold - the transcendent. After all, like a reoccurring nightmare, these haunting literalized religious concepts and other 'old king' values will not go away until their embedded images are exposed and truly given their due.

Edward F. Edinger’s Transformation of the God-Image and Lawrence W. Jaffe’s Celebrating Soul are two fine Inner City Book publications that address such concerns.

Transformation of the God-Image
by Edward F. Edinger
with a foreword by Lawrence W. Jaffe

"Whoever knows God has an effect on him." C.G. Jung, Answer to Job.

From Lawrence W. Jaffe’s Foreword of Transformation of the God-Image:

Despite the Biblical imagery, this book is not concerned with traditional religion. Its subject, rather, is psychology, the scientific study of the soul. References are to Job, God and Christ because our deepest feelings still resonate to that imagery. Put another way, the reason for the Biblical references is because "Jungian psychology has the task of introducing to the world a new world view" (Edinger, Aion). The roots of this new world view lie in the Judeo-Christian myth.

If, as Edinger predicts, Jung's works are one day read as Scripture once was--for sustenance of our souls, for moving words that touch us to the heart, for reassurance, guidance and orientation--Answer to Job will surely occupy a unique place in the Jungian canon. The special status of Answer to Job as the most complete statement of Jung's essential message has long been acknowledged by Jungians, who have discussed it in countless seminars and conferences since its publication in 1952.

What has sparked all this interest is that the central theme of Answer to Job--the transformation of God through human consciousness--is the central theme, too, of Jungian psychology. Not long before his death Jung himself affirmed its importance, remarking that he would like to rewrite all of his books except Answer to Job, which he would leave just as it stands.

Answer to Job contains the kernel, the essence, of the Jungian myth, and Edinger's study of it, at once erudite and down-to-earth, thoughtful and heartfelt, evokes that essence with unequaled clarity and power.




Celebrating Soul by Lawrence W. Jaffe

‘Man has a soul and there is a treasure buried in the field.’ --C.G. Jung.

People are beginning to bump up against the limits of materialism and rationalism, realizing that these fail to offer something essential, a purpose in life. Although a few turn back to institutional religion for orientation, many find that road barred to them by their reason and their skepticism. Whatever form the new religion takes it must leave a large place for reason. The new religion will therefore be the product of a marriage between reason and faith, science and religion.

We cannot do without meaning in our lives. Meaning cannot be established objectively; it arises only through a relationship with the inner, subjective world. But it is precisely that realm that has been discredited in our day by the misapplication of the scientific spirit. In compensation, this book describes and gives examples of the inner life in order to help the reader sense the reality of the soul. It explores the spiritual significance of Jungian psychology--its message of personal and cultural renewal for a civilization that has lost its sense of purpose.

In Celebrating Soul, Lawrence Jaffe helps to expose what has been lost in literal translations and brings us into deeper relationship with the symbolic and metaphoric value of concerns such as:

* The New Religion
* The Jungian Myth
* Jungian Spirituality
* What Is Our Purpose in Life?
* The Hymn of the Pearl
* Breaking the Chain of Suffering
* The Golden Rule and the Iron Rule
* The Wounded Inner Child in the Bible
* The Lesson of Job
* The Meaning of Suffering
* Holding the Opposites As Service to God
* Wrestling with the Angel
* The Redemptive Value of Consciousness
* A New Form of Worship
* The Healing of Childhood Wounds
* Success Versus Consciousness
* Jung on the Life of Christ
* Studying Torah and Studying Jung
* Redemption Through Shadow Work
* A Psychological View of the First Commandment
* Testimony to the Holocaust
* Death and Resurrection
* Being "Born Again"
* Individuation and the Bible
* Jung and the Bible on Love
* New Life in Late Life
* A Psychological Gloss on a Benediction
* The Problem of Prayer
* Christ As a Model for Individuation
* Reason and Statistics
* Self-Knowledge Gives Meaning to Life
* The Answer Lies Within
* Psychotherapy As Sabbath

Along with many other publications
Transformation of the God Image and Celebrating Soul can be ordered by calling
Fisher King Press at 1-800-228-9316 in the US, or +1-831-238-7799 from abroad.
Also available at www.fisherkingpress.com

Looking for a few Good Men . . . Authentic, 21st Century Men, that is!

a review by Mel Mathews
of Resurrecting the Unicorn:
Masculinity in the 21st Century

Not long ago while listening to a NPR broadcast concerning Masculinity in the 21st Century, I was caught up by an interview of a woman journalist who had written about 'what it means to be a man in the 21st century.' The concept of a woman reporting on and defining, or attempting to define, masculinity was a bit off-putting. We tread on thin ice when a woman, or women define manhood and/or masculinity, just as we do when a man, or men attempt to define women and femininity. Sure, we all carry these contra-sexual aspects within, but that doesn’t make Man an authority on femininity, nor Woman an authority on masculinity, anymore than it makes a lefty an authority on a righty. The interview soon shifted away from a woman’s definition of masculinity and to pop-cultural definitions of manhood. Perhaps I was still ruffled by this lefty-righty thing, but I also considered it quite shallow to have masculinity or femininity defined by fleeting fashions of pop-culture, for as naturally as DNA defines genetics, archetypal patterns define the psychological and spiritual makeup of masculinity and femininity—not passing trends.

Now, speaking as a man about masculinity, I can say that many 21st century men have been raised by women—without a masculine role model—and what they've learned about being a man has been defined by the media, the women’s movement, and many other distorted social norms. Often, such men discover that they are no longer able or willing to carry these externally imposed values and instead seek alternative definitions of masculinity and lifestyles. Some would call these periods of change a crisis; others would consider this a step in the direction of mental health. Regardless of how we label this time of soul-searching, it ultimately calls for a willingness to suffer the unknown. The rewards for such courage often prove quite beneficial. For those willing to take on the task of becoming an 'authentic' man, one can expect to gain a more defined sense of self who is moved by his own internal values, and in turn experience a more meaningful and fulfilling life.

However, all the compensatory posturing, chest-pounding or drum-beating in the world won't revive this great masculine spirit. This can only be accomplished by developing a deeper relationship to soul, to the archetypal patterns or energies that comprise the core aspects of our beings. The mental landscape of metaphors—dreams, stories, myths, fairy tales—deal with the eternal truths of human nature and are the language of soul. In the recently published book Resurrecting the Unicorn: Masculinity in the 21st Century, Bud Harris masterfully guides readers deep into the realm of metaphors where we can examine the evolution and development of human consciousness and reclaim discarded, yet much needed, integral aspects of our masculine natures.

"True masculinity—not the macho type—is needed for men to be strong enough to meet the feminine in themselves. For this they must find their own masculine face—not a face defined by women," suggests Bud Harris in Resurrecting the Unicorn. Harris then delves into the fairy tale, "Fyrtoiet," better known as "The Tinder Box" by Hans Christian Andersen, where an "Elemental Blueprint for Developing Masculinity" is extracted from the symbolic metaphors of this wise old tale.

Perhaps it’s time to pick up where Robert Bly's Iron John and Sam Keen's Fire in the Belly left off in the last part of the 20th century. If you're ready to explore and claim an 'authentic' masculinity from a place that calls for a great deal of courage, where truth, values, and integrity are defined from within, not by antiquated beliefs or pop-culture, then Bud Harris' Resurrecting the Unicorn is certainly worthy of your time and attention.

Resurrecting the Unicorn: Masculinity in the 21st Century, ISBN 978-0-9810344-0-9 is available from the publisher, Fisher King Press at www.fisherkingpress.com or by calling 1-831-238-7799. This timely publication is also available from your local bookstore and from a host of online booksellers.

Mel Mathews' book reviews have appeared in many syndicated publications. He is the author of the Malcolm Clay Trilogy, a series of novels that portray a man’s struggles as he goes against the grains of his upbringings and emerges as a renewed man who is guided by his own inner truth and hard-won wisdom. Learn more about this reviewer and his publications at: www.melmathews.com or www.malcolmclay.com

Permission to reprint this article is granted.

On Creativity and Healing

by Lawrence H. Staples, Ph.D.


In his book, The Restoration of the Self, Heinz Kohut wrote at length about psychically wounded people and the therapeutic methods he used to help them. He found none more effective, or so essential, as creative work. He found, importantly, that it made no difference whether the creative work was deemed good or artistic by any standards. The simple process of doing creative work helped restore the self. It is as if nature plants within us a built-in remedy for our worst affliction, the affliction of being separated from large parts of ourselves. We experience this separation as a kind of inner civil war that divides us internally. It produces the pain and suffering inherent in any civil war, whether in our internal world or outside. It seems that the human urge to do creative work is a compensatory impulse and blessing that arises from the psychic civil war that wounded us. In my own work as a psychoanalyst, I have witnessed the truth of Kohut’s findings. I have watched patients grow in wholeness as they began to work creatively in a variety of media that helped them recover and restore lost aspects of themselves.

Creative work mirrors us in a way we were often not mirrored by our parents. It mirrors us for the simple reason that we can see projected in it, if we look and interpret carefully, our own psychological and spiritual selves. Mirrors in all their manifold forms and guises help restore the wounded self.

Humans simply cannot see themselves without a mirror. Some mirrors, however, are better than others. Some are flawed or distorted so that we see ourselves, but only partially or inaccurately. From early on in life, we depend upon other humans to reflect us back to ourselves. But later in life, if we are lucky, we find that creative work and dreams mirror us more faithfully. We discover that human judgment taints and/or limits what is reflected back. Once we discover that we can mirror ourselves through creative work, we gain a modicum of self-sufficiency. We are no longer entirely dependent upon others to see us.

We may wonder why it is that humans cannot see themselves directly, why it is we can only see ourselves indirectly, as an image reflected by mirrors of various types. As we know any reflective surface, other humans, dreams, and our creative production can serve as mirrors to help us see ourselves as an indirect experience. The secret behind our need for reflective mirrors to see ourselves may be found in ancient wisdom, which informs us that to look into the face of God is to die. This wisdom says that to see the totality, to observe the Tremendum directly, is dangerous. We could infer from this wisdom that to see our own totality, our self, would be equally dangerous. It may explain why Perseus, powerful as he was, could not look at Medusa directly. He could only safely see her in the mirror provided by his shield. At the bottom of the unconscious, represented by the Labyrinth, he would find his own dark side, and could not look at it head on. It doesn’t take too much imagination to suspect that seeing the darkest side of God, or our self, could be a shattering experience. That may be why we hide our darkest side as assiduously as we can in the shadow, necessarily protected from our seeing it until a reflective mirror appears to reveal it to us safely.

As Kohut has observed, we do not have to be professional, creative artists to do creative work that helps us integrate and restore lost parts of ourselves. The integration of opposites takes place through the mirroring effect of the work and its symbols and images, regardless of whether or not our output is deemed by others to be artistic or good. It is the creative process that integrates opposites. It helps make us whole. It helps make us whole because it brings back to us the missing opposites that we early in life cut off from our psychic bodies.

An example of the attempt to integrate the opposites, and to make one’s self whole through art and its mirroring power, is provided by the life of Frida Kahlo, a Mexican artist, whom I am sure most of you know.

Frida was raised by parents who could not have been more opposite. Her mother was Mexican, rigidly Catholic, cool and puritanical. Her mother had grown up in an age when Mexican women were not allowed to say the word buttocks; rather they would say “that which I sit on.” Nor could they say the word legs; rather “that which I stand on.” And, as in the movie Like Water for Chocolate, they were not allowed to look at their bodies. They were taught to feel guilt and shame about their bodies and themselves. Much of what we would call normal life today was cut off from them. Frida’s mother was severe and frowned on much of what Frida did and who she was.

Frida’s father was a Jew who had immigrated from Germany. He had a completely different cultural and religious experience from her mother. Many accounts report him to have been overly solicitous of and close with Frida, especially after she hurt her foot when she was nine years old. All the children in her family were girls and she became her father’s favorite, and tried to be the boy for him that he never had, but yearned for. She was torn by the wholly different views and values of her parents but behaved in ways that were more acceptable to her father. She was every bit the tomboy, but she was also a lively and mischievous young girl. In her life, she was very unconventional when compared to traditional Mexican women at the time. She drank, she smoked, she was bisexual, had several abortions, was assertive, and was successful in a chosen career in which she distinguished herself.

At the age of 16, Frida nearly died in a terrible accident, breaking her leg and foot, her vertebra in three places, and her shoulder and ribs. She was left partly crippled.

After she recovered, she began to paint. It was as if her paintings were a collage on which she was pasting herself back together. Her paintings were mostly self-portraits. She could literally see herself in her paintings, her mirrors. She was fascinated with her body, which her mother had disallowed. While she was recuperating, she had had a mirror installed over her bed. Some instinct led her to sense the deep need for mirroring that she had not received as a child. Raised in such rigidity, conflicting worldviews, and values, she was cut off from parts of herself, and her painting was an attempt to create her own mirror so that she could restore herself. Her accident when she was sixteen profoundly affected her life and her ability to live it fully. Her painting was essentially her autobiography and a healing endeavor.

Lawrence Staples has a Ph.D. in psychology; his special areas of interest are the problems of midlife, guilt, and creativity. Dr. Staples is a diplomate of the C.G. Jung Institute, Zürich, Switzerland, holds AB and MBA degrees from Harvard, and is the author of the popular Guilt with a Twist and the recently published The Creative Soul: Art and the Quest for Wholeness.

both books are on sale now for $19.95 ea
or
purchase them together for $34.95

in the US call 1-800-228-9316
International call +1-831-238-7799
or visit
www.fisherkingpress.com

Father's Day and The Father Quest

With Great Pleasure we present the following new Fisher King Press titles by Bud and Massimilla Harris:


The Father Quest:
Rediscovering an Elemental Force
by Bud Harris
ISBN 978-0-9810344-9-2

An in-depth focus on the spiritual and psychological dimensions of fatherhood, The Father Quest goes beyond simple prescriptions and techniques to explain the importance of fatherhood to our present day culture. The “Father” is one of the two great pillars of society that shape and support human life from the beginning. Readers who are struggling to be fathers, as well those who are struggling with their own fathers, will find healing ingredients to awaken an inner source of renewal and inspiration. One of many subjects explored is the critical importance of passion and love as key ingredients of the “spirit of fatherhood.”





Like Gold Through Fire:
Understanding the Transforming Power of Suffering
by Massimilla and Bud Harris
ISBN 978-0-9810344-5-4

Like Gold Through Fire helps readers to fathom the mystery of their own heart and guides them through life’s labyrinth toward fulfillment and joy. It emphasizes the transforming power of suffering, how it can change us and open our hearts to compassion and joy, and in turn provide for a more rewarding life filled with a wider range of experiences. Like Gold Through Fire helps us to find meaning and to function in a society filled with suffering—helps us to participate in the transformation, as opposed to being a victim of our rapidly changing world.

“A Herculean work . . . whose purpose is to help us fathom the depth of this mystery in our own hearts. The Harrises, in this marvelous book, help us begin this holy work.” —Robert Sardello, Ph.D., Author of Love and the Soul




Resurrecting the Unicorn:
Masculinity in the 21st Century
by Bud Harris
—ISBN 978-0-9810344-0-9

Many 21st century men have been raised by women—without a masculine role model—and what they've learned about being a man has been defined by the media and distorted social norms. As is the case for both men and women, without a strong masculine image our souls become fragmented and we lose our way.

All the compensatory posturing, chest-pounding or drum-beating in the world won't revive this great masculine spirit! This can only be accomplished by developing a deeper relationship to soul. The mental landscape of metaphors—dreams, stories, myths, fairy tales—deal with the eternal truths of human nature and are the language of soul. In Resurrecting the Unicorn, Bud Harris guides us deep into the realm of metaphors so we can examine the evolution and development of human consciousness and reclaim discarded, yet much needed, aspects of our humanity.

On sale now for $19.95 ea or
Order all three of these Harris titles for $49.95
at www.fisherkingpress.com
Or phone 1-800-228-9316
International call +1-831-238-7799
Credit Cards Accepted

Massimilla and Bud Harris are diplomates of the C.G. Jung Institute in Zürich, Switzerland. They are practicing Jungian analysts and the cofounders of the C.G. Jung Center for Professional development in Asheville, NC. Bud Harris is the author of several publications including Resurrecting the Unicorn: Masculinity in the 21st Century, Sacred Selfishness: A Guide to Living a Life of Substance and The Fire and the Rose: The Wedding of Spirituality and Sexuality.

Send word if you have a book review or a Jungian article that you would like to have considered for a future newsletter. We prefer articles of 500-900 words.

Title information about all of our publications can be found at our website www.fisherkingpress.com

To download a free pdf version of The Fisher King Review which includes an article by Nancy Qualls-Corbett concerning: Re-Imagining Mary and an article by Fisher King author Erel Shalit, titled: Transiency and the Culture of Plastic, click HERE or visit the links page of our website.

Transiency and the Culture of Plastic

an article by Erel Shalit

Our post-modern era is characterized by increasing dislocation and fragmentation. The sense of permanence and constancy of old, is exchanged for temporality and fluidity, i.e., a condition of transiency. Not only do cars, trains and planes carry us across continents faster than most people once could imagine – perhaps with the exception of Jules Verne, but we travel cyberspace in zero-time. Speed in the era of transiency, makes the soulful road of the wanderer seem hopelessly obsolete.

Likewise, we are over-exposed to stimuli, information and images: once upon a time we would sit down and quietly look through the pictures of the past, the reminders of our childhood, enjoy a memory, recall days long gone by, share thoughts and feelings from a time that could be brought alive by the one photo from that day. Today, we are flooded by digital photos, numbered almost into infinity. Rarely do we remain more than seconds to glance at each photo, and even more rarely do we return to them – often unaware that what warrants no return, loses its soul.

It is by reflecting on the events in which we partake that we induce them with depth and meaning, but speed and superficiality seem to supersede depth and reflection.

We are flooded with images, but the onslaught of external images disrupts the flow of internal imagery. Excessive exteriority impinges upon the imagery of interiority.

In post-modern transiency everything is imaginable; yet, interiority is losing out to the externally produced image, which deceptively is taken for reality. The televised or computer-generated image no longer needs to be anchored in reality – it has become its own simulacrum, its own self-representation. As Baudrillard postulated, this may cause the erosion of our sense of the real.

Among the consequences of transiency, we find a weakening of the sense of meaning and of internal anchoring. The interiority of imagination is exchanged for the exteriority of imitation. In fact, Internet plagiarism has become a booming industry, and as has been said, “the intellectual tradition of inquiry is getting lost.” Caught up in viewing images from afar (tele-vision), we tend less to look around, nearby, or within. We search less for the meaning that is carried by the images and the symbols that arise from within the depths of ourselves, from our meaning- and symbol-forming self.

Thus, when our ego, as center of consciousness and our sense of conscious identity, is detached from its internal roots, the risk is it may lose its relative sense of unity and wholeness. While this may seemingly increase the ego’s flexibility and speedy adjustment to changing circumstances, the consequence is that it also lends itself indiscriminately to a multitude of appearances. An unintegrated, fragmented ego will all too easily put on any dress, without appropriate judgment –is it moral, what are the consequences? These questions pertain to the required ego functions. In fact, the wide variety of personae, of masks of appearance that are so easily accessible in cyberspace and the post-modern condition, easily take possession of the rootless ego, which may be drawn into a charade of transient (pseudo-) identities, such as blog-pseudonyms and second lives.

This, then, becomes a culture of plastic – plassein, i.e., “fit for molding,” to be cast into any shape, without character. Nearly half-a-century ago, Andy Warhol pointed at the culture of plastic, perhaps blurring the line between being a critical observer and a willing participator, his art embodying both an eye on the culture of production and the self-reproduction of culture. As Andy Warhol testified about himself, “Everybody's plastic, … I want to be plastic.”

Plastic has its definite advantages, and we can no longer live without it. However, plastic reflects something being synthetic and artificial, rather than natural and genuine. Plastic can, as well, be recast out of proportion, but what grows out of proportion is carcinogenic. With the benefits of plastic, and the idea and the cultural attitude that we may call ‘plastic,’ come its shadows, such as environmental harm, inauthenticity, imitation and reproduction rather than individual touch and feeling.

In a culture of plastic, the way we appear to the world, our persona, may be infinitely recast, find endless manifestations. In cyberspace, we easily hide behind pseudonyms and borrowed identities, whereby individual morality and responsibility are weakened. There is no function of the third, serving as intermediary, boundary and control.

For example, a man with a record of harassing women on internet chats, dreams that he is locked up in a prison cell. He hears the voice of an old man, who asks him questions that he must answer in order to be released. However, rather than listening and reflecting, he tries to escape, merely annoyed at the voice calling upon him. If he truly would wake up to understanding his guilt, the need for boundaries, and attending to his conscience, he might listen to the voice calling from within, that requires him to respond (responsibility; respondere, to pledge in return). The dream image portrays his avoidance of responsibility.

In a boundaryless space, where everything is free and accessible, and morality is weakening, everything can be borrowed, stolen, plagiarized or imitated. However, when imitation replaces imagination, representation is lost. Is not the ability to re-present basic to civilization? Did Einstein not claim that imagination is more important than knowledge, because knowledge remains limited, while imagination encircles the world?

Erel Shalit is a training and supervising analyst, and past president of the Israel Society of Analytical Psychology. He is the author of several publications, including The Hero and His Shadow: Psychopolitical Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel and The Complex: Path of Transformation from Archetype to Ego. Articles of his have appeared in journals such as Quadrant, The Jung Journal, Spring Journal, Political Psychology, Clinical Supervisor, Midstream, and he has entries in The Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Dr. Shalit lectures internationally at professional institutes, universities and cultural forums.

Erel Shalit's Enemy, Cripple, & Beggar: Shadows in the Hero's Path and his previously published books The Complex: Path of Transformation from Archetype to Ego and The Hero and His Shadow: Psychopolitical Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel can be purchased at www.fisherkingpress.com or by phoning 1-800-228-9316 in the US or +1-831-238-7799 from abroad.

SACRED SELFISHNESS

SACRED SELFISHNESS:
A Guide for Cultivating a Life of Love, Authenticity, and Substance
A Lecture, Seminar, & Workshop by Bud Harris

"... to be able to give something one has to be something...one must consist of gold and not of hunger."
C.G.Jung

"How can you love somebody if you don't love yourself? How can you give what you don't have?"
Maya Angelou

EVENING LECTURE
Friday, July 10, 2009
and
SEMINAR, WORKSHOP and LUNCHEON
Saturday, July 11, 2009
with BUD HARRIS, Ph.D.
Jungian Analyst and Author Diplomate, C.G. Jung Institute, Zurich

FRIDAY LECTURE
In his seminars on Nietzsche's "Zarathustra," Dr. Carl Jung emphasized that we must eat the gold of the world until we are made of gold and not hunger. Sacred Selfishness is the path of filling ourselves with gold. This path is based on the classic quest stories that reveal the path of renewed personal consciousness and help us examine all of our assumptions about ourselves and our lives to assist us in uncovering our hidden potentials.

Filling ourselves with gold is more than an intellectual exercise. It engages us fully in life and through growing self-knowledge softens and strengthens us while helping us to love life and other people. This lecture will explain how this idea evolved with Dr. Harris in the context of Dr. Jung's theory of individuation. Dr. Harris will provide an overview of how this path unfolds theoretically and in everyday life, how real love grows from the foundation of self-love.

SATURDAY SEMINAR, WORKSHOP & LUNCHEON
In the workshop, Dr. Harris explains how most of us are taught from childhood that we are supposed to be generous, to give to other and to meet the needs of people around us. In this part of the program we will explore how Jung's insistence that we eat the gold in the world and accumulate abundance differs from our early teachings and runs against society's sets of demands for feeling successful and worthwhile. Our early lessons and society's values leave us with unmet, often hidden needs and desires, especially those for love, passion and authenticity.

We will seek to amplify and understand the personal and collective forces that have molded our lives, created our scripts and the ways we can free ourselves from these influences and allow the potentials we have formerly curtailed to flourish with new life and transform us.

We will conclude by exploring how we can cultivate relationships and lives that are filled with gold. Workshop participants are asked to bring a pen and paper.

THEMES IN THE JOURNEY OF SACRED SELFISHNESS

1. Understanding the differences between sickly selfishness and Sacred Selfishness.

2. The benefits and spiritual dimensions of Sacred Selfishness.

3. Recognizing the role of Sacred Selfishness in healthy growth

4. How we all have become "captives of normalcy."

5. How we can truly become ourselves.

6. Encountering loneliness and darkness on the path.

7. Facing and dealing with the realities of our families.

8. Accepting symptoms and finding hope and healing.

9. Living a life of passion.

10. How to deal with conflicts between obligations and personal values in the journey.

11. Finding consciousness, illumination and community.

12. What it means to love others and life.

LECTURE
Friday, July 10th 7:30 - 9pm
In this illuminating lecture Dr. Bud Harris will share with us the path for renewing our lives through Sacred Selfishness and how Jungian psychology can help us transform ourselves and the world around us.

Admission is $25 for general admission, $20 for early registration.

SEMINAR, WORKSHOP & LUNCHEON
Saturday, July 11th 10am - 4pm
In this empowering workshop, Dr. Harris will show how Jungian psychology can help us utilize the power of Sacred Selfishness in transforming our lives.

Please bring a pencil and paper to write down your reflections about topics discussed in both the lecture and the workshop. A free Sacred Selfishness workbook is also included.

Admission is $90 for general admission, $80 for early registration. Please register early if possible in order to insure menu selection..

Events to be held at
Unitarian Universalist Church of Asheville
Corner of Charlotte Street and Edwin Place
Asheville, North Carolina

Registration is available at the door. If you plan to attend, please take advantage of the early registration savings by emailing harrisseminars@gmail.com or calling 828-398-2806, For further information, please call 828-251-9719.

To register by mail, please send a check for the total amount payable to Dr. Bud Harris, One Oak Plaza, Suite 308, Asheville NC 28801

Bud Harris is the author of several publications, including the following Fisher King Press titles: Resurrecting the Unicorn, The Father Quest, and Like Gold Through Fire (co-authored with his wife, Dr. Massimilla Harris.) All are on sale now for purchase directly from Fisher King Press for $49.95. Visit www.fisherkingpress.com or phone in your order to 1-800-228-9316, international orders +1-831-238-7799

A Day with Naomi Ruth Lowinsky and The Muse

"A Day with Your Muse"
Presented by: Naomi Ruth Lowinsky
Saturday, June 13th, 2009 at the
C.G. Jung Institute San Francisco

"A Day with Your Muse" is a day-long workshop in which Naomi Lowinsky will present material from her book, and lead a writing workshop to help people get in touch with their inner "Sister from Below."

The "Sister from Below" is a fierce inner figure. She emerges out of reverie, dream, a fleeting memory, a difficult emotion—she is the moment of inspiration—the muse.

This Sister is not about the ordinary business of life: work, shopping, making dinner. She speaks from other realms. If you'll allow, She'll whisper in your ear, lead your thoughts astray, fill you with strange yearnings, get you hot and bothered, send you off on some wild goose chase of a daydream, eat up hours of your time. She's a siren, a seductress, a shape-shifter . . . Why listen to such a troublemaker? Because She is essential to the creative process: She holds the keys to the doors of our imaginations and deeper life—the evolution of Soul.

Naomi Lowinsky, MFT, is an analyst member of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. She is the recent recipient of the Obama Millennium Poetry awarded for "Madelyn Dunham, Passing On.” Her most recent publication, The Sister From Below: When the Muse Gets Her Way (ISBN 9780981034423) has just been published by Fisher King Press. A reprinted edition of The Motherline: Every Woman's Journey to Find Her Female Roots (ISBN 9780981034461) has also just been published by Fisher King Press. She has had poetry published in many literary magazines and anthologies in addition to her two poetry collections, red clay is talking (2000) and crimes of the dreamer (2005). She has a private practice in Berkeley.

Saturday, June 13, 2009
10 AM - 4 PM
$125
CE Credit:$ 15
CE Hours: 6 Approved for MD, PHD, MFT, LCSW, RN

Location:
C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco
2040 Gough Street
San Francisco, CA 94109
415/771-8055 (phone)
415/771-8926 (fax)
jungmail@sfjung.org

Reserve for this event