Monday, February 21, 2011

A History of the Dream

A History of the Dream: Fate and Destiny from Gilgamesh to Jung

The President’s Lecture Series

As part of the C. G. Jung Foundation's initiative to reach out to the many Jungian communities worldwide to share information and build community, we are presenting a new program, entitled The President's Lecture Series.

By sharing information among the various Jungian communities, we can draw together in our work to enlarge analytical psychology to its fullest capacity, benefiting a new audience of people in their quest for greater consciousness.

Date: Tuesday, March 22, 2011, 7:00 – 8:30 pm
Location: Jung Center, 28 East 39th Street, New York City
Speaker: Erel Shalit, PhD

A History of the Dream: Fate and Destiny from Gilgamesh to Jung

The dream is a muthos, a mouth that gives expression to the voice of fate and destiny. A story of the dream is told from the ancient dreams of Gilgamesh and Nebuchadnezzar to the Greek discourse; from Freud and Dora on to Jung's final dream.

By tracing the dream and the image, we follow man's grand opus of turning pre-destined fate into prospective destiny, until hubris may again endanger the future.

Dr. 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 has served as liaison person of the International Association of Analytical Psychology (IAAP) with the Jung Society of Bulgaria. He is a past Director of the Shamai Davidson Community Mental Health Clinic, at the Shalvata Psychiatric Centre in Israel. Erel Shalit has served as officer in the IDF Medical Corps, and is a member of The Council for Peace and Security. He is Academic Director of the 'Jung's Analytical Psychology' program at Bar Ilan University. He is the author of Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return (Fisher King Press 2010),  Enemy, Cripple, Beggar: Shadows in the Hero's Path (Fisher King Press 2008; the book was a nominee for the 2009 Gradiva Award for Best Theoretical Book, National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis), The Hero and His Shadow: Psychopolitical Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel (2004), The Complex: Path of Transformation from Archetype to Ego (2002), and Archetypal Images of the Life Cycle (forthcoming 2011). Dr. Shalit lectures at professional institutes, universities, and cultural forums in Israel, Europe and the United States.

Tickets: $20.00 C.G. Jung Foundation Members; $25.00 General Public.
Tickets should be purchased in advance by mail, by phone or fax with credit card (Visa or MasterCard), or in person Monday — Thursday, 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. For further information, please call the C. G. Jung Foundation of New York at 212-697-6430, or FAX 212-953-3989. You can also email your questions to info@cgjungny.org.
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    Friday, February 18, 2011

    "Enemy, Cripple and Beggar is an intensely moving book that speaks deeply to the psyche."


    Enemy, Cripple and Beggar is an intensely moving book that speaks deeply to the psyche." Ann Walker, Ph.D., published in Psychological Perspectives, volume 53, issue 2, 2010. Read the Review

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    Tuesday, February 15, 2011

    On Void States

    article by Paul W. Ashton

    I have used the term "void states" to describe a very varied set of mental conditions that have a subjective commonality. By this I mean that individuals with very different psychopathology (and even individuals who are simply going through one of life's precarious stages) may describe themselves as "being in a void." Having a way of thinking about and differentiating these states, one from another, is of significance because these states are so different from each other and their management is varied. The condition of "being in a void" may be the result of some trauma or life-event or it may be part of the structure of an individual. That is, it might be a sort of developmental stage in, say, the creative cycle of synthesis, thesis and antithesis, or due to an actual arrest in development, one that leads to a condition of stuck blackness and sense of meaninglessness. Or it may even be an indication of profound spiritual development.

    While some void states are "pure hell" and like hell they are full of pain but lead nowhere, others may be filled with meaningful "psychic suffering" that enables the sufferer to move through the purgatorial fires and thus attain paradise. As the mystics from any of the various religious groups have attested, the experience of God is one of non-differentiation, an immersion in Oneness, in the "Cloud of Unknowing" as the English Mystic called it. I have come to think of the hell-type void as the black void, because that is the colour that sufferers use to depict it, and I contrast that with the white-void which seems to be the state in which boundaries are lost as spiritual "perfection" is approached. Clearly the management of these two conditions will be very different although they may both be described in similar terms, e.g. "I do not know who I am", "I do not know who God is", "I feel lost or abandoned" etc.

    In my monograph From the Brink: Experiences of the Void from a Depth Psychology Perspective, I have attempted to delineate different examples of void states in an initial section entitled The Territory. The chapters in this section comprise "On the territory of the void," "A walk on the wild side: connecting the void with people," "Primary or secondary?" and "Psychotherapy and spirituality." A section on The Origins of the Void Experience comprises five chapters: "Empty of oneself," "The void in psychogenic autism," "Another 'black hole,'" "Memory within the borderline condition" and "Trauma as a void experience." In this section, as can be guessed from the chapter titles, the focus is on the origin of various "pathological" void states. They have as their origins

    The third section is Amplifications, and this section gives examples, from mythology, literature and religion, that amplify the concept of the void. Chapters here are "Myths and legends of the Creation," "Dimitri's void," "The King's sacrifice" (from a play by a South African playwright), "The 'Birthday Present'" and "The dark night of the soul." This more poetic understanding of the void gives way to a section on Treatment that contains chapters on "Aspects of treatment of void states," "Connections, walls and windows" (about musical explications as well as ideas of containment and linking), and "On active imagination." This latter is because I consider Active Imagination to be an important adjunct to treatment. There is a final section on Individual Experiences that has two chapters describing how gender effects an individual's experience of the void.

    The overall purpose of the book was to increase therapists' awareness of the void, to help them categorise individual's experience of it, and finally to offer some constructive ideas about managing "void dwellers."

    While From the Brink was in the process of being written I embarked on another project that was aimed at showing that the void was not just an arbitrary concept that I had invented. To this end I invited a variety of individuals to write essays about the void from the point of view of their particular professions or passions. The result was Evocations of Absence: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Void States. This book was published by Spring Journal Books in 2007.

    What makes Evocations of Absence so special is that its authors, who were only guided in the sense of being asked to write from their present interest, all had their own take on the void. The authors were: a poet and professor of Creative Writing, four Jungian analysts (one of whom was a theologian too), a political philosopher, a music therapist, an Authentic Movement practitioner and an artist. Some of the chapters described very personal encounters with the void whereas other authors wrote describing aspects of the void (and the different types of void) from the point of view of music, art, poetry, movement or religion. One of the analysts wrote a profound essay on the neurobiology of void states. Interestingly there was a common sense that through allowing a conscious encounter with the void, instead of avoiding it, some transformation could happen. So, despite its title, this turned out to be a profoundly optimistic book.

    These two books can be seen as companion books. One explores in depth and the other expands in breadth, this difficult and painful but ultimately rewarding encounter with an intrapsychic experience that has received scant attention in the psychoanalytic literature.

    Paul Ashton is a psychiatrist and Jungian analyst in private practice in Cape Town. In addition to his many books, he has published various reviews and articles and lectures about music, art, literature, and the Void. He is a member of the South African Association of Jungian Analysts and is the editor of Mantis, the journal of the Southern African Association of Jungian Analysts.



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      Friday, February 11, 2011

      Press Release: Will Fishes Fly

      Feb 1, 2011

      Fisher King Press is pleased to present:

      Will Fishes Fly in Aquarius
      or Will They Drown in the Bucket?

      Jung’s book Aion serves as point of departure for this publication. The transition of the aeons from Pisces to Aquarius reflects decisive changes in the relationship between man and image – the image which is at the center of what Jung calls psychization, the process of reflection whereby consciousness is enhanced. At the daybreak of history, man extracted the image from the divine waters. Then, the craftsman whom God warned should not make graven images, came to replicate the divine on earth. By means of image and reflection, dream and dreaming, man becomes human, in the sense of not only partaking in events, but able to relate to experience. In Aquarius, images have been rounded up, and man now holds the bucket.

      “God’s powers have passed into our hands,” says Jung, which forces man to consider the shadow of unreflective progress, such as the transient as-if personality and soullessness. The legend of the golem serves to illustrate the condition of man, who has become master of the images that may either create or destroy our future.

      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 Enemy, Cripple, Beggar: Shadows in the Hero's Path, Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return, 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 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.

      Cover painting, The Fifth Day, from the 'Genesis series' by Mira Raman

      Will Fishes Fly in Aquarius -- available as an eBook edition and available from:

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          Toni Wolff Revisited - Now Shipping!

          Four Eternal Women
          Toni Wolff Revisited - A Study In Opposites
          By Mary Dian Molton and Lucy Anne Sikes
          ISBN 978-1-926715-31-5
          320 pages, Bibliography, Index

          Toni Wolff was at first the patient, and later the friend, mistress for a time, long-term colleague and personal analyst of Swiss Psychiatrist Carl Jung.

          In addition to her work as the founder, leader and teacher for the Psychological Society in Zurich which led to the establishment of the world-renowned C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich/Kusnacht, she published a seminal but little known work called “Structural Forms of the Feminine Psyche” (“Der Psychologie”, Berne, 1951). This treatise, certainly one of the first studies in Analytical Psychology, has been the subject of the authors’ investigation, attention, research and study for the past twelve years. Toni Wolff’s original outline of her four archetypes barely filled fifteen pages of the journal, and was written in the academic style of professional journals of that period, sans illustration or commentary.

          Toni Wolff circa 1920's
          While Wolff’s work has been mentioned in short form in the work of several writers, Four Eternal Women is the first full and serious archetypal delineation of her original thesis, and examines each of her four feminine archetypes from several perspectives:
          •  Wolff's Own Words
          •  An Overview of History and Myth
          •  Familiar Characteristics
          •  Lesser known (Shadow) Possibilities
          •  Career Inclinations
          •  Relationships to Men
          •  Relationships to Children
          •  Relationships to Each of the Other Types
          The tension of the opposites set up by Wolff’s own diagrammatic representation of these archetypes provided an additional dynamic to this study. Those who have followed Jung’s individuation path will recognize aspects of Jung’s Transcendent Function. All readers may well become personally sensitized to discover their own type preferences, and how some aspects of shadow may be present in their ‘opposite’ partner.

          About the Authors

          Lucy Anne Sikes, MS, ARNP, is a Senior Diplomate Jungian Analyst and is an Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner. She is in private practice of Analysis and Psychotherapy in Prairie Village, Kansas, close to Overland Park, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri. She currently serves as a lecturer in Jungian Theory and Practice and is past Coordinator for the Kansas City - St Louis Training Seminar of the InterRegional Society of Jungian Analysts.

          After her retirement in 1983 from a full career as an educator and later an executive for the Public Broadcasting System, Mary Dian Molton began her Jungian studies and took an advanced degree in clinical social work. She has studied at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, has trained extensively in psychodrama, and has worked as a Jungian psychotherapist since 1987. She also holds a BFA in Fine Arts, and an MS Ed. with a specialization in Secondary Theater Education. For several years she wrote, produced and chaired a weekly television series which showcased creative teaching.

          Orders for Four Eternal Women can be placed by calling +1-831-238-7799, skype: fisher_king_press.
          Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting Edge Fiction, and a growing list of alternative titles.
            • International Shipping.
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            Sunday, February 6, 2011

            Requiem on the Nile

            Article by Erel Shalit

            The fire and the flames of revolt sweep across the Arab Crescent. Does the unrest herald the requiem of the Arab Kings? Perhaps these are the torches of democracy that are lit by the oppressed, the banners of freedom that defy non-elected rulers and dictators. Perhaps this proclaims the dawn of a new era, echoing the prospects and possibilities of change in the Middle East.

            Or do darker forces linger in the shadow of hope and freedom, hiding behind the veils, holding their horses behind the courageous, ready to ride forth on the waves of uprising, when the time is ripe?

            In Tunisia, Zine Ben Ali was ousted, but it seems the old guard and the army generals still hold on to power. The January Jasmine revolution simply led to a coup from within, likely generating reforms, but not necessarily a change of power or structure of the authoritarian regime. In Lebanon, the Hezbollah staged a coup, the Syrians threatened the Druze leader, and the Prime Minster was quickly ousted, replaced by a puppet in the hands of Iranian-directed Hezbollah, who now holds political and military power in the country.

            In Egypt we witness the clash of major opposing forces:

            From a Western perspective, democratic forces have risen against the dictatorial regime. Toward the end of his 30-year autocratic rule, Mubarak offers reforms, and cynically one may wonder, why did he not implement those suggested reforms during the decades he had the exclusive power to do so.

            But no less perplexing, where were the voices of protest against Mubarak’s regime and its oppression of human and civil rights until now? Is it perhaps indicative that Egypt for decades was a member of the UN Human Rights Commission and its successor the Human Rights Council? Never did any of these bodies investigate or report on human rights violations in Egypt, while half of the Council’s critical decisions and resolutions on specific states’ human right’s records have been about Israel.

            While Mubarak retained a cold peace with Israel, he not only refrained from visiting (except for the funeral of Itzhak Rabin), but did nothing to prevent hatred, or promote education toward peace – unfortunately similar to the Palestinian Authority.

            From an Iranian perspective, this is the beginning of an Islamic renaissance in the Middle East, a movement toward removing the West’s autocratic puppet regimes.

            And for a brief moment, Mohamed ElBaradei has returned to Egypt to play the temporary façade and front, the marionette of the different forces that believe that his Janus-face serve their interests, prominently so the Muslim Brotherhood, themselves speaking in different tongues. Only innocent desire, naïve hope and the blindness of denial award him a Nobel Peace Prize, until his persona of deceit, particularly as regards Iran's true intentions, was torn off by his successor at the International Atomic Energy Agency.

            Egypt seems to reflect the forces that are played out across the Middle East: the people against the autocrats; army vs. Islamic fundamentalism. Also the Islamic revolution in Iran was initially an uprising against the oppressive regime of the Shah, until it became a revival of Islam. However, in spite of the similarity, there is a difference between Shia Iran and Sunni Egypt.

            Democracy is more than elections. Yasser Arafat was elected, but never felt a need to stand for re-election. And following the West’s insisting on Palestinian elections, the result has been two governments and a military coup. Free elections are a manifestation, a symptom of democracy. Democracy is a state of mind, which evolves through the establishment of democratic institutions, parties, free press, and education. The transition to democracy can be sudden, since freedom is an archetypal need, just like the development of consciousness. But it requires a balance of forces. Democracy requires more than “one person, one vote, one time,” which may be the result of elections when non-democratic forces exploit a situation of confusion, depression and despair, as has happened in history, such as but not only Germany in the 1930s.

            How will the present changes affect Israel? Geo-politically, it will likely not be easier. The cold yet strategically vital peace with Egypt, and the formal agreement between the countries may be in danger. Israel is likely to become even more alienated in the area, possibly emphasizing its identity as a Mediterranean country rather than a nation in the Middle East. The right in Israel will conclude that there really is no one to make peace with, and sigh in relief. The left, on the other hand, will claim the necessity and urge to move ahead toward agreements with the Palestinians.

            Can similar uprisings to the ones in Tunisia and Egypt (and prior to that, the 2009 election protests in Iran, unfortunately much more weakly supported by the West), take place in Israel? Yes and no. (This is, in fact, part of the story line of Requiem: A Tale of Exile and ReturnNo, because Israel is a democracy, with freedom of expression, protest and free elections.

            Yes, because democracy in Israel is a vulnerable balance between powerful forces. There is increasing reluctance of the majority to carry the extra-ordinary military and financial burdens of political stalemate and orthodox religious draining of state resources , enabled by a weak government paying for power (by giving in to corrupt coalition demands, rather than preserving integrity - leading to attempts to burden the majority with even heavier taxes).

            Primarily, the Arab minority in Israel proper is torn between the benefits, in spite of longtime negligence, of living in Israel, and their identity as Palestinians. If major efforts are not made to bring greater equality and integration of the Arab minority, unrest seems inevitable.

            And if Israel does not withdraw and define its borders in such a way that the Palestinians can establish a viable state based primarily in the West Bank, the country will find itself in a condition of permanent unrest and conflict between Jews and Arabs, lose its democratic basis and deteriorate internally and internationally.

            The present government may turn its weakness into an asset, by considerably revising its policies, opening up toward sincere negotiations. The leaks from the previous government's negotiations with the Palestinian leadership simultaneously demonstrate the possibility of progress, and the difficulty finalizing an agreement. But stalemate will bring an end to the present government, since clearly these are times of change.

            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 Enemy, Cripple, Beggar: Shadows in the Hero's Path, Requiem: A Tale of Exile and ReturnThe Hero and His Shadow: Psychopolitical Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel and The Complex: Path of Transformation from Archetype to Ego.

            Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting Edge Fiction, and a growing list of alternative titles.
              • International Shipping.
              • Credit Cards Accepted.
              • Phone Orders Welcomed: +1-831-238-7799 skype: fisher_king_press