Sunday, December 20, 2015

The Christmas Myth: Taking Back the Child-God

Article by Mariann Burke, author of Advent and Psychic Birth and
Re-Imagining Mary: A Journey Through Art to the Feminine Self

In Christianity the Advent-Christmas Mystery celebrates the historical birth of Jesus through the mythological imagery of Virgin Birth, Cave, Star, and the Child-God. Feelings of renewal related to the winter solstice and the ancient Saturnalia festivals find echoes in our own family reunions, gift-giving, and general merry making on New Year’s Eve. The circular “return” to primordial Origins for renewal has given way to linear history with its goal of unlimited progress. Yet the soul’s language is circular, as Frances Hatfield writes in her poem “The Soul’s Geometry” from The Book of Now: Poetry for the Rising Tide:
 We are not traveling a straight line as thoughts do.
 A circle is a line that went looking for itself.(1)                    
This “looking” is a soul hunger, a return or remembering beyond history still slumbering in the unconscious of those who crowd churches on Christmas day, many who do not believe in Virgin Birth, angels, etc. and have lost the imaginative power to see reality in the mythic world which these images reflect. We want to feel, to surrender ego momentarily in the imaginal world of music, poetry, and ritual of remembrance made present. Back in 1936 C.G. Jung suggested what he felt each of us needs and longs to remember, “In the last analysis most of our difficulties come from losing contact with our instinct, with the age-old unforgotten wisdom stored up in us.”(2)

It is this remembering as the profound meaning of the Incarnation and the essence of some religions that makes Advent and Psychic Birth as relevant today as it was when it was published in 1993. While the literalists take the Christmas myth as history, and the doubtful seeing the cracks in the whole Christian myth still enjoy the artful Nativity story and its magical mystery, many atheists, taking science and materialism as guide while dismissing angels and stars, still hunger for the communal sense fostered by living myth. In Jung’s view Christmas rituals and the Christ Child image speak to our longing for rebirth, that is for greater awareness of our innate divinity, and they are a “religious necessity only so long as the majority of people are incapable of giving psychological reality to the saying: ‘Except ye become as little children…”’(3) Exploring the Child-God mythic image and its powerful psychic energies latent within us, we participate in the emerging myth or spirituality of the 21st century and beyond.

In this article, I want to offer a few meanings of myth, the Child-God and the imaginal world in which they are experienced. Why focus on these topics? Years ago in church settings during discussions of Advent and Psychic Birth, a number of people questioned my use of the phrase “Christian myth.” Comments ranged from, “I was taught that myth is pagan and false” to “Myth is less than history for history consists of ‘real events’ and is therefore true.” Over the years thanks to the influence of Joseph Campbell and others we have a better idea of how mythology affects our lives. Yet Jungian analyst James Hollis has recently published two books on myth saying that he senses a need “out there.”(4) I hope that you will explore these topics more fully than is possible here, using resources listed here as well as others readily available. It is a sad commentary on the spiritual hunger of our times that expressions of soul or imaginal experience have been overshadowed by the reams of ego-based information that can overwhelm us. The word, “mythological" is a stumbling block for many who either dismiss it as old fashioned or fear it as “pagan.”

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Audrey Punnett and The Orphan: Hosted by the Idaho Friends of Jung

On January 22-23, 2016, the Idaho Friends of Jung is hosting
The Orphan: Alone yet at One with Oneself in the World
presented by Audrey Punnett, PhD

Date: January 22-23, 2016
Time: Lecture, Friday, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm; Workshop, Saturday, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm
Location: Boise Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 6200 N Garrett St, Boise, ID 83714

This salon is based on Dr. Audrey Punnett’s recently published book, The Orphan: A Journey Towards Wholeness. The lecture will focus on the experience of being alone while being at one with oneself in the world. Dr. Punnett will use excerpts from her book to illustrate the connection between psyche and spirit through the archetypal image of the orphan. The workshop will expand on this topic by using excerpts from the film of the fish tale, Finding Nemo with group discussion about the individuation journey as initiated by the death of Nemo's mother, Coral.

Audrey Punnett, PhD, is a licensed psychologist, certified child, adolescent and adult analyst graduate of the C.G. Jung Institute, Zurich and a member of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco where she is past chair of the Infant, Child & Adolescent Training Committee (iCAT). Dr. Punnett has published in peer-reviewed Journals and she teaches nationally and internationally. Dr. Punnett is an Associate Clinical Professor, UCSF-Fresno, Department of Psychiatry and maintains a private practice in Fresno, California.

Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including 
Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting-Edge Fiction, Poetry, 
and a growing list of alternative titles. 

Sunday, December 6, 2015

A Welcome Contribution to the Mysteries of Advent

Mariann Burke’s Advent and Psychic Birth does true justice to a great tradition. The author describes Advent as a remembrance and ritualistic preparation for the birth of the historical Christ. She notes, however, that if Christmas is solely a revival of an outer event, it will sooner or later loose its inner significance for the soul.

It is not by accident that the birth of Christ is celebrated around the winter solstice. The author draws attention to the historical links between Christmas and the ancient Saturnalian festivals, held in Rome during the second half of December. They can be understood as a revival of yet older traditions that focused on bringing the ailing sun back to life. The people of archaic cultures had no access to modern astronomy and could never be sure if the sun would regain its strength for the coming year. Hence it needed the help of humans to guarantee the continuity of life, as witnessed in Jung’s conversation with Pueblo Indian who claimed that without their religious practice, the sun might never rise again.

It is precisely this uncertainty that provides Advent with a new significance. If we just follow the outer rituals, without ever questioning the meaning of the birth of God in man, our soul will hardly access the full implications of the tradition. The author reminds us that Advent is a time of darkness. Not only the waning sun possesses an ominous significance, but also the first texts of this cycle begin with the destruction from the Great Flood. They also describe cataclysmic events of the future, and advocate us to remain awake during the night, for we do not know when the master will arrive. The liturgy of the second Sunday focuses on liminality, a time of betwixt and betweens. It is devoted to John the Baptist and his time in the wilderness, a psychological space outside of the norms of conventionality. On the third Sunday there are hints of a new baptism, implying a spiritual rebirth destined for humankind. The fourth Sunday celebrates the union of the Holy Spirit with the human Mary, a meeting of heaven and earth, a joining of opposites in preparation for the emergence of a new image of God and man.

With the help of alchemy and convincing case material, Mariann Burke shows us that the symbols and ritual drama of Advent awaken us to our deeper self. We too are exhorted to accept those dark, exiled, repressed components of the psyche. When we immerse ourselves in those ‘dead’ regions of the soul, we might loose our bearing, at least for a while. We begin to confront hidden desires, fears, or anger, but we can also watch out for signs of new symbol. We learn to be open to the creative potential of the unconscious, often manifesting in images of pregnancy, birth, or the appearance of the Divine Child.

This book is a welcome contribution to the mysteries of Advent. It encourages us to participate in the transformative process of death and renewal. It suggests that the soul needs to die and be reborn so that life blossoms in new and surprising ways. Mariann Burke’s book is a testimony to the wonders of revelation, a story that features the ongoing interaction between the human and divine. It can also help us to weave together the broken threads between Christianity and the older nature religions. Advent celebrates a time to anticipate the soul’s striving for wholeness.
 
John Hill, Jungian analyst, author of At Home in the World: Sounds and Symmetries of Belonging
Title:

Title: Advent and Psychic Birth
Author: Mariann Burke
Paperback: 172 pages
Publisher: Fisher King Press (Dec 1, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1926715993
ISBN-13: 978-1926715995

Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including 
Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting-Edge Fiction, Poetry, 
and a growing list of alternative titles. 

Monday, November 30, 2015

Mark Winborn and C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago

Fisher King Press author Mark Winborn, PhD, NCPsyA will be presenting three days of presentations and teaching at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago. On Friday, Dec 11 from 2 pm – 5 pm, Dr. Winborn will be doing a public presentation based on his edited book Shared Realities: Participation Mystique and Beyond. Then on Saturday Dec 12 from 9 am – 12 noon he will be providing a program titled “Bion and Jung: Intersecting Vertices” to the analysts and candidates of the Chicago Institute. Finally, on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning he will be conducting a workshop for the institute’s analytic candidates entitled, “Speaking with Complexes: The Art of Analytic Interpretation.”

In addition to “Shared Realities,” which was nominated for the 2015 NAAP Gradiva award for best published works in psychoanalysis, Dr. Winborn is also the author of Deep Blues: Human Soundscapes for the Archetypal Journey. Dr. Winborn resides in Memphis, TN where he is currently the Training Coordinator for the Memphis-Atlanta Jungian Seminar. In addition, he serves on the Executive Committee for the American Board for Accreditation in Psychoanalysis.


Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including 
Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting-Edge Fiction, Poetry, 
and a growing list of alternative titles. 

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

The Cycle of Life Goodreads Giveaway



Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Cycle of Life by Erel Shalit

The Cycle of Life

by Erel Shalit

Giveaway ends December 20, 2015.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
Enter Giveaway


Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including 
Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting-Edge Fiction, Poetry, 
and a growing list of alternative titles. 

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Merritt on Guns and the American Psyche

Article by Dennis L. Merritt

The issues of gun violence and gun control will not be resolved unless addressed at the most basic level--the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Even the gore of Sandy Hook barely moved the needle towards significant changes in gun control, implying a need for a more archetypal approach to the problem. (1)

The Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution to be the mythic foundation of America as a nation of laws. Archetypically the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are in the realm of the Bible: they are like the Ten Commandments for Americans. They strike the collective American psyche as the Word of God in a nation without a religious foundation, an important aspect of our uniqueness during the Age of the Enlightenment when they were written. (2)

The Second Amendment right “to keep and bear arms” is loaded with archetypal imagery in the guns themselves. There is a fierce and frightening beauty in these technological marvels of relative simplicity in design. With soul-frightening noise the bearer can project great and deadly force with these phallicy objects. The Lakota Sioux say such objects have great wakan, great power; archetypal power in a sacred sense. A gun in one's hand engages an ultimate archetype—death. Guns can impart a deadly sense of power to those feeling fearful and disempowered, but a power that moves one towards black-and white, good-and-evil distinctions because of the life-and-death potential guns wield. The power to kill and maim can quickly sweep the bearer into the domain of the god of war, Ares/Mars, the god behind the intoxication of gang warfare. An individual or a group can take justice into their own hands, subverting a society of laws.

Monday, August 31, 2015

The Orphan as Symbol

A review of Audrey Punnett’s The Orphan: A Journey to Wholeness

Review by Dyane Sherwood

Audrey Punnett has brought this powerful topic to our attention in a thoughtful and multifaceted book that is engaging, carefully researched, and clearly written.  As a Jungian analyst, she concerns herself with the effects on individuals of losing a parent in childhood and with the universal questions of the Orphan in each of us—that is, the underdeveloped aspects of our personalities that have lacked the nurturing, structure, and sense of security that they have needed to grow.

In her opening chapters, Dr. Punnett recounts the way the theme of the orphan seemed to find her, rather than her consciously seeking it out, after she had moved alone to Zurich to enter analytic training.  Throughout, one can sense her deep empathy with the loneliness of the parentless child.

Saturday, July 25, 2015

The Life of Buddha and Individuation


"The life of Buddha is an example of individuation. He was privileged and enjoyed every possible means of comfort and pleasure, sheltered from want. What moved him to want to experience the world beyond his palace? He went into the world of ordinary people and found sickness, poverty, and suffering. It seemed he felt his life was not complete until he had experienced the dark and sordid side of life. Only then could he fulfill his destiny as a spiritual sage. His life illustrates the idea that we are not completed by being good or by having what seems like perfection. Individuation as completion means filling out all of our possible conscious experiences and being aware of our potential, the pleasant and unpleasant, good and bad." Deldon Anne McNeely, Becoming: An Introduction to Jung's Concept of Individuation
Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting-Edge Fiction, Poetry, and a growing list of alternative titles. 

Monday, July 20, 2015

Letting Go of the Way We Wish Things Ideally Would Be

There are many worthy arguments for the existence of ideals. These include the role of ideals as an organizing principle around which people with similar values can gather. Like goals, ideals motivate us.

The need to be Jesus can lead to guilt, disillusionment, and dissatisfaction. The need to avoid the painful guilt of failing to achieve ideals often interferes in very practical ways with career development because they can never be satisfied with ordinary jobs. The shortfall from this ideal is predictable. This unconscious need to be great is often expressed by patients as dissatisfaction with their jobs, or as feelings that their work is meaningless or soulless. Sometimes the complaint is stronger; they feel that they are prostituting themselves. They may feel the same about their colleagues and bosses, who think only of profit. They say they want to do something that helps people or helps the environment or helps bring social justice. They often believe there is a job out there that will permit them to use their talents for some greater good or noble purpose.

Letting go of the way we wish things ideally would be can lead to more human development than the ideals themselves.
Guilt with a Twist: The Promethean Way

article by Lawrence H. Staples

We would have to be blind, however, not to acknowledge their danger. By definition, when ideals are our guide, we strive for perfection that does not exist in the real world. We strive for something that in the long run will frustrate us and depress us because we will fall short. We will experience failure. Goals are different. Having realistically attainable goals can serve us well.

Sunday, July 12, 2015

Good Guilt. . . WHAT IS GOOD GUILT?

Good Guilt is the guilt we incur for the sins we need to commit, if we are to grow and fulfill ourselves. This paradoxical “twist” to the conventional meaning of guilt is the seminal idea behind Guilt with a Twist: The Promethean Way.

In common parlance, the words “good” and “guilt” don’t belong together. They appear to be contradictory. Personal and clinical experience, however, has repeatedly confirmed for me the useful role of sin and guilt in personal and psychological development. I began to notice that there are times in our lives when the experience of guilt actually was a signal of having done something good, even essential to nurture us. While the guilt probably did not feel like “Good Guilt” at the time of transgression, the “sin” that caused the guilt is sometimes viewed in retrospect as having brought something valuable to our life. Examples might include divorces, separations from partners and friends, giving up family-approved or family-dictated careers, or even marriages that are opposed by one’s family on the grounds of race, religion, gender, or social status. It might also include the expression of qualities previously rejected as unacceptable, like selfishness or the contra-sexual sides of ourselves. Later in life we may look at guilt thus incurred in a different light.

Order directly from Fisher King Press by calling +1-831-238-7799

Click the following link to order online Guilt with a Twist

Friday, July 10, 2015

Guilt’s Unacknowledged Role in Mental Health


from The Guilt Cure 
by Nancy Carter Pennington and Lawrence H. Staples

Guilt’s negative aspects go beyond its deterrence to psychological growth and development. It also affects our mental health and wellbeing. It can make us sick. Guilt is a major cause of depression, anxiety, paranoia and suicide. It is also a significant factor in less common ailments such as hypochondriasis, and other somatoform disorders. This view is not widely held among medical and mental health professionals, despite the fact that they encounter and deal with guilt daily in their practices. In the case of depression, biological and chemical imbalances or psychological factors like loss, grief and failure are emphasized. In our experience, however, these conventional viewpoints both overlook and underestimate guilt’s causal role in these serious disturbances. We have become increasingly conscious not only of the important causal role of guilt in these major psychological disorders but also of the damage it generally inflicts on our mental health and wellbeing.&nbsp

Long before The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders had been conceived, Lady Macbeth’s guilt-induced decline into mental disorder and suicide dramatically and accurately portrayed at the extreme the psychological damage that guilt can inflict on the human psyche. Despite Shakespeare’s vivid and accurate portrayal of the dangerous consequences of guilt, and despite commonsensical grounds for belief that the bard got it right, standard and conventional diagnostic criteria often overlook and underestimate the role of guilt in some of our most frequently encountered psychological difficulties. We can see this blind spot in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This important manual, used worldwide by psychiatrists and psychologists to help them diagnose psychological problems, mentions guilt as a diagnostic criterion only in major depressive episodes, depressive personality disorders, and dysthymia, the latter of which being only recently added to the manual. The insignificance of guilt in the manual’s diagnostic scheme is also suggested by the fact that the word guilt is not even in the index. Nor is it listed as a contributing factor to anxiety. Guilt is certainly not generally perceived as a cause of any mental disorder. However, as therapists we can’t avoid the truth that the mere fact of diagnosing someone with a mental disorder induces guilt. Even the need to come to therapy is itself a source of guilt.

(Masaccio Fresco image from the 
Cappella Brancacci, Santa Maria 
del Carmine,  Firenze, Italia
provided via Wikimedia Commons  
[Public domain].)
One cannot help but wonder why the manual does not stress the importance of guilt, because clerics and therapists have been seeing and dealing with guilt, one way or another, for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Perhaps guilt’s role in mental disorders is muted because it has been viewed primarily as a religious construct. Or perhaps guilt is viewed just as a normal feeling, like grief or disappointment. Or, perhaps they view guilt primarily as a positive factor demonstrating the presence of normal conscience. Finally, they may feel guilt is mainly deserved. Normal or not, deserved or not, guilt is a potentially dangerous feeling that is a ubiquitous threat to our mental health and wellbeing. While we cannot fully explain the virtual absence of guilt’s role in the official pantheon of mental disorders, we do know it is a serious threat to mental health.

We know that the diagnosis and treatment of both physical and mental illnesses depends importantly upon naming something for what it is. Calling a spade a spade can often save us, like saying Rumpelstiltskin.(1) Many of us are aware of misdiagnoses of physical illnesses, as, for example, when someone’s edema is diagnosed initially as being caused by heart problems only to learn later that it was caused by cancer of the kidney. Similarly, we often think the cause of our psychological suffering is depression or anxiety. Later, we have often found that depression or anxiety, painful and serious as they may in themselves be, are not the primary cause of our difficulties. We often find this primary cause to be guilt. Unfortunately, guilt often hides and lurks behind these other disturbances and, for this reason, can be extremely difficult to see, at least, initially.

This is not to say that we do not take the depression symptom seriously. We must treat it with all the means at our disposal, including medication when necessary. Although we know that treating the symptom does not work over the long term (eventually we must treat the root cause), it may be necessary to treat the symptom (i.e., the depression) because the symptom might kill the patient before we get to the root cause. In that way, the treatment procedure is analogous to treating alcoholism. Drinking is a symptom of an underlying cause, but if the symptom is not treated early on, then the patient may die before the cause is found and can be treated.

More Praise for Shared Realities: Participation Mystique and Beyond

"Shared Realities, edited by Mark Winborn, is a beautiful in-depth study of Jung's (and Levy-Bruhl's) concept of Participation Mystique. It is an important contribution to t.he understanding of a significant and intriguing concept, here presented in its diversity, linking theory with clinical praxis. It is highly recommended and will be an important textbook on the subject.” Dr. Erel Shalit – Jungian Analyst
Author (most recently The Cycle of Life)
Ra’anana, Israel

“Beautifully written and poignantly described, Shared Realities offers the reader diverse, contemporary, and in-depth perspectives on the mystery of the psyche's participation in the analytic relationship. Its richness reaches beyond its relevance and usefulness in the professional/clinical relationship and invites us, also, to wonder about and reflect on the shared realities of personal relationships. This book is an important contribution to analytic work. I felt enriched professionally and personally by it.”
Marilyn Marshall, MA, LPC
Faculty - New Orleans Jungian Seminar
Jungian Analyst

Lowinsky on Grandmothers and The Motherline

https://fisherkingpress.com/n/product-category/naomi-ruth-lowinsky
Naomi Ruth Lowinsky, from The Motherline: 
Every Woman's Journey to Find Her Female Roots

"Standing at the crossings of family history, generational change, and archetypal meanings, a grandmother locates her grandchild in the life stream of the generations. She is the tie to the subterranean world of the ancestors; she plays a key role in helping a woman reclaim essential aspects of her feminine self. Standing close to death, she remembers the dead. She tells their stories, hands down their meanings and their possessions. Often she is the first to tell her granddaughter the stories from her Motherline. Evoking the Eleusinian emotions of the life cycle, these stories return a woman to her place of emergence, reminding her that she is woman, born of woman. Telling these stories enacts an archetypal healing principle found in tribal cultures and in psychotherapy: the 'return to origins.'"
Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including 
Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting-Edge Fiction, Poetry, 
and a growing list of alternative titles. 

Mark Winborn presenting at the 2016 IAAP Congress in Kyoto

Mark Winborn, author of the Fisher King Press titles Shared Realities: Participation Mystique and Beyond and Deep Blues: Human Soundscapes for the Archetypal Journey has had a presentation accepted for the 20th International Congress for Analytical Psychology to be held in Kyoto, Japan August 28th-September 2nd, 2016. The paper is titled “Non-Representational States: The Challenge for Analytical Psychology.” The International Congress is sponsored every 4 years by the International Association for Analytical Psychology and is the largest professional gathering of Jungian Psychoanalysts in the World. The upcoming Congress will make the third consecutive Congress in which Dr. Winborn has been a presenter. IAAP Congress 2016

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Max Zeller and The Dream: The Vision of the Night

front book cover image of The Dream by Max Zeller May 27, 2015 - Press Release

Fisher King Press resurrects another Jungian Classic

A classic in the field of dream analysis, The Dream: The Vision of the Night is a collection of essays, lectures, and vignettes by Max Zeller whose career included a law degree, a brief imprisonment in a Nazi Concentration Camp, study at the Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland, and thirty years of in-depth work as a Jungian analyst.

In the eighteen pieces of this collection, Zeller intersperses theoretical writings, compassionate and incisive case studies, and powerful, almost haiku-like reminiscences of certain incidences in his life, from his meetings with C.G. Jung to his impressions of life in pre-war Nazi Germany.

The Dream: The Vision of the Night is the best example of amplification of Jungian principles that can be found. Neither pure research nor pure memoir, the collection is an affective combination of both, and as such best portrays the spirit of its author: always restless and searching, always compassionate and open-minded, and above all, always fascinated by the mystery and power of our dreams.

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Watsky's Walk-Up Music by il piccolo editions

Press Release - April 21, 2015

Just published by il piccolo editions:

Walk-Up Music
by Paul Watsky

Watsky does the work of 10 poets in this excellent, slim collection. An avid baseball fan, Watsky writes gorgeously of his passion for America’s pastime. To borrow a term from the sport: he’s a utility player. Watsky handles multiple positions with equal dexterity and skill. In fact, there’s not much he can’t do. Verse about Jungian archetypes? He’s got it: “Yes!! shouts Shadow, straight to hell! / Be nice, admonishes Persona. / Partially disrobed, Anima at the mirror peekaboos her hair / first across one breast then the other.” (Watsky is a trained clinical psychologist.) Verse about the Japanese poet Santoka? That’s here too: “Sake / his favorite koan got him / into trouble and then got / him out before the bent / nail of his personality / was pounded / flat.” How about a poem, out by out, of San Francisco Giant Matt Cain’s perfect game? “June 13, 2012, a Wednesday night against / the Astros, we’re down for one of Matt’s trade- / mark gems, especially Houston being nearly / impotent on the road—not that we’re entitled / to point fingers.” And it’s all good. Though he can ably write in a variety of forms, Watsky’s favorite weapon is a sort of prose poem divided cunningly into sharp, un-rhyming couplets. One particularly effective example is “Squaw Valley Pan Shot”: “white pine that nips / the heels of retreating / glaciers a mere ten / millennia ago this summer. God / knows, my timing / can be rotten but I haven’t bought any / ski areas lately.” In this form, the line breaks do the work; “God” is left out on a limb, separated from the knowing he will eventually do. Thus does an approachable meditation on a winter landscape become subtle, incisive theology. As if Watsky didn’t already have enough on his plate. Refreshing poetry that has a little something for everybody. —Kirkus Review

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Carl Jung


March 21, 2015

Just Published by Fisher King Press

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Carl Gustav Jung: Side by Sideedited by Fred Gustafson

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and C.G. Jung: Side by Side is an anthology written by authors from different backgrounds, sharing how the lives of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Carl Gustav Jung impacted them personally and/or how they understand the relevance of these two men for our present times.

Contributors to this fourth volume of the Fisher King Review include: John Dourley, Peter Dunlap, Barbara Faris, Fred R. Gustafson, John Giannini, Richard W. Hanhardt, Robert Henderson, Steven B. Herrmann, Jane A. Kelley, Jon Magnuson, Francisco (Paco) Martorell, Stan V. McDaniel, Dennis L. Merritt, and Laura A. Weber.

Though C.G. Jung and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin never met, their independent intellectual inquiries and courageous researches pushed the personal and collective soul forward and placed both of them at the foreground of needing to understand and integrate on a planetary level the core values of their expansive work.

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Celibacy and Soul: Exploring the Depths of Chastity

Just Published by Fisher King Press

Celibacy and Soul: Exploring the Depths of Chastity

by Susan J. Pollard 

In Celibacy and Soul, Jungian analyst Susan Pollard presents us with a rich and moving reflection on the meaning of a life of spiritual celibacy. Drawing on many sources (psychology, philosophy, mysticism, mythology, poetry) she offers us an encompassing, multicultural perspective on what is nowadays a poorly understood choice of life. An honest, courageous, and deeply helpful book for anyone faced with the challenges of chaste celibacy." — Diane Cousineau Brutsche, Ph.D., Jungian training and supervising analyst, International School for Analytical Psychology Zurich.

 "What wisdom and guidance is needed here! Celibacy and Soul. And here you have it! Good spirituality, good psychology, and lived experience are all growing together in one lovely fi eld of honest and divine love. is book is indeed ‘singular beauty’ and a gift to our humanity!" —Richard Rohr, O.F.M., author of Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self.

"Dr. Susan Pollard offers something very special with this work. At a time when spiritually-focused celibacy is so little understood she brings an exceptional depth of focus and understanding to what can, indeed, be an immensely positive, life-affirming choice. Her skills as a Jungian analyst, and the depth of her own journey as a religious sister and as a Christian scholar, come together superbly here to make a book that will be widely and perhaps surprisingly relevant both within Christian circles and beyond them." — Stephanie Dowrick, Ph.D., author of Seeking the Sacred and In the Company of Rilke.