Archetype, Psyche, World

In our dialogues over the nature of archetypes, essence, psyche, and world, I further respond to Erik Goodwyn’s recent foray into establishing an ontological position that not only answers to the mind-body problem, but further locates the source of Psyche on a cosmic plane. His impressive attempt to launch a neo-Jungian metaphysics is based on the principle of cosmic panpsychism that bridges both the internal parameters of archetypal process and their emergence in consciousness and the external world conditioned by a psychic universe. Here I explore the ontology of experience, mind, matter, metaphysical realism, and critique Goodwyn’s turn to Neoplatonism. The result is a potentially compatible theory of mind and reality that grounds archetypal theory in onto-phenomenology, metaphysics, and bioscience, hence facilitating new directions in analytical psychology.

Michael Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge as a Work of Alchemy in the Jungian Sense

A climactic moment appears in Michael Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge when he describes the modern predicament of humanity as a second ejection from paradise triggered by the uneasy discovery that our knowledge cannot be justified objectively. Polanyi’s philosophy is a response to the cataclysmic consequences of this second fall from grace. It seeks to establish a “balance of mind” that yields neither to the Scylla of objectivism nor the Charybdis of nihilism. Such themes are reminiscent of Jungian psychology and the process of individuation, yet there is no evidence that Polanyi appreciated this. That he nevertheless employs metaphors and ideas suggestive of the psychical transformations recorded by alchemists is telling. It raises the possibility that while his work is evidently concerned with epistemology, it is, at another level, a highly sophisticated depiction of psychological growth—both for Polanyi, and for anyone who accepts his invitation to join the opus.

Karl with Carl

This essay argues that bringing Marxist and Jungian thought together can be surprisingly fruitful. While both traditions are ultimately concerned with human flourishing, they focus on different aspects of reality which would need to be combined for genuine emancipation: the social and the individual, the conscious and the unconscious, objectivity and subjectivity, modernity and ancestrality, science and spirituality. After briefly discussing divergences and convergences between the two authors, I present fragments of a Jungian-Marxian anthropology, around the depth of social struggles, the relations between ideology and archetypes, the psychic costs of capitalism, and Degrowth as the possible political project of this synthesis. If one takes human and nonhuman flourishing seriously, one can only go post-capitalist and seek to reorganize society around a slower pace, a simpler life, and more sharing and caring. The essay ends with a plea to bring back the soul to the core of radical activism.

A Psychoanalytical Deconstruction of Surpanakha in Kavita Kane’s Lanka’s Princess

This paper endeavours to examine the character Surpanakha in Kavita Kane’s novel Lanka’s Princess. It attempts to critically follow her struggle in the androcentric space with the trapping of being a female. Breaking down her identity as a daughter, sister, wife and more specifically, as an individual, it tracks down the formulation of her own self-perception in order to reinterpret her femininity. Through the psychoanalytical lenses, this work also critically analyses her ‘repression, rage and revenge’ by connecting the dots in her journey that shape her personality. The giving of voice to the ‘unvoiced’ through revisionist myth making in the novel and the evolution of ‘Surpanakha’ from ‘Meenakshi’ due to her experiences in the oppressive and suffocating environment is the focal point of the paper.

The Origins of Psyche

This paper follows the ongoing discussion with philosopher and psychoanalyst Jon Mills (2020) regarding the nature, origin, and essence of the archetype and psyche, in which my approach that incorporates key features of the philosophy of mind is being compared and contrasted with Mills’ onto-phenomenal approach. Both Mills and I come at this question from very different backgrounds, making interdisciplinary work challenging but rewarding. In this paper I will attempt to start from Mills’ foundational position to bridge the two frameworks together.

“Who Am I Really?”

This study seeks to deepen the conversation between Jungian individuation and yogic awakening to explore the question ‘Who am I?’ from a psycho-spiritual perspective. Through focusing on yogic experience, the study explores how Jungian therapeutic benefits might be gained through modern yoga practice. Four long-time yoga practitioners took part in the study that involves ten hours’ worth of ethnographic interviews. The transcripts were analysed using Jungian techniques to identify key themes, symbols, and meanings from the archetypal story patterns of the participants’ yoga histories. The resulting themes represent a potential hermeneutic model for recognising Jung’s analytic psychology within the experiences of the four practitioners. Based on these findings, future research is recommended that is conducted over a longer interview period with practitioners of Non-dual Shaiva Tantra. The ethnographic interview process could include physical yoga practices and an explicit dissection of Jungian concepts to widen the conversation between Jung and yoga.

A Focus on Male Homosexuality in Psychoanalytic Literature

Homosexuality has long been classified by many authors as a form of psychic immaturity. Today, it is widely accepted that homosexuality is not by definition a pathological development. In this article, I will focus on male homosexuality because I have been working with homosexual men for quite some time. In the first part, we will see that the Freudian and post-Freudian authors examined have largely emphasized the narcissistic failings of male homosexuals. In the Jungian corpus, which also serves as a reference, the homosexual is frequently considered as an individual whose relationship to his inner feminine is the result of a fusional identification with his mother. The abstract concepts of anima/animus have done little to remove homosexuality from the category of identity disorders. In the second part, I assume the possible existence of a homosexual instinct which everyone is confronted with and which would manifest itself in specific conditions. Certainly, no distinction between men and women should be made regarding my hypothesis of a homosexual instinct. However, from a scientific point of view, it has been impossible for me to prove that such an instinct really exists.

Carl Jung and the Psychedelic Brain

In this essay, I outline an approach to analytical psychology based on the emerging disciplines of psychedelic neuroscience and psychedelic assisted therapies. During the 1950s Jung made brief comments on the use of psychedelics in traditional cultures and therapeutic contexts. I analyse these comments in the light of consequent research in the field. Contemporary psychedelic researchers are achieving impressive results in the treatment of mental illness and various forms of existential distress. A number of theories have been proposed to explain these results. In this essay, I will explore the idea that psychedelics facilitate a transition from our recently evolved secondary consciousness associated with the default mode network, to a more affect-based form of primary consciousness. I will also apply these findings to ethnographic accounts of traditional psychedelic use in Africa and Latin America, highlighting the usefulness of a Jungian approach to this material informed by psychedelic and evolutionary neuroscience.

Reading Milton through a Feminist Jungian Lens

My article re-reads John Milton’s Paradise Lost through a feminist post-Jungian perspective; the study will observe the implications of contemporary Jungian critical approaches toward Milton’s portrayal of Eve, who helps Adam find ‘a paradise within …, happier far’ (PL 12. 587). I will first highlight the negative portrayal of an evil, intellectually inferior Eve in Paradise Lost, and ultimately re-reading the poem—and the role of Eve in it—from the perspective of a feminist Jung. The initial reading of Paradise Lost, in which Eve was regarded as inferior and complementary to Adam, reflects Jung’s criticized notion that the anima’s role is to complement a man’s psychology. This, however, can be read differently through a post-Jungian feminist perspective. From this new viewpoint, Eve can be regarded as Adam’s equal, rather than an inferior company, and a catalyst in their ‘coniunctio’, in which they both individuate (rather than Eve, the anima be subservient to Adam’s individuation) in Paradise Lost. Despite the vast differences between John Milton’s and Carl Jung’s cultural and historical backgrounds, this novel reading of Paradise Lost in context of revisions to Jung’s anima theory and theory of individuation offers a more positive view on the poet’s depiction of Eve in keeping with more recent developments in Milton scholarship, which have drawn attention to the way the text questions conventions of gender hierarchy and patriarchy.