C.G. Jung

[Altair]

Does anybody read "Psychology and Alchemy"? Is it worth reading? Which his other books are related to the Work?

Thanks :)

 

[Michal]

I have a book by Jung entitled "psychological types" that was given to me by my mother. It was her mother's, along with a few other books on psychology, and all her notes. I found this quite interesting, as my grandmother was a schizophrenic, and disappeared out of our lives all together for over thirty years until my mom's husband found her a couple years before she died. I don't remember much of her, but my mom told me that she stopped letting her babysit me when i came home terrified that my mother was gonna chop me up in peices, and put me in a garbage bag.

i'm just curios if anyone has read this book, and what they think of it?

Hi davey72, I have read it. It was quite long time ago. He was presenting there his idea of basic classification of human characters. Number "four" was also important in that classification which was his mandala concept of completeness. Classification - this what comes to my mind after 20 years of reading it.

The one which was touching schizophrenia was "Symbols of Transformation".

I do not remember well if in Psychological Types he was using so much his research of mythology, religion and traditions but his works are soaked in it. Also alchemy which was his late life discovery.

Psychological types was historically important work as I remember for Jung, as the concepts described there were breaking his relation with Freud and making Jung independent from this father - son relation.

I found in Jung's books a lot of knowledge about symbols, mythology, religion and how it somehow was/is translated into language of unconciousness and vice versa.

 

[cubbex]

I'm just finishing my research on nutrition and supplementation, I get the sense that I get the whole idea, and now I want again to restart reading the wave and ow the gurdjieff books I downloaded, also the ones from Jung. I still remember that day where this old sir with his ideas about alchemy, and his description of synchronicity made me so much interested on his work and on studying psychology, but far by now there's not much about him that is taught in college, and if, the interpretations are plain wrong, not even wrong i'd say.

 

[Altair]

I'm still wondering why the works of Jung are being so scarcely discussed on the forum despite the C's suggestion to study Jung along with Gurdjieff. In my opinion the following books could be helpful for the Work:

1. Man and his Symbols as an introduction in Jung's ideas (read)
2. Jung's Map of the Soul: An Introduction by Murray Stein. (reading)
3. Perhaps some other introductory books?
4. Psychology and Alchemy (todo)
5. Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self (todo)
6. Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy (todo)

Any other ideas, suggestions? :)

 

[Anthony]

Paul Levy - Dispelling Wetiko. It a wonderful book that uses Jungs psychology
and he discusses what we would call here ponerology/predators mind/4D STS.

 

[Altair]

Paul Levy - Dispelling Wetiko. It a wonderful book that uses Jungs psychology
and he discusses what we would call here ponerology/predators mind/4D STS.

Thanks Anthony,

I heard his last interview on blogtalk radio and his book is on my reading list. I'm particularly interested in the Jung's works regarding the Work and alchemy.

 

[Torstone]

Hi,

maybe the book by “Ego and Archetype Edward F. Edinger is also worth considering.
It deals with the Individuation process and the relationship between the Ego and the Self.

It`s basically about the conflict between the Ego, which tries to carve out something for itself (subjectivity), and the Self, which represents the totality of the psyche (objectivity). And the process where the ego becomes increasingly aware of its origin from and dependence on the Self (the archetypal psyche).

From the beginning of the first chapter:

Jung`s most basic and far-reaching discovery is the collective unconscious or archetypal psyche.
Through his researches, we now know that the individual psyche is not just a product of the personal experience.
It also has a pre-personal or transpersonal dimension which is manifested in universal patterns and images such as are found in all the world`s religions and mythologies.
It was Jung`s further discovery that the archetypal psyche has a structuring or ordering principle which unifies the various archetypal contents.
This is the central archetype or archetype of wholeness, which Jung has termed the Self.
The Self is the ordering and unifying center of the total psyche (conscious and unconscious) just as the ego is the center of the conscious personality.
Or put in other words, the ego is the seat of the subjective identity while the Self is the seat of objective identity


...since there are two autonomous centers of psychic being, the relation between the two centers becomes vitally important.
The ego`s relation to the self is a highly problematic one and corresponds very closely to man`s relation to his Creator depicted in religious myth.

He uses understandable examples, symbols and myths to explain the different processes and dynamics.
Although the material has many layers, it wasn`t to difficult to understand the concepts he presented(except for the last part dealing a lot with alchemical symbols representing the Individuation process).

I enjoy reading about Jung and his theories but I feel I'm still in the introduction phase and I think this was a good and understandable read :)

 

[obyvatel]

It is good to see the interest in Jung's work. It has great depth and breadth. It is also complex and easy to get lost in. So networking and discussing about concepts may be very useful in understanding the material and applying it in a meaningful way in furthering our understanding.

For anyone interested, here are two forum threads which discuss aspects of Jungian psychology

The feeling function - a part of the psychological types

Stoic Ethics, Rationality and the Feeling Function

Archetypes
Instinct and Archetype