Archetypal Imagination

Also available in an open-access, full-text edition at http: //oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/handle/1969.1/85764 "What we wish to know, and most desire, remains unknowable and lies beyond our grasp." With these words, James Hollis leads readers to consider the nature of our human need for meaning in life and for connection to a world less limiting than our own. In The Archetypal Imagination, Hollis offers a lyrical Jungian appreciation of the archetypal imagination. He argues that without the human mind's ability to form energy-filled images that link us to worlds beyond our rational and emotional capacities, we would have neither culture nor spirituality. Drawing upon the work of poets and philosophers, Hollis shows the importance of depth experience, meaning, and connection to an "other" world. Just as humans have instincts for biological survival and social interaction, we have instincts for spiritual connection as well. Just as our physical and social needs seek satisfaction, so the spiritual instincts of the human animal are expressed in images we form to evoke an emotional or spiritual response, as in our dreams, myths, and religious traditions. The author draws upon the work of the poet Rainer Maria Rilke's Duino Elegies to elucidate the archetypal imagination in literary forms. To underscore the importance of incarnating depth experience, he also examines a series of paintings by Nancy Witt. With the power of the archetypal imagination available to all of us, we are invited to summon courage to take on the world anew, to relinquish outmoded identities and defenses, and to risk a radical re-imagining of the larger possibilities of the world and of the self.

This unique book is about freeing psychology's poetic imagination from the dead weight of unconscious assumptions about the soul. Whether we think of the soul scientifically or medically, behaviorally or in terms of inner development, all of us are used to thinking of it in an individual context, as something personal. In this book, however, we are asked to consider psychology from a truly transpersonal perspective as a cultural, universal-human phenomenon. Cobb teaches us to look at the world as a record of the soul's struggles to awaken and as the soul's poetry. From this perspective, the real basis of the mind is poetic. Beauty, love, and creativity are as much instincts of the soul as sexuality or hunger. Cobb shows us how artists and mystics can teach us the meaning of love, death, and beauty, if only we can awaken to their creations. The exemplars here are Dante, Rumi, Rilke, Munch, Lorca, Schumann, and Tarkovsky.

The chief disciple of C. G. Jung, analyst Marie-Louise von Franz uses her vast knowledge of the world of myths, fairy tales, visions, and dreams to examine expressions of the universal symbol of the Anthropos, or Cosmic Man—a universal archetype that embodies humanity's personal as well as collective identity. She shows that the meaning of life—the realization of our fullest human potential, which Jung called individuation—can only be found through a greater differentiation of consciousness by virtue of archetypes, and that ultimately our future depends on relationships, whether between the sexes or among nations, races, religions, and political factions.

Archetypal Process is a pioneering study linking the ideas of process philosophy, as developed by Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne, with the archetypal psychology of C. G. Jung and James Hillman. This is the first work to examine the interconnections of these two modes of thought. Archetypal Process examines the importance of cosmological thinking and the need to ground archetypal psychology in a metaphysical, philosophical framework. It treats the necessity for symbol and myth, the nature of the spirit, and language as a metaphorical vehicle of thought, and finally, it adds a much-needed feminist perspective to the debate.

In Volume II, Dr. Wang explores the imagery of The Jungian Tarot from the standpoints of archetypal symbolism, history, and comparative religion.

Archetypal psychology is a post-Jungian mode of theory and practice initiated primarily through the prolific work of James Hillman. Hillman’s writing carries a far-reaching collection of evocative ideas with a wealth of vital implications for the field of clinical psychology. With the focus on replacing the dominant fantasy of a scientific psychology with psychology as logos of soul, archetypal psychology has shifted the focus of therapy away from cure of the symptom toward vivification and expression of the mythopoetic imagination. This book provides the reader with an overview of the primary themes taken up by archetypal psychology, as differentiated from both classical Jungian analysis and Freudian derivatives of psychoanalysis. Throughout the text, Jason Butler gathers the disparate pieces of archetypal method and weaves them together with examples of dreams, fantasy images and clinical vignettes in order to depict the particular style taken up by archetypal psychotherapy—a therapeutic approach that fosters an expansion of psychological practice beyond mere ego-adaptation and coping, providing a royal road to a life and livelihood of archetypal significance. Archetypal Psychotherapy: The clinical legacy of James Hillman will be of interest to researchers and academics in the fields of Jungian and archetypal psychology looking for a new perspective, as well as practising psychotherapists.

In Mythic Imagination and the Actor, Marissa Chibás draws on over three decades of experience as a Latinx actor, writer, filmmaker, and teacher to offer an approach to acting that embraces collective imagination, archetypal work, and the mythic. The book begins with a comparative analysis between method acting and mythic acting, encouraging actors to push past the limits of singular life experience and move to a realm where imagination and metaphor thrive. In the context of mythic acting, the book explores awareness work, solo performance creation, the power of archetypes, character building exercises, creating a body/text connection, and how to be the detective of your own process. Through this inclusive guide for a new age of diverse performers traversing gender, ability, culture, and race, readers are able to move beyond their limits to a deep engagement with the infinite possibilities of rich imagination. The final chapter empowers and motivates artists to live healthfully within the practice and create a personal artistic vision plan. Written for actors and students of acting, American Drama, and film and theatre studies, Mythic Imagination and the Actor provides practical exercises and prompts to unlock and interpret an actor’s deepest creative sources.

Based on extensive research and developed with the support of the IAAP, this fascinating new work presents the precious value of the special legacy of C.G. Jung, which he himself defined as Active Imagination, through a collection of unpublished contributions by some of the brightest Jungian analysts and renowned representatives from the worlds of Art, Culture, Physics and Neurosciences. In addition to presenting the genesis, development and results of Chiara Tozzi's research on Active Imagination, this volume explores the amplifications of Active Imagination in light of a range of disciplines. Contributors from all across the world give life to a multifaceted representation of this technique, showing the resonance that Active Imagination can have in the scientific, artistic and cultural fields, focussing on topics such as neuroscience, physics, literature, film, music, dance and painting. Spanning two volumes, which are also accessible as standalone books, this essential collection will be of great interest to Jungian analysts, psychologists, psychoanalysts, or anyone interested in discovering more about the fascinating psychotherapeutic practice of Active Imagination and its interdisciplinary uses.

Winner of the 2021 American Board & Academy of Psychoanalysis Annual Book Prize for Best Theoretical Book in Psychoanalysis! Stanton Marlan brings together writings which span the course of his career, examining Jungian psychology and the alchemical imagination as an opening to the mysteries of psyche and soul. Several chapters describe a telos that aims at the mysterious goal of the Philosophers’ Stone, a move replete with classical and postmodern ideas catalysed by prompts from the unconscious: dreams, images, fantasies, and paradoxical conundrums. Psyche and matter are seen with regards to soul, light and darkness in terms of illumination, and order and chaos as linked in the image of chaosmos. Marlan explores the richness of the alchemical ideas of Carl Jung, James Hillman, and others and their value for a revisioning of psychology. In doing so, this volume challenges any tendency to literalism and essentialism, and contributes to an integration between Jung’s classical vision of a psychology of alchemy and Hillman’s Alchemical Psychology. C.G. Jung and the Alchemical Imagination will be a valuable resource for academics, scholars, and students of Jungian and post-Jungian studies, Jungian analysis, and psychotherapy. It will also be of great interest to Jungian psychologists and Jungian analysts in practice and in training.