I want to share some ideas and thoughts with you that emerged from the two lectures given by Thomas Moore on the eponymously named Dark Eros seminar series. Dark Eros (1990) (1) is Thomas Moore’s psychological reading of the works of the infamous Marquis de Sade (2) and application of this work to depth psychology. These ideas are startling and cannot but disturb the psychic slumber of even the dullest reader. They are illuminating – albeit a dark illumination, a kind...
Eros and psyche may have decent chemistry, but, simultaneously, are awkward lovers and their love affair, challenging. (Not to put too fine a point on it.) One might legitimately accuse them of many things, which list does not include reason, harmony, or unity of purpose. Rather we might, not unfairly, recognise that, unlike few other things sex and sexuality have a capacity to knock us off balance, to displace our best intentions, to ruffle our plumage, and just generally to...
This is a dream (from “S”) and its amplification by Stephen Anthony Farah from our first The Way of the Dream Workshop held in November 2024: Individuation through Dreamwork, presented by Byron Gaist.DreamI am standing in my house by a large window. I am holding on tightly to my little dog who creates a lot of domestic issues for me. My housekeeper (also a domestic image) is standing next to me leaning out the window giving water to some giant...
Post by Johann MynhardtAbout fifteen years ago, on the recommendation of a friend and Ayahuascero (Ayahuasca shaman) I attended my first Ayahuasca ceremony. I wasn’t particularly enthused about the idea, but he suggested it might be good for me and in hindsight I probably had (and to some degree still have) issues around control. I was hesitant about opening up the floodgates of the unconscious.My journey was revelatory and to my surprise I found myself being introduced to my body...
What is freedom for you? In this world it seems freedom is something that is slowly disappearing. This is a radical statement isn’t it, but I ask for a bit of time to explain what I mean. I watched an interview of Yeonmi Park, a North Korean who escaped and settled in America. She recalls how she was confronted by choices in the West. What is your favourite colour? Red of course, everyone in North Korea’s favourite colour is red. What happens when...
This essay is a reflection on a few of the primary symbols from the biblical story of the Garden of Eden as seen through an archetypal lens. I focus on four specific symbols:God the Garden of Paradise/the Wilderness the Serpent the Forbidden Fruit,for which I will offer an archetypal analysis and psychological interpretation of the way in which they structure our unconscious creation myth. With any symbol it is important to keep in mind that it has both a subjective personal dimension and...
THE JUNGIAN BOOK CLUB NOVEMBER 2023 BOOK REVIEW written by Byron J. Gaist Carl Gustav Jung (1933) Modern Man in Search of a Soul Translated by W.S. Dell and Cary F. Baynes Published by Routledge, 2001, London and New YorkTaken together with his autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1962), his Two Essays on Analytical Psychology (1928), and the collective volume Man and His Symbols (1961), this book can be considered one of the seminal introductory texts on Jungian Analytical Psychology. Anyone who wants a quick,...
“The individual may strive after perfection . . . but must suffer from the opposite of his intentions for the sake of his completeness.” Jung (1951) This article is based on Marion Woodman’s Addiction to Perfection and is a continuation of my previous article on the author: Psyche, Metaphor, Soma, with a specific focus on how disembodiment and the loss of the feminine principle engender the development and maintenance of eating disorders. Woodman, whose focus is on women whose food complex is...
“Like the anima, the animus is a jealous lover.” G. Jung, CW7 ¶ 334 "The animus appears in many myths, not only as death, but also as a bandit and murderer, for example, as the knight Bluebeard, who murdered all his wives." - ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 280 I love you But I gotta stay true My morals got me on my knees I'm begging, please, stop playing games I don't know what this is 'Cause you got me good Just like you knew you...
In her book Alchemical Active Imagination, Marie Louise von Franz explores the work of Gerhard Dorn who was a doctor, natural philosopher, and alchemist. Dorn was a true alchemist in that he never allowed himself to get away from the fact of the real concrete body, he did not buy into the idea of a metaphysical or astral body but the real body. When the real body is treated properly, he believed that it would form the basis for the medicine...
