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On this episode I welcome Paul Bishop to speak about his new book on Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzifal and it’s importance to Western culture and why important thinkers such as Carl and Emma Jung, Joseph Campbell, Harold Bloom and Rudolf Steiner all felt it was such a central text of the Western canon.

Wolfram’s Parzival epic depicts a three-fold quest: for the hero’s identity, for vröude (“joy”), and for the mysterious Grail. In the course of this quest, Parzival undergoes a transformation from Fool to the lord of the Grail, at the same time effecting a collective transformation. It’s no wonder this tale was so significant for Carl Jung, who felt that the healing of the world is intrinsically linked to, and begins with our own healing. 

I’ve been wanting to cover Parzifal on the podcast for a long time, and am really happy that I waited to have this conversation with Paul, whose work on Jung and religion I’ve admired since I heard him on Jakob Lusensky’s podcast Psychology & The Cross.

Paul Bishop was born in 1967 in Southend-on-Sea. He studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, and he is currently William Jacks Chair of Modern Languages at the University of Glasgow. His books examine the history of ideas and the histories of psychoanalysis and analytical psychology, with particular emphasis on Nietzsche, C.G. Jung, and Ludwig Klages.

Webpage for Paul's Book

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