Psychology & The Cross

“Somewhere Jung says that the only evil is unconsciousness  and this, I think touches to your work Don, that this growth in consciousness, which psychoanalysis aims towards, has to be understood as a moral drive towards  the good.”

Episode description:

What’s the role of conscience, ethics, and morals in psychological development and individuation? To investigate this question we invited again the Toronto-based psychoanalyst Donald Carveth (Episode 12) and Philosophy & Theology professor Sean McGrath (Episode 3) for a conversation. As a base for our discussion, we have read the important 1958 Jung essay ‘A psychological view of conscience’. 

You can access it through our new Substack page. 

Donald Carveth is the author of the book "The still small voice: Psychoanalytic reflections on guilt and conscience” (Routledge, 2013). He runs a popular Youtube channel on psychoanalysis and also make some of his readings available on his website https://www.doncarveth.com/

Sean McGrath is a  Canadian philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He is known for his published work in the history of philosophy and the philosophy of religion. Major single-authored works includes for example 'The Dark Ground of Spirit: Schelling and the unconscious'. There is also a separate podcast series, Secular Christ where Jakob Lusensky discusses questions related to Christianity today.

Jakob Lusensky is a Jungian psychoanalyst with a private practice in Berlin and the host of this podcast.

Music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: "Falling Angels" and "Golden teacher" by Ketsa.

For those of you who listened to the last episode of Psychology & The Cross and got interested in learning more about Julius Spier and Etty Hillesum, we’re now making a previously unreleased essay by Alexandra Nagel available on our new Substack account. 

The essay is titled Julius Spier read the Bible for guidance (Etty Hillesum followed him) and outlines how reading the Bible and Christian writers influenced the spirituality of Spier and then of course also Etty Hillesum. 

In addition, here are two letters were written between Julius Spier and Etty Hillesum, the first one from Spier, sent on the 12th of August 1941.

Thank you to Wolfgang Heine and Barbara Morrill for the readings of the letters.

Music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Ketsa - Crystal life.

“Julius Spier is a hand reader, and hand reading in itself is looked down upon, dismissed, forgotten, ignored by regular science. Jungians have not paid attention to Julius Spier.” 

Episode description:

This episode is dedicated to the Jungian hand reader Julius Spier (1887-1942). Until now Spier is most known for being the analyst and lover of brilliant Jewish diarist Etty Hillesum, whose writings before being sent to Auschwitz continue to inspire religious seekers around the world. 

Few people know of Spier’s relationship to C.G Jung, how he developed a psychological study of inquiry combining Jungian psychology with hand reading, and how there were Jungians trained in his technique and practicing it until the late 1900s (Albert Einstein had his hands read by Spier).

Our guest for this episode is Alexandra Nagel (PhD), a Dutch historian of western esotericism and the scholar who singlehandedly is bringing Julius Spier’s important contributions and fascinating life story to public attention. A few years ago she finished her dissertation on Spier at the Institute of Philosophy at Leiden University.

For more information about Julius Spier, I recommend the following papers by Alexandra Nagel.

Jung, Julius Spier, and Palmistry (Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche 14. No. 1 (2020): 65–81.)

Etty Hillesum, A Devoted Student of Julius Spier

The Hands of Albert Einstein: Einstein's Involvement with Hand Readers and a Dutch Psychic

Another must-read are the diaries of Etty Hillesum: An Interrupted Life the Diaries, 1941-1943

Thank you to Barbara Morrill for the beautiful reading of Etty Hillesum’s letter to Julius Spier. 

Music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Ketsa - Crystal life.

A bit more than a year into this podcast series, it felt like a good time to stop and reflect more deeply on Jung’s wrestle with Christianity, and how it is still relevant for us today. For this reflection, I invited back three Jungian scholars with whom I had spoken individually on previous episodes. Our discussion together was an opening both of insights and questions:

* When we speak of dreaming the Christian myth forward, as Jung did, whose dream do we mean? Who's doing the dreaming?

* Is Jung’s psychological project an attempt to transcend or reform Christianity?

* What might Jung's psychologizing of Christian tradition mean for those within and outside it?

 
* In Jungian discourse, where is the body of Christ? Where are the poor?

About the participants:

Murray Stein is a renowned Jungian psychoanalyst and the author of important books such as Jung's Treatment of Christianity and Map of the Soul.

Ann Conrad Lammers is coeditor of The Jung–White Letters, The Jung–Kirsch Letters, as well as editor and co-translator of Erich Neumann’s two-volume work The Roots of Jewish Consciousness.

Paul Bishop is a renowned British scholar who has spent the last twenty-five years researching and writing on the foundational relationship between C.G. Jung and Friedrich Nietzsche and Johann Wolfgang Goethe.

Moderating the discussion is Jakob Lusensky, a Jungian psychoanalyst with a private practice in Berlin. He is the host of the podcast and a founder of the non-profit organization Center of the Cross, working within the intersection of psychology and religion with the mission of individual and social transformation.

Read excerpts from the letter correspondence between C.G Jung and Protestant theologian and Pastoral psychologist Adolf Keller (1872-1963). An important conversation when trying to understand the difficulties and possibilities in bridging Christianity and Jungian psychology.

Recommended reading: C. G. Jung – Adolf Keller:  On Theology and Psychology, edited by Marianne Jehle-Wildberger and published by the Philemon Foundation.

"I think that individuation should be in service to the community. It should lead to one's living within the larger. It's about me bringing my individuality, not my individualism, but the uniqueness of myself into the community. And in some ways, the community helps me to individuate."

Episode description:

In this episode, I speak to the pastor, theologian, and Jungian analyst in-training Kenneth Kovacs. The conversation circles around the correspondence between C.G Jung and Protestant theologian and Pastoral psychologist Adolf Keller (1872-1963). 

This exchange of letters, researched by Kenneth, leads us into a conversation about the relationship between individuation and community, the dialectical theology of Karl Barth, the dark side of the numinous, the possible dangers of imitating Christ, and what the fields of psychology and theology can learn from each other. Interspersed throughout the conversation are read excerpts from Jung and Keller's letters.

Recommended reading: C. G. Jung – Adolf Keller:  On Theology and Psychology, edited by Marianne Jehle-Wildberger and published by the Philemon Foundation.

Kenneth Kovacs, Ph.D., is pastor of Catonsville Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, MD (USA) and a Diploma candidate at the C.G. Jung Institut-Zurich. He is a graduate of Rutgers University, Princeton Theological Seminary, and the University of St. Andrews, Scotland (UK). Ken is the author of The Relational Theology of James E. Loder: Encounter and Conviction (New York/Bern: Peter Lang Press, 2009) and Out of the Depths: Sermons and Essays (Parson's Porch, 2016). He also serves on the board of directors of the Jung Society of Washington.

Music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Ketsa - Between each, Essence & Blue violets.

A letter from Carl Gustav Jung to Sigmund Freud. Küsnacht 11th of February, 1910

"Dear Professor Freud,

The ethical problem of sexual freedom really is enormous and worth the sweat of all noble souls. But 2000 years of Christianity have to be replaced bv something equivalent. An ethical fraternitv, with its mythical Nothing, not infused by any archaic-infantile driving force, is a pure vacuum and can never evoke in man the slightest trace of that age-old animal power which drives the migrating bird across the sea and without which no irresistible mass movement can come into being. I imagine a far finer and more comprehensive task for psychoanalysis than alliance with an ethical fraternity.

I think we must give it time to infiltrate into people from many centres, to revivify among intellectuals a feeling for svmbol and myth, ever so gently to transform Christ back into the soothsaying god of the vine, which he was, and in this way absorb those ecstatic instinctual forces of Christianity for the one purpose of making the cult and the sacred myth what they once were— a drunken feast of joy where man regained the ethos and holiness of an animal.

That indeed was the beauty and purpose of classical religion, which from God knows what temporary biological needs has turned into a Misery Institute. Yet how infinitelv much rapture and wantonness lie dormant in our religion, waiting to be led back to their true destination!

A genuine and proper ethical development cannot abandon Christianity but must grow up within it, must bring to fruition its hymn of love, the agony and ecstasy over the dying and resurgent god, the mystic power of the wine, the awesome   of the Last Supper— only this ethical development can serve the vital forces of religion. But a syndicate of interests dies out after 10 years.

Very sincerely yours,

Jung

* Fifty years later one of Jung’s pupils wrote him a letter quoting the above remarks about Christianity. In a letter of 9 Apr. 59 Jung replied: 

Best thanks for the quotation from that accursed correspondence. For me it is an unfortunately inexpungable reminder of the incredible folly that filled the days of my youth. The journey from cloud-cuckoo-land back to reality lasted a long time. In my case Pilgrim’s Progress consisted in my having to climb down a thousand ladders until I could reach out my hand to the little clod of earth that I am."

“Jesus was the first psychoanalyst. The most brilliant psychoanalyst of all time. The whole theory of projection is right there.  Why do you complain about a mote in your neighbor's eye when there's a beam in your eye, he says. So much of psychoanalytic insight is there in the New Testament, especially in the words of Jesus and in St. Paul. So I became increasingly struck by these parallels.”

Episode description:

In this episode I speak to Toronto-based psychoanalyst Donald Carveth. We discuss how Don converted from Jung to Freud, his writing on the importance of differentiating conscience from the superego, and what we can learn from Jesus and the bible about psychoanalysis.

Donald Carveth is the author of the book "The still small voice: Psychoanalytic reflections on guilt and conscience” (Karnac, 2013). He runs a popular Youtube channel on psychoanalysis and also make some of his readings available on his website https://www.doncarveth.com/

Music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: "Reborn", "Essence", "Blue violets", "Enough" by Ketsa.

Episode description:

In this episode, I speak to Jungian analyst Jason E. Smith, author of the book Religious But Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life. We discuss Jason’s background as an actor, the difference between a religious attitude and religious belief, how he himself has navigated Jung's psychology and Christian faith, individuation's relationship to the collective, and Jung's relationship to Jesus.

For those of you interested in continuing to follow Sean McGrath’s search for secular Christ, you need to subscribe to that podcast separately. Alternatively, subscribe to our Youtube channel.

Biography:

Jason E. Smith is a Jungian analyst in private practice in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts. He is a past president of the C.G. Jung Institute of Boston, and currently serves as a training analyst and faculty member for the New England Institute. Jason is host of the podcast Digital Jung, and author of Religious But Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life, published by Chiron.

Music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: “No Light Without Darkness,” “Blue Violets,” and “Hard Sell,” by Ketsa.

In this last episode of the first season, Sean McGrath continues his conversation with Jungian Analyst Jakob Lusensky, in seeking the secular Christ. A conversation that leads back to the question of antichrist and how social media and consumerism feed a life of the imaginary at the cost of the real. McGrath discusses climate change, 'Friday's for future' and Greta Thunberg and the question of saving not our planet but our civilization.

Share your comments and subscribe on Youtube

Music in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org. Artist. Xylo-Ziko - First light, Songbird and Light.