Conclusion
This chapter has outlined the historical context of Jung’s analytical psychology. Sonu Shamdasani claims that Jung favored an interdisciplinary approach and that therefore Jung never believed in going alone56, nor that his work was complete. However, in his interdisciplinary approach, Jung looked for those that would validate his invention of the collective unconscious. (I deliberately use the word invention following Giegerich, see chapter 2). Given that Jung approached his work and other thinkers this way; I am entirely in agreement with Marilyn Nagy who writing within the context of discussing Jung’s “hero of the Mind” says that he ultimately favored “any myriad of scholars and philosophers, mystics and alchemical physicians who offered support for his point of view.”58 And as we will see in chapter 2, Jung froze much of what he took from his influences. He froze their psychological feeling in the invented unconscious container.
Chapter 2
Introduction
Let’s be clear. Jung was passionate about the contextual influences referred to in chapter 1. No-one would spend so much time and energy going over and over the texts that he did if they were not passionate about them. Jung writes in Memories, Dreams, Reflections that when he realized that the alchemists were talking in symbolic language he thought to himself… “Why, this is fantastic […] I simply must learn to decipher all this.”1 And Jung describes his attitude towards these texts as one of being
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