Charles Corliss presents, for the first time, the complete English translation of Herbert Silberer’s work on dreams, Der Traum: Einführung in die Traumpsychologie. Based on lectures delivered at the majestic Urania Star Observatory in Vienna in 1918, Der Traum was a wide-ranging, accessible introduction to the meaning of dreams, with examples from Silberer’s practice providing a rich source of illustration. One hundred years after the work was first published in Silberer’s native German, Corliss rescues his voice from obscurity and adds key supplementary information to place the work in context. The book begins with an introduction which surveys the range of Silberer’s contributions to psychoanalysis and sets out what is known of his life, before presenting the full original text. Presented in eight parts, each with preliminary remarks by Corliss, the book covers several topics including differing viewpoints on dreams, Silberer’s concept of the hypnagogic phenomenon, experimental dreams, and aspects of his own theory. Der Traum ends with a philosophical exploration of how dream content relates to the core moral fiber of our being, with the work as a whole reflecting Silberer’s optimistic, depth-oriented, and at times, almost mystical stance. Corliss concludes the book with a reflection on the rich, teleologically optimistic, and refreshingly panoramic value of Der Traum. This unique book will be of interest to analytical psychologists and Jungian psychotherapists in practice and training, as well as to academics and students of Jungian studies and the history of psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic studies, theology, philosophy, and the history of psychology.

Herbert Silberer was an early member of Freud’s Vienna Group whose work was unique and prodigious; yet, owing to his expulsion from the psychoanalytic community, his contributions have been dismissed for close to a century. Based on original documents and primary sources, A Primer of the Psychoanalytic Theory of Herbert Silberer: What Silberer Said recovers the psychoanalytic theory of Herbert Silberer, revealing its connections to philosophy, theology and transcendence, and examining how his writings influenced C. G. Jung. The book begins with an overview of what is known of Silberer’s life, before commencing with an exploration of his writings. Charles Corliss covers topics including Silberer’s groundbreaking construct of the hypnagogic phenomenon, the process and meaning of symbolism and symbol formation, alchemy and its connection to his major work Problems of Mysticism and Symbolism, the use of symbols in Freemasonry and his influential understanding of dreams and their meaning. The book also explores Silberer’s complex relationship with the field of psychoanalysis, including his opposition to many psychoanalytic assumptions. Introducing and assessing the main contributions of Silberer’s work, this book will be of interest to analytical psychologists and Jungian psychotherapists in practice and training, as well as to academics and students of Jungian studies and the history of psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic studies, theology, philosophy and the history of psychology.

The author presents with this intellectual biography of the Lutheran alchemist Count Michael Maier an academic study of western esotericism in general and to the study of alchemy and rosicrucianism in particular. The author charts the development of Maier's Hermetic worldview in the context of his service at the courts of Emperor Rudolf II and Moritz of Hessen-Kassel. The problem of the nature of early Rosicrucianism is addressed in detail with reference to Maier's role in the promotion of this "serious jest" in the years immediately prior to the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War. The work is set in the context of ongoing debates concerning the nature of early modern alchemy and its role in the history of Western esotericism.

Over the centuries all of the great philosophers made psychology central to understanding social life. Indeed, the ancient Greeks thought it impossible to conceive of political life without insight into the human soul. Yet insuffficient professional legitimization attaches to the central importance of modern depth psychology in understanding politics. Cultural Foundations of Political Psychology explores the linkages between psychology and politics, focusing on how rival conceptions of the good life and unspoken moral purposes in the social sciences have led to sectarian intolerance. Roazen has always approached the history of psychoanalysis with the conviction that ethical issues are implicit in every clinical encounter. Thus, his opening chapter on Erich Fromm's exclusion from the International Psychoanalytic Association touches on a host of political matters, including collaboration as opposed to resistance to Nazi tyranny. Roazen also brings a public/private perspective to such well-known episodes as the Hiss/Chambers case, the circumstances of Virginia Woolf's madness and suicide, and the matter of CIA funding of the monthly Encounter. He deals with the reaction to psychoanalysis on the part of three major philosophers--Althusser, Wittgenstein, and Buber--and looks at the link between psychology and politics in the work of such political theorists as Machiavelli, Rousseau, Burke, Tocqueville, Berlin, and Arendt. A chapter grappling with Vietnam and the Cold War illustrates how political psychology should be concerned with questions of an ethical or "ought" character. In examining the social and psychological bases for political theorizing, Roazen shows how both psychology and politics must change and redefine their methodologies as a result of their interaction. Roazen concludes with a chapter on how political psychology must deal with issues posed by changing conceptions of femininity. This volume is a pioneering exploration of the intersection of psychology and politics. Paul Roazen is professor emeritus of social and political science at York University in Toronto. He is the author of The Trauma of Freud: Controversies in Psychoanalysis, The Historiography of Psychoanalysis, Freud: Political and Social Thought, Encountering Freud: The Politics and Histories of Psychoanalysis, and Brother Animal: The Story of Freud and Tausk, all available from Transaction.

An initiatory and practical guide to creative alchemy • Shares hermetic and alchemical techniques for liberating creative expression and looks at the zodiacal and planetary timing of creative operations • Explains how to work with and transmute alchemical energies for increased levels of insight, intuition, and imaginative expression • Explores the connections between Surrealism and alchemy, as well as the rich and complicated symbolism of alchemical art In this initiatory guide to the Hermetic art of alchemy, artist Marlene Seven Bremner reveals how the alchemical opus, the Great Work, offers a practical means for liberating the authentic creator within and attaining gnosis, or true self-knowledge. Exploring the connections between Surrealism and alchemy, as well as the rich and complicated symbolism of alchemical art, Bremner elucidates how both Surrealism and alchemy seek to unfetter the imagination and dissolve the boundaries between dream and reality, thus reconciling the conscious and unconscious minds. She details how the three principles (salt, sulfur, and mercury), the four elements, and the seven planets interact together and within the self in creative alchemy, and she explains how to work with and transmute these energies for increased levels of insight, intuition, and imaginative expression. The author shares practical Hermetic and alchemical techniques for liberating creative expression and clearing energetic obstructions that prevent us from reaching our higher potential. She also looks at the zodiacal and planetary timing of creative operations. Revealing how the stages of alchemical transmutation are relevant to the creative process, the author shows how the initiate comes to experience for themselves the relationship between consciousness and matter, which is the essence of alchemical teachings. By creating, one transmutes spiritual energies through matter for greater self-knowledge and awakening. Allowing you to truly realize your own creative power, this in-depth guide to creative alchemy shows how the alchemical path attunes the Self to the rhythms of the spheres so that one is naturally creating in time with the seasons and zodiac signs and in harmony with elemental forces and planetary influences

This book surveys the history of psychoanalytic treatments of myths variously as symptoms of psychopathology, as cultural defense mechanisms, and as metaphoric expressions of ideas that may include therapeutic insights.

The work of mid-twentieth century art theorist Anton Ehrenzweig is explored in this original and timely study. An analysis of the dynamic and invigorating intellectual influences, institutional framework and legacy of his work, Between Art Practice and Psychoanalysis reveals the context within which Ehrenzweig worked, how that influenced him and those artists with whom he worked closely. Beth Williamson looks to the writing of Melanie Klein, Marion Milner, Adrian Stokes and others to elaborate Ehrenzweig?s theory of art, a theory that extends beyond the visual arts to music. In this first full-length study on his work, including an inventory of his library, previously unexamined archival material and unseen artworks sit at the heart of a book that examines Ehrenzweig?s working relationships with important British artists such as Bridget Riley, Eduardo Paolozzi and other members of the Independent Group in London in the 1950s and 1960s. In Ehrenzweig?s second book The Hidden Order of Art (1967) his thinking on Jackson Pollock is important too. It was this book that inspired American artists Robert Smithson and Robert Morris when they deployed his concept of ?dedifferentiation?. Here Williamson offers new readings of process art c. 1970 showing how Ehrenzweig?s aesthetic retains relevance beyond the immediate post-war era.

The history of psychoanalysis in 50 countries shows the relationship between psychoanalysis and other disciplines, with entries discussing writers, philosophers, literary movements and historical events.

In Relating to God: Clinical Psychoanalysis, Spirituality, and Theism, Dan Merkur conceptualizes religious discourse within psychoanalysis. He proposes that God be treated as a transferential figure whose analysis leads to a reduction of the parental content that is projected onto God. Merkur notes that religious conversion experiences regularly involve theological intuitions that are either rational or, owing to morbid complications, have undergone displacement into irrational symbolism. Analysis renders the religiosity more wholesome. Traditionally, psychoanalytic thought has been dismissive of religion. Freud is on record, however, as having called psychoanalysis a neutral procedure. He argued that religion, with its dependency on a providential God who punishes disobedience, imagines spirituality on the model of human parents and fails to approach spirituality in an appropriately scientific manner. He wrote little of spiritual phenomena, but mentioned both the rationality of the universe and the parapsychological occurrence of thought transference. Occasionally, later psychoanalysts used different language in order to contrast wholesome and morbid forms of religion. Erich Fromm distinguished authoritarian and humanistic religions, while D. W. Winnicott condemned fetishistic behavior while approving of playful illusions that require “belief-in.” These formulations constructed a middle position for clinicians, neither categorically opposed to religion as classical psychoanalysis was, nor do they embrace cultural relativity as “spiritually oriented” psychotherapists are currently advocating. What sorts of spiritual practices does psychoanalysis find unobjectionable? As examples of humanistic religion, Fromm named Zen Buddhism, Buddhist mindfulness meditation, and the via negativa or “way of negating” that some Christian and Jewish mystics have followed. Because the Bible-based approaches are little known, Merkur discusses their histories, procedures, and psychoanalytic understanding.

This book explores the genesis of the Red Book (or Liber Novus), through the lens of Jung’s lifelong confrontation with Dante and, in doing so, provides the first-ever thorough comparative analysis of the intertextual and symbolical correspondences between Liber Novus and the Commedia. Starting from Jung’s multifaceted fascination with Dante and his pivotal role in the former’s visionary material at historical, hermeneutical, and psychological levels, the book challengingly envisions Liber Novus as Jung’s Divine Comedy. This work finds a new way of approaching Jung’s understanding of concepts such as "visionary works" and "visionary mind" and considers how this approach can enhance our vision of depth psychology. Through various thematics such as the metanoia and the symbolism of animals, as well as the transformative role of the feminine and the erotic and spiritual imagery of the soul, this work revolves around the Jung-Dante correlation. Offering an original perspective within the field of Jungian and Dante scholarship, this book will be of great interest to academics and postgraduate students studying in the areas of Jung, Dante, analytical psychology, depth psychology, hermeneutics and Western esoteric currents and practices. The book will also appeal to Jungian analysts and psychoanalysts more broadly.