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Review by Harvey L. Shepherd, Co-President, Jung Society of Montreal, Canada
As I looked forward to reading the latest book by Ginette Paris and
listening to her lecture to our C.G Jung Society of Montreal in early
December of 2008, I expected fascinating and challenging insights into the
present state of Jungian psychology. I was not disappointed.
I found that she raised questions that strike me as of central
importance these days - and that help set the stage for our upcoming
programmes this winter, and particularly our next lecture and seminar,
to be presented by David Miller of Syracuse, another great favourite of
our society.
On Page 95 of Dr. Paris's book, "Wisdom of the Psyche: Depth Psychology
After Neuroscience", I found a forthright statement of a question and
challenge that has been a central concern of mine for a long time. In
her view, Jung's exploration of the spiritual side of our inner life
"presents a rational argument for a spiritual alternative to faith." She writes:
"One may agree (as I do) with much of the critique of Jung's
mysticism, and still appreciate how his approach does offer an
alternative to faith. Instead of prayer, active imagination; instead of
redemption, individuation; instead of belief, the archetypal images of
gods and goddesses - images, that's all! Instead of kneeling in
adoration of an image, lie down on the couch, re-imagining all images
that structure the experience of life. Instead of submission, analysis,
lucidity, negotiation with the persistent desire to believe in the
illusion of a powerful Daddy in the Sky."
I am, I repeat, challenged by these ideas, although I am not entirely
in agreement with them. My disagreement is in part because the idea of
"spiritual alternative to faith" strikes me as a contradiction in
terms. A "spiritual alternative to faith" would have to be a faith in
its own right and therefore no alternative to faith at all - and in all
probability a faith that, worse, did not recognize itself as a faith.
Dr. Paris herself challenges what she considers, correctly in my view,
to be the way that much of psychology itself is unconsciously caught by
the Christian myth of redemption.
Moreover, as I see it, religion is not only an individual matter, but
rather has a social side that involves burdens that it seems to me
psychology, for all its value to individuals, is nowhere near ready to
bear. Nor am I ready to abandon "Jung's mysticism" and other
intimations that images are often symbols of a transcendent reality.
Still, while I may have reservations about Dr. Paris's answers, I am
convinced that she is right on target with her questions. Whether
psychology is potentially an alternative or, as I tend to think, an
adjunct to faith, the need to examine the relation between the two is
essential.
This is especially true at a time when the great religious
struggles of the time seem to be not so much between religion and
irreligion, as they were in Dr. Paris's younger days and my own, but
between less and more psychologically adequate forms of religion.
Perhaps even more important in this book are the insights, informed by
Ginette Paris's characteristic common sense, into another central
question facing depth psychology these days: its relation to
"neuroscience" and other technical advances in the healing professions.
Ginette Paris has my enthusiastic endorsement in arguing that
psychology has to move toward finding its proper place largely among
the humanities - particularly alongside philosophy.
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