Kelly CariLymaris B. Pagan Palermo

Jung and Parapsychology

Carl Gustav JungAnalytical (Jungian)

Psychology

Complex

Controversial

Eastern and Western religions, alchemy, parapsychology, and mythology

Ambiguous

Lack of a coherent, clearly structured system of thought

Life rarely follows the logical

Never believed to have all the answers

To Better Understand His Writings

Scientific study of paranormal phenomena

This includes:mental telepathyprecognitionextrasensory perceptionpsychokinesisout-of-body experience.

Parapsychology

Extra Sensory Perception (ESP)This includes:

Clairvoyance

Telepathy

Precognition

Dr. Joseph Banks Rhine American psychical

researcher

Cofounded (with William McDougall) the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University in 1935

Father of parapsychology

Coined the term ESP

Relationship with Jung

Jung and RhineMet

Conversed

Opinionated

Letters

“It was exciting to watch him [Jung] and Rhine together … Jung the cosmopolite, the man of enormous erudition,” and Rhine, “a man whom only America could have produced—quiet, low-spoken, intense, with that slow-burning fuse of humor innate in his speech, gravely deferential to Jung, putting his problems before Jung without any plea for help, any servility, any expectation of praise, with the obvious feeling that the problem of man and his nature was so sacrosanct and vital a one that Jung was obliged to help him, as he was to tell Jung what he knew.’’

William Sloane

Jung has inspired the New Age movement with his interest in occultism, Eastern religions, the I Ching, and mythology.

With his cousin Helene ("Helly") Preiswerk, he conducted spiritistic experiments.

According to William Sloane, Jung was intrigued with not only astrology, but the Chinese method of divination that he termed “rune sticks”. A type of divinity.

While Jung was still a student, he read various works on occultism and attended Spiritualist séances.

In Jung’s later years, he became absorbed with the ancient cosmologies and spent a considerable amount of time analyzing Gnostic, alchemical, and mystical systems of thought (Drury, 1992).

Jung’s Interest in Parapsychology

Always interested in spirituality and parapsychology, Carl Jung dabbled in the arts of the spiritual world, which led him to the exploration of the realms of the human unconscious that was often being ignored in modern-day medicine.

The old Chinese text, The Secret of the Gold Flower, awakened Jung's interest in alchemy. His major study in this field, Psychologie und Alchemie, was published in German in 1944. In his own library Jung had a number of rare alchemical books and folios.

Denotes a seemingly significant coincidence in time of two or more events that are related but not causally connected (Oxford Dictionary of Psychology, 2006)

It is about a causal connection of two or more psycho-physic phenomena

NOT about cause and effect

Synchronicity

IndividualizationPersonal development that

involves establishing a connection between the ego and the self.

The ego is the center of consciousness; the self is the center of the total psyche, including both the conscious and the unconscious.

There was a religious instinct: that psychic energy was, in essence, spiritual; that we are driven by this instinct to become whole and to strive for meaning.

Psychology and Alchemy

NOT the transformation of material lead into gold

BUT the transformation of the human soul on its path to perfection

Alchemy

UFOsAre UFOs real or are

they mere products of fantasy which are psychically projected?

He leaves the impression that the UFO phenomenon exists as a projection of our collective psyche

No clear answer found

Jung, Freud and the Paranormal

Freud’s theories

6 year meltdown

The Red Book

Fantasies of great floods sweeping over northern Europe

Prophetic visions of World War I

Spring 1909, Vienna

Jung asked for Freud’s opinion on precognition and parapsychology

Loud cracks

Perfect example of paranormal phenomenon

Jung and Freud

Jung’s Point of ViewHe was very open minded.

He believed in the occult and wanted to find answers but since it was hard to find these answers his point of view wasn’t very clear. He didn’t want to get too personal either because he always had this feeling of obligation to stay more in the scientific side of view, so truth be told, Jung’s point of view in parapsychology is very fuzzy.

Questions/Comments

Colman A.M. (2006). Oxford Dictionary of Psychology (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.

Drury N. (1992). Dictionary of Mysticism and the Esoteric Traditions. ABC-Clio Inc.

Shepard, L.A. (1984). Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology (2nd ed.). Vol. 2. Detroit, Michigan: Gale Group, Inc.

Sloane, W. (1975). Jung and Rhine. The Journal of the C. G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology, 2(8), 73-75.

Bibliography

http://www.cgjungny.org/

http://www.rhine.org/

Websites

Thank you!