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Volume XXXVI, No. 2, Summer 2006

From the Editor — Kathryn Madden

The authors featured in this issue put forth compelling perspectives on how we might engage with otherness and bear the inevitable suffering that this purposive action entails.

A direct dialogue between James Hollis and Robert Henderson challenges us to consider the neurosis of “private religion” and the role that our complexes play in relation to our neuroses. in our current culture, Hollis finds Jungian psychology to offer the most viable access to spirit through a symbolic life.

James Hall and Erel Shalit explore the battle between otherness that ensues between the ego and the autonomous complexes as the subjective psyche becomes a veritable mine-field of projective material turning the other into “a complex object.” Far more than a mere theoretical notion, the relevance of understanding and working with complexes is of utmost importance in terms of current world events. In his correspondence to me during the preparation of his article for Quadrant, Shalit writes from Israel,

I have just returned from two days in the north, to take some time off, in the little village of Metula, right at the border, a place I always love to visit. The Galilee is beautiful, but in the wake of the terrible war that has been raging, and then next which seems right around the corner, it certainly was mixed with much sadness. our son was called up and served as physician with the paratroops, and we had some very anxiety-laden weeks, concerned about him, children of friends, friends from the north, as well as the suffering of the Lebanese. Besides the many damaged houses and the scars, what was striking was how the sight and the smell of the burned forests still fills the air in many parts …

Drawing upon insights of Jungian psychology and comparative religious traditions, Beverly Moon warns against our rejection of any one side in order to avoid conflict. She encourages us to view the projective nature of complexes as purposive and a crucial part of individuation.

Bobbe Tyler provides personal illustration to the above themes as she reveals what happens when one ignores the part of the psyche that needs most to be fully investigated.

Together, these authors attest to the inevitability of crisis and suffering as well as the possibility of change and positive transformation. They claim the extraordinary relevance of Jung’s notions of inner and outr life as a necessary dynamic in a complex world.

— Kathryn Madden

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