From the Editor — Kathryn Madden
Following forth from the past three issues of Quadrant, which were dedicated most eloquently to the life and work of Philip Zabriskie, we now are asking our readers to pick up the red thread of a topic that is ongoing in debate among Jungian circles — the question of the meaning of “archetype” in 21st century thought.
Archetypal Numinosity — Francis V. O’Connor
Keywords: archetype, numinous, fractal, gene, internet, virtual
Gray Cochhar-Lindgren’s essay “Gesamtdatenwerk: Peter Greenaway, New Media, and the Question of Archetypes” (Quadrant 2007), would reduce Jung’s numinous archetypes to a database of unintegrated, postmodernist chatter. While its publication is a tribute more to the open-mindedness of the current generation of Jungians than to the acuity of its author and the relevance of his protagonist, it does raise the question of just what an archetype is these days. This essay proposes that an archetype can be recognized by its numinosity, and that three 21st century archetypes have emerged since Jung’s era: the Gene, the Fractal, and the Internet.
On Care and Apathy— Beverly Bond Clarkson
Keywords: question, stranger, chain of care, kinship, Golden Rule,
instincts, evil, to hear, to be heard
How do we truly care about our fellow human beings? This question raises a mesh of variables: styles of care, degrees of care, individual and collective care, concern fueled by a craving for power, the attention that flows from love. These issues are explored while reflecting on childhood experiences, analytic training, a visit to Auschwitz, and the events of September 11, 2001. The writings of Hanna Arendt and Primo Levi, and the paintings of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner are focused upon during the search for the delicate balance between apathy and compulsive caretaking. A dream injects an image of “man divided against himself” and prompts the resolve to shift the spirit of problem-solving from one fueled by shadow projections that lead to violence to one inspired by kinship and the universal need for sustenance.
Limbic System and Religious Experience: Is There a Correlation with Analytical Psychology? — Raffaella Ada Colombo
Keywords: limbic stsetm, symbol process, neuroscience, meditation,
ritual, Paleolithic period
The aim of the article is to hypothesize some correlates between neurophysiology and analytical psychology considering specifically archetypes, life-death, and symbolic experience in light of neuroscientific and anthropological observations. The limbic system is involved in the expression of emotions and in the experience of religious feelings. From studies in neurophysiology and neuroimaging have emerged notions that meditative states and rituals induce an alteration of the stimulated cerebral cortical and sub-cortical areas. The presence of neurons, which fire selectively to visual stimuli, has encouraged investigation into what neural development has bequeathed from the Middle and Upper Paleolithic times.
Soul’s Dark Light — Dennis Patrick Slattery
Do go gently into that
good night …
The Void Reader: A Look at Recent Jungian and Psychoanalytic Writing About the Void in Both Its Negative and Generative Aspects — Paul W. Ashton
Keywords: void states, psychology, abyss, black hole, treatment, mysticism, emptiness
This article is a review of some modern (post-2000) articles that seem to refer to void states. The author gives a very brief historical survey of ideas about the void and focuses more deeply on the chosen articles and their relation to a monograph and a collection of essays connected with void states.
Book Reviews — Beth Darlington, Book Review Editor
Dark Light of the Soul — Kathryn Wood Madden. Great Barrington, Mass: Lindisfarne, 2008. Reviewed by Dennis Patrick Slattery, Ph.D.
The Presence of the Feminine in Film — Virginia Apperson & John Beebe. Cambridge Scholars Pub., Newcastle: UK, 2008. Reviewed by Alan Friend, M.Div.
The Moon: Myth and Image — Jules Cashford. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003. Reviewed by Chessie Stevenson, M.T.S.