Ann Conrad Lammers – författare

This book charts Carl Gustav Jung’s 33-year (1928-61) correspondence with James Kirsch, adding depth and complexity to the previously published record of the early Jungian movement. Kirsch was a German-Jewish psychiatrist, a first-generation follower of Jung, who founded Jungian communities in Berlin, Tel Aviv, London, and Los Angeles. Their letters tell of heroic survival, brilliant creativity, and the building of generative institutions, but these themes are darkened by personal and collective shadows.

The Nazi era looms over the first half of the book, shaping the story in ways that were fateful not only for Kirsch and his career but also for Jung and his. Kirsch trained with Jung and acted as a tutor in Jewish psychology and culture to him. In 1934, fearing that anti-Semitism had seized his teacher, Kirsch challenged Jung to explain some of his publications for the Nazi-dominated Medical Society for Psychotherapy. Jung’s answer convinced Kirsch of his sincerity, and from then on Kirsch defended him fiercely against any allegation of anti-Semitism.

We also witness Kirsch’s lifelong struggle with states of archetypal possession: his identification with the interior God-image on the one hand, and with unconscious feminine aspects of his psyche on the other. These complexes were expressed, for Kirsch, in physical symptoms and emotional dilemmas, and they led him into clinical boundary violations which were costly to his analysands, his family and himself.

The text of these historical documents is translated with great attention to style and accuracy, and generous editorial scaffolding gives glimpses into the writers’ world. Four appendices are included: two essays by Kirsch, a series of letters between Hilde Kirsch and Jung, and a brief, incisive essay on the Medical Society for Psychotherapy. This revised edition includes primary material that was unavailable when the book was first published, as well as updated footnotes and minor corrections to the translated letters.

This book charts Carl Gustav Jung’s 33-year (1928-61) correspondence with James Kirsch, adding depth and complexity to the previously published record of the early Jungian movement. Kirsch was a German-Jewish psychiatrist, a first-generation follower of Jung, who founded Jungian communities in Berlin, Tel Aviv, London, and Los Angeles. Their letters tell of heroic survival, brilliant creativity, and the building of generative institutions, but these themes are darkened by personal and collective shadows.

The Nazi era looms over the first half of the book, shaping the story in ways that were fateful not only for Kirsch and his career but also for Jung and his. Kirsch trained with Jung and acted as a tutor in Jewish psychology and culture to him. In 1934, fearing that anti-Semitism had seized his teacher, Kirsch challenged Jung to explain some of his publications for the Nazi-dominated Medical Society for Psychotherapy. Jung’s answer convinced Kirsch of his sincerity, and from then on Kirsch defended him fiercely against any allegation of anti-Semitism.

We also witness Kirsch’s lifelong struggle with states of archetypal possession: his identification with the interior God-image on the one hand, and with unconscious feminine aspects of his psyche on the other. These complexes were expressed, for Kirsch, in physical symptoms and emotional dilemmas, and they led him into clinical boundary violations which were costly to his analysands, his family and himself.

The text of these historical documents is translated with great attention to style and accuracy, and generous editorial scaffolding gives glimpses into the writers’ world. Four appendices are included: two essays by Kirsch, a series of letters between Hilde Kirsch and Jung, and a brief, incisive essay on the Medical Society for Psychotherapy. This revised edition includes primary material that was unavailable when the book was first published, as well as updated footnotes and minor corrections to the translated letters.

The Roots of Jewish Consciousness, Volume Two: Hasidism is the second volume, fullyannotated, of a major, previously unpublished, two-part work by Erich Neumann (1905–1960). It was written between 1940 and 1945, after Neumann, then a young philosopher and physician and freshly trained as a disciple of Jung, fled Berlin to settle in Tel Aviv. He finished this work at the end of World War II. Although he never published it, he kept it the rest of his life.

Volume Two, Hasidism, is devoted to the psychological and spiritual wisdom embodied in Jewish spiritual tradition. Relying on Jung’s concepts and Buber’s Hasidic interpretations, Neumann seeks alternatives to the legalism and anti-feminine bias that he says have dominated collective Judaism since the Second Temple. He argues that modern Jews can develop psychological wholeness through an appropriation of Hasidic legends, Talmudic texts, and Kabbalistic mysteries, including especially the Zohar. Exclusively, this volume includes a foreword by Moshe Idel. An appendix, Neumann’s four-lecture series from the 1940s, gives a glimpse of his intended, unpublished Part Three.

These volumes anticipate Neumann’s later works, including Depth Psychology and a New Ethic, The Origins and History of Consciousness, and The Great Mother. In Volume Two, Hasidism, his concept of the ego–Self axis is developed in clearly psychological terms. Four previously unpublished essays, appended to Volume Two, illustrate Neumann’s developmental psychology, including his theme of primary and secondary personalization. This unique work will appeal to Jungian analysts and psychotherapists in training and in practice, historians of psychology, Jewish scholars, biblical historians, teachers of comparative religion, as well as academics and students.

The Roots of Jewish Consciousness, Volume Two: Hasidism is the second volume, fullyannotated, of a major, previously unpublished, two-part work by Erich Neumann (1905–1960). It was written between 1940 and 1945, after Neumann, then a young philosopher and physician and freshly trained as a disciple of Jung, fled Berlin to settle in Tel Aviv. He finished this work at the end of World War II. Although he never published it, he kept it the rest of his life.

Volume Two, Hasidism, is devoted to the psychological and spiritual wisdom embodied in Jewish spiritual tradition. Relying on Jung’s concepts and Buber’s Hasidic interpretations, Neumann seeks alternatives to the legalism and anti-feminine bias that he says have dominated collective Judaism since the Second Temple. He argues that modern Jews can develop psychological wholeness through an appropriation of Hasidic legends, Talmudic texts, and Kabbalistic mysteries, including especially the Zohar. Exclusively, this volume includes a foreword by Moshe Idel. An appendix, Neumann’s four-lecture series from the 1940s, gives a glimpse of his intended, unpublished Part Three.

These volumes anticipate Neumann’s later works, including Depth Psychology and a New Ethic, The Origins and History of Consciousness, and The Great Mother. In Volume Two, Hasidism, his concept of the ego–Self axis is developed in clearly psychological terms. Four previously unpublished essays, appended to Volume Two, illustrate Neumann’s developmental psychology, including his theme of primary and secondary personalization. This unique work will appeal to Jungian analysts and psychotherapists in training and in practice, historians of psychology, Jewish scholars, biblical historians, teachers of comparative religion, as well as academics and students.

The Roots of Jewish Consciousness, Volume One: Revelation and Apocalypse is the first volume, fully annotated, of a major, previously unpublished, two-part work by Erich Neumann (1905–1960). It was written between 1934 and 1940, after Neumann, then a young philosopher and physician and freshly trained as a disciple of Jung, fled Berlin to settle in Tel Aviv. He finished the second volume of this work at the end of World War II. Although he never published either volume, he kept them the rest of his life.

The challenge of Jewish survival frames Neumann’s work existentially. This survival, he insists, must be psychological and spiritual as much as physical. In Volume One, Revelation and Apocalypse, he argues that modern Jews must relearn what ancient Jews once understood but lost during the Babylonian Exile: that is, the individual capacity to meet the sacred directly, to receive revelation, and to prophesy. Neumann interprets scriptural and intertestamental (apocalyptic) literature through the lens of Jung’s teaching, and his reliance on the work of Jung is supplemented with references to Buber, Rosenzweig, and Auerbach. Including a foreword by Nancy Swift Furlotti and editorial introduction by Ann Conrad Lammers, readers of this volume can hold for the first time the unpublished work of Neumann, with useful annotations and insights throughout.

These volumes anticipate Neumann’s later works, including Depth Psychology and a New Ethic, The Origins and History of Consciousness, and The Great Mother. His signature contribution to analytical psychology, the concept of the ego–Self axis, arises indirectly in Volume One, folded into Neumann’s theme of the tension between earth and YHWH. This unique work will appeal to Jungian analysts and psychotherapists in training and in practice, historians of psychology, Jewish scholars, biblical historians, teachers of comparative religion, as well as academics and students.

The Roots of Jewish Consciousness, Volume One: Revelation and Apocalypse is the first volume, fully annotated, of a major, previously unpublished, two-part work by Erich Neumann (1905–1960). It was written between 1934 and 1940, after Neumann, then a young philosopher and physician and freshly trained as a disciple of Jung, fled Berlin to settle in Tel Aviv. He finished the second volume of this work at the end of World War II. Although he never published either volume, he kept them the rest of his life.

The challenge of Jewish survival frames Neumann’s work existentially. This survival, he insists, must be psychological and spiritual as much as physical. In Volume One, Revelation and Apocalypse, he argues that modern Jews must relearn what ancient Jews once understood but lost during the Babylonian Exile: that is, the individual capacity to meet the sacred directly, to receive revelation, and to prophesy. Neumann interprets scriptural and intertestamental (apocalyptic) literature through the lens of Jung’s teaching, and his reliance on the work of Jung is supplemented with references to Buber, Rosenzweig, and Auerbach. Including a foreword by Nancy Swift Furlotti and editorial introduction by Ann Conrad Lammers, readers of this volume can hold for the first time the unpublished work of Neumann, with useful annotations and insights throughout.

These volumes anticipate Neumann’s later works, including Depth Psychology and a New Ethic, The Origins and History of Consciousness, and The Great Mother. His signature contribution to analytical psychology, the concept of the ego–Self axis, arises indirectly in Volume One, folded into Neumann’s theme of the tension between earth and YHWH. This unique work will appeal to Jungian analysts and psychotherapists in training and in practice, historians of psychology, Jewish scholars, biblical historians, teachers of comparative religion, as well as academics and students.