This one was a little more dense than her other works; nevertheless, Marie-Louise explained Jung with clarity. Take this quote, for example, as a way to express the purpose of individuation:
"Whenever this (the individuation process) occurs positively, it brings about a union of consciousness with the collective unconscious instead of an explosion of consciousness: it means an enlargement of consciousness together with a decrease of intensity in the ego complex. When this happens, the ego retires in favor of the collective unconscious and its center, the Self. To reach that point where outer and inner reality become one is the goal of individuation." p 149.
She thus make clear that by working towards awareness of self, Self and the complexes via dream interpretation and becoming vitally involved in life one is thus initiated into the unitive experience of being one with God.13 s Simon384 79

A collection of transcripts of Marie-Louise von Franz' lectures on alchemy. I know her largely for the interesting but frustrating "Puer Aeternus" and her collaborations with C. G. Jung such as those chapters of ”Man and His Symbols” I found by far the most lucid. This, however, is on a whole different level.

The first lecture alone, whose transcript is roughly 20 pages long, contains tons of information about similarities and differences between ancient Egyptian and Greek religions' metaphysics, how they manifested in the craftsmanship and architecture of those cultures and so on. One important point is that for the ancient Egyptians, blacksmithing and construction were religious activities any other ritual as say a funeral or a wedding, as a result of having a resolutely non-dualistic worldview as a basis for their culture with no distinction between the material and the spiritual. The later lectures explain the underlying metaphysics of alchemy, which in the Christian era constitutes an esoteric compensation to the lacunae in conventional Christianity by preserving the holistic worldview underlying the pre-Christian Egyptian and Greek religions as well as the methods for enacting that metaphysical system in practice.

A central insight in alchemy, Von Franz points out, is that the skills necessary to complete the transmutation process is more valuable than the literal turning of lead to gold. Same message as the Arthurian Grail Quest myths, where whatever the Grail is happens to be less important than the wisdom necessary to find the Grail in the first place. Or for that matter the Kabbalah's initiation process, where the literal answers to the different challenges encountered on the ascent up the Tree of Life are secondary to the respective faculties of the human mind mastered in the process. Around here, Von Franz takes care to dispel popular misconceptions about alchemy, which she blames on the Freemasons and Rosicrucians.

The later lectures include even more information about different topics densely packed into extremely short space - requiring the reader to follow complex analysis of the similarities and differences between Greco-Roman esotericism, varying traditions within Christian and Islamic mysticism, Zen Buddhism and probably even more mystical religious traditions I have already forgotten.

I don't understand everything in here to a satisfying extent, let alone agree with all of Von Franz' conclusions, but this book got me thinking about several topics in new ways and convinced me to put ideas I already entertained on the abstract philosophical level into daily practice in my life. So I definitely found it worth reading, and got a better signal-to-noise ratio out of it than ”Puer Aeternus”.

Many thanks to Susan Demeter, author of COSMIC WITCH: magic, witchcraft, and the supernatural, for having mentioned Marie-Louise von Franz as an inspiration in one of her YouTube videos, hence giving me the impetus to finally read this.1970s europe-west occult ...more10 s Rebecca129 14

This is a challenging read. It starts out fairly normally in that she discusses much of what Dr. Jung thought and practiced in the way of Active Imagination. However, about 1/3 of the way through it, it becomes more of a commentary on Mr. Dorn's thoughts and ideas in this area. As interesting as it was, it was very difficult to follow as this was mostly from the 16th and 17th centuries and their thought patterns and ideas were very different.

However, it was very interesting and well worth the walk through if for nothing else but to read about one of the pioneers that helped Dr. Jung come to his own conclusions.5 s Nicholas213 21

This is a considerably less convoluted treatise on Alchemy and its modern day psychological relevance,than the one produced by Carl Jung.After a couple of chapters explaining the concepts and tracing the history of Alchemy back to Egyptian mummification and the rites of Osiris,the author proceeds to dissect some of the more relevant and more lucid parts of a sixteenth century text written by Gerhard Dorn,a student of Paracelsus.The active imagination referred to in the title concerns the imaginary conversations between the different parts of the undifferentiated psyche and their conflicts,resolutions and final unity.Things do sometimes get complex, especially when Von Franz starts analysing Dorn's shadow projections in his metaphysical conversations,but that's not to say it's indecipherable it just requires more work than the rest of the text to understand.
The book works well as a truncated description of individuation and the external effects of the process that manifest in the external environment of the one undergoing the process,it also contains much of the authors own inner gold in clarifying concepts that others make complex. psychology4 s Mary OvertonAuthor 1 book50 Read

As scientists today “enrich” or process uranium to transform it into a more “pure” metal for industrial/bomb-making purposes, so the 16th century alchemist believed that any metal, sufficiently “enriched” or processed, would transform into a metal’s purest form: gold.
Von Franz explains the theories of alchemist Gerhard Dorn:
“... gold, now really understood as a metal, is the perfect state of every metal. Iron, copper, and alloy, and so forth, are just not - yet - completed metals, hampered by stuff which in inimical to them. Therefore, if you make this higher separatio and remove what hampers the inner development of that metal, it will naturally become gold.” pg. 99

Football as the American religion:
“...when you to further back in the history of religion, you can no longer distinguish between play or games and rituals. The history of games such as still exist in primitive societies - dice, ring-toss (putting a stick in the ground and then throwing a ring over it), and all the group and ball games - shows that these are played both as rituals and, at the same time, as games.... In other words, when a man is not occupied in hunting, eating, making love, or sleeping, if he has any further energy left, then - let us use the zoological expression - he moves about and does things which to him express the meaning of his existence, and such things are generally ritual-games or game-rituals. And according to the material I have seen, at least ninety percent if not all of them always cluster around what we now would call the symbolism of the Self.
“There is generally a mandala structure involved somewhere: rings have to be put over a center, or you have a round bowl into which you have to throw little stones, and you hit or miss the goal. The patterns of all those ritualistic games are bigger or smaller mandala patterns, and even the implements used, dice, are generally of a mandala structure, and it is the same all over the world, whether in North America, India, China, Australia, and so on. These ritual games and performances are therefore the oldest features of religious life that which we can trace historically.” pg. 913 s Christian109

This book was really cool. It helped me understand the psychological nature of alchemy--essentially active imagination, or the projection of the unconscious into outer material--whose purpose it is to unify the mind with itself, the mind with the body, and the body with the world. It also gave me a way of thinking about unly or seemingly supernatural events--as synchronicity that unites an inner state of mind with an outer event.

However, I'm still unwilling to go with the Jungians and say that good and evil are just another opposite to be resolved. Personally, I think that (at least in their divine sense) goodness IS the union of opposites, where evil is perpetual disunity.jungian non-fiction psychology ...more2 s Trebha Cooper6 2

Marie-Louisse von Franz, one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century....2 s Eron69

Disclaimer 1: This is less of an objective review than a series of personal thoughts. I guess I could argue that from a Jungian perspective, there is no such thing as an objective review. However, this is just extremely subjective and I don't think it will help very many people decide if they want to read this book.

Disclaimer 2: 3 stars is ly an unfair review because I am still wrapping my brain around alchemy. I've been reading "Psychology and Alchemy" from Jung's Collected Works, and I got similar vibes here. I definitely believe they know what they're talking about, and that it's real, I just think it's nearly impossible to summarize in a single text. Von Franz even mentions that Jung's understanding of alchemy came from reading everything he could possibly find and looking at the information in aggregate. So that's what I expect to do. I feel I'm swallowing up information for later use.

I picked up this book because I was interested in understanding active imagination a bit more, and I found other writings from von Franz to be pretty understandable. This book touched more on alchemy, but active imagination was sprinkled throughout. The idea that alchemists sort of understood that their whole process was about individuation is fascinating to me. It's not they were just encoding these ideas in allegories; they really weren't aware of everything going on! Only when Jung came along did someone see the big picture. If I'm honest, the fact that he and von Franz understand what's going on, and are trying to explain it to me, all while I sit there blinking as the ideas bounce off my skull...it makes me feel stupid. I'm trying not to get hung up on that, because I really think there's something here for me.at-library jung1 Hans52 6

Marie-Louise never fails to impress and explain the deeper psychological structures and how our (Jungs) knowledge thereof came into being. It is impressive to realize how much knowing already was available throughout ancient times and further crystalized in the writings of 17th century alchemist Dorn. Von Franz illustrates and explains the deeper psychology and spiritual linkeages with his writings, story dialogues and clinical examples. Books which are well written and are ambitious on hinting and hitting aspects of truth and being, deserve a 5* rating, so here it goes...1 Ben1 review2

This book, combined with James Elkins' "What Painting Is", are the bedrock upon which much of thinking about painting is based.1 Matt Dowdy22 1 followerRead

some interesting ideas, the authors voice was a little annoying to me though1 Olivier Goetgeluck138 56

Door studie krijgt men kennis; door kennis liefde, die toewijding schept; toewijding schept herhaling en door de herhaling vast te leggen schept men in zichzelf ervaring, deugd en macht, waardoor het wonderbaarlijke tot stand wordt gebracht en dit is de aard van het werk in de natuur.

Dorn was van mening dat een evenwichtig levenspatroon de beste manier was om lichamelijk gezond te blijven. Niet te veel slapen, niet te weinig of te veel eten, de juiste hoeveelheid beweging nemen, enzovoort. Het is niets nieuws meer, maar daarom niet minder waar, want wanneer mensen lichamelijk ziek worden, is die ziekte meestal geleidelijk ontstaan door jarenlang zonder innerlijk evenwicht te leven, door te veel te eten, geen beweging te nemen of niet genoeg te slapen; en dan presenteert de natuur op een dag de rekening. Dorn zijn 'gouden geneesmiddel' moest de ziel van de mensen genezen: psychologische genezing door constant te zoeken met het zelf, of het proces van individuatie.

Multiplicatio: een werkelijk geindividueerde persoonlijkheid heeft een uitstraling naar andere mensen en brengt in hen hetzelfde proces op gang. Op die manier worden anderen ook bij het genezingsproces betrokken.

Niemand kan van zichzelf bewust worden als hij niet weet wie en wat hij is, waarvan je afhankelijk bent, aan wie je toebehoort en waarvoor je geschapen bent.

DE BAND MET HET ZELF ZORGT VOOR EEN ZEKERE RUST EN STANDVASTIGHEID IN DE PERSOONLIJKHEID.

We proberen geen einde te maken aan de vijandigheid door die te verdrijven, maar door mensen te dwingen om het met hun eigen conflicten uit te vechten (Fighting Monkey), door ze met hun conflicten te confronteren, zodat die zich niet meer alleen in het onbewuste afspelen, en door de neiging tot integratie in het onbewuste te stimuleren.

In het licht van je dromen kun je jezelf leren kennen op een manier die verschilt van de mening van het ik, want je dromen geven aanvullende informatie die niet afkomstig is van je eigen ik. (objectief)

Het bereiken van het punt waar de innerlijke en de uiterlijke werkelijkheid (hemel en aarde) één worden, is het doel van het individuatieproces: wat Jung de 'absolute kennis' van het onbewuste noemt.
R R4

Was my introduction to jung and alchemy, absolutely amazing! Writing is concise and easy to follow but she still manages to delve into to the depths of a jungian/alchemical idea. Her selections of which dialogues of the manuscript to interject into the lecture were perfect.

Overall extremely focused and relatively short book that encouraged me enough to order her other book on alchemy. Rjyan102 7

Of all the books I've picked up so far about Jung and alchemy, this one has been the most immediately readable. The author focuses on a single alchemical treatise and walks you through a Jungian analysis of it in a style that doesn't require the reader to be neck-deep in psychology studies (or alchemical lore) to follow. Gina117 2

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