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Can myths be dreamed onwards? Do myths change, develop, unfold? Or is our partial apprehension of a myth progressively enriched as the unconscious yields its treasures until the full myth is revealed, at once familiar and strange? These questions were in my mind as I approached this new collection of essays, succinctly edited by Lucy Huskinson (none is longer than 15 pages, and most are nearer 10), that were originally contributed to the first conference of the International Association of Jungian Studies, in 2006.
In her Introduction, Huskinson articulates the tensions between the ‘integrative’ and ‘pluralist’ tendencies within post-Jungian thinking. Does the Self move us towards wholeness or is the Self as much about dissolution as integration? Each perspective contains aspects of the other, but there will be a vast difference between the existential standpoints engendered by each, should we be forced to choose between them. Equally interesting, to this reader, was her discussion of myth as an image, and myth as a process of image making, not least in note 4, an excursus on the existence of God.
The essays are then divided into four sections. Part 1, ‘Directing onwards’, contains just one paper, in which Nihan Kaya writes about the courage required to create. The artist has to sustain the tension between collective expectations and truth to the inner self; in Tillich's words, to display ‘the courage to be as oneself and the courage to be as a part’ (p. 28).
In Part 2, ‘Changing faces of myth’, Vincenzo Sanguineti explores the possibility that myth, specifically the myth of Psyche, might span the seemingly unbridgeable divide between subjective and objective ‘takes’ on reality. In the process he takes M.L. von Franz to task for her distorted reading of Apuleius’ Golden Ass, which ‘sacrifices the mythical message in favour of a fictitious meaning’ (p. 34). As if in response to this caution, Ann Shearer contributes an elegant exposition of the role of Themis, ‘right ord