Editorial

In this edition we bring you the plenary papers from the International Association for Analytical Psychology's 21^st International Congress held in Vienna, Austria in August 2019. The Congress, whose title was, ‘Encountering the Other: Within us, between us and in the world’, was the IAAP's most successful to date in terms of registrants, with over 1,100 participants. We are publishing the papers in the order in which they were given during the week.

The keynote speaker of the plenary is traditionally someone from outside the immediate Jungian community who, in and from their own field, speaks to the theme of the Congress. Navid Kermani is a well-known German writer and Orientalist, an award-winning author of a number of novels as well as books and essays on Islam, the Middle East and the Christian-Muslim dialogue. In his paper entitled, ‘Deifying the Soul - From Ibn Arabi to C.G. Jung’, Kermani tells us something about the life and work of the ‘greatest master’ of Sufism, Muhyi d-Din Ibn Arabi, and his meeting with and love for a Christian woman, Nizam bint Makin ad-Din. In his work, and in relation to Nizam, Ibn Arabi laid out a ‘sensational approach to divine truth’ that was ‘perfectly concrete and perceptible anywhere, to anyone’. Kermani explores the remarkable overlaps between this and Jung's recognition of the anima in relation to the divine, and in relation to God incarnated as Christ, which he relates to Ibn Arabi's approach to God through Nizam as ‘God-woman’ - this is the ‘deification of the soul’ of the title. It was a rousing speech that was very well received.

In his paper entitled, ‘Apocalyptic themes in times of trouble: when young men are deeply alienated’, Robert Tyminski addresses the ever-growing problem of addiction to on-line gaming, prevalent especially in young and adolescent boys as well as in men, as an expression of alienation from themselves and from society. Referencing his work over many years with ‘Herman’, who was 15 when he began therap