{"id":4960,"date":"2012-07-26T18:24:03","date_gmt":"2012-07-26T22:24:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/?p=4960"},"modified":"2012-07-06T18:29:49","modified_gmt":"2012-07-06T22:29:49","slug":"happy-birthday-to-the-dream-shaman-of-switzerland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/07\/happy-birthday-to-the-dream-shaman-of-switzerland.html","title":{"rendered":"Happy birthday to the dream shaman of Switzerland"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Happy Birthday to Carl Jung, who reminded us that psychology should be about soul, and that dreams are the easiest and best ways to understand what the soul wants in a life. In my book Dreaming the Soul Back Home<\/a><\/em>, I call Jung “the dream shaman of Switzerland” and suggest that he is the very model of what a true shaman of the West might be.<\/p>\n

Despite the remarkable popularity of the beautiful recent edition of the Red Book \u2013 which Jung recorded in Gothic calligraphy from his personal journey through the Underworld \u2013 and the profusion of new editions and selections from Jung\u2019s oeuvre you\u2019ll find at almost any bookstore, not many people actually read and comprehend Jung\u2019s own writings (as opposed to Jungian explications). His vast scholarship, including mastery of the classics, from which he sprinkles Greek and Latin throughout his monographs, is formidable and off-putting to many.<\/p>\n

We start out with the simplicity of children. Then things get complicated, and we need to master a lot of experience and learning in order to get simple again.<\/p>\n

Near the end of his life, Jung finally managed to put his best and most original ideas in a form that was simple enough to reach a general audience, without diluting or dumbing anything down. He might not have done this except for a dream.<\/p>\n

After watching Jung\u2019s very human interviews with John Freeman for the BBC in 1959, the publisher of Aldus Books had a bright idea: why not ask Jung to write a book for a general audience? Jung\u2019s answer, when approached by Freeman, was a flat No. He was now in his 80s, and did not want to take the time that remained to him for this.<\/p>\n

Then Jung dreamed that he was standing in a public place and lecturing to a multitude of people who were not only listening with rapt attention but understood what he was saying. The dream changed his mind.<\/p>\n

Jung had said in\u00a0Memories, Dreams, Reflections<\/em>, \u201cAll day long I have exciting ideas and thoughts. But I take up in my work only those to which my dreams direct me.\u201d Now he proved this, again, by embarking on the book that was published (after his death) as\u00a0Man and His Symbols<\/em>. He conceived it a collaborative effort and invited trusted colleagues like Marie-Louise von Franz to contribute chapters.<\/p>\n

His personal contribution was a long essay titled \u201cApproaching the Unconscious\u201d .\u00a0The essay is, first and last, about dreams. He completed it just ten days before the start of his final illness, so this work may be called his last testament. It testifies, above all, to the primary importance of dreams in Jung\u2019s psychology and in his vision of human nature and evolution. Jung makes this ringing statement: \u201cIt is an age-old fact that God speaks, chiefly, through dreams and visions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The essay is as simple as Jung gets \u2013 which is to say, you must not be dismayed if you come across a word like \u201cmisoneism\u201d (fear of the new) in the first few pages.\u00a0Despite the hopes of his publishers and Jung\u2019s dream on reaching the multitude, not nearly enough people \u2013 even in the Jungian community \u2013 are familiar with this essay, Second only to\u00a0Memories, Dreams, Reflections<\/em>, I recommend it as a friendly way into Jung\u2019s work with dreams.<\/p>\n

By the way, if you raise a toast to Jung today don\u2019t assume that he won\u2019t hear you. The first time I visited the Jung Center in Manhattan, where I recently gave a lecture on the development of Jung\u2019s synchronicity theory, the male receptionist was in the midst of a phone call. \u201cNo,\u201d he brought the conversation to an end. \u201cI\u2019m afraid Doctor Jung is not available for a private session. He died in 1961.\u201d I ask whether the Center got many requests for private appointments with Jung. \u201cAt least three every week.\u201d Given his own track record of talking to the dead, I suggested with a twinkle, maybe Jung might be available for a long-distance call.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Happy Birthday to Carl Jung, who reminded us that psychology should be about soul, and that dreams are the easiest and best ways to understand what the soul wants in a life. In my book Dreaming the Soul Back Home, I call Jung “the dream shaman of Switzerland” and suggest that he is the very…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,20,3,37,12,22,42],"tags":[1394,1397,1396,1398,1393,1395],"class_list":["post-4960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dreams","category-history-of-dreaming","category-imagination","category-jung","category-meaning-of-dreams","category-shamanic-dreaming","category-shamanism","tag-dreams-2","tag-john-freeman","tag-jungs-birthday","tag-man-and-his-symbols-jungs-dreams","tag-memories","tag-reflections"],"yoast_head":"\nHappy birthday to the dream shaman of Switzerland - Dream Gates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/07\/happy-birthday-to-the-dream-shaman-of-switzerland.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Happy birthday to the dream shaman of Switzerland - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Happy Birthday to Carl Jung, who reminded us that psychology should be about soul, and that dreams are the easiest and best ways to understand what the soul wants in a life. 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He is the creator of Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of dreamwork and shamanism. Born in Australia, he survived three near-death experiences in childhood. He leads popular seminars all over the world, including a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. A former lecturer in ancient history at the Australian National University, he is a best-selling novelist, journalist and independent scholar. His nine books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Dreamer's Book of the Dead, The Three \"\"Only\"\" Things, The Secret History of Dreaming, Dreamgates, Active Dreaming and Dreaming the Soul Back Home: Shamanic Dreaming for Healing and Becoming Whole. His most recent book is The Boy Who Died and Came Back: Adventures of a Dream Archaeologist in the Multiverse. Over the past 20 years, he has led seminars at the Esalen Institute, Kripalu, the Omega Institute, the New York Open Center, Bastyr University, John F. Kennedy University, Meriter Hospital, and many other centers and institutions. He has taught depth workshops in Active Dreaming in the UK, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Brazil and Austria and leads a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. He hosts the \"\"Way of the Dreamer\"\" radio show at www.healthylife.net. He has appeared on many TV and radio shows, ranging from Charlie Rose and the Today show to Coast to Coast and the Diane Rehm show on NPR. His articles on dreaming have been published in media ranging from Parade to Shaman's Drum.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.mossdreams.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/author\/rmoss"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4960"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4965,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4960\/revisions\/4965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}