When they all know the good as good, there arises the recognition of evil.

This article explores the psychological underpinnings of  Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” from a Jungian view. Carl Jung left a great deal of ambiguity surrounding his work. He understood, as long as there have been men and they have lived, they have all felt this tragic ambiguity and everybody must accept his or her “Shadow” during the individuation process. Ambiguity between good an evil, and a failed individuation is the core theme in the tragedy Macbeth: “Fair is foul, and foul is fair” say the three witches in the beginning of the play and this paradox is touched again by Macbeth: “So foul and fair a day I have not seen”. The enemy and death is “foul” – bad – but the outcome of the battle is “fair” – good, only because he has won.So the play Macbeth is about the evil, but as we see mostly the evil in us, and this evil is first impersonated by the witches. That is…

In his masterpiece The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien created what he called a “new mythos”. There is undoubtedly much in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings that invites us seeing it through the Jungian framework.  However, on a closer look, comparatively few archetypes are present, and the main protagonist’s (Frodo’s) individuation arguably fails. A Jungian view must offer more than “In a fairy land lived a halfling who, together with some helper-figures, became a wiser and individuated hobbit’.  On the first glance (and even on the second) Frodo listens more to his shadow than to his Anima – if he has an own Anima at all.

Now, how do we avoid  the “If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail“, problem?  By systematically testing elements in the Jungian framework on its applicability to the Lord of the Ring and comparing the results with similar elements  in Richards Wagner “Ring Cycle”…

Prelude

Goethe and C.G. Jung

“Faust I”, the Germans’ favorite drama is about a scholar who wants the impossible, who wants to know what keeps the world together at heart. Goethe’s Faust failed on this worldly question, which ultimately leads either straight to Augustine’s heaven or Dante’s hell. Therfore Faust needed and accepted diabolical assistance. But what keeps the world together is also a fundamental question of today’s particle physics. The essay approaches Faust’s complex question from philosophy,  depth psychology, religion and science.

To enlighten me more,
What Holds the world together at its innermost core
All this potency and seed I shall see,
And stop peddling in words that mean nothing to me.
Daß ich erkenne, was die Welt
Im Innersten zusammenhält,
Schau alle Wirkenskraft und Samen,
Und tu nicht mehr in Worten kramen.

Many suggestions and thoughts derived from a monastery-retreat with that title, held by a particle physicist…

It’s funny. I’ve thought a lot about what words mean, particularly names. Even more particularly, names which are clearly interesting or unusual. And I’ve thought a lot about William Shakespeare. But I’ve never thought about his surname before.