Marie Lousei Von Franz

The Dream of Jacob’s Ladder

by Stephen Parker, Ph.D (Article Selection and Commentary) on October 14, 2010

Jacob’s Dream
William Blake
29 cm x 37 cm
1800

The Bible references more than 100 dreams or visions. The dream of Jacob’s Ladder is one of the better known dreams, and one of the most frequently depicted dreams in the art world.

From the Book of Genesis (28:11-19)


Jacob left Beersheba, and went toward Haran. He came to the place and stayed there that night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your descendants; and your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and by you and your descendants shall all the families of the earth bless themselves. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done that of which I have spoken to you.” Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place; and I did not know it.” And he was afraid, and said, “This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

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Commentary by Marie Louise Von Franz


Later in the Renaissance in the seventeenth century, Jacob’s Ladder was interpreted symbolically as being the sounds and vowels of human speech, or the different qualities of the world, or the different numbers of the world. The basic idea of different systems of thought was projected onto the ladder. But in all cases the ladder symbolized a continuous, constant connection with the divine powers of the unconscious. We could say the dream itself was such a ladder. It connects us with the unknown depth of our psyche. Every dream is a rung on a ladder, so to speak.

The Way of the Dream

Marie Louse Von Franz

pages 88-89

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Synchronicity: Atom and Archetype

by Stephen Parker, Ph.D (Article Selection and Commentary) on July 21, 2010


From Atom and Archetype: The Pauli-Jung Letters, 1932-1958

JUNG AND PAULI: A Meeting of Rare Minds
BY BEVERLEY ZABRISKIE

Readers of the Swiss psychiatrist C. G. Jung are more familiar with Wolfgang Pauli’s unconscious than with his waking life and achievement.

Through Jung’s Psychology and Alchemy–an exposition of “the problem of individuation” and “normal development . . . in a highly intelligent person”–depth psychologists have known the Nobel laureate’s dreams, not his professional genius.

Meanwhile, the scientists who continue Pauli’s pursuit of the nature and composition of the material universe know little of the quantum physicist’s depth exploration of his unconscious, his fascination with the interface of matter with psyche, and his collaboration with Jung in probing connections that appear to be acausal.
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Jung and Pauli corresponded and later met, not for analysis but for a comparison of ideas–Pauli pursuing Jung’s synchronicity thesis and Jung fostering Pauli’s understanding of the archetypal and collective factors in the psyche. Through their contact, William James’s two fields, to which both Jung and Bohr had been attracted, come together again. Von Franz writes that the notion of complementarity introduced by Niels Bohr to provide a better explanation for the paradoxical relationship between waves and particles in nuclear physics can also be applied to the relationship of conscious and unconscious states of a psychic content. This fact was discovered by Jung, but it was particularly elaborated by Wolfgang Pauli.
(Full Article)

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Marie Von Franz on the Shadow

by Stephen Parker, Ph.D (Article Selection and Commentary) on May 4, 2010

The shadow is not the whole of the unconscious personality. It represents unknown or little-known attributes and qualities of the ego . . . aspects that mostly belong to the personal sphere and that could just as well be conscious.

Marie-Louise von Franz, “The Realization of the Shadow in Dreams,” in Meeting the Shadow p34.