In 1944 when C. G. Jung was very ill, he had a series of visions which he later described as "the most tremendous things I have ever experienced." Central to these visions was the mystic marriage as it appears in the Kabbalistic tradition, and Jung's experience of himself as "Rabbi Simon ben Jochai," the author of the sacred Kabbalistic text, the Zohar.
This new book by Sanford Drob explores Jung's 1944 Kabbalistic visions, the impact of Jewish mysticism on Jungian psychology, Jung's archetypal interpretation of Kabbalistic symbolism, and his claim late in life that a Hasidic rabbi, the Maggid of Mezhirech, anticipated his entire psychology.
In Kabbalistic Visions, Drob examines Jung's interest in the Jewish mystical tradition in the context of his earlier visions and meditations as described in the recently published Red Book, his abiding interests in Gnosticism and alchemy, and what many regard to be his Anti-Semitism and flirtation with National Socialism.
This work is the first full-length study of Jung and Jewish mysticism in any language and the first book to present a comprehensive Jungian/archetypal interpretation of Kabbalistic symbolism. In the process Kabbalistic Visions raises some disturbing questions about the place of the "irrational," the "shadow," and the unconscious in both psychology and mysticism.
Praise for Kabbalistic Visions
At last! An in-depth, thoughtful, book bridging the worlds of Kabbalah and Depth Pyschology. Sanford Drob has provided us with a clearly defined understanding of the archetypal patterns linking Kabbalah and the psychology of C.G. Jung (and Freud) - from the world of Alchemy to the amplification of Symbols. Dr. Drob shows he is equally at ease in both worlds- not an easy task- and has provided us with an indispensable new source for appreciating the connection between the world of the Kabbalah and that of Analytical Psychology.
ARYEH MAIDENBAUM, PH.D., DIRECTOR, NY CENTER FOR JUNGIAN STUDIES
Sanford Drob's book is a scholarly and provocative analysis of Jung's "lingering shadows," the extent to which Jung's dark and unresolved personal complexes about Judaism affected his psychology. Drob's analysis of Jung's late-life Kabbalistic visions finds Jung to be in the midst of a reparative and transformative process that surprisingly links him to a long line of Jewish mystical thinkers. In this important, far-reaching, and well-researched work, Drob re-visions our understanding of Jung and his psychology, including an analysis of the intimate interplay of the archetypal images shared by alchemy and the Kabbalah. I am certain that its publication will ignite continuing dialogue and debate.
STANTON MARLAN, PH.D., JUNGIAN ANALYST, AUTHOR OF THE BLACK SUN: THE ALCHEMY AND ART OF DARKNESS AND EDITOR OF ARCHETYPAL PSYCHOLOGIES: REFLECTIONS IN HONOR OF JAMES HILLMAN
About the Author: Sanford L. Drob is a core faculty member in the clinical psychology doctoral program of Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, Ca. For many years he served as the director of psychological assessment and the senior forensic psychologist at Bellevue Hospital in New York. In addition to numerous publications in clinical, forensic, and philosophical psychology, Dr. Drob's articles on the interface between Jewish thought and contemporary philosophy and psychology have appeared in such journals as Tradition, The Reconstructionist Cross Currents, and the Journal of Jungian Theory and Practice. He is the author of Symbols of the Kabbalah: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives (Jason Aronson, 2000), Kabbalistic Metaphors: Jewish Mystical Themes in Ancient and Modern Thought (Jason Aronson, 2000), and Kabbalah and Postmodernism: A Dialogue (Peter Lang, 2008).
