This module explores three interrelated phenomena – dream, myth, and magic – that emerge at the intersection of the conscious and unconscious mind. Each was deeply involved, explicitly or implicitly, in the development of depth psychology, and each continues to be a site of reflection and controversy within the field.
The module examines various attempts to make sense of these phenomena, with a particular focus on the depth psychological theories of Freud and Jung. While each phenomenon merits study in its own right, the three are also examined in relation to the common challenge they present to a rational understanding of the world and their role in cultural tensions between processes of disenchantment and (re)enchantment.
After an introductory lecture, there are three blocks of three lectures on each of dream, myth, and magic. Within each block an overview of the phenomenon is followed by lectures on first psychoanalytic and then analytical psychological perspectives. The module thus includes a comparative dimension at the levels of both subject matter (among dream, myth, and magic) and theoretical orientation (between psychoanalysis and analytical psychology).
The aims of the module are:
1. To introduce and explain various views on dreams, myths, and magic, in particular those of Freud and Jung.
2. To understand how psychoanalysis and analytical psychology, in engaging with and theorising the unconscious, have had to grapple with phenomena whose expression and meaning are deeply resistant to rational formulation.
3. To understand the cultural significance of dreams, myth, and magic in relation to discourses of disenchantment and (re)enchantment.
4. To develop students’ ability to compare different theoretical perspectives, in particular those of Freud and Jung.
5. To enhance students’ ability to articulate complex ideas clearly and concisely in writing.
By the end of the module, students will gain:
1. A fundamental knowledge, including some comparative knowledge, of various views on dreams, myths, and magic, in particular those of Freud and Jung.
2. A fundamental understanding of how psychoanalysis and analytical psychology, in engaging with and theorising the unconscious, have had to grapple with phenomena whose expression and meaning are deeply resistant to rational formulation.
3. A fundamental understanding of the discourses of disenchantment and re-enchantment in relation to attempts to theorise dreams, myths, and magic.
4. Ability to compare general aspects of the theoretical perspectives of Freud and Jung on dreams, myths, and magic.
5. Ability to articulate clearly and concisely in writing a basic understanding, including some comparative understanding, of Freud’s and Jung’s views on dreams, myths, and magic.
Syllabus
1. Disenchantment and re-enchantment.
This lecture will introduce dream, myth, and magic as three interrelated forms of expression that present alternatives and challenges to rational modes of apprehending and engaging with reality.
Essential reading:
W. Hanegraaff, 'How magic survived the disenchantment of the world' (2003).
R. Main, 'Psychology and the occult: dialectics of disenchantment and re-enchantment in the modern self' in Partridge (2015), 732-743.
2. Making sense of dreams.
This lecture will provide an overview of approaches, both physiological and psychological, to understanding dreams. Within this overview, it will highlight the theories of Freud and Jung and provide a preliminary account of them.
Essential reading:
Hoss and Gongloff (2019), Chapter 15, 'Influential contributions to dream psychology', 415-448.
3. The dark tide.
This lecture will look at Freud's theory of dreams and how Freud attempted to find a place within it for the anomalous phenomena of thought transference or telepathy.
Essential reading:
S. Freud, 'Dreams and occultism', in Freud (1933), 45-77.
4. Confrontation with the unconscious.
This lecture will look at Jung's theory of dreams and the role dreams played in his personal confrontation with the unconscious, which included a range of anomalous experiences.
Essential reading:
Jung, 'Confrontation with the unconscious', Chapter 6 in Jung (1963), 194-225.
5. The world of myth.
This lecture will provide an overview of the phenomenon of myth and of various theories that have been proposed for understanding and interpreting myths. In particular, we shall consider what is the role of myth in a world dominated by science.
Essential reading:
D. Leeming, 'Introduction', in Leeming (2005), xi-xii.
R. Segal, 'Does myth have a future?' in Segal (1999), 19-35.
6. Dreams writ large.
This lecture will look at how Freud and subsequent Freudians have explained and interpreted myths.
Essential reading:
D. Merkur, 'From Mythology to metapsychology' and 'Myth as unconscious manifestation', chapters 1 and 2 in Merkur (2005), 1-30.
7. The mythopoeic mind.
This lecture will examine Jung's theory of myth, focusing on how it can be seen as an attempt to re-enchant the world.
Essential reading:
S. Walker, 'Mythology and the archetypes of the collective unconscious', Chapter 1 in Walker (1995), 3-27.
R. Main, 'Myth, synchronicity, and re-enchantment' (2013), 129-146.
8. Magic: a wretched subject.
This lecture will provide orientation in the academic study of magic and Western esotericism more broadly, which have had a close symbiotic relationship with the development of depth psychology.
Essential reading:
W. Hanegraaff, 'Magic', in Magee (2016), 393-404.
9. Psychoanalysis and magic.
This lectures explores the association of psychoanalysis with magic and the paranormal, and the possibility that psychoanalysis, as once stated by Freud, may itself be a form of magic.
Essential reading:
M. Brottman, 'Psychoanalysis and magic: then and now', American Imago 66(4) (2009): 471-489.
10. Synchronicity: the return of magic as science.
This lecture considers the role of magic in Jung's thought, from his encounter with an inner figure of a magician in his Red Book experience to his late writing about synchronicity as a modern, scientific version of the theory of correspondences on which traditional magic was based.
Essential reading:
C. G. Jung, 'The magician', in Jung (2012), 395-406.
C. G. Jung, 'On synchronicity' (1951), 520-531.
The module will be taught by a one-hour lecture followed by a one-hour class. The teaching will focus on providing first a solid foundation in each topic and then a deeper exploration of it. (At level 5 you need to demonstrate a solid foundation and you will excel in assignments if you can also demonstrate a capacity for deeper exploration.)
This module does not appear to have a published bibliography for this year.