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Marie-Louise von Franz

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Marie-Louise von Franz (4 January 1915 – 17 February 1998) was a Swiss Jungian psychologist and scholar.

Marie-Louise von Franz
Born(1915-01-04)4 January 1915
Munich, German Empire
Died17 February 1998(1998-02-17) (aged 83)
Küsnacht, Switzerland
NationalitySwiss
Scientific career
FieldsPsychology

Early life and education

Marie-Louise Ida Margareta von Franz was born in Munich, Germany, the daughter of a colonel in the Austrian army.[1]

After World War I, in 1919, her family moved to Switzerland, near St. Gallen. From 1928 on, she lived in Zurich, together with ther elder sister, in order to be both able to attend a secondary school in Zurich, focussing on languages and literature. Three years later, her parents moved to Zurich, as well.[2][3]

Meeting Carl Gustav Jung

In Zurich, in 1933, in the age of 18, when about to finishing secondary school, she met the psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung. Together with a classmate and nephew of Jungs assistant Toni Wolff, Marie-Louise and 7 befriended boys had been invited by Prof. Jung into his Bollingen Tower (near Zurich). For Marie-Louise von Franz, this had been a most impressive and decisive meeting, as she told her sister later, the same evening.[3] At the meeting, Jung and the pupils discussed psychological questions. When Jung commented on a female patient that "lived on the moon", M.-L. von Franz understood, that there are two levels of reality: the psychological, the inner world with its dreams and myths, was as real as the outer world. [4] [5]

Studies, meagre times and private lessons

In 1933, at University of Zurich, Marie-Louise von Franz started studies in Classical Philology and Languages (Latin and Greek) as major subjects and in Literature and Ancient History as minor subjects. Due to major finanical loss of her father in the early 1930s, she had to finance study fees by herself[3], what she achieved by giving private lessons in Latin and Greek for pupils of the secondary school and for students.[3]

Besides her universitarian studies, M.-L. von Franz occupied herself with Jungian Psychology, as well. She attenden C.G. Jungs' psychological lectures at the Swiss Federal Polytechnical School in Zurich (now Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich) and, in 1935 and later, also his psychological seminars. In 1934 she started analytical training with C.G. Jung. [6]

Collaboration with C.G. Jung

In order to pay C.G. Jung for her training analysis, she did translation works for him of Greek and Latin texts[1]. Among others, she translated two major alchemical manuscripts, that had been attributed to Thomas Aquinas: Aurora Consurgens and Musaeum Hermeticum. As many of its passages were of Islamic and Persian origin, M.-L. von Franz took up Arabic as study subject at university.[3]

This was the beginning of a long-standing collaboration with C.G. Jung until his death in 1961, which was especially close in the field of alchemy. Not only did she translation works, she also commented on the origin and psychological meaning of Aurora Consurgens. She made plausible, that this christian-alchemical text might have well been dictated by Thomas Aquinas himself.[7]

The experience of what Jung termed "objective Psyche" or "collective unconscious" coined her life and work as well as it stamped her way of living and trying to understand the reality of this autonomous psyche, acting independently from consciousness.

Interpretation of fairy tales

In 1935 Hedwig von Beit asked Marie-Louise von Franz to assist her part-time with writing a book about fairy tales. Von Franz indulged into a 9-years research and interpretation work and spent a lot of time with it. Fairy tales became increasingly important to her in regard to psychological questions. The work is published in the book "Symbolik des Märchens" (Symbolism of Fairy Tales).[8][3] Nevertheless, this book (of 3 volumes) was only published under the name of Hedwig von Beit. In her later talks and books, she connects fairy tale interpretation with everyday life. Alfred Ribi says, that von Franz might well be understood as the first to discover and demonstrate the psychological wisdom of fairy tales.[9]

Career

Von Franz worked with Carl Jung, whom she met in 1933 and knew until his death in 1961. Jung believed in the unity of the psychic and material worlds, i.e., that they are one and the same, just different manifestations. He also believed that this concept of the unus mundus could be investigated by means of researching archetypes. Due to his advanced age, he turned the problem over to von Franz.[10] Two of her books, Number and Time and Psyche and Matter deal with this research.

Jung encouraged von Franz to live with fellow Jungian analyst Barbara Hannah, who was 23 years older than her. When Hannah asked Jung why he was so keen on putting them together, Jung replied that he wanted von Franz "to see that not all women are such brutes as her mother." Jung also stated that "the real reason you should live together is that your chief interest will be analysis, and analysts should not live alone."[11] The two women became lifelong friends.

In 1968, von Franz was the first to argue that the mathematical structure of DNA is analogous to that of the I Ching. She cited the I Ching in an essay, Symbols of the Unus Mundus, published in her book Psyche and Matter.[12]

In addition to her many books, von Franz made a series of films in 1987 titled The Way of the Dream, along with her student, Fraser Boa.

In The Way of the Dream, she claims to have interpreted over 65,000 dreams, while practising primarily in Küsnacht, Switzerland.

She wrote more than 20 books on analytical psychology, most notably on fairy tales as they relate to archetypal psychology and depth psychology. She amplified the themes and characters of these tales.

She also wrote on subjects such as alchemy (discussed from the Jungian psychological perspective) and active imagination, which may be described as conscious dreaming. In Man and His Symbols, she described active imagination as follows:

Active imagination is a certain way of meditating imaginatively, by which one may deliberately enter into contact with the unconscious and make a conscious connection with psychic phenomena.[13]

In 1948, she was a co-founder of the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich.

Correspondence with Wolfgang Pauli

Von Franz had a lengthy exchange of letters with Wolfgang Pauli, winner of a Nobel Prize in physics. On Pauli's death, his widow Franca deliberately destroyed all the letters von Franz had sent to her husband, and which he had kept locked inside his writing desk. But the letters sent by Pauli to von Franz were all saved and were later made available to researchers (and published as well).[14]: 148 

Selected works

Most of these titles are a translation of the original German title. A few titles were originally published in English.

  • Alchemical Active Imagination ISBN 0-87773-589-1
  • Alchemy: An Introduction To The Symbolism And The Psychology ISBN 0-919123-04-X
  • Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales ISBN 1-894574-01-X
  • Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche ISBN 1-57062-426-7
  • Archetypal Patterns in Fairy Tales ISBN 0-919123-77-5
  • Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy. Inner City Books, Toronto, 2000. ISBN 0-919123-90-2
  • C. G. Jung: His Myth in Our Time ISBN 0-919123-78-3
  • Creation Myths ISBN 0-87773-528-X
  • Dreams. Shambhala, Boston, 1991. ISBN 0-87773-901-3
  • Feminine in Fairy Tales ISBN 1-57062-609-X
  • Individuation in Fairy Tales ISBN 1-57062-613-8
  • Interpretation of Fairytales. Spring Publications, Dallas, 8th Printing, 1987. ISBN 0-88214-101-5
  • Light from the Darkness: The Paintings of Peter Birkhäuser ISBN 3-7643-1190-8 (1980)
  • Number and Time ISBN 0-8101-0532-2 (1974)
  • On Divination and Synchronicity: ... ISBN 0-919123-02-3
  • On Dreams & Death: A Jungian Interpretation ISBN 0-8126-9367-1
  • Projection and Re-Collection in Jungian Psychology: Reflections of the Soul ISBN 0-87548-417-4
  • Psyche and Matter, Shambhala, Boston (1992) ISBN 0-87773-902-1
  • Psychological Meaning of Redemption Motif in Fairytales ISBN 0-919123-01-5
  • Puer Aeternus: A Psychological Study of the Adult Struggle With the Paradise of Childhood ISBN 0-938434-01-2
  • The Cat: A Tale of Feminine Redemption ISBN 0-919123-84-8
  • The Golden Ass of Apuleius: The Liberation of the Feminine in Man ISBN 1-57062-611-1
  • The Interpretation of Fairy Tales ISBN 0-87773-526-3
  • The Passion of Perpetua: A Psychological Interpretation of Her Visions. Inner City Books, Toronto, 2004. ISBN 1-894574-11-7
  • The Problem of the Puer Aeternus ISBN 0-919123-88-0
  • The Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales ISBN 0-87773-974-9
  • The Way of the Dream ISBN 1-57062-036-9
  • The Way of the Dream DVD
  • Time Rhythm and Repose ISBN 0-500-81016-8

Additionally, she collaborated with Emma Jung on The Grail Legend (ISBN 0-691-00237-1), which discusses the psychological symbolism of the documented legends of the Holy Grail.

The Fountain of the Love of Wisdom: An Homage to Marie-Louise von Franz is a compilation of eulogies, essays, personal impressions, book reviews, and more from dozens of people who were influenced by von Franz.

See also

1

References

  1. ^ a b Kirsch, Thomas B. (2012). The Jungians: A Comparative and Historical Perspective. Routledge. pp. 11–12. ISBN 9781134725519.
  2. ^ Chronology in: Emmanuel Kennedy-Xypolitas (ed.): The Fountain of the Love of Wisdom. An homage to Marie-Louise von Franz, Chiron Publications Wilmette, Illinois 2006, ISBN 1-888602-38-4, p.xxxvff.
  3. ^ a b c d e f von Franz, Marie-Anne B. (2006). Some Biographic Data on Marie-Louise von Franz, in: Emmanuel Kennedy-Xypolitas (ed.): The Fountain of the Love of Wisdom. An homage to Marie-Louise von Franz,. Chiron, Illinois. pp. 134–135. ISBN 1-888602-38-4. Cite error: The named reference "Marie-Anne" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  4. ^ Anne Maguire: Marie-Louise von Franz. Doyenne. In: James A. Hall and Daryl Sharp: Marie-Louise von Franz. The Classic Jungian and The Classic Jungian Tradition. Inner City Books Toronto 2008, ISBN 9781894574235, p. 36.
  5. ^ Alfred Ribi: Obituary, published in Zürichsee Zeitung, at 3.3.1998. Reprint in: Emmanuel Kennedy-Xypolitas (ed.): The Fountain of the Love of Wisdom. An homage to Marie-Louise von Franz, Chiron Publications Wilmette, Illinois 2006, ISBN 1-888602-38-4, p.18.
  6. ^ Chronology in: Emmanuel Kennedy-Xypolitas (ed.): The Fountain of the Love of Wisdom. An homage to Marie-Louise von Franz, Chiron Publications Wilmette, Illinois 2006, ISBN 1-888602-38-4, p.xxxvff.
  7. ^ See Introduction of Marie-Louise von Franz: Aurora Consurgens. A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy. A Companion Work to C.G. Jung's Mysterium Conjunctionis. (Studies in Jungian Psychology). Inner City Books, 2000.
  8. ^ Not published in English.
  9. ^ Alfred Ribi: Obituary publiziert am 3. März 1998 in der Zürichsee Zeitung. Auf englisch abgedruckt in: Emmanuel Kennedy-Xypolitas (ed.): The Fountain of the Love of Wisdom. An homage to Marie-Louise von Franz, Chiron Publications Wilmette, Illinois 2006, ISBN 1-888602-38-4, p.20.
  10. ^ Marie-Louise von Franz Number and Time (Northwestern, 1974) ix.
  11. ^ Dean L. Franz's portrait of Barbara Hannah in Hannah's The Cat, Dog and Horse Lectures (Chiron, 1992), p.18
  12. ^ Marie-Louise von Franz Psyche and Matter (Shambhala, 1992) p.39-62. The reference is cited on page 44; she cites the reference as number 16 of the article: Dialog über den Menschen: Eine Festschrift zum 75. Geburtstag von Wilhelm Bitter (Klett. Stuttgart, 1968).
  13. ^ Carl Jung, Man and his Symbols, p.206-207
  14. ^ Gieser, Suzanne (2005). The innermost kernel : depth psychology and quantum physics : Wolfgang Pauli's dialogue with C.G. Jung. Berlin [u.a.]: Springer. ISBN 9783540208563.

Bibliography

  • Anthony, M. (1990). The Valkyries: The Women around Jung. Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element. ISBN 1-85230-187-2
  • Hall, James A. and Sharp, Daryl (eds.). Marie-Louise von Franz: The Classic Jungian and The Classic Jungian Tradition. Inner City Books, Toronto, 2008. ISBN 978-1-894574-23-5
  • Jung, Carl G. (1968). Man and His Symbols. New York: Dell Publishing. ISBN 0-440-35183-9. Von Franz wrote Part 3 of this popular work.
 
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