Jung and the Epic of Transformation Volume 3

According to Jung, Part Two of Goethe’s Faust was a link in the Aurea Catena from philosophical alchemy and Gnosticism down to Nietzsche’s Zarathustra: both works were “mostly unpopular, ambiguous, and dangerous,” constituting a “voyage of discovery to the other pole of the world.” Yet Jung believed that Nietzsche had not understood himself when he “fell into the mystery and into the unspeakable,” singing its praises to “the crowd that had been forsaken by all the gods.” In Nietzsche’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” and the Challenge of Transformation, Paul Bishop examines the significance for Jung of the great thinker of modernity — and postmodernity. For if Zarathustra was Nietzsche’s Faust, Jung saw his own No. 2 personality as corresponding to Zarathustra. After all, Nietzsche was, like Jung, the son of a clergyman — and as Jung frequently reminded those attending his legendary seminar on Zarathustra, “I know what that means!” This is the third volume in a series of books, examining key texts in German literature and thought that were, in Jung’s own estimation or by scholarly consent, highly influential on his thinking. The project of Jung and the Epic of Transformation consists of four titles, sequentially arranged to explore great works from a Jungian perspective and in turn to highlight their importance for interpreting The Red Book.