Marion Woodman was one of several Jungian analysts whose work was extremely important to me as I moved through some difficult transitions in my 30s and 40s, thus, I was sad to learn that on July 9, 2018, she transitioned out of Earth space.

I consider Woodman to be among my psychoanalytic elders, part of my psychoanalytic lineage. R.I.P. and thank you, Marion.

From a statement by the Board of the Marion Woodman Foundation:

During this last week, as Marion passed from one world to another, she was accompanied by the love, prayers, poems, tears and laughter of this worldwide community – all of whom have been so touched, so moved, so changed by her energy and vision and love.

There is an energy that is working its way through this community — a feminine energy with a strong masculine partner – and this energy is determined to carry forward Marion’s work — to change the world. And for the love and encouragement Marion gave each of us we all send our deepest, most loving gratitude.

Other links:

Obituary in the Toronto Star

Obituary in The New York Times

Until August 12, 2018, you can download a conversation between Marion Woodman and Robert Bly on their book, The Maiden King, at no charge.

What happened next to Carl Jung has become, among Jungians and other scholars, the topic of enduring legend and controversy. It has been characterized variously as a creative illness, a descent into the underworld, a bout with insanity, a narcissistic self-deification, a transcendence, a midlife breakdown and an inner disturbance mirroring the upheaval of World War I. Whatever the case, in 1913, Jung, who was then 38, got lost in the soup of his own psyche. He was haunted by troubling visions and heard inner voices. Grappling with the horror of some of what he saw, he worried in moments that he was, in his own words, “menaced by a psychosis” or “doing a schizophrenia.”

He later would compare this period of his life — this “confrontation with the unconscious,” as he called it — to a mescaline experiment. He described his visions as coming in an “incessant stream.” He likened them to rocks falling on his head, to thunderstorms, to molten lava. “I often had to cling to the table,” he recalled, “so as not to fall apart.”

via www.nytimes.com

This fascinating NYT Magazine article by Sara Corbett tells the backstory of Carl Jung's secret Red Book, soon to be out for all of us to see -- well, at least the rich ones of us -- in October. I just checked at amazon.com, and you can pre-order it for $122.95. Guess I'll have to savor Corbett's teaser and wait for the paperback.