Newsletter 2009

Jung Uncorked:

Rare Vintages from the Cellar of Analytical Psychology

Decanted with Commentaries by Daryl Sharp

Toronto, Inner City Books, 2008-09

Books One-Four, 128-160 pages

Like the wines that provide an over-all image for these latest volumes by Daryl Sharp, Toronto analyst and founding publisher of Inner City Books, their author seems to improve with age.

These are friendly and informal volumes you can pretty well pick up and read at any point. Like many of Daryl Sharp’s other books, they are highly accessible introductions to C. G. Jung’s basic ideas. Somewhat whimsically, I think of them as books you might keep in your washroom; they could almost be called Jung for the John.

As Christmas approaches, I suggest that any or all of these volumes could be wonderful stocking stuffers for those on one’s gift list whom you one might want to give some idea about what this Jung stuff you find so preoccupying is all about.

But, remarkably, these books, delightfully naughty as they are in places, also strike me as inspirational, almost devotional—all the more since Sharp is quite interested in how much Jung’s approach could be seen as religious. He does not see Jungian psychology as religious in a conventional sense, but, in his view, “careful reflection on what is attentively observed is the hallmark of any psychological work on oneself. That can certainly be called a religious activity, though not in itself a religion.” (Book Two, p. 113)

It goes deeper than that, though. For Sharp, Jung does have something important to say to this spiritually impoverished society, in which, as he sees it, both fundamentalists and atheists “miss the point, for the real issue is not the existence of God but the ineffable Mystery—the mysterium tremendum.” (p. 58)

Convivial though these volumes are, the format reminds me of a book of devotions or Bible studies, although the Holy Writ here is not the Bible but Jung’s Collected Works—and although I do not recall any other devotional works with such humour, and with a juicy seduction scene.

Sharp begins each chapter of Books One and Two with a short passage, in turn, from each of the 18 volumes of the Collected Works, then gives us some reflections on it. In Books Three and Four, he goes back to the beginning and goes through the process again. I do not know, and I don’t think Sharp does, whether there is to be a third cycle, as there is of the Revised Common Lectionary shared by major Christian churches; perhaps he will decide whether this particular lode has been mined enough.

Like many of his eighteen previous books, these volumes provide a fine introduction to Jung’s main concepts. The style is also reminiscent of his earlier works—and with some of the same cast of characters, often female and attractive, who inhabit Sharp’s often light-hearted world of active imagination.

He makes no claim to theoretical originality. He sees himself as

a conservative or ‘classical’ Jungian analyst, that is, one who believes in the importance Jung gave to images from the unconscious and their influence on consciousness … In other words, I believe that Jung got it right. I leave it to others to go ‘beyond Jung’ (if they feel they have the heft for it) as I continue to mine his bedrock. I make no claim to be presenting original research; rather I hew closely to the basic concepts of analytical psychology as Jung propounded them. Only the style and commentaries are uniquely my own, fostered by a love of Jung, fair ladies, music, fine wine, Eros and whimsy. (Book Four, pp. 11-12)

The Jung Uncorked volumes, highly personal as they are, are marked by evocative and meditative reflection on his earlier life and that of the society around him.

Books Three and Four, particularly, are marked by the lengthy citation—perhaps a little too lengthy—of the lyrics of popular songs from the Sixties and Seventies and earlier that still move Sharp deeply.

But make no mistake. Sharp can be as tough-minded as the best of them and his “classical” Jungian approach is quite at home with such notions, which we may associate with post-Jungians, as soul-making and the idea that analysis is not really therapy.

There is a mistaken collective belief that the goal of psychotherapy is to chase away the inner demons and make one a better person—wiser, more moral and a responsible citizen … But it is not like that at all. Depth analysis is aimed solely at stimulating the acquisition of self-knowledge and self-understanding, which may lead to happiness, the doing of good and greater joy, but also to greater sorrow or acts of evil.

(Book Two, p. 41)

One essay in CW 16, Sharp writes, “is all about how you can appreciate yourself and life without necessarily becoming happier.” (Book Two, p. 77)

Sharp notes that,

We often find ourselves in a conflict situation where there is no rational solution. This is the classic beginning of the process of individuation. The situation is meant to have no resolution: the unconscious wants the hopeless conflict in order to put ego-consciousness up against the wall, so that one has to realize that whatever one does is wrong. This is meant to knock out the superiority of the ego, which likes to act from the illusion that it is in charge and is responsible for making decisions. If one is ethical enough to suffer to the core, then generally, because of the insolubility of the conflict, the Self manifests. Call it grace, if so inclined, for that is what it feels like.” (Book One, p. 93)

As I have come to expect from Sharp, the Jung Uncorked volumes are entertaining, easy reading, but they are also just what is needed these days: a powerful demonstration of what Jung has to offer us in our lives today.

–Harvey Shepherd