Jung, the Rebirth Motif and Psychedelics I: Documenting Jung's Contact with the British Pioneers.
Ginny Hill
Journal of Analytical Psychology September 1, 2024 DOI: 10.1111/1468-5922.13030 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Historical analysis Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | LSD Mescaline |
| Keywords | Cutner Fordham Hofmann Huxley Meskalin Osmond Sandison Drogues psychédéliques Mescalina Psichedelici Psicodélico Psychedelisch Катнер Лсд Осмонд Сэндисон Фордхэм Хаксли Хофманн Юнг Мескалин Психоделик 奥斯蒙德 库特纳 桑迪森 福德汉姆 荣格 赫胥黎 迷幻药物 霍夫曼 麦司卡林 Psychedelics Jungian-psychology Psychiatry-history Psychedelic-therapy Spiritual-psychology |
| Citations | 1 |
| Key points | Documents that despite Jung's skepticism, British pioneers Sandison and Cutner developed an explicitly Jungian approach to psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy in the 1950s, with connections to the Society of Analytical Psychology. |
Abstract
C. G. Jung wrote very little about psychedelic drugs and he took a sceptical view of them. However, he was sufficiently impressed by Aldous Huxley's 1954 account of taking mescaline, The Doors of Perception, to invite Huxley to visit him in Switzerland. Huxley declined Jung's invitation but Huxley's collaborator Humphry Osmond met Jung instead. This paper documents Jung's contact with the British pioneers of psychedelics research and presents the scant material illuminating his views about these drugs. It also determines the efforts of British psychiatrist Ronald Sandison, who was the first to develop an "explicitly Jungian approach" to psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy (Hill, 2013), and it highlights a connection between Sandison's initiative and the Society of Analytical Psychology (SAP) through the involvement of two SAP members: Margot Cutner, Sandison's colleague, and Michael Fordham, who supervised a trainee working with one of Sandison's former patients. Despite Jung's objections to the use of psychedelics, Sandison and Cutner developed ground-breaking protocols during the 1950s and they were among the first to document the phenomenon of "spiritual rebirth symbolized in the birth experience known to many LSD therapists" (Sandison, 2001). In two companion papers, I consider Jung's treatment of the rebirth motif in his commentary on The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which later became a central text in the psychedelic movement, and I chart the evolution in psychedelics research from an association with schizophrenia during the 1950s to the mystical paradigms of the 1960s and beyond.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on mescaline, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Schizophrenia: A New Approach. II. Result of a Year's Research | 1954 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Thought insertion as a self-disturbance: An integration of predictive coding and phenomenological approaches | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Entactogens: How the Name for a Novel Class of Psychoactive Agents Originated | 2022 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Steric and Electronic Relationships among Some Hallucinogenic Compounds | 1970 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| EFFECT OF DRUGS One individual | 1952 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | n = 1 |
Citations in the library
Cited by 1
Cites 4
- The Therapeutic Value of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide in Mental Illness Journal of Mental Science April 1, 1954
- Psychological Aspects of the Lsd Treatment of the Neuroses Journal of Mental Science April 1, 1954
- Further Studies in the Therapeutic Value of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide in Mental Illness Journal of Mental Science April 1, 1957
- Acid Dreams: The CIA, LSD, and the Sixties Rebellion Journal of American History March 1, 1987