Beyond Jung – Facing the Ecological Abyss: A Collective Search for Transformation

In Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “A Descent into the Maelström” (1841), three fishermen are trapped in a gigantic ocean whirlpool threatening to destroy them. This strikes me as an image of the abyss humankind is facing today, threatened by a multi-dimensional ecological crisis in a world dominated by a one-sidedly materialistic collective consciousness that has lost its spiritual foundation, as Carl Gustav Jung characterized it. Symbolically, Poe’s story tells us that psychic transformation of the collective can be achieved by letting go of the old and embracing the new and unknown. Building on Erich Neumann and Dorothee Sölle, I examine approaches toward a felt connection with something larger, infinite, all-encompassing, or with nature. This can provide impulses for a more mystical relationship with our inner and outer nature, rooted in the Self and oriented to the world.

Susanna Bucher, Dr. sc. nat. ETH is an environmental scientist holding a doctorate from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich. She also holds a diploma in analytical psychology, is teaching at the International School of Analytical Psychology (ISAPZURICH) and elsewhere, and has a private practice in Zürich. She wrote two articles on the ecological crisis from the perspective of Jungian psychology in the Journal of Analytical Psychology in November 2022. Her interests include ecology, nature, and mysticism.