Publisher's Synopsis
"One of the most powerful narratives gripping scientists, intellectuals, and the general culture in Europe during the early decades of the twentieth century was that the world had become disenchanted: stripped of genuine mystery, lacking inherent meaning, and unrelated to any spiritual or divine reality. In Breaking the Spell of Disenchantment, Roderick Main examines various ways in which C. G. Jung's analytical psychology, developed during this same period, can be seen to challenge that dominant narrative. After explaining the complex and ambivalent nature of disenchantment and the many different responses to it, Main shows how the Jungian process of individuation intrinsically fosters a culturally much needed reenchantment of the world, though in a way that also continues to acknowledge the role of both disenchantment and naïve enchantment. He then focuses in turn on Jung's lifelong engagement with anomalous phenomena, his concept of
