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Field theory as a concept entered scientific discourse in the midnineteenth century. Yet the essential features of a field long predate discoveries about the physical properties and behavior of matter. The paper briefly describes ancient esoteric precursors to scientific field theory, including the Hermetic tradition and archetypal astrology, before turning to twentieth-century sociological field theories and their elemental idea of subjectivity and intersubjectivity. Jungian psychology is a field theory, expanding the limits of sociology in important ways. The paper adopts a somatic archetypal perspective to argue that intersubjectivity, the basis of sociological and psychological field theories, is inadequate. Instead, depth psychologists should embrace intercorporeality, the more embodied, holistic field theory originating in the work of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. The paper concludes with a discussion of nekyia to illustrate how an intercorporeal field theory can include the underworld in world mythologies. The inverted cosmic geography of one tradition, the Sámi, gives new meaning to numinous encounters with one's ancestors and spirit guides. Such encounters intertwine the subtle energy bodies of the personal and transpersonal worlds, a meeting one can imagine as soul to sole, not just soul to soul. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jordan Peele's film Us vividly illustrates Jung's shadow–persona duality: the idea that all people and societies have a "shadow"—a collection of lamentable but often functional attributes—that encourages us to hide behind our laudable "persona" mask. We use the film and the critical reaction to it as source material to reveal the struggle of managing the shadow–persona duality. The root of the struggle is that that these elements must coexist; one cannot cancel the other without weakening the whole person (or society). The film is thus a cautionary tale about how the suppression of the shadow creates havoc for communities, and we apply this lesson to our own community of management scholars. We argue that the shadow aspects of our work must be acknowledged, lived, and integrated to create a more robust scientific imprint. To this end, a "holding environment" might be constructed by the Academy of Management to help scholars process shadow-activating events to create more integrated scientists and improve the impact of our work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amongst all the goddesses in ancient China, the Queen Mother of the West (Xiwangmu) represents the most multi-layered mother archetype with the richest connotations. Through a longitudinal literature review, this paper aims to explore different facets of the Queen Mother of the West as a representation of the Great Mother archetype in Jungian psychology. In ancient China, she was a supreme goddess controlling the order of the universe. Her residence, Mount Kunlun, is capable of nourishing and devouring life. She possesses the elixir of life and controls the punishments of the world. Thus, the Queen Mother of the West is transformed into a deity of both life and death. In the funeral rituals of the Han and Tang dynasties, she was a goddess who summoned the dead and led their spirits to heaven, while in folklore she was a mythical Muse for many emperors and the anima of many intellectuals. She is the mother of reincarnation and the eternal spirit. As a symbol for instinct, archetype and femininity in the collective unconscious, the Queen Mother of the West embodies both the positive and negative aspects of the mother archetype: the positive being the persona of the Great Mother and the negative being the shadow. At the ultimate stage of spiritual development, she acts as the anima and the transcendent Holy Virgin in ancient Chinese culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The alteration of consciousness during shamanic rituals is both a physical and mystical phenomenon. It involves psychological and spiritual experiences. Through ritual practices, shamans can connect with archetype within the collective unconscious, utilizing trance-inducing techniques for "hallucinatory exploration". This study surveyed 75 participants to investigate the impact of prototype symbols in Shamanistic rituals on participants' consciousness states focusing on Jungian psychology's concept of archetype. The results indicate that archetype symbols in shamanic rituals can significantly influence participants' conscious state, leading them to experience a conscious dissolution of the self. Furthermore, archetype symbols have different effects at the stages of consciousness change. In particular, during the "Visionary Restructuralization" stage, archetype symbols, such as patterns, masks, totems and music, brought participants' consciousness to a peak and caused significant changes to it. These findings suggest that the metaphoric function of archetype symbols plays a crucial role in rituals. Archetype symbols connect the individual to the collective unconscious through visual images and symbolic imagery. They prompt the participants to experience emotional resonances that transcend individual experiences and affect their state of consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bantu African divination is firmly established in South Africa in the context of modernity and is protected, endorsed and regulated by law. It is received in the therapeutic field. Important explorations were performed in the early 20th century by psychiatrists and psychoanalysts of Jungian orientation. Their cultural, philosophical, spiritual, and academic backgrounds are relevant to this reception. Jungian thought, Spiritual Spiritism, and traditions of European philosophy of divination resonated with the experience, observation, and understanding of Bantu divination. ('Bantu' designates the cultural and linguistic realm from Cameroon and Kenya southwards). Religious-philosophical traditions, as well as the conceptualisations of 'divination' by Plutarch and Iamblichus, are preserved. The reception and appreciation of Bantu divination in South Africa emerged from it, and resonated with these European traditions of religious-philosophical thought. Out of this development a distinct 'South African modernity' emerges. A parallel reception process developed in Brazil, in the belief systems of Umbanda and Kardecism. These developments are illustrated at present in the literatures of South Africa and Brazil, specifically in Afrikaans literature, black South African poetry and its poetics, and Magic Realism in Brazilian literature. Lastly, a perspective is offered of modernity's reception by black scholars and diviners, continually interacting with Jungian psychoanalysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]