Die Psychologie des Kundalini- Yoga. Nach Aufzeichnungen des Seminars 1932.

“Kundalini yoga presented Jung with a model of something that was almost completely lacking in Western psychology–an account of the development phases of higher consciousness…Jung’s insistence on the psychogenic & symbolic significance of such states is even more timely now than then. As R.D. Laing stated: ‘It was Jung who broke the ground here, but few followed him.'”–From Sonu Shamdasani’s introduction
Jung’s Kundalini yoga seminar, presented to the Psychological Club in Zurich in 1932, has been regarded as a milestone in the psychological understanding of Eastern thought & of the symbolic transformations of inner experience. Kundalini yoga presented him with a model for the developmental phases of higher consciousness & he interpreted its symbols in terms of the process of individuation. With sensitivity toward a new generation’s interest in alternative religions & psychological exploration, Shamdasani has brought together the lectures & discussions from this seminar. In this volume, he recreates for readers the fascination with which many intellectuals of prewar Europe regarded Eastern spirituality as they discovered more of its resources, from yoga to tantric texts. Reconstructing this seminar thru new documentation, Shamdasani explains why Jung thought that the comprehension of Eastern thought was essential if Western psychology was to develop. He goes on to orient today’s audience toward an appreciation of some of the questions that stirred the minds of Jung & his seminar: What is the relation between Eastern schools of liberation & Western psychotherapy? What connection is there between esoteric religious traditions & spontaneous individual experience? What light do the symbols of Kundalini yoga shed on conditions diagnosed as psychotic? Not only were these questions important to analysts in the 30s but they continue to have psychological relevance for readers in the 21st century. This volume also offers newly translated material from Jung’s German language seminars, a seminar by the indologist Wilhelm Hauer presented in conjunction with that of Jung, illustrations of the cakras & Sir John Woodroffe’s classic translation of the tantric text, the Sat-cakra Nirupana.