Marie-Louise von Franz

Marie-Louise von Franz
Born	January 4, 1915 Munich, Germany
Died	February 17, 1998
Nationality	Swiss
Fields	Psychology

Marie-Louise von Franz (January 4, 1915 - February 17, 1998) was a Swiss Jungian psychologist and scholar.

Early life and education

Von Franz was born in Munich, Germany, the daughter of an Austrian baron.^{[citation needed]} In Switzerland, she was known by a pet form of her Christian name, Marlus.^[1]

Career

Von Franz worked with Carl Jung, whom she met in 1933 and knew until his death in 1961. Jung believed in the unity of the psychological and material worlds, i.e., they are one and the same, just different manifestations. He also believed that this concept of the unus mundus could be investigated through research on the archetypes of the natural numbers. Due to his age, he turned the problem over to von Franz.^[2] Two of her books, Number and Time and Psyche and Matter deal with this research.

Jung also encouraged her to live with fellow Jungian analyst Barbara Hannah, who was 23 years von Franz's senior. When Hannah asked Jung why he was so keen on putting them together, Jung replied that he wanted von Franz "to see that not all women are such brutes as her mother," and also stated that "the real reason you should live together is that your chief interest will be analysis and analysts should not live alone."^[3] The two women became lifelong friends.

Von Franz, in 1968, was the first to publish that the mathematical structure of DNA is analogous to that of the I Ching. She cites the reference to the publication in an expanded essay Symbols of the Unus Mundus, published in her book Psyche and Matter.^[4] In addition to her many books, Von Franz recorded a series of films in 1987 titled The Way of the Dream with her student Fraser Boa.^[5]

C. G. Jung Institute

Von Franz founded the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich. In The Way of the Dream she claims to have interpreted over 65,000 dreams, primarily practising in Kusnacht, Switzerland. Von Franz also wrote over 20 volumes on Analytical psychology, most notably on fairy tales as they relate to Archetypal or Depth Psychology, most specifically by amplification of the themes and characters. She also wrote on subjects such as alchemy, discussed from the Jungian, psychological perspective, and active imagination, which could be described as conscious dreaming. In Man and his Symbols, von Franz described active imagination as follows: "Active imagination is a certain way of meditating imaginatively, by which one may deliberately enter into contact with the unconscious and make a conscious connection with psychic phenomena."^[6]

Correspondence with Wolfgang Pauli

Von Franz had also a meaningful exchange of letters with Nobel Prize winner Wolfgang Pauli. On Pauli's death, his widow Franca deliberately destroyed all the letters Von Franz sent over time to her husband and which he was carefully keeping locked inside his writing desk.^[7] The letters sent by Pauli to Ms. Von Franz were all saved and later made available to the researchers and published.^[8]

Selected writings

• Alchemical Active Imagination ISBN 0-87773-589-1
• Alchemy: An Introduction To The Symbolism And The Psychology ISBN 0-919123-04-X
• Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales ISBN 1-894574-01-X
• Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche ISBN 1-57062-426-7
• Archetypal Patterns in Fairy Tales ISBN 0-919123-77-5
• Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy. Inner City Books, Toronto, 2000. ISBN 0-919123-90-2
• C. G. Jung: His Myth in Our Time ISBN 0-919123-78-3
• Creation Myths ISBN 0-87773-528-X
• Dreams. Shambhala, Boston, 1991. ISBN 0-87773-901-3
• Feminine in Fairy Tales ISBN 1-57062-609-X
• Individuation in Fairy Tales ISBN 1-57062-613-8
• Interpretation of Fairytales. Spring Publications, Dallas, 8th Printing, 1987. ISBN 0-88214-101-5
• Light from the Darkness: The Paintings of Peter Birkhäuser ISBN 3-7643-1190-8 (1980)
• Number and Time ISBN 0-8101-0532-2 (1974)
• On Divination and Synchronicity: ... ISBN 0-919123-02-3
• On Dreams & Death: A Jungian Interpretation ISBN 0-8126-9367-1
• Projection and Re-Collection in Jungian Psychology: Reflections of the Soul ISBN 0-87548-417-4
• Psyche and Matter, Shambhala, Boston (1992) ISBN 0-87773-902-1
• Psychological Meaning of Redemption Motif in Fairytales ISBN 0-919123-01-5
• Puer Aeternus: A Psychological Study of the Adult Struggle With the Paradise of Childhood ISBN 0-938434-01-2
• The Cat: A Tale of Feminine Redemption ISBN 0-919123-84-8
• The Golden Ass of Apuleius: The Liberation of the Feminine in Man ISBN 1-57062-611-1
• The Interpretation of Fairy Tales ISBN 0-87773-526-3
• The Passion of Perpetua: A Psychological Interpretation of Her Visions. Inner City Books, Toronto, 2004. ISBN 1-894574-11-7
• The Problem of the Puer Aeternus ISBN 0-919123-88-0
• The Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales ISBN 0-87773-974-9
• The Way of the Dream ISBN 1-57062-036-9
• The Way of the Dream DVD
• Time Rhythm and Repose ISBN 0-500-81016-8

Additionally, she collaborated with Emma Jung on The Grail Legend (ISBN 0-691-00237-1), which discusses the psychological symbolism of the documented legends of the Holy Grail.

Notes

1. ^ Anthony, M. (1990). The Valkyries: The Women around Jung. Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element. ISBN 1870301852
2. ^ Marie-Louise von Franz Number and Time (Northwestern, 1974) ix.
3. ^ Dean L. Franz's portrait of Barbara Hannah in Hannah's The Cat, Dog and Horse Lectures (Chiron, 1992), p.18
4. ^ Marie-Louise von Franz Psyche and Matter (Shambhala, 1992) p.39-62. The reference is cited on page 44; she cites the reference as number 16 of the article: Dialog über den Menschen: Eine Festschrift zum 75. Geburtstag von Wilhelm Bitter (Klett. Stuttgart, 1968).
5. ^ Way of the Dream website
6. ^ Carl Jung, Man and his Symbols, p.206-207
7. ^ [1]
8. ^ http://books.google.fr/books?id=1if_H6zZJNwC&pg=PA5&dq=jung+pauli&hl=fr&ei=ag6VTIOdIdSd4QbF1YXUAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CFgQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=von%20Franz&f=false

References

• Anthony, M. (1990). The Valkyries: The Women around Jung. Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element. ISBN 1870301852
• Hall, James A. and Sharp, Daryl (eds.). Marie-Louise von Franz: The Classic Jungian and The Classic Jungian Tradition. Inner City Books, Toronto, 2008. ISBN 978-1-894574-23-5
• Jung, Carl G., editor (and, after his death, Marie-Louise von Franz); Man and his Symbols. Aldus Books, Ltd,. London, 1964. ISBN 0-385-05221-9.

External links

• Marie-LouisevonFranz.com
• My Personal Memories of Marie-Louise von Franz
• How Fairy Tales Shape Our Lives
• Basic biographical information on the work on number archetypes of Marie-Louise von Franz
• Article in: Paideusis - Journal for Interdisciplinary and Cross-Cultural Studies (1998)

Persondata
Name	Franz, Marie-Louise Von
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	January 4, 1915
Place of birth	Munich, Germany
Date of death	February 17, 1998
Place of death