Time and Timelessness

Book description

Time and Timelessness examines the development of Jung's understanding of time throughout his opus, and the ways in which this concept has affected key elements of his work. In this book Yiassemides suggests that temporality plays an important role in many of Jung's central ideas, and is closely interlinked with his overall approach to the psyche and the cosmos at large.

Jung proposed a profound truth: that time is relative at large. To appreciate the whole of our experience we must reach beyond causality and temporal linearity, to develop an approach that allows for multidimensional and synchronistic experiences. Jung’s understanding surpassed Freud's dichotomous approach which restricted timelessness to the unconscious; his time theory allows us to reach beyond the everyday time-bound world into a greater realm, rich with meaning and connection.

Included in the book:

-Jung’s time theory

-the death of time

-time and spatial metaphors

-the role of time in precognition, telepathy and synchronicity

-Unus mundus and time

-a comparison of Freud’s and Jung’s time theories: temporal directionality, dimensionality, and the role of timelessness.

This book is the first to explore time and timelessness in a systematic manner from a Jungian perspective, and the first to investigate how the concept of time affected the overall development of Jung's theory. It will be key reading for psychoanalytic scholars and clinicians, as well as those working in the field of phenomenological philosophy.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. Preface
  7. Acknowledgements
  8. 1 Jung and time, the beginning: Asserting the largest order
    1. Time before Septem Sermones Ad Mortuos: symbolic elaborations
    2. Septem Sermones Ad Mortuos and time
    3. Symbolic precursors of analytical psychology
  9. 2 The unfolding of Jung's time theory: Dreaming the myth onwards
    1. The paradoxical temporality of the archetype
    2. Retrospection and forward movement
    3. Teleology and causality in the psyche: methodological considerations
  10. 3 Long-range effects in time
    1. Expressions of the psyche's temporality: telepathy, dreams and foreknowledge
    2. Exploring the psychophysical reality: the psychoid archetype
    3. The outstanding question of the space-time concept
    4. Time and the transcendent nature of the psychoid: the introduction of synchronicity
    5. Chronos in synchronicity
    6. Observing meaning
    7. Correspondence on a complex and vexing idea
  11. 4 A unified reality
    1. Symbolic elaborations
  12. 5 The death of time: Mythical consciousness and the descent to the archaic
    1. Death in the Jungian paradigm: a symbolic perspective
    2. Mythical and eschatological consciousness
    3. The descent to the archaic
    4. Synchronicity: reconnecting with the archaic
  13. 6 Time and spatial metaphors
    1. Jung's search for meaning: beyond space-time duality
  14. Concluding remarks
    1. Time and synchronicity: manifesting meaning
    2. The ripe time for knowledge
    3. Death and time: embodied and disembodied time
    4. Symbols, spatial metaphors and the poetry of time
  15. Appendix: Freud on memory, the primal scene and the concept of Nachträglichkeit
  16. Bibliography
  17. Index

Product information

  • Title: Time and Timelessness
  • Author(s):
  • Release date: June 2013
  • Publisher(s): Routledge
  • ISBN: 9781135093747