JUNG, FAUST and the DEVIL

About the Book

Jung and His Other

The name Philemon has reached public notice as much as the name of its author, Analytical Psychologist Prof. Dr. C.G. Jung. This is not so odd considering that more is publicly known about the man Jung on a multi-dimen¬sional level than many a celebrity in recent histo¬ry. Much has been re¬vealed for all to see from the level of depth, breadth and intensity that not only includes his pioneer work in Depth Psychology but the more recent publication of his secretive creative endeavors now broadcast in a lavish facsimile edition of his original closet composed Red Book: as if suddenly the man of mind and his science of the psyche is brushed aside for the man of fabulous fantasy magic. That would be to say the man Jung has been eclipsed by his own imaginary man, Philemon.
Who is Philemon and by what power does he take stage center? Jung did not have to answer this question involving his successor because he insisted that the "all his life" closet work be made public only posthumously, almost as if to publicly reveal this other of his life as in fact a prognostication of his afterlife. Accordingly, in his fantasy he listens to the voices of the dead, a theme that I have extended in wider application to the world scene and the origins of Western culture since the founding of Alexandria “where the East meets the West” by Alexander the Great of ancient Albania (Illyria)

Bernard X Bovasso

May 21, 2012

About the Author

Bernard X. Bovasso is essentially a painter,a poet and a onetime art and drama reviewer for the Woodstock Times of Woodstock, N.Y. His interest in the work of C.G. Jung of Zurich goes back to his student days at the Cooper Union Art School where upon graduation he was awarded a fellowship to study at the Yale Univeristy Summer School of Fine Art (1948-51). Prior to that he attended the NY City High School of Music and Art. Upon graduation and during WWII he enlisted in the U.S. Maritime Training Service and then on active duty in the U.S. Merchant Marine at the close of World War II (1945 to 1949). In September of 1946 he was signed aboard the USAT E.B. Alexander, a US Army troopship when it exploded in the North Sea and ordered abandoned. He was awareded a US Coast Guard Honorable Discharge for service in the US Merchant Marine and another such discharge from the US Army for service with the US Army Sea Transport Service. For service in a war zone he was assignerd combat status by the Veterans Administration.. After release from service he often found it necessary to take a sea voyage during college summer recess to support himself at school. During the summer of '51 he was assigned to an LST loaded with giant snow plows and headed for Thule, Greenland for the construction of the early warning base just 500 miles south of the North Pole. Operation Blue Jay, as the mission was called, was composed of U.S. Army supply ships in the company of a U.S. Navy task force that included an aircraft carrier. Pres. Truman was worried the USSR might try to intercept the mission and the carrier TBF planes were armed with depth charges if Russian U-boats made an appearance.The trip cured him of ever going to sea again. But he was also cured of Academia when, after Cooper Union, he turned down a fellowship to the Yale University Art School. He was perhaps much influenced by Herman Melville’s claim: “The whale ship was my Harvard and Yale.” Soon after he was in analysis with Freida a Stern of NY City, a protegé of Toni Wolff of Zurich who was a close colleague of C. G. Jung.. After that his interest in the Analytical Psychology became intensive and eventually led to a study of philosophy. At the New School for Social Research in NYC, he studied pre-Socratic Philosophy with Prof. Hans Jonas, known for his book on Gnosticism, and Ernest Cassirer’s Philosophy of Symbolic Forms with Prof. Eugen Gadol (1963). During 2005 his book, The Masculine Mysteries followed by The Polyimagical Realm, A Critique of Dr. James Hillman's Polytheistic Archetypal Psychology wers published. This was followed by his Animus Rising, a study of the feminine influence in American culture, all published by Author House of Bloomington IN.