Essays by Ernesto Buonaiuti, Friedrich Dessauer, C. G. Jung, Werner Kaegi, C. Kerényi, Paul Masson-Oursel, Fritz Meier, Adolf Portmann, Max Pulver, Hugo Rahner, Erwin Schrödinger, and Walter Wili…. More >>
Spirit and Nature: Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks


Since 1933, the Eranos Conferences have gathered the world’s leading scholars of religion and mythology. This set consists of Joseph Campbell’s selections of the best papers from that conference. This is Volume 3, “Man and Time”. The twelve papers include: Erich Neumann, “Art and Time”; Henri-Charles Puech, “Gnosis and Time”; Gilles Quispel, “Time and History in Patristic Christianity”; Louis Massignon, “Time in Islamic Thought”; Henry Corbin, “Cyclical Time in Mazdaism and Ismailism”; Mircea Eliade, “Time and Eternity in Indian Thought”; Carl Jung, “On Synchronicity”; Hellmut Wilhelm, “The Concept of Time in the Book of Changes”; Helmuth Plessner, “On the Relation of Time to Death”; Max Knoll, “Transformations of Science in Our Age”; Adolf Portmann, “Time in the Life of the Organism”; and G. van der Leeuw, “Primordial Time and Final Time.”
Rating: 5 / 5
Michael P. McGarry has provided the necessary and useful lists of essays on all 6 of the Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, edited by Joseph Campbell. I only wish to add a few comments on Volume 6 since I finished reading all of the essays in this volume today.
There is a good amount of information by Gilles Quispel in his 37 page essay “Gnostic Man: The Doctrine of Basilides” and in the impressive 68 page essay “The Concept of Redemption in Manichaeism” by Henri-Charles Putch. However, the literary prize in my opinion goes to Erich Neumann for his wonderful 41 page essay “Mystical Man.” This is a distinguished piece of essay writing, worthy of an Emerson. It is the only essay that is wholly Jungian in approach, and he does a magnificent job of presenting the concept of mysticism in strictly Jungian terms. He proposes man as “homo mysticus” for whom the mystical experience is not something distant or rare but a part of the normal human experience. “The reality of this encounter is one of the fundamental facts of man’s existence . . .” I found Neumann’s essay to be very inspiring, which is something one does not often find in academic papers of these kinds. To me, it was worth the price of the entire book.
Rating: 5 / 5
This is volume six of the Eranos Yearbooks (the published papers of the legendary annual Eranos Conferences.)
The included papers are as follows: 1) Two Ways of Redemption: Redemption as a Solution of the Tragic Contradiction by Boris Vysheslawzeff, 2) On the Origin of the Mysteries in the Light of Ethnology and Indology by Wilhelm Koppers, 3) The Indian World Mother by Heinrich Zimmer, 4) Dragon and Mare, Figures of Primordial Chinese Mythology by Erwin Rousselle, 5) Christ and St. Paul; Christology and Ecclesiology in St. Paul; and Symbols and Rites in the Religious Life of Certain Monastic Orders by Ernesto Buonaiuti, 6) Gnostic Man: The doctrine of Basilides by Gilles Quispel, 7) The concept of Redemption in Manichaeism by Henri-Charles Puech, 8) Nature in Islamic Thought; and The Idea of the Spirit in Islam by Louis Massignon, 9) The Experience of the Spirit in Christian Mysticism by Jean de Menasce, 10) The Madonna as a Religious Symbol by Friedrich Heiler, 11) and Mystical Man by Erich Neumann.
The papers were translated from the original French and German by Ralph Manheim. The editor is Joseph Campbell, who also wrote a brief foreword. The papers were published by the Bollingen Foundation (Bollingen was the name of Jung’s home on Lake Zurich.)
Rating: 5 / 5
Since 1933, the Eranos Conferences have gathered the world’s leading scholars of religion and mythology. This set consists of Joseph Campbell’s selections of the best papers from that conference. This is Volume 2, “The Mysteries”. The fourteen papers include: Paul Masson-Oursel, “The Indian Theories of Redemption in the Frame of the Religions of Salvation” and “The Doctrine of Grace in the Religious Thought of India”; Walter F. Otto, “The Meaning of the Eleusinian Mysteries”; Carl Kerényi, “The Mysteries of the Kabeiroi”; Walter Wili, “The Orphic Mysteries and the Greek Spirit”; Paul Schmitt, “The Ancient Mysteries in the Society of Their Time, Their Transformation and Most Recent Echoes”; Georges Nagel, “The `Mysteries’ of Osiris in Ancient Egypt”; Jean de Manasce, “The Mysteries and the Religion of Iran”; Fritz Meier, “The Mystery of the Ka’ba: Symbol and Reality in Islamic Mysticism”; Max Pulver, “Jesus’ Round Dance and Crucifixion According to the Acts of St. John”; Hans Leisegang, “The Mystery of the Serpent”; Julius Baum, “Symbolic Representations of the Eucharist”; Carl Jung, “Transformation Symbolism in the Mass”; and Hugo Rahner, “The Christian Mystery and the Pagan Mysteries.”
Rating: 5 / 5
Since 1933, the Eranos Conferences have gathered the world’s leading scholars of religion and mythology. This set consists of Joseph Campbell’s selections of the best papers from that conference. This is Volume 4, “Spiritual Disciplines”. The twelve papers include: Heinrich Zimmer, “On the Significance of the Indian Tantric Yoga”; Erwin Rouselle, “Spiritual Guidance in Contemporary Taoism”; Theodor-Wilhelm Danzel, “The Psychology of Ancient Mexican Symbolism”; John Laynard, “The Malekulan Journey of the Dead”; Carl Kerényi, “Man and Mask”; Martin Buber, “Symbolic and Sacramental Existence in Judaism”; Friedrich Heiler, “Contemplation in Christian Mysticism”; Maw Pulver, “The Experience of Light in the Gospel of St. John, in the `Corpus hermeticum’, in Gnosticism, and the Eastern Church”; Fritz Meier, “The Spiritual Man in the Persian Poet Attar”; Rudolf Bernoulli, “Spiritual Development as Reflected in Alchemy and Related Disciplines”; Carl Jung, “Dream Symbols of the Individual Process”; and M. C. Cammerloher, “The Position of Art in the Psychology of Our Time”.
Rating: 5 / 5