Psychology & The Cross

I joined James on the excelelnt Hermitix podcast to discuss the puer aeternus, or eternal youth. Drawing on Marie-Louise von Franz and James Hillman, we explore possibility and the difficulty of commitment, the relationship between youth and age, and the place of dreams, grief and imagination in becoming more fully human.

Originally published on Hermitix.

“I'm not a machine,” Jung insists in one of his last recorded interviews. What might his resistance tell us about our relationship to technology today?

An audio essay by Jakob Lusensky, featuring Jung’s original voice, on artificial intelligence, faith and the work of becoming psychologically mature.

 From the upcoming essay Living from the Centre, exploring Jung’s religious attitude in an age of AI.

Music licensed under creativecommons.org: Ketsa - From deep down

References

Amodei, D. (2026, January). The adolescence of technology: Confronting and overcoming the risks of...

In this short reflection, I return to the final page of Jung’s Red Book, where he left a single handwritten word: Möglichkeit. Possibility.

What does it mean to continue dreaming Jung’s work onward, responding to the questions of our own present and future?

I also introduce the newly launched Center of the Cross, an emerging space for dialogue and new encounters between Jungian psychology and Christianity.

Read the original essay on Substack: Möglichkeit

Explore the Center: cross.center

Music licensed under creativecommons.org: Ketsa - From d...

Leonard Cohen on songwriting, self-respect and getting up at 4:30. In this excerpt from his 1992 conversation with Paul Zollo, Cohen shares the patient work of finding a song, and the appetite to redeem the day so that it does not go down in debt.

First part of interview as audio.
Full text of interview.

Can psychology take religious experience seriously without reducing it to psychological explanations? Did Jung succeed in remaining a psychologist of religion, or did his psychology gradually become a theology of its own?

In this episode, I speak with Jungian scholar Matei Iagher, author of The Making and Unmaking of the Psychology of Religion, about the largely forgotten field of psychology of religion from which Jung's work emerged.

We explore what Jung inherited from this tradition and what he made distinctly his own: his attempt to hold together scientific psychology and religious experience, the relationship between...

If we are to avoid losing our humanity amid a paradise of machines invading and conditioning our daily lives, there is an urgent need for education in ethical discernment and the capacity to acknowledge the moral good.
- Pope Leo XIV, 25th of September 2026 

In this episode, Jungian scholar Paul Bishop joins Jungian analyst-in-training Emma Iovoli to explore Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra and C.G. Jung’s complex relationship with Nietzsche.

Drawing on Bishop’s recent book, Jung and the Epic of Transformation, Volume 3, they explore some of Zarathustra’s most powerful images, from the eagle and serpent to the camel, lion and child, and what they reveal about psychological transformation.

The conversation moves from Jung and Nietzsche’s encounters with the depths of the psyche to Christianity, the death of God, and the question of what trans...

What is the goal of psychoanalysis? Is it greater self-knowledge, or the recovery of our capacity simply to be?

In this third Freudian/Jungian conversation with psychoanalyst Donald Carveth we explore Winnicott's notion of the true self alongside Jung's understanding of the Self, individuation, and the religious attitude. We discuss conscience and the superego, the image of God (imago Dei), love, community, and why Jung increasingly turned toward Christianity in his later work.

The two earlier Freudian/Jungian conversations are found here and here.

For more psychoanalytic thinking visit Don's youtube page.

Pope Leo XIV's Magnifica Humanitas may be one of the most important reflections yet on artificial intelligence and the future of humanity.

In this conversation, Jakob Lusensky and Sean McGrath explore the encyclical's central question: What does it mean to be human in an age of AI? Along the way they discuss Jung, technology, transhumanism, work, community, suffering, and why a human face that asks to be gazed upon may remain at the center of our history.

The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Ketsa - From deep down

This is a reading of the introduction to Magnifica - Humanitas - On Safeguarding the human person in the time of Artificial Intelligence, by Pope Leo XIV. For the full encyclical visit the following link.

Join the live stream conversation with Sean McGrath about this text Wednesday 17th of June at 3:15 pm CEST on this link.

The reading of the introduction is done by Emma Lovoli, Jungian analyst in training at ISAP. You can read her Substack here.

After our excursion along the currents of our collective dreams, we now turn our attention back to Psychology on the Cross. For this conversation, I invited Jungian scholar Ann Conrad Lammers to discuss Emma Jung: Dedicated to the Soul, a book she recently edited together with Thomas Fischer and Medea Hoch.

It's a wonderful book that brings Emma out of Carl Jung's shadow, revealing the full range of her creative work through essays, poems, dreams, and paintings. Throughout this conversation, Ann will also read a poem and two dreams from this important publication. 

Biography

In the final episode of the first wave of Was it just a dream?, the outside world folds inward, everything condensing toward a single point, triggering a shocking realization.
 
Share your own commentary and read the full dream on our Substack page.

Music: It was just a dream by Rafael Krux. Courtesy of the Krux Music Publishing Limited Company. 

Our last dream received some thoughtful commentary from listeners. We decided to put together some of these as extra material.

Read the full dream here. 

Music: It was just a dream by Rafael Krux. Courtesy of the Krux Music Publishing Limited Company. 

In the sixth episode of Was it just a dream?, we find ourselves in a church, looking the other way. 

Share your own commentary and read the full dream on our Substack page.

Music: It was just a dream by Rafael Krux. Courtesy of the Krux Music Publishing Limited Company. 

In the fifth episode of Was it just a dream?, we find ourselves at sea in the Middle Ages. A raven lands on deck and transforms. What is it asking of us?

Share your own commentary and read the full dream on our Substack page.

Reference to Albrecht Dürer's medieval engraving Knight, Death and the Devil.

Music: It was just a dream by Rafael Krux. Courtesy of the Krux Music Publishing Limited Company. 

In this fourth episode of Was it just a dream?, we're discussing a dream we received as a response to previous dreams. It again involves cutting. 

Share your own commentary and read the full dream on our Substack page.

Music: It was just a dream by Rafael Krux. Courtesy of the Krux Music Publishing Limited Company. 

In this third episode of Was it just a dream?, we are faced with catastrophe, and learn something about the creative response to it.

The name “Edward” comes from an Anglo-Saxon name which literally means “guardian or protector of wealth”.

Share your own commentary and read the full dream on our Substack page.

Music: It was just a dream by Rafael Krux. Courtesy of the Krux Music Publishing Limited Company. 

In this second episode of Was it just a dream?, we’re invited to follow the symbol of the fish.

We’re inviting the fish to remain a fish, to swim swiftly, hard to grasp a hold of, turn into a concept, as we ask what kind of consciousness it might ask the dreamer, and us as dreamers to develop.

Share your own commentary and read the full dream on our Substack page.

Music: It was just a dream by Rafael Krux. Courtesy of the Krux Musi...

The first episode of our new podcast series, Was it just a Dream?, is titled “I Don’t Want to Hurt You.” Listen to the dream, and you will understand why. If you’d like to read the full dream or comment on it, go to our Substack page.

Music: It was just a dream by Rafael Krux. Courtesy of the Krux Music Publishing Limited Company. 

Have you had a dream that stayed with you — one that felt larger than your own life?

This is an invitation to join Jungian analysts Cécile Buckenmeyer and Jakob Lusensky in the experiment of shaping a holding space for collective dreams. The new podcast Was it just a dream? is devoted to those big dreams that C.G. Jung described as “the common property of mankind” (CW 10 §33), the deep streams of the delta that is the unconscious.

By gathering these dreams, we may glimpse what our culture is dreaming beneath the surface, the myth...

In this episode, I speak with Sean McGrath about his new book The Lost Road - A Search for the Soul of the West, a spiritual autobiography and a philosophical meditation on the soul of the West.

Moving between personal narrative and cultural diagnosis, McGrath traces how the ancient fusion of Greek contemplation and Jewish revelation formed the heart of Western spirituality, how that inheritance fractured into secular modernity, and why consumerism has become our age’s dominant, and destructive, false religion.

I hope you will enjoy this conversation as much as I did!

...

Audio clip from the film, "Matter of Heart," (1986) directed, edited, and produced by Mark Whitney, conceived and written by Suzanne Wagner, executive producer George Wagner.

C.G. Jung: The world hangs on a thin thread, and that is the psyche of man. Nowadays we are not threatened by elementary catastrophes. There is no such thing [in nature] as an H-bomb; that is all man's doing. WE are the great danger.  The psyche is the great danger.  What if something goes wrong with the psyche? You see, and so it is demonstrated to us in our days what th...

Is psychoanalysis a path to salvation? In this second Freudian/Jungian dialogue I ponder this provocative question together with psychoanalyst Donald Carveth.

For more psychoanalytic thinking visit Don's youtube page.

In the fourth and final season of Secular Christ, Sean McGrath introduces his ideas around everyday Christian Mysticism. 

In the fourth and final season of Secular Christ, Sean McGrath introduces his ideas around everyday Christian Mysticism. 

In the fourth and final season of Secular Christ, Sean McGrath introduces his ideas around everyday Christian Mysticism. 

In the fourth and final season of Secular Christ, Sean McGrath introduces his ideas around everyday Christian Mysticism. 

In this episode, I speak with Swedish psychotherapist and historian of ideas, Suzanne Gieser, who shares some of her recent research on the fascinating topic of Jung and psychedelics. She offers insights into Jung’s views on the therapeutic potential (and dangers) of these substances and sheds light on early Jungian pioneers in the field of psychedelic psychotherapy. Suzanne also shares some of her own clinical experiences as a psychotherapist, actively working with psychedelic substances to treat complex trauma.

Suzanne is a licensed relational psychotherapist with a private practice in Stockholm, Sweden. She is also a historian of...

Jung on death. An audio clip from John Freeman's 'Face to Face' (BBC) interview at Jung's house at Küsnacht, in March 1959, two years before Jung's passing. Watch the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0p1ITcGtKI

In this episode I speak to a dear friend and colleague, Luis Moris about his most recent book "Confronting Death". The conversation ambulate around Jung's writings on death and dying and the role of "the dead" in the process of individuation. 

Luis Moris is a Jungian analyst in private practice in Zurich. He is the founder of Blue Salamandra Films. He has produced and directed several films including interviews with prominent Jungian analysts. His website is: www.luismoris.com

Confronting Death edited by Luis Moris and Murray Stein is now out on Chiron Publications.

In this episode, I speak to religious studies scholar Aaron French. We discuss Rudolf Steiner’s concept of the Doppelgänger and Jung’s concept of The Shadow, and explore what to learn when putting these two visionaries in the same room. 

Aaron J. French is a post-doctoral researcher in Religious Studies at the University of Erfurt in Germany.  His main research focuses on the History of Esotericism, the History and Philosophy of Science, Sacred Space and Architecture, modern German Philosophy, and Science and Technology Studies.

The music played in this episode...

I invited a few of scholars partaking in C.G Jung: Face to Face with Christianity to share a personal reflection after reading the book. Third out is Jungian analyst and scholar Murray Stein. 

The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Siddharta Corsus - Constellations

I invited a few of scholars partaking in C.G Jung: Face to Face with Christianity to share a personal reflection after reading the book. Second out is Jungian scholar and Orthodox Christian Pia Chaudhari.

Here is a link to an earlier conversation we had which is also to be found in edited form in the book.

The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Siddharta Corsus - Constellations

I invited a few of scholars partaking in C.G Jung: Face to Face with Christianity to share a personal reflection after reading the book. First out is Paul Bishop.

The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: Siddharta Corsus - Constellations

Today the book C.G Jung: Face to Face with Christianity - Conversations on dreaming the Myth onward is finally released. For this episode I decided to swap seats and have Sean McGrath interview myself. Thank you for listening and feel free to support this podcast by purchasing a copy of the book. 

I had a conversation with Freudian psychoanalyst Don Carveth on his excellent youtube channel "Psychoanalytic thinking". The conversation takes as a starting point the upcoming book C.G Jung: Face to Face with Christianity, but also discussed Ernest Beckers book Denial of Death and the importance of further Freudian/Jungian dialogues. 

In the final episode of this season of searching for the seeds of Secular Christianity, we travel to the 20th century to learn from the German Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

We explore his concept of religionless Christianity which developed as he sat imprisoned in Berlin by the Nazi regime for his resistance, and before his execution. McGrath continues to link back to Augustines idea of the invisible church and coins the term invisible Christianity.
 

What Meister Eckhart learnt, and we can learn, from The Beguines.

We left off in Alexandria in the second century and in this episode time travel a thousand years forward in tie, to the 14th century Northern Europe. At this point in time, particularly in Belgium and in Western Germany in the Rhineland, a non dual philosophy of Christianity emerges. The center player is Meister Eckhart and we explore his relationship to the woman's movement of The Beguines.

Visit our pop-up shop for the existential swag you did now know you needed!

The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: XYLO - ZIK...

In this episode we travel back in time to the city of Alexandria, the cultural Mecca of the Roman Empire to learn from the Christian theologian and philosopher Clement of Alexandria (150-215 AD), about how to build resilience in our present age.

 
The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: XYLO - ZIK - SUBMERSIBLE