The Fountain of Love and Wisdom: An Homage to Marie-Louise Von Franz – Quotations

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The Fountain of Love and Wisdom

It’s the ordinary people, often quite poor people and the quiet ones who sow seeds. – Marie-Louise Von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page xx

Most of [the highbrows] haven’t the remotest idea what I am talking about. Trouble is, they don’t bother to read my books because they’re too high hat. I’m not a bit taken in by intellectuals . . .. Do you know who reads my books? Not the academic people, oh no, they think they know everything already. It’s the ordinary people, often quite poor people and why do they do it? Because there’s a need in the world just now for spiritual guidance . . . almost any sort of spiritual guidance. ~Carl Jung, Homage to MLVF, Page xxiv-xxv

The problem is that the opposites are too close to each other in me. When I do something evil, good may come out of it and then I no longer know whether I should stop it or continue. And when I do something good, evil may come out of it and then I no longer know whether I should save it. It is a paradox. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page xxix

I asked whether this made her sad. She answered, “No, because I try to see the criminal in me. My criminal [shadow] is to think that when I say

something, this is of some use . . .. Hence my problem with speaking.”  ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page xxix.

Marie-Louise van Franz’s tower in Bollingen was her “life’s elixir,” as she once said, and frogs and toads were her favorite animals. Like Jung, she considered animals as being naturally more sublime than human beings, who all too often disappointed, exploited, betrayed, or deceived her. ~Homage to MLVF, Introduction, Page xxxii

In another version of this story, a kiosk woman told Jung that she had read his books with great joy. Jung purportedly responded: “But my books ate difficult to read, they are full of old Greek and Latin.” The woman replied: “Yes, but they touch the heart” ~Homage to MLVF, Introduction, Page xxxiii

There is an old woman in the village nearby who told me [Jung] she had read one of my books once through and was going to read it again. She said to me, ‘I don’t understand it yet, but I know you are right.’ ~Homage to MLVF, Introduction, Page xxxiii

“What we are to our inward vision, and what man appears to be sub specie aeternitatis, can only be expressed by way of myth.” ~Carl Jung, MDR, Page 3

“It is amazing how the unconscious never ceases to confront one with one’s own shadow right up to the very end . . . until one dies a miserable death [verrecken] on the way.” ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page xxxiv

In her passport-even as late as 1979-she declared her profession to be a “language teacher” with no mention of being a psychoanalyst. ~Homage to MLVF, Introduction, Page Xlii

I have the painful duty of informing you of the passing away of our honorary member Marie-Louise von Franz, Ph. D. January 4, 1915-February 17, 1998

She died a quiet death after a prolonged and consuming illness which she mastered with venerable patience, utter dignity and full mental clarity.  ~Homage to MLVW, Introduction, Page 6

With admirable modesty and an untiring love of the truth she dedicated her [MLVF] life to exploring and researching the human soul-and to carrying on the work of C. G. Jung. Her life remains for us today both as exemplary and as a duty. ~Neue Zurcher Zeitung, Homage to MLVF, Page 10

Today, after a long illness, our Honorary President Marie-Louise von Franz passed away. With noble modesty and an untiring love of truth she lived her life in the services of investigating the human soul and carried on the work of C. G. Jung.  ~Neue Zurcher Zeitung, Homage to MLVF, Page 12

The memorial service will take place in the Reformed Church in Kusnacht on Thursday, February 26th at 2:15 p.m. ~Research and Training Center, Homage to MLVF, Page 12

Marie-Louise Von Franz was released from her long, courageously borne illness. Till the very end her spirit-crystal clear-was vitally animate. Her life in the service of the Creative germinating from within the Unconscious was for us exemplary and remains for us a duty. Neue Zurcher Zeitung, Homage to MLVF, Page 13

During her entire life she [Von Franz] had a phenomenal memory that was-as Jung himself admitted-superior to his own. ~Alfred Ribi, Homage to MLVF, Page 18

In that she [Von Franz] was a rather impoverished student, she accepted an offer from Hedwig von Beit to write an encyclopedic work on the interpretation of fairy tales using von Beit’ s library and publishing it under von Beit’s name. The three-volume work is still not published today under the name of the true author.  ~Alfred Ribi, Homage to MLVF, Page 19

She [Von Franz] was a prolific dreamer who oftentimes had such rich, comprehensive, and complicated dreams that Jung himself had to wipe the sweat from his brow after succeeding with a dream interpretation. ~Alfred Ribi, Homage to MLVF, Page 19

She [Von Franz] never married, and her publications were her children. Following Jung’s advice, she lived with Ms. Barbara Hannah, also a student of Jung’s, where she found a cozy home life and the necessary protection from the world. ~Alfred Ribi, Homage to MLVF, Page 19

She [Von Franz]was actively involved in the social and political events of her day, she was a member of the AUNS ( committee for an independent and neutral Switzerland) and was a better proponent of democracy than many a Swiss, and she loved a good meal and a fine bottle of wine, heartily welcoming the company of her students and acquaintances. ~Alfred Ribi, Homage to MLVF, Page 20

During a period of over ten years she researched and prepared her pioneering text, Number and Time, wherein she elucidated the meaning of number as a link between psyche and matter. ~Alfred Ribi, Homage to MLVF, Page 21

She [Von Franz] was seldom seen without her English bulldog and occasionally found with a worm in her hand that she had rescued from certain death in traffic. ~Alfred Ribi, Homage to MLVF, Page 24

Anne Maguire reported at the memorial service that Marie-Louise von Franz had told her a dream in which her illness had been healed and her body completely restored to health. She felt extraordinarily happy in the dream and deduced that she would soon die. ~Analytische Psychologie, Homage to MLVF, Page 24

As a brilliant and independent-minded schoolgirl, for example, she proved so resistant to religious education that a priest was assigned as her personal tutor. The arrangement ended when the priest became so dazzled by his pupil that he lost his faith and abandoned his calling. In time Dr. von Franz came to regret the episode. ~Robert MG. Thomas, Jr., Homage to MLVF, Page 32

She [MLVF] possessed a few theoretical formulations, and her direct and colloquial style of English (not her mother tongue) makes her writings easily accessible and as fascinating to read as the tales themselves. ~Chuck Schwartz, Homage to MLVF, Page 33

In despair she [MLVF] turned to Jung who advised her to let the client have her nervous breakdown. Von Franz backed off and stopped straining to help, and the woman soon made a full recovery. ~Chuck Schwartz, Homage to MLVF, Page 35

For Jung, the structure of the psyche’s center was made up of what he called “archetypes,” the fundamental building blocks or anatomy of psychic life. ~Chuck Schwartz, Homage to MLVF, Page 35

Work very hard on your own psychic life and hope for a synchronistic happening in the client’s. In this way everything is kept open and alive and there are no set rules. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 36

Marie-Louise von Franz’s father was Austrian, her mother was born in Bavaria, Germany.  ~Homage to MLVF, Page 36, Footnote 1

Look at this civilization. Its story MUST be understood at depth to do the suffering human spirit justice. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 47

Probably above all I recall the intensity and humanity of her creative spirit which burned straight to the center inspiring in me a reevaluation of everything. J. Gary Sparks, Homage to MLVF, Page47

When I did my exams at the Zurich Institute in 1975, Von Franz was one of my examiners in fairy tales. I did terribly. She let me pass saying: “He must have had a block. No one could be that bad.” She was wrong; I was. ~J. Gary Sparks, Homage to MLVF, Page 47-48

What I learned from her was irony and devotion to the work. Dr. von Franz, wherever you are now, thank you. ~Robert Bosnak, Homage to MLVF, Page   48

Not having yet been able to incorporate a divine female, e.g., the Gnostic Sophia, in my striving for individuation, Dr. von Franz fulfilled that need. I will greatly miss her. ~Liz Fess, Homage to MLVF, Page 49

Marie-Louise von Franz was a rare woman who lived both on the moon and on this earth. ~Douglas R. Cann, Homage to MLVF, Page 49

Symbolic thinking is a form of loving understanding, a light that does not dispel the god Eros. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Homage to MLFV, Page 58.

She once said to me that a man can dedicate his entire life working for some cause (or toward some objective), but a woman could accomplish the superhuman for a person she loved. ~Gotthil Fisler, Homage to MLVF, Page 59

In August of last year, Marie-Louise told me that she had dreamed that she had written an eight-volume work on Arabian alchemy. The eight volumes were there in front of her and she was very pleased. She understood the dream as saying that her life work was now completed. ~Gotthil Fisler, Homage to MLFV, Page 61

Marie-Louise was so happy when she heard the dream because she knew now that Jung would come to take her to the beyond. She would then be together with him and possibly with the people to whom she really belonged. ~Gotthil Fisler, Homage to MLFV, Page 62

She had once given him [Jung] a gift of a precious Chinese frog carved from jade. He had found the gift so valuable that he specified that this “jewel” would be returned to her upon his death. ~Gotthil Fisler, Homage to MLVF, Page 63

Jung once said that what is happening now is forever. So when we sit here now it is transient, and at the same time it is the Self-we will sit here together forever. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz,, Homage to MLVF, Page 66

The Ho-t’u, “Older Heavenly Order,” she [Von Franz] pointed out, is quaternarian, a picture of absolute totality outside time and space-totality as it ever was and ever will be! By contrast, the Lo-shu, “Younger Heavenly Order,” wanders along like the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4. The meaning that it embodies is the same as the Ho-t’u, but the Lo-Shu is clothed in the manifestations of material and psychic processes. ~Nora Mindell, Homage to MLVF, Page 66

She [Von Franz] was born at a momentous time, in the first terrible winter of the Great War, in the German city of Munich, itself a city under the aegis of the little hooded kabir, the Munchener kindt-the child. A cloaked figure akin to the phallic kabir of the ancient world-Telesphoros, a companion and guide of Asclepius, the god of medical healing. ~Anne Maguire, Homage to MLVF, Page 69

Three years after her birth, toward the end of the war, she [Von Franz] was brought by her Austrian parents to Switzerland; eventually she became a citizen of her adopted country and lived her life here. ~Anne Maguire, Homage to MLVF, Page 70

I felt she [Von Franz] would have liked to die in Bollingen, which she loved, but that was not God’s will and so she died in her townhouse with all the good spirits of her past, and her students, analysands, and friends came to her, not forgetting her late dear friends, Barbara Hannah and Franz Riklin, and their regular gatherings. ~Anne Maguire, Homage to MLVF, Page 73

In a letter to William H. Kennedy (March 28, 1973), she referred to the Americans as “soul tourists”: “Summer is anyhow the time of the ‘soul tourists’ where I am always overburdened.” ~Homage to MLVF, Page 82, fn 4

Marie-Louise von Franz was the spiritual daughter of C. G. Jung. ~Peter Jung, Homage to MLVF, Page 91

Marlus [Von Franz] is the pupil of Jung whose name will be attached to Jungian psychology. ~Barbara Hannah, Homage to MLVF, Page 91

. . . . the brilliance of her mind, her deep and passionate attention to the unconscious, her clarity in putting forth her ideas, and her devotion to the writings of Jung . . .. ~James Kirsch, Homage to MLVF, Page 93

At the center of my analytical work is the influence of Dr. von Franz. During my years in Zurich, I attended all her lectures, ingested her books . . . and occasionally worked with her privately. ~Marion Woodman, Homage to MLVF, Page 93

Marie-Louise von Franz is a witch. When I read her book, Puer Aeternus, 1 feel she writes about me! ~An Analysand, Homage to MLVF, Page 96

There are writings which are perfect but they don’t touch me. When I read von Franz, it is as if something invisible lies between the lines and behind the words which touches me. This “invisible something” is what I understand as eros. ~Vreni Suter, Homage to MLVF, Page 96

On Dreams and Death is a fantastic book, full of the wisdom and insight which only a Jungian like Marie-Louise von Franz can write. It gives one a deeper respect for our inner knowledge, for the deep significance of dreams, and last but not least, for ancient and present customs whose origin we have long forgotten.” ~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Homage to MLVF, Page 115

Projection and Recollection in Jungian Psychology: Reflections of the Soul, by Marie-Louise von Franz, is a brilliant delineation of the objective psyche and how it has been experienced through the ages-from primitive religion to nuclear physics and synchronicity. It is Jungian psychology at its finest. ~Edward F. Edinger, Homage to MLVF, Page 116

Dr. von Franz’s new book sets an inspired standard for new works in the spirit of C. G. Jung. In these days, when the insights of modern physics and depth psychology begin to converge, this book and others to be presented in the “Reality of the Psyche” series will illuminate the way towards individuation in the context of an undivided universe. ~June Singer, Homage to MLVF, Page 116

Marie-Louise von Franz was born in Munich on January 4, 1915, during the First World War. Our father served in military campaigns in western Russia and in the Dolomites while our mother stayed for the duration of the war with her own mother in Upper Bavaria. ~Marie-Anne Von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 133

That is, Marie-Louise finished high school in 1933 and completed her doctorate in classical philology and classical languages (Greek and Latin) seven years later. (Our father, however, had lost the greatest part of his money in the early 1930s, so when we started our university studies, he told us that we had to earn the entire matriculation fees and expenses ourselves.) ~Marie-Anne Von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 135

It was in the summer of 1933-between the gymnasium and the university-that a classmate of Marie-Louise (a nephew of Toni Wolff) invited her along with seven boys to pay a visit to Professor C. G. Jung in his tower in Bollingen.  ~Marie-Anne Von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 135

Marie-Louise left home when she was twenty-five and lived in a single room, first on Jupiterstrasse and later on English viertelstrasse in Zurich. The 1930s were economically difficult years, and the war then added to these problems. After the sudden death of our father in the autumn of 1940, our mother eventually had to sell the house. ~Marie-Anne Von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 136

Marie-Louise then moved to a small apartment herself in 1944 and, generally speaking, lived frugally for many years, supporting herself as a tutor of Latin and Greek for gymnasium and university students, working on fairy-tale texts. ~Marie-Anne Von Franz Homage to MLVF, Page 136

Professor Jung had seen that my sister found it difficult to pursue all of her professional and scholastic commitments while managing a household as a single woman. Knowing both women rather well, he suggested to them one day that they join and try at least to set up a common psychotherapeutic practice. ~Marie-Anne Von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 136

Dear Chungliang Al Huang, Thank you for your kind note.  I am OK but packing for the big journey. Love, Marie-Louise von Franz ~Chungli Al Huang, Homage to MLVF, Page 143

Marie-Louise von Franz was a stringent teacher and tolerated no interpretations that did not consider the archetypes to be living forces in life. ~Christine Altmann-Glaser Homage to MLVF, Page 145

Sir Laurens van der Post, who was a friend of Jung’s, dedicated his life to fighting racial discrimination, in particular that against ethnic minorities such as the Bushmen, and fought for the preservation of nature (for example, the Kalahari Desert). Marie-Louise von Franz also greatly appreciated him. ~Christine Altmann-Glaser, Homage to MLVF, Page 146

God is Consciousness, with no discursive content. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 163

“In death, I shall join all of my other selves.” “In death, we shall have eternity and ubiquity.” “something must remain after death,” “but it is so difficult to figure out!” ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 165

Marie-Louise von Franz, quoting Jung, if l remember well, once said to me that the introverted person can only enter into a true relation with other people via the detour of doing creative work. ~Dieter Baumann, Homage to MLVF, Page 172

He [Jung] said to her [MLVF], “I am too old to be able to write this [Numbers] now, so I hand it over to you.” ~Charles R. Card, Homage to MLVF, Page 176

Jung and Pauli came to hold that the realm of mind, psyche, and the realm of matter, physis, are complementary aspects of the same transcendental reality, the unus mundus. ~Charles R. Card, Homage to MLVF, Page 178

“Numbers thus serve chiefly to make visible the circumstantial individual aspects of the cosmic unity or whole.” Chinese numbers also contained an essential relation with time: “In China, numbers signify organizations which vary in time, or transient ‘ensembles’ of inner and outer factors within the world-totality.” ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 180

[number] may well be the most primitive element of order in the human mind . . . thus we define number psychologically as an archetype of order which has become conscious.” ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 180

The archetypes primarily represent dynamical units of psychic energy. In preconscious processes they assimilate representational material originating in the phenomenal world to specific images and models, so that they become introspectively perceptible as “psychic” happenings. ~Charles R. Card, Homage to MLVF, Page 180

Numbers then become typical psychological patterns of motion about which we can make the following statements: One comprises wholeness, two divides, repeats and engenders symmetries, three centers the symmetries and initiates linear succession, four acts as a stabilizer by turning back to the one as well as bringing forth observables by creating boundaries, and so on. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 180

Von Franz was not satisfied with Number and Time; she called it “a rather unreadable book” and regretted that it had failed to communicate and provoke discussion of its central tenets among mathematicians and physicists. ~Charles R. Card, Homage to MLVF, Page 182

“I was able to take this up to the number four. Then it became too complicated, and at that point I also hit my head on the ceiling,” just as Jung, too, had hit his head on the ceiling prior to turning the project over to her. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 182

Apart from Jung himself, no one has had a greater influence on the reshaping of my view of the world than Marie-Louise von Franz. ~Charles R. Card, Homage to MLVF, Page 183

As we were conversing on various issues, suddenly silence prevailed and it lasted for some time. Then Marie-Louise von Franz broke this silence in her smooth voice: “There comes Hermes in this room”! ~ Nikolas Dorbarakis, Homage to MLVF, Page 207

It is for us, as well as for the world, an immeasurable piece of providence and good fortune that a woman like Marie-Louise von Franz lived, and that we were able to meet her ~Gotthilf Isler, Homage to MLVF, Page 63

through the painful way of her individuation . . . and for helping me, like many people, partake of this task, I feel the deepest gratitude . . .. Her love, her work, and her example, along with her deep commitment to the search for meaning, are of such a nature as to encourage the individual on his or her lifelong quest and endeavor to be and become himself or herself ~Dieter Baumann, Homage to MLVF, Page 175

I was touched by her spirit in such a way that I could feel her warmth, her humor, and her wisdom. She accompanied me as an inner friend, and I held inner conversations with her, asked her questions-what she would do? -and so forth. ~Vreni Suter, Homage to MFVF, Page 523

Many years later, my partner and I spent several summers and an autumn or two with Marie-Louise von Franz in her tower in Bollingen. Marie-Louise had such a deep love of nature and such a simple, natural integrity that, much to the befuddlement of many people, she spent quite a few months a year living in this tower by a frog and yellow lily pond where there was no electricity or gas, only an outhouse with a sack of lime and a shovel, cold water in an old stone fountain in the living room-kitchen, and a large fireplace that you could pretty much step into. ~ David Eldred, Homage to MLVF, Pages 226-227

Jung said to them [Barbara and Marie]: “Look carefully around, take in the grasses, the trees below, the stones at our feet, the flowers, the ringing bells of the cows. Since we sat down on this bench, the world has ever so slightly changed; it can never go back. When I am gone, come back in your minds to this bench . . . we will sit here, together, for eternity.” ~ David Eldred, Homage to MLVF, Pages 227

She [Marie] asked to be helped [due to Parkinson’s] to sit up in bed and requested that I open the window, and she listened with reverence and joy to what she said was “the song of resurrection . . .. Quails had been the birds of resurrection for the Egyptians.” ~ David Eldred, Homage to MLVF, Pages 228

Getting old is certainly not for pansies. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 231

I Will Hold You, Marlus

(to my mentor, Marie-Louise von Franz) [Written after her Death]

I will hold you Marius

as the scepter of Isis

to drive back the succubus,

with her ratty black tresses

her eyes void, devouring.

I will hold you, Marius

as the staff of Asclepius

to repel the putrefying forces

and rout the hideous steeds

of my imagination.

As a wanderer

(desiccated, bewildered, bleak,

beneath Kalahari sun)

I will hold you as my hands

hold cool waters

lifted high,

dripping,

quickening

my uncertain face.

Beneath the crowns of beech and oak

fluttering with the voiceless flurry

of flock upon flock of quail,

I will hold you, Marlus

as the witness

holds the moment.

At your hands I have learned of uprightness

of loyalty and truth

of unrelenting conviction.

I have learned of other ways and sacred books.

I have learned of fear

I have stared into the heinous maw of the Fenris Wolf

with his grisly eye

sparkling from a rabid light.

And I have clutched this light in my skinless hands

and seen his reflection

behind my face.

And I know you too have seen,

for his face you once described.

You have filled me with courage

and I have looked,

and begun to see

and I am still withstanding.

I will hold you, Marlus

as the sailor

holds the sextant for his captain

as they rail against the midnight

beneath del Fuego storm.

I will hold you

as the novice holds the crystal-quartz.

the devotee

an ancient Coptic text.

From you I have learned to raise my eyes while kneeling

although at this time in my life I am no one to question

so I keep my eyes to the floor.

I wish I could have held you

as a man

holds a woman

whose destiny is lifted

at Mithraic chambers of the fidel.

But instead,

yours was a destiny

of austerities of the heart.

and solitudes.

May you take me as an honor guard,

think of me once as friend,

know that in this season,

a’fore these chambers,

in this crypt beneath the midriffs,

I stand here for you

little to give,

late in life.

I will hold you Marlus

in the cavity behind my ribs.

I will walk you to your gate

and lay my hand upon your shoulder

as we stand among the yellow lilies of your pond.

And before you turn away,

a twinkling in your eye,

a military gesture of farewell,

a one-gun salute

I will already miss you terribly.

I will hold you, Marlus

in hopes.

I will stand here at your pond with you forever.

And ask that you might think of me

When my time comes to approach my gate.

I will hold you, Marlus

as a man holds the ring

removed from his loved one’s: finger.

He reads the inscription one last time,

and lays it in the palm of his hand.

I will hold you, Marlus

as a man holds back his tears. ~ David Eldred, Homage to MLVF, Pages 231-234

Somewhere in Switzerland there lived a depth psychologist who believed that depth psychology and physics could be unified. I adopted her as my second mother, read her book Zahl und Zeit several times, and continued my study in physics. ~Herbert Van Erkelins, Homage to MLVF, Page 236

In the first half of the interview, von Franz destroyed my image of Pauli as a serious, spiritual seeker. According to her, he had always avoided an encounter with the numinous. ~ David Eldred, Homage to MLVF, Page 236

I gave her the painting by my father, a still life showing stones and a beautiful thistle. From a stubborn woman von Franz suddenly turned into a child who had received an unexpected present. She began to radiate happiness and said: “This is a mandala in forms of nature.” ~ David Eldred, Homage to MLVF, Page 237

“Sometimes you are in harmony with the anima, at other times you’re not. Hence life is a dance where you meet the inner partner and then part again.” ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Pages 239

We found out that she and Miss Hannah were planning a little holiday in “Indian country” in a couple of days, and Marlus (which she encouraged us to call her) was eager to go horseback riding to really experience the Old West that she had read about and seen in the movies of her childhood. I think they were going to Montana or Wyoming. ~Gilda Frantz, Homage to MLVF, Page 252

I know that when the film Matter of Heart came out, some people commented that in some scenes her fingernails were very dirty. I loved her dirty fingernails. I knew that during the filming she had carried wood into the house, cooked over a sooty fireplace, and had been digging in the earth. ~Gilda Frantz, Homage to MLVF, Page 254

While we began to talk in her library, Laura, her boxer, felt so attracted to the three thick volumes of the sixteenth-century Jesuit letters that I had laid on the carpet that she could not avoid chewing a corner of one the volumes. Perhaps Dr. von Franz took that as a sign. ~Roberto Gambini, Homage to MLVF, Page 258

I expected that she would summon me to an appointment in which she would make corrections and suggestions and reveal to me some hidden secrets of Jung’s theory. But instead, she sent me a laconic letter: “Dear Mr. Gambini, I have read your paper. It is OK. Go ahead. Marie-Louise von Franz.” ~Roberto Gambini, Homage to MLVF, Page 260

“Mr. Gambini, when you first came here, I realized that you were thin, pale, and depressed. Your creativity was just waiting to come out. I gave you a backing, so you could trust yourself and do what the unconscious wanted you to do. You don’t owe me anything. The work you have done is yours.” ~Roberto Gambini, Homage to MLVF, Page 261

As my wife had unfortunately died in July 1994, Marie- Louise von Franz and I naturally spoke extensively about illness and death. Our conversations were very precious to me. She also spoke to me about her own illness, about her dreams, and particularly those dreams that dealt with death. ~Georges Hudes, Homage to MLVF, Page 270

Dear Georges, I think I have found the solution: One must struggle very hard in order to avoid attaching oneself to the image-memory of the deceased. The image-memory has become an empty mask. One must search for an image of the deceased person as he or she is in the beyond, and then try to establish contact with this otherworldly image. With all my best thoughts, ~Marie-Louise von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 271

I was the friend who kept her [MLVF] supplied with tyrosine, the natural supplement that she needed to help treat her Parkinson’s (she couldn’t get tyrosine in Switzerland). ~Robin Lea Hutton, Homage to MLVF, Page 271

She [MLVF] learned about the medical benefits of tyrosine from a dream that she had Tom Laughlin interpret for her, which told her clearly that the L-dopa she was taking for her Parkinson’s was damaging her heart and that tyrosine, because it was a natural supplement and a precursor for dopamine production, would help her body create her own dopamine and help her manage this horrible disease naturally. ~Robin Lea Hutton, Homage to MLVF, Page 271

She [MLVF [once told me that in her younger years Jung had cast an African oracle with her. The prophesy set forth that, in the end, the Highest Judge would come. ~Gottlief Eisler, Homage to MLVF, Page 59

I know that Dr. von Franz gave my mother great encouragement to complete her book, Mermaid on a Dolphin’s Back, which she completed about two years before she died. It has not been published because she did not want it to be. ~Susan Harris, Homage to MLVF, Page 268

She never used sciences as apotropaically but took and respectfully investigated them as an expression of the collective unconscious. What C. G. Jung said about his life “The daimon of creativity has ruthlessly had its way with me”-holds also for her. ~Wilhelm Just, Homage to MLVF, Page 284

Mar Lou described the importance of Edinger’ s essay by showing how the incarnation of the divine into human form was a universal religious theme. She showed how in the Greek religion Zoe was the goddess of life itself, eternal life, and when Zoe entered into an individual unit, a tree, a dog, a human being, it became bios (from which we get our words biology, biography, and so on). ~Tom Laughlin, Homage to MLVF, Page 318

All of Jung’s work, all Jungian therapy, has that purpose, that goal, to reconnect the lesser conscious personality-the ego, the intellect, and the will-with the greater “living thing down there,” that far greater personality, far greater intelligence lying dormant in the unconscious waiting to be developed. Everything Jung wrote and did was to that end to help everyone develop the far greater living personality begging to be developed in each of us. ~Tom Laughlin, Homage to MLVF, Page 319

Jung said God and man were two sides of the same coin. To the side pointing inward and creating the entire person Jung gave the word Self, the side facing into eternity was God. ~Tom Laughlin, Homage to MLVF, Page 319

… so Jung discovered there was a psychological DNA that has in it a greater intelligence with a blueprint of what that human being should become, containing thousands of capacities, abilities, skills, talents, and behavior patterns that are to be developed if only the environment does not hinder, damage, or even destroy them.  ~Tom Laughlin, Homage to MLVF, Page 320

On one occasion, Mar Lou pointed out, Jung summed up his belief that “life is nothing but the story of the self-realization of the unconscious. Everything in the unconscious seeks outward manifestation.” ~Tom Laughlin, Homage to MLVF, Page 320

Jung said he didn’t care what image or concept you had of God as long as you recognize that God was the superior power. ~Tom Laughlin, Homage to MLVF, Page 321

My raison d’etre consists of coming to terms with that indefinable being we call God. ~Carl Jung, Homage to MLVF, Page 321

The first was from a letter of August 8, 1945, in which Jung replies, “You are quite right, the main interest of my work is not concern with the treatment of neurosis but rather with the approach to the numinous.”  ~Tom Laughlin, Homage to MLVF, Page 322

“But the fact is,” Jung went on, “that the approach to the numinous is the real therapy, and inasmuch as you would attain to the numinous experiences, you are released from the curse of pathology. Even the very disease takes on a numinous character.” ~Tom Laughlin, Homage to MLVF, Page 322

Fortunately, I had the chance to work with Marie-Louise von Franz as my principal analyst and teacher. Although we were both relatively young, having been born in the same month of January in 1915, she turned out to be an excellent choice. ~Roger Lyons, Homage to MLVF, Page 342

The inferior function is the door through which all the figures of the unconscious come into consciousness . . . it is the ever-bleeding wound of the conscious personality, but through it the unconscious can always come in and so enlarge consciousness and bring forth a new attitude. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 345

Play is the beginning of all spiritual and civilizing conscious occupations. ~Carl Jung, Homage to MLVF, Page 346

He [Jung] played almost every day on the shore of the lake in Zurich, building a whole village from the materials he found there. He says it was a turning point in his fate. ~Roger Lyons, Homage to MLVF, Page 348

One of the fascinating things von Franz told me was how play enters into the religious rites in the jai alai-type ball games played in pre-Columbian meso-America. She told me that, incredible as it may seem, in some of these games it was the winning side, not the losing side, who had the honor of being the human sacrifice! ~Roger Lyons, Homage to MLVF, Page 349

Jesus (thus) fulfilled his Messianic mission by pointing out to humanity the old truth that where force rules there is no love and where love reigns force does not count. The religion of love was the exact psychological counterpart to the Roman devil-worship of power. ~Carl Jung, Homage to MLVF, Page 350

The true genius nearly always intrudes and disturbs. He speaks to a temporal world out of a world eternal. . .. Yet, the genius is a healer of his time, because anything he reveals of eternal truth is healing. ~Carl Jung, Homage to MLVF, Page 357

God was never really ‘captured’ in that man-made image, still less in the definitions, so that he is free to leave them behind and ‘reveal’ himself anew. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 359

When Jung was in Africa, he was enchanted by those wonderful sunrises. Each morning he got up to savor the moment. His exact words are: “I drank in this glory with the insatiable delight, or rather, in a timeless ecstasy.” ~Anne Maguire, Homage to MLVF, Page 367

In the film interview, von Franz forcefully talks about the risk of mankind destroying itself and the world and says (almost in the manner of an Old Testament prophet) we must stand up to God and tell him not to allow it to happen; thus our consciousness and ethical stance affect the divinity itself. ~Robert Mercurio, Homage to MLVF, Page 374

Everyone knows how useful it is to be useful, and nobody knows how useful it is to be useless. ~ Zhuangzi, Homage to MLVF, Page 384

Jungians today, she [MLVF] went on, dispense their knowledge as medicine that they have discovered themselves, forgetting at the same time to reflect upon where they stand in their relationship to the unconscious. ~Robert Mercurio, Homage to MLVF, Page 387

The empirical world of appearances is . . . [ ultimately J based on a transcendental background.” ~Carl Jung, Homage to MLVF, Page 396

In later conversation, von Franz pointed out that the unus mundus is practically an identical concept to the pleroma, but the unus mundus is more Neoplatonic and rational, whereas the pleroma is more complete, mysterious, and irrational. ~Nora Mindell, Homage to MLVF, Page 397

Furthermore, as referred to by Jung in his “Seven Sermons,” the primordial continuity of the pleroma also contains the drive toward discontinuity and differentiation. Nora Mindell, Homage to MLVF, Page 399

1. G. Jung considered the corporeal assumption of Mary the most significant Christian religious event since the Reformation. ~Rafael Monzo, Homage to MLVF, Page 413

For Jung, the Assumptio was a sign of the times pointing toward the equality of women, women’s rights, and how this equality had been finally and officially raised to the metaphysical realm in the figure of the divine woman. ~Rafael Monzo, Homage to MLVF, Page 413

For Jung, this dogma [Assumption of Mary] completed St. John’s apocalyptic marriage of the lamb and referred as well to the coniunctio of the heavenly bride and heavenly bridegroom prophesied in the day of judgment. ~Rafael Monzo, Homage to MLVF, Page 414

Pope Pius XII recognized this truth and, apparently moved by the spirit, proclaimed-much to the astonishment of the rationalists-the transcendental declaratio solemnis of the new dogma of the Assumptio Mariae.1Incidentally, he himself is rumored to have had several visions of the Mother of God on the occasion of the declaration. ~Rafael Monzo, Homage to MLVF, Page 414

Olga Frobe-Kapteyn said it very beautifully: “Only the uncertain path, the path with no guarantees, offers us the possibility of reading the signs . . . . The uncertain path is the promising, the fertile, and at the same time the only path which remains open and receptive to truth.”  ~Olga Frobe-Kapteyn, Homage to MLVF, Page 442

The last vision of Brother Claus clearly shows that it is not the intention of the unconscious to destroy Christian symbolism but to extend and augment this symbolism with that of the feminine and that of the common man.” ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 443

I was thirty-two years old when I began helping out in the Lindenbergstrasse household. Maria had become too ill to continue…I was then asked to be that help. I would be there for more than seventeen years, until Marlus died in 1998. ~Vicki Reiff, Homage to MLVF, Page 464

Alison and I have always, and will always, refer to her affectionately as “Miss Hannah. ” I think the first thing that impressed me in making the acquaintance of Miss Hannah at ninety years of age was that she was at such peace with herself. ~Vicki Reiff, Homage to MLVF, Page 465

I submitted my application to the Jung Institute until Miss Hannah put the process into her perspective (she was not particularly enthusiastic about everything at the Institute). She commented: “Well, if they don’t accept you that is only a compliment.” ~Vicki Reiff, Homage to MLVF, Page 465

Marlus was a slow driver, much to the frustration and displeasure of the drivers behind her, who would flash their lights or honk the horn for her to speed up. This would only result in a mischievous reduction in her speed! ~Vicki Reiff, Homage to MLVF, Page 466

if I didn’t have contact with someone because of his or her shadow, well, there would be no one left. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 468

Not everyone should become an analyst, but rather take what they learn from their analysis back into their lives and try to integrate it. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 469

When I became pregnant in 1986, a doctor told me that I would need to give away my three cats, who I loved very much. He succeeded in frightening me. Marlus reassured me, insisting that I should ignore the doctor-my dreams would tell me. ~Vicki Reiff, Homage to MLVF, Page 469

I saw this in Marlus even following Miss Hannah’s death. After the funeral of her dearest friend, she stated in her stoic manner: “Now I have to find the meaning of why I was left behind.” She directed herself continually toward the search for meaning. ~Vicki Reiff, Homage to MLVF, Page 470

Mr. van der Post was struggling to speak and Marlus was struggling to hold the telephone receiver in her hand. She managed to say to him that “two old Bushmen don’t have to see each other to be together.” ~Vicki Reiff, Homage to MLVF, Page 470

At the age where she [MLVF] could no longer leave the house on her own, I often had the honor of taking her for rides in the car, and I had the opportunity to cook for her and to experience her in her private life. ~Vicki Reiff, Homage to MLVF, Page 473

She [MLVF] did not like groups, so very often the two of us went by ourselves to ski in the Alps. She always brought along the I Ching, never parted herself from it, and consulted it frequently. ~Gertrud Schellbrett, Homage to MLVF, Page 479

The theme of the divine concealed in the earth is beautifully developed in Marie-Louise von Franz’s book, C. G. Jung: His Myth in Our Time. ~Francois Selhofer, Homage to MLVF, Page 481

I was in England at the time, and my analyst was Dr. Anthony Stevens, a great admirer of von Franz. He helped me to my feet and on his recommendation-and that of the late Irene Champernowne-I was accepted for training at the Zurich Institute. ~Daryl Sharp, Homage to MLVF, Page 483

Fraser and I rented a house in the nearby village of Egg. In German, this place-name is pronounced “Eck,” but of course eggs are ubiquitous symbols of new life, which heartened us both. His sister, Marion Woodman, soon joined us. She was a frumpy housewife then, just as neurotic as the rest of us. ~Daryl Sharp, Homage to MLVF, Page 483

Her housemate was the late Barbara Hannah, whose biographical portrait, Jung: His Life and Work, published in 1976, is still among the best. I had heard the story that they lived together because Jung had decreed it on account of Miss Hannah’s failing health. ~Daryl Sharp, Homage to MLVF, Page 485

After some twenty minutes, Dr. von Franz sat back and eyed me. “You are truly a mess,” she said. “You are either a stupid ninny and shouldn’t be here at all, or you have talents as yet undiscovered.” ~Daryl Sharp, Homage to MLVF, Page 486

Marlus agreed to Fraser’s project, on condition that the dreams she was to interpret were told on film by the dreamers themselves, not by actors. “Without real dreams told by the actual dreamers,” she said, “there is no integrity.” ~Daryl Sharp, Homage to MLVF, Page 488

Every six months, I sent von Franz a statement of her sales and a check. She once told me that I was the only publisher who ever paid her royalties without being sent a letter from her lawyer! ~Daryl Sharp, Homage to MLVF, Page 488

During our time in Zurich, he and I and Fraser and Marion were known as the “Canadian Mafia. ” Years later, when von Franz’s beloved bulldog died of old age, it was Chuck who gifted her with a new pup on her birthday. ~Daryl Sharp, Homage to MLVF, Page 489

Dr. von Franz interviewed me for an hour. When I left, she said, ”.After I have a dream about it, I shall let you know whether I can be your analyst. ” ~Nicholas Spicer, Homage to MLVF, Page 492

Sorry you have to sell your house. But we are all wandering beggars in this world. ~Nicholas Spicer, Homage to MLVF, Page 493

Her companion answered the door, however, and immediately ushered me into Marlus’s presence (we had been on a first-name basis for some time, actually). Dr. von Franz was almost crippled now, but still in fairly decent spirits. ~J. Marvin Spiegelman, Homage to MLVF, Page 493

I affirmed that her work was a great gift to all of us and I was sure that it would be even more appreciated in the years to come. She responded that this was perhaps so, but she, like Jung, was not terribly optimistic about either the fate of Jungian psychology or even our civilization. ~J. Marvin Spiegelman, Homage to MLVF, Page 500

One of the features of great personalities like those of Dr. Jung and Dr. von Franz is that their presence and influence continues to move us as strongly as ever after they pass away. ~Murray Stein, Homage to MLVF, Page 503

I knew that Dr. von Franz loved frogs. And that unlike Jung (who sat by the lake and played at digging out his waterworks), she preferred to sit and watch the goings-on of the frogs in her pond. ~Vreni Suter, Homage to MLVF, Page 524-525

Von Franz notes that, as far as she knows, the concept of a twofold order is found everywhere. She, like Jung, names one aspect “acausal orderedness” (which is timeless) and the other “synchronicity,” synchronistic events appearing then in linear time. ~Vreni Suter, Homage to MLVF, Page 526

Jung says that evil has become a determining factor in reality and cannot be done away with by simply changing its name. We have to learn how to cope with it because it wants to live with us. ~Vreni Suter, Homage to MLVF, Page 526

What is more real-the one that is mirrored or the mirror that is used? ~Carl Jung, Homage to MLF, Page 528

Your letter touched me. As from a brother in the Spirit. I don’t know the book of Maccoby. Could you send me a copy? Tell me how much I owe you. I am too ill to dictate long letters, but I will react. ~Marie-Louise von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 543

It is up to us to pay attention and to allow the development of that which within us seeks to fulfill itself. ~Marie-Louise von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 544

You are a very introverted person. You may not look so nice outside but you have beautiful things inside just as this stone has crystal part in it. ~Marie-Louise von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 547

“Don’t be afraid. Be free. Don’t doubt. Be a child. Don’t study too much, Satomi.” That was not easy at all, though. She told me to go to the zoo and see how animals act. ~ Satomi Yoshida, Homage to MLVF, Page 548

Her charming dog, by the way, always came to me and sat down by my chair, often on my feet, during the sessions. He, or she, had an Italian name, Laura. I liked the dog very much. Laura’s leisurely movement and his smell relaxed me. ~ Satomi Yoshida, Homage to MLVF, Page 548

Dr. von Franz gave me the stone in the beginning of our relationship and left me that dream, image of the black feminine one-piece dress and being in good spirits, when she met her end. ~ Satomi Yoshida, Homage to MLVF, Page 549

Jung had let her build a tower at Bollingen like the one he owned on the lakeside, but it was to be built high up in the woods and to be different from his, which, as everyone knows, he had built with his own hands and which was a round tower. ~Idaregina Zoccoli, Homage to MLVF, Page 555

In the early years, I underwent analysis holding the paw of a female bulldog, her bitch Laura, who lay at my feet and wanted that close contact. “She’s Petrarch’s Laura,” she observed, laughing. ~ Idaregina Zoccoli, Homage to MLVF, Page 555

“Parkinson’s usually lasts for seven or eight years, mine has gone on for eighteen. . . .” ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 556

I hope that these attempts at a psychological interpretation, which are often only tentative suggestions, have conveyed to the reader the following: that this novel of Apuleius is a highly important “document humain” which one can even put next to Goethe’s Faust . . . . It leads into the deep- est problems of Western man and points symbolically to developments which today we still have not realized in consciousness. ~Marie-Louise von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 544

It takes a strong consciousness, which is flexible and modest enough, to be able to accept what the unconscious-the gods-has to say to us, and to realize the will of the gods, of the god who manifests himself_ to us, and to put us into his service, without forgetting the individual limits of our human nature.  ~Marie-Louise von Franz, Homage to MLVF, Page 544

One might describe her as eccentric, but that is too superficial a characterization. There was an aura of numen about her, and a powerful sense of brilliance, but most of all, a sensitivity and living connection to a transcendental dimension of reality emanating from her that deeply moved me, although I could only struggle to grasp it at the edges. ~Nora Mindell, Homage to MLVF, Page 394

Even when she became ill in later years and could no longer hold a book upright to read by herself, she continued to devote herself to this study, deepening many of her ideas, expanding others, and working on new ones. I often sat at her bedside or shared the traditional four o’clock tea, during which she frequently discussed the thoughts she was mulling over. ~Nora Mindell, Homage to MLVF, Page 396

The Gnostic pleroma signifies a more dynamic and creative plenitude in Jung and von Franz’s estimation. It is the creative, primordial wellspring, the “mother of the world,” the flower of Hellenistic culture, a concept which strongly emphasizes the sacred divine nature of the origins pictured as the “High God” (one of many names), also called the “Nothing of Water, Air and Fire,” a male god, yet a quasi-hermaphroditic being as well. Nora Mindell, Homage to MLVF, Page 397-398

“When you count, you are bound to be dealing with the totality of the cosmos. Therefore, when you say ‘I,’ what you mean is the cosmos but for ‘I,’ i.e., the cosmos minus ‘I,’ because this ‘I’ steps out of the totality, the totality is minus ‘I.’ When I say ‘I,’ I augment the world by ‘I,’ which steps out of the totality . . . or I diminish the totality by ‘I.”‘ Nora Mindell, Homage to MLVF, Page 398

A last note: the tremendous empathy, feeling, and sympathy of Mar Lou was experienced by us all countless times in countless ways, but one small thing touched me very deeply: after Laura died, we urged von Franz to get another dog, but she refused. The reason was as kind and thoughtful as Mar Lou was herself She knew she would die before the dog, and she did not want the dog to suffer the loneliness that loss was certain to bring. ~Tom Laughlin, Homage to MLVF, Pages 328-329

And all this while Laura, the English bulldog, would sit in the backseat having her own personal  luseinandersetzung with the cushions-ripping, tearing, growling, and shaking herself back and forth. By the time Laura died, the Polo no longer had a backseat. “That wicked animal,” Marlus would call her. ~Vicki Reiff, Homage to MLVF, Page 466

“I am expressing what countless other people know-that the present is a time of God’s death and disappearance. The myth says he was not to be found where his body was laid. ‘Body’ means the outward, visible form, the erstwhile but ephemeral setting for the highest value” (like the rose of summer whose petals must fall) … “The [Christian] myth further says that the value [the entombed body] rose again in a miraculous manner, transformed.” ~Carl Jung, Homage to MLVF, Page 366

“This genius often radiated from his personality in the jovial festive atmosphere he created around himself, in his cheerfulness, good humor, and also his truly enormous vitality, but above all his lifelong commitment to the inner creative spirit which drove him relentlessly to ever more and more research and creativity.” ~Anne Maguire, Homage to MLVF, Page 366-367

A pious man died and went directly to heaven. When he got there, he was given yogurt for his meal. Just yogurt, he thought? Well, maybe because it was the first day. However, the second day he was given yogurt for breakfast, yogurt for lunch, and yogurt for dinner! What was that about? I lived a good life and all I get for it is yogurt? Impossible!! After several more days of yogurt and more yogurt, the pious man looked down into hell to see all the sinful people eating banquets of wonderful foods. He was outraged and decided to complain directly to St. Peter. He went to see St. Peter. “What is this?! I live a good, long, pious life and all I get is yogurt?” St. Peter regarded the man and responded: “Well, you know, it doesn’t pay to cook for just two!” 471

1958 She builds her tower in Bollingen. ~The Fountain of Love and Wisdom, Chronology, Page xxxix

Marie-Louise van Franz’s tower in Bollingen was her “life’s elixir,” as she once said, and frogs and toads were her favorite animals. Like Jung, she considered animals as being naturally more sublime than human beings, who all too often disappointed, exploited, betrayed, or deceived her. ~The Fountain of Love and Wisdom, Introduction, Page xxxii, fn 5

For her creative work she often retreated to her tower in Bollingen. Alfred Ribi, The Fountain of Love and Wisdom, Introduction, Page 20

Since 1972, she has lived in Bubikon, a small village near Bollingen, Switzerland, where Marie-Louise van Franz spent a great part of the year in her country house.

As Bubikon lies in the vicinity of both Bollingen and Kusnacht, Marie-Anne von Franz had easy access to both residences of her sister, with whom she had regular contact. ~The Fountain of Love and Wisdom, Introduction, Page xxxii, fn 3

1985 From this point on, she begins to lead a more introverted life in her house in Kusnacht and retreats ever more frequently to her tower in Bollingen, where she spends up to five months a year. ~The Fountain of Love and Wisdom, Chronology, Page xli

I felt she would have liked to die in Bollingen, which she loved, but that was not God’s will and so she died in her townhouse with all the good spirits of her past, and her students, analysands, and friends came to her, not forgetting her late dear friends, Barbara Hannah and Franz Riklin, and their regular gatherings together in that house. ~Anne McGuire, The Fountain of Love and Wisdom, Page 73