The animus is a cunning fox who knows how to hide his footprints with his tail. -C.G. Jung.
Editor’s Foreword
During my four years at the C.G. Jung lnstitute of Znrich (1974-
1978), I went to all of Dr. von Franz’s lectures and read everything
she ever wrote. Some of her seminars had been transcribed
and were available in mimeographed form.
Several were published by Spring: Introduction to the Interpretation of Fairy Tales, The Feminine in Fairy Tales, Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales, Individuation in Fairy Tales.
I found these and others particularly valuable in amplifoing the meaning of images that turned up nightly in my dreams.
I devoured them and lamented the fact that they were not indexed.
But not for long.
Before I found myself on my knees I had been a freelance editor,
and so I set about creating indexes for her fairy tale books, as well as for my first love of hers, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus.
I photocopied my painstaking work and sold it to
other students and past graduates. Eventually Spring bought the
rights to these indexes and incorporated them in subsequent
printings.
The benefit to me was twofold:
I absorbed von Franz’s attitude toward the psyche and I was able to pay my tuition fees”
In 1978 I returned to Toronto as a certified Jungian analyst.
Thanks to the groundwork laid by the late James M. Shaw and the late Robertson Davies, who had co-founded the Jung Foundation of Ontario in 1970, I soon had a thriving practice.
Still, I was restless.
I had so much energy I thought I might explode.
For some time I had been trying to interest publishers in my Dipfoma thesis on Franz Kafka, The Secret Raven: Conflict and Transformalion. I had high hopes.
The l00th anniversary of his birth was coming up, and then the 60th anniversary of his death”
But there were no takers.
I was frustrated. And then Marion Woodman and the late Fraser Boa, close friends and fellorv Ziirich graduates, encouraged me to publish it myself. “Why not?” they said. “You have the tools.”
I rcadily agreed.
“l)r. von Franz,” I said. “I am starting a publishing house and I’nr interested in some of your unpublished seminars.
In thinkftg of Redemption Motifs in Fairy Tales, On Synchronicily and Divination and Alchemy: An Inlroduction to the Symbolism and the Psychologt. I have mimeographed copies.”
She said she was very pleased to be asked. What is more, she graciously agreed to be Honorary Patron of Inner City Books.
Those three books of hers have sold over 80,000 copies to date.
Periodically I wrote von Franz asking if she had other manuscripts Inner City might publish.
My persistence was rewarded In 1996 when she offered Archetypal Patrems in Fairy Tales and reprint rights to Puer Aerernus and C.G. Jung: His Myth in Our Time.
Iust six months before she died, she gave us another hitherto unpublished fairy tale seminar, Zre Cat: A Tale of Feminine Redemption.
- Most recently we published a reprint of her Aurora Consurgens
- On the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy. on the morning of r”Uruury il, 1998, I awoke to find an email message from Bob Hinshaw, fellow analyst and publisher of Daimon Books in Einsiedeln, Switzerland:
..Sad news from Ziirich. Marlus died early this morning. She has been ailing for quite some time and this was surely her deliverance.’,
The farewell service was scheduled to be held in the Reform Church of K0snacht on February 26.
I am averse to travel, especially to trips across multiple time-zones, and so for a few days I resisted the idea of being there.
But in the end I had to go.
She was my patron, after all, and the inner urge to publicly honor our association was just too great.
And what a joyful occasion it turned out to be: a simple service with heart-felt valedictory addresses and a Schubert concert, followed by a sumptuous buffet and a seemingly endless supply of Swiss wine-all provided for in
advance by von Franz herself.
In the midst of all this, I had a sudden realization.
This dearly departed old woman, a self-professed thinking type who had often publically confessed her difficulty with her inferior feeling
function-to the extent of having to memorize collective expressions
of sympathy, congratulations on weddings, etc.-had done this for zs.
Well, if that does not betoken an integration of opposites, I don’t know what does. I silently thanked her for this sotlo voce example ofthe coniunctio.
So, in 1998 the world-wide Jungian community lost a great lady, and Inner City lost a beloved patron.
But the spirit of Marie-Louise von Franz lives on-in her books, in those sne
worked with analytically, and in the many thousands of others who have been helped or influenced by her writings.
Her legacy will surely be that she appreciated Jung’s message and did her utmost to further it.
And more, for she was not a mindless devotee of Jung. She made her own mark, put her own inimitable stamp both on Jungian psychology and on those she taught.
lninus and Anima in Fairy Tales is unique in that it is the only book by a Jungian analyst which deals exclusively with the problem of the contrasexual complexes as it is illuminated by fairy tales.
There are of course other commentaries by analysts on the animus and anima-as listed here in a section of the Bibliography-but none that focuses on lhem exclusively in terms of fairy tales.
Since Dr. von Franz was the acknowledged expert on the psychological interpretation of fairy tales, this book has a particular value for those interested in the subject.
Meanwhile, we understand from the heirs of her literary estate
(Emmanuel Kennedy and the Stiftung fiir Jung’sche psychologie)
that other unpublished manuscripts (and more by the late Barbara
Hannah as well) will be available in the near future.
We await them with great anticipation.
Personally, I feel privileged and fortunate indeed to be in a position to keep alive the work and spirit of Marie-Louise von Franz, to the benefit of everyone who strives to become psychologically conscious.
Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales is unique in that it is the only book by a Jungian analyst which deals exclusively with the problem of the contrasexual complexes as it is illuminated by fairy tales.
There are of course other commentaries by analysts on the animus and anima-as listed here in a section of the Bibliography-but none that focuses on lhem exclusively in terms of fairy tales.
Since Dr. von Franz was the acknowledged expert on the psychological interpretation of fairy tales, this book has a particular value for those interested in the subject.
Meanwhile, we understand from the heirs of her literary estate (Emmanuel Kennedy and the Stiftung fiir Jung’sche psychologie) that other unpublished manuscripts (and more by the late Barbara Hannah as well) will be available in the near future.
We await them with great anticipation.
Personally, I feel privileged and fortunate indeed to be in a position to keep alive the work and spirit of Marie-Louise von Franz, to the benefit of everyone who strives to become psychologically conscious. Darvl Sharp
The animus is a cunning fox who knows how to hide his footprints with his tail. -Carl Jung, Anima and Animus, Page 1
Fairy tales represent something very much removed from human consciousness.
I once heard Jung say that if one interprets a fairy tale thoroughly, one must take at least a week’s holiday afterrvard, because it is so difficult.
The difficulty is due to the fact that the fairy tale is based on certain functions ofthe psyche without any personal material to trridge it.
What we have is just the skeleton of the psyche with the skin and flesh removed. Only that remains which is of gencral human interest.
They are absolutely abstract patterns.
In primitive tales there is an element present that has been lost in most of the later ones, namely the element of awe, of terror, of the divine, which early people experienced in meeting the archetypes. ~Marie-Louise von Franz, Animus and Anima, Page 11
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