CAN DREAMS CONNECT US TO THE ANCESTORS?
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- Опубліковано 20 сер 2024
- With Fanny Brewster, we explore Jung's struggle to explain the cultural complex hobbled by his own biases and discuss how ancestral dreams transcend that flaw.
Jung's concept of the collective unconscious emphasized the universal psychological substrate common to all humans. While he acknowledged the effects of the cultural unconscious, his work, at times, fell into the trap of perpetuating oversimplified and racially prejudiced stereotypes. Jung’s writings that refer to Africanist peoples, in particular, suffer from offensive assumptions. Dr. Fanny Brewster, Jungian analyst and author, searches for the healing cultural elements in the dreams of the African diaspora. Dreams have always been important in traditional African cultures. In Zimbabwe, the traditional healer, or sangoma, is called to the work by a dream that features a snake. For the Xhosa, dreams were how the ancestors communicated their wisdom. Today, most of us are cut off from our ancestors, but they remain a potential source of strength and healing. Dr. Brewster has undertaken the work of renewing and widening Jungian thought to include Africanist perspectives. She addresses the importance of community as we go about the necessary work of evolving consciousness.
Fanny Brewster, Ph.D., M.F.A. is a Jungian analyst, Professor of Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute, and member analyst with the Philadelphia Association of Jungian Analysts. She is a multi-genre writer who has written about issues at the intersection of Jungian psychology and American culture. Her most recent book is The Racial Complex: A Jungian Perspective on Culture and Race. (Routledge, 2019).
Learn More about Fanny Brewster, Ph.D. HERE: fannybrewster....
Check Out Her Books HERE: bookshop.org/l...
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Fanny Brewster is a conduit to our depths and our healing as individuals and as a collective. She is gifted and brave and a healing warrior. Listen to her. Meditate on her messages.
Thank you for this fascinating episode! What a fabulous and inspiring interview. My fiancé is from Guinea West Africa. We are both vivid dreamers and share our dreams. I cannot wait to share this with him. So grateful I found This Jungian Life to guide me and make sense of my individuation journey. Many Blessings in 2024!
Fanno Brewster has such a soft and enticing voice and her study is very apt when it comes to Africans of origine. Good job, from Italy😊
The mention of snake skins reminded me of this beautiful poem. Thought I would share.
Summer
BY ROBIN COSTE LEWIS
Last summer, two discrete young snakes left their skin
on my small porch, two mornings in a row. Being
postmodern now, I pretended as if I did not see
them, nor understand what I knew to be circling
inside me. Instead, every hour I told my son
to stop with his incessant back-chat. I peeled
a banana. And cursed God-His arrogance,
His gall-to still expect our devotion
after creating love. And mosquitoes. I showed
my son the papery dead skins so he could
know, too, what it feels like when something shows up
at your door-twice-telling you what you already know.
As a "white" person who moved from California to South Carolina as a death doula to care for someone at life's liminal space, this conversation is so vital for equipping my soul for this involuntary aspect of my journey to integrate into a more racially divided, factious, and impacted community. Thank you.
Beautiful conversation. Thank you!
Fantastic episode
I really loved this conversation. That books looks so fascinating, I look forward to reading it soon. Thanks so much for bringing this great info to us.
SO appreciative. - Portland, Oregon.
As my ancestors and elders encourage me to critique other elders within community, I think Fanny as an elder within the African diaspora, it’s crucial that she examines her own position and perhaps blind spots in this particular discussion on why her focus is centered around women of the African diaspora and seemingly excludes men of the African diaspora. Especially given the psychological conditioning the African diaspora has been subjected to in the West. I would enjoy hearing Fanny’s perspective of this from a historical and psychological lens.
I'm struggling to understand how Jung's philosophy of "everyone belongs" sits with his apparent view that Africans couldn't individuate. Someone please help me understand. Thank you.
No one knows everything! Jung had limitations as we all do!
This is why it is also good women who bring their feminine energy to analysis. It grows the connection to the collective which has been repressed by a patriarchal system. No human is perfect we are here for growth.
Where did he say people of African descent couldnt idividuate??? Genuinely want to know cus thats seem like a incredibley stupid belief and I would be shocked to know that he actually believed it considering he seemed so "woke" about most things 😅
Thank you for rich illumination of psychoanalytic principles and goals, 'cause I'm a babe in the library, learning as I crawl down the main hall. In particular appreciate the "investigative" attitude: is this true? Is this true for me? Like the Buddha said, don't take his word for it! Let's be lights unto ourselves, and for sure don't require our teachers to be perfectly enlightened in order for their insights to have value!
Thank you 🙏
Thank you very much.
Thanks for this. Very fascinating. The story of Jung and the whip; was that about a dream that Jung had, or was it a waking incident?
❤❤❤
Fear of a black Carl...(!?)
Is there something that Lisa is modulating during this interview?
When she looks below the camera it makes it looked as though she’s texting or reading something else and therefore absent from the conversation- just an observation.
The title of the video doesn’t align with the conversation, which seems to be more focused on identity politics than connecting with ancestors.
So much of the conversation seems to need added “In the USA” in order to be accurate, and in some cases is just flat out wrong.
As the co-host mentioned, Africa holds within it a myriad of cultures, yet the guest continues to speak as though the entire history of anyone with african ancestry is slavery, and no other group has ever been subjected to slavery…
To put it in context, African Americans make up 13% of the population *in the USA*,
and only 3% of the “black” population worldwide.
Their story, complexes and POV isn’t every “black” person’s.
As someone that has lived in the USA for the majority of my life, yet wasn’t born in the USA, and I can still see it from an outsider perspective, I wouldn’t say the USA is a racist country, but lord, is it fixated on race.
When she mentioned that there were no books on dreams from “black people”, that is just such a bizarre statement.
I never in my life had even thought that someone needed to publish a book on dreams from people of the country I am from (which isn’t caucasian) and never did I think I was reading about “white people’s dreams” when reading books on dreams from Jung or others.
She claims only recently do we not have “the narratives of white people” in movies with African americans…
how recently is “now”?
Is she familiar with William Crain?? And every african American filmmaker since the 50s that she’s basically pretending didn’t exist, just for the sake of a narrative?
For a fact there were shows being broadcasted, to audiences outside of the USA even, that were produced in the USA and the entire making of african americans, about african americans, before the 2000’s.
Moesha and the Cosby show to name a few.
Neither of those shows portrayed african americans in a demeaning way. Moesha was actually from a wealthy family in California and the plots were mostly coming of age.
Only NOW we see “black as beautiful”??
Did she miss the billboards of Naomi Campbell presented as an ideal all through the 90s?
Was Stacy Dash not presented as an equal next to Alicia Silverstone in Clueless, where they were both from millionaire households in Beverly Hills?
And then the guest throws BLM into the conversation as though she completely missed every report of how over a BILLION dollars was stolen and misused by members of that organization and not a single cent made it to an African American cultural center or community… it was all spent on guns, beach front properties and stripclubs.
Is their fraudulent behavior the fault of “white people” too?
It genuinely worries me that even within circles of people that are obviously well read and with higher education, there are such intellectually dishonest conversations.