A woman's way: A Conversation with Marie-Louise von Franz

• Published in: Psychological perspectives 1990-01, Vol.22 (1), p.102-121
• Main Author: Franz, Mane-Louise von
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0033-2925; 1556-3030
• DOI: 10.1080/00332929008408094

The 74-year-old Marie-Louise von Franz is internationally recognized as one of the most loving and creative voices of analytical psychology. In this wide-ranging conversation with Donna Spencer and our editor, Ernest Rossi, Marie-Louise begins with a few highlights of the significance of Nietzsche's Zarathustra for an understanding of the current evolution of human consciousness. She helps us focus on the function of feeling as a guide through the maze of political and professional ideologies that can distort an individual's insight and ever unique way. If the ego chooses to parade as the "announcer" of unconscious. inspiration, then the unconscious becomes contaminated with human inadequacies and prejudices, because these had not previously been integrated into the conscious personality. The water of the unconscious spirit is muddied, so to speak, by personal and all-too-human contents and then overflows into consciousness. Jung analyzed Thus Spake Zarathustra in order to arrive at a clear distinction between what is genuine inspiration in the work and what appears to be distorted as a result of Nietzsche's unresolved personal problems, chiefly those due to his inflation. Since Nietzsche identified with the Superman, the "higher" men want to drag him "down to the collective sphere of average humanity" and finally the "ugliest" man emerges as an expression of the regulating influence of the unconscious. "But the roaring lion of Zarathustra 's moral conviction forces all these influences...back again into the cave of the unconscious. Thus the regulating influence is suppressed, but not the secret counteraction of the unconscious", which from then on Nietzsche projected onto one or another adversary. (pp. 43-44)