Marie Louise von Franz

Marie-Louise von Franz (January 4, 1915 - February 17, 1998), the daughter of an Austrian baron and born in Munich, Germany, was a Swiss Jungian Psychologist and scholar. She worked with Carl Jung whom she met in 1933 and knew until his death in 1961. She founded the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich. As a psychotherapist, she is said to have interpreted over 65,000 dreams, primarily practicing in Kusnacht, Switzerland.

She wrote over 20 volumes on Analytical psychology, most notably on fairy tales as they relate to Archetypal or Depth Psychology, most specifically by amplification of the themes and characters. She also wrote on subjects such as alchemy, discussed from the Jungian, psychological perspective, and active imagination, which could be described as conscious dreaming. In Man and his Symbols, von Franz described active imagination as follows: "Active imagination is a certain way of meditating imaginatively, by which one may deliberately enter into contact with the unconscious and make a conscious connection with psychic phenomena." (Jung, Man and his Symbols, p. 206-207)

Von Franz, in 1968, was the first to publish that the mathematical structure of DNA is analogous to that of the I Ching. She cites the reference to the publication in an expanded essay Symbols of the Unus Mundus, published in her book Psyche and Matter.

Carl Jung believed in the unity of the psychological and material worlds, i.e., they are one and the same, just different manifestations. He also believed that this concept of the unus mundus could be investigated through research on the archetypes of the natural numbers. Due to his age, he turned the problem over to von Franz. Two of her books, Number and Time and Psyche and Matter deal with this research.

Works (not exhaustive)

 * Alchemical Active Imagination ISBN 0-87773-589-1
 * Alchemy: An Introduction To The Symbolism And The Psychology ISBN 0-919123-04-X
 * Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales ISBN 1-894574-01-X
 * Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche ISBN 1-57062-426-7
 * Archetypal Patterns in Fairy Tales ISBN 0-919123-77-5
 * C. G. Jung: His Myth in Our Time ISBN 0-919123-78-3
 * Creation Myths ISBN 0-87773-528-X
 * Individuation in Fairy Tales ISBN 1-57062-613-8
 * Feminine in Fairy Tales ISBN 1-57062-609-X
 * Number and Time ISBN 0-8101-0532-2 (1974)
 * On Divination and Synchronicity: ... ISBN 0-919123-02-3
 * Light from the Darkness: The Paintings of Peter Birkhäuser ISBN 3-7643-1190-8 (1980)
 * On Dreams & Death: A Jungian Interpretation ISBN 0-8126-9367-1
 * Projection and Re-Collection in Jungian Psychology: Reflections of the Soul ISBN 0-87548-417-4
 * Psyche and Matter, Shambhala, Boston (1992) ISBN 0-87773-902-1
 * Psychological Meaning of Redemption Motif in Fairytales ISBN 0-919123-01-5
 * Puer Aeternus: A Psychological Study of the Adult Struggle With the Paradise of Childhood ISBN 0-938434-01-2
 * The Cat: A Tale of Feminine Redemption ISBN 0-919123-84-8
 * The Golden Ass of Apuleius: The Liberation of the Feminine in Man ISBN 1-57062-611-1
 * The Interpretation of Fairy Tales ISBN 0-87773-526-3
 * The Problem of the Puer Aeternus ISBN 0-919123-88-0
 * The Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales ISBN 0-87773-974-9
 * Time Rhythm and Repose ISBN 0-500-81016-8

Additionally, she collaborated with Emma Jung on The Grail Legend (ISBN 0-691-00237-1), which discusses the psychological symbolism of the documented legends of the Holy Grail.

Additional References

 * Jung, Carl G., editor (and, after his death, Marie-Louise von Franz); Man and his Symbols. Aldus Books, Ltd,. London, 1964. ISBN 0-385-05221-9.