A detailed and scholarly collection of essays on the art of Varo (b. Spain 1908 - d. México 1963) as studied from 5 different perspectives, with contributions from Walter Gruen, her second husband.

Alchemy, Jung, and Remedios Varo offers a depth psychological analysis of the art and life of Remedios Varo, a Spanish surrealist painter. The book uses Varo’s paintings in a revolutionary way: to critique the patriarchal underpinnings of Jungian psychology, alchemy, and Surrealism, illuminating how Varo used painting to address cultural complexes that silence female expression. The book focuses on how the practice of alchemical psychology, through the power of imagination and the archetypal Feminine, can lead to healing and transformation for individuals and culture. Alchemy, Jung, and Remedios Varo offers the first in-depth psychological treatment of the role alchemy played in the friendship between Varo and Leonora Carrington—a connection that led to paintings that protest the pitfalls of patriarchy. This unique book will be of great interest for academics, scholars, and post-graduate students in the fields of analytical psychology, art history, Surrealism, cultural criticism, and Jungian studies.

This volume examines the relationship between occultism and Surrealism, specifically exploring the reception and appropriation of occult thought, motifs, tropes and techniques by Surrealist artists and writers in Europe and the Americas, from the 1920s through the 1960s. Its central focus is the specific use of occultism as a site of political and social resistance, ideological contestation, subversion and revolution. Additional focus is placed on the ways occultism was implicated in Surrealist discourses on identity, gender, sexuality, utopianism and radicalism.

This authoritative, multidisciplinary overview of altered states of consciousness (ASC) shows how their study is necessary to gain a fundamental understanding of human culture, history, and biology. Altered consciousness is one of humanity's most mystical and life-altering aspects. These remarkable changes in mental state have understandably been a topic of general interest and scientific inquiry across time. Beyond simply satisfying our curiosity, however, studies focused upon altered consciousness can also bring valuable insights into our experience, biology, and culture. This unprecedented two-volume set will intrigue anyone interested in psychology, biology and neurology, science, history, arts and the humanities, and literature on consciousness, from general readers to scholars and researchers. An impressive collection of international contributors address altered states of consciousness from the perspectives of history, evolution, psychology, culture, literature, human biology, contemporary science, and society, seeking to illuminate the causes, effects, and meanings of altered consciousness. The first volume provides an introduction and centers on the importance of altered states in history, culture, and the humanities, while the second volume presents biological and psychological perspectives on altered consciousness and examines their potential for healing and pathology.

Presents 77 of the finest paintings by one of Mexico's foremost modern artists and a leading practitioner of surrealism.

Combining a range of content with self-reflexive examination by scholars and practitioners, this edited volume interrogates the contemporary significance of the avant-garde. Rather than focusing on a particular region, period, or movement, the contributors bring together case studies to examine what constitutes the avant-garde canon.

Mapping the uncharted territory at the edges of psychological knowledge, these fascinating essays explore compelling aspects of dreams and dreaming. They discuss topics as diverse as memorable dreams, lucid dreaming, the role of dreams in the evolution of human consciousness and the relationship between dreams and the waking state. In ‘The Dream and Its Embedding’, psychoanalyst Patrick Mahony demonstrates, with absorbing case studies, how dreams can become effective therapeutic tools, while dream scholar Kelly Bulkely concludes in ‘Big Dreams’ that, ultimately, the function of dreams is to make the brain grow. Luigi Zoja, dream analyst, explores the profusion of nightmares among soldiers, prisoners and other victims of war in ‘Nightmares’. And Madhu Tandan, who lived for seven years at an ashram in the foothills of the Himalayas, explains how dreams can access a level of consciousness beyond the psychological. This volume is the first in the ‘Boundaries of Consciousness’ series, which, under the leadership of Sudhir Kakar, seeks to bring together psychoanalysts, philosophers, religious studies scholars and neuroscientists in order to expand the frontiers of current psychological understanding. Subsequent volumes will spring from symposia held at Wasan Island, Canada, on the supernatural, death and dying and creativity and imagination. Edited and introduced by Sudhir Kakar, On Dreams and Dreaming will be of interest to scholars and to all who dream and seek to understand why.

Surreal Friends brings together for the first time the work of three women Surrealist artists, brought together in exile in Mexico in the 1940s: British painter Leonora Carrington, Spanish painter Remedios Varo and Hungarian photographer Kati Horna. For all three women, Mexico offered freedom to explore their art in ways that had not been possible in Europe. Surreal Friends tells the fascinating story of their artistic friendship.

The first book in English on Maruja Mallo, this volume is an insightful examination of the life and work of this seminal artist of the Spanish avant-garde. Previously sidelined by a culture that treated women as "insider-outsiders" and by her own mythmaking, Mallo no longer can be viewed as simply a muse to famous counterparts such as Salvador Dal?nd Federico Garc?Lorca; her role has been re-contextualized to demonstrate that she was a driving force in the flowering of Spanish culture through the 1920s and 1930s. The analysis of Mallo's unique life and extraordinary art is set against the complicated social and political backdrop of interwar Madrid. This book highlights the struggle of Mallo and other women artists against the rampant misogyny of both Spanish culture and the avant-garde community of the time. The effects of the Spanish Civil War are also analyzed-in Mallo's case, Franco's victory forced her into exile in South America for almost 30 years, with profound effects on her art and her life. Added to this rich context, the author's numerous interviews with members of the Mallo family provide essential new background material. Maruja Mallo and the Spanish Avant-Garde recasts this artist as a vital figure in the heretofore all-male establishment of the Spanish artistic vanguard.

A personal narrative that explores madness through the use of literature, art, and philosophy to achieve lasting mental health without drugs. “Twenty-two years ago, I lost my mind.” So begins Jeanne Ellen Petrolle’s fascinating personal narrative about her mental illness and recovery. Drawing on literature, art, and philosophy, Petrolle explores a unique understanding of madness that allowed her to achieve lasting mental health without using long-term psychiatric drugs. Traditionally, Western literature, art, and philosophy have portrayed madness through six concepts created from myth—Escape into the Wild, Flight from a Scene of Terror, Visit to the Underworld, Dark Night of the Soul, Spiritual Passion, and Fire in the Mind. Rather than conceptualizing madness as “illness,” a mythopoetic concept assumes that madness contains symbolic meaning and offers valuable insight into human concerns like love, desire, sex, adventure, work, fate, spirituality, and God. Madness becomes an experience that unleashes extraordinary creativity by generating the spiritual insight that fuels artistic productivity and personal transformation. By weaving her personal experiences with the life stories and work of surrealist painter Leonora Carrington and modernist novelist Djuna Barnes, Petrolle shows how poetic thinking about severe mental distress can complement strategies for managing mental illness. This approach allowed her, and hopefully others, to produce better long-term treatment outcomes. “This is an extraordinary book that combines meticulous literary scholarship with memoir. It bravely challenges us to reconsider and reframe mental illness, defined here as an ‘ultimate adventure in selfhood’ that connects to beauty, creativity, and the sublime. As it traces how skepticism of prevailing attitudes and treatments can save lives, Dancing with Ophelia is also, at its root, a deeply spiritual book that grapples with love, courage, ambition, and the idea of God.” — Aviya Kushner, author of The Grammar of God: A Journey into the Words and Worlds of the Bible “This book offers an interesting and engagingly written exploration of mental distress that draws on a range of literary and scholarly sources in combination with personal experience. It sits within the small, but growing, body of work that interweaves personal narrative with an academic analysis of ‘illness’ or disruption.” — Deborah Bowman, coauthor of Informed Consent: A Primer for Clinical Practice