This Jungian Life Podcast

I unsubscribed when I heard Joseph was out. Love him. Then I heard a podcast where Lisa was talking about transgender issues in the most clinical, empathic, practical manner so I re-subscribed. It's odd how trans is the only topic that is off limits to basic questions and the application of psychoanalytic or Jungian theories. I applaud her for applying basic common sense to this topic, where everyone else is caught up in the counter transference. She is the only person of merit, that I'm aware of, who has risked her reputation to uphold the principles of our field. Bravo.

I love this podcast. The interplay of the three analysts is great and offers different perspectives and insights (as long as one of them doesn’t talk too much). Love the episode themes they explore and including dream work in almost every show.

In style, substance and content, this is the most valuable and transforming podcast to which I’ve ever listened. I just wish I could be friends with the hosts.

Just consistently wonderful content. I don’t think I’ve ever listened to an episode and not had several moments of “aha” surprise. Highly recommended!

I implore anyone still listening to this podcast to do your own research. Read the Southern Poverty Law Center's research on the anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscientific movement and Lisa Marchiano's deep connections to it. Her longstanding involvment in this network of hate groups goes beyond the pale and is neither empathetic or clinical. In fact she continues to align herself with far right hate groups in order to advance and proliferate these ideologies. Read the court filings related to the ongoing legal dispute between Lisa, Deb, and Joseph Lee, which elucidate the troubling behind the scenes dynamics that have been festering for years. Did you know that Lisa unilaterally gave creative decision-making for topics of discussion on the podcast to a conservative far right journalist named Jano Tantongo? Do your own research and then ask yourself if still want to listen to this podcast. We live in a time when it is more important than ever to think critically and stay in alignment with our values. Maybe you're like me and you feel the podcast is missing something without Joseph. Maybe you're like me and you don't want to listen to a podcast that has fallen in line with the hateful political rhetoric that pervades this moment. Or maybe you're like me and something about this podcast that used to be so wonderful in the early days simply feels 'off'. Trust your inner knowing. Do your own research. Support projects and people that are aligned with your values. As for me, I will not be ‘moving onward and forward’ with Lisa and Deborah. I will not be ‘re-subscribing’. I will not platform a podcast that is created by individuals who lack moral integrity.

I oddly hadn’t felt called to listen to TJL much in the last few months, even though it’s a fav, and I’ve listened to hundreds of hours over the years. I completely missed the drama and Joseph’s now very conspicuous absence, until it was directly addressed in a recent episode. I won’t pretend to know the backstory of what happened, though I can imagine into some of the probable dynamics 🌀 Regardless, I want to say that I always resonated with Joseph’s more mystical connection to the current of Self that Jung was touching and articulating. It has spoken to my own traversing of these spaces. I find Jungian psychoanalysis as a “set of techniques” within a tradition rather stale, which is honestly how I am experiencing the show now. Joseph, I imagine this is a very deep Dark Night of the Soul, and am viscerally feeling into what must be the utter heartbreak. I have had to grieve my own unimaginable relational loses on the mystical path. I feel like I parasocially “know” you a bit, whatever that actually means, so take this with a grain of salt 😂 The young people need your voice of grounded mysticism! I’ve explored many traditional and modern spiritual spaces, including the generally 35 and younger “Conscious Community.” I’ve found that the traditional paths are pretty ossified and what is more newly emerging is generally a hot mess 😂 People opened up by psychedelics, archetypal erotic exploration, all the things the kids are up to, with very little psychological preparation. Many are ending up in various (often capitalistically commodified?) states of archetypal inflation, infantile ego organizational hijack, and some even shipwrecked in quasipsychotic states very similar Jung’s creative illness. I am gratefully for my psychological training, and Jung’s field notes and coherent organizing frame that has withstood my experience of reality so far. I see that it is more broadly needed now than ever. Whatever calls to you next is your call, of course! In my personal fantasy, I’d love to hear more about your mystical journey and other influences, what has worked for you, what fires you’ve be singed by, as well as perspectives on what is generally happening in the culture. Talk about a collective hot mess! I’ve always sensed that there was more of you, more mystical wisdom, than TJL was a sufficient vehicle for. If you decide to continue podcasting, I definitely will listen to whatever comes next, and I imagine there are other former TJL listeners like me. Also, I’d love to hear more of your mystical queer perspectives, if you have them. The Self, at least in my experience, revels in a sort of formless fluidity between forms, that is radically genderqueer, archetypally queer, species queer, maybe ever cosmic forces queer, but is lived within the embodiment of a specific human incarnation. What a task! I see the same restrictive boxing of some part of that current on all sides, whether they be cultural, political, generational, in vastly different frameworks and languages. Whatever the Self is, it is currently breaking all the epistemological boxes that once housed it, and we collectively living through that creative destruction. We need voices that know this terrain intimately. You are truly one of the most grounded, psychologically-sophisticated, living mystics that I’ve encountered, and I’ve explored pretty widely. I trust that no matter how painful this passage is, more of you will unfurl next, and will help orient many. Thank you for your dedication to the radical challenge of incarnating Self in these times 🌀💫🌱