Marie-Louise von Franz, on Magic
[When I first read Shadow and Evil in Fairytales in college, one of my first introductions to Jungian thinking, I was absolutely astounded. Fairy tales weren’t just stories? Fairy tales were important? Fairy tales had a psychological purpose and pattern? Apparently there was more to the world than I had been taught at home and in high school.]
Marie Louise von Franz, on Magic, Spirituality and Religion
Magic is probably one of the oldest of man’s spiritual activities.
Whenever a new conscious attitude arises, the old knowledge, the previous attitude, sinks onto the level of magic.
Magic is therefore the older form of spiritual and religious knowledge and activity which has been superseded by a new spiritual religious attitude, and therefore has sunk back into a more unconscious condition.
In the Irish story the magic of the horse wins against that of the blind seer.
This is a Celtic story and the underworld country is obviously the famous Celtic beyond where the fairies and elves live, where the dead go, where the beautiful damsels on the lake, and others, come from, and where the knights of the Middle Ages got lost.
There Merlin, the great magician himself, got bewitched.
The land of the Beyond in Celtic mythology has a romantic character which is what has been lost in the upperworld.
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