Time and Timelessness: Temporality in the theory of Carl Jung

Time and Timelessness examines the development of Jung’s understanding of time throughout his opus, and the ways in which this concept has affected key elements of his work. In this book Yiassemides suggests that temporality plays an important role in many of Jung’s central ideas, and is closely interlinked with his overall approach to the psyche and the cosmos at large.

Jung proposed a profound truth: that time is relative at large. To appreciate the whole of our experience we must reach beyond causality and temporal linearity, to develop an approach that allows for multidimensional and synchronistic experiences. Jung’s understanding surpassed Freud’s dichotomous approach which restricted timelessness to the unconscious; his time theory allows us to reach beyond the everyday time-bound world into a greater realm, rich with meaning and connection.

Included in the book:

-Jung’s time theory

-the death of time

-time and spatial metaphors

-the role of time in precognition, telepathy and synchronicity

–Unus mundus and time

-a comparison of Freud’s and Jung’s time theories: temporal directionality, dimensionality, and the role of timelessness.

This book is the first to explore time and timelessness in a systematic manner from a Jungian perspective, and the first to investigate how the concept of time affected the overall development of Jung’s theory. It will be key reading for psychoanalytic scholars and clinicians, as well as those working in the field of phenomenological philosophy.