On Opicino de Canestris and an unearthed seminar by C.G. Jung

Opicino de Canestris was clerk at the papal court in Avignon at the beginning of the XIVth century. After a psychotic episode at the age of 38, he drew impressive figures, full of annotations, on big sheets of parchemin. It was recently discovered that Jung held a seminar on Opicino in Eranos in 1943. After a quick analysis of these images, Jung demontrates that the clerk was schizophrenic, and torn between his religious status and his impulses. However, it appears from a careful reading of Opicino’s notations and dreams that he was able to overcome his Mother complex, to face his own shadow and slowly find a sort of balance thanks to the power of the symbolic process, which is, according to Jung, “to live within the image and to live the image”. This article gives also a summary of the Jung seminar, which presents an original view of the origin of modern conscience from the solar religions thema.