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This talk explores Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, written in the early 13th century, as a profound symbolic narrative of psychological and spiritual transformation. Parzival is not only a personal story of a knight’s quest, but it is also a collective dream – a mythological effort by the collective to restore the feminine dimension of the soul, of God, and of the world. We will examine how the Grail quest – far from being an irrelevant medieval legend – speaks directly to our divided modern world and to the deeper psychic tension between opposites within the human soul.
Robert Matthews is Jungian Analyst, trained at the Research and Training Centre for Depth Psychology in Zurich according to C.G. Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz. He is in private practice in Adelaide and is the current President of the C G Jung Society of South Australia. He is also a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education, Adelaide University, teaching classroom management and the application of neuroscience in education. He has a PhD in theoretical physics and has recently published the book The Paradoxical Meeting of Depth Psychology and Physics: Reflections on the Unification of Psyche and Matter. A discussion of this book can be found in an interview with Laura London on Speaking of Jung.
Learning objectives:
- Explain how Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, as a symbolic narrative of psychological transformation, presents the Grail quest as an inner journey from naïve unconsciousness, through failure and suffering, toward a more integrated relationship between thinking, feeling, action, and compassion.
- Apply Parzival’s story to contemporary experiences of division and spiritual hunger.
Image: Heidelberg University Library, Cod. Pal. germ. 848 (Codex Manesse), fol. 149r
