Surfing as I read

Paul Rée – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I am reading When Nietzsche Wept by Irvin Yalom. It is a strange mix of fact & fiction. A sort of "theatre of truth" about the origins of psychotherapy. I wondered if there really was such a photo of Nietzsche and Paul Ree. And indeed there is !

Lou Andreas-Salomé – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Salome features large in the opening of the novel & she seems an interesting & important figure indeed.

Referencing Wikipedia

Psyche

In Greek mythology Psyche ("soul" or "butterfly") was the human bride of Eros, the god of love. Before she is allowed to marry Eros she is forced to undergo many difficult ordeals. Apuleius tells the story of Eros and Psyche in his Metamorphoses.

Eros' mother, Aphrodite, was jealous of the beauty of Psyche. She asked Eros to use his golden arrows to cause Psyche to fall in love with the ugliest man on earth.

Psyche – Wikipedia

That is a quote & a reference to athe opening of the item on Psyche in Wikipedia reference in 2004, saved for posterity (hopefully) in the web.archive.org. Using a slightly different structure (as there are now may more items with the title Psyche) this page has dramatically evolved in 2006, and it is different. Here is the current version (if you are reading my blog on Friday, 14 April, 2006.) of the equivalent passage

Apuleius' tale of Cupid and Psyche

The goddess Venus, jealous of the outstandingly beautiful mortal Psyche, asked her son Cupid to cause Psyche to fall in love with the vilest wretch alive. Cupid agreed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupid_and_Psyche

I think there is marked improvement in consistency & clarity, a tribute to the spirit of Wikipedia & the people who serve her! But one thing is clear, that if I wanted to reference a passage or refer to wikipedia items in my writing I'd better do that using http://web.archive.org as that will ensure we are still looking at the same page.

I could not find any other information about how to reference Wikipedia, surely academic institutions have policy on this?  Using the Web Archive seems an excellent solution.

Nice selection of quotes

Jung: On Dreams:  Here is one I like:

Dreams are impartial, spontaneous products of the unconscious psyche, outside the control of the will. They are pure nature; they show us the unvarnished, natural truth, and are therefore fitted, as nothing else is, to give us back an attitude that accords with our basic human nature when our consciousness has strayed too far from its foundations and run into an impasse.

“The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man” (1933). In CW 10: Civilization in Transition. P.317

Powerful Shadows

Bettelheim
I just bought a book by Bettelheim, Freud and Man’s Soul. The appeal was to get a grasp on a better translated Freud. New to me & starkly present in the bio on the first page of the book is the fact of Bettleheim’s suicide, that shocked me. More research reveals a wikipedia entry and other references to lies and abuse that mar his life. His theories are “proven” to be wrong. The man sure had a big shadow, but the reviews linked to above, “Given His Tortured Sense of Inferiority, Did Bettelheim Want To Be Found Out?” by Christine Downing gives a fuller account, allowing the possibility of seeing value in his work, light & shadow. After reading that I still want to go on reading my new book!