This volume explores a dimension of reality usually scoffed at by rational-thinking individuals living in modern industrialized societies, but still experienced by these same individuals when they are in a stage of sleep known as rapid eye movement (REM) sleep; this is the stage in which vivid and bizarre dreams are a person’s living reality. While in this stage, we believe what we experience is real, but then deny its reality upon awakening as we go about our daily routines. Yet, in many cases, a dream with vivid imagery and bizarre goings on is communicating with the dreamer in an archaic language directly associated with an “Otherworld” reality. This reality exists within us and expresses concepts and ideas about our realm of existence that pertain to our waking lives, as well as to an alternate, archaic life with its own language and ideas transcending physical reality. By studying various myths and folk tales, along with cinematic portrayals of otherworldly experiences, commentary from modern individuals, and reports from traditional shamans who are experts at traversing the Otherworld reality, this text discerns the features and characteristics of this supernatural realm. Contemporary research into the Otherworld marks this realm as corresponding to the unconscious substratum of the human psyche, what C.G. Jung referred to as the collective unconscious. Certain scientists have found evidence of its connection with various aspects of brain functioning, suggesting that the brain in many ways encourages a belief in the Otherworld. However, it would be a mistake to call the Otherworld a figment of the human imagination, since this realm seems to have a type of physical existence. The book considers the Otherworld to exist and provides reasons why rational-thinking individuals are hesitant to accept its existence even when their brains are telling them: the Otherworld is real, and you have just experienced it.

This book explores the cognitive inter-dynamics of two overarching dimensions of human consciousness, referred to as This World and The Otherworld, respectively. Together, these dimensions may create, for any developing girl, a more-or-less unique experience of the archetype referred to here as Lolita, in the Mist. This “mist” may be a vital detail of Lolita imagery for an individual girl feeling protected enough to explore her budding sexuality in This World that is conjured, to a significant degree, through The Otherworld dimension. Indeed, such imagery may be a part of what dreaming experienced in waking life is made of. The book will be of interest to scholars and other researchers interested in how visual and social perceptual processes, principally through film imagery, might create a more phenomenological experience of the archetype through the interplay between This World and The Otherworld, as each exists within all of us.

Nonrational Logic in Contemporary Society explores modern examples of beliefs that defy logic but nevertheless are enthusiastically embraced by legions of contemporary people living in technologically advanced societies.The appeal of nonrational logic is based upon C.G. Jung’s ideas regarding archetypes, considered to be unconscious thought and behavioural patterns universal to all of humanity and expressed in dreams, art, religion, and reports of supernatural and paranormal experiences such as the belief in UFOs, conspiracy theories associated with child sacrifice and devil worship, lizard people who secretly rule the world, and internet demons whom many insist are real. C.G. Jung insisted that archetypal reality must be acknowledged for what it is: expressions of universal truths about the human condition. Nonrational Logic includes a multitude of examples from world folklore and reports of traditional customs from around the world collected in the multivolume anthropological classic, The Golden Bough, by James Frazer, comparing these traditional reports with contemporary ones to underscore the human psyche’s obsessive desire to embrace the fantastic, the extraordinary, and the unbelievable. Nonrational Logic in Contemporary Society is important reading for analytical psychologists, Jungian psychotherapists, and other professionals as well as the general public seeking to understand how prevalent nonrational thinking is in modern societies and how it reflects traditional expressions.

Focusing on Slovenian mythology the book contains a review of Slovenian mythological, historical, and narrative material. Over 150 supernatural beings are presented, both lexically and according to the role that they have in Slovenian folklore. They are classified by type, characteristic, features, and by the message conveyed in their motifs and contents. The material has been analysed in the context of European and some non-European mythological concepts, and the author deals with theory and interpretations as well as the conclusions of domestic and foreign researchers. The book forms new starting points and a classification of supernatural beings within a frame of a number of sources, some of which have been published for the first time in this book.

A study of heroism in the myths of the world - an exploration of all the elements common to the great stories that have helped people make sense of their lives from the earliest times. It takes in Greek Apollo, Maori and Jewish rites, the Buddha, Wotan, and the bothers Grimm's Frog-King.

This ISBN refers to the ebook edition of this text, available directly from the publisher. It has erroneously been listed as paperback by some online vendors. The true paperback edition is indeed available at online vendors. Paste this ISBN into the search box: 9780874217810. In this, the first collection of essays to address the development of fairy tale film as a genre, Pauline Greenhill and Sidney Eve Matrix stress, "the mirror of fairy-tale film reflects not so much what its audience members actually are but how they see themselves and their potential to develop (or, likewise, to regress)." As Jack Zipes says further in the foreword, “Folk and fairy tales pervade our lives constantly through television soap operas and commercials, in comic books and cartoons, in school plays and storytelling performances, in our superstitions and prayers for miracles, and in our dreams and daydreams. The artistic re-creations of fairy-tale plots and characters in film—the parodies, the aesthetic experimentation, and the mixing of genres to engender new insights into art and life— mirror possibilities of estranging ourselves from designated roles, along with the conventional patterns of the classical tales.” Here, scholars from film, folklore, and cultural studies move discussion beyond the well-known Disney movies to the many other filmic adaptations of fairy tales and to the widespread use of fairy tale tropes, themes, and motifs in cinema.