Paul Bishop, Ph.D. is a Jungian scholar, professor, and writer living and working in Glasgow, Scotland.
After graduating from the College of St. Mary Magdalen at the University of Oxford he spent a year as a DAAD Scholar at the DLA Marbach before entering the doctoral program at Oxford’s Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages. He was awarded the Lady Julia Henry Fellowship at Harvard University and spent a year as an Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung Fellow at Marbach. He graduated with a Ph.D. from Oxford in 1994 with the dissertation, “C.G. Jung’s Reception of Friedrich Nietzsche,” later published as the book, The Dionysian Self.
For twelve years, he held the position of Professor of German at the University of Glasgow, and in 2013 was named the William Jacks Chair in Modern Languages at the university’s School of Modern Languages and Cultures, where he currently serves as an Honorary Professorial Research Fellow.
Professor Bishop’s most recent books include Discourses of Philology and Theology in Nietzsche (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) and Nietzsche’s Writing Against Religion and the Crisis of Faith (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024). He has contributed chapters to such recent publications as, Ideas and Influences on Eranos, edited by Louise Belfrage (Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation, 2025), Self-Optimization in Modernist Culture, edited by Thorsten Carstensen and Mattias Pirholt (Brill, 2025), and Where Is Soul? Psychology in Modernity, edited by Greg Mogenson and Pamela J. Power (Dusk Owl Books, 2025).
His current project is a four-volume series of studies for Chiron Publications, examining the great canonical texts that exercised a decisive influence on the development of analytical psychology and the thought of C.G. Jung. The first two volumes – on Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival (discussed in Episode 135) and on Goethe’s Faust (the subject of this episode) have been published, and in the pipeline are a book on Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra and, rounding off the series, a study of The Red Book, seen as a contribution to the tradition we can call the Epic of Transformation.
At this year’s congress of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP), Professor Bishop was awarded Honorary Membership of the IAAP, and a few weeks ago he was presented with a commemorative stone of this very prestigious honor while visiting Copenhagen to teach a class on The Red Book at the Jung Institute of Denmark. You can read an interview with Professor Bishop by IAAP president Misser Berg in their November 2025 News Bulletin.
This video interview was recorded on Wednesday, December 10, 2025. It’s 01:20:43 long and 77.5 MB. You can listen to it right here in your browser (click the play button in the bar below) or watch the video edition on our YouTube channel.
THE BOOK
Jung and the Epic of Transformation, Vol. 2: Goethe’s Faust as a Text of Transformation Available in hardcover, paperback and Kindle
Read an excerpt from the book in our Blog Pages 12-18
SHOW NOTES
Temenos Dream Download the revolutionary new app to record, organize, share and interpret your dreams.
In the Spotlight: Paul Bishop An interview with Misser Berg, IAAP President, 2022-2025 (PDF)
Memories, Dreams, Reflections C.G. Jung and Aniela Jaffé (Currently 28% off at Amazon US)
C.G. Jung: Word and Image Edited by Aniela Jaffé
Jung’s Life and Work: Interviews for Memories, Dreams, Reflections with Aniela Jaffé Edited by Sonu Shamdasani
Speaking with Laura: Ep. 4 Hermetic astrologer Gary P. Caton explores the birth chart of C.G. Jung
Goethe’s Faust A Norton Critical Edition
Faust 2020 Performed at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland
Faust 2011 Santa Fe Opera
“Northern Lights” Northern Exposure (Season 4, Episode 18) on Amazon Prime Video
Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
Paul Bishop on Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio with Miguel Conner (Ep. Q10), Nov. 19, 2025
Jung’s letter to Dr. Max Rychner Laura’s Twitter post
C.G. Jung Letters, Vol. 1: 1906-1950 (Currently 25% off at Amazon US)
Psychology and Alchemy Vol. 12 of the Collected Works of C.G. Jung (Currently 50% off at Amazon US)
Goethe’s Faust: Notes for a Jungian Commentary by Edward F. Edinger, M.D., Jungian analyst
Faust Wines St. Helena, California
Gita Dorothy Morena, Ph.D. Jungian analyst (March 2026 guest)
It’s Dorothy Film
Who is Philemon? Page by the Philemon Foundation (Explains Jung’s inscription, “Philemonis Sacrum – Fausti Poenitentia.”)
Metamorphoses by Ovid
Letters between Schiller and Goethe and Associates A Critical Reader’s Edition
Psychological Types Vol. 6 of the Collected Works of C.G. Jung (Currently 41% off at Amazon US)
My Life: Poetry and Truth by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Chiron Publications Publishers of Prof. Bishop’s series, Jung and the Epic of Transformation
Ideas and Influences on Eranos: A History of Religions and Ideas Seminar Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for public benefit (web page)
PREVIOUS EPISODES
Ep. 131: Reading Plato Through Jung Jan. 10, 2024
Ep. 135: Jung, Parzival and the Grail as Transformation Jan. 30, 2025
Ep. 141: Flying Saucers Apr. 14, 2025
BOOKS
(All links are to Amazon US. If you prefer to shop at Amazon Germany or Amazon UK please use those links.)
The Dionysian Self: C.G. Jung’s Reception of Friedrich Nietzsche (Walter de Gruyter, 1995) Here is a link to the book on the publisher’s website.
Jung in Contexts: A Reader (Routledge, 1999) “Thomas Mann and C.G. Jung,” and “C.G. Jung and Nietzsche: Dionysos and Analytical Psychology”
Synchronicity & Intellectual Intuition in Kant, Swedenborg, & Jung (Edwin Mellen Press, 2000)
Jung’s Answer to Job: A Commentary (Routledge, 2002)
A Companion to Goethe’s Faust: Parts I & II (Camden House, 2006) “Reading Faust Today”
Analytical Psychology & German Classical Aesthetics: Goethe, Schiller, & Jung – Vol. 1: The Development of the Personality (Routledge, 2007)
Analytical Psychology & German Classical Aesthetics: Goethe, Schiller, & Jung – Vol. 2: The Constellation of the Self (Routledge, 2008)
The Persistence of Myth as Symbolic Form: Cultural Studies & the Symbolic Proceedings of an International Conference Held by the Centre for Intercultural Studies at the University of Glasgow, Vol. 3, 16-18 September 2005 (Maney, 2008) “The Politics of Myth: Cassirer, Bachofen, and Sorel”
The Archaic: The Past in the Present (Routledge, 2011) “Introduction: A Brief History of the Archaic” and “The Archaic: Timeliness and Timelessness”
A Companion to Friedrich Nietzsche: Life & Works (Camden House, 2012) “Ecce Homo” and “Dithyrambs of Dionysos”
Critical Lives: Carl Jung (Reaktion Books, 2014)
On the Blissful Islands with Nietzsche & Jung: In the Shadow of the Superman (Routledge, 2016)
Jung’s Red Book for Our Time: Searching for Soul Under Postmodern Conditions, Vol. 1 (Chiron Publications, 2017) “In a World That Has Gone Mad, Is What We Really Need…a Red Book? Plato, Goethe, Schelling, Nietzsche and Jung”
The Ecstatic & the Archaic: An Analytical Psychological Inquiry (Routledge, 2018) “I must get out (of myself) more often? Jung, Klages, and the ecstatic-archaic”
German Political Thought & the Discourse of Platonism: Finding the Way out of the Cave (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)
Narratives of Individuation (Routledge, 2019) “Telling Stories: Jung’s Red Book as an Exercise in Narrative”
Ludwig Klages & the Philosophy of Life: A Vitalist Toolkit (Routledge, 2019)
Reading Goethe at Midlife: Ancient Wisdom, German Classicism, & Jung Zürich Lecture Series, Vol. 3 (Chiron Publications, 2020)
Nietzsche’s The Anti-Christ: A Critical Introduction & Guide (Edinburgh University Press, 2021)
The Descent of the Soul & the Archaic: Katábasis & Depth Psychology (Routledge, 2022) “Is the only way up?” and “Katábasis in reverse: Heraclitus, the archaic, and the abyss”
Jung’s Red Book for Our Time: Searching for Soul in the 21st Century – An Eranos Symposium, Vol. 5 (Chiron Publications, 2022) “The Red Book and Other Searchers for the Soul: The Case of Klages and Jung”
Reading Plato through Jung: Why must the Third become the Fourth? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)
Discourses of Philology & Theology in Nietzsche: From the “Untimelies” to The Anti-Christ (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)
Individuation Psychology: Essays in Honor of Murray Stein (Chiron Publications, 2023) “In the Still World of the Heart (In des Herzens stille Welt): Reflections on Goethe and Individuation Psychology”
Jung & the Epic of Transformation, Vol. 1: Wolfram von Eschenbach’s “Parzival” & the Grail as Transformation (Chiron Publications, 2024)
Confronting Death (Chiron Publications, 2024) “I Don’t Permit the Winter: Death and Life in Goethe and Jung”
Nietzsche’s Writing Against Religion and the Crisis of Faith: Twentieth-Century Christian Reactions and Responses (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)
Where is Soul? Psychology in Modernity Edited by Greg Mogenson & Pamela J. Power (Dusk Owl Books, 2025)
Self-Optimization in Modernist Culture Edited by Thorsten Carstensen and Mattias Pirholt (Brill, 2025)
Ideas and Influences on Eranos Edited by Louise Belfrage (Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation, 2025)
Jung and the Epic of Transformation, Volume 2: Goethe’s “Faust” as a Text of Transformation (Chiron Publications, 2025)