Victor White Research Articles

The Oxford Handbook of Elizabeth Anscombe edited by Roger Teichmann, (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 2022); pp. 520, £ 97.00, hbk

The Oxford Handbook of Elizabeth Anscombe edited by Roger Teichmann, (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 2022); pp. 520, £ 97.00, hbk

The Influence of Victor White and the Blackfriars Dominicans on a young Elizabeth Anscombe: An Essay accompanying the Republication of G.E.M. Anscombe's ‘I am Sadly Theoretical: It is the Effect of Being at Oxford’ (1938)

AbstractThis essay examines the Dominican influences on the Catholic philosopher G.E.M. Anscombe while an undergraduate at Oxford University between 1937–1941. It focuses on three Thomists who formally instructed Anscombe and how one Dominican, Victor White, likely instructed her on a radically Catholic perspective regarding the morality of warfare, which would not only influence her 1940 co-authored pamphlet, ‘The Justice of the Present War Examined’, but would shape her writings on war and murder for her entire academic career.This essay accompanies the republication of Anscombe's ‘I am Sadly Theoretical: It is the Effect of Being at Oxford,’ her earliest known published essay. She wrote this article in response to a public invitation from the Catholic Herald for Catholics between the ages of 18 and 25 to make their voices heard by their fellow Catholics. In this teenage apologia, Anscombe outlines the goals for her life, and what it means for her as a Catholic to be a witness.

‘To Do For Our Own Age What Thomas Did For His’: Victor White OP

AbstractWhen thinking about the life and theology of the English Dominican, Victor White OP (1902-1960), it is his formation at Hawkesyard which holds the key to understanding the direction of his life and work. This brief introduction sets White in the context of his day, showing how his formation created the conditions which drew him to the analytical psychologist, C.G. Jung (1875-1961), at the same time prompting his identification as a modern Thomist, an identification which gave him the framework to engage Jung's thought, and to influence the direction of theology at Blackfriars Oxford. In other words, I hope to show that White's formation at Hawkesyard is the turning point from which all else follows.

THE PRIEST, THE PSYCHIATRIST AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

This paper clusters around the problem of evil within the framework of depth psychology. The first part briefly introduces the narrative of the Book of Job as an example to contextualise how the ultimate question of God’s relation to evil remained unanswered and was left open-ended in Christian theology. The second part offers a historical reconstruction of the unresolved polemic over the nature of evil between Carl Jung and the English Dominican scholar and theologian Victor White (1902-1960). It explores their different speculations and formulations concerning evil and its psychological implications, until their final fall-out following White’s harshly critical review of Jung’s most controversial work on religion, Answer to Job. The final section of this paper introduces further reflections on a challenging theme that is no less resonant and relevant in today’s world of terrorism in the name of religion than it was in a post-war Europe struggling to recover from totalitarianism and genocide.

Victor White OP

Abstract Jungians and Christians use the word evil in different and contradictory senses. The moral aim of the Jungian is the ‘integration of evil’, whereas for the Christian it is ‘the overcoming of evil by good’. This paper guides the reader through Victor White’s thinking on evil—understood in the tradition of Aristotle and Aquinas as parasitic on good—malum est privatio boni, and concludes by considering the clinical significance of the relationship between moral evil—malum culpae—and guilt. Although Jung and White never resolved their differences on evil, they agreed that the subject demands concentration and careful reflection. The hypothesis here is that, although the literature on the Jung–White dialogue offers extensive analysis on evil, it does not go far enough. There is little evidence of dynamic engagement with the underlying ethical issues that White’s clarity of thought challenges one to consider.

Victor White OP: War and the Narrative of Human Flourishing

Victor White OP: War and the Narrative of Human Flourishing

Archetypal Hermeneutics as an Approach to the Psychology of Religion

This article develops and illustrates a hermeneutic approach to the psychology of religion derived from C. G. Jung’s psychological theory of archetypes. The point of departure is the “dis-integrative dynamics” of the failed historical collaboration between Jung and Catholic theologian Victor White. The Jung-White impasse motivates a distinction between the conceptual analysis of theological constructs and a non-conceptual hermeneutics of religious symbols. The latter form of inquiry is based on a reworking of Jung’s archetypal approach in terms of the hermeneutic notion of background understanding. This approach is then illustrated through a hermeneutic amplification of the symbolic motif of the healing serpent and its application to the theological disagreement between Jung and White. It is concluded that an archetypal hermeneutic approach is uniquely valuable for an understanding of perennial aspects of the lived experience of religious meaning.

L’inconscient au paradis: Comment les catholiques ont reçu la psychoanalyse (1920–1965) (review)

L'inconscient au paradis: Comment les catholiques ont recu la psychoanalyse (1920-1965). By Agnes Desmazieres. (Paris: Editions Payot & Rivages. 2011. Pp. 270. euro21,50 paperback. ISBN 978-2-228-90666-1.) In this significant work Agnes Desmazieres traces the ways in which some of the leading mid-twentieth century Catholic European intellectuals and professionals struggled to find a place in Catholic thought for the emerging psychological constructs about the unconscious. Written in the style of a European monograph, the author guides the reader through a terrain of cultural clashes as Catholic scholars encountered theories of the unconscious, most notably expressed by Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis and Carl Jung's depth psychology. Desmaizieres's frequent use of subheadings proves invaluable as she presents a series of controversies that illuminate the seeking of Catholics proponents for a foothold for the unconscious. The book's historical overview offers a who's who of mid-twentieth-century Catholic European intellectuals. Desmazieres, for example, mentions the contributions by such clerical leaders as Louis Beirnaert (French Jesuit psychoanalyst), Bruno de Jesus Marie (French Carmelite psychoanalyst/theologian), Agostino Gemelli (Italian Franciscan psychologist), Andre Godin (Belgian Jesuit psychoanalyst), Gregoire Lemercier (Benedictine abbot), Marc Oraison (priest/physician/theologian), Albert Pie (French Dominican psychologist/theologian), and Victor White (British Dominican theologian). Desmazieres also mentions the influence of lay Catholic thinkers such as Rudolf Allers (Austrian philosopher), Marcy Choisy (French novelist and psychoanalyst), Roland Dalbiez (French philosopher), Joseph Nuttin (Belgian psychologist), and Anna A.A.Terruwe (Dutch psychiatrist). In addition, important North American contributions to the discussion by Leo Bartemeier (American psychoanalyst), Noel Mailloux (French Canadian Dominican, psychoanalyst), and Gregory Zilboorg (Russian American psychoanalyst) are referenced. For the purposes of revealing the Church's ambivalence toward psychoanalysis, Desmazieres discusses the influence of Gemelli in various parts of her text. The founder of Sacred Heart University in Milan, Gemelli wielded considerable influence with Popes Pius XI and Pius XII. His Thomistic training made him suspicions of both the scientism of Italian medical materialism and the reductionism of Freud's theories. …

Fr. Victor White, O.P.: The Story of Jung’s “White Raven.” (review)

Fr. Victor White, O.P.: The Story of Jung’s “White Raven.” (review)

The White–Jung Friendship: The Untold Story

For decades Jung searched in vain for a theologian with whom he could deeply and openly converse about his new vision of Christianity. Only very late in his life did he find and form a deep friendship with Victor White, a Dominican theology professor, whose own psychic life was saved by Jung's teachings. Jung saw White as the first theologian he had met who truly understood his psychology. Jung wanted to use White's expertise in Catholic theology in his pioneering efforts to transform Christianity, through his psychology, into a living, breathing, vital faith in the divine. For his part, White wanted to resuscitate Thomistic theology by infusing its dry, cerebral character with the emotional vitality of the original Thomas Aquinas by using his newly discovered Jungian teachings combined with some of the original teachings of Aquinas. In the process of their work together, Jung and White became close, trusting friends. However, White was pushed beyond the limits of his psychological resources by political events within his order, whose superiors destroyed his career as a theologian and sent him into exile. In his scathing review of Answer to Job, White displaced his anger/rage onto Jung instead of the appropriate objects. This attack wounded their friendship deeply, and it was only toward the end of their lives that a partial reconciliation was possible. And yet, Jung's friendship with White was perhaps the closest and most trusting relationship he had with a man during his lifetime. Finally, I suggest that White's mission in this life was to resuscitate Thomism rather than help Jung achieve his purposes, and that White achieved his mission.

The Jung Academy's Fourth Conference in Zürich

The fourth meeting of the International Association of Jungian Studies (IAJS), cosponsored by the IAAP and hosted in Zürich, invited reflection on symbols of personal, cultural, and national identity. The reader is provided with a description of the Jung Academy and its vital role in the development of analytical psychology. A place for dialogue between analysts and academicians and researchers from many cultures and disciplines, the Jung Academy encourages developments not only in such fields as literature and the arts, but also in the social and natural sciences. Zürich offered a unique locus in more than one respect for the Jung Academy: Scholars were introduced to the C.G. Jung Papers Collection from the ETH’s library, were invited socially into a historic Zürich trade-union hall, and were entertained by a dramatic rendition of the friendship between Jung and Victor White. The Jung Academy supports a critical, collaborative movement into Jung's work, as well as a movement away from the man and toward methods of inquiry that were born in the context of a scholarly community. Social responsibility was a recurring theme among many of the presentations during the conference, correcting a one-sided emphasis on individualism. The author describes several values and theses that we hold in common as Jungian scholars and asks why more contributions weren't included from such fields as medicine and biology.

Fr Victor White, O. P. The Story of Jung's ‘White Raven’ by Clodagh Weldon, (University of Scranton Press: Scranton and London, 2007). Pp. xii + 340, US $30.00.

New BlackfriarsVolume 89, Issue 1022 p. 495-496 FR VICTOR WHITE, O. P. THE STORY OF JUNG'S ‘WHITE RAVEN’by Clodagh Weldon AIDAN NICHOLS, AIDAN NICHOLS OPSearch for more papers by this author AIDAN NICHOLS, AIDAN NICHOLS OPSearch for more papers by this author First published: 08 July 2008 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-2005.2008.00231_5.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume89, Issue1022July 2008Pages 495-496 RelatedInformation

Comment: Remembering Victor White

New BlackfriarsVolume 89, Issue 1019 p. 1-2 Comment: Remembering Victor White Fergus Kerr, Fergus Kerr OP Search for more papers by this author Fergus Kerr, Fergus Kerr OP Search for more papers by this author First published: 13 December 2007 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-2005.2007.00215.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume89, Issue1019January 2008Pages 1-2 RelatedInformation

Of texts and contexts: reflections upon the publication of The Jung‐White Letters

In addition to his many other personae, Jung was a writer and an author, which means a creator, whose written works underlie and authorize a field of thought and clinical work, i.e., analytical psychology. Not widely recognized is that many of his authored texts were stimulated by important and intense personal relationships. Freud and Victor White loom large, the first standing behind major early analytical texts like Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido and Psychological Types, the second behind later texts on culture, religion, and Christian theology. The publication of The Jung-White Letters reveals the significance of his relationship with Victor White for the authoring of Answer to Job.

Jung and White and the God of terrible double aspect

This paper discusses theoretical, historical and personal issues in the ill-fated friendship and intellectual collaboration between C.G. Jung and the Dominican scholar Victor White, O.P., based on primary documents in their correspondence, 1945 to 1960. The collaboration of Jung and White began with high expectations but fell into painful disagreements about the nature of God, the problem of evil, and shadow aspects of the Self. They made a rapid commitment to their working alliance based on personal and professional hopes, but paying scant attention to their divergent underlying assumptions. White hoped to build theoretical and practical connections between Jungian psychology and Catholic theology for the sake of modern Catholics. Jung needed learned theological support as he explored the psychological meanings of Christian symbols, including the central symbol of Christ. At the grandest level, they both hoped to transform the Christian West, after the moral disaster of World War II. Their collaboration was risky for both men, especially for White in his career as a Dominican, and it led to considerable suffering. The Self is prominent in the relationship, symbolically present in the text of the correspondence and consciously forming their major topic of debate. From the start, the Self is an archetypal field, drawing the friends into their visionary task at the risk of unconscious inflation. Later the Self is revealed with its shadow as a burden, a puzzle, and a basis for estrangement. Finally, with the intervention of feminine wisdom, mortal suffering is transformed by an attitude of conscious sacrifice.

Poems for Donald Nicholl

Donald Nicholl (1923‐97), born in Halifax, Yorkshire, won a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford but was called up in 1942 and served in the Far East. On returning to Oxford he was received into the Roman Catholic Church at Blackfriars, by Fr Richard Kehoe, in 1946. The following year he married Dorothy Tordqff, whom he had known since school days and who had found her own way to Catholicism. Conrad Pepler, Victor White and Illtud Evans, as well the library at Blackfriars, Oxford, the chaplaincy at 24 George Square, Edinburgh (where Anthony Ross became a friend), and Spode House, Staffordshire constituted the Dominican part of his world A distinguished medievalist (his life of Archbishop Thurston of York appeared in 1964), Donald taught at Edinburgh and Keele, before switching his interests to the twentieth century and to Russia in particular and moving to a chair in history and religious studies in California at Santa Cruz. His last academic post was as Rector of the Ecumenical Institute at Tantur, near Jerusalem. With Holiness (1981), The Testing of Hearts (1989), Triumphs of the Spirit in Russia (1997) and The Beatitude of Truth (forthcoming), his guidance in the life of the spirit will not be forgotten.

Book Reviews

Clarke, J.J. Jung and Eastern Thought: A Dialogue with the OrientJacoby, Mario. Shame and the Origins of Self‐Esteem: AJungian ApproachLammers, Ann Conrad. In Cod's Shadow: The Collaboration of Victor White and C.G. Jung

A Dialogue Between Psychology and Theology:

Journal of Analytical PsychologyVolume 35, Issue 4 p. 421-441 A Dialogue Between Psychology and Theology: The correspondence of C. G. Jung and Victor White F. X. CHARET, F. X. CHARET MontrealSearch for more papers by this author F. X. CHARET, F. X. CHARET MontrealSearch for more papers by this author First published: October 1990 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-5922.1990.00421.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume35, Issue4October 1990Pages 421-441 RelatedInformation

Victor White and C. G. Jung the fateful encounter of the White Raven and the Gnostic

Victor White’s life and work are a fine demonstration of the combination of the Dominican commitment to truth and to contemplation and the handing on of the fruits of contemplation. They are also a demonstration of the very considerable cost which commitment can entail, especially when operating for twenty years on .the frontiers of theology and Jungian psychology. That Jung and White had the highest regard for one another’s work and that they disagreed strongly on the nature of evil, especially concerning Jung’s Answer to Job, is well known. The publication of the greater part of Jung’s side of their correspondence makes available to those who were not personally involved the real extent of their disagreement over a number of years and the estrangement between them which resulted. More than once White wondered what exactly it was they were arguing about, since at different times they each seemed to agree to some particular item of the argument. Their inability to synchronise such agreements between them is not to be explained by personal factors, though this plays an important part in any discussion involving psychoanalysis. The breaking point was the Catholic philosophical view of evil as a privation of good and parasitic upon it (privatio boni) and not as autonomous element opposed to it, and I shall return to this later.Examination of the relationship between them casts light on the difficulties of making this philosophical position experientially convincing and indicates that the disagreement focussed upon this point drew upon wider areas of contention between theology and psychology.

The Old Wine is Good

In the great effort of ‘ressourcement’ in which the Church is currently engaged, while the Dominicans have set themselves to produce a massive new edition of St Thomas, the Cistercians have undertaken a multi-volume series of new English translations of the Cistercian Fathers.This venture is warmly to be welcomed. The Cistercian corpus is intrinsically valuable, and is, historically speaking, one of the major monuments of western monasticism; it is also peculiarly significant as revealing the immediate context for the great theological synthesis of St Thomas Aquinas.To take this last point first. It is often forgotten just how thoroughly monastic the early Dominicans were. The De modo studendi generally ascribed to St Thomas himself is thoroughly monastic. It is curious how Victor White, for all his insight, missed the reference to the Song of Songs in the bit about the wine-cellar—a monastic commonplace. St Bernard, for instance, says that anyone who proposes to teach others must himself have been ‘introduced into the wine-cellar’, that is to say, must have had personal experience of the intoxicating force of heavenly sweetness. A book written by an anonymous Dominican novice master, and enthusiastically approved by the General Chapter of 1283, leans heavily on Bernard and William of St Thierry. A little later, St Vincent Ferrer’s On the Spiritual Life teaches the same, monastic, spirituality.It is this monastic context that shows the kind of experience of life underlying St Thomas’ whole moral theology.