On Wednesday June 13, we will now be visited by Dick Russell, James Hillman’s biographer. Dick Russell is the best-selling author of thirteen books on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from the climate crisis to the Kennedy assassination. As the authorized biographer of James Hillman, founder of archetypal psychology, he is currently working on volume two. He has appeared on numerous TV and radio programs, and is the subject of a 2017 documentary film (“Hitchhiking to the Edge of Sanity”). Greg Salyer’s Myth Salon visit has been moved to September.
Dick Russell’s topic for the Myth Salon will be not only the “life and ideas” but the personal aspects of James Hillman, focusing on the influence that the renowned post-Jungian thinker had on his own life – in particular, Russell’s relationship with his own son, diagnosed with a severe mental illness at seventeen. Russell’s memoir, “My Mysterious Son: A Life-Changing Passage Between Schizophrenia and Shamanism,” explores how James Hillman – personally and through his works – led him to Malidoma Some for ritual work around ancestral issues and eventually a remarkable healing journey to West Africa.