Chicken Little: The Inside Story: A Jungian Romance

Studies in Jungian Psychology by Jungian Analysts #61

by Daryl Sharp

Chicken Little's dire warning of a falling sky, recorded on the little-known Kraznac Tablets, has taxed scholars for hundreds of years. Messiah, meshuggeneh or metaphor? Join the author and Professor Adam Brillig as they pursue the truth with drama and intellectual passion.

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Daryl Leonard Merle Sharp is a Jungian analyst and publisher. He lives in Toronto, Canada and has two sons and two daughters.

He earned two Bachelor degrees, one in mathematics and physics and the other in journalism, at Carleton University in Canada, and a Masters degree in literature and philosophy from the University of Sussex in England. Sharp entered training at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zürich in 1974, along with other members of the so-called "Canadian mafia," which included Fraser Boa, Marion Woodman and John Dourley.

Upon graduating in 1978, Sharp returned to Canada to begin an analytic practice and tour North America on the Jungian lecture circuit. Together with Marion Woodman and Fraser Boa, Sharp co-founded the Ontario Association of Jungian Analysts in Toronto in 1982 (followed by a training program for analysts in 2000).

In 1980, Sharp also began his major labour of love: Inner City Books, still the world's only publishing house dealing exclusively with the work of Jungian analysts. Sharp's first publication was his diploma thesis, The Secret Raven: Conflict and Transformation in the Life of Franz Kafka. Many others followed, including multiple publications by analysts such as Marion Woodman, Edward F. Edinger, James Hollis and J. Gary Sparks, and especially Marie-Louise von Franz, who graciously agreed to act as honorary patron of Inner City Books.

Sharp himself is the author of more than 30 titles, mainly designed to introduce and explain Jungian concepts to lay audiences. Personality Types and Digesting Jung are available as free eBooks on Inner City Books' website.}

Reviews

[Guy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book as a fun read more than one filled with powerful knowledge. Well, except that the timing of my reading Chicken Little aligns with my own expansion of the desire to live with more spontaneity and joy. I am realizing that in order for my life to become expansive and more fulfilling requires that I open up to it. And that that requires moving out of our comfortable boxes into spontaneity and acceptance of the now rather than my plans for a future now.

And this did have fascinating stuff in it! That the story of Chicken Little is ancient and was deemed important enough by to be inscribed into stone tablets, for example. And the 'experiment' with creating the hologram is remarkable and, quite frankly, difficult to believe. And I have my interest in Brillig piqued.

An easy, quick and worth while read. And a very gentle and good introduction to some of the concepts of the psychologist Carl Jung.

[Tom Schulte · Rating 2 out of 5]

The "American Journal of Chickle Schtick" isn't a real academic publication but a humorous, fictional reference used in this text about the imagined folklore of "Chicken Little" to add satirical weight to this discussion about paranoia or "sky falling" narratives, highlighting the absurdity in seriousness in a Jungian context. That joke cited in footnotes for comedic effect was my first clue this was a farce. It was an elevator ride joke that went beyond feature length. Here is a review from Canada.

[Gary · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting concept to anchor the story but I either missed the point or there wasn't one.

[William Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent manifestation of the trickster archetype, with golden nuggets of wisdom.