From mystical gnosis to esoteric technē

This chapter examines the evidence for construing the later writings of W.R. Bion as displaying distinctive Jungian, apophatic, Kabbalistic and theurgic elements, the distinguishing features of which it argues are integral to later developments within post-Bionian theory and technique. The chapter goes on to adduce the existence of phenomenological parallels conjoining the Bionian technique of reverie to the parapsychological research technique known as the ganzfeld procedure . Theurgic elements within the later Bion are traced to the combined influence of Platonism and Gershom Scholem’s work on the Jewish Kabbalah. The chapter concludes by making a case for discerning the presence of a distinctive conceptual convergence within the writings of Jung, Bion and Matte-Blanco, to which the author ascribes the rubric of Orphic unconscious .