Richard Noll

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Richard Noll (born 1959) is a well-known author and clinical psychologist. Currently he is Associate Professor of Psychology at DeSales University in Center Valley, Pennsylvania. He is best known for his publications in the history of psychiatry, including two critical volumes on the life and work of Carl Gustav Jung and his articles on the history of dementia praecox and schizophrenia. He is also known for his publications in anthropology on shamanism. His books and articles have been translated into fourteen foreign languages.

He grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, where he received his education at Brophy College Preparatory , a Jesuit institution. From 1977 to 1979 he studied political science at the University of Arizona. In the fall of 1978 he spent a semester at the United Nations in New York, returning to complete his B.A. in political science in May 1979. He received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the New School for Social Research in 1992. Before assuming a position as a professor of psychology at DeSales University in August 2000, he taught and conducted research at Harvard University for four years as a postdoctoral fellow and as Lecturer in History of Science. During the 1995-1996 academic year he was a Visiting Scholar at MIT and a Resident Fellow at the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology.

In 1994 he received an award for Best Book in Psychology from the Association of American Publishers for his book, The Jung Cult: Origins of a Charismatic Movement. The resulting controversy over the book made front-page headlines worldwide, including a front-page report in the 3 June 1995 issue of The New York Times. Princeton University Press submitted The Jung Cult to the Pulitzer Prize competition that year, without success. Although not a definitive treatment of Jung, the book acted as a climacteric, effectively changing the agenda of scholarly debate in Jung studies for the more than a decade that has followed its publication.

The backstory to the controversy over Noll's research on Jung can be found in the "Preface of the New Edition" of The Jung Cult published in paperback by Free Press Paperbacks in 1997 and in an article he wrote for a Random House, Inc., promotional publication, At Random, in that same year.

In 1994 Richard Noll and his colleague from Ohio State University, anthropologist Kun Shi, explored Manchuria and Inner Mongolia and interviewed the last living Tungus Siberian shamans in the People's Republic of China south of the Amur river. The story of the life, initiatory illnesses, and shamanic training of the last living shaman of the Oroqen people, Chuonnasuan (1927-2000), was published in 2004 in the Journal of Korean Religions and is also available online.^[1]

A second published report of this fieldwork concerning the life and training of the Solon Ewenki shamaness Dula'r (Ao Yun Hua)appeared in the journal Shaman in 2007 (15: 167-174). Noll was introduced to the study of shamanism in the fall of 1980 by the anthropologist Michael Harner, then a professor at the New School for Social Research in New York City.

Formerly a Roman Catholic, Noll describes the reasons for his break with Catholicism in 1999's When Catholics Die. In it, Noll argues that the Sacred Tradition of the Catholic Church contradicts the Bible, which he considers "the Holy Spirit-inspired Word of God." He also writes in the book's inside flap that, "If the Bible is right and the Vatican wrong, then the potential outlook for Catholics is eternal damnation!" Of the 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church, he believes, "The portions pertaining to the validity of Holy Scripture justify what Protestant Reformers such as Luther, Calvin, Wesley, et al., tried to establish" and contradict the "conflicting declarations by the Church of Rome" which "confuse us all."^[2]

Noll's forthcoming book, The Rise and Fall of Dementia Praecox, is scheduled to be published by Harvard University Press in 2009.

Contents 1 Notes 2 Bibliography 3 See also 4 External links

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Noll, Richard; Shi, Kun (2004). "Chuonnasuan (Meng Jin Fu). The Last Shaman of the Oroqen of Northeast China" (pdf). Journal of Korean Religions (6): 135–162. http://www.desales.edu/assets/desales/SocScience/Oroqen_shaman_FSSForumAug07.pdf.  It describes the life of Chuonnasuan, the last shaman of the Oroqen of Northeast China.
2. ^ Quotes from inside flap of When Catholics Die[1]

[edit] Bibliography

• 1990 Bizarre Diseases of the Mind; Real-Life Cases of Rare Mental Illnesses, Vampirism, Possession, Split Personalities, and More, ISBN 0-425-12172-0
• 1992 Vampires, Werewolves and Demons: Twentieth Century Reports in the Psychiatric Literature, ISBN 0-87630-632-6
• 1992 The Encyclopedia of Schizophrenia and the Psychotic Disorders
• 1994 The Encyclopedia of Memory and Memory Disorders, ISBN 0-8160-2610-6
• 1994 The Jung Cult: Origins of a Charismatic Movement, ISBN 0-684-83423-5
• 1997 Aryan Christ: The Secret Life of Carl Jung, ISBN 0-679-44945-0
• 1997 The Jung Cult: Origins of a Charismatic Movement (paperback), ISBN 0-684-83423-5
• 1997 "A Christ Named Carl Jung," At Random (ISSN 1062-0036),Volume 6, Number 3, 56-59.
• 1999 When Catholics Die ISBN 0-937-42246-0
• 2000 The Encyclopedia of Schizophrenia and Other Psychotic Disorders, second edition, ISBN 0-8160-4070-2
• 2007 The Encyclopedia of Schizophrenia and Other Psychotic Disorders, third edition, ISBN 0-8160-6405-9

[edit] See also

• Carl Jung
• Renfield's syndrome
• Dementia praecox
• Oroqen
• Anti-Catholicism

[edit] External links

• Noll's page at www.desales.edu
• http://hpy.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/17/4/395
• Noll, Richard; Shi, Kun (2004). "Chuonnasuan (Meng Jin Fu). The Last Shaman of the Oroqen of Northeast China" (pdf). Journal of Korean Religions (6): 135–162. http://www.desales.edu/assets/desales/SocScience/Oroqen_shaman_FSSForumAug07.pdf.