Storytime with Robert

Robert A. Johnson was more than an international best-selling author of fifteen books, brilliant and influential Jungian analyst, and acclaimed international lecturer; he was a master storyteller. This collection is transcribed from Robert’s own tellings throughout the years. Robert told these stories, his favorites, to an appreciative and revering community each night at Journey into Wholeness events from 1981 to 2001. Robert collected several of these stories in his beloved India, but the book includes stories and myths from Chinese, Native American, Mexican, and European traditions. Each story is introduced by a colleague, mentee, or friend whose life was profoundly changed by the presence and teachings of this wise and other-wordly sage. 

Robert taught us we could enjoy a myth or a story as a child would, or we could listen more carefully to discover a roadmap for our own inner work. Magical, humorous, tragic, enigmatic, these stories illustrate Robert’s capacity to speak to the delights and adversities of the human experience, and to our collective quest to become our most conscious and authentic selves. 

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 The Good Year (Hindu) - Introduced by Murray Stein

Chapter 2 The Miracle of Guadalupe (Mexican) - Introduced by Gertrud Mueller Nelson

Chapter 3 One‐Two Man (Paiute) - Introduced by Phil Cousineau

Chapter 4 Savatri and Satchavan (Hindu) - Introduced by Laurie Downs and Elizabeth Rucker

Chapter 5 Cry of the Loon (Inuit) - Introduced by Barry Williams

Chapter 6 The Frog Queen (Hindu) - Introduced by Rob Luke

Chapter 7 The Dame Ragnel (Western) - Introduced by Paula Reeves

Chapter 8 The King and the Sannyasin (Hindu) - Introduced by Pete William

Chapter 9 The Woman at the Crossroads (origin unknown) - Introduced by Virginia Apperson

Chapter 10 Heaven’s Emissary (Hindu) - Introduced by Frank Roth

Chapter 11 The Rainmaker (Chinese) - Introduced by J. Pittman McGehee

Chapter 12 Transposed Heads (Hindu) - Introduced by Ruth Hill

Chapter 13 The Old Jew (Western) - Introduced by Jim Cullipher