Dr Peter Ammann’s search for the secret story hidden behind his African power figures.

What my Power Figures tell me. A Journey through the Darkness of the Heart to the Mirror of the Belly. 

Dr Peter Ammann’s search for the secret story hidden behind his African power figures, a story of appalling shadows, yet also of treasure troves that recalls the famous saying of the Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder: “There is always something new out of Africa”.

Dr Peter Ammann is a founding member of the International School for Analytical Psychology, where he is a lecturer, training analyst and supervisor. After training as a cellist he entered Jungian studies, encouraged by Jung himself as well as by his analysts, Jolande Jacobi and Marie-Louise von Franz, and graduated from the C. G. Jung Institute Zurich in 1965. Concurrently, he gained his doctorate at the University of Zürich in the fields of musicology, history of religion and ethnology. He maintains a practice in Zürich and lectures regularly in many countries.

Pursuing his dream of becoming a filmmaker, he apprenticed with Federico Fellini for the making of Satyricon. His enduring interest in Africa, the Bushpeople, their rock paintings, and in African Traditional Healing orginated from a 1984 encounter with Laurens van der Post. He made several documentary films in Southern Africa. His documentaries include: Hlonipa Journey into Wilderness; Spirits of the Rocks; Mabi’s Feast – Sangomas Celebrating San; Laurens van der Post – The Bushmen and their Stories.