According to Mary Shelley the idea for her story came to her in a waking dream. In her waking dream, Victor Frankenstein appears as a man of titanic ambitions whose over weaning pride leads him to take on the mantle of being a god who will engineer a second creation and who then abandons what he has made because his creature does not fit his ideal. Her story is the tale of a dispassionate mind unhinged from nature that disregards the feminine in the work of creation. It is a prophetic tale, which, foreshadowing a type of thinking that characterises our scientific- technological worldview, endures in the cultural imagination of our time.
Within the context of some of the crises created by our scientific-technological way of thinking, The Frankenstein Prophecies examine the darker sides of Mary Shelley’s waking dream from the point of view of Victor Frankenstein’s creation, the Creature who has no name. Throughout the story, Victor Frankenstein consistently calls him Devil, Demon, Monster. Telling the story from the Creature’s point of view raises the primary question: Who, in fact, is the Monster?
Robert D. Romanyshyn PhD is a teacher, writer, and psychotherapist trained in phenomenology and Jungian psychology. An Affiliate Member of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts, he is a senior core faculty member in the Depth Psychotherapy Program at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Author of six books, including The Wounded Researcher (2007), over forty book chapters, and numerous journal articles, he has given keynote addresses at international conferences, and presented lectures and directed workshops at universities and professional societies in the U.S., Canada, Europe, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. HIs website is
