Rating: 
Summary: Good critic of psychology's shortcomings. Poor logic.
Review: Panglossism. The art of proving there are causes behind every effect.
Hillman could explain that your acorn gave you a nose so you could wear glasses.
Aside from bad logic, it assumes that everyone has a destiny. It also makes a common misuse of sampling found in the media: going from non-representative cases to the general.
Should you have a doubt, acorns work in mysterious ways. Id' like to know if they're really morphogenetic fields, or superior extra-terrestrial life-forms.
I enjoyed his criticism of modern psychology's shortcomings. A great celebration of personal uniqueness. Worth reading for a critical mind.
Prerequisite: Robyn Dawes. Rational choice in an uncertain world.
Rating: 
Summary: One of my favorite books
Review: Probably Hillman's most accessible work. Truly inspirational without being preachy. It helped me have faith in my own gifts and path. Not for everyone, I'm sure. You probably need to have a somewhat intellectual, philosophical and spiritual bent to truly enjoy it.
Rating: 
Summary: A good, easy read that will get back to you later.
Review: Short, sweet and to the point -- you can get through this in an evening. This book has many levels from "yeah, sure" fluff to deep hitting insight. Hillman has a knack for saying something very deeply significant in a way that goes down easy and comes back for you to think about it later. A lot of parenting insight was also stuffed among the pages like drying flowers to be enjoyed for many years to come. I recommend this book highly to those with growing children "at that age" of discovering themselves
Rating:
Summary: A tool to help understand the whys and hows of life
Review: Some of these negative reviews read to me like egos in anguish desperately screaming "my scholarship and discernment is more valid than yours." Well, to hell with bought-and-paid-for intellectual baggage. When an author gives me a tool that helps me have a clearer vision of the whys and hows of my life, I don't care which theories he follows or ignores. Such a tool is this book. If science is your god, then don't bother with this, just keep on waiting until proof is certain--perhaps in a few hundred years. But if your mind is open to metaphysical possibilities, then The Soul's Code can change the way you look at your life, as it did for me.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable soap psychology
Review: This book is a typical American bestseller. The chapters are: Acorn, Growing Down, Parental Fallacy, Back to the Invisibles,...., Fate, The Bad Seed, Mediocrity. It's written in popular ( unlike Jung ) style, full of interesting gossip ( bios of famous folx, with saucy details here & there ) and....bingo. Hitler's psychobiography, "anatomy of Evil" for an average Joe ( plus a few mass murderers ( Chikatilo & comp.)) Essentially, this book jabberwocks on "perennial" themes: good, evil, predestination, determinism, charcter, vocation-calling. Vocation in the sacred archaic sense of being addressed by daimonic voice- hence, a quasi-suprarational "mission". Hillman uses the word daimon in a variety of meanings, but, his slant is towards ancient, Heraclitean-Socratic notion of "personal guiding spirit". That's "genius", spirit in "inspiration" of poets whipped by daimonic cracks etc. Similar to Jungian Self, but more ( at least, that's my opinion ) mundane, not so numinous, filled with sacred terror reminscent of the Upanishads or Theophobia/mania of the Antique world. "The Soul's Code" is filled with etymology ( Greek ) & various bizarre ponderings. There are, now and then, biological associations, but, it is obvious-that's not what the author is after. Anyone reading this charming gossip should forget about impolite questions like: where the hell this acorn resides ? Is it mutable ? How can I connect this with findings of, say, cognitive science or the growing fields like complexity ( not to speak on evolutionary psychology ). Nah-this book is a rehashed ( and, partly vulgarized ) ancient notion of "personal guiding voice/being" of ( possibly ) divine/demonic origin. Admittedly- there is a nobility, or at least a thrill in such a worldview; an expanded & heightened vision of human nature and destiny. But- although written in a light, conversation style, the SC presents a dogma not susceptible to rational examination or experimental verification ( of course, these are ogres of "scientistic reductionism" and "dogmatic & patriarchal materialism ) "holistic paradigms" have dumped for good ). IMO: this is a popular book ( c 300 pages in paperback ), readable & enjoyable. I've read it ( at least the greater part of it ) in an hour in a train. Except for Hitler, after you've finished 20% of it, you have a feeling that you're re-reading always the same chapter. More or less- that's what Hillman's SC is all about. In any case- better Hillman than King or Redfield.
Rating:
Summary: A book about biographies, especially one's own
Review: This book is as much about the search for character and calling as it is an elucidation of Hillman's neo-Jungian/neo-Platonist theory of psychology, termed the 'acron' theory. It is a very readable book, with a lot of biographical anecdotes from the lives of such a broad spectrum of famous personages as Churchill, Josephine Baker, and Yehudi Manheim.
Because of this it is a joy to read, and succeeds in invoking a sense of one's own life story as an unfolding drama. One, moreover, that is seperate from the individual ego, and demands its outward manifestation at all costs. This is a well crafted book, and although sometimes quite theoretical, it never loses touch with the beauty of the biographical stories it invokes, and, in a larger sense, the drama of the individual soul desperate to bring its given talent into fruition. If you've never read Hillman this is a very good place to start. You won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary!
Review: This is a book for anyone who has ever been stuck in the quicksand of the intellect or has made the emotional descent into the pit of angst. In my opinion, it is no mere hyperbole to say that, if you have ever questioned the meaning of your life's purpose or struggled with the concept of destiny, "The Soul's Code," might be the Rosetta Stone with which to illuminate and give meaning to your life. James Hillman is a psychologist and Jungian analyst with a thoroughly modern view of the human psyche that I can only describe as truly empowering for the reader. The subtitle of the book--"In Search of Character and Calling"--not only illustrates the investigative intent, it delivers a discovery that is nothing short of miraculous. In "The Soul's Code," Hillman uses the metaphor of an acorn to serve as the image of the soul and its "calling" in life. Just as the acorn contains all the information that is needed to grow a complete oak tree; so does the soul contain the entire history of a life, from the moment of birth to the end of a life. Using biographical examples of diverse personalities such as Judy Garland, Adolf Hitler, Josephine Baker, Manuel Manolete, Ella Fitzgerald and others, Hillman makes a credible case to support his theories. The idea of the book, in a nutshell, is that the soul of every individual is given a unique "daimon" which has selected a pattern that we live on earth. Another word for daimon--which comes from the Greeks--is "genius" (which is the word that the Romans used). In Hillman's own words, from Chapter One: "This soul-companion, the daimon, guides us here; in the process of arrival, however, we forget all that took place and believe we come empty into this world. The daimon remembers what is in your image and belongs to your pattern, and therefore your daimon is the carrier of your destiny." In a nutshell, then, this book is about calling, about fate, about character, about innate image. Together they make up the 'acorn theory,' which holds that each person bears a uniqueness that asks to be lived and that is already present before it can be lived." I enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone who has wondered and pondered and searched for meaning in their life beyond the the mundane and habitual patterns they may have settled into.
Rating:
Summary: Have the courage to live out your character
Review: This is a tightly packed book that was challenging to read. I read with reasonable care, but probably absorbed only 30-40% of what Hillman was saying. So much for 8 years of higher education. (Though I have to say, having seen some of the tendentious, slash-and-burn reviews below, I'm happy that period in my life is finished.) Hillman's thesis is that we are unique after all, that we have callings in life, and that our caretaker soul guides us, in fits and starts, but nonetheless inexorably, towards the achievement of that destiny. It is a wonderful thesis for people, like myself, who have felt that the path they are treading neither fulfills their childhood expectations nor conventional ideas of success, and who are not sure exactly it is they are supposed to be. The acorn theory urges us to continue on toward our destiny, even if it remains invisible through much of our lives.
Rating: 
Summary: Poor grammar, second class reasoning
Review: uh yeah that was is it, interesting...
I had to tape the pages back in after reading it ...
Rating:
Summary: interesting read
Review: uh yeah that was is it, interesting...
I had to tape the pages back in after reading it ...
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