Rating: 
Summary: 3.5 star beginner book on symbols by a master of symbolism
Review: The last shall be first is demonstrated in this book-Jung's last book is his first attempt at communicating with the general public. It includes an essay on symbolism-a key element in Jungian psychology and a main reason for his break with Freud. Symbols are necessary to Individuation (the goal of Jungian analysis) per page 99: "Symbols are natural attempts to reconcile and unite opposites within the psyche." And, as Marie-Louise von Franz puts it on page 205: "Only by accepting earthly contact and suffering can the human soul be transformed into a mirror in which the divine powers can perceive themselves."
This book is easier to read than the symbolism books in Jung's Collected Works. On the other hand, it really isn't a good survey of Jungian psychology because it doesn't directly address many of his most important topics, but then it wasn't designed to do so. But, following Jung's essay are essays of many of his immediate disciples who provide pithy commentaries on various Jungian topics-and provide me with more quotes for my collection!
Jung does point out a significant practical difference between his psychological process and those of others-he takes the client/patient's intuitions etc. into consideration and that part of his process is to teach psychology to the patient:
p. 61 "The patients resistance to the analyst's interpretation is not necessarily wrong; it is rather a sure sign that something does not `click.' Either the patient has not yet reached the point where he understands, or the interpretation does not fit."
This book may not be appreciated by left brain Thinker types or adherents to other, rationally-oriented types of psychology. As Jolande Jacobi says (page 290): "People who rely totally on their rational thinking and dismiss or repress every manifestation of their psychic life often have an almost inexplicable inclination to superstition. They listen to oracles and prophecies and can be easily hoodwinked or influenced by magicians and conjurors."
While working as a scientist/engineer for about 39 years, I have interacted with many "rational" people similarly employed who will cling to (what seems to me) irrational myths of religion, politics, etc. while rejecting any evidence of the existence of the unconscious, the value of dreams, etc. Me thinks they doth protest too much.
Rating: 
Summary: Symbols as imprints from God?
Review: The Swiss Carl Jung and the Austrian Sigmund Freud are the annointed fathers of Psychanalisys, with due precedence to be ascribed to Freud, some 25 years Jung's senior and who broke loose with early tradition who saw the manifestation of the unconscious as unmeaningful. Both were men of the XIX century but their achievements changed the face of earth in the XX century . The excelent book "Man and his Symbols" is in all respects emblematic of many important facets of Jung's thoughts and ideas on the unconscious, being one of the last books he wrote and/or supervised before his death in old age, which ocurred many years after Freud's passed away in 1939 in London. In fact, the deaths of the two most important figures in Psychanalisys are emblematic of their lives, Freud dying an agonizing death to throat cancer and asking for the final shot which would take him to the depths of eternity (whatever this may be in Freud's mind) whilst Jung died naturally of old age and wholy mystical, almost religious. "Man and His Symbols" is quintessential Jung, with plenty of his vigor and energy, even if he did not write himself all the six essays of the book, but only a very important one concerning the fundamental role Dreams play in our life as a whole. It is in fact the only book by Carl Jung originally targeted to the non-professional reader and devoid of almost all psychanalytic jargon, thus making the reading of the book a pleasant experience to the non-professional reader like myself; all the five essaysts are bona fide Jung followers or adherents to his ideas. The idea of having a book targeted to the layman drew a lot of personal energy from Jung, always keen on having the right word for the right psychical situation (the same could be said of Freud). But, in the end, he gave in and agreed on the project's idea which was to popularize Jung's ideas throughout the world. The book is an important document of Jung's thought in the final days of his long and prolific life and stresses the many differences in important points of view he had vis-'a-vis Sigmund Freud, who, in the beginning of their relationship in 1906, was almost a father figure to the younger Jung and to whom Jung was supposed to be the heir apparent in the field of Psychanalisys. But Jung and Freud splitted apart their relationship on very personnal matters, due to Freud's lack of confidence in anyone but himself. The acerbic and bitter feud between the two, is documented in the many letters they exchanged for almost a decade and, in my opinion, Freud is the only one to blame, being a man of extremely bad temper and all too skitishy, with an overpowering ego with no admission of any wrinkle in the front of his followers scouts . There is a pretty much good medium sized book who documents the increasingly acerbic correspondence between the two, called "The Freud-Jung Letters" and which is also a good read, even in the available abridged version. In the same vein, see the quasi autobiographic essay by Jung and Anne Jafet, "Memories, Dreams and Reflections", where Jung (hesitatingly) talks about having reached in his last days the equilibrium between conscious and unconscious life, something he said to be one of the most important achievements of his. In Jung's view, symbols are important archetypal manifestations of man's powerfull unconscious and occur in each and every human society, primitive or advanced, and could not be simply dismissed or ruled out, as always civilized societies do, as only belonging to ancient backward peoples. According to Jung, symbols are archetypal manifestations of our innermost unconscious mental life and have an important role in balancing our waking life as long as we let them play unscathed and don't see them as something that we must be scared of. But, exactly from where symbols come? How do they get formed? In Jung's view, nobody will never know a precise answer for that question, which is to be placed in the dominion of the perpetually Unkown, and all societies seem to think that they were formed many aeons ago in the time of their ancestors, an always wrong assumption when we know that even ancient Greeks and Egyptians thought this way. Symbols, as many other things, simply do Exist and Are and play an important function in helping men by balancing their acts and lives, having although a disruptive influence whenever not correctly interpreted and unduly repressed. As Jung remembers, Goethe said in Faust: In the beginning there was the ACT. Symbols may be a timeless representation of things to be done and not to be thought out. But what are they? Couldn't they be messages from God? Different from Freud, a very irreligious man and who bashed even Jewish religion in his magistral books "Moses and Monotheism" and "Totem and Taboo", the open-minded and mystical Jung thinks that symbols can even be messages from an upper entity. Civilized men, betting all their chips in Reason as supreme, that is, in the primacy of a conscious (rational) attitude towards life, have increasingly attached an "off-limits" tag to the unconscious, thus spliting the psyche into two entities apart, not benefiting from the positive influence the unconscious may and should have on our being as a whole. The many black and white pictures and images profusely portrayed in the book help the reader a lot in understanding the jungian message about the significance of symbols and this paperback amazingly lightweight edition is agreeable to handle and flip and to carry along with one self. "Man and his Symbols" is a pretty much good book and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Rating: 
Summary: Under-rated
Review: The works of Jung have been, in my opinion, under-rated. The 'discovery' of the 'unconscious' in the 1900s has been said by some to be discredited. Nothing could be further from the truth. Rather, certain interpretations/'meanings'/aspects etc of the'unconscious ' have been quite rightly discredited, much as occurs in any major discovery/field of science. Much of what Sigmund Freud has said, to some, has been discredited. But in my view, the works of Jung are far better and more accurate, for example, than those of his more famous colleague (Freud), and the progress of science seems to be bearing this out. Freud placed far too much emphasis on the sexual side of our natures, in which findings in psychology and other fields has proved time and again. However, just because some have misintepreted various aspects of the 'unconscious' doesn't of course mean that the theory of the 'unconscious', however you want to define it, is discredited. Jung has contributed much to our understanding of ourselves and our inherited 'instincts', if you prefer, in the 20th century. His discourses are providing some input, for example, to the growing field of evolutionary pychology; that is, much of our behaviour is inherited from evolutionary processes. This is also the very same view, as I understand it, of Jung. The theory of the unconscious is by no means dead, and this book explains in a clear and meaningful way many of Jungs and others findings in this fascinating field. Much that goes on in religion and myth and superstition, for example, is not well understood by science; much of this book seeks to explain it. In my opinion , for what it is worth, there is much to be learned here. Jungs contributions will continue to provide input to various fields of human study for years to come. This book proivides a very good overview of many of his ideas, and was one in which he intended to write for the general public. Recommended for those who wish to obtain a deeper understanding of their natures, and the nature of that of mankind in general.
Rating:
Summary: Experience it.
Review: There are hundreds of images in this book. I appreciate that the author doesnt just talk about the images, but allows you to experience them as he discusses them. While this is a scholarly discussion the images allow you to react emotionally to the content as well as intellectually to the words.
Rating:
Summary: Experience it.
Review: There are hundreds of images in this book. I appreciate that the author doesnt just talk about the images, but allows you to experience them as he discusses them. While this is a scholarly discussion the images allow you to react emotionally to the content as well as intellectually to the words.
Rating:
Summary: Great Synopsis of Jung by Jung
Review: There are only two titles of Jung's I know of that were meant for general consumption: _Man and His Symbols_ and _Memories, Dreams, Reflections_. The rest, most of which are part of the 20-volume Bollingen series, are too involved and technical. Lest the reader be misled _Man and His Symbols_ is an anthology of essays by several authors, namely and in their order of appearance, Carl Jung, Joseph Hendersen, Marie-Louise von Franz, Aniela Jaffe, and Jolande Jacobi. All the co-contributors are Jungian analysts themselves and so are versed in the subjects they cover. Jung picked them himself and supervised the work until his death in 1961, after which von Franz took over. Perhaps not by accident Jung finished his own essay just 10 days before his demise. His essay (just over 90 pages out of the 400 or so pages) touches, naturally, on the unconscious, the very crucial subject of dreams, the archetypes, extraversion/introversion, religion, good and evil, among other topics. Given the scope, this essay of his offers a sort of synopsis of his worldview and life's work, perhaps one of the best summaries since it was his last published piece. Amongst Jung's books that I've read, his essay in this anthology is by far one of the most engrossing. Unfortunately I have to eke out a living like most of you so I can only savor it in installments. Of course I highly recommend this volume if only to whet your appetite for Jung's psychology, a psychology that has not only served me well, but continues to fascinate me, a psychology that is faithful to its roots--a true logos of the psyche.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent book to expand life and your own being
Review: This book changed my life. The discovery of the unconscious is a wonderful and exciting process. This book helps one to understand the human race through symbols and ultimately oneself. Carl Jung is one of the most insightful thinkers of our time. The hardcover book is a must for all the great pictures. Reading pace may be slow, but it is sometimes necessary in order to gain a greater understanding of the material.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful-The unconscious examined with facinating results
Review: This book offers the layperson an insightful view of the workings of the unconscious mind. It explains the function of symbols in our lives and how they express themselves in our dreams. Jung's archetypes are the human emotions, symbolically expressed through the dream images visited nightly in our sleep. And through the maze of the emotions one will find a metaphysical (spiritual) foundation, properly expressed in the symbolic forms hidden in the deep unconscious realms of the psyche. Jung is talking about the soul.
Rating:
Summary: Very Good Summation
Review: This book provides a good summary of Jungian dream analysis. Instead of bogging down with highly detailed and esoteric references, it gives the reader easy to follow explanations. But it is not overly dumbed down. You still feel like you are learning useful and relatively advanced information. The main body of the book is comprised of several essays, written by a select group of Jung's peers, which carefully explain his work. And Jung himself edited the essays, in order to assure that his messages were crystal clear. Jung provides an excellent introduction chapter as well. If you are looking for an easy to digest book that covers Jung's amazing dream analysis techniques, Man and His Symbols is made for you.
Rating:
Summary: Mind opening read
Review: This is a fascinating book, not just in that it tries to explain the workings of the mind and what seems to be encoded symbolism within it, but also that it was written at a time when the new quantum physics was breaching into the public domain. It was interesting to read some of the authors trying integrate this into their model of the mind.
The work is somewhat dated (published in 1964) in that none of the latest findings in neurobiochemistry and strutural neurology are discussed. I found the chapter on symbolism in the visual arts by Jaffe stretched its arguments a bit too thin for my liking, but was captivated by Jacobi's chapter which describes an analysis.
This is a very good primer to Jung and a worthwile read.
|
