Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 5: Symbols of Transformation Paperback – Jan 21 1977

Who doesnt want to be something else..hopefully better but not comprehending what exactly that means? WE could be transformed by a person from our youth a missed opportunity..the variables are endless and instead of achieving a way toward some transformed state..we remain stunterd or regress or want to be somewhere else..a book largely of literary criticism, biblical and from various mythic literature including Indian, we congratulate the author at dipping into a large variety of sources, so many variables to developa view..but it remains dense for the general reader..of interest for those interested in myths and biblical literature and being transformed?

Much of it is filled with dream images and to take an unfortunate image sexual assault. Erotic dreams of women.he finds "burglars, thieves, murderers, and sexual maniacs"..all ways in which the dreamer feels vulnerable to attack or a fear either somewhat rational or phobic..and the means usually today strangulation, knife, gun..or some item and theres a relation sometimes in a dream(as opposed to an actual attack)it has something to do with the women's psychological state which is different from a real situation?..Many think of the modern person as constructed by science and technology as starting from the time of DEscartes but he goes back further to scholastic times..and really this process though many of the thinkers taught throughout southern europe really comes out of germany and the monastic communities which developed schools..as many of the best teachers emanated from.."modern directed thinking and the techniques fostered by it"(p 19)..A vein of romance, always finds itself cropping in his work..first love..as in the famous book by Turgenev "young girls..first love..have great difficulty in expressing themselves owing to disturbances brought about by regressive reactivation of the father..."..many have found such old mystical ideas as "medieval psychology"(p 44)..he notes his critics..and you can write a paper on this it can be a sign of remembrance and fulfillment and meaningful relations leading to..or it can be pathological like any relationship. On p 70 the "inability to be happy without friends." Ideas of mediation bringing on a state or do we value the mediator or a combo..like fries and a hamburger..

Going back to love..the psychoanalyst is here..he finds if you are unable to find a love object..refer back to first love..is it do to a lack of suitable objects or "inability."(p 173)..the person who feels the average persons in a middle class or lower class environment as opposed to the affluent, the politico, the famous, the media star..mentally intoxicated in some sense..being able to love..contemplation as it relates to self image and how we are perceived(he does not go into this)..FRom p 228 (see the recent george clooney film ides of march an old fashioned kind of film)..the "scientific mind"..the "cult of sex"..sex as some magic formula producing euphoria..equating it with happiness..if we go back to old communities like Corinth..its an old problem and he gives his views in the following pages...an old poem "and now she has broken that happy bond"(p 361)..

He ends on the fantasies of Miller a tale he read where he had some critics the U.S>..as well as many other critics worldwide..she dreams of being on a "pedestal"..she goes on "fragments of philosophy,aesthetics and religion..produce this beautiful dream"(p 454)..see FRagments by Marilyn Monroe(poems, intimate notes, letters)..in her case it remains fragments as diagnosed at the time diagnosed with exactly what we dont know but needing psychotherepeutic help..far from being whole..complete like the Jungian mandala..a symbol of psychic health..actually though our consciousness is made up of an integrated cenception of some kind in most people..the coalescence of so many fragmented pieces and aspects the number is huge..and we break off all kinds of pieces from various places..here he notes a few..and hopefully it leads to a sense of wholeness..fulfillment..well being leading to a transformed(transformation)..self to some type of future mental well being..as long as it avoids regression..so are the views here described and as I note there are many practitioners these days and transpersonal psychology is a large field..and varies..and they may disagree with things i say..or views i have here..or just to be disagreeable the world of specialistrs?..let us go back to the mythic world..snakes and ladders..the sun that shines all day..black holes..parallel worlds..dimensional worlds..adam and eve..eyes opened real wide..or like the film eyes wide shut..love and Samson and DElilah..the scorned lover exacting revenge for imaginary slights and a world which never existed..the mad bomber fighting a war..for an unattainable position..these are all mythic worlds of gods and goddesses..and change...maturity as the fletcher tale.."to marry the woman he had scorned and so ends the play"..or is it just the beginning if love has the last word or she remains or he enclosed in their own world of their own making..For those interested in these subjects theres plenty to amuse themselves with here.

Pricy

A+

This is a version of the book that ended Jung's relationship with Freud, for it discloses a series of dream (and other kinds of) symbols interpreted synthetically rather than reductively. Interesting for those into exploring the early Jung but definitely not for those new to his thought.

impeccable