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This paperback is dedicated to C. G. Jung on his 100th birthday. Its author is trained both as a theologian and as a depth psychologist. An outline of the work gained a prize in a recent competition under the title ‘Contribution to the problem of depth psychology and religious experience.’ Its 18 chapters cover material on Jesus as a man in terms of the shadow, personal and collective; in terms of his androgynous nature; in terms of his being a symbol of the ‘whole’, discussed from the standpoint both of theology and Jung's contribution etc. etc.
The book is massively erudite, with a tightly constructed argument along seemingly existentialist philosophical lines, buttressed by quotations—ancient and modern; theological, philosophical and anthropological; and drawing upon Eastern and Western sources, Christian and non-Christian, and Communist as well.
Writing as a committed Lutheran, Dr Wolff asserts that any depth psychologist, on turning his or her attention to the New Testament, is bound to discover the ‘revolutionising modern presence’ of Jesus. Without attempting to recommend a new faith or creed she claims to express a perception which anyone can verify ‘scientifically’ if possessing the necessary psychological and theological prerequisites. Thus the book is a search for ‘Jesus the Man’, but not for Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Scapegoat and Saviour.
Dr Wolff's thesis is that Jesus, the Man, has become a living symbol in our days, and it proceeds to offer supportive evidence from widely disparate camps and places. She works towards the affirmation of Jesus as the first integrated man in the history of the known world and is concerned with the problem of in what respect he can be said to be the permanent image of this for all times—for both men and women.
From his thoughts and deeds and from his life and death, Dr Wolff argues that Jesus was completely different from the rest of the world, with full anima integration, though he too had a collective and a personal s