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Time is the subject of one of the now well-known paperbacks in the series ‘Art and imagination’ (General Editor Jill Purce). The introductory text, called ‘The resonant image’ is by Marie-Louise von Franz, who has presumably also chosen the 14 ‘themes’ which illustrate in pictures, with erudite captions, man's creative ideas on time from ancient to modern days.
Von Franz's text is not exclusively psychological, although, naturally and necessarily, she finds a place for C. G. Jung, the I Ching, a dream, her own research in Number and time, her extensive knowledge of the literature and her professional understanding of archetypal imagery. Her incursions into modern science do not, in my opinion, overstep the boundaries of ‘art and imagination’. Mathematics, physics and scientific experiment could not be pursued without intuition and imagination, which create a world of artefacts from what, at the time, can or could be ‘scientifically’ perceived of reality. Seemingly established doctrines metamorphose again and again in the stream of human thought, endlessly searching for a synthesis which would contain both the need for motion and the desire for stability.
Such have been my reflections on the spirit of the book. As for the text, some readers may share my wish that it had given more than glimpses of such an admittedly limitless subject, even within the given boundaries. It is difficult to cope, I feel, with divergent ambitions: economy of material and ground to be covered.
The ‘themes’ form therefore a relevant part of the book and allow—in fact—demand—rest, concentration and pause. What they illustrate could not be better expressed than by the first sentence of von Franz's text: ‘Time is one of the great archetypal experiences of man and has eluded all our attempts towards a completely rational explanation’. Yet reason wants to subject it, order it, measure it; trapping it and torturing it as the alchemists tortured the prima materia. And the outcome is the same—it escap