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VON FRANZ, M. Alchemy: An Introduction to the Symbolism and the Psychology. Toronto, Inner City Books, 1980. Pp. 280. $15.00.
Based on a series of nine lectures given in 1959 at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zürich, this book contains an introductory talk by Dr von Franz, followed by discussions on selected texts from Greek, Arabic and European alchemy. That bald statement gives no hint of the liveliness, freshness and readability of von Franz's book, which illumines ancient wisdom in the service of modern psychology. Discussing analysis she says: ‘That is what I find so beautiful about this work—it is an adventure which never comes to an end, for each time you turn a corner a completely new vista of life opens—you never know and have it all settled, even in the case of things which for the present you feel are sorted out’.
She is right, surely.
A.B.
PERERA, S. B. Descent to the Goddess: A Way of Initiation for Women. Toronto, Inner City Books, 1981. Pp. III. $9.00/£2.90.
Heralded by its blurb as the ‘most significant contribution to an understanding of feminine psychology since Esther Harding's Way of All Women, this is an extremely intense, highly wrought consideration of the process of individuation in women seen in terms of the Sumerian myth of Inanna, ‘Queen of Heaven and Earth’.
G. ROBINSON.
SANFORD, J. A. Evil. The Shadow Side of Reality. New York, The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1981. Pp. 161. $10.95.
The author is both an Episcopal priest and a Jungian analyst, and in his book he grapples with the problem of evil in psychology and religion. He traces the mythological, Old Testament and New Testament explanations of evil in the light of present-day contributions of analytical psychology, and provides a concrete exploration of the concept of the shadow in his analysis of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Finally, the author challenges the conventional insistence of the Church of the ideal of an impossible standard of perfection, and asks