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The impetus for this book is an ingenious idea: we may approach Jung, and particularly the question of his standing in modern thought, by gathering together statements about the implications of his work for other disciplines and areas of knowledge. The papers in this collection, itself inspired by a conference which took place in South Africa, focus on the central themes in Jung's psychology as seen through some unusual filters. They are not, and do not pretend to be, in-depth studies of separate aspects of his work. There are seventeen papers, eight written specially for this project, and the general aim is to contribute to the re-evaluation of Jung (particularly in academic circles) which the editors state, quite rightly in my opinion, is currently taking place. Above all, Jung should no longer be seen as out on a limb but as in the mainstream of various contemporary intellectual concerns. If they do nothing else, these papers attest to the extraordinary range of Jung's enquiry.
Though some of the papers are concerned with analytical practice and a generally clinical perspective, the majority are written from within the following disciplines; philosophy, intellectual history, oriental studies, theology, history, musicology and physics. Space does not permit a review of the individual papers and I have decided instead to respond to the book just as it is offered: an understanding of Jung ‘as a whole … over the vast spectrum of his interests’.
An overall reaction is that it is necessary to distinguish questions of relevance from