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A great part of the genius of Carl Jung was his wholeness. From this came a breadth of interest enabling him to record over more than sixty years a continuous stream of fresh and vivid insights, ranging from the scientific and experimental to the philosophic, religious and prophetic. This breadth of learning and interest is reflected in the wide variation of emphases found in the writings of his followers, whether formally trained members of the IAAP or the many individuals who have found him a source of illumination and healing in their personal lives. However, since few of us are able to integrate the opposites as fruitfully as Jung himself, this is also reflected in the disagreements and splits among his readers, who may be better qualified by training or inclination to follow one or other aspect of the original work. I found the book under review to fall into the category of religious-cum-prophetic works stimulated by Jung's observations, and so my attempts to understand it are based on my acceptance of my own clinical and intuitive experience coloured by the traditions of a still accepted Christianity.
The publishers' claims for the value of the work are considerable. ‘A new world view, a creative collaboration between the scientific pursuit of knowledge and the religious search for meaning’. ‘An important book written in the shadow of ominous global forces … its basic focus on the quality and meaning of human lives reflects an underlying concern for the continuation on earth of any life at all’. The author, Edward Edinger, an American Jungian analyst, asserts that Western society has lost its way in having lost its belief in ‘a viable functioning myth’. This, he says, robs us of differentiated values, leaving the individual faced by ‘the elemental motivations of power and pleasure or else exposed to emptiness and despair’. Against this black and bleak perception (in which one can perhaps see some truth) he sets his hopeful view that Jung in his life and work sh