You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Reviewing this book is a complex undertaking. Edinger's exposition of the encounter with the self is based on Blake's twenty-one engravings all reproduced in this compact little book. As most readers will know, Blake's engravings are a visionary response to the Biblical text which introduces new dimensions of understanding and also stays with the central mystery of Job's experience. As with all great works of art these engravings evoke depth responses and many potential interpretations. They raise basic issues about the relationship between man and God, good and evil, innocence and knowledge. Edinger makes admirably succinct comments on each engraving and presents us with a great deal of insight in a very condensed form. While the engravings illustrate paradoxes in Job's relationship with God, Edinger's commentary presents us with additional paradoxes inherent in Jung's hypothesis of the self.
Edinger's primary concern is to interpret the engravings in terms of the ego-self relationships. He defines the self as ‘the transpersonal centre and totality of the psyche’. ‘It constitutes the greater objective personality, whereas the ego is the lesser subjective personality.’ ‘Empirically it cannot be distinguished from the God image.’ Edinger responds to the engravings in terms of Yahweh/self-Job/ego. Job's wife, ‘friends’ and family stand for aspects of Job's psyche. Each image therefore symbolises a quality of ego-self relationship. He postulates a ‘Job archetype’ comprising four stages: (1) An encounter between the ego and self. (2) A wound or suffering of the ego as a result of the encounter. (3) The perseverance of the ego which endures the ordeal and persists in sustaining the experience in search of meaning. (4) A divine revelation by which the ego is rewarded with some insight into the transpersonal psyche. In his account the ego is challenged by the self, the deeper objective personality, and if it can meet the challenge there is a transformation bringing about a