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Reviewing an article such as this presents an almost impossible task. Conventional articles move from a set of explicit or implicit assumptions, within a more or less familiar and established context, to the exploration of some new territory which is considered problematic. The reviewer then has an Archimedean point to stand on, from which to examine the validity of the author's arguments. However, this article, like most of Andrew Samuels's recent writings, is bubbling with creativity in a way that offers no such safe ground from which to re-view his positions. More specifically, he attempts here to investigate connections between depth psychology and politics, spirituality, market economy, mythology, and developmental theory! As a result, those readers who would be unable to adjust to these ‘unsafe’ conditions could dismiss it as empty froth, whereas other readers could get intoxicated (and indeed inspired) by the very same bubbling. His line of argument extends the boundaries of depth psychology outside the consulting and seminar rooms, and pushes them into new territories in a manner which the purists would find provocative. But, Samuels is not a purist in the sense of a traditionalist. However, one may argue that he is indeed a purist in terms of returning to the powerful possibilities engendered within depth psychology itself. Thus, in his venturing into all these exotic landscapes, he always remains a depth psychologist, faithfully utilizing only depth psychology tools.
Samuels endeavours to establish the psychological dimensions of Aristotle's old dictum that man is a political animal. Fully aware of the dangers of falling into the trap of ‘offensive’ reductive interpretation, he chooses to sail through and around the issues with a mixture of amplificatory and imagistic reflections. He even acknowledges that such an expedition inevitably has to include something ‘frankly irrational’. His intention is to ‘make something psychological, but not exclusively psych