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This is a book for meditation on symbols and a quest for depth of meaning; it is not a definitional symbol dictionary that gives straightforward interpretations from multiple cultures. Rather it invites and provokes the reader to reflect psychologically on image as central to the project. We are immediately engaged consciously and unconsciously to circumambulate a picture which is elaborated by thoughts, words, metaphors. One moves into an altered state of consciousness, like that of the dream world. The combination of word and image powerfully conjoins to lead one down a path that oscillates between left brain cognition and right brain appreciation of aesthetic experience. The editors have masterfully woven together this beautifully crafted volume not just for Jungian analysts but also for interested readers from all walks of life. Taschen has kept the price under $40.00 which makes it affordable for many people.
For this review, I interviewed the editors Ami Ronnberg, National Curator of the Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS), and Kathleen Martin, a Jungian analyst. Ami began working on the project 14 years ago and was joined by Kathleen four years later. Both editors worked collaboratively with the dedicated ARAS staff on image selection while Kathleen has worked with various authors who have written about specific symbols; she has pulled things together with masterful editing such that the written material reads seamlessly and carries through with poetic lilt and continuity thus stringing the separate beads into a whole. Ami, Kathleen, the ARAS staff and the other authors have 322 entries and 740 evocative images that at times soothe while at other times surprise the reader. Through constant discussion of image and text the editors worked together for 10 years (often guided by the unconscious) through many iterations until they got the combination right for any given symbol.
The book succeeds in encouraging us to think symbolically and in stirring