Whitney, Leanne. Consciousness in Jung and Patanjali. London.  Routledge. 2017. Pp  158. Hbk. £105.

Leanne Whitney's book compares the metaphysical systems of the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung and the Indian sage Patanjali. It hardly exceeds 150 pages in length, but its substance outperforms its physical weight by far. The central theme of the book is the comparative clarification of fundamental terms such as mind, consciousness, ego, self, and several others in the work of Jung and Patanjali, and how they are related to the metaphysical domains of the ontic and the epistemic. We can learn a lot by seeing the work of the two great scholars through the looking glass of their mutual perspectives on one another. Visit another continent, and you will return knowing more about your home country.

But I realize this sounds much too innocent and straightforward. Since the aforementioned terms are used in totally different cultural backgrounds by Jung and Patanjali, such a study needs to be meticulous in the details while also keeping an eye on the big picture. It is this successful combination that makes Whitney's book very special. Her account covers areas as diverse as the history of ideas, cross-cultural studies, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of mind, comparative religion, depth psychology and applied metaphysics. I probably forgot something. Anyway, it is one of the most original, insightful and stimulating books I have seen in a while. To transmit a sense of why I think so, I'll touch on some of the issues Whitney works out and add some commentary to them.

Some words about Indian philosophy to begin with. Whitney gives some background for Patanjali's Yoga Sutra when she introduces the text, but for contemporary readers without her detailed knowledge it may be useful to add some more. This is especially important as many popular yoga schools of today focus on bodily exercises and phenomena at least as much as (if not more than) the spiritual dimension of the path to liberation advocated by