johntra44's review against another edition
4.0
This is a book which really gives on what Jung thinks and what his stance on certain things. A really dense book. I had the thought that I can read this fast because of its 100-ish pages but now it feels like I had just read a 300 pages book. So, take your time reading this.
Two things to point out real quick. I think his conception of consciousness as a curse is truly mind-opening. Jung alludes to the story of Adam and Eve where they ate the apple of knowledge as our departing from nature. We usually, in our primitive era, did things without reflections and depended on instinct. This is the time of the unconscious, the time of pre-reflection without conscious decisions and deliberations. The eating of the apple shows to us we were naked, the time we attained consciousness. And we can't go back being unconscious. The only thing we can do is go forward, to broaden our consciousness. And that is by realizing that we have two selves in us, the conscious and the unconscious. And only by this we can balance our life, to make the ego diminished in its power and use the energy of the unconscious forces to transform our life. This I think has a profit to us.
But one thing I don't like, and can't ever accept, is his idea of God as this supranatural being who not only Good but Evil also, the Gnostic God. This is blasphemous, and to all the blasphemies that had occurred, this thinking should be anathemized.
Two things to point out real quick. I think his conception of consciousness as a curse is truly mind-opening. Jung alludes to the story of Adam and Eve where they ate the apple of knowledge as our departing from nature. We usually, in our primitive era, did things without reflections and depended on instinct. This is the time of the unconscious, the time of pre-reflection without conscious decisions and deliberations. The eating of the apple shows to us we were naked, the time we attained consciousness. And we can't go back being unconscious. The only thing we can do is go forward, to broaden our consciousness. And that is by realizing that we have two selves in us, the conscious and the unconscious. And only by this we can balance our life, to make the ego diminished in its power and use the energy of the unconscious forces to transform our life. This I think has a profit to us.
But one thing I don't like, and can't ever accept, is his idea of God as this supranatural being who not only Good but Evil also, the Gnostic God. This is blasphemous, and to all the blasphemies that had occurred, this thinking should be anathemized.
More...