Soul's Code:, The: In Search of Character and Calling 
asked by jerseymike on November 11, 2006 8:16 PM
James Hillman, a former director of the Jung Institute who has written more than 20 books on behavior and psychology, delves into human development in The Soul's Code. Hillman encourages you to "grow down" into the earth, as an acorn does when it becomes a mighty oak tree. He argues that character and calling are the result of "the particularity you feel to be you" and knocks those who blame childhood difficulties for all their problems as adults. According to Hillman, "The current American identity as a victim is the flip side of the coin whose head brightly displays the opposite identity: the heroic self-made man, carving out destiny alone and with unflagging will." Hillman's theories seem disarmingly simple, but he backs them with a careful, well-practiced intellect.
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After reading Moore's "Care of the Soul," I decided to move on to his teacher, James Hillman. And I am glad I did.
This book gave me pause to conduct my own personal "archetypal autobiography," an exercise that has utterly transformed my life. Hillman's insights into the forces that move and motivate us have helped me as a man, as a father, and as a scholar.
I had my own copy bound in leather and I refer to it periodically -- when trends and events in my my life require archetypal realignment, when my soul needs grooming, and when I need the kind of perspective that shows me how I can gracefully my past into my present, and thence to the future.
It is a subtle and sophisticated set of arguments, not for the feint of mind.
Flip to his presentation of Plato's myth of Er (pp. 7-9 and 44-47) to capture a sense of Hillman's expansive wisdom.
This book gave me pause to conduct my own personal "archetypal autobiography," an exercise that has utterly transformed my life. Hillman's insights into the forces that move and motivate us have helped me as a man, as a father, and as a scholar.
I had my own copy bound in leather and I refer to it periodically -- when trends and events in my my life require archetypal realignment, when my soul needs grooming, and when I need the kind of perspective that shows me how I can gracefully my past into my present, and thence to the future.
It is a subtle and sophisticated set of arguments, not for the feint of mind.
Flip to his presentation of Plato's myth of Er (pp. 7-9 and 44-47) to capture a sense of Hillman's expansive wisdom.
reviewed by speed5599 on November 23, 2006 8:05 AM
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Hillman is a provocative author with many keen insights, but not unlike many psychologists in the Jungian tradition, he cannot refrain from the use of Myths. I deliberately capitalized the word Myth, because it more often than not is the problem, not the resource to resolution. Don't misunderstand me! Myths have figured heavily in all civilizations for their power to "see" something that is often otherwise not apparent. Moreover, myths are the backbone of civilizing humanity, telling stories, usually morality tales, that provide an insight that more direct discourse and narrative cannot capture. These Myths have a limited use, primarily for children, whose immaginations are charged by the peculiarity of the story, and through that peculiarity perceive a "truth" about life. Aesop's fables are perhaps paradigmatic, but other Myths exist too.
But as we enter the 21st C., isn't it time to limit the use of Myths for their pedagogical uses with children, and strip our adult minds of those Myths that have taken hold and twisted our sense of things. The most notable Myth in Western Civilization has been the Bible. The ironic twist about these particular Myths is that they are no longer pedagogical, but have become polemical. And I am far from confident that most of those Myths are innocent or benign. They no longer tell a story or morality tale, but in many people have become the Standard by which to measure all of life. And because the Myth transforms into religion, it often takes hold of people as though the stories are literally true, rather than metaphorically provocative. Instead of understanding a God of love and compassion, one encounters Yahweh whose jealousy and wrath are staples. And instead of perceiving "God" as the Energy that pervades the universe, its conception is of an anthropromorphic Deity, who caps things off by becoming human.
The point of all this is that Myths that go beyond mere stories and are transformed into "reality," often cause more damage than good. This is true both for the individual who maps out the world not as it is, but how a nomadic tribe millennia ago saw things. New tribes have arisen, but they tell the same unintelligible Myths. People even go to war over these Myths.
Thus, Hillman's use of the "acorn" is nowhere near that kind of Myth, but it perpetuates the Myth that only metaphors and stories can explain ourselves. So one Myth is substituted for another, denying all coherence to ourselves and others. That's what Myths do. And so we delude ourselves into thinking that only another Myth can overcome previous ones. At some point, we have to stop the endless progression of Myths and grab onto reality and face it head on. Myths not only do not do that, they prevent that from happening by their very nature.
Hillman's use of Myth is meant to be a "tool," but like many a tool it often becomes part of some larger apparatus like the person who uses it. Saint Paul said when he became an adult he put away childish things. And I suggest that using one Myth to see ourselves out of another Myth still keeps us in Myths. We persist in using childish tools, when only adult ones ultimately work. What was originally only a vehicle for insight inheres to our being and becomes the prism through which we view life. Hillman's "acorn" Myth is definitely useful, but as adults it's time to put away childish tools and start confronting life as adults. Instead of trying to "see" ourselves as we are, and for who we are, we hoist a new Myth to take on for changing our perception. We "see" the world through "Jungian" glasses, for example, rather than through the ones we should have formed.
At its most challenging reward, introspection and self-analysis require we face ourselves as we are, stripped of all the stories we have adopted as "our life." Only then can we find what we are searching for, and then begin to make sense of it.
But as we enter the 21st C., isn't it time to limit the use of Myths for their pedagogical uses with children, and strip our adult minds of those Myths that have taken hold and twisted our sense of things. The most notable Myth in Western Civilization has been the Bible. The ironic twist about these particular Myths is that they are no longer pedagogical, but have become polemical. And I am far from confident that most of those Myths are innocent or benign. They no longer tell a story or morality tale, but in many people have become the Standard by which to measure all of life. And because the Myth transforms into religion, it often takes hold of people as though the stories are literally true, rather than metaphorically provocative. Instead of understanding a God of love and compassion, one encounters Yahweh whose jealousy and wrath are staples. And instead of perceiving "God" as the Energy that pervades the universe, its conception is of an anthropromorphic Deity, who caps things off by becoming human.
The point of all this is that Myths that go beyond mere stories and are transformed into "reality," often cause more damage than good. This is true both for the individual who maps out the world not as it is, but how a nomadic tribe millennia ago saw things. New tribes have arisen, but they tell the same unintelligible Myths. People even go to war over these Myths.
Thus, Hillman's use of the "acorn" is nowhere near that kind of Myth, but it perpetuates the Myth that only metaphors and stories can explain ourselves. So one Myth is substituted for another, denying all coherence to ourselves and others. That's what Myths do. And so we delude ourselves into thinking that only another Myth can overcome previous ones. At some point, we have to stop the endless progression of Myths and grab onto reality and face it head on. Myths not only do not do that, they prevent that from happening by their very nature.
Hillman's use of Myth is meant to be a "tool," but like many a tool it often becomes part of some larger apparatus like the person who uses it. Saint Paul said when he became an adult he put away childish things. And I suggest that using one Myth to see ourselves out of another Myth still keeps us in Myths. We persist in using childish tools, when only adult ones ultimately work. What was originally only a vehicle for insight inheres to our being and becomes the prism through which we view life. Hillman's "acorn" Myth is definitely useful, but as adults it's time to put away childish tools and start confronting life as adults. Instead of trying to "see" ourselves as we are, and for who we are, we hoist a new Myth to take on for changing our perception. We "see" the world through "Jungian" glasses, for example, rather than through the ones we should have formed.
At its most challenging reward, introspection and self-analysis require we face ourselves as we are, stripped of all the stories we have adopted as "our life." Only then can we find what we are searching for, and then begin to make sense of it.
reviewed by crick on November 25, 2006 8:01 AM