Book Review: The Psychology of C.G. Jung

Title: The Psychology of C.G. Jung
Author: Jolande Jacobi
Publisher: Yale Univ. Press Date: 1971

This is the fifth printing of this text, the orginal publication date is 1942 and the publisher is Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. The prefaces from the past editions gives an idea of the evolution of the text to it's current state. Orginally, this appears to have been published in German. Listed on the page with the publication information is a translator, Ralph Maneim.

I find myself questioning why Jung chose to percieve the psyche as something akin to a Russian set of nesting dolls. Why didn't he choose a more organic approach. The roots of the ego are in the uncoscious, the growth process is our development of self-differentiation and the consciousness is the flower of the plant known as ego. The growth of a psyches is influenced by external forces as well as internal forces. The environment of the plant are the external forces and the earth are the internal forces, which Freud and Jung call the unconscious.

To take the plant image a touch farther, the roots of the plant we call ego is the personal unconsciousness of Freud and Jung and the soil is the collective/social unconsciousness. The group unconsciousness of a society would come into play as the genus and family of the plant.

Looking at the description Jung provides on the nature, function, and operation of the psyche, I find myself questioning some of what is presented. Now, some of the points I am dubious of may be more a result of Jacobi rather then Jung, but it doesn't seem to make too much difference. Part of my difficulty with what I'm reading here is just how much repitition there is. I'd figure that you don't need to beat your readers over the head with a concept to get them to recognize it.

Jung and Freud do appear to agree on a few points that I've encountered thus far. both argue that the psyche is made of three parts and they agree on all of them. Jung and Freud seem to agree on the functions of the conscious mind and the ego. They have two very different perspectives on the unconscious and Jung appears to have developed the sub-conscious.

The more I read of Jung's work, the more I see that much of the occult pilosophy and theology has drawn heavily off of his work. I find myself feeling increasingly disappointed with the writers of the Neo-pagan community. The use of fiction, half finished theories, and poorly researched archeology/anthropology as the basis of a serious religion that claims to be rooted in antiqueity is more then just irresponcible, it's fraudulent.

Jung's archetypes, specifically his primeval "Great Mother," all can clearly be seen as the precursors to the Great Mother cult of the modern paganism movement. I suppose it makes sense to see so many movements with in the pagan community claim antiquiety as their origins when you look at their sources.

On the whole, however, I have to say that I've lost interest in this work. It's too self important, using jargon for the sake of jargon. It also talks in circles and reveals the real holes in Jung's arguments. Ironically, they're in many of the same places as Freud's were, such as failing to be sufficently flexible to conditions of varying degrees. So, I'm putting this down, though with a valueable lesson learned about pagan literature.

Note: This originally was published on Livejournal Aug. 23,2006. It was copied from a reading journal entry dated earlier. It is presented in the original format as closely as possible, including spelling and grammatical errors.