Customer Reviews

Animals of the Four Windows: Integrating Thinking, Sensing, Feeling and Imagery

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I feel this is an excellent book because it covers the four basic human ways of knowing. It is written with feeling and the writer has obviously some experience. I like the way he has targeted the book for ordinary people who may not have a therapeutic background. The language is easily understood. He gives wonderful examples of how animal imagery works. The author invites you to use your own perception of animal imagery to understand you own ways of knowing and to bring it(knowing) into unique harmony. I would recommend this book for anyone interested in personal growth and self awareness.

This book is a brilliant and altruistic interpretation of the ideas of Jungian psychology, with one crucial factor - Its emphasis is on the experience as opposed to the theory. The author obviously understands with great warmth and humour the aliveness of imagery, feeling, and sensation and their interaction with thinking in creating the 'in the moment' or live perception of experience. The essence of this book is not in its concepts, though they are well explained in laymans terms, but it is in the livingness of the person who uses these concepts to gain a more holistic view of their lives that it comes alive. The author understands this well and makes it plain in the book that the concept is no substitute for the experience. I would recommend it to anyone, not just as a reference book with excellent conceptual content but also as a challenge to let their experience become as valuable to them as their thinking in their development and restore their psyche to balance. The author has clearly undertaken this journey himself, and he explains it with humour and vitality as an active process, not as a mental map to corral your experience in. In doing so he challenges the reader to apply all their modes of knowing themselves

It very clearly outlines what the author calls the 4 windows or ways of knowing. While it is similar in ways to Jung's ideas on the same topic the author makes an interesting distinction between his concepts and Jungs, especially in the Imagery/Intuition area...something worth learning more about. The language is clear and easy to follow. The concepts are very well explained. The book is an enjoyable and informative read.

I would recommend it to all parents and educators. The idea that we have different ways of knowing or processing information is not new but this book outlines that differentiation in a clear and affirming way and has a nice emphasis on returning to balance in the ways we know. A must for anyone too who has ever felt out of place in our very academic school systems or for anyone who wants to understand why so many have difficulties there.

This book will help you appreciate the different ways we interact with the world and affirm the knowing that comes to each of us through each of the four ways...thinking, sensing, imagery and feeling.

For a deeper and complete understanding, I would advice you to read the works of Carl Gustav Jung, the real source and origin of the many of ideas eclectically presented in this book.