Customer Reviews

The Earth Has a Soul: C.G. Jung on Nature, Technology & Modern Life

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I wished for years to see what Jung wrote about the natural world and our relationship with it in one volume that would spare me the hassle of going through the Index to the entire Collected Works. This is that book. Check out the Table of Contents (click on the book logo above to see it) to get an idea of how clearly organized this book is. I use it in graduate courses for Jung and ecopsych students. Highly recommended.

Ms Sabini affectively organized Carl Gustav Jung's thoughts and reflections on Nature and Man. It is insightfully edited and gives an excellent view of Jung's thoughts on mans separation from Nature and our own roots.

A good read that is not "rough slogging" like some Jung texts. Highly recommend.

I think this is a good collection of Jung's thoughts on nature. While I don't always agree with what he says, I found many of his words to be prophetic. In fact, some passages predicting the future are downright eerie.

It is much easier to buy this book than to sift through the collective writings of Jung for this information. This text reveals both the optimistic Jung and the shadow side of his relationship to nature.

This book is in effect a redaction - a drawing together from multiple sources - of Jung's work on nature, the human psyche, and the challenges both face in advanced modernity and the imperative it poses of recovering spirituality. Jung's views remain cutting edge for our times, and here Sabini has drawn not just from his collected works, but also from obscure seminars and letters to present material that will be both well-known and new to many Jungian scholars.

I use the expression "redaction" rather than merely "anthology" because the care with which Sabini has gathered and themed her material makes the chapters flow as if one is reading a new work by Jung. I was overwhelmed by its richness and its relevance to modern times - especially as a scholar working with colleagues who are exploring the ontology of the Celtic psyche, and in the case of some of us, relating that to the Gaelic/Celtic/Scottish communities in which we grew up. Jung's observations of primal societies in my view shed vital light on the self-understanding of what it can mean to be indigenous in the modern world, and Sabini's redaction brings all this together in ways that make a powerful contribution to ecopsychology and cultural studies.

This is clearly a work of love ... whoever Meredith Sabini is, she understands the importance of what was hidden in Jungian archives for our times ... and she has rendered it accessible in this beautifully produced volume.

You wouldn't think that we'd need to read about the Earth having a soul. You'd think it would be obvious to us when we step outside and encounter sky, water, flora and fauna. Dr. Jung says, "Sometimes a tree tells you more than can be read in books." This is true, but as he also explains, the development of consciousness caused an estrangement between the modern mind and the Earth, and most of us no longer understand the language of Nature. In addition to this communication breakdown, many of us step outside only to encounter soulless suburban enclaves or cityscapes of cement, glass, steel. So we are also physically and psychologically removed from essential connections.

Dr. Jung was one of our "wise old men" and whether you agree with his findings or not, thinking about them will broaden your perspectives immensely. His approach--that the door to knowledge always opens inward--is not for everyone, and his language is not always crystal-clear. In some of his books, I've found myself floundering--not for lack of interest, but because of an often impenetrable density. (I have discovered that Marie Louise Von Franz is very good at decoding and clarifying his work.) However, the quotes in this book are well-chosen for easy access to Dr. Jung's sometimes difficult thoughts, and each selection is clearly referenced so that you know where to look if you want to read further.

Jung's respect and devotion for the Earth are evident on every page, but this isn't ecological finger-wagging about Man's folly in pursuit of wealth, warfare and technology. It's about understanding why we do what we do, and correcting existing imbalances. It's about being more fully human, and looking into the depths of our humanity in order to reestablish intuitive processes and relearn the ability to follow instinct. The goal is not to return to a primitive state, but to evolve to a higher and more perceptive one.

The energy of the Earth is always available to us. Jung repeatedly stresses that we are integral to the Natural world, that it is our source and our future. Whatever we do to it, we do to ourselves. We can wreak havoc and then try to repair these devastations, but until we heal ourselves, the profound imbalance will remain. Our psychological growth depends on redeveloping our connections with the Natural world. Likewise, the future of the Natural world depends on our integrity as we honor and implement those connections.

Dr. Jung's remarkable investigations of consciousness are well-known if not always well-understood. We can't expect to immediately understand everything the wise old guide tell us. In his other books, as I've disentangled the threads of the mythic, the alchemical, the archetypal, the theological from the logical and the practical, I've been forced to arrive at my own interpretations and conclusions--a real education. With this book, Meredith Sabini did a lot of the hard work for me. Her introduction is helpful and her selections clearly reveal Jung's almost heroic endeavor to understand what it is to be fully human. These glimpses into his thoughts are inspiring, humbling, and worthy of careful consideration.

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"The Earth Has a Soul" is a thought-provoking compendium of excerpts from Jung's writings on nature, the environment, the nature of mankind, and our role as just another creature acting upon and reacting with, the greater Environment.

Jung was born at the height of the Industrial Revolution,just as people were beginning to look seriously at Darwin.

Living through both WWI and WWII he watched the world slowly lose touch with Mother Earth, with traditional ties to the land, and with religion. The development of the atomic bomb and the growth of man's capabilities for destroying the world, particularly horrified him.

In this book, compiled and edited by Meredith Sabini,Jung tells us that "...a balanced interaction between human nature and Nature requires that we also invite--allow--Nature to heal us..."

" 'Psyche' is the Greek word for soul, life and breath, so 'psyche' is Nature itself."

"We have conquered nature" is a mere slogan. In reality we are confronted with anxious questions, the answers to which seem nowhere in sight. The so-called conquest of nature overwhelms us with the natural fact of over-population and makes our troubles more or less unmanageable because of our psychological incapacity to reach the necessary political agreements.

It remains quite natural for men to quarrel and fight and struggle for superiority over one another. Where indeed have we "conquered nature? "

"It is quite possible that we look at the world from the wrong side and that we might find the right answer by changing our point of view and looking at it from the other side, i.e., not from the outside but from the inside." [i.e. our dreams.]

Jung tells us: "Go to bed. Think on your problem. See what you dream. Perhaps the Great man...will speak."


Meredith Sabini has done a magnificent job of selecting this material. She has edited it so that it flows like a single stream of consciousness from Jung's own pen. Great book. Read it!

Kim Burdick
Stanton, DE