Customer Reviews

Healing the Wounded God: Finding Your Personal Guide on Your Way to Individuation and Beyond

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

While this book's general goal is very Jungian, the original theories which Raff and his co-author propose to reach that end are decidedly post-Jungian. He introduces a trinitarian system that relates the actual divine realm to our realm. Raff, in my interpretation, is superseding the importance of the Self and claiming that there is a perceptable entity that is independant of our psyche. In my judgement, this view is very much opposed to Jung's precept that no one can know any sort of absolute truth. Furthermore, the authors seemingly spend the first half of their book trying to prove this precept of a trinitarian mechanism for moving psychic energy between the finite and the infinite by way of an intermediary third. I say 'seemingly' because I got bogged-down in their rehashing of the same ideas like the "Juglan myth" (a myth which is apparently a creation of their own, which solely supports their trinitarian system) and I quit the book about mid-way through.

Although the book's message that our participation in the divine is (I believe) an important message, I've found it proposed better elsewhere. Ultimately, I could see little original theory that couldn't be written off as the authors' own inflated identification with the Self, because of which they believe that they are percieving something new. But perhaps I'm just a too stubbornly conservative Jungian to see any truth in something that is so potentially revolutionary.

There are some very positive aspects of this book, written by a couple of practicing Jungian analysts.

The back-page description of the book states: "Increasingly, people are reporting experiences of coming in contact - in dreams, meditations or visions - with a being that seems to exist independently in the realm beyond the psyche". In itself this is nothing new as, for example, a review of dreams in the Old Testament would show. However, it is refreshing to find some work by Jungian Analysts that doesn't limit itself purely to the psychological aspect of Jung's work. C.G. Jung said he was certain about the existence of God and, to my reading, wrote about Him as if He was a 'being... beyond the psyche'.

Also, the book is potentially seminal because of the premise on which it is based, which deserves serious consideration. Just as man needs God for man to be complete or whole, God also needs man for God to be complete or whole. This could explain, for example, the more accurate and meaningful translation of Matthew:5:48: "Be complete, as your heavenly Father is complete" ('telios' is usually mistranslated as 'perfect'): God and man find completion in each other.

However, I found it impossible to engage fully with this book beyond the first 20 or 30 pages. This might be a matter of it simply not fitting my particular expectations, which were shaped by the Jungian credentials of the authors. Much of Jung's writing about God, though controversial, is written for a Christian perspective and, at one level, Answer to Job is about the individuation of God.

But the book takes a very different direction. The author introduces 'the Juglan myth' and some new terminology associated with it, which becomes central to the text. Yet it isn't really a myth at all (not in the traditional, non-fiction sense), but rather a story or alternative religion created by the author ("My ally, in a series of meditations, presented a new mythology to me - the myth of Juglan").

As a reader, I found the Juglan terminology got in the way and became a pointless obstacle, because I had to constantly translate how the author's terminology related to that with which I was already familiar (from my reading of Jung, my knowledge of other myths, and my Christian perspective). It was a bit like reading a book in a different language, and became such hard work that I ended up skimming over the last few chapters.

This book is based on a couple of significant ideas (that there is a being beyond the psyche, and that God needs man to be complete). Ultimately, however, this book is a handbook of how to have a personal relationship with God using the author's own Juglan 'myth'/religion/terminology.

I've just started reading this book and have to
express the fact that it starts out from the
beginning with a very heavy concept to digest.
I don't feel that this book is for someone who's
never read Jung or studied alchemy.
I'm only a beginner at psychological alchemy. Maybe
this is why it seems so "heavy".
I'm enjoying the book, so far, but I have to read
it slowly and only digest a few pages at a time.
Maybe as the book goes on I'll be able to take
it in faster, but, the beginning of it throws the
reader right into the alchemical theory that its
writers have come up with through their studies.
It's all very interesting, and wrote well.
I just don't think this book would be good for
someone not familiar at all with Jung and alchemy.
If you're just now starting, look for a more basic
book on the subject. Try Thom F. Cavalli's
book entitled "Alchemical Psychology: Old Recipes for
Living in a New World".
If you are familiar with this subject, you'll probably
love this book.
I will report back at a later date, when I have
finished this book, and expand on this basic review.
For now, 4 stars!
Peace!

I read Healing the Wounded God after I read Raff's Alchemical Imagination and loved it. Even as an intermediate reader of Jungian/post-jungian work, I had never come across the idea that the divine is as wounded an entity as the individual. Such a possibility fascinated and excited me; opening up a whole new way of thinking!

Having encountered an ally figure early in my life, I enjoyed reading about the differences between 'angels' and 'the Ally'.

The only real problem I had with the book was that the collaborating authors do not say which of them wrote which chapter. Since both writers have their own distinct stories and experiences, this became VERY confusing and convoluted the whole book.