Customer Reviews

Phallos: Sacred Image of the Masculine (Studies in Jungian Psychology By Jungian Analysis)

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It was a bit tough ploughing through this book ten or so years ago as it seems a little ponderous and self conscious but I'm glad I did. In retrospect I can't think of another book that raised my consciousness quite the way this one did. As a female victim of childhood molestation, I have tried to understand sexuality from the male perspective and it was helpful to read a frank but intelligent and spiritual book by a man about men without intercession and without courtship to the feminine in the audience. I often recommend this book to women who are genuinely interested in a better understanding of men and not just interested in getting them to put the toilet seat down. If you're one of these more enlightened sister types, give the book a try. It's one of a kind in my experience. I also appreciate the Jungian approach to all matters in life and this book is part of a series of books, most of which I have read with interest and appreciation.

This is a great book for one's 'men's issues' or Jungian bookshelf. Of particular interest to me was the author's elucidation of the archetypal unconscious having 'phallos' qualities intrinsically. Both Freud and Jung articulated the feminine quality of the unconscious, with heroic ego differentiation representing a masculine step (initially)away from it. Yet, metaphorically, why would the unconscious be exclusively feminine? Why would the heroic ideal be exclusively masculine? As our culture's gender roles become more flexible Monick's interpretations will become increasingly useful to analysts and other therapists. This book also contains great photos of depictions of the phallos in art.

I am only a lay person in exploring the ideas of Jungian psychology. However, my curiosity seems to know when it discovers a very interesting line of thought. This is what I found in this book. The idea of masculinity being underpinned by an archetype or god that is infused with the numinous was really the idea to which I kept returning. Here is an understanding that seems to emerge from some unknown but seductive antiquity. It's difficult to explain but I saw this sort of understanding as promising all sorts of possible insights some of which are developed in this book. I found it refreshing to stumble upon some reasoning that not only moves beyond the mechanical aspects of masculine sexuality but also promises further interpretation.

Steven B. Herrmann, PhD, MFT
Author of "Walt Whitman: Shamanism, Spiritual Democracy, and the World Soul"

In Phallos: Sacred Image of the Masculine Jungian analyst Eugene Monick was the first post-Jungian writer to use Jung's notion of the "psychoid" to extend and amplify the meaning of the Phallus-image into the fleshly domain of body and matter, thereby reestablishing the missing link between analytical psychology and Freudian psychoanalysis. Jung did not overlook this link in his writings, but he did leave it behind for the most part in his search through alchemical symbolism for the hidden meaning of the aims of the libido in the phenomenon of the transference, namely the transformation of the personality through spiritual marriage and the new birth. It is important to note that it was after he conceived his seminal paper on the transference that Jung began, around 1946 and afterwards, to formulate his groundbreaking hypothesis of the psychoid that became the matrix for his theory of synchronicity and then he began to return to his original discussion concerning the nature of the libido that had set his mind on fire and set him on the path towards his own seminal contribution to the field of depth-psychology. The foremost exponent of the Freudian libido theory, writing before Wilhelm Reich, Herbert Marcuse, and Norman O. Brown (who in my mind made the extension for Freudian theory that Monick made for Jung), was Otto Gross, an early Nietzsche and Schopenhauer inspired psychoanalyst, who celebrated sex and incarnated the archetypal image of Phallus, as a Post-Nietzschean prophet of Dionysian ecstasy. Gross exemplifies the dangers of a one-sided interpretation of the phallus symbol that Jung was compensating for in analytical psychology and due to his deeper insight into the meaning of instinct he interpreted the symbol in a spiritual direction to offset the gross materialism of Freud's one-sided fascination with sex as a numinous factor that possessed him. Jung can be credited with broadening the concept of the libido to include at least five instincts and probably many more, some of which Freud articulated, most notably aggression. Monick makes the much-needed correction that the psychoanalysts have as of yet not been able to make between the phallus as a libido symbol and the concept of transformation that is perhaps the central idea amongst the Jungian intelligentsia. Sometimes Monick misses Jung's contribution, nevertheless, he does make an important breakthrough in positing the unity of an extroverted libido interpretation, which is not only Freudian but very American, and a more introverted interpretation of the symbol, as posited by Jung. One of my favorite passages in the book states clearly how Jung encompassed the unity of the phallus-image at the beginning of his career and near the end: "In the psychoid beginning and within the unus mundus at the end of Jung's mythology of the psyche," writes Monick "there is no ultimate separation of flesh and spirit. Invisible spirit, as archetypally masculine, manifests itself in flesh; visible flesh, as archetypally feminine, manifests phallos. Phallos, membrum virile, is flesh and spirit--in a word, psychoid" (1987, 68). Jung said essentially the same thing in his magnum opus, but it is hard for the student of Jung to find it as there is only one reference to sex in his massive 556 page text. It is easy to see for any serious student of Jung how far Jung had left his early research into the nature of the phallus-image behind by 1950 and how much Monick's work is a welcome attempt at an integration. Nevertheless, by overlooking Jung's research while he was beginning to break away from Freud in 1911-1912 Monick sounds sometimes as if he believes Jung had nothing significant to say about sexuality. This is of course limiting. In his book Myth, Religion, and Mother Right, Bachofen had split the phallic god-image into opposites of a "solar" and a "chthonic" masculinity; while Jung's follower, Erich Neumann, contrasted a "higher" spiritual, with a "lower" phallic masculinity, in The Origins and History of Consciousness (92). At the time of his death, Neumann was attempting to formulate a bridge of his own between these two domains of the phallus-image in his book The Child, when he began to open the door to shamanism. Through Monick's penetration into the psychoid levels of the Shamanic Mind, such divisions between "higher" and "lower" phallus (Monick, 65) are no longer necessary, in fact they are completely obliterated by a numinous image with a psychoid aura surrounding consciousness that is spiritual and sexual at the same time. Without a post-Jungian and post-Freudian understanding of Phallus as a transformative factor in the psychoid realm it would be difficult to translate the meanings of the phallus-image into a framework that is broad enough to encompass sexuality as a symbol and as a material fact simultaneously, an objective reality containing an "absolute knowledge" that transcends the divisions between the Freudian and Jungian points of view. Jung was well on his way to making this connection himself and left his insights for post-Jungians like Monick to pick up, as seeds scattered upon a verdant field. If we were to view Phallus simply as an image for the libido, we might neglect its transgressive, or psychoid manifestation as a psychophysical and psychosocial unity, capable of harmonizing civilization at a higher level of culture. In its psychoid, or transgressive aspect, Phallus becomes light, creativity and consciousness, as in the all-seeing eye of Jung's early dream of the underground grave-phallus, which Monick mentions early on in his book, as well an actual organ of immense pleasure, love, happiness, and wildness in the human body, world and psyche. Monick makes an important link that most other Jungians have left out and for this he can be congratulated.

This book is another very useful and entertaining volume in the Inner City Books Studies in Jungian Psychology by Jungian Analysts. Monick is able to use his background as an Episcopal priest to shed light on the solar and chthonic phallos as they pertain to consciousness, the unconscious, spirituality, and Christianity. Basically, the chthonic phallos is the type of masculine sexual energy that is thought to be bad, sinful, or taboo - but pleasurable. The solar phallos represents the type of masculine energy that is diverted to more noble pursuits such as the search for meaning, the evolution of family values and patriarchy, and the attempt to achive superiority through compassion, evolution, and good works. While some orthodox Christians still believe that the purely sexual chthonic phallos must be repressed, Monick realizes, correctly, that the chthonic phallos is essential and can even provide fuel for the solar phallos. In other words, we can use our chthonic sexual energy as motivation to do good works, via a desire to compensate for sin and guilt. The chthonic phallos can also exacerbate fear of death and other complexes which can actually propel higher spiritual pursuits. Monick reminds us that "there can be no light without shadow" (p. 93). He also mentions that phallos is "fructifier of the philosophical tree" (p.84) and that "chthonic phallos penetrates solar phallos" (p.85). This basically means that pure sexual pleasure, the pursuit of it, or the conscious or subconscious obsession with it, can fuel inferiority and will-to-power complexes that eventually prove to be fuel for the evolution of consciousness. This goes back to Jung's concept of the "canalization of the libido" (see Jung's essay "On Psychic Energy"), where the libido can act as a generic form of energy that can motivate good pursuits involving the desire to have a positive impact on humanity through higher evolution of consciousness. According to Monick, chthonic phallos eventually leads to "ecstatic merger with the archetypal world in sexuality... Darkness itself is not evil. Darkness is the home of the spark." (p.95). In other words, sexuality helps to set the stage for archetypal experiences (that is, life-changing experiences) that help to set up a backdrop of fear of death, desire to reverse the inferiority complex, desire to achieve superiority, and these new desires eventually lead to positive accomplishments, fueled by sexual complexes.

A useful addition to your "men's issues" bookshelf. Especially good for readers not familiar with the new movement to affirm the sacredness of masculinity. -- Craig Chalquist, M.S., creator of the Thineownself self-exploration site.

It's like a lot of Jungiana, a lot of assertions and vapid conclusions. What makes this one worse than most is the pretentiousness of its language and tone. I do not have the impression that the author really has enough depth in comparative religions, anthropology, or even psychology to pull this off, and too bad, because the subject has potential.

First Mother then Phallos then the union of the two, all performed WITHIN, has nothing to do with human beings, which is to say LOVE is not human = EROS.