There was a period in my life—London circa 1970—when I immersed myself in this extraordinary book. Today (2012) I’m reading Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces who often appears to me to write with a certainty that the breakthroughs of Jung, Freud and their contemporaries would usher back in to the modern world the power of mythology. Not.
Memories, Dreams & Reflections opened a door for me into the work of Jung, something I could not have approached through his professional writing; it was beyond me. But his life was something altogether different. I remember many things from it, not the least of which was his reluctance to embark on his autobiography in the late years of his life. He was alert to the limit of the time he had left. It took a dream to tell him to do it.
The tendency to generalize from one’s personal experience is a temptation almost impossible to resist; at least I find it difficult. But it seems to me we have retreated from the amazing vistas Jung and others reminded us of and are, once again, back in a materially-focussed world without the guidance of our past. I’ll leave it there.
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