The Soul's Code: In Search of Character and Calling

'James Hillman's new book cuts through the wrappings of modernist social science to restore passion, uniqueness, destiny, and childhood to every human life. With Hillman's acute and powerful vision we can once again be persons instead of subjects, individuals instead of cases, and creative eccentrics instead of benumbed normals. In a day when human life is defined in the shallowest terms, this book offers a renaissance of human values."

Page four is enough to tell me I do not need to read this book.
To quote the author, "this book shall maintain that we are less damaged by the traumas of childhood by them then by the traumatic way we remember childhood"

This author clearly has never been sent into Panic by a sound or smell that took him directly back to a bathroom door flying open and the stench of drugs or garbage and stale cigarettes, complete with roaches, as a young child.

Page upon page of what-the-heck-is-he-talking-about punctuated by periodic flashes of brilliant insight.

Hillman is a Jungian psychologist, and this volume is a secularized treatment of the attainment of daimonic inspiration, written for a popular audience. Most of the book treats its topic through extensive biographical anecdotes, and the conclusion foregrounds a phallic symbolism of creativity and destiny. Recommended to Thelemites.

“[An] acute and powerful vision . . . offers a renaissance of humane values.”—Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul and The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life Plato called it “daimon,” the Romans “genius,” the Christians “guardian angel”; today we use such terms as “heart,” “spirit,” and “soul.” While philosophers and psychologists from Plato to Jung have studied and debated the fundamental essence of our individuality, our modern culture refuses to accept that a unique soul guides each of us from birth, shaping the course of our lives. In this extraordinary bestseller, James Hillman presents a brilliant vision of our selves, and an exciting approach to the mystery at the center of every life that asks, show more “What is it, in my heart, that I must do, be, and have? And why?” Drawing on the biographies of figures such as Ella Fitzgerald and Mohandas K. Gandhi, Hillman argues that character is fate, that there is more to each individual than can be explained by genetics and environment. The result is a reasoned and powerful road map to understanding our true nature and discovering an eye-opening array of choices—from the way we raise our children to our career paths to our social and personal commitments to achieving excellence in our time. Praise for The Soul’s Code “Champions a glorious sort of rugged individualism that, with the help of an inner daimon (or guardian angel), can triumph against all odds.”—The Washington Post Book World “[A] brilliant, absorbing work . . . Hillman dares us to believe that we are each meant to be here, that we are needed by the world around us.”—Publishers Weekly show less

Page four is enough to tell me I do not need to read this book.
To quote the author, "this book shall maintain that we are less damaged by the traumas of childhood by them then by the traumatic way we remember childhood"

This author clearly has never been sent into Panic by a sound or smell that took him directly back to a bathroom door flying open and the stench of drugs or garbage and stale cigarettes, complete with roaches, as a young child.

Makes the claim that every person is born with a defining image that affirms his or her inherent uniqueness and destiny, and urges people to reexamine their childhood impulses, fantasies, thoughts, and traumas in order to reclaim their personal callings.