Excellent development from Raff's "Alchemical Imagination"

books:

	• Healing the Wounded God: Finding Your Personal Guide on Your Way to Individuation and Beyond Jeffrey Raff, Linda Bonnington Vocatura Nicolas-Hays, 2002 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 4 reviews view larger image
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Excellent development from Raff's "Alchemical Imagination"

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.

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Not for the conservative Jungian

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.

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Heavy Stuff...

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!

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Through their work with their clients, their own experiences, and studies in myth, mysticism, and alchemy, the authors have traced the emergence of a new spiritual paradigm in which the divine seeks wholeness through and with us. Many of us are having experiences that bring us in contact with a being who seems to exist independently in the realm beyond the psyche, or what the authors term "the psychoid." This being, the ally, challenges and helps us along our way to individuation. The ally represents our divine counterpart and works with us, if we are willing, to help heal the schism between and within the divine and us. The authors show us how to contact and consciously enter into a relationship with the ally through our dreams and by employing what C. G. Jung termed "active imagination." When we work with the ally to transform ourselves, the divine transforms as well, all three elements co-creating a whole being. The authors explore the ally's parallels in mystical traditions such as Sufism and alchemy, and how the ally differs from angelic beings. They also present an exciting new view of various creation myths, revealing that salvation exists beyond the "vault of heaven" for God and human alike.

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