Inspired insights in the tradition of Joseph Campbell

books:


	• Travels with Odysseus: Uncommon Wisdom from Homer's Odyssey Michael J. Goldberg Circe's Island Press, 2006 - 160 pages average customer review:based on 5 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

I enjoyed this book

I really enjoyed this book. Michael Goldberg has written a non-Enneagram Enneagram book that is also much more. Without ever mentioning the Enneagram, Goldberg explores the nine-personality types through the lens of Homer's epic "The Odyssey." In addition to exploring different personality types, however, Goldberg demonstrates how these nine different archetypal themes reside within each of us and he maps a journey of self-exploration and self-understanding. A brief, fresh book with a light touch, "Travels with Odysseus" reinforces the notion that all great adventure stories parallel the inner journey.

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"Homer and the Enneagram".

This is an extremely important book, a "Must Read" for all enquiring intellects. Michael Goldberg deals with Odysseus' own account of his return home (the most important theme in the Odyssey) as told to the Phaiacians, dealing with his fantastical encounters with the Lotus Eaters, Cyclopes, Aiolos,Laistrygonians etc. The author, one of the world's great experts on the enneagram, shows us how Homer, composing more than 2,700 years ago, knew all about the complex aspects of the human personality. Goldberg treats these episodes in a delightful and easily readable way, showing us not just his own great wisdom, but also the great wisdom of Homer.

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A must read - time and again

Michael has written a concise and enjoyable synopsis of our journey home - challenging each of us to be aware of the landscape - inner and outer, how we fit and how we move. More than a myth, Michael brings home this ancient wisdom in an easily readable yet profound form.
I'll re-read it often

Life wisdom

This is a most fabuluous book!
It is a treasure of life wisdom and should you have time left for only one more book in this lifetime let this be the one.

The author, Michael Goldberg, shows us how to read Homer's "The Odyssey" as an allegory of
every human beings travel through life, unrevelling layer by layer of prejudices until you meet with your own true self. In other words your homecoming - i.e. to be and to know your innermost self free of all pretence.

This journey is what life is all about, and the author combines his great knowledge of an ancient model of different psychological types, the Enneagram, with the psychology of Freud and Jung and thus illustrates that "The Odyssey" is actually about how to avoid to get stuck within any framework or mindset- boxes that we, as fraile and insecure human beings put up trying to make existence in this world more simple, safe and organized - in fact, we create a model of how the world and everyone in it functions.

To free ourselves we need to acknowledge our own underlying model, which can be reached by experience and knowledge of the very different ways of existing in this world. Probably, you will be acquainted with one or more of these types you'll meet in the book, and here we are shown how to identify the mindset of each one as well as how to tackle the threat of getting stuck by being flexible and adjustable. Qualities that everyone will need to get through a life of challenge and changement.
Finally, the author connects to publicly known situations with companies and people as an illustration, which make thid reading usefull in many different ways.

Alltogether, a story that many will know from their schooltime is now known to go far deeper and to have a much more important message to everyone than what we were told then.

In the end let us introduce ourselves:
Jette Abildskov, consultant, OT, coach, NLP and Enneagram Trainer
Hanne Josephsen, attorney, coach, HR-, NLP and Enneagram Trainer

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Inspired insights in the tradition of Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell believed that one of the basic functions of myth is to help each individual through the journey of life, providing a travel guide to reach fulfillment--a map to discover "bliss."

In our daily travels, one of the biggest obstacles to experiencing a more "blissful" journey are aggravating and difficult people--people who willfully or unconsciously stop us dead in our tracks--blocking our way with their unwieldy and overstuffed emotional baggage.

Long before Freud, Jung, neuroscience, the DSM-V, and Homer Simpson, the Greek epic poet Homer understood and described nine different types of aggravating and difficult strangers--not in the often cold and reductionistic tone of neuroscience or clinical psychology--but in the rich, symbolic, and textured language of poetry.

In other words, it turns out that Homer's "Odyssey" is at least on one level a "travel guidebook" for successfully dealing with difficult people. Not surprisingly, the "Odyssey" also serves as a mirror to help us discover and overcome barriers to fulfillment that we put in our own way when we adopt habits of mind and heart that are typical of the various types of "aggravating and difficult people."

"Travels with Odysseus" reveals the psychological wisdom of Homer's "Odyssey" in a way that I suspect would please both Joseph Campbell and another beloved popularizer of ancient myth, Edith Hamilton. True to the metaphoric and poetic form of the "Odyssey," Goldberg uses carefully crafted and satisfying prose to reveal patterns and character types that are strikingly, and often uncomfortably, familiar. At the same time, Goldberg offers insights and allusions that do not distract from or "psychologize" the powerful insights that are revealed through Homer's poetry, symbolism, and word-pictures.

Perhaps one of the more compelling aspects of "Travels with Odysseus" is how it reveals that the same cast of character and personality types that cause us grief today, were causing the ancient Greeks grief in 800 BC. If you observe very carefully, you will be able to see people at work or in other areas of your life who uncannily embody the traits and themes revealed by Odysseus in his travels to the nine lands.

Although Goldberg does not refer to the personality typology with ancient origins known as the Enneagram, those who are familiar with this model of personality will appreciate what I think is one of the more striking patterns discovered by Goldberg. Without any explicit discussion of the Enneagram personality typology, Goldberg reveals that in the "Odyssey," Odysseus travels, in sequence, through each of the nine Enneagram realms--confirming that the nine patterns described by the Enneagram model of personality were recognized by a teaching tradition that is at least 2,000 years old.

Again, while the beauty of "Travels with Odysseus" is that it reveals the psychological wisdom of Homer's "Odyssey" without theory or psychological jargon--those who are familiar with the Enneagram theory will find, thanks to Homer, a richer appreciation of the nine types described by this metaphoric model of personality.

Homer recognized that on our journey to a happier and more satisfying life we would encounter at least nine recognizably different personality types (both outside us and within us) who would block our way. In "Travels with Odysseus," Goldberg has distilled Homer's insights on these nine personality types and the strategies as well as Homer's allegorical but sage advice for dealing with these difficult personality types. For example, we have all run into one of the most difficult personality types--a type characterized by Homer as the "Cyclops." Goldberg observes that

"As a condition of being human, we all must meet the Cyclops in our lives. They are usually big and loud. They can be terrible bullies, abusive, raging, intimidating forces of nature who run over you, without guilt or remorse. They see the world the same way Polyphemus does; it's a power game pure and simple, in which the strong survive. The Cyclopes choose to survive."

Homer's strategy for dealing with the personality type symbolized by the Cyclops, as highlighted and described by Goldberg in "Travels with Odysseus," is perhaps the most effective strategy that I have been able to find for dealing with the occassional "Cyclops" that shows up along on my own journey.

As I read "Travels with Odysseus" I kept recalling the Junior High School English class, too many years ago, where I first encountered Edith Hamilton's Mythology. I couldn't help but wonder how much easier my own travels through life would have been if I had been given "Travels with Odysseus" as a companion book. "Travels with Odysseus" makes the psychological wisdom of Homer explicit.

I recommend "Travels with Odysseus" to anyone who seeks a deeper understanding of personality and character--an understanding of human temperament that is informed by ancient insights that are as applicable today as they were over 2,000 years ago.

While science continues to reveal more and more secrets about the brain and personality, "Travels with Odysseus" reminds us that some truths are best revealed through image, poetry, and story--whole and without reduction or dissection. "Travels with Odysseus" is full of these beautiful, and perhaps "eternal" truths. It is a guidebook that will, if you choose to use it, help you on your "travels towards bliss"--or at the very least, help you to get around a Cyclops or two.

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Travels with Odysseus retells the earthy and profound adventures of the Greek hero Odysseus as teaching stories which hold insight and guidance for our own present day journey. On his winding odyssey, Odysseus meets magical and powerful beings, who are not shy about meddling in his affairs. Some see him for who he really is and help him; they bring him wisdom and attainment, and unlock creative possibilities. Others, aggravating and difficult strangers, try to do him in: Odysseus gets sidetracked, enchanted, waylaid. Some truths he learns easily and others he resists. In all of this, Odysseus is not so different than the rest of us.

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