Man and His Symbols
The landmark text about the inner workings of the unconscious mind—from the symbolism that unlocks the meaning of our dreams to their effect on our waking lives and artistic impulses—featuring more than a hundred updated images that break down Carl G. Jung’s revolutionary ideas
“What emerges with great clarity from the book is that Jung has done immense service both to psychology as a science and to our general understanding of man in society.”—The Guardian
“Our psyche is part of nature, and its enigma is limitless.”
Since our inception, humanity has looked to dreams for guidance. But what are they? How can we understand them? And how can we use them to shape our lives?
There is perhaps no one more equipped to answer these questions than the legendary psychologist Carl G. Jung. It is in his life’s work that the unconscious mind comes to be understood as an expansive, rich world just as vital and true a part of the mind as the conscious, and it is in our dreams—those personal, integral expressions of our deepest selves—that it communicates itself to us.
A seminal text written explicitly for the general reader, Man and His Symbols is a guide to understanding our dreams and interrogating the many facets of identity—our egos and our shadows, “the dark side of our natures.” Full of fascinating case studies and examples pulled from philosophy, history, myth, fairy tales, and more, this groundbreaking work—profusely illustrated with hundreds of visual examples—offers invaluable insight into the symbols we dream that demand understanding, why we seek meaning at all, and how these very symbols affect our lives. Armed with the knowledge of the self and our shadow, we may build fuller, more receptive lives.
By illuminating the means to examine our prejudices, interpret psychological meanings, break free of our influences, and recenter our individuality, Man and His Symbols proves to be—decades after its conception—a revelatory, absorbing, and relevant experience.
“What emerges with great clarity from the book is that Jung has done immense service both to psychology as a science and to our general understanding of man in society.”—The Guardian
“Our psyche is part of nature, and its enigma is limitless.”
Since our inception, humanity has looked to dreams for guidance. But what are they? How can we understand them? And how can we use them to shape our lives?
There is perhaps no one more equipped to answer these questions than the legendary psychologist Carl G. Jung. It is in his life’s work that the unconscious mind comes to be understood as an expansive, rich world just as vital and true a part of the mind as the conscious, and it is in our dreams—those personal, integral expressions of our deepest selves—that it communicates itself to us.
A seminal text written explicitly for the general reader, Man and His Symbols is a guide to understanding our dreams and interrogating the many facets of identity—our egos and our shadows, “the dark side of our natures.” Full of fascinating case studies and examples pulled from philosophy, history, myth, fairy tales, and more, this groundbreaking work—profusely illustrated with hundreds of visual examples—offers invaluable insight into the symbols we dream that demand understanding, why we seek meaning at all, and how these very symbols affect our lives. Armed with the knowledge of the self and our shadow, we may build fuller, more receptive lives.
By illuminating the means to examine our prejudices, interpret psychological meanings, break free of our influences, and recenter our individuality, Man and His Symbols proves to be—decades after its conception—a revelatory, absorbing, and relevant experience.
BUY THE BOOK
Community Reviews
This was an awesome book.
Jung argues that the unconscious lies at the heart of what it means to be human and we have forgotten that and that’s at the heart of our maladies. Specifically:
(a) we have an unconscious that is an equal part of our existence to our conscious.
(a’)The subconscious provides an equal part of our experience - the intuitive and sensory part
(a’’) as our conscious mind which provides the rational ordering of value judgments (feeling) and facts (thinking), per Jungian terminology.
(a’’’) It’s not just what you want (Freud) it’s deeply who you are.
(b) it operates independently of our conscious, has its own unique capabilities and ends. Is much more intuitive than our more logical/ ordered conscious mind.
(c) we can learn to understand and work with it - it tends to communicate symbolically, eg thru dreams.
(c’)We draw on symbolic language to describe concepts we cannot fully consciously comprehend. The thing that’s generating those ideas is our unconscious
(d) early man was way more in touch with their unconscious as were early religions (highly symbolic) and early societies.
(d’) he really spends some time imagining how these folks related to the world - how they would have lived without domination of the sort of conscious ordering that we live with now from the moment we hear our parents speech. I genuinely cannot imagine how he figured this out! What a leap of intuition to place yourself in the mind of someone living in a completely different context than your own!
(e) this modern state of man, dominated by conscious thought, isn’t good. You lose a lot by divorcing yourself from your subconscious - both half of your lived experience and compensatory mental unrest
(e’) for example: “Modern man has lost the colorful and mystical unconscious associations of primitive man, such as when the latter fully identifies with animals in nature”
(e’’) and: “Modern man does not understand to what extent his 'rationalism' has placed him at the mercy of this underground psychic world. He freed himself from "superstition" (at least he believes so) but in doing so he lost his spiritual values to an alarming degree. His moral and spiritual traditions have disintegrated and he is paying for this collapse with a disarray and dissociation that is rampant throughout the world. “
(f) he prescribes that we heed the unconscious: change our relationship to it. Engage both aspects of our being in a manner more akin to our ancestors. One way to do so: pay attention to your dreams. The self generating symbol creating capacity fed by the unconscious which is trying to show you what it senses and Intuits.
(f’) “Despite our proud claim to dominate nature, we are still its victims because we have not yet learned to dominate ourselves” In fact, imagination and insight provide the most powerful components to modern life - in physics the thought experiment often produces the most profound insight, in music great songwriters seem to compose from an unnamed place within themselves. In strategy Napoleon is said to have experienced flashes of brilliance where his mind combined dozens of facts about a given battle into a winning approach. We instantly recognize this as subconscious activity, if we only think about it for a moment with a nonjudgmental mind.
(f’’) Ok so Jung is an amazing observer of human nature. He also says some stuff that strikes me as probably wrong. I guess that’s one reason he’s so seldom taught on US campuses. And it’s not clear to me why I’m ok with Jung doing this but was pretty annoyed at the autobiography of a yogi guy doing something similar. But the thing is when Jung does this stuff, he’s pretty openly like “hey guys I’m not sure what’s going on here - this spiritual aspect of man is pretty out there - and I’m gonna kinda feel my way around and describe what I’m picking up on. And you know - that’s humble and it’s also the only way to access non rationally ordered existence! So I’m with Jung, even when he’s wrong, because that’s not entirely the point!
There’s a lot more here. I sorta don’t like these reviews to be too long, so I’ll stop.
I have a feeling I’m about to go on a pretty big Jung kick and I may have bought three more books on the subject while writing this review.
Insanely insightful book about the human experience
FIVE STARS!!!
Jung argues that the unconscious lies at the heart of what it means to be human and we have forgotten that and that’s at the heart of our maladies. Specifically:
(a) we have an unconscious that is an equal part of our existence to our conscious.
(a’)The subconscious provides an equal part of our experience - the intuitive and sensory part
(a’’) as our conscious mind which provides the rational ordering of value judgments (feeling) and facts (thinking), per Jungian terminology.
(a’’’) It’s not just what you want (Freud) it’s deeply who you are.
(b) it operates independently of our conscious, has its own unique capabilities and ends. Is much more intuitive than our more logical/ ordered conscious mind.
(c) we can learn to understand and work with it - it tends to communicate symbolically, eg thru dreams.
(c’)We draw on symbolic language to describe concepts we cannot fully consciously comprehend. The thing that’s generating those ideas is our unconscious
(d) early man was way more in touch with their unconscious as were early religions (highly symbolic) and early societies.
(d’) he really spends some time imagining how these folks related to the world - how they would have lived without domination of the sort of conscious ordering that we live with now from the moment we hear our parents speech. I genuinely cannot imagine how he figured this out! What a leap of intuition to place yourself in the mind of someone living in a completely different context than your own!
(e) this modern state of man, dominated by conscious thought, isn’t good. You lose a lot by divorcing yourself from your subconscious - both half of your lived experience and compensatory mental unrest
(e’) for example: “Modern man has lost the colorful and mystical unconscious associations of primitive man, such as when the latter fully identifies with animals in nature”
(e’’) and: “Modern man does not understand to what extent his 'rationalism' has placed him at the mercy of this underground psychic world. He freed himself from "superstition" (at least he believes so) but in doing so he lost his spiritual values to an alarming degree. His moral and spiritual traditions have disintegrated and he is paying for this collapse with a disarray and dissociation that is rampant throughout the world. “
(f) he prescribes that we heed the unconscious: change our relationship to it. Engage both aspects of our being in a manner more akin to our ancestors. One way to do so: pay attention to your dreams. The self generating symbol creating capacity fed by the unconscious which is trying to show you what it senses and Intuits.
(f’) “Despite our proud claim to dominate nature, we are still its victims because we have not yet learned to dominate ourselves” In fact, imagination and insight provide the most powerful components to modern life - in physics the thought experiment often produces the most profound insight, in music great songwriters seem to compose from an unnamed place within themselves. In strategy Napoleon is said to have experienced flashes of brilliance where his mind combined dozens of facts about a given battle into a winning approach. We instantly recognize this as subconscious activity, if we only think about it for a moment with a nonjudgmental mind.
(f’’) Ok so Jung is an amazing observer of human nature. He also says some stuff that strikes me as probably wrong. I guess that’s one reason he’s so seldom taught on US campuses. And it’s not clear to me why I’m ok with Jung doing this but was pretty annoyed at the autobiography of a yogi guy doing something similar. But the thing is when Jung does this stuff, he’s pretty openly like “hey guys I’m not sure what’s going on here - this spiritual aspect of man is pretty out there - and I’m gonna kinda feel my way around and describe what I’m picking up on. And you know - that’s humble and it’s also the only way to access non rationally ordered existence! So I’m with Jung, even when he’s wrong, because that’s not entirely the point!
There’s a lot more here. I sorta don’t like these reviews to be too long, so I’ll stop.
I have a feeling I’m about to go on a pretty big Jung kick and I may have bought three more books on the subject while writing this review.
Insanely insightful book about the human experience
FIVE STARS!!!
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