A Blue Fire - James Hillman

Written by James Hillman
Read by James Hillman
Format: M4B
Bitrate: 128 Kbps
Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins
Release date: 04-11-17

James Hillman (April 12, 1926 – October 27, 2011) was an American psychologist. He studied at, and then became the leader of studies for, the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich soon after the death of C.G. Jung.

Archetypal psychology

Archetypal psychology is a polytheistic psychology that differs from Jung’s Analytical Psychology in many ways, in that it attempts to recognize the myriad fantasies and myths that shape and are shaped by our psychological lives. The ego is but one psychological fantasy within an assemblage of fantasies. To illustrate the multiple personifications of psyche Hillman made reference to gods, goddesses, demigods and other imaginal figures which he referred to as sounding boards “for echoing life today or as bass chords giving resonance to the little melodies of daily life”. Here we can see a difference with orthodox Jungian Psychology. Although he insisted that these figures should not be used as a ‘master matrix’ against which we should measure today and thereby decry modern loss of richness. Archetypal psychology is part of the Jungian psychology tradition and related to Jung’s original Analytical psychology but is also a radical departure from it in some respects.

PART ONE: SOUL
‘Archetypal psychology is not a psychology of archetypes. Its primary activity is not matching themes in mythology and art to similar themes in life. Rather, the idea is to see every fragment of life and every dream as myth and poetry.’ - Hillman, James. The Essential James Hillman: A Blue Fire (p. 15). Taylor and Francis.

We see here that Hillman makes a divergence from classical the classical Analytical Psychology from the outset. Hillman is building the basis of a psychology that views the inner world and outer world through the lens of myth and poetry. Hillman bases the entirely of his psychology not on science but on the aesthetic and poetic basis of the soul. He views consciousness as a thin layer of literalism that is depriving the soul of much needed meaning and experience. In essence, Hillman is seeking to harness the power of imagination and the image to bring a true and profound meaning to life. Therefore, psychology stands apart from science, moral philosophy, and religion in that is a disciple of the imaginative activity of the soul. Hillman wants us to be forced by the images. Rather than interpret a dream, Hillman prefers to let the dream interpret us. This approach gives imagination absolute priority over ego understandings and applications. The idea of a poetic basis of mind is a radical one, moving consciousness away from heroics toward a more receptive and malleable posture.

PART TWO: WORLD
According to the ancient Greek philosopher Thales, “the whole world is full of gods.” The idea that the world itself in all its particulars has soul was reborn in the Renaissance and now it is taken up in archetypal psychology. In the writings of James Hillman, Robert Sardello, Ginette Paris, Wolfgang Giegerich, and other archetypalists, this is not just a philosophical and mystical notion. If psychology is by definition work with the soul, and if nature and culture have soul, then psychology must concern itself with this larger sphere. Hillman argues strongly against reducing soul to personal subjectivity, naming personalism as one of the burdens of the modern era.

Psychology assumes that only humans are persons, and therefore we are given the impossible responsibility of carrying the full weight of soul. We tend to interpret everything in terms of personal relationships. Even therapy is often defined as the interaction of two persons, and the goal in therapy is the personal development or growth of the private individual. The soul is not of itself personal. Of course, the psyche presents itself in images of persons and in personal feelings, but it is more than personal. Carl Jung used the phrase objective psyche, suggesting that when we look into the soul, we are looking at something with its own terrain, its own history and purposes, and its own principles of movement and stasis. The interested, noninterfering tone Hillman usually takes when dealing with manifestations of the soul derives in large measure from this conviction that the soul has its own reasons.

PART THREE: EROS
According to Hillman, the soul searches everywhere for the myths that will nourish it. For millennia people have looked at trees, springs, caves, mountains, wheels, tall buildings, strongmen, lovely women, and animals of all kinds and have found the sparks of myth. Fantasy weaves around these things and ripens into myth. Later, scholars sometimes try to explain myth by reducing it to the originating object, but they get it backward. It is myth that is significant to human experience, not the object that sparked fantasy.