MEMORIES, DREAMS, REFLECTIONS
By C. G. Jung • Read by James Cameron Stewart
Jung’s autobiography is no ordinary memoir, but then you wouldn’t expect anything ordinary from a man with such an extraordinary mind. From a very young child he was aware of a splitting of himself and lived in a world of shadows and visions, some of them deeply troubling.
By the age of twelve he was convinced that he was both a boy and a powerful, wise old man living in the eighteenth century. (School was not an easy experience for Jung!) His mother, too, had two personalities and spoke in two voices. Fascinated by Goethe, he discovered a kindred spirit and identified with Faustus who had ‘two souls in his breast.’ Jung’s intense and unceasing philosophical explorations – rejecting Hegel, embracing Schopenhauer for his inclusion of the consideration of suffering and evil in the world – lead him to reject the religious dogma of his father whom he suspects cannot bring himself to voice his own doubts. Jung values myth, accepting it as the divine manifestation in human beings of what they interpret as ‘the word of God’.
A generous section of the autobiography is devoted to the curious cases of Jung’s clinical patients whose unconscious and conscious psyches, neuroses he strives to heal. Jung refers to the ‘untrodden and untreadable region’ of neurotics. It is into these realms that he ventures, explaining and arguing his concepts with absolute clarity.
This is a specialist seminal work and the narration is appropriately respectful without being sycophantic, and also admirably clear and helpfully cadenced.
Rachel Redford – 06/06/2016 – Audible Review
“Best introduction to modern human psychology”
The best introduction to the basics of the modern humans psychology . Love it! Will rekomend to the interested in psychology and all modern psychosis.
Epele – 7/04/2016 – Audible Review
“A wonderful insight into Jung’s thoughts”
A slow read as lots of thoughts to assimilate. Narrator very believable and easy. Great.
Penelope – 03/03/2017 – Audible Review
