YIASSEMIDES, ANGELIKI.

Time and Timelessness: Temporality in the theory of

Carl Jung. New York: Routledge, 2014. Pp. xi-125. Hbk. $112.37

This lucid and engaging book is notable as the first extensive exploration of Jung’s
views on temporality. In the Preface, the author frames her core thesis, asserting
that there are implicit or explicit assumptions regarding time in almost every
theory that deals with human existence. ‘Each field, approach or statement needs to
rest against a temporal background; each uttered sentence assumes a temporal
frame’ (xxxi). This is an important and thought-provoking idea that is well worth
exploring.
Beginning with that overall point of view, the author focuses more
specifically upon the temporal perspectives that underlie Jung’s theories.
In Chapter 1, the author begins to develop the basic idea that Jung’s mature
writings on temporality stem from the Septem Sermones Ad Mortuos (The Seven
Sermons to the Dead). This philosophical poem, written in 1916, was not publicly
available until 1961, when it appeared as an appendix to some editions of
Memories, Dreams, Reflections. It was later found in the closing pages of the Red
Book, and was the only part of that work published during Jung’s lifetime. Jung
describes its emergence (3):
In 1916 I felt the urge to give shape to something. I was compelled from
within, as it were, to formulate and express what might have been said by
Philemon. This was how the Septem Sermones Ad Mortuos with its peculiar
language came into being (Jung 1961, 189-190).
In the Seven Sermons, it is ‘Basilides’ who is the Gnostic voice of the poem
(whereas in the Red Book it is ‘Philemon’). The distinction between ‘Pleroma’ and
‘Creatura’ is crucial in the text. In Gnostic mythology, Pleroma indicates the
totality of the divine. It is a state that cannot be grasped by humans (6).
Creatura is not in the Pleroma, and is the realm of the human. It has qualities
and is subject to change. ‘Whereas in Pleroma there are no distinctions, in Creatura
effects are brought about because of change; that alone is fixed and certain which
is subject to change’ (Ibid). That is, Time enters the picture with Creatura because
change implies temporality. It follows that temporality is what defines the
difference between the two realms. The temporal perspective thus appears in
Jung’s work for the first time (10).
Whereas Pleroma encompasses everything, the essence of humanity is
differentiation and distinctiveness. ‘By virtue of their nature, humans create
differentiation and division in the Pleroma, where there is in fact none’ (7). If they
fail to differentiate they fail the task of being human and meld with the infinity of
the Pleroma. To lose this distinction would be the death of Creatura (Ibid).
‘Humans must differentiate themselves from pairs of opposites with the intention
of remaining true to their distinctive nature, thus avoiding the dissolution and
nothingness of the Pleroma’ (8).
The Pleroma’s qualities are ‘Pairs of Opposites’, but there they balance each
other and are not in conflict. Creatura foments differentiation in the universe at
large by projecting an inner reality onto Pleroma. It is for this indirect reason that
the human and the cosmic share the same fundamental structure (Ibid).
According to the author, this sets the stage for the development of Jung’s
major ideas. One can see the Pleroma eventually reflected in the self, or the ‘Unus
Mundus’, and Creatura reflecting the ego or everyday consciousness (p. 9). In the
author’s view, ‘…Jung provided a detailed account regarding the process by which
the differentiated ego strives to return to the original wholeness of psychic reality’
(my it.)(Ibid). Accepting its time-bound nature, Creatura must, in addition, seek
‘participation in the…eternal reality of the universe’, and ‘return to [its] true
nature’ (10). This comes as a focus later in a process of ‘individuation’ that
involves the relation of time and timelessness
In this view, time-bound humans can, to a degree, participate in
timelessness. To that end, the god ‘Abraxas’ appears later in the poem. Abraxas is
‘The deity that rules over the totality of time and whose power time is both made
and unmade’, and is thus ‘the sum of and the liberator from the cycle of necessity,
freeing man from the cycle of time…[Abraxas is] the eternally available timeless
moment, the eternal now…which brings freedom from time in both its linear and
its cyclic aspects’ (11). That is, for the Gnostics the ultimate goal is the return to
the Pleromatic state, which is a timeless dimension. ‘The object of salvation is to
deliver us from the lie of time’ (my it.) (Ibid).
In the Gnostic view, liberation from time is a repeatable event in the present.
‘The atemporal and eternal power of Abraxas is the key to the soul’s deliverance,
which can be obtained repetitively at the present moment. When time is tamed and
ruled over, psychic salvation is attainable’ (Ibid). According to the author,
‘Abraxas can be viewed as a symbol of the archetype of the self’ (Ibid).
To summarize: Creatura searches for transcendence of Time, while
remaining differentiated and human. This portrays a tension between occurrences
in time and an eternal dimension. The author consistently asserts that Jung’s
analytical psychology revolves around these core dimensions of time and
timelessness, of Creatura and Pleroma, as outlined in the Seven Sermons.
Jung’s approach is poetically appealing, but far from a solid basis for
psychoanalysis. The Gnostic ‘structures’ he delineates seem to derive more from
theosophy than psychology. In subsequent chapters the author describes how Jung
attempts to ground and legitimize this basic vision of the psyche. It is a substantial
task because it is fraught with such ambiguous philosophical assumptions.
 Chapter 2 delineates ‘The unfolding of Jung’s time theory’. Four decades
after he wrote the poem, he returned to the world of Basilides ‘in order to [better]
elaborate and integrate the role of time in Creatura and Pleroma’. Jung reiterates
that Pleroma is a state of perfect interplay between cosmic forces, and how
Creation disrupts this Pleromatic state. That is, the disruptive elements of time and
space enter in. Events begin to ‘rub and jostle one another,’ creating imperfection
(17). The complex dimensions of Jung’s views on temporality become more
prominent.
The author describes how, in Jung’s view, ‘the psychic life of the archetype
is timeless’, and that ‘Ultimately, every individual life is at the same time the
eternal life of the species’. With such assertions, a profound set of questions enters
Jung’s theories. These questions were implicit in the Seven Sermons but stand out
more starkly in the context of an analytic theory. He describes humans as time
bound, but having a dual temporal nature through their connection to the Pleroma
(18). This dual nature echoes the Kantian division between the phenomenal and the
noumenal, with the inherent problems of the borders of the noumenal. How can we
timebound creatures know the noumenal, the Pleromatic, and how can they be
related? How can this be incorporated into an analytic theory? Much of Jungian
theory is the story of this endeavor. Archetypes are portrayed as key elements in
bridging this divide, but archetypal theory has undergone major critiques in recent
times from the standpoint of developmental theory, of biology and genetics, and
from anthropology and philosophy (Knox 2009; Brooks 2011; Roesler 2012; Mills
2013). It is not the solid rock that Jung described.
Another major difficulty is that, while Jung is credited with an emphasis on
teleology and the future dimension, the author portrays Freud as locked into a rigid
reductionism to concrete past experiences (20). He becomes a sort of straw man.
There is an appendix to the book, which very briefly explores Freud’s idea of
nachträglichkeit (105 ff.), but the author does not seem aware, or declines to
discuss the extensive impact this concept has had on contemporary analytic
thinking, as well as philosophy. Lacan and Laplanche, among others, depict a
complex, non-linear temporality at the core of their theory and practice. There is an
enigmatic core of the human creature that is the source of creativity and freedom
(Žižek 2006, pp. 23-25). A Pleromatic unity or a ‘Unus Mundus’ as a reservoir of
potential is not a necessary assumption to explain the tension between time and
timelessness.
Jung’s idea that regressive fantasies may have a telos, a purposive
movement into the future, hints at a certain awareness of the past as a source of
renewed life, but ultimately the personal past does not seem to be taken seriously
by Jung or by the author (24-25). For instance, I was surprised that there was no
entry on ‘memory’ in the index of the book. However, “[memory] is not the
passive container of things bygone…[it is] indeed our very being, and it can stay
alive and evolve; the present is the passage where the [retranslation] and
recontextualization of our past continually occur…’ (Scarfone 2006, p. 814).
In addition, it is the past that largely makes human ethics possible. Our
memory of what we have wrought, personally and culturally, is at the core of what
is most noble about the human: the ethical stance. We need to imagine the effects
of our actions on the future, but without the context of past experience future
speculations would lack substance. For instance, the Holocaust is not a
retrospective archetypal fantasy, but a concrete horror that should always inform
our future…hopefully encouraging a different future.
In my opinion the core of human identity is indeed memory and
remembering. The problems that arisen when traumas cannot put into the past,
cannot become a memory, is one of the main sources of human suffering. Indeed,
in many ways we are our memories, and no serious theory of temporality can avoid
this area of research and experience. The bottom line is that the past is not static,
and does not imply a reductionist foundation.
The crucial importance of the personal past seems to have been a sort of
blind spot for Jung, although the ‘archetypal’ past is credited with an important
role in the psyche (21). The findings of neuroscience regarding the ambiguity of
‘past’ and ‘present’ are not cited, and the author does not consider their possible
ramifications for Jung’s theories of time. Gerald Edelman, for instance, has called
the past the ‘remembered present’ (Edelman 2004, pp. 98-102). He is describing
neither an ‘archetypal’ or Pleromatic time, nor a time of Creatura, but a temporality
of endless change and process, intimately connected with the inner and outer
environment (Ibid; Civitarese 2008, pp. 96-112). Some recent research has also
shown that the neural structures related to consciousness of past and future are
closely inter-related (Nyberg et al 2010).
Derrida, substantially drawing upon Freud’s idea of nachträglichkeit,
conceived of a multidimensional, ‘syncopated time’ involving a simultaneity of
temporalities (Pirovolakis, pp. 43-82; Hodge, p. 9 & p. 21). When Jung portrays a
dynamic, moving combination of past, present and future it feels similar to such
contemporary views of time. However, he seems to quickly fixate, or re-fixate,
upon ‘eternal’ and foundational structures. Such transcendent structures are the
opposite of a playful, creative movement in time, with the sense of a future that is
always ‘to come’ (Ibid).
Chapter 3 follows, entitled ‘Long-range effects in time’. The first section
introduces ‘Expressions of the psyche’s temporality: telepathy, dreams and
foreknowledge’, which includes the principle of synchronicity (33). These ideas
are very basic to Jung’s theoretical stance.
 With telepathy, there is an assumption that ‘the space-time barrier can be
annulled’ (33). Jung links this to his doubt about a linear causality, using
precognition as another evidence of the ‘teleological, non-linear time in the
psyche’ (34). However, the author seems to take this phenomenon as fact without
much reflection. It bothered me that there was no discussion of the relative paucity
of convincing experiences of telepathy, or of accounting for the well-known biases
of witnesses. The eye cannot see itself (Wittgenstein 1961, p. 117).
Jung concluded that conscious time is ‘negated’ in dreams (35). The author
cites Freud as having already established the ‘timelessness of the unconscious’
(35). However, by zeitlos (‘timelessness’), Freud seems to have generally meant
something that has not yet entered time, which is different than something
‘eternal’. Freud also described the ‘navel’ of the dream, an enigmatic limit of`
linear meaning (Freud 2010).
Jung went on to say that dreams radiate from a meaningful core (36). That
is, they are arranged in a radial manner around a nucleus, and are not linear in
composition (Ibid). This seems entirely feasible, and is in harmony with complex
theory, as well as contemporary linguistic approaches. However, in another
theoretical leap, Jung connects this with an assertion that ‘the future already exists
in the present and is waiting to unfold’ in dreams (37). ‘If we construe that the
past, present and the future are not sequentially arranged in the psyche, it is indeed
possible to foretelling dreams to take place during childhood…Any future event is
currently available in the present’ (Ibid). Indeed, he called such foreknowledge
‘absolute knowledge’ (Ibid). This special knowledge is due to ‘the archetype’s
timeless and eternal temporality’ (38).
The author does not discuss parents’ dreams and desires for their children,
the power of family patterns, and the general power of repetition. For me, this
creates a picture of the psyche where knowledge of the future pre-exists ‘inside’ an
isolated Cartesian mind, with intrinsic thoughts that are independent of
experience…and of course, of ‘mere memory’.
The next section is a discussion of ‘the psychoid archetype’ (38). In the
author’s view, Jung introduces this notion in order to show that archetypes belong
to both the material and the spiritual realms (39). This seems to depict Jung’s
attempt to transcend Kant’s core idea of ‘noumenon’ as a ‘boundary concept’, a
negative barrier that limits the pretensions of sensibility (Brooks, 2011, p. 497 ff.)
Through assertion of a ‘psychoid archetype’. Jung presumed to discover a sort of
emissary between the world soul, or the noumenal world, and the individual soul
(Ibid). Though unknowable in itself, this archetype functions to access to all the
archetypes in their transcendent truth, transcending the barrier between mind and
matter (39). Broadly seen, it serves to provide access to the ‘Pleroma’.
Unfortunately, the author does not discuss sources that have grappled with such
profound issues of spirit and matter in other ways (Johnston 2004).
After discussing the psychoid archetype the author delineates the concept of
synchronicity, the idea that events that have no linear connection in space and time
may manifest in terms of meaning. This idea is based on the ‘psychoid’, and
transcendence of the boundary between mind and matter. The author proposes that
time is a unified temporal field that manifests in different ways depending on
particular circumstances (44). One can only know the psychoid archetype
indirectly, but ‘Consciousness…allows for the representation of the irrepresentable
psychoid nature’ (45). According to Jung, synchronicity is such a representation,
and is evidence of the psychoid archetype’s activity within the phenomenal world
of temporality (48). It is also an instance of a ‘general acausal orderedness’ (47).
The author goes on to discuss at length the contributions of quantum physics
to the theory of synchronicity. This seems to stretch metaphoric reasoning to its
limits—and perhaps beyond. The gap between quantum physics and the
phenomenal world seems vast (Jaeger 2013). A parallax universe that can’t be fully
grasped, that never fully meets in a linear or totally unified way, seems more likely
to me (Žižek 2006). I also doubt the applicability of quantum physics to biological
and psychological systems. The author includes an endnote quoting a student of
Pauli, to the effect that synchronicity ‘is something which physicists do not know
about, nor would they wish to know’, and that person also commented that ‘His
implication was clear: synchronicity smelled of pseudo science and loose thinking’
(63).
Chapter 4 proceeds to discuss ‘a unified reality’. This idea is related to ‘the
underlying meaning embedded in the psychoid reality’ (64). That is, the—to me—
somewhat dubious concept of ‘psychoid reality’ becomes the basis for further
conclusions about the structure of reality. ‘Through absolute knowledge access is
granted to undifferentiated reality – a reality that is beyond temporal and spatial
demarcations’ (66). One can see the continuity with earlier discussions of the
‘Pleroma,’ but now the Pleroma is accessible to direct experience. The author
Freud’s ‘oceanic feelings’ and the power of love as examples of a ‘unified reality.’
She does not mention the horror of the Kantian sublime, or how he speculated that
accessing the noumenal would make human beings into puppets or mechanical
robots (Kant 1956, pp. 152-3). To make the discussion more complete, such ideas
would need to be discussed.
The epitome of a ‘unified reality’ is the ‘Unus Mundus’. This is the
overcoming of the dualism of the psychological and the physical in a sort of
‘unitary dualism’ (68). The author quotes Jung, reminding the reader that the
psychoid archetype (1958, par. 852),
 …points to the sphere of the Unus Mundus…although the first step in the
cognitive process is to discriminate and divide, at the second step it will
unite what has been divided, and an explanation will be satisfactory only if it
achieves a synthesis.
In the view of the author, ‘With synchronicity Jung reclaimed humanity’s role as a
microcosmic element of the unus mundus and places the psyche in the cosmic
sphere where it once belonged’ (69).
There is a continuing picture of two orders of Time that must be reconciled:
linear time and non-linear temporality (72). This reconciliation would be some
kind of unity. Speaking of the symbolism of the Uroboros, the author asserts that,
‘this symbolic expression emphasizes the reality of primordial oneness (my it.): in
a unified reality the past, present and future coexist and can be observed
simultaneously’ (73).
I would like to add my observation that these depictions of temporality and
the question of ‘unity’ have been observed and discussed in a thorough manner by
many who do not embrace a cosmic framework. These are profound issues, and
many non-Jungians have thoughtful observations that are equally profound, and do
not require a leap of faith to accept them (Johnston 2005; Badiou 2007).
‘The death of time: Mythical consciousness and the descent to the archaic’ is
the title of Chapter 5. I found this chapter confusing. It seems at first to be about
death and linear time (77). Quoting Jung, she points out the possibility of ‘infinite
generation’ from risking a descent, like the hero (76-77). This is held to ‘point
towards the realm of eternity, a realm beyond time (77).
It unfolds that ‘eschatological consciousness’ always points in a linear way
toward the end of life, an ultimate state of things (Ibid). In contrast, mythical
consciousness is cyclical. Therefore we must re-establish our connection to our
inner nature, to a cyclic, mythical consciousness. This is a connection that we have
abandoned for linear time and an eschatological perspective (78-79).
Jung’s view of ‘Archaic Man’ depicts a temporality that is a fusion of the
linear time of ‘outside’ reality and the cyclical temporality of our ‘inner existence’.
In this view, ‘the archaic way of being implies a temporal quality that is outside
time; it is truly timeless’ (79).
‘Timeless archaic reality’ can be unveiled, as well as an expanded awareness
of synchronicity (82). At root, this is the picture of a connection to the Pleroma, or
to its later theoretical incarnation as the unus mundus. It depicts a process of
descending into the depths and returning with the perspective of the eternal.
Analytic theory here verges on becoming religion.
The last chapter, number 6, concerns ‘Time and spatial metaphors’. This is
an important and interesting area, since space and time are our two main forms of
cognition. The author correctly points out that ‘Time is more elusive than space
and far more bound up with introspective experience’. The statement illustrates the
problem because ‘introspective’ is itself a spatial term (84).
Indeed, both Freud and Jung relied a great deal on spatial metaphors. ‘Depth
psychology’ is itself a spatial term (86-87). The author goes on to discuss ‘Jung’s
search for meaning beyond space-time duality’ (88). Quoting Jung (1940: par 273),
she points out that ‘the child’ as a symbol ‘represents the preconscious, childhood
aspect of the collective psyche, and is not a picture of certain forgotten things’
(Ibid). That is…’it is not a vestige but a system functioning in the present whose
purpose is to compensate or correct, in a meaningful manner, the inevitable
onesidedness and extravagances of the conscious mind’ (Jung 1950: par 276).
I don’t doubt that ‘the child’ may carry such a meaning in dreams or
fantasies. Childhood is a time of possibilities. However, the author, like Jung,
seems to see the past in a very narrow way. As mentioned earlier, the past is an
ever-evolving, ever-changing dimension that is actually the core of who we are. A
person without a past would be like a vampire before a mirror—something not
human. It is a denial of personal existence.
In addition, the process of nachträglichkeit unveils endless dimensions of
memories that form the heart of present and future. Time, including the past, is
syncopated (Hodge 2007, pp. 8-10 & pp. 26-27). In Laplanche’s view, there is an
enigmatic element intrinsic in experience, prominently including past experience
that cannot be finally known. This provokes retranslation throughout our lives
(Laplanche 1999; Hinton 2009). This creates an experience similar to that of ‘the
child’ that Jung describes, but does it while immersed in the rich context of the
past. A complex theory of archetypes is not necessary to explain the endless nature
of the creative freedom we find in the ‘child’. The experience of the ‘actual’ child
is enigmatic from the beginning.
Contemporary neuroscience describes a ‘semantic memory’ which is older
from an evolutionary point of view, and in many ways spatial, and an ‘episodic
memory’ or ‘autonoesis’ that is newer and involves awareness of past and future.
Interestingly, the brain areas that are involved with both past and future are in close
proximity (Tulving).
In the Dialogic Imagination Bakhtin develops the idea of the ‘Chronotope,’
which is a synthesis of past and present. For instance the dream of an ancient castle
might symbolize past time within enclosed spatial boundaries. This is one of the
more creative ways of considering space and time in an integrated way (Bakhtin
1971).
Finally, there is reference to the ‘Pleroma’ once more, as a state or place
where the ‘opposites’ of space and time ‘exist in perfect balance’ (90). The author
quotes Jung: ‘If we know how to know ourselves as being apart from the pairs of
opposites, then we have attained salvation’ (Ibid).
 This would seem to privilege the attainment of some final state, a state that
sounds spatial to me, beyond the constant movement of time.
The Concluding chapter expresses a mélange of thoughts, most of which are
repetitions from earlier chapters. The initial section begins with a reference to ‘The
timeless unconscious…Freud’s original contribution to the understanding of time
in the psyche…’(93). However, as mentioned, Freud and Jung often meant very
different things by ‘timeless’ (zeitlos). Freud usually employed this term to refer to
the unconscious as something atemporal or perhaps pre-temporal and lacking in
temporal differentiation.
On the other hand, Jung noted that Creatura differentiates in time, but
shaded the meaning of zeitlos to mean something eternal, foundational or
ultimately archetypal (e.g., ‘remembering archetypal origins’.). Differentiation, the
‘personal unconscious,’ the realm of Creatura, often seems to take a back seat to
more transcendental realms.
In recent decades, Laplanche described how an original core of past
experience is enigmatic, derived from messages from the emotional surround that
are incomprehensible to the child. These experiences are subject to ‘primal
repression,’ and we attempt to translate these untranslatable enigmas throughout
our lives (Hinton 2009). That is, the ‘primally repressed’ elements can never be
finally translated, even though they challenge us throughout our lives. This is the
source of our uncertain existence, the uncanniness of life, as well as our freedom
and creativity. The presence of such enduring, unconscious enigmas could be
misinterpreted as something eternal. This description of enigma is not too far from
Jung’s depiction of the essence of ‘symbolic life, in that the symbol is only alive
when it is partly unknown (CW 6, para.817).
The author repeatedly suggests that Jung developed, indeed went far beyond,
Freud’s theory of time (94). It seems to me that Jung did in some ways go beyond
Freud by developing a more multidimensional conception of time and more
especially a sense of the future. However, this was at the expense of abandonment
of the past as a basis of human experience. This was a crucial loss.
The personal past is, of course, what we think of as the ‘repressed’. A basic
quality of the repressed is its tendency to repeat itself, often in destructive ways.
The individual may be ‘frozen in time’. Indeed the past remains apart from time,
zeitlos, until it becomes a memory, a history (Scarfone 2006). In remembering, we
‘produce’ a past, the core of what we are. It is crucial to realize that past and
memory are not static, but are endlessly capable of shifts and transformations. This
is the ‘raw matter’ of the endless process of creating the ‘remembered present’
(Scarfone 2006; Edelman 2004).
The author seems to see Jung as the lone figure that wanted to go beyond a
linear view of time. There is no mention of Bergson, Husserl, Heidegger, Arendt,
Levinas and others who discuss various conceptions of time at great length, and
have had profound impacts on views of temporality. Lacan and Laplanche, and
others of the ‘French School,’ have elaborated these ideas in connection with
psychoanalytic theory and practice. One cannot cover everything in a work on
Time, but failure to even acknowledge these profound contributions from
philosophy and psychoanalysis is a major deficiency in this work.
The book concludes with a reiteration of the importance of the ‘psychoid’ as
an archetype that gives access to all the other archetypes, and indeed to a
transcendent realm (95-96). This seems to extend to knowledge of the realm of the
‘eternal’. In the author’s view, Jung indeed ‘dared to transcend death’ (104).
In my view the author succeeds in establishing one of her larger, underlying
themes: the idea that most theories of human existence have an implicit or explicit
view of time, and that ‘each uttered sentence assumes a temporal frame’ (xiii). The
author puts forth a convincing case that this is true for Jung’s writing by
establishing that his theory of time stems from his early Septem Sermones Ad
Mortuos, and continues through his later work (xviii-xix).
However the author, in my opinion, seems torn regarding whether Jung’s
perspective on time is a view or the view. All too often, the latter attitude is
central, and her exposition comes across as a declaration of faith rather than a
critically based consideration of Jung’s approach to temporality. At other times,
such as in the preface, a broader perspective of ‘chronopoesis’ (102) comes forth.
Overall, it seems to me that there is too much uncritical, often enthusiastic,
acceptance of Jung’s somewhat ungrounded theoretical propositions. Concepts
such as the psychoid archetype, synchronicity, and the Unus Mundus are major,
very speculative ideas, and an admiring embracing of these ideas is not sufficient
ground for a solid theoretical work.
It is possible to have an impressive theory of Time without resorting to a
panoply of transcendental structures. Indeed, ‘drive’ itself may be due to a division
at the very core of temporal experience (Johnston 2005). In that view, there is no
need for transcendent structures or for a ‘unified’ system. This is a ‘parallax’
perspective on the nature of reality that acknowledges ‘unities’, but not an
ultimate, underlying ‘unity’ such as the Unus Mundus (Hinton et al 2011).
In summary, this is an engaging book that brings out a crucial dimension of
Jung’s theories. Viewing the evolution of his thinking from the perspective of
temporality is a rich experience. The writing is clear and, considering the
complexity of the topic, the ideas are approachable. Overall it is a stimulating and
worthwhile work, and I would definitely recommend it to those who want to gain a
new perspective on Jung’s basic ideas, as well as those who are particularly
interested in temporality and its intriguing vicissitudes.
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Ladson Hinton
Society of Jungian Analysts
of Northern California