Hello again Paul,
Dear Paul,
I've been reflecting upon your comments about my thoughts on Hillman. I must say that I'm not an intellectual by any stretch of the imagination. As such there is much about Hillman that I've found to be difficult and that has caused wear and tear on my feeling nature when I've tried to understand him. That said, I found his presence, his humor, his take on our inner and outer worlds to be one that is the most exciting I've ever encountered. I only missed one of his presentations at Pacifica since I began attending in the '80s. His humor was tremendous. I loved his ideas on images so much that I drew upon them exclusively when writing my doctoral dissertation, and combined archetypal astrology with an imaginal approach.
I hate that he no longer lives, breathes and stands somewhere upon this earth, and that I cannot now locate him there.
As a result I must now find and locate him in that place where images live, that land known as elsewhere.
The beauty about Hillman, as I see it, is that his work allows for each of us to experience it/him as is needed for who and where we are as souls. We can as he once said at a lecture "use" his "soil to grow" our "own trees." And... may it always be so.
Best regards, Judie
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Judith, I am not an intellectual either but for me the strange thing about the Jungian community is that the only person I have ever fully understood in it is the crystal clear Robert Segal... I long since gave up on everyone else. Segal is even clearer than Jung himself hence I suspect he (Segal) is being somewhat selective in his treatment of Jung. Segals 'Jung on Mythology' might as well have been the only Jung book I ever bothered reading.
Intellectuals like Giegerich can be very unclear, opaque. I find it odd that on his wikipedia page it says that Jungians have criticised him for that... considering how many Jungians relish being opaque. So I think clarity is a skill that is not the monopoly of intellectuals nor their opposite.