Care of the Soul : A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life - Thomas Moore

Thomas Moore, influenced heavily by Carl Gustav Jung, and a contemporary of the archetypal psychology school that sprung from Jung's psychoanalytical movement, puts on quite a breathless show here with this wonderful book.

Moore's thesis is that the soul, as Jung said, should be considered polytheistic, answering to many different archetypes, rather than being One Big Thing cobbled together from the Many. The archetypes include the Father, the Mother, the Puer Aeterna (eternal child) complexes along with the Ego which in Moore's mind can remain perhaps more inflated than Jung ever would have allowed.

Just as Jung parted somewhat from Freud, the archetypal theory of Moore gives Jung many props, but differs from the Master on some key points, in my view.

To me, the most significant departure is made where Moore seems to allow an inflated Ego some free range for expansion...a 'homeopathic' approach in his words, where an Ego or even complex, once they are diagnosed as needing help, are given a little encouragement to grow even more or at least are acknowledged as including positive aspects for recovery, where Jung and his school would have acted in a more compensatory fashion and given the patient a healthy dose of humility in such cases of inflated Egos and complexes.

Another point early on Moore differs from Jung on is the possibility of wholeness. Where Jung sought Individuation, the process of uncovering complexes and developing them slowly over time into the Self along with the Ego, Moore rather seems to shoot for the middle while realizing Unity in this day and age might just be too heady a target to aim for. One is carefully urged on to acknowledge the various facets of the Self (the totality of the conscious and unconscious) rather than to strive for One Integrated Whole.

All that said, perhaps too technically, this book is aimed at the Conscious Thinking Ego, in my book..the myths described have little to nil to do with Jung's Collective or Personal Unconscious, but are geared toward helping realize things about ourselves that perhaps others can see in us quite easily. Where we may think we are a Savior, with just a little Imagination, Moore's Franca Lingua of the Soul, we can see we simply are helpful spirits and are here to provide for others.

Many case studies are provided alongside myths that speak to the Soul in all of us...Moore truly develops a broad ranged and even handed psychology that can be applied to just about anyone, I would think. Pragmatic without being staid, Moore proves to be a nuts and bolts Healer who is not afraid to get his hands dirty with the nastier things in all of us in order for recovery to begin.

Highly recommended, this!