Teo Degas' Books & Decks

Although the world is full of people who will tell you who you are, what you are, and what you are to do and not to do, they wander amid their unaddressed confusion, fear, and need for consensual belief to still their own anxious journey (locs. 83-85).

The last book by Hollis is perhaps the most accessible didactic and approachable book he has ever written, and the one I would recommend to anybody who wants a shortcut to his work. In Living an Examined Life, Hollis has somewhat put aside his usual erudition, academic writing, psychologist jargon and complexity of thought, and made a serious effort to address those points of his discourse that I've always found a bit vague or difficult to understand for the lay reader. However, no sacrifice has been made regarding content, and you will still find his usual depth of thought, understanding of human suffering and nature, his compassion for human nature and weakness, his analysis of preconditioned inherited ancestral behaviour and complexes. There is, as usual in his work, a call to live our own live with purpose, taking responsibility for it, to honour our true nature and live authentic and genuine lives, to work vocationally because our vocation is the expression of our soul not just something we do doe fame, money, power and social accolades.

This book is is not a book with solutions to our problems, waw waw waw, but sound advice on how to overgrow them by changing our attitudes, behaviours and way of  seeing them, by going inside ourselves and taking responsibility for our deeds, and changing anything that stops us from being who we truly were born to be. It demands sitting with our discomfort and asking it which message is bringing to us. It demands from us doing what we fear the most, learning to love our unlovable parts and scrutinise our inherited values and decide which ones are meaningful to us. In a way, we are asked to become medieval-alike post-modern warriors, and go in search of the evil dragon inside us to free our true self.

The book is structured in twenty short easy-to-read chapters, which Hollis recommends reading one per day to let the material sink in. I did so, but, if you have read most of his books, I don't think that is necessary. Otherwise, by all means.

SOME OF MY HIGHLIGHTS
There are so many paragraphs and comments that really made the reading very fulfilling and satisfying to me. Herewith a few of them:

>> Chapters 10, What gift have you been withholding from the world? is beautifully profound, yet simple; it speaks to the soul without the need of calling any gods, and it is a call to authenticity and honouring our  true selves.

>> Although Hollis devoted a whole book to the Shadow, nothing comes nearly as clear to a definition as the one he provides in this book:

The shadow is not synonymous with evil, though great evil can surely come from our shadows. Rather, I would define the shadow as those parts of us, or of our groups and organizations, that, when brought to consciousness, are troubling to our concept of ourselves, contradictory to our professed values, or intimidating in what they might ask of our timid souls (locs 1379-1382). 

The second half of life is not a chronological moment but a psychological moment that some people, however old, however accomplished, however self-satisfied in life, never reach. The second half of life occurs when people, for whatever reason — death of partner, end of marriage, illness, retirement, whatever — are obliged to radically consider who they are apart from their history, their roles, and their commitments. Every  (Locs. 402-405).

>> Hollis almost-utopian parenthood model is utterly beautiful, like a step ahead of our times, perhaps; something that, if I had children, I would try to implement so that my unborn children would be whatever they wanted to be, to shine their light or perhaps their inner crap without judgement, if that is even possible. My mother, an almost illiterate very traditional lady, very restrictive in many ways, always told me to do what would make me happy, and that despite her condition of submission to parental, fraternal and marital figures. That is the most empowering thing that my mother did for me.

>> Hollis' call to re-evaluate our life authorities is perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of his work, and also one of the things that gives me the most comfort. It makes me realise that we all live in the same existential mess and forces me to be more compassionate with myself and others:  "Tiny in a world of giants, we reason that surely the world is governed by those who know, who understand, who are in control. How disconcerting it is then when we find our own psyches in revolt at these once protective adaptations, and how disillusioning it is to realize that there are very few, if any, adults on the scene who have a clue as to what is going on." (locs. 155-157). Growing up requires that we accept that no one out there knows what is going on, that they are as much at the mercy of their complexes and unconscious mechanisms as the least of us, and so now we must figure it out for ourselves. (locs 1699-1701).

>> Hollis munching about happiness is precious; he debunks happiness (the pop version), I know, I know, nothing we would like to hear when we are reading a book to help us with our problems. However, Hollis' focus on seeking meaning, instead of happiness, because that's more important for the soul. He says that meaning is an organ of the soul. Amen! But perhaps meaning is the new happiness.


SOME QUERIES

>> Given the definition Hollis makes of Second Half of Life, I wonder why he and other psychologists keep using Second Half of Life, repeating something that, for what he says, it is totally imprecise and misleading. Why not turning the tables and using a clearer truer term, like, for example, True Maturity, True Adulthood or anything of the like? Second Adulthood, which he uses at times in the book is also misleading because some people only become adults after a crisis, so that is their first psychological adulthood no?  I know people in their 40s that are still as immature as their teenage selves and resist to grow no matter what happens to them.

>> I found myself munching about the following statement:

I wonder, if we have a true self that is specific and intrinsically us, call it our inner nature or character, compensate some of those impediments? I mean, obtrude our advance despite not having much baggage, or making us jump hurdles easily?

>> Regarding his ideal model of parenthood, I found myself questioning if different family structures and ways of relating, as those we see in different parts of the world (say, for example, Anglo-Saxon, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, West-African) can do this in different ways that are still healthy for the psyche but coming from different cultural backgrounds?  

>>  Hollis is very keen to remind us of the wonders of therapy and how therapy can change our life, but, as I have said in other reviews of his books, it is not possible for everybody wanting to grow up, evolve or resolve our problems to pay for therapy. I understand that Hollis does not want to spend his time to teach us something impossible, to become therapists by reading a book. However, I still think that he would be able to provide with a bit of more exercises to allow us to go inside and get more juice of his teachings. Just saying.

>> Hollis bluntly states that rites of passage are missing in our contemporary culture. I consider that true if we talk of passage rituals as seen in traditional cultures and the times of our elders. However, I consider some young people's wild behaviour as rites of passage, it is just that it does not come associated with meaning and an integration in society, these rites are mostly of separation from the nest and assertiveness of the self with regards to parental and authority figures.  On the other hand, women had rarely had rites of passage in traditional cultures, as the rites of passage were for men and those traditions considered women like second-class humans, souls and brains. So, in a way, many women have only male rituals of passage to imitate. I wonder whether young women behaving wildly, as wild as men, these days are just taking on passage rites that once were male because they don't have a substitutive that brings power and meaning to their lives. On the other hand, I also wonder whether we have new female passage rites, meaningful and specific to the needs of women, aren't just also a passage rite for many women. I don't mean any fanatic feminism, I mean real meaningful feminism, the one that allowed women to vote, get equal salary, and be able to access jobs that were just only allowed to men, and so on. I would love to hear Hollis thoughts on this. You are welcome :)

IN SHORT
Living an Examined Life is a book easy to read, meaningful, thoughtful and very comforting, but also a bit repetitive and impractical at times. Not a book with cookie-cutter solutions or rosy advice. I can only say that I always come back to my highlights of this book when I have a bad day, feel awkward for being myself, and find myself immersed in misery and stuck in ways of being that I know don't work for me. Hollis is ready waiting for me, with a hug to comfort me, a whisper to my ears to wake me up, and slap on the face for me to react to. Are you up to the task? For whatever reason, I think this book is especially suited to introverts, who are naturally seekers of introspection and depth.    

Jungian writers are usually complex beings with complex language, a high level of education, abstraction and symbolic understanding. Probably that is why the attract like-minded people, but not everybody wanting to learn a bit about Jung is prepared for the complexity and depth of Jungian everyday talk. So, if you know nothing about Jungian Psychology and want to start from the foundations without having to go through bothersome highly complex language, this is your book.

This basic introduction has everything you need to know about Jung, the man, how his life and personality shaped his contribution to Psychology and Science in general, the basic concepts and themes of Jung's approach to the human psyche, mental illness, psychoanalytical practice, his troublesome relationship with Freud and his supposed pro-Nazism. The chapter on Dreams is perhaps the weakest part, mostly because Jung's dreams chosen  seem a bit too complex and symbolic for a book that tries to be approachable and addresses the general public.

The language used is concise, approachable with the bare minimum technicalities, yet, with enough depth to make you understand the basics on which to build your knowledge about Jung and Jungian Psychology.

This is a good Kindle edition with good-quality photos, but the final index is not linked, unfortunately.

Life is not a problem to be solved (loc. 3093).

This is the third book I read by Hollis, a Jungian psychoanalyst who specialises in the so-called middle passage, psychological true maturity and individuation. Hollis has the virtue to have me to stop and wow quite often, and this book was not different. Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life  engaged my head and my soul, spoke to me and my hunger for transcending reality as imposed to me by gender, age, and cultural constrictions, which I have always instinctively rejected as being addons not truly me. 

Because Hollis is a former academic with a background in Humanities who became a properly trained Jungian therapist later on in life, his writing is colourful, literary, sophisticated and very polished. His discourse goes from the mundane to the philosophical and the spiritual and does so in depth, without the usual psycho-babble you find elsewhere in pop-psychology these days. If you have a good level of education or self-education, are familiar with Jungian terminology and approach to the psyche, and love reading books by people who preach by example, this is your book.

BREAK WITH EVERYTHING

This is perhaps Hollis' most revolutionary and confronting book on the subject. On the one hand, in this book Hollis does not provide you with any shortcut or present a rosy view of anything, especially of your future in you decide to stay right where you are, doing what you do. Hollis debunks romantic love, traditional family, professional success, consumerism, pop ideologies, the many obsessions and addictions of our daily life (the obsession with health, youth and media included), New Age and herd behaviour, and does so without bitterness.  His definition of soul as psyche, his emphasis on the power of the myth and  symbols to the well-being of society and the healthiness of the psyche, his castigation of major religions as not really spiritual, among other pearls, might be controversial.

DON'T CRY BABE
On the other hand, Hollis won't tell us how we have to lead our life, how to behave, or how to do things. He says that the middle passage will only be successful after going through our suffering, finding out from where it originates,  burying our old set of values and ways of being, and giving birth to others that are more in tune with our soul's desire.  We have to leave being and  playing the victim, and assign a positive spin to our life dramas or moments of despair.

This book is a call to listening to our deep calling, to taking responsibility for our own life, and to moving beyond repetitive patterns of behaviour and personal history. Each person has a journey that is personal, nobody else's, so there is no cookie cutter to cut the fat, we have to de-construct our false self ourselves.

Feeling good or getting comfort is not the aim of this book, nor is numbing your pain, but  that of enlarging your life and achieving wholeness. Without the suffering, the non-suffering is taken for granted, so suffering has a function, to allow you grow up and appreciate things more.

According to Hollis,  the two major tasks of the grown-up to be aren't money, position, possessions or Prozac, they are: 1/ The recovery of personal authority, to find what is true for us and find the courage to live it in the world. 2/ The discovery of a personal spirituality that resonates with us, and is meaningful to us, no matter what other people think, and be willing to stand for what it is true for us. A kind of Braving the Wilderness.

Everything Hollis wants to say is, "If you do not like your life, change it, but stop blaming others, for even if they did hurt you, you are the one who has been making the choices of adulthood." (locs. 3210-3211). Ouch!

TOUGH LOVE
Hollis has a great compassion towards human suffering, it is tuned to the needs and troubles that one faces when crisis strikes in adulthood, because he has been there himself. However, because he's a depth therapist, he won't tell you what you want to hear if you are going through depression, anxiety, desperation, marital crisis, empty-nest syndrome, professional crisis, and so on. He will tell you what you need to know, so you get something out of your pain through your pain, you become yourself, dare to show your self to the world, and became the individual who your soul always wanted you to be:

 "often, inexplicably, it is the soul itself that has brought us to that difficult place in order to enlarge us" (loc. 212).  

> Ego as "that thin wafer of consciousness floating on an iridescent ocean called the soul" (locs. 230-231).  > Self as "the embodiment of nature’s plan for us, or the will of the gods -- whichever metaphor works better for you". (locs. 237-238).
> Complex/es as a "cluster of energy in the unconscious, charged by historic events, reinforced through repetition, embodying a fragment of our personality, and generating a programmed response and an implicit set of expectations."  (locs. 1273-1275).
 > Doubt = a form of radical trust, a trust that the world is richer than we know, so abundant that we can hardly bear.  (Locs 2944-5).

Hollis succeeds at explaining why the problems of the second half of life are almost a new thing, and also the direct link between the disconnection with ancestral myths and tribal rituals and the rise in individual and social neurosis and pathologies, and how the psyche longs for a connection with a larger deeper world in which certain personal and social energies are channelled, transformed and healed.

PONDER  WONDER
Although this is not a how-to book, Hollis presents us with some poignant questions to play psychoanalysts with ourselves. The most important one, to me, is: "If I have done the expected things, according to my best understanding of myself and the world, so why does my life not feel right?” (locs. 453-4). I think this is important because it doesn't focus on the world out there,  the image we project of ourselves, our achievements, how successful we are, how many houses, cars or jewels we own, but on how we feel inside.

Other major questions to ask ourselves are:
> What gods, what forces, what family, what social environment have framed your reality, perhaps supported, perhaps constricted it?
> Whose life I have been living?
> Why do you believe that you have to hide so much, from others, from yourself?
> Why have you come to this book, or why has it to come to you, now?
> Why does the idea of the soul both trouble you and feel familiar, like a long-lost companion?
> Is the life you are living too small for your soul’s desire?
> Why is now the time, if ever it is to happen, for you to answer the summons of the soul, to live the second, larger life?

Some queries to spear to ourselves when faced with the harshness of life (guilt, grief, loss, betrayal, doubt, loneliness, depression, addiction, or anxiety) are: How am I to enlarge consciousness in this place?  How find the meaning for me in this suffering? What new life is seeking to live through me? What must I do to bring it into being? What is the compulsive behaviour a defence against ?

When obsessed or addicted to something (shopping, alcohol, cleaning, working, exercising, whatever)  or engulfed by energies or practices that do not satisfy us internally, we should start reading the world psychologically and ask ourselves, “What is this touching in me?” “Where does this come from in my history?” “Where have I felt this kind of energy before?” “Can I see the pattern beneath the surface?” “What is the hidden idea, or complex, that is creating this pattern?” “Is there something promising magic, seduction, ‘solution’ here?” Also “Am I made larger, or smaller, by this path, this relationship, this decision?” 

DOWNSIDES

Although I loved the book, there are a few things that I consider delusions, not clear enough, or based on conceptions of what life should be. I don't think they are intentionally so, more, perhaps, the result of the author's age and the life he has lived, not as much of the life other people live.

1/ Tool-less.
Hollis is perfectly aware that most people have not the means, economical or other, to have therapy or psychoanalysis, even if they need it and want to. On the other hand, psychological blocks are usually black points in our eye that we cannot see even if they are in front of us, because they are right in the middle of the eye. That demands the help of a therapist, analyst or coach. I understand that Hollis doesn't want to provide a cookie cutter of an answer for anybody who is suffering from a personal crisis or wants to grow up and enlarge their lives, but I would have appreciated he making an effort, because, after all, he is a therapist and has the tools. It is true that the book has some suggestions about questions to pose to ourselves to start a inner dialogue (some of which I have already mentioned), but they cannot be answered if you are blocked, and some of them are too philosophical for the average John and Jane.  Many people will buy this book because they were expecting help, but many of them won't have the intellectual holders to catch everything that Hollis throws at us.  I hope that his forthcoming book will be more hands down and address the lack of practical advice that some might find in this book.  

2/ Muddle in the Middle.
Second half of life is a misleading title, because it departs from ontological  principles that do not reflect who we are as physical and social beings in the 21st century. It presupposes that we have a certain life span guaranteed on  this planet, and that around that half way we have a crisis, and that most of us have a grow-up spur at around the same time. I have said it before, my grandma died as an elderly lady at 48 years of age, so her middle age was 24 and she was probably in a corner by then having no way to go and unhappy to the core; there are women and men on this planet, right now, still living that way. Nowadays, 50y.o.a. is the new 40, or the new 35, or just 50 depending on one's level of maturity and physical state, and the culture and part of the world we were born or live in. On the other hand, a period that goes from 35 to 90y.o.a is a bit too vast! Or mid-life crisis being mostly between 35-45, well, it is a bit too precise!

3/ Mirage.
Hollis says that in the second half of life "We lose friends, our children, our energies, and finally our lives. Who could manage in the face of such seeming defeat?." (locs.  3096-3098). Isn't that a total illusion? The same illusion that generates the obsession with health? There is no guarantee that we aren't going to be killed while healthy or when young, that our families and friends are going to die before we do, or vice versa. It is the same illusion as believing that, by taking care of ourselves, we will delay death. In fact,  we could be super-fit and super-young and be run over a car when walking on the footpath. We might have to deal with the death of all our family when young, because they died in an accident, or killed themselves, or were killed.   

4/ The Brady Bunch.
At least in the Western World, traditional family is not about a man and woman marrying and having children. There are straight couples that don't marry, live together de facto for decades and decide not to have children even if they biologically can. Some uncoupled individuals decide that they have a maternal or paternal instinct and have surrogate mothers giving birth to the children they will parent and love. There are gay couples who live a very traditional life except for the fact that they are gay. There are  men and women who decide not to marry or have children, and join a monastery and form part of a bigger family. Others, won't join the monastery but don't need the need to marry or have children to become whole. The examples are endless. I say this because, asking ourselves what values and ways of being we want to pass on to our children, is a question that is not as valid now as it was 50 years ago. And sometimes Hollis speaks as if the only mature way of life was getting married and having children. I actually know many married people with children who have no maturity at all. I am not saying that Hollis is not aware of this, I am saying that the book does not always reads this way.

5/ Tongue Twist.
At the beginning of the book Hollis says that the aim of the book is to present things in a simple language that most people can understand. However, many times I thought that a 'commoner,' so to speak, would find difficult  getting through  them because of the vocabulary, the high degree of symbolism and/or abstraction. I think this is especially the case in the chapter on mature spirituality, which it is beautifully written but very elitist. 

5/ The pain of  the pen.
When you have remedial massage you learn that you get rid of your pain through the pain, as the treatment inflicts pain on the body. So, in a way, going through your suffering, as mentioned by Hollis here, is a bit like that. However his insistence on the suffering sounds a bit masochist at times. I am not saying that there isn't truth in what Hollis says, because I have experienced that to be true for me, but hey he insists too much on accepting the suffering and going through it. Some people won't be able to do that, and will collapse, just saying.We cannot blame them for not being able to stand the pain, find meaning in it, or  get out successfully from it.

6/ Spirited Away.
Hollis' insistence o spirituality starts very well, but it ends becoming a bit of fixation and, dare to say, 'religious'. There are ways of getting meaning out of life that aren't based on spirituality. Non nihilist atheists I  know find meaning in knowing that our transience demands awareness, living the moment, and making the most of our minutes, that meaning is found in leading an ethical life for the sake of it and leaving their offspring a good legacy, and are very mature and sound people. On the other hand, I also known deeply spiritual people whose lives are full of giving meaning to their suffering, and they haven't grown much inside and are still emotionally and psychologically immature.  

A QUESTION
Individuation is a personal individual thing, so things that constrict an individual won't constrict another, and things that helps to expand a person won't help another. Culture, family history, life circumstances are all impositions on the soul. I would have liked Hollis commenting on how different cultures, religious beliefs and language favour, more or less, individuals. Or put differently, is individuation easier or more difficult to achieve by members of a given culture, religion or linguistic background than ohers?  Does a culture creates more neurosis than another?

IN SHORT

This is a beautiful written book, lyric at times, quite hard at others that loves you toughly and tenderly, and shows you a way that is not what you might be looking for but it might be your best shot to succeed. The book will certainly satisfy those who love Jungian analysis and Jungian ways of looking at the inner and outer world that aren't simplistic and allow for our individuality to be recognised, developed and expressed.

One gets to feel how being a Jungian therapist is what Hollis was meant to be, because his book oozes passion for his profession, and for the wonders that Depth Psychology can do for anyone, not just if you are in crisis. He sees the Jungian analyst as a mediator with your soul and the self, and that is a wonderful way to put it. There is a lot of soul in this book.

Having said that, this book might not be useful or satisfying to you if:

> You are a convinced nihilist.
> You are very religious in a traditional way.
> You are looking for a New Age book.
> You need a book simply written with everyday vocabulary. 

> You are looking for a set of rules, step by step DIY system to solve your personal crisis.

> You need somebody to tell you how to solve your problems and how to get out of your misery.

> You are looking for something that is useful, but not that deep or complicated.  

> You aren't interested on Jungian depth Psychology and want a behavioural approach.

Pinkola Estes is not only a reputed Jungian psychologist but also a natural storyteller. She is able to link and connect naturally dream themes, concrete dreams from real people, world legends, fairy tales and myths, and look at dreams as part of a whole, as a world of magic that is interrelated to other worlds of magic. She has a very mellow soothing voice, perfect for a therapist, but her whispering is not only a sweet song to your ears, but also a deep poetic and humorous exploration of our dream world. I loved some of the stories she tells, and the fact that her analysis of the motifs is really rich, deep and colorful, multifaceted, and not the usual monolithic this theme means this, and that theme means that. These themes have been discussed in many dream dictionaries and dreamwork books, but I found that Pinkola Estes's discussion about them brings many more things to the table than other analysts.  
 The themes or motifs that Pinkola Estes discusses in this book are the following: 1/Animal dreams. 2/ Flying dreams. 3/ Precognitive dreams. 4/ Snake dreams. 5/ Paralysis dreams. 6/ Incommunication dreams. 7/ Dreams of blood. 8/ Disaster dreams. 9/ End of the world dreams. 10/ Dreams about giving birth. 11/ Dreams about finding a baby. 12/ Dreams about finding of losing a treasure. 13/ Teeth dreams. 14/ Toilet dreams. 15/ Dark force dreams with a  nasty man or woman. 16/ Dreams about having an orgasm, having sex or making love. 17/ and dreams of nakedness.

The most important things that you'll learn from this work (beyond the interpretations and meanings that Pinkola Estes attaches to the discussed motifs) are the following: 1/ Your dreams are yours, and must be interpreted and be related to who you are, your life, circumstances, psyche and soul, and no cookie-cutter of an interpretation will fit two different people. Symbols are universal, but also fit into the psyche of different people in different ways because they are infused in the individual psyche they sit on. 2/ You cannot disregard or ignore the instinctive feeling you get when you have a dream about what or whom the dream relates to. In the past, I have found to be true for me.  3/ Dreams are not only individual, but relate to  themes, symbols ad stories contained in old legends and myths and they are part of an interrelated magic world that is also very real,  a world pregnant with meaning, a whispering voice that comes from your own unconscious. When your dream relates to a specific theme and that theme makes sense to you, you will get an aha moment, like two piece of a magneto getting together when put together. 4/ Finally, as the title of the book hints, dreams are like riddles, pun confusing intricate queries that are embedded with a message from your psyche to you.

The main downsides of the book are three. Firstly, Pinkola Estes' tone is a bit flat and lacks coloratura, so I found difficult to keep engaged and focused for long periods of time. Secondly, these lectures should be about themes in women's dreams, but many of the themes discussed here are not specific to women, but general dream themes that everybody has; it is not always clear in which way the discussion differs if they are dreamed by men or women and, besides, sometimes the author clearly states that the theme is universal. Thirdly, the author has a tendency to talk assuming that things in our heads are as clear regarding the connection between motifs, myths, legends and specific dreams as are in hers. Finally, the question arises, if dreams are individual and particular to each person, and myths and legends are Universal, how exactly universal themes relate differently to different individuals?

This is a very enjoyable audiobook, quick to listen to, and one of those books that you want to listen to more than once. 

How to Integrate your Shadow is a totally misleading title for a book that deals with different facets of the Jungian Shadow. This is one of the few books written on the matter in Spanish available on Amazon, and perhaps that got me overexcited. This work  incorporates part of a previous work by the author with some corrections and enlargements.

The book reads well, is well written in a classy albeit erudite Spanish with plenty of psychological and Jungian jargon, and will certainly please people who have an interest on the Shadow and, even more, those with a previous idea of basic Jungian concepts like Shadow, Collective Unconscious, Mask, and Individuation, and want to hear a new voice. I enjoyed the author's style and reflections on the Shadow, though, and I truly enjoyed chapter six devoted to individuation following the Dark Night of the Soul by St John of Cross, and the author's digging into some of his patients' dreams.

The author says in page 12 that he expects readers to find this manual simple, practical, and an incentive to help them to integrate the dark side of their personality. However, this is not a manual, this is not a practical book, and there is no way simple mortals with a basic knowledge of the Shadow could integrate their Shadow without the help of a therapist or, at least, with a how-to book guided book, like for example David Richo's Shadow Dance: Liberating the Power & Creativity of Your Dark Side. Besides, despite being well written and really enjoyable, the book is not didactic, pedagogic or even written in an accessible language for people who aren't familiar with Jungian or Analytical Psychology. If you come/came to the text thinking that you will/would be given tools to unveil and integrate your own Shadow on your own, a sort of d.i.y. sort of book, you will be disappointed. Besides, the author himself says in pages 76-77 that not everybody is able to gather the energy necessary to face their shadow exclusively in dreams, that they also need of Active Imagination (something that is not clearly defined or explained in the book) and, most importantly, by facing consciously our repressed wishes. How can a normal person do that without the help of a therapist or without a how-to book, is left unanswered.

The author also says at the beginning of the book that his approach to the different stages of how the shadow manifests and integrates differ from the more didactic approach of Dr Marie-Louise Von Franz and Wolfgan Giegerich, but his is closer to Jung's theories. Von Franz must have been quite close to Jung's intentions being a closer collaborator, friend and pupil? Just asking.

The author also states that despite the large bibliography in English about the shadow it seems that the has had little effect on the conscience of the majority of people. A statement that surprises as it comes from a psychologist, as not everybody reads English, not everybody has a comfortable life to devote their time to self-growth and exploration of the psyche, and those who have, aren't always interested in digging down into themselves and exploring their psyche.

RENDERING FOR KINDLE
The rendering for kindle, at least in my device, shows some signs of automatic conversion to digital format, as some hyphenations related to line breaks are left in unnecessary places, and some spacing necessary in the text is omitted and two words appear joined or the punctuation without previous space.

TYPO
> p. 31 resumiento should be resumiendo.

The present moment is informed by the past, driven by its imperatives, its prescriptions and proscriptions. Either we are repeating it by serving its message, or trying to escape it, or we have evolved our unconscious treatment plan for it. Either way, the past calls the shots, at least until it is flushed out into the full light of consciousness.  (Loc. 148-151). The past is not dead; it is not even past. And what we resist will persist— as haunting.(Loc. 201-202)

This is the first book I read by Hollis, a reputed Jungian psychoanalyst, and I am most impressed with his literary writing, his erudition, his wisdom, his humanity, his compassion a with the way he touches the readers' soul, or at least mine. 

Hauntings is not a book about mediums or ghosts, is a book about those psychological ghosts (by absence and by presence) that make our lives more mechanical and more untrue to who we really are (our soul and inner self). Those ghosts direct our behaviour, our feelings, and our lives in two major ways: by replicating them without being aware we are doing so, or by being aware of them and trying to compensate to avoid them.

THE HAUNTING GHOSTS

> Our genes. Of course, they aren't discussed in this book.

> Our parent's unlived lives and conditioning. Everything we learn about the world is first filtered through them. From them we receive our culture, religion, values and even their neurosis and behaviours. The mother figure is vital until we are 6-7y.o.a, but the father figure becomes increasingly so from then onwards, if any of those fail not to be there or to be too much, or be in the wrong way, those patterns of being, behaving and feeling will be passed on to us.   
> Synchronicity. This the only positive haunting in the book. It is presented as a mysterious non-causal energy of the Universe that follows us to let us know whatever we need to know or notice, and puts us in direct connection with the Universe without the need of any mediator (the state, gurus, evangelists, priests, or whomever else, all of them with their own agenda). 

> Our "complexes" or subconscious patterns of behaviour emotionally triggered. Hollis does a great job at explaining what a complex is, how it works and how it manifest, and the power that they have over us all. We need to bring them into consciousness, but even we do, they are the hardest thing to handle. They are the ghostly aspect most widely discussed in the book:  "We do not rise in the morning, look in the mirror while brushing our teeth, and say to ourselves, “Today I will do the same stupid things, the reflexive things, the regressive things which I have been doing for years!” But more often than not we indeed do the same stupid, reflexive, regressive things, and why? (Loc. 857-860).

> Our shadow, projections and transferences, who present aspects of us as part of somebody else's, an unconscious lens that alters reality and the perception of who the others are, bringing a distorted picture of their self, that we only notice is a lens when the projection crumbles and we tell ourselves s/he wasn't what looked like or the person thought s/he was. 
> Our sense of guilt (personal or social it might be). Guilt is the result of something we have done or failed to do. It shows in our lives in three different ways: patterns of avoidance, patterns of overcompensation, and patterns of self-sabotage. Perhaps the most evident sense of guilt comes from the expectations of society that favours niceness over authenticity and adaptation over assertiveness, so we end giving too much weight to what others expect from us or think of us any failure or lack of fitting is transformed into guilt.  
> Our sense of shame, or the belief that we are wrong or flawed somewhat because we have to meet some criteria, respond to somebody's else expectations, or serve a given agenda, no matter is self-imposed or more commonly imposed by cultural codes, religious institutions, or the internalisation of agendas or assignments (even unspoken) of parents, family or other people who matter to us.
> Psychological social projections, the same as personal projections but at a big scale. They are the base of racism, sexism, xenophobia, prejudice, religious intolerance, dogmatism and the view of anything and anybody who is different as a threat. The more insecure the ego the less it tolerates differences. The reverse side is contagious social ideas, fashions and fears that expand like a plague. Hollis states that no religious, civil, educational or social institution has not, in some degree, constricted us and prevent us from fulfilling  our potential.

> Betrayal from others and from ourselves. Betrayal is a kind of loss that is internalised and leads us to inner conclusions that result in paranoia, obsession, and projective identification. Hollies says that usually transfer to the Universe, the State, the Company, the marriage the role of good parent or caretaker and when they fail to serve us we have a tantrum and disappointment will be seen as betrayal.
> Magical thinking or the failure to differentiate interior reality from external reality.
> Modernism, or the loss of a spiritual core and myths of the 'tribe', which creates an inner void and anxiety. The loss is appeased by compensation: materialism, self-absorption, obsession, compulsion, addiction,  and any sort of "-holism', whatever fills up that void. When reading chapter 9, which deals with this matter, I thought of how the collapse of the Dream Culture among Aboriginal Australians has led the last two generations to being lost, angry, raging, and to consuming much into alcohol and drugs so as to numb their lack of spiritual void and the guidance of the elders.
>  The lost of our connection with our soul.

THE MAJOR TAKINGS FROM THE BOOK TO ME

>> One of the major takings of the book is a clear idea of what complexes are and how they work in our psyche, and how they direct our behaviour. Most importantly, how much power have over us, how much inner energy they summon, and how difficult is to loose them up, because beating them is out of the question. This is a bit terrifying,  especially if you are aware of your own complexes and want to beat them.

.>> The second major taking is how dreams and feelings are relevant for our inner world and psyche. Dreams speak in a symbolic language to tell us what our soul grievances and hopes are. They don't rise from the ego, nor have an ego agenda, so they bring the unconscious to the conscious better than anything else. They are a window to your soul, you have just to poke you nose in to see. In the same way our feelings, the way we feel, are expressions of the psyche and the soul and not of the ego, so we should pay more attention to them.

>>  We need to live more consciously and more thoughtfully. We need to bring the unconscious to our conscious as if our life depended on it because, in a way, it does.

>> We need to be faithful to our core and authentic self.  Betraying our soul is the worst betrayal one will ever suffer. This demands paying less attention to what society and other people expect from us, and doing and being more what our soul is and longs for. This demands learning what you truly want and living according to it. We all fear to change, to grow, to be lonely, to get the disapproval of others, to be weird, not to fit, but that cannot be a deterrent to be who we truly are. Fear is normal, living in fear is not.

>>  There is a need for grace and forgiveness with others and ourselves. Let's accept our humanity and imperfection.  The need to trust even when our trust has been abused. Easier said than done!

>> We need to choose life over victimhood. "It is always easier to blame the other than recognize at how many stages of the process we betrayed ourselves, sustained denial, and perpetuated what was already outlived. Betraying our own souls has been with us so long that we often forget we have a soul and that it is asking to be served even more urgently than our dependencies and our infantilities." Most difficult!


>> Let's individuate! Becoming a person is actually a very difficult project. (Loc. 2598-2599), just worth the effort.

SOME CRITICISM

Hauntings is a wonderful book that has touched me deeply, bit it lacks something very important to me -- practicality. In that regard, I love Robert A. Johnson's books, which aren't as soulful, but more tool-full. Hollis advises us to bring our ghosts to our conscious life, to pay attention to our dreams and feelings, to be faithful and true to ourselves, to face the pain and adversity with some sort of stoicism by going through the pain instead of numbing it or ignoring it. Yet, how we all mortals do that without the assistance of a psychoanalyst?

A WISH

I found a ghost missing from the list. Well, I'm not sure if it is ghost properly speaking but a ghost of mine definitely -- the ghost of poverty. Not being able to have ends meet. I think individuation is just a wonderful thing, and will appeal to some individuals no matter their gender, age and social status, but to individuate we have first to have our belly full and some sort of economical surplus. Or perhaps not. It is definitely always a ghost for me perhaps because I was very poor for a long time and poverty and having nothing is always around the corner, even when I have a bit of money at hand. I would have loved Hollis, who knows what poverty is, to perhaps include it in his list and make some reflections about it. 

ON HOLLIS' WRITING

Hollis is an erudite, well-versed in English and World literature, Philosophy and Theology. He integrates in his books quotes from American and European authors. To me, they are so illustrative and so to the point of what Hollis is writing, that I didn't find them invasive most of the time. On the contrary, I found them illuminating of how artists are so in tune with the human soul and what what life is, and how  they can dig as deep as a psychoanalyst does. 

If you watch some of Hollis's videos online you will see that he is quite a direct speaker, very approachable and easy to understand. However, his writing is quite different, I think simply because he loves writing and does so in a very literary formal way. To me, that is simply wonderful. It is also challenging because he uses a rich English vocabulary that has quite pronounced Latin and German nuances. The way I see it is that his writing allows me to improve my English, not a flaw. I admire when authors do not betray themselves even when pushed by editors to downgrade their writing for the red-necks and bogans of the world, with all my respect. I think those same readers can grab a dictionary and improve their vocabulary. Yet, it sounds at times that those people consider that offensive! This is utterly shocking to me. I also find shocking readers commenting on Hollis' intention of proving how clever he is, which I think it is a clear projection of their inferiority complex because, to be realistic, they don't know this man at all!

Having said that, although I like Holli's style and choice of phrasing and vocabulary, I thought that sometimes he goes a bit too far using words that are archaic, rare or specialised. Not that there are many of those, but I think they aren't needed. E.g. 'anfractuosities.', in medias res' and some others.

Also,  at times there were too many quotes and they aren't always necessary. Here an approximate list of the authors quoted in the book: Robert Frost, Paul Eluard, Rilke, Longfellow, W. H. Auden, Sharon Olds, Delmore Schwartz, James Tate, Josef Breuer, Freud, Jung, Brothers Grimm, Christopher Marlowe, Milton, Nietzsche, Sartre, Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett, Pascal, Emily Dickinson, Kant, Copernicus, Francis Bacon, B, Scott Momaday, St Augustine, Matthew Arnold, Chritopher Fry, Alicia Ostriker, Walt Whitman, Paul Tillich, Kierkegaard, Aldo Carotenuto, Horace Walpole, Thomas Wolfe, Dabuek Wakoski, Adam Zagajewski, Paul Hoover, Homer, Gunnar Ekelof, Joyce, Shakespeare, Yeats, Ibsen, Mann, Hesse, Machado, Wittgenstein, and Dante!

The book is a bit repetitive and loopy at times, and unnecessarily so, and I found the use of rhetorical questions excessive in number, as the same could have been said straight forward in  non-interrogative form without losing any emphasis. In other cases, the rhetoric works great, but not always.

MIND

If you are a reader looking for a simple book to read, this might not be for you. It is written in  a very formal literary way, it is very deep, and it is very Jungian.  So this is not pop-psychology nor a self-help book.

RENDERING FOR KINDLE

The book has no pages, just the usual locations, but there are some cross references (unlinked) in the book that refer to specific page numbers not locations. That shouldn't be so in an e-book. I noticed:
> Location 1037 (p. 49), but the book has no pages on Kindle.
> Location 1851, (p. 000) What What What?!

At mid-life we come face to face with our failures and losses. As we age, each of us is confronted by limitations, threats to our capacity to control outcomes, and deflations of our presumptions of omnipotence. (p. 49). "we are called upon to examine the 'truths' by which we live and even to acknowledge that their opposite also contains truth." (p. 15) "The reluctance to face our own shit is very strong." (p. 217-218).

Living Your Unlived Life is a short Jungian book that synthesises and develops many of Johnson's previous books on shadow work, dreamwork and active imagination, and mixes them with some reflections on archetypes, complexes, and Depth Psychology from Rhul. The narrators use the first person, so one cannot distinguish what comes from whom. However, the book feels whole and coherent. Johnson's impromptu is clear, especially if you have read others of his works. Like in most of Johnson's books, a Greek myth is used as conductor of the study, in this case the story of Castor and Pollux. You might ask why myths are still relevant for our Western Culture, and the answer is: 

"Mythic stories tell us holistic, timeless truths, as they are a special kind of literature, not written or created by a single individual but produced by the imagination and experience of an entire culture. (...) Mythic stories, therefore, portray a collective image— they tell us about things that are true for all people." (p. 8).

THE NUGGETS

The second part of life or middle age is a period of time when we seek authenticity, to be true to who we are and to express ourselves in ways that connect us with our inner truth. This is also a period of upheaval and reflection when, more than ever, we start seeking for meaning to get a sense of inner fulfilment. The main quest in the second part of life is the seek for wholeness, which means to be "hale, healthy and holy" and to honour our higher self, this understood as "the propensity of psyche to dynamically seek greater levels of integration, organisation, relationship, and creative expression" (note 2).

Johnson & Ruhl's advice to achieve wholeness and authenticity is not based on fluff, it is based on serious inner work:
1/ We have to 'be' more and 'do' less, or just to alternate 'being' and 'doing' more frequently.A Zen approach to life, basically.
2/ We need to make the unconscious conscious.
3/  We have to apply meta-consciousness to our thinking and behaviour so we aren't acting on autopilot and repeating behaviour patterns that are not good for us and are even harmful. The requires that we pause and reflect instead of doing what we usually do, i.e. leave our unconscious to run its hidden agenda. To disarm a complex you must learn to move your ego into a position of witness  (...) the goal is not to eliminate patterned thoughts and behaviour but rather to loosen them up sufficiently(p. 62).
4/ We need to learn to separate which parts of us are not really us but a by-product of our culture, country of birth, gender and social class or just a projection of our families.
5/ We must live our unlived lives (those parts of our character and psyche that we consciously or unconsciously repress, which are both luminous and dark) by doing shadow work, dream work and through active imagination We also need to start asking ourselves the right questions: instead of What should I do to get rid of this wrong thing in me?” we should ask “Why is the right thing in the wrong place?” (p. 103) instead of asking "What’s in it for me?” we should ask “What is needed at this moment for greater wholeness, integration, and creative expression? What serves the greater good?” (p. 179).
6/ We need to learn to look at the world with less polarity, with less duality, with less judgement, more through a coloured lens and less through a black and white one. There is no list of virtues that cannot be contradicted; this is a truth that can be liberating and frightening at the same time. We need to synthesise the opposites tempering one with the other and accept that both are valuable and necessary to live a balanced life.  

7/ We need to keep a balance between the archetype of the Eternal Youth and the archetype of the Wise Elder, by using an attitude of tinkering, discovery and play. Without the Eternal Youth we become morally rigid, dogmatic, judgemental, and authoritarian, but if we are too attached to the Eternal Youth we may exhibit immaturity, narcissism and an inability to grow and achieve psychological maturity.
8/ Let's  get a  new mindset, as the old solutions to our problems won't work and our automatic habits will work against us the older we become.  

9/ Let's have strong ethics and walk the talk. People who behave ethically are those who make an honest effort to conform their behaviour to their values. When your conduct is at odds with your essential character, it reflects a fragmentation of the personality. Shirking of ethical responsibility deprives us of wholeness. (p. 125). Amen!
10/ We need to do some work to improve our capacity of response to the challenges we face, so we do so with more flexibility, passionately and in a powerful way.

This book is full of wisdom, with some philosophical and spiritual reflections that are wonderful to ponder on,  no matter the stage you are in life. I actually think that this sort of book should be read by people older than 25 so that  they can start doing  something with their lives to have less neurosis and more fulfilling lives when they are, say, in their mid 30s.

My favourite chapter is number 10, Returning Home and Knowing It for the First Time. This chapter is very thought provoking, very touching and lyrically spiritual, and also very confronting in a way. This won't be an easy read if you are a hardcore Christian or very attached to any established creed; however, the chapter will be like a fragrant breeze for those of us who are more spiritual than religious. In a way, this chapter is a call to arms, to  the true spirit that lives in all of us, to break free from the chains that constrict and restrict our soul even if those are part of a set of religious beliefs and structures. Besides, this is the only chapter where old age and death are considered. The chapter is a call to the return to the divine, to walk into oneness, and to reclaim our personal paradise, as heaven lives within us:

"Paradise exists, but as a level of consciousness, and it is available to you when you are ready to receive it. (...) The very idea that the material world is separate from some other “higher” existence is itself an error of duality. Reality is not dual, though our current level of awareness perceives it that way. (pp. 225-227).

If you have never read a book by Johnson, this might intrigue you enough to read more detailed approaches to shadow work, dreamwork and active imagination. If you are into Jungian and Depth Psychology, you will find wonderful applications of Jung's teachings to the challenges that your psyche  and life face, no matter your age.

THE SHORTCOMINGS

~~ Although the book has great wisdom and is well written, it might  disappoint the general public, who will come to this book because "the second part of life" in its title. They might expect precise concise answers on how to solve or face mid-age issues, but they won't find but challenging inner work.  

~~ The structure of the book  makes the message confusing or not clear enough. To me, they should have started explaining what an unlived life is, specifically, and how it affects our life. "To live our unlived lives" is repeated ad nauseam, but "unlived life" is never clearly defined. I would have explained how to access that unlived lives (shadow work, dreamwork, active imagination, archetypes in this precise order) and how to deal with our oldest years if we get there alive.  I think in this way the whole book would have conveyed the same message in a more clear way. Just my opinion, of course.

~~ Except for some parts, this book is not specific for people in the second part of life. The bits about old age are truly so, but most of the book focuses on doing things that are beneficial for people of all ages and are interested in inner work. 

~~ I have a problem with vague talking, in this case with the expression "the second part of life". What is that supposed to mean? My grandmother died old and wretched in her 40s, so her second part of life was in her 20s. Depending on the country or area of the world we live in, we have a longer or shorter life expectancy and we marry and settle sooner or later. So I would like to know, exactly, how do we know we are in that second part of life as we don't know how long we are going to live. Is it an age? I is a state of mind? Is it having a job and a routine life? Is a state of the soul?  Is being settled in life? What exactly?  

MIND

>>  Although the language is accessible, the book reads better if you already have an understanding of basic Jungian concepts, like ego, shadow, projection and archetypes.  The authors have a specific reader as a target, so if you aren't one of those, you  might get lost without the help of a teacher or mentor.

>> Although Jungian Psychology is very much Christian and spiritual, there is a good deal of elements that could conflict with orthodox Christian beliefs because, beyond the concept of psychological soul, the book is infused in Zen, Eastern philosophies and Antiquity Greek religion. Therefore, the book might not be for readers who have a set of values deeply ingrained in established churches and religions, and believe in the value and importance of right and wrong, good and bad, light and dark. 

EXERCISES IN THE BOOK

 > Unlived lived inventory (adapted from the Roland Evans' model, quite interesting and surprising.)
> What are you stuck at? (good)
> The Doing/ Being Shuffle (good)
> Who am I? (good, needs of partner or conductor).
> The living symbol (not practical, need of partner or conductor who knows what s/he is doing.)
> Talking it over with yourself  (interesting but it would be great if an expert did it with you the first time so  we learn.)
> Dream tending (excellent.)
> Follow what you love (OK.)
> Dissolving the split perspective  (truly interesting and fun!)

 Some of the exercises are great if you happen to have a guide, a psychoanalyst or mentor who has a mastery on those,;otherwise, they might  lead you nowhere. Also, some of the exercises were somewhat odd, like asking yourself about the unlived lives of your parents. Some things came to mind for my parents about things they said they wanted to do and couldn't because of poverty or their specific circumstances. Yet, I am not my parents' psychoanalyst, so there must be many things inside them that they are never expressed, of which they don't want or can't talk about, or simply don't know they exist.

RENDERING FOR KINDLE

I find upsetting paying for a short digital book to find that the notes are not linked to the text they relate, that the index is not linked either, and that some of the links do not work either. It doesn't cost much fixing that in the e-book, so I always wonder why editors don't give a damn.

WHAT?!

As a tool to remember and note down your dreams, the authors recommend a "voice-activated tape recorder also can be handy (p. 142)." Time to wake-up, most people would have a smart-phone with a voice recording app included, tape recorders died, like a few decades ago, no? Tape recorders are an obsolete technology, no longer in use, unless you happen to have one of those. In year 2016 you can still find voice recorders, digital, but they are expensive, and one needs more a mobile than a VR, so using an app, free or paid, or just the VR feature that comes included in some smartphones is the easiest cheapest way to do that in year 2016.