Crenshaw's Books & Decks

Instant Enlightenment is a book of exercises that will surprise you, challenge you and provoke you. You can read the chapters in order or choose one at random;  read the book from beginning to end or do an exercise for some days and then retake it. The book is very experiential, not only because some exercises are involved, but because some of the exercises will make you experience concepts that are very difficult to describe or explain by writing. Some of the exercises are liberating and sexy, others are thought-provoking, others a retake on things you might have already heard, and others plain odd.

SO WHAT'S INSTANT ENLIGHTENMENT?

Deida doesn't offer a definition at the beginning but in different instances throughout the book. Deida uses the term instant enlightenment in a very spiritual way most of the times, but his enlightenment is that also that of the flesh. If we put together the mini-definitions of IE spread throughout the book we get that IE is total openness to experiences and people, no matter how good or bad they are, a total openness of the heart even when things go wrong and we are hurt. IE is the right-here-right now, being free of the past and the future. IE is love, the Universal type, pervading anything and everything. IE is responsibility, so love is also responsibility.  IE is "awareness ringing open as space, to love and feel all, every animal, plant, rainstorm, and idea." 

I LOVED

I just love the way Deida makes us open our hearts and see things differently. Deida mixes exercises, ideas and advice that come from counseling, body heat telepathy, Jungian psychology Manifestation and Universal laws, meditation, visualization and Zen Buddhism backgrounds, but the result is a very organic unique coherent combo. My favorite chapters/experiential exercises are Oral, Swear, Hate, Masturbate, Speech, Romance, Radio, and Hero.

I HAD TROUBLE WITH

Deida tends to say beautiful things that touch one's heart, but he can be also very abstract and his advice impractical. I feel that he talks from his heart, from something he has experienced, but he's not always able to convey that in words, perhaps because that cannot be properly conveyed in words but has to be experienced. Some other things he says are difficult to do unless one is meditating and scanning our body in a meditative state. Some examples:

1/ So, instead of trying to view it, relax open as this ever-present background of feeling-openness. Take care not to seek blissfulness as an aspect of your true self. Who you truly are is an openness of love in which bliss may or may not be noticed. (p. 129).  

2/everything you do is love’s gift, unless you are unwilling to be lived by love’s force.  Do nothing, but if doing happens, do it as love’s most fully offered art (pp. 160-161). 

3/ Be utterly lazy, and then do whatever you find yourself doing, as an offering for others. For instance, if a blink happens, feel the blink as a work of art, offered outwardly for love’s sake. If others were to see you blink, they would feel, “Now, that is a beautiful blink.” (p. 160).

QUESTION

Deida states "So few people seem to have exhausted their desire for 'better' that very few models exist for a life lived from the perspective-free openness of being." (p. 209).
My question is isn't Instant Enlightenment a way of bettering?

I DIDN'T LIKE  

I couldn't connect with some of the exercises at all and with some of the statements made in them. Perhaps the chapter Nipples was my last favourite, because of some of the statements made in them. For example: 
1/ "Squeeze your own nipples until they almost hurt but are still tingling with pleasure. (…) Offer this feeling in your nipples to your ancestors, in gratitude for the suffering they experienced so you could be born and have your nipples squeezed to pleasure." (pp. 73-74). 
2/   Imagine that you were a great spiritual being, perhaps Jesus of Nazareth, or the Buddha from India, or Yeshe Tsogyal of Tibet, or Mother Teresa from Albania. Also imagine that your whole body is as sensitive as your nipples. (p. 75).

I don't want to think of my ancestors when I squeeze my nipples or of Mother Theresa when I feel my body in full-bloom pleasure to get enlightened, sorry. I know it makes sense in Deida's mind, but to me is a bit irreverent, even though I'm not a religious person; I think it might offend religious people. Personally, I thought that the exercises were good per se without the need to invoke the saints into the party. 

I WANTED MORE OF 

I wanted more sexy enlightenment, more taboos explored, and more couples enlightenment. I know, I sound so frivolous, but I guess expected this book to be more about sexy enlightenment than about instant enlightenment.

IN SHORT

A beautiful, albeit odd uneven book, that it is still enthralling to read, with a beautiful message of Universal love and openness of the heart. You can practice some of the exercises without a problem and get a lot of enlightened juice out them. Others are difficult to do, at least to me, unless you are into proper Buddhist/Zen meditation or  familiar with Tantric Yoga.

When we confuse functional roles in the workplace with the naturally different sexual desires of most men and women, everybody suffers. (Locs. 461-462). We will always attract the reciprocal of the energy we put out. (Loc. 2058).

Intimate Communion is an old book, first published in 1996, which, despite the vintage feel of the cover, feels fresh and relevant in many ways 20+ years later.

This is a book for both women and men, on what I would describe as conscious coupling or conscious intimacy, i.e. an evolved way of relating/relationships in which our intrinsic dominant sexual energies are fully expressed and supported within the relationship.  Deida mixes his expertise as couples counsellor and his knowledge of what makes some relationships thrive and collapse, his knowledge of what is characteristic to masculine and feminine essences and energy, a bit of Eastern Philosophy (pondering on the self, energy work and Tantric Sex). The result is Deida's unique voice in the world of couples counselling, a voice that needs to be taken into account to transcend most people's dissatisfying and unfulfilled relationships, where sexual apathy and/or cheating are too common to ignore.

Deida defines Intimate Communion as the art of opening in love and the art of cultivating sexual polarity by gifting from our unique sexual essence. The aim is to supersede old forms of relating, get above an equal 50-50 relationship to another that can be 50-50 for many things but it is sexually charged, a relationship of free surrender in which both people feel alive and constantly feed their passion and natural non-tabooed flow of energies. Intimate communion has nothing to do with our gender, sexual orientation or religious beliefs. It is based on sexual energy, which varies from person to person disregarding their gender. Intimate Communion is a very honest open way of relating, based on respect, acceptance and surrender; it demands opening our heart moment by moment even when we are hurt and upset instead of retreating, giving the cold shoulder or punishing our partner for the hurt. Intimate Communion works on the three levels that keep a relationship finely tuned through the ages: mind, heart and sexuality.

It sounds very Gwyneth Paltrow! 

MY HIGHLIGHTS

>> Deida clearly explains the difference between love, romance and sexual polarity. He calls our attention to the  fact that people often mix gender equality and the neutralisation of our native masculine or feminine sexual energies. He also makes a relevant differentiation between men-women at work and social equality, and couple dynamics.

>> The three stages of intimacy, of which Deida speaks over and over again, give you a clear sense of how intimacy is a process of growth, how different kinds of relationships work for men and women, and how emotional, sexual and gender issues manifest individually and differentially in those three different stages.

>> Deida's insight into the masculine energy is profound, and goes from the daily life to the metaphysical. It really helped me to recognise men I've come across in my life and see in which stage they were at. Deida understands the modern man's quest to regain his masculinity and become a 3rd stage man, that is a man who does not need to dominate, domineer, or abuse his woman to unleash his true masculine energy. The 3rd stage man is an evolved man, psychologically reassured, who does not need to dominate and wants to relate to a woman who is at a similar stage of development. The 3rd stage man, the way is described in the book, is a man around his 40s or older who has learnt life lessons and is ready to love freely but it is also strongly committed, not because commitment is demanded or expected from him but because he is willing to do so. This commitment is not a ring on the finger, it is an attitude to relationships in which sexual polarity is equally important.
>> Deida gets the modern professional woman, not as much as the modern man, but I felt that many of the things he said were very true. 

>> Something new that I had never heard is that a person can have sexual love affairs with the environment. Just like human beings, places can be more or less feminine, masculine or neutral. And the energy of those places sometimes fills in the vacuum we have when our own sexual essence is not expressed in a polarised relationship.

>> I loved the differentiation that Deida makes between a man's vision quest, man's escaping and man's diddling.

TWO LITTLE CONNECTIONS
>> I found that Deida's analysis would have benefited from Gary Chapman's points in The Five Languages of Love (1995). One of the most important things you can do to re-energise your relationship is learning to recognise the way your partner gives love and wants love to be given to him/her.  The 'languages of love' aren't based on polarity, doing-receiving-giving kinda stuff, but on the way individual personalities, disregarding gender, feel loved and express their love.

THE DOWNSIDES

>> The quiz to figure out your sexual essence is very useful, but also very simplistic.

>> The constant use of consciousness associated to male energy bothered me, not because I thought it wasn't meaningful as an element of a 3rd stage man, but because it seemed to imply that an enlarged consciousness is not as important to the feminine. Personally, I've found more women with high level of consciousness than men, that's my experience! I'm not saying that Deida believes that high consciousness is not proper to a highly evolved feminine woman, but the book reads as if high developed consciousness is a privilege of the masculine.

>> Although Deida's description and view of modern women is accurate in general, I felt that some of his discourse was anchored in the male's preference on how the feminine should be expressed, and how it was expressed in the past because women had no voice or liberties until the beginning of the 20th century. Put it differently, one thing is the feminine essence and another how that essence has been expressed in the past, where there weren't natural ways of expression for women except for those imposed and sanctioned by men. I found that some of Deida's statements felt in this category. A man telling a woman how to be feminine. Which is as ridiculous as woman telling a man how his scrotum feels in his pants. Two statements in his discourse really put me off: 

      1/ Deida says that the essence of the feminine woman is radiance and beauty, and that calling a woman ugly is the worse insult for a female. Well, that it's the case if you are talking to a superficial insecure moronic woman. Deida's statement is a  distorted view of the female essence as some men would like it to be. A woman can be very feminine and spiritual and don't give a dam about beauty. Deida's statement also diminishes the intellect of the woman. I think most women would feel more insulted by a man telling them that their brain/intellect is 'unnecessary' to their femininity than being called ugly. I think that spirituality and intelligence contribute more to women's radiance that their beauty and many men would also tell you that.

      2/ I found the following statement very dangerous:

"Although it is a far cry from being sweetly ravished and overwhelmed by love in the ultimate embrace of perfect Intimate Communion with a partner, it is still a form of surrendering to another in the hope of fulfilment, just as is raising a family, opening sexually with Her lover, or giving Her time and energy to a social cause. In each case, She hopes to he filled with love by surrendering Her sense of self to something else. In the case of a woman in a Dependence Relationship like Charlene, this "something else" is often the control or aggression of her man-receiving his angry attention fills her more than receiving no attention at all". (Locs 2541-2544).

The statement forgets that many women cannot leave an abusive relationship because they don't have economical independence, or a safe place where to escape, or they psyche is so wounded that they cannot counteract. It somewhat blames the female energy for the abuse. I was shocked at reading this statement. I don't think this would be published nowadays or should have been ever published.  
>> Deida's advice on healing and overcoming old patterns of behaviour in relationships might be contradicted by Jungian psychoanalysis, which tells you that this can be  rarely achieved even you have the luxury of doing therapy; you can become conscious of your patterns of behaviours, ghosts and shadow issues, but overcome them, they say, rarely. You learn to live with them. Of course, solution-oriented therapy says that this is possible. So, who knows?! 

>> There is a chapter about embracing the taboo, but Deida never explains what he means by taboo nor digs in on the subject. I would have loved a more open discussion on this.

>> The book is very repetitive at times, with the same sentence repeated sometimes in contiguous paragraphs. That's the editor's fault.

TYPO

"Two Masculines do not a polarity make." (Loc., 2039).

KINDLE RENDITION

The conversion of the book into digital format shows a separation of the two parts of an h quite frequently, as well as some of the letters of a word. 

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.

There are books that one wants to buy as soon as we read the title, like this one. A priori, Frankfurt appears as an agent provocateur, as the book is sold on Amazon, where there is a straight no-profanity no-expletives policy.  However the book feels a total ploff flop once we start reading, because the expectations were so high, that the book can only fall short.

Frankfurt's intention is to define what BS means, the intention behind the concept, if any, the function/s it serves, and what does it not mean. Through this essay, we get to see some of the characteristics that Frankfurt unearths and attributes to BS. Thus, BS is a deceptive deliberate misrepresentation, short of lying, by word and/or deeds, produced in a careless or self-indulgent manner, unrefined and somewhat spontaneous. Its essence is the lack of connection with truth, an  indifference to how things really are. Frankfurt identifies BS as connected to 'hot air' or bluff but not as much to nonsense. BS is phony not false, colourful and creative, but not precise or sharp.

Frankfurt starts his essay with a cross-examination of the definition of Humbug, as provided by Max Black in 1985. He also compares the meaning and use of the word with the definitions that the Oxford English Dictionary offers of bull, bull session, and BS. He also sketches  St Augustine's typology of lies, and, of course, invites Wittgenstein to the party because the whole essay is a Wittgensteinish exercise.

One of the aims of this work  is to explain the difference between a lie and BS, and Frankfurt succeeds at doing so, because we get to see clearly how both things are essentially different in intention, conception, format, and presentation. Another of the aims of the book is to discuss whether there is more BS today than before and why, and although the discussion on this subject occupies barely two pages, it is quite good and goes straight to the point.

One of the most questionable discussions in the book is, paradoxically, one of the things I enjoyed the most. It revolves about a conversation that Fania Pascal and Wittgenstein had in Cambridge in the 1930s.  She was feeling really bad after having her tonsils removed, and told Wittgenstein that she felt like a dog run down by a car, to which the philosopher replied, somewhat upset, “You don’t know what a dog that has been run over feels like.”.  To me, the whole point of the discussion between Pascal and Wittgenstein is that she was talking hyperbolically and metaphorically to express how bad she felt and how unwell she was, and, we can guess, to get a bit of friendly support. But she did not get any because Wittgenstein was not really listening to her, he was hearing the words coming out of her mouth and interpreted them literally, as an autistic person would do. She wasn't implying that she knew how a dog would feel in those circumstances, or that a human and a dog would feel the same if run down by a car, or that she knew how a dog in those circumstances felt but decided to ignore it for the sake of verbal flourish. The point of the episode is not, like Frankfurt says, on Pascal disregard for reality when she speaks, it is that Pascal and Wittengstein were speaking two different languages because their emphasis was different. Hers was on the flourished colours of her pain. His on the literal transcription of reality that he expected from language in a mathematical-like precision. That being the case, to me, the anecdote is pointless in a discussion on the subject of BS.

While reading this book, I wondered why the need to give BS 'a' definition, or rather one meaning, or so it appeared to me. The Urban Dictionary  allows us to appreciate the different  shades of the word in common everyday colloquial language. In my personal life, I have had the word speared at me to mean, depending on the context and the person,: 1/ you don't know what you are talking about (even though I did know what I was talking about). 2/ You are kidding! 3/ You are talking nonsense.  5/ You are lying and you know it, but want to fool me. 6/ I don't believe you, I don't want it to be true!

The beauty of language (when a precise definition is not needed for the exercise of Law, legislation or relevant philosophical analysis, and when the word has not been used for decades or centuries and its meaning is quite established) is that language is alive, fluid, and in constant movement. At times one has to be familiar with the person to 'get' the way and meaning s/he uses and gives to a certain word, the context, the colour, the intention. There are words with a definition that most people would agree on, while other words have so many different hues and undertones, that offering an unique definition feels like a corset. So, why reducing a word to a sort of ivory goddess-like monolith with a specific colour, material and varnish? Why trying to define philosophically a word that was never meant to be philosophical or used philosophically?  I don't mean to say that the exercise in the book is pointless or useless, I mean to say that there is not much philosophy behind Bs, Bsiting and Bsiters, and the exercise is more about how to approach a concept to define it precisely than anything else. Said differently, it is more about the exercise itself than about the word that the philosopher has chosen for this book. Which is interesting the same.

In a way, this book shows (I don't know whether willingly, as a joke, or whether unwillingly, as an academic exercise gone bananas) the need of the Academia to define colloquial and popular words and concepts to give them a status that they were never meant to have. Or, on the contrary, the need and demand of modern pop culture to have its most darling  words sealed with the Academia's seal of approval and the Academica, in response to the demand, takes a leap of faith and dances with Bs itself.

At least to me, this work feels as if the author had had a great idea, started to write a book, something had happened, and he had interrupted his work and left the work incomplete. Yet, it is a nice read overall with some good points to ponder. It is just that I wanted more. I expected more. It could have had more depth and more juice!

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.

Van Gogh's letters are really a treasure that anybody who loves Art, Van Gogh's Art or just great historical figures should read. The Dutch painter is known by his characteristic colourful images and brush strokes, for his insanity and tragic ending. Reading some of the letters to his brother and confidant Theo allows us to leave behind the almost mythical movie-like character and meet the real Vincent, the human being, the man, the soul and the artist he was.

His letters are full of realism, understanding and compassion towards human dejection and people living under harsh conditions; they are also full of spirituality and religiosity, of love and admiration for Nature, and his eye for colour. His correspondence is a portal to his heart, his feelings of love, dejection, failure, fragility, indecision, anger, resentment, obsession and disappointments, an example of how Art freed his spirit, and of his enthusiasm for literature and painting, as well as the poverty and misery that surrounded most of his adult life. In short, when reading Van Gogh's correspondence one feels transported to the late 19th century and living in Vincent's shoes. In that regard, the selection of letters presented in this edition helps to get a decent general view of who Van Gogh was. 

THIS EDITION

This book contains a selection of letters from van Gogh to his brother Theo, to his mother, and to artist friends Anton van Rappard and Paul Gauguin, based on The Letters of Vincent van Gogh to His Brother Volumes 1 and 2 (1927), Further Letters of Vincent van Gogh to His Brother (1929), and Letters to an Artist: from Vincent van Gogh to Anton Ridder van Rappard (1936), all originally published by Constable & Co. Ltd. These letters were collected, assembled and numbered by Theo’s wife Johanna, whose Memoir formed the introduction to their original publication and is included here in full, as well.

My main problem with this book, is not with is in it, but what is not, why is not there, and the mutilated version of Van Gogh that we get. Said differently, we are offered an edited version of the person he was, an intentional guillotined view of his whole self, clearly appreciable if you compare any of the letters here with any full letter reproduced elsewhere. I find extremely irritating editors with little understanding of what a historical document is trying to 'rewrite' history for the sake of brevity/ To please, who?

The complete correspondence of Van Gogh might be a fatty plate for some people to swallow, and that is understandable. However, if a selection needs to be done for a book to be saleable, profitable and palatable, at least make a selection that is historically sound, well introduced and commented.  

However, the main sin of this book is not even the selection of letters chosen, but the fact that the letters aren't reproduced in full. They have been mutilated. It is not that just the dates, salutations and valedictions have been removed, it is that many times we get a 10% of the original letter.  Just an example, to give you and idea of what I mean by mutilation. See, bellow screenshots of the same letter, as on in this book (first larger image) and the no. of pages the complete letter has (smaller images):

"The result is an atypical take on Vincent van Gogh that avoids putting too much stress on his troubled mental state and too much straining by the editor to shape a narrative out of van Gogh's epistolary clues. Instead, we see the thoughtful and contemplative side of this creative genius, as well as his concern for the impact his art and life had on those people closest to him."

One gets more the multifaceted personality of Van Gogh by having his letters not mutilated, Sir. In addition, I don't want anybody who is not a super-duper editor with an understanding of what an historical document and text is, to do anything for me, to produce a mediocre text when a good one can be produced. If you cannot do something well, better do nothing. You might say, the book is less than 4 bucks, right? but there are editions who offer the complete full unabridged non-mutilated translation of the correspondence for less than that. 

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A GOOD AND BAD EDITION

KINDLE EDITION.

It is because of my disappointment with this poor edition, that I searched for alternatives and came across free, very cheap and medium-priced products that supersede this edition in everything.

A cheap edition of the full correspondence and paintings (excluding the sketches) of Van Gogh plus the introductory biography by Joanna, can be found on Kindle for less than three bucks: Delphi Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh (Illustrated) (Masters of Art Book 3).

A selection of the correspondence, seriously edited and translated with introduction, sound academic criteria and high quality reproductions of the sketches and drawings included in them, edited by Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten, Nienke Bakker of the Van Gogh Museum and the Huygens Institute, titled Ever Yours: The Essential letters can be purchased for Kindle or hard-copy for 35 bucks.

The same guys did a full translation, edition and study of the complete correspondence, and if you have some hundred dollars to splurge, this treasure can be yours for 650 bucks  HERE.

Yet, if you are a freebie-lover, these same guys have been good enough to put all  of their work, the complete edition and translation of the letters with drawings, sketches, and what's not online, free access, on the website Van Gogh's Letters.