Inner City Books Blog
There are some psychology books that are not only books to be read, they are spaces in which a transformative meeting takes place. „Alchemy” is one of these books. – Malgorzata Kalinowska
Our Eidtor-in-Chief, Malgorzata Kalinowska, writes about her meeting with ALCHEMY: An Introduction to the Symbolism and the Psychology by Marie-Louise von Franz, both from the perspective of psychologist and Jungian analyst, and from the perspective of its translator into Polish. Although some time passed since „Alchemy” was published, its meaning for psychology stays alive. Besides the richness of alchemical knowledge and possibility to read original fragments of alchemical texts the book brings important insights that concern contemporary science. Malgorzata emphasizes in her review the transformative influence „Alchemy” may have for the one-sided approach among others by providing the tools to question our own prejudices that belongs to the contemporary dogmas.
From the review:
This ability – to hold the knowledge and yet listen to what we hear as if it was spoken for the very first time is an important one in every true discovery, and in an everyday psychologist’s work. Probably it is the most difficult where we approach contents from collective consciousness, parts of our everyday cultural reality, which seem to describe the world, as it is. Alchemy reminds us, that the world was not always as it is now in our eyes, even more, it takes us into the journey where we can imagine how it was experienced by the minds and imagination of the people centuries away from us. Then the challenging question appears just in front of our established definitions about limitations of our points of view and knowledge. And only then the true adventure begins.
Read the review at Inner City Books Blog
See the book at Publisher’s website
Tags: alchemy, Malgorzata Kalinowska, Marie-Louise von Franz
