“HAUNTINGS”

Just completed the new book by James Hollis (“Hauntings”) a Jungian therapist, professor, author and extremely helpful to all of us in the consulting/counseling professions. 

He speaks of “hauntings.” For example:

  • “The greatest haunting we all suffer is the lost relationship to the soul” (140)
  • “Becoming a person is actually a very difficult project” (140)
  • There is within us a “vox” (an inner call to vocation) and also “vocatus” (that which the outer world is asking of me/us)
  • Within our haunted souls (anxiety, depression, lostness, psychosis, neurosis) is a deep sensibility to “act” and generate movement as a solution to our haunting
  • Hollis quotes Beckett & Rilke :
    • “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Beckett (145)
    • Our task is to be “continuously defeated by ever-larger things.” Rilke (145)

Spirituality as a theme and investigation is all the business rage today. For us, simply; where do we place ourselves within this context?

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