Robert Johnson said it best, "We each have but to walk down the path and turn left to find the Grail Castle. It's simply being conscious enough to know when the time has come to enter the Grail Castle." I love the story of Perceival so very much. Not only because it mimics so much of my own personal spiritual quest but also because of the hope it gives Western man. We have only to ask the question to heal the Fisher King, not know the answer. The question, "Whom does the grail serve?" is enough.

Emma Jung, Carl Jung's wife, made a lifelong study of the Grail Legend, preparing for this book. After her death in 1955, her project was completed by Marie-Louise von Franz, the most pre-eminent of Carl Jung's disciples and one of the most respected expositors of Jungian psychology. This book, a Jungian analysis of the Grail Legend, is regarded as a masterpiece. What is the Grail Legend about? In a word: meaning. It is how the Fool, Perceval, finds the Holy Grail and thus rescues the suffering Fisher King from his non-life in the Wasteland. This book explains how that story, with its triumphant conclusion, can take place in each one of us. For anyone fascinated by the Grail and curious about its relevance to life today, there simply is no better book than Jung & Franz's study.

This book is incredible.

It's presented in the format of the original lectures that it was based on (Sometimes that means she repeats important points for the audience's memory, but it never hurts, and its the only stylistic oddity).

Content-wise it is mind-blowing. I like Marie Louise Von Franz so much because she takes all these obtuse ideas that Jung had, and gets them to make so much sense and have such a real life and personality and weight to them, which is often hard to get by just reading the original material straight from the horses mouth (Jung being the horse, in this case).

This is a great book about synchronicity. It spends a whole lot of time talking about integers and chance and stuff like that.

Anyone who has read anything else by Marie-Louise von Franz knows what to expect from one of her books - erudition, encyclopedic knowledge and plenty of down to earth clinical advice. The spirit of Jung breathes out of every single page and can't help but capture and hold your attention.

This is one book everyone should read and be acquainted with. There aren't many books that can make this kind of claim. First, it is written so that the average person can understand it on first reading without intensive study. This isn't a grandiose claim, given that so much of early psychology is now an integral feature of social institutions.

Secondly, it is largely purged of some of Jung's more outrageous and nonsensical ideas, like his "collective unconscious." The scope of the book is limited primarily to the effect and use of symbols in everyday life, particularly as it affects dreams.

Third, everyone dreams, and after reading this book, the reader will have a great tool by which to analyze many of these dreams. Those who try to interpret their dreams literally (like reading the Bible literally) discover they have missed the point. The dreams of the subsconscious are symbolic images that need to be thoroughly interpreted in light of specific symbols and the meaning of these symbols -- and not the dream narrative itself.

Finally, mankind is defined by its being a rational animal with linguistic capacity. Language itself is both audible and visual signs and symbols of the mind. The very words we use to describe life's events are often chosen for their symbolic capacity, which can lead to an imprisonment of the mind or its liberation from man and his symbols.

When I picked up this book all I knew about Jung was that he was a close associate and friend of Freud. I put it down wanting to read every thing else this man ever wrote. "Man and His Symbols" outlines the Jungian ideas on the unconscious and the symbols it houses that manifest themselves on our dreams. It gives you a wider scope of humanity that proves to be enlightening and comforting in a crazed world. I was quite surprised at how easy this book proved to read in comparison to other psychology books I have read. It provides a clear overview of Jung's life work and a good introduction to his take on psychology as well as the world. Some parts were written in a curiously personal manor that enhanced a spiritual aura this work seemed to take on. This book really struck a deep cord in me and many of the people I have recommended it to.

This is the last and perhaps the most important book written by Dr. Carl Gustav Jung. He was among the first to interpret dreams and amazingly this book came about *because* of a dream. Jung dreamt he was talking about this topic to a large audience who were *not* psychiatrists and psychologists - evidently *his* unconcsious put it's stamp of approval on this project! This book is a great introduction to the "hidden" meaning of the symbols used in legends, medieval archetecture, classic books, and ancient myths as well as dreams. Patterns of psychic growth and development, individuation and transcendence are explained along with other psychological terms with real life examples at times. It is not about depth psychology or sociopathic problems.
One chapter was written by C.G. Jung, the others were written by his eminent followers, among whom are: M.L. von Frantz, Joseph L. Henderson, Angela Jaffe, and Jolande Jacobi. This book is a "must have" for anyone who is interested in learning more about human behavior from the "inside out". Erika B.

If one has "read a little" of Jung's typology but has not ventured yet, or has ventured only partially, into Jung's seminal work Psychological Types, this book by von Franz and Hillman is a very good tutorial to get some of the concepts organized in ones head a little better. The book is divided into two sections. Both sections are transcripts of lectures given at the Jungian institute in Zurich. The first section is by von Franz and covers the Inferior Function. Hillman's half covers the Feeling Function. Although von Franz's section is focused on the development of the psychological type that is one's weaker type (ie: "inferior"), her exposition does cover all of the types. Each of von Franz's lectures is followed by a question and answer section as recorded during the seminars (Hillman's are not). One can say only that von Franz is masterful in her explanations. If one has read any of Jung's own seminars from the 1920's and 30's, von Franz's echo these here. Without overstating it, von Franz truly was closest to Jung in depth of understanding and ability at expression, perhaps better in the latter regard. She was primarilty a "thinking" type and it shows in her thoroughly thought out and well presented arguments. Hillman is another matter. Perhaps it is his disadvantage that his text follows von Franz's, but he does not rise to the same level, at least not for me. He must be a feeling-type as his arguments undulate choppily, taking a sideroad here, a back alley there, a forward lob somewhere else. He uses almost no examples, preferring to "define" as he goes along and seems to expect the reader to nod in agreement. Too much patience is expected of one, I'm afraid, and I didn't finish reading his part. Sorry. Von Franz' section is certainly worth the price alone, however. But feeling-types may prefer Hillman.

Considered a "classic" by Jungians, I found this book to be so filled with Jungian imagery that it was not worth the trouble of wading through it all. The majority of the text is an analysis of The Little Prince, and would be of most value to one who wished to interpret this story.

Almost everything of value regarding the psychological image of the puer is available in the first chapter which is reprinted in Reclaiming the Inner Child by Jeremiah Abrams (ed). Here the reader will find an entire section on Eternal Youth and Narcissism including excellent chapters by Joel Covitz (Narcissism), Alice Miller (The Search for the True Self) and Jeffrey Satinover (The Childhood Self and the Origins of Puer Psychology). This last I especially recommend to anyone interested in the puer.

I know very little about Jungian psychology, but this book caught my eye years ago. I started reading it again and it has made me aware of so much WHY about my life and struggles. It is frighteningly accurate in its descriptions of the puer aeternus and the best and worst of that archetype. I don't agree with some of the Jungian conclusions and assumptions, but the descriptive parts of this book are INVALUABLE if you're ready to face them. I'm finally facing them.

It's astonishing that one could present a biography of Jung and not deal with the many allegations of unprofessional, irresponsible, and certainly bizarre behaviors that have been advanced about this man. For shame!

The author, who is one of THE most under-rated and under-written-about female theorists who studied under Jung (where is there a substantial biography for her??), is always brilliant to read, her work packed with fascinating insights and an almost superhuman erudition. This book is no exception.

At the same time, however, it gets nowhere near the quality of her other books. Propped up by endless quotes from Jung's supposedly autobiographical MEMORIES, DREAMS, REFLECTIONS, a book I often go back to but always with the knowledge that it's been heavily censored, von Franz sustains a justificatory tone throughout that is embarrassing to read.

At one point, for instance, she deals with the accusation that Jung had anti-Semitic tendencies, perhaps because he had some shadow issues to work on. She quashes this notion strenuously and puts it all down to Jung's "optimism" and tendency to say too much (not to mention his opponents' projections...always a good place to go when defending one's allies). God forbid that Jung should cast a shadow!

It saddens me that von Franz so seldom struck out on her own without checking in with Jung first or crediting him with the tremendous innovations she brought to his thinking. But nowhere is her unwillingness to question Jung more evident here, where scarcely a paragraph escapes the praise piled high on the Great Man's head.

That he was a great man, a truly daimonic genius who gave us the golden key to transpersonal symbolism, does not change the fact that he was a human being who could be narcissistic, irritable, arrogant, impatient, misogynistic, intolerant, racist, bad-tempered, and downright cruel to the women he supposedly loved.

When I write I often refer to teachers who've impacted my insights about human nature; ordinarily, it would be inconsiderate for me to bring in their human flaws and blind spots. But were I to undertake a biography of any of them once they had shuffled off the mortal coil, it would be incumbent upon me not to whitewash them. You will find many interesting observations about Jung's life in this book; but the picture it offers of him is thoroughly one-sided.

This is Jung from the inside, by one of his most talented and most authentic followers. It is not just the dry facts but deep personal experience. All life is story and this is Marie-Louise von Franz's story of Jung as she knew him. An invaluable work.

This book is essentially a large Order-of-Battle which faithfully lists the major German warships between the time periods indicated. But that is strictly as far as it goes. There are no photographs, no detailed deck plans and no essays into German thoughts on the designs, why certain aspects were prefered over others, nor of any revelations revealed by wartime combat. Primary data is sparce and in the case of armor protection is disapointingly abreviated. This work is IMO vastly inferior to Conway's All the World's Fighting ships, which not only contained far more comprehensive and better organized data but also in the essay portion gave the reader a firm general idea of the layout of the armor, especially in the case of battleships. In Groner's work the reader is simply presented with numbers in XX-XX-XX format where the dashes indicate a change in thickness to the next number etc, with no further info on exactly where the thicknesses change or anything else. The reader has to go back to the very beginning of the book to find out that this system for all ships gives armor thickness (in metrics) from stern to bow.

Machinery and armament specs are covered slightly better but are still quite abreviated and no diserations into their workings and/or preformance are included. Ship histories are extremely abreviated and give the reader little clue as to how these ships preformed.

All in all a very disapointing piece and one which immediately went back to Amazon as i am fortunate to possess Conway's ATWFS series. In conclusion i would only recomend this book to those for whom a Conway's source covering 1861 - 1906 is unavailable

I gave this book 3 stars because it filled an information nitch for me.
I do agree that a Conway's book would be better. but There are very nice line drawings in this book.
Also for WWII German ships the old Doubleday series is better for ships that were projected but never built (or completed).
Also for more detailed information of any battleship / battle cruiser, I would recommend 'Battleships and Battle Cruisers" by Sigfried Baeyer (name may be spelled wrong, but it's close)

As I already have many reference books on the German Navy, I bought this book for one reason, this book has the color schemes for the German Navy, from before WWI to the end of WWII. No where else have I found this information.

For me the book is worth it.