I read this book a long time ago - in the early 80s - but still remember and recommend it to anyone interested in personality theorists, such as C.G. Jung. Rather than critique its strengths , weaknessed, accuracies, and inaccuracies, I'll describe its impact on me. Prior to it reading, I'd spent a hour or 2 reading about Jung by way of a undergraduate Psych Class. The summer after I read it, I worked my way independantly through the index to and about a third of the text of Jung's collected works, and all of the popular Jung ("Man & his Symbols", etc) I could find. It drew from love of Middle Earth, introducing me to a larger, equally numinous world.

Study of the correlation between Carl Jung's theory of the collective unconscious and J.R.R. Tolkien's mythology for Middle-earth. The author was Professor of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership at the United States Military Academy

I am currently reading this, borrowed from the library, and looking to buy a copy for myself (that's why I'm at this site).

This is a remarkably intelligent book, yet written in a light and friendly way. Can't urge you enough to read it, but if you don't you're missing out!

A full review to follow soon . . .

I borrowed this book from a friend while I was a cadet at West Point. I had heard all of the stories about ghosts at the academy, and this book is a delightful adaptation of an actual ghost story. I had to keep reminding myself that the book is fiction! A must-read for all West Point grads and anyone with a fondness for ghost stories!

This book is like the ghosts that populate it: subtle, moving, mysterious, and evocative. Its author, a military psychologist, vet, and expert on many things, seamlessly integrates three time periods, intellectual in-jokes, an encyclopedia of supernatural and mythic history, a host of eclectic and unforgettable characters, the Jungian archetypal dreamscape, humor both scatological and refined, the Army and the Navy, science and the supernatural, and Edgar Allan Poe, all in a straightforward and lightly ironic prose style that is like a plain gold band behind a diamond solitare. The wonder of it is that this is O'Neill's first fiction, and (sadly) his last--that I've been able to locate, anyhow. That's all fine and good, you say, but what's it about? Here's a summary, short as I can make it: Two very different men, both psychologists and Vietnam vets, come together to head off the potential PR disaster of a ghost sighting at West Point. Sam, a sharp-witted pragmatist whose spontaneity always happens on schedule, believes the ghost sightings to be a cadet prank; Liam, world-weary, troubled, and a little wistful, thinks that the manifestations are in the minds of the seers. But neither man believes, in his most cryptic dreams, that his search for the truth will end the way it does. For women readers, there are some excellent female characters; Maggie, by turns whimsical and determined, and the complex, seductive Anna, who is wonderful at business and inept at emotion. This story has something to entertain any reader, regardless of genre interest, if that reader has the patience to read a literate and multi-layered book.