Book Review

Introducing Jung: A Graphic Guide by Maggie Hyde
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Even though the book is supposed to be an introduction for beginners, a kind of guide for dummies, it gives a lot of complex information. The book tries to explain all the main ideas of Carl Jung, a Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist who founded analytic psychology, such as the collective unconscious, archetypes, the conscious, and the unconscious. Moreover, the text is a little difficult to digest, as is the whole concept that the Jungian world and its Analytical Psychology bring to knowledge. 

As a new reader of Jung, I find it hard not to want to learn more and to go deeper into subjects about how the Ego and the shadow work, among other concepts. For example, the book explains how the Ego represents the light of consciousness and the Shadow as its own “dark side,” which the Ego wishes to hide from others, meaning the unconscious. Furthermore, it names the alchemical studies, how the alchemist named Unus Mundus, “One World,” the union of psyche and matter (spirit, soul, and body), an experience of oneness that Jung attempted to elucidate through his concept of synchronicity.

Synchronicity is a concept of meaningful coincidences, a causal connection between psychic states and objective events; it is an inconstant connection through ‘meaning,’ while causality is seen as a constant connection through effect. 

Introducing Jung: The Graphic Guide explains the trinity of classical physics: time, space, and causality, plus how Jung wanted to add synchronicity as a fourth term. Other main topics are developed, and underlying main ideas might continue until the end of the book.

Nevertheless, despite the difficulty of understanding this guide, a curious mind may eventually want to become a Jung pupil by finally trying to understand everything and keep digging into his books.

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