I Do Not Recommend. . .
Feb. 4th, 2006 07:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qosSacred Contracts by Caroline Myss.
This book seemed to have a lot of promise. I like the idea that we each have a "sacred contract," a mission we are here on Earth to fulfill. I like the fact that Myss uses archetypes as a basis for her work, and her 12-house arrangement for archetypes intrigued me.
But she started to lose me when she named her four fundamental, "survival" archetypes: Child, Victim, Prostitute, and Saboteur. These four, she asserts, "symbolize our major life challenges and how we choose to survive. Together they represent the issues, fears and vulnerabilities that cause us to negotiate away the power of our spirits within the material world. . . . All four archetypes relate to material power, how we respond to authority, and how we make choices." She claims that they, like all archetypes, are neutral, despite the connotations of their names.
Do you like the idea of having your fundamental approach to life defined by the energies of the Child, Victim, Prostitute, and Saboteur? I sure don't. Contrast that with the fundamental four as defined by Bruce Tallman (Archetypes for Spiritual Direction, which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago): Sovereign, Warrior, Sage, and Lover.
Tallman offers four powerful, heroic archetypes as our foundation, then discusses how each can be over-emphasized or under-nourished to become shadow aspects. Myss offers four shadow archetypes and then urges her readers to look for the ways in which the impulse to act from them shows us where we can make other choices. To me, it's as if she begins with an assumption of disease, and then goes from there.
And she doesn't describe any of the four well, much less discuss the other archetypal energies which can help us make healthier choices.
Her appendix has a lengthy list of archetypes, each description supplemented by a list of characters from film, drama, literature and real life which express that energy. And I disagree with a large number of her choices. I think they display only a surface level familiarity with the characters, not the deeper, more resonant aspect. For example, Greta Garbo's portrayal of Queen Christina is not, in my opinion, an expression of the energy of the Queen archetype. The character is deeply conflicted about her authority and the requirements of her role, and the whole movie leads up to her abdication of the throne in the name of love. (Having written my BA thesis on three plays about Queen Christina, who was an actual historical figure, I have strong feelings on the subject.) I feel like Myss saw the word "queen" and stuck her in the list. Likewise, "Princess" Leia may have the title, but her character (especially in Star Wars) has nothing to do with the Princess archetype that Myss describes.
Myss spends some time discussing The Wizard of Oz in archetypal terms. At first I was enjoying it, especially her discussion of the tornado (chaos) and the house (the self -- a symbol which was very present two months ago in my spiritual direction session), then she asserted that during their first encounter the Wicked Witch of the West tries to take Toto from Dorothy. Excuse me? The Witch's only concern is the ruby slippers. They are not an afterthought, as Myss tries to insist.
I'm very disappointed. I tried to keep reading, allowing myself to be in discussion with her, but each time she broached a new topic I found more and more things I disagreed with and was dissatisfied with. So it's going into the 'used bookstore' pile.
This book seemed to have a lot of promise. I like the idea that we each have a "sacred contract," a mission we are here on Earth to fulfill. I like the fact that Myss uses archetypes as a basis for her work, and her 12-house arrangement for archetypes intrigued me.
But she started to lose me when she named her four fundamental, "survival" archetypes: Child, Victim, Prostitute, and Saboteur. These four, she asserts, "symbolize our major life challenges and how we choose to survive. Together they represent the issues, fears and vulnerabilities that cause us to negotiate away the power of our spirits within the material world. . . . All four archetypes relate to material power, how we respond to authority, and how we make choices." She claims that they, like all archetypes, are neutral, despite the connotations of their names.
Do you like the idea of having your fundamental approach to life defined by the energies of the Child, Victim, Prostitute, and Saboteur? I sure don't. Contrast that with the fundamental four as defined by Bruce Tallman (Archetypes for Spiritual Direction, which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago): Sovereign, Warrior, Sage, and Lover.
Tallman offers four powerful, heroic archetypes as our foundation, then discusses how each can be over-emphasized or under-nourished to become shadow aspects. Myss offers four shadow archetypes and then urges her readers to look for the ways in which the impulse to act from them shows us where we can make other choices. To me, it's as if she begins with an assumption of disease, and then goes from there.
And she doesn't describe any of the four well, much less discuss the other archetypal energies which can help us make healthier choices.
Her appendix has a lengthy list of archetypes, each description supplemented by a list of characters from film, drama, literature and real life which express that energy. And I disagree with a large number of her choices. I think they display only a surface level familiarity with the characters, not the deeper, more resonant aspect. For example, Greta Garbo's portrayal of Queen Christina is not, in my opinion, an expression of the energy of the Queen archetype. The character is deeply conflicted about her authority and the requirements of her role, and the whole movie leads up to her abdication of the throne in the name of love. (Having written my BA thesis on three plays about Queen Christina, who was an actual historical figure, I have strong feelings on the subject.) I feel like Myss saw the word "queen" and stuck her in the list. Likewise, "Princess" Leia may have the title, but her character (especially in Star Wars) has nothing to do with the Princess archetype that Myss describes.
Myss spends some time discussing The Wizard of Oz in archetypal terms. At first I was enjoying it, especially her discussion of the tornado (chaos) and the house (the self -- a symbol which was very present two months ago in my spiritual direction session), then she asserted that during their first encounter the Wicked Witch of the West tries to take Toto from Dorothy. Excuse me? The Witch's only concern is the ruby slippers. They are not an afterthought, as Myss tries to insist.
I'm very disappointed. I tried to keep reading, allowing myself to be in discussion with her, but each time she broached a new topic I found more and more things I disagreed with and was dissatisfied with. So it's going into the 'used bookstore' pile.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-05 05:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-05 02:59 pm (UTC)WTF.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-05 09:40 pm (UTC)As you suggest "Sovereign, Warrior, Sage, and Lover" have a much more positive, powerful, orientation ...more self-actualising might be another way to look at it.
Somehow - withhout having read either book :,) - I think a better book would acknowledge and describe the negative and/or shadow types as well as the positive ones, and be aiming to help people take up more positive paths.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-05 09:44 pm (UTC)This is what Tallman does, and why I like him better.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-06 09:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-07 02:06 am (UTC)Since you're also interested in spiritual direction, I especially recommend Tallman's book, Archetypes in Spiritual Direction -- it's quite wonderful. In fact, I would recommend it to anyone interested in archetypes, even if they were not interested in spiritual direction, he does such a great job of discussion his primary archetypes and the two shadow aspects of each.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-07 09:43 pm (UTC)So for instance, in the beginning, perhaps, I need to express myself as a helpless victim and acknowledge that. Only then can I go on to feeling angry and enraged, then on to developing more feelings of self-worth and then go on to forgiveness and act from a strong, self-sufficient place.
This is just an idea off the top of my head and may not mesh with what this book is expressing, but it's the only sense I can make out of the concept of these archetypes being neutral.
Having said that, though, I think I'd rather read the Tallman book. Thanks for the recommendation. I'll take a look at it at the bookstore the next time I'm there.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-08 01:48 pm (UTC)Except that she presents those as fundamental at all stages of life, which I think is unfortunate. We absolutely need to acknowledge the Shadow, and to make different choices about certain impulses -- but I am disturbed that she begins from an assumption of 'ill health' and makes it the norm.
Please let me know what you think of Tallman. I'd be a little surprised if you found it anything but a specialist bookstore.