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The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling
September 22, 1997 @ 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm PDT
The Soul’s Code, James Hillman’s best-selling book, sets out a new theory based on an old idea: Plato’s understanding that the soul of each of us is given a unique daimon before we are born, and it has selected and image or pattern that we live on earth. Hillman’s acorn theory is about calling, about character, about innate image. To uncover our unique, innate image he urges us to set aside the psychological frames that are usually used and mostly used up. They do not reveal enough. Instead, the acorn theory dares us to envision biography in terms of beauty, mystery and myth. It challenges the prevalent paradigm that reduces biography to genetics and environment. It lifts the pall of victim mentality and posits a psychology of childhood that embraces pathology as well as imagination. In this evening’s lecture, Dr. Hillman will read from The Soul’s Code and expand upon his acorn theory.
James Hillman, Ph.D. (1926–2011) studied at, and then guided studies for, the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich. Editor of Spring Publications, he founded a movement toward archetypal psychology. He authored The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling , and Re-visioning Psychology, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.