Under Saturn's Shadow: The Wounding and Healing of Men (STUDIES IN JUNGIAN PSYCHOLOGY BY JUNGIAN ANALYSTS)

This is the first book I've read of Hollis' and it certainly won't be my last. I first purchased this book in my early 20's when I was still very hurt and confused about the pain that I had buried within me. I knew that it had something to do with my father leaving my family when I was 11 years old but I needed help sorting it out. Unfortunately, I didn't have the patience to finish reading the book nor the maturity required to internalize the words of wisdom that Hollis expounds in USS. Flash forward and now I am closer to 30 and I revisited this book at the time when it was most needed on my healing journey. It has helped to take me to a new level in the depth of my understanding on how to move forward on the path to self-realization. For growing up and to this day, I have struggled with the private burden which all men have to wrestle with, and that is the burden of the Saturnian legacy; the shadow of ideologies both conscious and unconscious that we inherit from family, ethnic group, national history, past culture and pop culture. This shadow is continually supplanted and/or reinforced by the men and women that we cross paths with. This Saturnian legacy carries with it the definition of "maleness", that is male roles and expectations, competition, animosity, and the shaming and exclusion of men's inherent feminine nature in the equation of what it is to be a man. There it has always been, along with my desire for my father's love and approval was the need for something much deeper, the archetypal wisdom of true masculinity. I unconsciously modeled my father in my early years and in his absence modeled many inadequate surrogates. This lead me down a rather painful path to the final realization a couple years after high school that no one was going to be able to "teach" me what it means to be a man. There were no elders I could turn to and without their wise counsel I suffered under Saturn's shadow, unconsciously seeking to validate my own masculinity through outer means. This included several things for me, some of which were liberating and some which proved to be destructive. For instance, being able to live by my own means; achieving goals that I set for myself; successfully juggling multiple responsibilities; attaining an ideal physique; pushing my limits with drugs, alcohol, sex, and any other reckless activity that proved to the world that I wasn't afraid, that I wasn't afraid of hurting myself or another. In my unconsciousness I acted out my wounds and inflicted them upon others. In fact, part of what lead me to where I stand today was the sense of having to atone for the violations against life that I committed in my ethical and spiritual destitution. I'm glad to say that this is no longer a driving force for me. I am now sustained on my path to encourage love and growth in all life as a result of my inner transformation, and not a sense of being in debt to life. Ultimately, I am still in the process of becoming whole and will be for a long time. I am deeply wounded and have no shame in admitting it. Either way I will continue to strive towards wholeness, which for me entails living in full alignment with my deepest held beliefs. It means always being fully conscious in the NOW and as a result I will strive to always be thinking, speaking, and acting from my heart. It means living authentically with no shred of hypocrisy or shadow of self-deception. Being whole means that I will one day be able to love without attachment, or at least I truly hope so. Most of all, it means that I am able to embody the principles of the Supreme Consciousness in this material world; those of love, truth, and peace, even in the face of fear, lies, or death. This is a profound and powerful book that I recommend to all men who would like to become more conscious of the many forces that may be at work within them, and the women who wish to understand men on a much deeper level. "What the modern man suffers from, then, is the wounding without the transformation. He suffers the Saturnian burden of role definition that confines rather than liberates. He suffers the skewers in the soul without the godly vision. He is asked to be a man when no on can define it except in the most trivial of terms. He is asked to move from boyhood to manhood without any rites of passage, with no wise elders to receive and instruct him, and no positive sense of what such manhood might feel like. His wounds are not transformative; they do not bring deepened consciousness; they do not lead him to a richer life. They senselessly, repeatedly, stun him into a numbing of the soul before the body has had the good sense to die." - James Hollis

I cannot recommend James Hollis' work highly enough. The guy knows what he's talking about and can explain it in a very easy to understand style. In fact, I recommend any of James Hollis' work as they all seem to be of such equally high quality. Even though this book is about the wounding and healing of men, it should be obligatory reading for women too. It's more than just another self help potboiler. This is excellent content, easily explained and leaves you with a feeling that someone understands you, that you are not alone with your existential problems. There are always literary and poetic references in James Hollis' work, so the quality of the writing has an extra magical touch. You don't need to appreciate poetry or literature to buy this book, but if you actually like reading, this component is a real extra. On the strength of the quality of the writing, of the simplicity of the style I have bought many of Hollis' books and I thoroughly recommend them all. I do wish more men would read about themselves though and if you (men that is!!) haven't wanted to do so up to now, well here is a perfect introduction. I found myself nodding vigourously, making notes, underlining huge quantities because the writing and the content just hit you straight in the intelligence of the heart, there where it must be to change your view of yourself and those around you. Go out and buy the book. You really won't regret it. Jackie LION (P.S. I'm a woman)

Between an ex husband that dove off the deep end and a son living with two strong women and without an appropriate father figure, I have been wondering both what makes men snap like that, and what consequence living without a father might have on my son. How to be a mother and a father to him, how not to hurt my baby in the way I see people around me, and myself, hurting and thus hurting others. I believe every mother and father should read this. It truly spoke to me, and I would not put it down until I was done with it some time early this morning. Written in a language everyone can understand. Collected exerpts, almost quoted, that I found most enlightening: Greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of the parent. So each man must examine, without the motive to judge, where his father's wounds were passed on to him. Either he finds himself repeating his father's patterns or living in reaction to them - in both cases a prisoner. (..) When we ask such questions, father becomes more a man like us, a brother who has suffered the same ordeal. If we are caught up in hate we stay bound to that which wounds us. (..) We all develop a provisional personality in reaction to childhood experience. We set off into life with this false self and make choices that further estrange us, and by midlife we suffer growing split between the asquired personality and the natural self. (..) The crux of the middle passage is the requirement that a man (AND A WOMAN, I WOULD ADD!), whatever his reason or station, pull out of his reflexive behaviors and attitudes, radicallyreexamine his life, and risk living out the thunderous imperatives of his soul. (..) Being a man (AGAIN, I WOULD SAY NOT ONLY A MAN) means knowing what you want and then mobilizing the inner resources to achieve it. It is extraordinarily difficult to know what one wants. How does one separate the inner truth from personal complexes and cultural directives? (..) Most men (AND INCREASING NUMBER OF WOMEN WHO LIVE AND SWIM IN GUY'S WORLD) use their job to validate themselves, but they do not feel valued even when they have achieved success. (..) No man may leave home or be in the world without suffering grievous wounds to body and soul. He must learn to say "I am not my wound or my defense against the world. I am my journey".

might be too erudite--but great stuff, especially material on the process of healing. I also appreciate his other material on mid and second half of life

A friend recommended this book to me and I’m really glad he did. Reading it helped me understand and work through some deep pain I’ve been feeling for much of my life. It put that pain and the experiences around that pain into context and helped me do some work I’ve long needed to do, but never understood how to do. Reading this book gave me a sense of hope and direction and enabled some pivotal breakthroughs that I’m carrying forward into my continual internal work. I would recommend it for any person to read if you want to better understand the experiences a man faces in the world, both internally and externally.

By far the best book on masculine psychology I've read. Covers initiation in depth with precision and is a quick by deep read. My copy is full of notes and highlighting! He even hits on some of my same concerns of the men's movement - as positive as their intentions are. In our current culture it's every man's responsibly to seek out what he needs for his own masculine and spiritual development and James Hollis is now my favorite author when it comes to this subject. FYI his CD set Thru the Dark Wood is also a fabulous piece of work on masculine psychology and spirituality as well questions and reflections to live the second half of life to the fullest. I plan on reading a lot more James Hollis material after chewing thru this book and listening to Thru The Dark Wood twice! Probably will wear those CDs out they're so good and worth listening to over and over.

Explanatory models are presented and offered food for thought, but presented little that I would call analysis. The scope of the problems to be discussed was partially defined. The available competing alternative explanations of human behavior and attitudes are not listed, compared, tested, or referenced to published observational or experimental studies. Perhaps if I had a deeper background in the field, I could have appreciated the material more.

I've recently returned to this earlier book by James Hollis, because he's currently producing & making a full-length film ("Soulheal") about the deep wounding & necessary healing of men—particularly, American men. It's no secret that the traditional model of manhood in this country has been a narrow, rigid, limiting one that causes damage & harm. That's not only to men, but to those around them: lovers, spouses, children. And in fact its dysfunctional demands & strictures have served to increase in misogyny & violence in younger men as the first & only "proof" of manhood. This, of course, is a frightened little boy's distorted & one-dimensional model of manhood. It leaves young men woefully unprepared for the complexities of adult male life & traps them in perpetual adolescence. Those wounds remain & become even more painful over time, as can be seen in the unsettling increase of angry older men who never developed past that adolescent stage. Its proponents (i.e., victims) are constantly in the news, often in the most appalling circumstances—rage & violence & shootings among them. Hollis delves into this state of being emotionally stuck with insight & compassion. He examines the insatiable need for power, control, dominance that boys are taught by this culture & dissects the ways in which it does such harm to them for the rest of their lives. The deepest wound is that of fear, which drives so many men, although they'll do almost anything to deny & disprove that basic fact. Clearly, men need a newer, richer, more emotionally mature model of manhood to follow now. Hollis offers a path to that newer model ... if men can find the courage to follow it to psychological growth & wholeness. Most urgently recommended!