Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky

Particularly for fans of Jung.This is an excellent short book by Jung. Some familiarity with some of his central concepts or themes, such as archetypes, mandelas, cognitive functions or ego defences like projection and the collective unconscious and musings about alchemy may be advantageous.All these concepts feature and in some ways this book works well as a "Jung in brief" because it demonstrates his thinking and technique, appreciating myths, rumours or culture with the insights provided by psychology. It is also one of his most "together" books which I'm familiar with, there are the usual esoteric tangents which you could associate with Jungs writing but it doesnt become quite some meandering or obscurantist as other books. I found it easier and more accessible in style and the pace of writing makes for easier reading than perhaps  Answer to Job (Routledge Classics)  for example.There is a great index, and the contents break down into: acknowledgements, list of plates, list of figures, preface to the english edition, introductory 1. UFOs as Rumours; 2. UFOs in Dreams; 3. UFOs in Modern Painting; 4. Previous History of the UFO Phenomenon; 5. UFOs Considered in a Non-Psychological Light; 6. Epilogue and Supplement; Index.There are great illustrations, paintings are reproduced and some really great including the "Spiritual Pilgrim Discovering Another World", each of these plates is treated as a figure and accompanied by text describing and deconstructing it with Jung's insights. I really enjoyed reading these parts of the book.In the preface and introduction Jung writes about the age of aquarious, I never understood the significance of this Zodiac reference in music like  The Best of Jefferson Airplane  or the cultural changes which where associated with Saucer sightings by the hippies and during the time spanning the end of the world war and the beginning of the Cold War. At this point Jung references an earlier essay in  Essays on Contemporary Events: Reflections on Nazi Germany (Routledge Classics)  called Wotan in which in a vauge and esoteric fashion Jung displayed a profound sense of forboding about the rise of the Nazis in Germany. It appears that Jung believed that the saucer sightings could have been an indication of a cultural trend as serious or significant. As the text moves on Jung describes how he considered the UFOs and saucers to be projections from a collective unconscious in distress.While this is fundamentally a Jungian book and Jung uses the rumours and phenomenon of UFOs and saucers as interpretive tools or concepts as he has used others, making comparisons between UFOs, saucers and apparitions, I think it could appeal to a general UFO reader too. For fans of Jung this will be a brilliant book, for general readers, unaccustomed to this style, I would like to read it too but it could prove to be a bit more of a challenge but worth it.

Carl Jung took enormous care in tackling this contentious subject. This isn't a book that proves or disproves UFO sightings as much as an exploration of the human psyche. He took on the phenomenon as a manifestation which he knew was controversial. Part of the challenge is to make some sense out of a subject that had caught the popular imagination. It still does in various cycles of interest. The conclusion Jung made had to come as a hybrid - part psychological and part physical. Unidentified objects in the sky do exist, but people interpret them in different ways. None of that proves or disproves their origin. They could be human or not, but much more likely the former. Two different people may see the same object in different ways. Jung's interest here is on that human interpretation. At the time he wrote the book, the strong ties of Western religion had began to weaken. Jung was not prepared to devote more of his time to the subject. Hindsight might correlate public sightings with a decline in conventional religion. Not a study or even a proof of the UFO, but an interpretation of a cultural phenomenon.

This is an unusual book as things go with the UFO literature. Some familiarity with Jung's earlier works would be helpful to the reader, but one has to start somewhere and this book could be seen as an introduction to some of his ideas.Jung considers UFOs from the view that "something is seen, but one doesn't know what". In the light of his researches into depth psychology, he looks at the the phenomena from the aspect of the rumours it has engendered, and considers the meaning of UFOs occurring in dreams and modern paintings. The relationship of the flying saucer to the motif of the "Eye of God" or the "Eye of Horus" of the Egyptians is explored; and the previous history of UFOs, before the second world war, with the reproduction of two relevant sixteenth century illustrations.Overall a slim volume which is well worth reading.

Classic

Everything as expected, Excellent choice, great purchase.

Excellent!

Good service,would buy again thankyou.