'The world today hangs by a thin thread, and that thread is the psyche of man' C. G. JungJung was the original anti-psychiatrist, who believed that the real patient was not the suffering individual, but a sick and ailing Western civilization. He was not interested in developing a narrow therapy that would help fit the individual into an untransformed society. His true aim, in all of his work, was a therapy of the West. David Tacey introduces the reader to Jung's unique style and ap...

In The Postsecular Sacred: Jung, Soul and Meaning in an Age of Change, David Tacey presents a unique psychological study of the postsecular, adding a Jungian perspective to a debate shaped by sociology, philosophy and religious studies. In this interdisciplinary exploration, Tacey looks at the unexpected return of the sacred in Western societies, and how the sacred is changing our understanding of humanity and culture.Beginning with Jung’s belief that the psyche has never ...

Biblical stories are metaphorical. They may have been accepted as factual hundreds of years ago, but today they cannot be taken literally. Some students in religious schools even recoil from the "fairy tales" of religion, believing them to be mockeries of their intelligence. David Tacey argues that biblical language should not be read as history, and it was never intended as literal description. At best it is metaphorical, but he does not deny these stories have spiritual meaning. Religion...

Today's society faces many problems that cannot be solved by the application of reason, logic or medicine. Some of these include alcoholism, suicide, drug addiction and child abuse to name but a few. Many mental health problems are on the increase such as depression, phobias and anxiety with no obvious solution in sight.In Gods and Diseases, David Tacey argues that the answers lie in leaving behind the confines of conventional medicine. Instead we should turn towards spirituality a...

The nature of masculinity is a popular subject for contemporary authors, either treated critically from a sociological standpoint, or analysed from a psychological and spiritual perspective.In Remaking Men, David Tacey argues that we must strive to bridge the gap between these separate traditions - masculinity should neither be hijacked by the spiritual, Jung-influenced men's movement, nor discussed merely as a product of socio-political forces.Examining his own and ...

The twenty-first century could well be Jung's century, just as the twentieth century was Freud's. Jung predicted the demise of secular humanism and claimed we would search for alternatives to science, atheism and reason. We would experience a new and even unfashionable appetite for the sacred. Educated people, however, would not return to unreconstructed religions, because these do not express the life of the spirit as discerned by modern consciousness. The sacred has developed a darker hu...

Does earth have spirit or soul? This is a question asked ever more frequently, especially by those interested in the future of the natural world and the development of consciousness. The alchemists said ‘the greater part of the soul is outside the body’, and indigenous cultures have felt that soul or spirit resides in Nature and the physical environment. Such notions have been dismissed by modernity as illusions, but we are beginning to have second thoughts about the animation of the earth...

Carl Gustav Jung was the pioneering founder of analytical psychology, a form of analysis that has revolutionised the approach to mental illness and the study of the mind. In this anthology, David Tacey brings together a selection of Jung's essays from his famous Collected Works.Divided into four parts, each with a brand new introduction, this book considers 17 of Jung’s most important papers covering:the nature of the psychearchetypes...