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James Hollis Books

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“I am not a mechanism, an assembly of various sections. And it is not because the mechanism is working wrongly, that I am ill. I am ill because of the wounds to the soul, to the deep emotional self and the wounds to the soul take a long, long time, only time can help and patience, and a certain difficult repentance, long difficult repentance, realisation of life's mistake, and the freeing of oneself from the endless repetition of the mistake which mankind at large has chosen to sanctify.”

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Book:Under Saturn's Shadow: The Wounding and Healing of Men
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“Every day we stand poised on the razor's edge of consciously suffering the world's wound. How great the temptation to hide in a cave or to sink into some comforting arms. Each morning the grinning gremlins of fear and lethargy return. It does not matter how boldly we sallied forth yesterday; they are back today and, not satisfied to nibble our toes, will gobble our souls if we let them. Thus, we have evolved elaborate ways to avoid the pain of further consciousness.”

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Book:Under Saturn's Shadow: The Wounding and Healing of Men
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“He has recovered the worth of his own soul's journey. His life takes on a new meaning and in his prayer, in the words of Kazantzakis, "is the report of a soldier to his general: This is what I did today, this is how I fought to save the entire battle in my own sector, these are the obstacles I found, this how I plan to fight tomorrow.”

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Book:Under Saturn's Shadow: The Wounding and Healing of Men
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“Surely the greatest tragedy for men in regard to the feminine principle is that their fear alienates them from their own anima, the principle of relatedness, feeling and connection to the life force. This alienation from self obliges alienation from other men as well. Often their only connection with each other comes through superficial talk about outer events, such as sports and politics.”

MenAnalytical PsychologyMachois
Book:Under Saturn's Shadow: The Wounding and Healing of Men
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“Men today cannot claim their identity via culture because they are obliged to find other uninitiated males as their models or succumb to the empty values of a materialistic society. Again, before healing may begin, men must acknowledge the reality of what lies within. Among those confusing emotions is a deep grief for the loss of the personal father as companion, model and support, and a deep hunger for the fathers as a source of wisdom, solace and inspiration.”

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Book:Under Saturn's Shadow: The Wounding and Healing of Men
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“To leave the comforts of home, the mother world, one must have some place to go. Admittedly, the rites of passage of traditional cultures were to initiate the youth into a simpler society, a more homogenous culture than ours. As well, their interest lay not in the individuation of the person but in the integration of the unformed person into the collective definition of tribal masculinity. Still, take away such psychically charged images of identity, take away the wisdom of the elders, take away the community of men, and one has the modern world.”

MenMaturityMasculinityRites Of Passage
Book:Under Saturn's Shadow: The Wounding and Healing of Men
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“Our society has long treated men as machines, as bodies expendable in the name of progress or profit. Men have overruled their pain and soul's delight, taught to think of themselves as "mechanisms". Such an estrangement wounds very deeply; it has gone on so long and is so taken for granted that healing individuals, let alone a whole gender, is a dubious undertaking. But the beat goes on, the Saturnian shadow lives, the only game in town, and shame on the defector. The wounding is institutionalized and sanctified, and men unwittingly collude in their own crucifixion.”

MenTechnologyProgressAutmatization
Book:Under Saturn's Shadow: The Wounding and Healing of Men
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“Where am I asking others to take responsibility for my life? Let's face it - we would all love to be taken care of. We all are recovering children who project the dynamics of intrapsychic parent onto an institution, an ideology ...Growing up is ever more difficult because it requires letting go of old expectations of rescue and redemption. We are it; this is it; this is as good as it gets, and we better deal with it.”

ResponsibilityGrowing UpPsychologySelf HelpTraumaExistentialismHuman Development
Book:Creating a Life: Finding Your Individual Path
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“It is of paramount importance that our spirituality be validated or confirmed by fidelity to our personal experience. A spiritual tradition that is only received from history or from family makes no real difference in a person’s life, for he or she is living by conditioned reflexive response. Only what is experientially true is worthy of a mature spirituality.”

SpiritualityFamilyTraditionPersonal ExperienceConditioned ResponseMature Spirituality
Book:Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up
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“Standing before the awesome majesty and magnitude of the universe is so intimidating that many of us cry out for mediators—the state, gurus, evangelists with coifed hair—all with their own agendas of gain. The purveyors of the marketplace frequently denounce those who learn to respect their own encounter with mystery as "gnostics." Well, gnosis means "knowledge." If I can learn from my direct experience of the universe, and am haunted by them when I ignore them, then why not live my life according what I have learned directly, rather than what is mediated by others, however sincere their motivation may be?”

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Book:Hauntings: Dispelling the Ghosts Who Run Our Lives
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“If we realize that the assumptions by which the person has lived his or her life are collapsing, that the assembled strategies of the provisional personality are decompensating, that a world-view is falling apart, than the thrashing about is understandable. In fact, one might even conclude that there is no such thing as a crazy act if one understands the emotional context. Emotions are not chosen they choose us and have a logic of their own.”

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Book:The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Midlife
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“Charles experienced a shamanic visitation … The haw is in the air and I hear its screech. The hawk flies about me, then I can feel its talons on my scalp. It lets go and faces me. I look into its eyes. The hawk is ancient yet I seem to know who he is. The hawk speaks, "I am the spirits from the past, and I come to you because it is difficult for you to to come to us." [When Charles resists the hawk digs its talons into his face and pecks at him.] I fall on my back and shout out to the hawk that I will follow his commands. The beat of the hawk's wings heal the wounds as if I was never attacked. I gaze into the hawk's eyes and see unhappy spirits walking among the trees in a single file. they are roped together and walk in silence, gloom, despair. At the front of the line are my parents, and behind them are their parents, and parents going back in time. The hawk tells me that I must loosen the rope that binds them together. I tell the hawk that I do not know how to do this, but the hawk bestows a feather on me that tells me that I "have one life in which to find these spirits. And do not forget that the spirits need you.”

GhostsEpigeneticsFamily Constellation
Book:Hauntings: Dispelling the Ghosts Who Run Our Lives
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“Perhaps I can best explain by presenting these three somewhat arcane principles of depth psychology and then go on to unpack them and give you examples. I. It's not about what it's about. II. What you see is a compensation for what you don't see. III. All is metaphor.”

Jungian PsychologyAnalytical PsychologyDepth PsychologyArchetypal Psychology
Book:Living Between Worlds: Finding Personal Resilience in Changing Times
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“It is no secret we live in troubled times. People in most areas—and most geographic and spiritual locations—have also thought themselves living in troubled times, and for sure, most individuals come to troubles sooner or later in the course of their own lifetime.”

Analytical PsychologyDepth PsychologyArchetypal PsychologyJungian Analysis
Book:Living Between Worlds: Finding Personal Resilience in Changing Times
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“Perhaps I can best explain by presenting these three somewhat arcane principles of depth psychology and then go on to unpack them and give you examples. I. It's not about what it's about. II. What you see if a compensation for what you don't see. III. All is metaphor.”

Analytical PsychologyDepth PsychologyArchetypal PsychologyJungian Analysis
Book:Living Between Worlds: Finding Personal Resilience in Changing Times
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“Whatever sex is, and it is at least a profound mystery, is easily misused. The primary psychological purpose of sex for those men who spend their lives in the cold, cruel world, and whose relationship with their own anima is frigid, is to reconnect with a warm place. Sex is a form of emotional reassurance, a narcotic to still the pain of the bruised soul. If life batters them, then sex, like drugs or work, may numb the wound. The sexual act offers a momentary transcendence. Orgasm can be an ecstatic experience; for the moment one may feel outside the iron confines of ordinary consciousness. It is the closest many men ever come to a religious experience. Thus the act of sex may mask a desperate search for acceptance, underneath whiсh lurks the mother complex.”

SexMother Complex
Book:Under Saturn's Shadow: The Wounding and Healing of Men
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“When one has let go of that great hidden agenda that drives humanity and its varied histories, then one can begin to encounter the immensity of one's own soul. If we are courageous enough to say, "Not this person, nor any other, can ultimately give me what I want; only I can," then we are free to celebrate a relationship for what it can give.”

RelationshipsIndividuationDepth PsychologyJungian Analyst
Book:The Eden Project: In Search of the Magical Other
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“Notice how shame, consciously or unconsciously, pulls us away from risk, ratifies our negative sense of worth through self-sabotage, or compels us into frenetic efforts at overcompensation, grandiosity, or yearning for validation that never comes. How much each of us needs to remember theologian Paul Tillich’s definition of grace as accepting the fact that we are accepted, despite the fact that we are unacceptable.”

GraceShameSelf SabotageGrandiosityOvercompensationAccepted Despite Unacceptable
Book:What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life
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“Nietsche once observed that the primary purpose of marriage was conversation. The purpose of a committed relationship, of which marriage is but one example, is not to take care of each other, to reinforce the parent-child complexes, but to grow through and with each other. Relationship is meant to be dialectical—soulful encounters that temper and enlarge.”

RelationshipsMarriagePsychology
Book:Under Saturn's Shadow: The Wounding and Healing of Men
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“The act of consciousness is central; otherwise we are overrun by the complexes. The hero in each of us is required to answer the call of individuation. We must turn away from the cacaphony of the outerworld to hear the inner voice. When we can dare to live its promptings, then we achieve personhood. We may become strangers to those who thought they knew us, but at least we are no longer strangers to ourselves.”

KnowsMayTurnsVoiceAnswersConsciousnessKnowingAchieveHeroComplexesDareStrangerHearingFinding YourselfInner VoiceBe True To YourselfLivelihoodListen To YourselfIndividuationPersonhood
Book:The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Midlife
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“Anger is generally seen as an unwelcome presence in our midst, however natural it may be. Although each person, and each society, is charged with how anger is to be appropriately channeled, the denial of anger, or its continuous repression, is a deep source of our psychopathology and will invariably seek its expression in a less healthful fashion.”

MayPersonsNaturalFashionExpressionSourceAngerDenialMidstRepressionPsychopathologyUnwelcome
Book:Why Good People Do Bad Things: Understanding Our Darker Selves
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