BLUE FIRE by James Hillman

BLUE FIRE Reviews

• 
  S Suzanne

  As some others noted, Hillman is very cerebral and can be pompous (I do not always agree with him)
  This is not a breezy book at all. But Hillman is a stunningly original thinker, and I come back and dip into this now and then.
  
  He is an offshoot from Jung- but definitely does not see eye to eye with Jung on everything. It has been a while since I read this, but it is a book I underline and return to.
  
  I love his fresh use of archetypes and myth - here is a passage:
  
  "Like Persephone, we are both repelled and attracted, sometimes seizing only half the experience, struggling like her against being carried down by the dream, other times in its embrace and ruling from its throne."
  
  He also wrote a book I love called Dreams and the Underworld...
• 
  Mandy

  I love books that make me think and make me want to read more on a subject. This book definitely does both. It's a collection of excerpts from Hillman's work. It covers a wide variety of aspects of archetypal and soul psychology, and the editor has arranged it in a way that the topics progress logically. This was very useful to me as I have practically no background in psychology studies. At times it made me pensive; at times I didn't understand it at all. I always wanted to keep reading it, but it took me a while because I would hit points where I needed to put it down for a while and read something else while I processed whatever bit I had read.
• 
  Susan

  There are quick reads, and then there are books that one can return to for new insights over a life-time. A Blue Fire is such a book. I dip into the ideas found in A Blue Fire every few years and discover I understand more about what Hillman describes. The section on World Soul is especially interesting to me. Learning to see the soul in both the natural world and our created world of objects and spaces gives new meaning to the idea of environmental awareness.
• 
  Steve Owen

  Seems to correspond well with Zizek's call to "enjoy your symptom." For Hillman this means that to know our true selves we must know our ailments, and to accept that our selfs always contain ailment. By seeking to know our sickness without desiring to transcend and defeat it, we can learn about ourselves and the ailments of society. In this process, we grow more empathetic by accepting that everything is afflicted to some degree, and we grow free from the intolerant fantasies of normalcy and health.
• 
  Andrew

  This was very intriguing and challenging. Hillman's ideas branch out from other's work and then jump to their own tree. He provides a unique perspective and his demeanor is great. I love how he doesn't use typical words that others do because they make him feel weird, too American, or too waspy. Words like commit or witness. His outlook is great and becomes even more interesting when he looks at modern day society like the house or maps as opposed to only looking at the person. Looking forward to reading more by him.
• 
  Gregory Tilden

  After reading the Dream and the Underworld, this book set a foundation which I didn't have before. Loved it, Hillman brings such a fresh non-materialistic view of psychology. Related to some parts more than others. I can only hope that future generations of psychologists will lean more towards the poetic basis of mind, incorporating imagination and mythology as tools for understanding.
• 
  Ryan

  It is amazing that the best introductions to an authors work come at the end of their career. This compilation, edited by one of Hillman’s better known followers, is a great introduction to Hillman’s psychological theory. Moore’s selections adequately highlights the major themes in Archetypal Psychology: the soul, archetypes, the imagination, polytheism, alchemy and dreams.
• 
  Aneta Guleva

  A wonderful read from the brilliant mind of James Hillman. Many scrutinizing aspects of the psyche seen through Hillman captured my curiosity. I would note the ones relaying to the importance of the myth not only in literature but how myths inhabit the dynamic human psyche that is conditioned by societal norms, family, school, etc. I enjoyed the parts how he writes about the unknown, the unconscious, death, dream, and myth vs Christianity, as the dominant religion in the Western world.
• 
  Anders

  This was the first book of Hillman writings I ever read. It blew me away and landed me smack in the camp of the archetypal psychology - something I have never regretted doing
• 
  Felicia Romano

  This highly edited Hillman collection is a breath of fresh air--the only Hillman book I can pick up and read without skipping over superfluous wordiness. Love Thomas Moore--his commentary is equally valuable in my opinion.
• 
  Daniel

  Amazing.
• 
  Buck Wilde

  A Jungian I don't find embarrassing. Rare, but welcome.
• 
  Don Giroux

  Super interesting shit I recommend the audiobook with some hash
• 
  Hans

  I love James Hillman and all of his work.
• 
  Roger Burk

  By "soul" Hillman seems to mean the unconscious--the mass of brain function below the level of consciousness that makes itself apparent only in images in dreams and recurrent themes in folklore, though it motivates and drives all of our actions. He has no use for "Christianism," as he calls it. He says images from the "soul" should not be interpreted as standing for other things, but in some way just accepted and appreciated for what they are. However, in the one example of analysis included in this collection, he seems to assign interpretations to dream images pretty freely. Other than that, I didn't get much out of this book. Most of it is is just broad generalizations and airy descriptions without supporting detail or examples. Most of the time I had no idea what he was talking about.
• 
  Larry Markworth

  I'm reading this for a course on Dreamtending I'm taking at Pacific Graduate Institute. Hillman has been elevated to the status of a god at the Institute. Perhaps because I have no formal training in psychology I'm finding this a very difficult read. He appears to me as a pompous intellectual who had the audacity to write about himself in the third person as in "Hillman believes in this or that." It's like fingernails on a chalk board. Too much!
• 
  Ron

  Every snippett I've read of this book so far is amazing. Dreams, images from the deep, hunches are not to be reduced to ideas but, rather, to be seen (smelled, heard, felt, moved upon) as events in themselves that carry certain feelings of being in an energetic place that one can revisit or add to the pallet of tones in one's surroundings
• 
  Dimitrios

  After so many years I keep discovering its psycho-poetic force; A source of inspiration.During a 5 week stay at a hospital for intestinal problems, it helped me embrace pain and learn from sorrow instead of avoiding it. His writing is beyond psychology; it's somewhere between mythology, poetry, psychoanalysis and dream literature...A true alchemist! :-)
• 
  Yaaresse

  Tried reading this several times in print form. It's not uninteresting, but the font in the paperback is very small. I found it a literal headache to read. Will have to wait for the e-book.
  
  Hillman can be a pompous pedantic sometimes, but his ideas are interesting.
• 
  Michael

  I don't always agree with Hillman--in fact, I often disagree--but he's still one of the most illuminating and exciting thinkers I've read. I need to return to this stuff.
• 
  Michael Dobbie

  one of my favorite jungian authors...soul, myth, healing (duality), story...
• 
  Elizabeth

  A Blue Fire: Selected Writings
  by James Hillman, ed by Thomas Moore