Hauntings: Dispelling the Ghosts Who Run Our Lives

This is the first book I read by Hollis, a reputed Jungian psychoanalyst, and I am most impressed with his literary writing, his erudition, his wisdom, his humanity, his compassion a with the way he touches the readers' soul, or at least mine.Hauntings is not a book about mediums or ghosts, is a book about those psychological ghosts (by absence and by presence) that make our lives more mechanical and more untrue to who we really are (our soul and inner self). Those ghosts direct our behaviour, our feelings, our lives in two major ways: by replicating them without being aware we are doing so, or by being aware of them and trying to compensate to avoid them.THE HAUNTING GHOSTS> OUR GENES. Of course, they aren't discussed in this book.> OUR PARENT'S CONDITIONING. Everything we learn about the world is first filtered through them as from them we receive our culture, religion, values and even their neurosis and behaviours. The mother figure is vital until we are 6-7y.o.a, but the father figure becomes increasingly so from then onwards, if any of those fail not to be there or to be too much, those patterns of being, behaving and feeling, will be passed on to us.> SYNCHRONICITY. This the only positive haunting in the book. It is presented as a mysterious non-causal energy of the Universe that follows us to let us know whatever we need to know or notice, and puts us in direct conversation with the Universe without the need of mediators (the state, gurus, evangelists, priests, or whomever else, all of them with their own agenda).> OUR "COMPLEXES" or subconscious patterns of behaviour emotionally triggered. Hollis does a great job at explaining what a complex is, how it works and how it manifest, and the power that they have over us all. We need to bring them into consciousness, but even we do, they are the hardest thing to handle. They are the ghostly aspect most widely discussed in the book.> OUR SHADOW, PROJECTIONS AND TRANSFERENCES, who present aspects of us as part of somebody else's, an unconscious lens that alters reality and the perception of who the others are, bringing a distorted picture of their self, that we only notice is a lens when the projection crumbles and we tell ourselves "s/he wasn't what looked like".> OUR SENSE OF GUILT (personal or social it might be). Guilt is the result of something we have done or failed to do. It shows in our lives in three different ways: patterns of avoidance, patterns of overcompensation, and patterns of self-sabotage. Perhaps the most evident sense of guilt comes from the expectations of society that favours niceness over authenticity and adaptation over assertiveness, so we end giving too much weight to what others expect from us or think of us any failure or lack of fitting is transformed into guilt.> OUR SENSE OF SHAME, or the belief that we are wrong or flawed somewhat because we have to meet some criteria or serve a given agenda, no matter is self-imposed or more commonly imposed by cultural codes religious institutions, or the internalisation of agendas or assignments (even unspoken) of parents, family or other people who matter to us.> PSYCHOLOGICAL SOCIAL PROJECTIONS, the same as personal projections but at a big scale. They are the base of racism, sexism, xenophobia, prejudice, religious intolerance, dogmatism and the view of anything and anybody who is different as a threat. The more insecure the ego the less it tolerates differences. The reverse side is contagious social ideas, fashions and fears that expand like a plague. Hollis states that no religious, civil, educational or social institution has not, in some degree, constricted us and prevent us from fulfilling our potential.> BETRAYAL from others and from ourselves. Betrayal is a kind of loss that is internalised and leads us to inner conclusions that result in paranoia, obsession, and projective identification. Hollies says that usually transfer to the Universe, the State, the Company, the marriage the role of good parent or caretaker and when they fail to serve us we have a tantrum and disappointment will be seen as betrayal.> MAGICAL THINKING or the failure to differentiate interior reality from external reality.> MODERNISM that is, of the loss of a spiritual core and myths of the tribe, which creates an inner void and anxiety. The loss is appeased by compensation: materialism, self-absorption, obsession, compulsion, addiction, and any sort of "-holism', whatever fills up that void. When reading chapter 9, which deals with this matter, I thought of how the collapse of the Dream Culture among Aboriginal Australians, which has led the last two generations to being lost, angry, raging, and too much into alcohol and drugs, to numb their lack of spiritual void and the guidance of the elders.> THE LOST OF OUR CONNECTION WITH OUR SOUL.THE MAJOR TAKINGS FROM THE BOOK TO ME>> One of the major takings of the book is a clear idea of what complexes are and how they work in our psyche, and how they direct our behaviour. Most importantly, how much power have over us, how much inner energy they summon, and how difficult is to loose them up, because beating them is out of the question. This is a bit terrifying, especially if you are aware of your own complexes and want to beat them..>> The second major taking in the book is how dreams and feelings are relevant for our inner world and psyche. Dreams speak in a symbolic language to tell us what our soul grievances and hopes are. They don't rise from the ego, nor have an ego agenda, so they bring the unconscious to the conscious better than anything else. They are a window to your soul, you have just to poke you nose in to see. In the same way our feelings, the way we feel, are expressions of the psyche and the soul and not of the ego, so we should pay more attention to them.>> We need to live more consciously and more thoughtfully. We need to bring the unconscious to our conscious as if our life depended on it because, in a way, it does.>> We need to be faithful to us, to our core and authentic self. Betraying our self is the worst betrayal one will ever suffer. This demands paying less attention to what society and other people expect from us, and doing and being more what our soul is and longs for. This demands learning what you truly want and living according to it. We all fear to change, to grow, to be lonely, to get the disapproval of others, to be weird, not to fit, but that cannot be a deterrent to be who we truly are. Fear is normal, living in fear is not.>> There is a need for grace and forgiveness with others and ourselves. Let's accept our humanity and imperfection. The need to trust even when our trust has been abused. Easier said than done!>> We need to choose life over victimhood. Most difficult!>> Let's individuate! Becoming a person is actually very difficult project. (Loc. 2598-2599), just worth the effort.SOME CRITICISMHauntings is a wonderful book that has touched me deeply, bit it lacks something very important to me -- practicality. In that regard, I love Robert A. Johnson's books, which aren't as soulful, but more tool-full. Hollis advises us to bring our ghosts to our conscious life, to pay attention to our dreams and feelings, to be faithful and true to ourselves, to face the pain and adversity with some sort of stoicism by going through the pain instead of numbing it or ignoring it. But how do we mortals do that without a psychoanalyst?Although I like Hollis' style and choice of phrasing and vocabulary, I thought that sometimes he goes a bit too far using words that are archaic, rare of specialised. Not that there are many of these, but I think they aren't needed. E.g. 'anfractuosities.', in medias res' and some others. Also, at times there were too many quotes. Finally, the book is a bit repetitive and loopy at times, and unnecessarily so, and I found the use of rhetorical questions excessive in number, as the same could have been said straight forward in non interrogative form without losing any emphasis. In other cases the rhetoric works great, but not always.A WISHI found a ghost missing from the list. Well, not sure if it is ghost properly speaking, but a ghost of mine definitely -- the ghost of poverty. Not being able to have ends meet. I think individuation is a wonderful thing, and will appeal to some individuals no matter their gender, age, and social status, but to individuate we need to have our belly full, some sort of peace of mind, so we can relax and do that. Perhaps is not necessary. I was very poor for a long time, and poverty has always been a ghost for me perhaps because I was very poor for a long time and poverty and having nothing is always around the corner, even a ghost of mine.. I would have loved Hollis, who knows what poverty is, to include it in his list and make some reflections about it.ON HOLLIS' WRITING IN THIS BOOKHollis is an erudite, well-versed in English and World literature, Philosophy and Theology. He integrates in his books quotes from American and European authors. To me, they are very illustrative, and I find them illuminating on how artists are so in tune with the human soul, as much as psychoanalyst are.Hollis' writing is erudite, formal and very literary at times. He uses a rich English vocabulary that has pronounced Latin and German nuances. I admire when authors stand their grounds and do not give in to editors to please the bogans or rednecks of the world. After all, we can check the words we don't know in a dictionary online or not online, or in the integrated one in Kindle if you are using one. Of course, there are cases in which the words he uses are too much of a snobbery, and they are not in a normal dictionary, so those are my only issue. The way I see it is, I can improve my English by reading this author's books. Yet, it sounds that some people take offence at having to do that!I find shocking readers commenting on Hollis' intention of proving how clever he is, which I think it is a clear projection of their inferiority complex because, to be realistic, they don't know this man at all!MINDIf you are a reader looking for a simple book to read, this might not be for you. It is written in a very formal literary way, it is very deep, and it is very Jungian. So this is not pop-psychology or a self-help book.RENDERING FOR KINDLEThe book has no pages, just the usual locations, but there are some cross references (unlinked) in the book that refer to specific page numbers not locations. That shouldn't be so in an e-book. I noticed:> Location 1037 (p. 49), but the book has no pages on Kindle.> Location 1851, (p. 000) What What What?!

I've followed the writing of James Hollis for many years, always finding depth & meaning in his work. But this newest book, one which he says he didn't intend to write, seems to me the culmination of his many years as scholar, therapist, and insightful human being. Although to be sure, he'd be the first to remind the reader of his own flaws & blind spots, as he does more than once in these illuminating pages. That, I think, is the secret of this book's piercing honesty & understanding. Hollis isn't just speaking to us as a wise elder, above it all & detached from the everyday realm -- he's speaking as a fellow mortal being, one who has suffered & struggled & fought despair just like the rest of us.Yet this isn't a shallow confessional or memoir, either. Hollis does speak of personal tragedy in order to make crucial points, but he never lingers over it, never makes it all about himself. Above all, he's a healer. It's what he's spent much of his life doing, and his intention here is to give us greater self-knowledge & awareness of the psychological ghosts that fill our lives, especially in the darkness, shaping our goals & choices where we can't see them ... or do our best not to see them. That's a key point. Hollis makes it very clear that in the end, we each have a personal responsibility to deal with what we've been given, unfair & unasked-for though it may be. As he reminds us, the universe doesn't owe us fairness, doesn't make deals, doesn't care one way or the other about us. On the other hand, we have the precious gift of life -- the caring is up to us, as well as the healing.It's true that Hollis writes deeply, often using a rich & complex vocabulary. That shouldn't daunt anyone, nor be an excuse for not going further. As he also reminds us, we're very good at coming up with flimsy reasons for not getting on with the work of our lives. I'm embarrassed to admit that while reading some of these pages, I was forced to confront some of my own excuses for not doing that, despite my supposed burning desire to do so -- and those excuses were pretty pathetic. As he says more than once, we don't get up every morning, look in the mirror, and tell ourselves that we won't make the same stupid mistakes today -- and then go out & consciously make them all over again. But we do make them, over & over, and then ask ourselves why we're still unhappy & lost.Consciously: that's the important word. Above all else, Hollis is calling us to be conscious of our lives, of the hidden forces directing them, of the responsibilities we push aside because we'd rather be comfortable & safe & cozily unconscious. This isn't living, it's simply existing, going one more day as we did before, treading the same circular path to the same dismal beginning: ourselves, our fears, our despair. But we don't have to do that. Not if we're willing to do the hard work, face what we fear can't be faced, and go forward despite everything. This isn't just an empty platitude, but hard-won wisdom -- and we can win it for ourselves, if we meet the challenge of those ghosts blocking our way. Most highly recommended!

James Hollis writes densely, in the way of thoughtful writers in a time before social media and time overwhelm. Each sentence is worthy of reflection and incorporation into one's own life and perspective. At the end, I understand that,- the second half of life IS the time for freeing ourselves from the behaviours that are still controlled by the past.- that we all carry these broken places; some of us have yet to allow ourselves this understanding.- that sometimes suffering (allowing the ghosts of the past into the room) IS healing. That is, healing hurts. Being healed, however, is profoundly freeing and joyous.- We will never fix it all. Healing requires that we learn to allow the broken edges and accept the sorrow.A life-changing book.

Sombras do passado, dos ancestrais, das escolhas; sombras de uma vida não vivida. Hillman nos mostra o caminho para o confronto e aceitação do passado, a fim de se viver, no presente, o futuro perseguido.O conceito junguiano de individuação é bem trabalhadp, e os exemplos práticos são elucidativos.

Comparto la idea central del autor de que el pasado está siempre acechando el presente, y agradezco su claridad en las explicaciones. También me ayudó a comprender esta idea la exposición de casos clínicos. Personalmente necesitaba escuchar a alguien con experiencia decir algo tan sencillo como que no hay soluciones mágicas para esa carga que el pasado suele representar en el presente, sino acaso la posibilidad de aprender a vivir con esa carga.

A great read full of insights and thought provoking illustrations. Take a look at what is going on below the surface or behind the thin vale of ego. This book sent me to the dictionary with a couple dozen additions to my vocabulary. I have to admit that some of the literary references were lost on me but I think I got the point. My biggest take away is to “show up” don’t let my haunting be the life unlived. Thanks Dr Hollis

This book will change your life. Make your read it more than once- this is a book to be studied.