Prisms: Reflections on This Journey We Call Life

“When consciousness can align its hierarchy of choices with the seeming guidance from the unconscious, the person will experience healing, energy flow, and a general feel of the rightness of one’s life at that moment.” — ‘Prisms,’ Chapter Six, ‘All is Fire: the Imagination as Aperture into Psyche’The wisdom in James Hollis’s ‘Prisms’ reveals itself incrementally. While readers of his previous work will benefit from an understanding of Hollis’s inimitable communication of Jungian insights, new readers can take each of the eleven essays as stand-alone disquisitions on some of the most compelling and thought-provoking topics explored by a master of depth psychology.While there is much familiar territory here, including the need to outgrow our complexes, create a life of meaning, esteem the Mystery and remember we “don’t know what we don’t know,” regain personal authority, live the questions, and coming to grips with the reality that each of us is the one constant player in the drama of our lives, there are also new insights and opportunities to learn. For example, throughout ‘Prisms’ there are questions encouraging the reader to gain insight, with an entire section dedicated to “Asking the Questions that Enlarge.” Reflecting on and answering the questions in this section alone is well-worth any effort necessary to acquire and read this book.Because each essay can stand independent of the others, the tone varies. There is a remarkable chapter on individuation focusing on the life of William Butler Yeats. Another chapter primarily uses poetry to reveal the value in reframing our sense of self. One of my favorite chapters is atypical for Hollis, and is filled with puns, “dad” jokes and reminded me that we need to remember to laugh at ourselves and that within humor lay seeds of imagination and hope.Not all of the narrative delivers its message easily. For example, this quote, “We who follow [a reference to following Yeat’s path of individuation] must beware of seeking wisdom, lest we have to earn it too,” was something I pondered a long time before turning the page. I appreciate books, poems and any creative work that make me think. There are many opportunities to consider the meaning of Hollis’s words, and pause and reflect on the messages he is conveying.In the closing chapter, Hollis tells us the title was inspired by his experience as a fifth-grader, when his class looked through glass prisms and loved how the chunks of glass distorted the world. Many of us likely recall the first time we found an object that let us see our world differently as a child. Whether we remember holding a telescope backwards, wearing someone else’s glasses or viewing the world through a coke bottle, that first view of seeing the world differently was a lesson that there are more ways to see the world than that which we usually employ.In ‘Prisms,’ Hollis gently reminds us with stories, prose, reflections, wisdom, Jungian quotes and a few good and bad jokes that learning to see our world through a lens or view different than the one we usually use, is a requisite for a mature spirituality, and acquiring the means to do so is a way to finally, really, grow up. [P.S. the book cover painting ‘Hermes Has Arrived’ by Hollis’s wife Jill is pretty cool too]

Soon I will have read all his books and that will be a very sad day for me. His ability to synthesize material from various sources with his own journey and share it in language that makes sense is amazing. Oh yes, he does like using “big words” and foreign words, but that makes even more interesting. I suggest reading his books on Kindle since it has a built dictionary and translator. Bravo, maestro!

James explores some familiar themes in these essays, capturing his views on individuation, through different angles. He continues to ask the question that life asks all of us: What, from within me, will be brought out into the world?

Hollis is the greatest

This late in life collection of varied articles & essays by James Hollis is another treasure trove. As with his follow-up collection, THE BROKEN MIRROR, Hollis is a bit more personal in these pieces—although only in the service of his subject matter, let me haste to add. And his subject matter is both familiar & fresh, in that he approaches material with which he's worked for decades & finds new depths & facets to it.Yet for all the complexity & even esoterica of Jungian psychology, Hollis' first & foremost consideration is how we can apply inner work to our own everyday lives—this is a very practical book. And if it doesn't seem so to some, that's an unfortunate sign of how little our culture values inner work. But one of Hollis' major points is that growth as a human being, especially in the face of an immense & powerful world over which we often have little or no control, is a vital necessity, not a self-indulgent luxury.A note to those new to James Hollis: this is NOT another self-help book. There are no numbered steps, no bullet points, no superficial aphorisms or affirmations, and no promises of making your life endless bliss. He isn't anyone's guru & he doesn't want to be one. If anything, he makes it clear that inner work is often hard & painful, and invariably humbling for the ego. All he offers are plenty of good questions which can lead to a more interesting life.I'll admit here that some of those questions stopped me in my tracks & upset me at times. But that was only because my honest answers to them revealed many of my own fears, self-doubts, and rationalizations for not growing where I need to grow. And that's to the good. That's what inner work entails—looking into the mirror & not flinching from what is seen there. And the working to acknowledge it, in order to find the path to growth we seek.That work is an ongoing task, of course. The more we learn about ourselves, the more we realize just how much more we don't know about ourselves and need to know. But this enlarges us inwardly, for all that we sometimes stumble & even fall back from time to time. It's a worthy task not just reserved for the leisure class, but for every one of us.Most highly recommended!

This book spoke to me the most among his books which are some of the most helpful in depth I have read.. I am,like Hollis, in my eighties and his share on topics is so honest and engaging. I haven't gotten to the questions yet but will commit to pondering them and writing, too.

I have read pretty much everything written by James Hollis, all of them multiple times. I also had the huge pleasure of attending one of his workshops in London two or three years ago. His books make the work of Carl Jung wonderfully accessible. More than that however, he asks each of us to undertake a journey that leads to a richer life of meaning. To anyone in the "middle years" who finds themselves adrift and wondering what to do about it, where to go, how to get out of whatever rut they find themselves in, I cannot recommend Hollis' books strongly enough. And in Prisms he has done it again, a book of essays on a range of themes, all of which have gripped him for decades. There is a beautiful elegiac quality about his writing making it as rich as the poetry that he clearly loves, but it also draws us in and conveys the truths he highlights in a way that causes them to resound long after you have closed the book. A superb book from Dr Hollis which will leave you the richer in spirit for having read it.

Mr. Hollis reminds me that we all have a purpose. No matter where we are in life. Enjoy and be brave.