Have you wrestled with uncanny, nightmarish imagery
in dreams or waking and wondered if you were becoming
unhinged one day, and enlightened the next? Life crises,
trauma, deep meditation, prayer or inquiry can unleash
surprisingly compelling yet scary, even revolting
imagery and related feelings we have few maps to help
navigate. Bringing a spiritual context to what most
disturbs us, Sandra Dennis explores an eruption of
strange and wild, compelling and repellent characters
that she calls ‘daimons’ from the unconscious that
precipitated a descent into the dark recesses of her own
psyche. The Greeks understood the daimon as the
intermediary between gods and humans, the guardian
spirit assigned at birth, connecting heaven and earth.
These messengers come as agents of radical change. When
we welcome them with understanding and compassion, they
show they are here to expand consciousness and connect
us with the healing qualities our world is waiting for.
This book leads us to this growing edge of the psyche
and invites our curiosity and caring. It chartw a course
of radical acceptance of experience -- no matter how
painful or repulsive -- as absolutely necessary for our
well-being and the well-being of the planet. Sandra
Dennis outlines a simple method to navigate these
alarming images and anxieties. Instead of treating them
as perversions to banish, we are encouraged to embrace
their primal power becoming more intelligent, loving and
whole in the process. "Embrace of the Daimon" can help:
• Calm your concerns by understanding the role of these
daimonic images in the larger context of growth to
wholeness, or individuation. • Find the courage to
explore these states of mind with more intimate,
compassionate interest. • Learn to navigate your way
through the unusual sensations that often accompany
breakthroughs of the daimonic. • Expand your
understanding of Jungian theory, with regard to the
little explored mind/body connection role in personal
development. "Embrace of the Daimon" offers a rare look
at this inner landscape and will help make your own
trip, or that of those you are helping, less harrowing.
Reviewers have called 'Embrace of the Daimon' -- "a
pioneering work, a courageous and important book," "a
significant contribution to the study of altered states
of consciousness," "original and profound," "a rare
documentation of unconscious processes","a work that
advances our understanding of a descending spirituality
tremendously," "eloquently descriptive," "deeply
moving," re-imagines the work of integrating shadow to
find beauty and dignity," "bridges the worlds of the
scholar and the visionary" and "takes us to the radical
edge of Jungian psychology today." One reader commented,
"It is the only contemporary firsthand account of the
day-to-day practice of mystical depth psychology that I
have come across. I find it a very practical guide to my
own inner and psychic realm journeys." Another called it
"the most honest work on the psychoid/imaginal realms
since Corbin...the engagement with the archetypal
invasions, more like Jung in the Red Book than the
scholarly Corbin."
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