Description
George Braziller, 1963. Hardcover, xxiv, 262 pp.; 22 cm; First Printing; 32 pages of black-and-white plates, line drawings in text. Patterns of Myth series, Alan W. Watts, general editor; editor's foreword by Watts.
Rare, out-of-print & unusual books · Since 1997
112
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Condition & notes
In Very Good condition with a Good dust jacket. Yellow cloth boards with black device on front cover, silver and black lettering on spine; mild shelf and edge wear, light soiling to edges, rear cover and foot of spine, slight cock to spine. Top edge stained black. Binding tight. Light foxing to endpapers. Previous owner's name in ink on front pastedown. Pages mildly toned, otherwise unmarked. Illustrated dust jacket by Joseph Low has a 1-inch chip at foot of spine panel and smaller nicks and tearing increasing along edges; moderate overall toning, heavier on spine panel, with some spotting and soiling. Now in an archival quality (removable) Brodart cover. A Jungian study of death, rebirth and resurrection in myth, the second of the three volumes in Braziller's Patterns of Myth series (with Charles H. Long's Alpha and Watts's The Two Hands of God). Henderson's introduction, in seven chapters, follows the theme through cosmic pattern, the cycles of nature, initiation and the shaman's magic flight, and includes a case study of a woman confronting her fear of dying. Oakes's anthology follows: more than fifty texts from world myth and scripture, from the Dance of Shiva and the descent of Inanna to Black Elk Speaks, with an appendix of poems by Emily Dickinson, Coleridge and Whitman. Plates include Aztec, Sumerian and Greek sculpture, an Irish bronze Crucifixion, a tarot Death card and the Sorcerer of Trois Freres. Henderson (1903-2007), co-founder of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco, wrote "Ancient Myths and Modern Man" for Jung's Man and His Symbols. Oakes (1903-1990), painter and ethnologist and a student of Jung, wrote Where the Two Came to Their Father and The Two Crosses of Todos Santos for the Bollingen Series. Reissued by Princeton in the Mythos series in 1990. Contents: Editor's Foreword; List of Plates; List of Line Drawings; Introduction by Joseph L. Henderson (The Fear of Death; Death and Rebirth as Cosmic Pattern: The Dance of Shiva; Death and Rebirth as Cycles of Nature: The Descent of Inanna; Personal Encounter: The Wisdom of the Serpent; Initiation as a Spiritual Education; Initiation as Psychic Liberation: The Magic Flight; Resurrection and Rebirth in the Process of Individuation); Myths of Death, Rebirth, and Resurrection by Maud Oakes (Death and Rebirth as Cosmic Pattern; Death and Rebirth as Cycles of Nature; Initiation as a Spiritual Education; Initiation as Psychic Liberation; Myths of Resurrection); Appendix: Further Examples of the Theme of Death and Rebirth in Poetry; Notes on the Plates; References; Index.