James Hillman, 'The Soul's Code'

☆mediopos-2446 July 28, 2021

James Hillman is a
Jungian analyst who was close to
Hayao Kawai and Toshihiko Izutsu
(there is also a record of a 1983 tripartite conversation
titled 'Jungian Psychology and Eastern Thought')

In this newly reissued translation, 'The Soul's Code',
Hillman proposes the 'acorn theory'.

It is a theory that each of us
has a single 'acorn'
in which the voice of our destiny is inscribed.

Each of our 'souls'
'is given a unique guardian spirit (daimon)
before we are born.'
He expresses this with the metaphor of an 'acorn'.

The fact that this guardian spirit (daimon)
'is given' 'before we are born'
means that our lives
are not determined by genetics or environment.

If our lives
were determined by genetics and environment,
'I would be living out a script created by
genetic codes, ancestral inheritance,
traumatizing experiences, the unconscious of my parents,
and accidental social conditions.'

From an empiricist and scientistic perspective,
because one cannot speak about something
whose substance is unknown, such as the 'soul',
even when dealing with human psychology,
one cannot find any method other than reducing it to
genetics or environment, which have some influence on the 'body'.

With that method,
one can only perceive the current psychological state as being caused by some trauma,
or, as in compensation theory, one can only perceive it as turning weakness or inferiority into
strength or excellence.
Because the cause of psychology
can only be perceived from the perspective of reaction to the environment,
the true autonomy of the soul does not emerge.

The person I am now
is because my parents and environment were that way,
and everything is reduced to that.
At that moment, 'I'
cease to be 'I'.
If 'I' am an irreplaceable existence,
it is necessary to find it in something other than genetics or environment.

Hillman
argues that the 'soul' is given 'a single acorn in which the voice of destiny is inscribed,'
while citing various persuasive examples.

Socrates also lived by following the voice of his daimon.
Even if he had not heard that voice directly,
Socrates would likely have lived as Socrates.

In our time, such a voice of the daimon
can only be felt as a voice resonating
from the depths of each of us,
just as the gods of the past have become our inner selves,
but we must be living not by genetics or environment,
but by our own unique 'calling'.

■ James Hillman (translated by Ryuji Kagami)
'The Soul's Code'
(Asahi Shimbun Publications, July 2021)

'Life cannot be fully explained by theory. Sooner or later, something calls us onto a certain path. That 'something' may come in childhood. A sudden impulse, an irresistible fascination, an unexpected turn of events. Such a moment, like a revelation, appeals to you: This is what I must do, this is what I must possess, and this is what is necessary for me to be me.
This book is about that call of destiny.'

'Let us imagine that each person has a single acorn in which the voice of destiny is inscribed.'
'What makes our lives boring is our way of understanding life.
'So, first of all, we must clarify the paradigm of how modern people perceive life. It is said that life is an interaction between genetics and environment—is that really so? Something essential is missing there. Something that makes you feel that you are you is missing. If I accept the idea that I am merely a product of the interplay between genetic and social forces, I become merely a result of something. As my life is deciphered by genetic information, what my parents did and did not do, or experiences from the distant past of childhood, my life story becomes increasingly a story of a victim. I end up living a script created by genetic codes, ancestral inheritance, traumatizing experiences, the unconscious of my parents, and accidental social conditions.'

'Therefore, this book briefly deals with the innate images of vocation, destiny, and character; these all together form the 'acorn theory.' The acorn theory argues that each individual human being has a personality that is called to live, a personality that already exists before it is realized in life.'

'Each of our souls is given a unique guardian spirit (daimon) before we are born. It chooses the images and patterns that we will live out in this world. Our soul's companion, the daimon, is there guiding us. However, before we arrive in this world, we forget everything that happened on the other side and believe that we were born into this world as a blank slate. But the daimon does not forget what is in your image, and what patterns are there. Your daimon is also the bearer of your destiny.'

(From Ryuji Kagami's 'Translator's Afterword (1998 Edition)')

'It is very difficult to say clearly what this 'soul' is. To borrow the words of the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus, whom Hillman often quotes, 'You could not discover the limits of soul, even if you traveled every road.' That is why it is impossible to define what the soul is. Even so, if one dares to speak of what the soul is, one can only say it is 'something that connects the body and the mind' or 'something that deepens events into experiences.' Although it is vague and cannot be grasped firmly (which is why science and psychology have not made this soul their subject), I suspect that everyone feels somewhere that this 'soul' exists within them.
The bold method of letting something that conventional empiricist and scientistic psychology has failed to grasp—the 'something' in the depths of human beings and life—take flight by daring to use the undefinable word 'soul' is, indeed, the true essence of Hillman. Hillman's narrative is not merely a description or the development of a theory. Rather, it is a provocation, an evocation, and a strategy to liberate the very 'soul' hidden behind conventional ways of seeing. That method is both the difficulty in understanding Hillman and his charm. Regarding such a style, Hillman's own self-reference that the archetype of the 'puer aeternus' (eternal boy) lies behind it speaks more eloquently than anything else (...). Hillman boldly challenges rigid common sense with his bright intelligence. However, his choice of words is firmly rooted in the Western intellectual tradition, and in that style, the eternal boy and the wise old man are joined together in a way that is almost acrobatic.'

(From Toshio Kawai's 'Commentary: The Acorn and the Guardian Spirit')

"This book is a translation of a bestseller by James Hillman, a Jungian analyst who promoted archetypal psychology—which emphasizes aspects of the psyche that transcend the personal—and who is the most influential psychologist and thinker since Jung. He had a major influence on Kazuhiko Higuchi and Hayao Kawai in Japan, and as seen in this book, he emphasized beauty and developed a polytheistic psychology that respects diverse images rather than the integration into the wholeness of the psyche often found in Jungian psychology. For this reason, he felt a great affinity for Japanese culture and visited Japan several times."

"The 'acorn theory' that Hillman argues for here is the idea that there is an acorn within each of us from birth; that is, there is something like an innate destiny, something like a person's guardian spirit. Indeed, something that transcends the individual is inherent within us. It is not determined by genetics or by the environment of how one was raised. (...) While recent psychology and psychotherapy tend to explain personality and various problems through genetics or past experiences, Hillman thoroughly refutes this. In this, we see the true essence of his psychology, which posits that the soul cannot be reduced to anything and possesses autonomy."

(From Ryuji Kagami's 'Translator's Afterword')

"Looking at social media now, the words flying around are 'evidence,' 'effectiveness measurement,' 'facts,' 'statistics,' 'visualization,' and 'rankings.' In this busy, ever-changing, and anxious age, people are seeking rational, economical solutions to problems, both in terms of money and time. While that is certainly important and necessary, on the other hand, in our rush to meet these needs, are we not flooded with discourse that suggests everything can be manipulated or planned? And when things deviate even slightly from expectations, the 'search for a culprit' or 'search for a cause' begins. In some cases, it often happens that the 'culprit' is collectively and thoroughly beaten down."
"What Hillman is trying to do is to liberate our 'souls' (which is also a kind of metaphor) and our lives from the spell of immediate effectiveness and manipulability that dominates us, and to let them take flight. He does this by freely drawing material from his astonishing knowledge of the Western intellectual tradition. Readers will be intoxicated by the vivid magic of Hillman's image evocation. Within that magic, they will savor the emergence of the irreplaceability of life—something that can never be grasped as a substance, yet is felt to certainly exist."
Hayao Kawai, who was close to Hillman, stated that 'it is impossible to speak of the "soul" without some kind of "deception"' and that it is 'dangerous.' Indeed, the 'soul' is inherently elusive and ambiguous. There is an alchemical maxim that says to speak of 'the dark through the darker,' and perhaps it is more accurate to speak of things that are inherently ambiguous in an ambiguous way."