I’m sorry. I came down with a terrible flu, had a 104 fever last night and am still sick. But I wanted to know if any of you out there read the book Sacred Contracts by Caroline Myss? I bought it a while ago and never really read it just sort of skimmed it but decided recently since my daughter kept pulling it out of the bookshelf, to give it a read.
Originally I think I lost interest because it seemed too pat, sort of like The Secret. I’m not a big believer in anything that boils down the whole of the universe into simple answers like “all you have to do is visualize it.” It’s not true. If it were true we would have world peace, no hunger, no disease and everyone would be a billionaire genius. Visualization does help but it’s not a panacea as suggested by that book/DVD. This is sort of the problem I have with pretty much all New Age stuff. It takes ancient esoteric philosophy and dumbs it down in order to sell it to the masses like a medicine show.
But anyway back to the Myss book. The idea that we basically co-create our life and work out ways to interact on this plane with those we have karma with isn’t Myss’ idea, it has roots in older Western esoteric tradition but none the less it’s always good for people to understand how much power they have and help them to realize it. I thought this was the basic premise of the book and I’m sure was Myss’ intention. However she seems to make gigantic leaps in logic which she doesn’t bother to explain like the 4 primal archetypes of Child, Victim, Saboteur, and Prostitute. I’m sure we do have primal archetypes and individual ones as she states. She claims she bases this on Jung’s work which I’m sure has truth to it, but here’s what I don’t get. I don’t get that we all would have the victim and the prostitute as archetypes. I can understand the child since we all are children at one point and that is a stage in our development. And the saboteur, as there are usually family dynamics that cultivate competition and often losing is a way of winning. But the prostitute? OK, maybe but I want some kind of logical explanation for that. Is it because this is the “oldest profession,” maybe, I did see monkeys (literally) engaging in a form of prostitution in Bali. A female wanted some of the male’s banana and let him bonk her for it. So perhaps we are hardwired to have this in us? I could buy it but at least give me some kind of rational reason because I feel that this book is full of these giant leaps that may or may not be true. It’s just as reasonable to assume these theories are based on her own personal experience and could be projections of experiences she’s noticed which is entirely legitimate but it wouldn’t necessarily account for a universal archetype.
So I’m still reading this book and my question to all of you out there who have read it: Did any of you feel as I did that it seemed at times to reflect some sort of personal issues that she assumed were univesal? And at other times painted things with such a broad brush that it defied usefulness? And then at other times when it came to understanding the other archetypes did a very poor job of explaining them? And why are there 4 universal ones and 8 personal ones. That seems rather arbitrary. Maybe some people have 16 personal ones and some 5. Again no real explanation for how she arrived at these epiphanies.
I have to go back to bed. Don’t get this flu. It really sucks!
Many blessings,
Denise
Astrology and Psychic Predictions 