puer aeternus
The puer figure—Baldur, Tammuz, Jesus, Krishna—brings myth into reality. The message is mythical, stating that he, the myth, so easily wounded, so easily slain, yet always reborn, is the seminal substructure of all imaginative enterprise. These figures, like myths themselves, seem not “real.” They feel insubstantial; tales of them say they are
... See moreJames Hillman • The Soul's Code
Not only a biography can be touched by an archetypal figure. There are archetypal styles of theories as well. Any theory that is affected by the puer will show dashing execution, an appeal to the extraordinary, and a show-off aestheticism. It will claim timelessness and universal validity, but forgo the labors of proof. It will have that puer dance
... See moreJames Hillman • The Soul's Code
puer vs saturn
In keeping with the specific archetypal figure of the puer, this theory is meant to inspire and revolutionize, and also to excite a fresh erotic attachment to its subject: your subjective and personal autobiography, the way you imagine your life, because how you imagine life strongly impinges upon the raising of children, the attitudes toward the
... See moreJames Hillman • The Soul's Code
puer (short for puer aeternus, Latin for "eternal boy")
Hillman sees the puer not as a pathology (though some traditions, like Jungian psychology, do), but as a vital expression of soul. In The Soul’s Code, he suggests that the daimon, or guiding spirit within each person, often speaks through this youthful, sometimes otherworldly, part of ourselves. The puer may resist normal development—but it’s also the bearer of one’s calling or genius.
However, Hillman also acknowledges that the puer comes with a shadow—instability, fear of commitment, escapism, and refusal to age—which must be understood rather than condemned. (GPT)
The devotion to an altered state of mind propels puer fantasy toward altering the mind of the state by setting fires of rebellion. The calling from the eternal world demands that this world here be turned upside down, to restore its nearness to the moon; lunacy, love, poetics. Flower power, Woodstock, Berkeley, the cry of the students of Paris ’68:
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