The Sower and the Seed: Reflections on the Development of Consciousness

Reviews and Endorsements

‘A wise and wonderful book, written by a Jungian Analyst who is also a poet. Graced by exquisite drawings by Lindsey Harris, it sows the seed of healing by expanding our understanding of the evolution of the psyche and how the unrecognised wound it carries has led to the spiritual crisis of our time. Through a rich poetic narrative and illuminating commentaries in each chapter, it shows how the birth of consciousness ruptured the original unity of the psyche and how patriarchal civilisation with its emphasis on transcendence and the value of the individual was built on the foundation of matricide: the eradication of the long-established culture of the Great Mother which had connected us to the earth and held us immersed in tribal identity. This enactment of a ‘crime against nature’ was portrayed in the image of the hero’s fight with the dragon and the story of our expulsion from the Garden of Eden. The author shows how the resulting dissociation and conflict within our psyche and our culture has led to our present dangerous alienation from nature and our own deepest nature.

Offering a challenge both to reductionist science and long-established religious beliefs, its enormous contribution to changing our view of ourselves is the realisation that spirit is immanent within matter and that the entire evolutionary process reflects the slow unfolding of an innate cosmic intelligence within the forms of life. As a species, we now face the choice between self-destruction and rescuing ourselves from our own destructiveness and capacity for evil, whose origin in the shadow aspect of our nature is clearly explained. We need to wake up to the danger of where our technology with its weapons of mass destruction and our ruthless exploitation of the planet’s resources is leading us. “Mankind, locked in fierce nationalisms, religious differences, competitive economic and military systems, slumbers towards auto-annihilation.”

This is a riveting, moving and challenging story told with brilliance and empathy by a master story teller.’
- Anne Baring, Jungian analyst and the author and co-author of seven books, including The Myth of the Goddess, Evolution of an Image, The Mystic Vision, The Divine Feminine, and co-author of Soul Power: An Agenda for a Conscious Humanity.

Customer Reviews

Our customers have given this title an average rating of 5 out of 5 from 2 review(s), add your own review for this title.

Dr Sarah Walton on 31/05/2015 22:10:42

(5 out of 5)

Alan Mulhern has achieved that difficult task of transcending words. The combination of prose, poetry and images that speak like the Tarot to the subconscious has created a powerful other. The poetry that runs throughout the book has a clear, exact, consistent beat; like a heart beat, it carries the reader along with its own rhythm. After reading, when reflecting, I have the sensation of a rhythm of the universe. This is remarkable.

The human sense that the author does not seem to speak to in the book is hearing (obviously), but with the poetry he reaches this sense better than with audible music, for the music of the cosmos is not something we humans can detect with our ears, but with our hearts.

The Sower and the Seed captures the divine music that inspires Shiva's dance.

This is an incredible achievement.

Jason Wright on 21/05/2015 21:22:31

(5 out of 5)

This is a remarkable book drawing a clear narrative from the origins of consciousness to our current struggles with the power offered to us through the technological and material revolutions of the Enlightenment and industrial revolution. It is supported by original illustrations and poems throughout which have been designed for each chapter to amplify and make accessible its meaning. It covers difficult ground easily and comprehensively and is a must-read for those who wish to orient themselves to our current life from a mytho-psychological perspective. It is written in a didactic form, which I found helpful to react to and question my thinking. Others may find this irritating, but it does make the book briefer and a starting point rather than something that exhaustively covers complex and contentious ground.

It brings together a great deal of thinking and directs that to bear upon the economic and material traps we have created for ourselves. For me this book asks the great questions we face as we try to take responsibility for the power we have discovered or given ourselves and to some extent offers a practical frame for working with them. This is offered within the context of its own thinking rather than deferring to other authors and schools of opinion. It is a great, and more importantly, practical book. The systemic analysis of capitalism and its impact on consciousness, its creative and destructive nature and the lurching to trauma is a masterpiece in the making and I hope that this theme will be developed in further publications.