• three world-views: The book could be divided in 4 parts: 1) the framework – where is presented the distinction between three stages: pre-modern, modern and post-modern; 2) the process of going native in three continents: America, Africa and Australia; 3) the journey of the hero – where a certain emphasis is put on three events belonging to the Under-World: the descend into the unconsciousness, the sacrifice and the gap between society/ nature; 4) the description of the Australia soul – Tacey emphasis that the three entities (body – mind – soul) are organized along two axis (the vertical or the axis of religiosity; and the horizontal or the axis of spirituality). In short, walking on the footsteps of Carl Gustav Jung and James Hillman, David Tacey proposes a distinction between three world-views: i) the pre-modern world-view that is characterized by unity and about what much is kept silence; ii) the modern world-view full of dualities – like: on the one side “culture”, “heaven”, “spirit”, “father”, “consciousness”, “Apollo” and “everything that is European”; and on the other side “nature”, “earth”, “matter”, “mother”, “unconsciousness”, “Dionysus” and “everything that is Aboriginal” (all these distinctions being presented from chapter two to seven); and, finally, iii) the post-modern world-view that puts its mark on the last four chapters of the book: here, Tacey discusses not only the distinction between “body versus mind”, but presents also their synthesis into “the soul”: in fact, the plurality is at home in this third world-view… And then what? Sure, there are three world-views, but – by me – this couldn’t be the only formula for life. Certainly something was before the pre-modern world-view as certain is that something will be after the post-modern world-view. Only, sometimes is more practical to use the magic number three…

The map:

Resources:

• David Tacey (2020): “Edge of the sacred. Jung, Psyche, Earth”,  Daimon Verlag