Seeker: Traveling the Path to Enlightenment

This anthology is the third of four volumes in the Archetypes of the Unconscious series dedicated to unearthing the Jungian foundations of American literature. The archetype in this installment is the broadly construed figure of the Seeker in search of, well, you name it--spiritual enlightenment, the meaning of life, social justice, money, even the yellow brick road. The eclectic selection of works includes poetry by Walt Whitman, Robert Frost and Anne Sexton, stories by Herman Melville, L. Frank Baum, Donald Barthelme and Alice Walker, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s""Free At Last"" speech and a homily by the Dalai Lama. The introduction by Jean Houston argues that America's immigrant heritage and its enthrallment to mythic archetypes manufactured in Hollywood make it especially susceptible to the Seeker archetype, and goes on in a Jungian vein to remind us that""everything one could ever want to know is to be found in...the subconscious as well as the collective unconscious of the human race and the planetary mind."" But whether it helps you locate the Oversoul or not, this wide-ranging collection of intriguing and sometimes inspiring writing, graced by many quest-themed paintings and photos, is worth seeking out.