The Moon & the Virgin: Reflections on the Archetypal Feminine

Review "The Moon and the Virgin . . . is an inspiration to pursue psychological reflections on the feminine . . . The psychic seeds planted by this book should be widely attended to in honor of the goddess so newly returned to our imaginations." - Kathleen Odean, Anima 8(1), Fall 1981"Nor Hall presents a fourfold structure of the feminine principle . . . This book takes away many clouds of ignorance enshrouding the feminine and allows woman to behold and contemplate reflections of herself." - John Costello"Hall's writing is poetic; it has a hypnotic rhythm and feel about it. Inevitably, the reader is drawn further into the dream-like state which she describes, until it becomes an effort to hold onto reason and to question the message in print . . . It is an evocative language . . ." - Joan Freeman, The Literary Review 12/1980"This book demonstrates how the quest for wholeness is only romantic wish-fulfillment unless it includes the willingness to break down as well as to build up . . . As a greedy woman who wants a lot of everything, I loved Nor Hall's ideas: they have churned me up and made me rethink my nice, neat, tidy feminism." Michele Roberts, Gay News"A timely warning indeed in an age barren of mysteries, where science explains and controls while leaving individuals in a spiritual void. Perhaps Nor Hall's exhortation to 'rediscover the feminine principle' is in fact to rediscover the 'woman principle' and all that that means . . ." - Marie Louise, WRRC Newsletter 01/1981 From the Inside Flap Nor Hall writes with a strikingly original perspective on women in myth and literature, examining and giving new meaning to the underlying archetypes. She explores such principles as androgyny and virginity, freeing them from the limited social context in which we have trapped them, and argues the necessity of feminine rituals in history. In her search for the original forms of the feminine, Hall has insisted that imagination is as valuable a tool as reason. She guides the reader on a journey through myths and symbols, confronting these not in the rational mode of the language itself, but on the deeper level of the unconscious life. Hall views the process as a modern form of the rites of passage, in which the initiate loses a part of herself, in groping through darkness toward this part acquaints herself with Mnemosyne, the memory of dreams, and thus is born a new way to the world. From the Back Cover "Nor Hall has culled new flowers from old vines, well-weathered. The myths and their figures are familiar - the moon, the mother, the old wise woman, Amazon, Aphrodite, Psyche and her search - but her way of being with her symbols is fresh, bold, and especially sensitive. Jung, Olson, Brown, Duncan have taught her the art of psychic speech. So, here is a psychology book saved from the blight of psychological jargon, because, as she says, 'I refer to myths and fairy tales as essential psychic facts . . .' It's a book that lets us read those facts." - James Hillman "This is an original contribution to the psychology of women. A 'feminine mode of knowing' stressing awareness of the interdependence of all things underlies Hall's approach and makes her scholarly book a rewarding adventure." -Publisher's Weekly "[In] sensitive essays that meander through a wide intellectual landscape, Hall sees the various images of the Feminine as clustering around four poles: the Mother, the Amazon, the Hetaira, and the Medial Woman. By retelling and analyzing stories . . . she wants to flesh out these four archetypes and in the process help people recover some of the meaning and modes of existence which have been suppressed by the patriarchy . . . She does it gracefully, with a broad array of quotations and good literary sense . . . Stimulating." -Kirkus Reviews About the Author Eleanor L. Hall (b.1947). Hall is a Jungian psychotherapist and widely read author of archetypal studies particularly on gender issues and