“The body of work attributed to [Heraclitus] consists in a collection of incendiary sparks that scholarship calls ‘fragments,’ as if to say the work is incomplete, only shards of a lost whole. But scholarship misses the fact that the style is the message. The snapshot, the aperçu, reveals things as they are … the world is revealed only in quick glances.”
— James Hillman, introduction to Heraclitus, Fragments, 2001
The James Hillman Archive was launched in 2026 to celebrate the centennial of Hillman’s birth. It is intended to promote his work and ideas in the format of textual fragments, a tribute to the philosopher Heraclitus whom James regarded as the father of depth psychology and to his own admission of being “like a seagull; I swoop down and pick things up from everywhere.”¹
“All depth psychology has already been summed up by this fragment of Heraclitus: ‘You could not discover the limits of the soul (psyche), even if you traveled every road to do so; such is the depth (bathun) of its meaning (logos).’ Ever since Heraclitus brought soul and depth together in one formulation, the dimension of soul is depth (not breadth or height) and the dimension of our soul travel is downward.”
— Re-Visioning Psychology, p. xi
¹ Personal communication with Sonu Shamdasani
JAMES HILLMAN
The pioneering imaginative psychology of James Hillman (1926–2011) spans five decades. It has entered cultural history, affecting lives and minds in a wide range of fields.
For the creativity of his thinking, the originator of Archetypal Psychology and author of A Terrible Love of War, The Soul’s Code, The Force of Character, Re-Visioning Psychology, and The Myth of Analysis, has received many honors, including the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic.
He has held distinguished lectureships at the Universities of Yale, Princeton, Chicago, and Syracuse, and his books have been translated into some twenty languages.
— from https://www.springpublications.com
ARCHIVIST
Brian James is a depth counsellor and archetypal coach based on Vancouver Island, Canada who is continually re-inspired and re-invigorated by Hillman’s ideas. This archive is a labour of love.
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Spring Publications was founded by James Hillman in 1970 and continues to be the preeminent publisher of books on soul-making. Please support them by purchasing their books.