Edinger has marinated himself in Jung's works and has added many worthy volumes to the Jungian literature. I've read a few over the past half-decade and would recommend all of them. This short volume is no exception. Its utility as a reference for psychoanalysis I'm sure is obvious, but it serves multiple other purposes for the Humanities freak: a quick refresher of salient myths and bios of Gods and Goddesses, a useful primer on the recurrence of mythic themes and symbols in dreams and current events for analysis of literature or the news, a valuable resource for Tarot readers who need to deepen their card and client reading skills...
Edinger's loose and comfortable familiarity with Jung's oeuvre and his experience distilling down works like Mysterium Conjunctionis for average human intellects makes his writing rigorous and compelling, but non-threatening and accessible. There is some Jung jargon, but if you are familiar with the basics (Archetypes and their roles, the structure of the Self/Psyche, synchronicity and dream and symbol analysis, perhaps some basic awareness of Freud and Adler) you will be able to more than stay afloat here. I particularly enjoyed the Jungian analysis of the Perseus myth and had not considered how the feminine is repressed and eventually undoes that hero. The readings of the Iliad and Odyssey are also top-notch, with asides about the sorts of people and stages of life bits and pieces of the epics are bound to speak to (or manifest via).
Highly recommended.
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