It doesn’t happen to me often that I do such a grave bad book-buy that I don’t even manage to finish the book. I saw this book in a New Age shop and thought it would be funny to learn a bit about Freudian and Jungian psychology (on which I am a complete layman) using Northern mythology. To be frank, I totally miss the connection between the two subjects! I can’t understand or find myself in the theories and ideas posed by Mogenson and I don’t have a clue why a certain tale is combined with a certain text by either psychologist. Mogenson (for example) gives the tale of Thor’s stolen hammer and then follows a text that Mjölnir represents the human fantasy and Thor the psyche. Or in another tale Odin plunching his sword in the Barnstock tree of the Volsungs has something to do with higher incest…. The quotes of Jung and Freud usually don’t even vaguely hint towards Northern mythology, but it is Mogenson who tries to combine two texts. If it wasn’t for the great wood-cuts by Hans Gerhard Sørensen, this book would have been a complete waste of money.
For those of you who are interested in Freudian and Jungian psychology, supposed links are made between the theories of these two and Thor and his hammer, the tale of Utgarda Loki, the Volsungasaga and Balder’s death (the development of individuality??).