Reviews

I find this an extraordinarily well-written, original and profound work that extends our understanding of the relation between psyche and soma. Dr. Dennis' integration of personal material and theory makes possible a synthesis of active imagination, the daimonic and the subtle body. Much of the region is still unexplored and any reader will have the excitement of seeing new lands for the first time. I believe the material to be deeply practical for individual integration of psyche and soma. -Dr. Alan B. Ruskin, Jungian Analyst-- "Reviews"
I was deeply moved by the force and effort of these personal revelations that show that in spite of the alarming and painful character of the visions, they may represent something more than the bad effects of childhood, past lives, or defective genes. Dennis suggests that they may represent a cultural movement into the next era of great importance, as they indicate the emergence of a dark, descending spirituality, like the lower worlds of the shaman, which is absolutely necessary to balance the recent emphasis on 'light.' This world indeed corresponds with the rise of 'the feminine' and its values. This book advances our understanding of this ongoing process tremendously. -Don Sandner, author, The Sacred Heritage: The Influence of Shamanism on Analytic Psychology-- "Reviews"
Sandra Dennis has written a courageous, important book. In Embrace of the Daimon, she moves psychology into a fuller engagement with the uncharted depths of archetypal, imaginal reality embedded in bodily experience. In this pioneering work, she forges a bridge between the worlds of the scholar and the visionary, and in so doing makes a significant contribution to the phenomenology of altered states of consciousness. Her prose is eloquently descriptive, precise, at times compactly poetic. Her first-person accounts are moving, often searing in realms that traditionally resist description. Our era needs to hear her call for a descent into the dark recesses of the psyche that can reunite body and soul. -Richard Tarnas, author, The Passion of the Western Mind, Psyche and Cosmos-- "Reviews"
When I first read the draft for Embrace of the Daimon I was thrilled to be reading such an intimate portrayal of profound change embedded in the framework of experiences of other explorers of personal depth like Jung, Sade and Blake. This book is a rare documentation of a spontaneous eruption of wild stories and monstrous characters from the primeval spaces of the unconscious psyche, characters who, over time, become benevolent carriers of an emotional reunion of soul with body. Dr. Dennis takes us to the edge of imaginal experience and traces an implicit road map for the millennial tasks of healing the harmful separation between body, soul, and spirit that now afflicts us. -Betty Meador, author Uncurse this Darkness-- "Reviews"