About the Book

The Unseen Partner records one woman’s descent into the archetypal realm of the unconscious, guided by an unseen partner felt as both “within” and “beyond.”

For three years, Croft was pulled into an energy field—the sacred temenos at the center of the psyche—and captured the poetic voice she heard there.

Drawing heavily on the discoveries of C.G. Jung, as recounted in his Red Book, this book reveals mysteries that reside in the collective unconscious, waiting to break through to consciousness and be lived.

*Image: Harmony of Creatures by Margret Hofheinz-Doring

Book Review by Peggy Funk Voth

Dare I say that Diane Croft has produced a modern-day Red Book? That's how The Unseen Partner: Love & Longing in the Unconscious strikes me, for it records and then translates, through image and language, the activity of the author's psyche. In Jung's Red Book, he wrote down his dialogues with the unconscious, drew pictures that caught the essence of those encounters, and spent the rest of his life building his theory of analytical psychology.

Croft has done something similar. Her transcendent experience broke through in the form of poetic verses, delivered by her unconscious over a three-year period. Unaware of what was taking place, she sought out images to illuminate the verses, and eventually proceeded to uncloak the poetic messages by relating them to Jungian theory. Her book offers an experiential unveiling of the process of individuation — a concept at the heart of Jung's work.

Croft's dedication to her inner world models what it means to take the life of the unconscious seriously, what it means to engage it and befriend it. The Unseen Partner calls each of us to discover for ourselves the riches and mysteries lying dormant in our own psyches, yearning to be unmasked with respect and devotion.

I love this book! It does not teach or theorize, but provides an experience of the feminine principle that is always present in the flow of life. Its meditations bring me into communion with my soul. I come away sensing that I carry a treasure trove of my own deep within myself.

If you are open to a journey into the hidden world lying within yourself, I suggest this book. It offers up gentle, intriguing and sometimes shocking revelations. What Diane Croft has done is courageous and counter-cultural: she has shown us that our inexpressible desires not only originate in the unconscious but also move us toward fulfillment, if we but listen. She makes visible the feminine side of the great duo that generates the spark of life. 

Peggy Funk Voth is a Jungian analyst in Calgary, Canada. She recently presented a paper "Eve's Gift to Us, Adam's Gift to Eve" at the Jungian Society of Scholarly Studies in Santa Fe, New Mexico (2016).