"As Plotinus tells us, we elected the body, the parents, the place, and the circumstances that suited the soul and that, as the myth says, belongs to its necessity"
About this Quote
The subtext is Hillman’s lifelong fight with reductive explanations, especially the medicalized, problem-solution model of the mind. In archetypal psychology, symptoms can be messages; fate is not a superstition but a psychic pattern with its own intelligence. Saying we “chose” parents and circumstances is less a literal claim than a provocation aimed at agency: not the self-help version (“manifest your destiny”), but the deeper, stranger agency of necessity. That final phrase - “belongs to its necessity” - signals the real target. Hillman is allergic to the idea that the soul is an accessory to the ego’s preferences. Necessity is the soul’s curriculum.
Context matters: Hillman is writing in a late-20th-century therapeutic culture hungry for explanations that absolve and optimize. His move is oppositional, even impolite. It asks readers to treat their life as mythic material, not just trauma history - to read circumstance as symbolic, demanding interpretation rather than merely repair.
Quote Details
| Topic | Free Will & Fate |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Hillman, James. (2026, January 15). As Plotinus tells us, we elected the body, the parents, the place, and the circumstances that suited the soul and that, as the myth says, belongs to its necessity. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/as-plotinus-tells-us-we-elected-the-body-the-149220/
Chicago Style
Hillman, James. "As Plotinus tells us, we elected the body, the parents, the place, and the circumstances that suited the soul and that, as the myth says, belongs to its necessity." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/as-plotinus-tells-us-we-elected-the-body-the-149220/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"As Plotinus tells us, we elected the body, the parents, the place, and the circumstances that suited the soul and that, as the myth says, belongs to its necessity." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/as-plotinus-tells-us-we-elected-the-body-the-149220/. Accessed 7 Feb. 2026.
