Depth Insights Scholarly eZine Fall 2014—Issue 6

The Mythology of AnimalsJung in the Garden of Eden: A Myth of the Transformation of ConsciousnessTraveling the Royal Road: A Personal Encounter With the Word Association TestThe Coming Storm: Prophetic Dreams and the Climate CrisisTrauma and Homecoming: Finding a Sense of Place in the Space of TraumaFrontispiece for Liber Novus: Biblical Texts on Folio Page One of the Red Book

More Depth Psychology Articles, Essays, and Poetry

“The Dispossessed” by Peter Cameron

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Fall 2014

D E P T H I N S I G H T SS e e i n g t h e W o r l d W i t h S o u l

The Mythology of AnimalsBy Joseph P. Muszynski

Jung in the Garden of Eden: A Myth of the Transformation of ConsciousnessBy Arthur George

Traveling the Royal Road: A Personal Encounter With the Word Association TestBy Drew H. Smith

The Coming Storm: Prophetic Dreams and the Climate CrisisBy Paco Mitchell

God as Intimate SoulBy Paul DeBlassie III

Trauma and Homecoming: Finding a Sense of Place in the Space of TraumaBy Bonnie Bright

Frontispiece for Liber Novus: Biblical Texts on Folio Page One of the Red BookBy Gerald F Kegler

Artemis without Arrows: Aggression Lost and FoundBy Betsy Hall

Wotan in the Shadows: Analytical Psychology and the Archetypal Roots of WarBy Ritske Rensma

American Cerberus: Meditations on Pit Bulls and the UnderworldBy Elizabeth Zinda

Film Review: Stones, Spaceshots, and Shadow Siblings: Symbolic Review of FarSide of the MoonBy Colleen Szabo

Review of Change your Story, Change your Life: Using Shamanic and JungianTools to Achieve Personal Transformation by Carl GreerBy Jesse Howard Lash Masterson

Comic Series “Dreams in World Religion”By Jeremy Taylor, pp. 9, 13, 33, 50

Poetry

Art

Depth Insights, Issue 6, Fall 2014 1

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PublisherDepth Insights, a Media Partner for Depth Psychology Alliance

Executive EditorBonnie Bright

Assistant EditorPaco Mitchell, with special thanks to JesseHoward Lash Masterson and Linda Ravenswood

Editorial Selection CommitteeBonnie BrightPaco MitchellJesse Lash MastersonLinda Ravenswood

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About this Issue

Marlene Dean, pp. 44, 57Susanne Dutton, p. 39John Guchemand, p. 66Naomi Ruth Lowinsky, pp. 7, 40

Shelley Lynn Pizzuto, p. 13Pamela Preston, p. 24Eva Rider, pp. 9, 27

Candace French, p. 25Brenda Littleton, p. 19Janet Clark, p. 62Jennifer Fendya, pp. 56-57

Tim Holmes, p. 65Pamela Preston, p. 40Peter Cameron (COVER series), p. 8Sean Arlt, p. 39

On the cover: “The Dispossessed”oil on canvas,

102 x 122 cm byPeter Cameron. See more fromPeter on page 8

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Depth Insights, Volume 6, Fall 2014 2

Depth psychology is often foremost associated with the studyof the unconscious. Henri Ellenberger, in his seminal work, TheDiscovery of the Unconscious (1970) suggested it might “furnisha key to the exploration of the unconscious mind, and throughthis, a renewed knowledge of the conscious mind, with a widerapplication to the understanding of literature, art, religion andculture” (p. 490). How one goes about studying something thatis unconscious is always a challenge, of course, and, I find, fre-quently a joke among friends or family who know depth psychol-ogy is my passion but don’t quite grasp what it’s “good for.”

In this issue of Depth Insights, we are graced with an array oftopics that each reveal not only portals for accessing the uncon-scious (the study of myth, contemplation of Jung’s symbolic writ-ings, Jung’s classic Word Association Test, prophetic dreams, andtrauma among them) but also engage with a number of themeswhich call for the use of a depth psychological lens to amplifythem (climate change, divinity, exile, violence, and innocence,among them).

Jung was deeply desirous of making depth psychology anaggregate, a culmination even, of many of the sciences of thetime. “Psyche is the mother of all our attempts to understandNature,” Jung wrote (in Jung and the Making of ModernPsychology, Sonu Shamdasani, p. 99). Not to be discounted,however, was Jung’s ultimate willingness to ultimately foregopositivism in lieu of opening to that which is unknown and inex-plicable. More than anything, for Jung perhaps, was whether“the sciences themselves ultimately rested on psychology”

rather than the other way around (Shamdasani, p. 99).Depth psychology may be viewed as an umbrella that houses

many practices and fields of study that lead us to an ever-increasing understanding of ourselves, the world around us, andour relationship to the infinite. In this way, it becomes a vessel inwhich the study of mythology; symbolism; nature and ecopsy-chology; indigenous wisdom; dreamwork; shamanism; alchemy;esoteric and divinatory practices including tarot, I-Ching, andastrology, and the exploration of archetypes; among others, allcombine to provide powerful insights. Jung’s own forays into thenature of synchronicity (an acausal connecting principle) and hiswillingness to engage in a descent that is now profoundly docu-mented and widely shared with the publication of The Red Book,point to how we may engage with the many ways the uncon-scious is reaching out to show us a path toward wholeness, notonly for each of us as individuals, but for the culture, the world,and all its inhabitants.

As each passing day seems to bring more dire news of vio-lence, disease, distress, disasters, and ecosystems in decline in aculture that by now has become, for better or worse, globalizedto a degree that we are all affected by life’s difficulties in pro-found ways, a depth psychological lens becomes perhaps moreprofoundly important than ever before. African Elder, MalidomaSomé, writes

There is no doubt that, at this time in history, Western civi-lization is suffering from a great sickness of the soul. TheWest's progressive turning away from functioning spiritual

From the Editor: Bonnie Bright

Cont’d on page 67


http://www.depthpsychologylist.com

Depth Insights, Volume 6, Fall 20143 <Back to TOC

Introduction

The possibility exists that animalsmay have their own myths.

Evolutionary biology tells us that non-human and human animals are biological-ly related, including similarities in brainfunction. Both see images. Depth psy-chology is rich in discussion of how wecreate myth from images. This opens thepossibility that animals can also do so.Many questions arise. Are images all thatare needed to “know” myth? If the arche-typal images we see are related toinstincts, would such images really be auniquely human phenomenon? If otheranimals do have these archetypal, instinc-tual images within them, are they enoughto lead to myths? The question ofwhether non-human animals are awareand conscious would be an a priori condi-tion to believe this to be possible. Or, dowe need speech for myth? A myth mayonly be a myth if it is told, somehowshared with others. We do know otheranimals communicate, both with eachother and with us to the degree that weare receptive, but are they capable ofsharing myths?

Myths are narratives through whichwe can know archetypes, but could theybe purely visual narratives? Images arethe structures allowing metaphors toemerge into human consciousness, sug-gesting the possibility that images allowmetaphors to emerge into non-humananimal consciousness as well. If they did,the conscious non-human animal mindwould contain archetypes similar tohumans’, producing similar metaphors.Could they also form the basis for non-human animal myths? Even if someonedoes not know what a metaphor is, theystill have metaphorical thoughts. Is therereason to believe that non-human ani-mals are incapable of image-basedmetaphors?

Animal ConsciousnessFirst, we need to consider whether

non-human animals are conscious and

self-aware. Tom Regan’s seminal work,The Case for Animal Rights, uses evolu-tionary theory to part “company withDescartes and attributing consciousness –a mind, a mental life – to certain animals”(28). Descartes believed animals have noreasoning consciousness, clearly stating inDiscourse on Method that the lack of lan-guage similar to human language in non-human animals, “attests not merely tothe fact that beasts have less reason thanmen but that they have none at all” (32).He believed animals to be machines, lack-ing emotion and any ability to feel pain.Descartes’ perspective adequately serveshuman needs. However, such philosophyallows humans to describe non-humananimals in strictly material terms, i.e.,financial, considering actual animals onlyas a number in a cost analysis betweenspecies loss and human’s lost economicgrowth (Simon, 182).

Humans value themselves highly. InThe Flight To Objectivity, Susan R. Bordosuggests that through Descartes thehuman mind came to be valued above all.Non-human animals became “understoodas purely a reflection of how we feelabout them, having nothing to do withtheir ‘objective’ qualities” (99). Withhuman desires as the main focus ofhuman life, the natural world becameeasily manipulated for fulfilling thosedesires. Arguing against this perspective,Regan notes that, “Because the relevantanimal behavior resembles human behav-ior, […] there is a strong presumptive rea-son for viewing these animal experiencesas being like their human counterparts”(66-67). With similar behaviors noted, itbecomes apparent the non-human ani-mal is conscious. Regan then argues for

proof of beliefs in animals. He professes:

A holistic view of animal behaviorallows us to decide when to attrib-ute beliefs to animals, what beliefsto attribute, and whether the beliefswe have reason to attribute at onetime, in one set of circumstances,are the same or different fromthose we have reason to attribute atanother time, in another set of cir-cumstances. (72)

If we accept non-human animalawareness, we can then imagine whattheir awareness entails. Further, we canspeculate mythopoetically on what theirbeliefs may be.

In The Literary Mind, Mark Turnerdemonstrates that for humans, “narrativeimagining, often thought of as literaryand optional, appears instead to beinseparable from our evolutionary pastand our necessary personal experience”(25). Narrative imagining is constant,mental, and visual. Turner suggests,“Story precedes grammar” (168), andeven language. Our own mental and visu-al stories are common and further evi-dence that non-human animals couldhave similar mental and visual narratives.Do myths evolve from our inner narra-tives? If so, it seems possible the samecould be possible for non-human animals.

Evolutionary biologist Marc Bekoffbelieves dismissing anthropomorphism tobe a waste of time. He writes in TheAnimal Manifesto that:

Our fellow animals not only think,but they feel – deeply. Animals liveand move through the world withlikes and dislikes and preferencesjust like we do. This is not beinganthropomorphic. We’re not insert-ing something human into themthat they don’t have. It doesn’t mat-ter whether their thoughts andemotions are exactly the same asour thoughts and emotions. Boththeir feelings and ours are essential

The Mythology of AnimalsBy Joseph P. Muszynski

“He believed animals tobe machines, lacking

emotion and any abil i tyto feel pain.”

Depth Insights, Volume 6, Fall 2014 4<Back to TOC

for a meaningful life. (76)

He then points out the hypocrisy ofhuman dismissal of anthropomorphizingnon-human animals when he reportsabout a real-world situation: “The samezoo officials who accuse activists of beinganthropomorphic when they call a cap-tive elephant unhappy turn around andfreely describe the same elephant as per-fectly happy” (77). By using mythopoesiswe are able to discuss the parallelsbetween the human animal and non-human animal minds. Animals’ thoughtsand feelings may be similar to ours orthey may perceive in completely differentways. Accepting non-human animal con-sciousness means that, “In this newtrans-species world, dolphins have cul-ture, crows use tools, sheep empathize,and snakes play. Fish subjected to electri-cal shocks retreat into dissociative rock-ing as a means of coping with pain, muchas human victims of torture might”(Bradshaw, Elephants 6). Behaviors aresimilar among many animals, includinghumans.

Though he believes that non-humananimals are moral, Bekoff does not thinkthis means they have religion, statingthat, “Religion […] invokes supernaturalexplanations for why certain behaviorsare prohibited or required. It seems likelythat morality (with manners as a subset)is really the only category that applies tononhuman animals” (Wild, 15). However,he also throws out the assumption “thatmorality in other species will look just likehuman morality” so that we should “pro-ceed with an open mind and view eachspecies on its own terms” (Wild, 20).Most myths are not religious, but theyare usually concerned with values andthus with morals. Bekoff notes that,“Animals form friendships, are caughtlying or stealing and lose face in the com-munity, they flirt, their sexual advancesare sometimes embraced and sometimesrejected, they fight and make up, theylove, and they experience loss. There aresaints and sinners, bad apples and goodcitizens” (Wild, 45), clearly similar to situ-ations to which an archetypal psycholo-gist looks to discover the presence ofarchetypal myth in human behaviors. Thepsychologist gets to myths by beginningwith images.

Depth Psychology and ArchetypalImages

“Archetype” and “image” are inte-gral terms for mythology, whethergrounded in depth psychology or not. Theways in which images relate to myths areimportant for connecting consciousnessto the creativity of the collective uncon-scious. C. G. Jung writes that dream“imagery frequently makes use of motifsanalogous to or even identical with thoseof mythology. I call these structuresarchetypes because they function in away similar to instinctual patterns ofbehavior” (CW 3: 254). These dreammotifs are structural elements of theunconscious as well as of myth. Jungrelates these elements to instincts. Hedefines the collective unconscious “as theancestral heritage of possibilities of rep-resentation […] not individual but com-mon to all men, and perhaps even to allanimals, and is the true basis of the indi-vidual psyche” (CW 8: 152). Jung raisesthe possibility that archetypes found inthe collective unconscious of the humanmight also be found in non-human ani-mals (connected to the same ancestralcollective unconscious).

Jung accepted non-human animalsas living in unconsciousness. In Jung’stime, it was generally accepted that ani-mal minds processed information throughpure instinct. Thus, instinctual archetypesof the collective unconscious are presentin instinctual animal minds. However,when found in our dreams, these arche-types are not clear to conscious humanunderstanding. As Jung explains:

Our consciousness performs a selec-tive function and is itself the prod-uct of selection, whereas the collec-tive unconscious is simply Nature –and since Nature contains every-thing it also contains the unknown.[…] In my opinion the collectiveunconscious is the preconscious

aspect of things on the ‘animal’ orinstinctive level of the psyche.(Letters Vol. 2, 540)

Defining the collective unconsciousas “animal” or “instinctive” makes lesssense if we accept that animals are con-scious and aware.

Jung also writes that when com-pared with humans, “it is highly probablethat animals have similar or even thesame archetypes” (Letters Vol. 1, 540),and yet, “an animal has no conscious-ness” (Visions, 154). However, he para-doxically writes that the archetype of the:

wise old man is a big ape really,which explains his peculiar fascina-tion. The ape is naturally in posses-sion of the wisdom of nature, likeany animal or plant, but the wisdomis represented by a being that is notconscious of itself, and therefore itcannot be called wisdom.(Nietzsche’s, 1393)

We now know that apes are con-scious and aware of themselves. Currentethological data provides evidence ofindividual personalities found in non-human animals. What sort of wisdom andrecognizance of archetype could a “bigape” actually understand?

Jung believes that images lead toactions in animals, writing:

the lowest layers of our psyche stillhave an animal character. Hence itis highly probable that animals havesimilar or even the same arche-types. That they do have archetypesis certain in so far as the animal-plant symbioses clearly demonstratethat there must be an inheritedimage in the animal which drives itto specific instinctive actions.(Letters Vol. 1, 427)

This implies similar behavior in thehuman, as perhaps the same archetypaland unconscious image releases energyto our consciousness and “drives it” tohuman behavior. These powerful imagesare found in our myths. Can a myth bemetaphoric images only, formed into asimple narrative in our thoughts?

Writing more directly about ourunderstanding of these images is arche-typal psychologist James Hillman. He

“Current ethologicaldata provides evidence

of individual personalit ies found innon-human animals”

Joseph P. Muszynski


The Mythology of Animals

writes, “Mythic metaphor is the correctway of speaking about the archetypes”(Re-Visioning, 157). We understandarchetypal images to varying degrees andonly indirectly through metaphor. Ourunderstanding of archetypes is “indirect-ly, metaphorically, mythically” (157).Hillman suggests human mythology ispowerful because you do not know myth;you encounter myth in images. Each of usis able to get to know any myth in a mul-titude of different ways, beginning pow-erfully with an image.

Animals would seem to have imagessimilar to ours within them. However,when depth psychology notices animals itis usually in the context of how thehuman animal uses non-human animals.The non-human animal is often seen as aspiritual guide to be found within humandreams. In Animal Guides, representativeof depth psychology’s perspective,Jungian analyst Neil Russack writes thathis “book is a map tracing journeys inwhich people are guided by animals intoa richer humanity. Animals break downbarriers and bring a healing presence intoour lives” (10). Non-human animals guidehumans toward enrichment or becomepresent to heal us. G.A. Bradshaw, theoriginator of trans-species psychology,notes, “By dissociating the symbolic, spiri-tual and ‘real’ physical animals, currentengagement with myth, image, anddream has remained an anthropocentri-cally driven exercise. The pervasivenessof anthropocentrism and animals-as-objects-in-service is subtle” (ElephantTrauma, 18). The non-human animal israrely appreciated as an individual withits own existence.

Even ecopsychology is still broadlyhuman-focused and lacks specific consid-eration for non-human animals. WhenTheodore Roszak defined the sub-disci-pline, he aimed to “generate a new, legal-ly actionable, environmentally based cri-terion of mental health” (15). The fieldremains firmly grounded in depth psy-chology and the focus on how environ-mental conditions affect the human psy-che. Nevertheless, ecopsychologyattempts to move beyond human priori-ty. When Stephen Aizenstat suggests,“Special care would be taken to listen inways that allowed the voices of Earth’sinhabitants to be heard in the full rangeof their sound” (99), he comes closer torecognizing and imagining the lives of

actual non-human animals. Bradshawunderstands that we need to open apathway to “begin from what is known tobe held in common […] and then explorewhat is different, what are things thatmake each person and elephant unique”(Elephants, 18). Imagining is a pathwaythrough which understanding animals’myths could deepen our relationshipswith them and give us insight into theirperspectives on the world we share.Myths reflect a view of the world and ani-mals’ views may be different from ours inimportant ways.

The Polyphonic Voice of MythologyThe problem of whether mythology

must be shared to be mythology alsoneeds to be considered. In Re-VisioningPsychology, Hillman writes, “Withoutspeech we lose soul, and human beingassumes the fantasy being of animals”(217-218), suggesting speech is needed tounderstand archetypes. Hillman focuseson images; the images hold fictions; thesefictions are stories for the soul; these sto-ries aid our souls to heal from neurosesand psychopathologies. In Healing Fictionhe defines archetypal psychology as,“reflection upon the subjective fantasyfactors going on all the time, recognitionof the images and their ongoing opera-tion in all our realities” (75). This ishuman reflection on internal imaging.Paying attention to internal archetypalimages allows them to rise from theunconscious to assist in healing us.However, here there is no mention of theneed for language to understand theseimages as he professes, “Know Thyself isthe self-reflexive moment, a psychologi-cal a priori within all moments, that laughof self recognition glimpsed in the imagesof one’s selves in all things” (78). Hillmanleaves clear the path for allowing theother into human psychology. To step

through that door is to step into myth.Recognition of an image, which Turnersuggested comes in the form of at least asimple narrative, may be all that is need-ed for myth to be present.

Each image has personal meaningfor whoever sees the image. Personalcontext becomes important in the con-templative discovery of one’s relation toany image because no image has onlyone meaning. Hillman states that, “Bydefinition, an image is a particular andbrings with it the criteria and internalrelations by which it can be understood”(The Dream, 142). An image holds every-thing it needs to be understood in a myri-ad of ways, though more than one personmay find similar understanding in animage. The lack of universal meaning inan image is because, “The depth of eventhe simplest image is truly fathomless”(The Dream, 200). If Jung is correct andnon-human animals have similar imagesthat come forth from the same collectiveunconscious shared with the human ani-mal, these images’ “fathomless” depthshould be enough to provide non-humananimals with some meaning. If there ismeaning, some sort of myth may placethat meaning into the context of his orher life. A self-aware, non-human animalshould have some ability to interpretimages from the unconscious.

Perhaps the biggest barrier to thepossibility of non-human myth is ouropenness to the idea. Human myths oforal tradition may aid in providing amythopoetic path toward changing ourperspective. Writing down myths servesto concretize the narrative and the wis-dom within. However, as Sean Kane aptlysuggests in Wisdom of the Mythtellers,“What the mythtellers and the oral poetsknow is that truth cannot be captured ina solitary idea. It is alive and uncatchable.It tumbles about in the polyphonic storiestold by the animals and birds and moun-tains and rivers and trees” (255). Kaneresponds to the dominant use of our ownpsychological perspective in the analysisof myth. He reminds us that myths alsohold and convey the narrative wisdom ofcultures whose relationships with theirlocal landscapes are of utmost impor-tance to their survival. These myths aretold in the polyphonic voice:

an echo in human expression of aworld in which everything has intel-

“Human myths of oraltradit ion may aid in

providing amythopoetic path

toward changing ourperspective”


ligence, everything has personality,everything has voice. Polyphonyassumes that these various beingsare not just communicating individu-ally and directly to human beings;rather, they are in networks of com-munication with each other, thehuman listener being simply a partof that network. (191-192)

These myths give voice and animat-ed purpose to human and non-humananimals alike. Trans-species courtesyallows communication between beingsand aids in the survival of both.

Kane suggests polyphony shapesmyth with patterns, “rendered in such away as to preserve a place whole andsacred, safe from human meddling” (50).The absence of meddling, understood tobe improper human behavior, maintainsa balanced way of life. The human able tounderstand the value of the mythic pat-terns and share the mythic song of placeis the mythteller; the mythic song con-tains the wisdom of maintaining theproper place. In a polyphonic world, thedanger exists that most humans havestopped listening to other voices.

Even literary myth often begins inpolyphony, as in the beginning of theFinnish national epic, The Kalevala:

The cold recited me a lay, the rainkept bringing me songs.

The winds brought another song, thewaves of the sea drove some to me.

The birds added songs, the treetopsmagic sayings. (Lonnrot, 4)

Myth is gathered from every cornerof the natural world, voiced by birds andheard by a human. However, as in TheKalevala, though a narrator can begin inpolyphony, our myths often proceedtoward the singular human voice. A lossof polyphony parallels a rising humanpopulation and a landscape graduallyreflecting more human influence. In TheSpell of the Sensuous, David Abram sug-gests we can regain parts of the humansoul by coming to a new understanding ofthe speech of non-human animals andlandscapes. When he points out, “Ourobliviousness to nonhuman nature istoday held in place by ways of speakingthat simply deny intelligence to otherspecies and to nature in general” (28), itis the mythologist’s task to identify newways of speaking. Can simple images be

used to understand new myths thatexplore, explain, and acknowledge theintelligence of non-human animals?

ConclusionIt is important to consider our need

for a deeper awareness of animals’ ownmyths of their worlds. Such understand-ing may instill a new sense of trans-species courtesy, in which humans under-stand how human dominance has led tonon-human animal loss. When we lose anon-human animal species, we may belosing entire mythologies. This alreadyhappens in part when a human languagegoes extinct. Mythology can function as anatural magic, in which we rediscoverhow the language of human animalsbelongs to the greater category of animalexpression. Abram points out how humanlanguage “does not set us outside of theanimate landscape but – whether or notwe are aware of it – inscribes us morefully in its chattering, whispering, sound-ful depths” (80). We can better under-stand how non-human animals live in thisworld if we could place ourselves morefirmly in their world.

We might also discover a betterunderstanding of ourselves. Jung wrotethat, “[…] through continuous commercewith animals a man assimilates the truthof the natural mind to such an extentthat it alienates him from the cultural orspiritual mind” (Visions, 133). However,the end result of Jung’s individuationprocess is basically a negotiated unifica-tion of consciousness with the uncon-scious. A progression toward unificationhas the goal of reunification with the“natural,” or animal, mind. Jung offersthe possibility that “the animal – wedon’t know – may have a better knowl-edge of the deity than man, but of course

an unconscious knowledge” (Visions,134). But if other animals are conscious,perhaps their knowledge is of the naturalworld as a deity, a knowledge that weseem to have tried to distance ourselvesfrom. Maybe Jung is metaphorically cor-rect when he writes, “from our stand-point, an animal has no consciousness, itis exactly what we call unconsciousness”(Visions, 154), but only because animalsmight live consciously with myth as theirnatural language. If other animals live inmyth, or “still” live in myth (which impliesthat we have left that state of under-standing), their thoughts would constant-ly be of the creative power of the naturalworld. As our myths are so often aboutcreation, non-human animal myths mighthold important knowledge for us.

ReferencesAbram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous.New York: Vintage Books, 1996.

Aizenstat, Stephen. “Jungian Psychologyand the World Unconscious.”Ecopsychology. Ed. Theodore Roszak,Mary E. Gomes, and Allen D. Kanner. SanFrancisco: Sierra Club Books, 1995. 92-100.

Bekoff, Marc. The Animal Manifesto.Novato, CA: New World Library, 2010.

—-. Wild Justice. Chicago: U of Chicago P,2009.

Bordo, Susan R. The Flight to Objectivity.Albany, NY: SUNY P, 1987.

Bradshaw, G.A. “Elephant Trauma andRecovery: From Human Violence toLiberation Ecopsychology.” Diss. PacificaGraduate Institute, 2005.

—-. Elephants on the Edge. New Haven,CT: Yale U P, 2009.

Descartes, René. Discourse on Methodand Meditations on First Philosophy.Transl. by Donald A. Cress. Indianapolis:Hackett Publishing Co., 1998.

Hillman, James. Healing Fiction. Putnam,CT: Spring Publications, 1983.

—-. Re-Visioning Psychology. New York:HarperCollins, 1976.

—-. The Dream and the Underworld. NewYork: Harper & Row, 1979.

“But if other animalsare conscious, perhapstheir knowledge is ofthe natural world asa deity, a knowledgethat we seem to have

tried to distanceourselves from”

Joseph P. Muszynski


Jung, Carl Gustave. Letters Vol. 1: 1906-1950. Ed. Gerhard Adler. Trans. R.F.C.Hull. Bollingen Series XCV. Princeton, NJ:Princeton U P, 1973.

—-. Letters Vol. 2: 1951-1961. Ed.Gerhard Adler. Trans. R.F.C. Hull.Bollingen Series XCV. Princeton, NJ:Princeton U P, 1975.

—-. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra: Notes on theSeminar Given in 1934-1939 By C.G. Jung.Ed. James L. Jarrett. 2 Volumes. BollingenSeries XCIX. Princeton, NJ: Princeton U P,1988.

—-. “Recent Thoughts on Schizophrenia.”The Collected Works of C.G. Jung. Vol. 3. Trans. R.F.C. Hull. Bollingen Series XX.Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1982, 250-255.

—-. “The Structure of the Psyche.” TheCollected Works of C.G. Jung. Vol. 8.Trans. R.F.C. Hull. Bollingen Series XX.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1981, 139-158.

—-. Visions: Notes of the Seminar Given in1930-1934. Vol. 1. Ed. Claire Douglas. Bollingen Series XCIX. Princeton, NJ:Princeton U P, 1997.

Kane, Sean. Wisdom of the Mythtellers.Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press, 1998.

Lonnrot, Elias. The Kalevala or Poems ofthe Kaleva District. Transl. FrancisPeabody Magoun, Jr. Harvard U P:Cambridge, MA, 1963.

Regan, Tom. The Case for Animal Rights.Berkeley: U of California P, 1983.

Roszak, Theodore. “Where Psyche MeetsGaia.” In Ecopsychology. Ed. TheodoreRoszak, Mary E. Gomes, and Allen D.Kanner. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books,1995. 1-17.

Russack, Neil. Animal Guides. Toronto:Inner City Books, 2002.

Simon, Julian L., and Aaron Wildavsky.“On Species Loss, The Absence of Data, and Risks to Humanity.” The ResourcefulEarth. Ed. Julian L. Simon and HermanKahn. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984. 171-183.

Turner, Mark. The Literary Mind. NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Joseph P. Muszynski, Ph.D., is a writerand mythologist, holding degrees inMythology, Film, and Anthropology. Hecurrently edits for The AmericanNaturalist journal, while also working onmultiple projects, including a book oncomics and myth. He also hopes toexpand his work on animal's myths.

Carry Me HomeBy Naomi Ruth Lowinsky

The poem is my chariot transported as I am through mid-summer’s long twilight round the great round

maidenmakerancestor

back to the land of the swinging bridgeivy caves great mother oakwhere I was a wild horse girl

In those days the voice of the father ruled fear stirred the waters lilies pulled petals in close

The poem was my chariot the words knew the way They were horses out of a cave painting

but when spooked O my runaway chariot

how you plungeinto nightmare

The castle crumblesGrandmother tiger slashes my writing hand

How’s a girl to light the primal fire when Isis is a mound of pottery shards and Sappho a forgotten mode of song Yet

She sings to me as ocean devours the sunShe sings to me in measures of moonfor only the ancestors know

how to slow those horses downslow breathslow heartgather my fragments to greet

first light

Poems build a temple deep in the woodsIsis appears in shining form

wraps me in Lesbos

SumerBabylon

the lips of the lustful earth kiss mine

transported as I am by every poem I’ve ever danced sung wrestled wrought

wrung out of harvest moons

Words are my horses out of a cave paintingthe chariot is made of bone and tiger clawSappho takes the reins She sings me through

midsummers’ long twilight round the great round

maidenmakerancestor

across the swinging bridge

Poetry

The Mythology of Animals

8<Back to TOC

Off Trackoil on linen, 107 x 107 cm

Art

Land is the inescapable conditionof life, the prime material ofourorigins and destiny. In the relationships between the primaryearthly elements can be found thepossibilities of body, soul and spirit. It is through painting that Ilearn to perceive.

Painting for me is a phenomenological exploration ofwhat is and I refer to interior andexterior qualities including theimagination.

Kings Canyonoil on canvas 122 x 153 cm

The Dispossessedoil on canvas, 102 x 122 cm

by Peter Cameron

Peter Cameron is largely self taught and has been paint-ing, drawing and sculpting for his entire adult life. He hasmounted about 20 solo shows and has his works collectedprivately and by various Public Institutions. He lives inSydney, Australia.

[Selected as COVER ART, Depth Insights Fall 2014]

Depth Insights, Volume 6, Fall 2014

“

”


Shocked into silence, lips sealed against a truth that poundsagainst the stirrings of the heart.

This is not a Silence that heals.

This silence thrusts truth into the dank, depths of cavernsbeneath theunderworld, its relentless cries, heard by no one.

I have been bound to secrecy by my misplaced loyalties to thegods of my betrayal and inequity.

My voice has not been heard for millennia. Lost is the key to mystery that has caged my right to life.

I will no longer be silenced.I will not be placated into submission and obedience.

I am not Nice. I am raw, I am tender.

My design was misconceived. The aid that came was too swift to hold substance.

my direction, unclear... my wings guided me westward.....

Yet, I arrive in the east.

The Prisoner’s SilenceBy Eva Rider

Jeremy Taylor, creator of this 8-panel comic strip entitled “Dreams in World Religion,” is the co-founder and Past President of theInternational Association for the Study of Dreams, (IASD), Founder-Director of the Marin Institute for Projective Dream Work, (MIPD), andis a Member of the Board of the Unitarian Universalist Society for Community Ministries (UUSCM)

Comic strip continued on page 13

Comics by Jeremy Taylor1of 4

Poetry


The biblical story of Adam and Evein the Garden of Eden (Genesis

Chapters 2-3) is foundational to ourWestern culture and has influenced theupbringing and psychology of all of us,whether we realize it or not. Mythologistsas well as many biblical scholars recognizethe story as being in the genre of myth,which makes it appropriate to analyze itfrom the perspective of depth psychology,among other approaches. Indeed, asJoseph Campbell concluded, “This storyyields its meaning only to a psychologicalinterpretation” (2001, p. 50). Further, CarlJung (CW 9.2, para. 230) had already writ-ten that “cosmogonic myths are, at bot-tom, symbols for the coming of conscious-ness.” But the literature about the Edenstory taking such a psychological approachis scant, largely due to traditional andproblematic gaps and tensions betweenacademic disciplines. My recent book, TheMythology of Eden, is in part an interdisci-plinary effort to take on this fascinatingand important task and advance ourknowledge on the subject. Below I distillsome of my findings from this approach tothe Eden myth, and I hope they breaksome new ground.

The Story as ToldIn the story, Yahweh warns Adam

(before Eve is created) not to eat from thetree of knowledge of good and evil, or hewill die that very day. In many mytholo-gies and religions, including traditionalCanaanite-Israelite religion, sacred treeshave been thought of as conduits for con-necting with and directly experiencing thedivine, whereas the Eden story’s authorinsisted upon a covenant (contract) rela-tionship between the divine (Yahweh) onthe one hand and the human (earthly,profane, non-divine) sphere on the other.In the ancient biblical world, one way toexperience the divine was to partake ofthe fruit or other produce of the sacredtree or plant, thus imbibing the essence ofthe divinity represented by or immanentwithin the tree, but this practice was con-

demned in the Bible.When Eve was tempted by the ser-

pent to eat the forbidden fruit, she decidedto eat it for various reasons, but mainlybecause she desired wisdom (Gen. 3:6).This purpose was realized when, immedi-ately after Eve and then Adam ate the fruit,“the eyes of both were opened” (Gen. 3:7),and Yahweh remarked (to other divinebeings), “See, the man has become likeone of us [deities], knowing good and evil”(Gen. 3:22). The questions become: Whatkind of knowledge/wisdom did Adam andEve acquire, and what kind of transforma-tion did these archetypal humans under-go? Both relate to the psyche.

The Creation of the Cosmos fromChaos

In ancient Near Eastern creationmyths, there was no such thing as cre-ation from nothing. Before the creation,there was always a formless watery sub-stance characterized as “chaos” (see, e.g.,Gen. 1:1) because at that stage no time,space, or other order existed. The same istrue before the beginning of creation inthe Eden story (a separate creation storyfrom that in Genesis 1, by a different, ear-lier author), only a different metaphor forchaos was used, that of a desert waste-land (Gen. 2:4-5). The ordered cosmos iscreated like a bubble within the surround-ing chaos and is bordered by the solid fir-mament above and the ground below, asshown in Diagram 1. The cosmos (includ-ing humans) is made of the same sub-stance as chaos; the only difference is thatit is ordered, has multiplicity, and thethings created have names given by the

creator decreeing their function and des-tiny.

This motif of creation from chaoswas universal in the ancient Near East andcommon around the world. Why? Marie-Louise von Franz (1995, pp. 2-4) explainedthat this is a natural result of our psycheexperiencing its own ego-consciousnesscoming into being as “world-becoming.”As far as our psyche is concerned, ourbecoming aware of the world and theworld coming into existence are one andthe same. This process occurred not onlywhen humans first developed ego-con-sciousness but also occurs in any youngchild’s development (as shown by devel-opmental psychology) and in the life ofadults, such as when we wake up in themorning from an unconscious state andorder falls into place. Our unconscious hasno sense of space or time and little senseof order; it is indeed chaotic and is experi-enced as such. Thus, the dawn of con-sciousness and our image of the creationof the world are parallel and relatedprocesses which throw up corresponding,related symbols. The notion of primordialchaos is a natural projection of an arche-typal image that helps make the unknowncomprehensible.

Chaos as Evil and SinAfter the creation, chaos is not elimi-

nated but continues outside the cosmos,always trying to encroach upon and undo

“Our unconscious has nosense of space or time

and little sense oforder; it is indeed

chaotic and is experienced as such.”

By Arthur George

Jung in the Garden of EdenA Myth of the Transformation

of Consciousness


Jung in the Garden of Eden

the created cosmos. Particular things are“created” only to the extent that chaos isabsent in them. But in fact nothing is per-fect (except the initial Garden of Eden);each thing contains some element ofchaos. In nature, chaos is manifested innatural disasters such as earthquakes,floods, and violent storms. Since humansare made of the same substance as therest of the cosmos (recall Adam beingformed from the ground and water),chaos can and will inevitably erupt inhumans too. In modern psychologicalterms, this is the unconscious at work. Inthe biblical world, chaos was typicallysymbolized by a serpent, so when in theEden story the serpent appears beforeEve, the story’s ancient audience knewthat chaos had entered the Garden andEve’s mind. Her dialogue with the serpentrepresents this manifestation of chaoswithin herself and inner turmoil.

In normative terms, chaos is viewedas bad (evil), while creation is good. Afterall, God had created the ordered cosmosfrom chaos, so that’s what He wanted.The cosmos in this respect has a teleologi-cal nature, which should be respected,maintained, and furthered. Chaos mani-fested in humans is what results in humanevil (which the biblical authors saidincludes pagan religion). This is whatYahweh warns Cain about: “sin is lurkingat the door; its desire is for you, but youmust master it” (Gen. 4:7, by the sameauthor as the Eden story). The same bibli-cal author later described this chaotic traitwithin human nature as wild imaginings ofthe human heart (in the ancient worldthought to be the repository of thought)(Gen. 6:5; 8:21), much like Eve’s imagin-ings during her temptation (Gen. 3:6).Later rabbinical writings characterized thistrait as the yezer hara (“impulse to evil”),which became the standard rabbinicalexplanation for the origin of evil. Theancients did not understand the nature ofthe unconscious as such, but they didreach the insight that much of humanbehavior, especially evil behavior, stemsfrom urges deep within and barely sus-ceptible to our rational, conscious control.

The Antidote: The Knowledge ofGood and Evil, and the Law

Adam and Eve’s transgression in theGarden showed what happens if unre-stricted human nature takes its naturalcourse. The author had to provide a reme-

dy. His antidote was twofold: the knowl-edge of good and evil, combined with theLaw (here in its incipient form).

First, the immediate result of eatingthe forbidden fruit was to acquire thegodlike knowledge of good and evil. Whatthis knowledge consists of has been thesubject of much debate, but actually theHebrew Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls gofairly far in explaining it. In several pas-sages they describe this knowledge asbeing acquired (or perfected) as one pass-es from minority to adulthood, at the ageof 20 (e.g., Isa. 7:14-16). Thus, when theHebrews rebelled against Yahweh in the

wilderness of Sinai, those 20 or older(except for the virtuous Joshua and Caleb)were implicated in this sin and so werenot allowed to enter the Promised Land(hence the long stay in the wilderness),while minors under 20 had no knowledgeof good and evil and so were consideredincapable of sin, and therefore wouldeventually enter the Promised Land (Num.14:29-30; Deut. 1:39). The Hebrew Biblegoes on to portray Israel’s best kings,David and Solomon, has having an extradose of the knowledge of good and evil,which is described as wisdom and apower of discernment (2 Sam. 14:17, 20;1 Kings 3:9-12, 28; 4:29-31).

The above understanding meansthat Adam and Eve’s transgression did notrise to the level of sin, since they had notyet acquired the knowledge of good andevil. They were like minors without legalcapacity. In fact, their transgression wasthe result of human nature already at cre-ation having the aforementioned inclina-tion toward evil, not the cause of our sin-fulness, as claimed in the doctrine of origi-nal sin.

Given that evil is a form of chaos andgood is a manifestation of the divinelycreated order of creation, the knowledgeof good and evil is nothing less than the

godlike knowledge of how the universeworks in terms of the dynamic betweenchaos and order, both at the cosmic leveland at the human moral level of good andevil. This understanding was likewise aninsight into how the human psyche works.According to the biblical writers, in princi-ple the knowledge of good and evil iswhat can (if applied) enable humans toavoid sin and further good.

As shown by the snowballing ofhuman evil leading up to Noah’s flood,however, in practice merely having thisknowledge was not enough for good toprevail. Humans needed divine guidanceand assistance. It was for this reason thatYahweh bestowed on the Hebrews theLaw, a set of ordering principles which, iffollowed, would result in good prevailing,as well as the greatness of the Israelitenation. Having the knowledge of good andevil would enable humans to understandand follow the Law. This scheme is shownin Diagram 2, presenting the knowledgeof good and evil as a type of merism,encompassing these opposites at the cos-mic and human level.

The Psychic Nature of theTransgression

Having the knowledge of good andevil enables humans to discern and under-stand both external and internal (psychic)reality, in particular pairs of opposites,symbolized by the opposites of good andevil but including others in the story suchas male and female, and God andhumans. Therefore, Adam and Eve’sacquisition of this knowledge constitutedan enlightenment and transformation intoa higher psychic level, that of full ego-con-sciousness. Before that, they were miredin a lower psychic state dominated by theunconscious that Erich Neumann (1954)

“According to thebiblical writers,in principle the

knowledge of good and evil is what can

(if applied) enablehumas to avoid sin and further good”


famously called the “uroboros,” where allis one and there are no pairs of opposites(pp. 5-38). Yahweh’s warning that Adamwould “die” upon eating the fruit, maywell render this moment a kind of initia-tion scenario, with the old human dyingand entering a new state of being. Thistransformation is what made humansresponsible and accountable for theiractions (especially before God), trulycapable of sin or of good, and ready to actin the real world. That is when Adam andEve exited the Garden. In psychologicalterms, they were not driven from theGarden but grew up and walked out ontheir own. As Joseph Campbell explained,“The Garden is a metaphor for the follow-ing: our minds” (2001, p. 50).

Although no act of “original sin”occurred, the Eden story remains princi-pally a story explaining human nature, inparticular our psyche. Especially impor-tant is the story’s recognition of the roleof chaos in the psyche, which todaymeans the unconscious and especially theShadow. As Jung recognized, “it is a fright-ening thought that man also has a shad-ow-side to him, consisting not just of littleweaknesses and foibles, but of a positivelydemonic dynamism” (CW 7, para. 35).This chaos eventually came to be repre-sented by the Devil. The author of theEden story honestly brought out this psy-chic fact, and he did his best to fashion away to deal with it. His remedy was theapplication of our knowledge of good andevil (an aspect of ego-consciousness) plusthe Law.

What Does the Eden Story Mean for Us?In considering the relevance of the

Eden story in today’s world, we mustreevaluate the biblical author’s remedy

and determine what our conclusionsmean for us individually (spirituality, psy-chology), as well as socio-politically interms of criminology, social policy, ethicsand morality, education, religious doctrine(or abandonment thereof), and law. Thiscomplicated endeavor would take us farbeyond the scope of this article, so I willend with just two points in this regard.

First, to the extent the biblical reme-dy involves conscious application of theknowledge of good and evil, this seemsinevitably to involve, at least in part, ego-consciousness repressing and suppressingcontents of our unconscious, which mod-ern psychology has shown to cause stillmore problems.

Second, historically, the biblicalauthors’ reliance on prophylactic laws tocontrol human behavior has had mixedresults. Further, such approach assumesthat the human psyche is incapable of fur-ther change, even though it had trans-formed once before in the Garden. As aresult, the prophylactic approach treatssymptoms rather than the underlyingproblems, including evolved traits thatonce had survival value but which in manycases are now dysfunctional.

An alternative approach is toendeavor to transform the human psycheto a higher level, in which case the need

for prophylactic measures and suppres-sion and repression of the unconsciouswould lessen. Such is the approach, forexample, being explored by Allan Combs(2009), the integral psychology movementchampioned by Ken Wilber (1996; 2000),and other progressive thinkers and initia-tives. One means toward this end maywell be spiritual practices giving a directexperience of divinity (however con-ceived), the type of approach condemnedin the Bible but which resulted in the ele-vation of Adam and Eve’s consciousness.

ReferencesCampbell, Joseph (2001). Thou Art That.Novato, California: New World Library.Combs, Allan (2009). ConsciousnessExplained Better: Toward an IntegralUnderstanding of the Multi-facetedNature of Consciousness. St. Paul:Paragon House.Franz, Marie-Louise von (1995). CreationMyths. Rev. ed. Boston: Shambhala.Neumann, Erich (1954). The Origins andHistory of Consciousness. Princeton:Princeton University Press.Wilber, Ken (1996). Up from Eden: ATranspersonal View of Human Evolution.Wheaton Illinois: Quest Books.Wilber, Ken (2000). Integral Psychology:Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology,Therapy. Boston: Shambhala.

Arthur George, J.D., is a cultural historianand mythologist with a particular back-ground in the cultures, mythologies, andlanguages of the ancient Near East. He isthe author (together with his wife Elena)of The Mythology of Eden (2014), ananalysis of the Eden story primarily fromthe standpoint of mythological studies,and frequently presents at scholarly con-ferences on the above topics.

“In psychological terms,they were not drivenfrom the Garden butgrew up and walked

out on their own”

Arthur George


We are here as we are there Blown out through these standing waves Conserving and expendingBringing us into this ever so delicate interval The unseen unison Secured from two pointsFrolicking between what is above and what is below We are orchestrating ourselves through one another Conduits of reeds and string Wet and dry, sharp and denseThe waves of sound created sight so clear that at notedpoints the smell of a touch was tasted by the heart Our souls singingReaching this crescendo, blown out again through stand-ing waves We fold back against these echoing chambers Pump

Visceral Be still in this interference, as harmony blinds our sightto disappearanceOur Pythagorean cloak, woven with suspended chords The unseen heard And we are dancing motionless, hinged between twopointsIs it your voice that translates through this hand; or thishand that translates you into voice Do I dare to turn and risk the silence of the loss of thishand If only to bring our meeting to this octave destinationonce again We shall push down and blow out Words, and rhymes, and rhythmic stories that tell of ourdancing with the overtonesQuivering


Comicsby Jeremy Taylor


2of 4

Octave DestinationBy Shelley Lynn Pizzuto

Comic strip continued from page 9

Poetry


My mind was elsewhere. I wasdriving as if on autopilot,

headed down a familiar road, one I’dtraveled hundreds of times before. Butthis time the road was taking me some-where new, somewhere deeper thanbefore. My nerves seemed to sense myproximity to her home, like a dog headedto the vet. I breathed deep and pulledinto her driveway. The frigid air blewshards of snow against my face as Iwalked to her front door. The road hadbrought me to my destination, but myreal journey was just beginning.

In his lectures at the Tavistock Clinic,C. G. Jung (1968) addressed an eager andengaged audience with his exciting appli-cation of word association tests. Whileexplaining the simple procedure of speak-ing a word to a patient, recording theirreply word, and timing the space thathangs in between the two, he says some-thing quite profound. He talks of the orig-inal intent of this “test”—it was meant tostudy mental associations—and explainedthis proved to be too idealistic. But whatcould be studied, however, were the mis-takes. Jung said, “You ask a simple wordthat a child can answer, and a highlyintelligent person cannot reply. Why?That word has hit on what I call a com-plex” (p. 53). Complexes, as defined byJung (1972), are fragments of the psychethat have split off from the whole due totraumatic events or incongruities experi-enced throughout one’s life. These aretypically highly charged emotionally, andhave a relatively high degree of autono-my (p. 121).

These two items, the associationtest and the complex, are intricately tiedtogether. A “litmus test” for identifyingcomplexes, the word association test(WAT), also known as the AssociationExperiment (AE) or Association Test(AT)—I shall use these terms interchange-ably—is a powerful tool for movingbeyond the conscious and into theunconscious of the individual. Herein liesits beauty. Similar to the interpretation ofdreams or images within psychoanalysis,

the WAT gives the analyst another tool tohelp bring the unconscious to the surfacefor the patient, and reveal for the patientnew aspects of his or her inner land-scape. As the WAT exposes the complex-es for the individual, so the ego is facedwith a choice of how to proceed.Complexes are inescapable, woven intothe human condition, and deeply person-al. However, if the goal of the individualis to integrate the complexes into anevolving consciousness, the ego will beginto expand and become more flexible. Thisis the telos, the goal of the complex(Shalit, 2002, p. 26), and the arché, itsbeginning, is the WAT.

She invites me in and I remove mysnow-laden shoes. We ascend the narrowstaircase up to her office, and as I turnthe corner at the top of the steps, myeyes are gripped by a myriad of figurineslining the walls. Literally thousands ofthem, all types, all sizes, all colors andforms, begging to be seen, begging to beencountered. Each one seems imbuedwith its own story, and just waiting toplay in the sand. We sit at a tiny hand-made desk and she lights a single tapercandle. We talk a bit about the holidays,about my son’s first Christmas, about herrecent illness.

Meanwhile my head seems notquite there, not quite present. Perhaps Iam a little nervous, or maybe a bit unsureof what’s about to transpire. We talkmore about complexes and she offers mea metaphor for how they come to be. Shedraws lines onto a 3x5 card, four horizon-tally across four vertically, to form a grid.She explains that our psyche is like a fish-erman’s net and everything we experi-

ence passes through this net. In eachlocation where one line in the net inter-sects another is an archetypal node. Asour experiences pass through this net,many things fall right through. Yet thosehighly emotional moments, the super-charged events, are magnetically attract-ed to these crisscrossed intersections.Pulled in by the archetype’s lure, theevents gather around the junctures andbegin to tightly wrap round the node,creating a bundle of like experiences. Thisclustered knot is a complex. The experi-ences we have continue to flow throughthe net, and the archetypes continue toattract, building up around them. Thearchetype is the essence or nucleus ofthe complex—it gives the complex form,structure, and meaning. Analysis then isthe process of slowly unwinding theexperiences from its tight coil around thecore, and reflecting on each event, eachemotion, and each association the experi-ence yields. To better understand oneselfand the personal lived experiences is theultimate goal. And here is where the WATcan be so helpful.

Sir Francis Galton (1879) is creditedas the first to have scientific interest inword associations. Looking at the opera-tions of the mind, he set out to provethat ideas present themselves through anassociation, and that these associationscould not be conjured up (n.p.). Othersthroughout the late 1800s were showinginterest in this association test. FranzRiklin, a Swiss psychiatrist who wouldlater become the first secretary of theInternational Psychoanalytic Association,came to the Burghölzli Hospital in Zurichafter having worked on variations ofGalton’s word association experiment.Jung soon took over Riklin’s project and,using the idea of Freud’s free associationexperiments, began to refine the wordassociation test by incorporating aspectsof the temporal into the results. Hebecame increasingly interested not onlyin the response words the patientsreplied with, but also the time in which ittook them to respond. Jung began to rec-

Traveling the Royal RoadA Personal Encounter With the Word

Association TestBy Drew H. Smith

“To better understandoneself and the

personal livedexperiences is the

ult imate goal”


Traveling the Royal Road

ognize how the amount of time betweenthe initial stimulus word and theresponse word differed between individu-als. He noticed there was often some-thing personally distressing, or a momentof hesitation was noted, with some of theresponses to the stimulus word. WithRiklin, Jung coined the term “complex.”With Eugen Bleuler’s help, Jung com-prised a list of 156 stimulus words. Thiswas later expanded to over 400 words,and was tested on everyone from epilep-tics to schizophrenics to hysterics, andothers. This became Jung’s primary focusat Burghölzli between 1901 and 1904(Bair, 2003, pp. 64-66).

My feet are chilly in the upperroom, and I can’t help but be distractedby the figurines surrounding me, watch-ing me. The taper candle sits on the desk,burning between us. She sits across fromme, with paper, pencil, and stopwatch atthe ready. Before we begin, she goesover the procedure with me. I alreadyknew the procedure, however I feel a lit-tle more anxious than I imagined I would.Her explanation helped re-focus me, andremind me that I’ve got nothing to hide,that this isn’t a “test” per se and I beganto relax a little. Fortunately, she explains,the test is no longer 400 words—or even100 words. It has been reduced down to61 stimulus words. “You can tell as muchby 61 words as you can 100,” she says;plus, the process can be mentallyexhausting. Fewer words help keep thetest subject and the analyst a bit morefresh and able. The concept is easyenough: she will read the list of stimuluswords, one after the other. For each ofthese words, I will respond back as quick-ly as possible, with the first word orimage that comes to mind. I am to tryand limit the reply to a single word if Ican. She will record my response word,and also the time it takes to respond. Sheasks if I understand, to which I reply,“Yes.” And then we begin.

Verena Kast (1980), a training ana-lyst at the C. G. Jung Institute andProfessor of Psychology at the Universityof Zurich, wrote a marvelous little guide-book entitled “DasAssoziationsexperiment In DerTherapeutischen Praxis (The AssociationExperiment in Therapeutical Practice).” Init she gives very detailed steps on how toconduct the Association Experiment, alsoknown as the Association Test, and some

practical advice on setting the propermood. One suggestion for this test’s useis in activating the unconscious. If too lit-tle unconscious material is being broughtinto therapy by the patient, then the testis a way to safely tap into that material. Ifevaluating the results of the test is han-dled properly, it has a very “therapeuticeffect” on the subject—either by relaxingthem because unconscious and repressedmaterial has finally been exhumed, or ithas been stirred up, giving the therapist agood launching point for further analysis(p. 9).

Kast (1980) acknowledges that forthe test subject, the idea of a “test”might, in and of itself, constellate a com-plex centered around school or taking atest. She encourages the analyst to createan atmosphere of relaxation as this mayhelp counterbalance the anxiety. Theroom used to administer the test shouldbe quiet and comfortable, and the experi-menter and test subject sit facing eachother. If necessary, a dry run can be donefor the test subject, using some benignwords that will not trigger the activationof a complex. When the subject is ready,the experimenter begins by speaking thestimulus word. The experimenter alsobegins to measure time with the stop-watch the moment he or she says eitherthe first vowel or the first accentuate syl-lable of the stimulus word. Time meas-urement stops when the first letter of theresponse word is uttered. Time is meas-ured in 1/5 of a second (pp. 9-10).

“Play,” she says. “Child,” I reply. Scribble scribble scribble. “Mouth.”“Open.”Scribble scribble scribble.“Free,” she says.“Prison,” comes out of my mouth.

Jung (1968), speaking at Tavistock,recounts to the conference attendeesthat one use of the Association Test (AT)is in criminal cases. Back home in Zurich,Jung explains he is sometimes called onby the courts as a “last straw.” He wouldstructure the stimulus words to havedirect correlation to the crime the subjectis accused of committing. These keywords are also clustered together withinthe AT to provide an intensified sensitiz-ing effect on the unconscious emotions.When the AT is “put to a criminal” and herefuses to take it, he indicts himselfbecause everyone will then know he isguilty. If he takes the test and is secretlyguilty of the accused crime, he still indictshimself because his reactions/responsesare all beyond the control of his will andtherefore betray him (p.54). The key ele-ments in the AT are both the responseand the response time. Looking just atthe response a story will emerge. Yet it isthe response time that reveals how deepthe story goes.

Jung recalls administering the testto a 35-year old man. This man, a “decentindividual,” had extended response timeswhen the stimulus word had anything todo with the crime in question (a stab-bing). However, the individual was quiteunaware to the fact he had such a pro-longed emotional response. Words likeknife, lance, to beat, pointed, and bottleall produced an extended response time,and the individual was totally oblivious toit. Jung was able to piece together whathappened based both on the reactionwords and reaction times. The individualwas shocked at Jung’s deduction, andconfessed the entire thing on the spot (p.56).

“Car.” Stimulus word.“Drive,” I respond.“Make.” Another stimulus word.“Cake,” I say. “Friend,” she says.“Foe.”“Stupid.”“Smart.”

I remain perfectly still throughout allof this. Having read Kast’s book prior totaking the test, I am fully conscious of myphysical behavior, recognizing that eventhe slightest head tilt, shiver, or fidget isrecorded and likely significant. I starestraight ahead, emotionless. I recognize a

“If too lit t le unconsciousmaterial is being

brought into therapy bythe patient, then the

test is a way to safelytap into that material”


pattern emerging already—I’m replyingto the stimulus word with many oppo-sites or “clang” reactions, as Kast callsthem. These are rhymes or quotationsand seem to just float off my tongue.These responses seem rote. Why am Ireplying this way? I wonder alreadywhat’s made evident from my responses.I’m likely overthinking this, and thoughtsabout my reaction time race through mymind. Should I speed it up? Maybe I’msounding too forced? It’s amazing howquickly the brain can think full sentences.It feels like an eternity between my replyand the next stimulus word. Too muchempty time left available to ponder whatword might be next.

“Together.”“Separate.”“Go.”“Stop.”

We work our way through 61 stimu-lus words. It takes all of 10 minutes tocomplete this experiment. Next comes 20minutes for recovery. I stand up andstretch, wander about the room andshrewdly return the gaze of the figurinesthat had been watching me since this allbegan. In the momentary silence I reflecton what just took place, trying to recallthe word that gave me the most difficul-ty, the one that felt looming, that feltunanswerable, the one that took a fullfour-and-a-half seconds to answer, theword I had just responded to literally twominutes before—and my mind was blank.I finally break the silence in the room byasking where she collected all of thesecharacter tchotchkes. They are from allover, and she has more scattered acrossthe globe—over 6,000 in her collection.When about 20 minutes had passed, wesit back down and she explains that thistime, she will give me the stimulus wordsagain, and I will try to tell her what myoriginal response was. This is called theReproduction.

Jung (1959/1990, p. 4) states thatcomplexes are housed within the person-al unconscious, and archetypes belong tothe collective unconscious. However helater revises that concept and recognizesthat complexes, too, exist within the col-lective unconscious. Whereas the person-al complexes would be identified as apart of one’s own psyche, such as a soul,the collective complex would exhibit itself

as something apart from the individual,something foreign, such as a spirit or zeit-geist (Jung, 1972, p. 312), able to hold anindividual, a community, culture, or coun-try within its grip. It is here we have aclearer understanding of the depth ofpower a complex may demonstrate,especially when arriving from the collec-tive unconscious. This would be akin to“possession” and tend to be highlycharged and powerfully mythic. Theytend to cause an individual to lose allconnection with reality or bring the groupinto a state of pathological extremism.One could argue this is what happenedwith Hitler and his rise to power andtyrannical damage to the Jews and theworld. His complexes were not necessari-ly of the personal unconscious, but arosefrom the deeper collective. An exampleused by Jung is the disciples on the day ofPentecost—when they were filled withthe Holy Spirit. Here we encounter adeeply mythic quality, but it is not adestructive possession (p. 315).

The Reproduction section of my testgoes quickly. The analyst says that a high-er number of accurate reproductions isan indicator of intelligence. I got 39,which seems to fall into this category. SoI guess I’ve got that going for me. Shereviews the responses and compares thetimes. This will help identify whichresponse times are indicative of a com-plex. As she does some calculations, wesit and talk through the process. She intu-itively asks me about a few of the associ-ations. Some analysts will always go forthe “loaded” words, but some of the lesscharged words can still be evocative.Sometimes the reason the analyst thinks Isaid what I said isn’t really the reason Isaid it. She begins by asking me about theassociations I didn’t recall—she findsthese most interesting. She makes a com-ment that there are several persevera-tions in my responses, meaning there

seems to be a disturbance brought on byone word, that then carries across a fewfollowing words. Oftentimes these perse-verations are time-related, and help toextend the response time. She also men-tions my use of predicates, also known asstereotypies. This is when the same wordis used three or more times, countingboth the first and second trials, as aresponse word. “Like the word ‘Sad,’” shesays. “You used it at least five times. Isthat a common thread in your life?”

Kast (1980) breaks down varioustypes of reactions and explains how toevaluate the test in general. To begin, thetherapist will look at both form and con-tent of the experiment. Form incorpo-rates reaction time, the type of complexindicator most frequently causing a reac-tion, the recovery after a complex indica-tor, and the style of word association—factual or egocentric? For content, thetherapist observes interesting reactionsand responses to the stimulus word thatrequire some explanation. Of course, thetherapist will have a hypothesis regardingthis connection, but it is merely that—ahypothesis.

She continues by listing severaltypes of reactions that help us to catego-rize the interrelation and interpretationof the response words for the test sub-ject. These are:

•Prolonged response time•No reaction within 30 seconds•Lack of reproduction or false

reproduction•Repetition, misunderstanding, or not

understanding the stimulus word•Mimic, movement, or laughter •Stuttering or mispronunciation•“Clang” reactions—including rhymes or

quotations•Disconnected reactions •Multi-word reactions or sentences•Neologisms, strong language or

colloquialisms•Stereotypies

(Kast, 1980, pp. 11-15)

When looking through the subject’stest, all these factors must be consideredas alienating only one factor will notallow the therapist or the subject to drawa valid conclusion. It is the total packag-ing of these factors that helps draw thecomplete picture.

We talk about my past, centering

“Some analysts willalways go for the

“loaded” words, butsome of the less

charged words can sti l lbe evocative”

Drew H. Smith


the conversation of the threads of sad-ness running through my life. We discussmy childhood, my parents’ divorce, mem-ories of alienation and feelings of beingalone, not just as a child, but also as anadult. This leads into conversations aboutother stereotypies showing up: Happy,Great, Shame, Tired, Foe. These threadsrun through my life and come throughclearly in my replies. Her curiosity drawsmore of my story out of me and I feelcomfortably exposed. Emotions feel pret-ty even-keeled as we talk, and in the backof my mind I keep wondering, “Why am Inot feeling more strongly right now?” Shearticulates an observation that, even asshe says it, begins to feel like a pebble inmy shoe. It’s a feeling I cannot shake orwalk off. She noticed during the test thatI sat incredibly still. She remarked Ishowed very little affect, rarely did I evenmove the entire time. I just staredstraight ahead, almost robotically.

We reach the end of our sessionwith a question about one complex indi-cator—the word “Force.” This was, by far,the longest response time of them all.Almost a full five seconds. Not only that,but I failed to reproduce the response.It’s as if a complex hoisted a flag, beganfrantically waving it, yelling, “Here I am!Right here!” She asks me why I thought ittook so long to answer and I cannot givea reason. She asks what images came tomind, and I reply, “None.” As I prepare toleave, to head home, she says to me,“You may dream tonight. We’ve stirredup a lot of your unconscious. Pay atten-tion to your dreams.” That night, I dreamof zombies.

Over a month goes by and onceagain I’m listening to the rhythmic vibra-tions of tires on asphalt; I’m cruisingdown that familiar road, headed back togo over the results of my AssociationExperiment. I’ve had time to think, toprocess, and to analyze my own experi-ence with the test. I begin to realize thatwhen I took the test, my life was sched-uled full with compartmentalization.Indeed I was living life, and a damn goodone, yet I was feeling very emotionallytruncated at that time. My primary objec-tive, day after day, was to get the mostout of every second, squeeze in as muchas possible, reach the deadlines, com-plete every task, until I finally lay downon the pillow and fall into dreamlesssleep, night after night. I had structure

and discipline and schedule, and anydowntime I may have gained throughoutthe day was immediately replaced by theneeds of my newborn son and my wife.Of course, this was not a bad thing—I’dwaited over 14 years to experience thejoys of having a child. But it began todawn on me, built into my day there wasno time to enjoy… me.

This dream of zombies, I guess youcould say, is a recurring theme for me.Zombies tend to represent somethingnon-thinking and non-feeling. And herethey are, always chasing me and I amalways running away. Their objective is toconsume me, to assimilate me. There isno “leader” of the zombie horde—just athoughtless primal drive to feed and kill.It is an instinctual movement, one foot infront of the other, moving only towardsone goal. There is no sense of self, noattention to detail, to the beauty of thesurroundings. The zombie is perpetuallyin a state of survival mode, living inordered chaos. And then I see it. That’sme. I am Zombie. But I don’t want to be;

my unconscious is warning me, “You’regoing to get bit. You’re dangerously closeto becoming one of the undead.” Thisrealization hits me with a wallop and itexplains why my affect was so unrespon-sive while taking the test, and why manyof my response words were merely“clanging” and filled with stereotypies. Itexplains how I could hear the stimulusword “Make” and reply with “Cake.” Orrespond to “Red” with “Blue.” Of deeperconcern though was replying to the word“Love” with “Joy” but not able to repro-duce the word “Joy”: instead I rememberit as “Hate.”

Many of the incorrect reproductionsI responded with were opposites of theoriginal response word. This is indicative,according to the analyst, of some prettypowerful dark stuff that only comes outunder stress. It’s as if my shadow side

(positive or negative) tends to answerwhen under stress. Perhaps the initialresponse was my shadow side attemptingto convey a certain aspect or personathroughout the test. Yet when it cametime to remember the word, there wasless stress, and the more authentic “me”was able to speak.

As she goes over some of the com-plex indicators, she observes a strongmother complex and father complex. Thiscomes out in response words like“Ashamed” and “Pain,” and like respond-ing to the stimulus word “Disappoint”with “Sad.” This is not shocking.Dieckmann (1996) states, “[E]very humanbeing and hence every patient has bothmother and father complexes. In thecourse of an analysis, both have to beworked on, made conscious, and workedthrough in all their subtleties to theextent possible” (p. 68). And of course,going into the test, I knew these wouldbe present. However, not every answernecessarily indicates a complex. Thenumerous amounts of stereotypies withinmy replies are indicative of superficiality.But I believe this speaks back to mydreamworld obsession with zombies.They themselves are superficial, and itstands to reason this is why they visit meso often.

One surprising complex that thistest exposed constellates around thetheme of shame. This particular themehas been a work in progress for methroughout most of my life, and I’dassumed I had “handled” these issues,but it appears there’s still some experi-ence wrapped around my archetypalnode. What is that archetype? Well, per-haps there are several here. Shame isunconsciously linked to multiple stimuluswords, like “Naked,” “Guilt,” and “Sin.”There is much knotted up in the nucleusof this complex, and I’m not sure I canreduce it down to one archetype at thecore. The most obvious would be thedarker, sinister, judging God archetype—the one ready to cast me out of Eden formy transgressions. But inherent in thisGod archetype are aspects of both theMother and Father archetypes as well.Perhaps my mother and father complexesare more enmeshed within me than I hadthought. Shame is very different from,but closely associated with, guilt. Whileguilt implies that the subject offends theobject and that perhaps the subject has

“The zombie is perpetually in a state

of survival mode, livingin ordered chaos. And

then I see it. That’sme. I am Zombie.”

Traveling the Royal Road

done something wrong and expects pun-ishment from the object, shame implies aprobability, and thus an expectation ofcomplete desertion, of psychic annihila-tion (Hultberg, 1987, p. 163). Here,wrapped around shame like a blanket, isthe knowledge that God, Mother, andFather all have the power to wipe me outof existence. Perhaps these three arche-types per se all work together as the per-fect trifecta within my psyche.

Finally, the most shocking and mys-tifying part of this word association testcomes down to the 38th and 60th stimu-lus words: Fear and Force. My responsewords were “Fate” and “Fear” respective-ly. And neither of the response wordswere properly recalled. Instead, I recalled“Foe” instead of “Fate,” and “Sad”instead of “Fear.” This speaks to some-thing darker, hidden, something still notemotionally conscious, and buried deep.There is a complex here; I can smell it.But as of now, the unconscious has onlygiven me a cairn along the road to markthe spot where something resides. Jacobi(1959) speaks to the complex recognizedwith the conscious mind. Here, it isknown only intellectually and still main-tains all its original power. There is no“feeling-tone” to this complex within theconscious mind. Yet the charge is defi-nitely there. The ego can take four differ-ent attitudes: “total unconsciousness ofits existence, identification, projection, orconfrontation” (pp. 16-17). Only con-frontation will lead to the ego’s ability toincorporate the complex and “come togrips” with it, allowing for some resolu-tion. However at this point, my psychemust know I’m not ready for what layburied beneath. This will come later, indue time.

When I am ready, perhaps in a fewmonths, I will attempt this test again.After life normalizes, after I begin de-zombifying myself. I want to be presentand alive, alert to the sounds, the smells,and the beauty that surrounds me. Untilthen, I will ask my psyche to reveal onlywhat I can handle. My gut says I need toinvestigate this shame complex before Ican face whatever is buried beneath“Fear” and “Force.” For now, they willremain a part of me, and I will greet themin dreams with active imagination. I willask them to show me around, where theylive, and see what these guides along myown royal road have to say. It’s all a

process, walking this road. I wanted totake the word association test to betterknow myself and to see what complexes Ihad. Truth be told, I’ve always knownmyself; some days I just know myselfmore deeply and authentically than otherdays. And as for seeing what complexes Ihad, I’ve learned that it’s not I who havethe complexes, but they are the oneswho have me.

ReferencesBair, D. (2003). Jung: A biography. NewYork, NY: Little, Brown and Company.

Dieckmann, H. (1996). Complexes:Diagnosis and therapy in analytic psycholo-gy (B. Matthews, Trans.). Wilmette, IL:Chiron Publications.

Galton, F. (1879). Psychometric experi-ments. Retrieved February 28, 2014, fromhttp://www.mugu.com/galton/essays/1870-1879/galton-1879-brain-psychometric-experiments/galton-1879-brain-psychome-tric-experiments.pdf

Hultberg, P. (1987). Shame: An overshad-owed emotion. In M. A. Mattoon (Ed.),Berlin 1986: The archetype of shadow in asplit world (pp. 157-173). Einsiedeln,Switzerland: Daimon Verlag AG.

Jacobi, J. (1959).Complex/Archetype/Symbol. Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press.

Jung, C. G. (1959/1990). The archetypesand the collective unconscious. Princeton,NJ: Princeton University Press.

Jung, C. G. (1968). Analytical psychology:Its theory & practice. New York, NY:Random House, Inc.

Jung, C. G. (1972). The psychological foun-dations of belief in spirits. In G. Adler, M.

Fordham, H. Read, & W. McGuire (Eds.),The collected works of C.G. Jung (Vol. 8,pp. 301-318). Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press.

Jung, C. G. (1972). Psychological factors inhuman behavior. In G. Adler, M. Fordham,H. Read, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collect-ed works of C.G. Jung (Vol. 8, pp. 114-125).Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Kast, V. (1980). Excerpts in English from‘Das assoziationsexperiment in der thera-peutischen praxis’ (Irene Gad, Trans.).Fellback-Oeffingen, Germany: Bonz Verlag.

Meier, C. A. (1984). The unconscious in itsempirical manifestations. Boston, MA: SigoPress.

Shalit, E. (2002). The complex: Path oftransformation from archetype to ego.Toronto, Canada: Inner City Books.

By day, Drew H. Smith works for a localbusiness college in their online learningdepartment, buried in lines of code, busydeveloping applications for their coursemanagement system. By night, he isburied in lines of depth psychology, work-ing towards his Masters and Ph.D. inJungian and Archetypal Studies at PacificaGraduate Institute. He and his wife haveone child, and live in metro Detroit.


Drew H. Smith

“Only confrontation willlead to the ego’s

abil i ty to incorporatethe complex and “cometo grips” with it, allow-ing for some resolution”


"Below the Surface"Hand-made paste paper

Art

Brenda Littleton, MA,MFT is a book artist, apoet, painter, and Jungiancounselor, having studiedat Pacifica GraduateInstitute in both the depthdoctoral program, and inthe MFT counseling masters program.Long-term research with literacy of place, of participation mystique,and the personalrelationship with

image/mythic symbolscontributes to her privatecounseling practice.

By Brenda Littleton

http://www.amazon.com/Hades-Angels-Inside-Lifers-Inmates-ebook/dp/B00J7Z1JKO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414453615&sr=8-1&keywords=hades+angels

http://www.amazon.com/Hades-Angels-Inside-Lifers-Inmates-ebook/dp/B00J7Z1JKO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414453615&sr=8-1&keywords=hades+angels

http://www.audio-digest.org/CME-Search?kw=charlyne_gelt&dr=10/14/2011&st=matchall&ss=25&xs=1&xe=25&xf=1&ms=Psychology


“For they have sown the wind, andthey shall reap the whirlwind . . .”

—Hosea 8:7 (KJV)

“Beforetime in Israel, when a manwent to enquire of God, thus he spake,

Come, let us go to the seer: for he that isnow called a Prophet, was beforetime

called a Seer.”—I Samuel 9:9 (KJV)

Like so many biblical verses,Hosea’s utterance about sowing

the wind and reaping the whirlwind is abeautiful piece of prophetic poetry. Andas with any good poem, it reverberateswith timeless metaphorical ambiguity,provoking us to ask: How can one sowthe wind? Is it even possible to reap awhirlwind? What kind of harvest wouldthat be? How can something so seeming-ly insubstantial, at the outset, result insomething so devastatingly consequen-tial, at the end?

In this essay, I explore the planetaryenvironmental crisis from an unusualangle, on the assumption that insightsderived from depth psychology mightenable us to see our way into a healthierfuture. In particular, I take up the ques-tion of those dreams traditionally knownas “prophetic,” and how they might helpus to re-imagine our collective position.

A prophetic dream is not necessarilypredictive. Nor is it limited to biblical top-ics or doctrines, or to any specific histori-cal period—biblical or otherwise. To qual-ify as “prophetic,” in my view, a dreamsimply must draw its images from deeperpsychic levels than the personal uncon-scious, casting its net of associated con-tents well beyond the individual dream-er’s situation and personal concerns. Itmust present us, in other words, withimages of discernible collectivity.

All dreams are laden with anticipa-tory clues about emerging trends; but aprophetic dream gazes, as it were, pastthe individual dreamer, to focus uponemergent motifs that confront the entire

culture, society or even civilization. Thiscollective, anticipatory potency impartsto prophetic dreams much of theirenhanced value. That, plus the enliveningarchetypal energies of their images anddramatics. A prophetic dream enables usto see not just further ahead, in a hori-zontal, secular sense, but also deeper—into the emergent psycho-spiritual motifsthat confront the entire culture, societyor even civilization. Such dreams offer abetter way for us to form attitudestoward the future than just relying onego-habits alone. In creating the future,the transpersonal agencies within andbehind dreams can help us break up ourold assumptions and melt them down tobe re-cast in new forms.

* * *

Every day it seems more apparentthat we are living in an age of crisis, asthe pace of disturbing change acceleratesand the ground trembles beneath ourfeet—both metaphorically and literally.1More and more, we begin to discern themagnitude of a terrible truth and theshape of its outlines: We are getting whatwe wished for. In other words, what wehave sown—our highest values and mostcherished way of life—is producing a“harvest” that may just eclipse Hosea’swhirlwind in terms of destructive intensi-ty and, we might even say, poetic justice.Thus, old Hosea’s ancient still rings witharchetypal truth: the inevitable shock andbitterness of unintended, unanticipated

consequences.“All we did was sow the wind,” we

innocently complain. “Why has this vio-lent whirlwind befallen us?”

Of course, it does absolutely nogood for us to play innocent, as if wewere really unaware, or were reallyunable to fathom just why the weatherhas gotten so strange, or why abstrac-tions like “loss of biodiversity” or “speciesextinction” should be anyone’s concern.Relentlessly, the evidence piles up by theday. It is laid before us with care, as if bykindly elementary-school teachersattending to “slow” pupils. We may stub-bornly close our eyes against teacher’ssimple charts; we may perpetuate ourown confusion with harmless-soundingeuphemisms like “climate change” or“global warming”; or we may pride our-selves on our can-do optimism and lookto geo-engineering for “solutions.” Butsuch measures only delay the reckoning,the shock of awakening to the tornado inour backyard.

So now we pay the cost—Hosea’sprophetic price—for having sown thewind, that insubstantial seed of hubris,on the breezy assumption that we coulddo whatever we pleased to the naturalworld, do it indefinitely, and get awaywith it forever, unscathed. In the processwe have radically altered the conditionsof life on the planet, to an extent farbeyond our ability to control.

* * *Humans will probably argue over

this global situation until they run out ofbreath or oxygen, whichever comes first.But in my view we’re better off letting goof the arguments and turning our atten-tion to this question: What attitudes dowe need to develop in order to meetwhatever it is that is coming our way?

For my part, I have no doubt that astorm is coming, both metaphorical andliteral. It will manifest itself in countlessways, and its scope will be global. Therewill be no place to hide. Actually, thestorm is already happening, globally, but

The Coming StormProphetic Dreams and the Climate Crisis

By Paco Mitchell

“All dreams are ladenwith anticipatory cluesabout emerging trends;but a prophetic dream

gazes, as it were, pastthe individual dreamer,to focus upon emergentmotifs that confront the

entire culture”


The Coming Storm

we haven’t seen the full force of it yet.Apart from the madness of denial,

the problem with most of our problem-solving efforts to date, as we struggle tocome to terms with the climate dilemma,is that it is nearly impossible to thinkabout things in a way that doesn’t simplyperpetuate the same kind of thinking thatled to the problem in the first place. Ascomputer programmers often say,“Garbage in, garbage out.” So we findourselves caught in a crazy-making kindof feedback loop or vicious circle, knownas a double-bind. We’re damned if we do,damned if we don’t—practically every-thing we do, say or think, in our attemptsto foment change, has the ironic effect ofperpetuating the status quo.

This is why I am so interested in thepossible value of dreams, especiallyprophetic dreams, as a radical way ofbreaking through the vicious circle. Overthe decades, I have found that dreams, asspontaneous productions of the psycheand possessed of a “super-intelligence”exceeding that of the conscious personal-ity, may just be the source of our deepestcreativity. Periodically they reveal anencompassing wisdom, and the activeintelligence with which they are imbuedcan actually be seen interacting with thephysical world in mysterious, synchronis-tic ways that we have scarcely begun toappreciate. If we can open to thesedreams, responding with our substanceto their messages, our very own dreamsmay supply the wherewithal to informand transform both ourselves and oneanother, in deep ways. By such a devo-tion to dreams, we might prepare our-selves for what I am calling “the comingstorm.”

Of course, I don’t expect throngs ofpeople to start forming queues in orderto follow this advice. My words may onlyresonate with a handful of readers, ifthat. But we need to start thinking andimagining in radically different termsfrom what has become the acceptednorm. The prophetic task has probablyalways fallen to a miniscule few—thoseprophetically-minded individualsendowed with sufficient imagination andcourage to buck the tide, in whatamounts to a considerable sacrifice. Butwe should not underestimate the poten-tial value that could flow from those fewwho are willing to open themselves totheir dreams, and their dreams to the

rest of us. This is important work that, by and

large, goes unrecognized by society, a sadfact that has been true for a long time.Even in antiquity, when such things werebetter understood, the role of prophetwas not always easy. It has even beenrumored that, in Old Testament times,people would stand on the city walls andthrow stones when they saw the irate oldprophet hobbling toward them. Perhapswe should think of this as our own “scrip-tural moment” of modern history, a peri-od in which those of us who are willing todo so, will take up the potentials of thecollective unconscious in dreams andvisions, wield our scrolls, brandish ourstaffs and call our tribes to account—dodging the stones, if we must.

Naturally, the “sharing” of propheticdreams can take any number of forms:confide the dream to your partner, col-league, therapist or friend: disrupt a din-ner party with your account; stop astranger on the street; publish articles,blogs and books; render the dream inpoems or paintings; write dream mem-oirs for your children and grandchildren;compose poems, fictional dramas, lovesonnets to the soul—make up your ownmethod. Better yet, follow the lead of thedreams. They will tell you what to do.

I hope it’s obvious that the point oftaking on the prophetic role is never toaggrandize oneself—Look at me! I’m aprophet!—but rather, in a spirit of hum-ble sacrifice, to make a contributiontoward returning a sense of sacredness toour much-profaned and endangeredworld. This requires giving up somethingof personal value, in favor of a greatergood—assuming we can discern whatthat good is, in itself a difficult enoughtask.

I have no idea whether the newvision that could grow from such effortshas any chance of taking shape, let aloneprevailing. Quite possibly not. But I seeno viable alternative to trying our best tobring it into consciousness, give it formand invest it with the substance of ourlives. 2

* * *Among the many dreams I have

recorded, only a dozen or so qualify asprophetic, in my opinion. Here is one I amcurrently viewing through the “prophetic”lens, though I did not see it that waywhen I first dreamed it thirty-some yearsago. But recently it has come back tomind with such force, with so many newassociations and synchronistic implica-tions, that I have had to change my viewof it. I present this now as a prophetic,collective, or cultural dream, placing itwithin the specific context of the climatecrisis and the “coming storm”:

I am in a house with a few other peo-ple, waiting for a tornado to arrive.The storm is on its way, and there isno escaping it.

The feeling of inevitability is rein-forced by the fact that a squareopening has been built into the ceil-ing of the house. The purpose of theopening—trim-finished and completewith molding—is to permit the occu-pants to be sucked up into the torna-do.

In preparation for the tornado’sarrival, we are practicing the kinds ofmaneuvers skydivers might perform,as when they join hands to form acircle in order to stay connectedwhile in free-fall.

The other necessary preparation is toswallow a handful of diamonds.

Once the tornado arrives, the pres-sure drops and we are all sucked upthrough the opening in the ceiling. Aswe whirl around inside the great fun-nel, amidst the debris, we struggle tojoin hands and stay connected, as wehave practiced. It is very difficult. As Itumble about, however, I am surpris-ingly calm. I know that, because Ihave swallowed the diamonds, wher-ever I land—assuming, of course,that I survive—I will be carrying irre-ducible, “diamantine” values withme, which will form the basis of anew life. [End of dream.]

“The prophetic task hasprobably always fallen

to a miniscule few—those prophetically-minded individuals

endowed with sufficient imagination

and courage to buck the tide”


Dreams are kaleidoscopic: You holdone against the light, look into it, turn itin your hand, and you see ever-shiftingaspects and configurations. The elementsremain the same, yet it permits endlessassociations. When I set aside the per-sonal meaning this dream had for me atthe time, I find several aspects of collec-tive relevance today:1. The opening scene shows a homelyinterior, an image of personal life. But itis not “my house” so much as it is simply“a house,” one in which a small group ofseveral individuals, myself included, areinvolved in something like a preparatoryritual. The house suggests that the ritualmust be imagined as taking place at thepersonal level of daily life, not as a massundertaking or political movement.2. I refer to the preparations as “rituals”because the coming tornado implies adramatic shift in magnitude—the simply-personal is about to be engulfed by anuminous and transpersonal cosmicforce. Throughout history, any accommo-dation between the human and thedivine, between the sacred and the pro-fane, could only be approached after rit-ual preparations—ablutions, sacrifices,abstinences, purifications—various waysin which the mundane habits and atti-tudes of consciousness were modified orset aside in anticipation of an encounterwith the numinous powers of the uncon-scious. Without ritual, such an approachwould have been considered danger-ous—a sacrilege, a profanity, an abomi-nation, a punishable hubris.

The way we disregard the attitudesappropriate to ritual and sacrifice, consti-tutes, in fact, our hubristic modernapproach to the sacred precincts. For themost part, we have no sacred precinctsany more. No grove of trees on earth, nomatter how revered, is safe from thebulldozer, the chain saw or the bottomline. No wild animal is safe from beingmistreated or hounded to death. Weread or hear of chortling jokes about thestarvation and drowning of the greatpolar bears. We see photos of dead spot-ted owls nailed to signs forbidding thekilling of spotted owls. It is difficult toimagine the horror that indigenous tribesmust have felt when they saw the sacrile-gious depredations of Europeans, hackingand blasting their way into the “virgin”tribal preserves. The violence, far fromending at the close of the colonial period,

continues unabated today. I recentlyread3 that a few remaining “pre-contact”Amazonian tribes are now being flushedout by illegal mahogany loggers supplyingwood for patio furniture.

From the outset, my dream sug-gests a revision of this modern profaneattitude, along with the recovery of anearlier religious sense of ritual reverence.3. The nature of the ritual is twofold,involving maneuvers and diamonds. Themaneuvers suggest a social aspect to theotherwise personal crisis implicit in theadvent of the tornado. Notice that thedream presents an image of “keeping intouch” that is neither hierarchical nornarcissistic—two major symptoms of ourpresent cultural wounding. The veryabsence of these symptoms from thedream is significant in itself.

The dream presents, as an alterna-tive to power-motives and narcissisticdisplay, a form of “contact” that is direct-ed toward a commonly recognized, sacri-ficial and ritualistic, symbolic goal—thatof forming a circle. But it adds an unex-pected twist: the circle is to be formedwhile in free-fall. I must say that, despitethe horrors implicit in the tornado, this isa beautiful image. Even in our presentconditions, these circles are not easy toform; but under the disrupting pressuresof the tornado, it requires a supremeeffort.

The circle is probably the oldestsocial configuration in human history,after the single-file line of hunters, per-haps. The circle is inherently non-hierar-chical and reverential. Each person has avoice, even if there is a chief. Today’ssocial and economic phenomenon ofwealth disparity—the 1% versus the99%—does not figure in the dream’s les-son. In fact, great disparities in wealthand social status run contrary to the spir-it of this dream. Nor are we talking abouta communistic worker’s paradise here,but rather an image of what people valuemost deeply, and how they apply thosevalues in cooperation with others. The

formation of the circle during free-fall,the chaotic spinning, suggests that per-sonal values in the midst of chaos aregiven greater meaning when joined withthe shared values of others. Forming thecircle, in other words, is a meaningfulsymbol of a primordial way to conferorder in the midst of chaos. And thedream says to start practicing now, whileyou can.4. I use the term “free-fall” more than“spinning” because, when I look aroundthat’s what I see—a society in free-fall,where stable values and structures dis-solve in a disorienting rapidity of change,and where virtually everyone is beingaffected on every level, whether theyknow it or not. On the whole, ourresponses to these conditions are just asconfused as the situations to which weare responding. Yeat’s prophetic poem,The Second Coming4, still resounds todaylike a great tolling bell: “things fall apart;the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy isloosed upon the world . . .”

Like Yeats’ poem, the image of“free-fall” also catches the spirit of thetime, of what is happening now. Perhapsthe “spinning-phase” is yet to come, butit will happen soon enough.

Fortunately, there are increasingnumbers of articles and books, work-shops and conferences, touching on thesame general question the dreamaddresses: What do we have to do to pre-pare ourselves to meet the coming turbu-lence? This is a question we would all dowell to consider.5. This brings us to a major image—thesquare opening in the ceiling. It has sev-eral aspects: it is square; it is structural,built-in, inherent; it is “above our heads”;and it permits communication betweenearth and heaven (“ceiling” is related tothe Latin caelum, “the heavens”).

Jung’s researches on the phenome-nology and symbolism of the Self amplydemonstrate the importance of both cir-cle 5 and square 6, among other shapesand objects, in the archetypal manifesta-tions pertaining to the Self as centralarchetype of order and wholeness.

I confess that I have always beenwary of this tidy formulation—the “cen-tral archetype of order and wholeness”—when compared with an actual encounterwith the Self. Reading a book about theSelf, and having a living experience of it,are not the same thing at all. Due to its

Paco Mitchell

“What do we have to do to prepare

ourselves to meet thecoming turbulence?”


nature as a conjunction of opposites, asJung has written, when we depict anengagement with the Self as a wrenchingconflict of opposites we come closer tothe bitter truth than the wonderful-sounding phrase “archetype of order andwholeness.” First the storm, then thepeace.

* * *In The Archetype of the

Apocalypse7, Edward Edinger emphasizesthe “coming of the Self” as a generalproblem that humans will have to face,presently and in the future. He followsJung’s idea that the more people thereare who are able to confront the oppo-sites consciously, within and aroundthemselves, the better it will go for us. Incontrast, the more people there are whoremain unconscious of their whole per-sonalities, deny their shadow side andproject their conflicts outward into theworld, the more violent will be theresults.

The implications of the square, thefour-sided quaternio shape, are vast: Theintegration of personality into a whole,integration of the shadow with conscious-ness, integration of the four functions ofconsciousness, integration of the unre-deemed aspects of the God-image, etc.—all of these tumultuous processes arerelated, and all are implicit in the openingin the ceiling.

The square opening, then, gives us ahint as to how we can face the comingstorm—to be, as much as possible, con-sciously complete individuals, familiarwith the moral burden of our dark sides,acquainted with the autonomous figureswho approach us from the unconscious,unwilling to deceive ourselves, able toface and deal with the gamut of our emo-tions, fantasies and desires, willing tosubject them all to the grinding, pulveriz-ing ball-mill of ethical considerations andmoral consequences.

In the context of the dream, thesquare opening is as much a part of theritual preparations for the coming stormas the maneuvers and the diamonds.Opening to such a powerful cosmicdynamism as a “tornado” is dangerousindeed, not for the faint of heart, and ittherefore requires a thorough, “four-square” preparation; but, as the dreamemphasizes, there is no escaping the task,and the time to begin is now.6. Swallowing the diamonds is an elo-

quent image of assimilating value, how-ever value is conceived. What we “swal-low” we incorporate, assimilate, embody.The “diamond” is the hardest naturalsubstance—formed under immense pres-sure and heat, out of pure carbon, theessence of life and congealed sunlight.The diamond corresponds to the lapis ofthe alchemists, a symbol of the integra-tion of matter and spirit, conscious andunconscious. The “diamond body” occursin different forms in many esoteric tradi-tions—Taoist, Tibetan Buddhist,Hermetic, etc.—the general idea being anincorruptible essence, a symbol of theSelf, for which Jung found parallelsthroughout history and culture.

For simplicity’s sake, I take the dia-mond as a shorthand symbol for “irre-ducible values,” which the participants inthe dream must “ingest,” assuming theyhave acquired them in the first place.Needless to say, dreaming of a diamond,even the “diamond body,” is one thing,whereas actually realizing it is quiteanother.

7. As a phenomenon, the tornado isunsurpassed for its intensity and whimsi-cal destructive potential, a superb expres-sion of “divine” energy. It is easy to seewhy, in ancient times, meteorologicalphenomena like storms, thunder, etc.,were associated with deities. Today wehave instruments that measure pressurefluctuations, wind speeds and such, buteven so, there is no getting around thefeeling that we are bounded, at all times,by powers we do not control. As a dreamsymbol, I take the tornado as a synchro-nistic image uniting inner and outerworlds, psyche and matter, in one greatconfluence. That is what the climate crisisof global warming amounts to—a syn-chronistic relationship between humansand their psychology, on one side, andthe systemic cosmic dynamisms of which

the earth is a local expression, on theother. The tornado-image gives a finepoint to the entire global climate crisis.And just as the dream emphasizes thatthere is no escape, so, too, no corner ofthe planet is immune to the disturbancesof our imbalanced climate.8. The dénouement. The dream does notmerely imply that a tornado will come—the tornado does come, as if to demon-strate the dream’s bona fides. Eerily, theatmospheric pressure drops, and we allare sucked up through the opening andinto the funnel. As I indicated above, it isvery difficult to stay in touch, much lessto form a circle, under the pressure ofthe powerful whirlwind and its clatteringdebris. But everything in the dreamseems necessary—the storm, the maneu-vers, the circle, the square opening, thediamonds, the calmness in the midst ofturbulence—even the possibility that theend-result may well be death.

I certainly have had my share of tur-bulent personal experiences, includingbrushes with death, and I expect toundergo more as the global situationworsens. The philosophical necessity ofpreparing for one’s own demise—alwaysa requirement of life—seems all the moreimperative today.

This dream is one of several I havehad that give me a perspective on what ishappening both in myself and in theworld. I believe that many individuals arehaving similarly prophetic dreams, andthat those dreams have valuable percep-tions to offer us, if we can only registerthem in consciousness and make themavailable to one another—as implied bythe image of “forming a circle.” Everyone,potentially, has access to diamond wis-dom, along with the wherewithal to with-stand the coming storms.

I know that many people will find itdifficult to connect the dream images Iam discussing here, with the actual con-sequences of climate disturbance on an“outward” physical level. But I mustemphasize once again the synchronisticconnection between world and psyche,something we have barely begun toappreciate in the wider culture. This is afailure of society that must be madegood by individuals. If it is true that“everything is connected,” and that“matter and psyche are one,” then wehumans bear a heavy responsibility thatwe must not shirk.

“As a phenomenon, the tornado is

unsurpassed for its intensity and whimsical

destructive potential, a superb expression of ‘divine’ energy”

The Coming Storm


The need of the time is great.Whoever can plumb the depths of theirown dreams probably should do so, ifthey can summon the will. And whosoev-er lays hold of the prophetic wisdom thatdreams bring, must find ways to bodyforth that wisdom and make it availableto others.

We need this now, as never before.

End Notes1 The increase in “fracking” practicesthroughout the country has been associ-ated with increased numbers of localizedearthquakes. As marginal natural gas andoil deposits are extracted by means ofcontroversial new technologies that “frac-ture” the gas-bearing layers of shale rockwith high-pressure injections of water,sand and chemicals, it appears that, inthe process, rock strata are being de-sta-bilized. For a description of fracking, seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing For a description of a samplestudy linking fracking with earthquakes,see: http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/oklahoma-earthquakes-linked-fracking-study

2 I might add that I was delighted to readof Meredith Sabini’s recent work, a wel-come, all-too-rare example of sharing andworking with collective and propheticdreams. See Sabini, Meredith, “Dreaming

for Our Survival,” Depth Insights, Spring2012.

3http://www.businessinsider.com/video-shows-isolated-amazonian-tribes-first-contact-with-outside-world-2014-7

4 Yeats, William Butler, “The SecondComing.” See, for example:http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172062

5 See, for example, Jung, C. G., Man andHis Symbols (New York: Doubleday & Co.,1964), p. 240.

6 See also, Jung, C. G., Man and HisSymbols (New York: Doubleday & Co.,1964), p. 21, p. 249.

7 Edinger, Edward, The Archetype of theApocalypse: Divine Vengeance, Terrorism,and the End of the World. Peru, IL: OpenCourt Publishing, 2002.

Having studied dreams and depth psy-chology since 1972, Paco Mitchell haspracticed as a Jungian Therapist, operat-ed his own art bronze foundry as a sculp-tor and performed as a flamenco gui-tarist. He holds advanced degrees inRomance Languages from StanfordUniversity, and Counseling Psychologyfrom the University of Oregon.

Incantation for AncestorBy Pamela Preston

Bat wings sliceThe cellar airThe tree frog fallsTo its deathAll sleeps.

Winter fog like dry iceGathers in the cleavageOf unknown mountainsSeeping into bonesHollow like reeds.

Winds howlStopping breathWhile walls ofOne existenceCrumble.She knelt on matted grassListening toYou,Who once carvedHieroglyphics on cornerstonesWho left your anagramma codedWho stained your pages with tearsWhile antsLegless toadsThe lionAnd the deadBecame your helpersCollecting worksFrom your mysterium.

YouWho live in this nightAbove the moonBecame her ancestor.

Light your pipeOld oneTell her she will not breakRemind her of the truth of traumaGuild her to the rock temple.

Strew flowersGiant oneBefore the smaller onesThe rootAnd the tree.

View Pamela’s bio and art on p. 40

Paco Mitchell

Poetry

http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/dionysos-archetype-of-individuation-1


Shaman in the WoodsAcrylic on Canvas, 20" H X 30" W

Candace French, Contemporary Abstract Artist,rediscovered her passion for art after she experienced the tragic loss of a loved one and herdreams called her to creatively express herselfthrough painting. Her bold use of color, texture andlayers, are engaging and invite the viewer toexplore a deeper experience of life’s mystery andconnection with the Divine.

Art

ThresholdAcrylic on Canvas, 20" H X 16" W

by Candace French


The idea of practical spiritualityemerged out of an alchemical

mix of William James and Carl Jung, andtheir respective psychic perspectives onthe soul. As a clinical psychologist in pri-vate practice for the past 30 years spe-cializing in depth psychology and psychol-ogy and spirituality, I have treated scoresof individuals in the midst of making theirway across the dark and troubled watersof the unconscious mind. Serving as ther-apist and guide, a Hermetic dynamic atwork within the treatment relationship,we frequently witness the emergence ofa natural and immensely practical spiritu-ality that nourishes the soul. It is ofcourse, a vital relationship with the Selfthat supplants old, outer, religiosity.

In developing this relationship,William James (2006, p. 24) hit upon arevolutionary idea: God as intimate soul.Transformative numinous experience isnourished as we cultivate intimacies withsoul. Sensitive listening to emotions,dreams, synchronous life events, andnuances within daily relationships actu-ates connection with intimate soul. As acolleague told me yesterday over a cup ofafternoon tea, “I really need my dailytimes for reading, meditation, thinking,and good talking time with my partner.They take me into myself. There I findwhat the ancients called god.” God is inti-mate soul.

In my psychotherapeutic specialty inthe depth treatment of religiously abusedpatients I have found that damaging thegod image traumatizes the soul. ArdentBuddhist devotees have been seduced byostensibly sincere roshis. Stories ofCatholic children quietly ushered into apriest’s dimly lit quarters and sexuallyexploited run rampant in the media. Yogiscultivated followers and then plunderedemotionally and physically those whoseriously sought their wisdom and guid-ance. In instances such as these, the godimage within the self is traumatized,often to the point of fracture and col-lapse. When the inner sanctum of soul

holds trauma, intimacy with it, with god,becomes overwhelming and frightening.

The dark, destructive, side of reli-gion intrudes on the natural psychic dis-position toward intimacy with soul.Patients suffer the cruelty of religiousimpositions based on psychic manipula-tion. Archetypal energies turn destructiveas survivors defensively cope with symp-toms of anxiety, depression, suicidality,and psychosis. In the words of one ardentspiritual seeker and survivor of religiousabuse, “When the priest got to me, it wasGod who got to me and nearly did mein.”

Many old religions depict an outergod inflicting judgment and wrath on thevulnerable soul. Inevitably, this constructis internalized and generates a psychicterrain replete with demons of guilt andfear, the dark side of archetypal numinos-ity unleashed. Oppressive and damagingdemonic assaults charged with religiousmeaning hit the psyche at full speed forthe sufferer of religious abuse.Onslaughts of self-loathing and shamecripple the psyche. As one psychoanalystcolleague remarked, “When our god is atyrant we need another god.”

From the perspective of Americandepth psychology, vis- à-vis WilliamJames, a transformative spirituality culti-vates intimacy with an inner sense of thesacred, numinous aspects of psyche.James (2006, p.25) noted, “The inner lifeof things must be substantially akin any-how to the tenderer parts of man’snature.” One of my most tender dreams

ushered me to an inner sanctum, anangelic presence speaking, “Freudtouched the face of God.” Upon awaken-ing deeply moved, I felt touched by thesacred, intimate soul. As the result, I dis-covered that I, as Freud encouraged, wasbetter attuned to painful feelings andmemories of patients. Together, we moresensitively plumbed unconscious depthsto healing, perhaps, touching the face ofGod.

Michael Eigen (1998 p. 71, 72) stat-ed that “the soul keeps opening . . . noend to opening. . . . It explodes down-ward (into knowledge, understanding,feeling . . . ).” Such a depth psychologyencourages a downward nourishing ofintimacy with soul. I remember a dreamin which I could ascend to the heavensand there encounter God. A group ofmen and I were in the desert, a greatexpanse of earth before us and the bluesky overhead. Just as I looked heaven-ward and prepared to jettison upward, anold holy man, a desert prophet, appearedand pointed downward. Where the holyman pointed was a fathomlessly dark anddeep hole at least five or six feet in cir-cumference that led to the center of theearth. He and his followers, the men whowere with me in the dream, made thedescent into the abyss, something atonce mystifying and terrifying. I followeddespite feeling overwhelmed by wonderand trepidation.

The desert holy man as symbol ofthe wise-old numinous self led the wayinto realms of mystery and transforma-tion, intimate soul. Terror felt by mydreaming ego was a normal response ofthe conscious mind to the unknown, tointimate soul. I made my way to theopening in the earth, smelled the rich,loamy soil. As I entered this moist andearthy realm, the past space of the oldand dry earth and distant sky faded into avague and far off memory.

William James (2006, p. 136)referred to this depth of being, as “agreat reservoir in which the memories of

God as Intimate Soul

By Paul DeBlassie III, Ph.D.

“Sensit ive listening toemotions, dreams,

synchronous life events,and nuances withindaily relationships

actuates connection with intimate soul”


earth’s inhabitants are pooled and pre-served, and from which, when the thresh-old lowers or the valve opens, informa-tion ordinarily shut out leaks into themind.” Intimate soul draws us into agrounded and deepening relationship toself and life. Patricia Berry (2008, p.12) indepicting a vital aspect of psychic evolu-tion and movement wrote,

Earth became a divinity . . . she wasno longer ‘nothing-but’ a physicalground, a neutral ground withoutquality; because she was experi-enced as a divinity, she was experi-enced psychically so that her mattermattered to and in the psyche.

“In the midst of crisis,” one personconfided, “I was terrified yet I knew I hadto enter into a cave in the earth. There adark goddess appeared. I was abandonedby my birth mother. The dark goddessdeep within the earth helped me to heal.She has been there for me ever since.”

The human psyche nourishes itselfon intimate truths. We see through adark light as the scriptural author refersto seeing through a glass darkly. The psy-che births mystery, causing deific pres-ences of intimate soul to appear leadingto transformation. James(2006, p. 138)referred to entering into this downwardknowledge as a calling for “possibilitiesthat take our breath away, of anotherkind of happiness and power, based ongiving up our own will” to god as intimatesoul.

ReferencesBerry, P. (2008). Echo’s subtle body.Putnam, CT: Spring Publications.Eigen, M. (1998). The psychoanalytic mys-tic. London and New York: FreeAssociation Books.James, W. (2006). A pluralistic universe.BiblioBazaar.

Paul DeBlassie III, PhD, is a psychologistand writer living in his native NewMexico. A member of the DepthPsychology Alliance, the TranspersonalPsychology Association, and theInternational Association for RelationalPsychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, he hasfor over thirty years treated survivors ofthe dark side of religion. His most recentbook, The Unholy (Sunstone Press), aparanormal thriller, explores realms ofdreams, visions, and natural magic.

Depth Insights, Issue 6, Fall 2014

The QuickeningBy Eva Rider

I am the Voice behind the Silence behind allyou have forgotten... not yet remembered.I am the Dance between...the one and singlemovement which twists like grapevine in Spring.I curl through toes, bend around ankles,grasping at knees and thighs.I am sinew, muscle, bone.I sing your cells awake.. anew.I lighten your shoulders,I kiss your fingertips.

You are my vessel, my instrument, my temple, my shrine.Through all of your passages, through darkest tunnels of time,through wild winds to quiet shores..I have held you;even and especially, when you believed faith to be a farceand reason merely a tool that men designed for ends without beginnings.

To pave a way to me, life boarded up your heartand slowly turned up the heat.Smoldering white ash, Now...you are ready to receive me..To trust, because all other roads are barred to you.Your will is now at last, My Will.

Surrender -

Dance,on a cliff edge.. a mountain crag,Dance,on the crest of an ocean wave.. a cumulus cloud,Dance,on a puff of smoke billowing from your own chimney.

Sing.....even though you are off-key;Sing,and the rain begins to fall;Sing,because My Voice calls you when all else is Silence.

God As Intimate Soul

Poetry


In the heart of the jungle inColumbia, the U’wa people live a

simple existence mostly beyond thereaches of modern society, having had lit-tle contact at all with the outside worlduntil a few decades ago. Their indigenousrelationship to the earth sustains them ina collective role as caretakers of the earthand an equal facet of nature. Thus, whenthe prospect of international firms mak-ing plans to drill into their ancestral landsfor oil in the late 1990s arose, they per-ceived the concept to be intolerable,apocalyptic even (“U’wa tribe’s suicidepact,” n.d.).

The tribe of 5,000 people made itknown that even the act of searching foroil on their homelands would destroytheir way of life, initiating the same kindof colonization, exploitation, destruction,and violence that has happened else-where. In fact, one hundred and sixtykilometers east of the village, the CañoLimon oilfield run by Shell and Oxy, earnsColombia hundreds of millions of dollarsa year. The pollution, loss of wildlife, andchanges to society as a result fromdrilling in the area are devastating—andthat is only half the story. The increase inguerilla terrorism, gun-running, and drugtrafficking by those attempting to sabo-tage or commandeer the oil operationshas taken a severe toll, spilling over intoU’wa lands as violent machine gun battleswaged between opposing bands andstray gunfire invaded the U’wa village(“U’wa tribe’s suicide pact,” n.d.).

On receiving the news that explo-ration, and ultimately drilling, wouldimminently occur on their lands, the lead-ers promptly announced that the entiretribe of some 5,000 men, women, andchildren would willingly step off a 1400-foot cliff rather than suffer the horrorssure to follow the drilling. In fact, thisalmost-unthinkable decision to commitmass ritual suicide has happened before.The nearby cliff is on sacred groundwhere everything is alive, land protectedby centuries of ritual and dance, land thattribespeople refuse to enter for fear of

violating their covenants with ancestors,spirits, and the earth. In another eventcenturies ago, faced with moving ontoforbidden sacred grounds in retreat fromthe invading Spaniards, the greater partof the adults of the tribe threw the chil-dren over the cliff in clay pots, thenstepped off into nothingness themselves.For the U’wa, oil is the blood of MotherEarth, and to invade it—above or belowground—causes imbalance and ultimate-ly, death. “I sing the traditional songs tomy children,” a tribeswoman mourns. “Iteach them that everything is sacred andlinked. How can I tell Shell and Oxy thatto take the petrol is for us worse thankilling your own mother? If you kill theearth, then no one will live. I do not wantto die. Nobody does.” (U’wa tribe’s sui-cide pact, n.d., p. 8).

Jungian analyst Donald Kalsched(1996) uses the word trauma to meanany experience that causes unbearablepsychic pain or anxiety. For an experienceto be “unbearable” means that it over-whelms the usual defensive measureswhich protect us from perceiving horrorand pain. The distinguishing feature oftrauma of this magnitude is what HeinzKohut called disintegration anxiety, an“unnameable dread associated with thethreatened dissolution of a coherent self”(as cited in Kalsched, 1996, p. 1). Thiskind of anxiety portends the completeannihilation of the human personality.

For the U’wa, the trauma created by thevery concept of violating their livingsacred land, the mother of them all forwhom they are responsible, was “unbear-able,” threatening to completely dissolvethe way of life, the values, the world-view—indeed the very tribe itself.

Robert Stolorow (2007), a psychoan-alyst with an expertise in trauma,employs insight from philosopher MartinHeidigger to explain how trauma initiatesa sense of loss of security and of anxietyabout the unpredictability of our worldafter trauma occurs. The anxiety involvesthe impression of uncanniness, or thefeeling “not-being-at-home” in the world.Everyday meaning in life collapses as theworld takes on a strange and alien tone,and the one who experiences traumafeels incongruent, isolated, and bizarrebecause he simply cannot see how any-one else could possibly experience therupture and ensuing chaos in the sameway (Stolorow, 2007). This feeling consti-tutes a complex of which the archetypalcore is alienation and exile. GlenAlbrecht, professor of philosophy andsustainability, introduced the termsolastalgia to mean “the pain experi-enced when there is recognition that theplace where one resides and that oneloves is under immediate assault . . . aform of homesickness one gets when oneis still at ‘home’” (in Smith, 2010, para. 5).From “solace” and the Greek root “algia”which means “pain,” solastagia is, asAlbrecht insists, the kind of place pathol-ogy reported by Navajos, Aborigines, andother indigenous peoples forced to leavetheir land and relocate (Smith, 2010).When you separate people from theirland Albrecht points out, “they feel theloss of heart’s ease as a kind of vertigo, adisintegration of their whole life” (Smith,2010, para. 4).

The condition of solastalgia, thethreat of immediate violation and assaultto the land they live on is just one ofmany factors that contribute to the trau-ma suffered by the U’wa people whichblew apart their worldview with the very

“The nearby cliff is onsacred ground where

everything is alive, landprotected by centuries of

ritual and dance, landthat tribespeople refuse

to enter for fear of violating their covenants

with ancestors, spiri ts,and earth”

Trauma and HomecomingFinding a Sense of Place in the Space of Trauma

By Bonnie Bright

Depth Insights, Volume 6, Fall 201429 <Back to TOCDepth Insights, Volume 6, Fall 2014

news of potential drilling. The horror atimpending violation of the body of theearth which the U’wa consider theirmother, the ghostly ancestral memory ofa time before when this mass suicide, infact, occurred, and the shattering of thetraditional everyday way of life that hasleft the U’wa with a sense that their “nor-mal” world no longer exists. It has upend-ed their entire cosmos, replaced theirdaily routine and harmony with theimpossible choice to intentionally endtheir physical existence on the land theyhave inhabited for centuries. In short, forthe U’wa, suffering the drilling that wouldrupture their way of life is intolerable. Itcannot be borne. Thus, what is at stakefor the U’wa people is disruption, devas-tation, and the ultimate rupture: death.

Robert Stolorow (2010) believestrauma shatters absolutisms, leading to a“catastrophic loss of innocence” (p. 16),which drastically alters one’s experienceof being in the world. One who is trauma-tized thus perceives new ways of beingthat are outside the formerly known andarticulated world. The individual can nolonger feel safe, comfortable, or at home.He conceives that he is no longer includedin the still-safe world of others who s can-not possibly perceive the new parametersnow seen by the trauma victim.Therefore, the trauma survivor is isolatedand alone, alienated from the previouslyknown world and all those who still inhab-it it. His world and the world of others areincommensurable. He has been displaced,exiled to a new and frightening existence.Heidigger says “the sense of the loss ofbeing is the loss of being”(p. 30); thus asense of homelessness is the loss ofhome. Susan Brison (2002) also corrobo-rates the fact that trauma profoundlyaffects one’s capacity to be at home inthe world. This new feeling of alienationand isolation further contributes to thetrauma, creating a vicious loop that is dif-ficult to heal.

Navigating The “Age of Trauma”For the U’wa, the concept that oil

might be drilled on their land was intoler-able. In my own life, I have, at times, feltthat the world around me is intolerable,that I cannot bear the destruction, vio-lence, and assault to the environment, toanimals, and to our fellow humans, nowbroadcast almost incessantly in the newsand through social media. Interconnected

as we are, it is difficult not to feel psycho-logically assailed by the knowledge of thehorrors we have wrought as a humanityon the earth and on each other. It leads tothe perception that the ground we standon is unsteady, also under assault. ThoughI live far away from the U’wa from a geo-graphical standpoint, I, too, have under-gone the violation of my home throughtheir experiences and through my ownconnection with the earth and nature.

In his groundbreaking book, Living inthe Borderland: The Evolution ofConsciousness and the Challenge ofHealing Trauma, Jungian analyst JeromeBernstein (2005) observes that the grad-ual loss over millennia of our connectionwith nature and ourselves and the devel-opment of an over-specialized westernego has brought about a “great grief.” Hecites an emerging intentional attempt bynature to reconnect in order to bring usback as a species from the brink of extinc-tion. According to Bernstein, natureseems to cry out to and through certainindividuals who are sensitive to the initialloss, who experience profound but irra-tional feelings that are extensions of whatis going on in the world in which they live.This arena in which the attempted recon-nection is taking place is what Bernsteincalls the “Borderland.”

The grief, pain, disbelief, and depres-sion of those “Borderlanders” who are onthe forefront of the attempt to reconnectare not the result of individual pain andsuffering but rather manifestations of thepain of the world itself. As Bernstein says,those experiencing Borderland phenome-na don’t feel about the pain of ongoingevents—they feel it, almost as if the col-lective unconscious has designated somehuman beings within the culture to becarriers of personal and collective mourn-ing in response to the profound woundingvisited upon the world we know.

Borderlanders develop symptoms

that, though often classically categorizedas pathological by American PsychologicalAssociation (APA) standards, are in factsacred manifestations of something largertrying to come through and reconnect.Thus, they feel “abnormal” about a worldthat the majority consider “normal.” Overcoming years, Bernstein insists, more andmore people are going to be waking up tothis extended attempt at reconnection.This means more and more people will beforegoing their previous or existing copingmechanisms of dissociation and percepti-cide—a term coined by trauma scholarDiana Taylor to describe a condition inwhich we essentially cut off our ability toregard a source of distress because it istoo troubling to take in (Watkins &Shulman, 2008). Instead, we will begin toperceive the horror of the civilization wehave created as a whole, waking up to theconditions of trauma in which we alreadyexist and experiencing the trauma of ourworldwide collective way of life firsthand.Like me, many will feel completely dislo-cated, knowing it is impossible to go back-ward to how they functioned before (indenial, distraction, or disconnect) butfinding themselves unable to move for-ward in a world they increasingly perceiveas intolerable, feeling alien, experiencingthemselves profoundly earthwrecked on aplanet that is increasingly violated andwrecked. This uprootedness—this disloca-tion—has left many of us ungrounded,disoriented even, struggling to find ourplace in the world.

Meanwhile, what occurs to the indi-vidual is amplified onto the culture itself.Bernstein (2005) points out that when theNavajos were displaced, many of themsimply disappeared. The disorientation ini-tiated by loss of ancestors and memory,of being located in a larger web of mean-ing, is profound and irreversible.Estrangement from land results in uncan-niness, the feeling of not being at home.Thus, to be without place translates to notexisting at all. When viewed from this per-spective then, perhaps the decision of theU’wa to consciously and intentionally endtheir existence rather than waiting out thetrauma until life as they knew it ended forthem is really not so strange.

Chellis Glendinning (1994), psy-chotherapist and political activist, corrob-orates the notion that our collective cul-ture exhibits all the symptoms of one that

Trauma and Homecoming

“The trauma survivor isisolated and alone,alienated from the

previously known worldand all those who

sti l l inhabit it”


has been traumatized, and that we, ashumans, live pathological patterns ofabuse and addiction due to the fact thatwe live in an “extreme and untenable situ-ation” (p. 122) related to a sense of pro-found homelessness. She agrees thathumans have lost that vital connection tonature which is our birthright and havesuffered a violation that, in her words,”forms the basis of original trauma” (p.64) resulting in exile and psychic displace-ment. Thus modern humans exhibitpathological behaviors typical of traumabecause we are aware at some level that“something unnatural has happened tous” (p. 63).

Stolorow (2010) goes as far as todesignate the contemporary era an “Ageof Trauma” because, according to him,the “tranquilizing illusions of our everydayworld seem in our time to be severelythreatened from all sides” (para. 2). Herefers to ongoing and increasing globalissues like global warming, terrorism, andeconomic collapse, all of which raiseissues of existential vulnerability andthreaten to annihilate the core frameworkby which we make sense of our existence.To this list by Stolorow, I would add thepace and intensity by which we are fedinformation by mass media which assaultsus with information like a firehose, inun-dating us at every moment with horrificnews about violence, crime, disease, loss,death, and destruction, allowing no timefor us to integrate or “hold” the news in alifestyle which provides no container inwhich we can witness it.

Activist and author, Joanna Macy(1979) points to a general apathy in ourculture which she defines as a state thatderives from dread. She claims that welive in fear of confronting the despair weall carry that lives just under the surface.For Macy, despair is “the loss of theassumption that our species will inevitablypull through” (p. 1, column 3). More andmore, we are bombarded by data thatquestions, perhaps for the first time,whether or not our culture, our species,or even our planet will survive. Growingnumbers of people are tuning in to thishorror across a broad spectrum of theglobal population. Worse, Macy pointsout, feeling despair in and about a culturalcontext can be isolating, further amplify-ing the dilemma. She believes there is apsychic dissonance between our felt senseof impending apocalypse and the increas-

ingly desperate mechanisms to maintain“normalcy” as our society requires us tobecome adept at sweeping our fear andpain under the rug in order to avoid thetaboo around directly addressing despair.“Our dread of what is happening to ourfuture is banished to the fringes of aware-ness, too deep for most of us to name,too fearsome to face” (Macy, 1979, p. 64).As well, individuals who tap into theunnamed dread often conclude it is themand not society that is insane.

The Western notion of individualitymaintains that we are separate individualsexperiencing something unique to each ofus and others are disconnected from ourexperience. However, it is likely that inmany cases, we have simply bracketedout the “outside,”—the collective memoryof traumatic events that has accumulatedover generations. Presumably, others withwhom we have relationships are alsoexperiencing the same trauma but it isunconscious, marginalized, silenced, andtherefore invisible (M. Stevens, classnotes, 2010).

In their book The Empire of Trauma,Fassin and Rechtman (2009) refer to bothcultural trauma, the collective memory ofwounds that contribute to cultural identi-ty of specific groups including theHolocaust, slavery, and 9/11, and to his-torical trauma, events located in time thatinclude acts of colonization, the atombombs dropped in Japan, and apartheidamong others. Trauma embodies imagesof unacceptable suffering that are locatedin the body in order to ensure that theseevents never happen again. Social changein recent decades has redefined traumasurvivors as “witness to the horrors of ourage” (p. 22), embodying our commonhumanity. In fact, the Navajo called theirland “the Great Self” (Casey, 2009). Anyviolation of the ecosystem in which theyexisted harmoniously was certainly per-ceived to be a violation of themselves.

Thus, the symptomatic resistance andpain experienced by Bernstein’sBorderlanders in their bodies may beviewed as one end of a spectrum wherethey are witness to something that is act-ing to slow or halt the manifest trauma.On the other end of the spectrum, thehorror felt by the U’wa as they contem-plate the violation of their land, their bod-ies, their very selves seems to point todeath as the only answer, absolutelyensuring the trauma can never happenagain.

Feeling alien in an alien world, manyof us have adopted a myriad of tech-niques, conscious or unconscious, to copewith the anguish. In current culture, disso-ciation is pervasive. Jerome Bernstein(2005) asserts that our culture is now sodissociated, “it communicates profounddistress coupled with dire warnings aboutthe future of our ecology and our way oflife, indeed our very survival” (p. 78).Dissociation deepens the separation wehave established between ourselves andwhat we see, and it intensifies our viewthat the outside world and everything in itis dead, justifying greater abuse andmanipulation of the natural world, theearth, and each other.

Paul Shepherd compares dissociationto a fencing off of our psyche, a splitting,just as when we first fenced off plots ofearth in order to manage them andaccommodate our ongoing survival(Glendinning, 1994). These fenced offareas of our psyche, once cut off, freezein place, holding the contents in originaluntouched form, as if freeze-drying themto preserve the host from contamination.Jung referred to these split-off parts ascomplexes (Kalsched, 1996).

While the choice of suicide as ananswer to the impact of the traumaseems extreme to the contemporarywestern mind, it is actually explicablegiven a provocative theory by Kalsched(1996). Kalsched asserts that when onepart of the self freezes or becomes splitoff when a complex is created, anotherpart rises up in response to the shock tak-ing on the role of a caretaker or protectoras a second line of defense to prevent fur-ther traumatization. However, the drive topreserve and defend against recurringtrauma is so strong that the protectorbecomes a perpetrator—at times going sofar as to inflict further pain or suffering,perhaps even death—if it perceives it as a

Bonnie Bright

“More and more, we are bombarded by datathat questions, perhaps

for the first time, whetheror not our culture, our

species, or even ourplanet will survive”


way to prevent additional harm from trau-ma.

Further, once the psychic defenseagainst further trauma is initiated, revital-izing opportunities are scanned and inter-preted as an invasive threat of re-trauma-tization and are therefore attacked.“What was intended to be a defenseagainst further trauma becomes a majorresistance to all unguarded spontaneousexpressions of self in the world”(Kalsched, 1996, p. 4). Creative livingbecomes seemingly impossible, and in afinal deadly blow, the archetypal defensesystem organized by the daimon, the pro-tector spirit turned persecutor, drivestoward death. In the case of the U’wa,they are clear about what their future andthe future of their homeland will be at thehands of corporate oil giants. Thus, toprevent the horror, the intolerable, some-thing leads them to lean into death as away out instead.

Significantly, I am wary of applyingKalsched’s theory of the protector/perpe-trator onto Bernstein’s Borderland theory,but find it safe to suggest that if allhumans experienced the psychic andphysical pain many Borderlanders exhibitin relation to the state of the worldaround them, perhaps we would, as a col-lective, rapidly and directly change ourbehavior toward the earth and eachother. As Bernstein (2005) points out,Nature may be increasingly reaching outto people who are concurrently tuning in.Thus, the pain driving us toward the stateof “never again” is effectively traumatizingthose who experience the reconnect andturning us toward greater collectiveawareness at the same time.

Regardless, if left untreated,unhealed, and repressed, trauma leads todissociation and abusive or pathologicalbehaviors that tend to be passed on fromgeneration to generation (Glendinning,1994). To heal trauma, we must not onlytreat the individual symptoms and lives ofthose who suffer, but also address directlythe cultural and psychic legacy we haveinherited over time as the trauma waspassed down through generations. Inplaces where individuals can no longercontain the horror of the trauma that con-tinues to live in the unconscious realm, iterupts into the collective culture as vio-lence, terror, and abuse.

Even decades ago, Jung pointed out

that our collective culture mirrors an indi-vidual who is suffering deeply from soulloss, manifesting in symptoms such asfalling into conflict with himself, frag-menting into splinters in his pursuit ofgoals, interests, and occupations, and for-getting his own “origins and traditions…even losing all memory of his former self”(Jung, as cited in Sabini, 2005, p. 182).Disregard, numbing, or not wishing to seeor feel the distress and negative effectsthat soul loss brings also moves us everfurther away from deep connection aninto a society where meaning is hard tofind. This compels us to try anything tofill up the gaping sense of emptiness thatresults, staving off the fear of annihilationthat is core to the experience of trauma.Jung correctly diagnosed our compulsive,cultural tendency toward hyperactivity,saying, “we rush impetuously into novelty,driven by a mounting sense of insufficien-cy, dissatisfaction, and restlessness” (ascited in Sabini, 2005, p. 141).

Philip Cushman (1995) perceives thatthe individual in modern culture is an“empty self” that is driven by its felt senseof hollowness to fill itself up throughincreasing consumption of goods, servic-es, technology, peak experiences, enter-tainment, celebrity and even psychothera-py. To alleviate the anxiety, depression,isolation, and suffering, psychosomaticdisorders, or addiction we turn to con-sumerism distracting ourselves, stuffingourselves into individual silos no longerlinked to a larger web of creation. As awhole, we are also in danger of disappear-ing. Like the Navajo, we have collectivelybegun to fade away, losing touch withwhat is real, with emotion, and with our-selves and others. We live increasinglymeaningless lives not unlike zombieswhose only reason to survive is to turnothers into zombies as well.

The Collective ComplexJung shrewdly observed the way in

which an individual could fall into thegrips of the collective complex at hand(Singer & Kimbles, 2004). Like individualcomplexes, group complexes carry an invi-olate archetypal core. Complexes canunleash irrational forces, overcoming uswith their emotional affect. Tom Singerand Samuel Kimbles note that the hall-mark of group complexes is intense emo-tional affect that builds up over centuriesof repetitive traumatic events. In the caseof the U’wa, it may well be a group com-plex that explains the haste with whichthey were ready to commit mass suicidein the face of what they deemed intolera-ble oppression. Traumatic injury to agroup such as the U’wa initiates or ampli-fies the fear of annihilation of the groupspirit by a “foreign other” such as the rich,unfeeling corporate oil giants. Thisimpending violation often results in theemergence of an avenging protector orpersecutor to defend them, sometimesdriving them to extremes like mass sui-cide. Therefore, group complexes threat-en life the world over (Singer & Kimbles,2004).

Notably, today’s youth seem particu-larly susceptible to the trauma of today’sfast-paced world. Like canaries in a coalmine, they are manifesting symptoms as adirect result of their inability to cope withthe collective imbalance, including learn-ing disabilities, attention deficit disorder,defiance, rage, and even autism as a wayof dealing with the virtually intolerablestate of the world today (Beath, 2005).Michael Fordham suggested autism couldbe a sort of “second skin” creating a barri-er between a child and his environment(Feldman, 2004) Many affective states,especially anger and rage, may be erup-tions of unconscious anxiety about ourloss of connection to the planet and toeach other. These states may also beunconscious assertions of entitlement dis-played by youth in first world nations whoaren’t getting what they want based onthe idea that they want something thatwill feed their needs for identity, power,and privilege. These needs might other-wise be authentically fed with a deep con-nection to a place that feels like home,with what Casey (2009) calls emplacementinto a landscape that provides contextand narrative, engendering meaning. Inthe U.S and the rest of the modern world,our home as a sense of ourselves, our


“Even decades ago, Jungpointed out that our

collective culture mirrors anindividual who is suffering

deeply from soul loss”


psyche, our place in the world is threat-ened; our sense of comfort has been andcontinues to be devastated on a regularbasis by traumatic events in the culturewe have created. Our narrative is one ofloss and dislocation due to disregard anddestruction, to not caring and not tendingour place. The 2010 Deep Horizon oil dis-aster in the Gulf of Mexico is just one rel-evant example, though there are a multi-tude of current instances going on aroundus on a daily basis. As long as we see andunderstand that our “home”—whether itbe defined as the coast of Louisiana or theborders of our nation—is endangered,devastated, or violated, we cannot feelsafe.

Ostensibly, western culture is found-ed on displacement and disconnectionfrom place, from land, from home. TheNew World is built on immigration, onpeople leaving home to make a new placefor themselves in the world, and on colo-nization, the displacement of indigenouspeople for whom the new land wasalready home. Craig Chalquist (2009)points out that America is built on thearchetype of the pioneer, always moving,conquering frontiers and the threats thataccompany them—always designated as“the other”. Though sacred sites connect-ed to earth and place along with the spir-its and ancestors who dwell there havealways deeply situated indigenous peo-ples, those of us whose living ancestorsmigrated to this place have no such histo-ry, no living landscapes. It is no wonderwhy we easily devastate ecosystems,deforest mountains, or destroy bodies ofwater. We are not, for the most part,deeply tied to home, nor to the holdingcontext the landscape provides. We don’tknow the myths nor do we engage withthe spirits that live in the landscape. Wedon’t listen in through our dreams or ourmoods when in specific areas.

Somehow, in dealing with trauma,we must find a way to create a containerfor fear of the other. Narratives must cre-ate a bridge amidst our fragmentation toallow a vision of a common past and acommon future, one that is safe. We needmyths, symbols, and narratives to sustainus and provide context for our plight.However, currently, we only survive thepervasive chaos by desensitization to suf-fering. Our legacy, say Schaffer and Smith(2004), is crafting a culture in which

“power and authority seem staggeringlyout of balance, in which personal respon-sibility and helplessness seem crushing,and in which cultural meanings no longerseem to transcend death” (p. 13). In fact,the cultural meanings of the U’wa, whostood up for their beliefs and values, tran-scended the death of their culturethrough willingness to embrace actualphysical death. As a people who are eco-centric (focused on the relationship to theenvironment) and cosmocentric (in rela-tion to spirits, ancestors, and supernaturalentities), this act speaks to the power ofasserting responsibility, reclaiming mean-ing which enabled them to act authenti-cally and with integrity intact.

Meanwhile, in the western world,our response is the unconscious echo ofthe conscious choice embraced by theU’wa. In the U.S., suicide is a devastatingsymptom of the situation we face as a cul-ture. In 2005, the U.S. saw one suicideevery 16 minutes on average. That sameyear, suicide was the eleventh leadingcause of death for all Americans, rankingsecond for college students and thoseaged 25-34, and third for those aged 15-24 (Suicide.org, 2005). In fact, among indi-viduals in the military, those who arecalled upon to participate in and witnesssome of the worst horrors our culture haswrought, almost as many American troopscommitted suicide in 2010 as were killedin combat in Afghanistan (Tarabay, 2010).Tragically, it seems many of us are experi-encing the world as intolerable, and aretaking matters into our own hands muchas the U’wa have done. The problemseems to be that, as mythologist MichaelMeade (2008) explains, when conscious-ness is not present, the wrong sacrificesare made to the gods. Given our currentway of existing, Bernstein (2005) suggeststhat humanity now stands at the edge ofa suicidal precipice—perhaps similar to

that of the U’wa. Several recent investigations focused

on collective Post Traumatic StressSyndrome. When entire societies suffertrauma, symptoms like alcoholism anddomestic violence are ongoing, and heal-ing while in the midst of trauma is nearlyimpossible (Heinberg, 2009). Kalschedstates that the purpose of psyche is toconvert anxiety of annihilation into amanageable fear (Singer & Kimbles, 2004),but, because we have such a cultural andhistorical relationship with annihilation,colonization, displacement, and extinc-tion, collectively we still carry the knowl-edge of its reality. Thus, the potential fortrauma to arise anew exists in every newmoment. Each generation carries theknowledge of destruction and violation asboth a postmemory, cautionary tales thatliterally reach into the future and remindpotential victims of impending horror, anda prememory, one’s own future memoryor anticipation of the past (Brison, 2002).

In the end, trauma is a transitionthat moves us to a threshold, what Casey(2009) refers to as spatial areas of transi-tion. This threshold places us at the portalto a new way of being, a new home, evenif for the time being. It locates us in aplace of potentiality. In some indigenousrites of passage, as the initiate goes by,the villagers open their doors to witnessthe initiate and to symbolize the openingof the way. We are all in this together. Weall belong to the earth. Whether it be theU’wa who locate their authentic selvesand the very soul of their tribe in the faceof the ultimate impossible choice to entera great wide chasm that hosts death, orthe Borderlanders who hold space withtheir pain while the rest of the worldbegins to wake up, memory, and narrativeof that memory, can create a sense ofsacred space, a place where everythingbelongs and has meaning. The memory,the narrative, the witnessing, all carry usto the open door, the edge of the veryprecipice where something new awaits, ahomecoming to the place where the newskin made tender by trauma can behealed with our compassion and con-scious attention.

ReferencesBeath, A. (2005). Consciousness in action:The power of beauty, love and courage in aviolent time. New York: Lantern Books.

Bonnie Bright

“In some indigenous ritesof passage, as the initiate

goes by, the villagersopen their doors to

witness the initiate and to symbolize the opening

of the way”


Bernstein, J. (2005). Living in the border-land: The evolution of consciousness andthe challenge of healing trauma. New York:Routledge.

Brison, S. J. (2002). Aftermath: Violence andthe remaking of a self. Princeton, N.J.:Princeton University Press.

Cushman, P. (1995). Constructing the self,constructing America: A cultural history ofpsychotherapy. Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Fassin, D., & Rechtman, R. (2009). Theempire of trauma: An inquiry into the condi-tion of victimhood. Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press.

Feldman, B. (2004). Towards a theory oforganizational culture: Integrating the“other” from a post-Jungian perspective. InT. Singer & S. L. Kimbles (Eds.), The culturalcomplex: Contemporary Jungian perspec-tives on psyche and society (pp. 251). NewYork: Brunner-Routledge.Heinberg, R. (2009). The psychology of peakoil and climate change. In L. Buzzell & C.Chalquist (Eds.), Ecotherapy: Healing withnature in mind. San Francisco: Sierra Club

Books.

Kalsched, D. (1996). The inner world of trau-ma: Archetypal defenses of the personalspirit. London: Routledge.

Macy, J. R. (1979). How to Deal withDespair. New Age magazine, (June).http://www.joannamacy.net/html/docu-ments/Despairwork1979.pdf

Meade, M. (2008). The world behind theworld: Living at the ends of time. Seattle,WA: Greenfire Press.

Sabini, M. (Ed.). (2005). The earth has asoul: The nature writings of C.G. Jung.Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.

Schaffer, K., & Smith, S. (2004).Conjunctions: Life narratives in the field ofhuman rights. Biography, 27(1).

Singer, T., & Kimbles, S. L. (2004). The cul-tural complex: Contemporary Jungian per-spectives on psyche and society. New York,NY: Brunner-Routledge.Stolorow, R. D. (2007). Trauma and humanexistence: Autobiographical, psychoanalytic,and philosophical reflections. New York:Analytic Press.

Suicide.org. (2005). U.S. Suicide Statistics.Retrieved August 19, 2014, from http://sui-cide.org/suicide-statistics.html - 2005

Tarabay, J. (2010). Suicide rivals the battle-field in toll on U.S. military. The Daily Caller.http://dailycaller.com/2010/06/18/suicide-rivals-the-battlefield-in-toll-on-u-s-military/

Watkins, M., & Shulman, H. (2008). Towardpsychologies of liberation. New York:Palgrave Macmillan.

Bonnie Bright is the founder of DepthPsychology Alliance, a free online commu-nity, and of Depth Psychology List, a siteto find or list depth psychology-orientedpractitioners. She has trained extensivelyin the Enneagram, in HolotropicBreathwork, and completed a 2-yeartraining with African elder MalidomaSomé. She is also a certified ArchetypalPattern Analyst™ via the Assisi Institute.Bonnie holds M.A. degrees in Psychologyfrom Sonoma State University and inDepth Psychology from Pacifica GraduateInstitute in Santa Barbara, CA, where sheis finalizing her PhD.


Comic strip continued from page 133of 4 Comics by Jeremy Taylor







CG Jung opens his LiberNovus (The Red Book)

with several elements: an elaboratelypainted initial, “Der Weg desKommenden” (The Way That is to Come),three calligraphic script passages in Latinfrom the biblical book of Isaiah, and onefrom the Gospel According to John. Thismaterial fills the entire first page andcloses in Latin with, “Written by C.G. Jungwith his own hand in his house inKusnach/Zurich in the year 1915” (Jung,2009, folio p. 1). Shamdasani (2012)places Jung’s Red Book in the tradition ofWilliam Blake’s illuminated printing. Jungcombined poetic word and artisticimagery in the creation of the LiberNovus. Like the frontispiece of Blake’sThe Marriage of Heaven and Hell, wemay appropriately characterize this firstfolio page as the frontispiece for LiberPrimus and the whole Liber Novus.

The initial with its intricatelydetailed images takes up fully one thirdof the page and calls for detailed explica-tion beyond the scope of this article. Forexample, Owens (2011) observes thatJung’s depiction of the zodiac images rel-ative to the sun in the initial suggests thecusp between the Christian age of Pisces(Jesus Christ as “the Way”) and thearrival of a new era in Aquarius with anew god-image and “The Way That Is toCome.”

This paper, however, will moremodestly focus on the four biblical textsand their utilization at three levels: First,seven passages from Isaiah including thethree in the frontispiece are found in thecontext of Chapter 5 of PsychologicalTypes (Jung 1921/1923/1971) simply asexamples of resolving symbols derivingfrom the least expected sources; second,the four prophetic passages in the fron-tispiece will be further amplified by theiroriginal context using common biblicalcriticism; third, the particular order oftheir presentation prompts a thesis as totheir relevance for Jung’s very humanand personal dilemma at midlife.

These Latin biblical texts are fromthe Vulgate translated by St. Jerome fromOld Latin, Hebrew, and Greek versionscirca 380 CE. The Vulgate representedthe “vulgar” or common language of thetime when Greek and certainly Hebrewwere no longer widely known. TheVulgate became the standard bible of theWestern Church.

Jung grew up steeped in biblical cul-ture and imagery. His maternal grandfa-ther and his father were Hebrew schol-ars. One might assume he chose the Latinrather than Hebrew, Greek, or Germantexts he knew well in order to be consis-tent with the manuscript language, script,and style tradition he was emulating.Writing in this manner placed him in the

Frontispiece in LIber Novus (The Red Book) by C.G. JungImage used with permission by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Frontispiece for Liber NovusBiblical Texts on Folio Page One

of the Red BookBy Gerald F. Kegler


Western intellectual and religious tradi-tion he was representing in his dialogueswith the inner figures who visited himduring his encounter with the uncon-scious. Shamdasani (2012) wrote, “Thecalligraphic manuscript of Liber Novusenacts a return to a pre-Reformationperiod. Jung was attempting to recoversomething lost in Western culture sincebefore printing – before the split of sci-ence and religion, prior to the rise ofmodern rationality and the triumph ofthe ‘spirit of the times’” (p. 130).

For the English translation of thebiblical texts editor Shamdasani chose the17th century King James Version, whichBaynes (1923) used in his translation ofPsychological Types and which Hull usedextensively in translating the CollectedWorks. It is certainly the best known andmost widely used Bible in English.Cherished for its Shakespearian vocabu-lary and poetic style, it is neverthelesslimited by the critical biblical knowledgeof that time. Since Handel’s librettist,Charles Jennens, chose several texts fromIsaiah in “Messiah,” some passages fromthe frontispiece truly ring in our ears. Thistranslation choice is consistent withJung’s desire to represent a perspectiveantedating his contemporary “spirit ofthe times”.

Jung introduces each text in thefrontispiece with “Isaiah said” or “Johnsaid” and closes each with the scripturalreference in Latin numerals. The texts inKing James Version (KJV) English are asfollows (words or passages he scripted inred are underlined):

Isaiah said: Who hath believed ourreport? And to whom is the arm ofthe Lord revealed? For he shall growup before him as a tender plant, andas a root out of a dry ground hehath no form nor comeliness; andwhen we shall see him, there is nobeauty that we should desire him.He is despised and rejected of men;a man of sorrows, and acquaintedwith grief: and we hid as it were ourfaces from him; he was despised,and we esteemed him not. Surely hehas borne our griefs, and carried oursorrows: yet we did not esteem himstricken, smitten of God, and afflict-ed. (Is 53:1-4)

For unto us a child is born, unto us ason is given: and the government

shall be upon his shoulder: and hisname shall be called Wonderful,Counsellor, The Mighty God, TheEverlasting Father, The Prince ofPeace. (Is 9:6)

John said: And the Word was madeflesh, and dwelt among us (and webeheld his glory, the glory as of theonly begotten of the Father), full ofgrace and truth. (Jn1:14)Isaiah said: The wilderness and thesolitary place shall be glad for them;and the desert shall rejoice, andblossom as the rose. It shall blossomabundantly, and rejoice even withjoy and singing….Then the eyes ofthe blind shall be opened, and theears of the deaf shall be unstopped.Then shall the lame man leap as ahart, and the tongue of the dumbsing: for in the wilderness shallwaters break out, and streams inthe desert. And the parched groundshall become a pool, and the thirstyland springs of water: in the habita-tion of dragons, where each lay,shall be grass with reeds and rushes.

And an highway shall be there, anda way, and it shall be called the wayof holiness; the unclean shall notpass over it; but it shall be for those:the wayfaring men, though fools,shall not err therein. (Is 35)

Of these four passages Shamdasani(2012) noted simply, “Thus it was pre-sented as a prophetic work, and outlinedthe symbolic significance of what washappening in the world and its implica-tions” (p. 117).

Typology ContextIn reflecting on this period from

1913 to 1917 of “intense preoccupation

with the images of my own unconscious,”Jung (1961) states,

Simultaneously, I was busy withpreparatory work for PsychologicalTypes, first published in 1921. Thiswork sprang originally from my needto define the ways in which my out-look differed from Freud’s andAdler’s. In attempting to answer thisquestion, I came across the problemof types. (pp. 206-7)

The note of simultaneity is empha-sized to suggest the broader conceptualand imaginal field in which Jung was liv-ing and working at the time. Even as heentered into dialogue with his uncon-scious, he maintained his clinical practice,studies, family life, and military responsi-bilities by day (Shamdasani, 2009).

Jung’s massive literary and philo-sophical research into typology standsalone as one of his major contributions tothe understanding of human differences.More importantly perhaps it led him to aseminal appreciation for and descriptionof the dynamic process by which symbolsemerge from the unconscious to recon-cile conflicts between types and otherdilemmas in the conscious rational realm.Shamdasani (2012) wrote concisely, “Theissue was not the depiction of types, buthow the conflict of opposites could beresolved through the emergence of thereconciling symbol—one of the centralthemes of Liber Novus” (pp. 137-8).

Jung (1921/1971) explained, “It isthis process in the collective psyche thatis felt or intuited by poets and artistswhose main source of creativity is theirperception of unconscious contents, andwhose intellectual horizon is wide eno ughto discern the crucial problems of theage” (Para. 433). Beyond the popularnotion of prophets as prognosticators,Jung’s quote beautifully describes thecontribution of prophets like Isaiah whodiscerned the signs of their times andwere able to tap the unconscious andenvision images of a divine future beyondthose of the given tradition.

Jung (1921/1971) described severalcharacteristics or attributes of emergingreconciling (saving, uniting) symbols andused quotations from the book of Isaiahincluding the three found in the fron-tispiece to illustrate:

[T]he solution comes from the sideit was least expected….[It] is associ-

Frontispiece for Liber Novus

“Jung’s massive li teraryand philosophical

research into typologystands alone as one ofhis major contributions

to the understanding ofhuman differences”


ated with an irrational impossiblecondition: the pregnancy of a virgin(Para. 438). ‘Behold a virgin shallconceive and bear a son, who shallbe called Immanuel’ (Is 7:14 KJV).

[T]he redeeming symbol occurs justwhen one is least expecting it, andin the most improbable of places…[and] in a form that has nothing torecommend it. (paras. 439-40) ‘He isdespised and rejected of men’ (Is53:1-3 KJV).

The immediate effect of theredeeming symbol is the union ofopposites (para. 458). ‘The wolf alsoshall dwell with the lamb’ (Is 11:6-8KJV).

The nature of the redeeming symbolis that of a child – childlikeness orlack of prior assumptions is of thevery nature of the symbol and itsfunction” (para. 442). ‘For unto us achild is born’ (Is 9:6 KJV).

The tension that precedes solutionis likened in Isaiah to pregnancy(para. 443). ‘We have been withchild, we have been in pain, wehave…not wrought any deliverance’(Is 26:18 KJV).

With the birth of the symbol, theregression of libido in the uncon-scious ceases (paras. 444-5). ‘In thatday the Lord …shall slay the dragonthat is in the sea’ (Is 27:1 KJV).

The blossoming of new life and fruit-fulness where all was arid before isdescribed in Isaiah 35:5ff: ‘Then theeyes of the blind shall be opened[and] in the wilderness shall watersbreak out…And an highway shall bethere and a way’. The redeemingsymbol is a highway [Bahn], a way[Weg] upon which life can move for-ward (para. 445).

Images from Isaiah were much onhis mind as Jung worked simultaneouslyon typology and symbol developmentduring the time of his encounter with theunconscious. The fact that these sameimages appear in both the frontispiece tothe Red Book and the text ofPsychological Types suggests mutualinfluence.

Biblical ContextThe prophetic texts from Isaiah and

John which Jung included in the fron-tispiece are amplified through commonbiblical criticism. In Symbols ofTransformation (1912/1956) Jung refer-ences German Old Testament scholar,Herman Gunkel (1862-1932) (para. 379).He is the originator of biblical “form criti-cism” which assumes long years of oraltradition prior to writing and seeks toidentify the literary genre of a text in dis-cerning the Sitz im Leben (life setting)from which a text originated. Jung waspresumably familiar with such biblicalscholarship; but he was not taken withthe value of biblical criticism for the goodof readers’ souls (Rollins, 1983). Yet somecritical amplification of these texts is ourproject here.

IsaiahNineteenth-century biblical scholar-

ship had long made clear that the “book”of Isaiah is more accurately described asat least three collections of propheticmaterial from three widely separate erasof Israel’s community experience allascribed to the prophet Isaiah.Shamdasani (2009) outlined the compli-cated process by which the Black Books,drafts, layers, typed versions, and editsbecame in the end the version Jung tran-scribed into the Red Book. Similarly theauthorship process of the book of Isaiahwas primarily an oral tradition acrossmany generations which culminated inthe collection and codification in writtenform of various oral and written versions.

The historical Isaiah preached andtaught in the court of Judah in Jerusalemover a fifty-year span from 742-687 BCE.In general, chapters 1-33 of the biblicalbook that bears his name reflect this timeperiod and are more accurately attrib-

uted to him and his direct disciples. It wasa time of tremendous political challengeas the Assyrian Empire was on the riseand the little kingdoms along the Eastcoast of the Mediterranean including theKingdom of Judah were threatened withenvelopment. It was a time of stridentprophetic call to faith in the Lord overagainst this political and religious threat(Jensen & Irwin, 1990).

Isaiah challenged Judah’s King Ahaz(735-715 BCE) to have faith and ask for asign. Ahaz would not presume to test theLord for a sign; so Isaiah counters,“Assuredly, my Lord will give you a sign ofhis own accord! Look, the young womanis with child and about to give birth to ason. Let her name him Immanuel” (Is 7:14Jewish Publication Society). Isaiah expect-ed that a contemporary king, perhapsAhaz’ yet unborn son, Hezekiah, would befaithful to the covenant and allow theLord to save the dire situation. This wasnot the case, and disappointment in yetanother king moved Isaiah to envision anew hope and expectation for a futureideal king in the mode of founding KingDavid—a Messiah or Anointed One.

A second collection of propheticmaterial attributed to Isaiah comes froma prophet or prophetic school during thetime of Judah’s exile in Babylon (587-539BCE). They and chapters 34-55 are usuallyreferred to as Second Isaiah. Assyria hadsuccumbed to Babylon whose expandingempire engulfed Judah and took Judah’sleading class and tradespeople into exilein 587 BCE. Away from their beloved tem-ple and the religious practice surroundingit, there was urgency about collecting,editing, and writing the traditions, partic-ularly the Torah, to preserve them. The“book” of Isaiah was likely collected andwritten on scrolls during this time. Inexile they became “people of the book”(Stuhlmueller, 1990).

Yet as generations passed the exiledpeople of Judah were losing faith in theLord and the possibility of return toJerusalem, the temple, and a righteousDavidic king. In that dilemma two sourcesof saving hope were nurtured by theprophets of the exile and both weretapped by Jung in the frontispiece. Onewas a renewal of the Jerusalem home-land vision.

The wilderness highway passagefrom Isaiah chapter 35 selected by Jung

Gerald F. Kegler

“Images from Isaiahwere much on his mind

as Jung worked simultaneously on

typology and symbol development during the

time of his encounterwith the unconscious”


for the frontispiece would not take theremnant people back to Jerusalem via theusual trade routes; but straight throughthe impassable Syrian Desert betweenBabylon and Jerusalem as the crow flies.In the tension between traditional faith inthe Lord and generations of political andreligious exile this vision of a new andresolving way was characteristicallyunlikely. When the Persian King Cyrusovercame Babylon and executed a policyof repatriating exiles in 539 BCE, a rem-nant of Judah was able to return to theirdevastated homeland via the normaltrade route (Stuhlmueller,1990). But theimage of the mystical sacred highwayendured and endures still.

The second and equally unlikely newsource of hope envisioned in the Isaiahtradition during the exile was that of the“Suffering Servant,” an individual or cor-porate figure, who would take on andexpiate the suffering of the people. In thefrontispiece Jung quotes four verses fromthe fourth of the so called “ServantSongs” in Second Isaiah which describethat “despised” figure and its role.Handel’s version rings in our ears.

Gospel According to JohnThe canonical Gospels as we know

them were also the result of 30 to 70years of first-century oral and writtendevelopment in diverse geographical, cul-tural, and theologically fledgling Christiancommunities. The fourth and latestgospel is probably rooted in the experi-ence and teaching of one of Jesus’ disci-ples named John. Sometime in the 80s ofthe first century a brilliant theologian, the“evangelist,” gathered the variousJohannine traditions into a “gospel”beginning with the ministry of theBaptizer, “a voice in the desert crying out,‘Make the Lord’s road straight’” (Brown,1966 loc. sit. Jn 1:23 echoing Is 40:3).Finally in the 90s or later, a final redactoradded a prologue interspersed with theBaptizer narrative. Echoing Genesis chap-ter 1 the prologue begins with a newimage of the divine Word, “In the begin-ning was the Word, and the Word waswith God, and the Word was God” (Jn 1:1KJV). In the frontispiece Jung (2009)quotes a later verse from that prologue,“And the Word was made flesh, anddwelt among us (and we beheld his glory,the glory as of the only begotten of theFather), full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:14

KJV). In the face of expulsion from somesynagogues and under sometime Romanpersecution this was a new vision beyondall expectation (Brown, 1966).

In their various political and faithcrisis times, these prophets’ connectionwith the unconscious enabled them toenvision divine activity in new and unex-pected ways, perhaps beyond their ownunderstanding, for the good of the com-munity. Jung would have the reader takethese “words of the poet [prophet] notliterally but symbolically” (1921/1971,para. 129).

Sitz im LebenThis paper’s thesis is that Jung’s Sitz

im Leben influenced the choice and orderof the Biblical passages he quoted in thefrontispiece. First is Isaiah 53, the pathet-ic leper-like figure of the SufferingServant. Having broken with Freud,resigned from the presidency of theInternational Psychoanalytic Association,the editorship of the Jahrbuch and hislecturer status at the University, Jungexperienced an “extreme loneliness.“[M]y friendship with Freud came to anend. From then on, I had to make my wayalone” (Jung, 1961 p. 206). “I often feltutterly forlorn, I knew what I had to saywould be unwelcome” (1961 p. 222).

Bair (2003) narrated, “Jung was wellaware of how ruthlessly Fliess, Adler, andnow Stekel had been cast out andshunned….Thus in the letters the twomen exchanged [in 1912] there was onlybitterness, allegation, recrimination andretaliation” (p. 227). “There were otherways to isolate Jung, to sidetrack, stymie,and ignore him and Freud moved swiftly

to instigate them all [often through hisspokesman, Ernest Jones]….Jung had tobe cast into oblivion…ostracized…for his‘deviate’ views” (pp. 240-241). Jung(1961) wrote, “The link between [Job andChrist] is the idea of suffering. Christ isthe suffering servant of God, and so wasJob” (p. 216). He may well have felt him-self in the suffering servant tradition.

The second quotation in order isfrom Isaiah 9. In addition to a royal birthcelebration emphasized by Jung, somescholars argue that this verse was origi-nally a poem or song related to theanointing or enthronement of kings. Eachking in succession was acknowledged asthe adopted son of the Lord and giventitles reminiscent of the renowned figuresfrom Israel’s past i.e., the wisdom ofSolomon, the courage and kingship ofDavid, the stature of the fatherly patri-archs (Jensen & Irwin, 1990). In eachroyal succession “These honorific titlesreproduce the essential qualities of theredeeming symbol” (Jung, 1921/1971,para. 442).

In sharp contrast to the sufferingservant images, this passage proclaimsthe grand qualities which can be said ofJung himself. He had become the“WunderKind” welcomed by Bleuler as“Our Siegfried” and adopted by Freud as“son and heir.” Burdensome administra-tive responsibilities for the Congresses,the Jahrbuch and the InternationalAssociation among other expectationswere placed upon his shoulders (Bair,2003). “In Freud’s mind, Jung’s primaryrole was ‘direct successor to himself’”(Bair, p. 208). He was anointed “CrownPrince” in Freud’s circle.

Jung was indeed considered a“Wonder-Counselor.” Bair (2003) wrote,[He was] “Internationally known andrespected as a leading figure in experi-mental psychiatry. The word associationtest brought him initial renown, but hisearly book, The Psychology of DementiaPraecox, brought scholars and scientiststo the Burgholzli because they specificallywanted to observe him at work” (p.209).

The father archetype much engagedJung at this time. The birth of his son,Franz Karl, moved him greatly (Bair p.151). He was distressed at the publicscandal created with Sabina Spielrein’saccusation that he refused to father a“Seigfried” son-hero with her (Bair 2003).


“In their various political and faith crisis

times, these prophets’connection with the

unconscious enabled themto envision divine activity

in new and unexpectedways, perhaps beyond

their own understanding,for the good of the

community”


At their last meeting Freud and Jung hada personal conversation about the fathercomplex. Later that day Freud faintedand Jung picked him up and laid him on asofa. Jung recalled that Freud looked athim “as if I were his father” (Bair p. 236).

So in the tension between hiscareer as “WunderKind” and “CrownPrince” and his displaced role as“Suffering Servant,” Jung places the John1 passage as though it were “the third”and reconciling symbol in his own midlifeexperience. The “fleshing out” of hisinner experienced “word” was to be hisway forward, his life’s work. Jung wrote:

I wrote these fantasies down first inthe Black Book; later I transferredthem to the Red Book, which I alsoembellished with drawings. It con-tains most of my mandala drawings.In the Red Book I tried an estheticelaboration of my fantasies, butnever finished it. I became awarethat I had not yet found the rightlanguage that I still had to translateit into something else. Therefore Igave up this estheticizing tendencyin good time in favor of a rigorousprocess of ‘understanding.’ I sawthat so much fantasy needed firmground underfoot, and that I mustfirst return wholly to reality. Forme, reality meant scientific compre-hension. I had to draw concreteconclusions from the insights theunconscious had given me – andthat task was to become a life work(Jung 1961, p.188).

There were things in the imageswhich concerned not only myselfbut many others also….my lifebelonged to the generality….All myworks, all of my creative activity,has come from those initial fan-tasies and dreams….I took greatcare to try to understand every sin-gle image of my psychic inventory,and to classify them scientifically…to realize them in actual life (Jung,1961, p.192).

Gradually, through my scientificwork, I was able to put my fantasiesand the contents of the uncon-scious on a solid footing. Words andpaper, however, did not seem realenough for me; something more

was needed….I had to make a con-fession of faith in stone. That wasthe beginning of the ‘Tower’, thehouse which I built for myself atBollingen (Jung, 1961, p. 223). The fourth passage is from Isaiah 35

and is directly related to the title imageof Der Weg. Jung wrote (1921/1971),“The blossoming of new life and fruitful-ness where all was arid before isdescribed in Isaiah 35….The redeemingsymbol is a highway, a way upon whichlife can move forward without tormentand compulsion” (para. 445).

Though not stated in the quotedpassage, the biblical context is clear thatthe highway through the imagined desertwilderness led to Jerusalem. At least twospiritualistic allusions to Jerusalem inJung’s Sitz im Leben suggest themselves.Jung’s maternal grandfather, SamuelPreiswerk, a professor of Hebrew andOld Testament Theology, “is regardedtoday as a Zionist precursor, for hebelieved that Palestine should be cededto the Jews to become their homelandand a Jewish nation” (Bair, 2003).

Samuel’s granddaughter, Jung’scousin, Helene (Helly) Preiswerk was theyoung medium whose séances Jungobserved early on. In some of her trancesshe spoke in the deep, resonant voice ofSamuel in High German rather than hernative Schwizertutsch and sometimeseven in Hebrew. In the first séance afterthe 1897 First Zionist Congress in Baselwhere Samuel was praised, 16-year-oldHelly “described ‘Ivenes, her somnambu-lant self’, as a woman with Jewish fea-tures who spoke Hebrew (Savage, 2010).“Helly-Ivenes said that Samuel hadcharged her to complete his work ofleading the Jews back to their homeland”(Bair, 2003, p. 51).

The second allusion to Jerusalem

relates to the appearances of the dead inJung’s experience. Shamdasani (2009)wrote, “Amid the unprecedented car-nage of the war, the theme of the returnof the dead was widespread….The deathtoll also led to a revival of interest in spir-itualism….The dead had appeared [toJung] in a fantasy on January 17, 1914,and had said that they were about to goto Jerusalem to pray at the holiestgraves” (p. 205). They wandered therebecause they “...still have no peace” (p.294). Two years later the Jung householdwas bothered by and “thickly filled withghosts” who told him, “We are returningfrom Jerusalem, where we didn’t findwhat we are looking for” (Bair, p. 204).The holy city of the three religions of thebook did not satisfy the spiritual needs ofthe wandering dead who then compelledJung to write the Seven Sermons.

The old ways of religion were inade-quate. A new way is needed and Jungdares to explore that Weg desKommenden in his own inner desertwilderness with the “spirit of thedepths.” This is to be a solitary way,” asJung (2009) makes clear to the reader inthe prologue to The Red Book, “my pathis not your path….You seek a path? Iwarn you away from my own. It can alsobe the wrong way for you. May each gohis own way” (p. 231). So Jung closes thefrontispiece with Isaiah 35:8 in the futuretense and highlighted in red as a “rubric”or commission for readers of Liber Novusto find their own way:

“et erit ibi semita et via sanctavocabitur, non transibit per eampollutes et haec erit vobis directavia ita ut stulti non errant per eum.”

It will be for you a way of holiness,a direct pathway so that the dishonor-able and the foolish will not go astray onit. (Paraphrase translation by the author)

ReferencesBair, D. (2003). Jung: A Biography. NewYork: Back Bay Books.

Brown, R. E. (1966). The GospelAccording to John (i-xii): Introduction,Translation, and Notes. Garden City, NY:Doubleday.

Jensen, J. & Irwin, W. (1990). Isaiah 1-39.In R. Brown (Ed.), The New JeromeBiblical Commentary. Englewood Cliffs,NJ: Prentice Hall.

“The old ways of religion were

inadequate. A new wayis needed and Jungdares to explore

that.. . in his own innerdesert wilderness”

Gerald F. Kegler

Jung, C. G. (1923). Psychological types. (H.Godwin Baynes, Trans.). New York:Pantheon (Original work published in1921)

—-. (1956). Symbols of transformation.(R.F.C. Hull, Trans.). Princeton: PrincetonUP. (Original work published in 1912)

—-. (1961). Memories, Dreams andReflections. Jaffe, A. (Ed.). New York:Vintage Books.

—-. (1971). Psychological Types. (Revisionof Baynes translation by F.C. Hull).Princeton: Princeton UP. (Original workpublished in 1921)

—-. (2009). The Red Book: Liber Novus.New York: Norton.

Owens, L. (2011). Jung and Aion: Time,Vision, and a Wayfaring Man.Psychological Perspectives, 54(3), 253.

Rollins, W. G. (1983). Jung and the Bible.Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press.

Savage, J. A. (2010). Trust and Betrayal:Four Women under Jung’s Shadow. In S.Wirth, S. Meier & L. Hill (Eds.), Trust andBetrayal: Dawning of Consciousness.Spring Journal, Jungian Odyssey Series,Vol. III.

Shamdasani, S. (2009). Introduction. InThe Red Book: Liber Novus by C. G. Jung.New York: Norton.

Shamdasani, S. (2012). C. G. Jung: ABiography in Books. New York: Norton.

Stuhlmueller, C. (1990). Deutero-Isaiahand Trito-Isaiah. . In R. Brown (Ed.), TheNew Jerome Biblical Commentary (pp.329-348). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall.

Gerald Kegler M.Ed., is a longtime mem-ber and sometime board member of theMinnesota Jung Association. For fiveyears he participated in the relatedSeminar in Jungian Studies taught by localand visiting analysts and scholars.Seminary training introduced andschooled him for a lifelong interest in crit-ical biblical studies. This combination ofacademic interests moved him to write"Frontispiece for Liber Novus: BiblicalTexts on Folio Page One of the Red Book,"incorporating both disciplines.


After the Fly’s Buzz

By Susanne Dutton

“And then the Windows failed – and thenI could not see to see.”

—Emily Dickenson, I Heard a Fly Buzz – When I Died

the next thingis to let,not will,ease, unmanagedawn, unbiddenlids up, eyesopen, uncleavingas dry leaveson cold

earth, letbreak, unbentrise, unchosenlight with its bluemath, itsinch trancework, picking its

way in, letthe bride, unsought,unasked for,unlonging,fall, unmade, ather own altar.


Poetry

Lapis PhilosophorumAcrylic Paint and Ink

Art By Sean Smith Arlt


To the Luminous Gift of a Snailfor Richard and Carol

By Naomi Ruth Lowinsky

I’ve been trying to figure you outYou seem to be a snail bearing lightIn my hands you are solid glass In my eyes you’re a wave full of swirling color

A snail bearing rainbow lightThough you claim to be an ordinary paper weightWhat’s with those swirling colors? What’s with that primordial fetal curl?

Why pretend to be a simple paper weightWhen placed on a desk you go dimLosing all traces of fetal curl?When you end up in my kitchen window

Escaping the drudge of that deskYou seem to me a genie of fire and ashCurled up in my kitchen window Whose job is to show me the light

Could it be you’re a genie of ash and fireOr maybe a color wheel dervishWhose job is to show me the light To drench me in lilac and gold

Perhaps you’re a whirling dervish of colorCome to alter my newsprint mindTo drench me in turquoise and pinkTo cast me a spell in which purple turns green

Enchanting my newscast mindWhen the ancients drank from Lycurgus’ cupGreen turned to purpleSo says the snail of the long unfurling

When the ancients drank from Lycurgus’ cupThey found themselves turning inwardSo says the snail of the long unfurling In the hands of the fire God of glass

They found themselves twirling outwardFrom umbilical curl to cosmic swirlIn the hands of the green God of purpleCast on the spiral path

From cosmic curl to umbilical swirl From outside of inside to inside of outCast on the spiral pathIn the hot melt of creation

From inside of outside to outside of inFrom the gift of the snail in my handsTo the hot melt of creationI’m still trying to figure it out

Alchemy

Purple HeartCotton embroidery threads on ancient linen

Art

Pamela Preston began her Jungian studies in Santa Fe, NM in1982. She embarked on a literary, mythological quest in 1992with a typewriter and a one-way ticket for Paris, France. Basedin the French countryside for 17 years, Ms. Preston continuesthreading mandalas and writing her personal myth.View her poem Incantation to Ancestors on page 24

Cotton embroidery threads on ancient linen

By Pamela PrestonPoetry


I sing of the brilliant Artemis withher golden arrows, the

venerated virgin, the Archeress whostrikes deer with her

arrows…she who, in the shadows ofthe mountains and on the

mountaintops whipped by thewinds, stretches her bow of pure

gold, and, in the joy of the hunt,shoots the arrows that make

her victims groan. The peaks of themountains tremble. The

forest in its darkness screams withthe frightened clamor of

the animals of the woods. The earthtrembles, as does the

fish-filled sea. —Homeric Hymn to Artemis

Contemporary American stereo-types, resulting from fixed and

rigid typologies, reveal cultural beliefsand psychological truth. Evolving out of afaulty understanding of hunting andfarming mythologies, and patriarchal andfeminist assertions, one such stereotypeis the belief that by nature men, and notwomen, are hunters. By extension, thebinary fantasy that men are aggressiveand women are nurturers is a testimonialto the lost archetype of woman as hunterwithin our everyday life. Denial of femi-nine aggression has rendered Artemis, afeminine archetype of the Hunt, to anunconscious and split-off position—shehas been stripped of her arrows. Drawingupon my own life and with a specificfocus on women’s experience, this articleexamines both the psychological conse-quences of the lost archetype and thetransformation offered by a present daypractice that facilitates a conscious re-integration of aggressive instincts.

According to Depth psychology,myths are timeless and eternal storiesthat contain and reveal essential pat-terns, and archetypal instincts, thatunderlie all human experience. Theancient Greek myth of Artemis providesan opportunity to re-examine contempo-

rary cultural assumptions about feminineaggression. Turning to the myth ofArtemis challenges inaccurate beliefs thatwomen are not aggressive by nature andprovides a new context for understandinghow aggressive instincts positively impactpsychological development and the abili-ty to defend self.

To understand the positive aspectsof aggression, as well as the psychologicalconsequences of denied natural instincts,the discussion begins with an examina-tion of the pertinent archetypal energiesthat are contained within the ancientGreek Goddess mythology. From there itwill be argued that repression of thehunter instinct has rendered women,myself among them, powerless. Throughmy own story, I will describe how a struc-tured modern day ritual, which drawsupon aggressive instincts, activates andempowers women to reclaim lost parts ofself.

Artemis: The Virgin Huntress,Protector, Solitary Goddess

Opinion varies: some say, GoddessSeems Too Rough! Others praise:Virginity Demands It!

—Ovid’s Metamorphoses, 55

Fierce, uncompromising, and self-determined, Artemis, known as Diana tothe Romans, is the Eternal Virgin, theHuntress, the protector of all that is wildand vulnerable, and the guardian of child-birth and the wilderness. Mostly depictedas a beautiful adult, Artemis comes to

represent the stage of life just prior tomarriage. The goddess bespeaks of allthat is pure, untouched, untamed, andsolitary. We learn what is important toArtemis through the gifts she asks of herfather when just three years old.According to Callimachus, Artemis wishesto carry a bow and arrows, to wear ashort tunic, to live in the mountains withthe companionship of 80 nymphs—allnine years of age, and she wants toremain forever a virgin.

To know Artemis, we must under-stand the ancient concept of the virgin.Virginity, as Ester Harding writes, refersnot to a physiological fact but “to a quali-ty, to a subjective state, a psychologicalattitude”(179): the virgin “belongs to her-self alone, she is one-in-herself ”(180). Asthe Virgin, Artemis remains self-sufficient,and does not derive identity through rela-tionships. Although she loves her brotherand the nymphs, and is a friend to somemen, Artemis is not the possession ofanother. Above all else, Artemis passion-ately values the self and a “monogamy ofsoul” (Downing, 183). She models notsimply the rejection of another, butrather, the active decision of choosingself. Thus, Artemis will not allow for anyviolation of the untainted essence ofbeing.

In ancient Greece, an annual initia-tion rite took place in Brauron that vener-ated Artemis. The participants of theArtemis cult were called the parthenia;nine to eleven-year-old girls in the stagejust prior to marriage and the entangle-ments offered by Aphrodite. During theritual, the young girls dressed up asbears, imitated the goddess and partici-pated in aggressive play. The image ofthe bear symbolizes both what is huntedin the wild, and the she-bear who wildlyprotects her young. The maidens weregiven the opportunity to play with theparadox of being the hunter and thehunted. Karl Kerenyi describes the signifi-cance of the ritual in the following pas-sage:

Artemis without ArrowsAggression Lost and Found

By Betsy Hall

“Myths are timeless andeternal stories that contain and reveal

essential patterns, andarchetypal instincts,

that underlie all human experience”


In the figure of the great huntressthe little human bears meta new aspect of their femininenature. It was a meeting with something wild and vigorous whichwould enable them, if the unwritten laws of the all too patriar-chal cities would permit, to compete as siblings with the ephebes[their male counterparts] 44).

The Brauron festival suggests thatthe vigorous nature of the feminine isrelated to masculine aggression; they aresiblings. Psychologically, it is the attitude,energy and state of being of the parthe-nia that Artemis so fervently nurtures anddefends.

Powerful stories within Goddessmythology depict Artemis’ unwaveringintolerance for betrayals of the virginalstate. One such tale recounts how Acteonhappens upon Artemis while bathing withher nymphs. When the goddess discoversthat he has spied their nakedness,Artemis transforms Acteon into a stag,leaving him to be hunted down anddevoured by his own hunting dogs.Artemis is also quick to punish womenwho do not protect their own virginity, asexemplified when Callisto, unable toresist Zeus’ seduction, is cruelly banishedfrom the goddess’ entourage.

On first appearance, Artemisappears impulsive and irrational, but asOvid suggests, virginity demands a ruth-less protector. All of Artemis’ actionsoccur within the bounds of necessity,driven by the unquestioning urge toaggressively defend the self.

Within the Artemis archetype, wefind a dual expression of both guardianand destroyer. In her role as helper ofwomen in childbirth, Artemis facilitatesnew life, as well as, brings death whenappropriate. As a huntress, Artemis pro-tects the weak or feeble, young and old,but actively and keenly kills those whoare strong like herself. Artemis takespleasure in her aggressive impulses, whilealso demonstrating a nurturing instinct.She is the defender, the hunter and thehunted. Pursued by those who seek topenetrate her inviolability, Artemis pas-sionately flings her protective, yetdestructive arrows. Separate, independ-ent, and fully one-in-herself, Artemisdemonstrates that both nurturing andaggression are female impulses, and thatself-protection is a divine and necessaryact.

The Lost Goddess: PsychologicalConsequences

In Western society during many cen-turies, man was considered to bedominant and superior, whilewoman was relegated to a positionof dependence and inferiority.Consequently the feminine principlehas not been adequately recognizedor valued in our culture. And eventoday, when the outer manifesta-tions of this onesidedness haveundergone considerable change, thepsychological effects persist andboth men and women suffer from amaiming of the psyche, whichshould be whole.

—Ester Harding, 181

With the rise of patriarchy, whichmany scholars link with the increase inagricultural societies, the Goddess lostpower and influence. In Woman theHunter, Mary Stange argues that huntingcultures were characterized by a bal-anced view of the relationship betweenhumans and nature and between menand women. With the rise of agriculture,hierarchical systems introduced notionsof ownership and domination. Stangeasserts that with agriculture came thedomestication of land, animals andwomen; no longer the hunting partner,women became dependent on and sub-servient to men (47).

Stange also courageously, and cor-rectly I believe, argues that along withpatriarchal beliefs, eco-feminism has alsofostered the denial of feminine aggres-sion by arguing that women are non-vio-lent. In other words, women have “toogood a heart to be a killer” (62). Menand women have suppressed awarenessof the aggressive feminine into the deepunconscious recesses of psyche. Is it nowonder that there has been such a nega-tive outcry against the Facebook postingsof a pink-arrowed cheerleader, posing

over her big game kill? While Artemiswould celebrate this young teenager’sstrength, as long as it was done with ritu-al, our culture shudders at her boastfulpride.

The forwarding of the belief that itis not feminine to be aggressive does, asHarding suggests, maim the psyche. As ayoung girl growing up within this faultyideology, I have distinct memories of theoppression of my assertive and aggressiveimpulses. During my grade school years, Iwas often found in physical tussles andathletic endeavors with the neighbor-hood kids and my four older brothers.Being smaller and younger only fueled mycompetitive instinct as I fought ferocious-ly to defend myself. With hindsight, I rec-ognize the Artemis energy that surgedthrough my youthful body. However, Iwould soon fall prey to the culturalnorms that define femininity.

Leaving grade school and enteringpuberty brought an abrupt end to myspirited nature. I remember being inun-dated with messages that pathologizedmy natural instincts. Not only was I toldthat my aggressive behavior was “unlady-like,” I was given direct messages todown play my strength and athleticprowess so that the boys would like me. Ialways took great pleasure in defeatingmales, however social graces taught meto “let the boys win.”

Even greater damage was donewhen I began to hear that girls shouldnever fight with boys, even if in self-defense. As an adolescent I actuallyremember attending a “girl’s assembly”when a policeman told us that femalesshould become passive if ever assaulted,thereby, increasing the chances of livingthrough an attack. In this culture,females, like Artemis, invite violation bythe very reality of being desired; yetunlike the goddess, we must not defendourselves or exact revenge. Subliminallyattached to this lesson is a deeper sug-gestion that perhaps women deserve tobe violated. This message, further sup-ported in the cultural voice of media andadvertising, penetrated my psyche leav-ing me with an incredible sense of paraly-sis and vulnerability. I internalized the fol-lowing: to survive and be loved by theopposite sex, I had to surrender my bowand arrows, shrink in posture, deny mynatural and necessary instinct, and relyupon men to protect me.

Betsy Hall

“Pursued by those who seek to penetrate

her inviolabil i ty, Artemispassionately fl ings her protective, yetdestructive arrows”


My experience is not unlike those ofother women. The denial of feminineaggression creates learned helplessnessand dependency while also fosteringinner confusion and mistrust of naturalurges. Women’s aggression has been tra-ditionally pathologized by both men andwomen. While assertive or angry womenare called “ball busters,” “castratingfemales,” or just plain “bitches,” anaggressive male is likely thought to bestrong, successful, and perhaps heroic.Lacking an affirmative container, womenoften experience aggressive impulses andfantasies as disturbing, frightening andabnormal. Thus, an empowering and nec-essary aspect of the feminine psychebecomes denied and despised. Althoughsplit-off from consciousness, aggressiondoes not die, but rather arises in destruc-tive and convoluted expressions of angeror internalized feelings of self-loathingand powerlessness.

The cultural stereotype that it isacceptable for only men to be aggressivehas resulted in a destructive divisionbetween the sexes. Men are unable toplace women’s anger and assertivenesswithin a natural context, while womencome to resent the men they depend on.Taught to rely upon the masculine forprotection has created a paradoxical con-dition: women must find safety in thevery force that someday may assaultthem. Inherent to this faulty typology isan internal and external psychologicalsplit: natural feminine urges becomeunconscious and deemed inappropriate,while an “us versus them” polarity per-sists between men and women. Men andwomen have all suffered personally andcollectively from the denial of theArtemis archetype.

Reclaiming Aggression: A ModernDay Ritual

Perish the thought that womenmight take up arms, become skilledin their use, and become therebysimultaneously able to defend them-selves and to fend for themselves!Woman the Hunter—as macho mengrasp perhaps more readily thanmost feminists have to date—is aprofoundly unsettling figure, herwildness a force to be reckonedwith.

—Mary Stange, 76

After decades of feeling physicallyvulnerable and frightened of the dark, Itook up arms. Completion of a three-day,full-contact self-defense course, calledModel Mugging, armed me not withweapons, but rather with a new attitudeand capacity to fend for myself. Thecourse facilitated a remembrance of myaggressive instinct, and provided invalu-able training in both emotional and physi-cal self-defense. I liken my experience tothe Artemis ritual at Brauron; playing theshe-bear awakened me to my wild andferocious desire to protect self.

Although I had always been a verypowerful athlete, I lacked the internalpermission and know-how to use mystrength in a self-protective mode. I grewto despise the personal knowledge that ifI were to be face to face with violence Iwould collapse. As stated before, by thetime I was 13, I was seduced into believ-ing that it was not in my nature to defendmyself. The passage of years dissolvedmemories of my once youthful courageand determination; I could not channelmy anger in a powerful self-affirming pos-ture. Worried about being “inappropri-ately masculine,” I was fearful of beingassertive, boundary setting was confusingand agonizing, and self-protection was aforeign concept. As many other womenhave testified, my inability to stand up formyself eventually permeated all areas oflife, and most importantly, eroded myself-esteem

I discovered Model Mugging afterattending a public graduation in which Iwitnessed wild, howling women fightingoff assailants with full force blows.Impressed, terrified, and overwhelmed bythe feminine fury and strength displayed,I enrolled in the course. Model Muggingwas originated by a highly merited mar-tial arts instructor named Matt Thomas.The idea sprung when tragically a skilledfemale blackbelt was brutally raped.

Following the rape, the student apolo-gized to Matt feeling that her inability todefend herself was an affront against histraining. Matt, initially unforgiving, cameto realize that he was the one who hadfailed his student. This realization insti-gated years of research and developmentof a self-defense program that realistical-ly re-creates high adrenaline assault situ-ations and teaches full-contact defense.

Over a three-day period, eight otherwomen and myself were carefully ledthrough a series of exercises that utilizedvoice, boundary setting and physicaldefensive maneuvers. Mimicking thewords and actions of true assailants, thefully padded “muggers” subjected all ofus to our worst fears. Each step of thevolatile way, we began to discover thepower that lay waiting in our voices andbodies. By the end of the weekend, wehad learned to not only defend against,but also to subdue the attackers.Although Model Mugging calls uponphysical power, it does not advocate vio-lence. Instead, the training adopts anArtemis-like attitude that the self is worthprotecting. Like the Greek she-bears,Model Mugging initiates discover a previ-ously unknown source of power: femi-nine aggression.

In the days that followed my train-ing, I felt uncertain in my transformedbody and psyche. Although ModelMugging does not teach to kill, I wasnewly aware of my killing capacity.Stunned by the joy and exhilaration thatcomes from physically beating another; Iwas unrecognizable to myself. I felt newlyuncomfortable leaving the house, notbecause I was frightened of being hurt,but because I was flooded with visual fan-tasies of fighting off every stranger I saw.Had I known then what I know now aboutArtemis, I would have felt contained bythe archetype. Instead, on my own Iworked hard to integrate my new psy-chophysical stature.

Eventually, my anxiety subsided andthe great rewards of my transformationbecame conscious. For the first time inmy life I had choices about how to handleemotionally or physically threatening situ-ations. Although I have never used thedefensive strikes learned in the course,awareness of my physical aptitude hasgiven me a psychological confidence andcertainty that I am worth defending.Since the course I am better at setting

Artemis without Arrows

“Stunned by the joyand exhilaration that

comes from physicallybeating another; I

was unrecognizable to myself”


boundaries, asserting my feelings andneeds, and when necessary, saying “NO!”

Learning how to say “no” is para-mount to being able to say “yes” to life.For women like myself, discovering,understanding and learning to channelaggression in healthy ways mends notonly an intra-psychic split, but facilitates amore trusting relationship with the outerworld, and particularly with men.Because I can defend my self, I no longerneed to derive a sense of personal safetyfrom an outside resource. As well, theimagined male assailant in the dark nolonger threatens me. Knowing my ownaggressive nature also helps me to under-stand and respect my masculine counter-part.

As Stange suggests in her discussionof hunting societies, cultural actualizationand awareness of aggressive instinctsreduce subject-object dualism and “usversus them” mentality. When we recog-nize that women do not own the marketon nurturing, and men are not alwaysexpected to die defending their helplesswomen, issues of dominance, dependen-cy, and subservience may greatly dimin-ish. My experience in Model Muggingallows me to grasp the wisdom demon-strated in the Brauron cult of Artemis—making aggression conscious is a neces-sary preparation for mature love; sacredmarriage comes about when a psycholog-ical union between the opposites occurs.No longer expectant of being victimizedfrees me to surrender to the dance ofintimacy.

ConclusionArtemis also whispers to her littleshe-bears that they, too,are wild nature. The eternally youth-ful Huntress might standfor the crossing of gender-bound-aries that a male-dominatedculture would like to keep as clearlyas its towns and farm fields.The unleashing of female energyimpacts the patriarchal imagination like a boar tearing through fencesand trampling crops. Indeed,the history of Western patriarchymight be said to be the history ofattempts to kill, or bridle that ener-gy, or to trick it into submission.

—Mary Stange, 149

The denial, repression and rejectionof feminine aggression has wounded theindividual and collective psyche. A returnto the Goddess of the Hunt demonstratesan ancient wisdom that aggressive energyis instinctive to men and women. As theEternal Virgin, Artemis provides aprovocative model for the necessary anddivine nature of self-defense. Howeverthreatening the archetype may be to theAmerican imagination, Artemis, and prac-tices such as Model Mugging, offer avision that aggression and nurturance,violence and love are opposites that forma unified whole.

References Callimachus: Hymns, Epigrams, SelectFragments. (1988). Trans. StanleyLombardo and Diana Rayor. Baltimore:Johns Hopkins UP.

Downing, Christine. (1996). The Goddess:Mythological Images of the Feminine.New York: Continuum.

Harding, M. Ester. (1991). “The Virgin,”in Mirrors of the Self: Archetypal ImagesThat Shape Your Life, Christine Downing,ed. Los Angeles: Tarcher.

The Homeric Hymns. (1987). Trans.Charles Boer. Dallas: Spring.

Kerenyi, Karl. (1980). “A MythologicalImage of Girlhood: Artemis,” in Facingthe Gods. James Hillman, ed. Dallas:Spring.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses. (1989). Trans.Charles Boer.Dallas: Spring.

Paris, Ginette. (1986). Pagan Meditations:Aphrodite, Hestia, Artemis. Woodstock:Spring.

Stange, Mary Zeiss. (1997). Woman theHunter. Beacon: Boston.

Betsy Hall, Ph.D., LCSW is the AssistantDean and Professor in the Division ofCounseling and Family Therapy at RegisUniversity in Denver, Colorado. Betsyearned her doctorate in MythologicalStudies with Emphasis in DepthPsychology from Pacifica GraduateInstitute. She has also practiced as adepth psychotherapist for nearly 30 years.Betsy and her husband live in Boulder,Colorado, where they share a deepaffinity with nature.

Psyche Dreams of ErosBy Marlene Dean

What can I say to you of lovewhen I have never known it?I can speak of my deep longing for youin this time when you are still a mysteryand my soul is an empty choir.I can speak of the cold bedand the expanding nightwhere shadows movelike ghosts along the wallsthe only lighta guttering candlegasping for life.

What can I say to you of passionwhen I have never known it?Only this—you have spoken to mein the half remembered dreamand your words swirled around melike brilliant butterflies.I know youYour touch is the song of my flesh.I have seen youthe ruby fire of the universelives in your eyes.

How would I dare to dream of loveexcept that I have seen miracles.I have seen the air dancebefore giving birth to the snowflakes.I have seen the mothwith indigo eyes emerge from the chrysalis.

What can I say of love?Only this—you have spoken to mein the half remembered dreamI know you.Your breath is my inspirationfor the terrible journey to come.

Betsy Hall

Poetry

Introduction

Jung lived in a time of crisis. Hewas confronted with the atrocities

of two world wars, spent his final years inthe climate of the cold war, and washugely concerned about mankind’s inabil-ity to find solutions to the recurringoccurrences of mass conflict he wasforced to witness in his lifetime. It shouldcome as no surprise, then, that Jungwrote extensively about the possiblecauses of war and conflict. A centralnotion which he defended throughout hiscareer was that the roots of war are to befound in the human psyche, in what hecalled our “war-like instincts,” which wewill never be able to eradicate:

Anything that disappears from yourpsychological inventory is apt toturn up in the guise of a hostileneighbor, who will inevitably arouseyour anger and make you aggressi-ve. It is surely better to know thatyour worst enemy is right there inyour own heart. Man‘s war-likeinstincts are ineradicable - thereforea state of perfect peace is unthinka-ble (Jung, 1946, par. 456).

It was these instincts which Jungsaw as lying at the root of both worldwars. According to him, these instincts“bubble up” to the surface wheneverthey have been repressed for too long atime, and if no way is found to integratesuch forces into consciousness, theresults can be catastrophic. In this articleI will argue that Jung developed and fine-tuned many of his ideas about this topicthrough a dialogue with the ideas ofphilosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. As Ipointed out in an earlier article aboutNietzsche’s influence on Jung (publishedin Depth Insights in fall 2012 1), Jungfound Nietzsche’s work extremely com-pelling. In his semi-autobiographyMemories, Dreams, Reflections, he evenwent as far as to connect Nietzsche towhat he saw as the central task underly-ing his life’s work:

The meaning of my existence is thatlife has addressed a question to me.That is a supra-personal task, whichI accompany only by effort and withdifficulty. Perhaps it is a questionwhich preoccupied my ancestors,and which they could not answer?Could that be why I am soimpressed by the problem on whichNietzsche foundered: the Dionysianside of life, to which the Christianseems to have lost the way? (Jung,1965 [1961], p. 350)

In this article I will show thatNietzsche had a particularly strong influ-ence on Jung’s thinking about war andconflict. I will also show how Jung’s ideasabout this topic changed over time, cul-minating in a final theoretical positionwhich revolves around the concept of thearchetypal shadow. In order to sketch thisdevelopment on Jung’s part in a clear andcoherent manner, I will divide this articleinto three sections, each of which willdeal with a different time period fromJung’s career:

Phase 1: The early years. In order to examine Jung’s early

ideas about the psychological roots ofwar we will look at the article “Role ofthe Unconscious” from 1918, which is themost clear and complete text about thistopic from Jung’s early years.

Phase 2: The Wotan years.In the 1930s Jung goes through a

phase in which he refers to the part of

the psyche he associates with war andviolence by the term “archetype ofWotan.” In order to examine the coreideas of this phase we will look at twokey texts from this time period: the shortarticle “Wotan” from 1936 and the tran-scription of the seminar Jung gave onNietzsche’s Also Sprach Zarathustra in1934.

Phase 3: The shadow years. From the early 1940s onwards Jung

stops using the term “archetype ofWotan” in his texts about war and vio-lence and begins using the term “arche-type of the shadow” instead. In order toexamine this final developmental stagewe will look at the article “Fight With theShadow” from 1946.

To simplify the task of discussingthis development, I will refer to thestages outlined above as Phase 1, Phase 2and Phase 3. The “dividing line” that I willuse to demarcate between these phasesis the term “archetype of Wotan”, whichJung only uses in Phase 2. Phase 1 is thusdefined as lasting up until the pointwhere he begins to use this term, whichhe does for the first time in the seminaron Zarathustra in 1934; Phase 2 is thusdefined as lasting from 1934 until hestarts to use the term “archetypal shad-ow” instead (the earliest text I havefound in which this term is present isfrom 1943 2). Phase 3, lastly, is defined aseverything after the end of Phase 2(1943-1961).

Phase 1: The early yearsAs I already explained, the text from

Phase 1 in which Jung elaborates mostclearly on his ideas about war and vio-lence is the article “Role of theUnconscious” from 1918, published in anEnglish translation in The Collected Worksof C.G. Jung, Volume 10. Since this is alsothe only text from Phase 1 in which hemakes an explicit connection betweenthis topic and the ideas of Nietzsche, it isthis text that we will focus on to analyze


Wotan in the ShadowsAnalytical Psychology and the Archetypal Roots of War

By Ritske Rensma

“Nietzsche had a particularly strong

influence on Jung’sthinking about war

and conflict”

Jung’s early ideas about the psychologicalroots of war.

“Role of the Unconscious” is not anarticle which deals specifically with thetopic of the psychological roots of war. Itseems to have been written primarily toput forward the core ideas of Jung’s theo-retical framework to a general audience,with a strong emphasis on making the dif-ferences with Freud clear. Jung wrote itat the end of the First World War, howev-er, and for that reason it should come asno surprise that the topic of war washeavily on his mind. The middle part ofthe article, then, deals almost entirelywith offering possible psychologicalexplanations for the calamities that hadjust swept across Europe. Jung begins thispart of the paper by reflecting on whathe calls here the “barbaric”, “dark”,“primitive” and “animalistic” dimensionof the psyche (Jung uses all these termsas synonyms in “Role of theUnconscious”). His core observationabout the origins of this part of the psy-che is that it is the residue of our evolu-tionary history, which, as Jung observes,is marked by a very long period of “primi-tive” prehistory and only a comparativelyshort period of “cultured” history. Forthis reason, the “primitive” part of thepsyche exerts a much stronger influenceon our behavior than the “cultured” part,according to Jung:

A mere fifty generations ago manyof us in Europe were no better thanprimitives. The layer of culture, thispleasing patina, must therefore bequite extraordinarily thin in compar-ison with the powerfully developedlayers of the primitive psyche (Jung,1918, par. 16).

As influential and powerful as thispart of the psyche is, however, it has nev-ertheless been repressed by Western cul-ture for a very long time according toJung. Showing quite clearly the influenceof Nietzsche, Jung associates this repres-sion with the values of Christianity.Nietzsche himself repeatedly wrote thatChristianity represses the instincts; it is atwar with the primitive, bodily self. Jungshares this observation. Christianity, asJung writes in “Role of the Unconscious”,“split the Germanic barbarian into anupper and a lower half, and enabled him,by repressing the dark side, domesticate

the brighter half and fit it for civilization”(Jung, 1918, par. 17). But the more thisdark, animalistic, “inner barbarian” isrepressed, the more the unconsciousseeks to correct this one-sided attitudeby activating the primitive aspects of theself. This, according to Jung, is what theunconscious does time and again: itoffers what he calls a compensation tothe attitudes and values of our conscious-ness once these become too narrow andrestrictive. Because Western culture wasunable to integrate such a “primitive”compensation in an appropriate mannerduring the years leading up to the FirstWorld War, the results were catastrophic.War and violence ensued, on a globalscale:

By being repressed into the uncon-scious, the source from which itoriginated, the animal in us onlybecomes more beastlike, and that isno doubt the reason why no religionis so defiled with the spilling of inno-cent blood as Christianity, and whythe world has never seen a bloodierwar than the war of the Christiannations. The repressed animalbursts forth in its most savage formwhen it comes to the surface, and inthe process of destroying itself leadsto international suicide (Jung, 1918,par. 32).

This, then, is Jung’s core observationabout the psychological roots of war inPhase 1: that the one-sidedness ofChristian culture led to an unconsciouscompensation consisting of primitivearchetypal content, which in turn led tothe violence and frenzy of the first worldwar. Because “Role of the Unconscious”deals so extensively with this topic, it isan excellent text to look at if one is inter-

ested in Jung’s early ideas about it. What“Role of the Unconscious” also makesclear, however, is that a connection existsbetween Jung’s ideas about the primitive,“barbaric” part of the psyche and thephilosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. On thistopic Jung does not elaborate very muchin “Role of the Unconscious”, writing onlythe following:

This annoying peculiarity of the bar-barian was apparent also toNietzsche - no doubt from personalexperience [...] (Jung, 1918, par. 19).

What Jung means with this rathervague statement is never made entirelyclear in “Role of the Unconscious”, asthere are no further references toNietzsche in its pages. In order to makesense of it, we have to look at two textsfrom what I have defined in the introduc-tion as Phase 2: the transcription of theseminar Jung gave on Nietzsche‘s AlsoSprach Zarathustra in 1934, and the arti-cle “Wotan” from 1936.

Phase 2: The Wotan years As I explained in the introduction,

Jung makes an important change to hisideas about war in Phase 2. He nowbegins to identify a particular archetypeof the collective unconscious with war,violence and conflict – the archetype hecalls in this phase the archetype ofWotan. Jung took inspiration fromGermanic mythology when naming thisnew archetype: Wotan (also transcribedas “Woden” or “Odin”) is the name of theGermanic supreme God. Wotan was asso-ciated primarily with war and fury, whichgoes a long way towards explaining whyJung decided to use this name for thearchetype he associated with the roots ofwar. Jung himself described Wotan as fol-lows:

He is the god of storm and frenzy,the unleasher of passions and thelust of battle; moreover he is asuperlative magician and artist inillusion who is versed in all secretsof an occult nature (Jung, 1936, par.375).

The way Jung describes the arche-type of Wotan in Phase 2 is highly similarto what he had to say about the primitivepart of the psyche in “Role of theUnconscious”. The best paper to establishthis is his short article “Wotan”, pub-


“Wotan was associatedprimarily with war and

fury, which goes along way towards

explaining why Jungdecided to use this

name for the archetypehe associated with the

roots of war”

Ritske Rensma

lished in an English translation in TheCollected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 10.In this article, written by Jung in 1936,Jung repeatedly refers to the archetypeof Wotan as the “dark” part of the psy-che, which is the exact same metaphorhe also used in “Role of the Unconscious”to describe the primitive part of the psy-che. Another key similarity to “Role of theUnconscious” is that he states that thearchetype of Wotan was repressed duringthe Christian era, and that it is nowbecoming dominant again because of thepsychological mechanism of compensa-tion. Furthermore, in order to explainwhy the archetype of Wotan is still sopowerful, Jung uses the same kind of“evolutionary” reasoning he alsoemployed in “Role of the Unconscious”:the longer a particular part of the psychehas been dominant in our evolutionaryhistory, the stronger its force, no matterhow much cultural baggage is put on topof it to repress it. In Wotan Jung phrasesthis idea as follows:

Archetypes are like riverbeds whichdry up when the water desertsthem, but which it can find again atany time. An archetype is like an oldwatercourse along which the waterof life has flowed for centuries, dig-ging a deep channel for itself. Thelonger it has flowed in this channelthe more likely it is that sooner orlater the water will return to its oldbed. The life of the individual as amember of society and particularlyas part of the State may be regula-ted like a canal, but the life ofnations is a great rushing riverwhich is utterly beyond human con-trol, in the hands of One who hasalways been stronger than men(Jung, 1936, par. 395).

Because of these similarities I thinkthat the conclusion is entirely justifiedthat Jung used the term archetype ofWotan to refer to the same part of thepsyche he called the “primitive psyche” in“Role of the Unconscious”. As we haveseen, Jung made a connection in “Role ofthe Unconscious” between this primitivepart of the psyche and Nietzsche, butfailed to make clear what this connectionexactly entailed. In the texts from Phase 2in which Jung discusses the archetype ofWotan, however, we find ample informa-tion to help us make sense of it.

Nietzsche, as Jung claims in these texts,was among the first in Europe in whomthe archetype of Wotan was constellated.In the seminar on Zarathustra, whichJung gave in 1936 and which shares manycentral themes with the “Wotan” article,3Jung makes this connection especiallyclear:

It is Wotan who gets him, the old windGod breaking forth, the god of inspira-tion, of madness, of intoxication andwildness, the god of the Berserkers,those wild people who run amok(Jung, 1988 [1934], Vol. 2, p. 1227).

We can now finally begin to makesense of the fact that Jung was so inter-ested in Nietzsche. Nietzsche, Jung felt,helped him to understand the age inwhich he lived – an age characterized byan outbreak of violence on a massivescale. Since Nietzsche was “gripped” bythe same archetype which later led to theoutbreak of this violence, studying thegreat man’s writings was a way to under-stand the psychological roots of this phe-nomenon. This also explains why Jungwent as far as to devote an entire semi-nar to Nietzsche’s Zarathustra. As Jungputs it in the seminar:

Perhaps I am the only one whotakes the trouble to go so much intothe detail of Zarathustra – far toomuch, some people may think. Sonobody actually realises to whatextent he was connected with theunconscious and therefore with thefate of Europe in general (Jung,1997 [1934], p. xix).

Jung’s thinking about the psycholog-ical roots of war, however, did not stop inthe 1930s. As is the case with many ofJung’s core concepts, he continued torefine his ideas about it, arriving at a finaltheoretical position only after the end ofanother time of intense violence: theSecond World War. It is to that final theo-

retical position that we will now turn. Inorder to examine it, we will look at what Iconsider to be the most important textJung wrote about war in the final phaseof his career: the short article “Fight Withthe Shadow”, which Jung originally deliv-ered as a speech in 1946 for BBC radio.

Phase 3: The shadow yearsJung begins “Fight With the

Shadow” by making the same observationhe also makes in Phase 1 and Phase 2:that an uprush of compensatory, instinc-tual material was present in the psyche ofthe European people as early as the1910s and was responsible for the centu-ry’s abundant cases of war and violence.As he himself puts it:

As early as 1918, I noticed peculiardisturbances in the unconscious ofmy German patients which couldnot be ascribed to their personalpsychology. Such non-personal phe-nomena always manifest themselvesin dreams as mythological motifsthat are also to be found in legendsand fairytales throughout the world.I have called these mythologicalmotifs archetypes: that is, typicalmodes or forms in which these col-lective phenomena are experienced.There was a disturbance of the col-lective unconscious in every singleone of my German patients. Onecan explain these disorders causally,but such an explanation is apt to beunsatisfactory, as it is easier tounderstand archetypes by their aimrather than by their causality. Thearchetypes I had observed expres-sed primitivity, violence, and cruelty(Jung, 1946, par. 447)From the outset, then, it is clear

that “Fight With the Shadow” is stronglyrelated to the key themes of the first twophases. Jung even makes a particular ref-erence to “Role of the Unconscious”, stat-ing that he wrote in 1918 about “peculiardisturbances in the unconscious of myGerman patients which could not beascribed to their personal psychology.”The rest of the article is equally consis-tent in terms of its central themes.Where we see a remarkable differencebetween “Fight With the Shadow” andthe first two phases, however, is in theterminology Jung uses. As we have seen,Jung made frequent references to the


Wotan in the Shadows

“Archetypes are likeriverbeds which dry upwhen the water desertsthem, but which it can

find again at any time”

archetype of Wotan in Phase 2. This ter-minology, however, is not present in“Fight With the Shadow”, nor is it presentin any other text from Phase 3. Instead,Jung now uses the concept of the shadowto explain the forces which wereunleashed during the two world wars:

Like the rest of the world, [theGermans] did not understand whe-rein Hitler‘s significance lay, that hesymbolized something in every indivi-dual. He was the most prodigiouspersonification of all human inferiori-ties. He was an utterly incapable,unadapted, irresponsible, psychopat-hic personality, full of empty, infanti-le fantasies, but cursed with the keenintuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. Herepresented the shadow, the inferiorpart of everybody‘s personality, in anoverwhelming degree, and this wasanother reason why they fell for him(Jung, 1946, par. 454).

In order to understand this conceptproperly, it is crucial to realize that Jungused the term shadow in two differentways, making a distinction between thepersonal shadow and the archetypalshadow. Jungian analyst Daryl Sharpdefines the personal shadow as follows:“[it] is composed for the most part ofrepressed desires and uncivilized impuls-es, morally inferior motives, childish fan-tasies and resentments, etc. - all thosethings about oneself one is not proud of.These unacknowledged personal charac-teristics are often experienced in othersthrough the mechanism of projection”(Sharp, 1991, p. 123). The personal shad-ow, then, consists entirely of contentsfrom what Jung called the personalunconscious, as everything that is associ-ated with it has become unconsciousthrough the mechanism of repression andhas therefore become unconscious duringthe individual‘s lifetime. For this reason,there is nothing innate or archetypalabout the personal shadow. In his lateryears, however, Jung began to contrastthe personal shadow with the archetypalshadow (see for example Aion par. 19(Jung, 1952)). In contrast to the personalshadow, the archetypal shadow is innate.It is the same in everyone, and consists ofcontent not acquired during an individ-ual’s lifetime. Instead, it is made up ofcontent that was acquired over the

course of mankind’s evolutionary history. Although Jung doesn’t mention

which version of the shadow concept heis talking about in “Fight With theShadow” – confusingly, he merely usesthe term “shadow” without any kind ofprefix - there is more than enough evi-dence that it is the archetypal shadow heis talking about. To begin with, Jungstresses time and again that the uncon-scious material he is discussing in thisarticle is innate and therefore archetypal.I have already quoted him above, forexample, as writing the following:

As early as 1918, I noticed peculiardisturbances in the unconscious ofmy German patients which could notbe ascribed to their personal psycho-logy. Such non-personal phenomenaalways manifest themselves in dre-ams as mythological motifs that arealso to be found in legends and fairy-tales throughout the world. I havecalled these mythological motifsarchetypes (Jung, 1918, par. 447).

As Jung makes clear in this quote,the content of the compensatory uprushof instinctual unconscious material heobserved as early as 1918 could not beascribed to the “personal psychology” ofhis patients. In short, it did not stem fromthe personal unconscious, but from thecollective unconscious, the content ofwhich is innate and archetypal.

Another hint that it is the archetypalshadow Jung is talking about in “FightWith the Shadow” is related to the factthat an entire group of people is con-fronted with this specific unconsciousmanifestation. As Ann Casement (2006)points out in her introduction to the con-cept of the shadow in The Handbook ofJungian Psychology, the personal shadowis a compensation for a certain one-sid-edness in the life of the individual; thearchetypal shadow, however, is constel-

lated in response to a certain one-sided-ness in the cultural life of an entire groupof people. It is quite clear that Jung istalking about the latter kind of compen-sation in “Fight With the Shadow”, as heis not analyzing the psychological dynam-ics of a single individual in this text—rather, he is looking at the dynamics ofthe psyche of the entire people ofEurope, with a special focus on theGermans. Although he does single outHitler in particular, he makes it quiteclear that Hitler was only a mouthpiece:he gave voice to psychological distur-bances that were present in every singleone of his followers.

As I already stated above, apartfrom the terminology, no core ideas havechanged in Phase 3 about war and vio-lence. The archetypal shadow is the termJung now uses to describe the exact samephenomenon, which he explained byusing the term archetype of Wotan inPhase 2. Is it the case, then, that thesetwo terms are synonyms? Do both thearchetype of Wotan and the archetype ofthe shadow refer to the same archetypalpart of the psyche? Even though Jungnever explicitly explains that this is thecase, I believe that it is very much possi-ble to establish that this is true. One wayto do this is by examining the mythologi-cal symbols Jung associated with thesetwo archetypes. When discussing thearchetypal shadow in Phase 3 of hiscareer, for example, Jung frequently stat-ed that the Christian figure of the devilwas a manifestation of this particulararchetype (Jung, 1943, par. 143). In Phase2, Jung said exactly the same about thearchetype of Wotan (Jung, 1936, par.374). On top of the fact that the mythicfigures he associated with these twoarchetypes are the same, we should alsonote that the phenomenon Jung tried toexplain by means of these concepts arethe same. In Phase 2, for example, Junguses the term archetype of Wotan toexplain the success of Hitler at the end ofthe 1930s; in Phase 3 he explains the suc-cess of Hitler by using the term archetyp-al shadow. To me, this means that con-cluding that the archetype of Wotan andthe archetype of the shadow were syn-onyms for Jung is entirely justified.

So why did Jung stop using the termarchetype of Wotan in Phase 3? Formyself, I have come to conclude that this


“Jung used the termshadow in two different

ways, making a distinctionbetween the personal

shadow and the archetypal shadow”

Ritske Rensma

change of terminology is probably relatedto the fact that calling Wotan an arche-type can give rise to the belief that onesubscribes to the notion of a racialunconscious. The God Wotan, needless tosay, is a mythic figure found only inGermanic culture, which means that itmakes very little sense to say that he isinnate, unless one is of the opinion thatthere is a Germanic racial unconsciouswith innate material only to be found inGermanic people. Although Jung flirtedwith ideas of this nature, most Jungscholars have concluded that he aban-doned such ideas in the forties and didnot make them a part of his final theoret-ical position. What I think Jung concludedin Phase 3 is that Wotan is not an arche-type, but what is known in Jungian lan-guage as an “archetypal image” – a spe-cific cultural manifestation of a collectiveinnate structure. It is the innate structurewhich is inherited and to be found inevery individual; the cultural manifesta-tions the archetype gives rise to, howev-er, are specific only to a certain group ofpeople. By using the more general term“archetypal shadow” for the innate psy-chological structure, it becomes muchmore clear that there is no room for race-specific innate components in Jung’s the-oretical framework. That Jung wouldwant to stress this after the atrocities ofthe Nazi regime should come as no sur-prise. Needless to say, the idea that thereis a difference between the Germanicpsyche and the psyche of other races wassomething that the Nazis not only flirtedwith, but turned into the bedrock of theirelitist, race-based philosophy.

ConclusionThis fear of being accused of a Nazi

sympathizer perhaps also explains whyJung stops making so many references tothe ideas of Nietzsche in Phase 3. As wehave seen, such references are abundant-ly present in Phase 2, with Jung evendevoting an entire seminar to Also SprachZarathustra. In Phase 3, however, the ref-erences to Nietzsche become much lessfrequent and elaborate. After the end ofWorld War Two Nietzsche had become acontroversial figure: his concept of theübermensch had been popular among theNazi party elite, which they joined withgreat enthusiasm to their own pseudo-scientific theories about the generalsuperiority of the Arian race. Jung per-

haps thought it wiser to stop explaininghis own ideas by comparing them toNietzsche, as such comparisons couldquite easily lead to him being mistakenfor a closet Nazi supporter or a defenderof elitist racial theories4. Nevertheless, Ido think that the information provided inthis article lends strong support to thenotion that Jung’s final theoretical posi-tion on war and violence was inspired byNietzsche. What I hope to have shownclearly and persuasively is that the ideasJung put forward about the archetype ofthe shadow in Phase 3 stand quite firmlyat the end of a long line of development,which began with “Role of theUnconscious” in Phase 1 and continuedwith the seminar on Zarathustra and the“Wotan” article in Phase 2. Since Jungdrew quite openly on Nietzsche’s ideas inthese first two phases, it follows logicallythat the theoretical position he defendsin Phase 3 represents the outcome of hisdialogue with Nietzsche’s work.

I think seeing this developmentclearly is important for several reasons.For one, it shows us how important a his-torical approach is when reading Jung’swork. He made important and drasticchanges to both his ideas and terminolo-gy over time, which means one should becareful when combining ideas from textsfrom different time periods. It also shedsnew light on his concept of the shadow,illuminating how important the differencebetween the personal and archetypalshadow is and showing very clearly howcentral the concept of the archetypalshadow is to Jung‘s final theoretical takeon war and conflict. Lastly, I think thisdevelopment also makes overwhelminglyclear how important Nietzsche was toJung. Most importantly, it shows to whichJungian concept we might turn if we wantto know where we can see Nietzsche‘sinfluence most strongly. As I hope to haveshown in this article there is substantialevidence that this concept is the arche-typal shadow.

ReferencesCasement, A. (2006). The shadow. In R. K.Papadopoulos (Ed.), The handbook ofJungian psychology. New York & London:Routledge.

Jung, C. G. (1918). The role of the uncon-scious. In The collected works of C.G. Jung

(Vol. 10). Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress.

Jung, C. G. (1936). Wotan. In The collectedworks of C.G. Jung (Vol. 10). Princeton:Princeton University Press.

Jung, C. G. (1943). On the psychology of theunconscious. In The collected works of C.G.Jung (Vol. 7). Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press.

Jung, C. G. (1946). Fight with the shadow. InThe collected works of C.G. Jung (Vol. 10).Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Jung, C. G. (1952). Aion. In The collectedworks of C.G. Jung (Vol. 9.ii). Princeton:Princeton University Press.

Jung, C. G. (1965 [1961]). Memories,dreams, reflections. New York: RandomHouse.

Jung, C. G. (1988 [1934]). Nietzsche‘sZarathustra : notes of the seminar given in1934-1939. Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress.

Jung, C. G. (1997 [1934]). Jung’s seminar onNietzsche‘s Zarathustra (abridged edition).Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Rensma, R. (2012). Jung’s reception ofFriedrich Nietzsche: A roadmap for theuninitiated. Depth Insights, 1(3).

Safranski, R. d. (2002). Nietzsche : a philo-sophical biography. London: Granta.

Sharp, D. (1991). Jung lexicon - a primer ofterms and concepts. Toronto: Inner City Books.

EndNotes1 Rensma, R. (2012). Jung’s Reception ofFriedrich Nietzsche: A Roadmap for theUninitiated. Depth Insights, 1(3)2 (Jung, 1943, par. 154)3 For a more in-depth discussion of theseminar, see Rensma (2012)4 For a good discussion of the relation-ship between Nietzsche’s ideas andNational Socialism see Safranski (2002)

Dr. Ritske Rensma is a lecturer in the fieldof Religious Studies at University CollegeRoosevelt, an international honors collegeof the University of Utrecht in theNetherlands. He is the author of the bookThe Innateness of Myth (London:Bloomsbury, 2010), which analysesJung’s influence on the American compar-ative mythologist Joseph Campbell.


Wotan in the Shadows


Comics by Jeremy Taylor4 of 4 Comic strip continued from page 33

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http://www.fisherkingpress.com

Admired by some as strong andloyal, vilified by others as vicious killers,and cherished by many as sweet familymembers, pit bull type dogs inhabitextreme and contradicting places in theAmerican imagination. For decades publicdebate has raged over the nature of pitbulls and their rightful place in communi-ties (“pit bull” is not the name of a specif-ic breed but rather refers to few breedsand mixes, notably the American Pit BullTerrier and American StaffordshireTerrier).

Since pit bulls began to be imaginedas inherently dangerous in the 1980s theyhave been the subjects of wave afterwave of negative media representation.Municipalities across the country imple-mented breed-based regulations andbans, resulting in countless dogs beingsurrendered to shelters or seized andeuthanized. In recent years rescue andadvocacy efforts emerged in response,with a shift toward positive representa-tion and public education to debunkmyths and promote responsible pit bullownership.

While it has been assessed thatthings are looking up for pit bulls(Greenwood, 2014), pit bulls are still usedin dog fighting, and they represent themost abused, abandoned, and euthanizeddogs in the country. Negative media rep-resentation and popular fear about theirphysicality and temperament persist andcontribute to these problems. From adepth psychological perspective it is clearthat challenges involving pit bulls havemore to do with the way they are imag-ined than about the dogs themselves.

My study of the cultural and psycho-logical dynamics surrounding pit bullsbegan with the adoption of our dog Fraia,and finding homes for her eight newbornpuppies. While reading online media toeducate myself about pit bulls my atten-tion was drawn to the projections ontopit bulls and people associated withthem, as well as the emotional intensitiesthat infuse the fields they inhabit, which

hint at strong archetypal contents atwork.

Uprooting the causes of the prob-lems involving pit bulls requires psycho-logical work on a larger cultural level: towithdraw projections from pit bulls andto work through the archetypal contentsthat are activated. Hillman (1975) said:“There is no place without Gods and noactivity that does not enact them. Everyfantasy, every experience has its arche-typal reason. There is nothing that doesnot belong to one God or another” (pp.168-169). Holding Hillman’s point inmind, I turned to my curiosity about the

archetypal activity underlying pit bullphenomena and opened my imaginationto the complexes and Gods at work inthese phenomena.

The archetypal being that appearedin my imagination is Cerberus, the three-headed canine guardian of the under-world. In Greek mythology the under-world is the land of the dead, calledHades. Depth psychology regards theunderworld as that part of psyche thathouses the darker, shadowy aspects ofthe unconscious, what is rejected,unknown, mysterious, frightening. It is akind of land of the dead, because egodeath must occur in order to enter it. Weenter the underworld, a kind of liminalspace, through practices like ritual, psy-chotherapy, shamanic experiences, art,active imagination, and emotional statesthat shake our normal consciousness, likegrief, fear and remorse. The underworldcan tear us apart, but it is in falling apartthat our souls experience renewal(Hillman, 1975).

The Cerberus in my imaginationguards the collective American under-world, a realm that our soul-anemic, ego-focused and progress-oriented societytends to avoid. Projection is one way inwhich we defend against the anxiety ofentering the psychic underworld.Therefore, the canine guardian of ourunderworld looks like the dog who holdsthe most American projections: the pitbull. Each pit bull head of AmericanCerberus has a distinct expression accord-ing to the specific archetypal content pro-jected onto pit bulls. They are: Warrior,Monster and Angel.

Depth psychologies recognize pro-jections as outward manifestations ofcomplexes: those structures in the uncon-scious made of an archetypal core andsurrounded by cultural and personal con-tents. When split off from consciousnesscomplexes become autonomous, gain inmythic numinosity, and may lead to“insane collective projections upon otherpeople, whole races and nations”


American CerberusMeditations on Pit Bulls and the Underworld

By Elizabeth Selena Zinda

Drawing by Patrick Corrigan. Used with permission

“The use of Warrior PitBull in dogfighting can

be understood psychologically as a

brutal manifestation ofa repressed shadowWarrior archetype”

(Hillman, 1975, p. 33). In the case of pitbulls we can add “breed” to this list, asprojected complexes have launched pitbulls into mythic realms as near-super-natural beings rather than ordinary dogs.

When confronted, made consciousand integrated, complexes lead to psy-chological growth and healing (Jacobi,1959). Working through the complexesprojected onto pit bulls would on the onehand serve to reduce the dogs’ unneces-sary suffering, and on the other fostercultural healing, particularly through pro-moting responsibility for our own aggres-sion instincts and unconscious shadows.The first step is to examine the histories,cultural contexts and the consequencesof the projections of Warrior, Monsterand Angel Pit Bull.

Warrior Pit Bull has ancestry inworking and fighting dogs that dates asfar back as ancient Rome (Hearne, 1991;Robinson, 2011). He travelled throughwar and conquest into the British Isles,where he was used in livestock work andblood sport entertainment of bull andbear baiting. His form was honed throughbreeding bull dogs with terriers, and hisfighting activity shifted to dog-on-dogfighting when the blood sports becameoutlawed and went underground, as dogfights were easier to manage in secretthan the larger animals. Warrior Pit Bullcame to the United States with Britishimmigrants in the 1800s, and was usedboth for hunting boar and dogfighting(Hearne, 1991). Though dogfightingbecame illegal, the practice continuedwith little impediment, especially in thesouth.

Warrior’s bravery and loyalty led tohis becoming the “unofficial representa-tive of American virtues” (Hearne, 1991,p. 186). He “stood for the courage, loyal-ty, inventiveness, and lack of upper-classpretension associated with the pioneers,the American woodsman, and so on” (p.184). He was featured in WWI posters,representing the brave and loyal fightingspirit of America. Stubby the pit bull wasa decorated war hero whose brave actsincluded warning his platoon about teargas. Warrior Pit Bull was beloved as wellas a solid family dog—his aggressive ten-dencies being discerning and gearedtoward dogs, not humans. Warrior waseasy going and tolerant with children,and enjoyed celebrity status in the formsof Petey, the pit bull from “Our Gang,”

and Buster Brown’s Tige. Teddy Roosevelthad a pit bull in the White House(Hearne, 1991).

Warrior Pit Bull is still celebratedtoday among pit bull enthusiasts whoadmire pit bulls’ tenacity, physicalstrength strong will, and “gameness.”Warrior Pit Bull fans include dogfighters(also called dogmen), breeders, andbreed fanciers, some who focus on non-fighting activities such as agility, pullingcompetition, nose work and rescue. Self-described pit bull steward and proponentof working pit bulls, Diane Jessup (2005),praises pit bull’s “loyalty and power” (p.10) and describes how “The appeal of thegame animal is his cocky, confident,friendly manner, and his ‘never say never’attitude. His aggression, when calledupon, is spectacular, but no less so thanhis greatness of heart” (p. 11).

The use of Warrior Pit Bull in dog-fighting can be understood psychological-ly as a brutal manifestation of arepressed shadow Warrior archetype. Intheir discussion about contemporary dis-missal of the aggressive Warrior arche-type, Jungian psychologists Moore andGillette (1990) warn:

We can’t just take a vote and votethe Warrior out. Like all archetypes,it lives on in spite of our consciousattitudes toward it. And like allrepressed archetypes, it goes under-ground, eventually to resurface inthe form of emotional and physical violence. (p. 75)

Healthy Warrior expression mani-fests in decisive action, clear thinking,awareness of one’s own death andaggressiveness, which is defined as “astance toward life that rouses, energizesand motivates” (Moore and Gillette,1990, p. 79). Dogmen look for and fosterthese aggressive qualities in their fightingpit bulls and put them through rigoroustraining programs. But by projecting theWarrior onto the dogs, dogmen fail tocultivate healthy aggression in them-

selves, and instead release the violenceof its shadow form.

The language of dogfighters is asgrand and epic as any talk of war heroesfrom history and myths. But the livedreality for the fighting pit bulls is filledwith physical and psychological tortureand death. People who rescue fightingdogs suffer the anguish of witnessing thedogs’ suffering. Those who live in placesof endemic dogfighting, like Detroit, suf-fer fear of dog attacks and violent crime(Kalof & Taylor, 2007), and contend withthe horror of finding discarded dead dogsin their neighborhoods (Woods, 2014).

Jungian psychology asserts that if acomplex is not brought to consciousnessthe numinosity and mythic quality of itincreases, and the complex becomesautonomous within the psyche, able topossess a person. When in the grip of acomplex one is in danger of losing one’sself in a group (Jacobi, 1959). The Warriorpresents in dogfighting in addictive,obsessive ways, with individuals losingthemselves in the force of group engage-ment. NFL quarterback Michael Vick,whose busted dogfighting operationsparked national outrage about the bloodsport, reflects in his autobiography theinitial repulsion he felt witnessing dog-fighting as a youth. Then, in the companyof men he looked up to, dogfightingbecame alluring and irresistible (Vick,2012). Dog Angel, the dogfighter-turned-anti-dogfighter crusader who helpedbring in the Vick case, shares a similarscenario (Strouse with Dog Angel, 2009).Randy Fox’s reflections on thoughts hehad while his dog recovered from seriousfight injuries reveal the ambivalence andmoral dilemma he felt when fightingdogs:

During all this recovery each day Iask myself. What kind of man coulddo this to a dog. I swore to myselfI’d never fight another dog. But astime went by and my mind healed. Idid fight more dogs. It is addictiveand very hard to quit once you start.(n.d., para. 5)

Similar ambivalence is expressed byFloyd Boudreaux (2013), one of the old-est and most revered dogmen in thecountry. Boudreaux gave this mixedanswer when asked in an interview abouthis advice to a young man just “startingout in these dogs”:

Depth Insights, Volume 6, Fall 2014 52

Elizabeth Zinda

“When confronted,made conscious and

integrated, complexeslead to psychologicalgrowth and healing”

<Back to TOC

Stop! Don’t do it! I would try mybest to discourage him. This is a baddisease. When it gets in your bloodit stays. The reason why I admirethem so much if for what they arecapable of doing. They are All-American dogs. I’ll probably alwayshave a few and even when I godown to 6 or 7 I will still breed a fewnow and then. (“What Would youSay?”, para. 1)

Boudreaux’s admiration for pit bulls, the“All American Dog” reveals a longing forcertain desirable aggressive qualities,which is connected to patriotic pride.

Devotees of fighting dogs expressyearning for a form of masculinity lost tomodern culture (Freccero, 2011).Entrance into the fighting world has aninitiatory character, and leads to mentor-ship experiences and masculine bondingover shared love of fighting dogs (Weaver2013a). The Warrior archetype, seekingentrance into this world, has been pro-jected into fighting pit bulls, who sufferhellishly for our lack of conscious engage-ment with this archetype.

American Cerberus’ second face,Monster Pit Bull, surfaced in the 1980sand was brought about by a convergenceof events. Hearne’s theory is that theshift in attitude toward the canine repre-sentatives of America’s fighting spiritbegan with the cultural revulsion at theviolence of Vietnam war (1991). Fightingdogs were no longer admired, but weredeemed inherently vicious by entitiessuch as the Humane Society of the UnitedStates (Hearne, 1991). At the same time,alarmist media reporting on studies ofdog bite injuries and (rare) fatalities ledto the construction of the theme of the“dangerous dog,” which took a deep andfearful hold in the American imagination(Delise, 2007). Reporting on anti-dog-fighting laws converged with the danger-ous dog theme, and incited panic andfantastical myths about the type of dogsused in fighting as deviant, supernatural,monstrous dogs, rather than recognitionof the dogs as victims of a brutal practice.

Pit bulls became associated withgang violence and drug dealing with theirgrowing visibility in urban settings andtheir use in fighting and for protection.They held the same negative projectionsput onto people of marginalized racialand economic status, and triggered main-

stream fear of the breakdown of society(Delise, 2007; Allen, 2007). Allen states,“The new ‘monster’ pit bull fits in nicelywith the thug, another type of ghettomonster” (p. 41). In reaction to the fear-ful media reporting municipalities acrossthe country enacted breed-specific legis-lation banning or regulating the owner-ship of pit bulls, as an attempt to controlthe perceived threats to mainstream soci-ety (Delise, 2007; Allen, 2007). The rela-tively low numbers of dog bites and fatal-ities do not justify the breed-based legis-lation of dogs identified as pit bulls.

The National Canine ResearchCouncil and the American VeterinaryMedical Association provide informationabout dog bite prevention, and debunknotions of any breed-based tendency tobite and attack (Patronek, et al, 2013).Nevertheless, media coverage of theseevents continues to be disproportionateand has succeeded in the creation andperpetuation of the image of Monster PitBull. He has been imagined as havinglocking and double jaws, and exponential-ly more jaw strength than other kinds ofdogs. He has been said to have an unpre-dictable and vicious nature, and to indis-criminately attack other dogs, animalsand humans—including family mem-bers—without provocation.

For proponents of anti-pit bull legis-lation Monster Pit Bull serves as a symbolof unrestrained violence in the world,which they see as manifesting through pitbulls and those who own them. Editorialcartoonist David Horsey (2008) wrote apiece condemning Seattle’s refusal to banpit bulls, and said of pit bull owners:

For these people, there is an allureto owning a thing that is so poten-

tially dangerous. It must make themfeel especially masterful and impos-ing. Their testosterone level mustget a real spike from the possessionof something that is frightening tomore timid souls. (para. 6)

Regarding women who keep pitbulls, ban supporter Ellen Taft (2011)shares her theory of a “Beauty and theBeast” archetype at work in the relation-ship: “A pit-bull can be used to give one afalse sense of enhanced self-esteem, as astatus symbol among women, and tointimidate the rest of society” (“Item 2”,para. 2). Tony Solesky (2010), ban sup-porter and father of a child who wasattacked by a pit bull, protests how“encroachment behaviors of extremebreed fanciers leave one with a sense ofbeing held hostage by another’s choice ofpet” (p. 75). For ban supporters, banningpit bulls is a way to provide safety in thecommunity. But in projecting their fearsonto pit bulls, they cause unnecessarysuffering onto the dogs and the humanswho love them, and fail to contribute toreal safety in canine-human relations.

Pit bull bans also prevent us fromdealing with our cultural shadows andrace-based inequities. With breed-basedlegislation, pit bulls carry an extension ofthe projections put on people of margin-alized status, the “Monster” projectionthat is also put on “ghetto thugs” (Delise,2007). The Monster projection can beunderstood as part of a cultural complex(Singer and Kimbles, 2004), defendingmainstream America from confrontationwith, and responsibility for, shadowaspects of ourselves.

Delise (2007) discusses howAmerican society shirks responsibility forthe behavior and well being of pit bulls:

Supremely adept in the art of trans-ference, humans have now absolvedthemselves from any control or cul-pability in the creation and mainte-nance of the Pit Bull. We’ve thrownup our hands and cry out that weare now the victim of this breed.They have forced us to destroythem. It is not our fault; the beasthas gotten away from us. (p. 105)The lack of responsibility for and

destruction of pit bulls exhibit Foucault’sidea of “dangerous individuals,” thosewho are inherently deviant and danger-ous, who threaten the good in society


“The Monster projectioncan be understood as

part of a cultural complex defending

mainstream Americafrom confrontation with,

and responsibil i ty for,shadow aspects

of ourselves”

American Cerberus


and need to be removed is (Tarver,2013). Jungian psychologists Zweig andAbram (1991) emphasize the importanceof taking responsibility for evil by thosewho believe themselves to be working forgood: “Historically, great misfortune hasresulted when humans have becomeunintentionally blinded to the full reali-ties of evil and have dispensed miseriesmuch worse than the evil they thought toeradicate” (p. 169). Evil has beenunleashed by the reactions to MonsterPit Bull in the name of protecting commu-nities from dangerous dogs. It is the pitbulls themselves who have suffered themost evil, through abuse, abandonmentand death.

Cerberus’s third face, Angel Pit Bull,counters the imbalance of Monster PitBull’s image and its tragic consequencesfor pit bulls. After years of negative mis-representation, breed bans, increasedpopulation, homelessness, and the result-ing abuse, deaths and euthanization ofinnumerable pit bulls, pit bull rescues andadvocacy groups sprung up around thecountry and promoted new, positiveimages of the dogs. Organizations like theHumane Society of the United States andAmerican Society for the Prevention ofCruelty to Animals, who once deemed pitbulls dangerous (Hearne, 1991), shiftedtheir stance. They now dispel myths andare some of the larger forces working toprevent cruelty and prosecute dogfight-ers. Angel Pit Bull is represented by pitbull advocates as sweet, good-naturedand loving, a victim of violence and mis-understanding. Angel Pit Bull’s imageenhanced exponentially during theMichael Vick dogfighting case, the mostpublicized dogfighting case in history, andthe first case in which the dogs seizedfrom the operation were rescued andrehabilitated instead of euthanized.

Angel Pit Bull represents the view ofpit bulls as valued family and communitymembers who are very trainable, love-able, and whose snuggly presence makethem ideal therapy dogs. Many ofMichael Vicks’ rescued dogs becamefamous in their representing the angelicside of pit bulls. Sports IllustratedMagazine, which in 1987 published adamning cover image of a pit bull (Swift,1987), in 2008 published a heartwarmingstory about the physical and emotionalrecovery of Vick’s rescued dogs (Gorant,2008). The story expanded into a book

(Gorant, 2010), which has become abeloved read among pit bull advocateswho follow the dogs’ lives on website andFacebook pages, and who point to therehabilitated “Vicktory” dogs as proof ofpit bulls’ gentle nature. Author and pitbull rescuer, Ken Foster (2012), cele-brates pit bulls’ loving nature: “They loveto love, and they love being loved, whichis what makes it so easy to fall in lovewith them too” (p. 20). Foster founded apit bull advocacy and rescue organization,and named it after his rescued pit bullSula. The Sula Foundation website sells at-shirt that reads: “My pit bull is a saint.”

Although not as obvious, projectionsof Angel Pit Bull have negative conse-quences just as do projections of Warriorand Monster. As Weaver (2013a, 2013b)explains, current positive representationsof pit bulls contain within them the samecultural anxieties as do the negative pro-jections. Aspects of the growing pit bulladvocacy movement, while fortunatelybreaking down popular negative stereo-types about pit bulls, nevertheless canignore and/or reinforce underlying rootcauses of the socioeconomic, racial andcultural problems that put pit bulls intothreatened situations to begin with, attimes furthering stereotypes in race,class, and culture (Weaver, 2013b).

Pit bull rescue often moves pit bullsout of marginalized community spacesand into middle class homes, where theygo through a kind of redemption process.They are “No longer partnered with‘thugs’” and come to “participate in fami-lies in ways that connect them to a tacit,normalized whiteness” (Weaver, 2013a,p. 697). In this way, rescued pit bullsunwittingly contribute to ongoing raceand class division, which correspond tointernal splitting off of autonomous shad-ow parts of the collective unconscious.

The redemption in pit bull rescuetouches humans too. Weaver describesrescuers’ transformed hearts and the

“sense of self made more whole by theact of rescue,” and how rescuers’ identi-ties are “rooted in salvation” (2013a, p.699). Looking to our canine relationshipsfor redemption not only burdens theserelationships, but also denies psyche itsdue engagement. Hillman (1975) lamentsthe seeking of redemption in personalrelationships, which replaces real soulencounters:

We seek salvation in personalencounters, personal relations, per-sonal solutions…Our cult worshipsor propitiates actual people – thefamily, the beloved, the circle ofencounters – while ignoring the per-sons of the psyche who composethe soul and upon whom the souldepends” (p. 47).

We cannot saddle rescued pit bulls withthe task of saving our souls. We can,however, understand that redemptionnarratives in pit bull rescue offer cluesabout our souls’ unmet needs.

Vicki Hearne (1991) wrote: “We willlearn to save our dogs by saving our ownsouls” (p. 294). As mentioned above, thesoul requires nourishment and renewal inthe underworld of psyche. In the under-world we fall apart in order to integratelost or rejected parts of our selves and byextension, our communities and world.American Cerberus guards the thresholdof our underworld and confronts us withthe projections that cause harm to dogs,perpetuate social inequities, and preventour soul’s growth. If we withdraw theprojections of Warrior, Monster andAngel and work through these complexes,we—and the dogs too—can becomemore whole. Pit bulls need no longer suf-fer Hades for us.

References

Allen, T. (2007). Petey and Chato: The pit-bull’s transition from mainstream to mar-ginalized masculinity. (Doctoral disserta-tion). Retrieved from ProQuest. (UMI3278347).

Bradley, J. (2006). Dog bites: Problems andsolutions. Policy paper, National CanineResearch Council, (September, 2, 2006).Retrieved on June 15 from http://national-canineresearchcouncil.com/uploaded_files/publications/1970766974_Dog%20Bites%20Problems%20and%20Solutions.pdf

Elizabeth Zinda

“Hil lman laments theseeking of redemption in

personal relationships,which replaces real soul

encounters”


Floyd Boudreaux interview. (2013).Sporting Dog News, (May 16, 2013).Retrieved on June 15, 2014 fromhttp://sportingdognews.blogspot.com/2013/05/floyd-boudreaux-interview.html

Foster, K. (2012). I’m a good dog: Pit bulls,America’s most beautiful (and misunder-stood) pet. New York, NY: Viking Studio.

Fox, R. (n.d.). Some of the dogs I fought1960’s 70’ 80’s [sic] History #2 Retrievedon June 15, 2015 from http://rayfox6.tri-pod.com/id42.html

Freccero, C. (2011). Carnivorous virility; Or,becoming-dog. Social Text, 29(1 106). 177-195. doi: 10.1215/01642472-1210311

Gorant, J. (2008). Happy new year. SportsIllustrated, December 29, 2008. Retrievedon June 15 fromhttp://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/arti-cle/magazine/MAG1150095/index.htm

Gorant, J. (2010). The lost dogs: MichaelVick’s dogs and their tale of rescue andredemption. New York, NY: Gotham Books.

Greenwood, A. (2014). Six more states mayoutlaw breed-specific legislation, makingeverything better for pit bulls. Huff PostGreen February 7, 2014. Retrieved on June15, 2014 from http://www.huffington-post.com/2014/02/07/breed-specific-legis-lation_n_4738583.html

Hearne, V. (1991). Bandit: Dossier of a dan-gerous dog. Pleasantville, NY: The AkadinePress Inc.

Hillman, J. (1975). Re-visioning psychology.New York, NY: Harper

Horsey, D. (2008). Pit bulls bite. The SeattlePI. Posted on September 13, 2008.Retrieved on June 15, 2014 fromhttp://blog.seattlepi.com/davidhorsey/2008/09/13/pit-bulls-bite/

Jacobi, J. (1959). Complex, archetype, sym-bol in the psychology of C.G. Jung. NewYork, NY: Princeton University Press.

Jessup, D. (2005). The working pit bull.Neptune City, NJ: TFH Publications, Inc.

Kalof, L., Taylor, C. (2007). The discourse ofdogfighting. Humanity and Society. Vol. 31.November: 319-333.

Moore, R., & Gillette, D. (1990). King, war-rior, magician, lover: Rediscovering thearchetypes of the mature masculine. New

York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.

Patronek, G.J., Sacks, J.J., Delise, K.M.,Cleary, D.V., & Marder, A.R. (2013). Co-occurrence of potentially preventable fac-tors in 256 dog bite-related fatalities in theUnited States (2000-2009). Journal of theAmerican Veterinary Medical Association,243(12), 1726-1736. Retrieved June 15,2015 fromhttp://avmajournals.avma.org/doi/abs/10.2460/javma.243.12.1726

Robinson, K. (2011). The subculture of vio-lence theory: An explanation for MichaelVick’s involvement in dog-fighting. Paperpresented at the annual meeting of theAmerican Sociological Association annualmeeting, Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas, NV,August 19, 2011. 2013-08-17. RetrievedSeptember 14, 2013 fromhttp://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p506763_index.html

Singer, T., & Kimbles, S.L. (2004). The cul-tural complex: Contemporary Jungian per-spectives on psyche and society. New York,NY: Routledge.

Solesky, T. (2010). Dangerous by default:Extreme breeds. Retrieved on June 15,2014 fromhttp://www.dogsbite.org/pdf/dangerous-by-default-by-anthony-solesky.pdf

Strouse, K., with Dog Angel (2009). Baddnewz: The untold story of the Michael Vickdog fighting case. Dog FightingInvestigation Publication, LLC.

Swift, E.M. (1987). Pit bull: Friend andkiller. Sports Illustrated, July 27, 1987.Retrieved on June 15, 2014, fromhttp://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/arti-cle/magazine/MAG1066224/7/index.htm

Taft, E. (2011). In Holden, D. Anti-pit rallycancelled due to security concerns. Slog,Retrieved on 6/15/14 fromhttp://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/09/01/taft-cancels-anti-pit-bull-rally&view=comments

Tarver, E. (2013). The dangerous individ-ual(‘s) dog: Race, criminality, and the ‘pitbull’. Culture, Theory and Critique.Downloaded October 23, 2013, from RogerWiliams School of Law:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14735784.2013.847379

Vick, M. (2012). Finally free: An autobiogra-phy. Brentwood, TN: Worthy Publishing.

Weaver, H. (2013a). “Becoming in kind”:Race, class, gender, and nation in culturesof dog rescue and dogfighting. AmericanQuarterly 65(3), 689-709. The JohnsHopkins University Press. RetrievedSeptember 27, 2013, from Project MUSEdatabase.

Weaver, H. (2013b). Inhuman kindness:Queer kinships in pit bull advocacy. (Underreview at GLC. September, 2013.) Receivedin personal email by author.

Woods, A. (2014). Dozens of dead dogsfound in Detroit park. Huff post news,March 21, 2014. Retrieved on June 15 fromhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/21/dead-dogs-detroit_n_5008173.html

Zweig, C., & Adams, J. (1991). Meeting theshadow: The hidden power of the dark sideof human nature. Los Angeles, CA: JeremyP. Tarcher, Inc.

Elizabeth Selena Zinda is currently work-ing on her dissertation at PacificGraduate Institute in the M.A./Ph.D trackin Depth Psychology, with a focus on com-munity psychology, liberation psychologyand ecopsychology. Her topic, pit bullsand psyche in the U.S., arises out of herpassion for healing relationships amonghumans, and between humans and other-than-humans. Elizabeth is a massagetherapist and ordained minister. She livesin Seattle with her wife and three dogs.

The ink drawing, Pit Bull Cerberus, wascommissioned for this piece and is usedwith permission by the talented Seattle-based artist and shamanic cartoonistPatrick Corrigan. http://goldenthread-road.blogspot.com

American Cerberus

56<Back to TOC

Einsiedeln, Switzerland was the location for an intensiveSandplay training I attended in the summer of 2013. Anhour’s journey south of Zurich and surrounded by pastorallandscapes of forests and rolling farmlands, Einsiedeln is a stopon the Jakobsweg (St. James Way) for pilgrims who come tovisit the Black Madonna for whom the village is known. Eachday, the bells of Kloster Einsiedeln greeted the dawn; and, astheir sonorous peal mingled with the jangle of cowbells andchirping of early-rising birds, I found it impossible to sleep.There was a palpable aliveness in the air as I set out to walk,the deep, rich soil drawing me down, grounding me to theEarth as I made my way toward the magnificent Benedictineabbey that is the heart of the town.

One early morning, I circumambulated the pastures ofthe abbey where for centuries the monks have bred cavallidella Madonna, the Madonna’s horses, as part of their devo-tion to Her. There were a dozen or so chestnut-colored horsesout grazing at a distance, and as I stopped to watch, severalmoved across the field with an eager purposefulness until theywere upon me, gazing down into my awe-struck face. I’ve

never had a personal connection to horses, but alone outthere in the soft twilight with the fading of the bells, the spirit-ed physicality and gentle curiosity of i cavalli affected medeeply. I stood, transfixed, for some time until the horses andI broke our silent communion and I entered the Cathedral tosit before the “Lady of the Dark Wood.”

It seemed that a kind of mystical transaction happened inthat “free and protected space”1 of Einsiedeln. Was it a primallife force from our Earth Mother, channeled through the figureof the Black Madonna and amplified by the highly-chargedsub-alpine atmosphere? Granted, the rigorous daily practicesand self-reflections of the intensive Sandplay study made memore permeable to numinous Earth matter/mater. Yet it wasthe horses, with their intrinsic connection to the Madonna asmediatrix of the material-ineffable, their corporality of power-ful moving earth energy and alert gracefulness, that drew meinto their fully-embodied experience. Now, a year later, thereare moments as I traverse the well-trodden paths of life’slandscape, when I thrill to feel the mysterious stirring of myown equine energies.

Horus

My Year Of the (Dark Wood) Horse

Photos

1 A “free and protected space” is how Dora Kalff, creator of Sandplay therapy, described both the securely bounded container of the sandtrayitself, as well as the atmosphere of unconditional witnessing by the therapist, in which a client is able to engage in healing “play.”

Archival inkjet print on cotton rag, approximately 20” x 16

by Jennifer Fendya

Depth Insights, Volume 6, Fall 2014


The Way is Slow and Steady

The Wild HorseBy Marlene Dean

I dream of a pale horse,running free under a prairie moon,moving so fast nothing can catch him,air washing over his back,streaming through his mane and the silk of his tail.

I dream of an ancient horsestocky and sure,thundering overland,leaping hollows,clattering over river stones,pulling himself to the top of the highest hill,lord of the dark lands.

I love the horse of starlit shadowswith all the force of my soul,he beckons to that part of my mindwhere no one has control.He is the bridge, the ancient guide,the one who remembers the way to the other side.

Jennifer Fendya, Ph.D. is a Psychologist in private practice,student of Nalanda Miksang photography, co-curator ofthe gallery at the C.G. Jung Center, Buffalo and member ofthe Board of Directors of the Analytical Psychology Societyof Western New York. She currently is training in Sandplaytherapy. These photos are from a larger collection shownearlier this year in a three-person exhibition, “2014 - Yearof the Horse,” at the CG Jung Center, Buffalo.

I Cavalli



byJennifer Fendya

Photos

<Back to TOC

Poetry


Canadian Robert Lepage’s FarSide of the Moon (Le face cachée

de la lune) is a marvelous alchemical stir-ring of science, history, myth, and philos-ophy. It’s refreshing in that, rather thanportray integration as occurring betweena man and woman, Lepage’s polarizedhuman psyche is characterized by twobrothers played by Lepage.

As opposed to frequent philosophiz-ing from Philippe, we know nothing ofAndré’s internal life. He is indeed thedark side of the moon, Philippe’s shadow.Popular film often portrays the integra-tion drama from the standpoint of theworldly one. Materially successful protag-onist discovers the depths of soul andfeeling hidden beneath a restless seekingafter socioeconomic power; it’s theScrooge portrait. Lepage gives us the flipof this cinematic norm; artist and vision-ary with Scrooge-like shadow-brotherlongs to experience his creative giftsreflected back to him in the form ofsocioeconomic success.

As the title implies, the moon is mis-tress of this metaphorical montage. Thefilm’s narrated introduction features animage of the moon, and explicable onlysymbolically, the image of a castle along-side. Lepage’s prefacing narrationinstructs us intriguingly, “Before the tele-scope, people thought the moon was ahuge mirror, and the mountains andoceans on its luminous surface were mere-ly the reflection of our own mountains andoceans.” Here he sets up his film’s funda-mental perspective. He’ll be explicating,as symbolic film often does, that mostbasic of human imaginative functions,known in psychology as projection. Wesee Me in the world as reflected byOther, perhaps particularly any shadowedaspects, Moon’s “far side”. Only cosmo-nauts and astronauts ever see the physi-cal moon’s far side, and Lepage intendsthese men as metaphor for all thosehumans willing to step away from Sun’sdaylight domain to discover their innerlunar landscape, their shadowed side.

The castle image is visual adjectiveto Moon, then. The castle as inner sover-eignty, so ubiquitous in fairy tales withalchemical bones, is linked with the moonbecause Moon is Queen of the Night, thetime for inward-turning human experi-ence. The inner castle houses the soul’s

authentic self, the whole self, and it isthis which we often seek in our innerjourneying. That Lepage’s moon is usuallyseen rotating metaphorically suggests thesoul’s innate timeless turning towardshealing. The spin describes Circle’s love ofcompleteness, for discovering and rejoic-ing in all our “sides”. In truth the moondoes turn in synchronous rotation; itrotates about its axis in about the sametime it takes to orbit Earth. In such a

manner do we humans revolve throughour days, satellites presenting condi-tioned persona’s faces for daily viewwhile the unknown and unredeemedhaunts us from behind.

Lepage employs the moon’sshapeshifting nature to glide from onescene to another. Though Moon presentsto Earth always the same side, still theshifting play of Sun’s light upon thatspherical face gives her a reputation ofinstability and change. Humans projectonto her shadow shifts their own experi-ential changes of mood, of consciousness,their altered states. The introductory nar-rative’s visual first uses this scene shiftingdevice when the moon transforms intothe window-frame view from inside awashing machine. Protagonist Philippe inthe laundromat walks over to peerthrough the circular washing machinewindow. The camera pans away from theface in the window, and the windowfades back until it’s a small feature on asatellite hovering over the moon.

This bit of symbolic zoom-out clev-erness not only makes rather blatant thefilm’s connection between moon, reflec-tion, and our protagonist, but Philippe ishere portrayed as that old slang term weused in the 60s; he’s a space shot. Anonline dictionary defines it thus: “a personwho is eccentric or out of touch with reali-ty, as if affected by drugs.” Here we haveperhaps the dominant psychologicalpolarity FSM treats: the polarity betweenthe visionary, the artist, “out of touchwith reality”, and our materialistic culturalnorm as grounded in physical realityand/or consensus reality. The English dic-tionary, in entries such as that above,assumes this narrow definition of “reality”.

Lepage expands on the visionaryend of this visionary-realist polarity withtwo historical Russian characters.Introduced in the opening narrativemonologue, visionary scientist KonstantinTsiolkovsky haunts the entire film. AsPhilippe narrates, Tsiolkovsky “originatedthe formula that allows us to break free

Stones, Spaceshots, and Shadow Siblings

Symbolic Review of Far Side of the Moon

By Colleen Szabo

“The castle as inner sovereignty, so

ubiquitous in fairy taleswith alchemical bones, is

linked with the moon”

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0352332/combined

of Earth’s gravity.” Here we have thetypical air element desire to avoid earthelement’s entanglements and suffering, amasculine tendency sometimes portrayedin alchemical fairy tales. Tsiolkovsky alsoinvented the three-stage rocket. In goodfairy tale fashion Lepage does proffer hisaudience several symbolic sacred threes,including this rocket example, and men-tions both fairy tale and castle in his the-sis presentation.

Tsiolkovsky’s love of weightlessnessoperates symbolically in the film on morethan one level. I do associate this air ele-ment desire to leave gravity with theVisionary archetype. Human visionaryimagination allows us to enter other reali-ties “as if affected by drugs”. Tsiolkovskywas certainly a visionary who was “eccen-tric or out of touch with reality.” HisWikipedia entry states he really did quiteseriously envision weightless life on themoon as an idealized future for mankind,a future free of even mortality. I do recallthat the early days of space explorationspurred men’s imaginations in ways thatseem merely ridiculous now that we havemore experience. But who knows whatthe future holds?

Tsiolkovsky was so visionary, so lack-ing gravity, that he “lost face” for a peri-od of his career, because people figuredhe was nuts, among other matters.André’s boyfriend Carl agrees withTsiolkovsky; earth element gravity isobstructive. A man with physical fitnessideals, Carl comments that “Gravity is mygreatest enemy”, in reference to themanner in which it pulls his ideallysmooth flesh downward as youthrecedes. Similarly perhaps, the endingscene where idealistic Philippe drifts upweightless to the moon implies he hasfreed himself from some inner weight,some earthly limitation, in accord withTsiolkovsky’s vision of “breaking free”.

Though our inner urges to wholismoften utilize imagination’s Visionarypower, from another perspectivePhilippe’s weightlessness is symbolicsymptom of an integration. He’s becom-ing intimate with the more earth-bound“Other”, André. Philippe speaks, in thebar scene, of this sibling polarity, whenPhillipe waits for hours to question cos-monaut Alexei Leonov. Though Leonovnever shows, Philippe tells the bartenderhe wanted to inquire concerning the inte-gration of visionary cosmic experiences

with “personal ones…How do you man-age to reconcile the infinitely banal withthe infinitely essential?” How do you inte-grate the grave life of the flesh (André’sseeming specialty) with that of Philippeand Tsiolkovsky’s gravity-averse, idealis-tic, visionary soul-and-spirit?

In parallel to this question, unsuc-cessful but introspective Philippe ishaunted by the knowledge that some-thing needs to shift in his filial relation-ship. André is portrayed as a characterlacking depth and authenticity, both pri-mary qualities of lunar-linked soul. Likethe extrovert, radiating sun, André doesnot self reflect, an activity portrayed sym-bolically in the film not only generally bymirrors and moon, but specifically inPhilippe’s video recording. Both brothers

are aware that Philippe considers hisbrother an asshole; André is most obvi-ously the rejected in need of redemption.André’s boyfriend Carl tentatively agreeswith Philippe’s asshole assessment whenquizzed by André; we saw Carl beingordered about by André throughout thefilm. Carl’s admission to his lover is theturning event for André (and Philippe, ofcourse), who decides then not to lie tohis brother concerning the frozen gold-fish. This scene was pretty funny for me;my only brother did indeed surreptitious-ly replace his daughter’s dead goldfish anumber of times.

The historical perspective ofPhilippe’s sibling inner dichotomy is clev-erly portrayed in a flashback scene.André, as a child of perhaps ten years, inhis brother’s absence avails himself ofPhilippe’s record player, marijuana, andporn. The child André plays LedZeppelin’s “Dazed and Confused”, pullsPhilippe’s dope can from a high shelf,tokes on a joint, opens the window tovent smoke, pulls a porn magazine from

under Philippe’s pillow, opens to a cen-terfold, plops himself down on the bedand mechanically kisses the picture.André’s actions are perfunctory; he ismerely imitating his brother’s previouslyobserved actions. We assume this mim-icking of what he sees is André’s modusoperandi; indeed it is the basis of muchpersonality conditioning.

Meanwhile, Philippe is on an acidtrip, gazing at the full moon, exploringher altered consciousness and self reflec-tive power. A grayscale, nighttime, snowcovered winter landscape before himmimics Moon. Philippe’s spaceshot psy-chedelic trip is thus equated with moon-walking. In perhaps a nod to Alice inWonderland and/or Jefferson Airplane’s“White Rabbit” (“One pill makes you larg-er, and one pill makes you small”) heexperiences himself as larger than hisapartment building. Peering inside hisbedroom window is metaphorically akinto introspection. Philippe is dazed andconfused; he puts his sleeping brother tospin in the dryer, unable to reconcile hisexpanded consciousness with the “infi-nitely banal”, André’s specialty. At thesame time the scene gives us an innerlandscape metaphor, of André asPhilippe’s rejected psychic aspects.Relegated to inner “space” (the metaphorof spinning washing machine/dryer asspace vehicle was very early presented),André symbolically enters Jungian shad-ow status as he spins in the dryer, intro-spective Philippe watching meditatively,just as he had peered in through the bed-room window.

With this childhood bedroom sceneLepage invites us to consider André’slying, his lack of empathy, and his materi-alistic or narcissistic focus as Euro-Western norm of disconnection withauthentic soul and spirit. André’s imitat-ing, going through the motions. He willnot experience authentically, deeply, untilhe moves below the busy, ambitiousfaçade and perceives its conditioned,reactive foundation. André initiates theswitch towards truth and its ability toconnect in the crucial dead goldfish con-versation with his brother. After Carlleaves, Philippe calls from Russia. Andréslows his extrovert weatherman hustle,sits down in the hallway of the frozenapartment which was once the familyhome, and communicates for the firsttime with Philippe on emotionally


“Here we have the typical air element

desire to avoid earthelement’s entanglements

and suffering, a masculine tendency

sometimes portrayed inalchemical fairy tales”


charged matters of Mom’s death. We feelthere is a person capable of intimacy sit-ting in that chair now, unlike the hustling,self important weatherman “standingthere every day by his satellite image”, asPhilippe puts it.

There are a few healing suggestionsmade earlier in the film regardingredemption of this shadow brother andhis banality. Uncharacteristically, André isfirst to extend the hand of reconciliationfrom the far side of Philippe’s moon. Heproffers socioeconomic gifts, the bountywhich eludes our protagonist; he prodsPhilippe to take the money theirdeceased mother left to André. Philippe,seemingly as a matter of ideals, refuses,though André offers kindly and has noneed of the money. Philippe’s reactionproves that he is actually resistant toabundance, for he stubbornly refuses. Hishabituated self identity is polarized toAndré’s worldly success and bounty.

In regard to success, André advisesPhilippe to change his self concept,specifically “how you present yourself”.André advises a radiant sun-powermantra; “I speak loudly and I am notridiculous!” When Philippe takes thisadvice in the bar, he swings away fromintrospective lunar orientation towardsSun. The overall persona-changing themeis ubiquitously symbolized by frequentscenes and references to clothing; laun-dering, ironing, and more. A clothing ref-erence from this abundance scene finish-es up one of my favorite symbolic bits.André tells his brother “There’s thisamazing woman…a financial medium”who “reads wallets like tarot cards. Tosee if you respect money. Otherwise, itwon’t respect you.” This magical bit ofmanifestation advice on the matter ofmoney proves that, when it comes toworldly abundance, André is the one whoholds deeper insight. Philippe is condi-tioned to the stereotypical inward-focused visionary’s perception of moneyas “thing”, as object. The result ofPhilippe’s objectifying orientation is thesame banal, unimaginative relationshipwith money which André has with humanbeings.

Symbolic of childhood conditioning,Philippe is hanging onto his recently deadmother’s stuff, which André, despite hismaterialistic focus, has no interest inwhatsoever. André insists Philippe, justlike an overstuffed wallet, has no room

for money to come into his inner space,into his psyche; “you don’t make room inyour life for new things to happen.” Thescene ends with André going to a closetwhich is jam-packed with men’s shirts. Heswitches on the light, and offers “If I weremoney I would never fit in this.” Philippeneeds to clear out old identifications,open up to new ways of orienting to suc-cess and abundance, in order to achievehis worldly objectives.

The other solution offered to thegreat disparity between Philippe and hisshadow-brother comes in the monologuePhilippe offers to the hotel bartender.Philippe says that he wants to talk toLeonov because he is an artist, andindeed Leonov is a graphic artist andwriter. However, Philippe’s life correlatesLeonov’s in another way. Leonov’sWikipedia biography is a litany of cancel-lations, of training for missions whichwere aborted, until the successful eventwhich Philippe highlights in this hotel barscene. In 1975, Leonov headed the twoman crew of Soviet cosmonauts on boardthe Soyuz spacecraft, symbolically endingthe Space Race between the U.S. andU.S.S.R. with the Soyuz-Apollo mission.

Elusive worldly success ties Philippeand Leonov, then. Since the Space Raceand its end is an overarching event of thefilm, the meeting between the two space-craft is also a clear allegory for siblingcompetition’s end, for redemption andintegration of Philippe’s polarized “farside”. Leonov could theoretically offerPhilippe mentoring in regards to this inte-gration matter due to his having met withequanimity professional disappointmentand discouragement over and over on hislife journey. Philippe says “Can you imag-ine how bitter he could be?...you gotta beZen to transcend that” and go on toshake the hand of your “enemy” in space.“Although you’re the loser, you carry onand get over it”, he says. The commonterm for this act of releasing bitterness

would be forgiveness, of self in the inter-nal sense. Forgiveness often indicates anintegration experience.

Philippe raves bitterly on, criticizingAndré (“He’s not aware of how complicat-ed things are”; complex moon criticizingconfident sun), but then shifts focus fromAndré’s faults to admit André’s simplyradiant solar perspective on life has itsuses. Philippe is “jealous of his lack ofconscience…(and) compassion…(thatwhich) makes my life hard and makes mesuffer…” This particular brand of bitter-ness— “I suffer more than others”— is alltoo familiar to many folks who self identi-fy as sensitive, creative, introspective. Wemay imagine it’s the fault of “Other” thatthe world is so heavy, so full of suffering.We don’t own up to the ways in whichthe internalized stories we’ve plumbed,their polarizations, and our negative self-talk cocreate and then fertilize the suffer-ing we experience and re-experience. Wedon’t understand the purpose behind ourmining of lead; its transformation toinner gold.

The sun’s extrovert, shining poweris, of course, along with its gold, the mostfundamental of alchemical symbols. Thesun shows up in Philippe’s employmentas phone solicitor for a periodical, LeSoleil. There’s a symbolically droll refer-ence to Sun’s expansive extroversion in aone sided call shared with us. A womandeclines to subscribe to Le Soleil becauseits format is too big; it does not fit in hermailbox. Just so does the yang quality ofAndré’s “I speak loudly” have troublesqueezing into the cold, contracted yin ofthe introverted moon. Phillippe’s interac-tions in the call center are all withfemales, and all disastrous, as he strivesunsuccessfully to manifest abundance bysqueezing the sun’s expansive nature intohis dominant reflective lunar orientation.

Alchemical gold shows up also in themother’s goldfish, an animal that ties Sunwith lunar water element for us. In one ofmany deft visual metaphors, Philippereaches his hand into the goldfish’s bowlto extract one of the stones he was givenin his childhood. It’s the blue one withwhich he will later represent planet Earth,with its gravity and suffering; plunging hishand into the fishbowl neatly symbolizesintrospection. The stone was given to himwhen recovering from surgery, and repre-sents, as rocks can, his memory of thatevent. He endured a life threatening


Colleen Szabo

“He will not experienceauthentically, deeply, untilhe moves below the busy,

ambitious façade and perceives its conditioned,

reactive foundation”


(pubescent?) illness of a one-sidednature; a tumor which occluded his opticnerve on the right (solar, masculine) side.Extracting the stone, adult Philippe traceshis fearful, polarized adult experience tothat youthful illness and its threat ofdeath. When he receives the stone in thehospital scene, a nurse says he should bean astronaut, for “That’s all they do upthere; pick up rocks.” This derogatoryremark thread weaves neatly intoPhilippe’s metaphorical spaceshot procliv-ities, while voicing the social consensuson lunar-oriented introverts.

There’s loads of symbolic nuance tobe had in Lepage’s water and fish. Wateras universal symbol of unity conscious-ness would be one association; thehuman soul’s experiential “depth” isoften associated with archetypally femi-nine water. Fish, as denizen of the water,takes on the same soulful caste. Both theact of fishing and being a fish signify“going deeper” for the retrieval of wis-dom, connection, and authenticity. Thefish’s symbolic seeking of unity and wis-dom is obvious in the image where thefish swims against the sea of stars, andwe hear the question “Are we alone inthe universe?” Lepage is quite generouswith his symbolic pointers.

He also gives us subtle, easily over-looked hints, as in the scene wherePhilippe irons and watches a talk show.After the television interview with theS.E.T.I. (Search for ExtraterrestrialIntelligence) lady (a real organization, Ifound), the interviewer mentions thenext guest; a chef, cooking salmon. Waterelement salmon is perhaps the importantwisdom animal in Germanic and Celticmythic tradition, owing to its fighting itsway back to the origin of its birth in orderto both spawn and die, to complete theeternal spinning circle of life and death,an ouroboros (ouroborotic?) impulse. Ilove such subtly placed clues on my sym-bolic treasure hunts!

FSM’s goldfish symbolism naturallyleaks into the lunar symbolism of “moth-er”. Though the moon does not nurturein the obvious way the Earth does, itswatery influence experienced in thewomb and its quiet inner connection withthe dark creative void is essential, crucial,to earthly birth, growth, and develop-ment. The connection between moonand nurturing feminine is symbolicallyportrayed when Mom’s pregnant, fluid

filled womb houses a spacewalking cos-monaut or astronaut, his oxygen cordmimicking an umbilical cord. The fact thatPhilippe has care of the goldfish (we findlate in the film that he also had primarycare of Mother) ties him into the nurtur-ing female archetype, in accord with hisother lunar tendencies.

Like that cosmonaut embryo,Beethoven the bowl-enclosed fish is alsoa creative aspect of Mom, the “last livingthing Mom had.” I puzzled over Mom fora bit; her muteness, her slow loss of herlower limbs, her piano playing. Then itstruck me; The Little Mermaid, HansChristian Andersen’s allegorical making ofa human soul! In the story, a mermaidlongs for a human soul, and sacrifices herbeautiful voice in order to obtain legs sothat she might move about on land withhumans, “swim” in their reality. Like thehuman soul, Little Mermaid is never quitecomfortable with her human legs. Theycause suffering, as Philippe’s (andMom’s?) soulful lunar orientation does.Because the prince she desires loves tosee her dance, Little Mermaid does lotsof it, suffering all the while.

Andersen’s sea-woman attains ahuman soul when she sacrifices her liferather than kill the prince she loves. Inthis self-abnegation her soul is raised “upto the shining stars”, as Little Mermaid istold by her grandmother. Here is thespace exploration theme of our film, andthe goldfish amongst the stars. It turnsout that Mother also committed suicide,overdosing on water. Little Mermaiddrowned as well, for in air-breathing,belegged human form, she jumped intothe sea and became air-and-water seafoam.

During one of Philippe’s videotapingself reflection sessions, he recalls a child-hood day when he watched his Mom slipon her high heels (always painful in myopinion!) and sashay down the hall withtrays of food for her guests. Since there’slittle direct sexual reference in the film(the porn magazine is about the totality),I wondered what was going on with that.

Here, from an English translation, is aLittle Mermaid answer:

“But if you take my voice,” said the littlemermaid, “what will be left to me?”

“Your lovely form,” the witch told her,“your gliding movements, and your elo-quent eyes. With these you can easilyenchant a human heart.”

This quote describes Mom’s behav-ior at the party rather well, and heartsare obviously enchanted, starting withPhilippe’s. After she gracefully moveswith her trays among the “sea” ofhumans (Lepage uses a ceiling shot toimply the sea metaphor), guests beg herto play an electronic organ; she mutelyand gracefully accedes. Visitors standbehind her, entranced, as she performsBeethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. Mom’sgoldfish is named Beethoven, implyingher musical expression is “all that is left”to her, the “last living thing”. Music mak-ing and other arts are soul expressions,and soul is indeed what remains when wedepart from physical existence.

Soul is also in another Mom detailPhilippe narrates for his video; “Shefound it very important to have a pair ofshoes for each dress.” Here’s the soul’slove of authenticity playfully symbolized.Feet, and therefore shoes, symbolize themanner in which we tread our psychos-piritual paths of destiny; who we arewhile we are doing. Soul would like ourpersonas and our individual ways of beingin the world to match up, to be in colorful(or vibrational) alignment. When per-sonas (clothing), our masks which fit themoment’s role, are in alignment with soul(sole, shoes), we are living authentically,as hostesses, weathermen, visionaries,musicians, or spaceshots. As within, sowithout.

Lepage adds to Mom’s LittleMermaid-mimicking demise an incremen-tal loss of lower limbs and appendages. Iassume this detail points to the symbol-ism of soul as legless fish. The bodilydeterioration that leads to death can beexperienced as a slow return to the “sea”of unity consciousness. Dying Mom’s lossof foot and limb signifies her soul’s jour-ney away from embodiment, hershapeshifting into that goldfish-soulswimming in a sea of stars.

In a broader stroke of Lepage’smetaphor, he opens his narrative withthe term “narcissism”. It’s the psychologi-


“We may imagine it’s the fault of ‘Other’ that the

world is so heavy, so full of suffering”


cal basis of the thesis Philippe is present-ing in hopes of obtaining a doctoraldegree. Briefly, Philippe states that“Space exploration in the 20th centurywas motivated by narcissism.” Lepageuses images of folks pumping up in gymsand looking at their reflections in mirrorsto make the point that narcissism hererefers to appearances, to surface con-cerns like those attributed to André. Thisis the mainstream understanding of nar-cissism; the pumping up of the colloquial-ly defined ego, of our conditioned identi-ties, relying on “Other” to reflect ratherthan self reflecting, rather than shiningsoulfully.

However, Le Page’s narcissism islater expanded. At the end of the film amore balanced, philosophical perspectiveon the matter of narcissism is offeredPhilippe by the conference chair inRussia; “I agree with you that since thebeginning of humanity man has soughtmirrors to gaze at himself. But he doesn’tdo it solely out of narcissism, but out of adesire to know himself.” This last inter-pretation of reflection as inner activity issurely the soulful one intended byNarcissus’s enduring myth, and itsappearance in the script signifiesredemption for Philippe. While in Russiahis resistance to, his bitterness about,humanity’s (and André’s) ego-buildingshifts to compassion, redemption, for thisfar side of his inner moon. Lepage’s nar-cissism-and-space-race metaphor is ascomplex as the moon. It’s woven of egoicworldly power, man’s search for mean-ing, the double sidedness of humanpolarized conditioning, and the making ofa soul from suffering as expounded byKeats; “Some say the world is a vale oftears. I say it is a place of soul-making.”

Though Philippe’s foray to Russia isunsuccessful in furthering his careerobjectives, we are left with the clearunderstanding that the mission was evo-lutionarily profitable. Some bitter, resist-ant way of being in the world has beenreleased to the stars with the freezing ofthe goldfish, and the new order is drama-tized by the brothers’ heart-to-heart I’vealready addressed. To encourage ourimagining of inner success, of redemptionand dropping of bitterness, Lepage givesus the airport image of Philippe risingweightless, free of suffering(Tsiolkovsky’s weightlessness as an endto human suffering)- for now. He’s proba-

bly dazed and confused, but seems to behandling it in a Zen manner, calmly fasci-nated with his lack of bodily control ashis feet rise over his head, as his bodytwists while some other force besidesgravity (soul?) pulls it, arranges it andrearranges it, as a painter might arrangethe limbs of a studio model. Is the mutespinning moon he drifts to orchestratingthis compelling spaceshot experience?

The film has too many metaphoricalmoments for me to here address. There’sthe “Wall of Shame,” a huge, heavyshelving unit that separated André’s andPhilippe’s territories in their childhoodroom, symbolically a divider withinPhilippe’s psyche. There’s a clip from TheDay the Earth Stood Still; silvery Klaatusaying “We come to visit you in peace,and with goodwill.” This classic sci-fi “daythe Earth stood still” links up metaphori-cally with the redemption scene in the

frozen apartment and its reconciliatoryconversation. I have seen very few filmsas metaphorically rich as FSM.

I note that Lepage’s two devices ofgoldfish and video recording were usedto good effect in a 2009 French languagefilm, Mona Achache’s Le hérisson (TheHedgehog). It’s based on a novel byMuriel Barbery; perhaps Lepage’s filminspired Barbery, or vice versa.L’elegance du hérrison was published inEnglish in 2008, but Lepage is likelyFrench speaking. In either case, I’m sureimitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

ReferencesLepage, R. (Writer). (2003). The far side ofthe moon. Canada: Max FilmsInternational.

Colleen Szabo, MA is an artist and writerwith a background in transpersonal psy-chology who loves alchemical symbolismand strives to spread its wisdom to who-ever will listen. Her e-book Poetry inMotion: 19 Symbolic Reviews ofTransformational Film can beviewed on Amazon.com. Her symbolismwebsite Sorcerer’s Stone (http://www.sor-cerersstone.net) offers more of her work.

Colleen Szabo

“Soul is indeed whatremains when we departfrom physical existence”

Balancing the Moon

Art

Janet Clark began to paint when she was a training candidate in Zurich in theearly 1980's. Today she is a partner in a real estate investment company and afull-time student at the Texas Academy of Figurative Art in Ft. Worth, Texas.

by Janet Clark


Introduction to Shamanism and Jungianthought

As a long-time Shamanic practi-tioner, healer, energy worker,

and Jungian, I find that Shamanism is lit-tle understood by the dominant culturesrooted in the Western world, and isoften reviewed and written about bythose outside Shamanism’s contexts andpracticed by many from different cul-tures, which then provides many differ-ent types of Shamanism. Much of whatthe dominant cultures of the West under-stand about Shamanism comes from theseminal work of Mircea Eliade,Shamanism: Archaic Techniques ofEcstasy (1951). In depth psychology wemight look to Jung and Shamanism inDialogue (1997) by C. Michael Smith togain a view of Shamanism. I also point toVine Deloria’s great work C.G. Jung andthe Sioux Traditions (2009) on bringingShamanism and Jung together for a deep-er understanding. And, there are hun-dreds of other books on Jungian thoughtand practice as well as hundreds onShamanistic knowledge. These are threethat rose to the top as I reflected onChange your story, change your life:Using Shamanic and Jungian tools toachieve personal transformation (2014)by Carl Greer. This book is a practicalguide on how to use tools fromShamanism and Jungian practice tochange one’s story, to change one’s life.In this review, by the way, I follow theresearch view of the American IndigenousResearch Association which uses upper-case for Native, Indigenous, Shaman, andetc. recognizing that these terms are ofequal value as Christian, Islam, and oth-ers that are given priority in the Westernworld view.

OutlineChange Your Story, Change Your Life

(2014) is a book about stories: our per-sonal stories that we live, the stories wecontinually tell as our personal truth, thestories that determine our ways of being.“Each of us is living a life about which astory can be told. The story has chaptersabout our body and health; our relation-ship to a higher power; and our ways ofbeing in service to the world” (p. 15). Itseems that most Westernized humansbelieve the stories they tell about them-selves and lack awareness and skill toexplore the veracity of their personal sto-ries. “Every chapter is an important partof the larger whole, yet we can be blindto the patterns in the story and thethemes that are interwoven throughout,tying together seemingly disparateevents” (p. 15).

Greer, as a trained Jungian analystand Shamanic practitioner, gives his read-ers theory, story, and methods to lead usthrough the maze of being, witness toone’s own stories and ways to rewrite thestories we believe and tell ourselves andothers. “We find it difficult to see a uni-fied tale when we are reacting to thedetails of life and are caught up in ourexperiences. But if we step back fromtime to time and reassess our stories, wecan make conscious choices about howwe might change them and tell a newand better story in the future” (p. 15).

The ‘fanboy’ part of me was ecstaticwith Greer’s words and methods; the‘critical skeptic’ part of me said, “Yesthese are great, but none of this is reallynew.” And, the answer to both my parts,the fanboy and the critical skeptic, is thatbringing together or comparing Jungianthought and Shamanic knowledge is nei-ther new nor novel. However, the wayGreer brings these two disparate yet sis-ter worlds of thought and practicestogether is both new and novel. Not onlyis he a wordsmith, but Greer is a wise

Jungian and Shamanic practitioner whogives us theory and exercises for those ofus who are looking to change our storiesand thereby change our lives. For the per-son who is completely satisfied withhis/her life or has neither impetus nordesire for change, this book will not havethe impact that one might wish.

The chapters of this book lead thereader through Greer’s theory about thecreation of stories of self, interwovenwith stories from others, and inter-spersed with interesting exercises inorder to help the reader go deep intowhat one is reading about.

To better understand how Greer hasput together his book and to see the pro-gression of his thought, the chapter titlesare as follows:

1) Transforming Your Life Throughthe Power of Story2) Shamanism and How it Can HelpYou Change Your Story3) Exploring Your Current Story4) Writing a New and Better Story5) Preparing for Shamanic Practices6) Journeying and Dialogue7) Taking Shamanic Journeys8) Understanding the Energies ThatInfluence Your Story9) Working with the ArchetypalEnergies of Death and Initiation10) Working with Dreams andNature to Manifest Your New Story11) Using Ritual and Ceremony toManifest Your New Story12) Writing New Stories for Society13) Living According to Your NewStory

Alberto Villoldo, Shamanic teacherand practitioner, writes in the forewordof Change Your Story, Change Your Life, asuccinct nugget which is what I feel thisbook is really trying to help the readerunderstand:

Review of Change your Story, Change your

Life: Using Shamanic and Jungian tools to

Achieve Personal Transformation by Carl Greer

By Jesse Howard Lash Masterson


When I first began to study the wis-dom teachings of the ancientShamans of the Andes, I struggled tounderstand what my mentors weretrying to explain to me. It wasn’t alanguage barrier that stood betweenthem and me so much as a barrier ofperception. I had plenty of academicknowledge, but a Western way ofthinking and perceiving that kept mefrustrated until I learned to turn onmy intuitive mind and quiet my ana-lytical mind. Only then could I accesswisdom and energies hidden frommy awareness and use them to cre-ate a new path for myself. (p. 13)

This is exactly what Greer is helpingthe reader explore through theory andexercises in Change Your Story, ChangeYour Life.

In the first chapter, Greer providesan understanding of the organization ofthe book, the ways of using the materialand the challenges some might come upagainst. In the second chapter, Greergives a brief understanding of Shamanicpractice and his training and experiencewith Shamanism. As a Shamanic practi-tioner myself, I understand Shamanismnot as a religion but as knowledge andpractices that help us understand andexplore our selves, our world and our uni-verse available to anyone of any faith.Greer points out that most Shamans seethe human body as made up of energyand being an energy being gives us con-nection to all humans and to all energeticbeings in the universe. This is why thepairing with Jungian tools is equallyimportant. Jungian knowledge gives thebridge from the intellectual-brain-onlyway of being for most in the Westernizedworld to understand the energetic levelsof being in the Shamanic world. In thischapter, Greer helps us find these bridgesand come to terms with the work neededfor change. On a personal note,Shamanism, as well as much ofIndigenous knowledge, is dismissed asanimism or non-science and for a personwho understands Shamanism in this way,I suggest reading Gregory Cajete’s Nativescience: Natural Laws of Interdependence(2000) in order to gain a better under-standing of how to relate to Indigenousknowledge.

The remaining chapters are the coreof the work in the book. Greer skillfullyleads us through many actions and exer-cises intended to bring stories into thelight and to help us write new stories thatare more appropriate and more truthfulabout our being, right now, in thismoment. I found Chapter 8 to beextremely helpful. Even though I havetrained at Pacifica Graduate Institute in aDepth Psychology doctoral program, Ifind that going back through archetypes,anima/animus, personas, shadow, andcomplexes to be fruitful. Here, Greermakes the connections between one’spersonal story and the work to be donein relation to these areas of being need-ing work. In latter chapters he also tack-les the fear of death, a difficult conceptfor westernized people who are habitual-ly separated from ideas, actions, and ele-ments related to death. This fear of deathmay keep us from using death as an allyin our work of changing our story. Inmany stories, in many cultures, a humanmust meet death through dreams or initi-ation in order to become changed,renewed, or restored. Whether it isInanna’s decent into the underworld andher transformation, or Oyo, who lives atthe gates of cemeteries and prods us intochange or transition, or the Death card inthe Tarot, death is and becomes impor-tant to us who are willing to do the workto change our story, to change our lives.

This book is about co-creation, toolsand theories to help us give the gift ofdeath to stories that do not serve us andto create new stories that are more truth-ful and that may serve us in better ways.In the afterword, Greer shares a story, astory in which he gets to know himselfthrough Shamanic practice which led himto be able to be known by others. Heshares his hope for us, that we can “co-create with Source the life you want, andthat your dance with the Quiet is loving,soulful, meaningful, and ultimately joyful,and that you can connect to the uncondi-tional love in the Quiet and radiate itsessence” (p. 219).

I found Change Your Story, ChangeYour Life to be a useful tool and an easyread. One can pick it up and read it, not

doing the exercises, and may gain a fewinsights from it. However, the best use ofthis book is to take the time to work itand to let it work you. Do the exercises,do not rush, re-read and redo the exercis-es over time. I would suggest that thisbook, though maybe not a bestseller forits lack of promises of quick fixes, is animportant book for those wanting toexplore change of self, change of story,and change of life; those willing to do thework. For those of you who have grownweary of the stories you tell yourself andthat you tell others, you need this book!For those of you who see a need for lifechange, small or large, you can benefitfrom using this book, too. Those of us inneed of change will learn to dance witharchetypal energies and the transperson-al realms and work towards our personalhealing and the healing of the worldthrough our use of this book. This is thework I believe is needed and which isgently demanded throughout this book.

ReferencesEliade, M. (1951/2004). Shamanism:Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Princeton,NJ: Princeton University Press.

Cajete, G. (2000). Native science: Naturallaws of interdependence. Santa Fe, NM:Clear Light Books.

Deloria, V. Jr., Deloria, P. J., & Bernstein,J. S. (2009). C.G. Jung and the SiouxTraditions: Dreams, Visions, Nature andthe Primitive. New Orlean, LA: SpringJournal, Inc.

Greer, C. (2014). Change you story,change your life: Using Shamanic andJungian tools to achieve personal trans-formation. Dyke, Scotland: FindhornPress.

Smith, C. M. (2007). Jung and Shamanismin Dialogue: Retrieving the Soul /Retrieving the Sacred. Bloomington, IN:Trafford Publishing.

Jesse Howard Lash Masterson is a Ph.D.candidate in Depth Psychology at PacificaGraduate Institute. He holds an M.A. inDepth Psychology from Pacifica GraduateInstitute, and a Master of Divinity fromNaropa University. He also earned anM.S. in Counselor Education from EmporiaState Universit y.

Tim Holmes is the first American artist ever honored with a solo exhibition in the Hermitage museum in SaintPetersburg, Russia, where three of his works remain in the permanent collection. He is recognized for many international human rights projects and peace awards such as the U.N. Peace Prize for Women. Archbishop Tutu,President Jimmy Carter, President Vaclav Havel, and Coretta Scott King are among his notable collectors. Holmeshas lectured and taught workshops around the country and in Europe. He believes that art is the medicine thatwill heal the world.

Built mostly of old scrap steel, this kinetic sculpture is a fairly accurate model as described by the greatpsychologist Carl Jung. Its pulleys, spinning mirrors and creaking parts demonstrate the psyche at work.

NOTE: This image links to an online “Prezi” file which should be viewable and interactive online. Just click onthe image and then continue to click the right arrow to step through the features of the model.You may also find the interactive file at http://prezi.com/nxn8klzq6vmq/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medi-um=copy

ArtModel of the Unconscious


by Tim Holmes

http://prezi.com/nxn8klzq6vmq/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

http://prezi.com/nxn8klzq6vmq/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy


Naomi Ruth Lowinsky is an analyst memberof the San Francisco Institute and a widelypublished poet. Her memoir, The Sister fromBelow: When the Muse Gets Her Way tellsstories of her pushy muse. She is the co-edi-tor, with Patricia Damery, of Marked by Fire:Stories of the Jungian Way. and the author offour books of poetry, including her latest, TheFaust Woman Poems. She blogs about poetryand life at www.sisterfrombelow.com

Eva Rider MA, LMFT, is a Jungian depth psy-chotherapist, workshop leader and lecturer.She holds a BA in history from McGillUniversity and an MA in psychology fromJohn F. Kennedy University, where shetaught as adjunct instructor. Eva is a gradu-ate of the Marion Woodman BodySoulRhythms®Leadership Training, a certifiedHypnotherapist, and Dreamwork teacher,exploring personal and archetypal dreamprocesses using fairy tale, myth, music, art,poetry and movement. Eva’s passion is ajourney of unveiling the feminine throughcorrespondences between Jungian theory,alchemy and Psyche/Soma as revealedthrough the glyph of the Hermetic Tree ofLife. She can be reached at www.reclaiming-soul.com

Pamela Preston (see bio with art on p. 40)

Shelley Pizzuto worked in the human servic-es field for 20 years which included a privatepractice in consciousness therapy, lecturingand self authoring seminars to support ethi-cal, self nurtured and creative practices. Sheis currently dedicated to her literary workand resides in the desert of the deep south-ern interior on the Western coast of Canada,in the beautiful nature-bound province ofBritish Columbia.

Poet Biographies

Susanne Dutton is a Philadelphian who writespoetry, fiction and psychology, including adepth psychology through story, TheApportioner’s Counsel – Saying I Do (or IDon’t) With Your Eyes Open.

John Guchemand grew up in Baltimore, hasstudied music, writing, languages and psy-chology. He served the Peace Corps inUzbekistan (1998-2000), and earned his MSin IS (2008). He’s married with three pas-sionate children. He writes fiction and poet-ry, which he has practiced and thoroughlyenjoyed since 1995.

Marlene Dean lives in Alberta, Canada. Amember of the Calgary Jung Society, she has akeen interest in analytic psychology. Herpoems have been published in Tesseracts 5 ,an anthology of New Canadian speculative fic-tion ; Writing the Land, Alberta Through itsPoets; Home and Away, Alberta's Finest PoetsMuse on the Meaning of Home; House ofBlue Skies website and various newspapers.

Stories for SaleBy John Guchemand

What kind?We got spiced; bittersweet; perfumed; cold and logical; phantasmagorical...

Roiling-bellied lover in velveteen backroom, crepuscularchoking on dream-deal rabid―to trade all closeted possessions for gram-fraction of powder-fantasy?

Or how about this beaut' hanging here?The greenish mutt, cowardice-charged, bellyaching and unrobust.Expects her at streetlamps―examining her vialed scent―bowingHanging onto mafia-days by fingernails―a memory of a scratch behind the ear. No?

Take your pick.Look here, society's simpleton!Or worse―villainous-hearted, pestilent.Wrecking ball to woman's virtue.

What about this one?The story of the hero psychologique,charged to skewer the imperial basilisk,scaled-away hearts.

A way. A man-child sniffing out backdoor ritual.A genetic shaman suffering a wound of the spirit.A carrier of humanity-treasure.

Perhaps you need the femme fatale,a walking smile sans merci.If beauty is naked contrastshe's Christ in contemplationof detonating the nuclear bomb.

You can't forget this one―the artist (method actor).Inspirations―wind-blown clouds―cast glances.Shapeshifter tempting.A coin toss―siren or muse?A machinating anima.A prick-eared Abraham.

We witness another supplication at the altar of love,a warm spine, a lit match held behind,a dream of ear-offering separation, hectoring.

Nothing of interest?Ah, you already have a story.Sorry we couldn't help you today.Come back again for a better selection.

Poetry

http://www.sisterfrombelow.com

http://www.reclaimingsoul.com


Bonnie Bright

with their problems of poverty, drugs, and crime; spiral-ing unemployment and economic disarray; and growingintolerance toward people of color and the values ofother cultures---all of these trends, if unchecked, willeventually bring about a terrible self-destruction. In theface of all this global chaos, the only possible hope is self-transformation. Unless we as individuals find new waysof understanding between people, ways that can touchand transform the heart and soul deeply, both indige-nous cultures and those in the West will continue to fadeaway, dismayed that all the wonders of technology, allthe many philosophical 'isms,' and all the planning of theglobal corporations will be helpless to reverse this trend(Of Water and the Spirit, 1994, p. 1).

This issue, with its many-faceted depth psychological lens,has benefited profoundly from the efforts of Jesse HowardLash Masterson, Linda Ravenswood, and Paco Mitchell, who,along with the authors, poets, and artists—those whose workwas selected along with those we simply couldn’t fit this timearound—have contributed hundreds of hours of effort tomake this all happen. It has been, as always, my own rewardto have worked with each of them in the process of bringingdepth insights to a wide audience, not only to the more than3500 members of the online community of Depth PsychologyAlliance for whom Depth Insights was created, but to a broad-er global community—whether those profoundly interested indepth psychology or those who are just discovering it. Pleaseenjoy this issue!

From the Editor — Continued from p. 2

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Depth Insights Scholarly eZine Fall 2014—Issue 6

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