MYTHIC LIVING
by Iona Miller
Mythic Living About Pantheon Archetypes Divination Ritual Personification Child Body & Soul Persephone Gowan Attractors Eulogy
Mythic Living - http://mythicliving.iwarp.com/
Jung introduced the notion that archetypes -- what were called ancient gods and goddesses -- are dynamic patterns that eternally operate in our lives and our world. They are the primal driving forces of man and nature, metaphysical strange attractors whose influence pervades the whole spectrum of domains from cosmic to subatomic. Theirs is the fabric that weaves Above and Below together, seamlessly, as a holographic whole.
Our worldviews, basic assumptions about the way the world is, are undergird with mythic patterns which condition our beliefs, thoughts, feelings and actions. Personal mythology is a vibrant infrastructure that informs your life, consciously or unconsciously. Living mythically means becoming aware of your personal and collective origins. These forms structure our awareness; in them we find the root cause of our difficulties and our healing. Solutions to intrapersonal conflict is a first step toward solving global conflict.
http://zero-point.tripod.com/pantheon/pantheon.html
Pantheon: Archetypal Godforms in Daily Life
Uranus
Hermes
Artemis
Aphrodite
Athena
Hera
Eros & Psyche
Hestia
Demeter/Persephone
Hephaistos
Zeus
Themis
Poseidon
Thanatos
Artemis & Apollo
Pan/Priapus
Ares
Rhea
Hekate
Apollo
Hades/Dionysus
Cronos
PANTHEON WEBSITE
Our worldviews, basic assumptions about the way the world is, are undergird with mythic patterns which condition our beliefs, thoughts, feelings and actions. Personal mythology is a vibrant infrastructure that informs your life, consciously or unconsciously. Living mythically means becoming aware of your personal and collective origins. These forms structure our awareness; in them we find the root cause of our difficulties and our healing. Solutions to intrapersonal conflict is a first step toward solving global conflict.
http://zero-point.tripod.com/pantheon/pantheon.html
Pantheon: Archetypal Godforms in Daily Life
Uranus
Hermes
Artemis
Aphrodite
Athena
Hera
Eros & Psyche
Hestia
Demeter/Persephone
Hephaistos
Zeus
Themis
Poseidon
Thanatos
Artemis & Apollo
Pan/Priapus
Ares
Rhea
Hekate
Apollo
Hades/Dionysus
Cronos
PANTHEON WEBSITE
PANTHEON - Mythic Living
My interest in mythic living has remained strong over the years, even though I codified it early in my book PANTHEON. It began with an interest in classical myth, Egyptian godforms and magic, Jungian and Archetypal psychology and personal mythology.
Find the web version of PANTHEON at Site - http://www.zero-point.tripod.com/pantheon/pantheon.html
PANTHEON PREFACE (1999):
When I began my own study and practice of pathworking, it became readily apparent to me that there was much more to be learned about godforms in Jungian literature than in all the Qabala and Magick books put together. But no one had been very comprehensive nor systematic about their presentations. Pantheon is a broad survey or study of the archetypes as discussed in the literature of Jungian Psychology. Typically, the Jungians discuss archetypes by using the Greek godforms, since they are generally more familiar from school days and considered more "user-friendly". But pantheons are a cross-cultural phenomena, so a table of correspondences is provided to translate into other cultural pantheons.
This is not neo-paganism. These gods and goddesses are not presented as objects of worship or veneration, but as universal autonomous forces with their own agendas which weave constantly through our outer and inner reality. They are relevant in daily life because they are the motivating factors behind our beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and behavior. We can hardly hope to be self-directing individuals without some knowledge of their patterns and effects on our lives and souls. In this work, the correspondences of godforms to chapters is patterned after the Paths and Tarot Trumps. A godform is corresponded with each Trump through astrological attributes. This makes Pantheon useful to students of Tarot, Qabala, astrology, and Jungian thought.
When I first wrote it in 1983, it was the first and only compilation of this material in one convenient source. Since then, Jungian ideas became mainstream and several analysts and other Transpersonal Psychologists have offered many workshops and written excellent books on "personal mythology." These include such eminent personalities as Joseph Campbell, Jean Houston, Robert Bly, Jean Shinoda Bolin, and Stan Krippner to name just a few. Yet, this volume still has something unique to offer with its workbook format, suggestions for further study, and the qabalistic spin. Myth has become an important core feature of modern spirituality.
Friends Stanley Krippner and David Feinstein have written books called PERSONAL MYTHOLOGY and THE MYTHIC PATH: A 12 week course in Personal Mythology, which I highly recommend. Also excellent is the work of Jean Houston: A MYTHIC LIFE, IN SEARCH OF THE BELOVED, THE POSSIBLE HUMAN. Jungian classics include THE I AND THE NOT-I, FACING THE GODS, and THE NEW POLYTHEISM, and Hillman's Re-VISIONING PSYCHOLOGY.
Many people became interested in the subject after seeing or reading Joseph Campbell's PBS shows or his popular book THE POWER OF MYTH.
Before, during, and after the fad my interest remains and I am still describing these dynamics to myself with new insights into their nature over time. It is not that we worship a god or goddess but that many Gods and Goddesses live through our psychic structure: culturally, religiously, psychologically. David Miller's Jungian 1974 book The New Polytheism has proven prophetic. In the Preface scholar Henry Corbin predicts the rebirth of the gods when he says:
"I believe our researches open the way by necessity, to angelology (that of Proclus, that of the Kabbala) which will be reborn with increasing potency. The Angel is the Face that our God takes for us, and each of us finds his God when he recognizes that Face. The service which we can render others is to help them encounter that Face about which they will be able to say, 'I am able to grasp such as I have seen.'"
Find the web version of PANTHEON at Site - http://www.zero-point.tripod.com/pantheon/pantheon.html
PANTHEON PREFACE (1999):
When I began my own study and practice of pathworking, it became readily apparent to me that there was much more to be learned about godforms in Jungian literature than in all the Qabala and Magick books put together. But no one had been very comprehensive nor systematic about their presentations. Pantheon is a broad survey or study of the archetypes as discussed in the literature of Jungian Psychology. Typically, the Jungians discuss archetypes by using the Greek godforms, since they are generally more familiar from school days and considered more "user-friendly". But pantheons are a cross-cultural phenomena, so a table of correspondences is provided to translate into other cultural pantheons.
This is not neo-paganism. These gods and goddesses are not presented as objects of worship or veneration, but as universal autonomous forces with their own agendas which weave constantly through our outer and inner reality. They are relevant in daily life because they are the motivating factors behind our beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and behavior. We can hardly hope to be self-directing individuals without some knowledge of their patterns and effects on our lives and souls. In this work, the correspondences of godforms to chapters is patterned after the Paths and Tarot Trumps. A godform is corresponded with each Trump through astrological attributes. This makes Pantheon useful to students of Tarot, Qabala, astrology, and Jungian thought.
When I first wrote it in 1983, it was the first and only compilation of this material in one convenient source. Since then, Jungian ideas became mainstream and several analysts and other Transpersonal Psychologists have offered many workshops and written excellent books on "personal mythology." These include such eminent personalities as Joseph Campbell, Jean Houston, Robert Bly, Jean Shinoda Bolin, and Stan Krippner to name just a few. Yet, this volume still has something unique to offer with its workbook format, suggestions for further study, and the qabalistic spin. Myth has become an important core feature of modern spirituality.
Friends Stanley Krippner and David Feinstein have written books called PERSONAL MYTHOLOGY and THE MYTHIC PATH: A 12 week course in Personal Mythology, which I highly recommend. Also excellent is the work of Jean Houston: A MYTHIC LIFE, IN SEARCH OF THE BELOVED, THE POSSIBLE HUMAN. Jungian classics include THE I AND THE NOT-I, FACING THE GODS, and THE NEW POLYTHEISM, and Hillman's Re-VISIONING PSYCHOLOGY.
Many people became interested in the subject after seeing or reading Joseph Campbell's PBS shows or his popular book THE POWER OF MYTH.
Before, during, and after the fad my interest remains and I am still describing these dynamics to myself with new insights into their nature over time. It is not that we worship a god or goddess but that many Gods and Goddesses live through our psychic structure: culturally, religiously, psychologically. David Miller's Jungian 1974 book The New Polytheism has proven prophetic. In the Preface scholar Henry Corbin predicts the rebirth of the gods when he says:
"I believe our researches open the way by necessity, to angelology (that of Proclus, that of the Kabbala) which will be reborn with increasing potency. The Angel is the Face that our God takes for us, and each of us finds his God when he recognizes that Face. The service which we can render others is to help them encounter that Face about which they will be able to say, 'I am able to grasp such as I have seen.'"
Archetypes & You
Archetypes in Daily Living
PERCEIVING ARCHETYPES IN DAILY LIVING
by Iona Miller
Knowledge of the various archetypal forms helps the ego determine what in life is personal and human, and what is compulsive acting-out of ancient divine patterns, which are instinctual in nature. The more we approach our individual wholeness, the more likely we are to encounter these divine principles from the field of archetypal experiences. They are unavoidable, whether we are totally unconscious of them, or not.
We begin to see archetypal forces operating under their own laws in various phases of human life and endeavors. They influence us on personal, social, and national levels. They come in the ever-changing guises of phobias Irrational fears), prejudices, complexes (interference by an archetype or group of archetypes with the conscious personality), and our runaway ego-trips. They play through our culture in art, literature, and the movies we so frequently view and in the stories we love.
When seen objectively in stories, we can identify with or despise them, but when their effects are subjective, we are entirely "carried away," "beside ourselves". Sometimes, we choose them to feel special and create drama in our otherwise listless lives - we mistake them for love, for destiny, for the voice of God, for supernatural "signs" in an unenlightened, even superstitious manner. They lie behind religiosity, pathology, and romantic vs. mature love.
Archetypes also lie behind fascinations, crusades, and enchantments of individuals and nations. They produce the phenomena of "love at first sight" and create fads and set trends or styles in the recreation and fashion worlds. They can be contagious as in the case of cults, or political and religious movements. The great attraction of sports is also archetypal in nature.
People will go to war and fight to the death an fanatical "true believers" to defend some political or religious principle. The belief system is influenced by the myth behind it. Charismatic leaders capture the projections of leadership through expressing the subconscious desires of the crown, or herd consciousness (like Adolph Hitler or Jim Jones). Activation of these archetypal powers opens the door for both good and evil, and creates an arena for the emergence of ethics and morals.
Ultimately, though self-awareness is a personal matter we should all tackle individually. Self-knowledge benefits society as a by-product of creating transformed individuals who can "make a difference."
Archetypes also account for the "mysteries" of life. They are behind the fascination with the great unknown. Expressions of this sense of awe, wonder, or mystery pervade such phenomena as ESP, psychic healing, Bigfoot, the Occult, the UFO controversy, etc.
Culturally modified archetypes are behind the modern drive to discover your "roots." These roots are probably physical in that they reflect your genetic heritage. But for some, they are psychological roots, drawn from patterns with which one feels kinship or relatedness. Whatever our belief system, from scientific to religious, rest assured there are a group of archetypal forces behind them.
When we consciously relate to archetypes, they begin to have a personal context, or meaningful place in our lives. This enlarges our ability to experience the transpersonal dimension of the psyche, or soul. By personification, we come to know the qualities and manifestations of the ods in "digestible chunks." We learn more deeply about them on ever-increasing octaves of experience. psychic energy (libido) may, therefore, be thought of as quantized (discreet packages).
We can begin to see Hermes, Athena, Zeus and Themis operating in our lives, even if we can't fully understand the reality they represent in its totality. We can be aware of its effect in our personal domain. In this perspective, the essential focus on "reality" occurs where inner material is being projected from the unconscious into your environment. This affects your work, relationships, as well as your spiritual transformation or process of changing to become what you aspire toward.
The deep mind manifests through these archetypal patterns, personified as gods and goddesses, communicating messages to the conscious ind. with an awareness of how these patterns recur, it is possible to influence your destiny. Many of us are somewhat self-defeating or even self-destructive. We could all benefit by understand these driving archetypal processes, which takes us beyond the normal boundaries of self and society. We suffer from our attenuated version of the archetype.
When you are out of proper relationship to the archetypes you can become "dominated" by them, to the detriment of your life goals and personality choices. They take over and live life through us, in a parasitic fashion when we are not aware of the growth of their agendas within us. When identified, we think these stereotypical thoughts are our thoughts, these feelings our own, this behavior our choice.
It is possible to learn to actively balance exaggerated dominance by any form through applied Creative Imagination. The basic myth themes represent all kinds of life situations, including realities of outer and inner experiences. If the personality is too one-sided, it is possible to revise it by consciously developing the qualities represented by complementary god-forms. This balances the personality and enriches life.
Intro 3:
ARCHETYPES AS A METHOD OF SELF-ANALYSIS & SELF-HELP
Self actualization has to do with high functioning in both the outer and inner worlds of our lives. We can be successful in social and professional life and still be psychologically naive, without a conscious connection to our inner life. Having integrated ourselves into the outer world we can enter our inner world by examining our relationships with the archetypes. Archetypes can't always be subjected to intellectual analysis since they can be elusive.
Direct experiential contact is much more important than analysis. This comes by noticing the archetypal patterns in dynamic motion, or deliberately setting aside time for Active Imagination or perhaps journal work. A conceptual understanding of the range of archetypal manifestations is a useful tool, which we acquire through study, reflection, and application of knowledge. When we notice a pattern in motion in our lives, we can amplify our awareness, tune in on the issue the archetype is highlighting, and discover our feelings consciously related to that dynamic.
Archetypes represent a paradoxical synthesis of opposites and are therefore neither "good" nor "bad" as a prognosis on one's psychological condition. What is desirable is the experience of archetypes consciously, not any certain archetypes over others. Each archetype has its values and drawbacks, strengths and weaknesses, conflicts and harmonies. We seek to know the range of archetypes which are within us when we enter the inner adventure -- the hero's or heroine's journey of self-discovery in "foreign countries" -- the unconscious. In this manner we gain in humanity, versatility, wholeness.
Ultimately, the archetypes appear to synthesize together in the grand reconciling figures of the higher Self, which represents our wholeness or illumination. The inner guiding principle of the Self manifests to the conscious mind as the various archetypal forces with their eternal myth-themes or life-patterns.
We know directly when we have been touched by an archetype whenever we experience an exaggerated, irrational, over-emotional reaction. When we seem "out of control" it is because we are taken over by the dominating power of the archetype and are temporarily its slave. This affords us the opportunity to discover a layer of ourselves--that which watches this process impassively and objectively -- The Witness.
Self-analysis gentles some of the fury of the unbound self of the subconscious by developing understanding between conscious and subconscious drives, between the archetypal agenda and the simple human needs of the human personality. Our behavior can only become purposeful and coherent when inner and other goals harmonize. If we turn our attention inward to the archetypes and consider them valuable, they become our allies or guides.
If we watch ourselves continually for those moments when conscious control breaks down, we get insight into the realm of the gods, as well as our shadow, anima/animus, and Self. Watch what creates enthusiasm, anger or depression in yourself and others. Try to peer through to the god-form at the core of symptoms and situations. In this manner we can learn to relate to the play of events from a dispassionate perspective, mellowing over-reactive instinctual tendencies.
We can either be ruled by the archetypes, ridden roughshod, or learn to govern along with them by cooperating with the trends revealed by the psyche, and willingly exploring those spaces. Eventually, the archetypal figures which began as an arcane concept and seemed like strangers will become your constant companions and valued friends and advisors. Some may remain closer to you than others, but all will lie within your spectrum of acquaintance. A sense of inner self-assurance develops and an inner world every bit as enticing as the physical becomes yours.
Intro. 4
THE VALUE OF THE GREEK PANTHEON
Western cultural patterns and scientific thinking have their roots in early Greek philosophy. Even today, a knowledge of Greek myth is included in all basic educations. The value of Greek myth is that it is well-suited for modern people, interested in increasing self-awareness since these gods and goddesses are familiar from schooldays. Here, the Greek pantheon functions less as a religion and more like a psychological framework, accommodating a wide range of psychic fragments and dynamic patterns.
To access this range of attitudes, viewpoints, and corresponding symbols, one cultural pantheon (or family of gods) is actually as useful as another. The key to its utility for personal transformation is a feeling of "resonance" with the archetypes and developing inability to determine a consistent set of characteristics within it.
One value of the Greek pantheon lies in its almost universal familiarity. The rich store of Greek mythologies contain numerous entertaining tales of behavior, to which almost anyone can relate. In viewing these heroes, bunglers, healers, tragedies, and exaltations we see little parts of ourselves in their non-personalized forms. The criterion for self realization includes conscious experiences with the realm of the divine, an ongoing I-Thou dialogue with the gods and goddesses. The elegance, accessibility, and comprehensive nature of the Greek pantheon helps us to rediscover the archetypes of our mindscape and culture.
But perhaps you dance to the tune of a different drummer, or come from an Asian or native culture. Even so, you be able to use these principles to discover keywords to translate the Greek forms into the pantheon of your choice. Tables are provided for this purpose, but you might augment with your own research.
The polytheistic orientation of current psychological practice offers a useful counterpoint to monotheistic religions, which can polarize dimensions such as good and evil. A pantheon represents all points of the spectrum, overlapping and interacting, including essentially human foibles and pathologies. They are all there. Both monotheistic and polytheistic realities constitute psychic reality. They are equally valid approaches, as human history has shown, seeing the one in the many or the many in the one.
Despite individual ethnic backgrounds, our Western cultural heritage traces back to the modes of thought developed by early Greek philosophers. This polytheistic complexity reflects the many complications of our modern lives. The pagan background of religion is shown in examples like the Catholic calendar where days of saints have taken the place of ancient pagan holy days.
The main reason and another major advantage of the Greek pantheon is that a large body of contemporary literature already exists concerning these forms, particularly in Jungian archives. Many common problems have been examined at length by Jungian psychologists, and we can take advantage of this research by applying it in our own quest. These Greek figures may then provide us with forms and categories to aid our understanding of the archetypal dimension.
PERCEIVING ARCHETYPES IN DAILY LIVING
by Iona Miller
Knowledge of the various archetypal forms helps the ego determine what in life is personal and human, and what is compulsive acting-out of ancient divine patterns, which are instinctual in nature. The more we approach our individual wholeness, the more likely we are to encounter these divine principles from the field of archetypal experiences. They are unavoidable, whether we are totally unconscious of them, or not.
We begin to see archetypal forces operating under their own laws in various phases of human life and endeavors. They influence us on personal, social, and national levels. They come in the ever-changing guises of phobias Irrational fears), prejudices, complexes (interference by an archetype or group of archetypes with the conscious personality), and our runaway ego-trips. They play through our culture in art, literature, and the movies we so frequently view and in the stories we love.
When seen objectively in stories, we can identify with or despise them, but when their effects are subjective, we are entirely "carried away," "beside ourselves". Sometimes, we choose them to feel special and create drama in our otherwise listless lives - we mistake them for love, for destiny, for the voice of God, for supernatural "signs" in an unenlightened, even superstitious manner. They lie behind religiosity, pathology, and romantic vs. mature love.
Archetypes also lie behind fascinations, crusades, and enchantments of individuals and nations. They produce the phenomena of "love at first sight" and create fads and set trends or styles in the recreation and fashion worlds. They can be contagious as in the case of cults, or political and religious movements. The great attraction of sports is also archetypal in nature.
People will go to war and fight to the death an fanatical "true believers" to defend some political or religious principle. The belief system is influenced by the myth behind it. Charismatic leaders capture the projections of leadership through expressing the subconscious desires of the crown, or herd consciousness (like Adolph Hitler or Jim Jones). Activation of these archetypal powers opens the door for both good and evil, and creates an arena for the emergence of ethics and morals.
Ultimately, though self-awareness is a personal matter we should all tackle individually. Self-knowledge benefits society as a by-product of creating transformed individuals who can "make a difference."
Archetypes also account for the "mysteries" of life. They are behind the fascination with the great unknown. Expressions of this sense of awe, wonder, or mystery pervade such phenomena as ESP, psychic healing, Bigfoot, the Occult, the UFO controversy, etc.
Culturally modified archetypes are behind the modern drive to discover your "roots." These roots are probably physical in that they reflect your genetic heritage. But for some, they are psychological roots, drawn from patterns with which one feels kinship or relatedness. Whatever our belief system, from scientific to religious, rest assured there are a group of archetypal forces behind them.
When we consciously relate to archetypes, they begin to have a personal context, or meaningful place in our lives. This enlarges our ability to experience the transpersonal dimension of the psyche, or soul. By personification, we come to know the qualities and manifestations of the ods in "digestible chunks." We learn more deeply about them on ever-increasing octaves of experience. psychic energy (libido) may, therefore, be thought of as quantized (discreet packages).
We can begin to see Hermes, Athena, Zeus and Themis operating in our lives, even if we can't fully understand the reality they represent in its totality. We can be aware of its effect in our personal domain. In this perspective, the essential focus on "reality" occurs where inner material is being projected from the unconscious into your environment. This affects your work, relationships, as well as your spiritual transformation or process of changing to become what you aspire toward.
The deep mind manifests through these archetypal patterns, personified as gods and goddesses, communicating messages to the conscious ind. with an awareness of how these patterns recur, it is possible to influence your destiny. Many of us are somewhat self-defeating or even self-destructive. We could all benefit by understand these driving archetypal processes, which takes us beyond the normal boundaries of self and society. We suffer from our attenuated version of the archetype.
When you are out of proper relationship to the archetypes you can become "dominated" by them, to the detriment of your life goals and personality choices. They take over and live life through us, in a parasitic fashion when we are not aware of the growth of their agendas within us. When identified, we think these stereotypical thoughts are our thoughts, these feelings our own, this behavior our choice.
It is possible to learn to actively balance exaggerated dominance by any form through applied Creative Imagination. The basic myth themes represent all kinds of life situations, including realities of outer and inner experiences. If the personality is too one-sided, it is possible to revise it by consciously developing the qualities represented by complementary god-forms. This balances the personality and enriches life.
Intro 3:
ARCHETYPES AS A METHOD OF SELF-ANALYSIS & SELF-HELP
Self actualization has to do with high functioning in both the outer and inner worlds of our lives. We can be successful in social and professional life and still be psychologically naive, without a conscious connection to our inner life. Having integrated ourselves into the outer world we can enter our inner world by examining our relationships with the archetypes. Archetypes can't always be subjected to intellectual analysis since they can be elusive.
Direct experiential contact is much more important than analysis. This comes by noticing the archetypal patterns in dynamic motion, or deliberately setting aside time for Active Imagination or perhaps journal work. A conceptual understanding of the range of archetypal manifestations is a useful tool, which we acquire through study, reflection, and application of knowledge. When we notice a pattern in motion in our lives, we can amplify our awareness, tune in on the issue the archetype is highlighting, and discover our feelings consciously related to that dynamic.
Archetypes represent a paradoxical synthesis of opposites and are therefore neither "good" nor "bad" as a prognosis on one's psychological condition. What is desirable is the experience of archetypes consciously, not any certain archetypes over others. Each archetype has its values and drawbacks, strengths and weaknesses, conflicts and harmonies. We seek to know the range of archetypes which are within us when we enter the inner adventure -- the hero's or heroine's journey of self-discovery in "foreign countries" -- the unconscious. In this manner we gain in humanity, versatility, wholeness.
Ultimately, the archetypes appear to synthesize together in the grand reconciling figures of the higher Self, which represents our wholeness or illumination. The inner guiding principle of the Self manifests to the conscious mind as the various archetypal forces with their eternal myth-themes or life-patterns.
We know directly when we have been touched by an archetype whenever we experience an exaggerated, irrational, over-emotional reaction. When we seem "out of control" it is because we are taken over by the dominating power of the archetype and are temporarily its slave. This affords us the opportunity to discover a layer of ourselves--that which watches this process impassively and objectively -- The Witness.
Self-analysis gentles some of the fury of the unbound self of the subconscious by developing understanding between conscious and subconscious drives, between the archetypal agenda and the simple human needs of the human personality. Our behavior can only become purposeful and coherent when inner and other goals harmonize. If we turn our attention inward to the archetypes and consider them valuable, they become our allies or guides.
If we watch ourselves continually for those moments when conscious control breaks down, we get insight into the realm of the gods, as well as our shadow, anima/animus, and Self. Watch what creates enthusiasm, anger or depression in yourself and others. Try to peer through to the god-form at the core of symptoms and situations. In this manner we can learn to relate to the play of events from a dispassionate perspective, mellowing over-reactive instinctual tendencies.
We can either be ruled by the archetypes, ridden roughshod, or learn to govern along with them by cooperating with the trends revealed by the psyche, and willingly exploring those spaces. Eventually, the archetypal figures which began as an arcane concept and seemed like strangers will become your constant companions and valued friends and advisors. Some may remain closer to you than others, but all will lie within your spectrum of acquaintance. A sense of inner self-assurance develops and an inner world every bit as enticing as the physical becomes yours.
Intro. 4
THE VALUE OF THE GREEK PANTHEON
Western cultural patterns and scientific thinking have their roots in early Greek philosophy. Even today, a knowledge of Greek myth is included in all basic educations. The value of Greek myth is that it is well-suited for modern people, interested in increasing self-awareness since these gods and goddesses are familiar from schooldays. Here, the Greek pantheon functions less as a religion and more like a psychological framework, accommodating a wide range of psychic fragments and dynamic patterns.
To access this range of attitudes, viewpoints, and corresponding symbols, one cultural pantheon (or family of gods) is actually as useful as another. The key to its utility for personal transformation is a feeling of "resonance" with the archetypes and developing inability to determine a consistent set of characteristics within it.
One value of the Greek pantheon lies in its almost universal familiarity. The rich store of Greek mythologies contain numerous entertaining tales of behavior, to which almost anyone can relate. In viewing these heroes, bunglers, healers, tragedies, and exaltations we see little parts of ourselves in their non-personalized forms. The criterion for self realization includes conscious experiences with the realm of the divine, an ongoing I-Thou dialogue with the gods and goddesses. The elegance, accessibility, and comprehensive nature of the Greek pantheon helps us to rediscover the archetypes of our mindscape and culture.
But perhaps you dance to the tune of a different drummer, or come from an Asian or native culture. Even so, you be able to use these principles to discover keywords to translate the Greek forms into the pantheon of your choice. Tables are provided for this purpose, but you might augment with your own research.
The polytheistic orientation of current psychological practice offers a useful counterpoint to monotheistic religions, which can polarize dimensions such as good and evil. A pantheon represents all points of the spectrum, overlapping and interacting, including essentially human foibles and pathologies. They are all there. Both monotheistic and polytheistic realities constitute psychic reality. They are equally valid approaches, as human history has shown, seeing the one in the many or the many in the one.
Despite individual ethnic backgrounds, our Western cultural heritage traces back to the modes of thought developed by early Greek philosophers. This polytheistic complexity reflects the many complications of our modern lives. The pagan background of religion is shown in examples like the Catholic calendar where days of saints have taken the place of ancient pagan holy days.
The main reason and another major advantage of the Greek pantheon is that a large body of contemporary literature already exists concerning these forms, particularly in Jungian archives. Many common problems have been examined at length by Jungian psychologists, and we can take advantage of this research by applying it in our own quest. These Greek figures may then provide us with forms and categories to aid our understanding of the archetypal dimension.
Divination & Character
RELATIONSHIP OF ARCHETYPES TO THE TAROT AND ASTROLOGY
Those familiar with astrology or the Tarot Trumps have entree to the archetypal world of PANTHEON already. They will be meeting their old friend: Venus, mars, Jupiter, or "the magician," "the wise old man," "virgin," "savior," and "devil."
Though Pantheon is not a tarot book, per se, it may be used to augment your divinations or readings. Each god is corresponded with its corresponding trump number. Chapter number = trump number. Use it to see what god is at the core of the tarot trump, and how it may affect your life and feelings. Those well versed on the nature of the planers and signs in astrology will definitely learn some new facets of the archetypes to add to their tools of the trade...to flesh out their ideas of the planetary forces and their interaction.
Archetypes express themselves through their fundamentals patterns of symbol formation. Certain symbols tend to cluster around the nexus point of the archetype. It acts like a "strange attractor" to order those correspondences in a non-linear, chaotic way that is unique in each unfolding. Out collective inheritance is not one of ideas, but of pathways or modes, or states of consciousness, with their classical thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Each godform or archetype has characteristic states of consciousness. Like the tarot trumps these archetypal pathways provide an underlying unity for diverse forms of symbolism. The Tree of Life, tarot, and astrology are metanarratives or systems that hold all of them together in a subtle network.
The powers represented by the tarot trumps and astrological planets are with us in every facet of life, from the most mundane to the most exalted. These powers reside in the earlier and deeper levels of the psyche, but reveal themselves through dreams, myths, and great ideas.
By working with astrology, tarot, or godforms in imagination we open the lines of communication to the subconscious and learn to decipher the messages. These sacred aspects of the archetypes are not separated from their profane images. They manifest directly in a very substantive form. This form is eternally unique. Archetypes gain life and meaning when their motif is embodied or filled out through our personal experience.
Although the origins of the tarot are not clearly defined, these strange and beautiful cards form a system of communications through multi-leveled symbols. They very accurately predicted the archetypes of the collective unconscious as "discovered" and described by Jung and his followers.
Whoever their ancient creators were, they had psychological insight into the workings of the soul of man, and on the nature of the universe. That awareness is inherent; it emerges when the visionary looks within. The tarot is not only a system of divination, but also constitutes a sort of Book of Life. The trumps represent pictorial depictions of pure archetypal forms, as revealed to the various mystics who created each pack.
Since each Tarot trump has an astrological attribution and a god-form, it is a pictorial representation of the Forces of Nature (instinctual forces). Through symbolism, it provides a pictographic presentation of the major aspects of existence.
The position of the card shows the relationship of these different aspects among one another. It may be described as the divine forces of individual creation or emanation, including its purpose and direction. By meditating on the tarot trumps, we activate certain archetypal forces within ourselves, bringing them into consciousness.
The basis of the tarot lies in the Hermetic mystical system known as the Qabalah. The Qabalah also describes mankind's basic inherited pathways. The tarot cards correspond with the 22 letters of the sacred Hebrew alphabet, and the 22 paths of the Tree of Life (the basic Qabalistic consciousness map). By this system of interrelated archetypes, ideas could be exchanged without the necessity of either spoken or written word. Pictures rather than words express ideas, making communication about eternal verities easier between those who speak different languages.
Tarot in its Qabalistic form sets out to show the relation between God, Nature, Mankind, and the Universe. The practical value is that it reveals the harmonies preexisting between signs, symbols, and archetypes, letters, and numbers. It is a bit more abstract than interacting gods and goddesses who behave much like humans with one another. However, it brings all the corresponding symbolism into play and allows us to categorize most objects and behaviors.
Both tarot and the Tree of Life function like a generic filing-system of symbolism and human behavior. A symbol emerges precisely to awaken in our consciousness the memory of that which we inherently know, but don't know we know. If it was conscious, it would be a thought, not a symbol. We can use the tarot imagery in this way as a tool for developing self-realization.
The use of the tarot evokes the associations which we have already formed in the past. Symbols are intended to arouse a thought by means of suggestion, thus causing the truth which lies hidden to be revealed. This book corresponds tarot paths with members of the Greek pantheon. This ensures an orderly unfolding and helps organize the diverse symbolism presented.
Ouspensky once said that only a symbol can deliver us from the slavery of words and formulas, and allowus to attain the possibilities of thinking freely. Jung implied much the same with his free association experiments and technique. Imagination is the "royal road" to our experience of archetypal adventure. The collective aspect of the archetype stimulates the imagination, leading each of us to our unique personal experience of the divine. Our insight helps us see them at work in our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual lives.
Next: The Four Levels of Experience
Intro 6
THE FOUR LEVELS OF EXPERIENCE:
The Tree of life represents the emanations from the Divine Being which created (and IS) the Universe. The Paths leading down from the top (Kether) are stages in the process through which the Universe came into being. If these paths are symbolically and mystically traversed in reverse order, starting at the bottom (Malkuth) and climbed upward, they are the way of the soul's experiential ascent to the divine -- THE PATH OF RETURN (self-realization or enlightenment).
The paths represent access to subjective or personal experience of the unchanging objective energies of the 10 Spheres of the Tree of Life. Each Path belongs to one of the Tarot trumps, whose symbolism contains the key to the Path's nature. No two persons are likely to interpret the symbolism of the card in exactly the same way.
As in life, we may travel the same roads, but we focus on different landmarks along the way. There is a great diversity of opinion, even among "initiates," as to the meaning of these symbols. However, the patterns are quite distinctive and easily associated with the archetypes of the Greek pantheon. The gods and goddesses personify the quality of each path.
The members of the Greek pantheon are introduced by their corresponding Tarot trump. This association allows access to those symbols for a more personal meditation. It is by this multi-sensual (visual, visceral, etc.) image that the goddesses and gods enter our consciousness. This visual image assists personification and identification. Use the Tarot card as a take-off point for our visualization of the godform when trying to dialogue with it, such as imagining Hestia as The Hermit, Aphrodite as The Empress, or Hermes as The Magician.
The format of Pantheon is modularized into four planes of awareness, or "worlds" of experience, to use the Qabalistic term. Each plane resonates with the other planes, giving a depth to the symbolism. Rather than considering these worlds as "real or unreal," we can imagine them as virtual realities. They are simulations symbolic of higher truths, but filtered through our own perception and information-gathering system. Our input system is conditioned by our early experience and other factors, such as belief systems.
Each world is a form or view of the same phenomenon. This depth of symbolism yields a broader perspective from a specific level of awareness. By imaginally "becoming" these symbols you open up whole new states of consciousness for yourself, far wider than your typical human responses.
We live in a universal web of consciousness. But our culture has programmed us to limit our awareness drastically. Some of this programming cuts us off from our bodies and sensuality, other injunctions limit our ability to feel, while others suggest we don't think for ourselves.
The visual image of the god-form assists personification and the process of identification with the god-form. You can experiment with using the Tarot card as a take-off point for your visualization of the god-form when trying to dialogue with it. The card may function as a doorway down the path which leads to the archetype. Just follow the symbols back down deeper and deeper into the more fundamental and primal levels of the psyche.
The "worlds" are categorized in each chapter as follows:
PHYSICAL FORM represents the actual manifestations which affect our five senses. This physical plane is the most accessible region of the subconscious mind. To a great degree our minds do manifest our reality. Just because events are experienced as "real" does not mean they are a content of consciousness. This awareness does not occur until one "plumbs" the psychic depths and can see through to the archetypal core of the situation. This level includes the solidity and tangibility of physical objects. This is where the archetype affects the body through perception or disease.
EMOTIONAL IMAGE represents the world of forces behind the veil of physical things, the Astral Plane. This is where archetypes are perceived in images or mind-pictures. These images on the astral are eternal shape-shifters and change rapidly from one moment to the next. This is the realm of reams and divination, the lunar planes of psychics and mediums. This is the level of intense feelings or affects and creative patterns. It is a formative world where archetypes effect the emotions.
INTELLECTUAL IDEA stands for the region of psychological conceptions concerning archetypes. Known as the (non-Euclidean) geometrical realm of the Causal Body, it is a crystallization of the archetype of the Self. It represents the re-integration of the multiple forms in the figure of the higher Self. It is the level of rational mental thought where psychological understanding occurs. Here a love of images is nurtured and archetypes affect styles of thinking and spontaneous ideas.
SPIRITUAL MYTH represents matrix patterns before they descend into material manifestation, the realm of pre-geometry and information theory. It is from these primordial spiritual myths, this mythic level of the psyche, that form manifests. On this level archetypes communicate through intuition and affect one's spiritual life through belief systems. It is an experience of the Divine. All myths are sacred eternal patterns.
Next: Archetypes as a Means of Self-Realization
Intro8
PRACTICAL TECHNIQUES FOR FINDING AND REALIZING THE GODS WITHIN:
Even with all this discussion on archetypes and imagination, you may still find yourself at a loss how you can recognize and contact these internal forces. The answer is practice, and taking the time to notice what forces are at play, interweaving with your life and your goals. What is fostering you, nourishing you, your ally? What opposes you, thwarts your will, sabotages your dreams for the future?
Two techniques are immediately accessible. One, from Jungian Psychology is known as ACTIVE IMAGINATION. The second, from the Hermetic Qabalah, is known as PATHWORKING. Both build a thorough understanding of the nature of imagination. They are experiential journeys, waking dreams with symbolic interaction with the subconscious that have consequences in real time. Both methods culminate in a spontaneous internal dialogue with personified archetypes, who become guides of the soul.
Soulful exploration of this undiscovered country is possible through imagination -- through consciousness journeys. In fact, soul or PSYCHE IS IMAGINATION. It is both a realm of experience and a human faculty. The mythic layers of the psyche are welded to our thoughts, emotions and behaviors, even our spiritual ideals. Emotions are unlearned reactions to external or internal events, while feelings are thoughts about those reactions. The realm of soul lies between, and joins together those of matter and spirit. In other words, the realm of imagination lies between the physical world and perceptions and the spiritual level of conceptualization and direct epiphany.
We needn't go to sleep to experience this rich inner world. In fact, we frequently get glimpses of it in our daydreams. But daydreams are something our ego makes up to serve its own desires. We make things up in daydreams to be the way we want them. Deeper levels of the imagination simply "happen to us." The scenario doesn't serve the ego, but the higher Self, our wholeness. So compensating factors may be at work and reveal their dynamics. At this level, imagination is autonomous, and we simply immerse ourselves in that stream of consciousness.
Therapeutic process work provides a way and place for applying watchful or sustained attention to our inner imagery. A process helps us penetrate even deeper into the levels of the imagination, or universal consciousness field. The imagination forms a middle ground where life and meaning merge, and are revealed as emergent images.
Imagination is the realm of sacred psychology which approaches the gods through imagining and personifying, rather than through ritual, prayer, and sacrifice with a religious orientation. Imagination is a primary reality with a non-verbal, non-linear logic of its own. Archetypes function like the "strange attractors" of deterministic chaos, ordering the jumbled contents of the psyche. We can learn to orient ourselves to internal and external reality by noticing and responding to the images, sensations and emotions we experience in imaginal encounters. We can make friends with these inner figures, or at least form relationships.
Comprehensive theories of the imagination distinguish three types of imaginative experience: 1) everyday conscious imagining; 2) Jung's active imagination and other process work; 3) archetypal or visionary imagination that is spontaneous. Therefore, active imagination gives anyone entree to the world of imagination. One you learn this technique, you might try the "visionary" mode, simply by emptying and opening yourself. You can do it either with extreme arousal, such as dancing to exhaustion, or with relaxation techniques. Both will produce vivid experiences. They can be entered as dialogues of ego and Self, I and Not-I, or through direct identification.
The imaginal world is the result of an overlapping of our emotional and higher mental faculties. In metaphysical terms, it consists partly of the Astral and Causal levels of experience. These terms are antiquated, implying a causal relationship. Archetypes are deterministic. Unpredictable at any given moment, they operate in distinguishable parameters and patterns. This is characteristic of a "chaotic system," one that is complex, dynamic, and subject to turbulence. The imaginal world reflects this chaotic, bizarre pattern. It is paradoxical, neither perceptual nor conceptual, but intermediate -- and visceral, as well.
The three modes of interaction of the conscious and subconscious forces in imaginal encounters may be summarized as follows:
1). EVERYDAY CONSCIOUS IMAGINING is where the ego is under the illusion that it is controlling the content of the vision. The ego feels proud of its "fantasy of control" over the fabric of the imagination. But the subconscious has its own surprise in store for the ego, and may respond sooner or later with a wake-up call that shatters the illusion. A powerful eruption of images and emotions can arise that is totally beyond the ego's control or ability to contain them. The ego is swept helplessly into the stream of consciousness.
At this point the ego's image of itself dissolves, fragments or is torn apart. This is known as ago-death. The shattering of the old form of the fragile ego makes way for rebirth in a new form. First, personality is profoundly disrupted. There may be images of dismemberment, apocalypse, near death, etc. The opposing power of the subconscious drives are now brought to the surface in daily life, demanding some form of reconciliation. When we are in crisis, we can no longer cope through our ordinary means of "keeping it together."
2). ACTIVE IMAGINATION is a means of addressing this problem. We gain self-knowledge rather than being merely overwhelmed and impotent to face the challenges life is offering us. Our stunned ego can eventually develop a means of coping with these inner forces; in fact, it is an imperative. When we actively engage the imagination, symbols of the Self appear spontaneously to reintegrate the fragmented personality. This is the cyclic process of rebirth or resurrection. Jung noticed the Self appeared often in mandala forms. We see them in dreams, art, visions, and religious iconography.
Active imagination also involves controlling the direction the imaginal journey takes, but not for the benefit of the ego. It means deepening the process. It ensures the progressive unfolding of an imaginative sequence. Ego works with the tendencies of the psyche, seeking guidance from inner figures to achieve movement into a new situation or level of being. This results n an increased awareness of your internal processes. Active imagination works through visualization and multi-sensory images (kinesthetic, visceral, audial, olfactory). Sometimes the senses meld and appear in non-ordinary ways, such as tasting music.
The practice of active imagination requires six steps:
STEP 1: The preliminary phase requires focusing on your immediate life problems or aspirations. You establish the intent or goal of the operation. If there is a problem or issue, it should be identified. The excursion into imagination should have a well-defined purpose.
STEP 2: Next, empty your mind, dropping into a reverie, or natural trance. Become physically and mentally relaxed. Assume a position where you are comfortable but will not fall asleep. Empty the mind of ego's train of thought. If thoughts crop up, just watch them come and go, dismissing them if they deal with your outer life.
STEP 3: This is the phase of letting go to your unconscious stream of images and letting that absorb your attention. If you are pathworking, visualize the corresponding Tarot Trump at this point, and enter into its virtual scenery. Focus on this image, but not enough to arrest the activity taking place spontaneously. Don't make a frozen picture of it, but don't let it change too rapidly, either, or you will become overwhelmed. If that happens flow with the dizzying whirlpool and let it take you deeper and deeper, and find what is there. The point is to participate fully in the drama, rather than watching yourself like a movie. You must be there with your own values, intentions, wounds, and will.
STEP 4: Active imagination requires an ethical confrontation with the archetypal forces to be truly transforming. You must enter the inner drama with your true personality, not as your ideal. Leave your images of heroism and grandiosity behind. Be the unique person you are in inner, as well as outer life. Once the imaginal experience begins, the ego is engaged and compelled to participate. Take advantage of the opportunity to ask these forces just what they are seeking from you as a mortal being. See if the god-form has any gifts or treasures for you to take back into the day-world.
STEP 5: The gifts of these forces take many forms, some of which are physically and emotionally healing. The idea of this stage is to apply what you have learned in the encounter and make it practical. The god-form may have ordered or asked for certain behavior on the part of the ego. If this does not contradict cultural, moral or ethical laws, you may experiment with these inner directions. Mostly they seek attention. In any event, the contact is established and you know where and to whom to return if there is further need of "discussion."
STEP 6: If you have an intriguing inner journey, and meet the godform in imagination by directing the unfolding of the fantasy, give it some form of expression in your external life. For example, write it down in your journal of inner events or dreambook, paint what you saw, sculpt it, dance it, or play the music you heard there.
NOTE OF CAUTION: There is the chance of repressed unconscious forces breaking through into daily life, overwhelming the ego. If you feel emotionally unstable, seek a therapist to function as a guide on your inner journeys. There is a great deal of energy locked up, or stuck in past traumas, which needs to be released. Active imagination is a means of facing up to and dealing with these shadowy problems.
Active imagination may bring unusual manifestations in its wake, including psychosomatic changes in blood pressure or heartbeat. These are from strong emotions and can be worked through by consciously relaxing yourself, or being physically expressive. Or, you might experience a strong sense of euphoria as the ego identifies with the archetypal forces during the event. There might be a reactionary let-down, but it won't last long.
Synchronistic events, or seemingly magical, meaningful coincidences may appear. Don't let your judgment be blurred by excitement. This is a normal occurrence when working on the inner levels and provides additional insight on the dynamics at work.
GUIDELINES FOR PRACTICE include the following:
1). Maintain a critical distinction between wish fulfillment and the experience of true imagination.
2). There is no rush to experience every god-form or Tarot Path via imagination. Take it slowly, learning and assimilating each new experience thoroughly before going farther.
3). Insure your freedom from interruption during your imaginal excursion.
4). Establish a time limit. It is a good idea to have a trusted friend nearby to monitor you.
5). Record results in your journal of self-discovery, including physical reactions and synchronicities.
6). Never do an active imagination which concerns living people. This especially includes intentional sexual visualizations. This is unethical from the magician's point of view, as it is an encroachment on their True Will. It is a misapplication of the technique.
7). Ground exercises in active imagination by applying the experiences gained in pathworking to daily life.
8). Try to establish contact with your personal "inner guide" who will always offer protection if requested and allowed to do so.
PATHWORKING:
Pathworking, using the qabalistic diagram the Tree of Life has much in common with active imagination. It means taking an imaginal journey to the 'location" of an archetypal form or dynamic group of symbols. Once you recognize imagination is the realm of the soul, you can develop a method for exploring the soul through imagination. The paths of the Tree of Life function as metaphorical "in-roads." Their correspondences (mindscapes, colors, animals, plants, symbols, etc) produce a gestalt awareness of soul through its own system of metaphorical language.
There are three primary modes of pathworking:
1) a trance-like state where the ego is overwhelmed (possibly through drug use) and incapacitated by the forces of the unconscious,
2). "active," and
3). "passive" pathworking.
The first is a regression of consciousness, producing hallucinatory rather than imaginal experiences. Active pathworking is analogous to active imagination. The major purpose of a pathworking is to produce a conscious contact with the archetypal powers connected with the particular path. There are active and passive forms of pathworking, but do not let this glib terminology lead you astray. "Passive" in this sense does not imply the ineffective attitude of type-1 experience. Both active and passive styles are desirable to develop. Passive pathworkng is analogous to visionary imagination, not ego-driven.
Active pathworking is an exercise of the creative imagination. It is an excursion or consciousness journey into the astral plane using clairvoyance. It is a combination of ego, will, and imagination. Pathworking produces a dynamic imagery experience. It surpasses sensory information processing, but precedes conceptual lucidity. This is not a trance state where the images transform freely from one to another, but a disciplined artform, such as music, painting or dance.
Clairvoyance means seeing the inner world with increasing clarity. This clarity comes through the ego's conscious participation. The main use of active pathworking is for introspection.
In pathworking, the will forces the image to maintain certain parameters. They are determined by the qabalistic correspondence system (for the classic attributions, see Aleister Crowley's 777, or The Qabalah of Aleister Crowley").. The "will," in turn, is brought into direct non-verbal contact with the non-rational, with mystery. In other words, the communication is visual or multi-sensory rather than verbal, much like an RPG game.
Pathworking is a dynamic process which requires us to react to situations immediately through our feelings or instincts. It is similar to (but more profound than) some of the X-games which reflect the mythic theme of The Quest. The difference is, in pathworking the Will maintains a sense of responsibility for the ego's behavior on the inner planes. You are more your self, not playing another. All of your faculties are kept alert. Thinking and emotions are immersed in the situation. The ego's forceful elaboration helps ensure unfolding of a particular imaginative sequence.
An active pathworking traces the routes described in Qabalah as the transition stages between spheres. Consciousness moves along them from one state of consciousness to another, following a thread or path of imagery. A pathworking begins in one sphere, and culminates in the sphere immediately higher on the Tree of Life. For example, the path Art leads from Yesod to Tiphareth, from the lower emotions to the spiritual heart. Some of its correspondences include the moon, color blue, Sagittarius, the centaur, and the goddess Artemis. So, a sample pathworking might consist of a moon-lit journey into a magical forest in the depth of winter, finding a centaur as an ally, and culminating in a conversation with the goddess.
Anytime two particular terminals are used, the traveler establishes a contact with both the "place" and the "entities" who inhabit that psychological "area." With repetition, the imaginal reality of the place is confirmed through personal experience. You can evoke this experience from your own imagination if you try, and become a regular visitor to these spiritual regions.
Always remember, in pathworking return to your point of origin. This is one main reason the ego must be able to maintain concentration and follow-through. If you use a Tarot Trump as the gateway to your experience, definitely pass through it on your way "out." Visualize all you saw on your approach fleeting by on your "return." Ground your pathworking by returning consciousness to its normal condition.
3). VISIONARY IMAGINATION (or archetypal imagination) is analogous to passive pathworking. All images are archetypal, in that they carry enfolded information about primal realities. This form of imaginal journey is termed passive since ego-consciousness is present, though it does not interfere with the emergence and unfolding of psychic imagery.
True vision is a non-directive process. This passive pathworking is actually more advanced because the traveler must employ his creativity or ability to synthesize information. The practitioner requires an ability to deal with the opening of the lower, as well as higher mind. We want to penetrate to super-celestial regions, not suffer an invasion from the primitive unconscious.
This form of pathworking uses a doorway of some type to initiate the experience. This might again be a Tarot card, god-form visualization, or an I Ching hexagram, last night's dream image, etc. The difference is that instead of following procedural instructions on where to go and what to visualize, you allow the pathworking itself to present images spontaneously.
What are describing is revealed in the world's great art. Leonardo daVinci, Michaelangelo, William Blake, etc. were all visionary artists. Whenever they lived, they exemplified the Renaissance-type of spirit, which lives close to soul and the world of myth and personified archetypal forces. These show on the canvas as demons, angels, gods and goddesses - now in modern forms.
This passive pathworking may be likened in some respects to what is termed "archetypal imagination" in leading-edge Jungian psychology. It is an authentic visionary mode of experience, which produces keen insight through psychological perception.
We need to examine the meaning of "archetypal" if our purpose in pathworking is contacting archetypal powers which embody its dynamic process. Archetypal theory has four general premises:
1). Archetypes are located in the imaginal world of the soul, and are called gods and goddesses since ancient times.
2). Psychopathology, or the negative manifestation which leads to human problems is emphasized. The shadow is confronted in its physical, behavioral, and psychophysical manifestations..
3). Archetypes are extremely important to human behavior and seem to carry a quality of "unkownness" and holiness or divinity.
4). The ego comes to realize it is only one psychological perspective and understands its relative lack of control over the psyche and physical organism.
Archetypal imagination transcends active imagination by offering a method where we can learn to redeem some dignity through our suffering. In archetypal psychology, pathologies (archetypal afflictions) are recognized as an essential component of the human soul. Jung said, "The gods have become diseases."
Therefore, psychologists have explored the divine by insight into the light and dark aspects of the gods. Greek myth is full of different versions of divine images of darkness, death, and perversion, reflecting the world of mental illness and personality disorders. Who could imagine sending Ares for anger management classes? These divine forces are so powerful the ego cannot really "do" anything to them.
Like the Qabalah, archetypal psychology recognizes many varieties of consciousness reflecting the plurality and freedom of styles within the structure of myth. Since there are no procedural constraints in this passive pathworking, what can we expect to experience in this awakened visionary mode? This is the realm of true inner plane contact with the deities revealed through folk tales, classical myths, and in psychology through dreams. Any attempt to engage in the inner life brings a deeper relationship with the unconscious.
To experience a luminous visionary imagination we must become acquainted with the archetypes through personifying their potent forces. An archetypal topography, or psychic road map is of inestimable value here. Qabalah is a generic road map of the psyche. It provides the possibility of interaction of an individual with the divine, immortal forms.
There is a long tradition throughout history which regards personifying as a necessary mode of comprehending the world and our personal existence. It is a way of ensouling psychic powers and getting to know them intimately. Personifying allows us to discriminate among, and love or cherish these forces which make up our very being.
Personification is a path with heart, since it allows us to imagine both through and beyond what our eyes see into the primordial dimension of celestial beings. Living is a special way of "knowing" which arises from personification. The strong feelings aroused by subjective experiences of the soul speak volumes to the heart.
We can develop a passionate engagement with the mythic dimension, gaining access to our creative imagination. Through getting to know the gods within, we learn to see visions and hear voices. We may talk with them and they may talk with each other without us losing our grip on ordinary reality.
We can speak directly to these archetypal forces within. When we do, the basic transformative formula is always the same. In terms of self-analysis there are three distinct steps.
1). IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM. Name the neurotic pattern to loosen its grip on your identity and seek the help of inner spiritual guiding principles. This means you will have to suffer consciousness of your condition. No more "ignorance is bliss." When we recognize our bad habits they seem to amplify. Actually we are much as we have always been, but we have never turned our attention in this direction before. We may suffer a terrible, proud ego (Zeus), or a tendency to dishonesty with ourselves and others (Hermes), or an irresistible urge for an affair (Aphrodite), etc. But our plight will no longer be unconscious once we have named it.
2). Accept that suffering and find meaning in it. Don't be a passive victim; face up to the shadow of outgrown behavior patterns and power-trips. Confront the negative forces of the psyche by mustering inner strength. Once you name a neurotic pattern, you claim it as a part of yourself; to deny this fact is to deny one's wholeness. When you consciously relate to its source, the 'problem' is automatically transformed. It is crying out for attention.
3). Try to accept and manifest the potential strength of the inner self once it is called up. In other words, once you have an imaginal contact with the archetype, try to contact its potential for positive transformation. Experience the more exalted qualities of the archetype as well as its instinctual, compulsive side. For example, the courage and loyalty of Mars, not just the bravado and violence. Don't give up, because to passively withdraw means to stay stuck in neurotic patterns.
Confront inner and outer crises with the reserves of strength accessible through creative imagination.
Those familiar with astrology or the Tarot Trumps have entree to the archetypal world of PANTHEON already. They will be meeting their old friend: Venus, mars, Jupiter, or "the magician," "the wise old man," "virgin," "savior," and "devil."
Though Pantheon is not a tarot book, per se, it may be used to augment your divinations or readings. Each god is corresponded with its corresponding trump number. Chapter number = trump number. Use it to see what god is at the core of the tarot trump, and how it may affect your life and feelings. Those well versed on the nature of the planers and signs in astrology will definitely learn some new facets of the archetypes to add to their tools of the trade...to flesh out their ideas of the planetary forces and their interaction.
Archetypes express themselves through their fundamentals patterns of symbol formation. Certain symbols tend to cluster around the nexus point of the archetype. It acts like a "strange attractor" to order those correspondences in a non-linear, chaotic way that is unique in each unfolding. Out collective inheritance is not one of ideas, but of pathways or modes, or states of consciousness, with their classical thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Each godform or archetype has characteristic states of consciousness. Like the tarot trumps these archetypal pathways provide an underlying unity for diverse forms of symbolism. The Tree of Life, tarot, and astrology are metanarratives or systems that hold all of them together in a subtle network.
The powers represented by the tarot trumps and astrological planets are with us in every facet of life, from the most mundane to the most exalted. These powers reside in the earlier and deeper levels of the psyche, but reveal themselves through dreams, myths, and great ideas.
By working with astrology, tarot, or godforms in imagination we open the lines of communication to the subconscious and learn to decipher the messages. These sacred aspects of the archetypes are not separated from their profane images. They manifest directly in a very substantive form. This form is eternally unique. Archetypes gain life and meaning when their motif is embodied or filled out through our personal experience.
Although the origins of the tarot are not clearly defined, these strange and beautiful cards form a system of communications through multi-leveled symbols. They very accurately predicted the archetypes of the collective unconscious as "discovered" and described by Jung and his followers.
Whoever their ancient creators were, they had psychological insight into the workings of the soul of man, and on the nature of the universe. That awareness is inherent; it emerges when the visionary looks within. The tarot is not only a system of divination, but also constitutes a sort of Book of Life. The trumps represent pictorial depictions of pure archetypal forms, as revealed to the various mystics who created each pack.
Since each Tarot trump has an astrological attribution and a god-form, it is a pictorial representation of the Forces of Nature (instinctual forces). Through symbolism, it provides a pictographic presentation of the major aspects of existence.
The position of the card shows the relationship of these different aspects among one another. It may be described as the divine forces of individual creation or emanation, including its purpose and direction. By meditating on the tarot trumps, we activate certain archetypal forces within ourselves, bringing them into consciousness.
The basis of the tarot lies in the Hermetic mystical system known as the Qabalah. The Qabalah also describes mankind's basic inherited pathways. The tarot cards correspond with the 22 letters of the sacred Hebrew alphabet, and the 22 paths of the Tree of Life (the basic Qabalistic consciousness map). By this system of interrelated archetypes, ideas could be exchanged without the necessity of either spoken or written word. Pictures rather than words express ideas, making communication about eternal verities easier between those who speak different languages.
Tarot in its Qabalistic form sets out to show the relation between God, Nature, Mankind, and the Universe. The practical value is that it reveals the harmonies preexisting between signs, symbols, and archetypes, letters, and numbers. It is a bit more abstract than interacting gods and goddesses who behave much like humans with one another. However, it brings all the corresponding symbolism into play and allows us to categorize most objects and behaviors.
Both tarot and the Tree of Life function like a generic filing-system of symbolism and human behavior. A symbol emerges precisely to awaken in our consciousness the memory of that which we inherently know, but don't know we know. If it was conscious, it would be a thought, not a symbol. We can use the tarot imagery in this way as a tool for developing self-realization.
The use of the tarot evokes the associations which we have already formed in the past. Symbols are intended to arouse a thought by means of suggestion, thus causing the truth which lies hidden to be revealed. This book corresponds tarot paths with members of the Greek pantheon. This ensures an orderly unfolding and helps organize the diverse symbolism presented.
Ouspensky once said that only a symbol can deliver us from the slavery of words and formulas, and allowus to attain the possibilities of thinking freely. Jung implied much the same with his free association experiments and technique. Imagination is the "royal road" to our experience of archetypal adventure. The collective aspect of the archetype stimulates the imagination, leading each of us to our unique personal experience of the divine. Our insight helps us see them at work in our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual lives.
Next: The Four Levels of Experience
Intro 6
THE FOUR LEVELS OF EXPERIENCE:
The Tree of life represents the emanations from the Divine Being which created (and IS) the Universe. The Paths leading down from the top (Kether) are stages in the process through which the Universe came into being. If these paths are symbolically and mystically traversed in reverse order, starting at the bottom (Malkuth) and climbed upward, they are the way of the soul's experiential ascent to the divine -- THE PATH OF RETURN (self-realization or enlightenment).
The paths represent access to subjective or personal experience of the unchanging objective energies of the 10 Spheres of the Tree of Life. Each Path belongs to one of the Tarot trumps, whose symbolism contains the key to the Path's nature. No two persons are likely to interpret the symbolism of the card in exactly the same way.
As in life, we may travel the same roads, but we focus on different landmarks along the way. There is a great diversity of opinion, even among "initiates," as to the meaning of these symbols. However, the patterns are quite distinctive and easily associated with the archetypes of the Greek pantheon. The gods and goddesses personify the quality of each path.
The members of the Greek pantheon are introduced by their corresponding Tarot trump. This association allows access to those symbols for a more personal meditation. It is by this multi-sensual (visual, visceral, etc.) image that the goddesses and gods enter our consciousness. This visual image assists personification and identification. Use the Tarot card as a take-off point for our visualization of the godform when trying to dialogue with it, such as imagining Hestia as The Hermit, Aphrodite as The Empress, or Hermes as The Magician.
The format of Pantheon is modularized into four planes of awareness, or "worlds" of experience, to use the Qabalistic term. Each plane resonates with the other planes, giving a depth to the symbolism. Rather than considering these worlds as "real or unreal," we can imagine them as virtual realities. They are simulations symbolic of higher truths, but filtered through our own perception and information-gathering system. Our input system is conditioned by our early experience and other factors, such as belief systems.
Each world is a form or view of the same phenomenon. This depth of symbolism yields a broader perspective from a specific level of awareness. By imaginally "becoming" these symbols you open up whole new states of consciousness for yourself, far wider than your typical human responses.
We live in a universal web of consciousness. But our culture has programmed us to limit our awareness drastically. Some of this programming cuts us off from our bodies and sensuality, other injunctions limit our ability to feel, while others suggest we don't think for ourselves.
The visual image of the god-form assists personification and the process of identification with the god-form. You can experiment with using the Tarot card as a take-off point for your visualization of the god-form when trying to dialogue with it. The card may function as a doorway down the path which leads to the archetype. Just follow the symbols back down deeper and deeper into the more fundamental and primal levels of the psyche.
The "worlds" are categorized in each chapter as follows:
PHYSICAL FORM represents the actual manifestations which affect our five senses. This physical plane is the most accessible region of the subconscious mind. To a great degree our minds do manifest our reality. Just because events are experienced as "real" does not mean they are a content of consciousness. This awareness does not occur until one "plumbs" the psychic depths and can see through to the archetypal core of the situation. This level includes the solidity and tangibility of physical objects. This is where the archetype affects the body through perception or disease.
EMOTIONAL IMAGE represents the world of forces behind the veil of physical things, the Astral Plane. This is where archetypes are perceived in images or mind-pictures. These images on the astral are eternal shape-shifters and change rapidly from one moment to the next. This is the realm of reams and divination, the lunar planes of psychics and mediums. This is the level of intense feelings or affects and creative patterns. It is a formative world where archetypes effect the emotions.
INTELLECTUAL IDEA stands for the region of psychological conceptions concerning archetypes. Known as the (non-Euclidean) geometrical realm of the Causal Body, it is a crystallization of the archetype of the Self. It represents the re-integration of the multiple forms in the figure of the higher Self. It is the level of rational mental thought where psychological understanding occurs. Here a love of images is nurtured and archetypes affect styles of thinking and spontaneous ideas.
SPIRITUAL MYTH represents matrix patterns before they descend into material manifestation, the realm of pre-geometry and information theory. It is from these primordial spiritual myths, this mythic level of the psyche, that form manifests. On this level archetypes communicate through intuition and affect one's spiritual life through belief systems. It is an experience of the Divine. All myths are sacred eternal patterns.
Next: Archetypes as a Means of Self-Realization
Intro8
PRACTICAL TECHNIQUES FOR FINDING AND REALIZING THE GODS WITHIN:
Even with all this discussion on archetypes and imagination, you may still find yourself at a loss how you can recognize and contact these internal forces. The answer is practice, and taking the time to notice what forces are at play, interweaving with your life and your goals. What is fostering you, nourishing you, your ally? What opposes you, thwarts your will, sabotages your dreams for the future?
Two techniques are immediately accessible. One, from Jungian Psychology is known as ACTIVE IMAGINATION. The second, from the Hermetic Qabalah, is known as PATHWORKING. Both build a thorough understanding of the nature of imagination. They are experiential journeys, waking dreams with symbolic interaction with the subconscious that have consequences in real time. Both methods culminate in a spontaneous internal dialogue with personified archetypes, who become guides of the soul.
Soulful exploration of this undiscovered country is possible through imagination -- through consciousness journeys. In fact, soul or PSYCHE IS IMAGINATION. It is both a realm of experience and a human faculty. The mythic layers of the psyche are welded to our thoughts, emotions and behaviors, even our spiritual ideals. Emotions are unlearned reactions to external or internal events, while feelings are thoughts about those reactions. The realm of soul lies between, and joins together those of matter and spirit. In other words, the realm of imagination lies between the physical world and perceptions and the spiritual level of conceptualization and direct epiphany.
We needn't go to sleep to experience this rich inner world. In fact, we frequently get glimpses of it in our daydreams. But daydreams are something our ego makes up to serve its own desires. We make things up in daydreams to be the way we want them. Deeper levels of the imagination simply "happen to us." The scenario doesn't serve the ego, but the higher Self, our wholeness. So compensating factors may be at work and reveal their dynamics. At this level, imagination is autonomous, and we simply immerse ourselves in that stream of consciousness.
Therapeutic process work provides a way and place for applying watchful or sustained attention to our inner imagery. A process helps us penetrate even deeper into the levels of the imagination, or universal consciousness field. The imagination forms a middle ground where life and meaning merge, and are revealed as emergent images.
Imagination is the realm of sacred psychology which approaches the gods through imagining and personifying, rather than through ritual, prayer, and sacrifice with a religious orientation. Imagination is a primary reality with a non-verbal, non-linear logic of its own. Archetypes function like the "strange attractors" of deterministic chaos, ordering the jumbled contents of the psyche. We can learn to orient ourselves to internal and external reality by noticing and responding to the images, sensations and emotions we experience in imaginal encounters. We can make friends with these inner figures, or at least form relationships.
Comprehensive theories of the imagination distinguish three types of imaginative experience: 1) everyday conscious imagining; 2) Jung's active imagination and other process work; 3) archetypal or visionary imagination that is spontaneous. Therefore, active imagination gives anyone entree to the world of imagination. One you learn this technique, you might try the "visionary" mode, simply by emptying and opening yourself. You can do it either with extreme arousal, such as dancing to exhaustion, or with relaxation techniques. Both will produce vivid experiences. They can be entered as dialogues of ego and Self, I and Not-I, or through direct identification.
The imaginal world is the result of an overlapping of our emotional and higher mental faculties. In metaphysical terms, it consists partly of the Astral and Causal levels of experience. These terms are antiquated, implying a causal relationship. Archetypes are deterministic. Unpredictable at any given moment, they operate in distinguishable parameters and patterns. This is characteristic of a "chaotic system," one that is complex, dynamic, and subject to turbulence. The imaginal world reflects this chaotic, bizarre pattern. It is paradoxical, neither perceptual nor conceptual, but intermediate -- and visceral, as well.
The three modes of interaction of the conscious and subconscious forces in imaginal encounters may be summarized as follows:
1). EVERYDAY CONSCIOUS IMAGINING is where the ego is under the illusion that it is controlling the content of the vision. The ego feels proud of its "fantasy of control" over the fabric of the imagination. But the subconscious has its own surprise in store for the ego, and may respond sooner or later with a wake-up call that shatters the illusion. A powerful eruption of images and emotions can arise that is totally beyond the ego's control or ability to contain them. The ego is swept helplessly into the stream of consciousness.
At this point the ego's image of itself dissolves, fragments or is torn apart. This is known as ago-death. The shattering of the old form of the fragile ego makes way for rebirth in a new form. First, personality is profoundly disrupted. There may be images of dismemberment, apocalypse, near death, etc. The opposing power of the subconscious drives are now brought to the surface in daily life, demanding some form of reconciliation. When we are in crisis, we can no longer cope through our ordinary means of "keeping it together."
2). ACTIVE IMAGINATION is a means of addressing this problem. We gain self-knowledge rather than being merely overwhelmed and impotent to face the challenges life is offering us. Our stunned ego can eventually develop a means of coping with these inner forces; in fact, it is an imperative. When we actively engage the imagination, symbols of the Self appear spontaneously to reintegrate the fragmented personality. This is the cyclic process of rebirth or resurrection. Jung noticed the Self appeared often in mandala forms. We see them in dreams, art, visions, and religious iconography.
Active imagination also involves controlling the direction the imaginal journey takes, but not for the benefit of the ego. It means deepening the process. It ensures the progressive unfolding of an imaginative sequence. Ego works with the tendencies of the psyche, seeking guidance from inner figures to achieve movement into a new situation or level of being. This results n an increased awareness of your internal processes. Active imagination works through visualization and multi-sensory images (kinesthetic, visceral, audial, olfactory). Sometimes the senses meld and appear in non-ordinary ways, such as tasting music.
The practice of active imagination requires six steps:
STEP 1: The preliminary phase requires focusing on your immediate life problems or aspirations. You establish the intent or goal of the operation. If there is a problem or issue, it should be identified. The excursion into imagination should have a well-defined purpose.
STEP 2: Next, empty your mind, dropping into a reverie, or natural trance. Become physically and mentally relaxed. Assume a position where you are comfortable but will not fall asleep. Empty the mind of ego's train of thought. If thoughts crop up, just watch them come and go, dismissing them if they deal with your outer life.
STEP 3: This is the phase of letting go to your unconscious stream of images and letting that absorb your attention. If you are pathworking, visualize the corresponding Tarot Trump at this point, and enter into its virtual scenery. Focus on this image, but not enough to arrest the activity taking place spontaneously. Don't make a frozen picture of it, but don't let it change too rapidly, either, or you will become overwhelmed. If that happens flow with the dizzying whirlpool and let it take you deeper and deeper, and find what is there. The point is to participate fully in the drama, rather than watching yourself like a movie. You must be there with your own values, intentions, wounds, and will.
STEP 4: Active imagination requires an ethical confrontation with the archetypal forces to be truly transforming. You must enter the inner drama with your true personality, not as your ideal. Leave your images of heroism and grandiosity behind. Be the unique person you are in inner, as well as outer life. Once the imaginal experience begins, the ego is engaged and compelled to participate. Take advantage of the opportunity to ask these forces just what they are seeking from you as a mortal being. See if the god-form has any gifts or treasures for you to take back into the day-world.
STEP 5: The gifts of these forces take many forms, some of which are physically and emotionally healing. The idea of this stage is to apply what you have learned in the encounter and make it practical. The god-form may have ordered or asked for certain behavior on the part of the ego. If this does not contradict cultural, moral or ethical laws, you may experiment with these inner directions. Mostly they seek attention. In any event, the contact is established and you know where and to whom to return if there is further need of "discussion."
STEP 6: If you have an intriguing inner journey, and meet the godform in imagination by directing the unfolding of the fantasy, give it some form of expression in your external life. For example, write it down in your journal of inner events or dreambook, paint what you saw, sculpt it, dance it, or play the music you heard there.
NOTE OF CAUTION: There is the chance of repressed unconscious forces breaking through into daily life, overwhelming the ego. If you feel emotionally unstable, seek a therapist to function as a guide on your inner journeys. There is a great deal of energy locked up, or stuck in past traumas, which needs to be released. Active imagination is a means of facing up to and dealing with these shadowy problems.
Active imagination may bring unusual manifestations in its wake, including psychosomatic changes in blood pressure or heartbeat. These are from strong emotions and can be worked through by consciously relaxing yourself, or being physically expressive. Or, you might experience a strong sense of euphoria as the ego identifies with the archetypal forces during the event. There might be a reactionary let-down, but it won't last long.
Synchronistic events, or seemingly magical, meaningful coincidences may appear. Don't let your judgment be blurred by excitement. This is a normal occurrence when working on the inner levels and provides additional insight on the dynamics at work.
GUIDELINES FOR PRACTICE include the following:
1). Maintain a critical distinction between wish fulfillment and the experience of true imagination.
2). There is no rush to experience every god-form or Tarot Path via imagination. Take it slowly, learning and assimilating each new experience thoroughly before going farther.
3). Insure your freedom from interruption during your imaginal excursion.
4). Establish a time limit. It is a good idea to have a trusted friend nearby to monitor you.
5). Record results in your journal of self-discovery, including physical reactions and synchronicities.
6). Never do an active imagination which concerns living people. This especially includes intentional sexual visualizations. This is unethical from the magician's point of view, as it is an encroachment on their True Will. It is a misapplication of the technique.
7). Ground exercises in active imagination by applying the experiences gained in pathworking to daily life.
8). Try to establish contact with your personal "inner guide" who will always offer protection if requested and allowed to do so.
PATHWORKING:
Pathworking, using the qabalistic diagram the Tree of Life has much in common with active imagination. It means taking an imaginal journey to the 'location" of an archetypal form or dynamic group of symbols. Once you recognize imagination is the realm of the soul, you can develop a method for exploring the soul through imagination. The paths of the Tree of Life function as metaphorical "in-roads." Their correspondences (mindscapes, colors, animals, plants, symbols, etc) produce a gestalt awareness of soul through its own system of metaphorical language.
There are three primary modes of pathworking:
1) a trance-like state where the ego is overwhelmed (possibly through drug use) and incapacitated by the forces of the unconscious,
2). "active," and
3). "passive" pathworking.
The first is a regression of consciousness, producing hallucinatory rather than imaginal experiences. Active pathworking is analogous to active imagination. The major purpose of a pathworking is to produce a conscious contact with the archetypal powers connected with the particular path. There are active and passive forms of pathworking, but do not let this glib terminology lead you astray. "Passive" in this sense does not imply the ineffective attitude of type-1 experience. Both active and passive styles are desirable to develop. Passive pathworkng is analogous to visionary imagination, not ego-driven.
Active pathworking is an exercise of the creative imagination. It is an excursion or consciousness journey into the astral plane using clairvoyance. It is a combination of ego, will, and imagination. Pathworking produces a dynamic imagery experience. It surpasses sensory information processing, but precedes conceptual lucidity. This is not a trance state where the images transform freely from one to another, but a disciplined artform, such as music, painting or dance.
Clairvoyance means seeing the inner world with increasing clarity. This clarity comes through the ego's conscious participation. The main use of active pathworking is for introspection.
In pathworking, the will forces the image to maintain certain parameters. They are determined by the qabalistic correspondence system (for the classic attributions, see Aleister Crowley's 777, or The Qabalah of Aleister Crowley").. The "will," in turn, is brought into direct non-verbal contact with the non-rational, with mystery. In other words, the communication is visual or multi-sensory rather than verbal, much like an RPG game.
Pathworking is a dynamic process which requires us to react to situations immediately through our feelings or instincts. It is similar to (but more profound than) some of the X-games which reflect the mythic theme of The Quest. The difference is, in pathworking the Will maintains a sense of responsibility for the ego's behavior on the inner planes. You are more your self, not playing another. All of your faculties are kept alert. Thinking and emotions are immersed in the situation. The ego's forceful elaboration helps ensure unfolding of a particular imaginative sequence.
An active pathworking traces the routes described in Qabalah as the transition stages between spheres. Consciousness moves along them from one state of consciousness to another, following a thread or path of imagery. A pathworking begins in one sphere, and culminates in the sphere immediately higher on the Tree of Life. For example, the path Art leads from Yesod to Tiphareth, from the lower emotions to the spiritual heart. Some of its correspondences include the moon, color blue, Sagittarius, the centaur, and the goddess Artemis. So, a sample pathworking might consist of a moon-lit journey into a magical forest in the depth of winter, finding a centaur as an ally, and culminating in a conversation with the goddess.
Anytime two particular terminals are used, the traveler establishes a contact with both the "place" and the "entities" who inhabit that psychological "area." With repetition, the imaginal reality of the place is confirmed through personal experience. You can evoke this experience from your own imagination if you try, and become a regular visitor to these spiritual regions.
Always remember, in pathworking return to your point of origin. This is one main reason the ego must be able to maintain concentration and follow-through. If you use a Tarot Trump as the gateway to your experience, definitely pass through it on your way "out." Visualize all you saw on your approach fleeting by on your "return." Ground your pathworking by returning consciousness to its normal condition.
3). VISIONARY IMAGINATION (or archetypal imagination) is analogous to passive pathworking. All images are archetypal, in that they carry enfolded information about primal realities. This form of imaginal journey is termed passive since ego-consciousness is present, though it does not interfere with the emergence and unfolding of psychic imagery.
True vision is a non-directive process. This passive pathworking is actually more advanced because the traveler must employ his creativity or ability to synthesize information. The practitioner requires an ability to deal with the opening of the lower, as well as higher mind. We want to penetrate to super-celestial regions, not suffer an invasion from the primitive unconscious.
This form of pathworking uses a doorway of some type to initiate the experience. This might again be a Tarot card, god-form visualization, or an I Ching hexagram, last night's dream image, etc. The difference is that instead of following procedural instructions on where to go and what to visualize, you allow the pathworking itself to present images spontaneously.
What are describing is revealed in the world's great art. Leonardo daVinci, Michaelangelo, William Blake, etc. were all visionary artists. Whenever they lived, they exemplified the Renaissance-type of spirit, which lives close to soul and the world of myth and personified archetypal forces. These show on the canvas as demons, angels, gods and goddesses - now in modern forms.
This passive pathworking may be likened in some respects to what is termed "archetypal imagination" in leading-edge Jungian psychology. It is an authentic visionary mode of experience, which produces keen insight through psychological perception.
We need to examine the meaning of "archetypal" if our purpose in pathworking is contacting archetypal powers which embody its dynamic process. Archetypal theory has four general premises:
1). Archetypes are located in the imaginal world of the soul, and are called gods and goddesses since ancient times.
2). Psychopathology, or the negative manifestation which leads to human problems is emphasized. The shadow is confronted in its physical, behavioral, and psychophysical manifestations..
3). Archetypes are extremely important to human behavior and seem to carry a quality of "unkownness" and holiness or divinity.
4). The ego comes to realize it is only one psychological perspective and understands its relative lack of control over the psyche and physical organism.
Archetypal imagination transcends active imagination by offering a method where we can learn to redeem some dignity through our suffering. In archetypal psychology, pathologies (archetypal afflictions) are recognized as an essential component of the human soul. Jung said, "The gods have become diseases."
Therefore, psychologists have explored the divine by insight into the light and dark aspects of the gods. Greek myth is full of different versions of divine images of darkness, death, and perversion, reflecting the world of mental illness and personality disorders. Who could imagine sending Ares for anger management classes? These divine forces are so powerful the ego cannot really "do" anything to them.
Like the Qabalah, archetypal psychology recognizes many varieties of consciousness reflecting the plurality and freedom of styles within the structure of myth. Since there are no procedural constraints in this passive pathworking, what can we expect to experience in this awakened visionary mode? This is the realm of true inner plane contact with the deities revealed through folk tales, classical myths, and in psychology through dreams. Any attempt to engage in the inner life brings a deeper relationship with the unconscious.
To experience a luminous visionary imagination we must become acquainted with the archetypes through personifying their potent forces. An archetypal topography, or psychic road map is of inestimable value here. Qabalah is a generic road map of the psyche. It provides the possibility of interaction of an individual with the divine, immortal forms.
There is a long tradition throughout history which regards personifying as a necessary mode of comprehending the world and our personal existence. It is a way of ensouling psychic powers and getting to know them intimately. Personifying allows us to discriminate among, and love or cherish these forces which make up our very being.
Personification is a path with heart, since it allows us to imagine both through and beyond what our eyes see into the primordial dimension of celestial beings. Living is a special way of "knowing" which arises from personification. The strong feelings aroused by subjective experiences of the soul speak volumes to the heart.
We can develop a passionate engagement with the mythic dimension, gaining access to our creative imagination. Through getting to know the gods within, we learn to see visions and hear voices. We may talk with them and they may talk with each other without us losing our grip on ordinary reality.
We can speak directly to these archetypal forces within. When we do, the basic transformative formula is always the same. In terms of self-analysis there are three distinct steps.
1). IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM. Name the neurotic pattern to loosen its grip on your identity and seek the help of inner spiritual guiding principles. This means you will have to suffer consciousness of your condition. No more "ignorance is bliss." When we recognize our bad habits they seem to amplify. Actually we are much as we have always been, but we have never turned our attention in this direction before. We may suffer a terrible, proud ego (Zeus), or a tendency to dishonesty with ourselves and others (Hermes), or an irresistible urge for an affair (Aphrodite), etc. But our plight will no longer be unconscious once we have named it.
2). Accept that suffering and find meaning in it. Don't be a passive victim; face up to the shadow of outgrown behavior patterns and power-trips. Confront the negative forces of the psyche by mustering inner strength. Once you name a neurotic pattern, you claim it as a part of yourself; to deny this fact is to deny one's wholeness. When you consciously relate to its source, the 'problem' is automatically transformed. It is crying out for attention.
3). Try to accept and manifest the potential strength of the inner self once it is called up. In other words, once you have an imaginal contact with the archetype, try to contact its potential for positive transformation. Experience the more exalted qualities of the archetype as well as its instinctual, compulsive side. For example, the courage and loyalty of Mars, not just the bravado and violence. Don't give up, because to passively withdraw means to stay stuck in neurotic patterns.
Confront inner and outer crises with the reserves of strength accessible through creative imagination.
Gods Within - Personification
PRACTICAL TECHNIQUES FOR FINDING AND REALIZING THE GODS WITHIN:
Even with all this discussion on archetypes and imagination, you may still find yourself at a loss how you can recognize and contact these internal forces. The answer is practice, and taking the time to notice what forces are at play, interweaving with your life and your goals. What is fostering you, nourishing you, your ally? What opposes you, thwarts your will, sabotages your dreams for the future?
Two techniques are immediately accessible. One, from Jungian Psychology is known as ACTIVE IMAGINATION. The second, from the Hermetic Qabalah, is known as PATHWORKING. Both build a thorough understanding of the nature of imagination. They are experiential journeys, waking dreams with symbolic interaction with the subconscious that have consequences in real time. Both methods culminate in a spontaneous internal dialogue with personified archetypes, who become guides of the soul.
Soulful exploration of this undiscovered country is possible through imagination -- through consciousness journeys. In fact, soul or PSYCHE IS IMAGINATION. It is both a realm of experience and a human faculty. The mythic layers of the psyche are welded to our thoughts, emotions and behaviors, even our spiritual ideals. Emotions are unlearned reactions to external or internal events, while feelings are thoughts about those reactions. The realm of soul lies between, and joins together those of matter and spirit. In other words, the realm of imagination lies between the physical world and perceptions and the spiritual level of conceptualization and direct epiphany.
We needn't go to sleep to experience this rich inner world. In fact, we frequently get glimpses of it in our daydreams. But daydreams are something our ego makes up to serve its own desires. We make things up in daydreams to be the way we want them. Deeper levels of the imagination simply "happen to us." The scenario doesn't serve the ego, but the higher Self, our wholeness. So compensating factors may be at work and reveal their dynamics. At this level, imagination is autonomous, and we simply immerse ourselves in that stream of consciousness.
Therapeutic process work provides a way and place for applying watchful or sustained attention to our inner imagery. A process helps us penetrate even deeper into the levels of the imagination, or universal consciousness field. The imagination forms a middle ground where life and meaning merge, and are revealed as emergent images.
Imagination is the realm of sacred psychology which approaches the gods through imagining and personifying, rather than through ritual, prayer, and sacrifice with a religious orientation. Imagination is a primary reality with a non-verbal, non-linear logic of its own. Archetypes function like the "strange attractors" of deterministic chaos, ordering the jumbled contents of the psyche. We can learn to orient ourselves to internal and external reality by noticing and responding to the images, sensations and emotions we experience in imaginal encounters. We can make friends with these inner figures, or at least form relationships.
Comprehensive theories of the imagination distinguish three types of imaginative experience: 1) everyday conscious imagining; 2) Jung's active imagination and other process work; 3) archetypal or visionary imagination that is spontaneous. Therefore, active imagination gives anyone entree to the world of imagination. One you learn this technique, you might try the "visionary" mode, simply by emptying and opening yourself. You can do it either with extreme arousal, such as dancing to exhaustion, or with relaxation techniques. Both will produce vivid experiences. They can be entered as dialogues of ego and Self, I and Not-I, or through direct identification.
The imaginal world is the result of an overlapping of our emotional and higher mental faculties. In metaphysical terms, it consists partly of the Astral and Causal levels of experience. These terms are antiquated, implying a causal relationship. Archetypes are deterministic. Unpredictable at any given moment, they operate in distinguishable parameters and patterns. This is characteristic of a "chaotic system," one that is complex, dynamic, and subject to turbulence. The imaginal world reflects this chaotic, bizarre pattern. It is paradoxical, neither perceptual nor conceptual, but intermediate -- and visceral, as well.
The three modes of interaction of the conscious and subconscious forces in imaginal encounters may be summarized as follows:
1). EVERYDAY CONSCIOUS IMAGINING is where the ego is under the illusion that it is controlling the content of the vision. The ego feels proud of its "fantasy of control" over the fabric of the imagination. But the subconscious has its own surprise in store for the ego, and may respond sooner or later with a wake-up call that shatters the illusion. A powerful eruption of images and emotions can arise that is totally beyond the ego's control or ability to contain them. The ego is swept helplessly into the stream of consciousness.
At this point the ego's image of itself dissolves, fragments or is torn apart. This is known as ago-death. The shattering of the old form of the fragile ego makes way for rebirth in a new form. First, personality is profoundly disrupted. There may be images of dismemberment, apocalypse, near death, etc. The opposing power of the subconscious drives are now brought to the surface in daily life, demanding some form of reconciliation. When we are in crisis, we can no longer cope through our ordinary means of "keeping it together."
2). ACTIVE IMAGINATION is a means of addressing this problem. We gain self-knowledge rather than being merely overwhelmed and impotent to face the challenges life is offering us. Our stunned ego can eventually develop a means of coping with these inner forces; in fact, it is an imperative. When we actively engage the imagination, symbols of the Self appear spontaneously to reintegrate the fragmented personality. This is the cyclic process of rebirth or resurrection. Jung noticed the Self appeared often in mandala forms. We see them in dreams, art, visions, and religious iconography.
Active imagination also involves controlling the direction the imaginal journey takes, but not for the benefit of the ego. It means deepening the process. It ensures the progressive unfolding of an imaginative sequence. Ego works with the tendencies of the psyche, seeking guidance from inner figures to achieve movement into a new situation or level of being. This results n an increased awareness of your internal processes. Active imagination works through visualization and multi-sensory images (kinesthetic, visceral, audial, olfactory). Sometimes the senses meld and appear in non-ordinary ways, such as tasting music.
The practice of active imagination requires six steps:
STEP 1: The preliminary phase requires focusing on your immediate life problems or aspirations. You establish the intent or goal of the operation. If there is a problem or issue, it should be identified. The excursion into imagination should have a well-defined purpose.
STEP 2: Next, empty your mind, dropping into a reverie, or natural trance. Become physically and mentally relaxed. Assume a position where you are comfortable but will not fall asleep. Empty the mind of ego's train of thought. If thoughts crop up, just watch them come and go, dismissing them if they deal with your outer life.
STEP 3: This is the phase of letting go to your unconscious stream of images and letting that absorb your attention. If you are pathworking, visualize the corresponding Tarot Trump at this point, and enter into its virtual scenery. Focus on this image, but not enough to arrest the activity taking place spontaneously. Don't make a frozen picture of it, but don't let it change too rapidly, either, or you will become overwhelmed. If that happens flow with the dizzying whirlpool and let it take you deeper and deeper, and find what is there. The point is to participate fully in the drama, rather than watching yourself like a movie. You must be there with your own values, intentions, wounds, and will.
STEP 4: Active imagination requires an ethical confrontation with the archetypal forces to be truly transforming. You must enter the inner drama with your true personality, not as your ideal. Leave your images of heroism and grandiosity behind. Be the unique person you are in inner, as well as outer life. Once the imaginal experience begins, the ego is engaged and compelled to participate. Take advantage of the opportunity to ask these forces just what they are seeking from you as a mortal being. See if the god-form has any gifts or treasures for you to take back into the day-world.
STEP 5: The gifts of these forces take many forms, some of which are physically and emotionally healing. The idea of this stage is to apply what you have learned in the encounter and make it practical. The god-form may have ordered or asked for certain behavior on the part of the ego. If this does not contradict cultural, moral or ethical laws, you may experiment with these inner directions. Mostly they seek attention. In any event, the contact is established and you know where and to whom to return if there is further need of "discussion."
STEP 6: If you have an intriguing inner journey, and meet the godform in imagination by directing the unfolding of the fantasy, give it some form of expression in your external life. For example, write it down in your journal of inner events or dreambook, paint what you saw, sculpt it, dance it, or play the music you heard there.
NOTE OF CAUTION: There is the chance of repressed unconscious forces breaking through into daily life, overwhelming the ego. If you feel emotionally unstable, seek a therapist to function as a guide on your inner journeys. There is a great deal of energy locked up, or stuck in past traumas, which needs to be released. Active imagination is a means of facing up to and dealing with these shadowy problems.
Active imagination may bring unusual manifestations in its wake, including psychosomatic changes in blood pressure or heartbeat. These are from strong emotions and can be worked through by consciously relaxing yourself, or being physically expressive. Or, you might experience a strong sense of euphoria as the ego identifies with the archetypal forces during the event. There might be a reactionary let-down, but it won't last long.
Synchronistic events, or seemingly magical, meaningful coincidences may appear. Don't let your judgment be blurred by excitement. This is a normal occurrence when working on the inner levels and provides additional insight on the dynamics at work.
GUIDELINES FOR PRACTICE include the following:
1). Maintain a critical distinction between wish fulfillment and the experience of true imagination.
2). There is no rush to experience every god-form or Tarot Path via imagination. Take it slowly, learning and assimilating each new experience thoroughly before going farther.
3). Insure your freedom from interruption during your imaginal excursion.
4). Establish a time limit. It is a good idea to have a trusted friend nearby to monitor you.
5). Record results in your journal of self-discovery, including physical reactions and synchronicities.
6). Never do an active imagination which concerns living people. This especially includes intentional sexual visualizations. This is unethical from the magician's point of view, as it is an encroachment on their True Will. It is a misapplication of the technique.
7). Ground exercises in active imagination by applying the experiences gained in pathworking to daily life.
8). Try to establish contact with your personal "inner guide" who will always offer protection if requested and allowed to do so.
PATHWORKING:
Pathworking, using the qabalistic diagram the Tree of Life has much in common with active imagination. It means taking an imaginal journey to the 'location" of an archetypal form or dynamic group of symbols. Once you recognize imagination is the realm of the soul, you can develop a method for exploring the soul through imagination. The paths of the Tree of Life function as metaphorical "in-roads." Their correspondences (mindscapes, colors, animals, plants, symbols, etc) produce a gestalt awareness of soul through its own system of metaphorical language.
There are three primary modes of pathworking:
1) a trance-like state where the ego is overwhelmed (possibly through drug use) and incapacitated by the forces of the unconscious,
2). "active," and
3). "passive" pathworking.
The first is a regression of consciousness, producing hallucinatory rather than imaginal experiences. Active pathworking is analogous to active imagination. The major purpose of a pathworking is to produce a conscious contact with the archetypal powers connected with the particular path. There are active and passive forms of pathworking, but do not let this glib terminology lead you astray. "Passive" in this sense does not imply the ineffective attitude of type-1 experience. Both active and passive styles are desirable to develop. Passive pathworkng is analogous to visionary imagination, not ego-driven.
Active pathworking is an exercise of the creative imagination. It is an excursion or consciousness journey into the astral plane using clairvoyance. It is a combination of ego, will, and imagination. Pathworking produces a dynamic imagery experience. It surpasses sensory information processing, but precedes conceptual lucidity. This is not a trance state where the images transform freely from one to another, but a disciplined artform, such as music, painting or dance.
Clairvoyance means seeing the inner world with increasing clarity. This clarity comes through the ego's conscious participation. The main use of active pathworking is for introspection.
In pathworking, the will forces the image to maintain certain parameters. They are determined by the qabalistic correspondence system (for the classic attributions, see Aleister Crowley's 777, or The Qabalah of Aleister Crowley").. The "will," in turn, is brought into direct non-verbal contact with the non-rational, with mystery. In other words, the communication is visual or multi-sensory rather than verbal, much like an RPG game.
Pathworking is a dynamic process which requires us to react to situations immediately through our feelings or instincts. It is similar to (but more profound than) some of the X-games which reflect the mythic theme of The Quest. The difference is, in pathworking the Will maintains a sense of responsibility for the ego's behavior on the inner planes. You are more your self, not playing another. All of your faculties are kept alert. Thinking and emotions are immersed in the situation. The ego's forceful elaboration helps ensure unfolding of a particular imaginative sequence.
An active pathworking traces the routes described in Qabalah as the transition stages between spheres. Consciousness moves along them from one state of consciousness to another, following a thread or path of imagery. A pathworking begins in one sphere, and culminates in the sphere immediately higher on the Tree of Life. For example, the path Art leads from Yesod to Tiphareth, from the lower emotions to the spiritual heart. Some of its correspondences include the moon, color blue, Sagittarius, the centaur, and the goddess Artemis. So, a sample pathworking might consist of a moon-lit journey into a magical forest in the depth of winter, finding a centaur as an ally, and culminating in a conversation with the goddess.
Anytime two particular terminals are used, the traveler establishes a contact with both the "place" and the "entities" who inhabit that psychological "area." With repetition, the imaginal reality of the place is confirmed through personal experience. You can evoke this experience from your own imagination if you try, and become a regular visitor to these spiritual regions.
Always remember, in pathworking return to your point of origin. This is one main reason the ego must be able to maintain concentration and follow-through. If you use a Tarot Trump as the gateway to your experience, definitely pass through it on your way "out." Visualize all you saw on your approach fleeting by on your "return." Ground your pathworking by returning consciousness to its normal condition.
3). VISIONARY IMAGINATION (or archetypal imagination) is analogous to passive pathworking. All images are archetypal, in that they carry enfolded information about primal realities. This form of imaginal journey is termed passive since ego-consciousness is present, though it does not interfere with the emergence and unfolding of psychic imagery.
True vision is a non-directive process. This passive pathworking is actually more advanced because the traveler must employ his creativity or ability to synthesize information. The practitioner requires an ability to deal with the opening of the lower, as well as higher mind. We want to penetrate to super-celestial regions, not suffer an invasion from the primitive unconscious.
This form of pathworking uses a doorway of some type to initiate the experience. This might again be a Tarot card, god-form visualization, or an I Ching hexagram, last night's dream image, etc. The difference is that instead of following procedural instructions on where to go and what to visualize, you allow the pathworking itself to present images spontaneously.
What are describing is revealed in the world's great art. Leonardo daVinci, Michaelangelo, William Blake, etc. were all visionary artists. Whenever they lived, they exemplified the Renaissance-type of spirit, which lives close to soul and the world of myth and personified archetypal forces. These show on the canvas as demons, angels, gods and goddesses - now in modern forms.
This passive pathworking may be likened in some respects to what is termed "archetypal imagination" in leading-edge Jungian psychology. It is an authentic visionary mode of experience, which produces keen insight through psychological perception.
We need to examine the meaning of "archetypal" if our purpose in pathworking is contacting archetypal powers which embody its dynamic process. Archetypal theory has four general premises:
1). Archetypes are located in the imaginal world of the soul, and are called gods and goddesses since ancient times.
2). Psychopathology, or the negative manifestation which leads to human problems is emphasized. The shadow is confronted in its physical, behavioral, and psychophysical manifestations..
3). Archetypes are extremely important to human behavior and seem to carry a quality of "unkownness" and holiness or divinity.
4). The ego comes to realize it is only one psychological perspective and understands its relative lack of control over the psyche and physical organism.
Archetypal imagination transcends active imagination by offering a method where we can learn to redeem some dignity through our suffering. In archetypal psychology, pathologies (archetypal afflictions) are recognized as an essential component of the human soul. Jung said, "The gods have become diseases."
Therefore, psychologists have explored the divine by insight into the light and dark aspects of the gods. Greek myth is full of different versions of divine images of darkness, death, and perversion, reflecting the world of mental illness and personality disorders. Who could imagine sending Ares for anger management classes? These divine forces are so powerful the ego cannot really "do" anything to them.
Like the Qabalah, archetypal psychology recognizes many varieties of consciousness reflecting the plurality and freedom of styles within the structure of myth. Since there are no procedural constraints in this passive pathworking, what can we expect to experience in this awakened visionary mode? This is the realm of true inner plane contact with the deities revealed through folk tales, classical myths, and in psychology through dreams. Any attempt to engage in the inner life brings a deeper relationship with the unconscious.
To experience a luminous visionary imagination we must become acquainted with the archetypes through personifying their potent forces. An archetypal topography, or psychic road map is of inestimable value here. Qabalah is a generic road map of the psyche. It provides the possibility of interaction of an individual with the divine, immortal forms.
There is a long tradition throughout history which regards personifying as a necessary mode of comprehending the world and our personal existence. It is a way of ensouling psychic powers and getting to know them intimately. Personifying allows us to discriminate among, and love or cherish these forces which make up our very being.
Personification is a path with heart, since it allows us to imagine both through and beyond what our eyes see into the primordial dimension of celestial beings. Living is a special way of "knowing" which arises from personification. The strong feelings aroused by subjective experiences of the soul speak volumes to the heart.
We can develop a passionate engagement with the mythic dimension, gaining access to our creative imagination. Through getting to know the gods within, we learn to see visions and hear voices. We may talk with them and they may talk with each other without us losing our grip on ordinary reality.
We can speak directly to these archetypal forces within. When we do, the basic transformative formula is always the same. In terms of self-analysis there are three distinct steps.
1). IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM. Name the neurotic pattern to loosen its grip on your identity and seek the help of inner spiritual guiding principles. This means you will have to suffer consciousness of your condition. No more "ignorance is bliss." When we recognize our bad habits they seem to amplify. Actually we are much as we have always been, but we have never turned our attention in this direction before. We may suffer a terrible, proud ego (Zeus), or a tendency to dishonesty with ourselves and others (Hermes), or an irresistible urge for an affair (Aphrodite), etc. But our plight will no longer be unconscious once we have named it.
2). Accept that suffering and find meaning in it. Don't be a passive victim; face up to the shadow of outgrown behavior patterns and power-trips. Confront the negative forces of the psyche by mustering inner strength. Once you name a neurotic pattern, you claim it as a part of yourself; to deny this fact is to deny one's wholeness. When you consciously relate to its source, the 'problem' is automatically transformed. It is crying out for attention.
3). Try to accept and manifest the potential strength of the inner self once it is called up. In other words, once you have an imaginal contact with the archetype, try to contact its potential for positive transformation. Experience the more exalted qualities of the archetype as well as its instinctual, compulsive side. For example, the courage and loyalty of Mars, not just the bravado and violence. Don't give up, because to passively withdraw means to stay stuck in neurotic patterns.
Confront inner and outer crises with the reserves of strength accessible through creative imagination.
What's New with My Subject? MYTHICAL LIVING:
A METAPHORICAL PERCEPTION OF EXPERIENCE
by Iona Miller, 1983
CREATIVE MYTHOLOGY is another application of awareness of the gods within, or archetypes, in personal mythology. It is the result of combining creative imagination with a mythical perspective on life. When we see through to the mythic patterns enacted in our lives on an on-going basis, we are living mythically as a lifestyle. Our personal history becomes a metaphorical analog of ancient, divine patterns, weaving an eternal tapestry -- Penelope's suitors, Sisyphus' endless toil, the Fisher King's never-healing wound, star-crossed lovers, wunderkind, homebody, philanthropist, etc. Our personal mythology can be revealed by our favorite fairy tale or movie, since we identify with the figures in these dramas and tend to act them out.
Our personal mythic enactments can provide a focal point for our meditation concerning the nature of our existence. We can catch ourselves in the act of being larger than the personal self. When we get caught up in the crises of our archetypal complexes, we are again and again faced with the basic questions of life: "Who am I, where do I come from, and where am I going?" When we consciously seek an answer, we are looking for the meaning of existence. We seek to unfold our awareness of totality, and we begin to see the gods everywhere.
Myth supports all the levels of our human civilization which includes spiritual, social, and individual (or psychological). We seek a return to the mythic dimension to find out how we personally relate to the cosmic order. In the modern search for meaning, we are thrown back on our own resources. For a time, the social limits no longer apply, since they don't provide an adequate model for our experiences.
During this period we gain a vivid relationship to the symbols and dynamics of the subconscious, and reestablish this vital connection. In this rebirth or renewal, symbols take on the highest personal value. What seemed a lifeless concept, takes on depth and life. Development of our latent subconscious powers becomes possible, balancing out the personality.
Myth represents a paradoxical world with exquisite differentiation. For example, the Greeks had different specific names for the gods in their various facets. Thus Hermes could be simultaneously the god of writers, merchants, and magicians besides that of thieves, liars, and opportunists. In each of these aspects he would have a different appellation, or modifier to his name to identify the specific aspect of Hermes in action. Most of the gods also have an infernal or chthonic aspect. It embodies their negative or shadowy nature.
Don't look at myths as prescriptions for living when you find yourself caught in a particular one, or oscillate, or cycle among several. They do not provide solutions to our personal problems if we can but read ahead a few pages; they have their own agendas with our lives -- embodying these natural forces. They won't tell us what step to take next, or right from wrong. Even if we view their manifestations as 'signs from God", they aren't reliable signs as we tend to read them in a biased way, the way we would like things to be.
We obtain their value from participation in mythical consciousness, finding the gods as mythic metaphors living through our daily lives -- our connection with the eternal, the primal, the great cycle. We participate with them in a sort of dance when we recognize their mythic enactments in us in progress, and notice and pay attention to that. Noticing is a form of worship, based on where we place our value and attention.
Mythical living provides us with a background which starts us imagining, penetrating deeper into ourselves, gaining in self-awareness, psychological sophistication. It is a mode of reflection, of direct perception. Myths do not show us the center of ourselves; they reveal that there are several centers, all interrelated with one another in dynamic relationships. We contain the whole pantheon, in a sense.
Personification is also a key for mythical living. It is the mode of viewing these archetypal processes from a psychological perspective, rather than literally or as mere metaphor. We can see them as divine forces, gods and goddesses with which we can have a relationship, a conscious dialogue. This method helps us to love the gods and focus our attention on them, as part of our personal mythology. Man has a symbiotic relationship with the gods. Their names give us the ability to call upon them for their boons.
This process of devotion takes place in the imaginal realm of the heart, and has the power to transmute our outer fate into our inner destiny. It allows our true individuality to emerge. To achieve this, we must turn toward the archetypal realm and actively seek admittance, identify underlying mythic conflict, find the roots of that conflict in the past, and learn to recognize when a guiding myth is no longer an ally and get in touch with mythic renewal -- your new emerging myth.
Even with all this discussion on archetypes and imagination, you may still find yourself at a loss how you can recognize and contact these internal forces. The answer is practice, and taking the time to notice what forces are at play, interweaving with your life and your goals. What is fostering you, nourishing you, your ally? What opposes you, thwarts your will, sabotages your dreams for the future?
Two techniques are immediately accessible. One, from Jungian Psychology is known as ACTIVE IMAGINATION. The second, from the Hermetic Qabalah, is known as PATHWORKING. Both build a thorough understanding of the nature of imagination. They are experiential journeys, waking dreams with symbolic interaction with the subconscious that have consequences in real time. Both methods culminate in a spontaneous internal dialogue with personified archetypes, who become guides of the soul.
Soulful exploration of this undiscovered country is possible through imagination -- through consciousness journeys. In fact, soul or PSYCHE IS IMAGINATION. It is both a realm of experience and a human faculty. The mythic layers of the psyche are welded to our thoughts, emotions and behaviors, even our spiritual ideals. Emotions are unlearned reactions to external or internal events, while feelings are thoughts about those reactions. The realm of soul lies between, and joins together those of matter and spirit. In other words, the realm of imagination lies between the physical world and perceptions and the spiritual level of conceptualization and direct epiphany.
We needn't go to sleep to experience this rich inner world. In fact, we frequently get glimpses of it in our daydreams. But daydreams are something our ego makes up to serve its own desires. We make things up in daydreams to be the way we want them. Deeper levels of the imagination simply "happen to us." The scenario doesn't serve the ego, but the higher Self, our wholeness. So compensating factors may be at work and reveal their dynamics. At this level, imagination is autonomous, and we simply immerse ourselves in that stream of consciousness.
Therapeutic process work provides a way and place for applying watchful or sustained attention to our inner imagery. A process helps us penetrate even deeper into the levels of the imagination, or universal consciousness field. The imagination forms a middle ground where life and meaning merge, and are revealed as emergent images.
Imagination is the realm of sacred psychology which approaches the gods through imagining and personifying, rather than through ritual, prayer, and sacrifice with a religious orientation. Imagination is a primary reality with a non-verbal, non-linear logic of its own. Archetypes function like the "strange attractors" of deterministic chaos, ordering the jumbled contents of the psyche. We can learn to orient ourselves to internal and external reality by noticing and responding to the images, sensations and emotions we experience in imaginal encounters. We can make friends with these inner figures, or at least form relationships.
Comprehensive theories of the imagination distinguish three types of imaginative experience: 1) everyday conscious imagining; 2) Jung's active imagination and other process work; 3) archetypal or visionary imagination that is spontaneous. Therefore, active imagination gives anyone entree to the world of imagination. One you learn this technique, you might try the "visionary" mode, simply by emptying and opening yourself. You can do it either with extreme arousal, such as dancing to exhaustion, or with relaxation techniques. Both will produce vivid experiences. They can be entered as dialogues of ego and Self, I and Not-I, or through direct identification.
The imaginal world is the result of an overlapping of our emotional and higher mental faculties. In metaphysical terms, it consists partly of the Astral and Causal levels of experience. These terms are antiquated, implying a causal relationship. Archetypes are deterministic. Unpredictable at any given moment, they operate in distinguishable parameters and patterns. This is characteristic of a "chaotic system," one that is complex, dynamic, and subject to turbulence. The imaginal world reflects this chaotic, bizarre pattern. It is paradoxical, neither perceptual nor conceptual, but intermediate -- and visceral, as well.
The three modes of interaction of the conscious and subconscious forces in imaginal encounters may be summarized as follows:
1). EVERYDAY CONSCIOUS IMAGINING is where the ego is under the illusion that it is controlling the content of the vision. The ego feels proud of its "fantasy of control" over the fabric of the imagination. But the subconscious has its own surprise in store for the ego, and may respond sooner or later with a wake-up call that shatters the illusion. A powerful eruption of images and emotions can arise that is totally beyond the ego's control or ability to contain them. The ego is swept helplessly into the stream of consciousness.
At this point the ego's image of itself dissolves, fragments or is torn apart. This is known as ago-death. The shattering of the old form of the fragile ego makes way for rebirth in a new form. First, personality is profoundly disrupted. There may be images of dismemberment, apocalypse, near death, etc. The opposing power of the subconscious drives are now brought to the surface in daily life, demanding some form of reconciliation. When we are in crisis, we can no longer cope through our ordinary means of "keeping it together."
2). ACTIVE IMAGINATION is a means of addressing this problem. We gain self-knowledge rather than being merely overwhelmed and impotent to face the challenges life is offering us. Our stunned ego can eventually develop a means of coping with these inner forces; in fact, it is an imperative. When we actively engage the imagination, symbols of the Self appear spontaneously to reintegrate the fragmented personality. This is the cyclic process of rebirth or resurrection. Jung noticed the Self appeared often in mandala forms. We see them in dreams, art, visions, and religious iconography.
Active imagination also involves controlling the direction the imaginal journey takes, but not for the benefit of the ego. It means deepening the process. It ensures the progressive unfolding of an imaginative sequence. Ego works with the tendencies of the psyche, seeking guidance from inner figures to achieve movement into a new situation or level of being. This results n an increased awareness of your internal processes. Active imagination works through visualization and multi-sensory images (kinesthetic, visceral, audial, olfactory). Sometimes the senses meld and appear in non-ordinary ways, such as tasting music.
The practice of active imagination requires six steps:
STEP 1: The preliminary phase requires focusing on your immediate life problems or aspirations. You establish the intent or goal of the operation. If there is a problem or issue, it should be identified. The excursion into imagination should have a well-defined purpose.
STEP 2: Next, empty your mind, dropping into a reverie, or natural trance. Become physically and mentally relaxed. Assume a position where you are comfortable but will not fall asleep. Empty the mind of ego's train of thought. If thoughts crop up, just watch them come and go, dismissing them if they deal with your outer life.
STEP 3: This is the phase of letting go to your unconscious stream of images and letting that absorb your attention. If you are pathworking, visualize the corresponding Tarot Trump at this point, and enter into its virtual scenery. Focus on this image, but not enough to arrest the activity taking place spontaneously. Don't make a frozen picture of it, but don't let it change too rapidly, either, or you will become overwhelmed. If that happens flow with the dizzying whirlpool and let it take you deeper and deeper, and find what is there. The point is to participate fully in the drama, rather than watching yourself like a movie. You must be there with your own values, intentions, wounds, and will.
STEP 4: Active imagination requires an ethical confrontation with the archetypal forces to be truly transforming. You must enter the inner drama with your true personality, not as your ideal. Leave your images of heroism and grandiosity behind. Be the unique person you are in inner, as well as outer life. Once the imaginal experience begins, the ego is engaged and compelled to participate. Take advantage of the opportunity to ask these forces just what they are seeking from you as a mortal being. See if the god-form has any gifts or treasures for you to take back into the day-world.
STEP 5: The gifts of these forces take many forms, some of which are physically and emotionally healing. The idea of this stage is to apply what you have learned in the encounter and make it practical. The god-form may have ordered or asked for certain behavior on the part of the ego. If this does not contradict cultural, moral or ethical laws, you may experiment with these inner directions. Mostly they seek attention. In any event, the contact is established and you know where and to whom to return if there is further need of "discussion."
STEP 6: If you have an intriguing inner journey, and meet the godform in imagination by directing the unfolding of the fantasy, give it some form of expression in your external life. For example, write it down in your journal of inner events or dreambook, paint what you saw, sculpt it, dance it, or play the music you heard there.
NOTE OF CAUTION: There is the chance of repressed unconscious forces breaking through into daily life, overwhelming the ego. If you feel emotionally unstable, seek a therapist to function as a guide on your inner journeys. There is a great deal of energy locked up, or stuck in past traumas, which needs to be released. Active imagination is a means of facing up to and dealing with these shadowy problems.
Active imagination may bring unusual manifestations in its wake, including psychosomatic changes in blood pressure or heartbeat. These are from strong emotions and can be worked through by consciously relaxing yourself, or being physically expressive. Or, you might experience a strong sense of euphoria as the ego identifies with the archetypal forces during the event. There might be a reactionary let-down, but it won't last long.
Synchronistic events, or seemingly magical, meaningful coincidences may appear. Don't let your judgment be blurred by excitement. This is a normal occurrence when working on the inner levels and provides additional insight on the dynamics at work.
GUIDELINES FOR PRACTICE include the following:
1). Maintain a critical distinction between wish fulfillment and the experience of true imagination.
2). There is no rush to experience every god-form or Tarot Path via imagination. Take it slowly, learning and assimilating each new experience thoroughly before going farther.
3). Insure your freedom from interruption during your imaginal excursion.
4). Establish a time limit. It is a good idea to have a trusted friend nearby to monitor you.
5). Record results in your journal of self-discovery, including physical reactions and synchronicities.
6). Never do an active imagination which concerns living people. This especially includes intentional sexual visualizations. This is unethical from the magician's point of view, as it is an encroachment on their True Will. It is a misapplication of the technique.
7). Ground exercises in active imagination by applying the experiences gained in pathworking to daily life.
8). Try to establish contact with your personal "inner guide" who will always offer protection if requested and allowed to do so.
PATHWORKING:
Pathworking, using the qabalistic diagram the Tree of Life has much in common with active imagination. It means taking an imaginal journey to the 'location" of an archetypal form or dynamic group of symbols. Once you recognize imagination is the realm of the soul, you can develop a method for exploring the soul through imagination. The paths of the Tree of Life function as metaphorical "in-roads." Their correspondences (mindscapes, colors, animals, plants, symbols, etc) produce a gestalt awareness of soul through its own system of metaphorical language.
There are three primary modes of pathworking:
1) a trance-like state where the ego is overwhelmed (possibly through drug use) and incapacitated by the forces of the unconscious,
2). "active," and
3). "passive" pathworking.
The first is a regression of consciousness, producing hallucinatory rather than imaginal experiences. Active pathworking is analogous to active imagination. The major purpose of a pathworking is to produce a conscious contact with the archetypal powers connected with the particular path. There are active and passive forms of pathworking, but do not let this glib terminology lead you astray. "Passive" in this sense does not imply the ineffective attitude of type-1 experience. Both active and passive styles are desirable to develop. Passive pathworkng is analogous to visionary imagination, not ego-driven.
Active pathworking is an exercise of the creative imagination. It is an excursion or consciousness journey into the astral plane using clairvoyance. It is a combination of ego, will, and imagination. Pathworking produces a dynamic imagery experience. It surpasses sensory information processing, but precedes conceptual lucidity. This is not a trance state where the images transform freely from one to another, but a disciplined artform, such as music, painting or dance.
Clairvoyance means seeing the inner world with increasing clarity. This clarity comes through the ego's conscious participation. The main use of active pathworking is for introspection.
In pathworking, the will forces the image to maintain certain parameters. They are determined by the qabalistic correspondence system (for the classic attributions, see Aleister Crowley's 777, or The Qabalah of Aleister Crowley").. The "will," in turn, is brought into direct non-verbal contact with the non-rational, with mystery. In other words, the communication is visual or multi-sensory rather than verbal, much like an RPG game.
Pathworking is a dynamic process which requires us to react to situations immediately through our feelings or instincts. It is similar to (but more profound than) some of the X-games which reflect the mythic theme of The Quest. The difference is, in pathworking the Will maintains a sense of responsibility for the ego's behavior on the inner planes. You are more your self, not playing another. All of your faculties are kept alert. Thinking and emotions are immersed in the situation. The ego's forceful elaboration helps ensure unfolding of a particular imaginative sequence.
An active pathworking traces the routes described in Qabalah as the transition stages between spheres. Consciousness moves along them from one state of consciousness to another, following a thread or path of imagery. A pathworking begins in one sphere, and culminates in the sphere immediately higher on the Tree of Life. For example, the path Art leads from Yesod to Tiphareth, from the lower emotions to the spiritual heart. Some of its correspondences include the moon, color blue, Sagittarius, the centaur, and the goddess Artemis. So, a sample pathworking might consist of a moon-lit journey into a magical forest in the depth of winter, finding a centaur as an ally, and culminating in a conversation with the goddess.
Anytime two particular terminals are used, the traveler establishes a contact with both the "place" and the "entities" who inhabit that psychological "area." With repetition, the imaginal reality of the place is confirmed through personal experience. You can evoke this experience from your own imagination if you try, and become a regular visitor to these spiritual regions.
Always remember, in pathworking return to your point of origin. This is one main reason the ego must be able to maintain concentration and follow-through. If you use a Tarot Trump as the gateway to your experience, definitely pass through it on your way "out." Visualize all you saw on your approach fleeting by on your "return." Ground your pathworking by returning consciousness to its normal condition.
3). VISIONARY IMAGINATION (or archetypal imagination) is analogous to passive pathworking. All images are archetypal, in that they carry enfolded information about primal realities. This form of imaginal journey is termed passive since ego-consciousness is present, though it does not interfere with the emergence and unfolding of psychic imagery.
True vision is a non-directive process. This passive pathworking is actually more advanced because the traveler must employ his creativity or ability to synthesize information. The practitioner requires an ability to deal with the opening of the lower, as well as higher mind. We want to penetrate to super-celestial regions, not suffer an invasion from the primitive unconscious.
This form of pathworking uses a doorway of some type to initiate the experience. This might again be a Tarot card, god-form visualization, or an I Ching hexagram, last night's dream image, etc. The difference is that instead of following procedural instructions on where to go and what to visualize, you allow the pathworking itself to present images spontaneously.
What are describing is revealed in the world's great art. Leonardo daVinci, Michaelangelo, William Blake, etc. were all visionary artists. Whenever they lived, they exemplified the Renaissance-type of spirit, which lives close to soul and the world of myth and personified archetypal forces. These show on the canvas as demons, angels, gods and goddesses - now in modern forms.
This passive pathworking may be likened in some respects to what is termed "archetypal imagination" in leading-edge Jungian psychology. It is an authentic visionary mode of experience, which produces keen insight through psychological perception.
We need to examine the meaning of "archetypal" if our purpose in pathworking is contacting archetypal powers which embody its dynamic process. Archetypal theory has four general premises:
1). Archetypes are located in the imaginal world of the soul, and are called gods and goddesses since ancient times.
2). Psychopathology, or the negative manifestation which leads to human problems is emphasized. The shadow is confronted in its physical, behavioral, and psychophysical manifestations..
3). Archetypes are extremely important to human behavior and seem to carry a quality of "unkownness" and holiness or divinity.
4). The ego comes to realize it is only one psychological perspective and understands its relative lack of control over the psyche and physical organism.
Archetypal imagination transcends active imagination by offering a method where we can learn to redeem some dignity through our suffering. In archetypal psychology, pathologies (archetypal afflictions) are recognized as an essential component of the human soul. Jung said, "The gods have become diseases."
Therefore, psychologists have explored the divine by insight into the light and dark aspects of the gods. Greek myth is full of different versions of divine images of darkness, death, and perversion, reflecting the world of mental illness and personality disorders. Who could imagine sending Ares for anger management classes? These divine forces are so powerful the ego cannot really "do" anything to them.
Like the Qabalah, archetypal psychology recognizes many varieties of consciousness reflecting the plurality and freedom of styles within the structure of myth. Since there are no procedural constraints in this passive pathworking, what can we expect to experience in this awakened visionary mode? This is the realm of true inner plane contact with the deities revealed through folk tales, classical myths, and in psychology through dreams. Any attempt to engage in the inner life brings a deeper relationship with the unconscious.
To experience a luminous visionary imagination we must become acquainted with the archetypes through personifying their potent forces. An archetypal topography, or psychic road map is of inestimable value here. Qabalah is a generic road map of the psyche. It provides the possibility of interaction of an individual with the divine, immortal forms.
There is a long tradition throughout history which regards personifying as a necessary mode of comprehending the world and our personal existence. It is a way of ensouling psychic powers and getting to know them intimately. Personifying allows us to discriminate among, and love or cherish these forces which make up our very being.
Personification is a path with heart, since it allows us to imagine both through and beyond what our eyes see into the primordial dimension of celestial beings. Living is a special way of "knowing" which arises from personification. The strong feelings aroused by subjective experiences of the soul speak volumes to the heart.
We can develop a passionate engagement with the mythic dimension, gaining access to our creative imagination. Through getting to know the gods within, we learn to see visions and hear voices. We may talk with them and they may talk with each other without us losing our grip on ordinary reality.
We can speak directly to these archetypal forces within. When we do, the basic transformative formula is always the same. In terms of self-analysis there are three distinct steps.
1). IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM. Name the neurotic pattern to loosen its grip on your identity and seek the help of inner spiritual guiding principles. This means you will have to suffer consciousness of your condition. No more "ignorance is bliss." When we recognize our bad habits they seem to amplify. Actually we are much as we have always been, but we have never turned our attention in this direction before. We may suffer a terrible, proud ego (Zeus), or a tendency to dishonesty with ourselves and others (Hermes), or an irresistible urge for an affair (Aphrodite), etc. But our plight will no longer be unconscious once we have named it.
2). Accept that suffering and find meaning in it. Don't be a passive victim; face up to the shadow of outgrown behavior patterns and power-trips. Confront the negative forces of the psyche by mustering inner strength. Once you name a neurotic pattern, you claim it as a part of yourself; to deny this fact is to deny one's wholeness. When you consciously relate to its source, the 'problem' is automatically transformed. It is crying out for attention.
3). Try to accept and manifest the potential strength of the inner self once it is called up. In other words, once you have an imaginal contact with the archetype, try to contact its potential for positive transformation. Experience the more exalted qualities of the archetype as well as its instinctual, compulsive side. For example, the courage and loyalty of Mars, not just the bravado and violence. Don't give up, because to passively withdraw means to stay stuck in neurotic patterns.
Confront inner and outer crises with the reserves of strength accessible through creative imagination.
What's New with My Subject? MYTHICAL LIVING:
A METAPHORICAL PERCEPTION OF EXPERIENCE
by Iona Miller, 1983
CREATIVE MYTHOLOGY is another application of awareness of the gods within, or archetypes, in personal mythology. It is the result of combining creative imagination with a mythical perspective on life. When we see through to the mythic patterns enacted in our lives on an on-going basis, we are living mythically as a lifestyle. Our personal history becomes a metaphorical analog of ancient, divine patterns, weaving an eternal tapestry -- Penelope's suitors, Sisyphus' endless toil, the Fisher King's never-healing wound, star-crossed lovers, wunderkind, homebody, philanthropist, etc. Our personal mythology can be revealed by our favorite fairy tale or movie, since we identify with the figures in these dramas and tend to act them out.
Our personal mythic enactments can provide a focal point for our meditation concerning the nature of our existence. We can catch ourselves in the act of being larger than the personal self. When we get caught up in the crises of our archetypal complexes, we are again and again faced with the basic questions of life: "Who am I, where do I come from, and where am I going?" When we consciously seek an answer, we are looking for the meaning of existence. We seek to unfold our awareness of totality, and we begin to see the gods everywhere.
Myth supports all the levels of our human civilization which includes spiritual, social, and individual (or psychological). We seek a return to the mythic dimension to find out how we personally relate to the cosmic order. In the modern search for meaning, we are thrown back on our own resources. For a time, the social limits no longer apply, since they don't provide an adequate model for our experiences.
During this period we gain a vivid relationship to the symbols and dynamics of the subconscious, and reestablish this vital connection. In this rebirth or renewal, symbols take on the highest personal value. What seemed a lifeless concept, takes on depth and life. Development of our latent subconscious powers becomes possible, balancing out the personality.
Myth represents a paradoxical world with exquisite differentiation. For example, the Greeks had different specific names for the gods in their various facets. Thus Hermes could be simultaneously the god of writers, merchants, and magicians besides that of thieves, liars, and opportunists. In each of these aspects he would have a different appellation, or modifier to his name to identify the specific aspect of Hermes in action. Most of the gods also have an infernal or chthonic aspect. It embodies their negative or shadowy nature.
Don't look at myths as prescriptions for living when you find yourself caught in a particular one, or oscillate, or cycle among several. They do not provide solutions to our personal problems if we can but read ahead a few pages; they have their own agendas with our lives -- embodying these natural forces. They won't tell us what step to take next, or right from wrong. Even if we view their manifestations as 'signs from God", they aren't reliable signs as we tend to read them in a biased way, the way we would like things to be.
We obtain their value from participation in mythical consciousness, finding the gods as mythic metaphors living through our daily lives -- our connection with the eternal, the primal, the great cycle. We participate with them in a sort of dance when we recognize their mythic enactments in us in progress, and notice and pay attention to that. Noticing is a form of worship, based on where we place our value and attention.
Mythical living provides us with a background which starts us imagining, penetrating deeper into ourselves, gaining in self-awareness, psychological sophistication. It is a mode of reflection, of direct perception. Myths do not show us the center of ourselves; they reveal that there are several centers, all interrelated with one another in dynamic relationships. We contain the whole pantheon, in a sense.
Personification is also a key for mythical living. It is the mode of viewing these archetypal processes from a psychological perspective, rather than literally or as mere metaphor. We can see them as divine forces, gods and goddesses with which we can have a relationship, a conscious dialogue. This method helps us to love the gods and focus our attention on them, as part of our personal mythology. Man has a symbiotic relationship with the gods. Their names give us the ability to call upon them for their boons.
This process of devotion takes place in the imaginal realm of the heart, and has the power to transmute our outer fate into our inner destiny. It allows our true individuality to emerge. To achieve this, we must turn toward the archetypal realm and actively seek admittance, identify underlying mythic conflict, find the roots of that conflict in the past, and learn to recognize when a guiding myth is no longer an ally and get in touch with mythic renewal -- your new emerging myth.
Godforms As Chaotic Attractors
CHAOS THEORY
AND PSYCHOLOGICAL COMPLEXES
by Iona Miller, ©1991
ABSTRACT: There is a similarity between the "strange attractors" of chaos theory and Jung's notion of psychological complexes which may be more than metaphorical. The complex is a meaningful feeling-toned group of representations in the unconscious. It is a sort of manifold of symbolism all relating to the same archetype -- variations on a theme, enfolded in the infrastructure of our subconscious mind. Attractors exhibit their self-iterating capacity in the psyche by demonstrating their attractive or seductive power as phenomena, ideas, theories, moods, and behaviors. The scientific metaphor provided by chaos theory allows us to describe the psyche in terms congruent with physical reality as presently understood in CDS (complex dynamical systems).
That people should succumb to these eternal images is entirely normal, in fact it is what these images are for. They are meant to ATTRACT, to convince, to fascinate, and to overpower. They are created out of the primal stuff of revelation. --C.G. Jung, COLLECTED WORKS, Vol. 9
If the charge of one (or more) of the "nodal points" becomes so powerful that it "magnetically" (acting as a nuclear cell") ATTRACTS everything to itself and so confronts the ego with an alien entity...that has become autonomous--then we have a complex.
--Jolande Jacobi, COMPLEX, ARCHETYPE, AND SYMBOL
According to classical Greek myth, only Chaos existed in the beginning. The random element eventually produced Gaea, the deep-breasted earth, or matter. For matter to exist, the force of attraction also had to appear (super-celestial Eros). Uranus, the starry heavens, the evolutionary impulse, is Gaea's first-born child.
In other words, the first descent of matter into the threshold of concrete existence came from a chaotic matrix. Chaos, the gaping maw of open space, is a pure cosmic principle. This cosmic trinity of chaos, matter and attraction lies at the heart of chaos theory, the field of complex dynamical systems (CDS).
Just as the ancient pantheon helped to orient the Greeks as a foundational perspective, CDS provides tools for constructing cognitive maps that really work in a practical way to give us an edge, or advantage, in our own evolution. It gives us phenomena, models, and metaphors such as deterministic chaos, "strange attractors," turbulence, stretching time and folding space, and nonlinear phenomena.
Several Jungian psychologists, most notably Ernest Rossi, have observed that the new science of chaos theory, with its strange attractors, is suggestive of some of Jung's most basic assertions about the psyche. In fact, they have noticed that the concept of "strange attractors" is archetypal in its appeal. In the sciences in general this concept of chaotic attractors has taken on the quality of an activated archetype in collective awareness.
The attractor once again exhibits its self-iterating capacity by demonstrating its attractive or seductive power as a phenomenon, idea, and theory. Chaotic systems display certain characteristics including complex feedback loops, self organization, holistic behavior, inherent unpredictability.
Many of these qualitative descriptors apply directly to Jung's concept of the psyche. It is easy to begin drawing analogies with his concept of the self, complexes, archetypes and their seemingly chaos-infusing effects on the ego and its concepts of control and orderliness.
Jung came upon his theories of the psyche through first-hand empirical observation of his clients. He shared an interest in their hopes, dreams, problems, belief systems, and myths which gave their lives meaning. Jung trusted his perception of psychological phenomena when outlining the characteristics of the complex dynamical system we call psyche.
The complexity of the psyche reflects not only on the issue of mental health and well being. Even more fundamentally it relates directly to issues of survival and evolution. A complex system is more creative and flexible at solving all the problems life has to offer. Heinz Pagel in THE DREAMS OF REASON, (Simon & Schuster, 1988) has suggested that science has neglected the basic relationship between chaos, order, and evolution:
Complex systems exhibit far more spontaneous order than we have supposed, or order evolutionary theory has ignored. But that realization only begins to state our problem...Now the task becomes much more trying, for we must not only envision the self-ordering properties of complex systems, but also try to understand how such self-ordering interacts with, enables, guides, and constrains natural selection. Its worth noting that this problem has never been addressed.
Psychologist Abraham Maslow described the human developmental process as a series of periodic risers beginning with basic survival issues and culminating in self-actualization. The ability to execute one's free will increases exponentially. This is because energy or libido formerly wrapped up in "stuck" patterns becomes available to the ego to use as it chooses.
Despite the fact that Jung had a profound yearning to see a kind of "unified field theory" between physics and psychology, he continued to support his own observations, rather than restrictively tie them to the limited scientific metaphors of his day. Physical science had not yet caught up with Jung's concepts.
His concept of depth psychology based on archetypes (read "attractors") escaped the Procrustean bed of a limited physical worldview. The new sciences at last provide some vindication for his stance that psyche is not different from matter.
In their article, "Jungian Thought and Dynamical Systems" (PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES, Spring 1989, Vol. 20, #1), May and Groder summarize the main feature of Jung's ideas which relate to chaos theory:
Jung's descriptions of psychological phenomena are very similar to system descriptions coming from the new science of chaos...Jung described regular recurrent qualitative forms (archetypes) contained in the specifics of human interaction; he emphasized the polar interactional nature of human phenomena (anima/animus, shadow/light); and he noted the potential for patterns of events related in a way beyond the immediate cause/effect relationship (synchronicity).
"Chaos" is a mathematical/ physical science of dynamical interactions that reveals regular qualitative forms and describes relatedness beyond immediate cause/effect. One of Jung's great contributions was his insistence on the validity of such phenomena in the face of the restricted scientific metaphor of his time. Chaos and dynamical systems now provide "hard" science terms that fit and support Jung's observations.
The scientific metaphor provided by chaos theory allows us to describe the psyche in terms congruent with physical reality as presently understood. It provides a comprehensive metaphor for uniting physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual realities. This is strongly reminiscent of the Hermetic axiom, "As Above, So Below." It provides a bridge for unfolding "heaven on earth," a means of manifesting and grounding spiritual energy, that is not only creative but healing.
A state-of-the-art empirical foundation is essential for any well-grounded philosophy of life and realistic self-concept. It helps us evolve out of the body/mind or nature/spirit split instilled during the era of mechanistic science. Great minds, like Jung, have been moving in this direction waiting for science to catch up.
Consciousness may be an all-pervasive field, but awareness can be imagined more like a flashlight that can be selectively focused on different areas. One can broaden the beam and expand awareness of self to include more and more consciousness through such experiences as psychotherapy, meditation, and a mental grasp of the physical nature of reality.
Newtonian mechanics is great for describing the movement of planets and star systems. Quantum mechanics, with its inherent uncertainty, non-locality, and fuzziness, describes the mysteries of the sub-atomic realm. Humans participate in both, to be sure, but rather than only macro- and micro-systems, we also need one that fits the human scale.
This model needs to be compatible with human capabilities and experience. Humans, though partaking of the macroscopic and microscopic worlds normally focus awareness in a median range. In this median (mesocosmic) range, it seems chaos reigns supreme.
We see chaos in the various forms of turbulent movement and natural growth in nature. We see it in the flight of birds, the seeds of a sunflower, the rapids of a river, the patterns of weather, and much more. And, we see it in our destinies. We even try to find some meaningful ordering principle within that chaos to call divine.
This model of purposeful, though intuitive chaos is perhaps one underlying aspect of the concept of karma. It may not be apparent to an individual why certain types of experiences come, but there seems to be an underlying order and purpose, even though it may remain unconscious.
The choices implied by the free will inherent in chaotic systems seems to switch some responsibility onto the evolving ego and away from chance fate. An act of free will represents rational insight trained upon past experience, self interest, and potential reward.
Chaos theory gives us a visual mathematical language for charting strange attractors in dynamical systems. They can be applied within an individual psyche or to interactive relationships. This technology has already been applied to human behavior. Order and chaos in the emotional realms have been studied by mathematicians and psychiatrists.
Their studies [see PSYCHOLOGY TODAY, May 1989, pg. 21] produced models of a person's chaotic and unstable behavior in comparison to their stable behavior. Stable behavior can be imagined as being like the sky, unstable like mountains, with little pockets or "caves" of serenity within them. According to Jerome Sashin of Harvard Medical School, "if we can get people's mental state to fall into one of those caves, their behavior would stabilize." Perhaps dreamhealing, through the chaos, is the quickest route there. It often goes directly into a symbolic "cave."
Even mental illness may relate to the phenomena of strange attractors in the brain or emotional field. Some researchers believe, for example, that a number of mental disorders, such as manic-depressive illness and schizophrenia, occur when biological regulatory systems cease to operate at their normal, fixed point and change suddenly to another stable but abnormal point.
In chaos theory, when an attractor disappears due to sudden catastrophic change, the system becomes structureless and experiences a term of "transient chaos" before another attractor is found. We can experience identity crisis during major life passages.
Perhaps it is not by chance that Jung's theory of the complexes shares a semantic and essential relationship with complex system dynamics. Both complex and archetypes function like strange attractors, drawing numerous associations around themselves. These psychic nexus points are instrumental in the foundation of belief systems, emotional response, and behavior.
Each archetype has its parameters, but within the myth there are a jumbled myriad of possibilities that play through the personality seemingly at random, at least to the casual observer. Yet each has its agenda and characteristic mode of appearance. The activation of a mytheme in a life is decoded by noticing its corresponding effects, in dreams and waking life.
An individual's personal myth or mytheme might be conceived of as an activated chaotic attractor. In another phase of life, the focus could change to others. Sometimes these transitions are fairly smooth, sometimes competitive, other times catastrophic, sweeping the old structure away in an uncontrollable fashion.
The ego can suffer greatly from this jerking around by the deep forces within, especially if it doesn't have enough information about its purpose to derive meaning from the experience. For some, the disruption may lead to a psychotic break, while for others it opens the door to new freedom and an expanded sense of self, and creativity.
There are many questions which arise within the model of human development based on chaos theory. We can conjecture about why certain attractors or complexes form. We really don't know why some may become prominent and others fade into the background. But we do know that when two or more are competing for divergent behavior and attitudes, the resulting psychic split can be painful, setting up a deep conflict which may not be easy to resolve.
Free choice may be a factor, but our choices are limited by our attitudes concerning what we believe is possible for us. The only solution is to dive to the deepest levels, seeking revolutionary transformation...a quantum leap in consciousness. The first step in understanding how these attractors affect us has to do with our personal complexes, our distorted experiences of raw archetypal power.
CHAOS AND COMPLEX
There are certain obvious parallels between strange attractors and the psychological phenomena of complexes. The complex is a feeling-toned group of representations in the unconscious. It is sort-of a manifold of symbolism all relating to the same archetype -- variations on a theme, enfolded in the infrastructure of our subconscious mind. Complexes may be "hardwired" into our psychic system. We never exist without them and their varying degrees of influence.
Complexes consist not only of meaning but also of value, and this depends on the intensity of the accompanying feeling tones, according to Jung. All of them may show somatic as well as psychic symptoms, and combinations of the two. An unconscious complex acts like a second ego in conflict with the conscious ego, an alter ego.
This conflict places the individual between two truths, two conflicting streams of will, threatening to tear them in two. A complex can engulf or overpower the ego through partial or total identification between the ego and the complex.
A complex may be projected in the form of spirits, sounds, animals, figures, etc. A deeply unconscious conflict might appear as a UFO sighting or even abduction, or some other psychic phenomenon. It is an initiatory call to Mystery.
The ego can take four different attitudes toward the complex:
1. total unconsciousness of its existence
2. identification
3. projection
4. confrontation
But only confrontation, or conscious empathic identification, can help the ego come to grips with the complex and lead to its resolution. Switching back and forth between ego and complex diffuses polarization.
For Jung, the complexes were "focal or nodal points of psychic life, which must not be absent, because if they were, psychic activity would come to a standstill." They constitute those "neuralgic points" in the psychic structure, to which undigested, inacceptable elements, elements of conflict, will cling.
Carrying our complexes is usually painful, embarrassing, and a burden. But just because they are painful does not prove that they are pathological disturbances. We always pathologize, but to what extent, and how do we act on that? All human beings have complexes. They constitute the structure of the unconscious part of the psyche and are its normal manifestations. From the behavioral perspective, personality traits are strange attractors.
Jung asserts that, "Complexes obviously represent a kind of inferiority in the broadest sense--a statement I must at once qualify by saying that to have complexes does not necessarily indicate inferiority. It only means that something incompatible, unassimilated, and conflicting exists--perhaps as an obstacle, but also as a stimulus to greater effort, and so perhaps, as an opening to new possibilities of achievement." Jung also held that certain complexes stem entirely from an actual situation, above all those which appear in the spiritual crises of middle life.
Some complexes have never been in consciousness before. They grow out of the unconscious and invade the conscious mind with their weird and unassailable convictions and impulses. They interfere with the ego complex and functionality.
Jung also believed that certain complexes arise on account of painful or distressing experiences in a person's life. When we experience trauma, we may "get a complex" about something. These unconscious complexes are of a personal nature. They are one source of [post traumatic] subliminal stress.
But there are also others, autonomous subpersonalities, that come from a source having nothing to do with our daily life. They have to do with the deepest irrational contents of the psyche--that which has never been conscious before. Jung termed them shadow, anima/animus, and self.
Unlike the contents of the personal unconscious which seem to "belong" to us, the contents of the collective unconscious seem alien (Not-I), as if they had invaded from outside. The reintegration of a personal complex has the effect of release and often of healing (mental and physical). But the invasion of a complex from the deep collective psyche is a disturbing, even threatening, phenomenon.
The parallel with the primitive belief in souls and spirits is obvious. This is where those energies and images come from. Souls correspond to the autonomous complexes of the personal unconscious. Spirits are those of the collective unconscious.
In psychotherapy, only a certain number of complexes, varying with the individual, can be made conscious. No one can ever fathom the entire contents of the psyche or self. To attempt to do so would be superheroic, an ego error. It is grandiose to consider. The remaining complexes continue to exist as "nodal points" as "nuclear elements," which belong to the eternal matrix of every human psyche. They remain potential and do not unfold into the objective world.
Although psychic energy operates continuously, it is "quantum-like" in nature. The quanta in our comparison are the complexes, innumerable little nodal points in an invisible network. According to Jung and Jacobi,
In them, as distinguished from the "empty" spaces, the energy charge of the unconscious collective psyche is concentrated, acting in a manner of speaking, AS THE CENTER OF A MAGNETIC FIELD. If the charge of one (or more) of these "nodal points" becomes so powerful that it "magnetically" (acting as a "nuclear cell") ATTRACTS EVERYTHING TO ITSELF and so confronts the ego with an alien entity, a "splinter psyche" that has become autonomous--then we have a complex. [Emphasis added by editor].
If that entity expresses through mythical or universal transpersonal imagery, it has originated in the collective unconscious. If it is contaminated with individual, personalistic material, if it appears as a personalized conflict, then it has emerged from the personal unconscious.
In summary complexes have:
1). two kinds of roots - infantile trauma or actual events and conflicts.
2). two kinds of nature - pathological or healthy.
3). two kinds of expression - bipolar, positive and negative.
Complexes, as strange attractors of undefined psychic energy, actually are the generic forms and dynamic structure of the psyche. The complexes themselves are essential, healthy components of the psyche, unless they have been twisted by fate.
What comes from the collective unconscious may be intense, but it is never "pathological." All our sickness comes from disturbances in the personal unconscious. This is where pure complexes are colored by our individual conflicts.
When the complex is cleared of the emotional baggage of the personalistic expression, its true, pure, archetypal center shines through. The personal was superimposed over the transpersonal, but that can be changed with therapy, by raising it into conscious awareness. Then the nucleus or archetypal core shows through.
When the conflict seems unresolvable for consciousness, when its desires are continually thwarted, we often find that it is the contents of the collective psyche that are intractable. If a complex remains only a greater or lesser strange attractor in the deep psyche, if it doesn't swell up with too much personal baggage, then it usually stays positive. It functions as the energy-giving cell from which all psychic life flows. But if it is overcharged it can turn negative, in the form of neurosis or psychosis.
Erich Neumann commented in THE ORIGINS AND HISTORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS:
We can see in pathological cases, in fixed or compulsive ideas, manias, and states of possession, and again in every creative process where "the work" absorbs and drains dry all extraneous contents, how an unconscious content attracts all others to itself, consumes them, subordinates and co-ordinates them, and forms with them a system of relationships dominated by itself.
When the conscious mind cannot cope with these contents, the result is fragmentation, disorganization, disintegration -- chaos. The role of the complex is determined by its interaction with the conscious mind, what states it creates. Without understanding, it de-stablizes the personality.
But in so doing, it opens the possibility of re-stabilizing at another level. It takes understanding, assimilation, and integration of the complex to appease its destructive energy. Otherwise the conscious mind falls victim to a regression and is engulfed by the deep psyche. Back to square one of the hero quest -- dragon-slaying.
The danger, anxiety, and stress produced during a confrontation with complexes of the transpersonal psyche can create a personal catastrophe. Catastrophic chaos usually leads to what is called a bifurcation or splitting of the energy in two different directions. The experience may be shattering. But sometimes regression serves the process of evolution and leads to creative transformation and renewal of the self. Therefore, the potential benefit makes the risks worthwhile. It may lead to artistic creativity and expression.
References:
PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES, Vol. 20, Number 1, Spring-Summer 1989.
COMPLEX, ARCHETYPE, AND SYMBOL, Jolande Jacobi, Princeton University Press, 1959.
THE ORIGINS & HISTORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS, Erich Neuman, Princeton University Press, 1954.
Ionasphere Homepage Chaos Theory Index
AND PSYCHOLOGICAL COMPLEXES
by Iona Miller, ©1991
ABSTRACT: There is a similarity between the "strange attractors" of chaos theory and Jung's notion of psychological complexes which may be more than metaphorical. The complex is a meaningful feeling-toned group of representations in the unconscious. It is a sort of manifold of symbolism all relating to the same archetype -- variations on a theme, enfolded in the infrastructure of our subconscious mind. Attractors exhibit their self-iterating capacity in the psyche by demonstrating their attractive or seductive power as phenomena, ideas, theories, moods, and behaviors. The scientific metaphor provided by chaos theory allows us to describe the psyche in terms congruent with physical reality as presently understood in CDS (complex dynamical systems).
That people should succumb to these eternal images is entirely normal, in fact it is what these images are for. They are meant to ATTRACT, to convince, to fascinate, and to overpower. They are created out of the primal stuff of revelation. --C.G. Jung, COLLECTED WORKS, Vol. 9
If the charge of one (or more) of the "nodal points" becomes so powerful that it "magnetically" (acting as a nuclear cell") ATTRACTS everything to itself and so confronts the ego with an alien entity...that has become autonomous--then we have a complex.
--Jolande Jacobi, COMPLEX, ARCHETYPE, AND SYMBOL
According to classical Greek myth, only Chaos existed in the beginning. The random element eventually produced Gaea, the deep-breasted earth, or matter. For matter to exist, the force of attraction also had to appear (super-celestial Eros). Uranus, the starry heavens, the evolutionary impulse, is Gaea's first-born child.
In other words, the first descent of matter into the threshold of concrete existence came from a chaotic matrix. Chaos, the gaping maw of open space, is a pure cosmic principle. This cosmic trinity of chaos, matter and attraction lies at the heart of chaos theory, the field of complex dynamical systems (CDS).
Just as the ancient pantheon helped to orient the Greeks as a foundational perspective, CDS provides tools for constructing cognitive maps that really work in a practical way to give us an edge, or advantage, in our own evolution. It gives us phenomena, models, and metaphors such as deterministic chaos, "strange attractors," turbulence, stretching time and folding space, and nonlinear phenomena.
Several Jungian psychologists, most notably Ernest Rossi, have observed that the new science of chaos theory, with its strange attractors, is suggestive of some of Jung's most basic assertions about the psyche. In fact, they have noticed that the concept of "strange attractors" is archetypal in its appeal. In the sciences in general this concept of chaotic attractors has taken on the quality of an activated archetype in collective awareness.
The attractor once again exhibits its self-iterating capacity by demonstrating its attractive or seductive power as a phenomenon, idea, and theory. Chaotic systems display certain characteristics including complex feedback loops, self organization, holistic behavior, inherent unpredictability.
Many of these qualitative descriptors apply directly to Jung's concept of the psyche. It is easy to begin drawing analogies with his concept of the self, complexes, archetypes and their seemingly chaos-infusing effects on the ego and its concepts of control and orderliness.
Jung came upon his theories of the psyche through first-hand empirical observation of his clients. He shared an interest in their hopes, dreams, problems, belief systems, and myths which gave their lives meaning. Jung trusted his perception of psychological phenomena when outlining the characteristics of the complex dynamical system we call psyche.
The complexity of the psyche reflects not only on the issue of mental health and well being. Even more fundamentally it relates directly to issues of survival and evolution. A complex system is more creative and flexible at solving all the problems life has to offer. Heinz Pagel in THE DREAMS OF REASON, (Simon & Schuster, 1988) has suggested that science has neglected the basic relationship between chaos, order, and evolution:
Complex systems exhibit far more spontaneous order than we have supposed, or order evolutionary theory has ignored. But that realization only begins to state our problem...Now the task becomes much more trying, for we must not only envision the self-ordering properties of complex systems, but also try to understand how such self-ordering interacts with, enables, guides, and constrains natural selection. Its worth noting that this problem has never been addressed.
Psychologist Abraham Maslow described the human developmental process as a series of periodic risers beginning with basic survival issues and culminating in self-actualization. The ability to execute one's free will increases exponentially. This is because energy or libido formerly wrapped up in "stuck" patterns becomes available to the ego to use as it chooses.
Despite the fact that Jung had a profound yearning to see a kind of "unified field theory" between physics and psychology, he continued to support his own observations, rather than restrictively tie them to the limited scientific metaphors of his day. Physical science had not yet caught up with Jung's concepts.
His concept of depth psychology based on archetypes (read "attractors") escaped the Procrustean bed of a limited physical worldview. The new sciences at last provide some vindication for his stance that psyche is not different from matter.
In their article, "Jungian Thought and Dynamical Systems" (PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES, Spring 1989, Vol. 20, #1), May and Groder summarize the main feature of Jung's ideas which relate to chaos theory:
Jung's descriptions of psychological phenomena are very similar to system descriptions coming from the new science of chaos...Jung described regular recurrent qualitative forms (archetypes) contained in the specifics of human interaction; he emphasized the polar interactional nature of human phenomena (anima/animus, shadow/light); and he noted the potential for patterns of events related in a way beyond the immediate cause/effect relationship (synchronicity).
"Chaos" is a mathematical/ physical science of dynamical interactions that reveals regular qualitative forms and describes relatedness beyond immediate cause/effect. One of Jung's great contributions was his insistence on the validity of such phenomena in the face of the restricted scientific metaphor of his time. Chaos and dynamical systems now provide "hard" science terms that fit and support Jung's observations.
The scientific metaphor provided by chaos theory allows us to describe the psyche in terms congruent with physical reality as presently understood. It provides a comprehensive metaphor for uniting physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual realities. This is strongly reminiscent of the Hermetic axiom, "As Above, So Below." It provides a bridge for unfolding "heaven on earth," a means of manifesting and grounding spiritual energy, that is not only creative but healing.
A state-of-the-art empirical foundation is essential for any well-grounded philosophy of life and realistic self-concept. It helps us evolve out of the body/mind or nature/spirit split instilled during the era of mechanistic science. Great minds, like Jung, have been moving in this direction waiting for science to catch up.
Consciousness may be an all-pervasive field, but awareness can be imagined more like a flashlight that can be selectively focused on different areas. One can broaden the beam and expand awareness of self to include more and more consciousness through such experiences as psychotherapy, meditation, and a mental grasp of the physical nature of reality.
Newtonian mechanics is great for describing the movement of planets and star systems. Quantum mechanics, with its inherent uncertainty, non-locality, and fuzziness, describes the mysteries of the sub-atomic realm. Humans participate in both, to be sure, but rather than only macro- and micro-systems, we also need one that fits the human scale.
This model needs to be compatible with human capabilities and experience. Humans, though partaking of the macroscopic and microscopic worlds normally focus awareness in a median range. In this median (mesocosmic) range, it seems chaos reigns supreme.
We see chaos in the various forms of turbulent movement and natural growth in nature. We see it in the flight of birds, the seeds of a sunflower, the rapids of a river, the patterns of weather, and much more. And, we see it in our destinies. We even try to find some meaningful ordering principle within that chaos to call divine.
This model of purposeful, though intuitive chaos is perhaps one underlying aspect of the concept of karma. It may not be apparent to an individual why certain types of experiences come, but there seems to be an underlying order and purpose, even though it may remain unconscious.
The choices implied by the free will inherent in chaotic systems seems to switch some responsibility onto the evolving ego and away from chance fate. An act of free will represents rational insight trained upon past experience, self interest, and potential reward.
Chaos theory gives us a visual mathematical language for charting strange attractors in dynamical systems. They can be applied within an individual psyche or to interactive relationships. This technology has already been applied to human behavior. Order and chaos in the emotional realms have been studied by mathematicians and psychiatrists.
Their studies [see PSYCHOLOGY TODAY, May 1989, pg. 21] produced models of a person's chaotic and unstable behavior in comparison to their stable behavior. Stable behavior can be imagined as being like the sky, unstable like mountains, with little pockets or "caves" of serenity within them. According to Jerome Sashin of Harvard Medical School, "if we can get people's mental state to fall into one of those caves, their behavior would stabilize." Perhaps dreamhealing, through the chaos, is the quickest route there. It often goes directly into a symbolic "cave."
Even mental illness may relate to the phenomena of strange attractors in the brain or emotional field. Some researchers believe, for example, that a number of mental disorders, such as manic-depressive illness and schizophrenia, occur when biological regulatory systems cease to operate at their normal, fixed point and change suddenly to another stable but abnormal point.
In chaos theory, when an attractor disappears due to sudden catastrophic change, the system becomes structureless and experiences a term of "transient chaos" before another attractor is found. We can experience identity crisis during major life passages.
Perhaps it is not by chance that Jung's theory of the complexes shares a semantic and essential relationship with complex system dynamics. Both complex and archetypes function like strange attractors, drawing numerous associations around themselves. These psychic nexus points are instrumental in the foundation of belief systems, emotional response, and behavior.
Each archetype has its parameters, but within the myth there are a jumbled myriad of possibilities that play through the personality seemingly at random, at least to the casual observer. Yet each has its agenda and characteristic mode of appearance. The activation of a mytheme in a life is decoded by noticing its corresponding effects, in dreams and waking life.
An individual's personal myth or mytheme might be conceived of as an activated chaotic attractor. In another phase of life, the focus could change to others. Sometimes these transitions are fairly smooth, sometimes competitive, other times catastrophic, sweeping the old structure away in an uncontrollable fashion.
The ego can suffer greatly from this jerking around by the deep forces within, especially if it doesn't have enough information about its purpose to derive meaning from the experience. For some, the disruption may lead to a psychotic break, while for others it opens the door to new freedom and an expanded sense of self, and creativity.
There are many questions which arise within the model of human development based on chaos theory. We can conjecture about why certain attractors or complexes form. We really don't know why some may become prominent and others fade into the background. But we do know that when two or more are competing for divergent behavior and attitudes, the resulting psychic split can be painful, setting up a deep conflict which may not be easy to resolve.
Free choice may be a factor, but our choices are limited by our attitudes concerning what we believe is possible for us. The only solution is to dive to the deepest levels, seeking revolutionary transformation...a quantum leap in consciousness. The first step in understanding how these attractors affect us has to do with our personal complexes, our distorted experiences of raw archetypal power.
CHAOS AND COMPLEX
There are certain obvious parallels between strange attractors and the psychological phenomena of complexes. The complex is a feeling-toned group of representations in the unconscious. It is sort-of a manifold of symbolism all relating to the same archetype -- variations on a theme, enfolded in the infrastructure of our subconscious mind. Complexes may be "hardwired" into our psychic system. We never exist without them and their varying degrees of influence.
Complexes consist not only of meaning but also of value, and this depends on the intensity of the accompanying feeling tones, according to Jung. All of them may show somatic as well as psychic symptoms, and combinations of the two. An unconscious complex acts like a second ego in conflict with the conscious ego, an alter ego.
This conflict places the individual between two truths, two conflicting streams of will, threatening to tear them in two. A complex can engulf or overpower the ego through partial or total identification between the ego and the complex.
A complex may be projected in the form of spirits, sounds, animals, figures, etc. A deeply unconscious conflict might appear as a UFO sighting or even abduction, or some other psychic phenomenon. It is an initiatory call to Mystery.
The ego can take four different attitudes toward the complex:
1. total unconsciousness of its existence
2. identification
3. projection
4. confrontation
But only confrontation, or conscious empathic identification, can help the ego come to grips with the complex and lead to its resolution. Switching back and forth between ego and complex diffuses polarization.
For Jung, the complexes were "focal or nodal points of psychic life, which must not be absent, because if they were, psychic activity would come to a standstill." They constitute those "neuralgic points" in the psychic structure, to which undigested, inacceptable elements, elements of conflict, will cling.
Carrying our complexes is usually painful, embarrassing, and a burden. But just because they are painful does not prove that they are pathological disturbances. We always pathologize, but to what extent, and how do we act on that? All human beings have complexes. They constitute the structure of the unconscious part of the psyche and are its normal manifestations. From the behavioral perspective, personality traits are strange attractors.
Jung asserts that, "Complexes obviously represent a kind of inferiority in the broadest sense--a statement I must at once qualify by saying that to have complexes does not necessarily indicate inferiority. It only means that something incompatible, unassimilated, and conflicting exists--perhaps as an obstacle, but also as a stimulus to greater effort, and so perhaps, as an opening to new possibilities of achievement." Jung also held that certain complexes stem entirely from an actual situation, above all those which appear in the spiritual crises of middle life.
Some complexes have never been in consciousness before. They grow out of the unconscious and invade the conscious mind with their weird and unassailable convictions and impulses. They interfere with the ego complex and functionality.
Jung also believed that certain complexes arise on account of painful or distressing experiences in a person's life. When we experience trauma, we may "get a complex" about something. These unconscious complexes are of a personal nature. They are one source of [post traumatic] subliminal stress.
But there are also others, autonomous subpersonalities, that come from a source having nothing to do with our daily life. They have to do with the deepest irrational contents of the psyche--that which has never been conscious before. Jung termed them shadow, anima/animus, and self.
Unlike the contents of the personal unconscious which seem to "belong" to us, the contents of the collective unconscious seem alien (Not-I), as if they had invaded from outside. The reintegration of a personal complex has the effect of release and often of healing (mental and physical). But the invasion of a complex from the deep collective psyche is a disturbing, even threatening, phenomenon.
The parallel with the primitive belief in souls and spirits is obvious. This is where those energies and images come from. Souls correspond to the autonomous complexes of the personal unconscious. Spirits are those of the collective unconscious.
In psychotherapy, only a certain number of complexes, varying with the individual, can be made conscious. No one can ever fathom the entire contents of the psyche or self. To attempt to do so would be superheroic, an ego error. It is grandiose to consider. The remaining complexes continue to exist as "nodal points" as "nuclear elements," which belong to the eternal matrix of every human psyche. They remain potential and do not unfold into the objective world.
Although psychic energy operates continuously, it is "quantum-like" in nature. The quanta in our comparison are the complexes, innumerable little nodal points in an invisible network. According to Jung and Jacobi,
In them, as distinguished from the "empty" spaces, the energy charge of the unconscious collective psyche is concentrated, acting in a manner of speaking, AS THE CENTER OF A MAGNETIC FIELD. If the charge of one (or more) of these "nodal points" becomes so powerful that it "magnetically" (acting as a "nuclear cell") ATTRACTS EVERYTHING TO ITSELF and so confronts the ego with an alien entity, a "splinter psyche" that has become autonomous--then we have a complex. [Emphasis added by editor].
If that entity expresses through mythical or universal transpersonal imagery, it has originated in the collective unconscious. If it is contaminated with individual, personalistic material, if it appears as a personalized conflict, then it has emerged from the personal unconscious.
In summary complexes have:
1). two kinds of roots - infantile trauma or actual events and conflicts.
2). two kinds of nature - pathological or healthy.
3). two kinds of expression - bipolar, positive and negative.
Complexes, as strange attractors of undefined psychic energy, actually are the generic forms and dynamic structure of the psyche. The complexes themselves are essential, healthy components of the psyche, unless they have been twisted by fate.
What comes from the collective unconscious may be intense, but it is never "pathological." All our sickness comes from disturbances in the personal unconscious. This is where pure complexes are colored by our individual conflicts.
When the complex is cleared of the emotional baggage of the personalistic expression, its true, pure, archetypal center shines through. The personal was superimposed over the transpersonal, but that can be changed with therapy, by raising it into conscious awareness. Then the nucleus or archetypal core shows through.
When the conflict seems unresolvable for consciousness, when its desires are continually thwarted, we often find that it is the contents of the collective psyche that are intractable. If a complex remains only a greater or lesser strange attractor in the deep psyche, if it doesn't swell up with too much personal baggage, then it usually stays positive. It functions as the energy-giving cell from which all psychic life flows. But if it is overcharged it can turn negative, in the form of neurosis or psychosis.
Erich Neumann commented in THE ORIGINS AND HISTORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS:
We can see in pathological cases, in fixed or compulsive ideas, manias, and states of possession, and again in every creative process where "the work" absorbs and drains dry all extraneous contents, how an unconscious content attracts all others to itself, consumes them, subordinates and co-ordinates them, and forms with them a system of relationships dominated by itself.
When the conscious mind cannot cope with these contents, the result is fragmentation, disorganization, disintegration -- chaos. The role of the complex is determined by its interaction with the conscious mind, what states it creates. Without understanding, it de-stablizes the personality.
But in so doing, it opens the possibility of re-stabilizing at another level. It takes understanding, assimilation, and integration of the complex to appease its destructive energy. Otherwise the conscious mind falls victim to a regression and is engulfed by the deep psyche. Back to square one of the hero quest -- dragon-slaying.
The danger, anxiety, and stress produced during a confrontation with complexes of the transpersonal psyche can create a personal catastrophe. Catastrophic chaos usually leads to what is called a bifurcation or splitting of the energy in two different directions. The experience may be shattering. But sometimes regression serves the process of evolution and leads to creative transformation and renewal of the self. Therefore, the potential benefit makes the risks worthwhile. It may lead to artistic creativity and expression.
References:
PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES, Vol. 20, Number 1, Spring-Summer 1989.
COMPLEX, ARCHETYPE, AND SYMBOL, Jolande Jacobi, Princeton University Press, 1959.
THE ORIGINS & HISTORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS, Erich Neuman, Princeton University Press, 1954.
Ionasphere Homepage Chaos Theory Index
Gowan on Myth
3.4 MYTH
3.41 General Introduction
True myth is defined by Graves (1955:10) as "the reduction to narrative shorthand of ritual mime performed on public festivals. ... Their subjects were archaic magic-makings that promoted the fertility or stability of a sacred queendom, . . ." Graves goes on to point out that magic, supernatural or totem calendar-beasts figured in these rituals, and that to understand Greek mythology we must appreciate the matriarchal and totemistic system which held sway there before incursion of patriarchal invaders. An example of such a mythical beast was the chimera, with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail.
While Jung believes that myths are original revelations of the preconscious psyche, Graves holds that a "true science of myth should begin with a study of archaeology, history, and comparative religion" (1955:22).
Eliade concludes that the value of myth lies in its ability to evoke a numinous relationship through a priest or by proxy for a believer who is otherwise, however, incapable of any other relationship with the ground of being. He says (1969:59):
The myth continually reactualizes the Great Time and in so doing raises the listener to a superhuman and suprahistorical plane; which among other things, enables him to approach a Reality that is inaccessible at the level of profane, individual existence.
It may be seen that this indeed is the function of all parataxic representation, not only with myth, but also with archetypes, dreams, art, and especially ritual. For whether we consider ritual magic or the Mass of the Church, it is obvious that ritual has the common purpose of gaining merit and personal advantage for the celebrant and his constituency, through approach to the numinous element or some manifestation of it.
The archeology of man's developing social thought is preserved in myth. Recently acquired is the "loose and separate" consciousness of Western man which separates him from the continuum of nature in time, space, and personality. More primitive consciousness was not so differentiated; it was more dreamy and less clear. In myth we find remnants of images now less than precise, whose equivocal ambivalence was once an asset. In the dawning of consciousness, wherein myth abounded, it was easier to believe that man might
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be metamorphosed into an animal or vice versa, that magical flight could conquer space, and that precognition could reverse time. The vestiges of these motifs in myth is testimony to the development of a conscious ego from a primal self which did not know itself as distinct from nature. The periodic developmental stage theory (Gowan 1972,1974) presents an ontogenic recapitulation of evolutionary phylogeny. The differentiation of ego functioning culminates in stage 5, (the Eriksonian identity crisis), as the individual correlate of the evolution of the personal ego in the species.
Eliade (1969:14) points out that this mythical repository in modern man has been relegated to the attic of the unconscious:
For the unconscious is not haunted by monsters only: the gods, goddesses, the heroes, and the fairies dwell there too; moreover, the monsters of the unconscious are themselves mythological, seeing that they continue to fulfill the same functions that they fulfilled in all the mythologies - in the last analysis that of helping man liberate himself. . . .
But images possess the disadvantage of not being categorical. Says Eliade (1969:15):
Images by their very nature are multivalent (i.o.). If the mind makes use of images to grasp the ultimate reality of things, it is just because reality manifests itself in contradictory ways, and therefore cannot be expressed in concepts.
Eliade (1969:57) tells us:
Myth is an account of events which took place in principio, that is "in the beginning," in a primordial and non-temporal instant, a moment of sacred time (i.o.). The mythic or sacred time is qualitatively different from profane time, from continuous and irreversible time of our everyday de- sacralized existence. In narrating a myth one reactualizes in some sort the sacred time in which the events narrated took place.
Myth, therefore is a way of bringing the numinous to the common man without involving him in an altered state of consciousness. Its sacramental character veils an inner numinous truth which is explicated by the ritual which the myth demands, and which action reaffirms the relationship between the present which is in time, and the numinous which is out of time.
Eliade (1963:18) says:
Myth as experienced in archaic societies:
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(1) constitute the history and acts of the supernaturals;
(2) this history is considered to be absolutely true ... and sacred;
(3) that myth is always related to creation (it tells how something came into existence);
(4) that by knowing the myth one knows the origin of things, and hence can control and manipulate them at will (by) a knowledge that one "experiences" ritually, either by ceremonially recounting the myth, or by performing the ritual for which it is the justification;
(5) that in one way or another one "lives" the myth, in the sense that one is "seized" by the sacred exalting power of the events recollected or re-enacted.
Gaster (1950:11) traces the origin of myth as "a sequence of ritual acts, which ... have characterized major seasonal festivities." These as he explains (1950:9) are "derived from a religious ritual designed to ensure the rebirth of a dead world." He elaborates on the central thesis (1950:17) as follows:
Seasonal rituals are functional in character. Their purpose is to revive the topocosm (i.o.), that is, the entire complex of any given locality conceived as a living organism. But this topocosm possesses a ... durative aspect, representing not only actual and present community, but also the ideal of community, an entity, of which the latter is but the current manifestation. Accordingly, seasonal rituals are accompanied by myths which are designed to present the purely functional acts in terms of ideal and durative situations. The impenetration of myth and ritual creates drama. ... What the King does on the punctual plane, the God does on the durative. . . . The pattern is based on the conception that life is vouchsafed in a series of leases which have annually to be renewed.3
It would be difficult to state more clearly and concisely the central motivating elements of myth than has here been done. The concept that the topocosm needs to be renewed like an annual lease, and that since it exists on the transcendental (durative) level, it can be affected as if in sympathetic magic on the temporal (punctual) level, and finally that it is a living organism amenable to the efforts of man, is both good anthropology and excellent psychology regarding man's parataxic relationship to the numinous element.
In contrast to the void of the numinous element, but in no wise the antithesis of it, stands a conceptualization identified by Gaster (1950) as the "durative topocosm." It would be easy to say that this represents nature, seen in her anthropomorphic aspects, but that is too simple; another partial view would equate this conceptualization
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to the goddess Ceres with all her manifestations of bounty, but even this does not capture the full "durative" aspect. For it embraces not merely the progression of the seasons, and the fecundation of nature, processes which eventuate at a given time and place, but the generative element in these processes which continues as in a procession or ceremony to provide the continual source and origin of what man merely sees as an outcome at a given time and place. It is the numinous clothed and housed in forms which we perceive as natural.
Thus Malinowski (1928:23) says:
We can find among the most primitive peoples and throughout the lower savagery a belief in a supernatural impersonal force, moving all those agencies which are relevant to the savage and causing all the really important events in the domain of the sacred. Thus mana (i.o.) not animism is the essence of "pre-animistic religion," and is also the essence of magic. . . .
The durative topocosm is generally celebrated as Sir James Frazer noted in "The Golden Bough"in cults and ceremonies of vegetation and fertility. As in totemism (Malinowski 1968:45) "This ritual leads to acts of a magical nature, by which plenty is brought about" and man by his rites certifies the renewal of the annual lease of the potential bounty of the topocosm.
Malinowski (1968:73) quotes Codrington as saying:
This mana is not fixed in anything, and can be conveyed in almost anything. (It) acts in all ways for good and evil . . ., shows itself in physical force or in any kind of power or excellence which a man possesses.
Ultimate reality, in the guise of the durative topocosm, cannot adequately present itself through a language of tensed verbs. Hence it must do so through a metaphor of continual recurrence; we should learn to recognize such usage in myth and fable as signifying the advent of the "spacious present" in which clock time is transcended. Such fables as Sisyphus rolling up the stone, which rolls down again, the Medusa which grows two heads when one is cut off, Brigadoon which keeps appearing one day every hundred years, ghosts which keep haunting a castle on an anniversary, are alike examples of an incident which "occur" in durative time, and which, therefore, seem to keep repeating in ours. A second example of the durative nature of this reality is the fact that mortals immersed in it (in fable) are apt to find that a shorter duration in it amounts to a
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much longer elapse of clock time. Examples which come to mind include Brigadoon, Rip Van Winkle, and many fairy tales.10
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Myth involves explication of psychic tensions which activate archetypes and dreams, but are now expressed in the ordinary state of consciousness in terms of images. Cassirer (1955:11:25-36) points out the development of image in the parataxic mode as follows:
The mythical world is concrete ... because in it the two main factors, thing and signification are undifferentiated. . . . The concresence of name and thing in the linguistic consciousness of primitives and children might be illustrated ... (striking example: name tabus).... But as language develops, distinct from all mere physical existence and all physical efficacy, the word emerges in its own specificity, in its purely ideal significatory function. And art leads us to still another stage of development. . . . Here for the first time the image world acquires a purely immanent validity and truth. . . . Thus for the first time the world of images becomes a self-contained cosmos ... severing its bonds with immediate reality, with material existence and efficacy which constitute the world of magic and myth; it embodies a new step.
Psychic tensions exist in a society as well as in individuals. The parataxic outlet for these tensions in the individual is art; in society it is myth and ritual. Myth of course is an example of the outletting of such tensions: Abell explains (1966:94):
Similarly a myth has not only its "active period of psychic eruption and imaginative overflow, but also its subsequent period of extinction and disintegration." A later form of extinct myth will differ greatly from the earlier expression of the active period and may retain little of the tension-imagery.
He continues (1966:96):
The action of eruptive and erosive forces in the sphere of the near myth can be observed in the phases through which every artistic movement seems destined to pass. An exploratory or "creative" phase is eventually succeeded by a stereotyped or "academic" phase. Artists, participating in the exploratory phase,
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... work with feverish intensity and bring forth results that are dazzling, often bewildering and seemingly unreasonable to those who witness their cultural emergence.
Some writers, perhaps metaphorically, see myth as the record of a "social womb" in which primitive man, not yet endowed with full cognition, is protected from reality by a dreamy placental envelope.
Hall (1960: 10) points out that from an occult point of view mythologies and mythological characters may have developed from racial memories of super-identities who helped our species become human.
3.42 Examples of Myth11
Henderson (Jung 1964:101) points out that the "hero myth" is the most common and popular in the world. He says:
Over and over again one hears a tale describing a hero's miraculous but humble birth, his early proof of superhuman strength, his rapid rise to prominence or power, his triumphant struggle with the forces of evil, his fallibility to the sin of pride (hubris) and his fall through betrayal or a heroic sacrifice that ends in death.
Radin (1948) in Hero Cycles of the Winnebago notes four cycles in the evolution of the hero myth, calling them (1) the trickster cycle, (2) the hare cycle, (3) the red horn cycle, and (4) the twin cycle. The trickster sees his environment as a giver or withholder of good things, and craftily exploits it or appeases it to get what he wants. The hare represents a socialization of the trickster for he cooperates with his group instead of exploiting them. The third cycle Red Horn, is a younger brother who has envious brethren and who proves himself through endurance, thus raising his self-esteem. Finally, the twins are a pair of superhuman brothers who conquer heaven and earth, but finally sicken of their power, and either fall out or one betrays the other, and the death of one ensures. It is very easy to see in this hero myth parallels to the development of self-concept in the growing boy from a solitary exploiter of the world (in the third stage), through socialization in the fourth stage to identification with a brother in the fifth stage. Thus does ontogeny in the individual parallel phylogeny in the species.12
Henderson (Jung 1964:130) points out another universal myth that is often found in dreams of adolescent girls who are having difficulty accepting their feminine role as wife and mother. He says:
A universal myth expressing this kind of awakening is found in the fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast. The best known version
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of this story related how Beauty, the youngest of four daughters, becomes her father's favorite because of her unselfish goodness. When she asks her father for only a white rose, she is aware only of her inner sincerity of feeling. She does not know that she is about to endanger her father's life and her ideal relation with him. For he steals the white rose from the enchanted garden of the Beast, who is stirred to anger by this theft, and requires him to return in three months for his punishment, presumably death.
As Henderson points out, the rose is the (sublimated) sexual love between daughter and father, a love which really belongs to a younger rival (the Beast), whose bestial aspects personify the rejected overt sex from which Beauty is free as long as she is "daddy's little girl." But as the tale tells us, Beauty is required to make an overt sexual advance (kiss the beast), and when she does so, she finds that he is transformed into a wonderful prince.
A third example of universal myth comes from tribal Africa. In Hahn's book on Africa (1961) "Ntu" is the numinous element, never seen but in its manifestations which are Muntu (man), Nommo (the power of the word) Kuntu (Modes and Styles), and Hantu (culture). All of these are part of the topocosm, that durative world of which our own series of events in space and time is only a shadow.
These three examples of myth account for bravery in males, beauty and charm in females, and the numinous quality found in man and indeed in nature.
3.43 Myth and Animals
Because primitive man lived much closer to the animals than we do and had reason to fear and totemize some of them, it is natural to find that animals play a great part in his myths. Myths about animals fall into three categories: (1) the transformation of man into animal or vice versa, (2) the totemization of a feared animal, and (3) the nagual or animal-twin of individual men. These categories are of course interconnected. They all represent attempts to extract the numinous quality from the animal and incorporate it into the individual (in character) or in society (in totem).
One of the environmental penalties of modern urban life is the estrangement of mankind from the animals. We do not realize this until we revert to the farm in the country or visit a game park. Man in simpler times, whether hunter or agriculturalist, lived on intimate terms with the animals in his habitat. He hunted them, he was hunted by them, he used them, he had them round and often
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in his dwelling, he played with them, lived close to them, and used anecdotes about them in his songs and dances. The importance of animals in the thinking of primitive man can scarcely be exaggerated; it is seen in myth and legend. The importance of animals in the farm life of man during the last millenium can be seen even in the different etymology and plurals of such ancient words as oxen, geese, mice, kine, deer.
One of the most important relationships of man to the animals in the hunting stage was success in finding game upon which sustanence and perhaps life itself might depend. Myth and ritual of the great hunter and the successful hunt thereby came to be very important.
Baumann (1954:149-50) explains the Lascaux Caves hunting magic dance pictures as follows:
These dances seem incredibly wild and grotesque. To an outsider the dancers appear to be quite beside themselves. And that is exactly what they are. Their burning desire carries them away while they are still dancing on the trail of the beast on which their thoughts are concentrated. In the dance their souls reach the utmost height of tension. Suddenly they let themselves go as the hunters' hand lets the arrow speed from the taut bow. They fall down; their bodies lie soulless, while their souls which have become arrows ... fly out and strike the beast.
But man was not only the hunter, he was sometimes the hunted. The universality of fear produced psychic tension which gave expression in myth. The prevalence of wolves as the primary predators upon our European ancestors is nowhere more noticeable than in the myth of lycanthropy as a projective defense mechanism. Wedeck (1961:171) tells us: "The werewolf appears in every culture and in every age. The ancients from Homer to Mela, from Varro and Virgil to Apuleius, Stabo, and Solinus testify to the prevalence of lycanthropy." The major predator explanation is reinforced again by Wedeck (1971:171) who points out that while werewolves are confined to Europe,
in some countries the change from man to animal involves another creature. In Malaya, for example, the human being changes into a tiger; in Iceland a bear; in Africa a tiger, hyena, or leopard; in India a tiger or leopard.
Let us remember that this fear of the supernatural animal is itself a totemization of an even more irrational fear of demons and monsters which plagued primitive man and is revealed in myth. But if animals
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were first invested with these magic properties of transformation, the fear of them could also be totemized by making the animal a blood brother ("I won't hunt you, and you won't hunt me), and this process eventually led to the myth of nagualism. Let us trace this syndrome in detail.
Abell asks (1966:155):
Was belief in the monster myths a useless though spontaneous result of the tensions of Neolithic life or did it perform some positive psychic function? . . . . Freud observes that "the dream relieves the mind like a safety valve, and that as Roberts has put it, all kinds of harmful material are rendered harmless by representation in dreams." No doubt the same could be said about myth.
He continues (1966:156):
The myth centered tribal fears in a being so formidable that no man could be condemned for fearing him; an indirect way of granting the fears a social sanction.
Abell opines that the positive note in religious belief is a developing function in culture, little seen in early man. He states (1966:158):
It seems evident that the positive aspects of Neolithic tension imagery were relatively little developed, offering nothing comparable in vividness or intensity to the monsters who swarmed around the negative pole.
According to Salar (1964) a nagual has two definitions; (1) the animal alter ego of an individual, a "guardian-spirit" or "destiny animal" (Middleton 1967:71, who gives many other cites), sometimes with astrological significance. Saler states that some believe in an affinity between the human and animal in regard to character traits and destiny; and (2) that of a transforming witch (akin to our werewolf) who is able to change into animal form in order to do evil at night.
Oakes (1951:170ff) reports that the Guatemalan Indians of the highlands show traces of a belief in nagualism (animal co-spirits for humans). According to this belief each child has a nagual animal and their lives are closely connected. From this it is easy to go to the ability of chimans (shamans) to change at will into animal form, and she relates tales of this sort given by the natives. Whereas the animal form in Europe is generally the wolf (werewolves), the animal form in this location is the coyote. For more on nagualism see Brinton (1894).
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Radin (1927:343) describes how the bear totem affects ceremonial treatment of the captured animal:
When a bear is caught, it is treated with all imaginable veneration and respect. First the hunter addresses a few words of apology and explanation to the animal. Then it is killed and dressed up in all the finery obtainable. . . . When a dead bear is dressed up, this is done as an offering or prayer to the chief of the bears, that he may send the Indians more of his children. ... In gratitude for the treatment accorded him, the bear forgives his slayers and enters their traps a willing and fascinated sacrifice.
Baumann (1954:152) speaking of the Lascaux cave drawings discusses nagualism as follows:
And just as every Red Indian felt he was bound in some special way to some animal, so also did every ice-age hunter. The guardian spirit dwelled in this one animal. Among the Red Indians the animal is called the totem. The ice-age hunter too had his totem animal, and he also tattooed the picture of his animal on his breast.
This process of "totemizing" the fearsome aspects of experience whether found in the natural world or in the numinous is extremely important as it shows how myth was used to reduce fear and irrational dread and to bring the experience into rational consciousness from the trauma with which it was first associated. It is hence necessary to discuss the totemization of myth.
3.44 Totemization of Myth
3.441 General
For a definition of "totem" we go to Malinowski (1928:24-5):
Totemism, to quote Frazer's classical definition: is an inanimate relation which is supposed to exist between a group of kindred people on the one side and a species of natural or artificial objects on the other, which objects are called the totems of the human group.
Malinowski (1928:25) quotes Durkheim as saying:
"In this the totemic principle which is identical with mana and with the God of the clan ... can be nothing else than the clan itself."
As man ascends in evolutionary development, he becomes more
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conscious of the numinous element and of himself as apart from it. He also begins the totemization of the more dreadful aspects of the numinous element: indeed, the whole parataxic mode is a kind of veiling of the head of Medusa. There is also a kind of slow change in regard to man's relation to various manifestations of the generalized preconscious.
We thus have a historical progress corresponding to slow evolutionary psychic development which goes somewhat as follows in regard to man's relationship to the numinous element:
1. In the ancient world man is seen as the puppet of the numinous element, which behaves in a capricious and irrational manner toward him.
2. Second, man is seen at the mercy of devils and demons; while menacing, they have only the power to tempt him, and may not punish or torture him unless he sins; furthermore he may at least partially ward off their evil influence by faith in the mother church.
This Christian belief has its pagan correlate in the similar belief about monsters and mythical animals (cf. Beowulf). As time goes on, however, the man triumphs over the monster more often, and remains to tell the tale. Sometimes (St. George and the Dragon) there is fusion of the Christian and Pagan elements.
A further change reduces the Christian numinous element to ghosts and the pagan counterpart to witches, fairies, and animals with supernatural power (werewolves).
3. Third, as the numinous element grows less to be feared, the human will comes more to be respected, and Promethean man is in process of birth.
To trace this progression more clearly let H stand for the human protagonist, and let N stand for the numinous element in some presentation indicated by a parenthesis:
1. H the plaything and puppet of N (gods and demons)
2. H preyed upon by N (mythical animals) (Beowulf)
3. H wars with and sometimes conquers N (animals with supernatural powers (St. George and the Dragon)
4. H plagued by devils who tempt him, but can resist them if faithful to tenets of mother church.
5. H plagued by N (witches, ghosts) whose power is definitely limited, and who may by craft be defeated or limited.
6. H helped by N (saints) who as former humans lived good lives.
7. H helped or hindered by N (fairies) whose magic is severely limited.
8. H aided by N (now a talisman or thing) whose power is beneficent but limited.
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9. H uses N in a psychological manner for alleviation of pain (as in hypnotism, biofeedback, etc.).
10. H becomes creative and meditative (section 4.3, 4.6) thus "gentling" the effect of N, and placing it under more control.
11. H understands orthocognition (section 4.5) and gains fuller use of N, now expressed as power over environment.
12. H becomes psychedelic (4.7) and N is expressed in very positive affect and knowledge.
This interaction ranges from the human individual being used and persecuted to his using and exploiting, in other words from passivity to activity. The N variable goes from gods and demons through mythical animals, witches, fairies, talismans, and finally to a broader concept of the numinous element as an impersonal force.
3.442 Talismans
A talisman (Webster's International Dictionary) is a figure of a heavenly sign cut or engraved on a stone, metal, or ring sympathetic to the influence of the star, hence something that (is carried) to produce extraordinary effects, such as averting evil. "Talisman" connotes wider and more positive powers than "amulet." "Charm" may be equivalent to either.
Table VII Mythic Manifestations of Numinous Element
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Whereas a talisman may well be a gem with general powers for good, amulet (Dictionary of Magic) is generally a specific against a particular calamity, such as black magic, imprisonment, loss of property, and the like. "The amulet may be a gem or the tail of a fox, a lizard, a mandrake root, or colored threads, a ring, nail, key, or knot." There are specific amulets against nightmares; also some amulets were considered particularly efficacious on certain days of the week or at certain locations.
The concept of a talisman is an end anchor of a sequence of continued totemization in three factor dimensions: 1) from very malignant to potentially beneficial, 2) from strong and uncontrolled will to weak and residing in an object, and 3) from very active in all aspects, to passive and useful only in certain prescribed instances. Psychologists will recognize these three factors as the three major dimensions of Osgood's Semantic Differential which is a distillation by factor analysis of all the adjectives applied to things, events, and persons. Table VII spells out the details.
Jaffe (Jung 1964:257ff) notes that even when the numinous element has gone through the full cycle from a dreadful and all powerful god to the relative immobility of a talisman, mysterious qualities still remain, making it a powerful symbol. She discusses three of these symbols, the stone, the animal, and the circle, and notes the long history of each as an object, as a talisman, and as a universal art symbol or mandala.
History shows the amelioration not only of the major presentation of the numinous (as noted above), but also in some of its specific forms. Hahn and Benes (1971:17ff) make this point clearly in the case of angels. They show that seraphs in the Bible are described as winged serpents with fiery bites. They further say (1971:21):
The word "cherub" comes from the Babylonian karibu designating a monster looking like the Garuda of Hindu mythology, that is a griffin or cross between a mammal and giant bird. . . . The cherubim of Moses and Solomon were sphinxes or griffins.
They note that Psalm 18 has God riding on such a cherub. These fearsome forms in the guise of mythical beasts are a far removal from the chubby cherubim that float over saints or the pale angels in the heavenly choir of more modern fancy.
While ancient and medieval man saw this process as concerned with the gradual freeing of himself from the onslaughts of gods and demons, we should not forget, looking at it from the stance of modern psychology, that what has happened is the gradual totemization of the numinous element from prototaxic states involving no cognitive
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control from the individual consciousness, through parataxic states, to syntaxic states involving considerable such control. The decrease with respect to time is in numinous entropy, and the increase is in human will.
From a psychological point of view, once the feared and dreaded aspects of the numinous can be totemized, expressed, and externalized in myth, the symbol loses its frightening aspect and becomes benign, being used in intercession and prayer to the extent that it becomes habitual and hence seems friendly.
3.45 Myth and Ritual
Myth and ritual are especially closely connected, since ritual is often the celebration of the myth. Before we turn to ritual, it may be helpful to consider the connection more closely.
Myth is finally connected with ritual as Fontenrose (1966:50-1) states:
We do of course, find some fairly exact correspondence of myth and ritual, both in the Old World and the New. Wherever this happens, the ritual is in fact a ritual drama, and in every instance we may suppose that it was purposely designated to enact the myth. Surely ancient Greek tragedy ... and the Japanese No plays were constructed on previously formed myths.
In general, however, Fontenrose does not believe that the origin of myth is in ritual, for he sees many kinds of myth, some of which are mere story-telling, like folklore.
But as Henderson (Jung 1964:123) tells us, ritual as well as myth recapitulates for the individual, developmental process in the race. He says:
In tribal societies, it is the initiation rite that most effectively solves this problem. The ritual takes the novice back to the deepest level of original mother-child identity or ego-self identity, thus forcing him to experience a symbolic death. In other words, his identity is temporarily dismembered or dissolved in the collective unconscious. From this state he is then ceremonially rescued by the rite of a new birth. This is the first act of true consolidation of the ego with the larger group, expressed as totem, clan, or tribe or all three combined.
The construct of "ritual as the enactment of myth" presents myth as source. This concept is controversial; many scholars posit that the action, the ritual, existed and the tale was created from the need to account for this action.
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Nagendra enters the controversy by saying (1972:32):
In fact the controversy whether myth is prior to ritual or ritual prior to myth arises only because the two are taken to be temporal relatives. If they are viewed as atemporal forms, the question of their temporal origin would not arise at all. When we say that ritual is acting out of a myth we do not suggest that the latter is prior to the former in point of historical origin. What we aim to emphasize is that ritual cannot be understood without action. And as the action must be logically prior to ritual, so myth must logically precede ritual.
Fontenrose points out (1966:57)
Myth narrates the primal event which sets the precedent for an institution. It may be a ritual institution or a cult. . . .
We shall explore this aspect of the relationship in our next section on ritual.
*
What's New with My Subject? 3.5 RITUAL
Ritual can be defined as social mimesis or imitation (in the Toynbee sense) of a numinous event in the life of one of its creative leaders. He says of it (1947:276):
Growth is the work of creative personalities and creative minorities; they cannot go on moving forward unless they can contrive to carry their fellows with them. . . . and the uncreative rank and file of mankind cannot be transformed en masse and raised to the stature of the leaders . . . the only means by which mankind can be set in motion toward a goal beyond itself is by enlisting the primitive and universal faculty of mimesis. For this mimesis is a kind of social drill . . .
Thus ritual (like the Christian sacraments) often carries on the vestige of a numinous experience, being the "outward and visible form of an inward and spiritual grace."
Most anthropologists, especially the earlier ones, in emphasizing the social and personal aspects of ritual tended to neglect or de-emphasize the numinous ones. As Turner (1969:3) points out, this is a serious mistake, for we should not read our values into those of a primitive society. He cites examples of Taylor, Robertson-Smith, Frazer, Boas, and Malinowski who did not make this mistake. We shall find that the magical-religious aspects of ritual in preserving man's individual
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and corporate security is an important one.
Talamonti (1971) also considers the numinous element important in ritual. His abstract:
includes general observations of rites and their reason for existence. The psychic forces involved and the unexplainable effects which are derived are emphasized. There is the possibility that rites can aid "magical creativity," which is an act of the human psyche in relation to nature. Various rites are cited: those conferring blessings and others involving hate, as well as the diabolical, political, liturgical, and spiritual rites. In all of these, the power of the "collective mind" is evident. Rituals indicate the eternal need in man for autotranscendence "to break the barriers of the ego in order to become a part of something greater."
The essence of ritual is that some action takes place whose psychic significance is not fully cognized by the participant. He is therefore performing a mimetic act, and in this process of mimesis he, by proxy as it were, receives the benefits of the syntaxic knowledge of the seer who instituted the ritual in the first place.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna gives a famous discourse on right action:
The world is imprisoned in its own activity, except when actions are performed as worship of God. Therefore you must perform every action sacramentally and be free from all attachment to results.
It is this sacramental view of ritual in which each "outward and visible" action is an evidence of an "inward and spiritual grace" that should be emphasized.
The principal advantage of ritual is the ease of its kinesthetic approach to juncture with the numinous element which occurs, because the motor activity, decreed to take place in exact and unvarying fashion for a long time becomes habitual, and hence is reduced to the unconscious level. At this there is juncture with the collective unconscious, and the act becomes sacramental, that is "an outward and visible form of an inward and spiritual grace."
Nagendra (1971:103) says:
The experience of the numinosum thus consists essentially of the conscious ego's unconscious encounter with the archetypes. And since the archetypes are of bi-polar character, having both beneficent and dangerous aspects, the religious experience involves a danger too.
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It is the function of ritual to protect this experience. He continues (p. 106):
We spoke earlier of the bipolarity of the archetypes and of the protective function of ritual. The experience of the numinous "whole" because of its overpowering nature constitutes a tremendous danger for the individual psyche. Human consciousness is too frail to act as an equal partner to the numinous power. Without a body of rituals and ceremonies, it would have been impossible for man in his infantile state of development to withstand the onslaught of the numinosum.
Nagendra (1971:110) declares:
After its birth the ego is left to its own to find out the modus operandi of coming to terms with its progenitor, the unconscious. In the first instance it tries to overcome its feeling of estrangement by a process of identification, unconsciously projecting the lost identity upon the outer world. Thus from the unconscious familial identity arises identity with parents. The claim of "mineness" upon things is thus a relic of the past unconscious identity of the ego and the non-ego. Now, insofar as the ego must rise above this identity in order to become one with the "whole," or to attain a state of self-realization, it must eventually destroy all claims of "mineness."
Nagendra (1971:113) says:
Ritual is ... a transcendentally necessary act, which means that the reality it symbolizes is neither social nor moral but metaphysical.
Nagendra (1971:170) points out that ritual is "the enactment of myth." He adds (Ibid: 175) "The myth has an 'archetypal' rather than a logical structure. The social view of ritual has been well explicated by Wilson (1954):
Rituals reveal values at their deepest level . . . men express in ritual what moves them most, and since the form of expression is conventionalized and obligatory, it is the values of the group that are revealed.
She concludes that ritual is thus the key to understanding society.
Turner (1969:93ff) describes ritual as society's way of emphasizing the importance of developmental discontinuities (such as sexual maturation). These rites de passage involve
(1) the separation of the ritualee from an earlier fixed point (such as childhood),
(2) a "liminal"
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or boundary state (circumcision or menarche rites) in which the ritualee group is deprived of earlier rights or privileges and subjected to some ordeal (which tends to develop comradeship and in-group feeling), and
(3) reincorporation into society and investiture of new status, power, or privilege (adulthood).
Turner says of this process (1969:96):
What is interesting about liminal phenomena ... is the blend they offer of lowliness and sacredness, of homogeneity and comradeship. We are presented in such rites with a "moment out of time" and ... out of secular social structure which reveals some recognition of a generalized social bond.
Turner calls this bond "communitas," (the kind of civic egalitarianism and cooperation seen after an earthquake or other disaster), and he points out that it is the function of ritual to produce temporary communitas in the liminal phase as an antidote for the entrenched class structure. He also points out that budding saints (1969:200) seek this communitas in humility and meekness, and concludes (1969:203):
The structurally inferior aspire to symbolic structural superiority in ritual; the structurally superior aspire to symbolic communitas and undergo penance to achieve it.
A careful analysis of definitions of the term "ritual" by well known sociologists and cultural anthropologists resulted in three different insights into the meaning of the term.4 Some see ritual as a "rightness of routine ... .. a perfect form of drill"; others see it as "a prescribed series of manipulations," "a sort of proper combination to achieve some purpose," for example, the content of ritual; the third deals with its basic objective such as warding off evil, bringing good luck, or the propitiation of supernatural forces. The etymological source is taken from the Latin "ritus" meaning custom. This has led sociologists to believe that ritual is the routine of an organized religion.
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1969:1121) is in agreement with the sociologists, for the definitions listed are offshoots of the three propounded insights referred to above.
1. The prescribed form or order of conducting a religious or solemn ceremony.
2. The body of ceremonies or rites used in a church, fraternal organization, or the like: a system of rites.
3. A book of rites or ceremonial forms.
4. Often plural,
(a) a ceremonial act or a series of such acts, and
(b) the performance of such acts.
5. Any detailed method of procedure faithfully or regularly followed,
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(a) of or characterized by a rite or rites, and
(b) practiced as a rite such as a ritual fire dance.
Bossard and Boll (1956:14) in their second edition of Ritual in Family Living develop an interesting view of ritual.
Words tend to be known by the company they keep; sometimes that company becomes a jealous mistress, taking a word and keeping it for its own particular use and purpose. The word "ritual" is a case in point.
Ritual is just such a word. The students of religion have made use of it in three different manners: as the origin of religion, as a technique of magic and worship, and as a part of the ethical and control system of religion. Anthropologists are the other group who have featured the term, ritual, prominently. Their emphasis is mainly in the role of ritual in the development of religion; this results in ritual being everywhere interwoven with the discussions of totemism, magic, taboo, and myth. This development has resulted with ritual being identified in terms of ceremonial and worship.
Ritual is seen as a system of procedure by Bossard and Boll. This conclusion is the most popular one found in literature and common usage. Three characteristics are unvarying in their presence in a system of procedure as defined by ritual. According to Bossard and Boll these characteristics are (1956:15):
First ... ritual means exactness and precision. Second, there is the element of rigidity ... and finally, there is a sense of rightness which emerges from the past history of the process.
Bronislaw Malinowski, the social anthropologist responsible for taking anthropology from a discipline concerned with mere "origin hunting" to the status of an individual "science of culture" does not see ritual arising from social sources. S. P. Nagendra in his book The Concept of Ritual in Modem Sociological Theory (1971:73) quotes Malinowski as saying of ritual:
It arises from purely individual sources although it is always social by nature ... the principle of the ritual is bio-psychic.
Malinowski sees the function of ritual to lie in the role it plays in allaying anxiety and inspiring confidence in the individual as he moves and exists in "his life." He stresses the role that culture plays in a system of activities functioning in response to the basic needs of the individual.
There is evident a gradual drawing away from categorizing ritual
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as a mere system of procedure. Nagendra (1971:81) goes so far as to declare that ritual acts
... stand in direct contrast to technical acts insofar as the former are purely symbolic while the latter are purposive.
According to Radcliffe-Brown (Nagendra 1971:81) ritual is essentially an "expressive mode of action" and "leaves the analysis of its meaning at the figurative level (metaphorical)."
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Two basic psychoanalytic theories of ritual have come down to us from Sigmund Freud and C. G. Jung. Both have as the central point the concept of the "unconscious" on the individual and collective planes. They both regard ritual as expression of the unconscious. Their separateness is in the symbolic content of ritual: according to Freud it is repressed material to be dismissed; according to Jung it is archetypal. Commenting, Nagendra says (1971:29):
The prototype of ritual in Freud's view is the obsessional act of the compulsive neurotic whereas in Jung's view it is the act of individuation.
Individuation can be defined as the process whereby the conscious and the unconscious of an individual learn to not only live at peace with each other, but learn to complement each other. Depth psychology, as evidenced in the words of Ira Progoff (1973:171) has this to say:
Ceremonials and rituals are the means provided by society for periodically drawing up the sums of energy attached to the symbols, lest the symbols sink back into the unconscious.
Ritual is not action for the fun of action, whether it be a mimetic ritual or one of more somber thoughts. It is, as Nagendra puts it (1971:36)
. . . the most primitive reflection of serious thought, a slow deposit as it were of people's imaginative insight into life.
If that is the case then one must agree with Nagendra as he succinctly summarizes (1971:121):
The purpose of ritual is ritual itself; partaking in its performance is an end itself, and upon the fulfillment of this end, depends the continuity of both the natural and social orders.
The definition of ritual that has been adopted for this discussion
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is that made by Nagendra as his concluding theme in The Concept of Ritual in Modem Sociological Theory: ritual is symbolic action - the enactment of the myth. A. K. Coomaraswamy says in Nagendra's book (1971:13):
Ritual is the perfect performance of one's task, or conversely, the perfect performance of one's task is the celebration of ritual.
Symbolic actions are not governed by the laws of logic which govern ordinary actions. Nagendra quotes from A. K. Coomaraswamy's Hinduism and Buddhism (Nagendra 1971:13):
Ritual is not a matter of doing specifically sacred things only on particular occasion but of . . . making sacred all we do and all we are, a matter of sanctification of whatever is done naturally by reduction of all activities to their principle.
3.41 General Introduction
True myth is defined by Graves (1955:10) as "the reduction to narrative shorthand of ritual mime performed on public festivals. ... Their subjects were archaic magic-makings that promoted the fertility or stability of a sacred queendom, . . ." Graves goes on to point out that magic, supernatural or totem calendar-beasts figured in these rituals, and that to understand Greek mythology we must appreciate the matriarchal and totemistic system which held sway there before incursion of patriarchal invaders. An example of such a mythical beast was the chimera, with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail.
While Jung believes that myths are original revelations of the preconscious psyche, Graves holds that a "true science of myth should begin with a study of archaeology, history, and comparative religion" (1955:22).
Eliade concludes that the value of myth lies in its ability to evoke a numinous relationship through a priest or by proxy for a believer who is otherwise, however, incapable of any other relationship with the ground of being. He says (1969:59):
The myth continually reactualizes the Great Time and in so doing raises the listener to a superhuman and suprahistorical plane; which among other things, enables him to approach a Reality that is inaccessible at the level of profane, individual existence.
It may be seen that this indeed is the function of all parataxic representation, not only with myth, but also with archetypes, dreams, art, and especially ritual. For whether we consider ritual magic or the Mass of the Church, it is obvious that ritual has the common purpose of gaining merit and personal advantage for the celebrant and his constituency, through approach to the numinous element or some manifestation of it.
The archeology of man's developing social thought is preserved in myth. Recently acquired is the "loose and separate" consciousness of Western man which separates him from the continuum of nature in time, space, and personality. More primitive consciousness was not so differentiated; it was more dreamy and less clear. In myth we find remnants of images now less than precise, whose equivocal ambivalence was once an asset. In the dawning of consciousness, wherein myth abounded, it was easier to believe that man might
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be metamorphosed into an animal or vice versa, that magical flight could conquer space, and that precognition could reverse time. The vestiges of these motifs in myth is testimony to the development of a conscious ego from a primal self which did not know itself as distinct from nature. The periodic developmental stage theory (Gowan 1972,1974) presents an ontogenic recapitulation of evolutionary phylogeny. The differentiation of ego functioning culminates in stage 5, (the Eriksonian identity crisis), as the individual correlate of the evolution of the personal ego in the species.
Eliade (1969:14) points out that this mythical repository in modern man has been relegated to the attic of the unconscious:
For the unconscious is not haunted by monsters only: the gods, goddesses, the heroes, and the fairies dwell there too; moreover, the monsters of the unconscious are themselves mythological, seeing that they continue to fulfill the same functions that they fulfilled in all the mythologies - in the last analysis that of helping man liberate himself. . . .
But images possess the disadvantage of not being categorical. Says Eliade (1969:15):
Images by their very nature are multivalent (i.o.). If the mind makes use of images to grasp the ultimate reality of things, it is just because reality manifests itself in contradictory ways, and therefore cannot be expressed in concepts.
Eliade (1969:57) tells us:
Myth is an account of events which took place in principio, that is "in the beginning," in a primordial and non-temporal instant, a moment of sacred time (i.o.). The mythic or sacred time is qualitatively different from profane time, from continuous and irreversible time of our everyday de- sacralized existence. In narrating a myth one reactualizes in some sort the sacred time in which the events narrated took place.
Myth, therefore is a way of bringing the numinous to the common man without involving him in an altered state of consciousness. Its sacramental character veils an inner numinous truth which is explicated by the ritual which the myth demands, and which action reaffirms the relationship between the present which is in time, and the numinous which is out of time.
Eliade (1963:18) says:
Myth as experienced in archaic societies:
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(1) constitute the history and acts of the supernaturals;
(2) this history is considered to be absolutely true ... and sacred;
(3) that myth is always related to creation (it tells how something came into existence);
(4) that by knowing the myth one knows the origin of things, and hence can control and manipulate them at will (by) a knowledge that one "experiences" ritually, either by ceremonially recounting the myth, or by performing the ritual for which it is the justification;
(5) that in one way or another one "lives" the myth, in the sense that one is "seized" by the sacred exalting power of the events recollected or re-enacted.
Gaster (1950:11) traces the origin of myth as "a sequence of ritual acts, which ... have characterized major seasonal festivities." These as he explains (1950:9) are "derived from a religious ritual designed to ensure the rebirth of a dead world." He elaborates on the central thesis (1950:17) as follows:
Seasonal rituals are functional in character. Their purpose is to revive the topocosm (i.o.), that is, the entire complex of any given locality conceived as a living organism. But this topocosm possesses a ... durative aspect, representing not only actual and present community, but also the ideal of community, an entity, of which the latter is but the current manifestation. Accordingly, seasonal rituals are accompanied by myths which are designed to present the purely functional acts in terms of ideal and durative situations. The impenetration of myth and ritual creates drama. ... What the King does on the punctual plane, the God does on the durative. . . . The pattern is based on the conception that life is vouchsafed in a series of leases which have annually to be renewed.3
It would be difficult to state more clearly and concisely the central motivating elements of myth than has here been done. The concept that the topocosm needs to be renewed like an annual lease, and that since it exists on the transcendental (durative) level, it can be affected as if in sympathetic magic on the temporal (punctual) level, and finally that it is a living organism amenable to the efforts of man, is both good anthropology and excellent psychology regarding man's parataxic relationship to the numinous element.
In contrast to the void of the numinous element, but in no wise the antithesis of it, stands a conceptualization identified by Gaster (1950) as the "durative topocosm." It would be easy to say that this represents nature, seen in her anthropomorphic aspects, but that is too simple; another partial view would equate this conceptualization
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to the goddess Ceres with all her manifestations of bounty, but even this does not capture the full "durative" aspect. For it embraces not merely the progression of the seasons, and the fecundation of nature, processes which eventuate at a given time and place, but the generative element in these processes which continues as in a procession or ceremony to provide the continual source and origin of what man merely sees as an outcome at a given time and place. It is the numinous clothed and housed in forms which we perceive as natural.
Thus Malinowski (1928:23) says:
We can find among the most primitive peoples and throughout the lower savagery a belief in a supernatural impersonal force, moving all those agencies which are relevant to the savage and causing all the really important events in the domain of the sacred. Thus mana (i.o.) not animism is the essence of "pre-animistic religion," and is also the essence of magic. . . .
The durative topocosm is generally celebrated as Sir James Frazer noted in "The Golden Bough"in cults and ceremonies of vegetation and fertility. As in totemism (Malinowski 1968:45) "This ritual leads to acts of a magical nature, by which plenty is brought about" and man by his rites certifies the renewal of the annual lease of the potential bounty of the topocosm.
Malinowski (1968:73) quotes Codrington as saying:
This mana is not fixed in anything, and can be conveyed in almost anything. (It) acts in all ways for good and evil . . ., shows itself in physical force or in any kind of power or excellence which a man possesses.
Ultimate reality, in the guise of the durative topocosm, cannot adequately present itself through a language of tensed verbs. Hence it must do so through a metaphor of continual recurrence; we should learn to recognize such usage in myth and fable as signifying the advent of the "spacious present" in which clock time is transcended. Such fables as Sisyphus rolling up the stone, which rolls down again, the Medusa which grows two heads when one is cut off, Brigadoon which keeps appearing one day every hundred years, ghosts which keep haunting a castle on an anniversary, are alike examples of an incident which "occur" in durative time, and which, therefore, seem to keep repeating in ours. A second example of the durative nature of this reality is the fact that mortals immersed in it (in fable) are apt to find that a shorter duration in it amounts to a
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much longer elapse of clock time. Examples which come to mind include Brigadoon, Rip Van Winkle, and many fairy tales.10
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Myth involves explication of psychic tensions which activate archetypes and dreams, but are now expressed in the ordinary state of consciousness in terms of images. Cassirer (1955:11:25-36) points out the development of image in the parataxic mode as follows:
The mythical world is concrete ... because in it the two main factors, thing and signification are undifferentiated. . . . The concresence of name and thing in the linguistic consciousness of primitives and children might be illustrated ... (striking example: name tabus).... But as language develops, distinct from all mere physical existence and all physical efficacy, the word emerges in its own specificity, in its purely ideal significatory function. And art leads us to still another stage of development. . . . Here for the first time the image world acquires a purely immanent validity and truth. . . . Thus for the first time the world of images becomes a self-contained cosmos ... severing its bonds with immediate reality, with material existence and efficacy which constitute the world of magic and myth; it embodies a new step.
Psychic tensions exist in a society as well as in individuals. The parataxic outlet for these tensions in the individual is art; in society it is myth and ritual. Myth of course is an example of the outletting of such tensions: Abell explains (1966:94):
Similarly a myth has not only its "active period of psychic eruption and imaginative overflow, but also its subsequent period of extinction and disintegration." A later form of extinct myth will differ greatly from the earlier expression of the active period and may retain little of the tension-imagery.
He continues (1966:96):
The action of eruptive and erosive forces in the sphere of the near myth can be observed in the phases through which every artistic movement seems destined to pass. An exploratory or "creative" phase is eventually succeeded by a stereotyped or "academic" phase. Artists, participating in the exploratory phase,
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... work with feverish intensity and bring forth results that are dazzling, often bewildering and seemingly unreasonable to those who witness their cultural emergence.
Some writers, perhaps metaphorically, see myth as the record of a "social womb" in which primitive man, not yet endowed with full cognition, is protected from reality by a dreamy placental envelope.
Hall (1960: 10) points out that from an occult point of view mythologies and mythological characters may have developed from racial memories of super-identities who helped our species become human.
3.42 Examples of Myth11
Henderson (Jung 1964:101) points out that the "hero myth" is the most common and popular in the world. He says:
Over and over again one hears a tale describing a hero's miraculous but humble birth, his early proof of superhuman strength, his rapid rise to prominence or power, his triumphant struggle with the forces of evil, his fallibility to the sin of pride (hubris) and his fall through betrayal or a heroic sacrifice that ends in death.
Radin (1948) in Hero Cycles of the Winnebago notes four cycles in the evolution of the hero myth, calling them (1) the trickster cycle, (2) the hare cycle, (3) the red horn cycle, and (4) the twin cycle. The trickster sees his environment as a giver or withholder of good things, and craftily exploits it or appeases it to get what he wants. The hare represents a socialization of the trickster for he cooperates with his group instead of exploiting them. The third cycle Red Horn, is a younger brother who has envious brethren and who proves himself through endurance, thus raising his self-esteem. Finally, the twins are a pair of superhuman brothers who conquer heaven and earth, but finally sicken of their power, and either fall out or one betrays the other, and the death of one ensures. It is very easy to see in this hero myth parallels to the development of self-concept in the growing boy from a solitary exploiter of the world (in the third stage), through socialization in the fourth stage to identification with a brother in the fifth stage. Thus does ontogeny in the individual parallel phylogeny in the species.12
Henderson (Jung 1964:130) points out another universal myth that is often found in dreams of adolescent girls who are having difficulty accepting their feminine role as wife and mother. He says:
A universal myth expressing this kind of awakening is found in the fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast. The best known version
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of this story related how Beauty, the youngest of four daughters, becomes her father's favorite because of her unselfish goodness. When she asks her father for only a white rose, she is aware only of her inner sincerity of feeling. She does not know that she is about to endanger her father's life and her ideal relation with him. For he steals the white rose from the enchanted garden of the Beast, who is stirred to anger by this theft, and requires him to return in three months for his punishment, presumably death.
As Henderson points out, the rose is the (sublimated) sexual love between daughter and father, a love which really belongs to a younger rival (the Beast), whose bestial aspects personify the rejected overt sex from which Beauty is free as long as she is "daddy's little girl." But as the tale tells us, Beauty is required to make an overt sexual advance (kiss the beast), and when she does so, she finds that he is transformed into a wonderful prince.
A third example of universal myth comes from tribal Africa. In Hahn's book on Africa (1961) "Ntu" is the numinous element, never seen but in its manifestations which are Muntu (man), Nommo (the power of the word) Kuntu (Modes and Styles), and Hantu (culture). All of these are part of the topocosm, that durative world of which our own series of events in space and time is only a shadow.
These three examples of myth account for bravery in males, beauty and charm in females, and the numinous quality found in man and indeed in nature.
3.43 Myth and Animals
Because primitive man lived much closer to the animals than we do and had reason to fear and totemize some of them, it is natural to find that animals play a great part in his myths. Myths about animals fall into three categories: (1) the transformation of man into animal or vice versa, (2) the totemization of a feared animal, and (3) the nagual or animal-twin of individual men. These categories are of course interconnected. They all represent attempts to extract the numinous quality from the animal and incorporate it into the individual (in character) or in society (in totem).
One of the environmental penalties of modern urban life is the estrangement of mankind from the animals. We do not realize this until we revert to the farm in the country or visit a game park. Man in simpler times, whether hunter or agriculturalist, lived on intimate terms with the animals in his habitat. He hunted them, he was hunted by them, he used them, he had them round and often
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in his dwelling, he played with them, lived close to them, and used anecdotes about them in his songs and dances. The importance of animals in the thinking of primitive man can scarcely be exaggerated; it is seen in myth and legend. The importance of animals in the farm life of man during the last millenium can be seen even in the different etymology and plurals of such ancient words as oxen, geese, mice, kine, deer.
One of the most important relationships of man to the animals in the hunting stage was success in finding game upon which sustanence and perhaps life itself might depend. Myth and ritual of the great hunter and the successful hunt thereby came to be very important.
Baumann (1954:149-50) explains the Lascaux Caves hunting magic dance pictures as follows:
These dances seem incredibly wild and grotesque. To an outsider the dancers appear to be quite beside themselves. And that is exactly what they are. Their burning desire carries them away while they are still dancing on the trail of the beast on which their thoughts are concentrated. In the dance their souls reach the utmost height of tension. Suddenly they let themselves go as the hunters' hand lets the arrow speed from the taut bow. They fall down; their bodies lie soulless, while their souls which have become arrows ... fly out and strike the beast.
But man was not only the hunter, he was sometimes the hunted. The universality of fear produced psychic tension which gave expression in myth. The prevalence of wolves as the primary predators upon our European ancestors is nowhere more noticeable than in the myth of lycanthropy as a projective defense mechanism. Wedeck (1961:171) tells us: "The werewolf appears in every culture and in every age. The ancients from Homer to Mela, from Varro and Virgil to Apuleius, Stabo, and Solinus testify to the prevalence of lycanthropy." The major predator explanation is reinforced again by Wedeck (1971:171) who points out that while werewolves are confined to Europe,
in some countries the change from man to animal involves another creature. In Malaya, for example, the human being changes into a tiger; in Iceland a bear; in Africa a tiger, hyena, or leopard; in India a tiger or leopard.
Let us remember that this fear of the supernatural animal is itself a totemization of an even more irrational fear of demons and monsters which plagued primitive man and is revealed in myth. But if animals
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were first invested with these magic properties of transformation, the fear of them could also be totemized by making the animal a blood brother ("I won't hunt you, and you won't hunt me), and this process eventually led to the myth of nagualism. Let us trace this syndrome in detail.
Abell asks (1966:155):
Was belief in the monster myths a useless though spontaneous result of the tensions of Neolithic life or did it perform some positive psychic function? . . . . Freud observes that "the dream relieves the mind like a safety valve, and that as Roberts has put it, all kinds of harmful material are rendered harmless by representation in dreams." No doubt the same could be said about myth.
He continues (1966:156):
The myth centered tribal fears in a being so formidable that no man could be condemned for fearing him; an indirect way of granting the fears a social sanction.
Abell opines that the positive note in religious belief is a developing function in culture, little seen in early man. He states (1966:158):
It seems evident that the positive aspects of Neolithic tension imagery were relatively little developed, offering nothing comparable in vividness or intensity to the monsters who swarmed around the negative pole.
According to Salar (1964) a nagual has two definitions; (1) the animal alter ego of an individual, a "guardian-spirit" or "destiny animal" (Middleton 1967:71, who gives many other cites), sometimes with astrological significance. Saler states that some believe in an affinity between the human and animal in regard to character traits and destiny; and (2) that of a transforming witch (akin to our werewolf) who is able to change into animal form in order to do evil at night.
Oakes (1951:170ff) reports that the Guatemalan Indians of the highlands show traces of a belief in nagualism (animal co-spirits for humans). According to this belief each child has a nagual animal and their lives are closely connected. From this it is easy to go to the ability of chimans (shamans) to change at will into animal form, and she relates tales of this sort given by the natives. Whereas the animal form in Europe is generally the wolf (werewolves), the animal form in this location is the coyote. For more on nagualism see Brinton (1894).
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Radin (1927:343) describes how the bear totem affects ceremonial treatment of the captured animal:
When a bear is caught, it is treated with all imaginable veneration and respect. First the hunter addresses a few words of apology and explanation to the animal. Then it is killed and dressed up in all the finery obtainable. . . . When a dead bear is dressed up, this is done as an offering or prayer to the chief of the bears, that he may send the Indians more of his children. ... In gratitude for the treatment accorded him, the bear forgives his slayers and enters their traps a willing and fascinated sacrifice.
Baumann (1954:152) speaking of the Lascaux cave drawings discusses nagualism as follows:
And just as every Red Indian felt he was bound in some special way to some animal, so also did every ice-age hunter. The guardian spirit dwelled in this one animal. Among the Red Indians the animal is called the totem. The ice-age hunter too had his totem animal, and he also tattooed the picture of his animal on his breast.
This process of "totemizing" the fearsome aspects of experience whether found in the natural world or in the numinous is extremely important as it shows how myth was used to reduce fear and irrational dread and to bring the experience into rational consciousness from the trauma with which it was first associated. It is hence necessary to discuss the totemization of myth.
3.44 Totemization of Myth
3.441 General
For a definition of "totem" we go to Malinowski (1928:24-5):
Totemism, to quote Frazer's classical definition: is an inanimate relation which is supposed to exist between a group of kindred people on the one side and a species of natural or artificial objects on the other, which objects are called the totems of the human group.
Malinowski (1928:25) quotes Durkheim as saying:
"In this the totemic principle which is identical with mana and with the God of the clan ... can be nothing else than the clan itself."
As man ascends in evolutionary development, he becomes more
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conscious of the numinous element and of himself as apart from it. He also begins the totemization of the more dreadful aspects of the numinous element: indeed, the whole parataxic mode is a kind of veiling of the head of Medusa. There is also a kind of slow change in regard to man's relation to various manifestations of the generalized preconscious.
We thus have a historical progress corresponding to slow evolutionary psychic development which goes somewhat as follows in regard to man's relationship to the numinous element:
1. In the ancient world man is seen as the puppet of the numinous element, which behaves in a capricious and irrational manner toward him.
2. Second, man is seen at the mercy of devils and demons; while menacing, they have only the power to tempt him, and may not punish or torture him unless he sins; furthermore he may at least partially ward off their evil influence by faith in the mother church.
This Christian belief has its pagan correlate in the similar belief about monsters and mythical animals (cf. Beowulf). As time goes on, however, the man triumphs over the monster more often, and remains to tell the tale. Sometimes (St. George and the Dragon) there is fusion of the Christian and Pagan elements.
A further change reduces the Christian numinous element to ghosts and the pagan counterpart to witches, fairies, and animals with supernatural power (werewolves).
3. Third, as the numinous element grows less to be feared, the human will comes more to be respected, and Promethean man is in process of birth.
To trace this progression more clearly let H stand for the human protagonist, and let N stand for the numinous element in some presentation indicated by a parenthesis:
1. H the plaything and puppet of N (gods and demons)
2. H preyed upon by N (mythical animals) (Beowulf)
3. H wars with and sometimes conquers N (animals with supernatural powers (St. George and the Dragon)
4. H plagued by devils who tempt him, but can resist them if faithful to tenets of mother church.
5. H plagued by N (witches, ghosts) whose power is definitely limited, and who may by craft be defeated or limited.
6. H helped by N (saints) who as former humans lived good lives.
7. H helped or hindered by N (fairies) whose magic is severely limited.
8. H aided by N (now a talisman or thing) whose power is beneficent but limited.
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9. H uses N in a psychological manner for alleviation of pain (as in hypnotism, biofeedback, etc.).
10. H becomes creative and meditative (section 4.3, 4.6) thus "gentling" the effect of N, and placing it under more control.
11. H understands orthocognition (section 4.5) and gains fuller use of N, now expressed as power over environment.
12. H becomes psychedelic (4.7) and N is expressed in very positive affect and knowledge.
This interaction ranges from the human individual being used and persecuted to his using and exploiting, in other words from passivity to activity. The N variable goes from gods and demons through mythical animals, witches, fairies, talismans, and finally to a broader concept of the numinous element as an impersonal force.
3.442 Talismans
A talisman (Webster's International Dictionary) is a figure of a heavenly sign cut or engraved on a stone, metal, or ring sympathetic to the influence of the star, hence something that (is carried) to produce extraordinary effects, such as averting evil. "Talisman" connotes wider and more positive powers than "amulet." "Charm" may be equivalent to either.
Table VII Mythic Manifestations of Numinous Element
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Whereas a talisman may well be a gem with general powers for good, amulet (Dictionary of Magic) is generally a specific against a particular calamity, such as black magic, imprisonment, loss of property, and the like. "The amulet may be a gem or the tail of a fox, a lizard, a mandrake root, or colored threads, a ring, nail, key, or knot." There are specific amulets against nightmares; also some amulets were considered particularly efficacious on certain days of the week or at certain locations.
The concept of a talisman is an end anchor of a sequence of continued totemization in three factor dimensions: 1) from very malignant to potentially beneficial, 2) from strong and uncontrolled will to weak and residing in an object, and 3) from very active in all aspects, to passive and useful only in certain prescribed instances. Psychologists will recognize these three factors as the three major dimensions of Osgood's Semantic Differential which is a distillation by factor analysis of all the adjectives applied to things, events, and persons. Table VII spells out the details.
Jaffe (Jung 1964:257ff) notes that even when the numinous element has gone through the full cycle from a dreadful and all powerful god to the relative immobility of a talisman, mysterious qualities still remain, making it a powerful symbol. She discusses three of these symbols, the stone, the animal, and the circle, and notes the long history of each as an object, as a talisman, and as a universal art symbol or mandala.
History shows the amelioration not only of the major presentation of the numinous (as noted above), but also in some of its specific forms. Hahn and Benes (1971:17ff) make this point clearly in the case of angels. They show that seraphs in the Bible are described as winged serpents with fiery bites. They further say (1971:21):
The word "cherub" comes from the Babylonian karibu designating a monster looking like the Garuda of Hindu mythology, that is a griffin or cross between a mammal and giant bird. . . . The cherubim of Moses and Solomon were sphinxes or griffins.
They note that Psalm 18 has God riding on such a cherub. These fearsome forms in the guise of mythical beasts are a far removal from the chubby cherubim that float over saints or the pale angels in the heavenly choir of more modern fancy.
While ancient and medieval man saw this process as concerned with the gradual freeing of himself from the onslaughts of gods and demons, we should not forget, looking at it from the stance of modern psychology, that what has happened is the gradual totemization of the numinous element from prototaxic states involving no cognitive
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control from the individual consciousness, through parataxic states, to syntaxic states involving considerable such control. The decrease with respect to time is in numinous entropy, and the increase is in human will.
From a psychological point of view, once the feared and dreaded aspects of the numinous can be totemized, expressed, and externalized in myth, the symbol loses its frightening aspect and becomes benign, being used in intercession and prayer to the extent that it becomes habitual and hence seems friendly.
3.45 Myth and Ritual
Myth and ritual are especially closely connected, since ritual is often the celebration of the myth. Before we turn to ritual, it may be helpful to consider the connection more closely.
Myth is finally connected with ritual as Fontenrose (1966:50-1) states:
We do of course, find some fairly exact correspondence of myth and ritual, both in the Old World and the New. Wherever this happens, the ritual is in fact a ritual drama, and in every instance we may suppose that it was purposely designated to enact the myth. Surely ancient Greek tragedy ... and the Japanese No plays were constructed on previously formed myths.
In general, however, Fontenrose does not believe that the origin of myth is in ritual, for he sees many kinds of myth, some of which are mere story-telling, like folklore.
But as Henderson (Jung 1964:123) tells us, ritual as well as myth recapitulates for the individual, developmental process in the race. He says:
In tribal societies, it is the initiation rite that most effectively solves this problem. The ritual takes the novice back to the deepest level of original mother-child identity or ego-self identity, thus forcing him to experience a symbolic death. In other words, his identity is temporarily dismembered or dissolved in the collective unconscious. From this state he is then ceremonially rescued by the rite of a new birth. This is the first act of true consolidation of the ego with the larger group, expressed as totem, clan, or tribe or all three combined.
The construct of "ritual as the enactment of myth" presents myth as source. This concept is controversial; many scholars posit that the action, the ritual, existed and the tale was created from the need to account for this action.
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Nagendra enters the controversy by saying (1972:32):
In fact the controversy whether myth is prior to ritual or ritual prior to myth arises only because the two are taken to be temporal relatives. If they are viewed as atemporal forms, the question of their temporal origin would not arise at all. When we say that ritual is acting out of a myth we do not suggest that the latter is prior to the former in point of historical origin. What we aim to emphasize is that ritual cannot be understood without action. And as the action must be logically prior to ritual, so myth must logically precede ritual.
Fontenrose points out (1966:57)
Myth narrates the primal event which sets the precedent for an institution. It may be a ritual institution or a cult. . . .
We shall explore this aspect of the relationship in our next section on ritual.
*
What's New with My Subject? 3.5 RITUAL
Ritual can be defined as social mimesis or imitation (in the Toynbee sense) of a numinous event in the life of one of its creative leaders. He says of it (1947:276):
Growth is the work of creative personalities and creative minorities; they cannot go on moving forward unless they can contrive to carry their fellows with them. . . . and the uncreative rank and file of mankind cannot be transformed en masse and raised to the stature of the leaders . . . the only means by which mankind can be set in motion toward a goal beyond itself is by enlisting the primitive and universal faculty of mimesis. For this mimesis is a kind of social drill . . .
Thus ritual (like the Christian sacraments) often carries on the vestige of a numinous experience, being the "outward and visible form of an inward and spiritual grace."
Most anthropologists, especially the earlier ones, in emphasizing the social and personal aspects of ritual tended to neglect or de-emphasize the numinous ones. As Turner (1969:3) points out, this is a serious mistake, for we should not read our values into those of a primitive society. He cites examples of Taylor, Robertson-Smith, Frazer, Boas, and Malinowski who did not make this mistake. We shall find that the magical-religious aspects of ritual in preserving man's individual
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and corporate security is an important one.
Talamonti (1971) also considers the numinous element important in ritual. His abstract:
includes general observations of rites and their reason for existence. The psychic forces involved and the unexplainable effects which are derived are emphasized. There is the possibility that rites can aid "magical creativity," which is an act of the human psyche in relation to nature. Various rites are cited: those conferring blessings and others involving hate, as well as the diabolical, political, liturgical, and spiritual rites. In all of these, the power of the "collective mind" is evident. Rituals indicate the eternal need in man for autotranscendence "to break the barriers of the ego in order to become a part of something greater."
The essence of ritual is that some action takes place whose psychic significance is not fully cognized by the participant. He is therefore performing a mimetic act, and in this process of mimesis he, by proxy as it were, receives the benefits of the syntaxic knowledge of the seer who instituted the ritual in the first place.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna gives a famous discourse on right action:
The world is imprisoned in its own activity, except when actions are performed as worship of God. Therefore you must perform every action sacramentally and be free from all attachment to results.
It is this sacramental view of ritual in which each "outward and visible" action is an evidence of an "inward and spiritual grace" that should be emphasized.
The principal advantage of ritual is the ease of its kinesthetic approach to juncture with the numinous element which occurs, because the motor activity, decreed to take place in exact and unvarying fashion for a long time becomes habitual, and hence is reduced to the unconscious level. At this there is juncture with the collective unconscious, and the act becomes sacramental, that is "an outward and visible form of an inward and spiritual grace."
Nagendra (1971:103) says:
The experience of the numinosum thus consists essentially of the conscious ego's unconscious encounter with the archetypes. And since the archetypes are of bi-polar character, having both beneficent and dangerous aspects, the religious experience involves a danger too.
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It is the function of ritual to protect this experience. He continues (p. 106):
We spoke earlier of the bipolarity of the archetypes and of the protective function of ritual. The experience of the numinous "whole" because of its overpowering nature constitutes a tremendous danger for the individual psyche. Human consciousness is too frail to act as an equal partner to the numinous power. Without a body of rituals and ceremonies, it would have been impossible for man in his infantile state of development to withstand the onslaught of the numinosum.
Nagendra (1971:110) declares:
After its birth the ego is left to its own to find out the modus operandi of coming to terms with its progenitor, the unconscious. In the first instance it tries to overcome its feeling of estrangement by a process of identification, unconsciously projecting the lost identity upon the outer world. Thus from the unconscious familial identity arises identity with parents. The claim of "mineness" upon things is thus a relic of the past unconscious identity of the ego and the non-ego. Now, insofar as the ego must rise above this identity in order to become one with the "whole," or to attain a state of self-realization, it must eventually destroy all claims of "mineness."
Nagendra (1971:113) says:
Ritual is ... a transcendentally necessary act, which means that the reality it symbolizes is neither social nor moral but metaphysical.
Nagendra (1971:170) points out that ritual is "the enactment of myth." He adds (Ibid: 175) "The myth has an 'archetypal' rather than a logical structure. The social view of ritual has been well explicated by Wilson (1954):
Rituals reveal values at their deepest level . . . men express in ritual what moves them most, and since the form of expression is conventionalized and obligatory, it is the values of the group that are revealed.
She concludes that ritual is thus the key to understanding society.
Turner (1969:93ff) describes ritual as society's way of emphasizing the importance of developmental discontinuities (such as sexual maturation). These rites de passage involve
(1) the separation of the ritualee from an earlier fixed point (such as childhood),
(2) a "liminal"
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or boundary state (circumcision or menarche rites) in which the ritualee group is deprived of earlier rights or privileges and subjected to some ordeal (which tends to develop comradeship and in-group feeling), and
(3) reincorporation into society and investiture of new status, power, or privilege (adulthood).
Turner says of this process (1969:96):
What is interesting about liminal phenomena ... is the blend they offer of lowliness and sacredness, of homogeneity and comradeship. We are presented in such rites with a "moment out of time" and ... out of secular social structure which reveals some recognition of a generalized social bond.
Turner calls this bond "communitas," (the kind of civic egalitarianism and cooperation seen after an earthquake or other disaster), and he points out that it is the function of ritual to produce temporary communitas in the liminal phase as an antidote for the entrenched class structure. He also points out that budding saints (1969:200) seek this communitas in humility and meekness, and concludes (1969:203):
The structurally inferior aspire to symbolic structural superiority in ritual; the structurally superior aspire to symbolic communitas and undergo penance to achieve it.
A careful analysis of definitions of the term "ritual" by well known sociologists and cultural anthropologists resulted in three different insights into the meaning of the term.4 Some see ritual as a "rightness of routine ... .. a perfect form of drill"; others see it as "a prescribed series of manipulations," "a sort of proper combination to achieve some purpose," for example, the content of ritual; the third deals with its basic objective such as warding off evil, bringing good luck, or the propitiation of supernatural forces. The etymological source is taken from the Latin "ritus" meaning custom. This has led sociologists to believe that ritual is the routine of an organized religion.
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1969:1121) is in agreement with the sociologists, for the definitions listed are offshoots of the three propounded insights referred to above.
1. The prescribed form or order of conducting a religious or solemn ceremony.
2. The body of ceremonies or rites used in a church, fraternal organization, or the like: a system of rites.
3. A book of rites or ceremonial forms.
4. Often plural,
(a) a ceremonial act or a series of such acts, and
(b) the performance of such acts.
5. Any detailed method of procedure faithfully or regularly followed,
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(a) of or characterized by a rite or rites, and
(b) practiced as a rite such as a ritual fire dance.
Bossard and Boll (1956:14) in their second edition of Ritual in Family Living develop an interesting view of ritual.
Words tend to be known by the company they keep; sometimes that company becomes a jealous mistress, taking a word and keeping it for its own particular use and purpose. The word "ritual" is a case in point.
Ritual is just such a word. The students of religion have made use of it in three different manners: as the origin of religion, as a technique of magic and worship, and as a part of the ethical and control system of religion. Anthropologists are the other group who have featured the term, ritual, prominently. Their emphasis is mainly in the role of ritual in the development of religion; this results in ritual being everywhere interwoven with the discussions of totemism, magic, taboo, and myth. This development has resulted with ritual being identified in terms of ceremonial and worship.
Ritual is seen as a system of procedure by Bossard and Boll. This conclusion is the most popular one found in literature and common usage. Three characteristics are unvarying in their presence in a system of procedure as defined by ritual. According to Bossard and Boll these characteristics are (1956:15):
First ... ritual means exactness and precision. Second, there is the element of rigidity ... and finally, there is a sense of rightness which emerges from the past history of the process.
Bronislaw Malinowski, the social anthropologist responsible for taking anthropology from a discipline concerned with mere "origin hunting" to the status of an individual "science of culture" does not see ritual arising from social sources. S. P. Nagendra in his book The Concept of Ritual in Modem Sociological Theory (1971:73) quotes Malinowski as saying of ritual:
It arises from purely individual sources although it is always social by nature ... the principle of the ritual is bio-psychic.
Malinowski sees the function of ritual to lie in the role it plays in allaying anxiety and inspiring confidence in the individual as he moves and exists in "his life." He stresses the role that culture plays in a system of activities functioning in response to the basic needs of the individual.
There is evident a gradual drawing away from categorizing ritual
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as a mere system of procedure. Nagendra (1971:81) goes so far as to declare that ritual acts
... stand in direct contrast to technical acts insofar as the former are purely symbolic while the latter are purposive.
According to Radcliffe-Brown (Nagendra 1971:81) ritual is essentially an "expressive mode of action" and "leaves the analysis of its meaning at the figurative level (metaphorical)."
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Two basic psychoanalytic theories of ritual have come down to us from Sigmund Freud and C. G. Jung. Both have as the central point the concept of the "unconscious" on the individual and collective planes. They both regard ritual as expression of the unconscious. Their separateness is in the symbolic content of ritual: according to Freud it is repressed material to be dismissed; according to Jung it is archetypal. Commenting, Nagendra says (1971:29):
The prototype of ritual in Freud's view is the obsessional act of the compulsive neurotic whereas in Jung's view it is the act of individuation.
Individuation can be defined as the process whereby the conscious and the unconscious of an individual learn to not only live at peace with each other, but learn to complement each other. Depth psychology, as evidenced in the words of Ira Progoff (1973:171) has this to say:
Ceremonials and rituals are the means provided by society for periodically drawing up the sums of energy attached to the symbols, lest the symbols sink back into the unconscious.
Ritual is not action for the fun of action, whether it be a mimetic ritual or one of more somber thoughts. It is, as Nagendra puts it (1971:36)
. . . the most primitive reflection of serious thought, a slow deposit as it were of people's imaginative insight into life.
If that is the case then one must agree with Nagendra as he succinctly summarizes (1971:121):
The purpose of ritual is ritual itself; partaking in its performance is an end itself, and upon the fulfillment of this end, depends the continuity of both the natural and social orders.
The definition of ritual that has been adopted for this discussion
(page 224)
is that made by Nagendra as his concluding theme in The Concept of Ritual in Modem Sociological Theory: ritual is symbolic action - the enactment of the myth. A. K. Coomaraswamy says in Nagendra's book (1971:13):
Ritual is the perfect performance of one's task, or conversely, the perfect performance of one's task is the celebration of ritual.
Symbolic actions are not governed by the laws of logic which govern ordinary actions. Nagendra quotes from A. K. Coomaraswamy's Hinduism and Buddhism (Nagendra 1971:13):
Ritual is not a matter of doing specifically sacred things only on particular occasion but of . . . making sacred all we do and all we are, a matter of sanctification of whatever is done naturally by reduction of all activities to their principle.