In the Aftermath of Tucson IV (“The Tree of Life”)

Posted on March 7, 2011 by Chris

Both a legend from the Bible and a dream from one of the 20th century’s more infamous murderers were compared in last week’s post to dreams and visions of alleged Tucson shooter Jared Loughner. In all cases, it would seem that the person concerned succumbed to a powerful and deluded fantasy of superiority over others and even a right or obligation to act out this superiority in specific ways, including the taking of human life. The temptation to greater and even seemingly unlimited power is known as the power principle in psychology; in at least its extreme forms most theological traditions would no doubt look upon this as a temptation to “sin.”

Mythfire would like to reiterate a point mentioned toward the end of the previous post: the phenomenon of dreams and dreaming is experienced by all of us – even if we do not always remember our dreams – and need not be a harbinger of madness. However, anyone who begins to reflect on his or her dreams and their import is nevertheless struck by a most unsettling notion: what we normally think we know about ourselves, who we are, and who is in control or “running the show” is itself an incomplete and even misguided fantasy. [1]

Following in the footsteps of his renowned colleague Sigmund Freud, Swiss psychiatrist C.G. Jung explored the idea that each of us possesses and/or is able to access what has been called the unconscious. Herein are stored repressed or forgotten memories, instincts, fears, and desires. However, it is also through the unconscious and dreams in particular that we are instructed how to proceed away from madness and unconsciousness toward healing and self-realizing wholeness, a process defined in an earlier Mythfire post as individuation.

All of the Mythfire posts on some level struggle with the question of how do we become more conscious and less unconscious beings? How can we move toward healing and wholeness and away from their opposites? The present entry will attempt to address this eternal conundrum by comparing two of Jung’s dreams with the dreams and visions offered last week. These two dreams were selected both because of the prominence of tree imagery in them but also because they occurred at a period in Jung’s life characterized by upheaval and at times even potential psychosis.

As Jung neared his 39th birthday in the spring and summer of 1914, he had the same dream on three separate occasions. The dreams involved “an Artic cold wave” descending over the land in the middle of summer. All of the land was frozen, turned to ice, and “[a]ll living green things were killed by frost.” The third time Jung had this dream, however, there was a different ending:

“In the third dream frightful cold had again descended from out of the cosmos. This dream, however, had an unexpected end. There stood a leaf-bearing tree, but without fruit (my tree of life, I thought), whose leaves had been transformed by the effects of the frost into sweet grapes full of healing juices. I plucked the grapes and gave them to a large, waiting crowd.”[2]

The second of Jung’s dreams to be discussed occurred thirteen years later and is longer and equally if not more vivid. It is referred to as the “Liverpool Dream”:

“. . .I found myself in a dirty, sooty city. It was night, and winter, and dark, and raining. I was in Liverpool. With a number of Swiss – say, half a dozen – I walked through the dark streets. I had the feeling that there we were coming from the harbor, and that the real city was actually up above, on the cliffs. We climbed up there. It reminded me of Basel, where the market is down below and then you go up through the Totengasschen (“Alley of the Dead”), which leads to a plateau above and so then to the Petersplatz and the Peterskirche. When we reached the plateau, we found a broad square dimly illuminated by street lights, into which many streets converged. The various quarters of the city were arranged radially around the square. In the center was a round pool, and in the middle of it a small island. While everything round about was obscured by rain, fog, smoke, and dimly lit darkness, the little island blazedwith sunlight. On it stood a single tree, a magnolia, in a shower of reddish blossoms. It was as though the tree stood in the sunlight and were at the same time the source of light. My companions commented on the abominable weather, and obviously did not see the tree. They spoke of another Swiss who was living in Liverpool, and expressed surprise that he should have settled here. I was carried away by the beauty of the flowering tree and the sunlit island, and thought, ‘I know very well why he has settled here.’ Then I awoke.”[3]

The mysteries and meanings of a single dream, much less two dreams, cannot be satisfactorily explored and amplified in one blog post. For the purpose of this entry – which is to suggest that dreams point the way to healing and wholeness – Mythfire will offer Jung’s own analyses of the two dreams just quoted followed by a few more general observations on the phenomenon of dreaming itself.

As stated, the “tree of life” dream occurred in the spring and summer of 1914 and followed other similarly powerful and apocalyptic visions which Jung had in the fall of 1913. In other words, Jung had these dreams and visions in the months leading up to the outbreak of World War I in August 1914:

“On August 1, the world war broke out. Now my task was clear: I had to try to understand what had happened and to what extent my own experience coincided with that of mankind in general. Therefore my first obligation was to probe the depths of my own psyche.”[4]

Generally speaking, most dreams we have speak to our own situation in life at the time the dream occurs. However, occasionally we might have what is sometimes called a “big dream” which addresses not only our individual situation but the collective/cultural one as well. (An additional point about dreams is that while they usually concern a present situation they sometimes also foretell a future one. In dreams as with the psyche both time and space are relative.) Here, in Jung’s “tree of life” dream, and as suggested in the last quote, the sweet grapes symbolize the fruit of labors upon which Jung was only just embarking. As time progressed he would increasingly share these fruits with others in the form of his analytical psychology.

Readers are referred to Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections for a longer analysis of his later “Liverpool” dream. Unlike the collective “big dream” element to his “tree of life” dream, however, the Liverpool – or “pool of life” – dream speaks more to his individual situation at that time in his life:

“This dream represented my situation at the time. I can still see the grayish-yellow raincoats, glistening with the wetness of the rain. Everything was extremely unpleasant, black and opaque – just as I felt then. But I had had a vision of unearthly beauty, and that was why I was able to live at all. Liverpool is the ‘pool of life.’ The ‘liver,’ according to an old view, is the seat of life – that which ‘makes to live.’”[5]

Jung continues on to note that this dream brought with it an experience of “orientation and meaning” and that “[t]herein lies its healing function.” [6] Historians of analytical psychology refer to the period of Jung’s life just prior to his “tree of life” dream and continuing on through and ending with the “pool of life” dream as his “confrontation with the unconscious.” It was a period characterized by dreams, visions, synchronistic phenomena and the disorientation and questioning that these same often bring with them. Again, it has even been said that Jung was on the verge of psychosis during this period.

In an effort to document and make sense of these experiences when they happened, Jung engaged in what is called active imagination. He wrote down dialogues with figures from his dreams and visions; he drew or painted images related to what was happening to him, and he kept them along with the dialogues in a large leather bound book. Kept under lock and key and seen by only a handful of individuals over the course of the last half century, the Red Book was finally published last year. The images from this and the last Mythfire posts come from this publication. For example, the “Window on Eternity” image to the right is Jung’s depiction of the “essence” of his Liverpool dream.[7]

So Jung’s artistic endeavors, his active imaginations, helped him to weather the stormy period of his “confrontation with the unconscious.”  Equally important to his maintaining a sense of “earthly reality” — the subject of last week’s blog — were his daily obligations to family and patients. Finally, using imagery reminiscent of the African jungle dream also in last week’s post, Jung’s commitment to the science of psychology  was another factor which helped him keep his head above water:

“My science was the only way I had of extricating myself from that chaos. Otherwise the material world would have trapped me in its thicket, strangled me like jungle creepers. I took great care to try to understand every single image, every item of my psychic inventory, and to classify them scientifically – so far as this was possible – and, above all, to realize them in actual life. That is what we usually neglect to do. We allow the images to rise up, and maybe we wonder about them, but that is all. We do not take the trouble to understand them, let alone draw ethical conclusions from them.”[8]

This last idea of an ethical conclusion or obligationis very important to analytical psychology’s approach to working with dreams and similar phenomena. One of the reasons this is so is because at the heart of ethics is the realization of membership in a community — a realization which keeps us from succumbing to the power principle’s promise of superiority and dominion:

“Insight into [images] must be converted into an ethical obligation. Not to do so is to fall prey to the power principle, and this produces dangerous effects which are destructive not only to others but even to the knower.”[9]

Mythfire hopes readers see how this present post is a companion piece to last week’s entry. Both discuss the sometimes dangerous and destructive psychic potentials which may overwhelm certain individuals more so than others. In his life and work, Jung showed not only these “certain” individuals but all of us a way to proceed through such jungle thickets of the psyche toward greater healing and wholeness.

——

Next Monday:  An Interlude on March Madness

[1] An earlier Mythfire post stated that Jung referenced a transpersonal agency called the “self” or “Self,” comparable in numerous respects to “God” as understood in various religious traditions, as the source of dreams and their messages. Thus, one of the more oft-quoted statements of Jung, “…the experience of the self is always a defeat for the ego,” speaks to the disorientation and humbling relativization of the human ego upon experiencing  non-rational phenomena such as dreams, visions, and synchronicities. (CW 14: 778)

[2] Jung, C.G. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Recorded and edited by Aniela Jaffe. New York: Vintage Books, 1989: 176.

[3] Ibid., 197-8.

[4] Ibid., 176.

[5] Ibid., 198.

[6] Ibid., 199.

[7] Ibid., 197. Also, Jung wrote that “The years when I was pursuing my inner images were the most important in my life – in them everything essential was decided. It all began then; the later details are only supplements and clarifications of the material that burst forth from the unconscious, and at first swamped me. It was the prima materia for a lifetime’s work.” (Ibid., 199). Because it is the repository of these “essential” images and ideas, the Red Book is already viewed as a central publication in the annals of analytical psychology.

[8] Ibid., 192.

[9] Ibid., 193.

Posted in Culture, Depth Psychology, Dreams, Tucson, Violence | Leave a comment

In the Aftermath of Tucson III (“Lack of Earthly Reality”)

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Chris

The David Brooks quote which opened the first “In the Aftermath of Tucson” post will serve again as a jumping off point for this and the next blog post: “Civility is a tree with deep roots, and without the roots, it can’t last. So what are those roots? They are failure, sin, weakness and ignorance.”[1] The last series of blog posts arguably focused on “failure” and “ignorance,” specifically failure of consciousness and ignorance of the unconscious shadow as it operates in our lives.

The present post turns to look briefly at the other two roots of civility: sin and weakness. Of course, in keeping with Mythfire‘s modus operandi both sin and weakness are discussed in what follows not from a theological but from a psychological vantage point, using furthermore the image of Brooks’ deep-rooted tree and the psychological phenomenon ofdreamsas common threads.

A few statements about alleged Tucson shooter Jared Loughner made by his friend Zane Gutierrez will serve as an entrée into this discussion:

“Mr. Gutierrez said [Loughner] had become obsessed with the meaning of dreams and their importance. . . .And every day, his friend said, Mr. Loughner would get up and write in his dream journal, recording the world he experienced in sleep and its possible meanings. ‘Jared felt nothing existed but his subconscious,’ Mr. Gutierrez said. ‘The dream world was what was real to Jared, not the day-to-day of our lives.’ And that dream world, his friend said, could be downright strange. ‘He would ask me constantly, “Do you see that blue tree over there?” He would admit to seeing the sky as orange and the grass as blue,’ Mr. Gutierrez said. ‘Normal people don’t talk about that stuff.’”[2]

Mythfire recently came across two other cases which correspond in a startling fashion to Loughner’s  “blue tree” vision and dreams. The first example is a legend involving the Biblical figure David:

“One day as David sat in his chamber writing a psalm, Satan came into the room disguised as a bird. Its feathers were of pure gold, its beak of diamonds, and its legs of glowing rubies. David dropped his book and tried to catch the bird which he thought had come from the Garden of Eden. But the bird flew out of the window and settled upon the low branch of a treein a neighboring garden. And under the branch of the tree a young woman was washing her hair. She was Bathsheba and David took her by arranging the death of her husband Uriah.”

In his analysis of this legend analytical psychologist Edward Edinger observes that “This legend, like a dream, underscores the profound evil that David fell into.” Edinger then goes on to note the parallels between the legend and a second case: a recurring dream reportedly experienced by one of the murderers whose crimes were later documented in Truman Capote’s bestseller In Cold Blood. The dream reads as follows:

“I’m in Africa, a jungle. I’m moving through the trees toward a tree standing all alone. Jesus, it smells bad, that tree; it kind of makes me sick, the way it stinks. Only, it’s beautiful to look at – it has blue leaves and diamonds hanging everywhere. Diamonds are like oranges, that’s why I’m there – to pick a bushel of diamonds. But I know the minute I try to, the minute I reach up, a snake is gonna fall on me. A snake that guards the tree. . . . I figure, well, I’ll take my chances. What it comes down to is I want the diamonds more than I’m afraid of the snake. So I go to pick one, I have the diamond in my hand, I’m pulling at it, when the snake lands on top of me . . . . He is crushing me, you can hear my legs cracking. Now comes the part it makes me sweat even to think about. See he starts to swallow me. Feet first. Like going down in quicksand . . . .[But a savior arrived in the form of a great parrot] taller than Jesus, yellow like a sun flower.”

Capote finishes the description of the dream by stating that “Thus, the snake, that custodian of the diamond-bearing tree, never finished devouring him but was itself always devoured. And afterward the blessed ascent! Ascension to a paradise that in one version was merely ‘a feeling,’ a sense of power, of unassailable superiority.”

Edinger follows up this lengthy excerpt with psychological commentary of his own: “This chilling dream has many parallels to [David’s] legend: jewels of seductive beauty, bird, tree and Garden of Eden. Both the legend and the dream describe seduction by Satan, the ultimate evil of possession by the power principle.”[3] Certainly, the Old and New Testaments are rife with examples of characters from Adam and Eve to Jesus being tempted by snake or Satan to sin and thereby gain the “unassailable superiority” of unlimited power — arguably the very opposite of weakness — whether this power takes the form of great wealth, power over others, power over death, or perhaps even a sense of oneself as God.

As a bit of an aside, in his essay “Consciousness of Failure” Jungian Analyst Rafael Lopez-Pedraza discusses a modern example of the power principle which he calls our “misguided fancy that we deserve success.” To the degree that success supersedes all other ideals, puts the individual before the collective and the “I” before “Other” we are in danger of succumbing to a modern variation of this power-filled vision of unassailable superiority. Lopez-Pedraz claims that those of us who yield to such powerful but misguided fancies suffer from a “lack of earthly reality,” a phrase that originated in the study of schizophrenia:

“What I call ‘earthly reality’ comes from a term coined by [Pierre] Janet early in the century – la fonction du réel. It was incorporated by Jung into his psychiatric studies when he observed the lack of this function in psychotic and schizophrenic patients.” [4]

As stated in earlier Mythfire posts, to the degree that individuals such as Jared Loughner or the In Cold Blood killer are psychotic or schizophrenic they are generally unable without assistance, i.e. therapy and medication, to resist their misguided and inflated fantasies of power. Thus, unlike the rest of us who are able to exercise the power of choice, Loughner and others are relatively unable to not commit this sin of grandiosity and specialness much less return to a sense of “earthly reality.” That Loughner put the dream world before the “day-to-day” world is made clear in the above quotes from Loughner’s friend. Although the following notion may be strange and new for some readers, the ideal is actually to develop an ego which is strong and small enough to say “no” to the power principle while humbly and devotedly striving to interrelate the dream and day-to-day worlds; the dream world, and more generally the unconscious from which dreams come, needs to be integrated into and balanced harmoniously with the waking world. To the extent that a person such as Loughner is psychotic or schizophrenic, (the latter being a word that comes from the Greek skhizein + phren meaning “split mind”), it is by definition nearly impossible to hold these two worlds together.

The image accompanying this post is of a luminescent blue tree drawn by psychiatrist C.G. Jung at a time that he was going through a psychotic period of his own. In fact, Jung’s book from which this image was taken – The Red Book – was published for the first time last year and will provide more images for Mythfire’s next post on the power principle, dreams, and the deep-rooted tree of the human psyche.

——

Next Monday: In the Aftermath of Tucson IV (“The Tree of Life”)

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/opinion/14brooks.html?_r=1&hp

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/12/us/12loughner.html

[3] Edinger, Edward. The Bible and the Psyche: Individuation Symbolism in the Old Testament. Toronto: Inner City Books, 1986: 87-8. Edinger takes the legend of David from Joseph Gaer’s The Lore of the Old Testament.

[4] Lopez-Pedraza, Rafael. Cultural Anxiety. Einsiedeln, Switzerland: Daimon Verlag, 1990. The “misguided fancy” quote is from page 81 and the other quotes can be found on page 82.

 

Posted in Culture, Depth Psychology, Dreams, Tucson, Violence | Leave a comment

In the Aftermath of Tucson II (“Moral Imaginations”)

Posted on February 21, 2011 by Chris

At about the twenty minute mark of his memorial address in Tucson last month, President Obama included these impassioned words:

“But what we can’t do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on one another. As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of humility. Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together.”[1]

The previous posts in this series have discussed the ideas of humility, finger-pointing or “guilt-making,” and a need for increased empathy for others, especially through a consciousness of how our failures and resulting shame have impacted them.

But what about expanding our “moral imaginations”? Certainly it would seem that Obama does include listening, feeling empathy for others, and a communal bond within his definition of “moral imaginations.” He follows the above passage with sentences mentioning introspection and reflection, gratitude, love, kindness, generosity and compassion, responsibility and right priorities. All of these, along with recognizing our own mortality and playing a role in “bettering the lives of others,” undoubtedly fall under the purview of “moral imaginations.” Furthermore,  the speech’s numerous references to “loss” reveal that moral imagination is something that often follows a loss or sacrifice of innocence which, along with a re-evaluation of “right priorities,” was the theme of last week’s post. The status quo is upended (or as the president said, “we’re shaken from our routines”), and we’re forced through painful experience into a process of questioning, of assessment of needed changes, and then a conscious implementation of these same changes.

In a way, President Obama’s speech conveys through emotion and ideals what Mythfire has attempted to convey via psychological concepts and mythological motifs. The president accessed our minds through an appeal to the heart; Mythfire has appealed to the mind hoping to thereby open the heart. The last post’s comparison of the motif of “sacrifice of innocence” as it appears in different religious traditions or myths is one such attempt as are the repeated references to psychological images of persona and shadow. To the degree that such comparisons call into question dearly held beliefs or make one aware of one’s own troubling shadow, some readers will no doubt be disturbed and/or made uncomfortable. However, once these behaviors and beliefs are seen through as symbolizing deep psychological truths belonging to all people, then we can move closer to a felt sense of “we,” or community, instead of the more common “us versus them.”[2]

A second attempt to access the heart through the mind can perhaps be made by looking more closely at the words included in the phrase “moral imaginations.” A few years back Mythfire was struck by the full definition of imagination found in Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary:

  1. the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality
  2. a: creative ability; b: ability to confront and deal with a problem: RESOURCEFULNESS; c: the thinking or active mind: INTEREST
  3. a: a creation of the mind; esp: an idealized or poetic creation; b: fanciful or empty assumption

Just as “myth” so often is used to mean misconception or falsehood, the term “imagination” is more often than not viewed as being the last definition given: “fanciful and empty.” However, imagination and myth – along with depth psychology – when fully appreciated are seen to embody all of the earlier elements of the overall definition in a manner that actually disproves the last one. The posts in this present series, in fact, have used the mental images of persona and shadow from psychology and  “chosen people” and “sacrifice of innocence” as found in various myths to reveal something which usually is not “wholly perceived in reality” as concerns the human condition. Put differently, the psychologizing mind (of a Sigmund Freud or C.G. Jung) and the mythologizing mind (of a religious people and its prophets) employ deep perception, i.e. insight or revelation, along with ability and resourcefulness, an actively interested thought process, and creative solutions to confront a current problem or problems in the pursuit of an ideal resolution.[3]

It is difficult to know if President Obama had a similar notion of imagination in mind when he used the term in the plural form in Tucson. However, there is nothing in the understanding of imagination just offered which opposes the examples of “moral imagination” given at the beginning of this post. In fact, imagination as defined by Webster’s may offer an active, outward-directed, spiritual (or spirited) complement to the more reflective soulful values expressed with such passion by the president.

Finally, this passionate feeling – felt by a people in the moment it is needed – speaks to the “moral” half of “moral imaginations.” Often misunderstood to mean a never-changing code of right and wrong, morals and morality are revealed both by history and etymology to not be firmly fixed but fluid, dependent on the collective feeling or “mood” of a given culture and/or historical period.  (The Latin term mos serves as a root for both “moral” and “mood.”) President Obama, in asking that we expand our moral imaginations, is asking that we as a collective society expand our feeling for and perceptive interest in what is needed right now, whether that concerns gun laws, the treatment of mental illness, or other similarly urgent problems. The heart and head must work in tandem if these and other twenty-first century challenges are going to be effectively and imaginatively addressed.[4]

——

Next Monday: Part One in a Two-Part Series on Dreams and the “Lack of Earthly Reality”

[1] For the transcript of Obama’s speech: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/us-politics/8256760/Barack-Obama-Tucson-Speech-in-full.html.

 

[2] Again, Mythfire is not saying that the psychological interpretation of religious beliefs and rituals precludes other, i.e. metaphysical or theological, interpretations. However, due in no small part to the prevalence of the same or similar symbolic motifs across time and culture, these latter interpretations can no longer ignore the discoveries of depth psychology and mythological studies — or what these discoveries reveal about the human spirit/condition.

[3] Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.  Springfield, Mass: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 1991. Like “myth,” the word “fairy tale” is also invariably used to mean “fanciful and empty assumption,” something “imagined” or made up without basis in reality. The statement “That’s just a fairy tale” is equivalent to what most of us mean when we say “That’s nothing but a myth.” However, in actuality, fairy tales are every bit as psychologically revealing and resonant as myths. In fact, it is our distrust of and discomfort from such resonant revelation (which is only partly knowable and thus partially and always unknowable, a mystery beyond our control) that leads us to proudly and contemptuously treat both fairy tales and myths as second class citizens, i.e. empty of worth and meaning. Our ego compensates in “nothing but” language of bravado and certainty out of a deeper fear of what it does not know and cannot control.

[4] The word moral also connects to the Latin term mores, a fact not lost on Jung: “The word moral comes from the Latin mores – habits, customs. We connect it with the idea of good and evil, but we must always bear in mind that the word has a relative meaning. The idea of good and evil is not the same in different centuries or in different countries.” (Jung, C.G. Dream Analysis: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1934-1939. Ed. J.L. Jarrett. Princeton, NJ: Princeton U P, p. 193.) It is also important to remember the role the ego’s fears and desires play in any discussion of morals and morality. That is to say, the “moralizing” ego which we all display from time to time may reflect both the ego’s desire for superior self-importance and its fear at losing the same – rather than a perceptive connectedness to the needs of the moment. Moral imagination, then, is a critical component to the humbling relativization of the ego written about in the previous “Sacrifice of Innocence” post.

Posted in Culture, Depth Psychology, Fundamentalism/Literalism, Imagination, Myth, Politics, Tucson, Violence | Leave a comment

The Myth of Blood Libel V (“Sacrifice of Innocence”)

Posted on February 14, 2011 by Chris

Female Statuette Accompanying Incan Child Sacrifice

This post attempts to more clearly connect the previous entries in the “Blood Libel” series to the shootings in Tucson. If readers have read these earlier entries in puzzlement, wondering what ideas such as persona, shadow and shame, individuation, or being “chosen”or “exceptional” might have to do with the tragic shootings, it is Mythfire’s hope that this post will make these connections more evident. Finally, whereas the previous posts have focused on these several dynamic psychological  principles, the present post will suggest how insights from the field of mythological studies might similarly enhance our understanding of human behavior.

In these earlier posts, Mythfire suggested that individuals and collectives – including but not limited to nations and organized religions – have an identity or mask, called a persona, which is most prominently displayed in their dealings with the outside world. Necessary for survival because it facilitates interactions with others, the persona asserts “I am (or we are) this desirable but not that undesirable trait.”  In general, positive characteristics with which we identify ourselves include purity, perfection, and the “good,” while impurity, imperfection, and the “bad” or “evil” are devalued, repressed and projected onto others. These repressed and projected energies comprise the personal or collective shadow which may have harmful effects on both owner and others when lived out unconsciously.

Before proceeding, Mythfire is concerned that its attention to political figures such as Sarah Palin or countries such as the United States has run the risk of politicizing psychology. This, of course, was and is not the aim. If we humbly acknowledge that at times we feel superior or exceptional in relation to others, “chosen” by virtue of religious or national affiliation, and also that at these and other times we engage in shameful actions which hurt ourselves and others, then we must de facto acknowledge that all of us as individuals and collectives have lived and continue to live out unconscious shadow energies.

What might the field of mythological studies add to this discussion?  To answer this question, we must first look more closely at the specific story or “myth” associated with the phrase “blood libel.” As Ruth Marcus noted in The Washington Post, blood libel generally refers to “the scurrilous accusation that Jews kidnapped and murdered Christian children to use their blood to prepare Passover matzoh,” which is the unleavened bread eaten during Passover. [1] Viewed as historical fact, this “accusation” has been used to justify all kinds of atrocities against Jews, most notably in the form of the Holocaust.

An important point to realize is that accusations of ritual child-sacrifice in the name of religion have not been restricted to Judaism.  As just a few examples, charges of child-sacrifice were leveled against the Phoenicians, by pagans against Christians, and by Christians against Gnostics as well as Jews.[2] Certainly, the ancient Greeks also have been accused of human if not child-sacrifice, including sacrifices to Artemis, “the Virgin Goddess of purity.”[3] The images that accompany this post in fact are of artifacts buried alongside children sacrificed 500 years ago to an Incan deity or deities. (See the note at the end of the post for more.)

In Time and Sacrifice in the Aztec Cosmos, Kay Almere Read writes on the well-known but often misunderstood practice of sacrifice, including child-sacrifice, among the Mexica (or Aztec) people. For the Aztecs, children were associated with corn and whether the gods would or would not bestow a successful corn harvest on their followers. In short, in order for the gods to feed humans, the humans had to feed the gods.  Read calls it the “cosmic meal” or “an act of living beings in this cosmos reciprocally feeding each other.”  Sometimes this cosmic meal or deal only involved metaphoric sacrifices such as holding a child over a roasting fire without harming or killing it; other times it involved actual sacrifice, especially “at the height of the dry season, just before the rainy season began.” [4]

Sacrificial Gold Camelid or Llama

In drawing parallels with the Aztec and other ritualistic traditions, Mythfire is not claiming that during Passover Jews engaged in actual child sacrifice as charged by the blood libel. What a mythological approach suggests, however, is that the prevalence and staying power of the ideas expressed within the myth(s) means something to the human psyche. This meaning must at heart have something to do with a people coming together to commune with their god or gods in a way that solidifies the human-divine compact or relationship. Blood was and still is the “mortar” or binding agent in this relationship for many religious traditions, not just the Mesoamerican ones.[5]

Perhaps without having to resort to the blood libel charges of child-slaughter we can already see the same or similar meaning at work in the original Passover story. Here, Yahweh, the God of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament, inflicts ten plagues on the Egyptian Pharaoh so that he will be persuaded to free the Israelites from bondage. The last of these plagues is God’s slaughter of the Egyptian first-born children, after which the Pharaoh immediately frees the Israelites. The term Passover itself refers to the sparing by God of the Jews from the same slaughter of their first-born. By killing a lamb and dabbing its blood on the sides and top of their doorframes, the Israelites marked their homes so that God would pass over and thus spare them from death.

When looking mythologically at the Passover and other sacred stories it is important to keep in mind the rule of thumb that in myth, as in dreams, “everything belongs.” In terms of the component parts of the Passover story or myth, the slaughter of Egyptian innocents is essential to the freeing of the Israelites from slavery; similarly, the sacrifice of an innocent lamb is necessary for the sparing of the Israelites from the same slaughter. [6] Analytical psychologist Edward Edinger states that psychologically this theme of sacrificial slaughter “means that the psyche is in bondage to the tyrannical power principle symbolized by the Pharoah. A lesser authority (the power-driven ego) is functioning in place of the Self (Yahweh).” That is, blood and sacrifice free the tyrannical human ego of its illusory beliefs in purity, innocence, grandiosity, and supremacy so that it is thereby restored to a humbler relationship with the divine, i.e. God or Self — a relationship characterized not only by humility but also awe or wonder, fear, and reverence  (In psychological parlance this humbling balance-restoring process is referred to as the relativization of the ego.) [7]

Male Statuette with Gold Face

In The Fate of America: An Inquiry Into National Character, author and analytical psychologist Michael Gellert discusses another Old Testament story: God asking Abraham to sacrifice his child Isaac. Gellert writes: “The torment a man must suffer in sacrificing his son is a good analogue for what is involved in sacrificing the young, immature part of oneself. Innocence causes suffering, but, because of the attachment we have to innocence, the sacrifice of it causes even deeper suffering.” It is only through our reluctant and painful sacrifice of innocence that a “more highly evolved, mature” state of being can be realized.[8]

Is it all that difficult to imagine the overwhelming torment and suffering experienced by people whose own children were sacrificed to the gods in ancient times? Perhaps it also is not that difficult to see how the notion of loss or sacrifice of innocence applies in several regards to the shootings in Tucson, beginning first and foremost with the terrible loss of innocent life which occurred that day. Furthermore, it is with this idea of loss of innocence that the psychological thrust of the earlier Mythfire posts merges with this entry’s mythological analysis. Put psychologically, a loss or sacrifice of innocence results when — through an authentic experience of shame — we realize that our actions and their outcomes contrast so strongly and painfully with the intentions of our persona, i.e. the image we have of ourselves and present to the world. Sometimes referred to as “losing face,” this shaming loss or recalibration of the persona (with an accompanying relativization of the ego) can lead to greater maturity for both individuals and collectives if  tended to carefully with sufficient honesty and consciousness.[9]

When a loss of innocence occurs tragically – and this need not be limited to loss of life but also “treasure,” i.e. material wealth – the ego must ask itself difficult questions. As concerns Tucson, some of the questions presently being asked thus far concern the cost of maintaining the rugged individualist or cowboy persona, especially as it holds onto individual rights such as the right to own certain types of weaponry. Other questions being addressed focus on our (mis-) treatment of and views concerning mental illness.

To continue down the same path we have been on is not only lacking in compassion but is to invite more tragedies of the kind which happened in Tucson. Put differently, ancient peoples engaged in child-sacrifice so that the gods would grant worshipers continued growth and prosperity. Unfortunately, for those of us living today without such mythological or psychological sensibilities it sometimes takes multiple losses or sacrifices of innocence until a mature re-balancing of priorities — a re-harmonization with what is truly important — is consciously undertaken by the collective. Only through this process, however, might “sacrifice” regain its original meaning: “to make sacred.” In other words, with the proper attitude re-harmonization is at one and the same time a process of re-sacralization.

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Notes on Images: The three artifacts shown above were found along with the mummies of three children sacrificed by the Incans 500 years ago. The oldest of the children, a fifteen-year-old girl dubbed “The Maiden,” wore a white headdress matching that of the above female statuette which was found buried alongside her. The gold camelid or llama was buried with a seven-year-old boy as was the male statuette, the gold face of which marked the child as being of “high social standing.” These and other photos of the mummies themselves, which may unsettle some readers, accompany a fascinating article found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/11/science/11mummu.html. (All photos belong to the Museo de Arqueologia de Alta Montana in Salta, Argentina.)

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This concludes “The Myth of Blood Libel” series. The next post, still inspired by Tucson, will appear next Monday.

[1]http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2011/01/why_sarah_palins_blood_libel_w.html

[2] Jung, C.G. Collected Works 9i: 324.

[3] Lopez-Pedraza, Rafael. Cultural Anxiety. Einsiedeln, Switzerland: Daimon Verlag, 1990: 48.

[4] Read, Kay Almere. Time and Sacrifice in the Aztec Cosmos. Bloomington: Indiana U P, 1998. See chapter 5 “The Cosmic Meal,” especially pages 132-134.

[5] An observation that is repeated with some frequency regarding Mesoamerica, and the Mayan people in particular, comes from page one of Linda Schele and Mary Ellen Miller’s book The Blood of Kings: Dynast and Ritual in Maya Art: “blood was the mortar of ancient Maya life.”

[6] As a celebration, then, Passover is in no small part a commemoration of the special relationship between the Israelites, or Jews, and God, in much the same way as the discussed child-sacrifices of the Aztec peoples. Of course, Christianity is itself “awash in the blood of the lamb,” meaning the human sacrifice of Christ on the cross. As with the Aztec and Jewish examples, the sacrifice of Christ is similarly commemorated in a communion ritual as well as Easter dinners, both of which bond believers together with God. Although this present post does not discuss in depth the importance of purity to these sacrificial rites, the ideas of purity and innocence hold true for lamb and Christ just as they do for children. As son of God, Christ is free of the human stain of concupiscence or desire. Church petitions against showings of  Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ when it first came to movie theaters had much to do with this idea of Christ’s innocent purity.

[7] It is important to stress several ground rules concerning the field of mythological studies. First, analyzing the Passover or any other story as a myth is not to say that the events concerned did not occur in history, or that the mythological interpretation negates other interpretations, especially the more traditional theological ones. Furthermore, if Mythfire goes on to state that there are additional parallels between some of these myths which we will not go into in this post for reasons of time and space, that is not to say that the myths and their corresponding religious traditions are exact parallels to each other.  It is only to say that there do seem to be enough correspondences in images and motifs that these myths can be compared favorably – which is why the field of mythological studies is sometimes referred to as comparative mythology. Illuminating similarities may be drawn which need not simultaneously ignore or disparage important differences between the traditions. Also, see pages 49-51 in Edinger’s The Bible and the Psyche: Individuation Symbolism in the Old Testament for more on the Passover myth.

[8] Gellert, Michael. The Fate of America: An Inquiry into National Character. Dulles, Virginia: Brassey’s, Inc., 2001: 280. Gellert’s book is highly recommended as an in-depth and penetrating analysis of innocence in the U.S.

[9] In fact, both Sharp and Edinger reference the loss or sacrifice of innocence when discussing the conflict between the persona and shadow. For Sharp see Digesting Jung: Food for the Journey, page 63; for Edinger see page 235 of Ego and Archetype where he writes: “the sacrifice of innocent purity also implies the realization of the shadow which releases one from identification with the role of innocent victim and the tendency to project the evil executioner onto God or neighbor.”

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The Myth of Blood Libel IV (“Exceptionalism & The Chosen People”)

Posted on February 7, 2011 by Chris

At the heart of analytical psychology there is an important idea which Mythfire has surprisingly not yet mentioned. Some might consider it analytical psychology’s most central idea: individuation, defined by psychologist Murray Stein as “The process of psychic development that leads to the conscious awareness of wholeness. Not to be confused with individualism.”[1] This basic definition is very much in keeping with the last two entries’ emphasis on becoming conscious of and then working to integrate those shadow elements of ourselves which we otherwise repress, project, and live out in other unconscious and unhealthy ways. Owning and integrating one’s shadow is an unavoidable and continual practice if one is to become a more whole and integral person.

The second half of Stein’s definition is also important and timely considering this series’ identification of the rugged individualist, or cowboy, as perhaps the mythic persona with which not only female politicians but probably most Americans identify.  Individualism has to do with our ego concerns and desires, a sense of self-sufficiency, independence, and individual rights. Individuation, in contrast, is the alignment of oneself with an inner calling or destiny, not born of the ego but of one’s talents, skills, and sense of meaning or purpose.  It is by listening to and laboring to realize this calling that we not only become more individuated, i.e. more fully and wholly ourselves (warts and all), but that we also through our contributions help the world become likewise fuller and more whole, i.e. individuated.

When a person truly begins to align him or herself with this “inner calling” (which is what the word “vocation” means), one invariably feels unique or special, perhaps as if he or she is living in accord with the chosen destiny laid out for him or her by God. Because Swiss psychiatrist C.G. Jung regularly saw this fateful calling at work in his practice as well as in his own life, he would not have disagreed with this conclusion; however, he used the word “self” instead of “God” in part because the latter means particular things to different faith traditions. Finally, to distinguish the word “self” from any association with personalistic or ego-centric desires and ambitions, analytical psychologists after Jung tend to capitalize it as “Self.” [2]

Just as persona and shadow are psychological realities for collectives as well as individuals, the feeling of being “chosen” is invariably also experienced by groups having a common identity.  Indeed, this is one of the hallmarks of most if not all organized religions. While it is true that these religions generally promise membership in the ranks of “the chosen people” by virtue of belief and/or birth, what many people neglect to appreciate or accept is that these religions did receive some original dispensation via “revelation” from God – in psychological parlance the Self.  This revelation was and is needed in order for us as an imperfect people to become more complete, more whole beings.[3]

We can find the same psychodynamic operating beneath the idea of American “exceptionalism,” which Sarah Palin alluded to twice in her post-Tucson video. As Stanley Fish noted in a piece for New York Times “Exceptionalismcan mean either that America is different in some important respect or that, in its difference, America is superior.” He then writes, “Palin clearly means the latter.” [4]

Mythfire will leave up to readers whether Fish is correct or not in his assessment of Palin.  However, he is correct when he connect’s Palin’s exceptionalism, her feeling of being “chosen” on a national or political level, with religion — a link which is implicit in his article’s title: “Exceptionalism, Faith and Freedom: Palin’s America.”   This link or connection is even more overt when one considers that in calling the United States “our exceptional country, a light to the world” Palin in her video is either consciously or unconsciously quoting Matthew 5:14: “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.” The step that Mythfire believes Fish stops short of making is the psychological one of explaining why one type of exceptionalism, that of recognizing and valuing religious and cultural differences, is preferable to the other type of exceptionalism proclaiming superiority — which implies superiority over others. (Of course, Fish also does not make any psychological or philosophical assertions – like those above – vis-à-vis the notion that given ideas, in this case the cherished rights of freedom and equality, emerge at a certain time in history because they are needed for the spiritual development of the people concerned.)[5]

In order to be on the lookout for exceptionalism in its undesirable sense of a feeling of inflated superiority, it is important to remember that countries, like individuals, also cast a shadow.  The bigger the light we are to the world, the bigger the shadow as well. When we are so caught up in a sense of chosenness or national pride, of having a divine mission, we are blind not only to our own flaws but also to the harm we’re doing to others at the same time that we’re trying to do “good.” In other words, for other countries our sense of manifest “rightness” or destiny so often is manifested as shadow, a fact unfortunately born out by the historical record. Slavery, disenfranchisement, depletion of natural resources, support for dictatorial regimes, genocide of Native Americans and relegation of the same to reservations, invasion and occupation of other countries, suppression and destruction of other religions — these are but a few examples of exceptionalism’s shadow at work.

The last Mythfire entry noted that it is through an authentic experience of shame and consciousness of failure that we become more aware of and better able to work with our shadow. The aim, on both individual and collective or national levels, is not to move from a feeling of superiority to its opposite, inferiority. The point is to move via a psychological understanding of history (what is sometimes called psycho-history) through shame to humility. Modesty.  It is only from this place of individual and national modesty that the healthy type of exceptionalism can see itself for what it is: one among multiple different and important cultural contributions to this historical global project called Life.[6]

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Note: During the recent protests in both Tunisia and Egypt one of the popular slogans chanted in the streets came from Tunisian poet Abul Qassem Al-Shabi: “If, one day, a people desires to live, then fate will answer their call. And their night will then begin to fade, and their chains break and fall.” Fate, capitalized as “Providence” in some translations, speaks to the main idea touched on in this post of a people who, sharing a common identity and mission as well as a reciprocal helping relationship with God, bring into consciousness a new and urgently needed ideal. (For more: http://newamericamedia.org/2011/01/egyptian-protesters-say-tunisia-is-the-solution.php).

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Next Monday: The Myth of Blood Libel V (“Sacrifice of Innocence”)

[1] Stein, Murray. Jung’s Map of the Soul: An Introduction. Chicago: Open Court, 1998: 233.

[2] As Daryl Sharp writes, “Individuation is a process of differentiation and integration, the aim being to become conscious of one’s unique psychological make-up. This is quite different from individualism, which is simply me-first and leads inexorably to alienation from others.” See Sharp’s Digesting Jung: Food for the Journey, page 65. Also, in traditional Jungian thinking, individualism with its focus on identity, career, and family,  is the norm as a first-half-of-life activity; individuation is generally pursued with a greater sense of consciousness and urgency in the second half of life as one puts ego-based fears, hopes, and desires aside for a connection to a deeper sense of meaning, purpose, and relatedness to the infinite. See Jung’s Collected Works Vol. 7, par. 266, for Jung’s basic definition of individuation.

[3] Although Mythfire will not go into it here, another central notion to analytical psychology, hard for some readers to accept, is that God or the Self also moves from a less full and whole state of Being to a more individuated one. Furthermore, this individuating of the Self or God occurs with the help of humankind (just as we humans individuate with God’s or the Self’s help).  Jungian Analyst Edward F. Edinger’s The Bible and the Psyche: Individuation Symbolism in the Old Testament discusses what it means psychologically for a people to be “chosen” on pages 116-118.  Also recommended is analyst Rivkah Scharf Kluger’s Psyche in Scripture: The Idea of the Chosen People and Other Essays. As support for the idea that God or the Self needs our help in individuating, both Edinger and Kluger mention several Biblical verses including Isaiah 48:10-11 where God says “See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this.” (New International Version). Jung’s Answer to Job wasperhaps the earliest in-depth treatment of this notion of reciprocal help and individuation.

[4] To support his assertion of Palin’s belief in the U.S.’s superiority, Fish includes several quotes presumably from Palin’s recent America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Flag, and Faith. One example of Palin’s “superior” understanding of exceptionalism: “We have a president who believes that America is not the greatest earthly force for good the world has known.” For Fish’s article see: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/17/exceptionalism-faith-and-freedom-palins-america/.

[5] New International Version, 2010. Also, for more on the relationship between persona and shadow as discussed in the following paragraph, see the earlier Mythfire posts in this series.

[6] In his speech in Tucson Obama called for “a good dose of humility.” Similarly, David Brooks, in his New York Times Op-Ed which started these Mythfire musings on Tucson, argued that civility cannot occur without “modesty.” See http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/opinion/14brooks.html?_r=2&hp where the word “modesty” appears three times.

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