Archetypal Psychology is the fast food variant of Jungian psychology. It is superficial and lacks nourishing value. The following dream from my early twenties exemplifies what I mean.
I dreamt that I attended some form of New Age congregation in the middle of the night. Together with other people I entered a flying saucer that threw us about in the air in violent movements. During this experience I became conscious for a while. When I went home from the celebration I felt unmoved by the experience and slightly disappointed. I went through the dark wood, and passed a little bridge over a brook. My trouser leg touched a lonely little flower, a Chickweed Wintergreen (which is a little flower that grows in northern Europe, Trientalis europaea L., "Skogsstjärna" — forest star). It was Linnaeus's favourite flower. On being touched, the forest star immediately unfolded its petals, something that made a strong impression on me.This formally insignificant
forest star felt much more meaningful than the grand spiritual congregation with flying saucers, etc. Although I have never been a fantast who believes in extra-terrestrials, etc., I think the message was that collective spirituality has played out its role, and I should search after the lonely forest star. Perhaps Hillman plays a role in a person's spiritual development, during a budding phase of spirituality, but at a point in time one must depart. It is a pagan and polytheistic spirituality in the sense that it represents a sophomoric form of spirit, which corresponds to a stage in spiritual growth. The passing to an higher spiritual level does not signify a collective realization of spiritual truth. I argue that it's the reverse, it is finding the little forest star that has been forgotten in the dark wood, waiting to be touched. The forest star signifies a personal form of spirituality, conducive to individuation. The spiritual mystery is a "little mystery", which is underestimated and easily overlooked. This notion is central to medieval alchemy and mysticism. In this way it differs from the general spirit of religion.
The valuable stone is the insignificant thing that can be found outside the doorstep. If this realization had taken root in psychology, then it would have benefited patient health greatly. It is that important. Since psychotherapy makes up for the decline in the religious formula of mental healing, it is necessary that it makes use of its particular strength, which is lacking in religion, namely the personal spiritual path. Hillman and Archetypal Psychology endorses the obverse form of spirituality, rooted in grandiose and airy-fairy ideas. It represents a regressive solution, which Hillman readily admits:
"[When] the monotheism of consciousness is no longer able to deny the existence of fragmentary autonomous systems and no longer able to deal with our actual psychic state, then there arises the fantasy of returning to Greek polytheism" (Hillman, Re-Visioning Psychology, p.27).But to return to an outdated religious standpoint is not a lasting solution. From the perspective of Jungian psychology, the only proper way is the personal spiritual path, on lines of the inward-looking mystic. However, what complicates the issue is that many people in the Western world, and a majority of people in the world, have no propensity to walk the individual path. Therefore religion is essential to them. Individuation is not a choice for the majority of humanity, because they must belong to a group and remain part of a collective personality. Factors of indigenous psychic economy invalidate the notion of individuation, which is problematic from a Jungian perspective. Individuation, which is a central theme in Jungian psychology, is only an alternative to a portion of the population. Regardless, a regress to the antique frame of mind, on lines of Hillman, spells disaster, as demonstrated by the Flower Power experiment. Arguably, Jungian psychology has a romantic bias, which is quite detrimental. But this is exactly what Hillman capitalizes on and magnifies to monstrous proportions. The effect is that the romantic perspective becomes the basis of his psychology.
"The calling from the eternal world demands that this world here be turned upside down, to restore its nearness to the moon; lunacy, love, poetics" (Hillman, The Soul's Code, p.282).Hillman draws on the romantic philosophers of the 19th century, such as J. G. Fichte (1762–1814). According to Paul Roubiczek (1898-1972), 19th century Romanticism is responsible for the madness that fell upon the modern world, in terms of totalitarian ideologies and unrestrained materialism (
here). When Hillman champions a return to the polytheism of ancient antiquity, he seems to have no insight into historical facts. People in that era had lost faith in the traditional form of religion. Christianity walked into a religious vacuum. It had no real competitors. The Romans tried to promote a cult of the emperor, but it didn't work. Centuries earlier the Eleusinian mysteries were forced to recruit proselytes from whores and vagabonds, because people had lost interest in the mysteries. They were as interested in them as we moderners are of the Freemason mysteries.
Around the birth of Christ, people were quite dreary and gloomy, as if they had lost all faith in life. They wrote horrible things on the gravestones, to the effect that their lives had been completely meaningless. The Romans compensated this dreariness with superficial cultic practices, imperialistic expansionism, careerism, money and riches, opulence and orgies. Of course, this was bound to have catastrophic consequences. In Satyricon, Federico Fellini depicts an age which is forlorn of hope, ravaged by debauchery. It is lacking in spiritual direction, as if waiting for a Redeemer to emerge. We wouldn't wish a coming again of this epoch. At Dinner Key Auditorium in Coconut Grove in March 1969, Jim Morrison, singer in The Doors, exhorted concertgoers to have sex with each other, which many of them proceeded with. It takes only a few years, after the return of the romantic puer aeternus, in the form of Flower Power, until it transforms into the same kind of debauchery, coupled with dreariness, which possessed the people in the beginning of our era. Hillman attempts a regressive solution. It is a blind alley in spiritual and psychological theory. It has already been tried out and it doesn't work. Please don't fall for this chimera.
Mats Winther
Further reading:Winther, M. (1999). 'Critique of Archetypal Psychology' (
here).