Scene 4:
Although, I think it is partially accurate to say that the experience in this new school is related to the experience of the anima work, the symbol is complex. The dream ego's perspective on the anima work is now somewhat detached. Now I see the remedial or youthful aspect of the anima work that I did not see during the bulk of the process. This sense of being an outsider is that same quality that will preserve me from becoming an abduction victim. At the same time the feeling I get from the three young women who find me not to be their type is that I am too "mature", too serious, and too "intellectual" for them. In an early anima dream which I did not relate here, I had written an essay that the anima (a journal editor) criticized as being "Germanism" (a reflection of my struggles to read Kant at the time). I saw she was right, and this allowed me to go with her into her back room where she showed me her witchcraft, making a cat disappear and appear. The same best friend from childhood who shows up later in this dream was also there, and he was terrified and intimidated by the anima woman. I, on the other hand, was fascinated. Enchanted. And not afraid at all. I'll revisit this dream again as I discuss later scenes in the present dream.
The larger perspective this dream affords the dream ego is overly dismissive of the anima work in order to "make a point", we could say. What this larger perspective shows is that even though the "intellectualism" I was inclined toward had to be dissolved away to some degree in order to do the anima work, the Logos-quality of the hero is essential to his heroic role in the psyche (i.e., essential to his facilitation of the Self). As the somehow more mature outsider in this scene, the dream ego actually possesses a mind that has a complexity and fertility that the youthful feminine cannot comprehend. This is the mark of initiation. This retrospective dream takes an interesting twist on the anima work by posing the question, "What if you had to do it all over again?" in the context of the conventional dream in which the dream ego is forced to go back to school or to some remedial position where it is both too old and too unprepared (out of practice) to be a "good student" again.
What we see is something I will discuss in more detail in the next chapter. Namely, the anima figure is no longer identified by its ability to teach or initiate the ego, but by its aptitude to be initiated by the ego . . . which has become (in this scenario) a kind of animus-ego. In other words, the woman who is ready to do the animus work, who has felt the Call, is the one ready to unlock the fertility of the anima-initiated male ego. His transference to her compliments her transference to him. Instead of the early anima work, where the ego wants to and makes itself able to receive the anima's gifts, after the anima work, the instinctual relationality of the man is expressed more in the giving or the illuminating of roads where the Other might be able to actualize her (or his) potential. This is part of the Other valuation the anima work develops. In other words, the man who has done the anima work is typically more capable of allowing Others space to develop parts of themselves that are still budding and largely unconscious.
This doesn't have to be an explicit mentorship and is never only a "teaching or guidance". It is the expression of valuation for another person's right to expand themselves and their conscious complexity. It is not a matter of saying, "Here's the path you need to follow, the laws you need to learn, in order to become enlightened." What I mean is an empathic tolerance that sees the Other as more than a strict set of definitions, a rigid or simple system of personality. The Other is "allowed" and welcomed to be in a state of change, becoming, reorganization. The valuation of the Other is not merely in what that Other is or seems to be or presents him or herself as at a specific point in time. The valuation of the Other allows for their whole past and future (or futures, their potentials) to be included in the construction of who they are.
We tend to have a love/hate relationship with our potentials, with our Selves. Generally we want other people to see us the way we want and think we should be seen. More often than not, we still "know" more about ourselves than others perceive. Sometimes we relish this mystique of self-knowledge and try to mystify ourselves to others. This mystification of women is especially common, and it is the product of a pact between women who use it as a source of power and protection and men who project the mysterious anima onto the women who most manufacture and utilize this mystique. We generally don't realize we are doing this.
I think it is important to point out that this dynamic has nothing to do with the animi work. When women who are in the habit of manufacturing a mystique that catches men's anima projections are confronted with a potential animus figure who actually welcomes them to expand themselves rather than collaborates in imprisoning them within their own rigidly defined sense of mystique and persona, these women are typically terrified or infuriated at the animus figure (or whoever they project it onto). This is one of the many ways that animus figures acquire very shadowy or "beastly" facades. When we are subject to the Demon-driven ego, anything that illuminates our potentials (and therefore our refusal to pursue them) can seem "violating" to us. Routine is comfortable, even when it is oppressive. The animi are the harbingers of change and the greatest threats to the Demon of the Complex, which is the force of stasis behind ego formation. The Demon likes to have all personality mechanized and formulaic. It doesn't want to have to adapt to the new. It wants to conform all new experience to the old set of routines and interpretations.
The anima work develops a valuation of Otherness that leads the ego to try to facilitate that Otherness rather than determine, control, or limit it. It isn't always easy to differentiate the desire to determine from the desire to facilitate the Other. Even if an individual can generally tell the difference, there is no guarantee that the Other will be able to . . . and if that Other isn't able, their Demon will potentially become conflated with the animi and projected upon whoever is interested in facilitating.
I mean to construct this digression in regard to the initial encounter with the three young women in the school. The reason the dream ego is alien to them is that it is a heroic, animus-ego that is little more than an opaque window to the uninitiated. To bring this into a more concrete, real world scenario, we could say that the man who has done his anima work is no longer drawn to women who he plasters with mysterious anima projections. Because he is much less likely to project his anima (and almost completely unlikely to project a confining or determining anima-object onto women), he actually becomes something of an enigma to most women, who have learned to relate to men through the anima projections of those men. When the man is not holding out this "letter of introduction", he can seem very foreign to women (and often, potentially dangerous or "untrustworthy" . . . where "untrustworthy" simply means unpredictable, as predictability is what any projection demands of the Other).
Of these three women, one turns out to be ready for the animus-ego, and she is in some sense like the Christ crucified between two thieves. She is still an anima figure (and being the daughter of the Godfather eventually removes any doubt of this). But she is a
depotentiated anima figure. This means (among other things) that she is no longer the only medium of relationship with the Self. The ego transitions to a more direct relationship with the Self (through the gestating Logos). We see this in the way that the dream ego joins the Self figure's team (where Cousin "Art" can then repair the synthesizer) and mission after the "introduction to the family" that the anima/daughter provides. The depotentiated anima is more like a real person. She doesn't necessarily possess any "mana", any special power or magical/divine ability . . . and commonly, she is attracted to the heroic ego because he does (in dreams, that is). Therefor, she is a valuator and recognizer of the heroic ego's affiliation with the Self.
This stage can be dicey, because it is this state that the inflated ego seeks to impersonate. This is what I think was confusing for Jung in his essay on the mana-personality where he tried to see the anima depotentiation as a transfer of mana to the ego and/or mana-personality. The differentiation required is subtle but important. The mana-personality is a state of inflation in which the ego tries to put on the mana of the Self. It is not the anima, per se, that has this mana. The anima merely stand in front of the Self at first, and this allows them to appear conflated to the ego. The mana always and only belongs to the Self. The anima is a way for the ego to relate to the Self (and its mana) that eventually becomes obsolete with the anima depotentiation and the beginning of the Logos construction. This Logos, then, typically becomes the vehicle through which the individual relates to the Self and through which s/he relates from the Self to other people (to a broader sense of Otherness).
I recognize that some discussion of mana and attainment is needed here if there is to be any hope of bringing some clarity to this. Mana is a transference phenomenon. It is projected upon others (for various reasons). But the mana-personality literalizes mana, believes he or she possesses mana . . . and often acts in a way meant to court mana projections. The mana personality identifies with this mana as one might identify with any persona. It is used to shield one's weaknesses from the outer world (and perhaps from one's own consciousness when possible). There is no literal mana, though. The presence of mana always takes two or more people. Which means that the sense of mana is within all of us . . . but it generally lies in the unconscious realm and so is not recognized as belonging to the ego. When we interact with someone who seems to resemble or makes a good canvas for the projection of these non-egoic, unconscious aspects of our psyche, we essentially invest this person with mana. That is, we project onto them the degree and character of the valuation we feel for those unconscious contents (even though we may not consciously realize we "value" these contents). More accurately, we do not value them with volition (I use the term "valuate" for that). It is the psyche that values these things and generates value for them within us. They are charged with value . . . and often this value is the same thing as numinousness. What is valued by the psyche in general is the functional connection or flow between instinctual drives and conscious behavior. People who catch our projections are often those that seem to evoke the valuation of these reconnections.
If the transference to such people is positive (i.e., we consciously desire such reconnection to some degree), then they will seem to take on the attributes of the animi or perhaps a parental Self figure or mentor. If the transference is negative (i.e., we consciously resist and do not want the reconnection with instinctual or devalued parts of ourselves), then these people will seem to take on the attributes of the personal shadow (and sometimes aspects of the Shadow-Self, as well). The more incapable we are of recognizing the quality of mana in the Self within, the more it will be projected onto others. And the temptation to project mana is significant, because, in the positive transference, it seems to allow the animi or Self to be experienced immediately and in the flesh. In the negative transference, it seems to allow for an Other to play legitimate scapegoat for shadow projections, providing a sense of absolution and vindication (powerful approvals of the way we want to be seen). It's not uncommon for both positive and negative transferences to occur simultaneously, making for a confused but even more powerful sense of mana attributed to the Other.
So, when Jung asks where the mana goes after the anima is depotentiated (by the conquering ego!), we should realize that the mana stays right where it always was: with the Self (or the ego's perception of the Self). It is the ego's perception of the Self that makes the Self seem numinous, filled with mana. But this mana is non-transferable. There is no conquering of the unconscious that imbues the ego with power. That is merely the illusion the mana-personality clings to in order to protect itself from its feelings of impotency (and from the recognition that the facilitation and valuation of the Self requires an act of surrender to the instinctual process, not an act of power or fortification). In our dreams (especially when engaged with the anima work and the Work proper), the dream ego is commonly portrayed as the heroic ego (or as a mostly heroic ego). But even though the archetypal hero is a role the dream ego commonly puts on, this doesn't carry over into waking life. In dreams, personality is fragmented into voices, attitudes, as many pieces as can be differentiated . . . and the dream ego is usually identified with one. But when we are awake, we cannot attach only to this one (in this case, heroic) persona and perspective. We must be an amalgam and average of the fragments or complexes of personality. Also, any mana the heroic ego might seem to have in dreams is a construction of the dream narrative (the mana attributed to the dream ego is a matter of the valuation attributed its heroism by the instinctual psyche). It belongs to the whole narrative, just as a theatrical character's personality, costume, props, history, dialog, etc. belong to the part written by the writer. When the actor leaves the stage s/he is no longer the character s/he played.
In other words, I do not mean to suggest that mana is entirely an illusion. Rather, it is a misappropriation (when attributed to the mana-personality). Facilitation of the Self is instinctually and unconsciously (autonomously) valuated in the psyche and perceived as numinousness by the ego. The mana-personality tries to steal this value-libido and use it as a mask and defense for the stagnant ego-position. We must then (out of fairness) ask whether there is anything to mana aside from a rather illusory feeling. I would say (with significant trepidation and qualification) that there
is a kind of substance to psychic reorganization (the anima work). Something new and valuable is genuinely being forged. But this new creation or development of personality is not and should not be confused with a kind of "spiritual attainment" (as it most often is). What I think is actually happening during and with the completion of the anima work is that the movement toward the reorganization of the personality that better facilitates the drive of the instinctual Self is charged with psychic valuation. This valuation is not created by the ego but is the response of the Self (the psychic system) to the increase in its functionality and adaptability. This autonomous valuation that is perceived by the ego is equivalent to the removal of some egoic or Demonic bottlenecks in the system. The "psychic pipes" that once got too little or too much flow or current are now getting just the right amount. Pressure is more efficiently distributed. And the whole system begins to operate with greater homeostatic efficiency. This can be perceived by the ego as a decrease in anxiety.
But we must note that even with this decrease in anxiety, the anima work creates new problems which can become bottlenecks themselves. That is, the movement into the Nigredo stage solves some of the old problems of the personality, but opens the door to new ones. There are two specific new problems that the completion of the anima work brings. The first is that the new organization of the psychic system is fragile and will need to be used and continuously revised, repaired, reworked, etc. in order for it to become truly functional and adaptive/efficient (the corresponding stage in the alchemical opus is the Uroboric sublimation of liquid into gas followed by condensation of the gas in the vessel and its return as liquid back to solution). The second is that this reorganization tends to make the initiate appear alien in some ways to anyone who is still subject to the "adolescent" psychology that the anima work process aims to reorganize. This "alienness" is a matter of what amounts to no longer worshiping the same totemic "gods" of the tribal mindset unconsciously and unquestioningly. The movement through the anima work and into the Nigredo is a movement toward a brand of "atheism".
That is, we identify and relate to others based on what they affiliate themselves with and identify as. If we are trying to relate to someone who doesn't have the same belief or affiliation with a specific totem, that person seems alien to us. They have not met our expectation of solidarity (tribal membership). It is very easy to observe this when we interact with someone from another culture or who holds a radically different religious attitude than us. As a (religious) atheist, I experience this all the time. If I were to make a simple statement to a religious person (a "true-believer") regarding my perception of something religious, it would be received as entirely alien by that person. And I mean "alien". Not necessarily wrong, but different, incomprehensible (perhaps in the same way many religious people can't comprehend that morality can exist without belief in God . . . or the way many positivistic atheists believe that spiritual interests in others are a sign of intellectual flabbiness). But we are composed of innumerable little affiliations and beliefs that are much more subtle than our religions or classes or races. Whenever we interact with someone who does not accord with our expectation of affiliation, we are confronted with Otherness and alienness. The completion of the anima work is typically accompanied by an "individuation". Not necessarily a "complete individuation", but a significant repealing of unconscious affiliations of all kinds. The valuation of these rigid and unconscious affiliations is depotentiated as part of the systemic reorganization. This means that we do not receive any "endowment" from these tribal affiliations any longer, no protection, support, or infusion of energy. This loss is usually experienced as a descent into a new state of deep loneliness and possibly even helplessness. But, because of the anima work, the loneliness is valuated enough for it to seem (just about) worth the sacrifice. The loneliness is hard to bear, but it is recognized as being in Good Faith.
If we fail to recognize the cost and the value of the Coniunctio, if we sense the true cost and fail to understand the value, we will abort the anima work. It will not seem worth it. But only as we start to sniff out the real Coniunctio will we be faced with the choice of sacrifice or abortion. To complete the anima work and enter into the loneliness of the Nigredo is the bear the mark of Cain. This feeling is evoked by the 22nd Psalm, "My Lord, My Lord, why have You forsaken me?". The following passage is an excellent poetic (and alchemical) description of the feeling of the Nigredo (the Putrefactio stage, specifically):
I am poured out like water,
And all my bones are out of joint;
my heart is like wax;
It has melted within Me.
My strength is dried up like a potsherd,
And my tongue clings to my jaws;
You have brought me to the dust of death.
To be marked in such a way is to be released (it may even seem an excommunication) from the tribe, from participation mystique, the Eros that binds the tribe together unconsciously. To the degree that tribe members recognize this in the person marked, it is very likely to be perceived as an offense or heresy. The attribution of shadowy mana to such heretics is common. I like to call this "stranger mana". Those who have done the anima work will not only seem strange to others (who have not), they may also seem strange to themselves in certain ways. The valuation of Otherness within always has this result. Far from being perceived (projected, that is) by others as spiritual attainment or a connection to the gods, this stranger mana will typically seem three parts "suspicious" to one part "dangerous". In many tribal cultures the attribution of stranger mana is part of what defines the shaman or medicine person. Often the shaman is a partly tabooed individual who must live outside the tribe. That is, part of her or his mana is composed of shadow projection.
The New Age guru figure, by contrast, is often whitewashed of stranger mana and the shadow projections are then aimed elsewhere (perhaps at an ideological enemy). We can actually see this even with Carl Jung. Many who have read his writings have been polarized. His supporters tend to see him as a kindly wise old man figure, while his detractors attribute all kinds of atrocities to him, from Nazism to womanizing to outrageous arrogance to dangerous callousness. There are numerous literary and cinematic dramatizations of stranger mana (an excellent example is Clint Eastwood's "Man With No Name" westerns) in our culture. In fact, we seem to have a problem with idealizing and romanticizing this empowered (strong and silent) stranger figure as an attractive aspect of the Masculine. But most of these portrayals have an adolescent bent to them. That is, they demonstrate youthful or impotent aspirations to be seen as powerful but without much comprehension that such "mana" comes with enormous responsibility. The illusion we like to entertain is that this power can be cultivated only with extreme self-interest and impenetrability . . . which suggests that the Demon is pulling the strings here.
Regardless of the complexities and subtleties of mana transference, we must admit that the anima work is indeed likely to attract to the individual who has done it a higher degree of mana projections. These may not come out in interactions with others until one's real alienness is observed (and since most people tend to assume that anyone who isn't an enemy is more or less a tribe member, much of the time, the anima initiate's alienness is only spotted in more intimate relationships or relationships in which beliefs and attitudes are seriously discussed or debated). We would assume in this case that some recognizable and substantial change to the personality has occurred as a result of the anima work. I do think a legitimate change occurs, but it can be very difficult to describe and explain this change (any more specifically than I already have). In addition to an increase in the valuation of Otherness and a freeing up of Demonic bottlenecks in the personalities system, one quality that does seem to be newly acquired (or activated) with the anima work is an increased plasticity. This plasticity is partially born out of humility and surrender to the anima work process. It is learned from the dissolution of ego that the anima work begins with. The ego is never built back into a fully solid and indissoluble system. It acquires a new model based on dissolution.
Recall that dissolution (think alchemical Solutio/Coniunctio) is about blending differentiated parts into one substance. In systems speak, we could consider this an increase in interrelationality of parts or quanta. This dissolution state is vitalizing to a system, because (like a spider's web) a touch on one part of the system resonates through the whole system. Feelings and thoughts bleed together. What we experience in the dissolution is this heightened interrelation of pieces of the personality . . . and the anima is the emblem of value for this dissolution/interrelation. The anima is the attractive factor of the interrelationality of psychic parts. Therefor, men who are "anima-resistant" or afraid/suspicious of their animas are reacting to the threat of dissolution. They do not want to resonate within like a spider's web. They would rather have their various parts nicely compartmentalized. Compartmentalization allows for certain pains and fears and desires to be channeled off into "dumping grounds" in the psyche. Complexity is limited as much as possible. Response to stimulus is more automated.
And when such a compartmentalized man is pulled down into depression and perhaps glimpses the anima, he sees her as a devourer, a demon who would pull him under the water or pull him limb from limb (like Pentheus was by the Bacchae). We can see in Jung's own equivocal attitude toward the anima a very 19th century male attitude that greatly resembles this compartmentalized anima-fearing one. And yet, to Jung's credit, he seems to have almost grudgingly followed his anima into dissolution. But as an observer of and writer on the anima, Jung very much rode the fence. He was even noticeably critical of "anima-possessed" men who exhibited the somewhat dissolved interrelationality that the anima's valuation in the psyche denotes.
Others, like Jung, who remain suspicious of interrelationality and favor compartmentalization will often see men in the grip of the dissolution as "overly sensitive" and annoyingly reactive. This is a product of interrelationality during the dissolution . . . and even after the reorganized ego has begun to build resilience (as the Nigredo turns into the Albedo and beyond), a man who has done the anima work will always be "sensitized", will always have a strong sense of interrelationality between various subsystems and parts of the personality. What is painstakingly sorted out during the Nigredo-Albedo cycle is the functionality of the reorganized system of personality. Obviously, the extreme interrelationality of the psyche increases the threat of chain reaction events that destabilize the whole system. Ideally, a healthy system has the sensitivity of extreme interrelationality while also possessing the resilience and robustness to depotentiate dangerous chain reactions. If the interrelationality is functional enough, it can work as a grounding device for powerful charges to the system, dissipating and depotentiating the intensity of dangerous feelings, thoughts, and reactions.
But the period of dissolution through the Coniunctio is one in which the interrelationality of the psychic system is overwhelming, disorienting, and consuming. It takes very careful "bean-sorting" or Kitchen Work to beef up the reorganized system into something that can handle major rattling without falling back into a dissolution-like feeling of being devoured and dismembered. But as the anima work is completed, even with the depotentiation of the syzygy, the seed of resilience is observed and implemented in a way that generally prevents slipping back into utter dissolution. The "mark of Cain" I mentioned earlier can be seen as this strange (to those who haven't done the anima work) marriage of resilience and "sensitivity". The observer is likely to sense the sensitivity or hyper-interrelationality of the anima initiate and look down upon this trait or at least suspect it as a fatal flaw, a weak link, a pathology. Yet, at the same time, this observer senses the contradictory presence of a strength (resilience) that cannot be understood or reconciled. "Why doesn't this person crumble into mush?" they might wonder. And the fact that the anima initiate does exhibit some unusual resilience provokes the projection of stranger mana onto them. It is not uncommon, in fact, that the observer trying to reconstruct the personality and motives of the anima initiate comes to see the initiate's "mana" resilience as a demonic aggression or evil that wells up out of their otherwise "overly sensitive" mentality. This is the projection of the Demon of the Complex, which is the force of personality most opposed to dissolution and plasticity. That is, the intuition of the anima initiate's resilience tends to provoke the Demon in the observer to show its true colors . . . but of course, those true colors are attributed to the initiate.
It is along these lines that we could say stranger mana is legitimate or substantial, because there is almost no avoiding some version of the transference exchange I described above. Sometimes Jungians talk about phenomena like this as a "holding together of the Opposites". But this is itself a projection. The anima initiate is not actually holding Opposites together; the uninitiated observer is simply incapable of seeing the resiliently plastic system of the initiate as anything but a paradox. But of course, such complex systems are readily observable all throughout nature. It is the compartmentalized ego that is the real oddity from the more universal and material perspective.
In the dream text, we can see the shadow (ashamed) version of the new organization alongside the heroic resilience dramatized in the final scene where my childhood friend who was afraid of the anima in a previous dream is now driving the car through the tunnel while the dream ego (as heroic ego) tries to console and reassure him that he will not be abducted. We could imagine the symbolic abduction at this point to be like a crumbling back into the dissolution state (and the personal shadow fears that this is bound to happen). How does one cultivate the heroic ego without the powerful, instinctual enticement of the anima? Such cultivation is done through the gradual construction of the Logos, and this means patience and diligence are required. Extensive shadow work is required. But we'll get to that later in the dream.
The scene where the three young women dismiss the dream ego and the one anima figure later changes her mind is a kind of encapsulated version of the relational problem facing the anima initiate. Of course, three is a symbolic number and is used here to indicate the rare diamond in the rough found between the book ends of the norm (where three represents "all"). The actual fraction of those who can relate intimately to people doing the animi work without projecting shadow is nowhere near 1/3. Of course, the need to relate intimately (or from our instinctual drives) is relatively limited in the modern world where so much is invested in variously artificial personas. Modern relationality is instinct- and intimacy-impaired. That is a justifiable criticism of the modern, but it also seems inevitable to me. Only in a genuine tribal society can we easily bring adaptive instinctuality into sociality. In the modern world we often have to live in Bad Faith to some degree even if we don't want to. And not surprisingly, we tend to be sick, depressed, anxious, overwhelmed, and dehumanized.
When the anima work is coming to its conclusion (and after it concludes) the animus-ego becomes a more significant relational center. What this essentially means is that the deepest intimacy with others requires that these others be willing to relate to, tolerate, or ideally, love the reorganized ego with its dissolution plasticity and its strange, heroic resilience. It isn't that the anima initiate can no longer relate to those who don't meet these requirements. It's that those who don't can't relate to him. He is then bound to be faced with the issue of either not relating intimately to others who would not be able or willing to relate to him, or to relate to these others through the projection of stranger mana or shadow that they would confine the relationship to. The latter option is obviously far from ideal or desirable. Of those people who are able and willing to relate to his strangely resilient plasticity, they tend to be either people who have been initiated into a similar plasticity or they are people with "initiation hunger", people who have heard the Call. Of these two groups, the latter is much larger than the former. And the hungry for initiation present an entirely new kind of problem and projection. Namely, they tend to project either the animus or the mentor onto the anima initiate.
The animus/mentor projection can lead to a very fulfilling relationship, but the relationship is by no means easy or safe. With such transference, the receiver must be very careful and precise, because tremendous mana is projected onto him . . . the power to wound the projector (even unintentionally). As all transference demands countertransference, the anima initiate must stay extremely vigilant about the nature of this countertransference. For instance, there are many temptations for inflation (blind identification with the mana projection). But equally, the initiate must be leery of devaluing the transference he receives (and thereby countertransfering a kind of wise but shaming parental figure). This is especially important for analysts, in my opinion. Even though Jungians tend to be more open to the value of countertransference than Freudians (for instance), I'm not sure (judging from some of the Jungian literature addressing countertransference) that the Jungian method is as functional as it could be. It is already common for patients to be ashamed of their transference, so special sensitivity to this shame is required. Numerous balls will have to be juggled simultaneously by the analyst. Since the transference is required if the patient is to work through his or her problems (or move toward the kind of ego reorganization that the animi work is directed at), the analyst must help the patient value the transference. Yet, at the same time, it is potentially dangerous (not to mention deceptive) to encourage literal belief in the fantasies of the transference. The literalization of the transference will stall the animi work . . . and potentially any healing or increased coping/adaptation as well. Literalization tends to lead to totemization, and symbols or fantasies that are totemized are always kept beyond reach. They never become transformable stuff . . . which is what the alchemical process of inner work requires. Such work always requires a present (easily accessible) and well-sealed vessel into which the individual "under reconstruction" can dirty his or her hands extensively.
While struggling to manage this, the analyst must also, of course, put some effort into the preservation of his or her own humanness. But it's all too easy to get caught up in a conflict between the advocacy of one's humanness and the need of the patient for the analyst to carry the projections. I've cast this dynamic as a patient/analyst scenario (where it is most common), but some variation of this relationship is not uncommon outside of therapy, and I resist the notion that it should be pathologized. It is a common part of human interaction. What is important to note is that the man who has done the anima work will encounter this dynamic eventually, and part of being an initiate (of any kind) it the responsibility of being an initiator or initiation advocate for others. The idea that the anima work or some other "spiritual discipline" is done entirely for oneself and must then become esoteric knowledge preciously guarded is absolutely ridiculous. This is one of the many flaws with the notion that individuation is a personal "attainment". The entire process of the anima work is Other-directed and -oriented. Yes, it is a matter of adaptation and survival (and usually, healing), but the adaptation is one that does not transcend biological humanity. And humans are an extremely social (Other-oriented) species.
Another complexity of the animus/mentor relationship that will face anima initiates is the knowledge (at times burdensome) of the dynamics of the animi work process. This knowledge is, of course, not shared by the person with initiation hunger, and although I have gone to lengths to describe the anima work process here, I can only assure the reader that I did not expect many of these developments at first and only came to understand them (to the degree I do) in retrospect. This means that the animi work initiate is going to run up against a number of unexpected developments as they pursue the work. The initiation advocate becomes responsible for providing clarity and reason to the chaos confronting the person engaged in the work. Many things look black and terrifying that eventually come into some semblance of order. The advocate may be able to help the animi worker recognize some of this order.
But in many cases, the person engaged in the work will stall or regress. Most animi work processes seem to fail. The work begins for many people, but very few complete it. I personally suspect that this is partly due to a lack of initiation advocates in our culture . . . and the fact that those who can serve in this role functionally are invested with alienness and stranger mana by most people, and therefore, collectively (this is, again, a decidedly, perhaps compulsively, adolescent culture, after all). There is a very fine line (perhaps impossibly fine) between the encouragement of the initiate by the advocate and the "shoving". The advocate might do his or her best to advocate what the initiate needs (i.e., what the unconscious is calling for), but there is nothing that can be done in the event that the initiate reneges. The anima work and the Work in general are very, very difficult. It is a wonderful blessing to find an advocate to help one "stay heroic" during this work (I for instance, had none, and therefor know all too well how difficult and punishing the work can be alone). But due to the extreme oddity of this dynamic, any animi work advocate must eventually learn to accept that not only will many (perhaps most) initiates fail to go through with the work, it is quite likely that they will blame this failure (and the difficulties they face) on the advocate.
This is not to say that the advocate is never to blame. But it should be understood that the advocates job is nearly impossible. It is a heroic or superhuman job . . . and none of us are superhuman or 100% heroic. Mentors and animi-surrogates are often not forgiven for "being there at the wrong time". At best, we can hope to learn from experience and refrain from making whatever mistakes we made with previous initiates. But even if we manage to play our roles perfectly, we can still function outside of the expectations of the initiate, and the drive that the instinctual Self applies to the reorganization can be attributed to the advocate in Demonic fashion. This is such a significant danger, that one's best bet (as either advocate or initiate) is to concentrate a great deal of attention and energy on the sturdiness of the transference/countertransference vessel. If the vessel can't contain the powerful energies of the shadow, the Self, the Demon, and the hero, it will shatter. Although an advocate can never conduct the transference or construct the narrative the initiate does the work within, s/he can put enormous effort into the valuation and preservation of the vessel.
Back in the dream, the heroic ego is recognized as an animus-ego figure by the young blond women. The dream ego is not truly finished with the anima work, though. It is caught between the residual desire for the anima and the responsibility as an animus-ego or animus work advocate. The rest of the dream seeks to sort out this conflict.
For now, the possibility of the anima (as an attractor toward completion, a kind of Holy Grail) is still a temptation, but the dream shows that the attempt to have sex with her is somehow illicit, prevented, and cast in a remedial light. This attempt leads to the surprisingly delicate and empathetic intervention of the Godfather, who is not interested in punishing us, but in enlisting the heroic ego (or animus-ego) in the "Cause". We might imagine this very vaguely defined cause to be the battle against the Demon on behalf of the new reorganization of personality. But we have to add to this the likelihood that the Godfather and company (the instinctual Self) were inspired to fly into action because the heroic ego was still trying to shag his daughter . . . and was therefore in danger of losing its heroism and becoming selfish (i.e., the ego would be seduced over to the Demonic influence somewhat). The impulse to maintain the erotically charged encounters with the anima is an impulse to find stasis, to preserve the perfect moment in a snapshot or feedback loop . . . to seek an eternal Breast.
This momentary slip seemed to necessitate a relief of waste and a desire to wash my hands/cleanse myself of my transgression. I don't mean to imply that the pursuit of the young blond woman was "bad". It was not portrayed as such in the dream. I believe the whole foreplay and aborted consummation scene was meant to encapsulate the period of the anima work where the anima seems especially erotic up to the Coniunctio, which ends up not being a transcendent consummation of perfect love, but an unexpected need to make a major sacrifice. Part of the sacrifice is the relinquishing of the hope or lust for transcendent union, and part is the impressment into service with the Godfather. Heroism means duty to the Self, not getting the perfect lay.
But this is an extremely hard lesson to learn, to accept. There's nothing wrong with a great lay, of course. But this particular great lay is symbolic. We should not imagine (as it is all to easy to do, especially among puritanical Americans) that part of being heroic is abstaining from pleasure or that the instinctual Self would advocate such an absurd (by instinctual terms) and stunted cultural ideal. This psychic dynamic surrounding the Coniunctio is entirely about self-interest vs. Other-interest, especially where self-interest is about cementing a mock-heroic persona for oneself.
But in addition to the washing of the hands, this flawed path of self-interest or interest in reward and self-satisfaction is also treated with another symbolic development: the arrival of my cousin Art and his repair of the synthesizer-like machine. This is very much a dream pun. Although I do have a cousin Art whose visage the dream character bore, the real meaning is entirely in his name. As Art, he represents both my artistic mind as a writer and The Art, or the Work of alchemy (and individuation). The apparatus that Art repaired in the dream became mythologized for me during this period of my life as "The Huge Machine". It showed up in a number of my creative writings at the time and occupied my imagination. Part of this mythology held the Huge Machine to be an expression of the mind of Lucifer, who (also in this personal mythology) was the "true lover of God" willing to forsake both his own welfare and the demand that he worship humanity in order to stay devoted to God above all else. The Huge Machine was how this Lucifer figure expressed his story of complexity, longing, grief, and ingenuity. It was the massive instrument on which he constructed and played his Holy Blues.
I had little understanding of what this all might mean at the time. It was just the obsession of my imagination. But looking back on this now, I very much understand the significance of this creative fantasy. The Huge Machine is an exact parallel of what I now call the Logos. Lucifer is the ideal figure to correspond to the heroic ego, because of his brush with inflation, his unwillingness to abide by the human (the Demon-driven ego), and his absolute devotion to God (the Self). The fantasy of The Huge Machine I developed at the time included an immeasurable complexity even though I knew nothing about natural and adaptive complex systems then. Also, as a vehicle of expression, The Huge Machine is essentially a language.
The symbolism of this dream even points toward the synthetic process of dialectic ("union of the Opposites") in its portrayal of the Logos machine as a mixer or synthesizer. This Logos is (as the prima materia) inherited from the instinctual Self, but in a dead or non-functional form. It requires the Art to resuscitate and develop the Logos. And this resuscitation greatly pleases the Self, since it is what facilitates the Self's libido adaptively. The dream merely flags the very beginning of the Logos, the Work, but the Logos increasingly becomes the object of the Work, the symbol of the Goal, the stuff of resurrection (the "birth" of the instinctual Self's libido into the material environment). Here, the repair of the machine allows the mission of the Self to go forward.