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Image and Symbol => Myth and Folktale => Topic started by: Sealchan on January 31, 2008, 05:53:58 PM

Title: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Sealchan on January 31, 2008, 05:53:58 PM
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Quote from: Kafiri on Yesterday at 07:19:38 AM
Matt,
I disagree with you here.  The "heroic sacrifice" is a precursor to an encounter with the Self.  The Hero's task is to develop his ego strength until he can bow down(sacrifice) before the anima.  Take a look at this post:  http://uselessscience.com/forum/index.php?topic=166.msg743#msg743

Further Beebe writes:  "Like all mythic images, the anima is a root metaphor for an unconscious style of thought and behavior that underlies conscious choices. . . .  only the anima can deliver a man into a consciousness that is based, not on heroic self-mastery, but rather on empathic participation in life." It seem to me that men need this form of consciousness before they can relate to the Self, as von Franz says, "in the right way."

Hi Kafiri,

This leads to one of my fundamental gripes with conventional Jungian thinking.  The difference you note is, I think, primarily a difference in the way I use some conventional Jungian terms.  This notion of the hero that Beebe and many other Jungians use is entirely foreign to me (on a personal/experiential level).  I see it crop up in some myths . . . Sigfried, for instance (which was probably the foundation of Jung's hero notion), Heracles, and Gilgamesh (for a poem criticizing this attitude in a Gilgamesh figure, see my poem "Slaying Humbaba").  But the heroes in fairytales rarely resemble this conquering mode that stands against the Dark Mother and falls to the seduction of the mysterious woman or witch.  In fairytales, the hero has more of the Fool in him and doesn't succeed by might but by fortune, luck, blessing, and sometimes wit (i.e., by "plasticity").

For me, that is the real hero.  This Siegfried ambitious conqueror type has no appeal for me at all.  And so, yes, I agree that that kind of "hero" must be initiated (or more accurately, "killed") before the anima work can begin.  This is, perhaps, why in the stories of such heroes, they die in the end.  That "heroic mode" cannot go on indefinitely.

This is probably worth separating into a separate thread on the Hero archetype.  I think kafiri has finally identified one of the deeper points that I also am in disagreement with you on.  I'm not sure I know Kafiri's full position and I haven't read through your post but I am excited to have found a hook into some of the intuitive discrepancies that I have been feeling regarding some of your views.

Siegfried is an excellent example and, again, without having read your post let me inject my understanding of the hero archetype.  Taken from Wagner's opera, The Ring of the Nibelung, the third opera Siegfried focuses on the raising of Siegfried, his escape from the machinations of his foster parent and enemy Mime, his battle with the dragon Fafner, the transformation of consciousness caused by the tasting of Fafner's blood, the defeat of his hidden father Wotan as he ascends the Fire Mountain and awakens his destined bride Brunehilde whom he first mistakes for his mother and then discovers his sexual instinct in her ending with the imminent coniunctio as the music swells to a glorious climax.

To me this story is all about the first part of life (half may be too much) where the child awakens to the world within and without and develops his ego to be able to separate and connect on its own agenda and not succomb to potentially overwhelming outer influences.  Siegfried defeats Fafner and gains the ability to hear the song of the bird both instinct and spirit in order to follow his destined path into the arms of his anima.  The hero descends to the underworld (Mime's cave, Fafner's cave) and defeats the dragon-enemy, achieves the treasure and returns to the upper world (via Wotan) where he must translate the inner value-treasure to a worldly good (adventures of Siegfried which are briefly indicated at the beginning of the fourth opera Twilight of the Gods).  At the top of the mountain Siegfried meets and joins with his anima. 

This indicates the ego's development as a non-self-conscious process of descent and ascent.  This is roughly equivalent to today's development from childhood to early adulthood when the individual becomes an independent contributing member of society.  The inner accomplishment is the preparation of the ego to be ready to join with its complimentary opposite anima/us as well as the outer accomplishment of the slaying of the mother and father (in this story the mother dies in child birth and the father is a God so he is merely defeated in combat, but his active role in the epic saga ends at this point) which is to be understood as the stepping away from the traps of the mother and father complex, and the actual achievement of the soul mate symbolized by the marriage or sexual union. 

All of this is "pre-individuation" in my view.  This is the non-self-conscious developmental style that Campbell has shown extensively in his Hero with a Thousand Faces.  It includes the encounter with the Mother, Father, Shadow, Anima/us but is not required to be self-conscious.  This is early Genesis, pre-literate mythology and not post-literate, fairy tale or post-Christ/Buddha type of myth.   Also the post-Celtic Arthurian romance tales are very much kill the dragon, get the girl.  There are more feminine oriented tales especially in the European and other folk tale and fairy tale traditions that still half fit Campbell's Hero's Journey model but contain enough differences to warrant the several books written on the subject by Neumann and other mainly female authors.

In my understanding most of what you talk about Matt is a later process of self-conscious development where the whole Hero's Journey is visited and revisited but with a growing sense of familiarity and deconstruction.  This is where the fourth opera comes in in Wagner's cycle.  Twilight of the Gods details hmmm...(I'm just now realizing how the second anima theme is demonstrated here)...anyway, details how Siegfried's isolated power is now subject to corruption by the world he has conquered.  He is tricked with a potion to forget his anima-bride left behind on the mountain top and to fall in love with a less noble lady.  Her brother plans to kill him (echoes of the Isis-Osiris-Set-Nephthys quaternity?) and take Siegfried's inheritance.  Well, eventually this plan works and by the time it does Brunehilde has shown up and gone through the whole process of hating Siegfried and then finding out that he was duped.  So Siegfried falls (and we have the theme music to the movie Excalibur as a result) and we see the glorious accomplishment of Wotan who in a Christ-like or Bodhisattva-like self-sacrifice accomplishes the salvation of the world from the curse of the Ring which, as far as I can tell, is the curse of tyranny and the choking out of free will.  As self-consciousness post Christ/Buddha grows the gods diminish. 

Now Parsifal...there is an individuation story...
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Kafiri on January 31, 2008, 08:23:05 PM
Sealchan,
Thank you for starting this thread - let the festivities commence!!!

Let me begin explaining a couple of things from my perspective.  First, Matt is correct in a very limited sense when he relates the hero to the ego.  IMO this relation has it genesis when the ego "identifies" with the archetype; in this situation the ego is unconsciously bound to the archetype.  Let me be clear here also, about one critical aspect of projection that is quite often overlooked; to wit:  it is one thing for me to project onto others, it is a quite different matter for me to "carry" a projection.  By carrying a projection I mean that someone else has projected an archetype onto me.  When a "weak" ego "carries" a projection, the archetype in the projection is activated in the carrier.  In the case of a "mother's son" the mother projects the hero onto the son.  This tends to activate the hero archetype in the unconscious of the son, and the weak ego identifies with the archetype.  This is very clear in both the story of Parsifal and Perseus.  In both these myths the father is absent from the story.  Both tales begin with only the mothers and the sons.  This is the key departure point.  In the Perseus tale he must eventually slay the Medusa(the mother complex); and he accomplishes this only with the aid of the feminine(anima) in the form of the Gray Women and Athena.  As to the Grail legend:
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When the anima is not projected on to a woman but remains in her own place in the soul, she is for man a mediatrix of the contents of the unconscious.  The Grail Bearer, whom Perceval is to meet later, can be considered such a figure.  On the whole the there are many feminine characters in the Grail literature who bear the stamp of the anima and are to be understood less as real women than as anima figures endowed with superhuman qualities and archetypal traits.
Emma Jung and M.L. von Franz, The Grail Legend, P. 65

This is why, IMO, Beebe is correct that we men, particularly if we are "mother's son's", must come to terms with our Anima if we are to mature psychologically. Sealchan does this have any resonance for you?
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Matt Koeske on February 01, 2008, 12:26:16 PM

From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth):
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The monomyth (often referred to as "the hero's journey") is a description of a basic pattern found in many narratives from around the world. This universal pattern was described by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949).[1] A noted scholar of novelist James Joyce, Campbell borrowed the term monomyth from Joyce's Finnegans Wake.

Campbell's insight was that important myths from around the world which have survived for thousands of years, all share a fundamental structure. This fundamental structure contains a number of stages, which includes

   1. A call to adventure, which the hero has to accept or decline
   2. A road of trials, regarding which the hero succeeds or fails
   3. Achieving the goal or "boon", which often results in important self-knowledge
   4. A return to the ordinary world, again as to which the hero can succeed or fail
   5. Applying the boon, in which what the hero has gained can be used to improve the world

In a well-known quote from the introduction to The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell wrote:
“ A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”

The classic examples of the monomyth relied upon by Campbell and other scholars include the Buddha, Moses, and Christ stories, although Campbell cites many other classic myths from many cultures which rely upon this basic structure.


In the monomyth, the hero starts in the ordinary world, and receives a call to enter an unusual world of strange powers and events. If the hero accepts the call to enter this strange world, the hero must face tasks and trials, and may have to face these trials alone, or may have assistance. At its most intense, the hero must survive a severe challenge, often with help earned along the journey. If the hero survives, the hero may achieve a great gift or "boon." The hero must then decide whether to return to the ordinary world with this boon. If the hero does decide to return, the hero often faces challenges on the return journey. If the hero is successful in returning, the boon or gift may be used to improve the world. The stories of Osiris, Prometheus, Moses, Buddha, and Christ, for example, follow this structure very closely.

Campbell describes some seventeen stages or steps along this journey. Very few myths contain all seventeen stages — some myths contain many of the stages, while others contain only a few; some myths may have as a focus only one of the stages, while other myths may deal with the stages in a somewhat different order. These seventeen stages may be organized in a number of ways, including division into three sections: Departure (sometimes called Separation), Initiation and Return. "Departure" deals with the hero venturing forth on the quest; "Initiation" deals with the hero's various adventures along the way; and "Return" deals with the hero's return home with knowledge and powers acquired on the journey.

The monomyth structure can be found in many popular books and films, such as the Star Wars and The Matrix movie series, and the Harry Potter series of novels.


Campbell's Monomyth Stages (From The Hero with a Thousand Faces):

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Chapter I: Departure

    1. The Call to Adventure: The adventure begins with the hero receiving a call to action, such as a threat to the peace of the community, or the hero simply falls into or blunders into it. The call is often announced to the hero by another character who acts as a "herald". The herald, often represented as dark or terrifying and judged evil by the world, may call the character to adventure simply by the crisis of his appearance.

    2. Refusal of the Call: In some stories, the hero initially refuses the call to adventure. When this happens, the hero may suffer somehow, and may eventually choose to answer, or may continue to decline the call.

    3. Supernatural Aid: After the hero has accepted the call, he encounters a protective figure (often elderly) who provides special tools and advice for the adventure ahead, such as an amulet or a weapon.

    4. The Crossing of the First Threshold: The hero must cross the threshold between the world he is familiar with and that which he is not. Often this involves facing a "threshold guardian", an entity that works to keep all within the protective confines of the world but must be encountered in order to enter the new zone of experience.

    5. The Belly of the Whale: The hero, rather than passing a threshold, passes into the new zone by means of rebirth. Appearing to have died by being swallowed or having their flesh scattered, the hero is transformed and becomes ready for the adventure ahead.



Chapter II: Initiation

    1. The Road of Trials: Once past the threshold, the hero encounters a dream landscape of ambiguous and fluid forms. The hero is challenged to survive a succession of obstacles and, in so doing, amplifies his consciousness. The hero is helped covertly by the supernatural helper or may discover a benign power supporting him in his passage.

    2. The Meeting with the Goddess: The ultimate trial is often represented as a marriage between the hero and a queenlike, or mother-like figure. This represents the hero's mastery of life (represented by the feminine) as well as the totality of what can be known. When the hero is female, this becomes a male figure.

    3. Woman as the Temptress: His awareness expanded, the hero may fixate on the disunity between truth and his subjective outlook, inherently tainted by the flesh. This is often represented with revulsion or rejection of a female figure.

    4. Atonement with the Father: The hero reconciles the tyrant and merciful aspects of the father-like authority figure to understand himself as well as this figure.

    5. Apotheosis: The hero's ego is disintegrated in a breakthrough expansion of consciousness. Quite frequently the hero's idea of reality is changed; the hero may find an ability to do new things or to see a larger point of view, allowing the hero to sacrifice himself.

    6. The Ultimate Boon: The hero is now ready to obtain that which he has set out, an item or new awareness that, once he returns, will benefit the society that he has left.



Chapter III: Return

    1. Refusal of the Return: Having found bliss and enlightenment in the other world, the hero may not want to return to the ordinary world to bestow the boon onto his fellow man.

    2. The Magic Flight: When the boon's acquisition (or the hero's return to the world) comes against opposition, a chase or pursuit may ensue before the hero returns.
   
    3. Rescue from Without: The hero may need to be rescued by forces from the ordinary world. This may be because the hero has refused to return or because he is successfully blocked from returning with the boon. The hero loses his ego.

    4. The Crossing of the Return Threshold: The hero returns to the world of common day and must accept it as real.

    5. Master of the Two Worlds: Because of the boon or due to his experience, the hero may now perceive both the divine and human worlds.

    6. Freedom to Live: The hero bestows the boon to his fellow man.



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Other Formulations

Campbell's proposed structure has been expanded and modified since its conception. Many modern characterizations of it add in new steps (such as the hero having a miraculous birth) or combine or prune others. For instance, Phil Cousineau, in his book, The Hero's Journey, divides it up into the following eight steps:

   1. The Call to Adventure
   2. The Road of Trials
   3. The Vision Quest
   4. The Meeting with the Goddess
   5. The Boon
   6. The Magic Flight
   7. The Return Threshold
   8. The Master of Two Worlds


Another eight-step formulation was given by David Adams Leeming in his book, Mythology: The Voyage of the Hero:

   1. Miraculous conception and birth
   2. Initiation of the hero-child
   3. Withdrawal from family or community for meditation and preparation
   4. Trial and Quest
   5. Death
   6. Descent into the underworld
   7. Resurrection and rebirth
   8. Ascension, apotheosis, and atonement


Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Sealchan on February 01, 2008, 12:27:18 PM
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This is why, IMO, Beebe is correct that we men, particularly if we are "mother's son's", must come to terms with our Anima if we are to mature psychologically. Sealchan does this have any resonance for you?

Sure, although I usually feel out of my element in looking at how interpersonal dynamics affect an individual's archetypal associations, this certainly sounds plausable. 

I would agree generally that a male ego in relationship with its anima is better off than one that remains in relationship with a mother figure exclusively and I would say it is preferable to relate to an anima that is not a projection onto a known waking world figure rather than one that is.  Each indicates a progressive step in the differentiation of the individual from an original unconscious connectivity to these forms of the feminine other (to the masculine ego).

But I would like to say that identification with the hero archetype is functional at times.  In my understanding, it is especially helpful at a very young age (before one could possibly not be susceptible to archetypal identification) such as around 5 years old.  I think that after this stage of ego development the usefulness of hero identification diminishes excepting when engaging with the collective where it can come in handy if you are self-conscious about it.  Otherwise, you suffer in the way that so many media stars have suffered and are suffering...lonely (separated) amidst the adoring multitudes whose adoration somehow eventually does not provide you with the needed meaning...

The relationship between the hero and the mother is an interesting one.  The miraculous birth of the hero is understood against the background of the Great Mother unconscious.  The hero is born with all the attributes he needs to succeed.  It is as if he is the divine solution to the problem that another "brooding" consciousness has already asked for due to a problematic polarization that it has contained.  But if this "brooding" a.k.a. feminine consciousness is mapped to the whole psyche then containment is granted.  So the Great Mother is the ultimate psychic container.  And just as the Great Mother unconscious is the source of consciousness, it is also the source of a solution to the problematic polarizations that the ego-consciousness finds itself in later. 

The hero is the complimentary perspective to the above view of consciousness born of the unconscious.  In what I call the "separative" view (patriarchal, masculine), this same story is told from the view of the ego.  From this view the ego is self-created.  It has pulled itself up by its own bootstraps working against rather than with the pre-existent parental forces that be.  Later the ego must return to what is truly the Great Mother's body (uroboric incest) to get the anima-treasure and return with it back to the upper world.  The heroic ego is, by birth, ready for this challenge but the more psychologically sophisticated the storyteller the more the hero is seen to personally struggle through the experience of the return to the mother (unconscious) to resolve the dilemna's of consciousness. 

There is a lot of room for confusion here regarding a mother complex as a problem versus the archetypal dynamics typical of a heroic consciousness having to voluntarily re-enter the realm of the Mother.  I think that there it may be extremely difficult to differentiate the two, in fact, it may not be possible from the examination of a dream alone without knowing in detail the individual's waking world situation.  I have been endeavoring to discover such a way in my own dreams but have only my own conscious self-understanding to go on.  In the end I usually come back to a mystical sense that the heroic strengths and tragic flaws of the ego are two-sides to the same coin.  Problems are opportunities as the Ferengi like to say.

What is a Mother complex if one does not, in fact, have an active problematic relationship, in the waking world, with one's mother?  How do we independently verify the claims of a dream as to our personal developmental condition?  Dreams will often make us look like the villian in one dream and the hero in the next, or cowardly in one dream and brave in the next, etc...  So how do we objectively apply a diagnosis of complex X?  Or is the complex diagnosis simply one way of looking at the psychic configuration that does not preclude another perspective which need not consider the complex as the "real issue"?

Perhaps one method would be to review dream content generally to look for thematic biases (a general lack of the presence of the father or mother, for instance) and then suggest that the psyche is "complexed" in this way or that. 



Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Matt Koeske on February 01, 2008, 12:32:45 PM

Neat, graphic style site with Monomyth cycle wheel: http://ias.berkeley.edu/orias/hero/
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Matt Koeske on February 01, 2008, 03:06:24 PM
This is probably worth separating into a separate thread on the Hero archetype.  I think kafiri has finally identified one of the deeper points that I also am in disagreement with you on. . . .

Siegfried is an excellent example and, again, without having read your post let me inject my understanding of the hero archetype.  Taken from Wagner's opera, The Ring of the Nibelung . . . .

To me this story is all about the first part of life (half may be too much) where the child awakens to the world within and without and develops his ego to be able to separate and connect on its own agenda and not succomb to potentially overwhelming outer influences.  Siegfried defeats Fafner and gains the ability to hear the song of the bird both instinct and spirit in order to follow his destined path into the arms of his anima.  The hero descends to the underworld (Mime's cave, Fafner's cave) and defeats the dragon-enemy, achieves the treasure and returns to the upper world (via Wotan) where he must translate the inner value-treasure to a worldly good (adventures of Siegfried which are briefly indicated at the beginning of the fourth opera Twilight of the Gods).  At the top of the mountain Siegfried meets and joins with his anima.

Chris, although I've heard the music, I have never intimately acquainted myself with the Wagner version of the story.  In college, I had a Germanic Myths and Legends class in which I read the original rendering of the Sigfried/Sigurd story (which is summarized here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigurd)) that ends with his tragic (not heroic) death.  We could say that his "crime" was an inability to commit to the coniunctio and dissolution (ego-death).  Thus, I associated him with Gilgamesh who also ultimately fails in his quest for immortality.

As far as the Wagnerized version goes, I think it is worth considering that it became an inspiration behind National Socialism, which is an ideology of what I was calling the conquering hero.  I don't mean to suggest that it isn't a "genuinely mythic" story, merely that there is inherent in it the very same egomania I attribute to the conquering hero.  This egomania is always replete with devaluation of the Other and the "base".  We could say that these things are representations of the instinctual unconscious that have not been recognized or valuated.  The conquering hero's egomania also prevents him from truly uniting with the anima (as Beebe and Kafiri have said).  Additionally, the egomania and desire to conquer and colonized (in the name of the ego) engenders a brutal and horrific shadow, which is the mirror opposite (and twin) of the conquering hero. 

This is sort of what Jung tried to write about in his infamous essay, "Wotan" . . . but (as I argued in the previous thread), I think he was too enraptured by this conquering hero myth (and its notion of the Great Man) to get enough distance from the complex to critique it accurately.  As a result this was one of the main roots of the accusations of his antisemitism.  The reality of all this is, I think, much more complex than it is often rendered (by either his supporters or his detractors) . . . but I do feel quite strongly that Jung was partly enraptured by this conquering hero mythos.  And that it had a detrimental effect on his thinking (not to mention his reputation).

This indicates the ego's development as a non-self-conscious process of descent and ascent.  This is roughly equivalent to today's development from childhood to early adulthood when the individual becomes an independent contributing member of society.  The inner accomplishment is the preparation of the ego to be ready to join with its complimentary opposite anima/us as well as the outer accomplishment of the slaying of the mother and father (in this story the mother dies in child birth and the father is a God so he is merely defeated in combat, but his active role in the epic saga ends at this point) which is to be understood as the stepping away from the traps of the mother and father complex, and the actual achievement of the soul mate symbolized by the marriage or sexual union. 

All of this is "pre-individuation" in my view.

I agree with you that this is "pre-individuation" (as in before individuation begins).  My only nitpick is that I would say that none of this really has anything to do with individuation and is not a necessary "proto-individuation" or preparation for individuation.  Epic though it may be, I think this is a myth of (modern or proto-modern) culture more so than of human psychology.  We only need to go through such a myth if we are "ego-inflated" and have fallen into the complex of the conquering hero, the ego that believes it can and should control everything.  I see this as a disease that is especially noticeable in those who have obtained (or have been given) power.  This is the attitude that must die in us (if it exists) so that we can enter into the instinctual individuation process (and "animi initiation").  But the attainment of such an attitude is not, in my opinion, an essential part of pre-adult ego development.  It is not the "archetype" of ego development . . . but rather, the myth of a particular complex whose signature is egomania.  As it depicts a complex more so than an adaptation, it more closely resembles Freud's favored Oedipus Complex than a true "hero's journey" of individuation.

My take on childhood ego-development is that it is more of an indoctrination process than a "conquering" of the mythic parents or the parental unconscious.  For instance, I think very few people in our society have actually moved beyond the child/parent relationship to their unconscious.  If they had, Christianity (which encourages this dynamic) would no longer be a suitable mass religion and expression of human spirituality.  In order for a child's ego to develop through adolescence, no conquering is necessary . . . and I would argue that any feeling of conquering is an illusion, perhaps even a delusion of inflation.

It may be that that inflation can sometimes manifest as a belief that one has conquered his or her instincts, "mastered" chaos, and taken control of his or her destiny.  And perhaps this notion is derived intuitively from a distant glimpse of the individuation instinct (and then horribly distorted), but this isn't genuine individuation.  The mark of individuation is the "see-through" and dissolution of tribal affiliations.  I.e., individuation.  The becoming of an individual, something no longer defined by the collective.  This is not in any way "empowerment" or "mastery of self".  It's very much the opposite . . . a surrendering to the instinctual process of individuation, usually represented by the death of the "social personality" or the part of the ego defined by the Tribe and affiliations to it.

The tricky thing is that there are definitely parallels between the individuation mythos (Hero's Journey) and this egomaniacal transcendence and self-empowerment.  For instance, death/rebirth symbols.  My feeling, though, is that the death of the conqueror is not really the same things as the alchemical/shamanic/individuation death, dissolution, dismemberment . . . or stripping of the ego's tribal affiliations and identity.  In the conqueror's myth, I suspect we are seeing something like the death of "ego weakness" and the rebirth of the empowered ego (i.e., the death of the ego that is not approved of by the group and the birth/fabrication of the ego that is closer to the group's projected ideal).  A real world example of this might be the "pick yourself up by your bootstraps" ideology behind a body building binge or the notion that we must prove our worth by earning a medical or law or doctorate degree.

Sometimes these experiences help us realize that we are capable of more than we realized (a la a "vision quest"), but I think that much of the time they are elaborate masks or outfits we put on in order to stave off our feelings of weakness.  We don't actually "conquer" our weakness and fear, we just manage to hide it from society and hope that, in the eyes of the group, we will be seen as strong and brave and accomplished.  But it's just a fortress, a defense . . . and if and when individuation proper comes upon us, this fortress must be destroyed.  The more substantial it is, the harder it will be for us to individuate, the more painful it will be when it is being torn down. 

This is a pretty well-accepted aspect of the ideology behind asceticism.  In Buddhism, this would be "attachment" and "desire".  The idea is that the spiritual life, the relationship between ego and Self cannot be pursued effectively unless these barriers are torn down.  I think this is reflected in the Gospel saying of Jesus about it being easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven.

This is the non-self-conscious developmental style that Campbell has shown extensively in his Hero with a Thousand Faces.

As my post of Campbell's hero outline shows, Campbell's conception of the hero went beyond this.  Actually, I have no major gripes with Campbell's outline (minor ones, yes).  It fits pretty well with my general conception of the hero.  But as I mentioned in the post from the other thread, I feel that Campbell and the Jungians do not make an adequate differentiation between the egoic conqueror and the true hero.  They have been bamboozled by the seeming overlap in the early stages, but they have not inquired sufficiently into the differences.  That's why I feel a differentiation needs to be made.  And that's why I feel the failure to make that differentiation serves the occlusion of individuation in the Jungian system.  In the past I have expressed this also as the Jungians not having a functional system to deal with inflation.  They recognize it, but can't resolve it, because they cannot differentiate the true hero from the conqueror.

[A side note: this inability to make a differentiating judgment would, in Jung-speak, derive from a failure to apply or valuate the "feeling function".  The "thinking function" doesn't need to make a differentiation here, because it all fits nicely into paradigmatic categories like "death and rebirth" or "road of trials".  As a devalued bit of abstract information, the conqueror cannot be differentiated from the true hero.  But the feeling intelligence comes in to tell us that one thing is different from the other based on the discrimination of value.  Seen in this light, it is no surprise that the Jungians have failed to make this necessary differentiation . . . since feeling is a devalued function in the Jungian psychic pantheon.  Much like sensation . . . whereas thinking and intuition are exalted.]

My guess would be that the mythos of the conqueror is a good portrait of the shadow of the hero.  Psychologically speaking, this would be the fearful and fragile ego that puts on the hero's clothes and usurps his power in order to defend against his own weakness.  And I use the masculine pronoun here because this is very much a patriarchal, male myth of ego transcendence.  Yet another example of how it is specific to a cultural construct and not a pure expression of instinct.  This conqueror shadow/persona is what the individuant needs to keep a good eye on.  It is what undermines efforts at individuation.  Its inflation leads it to believe that what it's doing is individuating, when in fact it is defending against individuation.  It is what I mean when I say "the Demon of the complex" . . . as this Demon would manifest in someone seeking or desiring individuation.

In my understanding most of what you talk about Matt is a later process of self-conscious development where the whole Hero's Journey is visited and revisited but with a growing sense of familiarity and deconstruction.  This is where the fourth opera comes in in Wagner's cycle.  Twilight of the Gods details hmmm...(I'm just now realizing how the second anima theme is demonstrated here)...anyway, details how Siegfried's isolated power is now subject to corruption by the world he has conquered.  He is tricked with a potion to forget his anima-bride left behind on the mountain top and to fall in love with a less noble lady.  Her brother plans to kill him (echoes of the Isis-Osiris-Set-Nephthys quaternity?) and take Siegfried's inheritance.  Well, eventually this plan works and by the time it does Brunehilde has shown up and gone through the whole process of hating Siegfried and then finding out that he was duped.  So Siegfried falls (and we have the theme music to the movie Excalibur as a result) and we see the glorious accomplishment of Wotan who in a Christ-like or Bodhisattva-like self-sacrifice accomplishes the salvation of the world from the curse of the Ring which, as far as I can tell, is the curse of tyranny and the choking out of free will.  As self-consciousness post Christ/Buddha grows the gods diminish.

The sense I got was that the Nazis looked on the deception and betrayal of Siegfried (by a "lesser man") as akin to the threat the Jews and other "undesirables" posed to German entitlement.  This parallels the perennial "blame the Jews" theme made into dogma by early Christianity.  I don't meant to claim that this is the kind of thing Wagner had in mind (I really don't know much about his intentions) . . . but again, I think it begs us to question why this theme can be so easily appropriated or misappropriated for the justification of immoral and destructive (Other-persecuting or -purging) behavior.  This is a large-scale example of why the differentiation I'm calling for is needed.  How do we discriminate?  How do we make sure we can tell the difference between individuation and egomania?

Criticisms on this issue have been leveled at Jungian psychology in the past (and reiterated by Richard Noll and others more recently).  What is the Jungian system for differentiating individuation and inflation?  I personally feel that there isn't one.  Instead, there is a taboo that totemizes inflation, characterizing it as the Big Bogeyman of "confrontation with the unconscious".  But because it is tabooed and totemized, we really can't know anything distinct about inflation and how it works.  The taboo prevents us from making the necessary differentiation . . . and this suggests that the very purpose of the taboo is to prevent the necessary differentiation that individuation requires.  This is akin to what I call the "self-deification taboo" and I think it is largely a Christian phenomenon.

I'm not suggesting that no Jungians make it past this obstacle (as not everyone is prone to extreme egomania or inflation), merely that they don't very well understand how they are able to do so . . . because they can never examine this inflation closely enough to bring a more scientific or rational language to it.  It also means that many Jungians might feel they are "individuating" while in fact they are caught in the snare of the inflation (this generally manifests with the individual's conflation of individuation with attainment or enlightenment or some other form of spiritual empowerment . . . like Kundalini awakening).

Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Matt Koeske on February 01, 2008, 05:42:40 PM
Let me begin explaining a couple of things from my perspective.  First, Matt is correct in a very limited sense when he relates the hero to the ego.  IMO this relation has it genesis when the ego "identifies" with the archetype; in this situation the ego is unconsciously bound to the archetype.

I have been calling the hero the "heroic ego".  I feel that the hero is not one of the "Self-derived" archetypes.  It is an archetype of ego formation and development.  It isn't, therefore, an archetype that we should worship or bow down to.  Rather, I see it as a model for Self-devoted action and attitude that the ego aspires to.  This is part of the reason why, when we abide by this model, we experience sacrifice and symbolic "ego-death".  The heroic ego is the ego that is always devoted to the Self and not to the world or to tribal expectations or to egoic pursuits.

But in waking life, we cannot "become" the heroic ego.  It's function is not to govern material decision making (not directly), but to govern internal relationality (to the Self).  If an individuant is having success with the Work, s/he should be able to hear the voice of the heroic ego among the pack of "advisers" in the mind.  It still won't always be easily differentiable form the other internal advisers that may be giving poor or at least selfish or defensive advise . . . but it will be audible.

In conventional Jungian thinking, there is sometimes the belief that the ego shouldn't identify with (or even use as a model) archetypes.  I agree (that this is generally pathological) except in the case of the hero or heroic ego.  It is fair to say, I think, that the heroic ego is what the Self employs to encourage the waking ego to relate functionally to it (the Self).  The heroic ego is the portal through which such relation can take place.  The animi are like "lures" used by the Self to direct the ego toward this portal and toward identification (during introverted and meditative movements) with the heroic ego.

This is why the heroic ego and the animi together form the syzygy, the coniunctio, the divine hermaphrodite of alchemy.  I make a very strong distinction between identifying with this heroic ego and identifying with the Self.  The identification with the Self is an inflation.  Individuation is, I believe, meant to make a very clear distinction between ego and Self.  This is why I emphasize the individuated relationship with the Self as a relationship with the Self-as-Other (or Shadow-Self).

But this healthy identification with the heroic ego is functional only in the Work, only internalized and psychologized.  If we imagine ourselves to be heroic egos in our waking life and daily behaviors, we are also suffering from inflation.  I don't mean to claim that the heroic ego can't be a driving force behind real life decisions and actions (especially in the "second opus" period of individuation).  It certainly can.  But the individuated ego knows that although the action might appear heroic, the actor is not a hero, but rather the servant of an inner model.  That is, the real heroic ego is the attitude that surrenders itself to the Self and allows the Self to guide action.  Thus, even in action, the ego is surrendering internally.  This is similar to the wei wu wei of the Taoists: doing without doing or effortless doing.  I have sometimes called this "right action" to differentiate it from passive detachment.  It is acting with the Self's Will (and this sometimes means not completely understanding and certainly not controlling or determining the action).

When we believe that we are heroic in our action, we are mistaking our will for the Will of the Self . . . or more accurately, claiming that our egoic will is divine.  That is an inflation . . . and it takes a lot of Work to be able to properly differentiate.

Let me be clear here also, about one critical aspect of projection that is quite often overlooked; to wit:  it is one thing for me to project onto others, it is a quite different matter for me to "carry" a projection.  By carrying a projection I mean that someone else has projected an archetype onto me.  When a "weak" ego "carries" a projection, the archetype in the projection is activated in the carrier.  In the case of a "mother's son" the mother projects the hero onto the son.  This tends to activate the hero archetype in the unconscious of the son, and the weak ego identifies with the archetype.  This is very clear in both the story of Parsifal and Perseus.  In both these myths the father is absent from the story.  Both tales begin with only the mothers and the sons.  This is the key departure point.  In the Perseus tale he must eventually slay the Medusa(the mother complex); and he accomplishes this only with the aid of the feminine(anima) in the form of the Gray Women and Athena.

Excellent point . . . but I am not satisfied with the term "weak ego" here.  "Normal ego" would be better.  It is not a weakness to carry parental projections, because carrying projections from our parents is ubiquitous and unavoidable.  We should not judge ourselves too harshly in this matter of humanness, because if we do, we will never succeed in resolving the complex engendered by this inheritance.

In these situations (and I can certainly speak here from personal experience, as this is the core issue of my personal complex), what we are inheriting is not just the projection of the hero, but the projection (more like "dumping" or "saddling") of a dissociation of Opposites . . . which is essentially what a complex is.  That would mean that we don't only inherit the hero, we also inherit the hero's shadow, the Demon.  And the way the complex is likely to play out is that we (as individuals) get bogged down because the hero and the Demon are embroiled in constant conflict within us.  Sometimes the hero is winning and determining our actions and attitudes, and sometimes the Demon is winning.  The "complex" or pathology of it for us is a matter of not being able to 1.) differentiate the two Opposites, and 2.) not being able to reconcile them or see how they are one and the same at some level.

So, if we identify with the hero at the expense of the Demon, the Demon will always be pulling some of the strings behind our "heroism" (and we will remain unconscious of this).  Likewise, if we identify with the Demon, we will grant unconscious power to the hero (but damn ourselves by resisting that power).  Most likely, though, we will swing between these polarities.  If this hypothetical individual (whom I identify with) engages in the Work or the individuation process, s/he will move toward a synthesis of the Demon and the hero in a way that gradually depotentiates the anxiety causing dissociation of the Opposites.  We gain sympathy for the Demon and its weakness and gain freedom from the unconscious following of the heroic mold (toward destruction . . . because, remember, the true heroic mold is self-sacrifice, so "addiction" to the hero drives one to be overly self-sacrificing).

In some people with this complex it is possible for the hero and the Demon to be so dissociated from one another that the heroic mode will actually be Demonic (although the individual will be unconscious of this).  This might lead to that conquering version of the hero I've been railing against.

As for this complex being specifically related to an inheritance from the mother, I'm not entirely convinced.  The projection of the hero can come from the father just as much, and either parent can project it onto his/her son or daughter.  But in the situation that Kafiri illuminates (man inheriting it from his mother), dealing with the Feminine can be tricky.  There will likely be a sense that maternal approval is dependent upon a certain kind of "heroism", but this will be accompanied by a sense that a certain kind of heroism is "Demonic" and discouraged by the mother/Mother.  there is (and this is what I gather Kafiri is talking about) a danger of becoming "Mommy's little hero".  I sometimes call this the Good Son.

As any Men's Movement advocate would note, this is its own kind of imprisonment.  In Iron John speak, this is why the prince needs to steal the key from under his mother's pillow and unlock the cage where the wild man is being kept.  The "superego" of the complex will tell the princely ego that this is a very bad thing to do and it will violate his mother's trust.  It will tell him that the wild man in the cage is extremely dangerous, aggressive, and "masculine" and will run amok, destroying the kingdom if he is released.

I have seen a number of Jungian men get trapped in this psychic situation where they feel they are doing what is right by never stealing the key and alway pleasing the Mother and fulfilling her projections of the Good Son.  Sometimes this involves the raising up of the anima onto a pedestal where she is obeyed and cherish (but never, shall we say, "shagged").  After all, she is pure and holy and, well, kind of like Mom . . . and so to hunger for her would be incestuous and taboo.  Jung makes a big deal of this characterization of the anima . . . too big a deal, I think.

But there is no doubt some truth to his insistence that a "stealing of the key from beneath the Mother's pillow" requires the violation of a taboo.  I didn't personally experience an issue like this in my Work, perhaps because I already saw my mother's desire for me to be a Good Son as imprisoning.  Stealing the key was no big deal.  Learning how to live with the shame of being a Bad Son (and getting through the initiation and requisite "Kitchen Work") was what really challenged me.  I.e., going down was easy; getting back up was hard.

So, my experience with the anima was not very Mother-tinged or incestuous feeling.  It was distinctly a partnership.  Only in the end of the anima work did I see the residual maternalism that is always a part of the anima.  That is, any feeling we have that the anima completes us or lifts us up or saves us is, at its core, a dependence on the Mother (maternal aspect of the unconscious).  And eventually, we will have to face this and relinquish it (which is part of what I call the heroic sacrifice).  But before we face that, we must increasingly devote ourselves to the anima relationship in order to undergo our initiation and step into the "black blacker than black" of the nigredo.  I.e., the full dissolution/coniunctio and the creation of the true prima materia (unmediated relationship between the ego and the Self).


But I wouldn't look at all of the myths in which a goddess or magical woman saves or aids the male hero as indications of a failure of initiation.  Not everything in the Work is "achieved" through consciousness.  Although I would hesitate to use the term "provided", I do think that much in the Work is "earned" and comes as the result of a transaction (such as was indicated in one of my recent dreams in which a numinous meter reader gave me a 5 and a 55 dollar bill from his own wallet as repayment for a fine wrongfully given to me).  As the alchemists said, the work cannot be done without Nature's aid and direction.  It cannot be accomplished by artifice (egoic will).  I see the Work as more like the preparation of offerings to the gods or to Nature (or the instinctual Self).  If these offerings are deemed suitable, the Self will make some transaction or exchange for them.

A few years back, I was working on a poem about a Holy Fool character named Sagging Pants Picking Icicles.  The poem was "orated" to sagging Pants by the Tribal Elders who were granting him a kind of ritual autonomy.  The poem is a "roast" of Sagging Pants, and in their chastising approval, the Elders encourage Sagging Pants to "roar" even if he does not know what he is roaring about exactly.  And then I thought, "But who will come to hear such roaring?  Who will give a shit?  What's the point?"  And so I wrote this question directly into the poem and paused.  Then, instantly, the answer came to me: "Firebird will come to hear!"

Quote
Firebird will build aeries in your belly pit
out of tar and flint stone.
He’ll sashay like an exploding peacock
among your collectables’ aisles’ neat symmetries,
shaking his bombardier ass,
molting his tail feathers in a lewd aurora
to incubate your drip-grown hatcheries.

But before I could write that stanza and complete (and comprehend) the poem, I had to take a year to understand why Firebird would come to hear.  When I figured it out (and understood that Firebird was my "spirit animal"), I was able to finish the poem.  Firebird is the vehicle through which the Self "talks back" to me, and he was given to me as a gesture of good faith in return for the Logos I created (initially through my poetry).  This Logos was the offering I left for the Self to nourish it.  Firebird is the Self as listener to and diner on the Logos.

I was (with the help of Firebird) then able to write the final poem for my book, "A Volunteer from the Audience (http://barbarity.blogspot.com/2005/08/volunteer-from-audience.html)" . . .

Quote
For the final act . . .
all those things we have been to each other,
discreet materia and connotation,
suits and signs and signifiers,
a dim sum spread out across the table
waiting for the hunger the road discards
as it wanders.

But on your command,
the sky leaps down
like a little white dog
caught licking the plates,
and you
appear me.

You are the magician,
after all.


So, when we read in the Odyssey that, after his many disastrous and wonderful journeys, Odysseus is left upon the shores of Ithaca asleep by Athena, I don't think we should see this as a failure to be initiated or a Mother-dependency.  It's a response to his sacrifice.  And it is not unlike the later scene in which Athena steps in to stop the slaughter of the suitor's families that Odysseus, Telemachus, and Laertes are embroiled in.  The Self does intervene, but not by our egoic determination, not because we command it or want it to.  It intervenes in a compensatory or reactive way.  It is not, like the Christian God, abstract and detached.  But its influence tends to be subtle and unconscious and often devalued by the ego (taken for granted).  That's why the alchemical opus is essentially a process of valuation ("transmutation") of what is debased.

The Self does not generally "provide" . . . it transacts, and that means that our relationship with the self is a matter of us having something of worth to give it.  Therefore the alchemist doesn't profit by the Work, and yet must be (psychically) "wealthy" enough to provide Gold to the process.


Of course, many stories do portray ego fantasies of a Mother-anima providing salvation to the ego (this is common in a lot of fantasy fiction and movies).  In reality, I think such "salvation" is usually a kind of imprisonment.  I.e., the Matrix.  That's a well chosen term for the illusion the "coppertops" live under in those films.  They are protected, mothered, but only so they can be used as fuel.


As to the Grail legend:
Quote

When the anima is not projected on to a woman but remains in her own place in the soul, she is for man a mediatrix of the contents of the unconscious.  The Grail Bearer, whom Perceval is to meet later, can be considered such a figure.  On the whole the there are many feminine characters in the Grail literature who bear the stamp of the anima and are to be understood less as real women than as anima figures endowed with superhuman qualities and archetypal traits.
Emma Jung and M.L. von Franz, The Grail Legend, P. 65

This is why, IMO, Beebe is correct that we men, particularly if we are "mother's son's", must come to terms with our Anima if we are to mature psychologically.

As indicated previously, although I do feel that the anima is a "mediatrix of the contents of the unconscious" (for a man), I think this mediating is transitional.  Even the lovely mediatrix must undergo a depotentiation in order to completely separate from the Mother (i.e., the unconscious as Mother).  I think there is more indication of acceptance for this sacrifice/depotentiation in the Men's Movement philosophies than there is in more conventional Jungianism.  That's a functional improvement in the way the Men's Movement portrays the anima work, and one that I think deserves to be better incorporated into "mainstream" Jungianism.

The Work will stall if we reach the stage of the heroic sacrifice (animi depotentiation) and "refuse the call".  The complete initiation of the ego by the animi requires the abandonment of dependency on them.  And this will be indicated by the animi themselves in most cases (and when the time is right).  That is, this sacrifice is not a "dumping" of the animi or a severing of the bond with them.  The animi will say, "I have to go now.  Accept it."  And we will say, "No!  You can't!  How can I go on without you?".  And they will reply, "You will manage."  And if we keep chasing them even after they have made this perfectly clear to us, the pursuit will lead us to ruin and confusion and estrangement or "world weariness" (because we can't get our libido directed completely into the world, and therefore the demands of the world tire and depress us).  Many of Bob Dylan's songs speak of the chasing of the anima after she has told him to go on without her.

Blood on the Tracks (http://bobdylan.com/moderntimes/albums/blood.html) and Desire (http://bobdylan.com/moderntimes/albums/desire.html) are amazing albums that really capture this . . . but even his most recent albums sing the same "tune" (albeit slightly more wearied and bluesy).

"Shelter from the Storm (http://bobdylan.com/moderntimes/songs/shelter.html)" (from Blood on the Tracks) is one of the best glimpses into Dylan's core complex.  The song combines Christ/Passion-identification images with anima attachment.  Both are two sides of the same coin.  He is facing the Christlike Passion or heroic sacrifice, but he can't go the last step . . . because . . .
Quote
Well, I'm livin' in a foreign country but I'm bound to cross the line
Beauty walks a razor's edge, someday I'll make it mine.
If I could only turn back the clock to when God and her were born.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

He just can't give up the place "where it's always safe and warm" . . . the anima relationship.  But, hey, he weaves the mythology of this state of being into some amazing songs.  Nobody captures the feeling of anima loss and longing like Dylan.

Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Sealchan on February 01, 2008, 06:11:19 PM
Quote
My take on childhood ego-development is that it is more of an indoctrination process than a "conquering" of the mythic parents or the parental unconscious.  For instance, I think very few people in our society have actually moved beyond the child/parent relationship to their unconscious.  If they had, Christianity (which encourages this dynamic) would no longer be a suitable mass religion and expression of human spirituality.  In order for a child's ego to develop through adolescence, no conquering is necessary . . . and I would argue that any feeling of conquering is an illusion, perhaps even a delusion of inflation.

I would say that in our Western society, in spite of the protective instincts of the parents, today's child is taught to separate from the parents even while the same parents urge their children to be obediant.  This is because of the myth of free will and individual responsibility.  We teach our children not to lie, not to steal, not to hit (except maybe in self-defense).  We teach them that they are to blame when they do something wrong.  We teach them, if they are Christian, that they are directly accountable to God and not via another agency.  We have to go bodily to school, pass the tests without help with the answers (we are assessed not for our ability to get the answers but to reproduce them with our memories), we get punished as individuals, rewarded as individuals.  We are ironically marketed to as individuals by indicating (to everyone) that if they used product X it would be an expression of their individual inclinations (even while the commercial uses not-so-subtle associative suggestions about just how much everyone will like you when you are using the product in question).  All of this is a teaching that we are not defined as part of a whole but as a separate being. 

Today's rituals are the practical rituals of test-passing (school exams, driver's license tests, college entrance exams, etc...)and experience and skill acquisition (riding a bike, driving a car, first kiss, etc...).  They are not so much sacred as they are practically necessary and indicative of our worship of conscious experience.  They are sacred if you consider that this is all predicated on the idea that we each must prove ourselves to some greater body that holds us in judgement.  This abstraction of accomplishment goes towards the sense of self as an abstract quantity.  It is a patriarchal dominance that forces us into relationship with the abstract, the Logos and we sink or swim under that collective, separative conditioning. 

This is simply what it is like to live in a world that embraces its consciousness as an experience rooted in the individual human body.  But I think it is easy for us to forget that this is an accomplishment of centuries in the making in spite of all of the problems that go with.  Because of this excessive separative, patriarchal orientation of the collective we have wars based on principles enacted on bad data (Iraq war/freedom/weapons of mass destruction).  In spite of all that is wrong about the world today, I still want to acknowledge that the heroic archetype is the central archetype of an early phase of our conscious development and that it was a natural process, one that we cannot judge except in how we wish to continue forward with that in further consciousness.  I don't mean to justify all of the horrors that might be attributed to such a development, indeed our role now is to apply our inheritence of consciousness to the task of further development to undo our inclinations to evil.  But I do think one would be hard pressed to prove that any other way of development would have been less bloody or cruel.

Matt, it seems to me that you are dismissing over a century of comparative anthropology, mythology and depth psychology in saying that the hero archetype is a problem to be solved and not at all an important process that brings us to the greater developed conscious perspective that we have.  My guess is that you find yourself overwhelmed by the evil of it all, how hurtful, painful, cruel and destructive this process has been.  And no doubt it has been a living hell for millions.  All of these tragedies serve to feedback into our self-awareness as motivations for the next heroic contribution to our collective.

Now, at the same time, I do recognize that in Campbell's Hero's Journey, the elements are slanted in the direction of a masculine psychology.  I think one of the most important areas of continuing Jungian research has been the efforts to uncover what might be a complimentary "heroine's journey".  This has been a theme that I have pursued since I have undertaken a serious study of Jungian psychology.  What a better understanding of a feminine psychology will bring, i suspect, is a complimentary view of the Hero's Journey as the adventure of both the rescuer and the rescued, the prince and the princess.  The anima and the animus tales combine into the fuller picture that we, each of us, experience though I think we also preferentially identify with one or the other side. 

Also, do not too quickly dismiss the whole for its parts...for example, all Christians have to come to terms with the following if they are conscious students of the Word:

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/But_to_bring_a_sword:

"Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it." (Matthew 10:34-39 NASB)

Jesus taught not to be a simple minion of authority but to stand up against even the desires of one's parents and family members and hear the truth that He was giving.  This is quite explicit here.

Also, I am pretty sure that Wagner was an anti-Semite (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wagner#Controversies).  But are you dismissing the mythical value of the opera because of this abhorent fact?  I would understand a personal decision not to explore that work for that reason, but I would be careful about devaluing that work for that reason.

Quote
In order for a child's ego to develop through adolescence, no conquering is necessary . . . and I would argue that any feeling of conquering is an illusion, perhaps even a delusion of inflation.

Your last sentence strikes me with a tone of sadness.  I can appreciate the equanimity behind it, but I think it is naive in the extreme.  We all have our fears and our hopes and our desires and I can't imagine those without also imagining a place for the experience of conquering, of attaining against the odds, of sacrificing something if needed to get that sense that "I have done it...I have accomplished this...I, myself!"  There must be some room for this without it being merely a "delusion of inflation".  We cannot all progress without stepping on each other's toes, having to abandon whether it will hurt someone else if we do this, setting aside some kind of good sense in order to risk something of value to get something we value more.  There just isn't human life without room for this selfish urge. 

A child must conquer his or her fear of the night, of the boogeyman, of any number of manifestations of the unconscious.  A child must conquer his or her fear of rejection, of making a mistake, of looking like a fool, of being the focus of an embarrassing situation. 

No less so is it true in the psyche that conscious development requires repression, suppression even incipient neurosis, depression or anxiety than it is that life forms require the death of other life forms to survive.  It is a dirty, wicked game or you are not playing it.

So having said all this I hoped to strike a tone that I think should be in the repetoire of all serious students of the psyche.  Oftentimes it is a kill or get killed world "in there" and we have the right as ego-complexes, to consider the option of removing our inner enemies.  We just can't let the inner bullies to keep taking our libidic lunches away from us. 

Also, I recognize that all of this is part of the very problematic knots that we each get tied up in.  It is as if in the rush of the necessity to get out of the womb and grow up and live in this world we, of necessity, create as many problems for ourselves as we solve in that achievement.  That is the heroic cycle.  Later we must move to uncover our inner despot and make him or her more civilized, more in relationship to the other inner characters.  For women I suspect that this is often reversed...too long has the young feminine ego learned to manage the greater connectivity of inner (and outer) individuals at the risk of the accumulation of libidic power for her ego.  While the stereotypical male ego might be described as all power and no civility, the stereotypical female ego can be seen as all civility no power. 

And so the early animus experience is often of the invader or criminal coming in and blandishing a destructive (separative) power over the feminine ego and her world.  The animus, all power no discretion, is easily dismissed as an evil, disruptive male influence.  But the problem is that the feminine ego hasn't taken on the patriarchal role as separate individual and stood alone in passionate defiance of the innumerable, but reasonable, suppliable demands put upon her.  While young men are allowed to be selfish, young women are chastised for this.  And so men grow up to be "pigs" who take, take, take while women become "bitches" because they dare to complain and without what they could just give.  Obviously these are extremes and stereotypes.  But my favorite place, sometimes, to look for the truth is in the banal.

So I say, let's learn to get along and then break out your hockey sticks and let's RUMBLE!!!

Another thing I would like to add to my little stump speech is that I also see the hero's journey as a archetypal model that we revisit throughout our lives.  In the beginning it may be most like Campbell's vision.  But later in successive journey's we gradually deconstruct our past triumphs.  We have to give away all we have accumulated and hoarded in our inner psychic treasury.  We uncover the evils that have gone into our conscious development to make us fit and fast enough to "get what's ours".  I think by this point we have already struck a balance with one or two shadows, hooked up with a few of our animi.  But we continue to re-visit and re-negotiate our inner relationships all through life until the bitter and blissful end.  We are born and we die to our old egos and are again reborn, many times.  Eventually we learn how to willingly submit and also to hold on for we can't just give up every last ounce of our pride or sense of self no matter how wise it might seem to do so. 

To even claim to be, to exist is a great inflation!  Who are we to say we have a divine soul, that we have the right to live in this universe so much grander, more powerful and more important than any or all of us?  Part of the human condition is hubris and I will accept and even enjoy it even as I guard against it.  There I go being mystical again...

Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Kafiri on February 02, 2008, 11:57:14 AM
Quote from: Sealchan

Quote
This is why, IMO, Beebe is correct that we men, particularly if we are "mother's son's", must come to terms with our Anima if we are to mature psychologically. Sealchan does this have any resonance for you?

Sure, although I usually feel out of my element in looking at how interpersonal dynamics affect an individual's archetypal associations, this certainly sounds plausable. 

I would agree generally that a male ego in relationship with its anima is better off than one that remains in relationship with a mother figure exclusively and I would say it is preferable to relate to an anima that is not a projection onto a known waking world figure rather than one that is.  Each indicates a progressive step in the differentiation of the individual from an original unconscious connectivity to these forms of the feminine other (to the masculine ego).

Let me provide another insight here from the Men's work.  And, IMO, if you look you can see this quite often in our culture.

When a male does not, in Jungian terms, integrate the anima a split occurs.  It begins with the onset of puberty.  All of the boy's emotional eggs are in the "Mother's basket," so to speak.  But as the boy begins to experience sexual longings, he simply cannot think of "Mother" in this dimension.  So he splits off his sexual aspect and begins to see the age appropriate females around him, only as sexual objects.  This leads to a great devaluation of the feminine.  And the male himself, is split.  His emotional eggs are all in the Mother basket, and all his sexual eggs are in another basket entirely.  If the young male cannot "steal the key" from under his mother's pillow he will remain forever split.  How often do we observe a man, as his wife gets near his mother's age when he was a teen-age boy, leave her and project his anima onto a younger woman?  This is a classic example of a man with arrested anima development.  Also, why do women feel the need to demand "commitment" from men?  Because they are unconsciously aware that the men they are with are still emotionally commited to mother, albeit unconsciously.  Totally lacking in our culture are initiation rituals that break the golden thread between men and their mothers.

What we refer to as more "primitive" cultures were aware of the danger to the tribe that the mother-son bond entailed.  Attached is a section of Frank Waters novel, "The Man Who Killed The Deer," which describes how the Pueblo Indians dealt with this issue.  Also Mari Sandoz's "The Son," found in her short story collection, "Sandhill Sundays" describes the Sioux approach to the mother-son bond.  One thing I do want people to understand about male initiation is this:  the father cannot do it; he and the son are after the same woman.  A survey of cultures that have male initiation rituals demonstrate that the uncles, the grandfathers or the elders are charged with the duties of male initation.
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Kafiri on February 03, 2008, 08:39:54 PM
Quote

My take on childhood ego-development is that it is more of an indoctrination process than a "conquering" of the mythic parents or the parental unconscious.  For instance, I think very few people in our society have actually moved beyond the child/parent relationship to their unconscious.  If they had, Christianity (which encourages this dynamic) would no longer be a suitable mass religion and expression of human spirituality.  In order for a child's ego to develop through adolescence, no conquering is necessary . . . and I would argue that any feeling of conquering is an illusion, perhaps even a delusion of inflation.

I would say that in our Western society, in spite of the protective instincts of the parents, today's child is taught to separate from the parents even while the same parents urge their children to be obediant.  Taught by whom? This is because of the myth of free will and individual responsibility.  We teach our children not to lie, not to steal, not to hit (except maybe in self-defense).  We teach them that they are to blame when they do something wrong.  We teach them, if they are Christian, that they are directly accountable to God and not via another agency.  We have to go bodily to school, pass the tests without help with the answers (we are assessed not for our ability to get the answers but to reproduce them with our memories), we get punished as individuals, rewarded as individuals.  But, as Campbell points out in "The Power of Myth," ". . . We are in childhood in a condition of dependency under someone's protection and supervision for some fourteen to twenty-one years -  and if you're going on for your Ph. D., this may continue to perhaps thirty-five.  You are in no way a self-responsible, free agent, but an obedient dependant, expecting and receiving punishments and rewards.  To evolve out of this position of psychological immaturity to the courage of self-responsibility and assurance requires a death and resurrection.  That's the basic motif of the universal hero's journey - leaving one condition and finding the source of life to bring you forth into a richer or mature condition. (p. 124)  We are ironically marketed to as individuals by indicating (to everyone) that if they used product X it would be an expression of their individual inclinations (even while the commercial uses not-so-subtle associative suggestions about just how much everyone will like you when you are using the product in question).  All of this is a teaching that we are not defined as part of a whole but as a separate being. 

Today's rituals are the practical rituals of test-passing (school exams, driver's license tests, college entrance exams, etc...)and experience and skill acquisition (riding a bike, driving a car, first kiss, etc...).  They are not so much sacred as they are practically necessary and indicative of our worship of conscious experience.  They are sacred if you consider that this is all predicated on the idea that we each must prove ourselves to some greater body that holds us in judgement.  This abstraction of accomplishment goes towards the sense of self as an abstract quantity.  It is a patriarchal dominance that forces us into relationship with the abstract, the Logos and we sink or swim under that collective, separative conditioning. Which Jung abhorred.  ". . . The man of today, who resembles more or less the collective ideal, has made his heart into a den of murders, as can easily be proved by the analysis of his unconscious, even though he himself  is not in the least disturbed by it. . . ."    (Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious.)

This is simply what it is like to live in a world that embraces its consciousness as an experience rooted in the individual human body.  But I think it is easy for us to forget that this is an accomplishment of centuries in the making in spite of all of the problems that go with.  Because of this excessive separative, patriarchal orientation of the collective we have wars based on principles enacted on bad data (Iraq war/freedom/weapons of mass destruction).  In spite of all that is wrong about the world today, I still want to acknowledge that the heroic archetype is the central archetype of an early phase of our conscious development and that it was a natural process, one that we cannot judge except in how we wish to continue forward with that in further consciousness.  I don't mean to justify all of the horrors that might be attributed to such a development, indeed our role now is to apply our inheritence of consciousness to the task of further development to undo our inclinations to evil.  But I do think one would be hard pressed to prove that any other way of development would have been less bloody or cruel.

Matt, it seems to me that you are dismissing over a century of comparative anthropology, mythology and depth psychology in saying that the hero archetype is a problem to be solved and not at all an important process that brings us to the greater developed conscious perspective that we have.  But is not Matt saying only that the, as you correctly describe natural function, is taken over by the needs of the collective channeled through the ego via the PR machine?  Is this not plain in the so-called "action heroes?."  My guess is that you find yourself overwhelmed by the evil of it all, how hurtful, painful, cruel and destructive this process has been.  And no doubt it has been a living hell for millions.  All of these tragedies serve to feedback into our self-awareness as motivations for the next heroic contribution to our collective.

Now, at the same time, I do recognize that in Campbell's Hero's Journey, the elements are slanted in the direction of a masculine psychology.  I think one of the most important areas of continuing Jungian research has been the efforts to uncover what might be a complimentary "heroine's journey".  This has been a theme that I have pursued since I have undertaken a serious study of Jungian psychology.  What a better understanding of a feminine psychology will bring, i suspect, is a complimentary view of the Hero's Journey as the adventure of both the rescuer and the rescued, the prince and the princess.  Sealchan this is part of what I am attempting to point out when I write of females who project their "heroic"(to remove gender from consideration) onto the sons.  They have, in essence, given away a critical, natural part of themselves that they need for their own development.  The anima and the animus tales combine into the fuller picture that we, each of us, experience though I think we also preferentially identify with one or the other side. 

Also, do not too quickly dismiss the whole for its parts...for example, all Christians have to come to terms with the following if they are conscious students of the Word:

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/But_to_bring_a_sword:

"Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it." (Matthew 10:34-39 NASB)

Jesus taught not to be a simple minion of authority but to stand up against even the desires of one's parents and family members and hear the truth that He was giving.  This is quite explicit here.  But Sealchan, as a nonbeliever, who values the Christian myth for it's psychological insights, I submit the Gnostic outlook(the hidden meanings), provide much more useful data that the literal outlook that the Christian forces have adopted.  For example:
The 7th Chapter of Matthew, begins:
{1} Judge not, that ye be not judged.

{2} For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured unto you.

{3} And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

{4} Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me cast out the mote out of thine eye; and lo, the beam is in thine own eye?

{5} Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

A perfect description of the psychological concept of projection.  But the Christians completely misinterpret this passage to mean we are not to judge others.


Also, I am pretty sure that Wagner was an anti-Semite (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wagner#Controversies).  But are you dismissing the mythical value of the opera because of this abhorent fact?  I would understand a personal decision not to explore that work for that reason, but I would be careful about devaluing that work for that reason.

Quote

In order for a child's ego to develop through adolescence, no conquering is necessary . . . and I would argue that any feeling of conquering is an illusion, perhaps even a delusion of inflation.


Your last sentence strikes me with a tone of sadness.  I can appreciate the equanimity behind it, but I think it is naive in the extreme.  We all have our fears and our hopes and our desires and I can't imagine those without also imagining a place for the experience of conquering, of attaining against the odds, of sacrificing something if needed to get that sense that "I have done it...I have accomplished this...I, myself!"  There must be some room for this without it being merely a "delusion of inflation".  We cannot all progress without stepping on each other's toes, having to abandon whether it will hurt someone else if we do this, setting aside some kind of good sense in order to risk something of value to get something we value more.  There just isn't human life without room for this selfish urge. 

A child must conquer his or her fear of the night, of the boogeyman, of any number of manifestations of the unconscious.  A child must conquer his or her fear of rejection, of making a mistake, of looking like a fool, of being the focus of an embarrassing situation. 

No less so is it true in the psyche that conscious development requires repression, suppression even incipient neurosis, depression or anxiety than it is that life forms require the death of other life forms to survive.  It is a dirty, wicked game or you are not playing it.  Well said Sealchan!! (-)appl(-)

So having said all this I hoped to strike a tone that I think should be in the repetoire of all serious students of the psyche.  Oftentimes it is a kill or get killed world "in there" and we have the right as ego-complexes, to consider the option of removing our inner enemies.  We just can't let the inner bullies to keep taking our libidic lunches away from us.  Don't we learn of the inner bullies by what we project? The analogy that I use here is the weather; most of the time it bearable.  But quite often the weather, just like those internal bullies, go about it's business totally unaware of my existence.  During these times of storms, blizzard, hurricanes, tornado's, and so on, it is up to me to protect myself.  I must find shelter, safe haven, warmth and any and all other things I need to survive this life-threatening natural phenomena. 

Also, I recognize that all of this is part of the very problematic knots that we each get tied up in.  It is as if in the rush of the necessity to get out of the womb and grow up and live in this world we, of necessity, create as many problems for ourselves as we solve in that achievement.  That is the heroic cycle.  Later we must move to uncover our inner despot and make him or her more civilized, more in relationship to the other inner characters.  For women I suspect that this is often reversed...too long has the young feminine ego learned to manage the greater connectivity of inner (and outer) individuals at the risk of the accumulation of libidic power for her ego.  While the stereotypical male ego might be described as all power and no civility, the stereotypical female ego can be seen as all civility no power. 

And so the early animus experience is often of the invader or criminal coming in and blandishing a destructive (separative) power over the feminine ego and her world.  The animus, all power no discretion, is easily dismissed as an evil, disruptive male influence.  But the problem is that the feminine ego hasn't taken on the patriarchal role as separate individual and stood alone in passionate defiance of the innumerable, but reasonable, suppliable demands put upon her.  While young men are allowed to be selfish, young women are chastised for this.  And so men grow up to be "pigs" who take, take, take while women become "bitches" because they dare to complain and without what they could just give.  Obviously these are extremes and stereotypes.  But my favorite place, sometimes, to look for the truth is in the banal.  It is a dance that both sexes are involved in.

So I say, let's learn to get along and then break out your hockey sticks and let's RUMBLE!!!

Another thing I would like to add to my little stump speech is that I also see the hero's journey as a archetypal model that we revisit throughout our lives.  In the beginning it may be most like Campbell's vision.  But later in successive journey's we gradually deconstruct our past triumphs.  We have to give away all we have accumulated and hoarded in our inner psychic treasury.  We uncover the evils that have gone into our conscious development to make us fit and fast enough to "get what's ours".  I think by this point we have already struck a balance with one or two shadows, hooked up with a few of our animi.  But we continue to re-visit and re-negotiate our inner relationships all through life until the bitter and blissful end.  We are born and we die to our old egos and are again reborn, many times.  Eventually we learn how to willingly submit and also to hold on for we can't just give up every last ounce of our pride or sense of self no matter how wise it might seem to do so. 

To even claim to be, to exist is a great inflation!  Who are we to say we have a divine soul, that we have the right to live in this universe so much grander, more powerful and more important than any or all of us?  Part of the human condition is hubris and I will accept and even enjoy it even as I guard against it.  There I go being mystical again...Good on you Sealchan, you old Mystic you!!! (-)howdy(-)


Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Matt Koeske on February 05, 2008, 04:34:35 PM

I would say that in our Western society, in spite of the protective instincts of the parents, today's child is taught to separate from the parents even while the same parents urge their children to be obediant.  This is because of the myth of free will and individual responsibility.  We teach our children not to lie, not to steal, not to hit (except maybe in self-defense).  We teach them that they are to blame when they do something wrong.  We teach them, if they are Christian, that they are directly accountable to God and not via another agency.  We have to go bodily to school, pass the tests without help with the answers (we are assessed not for our ability to get the answers but to reproduce them with our memories), we get punished as individuals, rewarded as individuals.

Chris, to me these things you mention are indoctrinations into ordered social behavior.  They are designed to keep the tribe coherent, not to promote individual expression or responsibility.  The very notion of abiding by laws (where violation is punishable by the tribe) is a relief of moral choice-making from individuals.  That is, an individual doesn't have to contemplate his or her actions based on their consequences or fairness to others; they merely have to obey laws unconsciously.  Law is an expression of tribal Eros in a concretized or totemized form.  The purpose of the law is to benefit and protect the tribe.  In our case, to benefit society.  The notion of individual rights and freedoms is still a relatively new one, one that denotes the modern . . . but these laws generally were created to increase tribal or inter-tribal cohesion.

That is, people (who weren't empowered, white males) or groups fought for their rights to vote or own property or live and travel where they wanted to.  Their fighting/activism eventually made it clear that they deserved these rights and that society as a whole would function more smoothly with these rights given to the underprivileged.  In our capitalist society, the bottom line in these modernist progressions was often money.  People with more rights can buy and own more things.  Even prejudice can't withstand the libido of economy indefinitely (in the modern world).

I know you feel that the modern myth is the myth of free will, but I half-disagree.  Yes, the belief in free will is important to us, but I don't think it is a "myth" proper, not in the Campbellian or Jungian sense.  That is, I don't think free will is rooted in instinct like myths have always conventionally been.  Therefore, my half-disagreement would have it that the modern myth is the myth of the individuant . . . which is what we see in most of the popular religions in fully modern cultures.  Buddhism is probably the most self-evident, but Christianity is definitely a myth of the ideal individuant, although this individuant figure, the godman, is often worshiped as a god instead of used as a model to emulate.

In stating that this is a myth, I mean to differentiate it from something we merely believe in.  Free will is something many moderns believe in . . . but the myth of the individuant is an unconscious driving force in our story-making.  A myth doesn't have to be realized.  As Kafiri said previously, myths can live us when we are unconscious of them.  One of the problems with the myth of the individuant is that we don't have an singular sacred text that brings this into modern language.  And so what we see today in the spiritual front is eclecticism and syncretism.  We might take a little Christianity, a little Eastern philosophy, a little existentialism, a little rationalistic science, a little democracy, etc.  But there is no one source that brings the myth together completely.  Yet, the very fact that we can formulate our myths and tribal affiliations in this eclectic fashion evokes the idea of the individuant.  That is, we are unconsciously striving for the "perfect" realization of this individuant within us . . . but we don't have functional guideposts.

As for free will, I think it is an illusion, mostly.  It is a belief that we are masters of our instincts, that we have transcended Eros and instinctuality.  I agree with the Jungian tradition here in seeing this attitude as dissociated and neurotic.  The more individuation Work we do, the more we are confronted with our lack of egoic freedom . . . or at least with the lack of value in such freedom/dissociation.  That is, the more we individuate, the more we live for the Self and the less we live for the ego.  On top of that, unconscious egoism tends to be especially tribalistic.  In such unconsciousness, we do not actually transcend our instinctual roots, but remain ignorant of them . . . and therefore, we remain ignorant of how "determined" our behavior is by forces other than the ego (like instinct and social conditioning).

We are ironically marketed to as individuals by indicating (to everyone) that if they used product X it would be an expression of their individual inclinations (even while the commercial uses not-so-subtle associative suggestions about just how much everyone will like you when you are using the product in question).  All of this is a teaching that we are not defined as part of a whole but as a separate being.

What you refer to is called "lifestyle marketing" and it is one of the contemporary "genius strokes" of the PR industry.  This industry very consciously figured out that people will buy individualized "identities" based on the tribes they identify with.  In our modern existence, these tribes tend to organize around "lifestyles", what we like to do, who we like to hang out with and absorb identity from.  Like many "advancements" in the PR industry, this came from the application of the psychology of the unconscious to the task of manipulating people out of their money.  This particular psychological tidbit and family jewel is simply our unconscious drive toward tribalism.  We very much like to live in or belong to tribes.  We extract our beliefs and identities from these sub-collectives.  Lifestyle marketing is profiteering based on the sale of tribal identity indicators (converting tribalistic libido currency into monetary currency . . . but not for the survival and betterment of all; instead this wealth is used to benefit those outside the tribe who have incorporated in order to remove it from tribes it was instinctually intended for).  See the BBC documentary, The Century of the Self (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_the_self) for more on the history of the PR industry and its use of psychology.

The problem here is that there is a difference between true individualism (or individuation) and tribalism.  Lifestyle marketing still conforms more than it promotes individualism (and by a huge margin).

Today's rituals are the practical rituals of test-passing (school exams, driver's license tests, college entrance exams, etc...)and experience and skill acquisition (riding a bike, driving a car, first kiss, etc...).  They are not so much sacred as they are practically necessary and indicative of our worship of conscious experience.  They are sacred if you consider that this is all predicated on the idea that we each must prove ourselves to some greater body that holds us in judgement.  This abstraction of accomplishment goes towards the sense of self as an abstract quantity.  It is a patriarchal dominance that forces us into relationship with the abstract, the Logos and we sink or swim under that collective, separative conditioning.

I'm not sure I would call these things "rituals" . . . simple because they are not sacred, and rituals are meant to be sacred.  That is, rituals are meant to bring instinct into culture in an organized and constructive manner.  The things you mention here are, again (in my opinion), merely items of indoctrination into cultural conformity.  But they do not incorporate instinct ritually or in an organized fashion that emphasizes the numinousness of the ritual and its function as transformative aid or adaptivity.

This is simply what it is like to live in a world that embraces its consciousness as an experience rooted in the individual human body.  But I think it is easy for us to forget that this is an accomplishment of centuries in the making in spite of all of the problems that go with.  Because of this excessive separative, patriarchal orientation of the collective we have wars based on principles enacted on bad data (Iraq war/freedom/weapons of mass destruction).

I don't see how these elements of modern society are different than pre-modern societies . . . nor how the things you mention could be seen as progressive.

In spite of all that is wrong about the world today, I still want to acknowledge that the heroic archetype is the central archetype of an early phase of our conscious development and that it was a natural process, one that we cannot judge except in how we wish to continue forward with that in further consciousness.

It's true that children feel the heroic archetype and tend to identify with it in their fantasies and relate to it in the stories they hear and see.  But I'm not sure that the hero is really the culture-creating archetype.  I think the sociality instinct is the culture creator.  Sociality instinct + adequately sustainable environment + time = modernism.  The heroic instinct that children identify with is, I believe, an ego-modeling instinct.  Basically what I mean when I use the term super-adaptive instinct.  Children love the hero because the hero can not only survive, but flourish.  The hero is not destroyed by the world, but is, essentially, the raw spirit of life or individual libido.

But young children don't really understand the hero in an organized way (such as Campbell provides).  They only feel or intuit the generalities of the hero.  As the child is indoctrinated and socialized, the hero becomes depotentiated and marginalized.  We all know this to be true . . . and so we look back at our heroic ideals, fantasies, and aspirations from childhood as "foolish" or simplistic or wrongheaded.  I mean to suggest that the hero and tribal cohesion/indoctrination are forces often at odds with one another.  In the modern world where we believe the myth of free will and think we are culturally constructed (or egoically constructed), the idea of the anti-hero has become prominent.  The anti-hero is like a shadow hero.  S/he does not integrate properly into society . . . is a "mutant", is culturally dysfunctional.  But it's just the flip-side of the hero archetype, and it demonstrates that in modern society, the hero has been cast into the shadow.

That means that any individuating we do must be done through the shadow and in defiance of cultural expectations and tribal affiliations.  By the standards of modern culture the archetypal hero has no place in society.  And this has an ancient tradition is the hero-as-shaman who is not allowed to live entirely within the tribe, but must remain on the outskirts.  The shaman as individuant is, in this sense, tabooed.

But of course, the archetypal/mythic imagination of humanity can't be beaten out of us.  We still have heroic models galore in our fiction and films.  We yearn to believe our sports start are heroic (and so are always very disheartened when they turn out to be morons or assholes).  But these fantasies of the hero often deviate from a truly archetypal structure . . . probably because there are ulterior motivations behind their conceptualization.  Hollywood might build its heroes to appeal to a specific (uninitiated) demographic.  Individual writers might concoct their heroes based on their own psychology, complexes and all.  Even the Jungian and Campbellian notions of the hero (I would contend) are not entirely adequate for modern language . . . and do not allow us to fully comprehend and valuate the hero as a psychological influence.

The places where the hero shines through in a more complete light are in the collective texts like fairytales.  These manifestations of heroism have been revised again and again as they adapted to the environment of the oral tradition . . . perhaps like Dawkins' memes or mind-viruses, but in a more positive form.  Of course, sometimes individual artists have a very powerful and contemporary vision of the hero and are able to bring this to life in their art.  That is, I'm not suggesting that individual creation of myths is impossible by any means . . . but collective creation does tend to flesh out archetypes better on average.

I would contest that we simply have no coherent and complete modern hero archetype modeled for us . . . and that all of the old models are obsolete in one way or another.  Children's heroes seem like good ideals to use as models, but these models prove to be ineffective as the children approach adulthood.  And we tend to get dismayed by this and conclude that heroism is a pipe dream of ignorant youth.  But I disagree.  We just need to re-myth the hero and give it new, more contemporary, more complex expression.  This is precisely what we who follow spiritual disciplines are trying to do.  And so we give up old constructions like the conquering hero (which prove maladaptive), and we refine our notion of the hero to be an individual who is not only determined and strong, but flexible, empathetic, forgiving.  Instead of transcendence, we recognize that harmony with others and our environment (and within ourselves) is a more functional and adaptive goal.  And we seek this goal just as heroically as ever.

Whenever we do something "good" (even as it contrasts with our selfish desires or "better judgment"), it's the hero that orients us.  It's the hero on which we model our action.  I think of the archetypal hero as like an alchemical substance in a mixture.  The idea is to extract that substance from the other substances in the mix, because these other substances are "contaminants".  In other words, they are egoic desires, projections, selfishness, fear-driven defenses, and imprisoning anxieties largely based on what we are expected to be by the Tribe.  The expressions of the hero archetype we see in our cultures are more or less purified mixtures.  Sometimes they only contain 10% hero.  Other times, maybe they have 70% hero in them.

The goal of archetypal orientations like Jung's and Campbell's is to be able to differentiate these kinds of expressions based on a knowledge of what the pure heroic substance really is.  This allows us to understand that the 10% hero mixtures are not really good models.  They are not adequate expressions of the true hero.  The conquering hero, I'm arguing, is one of these too-diluted expressions of the hero.  It's one that is contaminated with a lot of egoic nonsense and "propaganda".  This might appeal to certain egos and even to certain cultures that tend to worship the ego . . . but it constitutes a usurpation of the heroic instinct and a misunderstanding of the heroic archetype.


Matt, it seems to me that you are dismissing over a century of comparative anthropology, mythology and depth psychology in saying that the hero archetype is a problem to be solved and not at all an important process that brings us to the greater developed conscious perspective that we have.  My guess is that you find yourself overwhelmed by the evil of it all, how hurtful, painful, cruel and destructive this process has been.  And no doubt it has been a living hell for millions.  All of these tragedies serve to feedback into our self-awareness as motivations for the next heroic contribution to our collective.

All I'm saying is that the "contaminated" notion of the conquering hero is not a genuine manifestation of the heroic archetype.  The heroic archetype as I have been defining it is (I think it is evident) something I hold in very high regard.

My disparagement of the conquering or egoic or ego-inflated hero is actually in complete accord with conventional Jungian thinking.  It was, I think, my initial concern that, despite this disparagement of the egoic and uninitiated hero in Jungian thinking (that Kafiri noted in his quotation of Beebe), there was still too much embrace of this egoic hero in the Jungian shadow.  My feeling is that there needs to be a better language for differentiating this ego-driven "hero" from the archetypal/instinctual hero.  With Beebe, Kafiri, the Jungians, and the Men's Movement there is good recognition that this egoic pseudo-hero is totally incompatible with individuation and initiation by the animi . . . and I agree with their attitude on this issue.

But I worry that the baby could be thrown out with the bathwater, because I see the heroic archetype (in its "true" and undiluted form) as something that is every present as the one and only mediating "mindset" or "attitude" between ego and Self.  Essentially, in my definition, the hero archetype (or heroic ego) is a representation of the ego's healthy relationship with the Self.  This kind of hero should not be "initiated away".  Rather, initiation brings one into closer accord with the heroic attitude.  Although it is bound for symbolic death and self-sacrifice, it is just as bound for resurrection.  To do the Work, we must be eternally heroic.  That is, we must, in order to listen to and honor and facilitate the Self, do so through the heroic attitude or heroic ego.  This heroic ego is surrendering and flexible, though, not rigid, transcendent, and conquering.

One aspect inherent (but not entirely conscious, I think) in the Jungian oriented groups of the Men's Movement is an over-valuation of the senex (which means the undervaluation of the puer).  I see this as a dissociation.  The puer-senex is really one thing psychologically speaking.  We do not start as puers and evolve into senexes (as is often implied in the mythopoetic Men's Movement).  The senex is a deacon of tribalism . . . and so would reject "heroism" as a "puer antic" and nuisance.  As Robert Bly has said, the puer lives on the vertical plane while the senex lives on the horizontal.  But the world of instinct is a spherical, three dimensional place.  Bly values the horizontal over the vertical, but I see this as dissociated, a valuation of one Opposite over its Other.  I am looking toward the Third Thing in this equation (and its three-dimensionality).

The archetype of the puer-senex coniunctio is the Fool.  The Fool is the prima materia or the evolving Stone of the Philosophers.  It begins in baseness, on the dung heap, but grows to encompass the hero and wise woman/man.  And therefor it is the Heroic Fool that can unite the Opposites of puer and senex.  In holding this attitude, I have a major gripe with conventional Jungian thinking, which polarizes puer and senex . . . thus, thrusting the puer into the shadow.  This gives us Jungians the tendency to wear the senex robes of wisdom and groundedness while leaping for every star.  We say, "No, no!  You didn't see me leap!  Obviously you are unconscious.  You are inflated.  You don't understand the Self, the unconscious, the anima!"  But we are, I feel, our own underminers.  Because we have not learned to effectively value the puer (and Fool), we have blinded ourselves, condemned ourselves to an Oedipal quest which we call "individuation".  But because we have made this fundamental mistake, we end up "marrying the Mother" and "murdering the Father".

Here, the Mother is the unconscious as represented by the anima, and the Father is something like biological instinctuality.  This Father is a Saturnine Will that isn't really complete without the Son.  So instinctual Will starts off as a kind of prima materia trapped in Matter (and in the maternal conception of the unconscious).  The Son is the heroic ego that redeems the Father by alchemically extracting his Will from Matter, from its imprisonment in unconsciousness and chaos . . . purifying it (with the Logos) . . . and re-infusing it into Matter (into instinct) so that this Matter/instinct is redeemed/animated/made adaptive.  In other words, the ego learns to become the instrument of the Self through a process of valuation and surrender . . . and that is the stuff of the Hero's Journey.

As Freud saw, Jung indeed had some of the Oedipal dynamic driving him . . . and I feel he never completely resolved it.  Our inheritance as Jungians is a maternalized portrayal of the unconscious or Self and a dissociation between the puer and senex poles of the ego.  A dissociation that means the hero is fractured.

That's my general take on the hero as it relates to Jungian thinking.

Now, at the same time, I do recognize that in Campbell's Hero's Journey, the elements are slanted in the direction of a masculine psychology.  I think one of the most important areas of continuing Jungian research has been the efforts to uncover what might be a complimentary "heroine's journey".  This has been a theme that I have pursued since I have undertaken a serious study of Jungian psychology.  What a better understanding of a feminine psychology will bring, i suspect, is a complimentary view of the Hero's Journey as the adventure of both the rescuer and the rescued, the prince and the princess.  The anima and the animus tales combine into the fuller picture that we, each of us, experience though I think we also preferentially identify with one or the other side.

This is a project whose valuation I share with you.  But it has been my experience thus far that the Heroine's Journey is very much the same as the Hero's, and that individuation has less to do with sexual identity than with ego-orientation to the Self.  As the alchemists envisioned, this is a movement toward a psychological "bisexualism".  The individuation process tends to portray the separation of Masculine and Feminine as a dissociation or illness.  In my opinion, the lack of understanding of "Feminine psychology" in Jungian thinking is a product of this dissociation and of the bias given to masculinity.  This bias seeks to associate consciousness and egoism with masculinity and unconsciousness with femininity.  I see this as rooted in patriarchal constructs of culture rather than in some biological or instinctual reality.

This fracture in Jungian thinking is just as much a product of the conventional Jungian conception of the anima (as object of worship) as it is a devaluation of the animus.  I see it as all one issue, two sides of the same coin.

Also, do not too quickly dismiss the whole for its parts...for example, all Christians have to come to terms with the following if they are conscious students of the Word:

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/But_to_bring_a_sword:

Jesus taught not to be a simple minion of authority but to stand up against even the desires of one's parents and family members and hear the truth that He was giving.  This is quite explicit here.

This is one of those key passages from the original Christian texts that is, I feel, essentially Gnostic . . . and therefore it is rejected and even tabooed in Catholicism.  What the Gnostic idea here is saying is that the Logos-as-Christ, the model of the ideal individuant, is a force that will differentiate the individual from his or her tribe.  Tribal affiliation must be sacrificed to follow the path of individuation and to find the Kingdom within.  This the Gnostics saw as the initiation into Christ, the baptism into the Holy Spirit . . . and those initiated were called Pneumatics.

But why then did the Catholics keep such a dangerous and contrary idea in their texts?  Because the original notion could be reworked to mean something entirely different (one of the problems with parables).  The Catholicization of the parable of the Logos sword holds that the greatest and most fundamental tribe is the tribe of the Church . . . and no bonds, no affiliations of any kind can supersede the affiliation to the Church.  It is a totalitarian appropriation of the original Gnostic idea.  This propaganda was especially "necessary" during the period of the early Church, because the Roman Empire was primarily pagan.  Even after Constantine, the forced conversion of the pagan population to Christianity was slow and bloody (i.e., there was much resistance).

So, used as Church propaganda, this "severing of ties" with family and older tribes was really a way of destroying tribal ties to paganism (and to a lesser degree, Judaism) and its diverse gods, rituals, and beliefs.  But these ties were meant to be reattached to the Tribe of Christ, whose sole institution on earth was the Church.  So instead of the tribal separation that the Gnostics envisioned, the Church made this a tribal purification.  One Tribe, one empire . . . the perfect totalitarian ideology.

Also, I am pretty sure that Wagner was an anti-Semite (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wagner#Controversies).  But are you dismissing the mythical value of the opera because of this abhorent fact?  I would understand a personal decision not to explore that work for that reason, but I would be careful about devaluing that work for that reason.

My hesitations with Wagner's version of the Sigfried myth can be represented by my comments above about the "percentage" of genuine instinctuality or archetypal foundation in his rendering.  The original story is very similar to Gilgamesh and is, I feel, a story of the conquering hero, the culture builder, the patriarchal, egoic superman . . . and not a true Hero's Journey myth.  But the original casts this as a tragedy (like Gilgamesh and Oedipus) where the hero's egoism finally leads to his early demise.  This demise is always due to the "Dark Feminine" either directly or indirectly.  That is, psychologically, this egoic hero was unable to see-through the darkness projected onto the Feminine, and it eventually became his downfall.  It is like the heel of Achilles, the fatal flaw.  The fatal flaw is always the undoing of the egoic hero . . . whereas for the true hero, the Foolish hero, the flaw is the gateway to transformation.

I don't know the Wagner version that well, but I had the feeling that the alterations he made to the original story of Sigurd cast the conquering hero in a more glamorous light . . . and showed his death as less a "comeuppance" than a betrayal by baser evils.  These edits encouraged the embrace of Wagner's epic by the Nazis whose ideology was the Cult of the Will.  The notion of such a cult is that egoic will triumphs over all base obstacles (like Others) by its "divine right".  Essentially, they are not getting the "moral of the story" of Sigurd . . . which is that the fatal flaw will ultimately destroy all striving that tries to transcend it.  The Cult of the Will is a patriarchal fantasy about "perpetual erection".  As long as you can "keep it up", you can conquer and be dominant and potent.  But this is not the way of nature.  The phallic ego cannot stay in the ascendant mode . . . nor should it, because such ascendancy always comes with the cost of externalities.  In order to keep it up, the ego must keep the shadow down.  But the libido that goes into repressing the shadow grants the unconscious shadow immense power over the ego.  And that tends to erupt in some kind of mania or purging of Otherness that can never be quenched since the projection emanates from within.

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In order for a child's ego to develop through adolescence, no conquering is necessary . . . and I would argue that any feeling of conquering is an illusion, perhaps even a delusion of inflation.

Your last sentence strikes me with a tone of sadness.  I can appreciate the equanimity behind it, but I think it is naive in the extreme.  We all have our fears and our hopes and our desires and I can't imagine those without also imagining a place for the experience of conquering, of attaining against the odds, of sacrificing something if needed to get that sense that "I have done it...I have accomplished this...I, myself!"  There must be some room for this without it being merely a "delusion of inflation".  We cannot all progress without stepping on each other's toes, having to abandon whether it will hurt someone else if we do this, setting aside some kind of good sense in order to risk something of value to get something we value more.  There just isn't human life without room for this selfish urge.

I would prefer to differentiate between striving and conquering.  I simply see no room in individuation or in the spiritual quest for conquering.  And in this attitude, I think I am in agreement with all the mysticisms and spiritual systems of human history.  The one overriding theme to spiritual pursuit is the surrender to the god.  And to think we can conquer this god is an inflation and a delusion.

But I don't see surrender to the god as a kind of ultimate sacrifice of will and libido.  Nor do I think we should overly-punish ourselves for our hubris and conquering fantasies.  The gods will do plenty of that for us.  There are many things that can be mastered in life . . . skills, philosophies, devotions.  But I think the true master of any of these things understands that mastery is not conquering.  It is not a domination of resistances, but a harnessing of natural libido, a being in harmony with instinctual or natural expression.  And that harmony or equilibrium always requires a sacrifice of the egoic desire to determine the thing to be learned.  Only as the minister of natural skill or attitude or inclination can we achieve "mastery".  All other kinds of mastery are delusional.

When I think of all of the things I've learned to do well or with greater than average accomplishment in my life (and there are not many), I can see that each achievement required relinquishment of egoic determination.  When I taught myself how to pitch and hit as a baseball player, I did not predetermine forms and insist that my skill as a pitcher and hitter be fitted to those forms or paradigms.  Instead I tried to follow what was natural motion, elegance, essential simplicity . . . and I constructed the paradigm for these forms based on what worked, what produced results.  And this meant I was always experimenting, trying different ways to see what "Nature preferred".  As a learning writer, my training was much more elaborate, but essentially followed the same pattern.  I had to discard rule after rule I was told to follow (by my teachers) until I reached a level of pure access to the instinctual unconscious, which I then allowed to determine the form and function of what I wrote.  I didn't say, "I am a sonnet writer and must write sonnets."  All of this "mastery" took a lot of seeing-through and a lot of surrender to an Other-guided process.

This is, I think, the common experience of learning a discipline . . . especially a complex or mental discipline.  As the alchemists might say, only Nature can work effectively against Nature.  But egoic will is never more than an obstacle to the acquisition of a discipline.  It is perfectly fine to want to master a discipline . . . but in order to actually master that discipline this desire must always be sacrificed to the Nature of the thing that is to be mastered.  And to speak in annoying alchemical doubletalk: only by being mastered can we master.  Perhaps a little too "koan-y", but this is the fundamental principle of spirituality, I think.

A child must conquer his or her fear of the night, of the boogeyman, of any number of manifestations of the unconscious.  A child must conquer his or her fear of rejection, of making a mistake, of looking like a fool, of being the focus of an embarrassing situation.

Such "conquering" can only be achieved by surrendering to the fear, dissolving into it, and recognizing that it doesn't actually have the power to destroy us that we projected into it.  We will never overcome the fear of rejection until we have been adequately rejected (and known rejection).  We will never overcome the fear of making mistakes until we have made so many mistakes that the fear has been depotentiated.  None of these things can be accomplished by egoic will and determination in some sort of abstract act of reasoning.  We must experience in order to learn . . . and without experience, we only deceive ourselves if we think we have accomplished anything.

No less so is it true in the psyche that conscious development requires repression, suppression even incipient neurosis, depression or anxiety than it is that life forms require the death of other life forms to survive.  It is a dirty, wicked game or you are not playing it.

I think consciousness (individuation) only requires such things as repression in order to experience them and recognize how they undermine consciousness.  Depression, anxiety, and neurosis are the symptoms of conflicts which are part of living and growing.  They are not "enemies" or opponents competing for our valued resources (although in the West we definitely tend to imagine them as such).  I'm not sure we can accurately draw a parallel between these things and the competition of species to survive.  We are not the predators of the unconscious.  It is not the Garden of Eden Cafe here to sustain us in all of our egoic appetites and indulgences.  The only thing "wicked" about individuation is that it always sets us against the Tribe and severs us from tribal Eros.  That is usually seen as wicked by the Tribe . . . and we often can't help but feel wicked in the grip of those projections.

My experience of the psyche and the Work is simply nothing like this.  What you seem to be prescribing are the attitudes that I have found to stall and obscure the Work.

So having said all this I hoped to strike a tone that I think should be in the repetoire of all serious students of the psyche.  Oftentimes it is a kill or get killed world "in there" and we have the right as ego-complexes, to consider the option of removing our inner enemies.  We just can't let the inner bullies to keep taking our libidic lunches away from us.

I have never met one of these inner enemies in my psyche.  The only opponent I've encountered has been my own egoic attitudes and resistances.  There is a lot of "blame the anima/animus/shadow/puer" talk in Jungian psychology, but these concepts are all foreign to me.  What reason would our instincts have to undermine our adaptivity?  We (as egos) are not ever the recipients of "libidic lunches", in my opinion.  When we think that the thing we feed is the ego, we are deluding ourselves.  The ego can't have its cake and eat it too.  The common idea behind egomania (that the ego is separate from and independent of the instinctual unconscious) is a fallacy, I think.  In its dissociation from instinct, the ego merely doesn't have consciousness of how its attitudes and desires are being determined.  But this unconsciousness tends to result in "infantile" behavior . . . so infantile as to often be radically maladaptive (in adults).

Also, I recognize that all of this is part of the very problematic knots that we each get tied up in.  It is as if in the rush of the necessity to get out of the womb and grow up and live in this world we, of necessity, create as many problems for ourselves as we solve in that achievement.  That is the heroic cycle.  Later we must move to uncover our inner despot and make him or her more civilized, more in relationship to the other inner characters.  For women I suspect that this is often reversed...too long has the young feminine ego learned to manage the greater connectivity of inner (and outer) individuals at the risk of the accumulation of libidic power for her ego.  While the stereotypical male ego might be described as all power and no civility, the stereotypical female ego can be seen as all civility no power.

And so the early animus experience is often of the invader or criminal coming in and blandishing a destructive (separative) power over the feminine ego and her world.  The animus, all power no discretion, is easily dismissed as an evil, disruptive male influence.  But the problem is that the feminine ego hasn't taken on the patriarchal role as separate individual and stood alone in passionate defiance of the innumerable, but reasonable, suppliable demands put upon her.  While young men are allowed to be selfish, young women are chastised for this.  And so men grow up to be "pigs" who take, take, take while women become "bitches" because they dare to complain and without what they could just give.  Obviously these are extremes and stereotypes.  But my favorite place, sometimes, to look for the truth is in the banal.

So I say, let's learn to get along and then break out your hockey sticks and let's RUMBLE!!!

I just don't see any good coming from this polarization of "psychosexuality".  The paradigm of Opposites you are applying here sounds like a step backward to me.  In contemporary, modern society, the Opposites have moved closer together and begun influencing and transforming one another.  There is still far to go, but the movement so far has been progressive.  To break out the hockey sticks would be like a retreat back to the original positions (19th century? earlier?).  We, individually, all have a greater or lesser degree of dissociation in the Feminine/Masculine dynamic, but I think the answer to this conflict is always found in the movement toward integration and synthesis (coniunctio).  That is, I feel that there is no fundamental dualism here.  The appearance of dualism is, in my opinion, non-essential.  It is the product of dissociation of something that is fundamentally one.

I agree that an act of differentiation is the beginning of the process of consciousness.  But this kind of differentiation is more a learning to recognize that any extreme position necessitates its Opposite.  Valuation starts to flow to the nether pole where the Other resides.  But that valuation is a kind of gravity that pulls both polarities toward a union in the middle.  So we differentiate and recognize the inevitability of Opposites, but next we must see-through the illusion of Opposites to their synthesis.

To even claim to be, to exist is a great inflation!  Who are we to say we have a divine soul, that we have the right to live in this universe so much grander, more powerful and more important than any or all of us?  Part of the human condition is hubris and I will accept and even enjoy it even as I guard against it.  There I go being mystical again...

We certainly belong in the universe as much as anything else does, but the notion that this is our "right" is, I feel, essentially a fallacy (although, a fallacy that expresses what is fundamentally an instinctual libido in totemic form).  That is, it is a projection of libido into a concretized belief.  As far as our desire to say we have divine souls, yes, I definitely see this as hubris.  Of course, as an atheist, I don't adhere to this belief.  Although I think it is the hubris of it even more so than the irrationality that "offends" me.  So I would say that to exist is not an inflation, but to claim that our existence is extraordinary or blessed or governed by divine right is most certainly an inflation.  It isn't one seen-through very often . . . even among atheists who reject this concept in word, there is a tendency to see humanness as a state of entitlement.

I think hubris is an obstacle to both contentment and to gnosis . . . but it isn't as much a sin as many make it out to be.  At its root, this hubris is an expression of our biological libido . . . and hubristic beliefs shared among humans (like the ensoulment and divine right stuff) are expressions of tribal Eros.  That is, our beliefs of blessing and entitlement allow us to better bond together to express communal libido and survive and flourish.  The more we believe in our right to be and even to "conquer", the more libido we will invest in our tribe's success.  But in the modern world, all these expressions of tribal entitlement become counterproductive, even as survival drives.  Our survival success and adaptability now are more a matter of learning how to effectively cooperate despite our tribal differences.  The ability to see-through these differences is one of the quintessential products of individuating consciousness.

And at some point, ultimate sustainability will, I believe, require a reevaluation of our sense of speciesistic (as well as tribal) entitlement and divine right.  At its base, this entitlement is the advocacy of the conquering of Nature.  But today we face the limitation and backfiring of our conquering and devaluation of nature and matter.  If we do not learn how to better live within Nature and its ecosystems, we increasingly run the risk of destroying that which has been sustaining us (in our unconsciousness).  Even the "supreme and divine" godlings of the Earth are ultimately dependent on the very thing they have so long felt entitled to take, use, and abuse with impunity.  I see in this encroaching predicament the confrontation of humanity with its own religiosity and spiritualistic hubris.

Perhaps humans are like gods in the power they wield.  But if we can't learn to carry the conscious responsibility of gods as well as lay claim to their power, we will continue to rush headlong to our "just" self-destruction.




Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Kafiri on February 08, 2008, 09:50:57 AM
Quote from: Matt Koeske

The problem here is that there is a difference between true individualism (or individuation) and tribalism.  Lifestyle marketing still conforms more than it promotes individualism (and by a huge margin).


Matt,
At the risk of appearing to "nit pick" I think we need to be clear about certain terms when we use them.  Here is what Jung says about "individualism" as opposed to "individuation":
Quote

. . .Egoists are called 'selfish,' but this, naturally, has nothing to do with the concept of 'self' as I am using it here.  On the other hand, self-realization seems to stand in opposition to self-alienation.  This misunderstanding is quite general, because we do not distinguish between individualism and individuation.  Individualism means deliberately stressing and giving prominence to some supposed peculiarity rather than to collective considerations and obligations.  But individuation means precisely the better and more complete fulfilment of the collective qualities of the human being, since adequate consideration of the peculiarity of the individual is more conductive to a better social performance that when the peculiarity is neglected or suppressed.  The idiosyncrasy of the individual is not to be understood as any strangeness in his substance or in his components, but rather as a unique combination, or gradual differentiation, of functions and faculties which in themselves are universal.  Every human face has a nose, two eyes, etc., but these universal factors are variable,  and it is this variability which makes individual peculiarities possible.  Individuation, therefore, can only mean a process of psychological development that fulfils the individual qualities given; in other words, it is a process by which a man becomes the definite, unique being he in fact is.  In so doing he does not become 'selfish' in the ordinary sense of the the word, but is merely fulfilling the peculiarity of his nature, and this, as we have said, is vastly different from egotism or individualism.
C. G. Jung, Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious, in the Portable Jung, pp. 122-123.

So Matt, IMO we need to very careful about the terms we use.  It very easy for  "individualism" to be mistaken for "indivuation" on certain forums that hold themselves out to be Jungian.  One can observe from the comments of people that their ego has adopted a "peculiar" position on a given subject, for example, the Tarot.  They then delude themselves that this "peculiarity" is evidence of individuation, when in fact, it is evidence of an ego driven individualism.  And to keep uniformity across Jungian learning and understanding we should bear the difference between the two terms, as Jung defined them, in mind.  A minor point I admit, but one I think we should be aware of.
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Sealchan on February 08, 2008, 11:56:56 AM
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So Matt, IMO we need to very careful about the terms we use.  It very easy for  "individualism" mistaken for "indivuation" on certain forums that hold themselves out to be Jungian.  One can observe from the comments of people that their ego has adopted a "peculiar" position on a given subject, for example, the Tarot.  They then delude themselves that this "peculiarity" is evidence of individuation, when in fact, it is evidence of, of an ego driven individualism.  And to keep uniformity across Jungian learning and understanding we should bear the difference between the two terms, as Jung defined them, in mind.  A minor point I admit, but one I think we should be aware of.

And maybe to clarify my view, the so-called masculine line of conscious development which is aligned with the majority of today's masculine oriented collectives is to establish the ego as a separate system from the rest of the psyche.  The feminine line of development is to maintain connectivity with the whole psyche.  Both lines of development are occurring but the ego aligns preferentially with one or the other and projects onto the animi the other developmental line.  One aspect of development is this separation of the ego from the unconscious and another is the coming into awareness of the deep connectivity of the ego with the unconscious. 

Today's modern Western culture emphasizes the masculine, separative and so we have produced a culture of alienation from the unconscious, the "secondary personalization" (Neumann) of the contents of the psyche makes the transpersonal disappear behind the personal, particular and arbitrary because consciousness has rested the libido away from the unconscious to an extent that the unconscious no longer significantly manipulates the consciousness within the greater part of the ego's domain.  So the problem of a well-adjusted modern Westerner is to reconnect to the transpersonal and help to dissolve the meaninglessness of the pervasive alienation from the transpersonal.  This requires finding and exploring the hidden affective elements of psyche and allowing them to undo the separative bias of the masculinated ego.

The hero's journey isn't really so much about the separative development of consciousness as it is about the life-death-life cycle of conscious development.  However, I think that the monomyth, as such, is more about the development of the ego as a separate element from the psyche and tends to show ego victories over other inner personalities.  The benchmark for successful ego development in this light is simultaneously the instinctual world and the collective world through which one must negotiate.  But for those of us who are looking beyond the collective's obvious solutions to life, we need to dig deeper.  This is where I think that the alchemical, individuation motifs come to the fore.  Now that we have our ego-consciousness as a separate container or alchemical workshop where mind and matter are two different things (a necessary pre-requisite) now we can do the work of re-uniting, re-valuating what was lost in the first phase of development.

So I see selfish = ego separated and valuation centered in one's separate identity.  Self is, of course, reconnection with the transpersonal such that one's particular "configuration" of personality is shown to be unique and yet, at the same time, "merely" a re-expression of the objective, universal themes that run through all mythic-spiritual knowledge.
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Matt Koeske on February 12, 2008, 02:02:46 PM
Quote from: Matt Koeske

The problem here is that there is a difference between true individualism (or individuation) and tribalism.  Lifestyle marketing still conforms more than it promotes individualism (and by a huge margin).


Matt,
At the risk of appearing to "nit pick" I think we need to be clear about certain terms when we use them.  Here is what Jung says about "individualism" as opposed to "individuation" . . .

Good point, Kafiri.  I wasn't using the term "individualism" the way Jung did.  Sloppy writing on my part.  Obviously, the individualism that lifestyle marketing promotes has nothing whatsoever to do with individuation.  Lifestyle marketing is based on tribal identity or affiliation, which is sold to us as products indicative of our "individuality" (ironically).  But a "true individual" (one who is individuated) is not defined by tribal affiliations (and wouldn't make a very functional demographic to target for marketing).

So Matt, IMO we need to very careful about the terms we use.  It very easy for  "individualism" to be mistaken for "indivuation" on certain forums that hold themselves out to be Jungian.  One can observe from the comments of people that their ego has adopted a "peculiar" position on a given subject, for example, the Tarot.  They then delude themselves that this "peculiarity" is evidence of individuation, when in fact, it is evidence of an ego driven individualism.  And to keep uniformity across Jungian learning and understanding we should bear the difference between the two terms, as Jung defined them, in mind.  A minor point I admit, but one I think we should be aware of.

Agreed, but I am inclined to question the semantics of this Jungian usage in the same way I questioned the Jungian definition of "hero".  It is important to make the differentiation that Jung did, but to call the state of being that is differentiated from individuation, "individualism", is actually a misnomer.  It would be more accurate to refer to this as "pseudo-individualism" because this individualism only pretends or deludes itself into belief in the illusion of its individuality.  Really, such "individualism" is defining itself by its tribal affiliations, its "lifestyle clique or family".  This is precisely why I prefer to call it "tribalism".  "Tribalism" is a more accurate term for this state of being or attitude than "individualism" is.

The problem you mention with many Jungians (in the online, New Age, and professional communities) is that, instead of individuating and defining themselves as something apart from their tribal affiliations, they frequently choose to define themselves as "of the Tribe of Jung".  In this tribe, Jungian language is spoken, Jungian taboos are obeyed, and Jungian gods are worshiped as totems . . . but there is no individuation unless one is able to see-through his or her affiliations with the Tribe of Jung.  Jung, of course, was completely aware of this problem, as is evidenced in his famous quip: "I'm glad I'm Jung and not a Jungian".

And even though I've heard many members of the Tribe of Jung chant this mantra they do not see-through their own tribal affiliations.  For them, individuation remains a tribal totem.  As we have seen on other sites, many will take the posture of individuated attitudes but appear (to anyone who has done a decent amount of Work) to be frauds or hypocrites or at least very naive.  This is easily detectable by anyone who follows the Work, because one can see that the "individuation postures" effected do not actually resemble the true individuated/individuating state.  Instead, these postures totemize individuation as if it was some kind of wisdom or attainment or enlightenment (even if these words are not used).  The true individuant is not filled with wise postures and knowing nods, but with dangerous questions and genuine vulnerability.

What I see in the online Jungians (and many of the professional analysts, as well) is the donning of the costume of individuation.  This is why the senex is so highly respected in Jungian circles.  It is imagined as the Wise Old Man/Woman, an attainment of peace and wisdom and professorial koan-spewing.  But the Jungians have chosen their individuation costume poorly.  The individuant is not at peace when the world around her is not at peace (as peacefulness is a product or relationship to environment or equilibrium, not "attainment").  The individuant knows that attainment is an illusion and that even the greatest states of enlightenment can be see-through and recognized as less transformations or transcendences than valuations of Otherness . . . in which the valuator, the individuant, remains relatively unchanged (except in attitude and orientation).  We can make and honor gods, but we cannot become gods.  The individuant realizes that any of these "achievements" in the Work do not make the demons and flaws in the personality vanish, but rather keep these shadow animals fed, protected, and well-groomed in the attempt to live in harmony with them.  Perfection is discarded for wholeness (as the Jungian dogma itself states).  And instead of becoming a koan vending machine and pretending that complex situations and concepts can be simplified to an enigmatic phrase or aphorism, the individuant faces complexity, darkness, and challenge with a combination of humility (an openness to learning new things from even the most unlikely sources) and dangerous questions.  The individuant knows how to accept a master or teacher wherever one appears, even within the not-individuated . . . but also how to use a sword and cut away the crap.

There are certainly Jungians who are individuants and understand these things . . . but far more Jungians do not.  And these who don't have constructed the Tribe of Jung and formed it into its current shape.

Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Matt Koeske on February 13, 2008, 01:39:22 PM

And maybe to clarify my view, the so-called masculine line of conscious development which is aligned with the majority of today's masculine oriented collectives is to establish the ego as a separate system from the rest of the psyche.  The feminine line of development is to maintain connectivity with the whole psyche.

The problem I have with this, Chris, is that I don't see women being or striving to be any more connected to their instinctual unconscious than men.  I merely see two different preferred languages in which to practice "separation" (more accurately, dissociation).  And even these languages (in contemporary society) are not very differentiated.  That's why I don't like the Masculine/Feminine dichotomy of psyche that many Jungians are partial to.

Both lines of development are occurring but the ego aligns preferentially with one or the other and projects onto the animi the other developmental line.  One aspect of development is this separation of the ego from the unconscious and another is the coming into awareness of the deep connectivity of the ego with the unconscious.

And so not surprisingly, I see encouragement of "deep connectivity with the unconscious" as simply a general animi property . . . not something specific to anima or animus.  The modern condition is egoic dissociation and alienation from the instinctual unconscious . . . and the animi are psychic figures of valuation for the reattachment of ego to instinctual unconscious.

Today's modern Western culture emphasizes the masculine, separative and so we have produced a culture of alienation from the unconscious, the "secondary personalization" (Neumann) of the contents of the psyche makes the transpersonal disappear behind the personal, particular and arbitrary because consciousness has rested the libido away from the unconscious to an extent that the unconscious no longer significantly manipulates the consciousness within the greater part of the ego's domain.  So the problem of a well-adjusted modern Westerner is to reconnect to the transpersonal and help to dissolve the meaninglessness of the pervasive alienation from the transpersonal.  This requires finding and exploring the hidden affective elements of psyche and allowing them to undo the separative bias of the masculinated ego.

I agree that this "separative"/dissociated condition seems "Masculine" in character . . . in the sense that it is an artifact of patriarchy.  But I am not sure that patriarchy is really a good representation of what is archetypally "Masculine".  I see patriarchy as a dissociation of Masculinity based in the fear of the Other (a category that includes the Feminine for men).  It is an egomania, a conquering attitude, but it is not an attitude that is in any way productive in the individuation process.  It does not bring consciousness of or differentiation in the unconscious.  Instead it upholds the supremacy of a particular ego-position that is characterized by inflation, entitlement, and devaluation of Otherness.  It is enabled by the provident, protective Mother, which it sees as a resource with which to express its (the patriarchal ego's) power.  But just as this enabling fuels its power grab, so does it create a dependency that threatens to "pull the plug".  So sometimes the Mother is usurped and other times she is feared.

This patriarchal attitude is undisciplined, uninitiated.  It fears its own potential impotence, and so essentially over-compensates by emphasizing potency and transcendence.  What I think we are seeing here is the death of an initiation into a more holistic manhood.  Patriarchy is man in love with his own might . . . which means he is terrified of his own weakness and vulnerability.  But I think this dissociation represents a wedge between the Masculine and the Feminine.  And I think this dissociation is more complex than "something that men did to women".  "Men" are not capable of this Fall just because they are men.  Masculinity doesn't really have anything to do with it.  A change this drastic has to be caused by something much larger.

The candidate I would like to nominate for this role is Environmental Catastrophe.  This particular one was different than other natural disasters like tsunamis, volcanoes, plagues, ice ages, and meteors.  I think it was population expansion . . . probably as the result of advances in agriculture (see Keri, I got me a knuckleball, too!  (-)485(-) (-)nnchks(-)).  I'm not ready to "blame the agricultural revolution" just yet, though.  I see this as an inevitability . . . not a sin.  The SIN came as an eventual reaction to the inevitability.

Agriculture increases wealth.  Increased wealth and increased population density eventually results in industry and the hierarchical division of labor . . . something that wasn't really necessary on this level in a tribal society.  This new wealth needs to be protected . . . and that means increase in the sense of ownership, development of the military, and more law-making.  "Tribal law" or morality is no longer intuitive.  At this point in history, the legislation of ownership, social boundaries, classes, and occupations both differentiated/divided people in a society and forced them to live and work closer together.  Instead of space between kinship groups, the new walls were abstract laws, prejudices, and hierarchies.

And the system was self-perpetuating.  More industry meant more jobs and more wealth . . . which in turn meant more military and more law-enforcement.  The larger these societies grew, the more the rulers of them must have been awed by their achievements, their power.  The more such power became the object of worship, the more gods, totems, and religions were constructed around it.  We can witness some of this in historical texts as the dethroning of the old Goddess religions.  One of the key factors of the transformation from Goddess religions to patriarchal warrior-king religions was the gradual depotentiation of not so much the Goddesses but the Goddess's consorts . . . who were typically the dying and rising gods.  The patriarchal state religions started to favor transcendent, always rising (perpetually erect) gods, solar deities, sky gods.  The dying and rising gods of old were relegated to smaller cults, which were probably able to function much more like conventional tribes.  For instance, the Mystery religions were initiation cults, preserving what was perhaps the most important artifact of primitive tribalism, passage into a sense of responsibility for one's actions in the collective or in the world.  Part of that responsibility was the maintenance of the Mystery god or goddess.  The initiate is responsible for bringing the god into the world . . . that is, for bringing instinct into culture.

All this is of course a massive over-simplification, but I think it (which we know to be generally true from historical and prehistorical records and artifacts) could account for the birth of patriarchy and the institution of dissociation between the ego and the instinctual unconscious.  Triumphs of the ego were often celebrated in the tales of conquering heroes (as previously mentioned).  The oldest surviving written text, the Epic of Gilgamesh, describes all of this proposed model very accurately (which is partly because I am using it as a source for the paradigm being proposed).

The goal of Gilgamesh, the prototypical patriarch, is to achieve worldly power and then immortality.  Immortality is a kind of perpetual erection of the ego.  First he bests his instinctual self (not Self) as represented by Enkidu.  Enkidu is like Gilgamesh's "relational body" and libido.  He is originally sent to defeat (or at least distract) Gilgamesh, because Gilgamesh has been usurping the brides of his people, insisting that he have sex with them before their husbands do.  In doing this, he is less a king than a thief.  His crazed appetite is self-consuming, self-destructive.  Appetite is (to the patriarchal ego) what stands between will and true power.  Appetite suppression or self-control is the great weapon of the patriarch.

Enkidu is originally animalistic and untamed (uncultured).  Gilgamesh's defeat of Enkidu in the wrestling match is like the egoic will's defeat of its own childish chaos and fear and undermining desire.  It is like a rather brutal "seeing-through" of our primitivistic animism.  We recognize that the spirits are not really in the trees and rocks and rivers . . . and all of a sudden, we feel a rush of power, as if those spirits have been channeled into the ego.  That's inflation, of course . . . but it is common even today, when we see-through someone else's fiction, to feel as if we have power over them ("mana").  Enkidu is like tribal man, and Gilgamesh sees-through Enkidu's dependence on nature and projection and therefore overpowers him.

But perhaps I shouldn't use "seeing-through" in this context.  It is not the same thing as seeing-through Maya and tribal affiliation.  Inspirited Matter is not so much penetrated by the patriarchal, conquering ego as it is devalued.  To truly see-through something (in the more Hillmanian sense I've been using it lately), is to differentiate its value from its disguise or superficial fiction.  The patriarchal ego (which is the roots of positivistic rationalism) does not understand that the value, the instinctual Will behind our animistic projections is essential . . . on a biological as well as psychological level, to our living.  This conquering ego merely empties the vessel of all its contents . . . just as American hunters in the Old West used to shoot bison from passing trains without even stopping to collect and utilize the carcasses.  By contrast, the Native Americans not only used as much of the bison killed as possible for food and tools and such, they recognized that in this usage, some kind of respect should be paid to Nature.  And they generally only took what they needed to survive.  The patriarchal ego just takes because it can, because the thrill of taking is a power rush.

The problem we face today after millennia of unchecked patriarchal taking like this is a drastically devalued world  . . . and nowhere for us to commune with and derive guidance from our instincts.

When Gilgamesh defeats and befriends Enkidu, he manages to still retain a sense of valuation for his friend and his instinctual drives.  Enkidu grounds him somewhat (because of this residual valuation), allowing Gilgamesh to develop more honor and discipline (allowing his instinctual drives to become more directed into achievement).  We could say that this is a kind of inner "self-mastery" for Gilgamesh, in which he realizes (like Freud's anal-retentive infant) that the conscious restriction and regulation of drives gives the ego a sense of power and control . . . which it then seeks to exercise and expand into the outer world.  But Gilgamesh retains the understanding that his instinctual drives are his lifeline.  He merely finds a way to temporarily redirect them into the goals his egoic will has set for him.  But, of course, this is a kind of destructive complex.  Following these goals will inevitably rob him of his relationship to his instincts.  His conquering mania is gradually devaluing the world around him and his sense of self in that world.  Gilgamesh is living on borrowed time, and he can only squander instinctual relationality and drain value from Matter and Self for so long before his soul is lost.

For the patriarchal ego, this model of "self-mastery" is the "archetype" of mastery over all Nature and oppositional will.

But we should recall that the most celebrated aspect of the city of Uruk, Gilgamesh's kingdom, is its walls.  These great walls were the symbol of its autonomy (from Nature) and power.  It is the perfect metaphor for the dissociated, inflated ego.  And it reminds me of one of the great Romantic poems about the fallacy of the patriarchal ego, Shelly's "Ozymandias".

Quote
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

The first two acts of Gilgamesh after he has conquered and "befriended" Enkidu are the murder of Humbaba, guardian of the Cedar Forest, and the rejection of Ishtar, the Great Goddess.  Humbaba represents the power of Nature over humanity . . . and he is conquered through the human invention of industry.  The lumber industry was likely the first industry of Sumer and Babylonia.  Not only did these great trees have to be chopped down, they had to be carried (or floated) great distances to the cities of the state.  This took not only ingenuity but immense, perhaps even maniacal, will to achieve.

Gilgamesh's rejection of Ishtar is explained as his feeling that the consorts of Ishtar ended up in bad shape (dead, often enough).  He calls her a whore (and we might think of the temple priestesses or sacred prostitutes that conducted the worship of Ishtar).  Her consorts were, of course, the dying gods (like Tammuz).  Gilgamesh did not want anything to do with this death business.  He wanted to live forever.  But of course, his slighting of Ishtar had repercussions, and the great Bull of Heaven was sent down with her rage to kill Gilgamesh.

But Gilgamesh "saw-through" or drained value from this Bull, understanding (we might say) that it only drew its power from projection or animism.  He and Enkidu slay it, but in doing so, Enkidu is sacrificed (as the gods decide that Gilgamesh's arrogance must be punished) . . . and finally Gilgamesh understands what it means to lose his soul.  He undergoes the night-sea journey to find the secret of immortality . . . but ultimately fails.  The plant that would bestow immortality is eaten by a water serpent . . . which is like the chthonic shadow of ego-inflated Gilgamesh.  The serpent learns to shed its skin, but it lives underwater, in the deep, instinctual unconscious . . . far away from the reach of Gilgamesh.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is ultimately a tragedy, because the thing Gilgamesh really wanted most, his relationship with Enkidu, was lost to his egoic ambition (his unwillingness to die/submerge/be humbled/dissolve in instinct).  And as he has parted ways with both the anima Goddess and his relationship to the instinctual (through Enkidu), he no longer has any access to spiritual rebirth (which was always the privilege of the dying and rising god and consort of the Goddess).  The ability to be reborn falls into the shadow as the serpent (another symbol of the Goddess).  Gilgamesh, as symbol of the patriarchal ego, has seen-through the bonds of some of the ego's dependence on animism or projection into matter . . . but he has made the mistake of devaluing that matter.  This value is the stuff of "soul".  He has not achieved a harmonious relationship with the environment, precisely because he has misunderstood seeing-through as conquering . . . and not understood that taking up this attitude has only enabled him to conquer/castrate himself and what was most precious to him.

In the end, he has accomplished nothing through his conquering attitude.  All he has achieved is the feeling that such conquering always leads to loss.  Like the great fortress walls of Uruk, Gilgamesh has seen-through the investment of Nature or matter with power over humanity . . . but only in a way that makes him aware of his own isolation from value.


In this myth, we need to recognize that no one wins, culture is not saved or restored.  "Woman" does not fair any better than "Man".  Woman does not carry on the pre-dissociation traditions of communion between Masculine and Feminine.  The chthonic serpent has swallowed the key to rebirth.  One of the common fantasies of patriarchal man is that woman is the residual storehouse of instinctuality and Nature . . . and through her, he can be restored.  But this is a projection (as any woman who has borne this projection can tell you).  It is not Woman per se that holds the key to restoration of instinctuality, it's relationality.  Women are merely the outward symbol of relationality for most men.  But this relationality is not really "reunion with Woman or with the Feminine".  It is the ability to invest value in Otherness, in Others and in things/matter.  The investment of value requires inner wealth, the feeling that we can give these things away without being diminished by the giving.  Value is not property.  The patriarchal mentality doesn't understand this.  It so fears its own impoverishment, that it is always obsessed with taking, owning, possessing.  That is, it sees/projects the lost value or soul into these objects and tries to enrich itself through conquering and pillaging.  But this can never satisfy because the wealth is not really in these things.  It is lost in the shadows of the unconscious.  This is the key thing that the patriarchal ego does not see-through at all.  It cannot save or restore its soul with acquisition from sources (and resources) outside itself.  Soul is not "out there" to be found, claimed, and seized.  Soul is made, gestated within.

In our tribal state, we enriched, valuated, or ensouled our world via animistic projection . . . and as a result, matter was alive and inspirited.  We could relate to our instincts through our relation to Matter and Nature.  But the conquering of Nature left us with nowhere to find soul, relationality, instinct.

I think this parallels what you have been calling the ego-split . . . although I see the psychological nature of this more clearly in the Gilgamesh story than in a "separation from the World Parents" . . . because such a split/dissociation does not actually separate one from the parental at all.  We remain childlike in such a dissociation, because we are still dependent on the providence of our devalued resources.  For example, in the Gilgamesh epic, there is the Cedar Forest and Uruk's lumber industry to harness it.  For us today, there is oil.  In the early days of America, it was slavery.  We have shortsightedly seen these "resources" as superabundant . . . but they are non-renewable and/or cannot be sustained without "externalities" and destruction.  We take, but we don't give back . . . because we feel that what we take is not innately valuated.  That is, we are entitled to it with no strings attached, no repercussions.  It is ownable, possessable .  We don't need to sustain and protect it; it is provided for us . . . and our own "worth" is measured by how much we can possess, own, and take.  Not by how much we can give, sustain, replenish, protect.  Mother Nature is the provider . . . and we are the ever-suckling infant.

This is the patriarchal attitude: non-self-sustaining, irresponsible, usurping, arrogantly entitled.  It is an infantile, selfish attitude, not the attitude of an initiated adult who has comprehended the value of sustaining the group and the environment.  The modern individual is disenfranchised from the immense state.  S/he doesn't feel s/he has the ability to help sustain the group or direct/heal/preserve society.  As a result, we don't know what to do with our sociality instinct.  We lose Eros, empathy, relatedness.  Our egos are not initiated into this Eros and sense of responsibility for the group . . . and so they remain childlike and selfish.  Modern society has learned how to translate this selfishness into an economy . . . which can provide and provide.  Until the resources run out.  And then it turns in on itself cannibalistically.

All we need to do to glimpse this destructive process is look at our current government's ideology regarding "social welfare".  The deregulation and social welfare dismantling ("privatization") championed by the current regime is insanely selfish and dissociated.  There is no sense of responsibility for others at all . . . and no awareness that such social responsibility is not only an "ethical obligation" but also necessary for a self-sustaining system to survive.  Those who have, deserve . . . and those who don't have do not deserve.  Possession and greed are justice in themselves.  Because our worth is seen as only what we can own.  We have maniacally chiseled away at the "resources" and "lower rungs" of our ecological, economic, and social ladders, funneling everything we can into the empowered ego and the "power elite".  But there is no long-term thinking behind this . . . only infantile greed and appetite gratification.

Tribal societies did not function this way . . . and human sociality instinct does not function this way.  But the modern is an environmental disaster, a situation that demands we either find a way to adapt (mutate?) or else we die out.  We feel a great pull (in the face of the modern) toward tribalism, but despite the instinctual drive behind this, the "return to tribalism" (from modernism) is not really very well thought out.  Instead, our drive for tribalism allows us to be turned into resources for empowered egoism . . . because it is not being interacted with consciously.  We can't just gravitate unconsciously to our favored tribes . . . we have to create an inter-tribal ecosystem that is self-sustaining of the whole Multitribe.

But the creation of complex systems has never been within the ego's grasp.  Complex systems baffle and mystify us.  Only Nature has succeeded in creating complexity like this.  I don't know if we will be able to manage this at all . . . but if there is any chance of success, it will only come through a reliance (but not dependency) on our own instinctual nature's.  I.e., consciousness harnessed to instinctuality rather than dissociated from it.  Is this possible collectively . . . and if it is, could it make the difference?  I have no idea . . . nor any idea how something like this could be achieved even if it were possible.


The hero's journey isn't really so much about the separative development of consciousness as it is about the life-death-life cycle of conscious development.  However, I think that the monomyth, as such, is more about the development of the ego as a separate element from the psyche and tends to show ego victories over other inner personalities.

But in the conquering/egoic hero stories, the final result is always tragedy, failure, madness, self-destruction, loss of value, dissociation . . . and in the hero stories where the mode of heroism is not conquering, but surrender (such as in most fairytales and in spiritual hero myths), consciousness is not separating so much as uniting.  I just don't see the textual examples needed to support your interpretation.

The benchmark for successful ego development in this light is simultaneously the instinctual world and the collective world through which one must negotiate.  But for those of us who are looking beyond the collective's obvious solutions to life, we need to dig deeper.  This is where I think that the alchemical, individuation motifs come to the fore.  Now that we have our ego-consciousness as a separate container or alchemical workshop where mind and matter are two different things (a necessary pre-requisite) now we can do the work of re-uniting, re-valuating what was lost in the first phase of development.

OK.  But in the alchemical allegories, the initial separation of spirit from matter is accomplished through surrender and dissolution.  The ego's will is harnessed to the Will of the Self.  And the spirit extracted from Matter is exalted and considered the thing of greatest worth, the Philosopher's Stone . . . which is the "perfected" or restored/revaluated prima materia.  Alchemy shows a process of extracting valuated spirit . . . whereas as with the conquering, Gilgameshian attitude I gave as an example above, Matter is superficially conquered and spirit is lost/devalued.  Never in the alchemical work is Matter or any other element devalued.  Even the basest things are raised up, praised, and imbued with value.

The alchemists were very specific about the idea that "only Nature can master Nature" . . . not human/egoic will.  They constantly warn that those who do not rely on Nature to drive the Work are bound to fail.

Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Matt Koeske on February 13, 2008, 01:53:02 PM

I have another poem about the self-annihilating predicament of the conquering, patriarchal ego.  It's a little longer and perhaps difficult or "surreal" or absurdist, but I think it captures this entire mindset perfectly.  The poem is much less "silly" than it might seem at first.  Bear with it  ;D.


Quote
A History of Bitings in the Domesticated Universe

A dog bites a man.
A man says, “A dog bites . . .”
but a dog bites a man again before a man can say more.
A dog stops biting a man as if to invite a man to speak.
A man, as if on cue, says, “A dog bites . . .”
but before he finishes a dog does bite.
A man is bitten by a dog as if, for want of saying it,
it became a thing.

“But I said it after the dog bit me,” thought the bitten man,
“How could I be blamed for provoking the bite?”
A dog stopped biting a man and then started again.
Not to be interrupted, a man said, “A dog bites a man!”
even though he was, by this time, well bitten,
bitten well past “bites,” rendering his statement senseless.

A dog ceased its biting of a man as if to clarify any residual doubt.
Suddenly, a dog bites a man . . . again . . . as if for the first time.
“A dog has no regard for tense!” cries a man being bitten.
A bitten man encourages a dog to bite him since,
being bitten, he must be worth biting.
“But once I was unbitten!” complains a clearly well-bitten man
with a known history of bites.
This is not so, for even in the first line of the poem,
You were bitten by a dog, but in the present tense.
“Yes, but before that I wasn’t being bitten,” said the man being bitten by a dog.

No, from the very beginning you were being bitten.
If you think back, before you were even a man, you were being bitten,
and before the bite, there was a dog, but it all happened in the present tense.
And before the dog there was the letter A, which is reminiscent
of the beginning of the alphabet, and also
signifies the oneness of the dog. In fact,
even before the dog bit you, there was another A
signifying one particular man, perhaps at the beginning of manness,
like an Adam.

A bitten man cringed as he was being bitten by a dog whose task, it seemed,
was to bite a man, for so it had been written.
“Why did you bring me into such a world,” winced the man,
a dog bite being given from a dog’s mouth to him,
as would seem to be the way of the world, as it has always been.
What other world would I bring you into?
“Well,” said a man as a dog bit a man who said “Well”
as a dog was biting him as he spoke, “at least a sort of world
where I could be a man with a name, a name such as Adam,
before there was a dog, and a dog was biting me.”

This certainly flies in the face of Nature!
For it was clearly written that a dog was the primal subject,
that biting was the original action, and that a man was,
after all this had become, the object of the action of the subject:
a dog bites a man.
And so it did. And does.
For it was written. And so it was.

“Can you at least make the primal dog stop biting me?”
said the man speaking and being bitten as a dog bit him
in a prolonged act of biting a man who could speak
and be bitten by a dog at the same time.
That you are not content with this world seems
an affront to language. But I suppose I could have said,
a dog had bitten a man, although beginning
in the past tense does not seem correct,
for if I had begun in such a way,
this would imply that something happened before this,
and that is blatantly impossible, and I would know,
since I wrote it all, beginning with:
a dog.

“Couldn’t you have written, ‘A man is being bitten by a dog’?”
squealed the man being bitten by the very dog that bit him.
I could say that now, but not then, for it was not written that way.
There’s no point in worrying about what was,
such are the complexities of tense.
A dog bites a man. A man squeals. There!
It happened again, and again, it is too late to do anything about it.

“Yes, yes . . .” said the man just bitten, full of the pain
of being bitten again and again by a dog in all different tenses,
“but the pain, the pain! This biting is hell, regardless of the tense!”

Ah . . . .
You have made something that transcends the dominion of tense
over language! That sits like a stone unchanging,
or like the beginning of a poem in which A dog bites a man
is written and cannot be unwritten
from the beginning, where it sits
like an unchanging stone.
This pain, if it could domesticate language
as language domesticates what is written,
then it may be able to domesticate the dog,
which, like everything written, is domesticated by language
as it is written.

A man’s eyes light up. A man bites a dog.
A dog yelps, then sits and hangs its head.
“I have domesticated the dog!” said a once frequently bitten man
who had evolved into a once frequently bitten man
who is no longer frequently bitten, although it was once so,
and so it will always have been.

“Whereas once I was the one acted upon, now I am the actor.
Whereas once I was in pain, now I am not.
I have become to the dog as you were to me
before I domesticated the dog with pain.
By giving pain, I domesticated the dog,
and by receiving pain I domesticated the language.

“With the dog and language and pain,
which is now rapidly fading from my memory, at my disposal,
I conquer the barbarian, tense!

“I am a man. I call myself Adam! I have a dog,
I have a language—all is born out of pain.
So, what you gave to me, once an affliction,
has freed me from suffering,
as it has freed me from tense. So . . .
I stand here, newly made . . . what now?
What else is there in this universe awaiting domestication?!

“I am the great domesticator . . . .
The universe awaits . . . .
There is, I say, in the universe,
one dog, one man, the now quite distant memory of pain,
the more recent memory of domestication.
These I call Things . . . .
I am the great domesticator of the universe . . .
which bears the mark of my domestication
like a memory of pain
reverberating into the infinitely domesticated distance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ”
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Keri on February 13, 2008, 03:46:12 PM
I was at the dentist with my son this morning, and they had Disney’s Beauty and the Beast playing.  It was at the part where the dashing, strong, aggressive “hero” of the village is drumming up the local people to go attack “the Beast.”  He works them all into a frenzy, playing on their fears of the Beast.  When Belle tries to stop him, he “man-handles” her, throwing her and her father into a cellar.  The villagers go off to fight the Beast at his castle, with the “hero” in the lead.  I see this, psychologically speaking, as an attempt to oppress/repress/squash out the beastly parts of the psyche.  But the villagers definitely would define this man as the hero.  He is strong, brave, and he wants to protect the village.  But I think he is the false, conquering hero.

I think, in this story, Belle is the actual heroine.  She acts heroically in that she must be brave (overcome her fear), she must “stand against” the village (tribe), she must “see-through” the Beast’s outward appearance and gruff manner to the man within.  She redeems the Beast (Animus) through really “seeing” him, through empathy, rather than with a conquering attitude.
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Matt Koeske on February 13, 2008, 05:01:06 PM
I was at the dentist with my son this morning, and they had Disney’s Beauty and the Beast playing.  It was at the part where the dashing, strong, aggressive “hero” of the village is drumming up the local people to go attack “the Beast.”  He works them all into a frenzy, playing on their fears of the Beast.  When Belle tries to stop him, he “man-handles” her, throwing her and her father into a cellar.  The villagers go off to fight the Beast at his castle, with the “hero” in the lead.  I see this, psychologically speaking, as an attempt to oppress/repress/squash out the beastly parts of the psyche.  But the villagers definitely would define this man as the hero.  He is strong, brave, and he wants to protect the village.  But I think he is the false, conquering hero.

I think, in this story, Belle is the actual heroine.  She acts heroically in that she must be brave (overcome her fear), she must “stand against” the village (tribe), she must “see-through” the Beast’s outward appearance and gruff manner to the man within.  She redeems the Beast (Animus) through really “seeing” him, through empathy, rather than with a conquering attitude.


Agreed.  Excellent example.  This differentiation (between conquering ego and sacrificing hero) is constantly demonstrated in fairytales.  I haven't done an official study by any means, but I am pretty sure that what I said about conquering "heroes" being the stuff of tragedy and spiritual heroes being the stuff of "comedies" or success stories (as we often see in fairytales) is accurate.
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Kafiri on February 14, 2008, 09:16:06 AM
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I was at the dentist with my son this morning, and they had Disney’s Beauty and the Beast playing.  It was at the part where the dashing, strong, aggressive “hero” of the village is drumming up the local people to go attack “the Beast.”  He works them all into a frenzy, playing on their fears of the Beast.  When Belle tries to stop him, he “man-handles” her, throwing her and her father into a cellar.  The villagers go off to fight the Beast at his castle, with the “hero” in the lead.  I see this, psychologically speaking, as an attempt to oppress/repress/squash out the beastly parts of the psyche.  But the villagers definitely would define this man as the hero.  He is strong, brave, and he wants to protect the village.  But I think he is the false, conquering hero.

I think, in this story, Belle is the actual heroine.  She acts heroically in that she must be brave (overcome her fear), she must “stand against” the village (tribe), she must “see-through” the Beast’s outward appearance and gruff manner to the man within.  She redeems the Beast (Animus) through really “seeing” him, through empathy, rather than with a conquering attitude.

Keri,
Let me begin with a quote from A Critical Dictionary of Jungian Analysis:

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   Myths are stories of archetypal encounters.  As the fairy tale is analogous to the workings of the personal COMPLEX, the myth is a METAPHOR for workings of the ARCHETYPE per se.  Like his ancestors Jung concluded, modern man is a myth-maker; he re-enacts age-old dramas based on archetypal themes and through his capacity for CONSCIOUSNESS, can release himself from their compulsive hold. P. 95.

With information in mind, one might ask:  "What personal complex" is at work in the Beauty and the Beast?  From the tale itself, we can see that no mother is involved.  It is about the father-daughter relationship, more specifically a "father's daughter."  The female version of the Oedipus complex is the Electra complex:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electra_complex (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electra_complex) But the modern emphasis is on the romantic relationship between the Beauty and Beast completely ignoring that before she can tame her animus by "seeing" it for what it really is, she must leave, once and for all, her father's house.  Unlike the collective, as you point out, Belle, comes to understand that the Beast is not "out there"(projected), but part of her own makeup that she must come into a relationship with.
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Sealchan on February 14, 2008, 02:05:03 PM
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I was at the dentist with my son this morning, and they had Disney’s Beauty and the Beast playing.  It was at the part where the dashing, strong, aggressive “hero” of the village is drumming up the local people to go attack “the Beast.”  He works them all into a frenzy, playing on their fears of the Beast.  When Belle tries to stop him, he “man-handles” her, throwing her and her father into a cellar.  The villagers go off to fight the Beast at his castle, with the “hero” in the lead.  I see this, psychologically speaking, as an attempt to oppress/repress/squash out the beastly parts of the psyche.  But the villagers definitely would define this man as the hero.  He is strong, brave, and he wants to protect the village.  But I think he is the false, conquering hero.

I think, in this story, Belle is the actual heroine.  She acts heroically in that she must be brave (overcome her fear), she must “stand against” the village (tribe), she must “see-through” the Beast’s outward appearance and gruff manner to the man within.  She redeems the Beast (Animus) through really “seeing” him, through empathy, rather than with a conquering attitude.

If I were to translate this into a dream I would say that the village "hero" is a default animus figure who has found himself fortuitously oriented at the center of the inner multitudes.  This is the problem of the feminine psyche in its early formation where it has not engaged sufficiently with the animus such that the animus has becomes concerned with relating to her.  This original animus is more interested in maintaining its own separate centeredness in the original psychic environment.

The Beast is really that same figure only through some trick of the psyche re-presented to the feminine ego in a way that allows a relationship to begin.  In seeing the dark side of the original animus a differentiation is formed that depotentiates the original, over-powering animus into two and the feminine ego then takes a biased (Beast over leadeer) approach to the divided animus allowing her to form a relationship with this depotentiated inner man.

This is like a change in dream scene where the first scene is the female dreamer with the popular guy whom everyone likes...but her.  The next scene is her, already married, perhaps, to this beast which is really the same person.  Perhaps we could even see this as an extroverted-introverted dichotomy were we to want to map this to a particular psyche.  So by relating in a biased (differentiated) fashion to the animus as "just Beast" she redeems the entire animus and reconstellates the entire village's people into a better psychic configuration with her as an organizing center sharing power as is the preference of the feminine style of connected ego development.  The divided animus probably must be cast into a mutual conflict, but I suspect that both animus types must be retained (no final deaths) for the optimal personal development.

By the end of the story, the masculine-separative power center animus who finds himself in the center of the villagers regard is depotentiated and the devalued beast is raised in value.  Depending on the version of the story how the village "hero" and the Beast "hero" come to a final orientation would depend on what values you wanted the story as a whole to convey.  But psychically it is the coordination of all the parts into a whole that is most important for individuation because no inner character is of no value in the end.  At its worst, in the inner realm, the most evil character is simply a valuable character misplaced or mis-coordinated by the ego that is in the position to inherit the role of the master coordinator of the psyche.

I wouldn't assume a father complex unless, literally, a father figure was involved.

Also, a hero is one who willingly undergoes sacrifice and transformation but the village leader guy is merely a default central figure that has, without self-consciousness, found himself in the role of the "center".  He is like some natural confident popular guy in high school, who finds himself working at a fast food restaurant after his high school days are over.  He is a mere statistical anomoly in that the herd focused around him, not because of his insight, but because the herd selected him as leader.  The hero becomes the leader through trial and sacrifice.

But an animus may begin with this untried natural "center".  When the feminine ego tries to adapt to a wider reality that includes the separative consciously "she" will begin by critiquing the flaws of the original animus until she can find something, anything to which she can relate.
   
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Kafiri on February 14, 2008, 04:43:06 PM
Quote from: Sealchan

I wouldn't assume a father complex unless, literally, a father figure was involved.

In the widely told tale the father figure is at the core:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty_and_the_Beast#Plot_summary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty_and_the_Beast#Plot_summary)  For a Jungian view of the Beauty and Beast where the father's role is discussed, see:  http://books.google.com/books?id=ecQuvwSSgzEC&pg=PA54&lpg=PA54&dq=%22beauty+and+the+beast%22+jung&source=web&ots=GCcnn5bQbR&sig=V3gjPwrMa3DPwI25Vb_KBW3pjJI
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Sealchan on February 15, 2008, 11:12:59 AM
This conversation is helping me to sort out a few things...I especially have a renewed appreciation for Neumann in all of this as I find that I am harkening back continually to insights I have derive from his ideas.

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Quote from: Sealchan on February 08, 2008, 08:56:56 AM
And maybe to clarify my view, the so-called masculine line of conscious development which is aligned with the majority of today's masculine oriented collectives is to establish the ego as a separate system from the rest of the psyche.  The feminine line of development is to maintain connectivity with the whole psyche.

The problem I have with this, Chris, is that I don't see women being or striving to be any more connected to their instinctual unconscious than men.  I merely see two different preferred languages in which to practice "separation" (more accurately, dissociation).  And even these languages (in contemporary society) are not very differentiated.  That's why I don't like the Masculine/Feminine dichotomy of psyche that many Jungians are partial to.

My thinking about things Jungian actually started with Neumann and trying to understand all of this and trying to come to grips with how he distinguished between a masculine and feminine line of development.  Neumann saw the typical male hero figure and Jung's ideas as inadequate to explaining feminine psychology.  What follows is my take on his work and what I have come up with based on my dream and scholarly studies...

The separative vs connective lines of development are really my effort to de-sexualize the so-called masculine and feminine dichotomy mentioned above.  I think the truth may lie somewhere in the middle of genetics (male/female differences), culture (sexual bias) and that there isn't really a significant sexual difference in conscious development in the ultimate sense.

When I think of separative vs connective I don't think of the relationship between the ego and the unconscious so much as I think of the relationship between personality centers, those multitudes of inner others I keep going on about.  I am suggesting that the ego preferentially develops with a biased (strong foot/weak foot) approach to development by either separating or connecting with others in the greater psyche.  The masculine line of consciousness seeks to polarize others as to whether they are, at bottom, for or against the ego's own separated objectives while the feminine line seeks to maintain in coordination the already polarized others.  The unconscious, per se, pushes both separation and connection by virtue of it harboring a largely undifferentiated (by collective conscious standards) response to precise, real world situations. 

We are left with a disorganized inner bunch of individuals and we may either separate the ego as a centralized power that "orders" the other psychic others into hierarchical compliance (alignment) or we can connect psychic others together in response to their existing divergent inclinations into a harmonious, coordinated whole being careful not to centralize egoic power.  Either method less consciously relies on its opposite to meet it halfway for any kind of success.  The egoic-separative "conquerer" will find itself facing continual problems overcoming a consensus of inner others.  The egoic-connective is still vulnerable to the one intruder that somehow still can penetrate and isolate the ego as something other than a vanishing part of the whole.

By unconscious egoic development, one achieves a biased style of conscious preference.  The animi comes along as a complimentary other who can consciously, masterfully work the other mode.  The only consciousness here is the mutual or not so mutual feelings of love, obsession or numinosity directed at the complimentary other.  But looking at the dreams and fantasies you should see the motifs thematic of the hero's journey and other hero related archetypal contents.  The literal achievement of the waking world other probably requires an inner adaptation of the ego to the needs of the animi whether that is a largely self-conscious process or not.  One does not need any Jungian language just some modicum of wisdom and inner adaptability if one has the satisfaction of the sexual instinct waiting on the results.

So from this perspective you might see how the collective development of the interpersonal marriage as opposed to the arranged marriage actually introduces an advance to the process of individuation on the part of the collective.  It does so not by building up "guarantees" for individuation to occur, but by removing collective forces (familial or cultural taboos or expectations) that would contain a marriage without having to differentiate/negotiate a relationship with one's complimentary other.  The very, so called, ritual void that not having an arranged marriage creates is the opportunity, instantiated in the collective, for a higher development of consciousness to occur.  This development was probably an unconscious, even consciously resisted by tradition, fallout of other seemingly unrelated social-collective developments.

So there is no sense of conscious intentional striving just patterns of behavior-attitude-underlying character to how we relate to outer and inner others.  This view I think fits in with Carol Gilligans' research described in In a Different Voice which describes her understanding of how women typically resolve conflict differently than men.

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Quote from: Sealchan on February 08, 2008, 08:56:56 AM
Both lines of development are occurring but the ego aligns preferentially with one or the other and projects onto the animi the other developmental line.  One aspect of development is this separation of the ego from the unconscious and another is the coming into awareness of the deep connectivity of the ego with the unconscious.

And so not surprisingly, I see encouragement of "deep connectivity with the unconscious" as simply a general animi property . . . not something specific to anima or animus.  The modern condition is egoic dissociation and alienation from the instinctual unconscious . . . and the animi are psychic figures of valuation for the reattachment of ego to instinctual unconscious.

Here again I am confusingly using the word unconscious...from a masculine separative point of view, looking at the ego as developed to the extent that it has separated leads to the intuitive notion that remaining connected to the rest of the psyche keeps the ego sunk beneath the threshold of consciousness.  I find myself still trapped in that language even while I see a need to escape it.  I think there is a further need for new language in the Jungian model here.

From the perspective of either the masculine or the feminine style of conscious the other seems to be a crazy abdication of common sense.  I think of the psyche as composed not, primarily of an "unconscious" per se but of psychic contents in relation to a priviledged complex which simply has associated with it the largest organized libidic reconstruction of the contents of the psyche.  We are what in our psyches is most ordered.  Our egos arise from a multitude of potential centers.  The conglomeration of these centers becomes the ego which is both a single and a diverse array of inner personalities in the metaphoric language of dreams and myth.  An individual can stand for a multitude and a multitude can stand for an individual in this inner language.  when one identifies with the connectivity one seems to have abdicated the centralization of power and is caught up in a web of connections which both empower and cripple the whose power is diffused among many centers.  When one identifies with the separation one seems to cultivate the centralization of power but is caught up in hierarchies, isolation, competition and all the triumphs and struggles that go along with.

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Quote from: Sealchan on February 08, 2008, 08:56:56 AM
Today's modern Western culture emphasizes the masculine, separative and so we have produced a culture of alienation from the unconscious, the "secondary personalization" (Neumann) of the contents of the psyche makes the transpersonal disappear behind the personal, particular and arbitrary because consciousness has rested the libido away from the unconscious to an extent that the unconscious no longer significantly manipulates the consciousness within the greater part of the ego's domain.  So the problem of a well-adjusted modern Westerner is to reconnect to the transpersonal and help to dissolve the meaninglessness of the pervasive alienation from the transpersonal.  This requires finding and exploring the hidden affective elements of psyche and allowing them to undo the separative bias of the masculinated ego.

I agree that this "separative"/dissociated condition seems "Masculine" in character . . . in the sense that it is an artifact of patriarchy.  But I am not sure that patriarchy is really a good representation of what is archetypally "Masculine".  I see patriarchy as a dissociation of Masculinity based in the fear of the Other (a category that includes the Feminine for men).  It is an egomania, a conquering attitude, but it is not an attitude that is in any way productive in the individuation process.  It does not bring consciousness of or differentiation in the unconscious.  Instead it upholds the supremacy of a particular ego-position that is characterized by inflation, entitlement, and devaluation of Otherness.  It is enabled by the provident, protective Mother, which it sees as a resource with which to express its (the patriarchal ego's) power.  But just as this enabling fuels its power grab, so does it create a dependency that threatens to "pull the plug".  So sometimes the Mother is usurped and other times she is feared.

Here we may differ, but it may be a matter of language...dissociation, for me, is merely the extreme of a vital separative line of development.  There is some arbitrary line that is crossed from healthy to dysfunctional that is not intrinsic to the inner psychological process as such as it is defined in the context of the environment in which the individual exists.  when we need to separate from our parents we need to develop this separation, when we need to separate our spouse from our animi projection, we need to separate.  When we need to relate then further separation is going to lead quickly to dysfunction.  It is context driven determination of whether the one basic psychological process is good or bad.

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This patriarchal attitude is undisciplined, uninitiated.  It fears its own potential impotence, and so essentially over-compensates by emphasizing potency and transcendence.  What I think we are seeing here is the death of an initiation into a more holistic manhood.  Patriarchy is man in love with his own might . . . which means he is terrified of his own weakness and vulnerability.  But I think this dissociation represents a wedge between the Masculine and the Feminine.  And I think this dissociation is more complex than "something that men did to women".  "Men" are not capable of this Fall just because they are men.  Masculinity doesn't really have anything to do with it.  A change this drastic has to be caused by something much larger.

The creation of the atomic and nuclear bomb is the irrefutable fact of the limitation of the patriarchal way.  It is a suicide to exert a centralized power by launching a nuclear weapon attack against a similarly armed opponent.  But I certainly wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater and devalue patriarchy as a whole.  A matriarchal order would bring with it its own share of vices (and virtues), and given sufficient technological empowerment, its own variety of self-destructive capabilities.  Any one-sided attitude threatens a dissocation from its complementary opposite. 

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The candidate I would like to nominate for this role is Environmental Catastrophe.  This particular one was different than other natural disasters like tsunamis, volcanoes, plagues, ice ages, and meteors.  I think it was population expansion . . . probably as the result of advances in agriculture (see Keri, I got me a knuckleball, too!   ).  I'm not ready to "blame the agricultural revolution" just yet, though.  I see this as an inevitability . . . not a sin.  The SIN came as an eventual reaction to the inevitability.

. . . .

But the creation of complex systems has never been within the ego's grasp.  Complex systems baffle and mystify us.  Only Nature has succeeded in creating complexity like this.  I don't know if we will be able to manage this at all . . . but if there is any chance of success, it will only come through a reliance (but not dependency) on our own instinctual nature's.  I.e., consciousness harnessed to instinctuality rather than dissociated from it.  Is this possible collectively . . . and if it is, could it make the difference?  I have no idea . . . nor any idea how something like this could be achieved even if it were possible.

But what I would say to all of this is that if through the greed of some we came to develop a valued technology that saved this very planet and its ecosystem from destruction by a giant asteroid, say via the use of the very wealth of self-destructive technology we insanely covet, then suddenly all of what you could easily, convincingly devalue becomes divine providence.  The asteriod comes when it comes and won't wait for us to be ready to defend ourselves against it.  We have no guarantees.  Despite all the pain and suffering (and let us not forget the nobility and selfess sacrifice) we might have now what we may need to save it all should the need arise.  I can't even say this is justified, just possibly justified.  I would never turn to a victim of our current social order and tell them we made you suffer for the greater good.  Maybe I just prefer hope over pessimism, and I see your overall take as too pessimistic for my tastes.  But I can't resent the world for all the evil that is in it.  I couldn't live with that.  And saying that in the end the patriarchy is just bad is too broad of a value judgement in my book.

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Quote from: Sealchan on February 08, 2008, 08:56:56 AM
The hero's journey isn't really so much about the separative development of consciousness as it is about the life-death-life cycle of conscious development.  However, I think that the monomyth, as such, is more about the development of the ego as a separate element from the psyche and tends to show ego victories over other inner personalities.

But in the conquering/egoic hero stories, the final result is always tragedy, failure, madness, self-destruction, loss of value, dissociation . . . and in the hero stories where the mode of heroism is not conquering, but surrender (such as in most fairytales and in spiritual hero myths), consciousness is not separating so much as uniting.  I just don't see the textual examples needed to support your interpretation.

One of the main themes of the mystery religions, as I understood them, was that they imparted to the initiate a sense of a transcendence of death, that one is immortal.  What if in our myths we also find transcendence via an inevitable death?  My understanding of the conquering hero is that they typically do come to an unintended end.  To me that seems to place into consciousness, front and center, not only the limitations of the "conquering" hero but our inevitable mortality.  I don't think these myths try to hide or gloss over any of that, not even Gilgamesh.  In fact Gilgamesh was portrayed as a great annoyance to his people, as I recall.  In this sense I wouldn't equate the popular high-school guy with the conquering hero-king figure in myth although they may be related.

In opposing the conquering hero to the spiritual one you are taking the full archetypal hero--which being archetypal is not something to which the ego can relate directly--and you depotentiate this psychic fact by dividing it in two (separation of (not from) the World Parents) with a discriminating feeling function.  You then develop a necessarily biased relationship to the spiritual hero and put the conquering hero into the shadow.  This is, itself, the archetypal conquering hero who splits the world (as hero) as form (parents) into opposites and by dividing conquers.  Freud shortcuts this and says that you have a mother and father complex and want to sleep with the sexual other and kill the same sex parent.  But through the introduction of the life-death-life cycle you separate past, present and future and differentiate the inner characters in time.  You can then try to kill your same age shadow and sleep with your same age animi rather than your parents and enjoy a kind of psychic distance via time from your progenitors. 

But this is all metaphoric of unavoidable archetypal patterns of conscious development.  Our very neural architecture is set to battle against itself even as it coordinates its separated actions.  Just as the male of many animal species literally fight one another for tribal and sexual dominance so too do the same "conquerers" act for the good of the tribe at the expense of themselves when they defend that same tribe they have risen to lead.  We must split the psyche in order to relate to it.  But even as we so conquer and divide we also self-create the wound.  At first this is all done without a full awareness of the underlying reality.  But later in life, via individuation, we reveal this archetypal story to ourselves.

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Quote from: Sealchan on February 08, 2008, 08:56:56 AM
The benchmark for successful ego development in this light is simultaneously the instinctual world and the collective world through which one must negotiate.  But for those of us who are looking beyond the collective's obvious solutions to life, we need to dig deeper.  This is where I think that the alchemical, individuation motifs come to the fore.  Now that we have our ego-consciousness as a separate container or alchemical workshop where mind and matter are two different things (a necessary pre-requisite) now we can do the work of re-uniting, re-valuating what was lost in the first phase of development.

OK.  But in the alchemical allegories, the initial separation of spirit from matter is accomplished through surrender and dissolution.  The ego's will is harnessed to the Will of the Self.  And the spirit extracted from Matter is exalted and considered the thing of greatest worth, the Philosopher's Stone . . . which is the "perfected" or restored/revaluated prima materia.  Alchemy shows a process of extracting valuated spirit . . . whereas as with the conquering, Gilgameshian attitude I gave as an example above, Matter is superficially conquered and spirit is lost/devalued.  Never in the alchemical work is Matter or any other element devalued.  Even the basest things are raised up, praised, and imbued with value.

I think you take the alchemical myth as the whole developmental process of the psyche.  But you can't engage in this myth until after you have developed consciousness.  Alchemy is all about a self-conscious spiritual practice, but there is a huge realm of the un-self-conscious developmental process.  The alchemical motifs can find their antecedents in the earlier mythic stories of course because buried in the old stories are the secrets we discover later as the objective realities of the psyche.  But before we can "surrender" and dissolved we must be born into matter, into body and also separate via self-creation as spirit from that matter.  Only after we conquer can we then "surrender", only after we form can we dissolve.  i think you missing the whole pre-individuation developmental process.  I can be read in one's dreams and fantasies and mythic preferences.  It is precisely this aspect of the psyche that Jung explored in himself during the so-called "fallow years" which were after he wrote Symbols of Transformation which is the foundation in psychology (not to eclipse the probably more vital role that previous comparative anthropology played) for the hero's journey.  It was the application of this un-self-conscious truth that we are on the hero's journey before we even know it that lead Jung to say, hey I better figure out how this is playing within myself.

Of course, you know the motifs of your own story and you feel you have worked through important milestones.  But you may not realize that your psyche was already doing the Work before you became self-consciously involved.  Because you don't seem to intuit this, you come off, from my perspective, as devaluing the whole natural and cultural evolutionary process that brought you personally and us collectively to the point at which we now stand. 

We stand at the current end of the past evolutionary process, a process as full of meaning and intelligence as the alchemical one.  And evolution doesn't mean right or fair.  Was it fair that the dinosaurs all had to die off?  Well, they weren't smart enough to build rockets that could take them to better places so they died.  That is evolution.  We are smart enough but we might be stupid enough to aim those same rockets at ourselves.  That too is evolution.  Nature will leave us be for millions of years and then deliver the smackdown killing us all if we don't move quick enough.  Fuck you nature! I say sometimes even as I am a loving nature photographer. 

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The alchemists were very specific about the idea that "only Nature can master Nature" . . . not human/egoic will.  They constantly warn that those who do not rely on Nature to drive the Work are bound to fail.

I once wrote a poem or too that made the point that our children need old growth trees...cut down to make them paper for school.  I came up with that while immersing myself in nature via an extended bicycle tour down the Pacific coast.  I was in Forks, Washington at the time, one of the centers, out West of the sometimes competing interests of environmentalists and...well, people who need paper and wood products.  At some point you have to ask the question "what is and what is not Nature?"  When do my needs or desires, channeled as they are by the society in which I live with its various technologies, become not an expression of the natural?

I figure if I was given the gift of intelligence and the other animals and plants don't move fast enough and I need them to die so that I can sit and think about how it is I can help the world keep from entering a nuclear winter, then they die for my dinner plate.  And as without, so within.

Of course, I am not advocating this mentality above all others, but it should not be forgotten or summarily devalued.
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Matt Koeske on February 18, 2008, 03:53:54 PM


Chris, I've written a very long and detailed reply to your last post (which I'll break up more or less arbitrarily into multiple posts).  I'm not sure how much use there was in doing this, because I'm not sure there is a place of synthesis between our contrasting attitudes or philosophies.  Still, I am going to make my arguments.  Ideally, if either of our arguments can't bear fruit through reasoning alone, data could be provided to supplement a person's position.  But I'm not sure that the accumulation and organization of such data would be worth the effort.  Data is just as easy to ignore as reason.  And a lot of data in this more philosophical subject matter can be interpreted in various ways (necessitating more and more data in a process that swells into a tide of minutia).  And ultimately, reason should suffice if it is constructed solidly enough.

In general, I am inclined to say that instead of debating many of these things with me, you would be better off turning to and reading almost any piece of Jungian writing that touches on these issues.  Despite your Neumannian orientation, I don't think that your general thrust is compatible with Jungian thinking.  Which is, of course, perfectly fine.  Your opinion of the conquering ego/hero is in contrast with everything I've gotten out of Jungian literature . . . and I am not going to influence you if Jung and the Jungians could not.  My main concern (perhaps distant hope) is that you have merely misinterpreted or misunderstood the conventional Jungian line of reasoning on this topic . . . and that then maybe I could find a way to make the Jungian argument more sensible or overt.

But it seems more likely to me that you have consciously deviated from conventional Jungian thinking about the hero.  In which case, nothing I say is likely to make any more sense out of that argument.  If that is the case, though, I would like to suggest that the greater burden of "proof" is on you in this situation.  That is, if you are contradicting a mainstay of Jungian thinking, it isn't me that should really have to bend over backwards to construct arguments that you can understand.  You are really in the position in which you have to hard-sell your own "new and improved" Jungianism door to door.  And I'm saying that not as a brush off, but as one who is very much this kind of door to door Jungian revisionist.  The reason I am always going into such detail and devoting so much of my writing to argument and disagreement is that I understand that I am offering something different.  And that demands some kind of explanation or salesmanship for the value of this difference.  I get so stuck in this mode as the Willy Loman of Jungian route, that I don't realize right away when I don't need to sell, because somebody else is trying to convince me to buy.

But my arguments below are still filled with my characteristic and compulsive sales pitch.  Partly because I am delineating subtle differences between my position and the conventional Jungian position, and partly because I worry that your attitude that so highly values the conquering ego is ultimately self-limiting if not self-destructive.  So I'll make this pitch for what it's worth.


My thinking about things Jungian actually started with Neumann and trying to understand all of this and trying to come to grips with how he distinguished between a masculine and feminine line of development.  Neumann saw the typical male hero figure and Jung's ideas as inadequate to explaining feminine psychology.

My reading of Neumann has been limited to Amor and Psyche and a number of excerpts (mostly from The Origins and History of Consciousness).  I've mostly read about Neumann from other Jungians.  My impression (perhaps erroneous) is that Neumann has fallen out of favor with mainstream Jungians, who perhaps find him overly intellectual and more philosophical/theoretical than experiential/clinical.  I can't say whether or not I would agree. 

Giegerich takes Neumann to task severely in one of his books.  I came away from that article feeling distanced from both men's arguments, though.  I'll find the chapter and scan it for you; you can see what you think.

Here's an article praising Neumann by Camille Paglia: http://www.bu.edu/arion/Volume13/13.3/Camille/Paglia.htm.  She has some basic, but astute things to say . . . mostly about the deficiencies of a postmodernism that ignores Jungian and Neumannian theories altogether.  Paglia summarizes Neumann's proposed stages of feminine development as follows:

Quote
Neumann laid out what he theorized to be four fundamental stages in women's psychological development. The first is an undifferentiated matrix or psychic unity where the ego and the unconscious are still fused. He called this stage matriarchal and symbolized it as the uroboros, an ancient symbol of a snake biting its tail, both devouring and giving birth to itself, an image of either solipsism or fertility. In the second stage, there is spiritual invasion and domination by the Great Father archetype (associated with rationalism and monotheism), who is perceived as a destroyer or rapist. A gloss here might be William Blake's peculiar, haunting poem, “The Sick Rose,” where a ruthlessly phallic “invisible worm . . . flies in the night / In the howling storm” to “destroy” a virginal rose's passively self-enclosed “bed / Of crimson joy.” In the engraved plates of The Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1789, 1794), Blake, like Neumann, is picturing an unfolding series of spiritual and psychosexual states.

In his third developmental stage, Neumann embodies the masculine in a normative individual, a rescuing hero who liberates the young woman from the controlling father but yokes her to conventional marriage under new male authority. Sex roles are polarized, with masculinity and femininity mutually exclusive. Neumann's fourth and final stage has feminist implications: here the mature woman discovers her authentic self and voice. As she borrows from the masculine, sex roles are blurred.


I'm not sure what to say about this.  Although I am not inclined to see these stages as anything but a fairly restrictive, perhaps even deceptive paradigm, it's true that the focus of my own writing and thinking would be on the 4th stage and "beyond".  I've never been driven to read any more of Neumann previously, although a desire to understand you better is some motivation.  But I'm not sure Neumann would really help all that much with that.  And I'm not sure I want to get into a critique of Neumannian thinking (or a critique of your interpretation of it).


The separative vs connective lines of development are really my effort to de-sexualize the so-called masculine and feminine dichotomy mentioned above.  I think the truth may lie somewhere in the middle of genetics (male/female differences), culture (sexual bias) and that there isn't really a significant sexual difference in conscious development in the ultimate sense.

That confuses me, because I thought this was one of the things we disagreed about.  The bolded line above pretty much represents my opinion, too.  But if one believes this, doesn't it necessitate the devaluation if not outright dismissal of any theory that sees conscious(ness) development as having both a Masculine and a Feminine style that are essentially Opposites?

Even "de-sexualized" it seems that your notion of "separative" and "connective" intelligences/modes/styles maps completely to Masculine and Feminine respectively.  My thinking would be, in order to truly "de-sexualize" concepts like a separative and a connective mode of consciousness or consciousness development, we would have to state that these styles of intelligence are both equally represented in men and in women.  Not that women tend to be more "connective" and men more "separative" . . . as you have clearly stated to me in the past.

But even de-sexualized, I'm not sure that this is the ideal paradigm through which to talk about consciousness.  In fact, I don't think this theory can be de-sexualized, because I think that the theory determines or demands its own mindset.  I.e., that the mindset/perspective behind this theory is seeing consciousness from what I would consider a "patriarchal-egoic" perspective.  It is the patriarchal perspective that valuates separation as a "masculine mode" and sees connection as its Opposite and compliment . . . therefore, feminine.

I'm not sure, though, that the patriarchal ego is able to see this clearly.  I.e., it sees things inherently as "like me" and "not like me" . . . where the "like me" is masculine in the patriarchal sense.  I'm saying that this patriarchal ego doesn't get outside itself enough to either truly relate to and understand the Other (the not like me) or to look upon itself from an Other's perspective.  It looks out at everything around it from within and constructs theories of things based on this perspective. 

But this is what I call the egoic fallacy.  It is projective thinking, not scientific or gnostic thinking.  The goal of science or gnosticism is to be able to look at self and Other from a neutral (or non-egoic) perspective.  So, in science, we have made progress by trying to understand the behavior of matter and material things from what is essentially the perspective of Nature itself.  So, "projective sciences" like alchemy are discarded for non-egoic sciences like chemistry.  The problem of this, as the Jungians lament, is that soul is lost, human psychology and our ability to relate to it "directly" are abstracted and become endangered species.  But in order to understand matter better, we had to extract psyche/projection from it.

My opinion is that this can be done (and should be done as much as possible) to psyche itself in the attempt to understand psyche.  We have to try to look at psyche as a natural phenomenon.  We have to get outside of it and our unconsciousness of it in the same way that we have dealt with matter.  That is, we need to extract ego from it in order to understand it (where "extract" means to objectify and gain and outside perspective on).  By which I mean, egoic-perspective, the idea that because something seems such and such a way to us, therefor it IS precisely as we see it.  The egoic fallacy.

Ego is extracted out of psychology and studied as its own entity.  As we come to better understand how the ego works, how it "tends to behave", what it doesn't see very accurately, we can then reintroduce that to our study of psyche as a whole.  The study of egoic behavior needs to be isolated as much as possible from the study of the psyche as a whole, or else we will commit the egoic fallacy and project egoism onto the psyche (which, as both Jungians and neurobiologists know, is significantly different as a mechanism or object than it is as perceived egoically).

The alchemists talk about the extraction of spirit from matter.  I propose that this is the same thing as I described above . . . except the alchemists didn't understand psych-free matter very well, so they could only do this mystically or metaphorically by projecting the extraction of ego/spirit onto a symbolic, mystical process.  That is, as Jung pointed out, they were really dealing with psychology more so than chemistry.  Also, the Hillman term "seeing-through" that I've been employing . . . it's all the same thing: a distancing of oneself from the egoic perspective, which doesn't see things as they are, but only as they resemble or relate to the ego.

What I have to question in your separative/connective paradigm is whether you are getting a non-egoic perspective on the psyche or seeing psyche specifically through the lens of your ego-position.  I question this for two main reasons: 1) I see no such dynamic inherent in psyche (which could be because I have an ego-perspective that limits me in a different way or could be because I am seeing psyche with less ego-determination), and 2.) Your ego-position or conscious attitude, from what I can tell, necessitates the perception of psyche within the paradigm you propose.  That is, it seems to me that you are bringing this particular paradigm to psyche and then detecting it, "projectively".  And that it is not psyche in general you are really talking about, but your psyche . . . or more accurately, your psyche as perceived through your favored ego paradigm.

I'm not saying that this is bad or even avoidable.  We always bring our ego to our thinking and can't extract it out completely.  What we can do, I think, is calculate into our theories a "margin or error" based on our own limited, egoic positions.  We can say, "I know I tend to see things in such and such a way, so when I see an Other or an object in a way that reflects this, I have to exercise special scrutiny and skepticism."  One of the best ways I see to maintain that scrutiny and skepticism is to pay careful attention to all the data that don't seem to fit our favored egoic paradigms.  How do we treat those data?  Do we devalue them ("they only pose minor inconsistencies")?  Do we ignore or reject them outright ("they are irrelevant")?  If we valuate them in some way, why do we do so?  Do we valuate them based on how well they fit with our favored paradigm?  If so, is that attitude in anyway credible?


When I think of separative vs connective I don't think of the relationship between the ego and the unconscious so much as I think of the relationship between personality centers, those multitudes of inner others I keep going on about.  I am suggesting that the ego preferentially develops with a biased (strong foot/weak foot) approach to development by either separating or connecting with others in the greater psyche.  The masculine line of consciousness seeks to polarize others as to whether they are, at bottom, for or against the ego's own separated objectives while the feminine line seeks to maintain in coordination the already polarized others.  The unconscious, per se, pushes both separation and connection by virtue of it harboring a largely undifferentiated (by collective conscious standards) response to precise, real world situations.

But why would such a dynamic operate in the psyche in this way?  How could it be adaptive?  Why might it have evolved?  How does it solve (as elegantly as possible) an evolutionary "problem"?  Where else in nature might there be parallels to this organizational principle?  These are important questions for anyone who feels biology plays a role in psychology.

And those personality centers, what are they "really"?  Are they innate or do they develop with or through socialization?  Are there instinctual drives founding them or is their organization random or is it a matter of living experience and specific memory accumulation?  Do we consciously feel that there is a muddle when personality centers "over-connect"?  Can it be perceived in one's thought or in one's neuroses or complexes or dreams?  Is clarity of thought generated by the just-right amount of separation?  What does it really mean to separate or connect personality centers?

I apologize for being antagonistic . . . but this is the kind of process I like to employ when I develop theoretic paradigms.  And I can't elicit my own answers to these kinds of questions for your theory.  I'm not asking you to answer these questions for me . . . but I am curious if you can answer these kinds of questions for yourself without feeling there are neglected or devalued data.


We are left with a disorganized inner bunch of individuals and we may either separate the ego as a centralized power that "orders" the other psychic others into hierarchical compliance (alignment) or we can connect psychic others together in response to their existing divergent inclinations into a harmonious, coordinated whole being careful not to centralize egoic power.

Is it the ego, then that establishes order in the psyche either by connecting or organizing personality centers in a hierarchical, differentiated fashion?  Does the ego have this kind of shepherding power over the sheep of the psyche?  What evidence is there for this kind of power and influence of the ego over the unconscious?

To but it in an evolutionary framework, how and why might such an animal evolve that had this thing we call an ego that was responsible for organizing the psyche into a healthy and functional network?  Conventionally, evolution produces species that are unconsciously driven to behave in adaptive ways; are we so different?  Can our adaptive behavior be said to be driven not by instinct or unconscious drives so much as by egoic choices and willpower?

We know that many of our bodily functions and behaviors are largely or entirely autonomous from consciousness.  What are the guiding forces of adaptability in our societies?  Generally, they are "institutions" in modern society or "traditions" in pre-modern and tribal societies.  Religion, education, government, law, marriage, parenting, rituals for passage of life stages, death.  How much do we egoically determine these things and how much do they determine us, our identities, attitudes, and beliefs?

What I'm basically questioning here is the idea that the ego is responsible for psychic organization in any fashion as opposed to there being an "unconscious" source of psychic organization . . . that (at least in part) organizes the ego.  I have never personally felt that I was able to organize my psyche consciously and intentionally, whether by separating psychic contents or connecting them.  I might consciously observe that one thing is related to another thing in my psyche, but I am not responsible for connecting them.

As for differentiation/separation, I'm not sure that we can actually "differentiate" psychic contents in a way that moves those contents around.  More conventionally, the process of differentiation is the discovery of pieces of clarity or focus in something that was initially perceived as amorphous, indistinct, black, chaotic.  In fact, differentiation is often the product of recognizing meaningful connections that weren't previously seen.  But I don't see this as "creating order" so much as valuating complex order that already existed.  In general, I think we only have power (and even then, not all that much) over the things we have taken in from outside us that formed our identity.  We can "change our minds" about these things . . . but I have yet to see any evidence that we can change our brains or instinctual psyches.  Nor have I seen any evidence that instinctual and organic psychic contents can be "disorganized".  Only that we can have inadequate egoic paradigms through which to understand them.  Some severe childhood traumas and genetically inherited psychological disorders potentially withstanding.

The instinctual unconscious, in my opinion, is just trying to live in a state of relative equilibrium.  The ego is trying to fit the drives of the instinctual unconscious to the environment: human society.  But even this "fitting" is driven almost entirely by unconscious means, the acquisition of tribal identifiers or beliefs and attitudes that help connect us with support groups that in return offer protection and validation for our identities.  We generally gravitate toward what is most validating of us . . . and in this drive toward validation, we build identities based on what our tribes will and will not validate.  In this behavior, I see very little conscious determination.  Although, in the modern world, there are certainly many more choices to make regarding these affiliations than there were in our environment of evolutionary adaptedness.


So from this perspective you might see how the collective development of the interpersonal marriage as opposed to the arranged marriage actually introduces an advance to the process of individuation on the part of the collective.  It does so not by building up "guarantees" for individuation to occur, but by removing collective forces (familial or cultural taboos or expectations) that would contain a marriage without having to differentiate/negotiate a relationship with one's complimentary other.  The very, so called, ritual void that not having an arranged marriage creates is the opportunity, instantiated in the collective, for a higher development of consciousness to occur.  This development was probably an unconscious, even consciously resisted by tradition, fallout of other seemingly unrelated social-collective developments.

I don't know.  This construction doesn't really add clarity to the understanding of consciousness for me.  It completely ignores the biological.  Arranged or chosen, sexual attraction and desire still exist.  Human sexuality predates marriage . . . and sexuality in general well-predates our species.

So there is no sense of conscious intentional striving just patterns of behavior-attitude-underlying character to how we relate to outer and inner others.  This view I think fits in with Carol Gilligans' research described in In a Different Voice which describes her understanding of how women typically resolve conflict differently than men.

I feel like you are taking two lines of thought that are contradictory to one another and laying them down together as if they don't actually self-negate.  Your position is becoming less and less clear to me.
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Matt Koeske on February 18, 2008, 04:14:17 PM

Here again I am confusingly using the word unconscious...from a masculine separative point of view, looking at the ego as developed to the extent that it has separated leads to the intuitive notion that remaining connected to the rest of the psyche keeps the ego sunk beneath the threshold of consciousness.  I find myself still trapped in that language even while I see a need to escape it.  I think there is a further need for new language in the Jungian model here.

I agree that some of the Jungian terminology is antiquated and woolly.  The "collective unconscious" is a metaphor, not a thing, and that can become cumbersome when working with theory development.  But the metaphor is meant to describe a thing.  As much as I like the term "psyche", even it has its problems . . . only one of which is its connection to a heroine from mythology.  "Mind" is already falling out of favor.  My suspicion is that "brain" is more scientifically accurate for many of the elements of the Jungian collective unconscious, but we don't yet value the material "brain" enough to see complex thought or "soul" in it.  But "brain" is confusing because the brain has so many different parts that perform fairly specific functions, none of which by itself can be seen as responsible for "thought" as we experience it.

Probably we are reacting (when we think of psyche) to the emergent property of a complex system.  Perhaps we will never be able to do better than a metaphor, then.  But we can trace the elements of the metaphor back to various material foundations in the brain and in instinct-guided behavior.

But, as you may have noticed, I often define my "Jungian" terms a bit different than they are conventionally defined in Jungianism.  And you, I think, do the same.  Probably all of us Jungians and quasi-Jungians are defining our terms differently . . . which is no doubt a contributing factor to our inability to progress Jungian theory.  Hell, even Jung defined his terms differently from one text to another  (-)laugh(-)!

Yep, we're screwed.


From the perspective of either the masculine or the feminine style of conscious the other seems to be a crazy abdication of common sense.

I think of this perspective on the other/Other as indicative of the egoic perspective in general.  In a man or in a woman.  But we are not entirely damned to the restriction of this egoic perspective.  There's no reason that we have to see our sexual or gender-oriented Others as nonsensical and alien . . . unless we have identified ourselves in a very fixed and rigid way.  The animi work is the process of compensation of this kind of ego rigidity.  Which is to say that the Self is not the Opposite of the ego.  The Self holds the union of various egoically-defined Opposites in harmony.  What the fixed ego perspective is afraid of is not its Opposite, but the coming together of it with its Opposite.  In other words, the ego perspective that has become "one-sided" has dissociated itself into Opposites.  First (as self-consciousness develops) it becomes aware of its Opposite (and the dissociation in general), then it moves toward healing the dissociation (with the drive of the Self).

I think of the psyche as composed not, primarily of an "unconscious" per se but of psychic contents in relation to a priviledged complex which simply has associated with it the largest organized libidic reconstruction of the contents of the psyche.  We are what in our psyches is most ordered.

This I definitely disagree with.  The ego is by no means "more ordered" than the rest of the unconscious.  Anything but.  The ego is constructed haphazardly.  That's why it is always breaking down.  The rest of the psyche, in my opinion, being rooted in matter, is the product of evolutionary ordering over millions of years.  The ego is a Johnny Come Lately.  It would be like an arm deciding half way through life to change shape and become a tentacle.  The ego can do that kind of thing, but not the instinctual unconscious.

Our egos arise from a multitude of potential centers.  The conglomeration of these centers becomes the ego which is both a single and a diverse array of inner personalities in the metaphoric language of dreams and myth.

I would question the very notion that the ego "arises" from the unconscious or from various personality centers.  I do think there are instinctual, genetically based drives that contribute to personality (more so than to "identity"), but my feeling is that the ego is more given/taken from outside (from culture and socialization) than it is formed from within like the Christian God forming heaven and earth during the Creation.  But I think it is fair to say that it seems to us (egoic perspective) that we have formed our identities, our consciousness, from within by ordering primal chaos.  There are many myths that describe this (especially coming from the more patriarchal cultures).  But that chaos was the product of our initially inadequate and infantile egoic identity constructs that could neither make sense of the world nor channel emotion functionally.  The ego may begin in relative chaos, but there is no evidence that the Self or psyche as a whole does.

So I think it is important for us to ask why we have such an imagination for this kind of Creation myth.  I don't think it's all that hard to trace specific characteristics of one's ego development to external events and social conditioning.  That is, it's pretty easy to demonstrate how any given individual is mostly unconscious of who they are and how they got that way (much harder to do through self-analysis, though).  Why are we preconditioned to believe in the myth of creating identity, then?  That is, the myth that we have a unique identity derived from will and discipline and self-creation?

On one hand, a sense of contained, individual identity allows one to focus more libido on him or herself.  That is, in the effort to survive, to succeed, to satisfy hungers, etc., focusing libido on one's individual identity is beneficial.  If we are, let's say, alone (or only among "strangers") and out in the "wild", we don't have the energy to focus on altruism and self-sacrifice and long-term thinking about the health and fitness of the group.  When a tribesman, for instance, is separated from his group on a hunt and lost out in the wilderness, he has to suddenly fend for himself.  There is no division of labor, no religion or ritual that will help sustain him.  It's just him and his wits and his drive to survive.

I propose that this is the mindset behind the beginning of patriarchy and behind the modern . . . which we often identify with egotism/egoism.  I would recommend, again, the BBC documentary The Century of the Self, which talks about how our modern egoism has been used as a source of profit by the PR industry which grew up around it.

We can only guess as to why this egoic, patriarchal loneliness became predominant.  It must have been a vast number of factors converging.  Most importantly, perhaps, is that it would have required a dismantling of classic, "primitive" tribalism . . . which I suspect prevents ego from becoming too self-absorbed, because it directs egoism at the tribe, making it a tool of sociality.  Accompanying this would be some kind of detachment from instinct as I described through the Gilgamesh story (regarding Enkidu).  The details we can only guess at.  What we can know for certain is that it happened.  We once were tribal and nomadic . . . and that was the condition of our environment of evolutionary adaptedness.  Eventually we became agriculturalists and city-builders, and this radically altered our environment.

One of the things that the Men's Movement has brought into consciousness so well is that the condition of modern man (and woman, I would add) is terrible loneliness.  We deal with it, we repress it, but it's there.  Dissociation, separation, loss of Eros, loss of soul.  That's the condition of all individuals in patriarchy.  It's the condition of the ego dissociated from the Self . . . and therefore dissociated from the deep intimacy of tribal Eros and participation mystique.  That's why, when we get a taste of this Eros, we would happily throw away all of our consciousness in a heartbeat just to bask in it.

I am far from the first person to suggest that this condition is "unnatural".  But as far as the conquering ego and some of the things you are suggesting about the formation of consciousness go, I see these as elements of patriarchy or egomania (radical over-emphasis on the ego) and not truly instinctual or innate.  These are the social conditions that we are all born into . . . and struggle to adapt to.  But I don't think we can understand the development of consciousnesses through this patriarchal lens.  It is biased, wounded, and doesn't go deep enough.  It sees the development of consciousness through the development of culture, and I believe that is a mistake.  Consciousness predates modern culture.  It predates the agricultural revolution.  And most of our efforts to understand its origins falter by looking at tribalism and agriculture through the eyes of the modern, patriarchal, dissociated ego.  This is not the objective perspective, the perspective of Nature itself.  Not the scientific or gnostic perspective . . . and so it fails to tell us what the thing is.  It only tells us what the things seems like to us (modern, patriarchal, dissociated egoists).


An individual can stand for a multitude and a multitude can stand for an individual in this inner language.  when one identifies with the connectivity one seems to have abdicated the centralization of power and is caught up in a web of connections which both empower and cripple the whose power is diffused among many centers.  When one identifies with the separation one seems to cultivate the centralization of power but is caught up in hierarchies, isolation, competition and all the triumphs and struggles that go along with.

And again, I would see both styles as patriarchal.  When dissolution and moving closer to instinct seem to "abdicate centralization" of personality (in the ego) and result in a combination of extreme weakness and extreme inflation, I am saying that this is the result of applying a patriarchal lens to the psychic situation.  The separative, conquering egoic is the same thing to me.  What you describe are two sides of the same coin.  But in my opinion, the whole coin is an illusion of Maya.  It can be seen-through.  We are not limited to these perspectives.  And the process of individuation will dissolve these Opposites into their prima materia, allowing us to start over, sans patriarchal dissociation.

Here we may differ, but it may be a matter of language...dissociation, for me, is merely the extreme of a vital separative line of development.  There is some arbitrary line that is crossed from healthy to dysfunctional that is not intrinsic to the inner psychological process as such as it is defined in the context of the environment in which the individual exists.

I am using the term dissociation in a more or less conventionally Jungian way here.  That is, dissociation is pathological.  It can be more or less severe, but it is never the same thing as differentiation.  Differentiation is a conscious (or semi-conscious) process of recognizing that one is dissociated, that one has artificially divided oneself up into Opposites that are at war with one another.  Of course, we are all dissociated to varying degrees . . . that's the modern condition.

But as dissociation is a term that describes our pathological detachment from our instincts, there is no "good amount".  We need our instincts to flow through us in order to either differentiate or to connect.

when we need to separate from our parents we need to develop this separation, when we need to separate our spouse from our animi projection, we need to separate.  When we need to relate then further separation is going to lead quickly to dysfunction.  It is context driven determination of whether the one basic psychological process is good or bad.

Separation from the parents is instinctually driven.  It's a different dynamic entirely.  Patriarchy actually (by dissociating ego from instinct) makes separation from the parents much, much harder.  We no longer have suitable rites of passage for this.  But in tribes, this was accomplished withing the context of tribal sociality.  The Men's Movement has also recognized this and has sought to treat this problem . . . although I'm not sure it can be done as easily as some of the gurus of that movement suggest.

I think that the thing we are separating from in the separation from our parents (and from the parental unconscious) is usurping dependency.  The ego needs to learn to act as a facilitator of the instinctual Self, not as its suckling babe.  This is a matter of survival and fitness (in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness).  What we are separating from is not instinct, but our unconscious dependency on instinct.  We are separating from the illusion that instinct will always nurture us, and that we can take and take without ever giving back.  This feeling that we can take as much as we want without giving is precisely the condition of patriarchal egoism.  It is dissociative, uninitiated, pathological.  It is not a heroic achievement, but a childish failure (psychologically speaking).

The separation of the real world receptacle from our animi or other archetypal projections is also not a differentiation in the sense I think you are suggesting.  What we are doing is removing an illusion and reintegrating the "soul" we shed back into our functional personalities.  The reason we project is that we don't know how to accept parts of ourselves.  Removing projections is not accomplished by will or restraint or self-mastery.  It can only be done by moving toward union with our inner Other.  The closer we come to that coniunctio, the less we will project our animi.  And once the coniunctio is accomplished, the anima projections will be depotentiated significantly (although they never dissolve completely, as they represent our Eros receptivity and attraction to others).  The projections are depotentiated, because we have found the Other and reconnected internally with our once dissociated instinct. 
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Sealchan on February 18, 2008, 04:33:06 PM
Quote
I feel like you are taking two lines of thought that are contradictory to one another and laying them down together as if they don't actually self-negate.  Your position is becoming less and less clear to me.

I have to laugh here because I am always afraid that this is how I am perceived.  I see in my own thinking a constant stepping on my own toes.  Yet, at the same time, it is also a part of how I see my own thinking that I am intentionally "taking two lines of thought that are contradictory to one another and laying them down together as if they don't actually self-negate."

I feel that I am always thinking about the relationship between two unreconcilable truths when I say anything of value about consciousness or the psyche.  I have a certain comfort level with allowing myself to fall into the limitation of how I am expressing myself always knowing in my head that I say this to get at something but not because I think it is a consistently rational statement that I would stand behind in all contexts.  It puts me in an awkward position constantly when I make a rational case for something.  It is as if I am more at home in the mode of telling a story when I write an essay, but I would rather write an essay and make an argument rather than "entertain" with a story.

I feel that with the ideas of Neumann that I have found a decent centering of my intuitions in a strong Jungian sense.  I am aware that Neumann's ideas have a peripheral influence on the Jungian community but I have not widely read in Jungian literature.  I am still working through Jung's works themselves. 

I think that I have always felt that I was off in my own corner of the world thinking my thoughts and never felt comfortable or confident that my ideas were supported by any particular philosopher or thinker.  My hope is that I can clarify my position via dialogue here and hopefully make myself plain.  But it has always been a fear of mine that I just seem to talk in strange circles in the ear's of others.
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Matt Koeske on February 18, 2008, 04:44:56 PM


The creation of the atomic and nuclear bomb is the irrefutable fact of the limitation of the patriarchal way.  It is a suicide to exert a centralized power by launching a nuclear weapon attack against a similarly armed opponent.  But I certainly wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater and devalue patriarchy as a whole.  A matriarchal order would bring with it its own share of vices (and virtues), and given sufficient technological empowerment, its own variety of self-destructive capabilities.  Any one-sided attitude threatens a dissocation from its complementary opposite.

One of the problems we often have when thinking about patriarchy and its inheritance is imagining that matriarchy is both the opposite of and the only alternative to patriarchy.  As far as we know, there have never been any matriarchies, so this conclusion is not very well thought-out.  I certainly don't mean to promote matriarchy as a "solution" to patriarchy.  For me, patriarchy is defined more by its egomania than it is by its masculinity.  It has been an element of patriarchy that men have claimed the patriarchal, dissociated ego for themselves (as, perhaps, the hunter claims the kill).  This has certainly made it more difficult for women to achieve power overtly in patriarchy.  But since patriarchy others the instinctual unconscious and Nature and casts woman into that Otherness, women have in the past had the opportunity to remain closer to some of the instincts.  Especially those instincts related to the maternal.  In this sense, they have become another resource for the patriarchal ego to depend on.

I'm not sure this is as much true in contemporary society.  Women have increasingly been afforded (won, more accurately) patriarchal powers and rights . . . but only to the degree that they adopted patriarchal egos.  This could be seen as yet another indication that patriarchy is not simply a "masculine" mindset.  But it seems to me just as dysfunctional in women as it is in men.  One of the easiest things to spot in this situation is the growing conflict in women today between the desire for career and the desire for parenthood.  It's just radically hard to do both . . . and most of the time, one has to compromise in one pursuit or the other (or both).  During the feminist era, women hungered to get out of the home and work.  Many women were shamed (by other women) for their desire to raise families.  Today, some women have come full circle and now resent the fact that the economy requires them to work, because they would rather be raising their children full time.

But even before feminism started to patriarchally empower women, it wasn't as if instinct was easily accessible for them.  Patriarchy cast feminine instincts into the shadow . . . and that meant that they were mixed up with other darker, "more shameful" aspects of humanness disowned by patriarchal egoism.  As anyone who has been underrepresented or been a part of a devalued minority can tell us, it is tremendously difficult to valuate oneself when society casts your value into the shadow.  You end up finding your power in the shadow and not in the light.  You learn how to work the shadow power to your own benefit.  This is very evident in both modern African Americans (especially the men, I think) and in modern women.  The shadow power of women living in patriarchy is derived from their ability to manipulate and regulate their availability as "resources" for men.  They have the shadow power of everything that men project onto them.  So the Mother, the lover, Nature itself, and instinct . . . these all get discarded by patriarchal men, and they become the primary means to power for women in the patriarchy.  Manipulated with intense drive and deftness, these shadow powers can be used to exert a great deal of control over men.

To heal our patriarchalism, men need to reconnect to these things they've discarded, these instincts . . . and women need to lift their sense of empowerment out of the shadow (where empowerment is only won with shame in tow).  Men essentially need to "descend" into the instinctual unconscious, and women need to be "lifted up" (by themselves) out of its shadow.  This is, as far as I can tell, the very dynamic you are getting at with your separative/connective dichotomy.  But I think it is more complex.  For instance, men also need to do a lot of differentiation, paring away of the patriarchal ego, seeing-through its illusions, and withdrawing their dependence on the instinctual unconscious as a Maternal resource that nurses them endlessly.  There is a lot of "sword work" in that.  The initiation need that the Men's Movement thinkers talk about is very differentiating . . . before any reconnecting to the instincts is accomplished.

Since the majority of theorists have been men (this may be evening out in contemporary society), it should come as no surprise that women's individuation is typically seen through male eyes.  Jung and the first wave Jungians made a big deal of how women "needed" to develop more accurately discerning minds by getting their animus to be "rationally wise" and deductive instead of "opinionated".  That was supposed to be the key to their individuation.  That strikes me (and many other more modern thinkers) as incredibly sexist.  It's all the more ridiculous when we consider that even in the first wave of Jungians (colleagues of Jung himself), many brilliant women provided the driving intellectual force.  The fact that these women were not able to correct this sexism before it got embedded is, I feel, terribly sad.

In my experience and opinion, modern women's primary individuation need is not much different than modern men's.  I see commonly in women today a devalued hero/heroine with the component issue of an overly shadowed animus (or diminished/devalued capacity for relationality with the Other).  This is exactly what we would expect to see from people who have been othered or cast down by the patriarchy.  As I said above, women have had to derive their power from the shadow left to them (left imprisoning them).  Although this was a survival necessity, there is something dishonorable about this empowerment.  Dishonor is what is supposed to be remedied through initiation.  Dishonor is over-dependence on the providence of the seemingly parental unconscious.  Usurpation.  The hero is the drive toward adulthood that sacrifices this dependence and the psychological childhood that comes with it in order to become both self- and other-sustaining.  The heroic/adult psychology has a more complex relationship with the instinctual unconscious.  It's harder to maintain, but it is ultimately healthier, produces more constructive libido and a more developed sense of morality or Eros connectedness to the Tribe and to others in general.  That is, the heroic/adult psychological attitude is what is necessary to make the human sociality instinct constructive collectively . . . so that culture can serve and express instinct functionally, adaptively.

For women today it is not (as it is commonly believed) just that their Femininity is devalued by patriarchy.  In fact, patriarchy dissociates the Feminine into a too-exalted and a too-devalued pair of Opposites . . . and so even the attempt to identify with the exalted instead of the devalued constitutes a patriarchal movement.  And one that does nothing to heal the dissociation.  The Masculine is equally devalued in women.  It has been equally dissociated into the demonic, terrorizing Masculine and the Wounded, needy Masculine.  Many women are just as terrorized by men's woundedness and need as they are by their outright terror and abusiveness.  All too often, very little discrimination is made on this issue . . . as the entire Masculine/animus has been left in the shadow.  The Masculine has often remained something to appease, defend against, manipulate, or mother.  But these options leave no room for the valuation of the adult Masculine.  The Masculine as partner.

The deepest wound to modern women, in my opinion, is this dissociation from and devaluation of the True Masculine, the erotic/Erotic partner Masculine.  And this is a wound shared by modern men.  We can even see this Wound in our ancient mythology represented by the disappearance of the dying and rising god, the male consort of the Goddess.  The vegetation religions were replaced by the solar religions, and these gradually became fixated on the ascendant . . . where the sun was a representation of the Great Society or empire that enjoyed its apex of power and prosperity.  On the long term, these empires rose and fell, but in their primes, the egoic perpetual erection was celebrated.  When they crumbled and fell, some Other was to blame, someone who didn't share the dream or who was racially corrupt, some scapegoat.  So as long as patriarchy could keep its scapegoats in line, it could enjoy "eternal power".

The last vestige of institutionalized religion of the dying and rising god was, of course, Christianity.  But in Christianity, the Goddess is excised, sexuality and fertility are excised . . . and although the death and rebirth of Christ are part of the dogma, Christ is essentially gone from this world.  The Second Coming was eagerly awaited since as early as the first century.  Christ was expected to return in glory more or less immediately after the crucifixion.  And Christians continue to wait for this 2000 years later.  In the meantime, the Christian God remains abstract.  If we are more nihilistic, we disbelieve and think there is no God, God is a pipe dream.  There is no evidence of God's presence on earth or of any care about humanity in the heavens above.  Or we could say that God is always here and buoys up everything we do and believe.  Everything we accomplish is accomplished through God or by God through us.  Every other we smite, every dollar we earn, every new possession we accumulated, every mood of righteousness and vengeance we have is really "God's Will".  And when we recognize that we are in conflict with ourselves and may have acted dishonorably, it was the "Devil that made me do it".

Christianity has merely put the last nail in the coffin of the True Masculine.  It has expertly employed the philosophy of "keep your friends close, but your enemies even closer".  Of course, Catholic Christianity was not only responsible for removing women from participation in theology for hundreds of years, but also for the characterization of women as "The Devil's Gateway".

Women and the Feminine have been dissociated and marginalized by patriarchy, but the True Masculine has been excommunicated altogether, thrown over the highest cliff, driven into the wilderness, buried beneath the mountain.  It is the greatest threat to patriarchal egoism, the thing patriarchy is most terrified of.  Patriarchal women have upheld this just as much as patriarchal men.


But what I would say to all of this is that if through the greed of some we came to develop a valued technology that saved this very planet and its ecosystem from destruction by a giant asteroid, say via the use of the very wealth of self-destructive technology we insanely covet, then suddenly all of what you could easily, convincingly devalue becomes divine providence.  The asteriod comes when it comes and won't wait for us to be ready to defend ourselves against it.  We have no guarantees.  Despite all the pain and suffering (and let us not forget the nobility and selfess sacrifice) we might have now what we may need to save it all should the need arise.  I can't even say this is justified, just possibly justified.  I would never turn to a victim of our current social order and tell them we made you suffer for the greater good.  Maybe I just prefer hope over pessimism, and I see your overall take as too pessimistic for my tastes.  But I can't resent the world for all the evil that is in it.  I couldn't live with that.  And saying that in the end the patriarchy is just bad is too broad of a value judgement in my book.

We see smaller scale examples of this all the time in our society today.  The military industrial complex, with its zeal for creating more and more potent weaponry . . . driven by a government that seeks to arm itself for world domination . . . produces technology as byproduct that is beneficial to social welfare.  Noam Chomsky talks about this frequently.  But this doesn't excuse the immorality and irresponsibility of the desire to create weapons of mass destruction.  An ethical evaluation of this drive has to differentiate this.  And, even though there are numerous useful byproducts of the drive to create destructive technologies, why can't we just invest that money in the creation of useful, beneficial, non-destructive technologies?  This is a particular mindset here that can only create welfare benefits as a byproduct of its demonic desire to empower itself with destructive force.  The mindset is unhealthy . . . perhaps even psychopathic.  It also demonstrates how unconsciously dependent we are on the providence of our resources.  We don't even feel we need to concentrate consciousness on and devote money directly to the betterment of social welfare and long-term, global survivability.  It just "happens" as a byproduct.  It is providence.  But we are not taking care of ourselves responsibly.  Our drives and resources (utterly unanalyzed) are providing us with social benefits like manna from heaven.

And so we can go on playing war and world-conquering like its make-believe.  We are a society of infants.  But we are reaching the threshold at which this kind of infantile behavior and extreme unconsciousness and dependency will no longer be tenable.  The environment is threatening to no longer provide.  The economy based on this unconsciousness and greed is starting to deteriorate (specifically in America, which perhaps leads the industrialized world in mass unconsciousness and irresponsibility).  Ecosystems that sustained human populations for centuries or longer are grinding to a halt.  And then of course, there is the problem of war-mongering despite our growing "economic impotence", drastically increasing the threat that we will be knocked off our little hill of relative prosperity.  The war-mongering vs. "terrorist threat" battle is self-perpetuating, and it will consume our disappearing resources all the more quickly.  It's a mania-driven self-devouring (as well as other-destroying) process.

The point is not that "some good" (perhaps 5%) comes from all that patriarchy produces.  The point is that, with greater responsibility and ethical and ecological determination, we could do a lot better.  We should strive to be self-sustaining within our environment without "externalities", without being dependent on the destruction and oppression of others.  The patriarchal attitude can't provide this kind of ethical responsibility to others and to environment.  Chances are much higher that our own patriarchalism and egomania will destroy us long before the proverbial asteroid comes.


One of the main themes of the mystery religions, as I understood them, was that they imparted to the initiate a sense of a transcendence of death, that one is immortal.  What if in our myths we also find transcendence via an inevitable death?  My understanding of the conquering hero is that they typically do come to an unintended end.  To me that seems to place into consciousness, front and center, not only the limitations of the "conquering" hero but our inevitable mortality.  I don't think these myths try to hide or gloss over any of that, not even Gilgamesh.  In fact Gilgamesh was portrayed as a great annoyance to his people, as I recall.  In this sense I wouldn't equate the popular high-school guy with the conquering hero-king figure in myth although they may be related.

I'm not sure that I would characterize the goal of the mystery religions as "immortality" per se.  But as far as the tragedies of the conquering hero go, the "point" of tragedy is to present a moral lesson.  Namely: don't do what this person did.  It isn't "do what this person did, value it, and perhaps learn from it".  The idea behind tragedy is that our poor choices eventually lead us to damnation . . . and that even our seeming achievements along the way are stepping stones to our own destruction.  The patriarchal mindset doesn't want to learn that lesson, though, so it repositions tragedy as a kind of "sad inevitability".  Life sucks and then we die.  We strive and strive, but nothing lasts.  That's just as much a part of the patriarchal mindset as all the rest.  The belief within this is that, because "all is ultimately meaningless or lost", we are excused during our lives from moral obligations.  We are enabled to be greedy, guilt-free, and to feed our egomania in glut.  Existentialist philosophy (a modernist movement) takes this shadow of patriarchy and tries to tell us that we should not allow ourselves to feel free to be so greedy and irresponsible.  We have to establish our own individual sense of responsibility for our actions and choices and beliefs.  That is, existentialism sees the unconscious drive for egoic greed and selfishness and positions that drive in our social conditioning.  It says, "Wake up and get responsible".  Jung was very distinctly influenced by this philosophy.
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Matt Koeske on February 18, 2008, 05:06:38 PM



In opposing the conquering hero to the spiritual one you are taking the full archetypal hero--which being archetypal is not something to which the ego can relate directly--and you depotentiate this psychic fact by dividing it in two (separation of (not from) the World Parents) with a discriminating feeling function.  You then develop a necessarily biased relationship to the spiritual hero and put the conquering hero into the shadow.  This is, itself, the archetypal conquering hero who splits the world (as hero) as form (parents) into opposites and by dividing conquers.  Freud shortcuts this and says that you have a mother and father complex and want to sleep with the sexual other and kill the same sex parent.  But through the introduction of the life-death-life cycle you separate past, present and future and differentiate the inner characters in time.  You can then try to kill your same age shadow and sleep with your same age animi rather than your parents and enjoy a kind of psychic distance via time from your progenitors.

Don't you see in a comment like this how restrictive your paradigm is?  It's like it has you by the throat.  This doesn't even remotely make sense of my position.  The "full archetypal hero" is precisely what I am responding to and talking about.  I called it the "spiritual hero" as a gesture of differentiation, and attempt to communicate to you that it is not the same thing as the "conquering hero", which is actually the dissociated and inflated ego (and is not genuinely "heroic" in the instinctual or archetypal sense).  I don't cast that into the shadow; it creates its own shadow.  Every dissociation or imbalance or transgression of instinct (or "sin") creates its own shadow.  It may think that what it identifies with is "Good", and equally that what it doesn't identify with is "Bad" . . . but both the Good and the Bad are part of its actual identity.  It (the egomaniacal, patriarchal ego) is responsible for creating its own monsters . . . and for the fantasy in which it slays these monsters.  But the monsters can never be absolutely and eternally slain, because they are perpetually created by the dissociative attitude of the patriarchal ego.  They are straw monsters, and the victories over them are hollow and delusional.  We might think repression and artful avoidance are "conquerings", but this is mere self-deception.

As Rilke wrote (in "The Man Watching") :

Quote
What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights with us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things* do, by some immense storm,         [* i.e., natural things, things that have no ego, but adapt instinctively to environmental pressures]
we would become strong too, and not need names.
 
When we win it’s with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
Does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the Angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament
when the wrestlers’ sinews
grew long like metal strings
he felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music.
 
Whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.


It's true that I am making a differentiation between the conquering hero/ego and the "spiritual"/instinctual archetypal hero.  But this is not the product of "conquering" anything.  It's a matter of differentiating the ego and the Self, of comprehending where real power and drive come from, even the drive to "become conscious".  They come from instinct . . . and they are not won by defeating instinct that is "maliciously aligned against us".  The very notion that instinct is maliciously aligned against us is an egomaniacal attitude.  WE (egotists of the patriarchy) are maliciously aligned against instinct.  But, with the help of instinct, when we learn to start valuating that instinct, we come to see that it is not aligned against us, but is the source of our drive to live.  We have imprisoned and limited it by insisting on egoic paradigms that could not provide functional outlets for these instincts to imprint adaptively on our environments.

It's true that the revaluation of instinct/archetype tends to devalue ego (more accurately, the specific ego position that sees its repression as "conquering"), and that can become an issue.  That's why we experience the depressions that can lead to the Work as dissolutions and losses of libido.  The ego, as we have insisted upon it (or as it has been thrust upon us socially), is inadequate as a device to live through.  It has been overvalued, but it is not sufficiently functional.  So valuation is taken away from that.  If we can't accept that dissolution, we will never individuate, never heal, never rediscover the libido and instinct we lost.  But there is a later stage in which the ego is reconstructed and revalued.  That revalued ego is driven by the "full archetypal hero".  The archetypal hero is the drive to reconstruct the ego in coordination with the needs of the Self.  The conquering ego is simply not a part of that instinctual drive, and so it is not "archetypal" . . . even if it is "typical" in our society (and history).  I would even go so far as to say that the conquering ego believes it is heroic because it is inflated with an identification with the hero archetype.  But it usurps and drastically misunderstands what that instinct/archetype really is.  All it does is don a costume of what it thinks the hero would look like.  But the archetypal heroic drive is not behind the conquering ego's conquests and feats of oppression.  It's inflation identification with the hero archetype is a sham . . . and is rooted in shamefulness and dishonor (i.e., tragedy . . . e.g., Oedipus murder of his father is not genuinely heroic, it's tragic).  So the conquering ego intuits the heroic instinct, but fails to live it, because the act of living is in the possession of the Demon.  Living is done in Bad Faith.  Such living is done in a fashion that protects the ego from the heroic instinct and the dangerous transformation it offers.  One of the "best" ways to live in Bad Faith and not be entirely aware of it is to put on the superficial disguise of the very thing you are most afraid of.  The pious, selfless Christian may cloak the hypocritical scapegoater, and so forth.

These disguises are constructed in order to spare ourselves from our own recognition of sin or dishonor.  But they force us to find some Other to bear that sin, someone or something we can attack and berate instead of attacking and berating ourselves for the real transgression or moral failing.


But this is all metaphoric of unavoidable archetypal patterns of conscious development.  Our very neural architecture is set to battle against itself even as it coordinates its separated actions.  Just as the male of many animal species literally fight one another for tribal and sexual dominance so too do the same "conquerers" act for the good of the tribe at the expense of themselves when they defend that same tribe they have risen to lead.  We must split the psyche in order to relate to it.  But even as we so conquer and divide we also self-create the wound.  At first this is all done without a full awareness of the underlying reality.  But later in life, via individuation, we reveal this archetypal story to ourselves.

I'm not sure there is any legitimacy to mapping male dominance competition or conquering onto human neural architecture.  It is true in general that evolutionary mutations that "stick" are often retoolings and counter-balancings of previous traits (as opposed to from-the ground-up reconstructions of traits), but this is not the same thing as the "conquering of the instinctual unconscious".  Nature is responsible for all of these mutations, the ego determines nothing.  Even natural selection is not determined by egoic will.

Additionally, it is not the "psyche" that we split into Opposites, but only the ego, only out attitudes toward the psyche.  The idea that we can split the psyche (or that the ego itself is or is a large part of the psyche) is hubris and is not supported by any evidence.  It is true that we often bear some responsibility for creating the Wound (some, not all), because we have unconsciously accepted a socialization or ego-construction that is dissociative.  This is par for the course in the modern world.  But we had no idea what we were doing.  We were just trying to limit cognitive dissonance and ally ourselves with protectors (actual people or attitudes and beliefs) that seemed best capable of defending us from that cognitive dissonance.  Our egoic thinking was short-term and "unconscious", and if slather layer after layer on the personality in that fashion, we will eventually become dysfunctional (unless we can exist entirely within a tribe that reinforces this dysfunction and protects us from the larger world).  Young egos do not strategize for long-term functionality, they merely react in knee-jerk fashion to strong stimuli, trying to limit discomfort and dissonance and increase comfort and pleasure.  That tends to lead to egocentrism and egotism . . . even narcissism, the notion that the satisfaction of one's ego-cravings is more important than anything else.  And primarily, the ego craves reinforcement and protection from the threat of change or transformation.

What happens in later life with individuation is not the same thing as early ego-formation . . . except in that, with either process, the ego is undergoing a construction of beliefs, associations, and preferred paradigms.  But early ego formation is an unconscious reaction to socialization, and individuation is a conscious reaction to the inadequacy of that earlier socialization and ego-construction.  We will always need ego, but what we need most of all (in order to be adaptable to environment) is a functional ego, an ego that relays instincts to the material environment effectively.


I think you take the alchemical myth as the whole developmental process of the psyche.  But you can't engage in this myth until after you have developed consciousness.  Alchemy is all about a self-conscious spiritual practice, but there is a huge realm of the un-self-conscious developmental process.

No, I see the alchemical process as describing only an adult, individuating psychology.  Alchemy has no application to the psychology of children or people who haven't felt compelled to approach individuation in any way yet.  This is why I have called alchemy a mysticism . . . as opposed to a totem or dogma that assigns "right beliefs" to unconscious believers.  Even conventionally-thinking Jungians have only scratched the surface or the first preliminary stages of the alchemical opus.  Their experience and understanding bottom out early in the dissolution, never getting to the coniunctio or the Nigredo or beyond.  In the Jungian paradigm of individuation, the true prima materia has never been created.  So the Work hasn't genuinely truly begun.  It is this particular obstacle that I feel leads to the religification of Jungianism and the loss of its gnosticism or scientific usefulness.

The alchemical motifs can find their antecedents in the earlier mythic stories of course because buried in the old stories are the secrets we discover later as the objective realities of the psyche.  But before we can "surrender" and dissolved we must be born into matter, into body and also separate via self-creation as spirit from that matter.  Only after we conquer can we then "surrender", only after we form can we dissolve.

Actually, the "extraction of spirit from matter" in the alchemical opus is accomplished post-coniunctio and comes to completion in the end of the first opus with the birth of Luna as divine hermaphrodite.  I have called this stage the differentiation of ego from Self.  It is essentially an "advanced mysticism" by conventional (and Jungian) standards.  It is not in any way the same thing as ego-development in childhood and even in adulthood.  It post-dates the sacrifice of the adult/heroic ego to the instinctual Self (i.e., the surrender or dissolution I spoke of).
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Matt Koeske on February 18, 2008, 05:47:50 PM

i think you missing the whole pre-individuation developmental process.  I can be read in one's dreams and fantasies and mythic preferences.  It is precisely this aspect of the psyche that Jung explored in himself during the so-called "fallow years" which were after he wrote Symbols of Transformation which is the foundation in psychology (not to eclipse the probably more vital role that previous comparative anthropology played) for the hero's journey.  It was the application of this un-self-conscious truth that we are on the hero's journey before we even know it that lead Jung to say, hey I better figure out how this is playing within myself.

It's true that I concentrate heavily on individuation and very little on initially ego-development, but it isn't an unconscious neglect.  I don't think I am "missing" the nature of ego-development at all.  I just don't consider it to be very much influenced by "consciousness" (i.e., knowing and specific choice-making that helps organize identity).  All that mythos about conquering heroes doesn't seem to fit in to the early ego development at all from my perspective.  Perhaps the infantile ego is always "egomaniacal", but the conquering hero myth represents the attempt at self-justification regarding prolonged egomania (and entitlement).  Or, more conventionally, it represents (in the form of tragedy) a morality tale about how prolonging that egomania will eventually result in self-destruction and loss.  What we would call, in psychological terms, "depression", especially in the circumstance of "midlife crisis" . . . where we thought we had "conquered life" by fulfilling our egomaniacal (and unconscious) paradigms, only to suddenly discover that what we achieved was empty and worthless.  And then, in that realization, we discover that we are nothing, nobody.  We have no identity that wasn't branded on us from without.  That's when individuation can begin . . . after the egomaniacal fantasy of conquering has both succeeded and failed (as its success is also its failure).

Of course many people spend large portions of their adult life trying to live up to the egomaniacal fantasy and failing to do so (it is a lofty goal, after all).  So we either have to succeed in that attempt or else manage to see-through our whole desire to conquer life in such a way, before we can begin individuating.

As for Jung, I will go back and read Symbols (it's been almost 20 years now), but my understanding is that Jung's dissolution period after his split with Freud was not the ego-building that you propose.  Jung was a very famous and highly respected psychoanalyst by this time . . . and he was married to one of the wealthiest women in Switzerland.  The break with Freud and Jung's withdrawal of libido from everyday life all centered around his experience of the unconscious as a powerful and objective reality.  Far from conquering it, he was being dissolved in it.  This was also the time directly after Jung had an anima infatuation with his patient, Sabina Spielrein, that ended in disaster (and probably some kind of impropriety).  There was a kind of analytical (and perhaps relational?) triangle among Spielrein, Jung, and Freud.  As Jung dove into his confrontation with the unconscious, he discovered his anima as a genuine presence in the psyche (not just in projection onto Spielrein or other women).  His individuation had begun in earnest.  I think his separation from Freud was a symbolic gesture of letting go of some piece of his established, pre-individuated egoic identity.  The famous psychoanalyst and "crown prince" of the movement.  Freud's own anointed son and protege.  But this was a false self for Jung.  He had conquered . . . but failed.

As for the residual identifications with heroism that came from this confrontation with the unconscious, Jung describes this very accurately in his essay on the Mana-Personality . . . the person who has "assimilated" the unconscious and thinks s/he has been imbued with mystical powers.  The archetypal inflation.  This mana-personality of inflation has become a mainstay and perennial bogeyman of Jungian psychology.  I struggled to both cope with and understand this situation for many years, and I eventually concluded that this inflation is necessitated by the residual egoic attitudes in Jungian thinking toward the unconscious and the animi.  Jungians sometimes describe the inflation as "identification with the hero archetype", and this is something that does happen (as I described it above with the conquering ego that wears the hero's costume).  But I don't think this was what was happening with Jung and what happens to most mystics and Jungian individuants.  The actual identification in this kind of mystical (post confrontation with the unconscious) inflation is an identification with the Self.  And the Jungians (starting with Jung) have handcuffed themselves by conflating the hero and the Self.  This is entirely incorrect and radically dangerous.  It took me many years to be able to sort this out (due to my Jungian inheritance), but after I did, it started to look pretty obvious (and much of my anxiety over the issue dissipated).

This identification is in many ways understandable, because the dissolution and the animi work are bringing the ego and Self closer and closer together.  But I see the inflation that often results from this is a misinterpretation or misappropriation of the Self's numinous libido.  It comes when the conquering ego has still not been completely shed.  As it dissolves, though, it finds a "back door" to empowerment.  All the new instinctual libido it senses from the Self is appropriated for the conquering ego as an empowerment of egoism.  The opposite of what is intended.  But it is another knee-jerk reaction to feeling so devalued and belittled by the dissolution.  The first whiff of power the ego gets, it tries to dig its spurs into and ride to "glory" on.  Generally, this is viewed as psychotic by society . . . and rightfully so.  That is, it is clear to everyone else that this sense of power is delusional and artificial.  But every so often, some guru or other comes along and manages to attract a bunch of sheep who can't see-through the illusion.  And in this way, the guru gets to have his or her delusion protected and perpetuated by a tribe (or cult) devoted to it.

This guruism is in the shadow of Jungianism.  Jung connected this mana-personality to the anima, claiming that she encourages and inspires it (in a man).  He comes very close to blaming the anima entirely for this psychosis.  But he did have a vision of his Salome anima worshiping him as a Christ while he was deified . . . so his conclusion seems logical from his perspective (even though it is incorrect).  In my opinion, Jungian psychology cannot navigate through the inflation nor finish the animi work . . . and it's because the conquering ego never ultimately steps up to the sacrifice he must make (in much the same way Jung cannot bring himself to touch his head completely to the floor in his dream of his father previously discussed).  Buried in this stage of the Work is the myth of the Great Man . . . and that myth was something Jung hungered for and could never entirely get beyond.  After all, by conventional social standards, he was a great man.  And if you can obtain greatness and status on wit and intellect and "charisma" alone (and without living entirely in Good Faith), why not?  To Jung's credit, he always seemed equivocal about his legacy and his followers.  He was not by any means a rank amateur in the game of consciousness (seeing-through one's own fictions).  But I think he struggled with the mantle of his greatness all the way to the end of his life.

And what that means is that, albeit depotentiated and recognized in many ways, Jung's conquering ego was never put to rest entirely.  And that may have contributed to the legacy of an occult religion that he seems to have left behind in his followers.  The Jungians still struggle to worship the Great Man (while Jung's detractors still try to kill that Goliath with well-slung rocks).

But what I'm saying is that I feel Jung's period of "confrontation with the unconscious" was characterized by both dissolution of the socialized ego identity and by an inflation in which the dissolving conquering ego made a power play by trying to take credit for the "assimilation of the unconscious".  Jung reacted to this by being very leery of his tendency toward inflation, seeing it as a delusional side-effect of dissolution that was a temptation of the devil to be resisted.  Accompanying this was a deep suspicion of the anima which he felt was encouraging the inflation.  My revision of this would be that the anima encourages the ego to identify with the hero archetype (the heroic ego), but Jung's personal Demon, his over-valuation of the conquering ego and the Great Man, confused this encouragement for the embrace of the heroic ego with the appropriation of the Self's numen (which Jung's followers encouraged with their worship and deference).  In Jung's vision of his deification, we see only the exaltation of the ego personality.  But to actually step into the hero's role would mean a self-sacrifice . . . and not an exaltation at all.  But this may be one of the problems with active imagination as opposed to dream work.  Jung didn't really differentiate, but I've always found dream work to be more "honest" and more shadow-demonstrating than active imagination (which I don't really trust all that much).  With active imagination (which is a lot like creating art, something I have plenty of experience with), there is still much left over to see-through, even after the vision or inspiration is recorded or portrayed.


Of course, you know the motifs of your own story and you feel you have worked through important milestones.  But you may not realize that your psyche was already doing the Work before you became self-consciously involved.  Because you don't seem to intuit this, you come off, from my perspective, as devaluing the whole natural and cultural evolutionary process that brought you personally and us collectively to the point at which we now stand.

What was going on in my childhood was not what I call the Work.  The Work is a mysticism, an act of conscious spirituality.  I was introspective as a child, and due to my complex and my innate inclination, I often questioned (or at least doubted) the way ego was constructed in my personality, but I had no active and conscious role in this until I was in my late teens and in the grip of anima obsession/projection and dissolution (as well as creative and spiritual awakening).  My childhood ego construction petered out very early compared to most people's.  I was "precociously dysfunctional" . . . and perhaps it was the nature of my particular complex, which is so radically self-annihilating that it leaves one little choice in life.  One must either individuate or perish.  So individuation with me has always become a necessity of survival.  That's actually the conventional experience of the shaman, although I didn't realize this until, well, about a year ago, really.  It's THE archetype for individuation, reaching back long before recorded history.

For me, the Work didn't really begin until I had allowed the small attainments of my life to dissolve (my sense of myself as socially capable or intelligent, my sense of myself as exceptional athlete, my sense of myself as a writer who was "going to make it" on natural talent, my sense of myself as devoted lover and erotic partner with "a lot to give", my sense of myself as "spiritual personality" with precocious "enlightenment", my sense of myself as befriended, loved, and cared about by others . . . all of this crashed into nothing, burned into ashes).  Then the animi work kicked in full force, after which the long period of Nigredo and Albedo followed taking about a decade.  During that decade, I was processing the psychic/spiritual events that the anima work had produced, sifting through them, rethinking, revising myself, etc.  This was all made much more difficult for me by having no direct assistance or guidance from anyone.  Even Jungian writing (which I consumed ravenously at the beginning of the anima work) often no longer seemed applicable as I drifted through the Nigredo.  Many years later, I came to see this as partly due to a failure of Jungian thinking to address this stage adequately.

But I don't disagree completely that the "psyche is already or always doing this Work".  The instinctual unconscious is always pushing for equilibrium with the environment, and it drives the ego to develop (very generally) in an attempt to construct functional paradigms or a functional language to live in.  But we, the egos, don't often understand that our constructions are the very things that stand in the way of the fulfillment of our instincts.  My guess is that, come late adolescence, the instinctual unconscious has "had enough", and part of our maturation transformation (on a physical level) is the awakening of the individuation instinct (through which we transition to a more adult and responsible perspective on the world).  But as we have no institutionalized rites or myths to guide this transition or initiation in modern society, we stumble through early adulthood trying to succeed as spiritual/psychological adolescents.  Sometimes we accomplish this (because, perhaps, our father is George Bush Sr. . . . or we invest all our adolescent drives in Wall Street trading . . . or we have a salable talent like athletics or acting or music . . . or because we are beautiful and people are attracted to us, etc.).  But much of the time, we grind slowly to a standstill (around midlife) and then look up at the sky and the tall buildings surrounding us (and at our spouses and children) and think, "How in the hell did I get here into this strange adult world?  It's like I was asleep for a few decades and just woke up.  I feel like a small child, totally overwhelmed."

Anyway, I don't think I am devaluing the process.  I have a great feeling of valuation for the individuation instinct, and if I didn't, I wouldn't be able to express any experiential understanding of these things.  Which is precisely what my theory-making is the product of.  I am not fitting the world to a theory that can't really express the world.  I'm trying to account for the data I have observed . . . and so I constantly revise and reconstruct my thinking to accommodate that data.  More recently, I have been able to do this with smaller adjustments, but for most of my life, I have been making huge adjustments to my thinking.  The revisions and adjustments and new avenues in my thinking even since we first met on Kaleidoscope are, I think, quite significant.  And my whole adult life has been an ongoing transformation very much like this last year or so.

As for cultural inheritance, no I don't value it all that much.  My survival as an individual has been achieved at the cost of very painful oppositionalism.  I have frequently stood against the pressures that would conform me and my thinking to "standards".  And I can assure you that I have been well-punished for these heresies . . . both by myself and by others.  I have never had a true mentor or guide or therapist or spiritual teacher.  I am, for better or for worse, an autodidact when it comes to the Work and the understanding of the psyche.  Reading extensively in Jungian literature did help orient me, especially when I was younger and in need of a grounding language that could make sense of what I was experiencing.  But it hasn't provided any guidance for me for nearly 20 years.

I have never had a tribe or the benefit of "elders" to initiate or train or indoctrinate me.  I had to accomplish this on my own, and that is no easy task.  I hungered for mentors for many years, but never found one I felt was capable of initiating me . . . and I can tell you that the pain and grief involved in not finding such a person is very great, very debilitating.  One should never have to initiate oneself . . . because it means that one's "crossing over" is not accompanied by Eros and recognition.  We can't really give these things to ourselves, and when we have to provide them from our meager stock, we are likely to maintain a lingering feeling of invalidity.  That can become a cancerous growth of loneliness . . . and there is no inner realm in which that loneliness can be entirely assuaged.  When one is initiated, one is "supposed" to enter into a new collective.  The whole point of initiation is to functionally connect Eros to ethical and productive living.  When no such Tribe is there to welcome us, we are scarred with our own alienation, which, left to grow untreated for long enough, will become its own obstacle to living.


We stand at the current end of the past evolutionary process, a process as full of meaning and intelligence as the alchemical one.  And evolution doesn't mean right or fair.  Was it fair that the dinosaurs all had to die off?  Well, they weren't smart enough to build rockets that could take them to better places so they died.  That is evolution.  We are smart enough but we might be stupid enough to aim those same rockets at ourselves.  That too is evolution.  Nature will leave us be for millions of years and then deliver the smackdown killing us all if we don't move quick enough.  Fuck you nature! I say sometimes even as I am a loving nature photographer.

You even seem to realize in the characterization of Nature that you give how extremely and Otherly Nature is portrayed.  Evolution continues on through mutation and adaptation and natural selection.  I have no gripe with that.

I once wrote a poem or too that made the point that our children need old growth trees...cut down to make them paper for school.  I came up with that while immersing myself in nature via an extended bicycle tour down the Pacific coast.  I was in Forks, Washington at the time, one of the centers, out West of the sometimes competing interests of environmentalists and...well, people who need paper and wood products.  At some point you have to ask the question "what is and what is not Nature?"  When do my needs or desires, channeled as they are by the society in which I live with its various technologies, become not an expression of the natural?

Of course, human egoism is also an expression of Nature.  But the line to draw that you speak of comes when the destructiveness of a species is not sustainable.  Predators eat prey, and the population of the prey is controlled and typically falls into equilibrium with the population of the predators.  Remove the prey and the predators also starve.  Remove the predators and the prey overpopulate and can face food shortages and all kinds of other ecosystem altering problems.  The issue with our species is that we take and take from Nature, but we don't adequately think about how to sustain Nature.  Eventually, we end up taking so much that not only are numerous species forced into extinction and numerous ecosystems radically disturbed or destroyed, but we ourselves cannot be sustained, because we were also dependent on the balance of these ecosystems.  No long-term thinking.  No comprehension of complex systems (relationality in Nature).  And of course, we've been building up to the event horizon of our non-sustainable drive for taking and destroying for a long time,  Especially since industrialization.  We create waste, externalities, that we banish into the unconscious.  But these things come back to affect us.  Our shadow cannot be conquered or deposed.  We only prolong the confrontation with it by repressing, denying, and running away dishonorably.

I figure if I was given the gift of intelligence and the other animals and plants don't move fast enough and I need them to die so that I can sit and think about how it is I can help the world keep from entering a nuclear winter, then they die for my dinner plate.  And as without, so within.

Of course, I am not advocating this mentality above all others, but it should not be forgotten or summarily devalued.

But there are no animals "within" to die for your dinner plate.  That is an illusion.  Even "without", the egoic attitude of taking without thinking about the repercussions is often destructive.  The earth has provided us with immense resources, true, but we don't have to take a childish and selfish attitude toward them.  We want to be provided with resources, but at the same time we want to own and control them.  We want the possession of resources to determine our worth, and we want to keep resources away from those we deem Other.  We are both perverse and stupid.  It's the egomaniacal human that wants to live like an animal (dependent on ever-abundant providence from Nature) while claiming it is entitled to be a god.  I see no reason to feel such pride or self-satisfaction in this condition.  In my opinion, the amazing benefits of our evolution are squandered in attitudes that "less-evolved" animals are "too wise" to even consider.
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Matt Koeske on February 18, 2008, 06:30:13 PM
I have to laugh here because I am always afraid that this is how I am perceived.  I see in my own thinking a constant stepping on my own toes.  Yet, at the same time, it is also a part of how I see my own thinking that I am intentionally "taking two lines of thought that are contradictory to one another and laying them down together as if they don't actually self-negate."

I feel that I am always thinking about the relationship between two unreconcilable truths when I say anything of value about consciousness or the psyche.  I have a certain comfort level with allowing myself to fall into the limitation of how I am expressing myself always knowing in my head that I say this to get at something but not because I think it is a consistently rational statement that I would stand behind in all contexts.  It puts me in an awkward position constantly when I make a rational case for something.  It is as if I am more at home in the mode of telling a story when I write an essay, but I would rather write an essay and make an argument rather than "entertain" with a story.

I feel that with the ideas of Neumann that I have found a decent centering of my intuitions in a strong Jungian sense.  I am aware that Neumann's ideas have a peripheral influence on the Jungian community but I have not widely read in Jungian literature.  I am still working through Jung's works themselves. 

I think that I have always felt that I was off in my own corner of the world thinking my thoughts and never felt comfortable or confident that my ideas were supported by any particular philosopher or thinker.  My hope is that I can clarify my position via dialogue here and hopefully make myself plain.  But it has always been a fear of mine that I just seem to talk in strange circles in the ear's of others.

I think you have the right attitude in keeping some self-doubt in your equation.  Without that, there is no chance to learn or grow.

But there is also the possibility that the seemingly irreconcilable truths don't quite "fit", because the paradigm trying to reconcile them is flawed.  We can become too complacent in our feeling that we have succeeded in "seeing things from two sides at once".  But there is always that chance that we are creating the illusion of separation artificially.

Jung talked a lot about individuated consciousness "holding the Opposites together" . . . and I agree that, so much as this means accepting cognitive dissonance as useful and even creative rather than dismissing its threat, that has to be done to retain consciousness.  But I also feel that Jung and the Jungians are too inclined to mistake the bearing of cognitive dissonance for the dissociation of a singular thing into polarities in conflict with one another.  The real conflict is introduced to the unconscious by the ego that has artificially dissociated it by identifying with one aspect of a singular thing at the expense of other aspects.  Some Opposites can be synthesized, united, because they are really an artificially divided oneness.  But other things in conflict have no perfect solution (such as issues of relationship dealing with literal others) or are irredeemably relative.

In my opinion, many of the favorite Jungian Opposites are unnecessarily divided by flawed egoic attitudes that can't adequately address their complexities.  The Jungians misunderstand things like instinct, matter, and natural complexity (by falling into the egoic fallacy) . . . but we can apply more contemporary thinking about these things that allows what seemed to be irreconcilable Opposites to be united into one harmony of understanding (or at least points the way to eventual harmony).

I think some of your ideas about the conquering hero and the role of consciousness are not very new or underrepresented, but actually quite old.  Pre-modern.  You throw in some neuroscience and a few updated terms, but I think your feeling of separation is a product of certain attitudes that have fallen out of fashion in contemporary thought.  Whether this is good or bad is another issue.  After all, the ideas of evolutionary biology are rooted in some classical (and a lot of Darwinian) thinking that had fallen out of fashion (in our age of social constructionism), but the latest data seems to suggest that these ideas had been wrongfully devalued.

My guess is that what you need to accomplish in order to "sell" your separative/connective paradigm is the construction of a convincing argument against contemporary shifts in the understanding of gender identity.  Can your paradigm effectively make sense of post-feminist gender?  And at the same time, although you draw from some biological distinctiveness between the sexes, is your application of this to the development of consciousness legitimate?  Are there other ways to apply the biological data?  Is the application of this data to ego development or individuation absolutely justified?

The way I see it, you have a war to fight on two fronts.  The social constructionists (postmodernists, especially women) are going to see your division as dated and potentially even sexist (I prefer the term patriarchal).  The evolutionary biologists are skeptical of psychology in general, and those with a sense of discipline and reserve are none too keen to have their Darwinian notions generalized in the realm of psyche (which they don't claim to be as biologically determined as specific common behaviors are).

This is the same war I am fighting with my own theory-building, even if your theory and mine have their conflicts.  My "religion-science coniunctio" stuff is actually trying to progress in both directions at the same time: seeing psychology as more biological than it has previously been seen while also recognizing modern and postmodern shifts in identity that suggest more similarity than difference in the psychology of the sexes.  Of course, I came out of the feminist, social constructionist tradition more than the biological . . . and so I saw and rejected the sexism in Jungian thinking before I recognized how valuable Jung's intuitive biology was.  In my opinion, most Jungians fail to modernize and correct the inherent sexism of Jungian thinking AND the nascent development of Jungian biology.

It isn't easy to move in these directions simultaneously, but I have been increasingly seeing a synthesis down the road . . . and in my mind it is a "happy coincidence", because it means that Jungian psychology can potentially be updated to be both modern and scientific, shedding its patriarchal sexism and its metaphysical dalliances and diversions.  No other psychology or philosophy has come as close to this synthesis as Jung's has.  But my guess is that, if Jungian psychology doesn't adapt in the way I'm proposing within a decade, it will be surpassed by the rapidly growing field of evolutionary psychology.  After that happens, Jungian thinking will be largely obsolete, existing only as a historical curiosity.

That would suck for me personally, because I found all of my language on Jungian thought (even as I revise and add).  Also, as an intuitive thinker and non-scientist, my thinking would be marginalized by Jungian psychology's lapse into obsolescence.  If I wanted to contribute to psychology, I would have to return to academia and become an evolutionary psychologist . . . and I don't know if I have the energy to start the whole blacksheep cycle over from scratch like that. 

I'd have to settle for writing New Age self-help books  (-)laugh(-).
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Sealchan on February 19, 2008, 10:26:35 AM
Quote
But as far as the tragedies of the conquering hero go, the "point" of tragedy is to present a moral lesson.  Namely: don't do what this person did.  It isn't "do what this person did, value it, and perhaps learn from it".  The idea behind tragedy is that our poor choices eventually lead us to damnation . . . and that even our seeming achievements along the way are stepping stones to our own destruction.

To me it is both.  It is "don't try this at home" AND "it was worth the effort even though we didn't make it".  I have a basically mystical and positive outlook on what has come and where we are going although there is plenty of nastiness.  However, in focusing on what is wrong I think one gets caught up in the excesses of the time and doesn't see the underlying tidal forces. 

The point of tragedy is to pit the individual against the greater forces of the world and show simultaneously just how little and just how much we do and yet do not have great influence and control over the course of events in the greater collective-world.  And a tragedy is usually just one plot device away from what might be called a "glory" or a story of an overwhelming victory.  The best stories are probably a combination of both.  For example, Star Wars has the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker and the "glory" of Luke Skywalker.  Luke's identification with and need to indirectly kill his own father is a tragedy accept that his father forgives Luke with the words "you were right".  Then it becomes a glory of the progress obtained through great suffering.   
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Sealchan on February 19, 2008, 12:08:37 PM
Quote
The point is not that "some good" (perhaps 5%) comes from all that patriarchy produces.  The point is that, with greater responsibility and ethical and ecological determination, we could do a lot better.  We should strive to be self-sustaining within our environment without "externalities", without being dependent on the destruction and oppression of others.  The patriarchal attitude can't provide this kind of ethical responsibility to others and to environment.  Chances are much higher that our own patriarchalism and egomania will destroy us long before the proverbial asteroid comes.

Sure, but how did we come to hold the lofty position of being able to consider doing a lot better?  How can we learn to get along until we keep those who "don't want to participate" from plowing right over us?  Until we stave off or subsume the greater forces that may overwhelm us, how can we reliably take any self-directed action at all?  You can't protect a resource unless you control it.  I think that you miss the value of the "first half" of the process of becoming responsible for something which is, to obtain awareness and control over it. 

To me the entire point of the individuation process is to correct the imbalances we have struck up in the process of our prior, less self-conscious development.  We use the strengths we first developed to enable us to, with a necessary hubris, seek to change ourselves.  It is these very strengths which are our greatest weaknesses.  If we don't develop two eyes, or two ways of knowing, one of which is not dependent on the other, you will not have a vision sufficient to dismantle the position the ego finds itself in when it starts to "find itself". 

After the last eight years of "leadership" in the Oval office I would say our chances of survival have decreased.  But given the high level of participation on the part of registered Democrats in their primaries and the reluctance of the Republican party to back their presumed candidate, I suspect that our chances will improve significantly in just under a year's time from now.

I wouldn't blame "patriarchy" for the world's problems, I would blame people: individuals and groups of individuals.  Competition over scarce resources, unbridled greed (this is not patriarchal, this is just good ol' instinctual), lack of a fully supported international law and justice system.  Again the last eight years of "leadership" has failed because it has presumed that the U.S. can just unilaterally do what it wants, when it wants, how it wants and the amount of available "libido" = money be damned.  This isn't patriarchy, this is just good, ol' fashioned idiocy...enabled by a strong sense of the U.S. as the ego of the world as a separate power that can independently wield authority over all...but the big problem is that, given the right fool in charge, WE CAN!  We can take out this whole planet if we wanted to.  We can manipulate the world economic markets.  We are the greatest source of relief aid and other volunteer contributions to those in need.  We suck up the most energy and we give the most energy to this planet-wide eco-politic.

And if the ego didn't have a similar power within the psyche, how could it ever be "dangerous" for the ego to do or consider to do anything?  It would otherwise be an inconsequential force in a more powerful medium which controls it.





Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Sealchan on February 19, 2008, 01:24:45 PM
Quote
Chris, I've written a very long and detailed reply to your last post (which I'll break up more or less arbitrarily into multiple posts).  I'm not sure how much use there was in doing this, because I'm not sure there is a place of synthesis between our contrasting attitudes or philosophies.  Still, I am going to make my arguments.  Ideally, if either of our arguments can't bear fruit through reasoning alone, data could be provided to supplement a person's position.

Clearly this would be a huge process to reconcile our differing perspectives.  Alas if we were both scholars then perhaps we could take the time to do this.

I think that this conversation has been an enjoyable distraction from doing the dream interpretation.  But I should get back to a focus on that.  That is, after all, where the data lies and I will endeavor to decompose any assumptions I make in my terminology.  Also, when I apply some heavy and possibly personal theory to a dream, I will attempt to break it out into a separate topic and try to gather supporting scholarly and mythic references.  As usual, I will attempt to supply "dream references" within the dreaming container itself.

Then we could, perhaps, revisit any needed/desired debate in that context.

Until then please feel free to use your interpretive model on my dreams and I will do the same for you understanding that we will take or leave what we find useful. 
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Matt Koeske on February 19, 2008, 03:06:48 PM
To me it is both.  It is "don't try this at home" AND "it was worth the effort even though we didn't make it".  I have a basically mystical and positive outlook on what has come and where we are going although there is plenty of nastiness.  However, in focusing on what is wrong I think one gets caught up in the excesses of the time and doesn't see the underlying tidal forces. 

The point of tragedy is to pit the individual against the greater forces of the world and show simultaneously just how little and just how much we do and yet do not have great influence and control over the course of events in the greater collective-world.  And a tragedy is usually just one plot device away from what might be called a "glory" or a story of an overwhelming victory.  The best stories are probably a combination of both.  For example, Star Wars has the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker and the "glory" of Luke Skywalker.  Luke's identification with and need to indirectly kill his own father is a tragedy accept that his father forgives Luke with the words "you were right".  Then it becomes a glory of the progress obtained through great suffering.

I don't mean to say that literary tragedies are occasions for us to all sit around and cluck at impropriety and foolishness, to feel morally superior in comparison to the tragic protagonist.  We are meant to identify, to seen in the tragic figure some part of ourselves.  The shadow, or the ego that cannot see its shadow.  But the tragic figure is fully human, there's no doubt about that.  Still, as a "lesson" taken from the tragic story as a whole, I believe we are to learn or at least observe that the tragic attitude and its behavior leads ultimately to damnation of one kind of another.  The tragic figure may be pitied or even forgiven, but never, never reborn.  That is the key, that is the differentiation between the hero and the tragic figure.

But I don't think we are supposed to, for instance, look at Oedipus and say, "Cool, killing one's father and marrying one's mother is so right on!"  But we have to care and sympathize, because Oedipus is all of us, the fatal flaw or drive to self-destruction (through libidinous self-exaltation) in all of us.

As for Star Wars, Anakin/Darth is tragic, but his son Luke is a mythic hero.  These are two different stories and shouldn't be conflated.  Luke makes the right decisions in order to follow the Hero's Journey, but Anakin failed to make those heroic choices.  He has "heroic capabilities", but chose poorly.  He damned himself with those choices, with the way he interpreted his reality . . . the way we all undermine ourselves (our "better selves") again and again by failing to take the "heroic path" (and failing to see-through our egoic blinders).  It's like Albus Dumbledore says to Harry Potter (paraphrasing), "It isn't what we are born with that determines our worth, but the choices we make."

In other words, the difference between the tragic figure and the mythic hero is a matter of free will, not birthright.  This is a major theme in the Harry Potter books.  Voldemort misunderstands this and places all his trust in birthright . . . and that is the difference between him and Harry.

Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Matt Koeske on February 19, 2008, 03:11:38 PM
I found Wolfgang Giegerich's article on Erich Neumann online: ONTOGENY = PHYLOGENY?  A Fundamental Critique of Erich Neumann's Analytical Psychology (http://web.utanet.at/salzjung/ontogeny.htm).

I haven't reread it yet . . . but will as soon as I'm able.

Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Matt Koeske on February 19, 2008, 03:43:33 PM
Sure, but how did we come to hold the lofty position of being able to consider doing a lot better?  How can we learn to get along until we keep those who "don't want to participate" from plowing right over us?  Until we stave off or subsume the greater forces that may overwhelm us, how can we reliably take any self-directed action at all?  You can't protect a resource unless you control it.  I think that you miss the value of the "first half" of the process of becoming responsible for something which is, to obtain awareness and control over it. 

To me the entire point of the individuation process is to correct the imbalances we have struck up in the process of our prior, less self-conscious development.  We use the strengths we first developed to enable us to, with a necessary hubris, seek to change ourselves.  It is these very strengths which are our greatest weaknesses.  If we don't develop two eyes, or two ways of knowing, one of which is not dependent on the other, you will not have a vision sufficient to dismantle the position the ego finds itself in when it starts to "find itself".

My actual point relating to this is that we-as-egos don't "dismantle" the old position, we don't use any developed and hard-won strengths.  The Call to individuation, the beginning of the dissolution is a sucking down into hell by powers greater than us.  Nothing we have can stave them off  What we come to find is that it is the very things we devalued and didn't recognize that are our true strengths.  Egoic will perishes in the dissolution.  I don't mean "vanishes".  We will always be willful (and probably unaware of it), but it is specifically this will, these qualities we think are "heroic" that are the the first to go.  If they don't go (if we can relinquish them), we don't individuate, we do not go through the initiation.

It isn't "a necessary hubris" that drives individuation, but a sacrifice of this hubris in favor of a mere hope to survive the dissolution.  I see this all as guided by instinct, not intention, not consciousness.


I wouldn't blame "patriarchy" for the world's problems, I would blame people: individuals and groups of individuals.

It is not my intention to "blame" patriarchy, but to see-through it.  It has to be understood as "not essentially".

As for blaming individuals and groups, we have to be careful about righteousness.  Everyone always blames the Other.  But real justice is both very complex and fairly imperfect.  My suggestion is that we (as citizens, voters, people) need to stop empowering the people who are greedy, selfish, and unethical.  In America, even though our democracy is pretty shoddy, this is still technically possible.

So yes, Neocons, Bushites, free marketeers, zealous, bigoted fundamentalists of various stripes, fascists and fascist supporters . . . these people are unethical and can do damage because they hold power.  But we who don't support the ideals these people live by still do many things to empower them and enable them.  And primarily we do this unconsciously or because we aren't bearing necessary responsibilities for society and for others.  We are often more to blame for our dissatisfaction and the problems of our society than we realized.  I think we should start there.  Figure out what we are responsible for and how we can do a better job upholding those responsibilities.

Patriarchy is a style of social organization based in a particular psychological perspective.  If we can understand what it really is and how it works, we figure out how to stand against it.  But patriarchy isn't a literal bogeyman, something we can throw rocks at or picket.  It is a piece of our socialization that must be discarded in order to reconstruct an ethical social psychology (in the individual).


This isn't patriarchy, this is just good, ol' fashioned idiocy...enabled by a strong sense of the U.S. as the ego of the world as a separate power that can independently wield authority over all...but the big problem is that, given the right fool in charge, WE CAN!  We can take out this whole planet if we wanted to.  We can manipulate the world economic markets.  We are the greatest source of relief aid and other volunteer contributions to those in need.  We suck up the most energy and we give the most energy to this planet-wide eco-politic.

I'm not sure that these claims of American power and influence are really true.  If they were once true, they will soon no longer be.  Except the one about destroying the whole planet if we wanted to . . . that I think we could do.

And if the ego didn't have a similar power within the psyche, how could it ever be "dangerous" for the ego to do or consider to do anything?  It would otherwise be an inconsequential force in a more powerful medium which controls it.

The biggest danger egoic attitudes present is to others.  Egoism is generally self-protective and often narcissistic.  One of the cardinal lessons of individuation (and all world spiritualities) is that there is greater worth in valuing others than egotistical people realize.  Even human survival is achieved through a collective effort.  The egomaniacal ego doesn't truly understand this.  But we can also be "dangerous" to ourselves if our egoic attitude prevents us from connecting with others or valuing its own drive to live.  When we choose egomania, we lose one way or another.  The patriarchal ego is very lonely, very disconnected (dissociated).  After it grinds through the maternalistic resources it depends on, there is nothing left for it but despair.  That's why this is the archetypal characterization for tragedy.  Our egoism ultimately destroys us (or at least makes us miserable).






[/quote]
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Matt Koeske on February 19, 2008, 03:51:21 PM
It would otherwise be an inconsequential force in a more powerful medium which controls it.

Oh, and in my opinion, this does indeed describe the ego's condition.  It is not really calling the shots it thinks it is.  The egotist is always being compelled to act (and to believe what s/he believes) unconsciously.  There is no real free will in this condition.  But there is such dissociation from the instincts, that the drives doing the compelling are often distorted and dysfunctional.  In other words the instincts are digging in their spurs to the ego's "body", but the ego is never responding with the gift of a functional and adaptable environment.  The ego gets kicked and spurred, but it doesn't know what to do about it (except get frustrated and try to desensitize itself . . . meaning it will probably just get kicked harder and harder).  It never gets to the "watering hole".
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Sealchan on February 19, 2008, 04:36:08 PM
Quote
As for Star Wars, Anakin/Darth is tragic, but his son Luke is a mythic hero.  These are two different stories and shouldn't be conflated.  Luke makes the right decisions in order to follow the Hero's Journey, but Anakin failed to make those heroic choices.  He has "heroic capabilities", but chose poorly.  He damned himself with those choices, with the way he interpreted his reality . . . the way we all undermine ourselves (our "better selves") again and again by failing to take the "heroic path" (and failing to see-through our egoic blinders).  It's like Albus Dumbledore says to Harry Potter (paraphrasing), "It isn't what we are born with that determines our worth, but the choices we make."

In other words, the difference between the tragic figure and the mythic hero is a matter of free will, not birthright.  This is a major theme in the Harry Potter books.  Voldemort misunderstands this and places all his trust in birthright . . . and that is the difference between him and Harry.

You see free will is the modern myth...lol.

Certainly the Luke and the Anakin stories are not to be combined archetypally...or are they?  There is the tried and true Old King supplanted by New King motif.  But what if there is a cycle of New King devalues Old King (Neumann's slaying the father, Luke confronts "Vader") followed by New King redeems Old King (Star Wars, Campbell's Father Atonement)? Star Wars then becomes the ultimate "son provides the redemption to the father" story as Luke holds stubbornly (heroically) to the idea that "there is still good in him" and that his father might still choose good.

I think the birthright versus free will choice motif is a very important one and is at the core of our modern myth actually.  Those myths that take the hero's birth-given talents--those talents that put him in a mind to undertake (or be reluctantly saddled with the responsibility for) the heroic adventure--and strip them away until he is left with a profound polarized problem to which he must respond on the deepest level with a probably self-negating choice versus another supposedly easier choice seem to me to be the core of many of the myths that we find these days in anything from childrens TV series' to the most sophisticated movies and works of modern mythic literature. 

We want some abstracted sense of goodness to prevail over our given egoic natures at a crucial moment because a) we are all flawed but we want to believe that our flaws don't have a final say over our character and b) we want to believe in free will, that cognitive moment when we can just choose against whatever pattern of choices we may have made in the past because it is "the right thing to do".  But in order for this kind of story to work we must have a backstory of the hero's development, his strengths as a real power in the world over himself and others, otherwise the magical, mystical moment of free will and the good that comes from it, won't be as powerful. 

Sometimes the choice is to stick to one's nature against a persistant uncertainty that one has a valid voice.  Sometimes the choice is to wholeheartedly change one's mind.  Whenever there is a clear moral directive as the ultimate meaning, however, the story becomes "merely" a morality play.  The best ones go for that transcendent pitch and make it seem the most ambivalent as to the moral value of the choice.  For instance, in The Matrix we have Neo apparently make a selfish choice of trying to save Trinity.  Also, (I know I going on the science fiction way back machine here) in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan there is the touching phrase "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one" which Spock states to justify his personal sacrifice.  However, Kirk firmly takes up the "selfish" perspective as he goes out in search of Spock in the next movie and I feel that this is also justified as we must build up the individual as having a value even rivalling that of the collective if we are to remain secure in our sense of our protecting our individualities.

But I say that the individual who makes the counter-egoic choice consciously does so with his or her ego and so, at the risk of inflation, (which should be well countered by the context into which the ego has just miraculously passed through) I would assign a definitely positive value to the ego for that choice on the one hand and to the relatively unconscious characters both aligned and counter-aligned that have risen compensatorily around the ego and helped to create the very situation that the ego has descended into.  In the end I see the ego and the unconscious that is constellated by that particular ego as two sides to the same coin, the ego-Self, which is a consciousness that cannot comprehend itself as one thing but must always separate itself from the world into which it, nonetheless, knows it is inextricably embedded. 

It is a particularly Christian habit to debase the self (= ego) as personal self and to praise the Self (= God) as other.  But I think that you have to do both in a balanced way.  So my whole thing here is to celebrate ego for its accomplishments and to suggest that if you don't you might end up sounding like you are worshipping an Other over and above the idea of personal development.

In other words, I may have projected (correctly or incorrectly) that you worship Self or even Shadow over ego.  I apply the old truism that "you can't love another better than you can love yourself" as applicable here.  I strongly sense and wish here to admit that I sense that are quite harsh on the role of the ego as in in an effort to elevate the status of the shadow or the Self to a superior figure in the inner landscape.  And I suspect that you feel that I am exalting the ego and am overly embracing what you would consider a dangerous inflation.

I'm just realizing this potential dynamic because I think we both have spent a lot of words but are still dancing around the central difference in our perspectives.

Its hard to resist a conversation that involves Star Wars, Star Trek or The Matrix.  :-)



Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Matt Koeske on February 20, 2008, 02:50:01 PM
But I say that the individual who makes the counter-egoic choice consciously does so with his or her ego and so, at the risk of inflation, (which should be well countered by the context into which the ego has just miraculously passed through) I would assign a definitely positive value to the ego for that choice on the one hand and to the relatively unconscious characters both aligned and counter-aligned that have risen compensatorily around the ego and helped to create the very situation that the ego has descended into.  In the end I see the ego and the unconscious that is constellated by that particular ego as two sides to the same coin, the ego-Self, which is a consciousness that cannot comprehend itself as one thing but must always separate itself from the world into which it, nonetheless, knows it is inextricably embedded.

In my opinion, "counter-egoic" choice (that tries to uphold the Will of the instinctual Self at the expense of ego selfishness or egocentrism) is not really at risk of inflation.  If the ego makes some kind of a sacrifice and then feels righteous and empowered because of that sacrifice, then yes, that would be inflation.  But that inflation is at odds with real egoic sacrifice.  So I would say, to simplify, that inflation (in the more or less Jungian sense) is always characterized by the ego taking credit for some aspect of the archetypal/instinctual unconscious which it really has no influence over.  Inflation is a matter of the ego making some natural and autonomous process about egoic will . . . when in fact, the ego is really only a bystander or at best "raw material" for a "chemical" reaction.

I'm not 100% sure what you mean in the latter part of this paragraph, though.


It is a particularly Christian habit to debase the self (= ego) as personal self and to praise the Self (= God) as other.  But I think that you have to do both in a balanced way.  So my whole thing here is to celebrate ego for its accomplishments and to suggest that if you don't you might end up sounding like you are worshipping an Other over and above the idea of personal development.

I wouldn't consider it particularly Christian.  It is particularly "spiritual".  This choice to valuate Self over ego is the core of all spirituality or mysticism.  It's what defines spirituality.

The argument I've been putting forth is stating (and my personal experience has been) that the ego doesn't really "accomplish" the spiritual transformations or Work.  None of this is willed or can be dictated by egoic will.  That is the whole point of the idea of "spiritual surrender" to the Self/Other/God.  It is the same thing in Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Mystery religion, Buddhism, Voodoo, you name it.  Spiritual "ecstasy" (union with the god/instinct) is never triumphant or willed.  It is always a matter of surrender, sacrifice, dissolution, dismemberment, etc.  I'm not talking "Mattisms" here.  This is something the spiritualities of human history all agree on . . . and even as an atheist, I also agree.  In fact, it is the unconscious, ego-aggrandizement (the projection of ego onto God or the seeing of God as egoic and the egoic as Godlike) that is the root of my atheism.  Christianity (among its other problems) is especially egoic and ego-worshiping (as a product of both patriarchy and modernism, this is not surprising), so one of my main gripes with it is its diminished and perverted "gnostic Faith" (which is the very thing the Catholic Church designed itself to oppose).

The whole point of spirituality is to "worship" (or at least accept and engage with) an Other over and above the idea of personal development.  When we aren't doing this, we are not really being "spiritual".  We are not pursuing spirituality.


In other words, I may have projected (correctly or incorrectly) that you worship Self or even Shadow over ego.

That is correct . . . i.e., not a projection.  That is my attitude.  And I see Self and Shadow as the same thing on a deep enough level.  That's why I call it the Self-as-Other or the Shadow-Self.  That would be the instinctual Self that has been accurately differentiated from the ego.

I apply the old truism that "you can't love another better than you can love yourself" as applicable here.  I strongly sense and wish here to admit that I sense that are quite harsh on the role of the ego as in in an effort to elevate the status of the shadow or the Self to a superior figure in the inner landscape.

But you are still speaking in a fallacious language here.  One doesn't truly "elevate" the Self or the shadow.  It is not within the power of the ego to do this.  The ego can only valuate egoic attitudes that recognize the that the Self/Other is larger, more "powerful, more essential to living and survival than the ego . . . and that the ego is only a tool or organ of the Self's Will to live and adapt to the environment.

There is no doubt that the Self is "superior" to the ego once we have differentiated the ego from the Self.  The ego, as both Freud and Jung clearly stated, is very, very small in comparison with the rest of the "unconscious" and autonomous psyche.  We are not responsible for dictating our behaviors or thoughts in the way we imagine (I would even say that our inclination to focus valuation on our identity is governed unconsciously by instinct and is adaptive, at least within the environment of evolutionary adaptedness; we don't value our egos or identities consciously, we are compelled to do so for a non-intentioned purpose . . . but we believe in the fiction of our identity and this belief is intentioned by our instincts, our biology).  Psychoanalysis as an intellectual movement or idea is all about the devaluation of the ego and of conscious will.  It is the idea that says, "Sorry folks, but we are not as in-control as we like to believe."  It's a relocation of the Darwinian bomb dropped in the human psyche or spirit.  This is also the same idea behind the world's religions and spiritualities . . . which bask in the numinousness of the Other/God, whereas the psychoanalysts have a more demonic notion of instinct as "id".  Jung revised this to say that "id" is actually the same thing as God and should be valuated.  Even Freud wrote passages in which he described the id like Jung's collective unconscious . . . giving it a sense of mystery and spiritual numinousness and "Truth".

The point of spirituality is not to damn the ego to Hell (although Christianity sometimes seems to react this way), but merely to see the ego for what it is: an organ of the Self.  This organ can try to resist its intended purpose, but it can never really be free of the role of organ.  Even in its resistance, it becomes unconscious of its purpose (loses free will) and is affected and determined unconsciously.  The psyche (through the ego) uses rationalization to decrease cognitive dissonance . . . because the psyche just wants the individual to live in equilibrium, to survive and reproduce or perpetuate the group.  Rationalization decreases anxiety and encourages the individual to do and not be distracted by contemplation or doubt.  So the ego might favor a paradigm that seems to it to "make sense of" a behavior or belief, but the behavior or belief itself is really being driven by instinctual forces.  This is a well-established fact of human consciousness clarified by scientific testing.

The notion of not being able to love another more than oneself is (although distinctly questionable in itself) not really relevant, I think.  We (as egos) are instinctually reinforced in the love of the Self.  The love is reciprocal.  I would say, in contrast to your statement, that the only way we can really love ourselves is by loving our Selves.  Egoic self-love is narcissism.  It's the love of an idea of oneself . . . and an incomplete idea at that.  Narcissism is never a truly satisfying love, which is why the narcissistic personality is always trying to coerce others into affirming its identity.

And I suspect that you feel that I am exalting the ego and am overly embracing what you would consider a dangerous inflation.

That is my concern, indeed.  Although I don't see the inflation inherent in this as truly "dangerous".  I've seen some pretty pathological inflations in my life.  "Dangerous" inflations appear as psychoses to outside observers.  They are deeply delusional.  I think of your valuation of the conquering ego as more or less normal.  You are just building (in my opinion) a more intellectual and detailed language around the state of patriarchal egoism that we all inherit.  You rightfully see its ubiquity (and this reinforces your sense that the paradigm you are constructing is correct).  My feeling, though, is that the egoic or patriarchal condition is Maya.  It's isn't essential.  Yes, it's what we are acculturated into . . . but it is really the spike that nails Oedipus's ("swollen foot") foot to the ground.  As Freud noted.  But Freud also saw this as inevitable, as biological, as the human condition . . . and your paradigm is in many ways more Freudian than Jungian.  Just as Neumann's thinking leans more "back" toward Freud than "forward" toward Jung.

Freud (like Neumann) was more of a "paradigmist" than Jung.  Jung was a phenomenologist.  He observed phenomena and gave names to the categories these phenomena seemed to naturally sort themselves into (i.e., he didn't sort the categories himself).  Freud had an intuitive stroke of genius (the Oedipus complex) and tried to fit all phenomena into that intuited paradigm.  This was the fundamental difference in the way the two men thought.

The problem with being a paradigmist is that one loses consciousness of "Otherness" and becomes unable to see and valuate data that suggests contradiction to the paradigm.  This is why Freud is conventionally considered "reductive" today.  He reduces all the various data to his paradigm.  Today, most psychologists don't think Freud's paradigmatic reductionism is tenable.  There is more to life and to humanness than the Oedipus complex.  The data, like an eruption from the id, eventually overwhelmed the Freudian paradigm.  This is perhaps why Freud wanted Jung and his other disciples to make "an unshakable bulwark" of the "sexual theory" (the Freudian paradigm).  That is, Freud was not ultimately driven by the truth or by the actual.  He was not dedicated to the understanding of phenomena.  He was more dedicated to his paradigm and to evangelizing for it (which he considered a good in itself . . . as if the paradigm were given to him like the Commandments were given to Moses, directly from God himself).

My concern in your case is not that you are pathologically inflated or an "egomaniac".  I just think your paradigm is limiting.  It's not big enough for you to fully live through.  And the ultimate function and purpose of a paradigm is to facilitate life (instinctual life).  If the paradigm restricts instinctual living rather than facilitates it, then I think we should question the design of the paradigm.  It may need to be revised. 

In my experience and throughout what I call the Work, I have had to constantly revise and discard old paradigms.  Most recently, I've been discarding and revising aspects of Jung's paradigms.  And I'm driven to do this because his paradigms ceased to facilitate my process of instinctual ("spiritual") living and ceased to make sense of my spiritual/psychological experiences.

What concerns me is that I don't see this process of revising and discarding old paradigms as as highly prioritized for you.  I worry that you have become more concerned with walling out the Other and its irksome questions (which often manifest as anima or shadow in dreams) brick by brick just to protect your paradigm . . . and aren't realizing that you are simultaneously walling yourself into an unlivably tight space.

I don't mean to say that I can offer you the "right paradigm" or that I want to "convert" you to my Self-valuating/ego-devaluing theories.  But like any Jungian (phenomenologist), I am leery of "maniacal" paradigm building . . . and as a friend and dream work companion, I worry that it could be self-destructive for you.

But, of course, I simultaneously worry that you will see my arguments and expressed concerns in a defensive way, i.e., as "masculine aggressive" attempts to break down your city walls and invade/conquer you.  I can only try to convince you that this is not my motivation.  But I fear that the structure of your paradigm may prevent you from seeing my arguments in any other light.  Essentially, I fear that there is an unexpressed asking of me to either 1.) admit I am a roving conquerer who wants to invade your city and add your population to the "Empire", or 2.) go away and admit that your walls/paradigm are too great for me to be able to penetrate (thereby affording you and your paradigm a "victory").

But there is no room in the perspective of such a paradigm for a concerned friend's opinions or for genuine care/Eros.  That is, by constructing the paradigm walls in the way you seem to have prevents Eros/connection/penetration and leaves no room to differentiate between "hostile" penetration" and "comradely influence/connection".

I don't know what the best thing is for me to do.  If my opinions and assessments are wrong, then I can't see how or why . . . and in that case, I am helpless to react differently.  If my opinions are right (or at least "right enough" in the given circumstance), then I have to worry that either too much or too little "knocking at the door" will have a negative impact on you (i.e., too much = hostile invasion, too little = reinforcement of your paradigmatic fortitude/defensiveness).  That leaves me with almost no ground whatsoever to stand on in the act of relating to you.  But the way you have built your city, I have to squeeze into a tiny space and balance on a slippery slope in order to relate to you (as perhaps you yourself are well aware).  This allows you as king and architect of your city to have a high degree of determination and control over anyone who might try to relate to you.

Which is to say that, if I or anyone else wants to relate to you, we must grant you near absolute power over the relationship (although I expect that you set different relational roles for women than for men; the women get more space, but it may ultimately be just as much a prison for the Other).

I am also trying to see that we are both essentially in the same position, deadlocked.  Perhaps, of the two of us, I tend to be the more feeling-/Eros-oriented . . . and so my theoretical arguments have more of a tone of "therapeutic concern".  Which, I have to consider, is potentially perceived as more threatening.  That's why I tried to situate this discussion initially in the theoretical realm.  But I am what I am.  I have tried logos by differentiating modes of "heroism" and deducing where each mode leads to ("tragedy" or "rebirth").  I have tried ethos by bringing in examples from mythology and by evoking Jungian ideas and suggesting that your take on Campbell's archetypal hero was incomplete or misinterpreted.  But I am ultimately a creature of pathos . . . and so feeling is at the root of all my arguing.  Which is perhaps, in this case the self-damning root, because you intuitively detect pathos and distrust it.

So maybe the core of our disagreement and difference here is that I am not willing to (or able to) sacrifice my "pathetic" stance . . . and you are not willing to entertain even a residual level of pathos in argument (i.e., see pathos as compatible with logos).  Any amount of pathos contaminates and occludes logos and ethos?  But if this is the case, how can you ever change or grow or connect with another?

It seems to me that you do not recognize or consider the logos and the ethos I have injected in to my argument . . . and your detection of pathos is my guess as to why this is.  But to me this anti-pathos (antipathy) seems like an abdication of logos and ethos, too.  You seem to define yourself more by logos and ethos . . . and yet, it is you, ultimately, who have raised pathos to the highest, judging position in your decision-making.  But you have done this shadow-wise and maybe even unconsciously(?).  That is, pathos/feeling has been imbued with so much negative valuation that it has become for you the ultimate judge in your idea-making.  It's the shadow pathos that builds such marvelous and impenetrable walls . . . not logos or ethos.  But that shadow pathos is your real master in this situation, not theory or paradigm.

My intention is to leave this package of ideas at your gate.  I don't want to go on knocking if it will only serve to polarize us or encourage you to reinforce the gate.  Perhaps there will be a chocolate in this box that proves, eventually, palatable.
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Sealchan on February 20, 2008, 07:05:47 PM
Quote
My intention is to leave this package of ideas at your gate.  I don't want to go on knocking if it will only serve to polarize us or encourage you to reinforce the gate.  Perhaps there will be a chocolate in this box that proves, eventually, palatable.

I appreciate your concern over how I might be taking this conversation.  I want to reassure you that no hard feelings are building and, actually, not even frustration.  Perhaps, I should apologize for not somehow meeting you halfway.  I suspect that there is some maniacal trickster God to which I have sold my soul in that I dance around changing my hat like Edshu for whom "spreading strife is my greatest joy".  Not that I am intentionally trying to be difficult.

I suspect that the way in which I relate to others is to argue and debate ideas.  Not to determine agreement or whatnot but to get a sense of someone by finding out what ideas they stick to and which one's they might reconsider given an additional argument or piece of information.  I look at my own allegiance to ideas as context driven given how I feel in a given context. 

For instance, I have been defending the ego as if I practically worship it, but I am now realizing that if I were I in a room full of hedonists or people whose logical philosophy made no room for the unconscious, I would be all about showing up the ego's limitations and the need to reflect as if the ego was not the center of the universe.  At some point I usually just toss up my hands and say, "I believe in both".  But I will tend to argue in a one sided way given the context I am in.  I guess you could say I am a professional devil's advocate.  That is probably more true of my interactions with men than with women. 

My real stance is usually to say "both are true...but I'm feeling this side of both right now."  So if I think you are coming down to one side of a polarity I will probably polarize in an opposite direction and argue that side as if I believed that side more than the one you are arguing.  I don't stop to consider the time and effor the other person might be giving or the concern about how I am taking the discussion come into the picture.  So now, if I stop and reflect, I wonder if I should just stop discussing this topic in this mode because I am being more argumentative than anything. 

So the funny thing is that whenever you say you feel my position might be limiting me I am always thinking, "but I believe both sides, how can my position be limiting" until I realize that I have been making a one-sided argument.   This is something that I am coming into an awareness of even as I type.  This may be the first time I have called myself on this.

If it can make any sense that I have a high comfort level with two oppositional perspectives both being true at the same time then I say, "I whole-heartedly half agree with you and half disagree with you."  That is the position from which I feel I argue about all this stuff and anything philosophical.

So the hero figure who starts off aggressively (separative) finds he or she must give up, on some level, an egoic stubbornness of attitude as other, unaccounted for aspects of the psyche assert themselves under the direction of the Self as archetype of the whole psyche until the ego lets go of those limiting assumptions.  The hero figure who starts off passively (connective bias) is cajoled into a more assertive stance and finds him or herself more empowered after the adventure than before because it realizes that in its connection to the Self it is an empowered center with influence reaching from inner horizon to inner horizon. 

I have a differing view of the ego-Self as two sides of the same coin rather than ego as an organ of the Self.  The ego, in its objective, universal characteristics, realized as such, will probably be encountered as a powerful or omniscient Other while the ego in its subjective, particular characteristics will probably be seen as small and ignorant Me when seen against the diverse, complex and adaptive wonder that is the greater psyche.  One analogy might be the valuation of the Earth and the human race which is, to the extent that we are the greatest, most adaptive expression of the Universe central and powerful and to the extent that we can affect the vastness of the space in which we live, we are tiny, inconsequential and largely unnoticed.

But to the extent that the creation of consciousness and self-consciousness is the goal, the ego is the center of that process and consciousness carries the value for an undeveloped, undifferentiated mind is less valuable to him or herself and the collective than is one with a more developed ego-consciousness.  The Self as prefigured or developed in process is co-important in that a Self with an undeveloped ego is not much more than an ego unrelated to the Self.  I also don't hold the adaptation to the inner world as a higher one than the adaptation to the outer world as I believe the two worlds are two sides of the same coin as well.  The Self is the indispensible guide and support for the development of the ego, it is the God-like potential whereas the ego is the matter-like realization.  My hats off to both which, as I believe, are really One.   (-)howdy(-)

I guess what I do is take any given view, try to imagine a mirror image of it and keep both in mind for looking at potentially archetypal content.  Where I feel the danger lies mostly is in pairing polarities together (masculine-feminine to separative-connective) and thereby not considering a potential counter alignment.  However, noticing these polarities and their mutual potential alignments is indispensible to the Work.
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Matt Koeske on February 21, 2008, 03:23:30 PM
I appreciate your concern over how I might be taking this conversation.  I want to reassure you that no hard feelings are building and, actually, not even frustration.  Perhaps, I should apologize for not somehow meeting you halfway.  I suspect that there is some maniacal trickster God to which I have sold my soul in that I dance around changing my hat like Edshu for whom "spreading strife is my greatest joy".  Not that I am intentionally trying to be difficult.

(-)laugh(-)

I have been feeling very conflicted about "pushing" you on these things.  I had a dream relating to it last night that I only partially remember.  I am writing it up now and will post it soon.  I wish I could say that I have been frustration-free, too, but alas.  Still, I'm glad to hear you say this.  It makes me feel less anxious.

I suspect that the way in which I relate to others is to argue and debate ideas.  Not to determine agreement or whatnot but to get a sense of someone by finding out what ideas they stick to and which one's they might reconsider given an additional argument or piece of information.  I look at my own allegiance to ideas as context driven given how I feel in a given context.

You could be describing me here as well   (-)howdy(-).  I understand and respect this.

For instance, I have been defending the ego as if I practically worship it, but I am now realizing that if I were I in a room full of hedonists or people whose logical philosophy made no room for the unconscious, I would be all about showing up the ego's limitations and the need to reflect as if the ego was not the center of the universe.  At some point I usually just toss up my hands and say, "I believe in both".  But I will tend to argue in a one sided way given the context I am in.  I guess you could say I am a professional devil's advocate.  That is probably more true of my interactions with men than with women.

Devil's advocacy is an ancient and honorable tradition  (-)dvgrn(-).  I'm used to playing that role, so perhaps my confusion and concern is a matter of both of us mirroring back the other?

I have felt that in your argument on behalf of the ego that you seemed a bit "Demonic", that you were really pushing a perspective that I didn't think you were as much a "true believer" in as you were acting.  I have been confused about why you would do this.  If it is merely a matter of my proposed undervaluation of the ego, then that's more comforting to me.  My position (and the Jungian position in general) is quite challengeable on the whole "down with the ego, up with the Self" attitude.  In fact, the Jungians have received their fair share of criticism from others on this very point.  I have generally felt this criticism was well-deserved, even if not always well-constructed in itself.

A good topic to discuss this would be one that examines what effects "Self-worship" has on the development and functionality of the ego.  Maybe one of the problems is that the Hero archetype is not the best venue for an examination of the ego/Self relationship.  The hero (or heroic ego) represents an ideal attitude of the ego toward the Self . . . but it's an attitude that is not always attainable or maintainable.  We egos are not heroes.  We can put our money on the hero or we can bet it elsewhere.  But the hero is in the ring while we are always in the stands.  In reality, we fail to be heroic more often than we succeed.  And sometimes forgiving ourselves for our lapses, failures, and stumbles is the most difficult part of backing the heroic ego.  At least, that's the hardest part for me.

My ultimate position is not meant to throw the ego on the dung heap.  Just as you were accentuating your pro-ego stance, I was accentuated my anti-ego stance.  My genuine opinion on the ego is that it is (despite its limitations) the key to living.  The Self knows this, and that's why it is "so concerned" with the way the ego thinks and behaves (why in the Old Testament, God is always so annoyed at and involved with his creation).  My core feeling is that the ego doesn't need to stand against the Self or the unconscious . . . that there is no "healthiness" or functionality in that.  Yet it is impossible not to stand against the Self some of the time, because (especially in the modern) our culture, the main source of ego-determination, stands against the individual Self much of the time, trying to conform individuals to collective standards.  But in coordination with instinct, the ego can rise to a "heroic" status in the psyche . . . and it deserves the respect it gets.  Initiation is a "ceremony" (today, more often a psychic event) that eventually gives ego its due (with the award of spirit animal and True Name and a seat at the personality negotiating table).  But if that respect gets to its head too much . . . back down it goes into the mud.  And the Self pushes against it again.

I see "consciousness" (as process and way of being) as a constant motion like this.  We, as egos, do what we think or believe is best, and sometimes we get the nod from the Self, and sometimes we don't.  When we don't, we wrestle with our "better angel" until some new perspective (Logos) is created.  But in my opinion, this is always a negotiation between "powers".  There is no dictation on either side.  Sometimes the Self seems to be asking us to do something that we know would just wipe us out, something we couldn't recover from.  And so we bargain for a compromise.  The Self is not very compromising, but it is not entirely unreasonable.  These negotiations are the way to live consciously.  There is no "attainment" reached in which we are genuinely "righteous" and always know the answer off the top of our heads.  We earn ourselves a seat at the negotiation table, and then we do the best we can to come to a "living solution".


So the funny thing is that whenever you say you feel my position might be limiting me I am always thinking, "but I believe both sides, how can my position be limiting" until I realize that I have been making a one-sided argument.   This is something that I am coming into an awareness of even as I type.  This may be the first time I have called myself on this.

I would see it as limiting to the degree that you were living by the ideas you were arguing for.  One of the reasons I've been pushing you on this is that I didn't think you really wanted to live by those ideas (alone).  I.e., I didn't believe you were stating these things in Good Faith or were fighting for a position that you really wanted to live through (as your position seemed more extreme than anything you had declared before).  In other words, I felt a change in your attitude and behavior . . . but one that seemed more one-sided than the "old you".  I was trying to apply pressure on the other side that seemed to be neglected (just as you were resisting my one-sided valuation  (-)laugh(-)).

If it can make any sense that I have a high comfort level with two oppositional perspectives both being true at the same time then I say, "I whole-heartedly half agree with you and half disagree with you."

 (-)laugh2(-)

Quote
That is the position from which I feel I argue about all this stuff and anything philosophical.

That's completely fine with me.  I understand and relate to that.  I think the tricky thing is that my style of argument may seem to be identical to this on the surface (and I have often said very similar things to what you are saying) . . . but I have "ulterior motives".  Namely, it is some kind of feeling-level engagement that I am looking for.  Not a "my ideas vs. your ideas" . . . but a "how are you and I alike and on what ground or in what language can we build a bridge between us?"  With that bridge we would be able to say, "we know how we think and feel and how these feelings and thoughts relate to and reflect off of one another."  It's a process of self-definition (in relation to the Other).  Because only when we understand our true similarities and true differences can we genuinely relate to one another (i.e., relate without projections and so forth).

It's just like the engagement of knights in the medieval romances.  Originally two wills "meet in the woods" and stand in one another's ways.  Battle ensues, but in that battle, the true nature, strength, and honor of the individuals is revealed.  The battle ends when each party has come to understand who the opponent really is and what s/he is made of.  Therefore, ritually, the "true name" is shared with the other . . . and the two are bonded together in fraternal love and camaraderie.

I have been worrying though, that you would "fight to the death" rather than to the point of recognition of and respect for the Other.  But we may have a "mirror within a mirror" reaction going on here.

So the hero figure who starts off aggressively (separative) finds he or she must give up, on some level, an egoic stubbornness of attitude as other, unaccounted for aspects of the psyche assert themselves under the direction of the Self as archetype of the whole psyche until the ego lets go of those limiting assumptions.  The hero figure who starts off passively (connective bias) is cajoled into a more assertive stance and finds him or herself more empowered after the adventure than before because it realizes that in its connection to the Self it is an empowered center with influence reaching from inner horizon to inner horizon.

I would generally agree that the input from the Self is compensatory.  But we are complex creatures.  We are many things at once, and many of these things are contradictory with one another.  So the Self may encourage certain kinds of heroism in an ego that doesn't recognize its own aptitude for such heroism.  But this same ego may believe it is "heroic" in other ways, and the Self may stand against that. Both happen simultaneously, and that is confusing.

This has been, at least, my personal experience.  But inflation is very devilish.  That is, those times when we believe in our own heroism even against the compensatory Will of the Self.  It's hard to recognize when this is and hard to let go even after we recognize it.

I have a differing view of the ego-Self as two sides of the same coin rather than ego as an organ of the Self.  The ego, in its objective, universal characteristics, realized as such, will probably be encountered as a powerful or omniscient Other while the ego in its subjective, particular characteristics will probably be seen as small and ignorant Me when seen against the diverse, complex and adaptive wonder that is the greater psyche.  One analogy might be the valuation of the Earth and the human race which is, to the extent that we are the greatest, most adaptive expression of the Universe central and powerful and to the extent that we can affect the vastness of the space in which we live, we are tiny, inconsequential and largely unnoticed.

Yes.  And taking this analogy, I would be the kind of person who says, "We live in the universe" . . . not "we live on the Earth".  Also, "Even though we think we are living as the masters of the Earth, we are actually living within the vast universe, making our sense of mastery an illusion."  I think we become better beings, more ethical, more connected, when we recognize that we live in the universe and not on our throne, the Earth.  Even illusory power corrupts.

I would also make the analogy (although it is, I think partially a scientific fact, too) that the ego is to the psyche as short-term or working memory is to long-term memory.  We get the feeling that when we think, we are creating, constructing, controlling . . . but really, most of what we "think" just comes into consciousness (step back for a second and observe your thought process if you disagree).  We call for memories to come and they come (sometimes, not all the time).  We do not go down to get them and we do not recreate them in consciousness.  I see the ego as like looking at a slide under a microscope.  It is a point of focus, our consciousness.  But we do not prepare the slides or switch them around or file the stored contents away on a shelf, or create the "specimens" we are studying, etc.  We, as egos, just see through the microscope.  What goes on beyond the view of that microscope is only intuited.  It is "context" to consciousness . . . and we have no control over that context.


The Self as prefigured or developed in process is co-important in that a Self with an undeveloped ego is not much more than an ego unrelated to the Self.

The Self is dependent on the ego to get libido into and out of the environment, in order to live.  I see the ego's relationship to the Self (as the alchemists did, too) as akin to the redemption of God by the son (or daughter).  The abstract parent god can't live in the world.  The child/hero (the heroic ego) seeks to bring the god into the world, sacrificing his or her dependence on the providence of that parent god.  In other words, God is lost and maybe dying.  If we don't harness consciousness to the task of saving and redeeming God, then God will die.  This is essentially what the alchemists believed, as well.

So the importance of the ego (perhaps not really a "co-importance") is not a matter of its ability to "be God", but its ability to redeem or heal God (by bringing God into the world . . . not pretending to be God in the world).  The key difference is between facilitating and pretending to be God.  Facilitation requires great sacrifice and humility ("he who would be first must be last", etc.)  This is what the Gnostic Christian story is all about.  Not righteousness, but honor.

I also don't hold the adaptation to the inner world as a higher one than the adaptation to the outer world as I believe the two worlds are two sides of the same coin as well.  The Self is the indispensible guide and support for the development of the ego, it is the God-like potential whereas the ego is the matter-like realization.  My hats off to both which, as I believe, are really One.   (-)howdy(-)

I completely agree.  I read this into the alchemical opus or opera.  The first/Lunar/White opus is about adapting the ego to the Self and defining/differentiating ego and Self through the construction of a Logos (the filius philosophorum).  The second/Solar/Red opus is about learning how to facilitate the Self's adaptation to the world, to the outer environment (by continuing to develop an outwardly directed Logos and allowing the filius philosophorum to grow to adulthood).  The problem is that we can't pursue the second opus in Good Faith until we have completed the first.  They are sequential.  If we think we are doing "second opus Work" when we haven't completed the first opus, we will become inflated and live in Bad Faith, in delusion and self-aggrandizement.  We cannot do second-opus Work in Good Faith until we have functionally differentiated ego from Self.  Until we accomplish that, we really don't know who is calling the shots.  We can't tell God from "the Me".  And this is precisely how (in my opinion) our ideas of God so often get invested with egoic and anthropic characteristics.


I guess what I do is take any given view, try to imagine a mirror image of it and keep both in mind for looking at potentially archetypal content.  Where I feel the danger lies mostly is in pairing polarities together (masculine-feminine to separative-connective) and thereby not considering a potential counter alignment.  However, noticing these polarities and their mutual potential alignments is indispensible to the Work.

Jung's thinking on this kind of thing (as I expect you know) was that, in order to be/become conscious, we have to take a position on something.  Then, we can come to recognize the antithesis of that position and how these Opposites relate to one another.  Then we can work to make a synthesis of the Opposites.  But even in synthesis, there is a position to maintain.  The idea that we can or should maintain "positionlessness" is what the Jungians would consider a "puer notion".  That is, it remains nebulous, undefined, but only because it anchors itself to some kind of parental ground that enables this attitude or provides a safe space for it.  We can't really deal with others or with the world, though, when we opt for puer positionlessness.  We might imagine we are "relating" and that we "float in the Unus Mundus" or are one with the anima mundi, but really we are only umbilically tied to the maternal unconscious, which is our all-provident lifeline.  If we go out "into the world" or engage with a genuine Other, we must either take up a position of be blown away.  Puer positionlessness is maladaptive, in other words.  It cannot relate, because it cannot endure Otherness.

There can't be a heroic attitude without moral differentiation: this is what I stand against, and this is what I stand for.  We can't sacrifice this kind of attitude and still be ethical or connected to others.  So we need to have some way of bringing justice or fairness into our judgments and positions . . . which is what I think "honor" is for.  Honor is a code for or a way of valuating and relating to the Other, of seeing oneself in the Other . . . but also knowing the differences.  Honor tempers judgment.  But the perpetuation of Opposites never ends . . . the honorable, after all, opposes the dishonorable.  There is never any positionlessness in consciousness.  We can keep synthesizing and synthesizing, but this still leads us to a thesis.  And for every thesis there is an antithesis.  Maybe not a credible or "sane" antithesis . . . but much of life seems to be a matter of dealing with incredible and insane people.

I certainly don't think of you as one of those.  But I did feel like your proposed antithesis (or the thesis I opposed with my antithesis (-)ball(-)) was not entirely "sane" . . . as in livable, a livable philosophy.  For some reason it didn't occur to me that you would be accentuating your position in reflection of my own.  I mean I sensed a "defense" (as I said in the post above) . . . but I didn't fully consider a reflection, a mutual reflection, that is.

I'm sorry about that.  Always the "analyst", I worried that what I sensed as "defense" was complex-driven (thinking of the situation in terms of your more recent dreams with shadow figures in them).  I worried that I was driving you into the grip of the Demon when I really wanted to say, "Watch out!  There's the Demon!  Back away slowly."

Well, I'm still pretty confused . . . but glad to hear what you wrote in this post, as it makes a lot more sense to me.  Still . . . Watch out for the Demon!  The Deeeeemonnnn!!  (-)922(-)  (-)laugh(-)

Yours,
Matt
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Sealchan on February 21, 2008, 05:33:34 PM
Quote
Well, I'm still pretty confused . . . but glad to hear what you wrote in this post, as it makes a lot more sense to me.  Still . . . Watch out for the Demon!  The Deeeeemonnnn!!   

Well, the little odyssey that we have been on has been, I believe, at least in part due to an argumentativeness that I "fell" into here.  It is not like those situations where I get much more strongly possessed as if I am fighting for my life or something.  Those seem to have to do with logistics and other inconsequential choices which tie me up in knots.  I am a very habitual person who finds interruptions or the unexpected, especially after work or the end of a work week, to be maddening.

But this argumentativeness, this has mainly been an issue in my relationship with my wife.  It may be an aggressive response to a stronger feeling function.  If this is true then it would fit in with my sense that my tertiary function is feeling and my inferior function is sensation.   I have a mild form of possession (and after reading your last post and finding that I just about completely agree with you, I does feel like it was a possession) with the tertiary feeling function and a more extreme possession of the unconscious with my inferior sensation function.

As such this is all been building in that it is a familiar pattern of behavior but for me to come out of it spontaneously is unusual.  Maybe I have made the swim to the resort...

So maybe my dream work is helping and my consciousness and self-consciousness is growing.  I have long thought that the possession by a mood even a fairly mild (argumentative one) is one of the orienting arrows for where one should take the next step...this is the path of "follow your suffering" which I imagine is the compliment to "follow your bliss".

Thanks for the therapy session!  lol
Title: Re: the Hero Archetype
Post by: Matt Koeske on February 22, 2008, 10:37:19 AM
Thanks for the therapy session!  lol

It's been a two-way therapy (like any constructive relationship).  I am grateful, too.

Please don't think I ever had any idea what I was doing  (-).?!.(-)  (-)laugh(-).  It's just like in alchemy, you put two different types of wills into the vessel together . . . dissolve, apply heat . . . and what happens is "Nature", not individual intention.

I'm still finishing up my dream write-up that relates to our conversation.  Should be posted today.