Hmmm ... seemed some truth here. WAKING UP ON THE THRESHOLD OF...

Hmmm ... seemed some truth here.

WAKING UP ON THE THRESHOLD OF CHAOS

Power and greed have so fragmented today's world that our mind
has difficulty grasping the terrible danger. Marion Woodman, a
Jungian analyst, points to how we can create a larger union within the planet's unified field.

MARION WOODMAN is interviewed by Sarida Brown


Sarida: As a profound observer of the psyche, do you see reasons for concern at current world events?

Marion: Deep concern. The archetypal fragmentation erupting collectively on the planet is being mirrored in individual psyches so that we are seeing ourselves breaking into two parts. Historically, these fragmentations take place in order for a larger union to happen, but very few people are able to hold the possibility of union in a hundred or two hundred years time. That has been the way of evolution throughout world history. Small tribes fought each other and through their fighting became a nation; then nations fought wars for centuries and, as a result, greater units have formed; we now have the United Nations. We also have the whole planet involved through the terrorist movement. Ultimately, this fragmentation may force the union that is essential if Earth is to survive.

We can’t go on devastating the planet with bigger and more toxic bombs, poisoning the earth and the waters. I do believe there is a God and the planet isn’t meant to destroy itself, but humankind may go through the torment of hell trying to arrive at that union.

You speak of deep archetypal fragmentation. What changes do you see emerging?

Jung recognized the danger of archetypal take-over. In his Nietzsche Seminars, which he began working on in 1934, he realized that there was archetypal energy building up on the other side of the Alps. He worked with people in Switzerland to build their individual strength so that they could see the immense danger of what was happening in Germany. He saw archetypal projection going onto one leader until that leader was no longer an ordinary man: to his followers he was becoming a saviour who would be able to take care of his children and lead them to immense success, and give them all they yearned for. Jung saw how Hitler captured the hope and love of a defeated people. The archetype operating in the German psyche is Siegfried, the great hero and warrior who will lead his people into the sunrise. He is a spiritual being who can bring out the very best in their relationship to their own creativity and to their spiritual values, and they can believe that they are the very best in the world because they are identified with that archetypal energy.

One has to remember that an archetype is a god energy that always has two sides. Where there is bright light, the other side is equally dark; they are in ratio.

Is there an equivalent archetype operating in the United States?

Certainly something is operating there. The leader builds up an atmosphere of fear and the people are afraid that something dreadful is going to happen tomorrow, perhaps a deadly attack inside their own country, if they don’t get rid of a certain tyrant. Into that atmosphere of fear is projected the energy of the Crusades that says, ‘God is on our side. He is telling me what to do and I keep in touch with Him through prayer’. Then the archetypal energy, a god energy, is on their side, supposedly. When that is pitted against Saddam Hussein with his Allah energy, that is archetypal energy at war.

if people can recognize what it is in themselves that
can be taken over by an archetypal energy then it
gives them some insight into a leader who has himself been taken over

The dark side is an inflation that is totally destructive, because who can harm someone who is armed with that kind of light? Napoleon decided he could defeat the Russians in Moscow in the winter time; he found out he couldn’t. Alexander the Great, and Hitler with Russia were also defeated by inflation. If you believe in your archetypal energies to the point where you are no longer a plain ordinary human being walking on the ground, you will do diabolic things because the demonic is in the inflation, and you don’t believe you can be defeated. That archetypal energy is the energy that produces war. You would think we had learned our lesson in the Twentieth Century but here we are again…

At some level we know this is happening but we are bewildered by the contradictions between human values and the reality we are living through. We respond with incredulity, and then feelings of numbness and powerlessness creep in, and self-distrust.

You see where the powerlessness comes in: if people can recognize what it is in themselves that can be taken over by an archetypal energy then it gives them some insight into a leader who has himself been taken over by archetypal energy. For example, an addict projects power onto drugs. The drug gives him a feeling that he can do anything, that he is all happiness, all light, all creativity – or alcohol gives a momentary lift, or sexuality, so that he or she as a human being is no longer present. The power of the archetype shakes the body and the person becomes more and more energized at the idea of getting into that space. You can see the excitement vibrating in the body. A gambler has the same thing: he needs the high and that archetypal energy takes him out of his humanity. Of course he gets thrown back into it pretty fast when the god energy ceases. We don’t see the leader of a country when his seizure ceases, if it ever does. Maybe he never questions himself, ‘Who am I? A simple man walking on the earth’. Maybe he keeps people around him who are equally blinded. While he’s in that archetypal projection, anybody who doesn’t reflect it is not going to be his friend. Anybody who says, ‘You are just a plain ordinary guy walking on the ground and this big saviour that you’re pretending to be doesn’t exist.’ The archetype is the saviour of his country…

Does the archetypal projection and inflation also create disregard for the suffering of others? For example, when his grand designs involve bombing civilians and he calls them ‘collateral damage’?

Yes. And the fact that the ‘friends’ are probably moving up the ladder of power with him so long as they mirror him. If they don’t mirror him they have to go. He has to live in that bubble of being the greatest. Conscience ceases to operate because the delusion has to be fed lies.

Leaders have to have archetypal power, otherwise they can’t pull a nation together. But it is a dangerous power. During World War II, Churchill was carrying archetypal energy but he had a sound reality base and he knew the danger that England was in. He was a warrior and he knew how to force reality onto the nation that he was leading – blood, sweat and tears was all that he promised. When he had accomplished what was important to the war, the archetypal projection was pulled back and the English people voted him out of power. That is where an archetype is working creatively…

It seems that Mandela was able to hold his humanity while carrying a very big archetypal power.

That’s right. From a psychological point of view, the ego has to be strong enough to say ‘Yes, this power does come to me, but I am a simple human being walking with two feet well planted on the ground. When I stand up in front of a group and that energy and light come pouring through me, the audience is relating to archetypal energy. But I am not that energy; it just flows through me.’ Otherwise the ego loses its common sense. That is the terrible danger of what is happening now. Both sides know their god is with them.

It is terrifying to see how greed has taken over as an archetype: the corporate world has become an archetype and people yearn for money and what money can buy. The simple moral values that would at one time have told them that this was raping Earth have ceased to function. Surely we have to return to the place where we can see ourselves as human beings walking in God’s garden and take care of it.

We have to ask ourselves, ‘Where am I being hooked into energies that are destroying the planet and destroying the individual in society?’

You may believe that you have worked very hard to create a value system that is moral and integrated, but if you think about the dollar cup of coffee that you drank this morning and of the person who made it possible for that coffee to be on your table, you may realize he or she is receiving one cent, if that, from the plantation owner. Or if you realize that these shoes were created by slave labour in Malaysia you won’t run around quite so joyously in your sneakers. Our rich cultures have been established on the poverty of others. Imperialism all over again! And the same thing with the environment. If I put poison on my grass to create a more perfect lawn, then I am poisoning the soil to do it…

Even well intentioned people are passive onlookers. How do we move from being passive onlookers to being part of the solution?

…If we can become conscious of how we are colluding with destructive forces, and stop assuming we can’t do anything, we can stand for something. We can speak out with our own voice about these crucial issues. We can change the consciousness of the planet. We have become one world but we behave as if we didn’t know it. A whole shift has happened that the psyche has not assimilated. Day by day we’ve got to wake up even in tiny details…

In his Nietzche Seminars (1934-9), Jung presaged the madness that was going to overtake Europe. He realized that the archetypal energy that was building was creating what he called a threshold of chaos. Jung said the key is to hold that line of chaos. If the ego is strong enough, it can hold the tension between the opposites – recognize the light of the archetype, the new vision in the archetype, and recognize at the same time the diabolic danger in the darkness. If a human being begins to think he is God, that’s madness. So how is one to hold the balance between that new vision and that madness?

By holding onto the opposites, holding that tension – this is true in any individual life – we come to these places where we see their tremendous possibility and at the same time the darkness on their other side. If we can hold that tension, it can release the dancing star. That edge of chaos is where we think, 'All that I believe in, all that I have trusted, all that I have known to be my truth is being taken away from me; I can no longer control my life; other forces are taking over'. If at that point we can hold and recognize those forces that are coming in, then we can become a dancing star…
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Cheers ... tight stops.


This is only my view ... read the red stuff.