The Arc of Human History

The Long Arc of Human History

by Len Cruz

Allow me to paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The arc of history is long, but it bends toward the religious instinct.



Jung studied the symbols of religious traditions as a window into the nature of the psyche. His openness to different images of the Divine paralleled his openness to interior images that others might easily have relegated to the domain of psychosis.



The Jungian tradition emerged during a tremendously fertile period of scientific development in the late 19th and early 20th century. Remarkably, over a matter of a little more than six years of formal interactions between Jung and Freud, their professional collaboration ran its course. Jung departed from Freud, who had proposed in The Future of an Illusion that religious belief was an infantile defense against the ill-defined sense of an omnipotent deity. Jung recognized a universality in the religious instinct that made its appearance in myriad ways across vastly different cultures. Most importantly, Jung demonstrated that the journey of the spirit is unique to each and every person.



The streams that merge in any individual to find expression in matters of the spirit are limitless. Some of us are raised in an overbearing religious tradition while others arise with almost no instruction or outer structure. Something deep within us yearns and that yearning can become the cornerstone of faith or spiritual awakening. Psychology has the capacity to deepen the religious instinct and invigorate the spirit. According to Jung we are stamped with the imago Dei. Jung gave this stamp of God's image primacy:

“unity and totality stand at the highest point on the scale of objective values because their symbols can no longer be distinguished from the imago Dei.”(1)



"When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi troubles my sight"(2) ... Each of us must decide how we will respond to the encounter with the "vast image". When we become aware that deep calls unto deep seldom do we miss that the call appears to be unceasing. Martin Buber went so far as to claim that "Through the Thou a person becomes the I".



I thought about some of the steps I have taken in my own spiritual journey and it led me to frame it with a list of books that hold a special places in my formation. (Feel free to skip to the end of the list since the special quality of the list is that it is my list.)

A Wrinkle in Time (L'Engle)

Bhagavad Gita & Upanishads

The Teachings of Don Juan, A Journey to Ixtlan (Castaneda)

Stranger in a Strange Land (Heinlen)

Seven Story Mountain (Merton)

The Secret Sharer, Heart of Darkness (Conrad)

For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Old Man and the Sea (Hemingway)

The Practice of the Presence of God (Brother Lawerence)

A Wizard of Earthsea, The Left Hand of Darkness (Leguin)

El Aleph (Borges)

Holy Bible

The Interpretation of Dreams, The Ego and Id, The Future of an Illusion (Freud)

Flatland (Abbott)

Tres Tristes Tigres (Cabrera Infante)

The Dancing Wu Li Masters, The Hidden Connections (Capra)

The Dark Night of the Soul (St. John of the Cross)

Aspects of a Theory of Syntax, On Langugage (Chomsky)

The Fractal Geometry of Nature (Mandelbrot)

Between Metaphysics and Protoanalysis (Ichazo)

The Way of the Pilgrim

Man and His Symbols, The Undiscovered Self (Jung)

Karate-Do Kyohan: the Master Text (Funakoshi)

Karate is a Thing of the Spirit, Car (Crews)

The Myth of Sisyphus (Camus)

Selected Poems (Tennyson)

Steps to Freedom, The Alchemy of the Heart (Field)

Markings (Hammarskjold)

Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Mind and Nature (Bateson)

Gödel, Escher, Bach (Hofstadter)

A Bell for Adono (Hershey)

The Structure of Magic (Bandler & Grindler)

Revolt of the Massess (Ortega y Gasset)

The Death of Artemio Cruz (Vargas Llosa)

I and Thou (Buber)

Twilight of the Idols, The Anti-Christ (Nietzche)

The Screwtape Letters (Lewis)

Morphic Resonance (Sheldrake)

Collected Poems (Auden)

The Tales of the Dervishes (Shah)

Holy Quran

Buddhism: It's Essence and Development (Conze)

The Universe in a Single Atom (HH Dalai Lama)

Facets of Unity (Almaas)

The Crooked Tiumber of Humanity (Berlin)

The Shadow of the Wind (Ruiz Zafron)



The list disturbed me for three reasons. First, it could have been much longer. Next, it lacked coherence. Whatever illusion I maintain about some unseen hand guiding the unfolding passage of my life is not revealed in the list of books I've included. Each book calls to mind some remembrance that holds special significance for me but it would be difficult for anyone else to discern a thread that binds them together other than I encountered these books (or they encountered me). Finally, this assemblage, compiled in my fifth decade of life, captures something essential about who I am while simultaneously missing the mark in profound ways. How can this be?



This brings me to the real point of this blog entry. EVERY exploration of spirituality holds the promise of bringing us closer to the Divine while reminding us of our separation. Such inquiries can delivers us to a threshold between unity and alienation, between merger and isolation, between eros and thanatos, between clarity and confusion.



Whether we explore the theme of Jung & Spirituality, as we intend to do with Dr. Murray Stein on December 1, 2011, or if we explore the themes of our own spirituality, the result likely to be enriching and incomplete.



Each of us has narrative voice suited to the task of telling about our spiritual journey. The tools that hone that voice include therapy, contemplation, journaling, writing, work, and the accumulation of life experience.



I believe the long arc of history keeps bending toward the religious instinct in me and in the world.



This ineffable realm is the subject of our next our next exploration with Dr. Stein scheduled for Thursday, December 1, 2011.

Registration is still open at http://ashevillejungcenter.org/upcoming-events/spirituality/registration/



For those unable to join the conference on Thursday, it is also available over the internet.



I will close with a quote from Martin Buber on the power of a story well told.

A story must be told in such a way that it constitutes help in itself … My grandfather was lame. Once they asked him to tell a story about his teacher. And he related how (his teacher) used to hop and dance while he prayed. My grandfather rose as he spoke, and he was so swept away by his story that he began to hop and dance to show how the master had done. From that hour on he was cured of his lameness. That's how to tell a story! (3)



1 Jung, CG. Coll. Wks., 9/2, pars. 60.

2 Yeats, William B. "The Second Coming - Yeats." PotW.org - Poem of the Week. Poem of the Week. Web. 26 Nov. 2011. .

3 Buber,Martin. Tales of the Hasidism: Early Masters. New York: Schoken Books, 1974, pp.v-v1.

The Better Angels of Our Nature

During the last portion of the seminar on October 13, 2011 titled Energy! The Ecology of the Psyche and the World, Dr. Murray Stein spoke about a book review he had just read on "The Better Angels of Our Nature" by Steven Pinker. I looked up the source of that title and discovered that it was in the closing lines of President Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address given on March 4, 1861.
Here is an excerpt:
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

These words, uttered over seven generations ago as a nation was being torn asunder, remind us that we are not enemies. We are not enemies with each other, with the companion animals who share the earth, nor with the environment; though at times, it seems like we have declared war. Perhaps the day is dawning when again touched by the better angels of our nature, we may be at peace with our world.

Dr. Egger and Dr. Stein imparted so many profoundly important things during last Thursday's seminar that any remarks are likely to detract. Instead, I offer a few quotes I jotted down during the seminar and subsequent question and answer period. Let these remarks, like dew upon a parched land, offer the promise of renewing waters.

"When we face a destructive phenomenon, a symptom, we can take it heuristically, as a solution, we can take it as energy" (that is blocked).

"Everything psychic has a slight asymmetry (between the material world and psyche) in favor of the psyche."

"If libido retreats from the world it goes to the unconscious and there, Jung says, you must follow it."

"Nothing is so dangerous as life energy unable to be expressed honorably."

"When you cannot listen to the other person, you may be under possession, where something is projected."

"...the older the mythology, the clearer."

"...energy is a movement that evens out opposites."

"The archetype behind energy is the capacity for Divine Creation."

"To withdraw a projection is to regain energy."

"Neurosis is always a projection on a stupid thing...the symbolic life is a means to fee energy..."

"Human beings are born with an instinctual appetite ... (and) driven to a spiritual inheritance."

Seminar participants were invited to consider the impact of excessive energy usage and also invited to consider what energy is devoted in our society (both psychic energy and external energy). Strangely, the distinction between the energy of the interior life and the energy of exterior engagement grew less certain but more meaningful.

Dr. Egger recommended cultivating Joy, Hope, and Love. She likened this to the proper tuning of a violin in that proper tuning makes it easier to find the correct note. As she explained, cultivating Joy, Hope, and Love "makes opportunity".

The depth of perspective provided by Drs. Stein and Egger in the handling of their subject is difficult to convey. The work of individuation and the work of conservation in their skillful hands seemed to be different facets of the same jewel. Their teaching was clear, evocative, and nourishing.

Many thanks to those who chose to share something during the past two weeks.

Len Cruz, MD

Ecopsychology: Revisioning Ourselves in the World

Revisioning Ourselves and the World

By Len Cruz, MD, ME

(Originally published at http://ashevillejungcenter.org/blog/ )

"...our present ego-feeling is only a shrunken residue of a much more inclusive, indeed, an all-embracing, feeling which corresponded to a more intimate bond between the ego and the world about it." (Sigmund Freud)

Ecopsychology is more than the conflation of two words, ecology and psychology.   This nascent field expands the horizon of the deep self beyond the frontiers of the individual. James Hillman said, "The deepest self cannot be confined to "in here" because we can't be sure it is not also or even entirely "out there"![i] The exaggerated emphasis on the personal, interior, individual psychology has contributed to a denial of the world "out there".  Several trajectories can be subsumed under the broad canopy of ecopsychology and the field is distinguishable from other related subjects[ii]. There is an arc that begins with the personal unconscious, traverses the collective unconscious, and leads to a planetary unconscious.  The near apotheosis of mankind that installed our species with a belief in our dominion over flora and fauna may be coming of age.  The Navi race depicted in the movie AVATAR is a pop culture reflection of an emerging archetype or at least a cultural complex.  As Thomas Singer points out, "Failure to consider cultural complexes as part of the work of individuation puts a tremendous burden on both the personal and archetypal realms of the psyche."[iii] Depth psychological influences have shaped out language appearing with phrases like Biophilia (Erich Fromm[iv], E.O. Wilson[v]), Ecosophy & Deep Ecology (Arne Naess)[vi], Terrapsychology (Chalquist)[vii] or Ecotherapy (Clineman)[viii].  There is an ecological imperative forcing itself on our consciousness through images environmental catastrophes, species and habitat destruction, and threats of irreversible climate change. Lifton's concept of psychic numbing regarding the threat of nuclear disaster applies to the ecological crisis upon us.  But this festering wound can no longer be located solely within nor strictly outside of ourselves.[ix] Ecopsychology attempts to restore the intimate connection between the ego and the world.  And with the added the richness of the archetypal strata a more inclusive psychology is emerging.[x]

If a planetary consciousness is developing and we should expect that there will be a planetaryunconscious developing alongside.  In the pioneering days of psychoanalysis, Janet, Freud, and others were cartographers of a vast inner landscape.  A centrifugal force developed in the generations following Freud.  Ego psychology pressed beyond the id, social psychiatry and later self psychology expanded into the interpersonal and social milieu, and Jung expanded the personal notion of the unconscious into vast territory of the collective  unconscious.  However, all these trends established human beings at the axis of the psychological world.  Ecopsychology revisions this singular focus upon man.  It is a restorative psychology, where place matters and the distinction between inhabitants of the earth is removed, hierarchical disappears.  Ecopsychology grounds our existence and psychology in a broader context of the ecosphere.

Let us agree that human activity is causing rapid and profound changes to the climate, to the water cycle, to the soil, and to species extinction.

Billions of people watched oil gush into the Gulf of Mexico for months. On a daily basis human beings grew more alarmed by the risks of massive radiation leakage from the Fukushima nuclear reactor.And though the ecological underpinnings of mass migration and starvation in sub-Saharan Africa are poorly understood, the images of starving human beings nevertheless etches itself into our psyches.  Such events remind us that there is an imperative imposing itself with ever-increasing urgency.  But the complexity of these issues exceed our capacities.

Robert Jay Lifton, coined the term psychic numbing to describe "a form of desensitization … an incapacity to feel or confront certain kinds of experience, due to the blocking or absence of inner forms or imagery that can connect with such experience".[xi] The intricate webs comprising our world are complex.  Ever increasing computing capacity permits us to model extremely complex systems and to detect elegant patterns.  Nonlinear systems (see also complexity, chaos, Madelbrot sets)possess some unique characteristics including inflection points (see also attractors, repellors, bifurcations) where sudden, large changes in behavior result from small changes in conditions of a a stable system.  Catastrophe theory, a branch of bifurcation mathematics, demonstrates that bifurcations are in fact part of a large well defined geometric structure.  Carl Freidrich Guass laid the foundation for these discoveries but the ability to model such complex systems had to wait for the invention of supercomputers.

Our ability to recognize patterns, create accurate models, and decipher complexity on our own has limits.[xii]Rebecca Costa suggests there are five common supermemes that we should understand because of their limiting effects upon our capacity to reason.  These include: irrational opposition, counterfeit correlation, personalization of blame, silo thinking, and extreme economics.[xiii] Time magazine recently suggested that people like Rebecca Costa might be able to solve the world's biggest problems (http://tinyurl.com/6fz6uuu).  The rest of us may need to acknowledge that the sheer complexity of the ecological crisis combined with our own psychological complexity often exceeds our capacity to understand.

There a practical ecopsychology developing that might equip us to navigate through the treacherous times with greater understanding.  Ultimately it may also preserve us.  First, we will need to acknowledge that the planet and many of its inhabitants are being placed at risk by the impact our species has upon the environment.  There is an ecopsychological unconscious, and like all unconscious material, it resists exposure and yields its fruits reluctantly.  Those of us who live in the technologically advanced first world must make sure that we keep contact with the wilderness.  An earlier blog (May 31, 2010) addressed the diminishing wilderness of childhood and readers may want to read an excerpt from Chabon's Manhood for Amateurs.[xiv] A practical ecopsychology will provide tools for working through the despair and psychic numbing that so easily overwhelms us.  Out of the fertile fields of ecopsychology will emerge ecotherapeutic techniques and understanding that can be expected to equip us to participate in the healing that we all need.[xv] In 1973, Our Bodies, Ourselves[xvi] became a feminist canon through its empowering, educational message.  The time has come for Our Planet, Ourselves that might collect the expanse of ideas that intersect with ecopsychology.

The confluence of many shaping influences unite many archetypal energies forming a bedrock for  further psychological explorations.  A river's delta provides a good metaphor for region where complexes, archetypes, and outer come together.  In the  delta fresh water and salt water meet and mix.  In the ecopsychological delta, conscious and unconscious, interior and exterior, introject and projection combine and create a limen realm where the participation mystique more easily is detected.  Jung wrote, "PARTICIPATION MYSTIQUE is a term derived from Lévy-Bruhl. It denotes a peculiar kind of psychological connection with objects, and consists in the fact that the subject cannot clearly distinguish himself from the object but is bound to it by a direct relationship which amounts to partial identity."[xvii] It is tempting to oscillate between extreme impressions of the world.  Between Cormac MacCarthy's The Road[xviii] and Fox's recent Fall series Terra Nova with a tagline of "There is no paradise without sacrifice" we encounter repeated apocalyptic scenarios alongside utopian ones.[xix][xx] [xxi].  KIA Motors produced a Superbowl commercial last year that exploited apocalyptic images of the Mayan Prophecy.  The appearance of such impressions in popular culture points toward the chthonic psychic regions, the places where archetypes reside.  Paul Ricouer observed that utopias function to develop "new, alternative perspectives".[xxii] And some of our most compelling utopian literature actually present dystopias (Brave New World, Nineteen eighty-four, Fahrenheit 451).These days anyone can turn on a computer and create their own utopia (SimCity).  IMDb, the movie database, has compiled a list of the top 50 Post-Apocalyptic movies (http://www.imdb.com/list/2WCgJcXeSEQ/).  The images and impressions of a global consciousness, of an ecopsychological dimension are everywhere.

A recent favorite of mine is AVATAR.  James Cameron's creation of the Navi, a large, lithe, colorful, and powerful race of humanoid creatures with tails.  These tails, symbolizes the Navi's sustained connection to their world and hints of a noble savage. From the opening minutes of the film the there are rumbles and rhythms of mechanization that contrasts with a perky newscaster announcing the comeback of the nearly extinct Bengal tiger we are presented with competing impressions of soulless exploitation of the planet's resources by an interplanetary corporation and the soulful natives and their planetary conscious ways.  By the end of the movie our sympathies are powerfully attached to the Navi.  Apart from the symbolism of the Navi's tail, it is the physical means by which they experience a deep empathic connection to their world, it is the vehicle for their participation mystiqeu. As if these images alone were not enough, Cameron chose for his protagonist a physically disabled man injured in battle.  He seems to be telling us of our woundedness, our disability, and our hope for restoration.  In the final scene of AVATAR, the viewer is left believing that the protagonist has made a final and complete transformation from man to Navi.  The movie's ability to arouse archetypal energies of both apocalypse and utopia is gripping.  But the promise that WE might experience such a deep connection to the biosphere as the protagonist is even more compelling.  

Ecopsychology is unlikely to deliver some well wrapped experiences of connectedness like we get in the movies but perhaps it can provide a guide for the journey.  This is journey that began in an idyllic garden to which it one day hopes to return.

INVITATION

Take a moment to reflect on the impressions that reside in your own psyche of this world, your place in it, and the planetary images and impressions that you have encountered.  Perhaps it is a dream, a piece of art, a moment of communion with nature.  As we share our stories, we may help one another to awaken to something deep within that also is suffused outside.  If we hope to develop a consciousness spacious enough for the biosphere it must include one another.  Share your stories here.

Len Cruz

---

[i] Roszak, Theodore, Mary E. Gomes, and Allen D. Kanner. Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1995 (page xix).

[ii] Scull, John. "Ecopsychology: Where Does It Fit in Psychology in 2009?." The Trumpeter Fall 2008: 68-85. The Trumpeter. Web. 8 Oct. 2011.

[iii] Singer, Thomas. "The Cultural Complex and Archetypal Defenses of the Collective Spirit | Psyche-and-culture | Articles." IAAP. IAAP, 19 June 2005. Web. 08 Oct. 2011. <http://iaap.org/articles/psyche-and-culture/the-cultural-complex-and-archetypal-defenses-of-the-collective-spirit.html>.

[iv] Fromm, Erich (1964). The Heart of Man. Harper & Row.,

[v] Wilson, Edward O. (1984). Biophilia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-07442-4.

[vi] Næss, Arne (1973) 'The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement.' Inquiry 16: 95-100

[vii] Chalquist, Craig (2007) Terrapsychology, New Orleans, Spring  Journal Books.  ISBN-10: 1882670655

[viii] Clinebell, H. 1996. Ecotherapy: Healing ourselves, healing the earth. New York: Haworth Press.

[ix] Chalquist, Craig. "The Environmental Crisis is a Crisis of Consciousness." Terrapsych.com - serving the animate presence of place. Terrapsych.com, n.d. Web. 7 Oct. 2011. Terrapsychology: Re-engaging the Soul of Place. New Orleans: Spring Journal, 2007.)

[x] Watkins, Mary . "On Returning to the Soul of the World: Archetypal Psychology and Cultural/Ecological Work." Terrapsych.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Oct. 2011. <www.terrapsych.com/Watkins.

[xi] Lifton, Robert Jay (March 1968). "America in Vietnam—The circle of deception". Society 5 (4).

[xii] Costa, Rebecca D. The Watchman's Rattle: Thinking Our Way out of Extinction. New York: Vanguard, 2010.

[xiii] Costa, Rebecca D. The Watchman's Rattle: Thinking Our Way Out of Extinction. New York: Vanguard Press, 2010.

[xiv] Chabon, Michael. "Manhood for Amateurs: The Wilderness of Childhood by Michael Chabon | The New York Review of Books." New York Times Review of Books. New York Times, 16 July 2009. Web. 7 Oct. 2011. <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/jul/16/manhood-for-amateurs-the-wilderness-of-childhood/>

[xv] Buzzell, Linda, and Craig Chalquist. Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 2009.

[xvi] Our Bodies, Ourselves. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973.

[xvii] Jung, C.G. ([1921] 1971) Paragraph 781. Psychological Types, Collected Works, Volume 6, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

[xviii] McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.

[xix] Geus, Marius De. Ecological Utopias: Envisioning the Sustainable Society. Utrecht, the Netherlands: International, 1999.

[xx] Thiele, L. P. 2000. Book Review: de Geus, M. 1999. Ecological Utopias: Envisioning the sustainable society. International Books, Utrecht, The Netherlands. Conservation Ecology 4(1): 18. [online] URL:http://www.consecol.org/vol4/iss1/art18/

[xxi] Gues, Marius de. Ectopia, sustainability, and vision. Organization & Environment. Vol: 15:2, 187-201Jun 2002. Web. October 7, 2011.

[xxii] Ricoeur, Paul.  Lectures on Ideology and Utopia.  Ed. George H. Taylor. New York:

Columbia UP, 1986.

Additional Recommended Readings:

Bateson, Gregory. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballantine, 1972.

Buber, Martin, and Ronald Gregor. Smith. I and Thou. New York, NY: Scribner, 2000.

Capra, Fritjof. The Hidden Connections. London: Flamingo, 2003.

Capra, Fritjof. The Web of Life: a New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems. New York: Anchor, 1996.

Chivian, Eric, and Aaron Bernstein. Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008.

Matthiessen, Peter. Courage for the Earth: Writers, Scientists, and Activists Celebrate the Life and Writing of Rachel Carson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007.

McKibben, Bill. Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age. New York: Times, 2003.

Singer, Thomas. Psyche & the City: A Soul's Guide to the Modern Metropolis. New Orleans: Spring Journal, 2010.

Suzuki, David, and Amanada McConnell. The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature. Vancouver, BC: Greystone, 2007.

Walljasper, Jay. All That We Share: How to save the Economy, the Environment, the Internet, Democracy, Our Communities, and Everything Else That Belongs to All of Us. New York: New, 2010.

Wilson, Edward O. Consilience: the Unity of Knowledge. New York: Knopf, 1998.

Community and Social Media

What sort of community does social media engender?  Deriving from a very transient media that prizes immediacy over deliberation, the sense of community that social media produces is large on appearance but short on substance.  Perhaps this helps explain how mobs of individuals can suddenly band together as if they are a single organism without any real, substantive intention.  

The same superficial sense of community that can be ignited in a flash mob can also easily be exploited by politicians, disaffected groups, terrorist enterprises, and corporations seeking to manufacture tastes among consumers.  

If the immediacy and speed with which community can form in the internet age is the persona, then perhaps  violent, mindless collective actions like those displayed by a mobs, the Tea Party activists, terrorists, or youngsters attending a rave are shadow aspects of communities in the internet age.This discussion stirred some thoughts concerning the sort of community that social media engenders.  Deriving from a very transient media that prizes immediacy over deliberation, the sense of community that social media produces is large on appearance but short on substance.  Perhaps this helps explain how mobs of individuals can suddenly band together as if they are a single organism without any real, substantive intention.  

The same superficial sense of community that can be ignited in a flash mob can also easily be exploited by politicians, disaffected groups, terrorist enterprises, and corporations seeking to manufacture tastes among consumers.  

If the immediacy and speed with which community can form in the internet age is the persona, then perhaps  violent, mindless collective actions like those displayed by a mobs, the Tea Party activists, terrorists, or youngsters attending a rave are shadow aspects of communities in the internet age.

José Martí

 José Martí was a national hero in Cuba's struggle for independence from Spain.  He was also a poet, essayist, philosopher, & journalist.

Peregrino por el mundo con una lira, una pluma y una espada.  Cantó, habló, combatió: dejó por todas partes chispas de su numen, rasgos de su fantasía, pedazos de su corazón; pero en cualquier ruta, por todos los senderos, su vista estaba fíia en la solitaria estrella, que simboliza su honda y perptua aspiración de hogar y patria.  De su poesía se exhale un perfume sutil la nostalgia del desterrado.  Cuando su pluma corre sin freno sobre el papel, cuando su palabra se desborda desde la tribuna, adivina qué lo aguija, qué lo impulsa, la visión distante de Cuba que lo llama, y le pide que escriba para ella, y alumbre las conciencias y encienda los corazónes.  Aquí está la nota profunda de su alma y la unidad perfecta de su vida.  Martí poeta, orador, catedrático, agente consular, periodista, agitador, conspirador, estadista y soldado, no fue en el fondo y siempre sino Martí patriota.  (Enrique José Varona) 

Helen Mirren's Prospera & Lessons on Crafting the Persona

Helen Mirren’s Prospera & Lessons on Crafting the Persona

Written on March 6, 2011 by LenCruz for The Asheville Jung Center Blog

Helen Miren’s portrayal of Prospera in The Tempest was recently featured in the Life & Arts section of the Financial Times (http://tinyurl.com/48tx2pg).  The film adaptation by Julie Taymor gender-bends the roles and Mirren delivers Prospero’s famous line:

“Our revels now are ended.  These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air…”.

No doubt Helen Mirren’s Prospera injected something quite different into Shakespeare’s character and it was Mirren’s idea to flip the genders.  So what has this to do with Jung’s concept of persona?


In Jung’s Map of the Soul: An Introduction Murray Stein discussion of shadow and persona makes these two rich, complicated contents of psyche approachable.  He likens shadow and persona to twins that “… are usually more or less opposites of one another…”  Persona is a complex that “… possesses considerable autonomy and is not under the full control of the ego.  Once in role, the actor rattles off his or her lines willy-nilly and often without much consciousness”.  But Mirren took a traditionally male role and breathed her own special, evocative spirit into Prospero and it became Prospera. In this liminal domain, where actors impose a higher than usual degree of intentionality, where there is a descent into a well crafted character, we may gain insights about individuation as it relates to the persona.

According to Dr. Stein “The persona makes casual social interaction go more easily…”  Jung acknowledges that while we are not all “multiple personalities” we do show “traces of character splitting” (Jung, Coll Wks., Vol.6, par.799.).   There is some fluidity to the degree of identification the ego has with different roles it plays.  Stein notes that role identification is “…  generally motivated by ambition and social aspiration”.  It seems that the ego does not deliberately chose to identify with a particular persona but this is where Helen Mirren’s portrayal of Prospera informs us of a new possibility.

Dr.  Stein notes that there a two pitfalls that can occur in the development of the persona, over-identification that involves undue adaptation to the social world and the failure to pay enough attention to the external object world thereby becoming too involved with the inner world.  He goes on to point out that with age, new personas appear.  But this suggests a passive process.
Perhaps that is all we can hope for, that our persona might keep pace with the changing demands of life, our own aging process, and the changing demands of society.  But  if Helen Mirren can shed new light on Prospero, then I have hope of injecting new life into the character of Len.
Persona is a complex and therefore, easy to relegate to the domains governed by unconscious forces.  But let me attempt to illuminate persona with conscious intention.  The actor must strike a balance between her own personality and the portrayal of the character she plays.  We may use a similar approach to work upon our persona.  Beyond the passive appearance of the persona lies our capacity to craft the persona like actors do.  Such an enterprise may promote the process of individuation.

What I am proposing is reminiscent of the effort by ego-psychologists to extend classical psychoanalytic theory.  We can endeavor, through conscious, intentional effort, to fashion a persona informed by other analytic work.

On March 31, 2011, Dr. Murray Stein will present “Caring for the Soul: An Introduction to Jungian Psychotherapy for Patients & Therapists”. 

For more information http://ashevillejungcenter.org/upcoming-events/ .  Whether or not you expect to attend the conference you will find Dr. Stein’s book, Jung’s Map of the Soul: An Introduction a valuable resource for understanding Jung’s extensive body of writings.  In the introduction to the book, Dr. Stein quotes one of my favorite authors (therefore the dual translation):

“You could timidly explore the coasts of Africa to the south, but going west there was nothing except fear, the unknown, not “our sea” but the Sea of Mystery, Mare Ignotum.”
Carlos Fuentes  The Buried Mirror


“Se podía explorar tímidamente las costas de África hacia el sur, pero hacia el oeste no había nada más que miedo, no «nuestro mar» sino el Mar de Misterio, Mare Ignotum.”
Carlos Fuentes  El espejo enterrado


Se  encuentra la primera parte del libro “El Mapa del Alma Según Jung” en la página del internet  http://www.adepac.org/P06-90.htm .

Len Cruz, MD

Remebrance of Things Past

Remembrance of Things Past

A friend of mine who has lost two parents and a brother in the past half dozen years recently began to reconnect with friends from his high school days. As I listened to him tell me about some of the things this had brought up, ideas occurred to me that I wanted to share because they reflect some principles we can all learn from.

The ensemble of characters cast in the dramas of their early years, now often referred to as the family of origin, were not cast in those roles for the rest of our lives. My friend's recent losses awakened in him a new found willingness to fashion a different ensemble of characters, one better suited to today. My friend's brother suffered a severe, persistent mental illness for more than forty years depriving my friend of many aspects of brotherly love he might otherwise have enjoyed. My friend was recreating a family.
We have all heard stories of individuals who overcome the wounds of childhood through a corrective experience in their adult years. A man who suffered unspeakable abuse from a tyrannical father is watched over by a teacher, a coach, or a boss and before long his pain is assuaged and the wounds begin to heal. Or perhaps we hear of a woman subjected to vicious and belittle attacks from a mother whose tenuous self-esteem was sustained by denigrating her defenseless daughter who is made right by a teacher or coworker who sees past the wounds to a realm the woman scarcely knew existed. There is a deep hunger to be mothered or fathered that does not leave us when we leave the first cast of characters in our life. But even when the stories are not so dire there we may benefit from a willing to keep an open casting call for characters in the current dramas of our life.
Principle 1: The opportunity to replace the members of our cast is often missed.

One of the guys with whom my friend had connected was a Jewish friend who had been a close buddy in grade school. They grew up in a town that was predominantly Irish and Italian. One day when the boys were in sixth grade, my friend said something anti-Semitic to hurt his Jewish friend's feelings. They must have gotten past it at the time because they remained acquaintances and partied together and high together in high school.
Nearly forty years later, these two boys reconnected and my friend took a courageous step by bringing up that fateful day when they were in sixth grade and he said something at changed their friendship forever. My friend apologized! His buddy let him know in the clearest way he knew that he did not even remember the remark or the day in question. My friend apologized again trying to reassure his high school mate that he did not grow up to be an anti-Semite. The guy told my friend he should let it go and that if he was seeking forgiveness for a crime that was not even remembered, he had it!
This brings me to another principle revealed in my friend's recent rekindling of high school friendships. We carry into our adult years countless regrets, shaming moments, and things that weigh us down. My friend was fortunate to have had the chance to surrender one of those ancient afflictions. But what about all the ones he carries that involve people he may never see again. If our capacity to release ourselves from neurotic guilt depends on the person we wronged or failed when we were younger we are likely to miss opportunities to release the flotsam and jetsam of our past.
if you were to meet someone from your past, someone you had wronged or injured consider, what can we expect. Perhaps like my friend, you would discover you had made a mountain out of a molehill and that the aggrieved party did not even remember the event that had weighed you down. Of course, your actions might have had a profound and untoward impact upon the person you wronged. If that is the case, you will find that they have either worked through the matter or they may have carried that wound around like a disfiguring scar. (I am assuming that you have outgrown, transcended, suspended, or otherwise dealt with whatever behavior or tendency that caused you to behave badly. If not, you may deserve suffer a bit.) But if you have changed from the person you were, then you need not carry around neurotic guilt.
Principle 2: Don't wait to meet the person you've wronged to receive the forgiveness you need!

My friend was deeply moved by the fact that many of his friends had traversed similar paths In their lives as the ones he had traversed. In several instances, he was aware of forks in the road of life where he and the newly rediscovered friends had similar choices to make or challenges to meet. What he learned was that while each one of us has a story that is unique many of the elements of our story turn out to be universal. It is a good idea to remember that our story is uniquely ours. But it also helps to remember that our story is likely to have quite a bit in common with other's stories. Principle 3: What happens to us is seldom a first nor will it be a last.

Finally, my friend admitted to ambivalent feelings about the way his high school friends were reaching out to him. He had missed a high school reunion and his friend. One of them told my friend how much that he and a few of others had wanted to get together again and include him. My friend admitted that the prospects of rekindling these old acquaintances as real friendships provoked a mixture of feelings he was was unprepared for. He was deeply touched by their longing to be close but like Pandora's box, the invitation had loosed a fury of old maladies. He felt some of the same emotions he thought he had left behind in high school. I don't know whether my friend will take another step toward intimacy with his old chums; I hope he does. No matter how old we are, some of the same struggles to love and be loved will hang around. The question will one day become clear that we don't have to act like we did when we youngsters. Regardless of what he chooses, there was a lesson revealed in his ambivalence.
Principle 4: Be real, follow your heart, and open your heart to love.