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sometimesrosy · 6 years ago

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Do you think we will ever get a bellarke kiss? i know we got plenty of other confirmations, but it would be nice for it to be spelt out for me? i want endgame without a shadow of a doubt, is that too much to ask?

I actually believe that The 100 is around 25% ABOUT Bellarke and I believe the end game of that story is romantic fulfillment, because their relationship is NOT platonic. A platonic soulmate pairing is Sherlock and Joan, not Clarke and Bellamy. They yearn for each other and are jealous when the other is with someone else and long for something more, mutually. They are MUTUALLY PINING, which is an awesome story, imo.

It can be hard to tell what KIND of story a person is telling, and so our task as the audience, if we want to follow along and be on top of the story instead of just sitting back and enjoying the rollercoaster ride is to figure out what the story is, what genre it is, what tropes they’re using, what archetypes, what themes, what style... what TYPE of story.

A lot of genre stories are very simple and not surprising, a soap offers melodrama and mix and matching relationships, an action show offers big fights and exciting adventures and a victory to reach for, romances offer love and consummation and if a tragedy pain and loss and if a comedy or romantic genre happiness and unification of the couple.. Right?

So what the hell story are they telling HERE? It IS a post apocalyptic science fiction action adventure survival show, and so we have science fiction tropes like spaceships, AIs, mad scientists, and we have post apoclayptic tropes like quests for redemption, birth and rebirth, scavengers and warriors, mutants, savages, and we have battle scenes and sword fights and gun fights and kidnappings and rescue missions and death.

There is an OBVIOUS Bellarke storyline, and it is OBVIOUSLY (not a delusion) a love story. It IS about their partnership, a soulmate relationship, her head to his heart, their NEED to be together, she is the hero but he is the key, her need to redeem him his need to save her. Their feelings are not platonic, which precludes romance or sexual desire or longing, thus the jealous watching while one is with someone else romantically or sexually. BUT the question is, what KIND of romance is it??? We know already it’s a slow burn, but are we getting our established relationship? It’s what I want, but what I want is not relevant to what story they are telling. I suppose I shouldn’t have to tell you that what YOU want isn’t relevant to what story they are telling, either. This kiss and confirmation you want? It doesn’t matter. Us wanting something to happen doesn’t mean that’s the story, doesn’t mean that’s what we’re getting. That’s the kind of interpretation that leads to people deciding Lxa was the hero and Clarke her reward and Bellamy the villain, or Spacekru were the stars with Echo (WTF!? That doesn’t even make any sense,) the new hero and Clarke was the villain. Or ignoring Marper and Mackson because you ship Minty, when Marper and Mackson are also beautiful? And ignoring the actual story and the actual heroes leads to being disappointed when our wants don’t happen the way we want them to. Also, my opinion about what is going to happen isn’t relevant to what is going to happen, either. I am an observer, looking for textual clues for what story is going to happen. Now I’m a GOOD observer, and I spend a lot of time double checking my theories against the text and against logic and literary analysis thought, but I am still only putting the puzzle pieces together trying to make it fit the story they are telling.

I will say that the theory I have found MOST useful in puzzling out the story is Jungian Literary Theory.

Jung is also an influential force in myth (archetypal) criticism. Psychological critics are generally concerned with his concept of the process of individuation (the process of discovering what makes one different form everyone else). Jung labelled three parts of the self:

Shadow – the darker, unconscious self; rarely surfaces, yet must be faced for totality of SelfPersona – the public personality/mask (particularly masculine)Anima/Animus – a man’s/woman’s “soul image” (the negative that makes a composite whole)

A neurosis occurs when someone fails to assimilate one of these unconscious components into his conscious and projects it on someone else. The persona must be flexible and be able to balance the components of the psyche.

Mythological / Archetypal: A mythological / archetypal approach to literature assumes that there is a collection of symbols, images, characters, and motifs (i.e., archetypes) that evokes a similar response in all people. According to the psychologist Carl Jung, mankind possesses a “collective unconscious” (a cosmic reservoir of human experience) that contains these archetypes and that is common to all of humanity. Myth critics identify these archetypal patterns and discuss how they function in the works. They believe that these archetypes are the source of much of literature’s power. [x]

The Shadow-Persona-Anima/Animus is a particularly good fit for The 100 AND Bellarke. Bellarke ARE the Anima/Animus. In fact, we have seen again and again the dark/light, yin yang symbolism to make us subconsciously connect them as two sides of the same coin, dark and light... and they take turns being the dark and light. If they are the anima/animus, then that means they need to integrate the other (which we saw between seasons 4/5) and it also means they need to be together which we’ve seen in seasons 1-6, and which need has only gotten BIGGER as the seasons have passed.

Oh when I consider this approach more fully, I think that Octavia is the Shadow to Bellamy’s Persona... the girl under the floor, rarely let out, and once free (after losing her animus [lincoln] going out of control and becoming a tyrant that destroys the world until the persona asserts itself and feelings/pain/emotion is balanced once again with purpose/ethics/doing what is right.) You know what? I’m shocked that no one has really delved into the Hades/Persephone/Demeter allegory of Dante/Clarke/Abby. I went with Dante’s Inferno as the allegory I explored... maybe because I didn’t start doing my Jungian analysis until season 3 and they showed us that Blake illustration of Dante’s Inferno, and I took the knock upside the head the show was giving me and went OH YOU MEAN IT’S AN ALLUSION!!!!

I think this show is, well, a mix and match of different influences, and I like that. I like that we get The Divine Comedy and the bible as well as Greek mythology as well as Game of Thrones and Battlestar Gallactica and Tangled and The Beauty and The Beast and Penelope and Odysseus as well as Elizabeth and Darcy. I like that shit. The mythic/archetypal stories can be seen in ALL those references. Bellamy is Han Solo and Clarke is Princess Leia. See I love that shit.

I think in some ways, this show is about healing and becoming whole and making peace with your darkness and choosing to be better and rebirth and redeeming humanity and hopefully in season 7, although it is by no means certain, the healing of the earth itself. It’s about trauma and how we struggle to come back from total destruction, because that’s what post apocalyptic fiction is about and one of the reasons we consume it... because we can see our OWN rebirth in the dramatic, fictional rebirth (and why I hate post apocalyptic fic where the guiding principle is that humanity is doomed and there’s no point.)

Oh wait. You asked about Bellarke and I went into jungian literary analysis and Dante’s inferno and post apocalyptic fic... Okay so here’s the thing. I can not GUARANTEE you that you’ll get a kiss. Because a KISS isn’t the point. The point is UNITY, together, the head and the heart, becoming WHOLE. This is why they could end every season with Clarke and Bellamy together and victorious, but together in a different way, and still with more story to tell... because...wait... each season there has been a DIFFERENT mythic tale of the anima/animus coming together. If the show had ended at season 4, it would have been the sun/moon, always longing, never together. If it had ended at season 5, it might have been binary stars, aligned and moving in the same direction. Now in season 6, we don’t get the ending of our story. We’re still in the middle of it, but Clarke and Bellamy have actually come TOGETHER, and it is in an intimate, romantic way, with that fairy tale “true loves kiss bringing her back from the dead,” aka mouth to mouth aka “the kiss of life,”... when we know that mouth to mouth was not necessary to CPR, but it WAS necessary to the romantic trope of true love’s kiss.

See, this all brings me back to my ORIGINAL analysis on Bellarke after Hakeldama in season 3, when everyone thought Bellarke was dead and CL was the endgame story, and I went, no wait. They are the head and the heart and they can only do it TOGETHER and the main idea is bringing together the opposites/enemies/yin and yang to create a coherent whole that means that Clarke and Bellamy HAVE to be together that’s how this story works. Bellarke is endgame. I don’t make the rules.

Of course I was not aware that it wasn’t considering ONLY romance to be “together,” and the hands metaphor was used instead of fandom’s desire for a kiss, and there are other archetypal light/dark head/heart/ yin/yang king/queen stories than just the simple romance that shippers want. Not that there’s anything wrong with the simple romance. I think season 1 WAS a simple romance for them. It was enemies to friends to lovers... but without the resolution of the lovers part when they decided to drag it out into a slow burn that COULD, if we got to the end of it, be the most fantastic epic love story on tv.

I’ve faced so many years of people telling me I was delusional, I have double checked my theories and compared the development of the bellarke relationship to canon, to romantic conventions, to archetypes, to allusions, to other ships on the show. I’ve watched and charted the relationship growth for all six seasons, and the thing is, yeah they sometimes pull back and they always put obstacles between clarke and bellamy and if I saw the direction going ELSEWHERE, that’s what I would go with, because I am more attached to the story than to my WANTING it to give me my ship. But they are NOT portraying Bellarke as platonic, and they are NOT portraying B/E as endgame, but as a romantic obstacle, family, spy/master, and a “right for now” romance, rather than a Ms. Right romance. And Echo’s story is not being portrayed as her being fulfilled by her relationship with Bellamy, but by rediscovering who she is and reclaiming her life from the people who would use her, who stole her identity. Echo’s story seems to be going in a feminist direction about female empowerment and not needing no man, while Clarke and Bellamy’s story has gone in a “yes I can do it without you but I don’t want to and I need you in my life because I love you and I won’t let you go.” Bellarke’s story has only gotten MORE romantic, culminating this season in that true love’s kiss/back from the dead... which leaves us season 7, to ratchet the epic love story up one last notch.

Which notch? Consummation. So yeah, I think they’ll “kiss,” because the togetherness has steadily gotten more and more romantic every single season and I honestly can’t see what else could come between true love’s kiss and endgame except a season worth of story about how they get from “I can’t lose you, I need you,” to endgame romantic physical and official “we are married and in love” status. But you know, i’m not one of the writers just an observer with some literary analysis. My fave is jungian, but i like the others, too. Except maybe the first one, historical/biographical, because I don’t think that works at ALL unless you understand the text for itself outside of historical biographical context which would be a secondary analysis, and I think fandom prefers hist/bio but never bothers to understand the story being told for itself before deciding it means all sorts of things about context. oh my god rowena stop talking and just post.

#the 100 #bellarke #endgame #jungian analysis #it turns out i'm not doing a 101 class on The 100 but more like a senior level class tbh

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supposedlyawitch · 5 years ago

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shadow work

i found a site that explains shadow work and i want to do some work with it and i’m willing to share the details the site has here. I’m putting this also here so i can look back on it. I already know my shadow is probably bigger and deeper than all the oceans combined. it might be interesting to explore, it might not, but it has to be done. This is basically free therapy.

Please note: Shadow Work exercises should not be undertaken if you struggle with low self-esteem. Exploring your demons will likely make you feel a million times worse about yourself and may spiral into self-hatred. Before doing Shadow Work, I strongly and emphatically encourage you to work on Self-Love. Shadow Work should only be undertaken by those who have healthy and stable self-worth, and a friendly relationship with themselves. See this article on how to love yourself for more guidance.

Why Focusing Only on the Light is a Form of Escapism

For most of my life, I’ve grown up firmly believing that the only thing worthy of guiding me was “light” and “love.” Whether through the family environment I was raised in, or the cultural myths I was brought up clinging to, I once believed that all you really needed to do in life to be happy was to focus on everything beautiful, positive and spiritually “righteous.” I’m sure you were raised believing a similar story as well. It’s a sort of “Recipe for Well-Being.”

But a few years ago, after battling ongoing mental health issues, I realized something shocking:

I was wrong.

Not just wrong, but completely and utterly off the mark. Focusing only on “love and light” will not heal your wounds on a deep level. In fact, I’ve learned through a lot of heavy inner work, that not only is focusing solely on “holiness” in life one side of the equation, but it is actually a form of spiritually bypassing your deeper, darker problems that, let me assure you, almost definitely exist.

It is very easy and comfortable to focus only on the light side of life. So many people in today’s world follow this path. And while it might provide some temporary emotional support, it doesn’t reach to the depths of your being: it doesn’t transform you at a core level. Instead, it leaves you superficially hanging onto warm and fuzzy platitudes which sound nice, but don’t enact any real change.

What DOES touch the very depths of your being, however, is exploring your Shadow.

What is the Human Shadow?

In short, the human shadow is our dark side; our lost and forgotten disowned self. Your shadow is the place within you that contains all of your secrets, repressed feelings, primitive impulses, and parts deemed “unacceptable,” shameful, “sinful” or even “evil.” This dark place lurking within your unconscious mind also contains suppressed and rejected emotions such as rage, jealousy, hatred, greed, deceitfulness, and selfishness.

So where did the Shadow Self idea originate? The concept was originally coined and explored by Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Carl Jung. In Jung’s own words:

“Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”

When the human Shadow is shunned, it tends to undermine and sabotage our lives. Addictions, low self-esteem, mental illness, chronic illnesses, and various neuroses are all attributed to the Shadow Self. When our Shadows are suppressed or repressed in the unconscious long enough, they can even overtake our entire lives and causes psychosis or extreme forms of behavior like cheating on one’s partner or physically harming others. Intoxicants such as alcohol and drugs also have a tendency to unleash the Shadow.

Thankfully, there is a way to explore the Shadow and prevent it from devouring our existence, and that is called Shadow Work.

What is Shadow Work?

Shadow work is the process of exploring your inner darkness or “Shadow Self.” As mentioned previously, your Shadow Self is part of your unconscious mind and contains everything you feel ashamed of thinking and feeling, as well as every impulse, repressed idea, desire, fear and perversion that for one reason or another, you have “locked away” consciously or unconsciously. Often this is done as a way of keeping yourself tame, likable and “civilized” in the eyes of others.

Shadow work is the attempt to uncover everything that we have hidden and every part of us that has been disowned and rejected within our Shadow Selves. Why? Because without revealing to ourselves what we have hidden, we remain burdened with problems such as anger, guilt, shame, disgust, and grief.

All throughout the history of mankind Shadow Work has played a powerful yet mysterious and occult role in helping us discover what is causing us mental illness, physical dis-ease and even insanity resulting in crimes of all kinds.

Traditionally, Shadow Work fell in the realm of the Shamans, or medicine people, as well as the priests and priestesses of the archaic periods of history. These days, Shadow Work falls more commonly in the realms of psychotherapy, with psychologists, psychiatrists, spiritual guides, and therapists.

Do We All Have a Shadow Self?

Yes, we ALL have a Shadow Self (see our Collective Shadow article for a deeper explanation).

As uncomfortable as it may sound, there is a dark side within every human being. Why is this the case? The reason why all human beings have a shadow is due to the way we were raised as human beings, often referred to as our ‘conditioning.’ (We’ll explore how the Shadow is formed next.)

“But I’m a good person! I don’t have a ‘shadow’ side,” you might be thinking. Well, the reality is that yes, you might be a good person. In fact, you might be the most generous, loving, and selfless person in the entire world. You might feed the hungry, save puppies, and donate half of your salary to the poor. But that doesn’t exclude you from having a Shadow. There are no exceptions here. The nature of being human is to possess both a light and a dark side, and we need to embrace that.

Sometimes, when people hear that they have a Shadow side (or when it is pointed out), there is a lot of denial. We have been taught to perceive ourselves in a very two-dimensional and limited way. We have been taught that only criminals, murderers, and thieves have a Shadow side. This black and white thinking is one of the major causes of our suffering.

If the thought of having a Shadow side disturbs you, take a moment to consider whether you have developed an idealized self. Signs of an idealized self include attitudes such as:

“I’m not like those people, I’m better.”

“I have never strayed.”

“God is proud of me.”

“Criminals and wrongdoers aren’t human.”

“Everyone sees how good I am (even so, I have to remind them).”

“I’m a role model.”

“I should be validated and applauded for my good deeds.”

“I don’t have bad thoughts, so why do others?”

Such perceptions about oneself are unrealistic, unhealthy, and largely delusional. The only way to find inner peace, happiness, authentic love, self-fulfillment, and Illumination is to explore our Shadows.

How is Our Shadow Side Formed?

Your Shadow side is formed in childhood and is both (a) a product of natural ego development, and (b) a product of conditioning or socialization. Socialization is the process of learning to behave in a way that is acceptable to society.

When we are born, we are are all full of potential, with the ability to survive and develop in a variety of ways. As time goes on, we learn more and more to become a certain type of person. Slowly, due to our circumstances and preferences, we begin to adopt certain character traits and reject others. For example, if we are born into a family that shows little interpersonal warmth, we will develop personality traits that make us self-sufficient and perhaps standoffish or mind-oriented. If we are born into a family that rewards compliance and shuns rebellion, we will learn that being submissive works, and thus adopt that as part of our ego structure.

As authors and Jungian therapists Steve Price and David Haynes write:

But, as we develop our ego personality, we also do something else at the same time. What has happened to all those parts of our original potential that we didn’t develop? They won’t just cease to exist: they will still be there, as potential or as partly developed, then rejected, personality attributes, and they will live on in the unconscious as an alternative to the waking ego. So, by the very act of creating a specifically delineated ego personality, we have also created its opposite in the unconscious. This is the shadow. Everyone has one.

As we can see, developing the Shadow Self is a natural part of development.

But you also formed an alter ego due to social conditioning, i.e. your parents, family members, teachers, friends, and society at large all contributed to your Shadow.

How?

Well here’s the thing: polite society operates under certain rules. In other words, certain behaviors and characteristics are approved of, while others are shunned. Take anger for example. Anger is an emotion that is commonly punished while growing up. Throwing tantrums, swearing, and destroying things was frowned upon by our parents and teachers. Therefore, many of us learned that expressing anger was not “OK.” Instead of being taught healthy ways to express our anger, we were punished sometimes physically (with smacks or being grounded), and often emotionally (withdrawal of love and affection).

There are countless behaviors, emotions, and beliefs that are rejected in society, and thus, are rejected by ourselves. In order to fit in, be accepted, approved, and loved, we learned to act a certain way. We adopted a role that would ensure our mental, emotional, and physical survival. But at the same time, wearing a mask has consequences. What happened to all the authentic, wild, socially taboo or challenging parts of ourselves? They were trapped in the Shadow.

What happens as we grow up?

Through time, we learn to both enjoy, and despise, our socially-approved egos because, on the one hand, they make us feel good and “lovable,” but on the other hand, they feel phony and inhibited.

Therapist Steve Wolf has a perfect analogy that describes this process:

Each of us is like Dorian Grey. We seek to present a beautiful, innocent face to the world; a kind, courteous demeanour; a youthful, intelligent image. And so, unknowingly but inevitably, we push away those qualities that do not fit the image, that do not enhance our self-esteem and make us stand proud but, instead, bring us shame and make us feel small. We shove into the dark cavern of the unconscious those feelings that make us uneasy — hatred, rage, jealousy, greed, competition, lust, shame — and those behaviours that are deemed wrong by the culture — addiction, laziness, aggression, dependency — thereby creating what could be called shadow content. Like Dorian’s painting, these qualities ultimately take on a life of their own, forming and invisible twin that lives just behind our life, or just beside it …

But while the Shadow Self may be portrayed as our “evil twin,” it is not entirely full of “bad” stuff. There is actually gold to be found within the Shadow.

What is the Golden Shadow?

Jung once states that “the shadow is ninety percent pure gold.” What this means is that there are many beautiful gifts offered to us by our Shadow side if we take the time to look. For example, so much of our creative potential is submerged within our darkness because we were taught when little to reject it.

Not everything within our Shadow is doom and gloom. In fact, the Shadow contains some of our most powerful gifts and talents, such as our artistic, sexual, competitive, innovative, and even intuitive aptitudes.

The ‘Golden Shadow’ also presents us with the opportunity for tremendous psychological and spiritual growth. By doing Shadow Work, we learn that every single emotion and wound that we possess has a gift to share with us. Even the most obnoxious, “ugly,” or shameful parts of ourselves provide a path back to Oneness. Such is the power of the Shadow – it is both a terrifying journey, but is ultimately a path to Enlightenment or Illumination. Every spiritual path needs Shadow Work in order to prevent the issues from happening that we’ll explore next.

What Happens When You Reject Your Shadow?

When shadow-work is neglected, the soul feels dry, brittle, like an empty vessel. — S. Wolf

Rejecting, suppressing, denying, or disowning your Shadow, whether consciously or unconsciously, is a dangerous thing. The thing about the Shadow Self is that it seeks to be known. It yearns to be understood, explored, and integrated. It craves to be held in awareness. The longer the Shadow stays buried and locked in its jail cell deep within the unconscious, the more it will find opportunities to make you aware of its existence.

Both religion and modern spirituality have a tendency to focus on the “love and light” aspects of spiritual growth to their own doom. This over-emphasis on the fluffy, transcendental, and feel-good elements of a spiritual awakening results in shallowness and phobia of whatever is too real, earthy, or dark.

Spiritually bypassing one’s inner darkness results in a whole range of serious issues. Some of the most common and reoccurring Shadow issues that appear in the spiritual/religious community include pedophilia among priests, financial manipulation of followers among gurus, and of course, megalomania, narcissism, and God complexes among spiritual teachers.

Other issues that arise when we reject our Shadow side can include:

Hypocrisy (believing and supporting one thing, but doing the other)

Lies and self-deceit (both towards oneself and others)

Uncontrollable bursts of rage/anger

Emotional and mental manipulation of others

Greed and addictions

Phobias and obsessive compulsions

Racist, sexist, homophobic, and other offensive behavior

Intense anxiety

Chronic psychosomatic illness

Depression (which can turn into suicidal tendencies)

Sexual perversion

Narcissistically inflated ego

Chaotic relationships with others

Self-loathing

Self-absorption

Self-sabotage

… and many others. This is by no means a comprehensive list (and there are likely many other issues out there). As we’ll learn next, one of the greatest ways we reject our Shadows is through psychological projection.

The Shadow and Projection (a Dangerous Mix)

One of the biggest forms of Shadow rejection is something called projection. Projection is a term that refers to seeing things in others that are actually within ourselves.

When we pair projection and the Shadow Self together, we have a dangerous mix.

Why?

Because as psychotherapist Robert A. Johnson writes:

We generally seek to punish that which reminds us most uncomfortable about the part of ourselves that we have not come to terms with, and we often ‘see’ these disowned qualities in the world around us.

There are many different ways we ‘punish’ those who are mirrors of our Shadow qualities. We may criticize, reject, hate, dehumanize, or even in extreme cases, physically or psychologically seek to destroy them (think of countries who go at war with the “enemies”). None of us are innocent in this area. We have ALL projected parts of our rejected self onto others. In fact, Shadow projection is a major cause of relationship dysfunction and break down.

If we are seeking to bring peace, love, and meaning to our lives, we absolutely MUST reclaim these projections. Through Shadow Work, we can explore exactly what we have disowned.

Twelve Benefits of Shadow Work

Firstly, I want to say that I have the highest respect for Shadow Work. It is the single most important path I’ve taken to uncover my core wounds, core beliefs, traumas, and projections. I have also observed how Shadow Work has helped to create profound clarity, understanding, harmony, acceptance, release, and inner peace in the lives of others. It is truly deep work that makes changes on the Soul level targeting the very roots of our issues, not just the superficial symptoms.

There is SO much to be gained from making Shadow Work a part of your life, and daily routine. Here are some of the most commonly experienced benefits:

Deeper love and acceptance of yourself

Better relationships with others, including your partner and children

More confidence to be your authentic self

More mental, emotional, and spiritual clarity

Increased compassion and understanding for others, particularly those you dislike

Enhanced creativity

Discovery of hidden gifts and talents

Deepened understanding of your passions and ultimate life purpose

Improved physical and mental health

More courage to face the unknown and truly live life

Access to your Soul or Higher Self

A feeling of Wholeness

It’s important to remember that there are no quick fixes in Shadow Work, so these life-changing benefits don’t just happen overnight. But with persistence, they will eventually emerge and bless your life.

Seven Tips For Approaching Shadow Work

Before you begin Shadow Work, it’s important for you to assess whether you’re ready to embark on this journey. Not everyone is prepared for this deep work, and that’s fine. We’re all at different stages. So pay attention to the following questions and try to answer them honestly:

Have you practiced self-love yet? If not, Shadow Work will be too overwhelming for you. I have starred this bullet point because it is essential for you to consider. Shadow Work should not be attempted by those who have poor self-worth or struggle with self-loathing. In other words: if you struggle with severely low self-esteem, please do not attempt Shadow Work. I emphatically warn you against doing it. Why? If you struggle with extremely poor self-worth, exploring your Shadows will likely make you feel ten times worse about yourself. Before you walk this path, you absolutely must establish a strong and healthy self-image. No, you don’t have to think you’re God’s gift to the world, but having average self-worth is important. Try taking this self-esteem test to explore whether you’re ready (but first, don’t forget to finish this article!).

Are you prepared to make time? Shadow Work is not a lukewarm practice. You are either all in or all out. Yes, it is important to take a break from it time to time. But Shadow Work requires dedication, self-discipline, and persistence. Are you willing to intentionally carve out time each day to dedicate to it? Even just ten minutes a day is a good start.

Are you looking to be validated or to find the truth? As you probably know by now, Shadow Work isn’t about making you feel special. It isn’t like typical spiritual paths which are focused on the feel-good. No, Shadow Work can be brutal and extremely confronting. This is a path for truth seekers, not those who are seeking to be validated.

Seek to enter a calm and neutral space. It is important to try and relax when doing Shadow Work. Stress and judgmental or critical attitudes will inhibit the process. So please try to incorporate a calming meditation or mindfulness technique into whatever you do.

Understand that you are not your thoughts. It is essential for you to realize that you are not your thoughts for Shadow Work to be healing and liberating. Only from your calm and quiet Center (also known as your Soul) can you truly be aware of your Shadow aspects. By holding them in awareness, you will see them clearly for what they are, and realize that they ultimately don’t define you; they are simply rising and falling mental phenomena.

Practice self-compassion. It is of paramount importance to incorporate compassion and self-acceptance into your Shadow Work practice. Without showing love and understanding to yourself, it is easy for Shadow Work to backfire and make you feel terrible. So focus on generating self-love and compassion, and you will be able to release any shame and embrace your humanity.

Record everything you find. Keep a written journal or personal diary in which you write down, or draw, your discoveries. Recording your dreams, observations, and analysis will help you to learn and grow more effectively. You’ll also be able to keep track of your process and make important connections.

How to Practice Shadow Work

There are many Shadow Work techniques and exercises out there. In this guide, I will provide a few to help you start off. I’ll also share a few examples from my own life:

1. Pay attention to your emotional reactions

In this practice, you’ll learn that what you give power to has power over you. Let me explain:

One Shadow Work practice I enjoy a great deal is paying attention to everything that shocks, disturbs and secretly thrills me. Essentially, this practice is about finding out what I’ve given power to in my life unconsciously, because what we place importance in – whether good or bad – says a lot about us.

The reality is that what we react to, or what makes us angry and distressed, reveals extremely important information to us about ourselves.

For example, by following where my “demons” have taken me – whether in social media, family circles, workspaces and public places – I have discovered two important things about myself. The first one is that I’m a control freak; I hate feeling vulnerable, powerless and weak . . . it quite simply scares the living hell out of me. How did I discover this? Through my intense dislike of witnessing rape scenes in movies and TV shows, my negative reaction to novel experiences (e.g. roller coaster rides, public speaking, etc.), as well as my discomfort surrounding sharing information about my life with others in conversations. Also, by following where my “demons” have guided me I’ve discovered that I’m being burdened by an exasperating guilt complex that I developed through my religious upbringing. A part of me wants to feel unworthy because that is what I’ve developed a habit of feeling since childhood (e.g. “You’re a sinner,” “It’s your fault Jesus was crucified”), and therefore, that is what I secretly feel comfortable with feeling: unworthy. So my mind nit-picks anything I might have done “wrong,” and I’m left with the feeling of being “bad” – which I’m used to, but nevertheless, this is destructive for my well-being.

Thanks to this practice, I have welcomed more compassion, mindfulness, and forgiveness into my life.

Paying attention to your emotional reactions can help you to discover exactly how your core wounds are affecting you on a daily basis.

How to Pay Attention to Your Emotional Reactions

To effectively pay attention to your emotional reactions (I call it “following the trail of your inner demons”), you first need to cultivate:

1. Self-awareness

Without being conscious of what you’re doing, thinking, feeling and saying, you won’t progress very far.

If, however, you are fairly certain that you’re self-aware (or enough to start the process), you will then need to:

2. Adopt an open mindset

You will need to have the courage and willingness to observe EVERYTHING uncomfortable you place importance in, and ask “why?” What do I mean by the phrase “placing importance in”? By this, I mean that, whatever riles, shocks, infuriates, disturbs and terrifies you, you must pay attention to. Closely.

Likely, you will discover patterns constantly emerging in your life. For example, you might be outraged or embarrassed every time sex appears in a TV show or movie you like (possibly revealing sexual repression or mistaken beliefs about sex that you’ve adopted throughout life). Or you might be terrified of seeing death or dead people (possibly revealing your resistance to the nature of life or a childhood trauma). Or you might be disgusted by alternative political, sexual and spiritual lifestyles (possibly revealing your hidden desire to do the same).

There are so many possibilities out there, and I encourage you to go slowly, take your time, and one by one pick through what you place importance in.

“But I DON’T place importance in gross, bad or disturbing things in life, how could I? I don’t care for them!” you might be asking.

Well, think for a moment. If you didn’t place so much importance on what makes you angry, disgusted or upset . . . why would you be reacting to it so much? The moment you emotionally react to something is the moment you have given that thing power over you. Only that which doesn’t stir up emotions in us is not important to us.

See what you respond to and listen to what your Shadow is trying to teach you.

2. Artistically Express Your Shadow Self

Art is the highest form of self-expression and is also a great way to allow your Shadow to manifest itself. Psychologists often use art therapy as a way to help patients explore their inner selves.

Start by allowing yourself to feel (or drawing on any existing) dark emotions. Choose an art medium that calls to you such as pen and pencil, watercolor, crayon, acrylic paint, scrapbooking, sculpting, etc. and draw what you feel. You don’t need to consider yourself an ‘artist’ to benefit from this activity. You don’t even need to plan what you’ll create. Just let your hands, pen, pencil, or paintbrush do the talking. The more spontaneous, the better. Artistic expression can reveal a lot about your obscure darker half. Psychologist Carl Jung (who conceptualized the Shadow Self idea) was even famous for using mandalas in his therapy sessions.

3. Start a Project

The act of creation can be intensely frustrating and can give birth to some of your darker elements such as impatience, anger, blood-thirsty competitiveness, and self-doubt. At the same time, starting a project also allows you to experience feelings of fulfillment and joy.

If you don’t already have a personal project that you’re undertaking (such as building something, writing a book, composing music, mastering a new skill), find something you would love to start doing. Using self-awareness and self-exploration during the process of creation, you will be able to reap deeper insights into your darkness. Ask yourself constantly, “What am I feeling and why?” Notice the strong emotions that arise during the act of creation, both good and bad. You will likely be surprised by what you find!

For example, as a person who considers myself non-competitive, that assumption has been challenged by the act of writing this blog. Thanks to this project, the Shadow within me of ruthless competitiveness has shown its face, allowing me to understand myself more deeply.

4. Write a Story or Keep a Shadow Journal

Goethe’s story Faust is, in my opinion, one of the best works featuring the meeting of an ego and his Shadow Self. His story details the life of a Professor who becomes so separated and overwhelmed by his Shadow that he comes to the verge of suicide, only to realize that the redemption of the ego is solely possible if the Shadow is redeemed at the same time.

Write a story where you project your Shadow elements onto the characters – this is a great way to learn more about your inner darkness. If stories aren’t your thing, keeping a journal or diary every day can shine a light on the darker elements of your nature. Reading through your dark thoughts and emotions can help you to recover the balance you need in life by accepting both light and dark emotions within you.

5. Explore Your Shadow Archetypes

We have a number of Shadow varieties, also called Shadow Archetypes. These archetypes are sometimes defined as:

The Sorcerer

The Dictator

The Victim

The Shadow Witch

The Addict

The Idiot

The Trickster

The Destroyer

The Slave

The Shadow Mother

The Hag

The Hermit

However, I have my own Shadow Archetype classification, which I will include below.

13 Shadow Archetypes

Here are my thirteen classifications which are based on my own self-observations and analysis of others:

1. The Egotistical Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: arrogance, egocentricity, pompousness, inconsiderateness, self-indulgence, narcissism, excessive pride.

2. The Neurotic Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: paranoia, obsessiveness, suspiciousness, finicky, demanding, compulsive behavior.

3. The Untrustworthy Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: secretive, impulsive, frivolous, irresponsible, deceitful, unreliable.

4. The Emotionally Unstable Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: moody, melodramatic, weepy, overemotional, impulsive, changeable.

5. The Controlling Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: suspicious, jealous, possessive, bossy, obsessive.

6. The Cynical Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: negative, overcritical, patronizing, resentful, cantankerous.

7. The Wrathful Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: ruthless, vengeful, bitchy, quick-tempered, quarrelsome.

8. The Rigid Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: uptight, intolerant, racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, obstinate, uncompromising, inflexible, narrow-minded.

9. The Glib Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: superficial, cunning, inconsistent, sly, crafty.

10. The Cold Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: emotionally detached, distant, indifferent, uncaring, unexcited.

11. The Perverted Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: masochistic, lewd, sadistic, vulgar, libidinous.

12. The Cowardly Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: weak-willed, passive, timid, fearful.

13. The Immature Shadow

This Shadow Archetype displays the following characteristics: puerile, childish, illogical, simpleminded, vacuous.

Keep in mind that the above Shadow Archetypes are by no means exhaustive. I’m sure that there are many others out there which I have missed. But you are free to use this breakdown to help you explore your own Shadows. You’re also welcome to add to this list or create your own Shadow Archetypes, which I highly encourage. For example, you might possess a judgmental and dogmatic Shadow who you call “The Nun,” or a sexually deviant Shadow who you call “The Deviant.” Play around with some words and labels, and see what suits your Shadows the best.

6. Have an Inner Conversation

Also known as “Inner Dialogue,” or as Carl Jung phrased it, “Active Imagination,” having a conversation with your Shadow is an easy way to learn from it.

I understand if you might feel a twinge of skepticism towards this practice right now. After all, we are taught that “only crazy people talk to themselves.” But inner dialogue is regularly used in psychotherapy as a way to help people communicate with the various subpersonalities that they have – and we all possess various faces and sides of our ego.

One easy way to practice inner dialogue is to sit in a quiet place, close your eyes, and tune into the present moment. Then, think of a question you would like to ask your Shadow, and silently speak it within your mind. Wait a few moments and see if you ‘hear’ or ‘see’ an answer. Record anything that arises and reflect on it. It is even possible to carry on a conversation with your Shadow using this method. Just ensure that you have an open mindset. In other words, don’t try to control what is being said, just let it flow naturally. You will likely be surprised by the answers you receive!

Visualization is another helpful way of engaging in inner dialogue. I recommend bringing to mind images of dark forests, caves, holes in the ground, or the ocean as these all represent the unconscious mind. Always ensure that you enter and exit your visualization in the same manner, e.g. if you are walking down a path, make sure you walk back up the path. Or if you open a particular door, make sure you open the same door when returning back to normal consciousness. This practice will help to draw you effortlessly in and out of visualizations.

7. Use the Mirror Technique

As we have learned, projection is a technique of the Shadow that helps us to avoid what we have disowned. However, we don’t only project the deeper and darker aspects of ourselves onto others, we also project our light and positive attributes as well. For example, a person may be attracted to another who displays fierce self-assertiveness, not realizing that this quality is what they long to reunite with inside themselves. Another common example (this time negative) is judgmentalism. How many times have you heard someone say “he/she is so judgmental!” Ironically, the very person saying this doesn’t realize that calling another person ‘judgmental’ is actually pronouncing a judgment against them and revealing their own judgmental nature.

The Mirror Technique is the process of uncovering our projections. To practice this technique, we must adopt a mindful and honest approach towards the world: we need to be prepared to own that which we have disowned! Being radically truthful with ourselves can be difficult, so it does require practice. But essentially, we must adopt the mindset that other people are our mirrors. We must understand that those around us serve as the perfect canvas onto which we project all of our unconscious desires and fears.

Start this practice by examining your thoughts and feelings about those you come in contact with. Pay attention to moments when you’re emotionally triggered and ask yourself “am I projecting anything?” Remember: it is also possible to project our own qualities onto another person who really does possess the qualities. Psychologists sometimes refer to this as “projecting onto reality.” For example, we might project our rage onto another person who is, in fact, a rage-filled person. Or we might project our jealousy onto another who genuinely is jealous.

Ask yourself, “What is mine, what is theirs, and what is both of ours?” Not every triggering situation reveals a projection, but they more than often do. Also look for things you love and adore about others, and uncover the hidden projections there.

The Mirror Technique will help you to shed a lot of light onto Shadow qualities that you have rejected, suppressed, repressed, or disowned. On a side note, you might also like to read about a similar practice called mirror work which helps you to come face-to-face with your own denied aspects.

#shadow work #witchcraft #mental health #secular witch #therapy

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bodies-without-organs · 7 years ago

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Hyperobjects, Tool-Being, and the Tarot

Last couple of days I’ve been dipping my toes into Timothy Morton’s Hyperobjects: Ecology and Philosophy After the End of the World. This book has been on my radar for some time, though it always seems to get bumped down the list when something seemingly more pressing takes my attention. Which is a shame, because even fifteen pages in I can tell this is a text of great breadth and beauty, not to mention a much more subtle and lucid explication of Object Oriented Ontology than I’ve encountered so far. Many juicy thoughts have floated by already, but one in particular has tickled me.

The point is one Morton credits to Graham Harman in his reading of Heidegger’s tool-analysis at the beginning of Being and Time. This is simply that when tool-objects (what Heidegger calls ‘equipment’) are functioning they become withdrawn from access. It is only when a tool is broken that it becomes present to consciousness as an object of contemplation. It’s interesting to see the point raised in this context as it is one of the few things that has stuck with me from when I struggled through Being and Time several years ago. The distinction Heidegger makes between being-ready-at-hand and being-present-to-hand always felt to me like a useful insight, though at the time I was unable to situate it in the broader landscape of my own thought.

But the way Morton puts the way Harman puts the way Heidegger puts it has helped me to make the link between this idea and some of the threads I have been following lately in my own practice. One of these threads concerns the way that technology fades into the background (what I have started to think of as the technological unconscious) when it is working, and how disrupting the normal functioning of technologies (via e.g. recontextualising, or engineering malfunction) induces them to intrude into human consciousness, stimulating new modes of encounter with the Machine. I hope that what these encounters provide is direct confrontation with the agency of these machines and technologies. By their ‘agency’ I just mean their capacities to affect and be affected in themselves which is never exhausted by what they are for humans. Chitter was my first attempt at this.

I’ve been asking myself recently why I care so much about this. For many this will seem academic and niche. But in truth I think it is neither abstract nor narrow; I think it is a matter of global and spiritual urgency.

The concept of the unconscious seems crucial in untangling all this. The practice of foregrounding elements of technological background—disrupting their functioning for humans to reveal them in themselves—directly parallels in my mind the reality-hacking practices of hermeticism, witchcraft, chaos magic, etc, which aim to manifest archetypal unconscious contents in conscious reality through rituals, chanting, psychedelics, sigil crafting, divination, etc etc. I see my practice developing in a line which very much coheres with the spirit of these forms of occultism.

Morton mentions that Freud referred to the decentering of the human in the cosmos by Copernicus and later Darwin as the ‘great humiliation’, adding a snarky comment of Derrida’s that Freud’s own theories only deepened this humiliation. But the person this brings to mind for me is Carl Jung, who’s theory of the archetypes and the collective conscious continues to animate me. Despite some of the more problematic aspects of Jungian theory---Jung’s own empirical sloppiness, the swathes of shallow interpreters--- I can’t help but love it for finding empowerment and re-enchantment in the same decentering in which Freud found humiliation.

The links I want to make between empowerment, technological foregrounding, and the occult have started to become more clear recently. Shaviro’s essays on accelerationism have been a great help in this, particular the distinction he draws been predicting the actual future and extrapolating the potentialities of the present (that wonderful phrase he uses: “the futurity that haunts the present”).

This resonates utterly with my experiences of tarot reading. Engaging with the tarot almost never feels like a process in which you learn something new. Much more often it feels like something which you already knew but was somehow blocked or obscured from consciousness has been brought into view. It is never a case of reading the future, but of reading the potentialities of the present. It raises into consciousness what is present but unconscious, or semi-conscious.

The value of this is that once something has been made conscious it can be acted on. This is why these practices are empowering. They make possible new actions by unveiling present potentialities.

The lesson I took from Shaviro was that the positive accelerationist project is one similar in essence to reading the tarot. Except rather than reading a symbolic map of the collective unconscious, the accelerationist is reading the entire cultural landscape of technological capitalism. If I haven’t got the wrong end of the stick about this then my own practice is starting to feel very much situated within this framework.

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drthomasmaples-blog · 7 years ago

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Introduction

Purpose. In this theoretical work, I explore whether a developmental sequence of archetypes occurs during the lifelong individuation process. Human development is a key concept for the theory underlying psychology and its practice; however, the lack of a developmental perspective based on the theoretical tenets of analytical psychology shows that need exists to elaborate upon this often-ignored subject matter.

Carl Jung wrote extensively about individuation. For Jung, individuation represented a goal that all human beings endeavor towards during their lifelong maturation process. While Jung wrote extensively on individuation and the archetypes that form the foundation of the collective unconscious, he did not create a theoretic perspective concerning how these pivotal psychological components drive human development towards an individuated state. The purpose of this theoretical work was to explore the lifelong developmental sequences that underlie the individuation process.

Rationale. During his career, Carl Jung wrote extensively on individuation and self-realization as being synonymous representations of the psyche’s ability to transcend its own nature. Both individuation and self-realization involve an individual’s ability to understand the Self as a separate construct from the ego and other archetypes that lie within the collective unconscious of the individual psyche. Self-realized and individuated forms of consciousness are holistic (Jung, 1939/1969; 1950/1969; 1951/1969g) and drive the psyche to realize its inherent nature. For the purpose of this theoretical work, I utilized the term individuation as being inclusive of self-realization. A person that individuates realizes the true nature of the Self, as it exists separate from the split nature of a consciousness that develops evolving layers of complexity as an individual matures. Individuated consciousness allows a person to understand the minute interconnectedness that exists between the often-opposing themes common to the archetypes that form the foundation of the psyche. Concerning self-realization and the unification of consciously opposing themes, Jung (1951/1969f) stated:

In the psychology of the individual there is always, at such moments, an agonizing situation of conflict from which there seems to be no way out—at least for the conscious mind… But out of this collision of opposites the unconscious psyche always creates a third thing of an irrational nature, which the conscious mind neither expects nor understands… For the conscious mind knows nothing beyond the opposites and, as a result, has no knowledge of the thing that unites them. Since, however, the solution of the conflict through the union of opposites is of vital importance, and is moreover the very thing that the conscious mind is longing for, some inkling of the creative act, and of the significance of it, nevertheless gets through… The new configuration is a nascent whole; it is on the way to wholeness, at least in so far as it excels in “wholeness” the conscious mind when torn by opposites and surpasses it in completeness… Out of this situation the “child” emerges as a symbolic content… this new birth, although it is the most precious fruit of Mother Nature herself, the most pregnant with the future, [signifies] a higher stage of self-realization. (p. 168)

Inherent duality exists within consciousness from which an integrative third entity arises; this integrative entity mediates between the often-opposing themes apparent within the psyche; the process of mediating between the opposing themes of consciousness prompts individuation to occur. Therefore, an individuated state of being represents a psychologically holistic state that transcends the polarized nature of a consciousness divided by paradoxical awareness.

The idea of an individuated consciousness is a central theoretical component of many developmental theories of psychology. This is most evident in the use of the term self-actualization proposed by humanistic psychologists (Maslow, 1943; Rogers, 2008) and Erikson’s (1963) belief that the ego can reach a state of integrity during old age. Although Jung wrote extensively on how archetypes affect individuation, he and subsequent analytical psychologists have not developed a developmental theory (Withers, 2003).

The central focus of this theoretical work is to develop an understanding of the archetypal phenomena that occur while entering new phases of development during the individuation process. The results of research that underlies this theoretical work will show that an emergent model of archetypal development is discernible through the themes present in Hermann Hesse’s (2002) story, Siddhartha.

In Siddhartha, Hesse (2002) wrote about a young man’s journey to find his true nature. This research underlying this theoretical work utilized Hesse’s book as a case study from which to develop an archetypal theory of individuated development. I analyzed the protagonist, Siddhartha, as an exemplar case of Self-development. The hope was that by conducting this study, an understanding of the archetypes that drove Siddhartha to realize his Self image would emerge. My choice of the story, Siddhartha, over other novels that focus on developmental sequences, was due, in part to the influence Carl Jung had on the production of Hesse’s story, and the mastery of metaphorical language Hesse used to explain a process of soul work that encompassed the lifespan of the Buddha.

The Buddha was an extraordinary individual that achieved Nirvana. In part, he realized an apex form of consciousness that few will ever realize during their lifespan. Because of this, I read the story metaphorically rather than literally. I do not propose ultimate truths in this research; instead, I expand upon the two truths proposed by Buddhist doctrine: “Conventional worldly truths and truths that are ultimate” (Dalai Lama, 1975, p. 31). While most individuals will consciously adhere to “conventional worldly truths” (Dalai Lama, 1975, p. 31), by transcending the polarized nature of consciousness, an individuated being begins to understand ultimate truths as they occur within emptiness and existence (Dalai Lama, 1975). Even though this study examined the life sequence of an individual that attained the ultimate capacity psyche has to realize its nature, I did not seek to provide a doctrine of ultimate truth regarding the means by which an individual can achieve an individuated sense of consciousness. The Buddha achieved Nirvana: a state, which represents something greater than the ability the Self has to understand its inherent nature as an individuated construct reliant on the life of an individual.

I began to believe, to hope, I began to imagine, & dream about the possibilities open to me.

Let us Help You Advance Confidently in the Direction of Your Dreams. (Dr. Thomas Maples)

Hesse was an ordinary individual that wrote extraordinary stories during his lifetime. Siddhartha was a story written about an extraordinary individual that found peace of mind by living in each moment, as it objectively occurred. In his quest to understand his emerging Self, Hesse explored the archetypal content of the psyche that prompts the search for an individual’s personal ontology. While biographical material is also rich in archetypal motifs, stories written in a manner similar to fairy-tales allow an individual to directly access the emotional polarities common to each archetype. Tales written in a metaphorical manner are an invaluable tool that prepares the psyche for the developmental tasks that lay ahead, and also form the foundation from which analytical psychology has sought to explain the means by which the unconscious manifests within the daily life of an individual.

Fairy tales are the purest and simplest expression of collective unconscious psychic processes. Therefore their value for the scientific investigation of the unconscious exceeds that of all other material. They represent the archetypes in their simplest, barest, and most concise form (von Franz, 1996, p. 1)

Hesse’s (2002) story is a historically fictionalized biography of the Buddha’s life. The literary prose that Hesse created presents a narrative account of the life of the Buddha. The Buddha was a person who provided a path toward an enlightened state of consciousness that exists outside the nature of suffering. His teachings continue to have a following some 2500 years after his death. This theoretical work illuminates the themes present in the story, Siddhartha, from an archetypal perspective, providing an outline of a Jungian theory of development.

References

Dalai Lama (1975). The Buddhism of Tibet: Translated and edited by Jeffrey Hopkins. Ithica, NY: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd.

Erikson, E. (1963). Childhood and society (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Norton.

Hesse, H. (2002). Siddhartha: A new translation with an introduction by Paul W. Morris. (C. S. Kohn, Trans.) Boston, MA: Shambhala. (Original work published 1922)

Jung, C. G. (1969). Conscious, unconscious, and individuation. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The Collected Works of C. G. Jung (R. F. Hull, Trans., Vols. 9-1, pp. 275-289). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1939)

Jung, C. G. (1969). A study in the process of individuation. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. Hull, Trans., Vols. 9-1, pp. 290-354). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1950)

Jung, C. G. (1969). The psychology of the child archetype. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. Hull, Trans., Vols. 9-1, pp. 151-181). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1951)

Jung, C. G. (1969). Aion: Researches into the phenomenology of the self. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. Hull, Trans., Vol. 9-2). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1951)

Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review , 50, 370-396.

Rogers, C. (2008). The actualizing tendency in relation to ‘motives’ and to consciousness. In B. E. Levitt, B. E. Levitt (Eds.) , Reflections on human potential: Bridging the person-centered approach and positive psychology (pp. 17-32). Ross-on-Wye England: PCCS Books.

von Franz, M. L. (1996). The interpretation of fairy tales (Revised ed.). Boston, MA: Shambhala.

Chapter 1

Introduction Purpose. In this theoretical work, I explore whether a developmental sequence of archetypes occurs during the lifelong individuation process.

Chapter 1 Introduction Purpose. In this theoretical work, I explore whether a developmental sequence of archetypes occurs during the lifelong individuation process.

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drthomasmaples · 7 years ago

Text

Introduction

I began to believe, to hope, I began to imagine, & dream about the possibilities open to me.

Let us Help You Advance Confidently in the Direction of Your Dreams. (Dr. Thomas Maples)

References

Dalai Lama (1975). The Buddhism of Tibet: Translated and edited by Jeffrey Hopkins. Ithica, NY: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd.

Erikson, E. (1963). Childhood and society (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Norton.

Hesse, H. (2002). Siddhartha: A new translation with an introduction by Paul W. Morris. (C. S. Kohn, Trans.) Boston, MA: Shambhala. (Original work published 1922)

Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review , 50, 370-396.

von Franz, M. L. (1996). The interpretation of fairy tales (Revised ed.). Boston, MA: Shambhala.

Chapter 1 Introduction Purpose. In this theoretical work, I explore whether a developmental sequence of archetypes occurs during the lifelong individuation process.

0 notes

collectiveunconciousofficial · 8 years ago

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The Millennial Gothic

My cousin and I used to play video games together every summer for hours on end. Him being four years older than me, he had every advantage to win, from superior dexterity and better stats on his avatars, right down to his hands being bigger and better suited to hold the Xbox controller. We’d go head to head in virtual basketball, wrestling, and, my personal favorite, car racing. For a long time, our gaming sessions always went the same way. I would try whole heartedly to win, until I realized my skills just weren’t developed enough. No matter what I did, at the end of every match, my cousin would get the winner screen and I would just get upset. It seemed I had just as little chance at beating him while trying my hardest as I did if I just pulled donuts with my car instead, so one day that’s just what I did. It filled me with a strange pleasure and pride to see my cousin grow frustrated at blatantly rejecting proper participation. He would call me a sore loser when I started driving the wrong way on the race track, eventually giving me the silent treatment when I escalated to aiming for head-on collisions with his car. Remembering my younger self spitefully driving the wrong way on the track it’s no wonder I grew up to be the archetypal cousin dressed in all black, sweating it out in the summer sun at the family picnic. I may have retired from playing racing games, but in this sense, I’m still driving the wrong way on the race track.

Thinking back on times spent ruining circuit races, I asked myself: isn’t that the main principle at the heart of the gothic tradition? Purposefully driving the wrong way on the race track? Taking action to become as dramatically inconvenient as possible? Keeping these questions in mind, I researched how recent popular media deals with this trademark gothic theme of individual resisting oppressive conventionality. First, how they continue the tradition and then how the formula has been changed with the millennial zeitgeist. Also, I must stipulate that what I will call millennial media is not necessarily media created by millennials, but any facet of popular culture that mainly target and successfully draw large millennial audiences. I will look in depth at a piece that meets this criteria particularly well is the third season of FX’s anthology, American Horror Story: Coven. In both narrative, the protagonists’ struggle with against the coercive influence of society, and by extension, the conditioning of the collective unconscious. Through examining this series as well as other media that relays similar tropes, it will become clear how not only do these franchises feature encrypted evocations of social conditioning in keeping with classic gothic literature, they add a 21st century spin; a millennial irreverence for these forces. We will see how the millennial gothic tradition not only expresses values conditioned by the collective unconscious and but also grapples with the very idea of a collective unconscious.

Before getting to American Horror Story and popular culture, it is important to understand how studies of storytelling and the collective unconscious have gone hand in hand since the early development stages of psychoanalysis. Most notably, in Freud’s concept of the Oedipus complex, taking its name from a mythical story and the Jungian analysts’ conventional of use of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in illustrating the concepts of the Ego and Shadow (Stevens, 1990, p. 205). Similarly, as we’ve seen in the writings of Joseph Campbell, myths across cultures replicate certain archetypal characters, situations, and themes. In his study on myth and created stories, Campbell begins by discussing psychoanalysis, stating, “the modern science of reading dreams, has taught us to heed these unsubstantial images.” (Campbell, 2004, p. 5). This is significant in that it linking of dream imagery and fiction writing by highlighting the allegorical nature of any and all story elements. Though Jung’s ideas are largely still considered valid and an apt place to begin when studying group psychology and the unconscious (unlike many Freudian assertions), many dream and story analysts prefer a more refined take on Jung’s collective unconscious. This post-Jungian approach, as it is called, rejects the idea of self-creating archetypes that Jung seems to posit. As is implied in his tendency to describe archetypes as something being inborn, inherent, or inherited from ancestors; Stevens observes that Jung saw the unconscious as “the most remarkable achievement of the cosmos” (29) signaling a certain universal, quasi-mystical edge to what Jung identified as the origin of the unconscious. Post-Jungians instead argue for a less global application of the concept of the collective unconscious. Along with this notion is the implication that archetypes are not universal by pure virtue of some innate, cosmically predetermined human nature, but are widespread due to the ideas they perpetuate and the purposes those ideas serve for certain societies (Adriano, 1993, p.3). This would certainly explain why not every single society/culture has exactly the same stories. Despite obvious similarities between myths, differentiations in the details do exist. These differentiations might stem from factors such as the geography or historical context of a particular society. With post-Jungian developments in mind, it is still crucial to understand that post-Jungians do not dispute that there are certain ancient horrors that subside in all of our subconsciouses; it’s just that Jung might argue these ancient horrors are passed on as if they were carried in genes, while post-Jungians would make the distinction that their fears are not automatically inherited, but persist because they remain relevant. I am inclined to agree with post-Jungian logic as through examining iterations of gothic tropes over the decades, the archetypes while consistently present are not perfect replications of past embodiments. The same archetypes and symbols meanings transform based on contemporaneous factors that affect how audiences might regard them.

As I’ve already briefly touched on, popular literature and literary criticism often are used as tools in understanding Jung’s ideas, particularly in dealing with the Ego (conscious self), Shadow, personal unconscious, and collective unconscious. The personal unconscious, in Jung’s view, are the beliefs and biases conditioned in us by our upbringings (Stevens, 1990, 205). Even as an individual matures and rejects these biases, they always remain in the personal unconscious as they are held by the collective unconscious which is the same throughout a society (Lewin, 2009, p.99). Though relating to the Shadow, the shadow is different from the personal unconscious in that it houses qualities the ego actively detests and denies in itself. Jung believed the rejection of unconscious and the shadow was the cause of all internal disharmony, unhappiness and even evil; that we must acknowledge, confront, or if, necessary, assimilate these unwanted parts of our personality (Stevens, 1990, 205). Though this may seem counterintuitive, in essence, all Jung claimed is that suppressing the desires and fears that lurk in the personal unconscious will not get rid of them. The conscious self must be aware of that which exists in the unconscious, because it does influence our thoughts and actions though we may think it doesn’t. The only way for the problem to get worse is if the unconscious is left unchecked. The idea is Foucauldian at its core: the less you speak about something, the more power you give it. No genre or subculture deals with this theme better than the gothic tradition and its fascination with all things gloomy.

As I write this paper, I can hear my inner gothic tradition and punk subculture purist voice in my head railing against everything I’m saying. That voice (which sounds suspiciously like my middle aged uncle who spent many nights in the nineties wearing black eyeliner onstage with his experimental industrial rock band) claims that going around labelling styles goth dilutes its ideals. If they don’t meet the Ann Rice canon of gothicism or at the very least, some Stephanie Meyer caliber imitation, it’s simply not goth. However, this argument fell apart quickly when I recalled simple historical facts I’ve learned over and over in various art history classes about the origin of the architectural aesthetic term that that the genre takes root in. Initially, the word “gothic” itself was only applied to describe French architecture that rejected the Renaissance method. In the classical mind, the new French style was inefficient with its non-weight bearing walls and other haphazard innovations. Essentially, the science of Renaissance architecture already provided a comprehensive guide on how to build good buildings, why were gothic architects insisting on driving the wrong way on the track? The term “goth” was simply chosen as it referred to the so-called barbarians blamed for the fall of the Roman Empire. There is more meaning in the connotation of the name than the name itself. In its inception, Gothic simply meant not subscribing to Renaissance ideology. It means nothing more than not conforming to and even challenging dominant aesthetic canons. Now, going beyond architecture, gothic fiction can be traced to exactly 1764, with Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, billed with the subtitle: A Gothic Story. In the story, the only son of a wealthy family is killed before his wedding, prompting the patriarch to divorce his own wife and attempt to forcibly marry his would-be daughter-in-law because he wants to make a male heir to take on his legacy. Walpole’s novella rejects and subverts the idea of admirable pragmatism, villainizing the social norm to establish legacy; the pursuit of some mythical sense of permanence. It is no coincidence that Walpole chose a gothic castle for his setting as it directly references Medieval times, demonstrating how the gothic literary tradition is more closely related to Medieval traditions centered on feeling and intuition, which is at odds with the ideals of classical thought movements such as the Renaissance, The Enlightenment and modern industrial revolutions which present a more scientific, quantifiable worldview (Lachman, 2015, p. 20). Understanding this narrative element is crucial when analyzing the principles at the heart of the death-obsessed gothic tradition we all know and love today and how it has transformed a bit. Additionally, this favoring of feeling over rationalizing explains how the gothic genre lends itself well to horror and science fiction, wherein the protagonists are typically resisting dehumanization and the increasing oppressive systematization of society in one form or another.

As I begin to move out of classical roots of gothic tradition and into contemporary works, I’d like to explain the three reasons I’m choosing to focus on the Coven season of the American Horror Story anthology. First, out of all the seasons, it is one of two that take place primarily in contemporary times with almost all main characters from the present, not ghosts or immortal entities who are costumed to imitate another period. Second, Coven has heavy focus on teen to college aged characters, how they relate to and compete with one another mainly over which one of them will claim the title of Supreme, or leader, of their witch coven. Finally, Coven, despite many critics’ issues with the muddled storylines, was exceptionally more popular than its predecessors Murder House and Asylum, and is still regarded among many fans as the most entertaining season. Furthermore, this distinction between critical merit and entertainment quality is at the heart of why I decided to focus mostly on how gothic principles manifest in television programs rather than films. TV, along with video games, comics, and pop music, tends to fall into the category of lower art forms when compared against cinema or literature. The criticism stems from the fact that TV and so called lower art forms, sacrifice complexity in order to be more appealing to more audiences (Gaut and Lopes, 2013, p. 479). Our feelings on the formal artistic merit of popular media aside, for the purposes of analyzing the zeitgeist of an era, the mass appeal of shows alone is proof of its value as a tool to gage the ideals of a given demographic; in this case, the coveted 18-49 audiences that seem drawn in droves to American Horror Story.

Cordelia: Any last words?

Myrtle Snow: Only one…Balenciaga!

(Gif created from episode of American Horror Story: Coven)

Now, we can look to how the millennial gothic tradition communicates its ideals through fashion. As this video encapsulates, though gothic subculture is typically associated with black Victorian era dress or Morticia Addams’ style, the fashion crosses into territories such as punk rock and cyber punk. The bright colors of pin-up and pastel goth in particular seem to go against what most would usually categorize as gothic aesthetics. Not included in the video, is the recent street goth style, sported by the likes of Kanye West and A$AP Rocky and of course, the bastard offspring of street goth, subject of much ridicule, the health goth style movements. Attached here is the store of the founders of health goth. Though not everyone who subscribes to the health goth style wears their actual merchandise, but by looking at their clothes you can get a sense of the aesthetic.

Health goth is particularly interesting as the founders of the movement have roots in the normcore fashion movement (Davis, 2014). As normcore’s name would suggest its aesthetic champions this idea of being hardcore normal. Aggressively common. It is decidedly reminiscent of many mainstream fashion trends of the nineties marked by acid wash denim, tucked in button-downs, and sneakers as streetwear; style elements that are decidedly unglamorous and by no coincidence reminiscent of clothes the cast of Seinfeld might wear during their absurd exploits. It comes as no surprise that health goth should be linked to this trend as it seems to also provide a commentary on the oversaturation of the fashion industry. Amidst rhetoric championing individuality, there is a certain dignity in rejecting the rat race and embracing, to the point of satirizing the fact that try as we might, we cannot escape trends. Succumbing to the mass production of clothes as a mirror of the mass production of human life and experiences in modern capitalist society. Essentially, health goth blends values of two aesthetics that are superficially at odds; the goth aesthetic, centered on meditations on death and impermanence, and sporty aesthetics, associated with adoration of and perfecting one’s own corporeality (Davis, 2014). Some might argue, as Eugene Thacker does in a podcast about his own book on cosmic pessimism, against giving any weight to something as frivolous, and commercially driven as fashion; that types of clothing rise to popularity because of choices made by fashion executives or costume designers (Abumrad, 2014). However, as scholars on that same show argue, one must consider the factors that led to those aesthetic decisions and what the artists might be trying to communicate visually. I would go even further to include the collective unconscious in this argument. Fashion executives do not guide the fashion zeitgeist, as Thacker’s argument implies, but they gage, tap into, and depend on it. Their artistic productions are not well-received based on some pure aesthetic merit (I would even argue this notion of objectivity in judging aesthetics is itself a myth), but because their aesthetics communicate ideas their target audience is ready to receive. The ideological qualities of fashion in mind, one might be more open to receiving the message that arises out of the synthesis of goth and sporty styles: Fleeting, human life from beginning to end is arbitrated by society’s gaze. In this industrialized, material-minded society, worth is judged by physical appearance and capability, which is all the more reason to look good before you die. Though fairly popular, health goth is still more of a subculture than the fashion trend of the majority, however, its central message is still found in mainstream fashion we see in most popular media, despite seeming unconnected because it manifests slightly differently. The characters of American Horror Story: Coven are beautifully costumed by Lou Eyrich and her team. She hand picks and designs outfits for the characters on all seasons that tend towards the higher end of fashion. Though superficially different from the aesthetics of health goth and normcore, the characters of Coven all conform to mainstream fashion trends, often dressing notably alike to each other one can plainly observe in the season’s promotional video below.

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At both end of this fashion spectrum we can see echoes of the central gothic principle of resisting institution, but with characteristic millennial flair for irony that borders on internal inconsistency. Normcore, health goth, and the fashion of Coven revel in being derivative and embrace being trendy as a simple means of decorating corporeality until inevitable death.

One of the major charges against popular music these days is its homogeny and triviality. Well encapsulated in this skit from the show Portlandia which routinely satirizes middle-class liberal youth subcultures associated with the Pacific Northwest.

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The most important take away from this skit is no matter how the millennials try to challenge oppressive systems, the song always turns into a party anthem with clichéd lyrics playing over the same three or four chords. The creators/stars of the series, Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein’s criticism of millennial culture is not at all subtle: this generation just can’t seem to pull themselves together long enough to intelligently improve their situation. This point is illustrated in how they mindlessly regurgitate the same musical formulas over and over again producing songs that sound exactly alike, failing to progress. This is a typical denigration coming from older generations as a whole, but especially predictable considering Brownstein’s music career, born from the riot grrl punk scene of the nineties. This criticism coming from her only highlights the metamorphosis of counterculture in music from striving to pursue some mythical wholly original sound to a more retrospective approach. We see this throughout all the American Horror Story seasons (it is also of course a centerpiece of Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s other major project, Glee) with their utilization of song covers and in Coven, this scene showing one of the character’s overzealous infatuation with Stevie Nicks. This idea of communicating supposedly uniquely personal feelings through pop music, songs produced for mass appeal, is decidedly in keeping with previously touched upon principles of the millennial gothic also expressed through fashion trends. Moreover, the act indirectly references the notion of the collective unconscious; painting it as a societal implantation that directs our desires, feelings, and how we can express them. While this principle of millennial gothic aesthetic is consciously evoked in Coven and satirized for laughs, it manifests seemingly involuntarily in shows such as MTV’s Scream, the CW’s The Vampire Diaries and ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars. These shows (all notably on youth aimed networks) are filled with histrionic dialogues of teenaged love confessions or passionate quarrels. As the climax of any such scene approaches, like clockwork, the slow, minor key pop song that’s been playing quietly in the background will swell and usually our emotions along with it. It’s become something of a protocol, but upon reflection, overlaying pop music designed to be vague enough to be massively appealing ought to undercut the visual communication of intimacy. Yet, in instances ranging from appropriately tense to eye roll inducing melodrama, fan-favorite scenes routinely follow this outline. This is the cultural phenomena that the Coven scene seems to be satirizing, millennials allowing their most personal aspects of identity to be defined by media industries. This all goes back to the same ideals I discussed when examining normcore, millennials have embraced the industrialized mass-production of human experience. Though, as the scene from Coven exemplifies, youth culture also enjoys mocking that act itself.

Many might read my argument as an excuse for the “lazy” behaviors often associated with “idiot” millennials, exemplified here in a simple Google search. The top result, “millennials are killing” is a meme that calls attention to the trend of articles geared towards older generations that accuse millennials of “killing” certain industries or practices that were previously thriving. With this meme in mind, let’s consider Jack Halberstam’s discussion of their book The Queer Art of Failure. She outlines a notion identified by anthropologist Jack Scott as “weapons of the weak”. These weapons are any tactics used against societal powers and are typically regarded as undignified or improper means by hegemonies as means of discouraging this type of disruptive behavior. With this in mind, charges of apathy or laziness against the millennial generation prove to be based in hegemonic constructs of what productive behavior and success is. This is demonstrated in way millennials choosing not to engage in previously dominant consumer or interpersonal practices is severely criticized in a way that paints the millennial as somehow incompetent or morally bankrupt for not operated within the system in the prescribed way. Of course, these condemnations do little to faze lazy millennials as they would sooner make internet jokes about the charges against them than change their ways, an indication of the millennial gothic tradition’s tendency to embrace this failure or loser of society archetype. I will further examine this way of absorbing conventions both of and detested by the system; turning them against that very system is also evident in how millennial gothic uses archetypes.

The way American Horror Story: Coven employs archetypes and narrative conventions. Continuing our look at how millennial gothic tradition moves away from Brownstein’s punk ideal of actively, emphatically protesting against the system, we should observe this moment from American Horror Story: Coven that made the Madison Montgomery character an internet icon.

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This scene opens with Fiona Goode, the Supreme of the witch coven, balding and vomiting into a toilet. In a prior scene, she had killed Madison Montgomery in hopes that by stopping the rise of a new Supreme she could delay her own demise, but instead finds the younger witch alive and well while she only grows sicker. The tension of the scene is built up with unfocused frames that give the effect of obscured vision to highlight Fiona’s vulnerability and canted angles of Madison’s form presenting her as insidious. As Fiona comes down the hallway to discover her would-be successor, all these qualities indicate to the audience to expect some sort of grandiose explanation of how Madison resurrected herself or some manifesto about her imminent rise to power, anything archetypically villainous. However, Fiona only receives curt answers to her questions about Madison’s escape from death as Madison seems more concerned with pondering the square footage of her new room. Of course the legendary “Surprise, bitch” line, immortalized in many a meme across the internet, is integral in fully appreciating Madison’s irreverence. While Fiona’s alarm in this moment is sophisticated and practical, likely concerning the powers that be and the state of her own future, Madison trivializes her anxieties.

As the season continues, Madison Montgomery proves to stick in the mind of most fans as the feature character of Coven, the heart of its troubled, fashionable teenage aesthetic. In examining Montgomery’s various interactions with authority and conduct in grave situations, a defining difference arises between the nineties era Carrie Brownstein school of troubled youth/young adult and the 2010s Madison Montgomery troubled youth/young adult. The Brownstein school of rebellion would have us scream at the man, while Madison Montgomery snubs the man, finding happiness in frivolous, decadent pleasures while shrugging at the values deemed enviable or venerable by institutions. Though this is a materialistic position, one that would seemingly be welcomed in capitalist doctrine, millennial gothic as Madison Montgomery demonstrates, picks and chooses what it wants from hegemonies and leaves whatever doesn’t suit current goals (in this case, Madison has little respect for the title of Supreme until later when she is in the running to become Supreme). In keeping with the tradition’s appreciation for inconsistency, insincerity, conceit, and most importantly, inconsistency. This notion gains added depth when we see the characters of Coven who hate Madison for these qualities blatantly acting just like as she would in this scene. This encapsulates the millennial gothic tradition’s celebration of inconsistency and dishonesty in storytelling and protagonists who are as flawed if not more so than their antagonists. We can see this across television medium in shows often regarded as highlights of what many hail as our current Golden Age of Television. Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, and many others in this category center around protagonists that fit neatly into the antihero or Byronic hero archetype. This archetype is prevalent in the offshoots of gothic fiction, science fiction and post-apocalyptic fiction.

One could argue that apocalyptic fiction is one of the oldest traditions. Mankind envisioned the end of the world millennia before gothic fiction in myths such as the Epic of Gilgamesh or the Biblical Flood and Book of Revelations. And what, in spite of centuries of history, links ancient conceptions of divine retribution and modern post-apocalyptic fiction? In his essay, Junot Diaz quotes David Brooke’s statement, “wash away the surface of society, the settled way things have been done. They expose the underlying power structures, the injustices, the patterns of corruption and the unacknowledged inequalities,” then, adding his own point, “…equally important, they allow us insight into the conditions that led to the catastrophe,” (Diaz, 2011). Post-apocalyptic fiction requires the self to become conscious of the systems of power whose influence on our lives we either actively push out of our minds or remain only unconsciously aware of. Where ancient myths of apocalypse often have an external force (a divine deity) putting an end to mankind’s sinfulness, modern apocalyptic fiction synthesizes what is ending with what caused the end; the failings of our seemingly all powerful social constructs brought about its own end. In Coven, we do not see a traditional end-of-the-world type of apocalypse, but rather the end of a way of life in the form of topple of Fiona Goode’s reign over the Coven and her final scene in her personal hell. Sentenced to spend eternity, it is decidedly ironic that a woman who sought immortality and permanence should be tortured to live the same day over and over again; doomed to stagnation, her captor tells her “nobody sent you here but you, baby”. This evokes an integral principle of the millennial gothic tradition. The mythical norms we’ve been conditioned to desire will somehow bring about our downfall. We see this same idea manifest throughout contemporary zombie narratives. While the zombie originated in Caribbean culture as a corpse reanimated by supernatural forces (Peaty, 2011, p. 103), the contemporary American zombie is almost exclusively mythologized as a rogue product of bioengineering. Additionally, often it is not some failure to adhere to the scientific method that causes and sustains the zombification of the population, but instead unfettered pragmatism. From the Umbrella Corporation of Resident Evil films who intend for the release of a zombie virus to solve the earth’s overpopulation problem, to the gory survival tactics of The Walking Dead that usually end in leaving or purposefully feeding fellow humans to zombies to suit one’s own goals, millennials are collectively aware and receptive to this notion of a self-destructive edge to practicality. In a sense, the shadow that comes naturally with American culture, as Hoglund puts it in his book The American Imperial Gothic, which is “[focused] on Enlightenment principles” (22). Obviously, in order for Enlightenment as well as Renaissance thinking to define itself as purely logical, it must reject the presence of irrationality in its doctrine. However, as Jungians would argue, exiling unwanted qualities to the shadow (in rationalism’s case, how it can lead to horrible violence and cruelty) does not solve anything and, as gothic fiction often demonstrate, can escalate into callus utilitarianism that eventually contribute to the self-termination of a system. The millennial method of utilizing gothic apocalypses reveals the usually unaddressed inadequacies of modern industrialized society.

Briefly, my aim is to examine the case of a society which has been loudly castigating itself for Its hypocrisy for more than a century, which speaks verbosely of its own silence, takes great pains to relate in detail the things it does not say, denounces the power it exercises, and promises to liberate itself from the very laws that have made it function. (Foucault, 1978, p. 8)

This quote was taken from the first chapter of Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, aptly titled “We ‘Other Victorians’”. Foucault points to the Victorians when identifying where societal repression of inefficient desires and behaviors for the sake of endorsing more productive lifestyle models originated. It seems interesting then that Victorians, progenitors of social repression, should also be known as the era that dawned the gothic genre, defined by its demonization of any and all forms of authority. Turn of the century Victorian literature expressed an unease held in the Victorian collective unconscious at the trajectory of society brought on by the Industrial Revolution and an increasingly commercially focused society; acknowledging also that their own ideologies are what charted this course. In essence, Victorians were unconsciously wary of the industrialized world they were creating and these insecurities which is the very world millennials have been steeped in since birth. Inheriting generations of history from parents who have also lived and worked within the rules of the same system as their before them did and inevitably meet a similar end. With inheriting the factors of this moment in history, their preoccupation is not simply with anti-authoritarianism and mortality, but has evolved into embrace the triviality of human existence which manifests as irreverence for conventions that attempt to rationalize or prettify human existence. As the Victorians’ collective unconscious housed an acute awareness of the harmfulness of industrializing society, millennials are collectively unconsciously aware that they live the reality the Victorians feared: materialism usurping ethics, homogenized lifestyles, and the commodification of human experience. However, when met with these harsh realities, rather than despair, millennials revel in the absurdity that comes with trying to enjoy yourself before cosmically scheduled doom. The way capitalist ideals are simultaneously express and lampooned in the gothic asethetics American Horror Story: Coven and other current pop culture elements and popular television points to how millenials see through the ruse of modern society. They are critical of the values conditioned by the collective unconscious but, unlike the Victorians, they recognize and accept that, much like fate, they can’t escape it so they might as well embody it; indulge in impractical yet entertaining exploits such as obsessing over fashion, regurgitating the same old catchy tunes, write protagonists that never learn from their mistakes, or drive your video game car the wrong way on the race track. Their entertainment quality is not based in any conventional notion of virtue, but rather, the only virtue is entertainment quality.

References

Abumrad, J. “In the Dust of this Planet”. Radiolab. 2014, September 8. [Audio podcast]

Andriano, J. (1993). Our Ladies of Darkness: Feminine Daemonology in Male Gothic fiction. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Campbell, J. (2004). The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Davis, A.P. (2014 October 22). “Introducing Health Goth, A New Lifestyle Fashion Trend”. Retrieved from http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/10/faq-do-you-know-what-health-goth-means.html.

Diaz, J. (2011, May 1). “Apocalypse: What Disasters Reveal”. Retrieved from http://bostonreview.net/junot-diaz-apocalypse-haiti-earthquake.

Foucault, M. (1978). The History of Sexuality. New York: Vintage Books.

Gaut, B., & Lopes, D. (Eds.). (2013). Routledge Philosophy Companions : The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics (3). Florence, GB: Routledge. Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com

Halberstam, J. (2011). RADAR Productions Book Club Presents: Judith Halberstam. Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/35588538.

Hoglund, J. (2014). The American Imperial Gothic: Popular Culture, Empire, Violence. Surrey, England: Ashgate Publishing Limited.

Lachman, G. (2015). The secret teachers of the western world. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher-Penguin.

Lewin, N.A. (2009). Jung on War, Politics, and Nazi Germany: Exploring the Theory of Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. London: Karnac Books Ltd.

Peaty, G. “Infected With Life: Neo-supernaturalism and the Gothic Zombie”. In Alder, E. and Wasson, S. (E.d.). Gothic Science Fiction: 1980 - 2010 (pp. 102-115). Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.

Stevens, A. (1990). On Jung. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Filmography

Armisen, F., Brownstein, C. Krisel, J., and Oakley, B. (Writer). Krisel, J. (Director). (2013). Winter in Portlandia [Television series episode]. In F. Armisen, C. Brownstein, J. Krisel (Producers), Portlandia. Portland, OR: Broadway Video Entertainment.

Corson, H. (Writer). Scott, O. (Director). (2016) Dawn of the Dead [Televsion series episode]. In A. Blair and A. Fink (Producers), Louisiana: MTV Physical Production.

Fivaesh, C & Stoteraux, J. (Writers). Stover, G. (Director). (2014). The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get [Television series episode]. In K. Williamson et.al (Producers) Covington, Georgia: CBS Television Studios.

Petrie, D. (Writer), & Gomez-Rejon, A. (Director). (2013). The Seven Wonders [Television series episode]. In Falchuk, B. and Murphy, R. (Producers), American Horror Story: Coven, New Orleans, LA: FX Network.

Murphy, R. (Writer), & Gomez-Rejon, A. (Director). (2013). The Sacred Taking [Television series episode]. In Falchuk, B. and Murphy, R. (Producers), American Horror Story: Coven, New Orleans, LA: FX Network.

0 notes

akhenaten-037 · 8 years ago

Video

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1988

I was a child, It was spring I suppose because I remember the breeze blowing through my brother’s window, which was always welcoming when coming in from playing outside and sweating all over; my family kept our only TV in his room, my parents weren’t really big on TV so they didn’t want us nagging them to have it on during dinner (as it was viewable from the dinner table if they would have kept it in the living room). I believe I was watching cartoons at the time when my oldest brother walked in around four thirty from high school, if I’d be watching any of the Starwars films he’d let it finish because he liked having them on ( for a time, I’d say about three weeks, he or I would have Return of the Jedi playing every day after school, it was mostly just the second half of the movie, and for a time, I knew the entire script to the final scenes where the Emperor and Darth Vader are taunting Luke to give in to his animal instincts, to give in to his desires, to shift the scales of his duality and harness the power of the darkside, for he was on the verge of realizing the light, for only when he had unleashed the rage of the darkness within him, only when he had completely succumbed to darkness, was he able to defeat his father. It was necessary for Luke to taste to addictive qualities that the prospect of immense power had to offer, and only then at that moment when he resisted the temptation is when he became a Jedi. This was his initiation, his rite of passage, to prove to himself that he could be a master, a master of his duality. There is only the duality, there is only the binary, be not deceived. At the time all this was unbeknownst to me, I simply loved the lightsaber battle, but there was always something more about that scene that intrigued me. Please allow me to go off into a tangent; the scene where Luke harnesses his darkside is accompanied by a beautiful pipe organ and choir, the type of beautiful voices you would hear at a church choir, such a splendid scene.) but if i was watching anything else he’d just physically overpower me for the remote control; basic insignificant sibling infighting, something I miss so dearly. He walked in excited saying his friend let his borrow a movie about war and that “there were was lots of action and lots of bad words”; “Full Metal Jacket” I read as he handed me the VHS tape, on the cover, a green U.S Vietnam-era Marine’s helmet with “BORN TO KILL” written in black maker, I nodded in approval; for the next 2 hours I was exposed to reality, realities that I as a child would never ever want to find myself in, and yet, a short nine years later I found myself in at least in one of the realities of that movie, I was in U.S Marine Corps boot camp, training in all sorts of ways to kill people. I believe I was affected subconsciously as a child by the sheer fright Drill Instructor Gunnery Sergeant Hartman instilled in me in the first few scenes, it was partially because of this fear, that I chose the Marine Corps when I decided to enlist in the military, I wanted to meet Drill Instructor Hartman for myself, I wanted to feel the fear, I wanted to grow.

The following is taken from the website: http://www.visual-memory.co.uk

http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0093.html

The Jungian Thing: Duality in Full Metal Jacket

A Discussion

Ichorwhip: The Jungian thing is the distinction between the personal unconscious and the Collective Unconscious. The personal unconscious is composed of an individual's repressed thoughts or feelings. The Collective Unconscious is composed of primordial images found in all of humanity: Jung labelled them archetypes. A cornerstone of his therapeutic approach to psychology was the recognition of the way an individual's personal unconscious integrates, or conflicts with the Collective Unconscious.

In this light, how does Joker's sick joke pan out? If he writes "Born to Kill" on his helmet , it would seem to be a manifestation of the Collective Unconscious, for as Kubrick points out again and again in his films, we have a primordial urge to kill each other. Joker's peace button on his body armor is a symbol of his personal unconscious. "Where'd you get it?" "I don't remember sir." Has Joker repressed the origin of the peace symbol?

T.D. Juede: I believe Private Joker was making a statement about how he acknowledges his fate... or that there is no such thing as a mistake.

David Kirkpatrick: Private Joker fancies himself an individual... a writer's conceit. Pun on "private joke". But as a journalist for Stars and Stripes he must recite the party line.

Gordon Dahlquist: To push the duality stuff a little farther, it should very much be remembered that when Joker actually speaks this little gem:

1) he's talking to a shit-for-brains pogue colonel who knows fuck-all about combat and real life in country.

2) Joker himself is a wise-ass reporter who - when we really get down to it - also knows fuck-all about combat and real life in country.

3) Joker's WHOLE EXISTENCE, from the beginning of the film to the point where he kills the sniper, is all about denying, abstracting, ironizing, distancing the duality within him.

Mark Ervin: I think this is a crucial point. Jungian duality is merely another phrase where Joker can demonstrate his aloof superiority: unaware of how his own personality exemplifies the concept. His beating Pyle harder with the soap than anyone else, and then holding his ears to stifle the screams, is a perfect example.

Ichorwhip: Joker seems to have an acute sense of the conflict within himself: "I wanted to meet interesting and stimulating people of an ancient culture... and kill them.... I wanted to be the first kid on my block to get a confirmed kill." Joker reconciles conflicting components of his unconscious experience and achieves a sort of individuation and wholeness of self, albeit in a rather bizarre and ironic manner.

Gordon Dahlquist: when he's mouthing off about being "the first kid on my block to get a confirmed kill" he's not really embracing anything other than a posture that he hopes will protect him from any deeper risk and investment. Which is to say, his strategy for saving himself is consistently to deny that he exists.

I don't think Joker is accepting of his own duality at all, until the end. It's the killing of the sniper that finally allows him to embrace it, and that embrace is certainly also a gesture of self-destruction. While the comment about the Jungian thing is certainly funny and does reference a central theme of the film, it's also very much spoken within context, and by an unreliable narrator, which are part of the film's own duality of presentation: of the supposedly objective, with the desperately performed.

Mark Ervin: That's well put. What makes Full Metal Jacket a devastating experience for me, is the gravity of the self-realization when Joker kills the sniper. His drive to revenge Cowboy and at the same time his delivery of cruel mercy to a female child sniper rips his self-denial to shreds. It's clear that Joker recognizes himself in the pathetic duality of the sniper, and that the agony of firing that shot is because it's an act of suicide as well as aggression (as with Pyle's last act).

Gordon Dahlquist: The gun happens to be aiming in a different direction, which is perhaps an all-important political reading of the film, but a trivial psychological reading.

Boaz: "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." Remember that famous quote from the Viet Nam War?

Gordon Dahlquist: this is a complicated point Mark, but as you say, crucial: the connection of Joker's big tranformative gesture with Pyle's is what makes sense of the film as a whole. We pay attention to Joker for a reason, despite his wilfully shallow behavior he is consistently perceptive, improvisational and smart.

Mark Ervin: And he has a certain courage to be truthful to a fault. On several occasions his admissions get him into trouble, but while he can be truthful about himself to others, he can't be true to himself--until the killing of the sniper....

Gordon Dahlquist: A perfect example of this is where Joker's courage in standing up to Hartman (re: the Virgin Mary) is rewarded with the responsibility for getting Pyle into shape, that he can't ultimately live up to, because it would amount to a personal investment. We see that it's Joker's own guilt in failing Pyle that leads him to beat him all the harder. This also brings us back to the duality moment with the colonel. Almost all of what the antagonist figures to Joker (Hartman, Lockhart, Animal Mother, etc.) say about him in their criticisms is true.

Ichorwhip: The whole film reeks of duality, especially during the boot camp sequence.

"Sound off like you've got a pair!"

"Only steers and queers come from Texas..."

"One for the commandant. One for the Corps."

"This is my rifle. This is my gun."

And then there is the duality of "Left Right Left Right Left Right" ad infinitum. It's clear Pyle doesn't know his left from his right. Joker shows him how to lace his boots, "right one over the left, left one over the right..." Also Pyle has to be shown, one leg at a time, how to get over the obstacle. This is a crucial symbolic event in the film. It looks like Pyle might make it after all. He may achieve individuation similar to his doppelganger Animal Mother. "Congratulations Leonard, you did it." If only he hadn't succumbed to the allure of a jelly donut.

Peter Tonguette: One of the more interesting theories about "Full Metal Jacket's" unconventional narrative structure was proposed by critic Bill Krohn, who wrote, "...the little world of the training camp is portrayed as a brain made up of human cells thinking and feeling as one, until its functioning is wrecked from within, when a single cell, Pyle, begins ruthlessly carrying out the directives of the death instinct that programs the organ as a whole." In many ways, Pyle is on his way to becoming an ideal Marine - a strong rifleman with a hard heart - But he self-destructs when confronted with Joker's humanity.

Mark Ervin: I would argue it is Pyle's humanity at odds with the platoon not the death instinct. His humanity makes a final return in the scene in the bathroom, the conflict causing the murder of Hartman and his suicide. Joker thinks his intellect; his cynicism; his satirical attitude alone is enough to keep Hartman's training at arm's length. Joker rides herd on his shadow side, while Pyle flips like a light switch. After Pyle gets revenge on Hartman, he points the gun at Joker, who begs for mercy. Pyle grants it, then kills himself. If Joker could have helped him through that episode without Hartman finding out, one might assume that Pyle would have become a marine, very much like Animal Mother.

I see a deliberately chosen resemblance between Pyle and Animal Mother: black hair, large stature, constantly half-open eyes, and the same false grin. The main difference is Pyle's juvenile baby fat. I don't know which actor Kubrick chose first, but the similarities are striking.

Peter Tonguette: After Pyle's suicide, the film shifts to Viet Nam and abandons many of the threads begun in the first act. Animal Mother emerges as the Marine Pyle might have turned into, although significantly he lacks Pyle's humanity, having evidently overcome whatever weaknesses he may have faced in basic training ("You did it, Leonard.") Animal Mother has literally "become death," ("I AM BECOME DEATH") the full realization of the Marine undoubtedly Hartman was trying to mold out of Pyle.

Mark Ervin: I had never thought of the quote just that way, but I think you may be right that this is part of the reason Kubrick put this phrase on his helmet. This makes the resemblance between Animal Mother and Pyle all the more poignant.

Sask696: What is the relevance of Joker killing the sniper? Is it that he finally acts upon the "Born to Kill" capacity in him?

Ichorwhip: I've always taken it that Animal Mother had at first mistaken Joker when he says, "we can't just leave her here," as if he thinks Joker wants to take her with them. When the sniper starts begging them to shoot her, Animal Mother picks up on what Joker is getting at, he says: "If you want to waste her, go on, waste her." Joker does so, his moment of truth is consummated. I view Joker's wasting of the sniper to be humane. It's his crucial moment, and the reconciliation of his duality's is at stake, also vengeance for Cowboy's death is fresh in the wind. But the moment at hand is a moral one, to put the mortally wounded sniper to death so that she will not suffer.

Gordon Dahlquist: And it's telling that the actions of this "best and brightest" representative are to degrade himself, to talk the talk, to hide for as long as he possibly can. And when Joker gets to the - essentially - same point that Pyle does, it matters that much more to him to avoid it. Quite simply, the point resonates with Joker because he is in fact thoughtful, whereas the transition for someone like Animal Mother was probably a little ... uh ... easier. It's this connection that allows us to really read the ending, and the hands off quality with which Kubrick presents it. There's no question that Joker is free, that he has reconciled himself with his situation, that actually killing himself is just a truthful, sensible gesture, given the situation. I think the film succeeds where many similar films don't, because it presents this truthfulness without judgement or condescension, or an externally imposed morality that a movie like "Platoon" feels compelled to fall back on.

Also interesting to consider that a filmed-but-cut scene showed Joker shooting two ARVN soldiers in a helicopter: in that version of the film, we would have seen Joker kill by the time we get to the final scene with the sniper. Obviously removing the earlier killings, places the final one into higher contrast.

Mark Ervin: The crux of the film, and why I see it as a masterpiece, is that in the act of killing the sniper, Joker, who is largely a pretence, finally finds himself and ties together his experiences: his attempt to laugh things off; his somewhat forced and excessive friendship with Cowboy; his shepherding and protecting of Pyle and Rafterman; his pretence of being a killer and a Jungian-- are all ultimately a war face which he loses when he kills the sniper.

David Culpepper: And the sniper is a woman! Throughout the film, women are objects of pleasure - and nothing else, in the finest traditions of the male hero cult projection. Joker plays this out in the aforementioned facades, he attempts to make the traditional John Wayne myth role his own, through his maverick sarcasm. It's quite a jolt to our intrepid Marine, when he is confronted by a culture where young women become skilled "marksman," killers in a desperate grasp for self- determination. That wasn't in the movies!

Another angle is that of the Archetypal. Joker (not unlike Dr. Bill in Eyes Wide Shut), lives in the Persona; behind a mask. Jung decried this Western narcissism repeatedly, because to him it illustrated the shallow banality of the ego. The Shadow is quite active throughout the film, Joker keeps this darker reality of humanity at bay with the mask of his Persona. But the Shadow finds its song in the beating of Pyle; Pyle's suicide; the attack on the base in the Tet Offensive; the lime-covered bodies in the pit; the death of Cowboy; and finally in the confrontation with the young woman. The feminine principle, embodied by the sniper, interplay with the Shadow. Joker has no real experience of women, his only ones are those of subjugation, "female" being reduced to a mere "sign" not only socially but psychologically. The climactic encounter can be read as a conflict between the ego and the anima, the ego (Joker) has no choice but to kill the anima (the sniper). His psyche is caught in a dilemma with no resolution. The question is, where will he go from here?

Peter Tonguette: The larger point here hits at the core of how I view the film, and why I consider it to be the finest exploration of war ever put on film. Kurt Vonnegut has often written that, had he been born in Germany as opposed to Indiana, he probably would have become a Nazi. This is a pretty radical statement, it hints at the darkness within all human beings. And yet I think it's true. To overcome the darkness within all of us we must first recognise that darkness. I feel this is the point Joker has reached at the end of the film.

David Culpepper: I get a rather fatalistic feel from the end of Full Metal Jacket. I don't see how the darkness can ever be entirely overcome.

Sask696: Another thing that's puzzled me is the reference to the Mickey Mouse song at the end. The placement of Mickey and Minnie dolls on the window sill behind Joker in the news barracks, perhaps foreshadows the end of the film? Does this somehow fit into the Jungian thing?

Ichorwhip: I'd felt that the cheap and phoney connotation of Mickey Mouse served the film well. We think of things that are Mickey Mouse as being lousy and crummy.

Rick Nelson: I always figured that the Mickey Mouse theme song was the troops' expression of their triumphant Americanism. Having survived their part of the Tet Offensive, they release all their pent-up adrenaline by proclaiming their status as Jolly Green Giants, walking the earth singing the most American thing they could think of, the Mickey Mouse song. Nicely surreal that.

Tom Haynes: I don't take away a sense of the soldiers swaggering with US power at the end of Full Metal Jacket. Just the opposite. Mickey Mouse is referenced at least three times in the film, each time ironically. The first is when Hartman goes into the head to see what Pyle is screaming about: "What is this Mickey Mouse shit?" The second is in the Stars and Stripes office, where a Mickey Mouse doll is visible. The entire sequence is devoted to showing that the Stars and Stripes paper is a joke, and that everyone in the room understands that it is. Hence the banner, "first to go, last to know".

The singing of the Mickey Mouse song seems to me a kind of realization, by Joker at least, of what is important in his life. For all his earlier bluster and jokes, he knows now that the war isn't what's important. He's grown up.

Gordon Dahlquist: I would disagree. Yes, he has a clarity about what is important, yes one could say he's grown up, but I would say that this clarity and growth has everything to do with the war. That in fact, the war has become everything. I don't think the Mickey Mouse song is particularly ironic. One of the ironies is the exact lack of irony in which it's sung. In the audience, we smile stiffly at the distance between Hue city and Annette Funicello (it's a joke but not a very good one) ... but perhaps we smile even more stiffly, because the men singing it have managed to find a clarity, where no distance between Hue city and Annette Funicello exists at all. There's an element to the final scene that's wide open in a way the rest of the film isn't, and much of this relates to Joker's statement about being unafraid: for the first time in the film, I would suggest.

Mark Ervin: One has the sense that Joker has started the singing of the song himself; Mickey Mouse is identified with him throughout. It is his ability to embrace incongruity that separates him, by degrees at least, from the fates of Pyle and Animal Mother. The final image of hell suggests that, even for Joker, it no resolution, and no easier an endpoint.

Ichorwhip: It seems like the denouement of Full Metal Jacket is foreshadowed by Hartman: "If your killer instincts are not clean and strong, you will hesitate at the moment of truth. You will not kill. You will become dead marines. And then you will be in a world of shit.

T.D. Juede: The United States has the most sophisticated and powerful military forces in the world, not to mention the biggest entertainment icons. What America does best is entertainment and armed forces.

David Kirkpatrick: While John Wayne made some World War II films mythologizing the American war hero, Disney also made propaganda cartoons demonizing Germans and Japanese. And these figures stand against the context of John Wayne's association with Westerns and Disney's association with its Main Street USA theme park.

Gordon Dahlquist: You start thinking about a larger socio-economic picture; about how the military functions..... Full Metal Jacket is an inordinately layered piece of work.

Mark Ervin: I think so, and it's sad that so many people see this film as inferior to his earlier films.

Gordon Dahlquist: I believe Geoffrey Alexander used to say it was his favorite, and I can see why. It's sort of impossible for me to choose between Kubrick's Films, but I do reject that Full Metal Jacket is a lesser film in any way. It's one of those films that takes the measure of its audience, not the other way around.

#full metal jacket #stanely kubrick #jung #yin and yang

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