Archetipi e Miti2

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2° parte

Archetypes, Mythic Imagination, and Modern Society. Stanislav Grof, M.D.

2. The Role of Archetypes in Science:

a. Archetypes play an important role in the genesis of scientific theories and in scientific discoveries. As Phillipp Frank has shown in his book Philosophy of Science (1957), the source of the basic axiom of a scientific theory or the source of a scientific discovery is often an archetypal motif. In the history of science revolutionary ideas often emerge long before there is sufficient evidence to justify
them or support them. Examples are the Ionic philosopher Anaximandros with his protoevolutionary theory suggesting that all life originated in the ocean,

Demokritos and Leukippos with their atomic theory of matter, Copernicus and Kepler who drew their inspiration from the solar archetype, Friedrich Kekule inspired by the vision of Uroboros in his discovery of the benzene ring, Einstein’s preoccupation with the unified theory, etc.

b. There is also increasing awareness of the importance of archetypal patterns in various scientific disciplines: Goethe’s fascination by the building plan of plants, Gregory Bateson’s preoccupation with the “pattern that connects” in nature and with evolutionary theory, Sheldrake’s concept of morphogenetic fields, Ilya Prigogine’s theory of dissipative structures, chaos theory, etc.

3. Archetypes, Religion, and Spirituality:

The discovery that the archetypal world is ontologically real gives legitimacy to the spiritual worldview, spiritual quest, and to religious activity that involves direct experience. It makes it possible to distinguish organized religions based on belief, with their dogmas, ritualism, moralism, and secular ambitions, from authentic spirituality found in the monastic and mystical branches of religions and in groups emphasizing spiritual practice and direct experience.

Spirituality is based on direct experiences of non-ordinary aspects and dimensions of reality. It does not require a special place or an officially appointed person mediating contact with the divine. The mystics do not need churches or temples. The context in which they experience the sacred dimensions of reality, including their own divinity, are their bodies and nature. And instead of officiating
priests, they need a supportive group of fellow seekers or the guidance of a teacher who is more advanced on the inner journey than they are themselves.

Another important distinction to make is the difference between idolatry and mysticism; According to Joseph Campbell (echoing Karlfried Graf Durckheim), “a useful deity (archetypal figure) has to be transparent to the transcendent;” it has to point to the Absolute, but not be mistaken for it. Making the archetypal figure opaque and worshipping it as the ultimate is idolatry; it results in a religion that unites within its radius, but divides the world into rival groups - Christians/pagans, Moslems/infidels, Jews/goyim.

The realization of the ontological reality of the archetypal world validates the ritual and spiritual life of pre-industrial cultures – shamanism, rites of passage, mysteries of death and rebirth, and the great religions and spiritual philosophies of the East and West.

Of these, rites of passage are of particular importance for modern society. According to scholars, such as Margaret Mead and Mircea Eliade the fact that the industrial civilization has lost meaningful rites of passage contributes significantly
to the ills of modern society, particularly of the young generation – sexual acting out, drug abuse, and violence.
Margaret Mead and Catherine Bateson organized in 1973 a small working conference in Burg Wartenstein in Austria, entitled Ritual, Reconciliation in Change.

Several years ago, Christina’s attended a conference, convened by a New York state legislator on the same subject – importance of rites of passage and the possibility of recreating and reinstituting them.

Participants discussed the possibility of combining such elements as ropes courses, outward bound, fire walking, and holotropic breathwork (since all native rites of passage involve non-ordinary states of consciousness). the authors of the strategic doctrine refer to members of their community as the “nuclear priesthood,” the first atomic test was called Trinity -- the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the male forces of creation.

The scientists who worked on the atomic bomb and witnessed the test described it in the following way: "It was as though we stood at the first day of creation.” And Robert Oppenheimer thought of Krishna's words to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita: "I am become Death, the
Shatterer of Worlds."

4. Archetypes and Sociopolitical Movements in History:

Archetypal forces govern not only processes in the individual psyche, but also in the collective psyche, they are forces of history. Medieval knights were asked to sacrifice their lives for Jesus and participate in the Crusades to recover the Holy Land from the Mohammedans. The Bohemian Hussites called themselves “Warriors of God” and sung their powerful chorale “Ye Who Are the Warriors of God” with such
intensity that it allegedly wreaked havoc among the enemies they were about to engage and made them flee the battlefield. Hitler used archetypal symbols to influence his followers – the Vedic images of the swastika and the solar eagle, the Thousand Years’ Reich, and the supremacy of the Nordic race.

C. G. Jung noticed that the archetypal motif of Ragnarok (Goetterdaemmerung or Twilight of the Gods) kept appearing in the dreams of his
German patients.

He concluded that Germany was facing a national catastrophe and that it would be destructive and self-destructive in nature. He also analyzed the archetypal aspects of Hitler and Stalin (Jung 1950) and discussed the political implications of the Wotan archetype for Germany (Jung 1964).

Marie-Louise von Franz discussed in her article The Transformed Berserk the importance of the that it was all right to go ahead with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He announced that the "birth of the child was imminent" and asked how things were in Japan: "Does it seem as if the child might be born?" The reply was: "Yes, the birth of the child seems imminent."

Interestingly, the American intelligence listening in recognized the meaning of the “waras- birth” code.

Particularly chilling was the use of perinatal language in connection with the explosion of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. The airplane was given the name of the pilot's mother, Enola Gay, the atomic bomb itself carried a painted nickname “The Little Boy,” and the agreed-upon message sent to Washington as a signal of successful detonation was "The baby was born.” It would not be too far-fetched to see the image of a newborn also behind the nickname of the Nagasaki bomb, Fat Man.

Since the time of our correspondence, Lloyd de Mause collected many additional historical examples and refined his thesis that the memory of the birth trauma plays an important role as a source of motivation for violent social activity.

The issues related to nuclear warfare are of such relevance that I would like to elaborate on them using the material from a fascinating paper by Carol Cohn entitled “Sex and Death in the Rational World of the Defense Intellectuals” (Cohn 1987). The defense intellectuals (DIs) are civilians who move in and out of government, working sometimes as administrative officials or consultants, sometimes at universities and think tanks. They create the theory that informs and legitimates U.S. nuclear strategic practice -
how to manage the arms race, how to deter the use of nuclear weapons, how to fight a nuclear war if the deterrence fails, and how to explain why it is not safe to live without nuclear weapons.

Carol Cohn had attended a two-week summer seminar on nuclear weapons, nuclear strategic doctrine, and arms control. She was so fascinated by what had transpired there that she spent the following year immersed in the almost entirely male world of
defense intellectuals (except for secretaries).

She collected some extremely interesting facts confirming the perinatal dimension in nuclear warfare. In her fascinating paper, she mentions eight historical examples, where coded messages and other communications
about development and testing of atomic and hydrogen bombs involved references to birth and newborns.
Further support for the pivotal role of the perinatal domain of the unconscious in war psychology can be found in Sam Keen's excellent book The Faces of the Enemy (Keen 1988).

Keen brought together an outstanding collection of distorted and biased war posters, propaganda cartoons, and caricatures from many historical periods and countries.
He demonstrated that the way the enemy is described and portrayed during a war or revolution is a stereotype that shows only minimal variations and has very little to do with the actual characteristics of the country and culture involved.

He was able to divide these images into several archetypal categories according to the prevailing characteristics (e.g., Stranger, Aggressor, Worthy Opponent, Faceless,
Enemy of God, Barbarian, Greedy, Criminal, Torturer, Rapist, Death). According to Keen, the alleged images of the enemy are essentially projections of the repressed and unacknowledged shadow aspects of our own unconscious. Although we would certainly
find in human history instances of just wars, those who initiate war activities are typically substituting external targets for elements in their own psyches that should be properly faced in personal self-exploration.
Sam Keen's theoretical framework does not specifically include the perinatal domain of the unconscious. However, the analysis of his picture material reveals preponderance of archetypal images that are characteristic of BPM II and BPM III.

The enemy is typically depicted as a dangerous octopus, a vicious dragon, a multiheaded hydra, a giant venomous tarantula, or an engulfing Leviathan. Other frequently used symbols include vicious predatory felines or birds, monstrous sharks, and ominous snakes, particularly vipers and boa constrictors.

Scenes depicting strangulation or crushing, ominous whirlpools, and treacherous quicksands also abound in pictures from the time of wars, revolutions, and political crises. Juxtaposition of pictures from holotropic states of consciousness that depict perinatal experiences with the historical pictorial documentation collected by Lloyd de Mause and Sam Keen represents strong
evidence for the perinatal and transpersonal roots of human violence.

According to the new insights, provided jointly by observations from consciousness research and the findings of psychohistory, we all carry in our deep unconscious powerful energies and emotions associated with the trauma of birth that we have not adequately mastered and assimilated.

The symbolism associated with them is drawn from deep archetypal sources. For some of us, this aspect of our psyche can be
completely unconscious, until and unless we embark on some in-depth self-exploration with the use of psychedelics or some powerful experiential techniques of psychotherapy, such as the holotropic breathwork or rebirthing. Others can have varying degrees of
awareness of the emotions and physical sensations from the perinatal and transpersonal level of the unconscious.

Activation of this material can lead to serious individual psychopathology, including unmotivated violence. It seems that, for unknown reasons, the awareness of the perinatal elements can increase simultaneously in a large number of people. This creates an atmosphere of general tension, anxiety, and anticipation.

The leader is an individual who is under a stronger influence of the perinatal energies than the average person. He also has the ability to disown his unacceptable feelings (the Shadow in Jung's terminology) and to project them on the external situation. The collective discomfort is blamed on the enemy and a military intervention is offered as a solution.
Historical and astrological research of Richard Tarnas threw fascinating new light on de Mause’s idea of the collective tension originating in the perinatal unconscious which typically precedes onset of wars and revolutions.

In his meticulous explorations,Tarnas recognized the deep correlation between the phenomenology of what I call Basic Perinatal Matrices (BPMs) and astrological archetypes (BPM I and Neptune, BPM II and Saturn, BPM III, and Pluto and BPM IV and Uranus). He also was able to demonstrate throughout human history deep correlations between the periods of wars and revolutions and hard Pluto/Saturn aspects (Tarnas 2006).

5. Search for a New Planetary Myth.

Scholars, such as Arnold Toynbee and Joseph Campbell noticed that all cultures of the past were governed by an underlying myth or a combination of myths. Joseph Campbell often raised the question: “What are the myths that are driving the Western civilization?” He himself emphasized the importance of the Search for the Holy Grail myth in its relation to individualism characterizing Western society.

We can also think about the two major myths of the modern era: Paradise Lost vs. Ascent of Man. Equally appropriate seems to be the motif of the Abduction and Rape of the Feminine, Death/Rebirth Struggle, and a variety of others - Faust, Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Frankenstein, Prodigal Son, Tower of Babel, etc.

Joseph Campbell also often asked: what will be the myth of the future and he expressed his hope that it would involve overcoming fragmentation and creating a planetary civilization, where people would live in harmony with others and with nature,
benefiting from the astonishing discoveries of science and technology, but using them with wisdom coming from a deep spiritual place (New Atlantis).

Achievement of this goal would also involve psychospiritual rebirth and liberation and return of the feminine.
Since we are talking about planetary civilization, I would like to mention a very interesting observation that seems very relevant in this regard. One of the most surprising discoveries in my work with psychedelics and with the holotropic breathwork
was the ease with which individuals in holotropic states of consciousness (including myself) transcended historical and geographical boundaries and experienced archetypal figures, motifs, and domains from just about any culture in human history.

Over the years, I have myself have experienced in my own psychedelic sessions episodes from many different mythologies and religions of the world – Hindu, Buddhist, Tibetan Buddhist, Moslem, Christian, Egyptian, Shinto, Australian Aborigene, Native American,
South American, and others.

This has to be a new phenomenon. Many other cultures had and used powerful mind-altering technologies, including psychedelic plants. Had the collective unconscious in its entirety been as easily accessible for them as it seems to be for modern subjects,
we would not have distinct culture-specific mythologies. We have to assume that, for example, the Tibetans experienced primarily Tibetan deities and Huichol Indians in Mexico Huichol deities. There are no descriptions of the Dear Spirit or Grandfather Fire in the Bardo Thodol or those of the Dhyani Buddhas in the Huichol lore.

It seems that this increased accessibility of various domains in the collective unconscious parallels what is happening in the material world. Until the end of the fifteenth century, Europeans did not know anything about the New World and its inhabitants and vice versa. Many human groups in remote parts of the world remained unknown to the rest of the world until the modern era.

Tibet was relatively isolated until the Chinese invasion in 1949. Today telephone, short-wave radio stations, television, jet travel, and more recently the Internet have dissolved many of the old boundaries. Let us hope that what is happening in the inner and the outer world are indications that we are moving toward a truly global civilization.

6. Consciousness research, archetypal psychology, and astrology.

The new understanding of the nature and function of the archetypes that has emerged from the study of holotropic states of consciousness has important implications for the field of astrology.

On the one hand, it brings strong supportive evidence for the worldview underlying astrology (Grof 2009), on the other hand it opens new exciting perspectives for psychiatry, psychology, and a broad range of other disciplines. This is a complex topic that has to be reserved for another time and place.