Things that go 'Thump' in Seminars

Following a seminar on “Spirituality & Depth Psychotherapy” the other day, I find myself focusing on the image from a movie clip that was shown:  the close-up of the reflected, split images of a man (Keanu Reeves in “The Matrix”.  Warner Bros., 1999) about to choose the “red pill” proffered by mysterious hands.  This image clearly shows the split within the psyche:  the two lenses of the eye glasses represent (to me, anyway) the dualistic nature of a psyche in which the two sides do not communicate!  Our particular problem in modern culture is that the two sides do not communicate, because the ego has not found a middle position, a way of bridging the gap!  The opposite attitudes are “offered” as the only options or choices presented to the individual:  the “red pill” (embrace the ugly truth of ‘reality’) or the “blue pill” (blissful ignorance/illusion), neither of which by themselves, on their own, can heal the split within or give meaning and purpose to one’s life.

The “red pill” I think was established quite correctly by the older gentleman sitting on my left as the “pill” that Nietzsche “took”, which drove him down into the unconscious, separated him from his soul’s true nature and his connection with the divine, plunging him into full-blown psychosis and ultimate suicide.  The “blue pill” was established by the presenter as being escapist, the “dissolving” merging into Nirvana attitude of the transcendentalists.  These two extremes of the ego’s standpoint are presented in this image as the only choices for the suffering individual looking for meaning.  With only these two choices proffered by the main cultural ethos, the individual will, of course, find himself constantly flung to and fro, from one extreme to the other and back again.

But I would like to present an alternative way of looking at the problem using the same image, by focusing on what is actually the central focus of the image, and linking that central focus to the earlier statement by the presenter regarding the Latin root, “re-ligare”, of the word “religion”.  We old folks learned this etymology a time or two in our Latin classes in junior high school, our teenage pre-confirmation classes in church, and our religion and philosophy classes at college.  [I am profoundly grateful for the fact that I grew up in a time when Latin was still offered in my schools' curricula.  I still find that ancient language useful and enlightening on many occasions.]  The focus of the presentation was initially on “re-ligare”, “linking back”, i.e., finding meaning by connecting with those things in the soul that ground us.  So far, so good. 

 

However, the discussion got lost along the way, rising higher and higher into the ethereal realms of dissolving and merging into non-being (the “blue pill”).  The initial talk of “linking back” was gone in a ‘poof’ of ethereal smoke.  I found myself becoming quite restive.  My friend sitting on my right, spoke up brilliantly, I thought, saying that if one loses the uniqueness of the person, one loses meaning.  But, we introverts are deathly afraid of drawing attention to ourselves and of speaking out in a group, so I held my tongue until I no longer could and then slowly, tentatively raised my hand to join the discussion.  I confessed to the assembled group that I was having a very strong negative reaction to what was being proposed as a solution to our spiritual dis-ease.  I spoke of the need to find a way to hold together the opposites within our soul by holding on to our humanity through humor and metaphor; and I spoke of the effect of being confronted by the presence of the ‘Wholly Other’ within the soul — a real (albeit psychologically not physically real) spiritual experience that knocks one up the side of one’s head!  

What happened next caught my attention — and the attention of everyone in the room, too!  The gentleman behind me had been invited to speak.  Once again, the ‘masculine’ point of view (whether it was a man or a woman speaking) with its overly theoretical, overly conceptual, overly mental, overly analytic terminology was holding forth.  As the gentleman spoke, suddenly a heavy, pounding and incessant, loud noise began, completely disrupting the discussion, and someone actually had to get up and close the door that had been left open to allow fresh air in!  The pounding did not stop, but continued to knock us up the side of our heads for perhaps the next 15 minutes, while the theoretical discourse continued!  

I personally found this interruptive external event exceedingly interesting and amusing!  The situation had all the hallmarks of a synchronistic occurrence, especially given the overly-heady theorizing that was circulating around the room and dominating the discussion.  I took this synchronistic event as beckoning us to become more grounded, by being “driven” into our human reality, the earth.  The incessant, heavy “Whump! … Whump! … Whump!! ….” was perhaps being made by someone driving a very large wooden post into the ground on the other side of the fence next door to the building in which we were meeting.  (At least, that’s what it sounded like to me.)  But, whatever the actual cause of the heavy thumping, the sound waves shook the ground under us and the walls surrounding us in the room!  “How absolutely fun!” I thought to myself, feeling somehow irrationally and inexplicably affirmed in what I had just said to the group.  My sense of vindication was, of course, totally irrational and was, I confess, accompanied by just a hint of smugness.  My smugness however has been short-lived and my enthusiasm somewhat dampened, after coming across (synchronistically) the following passage:

“It is just in such ‘chance’ occurrences [i.e., synchronicities] that startling new ideas erupt.  It is being more and more firmly established that parapsychological phenomena occur mainly in the surroundings of an individual whom the unconscious wants to take a step in the development of consciousness, as for instance, adolescents who must take the “leap” into adulthood.  Creative personalities who must fulfill a new creative task intended by the unconscious also attract such phenomena, as do all people before the outbreak of a psychosis or in a state of severe conflict which can only be overcome by an increase of consciousness. Whenever a creative intention is present in the unconscious, parapsychological and particularly synchronistic phenomena, which Jung calls ‘acts of creation’ may be expected.”  (Marie-Louise von Franz, Number and Time, Reflections Leading toward a Unification of Depth Psychology and Physics, p. 230-231. Northwestern University Press, Evanston, 1974.)

My reaction to reading this passage was:  “Hmmm, …   and, ‘Oh, dear!’  Now, there’s certainly a good chance I may be taking things perhaps a tad too personalistically, but might this incident of synchronicity be yet another not-so-subtle ‘call’ by the psyche to step out of my self-limiting, ‘standard operating mode’, my conservative, fearful, timid mindset and attempt the new idea I have for the Golden Bough Project??  (See blogpost May 8, 2015: Response of the Psyche to 'Rash' Decision”).  Or, more direly, am I about to fall into a psychosis??  I don’t think so.  I may very well be conflicted, or even neurotic, but I’m not psychotic.  More likely I think is that given the circumstances (the intellectual jargon/babble that was being 'aired' in the room), this synchronistic event was perhaps a “summons” of the Self/God to the entire assembled group to take a leap of consciousness!

Anyway, back to the central focus of the image from the movie clip.  The central focus it seems to me is as “big as the nose on your face”, and yet it seemed to me that in the room where the discussion was holding forth, few could “see beyond the end of their nose”.  The focus in the center of the picture frame was the “bridge of the nose” and the “bridge” of the eyeglasses frame.  What does the “nose” symbolize?  It is a metaphor for the Intuitive Function of consciousness — as in “having a nose for business” or “I smell a rat”.   

The image-making function of the psyche produces images which can be understood (by using our Intuitive Function) as metaphors for soul processes going on underneath the surface of things.  The “bridge” of the eyeglasses is also a metaphor:  it holds together the two opposite views of reality which have become “split” and resulted in duality/conflict (the either/or of the “red pill” or the “blue pill”).  A “bridge” (of nose, or of eyeglasses, or of something else) is, symbolically speaking, something that links two opposite sides — of a stream, or of an argument, or of a conflict within the soul.  Metaphor is the “bridge” that Jungians use in working with the images thrown up by the psyche.  The “bridge” = “metaphor”.  The metaphor joins (re-links) the opposites within our soul. 

The images produced by the psyche are metaphors that point to something beyond themselves that cannot be expressed any other way; they are the amazing gifts that can and do “re-link” us to our true self, to the here and now, and to the Divine.  An attitude of metaphoric consciousness (represented by the “bridge” of the nose and the “bridge of the eyeglasses” in the image) is the central feature of the image from the film clip.  The image holds out the possibility that we might see/know ourselves, even as we are seen/known by the Greater Self.  Yes, we are frequently “split”, yet if we ground ourselves in our human reality, we may regain (“re-ligare”) our relationship to others as well as that “up-link” to the greater Self without which meaning in life is utterly lost.  The ‘Bridge of Metaphors’ unifies our experience of ‘splitness’ and extracts meaning from our conflict.  When meaning is found the soul is healed.

We don’t have to choose between the “red pill” (sinking irretrievably into psychosis as Nietzsche did) or the “blue pill” (escaping into the nothingness of non-being), we can, through attention to synchronicity, through attention to dreams, fantasy, musings and art (our own as well as what is being produced in the collective media culture at large) link the two opposites together and find meaning and spiritual guidance for our life.  By focusing on the content of the images produced, and treating them as metaphors of psychological events and spiritual situations, we can bridge/hold-together the opposites, begin to heal our duality and ease our dis-ease.

One more thing:  The point of view of the film clip frame is from an Archimedean point outside of the ego, from which a different, perhaps objective or ‘true’ picture of something is obtainable (Oxford Reference).  From this viewpoint, the ego-self is seen objectively as split into opposites.  But who is proffering their open hands containing the pills?  Greater Self/God?   No.  More likely, the “hands” belong to the profane, concretistic culture in which every single one of us is completely awash — a culture that no longer believes in mystery or soul, despite all the evidence and experience to the contrary.  I didn’t see the film, but I imagine that the owner of the hands is commanding:  “I offer you this red pill . . . or this blue pill.  Choose!”  For, these are the only choices proffered by the main cultural ethos.

But there is another way.  The ‘choice’ need not be one or the other.  Our response could be:  “I choose neither the red nor the blue pill!  I choose the 'third way' of individuation:  I choose instead my suffering humanity, here on earth, in this present moment filled with both terror and bliss.  I choose to be in middle earth, a vehicle for the continuing incarnation of the suffering unconscious God that seeks humanity’s help to become conscious.”