– Esther Harding, (1968) –
We are shocked by and fear the current movements occurring within the personal and collective Psyche. From the oppression of women’s reproductive rights, to the infringement and killing of so many individuals throughout the world. Once again, we are banning books, attempting to reframe slavery as an enriching experience, while we are witnessing a world-wide escalation of dictatorship. And the workings of powerful unconscious dynamics have resulted in far too many of us willing to accept the blatant lies, distortions, and ongoing abuses by our leaders.
We are experiencing an activation of the dark unconscious, irrupting into the world without conscious understanding or restraint, bringing with it the stench of ongoing Crimes Against Humanity. Each of these are disturbing archetypal issues enacted on the world stage, urgently needing to be understood and addressed. These irruptions speak to the consequences of our estrangement from Psyche and Soul creating, yet again, a horrific disregard for the sanctity of life.
As Elie Wiesel once warned, silence in the face of oppression empowers the oppressors, and never the victims, emphasizing the importance of an individual response to injustice. The absence of Psyche’s wisdom in political decision-making is increasingly evident. We are brought to our knees by the events playing out on the world stage, and are forced to ask; “where are those song birds and their melodious sounds that fill our heart and soul with peace and joy? Where there was song and a dancing of their lyrical trill, now there is only a deafening silence in the woods.
However much we may care for Psyche, these appalling world events are silencing the call of the birds, and the songs in our soul. Far too many of our world leaders see the world only through the eyes of their own unresolved complexes. Their lack of eros drives their ongoing compulsion to conquer and destroy while never caring enough that many of our sons and daughters will never return home to us. Politicians, ministers, and teachers caught in the throes of an archetypal inflation, claim to know the ways of some elusive God, proselytize a morality of abuse. Yet we stand in saluted attention to these lifeless, seemingly soulless figures.
With this ongoing escalation of abuses to humanity we need to return to the wisdom of Jung and von Franz regarding the ways of the Psyche, and the consequences of a life estranged from the Self. Jung’s work on the “Symbolic Life” and the Objective Psyche needs to be heard anew, and rescued from the banalities of a world driven by this desperate need for illusionary power.
Jung taught us that; “where love rules, there is no will to power, and where power predominates, love is lacking.” It is time to find a way to make the importance of this work accessible to the greater international community with the hopes that there may be some antidote to the abuses against humanity and the blatant disregard for Psyche and Soul.