|
|
The "9/11 Memorial Address", Santa Fe, NM
It is a humbling honor to be invited to give the 9/11 Memorial
Address. What can possibly be said that even begins to approach
the horror and the grandeur of that day? The horror of the
act, and the grandeur of the response of the American spirit.
We all have our particular memories of that moment in history.
For me, the images of people leaping from the top of the World
Trade Center are forever embedded in my memory. It was a scene
from Dante's "Inferno." Equally stamped in my memory-perhaps
from Dante's "Paradiso"-are pictures of firemen
climbing the steps inside the World Trade Center-climbing
to what they must have known could be certain death-in order
to rescue those they could, as hundreds of people were frantically
rushing down the stairs to safety.
They, and the men who brought down American flight 93 over
Pennsylvania, are forever memorialized by the words in the
scriptures that tell us, "Greater love hath no man than
this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
And so 9/11 takes its place alongside the defining moments
of the American experience. Bunker Hill. Gettysburg. Pearl
Harbor.
But for us, the question remains, what is the significance
of 9/11 for America and the world? My own view is that 9/11
is but part of a far larger process that even now needs greater
understanding and evaluation.
For some time now we appear to have come to the end of the
world, as we have known it. Nukes in North Korea. Jihad vs.
McWorld. A potential India-Pakistan nuclear shoot-out. The
merger of human and artificial intelligence scientists say
will create the "post-human" epoch. Increasingly,
the next three decades loom as the most decisive 30-year period
in history.
Within this context, I want to offer some thoughts on what
some of the larger implications of 9/11 may be, and what it
may mean for us.
I would start by offering the view of one of the world's
most experienced observers of global events. In 1957 Peter
Drucker wrote, "No one born after the turn of the 20th
century has ever known anything but a world uprooting its
foundations, overturning its values and toppling its idols."
If Drucker's right, and I personally think he is, despite
all the political, social and technical advances of the past
century, the underlying story of the 20th century was about
a world where the historic social arrangements, spiritual
underpinnings and psychological moorings that had anchored
nations for centuries, have been in a transition of epochal
proportions. The tectonic plates of life as we've known it
are shifting.
To illustrate Drucker's comments, I briefly offer six trends
that suggest how the entire context of human existence is
changing. Then I'll focus more in depth on what I see
as the underlying dynamic of our particular moment in history.
First, science is in the process of redefining our understanding
of terms first given us at the dawn of human consciousness:
such terms as "nature," "human," and "life."
Increasingly, scientists are subordinating humans to technology.
The faster computers go, the faster our whole tempo of life
goes just to keep up. In essence, we may be abdicating our
own psychological center of being and handing it over to the
computer. Within the next three decades we'll have reached
the point where the question will be, "What are humans
for in a world of completely independent, self-replicating
technological capability?"
Second, for the first time in history, the Caucasian race
is no longer reproducing itself. No European country is reproducing
its population; nor are Caucasians in North America reproducing
themselves. The implications of this are so far-reaching that
it's difficult even to speculate what they might be.
Third, future ages may view man's seeing the Earth from the
Moon as the defining event of all subsequent history. Joseph
Campbell clearly considered it the most significant psychological
event of the past several thousand years. Seeing Earth from
the Moon vastly accelerated the collapse of all the boundaries
that provide identity-boundaries of nation, race, religion,
class and gender. Thus everyone, to some degree or other,
faces a crisis of identity. This also profoundly affects the
underpinnings of all religions, as every religion includes
some cosmological concept of how the universe was first created.
But space exploration has given us new and different information
and perspective.
Fourth, for the first time in history, what constitutes a
family is being redefined. This has acute implications for
government, education, social cohesion and what we broadly
term "civil society".
Fifth, the ability to create change, as well as the attitude
that change is desirable, is now a global possession. Throughout
history, in all civilizations, continuity rather than abrupt
change has been the normal state of affairs. No society on
the planet knows how to live with constant, radical change.
Thus for the first time in history, every nation is, concurrently
with all other nations, in a state of profound crisis as we
try to adjust to an ever-accelerating pace of change. Thus
there is no global center of stability and order such as Britain
provided in the nineteenth century, and America supplied the
second half of the twentieth century.
Sixth, our whole symbolic language has been devalued. For
example, "Heaven" used to carry a sacred meaning.
It was the dwelling place of the gods; a place people hoped
to go when they died, our link with eternity. Now we speak
simply of "space," an endless void. Similarly, we
used to speak of "Mother Earth," which gives the
earth a creative, nurturing implication. Now we speak only
of "matter," an abstract, lifeless substance. In
this way, our symbolic language has been diminished. The function
of symbolic language is to infuse into our conscious life
some of the transcendent meaning that emanates from the unconscious
realm, from the depths of our inner being. That connection
has been weakened, so there's far less transcendent vitality
brought into our conscious life.
These trends-and many others-will be shaping the global context
for the rest of our lives. What these trends portend is one
reason I suggest we've come to the end of the world, as we've
known it.
Let's focus now on what I suggest is the underlying dynamic
of our time. For perspective, I want to offer the insights
of three well-known Americans. Adlai Stevenson had the unfortunate
luck of twice being the Democratic presidential candidate
chosen to oppose Dwight Eisenhower. In 1954, Stevenson asked
in a speech at Columbia University, "Are America's problems
but surface symptoms of something even deeper, of a moral
and human crisis in the Western world which might even be
compared to the fourth, fifth and sixth-century crisis where
the Roman Empire was transformed into feudalism and primitive
Christianity? Are Americans," Stevenson queried, "passing
through one of the great crises of history when man must make
another mighty choice?"
In 1961, Dr. Edward Edinger, until his death in 1998 considered
by many to be the dean of Jungian analysts, began a talk in
New York on symbols and the meaning of life, with these words:
"Modern man is passing through a major psychological
reorientation equivalent in magnitude to the emergence of
Christianity from the ruins of the Roman Empire. Accompanying
the decline of traditional religion, there is increasing evidence
of a general psychic disorientation. We have lost our bearings.
Our relation to life has become ambiguous. The great symbol
system which is organized Christianity seems no longer able
to command the full commitment of men or to fulfill their
ultimate needs. The result is a pervasive feeling of meaninglessness
and alienation from life."
Five years later, Joseph Campbell, possibly the world's foremost
authority on the symbolic and psychological meaning of myths,
noted that every one of the world's "great spiritual
traditions is in profound disorder. What has been taught as
their basic truths seem no longer to hold." The world,
he concluded, "is passing through perhaps the greatest
spiritual metamorphosis in the history of the human race."
Stevenson, Edinger and Campbell-three of the most thoughtful
Americans of the mid-20th century, comparing the condition
of America and the Western world to that of Rome during the
end of the ancient world and the emergence of Christianity.
I want to explore the ramifications of their remarks a bit,
for this issue has become a dominant driving force not only
in America's spiritual and psychological life, but also in
our culture, our politics, and international affairs. This
represents the most fundamental change a people can experience
What actually happened when the Greco-Roman world was transformed
into early Christianity? The history books tell only part
of the story. We know of the corruption of Rome; the severe
decline of population; the neglect and even abandonment of
farms; the collapse of the Roman system of aqueducts and roads;
the high taxes and the trade imbalance; and, perhaps most
importantly, the rise of what Arnold Toynbee termed the "internal
proletariat"-those who no longer shared the traditional
ethical and spiritual belief in the ancient religion that
had provided inner cohesion and meaning to Rome's outward
achievements. All of this set the stage for invasion by the
"barbarians"-the "external proletariat"-that
overran Rome from the north. That's all on record.
Those were the outer manifestations, but what happened to
the inner life of the people? We get some sense from the Roman
poet Lucretius who summed up the temper of his times when
he wrote of "aching hearts in every home, racked incessantly
by pangs the mind was powerless to assuage." There was
a loss of collective meaning; a disappearance of what had
represented life's highest value. The old gods no longer resonated
in the depths of the soul, especially of the leadership class.
Belief atrophied. The cry "Great Pan is dead!" was
heard throughout the empire. The God-image that had informed
the inner life and the culture of the Greco-Roman world for
a thousand years lost its compelling force. There was a breakdown
of the historic psychic structures that had been the source
and container of Greco-Roman morals and beliefs. This issued
into the collapse of the ethical and social guidelines underlying
civilized order. New religions and sects arose and vied for
popular allegiance. All in all, it was an extended, earth-shattering
social and psychic upheaval.
The history books speak of the "decline" of Rome.
But at its heart, it was a long-term-at least four or five
centuries-psychological shift of the prevailing God-image
from the multiple gods of the Greco-Roman period, to a new
spiritual dispensation. A new God-image emerged for a new
phase of psychological maturation and human experience. From
Ireland to Italy, Europe went through a prolonged period of
the transformation of underlying principles and symbols. What
emerged we know as Christendom.
What Stevenson, Edinger and Campbell-and others-have suggested
is that America and the West are experiencing a similar-and
perhaps even greater-long-term reorientation today. This is
what Drucker was referring to when he talked about a world
uprooting its foundations, overturning its values and toppling
its idols. If this is so, what, in fact, this would mean is
that for some time now we have been living through the Apocalypse.
Let me emphasize that in talking about the Apocalypse, I'm
not making any metaphysical statements about God or the Unknown
Immensity that created the universe. This is strictly commentary
on the psychological significance of the Apocalypse on us
as human beings.
Generally speaking, the Apocalypse as presented in the Book
of Revelation is misunderstood, a misunderstanding arising
from two different ways of interpretation. One is the literal
interpretation, which is the fundamentalist view. The other
is a symbolic interpretation, which was St. Augustine's belief.
Thus the fundamentalists see the Apocalypse as the literal
end of the world. Some forty-eight million Americans believe
this will happen in their lifetime. The symbolic interpretation
sees the Apocalypse as the end of the Christian eon, and a
protracted time of some new spiritual dispensation coming
into being.
When we speak of the end of the Christian eon, what we're
suggesting is that the spiritual impulse that gave highest
value and meaning to Western civilization is no longer the
inner dynamic of the collective Western psyche. It is no longer
the informing force in the soul of America and Europe's "creative
minority" who give us our literature, theater, science,
technology, education, cinema and music. In this sense, the
character of our culture is the best indication of what is
emanating from the depths of the Western soul. For culture
is to a nation what dreams are to the individual-an indication
of what's going on in the depths of the inner life.
When a shift takes place on the scale we're suggesting, when
the God-image changes, that is an epochal experience. For
what is happening is that part of the unconscious within us
is seeking to become conscious. Such a process has happened
before. It's clearly seen in the differences between the rather
imprecise polytheism of the Iliad and the purposeful and morally
inclined monotheism of Exodus. Indeed, the differences between
the Old and New Testaments suggest another such change in
the God-image. Such developments represent a significant evolution
of consciousness. The underlying continuity of that process
must be taken into account as we evaluate our own era.
If we are in the midst of such a reorientation, when did
it start, and how has it been expressing itself? Part of the
answer lies in the 16th century when the earliest harbinger
of this reorientation emerged. That omen was the appearance
of the Faust legend around the 1540s.
As we know, Faust made a pact with the devil in order to
gain knowledge, power and pleasure. During the second half
of the 16th century, over fifty versions of the Faust myth
spread across Europe. This in an age when there was no Internet,
TV or even newspapers. So the European collective psyche was
beginning to express something that was clearly the antithesis
of Christianity. The Antichrist was manifesting itself. The
reorientation had begun.
By the time of the Enlightenment and French Revolution, reason
had replaced Christian belief as life's highest authority,
at least for the "creative minority." And so Notre
Dame, one of Christendom's most hallowed cathedrals, was turned
into a temple honoring the Goddess of Reason.
In the 19th century, the reorientation-the Apocalypse-gained
momentum-despite the Romantic Movement's reaction to reason.
The great German philosopher Hegel wrote in 1827, "God
has died-God is dead-this is the most frightful of all thoughts,
that everything eternal and true is not, that negation itself
is found in God." Hegel voiced a theme that was to grip
the souls of many of Europe's finest spirits for the rest
of the century. In 1850 in England, Matthew Arnold wrote "Dover
Beach," lamenting the "retreating sea of faith."
At the same time, Lord Tennyson, England's Poet Laureate,
warned of "the secular abyss that is to come." In
France, Baudelaire urged his readers to study "the rhetorical
methods of Satan," proclaiming, "The true saint
is the person who whips and kills the people for the good
of the people"-an attitude that later was given concrete
expression in fascism and communism. In Russia, Dostoyevsky's
Ivan announced that if God is dead, then "Everything
is permitted."
So when Nietzsche proclaimed in 1883 that "God is dead",
he was not announcing a new thought; he was expressing a psychological
reality for most of Europe's "creative minority."
Thus it was not at all surprising that as the 20th century
opened, Thomas Hardy should write "God's Funeral,"
a poem noting "our myth's oblivion," and asking
"who or what shall fill his place?" W.B. Yeats echoed
Hardy in his 1920 poem, "The Second Coming": "And
what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards
Bethlehem to be born?"
America was not immune to these influences working on the
European soul, although there was a certain "lag time."
But in 1925-when America was creating the "consumer society"
with new technologies and a booming stock market-F. Scott
Fitzgerald published America's first celebrated expression
of the loss of transcendent meaning. Said Daisy in The Great
Gatsby, "I'm pretty cynical about everything. I think
everything's terrible anyhow. Everybody thinks so-the most
sophisticated people." Fitzgerald's biographer, Andrew
Le Vot, later wrote about the meaning of The Great Gatsby,
saying, it is "not men who have abandoned God, but God
who has deserted men in an uninhabitable, absurd material
universe." This theme of the supposed absurdity and meaninglessness
of life became a core premise of American culture. From Arthur
Miller's "Death of a Salesman", to J.D. Salinger's
Catcher in the Rye, to James Dean and the movie "Rebel
Without a Cause" to Allen Ginsberg's "Howl",
to Jack Kerouac's On the Road, to Joseph Heller's Catch-22
and John Updike's Rabbit Angstrom series, all were reflective
of Camus, Beckett, Sartre and the "school of the absurd."
Similar disquiet showed itself throughout other areas of
society. Paul Samuelson, America's first recipient of the
Nobel Prize for Economics, wrote in the mid-70s, "More
isn't enough. People are better housed, fed and educated than
twenty-five years ago, but that isn't producing satisfaction.
There's a spiritual element missing." The Wall Street
Journal echoed Samuelson. The Journal noted that it is "not
only religious belief that has declined; so has the powerful
secular faith that sprang from the Enlightenment. The power
of reason, the power of science, the belief in progress-all
are coming under increasing doubt."
What this darker side of two centuries of Western culture
represents is an erosion of the structures and values that
historically have been the architecture of the collective
Western psyche, and which are no longer expressed by an operative
religious myth. This breakdown of collective psychic structures
has led to the increasing dysfunction of our social arrangements
such as family, education, culture, government, and, inevitably,
the church. This was noted in 1980 in a remarkable assessment
by Robert Nisbet, one of Ameirca's foremost historians and
social theorists. Wrote Nisbet in The History of Progress:
What was present in very substantial measure of the basic
works of the founders of political democracy was a respect
for such social institutions as property, family, local community,
religion, and voluntary association, and for such cultural
and social values as objective reason, the discipline of language,
self-restraint, the work ethic, and, far from the least, the
culture that had taken root in classical civilization and
grown, with rare interruptions, ever since . . . the architects
of Western democracy were all students of history, and they
had every intellectual right to suppose that moral values
and social structures which had survived as many vicissitudes
and environmental changes as these had over two and a half
millennia of their existence in Western society would go on
for at least a few more centuries . . .
Then in a stark conclusion, Nisbet wrote, "But in fact
they have not [gone on]."
Similar expressions of the Apocalypse-or loss of life's highest
meaning-have continued on into the present day.
Walter Russell Mead is a senior fellow at the Council on
Foreign Relations. In February he wrote an article for The
Washington Post that carried the headline, "It's the
Dawning Age of the Apocalypse." After surveying what
he considers to be the retreat of progress, Mead noted that
"apocalypse anxiety has moved into the mainstream of
American politics and culture . . . a line has been crossed.
This is Oppenheimer country. The Age of Progress is in the
past and this is the era of Shiva, destroyer of worlds."
The Council on Foreign Relations and The Washington Post-you
don't get more Establishment than that.
We see expressions of this loss of collective meaning in
the regression to earlier forms of political, ethnic, nationalistic
and religious ways of thinking. All nations seem to be in
the midst of some form of crisis of identity. None of the
categories of the past-social status, religion, ethnicity,
culture, heritage, region, nation-in and of themselves alone-is
an adequate context of thought and action in an era seeking
some new spiritual and psychological foundation for a global
period.
A further sign of the reorientation taking place is the massive
spiritual search under way. Look in any bookstore and you'll
see hundreds of books on religion, spirituality, mysticism,
addiction of all kinds, finding meaning in life, psychic health,
and much more. Forty years ago, no major bookstore would have
carried such a huge category of books. Today, new religions
and sects are emerging literally every day. There are over
1500 so-called religions in America, including some anomaly
called "Catholic-Buddhists." Look at the popularity
of TV shows such as "Touched by an Angel," or books
such as the "Chicken Soup" series, with sales of
over ninety million books. The Internet assumes a spiritual
dimension with its endless virtual prayer chapels and prayer
meetings. We're even told people see the Internet as a new
metaphor for God.
One way in which the reorientation is expressing itself has
to do with power. It's a psychological fact that when the
psychic energy expressing life's highest value is no longer
projected into a God-image, it doesn't simply evaporate. That
psychic energy is often projected into some other value-frequently
power or pleasure.
Thus power becomes life's highest value for many people.
Power is simply psychic energy, and it's essential for life.
But it needs to be held in creative tension with its opposite-restraint.
Colin Powell has a plaque on his desk that reads, "Of
all the manifestation of power, restraint impresses men the
most." Powell understands power, as well as himself.
Many other powerful people lack Powell's understanding. Think
of the countless corporate mergers that have taken place over
the past decades, most of which haven't met economic or financial
expectations. Many of these mergers resulted from the power
complex of CEOs who didn't have power in a creative tension
with restraint. Psychologically, power served as their god,
their supreme value. So stockholders, employees and even communities
have lost trillions of dollars simply because of individual
CEO's ego-inflation. That's not an argument against mergers.
It's an observation about why some mergers have taken place.
There is another example of ego-inflation that is even more
serious. It comes from certain areas of the scientific community.
The Washington Post offers an example. The Post quotes Microsoft
researcher Steven Shafer, formerly a computer science professor
at Carnegie Mellon University. Shafer said that while at Carnegie
Mellon, he always felt "teaching steals from research
time." At Microsoft, however, Shafer seems happier. "To
me," he confides, "this corporation is my power
tool. It's the tool I wield to allow my ideas to shape the
world." My power tool-a classic expression of what appears
to be the inflated power drive, or what the great theoretical
physicist, Freeman Dyson, described as the "technical
arrogance that overcomes people when they see what they can
do with their minds."
Most of America is totally unaware of the extent to which
fascination with what scientists can do with their minds has
gripped many in the scientific community, and is driving our
scientific research and the constantly accelerating pace of
technology development. Indeed, the scientists themselves
are unaware of it, which is a prime reason it's potentially
so dangerous. We're all so mesmerized by our own sense of
power-the power of the technology we use daily-that we simply
don't realize what's happening.
At least since Francis Bacon in the seventeenth century we
have viewed the purpose of science and technology as being
to improve the human condition. As Bacon put it, the "true
and lawful end of the sciences is that human life be enriched
by new discoveries and powers." The question today is
whether we're creating certain technologies not to improve
the human condition, but for purposes that appear to be to
replace human meaning and significance altogether.
British Telecom's futures research staff predicts that with
the human genome project, "a combination of man and computer
search will be able to identify the genes needed to produce
a people of any chosen characteristics." Someone, somewhere,
we're told, "will produce an elite race of people, smart,
agile and disease resistant." MIT's Sherry Turkel sees
the "reconfiguration of machines as psychological objects
and the reconfiguration of people as living machines."
Suggests Ray Kurzweil, "When machines are derived from
human intelligence but are a million times more capable, there
won't be a clear distinction between human and machine intelligence-there's
going to be a merger." Another tech visionary tells us
that the wiring of human and artificial minds into one planetary
soul will ultimately mean "the disappearance of the self
altogether, right into the collective organism of the mind."
No socialist or communist could have had a more stark vision
of the collectivized society.
Perhaps Jaron Lanier, who coined the term "virtual reality"
and started the world's first virtual reality company, best
assesses what's happening. Writes Lanier, "Medical science,
neuroscience, computer science, genetics, biology-separately
and together, seem to be on the verge of abandoning the human
realm altogether . . . it grows harder to imagine human beings
remaining at the center of the process of science. Instead,
science appears to be in charge of its own process, probing
and changing people in order to further its own course, independent
of human agency."
Gregory Stock carries Lanier's thought to its ultimate conclusion.
Stock sees a time soon emerging "when humans no longer
exist . . . Progressive self-transformation could change our
descendents into something sufficiently different from our
present selves to not be human in the sense we use the term
now." Thus arrives what some scientific intellectuals
herald as the "Post-human" or the "Post species"
age
Albert Einstein was concerned about just such possibilities.
Warned Einstein in a speech at Cal Tech, "Concern for
man himself and his fate must form the chief interest of all
technical endeavors."
Ignoring Einstein's warning, some scientists are, in effect,
proposing the cancellation of the five thousand year quest
to create a moral order for human existence, and the potential
self-destruction of humanity as we've known it-all under the
guise of something some scientists say is "evolution."
In a very real sense, many scientists have abdicated responsibility
for the possible consequences of their research and invention.
What's the likely outcome? No one really knows. But England's
Martin Rees, possibly the finest theoretical physicist today,
looks at current scientific and technological experiments
and estimates there's "a 50% chance of a catastrophic
setback to civilization." He maps out numerous ways new
technologies could destroy our species by the end of the century,
and concludes that this is simply something we have to risk
"as the downside for our intellectual exhilaration."
Rees's use of the words "intellectual exhilaration"
is a telling expression. It would appear to represent the
enthrallment that grips some scientists when they see what
they can do with the raw power of mind. The power of mind
becomes life's ultimate principle. It becomes a god.
And so scientific power, not held in a creative tension with
restraint, potentially becomes suicidal in a world of planet-destroying
technologies.
This is all part of the end of the world as we've known it-the
end of the Christian eon-the Apocalypse.
What is the meaning for us as individuals of all we've been
discussing? Many unanswered questions abound. Do we understand
the irrational side that was part of what drove Mohammed Hatta
and others to fly into the World Trade Center? Why do we Americans
tend to see ourselves as primarily good, and many other people
as largely bad, whether we're talking about Muslims, Russians,
Chinese, or French? What does it signify that both sides in
the so-called war on terrorism are driven by archetypal images
of "good vs. evil?" Are we aware of how much we
project our shadow side to the rest of the world? Do we understand
the Muslim fear that the secular Western model of globalization
could mean the eventual end of Islam? What does our blithe
dismissal of other nations views of us indicate? What does
any possible astrological dimension to 9/11 represent?
More immediately, how do we respond in practical terms to
the reorientation shaping the totality of our lives? To some
extent America is already responding with the most sweeping
redefinition of life in our history. All our institutions
are being redefined and restructured. Corporations are redefining
their mission, structure and modus operandi. In education,
countless new experiments are underway, from vouchers to charter
schools to home schooling. The legal system is assisted by
the increasing use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR).
Functions formerly executed by local governments are now undertaken
by civic and charitable organizations. Numerous steps have
been taken to redress the severe environmental imbalance we've
created. More citizens are involved in efforts to help the
elderly and those in poverty. In fact, it's estimated that
well over fifty percent of all adult Americans donate a portion
of their time to non-profit social efforts. Perhaps most importantly,
we're integrating a global perspective into the fabric of
our education, culture, and international relations. Take
West Point, for example. All the cadets at West Point learn
a foreign language such as Chinese, Russian or Arabic, and
they take a year's course in some foreign culture. So on one
level, we're already at grips with some of the manifestations
of the reorientation that engulfs us.
On the personal level, I offer what I see as the heart of
the matter. To consider this, I draw on the work of C.G. Jung
and Edward Edinger, who have informed so much of whatever
understanding I may have of this subject.
I want to say a brief word about Jung, especially as a historical
figure. Trained as a psychiatrist, psychiatry was the instrument
of his work, but not the main work itself. In my view, the
work he will be remembered for in centuries to come is the
introduction of a new worldview, the initiation of a new cultural
epoch. This worldview enables contemporary man to develop
a consciousness that can give each person a metaphysical and
cosmic significance. There is a sacred continuity to life
that has been disrupted in our scientific age. As Edinger
said in 1961, our relation to life has become confusing. Future
generations may see Jung as having discovered the key to reestablishing
that relationship to life. In this sense, I see Jung as one
of those historical figures who only comes along every five
hundred years or so. If such an assessment is valid, it is
not too surprising he is so misunderstood in contemporary
America.
For the layperson such as myself, Jung's work is not easy
to grasp, for he dealt in immaterial realities. You can feel
a heart or lung, but not an archetype or complex, although
you can certainly see their manifestations. But I believe
what Jung explored represents the most basic dynamic at work
in the world today. It affects every one of us, and it influences
everything taking place. If we don't comprehend what's happening
on the level of the soul, at the level of the psyche, we won't
have a basic understanding of what's happening to our world.
For in the end, it's the individual that makes history; it's
the individual psyche that produces all our philosophies,
art, economic and educational theories, as well as our psychological
assumptions, our technology and all else. The psyche is the
engine of history, and right now the greatest change in the
world is taking place in our collective psyche. Thus it's
necessary to offer a brief look at some of Jung's discoveries
that relate to the reorientation we're discussing.
Jung explored the deepest realm of the psyche, both in his
own life and in his patients. In so doing, he discovered the
foundational layer of the unconscious that is common to all
humankind. He also discovered the psychological dynamics of
spiritual experience. As Edinger notes, as a result of Jung's
work, we are now able scientifically to understand the psychological
processes that create religions. Prior to Jung, there was
no scientific data or language enabling people to understand
this, so people just generally referred to "spiritual
experience." But what happened to St. Paul on the road
to Damascus? Thanks to Jung's discoveries, we now have some
general ideas.
In the course of his work, Jung explored the psychological
meaning of the Apocalypse. The word "apocalypse"
comes from the Greek, meaning "revelation, an uncovering
of what has been hidden." There are four features of
the image of the Apocalypse: revelation, judgment, destruction
and renewal. Revelation discloses new truth about how life
and the universe function. Judgment assesses the state of
contemporary conditions in light of this new truth. Destruction
is the collapse of old institutions and relationships that
are no longer effective within the context of the new truth.
Renewal is the recreation of civilization according to the
requirements of the new truth. If one carefully considers
the 20th century, all four of these trends operating simultaneously
are visible.
Such epochal changes as the Apocalypse don't take place out
in the cosmos somewhere. They take place in the collective
psyche of us as human beings. As the collective psyche is
by definition unconscious, we're usually unaware of the inner
psychological dynamics of this change, even though we see
its outward manifestations in both culture and contemporary
events.
One of Jung's discoveries was that an archetype is not an
intert psychic pattern as Plato thought, but a dynamic agency
with autonomy, spontaneity and intention. An archetype is
a spontaneous phenomenon, completely independent of our will.
In this sense, it's a living pattern of behavior common to
all humanity. Jung once described an archetype as "an
overwhelming force comparable to nothing I know." Taken
as a whole, archetypes determine our every-day activity at
least as much, if not more, than does ego-consciousness. We
have only begun to understand archetypes and their relevance
to the totality of all life forms-including their potential
cosmic significance.
One of the countless archetypes is the archetype of the Apocalypse,
which becomes activated at certain points in a culture's history.
When set in motion, its function is to bring about a transition
from one spiritual dispensation, to a new one. That's what
happened 2,000 years ago in the Greco-Roman world, which was
rife with Jewish apocalyptic writing, much of which was included
in the Book of Revelation.
Psychologically, every worldview or spiritual dispensation
revolves around the Self. Jung's experience of the Self (large
"S") is quite different from the usual reference
to the self (small "s"), which generally means the
ego's awareness of itself and its surroundings. Jung's Self
is the central archetype of order, and the unifying center
of the psyche. As such, the Self functions as the God-image.
The Self expresses psychic wholeness or totality. Like all
archetypes, the Self is composed of opposites-spirit-matter,
love-hate, good-evil. The Self appears to contain the psyche's
transpersonal capacity.
During an apocalyptic time such as the shift from the Greco-Roman
world to Christianity, the Self becomes highly activated.
It then manifests the four apocalyptic features of revelation,
judgment, destruction and rebirth.
|
What We Do
Services from World
Trends Research
|
|
|
|
- Corporate Briefings
- Conference Keynote Speaker
- Educational Seminars
- Custom Consulting Services
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Thus the Apocalypse not only means the end of an old worldview;
but it's also the emergence of a new spiritual expression,
a new God-image that historically is part of an evolutionary
process. The new manifestation will gradually assimilate into
its own forms of understanding the spiritual and cultural
expressions that have preceded it. It could be that the Christian
God-image of a completely benevolent God of love eventually
evolves into a God-image in which there's a union of opposites.
Thus the new God-image would include male and female, spirit
and earth, good and evil. The Christian God-image seeks perfection-"Be
ye perfect even as your father in heaven is perfect."-which
is separation of the shadow. The new God-image may seek completeness-which
would be assimilation of the shadow.
Such completeness-or wholeness of personality-is, in the
words of Lewis Mumford, "the destiny of mankind."
This wholeness, Mumford wrote, requires "the creation
of unified personalities, at home with every part of themselves,
and so equally at home with the whole family of man, in all
its magnificent diversity." For Mumford, nothing less
than "a concept of the whole man-and of man achieving
a consciousness of the cosmic and historic whole-is capable
of doing justice to every type of personality, every mode
of culture, every human potential."
Completeness on this order would be a manifestation, in Jung's
words, of the "original oneness of the unconscious,"
but this time on the level of consciousness. Such a new spiritual
dispensation would be in keeping with the psychological reality
of the Self. It goes without saying a development of this
magnitude is a prolonged process. What I'm suggesting is a
not a metaphysical statement. We're talking strictly in terms
of the psyche.
Because the activation of the Self takes place in our unconscious,
one of two outcomes is possible. One is that activation of
the Self be experienced consciously, and integrated into the
totality of our lives by us as individuals. This is the preferable
outcome. If that's not done, then the activated Self is manifested
collectively in external events. We already see countless
examples of this external manifestation in terrorism, in the
Arab-Israeli madness, in the apocalyptic or degraded themes
of our culture, and in the growing dysfunction of many of
our social structures.
So, much of the future depends on how each of us studies
the archetype of the Apocalypse, what it is, and what it's
meaning for us and our era represents. This takes time and
work, for it's not an intellectual exercise. It's something
to be assimilated at the soul level over time. If enough people
internalize the psychological meaning of the Apocalypse, then
the destructive phase might be minimized, and rebirth will
be encouraged.
Thus individual awareness of what we're talking about is
critically important as all of this unfolds in our collective
psyche. The more conscious we are of what's happening, the
greater our chance to make a positive contribution by integrating
the activated Self internally into a greater wholeness. One
way to help do this is by becoming conscious of my shadow
side, the rougher elements of my character social convention
causes me to reject and submerge in my unconscious. A British
psychologist suggests that if you want to know what your shadow
looks like, just draw up a list of characteristics that you
most dislike in other people, and there you will see your
shadow.
The shadow is the source of evil in life, as well as the
source of many creative but undeveloped qualities. Other people
are aware of my shadow, as it daily expresses itself. Certainly
other nations are keenly aware of America's collective shadow.
The potential danger of the scientists we mentioned earlier
is that they are not aware of their own shadow, of their unconscious
motivation. Most of us don't seriously confront our shadow.
We knowingly talk about it. It's common jargon. But resolute
confrontation with our shadow takes concentrated and continued
focus. It's not a short-term effort; it's a life's journey.
The shadow represents my most available entry into the unconscious.
The act of seeing elements of my shadow helps transform it.
Jung once remarked, "One does not become enlightened
by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness
[the shadow] conscious."
Once part of my unconscious shadow has been recognized for
what it is, that triggers a need for it to change and become
conscious. In this manner, I create greater consciousness,
which, as Jung suggests, is the purpose of life. If we do
this, we then become not only a more unified personality,
but we also leave a creative deposit in the collective soul
of humanity. We help create the new era that is to come. As
Edinger wrote, then we "become seeds sown in the collective
psyche which can promote the unification of the collective
psyche as a whole."
This is how we achieve the higher level of consciousness
that's so urgently needed. What we're discussing is, in my
view, the most vital challenge facing any individual, for
it's our personal contribution to the future of humanity.
But then there's the question of how we as a nation see our
collective shadow. As suggested earlier, we worship power,
whether military, technological, corporate, political or personal.
Yet one of Jung's most profound insights was that the opposite
of love is not hate, but power. "Where love stops,"
he wrote in The Atlantic Monthly in 1957, "power begins,
and violence and horror." What are the implications of
that both for us as a nation and as individuals?
Part of the answer lies in another question, "What is
my highest value in life?" Each of us must know the answer
to that question. Historically for the Western world, "God"
would have been the answer for most people. For millions,
that's still true. For others, they would like it to be true,
but it doesn't quite have the ring of authenticity about it.
It's more in the nature of reaching back for a lost emotional
feeling. For still others, it's a meaningless salute to the
past.
For myself, because I believe Jung discovered the key to
interpreting the deepest truth of our spiritual and psychological
life in terms of the needs of contemporary man, I would say
my highest value is "the fullest possible degree of individual
psychological maturity and completeness." This is said
keeping in mind the older meaning of the world psychology-"the
study of the soul." So my highest value would be "the
greatest possible maturity and wholeness of the soul."
Two crucial features of this would be first, a relationship
with that transpersonal dimension of life that's beyond all
human comprehension, and second, continuing awareness and
integration of my shadow.
Psychological wholeness and wisdom is a condition I will
never reach, but always seek. One sign of psychological wholeness
might be, "To be able to hold two diametrically opposite
views in balance without becoming emotionally attached to
either view." In my opinion, such a condition of completeness
includes sensitivity to the sacred mystery of all life, and,
above all, that quality of compassion and love best described
in St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians.
In psychological terms, what we're talking about is seeking
a complementary relationship between the ego and the Self,
developing a dialogue between the two. Such a relationship
has historically been one of the functions of all religions.
For example, speaking of the psychological implications of
the biblical passage we know of as the Lord's Prayer, Edinger
notes that it is "a formula for maintaining a connection
between the ego and the Self." He suggests that the phrase
"Hallowed be thy name," means I must remember the
transpersonal sacred dimension of life. "That is what
the ego is reminding itself-to remember that life is not just
secular, it has a transpersonal dimension." The phrase,
"Thy kingdom come," suggests that the ego is "announcing
that it recognizes that the rule of the Self should prevail."
In this sense, Christianity provided the essential psychological
superstructure of the Western psyche, and it's that psychological
architecture that's been changing over the past generations.
In my view, that's what's at the heart of our times being
the end of the world, as we've known it.
So for me, the term "psychological completeness"
includes the ethical grounding and symbolic significance of
our spiritual heritage, but interprets and advances it in
a fresh manner so as to account for the advance of contemporary
consciousness. That's my personal experience. Others may find
different understandings.
To sum up, I quote Richard Tarnas, professor of psychology
and author of the forthcoming book, Cosmos and Psyche: "As
we look at the world today, we cannot escape the fact that
something epochal is dying. We daily watch and experience
it in our institutions, in world events and in the ethos of
destruction that has become such a cultural and social motif.
What we're experiencing is a sign of the unconscious collective
psyche passing through the throes of a reorientation, a death
and rebirth. The great challenge is, can each of us-on an
individual level-go through the reorientation that's being
experienced collectively by our civilization? Can we individually
recognize the great spiritual, archetypal nature of that reorientation,
and engage it on that level so that civilized life finds rebirth?
Or, will we be unconscious of it, blind to the deeper reality
and personal implications, and consequently collectively act
out the reorientation self-destructively as contemporary history?"
What we're talking about involves a degree of awareness of
the unconscious impulses that are inside each of us, and thus
in our civilization as well. Part of the unconscious person
inside our collective soul is seeking fresh expression in
a greater consciousness. That's the meaning of an apocalyptic
age. It's more than intellectual. It's a psychological and
spiritual maturation that is seeking new form. As Jung wrote
in 1957, "We must now climb to a higher moral level;
to a higher plane of consciousness in order to be equal to
the superhuman powers science and technology have placed in
our hands. In reality, nothing else matters at this point."
Some eternal, infinite power is at work in each of us, as
well as in the universe. This power is the source of renewal
of all man's most vital and creative energies. With all our
problems and possibilities, the future depends on how we-each
in his or her own unique way-tap into that eternal renewing
dynamic that dwells in the deepest reaches of the human soul.
If we Americans could engage this task, we would not only
recreate a new foundation for liberty at home, but we would
offer the world a fresh hope that might help ensure the world's
children no longer have to experience the various forms of
9/11 so many children across the globe have had to endure.
^BACK TO TOP |
BACK TO BOOKS & SPEECHES
|
