In the last years, a large number of authors have indicated, advertised and explained the dangerous situation that humanity has created by itself. The catastrophic global crisis has been characterized in many different ways that show, all of them, a very clear idea: a split between the inner man and the "external" or "objective" reality.
José Antonio Delgado González, Licenciado en Ciencias Ambientales por la Universidad Europea de Madrid, c/ Nueva nº 4, 28400 Collado Villalba, Madrid, España. [Teléfono: 918493432. Móvil: 670363349. Correo electrónico: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.]
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi:
Dona eis réquiem...
When the day arrives,
Every manifestation emerge
Of the non-manifested and,
When the night arrives, it
Dissolves in... the non-manifested.
Bragavad Gita. Cap. VIII, 18.
Copta Virgin Mary
From the darkness emerged
Wanted, loved, desired,
Sought and yearned.
Queen of Depths
Lady of Carnal Mysteries
Initiator into communities
Origin of the biggest calamities.
Author. Dream 2.
Hard emerge
In stages converge
I die to rebirth
Immolation to transcend
And leave the past behind.
New life born,
Behind the hecatomb contended
Years ago gestated, today actualised.
The new life enlighten,
In the clipped hollowness restricted.
The author.
Christ Our Lord
Kingdom of God in our soul,
Invoked in the initiator destruction.
Lamb of God,
Who redeems to horror.
Author. Dream 1.
This worldwide situation has been expressed in terms of schism between sentiment and thinking, man and nature, a flooding of instincts and irrationals forces of the unconscious in the conscious field, etc. The right thing is that the unilateral development of the patriarchal ego has driven us to a blind alley, if you allow me the expression.
Modern humanity destroys the natural world on which depends their survival. The facts are identical almost all over the planet. The Grails views, those of which ordinary man seems to be completely blind, describes a picture of desolation and depression: devastated forests, drained marshes, coral reefs rooted out, farm lands sterilized because of unsustainable practices, turning land into a desert, pavement of fertile soils, subterranean water, rivers, brooks, estuaries, seas and oceans polluted with the waste of the industrial practices, such as negligent petrol wastes... The air that we breathe, which we can not go without even for some minutes, we pollute it with chemical wastes, xenobiotics, etc., we poison the food with pesticides, some of them with carcinogenic and mutagenic proved action, etc.
In relationships field, the western civilization crisis has been expanding, like a malign cancer, in every ambit of life, impregnating it with the stamp of discord and disharmony. Nowadays, it is becoming clear that the intra-marital aggressions are increasing. Every day, with a higher proportion than before, we can read in the newspapers or listen in the media of communication those cases of family violence, and even homicides.
The sexual repression, typical in the Victorian epoch, as it is described in Freud's work, is transforming in the opposite side. In this way, the erotic instincts are manifested in direct and distorted ways. The sexual aberrations, the orgiastic practices in groups, interchange of couples, sodomy, zoophilia, the use of children and slaves in pornographic practices, constitutes some examples.
Likewise, the lack of spirituality is changed in a multitude of sects, which increase day by day, as well as in the distortion occult films and the increment in superstition, etc.
In the blindness of western man, incapable of facing this reality, it occurs, the last 11th September, an event that is as brutal as the situation described above, in which I have superficially shown the facts of the modern humanity.
As it happens on an individual level, when the ego abrogate contents that do not belong to him and inflates the way of thinking himself to be the owner of home, the unconscious mind reacts to awake him and compel him, often in a painful way, to fall down off the pedestal in which he had been installed. The reaction of the unconscious is the more extreme the more the distance of the ego with the instinct reality, and as high as the persistent in not paying attention to the demands of the unconscious.
In this state is the western world and, we almost could say that the brutality that took place the last 11th September, was one of the most probable manifestations, if we are aware of the human being's self-deception capacity to bear the anxious and maintain himself in a false security sentiment, in Goleman's words. These result on the impediment to be conscious of the serious global crisis. The lack of attention in the relationship between our pattern of behaviours, our way of living and their collateral effects in the environment, in the relationships and in our own life are leading us to the destruction of our world.
The hecatomb happened has woken up sentiments that dozed in the deepest of unconscious mind. A religious sentiment (re-ligare = to turn round and unite with the divine essence) is emerging in the western countries and the manifestation of this is the solidarity and union ties created in the last days.
Last Sunday, 17th September, just after I had finished my last essay, in which I pointed out what I could see in the situation, prevailed in the world, and its connexion with my inner experiences, sentiments and intuitions, I sent the original to Ángel Almazán, the coordinator of Eranos list, to be published. Some minutes later, I went to sleep thinking that I was not sure about what I had written or, at least, I was not really conscious of every word I wrote.
Then, that night, I had three different dreams, all interconnected. I have written the first two dreams, in a poetic way, at the beginning of this essay. In the third and last one, a voice of an old man told me that, what I had written in the last essay was right and it had penetrated in the problematic situation and its relationship with my own life.
The constellation of Christ archetype, emerged in the first dream, appears in a Redeemer aspect, as God Lamb or Agnus Dei. In the second one, emerged the Virgin Mary or Beata Maria in a primitive version. In this way, there is a connection, in one image, between the Christian symbol of Mary, as the Mother of God, and the feminine images of alexandrine alchemy, such as Cleopatra The Copt and Prophetess Mary. But, it is even more meaningful, that the dream refers to the Virgin as Copt (Egyptian), that it reminds us of Sekhmet, the Egyptian Goddess.
The first dream expresses the constellation of Self-archetype or God in human being. Behind the present circumstances of chaos and blackness, of dissolution in contradictory tendencies, of fight and open war, of desperation and pain because of the lives of the dead people and their relatives, of empathy with the victims, and hate and violence against the executors, it constellates (this is, it actualises and prepares to emerge in the conscious field) the unity and wholeness archetype, manifesting in the symbol of Christ, the Redeemer.
This dream shows how the Christian premises doze in our unconscious. The constellation of the Christ archetype as redeemer, announces the possibility to remember the Christian mystery in our own individual lives. And this mystery refers to the assumption of the responsibility to become what we potentially are, our own cross to bear. It manifests in an obligation, imposed on oneself, to walk in the individuation path to our totality.
I wish to reproduce the important quote from Jung's AION:
"The recognition of archetype do not avoid, so, in any way the Christian mystery, but that it creates the entire necessity, precisely the psychological precognition without whom the "Redemption" would appear to does not make any sense. (...) If he (human being) does it (to considerate himself in the obligation to walk in the individuation path and accept his wholeness) deliberately and in a conscious way, he avoids the harmful sequels of a repressed individuation".
And the danger of not being conscious of this unconscious contents emergency, this is, the constellation of the Self archetype, as coniuntio oppositorum, is expressed by Jung when he points out that, then, it is projected outside and converted in destiny. In other words, if the western (and EEUU is in the lead) are not conscious of his antithesis (light-dark, masculinity-femininity, Christ-Antichrist, ego-shadow, etc.) then, the world represents the battlefield of that conflict and he is split in two parts.
The second dream complements the first one and emphasize an aspect that is not present in the Christ archetype: Virgin Mary. This double dream is related to, in my life, a mandala that I drew a year ago. In that mandala, I represented the following symbols: a circle divided in twelve round bands that delimitate a centre or core. The first round band is black, with 12 semi-circles that are looking at the inner core, related to the twelve Zodiac signs, and it separates from outside the symbols that are inside the mandala. It creates, so, a tenemos that divides the sacred part of the circle to those that surround it.
Next, appears a second green band, the colour that is related to Nature and to the sensation function. Immediately after, a blue band with two fish that are swimming in opposite directions. The fish that is swimming in the boreal hemisphere is yellow with three blue bands, whereas the other, that that is in the austral hemisphere, has the three bands in red. The centre is built by one cross with four colours: red-blue, green-yellow. And, in the core of the cross, there is a circle inside of which is represented a Divinity symbol. This image includes Christ and Mary Virgin, in opposite positions. Both are looking outside. Their expression is warm, affectionate and happy. They are in harmony. The Northern Hemisphere in the central circle, in which it is Christ, is blue. The Southern Hemisphere, where the Mary Virgin resides, is red.
A mandala is a Self-image. Thus, in the most external part, we find two numinous fish (yellow) with blue bands (thought, analysis), in the North, and red (sentiment, synthesis), in the South, that are both swimming in opposites directions (Pisces Symbol and the polarity Christ-Antichrist). This aspect of polarity and opposition is the first state to face, in order to reach an approximation to the centre.
In the centre we find the cross intersection, the Via Crucis. It represents the Christ cross, which implies "redemption", the assumption of the wholeness as a moral obligation. And in this centre, the divinity is shared: Yet it is not just a masculine God, like in Christianity. Here, it appears with two faces, one masculine and the other feminine. That is, an androgynous image of Divinity. This amplification emerges from the first dream that I had just before I drew the mandala and it shows an image of a Bisexual Being, with a feminine face, whose numinous influence persists indelible in my conscious still.
The Virgin Mary, who appears in the second dream, represents, in one way, the divine mother, the soul in which God receives Himself, engenders Himself into herself. It represents, as Chevalier and Gheerbrant pointed out in their Symbols Dictionary, "the perfect unified soul, in which God has fecundated himself". As a symbol of the unconscious, Mary Virgin brings to light to her son and it reminds virgin, because there is no human intervention in that mystery of the divine born. The born unconscious content in the source and mother, that it is the unconscious, is, in the dream, the archetype of Unity, of Wholeness, of Self. But without unconscious participation, there is no possibility to miraculous birth. Mary Virgin, as anima or feminine archetype image, is the bridge between the High and Low, the Spirit and Mater, the Heaven and Earth.
Deliberately, I have made, to a deeper examination, the Mary Virgin primitive aspect, as it appears in the dream. It takes so far-and that is not the purpose of this essay-to analyse the facts that direct me to connect the Mary Virgin Christian archetype with Sekhmet in Egypt. However, I will indicate here that it is related to the dream in which there is a fight between two women in Middle East-I referred to that dream in the last essay-, with the fact that the fanatic mass psychosis emerged in Middle East, the area in which the Goddess belongs to, and, of course, the fundamental fact that the dream explicitly indicates Mary as Copt.
It is called Copt the period in which Christianity became diffused in Egypt, and covers the beginning of IV century to the middle of VII a. C., approximately. The Copt language is shaped as a dialect serial-six to be exact-, of which sahidic is the oldest one, probably original of the Memphis region. And precisely, it is in Memphis where the main cult of the Sekhmet goddess was located.
This Egyptian goddess, who incarnates the savage force, receives the name of "The Powerful", and she has a leonine aspect, that is displayed in every attack. She shares those attributes with the image of 11 Tarot card and with the death-rebirth goddess, Minerva, the highest symbol of Plutonian energy (Pluto). The burning winds are interpreted as her breath. This has a special meaning in this context, because we also use the same saying when we refer to the winds that blow in one epoch. And now war winds blow, the winds of the warrior goddess.
Sekhmet incarnates the terrible vigour of the solar radiation, identified with Re eye, that the goddess activated at cosmic order service. She registered every human negative action, and the punishment was taken care of by her. She participated in the annihilation of the country's enemies. It is very interesting to observe that their servers were in charge of extended illnesses and pests utilizing the transits of one year to another. The diverse manifestations of her attacks must be conjured with rituals and specific conjures. The ancients knew the ritual importance in order to express, symbolically, the dynamic forces of life. The modern man, with his pragmatic and materialistic perspective, thinks that these are ridiculous wastes of a past that is now left behind. However, the psyche is now the same as ever. She coincides with the Egyptian of Ramset, the Greece of Plato, the roman of Seneca, the Arabian of Mahomet, the European Medieval, the same as produced in the Industrial Revolution, the World Wars, the Ecological Crisis and, of course, the destruction of the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and the war against terrorism. In short, the psyche is identical in every human being, in every culture and in every epoch, behind the threshold of individual epidermis. As ever, we continue acting behind the influence of the numinous effect of the archetype, the conscience ego continues being an island in the huge ocean of the unconscious and its mechanism, though depurated, continues to be the same as ever.
However, the goddess was not only the cause of the biggest calamities, but that she was capable of cure. Here we have the paradox. She is able to injure and even to immolate but, at the same time, she is porter of life and cure. This is why she was the medicine patroness. Identically, she inspected the livestock that was destined to sacrifice (Are there any relation with the Lamb (Agnus), as Christ symbol?).
How could I contend, guide and express symbolically the forces that emerge from the collective unconscious? This is a question that I have had the necessity to confront, one time or another, and respond in my own life. And I think that the answer is multiform. By starting, I ask myself who am I, How am I, what I dislike about myself and the others, what I wish, what are my motivations ... In order to answer these questions, I observe my reactions when I relate to people that surround me as well as when they relate to me. Likewise, I am very attentive to the massages that emerges from the unconscious in the form of dreams, guided images, sentiments, ideas, thoughts...
When the fury arises and the aggressive impulses begin to emerge on the surface, then I practice physic exercises, that could be either weight lifting or, If I dispose of time and the weather forecast accompanies, I go to the mountain and I do trekking in the beautiful woods of conifers, oaks, Holm oak, etc., that surround (and are part of) me. This not only allow me to be in contact with my aggressiveness, but I make it a positive expression and I use the involucrate energy to meditate and "bring into light" those contents that motivate my angry and fury. Those contents usually pertain to the less agreeable parts of my personality. And when I do so I relate to myself. When I return, my attitude of mind has transformed, after an immersion in my depths and after the discovery of new contents that were clip before, or to be in contact with the powerful energies that dwell in my psyche.
When I have amplified the oneiric contents, referred to as Sekhmet goddess, I showed how she relates to Minerva, the highest symbol of Pluto. And, as I pointed out before, the Egyptian Goddess, like the 11 card figure in the Tarot, has a lion aspect, or she is related to it. And the lion, as Jung explains in AION's book, is related, in some way, to Saturn, "the Jewish God" and "the Israel star".
Thus, we encounter Pluto and Saturn again. In this moment, as I indicated in other work, both planets are in opposition. And the positive expression of this transit, in the evolved person, is what we have already described above, related to the oneiric symbols amplification: the connection with Christ archetype, as God inside Man, and the assimilation of the feminine aspect of human personality, that is transformed in a bridge between the ego and the unconscious mind and the Self.
I consider that the present events, namely, the union and solidarity between countries all over the world (and specially in the west), the search of a coalition integrated by the biggest number of countries in order to fight against terrorism, the religious acts on behalf of those deceased and, fundamentally, in U.S., in one word, the "change in attitude" that we can observe in the world due to the impact of the terrorist act, are, all of them, manifestations of the wholeness or Self archetype constellation.
The created structures collapse, with the necessary losses in the economic-material (Saturn) field and the death of antiquated attitudes, must be replaced by a new comprehension and openness to the world situation. The building of new structures in our society will require patience, hard work and huge doses of understanding. The crisis, that it has been generated, is provoking an amplification in the conscious field at a collective level, in such a way that the assumption and assimilation of the U.S. Shadow, could actuate as a catalyst to the rest of the countries.
But there exist the danger of indolence to those countries that do not adhere to the U.S. expectations. Some population sectors, such as in Pakistan, Saudi Arabian and, even, in Pakistan, for example, seem not to agree to give help to the U.S. cause. However, this would not be a sufficient motive to begin a war that, on the other hand, could mark human destiny for the rest of its existence.
These reflections, along with those that I did in my last essay, are not pretending to be more than that, meditations. With these I try, first of all, to clarify my inner experiences, my sentiments and my dreams, in order to be conscious of those. In the same way, I try to link my inner life with the events that happen in the world (outer life). Since, in the way to attain self-knowledge, after the first steps in the dark stretch, the first stage in the "dark night of soul", using the language of mystics such as San Joan, and when a certain level of consciousness is achieved, not recognized individuals motives, such as everyday situations we overlook, conclusions that we have omitted, repressed affective states during the day or some critics that we have occulted; these individuals motives we have just said, open the door to a deeper unconscious stage, the basement of personal unconscious that Jung called collective unconscious.
This amplified conscience gets the individual in indissoluble touch with the world. Every complication emerged in this stage is referred to problems that are connected to the collective flows in one epoch. The individual, in his/her existence bosom and within the framework structure of his/her own psyche, has to respond to the problems that afflict the rest of his/her contemporaries, troubles that humanity always has had to affront.
So, the affirmations that I have done here are just an opinion that expresses my point of view. It is valid for me, but it could not be to others. They are a response to the questions that I have recently thought. In the same way, they are some answers to the questions that the unconscious, that is, the dynamic of life has formulated to me, looking for the sense that the whole events make to me.
© José Antonio Delgado González 2001.
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