Concerning cyclic thought, see Mircea Eliade's book The Myth of the Eternal Return, 2nd ed. (2005) and Donald L. Fixico's book The American Indian Mind in a Linear World: American Indian Studies and Traditional Knowledge (2003). Concerning the development of linear patterns of thought in the Hebrew Bible, see Richard Elliott Friedman's book The Hidden Book in the Bible (1998).
Ong sees the Gutenberg printing press that emerged in the 1450s as engendering the subsequent crucial shift in Western culture into print culture -- also known as modernity. In print culture in Western culture, Logos gradually became stronger and more dominant.
But Ong also sees the emergence of communication media that accentuate sound as engendering a deep shift in Western consciousness. Not surprisingly, this broad cultural shift provides an opening for the renewal of the spirit of Eros in Western culture.
This broad cultural shift also provides men in Western culture in the proverbial second half of their lives with an opening for renewing the spirit of Eros in their psyches. The spirit of Eros in men's psyches is represented by the anima archetype in their psyches.
Now, even if we interpret the 1854 and 1950 dogmas about Mary as showing the rise of the spirit of the feminine in Western consciousness, how do women and men in Western culture today optimally actuate the spirit of the feminine in their consciousness individually?
The spirit of the feminine is probably always and everywhere active in the human psyche, but not always optimally.
The story of Eve shows the sub-optimal form of the feminine when she becomes the temptress who tempts Adam also to eat the apple. No doubt the temptress is one projection of the archetype in the male psyche that Jung refers to as the anima archetype. The sub-optimal anima archetype in men's psyches is also manifested in other projections men make on to women.
In his last big book, Mysterium Conjunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy, 2nd ed. (1970), Jung discusses how the optimal anima archetype emerges in men's psyches:
"[A] conscious attitude that renounces its ego-bound intentions -- not in imagination only, but in truth -- and submits to the suprapersonal decrees of fate, can claim to be serving a king. This more exalted attitude raises the status of the anima from that of temptress to a psychopomp [i.e., a guide; e.g., Beatrice in Dante's Divine Comedy]. The transformation of the kingly substance from a lion into a king has its counterpart in the transformation of the feminine element from a serpent [e.g., the snake that talks to Eve] into a queen [e.g., the Blessed Virgin Mary]. The coronation, apotheosis, and marriage signalize the equal status of conscious and unconscious that becomes possible at the highest level -- a coincidentia oppositorum with redeeming effects" (page 380).
In this passage Jung makes it sound like the optimal form of the anima archetype and the optimal form of the King archetype emerge concurrently with one another in men's psyches. Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette discuss the optimal form of the King archetype in men's psyches in their book The King Within: Accessing the King [Archetype] in the Male Psyche, 2nd ed. (2007).
No doubt many women and men would like to see the "redeeming effects" that Jung mentions emerge in more men today, including Cardinal Mueller and his buddies in the Vatican, including Pope Francis.
Middle-aged and older men who have experienced the undercurrents of serious depression -- not just a temporary setback or disappointment -- are ready-made candidates for undergoing the psychic transformations of the anima archetype and the King archetype in their psyches.
In effect, serious depression in middle-aged and older men is an invitation to undertake the journey through Hell, figuratively speaking, that Dante the poet so vividly describes in the part of the Divine Comedy known as the Inferno. The character named Dante is just barely able to make it through the Inferno. If you have faced the challenge of coping with serious depression, then you should be able to understand why Dante the character is just barely able to make it through the Inferno. He needs Virgil as his guide to pluck up his spirit, as the two of them proceed on their way through the Inferno.
Eventually, however, the two of them reach the bottom of the Inferno and then emerge from it. But they emerge into Purgatory, which is only marginally less unpleasant for Dante the character to experience.
Nevertheless, Dante the character eventually emerges from Purgatory into Paradise, at which juncture Virgil disappears and Beatrice emerges and takes over as his guide. She represents the optimal form of the anima archetype in Dante the poet's psyche. At this juncture, Beatrice becomes what Jung refers to as a psychopomp -- a guide for Dante the character.
So serious depression in middle-aged and older men can be described as going through Hell, figuratively speaking. But in the Christian tradition of thought, Hell represents the underworld that Odysseus visits in the Homeric epic the Odyssey and that Aeneas visits in Virgil's epic the Aeneid. For Jung, the underworld in these literary works represents the unconscious.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
