Psyche & The Spirit of the Times

May 21, 2004

Discussion Points

 

WHAT INTERESTING IDEAS/IMAGES WERE TALKED ABOUT:

Uncertainty                                 Collective                                  Memory

Insatiable Hunger                         Shadow                                     Social Hypnosis

Insulation                                   Bush as liar                                Narcissism

Heroism                                     Death denial                               The opposites

• Holding the space for ambiguity—how do we sit with this personally and collectively?
• Suffer the ambiguity—but is there meaning in it?
• Is our country too insulated? (Hillman’s term for this is “innocence”)
• Individualism in America and the forging of community among diversity
• Intolerance and Fundamentalism/authoritarian family/dependency
• The experiences as Americans in foreign countries
• Reactions to 2/3 of world’s children being from oral cultures and 1/3 from electronic/computer culture—
• positive and negative reactions
• Electronic access to images of violent behavior
• Universal Disappointment with state of political life now
• The end of the hero – now what? Rise of the feminine?
• Exploration of new (emerging) archetypes—particularly feminine.
• Hilary Clinton -- Maggie Thatcher --- Male archetype?
• Collective scarcity generates war for more.
• Denial of our own dark side projects the shadow to the other.
• When in history has high tolerance existed?

WHAT INTERESTING IDEAS/IMAGES DO YOU WANT TO ADDRESS IN UPCOMING SESSIONS:

• Uncertainty
• Addiction
• Collective wisdom and the value of community-building while holding ambiguity.
• Collective consciousness—moving toward…?
• Non-duality as an approach to ambiguity
• Watching versus Doing
• Women as world leaders
• The epidemic of narcissism in this country and the world, the shadow as the rejected part of ourselves and how we can counteract and heal these phenomena at societal level (do Jungians address this?).
• Learn in-depth what dealing with ‘ambiguity in everyday life” is like—what personal level of “being” will bring about an integration of the past into a living representative of the past into memory, a conscious memory.
• Spiritual directions integrating with science and politics.
• Is the collective in an alchemical process?
• What dream are we living in?
• Power in humility, apology, as a healing, uniting power (instead of war as regeneration).
• What does it mean to live a symbolic life?
• If a low tolerance of ambiguity leads to fundamentalism—which seems to be true—then what is the process of “therapy” that is called for within small group situations?
• Contradictions in our society (American culture), i.e., the split--violence vs. peace & remembrance—which is reflecting polarizing in our intolerance of ambiguities.
• Do random events give rise to tolerance versus fundamentalism?