“One: The Plight of the Individual in Modern Societies”
Instead of a society of responsible individuals, we have the State.
“Two: Religion as the Counterbalance to Mass-mindedness”
A belief in or an experience of the transcendent makes the individual possible.
“Three: The Position of the West on the Question of Religion”
The modern world offers the individual nothing, failing to place them at the center of all as the measure of all.
“Four: The Individual’s Understanding of Himself”
Understanding ourselves as embodying archetypal instincts – as a microcosmos – offers a path from collective control, from lies of self in a mass-movement, to enlightenment through individuation.
“Five: The Philosophical and the Psychological Approach to Life”
We have lost philosophy as a way of life, we have no religious experience or access to our Shadow; now Chaos, we turn to tyranny and ego consolations for answers. We require a religious experience.
“Six: Self-knowledge”
Our errors:
• We believe we are nothing
• We believe we are only our conscious selves, with no Shadow
• We believe meaning lies in the collective or in the Leader
• We trust entirely the rational, the scientific
• The traditional expressions of the archetypes no longer speak to us
• We believe we are nothing
• We believe we are only our conscious selves, with no Shadow
• We believe meaning lies in the collective or in the Leader
• We trust entirely the rational, the scientific
• The traditional expressions of the archetypes no longer speak to us
Religious experience ends dissociation and projection – atomization – and makes possible recognition of the self and the other, understanding, and love: our only defenses against terror.
“Seven: The Meaning of Self-knowledge”
It falls now to the artist and the psychologist, insofar as they are individuals (which perhaps they must be, by definition) to show us the way to new expressions of the primordial myths that will resonate for modern persons – making sanity possible.
