"Wotan" is the name of a god in German mythology and folk lore. "Zeitgeist" is a word that has crept into our discourse, most often to describe the future's mood and expressions in music, the arts, theatre, literary publications, dramas, and all endeavors to pull open the curtain of our national life.
Wotan, of course, lurks in the far dark corners of our libraries' stacks where few people have any interest in exploring. Perhaps some academics dust off the volumes of ancient mythologies, symbols, depth psychologies, anthropologies, and arcane studies in ancient religions.
But, of course, Wotan maintains a place in the tombs of time-be-gone tales of human character, tales of adventurous souls who sought meaning at the end of our furthest remembrances, geography, and human origins. However, like all archetypal powers, Wotan does not remain out of sight and experience forever. An archetype may duck under the surveillance of our consciousness of years or centuries, and then startlingly appear in the life of an individual or a nation when the archetype seizes the conscious mind with a grip so strong that our perspective loses its grip. Then we find ourselves in the hands of an omnipotence that defies rational explanation.
Jung admits to having encountered such a power in his personal life. This is the nature of an archetype nestled within that part of the human psyche Jung called the "collective unconscious," so far away from ego-consciousness that the archetype cannot be mastered or controlled. Rather, the archetype bridges mind and matter with a numinosity that may hallow our existence and make life seem worth living, meaning worth pursuing, and human existence an existential gift of grace. Or, on the other hand, certain archetypes may lead us into the darkest corners of existence, for example, the archetype of war such as Wotan.
This means that the archetypes do not appear always in beauty, hope, love, and wisdom. Rather, like instincts, the archetypal powers bridge our physical world and our spiritual seeking. In fact, the archetype peers into the distant past and furthest reaches of whatever extensions of ourselves life makes possible at any given moment.
In fact, the archetypes breathe joyful expectation and dreadful fears throughout the daily affairs of life. And then the archetypal experiences appear in images that are the gifts of inspiration and dread. In other words, like instincts, archetypes strum the notes of humanity's varied experiences. And from those melodies, we walk the path of our origins and our extended human potential.
How do we dare give the name of "archetype" to these deepest of human experiences? Because they are as real as instincts are. In fact, as analytical psychology teaches us, the word itself refers to experience that is "first in meaning," tracing itself back to the Greek verb archeen which means "to begin" or "to rule," suggesting that archetypes are power centers and currents that shape who we are, what we have been and what we might become, all of which we present in our dramas, musical compositions, and works of art.
But now we come back to consider Wotan. When Jung wrote his essay by that name in 1936, he had been preceded by the young English writer, D.H.Lawrence. Sometime around 1924 or 1928, scholars cannot verify the specific date, Lawrence and his wife visited Germany for the second time. He records his perceptions and experience of the country in "A Letter from Germany" you will find included in Phoenix, a posthumous collections of some of his works, including in particular his keen description of places he visited.
In that letter describing his second visit to Germany, Lawrence is taken with the zeitgeist that he describes as a sense of danger. The danger does not originate in the people. He refers to it as a spirit that has come to inhabit the place. Moreover, he defines it as a "savage spirit." And indeed it was. Already the movement of political action and characters moved in the rhythm of war, a rhythm that would bring Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party to power and to the ruination of a magnificent country that had contributed so much to western civilization.
How absurd can this be! How absurd that such a civilized population could fall victim to the savery of mass murder and war that would then threaten civilization and hoist the ferocious banner of anti-semitism!
How could that be? It was not rational. It was not explained simply by politics, economics, or relations with neighboring peoples. It was none of those things as Jung makes clear. It was a people infected by a savage archetype, an archetype of war and power-seeking. It was an archetypal power that drove Germany to war and threatened the world order. It was Wotan.
In the months to come we will discuss further this archetype of war, how it appears in the mythical origins of our existence and how it continues to threaten our civilization and our existence.