What determines the character of our life? Out of sight and hearing, deep underneath the preoccupations of our mind, a dynamic works to shape our personality. How else do we understand that even with identical twins, talents, interests, and values may differ. Each twin claims features of uniqueness—likes and dislikes, even diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson's, schizophrenia.
Often in my work as Jungian analyst, I encounter individuals who puzzle over some part of his or her life not shared or even valued by other family members. We all have pondered the events and times when we wondered, "Was I adopted?" "My family is strange!" We often laugh or cry, or leave home because we just do not "fit in." We may even think we are "going crazy" because we do not understand the "clutter" in our head, including those instances where we cannot make up our mind or control these unsettling thoughts that search for understanding.
It is not only our physiology, hormones, family background, education, or politics that rule our lives, precipitating comedy or tragedy. Today, tragedy rules our lives. Today we live in a political drama much like the one Germans suffered in the 1930's. I am referring to the uncertainty and animosity that hang over individuals, families, social groups, and democratic institutions we long have taken for granted.
But we must be warned. As Carl Jung reflected on the hysterical madness that possessed the German people in the catastrophic years between 1930 and 1945, he concluded:
The impressive thing about the German phenomenon is that one man
who is obviously possessed [Hitler] has infected a whole nation to such
an extent that everything is set in motion and has started rolling on in
its course towards perdition. (Collected Works, Vol. 10, p. 179)
And a littler later in his essay, Jung adds:
... a god has taken possession of the Germans and their house is filled
with a mighty rushing wind. ... A hurricane has broken loose in Germany
while we still believe it is fine weather. (p. 186)
This "god" that took possession of the German people was a phenomenon Jung identified as the archetype "Wotan," not politics or economics but an archetype. I chose this example of an archetypal force because of its dramatic nature and power to possess an individual and to infect an entire nation of people. Such an archetypal power can create or destroy, shape individual character for better or worse and also determine the fate of a society.
Under the spell of such archetypal power individuals delight in a leader who serves as a "savior," offering promised reward of pleasure and security for faithful stewardship. Such a hypnotic leader compels a descent into such madness as befell the German nation driven to "perdition" by Wotan.
"Why, that's irrational," an onlooker may say. "That makes no sense. Can't they see what they are doing? Don't the followers know the words and actions are absurd and cannot come to any good end? Why would anyone be duped by a fanatic cult leader?" Yes, looking from the outside at the enchanting power of archetypes, we understand the seductive nature of such a phenomenon. But within the enchantment we lose rationality.
For example, consider the enchantment of money and power that drives our society at this time. At another period in our history we may have focused our energies on war against Nazism (1930-1945), or societal compassion (Johnson's "Great Society," the mid-1960's). Those periods in our history demonstrated a nation focused on outreach and care for others.
However, our focus presently leans remarkably and distressingly in the opposite direction: self-aggrandizement, the severance of good-will abroad and narcissistic authoritarianism at home. Now we ask, what is this archetype that has possessed us? How shall we name it?
I know of no better name than Mammon for the archetypal power that dominates our public life today. This was brought to my attention by a remarkable book by Eugene McCarraher, The Enchantment of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity. McCarraher serves as Professor of Humanities and History at Villanova University. He makes no mention of psychology or archetypes. But more than any other writer considering the ills of our present time, he unmasks the veil of what possesses our society.
Consider McCarriher's introductory observations:
Far from being an agent of "disenchantment," capitalism, I contend, has
been a regime of enchantment, a repression, displacement, and renaming
of our intrinsic and inveterate longing for divinity. There is more than
mere metaphor in the way we refer to the "worship" or "idolatry" of money
and possessions. Even if many (if not most) of us behave in a disenchanted
desacralized cosmos—a universe devoid of spirits and other immaterial but
animate beings—capitalism has assumed in its way, the status of an enchanted
world. (p. 4)
Why "Mammon" as the source of this enchantment with capitalism that McCarriher goes on to describe? In mythology, Mammon is known as a demon of greed and avarice, the prince of Hell driven by the acquisition and rule over the underworld of wealth. What better way to describe our society's obsession with money and power. And we either look the other way, or we consider what this ruling archetype means for our life today.
For the Germans in the 1930's, Wotan ruled. Today, here in the US as well as other countries, Mammon rules. As Jung would remind us, it is not economies or politics with which we must contend; it is Mammon.
Often in my work as Jungian analyst, I encounter individuals who puzzle over some part of his or her life not shared or even valued by other family members. We all have pondered the events and times when we wondered, "Was I adopted?" "My family is strange!" We often laugh or cry, or leave home because we just do not "fit in." We may even think we are "going crazy" because we do not understand the "clutter" in our head, including those instances where we cannot make up our mind or control these unsettling thoughts that search for understanding.
It is not only our physiology, hormones, family background, education, or politics that rule our lives, precipitating comedy or tragedy. Today, tragedy rules our lives. Today we live in a political drama much like the one Germans suffered in the 1930's. I am referring to the uncertainty and animosity that hang over individuals, families, social groups, and democratic institutions we long have taken for granted.
But we must be warned. As Carl Jung reflected on the hysterical madness that possessed the German people in the catastrophic years between 1930 and 1945, he concluded:
The impressive thing about the German phenomenon is that one man
who is obviously possessed [Hitler] has infected a whole nation to such
an extent that everything is set in motion and has started rolling on in
its course towards perdition. (Collected Works, Vol. 10, p. 179)
And a littler later in his essay, Jung adds:
... a god has taken possession of the Germans and their house is filled
with a mighty rushing wind. ... A hurricane has broken loose in Germany
while we still believe it is fine weather. (p. 186)
This "god" that took possession of the German people was a phenomenon Jung identified as the archetype "Wotan," not politics or economics but an archetype. I chose this example of an archetypal force because of its dramatic nature and power to possess an individual and to infect an entire nation of people. Such an archetypal power can create or destroy, shape individual character for better or worse and also determine the fate of a society.
Under the spell of such archetypal power individuals delight in a leader who serves as a "savior," offering promised reward of pleasure and security for faithful stewardship. Such a hypnotic leader compels a descent into such madness as befell the German nation driven to "perdition" by Wotan.
"Why, that's irrational," an onlooker may say. "That makes no sense. Can't they see what they are doing? Don't the followers know the words and actions are absurd and cannot come to any good end? Why would anyone be duped by a fanatic cult leader?" Yes, looking from the outside at the enchanting power of archetypes, we understand the seductive nature of such a phenomenon. But within the enchantment we lose rationality.
For example, consider the enchantment of money and power that drives our society at this time. At another period in our history we may have focused our energies on war against Nazism (1930-1945), or societal compassion (Johnson's "Great Society," the mid-1960's). Those periods in our history demonstrated a nation focused on outreach and care for others.
However, our focus presently leans remarkably and distressingly in the opposite direction: self-aggrandizement, the severance of good-will abroad and narcissistic authoritarianism at home. Now we ask, what is this archetype that has possessed us? How shall we name it?
I know of no better name than Mammon for the archetypal power that dominates our public life today. This was brought to my attention by a remarkable book by Eugene McCarraher, The Enchantment of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity. McCarraher serves as Professor of Humanities and History at Villanova University. He makes no mention of psychology or archetypes. But more than any other writer considering the ills of our present time, he unmasks the veil of what possesses our society.
Consider McCarriher's introductory observations:
Far from being an agent of "disenchantment," capitalism, I contend, has
been a regime of enchantment, a repression, displacement, and renaming
of our intrinsic and inveterate longing for divinity. There is more than
mere metaphor in the way we refer to the "worship" or "idolatry" of money
and possessions. Even if many (if not most) of us behave in a disenchanted
desacralized cosmos—a universe devoid of spirits and other immaterial but
animate beings—capitalism has assumed in its way, the status of an enchanted
world. (p. 4)
Why "Mammon" as the source of this enchantment with capitalism that McCarriher goes on to describe? In mythology, Mammon is known as a demon of greed and avarice, the prince of Hell driven by the acquisition and rule over the underworld of wealth. What better way to describe our society's obsession with money and power. And we either look the other way, or we consider what this ruling archetype means for our life today.
For the Germans in the 1930's, Wotan ruled. Today, here in the US as well as other countries, Mammon rules. As Jung would remind us, it is not economies or politics with which we must contend; it is Mammon.
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