Reflecting upon the First World War, Jung says, “When fate, for four whole years, played out a war of monumental frightfulness on the stage of Europe – a war that nobody wanted – nobody dreamed of asking exactly who or what had caused the war and its continuation.”
Similarly, in today’s “war on terror,” a war that nobody, or at least very few people want, we need to dream of asking exactly who or what has caused this war and its continuation.
Developing a healthy and strong ego is crucially important in entering into relationship with and creatively expressing the daemonic energies within us. One of the most destructive things in the human psyche is unrealized creativity.
If the daemonic is not honored and treated religiously (i.e., carefully considered with reverence and a sense of the sacred), however, it constellates negatively and turns truly “demonic,” in the destructive. sense of the word. J
Jung comments,
“Generally speaking the daemonic is that moment when an unconscious content of seemingly overwhelming power appears on the threshold of consciousness. It can cross this threshold and seize hold of the personality. Then it is possession.”
Before an archetype can be consciously integrated, it will always manifest itself physically, because, in Jung’s words, “…it forces the subject into its own form.”
In its negative form, which is a truly virulent form of madness, we, because of our unconsciousness, become a living conduit for the incarnation of an inhuman, malevolent, predatory, rapacious energy that only cares about feeding its own insatiable narcissism, ultimately victimizing, consuming, and cannibalizing both ourselves and others in the process.
Describing this moment of being possessed, Jung elaborates, “The beast of prey seizes hold of him and soon makes him forget that he is a human being.
His animal affects hamper any reflection that might stand in the way of his infantile wish-fulfillments, filling him instead with a feeling of a new-won right to existence and intoxicating him with the lust for booty and blood.”This in-toxic-ating energy, which is the narcissistic ego running wild as it entrances itself, is the fuel which animates any form of addiction. “Intoxication,” to quote Jung, is “that most direct and dangerous form of possession,”
…as unless it is reflected upon, and therefore illuminated and transformed by the light of consciousness, it inevitably leads to self-destruction.
Jung reminds us that,
“Insanity is possession by an unconscious content that, as such, is not assimilated to consciousness, nor can it be assimilated since the very existence of such conditions is denied.” We then fall into the infinite regression and self-perpetuating feedback loop of denying we are in denial, a self-created strain of madness that I have given the name “malignant egophrenia,” or “ME disease” for short.
This is a form of self-deception, dissociation and psychic blindness in which we are ultimately lying to and hiding from ourselves.
At a certain point this process entrenches itself within the psyche such that it develops sufficient momentum to seemingly become its own self-generating, autonomous entity. We’ve then become a “problem” to ourselves, creating our own Frankenstein monster in the process, and it is us.
We can then be said to be the incarnation of ME disease in the flesh, its revelation in human form. Similar to being possessed by a demon, being taken over by ME disease is simultaneously its own self-revelation; encoded within the apparent pathology is its own medicine.
One of the main ways that demons become empowered within us is when we are unconscious of our shadow. Jung says,
“Anyone who is unaware of his shadow is too wonderful, too good, he has a wrong idea of himself, and to that extent such a person is possessed.” The extent to which we are unconscious of our shadow is the extent to which we are unaware of our potential to unwittingly enact our unconscious in a way, which could be hurtful.
Jung writes,
“If we don’t see the negative side of what we do, what we are, we are possessed… Only through understanding of unconscious aspects, as a rule, can we liberate ourselves from possession.” Understanding “unconscious aspects” is to shed light on darker, asleep parts of ourselves – “the negative side of what we do” – which is essentially the act of becoming conscious. The demons act themselves out through our psychic blind-spots.
Jung comments,
“…the demon that is always with you is the shadow following after you, and it is always where your eyes are not.” The places where we are possessed by our unconscious are the places in ourselves where we are not able to see, where “our eyes are not,” where we are unable to self-reflectively speculate. Symbolically, this is like a vampire who casts no reflection in the mirror.
Jung writes,
“Since nobody is capable of recognizing just where and how much he himself is possessed and unconscious, he simply projects his own condition upon his neighbor, and thus it becomes a sacred duty to have the biggest guns and the most poisonous gas.”
Interestingly, Jung simply refers to “shadow projection,” a process in which we project our own un-embraced aspects (our “own condition”) onto our neighbor, as “the lie.”
One of the meanings of the word “devil” is “the liar.” (see “Shadow Projection: The Fuel of War,” and “Shadow Projection is its Own Medicine”). Projecting our shadow onto others is an activity which is itself an expression of the devil who is hiding within us, lurking behind the projection. Speaking about how easy it is for the “demons” to find a new victim,
Jung comments,
“…that won’t be difficult. Every man who loses his shadow, every nation that falls into self-righteousness, is their prey.” Jung comments on the state of being possessed by an archetype such as the daemonic when he writes, “For an archetype has a life of its own; the life that is proper and peculiar to the archetype shows its autonomy by the fact that it can swallow one’s own life.
It is so strong that one can be swallowed up into it and be nothing but that archetype. Of course, one does not know it.” The formless, invisible archetype has in-formed itself and made itself visible through the person, group or nation which it seizes.
They can be said to be the living incarnation of the archetype, as they are its full-blown revelation in form. An essential quality of being possessed by the unconscious is that we don’t know we’re possessed, for if we knew, we wouldn’t be possessed.
To quote Jung,
“When you are just at one with a thing you are completely identical – you cannot comprehend it, you cannot discriminate, you cannot recognize it.”
When we are identical with something, we are not able to differentiate ourselves from it, which is to say, we have no freedom of choice relative to that with which we are unconsciously identified.
When we identify with and act out the unconscious, we are truly unconscious. Jung conjectures, “suppose I am identical with an archetype; I don’t know it and the archetype of course won’t tell me, because I am already possessed and inundated by the archetype…
Just as I pay no attention to the hammer I use; I use it and afterwards I throw it away. It is not a personal hammer. That is the way the archetype uses man, simply as an instrument, as a tool of a most transitory kind.” Even though an archetype expresses itself through individuals, an archetype is impersonal. Archetypes enlist us for their purposes, taking possession of us like a piece of property, and drop us when we are no longer of use.
Jung continues,
“But the man is of course in an awful situation. He is possessed, and he cannot defend himself, for he doesn’t even know that he is possessed, and that is a wonderful opportunity for the unconscious.” Not knowing we are possessed by the unconscious, it is as if the parents aren’t home, creating an opportunity for the kids (the unconscious) to act out without restraint.
Jung says,
“The forces that burst out of the collective psyche have a confusing and blinding effect.” The emergence of unconscious forces out of the collective unconscious typically evokes confusion and blindness, i.e., unconsciousness.
Jung continues,
“…as the influence of the collective unconscious increases, so the conscious mind loses its power of leadership. Imperceptibly it becomes the led, while an unconscious and impersonal process gradually takes control. Thus, without noticing it, the conscious personality is pushed about like a figure on a chess-board by an invisible player. It is this player who decides the game of fate, not the conscious mind and its plans.”
It is as if an invisible coup has taken place within the psyche.
Falling into self-deception, the conscious mind is under the illusion that it is deciding, that it is in control, while it is actually being led and manipulated like a puppet. To quote W.H. Auden, “We are lived by Powers we pretend to understand.”
Jung says,
“The devil is the aping shadow of God.” When we are possessed by the unconscious, a more powerful, archetypal energy shape-shifts and takes on our seeming form, which we absorb into, identify with and believe to be who we are. Bamboozled and hoodwinked by the slick “salesmanship” of this imposter of ourselves, we “buy” into its version of who we are. We then live a simulation of ourselves, miming ourselves, becoming a master copy, a duplicate of our original selves. To the extent we are unconsciously possessed by the daemon, it is as if a psychic parasite has taken over our brain and tricked us, its host, into thinking we are feeding and empowering ourselves while we are actually nourishing the parasite.
It is as if our soul has become hijacked by a deeper, archetypal force, and has been replaced with a pale imitation of ourselves, and, to the extent we are taken over, we don’t even realize it.
Archetypes, Jung points out, “have the most disagreeable quality of appearing in your own guise.” The spirit of the unconscious impersonates us, fooling even ourselves, as it cloaks itself in our form.
This mercurial spirit has “put us on” as a disguise, appearing as ourselves, or at least who we imagine ourselves to be.
FORFEITING HUMANITY (extremism)
Describing the experience of being led and taken over by the unconscious, Jung continues, “whenever a powerful content emerges from the unconscious, which we cannot yet grasp with our consciousness, there is a danger that the whole ego-consciousness will be pulled down into the unconscious and dissolved…
Consciousness is completely emptied, because its contents are attracted by the unconscious as by a magnet. This process leads to a complete loss of the ego, so that the person in question becomes a mere automaton.
Such a person is actually no longer there.” How many people do we know, including at times even ourselves, who zombie-like, compulsively and mechanically enact their habitual patterns with no spontaneity or creativity, like a programmed robot?
Jung says,
“One can only alter one’s attitude and thus save oneself from naively falling into an archetype and being forced to act a part at the expense of one’s humanity.
Possession by an archetype turns a man into a flat collective figure, a mask behind which he can no longer develop as a human being, but becomes increasingly stunted.” When we are possessed by an archetype, it’s as if we are frozen back in time, akin to what happens in trauma, where we become fixated in a rigidified and self-reinforcing point of view.
Unconsciously identified with the “persona,” the fa ade personality that we’ve created for protection and present to the world, we have no real depth, and stop growing and evolving.
“Altering” our attitude would be to step out of our “alter-personality,” which is to stop compulsively and ritualistically worshipping at the “altar” of the false self, and step into our authentic self.
Jung elaborates on the process of falling under the spell of an activated archetype when he writes, “…an archetype is mobilized within him which affects him like a narcotic.
That is typical; when you get into a situation where an archetype becomes constellated, you will undergo this peculiar hypnotic effect; you fall asleep rather suddenly.
It has a peculiar fascination which makes you unconscious.”The image of Dorothy and friends falling asleep in the poppy field as they approach the Emerald City in the movie “The Wizard of Oz” symbolically expresses this arche-typical situation of falling under a spell as we approach the sacred.
Jung points out that,
“The potentialities of the archetype, for good and evil alike, transcend our human capacities many times, and a man can appropriate its power only by identifying with the daemon, by letting himself be possessed by it, thus forfeiting his own humanity.”
In unconsciously identifying with and becoming possessed by the daemon, on the personal, human level we forfeit our humanity and become an empty shell.
At the same time, however, we access, become channels for and are inflated by a evolving.
“Altering” our attitude would be to step out of our “alter-personality,” which is to stop compulsively and ritualistically worshipping at the “altar” of the false self, and step into our authentic self.
Jung elaborates on the process of falling under the spell of an activated archetype when he writes, “…an archetype is mobilized within him which affects him like a narcotic.
That is typical; when you get into a situation where an archetype becomes constellated, you will undergo this peculiar hypnotic effect; you fall asleep rather suddenly.
It has a peculiar fascination which makes you unconscious.”The image of Dorothy and friends falling asleep in the poppy field as they approach the Emerald City in the movie “The Wizard of Oz” symbolically expresses this arche-typical situation of falling under a spell as we approach the sacred.
Jung points out that,
“The potentialities of the archetype, for good and evil alike, transcend our human capacities many times, and a man can appropriate its power only by identifying with the daemon, by letting himself be possessed by it, thus forfeiting his own humanity.”
In unconsciously identifying with and becoming possessed by the daemon, on the personal, human level we forfeit our humanity and become an empty shell.
At the same time, however, we access, become channels for and are inflated by a more powerful, archetypal, and nonhuman energy to come through us. When we are possessed by an archetype, we are a paradoxical juxtaposition of subhuman and superhuman qualities at the same time.
Jung continues,
“…anyone possessed by an archetype cannot help having all the symptoms of an inflation. For the archetype is nothing human; no archetype is properly human. The archetype itself is an exaggeration and it reaches beyond the confines of humanity… So anybody possessed by an archetype develops inhuman qualities.” When we become taken over by an archetype we become inflated, unconsciously identifying with God-like powers while simultaneously forgetting our humanity.
Jung clarifies,
“…we see the characteristic effect of the archetype: it seizes hold of the psyche with a kind of primeval force and compels it to transgress the bounds of humanity. It causes exaggeration, a puffed-up attitude (inflation), loss of free will, delusion, and enthusiasm in good and evil alike.”
Interestingly, one of the meanings of the word “evil,” etymologically speaking, is to transgress boundaries. Continuing his description of the state of being possessed by an archetype, Jung says, “…when a person has an unconscious content – say a certain archetype is constellated – then his conscious, not realizing what the matter is, will be filled with the emanation or radiation of that activated archetype.
And then he behaves unconsciously as if he were that archetype, but he expresses the identity in terms of his ego personality… For he unconsciously plays a role and tries to represent something which he has taken to be his own self.”
Behaving as if he, as an ego, were that archetype, he plays a mythical, archetypal role and unconsciously identifies with it (“which he has taken to be his own self”), fooling himself, and potentially others, in the process.
Jung continues,
“You see, the unconscious activated archetype is like a rising sun, a source of energy or warmth which warms up the ego personality from within, and then the ego personality begins to radiate as if it were God-knows-what.”
The formless archetype takes on and expresses itself through the limited and particular form of the ego personality. The activated archetype transfigures the ego from within so as to suit its purposes.
Jung continues,
“It is a psychological fact that an archetype can seize hold of the ego and even compel it to act as it – the archetype – wills. A man can then take on archetypal dimensions and exercise corresponding effects.”
INFLUENCING THE FIELD
Conflated with and inflated by the hypnotically fascinating psychic force-field of the archetype, people so possessed become mouthpieces and amplifiers for the archetype to transmit and non-locally extend and incarnate itself throughout the field of consciousness.
Jung writes,
“people who constellate an archetype have such a hypnotic effect.” People who are gripped by an archetype have a gripping effect on others; when we are under the fascination of an archetype, we unwittingly have a fascinating influence on others.
Jung makes the point that, “identification with an archetypal figure lend almost superhuman force to the ordinary man.” People who are possessed by their unconscious have a very magnetic, charismatic and “possessive” effect upon others’ unconscious.
The part of them that is bewitched evokes the corresponding suggestible and bedeviled part of others’ psyche and hooks it, spell-binding it and entraining it into its archetypal spin. In other words, when someone is possessed by an archetype, they are literally the channel through which that archetype, both locally and non-locally, is materializing in the field, which is to say they wield great energetic influence on their surroundings.
Jung says, “But the power of the archetype is not controlled by us; we ourselves are at its mercy to an unsuspected degree… because everyone is in some degree ‘possessed’ by his specifically human pre-formation, he is held fast and fascinated by it and exercises the same influence on others without being conscious of what he is doing.
The danger is just this unconscious identification with the archetype.” To the extent we are identified with and hence possessed by the archetype, is the extent to which we are not conscious of the corresponding influence we have on others’ unconscious.
This is a dangerous situation because it is unconsciously being en-acted in such a way that guarantees that we will abuse our unresolved power issues to the extent that we stay unconscious.
Jung gets right to the point when he writes, “When someone is able to perform the art of touching on the archetypal, he can play on the souls of people like on the strings of a piano.” Connecting with the archetypal is like plucking a higher-dimensional chord of our being, which immediately activates a resonance in the collective unconscious in whoever hears it. Just like the pendulum with the strongest swing entrains all the other pendulums into its swing, the person who is channeling the living power of the deeper, archetypal force can potentially en-train and en-trance others. This power can be used for the highest good – helping people to awaken – or it can be used for the deepest evil so as to manipulate, dis-empower and enslave other people.
Being archetypal, this energy is fundamentally neither good nor bad, but can potentially manifest either way depending upon our intent.
Speaking of the hypnotic power of the archetype, Jung writes, “It gets you below the belt and not in your mind, your brain just counts for nothing, your sympathetic system is gripped. It is a power that fascinates people from within, it is the collective unconscious which is activated, it is an archetype which is common to them all that has come to life.”
When an archetype is constellated, rational logic and facts have no effect.
The deep emotion which is characteristic of an activated archetype ensures that, to quote Jung, “…the possibility of reason’s having any effect ceases and its place is taken by slogans and chimerical wish-fantasies. That is to say, a sort of collective possession results which rapidly develops into a psychic epidemic.”
Being unconsciously identified with an archetype is extremely dangerous, in that it is at
the root of both individual and collective psychoses. Our tendency to unknowingly fall into the grip of an archetype is animating what is being acted out in the world theater, which is to say that the origin of world events is the unconscious of humanity (see “It’s All in the Psyche”).
Jung writes,
“Nobody can realize an archetype without having been identified with it first.” Speaking of our initial tendency to identify with and become hooked by activated archetypes, Jung continues, “…you cannot realize them without having been thoroughly caught by them.” No one can realize their daemon without first having been unconsciously identified with it, which is to say, caught by it, and hence, possessed by it.
In the process of integration, we have to learn to experience our archetypal daemon from the outside as well as from the inside.
Experiencing the archetype from the outside means to experience it objectively, as other than ourselves, which is to separate ourselves from it, for an archetype, in Jung’s words, “…can be truly understood only if experienced as an autonomous entity.”
Ultimately, we have to eventually both see the archetype as an object outside of ourselves as well as experience what it’s like relative to us, which is an experience within ourselves.Maybe there’s a hidden reason in the deeper plan of things why we, as a species, have a tendency to be taken over by our unconscious.
Jung points out that,
“…autonomous complexes are among the normal phenomena of life and that they make up the structure of the unconscious psyche.” Having autonomous complexes, or having a spare demon or two in our closet, is a “normal” human phenomenon, something we all possess at the same time that it possesses us.
Identifying with our unconscious such that we act it out, i.e., being possessed, seems to be a natural expression of the human experience. Might there be a hidden evolutionary potential, an underlying teleology, a mysterious purpose or goal, which is possessing us to act as we do?
Perhaps we are being dreamed up to be the very instruments and midwives through which the archetypes transform themselves, the world, and ourselves as well.
Becoming possessed by the unconscious is, paradoxically, the way we learn how not to be possessed, which we clearly haven’t learned yet, or we wouldn’t be possessed.
By differentiating ourselves from the archetype, we make it conscious, while creating ourselves relative to it. In relating to the archetype consciously, we do not fall under the thrall of the archetype, but are able to mediate, humanize and channel its transpersonal energies and contents in a constructive, creative and life-enhancing way.
As we connect with each other through our lucidity, we can potentially become a vehicle through which the archetypes themselves transform and evolve, which instantaneously, and non-locally, has a transformative and evolutionary effect throughout the entire collective field of consciousness.
Mythologically speaking, the figure of the “would-be-hero,” which is all of us in potential, is always inhabited by a daemon. Having a daemon taking up residence inside of us is the very thing that “makes” us a hero. Our heroic fight against the paralyzing grip of the daemon is initiatory, in that it calls forth our latent, creative powers. In coming to terms and wrestling with our daemon, which is to say ourselves, we create ourselves.
The daemon is the source of all creativity. It takes genuine courage to do battle with these internal forces and wrest from them the mythic “treasure hard to attain,” which is none other than our soul-filled selves.
Jung comments,
“As the result of the political situation and the frightful, not to say diabolic, triumphs of science, we are shaken by secret shudders and dark forebodings; but we know no way out, and very few persons indeed draw the conclusion that this time the issue is thelong-since-forgotten soul of man.
“When we realize an archetype such as the daemonic, we are able, from the inside out, to channel its transpersonal power into a creative, soul-full, life-giving spirit that comes from a source beyond our ego.
Encoded in the daemonic is everything we need for our healing and self-realization, as if the daemonic is a compensation of the deeper unified and unifying field of consciousness, offering us exactly what is required for us to wake up. The demons are like psychic nautilus machines that we are dreaming up to help us develop our muscles of realization.
Alchemically transmuting on the spot the potential destructiveness of the demonic into stimulators of our own creative lucidity, we give birth to our daemon, our guiding spirit.
Or rather, in that moment our daemon gives birth to us. Realizing an archetype such as the daemonic is to realize ourselves as an active, participatory agent in the creation of our experience of ourselves relative to the world.
This realization comes with great responsibility. We are offered a choice: either we continue to destroy ourselves, or we learn together how to create a new world.
Everything depends upon our recognizing what is being revealed to us as we act our unconscious out in the world. The emergence of the daemonic in our world is both potentially and actually the doorway into and revelation of the light.
Being a function of our consciousness, how the daemonic materializes – as the deepest, destructive evil, or as creative genius, depends upon nothing other than how we dream it.
Jung comments,
“The archetype is spirit or anti-spirit: what it ultimately proves to be depends on the attitude of the human mind.”When we become possessed by the unconscious, we become unconsciously taken over by our primal, animal-like instincts in such a way that we regress, devolve and fall into our lower nature.
Jung elaborates,
“Only the animal man can be possessed…It is easier to talk or to argue with a dog or a cow than with someone possessed by such a figure. For nothing that one says permeates, it is impossible to pierce the wall they put up, it is a wall of unconscious beliefs, and people behind the wall cannot be reached.
They are totally inaccessible.
There is no access because the human being is degraded to the state of an animal, and the thing that seems to function is not a divine being, it is a ghost.”I imagine we all know people like this, people who are under a spell such that there is really no talking with them, as they perversely take in and interpret whatever reflection is being offered of their unconsciousness as evidence of the rightness of their deluded point of view.
Psychologically speaking, they are possessed, as if an “entity” has taken them over, they are no longer there, and they have no idea, literally, of their situation.
When a group of people in this condition enter into agreement about the “truth,” and become card-carrying members of a dogmatic “ism,” a collective psychosis is being brewed in the cauldron of the collective unconscious.
COLLECTIVE PSYCHOSIS
Jung never tired of warning that the greatest danger that faces humanity is to unwittingly fall into our unconscious en masse such that we become instruments for a psychic epidemic to wreak havoc in the world, just like we see today (see “Diagnosis:
Psychic Epidemic”).
Jung writes that psychic epidemics “…are infinitely more devastating than the worst of natural catastrophes. The supreme danger which threatens individuals as well as whole nations is a psychic danger.” We are in the midst of a collective psychosis that has become so normalized that very few people are even talking about it, which is itself an expression of our collective madness. (see “Why Don’t We See our Collective Madness”?)
Jung writes,
“…collective psychoses are based on a constellated archetype, though of course this fact is not taken into account at all. In this respect our attitude is still characterized by a prodigious unconsciousness.” Once these archetypal contents become activated in the unconscious, Jung elaborates, it is like, “they have taken possession of certain individuals, irresistibly draw them together by mutual attraction and knit them into smaller or larger groups which may easily swell into an avalanche.” People who have fallen into their unconscious naturally attract and connect with each other, as they reciprocally reinforce each other’s madness.
An impenetrable bubble of shared, rigid beliefs gets conjured up around them which deflects and resists any self-reflection which threatens their fixed worldview. Anyone who reflects back their unconscious state is demonized and seen as a heretic, blasphemer and enemy. Though using individuals as its instruments, evil needs the unconscious masses for its genesis and proliferation on the world stage. Masses are always breeding grounds of psychic epidemics. In a collective psychosis there is a herd mentality, where people stop thinking for themselves and let others think for them, like sheep (“sheeple”) who just follow wherever they are being led.
Jung writes that whoever buys into the collectively agreed upon group-think, “is infected with the leprosy of collective thinking and has become an inmate of that insalubrious stud-farm called the totalitarian State.”
When we give away our power, there is always someone bearing the authority of the State who is more than happy to accept our offering, feeding the insatiable will-to-power of the shadow.
Jung comments,
“The shepherd’s staff soon becomes a rod of iron, and the shepherds turn into wolves.” Being archetypal, the reciprocal process of people giving away their power to others who abuse it simply because they can has continually re-created itself all throughout history.
Jung warns us that, “The most dangerous things in the world are immense accumulations of human beings who are manipulated by only a few heads.”
In a collective psychosis, the many are manipulated by the few who are attracted to holding power over others. Jung points out that, “Whoever prefers power, is therefore, in the Christian view, possessed by the devil. The psychologist can only agree.” In a psychic epidemic, the masses, led and inspired by the few who are perversely possessed by and addicted to the need for power, collectively collude with, support and mutually rein-force each others’ irrational beliefs, narcissistic needs, and fears, creating a culture crazy beyond belief.
This culture, or lack thereof, is simultaneously the cause and effect of their madness, as they collectively incarnate a living, self-fulfilling prophecy. They become the instruments through which the NLD, the nonlocal demon, reproduces itself, like a multi-headed hydra, in, as, and through the field.
BLESSINGS IN DRAG
Jung writes,
“This state of possession shows itself almost without exception in the fact that the possessed identify themselves with the archetypal contents of their unconscious, and because they do not realize that the role which is being thrust upon them is the effect of new contents still to be understood, they exemplify these concretely in their own lives, thus becoming prophets and reformers [in the negative sense, such as falling into a megalomaniacal inflation]” People who have been swallowed up by the archetype and fallen into the unconscious, instead of shedding light on and integrating the meaning of the activated unconscious contents within themselves, are unwittingly acting out the mythic, symbolic dimension of “the role which is being thrust upon them” in concretized, literal form on the stage of life.
The new contents are understood when we realize that the role, which is coming through us, has its origin in the collective unconscious itself, as if we are playing a role in a cosmic drama. In addition to bestowing upon us a choice of how we want to play this role, this realization snaps us out of personally identifying with the role as well.
The part of us that has been unconsciously possessed becomes liberated, creating more consciousness in the process.
When we become taken over by the unconscious, to quote Jung, “…the unconscious in large measure ousts and supplants the function of the conscious mind. The unconscious usurps the reality function and substitutes its own reality. Unconscious thoughts…manifest themselves in senseless, unshakable judgments upheld in the face of reality.” When we find ourselves ignoring factual evidence and holding a “magical” belief that we rationally know not to be true, we are under a spell, being “driven” by the unconscious, which is at that point in the driver’s seat.
The psychic factors, which make possession possible, are suggestibility, lack of critical discernment, unwillingness or inability to self-reflect, fearfulness, propensity to superstition and prejudice.
The contents that take us over when we are possessed by the unconscious appear as phobias, exaggerated affects, peculiar convictions, idiosyncrasies, stubborn plans, compulsions and obsessions, all of which are not open for discussion or correction.
Demons work through our psyche, “managing our perceptions” in a way such that we aren’t able to see their influence. Demons bedazzle, bewitch, and bedevil consciousness in such a way that we become blind to our own underlying, assumed viewpoint.
We fall under their spell when we become entranced by our own version of reality in such a way so as to think the world “objectively” exists as we perceive it, separate from our own mind.
In other words, we fall under the power of the demons when we become fixated in our non-negotiable viewpoint and imagine that what we are seeing objectively exists, in solid form, outside of ourselves, in a way that applies to everyone.
We then draw to ourselves all the evidence we need to prove to ourselves the seeming truth of our self-evident viewpoint, confirming our delusion that we are separate from and not participating in helping to create the very situation we find ourselves in, which we are ultimately creating. I call this “Aparticipatory Delusional Syndrome,” or ADS for short (see “Delusions of Separation”).
On the other hand, we break the spell of the demons when we realize that every moment of our experience is inseparable from our own consciousness, which is to recognize the fluid, non-objective and thus, “dreamlike nature” of reality. Just like figures in a dream, the demons are, ultimately speaking, our own energy, not separate from our own mind (see “God the Imagination”).
Just like a dream, the way we observe the world literally evokes the very world we are observing. This means that it is through our awareness itself that we can intervene in the underlying matrix of creation and find the leverage point where we can change the waking dream we are having, which is “evolution-in-action.” Interestingly, we wouldn’t have woken up and had this realization without the antagonistic co-operation of the demons, which is to say the demons are secretly allies in disguise, catalysts of consciousness appearing as adversaries, blessings in drag (see “The Light of Darkness”).
NOT THE ONLY ONE
Jung writes,
“The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate.” To the extent that we are not consciously working on integrating, via the process of individuation, the unconscious contents and conflicts that are activated within us, is the extent to which these psychic contents will manifest externally and be unconsciously acted out collectively in a literal, concrete way on the world stage.
Jung comments,
“One shouldn’t evade this conflict by escaping into a premature and anticipated state of redemption, otherwise one provokes it in the outside world. And that is of the devil.”
An activated psychic content not realized consciously in the course of individuation manifests externally, where it gets “dreamed up” in, as, and through the outer world.
To use Jung’s metaphor, the sponsor of this project(ion) is “the devil.”
Jung says,
“The world powers that rule over all mankind, for good or ill, are unconscious psychic factors…We are steeped in a world that was created by our own psyche.” This brings to mind various quotes in the Bible about “powers and principalities” that rule over humanity, which is the metaphysically equivalent expression of our psychological situation.
1 The Gospel of Luke, for example, has the devil say that the kingdoms of the world are under his control (4:5-6).
2 The Gospel of John speaks of the devil as “the ruler of the world.” (14:30, 16:11)
3 The First Letter of John says that “the whole world lies under the power of the evil one.” (5:19)
4 Paul speaks of Satan as “the god of this world.” (Gal. 1:4; Cor. 4:4)
Whether we call it a demon or an unconscious psychic factor, the force that rules over us is created by and an expression of our own psyche.