Jungian Psychology 101

"De womb iz de womb and de womb iz de womb" Doc Fallia-my high school psych teacher trying to explain the Campbellian concept that "the tomb is the womb and the womb is the tomb"-by the way this very concept was also introduced by Montaigne in his previously cited essay "to study philosophy is to learn how to die" and other light children's classics. ( Incidentally I had to teach this essay this summer, which may account for its sudden inclusion)

I had to shut down my computer to search for the sobig worm, which it doesn't have, and while I did I read some of my Bulfinch's Mythology . Anyway it brought up some thoughts I have had recently on a mythological/jungian bent.


A New Holiday

Mnemosyne was a Titan and sister to Zeus. From her the other muses were born. And here is the kicker: Zeus made love to Mnemsyne ( brother sister pairings among the G-ds were not uncommon, after all Hera and Zeus were also brother and sister) for what was supposed to be one night-but it ended up being the length of 8 nights! Now that just kicks Hannukah's ass. I mean that whole eight days of light business compared to 8 nights of divine sex. There is a holiday worth celebrating-sign me up. And I love what people would have to tell there kids:

"And because of that every week, mommies and daddies, and young teenagers, and camera men across the world all go to the 'Romance Survival Hideaway' off route nine with a private heart shaped jacuzzis in every room."

And before you get on your high horse there about holidays, most of our popular holidays come from the pagans including Easter, St Valentine's Day, and Christmas.

So I say yeah the chocolate eggs are nice, but show me to the weeklong lovin'.

The illusory nature of love

I don't know what I was reading, but I was reading some essay by an author that chose to analyze a particular tale of a man who marries a fairy who makes him promise never to look in this one particular room of her house. He abides by the rule, and they conceive children. The children are hideous (extra eyes, giants etc), and curiosity overwhelms the man and he peaks. He sees his wife, who is actually part serpent, bathing. In a rage she turns into a demon and flees the house.

Now the person who wrote the story gave it a particularly gender biased interpretation and failed to acknowledge that this story has existed for quite sometime, dating all the way back to the Greeks actually, and has been applied to both genders.

The first version has to do with Cupid ( also known as Eros) and Psyche. Cupid falls in love with Psyche and abducts her. She lives happily in a house, all her needs attended to, and even loves her husband. The only rule is that she can never SEE her husband. He comes to her in the dark and leaves the same way. Happy as she is with this arrangement she pines for her family and so eventually Cupid brings Psyche's sister for a visit. The sister, being the jealous type, suggests that the secrecy might be because her husband is a monster of some kind (being happy in front of your unmarried girlfriends is never a good idea-even the greeks knew it). Psyche fearing she might be pairing with something out of the miniseries "V", keeps a lamp under her bed, and that night as Cupid lays beside her she holds aloft the lamp beholding the face of her lover.

Although Psyche falls deeply in love beholding his face, Cupid springs up and flees from Psyche back to his mother Aphrodite ( where he was allowed to stay in her basement as long as he paid rent) . Psyche must then perform several tasks including procuring a jar of beauty cream from the Queen of the Dead, Persephone. After these tasks, she is finally reunited with Cupid.

Later variants on this myth have been used with both sexes. Grimm's fairytales is full with different versions, including one where a young maiden who is happily married to a lord is given keys to the castle-and even though she is given a key to the last room, she is commanded not to open it-she does so only to discover that she is married to Bluebeard-famed child killer and friend to Joan of Arc. ( you can also see this variant as linked to the forbidden fruit in genesis-bluebeard gives his wife the key because he wants to her TO CHOOSE to obey his commands)

In fact, Jane Eyre's discovery of Rochester's first wife could be considered part of this tradition. Generally, although the discovery initially leads to strife and misery, eventually through effort, bliss is again achieved. ( Although whether the bliss is achieved with the same person ie in the cupid and psyche version or with a different person ie the bluebeard variation depends on the story)

The story can be seen a couple of ways-one is that it is a metaphor for romantic love-first you fall in love with this person, but you don't really fall in love with them-you fall in love with this front or illusion of them-then you confront of their true nature-with this confrontation you see the true nature of the beloved-not perfect, certainly flawed-some more flawed than others-after this revelation there are two possible outcomes-if the true nature of the beloved is truly hideous and evil like in the Bluebeard case-the lover will suffer a great deal before finding love again -this bears itself out in real life-those who have been victimizied by lovers who pretend to be loving and caring but in reality are cheating and devious maybe so deeply scarred that only through the deep efforts of others can they finally find one worthy of their love-

the second outcome is that the beloved is worthy, but the shock of having been spied in their true nature and in addition in having the trust they set violated necessitates that both members of the couple work on reconciliation-however the love that results from a union such as this will be stronger and based more on a true appreciation and understanding as well as the more mature acceptance of flaws instead of living in the illusory dream of perfection

Freud would say that depression is the interruption of reality into fantasy-so the horror and disgust of the revelation of the truth fits with that idea-

there are also myths that go the other way around

There is one in which a girl promises to marry a giant serpent in order to free her kindgom of its oppression. Many young women have married it before, but none have lived past the first night. The young woman goes into the marital bed, and the sepent ( obvious phallic reference anyone) demands she wash him.

She scrubs the serpent. She scrubs him so well that he sloughs off seven skins. She scrubs until her hands bleed. Finally, after the last skin she beholds a beautiful young man. The serpent was a prince put under a spell. The other girls were too afraid to scrub him, but this girl is rewarded because of her obedience.

Here the story is that although the serpent is awful to behold, inside he is quite beautiful ( beauty is only skin deep-or appearances may be deceiving) here again what is stressed is that for the relationship to work there must be both effort and willingness

and this has been a greek mythology moment.