Apocalypse,
or New Age?
The Emerging Perinatal Unconscious
Book
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by Michael Derzak Adzema, M.A.
PART THREE: APOCALYPSE?
OR NEW AGE?
Chapter Ten:
Dreaming Out Loud:
"Control" Versus "Surrender" Spiritualities
The "Royal Road"
to Our Collective Consciousness
Information Avalanche
and Pre- and Perinatal Themes
Control Versus Surrender
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Chapter Ten: Dreaming Out
Loud:
"Control" Versus "Surrender" Spiritualities
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THE "ROYAL ROAD" TO OUR COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS
Is there any evidence that the changes that need to happen are actually
occurring? I have mentioned that there are studies of the psychology
of generations, beginning with the Baby-Boomers or Sixties Generation,
which show both an increased access to the perinatal as well as a tendency
to act out perinatal influences in less harmful ways than generations prior
(although more blatantly), as well as to actually engage in activities
to actually counter the negative perinatal act-outs that exist in our environment
-- as for example in campaigning against war, pollution, racism, violence,
and so on.
But in Chapter Three I introduced the common anthropological tenet
that the projective systems of a culture -- that is, its art and
artifacts -- can be analyzed to get a glimpse into the worldview of a particular
society. For our purposes, I have pointed out how our movies are
especially potent glimpses into our collective consciousness; you might
say that our cinema is the "royal road" to our collective consciousness.
Movies As Collective Dreaming
Our flicks perform admirably well as collective dreams in that, unlike
the other products of our collective consciousness such as other art and
artifacts, they are multimedia stories, much like dreams are. But
more than that, they are shared by more of the populace than any other
art form (I am not including TV separately as an art form, since I put
it in the same category as films, especially when many films are broadcast
on TV and much else on TV also has the same character of being multimedia
stories). Finally, the strength of a particular element of the collective
consciousness can be easily determined by the popularity of a particular
movie that represents it or by that elements increasing inclusion in a
number of films (as for example, in Chapter Three I discussed the emerging
new elements of faces coming out of walls and forceful oral insertion).
Putting Our Society on the Couch
All together, these mean that, just as a psychotherapist might analyze
a client's dreams to get an idea of his or her unconscious workings and
contents, one can interpret mainstream movies to get an idea of the workings
and contents of our society's "collective mind" -- both conscious and unconscious.
This is no more complex than saying that when we see things in movies that
people flock to see, they are flocking because those things are also in
their own minds. And the more they flock -- the greater the success
of a movie -- the more pervasive in a society are those themes, elements,
and contents. Certain aspects (themes or elements in films) are said
to really "resonate" with people and therefore people make those movies
that contain them popular and successful. When this is said, it only
means that people are consciously or unconsciously drawn to things that
exist within themselves. Conversely, no existence inside? No
interest.
So in this and upcoming chapters I will use films as the dreaming
out loud of our collective mind. Put less esoterically, I will be
analyzing a few examples of mainstream movies for their content, and I
will be assuming that the content I find there exists as well in the society
that has watched it (has "dreamt" it). I will also be assuming that
movies that are mainstream, by which I mean can be found in video rental
stores, are indicative of pervasive elements in our collective consciousness.
They can be looked at for the conscious workings of our society as a whole.
So I will not deal with the actual numbers of people who have attended
particular movies. For I will assume out of the tens of thousands
of movies that are produced each year -- by small and large producers --
those that have made it into the theaters of virtually all the communities
of our society, and from there into the stacks of the video rental stores
of all those communities, have by those facts alone demonstrated their
resonance with the collective social mind. Otherwise, we would get
into the maelstrom of analyzing critic's opinions of these movies; and
with that, to modify a saying, opinions are like asses: everyone
has a different one.
Something's Happening Here . . . Again
One final point about the heuristic value of the analysis of films for
the workings of the collective consciousness: Elements and themes
in movies change over time. I have indicated how new elements may
be evidence of new elements of our collective unconscious minds coming
into consciousness in detailing how the faces-in-the-wall element has developed.
But when old, familiar plots have different outcomes, this is important
as well. When elements change or evolve over time, this speaks of
something going on; this points to changes or evolutions in our collective
consciousness. And when elements and themes and plots change or evolve
rapidly, we can accurately say that the changes in consciousness are equally
swift.
These are some of the tools we will be using in this and upcoming
chapters as we take a look at a few examples of mainstream films and what
they might be reflecting back to us about our own society's changes in
consciousness. But first let me say something about what may turn
out to be the most important of the thematic evolutions or changes in film
elements that we have been seeing.
INFORMATION AVALANCHE
AND PRE- AND PERINATAL THEMES
Ego-Eroding Information Deluge
In the last few decades we have been hearing a great deal about the
need to expand consciousness to balance the negative effects of
the extremes of technological advance. Fortunately this change
of consciousness is to some extent inevitable -- or at least greatly
aided -- by certain side effects of the technological explosion . . .
specifically in the area of telecommunications. As cultural boundaries
are eroded by a multicultural information avalanche, people are
forced to lower their inner defenses and ego boundaries (or else
expend themselves in an all-out effort to shore them up). Similarly,
the deluge of information in all areas, where previously we could smugly
hold forth ego-satisfying views, pushes toward an overthrow of those
narrower perspectives and the establishment of broader, more encompassing
ones.
"Consciousness Raising" As "Shoveling It"
For the most part, this expansion of consciousness is seen as a linear
increase and correspondingly is labeled a "raising" of consciousness.
Ken Wilber's transpersonal theory is the most popular version of such a
ladder-style path.1
In it the process of growth is analogous to that of climbing a mountain
or shoveling compost into a pickup truck -- one simply moves upward
or piles it on. But there are those who think otherwise.
The Path to Heaven Leads Through Hell
Those in the know about the pervasive pre- and perinatal influence on
personality and behavior, and especially those of us actively engaged
in working through the effects of such early traumas, are fully
aware, like Dante, that the path to heaven leads through hell.
We have found that the path to the transpersonal light leads through
the psychodynamic and perinatal darkness, that the path up and the path
down are parts of the same path outward.2
A Dark and Hideous Shadow World
Our experience has been that the information avalanche and multicultural
onslaught have eroded our personal boundaries to an influx, not only
of transpersonal bliss-love-compassion, but equally -- and very
often, initially -- to a dark and hideous shadow world, a backwards
bizarro world, of pernicious and insidious disorganized feelings
comprised of elements ancient, infantile, pathological, biological, scatological,
and perinatal. These are some of the forms spiritual emergence
can take, especially initially. And they are the ones most
likely to be seen as spiritual emergencies.
Pre- and Perinatal Themes in Cinema
Therefore, it is interesting to see these views confirmed by the bubbling
up of psychodynamic and perinatal themes in our collective consciousness
as evidenced by current films, books, and music. I have mentioned
the pre- and perinatal themes and symbolism in films and explained why,
along with other elements of modern times, they are evidence of something
significant occurring in the consciousness of our age: an emerging
perinatal unconscious.
But there is another element evolving in current films which has
to do with a changing or evolving collective attitude toward these perinatal
elements. And along with a changing attitude, there is evidence pointing
to an evolving collective response to it.
CONTROL VERSUS SURRENDER
"Control Spiritualities" and Patriarchal Cultures
Specifically, a different kind of heroic response, which characterizes
the perinatal arena, can be said to characterize the modern movies
replete with perinatal symbolism. Most striking of all, this different
kind of heroic response corresponds to a different kind of spirituality
than what is commonly portrayed in this society, or at least has
been the norm up until now.
For basically there are "control" spiritualities and "surrender"
spiritualities, with rarely the twain meeting. "Control
spiritualities" are adapted to patriarchal cultures and involve the use
of the ego to "control" and be in charge of even the realms of the
supernatural. This is so because an ultimate evil -- a devil
or Satan -- is postulated, which is given equal weight along with
God in determining one's ultimate fate. This type of spirituality
is normally what is called religion.
"Surrender Spiritualities" and God As Being Good
But there is another brand of spirituality that is based on a belief
in the ultimate goodness and rightness of All That Is. God's
goodness being essentially the dominant force in the Universe, herein
it is considered safe to "surrender" in one's relation to Reality,
to expect that one will be guided correctly, in fact perfectly, in the
act of letting go. Thus letting go is not to be feared (as
in the control spirituality) but is to be practiced and fostered.
In this perspective, which we might call surrender spirituality,
control is seen as the problem, not the solution.
"Control" and "Surrender" Psychotherapies
Of course these two approaches to spirituality represent two approaches
to psychotherapy as well. The control attitude is the dominant
mode of psychoanalytically-based approaches (in which the "demon"
of the id is postulated). The attitude of "letting go" and
"surrender," on the other hand, is the dominant mode of the experiential
psychotherapies, which are themselves rooted in the tradition of humanistic
psychology with its belief in the ultimate goodness of the human organism
and which thus allows a faith in the ultimate rightness of human processes.
"Hero's Journey" As "Control" Psychotherapy
Since the control attitude, in any of its manifestations, requires the
postulation of an ultimate evil against which one must remain vigilant
and must fight, the common "hero's journey" myth -- with its typical
fighting and slaying of supposedly evil parts of the personality
and reality symbolized as dragons and other monsters -- is a prevalent
focal myth to this attitude. Corresponding to this myth are the
emphasis on disciplines and practices seeking to develop the ego
and the will (over against the dangers that are postulated to exist
in the Universe requiring these disciplines and, so-called, ego developments).
A Different Heroic Response in "Surrender" Paths
Since the "feeling" therapies and the other spiritual and experiential
psychotherapeutic modalities with which they are allied are so different
in attitude to the traditional "control" attitude, should there
not be corresponding differences in myths to exemplify them?
Indeed, there is. In history, the surrender spiritualities
have had correspondences in myth in which the dragon is not fought,
conquered, and slain, but rather is either tamed and becomes one's
ally or pet (St. Margaret is the prime example in the West, but this is
a depiction prevalent in the East) or else one is swallowed by the
"dragon" or monster and, after a while, is reborn. Jonah is
the prime example in the West for this latter depiction. But
again this reaction to the fearful dissociated aspects of the personality,
or the Shadow, is not a common one in the Western patriarchy, and it
is much more common in traditional cultures and in the East.
A Shift to "Surrender" As a Corrective to a Western
Overweening Ego?
All of this may be changing in recent times in the West, as once again
the humanistic attitude and the new spiritual perspectives, as well
as the experiential psychotherapies such as primal therapy, make
us increasingly aware of the ultimate beneficence of the body, and
of the Universe beyond even that, and of the importance of surrender
and letting go as a corrective to the overweening control and defensiveness
of the diminutive Western ego.
CHAPTER TEN NOTES
1. See especially Ken Wilber, The Atman
Project. Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing
House, 1980. [return to text]
2. Cf., Michael Adzema, "A Primal Perspective
on Spirituality," Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 25(3), 83-116.
(eventually to be uploaded on this website) [return
to text]
Copyright © 1999 by Michael Derzak Adzema
Comments? E-mail me by clicking on: mickel@primalspirit.com
Mickel Adzema
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