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November/December 2001 Cosmic |
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| Paul Levy |
In this tragedy, the embodiment of darker, evil forces have manifested as and through the terrorists. The word diabolical literally means he who separates and divides. The antonym, and antidote, for the diabolic, is the symbolic, which literally means that which unites.
Symbols, which are the language of dreams and the unconscious, are not literal in their meaning. Symbols are expressions of a deeper mystery, of a deeper realization. When symbols are properly understood and decoded, they literally become doorways into this deeper mystery, actualizing and liberating the energy of this deeper realization. The word apocalypse originally meant revelation. More specifically, it refers to the "uncovering of what has been hidden." The World Trade Center Horror is an outer reflection of an inner process that is going on deep inside the psyche of humankind. It is a reflection of the archetype of the apocalypse that is constellated deep inside all of our psyches. To the extent that this archetype goes unrecognized within each one of us, it literally gets acted out unconsciously (dreamed up) in and as our life itself. An unconscious content always makes its first appearance in projected form, it always gets dreamed up in materialized form as life itself. When an archetype such as this gets activated, to the extent that we are unconscious of what is happening, we literally get absorbed by the archetypal field and get drafted into the archetype, becoming its unwitting agents, as the archetype acts itself out through us unconsciously in a destructive manner.
Psychologically, apocalyptic phenomena symbolize the emergence of what Jung calls the Self, which is a true enlargement of the personality, an expansion of consciousness. The World Trade Center Horror is a fulcrum point in human history, a genuine crisis, whose inner meaning is also opportunity. If enough of us are able to recognize that what has happened is a living symbol reflecting back to us a process that is happening deep inside each one of us, we, as a species, can have an awakening of consciousness literally undreamed of previously. Seeing what has happened symbolically is itself the birth of what is called the transpersonal dimension of consciousness.
In Tibetan Buddhism, one of the words for enlightenment is "Mahamudra," which literally translates as the Great Symbol. This means that this 3-D universe of ours is actually embedded in a higher-dimensional synchronistic matrix whose emanation is the symbolic script of our universe. In other words, our universe is speaking symbolically, so to speak, and we need to recognize this and become more fluent in decoding its symbolic language. The symbolic script of our universe is truly a revelation that is being mutually dreamed up by us, in and as the present moment, in a process that Buddhism calls interdependent co-origination. The only question is are we going to recognize what is being shown us, or are we going to continue to project out our own darkness?
What is being revealed is what Jung would call the dark or hidden God. It is a truly awe-full experience, an experience that scholar Rudolph Otto calls the negative numinosum or a "mysterium horrendum." What is being revealed is not only a reflection of something deep inside all of us, it is itself the very thing we need to assimilate into ourselves to truly flesh out our full spectrum holograms, which is what genuine incarnation is all about.
To see our situation symbolically literally means to see it AS IF it were a dream. The World Trade Center Horror is a mass shared dream that we have all dreamed up onto the screen of our waking consciousness. To make this easier to understand, we could even interpret what has unfolded in our lives over the last little while as a dream of one individual. Say someone went to sleep and had a dream that terrorists hijacked four commercial planes and flew them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. How would we interpret the dream of this person? What does his dream tell us about his psyche, about his psychology? And what are the teachings, the message, the meaning, which are embedded in this person's dream, for every dream is chock full of hidden blessings.
In dreamwork, all parts of the dream are seen to be aspects of the dreamer's self. For what is a dream other than one's inner process projected out as the dreamscape? A dream is clearly an out-picturing, a projection of an inner process that is going on deep inside the psyche of the dreamer.
If this person came into my office and shared with me his dream, it would give me incredible insight into the nature of the terrible conflict going on deep inside of him. His psyche is at the point of total polarization; the opposites are totally split and trying to destroy one another. It is clear that he is at war with himself, he is totally disassociated. He is splitting off his own darkness and is overly identified with the light. His dream, read symbolically, clearly indicates this, for an embodiment of pure evil, in the form of the terrorists, has incarnated in his dream.
In this person's dream it is clear that the terrorists are totally "projecting the shadow" onto America. This is clearly a reflection of how our dreamer is completely split-off from and projecting out his own darkness.
Psychologically speaking, projecting the shadow is a perverse way of dealing with one's own darkness by projecting it onto someone else and imagining that the other is the embodiment of the darkness that ultimately belongs to oneself (think of Hitler and the Jews). In our dreamer's dream, the terrorists are literally seeing America as the embodiment of evil, as being the incarnation of Satan itself. Jung simply calls projecting the shadow "the lie," which by association is related to the Devil, who is "the liar." The point is, by being so totally polarized and one-sided, by seeing the Devil out there in the Americans, the terrorists literally become possessed by and become the very thing they are trying to destroy. By shadow projecting, the terrorists are reacting to their own mirrored reflection; the inner meaning of the word mirror is "shadow holder."
It is quite important to understand this dynamic of shadow projection. I would point out to our dreamer that if he responds to the terrorists by seeing them as the embodiment of evil and tries to destroy them, he, too, will literally become possessed by and become the very evil he is trying to destroy, perpetuating the infinite cycle of never-ending violence. He would literally be at war trying to eradicate his own shadow, which no one can ever do. If he doesn't understand the mechanism of shadow projection that is getting played out in his dream, he will just continue to unconsciously project the shadow, denying himself of any genuine possibility of healing. If he continues to one-sidedly project out his darkness, we will undoubtedly expect more dreams like this in the future.
There is a great danger when one sees evil. To quote Jung, "the sight of evil kindles evil in the soul- there is no getting away from this fact." It is a profoundly important moment when an archetypal energy such as evil incarnates, going from below ground to literally above the ground, where it can be seen. The original meaning of Satan in Hebrew was an angel of God who obstructs. Lucifer himself is the bringer of light. As Jung points out, when the daemonic is ready to be integrated, it always appears physically, it always gets dreamed up. This is clearly a moment of deadliest peril, this we have already seen.
Due to the recent terrorist attack on America, there is increased pressure in the alchemical vessel of both our individual and collective psyches, which means something is more accessible for us to realize now than before 9-11. We have a rare opportunity available to us, but only if enough of us recognize the deeper pattern that we are merely playing roles in, that we are an expression of, that is literally enacting itself through us. If enough of us wake up to what is being revealed symbolically, we can avoid the destructive consequences of becoming possessed by and acting out these very powerful, archetypal energies unconsciously. These transpersonal energies can then be mediated with consciousness, which means they become humanized and assimilated, making them available to be constructively, creatively and compassionately expressed.
Jung calls this process individuation, which he literally defines as incarnation. Looked at psychologically, the fact that the apocalypse archetype is activated deep in the human psyche means that the Self (what some call God) is not incarnating through only one man, like it did some 2000 years ago through Christ, but is actually incarnating through all of humanity. This is Jung's epochal realization in his greatest work, Answer to Job. He realized that God literally needed humankind as active participants in the divine drama of incarnation, via the act of self-reflection.
If enough of us are sufficiently awake to see the deeper process that is actually happening and realize it is of the nature of a symbol, we would realize that something deep within us is being reflected. This realization initiates a process of self-reflection, which is actually a bending backwards, and as Jung points out, is a genuinely spiritual act born of human freedom. To the extent that any one of us realizes that the entire universe is arranged higher-dimensionally as a symbol reflecting something deep within us, this act of self-reflection registers in the collective consciousness of humankind. This activates a process of transformation in the archetypal realm, which results in the incarnation of God through humanity, ie - the light of consciousness is born. This is what Jung means when he says that in the human act of self-reflection, God incarnates.
If enough of us wake up to what is being revealed symbolically, we act as so much yeast in the dough, so to speak, helping the bread to leaven successfully (hundredth monkey phenomena). We can then avert a potential catastrophe and experience second-order change, which is not a change within a given system, but is an upleveling of the very system we find ourselves in. We, as a species, can experience a quantum shift in consciousness and literally wake up. We can, literally, in real time, collectively dream a different dream. This is what is now potentially available to us in this crisis/opportunity. All we have to do is to re-cognize what is being revealed.
This is why it is so important how our dreamer, who is none other than ourselves, responds to the terrorist attack. We have all dreamed up onto the screen of our waking consciousness the World Trade Center Horror, it is a reflection of a conflict going on deep inside the psyche of humankind. This isn't a dream that we had last night and we are now contemplating as if it is over. This is a collective dream that is unfolding in and as our very life itself. It is critically important that we realize the deeper symbolic process that is getting expressed through and as our current world situation and reflect accordingly. We need to respond with consciousness born from symbolic awareness.
Paul Levy is a leader in the field of dreaming. An artist and healer, he is in private practice, helping others who are also spiritually awakening. A pioneer in the field of spiritual emergence, he is in the new book, Saints and Madmen: Psychiatry Opens its Doors to Religion. A long-time Tibetan Buddhist practitioner, he is the coordinator of the Portland PadmaSambhava Buddhist Center. He can be reached at (503) 234- 6480.