Myth in the Movies
Author: Christopher Chayban
Jordan Peterson says that Marvel and Disney get the archetypes right and likely why they are so successful. I don’t know why there isn’t more well done mythological movies. If mythology is a textbook of archetypes then it is also a storehouse of movie material. Maybe mythology is too distant for the culture as it shifts to a more realistic and aesthetic attitude. But I recently saw the movie “Black Panther,” and I thought they did a phenomenal job of merging the mythology of ancient African traditions with the new age technological attitude. There are plenty of Greek myths that can serve to be as helpful teaching tools through the medium of film but it doesn’t have to remain with the Western myths. I think venturing out and exploring the East would upgrade our attitudes. I know Jung was afraid of the East but I think the container is more intact this time around. My point being is that, no one looks at books and turns to a page like Jung did to show an alchemical image that corresponded to the patients dream. It is through film, Netflix and YouTube that will carry that function from here in out.
Jung thought that a Christian Yoga was going to or needed to develop in the West and he thought that Western form of Yoga would be Alchemy. But that intuition of his may not come to fruition unless it’s being built in the underground because, it seems like Christianity is fading away and Alchemy is now what we would call Chemistry. I know there is some new age alchemists doing some great work trying to bring this “Western Yoga” to light, even though they don’t call it that. Adam McClean has a website on various alchemical myths and texts. The images are fascinating in alchemy and definitely stir something within. That was Jung’s whole point, is that Alchemy would support the grounds of Western roots, which is how the Spirituality of the East developed. Their roots have developed undisturbed and were allowed to grow naturally because no foreign country has really infiltrated the East and wiped the tradition. The Viking culture had their unconscious severed by being force fed Christianity and that’s why you see the sharp emphasis on consciousness today with out a relation to the unconscious. You need a concept like Ego-Self axis to repair that wound. But with that said, I think Yoga has been assimilated into the culture and rapidly through out the last fifty years. You still get concretizations and primitive use of yoga by the franchising of classes like “beer yoga” or “chicken nugget yoga.” This is what Jung feared is the “acquisitive nature of the West imitating the East.” Clearly there is no understanding of Yoga, it is just body movements and for making money. Anyone who has seriously investigated Yoga (a consciousness technology) would do know that alcohol and meat are antagonistic to your development in the practice and dulling to consciousness. Nevertheless, if that’s how you can get people to dip their feet in then I suppose it’s ok. As long as further exploration ensues. As a Kundalini Yoga instructor myself, I find that people are more open to it these days then even when I was teaching five years ago. Some aspects still seem “woo woo” to people like chanting mantras, but in everything you do in yoga actually has a scientific explanation I would say about ninety percent of the time. When I give the scientific reasoning to my students, it satisfies the cultural weltanschaaung and the practice is more appreciated. This particular tradition of Yoga that I use (Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan) has made enormous strides to bring Yoga to the West and provide an “intact” container. A masterful job is done at healing the spilt by combining science and spirituality together in one system.
The movies might help with valuing intuition more. Unfortunately I don’t think it’s headed that way. Some of the type experts are saying that the U.S. culture is moving from ESTJ to ESFP or ESTP national typology, valuing more facts and short-sighted give it to me now approaches. In that case, the Inferior would shift from Introverted Feeling (respect for the individual and their personal beliefs/values), to Introverted Intuition (Knowing, Imagining and Divining) would the new Anima or Animus, or let’s call it a more neutral term “Animae” as Murray Stein suggests since the country doesn’t have a gender per say. Perhaps movies like Black Panther are an example of the primitive Intuition of the culture. The myth is still devalued, “oh it’s just a movie.” It’s quite still quite a struggle for people to value intuition. They don’t recognize how much it contributes to their nihilism and lack of meaning. On the other hand, I sometimes think Intuition needs to stay devalued and hidden partly because some things need that dash of mystery to work and to provide that stark contrast that leads to the numinosum. The other part is like I mentioned before, with not recognizing it, there is dangerous nihilism that could prove destructive to the planet by eradicating life as we know it. And sure, that also could be a shadow projection that we lay on the culture. So we must also ask, in what way am I being nihilistic and making the world a worse place?
Star Wars was heavily influenced by Joseph Campbell’s work. I wonder if all movies follow this model to a degree. I also wonder what would hit home more for the audience; the hero’s journey replayed over and over again, or a new journey. I’m inclined to vote that it would hit home more for the creatures of habit. Perhaps the movies that don’t hit on the archetypes don’t do well. The hero’s journey is a little over done. What about the sage’s journey, the father’s or mother’s journey? There are plenty of movies about hero/sage Jesus, but I am yet to see one about the hero/sage Buddha. Are all movies about heroes in some way? Is the hero “thee” archetype of archetypes?
I am thinking of the life of the Buddha and the “Sage’s Journey” and how his journey to become a sage unraveled, as opposed to the “Hero’s Journey.” I don’t know if you could ever get out of the Hero’s journey but perhaps, no one has ever tried. I know John Beebe has said that we are just coming to realize that “Hero Consciousness” is not the point anymore, that Jung’s eight function attitudes were in effect eight different types of hero consciousnesses, and now we are moving into integrating the whole of the psyche and not just one archetype, the archetype of the hero.
So are movies and books really enough? I almost think that we have somewhat settled, like “Ah ok” that’s where the Gods are. Found them! But I think we are forgetting one important thing isn’t being said. That is, we know that movies and books are from human origin and myths and sacred texts are said to be of “divine” origin. Sure, someone wrote these myths and texts down but you very often come across, especially in the Vedas that, these texts were not were not compiled through conscious elaboration (i.e. through the ego) but were told to individuals via direct contact and cognition (A.I. with the Gods) and then written down. I think movies and books touch upon our deep aspects but I don’t think they quite relativize the Ego to the Self like the former stories did because we know that they are consciously worked on and worked over and made by “human brains” not the Gods. The approach and perspective is very different. I think they (movies and books) serve a sustaining role to satisfy the thirst for the archetypal. But I feel that they are not enough ultimately for what Jung called “absolute knowledge” and wholeness. They might be, for some people. But as I mentioned before, I don’t think they relativize the ego, because even though the “Self” is really running the show, common man still thinks the Ego is running the show. Eliade mentions somewhere that profane man refuses “transcendence.” So my question are movies and books enough to serve as that bridge the transcendent? Or does the refusal of transcendence by profane man block this function?
I was struck by something my Aunt said this weekend when I was visiting her in Buffalo, in a discussion we were having about her memory of the Mediterranean Sea, back when she was living in Lebanon. She said “You wouldn’t believe it but the Sea has a “temper” it will fight with you and get upset. You can love the sea, but don’t trust it. There is also mud that comes up with the water because the Sea fights. ” I thought oh my God, she knows nothing about Greek mythology or Poseidon but she just described him the way the ancients saw him. As earth shaker and with a temper that needs to be pacified.
HYMNS TO POSEIDON
I) THE HOMERIC HYMNS
Homeric Hymn 22 to Poseidon (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C7th or 6th B.C.) :
“I begin to sing about Poseidon, the great god, mover of the earth and fruitless sea, god of the deep who is also lord of Helikon (Helicon) and wide Aigai (Aegae). O Shaker of the Earth (Ennosigaios), to be a tamer of horses and a saviour of ships! Hail Poseidon Holder of the Earth (gaienokhos), dark-haired lord! O blessed one, be kindly in heart and help those who voyage in ships!”
II) THE ORPHIC HYMNS
Orphic Hymn 17 to Poseidon (trans. Taylor) (Greek hymns C3rd B.C. to 2nd A.D.) :
“Hear, Poseidon, ruler of the sea profound, whose liquid grasp begirds the solid ground; who, at the bottom of the stormy main, dark and deep-bosomed holdest they watery reign. Thy awful hand the brazen trident bears, and sea’s utmost bound thy will reveres. Thee I invoke, whose steeds the foam divide, from whose dark locks the briny waters glide; shoe voice, loud sounding through the roaring deep, drives all its billows in a raging heap; when fiercely riding through the boiling sea, thy hoarse command the trembling waves obey. Earth-shaking, dark-haired God, the liquid plains, the third division, fate to thee ordains. ‘Tis thine, cerulean daimon, to survey, well-pleased, the monsters of the ocean play. Confirm earth’s basis, and with prosperous gales waft ships along, and swell the spacious sails; add gentle peace, and fair-haired health beside, and pour abundance in a blameless tide.”
http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/
Now of course, modern man would look at this example as probably silly and as the part of the psychology of the primitive (who is closer to the unconscious), because we have science and know that the pull of the Moon effects the tides and the wind/weather currents do as well. But my point is she sees the archetypal image and core (without knowing it) of (Poseidon)/the Sea and relativizes her Ego to it. It reminds me of the Hymns where they say “Honor the Gods” because the archetypal energy is awe-some and aw-ful and can over whelm you. Do movies and books do that? I suppose they can, but I’m not so sure on that level because we see them as images coming the Ego, not the Self. By the way, that’s not to deny your experience of them, you’ve noted that it does something for you and I’m glad that they do. I am just trying to illustrate my point of this Ego-Self axis business, how I’m not confident movies or books can sustain the thirst for the archetypal in the long run. But I am open to being wrong about that.
movies embodying the numinious. I think they do embody some numinous qualities and I think they sustain us in the interim. But we are in a void and God-image-less, and somewhere in the back of our minds we know that movies are made by the Ego and not the Self. “Oh that was a good movie, but it’s not real.” Black Panther is “not real” to us because we know it was made by Ego’s trying to get in touch with the Self (which isn’t a bad thing) but I just feel it’s not enough. Also, I think we have reached a point of desperation that it’s almost like we hope that movies can provide the Self and the Sacred to us, (not saying you by the way but in general) it just feels like we are a little lost doesn’t it? So to end, I think the question to ask ourselves is, are movies a defeat for my Ego and can they transform me the way images of the Self can? Are movies a religious experience and do they transform me? I just don’t think our attitude towards movies (other than maybe Star Wars) is sacred in the ultimate sense because we know it’s nothing but cameras and special effects, whereas there is still a dash of mystery and unbelievability with an experience of the Self or the divine. As far as I can tell.
In many ways, the big screen is our dreams externalized for us to watch and an evolution of the fairy tales and their structured/thematic stories. All our archetypes and mythologies are now contained in Hollywood. Hollywood is aware of our projections and our unconscious and presents us back to us for us to see. It shows in how people are captivated through film, because it touches on the archetypes. Also, it doesn’t take much to realize that the Aquaman movie is a story of Poseidon, re-envisioned or re-imagined. The comic book movies still carry our mythologies forward. The projection of myths is still alive and well, but film is also good for learning about typology, as you alluded to with cold and rational thinking robot. I know I bring up John Beebe a lot, but he has a book called “The Presences of the Feminine in Film,” that shows archetypes and typology at work in film.
Resources:
https://www.3ho.org/
Beebe, John: A New Model in Psychological Types.
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