Quadrant: The Journal of the C.G. Jung Foundation

From the Editor — Kathryn Madden

This issue of Quadrant could be called the "dream issue" or, perhaps, the "myth issue." Our authors consider the transformative and meaning-making role of dreams and/or myths. Cashford and Astrachan examine various aspects of the myth of Hermes, from that of messenger between two worlds to a darker view of Hermes as trickster figure. Bernstein and Brown explore the idea of the blockbuster film, Avatar, as an "emergent myth of our time." Finally, Slattery analyzes the unconscious ground shared by dreams and the "poetic impulse."

[ Click here for more of this article … ]

The Myth of the Messenger — Jules Cashford

Keywords: Hermes, imagination, Thoth, daimon, annunciation, muse

Mythic images of a "Messenger" appear in many different cultures throughout history typically winged in some form, like birds from afar. The tradition of the shaman, and the figures of Thoth, Hermes, Mercurius, angels, and muses, relate two different realms, carrying messages from "the beyond" or "the deep," from unconscious to conscious. Romantic poets call this crossing of the realms the Imagination. Through the stories and images of these figures we can understand the language of this indefinable mode of knowing, both evanescent and everlasting.

Hermes, The Slayer of Argus — Gary D. Astrachan

Keywords: alchemy, Argus, Hermes, Io, madness, meaning,
movement, paranoia, psychopathy

This paper takes up a rather unusual and totally uncharacteristic aspect of the Greek god Hermes, Hermes Argeiphontes, the "slayer of Argus" — Hermes the murderer. In relating the tale of Hermes killing the many-eyed watchman Argus in order to liberate the bewitched maiden Io, transformed into a "moon-cow" for Zeus' illicit love, we trace the underworldly and alchemical themes of transmutation, madness, and initiation into their enactments in the analytical process. Hermes appears to mythologically reveal through his own shadow sides some possibly new and different ways to clinically and archetypally in-sight the twinned personality disorders of psychopathy and paranoia.

On the Edge: Borderland Consciousness and Avatar. An Emergent Myth of Our Time — Jerome S. Bernstein

Keywords: evolution, consciousness, borderland, personality, nature Avatar, ecopsychology, cosmology, mythology

There is growing clinical and objective evidence to support my view that a compensatory evolutionary shift in the very nature of consciousness is taking place as a result of the Western ego construct being reconnected with its psychic roots in nature. One result is "borderland" consciousness. The 2009 film Avatar provides further support for this theory and portrays a visual representation of the archetypal drama unfolding in our midst. Avatar provides a window on the emergent cosmological story into which the collective unconscious appears to be endeavoring to take species Homo sapiens. The film is reviewed from within the frame of Borderland consciousness.

Avatar, The Movie: Awakening Btween Two Worlds — Gary Brown

Keywords: new consciousness, consensus omnium, embodied ego,
bond/interspecies compassion

The author considers the massive public reception of the movie Avatar earlier this year as evidence of the arising of a new form of consciousness. This public acclamation can be seen as a poll indicating the recognition in collective consciousness of an emerging new inner condition reflected on a mass scale. Selected details of the film Avatar speak to the how and why of this new consciousness emerging and how new ego structures are reflected in the details of the movie.

Mytho-Poiesis: The Shared Ground of Psyche's Dreaming and Poetic Impulse
— Dennis Patrick Slattery

Keywords: mythopoiesis, psychic energy, dream image, poetic image, mythos, mimesis

If the psyche is fundamentally analogic, mimetic, and metaphoric in its structure, then perhaps the images of dream and the images of poetry emanate from the same unconscious ground and in their expression are given a shape and a form that share similar characteristics. This essay entertains the proximity of dream image to poetic image and suggests that mimesis is a shared reality of the psyche as it forms images that reflect itself in relation to the world it inhabits. Mytho-poiesis is the image-shaping faculty that both image reservoirs share. Comparing two dream narratives to a poem by a contemporary poet allows the reader into a discussion of what similarities and differences attend these two imagistic worlds.

Book Reviews — Beth Darlington, Book Review Editor

On Behalf of the Mystical Fool: Jung on the Religious Situation
— John P. Dourley. New York, NY: Routledge, 2009. Reviewed by Kendrick Norris, Ph.D.

The Way of the Image: The Orientational Approach to the Psyche
— Yoram Kaufmann. New York: Zahav Books, 2009. Reviewed by David Morgan, LCSW

[ Return to Top ]