The Acorn

Being still lost in my patterns.

In the Kabbalah there’s this idea of the “collective soul”, which I discover is a Jungian idea. Which leads again to Hillman’s archetypal psychology.

Which is basically Erikson’s fantasy series.

According to Hillman, “polytheistic psychology can give sacred differentiation to our psychic turmoil.…” Hillman states that

“The power of myth, its reality, resides precisely in its power to seize and influence psychic life. The Greeks knew this so well, and so they had no depth psychology and psychopathology such as we have. They had myths.”

And:

They studied how the hierarchy of ancient gods, polytheistic religions, and archetypal ideas found in tales might influence modern life with regard to soul, psyche, dreams and the Self.

Aristotle described an archetype as an original from which derivatives or fragments can be taken. In Jung’s psychology an archetype is an inherited pattern of thought or symbolic imagery derived from the past collective experience and present in the individual unconscious.

And Jung:

“My thesis then, is as follows: in addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix), there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.”

During the reread of Gardens of the Moon we discussed the significance of the “acorn” that creates the Azath at the end of the book. Erikson commented briefly:

And yes, it’s an acorn, not a stone or marble or jeweled ring; and from tiny acorns mighty trees do grow.

Back to Hillman:

Hillman’s book, The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling, outlines an “acorn theory of the soul.” His theory states that each individual holds the potential for their unique possibilities inside themselves already, much as an acorn holds the pattern for an oak, invisible within itself. It argues against the parental fallacy whereby our parents are seen as crucial in determining who we are by supplying us with genetic material and behavioral patterns. Instead the book suggests for a reconnection with what is invisible within us, our daimon or soul or acorn and the acorn’s calling to the wider world of nature.

And back to Bakker’s woes about consciousness:

the ego is but one psychological fantasy within an assemblage of fantasies.

And by the way, the T’lan Imass seem another literal manifestation of the “collective consciousness“:

Collective consciousness was a term coined by the French sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) to refer to the shared beliefs and moral attitudes which operate as a unifying force within society.

Durkheim argued that in traditional/primitive societies (those based around clan, family or tribal relationships) totemic religion played an important role in uniting members through the creation of a common consciousness.

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