Column 20 -Carl Jung's Concepts in the Demontagne Saga

When I was in graduate school I was taught that the development of intellectual abilities ended some time before the twentieth birthday. There was a leveling off of intellectual development at around age 18 and abilities remained reasonably stable until there were age related declines late in life. It was also assumed that the achievement of adult status meant that there was little in the way of development in general.

We now know that maturation of the brain goes on much longer with development of the executive function in the frontal cortex going on until at least the mid twenties. Overall, there has been little work on adult development. It was as if we became an adult and that was that. There were a few people who did a little work on adult stages and development but there was very little interest because it had been declared that there was nothing to study.

Of course, if there had been more interest in the work of Carl Jung, there might have been wider study of personality development during adulthood. And, we must not forget that Gail Sheehy completely stole the show from psychology and psychiatry in her amazing book, Passages. She wrote about adult stages of life. I won't go into her wonderful work. You can almost surely still find it at the library and it will probably speak a great deal to you about how life changes as you go through adulthood.

As to Jung, he did not believe that human personality development ever ceased. Or if it did, it required analytic intervention by a skilled professional because the cessation was highly problematic.

Jung believed that in our early years we develop a primary personality function which is, in a sense, our own guiding principle. We then enhance it with an auxiliary function. There is a further organizing principle seen in attitudes which are introversion or extraversion. These functions, auxiliaries and attitudes are called types because the type which a person is is much more important than how much of that type the person exhibits.

The complexity of this system is beyond what we can go into here. But Jung conceptualizes our personality as being organized like a wheel with a line through the middle which denotes the separation between the conscious and the unconscious. Our job as adults is to raise more and more of this wheel into consciousness so that we may become increasingly whole in relating to the world. The intuitive dreamer comes to appreciate ordinary reality. The rigid person who believes in thought and systems only comes to appreciate the richness of feelings. The shy introvert becomes more skilled in social settings.

As the wheel rises it brings with it other attributes such as the relatively undifferentiated woman who dwells deep in a man (his anima) and the undifferentiated man who dwells deep in a woman ( her animus).

How do we apply these to the Demontagne Saga. Remember that in A Dream Across Time Jamie tends to be spacey and gets lost in her art. Over time, in her adult life, she becomes a consummate businesswoman. Her wheel is rising and she now has control of her intuitive artistic self and her more Areality@ oriented business self becomes organized. Andre begins from a business and financial orientation and what Jamie seeks is the development of his intuitive side and his feeling commitment.

In A Circle of Dreams we come to know Jamie’s daughter, Lissa. What is striking about her is that at an early age she appears to have unusual access to all parts of her personality. Her sister, Yvie, has more difficulty precisely because she cannot seem to gain full command of her primary personality function. Each child has their own problem to solve. Lissa is burdened by too much too soon and Yvie is burdened by not enough soon enough.

Jung also brings to our attention universals he found in mythology. In both books we see the display of the archetypes of the Wise Old Man (Marcus), the Earth Mother (Bertille) and the tree of life where the children develop (Father Samaan). By the way, don=t expect us to be able to explain all the symbolism in our books. We are intuitive types and are often clueless as to what is going on. It just happens to us. But we actually get the books finished because we have auxiliary functions.

Enter Hans Friendrich in A Circle of Dreams. He is a Jungian analyst and scholar who helps to bring some order to the developing chaos. He brings his wisdom and tools including use of mandalas to enlighten Jamie, Andre and us. I will leave a fuller explanation of what he does to his column.

These comments provide a sampling of how Carl Jung’s insights into mythology illuminate the meaning of our books. How you view their presence in the books is revealing of your personality type. If you think we began with his systems and then developed the story and the characters you would reveal a strong thinking type orientation. You work from a system. In fact, as I said, we are intuitive types and so the story materializes and takes on a life of its own. Later on we figure out what components may have fed into the development of the work.

Ain't it fun? Isn't human diversity and complexity wonderful?

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Column 19 - Carl Jung, Mythology and the Demontagne Saga

A Dream Across Time and A Circle of Dreams are the first two books in the Demontagne saga. The mystical elements in these books are reflections of our acquaintance with the work of Carl Jung. His world is a strange and wonderful place which he brought to us in his insightful writings and extraordinary research.

We are all creatures of our times but there are occasional people who are timeless. Jung was among the timeless and stood apart from his peers.

It is useful to contrast him with his contemporary, Sigmund Freud. Freud was brilliant and a groundbreaker although we have moved well beyond his contributions to psychiatry and psychology. He was a creature of the Victorian era and his critics in later years faulted him for being too embedded in Austrian society in that his assessment of human frailties often reflected the frailties of well to do Viennese women.

In fairness Freud helped move us away from rigid beliefs about demonic possession and into a place where we could explain our psyche in reality based terms. His expositions on id, ego and superego still have utility today. If nothing else he gave us a system by which we could begin to evaluate and research many components of human experience. While he focused on psychopathology, he opened doors of understanding to human behavior in general.
Freud was the effective father of psychiatry which is the study of psychopathology. In contrast psychology is the study of human behavior. Period. Jung was considered a psychiatrist but went beyond psychiatry into psychology in that his works relate to a broad range of normal human behavior.

His intellectual explorations led him deep into mythology. The man was truly a scholar and explored the human experience in literature and art going back into ancient times. His insights led to many works including Psychological Types. The Myers Briggs Type Indicator, often used in industry, is based in his work on psychological personality types. Rather than being a catalogue of pathology it systematizes a comprehensive system of normal personality variation. Introversion and extraversion are Jung’s concepts. The word "normal" in this context is very important.

Jung’s diverse works are endlessly fascinating. His obscure work on alchemy is interesting although seemingly impenetrable. In the work he posits that alchemy is the reflection of the changes inherent in the movement from the middle ages to the age of enlightenment. Alchemy was not about turning lead into gold. It was about humankind preparing themselves for the revolutions of art and science. In these insights he seemed to have anticipated the work of Leslie A. White, the father of culturology.

Jung anticipated White’s work when he proposed the existence of the collective unconscious. His belief in a collective human consciousness seems odd until it is examined in the context of White’s extrasomatic cultural stream or culture. Jung was actually talking about culture and cultural diffusion. What an amazing mind.

By now you must be asking yourself what this has to do with the Demontagne saga. It has everything to do with it because Jung opened the door to OUR thinking about mythology. These books incorporate the myths we sighted and experienced in the Caribbean and they have been woven together with personal myths. These books are not just stories. They are the human experience and are enhanced by a mystical element which echoes mythological themes. Jung has helped us bring these stories to light and enrich them. In the second book of the Demontagne saga , A Circle of Dreams, we meet Dr. Hans Friedrich who is a Jungian analyst. He will help Jamie and Andre understand what is happening to their family.
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Column 18 - Gaia and myth in the Demontagne saga

Let’s just say that what follows is the myth underlying the Demontagne saga. Some of the people mentioned here will be introduced in the second book, A Circle of Dreams.

For those of us who went through the struggle of the sixties there was a growing concern for our mother, the earth, and the struggle for women coming into their own was especially prominent.

We spoke of Gaia, the mother earth goddess, the earth herself. It was as if we had found her again after the millenia.

It is appropriate that Gaia is viewed as a power or a force rather than a goddess. Goddesses have a specific form and function while Gaia is the basic life force that governs our planet. And is inseparable from the planet herself.

There are places where there are fundamental openings to the power of Gaia. In such places are usually found a tree of life such as Father Samaan, a wise old man such as Marcus and a mother earth figure such as Bertille.
As a power Gaia demonstrates that there is a continuity in life and death. All are manifestations of the power of Gaia. When a being dies it simply moves to another form and part of the power. It can be reincarnated in a similar or another form as the need may arise. Neither form is less or more. For example, a person may return as a beloved dog who gives joy and comfort to children and is their guardian.

There is evil in Gaia’s world but evil is not an independent being. It is a manifestation of human frailties. It must be recognized and controlled. Gaia guides people to seek to relate to a world in which there is only abraxas. Abraxas is all that there is in the universe except for evil. Seeking abraxas is very much like seeking nirvana in buddhism.

Jamie’s ancestors came to an opening to the power of Gaia but tragedy intervened and a child was lost. The fabric of the opening was rent with sorrow which endured until a descendent returned. The earth mother saw who the newcomer was. Jamie did not know it but Gaia was watching over her. Rufous represents the visits of Gaia which is why Jamie found him such a calming influence and special friend.

When Jamie had children they assumed special powers in the special place. Yvie formed a secret bond with the plants and creatures of the rain forest. The secret bond led her to become a shape shifter. She took a tete chien (boa) as a pet and it became a confidante. With her powers she was able to travel with her tete chien and experience Gaia’s world more fully. The snake is often associated with evil but in this case it is associated with the constant renewal in the death and rebirth cycle. The snake is also an important conveyor for power in rituals. In a sense Anne-Cecile was reborn in the ritual and moved from being a mourning spirit to a guardian. Bertille came to recognize that Yvie is a shape shifter because Bertille is also a shape shifter. She does it in trance and then flies with the parrots.

Lissa falls more closely into the priestess class. As such she conveys the meaning of the powers to others. She can see behind reality and is close to the moon mysteries. At her full power she can open the way to command of the physical world as symbolized by her power to move objects. As a twin to Yvie she has complimentary functions. While Yvie has strong aspects of chaos Lissa brings calm and order. Yvie can be the forest imp while Lissa commands the powers of order and perception. Lissa can come to command a great passion as well. She is also a powerful protector of great strength as seen when her brother was threatened. Lissa has great command over all of the wheel of her personality which is extremely rare. She has a highly developed animus. A male component which lies in the unconscious of a woman. One of Lissa’s greatest challenges is to keep her powers calmed and in abeyance so that she may function in the world as it is and move toward her destiny. But such a priestess is challenged by her own sexuality.

Because of his special place as a link to a past tragedy Philippe has assumed the power to perceive things from the past. It remains to be seen how this power may develop. We do not yet know if it extends to the future. In the third book his future may be better defined.

The present time has a special vulnerability for the people of Gaia. There are now very many of them. They have too often abandoned reverence for their mother earth and women have lost their proper position of power and independence. As such earth cannot be sustained.

The old religions have wasted away along with the reverence for the earth and the proper place for the just power of women. The priestess has been diminished at our risk. There is continuing violence and intolerance. Rather than viewing themselves as one people, the people of Gaia are alienated from each other.

The people of the Caribbean live in the crossroads of the world and are being threatened by dark forces in part reflected in the growing power of the drug cartels. They risk losing control of their countries, over their destiny and their futures dim. Are there some of the children of Gaia who can help them restore balance? But first these children must order their own worlds.
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