Merging the Emotions with the Intellect

The Roman mythological tale of Amor and Psyche has many meanings because its symbolism can be interpreted on many different levels. The initial interest, which it piqued in me, came directly from the names of the mythological characters, Amor (better known by his Greek name, Eros) and Psyche (a Latin word meaning mind, and a mortal) and the interpretation of them according to Jungian principles.

Basically, the story entails the two falling in love, then being kept apart by Venus (in Greek mythology called Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, and Eros’ mother) because of acts of transgression committed by Psyche. Venus demands Psyche prove her worth through accomplishing a series of impossible tasks. However, Psyche is aided along the way (first by anthropomorphized nature – ants and a talking reed – later, by Zeus’ eagle), and each task is performed to Venus’ consternation. In the final task, Amor, himself, must come to Psyche’s aid and help her to complete it. As a result, Jupiter (Zeus in Greek mythology) blesses the two, unites them in marriage, and transforms Psyche from a mortal into an eternal and divine goddess.

In C. G. Jung’s psychological system, the term eros denoted the essential or primal foundation for feminine psychology. In Volume X of A Guided Tour of the Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Jung wrote, “Women’s psychology is founded on the principle of eros, the great binder and loosener, whereas from ancient times the ruling principle ascribed to men is logos. The concept of eros could be expressed in modern terms as psychic relatedness, and that of logos as objective interest” (255).

Here, Jung is suggesting that the feminine nature is more intuitive and more emotional, whereas the masculine nature is more intellectual and scientific. Now, I guarantee you one can find any number of 20^th century feminists who would find fault with this kind of chauvinist stereotyping. I wouldn’t argue with them. Jung might reply that many women employ a masculine nature in getting through life while many men have learned to get in touch with their feminine side, and that he didn’t necessarily mean men and women, just masculine and feminine natures. Whether or not this is true, and ignoring for a moment the historical fact that over countless centuries, cultures all over the world, being male dominated, forced women into roles which would tend to reinforce those gender stereotypes, there is still value to be gained from looking at symbolism and metaphor through Jung’s prism. I suggest one replace the words feminine and masculine with receptive and active respectively if it alleviates the inference of gender biases and stereotypes.

If we look at the respective character roles, the man in the story (or the active principle) is named Eros while the woman (receptive principle) is named Psyche. In other words, the author of this tale has reversed the polarity of each character. This had to have been done for a reason, because even in an antiquity contemporaneous with the tale, the ideas Jung presented were already understood and held as valid. This means that the symbolism intended to infer the kind of bias Jung expressed centuries later. Consequently, it is as if the writer is calling Amor “she” and “her” throughout the narrative and Psyche “he” and “him.”

As we contemplate the narrative of events, Psyche is given numerous tasks to complete. That requires taking an active role. Meanwhile, Amor is kept by Venus in hiding, waiting to receive the love of Psyche if she earns the right to give him her love by accomplishing the tasks assigned to her. As a result, Psyche is held at bay from fruitfully enjoying the pleasures of a loving relationship with her beloved. Amor lies dormant and unfulfilled. Psyche is mortal, or human. Amor is divine, immortal and eternal.

The point the author is conveying in this is greater than the obvious one, that the wedding of mind to emotions is a symbol for bringing together the conscious mind and unconscious mind by bringing the unconscious to the surface where it can be examined by consciousness and demystified. Certainly, there is an element of that as one of the ideas the writer wished to convey in this myth. However, by reversing the roles, he hints at something more than just that.

What the myth really conveys is that each of us has an avenue to becoming a whole person. However, that avenue can only be found by actively engaging the antithesis of one’s nature, by transcending one’s typical role and natural inclinations, and ultimately, by activating all the latent potencies and harmonizing every aspect of one’s being into a unified, complete and cooperatively compatible synthesis of wholeness. In other words, when the woman activates and incorporates her masculine side and the man activates and incorporates his feminine side, then the two can come together and not only imagine an ideal future, but build that future out of their perfected souls.

Jung and Mythopoetic Thought

Carl G. Jung’s ideas concerning Mythopoetic Thought contain highly significant points for anyone interested in evolution, perceptions of reality and transcendent thought.

Jung suggested that in the mind of early humanity, people didn’t differentiate wholeness into the separate constituent elements we see today when looking at the physical world. In other words, the tree was not pulled out of the landscape by the perceiving consciousness and noticed as one of many separate things in the environment. Instead, everything in the environment was viewed as one complete and undividable entity. He suggested that to understand this conceptualization of the world, one must grasp how cause and effect has refined our perceptions of reality and helped us learn to differentiate separate and distinct physical objects out from the unity which was physical reality as early humans perceived it – an un-individuated whole.

First, people realized, for instance, that fire could provide heat for warmth, and light at night, as well as aid in warding off predators. Fire was also valuable for cooking one’s food, both to purify it (by killing germs, bacteria and parasites like tapeworms) and to make it taste better. This leap had to occur in early human reasoning as a necessary step for discovering the cause and effect relationship between things in the environment and the subtle interrelationship of interaction among and between those things in that environment (including people). Once the cause and effect relationship was discovered, the mind began to differentiate the unified whole of the environment into its constituent elements. Then, for instance, one could differentiate the dead branch which could be used as kindling to build a fire and then grasp it and use it for the intended purpose.

The stage of development prior to this differentiation of thought, the sense perception of the world as being all one big thing and not an amalgamation of many things, is what Jung called Mythopoetic Thought. Though one may think of it as a primordially primitive way of looking at the world, it may be far more accurate than the fragmented view we have of what is now commonly perceived and called the physical world.

Science tells us that the universe is composed of energy and matter. Einstein discovered that energy and matter are two sides of the same coin, meaning that when energy is slowed down below light speed, it condenses into matter while matter, when accelerated to light speed evaporates into energy in much the same way heat can turn water to steam or the lack of it can cool steam into water or even ice. Thus, matter and energy are the same thing, just vibrating at different frequencies, so to speak. Science also informs us that subatomic particles cannot be said to be anywhere. Rather, they are in constant motion at the speed of light, making them essentially everywhere at all times but nowhere ever.

This understanding allows us to imagine just how incorrect the contemporary view of physical reality is. Solidity is an illusion. Things seem solid only because of probability patterns. There is more space between the constituent subatomic particles in an atom than actual matter. The reason solid things do not let other solid things pass through them is because there is a probability that enough subatomic particles will line up to prevent the things from passing through each other, not because there is real stuff there that is impenetrable, but because there will probably be enough things lining up to make the solid things seem impenetrable.

If we are all striving to regain unity with Unity, as I believe, then one of the things we must learn to do is see the world as a Unity again, and not as separate pieces of marginally related objects whose relationship is based on cause and effect when the perception of cause and effect is, itself, a fabrication of the mind to make events fit into the manner in which the brain stores information. As one strives to see the unity of all things in order to reconnect with Unity, one discovers oneself step into a larger world: microcosmic and macrocosmic perceptions dissolve, differentiations between universal and personal wither away, and connection with a grand sense of the complete interconnection of all things and beings focuses from a blur into crystal clarity. This is known as transcendental perception.