The Discovery of the Self and the death of the Ego.
The ego is the centre of our consciousness. It is that part of ourselves which we identify as ‘I’. Yet the ego represents only a small part our psyche. Beyond the bounds of consciousness lies the unconscious – all that we remain unaware of.
As we mature and work on ourselves we develop the ego. When we look back on ourselves we see that we have gained a greater understanding of ourselves. Like Prometheus who stole fire from the heavens, we take from the unconsciousness and add to our consciousness. Our progressive enlightenment is referred to as the process of Individuation.
Rather than being haphazard, the Individuation process appears to be regulated from the depths of our psyche. Our development is guided by forces beyond our awareness. Just as the body knows how to grow and heal itself, so too the psyche has an innate ability to develop and evolve.
Generally speaking most of us remain unaware of the deeper forces that guide and shape our development. Coasting through life, the Individuation process unfurls with little or no thought.
Reflecting on oneself serves to accelerate the Individuation process. If we turn our attention inward, or question ourselves as to what we need to learn, we inevitably find that we work through various issues more quickly. Through self-reflection we gain wisdom.
One of the most powerful tools for self-reflection is the dream. Sigmund Freud, the founding father of psychoanalysis referred to dreams as the ‘royal road to the unconscious’. Our dreams speak of what sits beyond our awareness. For this reason they are exceedingly difficult to understand. Typically a dream is dismissed as nonsense. Yet if one were to take the time to wrestle and work with the dream, it soon gives up its meaning. A dream is like a riddle. When we understand the dream we get an ‘aha’ reaction. Through exploring the dreams we discover ourselves.
For anyone who has worked with their dreams, it quickly becomes apparent that there is a deeper, wiser substratum to one’s being. One’s dreams are more than instructive. The source of our dreams appears to know us better than we know ourselves. Yet what is this instinctive wisdom.
Jung termed this deeper centre of the psyche the Self. For Jung the Self was the creative force at the deeper core of our being.
Having two centres within the psyche raises the question as to which is the greater authority. Is it the ego or the Self? In myth the ego is symbolised by the king, while the Self is generally depicted as God. As to who is the greater authority, mythology suggests that ego is a servant of the greater Self – the king is crowned by the priest and considered God’s representative on earth.
Given that the greater Self sits at a level beyond our awareness, and remains largely unknown, the ego often assumes itself to be the one and only ruler. In absence of an awareness of the deeper Self, the ego claims ultimate authority – we become ego-centric.
Jung says that “Egocentricity is a necessary attribute of consciousness and also its specific sin”. In myth egocentrism is symbolised by the tyrant. He is a false king who crowns himself. In myth and fairytales the false king clings to power, neglects his people or has forgotten God. Essentially he no longer serves anything greater than himself.
By tracing the course of the mythic theme, we know that the old or false king is doomed to die. He is destined to be overthrown by the true hero. In Greek myth Jason deposed his wicked uncle, King Pelias, while Perseus slew his grandfather, King Acrisius. In Star Wars, the young Luke Skywalker defeats Darth Vader and the evil empire, just as the lion cub, Simba, grows strong and overcomes his murderous uncle Scar.
The old king must die. With the realisation of the Self arrives, the ego-centric attitude cannot endure. Jung says that “The experience of the Self is always a defeat for the ego”. During such a transition images of death and sacrifice will appear in the person’s dreams.
To varying degrees most of us are in this position of the false king. For we live in an era where our god-image is dead. In 1883, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche gave voice to an emerging attitude that could no longer be denied. In Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche writes:
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?
Prior to the 19th century, the belief in God was a given. With the development of science and our general capacity for critical thinking, however, mere faith was no longer sufficient nor tolerable. Our growing rationalism left no room for belief. Since 1883 the Christian god-image has lost its numinosity. Our god-image is ripe for renewal.
While our scientific rationalism has eclipsed our spiritual beliefs, the greater Self remains undiscovered. Buried in the depths of the unconscious, the new god-image is hard to find. As such we live in state of nihilism. We have little or no appreciatioin of that which is greater than ourselves. Our atheistic world view is like that of the ailing king who has lost his god. Caught between a loss of faith and lack of Self knowledge, we are bound by our egocentricity. This is not to say we have all grown selfish, rather that we lack a focal point beyond ourselves.
With the revelation of the Self, the egocentric attitude cannot endure. The old king must die. In dreams, the realisation of the Self is marked not only by visions of a deity, but also by a great upheaval. The discovery of the Self is apocalyptic. Typical dreams include nuclear blasts, invasion by extraterrestrial beings, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions as well as one’s own death.
The discovery of the greater Self leads to a renewal, but only after a period of turmoil. The term apocalypse is synonymous with revelation. The root word kalypto means ‘to cover’, while apo means ‘to take away’. The apocalypse then is a removal of the covers – what was hidden is revealed.
Understandably, the discovery of the Self is an earth-shattering insight. There is a deeply profound shift from the disbelief of atheism to an awareness of the Self.
Having gained access to a new consciousness, the individual has no option but to reassess their life. Revelation leads to judgment. Various aspects of one’s being will rise in value while others will be cast down. The subsequent reorganisation of one’s life can be torturous, as one’s path is cleared for a new way of being.
This passage of revelation, judgement, punishment and renewal is outlined in the tail end of the New Testament. The Book of Revelations speaks of the return of Christ, the Last Judgement and the establishment of the Kingdom of God on Earth. Frightening yet promising, Revelations reads much like the period in which we now live.
Jung argued that the revelation of the Self represents the beginning of the next step in our collective evolution. The second coming is a rebirth of the god image. The Book of Revelations culminates with the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth. This kingdom is best understood as the conscious realisation of the Self.
Jung notes that “we are living in what the Greeks called the Kairos - the right time – for a ‘metamorphosis of the gods’, that is, of the fundamental principles and symbols”. Because we are each caught up in the process, it is difficult to extricate ourselves to a position where we may observe our development objectively. Yet this is exactly what we must do. If we are to realise the Self we must turn our rationality in on ourselves. Nietzsche, Freud and Jung, the founding fathers of depth psychology, called for us to critique our own consciousness. What is it that we are unconscious of?
To understand where we are headed it helps to reflect on where we have come from. The history of consciousness is reflected in the mythology of the time. Ours is not the first culture to undergo a metamorphosis of the god image.
Over six thousand years back our gods were those of nature. The gods were the spirits of the trees, the rocks, the waters and the wind. As we evolved, our gods took on an animal form – each with its own character. With Egyptian myth the gods became half animal half human. This transition from theriomorphic to anthropomorphic imagery is completed in Greco-Roman myth where the gods are depicted with full human form, while their animal form became their mascot.
In Greco-Roman myth there is an additional development. As any reading of Greco-Roman myth will attest, the gods began to take a keen interest in humankind. As the legends tell the gods meddled and mated with mere mortals, creating a race of heroes, heroines and other semi-divine beings.
But it did not stop at there. According to the Christian myth the one God went so far as to become man – the divine incarnation. With the Annunciation, God came upon the Virgin Mary and fathered Jesus-Christ. More than semi-divine, Christ was God in the flesh.
The same theme repeats itself in the Grail Legends. This time, however, it was the devil who impregnated a virgin, fathering the great wizard, Merlin.
If we continue this progression the next stage would be for God to become all men and women, that is, the ordinary individual. The discovery of the Self is just this. Rather than God we now speak of self-development and self-realisation. Instead of the gods we refer to the archetypes. The war-god Mars has become our will and aggression. The Great Mother is now our mother-complex, while the devil is our collective shadow. No longer on top of Mount Olympus the gods may now be found within our own being. Psychology has become our new mythology, our new religion.
In his book, The Creation of Consciousness, American psychiatrist, Edward Edinger argues that “God has fallen out of containment in religion and into the unconscious of man. He is incarnating. Our unconscious is in an uproar with God who wants to know and be known.”
The waning relevance of the Christian god-image confirms that we stand at the dawn of a new era. In fact, the rebirth of the god-image is well underway. Collectively we have begun to turn within in search of the Self.
As Edinger warns, however, the oncoming shift in consciousness may require a great sacrifice. Just as the Christian eon required the human sacrifice of Jesus-Christ, the realisation of the Self threatens to sacrifice the whole of humanity. In Answer to Job Jung writes that the required revelation of the deeper Self places humanity in a highly precarious position. Jung writes:
… a mood of universal destruction and world renewal has set its mark upon our age. This mood makes itself felt everywhere, politically, socially and philosophically. We are living in what the Greeks called the Kairos - the right time – for a ‘metamorphosis of the gods’, that is, of the fundamental principles and symbols. This peculiarity, which is certainly not of our own conscious choosing, is the expression of the unconscious man within us who is changing. Coming generations will have to take account of this momentous transformation if humanity is not to destroy itself through the might of its own technology and science.
The realisation of Self requires a rounded awareness. We need to become aware of both our light and our darkness. In Christian terms we need to find both God and the Devil within.
Toward the end of his life Jung grew more and more concerned of humanity’s growing technological strength. Jung feared that an awareness of the Self, our god-given power, may come through our first-hand experience of how destructive we may be.
As a general rule, what we fail to meet within, we meet without. The unconscious appears to have a magical ability to create those events that lead to a new awareness. What we need to learn is mirrored in our fate. Rather than a smooth progression, we may realise the darker aspects of Self through war and ecological catastrophe. Through witnessing our human capacity for evil, we will discover the devil within. Jung warns:
So much is at stake and so much depends on the psychological constitution of modern man. Is he capable of resisting the temptation to use his power for the purpose of staging a world conflagration? Is he conscious of the path he is treading, and what the conclusions are that must be drawn from the present world situation and his own psychic situation? Does he know that he is on the point of losing the life-preserving myth of the inner man which Christianity has treasured upon him? Does he realise what lies in store should this catastrophe ever befall him? Is he even capable at all of realising that this would be a catastrophe? And finally, does the individual know that he is the makeweight that tips the scales?
Rather than await a dark fate, Jung recommends that we take the initiative and meet our collective darkness inwardly before we are forced to confront the same energies outwardly.
We therefore need more light, more goodness and moral strength, and must wash off as much of the obnoxious blackness as possible, otherwise we shall not be able to assimilate the dark God who wants to become man, and at the same time endure him without perishing.
Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings tells the story of Frodo, an ordinary hobbit tasked with the need to destroy the One Ring before the One Ring destroys the world. To do so he must journey to the heart of darkness and resist the temptation to claim the ring as his own.
We live in an era that calls out for new morality born of a greater consciousness. Willingly or otherwise, humanity as a whole is being initiated into a new age of Self awareness.
