SPS Paper Discussion:

November 14th 6-8 pm

422 Alhambra Blvd

Hosted by Orion Rozsa and Thor Cornelius

Wrestling with Our Angels

Inner and Outer Democracy in America Under the Shadow of Donald Trump

By Donald E. Kalsched

Come join us an in-depth discussion of this article!

We realize there is limited space for this event and are hoping to have an active and informed discussion so please be aware that participants are expected to come prepared and have read the article in advance.

The article will be sent to those who have signed up in advance of the meeting.

Listen to a podcast about the paper on This Jungian Life (click here)  

Due the more interactive nature of this kind of discussion, we are limiting the size of this event to 10 people.

ABSTRACT

This chapter describes a totalitarian or fascistic inner system of archetypal defensive powers (“angels”) typical of the dissociative psychology found in survivors of early trauma and contrasts this with the more democratic conflict psychology found in more integrated individuals. Although both these psychologies exist side by side in everyone, the more primitive totalitarian system, with its binary extremes of good and evil, tends to take over in times of individual or collective stress, emotional overload, and irrational fear, such as we are living through collectively in today’s modern world, where much of outer reality is simply more than we can bear. The result is a system full of violence and illusion—a radical and polarized psychology that, by violently ejecting the “painful” or “bad” aspects of experience from the boundaries of the self or nation, destroys the inner democracy required for wholeness and health. In the second part of the chapter, the author applies the psychological analysis of Part I to three modern cultural phenomena in the United States: the proliferation of conspiracy theories, immigration at the Southern border, and finally the American gun culture and the psychology of mass murder. The chapter ends with reflections on the transformative effects of democracy and how essential it is both within and without for the creation of consciousness.