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April 22 - June 13, 2019
Each of us faces a similar choice: returning to the blissful state of one-sided identification with the Self or do the work required to overcome one-sidedness and identification with the Self so that we may continue on with
our journey of individuation.
The Greek word calypso (Greek: Καλυψώ, Kalupsō, Kalypso) Καλύπτειν (kalyptein, “to cover,” from which apocalypse is also derived) means “the concealer” (lit. “hider”, from Greek kalyptein “to cover, conceal,” from PIE *kel- “to cover, save,” root of English Hell.
Because Calypso could mean “the concealer,” “disguiser,” or “misleader,” she represents the forces that cause a person to be diverted from their goal.
Calypso, in Greek tradition, represents the goddess (i.e. archetype) who captures or veils the mind of any person on their life’s journey. An organized set of beliefs, false religious persuasions, ideological ism-like structures, teachings of cults, etc., that traps a person with seductive beliefs represents this archetypal process.
This myth illustrates the Jungian insight that an ego either devoid of, or possessed by archetypal energies is, psychologically speaking, lifeless. So we have chosen to incorporate the concept of “calypsis” into the neologism “theocalypsis” in order to express the kernel of what happens in strong religion, i.e., a creed in which the Self and the corresponding Imago Dei takes possession of the ego.
This accommodation, however, was not a victory of the conscious over the unconscious, but the establishment of a balance of power between the two worlds
A mana personality is a form of inflation, or identification with the archetypal anima or animus183.
As Jung’s quote above suggests, the mana personality is an ego-adaptation with respect to the numinosum of unconscious energy where ego “appropriates” power that “does not belong to it.” The anima/animus, according to Jung, can be “developed” into the function of a relationship between the conscious and unconscious. When the anima/animus become functions of this relationship, they lose their demonic (i.e., possessive) qualities. If this relationship-making function is not employed, the anima/animus can turn into a compulsive and “bewitching” ruler of the ego.
When the ego identifies with the content that does not belong to it, it becomes infatuated,
or inflated. When the anima/animus is not “integrated,” the ego identifies with its power, and thus, the ego becomes a “mana personality.”
A mana personality involves the feeling of exceptional power that is unchecked by reality.
It is thus an illusion of power. The one who acquires a mana personality acts without fear and shame; thus, it is a specific form of mania.
Numinous archetypal power is, in the case of a mana personality, inadequately regulated in the ego, which results in feelings of grandiosity and superiority. For this, ancient G...
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hubris means the transcending of proper human limits.
“Hubris is the insolence of irreverence; the absence of Aidos (reverence) in the presence of something higher. But nearly always it is a sin of the strong and proud”
If the ego presumes to wield power over the unconscious,
the unconscious reacts with a subtle attack, deploying the dominant of the mana-personality, whose enormous prestige casts a spell over the ego. Against this the only defense is full confession of one’s weakness in face of the powers of the unconscious
In the state of hubris, one loses a healthy connection to reality and pursues his or her goals irrespective of natural danger.
Aidos was the Greek goddess of shame, modesty, respect, and humility. Aidos, as a quality, was that feeling of reverence or shame which restrains men from wrong. It also encompassed the emotion that a rich person might feel in the presence of the impoverished, that wealth was more a matter of luck than merit.
According to Jungian theory, the Self represents the “highest amount of libido” and can be understood as “God within”
Jung makes a distinction between the image (imago) of a person and her actual existence.
Because of its extremely subjective origin, the Imago is frequently more an image of a subjective functional complex than of the object itself. In the analytical treatment of unconscious products it is essential that the Imago should not be assumed to be identical with the object; it is better to regard it as an image of the subjective relation to the object.
The destruction of images and icons for reverence is called iconoclasm. The danger is that it may lead to a hubristic illusion that the finite mind knows the infinite God, while in fact the mind is simply adhering to its own projections.
One can only have mediated experiences of the noumenon (thing-in-itself), never direct experience. The medium is ego-consciousness.
Universal experiences of the Self point toward something empirically real.
As an empirical concept, the Self deserves to be called “the God within us”
The God Image, as a set of psychological actualizations, refers to the religious understanding and conceptualizations of the numinous energies exhibited by the Self.
A fundamentalist attitude makes this obvious mistake that leads to an intellectual postulation of God “as if” he [God] were fully known.
Jungians believe that the process of individuation is the evolution of increasing consciousness and, as such, is the very process through which reality is realized. The Self in its totality represents the unification of the conscious and unconscious
The fanatic mind typically refuses to measure its yardstick against the yardstick somebody else uses.
The process of cognitive dissonance prevents a person under the spell of theocalypsis from keeping two contradictory claims in mind simultaneously: the good God and the horrible deed.
Identification with an absolutely good entity who endorses one’s actions like owning slaves, does not allow a person to also be aware of the evil nature of the practice of slave holding.
However, a person whose psyche is consumed by the idea of one and only supreme God is caught in a singular paradigm with very few avenues for correction.
Polytheism allows for a greater degree of regulation of affect because of the many options (diversity of gods and goddesses) available.
Donald Kalsched teaches that the imagination transcends the limitations of the human ego and creates experiences by which it can encounter the real world,
person in the grip of the Imago Dei has very little leverage to transmute this power and confront it with a compensatory ego-reality idea.
A rational doctrine is created to contain and explicate religious experience. If the rational container excludes some parts or aspects of the experience, then the container is inadequate, incomplete.
the idea of God is used to foster archetypal defenses rather than to integrate the energy of the Self, it becomes hypostatized in the mind as a rather sterile and empty ideological construct. Such religious content has lost its inherent connection to the numinous and is thus typically closed to the creation or use of the transcendent function. However, the symbol is the exact opposite of such sterile content—it channels living archetypal energy.
instrumental symbols with whose help unconscious contents can be canalized into consciousness, interpreted, and integrated.
Theocalypsis = Inflation + Archetype of the Self + God Image. The word theocalypse theocalypsis or theokalypsis) comes to mean “hiding behind the god”; to believe one literally and categorically knows God’s intentions and thoughts and believes one is acting in God’s name.
Their knowledge is unshakable and is treated by them as faith. 7. They idolize their own sources and refuse to question their authority. There is only ONE truth (their own).
Conspiratorialists feel an obligation to convert others.
Where possession by the Self is justified, rationalized, or explained by a set of relatively fixed religious ideas, theocalypse is being referenced.
Such a message creates a false religion because it is one-sided, quite deceiving, and simply ego serving. It can be of value for the individual and the collective only if the message is decoded and a meaningful connection with respect to the broader, ethical life is made.
As stated earlier, we chose the term theocalypsis to describe the process of “being trapped” by the inadequate regulation of archetypal-Self energy and by an insufficient and incommensurate representation of the Imago Dei. Like Odysseus trapped by Calypso, the minds of extremists and fanatically religious persons are trapped by unregulated archetypal-Self energy and thus prevented from further individuation.
Calypso represents a grandiose, power-laden, overly seductive, distorted relationship to the Self.
Theocalypsis is ultimately a defensive fantasy structure that ensures the protection of the ego from the fragmenting influence of the numinosum.
Definition as a defense/bulwark against fear.
Once the trauma defense is organized, all relations with the outer world are “screened” by the self-care system. What was intended to be a defense against further trauma becomes a major resistance to all unguarded spontaneous expressions of the self in the world. The person survives but cannot live creatively,
That explains why so many victims of trauma find refuge in stern religious ideology: It provides a safe haven for them. The negative side of this refuge is that they become prisoners of their own trauma and hence cannot realize that they do not hold the keys to free themselves from their own imprisonment; ironically, the dark Self does. Examined through the lens of Kalsched’s theory, theocalypsis is a state of encapsulation of the personal spirit within a world of illusion that serves to prevent it from re-experiencing a traumatic reality and all its consequences
