Ego and Archetype
On leaving the paradisal state of the unconscious (“garden of eden”) by way of an inflated act in order to gain consciousness or knowledge of Higher Self; wounds from the projected archetype.
“In Greek mythology the myth of Prometheus is a parallel to the Garden of Eden drama.Prometheus withheld meat from the gods and gave it to man, causing Zeus to withhold fire from man.But, Prometheus slipped into heaven, stole the fire of the gods, and gave it to mankind.This act did not go unpunished.Both Prometheus suffered and his brother Epimetheus was sent Pandora from whose box emerged all the ills and sufferings that plague mankind.The process of dividing the meat between the gods and men represents the separation of the ego from the archetypal psyche or inner Self.The ego, to establish itself as an autonomous entity, must appropriate the food (energy) for itself; stealing the fire and the fruit of the tree of knowledge are also analogous to this image.(We also see this with the tale of Bluebeard, whose wife sneaks behind his back with a key to unlock the secret door and discovers all his past wives whom he had murdered.)This willful act is the grasping for consciousness which is symbolized in each myth as a crime followed by punishment, a curse of an unhealing wound.This all refers to the inevitable consequences of becoming conscious.Pain, suffering and death do exist prior to the birth of consciousness, but if there is no consciousness to experience them, they do no not exist psychologically (Puer, repression).This explains the tremendous nostalgia for the initial unconscious state (great mother matrix, womb, transpersonal unity).In that state one is freed from all the suffering that consciousness inevitably brings.Alienation from this unity is the constant thorn in the flesh.These two myths express the archetypal reality of the psyche and its course of development.The acquisition of consciousness is a crime (think of Job), an act of hybris against the powers-that-be; but it is a necessary crime, leading to a necessary alienation from the natural unconscious state of wholeness. It is better to become conscious than to remain in the animal state (for with pain we gain empathy; with adversity, a purpose; and with will, autonomy.)While we often look down on inflation, here we see it as the necessary muscle for emergence, “the ego is obliged to set itself up against the unconscious out of which it came and assert its relative autonomy.On a personal level the act of daring to acquire a new consciousness is experienced as a crime or rebellion against authorities that exist in one’s personal environment, against one’s parents, and later against other outer authorities.Any step in individuation is experienced as a crime against the collective, challenging the identification with family, party, church, or nation.These necessary steps of the ego do risk inflation, often times one that carries the consequence of a very fruitful fall.We encounter many people in psychotherapy whose development has been arrested just at the point where the necessary crime needs to be enacted.Some say, “I can’t disappoint my parents or what will my family think of me.” The man attached to his mother says, “I would like to marry, but mother never approves.”This symbiotic relationship fuels today’s neuroticism and is a literal kind of psychic (ouroboros) feeding of the unconscious.The Self remains silenced, while the ego is stuck in a dependent transference and development will not proceed."
Excerpt from Ego And Archetype by Edward Edinger
Books mentioned:
Ego and Archetype by Edward Edinger
