Rahne's Thesis

                              Environmental Aspects toward Saving the World;

                                 A Mythological and Archetypal Approach

                                           Rahne Sinclair

                                     Instuctor: Dr. Henry McCoy

                                           Masters Thesis 

    To begin with, it is best to define the problem. Environmental damage is evident in every part of modern society. In ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, a well-known book on the effects of society upon the ecological balance of the world, Al Gore speaks to the problem. “Global warming, along with the cutting and burning of forests and other critical habitats, is causing the loss of living species at a level comparable to the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. That event was believed to have been caused by a giant asteroid. This time it is not an asteroid colliding with the Earth and wreaking havoc; it is us.

    “And yet these clear warnings are also being met with a “blinding lack of situational awareness” (Gore, 2006). He goes on to explain, how humanity as a race is far more powerful and able to effect the world than any of us truly believe, and how our sheer numbers create a force of nature. The gathering of large groups of humans, many millions in any metropolitan area, is fully capable of altering every part of that area to suit its needs, including the air around them, but our ability to specialize is possibly our downfall, even if it is important to society’s success. Even among those scientists who contest some of the data of global issues recognize that the earth is, indeed, altering in this generation of time, and take note of the results. 

    There is reason to believe that we are creating irreparable damage to our selves, through removal of those things that we need to live. Our ability to destroy the very resources upon which we rely to survive is a fairly new occurrence; the tribes and lesser developed nations of history have not shown such ability and would have found it alien to consider such an act. They relied on their environments too directly to allow such a state to occur, mentally or spiritually. Their archetypes were directed to a mythology which encompassed their environment in a way that no longer exists. we today have a problem. We have no such mythology which makes our world sacred to us, so it is fair game for demolition.

    Joseph Campbell says “The people respond to the environment, you see. But now we have a tradition that doesn’t respond to the environment—it comes from somewhere else, from the first millennium B.C. It has not assimilated the qualities of our modern culture and the new things that are possible and the new vision of the universe.” Pg. 85, The Power of Myth.

    We have a decided lack of fulfillment of archetypal imagery in the modern world that links us with our immediate environment, causing us to protect it instinctively. It is highly difficult to cause irreparable harm to your environment if you care deeply about it, feel that you are linked to it, and rely upon the place where you feel that you live. One issue causing the detachment which is allowing us to feel moral about the damaging of our world is that we no longer rely upon our environments. Food comes from some place far away, which we never see and are only vaguely connected with. We feel some form of connection to the store that provides our food, but only in a materialistic way, as there are many options for such sources of need fulfillment and we have no need to rely upon that place to a level that will create a protective bond with its survival.

    The connection with the arrival of religions which emphasized a separation with nature can not be ignored. The principal western religions of today speak of man being destined to rule over all others, separate and above, which creates an opportunity for a mythology to develop which does not allow nature a place save that of a subservient, a lesser world where natural places are designed to be tools for our usage. This concept allows people also to think that there may only be one god, and that all others are incorrect in having one of their own. If the natural world in which you live defines your local deity, then it is correct to have a deity for each culture. If the natural world has absolutely no relation to a person's personal deity, then logically it presents the problem that these thoughts, of your deity being related to your home, must be incorrect, and you must be protected from this 'mistake'. 

    The rise in influence of this concept denotes a cultural shift, from the local culture based systems of history toward a worldwide culture which seems to be coming into existence today. In reality, the internet helps to lessen the distances between places, and it on it's own is a force for archetypal fulfillment. Many youths seem to be basing their archetypal concept of 'god' upon the internet, rather than any religious-based faith centre. The information incoming at rates which would not many years ago be impossible to comprehend renders every person with access a measure of power they would not have had. This is also a link with the internet as an environment, and creates a ritualistic link with that environment, making people protective of it through that link, similar to how more ancient cultures were linked to their plains; it grants your needs, thus it must be protected. I would argue that the mythology of the modern world has indeed begun to assimilate technology into its framework, but perhaps not in healthy forms considering the obesity that seems rampant in the world, and the apparent lack of respect for nature in mainstream capitalist society.

    As to the concept of understanding mythology in a way that will attempt to resolve these problems, we must necessarily turn to those who have historically dealt with that topic in society. Campbell mentioned that “It is the function of the artist to do this. The artist is the one who communicates myth for today. But he has to be an artist who understands mythology and humanity and isn’t simply a sociologist with a program for you.” (Campbell, Moyers, 1971. There are many types of artists who have power over our thoughts and dreams, and over how we visualize our ideal life. I would take note particularly of dancers, painters, popular musicians, interior decorators and building designers.

    Dance has been used in ritual since the beginning of time, along with music. Directing the creators of music toward songs, rhythms and dance that the youths of the world will be likely to copy creates rituals for them, even if they are not aware of that fact. The youths of modern society perform the dances, learn the moves out of adulation and mimicry of the idols they see upon the television or internet connection, and the ritualistic style creates the archetypal image fulfillment that is required. The creators of popular music have immense persuasive power over the people of the world. If they were to use that responsibly, they have the ability to guide archetypal creation toward musical rituals not unlike those which have historically ruled our development; that development which does not seem to be occurring at this time, and the disconnection with the responsibility to care for your environment, culture and world.

    It would take considerable effort by the ruling members of the musical tradition to create a trend. Efforts to create music which lends itself to a cause exist constantly through the musical history of this world. Unfortunately, they do not in general cause lasting change. They instead cause 'spikes' in the environmental consciousness, which are in a way like a person who gives to the poor only at Christmas. There is no overall change to the lifestyle, merely a momentary increase which has a corresponding decrease, then a leveling out of awareness and concern to previous levels. A constant trend toward environmental protection in the musical industry in general, however, would be constant and difficult to avoid changing one's lifestyle to adapt in line with, especially if the makers of music and dances were able to keep the ritual acts in videos as ones that the watchers and listeners could easily emulate.

    Creation of emotionally compelling visual art also has a place in this, and a focus by artists and societal influence upon artists toward environmental consciousness would assist greatly in this effort. Art is a constant in our society, it is very difficult to pass a day without seeing some form of art on a billboard, television, hanging upon a wall. Our society however tends to lend itself toward financing artists who function in workplace environments, and enhance the business experience toward productivity. We do not, as a society, give our resources toward painters of landscapes or the renderers of the beauty our world has to offer. Making an increased effort to have art, music and dance as required, socially funded courses in our schools should result in a direct increase in awareness of the social realm. A lack of empathy for our fellow humans is in great part a contributor to our inability to feel that their environment, their personal deity created by environmental stimuli and requirements, is also sacred and should be respected. They are, after all, only 'the other'. 

    There is a responsibility in artists which is not being fulfilled, as a direct relation to societal needs, to guide society to value its home. Linked to the concept of art is the connection with the environment directly that we seem to be losing, due to our lack of interaction with it. Our society lends itself toward hard work in focused situations. Those situations more and more in recent years tend to be in industrial socioeconomic centers, not in agricultural ones. The artists who have the most say and therefore the most influence and power over the places in which we work are interior decorators. Having interior decorators required to allow for nature in these industrial centers, even within buildings, would allow for not only cleaner air in those environments due to the natural abilities of green plants removing carbon dioxide and giving oxygen, it would also keep a firm link in our daily lives with those very natural places which we are being forced, by requirements of life, to shun in order to pay our daily bills. Having no link to nature in a large percentage of our lives makes us used to not having it, and removes still more of the link required to hold it as too sacred to defile. This kind of thing is already occurring in Japan, where their culture is intrinsically linked with nature still today even with the massive growth of industry. Nature is welcomed into the inside of their buildings, if there is not space outside of them. (Campbell, Moyers, 1971)

    Also upon that topic would be a requirement by the building designers who shape our access to nature by exclusion in mainstream society. Focus is, as has seemed necessary, upon maintaining an environment designed to focus the employee’s mind upon work and an efficient workday experience. With a change in focus by a movement in the designers of office buildings, additional light, free air flow and places with natural growths in the buildings would increase exposure to nature’s standard fare, most likely decreasing the people’s lack of comfort when thinking of it in their regular day. A decrease in hard, perfectly straight lines would also assist in this. There are no straight lines in nature. When you’re surrounded by them all the time, in a climate controlled environment, it seems natural to assume that this kind of environment will be the one in which you are most comfortable in your private hours, as you have no real experience with anything else.

    “To me the crux of the spiritual problem today is to be found in the fascination which the psyche holds for modern man. It is the more noteworthy because it is rooted in the deeper social strata and the more important because it touches those irrational and—as history shows—incalculable psychic forces which transform the life of peoples and civilizations in ways that are unforeseen and unforeseeable.” (Jung, 1971).

    This speaks to me of the problem directly in that mankind, specifically modernistic man, is utterly focused upon the increase in technology that is occurring at incredible speed in the world and how it can be used to improve and increase efficiency in their lives with a detachment to the outer world that increases with similar speed. Irrational, definitely, as a complete detachment to the outside world does seem to allow for greater focus upon the tasks at hand, yet allows blinders to be placed upon the eyes of those with great power, blinders to the aftereffects of their choices and actions. 

    To move beyond and relate directly to the previous points, it is necessary to relate directly to Jung’s theory of Archetypes, which delineates patterns springing from what he described as the communal unconscious. This part of the psyche is, according to Jung, a relation to our past of which we are not yet consciously able to detect, from which our personal patterns of behaviour emerge and which we alter by our own societal behavioural activities, en masse. Thus a time when all of humanity may indeed begin to take up one activity will for all future humans allow access to that knowledge, though not necessarily in the conscious unless the culture brings it forth; this is regardless of physical proximity or temporal distance in space or time; ie, a person unrelated in every way to the event will still have potential access to the increased ability, though may have no reason to ever access it.

    Jung never, in all his writings, actually addresses any of the socioeconomic problems of society directly, however. This statement does not actually take a stand against any specific problem of society, it merely addresses a single person’s issues and problems with society as it stands. Deep structures exist in society, such as religion and government, and others such as the economy and the society’s moral acceptance. Jung ignored all the deep structures except for religion in all of his works, most likely due to the fact that he was, in essence, a privileged person. He writes of taking voyages, traveling, having a maid for all of his life, and never does he speak of having to miss a meal. (Jung, 1989) He recommended that all people strive for individuation, which includes in essence the concepts of recognition, acceptance and eventual removal of mental illusions and complexes. The process that he suggested was best for this was psychotherapy, which can take years and has associated costs. An unfortunate reality is that most people, in any age, can not afford to undertake years of therapy. 

     Also directly related is the problem that these illusions exist to protect many people from realities in their personal lives from which they can not in any other way defend themselves. Mental illusions are called, even by Jung himself, ‘Adjustive techniques’ (Jung, 1971). The standard definition is: ‘a technique for allaying anxiety associated with unresolved conflict’. If the conflicts were resolvable, most people would not even need to defend themselves in unrealistic and disassociative ways such as creating fantasies which project themselves out of a problem into another world, which is one of the adjustive techniques known. The deep structures mentioned earlier are, in many cases, unbending to the need of the common man, and create situations where illusions are necessary for sane operation within society. An example would be an illusion of power for a man who has none, in order to keep some semblance of pride in himself. Individuation would seem to be difficult to attain for anyone who is under the control of society’s normal structures; we simply do not have the resources to be able to learn, raise our consciousness, go into two years of therapy and alter the way that we live.

    Rupert Sheldrake and his fellows go further along those lines however, developing upon Jung’s theory, admittedly without confirming the connection to his work (Sheldrake, McKenna, Abraham, 2001). He mentions his theory of resonating morphic fields which encircle every living being, connecting on some level to every other morphic field in existence, and communicating between each other. This is a spectrum of energy if which we are not yet consciously aware, but which there is, according to Sheldrake, considerable evidence to support the existence. If true, these fields spring from a central pool of energy which has a consciousness, and of which we are all a part. Every action taken by great amounts, reaching a critical mass, will effect the other fields involved. The hundredth monkey theory is a fine example of this theory in effect, where a species of monkeys on an island undertook a feeding action and, when enough of the monkeys had taken the action regularly, monkeys on completely unrelated islands of which there could be no contact, and which had unrelated foodsources, immediately began to mimic the action for no discernable reason. There must, if accepted as reality, be a reason underlying the affect of one part of the species upon another without direct physical association.

    This concept of an energy field of which we are not yet aware has been the subject of considerable skepticism. To that, I must state several basic principles. First, every sane and rational person upon this planet must be able to state that they can, potentially, be wrong. Also, we must acknowledge that we do not yet know everything there is to know in the scientific world. This is corroborated by the very fact that today we see evidence of further knowledge being gained by new discoveries; every day further advances are discovered and made known. The concept that there may, in very solid reality, be energy types of which we are not aware and can not yet consciously detect and decipher is a logical continuation of those very concepts, and seems self-evident as a possibility which should not be written off so very easily. The concept that living beings may relate directly to that energy, coming from it and in some way able to tap into it, is not so broad a jump that it can not be grasped.

    At this point I relate this to the original concept in that the human species’ actions, as a whole, seem indeed to predispose the species to those actions in the future, making a separation from violence and destruction of our environment an apparent impossibility. If the energy field being discussed is indeed neutral, then morality will not be administered from the side of the energy. It can only be administered from this side, from our own, in which we must make conscious choice what will and will not be allowed to enter into the communal unconscious whole. Choosing to undertake actions which are directly supportive of species survival and mental wellness are moral acts, of which we are completely capable if we so choose to do so. The ability to tap into this misunderstood potential could be an immensely powerful tool toward alteration of the current paths upon which our society has found itself today, that being of cultural and environmental genocide.

    Furthermore, specific actions can be taken to support the suggestion, if these concepts are indeed true. Finding societies which support the lifestyle which we are consciously choosing to keep as our own and supporting their flourishment without ruining their connection with the nature around them should help directly. It creates a symbol for our society to mimic, in that our social society tends to copy that which they idolize. Without a symbol to prove that a connection with nature and the beauty of the world in today’s world is actually possible, many humans will tend to write it off as impossible and simply move toward further technological advances in a vain attempt to reach a point where we are self-sustaining before self-destructing. A realistic example of the connection with a sustaining environment, creating a bond that makes the world around you sacred can create that reality in our minds. Further, the very fact that there is a society with these tendencies, reaching the aforementioned critical mass with their own resonating morphogenetic fields will add to our own, allowing us greater access to such concepts as we continue to relate through the transfer of energy across fields. Other concepts along similar lines could be developed if minds were put to the task.

    To continue, I experienced a moment of pure terror personally which I believe may be echoed in many readers when considering an energy field from which we spring and to which we all may someday return. The concept of a neutral mass of energy absorbing us into nothingness upon death is at the very least frightening. At that, I must refer to the basic concepts upon which our science is founded: the laws of physics themselves. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force, and any time a force acts from one object to another, there is equal force acting back on the original object. The total energy in a closed or isolated system is constant, no matter what happens. Applied to another form of energy, the laws remain the same. Thus, what we cause to become a pattern within our lives is not in fact lost, it remains in motion, and our energy is not lost.

    If, in truth, our existence is a temporary lucid moment of the universe’s energy of consciousness made manifest, with free choice and free will, then we alter the balance of our own energy during life, by living. Our personal energy will be weighed when re-entering the energy pool upon death, maintaining our current inertial patterns; adding what we are to it, we define the universe. We are the universe, being given life in order to choose what the universe itself will believe. If we choose to have a universal self which believes in harmony among the interlocking systems which we experienced in life and support for the entire whole, not simply some of its parts, then we will bring health to something greater than, though always simply part of, our selves.

    In final note, it must be recognized that many people worked together to create the potential vision of the world possible today. Carl Jung spoke well upon the necessary groundwork, creating thoughts that could include a group consciousness in mundane and beyond mundane terms, and opened the doors for us to follow, though he did not have reason in his own life to follow that path himself. A worthy successor, Joseph Campbell took up that quest for knowledge until his recent passing, and helped those of us who read his works to understand enough to be able to place those thoughts in our own cultural world. Further, Rupert Sheldrake moves the concepts to their logical conclusion, though many deny his efforts. I as a critical thinker and writer have come to accept them for the possibility that they are, for any sane and rational being must be able to admit that they are possibly wrong and open their mind to new data when it is proven with adequate competence. Perhaps this paper will be seen by someone who can use the information brought forth within its limited scope. If so, then thank you for saving my world.

    While the auther is a known mutant, that aspect of society is not addressed in this paper. It is her proposed subject for her doctorate thesis.

Reference List An Inconvenient Truth. Al Gore (2006). Rodale, Inc, New York Chaos, Creativity and Cosmic Consciousness, Rupert Sheldrake, Terence McKenna, Ralph Abraham (2001). Park Street Press, Vermont Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Carl Jung (1989. Pantheon Books, Toronto, Canada. The Portable Jung. Carl Jung, edited by Joseph Campbell (1971). Penguin Group Inc., New York The Power of Myth. Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (1988). Doubleday, New York