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Archetypes & Angels, Devas & Devils by Ilyhana Kate Kennedy © 2002
The World of Patterns.
Archetype
(pronounced. ark-a-type): a model or first form; the original
pattern or model after which a thing is made (Macquarie Dictionary). An
archetype is a blueprint. Carl
Jung was a psychoanalyst who defined the intangible world of thought,
dreams and behaviour in terms of patterns that could be recognised. Psychotherapist
Jean Houston defines archetypes as “first types, or primal patterns
from which people derive their sense of essence or existence.” Archetypes
as Gods. The
Greek Gods were perhaps really a group of archetypes, each mythical
figure being the human representation of a pattern of a particular way
of thinking and behaving. What
is understood now about archetypes is possibly that they are definable
patterns of energy existing in the collective human psyche, having an
energetic life of their own, able to attract and take over a single or
group human psyche, so that the person or persons exhibit behaviour
which can be identified with particular archetypes. For
instance, war or situations of danger have the potential to attract the
masculine archetype of the hero. It consumes people and changes
behaviour, allowing people to extend themselves far beyond normal
behaviour. Archetypes
and Fairy Tales. In
cultures all over the world, children are introduced to the archetypes
through the medium of stories. Some cultures are wise enough to use the
stories to bring the archetypes to conscious awareness as the children
grow older. Not
so in western culture. We
tell our children the fairy stories, but do not understand their
archetypal symbolism ourselves, let alone teach the children. Remember
Red Riding Hood? The
story plays out the archetypes of the innocent child, the feminine
archetypes of the mother and the older wiser feminine energy (the
grandmother). It reveals the archetypes of the predator and the
trickster in the wolf, and the masculine archetype of the hero
protector/defender in the woodcutter. Red
Riding Hood goes on a journey. She is young and innocent and cloaked in
her raw primal child energy of the red cape. Her mother’s job is to
help her to become aware of the deception of the illusory world, and
also possibly inside herself. She wants her to develop some ability to
be awake to dishonest intent, so she gives her food for the grandmother,
a symbol of nurturance of older wisdom. She warns her about the wolf and
tells her not to wander or delay along the way. Now
it is up to the child. She
does get distracted along the way, and while picking flowers (seeing
only the good in the world), she meets the wolf and doesn’t recognise
the threat to her safety. She
also meets the woodcutter. This tells us that this masculine defender
part of the psyche is already within the child, waiting to develop. She
arrives at Grandma’s house (the time of reckoning), and is not quite
deceived by the trickster in Grandma’s clothes. She is aware that
something is amiss when she says, ”Oh Grandma, what big eyes/ears/nose
you have”. This is something of a pun, as it also refers to the
development of her instinctual senses of preservation. She
has enough of her wits about her when he threatens to devour her, to
call up her defender, by screaming for the woodcutter when she gets
locked into the situation (in Grandma’s cupboard). The action of
defending herself allows her to be released from the frozen situation. This
is the story of the development of the healthy ego defence abilities of
the masculine energy within a young girl, through the development of
courage. Archetypes,
Ancestors and Archangels. Australian
Aboriginal cultures understand both the human psyche and the Earth to be
animated, to be ‘made alive’ by the Ancestors of The Dreaming (the
origin of the Earth). Western
culture has a history that includes mythologies of archangels, angels,
devas ( nature spirits, fairies, elves, little people ) and devils or
demons. The
word ‘archangel’ means a principle angel or ‘being of God’. When
we release our attachments to our own conditioned cultural beliefs, it
is possible to consider that we’re all talking about the same thing. A
Dreaming Ancestor who plays a part in Creation may be understood as an
archetype. An archangel who carries a sword of truth may be understood
as an archetype. A nature spirit that animates a tree may be understood
as an archetype. So might a fairy, or a demon. The
archetypal devil or demon is problematic for a culture that sees this
figure as being outside and separate from that which it
understands as its supreme Creator or origin of all things. The horned
and goatfooted Pan of the old Earth religions was originally understood
as the vital masculine archetypal energy that both initiates life and
sustains Nature, and thus has a strong sexual quality.
The archetype has undergone an ‘inversion’ in the cultural
psyche, becoming a ‘devil’ that does harm through evil acts, with
sinister sexual overtones. Every archetype has the possibility of its
equal counterpart within it. Indigenous
cultures often provided a safe outlet for these aspects by ritualising
these counterparts through dance and roleplay in recognition of their
power in the psyche. In this way, they were able to “own” the
“darker” aspects of the archetypal unconscious, experiencing them as
a challenge to be confronted. Not
so in traditional western culture. The demons of the primal nature are
suppressed and relegated to the “devil”, a figure outside the human,
even outside the Creator of the human, with power over the Creation. And
so the archetype is given tremendous power to do harm from the outside,
rather than come under the watchful mentoring eye of the responsible
consciousness within. Sexual
abuse of children in our present and recent history attests to our
inability to have a healthy relationship with the whole concept of
sexuality. The archetype of predator is able to run rampant. The primal
nature has no channel of acceptance, and therefore no possibility of
development that is appropriate to the health and safety of others, or
the health and safety of the self. Archetypes
and the Form of the Land. Archetypes,
or Archangels, or Dreaming Ancestors may be understood as agents of
Creation, or manifestation, the vehicles through which the Dreaming Mind
continuously brings the Universe into being. You might think of the
archetypes as a number of blueprint patterns, existing as thoughtforms,
that project themselves into being by enlivening or animating matter. That
thoughtform or particular kind of energy repeats itself throughout the
Universe in fractal form, i.e. a repetitive or recursive pattern. For
example, there is a volcanic peak at Eumundi in Queensland, Australia
that has the distinct form of breasts rising into the air from the
Earth. This area was understood by the local Aboriginal peoples as
having a feminine energetic quality. Look
closely at the simple landscape scene below. Do you see the feminine
breast formation in the mountains on the left and the profile of a man
lying down in the mountains on the right?
The
profile of a man lying down may be seen in the mountain range at
Cunningham’s Gap in Queensland, Australia, when viewed from the
highway south of Aratula. The local Aboriginal Dreamtime story is about
a wounded warrior who becomes the mountain range when he dies. He is a
Dreaming Ancestor or archetype. Aboriginal
peoples understood the land to have energetic qualities that they could
recognise by relating the landform to the form of a human or a creature
that it resembles. The landform was understood to have the same
characteristics or nature as that human or creature. Or
as another example, in indigenous American cultures, bear is bear,
whether it be in a bear form, in a mountain form or in the form of a
constellation of stars. All three have an archetypal expression of
energy that can be identified as “bearlike”, with all the
characteristics we know bears have. The
same archetypal pattern of energy is understood to animate the creature,
the landform and the constellation with the same characteristics. You
might well say that this is projection from a human point of view. But
it just may be that we are only able to make that projection because the
form actually does have those characteristics in the energetics that
give rise to the form. Archetypes
as Fractals. We
have understood from previous pages that there is much observable
evidence in Nature that manifestation of form happens according to
precise mathematical and geometric principles, in patterns that
endlessly repeat themselves (fractals). This
is the tangible world. We
are also able to observe that there are identifiable patterns that
enliven or animate form. We call them the archetypes. This
is the intangible world. We
might even go so far as to fantasise that the tangible world is the
world of The Master Mathematician and the intangible world is the world
of The Superior Imagination, and that both are interwoven as One. We
might also see the fractal pattern of this in the human brain with its
left and right hemispheres having different functions of logical and
creative thinking, but working together as one brain.
The
panel of images above can be understood as having the same dynamic
energy blueprint or archetypal pattern. The
spiral waves that meet and wrap together in the heart centre of the
human energy field when a person experiences ecstasy or bliss have been
mapped by computer by Dan Winter, and are shown above forming the 2D
heart-shaped image ( 2nd from right in the panel). In
3D, the image becomes that of a cup shape with a smaller cup shape in
the centre (fractal). The
cup has long been the symbol of the Holy Grail, that mysterious epic
journey of mythology that we now understand as being the metaphor for
self-actualisation, becoming real, maturing in wisdom, getting into the
heart of things and surrendering to Love with a big L, unconditional
Love. When
the two opposite spin spirals meet, they wrap together with the bonding
of attraction that exists throughout the Universe. We call this
implosion or fusion. It locks in an amazing energy. It
stimulates the kundalini effect in our bodies. The
same thing happens in microcosm, when water flows around a stone in a
stream. The water meets on the opposite side of the stone in two spirals
of opposite spin, locking in the bonding of Love with a big L, the
energy that bonds the Universe. When water flows across an area of
stones, you can see the “braiding” or weaving pattern in the water.
Water from such a place in a stream is highly energised. The
pattern that is repeated in the form of the human heart and the cup of
the Holy Grail is the same pattern that the opposite spinning whirlpools
make in the braid in the water. It is a primal pattern. We
dream up a cup shape to symbolise our quest, our journey home to the
heart, because that shape is already embedded in our unconscious as a
primal pattern of the heart. It
is there in the very physics of the energy that gives rise to matter, in
the wrapping spiral waveforms. There is a heart-shaped form within a
cup-shaped form.
“My
cup runneth over with Love”.
The
following extract is from the text of “The Bud of Compassion: The
Story of Love and Hope” by Ilyhana Kate Kennedy: “
‘The Devil’ is only our fear. ...Truly our devil is only as great
as our fear. Your
devil is the temptation to be less than you are, to give in to pressure
from others so that you might belong. It is the temptation to do things
that aren’t right for you, in order to avoid displeasing someone
because you fear you might lose something. Your devil is also the
trickster who persuades you that you can get away with all of this, and
you’ll be the better for it.
Your
devil is the temptation to use your power of influence over others to
get what you want without caring for the needs of others. Your devil is
also the temptation to let others use their power over you, and in so
doing, you do not care for, you do not take responsibility, for your own
needs. Your
devil is everything about life that is not Love and is some kind of
fear. Most fear is unconscious. Your devil is everything that is about
survival. We are all human. We all have our own demons of fear, some
greater, some lesser… The
Earth journey is about learning to be in a place where we have to
survive in a physical body, and at the same time, allow other people to
survive, and to learn to love and care for those others and for
ourselves. It
is more than that. It is about learning to be here, to really be here,
and to enjoy being here. The prefix “en” means “to be”. The word
“enjoy” means “to be joy”. The
Earth journey is about playing in the Creator’s garden, appreciating
the beauty of our Earth playground, taking pleasure through our sight,
our hearing, our touch, our creativity, our sexuality, our smell, our
taste, our thoughts, our feelings, everything we say and do. It is about
taking pleasure in the pleasure of others. How else can the Creator
experience the beautiful garden it has created and know that it is
wonderful? Pleasure
happens when we are being who we really are as a spark of the
Creator’s Dreaming of what can be. Pleasure
is joy! Pleasure
with love is ecstasy!” More
Learning Resources about Archetypes. To
learn more about archetypes and how they influence the events in our
relationships and in our daily lives, the text of “The Bud of
Compassion: The Story of Love and Hope” contains in-depth
understandings of archetypes from esoteric and everyday life views. This
work is available for purchase on CD Rom in
Shop
Shelf and Services.
To
learn more about the work of C.G.Jung, you will find an extensive world
of reading in the following websites: www.thezodiac.com/mundusmenu.htm
for a straightforward explanation of archetypes. www.jungnewyork.com/index.htm
for Michael Vannoy Adam’s work on C.G.Jung. Also
on Jung’s work, visit www.sfjung.org/
and for a comprehensive list of articles on-line visit www.cgjungpage.org/jparticles.html
. Also
have a look at a very interesting essay linking chaos theory and
archetypes, by Iona Miller and Graywolf Swinney on: www.geocities.com/iona_m/ChaosTheory/chaostheory3.html
Jean
Houston is my heroine of personal work based on the archetypes. You’ll
find her site at www.jeanhouston.org
Also
try www.andrewnewberg.com
for some extended thinking. For
some insight into an Australian Aboriginal cultural understanding of
Creation, there’s an enlightening text by an indigenous elder David
Mowaljarlai, written in collaboration with Jutta Malnic, called “Yorro
Yorro: everything standing up alive”,1993, Magabala Books, Broome,
Western Australia, ISBN 1-875641-05-X. This
book is highly recommended reading,
especially helpful in understanding the concept of the Creator as a
Dreaming Mind. To understand more about the primal pattern of wrapping spirals, visit the site of Dan Winter’s Heartmath work www.soulinvitation.com/insideout/index.html
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