He warmed to the theme but didn't, at first, tackle it directly. He said that according to one of the most respected psychoanalysts in history, the Swiss analyst Carl Gustav Jung, we all drank from the same spring. It's called the "soul of the world." However much we try to be independent individuals, a part of our memory is the same. We all seek the ideal of beauty, dance, divinity, and music.
Society, meanwhile, tries to define how these ideals should be manifested in reality. Currently, for example, the ideal of beauty is to be thin, and yet thousands of years ago all the images of goddesses were fat. It's the same with happiness: there are a series of rules, and if you fail to follow them, your conscious mind will refuse to accept the idea that you're happy.
Jung used to divide individual progress into four stages. The first was the Persona--the mask we use every day, pretending to be who we are. We believe that the world depends on us, that we're wonderful parents and that our children don't understand us, that our bosses are unfair, that the dream of every human being is never to work and to travel constantly. Many people realize that there's something wrong with this story, but because they don't want to change anything, they quickly drive the thought from their head. A few do try to understand what is wrong and end up finding the Shadow.
The Shadow is our dark side, which dictates how we should act and behave. When we try to free ourselves from the Persona, we turn on a light inside us and we see the cobwebs, the cowardice, the meanness. The Shadow is there to stop our progress, and it usually succeeds, and we run back to what we were before we doubted. However, some do survive this encounter with their own cobwebs, saying: "Yes, I have a few faults, but I'm good enough, and I want to go forward."
At this moment, the Shadow disappears and we come into contact with the Soul.
By Soul, Jung didn't mean "soul" in the religious sense; he speaks of a return to the Soul of the World, the source of all knowledge. Instincts become sharper, emotions more radical, the interpretation of signs becomes more important than logic, perceptions of reality grow less rigid. We start to struggle with things to which we are unaccustomed and we start to react in ways that we ourselves find unexpected.
And we discover that if we can channel that continuous flow of energy, we can organize it around a very solid center, what Jung calls the Wise Old Man for men and the Great Mother for women.
Allowing this to manifest itself is dangerous. Generally speaking, anyone who reaches this stage has a tendency to consider themselves a saint, a tamer of spirits, a prophet. A great deal of maturity is required if someone is to come into contact with the energy of the Wise Old Man or the Great Mother.
"Jung went mad," said my friend, when he had explained the four stages described by the Swiss psychoanalyst. "When he got in t
ouch with his Wise Old Man, he started saying that he was guided by a spirit called Philemon."
"And finally..."
"...we come to the symbol of the navel. Not only people, but societies too fit these four stages. Western civilization has a Persona, the ideas that guide us. In its attempt to adapt to changes, it comes into contact with the Shadow, and we see mass demonstrations, in which the collective energy can be manipulated both for good and ill. Suddenly, for some reason, the Persona or the Shadow are no longer enough for human beings, and then comes the moment to make the leap, the unconscious connection with the Soul. New values begin to emerge."
"I've noticed that. I've noticed a resurgence in the cult of the female face of God."
"An excellent example. And at the end of this process, if those new values are to become established, the entire race comes into contact with the symbols, the coded language by which present-day generations communicate with their ancestral knowledge. One of those symbols of rebirth is the navel. In the navel of Vishnu, the Indian divinity responsible for creation and destruction, sits the god who will rule each cycle. Yogis consider the navel one of the chakras, one of the sacred points on the human body. Primitive tribes often used to build monuments in the place that they believed to be the navel of the world. In South America, people who go into trances say that the true form of the human being is a luminous egg that connects with other people through filaments that emerge from the navel. The mandala, a design said to stimulate meditation, is a symbolic representation of this."
I passed all this information on to Heron in England before the agreed date. I told him that the woman who had succeeded in provoking the same absurd reaction in a group of people must have enormous power, and that I wouldn't be surprised if she wasn't some kind of paranormal. I suggested that he study her more closely.
I had never thought about the subject before, and I tried to forget it at once. However, my daughter said that I was behaving oddly, thinking only of myself, that I was, in short, navel gazing!
DEIDRE O'NEILL, KNOWN AS EDDA
"It was a complete disaster. How could you have put the idea in my head that I could teach? Why humiliate me in front of other people? I should just forget you even exist. When I was taught to dance, I danced. When I was taught calligraphy, I practiced calligraphy. But demanding that I go so far beyond my limits was pure wickedness. That's why I caught the train up to Scotland, that's why I came here, so that you could see how much I hate you!"
She couldn't stop crying. Fortunately, she'd left the child with her parents, because she was talking rather too loudly and there was a faint whiff of wine on her breath. I asked her to come in. Making all that noise at my front door would do nothing to help my already somewhat tarnished reputation, with people putting it around that I received visits from both men and women and organized sex orgies in the name of Satan.
But she still stood there, shouting, "It's all your fault! You humiliated me!"
One window opened, and then another. Well, anyone working to change the axis of the world must be prepared for the fact that her neighbors won't always be happy. I went over to Athena and did exactly what she wanted me to do: I put my arms around her.
She continued weeping, her head resting on my shoulder. Very gently I helped her up the steps and into the house. I made some tea, the recipe for which I share with no one because it was taught to me by my protector. I placed it in front of her and she drank it down in one gulp. By doing so, she demonstrated that her trust in me was still intact.
"Why am I like this?" she asked.
I knew then that the effects of the alcohol had been neutralized.
"There are men who love me. I have a son who adores me and sees me as his model in life. I have adoptive parents whom I consider to be my real family and who would lay down their lives for me. I filled in all the blank spaces in my past when I went in search of my birth mother. I have enough money to spend the next three years doing nothing but enjoying life, and still I'm not content!
"I feel miserable and guilty because God blessed me with tragedies that I've managed to overcome and with miracles to which I've done credit, but I'm never content. I always want more. The last thing I needed was to go to that theater and add a failure to my list of victories!"
"Do you think you did the wrong thing?"
She looked at me in surprise.
"Why do you ask that?"
I said nothing but awaited her answer.