In Western culture, religions with a monotheistic belief in One God dominate. God is found to be the all-creating force behind everything, typically the Good. Rather not the Bad. The word is loaded with such dramatic emotional force that one has to be careful with pronouncing it, for if my interpretation does not fit yours, it could induce some slight emotional turmoil, if not a bit more than that. It is thus no surprise that religion over the ages has been used as a weapon, both to gather people and bind them to a common cause, as to destroy the ones bound by a different religion. For our belief is sometimes so strong, that we cannot see the cage that we have put ourselves in.
Truth is, the meaning behind the word God is different for every one of us, as we humans are bound by our conceptualizing minds to make sense of the unknown. For some, it is a belief, an image in the mind, a story. For others, it may well be a felt all-encompassing experience. Still, there is a collective image in the West for the one God, namely that of the Good benevolent father. The light in everything, meaning well for all of us.
That may be so, but an uncanny consequence of this belief is an unconscious focus on the good in the outside world. And therefore an unconscious suppression of the opposite in ourselves. For what we believe to be good, might come from a deep fear of our own shadow. The bad. The bad that must have a place for it not to grow in the shadows, waiting to finally be known.
So we polarize, create camps of the good to destroy the worldly evil. Thereby not even seeing the action of destroying as evil anymore, for the cause is just. Good. Benevolent. We the great saviours, the innocent ones, must bring justice to those who are evil. And thus we condemn anyone who does not share our interpretation of goodness. Sometimes even killing them for it.
As the suppression of our own inherent darkness increases, the light of the world decreases. Polarization is stronger than ever, wars between good and evil are fought, ironically by camps both believing they are the just ones, and fear is used more and more as a weapon of suppression and control. Covid, the climate crisis. “we must act now for else the world will end” is messaged to us. Not by the world itself, but often by powerful institutions that seem to truly believe in their benevolent purpose.
The world will perhaps end one day, but we can be sure we will end ourselves before that if we do not start to see our own radical ignorance. That we are not all good. Not at all. We may be created in the image of God, but perhaps our understanding of God is incomplete. For if we are, God is not as good as we suppose Him to be, because there is a lot of unburied darkness in all of us.
If we compare religion nowadays to those of the Ancient Greek, Romans and Egypts, to name a few, it immediately becomes clear that there is one important difference: They prayed to not one, but many Gods, a pantheon.
The Greek Gods, although mighty, were not only good. No, they had human characteristics themselves. Or perhaps humans have theirs? They cheated, fought, even raped. Could it be that we humans are bound by these mighty creatures that have long been forgotten? That they still work through us as the Universal laws of our physical reality? We the creatures, they the creators. We unconsciously driven by their powers, they hiding in the collective shadow for not many dare to look. The Greek truly believed in them, or perhaps even experienced them, as to the Greek, the Gods were the deciding factors of life and death. Of climate change. Of war. Of the collective story that was played in that specific period, the spirit of the times.
This perspective is so radical nowadays that it discarded right away. Because science. Because there cannot be evil among the divine. Because we are afraid to accept that we might not be that innocent, that there might be a vast darkness hiding in all of us. Perhaps the only way towards the light is to face this darkness in ourselves, both individually and collectively, so that we become aware of our own inherent evil. Which might be just an invented term, for the universe is full of this “evil”. Animals killing each other, comets destroying entire species, sickness and death, all these events of intense suffering cannot be escaped for the powers of the ancient god Abraxas1 truly are inevitable.
So, why then do we act out of innocence and the good, just to accomplish more evil in the world? Why then, do we fight climate change by destroying forests and labeling their resources as green energy while not even inherently efficient as an energy source? Why then, are we in Europe exporting more and more of our industry because we are bound by climate rules, to then export production to China so that we Europeans can feel innocent while blaming China for their increased carbon outputs. Why do we provide Ukraine with ever more weaponry in the name of the good, while hundreds of people are killed every day?
Madness. And yet real. With our current religious understanding, we cannot explain it other than that it is all for the Good. The Greeks however, would explain it as the bidding of the Gods. The Greek Ares, or Roman Mars, with his never-ending desire for fighting, the masculine warrior in all of us, leading humanity to yet another war. Not personal, just a storyline in a bigger arc. A divine plan.
Why do we make it personal? Because we are unaware of these powerful forces in us. Mars is in all of us, but it is allowed to operate in the shadows, unconsciously affecting everybody. Hades, the God of the Underworld, is in all of us. All of them are in all of us. But we don’t want those evil Gods, we only want the good ones. So the “evil” ones have to work harder to be heard. For their powers cannot be neglected. They are forgotten, but deeply stored in the collective consciousness, where they are waiting to be found by those who dare to dive. Those who dare to acknowledge their inherent evil and are willing to confront it head-on.
While I name them Gods, Carl Jung, restricted by his scientific profession and psychological models, coined another term for these forces that work in the shadows and influence us all: Archetypes. Archetypes are universal, inherited patterns or symbols that are present in the collective unconscious, a layer of the mind that contains shared human experiences and symbols.
Although this terminology sounds rather abstract and scientific, one who has read Jung’s Black or Red books knows that these archetypes are very well alive and kicking. They spoke through Jung, him being an antenna, they the messengers. All of them wanting to be born through him, to become.
In Eastern traditions, we do not have to look far to find these same divine beings conceptualized in different terms. Deities, Devas, Dharmapala, to name a few. Divine beings that are more powerful than us, being admired for their greatness, regardless of their nature or purpose. All of them having a role in the intelligent workings of the Universe, even the ones we dislike.
Another ancient wisdom in which Archetypes play a dominant role is Astrology. The art of reading the planets, the clockwork of the Universe. But while we see our Galaxy’s planets as dead object that could not possibly affect us in any way, because distance, because gravity, astrologers see the planets as alive beings. Powerful beings, all with their own inherent characteristics that influence our physical world, both collectively as individually. Interestingly, the planetary archetypes are in their characteristics and even looks remarkably similar to some of the Greek Gods. The planet Jupiter bears the same name as the Roman god Jupiter, who is similar to the Greek Zeus. And both Mercury as well as Venus, have a place in the Roman pantheon of Gods. Coincidental, you might say. But their powers are similar too. The well-known astrologer and professor Richard Tarnas describes Venus as follows:
“Venus represents the principle of love and beauty. Venus is Eros, as Mercury is Logos. Venus rules the desire to be involved in romantic and social relations, to attract and be attracted to others, to engage in artistic activities, to seek harmony and aesthetic or sensuous pleasure.” - Richard Tarnas
Whereas the Roman Goddess Venus is often described as The goddess of love, sex, beauty, and fertility.
The same characteristics for entirely different concepts. One has to be quick to discard both as superstition, for else you will see these same relationships in many phenomena. If you look carefully, archetypes or Gods are everywhere, they are just so far from our current world view that we discard them right away. Or view them as metaphors. But if you confront your own shadow, the collective shadow will inevitably be next. And that is where the archetypes hide.
One who does not acknowledge its inherently violent nature, its wicked sexual desires, its dual nature of good and evil, is bound by the Gods. By not acknowledging them, one projects them, for wholeness must be found in the external world. It can’t be found within because these inherent forces have no place in our world. We must not be angry, therefore slowly letting our fire be consumed. We must not have sex with other wo(men), therefore building up an inherent drive that may one day lead to regret. We must be innocent, therefore denying our wholeness of being, denying our own humanity full of vast oppositions.
Jung coined the way towards wholeness, facing your inherent oppositions in the depths of the psyche, as individuation, a journey towards the Self. A journey that takes one to the depths, first to the personal unconsciousness where the story of the heroic ego loses its foothold, and later to the collective unconsciousness where the archetypal forces that steer us live.
The goal is simply to become aware of them, to let them flood our beings, almost merging with our basic humanity, to then accept and acknowledge their greatness and finally personify them. To see them as true beings, true forces that work through the Universe, influencing our physical reality in ways we cannot possibly phantom.
We need them. And they need us. We need the Earth as a living organism, so that it can nourish us and provide for us. But to realize that, we have to realize its aliveness in ourselves. Myths show us the way, the Ancient Gods wait in their timeless realms to be remembered. Remembered and restored to their original place, to participate in the light, not in the shadows, to be honoured and revered for who they are. For we truly are small in comparison.
It is only through remembering them, by confronting the darkness in all of us, that we come to terms with ourselves as whole beings. Not good, whole. Carrying the seemingly irreconcilable contradictions of the Gods in us. And that is where we find the Anima Mundi, the World Soul, the life of the universe in everything. In you and me and all between. Healing the divide starts here, by accepting that we are not inherently Good but contain the Light and the Dark. Both.
Abraxas was seen in Gnosticism as a god who transcended traditional concepts of good and evil. He represented the unity and totality of existence, encompassing both light and darkness, creation and destruction. Abraxas was often depicted as a composite figure with the body of a man, the head of a rooster, and serpents for legs. This imagery symbolized his connection to various aspects of existence.
Interesting stuff. On the one hand, intuitively it makes sense. On the other hand, somewhere there is resistance against accepting astrology, accepting that science is not everything.
Accepting the dark sides feels so uncommon and out of the ordinary, although a glimpse of those feelings rise now and then. The behavioral patterns seem so automated against this dark side, that it takes a while to acknowledge and observe them. Let alone see them without any prejudices.
What do others think?