Abstract
A synthesis of Marshall McLuhan's typology of media, Carl Jung's theory of the Collective Unconscious, Teilhard de Chardin's Evolution, and Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy is used to explain the current crisis of Western Civilisation, as well as suggest possible responses. McLuhan described the transition from print to electronic (and now digital) media. Jung explored the collective unconscious and the power of the archetypes. Teilhard posited three evolutionary spheres; here, a further stage is added, the Psychosphere, equated with the Jungian unconscious. And Steiner referred to a threefold polarity of spiritual hierarchies that influence human consciousness and society. Conspiracism and the disinformation crisis comes about through archetypes working through the lower psychecological zones. Orientation to positive epigenetic, imaginal, and divine realities, with their high degree of holism and mythopoetic creativity, offers an alternative to both the paranoia of conspiracism and the reductionism of materialism.
TopIntroduction
We are living in a time of civilization in transition and crisis, not only environmentally but also politically, socially, and culturally. Old systems such as premodern religion and modern liberal secular enlightenment values and structures have been breaking down. Disinformation has replaced informed opinion, conspiracy theory concerning “cover ups” is rampant world-wide (heightened by poor official responses to the current coronavirus pandemic and lack of coordinated holistic management), governments have not only proved incapable of addressing environmental concerns, but powerful lobby groups and in some case heads of state1 actively work to degrade the planetary biosphere. This process is also exacerbated by fear and mistrust due to previous governmental and political failings and ineptitude, and media-fueled sensationalistic drama.
This current crisis needs to be understood in terms of an overlap of two factors.
The first is the transition from print to electronic media (McLuhan, 1964). This has resulted in print-media based expert/specialised knowledge being drowned out by the noise from social media's army of charismatic conspiracy theorists. The second factor is the irruption of transpersonal psychic forces. Swiss psychologist Carl Jung (1981) argued that human behaviour, belief, myths, and culture can be explained in terms of what he called the “Collective Unconscious”. However, the Collective Unconscious is not just an inherited racial memory equivalent of instinctive behaviour in animals, as Jung suggests, but both an emergent aspect of planetary and cosmic evolution, here called the Psychosphere or Psychecology, and a dimension of supraphysical, preternatural existence.
Even though conspiracy theories might originally be created by bad faith actors for political purposes2, or by internet pranksters such as the 4chan /pol/ politically incorrect community, they have taken on a life of their own as the upsurgence of the Unconscious has resulted in the rise in magical-paranoid conspiracism. The election of Trump through chaos magic shows the possibility of consciously engineering the psychecology, for good or evil. The macabre fantasies of QAnon show it to be a collective embodiment of the Jungian Shadow. However, the Trump movement itself certainly goes beyond this, as it seems to relate to the archetype of Wotan that Jung described.
In its own way, the mainstream narrative, with its dehumanisation and mechanistic model, is as harmful as conspiracism. This duality can be compared to Rudolf Steiner’s polarity of “Lucifer and Ahriman”. It is necessary to avoid both extremes in order to orientate to the higher, Divine consciousness. However, emphasising and accessing the positive Imaginal reality, with its high degree of creativity, can provide an alternative to both the paranoia of conspiracism and the reductionism of materialism. It is with this in mind that we begin this exploration at the nexus of the collective unconscious and the media sphere. We set the foundation through first building an understanding of the transition from print to electronic media.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Gross Physical: The esoteric and Theosophical name for the empirical material reality that is accessible to scientific instruments and can be tested via independent observations, statistical analysis, conformation, or falsification.
Subtle Physical: The quasi-preternatural energy body or aura. Variously described in different yogic, esoteric, and spiritual traditions, in terms of auras, chakras, lights, nadis, and so on (Avalon, 1974; Brennan, 1987; Corbin, 1994; Cox, 2019; Leland, 2016), and individual and cosmic life force (prana, qi, ki, orgone, etc.). Intermediate between the Gross Physical and the Psychic realities (Powell, 2007), it serves to ground the non-physical dimensions in the gross physical body and reality. Most Complementary and Alternative Medicine works at this level.
Epigenetics: Changes/modifications in the organism that affect gene activity and expression without changing the underlying DNA sequence, and can be passed down by inheritance. May be caused by external conditions (environmental factors such as diet, drugs, media), or as part of normal development. These modifications do not involve alterations of the genetic system of the species, but rather are reflected in new features and behaviors of adaptation, which are transmissible to the next generations (Epigenetics, n.d.; Gaiseanu, 2019a, 2019b).
Psychosphere: A term used by the author, equivalent to Psychecology, for the evolutionary sphere of Psychic reality around the Earth, which has developed along with sentience over hundreds of millions of years, although it has accelerated with the development of human culture and society. Overlap with Jung’s Collective Unconscious.
Archetypes: They are the contents of the collective unconscious, formless and invisible, manifested indirectly in symbolic forms determined by the cultural context built on profound experiences, inspirations, and epiphanies for creative individuals and manifesting socially (in the gross physical reality) as mass movements. They are part of human inheritance and result from the evolution of the structure of the human psyche.
Imaginal: From the Latin mundus imaginalis , a term coined by esoteric scholar Henry Corbin to refer to the preternatural world of prophetic and epiphanic imagination intermediate between the world of the senses and the higher spiritual dimensions, and to the activity of visionary imagination thereof (Corbin, 1995). In part equivalent to Jung’s Collective Unconscious; pertains to the higher, more visionary, mythopoetic elements of the Psychic and Subtle Physical Realities.
Shadow: Jung’s term for the repressed contents of the unconscious psyche that is rejected by the conscious ego. It can also refer to the lower or counter aspects of the Collective Unconscious, for example, Satan or the anti-christ as the Shadow of the Self image represented by Christ (Jung, 1969a). Much of this overlaps with the lower bands and subdegrees of the Nervovital (q.v.). All we fear or hate in ourselves ends up in the shadow. Individuation and shadow-work, which means becoming fully conscious of the shadow’s contents, is avoided by those whose respectable conscious egos deny the shadow and hence project it onto others as personal or cultural scapegoats (Chalquist, n.d.).
Collective Unconscious: Jung’s term for the shared or universal aspect of the psyche or consciousness, as opposed to the Personal or Freudian Unconscious. The Collective Unconscious is the source of myths and symbols that are found across all cultures and historical periods. It is a repository of primordial, transpersonal, images, called Archetypes. These appear in different forms but with the same underlying characteristics, and often appear projected onto the world as iconic images, celebrities, and mass movements. The Collective Unconscious overlaps with both the metaphysical Imaginal world and the evolving Psychosphere.
Psychic Reality: General umbrella term for the preternatural realities intermediate between the gross and subtle physical and the Noetic (pure Consciousness).
Evolution: from Latin evolvere , “unrolling”, and later evolutio , in the sense of a fern frond, or a scroll being unrolled; the progressive emergence or unfolding of previously hidden possibilities. Evolution may occur on any level - physical, biological, sociocultural, mental, spiritual, or even Divine. Cosmologically, evolution means the development and complexification of the physical universe, including the development of more complex societies and social structures (Jantsch, 1980), and even the progression to an ultimate state of planetary divinisation (Aurobindo, 1970, 1977; Teilhard de Chardin, 1965).
Self: Jung’s term for the unconscious center of psyche, around which the ego and the rest of the psyche revolve. Projected outwards, it appears in religions and myths as figures such as Christ or Buddha (Jung, 1969b), or as political savior figures. Not to be confused with the one universal Consciousness ( Paramatman ) in Advaita Vedanta philosophy, also called the Self.