Notes and Quotes

So here we go again: This is just some further exploration of some of what we've talked about in the first few entries. Some is just support references, others deal with more specific examples of how archetypes appear throughout our myth (The X files); and still others elaborate on some of we've touched on.

• Circle and square: (as seen in the second picture above) In Matisse's 'Still Life with Vase of Nasturtiums'...The two figures that from the beginning of time have formed a whole are in this painting torn apart or incoherently related. Yet both are there and touching each other. pg. 279 Man and His Symbols (MHS)
  

I include this image and excerpt in order to illustrate just what Jung meant when he spoke of a spiritual split in the concept of the unified 'self' showing up in the art of modern man. Here we see the circle and square, which in traditional religious art are often overlaid symmetrically as a symbol of the 'self' or complete spiritual being (as illustrated in the first image above in the form of a Tibetan Mandala) , have been torn out of balance in modern art. Just as Christianity took off balance the symbol of the equilateral cross, so we see this as a further expression of the imbalance in modern man's spiritual state.

• ...as a rule the feminine unconscious of a man is projected upon a feminine partner, and the masculine unconscious of a woman is projected onto a man. pg. 177 Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (ACU)

The reinforces the basic definition of the anima and animus. At some point this work will include an examination of this myth from a perspective in which Scully can is viewed as the hero and Mulder as her animus. The elements of which, by their being present in this story, are a part of what makes this myth so particularly suited to this time which has seen such a rapid change in traditional sex roles in our culture.

• We encounter the anima historically above all in the divine syzygies, the male-female pairs of deities. These reach down, on the one side, into the obscurities of primitive mythology, and up, on the other, into the philosophical speculations of Gnosticism and of classical Chinese philosophy, when the comsogenic pair of concepts are designated yang (male) and yin (female). pg. 59 ACU

Here we see specific examples of the fine balance of the male and female components of spirituality that the Judeo Christian tradition, according to Jung, threw out of balance. Yin and Yang and the Gnostic Gospels in which, as has been the topic of much discussion in the media and popular culture recently, Mary Magdalene is called the wife of Christ.

• ...in every masculine mother complex, side by side with the mother archetype, a significant role is played by the man's sexual counterpart the anima. pg. 85 ACU

This is demonstrated in our myth when we see Mulder's mother and anima both become unbalanced or dysfunctional through the projection of the good/pure aspects of both symbols onto the image of his missing sister. This casts in actual mother into the role of villainess and becomes the root cause of his attraction to women who embody a dark sexuality accompanied with an apparent lack of virtue.

• In an unbalanced anima/mother identification effects on the son... Don Juanism, in Don Juanism he unconsciously seeks his mother in every woman he meets. pg. 85 ACU

In our hero's particular misalignment of the feminine symbols (see previous quote) we see that this effect plays out in his early romantic attachments in his choosing relationships which reflect only the negative aspects of the feminine persona that he associates with his mother, the more positive female traits being misdirected onto the absent sister. Thereby dooming him into a constant cycle of relationships which repeat the pattern of abandonment and disillusionment that began with his view of his mother from the time of his sister's abduction.

• Men may be drive to amuse their fantasies by looking at films and striptease shows, or by day-dreaming over pornographic material. This is a crude primitive aspect of the anima, which becomes compulsive only when a man does not sufficiently cultivate his feeling relationships-when his feeling attitude toward life has remained infantile. pg. 191 MHS

This is a fairly simple parallel to our hero's moments of being reduced to a recluse in a basement office or dark apartment alone with those "videos that aren't his"....(for the uninitiated, Mulder's porn habit is a source of running humor in the series).

• within the soul of such a man repeat the theme: "I am nothing. Nothing makes any sense. With others it is different but for me...I enjoy nothing." pg. 187 MHS

Certainly our hero with his isolation, obsessions and overwhelming guilt complexes demonstrates this concept.

• If he feels his mother had a negative influence on him, his anima will often express itself in irritable, depressed moods, uncertainty, insecurity and touchiness. pg. 186 MHS

This can also be easily apply to the mercurial nature of our hero, especially in the early seasons when his negative anima/mother complexes have their strongest hold on his personality.

• I remember a case that was presented to me as the victim of a high grade mother and castration complex, which had still not been overcome in spite of psychoanalysis. Without any hint from me, the man made some drawings which showed the mother first as a superhuman being, and then as a figure of woe, with bloody mutilations. I was especially struck by the fact that a castration had obviously been performed on the mother, for in front of her gory genitals lay the cut off male sexual organs. The drawings clearly represented a diminishing climax: first the mother was a divine hermaphrodite, who then through the son's disappointing experience of reality, was robbed of its androgynous, Platonic perfection and changed into the woeful figure of an ordinary old woman. pg. 67ACU

Certainly we can see a reflection of our hero's history in the case of this patient, in that Mulder's childish deified image of his mother was shattered by her inability to cope with his sister's abduction, was further when he realized that his mother had played a role in that event and was finally was completely obliterated by her death by suicide. By that point she is reduced to a tragic figure of womanhood, where his childish image of her would have been that of the glorious entity "mother".

• The anima is the personification of all feminine psychological tendencies in a man's psyche, such as vague feelings and moods, prophetic hunches, receptiveness to the irrational, capacity for personal love, feelings for nature; and-last but not least-his relation to the unconscious. pg. 186 MHS

This is a great example of how this myth adjusts the archetypes to best fit the particular time and society it serves. In this age, when gender roles have been realigned, we see our hero himself (Mulder) rather than his anima Scully) personifying these traditionally feminine traits.