Interpreting Mythology

What needs do mythology and religion serve in today's world and in ancient times? Here we discuss the relationship between mythology, religion and science from mythological, religious and philosophical viewpoints.

Moderators: Clemsy, Martin_Weyers, Cindy B.

Ercan2121
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Post by Ercan2121 »

boringguy wrote:Hi all,

Been in and out of a location basically without IC for past three weeks or so, and am headed back there tomorrow so might be another week till i can respond, but like Cindy I missed this thread earlier and reading back am curious.

Ercan, in your perpective, how is it that the trickster and the hero are very different?

Ercan;
I have to add that there's a great difference between a trickster
and a real hero.


bg
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Boringguy,

The trickster acts instinctively, I think, unlike the hero who makes a decision beforehand.
This needn’t to be a mental decision; one can also decide by one’s heart or conscience,
yet that’s a decision. The hero can equally decide to play the trickster for an ulterior
higher purpose (without turning into a trickster per se). It appears to be a heroic
constituent that sets him/her apart (although I cannot articulate it now, accurately).

Sometimes, there exists a metaphysical distance between the act and the doer;
and the hero remains a hero in spite of his ostensible error or negligence. That's one
of the lessons we can take from Bhagavadgita. Arjuna fights (and kills) but the Universe
bears witness that THIS IS NOT A PERSONAL ACT. I believe that here, intention is
the keyword.

Nermin
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Post by Nermin »

Anyway, I found the movie difficult, as a Jung fan. Difficult because that's no more
the comfortable theoretical world that one reads with enthusiasm in a library. Also
difficult because the script is very well-written. No bias, in my opinion, only some
effort to flash a sudden light upon the 'wrong' corner of his life. But no mockery and
no fervour to distort the facts. That's a good movie.

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Post by Cindy B. »

My apologies, Nermin, for previously replying to Ercan by mistake. :oops:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts about the movie. I'll let you know if I get to see it, too, anytime soon. :)

Cindy
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

Nermin
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Post by Nermin »

Cindy B. wrote:My apologies, Nermin, for previously replying to Ercan by mistake. :oops:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts about the movie. I'll let you know if I get to see it, too, anytime soon. :)

Cindy
My apologies, Cindy, for my question all-too-soon.
I think I looked for some consolation. You know, I used to idolize
Jung and felt bewildered after the movie. This sometimes happens to me
when reading a biography. I start to question the character and lose my track.
Anyway :)

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Post by Cindy B. »

Well, Nermin, it gets more unusual with Jung. Are you familiar with Toni Wolff?

Cindy
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

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Post by Nermin »

Cindy,
I certainly heard about Wollf’s model with four principal feminine
archetypes but that’s all. Can-you please give some more hints?

Ercan2121
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Post by Ercan2121 »

Emma Jung, Sabina Spielrein and Antonia Wollf .
There seems to be (at least) three great women behind him?

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Post by Cindy B. »

Nermin,

About Toni Wolff, go here for the gist of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toni_Wolff


Ercan,

And don't forget about Marie-Lousie von Franz, though Jung did not have a romantic relationship with her.



This is an excellent biography for any interested--Deirdre Bair's Jung: A Biography. Click on the title.


Cindy :)
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

Ercan2121
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Post by Ercan2121 »

Cindy B. wrote:
Ercan,

And don't forget about Marie-Lousie von Franz, though Jung did not have a romantic relationship with her.

Cindy :)
Cindy,
Maybe one should add one more name, Emilie (his mother) to the list?
http://jungcurrents.com/emilie-preiswert/
He was certainly born under a lucky star. Maybe, one can even suggest
that all those brillant women needed a voice against the mannish arguments
of Dr.Freud's psychoanalysis and that young Carl was in the right
place at the right time? (Please forgive my style; it's not easy to like him
after watching that movie :( )

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Post by jonsjourney »

Perhaps the "moral of the story" is to be careful how we mythologize people. They seldom live up to our expectations. The persona rarely approaches an accurate portrait of any individual. It is in this false image, both of our own creation and of a socially constructed reality, that we all to often find ourselves getting stuck.

No person that I am aware of escapes this trapping.
"He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot." -Douglas Adams

boringguy
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Post by boringguy »

Hi Ercan,
The trickster acts instinctively, I think, unlike the hero who makes a decision beforehand.
This needn’t to be a mental decision; one can also decide by one’s heart or conscience,
yet that’s a decision. The hero can equally decide to play the trickster for an ulterior
higher purpose (without turning into a trickster per se). It appears to be a heroic
constituent that sets him/her apart (although I cannot articulate it now, accurately).

Sometimes, there exists a metaphysical distance between the act and the doer;
and the hero remains a hero in spite of his ostensible error or negligence. That's one
of the lessons we can take from Bhagavadgita. Arjuna fights (and kills) but the Universe
bears witness that THIS IS NOT A PERSONAL ACT. I believe that here, intention is
the keyword.- Ercan

Back again. I know I’m near impossible lately to have a conversation with, my apologies to you and Evinnra for that.

Thanks for clarifying your distinction between hero and trickster for me. Mine is a much more blurred line I’m afraid.


First I would concede that others might say that trickster and fool are not necessarily the same because trickster is mischievous and fool is simply unconcerned, but I don’t think they are so different from the standpoint that I think of the trickster/fools actions as a response (consciously or subconsciously) mostly driven by an inability to conform to some ‘norm’, and as such, again consciously or subconsciously, as not really different from ‘answering the call’ in the heros journey. Now one might also argue that the trickster/fool isn’t a hero because they don’t really ‘return’ with something, but there is a couple of ways to consider this too, I think. First, maybe the fool as a hero simply hasn’t found that which to return with yet. Or secondly, that by simply being the trickster/fool what they have returned with is ‘permission’ for others to deviate from the norm as well.

A couple thoughts that we re shared in “The way of the fool” thread;

Campbell from An Open Life, P.39
Quote:
The fool really became the instructor of kings because he was careless of the king's opinion, careless of the kings power; and the king allowed this because he got wisdom from this uncontrolled source. The fool is the breakthrough of the absolute into the field of controlled social orders.

And at the end of the Tarot cards is the Fool, the one who's gone through all the stages that are represented in that series of cards, and now can wander through the world, careless and fearful of nothing.



Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground;
" I could not become anything: neither bad nor good, neither a scoundrel nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect. And now I am eking out my days in my corner, taunting myself with the bitter and entirely useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot seriously become anything; That only a fool can become something."



I guess that in my thinking every hero must be at least some part trickster/fool, and every trickster/fool is some part hero.


Its interesting to me that when Moyers asked Campbell, he described himself as a ‘maverick’, as opposed to a fool or a hero. I don’t recall ever reading where he actually shared what maverick meant in his mind, but the term Maverick is defined as ‘an unbranded range animal’. The term as was derived from Texas rancher Samuel Maverick apparently means ‘independently minded’. I would certainly think that also shares some common ground with both hero and fool.



As this tread is about interpreting mythology I would concede no right or wrong, those are just my own interpretations at the moment. :wink: Thanks for sharing yours. :)



bg
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