Page 9 - NAMAH-Apr-2019

Namah Editorial

dreams, reminding her of all sorts of unsavoury meaning of the symbols that appear in our
things. When I uncovered them, she indignantly dreams and visions.
refused to acknowledge them. The dreams then
became menacing, and full of references to From Instinct to intuition
the walks she used to take all by herself in the
woods, where she indulged in soulful fantasies. To this great exposure that Jung has given,
I saw her danger, but she would not listen to the consciousness perspective arising from
my many warnings. Soon afterwards, she was Sri Aurobindo’s paradigm would add
savagely attacked in the woods by a sexual another perspective. While the study of
pervert; but for the intervention of some people the past by exploring the archetypes in
who heard her screams, she would have been the collective unconscious is an important
killed. step, an exploration of the superconscious
to create a receptive space for the Unborn
“There was no magic in this. What her dreams Idea is also significant. The Unborn Idea
had told me was that this woman had a secret that can descend through the phenomenon
longing for such an adventure (6)”. of intuition can bring in a new dimension
hitherto not experienced. It can also use an
In other words, she harboured in her psyche existing archetype as a template to manifest
such raw masochistic instincts that were an entirely new creative idea. The classic
revealed in her dreams. These instinctual example is the age-old symbol of a snake
feelings were so strong that she ignored the eating its tail which subjects have dreamt
warnings by her therapist. Obviously, she did for centuries. (Even a few days back, in
not expect the price she had to pay. January 2019, when this correspondent was
explaining archetypal symbols during a post-
Instincts which are perceived by senses graduate counselling course in Calcutta, one
can manifest in dreams and fantasies as female student immediately narrated how
symbols. Jung named such manifestations as she had been dreaming this symbol without
archetypes which can remain in the collective knowing its significance). Jung showed how
unconscious and be accessible to many this symbol was portrayed in a third century
people across space and time. Our earliest B.C Greek manuscript (8).
fantasies are recorded in our myths and fables
which have been carried from the psyche When the 19 Century German chemist,
th
of the archaic man to the present mind- Kekule dreamt this symbol, an intuitive
set through the collective unconscious. As idea stimulated his creative acumen to
an embryologist studies the comparative design the closed carbon ring that became
embryonic anatomy of the hierarchy of the molecular structure of benzene and the
species that have successively appeared, a forerunner of organic chemistry. Kekule’s
psychologist needs to study the “comparative dream came at a time when his research
anatomy of the psyche (7)” which is recorded had got stuck and he was struggling for
in mythology. It is necessary to understand a new idea. Stuart Holroyd narrates the
the primitive psyche if we wish to explore speech Kekule made at a conference of
the contemporary mind-set that has lost the scientific colleagues:

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