Thursday, September 17, 2009

monomyth














in the absence of an effective general myhtology, each of us has his private,unrecognised, rudimentary, yet secretly potent pantheon of dream. the lastest incarnation of Oedipus, the continued romance of Beauty and the Beast, stand this afternoon on the corner of Forty-second Street and fifth Avenue, waiting for the traffic light to change.[...] the doctor (psychoanalyst) is the modern master of the mythological realm, the knower of all the secret ways and words of potency. His role is precisely that of the Wise Old Man of the myths and fairytales whose words assist the hero through the trials and terrors of the weird adventure. He is the one who appears and points to the magic shining sword that will kill the dragon-terror, tells of the waiting bride (apply genders adlib) and the castle of many treasures, applies healing balm to the almost fatal wounds, and finally dismisses the conqueror back into the world of normal life, following the great adventure into the enchanted night.[...]we remain  fixated to the unexercised images of our infancy, and hence disinclined to the necessary passages of our adulthood (see rites of passage)[...]lest our energies should remain locked in a banal, long-outmoded toy-room, at the bottom of the sea

If our language provides the symbols to unlock our true desires, our dreams have to provide the symbols for our timeless journey. may the intitiation begin...

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