By Dr. Jaime G. Corvalan, MD
The chaos befalling the American Presidential election process, is, I think, reflective of the process of the evolution of consciousness we as a species are presently undergoing. We are well into a process that can best be described, in my view, through the application of Jungian Analysis and the study of our great mythologies.
The author and Jungian analyst, Robert A. Johnson, has done a superb job in describing this process in his seminal work, “He: Understanding Masculine Psychology.” I offer below an extended passage of his work that describes this evolution of consciousness particularly well:
We are apparently in an age where the consciousness of man is advancing from a trinitarian to a quaternarian view. This is one possible and profound way of appraising the extreme chaos of our world is now in. One hears many dreams of modern people, who know nothing consciously of this number symbolism, dreaming of three turning into four. This suggests we are going through an evolution of consciousness from the nice orderly all-masculine concept of reality, the trinitarian view of God, toward a quaternarian view that includes the feminine as well as other elements that are difficult to include if one insists on the old value.
It seems that it is the purpose of evolution now to replace an image of perfection with the concept of completeness or wholeness. Perfection suggests something all pure, with no blemishes, dark spots or questionable areas. Wholeness includes the darkness but combines it with the light elements into a totality more real and whole than any ideal. This is an awesome task, and the question before us is whether mankind is capable of this effort and growth. Ready or not, we are in that process.”
We are moving from the psychology of Hamlet – individuals hopeless divided and unsure – into the psychology of wholeness and unification. We must endeavor to see what we have unconsciously hidden or had repressed into our collective shadows and reintegrate that into our complete selves. Only then will we be able to emerge from the presently climate of dissension, violence and conflict that is the hallmark of humanity today.