James
Every single girl I would have an in depth conversation with would become my true love...
Steve was in conversation on the Discord with Arcadian Wings, about a whole load of stuff relating to the anima on a whole load of different domains.
In large part, this discussion will focus around V for Vendetta - which is of course all about masks and things you put in front of your face.
Of course, you won't be able to see the scene in this article... but it is broadly about a masked figure coming toward the main girl, Natalie Portman, which represents the Animus.
Pauline's Take
When you look a little bit into the background of the character V - he is a freedom fighter and the female character Evie aligns herself with him as a kind of assistant in his mission. The thing about the animus is that it is similar to the anima in that it attaches itself to a whole array of things - for example the anima can be projected onto an inanimate object.
With respect to the animus, it can be projected out into the environment onto a cause or a movement, so that a set of ideas are projected out into the culture or even onto a mana personality for example JBP, which we know the particular lady asking these questions is interested in.
This can happen in relationships.
When someone first gets into a relationship and they're in the infatuation stage, the relating can be so intense that it does feel like having your breath being taken away. And this lady in particular talks a lot about the breath in relation to the animus. It's almost like being presented with a bit of a riddle and the animus is like this - it will present her with riddles on the inside which she feels like she needs to solve.
And here we're going to try and make some suggestions about what these points might be that she raises, so she can knit them all together on the inside.
And that's a function of the positive Animus - to find the capacity inside herself to do that - rather than looking to someone else to do that for her, for example another person or a team. And then the victory will ultimately be hers, not someone else's.
Steve
Because, if your image is introjected by a woman and whether you want it or not, it can rob you of something, or it can be the bridge that forms the basis of how you help that person.
So that will cost your own emotions and naturally your anima is kicked off by the activity of the animus.
Pauline
Some of the themes of the film are relevant now, too.
Strangely we even got on YouTube this morning and there was a video about V4V, just sitting there... which is a little bit strange.
Something we don't do enough too, wrt the animus, is looking at how it's operating within the culture.
We tend to think of it as an intrapsychic thing, operating inside but it can be *out* there - for example if we look at an organisation like BLM.
If you actually watch the news coverage of people involved in these protests, they are young women. And there are some parallels wrt culture now and what happens in these films.
I think the thing for women when they engage in some kind of movement, or attach themselves to it, they use that as a vehicle for the expression of their own ideas and they can become very vocal about it. And when they do this they become very animated too, and one feeds the other so their activities out there socially in the culture mirror what's happening on the inside for them, so you can see why women would engage in these things because of hte animation they gain from it.
James
So you said the animus sets up a riddle for the woman to solve. So to get that clear in a very Ti way, does the anima ever offer a man a riddle? What would that look like?
Pauline
I think as we get deeper into JTLB, we're getting clearer that there is not too much difference between the anima/animus because they are both relating functions they really have more in common than they do in difference.
My own experience in terms of the animus, however correct me steve if there is some other separation from your perspective...
A bit like this lady is doing, she is giving us flashes of insight but those things are not linked together in any meaningful way so it kind of teases you over time, like "you've understood this bit and this bit, but you haven't knitted it all together in a way that allows you to transcend the parts, and have some deeper meaning as to what's going on for you".
So in technical terms, that is the task of the positive animus to do that for you.
So whilst that is being projected *out there* - culture, other people - you are not doing that task for yourself and you're allowing external ideas to act as a container to hold these ideas and this energy, and hoping that this movement, these people, those ideas will solve the riddle for you and give you a sense of meaning, when essentially the task is to do it for yourself on the inside.
So I assume this is pretty similar to the anima?
Steve
Yes, it is, because it's a relating issue.
And then, where those two meet which is deep down in the core of our essential human nature and our needs for relating, that's where the expression will be.
So the surface structure changes but they both mirror the same deep structure process.
Pauline
Women seem to get particularly hung up on ideas and beliefs and convictions. That seems to be a point of separation between the anima and animus as I would experience it.
Steve
I don't differ from that as such. I think there's commonality of ground, and it's probably different in how it's expressed on the surface and if we think about Jung, this is what he told people that's what those differences are.
But in everyday life it's not like that.
Plenty of young men are drawn through their anima into internet personalities and gurus, through their need to relate and it's about their identity as man.
You mentioned JBP, purely for the sake of illustration, then people who follow him, there is a set of ideas, beliefs and convictions that come in third party, not through personal experience and it's via the anima because they are relating to it through other things they need.
So there is a meme going round that is basically, "Jordan Peterson is not your father", so there is an imago that is projected out onto him, but because it's relating externally to a reference and internally to a need, the anima is at work in relating to JBP for these young men who have an issue with their father.
The way Jung writes it does tend to separate things, but deep structure they're identical.
So I'm not disagreeing with you, but fundamentally ideas do grip men too.
James
So there's a riddle being put out there... as you guys have said, "by their libido you shall know them".
So if a young woman's libido is firing off to a young man, or something else, is that the riddle?
From a depth psychology perspective it would be, "my libido is flowing over there... why?"
Steve
Yes.
That more than anything else tells you fundamentally what's going on, everything else thereafter is a description of that process.
So first you might say, where is the energy going.
And then you might look at whatever Jungian structure of hypothesis you can place on top of this.
Once you've understood this then, in a categorical sense, this is Ti talk btw, and Pauline's way is much cleaner.
I would then resolve this down to saying it's the "animus", but it's actually a lot deeper than that, it's libido, it's energy.
But Pauline's way is a lot cleaner and gets to the actual root of the problem.
Because you would be painting the picture, whereas my style would be to categorise it and say "this is the problem", whereas Pual would get onto solving it in the immediacy of the moment.
This is the difference between Thinking paired with Feeling vs intuition.
James
So is this is how you could go about solving someone's personal myth?
You take a look at where someone's energy is going toward and they will tell you something like "I just want to solve this problem", but then you take a look at where their energy is going and it all adds up, it's not random, the type of things they're drawn to.
THerefore you can get the more christian ideas for example that characterises say Aion, then look at Nietzsche, then the Soviets and you can say, "well are you really interested in solving that academic problem or is there something deeper going on?"
Like the anima or animus is drawing you toward that.
I like that because it is a penetrating insight you can carry around with you.
Steve
My initial approach would be how I described it, and then I would resolve that down using my now integrated other functions - for use purpose only - and I'd get into Paul's way of addressing that problem if rapport demanded.
Paul feels into things and perceives them in a completely different way - it's appealing.
Pauline
I'm interested in how it is for that person.
If that person is reaching out and suffering it's irrelevant to them how it is for anyone else, they want to solve their own conundrum. If they can facilitate that in some way but ultimately it's better if it's their victory.
It's a bit like doing dream amplification, you can make suggestions but ultimately it's down to that person and this is similar.
James
When you two help me as a mentorship, Steve I love you, but I think Pauline you might edge Steve out in terms of what works for me.
I can't logic my way out of your words. It's a completely different tool kit, it just knocks you out of it and there's immense value there.
Pauline
Both have inherent value and it's complementarity in all things.
Sometimes one approach works and sometimes it doesn't.
Coming back to this lady then as well for a moment, she's talking an awful lot about connection of the animus to breath and breathing and she gives a lot of personal information away.
Steve
We are only saying what she has said publicly, in writing.
Pauline
SO I believe she's just come out of a relationship which is very painful for her and she notices that she's been masturbating more. The other piece of interesting info she gives about that is that she does it when she's low in energy.
And she's wondering why.
For women anyway, and you can look this up in Sheila Kitsinger's work, and she used to write a lot about natural childbirth.
She says for women to orgasm, they have to hyperventilate so straight away there is a connection between arousal and hyperventilation and therefore the breath and so if you imagine someone who is in a psychological or physiological state, they might reach out to doing this sort of behavior because they get some sort of animation, on a physiological and psychological level.
So in the absence of a physical relationship, i think it's entirely possible that she's turning to something like this in order to literally reanimate herself.
So if she was to take this on board as symbolic of a greater need and a way of accessing and experiencing those things in absence of a relationship then it's perfectly justifiable. It doesn't resolve the problem of why that relationship ended or why she might be having some difficulty with mate selection, but it tells us something about why she might indulge in that behaviour.
She's obviously finding some kind of value in it.
Steve
She also says she doesn't use Porn and when she tried to solve this issue for herself, through her own perceptual framework.
She found the Nofap movement and the idea of porn being used and it's an addiction however she doesn't feel the need to use it.
So she's using imagery, internally generated and hse's supplied this film V4V as a source of where her animus operates, rather than static porn or whatever, so there's something more transcendent of simply the release of an organism, it's the meaning of that in her wider framework.
So this link of breath and soul and the animus being involved as a psychopomp leading her to this re-animation.
Pauline
We also know that the complexes can breathe you, so I agree there is probably a transcendent aspect to this, but it will be complicated but whatever complexes accrue around the archetype of the animus.
We have some information about this but not a lot of detail.
She mentioned about her mother and as a child how she would have panic attacks and asthma attacks and there was a comment about her mother who appeared to have some sort of breathing difficulty to herself, and the words this lady used were that, it was almost very unladylike, which I think could be an interesting angle.
Steve
Bear in mind she's probably not a native english speaker.
However, there is some sort of angle of being intrusive or expressive.
So her mother coughs in an inelegant way, which is important.
What did that mean?
Something that should be expressed, or repressed. Because coughing projects the contents of your lungs and she does mention the COVID-19 virus wrt her animus.
Pauline
And of course, there is a virus in V4V.
So all this is relevant.
James
We got a comment saying that there might be riots in one of our recent videos, and someone saying, "you guys called it".
Steve
Well, I guess we've been around long enough to see this kind of thing happening before, not paired with a pandemic, but you can certainly pick up on the pulse.
The 1981 riots in the UK and the archetypal material that was being pushed out to try and buffer that by the state and it didn't work. So after a while you do be able to see this type of thing.
So let's hope YouTube let this one through but, the issues that are happening with China now we were able to predict that 30 years ago.
We did, and a lot of people probably won't believe that but it's because of our connection with Chinese culture broadly but also because of an understanding of how archetypal dynamics play out as a waveform. Certainly building up22-23 years ago, to China getting HK back and how that would affect people in the West.
We definitely did predict that.
On that basis - but that's an aside and we're going to fall back again 🙂
Is this made in china, one wonders. I have lots of Chinese friends, I like lots of Chinese culture, I love Chinese food and I've just made this thing even worse than I have before, I should have left it alone!
Never Mind...
James
I was gonna ask as well on the erm, going back to porn and masturbation - apparently one of my favourite topics - you have, the stats seem to suggest that women consume porn just as much as men which is just, might be a surprising thing on the surface but then you look at the breakdown.. the image women would look at is interesting.
You've got those ideas of a billionaire, a werewolf, a vampire, but also literotica, sexy words, it's also something that seems to appeal - I wouldn't say exclusively cos that's not fair - but more or less, to women; and you've described the animus before as being the power of the word and if you say sit down for a session by yourself, if the purpose of that is not ot simply scratch a biological itch but as you're suggesting to bring animation and therefore the animu is involved in that well then it lends support to that in terms of the differences between the animus and anima in terms of the animus being the power of the word.
Pauline
Absolutely, but then the thing for women, or the task for women is to find their own words for things, and not to burden men with it, I;m not saying that it's only men who can have ideas or be intellectual, of course not, but it's for women to give life to their own perspectives and their own ways of saying things and not falling back on outer men, or movements in order to know what they think about things, they have to find their own position and reach their own conclusions in a way that satisfies them without burdening outer men with the task of doing that.
James
Yes, a woman can leave a man speechless and take the breath away.
But a man to a woman can take the voice away without intending to do so.
I've seen it so many times before, you've got say a bunch of girls and they're normal... and then a guy comes along and it's as if their entire character changes so that they can no longer speak what they mean as if it has been outsourced to that other guy; and then the guy's blamed for being sexist etc.
Pauline
Or outsourced to a cause or a movement.
James
Yes
Pauline
Which we see an awful lot of. And for women who haven't developed a lot - some of them can be young or middle-aged or even older women.
You know back in the day, movements like C&D were very active, the campaign for nuclear disarmament and they were predominantly women, but women of all ages as opposed to just younger women.
And again, this is a way of them taking their ideas out into culture and having a voice and feeling they're making some sort of impact and statement.
Steve
There's a downside to that - they're open to easy manipulation - not because they're stupid or unintelligent - it's just that if you want to influence a group of people you just find what will bond them together with the minimum amount of effort from you and the maximum resultant amount of effort from them.
So, you would find out what they will do naturally and then just add a little bit more to it in the direction you want it to go.
And in that sense, any collective group is very easy to manipulate - and that's exactly what they do. The people who are pulling the strings are creating the expression for these forces that are being channelled and they do it effortlessly.
Pauline
So do you have your own ideas or do your ideas have you? You could say.
Well, men *and* women have sacred convictions, it's not exclusively a female thing or even the animus, for example, both sexes are drawn to the church.
Steve
In a specific case like this, where it's not obvious and there is no apparent "church", there is still a figure on whom something spiritual is being projected and in the film it's that specific character who is an agent for change and so he is her messenger in a sense.
He's a trickster - his identity is disguised behind a mask.
You can find this kind of story - Beauty and the Beast, Phantom of the Opera.
The true identity of the masculine is disguised, and it's up to her to find that identity, and test it against her own projection. And that's what's happening here and fascination of whether she can release this man and therefore release herself from her own soul image, to this figure in the outside world creating change all over the place.
And that makes him fascinating and dangerous all at the same time.
Pauline
Well that's like Von Hesse, isn't it.
Steve
Yes. In Lilith, who is exactly the same. His mask isn't physical, except that he's supposed to be and the actor we chose to play him was a very good looking man, and that allows projection to easily take.
Just as the same with Lilith - you will always find that evil is more easily received if it is delivered through beauty.
It'll just get past peoples' defences.
Pauline
No resistance is there?
Steve
No.
Because there's an instinctive draw toward beauty, and that conceals all sorts of things that might be behind it or at least set up an ambiguity. It seems in the film, the way they do that is that he wears a mask and then you have to find it.
In Lilith, Von Hesse's mask is real, that's what he looks like.
In that sense it's much more intense draw from the women and at the same time the fear which acts as a repulsive force as opposed to an attractive force and of course they just fall down into the gap in between.
There is a different expression of the animus and how it can work, with respect to this film.
Pauline
This particular lady has commented on it, certainly in the beginning of her exchange with us, about mate selection.
That can make it a tricky thing for all sorts of reasons and if you're looking to resolve that problem for yourself well, there are lots of traps and pitfalls.
I agree with Steve, on one level it comes back to instincts again. And if your instincts - particularly for women here - are telling you not to trust a particular situation, then you have to listen to them.
Some of the problem for women is that as they've grown up and the family and culture hasn't prepared them for those traps then they're in a naive state where they come into puberty where they become interested in the opposite sex and so on, and also equally the culture might have encouraged them to be too nice and to not trust their instincts and reactions so they're not very well developed or honed and therein lies the trap.
This is why Steve is saying that things are very often presented in the way that they are in stories, to say that "do you really know what you're looking at?"
You're looking at a man with a mask on. Or you might *not* be looking at a man with a mask on but something else is concealing his behaviour.
Steve
Or something else - his identity, his job, his family - basically the persona.
Men will instinctively craft their persona to entrap. Going back to Lilith that's what was done there, even in the story, that's what was created, this honey trap to draw Lilith in through the physical universe out from her natural home.
And we all know what happened with that.
Pauline
Absolutely. So I'd probably say to this lady, if you're not in touch with instincts, or you can't answer the question, "am I in touch with my instincts?"... then you're probably not.
And so you won't respond in terms of mate selection in an integral way if you're not, because you just won't be in tune, you won't be looking out for what lies beneath, what lies behind the mask.
Obviously there are dark forces operating out there in the world and clearly you don't want to fall prey to them.
I think look to your instincts for guidance.
James
This doesn't have to go in the podcast, I'm just interested...
Do you think there is - from the perspective of women and I have multiple reasons for asking this question - an innate hierarchy to see men in terms of attractiveness.
Because I know, the best way is to relate to a woman.
If a man wants to "get" a woman, then he should relate to her properly. But is there an actual hierarchy where she looks at a group of guys and goes, "those guys are the best".
Because for example you're saying, get in touch with your instincts, is that what the instincts are going to be pointing out?
Is it, "go for him, rather than these other guys down the bottom", or is it a case of, "any man... can do... as long as he is relating properly to you well enough".
Pauline
That's a heck of a question isn't it James?
I think the only way I could answer that is to say that it's not an intellectual thing. Cos you're imposing that on top of instinct and instinct is a gut reaction, it's a visceral thing... in the beginning.
The kind of assessment of that person that you might be about to engage in, might come later, but at the beginning of the relationship where there's a lot of infatuation and narcissism involved in terms of the projection of your own soul image, that's what it is.
Instincts defy explanation really. it's a deep inner knowing.
Steve
They defy contradiction for sure, because they don't want to be contradicted. There has to be a really good counter argument to an instinct for it to back off. That will normally come from another instinct, although with us as conscious human beings, we do have an executive role, that's why we have an ego which is supposed to reality test the survivability of a specific form of instinctive pressure in a particular context at a particular time.
That's part of adaptation.
If you take a purely biological view, there's a notion of best fit. That does have explanatory power but doesn't explain it 100% at all and in fact sometimes nowhere near it.
You see couples who will pair for life sometimes and you wonder, "how on earth did that happen?"
That's quite a common thing where there's a mismatch in attractiveness, physically, but something else is there, and it may be that it's something tangible like money... like that thing which was said to the comedian's wife, "when did you fall in love with millionaire, so and so", the insinuation being it was because of the money. It might not have been, but that's just a perspective from the outside, perhaps projected in because the person suggesting that may have wanted the guy's money.
And this is where the transcendent comes in.
It is a distillation of something intangible the instincts settle for, that's the mystery.
Why do instincts settle for something, when it doesn't look rational from a biological perspective on the outside. There's something else there. And the best stress test I've ever found for this, in relation to people who've had problems with relationships and so on, the best thing I've found has been Plato and his idea of the form.
That is, not immediately tangible obviously, because it's an intangible thing externally in terms of adaptation through sensory information, but on the inside there's something else at work there and you often find this mismatch in attractiveness - and it's not always you have a relatively attractive man with an attractive woman - there is something else going on and there is something very deep and transcendent going on.
It is those relationships that tend to endure because they're based on something that is not immediately biologically viable for some reason.
James
Yeh, if the psyche's concerned especially in the form of dreams with individuation and helping you balance self development.
It would make sense that if you want to balance the instinct, you would also want to balance with someone that can help you individuate, so both of you can become whole together in which case this makes sense.
Of course, in this particular model I would then have to justify typology in that sense, not that it's massively important but you would expect some T and F pairings than somebody else.
Obviously the biology frame of "the more money the man has" and if he's got a 9 pack rather than a 6 pack... it doesn't explain everything you know.
Steve
Men like that will attract a lot of women, but not necessarily the right one.
James
Or permanently.
Steve
Because there's a resource issue there, which will attract a lot of women who may not be you know the right level of investment for a long term relationship and they're being driven by instinct to that so you get quantity over quality.
It's fairly simple to work out what's going on there and the adaptations taking place.
Typology, yes it's real but it's on everything. It's just a vehicle for the expression of character. Character is deeper and more fundamental. You can get a good version, morally and character wise of one type and a bad version of the same type and if your level of analysis is typological only you're going to make horrendous mistakes in terms of judgement.
Pauline
Yes, because you'd think all extroverted feeling types are benign and somehow the vice is the domain of thinking types, which clearly isn't true.
Steve
Just like in everyday life people in everyday life who know nothing about typology still know what introversion and extroversion are and there is a bias toward saying extroversion is more adapted culturally. Still.
It's always introversion that gets paired with neuroticism.
So you get people who are manic or cyclothymic, where their extroversion is positively neurotic, so they share it out through their extroversion, but very rarely do you get that with introversion. So there's something wrong with how culture perceives that.
Pauline
You seem to have a capacity to get the shape of somebody very quickly, that's the only way I can put it. That you kind of take a snapshot and you have an instinctive reaction to that person as to whether you think they're good or bad and sometimes it's that simple.
Not that you're not prepared to give people a chance, but something in you it's obviously you extraverted intuition in typological terms goes out like a rader and scoops in that information and suddenly you have a snapshot of that person and what you think they're like in terms of their character.
Mostly you're right I have to say.
Steve
Yeh, it seems to be. That's probably the product of how old I am to be honest and the experience that's built up behind me. But are you saying it's an instinctive thing?
Pauline
Yes.
Steve
Well I would agree with that because I don't think about it.
Pauline
It's too quick, that's my point.
Steve
I can sometimes read someone in one or two frames of movement at a distance and will predict their character on the basis of that. That's a long experience of observing and working with people - it cuts down on RAM, your working memory, and it cuts down on distractions.
I'm prepared to be flexible and be wrong. Being wrong doesn't diminish me personally. For a lot of people they can't take being wrong but for me it's just updating.
But I do very often have these instinctive responses which do turn out to be accurate when tested over time and that's interesting in the sense of, "well how does that work?", and I think it works on perception paired with instinct, which is probably a very archaic aspect of mind that's pre-rational.
And we all have that capacity.
Pauline
But as I say for women very often it gets trained out of us because we're taught little girls have to be nice and kind and do as they're told and not be angry or assertive or forceful in our right, so those instincts fall to the unconscious.
James
Now that's been swapped though in this culture, with men, because everything we're told in this current culture is sit down, be quiet, don't be angry... and it will come out in one way or the other.
And I think women can tell that in the man, a little bit like Steve you were saying you can identify someone at a difference, I think they can tell when a man is capable of doing that in the current moment and I do think that lowers their attractiveness right down to the floor.
Steve
Yeh it can do.
You also get this phenomenon of love at first sight, and what's that working on? And people say "that's not real" and I disagree, I think it is.
It's just projection as such, it's introjection. Where not only do you have the Jungian virtual image which, the introjected image is measured against, you have the entire genome that makes the decision and then looks at genetic compatibility and all this is done instantly pretty much and then you get that level of certainty that removes all doubt - just instant.
Whereas you can also have something that is less viable and less real, which is based on projection of a virtual image onto someone and doesn't have all of that and there is a qualitative difference between those two which is palpable - you can experience it and analyse it and you can test htat in other people. So you can know whether something is likely to survive, because there is a deep structure of genomic resonance or rapport with someone as opposed to merely projecting by placing something on them as a hook to hang something on which is relatively insubstantial.
That's still a radar return - you're looking for a bounce off of a signal to see if something resonates completely - and sometimes it doesn't but you *still* get caught in that ephemeral projection and it's not real.
But where something is real, there is a difference, it's qualitative and you feel it and it's not conscious, so the whole of your genome is enacted at that point and it kicks in. So yeh, on a perceptive level and yes, women do make judgements like that and they have to, because they have to compete with other women.
But men do the same thing as well. There will be times when that slower intermediary process between instant projection of the platonic form, instant genomic resonance, this bit in between is where the calculation goes on and it's almost conscious although it's very quick. It's different
So what you have then is a bandwidth between the sense and internal perception, where things are measured up against standards which are innate and then learned ones as well, such as "does this money", is this person likely to have a disease that will threaten my survival. All of these calculations go on and they create tremendous stress in people.
James
It reminds me, I've never had that instant massive attraction at first sight but more, it's stopped since I've become an adult but when I was a teenager, every single girl I had an in depth conversation with would become my true love.
You can sort of see what's going on three. And then, they then end up remaining in my dreams for a while after, but there's a difference between that and long term stability as well. Especially in this culture and i don't want to make excuses as it's a difficult thing to see, but the difference between what you think you want and what you do really want, it's a difficult decision to make, deep down.
Steve
I think what I was trying to say is there are at least three different categories of analysis there. You know, there's the complete thing which is as good as it's going to be possibly get for you, and then there's the middle phase which is all the calculation is done - although it is very quick, and then there's the other instant thing which is the projection of the form to try to get a fit, and that's like trying to cast a net out and seeing whether the thing you're trying to get swims out of the net or if it's a good enough fit.
The thing is, when you cast the net out in that case, it pulls you with it and you go towards the image or the individual that you're projecting on. So it's part of that competitive process where we're seeking something out under instinctive and therefore genomic pressure and it's therefore whether the match is right or not.
So that's from the perspective of looking for a life partner say, which we're all under pressure to do to some extent. But then, the continued action of this through your life span causes all sorts of problems. And then how conscious are you of what you can work on. How you integrate that. And perhaps this lady as Pauline's describing is going through a mixed process of projection of casting out the platonic form, casting out the animus' mediator and psychopomp of meaning and linking that up to experiences in her life that are meaningful to her where she's had issues over breathing and making a narrative out of that that forms part of her personal myth.
The question is, is that her personal myth as she is aware of it and attracted to it, and are her processes helping her or not?
Because around our personal myth gather all of our maladaptations and neuroses, our guiding fictions, our neurotic alibis as well as the truth of who we are and it's untangling that that is the task.
For a woman, as with a man, the proper relationship to the relating function within us will help us to sort that out more than anything.
More than the shadow or any of these other things.
Pauline
She mentions her mother, for example, she doesn't mention her father but she does mention her mother and certainly some of the comments on here, so you're left wondering whether or not her Mother's animus has been an issue for her and again we can only speculate on that but again something to think about.
Steve
That's a good point. The mother's animus will affect the daughter's animus, but so will the father if there was one in this case, she may have been brought up as a single child, the father's anima will affect the daughter's animus.
To avoid confusion... just think relating function.
The relating function of both parents will affect the relating function of the child. Relating functions create relating functions or at least re-enforce their development and help shape them through life so it's very important to know where these things come from and what the influences are.
Sometimes using the expressions like anima/animus and categorising them in too rigid a way, or even a stereotypical or archetypal way conceals what's really going on and makes it more complicated than it really is.
And that's why Pauline's saying why instinct is really important as it removes the clutter and gets you down brass tacks of what's really going on.
Pauline
Absolutely it does. Just put everything back to really what's essential otherwise you can get lost in it all as it's really labyrinthian and it can just throw more questions than it actually answers.
And the negative animus would love that cos you just get caught in rumination traps and don't actually liberate yourself from anything there.
Steve
That's a point, does she talk about that?
Pauline
She talks about trying to liberate her breathing, yes.
Steve
And the freedom fighter in the film, the masked animus, is a liberator, too.
Pauline
Yes. From his own perspective, certainly.
Steve
So something's trying to get through there yes.
Pauline
Something's trying to liberate itself, without a doubt.
Steve
Symbolised by breath where the connection is breath.
Pauline
I think like you say, evn looking beyond the relating function, the personal myth is the place to go because then you get your through line and essentially look at who you're meant to be and who you've been meant to be all along and you can just strip away anything that's been damaged you or interfering with that trajectory.
Maybe that would be a better place for her to work, rather than caught up in the idea of the anima and the animus.
Steve
I think so, it tends to reveal things - it tells you where everything is in relation to you in the past and the present and therefore you can predict your future. You have your place to stand at that point.
People mythologise the personal myth though and this is the trap. It becomes something else to get lost in, in a labyrinthine way, so they start looking at some of these Jungian authors who have written about it as if that's it. And what you almost invariably find with them, is they appropriate collective myths as illustrations of the personal myth.
Nothing could be further from the truth, that's what traps them.
So you need to be disconnected from that and find the inner narrative of your own life.
And just to say, that artists understand the unconscious more than psychologists.
Writers, authors understand personal mythology more than depth psychologists, broadly speaking as well.
So go to literature if you want to understand the personal myth. Don't go to some of these people on the internet, some of these psychological authors because they're just crazy with fantasies and don't really relate as such.
Look at the process of building fiction and then you'll find your own guiding fictions.
Don't be distracted by someone else saying, "look at this particular model or myth".
This is your myth, internalise it.
Doing anything else won't work for you, it will conceal everything.
Pauline
Yes. And that brings us full circle in a way because again if you think about the animus attaching itself to a cause or a movement, then you immediately you're moving away from your own personal psychology.
Steve
True. You get lost.
The value of the ancient stories and myths - they are intrinsically valuable, but only if you can put that into the context of your own life and not identify with it.
Unless you can use it therapeutically to create a dramatic change with someone as in an enactment process with someone, then it's absolutely valid to do.
For example, the guy in the earliest guy in the podcast we did where we talked about King Arthur and Excalibur.
He didn't go away thinking he was King Arthur, he left thinking he was own man. It was my own myth that did it. He wasn't trying to live it or identify it in any way beyond that, that was enough.
And he lived his own life.
And that's the message.