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MARTYR COMPLEX: Selfish or Selfless? · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Today on the podcast, we're going to be speaking about martyrdom,
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: and I thought this would be a really interesting phenomenon
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  Speaker 2: to explore, both in terms of the sort of official
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: meaning of that word. You know, throughout history, there have
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: been religious martyrs, there have been political martyrs. We hear
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  Speaker 2: about them in the news, but of course, there's also
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  Speaker 2: the colloquial meaning of the word, and we probably all
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  Speaker 2: know someone... that irritates us that we think of as
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  Speaker 2: a martyr. So we thought we'd explore both of those
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  Speaker 2: topics today, maybe see how they're interrelated and see how
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: they're different. And before we jump into the podcast, I
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: do just want to remind listeners about Dream School. We
• 1:23
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• 1:27
  Speaker 2: how to work with your dreams much the same way
• 1:31
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• 1:33
  Speaker 2: you want to take a look at that and all
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: that we have to offer there. You can go to
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: our website, thisunionlife.com and check out Dream School. So on
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: the topic, martyrdom, what do we think?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I think having been raised Catholic myself that- You
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: get to go first. It's funny for us to be
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: talking about it because it's a word that was around
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  Speaker 3: often enough being raised Catholic. And in a certain sense,
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  Speaker 3: without a lot of charge. It was like, oh, the
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  Speaker 3: martyring of this saint and the martyring of that saint,
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  Speaker 3: and that it had an oddly ordinary quality to it.
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  Speaker 3: And I think that as a kid, it wasn't really
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  Speaker 3: unpacked in any great way, although the pictures and depictions
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  Speaker 3: were pretty gory.
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  Speaker 4: Oh, yes.
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  Speaker 3: And it seemed like, oh, that's a thing. That's a
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  Speaker 3: thing that the early Christians did. So I think that,
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  Speaker 3: and then titrated into a much more homey and homely
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  Speaker 3: sense was just that there's value in suffering and that
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  Speaker 3: in order to be a Catholic, in order to be
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  Speaker 3: a disciple, that one has to be prepared for a
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  Speaker 3: certain degree of suffering. And on one level, I think, um,
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  Speaker 3: for me being raised in a really violent and dangerous
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  Speaker 3: home on a personal level, it afforded me some kind
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  Speaker 3: of frame to sublimate some of my own suffering, that
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  Speaker 3: there was some kind of a religious meaning even to
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  Speaker 3: the childhood trauma that was going on. And I think
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  Speaker 3: that that had a certain strangely protective effect component to it.
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  Speaker 3: Not that I would advocate for such a thing, anyone
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  Speaker 3: to be exposed to that, but it provided a frame
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  Speaker 3: of meaning to something that one could easily have thought
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  Speaker 3: of as meaningless. When I think about Viktor Frankl and
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  Speaker 3: his horrific suffering in the concentration camps, that to afford
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  Speaker 3: oneself frame of meaning and with martyrdom a frame of
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  Speaker 3: archetypal meaning It does allow something to remain structured in
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  Speaker 3: an environment that is inherently annihilating.
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  Speaker 2: Wow, Joseph. That really just opened up this topic so
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  Speaker 2: beautifully and poignantly. I love what you said, that sort
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  Speaker 2: of one of the main ideas is there could be
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  Speaker 2: value in suffering. Suffering could be transformed or... or in
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  Speaker 2: service to something greater. And that's true, right? That's just
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  Speaker 2: fundamentally true, and we know this as analysts, that we
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  Speaker 2: often see people in anguish in our practices, and part
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  Speaker 2: of the space we hold is that their suffering could
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  Speaker 2: have meaning, and it could be in the interest of soul-making.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. The martyr is... in some ways, subtly and often unconsciously,
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  Speaker 3: particularly as a child, identified with the suffering God. And
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  Speaker 3: so there's a way in which God takes part of
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  Speaker 3: the suffering away from us in the idea that there
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  Speaker 3: is a co-suffering. It sounds like strange mental gymnastics, but
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  Speaker 3: as a child it made sense to me.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: You weren't the only one who suffered.
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  Speaker 4: No.
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  Speaker 3: Not at all.
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  Speaker 2: Others had suffered too, and they had transcended their suffering.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, in that way. But I have to say that
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  Speaker 3: also the subtle protective inflation.
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  Speaker 4: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: That the suffering God is incarnating in the suffering child
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  Speaker 3: or in myself as a suffering child, which then offers
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  Speaker 3: a kind of resilience. Yes. and a kind of potency
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  Speaker 3: in the face of the pain that's being inflicted, again,
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  Speaker 3: afforded this resistance to being annihilated. And I think that's
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  Speaker 3: one of the great powers of the archetypes, is that
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  Speaker 3: they can distort, but they also can protect us when
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  Speaker 3: we are in unimaginable circumstances. And I think also the
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  Speaker 3: term of being martyred, has become a colloquial term to
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  Speaker 3: mean far less dramatic things and an excuse perhaps to
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  Speaker 3: be self-indulgent even or to raise an ordinary suffering to
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  Speaker 3: an exaggerated level to afford a kind of inflation that
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  Speaker 3: may not be deserved.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I'm so glad you brought that word up, inflation,
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  Speaker 2: because I think that that is... That is probably a
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  Speaker 2: concept that applies to both meanings of the word, and
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  Speaker 2: we can maybe sort of slowly unpack that as we
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  Speaker 2: go today.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah. It's really very poignant, you know, what you've said
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  Speaker 4: as a child, to be able to find some meaning
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  Speaker 4: in it, that after all, you know, there was a
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  Speaker 4: suffering God. There was Jesus on the cross. Yes. giving
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  Speaker 4: up his own life for something greater. And that I
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  Speaker 4: can imagine that as a child, it really helped you
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  Speaker 4: to feel aligned with something greater, that you're enduring and
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  Speaker 4: serving something greater. There's a meaning in it, following in
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  Speaker 4: footsteps of one who sacrificed himself for others. And Viktor Frankl,
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  Speaker 4: who wrote man's search for meaning was a Jewish man
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  Speaker 4: and a psychologist who was imprisoned in a concentration camp
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  Speaker 4: during World War II, and that he too found a
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  Speaker 4: way to convert suffering into meaning. And I wonder if
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  Speaker 4: that's a litmus test in a way for what constitutes
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  Speaker 4: martyrdom is, you know, what is it that a person
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  Speaker 4: is really serving? Is it a pointless sacrifice? Is it
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  Speaker 4: a way to endure? Is it a way to increase consciousness?
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  Speaker 4: Is it an interpersonal manipulation? What is really being offered up?
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  Speaker 2: Well, and I think it's complex because when you think
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  Speaker 2: about the idea of martyrdom, the underlying... assumption is that
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  Speaker 2: somehow there's something greater than us. There's something greater than
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  Speaker 2: the life of the body that, uh, matters more, you know, and,
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  Speaker 2: and that's a tremendous idea. And it's an idea that
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  Speaker 2: very much speaks to what Jung called the religious function
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  Speaker 2: of the psyche. So he thought that the, we, we
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  Speaker 2: all had a sort of innate urge to be in
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  Speaker 2: relationship with something larger than ego. And it was an instinct.
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  Speaker 2: The religious function is one of the basic instincts. And
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  Speaker 2: I can't see how Jung wasn't right about that. It
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  Speaker 2: seems really obvious to me that he pegged that. So
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  Speaker 2: that sense that there's something larger than me, and so
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  Speaker 2: my individual life doesn't matter very much. You know, that's
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  Speaker 2: an incredibly compelling idea. I mean, if the sort of
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  Speaker 2: fear of death is a major motivator for most of us,
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  Speaker 2: the idea that we could sort of overcome that by
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  Speaker 2: making our life be in service to something greater is priceless.
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  Speaker 2: wildly compelling. And so if we think about martyrs, we
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  Speaker 2: mentioned the early saints, and I think, I think they
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  Speaker 2: were just mostly martyrs and they all died in these
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  Speaker 2: really tremendously horrific ways. Is it St.
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  Speaker 4: Sebastian that has all the arrows?
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  Speaker 2: Arrows.
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  Speaker 4: Favorite topic of medieval, uh, painters.
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  Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah. And of course, you know, there's, let's not forget,
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  Speaker 2: you know, Jesus who, who martyred himself, uh, you know,
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  Speaker 2: in service to something larger. He sacrificed himself. You know,
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  Speaker 2: I was thinking about what's the difference between the hero
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  Speaker 2: who sacrifices himself and the martyr. And I, I think
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  Speaker 2: there's a difference. I don't know if you guys would agree,
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  Speaker 2: but I, you know, my, my image of the hero
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  Speaker 2: sacrificing himself is the firefighters that went into the burning, uh,
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  Speaker 2: World Trade Center towers on 9-11. Everyone else was trying
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  Speaker 2: to get out, trying to get out, and they were
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  Speaker 2: going in.
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  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
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  Speaker 2: And they all died, and they probably knew they were
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  Speaker 2: going to die. But they went in to try to
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  Speaker 2: save whomever they could. So I don't know that they
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  Speaker 2: would be considered martyrs, but I don't know. What do
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  Speaker 2: you think? I don't think so.
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  Speaker 4: Well, in a way, of course, it's in the line
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  Speaker 4: of duty.
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 4: I was living in New York then. Everybody knows there
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  Speaker 4: were 343 firefighters who died. And some weeks after 9-11,
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  Speaker 4: I was on a subway car, and a firefighter in
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  Speaker 4: his full uniform, the dress uniform, not firefighting clothes, got
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  Speaker 4: onto the subway car. It still gets me. We all
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  Speaker 4: stood up. They had served something greater, a principle of
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  Speaker 4: duty and rescue. I don't know that anybody knew that
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  Speaker 4: the buildings were going to come down. They served something greater.
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  Speaker 2: But they died in service to helping others, which I
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  Speaker 2: think is a little bit different than dying for an idea.
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  Speaker 2: You know, I think they're heroes.
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  Speaker 4: You know what? Fair enough. They're heroes. Yes. And they
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  Speaker 4: died for a principle of service. Yeah. That this is
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  Speaker 4: what they're dedicated to. But I get the distinction you're
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  Speaker 4: pointing to.
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  Speaker 2: Well, what I'm thinking is we need a definition of martyr,
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  Speaker 2: and that's what I'm going to my phone to get,
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  Speaker 2: because we should try to be specific, so.
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  Speaker 4: Well, what it says in the Greek etymology is that
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  Speaker 4: a martyr is a witness and that they, the early Christians,
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  Speaker 4: you know, had, they could witness from personal observation, that
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  Speaker 4: they stand by and witness.
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  Speaker 2: So here's the definition of martyr. So, and I think
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  Speaker 2: it's helpful to kind of be precise. This is Merriam-Webster.
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  Speaker 2: A person who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty of
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  Speaker 2: witnessing to and refusing to renounce a religion. Or a
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  Speaker 2: person who sacrifices something of great value and especially life
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  Speaker 2: itself for the sake of principle. And then the third
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  Speaker 2: meaning is the one we'll get to later. A great
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  Speaker 2: or constant sufferer. But interestingly, martyr as a verb is
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  Speaker 2: to put to death for adhering to a belief, faith,
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  Speaker 2: or profession. So I do think it's a little different.
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  Speaker 2: I think famous martyrs, we've already mentioned some. I have
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  Speaker 2: in mind also Thomas More, which I think is sort
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  Speaker 2: of an interesting case. And also I think one of
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  Speaker 2: the things that made me want to talk about this
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  Speaker 2: is I was remembering the Buddhist monk who self-immolated in Vietnam.
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  Speaker 2: And those of us that are of a certain age
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  Speaker 2: will remember him. that photo and how it very quickly
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  Speaker 2: changed U.S. policy.
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  Speaker 4: Martyrdom has an effect on us. When it is in service,
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  Speaker 4: it can be to something very powerful, a principle or
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  Speaker 4: a belief, a political value. It has a powerful effect
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  Speaker 4: on us. Of course, Jesus on the cross has had
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  Speaker 4: a powerful effect on untold numbers of people. It's historical
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  Speaker 4: in a very major way. It's affected a lot of
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  Speaker 4: Western world development and belief that Buddhist monk had an
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  Speaker 4: effect on policy. But when we see someone stand up for, sacrifice,
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  Speaker 4: him or herself for something greater, it has an impact
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  Speaker 4: in the human realm.
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  Speaker 2: And of course, the question is like, what are you
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  Speaker 2: in service to? Exactly. There is something about being willing
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  Speaker 2: to sacrifice yourself to make a point. I'm thinking also
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  Speaker 2: of the Irish hunger strikers.
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  Speaker 3: Yes.
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  Speaker 2: You know, I'm going to be a little uncharitable. You're
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  Speaker 2: trying to appeal to empathy to leverage that in the
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: interest of changing a policy. And so it's a kind
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  Speaker 2: of manipulation.
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  Speaker 3: Well, again, if it has that political view to it,
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  Speaker 3: or if we believe that we're being witnessed in such
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  Speaker 3: a way that a larger mass of people are going
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  Speaker 3: to be influenced. Some martyring happens in a purely private way.
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  Speaker 3: my impulse is to pause for a minute and think
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  Speaker 3: about this as a purely intra-psychic moment. And in that way,
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  Speaker 3: I think that it can have something to do with individuation,
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  Speaker 3: something to do with the mortificatio, which is that alchemical
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  Speaker 3: death process. So if we imagine that at some point
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  Speaker 3: in our development, we come into a profound state understanding
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  Speaker 3: and experience of who and what we truly are. Which is,
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  Speaker 3: we could say, is individuation. I know who I am,
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  Speaker 3: I know how I am meant to live, I know
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  Speaker 3: what my values are, I know what's important to me.
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  Speaker 3: And that being situated in a life that does not
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  Speaker 3: support that, or is not congruent with that, how much
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  Speaker 3: are we willing to suffer in order to remain in
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  Speaker 3: alignment with our truest self? How much are we willing
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  Speaker 3: to let die away, both in terms of our own
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  Speaker 3: personal habits, our ego identifications, our appetites, as well as
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  Speaker 3: maybe the relationships, jobs, careers, family, friends that we have
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  Speaker 3: accreted around us? How much are we willing to suffer
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  Speaker 3: the death of to remain in pure integrity with our
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  Speaker 3: truest and perhaps at that point emergent sense of self?
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  Speaker 3: And can we martyr ourselves to who we have discovered
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  Speaker 3: that we truly are? And that's, in a sense, a
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  Speaker 3: decision to be our truest self whether or not people
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  Speaker 3: like it or approve of it or if we are
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: at dangerous odds with our family's friends or our government.
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: and to the greatest extent with your example of the
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: Buddhist monk, to be able to put our bodily integrity,
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  Speaker 3: our lives, at stake in order to remain in integrity
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  Speaker 3: with who and what we know ourselves to be. But
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  Speaker 3: there are much lesser martyrings that we go through in
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: various cycles of our lives, and particularly we talk about
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  Speaker 3: midlife crisis, to have everything that we thought or much
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  Speaker 3: of what we thought we were to be martyred or
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  Speaker 3: crucified in service to this emergent greater truth of who
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  Speaker 3: we are.
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  Speaker 4: I'm thinking of this as the degrees and all of
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: the ways in which we can sacrifice ego for the
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  Speaker 4: sake of what undergirds our conscious personalities, something eternal and
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: that which Jung called the self, and that we do
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  Speaker 4: this in big and little ways. You mentioned midlife, Joseph,
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  Speaker 4: of what I worked for and extended myself to and
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: in the external world and the way of career and
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: achievement and accomplishments. has to be martyred to something greater,
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: something that is more enduring, less external world-related. Or people
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  Speaker 4: who have to leave, let's say, a marriage, that there
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: is something greater that demands my personal intelligence, And so
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  Speaker 4: this will have to be sacrificed. And on the other
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: end of this polarity, of course, sometimes there's a real
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: manipulation that I will do these things in order to
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: have an effect on these people, such as hunger strikers.
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: It's very hard to witness hunger strikers without intervening. Right.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to just subtly disagree with you both
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: for a second, because I think....
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: You can overtly disagree with us if you want.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: Well, I think what you described, Joseph, and then you
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: picked up on it, Deb, it's really beautiful, but it
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: might be more of a sacrifice. Because I think that
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: the idea of the martyr really does contain this idea
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: of kind of an inflation. And usually when we sacrifice,
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: we're not inflated. In fact, we're deflated. But the martyr
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: has a sense of kind of doing something that is,
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: you know, often going to be publicly acclaimed, frankly, or
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: at least publicly witnessed. You know, it's interesting because I
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: think about Thomas More, for example, and of course, you know,
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: he was canonized, and we probably all read that play
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: in middle school, A Man for All Seasons. You know,
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: he was around the court. He was an important person
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: in the court of King Henry VIII. And I know
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: I'm going to get the details wrong. And so the
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: Tudor historians are going to write in and say that
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: I got it wrong. But in any case, so Henry
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: VIII decided to break with Rome and he was going
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: to become the new head of the Church of England.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: And so everyone had to kind of, I think they
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: had to all swear an oath or sign a statement
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: that they were, you know, now recognized him as the
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: head of the church or something. I probably have that
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: slightly wrong. But anyway, Thomas More said, you know, I
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: can't see how this is more important. I can't see
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  Speaker 2: how my life is as important as me holding to
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: my principles, and so I will not sign it. And,
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: you know, Henry, I think, sort of begged him to,
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: at least in some of the fictional depictions, you kind
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: of get that sense. But he said no, you know,
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: and he was held in the Tower of London and executed.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: And then, of course, later canonized. And, you know, the
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: Hillary Mantel's Wolf Hall, which includes that segment as part
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: of it, you know, she really does her best to
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: make Cromwell look, Cromwell is usually more of the villain,
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: but Cromwell looks good. And Thomas More looks, you know,
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: kind of like a dirtbag, you know. But even engaging
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: with the Hillary Mantel version, I'm still like, wow, that
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: that's a lot of integrity to say, you know, no, I,
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: this is what I believe. And you're not, you cannot
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: force me to refute my beliefs. You cannot force me
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: to deny what matters to me. You know, that, that's
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: a kind of stunning, astounding position to take when, when
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: what's on, when what's on, uh, on the line is
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: your life. You know, another person that comes up for
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: me when I, when I think about this is, um,
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: the German girl, Sophie Schall, who was protesting the Nazis,
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: knowing that she would get caught and killed. She was
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: 20 years old or something, and she knew she was
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: going to get caught and killed, and she got caught
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: and killed. And she didn't back down. The principle mattered
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: more than her life. And that that is a really,
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: you know, you think most people these days will back
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: down if they're worried about being, you know, slandered on
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: social media or perhaps, you know, not being put up
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: for a promotion. They'll, you know, capitulate on an important belief.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: So for someone to do what Thomas More did, it
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: is admirable.
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: I'm going back to that. etymology around witness as associated
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: with martyr, that martyrs are publicly martyred.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: You don't go off into the woods, live in a
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: cabin by yourself, and then quietly immolate yourself. No. You
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: do it in the public square. You do it where
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: it can be witnessed. And Where it can inspire other people. Yes.
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: To make that kind of public statement of this matters more.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Yep, that's true, Deb. That's a really good point. It
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: is public. That is a part of being a martyr. Yes.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Is that other people see it. And I'm wondering, I
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: have a little, up on my phone, I have a little...
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: short description, the photographer who took the picture of the
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: Buddhist monk was named Malcolm Brown. And he talks a
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: little bit about it, which I think goes to your point.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: So do you mind if I read just a bit
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: of it?
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: Go for it.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: He makes a point of saying that the other correspondents
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: weren't really interested in the Buddhist protesters, but he was.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: And he said that one, you know, one monk in
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: particular would sort of tip him off when something was
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: going to go down. One night he advised me to
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: come to the pagoda at seven the next morning because
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: something very special and important was going to happen. He
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: sent the same message to half a dozen other American correspondents,
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: but they all ignored it. I did not. That was all.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: That morning, a Buddhist monk went out and sat down
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: in a main intersection in downtown Saigon. Two of his
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: fellow monks poured gasoline over him and he set himself
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: on fire and died. I was there, the only Western
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: correspondent present and taking pictures. It was clearly theater staged
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: by the Buddhists to achieve a certain political end. At
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: the same time, there was a human element to it
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: that was just horrifying because the sequence of pictures showed
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: the initial shock of the flames touching his face and
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: so forth. He never cried out or screamed, but you
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: could see from his expression that he was exposed to
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: intense agony. And then he goes on a bit, but, um,
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: He says, I've been asked a couple times whether I
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: could have prevented the suicide. I could not. There was
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: a phalanx of perhaps 200 monks and nuns who were
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: ready to block me if I tried to move. A
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: couple of them chucked themselves under the wheels of a
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: fire truck that arrived. But in the years since, I've
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: had this searing feeling of perhaps having in some way
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: contributed to the death of a kind old man who
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: probably would not have done what he did nor would
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: the monks in general have done what they did if
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: they had not been assured of the presence of a
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: newsman who could convey the images and experience to the
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: outer world. Because if that was the whole point, to
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: produce theater of the horrible so striking that the reasons
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: for the demonstrations would become apparent to everyone. And of
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: course they did. The following day, President Kennedy had the
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: photograph on his desk And he called in Henry Cabot Lodge,
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: who was about to leave for Saigon as U.S. ambassador,
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: and told him, in effect, this sort of thing has
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: got to stop. And that was the beginning of the
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: end of American support for that regime. So there is
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: a theater element to it. And I think, Joseph, that
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: picks up on your word of inflation. And I'm not
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: trying to diminish what that man did, but it is
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: a complex psychological phenomenon, I think.
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: So it is a call to greater consciousness on the
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: part of witnesses, a call to change, a call, it's
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: a protest. And that takes me back to the firefighters
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: of 9-11, right? they were serving something greater, a principle
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: of duty, but there was no element there to raise
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: consciousness or to see something differently that was human and
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: noble and rescuing and serving other people, unlike the immolation
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: of the monk in Saigon, which is, do something, change something,
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: see this differently, or Thomas More of no. There's a
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: principle here. He affected other people for greater consciousness, awareness,
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: social change.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: But, you know, the other thing is that martyrdom and
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: zealotry often go hand in hand. And the other forms
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: of martyrs that we might be familiar with are suicide bombers.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: And they are, as I understand it, and this is
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: not an area of deep knowledge on my part, but
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: I believe that, and they're suicide bombers of all stripes,
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: from all cultures, but particularly when it's inspired in service
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: to the religion of Islam, It's explicitly stated that if
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: you carry out this mission, you will die as a
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: martyr and be rewarded in the next life.
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: And Japanese kamikaze pilots in World War II. So the
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: call to martyrdom in itself, if we elevate self-sacrifice to martyrdom,
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: that's a really interesting phenomenon, sacralizing something that is being
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: requested and engineered by political power.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: Perhaps, sometimes, yes.
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: Perhaps, sometimes. What I'm really starting to consider is, as
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: you mentioned that, I could feel in myself some degree
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: of wanting to push back of, no, no, no, I
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: don't agree. And that takes me sort of into the
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: psychological realm of, People in our personal lives would say, oh,
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: you know, he or she is such a martyr. We
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: know we have an internal reaction that lets us know
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: when we feel something is really noble, something truly moves us,
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: and when we feel manipulated. Right.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: And before we go there, I just want to say
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: that maybe the takeaway here is that the religious function
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: of the psyche can be manipulated. And it can be
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: manipulated by political forces. To what are we in service
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: is really, really important before we tie ourselves to the
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: train tracks or whatever it is we're going to do.
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: And is it in service to a reward? And your
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: reward may be in heaven. that in the afterlife you
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: will accrue these kinds of benefits or life everlasting or
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: whatever it is? Or is it purely for the sake
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: of something greater? Is it purely a part of the
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: religious function of the psyche? Or is it a transaction?
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: If I do this, then I will get that.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: I don't think you can easily separate those things. I mean,
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: do you think Thomas More didn't expect to go to heaven?
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: You know, I think all of them, I think Thomas More,
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: Sophie Schull, and the suicide bombers are all tapping into
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: the same thing. And so this is complex.
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: I agree that it's complex. It's not either or. Yeah. But,
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: you know, in the Christian... belief in the Christian myth,
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: you know, Jesus on the cross doesn't know what's going
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: to happen. He feels forsaken.
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: Yep. And, and so that puts it much more strongly
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: in one domain than the other.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: But sure. It's like a Venn diagram. There's overlap. Sometimes
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: a lot of overlap.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: So Jung taps into this a little bit in volume eight,
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: and I'll read a little bit of quote there. There
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: are all too many cases of men so possessed by
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: a spirit that the man does not live anymore but
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: only the spirit, and in a way that does not
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: bring him a richer and fuller life but only cripples him.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: I am far from implying that the death of a
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: Christian martyr was a meaningless and purposeless act of destruction.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: On the contrary, such a death can also mean a
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: fuller life than any other. Rather, I refer to the
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: spirit of certain sects which wholly deny life. And here
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: he says, naturally, the strict Montanist view, which was a very,
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: very ascetic group that he was very troubled by. And
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: he goes on to say, which in accord with the
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: highest moral demands of the age, but it destroyed life
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: all the same. What is it? become of the spirit
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: when it has exterminated man. I believe therefore that a
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: spirit which accords with our highest ideals will find its
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: limits set by life. And so Jung was grappling with
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: a very similar question that sometimes there is a kind
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: of spiritual force that can take hold of us which
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: can be a kind of colonizing that here this ascetic
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: religion which could be a political situation could be a
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: religion could be some other kind of complex a kind
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: of negative complex that can distort something inside of us
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: that it becomes life denying we are sacrificing something perversely
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: sacrificing something thinking That we are in service to something
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: that is great and exalted only to find out that
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: it is a sham in the end.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: I think that's exactly, and I like what you said, Joseph,
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: about how it's kind of against the life force. How
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: do we know which is which? I mean, I don't
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: know that we do. I mean, we're sort of evaluating
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: these different instances, but who's to say whether or not
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: it's a sham or it was legitimate?
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: What God are we serving? And I like this conflation
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: of sacrifice, hero, martyr, and what is it really in
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: service to? As you were saying, it's very complex. And
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: I think there is some way we know of the
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: image of that monk flame affected us. Thomas More has
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: lived on in legend. Other times we sort of tend
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: to back off, recognizing or just feeling in ourselves that
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: this was a manipulation or that this was a pointless sacrifice.
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: Somewhere our feeling function has a resonance with that helps
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: us when we can't parse it all out cognitively.
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: Well, I think that Jung in that quote is giving
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: us at least his perspective on it, which is, I
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: believe therefore that a spirit which accords with our highest
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: ideals will find its limits set by life.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: That we can, surrender to something that has extraordinary ideals
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: of a religious nature or a political nature or a
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: philosophic nature but it's still based on Jung's idea should
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: be set within the limits of life and I think
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: what he's saying is it should not cause us to
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: sacrifice our physical health or our physical life which is
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: also something that buddha said yeah having um indulged these
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: paths of tremendous asceticism and then coming back and saying
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: that was too.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: Much yeah i favor the middle path yep.
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: As a way of reaching enlightenment.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: You know you you just made me think of another
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: maybe for maybe i think they thought they were martyrs
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: is um the people in jonestown.
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: Or so they would have believed that yeah Yep.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: They, you know, so they were told, you know, give
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: the Kool-Aid to your kids first. And then, and they,
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: you know, they thought they were dying for a higher cause. And,
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: and so, you know, there might be some warning here
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: of be really thoughtful about whether or not it's actually
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: worth compromising your physical health in service to, you know,
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: What's being asked of you? And be a little bit
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: skeptical about what's being asked of you.
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: And maybe it comes to the question of what part
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: of life.
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: Are we required to sacrifice or are we required to martyr?
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: That it's metaphorical more than physical. Do you really have
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: to drink the Kool-Aid, as they say? Is that what's
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: really required? Or is it facing something, the death of
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: a belief, of something that cannot stand in the world,
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: something that I cared about and lived, and I have
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: to give that up, which is very different from physical death.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: Which goes to this idea of the, the martyr being
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: something that can be purely intra-psychic sometimes. Although, of course,
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: the examples we're using are people that fully embodied the
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: archetype and lived that out with their physical bodies. And
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: there is a middle path, again, to live a life
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: that is purely ego-driven, that is just purely sensible and
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: always adaptive is also dull.
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: Something lifeless about it. That we do need something of
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: the spirit in order to make life worth living. And
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: that can show up in terms of ideals or other
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: relationships to the imaginations. that we need both, but both
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: need to be in consultation with each other.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: Well, and again, that we have this need for meaning, Joseph,
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: I think that's a great way to frame it. But
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: because of that, we're going to have a tendency towards zealotry,
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: all of us have that capability. And so we have to,
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: like you said, sort of remain in dialogue around it,
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: like we're Where are we sort of experiencing spirit in
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: a way that's sustaining and where are we perhaps being
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: pulled into some darker manifestation of it? I wanted to
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: share a quick quote from Kierkegaard who says, the tyrant
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: dies and his rule is over. The martyr dies and
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: his rule begins.
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: The martyr becomes a symbol in the collective.
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: So maybe we can switch over and talk a little
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: bit about the more colloquial meaning of the term.
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: I've been waiting to get there.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: Go for it.
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: I've been thinking about how relational this whole concept of
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: martyrdom is, that it must be witnessed. Yep.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: It's a performance.
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: It's a performance and a statement and a call in
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: its best sense to a higher awareness, a higher consciousness,
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: adherence to, as you're saying, the religious function and a
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: principle that is more valuable. And oftentimes in personal life,
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: being a martyr is a way of disparaging somebody. I'm like, oh,
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: my God, this person is just such a martyr. But
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: behind it often is a call on that person's part,
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: the would-be martyr's part, to attention. Pay attention. Witness what
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: I am doing. Please understand me. And that beyond the
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: sense of feeling irritated or manipulated that we can sometimes
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: feel is the wish to be understood. But I think
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: when we look at somebody and I know when I
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: can feel a sense of resentment or something is being
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: triangulated or it's chronic or something else, That's what gives
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: the person who's a martyr sort of a negative feeling tone.
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: Talk about the martyr complex.
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: Fair enough, sure.
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: The martyr archetype and the historic martyrs, but the martyr complex,
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: things we see in sitcoms, things we see in our
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: personal lives, it's become really a colloquial pop psychology term,
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: which of course deserves our attention. And we're talking about
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: kind of character. And this is usually somebody who habitually
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: sacrifices their desires and needs for the benefits of others.
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: And in a way that's often, like you said, very visible,
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: that they may present themselves as perpetual victims and they're
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: quietly suffering the injustices or neglect.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: Or not so quietly.
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: Not so quietly. The eeyores of our lives. They often
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: may use their sacrifices to make other people feel guilty
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: in that way, somehow being manipulative.
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: They get the kind of emotional advantage. And just as
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: both of you said many times, a need for recognition,
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: deep-seated need to be acknowledged and appreciated. So, you know,
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: the volunteer who says, oh, of course I'll do that,
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: I didn't sleep for 30 hours in order to lick
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: all the envelopes and make sure that they all went out.
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: It was nothing at all. I don't know why I
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: just said that. But wanting that recognition that I've suffered
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: greatly to please, to serve, and there's something gratifying about
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: doing that and having it known. And I think it's
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: the manipulative quality of that when we talk about it
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: in terms of popular psychology that really gets under our skin.
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: That somebody's doing something to us as they begin to
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: shape themselves as being martyrs and particularly being martyrs for us.
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: I'm your martyr, whether or not you like it.
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: So Joseph, I'm going to go back to the word
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: that you helpfully used really early on. You talked about
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: how there's a certain kind of inflation and you even
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: said that for you, there was something protective about that
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: in childhood. But I think, you know, that kind of
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: the colloquial sense of the term martyr is, There is
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: a kind of negative inflation, like I've suffered more than
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: anyone else. This is harder for me. And there's a
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: certain kind of glorying in that. So it's related to
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: the idea of the help refusing complainer. Because, you know,
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: someone says, well, I'm just so tired and, you know,
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: but I'll do it. And then some, well, I'll take
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: that on. No, no, no, it's okay. I'll do it,
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: you know. So, and it is, there's a certain reveling in,
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: you know, how awful your situation is and making sure
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: everyone else knows about it in some way. So, there's
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: also this wonderful expression, the tyranny of the weak. And
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: I think that this kind of martyrdom that we're talking
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: about really has to do with claiming power indirectly. It's
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: a sort of subtle, backhanded way of trying to get power.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, the CEO of the company is rarely acting
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: like a martyr. There's a way that that person can
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: hold authority and ask for what she wants and be
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: very direct and But the martyr, it's like an unconscious
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: or semi-conscious kind of sideways power play.
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: And actually, isn't that present in the other dimensions of
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: martyrdom that we have discussed? The Thomas More could say,
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: I refuse to sign and I am willing to die.
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: And that is claiming a certain kind of power. And
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: then we have the help-rejecting complainer who says, no, no, no,
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: I'll just suffer vocally over here. Where we can sense
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: the resentment and the anger inherent in that situation. And
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: we have a very different reaction to it. than we
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: might have had had we been around when Thomas More
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: was making his decision. We sense that there's something manipulative,
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: something covert, and we push back. We say, okay, fine then.
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: You know, you stay here after hours and finish licking
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: all those envelopes.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm thinking of is that I'm thinking
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: that maybe both kind of martyrs are trying to evoke
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: a certain response in the other person, at least some
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: of the time. I mean, certainly the monk who self-immolated
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: was trying to change foreign policy in the rest of
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: the world toward Vietnam. But I think the sort of
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: passive-aggressive martyr is trying to— get a response too. I mean,
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: I think like, like, I think it was you, Joseph,
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: who talked about guilt, trying to evoke guilt, not actually
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: often trying to evoke real help, right? Because then you
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: might say, hey, do you have some time today to
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: help me lick envelopes? You And that's where the negative
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: inflation comes in. And sometimes I think people do this
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: because they've never had a straight shot to being admired
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: or acknowledged somehow, maybe because of a cultural reason that
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: hasn't been super open to them. So then they have
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: to do it in this kind of covert way, you know.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: So sometimes I think maybe, for example, women in a
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: more traditional culture, you know, especially women who were sort
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: of born with like a lot of leadership capacity or
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: something that's just thwarted because of life circumstances, that person
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: might become a real martyr because there's some part of
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: her that's trying to come into fullness and expression, but
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: there isn't really a way. So it comes out in
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: a kind of sideways way where, there's this kind of
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: covert expression of power and manipulation and trying to get
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: something from the other person.
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: Now, I think the idea of guilt and particularly unconscious
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: guilt and how that plays into the martyr complex, because
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: when people are holding a massive amount of unconscious guilt,
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: There's a way in which they're expiating that by putting
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: themselves in situations that produce a tremendous amount of personal
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: suffering to them. And through projective identification, the personal suffering
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: that they're displaying will make the other person feel guilty
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: so that it puts some guilt into the other person,
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: which gives the martyr a sense of relief. And this
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: kind of scenario, I think, is much more common than
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: people realize.
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: Hmm.
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: So it's a very sophisticated dance that's trying to relieve
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: tension in multiple ways. I will orchestrate punishing myself in
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: such a way that you will assume some guilt for it.
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: And both the punishment and the projective identification create a
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: temporary sense of relief in the person who's holding an
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: enormous amount of unconscious guilt.
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, another part of the dynamic maybe is
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: like kind of not really taking full responsibility for yourself, right?
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: So if you want help looking in the envelopes, you
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: don't say, gosh, I want help looking in the envelopes.
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: I better make sure I can get that somehow. Instead,
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: you kind of offload that responsibility onto those around you
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: who then, and it's a double bind, right? Because they
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: feel guilty, but there's no possible way that they can
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: relieve your suffering because you're not going to let them.
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: So it's an interesting... Configuration.
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: Because they need the personal suffering of licking 5,000 envelopes
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: over 36 hours to expiate something. And they also want
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: you to feel bad about it so that they feel
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: relief in themselves. You're right. It's a very, very complicated
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: dance and it's happening unconsciously.
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: And we all know it. Yeah, yeah. We all know
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: these people. I mean, I can acknowledge that sometimes I
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: have a little bit of that, you know, that impulse
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: to want to be the martyr. I can feel that
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: in myself. And we've probably all done it at one
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: time or another. And we probably know people who inveterately
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: do it. And generally, we just want to stay as
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: far away as possible from them. You know, I think
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: there's a connection with covert narcissism.
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: And victimhood. And the victim calls up the opposite of
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: the abuser. First, we may feel guilty, but then we
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: tend to walk out of the room and then say, fine,
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: keep licking the envelopes then. So now our would-be martyr
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: is even more of a victim, and perhaps we feel
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: guilty for leaving them to it. But it's not honest emotionally.
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah, that's a great way of putting it.
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: It's not honest.
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: You know, the person is not able to say, I
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: want help or I want your attention. I want to
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: feel cared for. I don't feel valued. And so this
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: dynamic tends to just perpetuate. It often is very chronic.
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: Yes. Yes.
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: It's like a characterological kind of thing.
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: I'm looking for kind of examples that are not extraordinary.
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: So I'm thinking about a particular client I had a
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: number of years ago who was a single parent and
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: worked very, very long hours, felt really stressed, really exhausted,
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: but deep down he felt very, very guilty because he
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: was not spending enough time with his son. And right
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: on the edge of consciousness, he felt like he was
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: neglecting the child, although in an outer way, it was
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: perfectly reasonable. He didn't earn a lot of money and
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: needed to work as much as he did. Out of
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: that guilt around not providing enough time for his son,
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: I think he started to not eat right. He lost
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: an enormous amount of weight. He would sometimes come into
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: sessions looking gaunt, dark rings under his eyes. And at
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: first I used to think, well, maybe that's required in
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: some strange way by this abusive work situation he was in.
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: But I began to see that he was orchestrating this
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: kind of self-punishing behavior that took a long time for
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: us to get to this sense of guilt that he
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: had to add a level of punishment beyond the amount
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: of work he was doing because of feeling guilty about
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: his child. And then where things really started breaking down
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: is his child started feeling incredibly guilty. And so, you know,
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: his 10-year-old son was kind of desperately and anxiously trying
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: to make amends as if he had done something wrong,
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: constantly apologizing for everything in a way that was strange
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: and odd. And so the feeling of guilt was actually
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: beginning to rise up in his son, that the father
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: was actually feeling for being neglectful.
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: Well, I think really lifting up the dynamics here, or
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: some of the dynamics in what can create a martyr complex,
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: is that a child can become parentified. That if mom
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: or dad cannot provide the kind of connection and attention
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: that the child needs... the child can begin to take
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: the responsibility for the relationship and become pleasing. So look,
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: I cleaned up the whole kitchen before you came home
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: because I know you work so hard. Look, I'm doing
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: this and I'm doing that. And that that can become
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: deeply ingrained, that you have to earn love. You have
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: to earn attention. You have to work for it. And
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: that that can then become your fictitious person who stays
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: up late licking envelopes and resents it because that's the
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: part that never gets addressed is that that was a
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: child once who deserved more parental time and attention than
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: he or she got.
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: You know, I think another way to think about this
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: phenomenon is that the martyr looks selfless, but actually is
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: behaving in a way that's very selfish. Because the martyr
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: makes a show of performing a duty at great cost
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: to him or herself. But because of the interpersonal manipulation
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: of That person is using that display of selflessness to
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: garner different rewards or attention. So there's something about that,
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: that it looks like one thing and it's actually another.
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: And that's, I think, why it kind of irritates us all.
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: But you make a good point that it's often at
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: the root of it. There is the healthy impulse for,
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: you know, the person wants something. and doesn't know how
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: to ask for it in a healthy way.
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm aware of a kind of heaviness that's landing
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: into the conversation. Yeah, yeah.
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: It's kind of a heavy topic.
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: It's very heavy. Yeah. I mean, there's the explicit pain
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: when we're watching somebody martyr themselves like that devastating scene
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: of the Buddhist monk. But even in the comedic scenes
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: of the martyring, grandmother or the martyring mother-in-law. People are
• 58:09
  Speaker 3: irritated and all of that, but actually there's a deep, dark,
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: painful substrata.
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: There's aggression and hostility in it.
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: It can be.
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm just wondering if maybe we could, because
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: I mentioned it, but it would be interesting to pick
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: it up. What's the relationship between The martyr complex and
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: covert narcissism.
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: I can see that it can be. I don't know
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: that it would be always that way. Right. But I
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: can certainly see that there is one, if someone does
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: not have an adequate sense of self and cannot garner
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: a sense of identity and positive self-image, a healthy channel,
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: one could easily discover that inflicting some form of self-harm
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: some way of even inviting overwhelming adversity towards them, could
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: give them a sense of status and a sense of
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: false sense of identity.
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: What I am thinking about is The relational quality, the
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: part that I was saying, it doesn't feel honest when
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: we feel manipulated, when there's resentment. That is tied up
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: with a desire to be seen on the part of
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: the covert narcissist or the would-be martyr that doesn't feel
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: truly relational. It doesn't feel truly genuine. that the desire
• 59:59
  Speaker 4: for admiration, the desire for acknowledgement, and we feel manipulated
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: into saying, oh gosh, you know, you licked all those envelopes,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: all 5,000 of them. We feel coerced.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's a good word.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 4: And that what is missing is relational satisfaction, a relational integrity,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 4: a a relational connection. So it feels like an odd
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 4: kind of dance that we've been coerced into. And my
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: guess is it goes way back into the seeds of
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: that person's childhood and not being loved, celebrated, enjoyed just
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: because you're there. That should be the only requirement for
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 4: a child is breathing. You're breathing and you're here and
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: I enjoy you.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: Versus this is the child that grows up to be pleasing,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 4: that grows up to be overly oriented toward doing things.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: who wasn't loved enough. And then as adults, we feel like, oh,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: you know, we have to remember to say thank you
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: to so-and-so for staying up until 3 in the morning.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: And it doesn't feel genuine. So we go in and
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: we say, oh, my God, you did all that? That's
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 4: really amazing. How could you do that? And that's not honest.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 4: As what's really wanted is let's connect. Let's talk. What's
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: happening here? Who are you? I don't want to play
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: this game.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm just, I'm just thinking about if we
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: grew up with, let's say a mother and let's face it,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: it probably usually is more often women that develop a
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: martyr complex. If we had a mother who really had
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: a martyr complex, it's hard because in a way, she
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: took up more emotional space than we did. Exactly.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: Even though it looked like she was doing everything for
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: us and she was giving up everything for us, but
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: really what was going on underneath the surface is the
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: whole system was oriented around her emotional needs. So it
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: can be kind of confusing.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: With the martyr and the narcissist... seeking sympathy and validation
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: by portraying themselves as suffering and self-sacrificing.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: Yes. And that is the neurotic suffering that Jung talks
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 4: about over and over again and not the true suffering.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: And that's what we pick up when we're dealing with
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 4: somebody who has a martyr complex.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: That's great that it's the neurotic suffering and we just
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: feel that. Yes.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: And I think we're also talking about this idea of
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: emotional blackmail.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. That's great.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: Just that, you know, you have caused me so much suffering, you,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: you causing me and, and, and that then you'll become
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: compliant in some way. So for the narcissists, Your supposed
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: mistreatment of me is driven to gain control or to
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: get attention. And then a little more martyring standpoint, you
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: have caused me suffering as a way of getting compliance,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: that you're going to do what I need or what
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: I want. So this amplification of this perceived victimhood and
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: to then validate the need for special treatment and to
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: manipulate how you're going to perceive me in the future.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: And that's definitely an intersection between those things, I think.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: I'm also just thinking about how they're somewhat different as well.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: I think that with the covert narcissist that there's actually
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: an inherent tension though because there's this internal self-perception of superiority,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: which is trying to assert itself. And yet in order
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: to get that, they have to pretend to be vulnerable
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: and inadequate. So it's like an itch that doesn't get
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: really scratched, satisfied. In the martyr complex, these public displays
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: of suffering and sacrifice often more successfully feed a sense
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: of righteous superiority for the suffering.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: So there's a little more.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: Ruins in the martyr and a little not quite fitting
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: the bill for the narcissist.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. But you raised that really good point that
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: martyrdom does always come with a sense of righteousness.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: Inherently.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right. And again, that's maybe like whether or not
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: you're talking about the kind of traditional meaning of the
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: of the word or the colloquial meaning we've been talking
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: about that that little sense of self-righteousness that's always that
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: should always make you pause if you're feeling self-righteous you
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: should maybe just insert a pause and do some self-reflection
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: because we can get carried away back to inflation i
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: mean i think self-righteousness often goes along with inflation.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 3: And criticism is also a part that the covert narcissist
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: is very excruciatingly sensitive to criticism. So the self-sacrifice has
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: to increase the status in some way. Well, for the martyr,
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: having criticism heaped upon them can actually be used as
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: further proof of their martyrdom and actually reinforce the inflation. Well,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: of course you would criticize me. Pontius Pilate didn't like
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: me either. So being reviled feeds the martyr complex, but
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: being reviled is a terrible, excruciating experience for the narcissist.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 4: So it seems to me I've been thinking about, you know,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 4: how does this tie in with the religious function of
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 4: there's the martyr complex at one end of the spectrum
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 4: and then you know, the Thomas Moores at the other
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 4: end of the spectrum. And I'm thinking that martyrdom and
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 4: the sacrifice literally of one's life in the extreme should
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 4: result in higher consciousness. That that is, you know, certainly
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 4: what happened with Jesus on the cross with Thomas Moore
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 4: with you know, a number of examples that we could
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 4: cite of people go, oh my gosh, this was for
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 4: something greater. And it inspires from the martyr's sense of consciousness,
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: of realization, values, connection with something spiritual. versus something that
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: is just a chronic thing that feels kind of awful,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: feels like we're being manipulated, it's tinged with resentment or
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 4: a sense of being coerced. But we should be hoping
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 4: for a transformation of consciousness, that this martyrdom... elevated us.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 4: We see it differently. I get it. There's something greater.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: Well, that feels like a good summation, Deb. And maybe
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: that's our final word on this topic, at least for now.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: And we can switch over to a dream. Before we
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: switch to a dream, I just want to let everyone
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: know about our Patreon. Basically, every week we offer a
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: sort of little mini episode that We either take a
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: question from a listener or we interpret a dream from
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: a patron. So if you can't get enough of This
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: Jungian Life and you need a little more, go on
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: over to our website, thisjungianlife.com. And if you click on
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: podcast at the top, one of the options on the
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: dropdown menu is Become a patron. Or you can look
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: us up on Patreon.com. And you can support us for
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: as little as $ 1 a month. And that will help
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: us keep the lights on. So maybe take a look
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: at that.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 4: This week's dreamer is a woman who is 40 years old.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 4: I'm imagining she's British because she says, I'm a full-time mom,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 4: which I think is really charming.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 4: The title of her dream is Pine Needle Elixir for Men.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 4: And here's the dream. I possess some kind of potent
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 4: male elixir for health. It is a sticky clear syrup
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 4: made from pine needles. I'm not sure what to do
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 4: with it. I'm being interviewed or it's the first day
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 4: of a new job, a job I'm not sure I want.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 4: But because I have this elixir, I've applied and am
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 4: right for it. My new boss, a woman, is showing
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 4: me around. She's not the kind of woman I connect with.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 4: Maybe a career woman in a cheap suit or sportswear
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 4: running a place for men, a gym or a male
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: health center. I don't think my boss knows I have
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 4: this elixir. I'm waiting until she's done showing me around
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 4: to present it. I'm pretending to be interested, but I
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 4: know I just want to present the elixir and be
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 4: done with it. I'm not interested in this place. I'm
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 4: not sure how to use the elixir or really anything
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 4: about it. As soon as I have the opportunity to
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 4: start the job, I start asking questions about it to
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 4: my new boss. Is it safe? What should I say
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 4: about it? I don't want to make false claims. I
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 4: possess this elixir kind of reluctantly. I have a vague
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 4: sense that it may need to be administered through a blowjob.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 4: I really don't want to have to do that to
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 4: all the men here and feel dread about it. I
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 4: think of the possibility of catching a disease if I
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 4: have to give a blowjob to that many men. I
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 4: hope there's another way to take it and that I
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 4: can just offer it and allow the men to administer
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 4: the elixir to themselves if they want. I really don't
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 4: want to be much a part of it. There's a
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 4: sense that I'd rather not have to be involved in
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 4: all this, but it's maybe an opportunity, my duty as
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 4: possessor of this elixir? The context is I have just
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 4: turned 40, what seems like a significant transition. I'm trying
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 4: to figure out who I am again after a lifetime
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 4: of not listening to my needs and desires. and really
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 4: trying to turn the tide and figure out what is
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 4: next for me in this new stage of life. I
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 4: desire a more potent relationship with my creativity and am
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 4: doing what I can to carve small moments for creativity
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 4: amongst the demands of motherhood. I have also been trying
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 4: to be more present as I am often overtaken by
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 4: thought and doing and often feel alienated from my body.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 4: After a period of two years of very depleted sleep,
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 4: I recently reclaimed the night for myself and am finally
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 4: starting to get sleep. I wish it hadn't taken me
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: so long to make this change. The main feelings in
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 4: the dream, she says, are feeling like I just wanted
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 4: to pass this elixir on so it could be used.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 4: I felt no power possessing it and really didn't want
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 4: to demand that I get on my knees to administer it.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 4: There was a detachment from what was happening, the job
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 4: I now had and what it might demand of me.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 4: And for additional context, the dreamer says, the environment of
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 4: the gym or male health center reminds me of my
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 4: first job, a place I worked in at weekends when
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 4: I was 15. It was a bodybuilding gym and I
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 4: really didn't like it much and all the people who
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 4: worked there They hired me because I was pretty and
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 4: young and the men liked to see me on the reception.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 4: The woman that ran it was a female bodybuilder and
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 4: she had a bodybuilding husband. To me, they were ugly, vain, boring,
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 4: full of steroids, and not very nice people. This world
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 4: lacked creativity, culture, beauty, style, intellect, all the things that
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 4: I was interested in.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: So I have to say that when I was picking
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: dreams this morning before we recorded and I saw this one,
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: I thought, oh, I bet Joseph is going to have
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 2: a lot to say about this dream.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 3: I can't imagine why. Oh, me either. Where I want
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 3: to start is the difference between what's actually happening in
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 3: the dream and the amount of fantasy material that the
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 3: dream ego introduces. Mm-hmm. the dream itself doesn't have an
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 3: awful lot to the story. But it is full of
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 3: an awful lot of fear and assumptions on the dream
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 3: ego side, which probably have to be confronted.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: Well, if we begin right at the beginning, first of all,
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: there's the title of the dream. And I think she
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: titled it An Elixir for Men, Or something?
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 4: Pine needle.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: Pine needle elixir ferment. So I'm going to let Joseph
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: attack the pine needles because I know where you're going
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: to go with that. No, please.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 4: Oh, you do? Because I don't.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure. At least go for it.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: It's, well, I mean, we'll get there, but I'm thinking
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: of the myth of Attis.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 4: Could be. Okay.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: But I actually wanted to start with this word elixir
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 2: because I looked it up. It's used throughout the dream.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: And And here are the synonyms. Again, this is Merriam-Webster.
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: A substance held capable of changing base metals into gold,
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: which is the same thing as the alchemical philosopher's stone.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: And it's a substance held capable of prolonging life indefinitely
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: or a cure-all. So it's the sort of magical thing
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 2: that transforms life. I thought that the new boss who
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: the dream ego seems to have some disdain for, you know,
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: that she's a career woman in a cheap suit or something,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: not my kind of person. It's like, well, when the
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: dream ego has disdain for a same-sex figure, it's like, okay, shadow, right?
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: So her shadow is a female boss. And it mirrors
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: a little bit this experience that she had when she
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: was younger of working in this bodybuilding gym. And she says,
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: you know, I didn't like this couple. It's not, you know,
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: they're not, what were some of the adjectives?
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 4: They were vain.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: Vain, lacked creativity, culture, style, beauty, intellect. Yes, I'm sure
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: it's true. But again, what are the values that are
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 2: egocentronic or are embraced by the ego? So we can
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: imagine that this woman embraces creativity, culture, style, beauty, intellect.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: But then the shadow is what are the qualities that
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: are ego dystonic or that are rejected by the ego.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: And here it's power. It's power that is rejected by
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 2: the ego, whether it's the power of the bodybuilder or
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 2: the boss as the dream figure, the boss in the
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: cheap suit. You know, she has power and this dream
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 2: ego feels kind of disdainful of it. So I have
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: a feeling that her own power and effectiveness is somewhat
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 2: in the shadow for her. But she has the elixir.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: She has the thing that can transform it. And she
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 2: knows that she needs it. Because in her associations, she said,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: I desire a more potent relationship with my creativity. So
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: she even used that word. You know, potent comes from
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: a similar root as power, potency.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 4: The storyline that I'm kind of tracking in the dream
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 4: is the storyline of being one down. Our dream ego
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 4: is the one with the elixir. She has the power.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 4: She's got the stuff. But as the dream wends its
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 4: way along, the way that it's administered, it's as if
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 4: she has to administer it, and she has to administer
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 4: it by giving these men blowjobs instead of being able
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 4: to use it herself. And what I thought of mythologically
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 4: is the myth of Psyche and Eros, where Psyche is
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 4: living with and kind of married to the god Eros,
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 4: and Psyche is a human woman. And she dares to
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 4: look upon him and in so doing spills hot wax
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 4: on him. And off he goes. He's out of there.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 4: And Psyche then has to do all these tasks to
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 4: earn her way back to to civilization and favor. And
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 4: her very last task is to go into Hades and
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 4: get Persephone's beauty box to give to Aphrodite, her mother-in-law.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 4: After she literally goes all the way to hell and
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 4: back and gets the beauty box, something wakes up in
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 4: her and it's as if her internal dialogue is, hey,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 4: I did all the work. I'm the one that got
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 4: the special beauty box. What am I going to give
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 4: it to you for?
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 4: I want this. And that's what I'm looking for in
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 4: the dream is that place of turnaround that doesn't happen
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 4: in this dream of, it's my elixir. I've got it.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 4: I want to use it for my own advancement and growth.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: Yes. But I want to say that the thing about
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 2: the blowjob is so interesting, right? Because that would be
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 2: a very weird way to administer a medication. Because actually
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: what happens in a blowjob is you ingest something. You
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: don't put something into someone. And she even says somewhere
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 2: I was looking, you know, that she would sort of
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: have to go down on her knees.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: So there's something about being receptive to the masculine principle. Right.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: So she doesn't want to do that or she's worried
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 2: that it's going to make her ill. But, but I
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 2: think in some sense, that's what's needed not to, not
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 2: to be, you know, subject to men, but to be, to,
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 2: to be, to, to sort of be open to the
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 2: masculine principle that, that somehow I think that if she
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 2: gave all those men, the blow jobs in some sense,
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 2: that would be the elixir. And obviously this is the
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 2: fanciful language of the dream, not, not a literal, uh, suggestion, uh,
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: But it's interesting that the dream ego is a little
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 2: bit like, no, I don't want to do that. But
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: that might be what is required to take in the
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: masculine force, the forcefulness of the masculine, which she started
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 2: to do by reclaiming the night so that she can
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 2: begin to sleep.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 3: The dream is full of so much resentment. And it's
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 3: almost like the... action of the dream is so small,
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 3: it's so bare bones, but it's all slathered with resentment,
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 3: which makes me wonder how much of the very basic
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 3: structure of her life is slathered or plastered with resentment,
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 3: which makes it so unclear how to orient to things.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 3: So if I just look at the facts of the dream,
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 3: I have pine syrup. I interview for a job. A
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 3: woman shows me around. I ask questions about the syrup.
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 3: That's the only action of the dream. Everything else is
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 3: this kind of resentful subtext that she is introducing. The
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 3: dream ego is introducing into the process. Is it an elixir?
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 3: How does she know it's an elixir? She knows nothing
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 3: about it. She has a fantasy that it's an elixir.
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 3: but she's asking questions because she doesn't know if it's
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 3: an elixir. She wants to think it is. Is this
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 3: a job? Has she been hired? Is this woman asking
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 3: her to do anything? She's already decided she doesn't want
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 3: to do anything. She doesn't even want to be there,
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 3: but nobody's asked her to be there. Nobody's asked her
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 3: to do anything. She doesn't even know that it's a medicament,
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 3: no pun intended, or that it's going to have any
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 3: kind of positive effect And she's fantasizing about giving blowjobs
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 3: to some grand number of guys in this gym as
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 3: she's saying, well, I don't want to have to do that,
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 3: but I can't stop myself from thinking about it. Well,
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 3: who's the one who's thinking about all those dicks? The
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 3: dream maker isn't whipping all those dicks out and waving
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 3: them at her.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 4: No.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 3: There's not an army of men with erections all standing
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 3: looking at her expectantly for healing. She's the one who's
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 3: fantasizing about providing blowjobs to some army of expectant men
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 3: who will interpret this as a healing process. And then
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 3: the ego says, but I don't want to do that.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 3: But the ego is the one who's generating the fantasy.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 3: So what I... Here in the dream is a classic neurosis,
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 3: that the things that I'm fantasizing about are the things
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 3: that are not allowed, or the things that I'm considering
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 3: are the things that I'm also attacking. But the dream
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 3: is very simple. You have some syrup, you don't know
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 3: what it's for, and you could ask some questions about
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 3: what it's for. And all the other intrusive dynamics of
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 3: whether or not you have to be on your knees
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 3: or whether or not you have to service armies of
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 3: men or whether or not you're an employee or you
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 3: should take the job or not take the job are
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 3: totally irrelevant. The question is, what's the syrup? What's it's
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 3: good for? Do you care about that in any particular way?
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 3: So to me, there's such an intrusion of neurotic material
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 3: into something that is is actually of just a simple inquiry.
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 3: If we take this to her creativity, you have a
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 3: creative impulse. How complicated are you making it? And we
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 3: see this all the time. Somebody, let's say, who's been
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 3: an accountant, they wake up and they want to, you know,
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 3: they think, God, I'd love to learn how to paint.
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 3: My goodness, the machinations they often have to go through
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 3: to get themselves to a painting class Well, what if
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 3: I'm not any good? What if people shame me? I
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 3: have to be perfect. And then there's this, but we're
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 3: never going to get the time. I really shouldn't do that,
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 3: but I could do this. Should it be acrylic? Should
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 3: it be ink pastels? Oil pastels? Maybe I should do
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 3: pen and ink. And this kind of mountain of stuff
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 3: accretes around something that is so simple. You know, my friend,
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 3: if you wish to learn to paint, sign up for
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 3: a class. Learn how to paint. But this tidal wave
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 3: of complications and distress and this intrusion of my self-esteem
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 3: and whether or not somebody thought I painted a good
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 3: picture when I was in first grade. So all the
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 3: neurotic material interferes massively into some, and this is true
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 3: about all of us, by the way, interferes in something
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 3: which is perhaps a very simple inquiry about A little
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 3: thing and what it may or may not mean. So
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 3: my first curiosity would be to look up what pine
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 3: syrup is good for or not good for. Just in
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 3: kind of an herbal compendium. Just start there and try
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 3: to get a sense of how the medicine might be useful,
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 3: as you were both saying, for her.
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, she has the power, but
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 2: she wants to disavow it. You know, she has, and Deb,
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 2: I think this is kind of where you were going,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 2: you know, she says, you know, I really don't want
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: to be a part of it. You know, I'd rather
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 2: not be involved, you know. So, she wants to kind
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 2: of distance herself from it, but she has the power. And,
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 2: you know, what I'll say is that I'm guessing that
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 2: her child is young because she talks about sort of
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 2: not sleeping. Does she, does she actually give the child's age?
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: But anyway, been there and, and it's, you know, it's, it's,
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 2: it's horrific. And it is that period. It's, it is
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 2: very difficult to kind of claim your own power because you,
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 2: you do need to be in service to this young child,
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 2: which can be, what I meant is sleep disturbance can
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 2: be horrific. Being the parent of a young child can be,
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 2: Many things, including delicious. But the sleep disturbance is really hard. And,
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 2: you know, it could be that she's at this part
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 2: of her journey where she needs to claim the potency
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 2: of that potion.
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 4: You know, I will say, you know, having been a woman.
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 2: As far as we know, you still are.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 4: And having been the mother of young children. I can
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 4: appreciate the dilemma that many women and mothers are in,
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 4: having to use your power on behalf of your needy child, baby, toddler, child, children,
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 4: that you have to put other people first. And it
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 4: can lead to a terrible dilemma about To what extent
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 4: can I use my own power for my own self?
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 4: like your example, Joseph, of can I just go take
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 4: a painting class? Oh, no, because that will be using
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 4: resources and time for something frivolous and something that's just
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 4: for me when I really should be serving my children
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 4: and my family and so on and so forth. So
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 4: I can appreciate the dilemma of, of women, especially mothers who,
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 4: who have to use their power on behalf of others
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 4: so much of the time.
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 4: And then it makes using your power for yourself, you know, feel,
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 4: feel forbidden, feel, feel, feel selfish as if it's a
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 4: zero sum game. And the more I take for myself,
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 4: the less there's going to be for other people. Which
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 4: is not true. It's true to some extent, but it's
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 4: a real dilemma.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: You've been listening to This Jungian Life. From our website, thisjungianlife.com,
• 1:29:44
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• 1:29:51
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• 1:29:55
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• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: for today's show and hope you'll let us know what
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  Speaker 1: topics you'd enjoy hearing more about. Until next time, keep
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: living this Jungian life.