Latest / This Jungian Life Podcast / Ready for the Real Snow White? The True Tale of Envy, Murder, and Retribution

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Ready for the Real Snow White? The True Tale of Envy, Murder, and Retribution · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:14
  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.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:28
  Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst on Cape Cod.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: Today we're going to do an analysis of Snow White.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: It's always fun when Deb and I are on our own.
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: Lisa is traveling today to pick up a fairy tale
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: and kind of move it around, look at it, be
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: curious about it from a Jungian perspective. And it can
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: be really interesting and exciting, particularly a fairy tale that
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: is so present in our modern culture. Cinderella, Snow White,
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: Sleeping Beauty, some of these fairy tales, which are ancient,
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: some people speculate are perhaps even thousands of years old
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: before they were finally recorded, often by the Grimm's brothers
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: for us. capture ancient and archetypal information. One of the
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: things that's unique about fairy tales is that fairy tales
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: have been curated by the collective for hundreds if not
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: thousands of years, meaning that if a story is too
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: tied to a specific cultural narrative, over time it tends
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: to fall away. If a story has ancient and eternal
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: patterns in it. It stays alive regardless of time and culture.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: So we're turning to the original Grimm's version of the story,
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: which is quite different from what we might be familiar
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: with in the Disney cartoons, or what turned out to
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: be the rather disappointing recent Disney reimagining of the story.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: So here we are with Snow White. And underneath the
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: fantasy of poison apples and magic mirrors are many themes
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: that are relevant to us. You know, the brutal pressures
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: of comparison, the terror of aging, the obsession with youth,
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: the fraught process of growing into adulthood and becoming oneself,
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: and the loss of innocence when we meet betrayal. We
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: all have evil stepmothers, so to speak, voices inside of
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: us that give us ill advice. So there is a
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: universality to all of these tales. And Snow White, which
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: seems to be very alive in the collective, is one
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: that we're going to work with today. So We're going
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: to begin by reading the original tale, and then we're
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: all going to roll up our sleeves. The original tale,
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: there'll be a link in the show notes if you
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: would like to have access to the original tale while
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: we're working with it on the episode.
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: And if you want to just sit back, relax, and
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: let yourself be read to, that will be really great, too.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: On Saturday, May 17th, join me and Deb for a
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Shadow and Dreams seminar, a sneak preview of how we
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: work with shadow and dreams in this Jungian Life Dream School.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Every night, our dreams confront us with shadow, what the
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: waking mind doesn't want to know. Our dreams bring shadow
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: close in order to compensate, compliment, or contradict the conscious attitude.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: During the one-hour session, we'll dive deeper into Carl Jung's
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: concept of the shadow and see how it fits in
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: with dream work. We'll also conduct a live dream interpretation
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: using a dream submitted by an attendee. There'll be time
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: to ask your questions about union dream analysis, and we'll
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: reveal a special TJL dream school offering for spring 2025,
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: exclusive to seminar attendees. There will be a recording available
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: if you book a space and then can't make it.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: So if you're curious about shadow and dreams, or would
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: like to know more about our dream school, we hope
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: to see you at 12 p.m. Eastern time, on Saturday,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: May 17th. Follow the link in the show notes to
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: book your free space.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: And so the Grimm's Brothers titled this Little Snow White.
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: Once upon a time in the middle of winter, when
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: snowflakes were falling like feathers from the sky, a beautiful
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: queen was sitting and sewing at a window with a
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: black ebony frame. And as she was sewing and looking
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: out the window at the snow, she pricked her finger
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: with the needle and three drops of blood fell on
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: the snow. The red looked so beautiful on the white
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: snow that she thought to herself, If only I had
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: a child as white as snow, as red as blood,
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: and black as the wood of the window frame. Soon thereafter,
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: she gave birth to a little daughter who was as
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: white as snow, as red as blood, and her hair
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: as black as ebony. That's why the child was called
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: Little Snow White. The queen was the most beautiful woman
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: in the entire land and was very proud about her beauty.
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: She also had a mirror, and every morning she stepped
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: in front of it and asked, Mirror, mirror on the wall,
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: who in this land is fairest of all? And the
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: mirror would answer, You, my queen, are fairest of all.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: And then she knew for certain. that there was nobody
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: more beautiful in the entire world. However, little Snow White
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: grew up, and when she was seven years old, she
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: was so beautiful that her beauty surpassed even that of
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: the queen. And when the queen asked her mirror, Mirror,
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: mirror on the wall, who in this land is fairest
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: of all? The mirror answered, You, my queen, may have
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: a beauty quite rare. but Little Snow White is a
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: thousand times more fair. Well, when the queen heard the
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: mirror speak this way, she became pale with envy, and
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: from that hour onward she hated Snow White. And when
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: she looked at her and thought that Little Snow White
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: was to blame, that she, the queen, was no longer
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: the most beautiful woman in the world, her heart turned
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: against Little Snow White. Her jealousy kept upsetting her, and
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: so she summoned the huntsman and said, Take the child
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: out into the forest, to a spot far from here,
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: then stab her to death, and bring me back her
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: lungs and liver as proof of your deed, and after
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: that I'll cook them with salt and eat them. The
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: huntsman took little Snow White and led her out into
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: the forest, but when he drew his hunting knife and
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: was about to stab her, she began to weep. and
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: pleaded so much to let her live and promised never
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: to return but to run deeper into the forest, the
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: huntsman was moved to pity, also because she was so beautiful. Anyway,
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: he thought the wild beasts in the forest would soon
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: devour her. I'm glad I won't have to kill her.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: Just then, a young boar came dashing by and the
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: huntsman stabbed it to death. He took out the lungs
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: and liver and brought it to the queen as proof
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: that the child was dead, and she boiled them in salt,
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: ate them, and thought she had eaten Little Snow White's
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: lungs and liver. Meanwhile, Little Snow White was so all
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: alone in the huge forest that she became afraid and
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: began to run and run over sharp stones and through
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: thorn bushes. She ran the entire day, and finally, as
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: the sun was about to set, she came upon a
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: little college. that belonged to seven dwarves. However, they were
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: not home, but had gone to their minds. When little
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: Snow White entered, she found everything tiny, but dainty and neat.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: There was a little table with a white tablecloth, and
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: on it were seven little plates and seven tiny spoons,
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: seven tiny knives and tiny forks, and seven tiny cups.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: In a row against the wall stood seven little beds.
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: recently covered with sheets. Since she was so hungry and thirsty,
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: Little Snow White ate some vegetables and bread from each
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: of the little plates and had a drop of wine
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: to drink out of each tiny cup. And since she
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: was so tired, she wanted to lay down and sleep.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: So she began trying out the beds, but none of
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: them suited her until she found that the seventh one
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: was just right. So she lay down in it and
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: fell asleep. When it turned night, The seven dwarves returned
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: home from their work and lit their seven little candles.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: Then they saw that someone had been in their house.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: And the first dwarf said, Who's been sitting in my chair?
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: Who's eaten off my plate? And the second, Who's eaten
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: some of my bread? And the third, Who's eaten some
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: of my vegetables? And the fourth, Who's been using my fork?
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: And the fifth, Who's been cutting with my little knife?
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: And the sixth, who has something to drink from my
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: little cup? Then the dwarf looked around and said, Who's
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: been sleeping in my bed? And the second cried out,
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: Someone's been sleeping in my bed. And he was followed
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: by each one of them until the seventh dwarf looked
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: at his bed and saw little Snow White lying there asleep.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: The others came running over to him, and they were
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: so astounded that they screamed and fetched their seven little
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: candles to observe Little Snow White. Oh, my lord! Oh,
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: my lord! they explained. How beautiful she is! They took
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: great delight in her, but didn't wake her up. Instead,
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: they let her sleep in the bed while the seventh
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: dwarf spent an hour in each one of his companions'
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: bed until the night had passed. When Little Snow White awoke,
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: They asked her who she was and how she had
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: managed to come to their cottage. Then she told them
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: how her mother had wanted to have her killed, how
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: the huntsman had spared her life, and how she had
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: run all day until she had eventually arrived at their cottage.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: Then the dwarves took pity on her and said, If
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: you keep house for us, cook, sew, and make the beds,
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: wash and knit, and if you'll keep everything neat and orderly,
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: you can stay with us. and we'll provide you with
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: everything you need. When we come home in the evening,
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: dinner must be ready. During the day we're in the
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: mines and dig for gold. You'll be alone and we'll
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: have to watch out for the queen and not let
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: anyone enter the cottage. In the meantime, the queen believed
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: that she was once again the most beautiful woman in
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: the land and stepped before her mirror and asked, Mirror,
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: mirror on the wall, who is the fairest in the land?
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: Of all, the mirror answered, You, my queen, may have
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: a quite rare beauty, but beyond the seven mountains I
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: must tell Little Snow White is living quite well. Indeed,
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: she's still a thousand times more fair. When the queen
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: heard this she was horrified, for she saw that she
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: had been deceived and that the huntsman had not killed
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: Little Snow White. Since nobody but the seven dwarves lived
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: in the Seven Mountains region, the queen knew immediately that
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: Little Snow White was dwelling with them, and began once
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: again plotting ways to kill her. As long as the
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: mirror refused to say that she was the most beautiful
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: woman in the land, she would remain upset, since she
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: couldn't be absolutely certain and didn't trust anyone. She disguised
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: herself as an old peddler woman, painted her face so
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: that nobody could recognize her, and went to the cottage
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: of the seven dwarves, where she knocked at the door
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: and cried out, Open up! Open up! I'm the old
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: peddler woman. I've got pretty wares for sale. Little Snow
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: White looked out the window. What do you have for sale?
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: Stay laces, dear child, the old woman replied. and took
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: out a lace woven from yellow, red, and blue silk.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: Do you want it? Well, yes, said Little Snow White,
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: and thought, I can certainly let this good old woman inside.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: She's honest enough. So Little Snow White unbolted the door
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: and bought the lace. My goodness, you're so sloppily laced up,
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: said the old woman. Come, I'll lace you up properly
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: for once. Little Snow White stood in front of the
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: old woman who took the lace and tied it around
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: Little Snow White so tightly that she lost her breath
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: and fell down as if dead. Then the queen was
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: satisfied and left. Not long after nightfall the dwarves came
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: home and when they saw their dear Snow White lying
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: on the ground they were horrified for she seemed to
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: be dead. They lifted her up and when they saw
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: that she was laced too tightly, they cut the lace
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: in two, and at once she began to breathe a little,
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: and after a while she had fully revived. That was
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: nobody else but the queen, they said. She wanted to
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: take your life. Be careful, and don't let anyone else
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: into the cottage. Now the queen asked her mirror, Mirror,
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: mirror on the wall, who in this land is fairest
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: of all? The mirror answered, You, my queen, may have
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: a beauty quite rare, but little Snow White's alive. This
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: I must tell. She's with the dwarves and doing quite well, indeed.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: She's still a thousand times more fair. The queen was
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: so horrified that all her blood rushed to her heart,
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: and when she realized that little Snow White was alive
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: once again, so she began thinking day and night how
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: she could put an end to Little Snow White. Finally,
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: she made a poisoned comb, disguised herself in a completely
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: different shape, and went off to the dwarves' cottage once again.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: When she knocked on the door, however, Little Snow White
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: called out, I'm not allowed to let anyone enter. The
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: queen then took out the comb, and when Little Snow
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: White saw it shine, and that the woman was someone
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: entirely different from the one she had previously met, she
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: opened the door and bought the comb. Come, said the
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: peddler woman, I'll comb your hair. But no sooner did
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: the old woman stick the comb in little Snow White's
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: hair than the maiden fell down and was dead. Now
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: you'll remain lying there, the queen said. and her heart
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: became lighter as she returned home. However, the dwarves came
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: just in the nick of the time. When they saw
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: what happened, they pulled the poison comb out of Little
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: Snow White's hair, and she opened her eyes and was
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: alive again. She promised the dwarves that she would certainly
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: not let anyone inside again. Now the queen stepped in
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: front of her mirror once more and asked, Mirror, mirror
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: on the wall, who in this land is fairest of all?
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: The mirror answered, You, my queen, may have a beauty
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: quite rare, but little Snow White's alive. This I must tell,
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: she's with the dwarves and doing quite well indeed. She's
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: still a thousand times more fair. When the queen heard
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: this once again, she trembled and shook with rage. Little
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: Snow White shall die, she exclaimed, even if it costs
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: me my own life. Then she went into a secret
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: chamber where no one was allowed to enter. Once inside,
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: she made a deadly poisonous apple. On the outside, it
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: looked beautiful with red cheeks. Anyone who saw it would
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: be enticed. to take a bite. Thereafter she disguised herself
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: as a peasant woman, went to the dwarves' cottage, and
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: knocked on the door. Little Snow White looked and said,
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: I'm not allowed to let anyone inside. The seven dwarves
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: have strictly forbidden me. Well, if you don't want to
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: let me in, I can't force you, answered the peasant woman.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: I'll surely get rid of my apples in time. But
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: let me give you one to test. No, said Little
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: Snow White. I'm not allowed to take anything. The dwarves
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: won't let me. You're probably afraid, said the old woman. Look,
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: I'll cut the apple in two. You eat the beautiful
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: red half. However, the apple had been made with such
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: cunning that only the red part was poisoned. When Little
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: Snow White saw the peasant woman eating her half, and
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: when her desire to taste the apple grew stronger, she
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: finally let the peasant woman give her the other half
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: through the window. As soon as she took a bite
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: of the apple, she fell to the ground and was dead.
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: The queen rejoiced and went home and asked the mirror, Mirror,
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: mirror on the wall, who in this land is the
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: fairest of all? And the mirror answered, You, my queen.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: are now the fairest of all. Now I can rest
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: in peace, she said. Once again. I am the most
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: beautiful in the land, and Snow White will remain dead
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: this time. When the dwarves came home from the mines
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: that evening, they found little Snow White lying on the ground,
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: and she was dead. They unlaced her and tried to
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: find something poisonous in her hair, but nothing helped. They
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: couldn't revive her. So they laid her on a byre,
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: and all seven of them sat down beside it and
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: wept and wept for three whole days. Then they intended
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: to bury her, but she looked more alive than dead,
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: and she still had such pretty red cheeks, so instead
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: they made a glass coffin and placed her inside so
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: that she could easily be seen. Then they wrote her
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: name on the coffin in gold letters and added the
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: family name. One of the dwarves remained at home every
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: day to keep watch over her. So little Snow White
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: lay in the coffin for a long, long time, but
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: did not rot. She was still white as snow and
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: red as blood, and if her eyes could have opened
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: they would have been black as ebony, for she lay
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: there as if she was sleeping. Now it happened that
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: a prince came to the dwarves' cottage one day and
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: wanted to spend the night there. When he entered the
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: room and saw Little Snow White lying in the coffin,
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: and the seven little candles casting their light upon her,
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: he couldn't get enough of her beauty. Then he read
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: the golden inscription and saw that she was a princess.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: So he asked the dwarves to sell him the coffin
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: with the dead little Snow White inside, but they wouldn't
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: accept all the gold in the world for it. Then
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: he pleaded with them to give little Snow White to
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: him as a gift because he couldn't live without gazing
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: upon her. and he would honor her and hold her
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: in high regard as his most beloved in this world. Well,
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: the dwarves took pity on him and gave him the coffin,
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: and the prince had it carried to his castle. It
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: was then placed in his room, where he himself sat
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: the entire day and couldn't take his eyes off her.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: And when he had to leave the room and couldn't
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: see a little Snow White, he became sad. Indeed, he
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: couldn't eat a thing unless he was standing near the coffin. However,
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: the servants had to carry the coffin from place to
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: place in the castle all the time and became angry
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: about this. And one time a servant opened the.
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: Coffin, lifted a little Snow White into the air and said,
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: Why must me be plagued with so much work all
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: because of a dead maiden? On saying this, He shoved
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: Little Snow White back with his hand and out popped
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: the nasty piece of apple that had been stuck in
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: Little Snow White's throat, and she was once again alive.
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: As soon as this happened, she went to the prince,
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: and when he saw his dear Little Snow White alive,
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: he rejoiced so much that he didn't know what to do.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: Then they sat down at the dinner table and ate
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: with delight. The wedding was planned for the very next day,
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: and Snow White's godless mother was invited to attend. When
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: she now stepped before the mirror, she said, Mirror, mirror
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: on the wall, who in this land is the fairest
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: of all? And the mirror replied, You, my queen, may
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: have a beauty quite rare, but little Snow White is
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: a thousand times more fair. When she heard this, she
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: was horrified and became so afraid, so very afraid, that
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: she didn't know what to do. However, her jealousy drove
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: her so much that she wanted to be seen at
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: the wedding. When she arrived, she saw that Little Snow
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: White was the bride. Iron slippers were then heated over
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: a fire. The queen had to put them on and
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: dance in them, and her feet were miserably burned. But
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: she had to keep dancing in them until she danced
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: herself to death. Now, that's quite a different story from
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: the Disneyfication of it.
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: The Disneyfication. I like that. Yes. And, you know, many
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: tales that the Brothers Grimm wrote down, they altered the mother,
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: the wicked mother in the fairy tale, to a wicked stepmother,
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: because these were going to be tales for children or
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: that included children. And they just thought it was all
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: just too, pardon the pun, grim for children. So oftentimes
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: it's the wicked stepmother, but in this story, It's Mommy Dearest,
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: who is wicked. And the other fairy tale about the
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: queen's awful demise of having to put on shoes that
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: are heated is like the story of The Red Shoes,
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: where the disobedient girl has to dance in shoes that
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: are red hot until she drops down dead.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: So these fairy tales, Unlike the Disneyfication process, are brutal
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: and violent. The child is going to be killed. The mom,
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: mother keeps trying to kill her.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's a dangerous world.
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: And the punishment eventually for the would-be murderess is gruesome.
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: Yes, and cannibalism. Mom's going to eat your liver and
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: your lungs.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: Let's not leave out the cannibalism part.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. We're in Silence of the Lambs now. Yeah.
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: Yep. So I think this really points to the archetypal
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: reality of the original fairy tales and the vividness of
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: human shadow. of the things that could be foisted onto,
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: in this case, Snow White. But we've also got Cinderella
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: and Rapunzel, who never gets to leave the tower until
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: she's a teenager. And her hair grows so long that
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: she can lift up the prince. These punishments are really
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: violent and cruel and kind of horrifying if we really
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: take them in. Hansel and Gretel, you know, the witch
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: is going to eat Hansel. Gretel pushes her into the
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: oven where she burns to death. I forget what happens
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: to the stepmother, mother in that tale, but, you know, something,
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: some real retribution. Right.
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: So many of our fairy tales have been whitewashed. Hans
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: Christian Andersen takes some of these tales and whitewashes them
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: so they're cuter and more sentimental. And of course, it's
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: perfectly reasonable to do that. There's nothing wrong with being
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: inspired by a fairy tale and then creating some other
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: work of literature or art or a cartoon as Disney did.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: But the wisdom is encoded in the ancient, sometimes stark
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: and disturbing truths Parents are often afraid to read their
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: kids Grimm's fairy tales, but what they don't realize is
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: that children's imaginations function in a very similar way. How
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: many little kids pick up a toy gun and shoot
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: daddy and daddy goes, ah, and he pretends to fall
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: down and the little kid jumps around squealing and dancing.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: If you really took a look at that, you know,
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: there are these ancient archaic themes that that are being
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: dramatized in play, in children's play.
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: And the shadow, our human primal shadow, is lifted up
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: in fairy tales. The realities are not disguised. They're not
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: glossed over in any way. So this fairy tale deals
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: with envy, of a mother's envy of her child that, First,
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: she wants this beautiful baby with this splendid coloring that
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: will gratify mom. If I have a really beautiful baby,
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: she will enhance me. She will be a narcissistic extension
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: of me and make me look good. Until, uh-oh, the
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: darn kid is starting to outshine me. I don't like that. Well,
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: I mean, obviously the only thing to do is to
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: plot her demise and to outsource it. So that, I mean,
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: that's the original intention is, you know, I'll just get
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: myself a hired gun or a hired huntsman in this case.
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: And then, as you say, the cannibalism, but I want
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: to eat her lungs and her heart.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: And her liver.
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: Her liver, which was the source of life in ancient times.
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: It was considered to be What do you think about
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: the lungs?
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure, but I do have a sense that
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: by devouring some part of Snow White, that she is
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: then ingesting this beauty that is greater than her, and
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: it will then become part of her.
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: And you take on the characteristics. And we do this
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: all the time, that we are going to, by ingesting something,
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: by ingesting a lion or part of a lion or
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: a bear's liver. Oh, my goodness.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: You eat the body of Christ and drink his blood,
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: and then some aspect of Christ is then in you.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: You've metabolized the mythopoetic figure.
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: So it's become very symbolic, thank goodness, and appropriately. But
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: that's a real development in the human psyche over eons.
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: versus the concretization of, you know, if I eat the
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: heart of a lion, I will become lion-like. I will
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: take on the characteristics of that animal. And Snow White's
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: mom will take on Snow White's beauty. She'll be reinvigorated.
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: She'll be regenerated.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: So that's a fantasy. But there are really, it's a
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: very small cast of characters.
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: It's a fantasy? Oh, darn.
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: Okay. Because whatever lives in the mirror is the truth teller.
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: It is, to me, it's the self. That no matter
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: how distorted or evil or narcissistically enraged the queen becomes,
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: there is some spirit inside. in this fairy tale that
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: is not intimidated by her, is not provoked, but just
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: keeps speaking the truth, just tells the truth.
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: But we've just bumped into one of the major symbols,
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: a mirror. You could write probably a hundred Jungian theses
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: on the topic of the mirror. It's so big. And
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: that At first, the reflection that the mirror provides gratifies
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: the queen. The truth is, you're the fairest of all.
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: But a mirror has to have light in order to function.
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: If you have a mirror and you're in a dark room,
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: forget about it.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: And it does, as you say, sort of reveals the
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: essential nature of something. We look in the mirror and...
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: You know, we see something that we don't like or
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: that we do like and we approve of it as we,
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: you know, fix our hair, maybe put on makeup, all
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: of these things. And then, you know, I'm just thinking
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: about all of the possibilities for a mirror to reflect.
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: And what happens when it reflects something that we don't like?
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: Much like analysis.
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: Uh-oh. Say a word or two about that, because that's
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: right on.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: I mean, there are times that we as analysts decide,
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: hopefully timed well, to interpret and reflect back to one
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: of our analysands information that their ego is not going
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: to find appealing, is going to be upsetting, or going
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: to lift up something that is painful for them.
• 32:27
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: Or there could be a dream and the person says, oh,
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: I know exactly what this dream means. It ended happily
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: ever after. And it's the job of the analyst to say, well, no.
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: Let's look at that from another angle. Perhaps the image of,
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: let's say, a deer in your dream You know, it
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: could also mean this, because all these images usually have
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: sort of a bright side and a darker side, and
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: we all want to look on the bright side, which
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: takes me to mirroring of children developmentally and how important
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: that is when a child is young. You know, that
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: this three-year-old comes up to us all bouncing with delight
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: and says, look, you know, do you know what I
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: can do And we all say, no, you know what?
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: And shots, I know how to do a somersault. Do
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: you want to see me? And most everybody will say, wow,
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: that's amazing. Oh, yes, of course, I have to see
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: that to believe it. And so what happens with mirrors,
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: and I'm thinking about the Those wavy mirrors at circuses.
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: That distort people, yeah.
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that distort us. What is reflected has many facets.
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: It does indeed and is unpredictable. But I think the
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: spirit of the mirror is, it just tells the truth.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, many of us get a photograph taken for
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: your LinkedIn profile or any number of things. very difficult
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: to not be critical of ourselves. I didn't know my
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: nose was that big or whatever it is. And although
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: we might tell ourselves that facts are friendly, whenever what
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: we are shown is dystonic or doesn't match up with
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: our inner representation, there's some creative tension that builds up
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: inside of us. So There's several ways we could interpret
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: fairy tales. One is we could interpret as if it
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: is a dream happening within a single person's psychology, in
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: which case then we could think of each of the
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: characters as aspects of a human psyche. I find that
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: to be kind of gratifying because we can kind of
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: personalize it. So from the standpoint of Snow White, We
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: have a really young and innocent, lovely in a way,
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: feminine psyche. And she's going about her life in a
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: very usual way. Being a daughter, we can imagine she's
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: a princess. She's unselfconscious about her appearance, as children are.
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: And if we imagine that inside of us, when we
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: are young, oh, inside of all of us, whether or
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: not we're young, we can have a very innocent and
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: young part of ourselves that's kind of playing, moving around
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: inside of us. If the very, very innocent part of
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: us remains there too long, let's say into our 20s,
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: maybe our 30s, maybe even later in life, there's a
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: way in which being an innocent, childlike person can activate
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: other forces in the psyche to change that situation, that
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: remaining innocent and young forever is a problem?
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: You know, I think often about a number of fairy
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: tales in which the message of the tale, when there
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: is a female protagonist, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Rapunzel,
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: Sleeping Beauty, that the theme of those fairy tales is
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: something about the innocence complex, of a snap out of it.
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: Or Hansel and Gretel, they're just kids. And we see
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: in this tale that Snow White's just a kid. She's
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: seven years old. You know, I had remembered or thought
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: that She was a teenager by now, but no, she's
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: seven when she sparks her mother's envy. And that fairy
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: tales are really blunt. It doesn't matter if you're just
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: a kid. There will be a price to pay if
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: you don't snap out of your innocence complex. Now, Gretel
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: and Hansel and Gretel, They're innocently abandoned in the forest.
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: They have no recourse. But Gretel gets it up to
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: shove the old witch into the fire.
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: But she becomes the assistant of the witch. She becomes
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: the sous chef.
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's hilarious.
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: She becomes her protege.
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: That's the witch's fantasy.
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: And Cinderella, you know, snaps awake enough to say, hey,
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: you know what? I'll find something to wear, but I'm going.
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: I'm going to the ball. Sleeping Beauty falls asleep. Who
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: goes around the castle and has her fingers pricked by
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: a spindle, which is pretty hard to do. And Snow
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: White is really innocent supreme. She doesn't get it that
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: her mom has these hostile feelings toward her. And she
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: doesn't get it when her mother comes around three times.
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: And I know when I read these tales as a child,
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: I was like, what is her problem? What a ninny.
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: She still doesn't get it? And it also points to
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: a theme similar to the theme of the vampire. You
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: have to open the door. You have to let the
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: evil in. Vampires... can't cross the threshold or come through
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: the window unless you open the door or open the window.
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: And the envious mother could not work her evil magic
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: if Snow White didn't open the door and say, oh yeah,
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: that's great. I'd love to have that new lace. I'd
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: love to have a special comb. What a nice apple.
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: So there's a way of thinking about it psychologically that
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: when somebody is trapped in an innocence complex, it conjures
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: the evil queen in other people as well as in ourselves.
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: So if somebody is trundling around and seems overly innocent
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: at the used car dealership, you might find that the
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: salesman is like, yes, I'll sell you this car, but
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: what about that $ 5, 000 extended warranty? And then we'll add this,
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: and we'll add that. And somebody in the innocence complex
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: will be like, well, I just trust this guy. It's
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: going to be just fine. But being overly innocent actually
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: conjures this darkness in other people. It's tricky.
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: So there is something we need to be aware of
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: the con man, the dynamic, the envy, the manipulation. Wake up.
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: Snap out of it. Because otherwise you're what they call
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: a mark. It takes two. It takes both an innocent
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: who can be duped and somebody who wants to take advantage, manipulate,
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: or even destroy you. And if you're awake and alert
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: and can recognize it, which is part of what fairy
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: tales teach us, then you go, uh-oh, nope. Boy, I
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: would never open the door to a sweet old lady.
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: offering me nice things. There's a warning and a lesson of, oh,
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: maybe this is too good to be true.
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: So there's a feeling in the fairy tale that we
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: just read that Snow White seems strangely unaffected by these
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: brushes with death. It was like the witch tied this
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: thread around you when you suffocated to death. And the
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: dwarves rescue you and say, listen, this is what the
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: world is like. You can't let strangers in. And then
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: whatever amount of time passes, the witch comes back, the
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: evil queen comes back, and she gives it another shot.
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: And Snow White's like, yeah, yeah, I'll go along with
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: the cone.
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: No problem. We maybe want to believe that the good
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: thing comes without a price. Of this nice old lady. Oh, yeah. Oh,
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: you really want to give that to me? What we
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: used to say is kids free for nothing?
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's great. Of that we start to learn the
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: world is transactional and you're not that sweet baby anymore
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: who's a very being. gratifies the caregiver and other adults.
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: You know, babies are adorable. They are narcissistic extensions. But
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: once you start to become a real child, a human
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: being with wants, needs, personality, values of your own, you're
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: not just unconditionally adored. And that's part of the lesson of, hey, look,
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: Snow White, Look, honey, you're seven years old now. You're
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: not that totally adorable. How's it give and take here
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: in the world?
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: Time passes in the dream somehow, but at the very least,
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: in between each of the assassination attempts, we can imagine
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: some amount of time passes so that by the time
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: she's revived from the coffin, she's of marriageable age. Good point.
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: So we can forgive Snow White, so to speak, for
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: the first mistake, because she's young, she doesn't understand yet
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: what's going on. Although she did have that encounter with
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: the huntsman, and so she did know that murder was afoot.
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: So she's not totally innocent by the time she's helping
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: out the seven dwarves.
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: But there is sort of this regressive fallback into, I'll
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: be good. And you know what? You guys can go
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: off and I'll be the good little doobie, surrogate mommy,
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: big sister, and I'll cook and I'll clean and everything
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: will be nice in a different way. But life is
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: still really nice, right?
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: Well, I think that dwarves kind of give her this,
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: it's like a dollhouse, right? Tiny beds, tiny utensils. Yes, exactly.
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: I thought very much like a dollhouse for a tiny girl,
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: so to speak. It fits her perfectly when she arrives.
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: She's small and everyone is small.
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the perfect analogy. She's playing house with her dollhouse,
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: with these small men. who are not big enough to
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: be threatening. None of that sexuality stuff is in the air.
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: And I kept thinking, you know, the dwarves classically work
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: under the earth. They work inside the mountain, and they
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: extract from it the gems and gold and other treasure
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: of that they're the workmen. from the underworld.
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: Sometimes they are connected with the great mother, um, in
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: as much as they are privileged to go into the
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: body of the great mother, which is the earth and
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: extract the goodness and then bring that back into the world,
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: into the community. And so they go in and they
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: extract gold from the darkness. We don't know what they
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: do with it, but we can imagine that they are
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: kind of fabulously wealthy, um, with this ability and they
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: have this certain kind of relationship to the great mother
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: are in a sense kind of servants of the great
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: mother in her beneficent and providing aspect and they are
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: also very providing for her they are motherly in a
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: certain sense that they're protective and they feed her and
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: they want her to thrive so in a way.
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking about you know when I've first started reading Jung,
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: and I read this phrase, the treasure hard to attain.
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, it just resonated with me. I must
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: have been in my 20s way back then. I thought, oh,
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: I would so love, what is the treasure hard to attain?
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: I would love to have the treasure. And it's the
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: dwarves who find the treasure hard to attain inside the mountain,
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: which of course is not gold or gems, but qualities
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: of the self.
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: So we have a mother who is possessed by this
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: kind of narcissistic darkness. That's one representation. Snow White herself
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: is learning how to be motherly and providing, For the dwarves,
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: it's as if they are in some ways her children,
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: cooking and cleaning and tending to them. And then there's
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: the earth itself as the most archetypal mother that is
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: providing resources and gold in some fashion. So mother energy
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: in various different ways is kind of moving around in
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: this process.
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, all aspects of the mother archetype. And here it is,
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: all part of one psyche, as you said earlier, that
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: it's like a dream, but in a fairy tale, we
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: as Jungians read the tale as one psyche, that there's
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: an evil, homicidal, envious mother in all of us and
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: an innocent child. and a huntsman, and dwarves, and, and, and, and.
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: And that sort of takes us aback of like, well, no,
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: I mean, I'm not like that, or am I?
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: Yes, which is part of why these stories survive, is
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: that something inside of us understands the universality of this. Now,
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: this is also a story about death and rebirth, because
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: it isn't just that Snow White falls asleep like Sleeping Beauty,
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: she dies. I mean, she dies three times in this
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: story and is resurrected. And what we might hope, well,
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: the story is rather bare bones, but that each time
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: that she comes back to life, something is added to her.
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: And in the final rebirth after the laborers accidentally dislodge
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: the piece of apple.
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, because they're sick of it.
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: They are. It's a wonderful, very realistic process. There isn't
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: a lot of magic in the tale. As people are
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: telling the story, like, how would that apple get dislodged?
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: People just start tossing the corpse around and all of
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: a sudden it pops out of her throat. There's a
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: very salty logic in all of that.
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: It attests to the value of just that human, God,
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: am I tired of moving this thing around all the time,
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: and the transgression. You would do that to this dead
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: child or by now maybe magically adolescent. You would go
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: whack her on the back. And the transgression can be
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: transformative in a positive way and we we see that
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: in other fairy tales of uh and that's the question
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: is when is transgression going to be transformative and when
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: is it not.
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: Right because the prince has this attitude that she's to
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: be venerated almost like the body of saints that are
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: entombed in cathedrals or and which you can sometimes their
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: bones are on display in a glass coffin As a relic.
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: So there's a way in which the prince sees her
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: as so beautiful, so awe-filled, so unearthly that she's going
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: to be... He's just going to take the glass case,
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: like a museum glass case, and no one's going to
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: touch her, and he's just going to press his nose
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: against the glass and behold her. But the more instinctive
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: part of the psyche... is really not interested. It wants
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: to handle the artifact. Yes. Which is really interesting because
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: it's through the contact, not keeping her as a precious relic,
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: but they put hands on her and start moving her around.
• 51:47
  Speaker 4: Exactly. There's a lot of bodily physicality that brings things
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: down to earth versus this idealization. This is a young
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: woman who's dead. So the prince doesn't really have to
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: deal with her in any kind of real way. He
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: can just venerate her, worship her, adore her without ever
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: having to risk anything of himself. You know, like they
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: get into an argument or they're actually going to have sex. No,
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: she's a precious object in a glass coffin.
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: It's very lofty, very unrealized. I also love that the
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: servants are probably feeling what the reader is feeling. Like
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: as I was reading the fairy tale, there is something
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: kind of frustrating about this happening over and over again.
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: Like when is Snow White going to learn something about
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: the danger in the world? And so I feel like
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: the servants who are frustrated start tossing her around. They're like,
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: we're sick and tired of this.
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: The audience is a little sick and tired of another
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: iteration of this tragedy.
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: Right, everything. And I picked up something when you were
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: reading it, in the tone of it, that when things
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: are so precious, she's so pretty, and the huntsman says,
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: oh no, I can't possibly kill anybody as pretty as this.
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: And then she goes and plays house with the dwarves.
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: And doesn't learn from the old lady that there is
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: something that the tale evokes in all of us of
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: like enough already.
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: And the thread is so pretty and the comb is
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: so pretty and the apple is so pretty.
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: Exactly. It's like, oh my God. And now she's in
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: a coffin. Oh, we want the breakthrough of somebody getting
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: down and dirty and saying, enough, something real has to
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: happen here.
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: And I think the servants are the ones who in
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: their coarseness and what, like you said, transgressive disrespect, unwittingly
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: or perhaps guided by the power greater than themselves, actually
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: dislodges the poison.
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: It's really great. It says the servants who had to
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: carry the coffin from place to place in the castle
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: all the time, imagine, became angry about this. And at
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: one time, a servant opened the coffin, lifted little Snow White,
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: our precious girl, into the air and said, why must
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: we be plagued with so much work because of a
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: dead maiden? And then he shoved little Snow White's back
• 54:55
  Speaker 4: with his hand and out popped the nasty piece of apple.
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: So something that is healthy and real, unlike the mother's envy,
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: but the healthy, legitimate protest occurs.
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: It's like a repetition compulsion. It's like the servants are like,
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: again and again and again.
• 55:21
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: And there's so many iterations that happen in the story.
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: It's like, how many times is she going to make
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: a mistake and be dead and reborn? How many rooms
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: do we have to drag this glass coffin around? That
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: there's something tedious and frustrating for the servants, and perhaps
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: in some part of us as well.
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: And it's so pure. It's just so pure that there
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: she is in her glass coffin, and glass is... Of course,
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: it's a barrier, but it's transparent, and nothing ever changes,
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: and everything is in stasis.
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: And as you said before, and she's so pretty. And
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: something in the psyche really rebels and says, I'm done.
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like, we've got to just break the glass.
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: So this violation of innocence happens a number of times,
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: and we could even see that the The last piece
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: where the frustrated servant knocks her on the back is
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: one piece of that. So in a single psyche, we
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: have a part of us that can be trapped in
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: what we would call malignant innocence. We get to a
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: certain age, maybe even in middle life, where we just
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: can't trundle around like a kid anymore, expecting people to
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: take care of us or expecting... the universe or the
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: world to treat us sweetly because we're so sweet. So
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: inside of the psyche is also another part of the feminine,
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: which is the queen. So the princess has inside of
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: herself the queen. That is implied. If one is a prince,
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: somewhere inside there is a nascent king. If one is
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: a princess, somewhere inside there is a nascent queen. And
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: that there is a battle, you know, between the ego,
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: between the princess and the queen. And a problem, perhaps,
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: in the psyche, we're going to kind of soar up
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: to a very meta-conscious level, is that the queenly part
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: of the psyche is plagued by this innocence complex inside. Now,
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: if we take away demonizing the queen for a moment,
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: that there are times where any of us can be
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: taken just one too many times. And maybe we've had
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: some religious decision to be very understanding and very sweet
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: and very kind. And if that's taken advantage of one
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: time too much, then something else will activate on us,
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: and it is the spirit of vengeance and rage and hatred,
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: which is in service to life, in a way.
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: Yes, exactly.
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: You know, it's happened three times. I'm finally going to
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: take this person to court, or I'm going to call
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: the police, or whatever it is that's required, but we're
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: going to go to war.
• 58:36
  Speaker 4: Right. Or just on the home front of, you know,
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: the child comes home from school, drops his or her
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: jacket on the floor, and mom says, hang it up.
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: And the kid goes running to the pantry or the
• 58:53
  Speaker 4: fridge for, hey, hey, go pick up your jacket, hang
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: it up. After the third time, it's like, mom's going
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: to be mad. Darn it, I told you, pick up
• 59:04
  Speaker 4: that jacket, put that down, march over there this minute,
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: hang it up. That we are pierced by anger, by outrage,
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: by some kind of forces in the psyche of other
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: people or parts of ourselves that say this is enough.
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: So sometimes we go after our own predisposition to be
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: childlike or innocent. Like, I just cannot be taken advantage
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: of one more time. I just can't. So then something,
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: we could say darker, but also something more worldly, something
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: more ferocious can activate in us. And we don't lose
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: our innocence just because we are frustrated with ourselves. There
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: is a process that goes on. We might try to
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: tie our innocence up so that it can't make decisions
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: about the stock market for us.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: And sometimes those lessons are really, really brutal. Your mention
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: of the stock market really set something off in me.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: People that 25 years ago invested in the the dot-com bubble,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: people that get done in by all kinds of, quote, smart, unquote,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: investments in crypto or a hundred other things, and then
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: are shocked into a rude awakening when, you know, either
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: they've been conned or the stock, the thing that was
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: supposed to be wealth producing turns out to be a bust.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: And our own greed has been behind all of that.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: That we overheard something or we saw a bit of
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: advice on Instagram or TikTok or we read a little
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: bit in a blog and then all of a sudden
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: the innocent part of us is like, well, that's enough.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: I'm going to throw a bunch of money over there
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: because I'm sure that I've received some really important exclusive information.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: And there is all too often a terrible result.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: You know, where I'm moving to at the very end
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 4: of the fairy tale is it's always interesting to me
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: to see what the punishment is going to be. It's
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: going to be something gory and grim and grisly, but
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 4: which one of a number of gory punishments can there be?
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: So this is one. where she has iron slippers, so
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 4: they're very heavy. You couldn't possibly dance in iron slippers,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: and you certainly couldn't dance in iron slippers that were
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: going to be heated, except that you would jump around
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: in a frenzy, somehow trying to alleviate the pain. But
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: I'm going back to a trope that I think we've
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 4: mentioned I don't know how many times on the podcast.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: Something about the standpoint is altered. That that part of
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: the psyche represented by the queen is in pain. This
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 4: is the wrong standpoint. It's an impossible standpoint. I'm thinking,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 4: I think we've talked about the shoemaker and the elves
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 4: and they craft little slippers. They're the 12 dancing princesses
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 4: who wear their slippers out every night. So whenever I
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: think about shoes, I think about standpoint and that we
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 4: automatically intuit it. Whenever we see people just on the
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: street of who's wearing what, it's like, oh my God,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: There's somebody wearing gladiator sandals. We notice. We notice platform shoes.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: We notice stilettos. The list goes on and on. And
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 4: we notice brands. These are very, very cool brands of
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 4: running shoes. So this is what that part of the
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: psyche gets at the end is it's too hot to handle.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: I think that's right on. I also am curious about
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: why she goes. The princess has found her mate. There's
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: going to be a wedding. She's going to be the
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: queen of her own queendom. The old queen's got her
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: old stuff over there. What is she thinking is going
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: to happen when she's planning to come to the wedding?
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: Is she going to try to take Snow White down again?
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: Is she going to spoil it in some way or
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: show them up?
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: What does it say? The queen heard this, was horrified,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 4: and became so afraid, so very afraid, that she didn't
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 4: know what to do. However, her jealousy drove her so much,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 4: she wanted to be seen at the wedding. And when
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 4: she arrives, she sees as Snow White as the bride.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 4: So there she has to go. I have to see
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 4: it for myself.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: And that's the fatal flaw. If she could have just
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: shut up and let Snow White alone, she could have
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: had an ongoing life, but she just couldn't stop. So
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 3: she shows up. Snow White's there. Now, something interesting has
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: probably been happening. Below these many years that there has
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: been poison in her mouth, one might say that some
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: of the poison... of the evil queen has worked its
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: way into Snow White's psyche. So by the time she
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: wakes up for the third time or is reborn the
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: third time and is mature enough to become a queen,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: that now she has enough access to her own inner queen,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: her own darkness. that when she faces off with her mother,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: she is every bit as ruthless and capable of protecting
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: herself where she was not when she was seven.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: Even though the tale doesn't say directly that Snow White
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 4: was the agent of the heated iron shoes, it's like
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 4: in a dream. When one thing follows another, causality is implied.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 4: So you write on that now there it is in
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 4: the field, Snow White's capacity to say... Enough. Yeah. Here
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 4: are your just desserts. Deal with it.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: Yes, and a realization that if she is merciful, it
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: just will never end.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: That the relentlessness of this figure is just inexhaustible. So
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: this figure... This face-off, we have too much innocence, which
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: conjures this shadow figure. The two things interact in many,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: many different ways. And in the end, Snow White has
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: some access to her own shadow, her own capacity for
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: violence and vengeance, and also finally just making order in
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: her own psyche, like enough of this craziness. It just
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: is not permitted any longer. And so finally, we have
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: a resolution.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, finally. And I think most readers of Snow White,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 4: this is just my own hunch, or maybe it's just
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 4: a downright projection, but I always thought Snow White was
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 4: the ninniest ninny that ever there was of what is
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 4: wrong with you? And so the tale goes on and
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 4: on and on. And I think the tale is making
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 4: the point that we all want to deny, which is,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 4: and where is that in you, that you still don't
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: get it? You still didn't get it. That this is
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 4: the third time that kid promised to pay you for
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: your baseball cards and didn't. But as readers, we can
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 4: take that opposite position, which is to say, oh my God,
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 4: she was just a total nitwit. And start to take
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 4: in some of that, of wake up. You know, I
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 4: know what's going to happen to you. It isn't going
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 4: to be good. The old hag is going to do
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 4: it again. And we absorb a little of that tough
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 4: stuff so that the next time that kid comes along,
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 4: we say, you still owe me 35 cents.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: We have that set in our jaw and that determination
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: that this nonsense isn't going to continue.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I was swindled once. I was swindled out of
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 4: 15 cents.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: To get even?
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 4: No, I didn't get even. It was some kid that
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 4: I didn't really know at school and promised me. And
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: he was older, smarter about these ways of the world
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: than I was. And when I asked him for it,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 4: he just sort of brushed me off and went away like,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 4: you know, like, oh. come on. You know, you didn't
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 4: think I was really going to pay you back. I mean,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: come on. This was a swindle from the outset. And
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 4: I've never forgotten it.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: It's a marker for a moment where we learn something
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: about humans beings, human shadow, and inconsistency.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 4: And I didn't know who the kid was. You know,
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 4: I don't know. I was in second grade and he
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 4: was in fourth or something like that. Obviously much older.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 4: And the teacher sort of went, oh, that's too bad,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 4: but sort of shrugged it off. And I remember being
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 4: so outraged that, you know, crime had been committed and
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 4: I needed defenders, justice. Justice should be the order of
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 4: the day. Mm-hmm. And I was shocked by this adult
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 4: attitude of like, well, that's the stuff that happens out
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 4: there on the playground.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: Yes, you became wise at that young age. This is
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: how it works around here.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, this is the way. So we have to descend
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 4: into the reality of this earth and this society and
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 4: these people.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: Yes, our inner Snow White. has to change. We've got
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: to figure out what to do with our inner evil queens.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 3: There are allies along the way, some purposeful, like the
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: kind Seven Dwarves, and sometimes fate is our ally through
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: the rough handling of Snow White's body.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And in a sense, the mercy of the huntsman,
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 4: who in some versions feels so sorry and he certainly
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 4: can't do it, But in this original tale, he just says,
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 4: good luck. I won't kill you, but I'm not helping
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 4: you either. You're on your own cookie.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: As it is in the world, that we may fantasize
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 3: someone's going to save us, but the truth is nobody
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: can save you from yourself.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah. We are all set forth to find our way
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 4: in the wilderness. of our own psyches, the world itself,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 4: and the wilderness. And good luck with that.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. It is the initiatic task of adulthood, as painful
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: as it is for all of us, by the way.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: We all come in innocently into all kinds of circumstances
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: and then have our scars to manage as a result
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: of that.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 4: This week, in addition to thanking you, as ever, for
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 4: supporting us, supporting what we do, and making it all possible,
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 4: we are going to answer and address some of the
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 4: questions from a number of our listeners. So, here goes.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 4: The first question comes from a listener who says.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 6: I'm wondering if in Snow White, the poisoned apple, which
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 6: Lisa has described as being held in Snow White's mouth
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 6: and therefore transmuting the poison from the evil mother over time.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 6: I'm wondering if that transmuting of the poison over time
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 6: is the poison of having a not good enough mother.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 6: And that only when Snow White's able to process over
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 6: time not having a good enough mother or an evil
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 6: mother in this case, then and only then do the
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 6: little fractured parts of herself that are represented by the
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 6: seven dwarves can integrate and become one amicus image of
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 6: the handsome prince. So that's my question. Thank you.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 4: That's a really good question.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 3: Shout out to Sianat for sending that in. It's a question,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: but it's really a thesis that she is supporting. Yeah.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: And I love that that hadn't occurred to me before.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: I just think it's brilliant.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree. And yes, it is the poison. of
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 4: the terrible mother, the mother who is envious. And this
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 4: is not a whole new human theme. There are women
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 4: who have a very hard time as their daughters hit puberty,
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 4: teenage beauty, young adulthood, become brides, become mothers themselves, where
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 4: every mother has to reconcile that that part of her
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 4: own life is gone. That we see this beautiful young
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 4: woman who goes to the high school prom and has
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 4: a beautiful wedding and then whose life is full and
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 4: generative with the birth of a child that is envious
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 4: or envy of the child that has so many more
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 4: opportunities than you ever did, who has a special talent,
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 4: that all of us have a not-good-enough mother in some part,
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 4: and some of us, of course, have had really difficult,
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 4: wounding mothers.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 3: So, quite so, that as the poisonous experiences of this,
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 3: in the fairy tale, the dangerous mother, are metabolized, something
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 3: is added to Snow White. I read an interesting study
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 3: a few years ago that was talking about having an
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 3: abusive mother figure and how that affects young girls differently
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 3: from young boys, daughters, and sons. That daughters have a
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 3: tendency to be more resilient to an abusive mother because
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: they can identify with the mother's power and assume that
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 3: one day they too will hold such power. For the son,
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 3: not believing that, he is in some ways more crushed
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 3: and more despairing because he's experiencing the same suffering, but
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 3: does not have a future where he imagines that he
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 3: will have that same power and be the equal of
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 3: the one who is being abusive. So there is a
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 3: truth that the not-good-enough mother is a very tame experience
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 3: by comparison than having And the fairy tale, the murderous mother,
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 3: or a mother that is actively seeking to injure the child.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 3: But either way, I think the daughter is internalizing the
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 3: potency of the mother, whether it's expressed negatively or positively,
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 3: and knows that it is her destiny to have a
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 3: similar power. Yeah.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 4: What do you think about the idea that the dwarves represent,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 4: sort of fractured parts of the masculine that then coalesces
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 4: the animus image of the prince. It's a great idea.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 4: Disney gave each adult, each dwarf for Heather a name
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 4: as if, you know, representing different things.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: Different traits.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, different traits.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 3: Sleazy and sleepy and dark and, you know.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah. So it's an interesting idea. And yet they're a collective.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 4: They all go out and they all go to the
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 4: mind and they all do exactly the same thing.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: Like a flock.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 4: Yes, exactly. It's a flock.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 3: My feeling is that it's an interesting thesis that do
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 3: they then knit themselves together in the individual psyche and
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 3: then come back as a single masculine figure? I could
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 3: absolutely believe that. And we might imagine, as they were suggesting,
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 3: that the time when she is in the glass coffin
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 3: and she's learning how to metabolize the poison, that various
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 3: things are melting down and recoagulating in her psyche, solvent coagula.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 3: And that could be these fragments of masculine image. Also,
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 3: in the fairy tale, there are no fathers present at all.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 3: But we could imagine the dwarves as also being part
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 3: of the father complex inside of her. That is, hardworking, providing, abiding,
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: not terribly protective beyond advice. But it is when she
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 3: is in nature, she has to run off into the
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 3: forest and find the dwarves, that then she is exposed
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 3: to a kind of kind and benevolent masculine. That is caretaking.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 3: her in some measure.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 4: And it's also diffuse.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 4: You know, oftentimes people will dream about, you know, I
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 4: saw a crowd of people or I was in an auditorium.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 8: Yes.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 4: That there's something there represented kind of as a collective
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 4: that needs to become better personified, which does happen in
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 4: the tale. After the dwarves, we get a single person
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 4: who is an adult, who's human, who's a prince, versus
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 4: these benevolent dwarves that are both childlike and innocent themselves.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 4: and images of the masculine, the caretaking, kindly aspect of
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 4: the father. But, you know, we should do a podcast
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 4: sometime on the absent fathers. Where were all these fairytale fathers?
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 4: What were they doing?
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 3: Exactly. The other thing about the dwarves is that they're
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 3: servants of the great mother. So the dwarves, the queen,
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 3: the cottage, Snow White, they're all still... in the world
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 3: of the mother in one way or another. And it's
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 3: finally with the appearance of the prince that there is
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 3: a masculine that is independent of the mother. So that's
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 3: an interesting and I think effective evolution. Is it possible
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 3: that the dwarves themselves coalesce, separate out from serving the earth, Rhea,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 3: so to speak? It's an interesting fantasy. there's a sensibility
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 3: to it, and I like the imagination in the question.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 4: Do you want to move on to another question? Sure.
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 3: Beau, thank you for submitting this question.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 7: Hi, Joseph, Lisa, and Deb. My question about Snow White,
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 7: and I've only seen the original animated Disney version of it,
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 7: but my question pertains to that final scene, that image
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 7: of Prince Charming coming and saving Snow White with true
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 7: love's kiss. Obviously, that's a huge trope now, and there's
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 7: a ton of pushback to that. I think because, you know,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 7: in modern times, we see the depiction of feminine passivity
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 7: as kind of offensive, or, I don't know, we just
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 7: cringe our nose at it, doesn't feel right. But my
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 7: question is, isn't there more to that image than just, oh,
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 7: this helpless, lifeless woman needs a man to come bring
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 7: her back to life? You know, because I think in
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 7: myths sometimes, and I think it's true in life too,
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 7: but You know, some things just happen regardless of our
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 7: intent and our will, whether or not they're deserved. Sometimes
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 7: they're deserved. Sometimes they're not. Sometimes they're both. But yeah,
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 7: what are some more, I guess, what else can we
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 7: draw from that image of, you know, true love's kiss
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 7: waking up Sleeping Beauty or Snow White in this case?
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 3: Thank you. You'll know from having listened to the episode
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 3: that there is no kissing that happens in the actual
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 3: Grimm's fairy tale, that it is nowhere near as romantic
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 3: as Disney enjoyed portraying it. So that does not seem
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 3: to actually carry the magic on an archetypal level that
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 3: one might suppose.
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 4: But it also makes me turn to considering that.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 4: What did you call it, the Disneyfication of the fairy
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 4: tale in the original, that what is a kiss? What
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 4: does a kiss symbolize? It's not a hug. It's not
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 4: the wedding, which will come a little later. That there
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 4: is a kiss, a mouth-to-mouth, something tender. that symbolizes a
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 4: kind of awakening, a kind of love that is not
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 4: too erotic. Not in Disney, anyway. That it has to
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 4: be a kiss. What other gesture could it be? And
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 4: I agree with Bo. I mean, my first thought was,
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 4: oh my God, you know, these helpless ninnies. like Sleeping
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 4: Beauty and Snow White, who can't do anything for themselves.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 4: Thank God some prince comes along and wakes them up,
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 4: brings them back to life. But we have to remember
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 4: that the prince and Snow White are like heads and
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 4: tails of a coin. They're just different sides of the
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 4: same human condition.
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 3: I think it's tempting to want to look at any
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 3: mythic material, fairy tales or myths, and then use them
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 3: and imagine it as a real-life situation, and then to
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 3: project upon it whatever the cultural conflict is. But fairy
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 3: tales and myths yield more if we hold a symbolic attitude.
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 3: Anytime we literalize this kind of material, I mean, we
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 3: can make whatever we want of it. This isn't a
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 3: real-life situation. This is a symbolic encounter that's happening either
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 3: in the collective psyche in some mysterious way, or in
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 3: the psyche of an individual. So, when a woman feels lifeless,
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 3: and let's say that she's fallen into a terrible depression,
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 3: in the dream world, it is not uncommon for the
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 3: vital aspect of a woman's psyche to present itself as
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 3: a fascinating male figure. And that's just a symbol, it's
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 3: not a person, and it's not saying anything about what
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 3: happens in the outer world, because unfortunately it doesn't tend
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 3: to work that way in the outer world. But in
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 3: the inner world, energy is moved around in the psyche
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 3: through symbols. And as those symbols interact with the dream ego,
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 3: they impart something, a kind of medicine to the dream ego.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 3: So let's just say one were to have a dream.
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 3: Let's say a woman dreams she is so depressed that
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 3: she can't do more than open her eyes. She's lying
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 3: lifeless in bed, and depression can get that bad, by
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 3: the way. And then some fascinating male figure comes and
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 3: gives her a kiss, and she is roused from that
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 3: and finds herself with energy and desire and vitality. That's
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 3: a gift from the unconscious, that life force. has been
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 3: shared with the ego. Unfortunately, it's not that easy in
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 3: the outer world. If all it took was somebody giving
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 3: you a kiss to fill you full of vitality, my goodness,
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 3: wouldn't that be easy? But in the inner world, it's different.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah. It's the action that sparks something. The vitalizing spark,
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 4: to borrow the title of one of Lisa's books, The
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 4: vital spark. It could be a kiss. It can be
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 4: a thunderbolt. It can be a touch with all the
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 4: little Disney sparkles of the fairy godmother's magic wand. But
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 4: it is the vital spark. And haven't we all had
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 4: that happen to us? All of a sudden something happens,
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 4: then we've been puzzling it over for months maybe. And
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 4: then all of a sudden it's like, ping! Oh, oh, oh, no,
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 4: I get it. So if, and I think it's right on,
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 4: the idea that a snow fight lying in her coffin
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 4: is a slow, unconscious process of metabolization, then when the
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 4: moment is right, it, whatever the it is, whatever shape
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 4: it takes, it ignites. You know, in Sleeping Beauty, we
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 4: wait 100 years. How come? All kinds of princes try
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 4: to get in there and they get caught up in
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 4: the wall of thorns. And then all of a sudden
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 4: it happens. And that goes to Jung's idea about the
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 4: unconscious has direction and is autonomous. So Snow White, Ninny
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 4: that she was, is also having an unconscious process. Something
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 4: is alive in her, even though she looks like she's
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 4: just supine in her glass coffin. I put this fairy
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 4: tale in the context of all the fairy tales where
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 4: the protagonist is a female. So we have some very active,
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 4: proactive fairy tale heroines, because I think this listener is
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 4: seeing the passivity and the, oh, woe is me, I
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 4: can't do anything for myself, I need to be rescued.
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 4: But then Cinderella's pretty gutsy. Off she goes to the ball.
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 3: She's very gutsy.
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 4: Rapunzel falls for the prince who climbs up into her tower.
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 4: Beauty claims the beast and goes back to him. I
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 4: think Gretel was a really.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 3: She was a badass.
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 4: She was a really great kid. You know, you're not
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 4: going to do that. I'm going to throw you into
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 4: the oven. So I think these fairy tales are portraying
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 4: all kinds of possible situations and actions or non-actions. But
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 4: in this case, it's about the power of the unconscious
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 4: to help us to have its own revival. Not everything
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 4: is done with our egos.
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 3: Exactly. Let's take another one. Cindy writes in and says,
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 3: I would like to hear about the symbol of the
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 3: mirror in the story. We did address that in the episode.
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 4: But here's something else that I can offer to add
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 4: to that. According to Jung, there are five instincts in
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 4: us as humans. And three of them are sort of physical.
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 4: There's sex, there is hunger, hunger and thirst. There's our
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 4: need for activity. and one of them is self-reflection, the
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 4: capability for self-reflection, that we reflect on things like, oh
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 4: my God, I can't believe I said that in the
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 4: middle of the meeting, or why did I have a
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 4: second helping of the pasta, delicious as it was. So
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 4: we can go back and mirror ourselves, look at ourselves
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 4: in the mirror of our capacity for reflection. and see something.
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 4: And in the story, the only thing, the mirror tells
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 4: the truth, but it doesn't provide the kind of self-reflection
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 4: that the evil queen really needs. It just says, oh, yes, yes,
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 4: you're really very beautiful. Boy, you're top dog here in
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 4: your beauty. It doesn't do what the queen really needs,
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 4: which is to say, what is wrong with you? This
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 4: is your kid. Get over it. Snap out of it.
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 4: The queen, too, needs to wake up into a reality
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 4: that her daughter is beautiful, is going to be coming
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 4: into womanhood. So it's interesting that this mirror can only
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 4: do one kind of very concrete, literal reflection, which is, yep,
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 4: you're drop-dead gorgeous, all right. I'm going to move on
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 4: to a query from Connie, who says, so looking forward
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 4: to this. Well, I hope we have fulfilled your hope.
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 4: Such a weird collection of archetypes. I guess I have
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 4: a split question. One, why does this theme of the
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 4: heroine being, quote, dead and ready for rescue by the
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 4: random young man keep showing up in these stories? I
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 4: think of Sleeping Beauty here, which we've mentioned. Is this
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 4: a trope only for our age? Or is this the
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 4: young feminine needing to be rescued, actually an ongoing authentic
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 4: thing in the world of archaic archetypes? And then seven dwarves.
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 4: Are they men or children, symbolically? Maybe a kind of
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 4: between masculinity while Snow White tries to individuate. Getting ready
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 4: for trusting the mature male archetype so she can deal
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 4: with the shadow of female malevolent authority. She keeps trusting
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 4: the wrong strangers and pays for it. And the men, children,
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 4: the dwarves, in other words, rescue them, then watch over her.
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 4: The tending to self is in the more innocent male energy.
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 4: I can sort of see a Persephone theme going on,
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 4: but also not. This is a wonderful series of more
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 4: than two questions. So I think we've addressed the idea
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 4: of the heroine being, quote, dead, unquote, as the autonomy
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 4: of the unconscious. And I would say maybe the young
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 4: feminine being awakened by animus, by the inner opposite that
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 4: is conveniently portrayed as a prince. Opposite in a lot
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 4: of ways. More worldly, has more agency, a whole host
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 4: of other things that the feminine needs. And then I
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 4: like this part that I don't think we've dealt with
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 4: a lot. Yes, the dwarves are the precursor to the
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 4: more mature masculine in the form of the prince. And
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 4: that she can then deal with the shadow female malevolent energy.
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 4: It's an interesting theme about the Persephone energy. that she
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 4: does come up out of the underworld of this sort
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 4: of soporific state into more of her own aliveness that
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 4: the mother archetype has put her into. But unlike Persephone,
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 4: Persephone's mother Demeter went after her with everything she had.
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 4: Oh, no, you're not doing that to my daughter. And
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 4: I will do whatever I have to do, including scorching
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 4: the earth to get you back, versus the evil mother
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 4: who says, I'm going to put you away. You're going
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 4: to the underworld of the dead.
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 3: I'll take up a little different bit of the question.
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 3: Why does this theme of the heroine being dead and
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 3: ready for rescue by the random young man keep showing
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 3: up in these stories? And what I would say is,
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 3: They don't keep showing up in these stories. That if
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 3: you were to read Grimm's fairy tales from cover to cover,
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 3: there are talking frogs and there are all kinds of
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 3: things that happen.
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and that heroine in that fairy tale had a
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 4: lot of moxie. She takes that frogs and goes whammo,
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 4: throws them against the wall.
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 3: Right, so whatever these stories are, I think you're not
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 3: talking about fairy tales which are very varied. You're asking
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 3: a question, is that why does, let's say Western culture,
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 3: why does Western culture seek to venerate romantic stories?
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 3: It's about the kind of romantic fantasy that girl and
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 3: boy meet and magic happens. And that has more to
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 3: do with the zeitgeist of a culture, that the culture
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 3: is for those stories. They will show up at the theater.
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 3: They'll pay for them. They'll talk about them. They want
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 3: to see them several times. They'll shed a few tears.
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 3: That what is propagated in the culture is based purely
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 3: on commerce. And if somebody were to make a movie
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 3: of all of the Grimm's fairy tales, the ones that
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 3: people won't see don't show up in the zeitgeist. So
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 3: the bigger question is, why does the culture want to
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 3: keep propagating romantic stories? And as you would have heard
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 3: from our episode, is that the Snow White story doesn't
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 3: involve being rescued by the prince. It's much more complicated
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 3: and not romantic at all. So I think, again, it
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 3: has to do with Western culture and the fantasies of romance.
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 3: That's commerce.
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 4: And it's also the archetype of the romantic ideal.
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 4: Oh, my goodness, this is oldest time that we all
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 4: long for an other out there in the flesh that
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 4: we connect with, and then everything ends happily ever after.
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 4: Romance is just part of the human condition.
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 3: It is, and pair bonding is part of human history.
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 3: People fall in love. They come together. They build homes.
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 3: They have children. And maybe one day that will change.
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 4: They get divorces.
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 3: They get divorces.
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 4: I also see it as a valuing of female agency,
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 4: which has been pretty well denied. There's a history of that,
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 4: and there's a wish here in this question or listener.
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 4: of where is your own energy, your own agency. And,
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 4: of course, it's there.
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 3: And fairy tales talk about the discovery of agency all
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 3: the time in all kinds of permutations.
• 1:38:09
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• 1:38:13
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