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Detective Archetype Decoded: Tracking Symbolic Clues · 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. Hello, everyone. Today,
• 0:46
  Speaker 4: we are going to engage the topic and the relatively
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: recent archetype of the detective. The detective, the spy, the
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: private eye, the investigator, which is the theme of many, many, many,
• 1:07
  Speaker 4: a mystery novel, a murder mystery, a podcast, TV show,
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: and the list goes on and on. it appears that
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: the idea of the detective is relatively modern, and Dickens
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: is kind of credited with having really lifted this up
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: as a theme. But of course, it goes way, way
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: back in time as a spy, he who has secret knowledge.
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: But today we are interested in what is it about
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: the detective and about the crime, whatever the crime is,
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: that has seized hold to such an astonishing degree of
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: the popular imagination. What are we really looking for when
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: we are following in the steps of the detective to
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: find out whodunit. Yeah.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, people love true crime. I love true crime podcasts.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: I really do. They love, you know, TV shows that
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: feature detectives and policemen, people solving crimes. That I think
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: is the essence here of what this is, is there's
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: something has happened in And there needs to be some
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: effort put forward to understand what has happened and to
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: find truth and justice. So those are kind of the
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: essential elements.
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: The part that always gets me are the murder mysteries.
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: And that in a way, the murder is really symbolic
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: because it's not as if... there's really a lot of
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: heartfelt feeling about it. There may be a grieving family
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: or a grieving spouse somewhere, but really it's about the whodunit.
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: And that we're a little bit cavalier about the dead
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: body that is suddenly discovered somewhere underground or somewhere unexpected.
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: that is almost the trope of a story, of find
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: a dead body.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: And I think in Left to Our Own Instincts, we'll
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: make up stories about whodunit and we'll accuse people or
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: we'll fantasize about something. What's interesting about The Detective is
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: this combination of thinking and intuition. And so much of
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: the Sherlock Holmes model is this irrefutable evidence, this kind
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: of scientific accumulation of facts that then leads to a conclusion.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: Because I think it's natural for human beings to wonder
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: how something happened. In the most ancient of times, undoubtedly,
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: tragedy happens, a spouse disappears, somebody is injured. I think
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: it's natural for all of us to then want to
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: find a narrative, like the what happened kind of narrative.
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: But the detective is the one who's scouring for irrefutable facts,
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: regardless of what the personal feelings are about it. And
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: that's kind of an evolution of objectivity in the human psyche.
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And going along with that is the truth that the
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: answer is always surprising. It's never who you first expect.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: You know, in fact, a really good mystery novel is
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: going to lead you down the garden path and make
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: you suspect this person and that person and this person.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: And then only at the end, with some shock, do
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: you realize that it's none of those people, that it's
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: someone else altogether. But I think, Joseph, I appreciate what
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: you're saying about this kind of evolution of objectivity. We
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: have to be allowed to be surprised by evidence, by
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: that which is objective. rather than simply sort of, you know.
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: Hunches or feelings.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: So this rise of empiricism, of the empirical method.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: So, you know, it's the 1800s is when these stories
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: start getting published, but that's also the rise of the
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: scientific method as well.
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: And so we get the rise also of the sort
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: of hard-boiled sleuth, who raises his objectivity to new heights.
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: And he may be very cynical. He may be jaded.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: He looks jaded on the surface, but really he's got
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: a tender heart. That's always the way it is.
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  Speaker 4: Sometimes he does. I don't know that Sherlock Holmes has
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: a tender heart, but he's cloaked in a way, you know,
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: in his trench coat and carrying his gun. and wearing
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: that hat, whether it's sort of the deer hunter hat
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: that Sherlock Holmes typically wears, he takes on all the
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: attributes of a sort of anti-hero. And he may not
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: have a heart of gold, but we need him. Do
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: we like him? I think we're ambivalent about some of
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: these hard-boiled guys who... who trample over everybody's feelings. I
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: remember as a kid listening to Dragnet, you know, and
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: Jack Webb, the good cop, would always, somebody would be saying, oh,
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: and it was so hair terrible. And he would just say,
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: just the facts, ma'am. Just the facts.
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  Speaker 3: Right. So the detective is brilliant. He's using deduction. He's
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: intensely focused. Often, if we have a glimpse into their
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: personal lives, they are often portrayed as very austere and
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: somewhat secretive.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: With personal problems.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: They drink too much. Their health is bad. They've had
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: their heart broken, or they have a trail of women
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: whose hearts they've broken.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: Attachment disorders.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly. Thank you. That's what I was looking for. Yeah, absolutely.
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  Speaker 3: And yet all that has turned to the great benefit
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: of society.
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  Speaker 4: But it's a great way of amplifying those ego functions
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: of thinking and intuition and our ambivalence of, yes, you know,
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: if there's a crime to solve, don't we want one
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  Speaker 4: of these fictional detectives who always succeeds to be the
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: one on the job figuring it out? But we wouldn't
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: want to invite him to dinner.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. I don't know. I'm going to
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: have to, I push back, Deb. I think I read
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: more of these than you do.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: Lisa finds this much more sexy, I think.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I mean, there's some of them I would
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: absolutely want to have for dinner, you know, really, really,
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: you know, kind of... I mean, so part of it is,
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  Speaker 2: I think what we're saying, though, is that the detective
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: is often a loner and an outsider.
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: Yes, exactly.
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  Speaker 2: He's outside, in some way, outside the social order much
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: of the time. So I'm thinking of... I'm thinking of
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Jackson Lamb from the series Slow Horses that's been serialized
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: on Apple TV and stars Gary Oldman as the kind
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: of washed up, very, you know, unwashed, flatulent, you know, alcoholic,
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  Speaker 2: you know, head of the agency there.
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: But he's not the one you want to invite for dinner,
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: is he?
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. I mean, he's pretty funny. He's
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: pretty funny. But the other one that comes to mind
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: is J.K. Rowling's books, which he's written under a pen name,
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: Robert Galbraith, The Strike, the Cormoran Strike novels. You know,
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: he really sort of doesn't belong to this class or
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: that class. He kind of is in between categories in
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: the social order. He kind of flits around the edges
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: of high society, but he doesn't— really belong there he
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: kind of says the wrong thing at all the parties
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: because he drinks too much and then just lets his
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: honest opinion fly out there but he's he's got integrity
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: he has integrity and and he cares about the right
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: things you know So he doesn't make much money, and
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: so he kind of sleeps in this crummy flat above
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: his office. Although I think he's coming up in the
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: world a little bit as the series progresses. But yeah, no,
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: he's a very kind of charming... Charming is not the
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: right word. Compelling figure. Because he does carry this outsider energy.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: He was... Wounded in the wars. I think he was
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: wounded in Afghanistan. He lost a leg. So it's this
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: sense of someone who's seen something and knows stuff the
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: rest of us don't want to know about. I mean,
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: so this brings to mind this idea that the detective
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: is he or perhaps she who knows how to deal
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: with society's shadow.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: That's also like the story of Silence of the Lambs.
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  Speaker 3: where Hannibal Lecter is like this horrendous demonic forest. And
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: Clarissa is, you know, this brave heroine who's like tolerating
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: these horrors in order to unpack these gruesome crimes.
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  Speaker 2: The detective metabolizes the shadow. So I have to tell you,
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: I've never seen Silence of the Lambs.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: Oh my God, it's so shocking. It's too scary. It's
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: so shocking. That and The Exorcist are the only two
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: movies I've ever seen that had nightmares after I saw them.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: I was living alone in D.C. when that movie came out.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: I was like, I probably shouldn't see that movie. So
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: I've never seen it.
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was shocking.
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: But, you know, Clarissa is a different kind of detective.
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: She is the young woman. She is innocent in many respects.
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: And she takes on this really demonic, evil character of
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: Hannibal Lecter. But there are other, that leads me into
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: other women who are famously detectives. As a kid, I
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: was into Nancy Drew. I just loved Nancy Drew.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: She was great.
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: Our public library disdained buying Nancy Drew books. So I
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: had to sneak into the Beacon bookstore and go into
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: where the Nancy Drew books were and read 10 or
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: 15 pages at a time before the lady kicked me out.
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  Speaker 3: That is determination.
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: Oh, it was really such a big deal. Do I
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: dare go in there again and try it out? But
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: Nancy is a young woman. There's Harriet the Spy. Harriet
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: the Spy is maybe 10 years old or so. There
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: are the Hardy Boys. And then there are our adult characters.
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: who are the little old lady, like Miss Marple, or
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: that's Agatha Christie. And who's the other one? Jessica Fletcher.
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  Speaker 4: So the women detectives represent sort of the unlikely, who
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: would suspect them of having this analytical, intuitive, deductive mind
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: because their cloak, unlike the trench coat and the fedora,
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: is that they look so either young or just a
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: kid or like the proverbial little old lady who would
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: never think to have the mind of a sleuth.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: You know, going back to this thing about them being
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: outsiders in some sense is that In order to, there's this,
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: and it's this wonderful psychological place, right, where to ferret
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: out the killer, you have to be able to think
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: like a killer.
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: Right? So there's this way that the detective has a
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: kind of secret identification with the murderer in some sense,
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: in some kind of archetypal sense.
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  Speaker 3: And that's very true in things like Batman and the Joker,
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: where the... the law enforcement, the investigator is also very
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: shadowy and is part of that underground world.
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: So who are your favorite all-time detective sleuth spies?
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: Well, like I said, Cormorant Strike is really up there
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: for me. Rowling usually publishes a new book. They usually
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: come out in September and one didn't come out last
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: September and I'm But I've been able to pre-order the
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: next one, which I think is coming out around September.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: And there are promises to be a big advance in
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: the relationship between Strike and his young assistant, Robin. So,
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm waiting. But there's the romance aspect of it, too,
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: which is quite delicious. So, yeah. So Cormorant Strike's a
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: big favorite of mine. But I've also enjoyed the books
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: by Henning Munkle, who I think is Swedish, part of
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: the Norwegian crime novelists, whose private eye is Wallander, kind
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: of down-on-his-luck cop who drinks too much and his wife
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: left him and his daughter doesn't talk to him very
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: often anymore. And, you know, his personal life is sort
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: of for shit, but he... He gets the guys eventually,
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: I think my first exposure to this was in cartoons
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: because there's a whole genre of children's cartoons. Scooby-Doo was
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: a detective series as well as Josie and the Pussycats.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: Of course, I would all end with them like singing
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: some nifty little song, you know, wearing cattails.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Which Joseph is now going to be in my head
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: for the rest of the day.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: Thank you very much. Josie and the Pussycats. And it
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: continues with other iterations, things that I had never necessarily
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: gotten involved with, like Carmen Sandiego was a big kids thing.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: Inspector Gadget was another thing, DuckTales. And just to make
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: sure kids start out really young, Blue's Clues, which is
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: like for toddlers, is a detective series.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: The man-boy that is in charge of all of that
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: is kind of like a simplistic, innocent Sherlock Holmes.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: Your repertoire of TV history is very impressive, Joseph.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: I was raised by a television, and that's just a fact.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, literally, like, I don't know where my parents were.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: Woke up, went to sleep. It was us and the TV.
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: It was so funny. Now, my favorite detectives are the
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: everyman ones. So I adored Columbo. I just loved Columbo,
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: where he'd sort of scratch his head and say, you know,
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: maybe I'm just not getting this. But, you know, you
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: said this, and then we discovered that, and then, you know,
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: help me figure it out. And he sort of hoodwinks
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: the perpetrator along into providing more evidence that eventually convicts
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: him of his heinous crime. And the other one I
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: loved was Monk, who had just all kinds of complexes
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: and OCD and I think agoraphobia and just cleanliness, hand-washing stuff,
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: and was forever battling himself and his complexes in order
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: to go after the greater good to find out whodunit.
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: And I enjoyed watching him contend with himself as much
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: as he contended with the criminal. And he had a
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: helper who kept facilitating things and enticing him and getting
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: him out there in the field. So it's an interesting
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: amplification here on what we're calling the archetype of the detective,
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: that it has so many ways to To present itself
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: from the hard-bitten sleuth to the little old lady to
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: Scooby-Doo to somebody like Monk or Columbo. That like all archetypes,
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: there are any number of facets where underneath there lurks
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: the search for the truth.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: You know, I was going through a phase, I go
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: through phases where I read a lot of detective fiction
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: and then I like put it down and I read
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: something else. But in one of my phases where I
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: was reading these and was like, why are these so satisfying?
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: First of all, I was really, it was very gratifying
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: to recall that Jung read detective and crime novels. So
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: I have a little... quote here from his biography by
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Deirdre Baird, just really quickly. She writes that his favorite
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: form of recreational reading were creamy, the crime novels and
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: murder mysteries of writers such as Agatha Christie, his favorite,
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: or Simonin. He devoured them in the evening, so friends
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: in England and France made sure to send the latest
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: as soon as they were published.
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: First of all, I just want to say, I don't
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: understand how that man read all of the stuff that
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: he read and wrote all of the stuff that he
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: wrote and had time to read crime fiction, but there
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: you go. Um, but, but I thought it was so
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: interesting that, you know, uh, yeah, that, that, that, that
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: I found them so, um, incredibly gratifying and satisfying to read.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: And so did young. And so what I decided when
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: I was thinking about what is it about these is that,
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: you know, they always start, uh, Fairly predictably, there's some
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: kind of crime. Usually, as you said, Deb, it's the
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: discovery of the dead body. And then it's like that
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: sets everything in motion, right? It's like the question, who
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: did this? Who done it? But it also shows a
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: kind of break with order. So one of the things
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: that's coming to mind is that British series Broadchurch.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: Yes, that is so good.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: I really liked that.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: There is a lot done around the grief of the family.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: It's actually really hard to watch because they really develop that,
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: the grief of the family. But, you know, so they
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: find this little, this, this little boy goes, I think
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: it's the boy goes missing and then they find his
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: body on the beach. Yes.
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: And so then it's a couple of series of who
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: did this, who did this. And boy, it's a really
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: surprising ending. You don't see that coming.
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: But, yeah. But what happens, so order has been disrupted.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: A child has been killed, for heaven's sake, you know.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: The fabric of polite society has been rent asunder brutally, violently.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: And we really need to see order restored. And that's
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: what happens when they catch the guy. And often these
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: end in a kind of courtroom scene where there's a
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: confession or a conviction. And then, you know, it's kind
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: of like that Shakespearean restoration, that Elizabethan restoration of order
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: that happens at all of the end of all of
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: Shakespeare's tragedies. No matter how badly things have gone throughout
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: the play, at the end, you know, someone comes in
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: and order has been restored and it's very satisfying. So
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: I think that's what it tickles in my psyche.
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: And today, and your reference to Broadchurch really lifts this
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: up for me, Lisa, is we are just as interested
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: in the why as we are in the who. Yeah.
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: Of what happened here that would lead somebody to commit
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: this crime. And some detective stories even lift up the
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: perpetrator fairly early on. But what we're also interested in
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: then is the psychology of the perpetrator. What's the backstory?
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: The motive.
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: The motive.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: And his childhood history and this and that, and the
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: grudge he had against this person for all kinds of reasons.
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: And we go, oh, that's why he did it.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: And so if we think about also the shadow of
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: the detective, which all of us experience at times in ourselves,
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: which is obsession, paranoia, and projection. It's the girlfriend going
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: through your phone all the time and going through your
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: laptop because she's sure that you've committed some infraction, you're
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: having an affair, and she's going to investigate it and
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: ferret it out. So that this spirit of suspicion of
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: everyone and everything can creep into a culture or into
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: a person, and then they energy of investigation becomes harnessed
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: by our own shadow. And there actually is a term
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: called apophenia, which is this tendency to find meaningful patterns
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: in random or unrelated data. This is the distorted detective
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: who is accumulating information, but forcing it into a certain
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: kind of channel in order to justify something like confirmation bias.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: And when the shadow has grabbed hold of the detective,
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: then all of a sudden ruthlessness becomes normal or highly
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: unethical behavior is justified in order to kind of claw
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: oneself to find what you think is out there. So
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: there can be a way that it's not always virtuous.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: but the impulse can be, um, tainted.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And, and some detective stories feature some featured detectives
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: who are kind of playing fast and loose with the
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: rules and they're right on the edge of criminal activity themselves.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: So I think there, there really is something about this being, uh, an,
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: an image of, of sort of how we deal with
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: the shadow side of the psyche, you know, and, and,
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: and that, uh, The fact that if you spend too
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: much time facing criminals, you kind of start to maybe
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: turn into one yourself or there is that temptation.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: And analysts are detectives in a way or investigators.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: That we are looking for clues that the unconscious gives us.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: Freud called these Freudian slips, he called them parapraxis, where
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: all of a sudden the unconscious will blurt something out.
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: The analyst is trying to investigate the secret truth underneath
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: the surface, but not in service to prosecuting, but that
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: there is value in bringing things to light, regardless of
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: what one does with that.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: Well, and a lot of times someone comes into analysis
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: with a bit of a mystery. Sometimes it's even framed
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: that way. I really want to be in a relationship,
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: and somehow I've never been able to find a good relationship.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: And so right there, you know, and we're off. Well,
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: what about that? And tell me stories and let me,
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: you know, go through, tell me about the past. What
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: happened this week? You know, and we're looking for clues
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: to put together a story that will make this make sense.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: So there is like, there's a search for meaning and
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: there's a search for patterns and there's the desire to
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: uncover something that's been hidden.
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: Yes. And lift it into consciousness. Yes. which is what
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: I think symbolically happens in a good detective story, is
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: that finding the perpetrator, discovering the secret, whatever it is,
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: is like in a fairy tale. It's like finding the treasure.
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: He finally gets a bride. Something is lifted into consciousness
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: that is symbolized by finding the perpetrator.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Ah-ha!
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: You know, the old trope of, it was the butler. Of, ah,
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: the clue was right there in plain sight. Someone that
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: you come across every day. And that that's a part
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: of one's own psyche that is so mundane and so
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: ordinary that we never think to investigate it. And where
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: is the butler in one's own psyche? that is actually
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: preventing the achievement of a life goal or somehow hindering
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: one's own development.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: I think Jung had said somewhere that in each of
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: us there is a secret which is a rock upon
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: which we must be broken, which is this truth that
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: is too painful to know, not quite a crime, so
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: to speak, but that in the investigation, the revelation of
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: this is going to change us. And it's a necessary change,
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: and it's part of the reality principle.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Right. And he says specifically that that is, you know,
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: that it's when he discovers that secret, that that is
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: when the analysis begins. Yeah.
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: That something must be set right. And that's exactly what
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: happens in every good detective story, spy novel, murder mystery.
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: is something is discovered, there is a secret, and we
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: all breathe a sigh of relief when it is discovered
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: and things are righted and that right order is then restored,
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: you know, versus the break with order you were talking about, Lisa.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: And the order is social order, that detectives as part
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: of law enforcement have to do with cultural norms. that
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: it's the investigation of infractions to what the culture says
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: is acceptable. So whether it's an IRS agent who is
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: pouring through every receipt to figure out if you've not
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: done what the regulations say or the crime detective who's
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: going to come and investigate who robbed your house. But
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: these are about norms and agreements that we've made in
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: the culture and that the detective is part of this
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: process of enforcing cultural norms.
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: So the detective is the ego.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, or part of the superego, yeah.
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: The superego, the ego, are rational, analytic, fact-finding, intuitive capability.
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: And then what what happens in the detective stories is
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: it does look like, okay, here's the culprit. Oh, I
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: can take a breath. But what I'm thinking about here
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: is just like in a dream, the next door neighbor
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: is a part of you. That setting on some kind
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: of farm is a part of you. And are we
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: satisfied when we read a detective story or watch one,
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: that the culprit is out there versus do we take
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: the next step and say, what part of me is
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: that person Or is it just a vindication of the
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: powers of the ego to sleuth, deduct, intuit, persist? Is
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: it a victory for the ego?
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: But you know what, you know, and I think you
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: were sort of saying this before, if we look at
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: a detective story as if it were a dream, kind of.
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: What has happened is that something has been made conscious.
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: That's the real change.
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: You know, a kind of inner process, right? Is that,
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: for example, something's been getting in our way of finding
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: a satisfying love relationship. And if we do the sleuthing
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: and we do it well, perhaps we discover that and
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: then something's been made conscious. Now, it's just going to
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: tee up another, you know, there's going to be another
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: book or another episode because next week there'll be something
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: new that we don't know about. But it does, I think,
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: kind of lift up the tendency, the positive tendency we
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: have to understand more, learn more, and try to unearth
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: what's been hidden.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: And this capacity to investigate is everywhere. Your car's making
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: a funny noise. You take it to your favorite mechanic
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: who is going to investigate and find the truth that
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: this belt is loose.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: You're unwell. You go to a doctor. We want to
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: go to a doctor who is a good diagnostician, who
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: is going to be our detective, and that MRIs are
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: detective machines to see what's underneath it. This detecting, investigating
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: process is something we rely on in almost every domain.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: And if you're a parent, you're a sleuth. You're looking
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: at those kids. That look she's got on her face,
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: that he's doing something funny, and then all of a
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: sudden mom is like the first detective in their lives,
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: kind of looking around for what's going on here. And
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: the very first detective is God. It's in the book
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: of Genesis. All of a sudden God's strolling through the
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: garden and he's like, wait a minute. Adam and Eve,
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: what have you been up to here? Something is wrong.
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: We need to do an investigation. And he does. He investigates.
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: What were you guys up to over there? And why
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: are you hiding in a bush?
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: It's all about lifting things up into consciousness.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, I think it is.
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: Whether, yeah, the funny noise in your car. the bodily
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: symptom that you have, or the strange, strange case of
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: the disappearing chocolate chip cookies from the pantry.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: You know, Joseph, you're saying if you're a parent, you're
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: a detective, reminds me that when my kids were little,
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: I'd say, did you brush your teeth? And they'd say, yeah, yeah,
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: I brushed my teeth. And then I'd come upstairs and
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: I'd feel the toothbrush and it would be dry. And
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: I'd say, no, you didn't. And they'd be like, how
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: did you know that? They thought it was like magic.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: And like night after night, I'd be like, no, you're lying.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: And they couldn't figure out how I knew.
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: Perfect.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: The truth is out there somewhere, like the X-Files.
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: And then there's the kid who, when you say, did
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: you wash your hands? And they say, yeah, I washed
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: my hands. And you say, well, okay, let me just
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: take a little sniff. And then you find out that
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: they didn't wash their hands. They just sort of passed
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: the soap over them so it would smell like they
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: washed their hands. And, aha, there's a criminal activity going
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: on here.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. And without that, we couldn't survive. Or it's an
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: indigenous people that are investigating where the herd is and
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: what are all the signs of where... where it is
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: that you need something and searching it out and detecting something.
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: So it is actually central to the survival of human
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: beings to be able to differentiate and detect and particularly
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: what is meaningful versus what is meaningless.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: Well, and I was thinking earlier at some point during
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: this conversation that, you know, really the way we evolved
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: these abilities probably primarily would be In hunting, you know,
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: because you have to read the signs. You have to
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: look very carefully. Where is the quarry? Did it pass
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: this way? You know, did it break the tree as
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: it ran past the little tree limb? And so now
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: you know which way it went. Or, you know, can
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: you think like your quarry so that you'll be able
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: to find it? You know, I think that a detective
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: on the hunt for a killer, it's very similar in
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: some way to... It's primal. Yeah, to our capacity for hunting,
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: which is how we survived in the early years of
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: our species.
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: Cats are detectives, you know, they're roaming around your house,
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: opening up your cabinets, throwing things off the shelves, smelling everything.
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: They are investigators. What they're looking for remains to be seen,
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: but it is.
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: It's just fun to knock things off the table, that's all.
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: Raccoons in your attic you know they're conducting an investigation
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: yes to see if there's something in there that they
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: can make use of so it is a spirit of
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: of need and curiosity and audacity driven by survival and
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: then that can be harnessed to culture and laws and
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: raising kids and many other things sometimes to bad effect
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: but for the most part i think it is in
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: service to life.
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: To knowledge you know I am so curious about, you know,
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: in my quest for being the detective here, I was
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: thinking about who are the criminals? What are the categories
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: of crime? And how do they relate to our own
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: shadows of the, the kinds of criminals that the detectives
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: are consciousness is seeking. And I was thinking about just,
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: sort of the disruptor who just likes to disrupt the
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: order of the world and is in it for the
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: sake of the game, for the sake of power, like
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: the Joker, for example, just above any kind of order
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: or morality. Then there's the enemy, that somebody develops an
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: enemy who is forever out to get him. And I'm
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: thinking about Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty, who Moriarty is the disruptor.
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: He just likes to do what he likes to do.
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: But he's also the personal enemy of Sherlock Holmes, and
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: they have a personal vendetta that they are forever trying
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: to settle. One of my favorites is The Outlaw. And
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: I think we all have a secret place where we
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: kind of relate to the outlaw. You know, didn't you
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: relate to Jesse James and those exciting scenes of train
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: robberies and the secret hope that they're going to get
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: away with it? No? Am I the only one? I'm
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: the only renegade here?
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: No, I think there's plenty of examples and literature and
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: movies where we're cheering people. Not the one who's going
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: to break the rules or change the system.
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: Yep. Then there is the guy who is himself, and
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: we've kind of touched on this in some of the detectives,
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: of who has his own pathology. Who was it? Nero
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: Wolfe in the Rex Stout novels is so fat that
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: he can't even climb a set of stairs. Monk had
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: all of his quirks and obsessiveness. Dexter is himself a
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: psychopath who commits crimes to fight crimes. There's the serial killer.
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: Dexter's interesting and complicated because his father recognizes that he's
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: a psychopath and that it's incorrigible, that he is going
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: to hurt people and he is going to kill them.
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: And what he does is he gives Dexter these rules.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: that you have to identify this subgroup of people that
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: you can act out against, and then you can relieve
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: this horrible tension inside of you. So if you follow
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: this narrow channel, then you can justify this murderous impulse
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: that's been in you since you were a kid. So
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: it's a much crazier kind of mix of things that
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: goes together, but he is more like the Furies. It's
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: this primordial spirit of vengeance that has no empathy at all.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: But it's an interesting example of one way to deal
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: with shadow. The shadow that is all of us. Operationalize it.
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: Have a supervisor in the name of Dexter's father who
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: sets some rules. That takes me to the bad cop scene.
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: Or the corrupt official. Aha! The person who is supposedly
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: in charge of overseeing and upholding the proper order of
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: things is in fact subverting it and might even be
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: like the double agent in spy novels. Another one is
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: the gangster who's in business. The gangster boss is running
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: a business. And some of the murders and other crimes
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: are just, it's just business. Don't take it so personally.
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: Of that kind of distance from a shadow that is,
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: you know, heinous to most of us. Then we touched
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: on this too, the cunning killer who's in plain sight.
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: There's an episode on the Benedict Cumberbatch series of Sherlock Holmes,
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: my total personal favorite, who's a cab driver. This is
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: total spoiler alert. Too late. I said spoiler alert after
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: letting out the culprit. But, you know, and he says that.
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: Who would ever suspect a humble, unassuming, older man cab driver?
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: And the hired gun, you know, for the right amount
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: of money. It's again, it's just business.
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: The mercenary.
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: And last but not least, the femme fatale. So we
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: can have a lot of fun with that and what
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: that might indicate in our shadows. But this is all
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: about shadow. The everlasting, ever ongoing, never finished. encounters between
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: ego and consciousness and the unconscious. And I think we
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: all get a lot of vicarious pleasure out of it.
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: It's not my shadow. So I enjoy watching.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: Someone else get caught.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: Somebody else gets caught. And the kind of techniques required
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: to out the culprit, the shadow, the criminal.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: And that finding. Finding the shadow, finding the one who's
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: carrying the shadow.
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: And at the very least, having the confrontation, which is
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: part of Jungian work. Not necessarily to always put the
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: shadow in jail, although sometimes you do. There is some
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: shadow material that we can know about, but simply cannot
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: be permitted into the outer world, although it is alive
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: in the inner world. But in order to be able
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: to contain something, we have to investigate it and discover it. Yep.
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: Because it's probably been doing things without our knowledge in
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: the back.
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: And just as in a good detective story, there's a
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: huge measure of relief that, oh, God, I never realized
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: that about myself. Oh, my God, this is what it is.
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: Now I know that about myself, and it may be
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: the symbolic equivalent of a secret or a crime or
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: even a dead body, but usually not.
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: When you think about the manhunts, like the Zodiac Killer,
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: things like that, where the collective becomes so frightened, and
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: that when you catch the culprit... that now people can
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: sleep at night because the evil one has been contained.
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: So there's definitely a response when we finally know and contain.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: Today's dream comes from a man who's 33 years old
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: and works as a retail worker. And he calls the
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: dream Friends in the Mine. And here's the dream. I
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: awake in a cavernous underground mine. Metal stairs and railing
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: lead to metal doors attached to the rocky walls of
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: the mine. A large stone building stands in the middle
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: of the mine, connecting the floor and the ceiling. It
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: too has metal stairs and doors, which I know lead
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: to rooms or apartment units carved from the stone. In
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: the dream, I am aware that this mine is owned
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: by my uncle. I turn around to see three old
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: friends who I have not seen in years. We greet
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: each other meekly and with no fanfare. One friend seems
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: to have forgotten my name, but soon remembers as we
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: shake hands. So he notes for context, I had this
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: dream the same day I began listening to your podcast.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: Other than that, I'm in the midst of changing careers.
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: And the main feelings were curiosity, wonder, and loneliness. And
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: then for associations, he says, I can't say for sure.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: if my waking self recognizes the three friends in the dream.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: But I do associate them with people who I used
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: to hang out with in my early 20s. I don't
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: see them as much because life has taken us on
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: very different journeys since those days.
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: So just jumping right into it, to me, this is
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: a dream about Hades. And particularly, I was... Noodling it around,
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: but that last sentence, one of my friends seems to
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: have forgotten my name. And when the dead pass into Hades,
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: they have to drink from the river of Lethe. Yes,
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: the river that makes them forget their old lives. So
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: that seems significant, kind of going into the unconscious and
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: trying to learn how to navigate the terrain.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, I had that sense too, right?
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: This is underground, and it's a mine. So a mine
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: is something that's underground, but there's something valuable down there.
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: That we want to bring up to consciousness. Now, I
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: wish I knew more about his uncle, because this mine
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: is owned by his uncle. But I will say that
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: it seems significant that he associates these people with people
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: he used to hang out with in his 20s. So
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: So somehow, perhaps he's getting back in touch with old
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: values as he contemplates moving forward into a career change.
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: One of the myths of Tartarus, which is one of
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: the underworld myths, is that when Saturn is overthrown, he
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: is thrown into the underworld. But when he is in
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: the underworld, he creates a paradise. It is a golden
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: world where all things are lovely. and in a sense
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: almost perfect, because the god of order and structure is
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: now working underneath the ground, and that reminds me a
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: little of the mind. The order, the precious resources, there's
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: a whole city in this underworld that he now has
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: access to. To me, this is almost like the setting
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: of a dream. There's this opening scene, and now we
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: know where he is, And the question that I have
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: going forward is, so what's next? So you've found this
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: remarkable resource. It's friendly. You have people that you know
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: and allies in the underworld. Are you going to mine
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: some gold? What are you going to do with all
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: this in there?
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: I was struck by the contrast between Between this mine,
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: just the setting of the rocky, rocky walls, so hard,
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: so hard to penetrate. And then these metal steps. and
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: a railing and this building, again, of metal. So here
• 49:28
  Speaker 4: are all these hard surfaces. And then the human factor
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: comes in. There's an uncle who is... does not appear
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: in person, but who is above ground, who owns the mine.
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: And then there are three old friends, and they are
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: people he used to hang out with. So there's the
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: human factor, and it would appear that they are all male,
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: that this is a dream from a male dreamer with
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: the other female, characters in the cast are also male.
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: And what kind of masculine energy are we talking about?
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: Our dreamer is, he says, other than that, he says,
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: other than listening to our podcast for the first time,
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: I'm in the midst of changing careers. as an almost
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: sort of casual fact of life. But changing careers is
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: a really big deal. And here are people from his 20s,
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: and our dreamer is 33. I'd be very curious as
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: to tell me more about these friends.
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: What did you used to do when you were in
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: your 20s when you hung out together? Did you go bowling?
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: Did you go camping? Was there a favorite pub or
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: bar you went to? What was the feeling tone of
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: more carefree years? That's my fantasy. And tell me about
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: your uncle. The uncle is the one who's above ground.
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: And hey, if you own a mine, you're pretty capable.
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: You have a lot of operations to oversee and administer.
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: You've got payroll that you've got to meet.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: And a lot of access to resources that are down underground.
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: Right, exactly. So I'm so curious about the above and
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: below of the uncle and what an owner of a
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: mine is. As opposed to, you know, here we are,
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: and there are four of them, three friends and our
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: dream ego, which represent the potential for a kind of wholeness,
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: according to Jung, who felt that the number four and
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: fourness represents sort of a completeness. So we have four directions, and...
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: Four apostles and four functions of the ego. And most
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: buildings that are created by conscious people have four corners.
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: So there's a potential here underground that represents stability. So
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: this is one of those dreams where I really wish
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: we had the dreamer.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: Because this could make for a very lively dream. discussion,
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: but we will leave it to the dreamer to see
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: what he can make of what we've made of it.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. To submit a dream, suggest an episode topic,
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: or join our mailing list, visit our website, thisjungianlife.com. If
• 53:07
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• 53:10
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