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Santa and Krampus: Why the “Nice List” Needs a Shadow · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We have this very domesticated view of Santa that you
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: can let him know what you want. And then if
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: there's a particular Lego set that's very hot that year,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: you know, if you've been good, Santa will deliver it.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: But of course, that's actually not the way the transpersonal
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: energies of the psyche work. You might get exactly what
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: you ask for, but usually the ego doesn't really know
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: what it needs. And the self may deliver what you need,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: which may not be what you want.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: And thus opening up the gifts and finding that Santa
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: has given me new slacks from Sears and sadly the
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: husky section. And how confusing that was for me. And
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: even underwear and socks sometimes.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: Welcome to this Jungian life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: One of the eternal symbols of the Christmas season is
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: the arrival of Santa Claus. And many of us take
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: it just as it presents some husky guy in red velvet,
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: the big chubby smile who's going to give us all
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: the good stuff that we've been hoping for. Certainly my
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: experience as a kid. But as we know, These cultural
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: images that survive and survive and survive have an archetypal
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: underpinning that feeds the vitality of the image. So today
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: we're going to explore the rather serpentine reality and evolution
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: of the idea of Santa Claus. And you may find
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: it as surprising as we did as we leaned into it.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, when I started doing this research, I
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: was like, whoa, I mean, probably there are books out
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: there on it.
• 2:28
  Speaker 5: It's incredibly complex.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: There are all of these different threads from different cultures
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: like Père Noël in France and Father Christmas.
• 2:40
  Speaker 5: In England and.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Going back to the actual historical Saint Nicholas who lived
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: in what is now modern day Turkey. There are pre-Christian
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: elements strung in here. So just like any archetype, it
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: has sort of appeared and reappeared and been melded together.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: And it's an astonishingly complex history if we trace it
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: according to the way it has evolved throughout time.
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: This Jungian Life Dream School is our year-long online program
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: in the art of Jungian dream analysis. We offer guidance, instruction,
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• 4:21
  Speaker 2: So as we said, there's something universal about the pattern,
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: and as archetypes do, they give rise to various ways
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: of imaging the invisible archetype that is certainly influenced by
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: culture in one way or another. So let's, since we're
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: talking about archetypes, maybe we can just touch on some
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: of the dominance, dominant factors that show up around Santa Claus.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: So he has something to do with secrecy and evidence, right?
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: We're not supposed to see Santa Claus come. All the
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: kids have to be asleep, you know, lest you catch
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: a glimpse of the great elf showing up and leaving
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: all the good stuff. And then the kids want evidence, right? Oh,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: the cookies were eaten and the milk is gone and
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: the presents are here. So there's something about this mysterious
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: secret dynamic to it. There's also something about boundaries. Somehow
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Santa Claus can come in and out of your house,
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: no matter where it is. And it used to be
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: connected to chimneys. And I remember as a kid being
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: very concerned that we didn't have a chimney. So we
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: were up Schitt's Creek without a paddle, and how was
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: he going to get in? I can't remember how my
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: parents made that go away, but somehow I let go
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: of it because I was trying logically to figure all
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: this out. But Santa Claus somehow can move through thresholds
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: with magic. There's a moral accounting, good and bad. And
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: there's such a focus on children. So that's an element
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: that seems to thrum in all of the images, but
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: in different proportions, depending on where it shows up.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: You know, I think that's a really good list. And
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: I love that we're starting there because really you can
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: find lots about the history of this image, but we're
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: really interested in tracking it symbolically as an archetype. And so,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: you know, what Jung said is that the archetypes don't
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: have a form as such, that they are kind of
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: potentials in the psyche that don't necessarily manifest in a
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: particular way until they get constellated and then they take
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: similar forms across different cultures. So we're sort of positing
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: here today, I think, that Santa Claus is an archetype
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: that's looked like this at this time and this at
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: another time and in another place it looked like that.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: So what are we talking about? And I think that's
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: a good list, Joseph. And of course, another major one
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: would be this idea.
• 7:17
  Speaker 5: Of, well, first of all, gift giving.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: That it's something about bestowing gifts, especially on those who
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: are worthy. And that perhaps links it with its the
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Christian significance of the birth of Christ, you know, that
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: this was this gift that humanity was being given. And
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: of course, the wise men meet the miraculous birth with gifts.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: So there's something really important there about gifts. But also,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: I want to say maybe something like good cheer. But
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, your list... also had these really
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: important highlights like the secrecy and the moral accounting, which
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: I think we will get back to, and the sense
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: of a kind of omniscience. Like he sees you when
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows if
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: you've been bad or good.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: So be good for goodness sake.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's a real, in a way, this is
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: the transpersonal conscience.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: And that some goods come from beyond the ego's control. Right.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: And it is a mystery as to how these good
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: things come. But there is some relationship between us and
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: the source of the good things. And it's not a
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: neutral contract. So in that way, Santa Claus can take
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: on certain qualities of the self. Initially, I think, carried
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: more of the bivalence of it because Santa Claus also
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: can give you a hard time as well as gift you.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: But this idea that there's a magical source that travels
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: through the sky and bestows what is necessary and what
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: is desired and that one needs to forge a relationship
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: with that.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and I love that. If we think about
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: that as a, you know, like you said, an image
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: of the self. And for children, it's like, well, I
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: could ask for what I want and then I might
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: get what I deserve If I've been good, I'll get
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: what I want. You know, in some sense, it's a
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: sort of fairly rudimentary initial training in moral reasoning, right?
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: In general, I mean, I.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Think it's not always true, obviously, but there is some
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: truth to, you know, if you sort of do the
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: right thing in the right spirit, you often do get rewarded.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Maybe some people are going to say that's naive of me,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: but I think that's true at least some of the time.
• 9:57
  Speaker 5: That's the message. And, and, uh, the, is so interesting.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: And it really comes across like most things in modern life.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: It's really been watered down. So now we just have
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: this vague sense that you'll get a lump of coal
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: if you've been bad. Is that in some Christmas song
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: or something?
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: That's the joke, and you, you know, Christmas cards might
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: feature that in a kind of humorous way or whatever.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: But that was often a major component of Santa Claus,
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  Speaker 1: that he could be the punisher as well. And in
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: some cultures, that role is really upheld by the figure
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: of Krampus, who has kind of pre-Christian roots. in mostly
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: alpine Europe. I think most people at this point can
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: conjure up an image of Krampus. He basically looks like
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: the devil. And what would happen is men would dress
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: up in goat furs and actually wear horns from goats
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: or similar creatures and wear these carved wooden masks. It's
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: really quite something. And they would brandish these batches of
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: twigs and go through the town looking for naughty children,
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  Speaker 1: chasing beautiful women, and just kind of generally being a
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: little bit devilish. And Krampus is associated with, I think it's,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: you know, the eve of St. Nicholas's Saint Day, which
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: is December 6th, and really kind of the dark side
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: of Santa. So some legends have that Santa and Krampus
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: would visit the village together, and the good kids would
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: get the gifts from Santa, and the bad kids would
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  Speaker 1: get a thrashing from Krampus.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: And in some ways, that is more reflective of Jung's
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: understanding of the self, which can be both scary and benevolent,
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: and that we shouldn't assume that these transpersonal forces are
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: always interested in pleasing people. human experience but they can
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  Speaker 2: also introduce suffering of one kind or another because there
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: is a certain kind of catholic valence to saint nicholas
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  Speaker 2: for instance that goodness is defined in a pretty explicit
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: way which would be obedience to the precepts of the
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: church at that time and then therefore it carries a
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: very specific moral valence to it um i do wonder
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: in the in the pre-christian world what was considered the
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: barometer by which someone might be judged as worthy or unworthy.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: There's a recent book that was published called The Children's
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Dream Seminar, which is available through the Philemon Foundation. And
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Jung is analyzing dreams that the participants had when they
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: were children to try to get a sense of this
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: developmental arc. And that's a place where he leans in
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: a bit to the archetype of Saint Nicholas, and as
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: you were saying, Lisa, really bringing up the tension between
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: what might be pleasing and what might be scary. And
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: he's leaning into it, and he's saying that, you know,
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Saint Nicholas also takes children into places of darkness. And
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: some of the ancient stories are children might be abducted
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: for being bad. and problematic. So because Saint Nicholas comes
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: from the spirit world, he also returns to the spirit
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: world and may take something of us, or literally us ourselves,
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: into the world beyond. So he's a judge of the
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: living and the dead in that more ancient configuration of it.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: which makes him a little bit like Osiris or even
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: a Christ figure in some regards.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean, again, we have this very domesticated
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: view of Santa that you can let him know what
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: you want, and then if there's a particular Lego set
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: that's very hot that year, you know, if you've been good,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Santa will deliver it. But of course, that's actually not
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: the way the transpersonal energies of the psyche work. You
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: might get exactly what you ask for, but usually... the
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: ego doesn't really know what it needs. And the self
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: may deliver what you need, which may not be what
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: you want.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: And thus, opening up the gifts and finding that Santa
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: has given me new slacks from Sears and sadly, the
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: husky section. And how confusing that was for me. And
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: even underwear and socks sometimes, which is part of that
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: symbol of Santa giving you what you need, but not
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: necessarily what you want.
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: Do you remember believing in Santa Claus?
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh. Unquestioningly. I believed in Santa Claus so intensely,
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: and I was a very devout Catholic child, interestingly enough,
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: although my family wasn't particularly. So when I was in duress,
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: I would first pray to Santa Claus. because that was
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: the one that credibly showed up physically. So I would
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: pray to Santa Claus, I'd pray to Jesus and Mary.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: They all kind of came together as the Trinity in
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: my mind.
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: Santa Claus, Jesus, and Mary.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. And so Santa Claus could intervene. And it wasn't
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: that I was even praying for certain gifts, I was
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: praying for resolution of certain things that were going on
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: for help. And it was very real to me.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Santa Claus is the intercessor. And there's something, I mean,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: when I think about this as, you know, Santa Claus
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: and what it's doing kind of in our psyches, there
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: is something a little sad about it because we present it,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: we offer it to children as an image of kind
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: of what you're talking about, a a transpersonal being who
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: kind of looks after them. And we even give them
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: evidence of it. I mean, sometimes with a lot of effort,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: you know, there's the midnight, you know, depositing the gifts
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: under the tree. And some parents go to a lot of,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: you know, making sure the wrapping paper is different and
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. And then it's all revealed
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: as a big fake thing. It makes me think a
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: little bit of Jung in his autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: talks about, you know, looking forward so much to his
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: first Holy Communion. His father was a pastor and he
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: thought the mystery was going to be revealed. And what
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: he realized is that it was an entirely empty ceremony,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: that the wine was just the same old, you know,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: wine that they bought at the corner store. The wafer was,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: you know, baked by Joe the baker. And that his
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: father didn't believe and that he went through this great
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: sacrament and nothing changed. So there is, and perhaps that's inevitable, right?
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Perhaps there is a way that we believe in magic,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: as it were, in childhood. And then I'm really going
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: down a tangent here. I'll try to land the plane.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: But part of what happens in adolescence is that... That belief,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: that sustaining belief in whatever it was, be it Santa
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: or kind of more magical version of God, that we
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: always have a crisis of faith and then we have
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: to find our way back. It is a little heartbreaking
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: that we as a culture, that this is what we
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: can offer kids, is this kind of sanitized, commercialized deity.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. And also positive. I mean, many people are out
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: of touch with this, but in the Catholic Church, you
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: do pray to saints with an expectation and hope that
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: they can intercede and make things happen on your behalf.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: So there is kind of a reinforced idea about that.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: But what you're saying is, you know, when your child
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: finds out, often through friends at school, that Santa Claus
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: is really your parents and they're stocking up presents in
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: the top of their closet, or that the parents at
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: some point independently decide, well, it's time to tell them.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, as a Jungian analyst, what I would suggest
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: is they'll discover it themselves. You don't need to disillusion them.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: Sooner or later, their own psychology is going to question
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: whether this concrete manifestation really adds up as they become
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: more connected to how the world really works. Or their kids,
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: the other kids will puncture the illusion. And this is
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: something that Jung was sitting in. It makes me think
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: of a conversation that I think Marie-Louise von Franz reported,
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: where she was talking to Jung about a client who
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: believed that she lived on the moon and that she'd
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: been diagnosed with a kind of psychotic condition. And Jung
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: Bonfrance was reporting it in a very clinical way. Well,
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: this is a symptom and this is what she feels.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: And Jung had stopped her and said, no, no, she
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: really does live on the moon. And she was like, no, no, no,
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: she's a psychosis. He goes, no, she lives on the moon.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: And what he was trying to restore was a felt
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: sense of psychic reality that for that person, they are
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: in a part of the psychic terrain that has all
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: the real properties of the physical world and has to
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: be held as such in order for the analyst to,
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: to meet the person in the uncanny world that they reside.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: And maybe that will change. I suppose it, it might
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: over time, but to honor that secret mythic world inside
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: of us, um, That's a challenge, isn't it?
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we create this, you know, with the myth
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: of Santa Claus, four children, and then we wipe it away.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: And in secular societies, there's not a lot offered to
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: replace it. So, I mean, and honestly, I think that's
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: what we do as union analysts, right, is we invite people.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: to inhabit their own mythic landscape and to find their
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: relationship with this symbolic world In that sense, I think
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: an experience of Santa Claus in childhood can be a
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: precursor to that. Because, of course, you are relating not
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: just to the guy in the Pepsi commercial, or I
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: guess it was a Coke commercial, whatever.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: I think it was a Coke commercial. It might even
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: have been a Diet Coke commercial.
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: He definitely needs a.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, Santa needs a GLP one.
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: I mean, let's just face it.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: Stop with the cookies, Santa.
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: But.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Yes, you have that image in your mind or the,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: you know, Santa Claus that appears in those wonderful animated
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: specials this time of year or whatever.
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: But you are.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Also relating to those archetypal energies that you and I
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: spoke about at the top of the episode.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: And when we are deprived of the representations of those forces,
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: they kind of tumble back into the unconscious and resurface.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: somewhere or other, sometimes symptomatically or sometimes in an ideal way,
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: they re-emerge in dreams, or the unconscious creates a symbol
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: for us that is titrated to the new perception of
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: how the world works. One of the ways that I
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: think the collective psyche attempts to do that is how
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: Santa is shown to us in the collective narrative, and
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking about movies. One of the first movie depictions
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: of Santa Claus in America was in 1939 with the
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: filming of Miracle on 34th Street, which takes that question
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: of what's real, what's cynical, and whether any magic actually
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: still exists. So for those who may not be familiar
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: with it, there's a department store, Santa, whose name is
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: Kris Kringle, and everyone pretends that they've never heard that before, Mr. Kringle,
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: and he becomes the subject of a courtroom battle over sanity.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: Is Kris Kringle just crazy? And there's stuff about belief
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: and a legal recognition of the myth. And so Santa's
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: benevolent and rational and quietly subversive, but within this democratic
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: and legal institution rather than purely religious context. And the
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: child is sitting there, this little girl who's just hoping that,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: you know, Santa will win the court case as the
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: myth is being adjudicated in the collective psyche.
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: That movie was from 1939?
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: You know, that for me was like, when I think
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: about my childhood relationship with Santa, I remember that movie.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, I must have watched it every year. And
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: if I recall, it features like the kind of single
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: mom who works at the department store and she has
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: this daughter and the daughter is very kind of like
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: connected with Kris Kringle and the mother is cynical. The
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: mother's like, you know, you can't believe and that sort
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: of thing. And What happens at the end is, I mean,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: it's very heartwarming, the sort of resolution of the court case.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: I can't remember exactly what happens, but in this kind
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: of charming way. But then at the end, what happens
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: is he gifts them a home. So I think the
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: final scene is, you know, the girl runs up and says, look,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: it's our house, you know, which you can imagine maybe
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: how that played in 1939.
• 24:59
  Speaker 5: But it was.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: It was sort of, I think what you're saying, Joseph,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: and I think maybe what it meant to me was like, yeah,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: it's not real, but it's real, right?
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: It's not real, but it's real.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: It reminds me, I love that line from, I think
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: it's the last Harry Potter book where Dumbledore is dead
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: and talking to Harry in this kind of, you know,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: liminal realm. And Harry says, are you really here? You know,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: is this real or is this only happening in my head?
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: And Dumbledore says, well, of course it's only happening in
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: your head, Harry, but why would that mean it's not real?
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Beautiful Jungian wisdom.
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: So it's funny, my conscious memories of Santa Claus, I mean,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: I'm sure when I was a wee thing, I was
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: totally enthusiastic. But the part I can remember, I can
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: remember being like, how does he make it to free
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: house in the world in one night. Like, you know,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: just being like, I remember just sort of like a
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: certain skepticism. And then that movie sort of comes in.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: And I think at some, of course, I didn't have
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: the language for this, but in some sense, it's like, well, yeah, no, no,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: of course, it's not literally true. But that doesn't mean
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: that there isn't something, that there's not a reality to
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: that energy. Something like that.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely. And also it Even though Kris Kringle, you know,
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: may be just a kind old man who's overly determined
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: about his role in the department store. Right. But she's still,
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: the little girl is trying to figure out how to
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: attribute this generous and good things that happened to her.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: And so there still is a larger Santa Claus, which
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: is part of that archetypal field that is active in
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: her life. And she attributes the good things that come
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: to her to a transpersonal source, and that keeps her
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: in relationship to the self, to some kind of internal principle.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: It's a brilliant movie, actually. Many movies at that time
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: frame were also influenced by Freudian thought. There's a lot
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: of movies adjudicating this idea of what's healthy and what's
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: not healthy and what's fantasy and what's the reality principle.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's an analysis of the reality principle.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: That's so interesting. What I remember, and I wish I'd
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: thought to kind of research it before we started talking,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: but what I remember is that the resolution of the
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: court case is something like, well, we can't really prove
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: he's not this, and what's the harm in it? It's
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: like the effect is good.
• 27:49
  Speaker 5: I may be.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: Misremembering that, but do you know kind of how it
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: resolves the court case?
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: I am going to find that out, but keep talking
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: among yourselves while I research that.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: No, because the reason that I think it's interesting and
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: worth looking up is because that's actually, if I'm right,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: that that's the sense of it, is sort of like, well,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: what is the effect of this belief? Because that is
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: actually a very Jungian approach to things. You know, Jung
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: was just interested, and he says this, you know, he
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: was a phenomenologist. And he wasn't so much interested in
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: sort of litigating the actual truth of something. He was
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: interested in, well, how does it operate? What does it do?
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: And if you have a certain belief and it makes
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: you more effective, well-adapted, happier, then who cares if it's
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: true or not, in a sense? Because in a sense,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: it is true. He says somewhere, this is a quote
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: from Jung, the real is what works. Okay, so now
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: I'm really interested.
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: Go ahead.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: So for those who are not familiar with the 1936
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: movie Miracle on 34th Street, I'll do a quick synopsis
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: because I think it's so appropriate to the topic that
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: we're discussing in the evolution of the image of Santa Claus.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: So it's Thanksgiving morning. New York City and Macy's is
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: about to start its enormous annual parade. And for those
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: of you that may not have seen this, it is
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: a huge big deal full of these enormous balloons that
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: they're famous for. Doris Walker is a Macy's executive and
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: she's in charge of the event. And she discovers that
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: the guy that she had hired to play Santa Claus
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: is drunk as a skunk and, of course, cannot apologize.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: in front of children. An older fellow in the crowd
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: with a white beard is kind of outspoken and shouts
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: that the parade should absolutely not send this drunken guy
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: out to greet families. Doris really needs a replacement immediately
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: so intuitively she puts that stranger into a Santa suit
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: He takes the role without any trouble, and the parade
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: goes on as planned, and the substitute Santa makes this
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: really significant impression on her. So Macy's hires him as
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: the store's in-house Santa for the Christmas season, and he
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: introduces himself as Chris Kringle, which no one seems to
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: know quite fully what that might signify. He's working in
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: Santa Land in the toy department, and he's really kind
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: to the children and the parents. And we get this
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: inkling of his specialness when he speaks Dutch to a
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: frightened little girl who can't communicate. The toy department head,
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: Julian Shellhammer, notices how well the customers are responding to
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Chris's kindness. And he's also noticing that there are these
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: positive comments about Macy's as a store that begin to accumulate.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: The first tension arises, and Mr. Kringle refuses to use
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: the sale tactics that he's being pressured into. He considers
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: them dishonest. Shellhammer is telling him to recommend stock that
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: the store needs to move, but Chris focuses on what
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: the children actually want. So when Macy's is out of
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: a popular toy, Chris directs the parents to other stores
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: where they can buy it, including competitors like Gimble's. A
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: mother says, takes the time to tell Shellhammer what Chris
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: did and how she will now return and shop at
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Macy's because of Chris's honorable behavior. And that story spreads,
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: the newspapers pick it up, and Macy's begins to notice
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: this positive PR for treating the shoppers fairly. Doris's concern
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: is that Chris insists he's not pretending. He says repeatedly
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: and doesn't back down that he, in fact, is Santa Claus. Now,
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Doris has raised her young daughter, Susan, which, Lisa, you
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: had said you identified with, has raised her to not
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: believe in Santa or fairy tales. Now, Fred Gailey, a
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: lawyer who lives in Doris's apartment building, becomes friendly with
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: them and brings Susan, the child, to meet Kris Kringle.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: Susan is impressed by Chris's behavior and by what she's
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: watching him do and begins to question what she was
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: taught by her mother. Doris confronts Chris and insists that
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: he tell Susan that he's only an actor playing Santa,
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: but he's not going to do that. And he continues
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: to reinforce that he is in fact the real Santa Claus,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: which is building this tension about what's real. Doris considers
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: firing him, But R.H. Macy, the store's owner, keeps Chris
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: employed because of the positive attention he's brought to the store.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: And Shellhammer suggests that the store psychologist, Granville Sawyer, evaluate Chris.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: Sawyer does and decides that Chris is dangerous because he
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: believes his own claim. And he pushes to have Chris
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: removed and committed to a psychiatric asylum. Chris Kringle confronts
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: Sawyer about the way he's misusing his authority. During the argument,
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: Chris hits Sawyer on the head with an umbrella, and
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: Sawyer uses the incident to have Chris forcibly taken to
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric evaluation. And Chris, feeling betrayed, believes
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: that Doris has cooperated with Sawyer and becomes deeply wounded
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: and discouraged. He stops trying to defend himself, and he
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: even deliberately fails the psych exam himself. And the doctors,
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: in fact, do recommend permanent psychiatric commitment. Now, Fred refuses
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: to accept that outcome, and he persuades Chris to contest
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: the commitment, and he will represent Chris in court. Now,
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: the case generates a lot of public attention and turns
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: into a legal question about whether Chris is competent and
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: harmless or delusional and dangerous. So, the court hearing is held.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: Judge Henry X. Harper is their end district attorney, Thomas Mara,
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: who prosecutes the case and tries to end it rather quickly,
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: just moving on and getting Chris into the asylum. He
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: asks Chris to testify and brings forward that he believes
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: he's Santa Claus and asks the judge to rule that
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: Santa Claus does in fact not exist. But Judge Harper says,
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: is feeling something intuitively, and he delays the final ruling
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: and allows further evidence to come forward. Fred calls R.H.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: Macy as a witness and gets him to state under
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: oath that he believes in Santa Claus. And after that testimony,
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: Macy fires Sawyer. Fred then calls Mara's young son the
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: prosecutor's own son, who testifies that his father told him
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: that Santa Claus is real, which, by the way, is
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: like a delicious moment in that movie. Mara, the prosecutor,
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: concedes that many people do in fact believe in Santa,
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: but argues that belief is not proof. He demands that
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: Fred prove that Chris is not merely a Santa actor,
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: but in fact the one and only Santa Claus, and
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: he gives the defense one more day. That night, The
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: young girl, Susan, writes to Chris, sends a kind and
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: supportive letter and addresses it to him at the courthouse.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: And her mother, having something of a change of heart,
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: Dora signs it as well. At the New York post office,
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: a mail sorter notices the letter going to Santa Claus
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: at the courthouse and proposes a solution. The post office
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: has actually accumulated massive sacks of undeliverable letters addressed to
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: Santa Claus. In fact, I think that probably still may happen.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: And he arranges for those to be delivered to Chris
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: at the courthouse. And when the court resumes, Fred learns
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: that bags of mail addressed to Santa Claus have been
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: delivered to Chris Kringle. And Fred argues that the post
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: office is a federal agency And by delivering Santa's mail
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: to Chris, the government has officially recognized him as Santa Claus.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: Judge Harper demands to see the letters. The postal workers
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: bring in these sacks and empty piles, mountains of letters
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: onto the judge's desk. And in this kind of heartful triumph,
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: Judge Harper dismisses the case and Chris is released. It's
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: Christmas Day. And Chris has invited Doris, her daughter Susan
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: and Fred, who helped him, to visit him at the
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: home for the elderly where he lives. Now, Susan expects Chris.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: She believes in him so much, expects him to gift
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: her the house she showed him in a magazine. And
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: she is so disappointed when Chris admits he's not been
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: able to do it. As Doris and Fred drive home
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: and the child is bedridden, Churning, they follow directions that
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: Chris has given them ostensibly to avoid traffic. And along
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: the route, Susan sees the house from the magazine, now
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: with a for sale sign in front. They stop. Susan
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: runs inside and Fred urges Doris to consider buying it.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: And as they walk through the house, which is empty,
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: in a corner, they find Chris's cane, which is... becomes
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: this symbol, this symbolic evidence for Santa Claus. And in
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: the final moments, Doris and Fred are thinking about how
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: they could buy the house. But I think more significantly,
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: they are now wondering if Kris Kringle is indeed Santa Claus.
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: A couple of things.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: First of all, I knew that Susan was a famous actress.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: So I just, while you were reading, I looked it up.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: A young eight-year-old, Natalie Wood, plays Susan.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I had no idea. I know.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: You know, it reminds me, the ending of that story,
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: which I think is very relevant to our topic, of
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: in a lot of folklore of the British Isles, there
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: are these encounters with fairies. You spend the night in fairy,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: and then when you wake up the next morning, you think,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: did it happen?
• 38:42
  Speaker 5: Did it happen? And then you search for some proof.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: So a lot of times in the realm of fairy,
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: you were given gold and you stuff your pockets full
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: of gold. And in the morning when you wake up,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: you go, oh my God. And you reach into your
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: pockets and there's dirt in there.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: Which is really, really ambivalent because you didn't bring the
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: gold across, but there's something in your pocket that wasn't
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: there before. So it is this tension between, well, there's,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: There's something there. It's not literally real, right? It's not
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: literally real. And yet there's something there. And I think
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: this is very Jungian that, you know, in our culture,
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: we deny. deny what cannot be proven to be literally real.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: If you can't prove it's literally real, then it doesn't exist.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: You know, Jung gave the same treatment to UFOs, which
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: we talked about in an earlier episode.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: You know, it's like he doesn't say they don't exist
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: because we can't prove them. He says, well, there's something there.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: They mean something. This is a real phenomenon, you know,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: because everyone started seeing UFOs in the 1950s and he
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: wrote about it. So it's creating this space, which really
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: is done very well, I think, at the end of
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: that movie, where it's like, wait a minute. The question
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: is not definitively answered yet.
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: No, it's not.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: It's left open in this wonderful way. And that's where
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: hope is.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: And that it moves from whether or not Kris Kringle
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: is Santa Claus to the symbol of the cane. Yeah.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: And he's not literally there, but the cane has become
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: a symbol to represent the presence or influence of Kris
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: Kringle or Santa Claus. And that's enough... to keep her
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: imagination alive and her gratitude and her hope that somewhere
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: in the universe, help resides.
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: In the image of the wise old man.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. And that, of course, is a very ancient image,
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: the wise old man and the wise old woman. And
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: particularly in U.S. advertising, Santa finally gets a wife. There's
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: a Mrs. Claus, which wasn't there in the beginning. Nobody's
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: really worried about propagating the species of the.
• 41:14
  Speaker 6: Clauses but somehow that gets added in so yes there's
• 41:18
  Speaker 6: a wise old man and a wise old woman eventually
• 41:21
  Speaker 6: and a whole industrious world in the north pole of
• 41:26
  Speaker 6: all places.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: So in terms of the evolution in the collective we
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: have Miracle on 34th street and then in 1961 and
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: I have seen this movie so many times as a
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: child Babes in Toyland Oh, I don't think I ever
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: saw that. And they have the child catcher. It's a
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: world where children, the regent decides children are a real
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: problem and they all have to get put into child prison.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: And so they're all kind of desperate and needing to
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: be saved. And Santa Claus comes forward as a sovereign person.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: who reestablishes order and justice in a kind of childlike
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: moral universe. And so now we have Santa doing battle
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: for children against these institutions that stand against the lives
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: of children. And this theme continues. 64, Santa Claus conquers
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: the Martians. Which, by the way, if you have not seen,
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: You must, you must see this. Which goes, Lisa, to
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: your piece about UFOs. It's 1964. That's amazing.
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: What's it called?
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. And for no other reason,
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: the costumes that the Martians wear are so fantastic. It
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: is just so spectacular.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: Joseph, if you can find a link to that film
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: publicly available, you must include it in the show notes.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: I will try. I'm sure there's at least some scenes
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: of it on YouTube. So Santa is kidnapped by Martians
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: who believe that the Earth children would be happier on
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: their own. Talk about, right, what we were talking about.
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: These children need to be disabused. And of course, in
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: a sense, they're taking the myth and returning it to
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: the skies.
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: Who knew that we could be so deep around Santa
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: Claus conquers the Martians? I mean, that's a very profound
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: reading of that film.
• 43:55
  Speaker 5: But I think you're right.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: Yes. you know, we have to wonder what's inspiring it
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: and why it still survives. That movie is still being
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: played somewhere.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: So, and in fact, it was met, it gained a
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: kind of notorious reputation at the time and portraying Santa
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: as a cosmic civilizing force whose presence spreads joy beyond
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: the earth because he conquers the Martians by being Santa Claus.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: And then the Martians start feeling that they've been deprived
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: of the great goodness of Santa Claus. So there's Christmas mythology.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: Something about kind of re-ensouling the world, in a sense.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: I like that. That's right.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: And the irrepressibility. So science and technology, represented by the Martians, could...
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: convince people that the principles, the archetype of Santa Claus
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: is irrelevant or maybe even misdirecting, you know, our future generations.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: And yet, it is irrepressible. So wherever the archetype springs up,
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: whether it springs up in the Martians, the alien civilizations,
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: or springs up in one or another culture, it wins
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: the people that we still need.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: I want to maybe just go in a slightly different
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: direction and talk about some of the incredible kind of
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: mythic undercurrents in the Santa Claus story, which is, and
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: I did not know this before, the mythology of the
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: Norse god Odin is really woven into Santa Claus.
• 45:49
  Speaker 5: So Odin was kind of the.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: Top of the pyramid in Norse mythology. He's roughly comparable
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: to Zeus. So he's the kind of reigning god in
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: the Norse pantheon.
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: The great progenitor.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: And here's some things that you may not know about Odin.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: In December, for Yuletide, he headed... this event called the
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: Wild Hunt. And the Wild Hunt was kind of what
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: it sounded like. And it was this dangerous procession that
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: took place every December. And if you were alone in
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: the woods and the wind was howling and the storms
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: were afoot, you might get swept away by the Wild Hunt.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: And Odin was at its head. Odin knew who had
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: been bad and who had been good. And during the
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: wild hunt, he hunted down or abducted those who deserved it.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: So that sense, again, of kind of a moral judging function.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: He is often depicted as a robed man with a
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: long white beard. He's very much in the kind of
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: similar genre as, let's say, Merlin or Gandalf.
• 47:14
  Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: He was the most iconic figure of Yuletide, the holiday
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: that involved feasting and gift-giving and hospitality. And he had
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: an eight-legged horse called, I'm going to say Sleipnir, I
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: think I'm pronouncing it correctly, that pulled his sleigh. And
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: of course, he had dwarves, not elves so much, but dwarves.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: who were amazing creators, and he was sometimes referred to
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: as the Yule Father. So, there is a little surviving
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: piece of a kind of pre-Christian mythology that's really made
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: its way without too much change into our modern world.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: Yes, I think that's so interesting. And You know, we
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: associate Santa Claus with the far north, the North Pole.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: And so it makes sense this thread from the Nordic
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: cultures is still represented in the winteriness, you know, of that.
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: I have to tell you that one of the uncanny
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: things is I only in the last few years have
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: clients from that Oceania area and Australia. And December is
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: the middle of their summer. And I cannot tell you
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: how that messes with my head, that Christmas does not
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: land with cold weather, and how to square that. I mean,
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: of course, it makes sense, but... It's so iconic, right?
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: That it's the snow and the cold and a white Christmas,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: and yeah. Maybe it makes sense for us to talk
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: a little bit about parents. And how parents orient to
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: the myth of Santa Claus. And, you know, when do you,
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: if you're a Santa Claus family, I always think about,
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: you know, the hard road that Jewish kids have to
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: travel in their younger years.
• 49:17
  Speaker 5: It's like their parents like, well.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: It's not really true, but you got to keep your
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: mouth shut. But, you know, that must be pretty hard. Yeah,
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: because otherwise you feel like, wait, why don't all the
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: Christian kids get this? Like, why does this guy not
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: visit me? You know, it's like, But, you know, how
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: do we as parents manage Santa Claus and our family?
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: And when do we tell kids that he's not real?
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: And is this even something we should be propagating?
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I remember when we were pregnant
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: with our first child, my husband said, you know, we're
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: not going to do the Santa Claus thing. It's just,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: you know, it's like you're lying to your kids. You
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: shouldn't lie to your kids. And then You know, so
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: the first Christmas or she was like kind of old
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: enough to know what's going on. She was about a
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: year and a half. And he was like totally like, yeah,
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: we got to like put the cookies out.
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: I'm like, what?
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: He's like, oh, no, no, we're totally doing Santa Claus.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: So it's like, OK, I guess we'll do Santa Claus.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: And of course, it was totally fun. You know, it
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: was just so fun, you know. But, you know, but
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: a little fraught because you do feel like.
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: You're... Are you setting your kids up for a disappointment
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: at some point, perhaps?
• 50:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah, definitely, for sure. Yeah, for a kind of disillusionment.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: And again, I think there's a way that I want to, that,
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: you know, like we've been saying this whole time, like,
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: of course, it's not literally true, but there is some kernel,
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: you know, like with any archetype, there is something very
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: real at the heart of it that must not be
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: diminished or discounted. I mean, the archetypes are very powerful
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: and they're bivalent. And as we've been saying, Santa Claus
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: is bivalent. Sometimes he's this jolly, wonderful, good guy. And
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: sometimes he's sort of the avenging angel. So you don't
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: want to give your kid a cheapened version of an
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: archetypal experience. So there's something about that. Maybe that's not
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: exactly the right words.
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: So when you say that, it makes me think about
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: how subtle it is for parents to appreciate the religious
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: dimension of the archetype and to be able to hold
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: that as all archetypes have a certain spiritual or religious
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: dimension while we're still propagating a kind of cultural advertising
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: kind of gift purchasing dimension to it so if it's
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: just a way of of propagating a kind of capitalist
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: fantasy about buying a bazillion things for Christmas. That's one dimension,
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: and one I can understand feeling cynical about that. But
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: in order to kind of allow the archetype to still
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: be alive, people still have to appreciate the religious dimension
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: of all archetypes, and particularly Santa Claus. And the idea
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: of the divine being the source of good things and goodness.
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: And it's just that phrase in the Gospels, you know,
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: all good gifts come from heaven above. So give thanks
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: and give praise. So associating goodness with the transpersonal, which
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: of course for a child, goodness looks like, you know,
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: being pleased and happy and all of that. So I
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: think appreciating the need for a religious symbol and to
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: provide evidence, which of course is the parents providing these gifts,
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: so that the child can really hold on to something divine, actually.
• 53:11
  Speaker 5: Yes, that's really well said.
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: And maybe I'll just sort of share, I think, part
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: of my personal response to this time of year, in
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: addition to obviously, like most of us, having a lot
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: of memories sewn up with it. And actually, we're recording
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: this on December 22nd, so this is a very appropriate
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: statement to make, is there is a rebirth at this
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: time of year, and there is an incredible gift being given,
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: which is the return of the sun. You know, that
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: the days are going to begin to get longer, and
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: that sustaining experience of of knowing that the great good
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: thing is about to do another turn. So that's quite
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: a gift.
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: That's right. And the tension, you know, anthropologists surmise that
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: as the days are shortening and shortening and shortening, and
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: then there's the pivot point and will the light win?
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: Will Santa Claus escape the Martians?
• 54:12
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: You know, what will become of us? And then the
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: rituals of the longest night, of how to survive the darkness,
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: is part of that.
• 54:26
  Speaker 7: And the Yule log, by the way, is part of
• 54:29
  Speaker 7: this way to tolerate the darkness and that the light
• 54:35
  Speaker 7: must be held in the home in.
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: Some fashion, even though the outer world grows dark. And
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: so I think that the Christmas myth, like the Yule log,
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: the lighting of the Hanukkah candles, is all about where
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: does the light retreat to when it leaves the outer world.
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: And almost always it retreats to the home, which is
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: where Santa Claus visits, where the Hanukkah candles are lit,
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: where the goodness can be found when it cannot be
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: found in the world. And in the image of Santa Claus,
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: that light it or he or the principle comes to
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: us where we are. And that's a remarkable message for
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: us to be given.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: And it brings with it a promise of renewal, that
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: the days are not going to always be, I mean,
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: you made the point about the southern hemisphere. I mean,
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: here in Philadelphia, it is remarkably cold and drab and
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: I'm looking outside and even though the sky is blue today,
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: everything is brown. And, you know, my garden beds are
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: all dried up and, you know, it looks like there's
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: no life. But I know, my body knows, right? Because
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: your body registers the lengthening days that we've just turned
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: the corner. That tonight will be a little bit shorter
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: than last night.
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: And the Christmas tree, by the way, which is evergreen,
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: becomes that symbol that the wintering has not taken everything.
• 56:25
  Speaker 5: Yes, yes, yes.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: So it is, the iconography of this season touches deep
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: into the psyche, even though we know it in this familiar,
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: kind of highly commercialized form. And we've seen lots and
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: lots of movies, some of them better than others. What's
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: your favorite Christmas movie?
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: Oh, gosh. That's a tough one. I can't say that
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: I go to the Christmas movies so much anymore. But
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: I have noticed that in some of the more recent movies,
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: that Santa Claus is depicted as kind of violent. Not
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: just Krampus, but he's been co-opted into this kind of
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: horror movie dimension, which I find a very interesting shift.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: My favorite kind of casting back to the childhood classics
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: is probably How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I mean, the
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: original one that's animated by Seuss.
• 57:36
  Speaker 5: I love Dr.
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: Seuss, actually.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, maybe sometime we should do an episode on Dr.
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: Seuss. Yes, we should. I love Dr. Seuss. But such
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: a modern problem that the Grinch envies this kind of
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: devotional certainty in the who's in whoville, and he's going
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: to dispossess them of this nonsense.
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: He's like the anti-Santa, right?
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: Literally.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: He's going to undo Santa, but he can't. But anyway,
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, the grinning green Grinch in his
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: santee outfit kind of goes with what you're saying about
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: sort of the dark side of Santa Claus, you know,
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: which it's interesting to see that kind of compensation coming
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: through culture in a way. Because, of course, these days
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: we think of the icon of Santa as being, you know,
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: inextricably linked with overconsumption. And I've certainly been guilty of
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: putting way too many things underneath the tree, although not
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: this year.
• 58:40
  Speaker 5: That's right.
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: Thus cringles big belly, the sign of overconsumption in some way. Yeah.
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: So it's up to us to challenge that, the way
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: cynicism can puncture the archetypal imagery and to question it.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: So coming back to the Grinch, deprived of all of
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: the trappings of Christmas and all of the gifts that
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: the who's in Whoville still all come out in joined
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: hands and sing Rahudore. And I remember as a child,
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: as a child, I would be brought to tears by
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: that moment.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, what are you talking about as a child? It
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: gets me every time. I always start crying at that point.
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: I was speaking in code when I said as a child,
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: but you busted my cover there.
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it definitely, like, yeah, definitely, definitely gets me
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: every time. Well, we certainly wish all of our listeners
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: who celebrate Christmas a very happy Yule. And may you
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: make peace with Krampus or Odin or whoever it is
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: that is going to visit your home this Christmas.
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. So maybe we can circumambulate someone's dream and think
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: of it as a gift from the unconscious as well.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 5: Dreams are indeed gifts from the unconscious.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: That's right, from that transpersonal. Our dreamer today is a
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: 32-year-old male who works as a medical doctor. And here
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: is his dream. It's my birthday, and I'm expecting a
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: gift from my grandmother. She hasn't come to my parents' house,
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: but has sent me a text message saying that there
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: is a gift for me there. The gift was given
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: to my brother for Christmas. However, he was unable to
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: assemble it properly, and it hasn't been used. The gift
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: is a large, plastic, inflatable kettle in the shape of
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: a red space rocket. It's still in the box, but
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: some of the parts are missing. I have minimal trouble
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: assembling it and getting it to work. It immediately shoots
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: out boiling water through a hose attached to the body
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: of the rocket. I feel a bit disappointed that the
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: present wasn't really for me and seemingly given to me
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: because my brother could not build it properly. Nevertheless, I
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: have a strong sense of obligation to thank my grandmother
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: and send her a long text message doing so. Never
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: in the dream does it occur to me that boiling
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: water would be problematic in a kettle made of thin,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: inflatable plastic. For context, he writes, I've just turned 32.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: I bought an apartment two months ago. I have good
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: friends and am improving my relationship with my family in
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: context of being in analysis the past 12 months. I
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: am single and hoping to find a partner soon. The
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: main feelings in the dream were surprise, confidence, obligation, disappointment.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: And for a bit more explanation, he writes, I was
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: repeatedly told as a child that that I was theoretical
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: and had no practical abilities, whereas my brother was told
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: the reverse. My relationship with my family has begun to
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: improve after beginning to accept their and my own shortcomings.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: My grandmother generally gives second-rate gifts, and it's often referred
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: to jokingly within the family.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: So what I'm most curious about right off the bat,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: I'm not starting at the beginning.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 5: I can go right to the meat of it.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: Is his brother. So he was told that he was
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: theoretical and not practical. And I wonder if the brother
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: was told, you're really, you have all these great practical abilities.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: In other words, is it the case that the brother
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: was more valued? It's a little hard for me to
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: know that for sure, but that's what it seems, that's
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: what seems to be implied is that the dreamer felt
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: sort of devalued next to his brother. So somehow it seems,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: that seems very important, the relationship with the brother in
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: the dream. And I'm I wonder what that relationship is
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: like and what's going on now with it.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 5: And yeah.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: So from that standpoint, again, we're just riffing, but so
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: the theoretical one is in the mind and conceptual and
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: could be thought of as having less physical, manual, dexterous
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: skills versus the brother approach. But in the dream, we
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: get a sense of the reversal.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: The brother's not able to assemble the parts, use his hands,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: read the instructions. It's not making sense. And then the
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: dreamer arrives, and he has minimal trouble assembling it and
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: getting it to work, which is, again, not theoretical. It's
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: sensory and pragmatic and then demonstrates this, you know, shooting
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: boiling water. out of the device, which one could make
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: a case for not giving a child a gift like that.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: But I have to say that my sister's Easy-Bake ovens
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: got pretty damn hot, you know, hot enough to bake
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: a cake, you know, in a plastic oven. But....
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: I don't know how old the dreamer is in the dream,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: but I want to say something else to your point, Joseph,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: is that, you know, it actually takes an enormous amount of... physical,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: you know, manipulating physical objects in the real world skill
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: to be a doctor in almost any specialty, perhaps psychiatry being,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: you know, one of the ones where that wouldn't be
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: as true. But, you know, a lot of medicine is
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: still kind of procedurally based. So whether it's, you know,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: you're performing surgeries or you have to, you know, palpate
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: someone's tummy to feel what's going on in there. I mean,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: It's very sensate. So, and clearly this person's a doctor
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: and he does have these skills.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 5: I think you're right.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: I think the dream is really saying, you know, your
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: family said your brother could do this and you couldn't,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: but that's not true. You know, so I do, but
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of richness we don't have
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: about the relation with the brother in real life and
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: what that might mean psychologically and how the brother's a
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: shadow figure and all that stuff. It's a little hard
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: to touch that without more context. I do want to say, though,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't know if you had this thought,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: but it's like the thing immediately shoots out boiling water
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: through a hose. And I'm like, well, that's a very
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: kind of sexual image, actually.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: Let's think what's inflatable on the male body that is
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: kind of reddish, looks a bit like a rocket.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 5: And shoots out hot stuff.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: Can't imagine what that might be.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: So, you know, so one of the things is about
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: that image is it shows this incredible potency. And I'm
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: just aware that, you know, he's a medical doctor. He's
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: got a good profession. He just bought an apartment. He
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: wants to, you know, he all systems go. He's got
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: good friends. He's being an analysis and he wants to
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: find the right person. And it's like, I think I
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: think the dream is kind of saying, like, you've you've
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: got to give all systems go. You know, you got
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: it going on.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 5: Right? Do you hear that?
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely. And if we take the grandmother as the
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: great mother, that one of the great, the gifts of
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: the great archetypal mother is the gift of fertility, often
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: associated with the great maternal principle. And even though the
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: kettle is, you know, shrouds the kind of sexual potency,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: depending on how old the dream figures are, there is
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: a way in which that kind of fertile potency is
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: waiting in reserve and might present itself first in a
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: symbolic form. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: Now, I like what you did there with the grandmother
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: as the great mother and kind of the gift of fertility.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: I really like that. But there's something about, I mean,
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: it may have, you know, these different layers. I have
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: a strong sense of obligation to thank her, like even
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: though it's kind of a shitty gift and you gave
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: it to.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 5: My brother first.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: So there may be a little bit of Addison kibble
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: here too, Joseph.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: Say more about that, yeah.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: Well, that somehow he's feeling very much in service to
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: the great mother in a way that may be at
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: this point kind of a diminishment. And I wonder if
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: the dream, and I'm reaching a little bit here, but
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: just bear with me. If the dream is an invitation
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: to claim his own masculine potency and not be so
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: much dominated by the great mother psychology. I don't know.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: Well, that makes perfect sense. That if the image of
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: the sexual potency is forever connected to the grandmother, that
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: again could be problematic.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: Just like it would be problematic to have boiling water
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: coming out of a plastic hose, right? Mm-hmm.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. There's also this sense that a kind of blessing,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: it's a bit of an Isaac Esau kind of story,
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: that the grandmother's blessing is going to the brother, but
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: he can't make use of it. And so then he's
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: able to make use of it, but the blessing wasn't
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: given to him, and yet he still has to pretend
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: as if something has. And that's difficult, understandably, for him
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: to overcome his disappointment or perhaps resentment. And yet he
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: is the one that was able to make the gift operational,
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: even though it wasn't intended for him.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 5: That's really interesting. I like that about the blessing. Yeah.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: And it does, again, kind of make me really curious
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: about the family stuff that's going on.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: Taken literally, as he says, it doesn't occur to me
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: that this could be a problem, you know, boiling water
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: being a plastic item. And the solution is the symbolic attitude.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: That's almost always the key that unlocks the next layer
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: of the dream. where all of a sudden it may
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: make sense to actually have an inflatable kettle that squirts
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: something hot.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: And it may be, I'm just taking the image in
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: a slightly different direction, it may be that if he
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: can make it his own, it won't be just plastic inflatable.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 5: He'll have a real rocket.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: I can see that and the value of it. So
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: there's an opportunity to explore his attitude towards these various
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: things and find out other layers with which this could
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: have meaning and value. Now, the fact that he says
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: that his family has begun to improve, this is always funny,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: my relationship with my family has begun to improve after
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: beginning to accept their and my own shortcomings. So it
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: suggests that that resentment, that judgmental attitude where I don't
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: accept my own shortcomings, I do not accept the shortcomings
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: of others. There's still a little problem there at the end,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: that the grandmother is second-rate, and that's kind of funny.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: And yet there's There's a growing sense of acceptance and
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: I think deeper understanding of how to put things together
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: even though some of the parts are missing. So if
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: we take that and even apply it to the reparations
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: and reconnections with the family, it doesn't need to be perfect.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: Everything doesn't need to be in the box for his
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: relationship with the family to work. And there may be
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: a Humor is used as a defense against the disappointment
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: that the grandmother's gifts bring, but that is a reasonable
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: high-level coping mechanism. You know, having a good humor about
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: something like that's a way to cope, you know, rather
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 2: than being trapped in a darker place. But yeah, it's
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: probably true of every relationship that we will ever have
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: is in the box of the relationship, some of the
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: parts are missing. And if you can make it work
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: It works.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. To submit a dream, suggest an episode topic,
• 1:12:05
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• 1:12:10
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