Tolkien: Jung's Collective Unconscious

[SonOfSamWise]

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien: The Collective Unconscious of Carl Gustav Jung

A nation comes into existence with its mythology…The unity of its thinking, which means a collective philosophy, is presented in its mythology; therefore its mythology contains the fate of the nation. - Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling


Preface

Since high school, I have been fascinated by the theories of Carl Gustav Jung. The colorful and vibrant tumults of his imagined collective unconscious were inspiring and became a permanent part of my mental imagery, shaping my perceptions ever since. Then, an amazing thing occurred that changed the way I perceived the world forever. I read the Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien. This event caused me to formulate a theory of my own: A theory that is planted squarely in the Jungian paradigm. It declares that Jungian theory is infinitely pervasive, that the works of J.R.R. Tolkien make up the Collective Unconscious of Jungian theory, that pathology – aside from being personally cognitive – can be national and cultural, and that these pathologies are fomented by a wayward, Suppressed and belligerent Shadow. On the personal level, I will describe some methods for assessing the influence of the Shadow on an ailing individual and offer some approaches for treating the unrest. On the national and cultural levels, I will establish a sanguineous link between the two men and show how neatly Tolkien symbolism fits the Jungian paradigm.

Part One: Basic principles, beliefs and values:

The framework for my theory is Jungian and the principle is that culture and heritage each play a deep and vital role in the spiritual and psychological health of the individual. People and cultures, like microbiological organisms, are in a constant struggle to achieve and maintain dominance over their surroundings. In a single handful of dirt, for example, there is more living creatures injured, killed, eaten or enslaved than all the human beings on earth who have suffered a similar fate. At this moment there are enough never-ending battles for life and dominance between life forms and species to fill a million books. Similar to microbiology and the animal kingdom, the more sagacious elements of a human culture are challenging to outside influences that threaten their genetic integrity and erode their cultural vitality. In fact, for animals and organisms, this wariness of strangers and relentless struggle for integrity and superiority is instinctive and de rigueur. However, as noted in Part Three of this preface, due to the indoctrination many have received from deleterious sources, not all humans share this unadulterated instinct for survival. For many wayward Thornbirds, besotted on a laced and liquidating opiate-of-the-masses, the noxious and Trojan (1) phantom of multiculturalism and its twisted sister consumerism (Shadows) morph into a deluge of positioned spears and thrashing scimitars upon which they willfully impale themselves. Whether defined as genocide or suicide, such pathology must be denied.

Part Two: Shaping Influences:

Shaped by unconscious, primordial archetypal energy that nourishes their present existence, people become distressed in varying degrees when instinct warns that the nourishment is being impeded or contaminated. The energy is vital because it gave rise to their lineage and cultural heritage. It is the psychic genotype of their cultural phenotype. A natural tendency to protect it from contamination is in order.

Objective examples of such wary instinct include how Hebrew culture seeks to erode Islamic influence and vice-versa; how Islamic extremists attack nations founded by Euro/American gentiles for the role the American government plays in Islamic/Semitic conflicts and how South African Indians threw off the yoke of British imperialism in the early 20th century. Other more immediate though less popular examples include how special interest groups attempt to cleanse the ethnic names of American Founding Fathers from public schools (2) and try to expunge the symbols of southern heritage in every southern state. (3) The list is endless.

Tolkien mythology is a rich and endless source for symbolic manifestations of wary instinct. A growing sense of imminent threat arises, on both objective and subliminal levels, when unconscious and primordial instincts detect the presence of inimical strangers that are hostile to sanguineous and cultural integrity. The recognition of these intercultural dynamics, and the associated symbolism inherent in the works of Tolkien, contributed to shaping my theory.