Thank you Stephen,

It is a great pleasure, as always, to join you and our outstanding participants, circling around the mythological review of Don’t Look Up. The film is so rich in content and relevance that in the format of our mythblasts I could not but scratch the surface, necessarily leaving much in the dark or merely hinted at. But I agree that before diving into the film further we need to expand a little more on the nature of the proposed reading of the film, both in terms of symbol and allegory.

So when I wrote that despite rumors to the contrary, I should have added, rumors started by the writers themselves, Don’t Look Up is not about climate change. I was well aware that Adam McKay and David Sirota did have an explicit intention to construct an allegory for climate change. But you’re right, to me this is not a question of either or. Neither do we exhaust the meaning of a work of art by tracing it back to the author’s conscious intentions. The comet can stand for all manner of planetary threats or disasters, including climate change. But as a symbolic or archetypal image, the presence of the comet, the way it functions in the narrative, says something more than that, something which is both greater and more precise.

But I should clarify that unlike the standard Jungian dissociation of symbol from allegory, the kind of “symbolic” or mytho-historic reading I am proposing here maintains their interdependent nature, in the same way it maintains the interdependency of myth and history in its fundamental pattern. So it was and continues to be standard Jungian wisdom to say that an allegory or a “sign” reduces an image to a fixed meaning whereas a symbol opens the gates to infinity, translating the unknown in terms of the unknown, pointing to that famous transcendent mystery which eludes all signification and language. Although I am not denying that such a scheme has its value, from a mytho-historic perspective I cannot so neatly cleave sign from symbol—or what was latter conceived of in terms of the differential play of signifiers and an alleged “transcendent signified.”

On this point, I must confess, I am leaning more on structural linguistics and Derridian grammatology than Jungian psychology, which is to say that I ultimately agree with Jacques Derrida more when he writes in Of Grammatology: “there is neither symbol nor sign but a becoming-sign of the symbol” (47).

Nevertheless, in terms of Campbell’s 4 functions of myth, we could still say that the allegorical reading corresponds to the sociological and cosmological functions, whereas the symbolic reading belongs to the mystical and psychological. What I like about Campbell’s scheme, however, is the way it suggests that all four functions may be present in a myth at the same time. It all depends on the perspective we take.

Love the conversation! Such a great forum!

My view is that an author or artist’s statements about their conscious intentions regarding the symbolism or lack thereof in their works is valuable for a discussion of just that; their conscious intentions. If the work creates waves of response on different levels than the artist intended then the artist has touched some collective fibre, deliberately or not.

Regarding the billionaire  in “Don’t Look Up”, I found Mark Rylance’s portrayal of Isherwell an almost direct take-off of Elon Musk.

Elon Musk himself is sign or analog of our madly off-tilt capitalism, a system that swirls around selling fantasy products to cover existential holes, products that in our drive to attain them and in their consumption only alienate us more and more from our own being and each other and the living planet. Round and round and deeper into the hole we go.

Elon Musk is also a symbol of a far darker mystery, the human gift of rationality without the brakes of human feeling, a 21st century Dr. Frankenstein and his monster. Musk incarnates something that is willing to host a terrifying symbol.  There’s something tremendous and fascinating about the panic to get in a metal capsule, escape our tortured earthly souls with crushing speed and punish those who don’t us understand by leaving them behind in flames. Musk is producing thousands of Starlink satellites, nearly 2,000 have already been launched. This space ballet looks like an overture, a study for an Apsberger’s rocket to some sci-fi planet where only billionaires on the spectrum can be members.

If they could just go off in peace together, there’d be no problem. The trouble is, they won’t go until they’ve mined and ravaged everything on this beautiful planet.

At the end of “Don’t Look Up” the young scientist says she’s grateful they tried to stop the madness and save the planet. We have to keep on trying.

Thank you so much Janet,

You’re most welcome to our forum. For some reason, your response has been truncated but I was able to read it in full in my inbox. For I think you make a great point, which we’re all in agreement with, regarding the extent to which the conscious intentions of an author exhaust the full meaning of a work of art.

Without denying that an element of political propaganda may be present in it, I believe Don’t Look Up has taken a step beyond its intended ideological message. Although it may be rare when a work of art exceeds its own expectations, sometimes it does happen. On the contrary, when a work of art merely translates an explicit doctrine into aesthetic form, in other words, when it only says what the author consciously intended to say and no more, then we could rightly say that we’re dealing with nothing but sectarian propaganda.

This is why it is important for us artists to be working up to a point where we don’t quite know what we’re doing. Otherwise, if we only say what we consciously want to say, we can easily become mere instruments of a given doctrine, or mouthpieces of an ideological fantasy or belief system. In other words, we merely take up the function of “mass entertainment” and become perfect propagandists—even if it’s for a good cause!

On the other hand, to the extent that a work of art touches a deeper archetypal level of truth in the collective, it may be called a manifestation of true myth (vera narratio). It then becomes in the style of Picasso: a mythical lie that tells the truth.

In this context, truth has a different sense the exposition of an objective fact—be it climate change or any other empirical process. Mythical truth is not subjective either; it is not an idiosyncratic private affair with a “personal mythology” as it essentially belongs to the collective. As such, mythical truth points to our collective “mental” or “spiritual”—in a word, ideological—atmosphere. Therefore, from this point of view, Don’t Look Up expresses more precisely a truth about our collective submersion into what I will broadly call cultural capitalism.

I don’t know if this movie was intended to be an allegory of human-caused climate decline (I prefer this term to climate change in that the latter can refer to changes in climate that occur naturally), and I really do not care whether it is or is not such an allegory. However, it is very much worth reflecting on the parallels between the challenges faced by climate decline and those in the movie. And to consider such parallels, it is worth doing some legwork as to the real problems facing the understanding of and the development of solutions to climate decline.

One challenge, of course, is the exceedingly short lifespan of the human species. It is incredibly difficult to think on the scale of hundreds of thousands or millions of years. It is also very difficult to interpret the massive amounts of data that we have from things like deep ice core samples which can give us clues as to what the climate was like over vast distances in time. Many arguments between well-intentioned highly intelligent scholars precisely revolve around the interpretation of this data. Then there is the complexity involved in terms of developing a cause/effect interpretation on climate. It is quite unclear whether this is the best lens with which to use, and even if it is, the challenges are massive. Even using some of our greatest tools such as massively parallel supercomputing with possible AI support, it does not account for the incredibly large number of intricately complicated interactions necessary to form reasonable hypothesis on the human impact on climate. And then there is the challenge of employing a purely rational interpretation of the problem of climate decline, one in which it is easy to demand hard-and-fixed answers – binary yes or no – to the questions being posed and the solutions being offered.

All of this makes it incredibly easy to form divisions into how we look at our present circumstances and makes it exceedingly difficult to come to some sort of consensus. There are many diverse interests at stake and an immense history of and momentum behind the structures of power and influence that are currently in place. Crucially, it is clear that intellect alone will not be enough. It is worth noting that there are even claims, some made in good faith, some not, which hold that science itself is incapable of developing a cause/effect model for or interpretation of our climate and thus we cannot at present properly evaluate human behavior’s influence on climate.

Thus, even with respect to science alone, we find ourselves to be in extremely difficult circumstances. Now add to this so many of the other aspects of human life which pose challenges to seeing that a problem exists, fully understanding the problem, appreciating and valuing the problem, and making the difficult choices which could involve both short-term and long-term suffering with absolutely no guarantee on whether those choices will lead to the improvement of the situation.

In my opinion, the parallels between the movie and real life are not the coming catastrophe (comet vs. climate destruction), but in how much similarity there is in the challenges of even seeing that a problem exists and getting the right people to develop and implement solutions in the context of incredibly powerful and diverse interests which stand in the way. In the movie, the problem is quite simple – there is a comet verified using the scientific method and whose path can be determined through science and mathematics. The problem in the movie is far simpler to identify than that of human-caused climate decline. But even with a far simpler problem to identify, the challenges that are present in the movie completely overwhelmed them, and they are the same or similar challenges which are currently present with the far more nebulous problem of climate decline, it being far easier to ignore because of its nebulousness (is that a word?).

The movie has been criticized for practically bashing the viewers head with a sermon. But I am quite sympathetic with such “bashing.” Here, I recall an event a couple of years ago when Senator Diane Feinstein was confronted by young teenagers regarding climate decline. In contrast to the politicians, scientists, etc., it was the children who showed, in my opinion, the proper urgency of the problem – the understandable panic due to the tepid and self-serving approaches currently being taken.

The movie also shows another parallel – that of the challenges of communicating the problem to a widely diverse audience who may not share the same technical background to understand the problem and who do not want to hear the dire implications. In the past, I have been frustrated at how the description of human-caused climate decline has been dumbed down. But now I am somewhat more sympathetic. From a certain perspective, the urgency of the problem and the great urgency of a solution to that problem is not compatible with a slow nuanced debate on the existence of that problem, a debate which could go on indefinitely.

In my opinion, it is wrong to look at the problem and solution to human-caused climate decline in terms of a hero myth. There will be no heroes here. If there is to be a solution, it is likely to be brutal and cause extreme suffering for prolonged periods of time, suffering that could last for a number of generations. Far better would be to imagine the solution as the Goddess Kali at whose hand one is dismembered, but by whose hand one is put together again having a better sense of what is important and who is stronger because they have survived.

Mythistorian – Recently, I was in a discussion with a wonderful professor of mine at PGI about the ancient problem of squaring the circle. It began because I had posted an article on a recent paper which solves it through the process of equidecomposition, the breaking up of an object into identical potentially complex pieces. The idea is to take as the object a circle, decompose it into equal pieces, and rearrange the pieces such that it forms a square of equal area to the circle. This paper used 10^200 pieces (10 with 200 zeroes after it), each identical peace being exceedingly complicated and very difficult to visualize. In our discussion, I made the distinction between a rational interpretation of the problem and the problem as embodying a true mystery. The original problem posed in the 5th century B.C. took on an entirely rational character, and it turns out it was unsolvable (the additional requirements were that only the Euclidean tools of compass and straightedge could be used, and that the process entailed a finite number of steps), though this was not proven until 1882. Yet there was an intuition of its unsolveability. Thus, eventually it became acquainted with anything thought to be impossible. The medieval and early modern Latin alchemists adopted a less rational interpretation of the problem, one which embraced to a much larger degree the irrational and preserved the far deeper mystery it embodied.

I suppose I see the problem of human-caused climate decline in a similar way – it embodies a profound mystery which is lost if made completely rational. For here there is a parallel between the comet in the movie and climate decline. When the comet becomes visible to the naked eye, it is too late. Likewise, if the problem of climate decline becomes fully visible (i.e., every scientific measure indicates catastrophe), then it is too late – the point of no return has been reached. The visibility and measurability of the problem where cause-effect is completely uncontroversial indicates the problem has fully manifested into the rational sphere and is too late to solve. But, while there is still mystery in the problem where there is an irrational relationship to it, then there is hope.

With respect to the challenges posed by differing agendas and existing power structures which have long history, I think that Naomi Klein’s book entitled This Changes Everything: Capitalism Vs. The Climate (see enclosed link below) is quite excellent. One argument is that those who are pushing for progressive agendas are obfuscating their intentions by using climate decline as their argument for certain actions. And this is a very difficult argument to counter.

I am not sure I agree that simplicity is preferable in all cases. For example, you expressed interest in Giegerich’s work. But he argued that what is required for psychology and for the world more generally is a higher form of thinking or thinking on a higher plain, an approach which is far from being simple. The process of using thinking to accomplish the alchemical dissolution is itself of high complexity. And he feels Hegelian dialectics is the best tool we have, not the easiest approach to learn or use. To be honest, I fully agree with Giegerich here – we do need a higher form of thinking to solve modern problems, psychological or otherwise.

https://books.google.com/books/about/This_Changes_Everything.html?id=kxJ5BAAAQBAJ

Stephen,

I do see a solution in the film, though it may be far from being popular. About 10 years ago, I wrote a paper entitled Living into the Decline, a paper which was written from a place where we cannot solve certain essential problems such as human-caused climate decline. It is important to note here that the paper is not meant to be a pessimistic view. Instead, it looks at the state directly and acknowledges that the hero myth may not be applicable, that it may be too late for us to act in a ways which reverses the decline, that the road of no return may have already been reached, and it asks the critical question “What do we do then?” How to we proceed and, more importantly, what attitude must we cultivate to do so.

The paper was written from a place that recognizes that we in the West are living in a period of decline and what I thought was the crucial issue of how one can live an authentic life during such a difficult period. This imagining was greatly influenced by my reading of Dr. Oswald Spengler’s excellent book Decline of the West, a book that views cultures as biological organisms whose life can be seen in terms the stages of birth, ascendancy, peak, decline, and inevitable death. ‘Civilization,’ Spengler wrote, embodies the final stage of a culture, the culture’s possibilities almost exhausted. And this is a similar view to Goethe in his short essay Geistesepochen (Epochs of the Spirit) which sees cultures as natural processes which go through four fundamental stages; Poetry, Theology, Philosophy, and Prose. Cultures begin with “deeply experienced perceptions” and end with “confusion, resistance, and dissolution.”

The attitude I suggested which I think would be helpful in such circumstances is to see decline as a perfectly natural stage and to not necessarily assign to it negative judgment, a judgment which would potentially weaken our ability to lead authentic lives during this period. We must abandon the hero myth and embrace decline, solving what problems we can, but also being open to experiencing what decline brings. I believe that one must have the attitude similar to the “Rainmaker” of Kian Tschou who, when he restored himself to the Tao, there was a downpoaring of the rain that was urgently needed in a place that for many months had seen only drought. And it is with such an attitude that we can help each other likewise lead authentic lives.

This is what I see as the solution expressed in the film (whether they intended it to be a solution or not) – everyone coming together at the dinner table and, with their entire being, authentically living in the moment … together.

RJ

With respect to the ending of the film, I do think, like Robert, that the film does provide a solution, but I see it very differently.

Always in terms of the film, I see beneath the apparent pessimistic tones of the Last Supper scene, which moves within the groves of the Christian myth, an ultimately optimistic redemptive core. There is redemption in the end; it is possible to trick the devil with the devil himself, allowing the devil to fall into its own trap the way Isherwell does in the new planet.

The image of the family dinner, a kind of thanksgiving “holy family,” does connote the image of the Last Supper in the Christian story. This is also an archetypal image on its own right which forebodes the Hero’s Sacrifice and eventual Resurrection. Within the frame of the Christian myth, the “failure” of the hero, the hero’s crucifiction, becomes a sign of its “success” or redemption. Such is the paradoxical language of true myth as vera narratio. Although I don’t want to get lost in a theological discussion, the inclusion of this image in no way points to the abandonment of the hero. On the contrary, it is the hero’s ultimate sign of completion: it is finished.

If we stick to the imagery of the movie, I don’t see how the ending—or the whole movie— means that we should accept our collective demise as a “natural” occurrence. There was nothing natural in the process that led to the movie’s conclusion. That sounds like a different kind of movie—a truly pessimistic one. (I think of a movie like Lars von Trier’s Melancholia (2011) as better fitting a depressive description).  But everything that led to the demise of humanity in Don’t Look Up happened through the “unnatural” agency of human beings, of our hyper individualistic uprooted culture, which is splintered by ideologies and fanatical beliefs with very little rationality to go around, and which is ultimately taken over the brink by the very hero this culture worships: Peter Isherwell, who is the truly “Satanic” figure of the movie.

At the heart of the movie’s tragic ending, no doubt, there is a sense of a collective failure of responsibility, for which our beloved protagonists would have to pay with their dear lives. Nevertheless, in the beautiful prayer spoken by Yule (Timothée Chalamet) which I think very powerfully puts forth the still living core of the Christian myth quite beautifully:

That is the sad ending of the movie where, I claim, most people get stuck. Moreover, after this point, they even stop watching or hearing what the movie is saying beyond this point. That’s why I thought it would be interesting to concentrate on those parts which virtually everybody misses or glosses over—probably because it was mixed with the rolling of the end credits.

So I get why audiences are “bummed out” by the destruction of the whole planet in the end, especially with the beautiful score leading there, written by Brittel for the final scene of the Last Supper called Memento Mori. Nevertheless, in a paradoxical way, a fundamentally optimistic message makes itself felt in the final acceptance of the inevitable.

Once again, I want to stress that we need to “stick to the images,” as James Hillman would say, and try not to bring in any further hypothesis or concepts extrinsic to the film. That the Christian myth is written all over the movie, we can readily demonstrate as we have begun to do with the image of the Last Supper, where Yule, who gives the final prayer, plays the role of the Savior.

But the Christian myth is also leveraged by BASH itself, right from its initial presentation, with image of the creation of Adam from the Sistine Chapel, where God himself holds the new iphone in hand, thus positing Isherwell as an “ape” of God, all the way to the finish line, with the image of the Garden of Eden painted on the naked Golden Age that Isherwell imagined.

Letting the film speak for itself, I will keep uploading its imagery, concrete data we should be thinking with and not about. The mythological trick is to think within the film, avoiding modes of “external reflection” (Hegel), as the latter only take us closer to our own beliefs rather than what the film may be actually saying. So let us proceed with the conviction that everything we are looking for to make an argument is already contained within the film, down to its last details.

There are a couple of such key details which may reveal to us the film’s hidden optimism, ones that, in my opinion, outstrip the depressive tones of its apparent pessimism. I would call them “Easter Eggs” were they not so obviously out in the open. And yet they are consistently overlooked, together with the “happy ending” alleged by BASH’s arrival on another, even better planet—22,000 years later!

Since in my mythblast I’ve already made reference to the latter, I will in my following posts focus on these two details: 1) Randall Mindy’s final Redemption and (2) the final song, which started the credits, entitled “Second Nature,” written by Brittel and Bon Iver. And I will try to show how the latter is offered as an interpretive key for the former. For they come one after the other as kind of complementary structure.

Let us consider the image of the Last Supper. While I think it is an extreme stretch to apply this image to the movie, in a way it could work depending on how you see that image. In some imaginings, Christ as redeemer does not do so in the way which is popularly held. He is not the Christ who saves humanity, but is instead the man who embodies the example of how to live life authentically and uniquely. He is the one who has lived his own life and worked through the problems as they have emerged, both psychologically and physically, in his own life. He is the one who has been gripped by the Divine and the Devil – the one who has confronted both and worked out a solution to both – instead of following someone else’s path (which may also be likewise Divine). He is the one who is dealing with the particular challenges/problems of the Age in which he has been born. And he offers the possibility of redemption to us, not by being a hero, but by having set an example of how to live life authentically and responsibly. Crucially, by living an authentic life, one can be led to dismemberment, whether physically or psychologically, something which is shared across the cultures of the world throughout time. The Divine has inspired us in Life, and as we are human-all-too-human, we must experience to the dregs the ultimate culmination of that life, which may be crucifixion. Thus, we see Christ, not in terms of the hero myth or in terms of the “Imitatio Christi” of Thomas à Kempis where imitation is of Christ’s outer life, but instead as a far more nuanced being whom we can imitate on a far deeper level by living, as Christ did, one’s own life and doing so authentically. If we are to see the final scene as relating to the Last Supper, it is as a unique life authentically lived, especially in its last moments, before enduring the crucifixion.

Of course, none of this is meant to say or imply that the crucifixion is a necessary part of the path. Instead, it is meant to recognize that crucifixion may be part of one’s life and, if so, we still must live an authentic life. And one of the great impediments to living an authentic life is the hero and that a hero will save us. Living like there will be a solution to our problems instead of living an authentic life whether there is a solution or not. There is a certain wisdom to Dante’s “Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here.” It is a very soulful saying, one which helps us to find our way in the dark; to learn to see without light. The hero myth can sometimes interfere with living life as it is, especially in dire times. It is the holding on to solving the darkness that is part of the experience of dire circumstances with light instead of learning to see or navigate in the dark. The challenges of life may or may not have solutions. If there are solutions, we must absolutely strive to find them! But, if there are no solutions, we should not live life in despair – we must go on living, not a provisional life in fear, but an authentic life, affirming and embracing Life as it is.

Let us consider the admonition to “stick to the image.” It is worth noting that this advice long precedes 20th century depth psychology. For example, we see it in the writings of the medieval and early modern Latin alchemists. In his 1954 book Mysterium Coniunctionis, Jung wrote that we might interpret in modern language an alchemical recipe from the 16th century alchemist Gerhard Dorn as follows:

Take the unconscious in one of its handiest forms, say a spontaneous fantasy, a dream, an irrational mood, an affect, or something of the kind, and operate with it. Give it your special attention, concentrate on it, and observe its alterations objectively. Spare no effort to devote yourself to this task, follow the subsequent transformations of the spontaneous fantasy attentively and carefully. Above all, don’t let anything from outside, that does not belong, get into it, for the fantasy-image has ‘everything it needs.’

Note that Giegerich, in his paper “The Smuggling Inherent in the Logic of the “Psychology of the Unconscious” in The Flight into the Unconscious: An Analysis of C. G. Jung’s Psychology Project – Collected English Papers, Volume 5, translated the last sentence in Jung’s original German text as “Above all, don’t let anything from outside, that does not belong, get into it, for the fantasy-image has ‘everything it needs’ WITHIN ITSELF” (emphasis mine).

It is absolutely critical that we have a living relationship to the advice “stick to the image” and that we see its truth in our own lives and in our own work. As it was Raphael Lopez-Pedraza’s advice to “stick to the image,” we must understand how this took form in his life as well as in the lives of others who have recommended it such as the alchemists, Jung, Hillman, etc. Crucially, we should likewise recommend that sometimes this advice was not always implemented. Giegerich observed that there are numerous examples where neither Jung nor Hillman stuck with the image. And we must review those examples and come to our own conclusions as to why they did not stick to the image there. It may be that there are cases where “stick to the image” is not appropriate.

Now, I have great concerns that the discussion of the Christian myth here does not, in fact, “stick to the image.” In using an important standard stated by Giegerich regarding amplification that it involves only “an intensification of what is already there, rather than either a translation of it into other images and notions or a rather mindless amassing, by way of association, of other images that are only superficially, abstractly related,” what I see being associated here are certain interpretations of the Christian myth, associations which, in my opinion, violate Hegel’s admonition to avoid modes of “external reflection.” Associating our own beliefs with what we perceive in the movie takes us closer to our own beliefs, no? Thus, I counsel that we be exceedingly and extraordinary careful here!

Finally, I should say that I did not experience this movie as pessimistic at all. On the contrary, I found it quite realistic and was particularly moved at the way certain of the characters soldiered on, continued to live their lives and learned from them, and worked to help each other. This is what I call affirming life and “Living into the Decline.”

In this discussion of image, myth, and the admonition to “stick to the image,” I think we are very much in danger of losing our way here. Let us begin with the notion and experience of the “image.” The image is not of our own creation, not something contrived, not even something that connects individual pieces which may themselves be images. Images come from (if that is a reasonable notion) the unknown – their emergence is a deep and profound mystery. We can experience them, we can recognize them, we can be gripped by them, we can be entirely overpowered by them, but we know neither their true nature nor their true origin (if those are knowable things). Images emerge whole and are of infinite complexity, the revealing of which would thus entail an infinite process. They are of infinite dimension, infinite self-similarity, holographic being a modern ways of speaking of them. And if meaning is to be ascribed to them, their meanings are infinite. All of this is why Jung and others can say that the image has everything it needs within itself.

I expand on the image in this way because we are dealing with the advice to “stick to the image,” advice that, as I mentioned earlier, long predates us. Crucially, this advice is specific to the image and is justified because of the properties we see the image as possessing. Sticking to the image makes a lot of sense when we carefully consider what the image is. However, and this is critical, this movie is not an image! It may contain images, connected in some way, but it itself is not an image. This movie is largely contrived, its development being a product of great deliberation and planning, the choice of images and symbols done deliberately with due reflection. The movie, then, is not infinitely self-similar – not of infinite complexity and depth of meaning. When this movie undergoes analysis and reflection, it quickly decomposes into pieces instead of maintaining its wholeness. Crucially, the movie does NOT have everything it needs within itself, and this is part of the reason why both internal and external reflections are necessary and also why immense caution must be taken when considering the film. Sticking to the image is not particularly beneficial to such a contrivance. Sticking to the image with such contrivances often results merely in bringing in our own beliefs and ideas instead of revealing what is contained within the contrivance.

Now, when we see images in such a contrivance, their experience and, if one employs this process, their interpretation are done very differently than if they had emerged in a true image (e.g., a dream, vision, etc.). For their meaning in the movie is largely dependent on the consciousness of the movie’s creators. In the movie, they often serve as signs, not symbols. So when we see what we think are Christian images in the movie, their meaning would need to be informed by the particular perspectives and specific choices made by the movie’s creators, something which would require quite a bit of research to reveal if we are not to rely on mere guesswork. On the other hand, were we to describe our own (subjective) experiences of the movie, we would have to include our own understanding of the Christian myth. Crucially, then, we need to recognize the fundamental distinction between finding Christian images in the movie and bringing our own interpretation to those images based upon our understanding of the Christian myth. This is part of the reason great care must be taken here.

Now, let us consider the figure of Christ and the image of the Last Supper and assume our interest is in communicating our personal experience of the film rather than what the film means (again, were we interested in the latter, we would need to do research on what the movie’s creators intended by using those images). Here, it is possible that we are bringing our own interpretation of the Christian myth to bear. It may also be the case that we are more reflective and consider different imaginings of the Christ figure (beyond our own beliefs), imaginings which would likely lead to different interpretations of the image of the Last Supper. All of these, then, could be used in describing one’s own experiences of the film. Crucially, one’s experience of the film varies depending on the imaginings of its images. In other words, I can imagine the images in one way and note my experience of the film, and then imagine the images in a different way and note my resulting experiences of the film with those changes. This was precisely why I offered a different imagining of the Christ figure than the one presented in this thread, namely the imagining of the ancient Gnostics. Such an imagining, of course, is not meant to assert anything about truth or correctness. However, it is clear that one experiences the film in very different ways depending on how one imagines the images.

Now, let me address the issue of “psychologistic reduction of Christ as a symbol of a personal individuation.” Fortunately, this was not done in this thread. Crucially, there is a fundamental distinction between the historical figure of Christ and how Christ was experienced over the millennia. When we consider, as the ancient Gnostics had, Christ as an example of living an authentic life, we are really saying absolutely nothing about Christ himself. Instead, we are speaking of a particular experience of Christ, based on a specific reflections on those experiences. Or we are speaking of a particular imagining of Christ, again something exceedingly different from Christ himself.

I should emphasize here that it was the ancient Gnostics who saw the life of Christ and its purpose as an example of an authentic life, a view that was shared by others over the two millennia that separates modern times from the existence of Gnosticism in the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D. Just because modern depth psychology sees this as a valid experience of Christ does not mean that by doing so it has thereby psychologized Christ. And there is a fundamental distinction between holding the process of individuation as a parallel to Christ’s life and psychologically reducing Christ as a symbol of personal individuation. Depth psychology has often been unfairly criticized for reducing God to (mere) psychological concepts. This is largely because there is a failure to read the original materials carefully with reflection, materials which emphasize explicitly and/or implicitly that depth psychology can only speak to the experience of that which has been called God and cannot speak about the Unknowable (God) itself.

I should also say that Christ (and Buddha) as example were specifically discussed in Jung’s own confrontation with the unconscious. It is part of Philemon’s Sermons in 1916 and is part of further discussions among Philemon, the Emissary (Jung’s Soul), and Jung after those Sermons. All of this is experienced directly and is expressed in the Black Books in a language which is not of an academic or psychological character. This is before the relevant psychological concepts had been developed after years of reflection and practice. The subsequent characterization as Christ being the symbol of the Self and an example of individuation came much later and represents a scholarly expression of an originally conscious/unconscious dialogue held primarily during the years 1916-1922. Thus, before this characterization of Christ in depth psychology was done, it had already taken form in the initial centuries after Christ and had, in modern times, taken form in the dialogical relationship Jung had established with the unconscious. And, again, even where depth psychology discussed Christ and individuation, we are talking about a parallel – a modern way of understanding Christ’s life and the experience of Christ. We are in no way reducing Christ’s life to mere psychological concepts.

I would also like to address the exceedingly odd notion of “privatization of the collective power of myth for one’s own ego-centric desires.” This statement, it seems to me, is entirely void of actual experience. For, there are examples of where one has followed a collective myth and succeeded in the goal they set out to achieve. Milarepa is an example of one who participated in a collective myth and successfully achieved enlightenment. Sri Ramakrishna is another example of one who decided to, after he had achieved his own spiritual enlightenment, follow the collective myth of Christ. In the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, it is said there that Ramakrishna experimented and followed Christ’s life and had experienced what Christ had achieved. This certainly was not done for his own egocentric desire, but instead confirmed to him that Christianity was a valid spiritual path.

I should say here that the collective myth of Christ as example is akin to a major theme in Campbell’s beloved Arthurian myths and literature – that of the individual quest and of the Grail. One lives the myth of the individual quest, not for egocentric desire, but in order to live out one’s deepest being, and in doing so, achieve the Grail. The individual path/quest is a major theme in Campbell’s fourth volume of the “Masks of God” series entitled Creative Mythology, this volume being his magnum opus in my opinion. Interestingly enough, Dr. Ann Casement argues that the search for the Soul in Jung’s Red Book is precisely the quest for the Grail. Thus, when we speak of the “privatization of the collective power of myth,” we need to be exceedingly careful and nuanced in our judgement as to whether or not that entailed an “egocentric desire.” Crucially, that is not a necessary property of “privatizing the collective power of myth.”

Let me end this by saying I am aware of some scholars like Giegerich who argue against things like private or personal meaning, private myth, etc. – more generally, making that which one holds to be collective as private, personal, subjective, and vice-versa. Such a position needs to be deeply reflected upon, likely a lifetime endeavor. Having begun my reading of the Gnostic works (which support personal meaning and knowing oneself as a path) when they were first published in the late 1970s, and with my contrary experience in my practice of Tibetan Buddhism and reading of Advaita Vedanta (which support universal themes), I have an experiential sense of both sides of this issue, but I have not come to any conclusion in my life as to whether either or both exist and whether one needs to make a choice between the two. This, for me, constitutes a lifetime reflection.

I think you can also see the comet also as the virus. Look at how we have viewed the data and scientists throughout this mess- often dismissive, reactive, and subservient to capitalistic forces. When acting is politically expedient, we will do so, but only on a temporary basis. How President Orlean handles the situation evokes both presidents Trump and Biden to certain degrees. One can certainly imagine Trump laughing it off and then moving in time to save face for election season. And I recall a keen sense of hope when Biden was elected that our own form of launching rockets into the sky and destroying the comet was going to work. But here we are 2 years later and it’s not hard to see BASH in the pharmaceutical companies creating rounds of vaccines, and disaster capitalism as a boon for the ever-important economy…Yes then it is about climate change, because how we’ve handled that is reflected in how we’ve handled other crises. But have we handled these things so poorly because we have severed myth and art from playing key roles in our collective consciousness? Is there hope at all that we can recover these elements and rebuild anew from the destruction wrought by “the comet” of our lifetime?

Thank you Stephen, I appreciate your thoughtful response. Yes, I agree looking at the film through the psychological and mystical lens opens it up in a really neat way. When I watched it for the first time I wasn’t consciously thinking about that aspect, but still enjoying it, and not entirely for reasons I was conscious of at the time. Norland’s analysis gives us a rich way to examine it, and I’m looking forward to rewatching it and other films that strike a similar chord.