On The Symbol Of Philemon (Elijah) and Salome

BEING REVISED 2014

The great debate over the sexualisation of modern children rumbles on, compounded now by revelations of exploitation at almost every level of society. This all takes place in our press without any regard to either the underlying meaning, or the possible cultural implications of this phenomenon. Yet, in a technological age, where sexual information and images are freely available, and social media invites strangers into our homes, no one should be surprised that the curiosity of children will be stirred and their well-being put at risk. We all know the form this sexual material takes - it ranges within a spectrum-of the very soft to the very hard, but the minds it impinges upon are not so dissimilar, and the processes not so different, to those of my own childhood.

My sexuality appeared in latent form at an age when the phenomenon was played out in the roles of doctor and patient - seemingly the only common point of reference for nudity and bodily examination that most children shared at that time. This early but quite definite awakening was heavily censored by the surrounding adults and returned to the unconscious until some years later, when the first semi adult responses started to take place. With them came the fractured emotional orientation to the objects of this sexual reawakening that was consistent with my upbringing. This all took place in a very different age, where real sexual information was scant and always strongly toned. Parental advice was absent, so what guidance there was flowed from certain contemporaries who were more forward in promoting sexual currency than others. Most, if not all of this stuff was spurious. It was always mechanical, lacking any emotional attachment, and riddled with inherited prejudice. These individuals, from their own internal processes, seemed to have a monopoly on sexual information, which acted like a magnet for the more naive characters like myself. Unwittingly, and with little reflection, I swallowed this diet of filth and misinformation, blundering forward blindly into adolescence and accepting a mechanical view of the whole process of pair bonding. On reflection, this seems not so different from what is happening today, where the mechanics of pornography predominate the behaviour of most young male adults, or at least a particular section that suffers a similar emotional deprivation to my own generation. It is a giant step, and we cannot subtract the magnetic effect that sexuality imposes on most individuals, but we can make an effort to differentiate the necessity for sexual expression from the fundamental meaning that this diverse form of human activity conveys and see if it leads us to a more complete goal in life.

There will always be a generalised state of expression to do with sexuality and in this respect marriage and normal pair bonding provide the greatest reservoir. Culture though has never been so simple that there are never counterpoints and opposites. If we take an archaic view of reality, which involves the Babylonian philosophy of the precession of astrological ages, the liberation of sexuality from its Christian shackles is no coincidence. This was predicted as part of the culmination of the bi-millennial (Christian) age of the Icthys, purported to end around the year 2000. This notion gained a following among part of certain generation, who were looking forward to peace and (free) love. The revolutionary atmosphere of the time certainly fostered the idea among many that things were changing. Some of the more esoteric types felt this was being ushered in by the age of Aquarius dawning, but that would now be eschewed as fanciful. Though it is undeniable that the overthrow of the old restraints placed upon the most important part of humanity during the last two thousand years seems to have been the program for the twentieth century. Freud, Darwin, Einstein, they all played their essential part in subverting Christian values, but then there was the mystic Jung. Jung also played his part in overthrowing god - indeed he was the first to relativise the deity into the condition of 'psychical phenomenon' - an archetype, but in doing so, Jung pointed to a very different state of reality from these other giants, on whom the superstructure of our modern material reality depends.

If there is any concern to be expressed for the young, then it is here that the work needs to be done. Unfortunately, the liberal state of consciousness that springs from a materially conditioned mind will only take us part way in this process, and while most young people find their way - tortuous or otherwise, it is often the adults in the process who have the most confused attitudes towards sexuality.
It is as if they suffer from a hangover from the past. Something undefined, that is inherited in our laws and way of life that informs us of the necessity to express sexuality within boundaries, which when examined, and in the absence of an over arching religious imperative, reveals the best available explanations as banal and lacking conviction. This generation of adults owe their liberation to the overthrow of spiritual values, but they can't quite come to terms with the material philosophy that supplants them. This has coincided with a phenomenon that might be described as a spiritual re-amnesis. This is where the reservoir of our past colonial conquests of natural cultures has come back to its sponsor with an imbibed set of Christian values, but no less fervor than was formerly expressed to the god of the forest or plain. The power that these new religions bear for the devout is still capable of overwhelming sexuality and placing it into context with its natural function of pair bonding, but in doing so it excludes all expressions but heterosexuality. It does not wrap up sado-masochism in the shroud of devotion as do the adherents of Opus Dei, but any that cannot conform to a normal expression of sexuality within the blessing of marriage are left to dangle in a limbo of guilt and self despising.  / it was equally so in our unenlightened past, where a material imperative had not been placed upon our lives. Jung might have seen this clash 

 So, the question I am posing is what exact function does this apparently diminishing period of sexual latency actual perform in forming and informing the child's developing personality. More importantly; what is the fantasy of a sacred innocent childhood that is harboured and treasured almost universally by adults really about and why is it so readily conflated with an obviously divergent reality.

Perhaps we are seeing now a manifestation of what Freud only observed as a latent phenomenon in the children of his time. Latest sociological studies certainly tend to dispel the cherished view of an innocent childhood in favour of more progressive development of sexual awareness. Ironically, this is a situation that almost certainly has arisen as a consequence of, and in coincidence with, the general assimilation of Freud's original work on sexuality. In fact it may be quite damaging to prolong childhood, since it is almost certain that the absence of a very well defined right of passage in modern Western culture has a reductive effect on many individuals. In these young people, neurotic illness is often substituted for development, obviating and drawing attention to the fact that they have not been able to develop a proper adult status or Persona.

So how is this related to Philemon (Elijah) and Salome. Jung was alone, it seems, in his ability to accept the implications of these two symbols in combination - the royal child temptress, together with the ancient of days. In Jung accepting this seemingly disparate conjunction, he opened up the doorway to a form of wisdom that surpasses all contemporary and traditional views of human and spiritual nature and takes us to a place of psychological extremes, where the opposites in human and spiritual nature may be united.

In the biblical drama of John The Baptist, we come upon a series of actions that challenge any form of intellectual participation and as such I have discarded any attempt to treat this important story as historical. It is simply irrelevant to our lives to try to establish what factual basis there is for this and the other dramas of the bible. It is the myth that is important and how the underlying psychical configuration plays out in contemporary consciousness. We have seen how the figure of Mary Magdalene and Judas have been distorted, or rather recast, in a more sinister light by the successive human interpolators of the bible and I would conjecture that this is inevitable. Deepening the shadows and emphasising the highlights, is a trick all artists and poets play with their subjects.

But first, we must look at the phenomenon of dreams and associated psychical manifestations as they appeared to Jung. Jung was the first to grant autonomy to his dreams and the integral fantasies of the Red Book. The language of his dreams and the manifest content of his fantasies, are in a sense, both culturally universal, but also personal. His mind was attendant at the fabrication of these psychical objects, and although Jung formulated the idea of The Collective Unconscious around this time, nevertheless, it was his personal mind through which these psychical objects came to enter reality. I will restate my view that Jung reached a peak of development that was unsurpassed by his followers, who, like Christians, have placed their hero beyond mortal reach. This is not to say there are not detractors, there will always be dissenting voices, until an object emerges that is completely beyond reproach and embraces all but those who would fall beyond the pale. Jung lived his own myth and as such, his psychical being now forms the cornerstone to The Marriage Quarternity, the complex that holds sway in all our mortal lives. So, if you accept, as I have, the preceding premise, then you must accept that the figure of The Ancient of Days in conjunction with the Royal temptress, (as it appeared to Jung), is relevant to all.

It is the psychical substructure that is to be understood, for while we admire only the scenery and worship the king, we will be caught in the same figurative world as our forebears and not have the wisdom of understanding that we are immersed in a sea of intelligence, which, like the fish that swim in the ocean, we have little or no comprehension.