Rereading today, after many years, Silvia Ronchey's famous interview with James Hillman , a shiver runs down our spine. The journalist's questions were answered by the refined critic of psychoanalysis, showing understanding for the allure of terrorism and death, so foreign to our Western system of certainties. It was 1999 , and Europe and the United States seemed safe from bloody and unexpected terrorist attacks.
The birth of archetypal psychology
The short book The World Soul was published in the form of a long interview-dialogue with Silvia Ronchey. Hillman was the director of the C.G. Jung Institute and a brilliant essayist. In his theory, analytical psychology (of the Jungian variety) is still tainted by Freudian elements—particularly its "tragic" and Sophoclean dimension (see his contribution " Oedipus the Tyrant" in Kerenyi and Hillman, Versions of Oedipus 1992)—elements that should be overcome once and for all. He coined the term "archetypal psychology" to define his theory and therapeutic model based on the action of archetypes on the soul. Archetypes—pure, primordial thoughts—were already a fundamental element in Carl Gustav Jung's thought and therapy; Hillman's intention was to further develop the potential of working with them in therapeutic practice and in the analysis of the collective imagination.
Who is the “terrorist”?
The passage from the long interview in which Hillman defined the Terrorist (evidently also transformed into an archetype) as a mythical figure replacing the medieval Reaper with his scythe caused quite a stir among intellectuals of the time. The West had succeeded, after years of chaos, in silencing its indigenous, independentist, red and black reapers. But the nonconformist psychologist and bold critic of Western culture evoked them almost prophetically, in the years when the "Western dream" seemed to have come true. Hillman's Terrorist differs from the revolutionary in that he is a kind of priest of Death, officiating his bloody rituals on the altar of society.
He is a solitary avenger, deeply disillusioned, who lives in lawlessness, in anomie, and refuses to live in that condition any longer. He prefers death, while the revolutionary prefers change. Therefore, the terrorist attacks the government, the state, the symbols of security, order, containment, defense. The system. We must therefore reflect on one point: how to recover this metaphor, so that the system can be psychologically detonated. Where have the anarchist ideologies gone, for example?
Yes, ideologies, utopias, and the courage to fight for a better life. This could be exactly what we need to fight the death cult and its dark priests.
To learn more: "Anarchy and Personal Security" by Silvia Ronchey
Barbara GV Lattanzi
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