Thanatos

A contribution to the understanding

of the collective shadow
Mats Winther
http://www.two-paths.com/thanatos.htm

"Thanatos" by M. Winther

Abstract: The principle of the death drive (Thanatos) is understood as a genuine

psychic force connected with the mother complex. Destructivity in repetitious
form can temporarily emancipate the ego from unconscious dependency in
phallic-narcissism. It is present in the immature or fragile personality (the weak
ego). Thanatos is unconsciously therapeutic in that it aims at strengthening a
weak ego consciousness. It can ward off unconscious wholeness, invariably
associated with the Mother archetype, in which the borders of personality are
dissolved. Although it serves to avoid regression, destructiveness can become
obsessive. The sun-god Horuss perennial struggle against Seth, in Egyptian
mythology, illustrates the dynamics of Thanatos. Accordingly, every night Seth
defends the sun bark by defeating the negative Mother in the guise of the chaos
monster Apophis. Thanks to Seth, the sun of consciousness is restored and can

rise again in the morning. In history, phallocentric culture is sustained by

Thanatos in its restorative capacity, but this runs counter to the ideals of
patriarchal culture, whose guiding star is Horus.

Keywords: Todestrieb, trauma, suicide, mortido, destrudo, patriarchal, Phallic

Mother, complementation.

Introduction
At the outbreak of the First World War young men happily marched to the front, apparently
elated at the prospect of enormous mass killings and their own self-annihilation. War
historians still scratch their heads and wonder what that war was all about. Today, we
observe a chocking indifference concerning the prospects of society and our civilization, in
the face of mass immigration and the impact of consumerism on the environment, including
the ongoing mass extinction of species, which occurs at a rate 1000 times the normal, a rate
which increases rapidly. It could be argued that our modern culture is unconsciously
obsessed with Thanatos, an unconscious wish to self-destruct.
In psychoanalysis, theorists have time and again introduced a principle, ad hoc, which strives
after destruction. Sigmund Freud used the term Todestrieb (death drive), while later
theorists also use the denominations Thanatos, mortido, and destrudo. It is very curious
while we would tend to think that warfare, neurosis and marital manhandling, are all
secondary multifactorial phenomena, depending on many premises. We would tend to see
these as serious mistakes and illnesses that must be remedied. But certain psychoanalytic
thinkers have argued that it is a vital force in itself, which will always abide and must also be
lived through, I suppose.
The horrible carnage of WWI had as conscious motivating factor the attainment of glory.
The nations wanted to achieve glory. Of course, Freud realized that this cannot be correct.
It is merely a rationalization, an attempt by consciousness to explain its destructive
obsessiveness. The motif behind war and mass murder cannot be to attain gloria in secula
seculorum. In that case we place the motivating factor for massive destruction in the
conscious realm, which is not a convincing argument. Such a massive effort necessitates the
impetus of the unconscious mind. Psychoanalyst Poul Bjerre (1876-1964) argued that the
circular movement of death and renewal is an essential factor in human life[[1]. Is there
something tangible in Bjerres thoughts about death and renewal, or is this a form of
Nietzschean philosophy?
Its high time to investigate this curious notion, to make it straight. Is it a blind alley in
psychoanalytic history or do these thinkers point at something very significant? Is human life
really a circular series of death and renewals? I suppose the psychoanalytic notion of a death
drive has its antecedents in the romantic philosophers. Schopenhauer, who draws on
Buddhist philosophy, said that one must bring the endless cycle of death and rebirth to an
end through an attitude of resignation. The rebirth cycle results from the universal Will,
which is behind all creation. Friedrich Nietzsche said that the struggle of warfare is to be
sought after because it paves the way for the bermensch. Freud wasnt the first to
introduce the notion in psychoanalysis. In Civilization and Its Discontents, ch. 6, he
testifies to his own disapproval when it first appeared in psychoanalytic literature. So he
affirms that the concept originated elsewhere.

Thanatos
Freud did not view it as an instinct. He called it Trieb (drive), which is not essential to the
life of an organism. Archetype is really a better notion. Erich Neumann discusses the
strugglers[[2]. These are mythological figures who are depicted as having a powerful
emancipative drive owing to a strong motherly bond. But in breaking free they inevitably fall
into the clutches of the Mother of Death, and hence they return to their beginnings. Mother
wins anyway, as it were. Neumann says:
In the relation between the ego and the unconscious, a psychic gravitation may
be observed, a tendency of the ego to return to its original unconscious state.
This tendency is inversely proportional to the strength of the ego and
consciousness. In other words, the stronger the energetic charge of
consciousness, the more free libido is available to the ego as will and interest
and the smaller is the inertia expressive of psychic gravitation. And the weaker
the consciousness and the ego, the stronger becomes the psychic gravitation
tending to restore the unconscious state. And here the ego and consciousness
may be insufficiently developed to resist the gravitation as in early man and
the child or else they may have been impaired by sickness, fatigue, or other
constellations. [...]
The phenomenon of psychic gravitation, i.e., the natural inertia that causes
certain contents of the unconscious to remain unconscious and certain contents
of consciousness to become unconscious taken together with the symbolic
phenomenon of the predominant femininity of the unconscious in its relation to
consciousness forms the foundation of what we call the elementary character
of the Feminine.
In terms of psychological energy the elementary character of the Feminine
and its symbolism express the original situation of the psyche, which we
therefore designate as matriarchal. In it the unconscious as a whole is dominant
over all individual contents and tendencies. In this phase the unity of the
unconscious determines all psychic processes in so high degree that the ego,
which is a particular complex of the psyche, can as yet achieve no
independence; again and again, responding to psychic gravitation, it sinks back
into the unconscious or circles as a satellite around the Archetypal Feminine[[3].
My argument is that the principle of the death drive is connected with the mother complex.
Thanatos derives its energy from the mother complex, which means that an unconscious
archetype lends its energy from a weightier one. A suicide bomber blows himself away while
there is something in him that wants to overcome the Mother, which symbolically denotes
his unconscious lifestyle and strong material attachments, connected with the submersion
into group identity. The civilizational catastrophes repeatedly incurred on Western
civilization could be explained in this way. For instance, what lies behind the EU/EMU project
is really the Great Mother. In breaking free from her demands, politicians and economists
unconsciously trip the system up. Accordingly, EU has been described as a suicide pact.
The backdrop of the WWI and WWII was the Reich and Mater Germanica. Two decades ago,
Sweden came close to financial ruin. Olof Palme, whose politics had striven to create
Folkhemmet (the Mother State, lit. Peoples Home, otherwise known as the Nanny State),
had restructured society in such a way that the economical consequences were soon to
become abysmal. This was, in fact, a collective suicide attempt.
We see the same phenomenon in the so called suicide sects; Jim Jones and the Peoples
Temple, David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, Marshall Herff Applewhite and the Heavens
Gate, Joseph Di Mambro and the Order of The Solar Temple, etc. These begin as Mother

cults, i.e. they are kindergartens for adults, where people regress to infantile psychological
dependency. Enters the archetype of Thanatos. The death drive culls energy from the
powerful Mother archetype, with disastrous consequences. The lesson seems to be
beware of the Great Mother! The positive Mother, the cornucopia of fortune will inevitably
turn into the negative Mother. This happens because we, being adult modern people, arent
designed to lead an unconscious life of psychological dependency. Unlike primitives and
children, there is in us a strong impetus to individuate. We mustnt put ourselves at the
mercy of people who are possessed by the Mother archetype in whatever form. So we better
watch out for the Marshall Herff Applewhites of politics. Thanatos only surfaces in the
individual who psychologically remains in unconscious dependency. I hold that the
narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is predicated on the same archetype, namely
Thanatos.
Destrudo, as it is also called, is connected with the well-known mythologem of the phallic
Mother. Those men, whom I mentioned, who are representatives of the Mother and whose
unconscious agenda is destruction, are unconsciously identified with the phallus of the
Mother. The phallic Mother is discussed by Freud in New Introductory Lectures on PsychoAnalysis, etc.[[4]. A typical example in fairytales is the witch who has a long finger, toe, or
nose. In mythology, the Mother deity is always surrounded by little male chthonic deities (the
Cabeiri, etc.). They are mere outgrowths on the Mother, representing a male principle
incapable of properly breaking free. In this dwarfish form, I think they symbolize libido in
the form of mere amusements, incapable of overcoming unconscious gravity by a steadfast
commitment to a cause or an idea, which would take root as continuous ego function and
conscious directionality.
Historically, this has its counterpart in matriarchal society when male identity was moulded
on the Mothers phallus and was little more than a maternal phallic outgrowth, remaining
slave to the unconscious, as it were. We can observe in mythology when the phallic deity
grows out of its dwarfish form, giving rise to phallic-narcissistic (or phallocentric,
patricentric) culture, which is furtively matriarchal. In comparative religion the phallic deity
goes under the name of Seth, Shiva, Tezcatlipoca, Wotan, and (the fundamentalist version of)
Jahve and Allah. In Egyptian mythology the battle goes on between Seth as representing the
Mothers phallus, and Horus the sun-god, who represents the patriarchal paradigm proper.
Horus is finally victorious.
Seth is a fabulous creature with a very long curved snout, phallic in significance. He
represents the dark and devilish form of male energy, as he is merely an outgrowth on the
Mother. In personal psychology, we can observe exactly the same phenomenon today. The
average Greater Middle East dweller lacks an anima[[5] proper, while his only female ideal is
the mother. His psychic economy is typically of the phallic-narcissistic kind. Such a
civilization, it seems, is caught between the matriarchal and patriarchal stages.
Phallic-narcissistic cultures have a sectarian view of social life. People belong to clans and
families that are organized according to the matriarchal ideal, i.e. the clan or family is
viewed as one body. It is viewed as the Mother of the individual whose protection he/she
receives throughout life, but which also demands total loyalty. The family is allencompassing, especially to the female members. It represents the Mother who always
provides and protects. The father of the family personifies the motherly phallus, which
vouches for his pronounced narcissism. He always tries to imitate an erect penis, also when
he is out for a walk.
The clan and the family of phallocentric culture is formally the same phenomenon as the
suicide sect. Thats why family members, who are suspected of disloyalty, are murdered (in

so called honour-killings). Destruction is always close when the mother-phallus is activated.

The phallic-narcissistic male experiences the slightest emancipative tendency as an act of
disloyalty and disobedience. In the religion of the Old Testament the phallic deity demands
total obedience and loyalty. The religion focuses on zeal. Transgressions are punished with
mass-murder.
In a suicide-bombing, or in a school/workplace-shooting, the phallic-narcissistic male (who
is unconsciously identified with the Mother-phallus) destroys the transgressors, but he also
destroys himself. This is the utmost consequence of the death drive. The destructive drive is
predicated on the weak ego. In order to avoid regression to infantilism and unconsciousness
he sacrifices a limb to the Mother goddess of the unconscious. The limb could be a family
member, or it could be himself, or a limb of his own. To sacrifice a finger or a tooth (e.g.) in
order to prove loyalty to the clan, is a common motif. It is also a standard initiatory rite in
primitive religion, to expose oneself to torture, laceration, or mutilation in some form.
Destructivity is unconsciously therapeutic
I have argued in my article on the blood sacrifice[[6] that this motif aims at the strengthening
of a weak consciousness. It serves to ward off unconscious wholeness in its symbolic form of
Mother goddess. Interestingly, apotemnophilia is a strong desire for the amputation of a
healthy limb[[7]. There are men who amputate a healthy leg, and afterwards feel a great
relief. Tezcatlipoca, the one-legged Aztec god who represents the Mother-phallus, likewise
sacrificed his leg in the jaws of the chaos monster (the negative Mother). Symbolically, this
portrays a damaged god connected with darkness and sin. By losing a limb, thus losing his
wholeness, he has broken free of unconscious wholeness and defeated the negative Mother
goddess.
To incur physical damage, or to downgrade oneself morally, e.g., by committing crimes, or
being generally nasty, thus fulfils a defensive function. By example, Michael Jackson
illustrated this theme when he dressed up in black leather and sang Im bad, Im bad!. By
compensatory measure, he expresses that he is not a mamas boy. The student that Jackson
impersonates is killed in the story, but this is not included in the video. Young girls debase
themselves sexually, cut themselves, pierce themselves with tongue-trinkets, etc., and put
ugly tattoos on their skin. The phallic consciousness compensates the mother complex with
destructive acts that serve to damage wholeness. It is a motivating factor behind burning
suburbs in Western Europe, and it obtains as an undercurrent of terrorism and warfare. From
a mythological perspective, the deity that governs this destructive process is Tezcatlipoca, or
Seth, as a personification of Thanatos.
An unconscious destructive factor is ever at work to undermine a relation of strong
psychological dependency, whether its a personal relationship, ideological devotedness, the
socialist state, etc. Continuous destructive mistakes, violations of rules, can serve to
emancipate the individual. The unconscious destructive impulse serves to corrode the very
phenomenon to which the individual has developed psychological dependency, and in which
he is an integral part. So he is unconsciously sawing off the tree branch on which he is
sitting. He is driven by an unconscious impulse to destroy that unconscious Oedipal
marriage with the Mother. Also in cases where the subject believes that he pays service to
the Mother, by numerous missteps her rule is whittled away.
The Oedipal complex is central also in Jungian psychology, although it has a more general
significance. The mother in Jungian psychology signifies not merely the personal mother.
The state, for instance, can also be the carrier of a mother projection. Thus, the subject can
have an Oedipal relation to the state, which he regards as the Mother and sees as an endless

cornucopia of boons. The subject develops an Oedipal relation to the state and fears
retaliation from the father in the form of the authorities, such as the police, or male figures
in the population who have a fatherly and masculine persona. Such fatherly equivalents, he
believes, are driven by hatred and are out to kill him. At least, they want to divest him of the
symbiotic relation to the Mother, which he has striven hard to attain, and which has allowed
him to regress to infantile dependence. These Oedipal individuals have all the characteristics
of little omnipotent kings.
Since the symbiotic condition is an impediment to individuation, it gives rise to a destructive
force that aims to sever the bond of son and mother. Thus, the darkest fear of the Oedipal
person really derives from inside as the underlying factor of projection. The dark father (who
is the spirit of the murdered father, Laius) whispers in his ear that he ought to destroy the
object of his psychological attachment and that he must now make preparations for his own
death, preferably in a terrorist action. In the infantile individual the death motif takes an
archaic guise. Death means that he will turn into a spirit. To become a spirit means a
freeing from the world. It means to finally sever the bond of attachment that has impeded
his maturation to a true individual. This is why the death drive plays such a big role in the
Oedipal individual. In the Oedipus story, the mother Jocasta kills herself, and Oedipus pokes
out his eyes.
A suicide sect resembles a daycare centre for adults, conducive to an infantile condition of
psychological dependence. These societies are matriarchal, that is, they are mother cults in
which the followers are nothing more than outgrowths on the mother. The members have
abdicated from their life as mature and psychologically independent individuals. Under such
conditions, Thanatos will infallibly awake from his slumber. In case of The Heavens Gate,
liberation was achieved when the group transformed into spirits in order to fly up to the
spaceship that was hiding behind the comet Hale-Bopp.
Trauma therapy
Freud focused on the repetitive self-destructive tendencies, especially in patients with a
traumatic history. My argument is that self-laceration, e.g., in the form of girls cutting
themselves, has a temporary therapeutic effect as it revitalizes consciousness by warding off
childhood unconscious wholeness (i.e., none other than the Mother archetype), which is
always proximate to the immature ego, and also the ego damaged by trauma. In the case of
narcissistic individuals, psychoanalysts have always regarded them as immature.
This self-destructive tendency must be repeated or it must be definitive (i.e. suicidal).
Traumatized American soldiers often resort to self-destructive behaviour or attempt suicide
after having returned home. It has grown into a huge problem. On account of their selfimage of manliness, a regress to childhood motherly dependency is out of the question.
These are generally tough men that have been brought up on the role model of the crew cut,
self-assured, American man, who can always fend for himself and refuses to be a burden to
anybody else. Thus, the traumatized ego cannot sink back into motherly unconsciousness
and dependency, but must ward it off by repeated self-laceration in some form. Eventually,
they often take the step of the strugglers in myth, i.e., in an attempt to escape the Mother
they kill themselves, and thus fall into the embrace of the Death-Mother.
However, we know that the paragon of manliness, the mythological Heracles (Hercules)
donned womens clothes and did service to the Mother goddess for a year, during which
time he was compelled to silence and is supposed to have taken up weaving[[8]. Knit work,
crochet work, and weaving, are similar to a spiders work. Although, the spider is a negative
mother symbol, von Franz says that such work generally has a very salutary effect, especially

on women. Symbolically, it often means the spinning of fantasies, as a way of preparing for
the future[[9]. I suggest that this is indicative of an ancient form of therapy for traumatized
soldiers. They were persuaded to slough off manliness and go and live in the lush garden of
the Mother, free of all cares, spinning fantasies for the future. Obviously, for the traumatized
soldier, a therapy of strengthening consciousness to reinforce the ego, is already too late. In
order to put an end to the repetition of the distressing experience, which, according to my
argument, constitutes a defense against regression, the patient ought to follow the example
of Heracles, and allow himself to regress into boyhood, there to fall into the arms of the
Mother. This is effectively a breach of the incest-barrier, which explains the averseness that
it invokes in the male.
Arguably, this is how trauma should be treated in the general case, also when it comes to
self-cutting girls. The patient should be convinced to abandon responsibilities and cares,
and to take up weaving, in some form. The defense involving destructivity will abate, as
there is no longer an incest-barrier to defend against. So it is not the question of making
conscious the causes of trauma, because this is, in itself, a form of self-laceration that
constitutes a defense. In fact, the solution is the opposite, namely to consign all problems to
oblivion. The process involves the restitution of the ego in the fountain of life, which is the
unconscious.
The rivalry of Horus and Seth
The epic conflict between Horus and Seth corresponds to the conflict of Quetzalcoatl
(Kukulcan) and Tezcatlipoca, the one-legged phallic god in Mezoamerican mythology.
Whereas Horus is a sun-god who has the form of a falcon, Quetzalcoatl is the winged
serpent, which is the dragon, i.e. a creature which is wholly earthly but also wholly spiritual.
Thus, Quetzalcoatl was a god-man, like Jesus Christ. Quetzalcoatl was prophesied to return
and put and end to the cruel reign of Tezcatlipoca. Interestingly, the Christian religion also
arrived in Mexico at the anticipated date, when Cortez went ashore. Horus, likewise, was a
man-god. On earth, the pharaoh is Horus. The difference between Horus and Seth
corresponds to the paradigmatic difference between Jesus Christ and Jahve. Jahve stands for
phallocentrism. He is essentially the same deity as Set, Tezcatlipoca, and Allah.
The conflict represented by these mythologies goes on to this day. Phallocentrism stands
against a modern patriarchal consciousness. Today, orthodox Judaism and Islam are often
denoted as patriarchal. In my view, this is incorrect terminology. A better term would be
patricentric, paternalistic, or phallocentric. The autocracy of the phallocentric male depends
on compensation. He suffers from a mother-fixation which he always tries to compensate.
Instead of dealing with the dirt of the unconscious (the dark Mother), he focuses on rules
for cleanliness. His mother-dependency betrays that his culture is patricentric as it
overcompensates a furtive dependency on the mother (in its wide meaning as unconscious
dependency). So it is not properly patriarchal, while there is still a strong attachment to the
motherly principle.
Western Christian culture, on the other hand, is inherently patriarchal since it builds on
spiritual values and focuses on the abstract and conceptual. It is important to remember that
these are archetypes at work in the collective psyche of humanity. They do not represent a
conflict between civilizations. However, should we remain unconscious of them, the risk is
great that the archetypal strife, through identification, is misunderstood in an overly
concrete way. Rivaling psychic economies in individual psychology are projected as
civilizations in conflict. The guiding star for the Western civilization is patriarchal
consciousness. However, both phallocentrism and the matriarchal worldview are today
making an inroad in Western culture[[10]. So this is not the least a conflict internal to

civilization and internal to personality.

These deities do not denote human personality types. They are forces of unconscious nature
that will always continue to exist. Seth, representing the dark forces, castrated Osiris whose
phallus could never be recovered. Whereas Horus is the living pharaoh, Osiris is the dead
pharaoh, who abides in the spiritual realm. This double-nature corresponds to Jesus Christ
who is true God and true man. The phallus of the Mother is the male active principle of the
ambivalent force of nature, which is the Mother of Life and Death. To me, it is evident that
Western culture centers on the Christian archetype which is Christ or Horus, whereas the
Aztec, orthodox Islamic, and the orthodox Judaic culture, center on the phallus of the
Mother, which is Jahve, Allah, etc.
The archetype that dominates a civilization is formative of its culture and therefore of
personality. The phallic-narcissistic male has no notion of true womanliness (as he lacks an
anima[[5]), and thus the mother remains the ideal. If a woman cannot live up to motherliness,
she must be a whore, which is why women tend to suffer much abuse. This notion
permeates the phallocentric cultures, which also include certain Middle East Christian
cultures. When I went to school we never demoted the girls as whores. Today, it is very
common. It is the legacy of immigrant cultures, primarily from the Middle East and North
Africa. Many have argued that Muslims, especially, are unintegrable in Western society.
However, there are signs that Western society is today changing its guiding-star, from Horus
to Seth, from democracy to phallocentrism and matriarchy, partly due to the influence of
immigration. In fact, the European Union could be understood as both the Mother of all
European people, and the Great Phallus, i.e., a world power. The archetype that rules such
institutions is Seth, which is why everything revolves around money and legislation, whereas
there is a chocking unawareness of the moral incentives of both society and personality.
There are mythological parallels also in case of Seth and the Aztec war god Tezcatlipoca.
Tezcatlipoca defeated the Earth Monster, Cipactli. That was how he lost his leg. This feat was
necessary for the world to come into existence. Ursa Major is his foot print in the starry sky.
It always revolves around the polar star as he, being the evil god, is not allowed to enter
through the gate of the polar star into the highest heaven. Analogously, Seth, equipped with
a spear, defeats the serpent Apophis, which threatens the sun bark every night during its
journey through the Underworld. In these myths the dark god is still an ambivalent force,
bringing both good and evil consequences, which is what William James refers to in his wellknown saying: The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot

upon his neck.

Seth was worshipped as a great god in Egypt, corresponding to the worship of
Tezcatlipoca/Huitzilopochtli in Mexico. However, after the close of the New Kingdom in
Egypt, he was ousted from the Egyptian pantheon. Earlier rituals had enacted the slaying of
the evil force in the form of the serpent Apophis. However, now the serpent-slayer himself
carried the role of the evil force, whose defeat by the hands of Horus was celebrated in ritual
[11]. This is a very interesting change. It reflects upon the implacable standpoint of the
Christians, whose view of the devil was utterly dark. However, this is compensated in
European fairytales, where the actions of the devil sometimes has good consequences.
The adolescent age is connected with the term phallic-narcissism, hence the cockiness of
the male. However, in certain ethnicities, this attitude still prevails in adulthood. Preadolescent age is characterized by attachment to the mother in its wide meaning as
dependency, material attachments, concrete thinking, and an unreflecting lifestyle, to boot.
Many African people still remain at this psychological level, under the rule of the collective
mother complex, which is the matriarchal goddess. But when the phallus begins to grow

out of the Mother, it signifies a relative disengagement from the motherly principle. In the
Egyptian pantheon, Seth personifies the Mother-phallus, and is therefore the god of phallicnarcissistic (phallocentric, paternalistic) culture. Horus, his archfiend, being the fatherly sungod, is the god of patriarchal culture, i.e., the god of adulthood proper (as is the Christ).
Evidently, these stages, the matriarchal, the phallocentric, and the patriarchal, are connected
with different levels of IQ. Western Christian culture is inherently patriarchal since it builds
on spiritual values and focuses on the abstract and conceptual. IQ is predicated on level of
proficiency in the abstract realm, which is the backyard of Western culture.
The biological perspective
The difficulty that Freud wrestled with was how to biologically motivate an innate tendency
that goes against life. Eros sustains life while Thanatos is antagonistic to Eros. Yet, Thanatos
is not antagonistic to life from an overarching perspective. The point is that both Eros and
Thanatos work to sustain life. It functions like a thermostat. When it gets too hot, electricity
is shut off temporarily. Seth is a menace. He is the god of the dead region, the desert. Yet,
he defends the sun bark in the dead of night. In modern biology, such dialectics has been
verified. All living beings undergo programmed cell death (Apoptosis) without which they
could not develop to maturity. Brain cells must die in order for intelligence to develop,
otherwise there would be cacophony. The cell suicide mechanism is crucial to complex
organisms[[12]. Destructive agents in the form of free radicals (oxidants) cause damage to
living cells. So people eat antioxidants to remove these destructive compounds. However,
over-consumption of antioxidants, especially with elderly people, is destructive to the body,
causing inflammation and accelerated aging.
The reason is that free radicals are needed in the immune system. White blood cells are
responsible for the defense against virus, bacteria, toxins, and cancer. They utilize free
radicals as missiles, shooting them at the infectants, in order to destroy them. This means
that a shortage of free radicals in the body weakens the defense. The white blood cells must
have recourse to plenty of free radicals in order to fulfill their function properly[[13]. Thus,
while free radicals do harm to living cells, they are also necessary to promote the life of the
organism. Too much free radicals and too little are equally harmful. The absence of
Thanatos can have harmful consequences to life.
Regression to infantilism in sectarian groups is an expression of Eros. Grown-up men thus
give up their willpower. They are a chocking sight. Eventually, the leader tells them to kill
themselves, an order which they readily fulfil, deprived as they are of individual willpower.
The cult leader cuts the Mothers phallus off vicariously, because he is contemptuous of the
mother-dependent male, which is really the painful truth about himself. Death has made the
scene in the paradisal kindergarten. According to the bible, death came into existence when
mankind was banished from the Garden, which signifies the lost unconscious symbiosis with
creation. This theme is repeated in world mythology, as in the Australian aborigine story
named The Southern Cross, in which death enters creation when men become aware of sin.
These myths seem to say that Thanatos is concomitant with ego consciousness, as shadow
accompanies light.
Spiritual sages of all time have been misogynistic, in a sense, and warned against
cohabitation with women, since the proselyte will tend to fall prey to the symbiotic
unconsciousness of Eros. Many Gnostic sects, whose spiritual path revolved around
enlightenment, gnosis (spiritual awareness), were adamant about this. The majority
subscribed to continence and a reclusive or monastic lifestyle. However, there were Gnostics
who went in the opposite direction of sexual overindulgence, including sexual rituals
performed in open before the congregation[[14]. Eros is torn apart, through unnatural

application of sexuality. The Gnostics were aware of this. By emptying the erotic drive, so
they thought, they emancipated themselves from its dominion. Thence they may give God
undivided attention.
At Egypts Tahrir square a Western female journalist was again (June, 2012) sexually
assaulted by a large group of men. She was violently attacked by a group of animals who

stripped her naked, scratched and clenched her breasts and forced their fingers inside
her[[15]. Eros must be restrained, alternatively women be raped, or recruited to group sex,
etc. It is an expression of Thanatos and a serious impediment to Eros. In this way the weak
ego-consciousness defends against abatement in the symbiotic condition, a power set in
motion by mass-movements such as the Arab Spring. It is very characteristic of certain
ethnic groups in convergence with the modern world, on account of a low conscious level.
The Holocaust and the many ethnic cleansings give us ample evidence of how unitive Eros is
compensated by divisive Thanatos.
The negative animus
If my conclusions about evil nature resemble the truth it would imply that the Jungian theory
of the shadow is incomplete[[16]. It builds on the notion that destructivity in the social
context depends on shadow projection, and that the subject must integrate the shadow, in
order to remedy the problem. However, the theory does not take into account the functional
aspect of destructivity, which serves to uphold a weak ego structure. Shadow projection and
the constant victimization of our peers is functional. Without recourse to its shadow
economy, the ego is threatened with collapse. This function, equal to Freuds Thanatos,
surfaces when subsistence is no longer possible in the maternal environment, taken in its
wide sense. Unsophisticated consciousness cannot cope with the complexity of the world
without partially shutting it out and defaming it, blaming it for personal failures. Thats why
we see happy and naive primitives turn into machete murderers, and harmonious children,
still living in a condition of wholeness, turn into bullies. This is the shadow phase of psychic
development that the majority of people on earth arent capable of surpassing.
There is in Jungian psychology the expectation that the shadow can always be integrated,
and that this accomplishment represents the first step in individuation, defined as the path
to true maturity and wholeness. The truth in the matter is that only a portion of earths
population can accomplish this, and only because they have been endowed with a strong
ego. Kathrin Asper in The Abandoned Child Within (1993) has reached similar conclusions
[17]. She says that the integration of the shadow is far from always the first phase in analysis
with patients. The shadow can only be integrated when the ego is ripe for it, a condition that
some people will never reach. According to her, the negative animus is the culprit.
Arguably, the negative animus can be seen as the Jungian equivalent to Thanatos. The term
certainly has a more scientific ring to it. However, Aspers understanding of the underlying
causes of the constellation of the negative animus differs markedly from how Thanatos
would form, as I see it. Also M-L von Franz discusses the negative animus in Animus and
Anima in Fairy Tales (2002) and elsewhere[[18]. She sees it as the fountainhead of masculoid
thinking, and connects it with pre-Christian Wotan and thus with Hitlerism.
The subterranean god
The phallus is a god that stands on one leg, and has one eye looking upwards. Wotan, who
hung on the world ash, could set himself free from the motherly tree, by the sacrifice of one
of his eyes. Carl Jung, at a tender age, dreamt of the phallus seated on a kings throne in an
underground hall, although at this young age he couldnt identify it as such: It was a huge

thing reaching almost to the ceiling. But it was made of a curious composition: it was made

of skin and naked flesh, and on top there was something like a rounded head with no face
and no hair. On the very top of the head was a single eye, gazing motionlessly upward. His
mother said That is the man-eater. It was a subterranean god, not to be named[[19].
This was the deity responsible for the two greatest carnages in world history, an epoch
which Jung was destined to live through. We like to think of our civilization as ruled by an
enlightened spirit, but the presence of the subterranean god can always be felt. Hatred,
calumny, and contemptuous remarks, are part and parcel of our culture. It should be
apparent to everyone that people arent as good as they pretend. It is a falsehood
characteristic of our civilization. Destructivity and malevolence does not depend on a
misunderstanding, as is always supposed. Most people, it seems, cannot withstand an
opportunity to damage other people provided that they risk no harm to themselves.
Malevolence is used as a means of self-therapy. For this reason, it is exceedingly difficult to
maintain civility in an Internet discussion forum.
Why do people subscribe to ideologies, such as multiculturalism and cultural relativism? It
has nothing to do with ethical motives. In fact, through ideological affiliation the adherents
are able to castigate other people as devils. A multiculturalist notoriously accuses people of
antidemocratic views, racism, right-wing extremism, egoism, etc. This is the great
allurement of collective ideologies, to be able to bully people. The only consequence is that
ones social status is augmented. Its like they cannot get along in life without recourse to
calumniation. Arguably, in another epoch, the same people would have appropriated the
politically correct norms of that particular period in time. It enables them to partake in
collective hatred, which is really the underlying motif, deriving from the god of Thanatos.
The average multiculturalist of today, would have been a full-fledged Nazi in the thirties.
The hypocritical person subscribes to the prevailing views on account of their political
correctness, henceforth enabling him to demonize other people. It has nothing to do with
the moral and intellectual content of the ideology, as such.
The notion of political correctness means that people program themselves according to the
most popular ideologies, whereas a proper understanding is lacking. They lack heartfelt
convictions and merely parrot the standard tenets. Intellectual understanding is not possible
anyway, since the ideology is only a chimera serving as concealment for the subterranean
god. Their covert motivation to partake in the movement is to be able to make people suffer.
Again, destructivity is functional. It does not derive from misunderstandings. In fact,
Thanatos-driven people thrive on misunderstandings. They have no wish to avoid them. I
am merely saying that those who project the demonic evil are the very people who are
possessed by it. Well worth to remember is that the force of Thanatos exists in us all. The
vital point is whether we succeed in keeping our foot upon his neck. It is only doable as long
as we are able to analyze and understand the collective shadow.
Beyond Thanatos
There are only two alternatives; either you have faith or you have ideology. In the Old
Testament we can observe how the once all-encompassing religious cosmogony,
characteristic of ancient Egypt, splits into the opposites of Faith and Law. In the ensuing
battle, faith came out victorious, in the form of Christianity. According to Pauline
Christianity, the Law is revoked and faith has taken precedence. The same struggle is today
ongoing in Islam, where sharia (law) seems to prevail. Modern ideology in all its plenitude
represents a throwback to the pharisaic mind-set. A modern ideological framework is an
intellectual algorithm corresponding to the religious law of olden days. Horus and Christ are
connected with the life-principle of faith, whereas Seth, and Old Testamental Jahve, focus on
zeal and demand blood sacrifice. In Norse and Teutonic mythology, Wotan (Oden) is the

lawgiver.
The personality that has transcended the stage of ego wholeness, pertaining to the
phallocentric economy, has no longer any need to control his/her environment in defense of
the frail ego. Central to this notion is that Christ resides within us (cmp. Galatians 2).
Symbolically, it means, among other things, that the life-force resides within us, and is no
longer accorded us from without, in the form of outer circumstances, whether good or bad.
In either case, God is always with us. Horus, likewise, is a god-man, which means that the
divine spirit has its abode in the human heart. This circumstance generates a completely
different psychological dynamic, and the transfer of sin to the environment is closed out.
The motif of destructivity, the death drive, thus loses much of its impetus in the individual.
However, the archaic psychic economy of maintaining ego wholeness still persists in the
modern world. It obtains in morally inferior individuals, immature individuals, and in ethnic
groups that lack a Christian phase in their history, corresponding to the European Middle
Ages[[20]. Mass-immigration of ethnic groups belonging to the phallocentric cultural sphere,
together with the ongoing secularization process, contribute to the resurgence of preChristian scapegoatism. A phallic-narcissistic economy implies that the ego territory must
ever be expanded, its borders always defended, and personal shortcomings must be blamed
on others, by way of transfer of sin.
The ideology of sameness
When Horus and Seth finally appeared before the council of the gods, Thoth managed to
decide which of the two gods was dominant by calling out to their seed. Seths seed
answered from the bottom of the Nile whereas Horuss seed answered from Seths abdomen
(Seth had eaten a lettuce insidiously impregnated with Horuss seed). Thoth summoned the
seed to Seths forehead where it appeared, to Seths great rage, as a golden sun. This proved
the dominance of Horus over his uncle, and Seth was then adopted as a son of Horus. The
seed of Seth represents the worldly unconscious spirit, which is why it answers from the
bottom of the Nile (alternatively, the remote marshlands). Horuss seed is the heavenly spirit
of consciousness, appearing in the form of the golden sun. As it takes possession of Seth, he
is subordinated to the principle of consciousness. The sun appears in Seths forehead
Thanatos is made subordinate to the self of light. He is now an aspect of self, ruled over by
the spirit of consciousness, personified by the sun-god Horus. It does not mean that the
dark god is wholly integrated with consciousness, but he can no longer remain hidden in the
waters of the Nile, unanticipatedly rise to power and take possession of personality.
There are two antagonistic spirits ever at work. One is the archaic unconscious spirit. It
searches to establish dominion according to the matriarchal creed. The other is the spirit of
worldly transcendence, which works towards conscious realization, differentiation of
cognition. It is associated with the principium individuationis, which attempts to differ
between things, thus generating conscious power and directionality. The dark spirit, working
toward unconscious wholeness, relates to the combined canon of relativism in all its forms,
internationalism, multiculturalism, gender theory, etc. The current ideology of sameness
answers a purpose of retaining pre-adolescent wholeness, an unconscious childish
worldview where opposites have only begun to form. Pre-adolescent kids enjoy a form of
primary wholeness, which is shattered when they enter the adult world of opposites.
According to the ideal of unconsciousness, all peoples of the earth constitute one great big
family. There are no essential differences between the races, the sexes, the criminal versus
the honest people, etc. The ideology of sameness says that male and female gender and
sexuality are constructed. Hence the sexes arent essentially different. It is a regressive

notion that serves to thwart individuation. Individuation demands that you define yourself
vis-a-vis the world, and that the illusion of sameness is overcome. Retainment of preadolescent wholeness is practiced in the Eastern monastic tradition, in which young boys are
recruited, to lead a life of prayer and meditation in a childish wholeness-condition. In this
tradition it works very well, since the monks are recruited before they have been exposed to
the world, to a life in reclusion. Tibetan monks are among the naivest people in the world. It
is a religious path suitable for the introverted life of the individual. However, should the
unindividuated personality involve himself with the world, the result is disastrous. The world
is a Kindergarten to such people, ruled over by Mama. The problem with the ideology of
sameness, heavily practiced in many European countries, is that politics becomes infantile
and unrelated to the hard facts of reality.
A typical example of the incursion of matriarchal consciousness in Western politics is the
recent unemployment debate in Sweden. The Somali group, for instance, has reached the
astounding unemployment rate of 85%. In a recent interview, the prime minister happened to
point out that the unemployment rate among ethnic Swedes is very low. This created an
uproar of indignation among politicians and journalists. To use the denomination ethnic
Swedes means that you make partitions and differentiate the population into us and them,
essentially a racist invention. There is no such thing as ethnic Swedes, as debaters in Sweden
use to say. All inhabitants are Swedes. The paradigm of sameness means that its not
possible to debate the many urgent societal problems in the open. The conscious function
cannot distinguish the population, hence politicians and debaters are unable to present
solutions relevant to the actual situation. The problems are effectively swept under the
carpet.
Essential to consciousness is to be able to differ between this and that. Without
differentiation, consciousness cannot take root. The unconscious spirit aims at thwarting
differentiation, according to the dictum that all things are really the same. All the individual
entities really belong to one unconscious wholeness. This is the Mother goddess speaking.
The matriarchal creed is represented by the ideology of sameness, which works to
undifferentiate the world and to remove individual consciousness. Ideally, only the leader
must think for himself. The immersion into group consciousness is bound to awaken the
murderous spirit. Aum Shinriky was the name of the sect responsible for the 1995 Tokyo
subway sarin attack. Immersion in group identity was central to this violent sect of assassins,
who probably had around 80 victims on their conscience[[21], many of them killed by
strangulation. Despite its Japanese roots, the one-eyed(!) leader, Shoko Asahara, had
adopted the Hindu god of destruction, Shiva, as patron of the cult. The strong connection
between immersion and Thanatos is evinced in Liftons study. Most basic is milieu control,

in which all communication, including even an individuals inner communication, is

monopolized and orchestrated, so that reality becomes the groups exclusive
possession (p.25).
The paradigm of unconsciousness gives rise to a culture of human sacrifice, the Aztec being
perhaps the most horrifying example. Such cultures are always ruled over by the Shiva type
of deity. Aum Shinriky represents a throwback to a dark phase in the development of
human consciousness. The ideology of sameness points the way back to the matriarchal
stage of civilization, and collective manslaughter. The lesson to be learnt from the Horus
myth is that Thanatos should be adopted as a son to consciousness, and to be subordinate
to it. It means that Horus cannot rule without him. Modern consciousness mustnt always
shine like the sun and give expression to an all-encompassing goodness. If so, the inclusive
and absorptive unconscious wholeness begins to envelop us again, and Thanatos is set lose.
This is precisely the predicament of Christian civilization. As the Christ-consciousness is the
sole ideal, and the shadow is never really adopted as its son, the dark powers remain out of

control. Thanatos can, at intervals, take possession of the collective, that will fall back on the
ancient tradition of human sacrifice, as exemplified in the Holocaust.
Seth, while being the sun-gods adversary, secretly fulfils a supportive function, when he is
protecting the deity on its nightly journey. Our day-time consciousness sees the dark god as
pure evil, although furtively being dependent on its services. When we are facing the risk of
being immersed in the sea, as the sun on its nightly journey, Seth will destroy the sea
monster. Its effects would not need to be so vast in scope if the destructive function were
allowed to awaken at an early stage, before the symbiotic spirit has taken possession of the
personality and the collective. But it seems our civilization will again and again take the
sameness train into perdition. We need not identify with the everlasting sun-god and give
our motherly embrace to all the brown-skinned people in the world. Let us instead speak
with the voice of Seth and tell them to fend for themselves, before our civilization faces ruin,
and we face the horror of Sethian rule again.
Othering
How can internal sameness be maintained in the collective? It depends on a process of
othering whereby unalike people are incriminated as the archfiend. This happens if
individuation is impeded and the immature phase of collective mass psychology is
prolonged. Either the individual individuates and separates himself from the collective, or
the collective will individuate, by separating itself from humanity, rejecting the others as
slave natures. This is evident in case of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Maos China,
islamism, nationalism during WWI. The individuating force is immense. It strives to attain the
superior Aryan man, the exemplary socialist citizen, the heroic soldier of the Holy War who
single-handedly blows the archfiend to pieces. This is the perverted form of individuation
which will seize control of the population if individuation is impeded through the ideology of
sameness. Evidently, there are two forms of othering, the small scale and benign one, which
serves the purpose of conscious differentiation, and the murderous form associated with
collective identification. The former is symbolized by Horus in unison with his adoptive son,
the latter by the rule of the dark deity.
Carl Jung aptly characterized the Nazi system as Wotanism. If it werent for the extreme
destructiveness of the Thanatos principle, Europe would still be under totalitarian dominion.
The force of individuation would be stemmed and individual consciousness stifled. Thanatos
always usurpes the throne in the perfectly ordered collectivistic society, causing its demise,
whether its a sect practicing collective immersion, or whether its a totalitarian society.
Wotan threw Europe into a carnage. The self-destruction of the Third Reich forcibly involved
the Soviet Union, thus crippling it permanently, too. If it werent for the extreme
destructiveness of the Aum Shinriky and other sects, they would have had great success
impeding individuation in an enormous number of members. Was it really worth more than
60 million dead, and the horror of Holocaust, to destroy the threat to ego consciousness and
democracy? This question cant be answered, because it has nothing to do with human
values, but belongs to the divine council. It seems like nothing must be allowed to impede
the sun-god, not at any cost.
The mistake we are doing, time and again, is that we underestimate the enormous impact of
individuation and ego consciousness. It is extremely dangerous not to heed to its
advancement. The Thanatos force ought to be consciously realized and put to good use,
thereby forestalling its dominion. It can protect us against the unconscious spirit of
collectivism, which is ever at work. Let us apply the dark force to a limited degree, like Jesus
does when he curses the fig tree, causing it to wither, or when he drives the money changers
out of the temple with a whip, or when he cruelly rejects his mother and his brothers, or

when he calls Peter Satan for worrying about his security. The moral is that nothing must
be allowed to block His way. The hapless tree that cannot give Him sustenance because it is
out of season, must wither and die. If the individual lives with an older god of
unconsciousness he is incapable of sustaining the individuating spirit of consciousness, and
cannot bear fruit in the name of Christ.
Primitive culture
According to Azar Gat (War in Human Civilization[[22]), primitive mans mortality rates in
war, skirmishes, or intra-group violence, before the coming of state authority, is extremely
high. In the Amazon, a study of the Waorani showed more than 60% of adult deaths over five
generations were caused by feuding and warfare. In a prehistoric Indian site in Madisonville,
Ohio, 22% male skulls had wounds and 8% were fractured. In a similar site in Illinois, 16%
had met a violent death. In New Guinea, about 15% died as a result of inter- and intra group
violence: 24% males and 7% females. At the Australian island of Tiwi, the aborigines lost 10%
of the male population in a decade. An Aboriginal tribe of Murngin of Arnhem Land lost 200
men out of a population of 3,000, during a period of 20 years. 30% of the warriors died.
Another study suggests aborigines in a generation lost about 5 to 6.5%. Studies of Eskimos
show a murder rate of one in a thousand, about ten times the US peak rate in 1990.
Yet violence is not predicated on the motif of keeping the population down. Agriculture has
allowed an enormous increase in population numbers, whereas our murderous activity
hasnt increased, but rather abated. An important factor is the way in which the frail
consciousness of natural man is sustained by tradition. Accordingly, the introduction of alien
thoughtways and traditions (a form of multiculturalism) has a passivating effect, with the
result that consciousness loses its impetus. The introduction of Christianity in primitive
society has resulted in a collective lethargy. Carl Jung sees this as a very tragic complication
of cultural colonialism. It works almost like a poison that kills the aborigines distinctive
cultural character and their will to proclaim themselves as worthy humans. There are many
examples of vigorous and ecologically sophisticated cultures, such as the African Bantu, in
which people lived worthy lives in harmony with nature. However, in the Third World, today,
there is a strong tendency toward an unworthy vegetating lifestyle. The conscious level is
generally lower than in animistic society, which had a great awareness of the spirit. Whether
these developments could have been avoided, is another question.
In traditional culture, Thanatos was institutionalized as human sacrifice, warfare, and
initiation rites involving marring. Thanatos revolves around the archetype of death as
provider of the conditions for new life. For instance, when the vegetation is burned, you also
create very fruitful agricultural land. The abatement of the conscious level is connected with
the removal of Thanatos from culture. As a result, the ego is today in closer proximity to the
Mother. It would explain why primitive society is so very conservative and tends to keep
sternly to the traditions of the forefather spirits, and why aborigines are so prone to make
war against other tribes. To defend culture and territory is also to defend the conquests of
ego consciousness. The injuries sustained by the warriors of primitive society make them
incomplete. A missing limb, for instance, is a sign that the warrior has departed from
childlike wholeness and become a free agent with respect to unconscious wholeness. He has
obtained precious consciousness and a relative independence of will, Thus, he is endowed
with immense power. Wotan (Oden) sacrificed an eye; thus he came to possess wisdom and
the knowledge of the runes. Tezcatlipoca sacrificed a leg in the jaws of the Earth Monster,
which is the grounds for his rise to power.

Magna Mater
The phallic deity Seth personifies the penetrative power of archaic thought, whose
mainspring is the Mother archetype. He is her deputy in the form of archaic thinking. Seth
personifies the thoughtways of the Great Mother. It is for this reason that the dark deity can
be accommodated as subordinate to sun-consciousness. It is not doable for the feminine
goddess, as such, since she is multifarious and symbolically polyvalent, incompatible with
rectilinear consciousness. She is an encompassing wholeness herself and therefore is not
part of anything. Rather, everything is part of her. When a divinity is pinned down in the
conscious sphere in the form of thoughts, dogma, and ritual, it will come to be regarded as
masculine. Accordingly, the shy goddess of the forest, Diana, wont allow herself to be
pinned down by the eye of consciousness. She can only cling to her feminine nature by
remaining in the moonlight shadows, where nothing is precisely defined.
The thoughtways of the Great Mother revolve around the ambivalency of life and death. She
is associated equally much with the womb as with the grave. According to the matriarchal
paradigm, death is a necessary precondition for life. The seed must fall into the earth and
die before new life can grow. As such, the wisdom of the unconscious has enormous value,
but if its allowed to dominate a culture, society will be overtaken with archaic thoughtways.
An out-and-out moral ambivalence will take root, completely foreign to modern morality.
Sacrifice of life was necessary in matriarchal society, ruled over by a sinister god.
Accordingly, the Aum Shinriky thought that their murderous activity served the purpose of
regeneration. Sinful life, having bad karma, is removed from the world, and rectified life can
grow in its place. In Hindu tradition, Shiva saves the world by dancing it out of existence,
wildly laughing, scattering ashes around, in order for the world to be born again.
Accordingly, in Aum Shinriky , to kill people became a mission of spiritual salvation. To
throw humanity into a global conflagration served the purpose of saving humanity. Nothing
is more conducive to growth than the scorched earth. This is a central tenet of the Great
Mother. The theme of human sacrifice was also very central to Adolf Hitler. A new world
could not come about without the sacrifice of millions of soldiers and Konzentrationslager
prisoners. The earth must be saturated with blood for the earth goddess to be willing to give
back new life. This is why so many sacrificial victims have been thrown into the jaws of the
earth monster, such as the Aztec Coatlicue. The Earth Mother is ambivalent. She takes life
and gives life in equal measure. This explains why such a destructive god as Seth can be her
representative. His destructivity serves the purpose of regeneration.
Obviously, such archaic notions stand in stark contrast to todays rectilinear sunconsciousness, according to which economy can always expand and humanity continue to
grow endlessly, as if the earths resources were endless. This is because we put our trust
wholly in the fatherly sun-god, who is ultimately responsible for the emergence of science
and technology, including our great conscious capacities. We depend on the clever sunconsciousness to work out new bright ideas, and new technical solutions, by which to
continue our rectilinear path into the future. This one-sided belief in expansive patriarchal
consciousness, to the detriment of inner and outer nature, has reached ways end. By
contrast, the archaic matriarchal notion of time is circular. The adoption of Seth by the
younger god Horus, implies that although the archaic thoughtways are forever pacified
they will come into favour again, now moulded by advanced consciousness. Today, we have
no other choice than to heed to the wisdom of the unconscious, because our civilization is
today neurotic, divided against itself. It is moving closer towards self-destruction,
unconsciously lending power to Thanatos.
The acceptance of the dark deity symbolically denotes better acceptance of our shadow. It
begets a new attitude toward evil and the destructive forces. The archetypal wisdom of the

collective unconscious is not of the devil anymore. It serves to reconnect consciousness with
instinctual nature, thereby preventing it from removing itself too far from reality. The
consequence of flying too close to the sun is disastrous. Thus, Icarus came plunging down,
straight into the jaws of the Death Mother. It is necessary to relate symbolically to the dark
side of existence, to allow room for it in consciousness. A symbolic consciousness can
assimilate content that arent digestible for an analytical consciousness whose morale is
merely logical. Let us concede that suffering and death belong in life. Death is an integral
part of life, without which life could not exist. The workings of Thanatos are not always to be
contravened. The cruelty of nature is unfathomable, and all we can do is to alleviate it.
Attempting to abolish it in a global welfarism, as in an earthly motherly paradise, is a selfdefeating ideology. To adopt an attitude of all-encompassing goodness, and to think that
we can control future developments, is hbristic its like flying too close to the sun.
The head of Isis
Images of the Virgin and the Christchild call to mind Egyptian representations of Isis nursing
her son Horus. But Horus is different than Seth. Horus, in a fit of rage, decapitates Isis, his
mother. It represents emancipation. It is from Horus that the universe stems, and not from
the Mother, as people believed before. Jesus rejected Mary, saying that she was not his
mother (Mark 3:31-35). The Christ lived with the Father, even before time. Through him all
things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. (John 1:3). In
essence, the self-ideal of the emancipated personality stands against phallocentric
masculinity and a vulgar form of unconscious femininity. In the patriarchal paradigm the
feminine spirit can take an advanced anima form. She neednt retain her motherly role for
the mother-dependent male. The male has broken free, so womankind can through off the
mother archetype. When a boy grows up and becomes a psychologically independent male,
the mother can relinquish her motherly role. However, in phallocentric culture the feminine
spirit is equated with the mother.
The medieval cult of the Virgin Mary aided in transforming the unconscious motherly
dependency into a spiritual awareness. Thus, the feminine spirit undergoes transformation
and becomes anima. It is enclosed in the vessel of the symbol, and exposed to the light of
consciousness. Inside its vessel of glass, it is slowly cooked in the mild heat of
consciousness. Among all the tens of thousands of depictions of the Virgin, there exists not
a single one where she is depicted as a classical mother, i.e. a big-breasted mama. She
always looks like a beautiful young woman. The anima kind of woman only appears in
patriarchal civilization. She can only exist when the mothers head has been chopped off.
The mother archetype is so strong that no other form of femininity can grow in her shadow.
Every other form of femininity is viewed as whoredom. Today, in Europe, immigrants of
certain derivation are notorious for harassing European women, as they cannot see them as
anything but whores. To these people from phallocentric culture, womanhood is equated
with motherhood, and nothing else. A female film student in Brussels recently made a film
project about this phenomenon[[23].
What aggravates the problem is that inexhaustible source of masculoid thinking the
negative animus[[18]. Women, in full numbers, supported the Nazi takeover in Germany. It
has baffled historians, especially since women had at that time attained a relatively high
degree of emancipation. Hitler saw women as mothers. They should devote themselves to
simple duties and childbearing. Western women, as a rule, unconsciously adore the phallicnarcissistic male, and are in support of massive immigration, despite the loss of freedom
that it entails. Behind the mask, the female collective has a propensity toward a
fundamentalist, phallocentric worldview. It is evident that the patriarchal paradigm, including
the subdual of the mother archetype, are beneficial to the growth of a mature form of

femininity. It doesnt mean that women should abstain from motherhood. It means that the
Mother mustnt be seen as an ideal in society. In that case, it follows that the state becomes
the carrier of a mother projection. Matriarchy represents a threat to the spirit of the
feminine, but also to those women who wish to make expression of their personality, who
are not content with the motherly ideal. However, since Western women are prone to saw off
the branch on which they are sitting, Western emancipative advancement and democracy is
threatened with regression.
Horus carried the severed head of Isis to the Western Mountains[[24]. It means that the sungod appropriates the wisdom of the goddess. He assumes control over her thoughtways and
carries them away. The phallus of the Mother is being subordinated to the self that
personifies the principle of consciousness, since the head of Isis is phallic in significance.
This is also the significance of Seths subdual. Consciousness is only capable of harbouring
content of relatively abstract nature, which is why the symbol acquires a masculine gender.
The head as the container of spirit is well-known in religious history. It is thematic in Celtic
mythology. The dismemberment of the deity means that its spirit moves into the conscious
realm. Only its abstract nature, i.e., its thoughts, its theology, its conceptual meaning, can
be contained in conscious light. Thats why the deity is being partitioned, broken apart. It is
a notorious theme in mythology and in dreams. Of course, the goddess cannot die, but with
Thots help she acquires a cows head, instead. The once dominant archetype, that part
which cannot be integrated in consciousness, assumes the nature of a benign, domesticated,
and unconscious animal. She has been downscaled and assumed her right position in the
pantheon.
Complementation
As a symbol, paradise is connected with the number four, which is a number that denotes
completeness. There are also four rivers in the biblical paradise. The number denotes a naive
and unconscious form of wholeness, as experienced by Adam and Eve when living in the
Garden. When they opened their eyes, they became aware of evil in the form of the serpent,
who lived in the midst of the Garden. The illusion was lost and they had to leave paradise.
The number four has always been connected with ambivalence; it is both good and bad. The
alchemist Dorneus (c. 1530-1584) said that quartarius is the binarius (i.e. the devil) in
disguise. However, there was in Paradise no awareness of good and evil.
In Egyptian mythology, Osiris was the ruler of the quaternarian age, which was paradisal and
evergreen. It denotes a mythic Mother-world in which the conscious light is mild. It is indeed
possible for opposites to exist in mild light, without flying apart. But an increase in
consciousness implies an amputation of quaternarian wholeness one leg is cut off, and
the number four turns to three. A female number thus turns into a male number. A young
woman dreamt that her dog had been amputated and was missing a leg. But then she noted
how agile he was on three legs. It means that three is as good as four. Although we are used
to chairs that have four legs, a three-legged chair is just as good, if not better. Research has
shown that a three-legged chair is more stabile than a four-legged chair.
When people see through the paradisal illusion they also leave naive wholeness behind,
associated with the number four. It means that life is amputated. It has, however, the
benefit of being a conscious life, associated with the number three. The trinitarian path is
connected with an augmentation of consciousness, which implies a relative emancipation
from a collective, childlike, and unthinking existence. Osiris was ousted by Seth. However,
Osiris could continue his reign in the underworld, the realm of the dead, since the conscious
light is faint in this place. The quaternarian form of wholeness continues its existence in the
moonlit nighttime world. Seth, as the new ruler, represents the dark aspect of trinitarian

consciousness. As representative of the divisive principle he is chthonic and worldly-minded

ternarius (trinity), whereas Horus is heavenly ternarius. The same is true for Tezcatlipoca,
who had his four limbs reduced to three. As divine personification of the masculine number
three, he was able to get a foothold in collective consciousness.
The light and dark trinities seem irreconcilable. When dark ternarius is bestowed the sonship
of light ternarius (Seth being adopted by Horus), it could mean something more profound
than what we normally mean by the integration of an unconscious complex. It means that
Seth is made rightful heir to the throne, and its likely that they will change regency in the
future. The task of integrating chthonic ternarius with the traditional Christian mind-set is
like integrating fire with water. In an ego-consciousness overly identified with goodness, it is
viable to integrate a more divisive and disciplinary standpoint. However, the principles are
further apart than that, as they are radically heterogenous. Carl Jung was well aware of the
problem involving irreconcilable opposites that resist integration. His standpoint was that an
advanced consciousness in harmony with the self should be capable of holding the
opposites together, thus impersonating a living paradox, as it were. His notion of self is not
easy to live up to, as it is a complexio oppositorum. Its a demanding ideal that allows the
individuant no rest. It does not allow for reclusion, but demands whole-hearted participation
in life generally.
I have pointed at certain problems connected with the Jungian concept of the shadow.
Arguably, the collective shadow is not even integrable as a whole. If integration is not a
workable solution, complementation could solve the dilemma. By complementation I mean a
process of completing, more precisely the process of forming a complementary aspect of
self. On this view, the self is essentially heterogenous, consisting of two or more full-fledged
aspects of self that are however irreconcilable opposites, symbolized by Horus and Seth, the
light and dark ternarius, or the winged and wingless dragon in alchemy. Whereas integration
pertains to the transformations of the ego, complementation refers to the transformations of
the self. In the former process, energy flows from the unconscious into the ego system,
whereas in the latter the flow is reversed. Of course, transformations in the self can induce
transformations in the ego. Instead of a continued repression of the collective shadow, the
process of complementation can make the dark self proximate to consciousness as a selfsufficient aspect of self, moulded by conscious caution and forethought, unshackled from an
instinctual and archaic unconscious. As the self aspects arent integrable, the former must
recede in the background while the latter is dominant. In such a model, two kings are ruling
interchangeably, as it were.
This is reminiscent of a regulation that occurs in military organizations. A military company
can have a company commander for peacetime and another for wartime. Since war and
peace put so different demands on the commander, it is not enough to change uniform, that
is, to change persona. Diarchy, when two individuals are the heads of state, is one of the
oldest forms of government, occuring in Sparta, Rome, Carthage, as well as in Germanic
tribes. The Inca empire had two rulers of different prestige, one hanan (upper) and one hurin
(lower)[[25]. Analogously, it could at times be necessary to let the self undergo a dramatic
shift, in face of altered circumstances in the inner or outer world. An individuant who has
undergone complementation, is able to turn his attention to the transcendental self,
adopting the stance of the recluse. In my article, The Complementarian Self, I discuss
ternarius and quartarius as complementary aspects of the self. It is a more comprehensive
perspective[[26].
When Horus carried off with Isiss head, he took refuge in an oasis, where he fell asleep. It
took place in the Western Mountains, the realm of the dead. Seth discovered him and tore
out his eyes. He buried them and they took root as two lotuses. This event could signify a

shifting of self following a process of complementation. The dark ternarius, in the form of
Isiss head, was stolen away from the unconscious Mother and adopted as a complementary
aspect of self. This does not mean that the dark self passes into a content of consciousness,
but it is removed from unconscious autonomy. Thus, Isis could no longer interfere in an
haphazard way, which is what had caused Horuss rage. Horus made his way to the shadow
land where his eyes were torn out. It denotes the death of a god, analogous with the death
of Narcissus, which gave rise to a beautiful flower. By acquiring the head of Isis, Horus
gathered enough energy to pass the border of consciousness. A god dies when it starts to
shine strongly due to a high excitation level. It can no longer be ignored by ego
consciousness, which is bound to identify with it. The two lotuses have struck root in the
conscious world, signifying the realization of Horuss archetypal idea, conceivably the
twofold self. So this was how the lotus flower came to be. By the transfer of energy from
older archetypes, Horus was restored to life. Thoth restored Horuss left eye and told him
that this was the Light of the Moon. Hathor poured some of her milk into Horuss right eye
and said that this is the Light of the Sun. The heavens are now enlightened by two
complementary luminaries, interchangeably.
The myth seems to revolve around transformations of the self, besides conscious
transformation. Complementation would be a slow process during which the largely
unconscious self undergoes metamorphosis, by the aid of an attentive consciousness.
Although the conscious subject experiences change, it is not generally the same process as
conscious integration. Consciousness is enlightened by the arrival of the first two lotuses.
But Horus is brought back to life again when the conscious ego makes restitution and dims
its light, while focusing its attention. Conscious energy goes back into the unconscious, as a
payback, which is what underlies the idea of sacrifice in religion. In the life of modern
Westerners, a recurrent theme is to abandon worldly life and set out on a spiritual journey,
typically involving reclusion and contemplation. The proselyte is often gone for years, after
which he/she sometimes decides to return. A central theme in Buddhism is the ideal of the
spiritual seeker who, after having achieved enlightenment, returns to the world. The Jungian
process of individuation cannot really account for such a radical shift of ideals, since the
Jungian self is one. Spiritual and worldly life are supposed to be integrated, and not
separated in time. Arguably, there is too much focus on integration and too little focus on
complementation. In historical light, conscious integration corresponds to the sacrifice of
the deity whereas complementation corresponds to the restorative sacrifice of the religious
devotee.
Conclusion
Certain psychoanalytic schools have been loathsome of the notion of the death drive. For
most analysts it has been riven with problems, but I put forth an interpretation that makes
sense of it. The contraposition of Eros and Thanatos, following Freud, is relevant in so far as
Eros denotes the symbiotic power that works to achieve an unconscious and unreflective
wholeness, whether its in the regressive form or vis-a-vis other beings. Thanatos can be
understood as the force that defends the borders, particularly the incest barrier, taken in its
wide meaning. Merger is resisted, sometimes even on pain of death. The ego, especially the
weak ego, must maintain its borders as the symbiotic experience threatens its existence with
unconscious dissolution. At least it faces regression to an earlier naive phase, something
which invokes incestual fear. The ego is very reluctant to acquire any form of weakness.
Bodily weakness is a lesser problem.
The weak ego, especially in the narcissistic personality, has a pronounced aversion to
vulnerability in the other party, as it can beget chinks in his own armour. Thanatos is called
up in an effort to neutralize symbiotic Eros. In the way of a projection, a little twig on the

Mother tree is cut off vicariously. The projection occurs since the perpetrator himself is
unconsciously an outgrowth on the Mother, not the least when his personality is merely a
product of his own cultural and ethnic group. It represents the sacrifice of a limb a
notorious motif. Yet the inferior personality can have an equally strong symbiotic drive when
the other party conforms to collective ideals.
In the encounter with a personality of greater scope the delimitations of the ego are
threatened. Advanced culture of greater scope activates Thanatos in the inferior personality.
Since it is unmanageable to adapt, a personality of lesser scope is threatened with
dissolution. Only if Eros is curbed can ego delimitations be upheld. The Other represents a
threat to the inner narcissistic harmony formed upon vanity and self-conceit, which is ego
wholeness. Such an encounter evokes true fear. Thats why an encroaching symbiotic
wholeness is closed out. Adjustment and assimilation are out of the question.
Destructivity, whether its directed outward against the other party, or whether it takes the
form of self-laceration, spoliates the threatening symbiotic wholeness, characteristic of the
Eros function. According to legend, Saint Lucys betrothed admired her eyes, so she tore
them out and gave them to him, saying, Now let me live to God[[27]. Thus, she managed to
destroy an aspiring Eros wholeness, by way of self-mutilation. Self-mutilation is a notorious
theme in the initiation rituals of primitives, and it has its modern counterparts, too. The
young girl destroys her childish wholeness by getting an ugly tattoo, wearing vulgar clothes,
inserting trinkets by piercing the nasal bone, etc. Evidently, she is not daddys girl anymore.
Original wholeness is thus destroyed. This is a natural phase of emancipation that has
serious pathological overtones.
In the modern Western individual, provided that his ego is strong and unneurotic, the
Thanatos force has receded. But in the average citizen of phallocentric society this never
occurs. To him the phallic force of Thanatos is indispensable for maintaining ego wholeness.
The inferior form of masculinity is symbolically equated with the phallus of the Mother. It is
like the little twig on the tree trunk of the Mother. Thanatos is a psychological function that
accompanies the ego complex, as shadow accompanies light. In Egyptian mythology, Horus
establishes dominion over Seth by adopting Seth as his son. Horus is the paragon of the
modern ego, Seth is the shadow. This is a very sound map of the psyche. The corresponding
relation in Christianity is that the shadow is thoroughly rejected and relegated to the
underworldly realm.
Nietzsche, lending the voice of Thanatos, said that warfare paves the way for the
bermensch, which is really Horus, the sun-hero. Nietzsche isnt out to destroy the human
species, but to augment its survival-value. However, when Thanatos is repressed, as in the
Christian paradigm, the consequence is an explosive upsurge of destructive madness.
Thanatos is a defensive function of psychic economy. The destructive impulse is essential to
the long-term survival of both the individual and the species. To the extent that the ego is
rooted in our biology, so is Thanatos, although it is operative in the psychic realm. There is
no wish to self-destruct as a biological organism. It is defensive of the ego and serves to
strengthen the borders of personality, partly defined by cultural identity.
The destructive impulse is triggered when personality risks being weakened in unconscious
merger. It tends to happen to the psychotherapist who becomes slightly neurotic in his
involvement with the patient. The policy of the Yugoslav compound nation was to live
together in unthinking unison, which is why Yugoslavia turned into a collective suicide sect.
What is the consequence when the European welfare states accept immigrants from regions
where a passive lifestyle is natural, even desirable? In an effort to repress our collective
shadow, which is Nietzschean Thanatos, European politicians are devoted to the motherly

motif, and the protection of all people in the world. Accordingly, they allow mass
immigration of ethnicities who elevate the motherly ideal and to whom womanhood is
equated with motherhood. I dont mean to disparage these people. We are providing them
with comfortable living circumstances, which they judge according to the matriarchal
criterion as preferable to hard toil. The patriarchal criterion is reversed. The consequence is
that Thanatos is mounting in the unconscious. There is great risk that Europe will burn
again, this time in civil war.

Mats Winther, 2012. Text and image by me.

(See also my reflections below, added 2012-07-22.)

Notes and references

(1) Bjerre, P. (1929). Death and Renewal. Williams & Norgate Ltd.
(2) Neumann, E. (1995). The Origins and History of Consciousness. Princeton University
Press (Mythos).
(3) Neumann, E. (1991). The Great Mother. Princeton University Press (Mythos). (pp.26-28).
(4) cf. Phallic Mother. Answers (here).
(5) Anima. See Jung Lexicon by D. Sharp (here).
(6) Winther, M. (2008). The Blood Sacrifice here).
(7) cf. Apotemnophilia. Wikipedia (here).
(8) Ovid, Metamorphoses, book 9, trans. by Brooks More (here).
(9) von Franz, M-L. (1993). The Feminine in Fairy Tales. Shambala. (ch.3).
In Alchemy she says:
A spider indicates spinning, the spinning of fantasies. The superstition is that in the
morning a spider means bad luck and in the evening good luck. Obviously that really
means that if in the morning one is slack and sleepy, gets up late, and sits about half
dressed and just thinks of ones neurotic problems, that would be the spider in the
morning which would certainly bring bad luck. But if after working all day one lights a
cigarette in the evening and sits in front of the house, as peasants do, and lets ones
fantasy run, or if one philosophizes about life, that is quite all right, it is a very good way
to prepare oneself for sleep. Therefore the spider in the evening is propitious, and that

probably was the original meaning of this widespread superstition. The spider is a
negative mother symbol, it is the Maya, and so on. When it comes in the evening, or at
the evening of life, it is all right, but it is very bad to start the day with it (Alchemy,
1980, Inner City Books, p.98).

(10) Winther, M. (2008). An intrusion of matriarchal consciousness (here).

(11) cf. Seth. (2012). Encyclopdia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite. Chicago.
(12) Apoptosis. Wikipedia (here).
(13) cf. Begley, S. (2011). Antioxidants Fall From Grace. The Daily Beast (Newsweek) (here).
(14) cf. Walker, B. (1983). Gnosticism - its History and Influence. Crucible.
(15) cf. Mail Online article, Please God, make it stop! Mail Online, 27 June 2012 (here).
(16) Shadow. See Jung Lexicon by D. Sharp (here).
(17) Asper, K. (1993). The Abandoned Child Within - On Losing And Regaining Self-worth.
Fromm International Publishing Corp.
(18) von Franz, M-L. (2002). Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales. Inner City Books. (ch.1)

(1999). Archetypal Dimension of the Psyche. Shambala. (pp.247f)

(19) Jung, C.G. (1989). Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Vintage. (pp.11f.)

(20) Winther, M. (2012). Understanding European psychology (here).
(21) Lifton, R.J. (1999). Destroying the World to Save It - Aum Shinriky , Apocalyptic
Violence, and the New Global Terrorism. Metropolitan Books. (p.38)
(22) Gat, A. (2008). War in Human Civilization. Oxford University Press.
(23) Her documentary on sexual harassment in Belgium is here.
I am Sofie, a 25-year old girl living in Brussels. I moved here two years ago. I love
Brussels theater, I love the chocolate and waffles, I love guys treating me like a slut all
the time...Wait. What?! Thats right. Guys talk to me on the street like I have a big sign on
my head that says Whore. Even if I wear long trousers and a t-shirt, they find it
appropriate to call me baby, slut, doll and other degrading names. They follow me
around clicking their tongue and asking me where I live, if Im married and how much it
costs to have sex with them...

(24) Kaster, J. (1970). The literature and mythology of ancient Egypt. Allen Lane. (p.248)
(25) Diarchy. Wikipedia (here).
(26) Winther, M. (2011). The Complementarian Self (here).
(27) Saint Lucy. Wikipedia (here).

See also:
Winther, M. (2006). The psychodynamics of terrorism (here).
Winther, M. (2011). Mysterium Iniquitatis (here).
Winther, M. (2003). Winnicotts Dream: A Critique of Winnicotts Thought as a Form of
Mystical Narcissism (here).
Death drive. See Wikipedia (here).

Addendum

Aurora, Batman, and Joker

Thanatos is the underlying cause of the mass murder in Aurora, Denver (here). I hold that all
people who believe in the motherly ideology of undifferentiation indirectly share
responsibility for the death of these people. Thanatos becomes stronger and stronger these
days, gathering momentum in the unconscious. This happens because the divisive force is
not allowed expression in conscious life, in a way which is intellectually and morally
sophisticated. Denver is a place of integration, multiplicity, unthinking tolerance, uniformity
in terms of gender and ethnicity. In the ruling ideology, there exist no essential differences,
no divisive lines. In fact, in the Kindergarten for adults there exist no real opposites at all.
There is no essential difference between a criminal and an honest person. According to this
view, society is a rotting dunghill where a thousand flowers bloom. In such a society the
divisive force instead comes to expression in bullying, criminality, and shootings at public
places.
The murderer saw himself as Joker, the archfiend of Batman. If Joker corresponds to the
phallic deity (Seth or Tezcatlipoca) then Batman would correspond to the bird- or dragon
deity (Horus, the falcon god, or Quatzalcoatl, the winged serpent). The bat is actually a little
dragon, of sorts. Horus was incarnated as a human being, as was Quetzalcoatl, who is
depicted as a white man. Apparently, the story of Batman and Joker revolves around the
same archetype as their divine counterparts. Joker lets off a gaz that causes people to laugh
themselves to death. He represents Thanatos. Batman probably compensates our overly
polished and cloudless view of the Saviour in the form of the Christ. Batmans personality is
very sombre, but he is a dragon-hero, nonetheless. Another famous dragon man is Merlin
who had serpent eyes. He is the dragon lord, and there is a secret identity between him
and the dragon. The story about Merlin is that he was begotten by the devil to countercheck the redemptive work of the Christ. But the son of the devil turned against his father
and became a redeemer of men. This mythologem is probably what underlies Batman. He is
a dragon man, a son of the devil who works to do good.

The murderer in Aurora, similar to the Tezcatlipoca priest, performs an atonement sacrifice
that serves to restore divine benevolence, to heal the split between god and man, and to
humanity for the time being. The phallic deity redeems by way of death and warfare. In
Nietzschean terms, war and human sacrifice can remedy the problem of human infantilism
and motherly dependency. Joker is a redeemer, too. He redeems humanity by way of massmurder and warfare. He lets off a deadly gaz in Gotham City. Anders Behring Breivik, in like
manner, sees himself as a redeemer. He did what he thought was necessary. He said he
didnt like what he did, but it was necessary to redeem mankind from imminent destruction.
The leader of the murder sect Aum Shinriky thought much in the same way. These people
are destroying humanity in order to save it. The Jews at the beginning of our era expected
the coming Messiah to bring about destruction and warfare. This is a very typical redeemer.
But they got something completely different.
Infantilization in society
Infantilization and societal degradation is today manifested by the exaltation of all things
relating to non-Western culture, not the least as a byproduct of massive immigration. If this
carries on, we are bound to see more bloodshed, along with an accumulation of hatred in
society. Sameness permeates our culture, since we have given way to relativism. Our
conscious ideology says one thing, but our unconscious says another. As a consequence,
vicarious suffering surfaces as a solution to the neurotic split in our culture. An article by
Paul Gottfried sheds light on the problem of ongoing infantilization (here). White youth are
essentially adopting the same attitude as Black youth from the ghetto. University students
dont like to do book stuff.
The central point of my article is that Thanatos, the divisive force, must be consciously
sanctioned to ward off the invasive ideology of sameness, predicated on the mother
complex. If people keep repressing the collective shadow, it is bound to overpower us, as it
has done so many times before in history. To avoid future cinema- and school shootings, a
new epoch of racial hatred, ethnic cleansings, and yet another Holocaust, we have no other
choice than to face the painful truth and try to deal with it. The Thanatos force is brewing in
this very moment. Faced with the symbiotic condition, when individuation is finally impeded,
the Thanatos force in the collective will rebound with great force. It is very dangerous to
continue like this, to maintain the conscious level of Kindergarten children. It is high time to
abandon the ideology of sameness.
Death is the divisive force, par excellence. The individual is separated from life itself and
everything he loves. Death divides loving couples, Romeo from Juliet, a child from his
mother. In decay, it divides the body into its constituent parts. Also a machine dies this way,
by being divided into separate parts. In our age, people view Thanatos as unnatural,
something that must be repressed at all costs. This unthinking belief is what causes the
eruptions of mass-murder. It is the retaliation of Thanatos. Thanatos emerges to prevent the
ego from sinking down into collective infantilism. What effects will the Aurora shooting
have? People are forced to realize that society is not a great Kindergarten, but destruction is
always proximate. It serves to compensate the ongoing undermining of the greatest
accomplishment in human history, namely the conscious ego of adulthood. Men must
become men, and not remain in a childhood state.
Ego consciousness is dependent on divisions. It cannot exist without separating this from
that. For an advanced ego consciousness to exist, divisive thinking must always be present.
If it is not allowed to come to expression in a controlled and refined manner, underpinned
by science and psychology, it will take primitive and cruel expression, not unlike ancient
cultures of human sacrifice. Individuation is very much about abandoning the false

wrappings of the persona, separating oneself from collective psychology, divesting oneself
of falseness, generally. If a person belongs to group consciousness, and the group
consciousness changes, then he will follow along, even when it turns to evil ways. Those who
follow along the course of the collective mind will sooner or later fall in with the crowd
subverted by Thanatos. A politically correct person today, reciting the notions of racial
equivalence, would have adopted political correctness also in the Third Reich. He would, full
of implicit faith, recite the tenets of Goebbels. The conclusion is that the sort of people who
subscribe to tolerance fundamentalism, who believe in non-differentiation and make
themselves blind to differences they all share responsibility for the death of the people at
the Aurora theatre.
The dark aspect of life
Thanatos is associated with the gods of division and destruction, as Shiva in India, and Seth
in ancient Egypt. Seth was the god of the region of death, i.e., the desert where people were
buried. Shiva the Destroyer is the god of death, according to Hindu theology. Our patriarchal
rectilinear solar consciousness (Horus) must follow the recipe of myth, and adopt the older
god Seth as its son. This amounts to an integration of the feminine archetype to prevent an
immature form of matriarchy from unconsciously taking possession of our civilization.
Among other things, it would mean to accept death as a precondition of life, to adopt
circular time as a complement to linear time, and to tolerate suffering as a natural condition
of life. Thus, we evade the pitfall of reducing the feminine principle to motherliness and
negative matriarchy. I have argued for the integration of the feminine archetype in collective
consciousness, in the form of a moon consciousness, serving to compensate for todays
sun consciousness (here). What I criticize is the unconscious dependency on the Mother, in
the form of the encroaching, collectivistic, matriarchal mentality. This is the vulgar and
unconscious form of femininity, which always metamorphoses into a destructive force
Thanatos. I am a proponent of a conscious and refined form of the feminine principle, better
integrated with consciousness. In symbolical terms, Seth is granted sonship to Horus.
Life counterbalances itself, i.e., predators kill herbivores. This is a precondition for life on
earth; otherwise all vegetation on earth would be consumed. This is the wisdom of the
Mother, which says that death is necessary to maintain life. Sabina Spielrein was a pupil of
Carl Jung. Keira Knightley plays her role in the recent film A Dangerous Method (2011). She
wrote an essay Die Destruktion als Ursache des Werdens (1912) (Destruction as the Cause
of Coming Into Being, 1994). It is an age-old tenet belonging to matriarchal culture. For
new life to emerge, and for the world to continue, it is necessary to make sacrifice. It
amounts to a circular view of existence. The sun must die in order to be born again. The
seeds must fall into the earth and die in order for new crops to grow. The Thanatos
archetype has been central to peoples worldview during the greater part of our history.
Today, we wont allow room for this age-old insight. As we continue to repress Thanatos, it
will take a pathological expression, such as falseness and hypocrisy. People pretend to be
good citizens, but are really quite mean. Politically correct multiculturalists and cultural
relativists are quite nasty behind the smiling mask. The divided and hypocritical character is
a consequence of the lack of integration of the collective shadow. The average person is
chock-full of unconscious destructive desire. Its like the safety vault is exuding hot steam
all the time, in the form of nastiness, scorn, derision, and contemptuous remarks.
Thanatos as a divisive and defensive force must ever be active in conscious life. It does not
imply a reversion back to human sacrifice and barbarian practices. On the contrary, in order
to evade the horrors of modern-day pogroms, etc., Thanatos must be made conscious. This
serves the purpose of stemming its invasive power. So we ought to cease the present
fixation on an exuberant goodness that encompasses all humanity. For instance, if it were

allowed to question whether black Africans (e.g.) really belong in our civilization, we may
avoid the future resurgence of vulgar and exaggerated racialism. The divisive power is thus
harnessed, as in myth, when Seth is adopted by Horus. In order to retain a good conscious
level, we must allow for a controlled level of divisive power. Abatement of the conscious
level is the same as abaissement du niveau mental. It is French psychologist Pierre Janets
term, referring to a weakening of the ego due to an unconscious drainage of its
psychological energy. I discuss this problem in the context of civilization, here.
Our modern consciousness is very scientific and advanced. Yet it is becoming more and
more evident that we are unable to cope with the challenges of life. People are neurotic,
while the earths resources are continually depleted. The moonlight consciousness is a
necessary complement to sunlight consciousness. Yet, the dark aspects of Mother Nature
must also be tolerated, unlike in airy-fairy New Age spirituality. The Magna Mater in the
history of religion is ambivalent, representing both death and life, suffering and enjoyment.
Seth is her representative. I think James Holmes, the Denver murderer, makes the impression
of a mamas boy. All terrorists are mamas boys. They remain unconsciously identified with
Seth, the phallus of the Mother. Throughout history the ityphallic gods, such as HermesMercurius, abide in the shadow of solar religion, overseen by solar gods such as Zeus,
Apollo, etc. The ityphallic god mustnt abide in the shadow, anymore. In the collective
unconscious he is uncontainable and remains a deadly inner enemy. The dark god can be
redeemed. When the archetype is contained in a dimmed light of consciousness, it slowly
transforms into a positive force in human life. The feminine spirit cannot be grasped by onesided abstract thought. It must be contained in dim light, which is a consciousness informed
by symbol and ritual.
Although both Yin and Yang are necessary to accomplish wholeness, its not possible to
institutionalize the feminine element and put it on a pedestal as ideals, mores, principles,
theology, ritual, thought, symbol, etc. If this were the case, the deity is no longer female but
has become male. The feminine element has then been reshaped into a divine phallus a
masculine principle of power and directionality, which governs peoples minds. The feminine
has thus become masculine. If Diana were removed from the wood where she is roaming in
the moonlit night, and unites with the masculine deity, she will turn masculine, too. She will
be more like a principle than an erratic force of the unconscious. The conclusion is that, in
order to retain its femininity, the feminine deity must remain independent of the theological
mind. It is, however, possible to create a mystery cult around her, in which she is kept alive
for a while, as its an esoteric cult. But sooner or later the mystery will be depleted, as
happened to the Eleusinian and the Isis mysteries. Thats probably why only religions that
center upon masculine deities can survive in religious history. Historically, when egoconsciousness gets stronger and stronger, the light is too strong for the feminine deity. She
is soon masculinized. This is the reason why the Mother Goddess is represented by the
phallic deity Seth, Tezcatlipoca, et al. They are masculine representatives of the Mother, i.e.
her ambassadors in the pantheon, as the Mothers phallus. But they are never accepted into
the highest heaven.
The matricide
Seth committed patricide. He murdered Osiris and took over his kingdom. This follows the
Oedipal mode of procedure. Osiris was dismembered by Seth who scattered the body parts
all over Egypt. This is a classical symbol. The dismemberment of the deity means that he
dies and enters the conscious realm. It stands for a level of culture where people have
integrated the cunning of the agricultural deity, Osiris. They have learnt to till the land, have
acquired technological know-how, and dutifully abide by the law. The integration of the
fatherly deity, besides denoting a phase of personal development, relates to a legislative

society where people dutifully follow the Law (of Maat), reminiscent of the Old Testamental
frame of mind. This is the phallocentric, paternalistic society, which is furtively matriarchal,
because Isis is still live and well. However, she keeps herself in hiding, together with her
child Harpokrates (the child Horus). Accordingly, women in phallocentric society generally
remain in the background, often hidden under a cloak. Isis had recovered the bodily remains
of Osiris, and enlivened him in order to become impregnated with his seed. This seems to be
a typical pattern after the death of a god. It is partially vitalized by another deity, i.e. it lends
energy from another archetype in order to resume its existence, although it will now remain
in the background. Thus she begot Harpokrates who was a feeble child. He abided for a long
time hidden in the thicket of the Nile delta (i.e., the unconscious), before he was ready to
make his appearance as a contender for the throne. Yet, the quantitative notion of psychic
energy cannot fully account for the archetypal transference process. Narcissus is captured by
beauty. So is Actaeon at beholding the beauty of Diana. This fateful meeting in the forest is
what caused Actaeon to be torn to pieces. It seems like the sublime qualitative
characteristics of an archetype is capable of generating psychic energy. However, it neednt
have this fateful consequence. The alchemical lapis (stone), or the red tincture, is said to
have a transformative capability. It probably signifies the self, having undergone a process of
refinement denoted circular distillation. Everything that is touched by the wonderworking
stone is enlivened and ennobled.
Whereas Seth is a patricide, Horus is a matricide. When the Mother goddess is decapitated it
implies that the phallocentric deity Seth is dethroned, and the patriarchal era begins. The
motherly wisdom is integrated with consciousness. From now on the law abides in the heart,
and the guiding rule is to always pave the way for individual consciousness, to see to that
the feeble child deity to can grow to maturity, protecting him from danger. This is a
motherly characteristic; to discern the faint voice in the unconscious and allow it to mature.
It is characteristic of individuation, which is halted in phallocentric society where people
blindly follow rules and refrain from choosing a personal path in life. In keeping with the
archetypal revivification procedure, whatever it means, Isis is revived by Thoth and fitted
with a cows head. Thus, she will continue to have influence from the unconscious, but wont
be a dominant force, anymore. The Oedipal kind of personality is replete in todays society,
to the dismay of many individuated people. To a degree, it seems a reversion has occurred in
that there are also many people who are under the influence of the matriarchal archetype of
Osiris and Isis. Yet Western culture can only be maintained by the matricidal personality
who rejects the goods of life. It is necessary to abandon the illusion of society as a good
mother. The welfare society, the orderly machinelike state, and the Islamic caliphate, etc.,
have today attained proportions of a Mother goddess. Horus severed the head of the Mother
goddess and went into reclusion. The individuant ought to follow the example of Christian
recluses in history, in some way or another.
Psychoanalysis centers upon the motif of patricide and the Oedipal complications. It seems
the problems associated with the motif of matricide is being overlooked, despite the fact
that the heroic motif is ubiquitous in historical and modern myth. The lone cowboy who
rides into the desert sunset is essentially an heroic recluse. He eats a can of beans and
sleeps on the ground. This kind of hero, who is a rejectee, and who is poor and lonely, and
goes through great sufferings, but is victorious in the end, is part and parcel of a Christian
consciousness. It is enormously popular, because he is a Christ figure and a matricide. I use
the term matricide as a symbol. Jesus is a matricide in the sense that he declares his
independence of Mother Earth. He said In the world you will have trouble, but take courage,

I have conquered the world (John, 16). When being tempted by the devil in the desert, he
rejected all the riches and the power that would befall him if he accepted a worldly kingship.
He also rejected his mother Mary and said My true brother and sister and mother are those

people that do the things God wants. (Mark 3). Jesus renounced the world and saw poverty

as ideal. He would not depend on anything worldly and voluntarily confronts torture and
death. He has overcome the world and no worldly allure can ensnare him. Jesus is very
radical. He says that one should have no worldly possessions. Consider the birds, he says.
They do not store food in barns, for the heavenly Father provides for them (Matthew 6).
In psychoanalysis, the term patricide is not interpreted in concrete terms, either. That would
imply a regress to the archaic psychology of the Urhorde (primal horde). It is not necessary
to actually kill your father to overcome the father complex and become a father yourself. The
father is a complex, and not the real father. The integration of the fatherly principle (as the
Oedipal blood-sacrifice) means that the individual experiences that he is in control. He will
always endeavour to take charge of the situation. He is himself the father who makes the
rules. Thats why phallic-narcissistic people are control freaks. They see themselves as
rulers. They are like little kings, if not deities. Thats why the phallic notion is so apt. They
are akin to little erect phalli that are seated upon a pillar. Thats why they are always trying
to predict whats going to happen so that they can take relevant measures and remain in
control. They are not prepared to meet reality as it presents itself, but want to remain in
charge of the situation, because they see themselves as controllers of the universal situation.
This means that such people find it hard to live in a free and unpredictable society. Society
must be strongly regulated. They must remain in control also of their own sexual feelings.
Thats why women must be cloaked. The events of life mustnt be allowed to present
themselves spontaneously. Should they feel that they are losing control, they will become
very anxious. The average person belonging to phallic-narcissistic culture can experience
mortal dread for no good reason. To pass a stranger in the street can be a terrifying
experience. Thats why many of the ethnic groups that arrive in unregulated and freespirited Western Europe are possessed by a fear that has no counterpart in any other living
creature on earth. Most Western men have no notion of the terror that possesses their souls
when they feel out of control. Natives only register that they behave strangely. Nursing staff
at hospitals report that the fear of death, among immigrants, exceeds anything they have
previously experienced.
Thats why phallic-narcissistic man tends to be so cruel and aggressive against other people.
They have an urge to transfer their own fear to the surrounding, since victimization of other
people has a therapeutic effect. As they risk being overwhelmed by fear, they can themselves
become terrors of the neighborhood, by invoking fear in neighbouring people. In this way
their own fear is alleviated, and they will experience that they remain in control of the
surroundings. People from phallic-narcissistic cultures always try to take control over
housing areas in which they live. Women, or people belonging to the domestic ethnicity,
mustnt be visible in the open. The phallic narcissistic cultures in history have been
extremely warlike and extremely cruel. To be a terror to the surroundings is a central
psychological stratagem. The Old Testament bears witness to the phallic-narcissistic urge to
be a terror to other people, to invoke dread, although it is unlikely that all the cruelties are
authentic.
In her article, Towards a structural theory of matricide: psychoanalysis, the Oresteia and the
maternal prohibition, Amber Jacobs says that [matricide], unlike patricide, has been
untheorized in psychoanalysis. If patricide in the Oedipal myth has been interpreted as the
Name-of-the-Father, allowing for filiation, symbolic loss and genealogy, matricide in the
Oresteian myth has not been translated into such clear conceptual terms. This means that
the mother is not theorized within the terms of the underlying cultural laws that determine
our socio-symbolic organization. (Women: A Cultural Review, Volume 15, Issue 1, 2004).
However, she takes the view that the matricidal symbol allows us to transcend the Western
patriarchal paradigm. This cannot be correct, as the archetype is foundational to our culture.
Perseus severed the head of Medusa, and Horus did the same with Isis. Dragon killers are

ubiquitous in our culture. Nevertheless, Jacobs may be correct in saying that psychoanalysis
is insufficient in this respect. It is well designed for the portion of the population that has an
Oedipal problem, but it is lacking in the theoretical understanding of the normal Western
individual who fulfils the heroic ideal of individuation. For this reason, there is a tendency in
psychoanalysis to look upon the narcissistic psychic economy as more or less normal. Some
even argue, along with Kohut, that the foremost motivational factor is narcissism. Although
this is relevant to the average member of phallic-narcissistic culture, it wont suffice as a
model for the average Westerner. Psychoanalysis cannot achieve universality because the
model is insufficient. Amber Jacobs wrote a book on the subject, On Matricide: Myth,
Psychoanalysis, and the Law of the Mother. She has published an online article, Why
matricide? (here).
Horus is an archetype. An archetype lacks an earthly mother. So what does it mean when an
archetype kills another archetype, in this case its mother? A typical feature is the severing
and the partitioning of the archetype. Osiris was cut into pieces, too. It seems like the
archetype that does the killing has reached a level of energetic excitation sufficient to push
the antagonistic archetype over the edge into the conscious realm. Energy is transferred
from one archetype to another, causing the latter to pass the threshold of consciousness,
where its inner opposites fly apart. It is immediately appropriated by the ego and undergoes
intellectual abstraction. To an archetype, this is experienced as being torn apart. In
Scandinavian fairytales, the trolls explode when being exposed to sunlight, and turn to a
heap of rocks. Sooner or later it becomes the fate of all trolls. (There is only one troll who
can tolerate sunlight to a degree. This is Humpe, because he was born with sunlight in his
eyes.) In Egyptian myth, Seth attempted to rape Horus. The transfer of semen would signify a
transference of psychic energy from one archetype to another, with potentially fateful
consequences for the latter. However, the act of killing is usually carried out with less
obvious phallic symbols, such as a sword or a spear.
In this context, matricide denotes the death of an archetype. It does not imply the killing of a
human being, nor does it signify repression. Narcissus dies because he becomes conscious.
He is frozen by his own mirror-image. This means that he is caught up in the self-reflecting
realm of self-consciousness. The seer Tiresias prophesied: Narcissus will live to a ripe old

age, provided that he never knows himself. Of course, an archetype cannot really die and
disappear, which is why it is soon revived in myth. The archetype, as such, is not integrable
with consciousness. It will continue its unconscious existence, although in less resplendent
form, as Isis with a cows head (signifying unconsciousness), or as Osiris as regent of the
underworld. Nevertheless, the killing of the archetype is an important motif. It is also
illustrated with restrainment and continuous torture, which is the fate that befell
Prometheus. It signifies his death insofar as his autonomy is eliminated. The sacrifices made
by the gods always bring boons to humanity, whose conscious world is enlarged.
Mats Winther, 2012.