Facing the Dragon: Confronting Personal and Spiritual Grandiosity Read online

  ALSO BY ROBERT L. MOORE

  John Wesley and Authority: A Psychological Perspective

  The Archetype of Initiation: Sacred Space, Ritual Process, and Personal Transformation

  The Magician and the Analyst: The Archetype of the Magus in Occult Spirituality and Jungian Analysis

  with J. Gordon Melton

  The Cult Experience: Responding to the New Religious Pluralism

  with Douglas Gillette

  King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine

  The King Within: Accessing the King in the Male Psyche

  The Warrior Within: Accessing the Knight in the Male Psyche

  The Magician Within: Accessing the Shaman in the Male Psyche

  The Lover Within: Accessing the Lover in the Male Psyche

  edited by Robert L. Moore

  Sources of Vitality in American Church Life

  Anthropology and the Study of Religion (with Frank Reynolds)

  Jung's Challenge to Contemporary Religion (with Murray Stein)

  Carl Jung and Christian Spirituality

  Jung and Christianity in Dialogue: Faith, Feminism, and Hermeneutics (with Daniel J. Meckel)

  Self and Liberation: The Jung-Buddhism Dialogue (with Daniel J. Meckel)

  © 2003 by Chiron Publications. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, Chiron Publications, 400 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois 60091.

  Book and cover design by Peter Altenberg.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Fourth printing 2009

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Moore, Robert L.

  Facing the dragon : confronting personal and spiritual grandiosity / Robert L. Moore ; edited by Max J. Havlick, Jr.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-1-888602-21-0 (alk. paper)

  1. Jungian psychology. 2. Narcissism. 3. Megalomania. 4. Good and evil—Psychological aspects. 5. Secularism. 6. Psychoanalysis and religion. 7. Jung, C. G. (Carl Gustav), 1875-1961—Religion. I.

  Havlick, Max J. II. Title.

  BF173.J85 M67 2003

  150.19'54—dc21

  2002151396

  Drawings by Michael A. Finnegan, a Chicago-area artist and musician who paints fantasy, dreamscapes, and landscape surrealism, and whose music follows the same style: “The Big Smile” (chapter 1); “Woman at Risk” (chapter 5); “Dragon and Friend” (chapter 12). More of his work can be seen at www.catcherinthesky.net.

  Photographs by Beryl Winifred Vivienne Ouimette who has been shooting photographs since she was twelve years old and has B.F.A. degrees in both graphic design and photography. Her address is [email protected].

  To the memory of J. R. R. Tolkien for his intuitive understanding of the dynamics underlying the horrors of the human past

  To Philip Matthews for his undaunted hope for the human future manifest through his outstanding contributions to interfaith understanding and spiritual leadership

  CONTENTS

  Preface

  Acknowledgments

  1. The Lucifer Complex and the Enemy Within: Psychological Reflections on Human Evil

  2. The Archetype of Spiritual Warfare

  3. Regulating Dragon Energies: The Challenge of Conscious Ritualization

  4. Modern Secularism Fuels Pathological Narcissism

  5. Discerning and Facing Your Own Grandiosity

  6. Decoding the Diamond Body: Archetypal Structures Provide a Framework for Analysis

  7. The Combat Myth and the Archetypal Enemy

  8. How Modern Spiritual Narcissism Leads to Destructive Tribalism

  9. The Psychological Sources of Religious Conflict

  10. Resources for Facing the Dragon

  11. Dragon Laws: Insights for Confronting Grandiosity

  12. Beyond the Lucifer Complex: Befriending the Dragon

  Appendix: Diagrams

  Bibliography

  Index

  About the Author

  PREFACE

  ON SEPTEMBER 11TH, AN ANCIENT SCOURGE OF THE HUMAN species came out of hiding once again. The power of radical evil broke through our denial just as it did on December 7th, 1941.

  What does this new escalation in violence and terror mean for us and for a prognosis of the human future? The increasing anxiety and chaos of our time have been fed by an arrogant and malignant secularist narcissism and nihilism that increasingly fosters arrogant fundamentalisms in response. At this time in history, it is imperative that we realize that both kinds of arrogance are being fueled by compulsive intrusions of archetypal energy tantamount to possession states.

  J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings portrays a world in which a seductive and demonic lust for power over others grows in strength until it threatens to overwhelm the entire world. This fantasy masterpiece reflects an accurate intuition that such a process is active not in “Middle Earth” but on Planet Earth.

  Working as both a Jungian psychoanalyst and spiritual theologian, my recent research has focused on the powerful, grandiose “god-energies” that burn fiercely in the heart of every human being. When we face these energies consciously in faith and with authentic respect, they reflect in us the numinous, creative, and transformative power of the divine presence. But when the human ego engages in a pretentious “unknowing” of the reality and significance of this presence, the result is existential idolatry and malignant narcissism.

  Existential denial of the divine presence creates a demonic alchemy that hijacks the sacred energies of the soul and twists them into destructive powers of hideous strength, powers of aggressive nonbeing that reveal themselves as addiction, racism, sexism, homophobia, all forms of political oppression, ritual violence and war, and the ecological destruction of our planet. These same grandiose energies fuel both corporate greed and religious fundamentalism.

  Carl Jung was the first modern psychological researcher to see clearly the great dragon of grandiose energies lurking within us, never sleeping but waiting for the light of our awareness to grow dim before striking at the heart of humanity and civilization. Traditional mythologies often used the mythic image of the dragon to indicate an intuition of these great and dangerous forces that lurk within the human soul and turn satanic when left unconscious or treated with disrespect. Jung called us to face the reality of these great energies and take moral and spiritual responsibility for their conscious and creative incarnation in psyche and history. In his Answer to Job, he accurately assessed our current situation in the following terms:

  Everything now depends on man: immense power of destruction is given into his hand, and the question is whether he can resist the will to use it, and can temper his will with the spirit of love and wisdom. He will hardly be capable of doing so on his own unaided resources. He needs the help of an “advocate” in heaven. . . . The only thing that really matters now is whether man can climb up to a higher moral level, to a higher plane of consciousness, in order to be equal to the superhuman powers which the fallen angels have played into his hands. (quoted in Stein 1995, p. 168)

  Never before has Jung's psychology and prophetic vision been so timely or so urgently needed as now.

  This book attempts to carry forward the work of Jung and also the work of Edward Edinger in alerting us to the ways in which we humans are vulnerable as
never before to having our psyches invaded and possessed by archetypal energies of great power. We must all be vigilant to the insidious – usually unconscious – temptation to open the door to these forces within ourselves and act them out in a demonic way. These psychic invasions and archetypal colonizations often coerce us into terrible acts of hate, violence, and inhumanity. We have seen what individuals possessed by these grandiose archetypal forces are capable of.

  Is there any antidote to this powerful lust for the “ring of power”? I agree with Carl Jung and Paul Tillich that the antidote is present, effective, and far more powerful than the toxins that afflict us. Where is this antidote? It lies in increasing the light of our spiritual and psychological awareness and respectful acceptance of the dragon within and the implications of its presence.

  Both psychoanalytic research and spiritual theology have much to teach us about the cause, dynamics, and cure of this cancer of the soul. It is my hope that through an innovative partnership of spiritual wisdom and psychoanalytic science we may be able to initiate a new and effective “Fellowship of the True Ring” and a new kind of magi who, like Gandalf, do not retreat into despair in the face of radical evil. These post-tribal twenty-first-century magi, drawing upon a truly theonomous creative collaboration between spirituality and science, will have the faith, wisdom, courage, and skills to confront evil even more effectively than the tribal shamans of old. Together they will seek to facilitate the incarnation in history of what Tillich called the true “spiritual community.”

  This volume is the third in a series presenting newly edited versions of material I first delivered during the 1980s and early 1990s in lectures and other unpublished forums or in publications no longer readily available. These works share a common background in that they resulted from reflection on the kinds of situations that analysands in my psychoanalytic practice characteristically brought forward for treatment, personal situations commonly encountered in today's world that also relate directly to many of the most profound social problems in contemporary life.

  The first volume in the series, The Archetype of Initiation: Sacred Space, Ritual Process, and Personal Transformation (2001), responds to the human need to surmount problem situations by entering “sacred space” with the help of a competent “ritual elder,” first to reevaluate life and achieve transformation and then to return back to the ordinary world with renewed understanding and sense of purpose. Based on extensive field research and the work of such scholars as Arnold van Gennep, Mircea Eliade, Joseph Campbell, and Victor Turner, the book urges contemporary healers to utilize premodern tribal principles of sacred space and ritual process long considered lost or inaccessible to modern culture. The modern world's failure to understand these principles and prepare enough knowledgeable ritual elders has led to an epidemic of problems for which contemporary secular culture has no answer.

  The second volume in the series, The Magician and the Analyst: The Archetype of the Magus in Occult Spirituality and Jungian Analysis (2002), makes available the original text of the pioneering research monograph entitled, “The Liminal and the Liminoid in Ritual Process and Analytical Practice,” first presented in 1986 to the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago. A new introductory essay describes the research journey that led to this rediscovery of transformational space.

  This volume, Facing the Dragon, shows how pathological narcissism results from archetypal energies that are not contained and channeled through resources such as spiritual disciplines, ritual practice, utilization of the mythic imagination, and Jungian analysis. In the larger social sense, unconscious and uncontrolled grandiosity all too often leads well-intentioned groups into a malignant, pathological tribalism that wreaks havoc on their neighbors and threatens the rest of the world.

  Chapters 1 and 12 present my current assessment of these issues as a continuing psychological and spiritual challenge. Chapters 2 through 8 and chapter 10 come from lectures and discussions held at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago. The edited text of these chapters retains some instances where audience members enriched the discussion by interjecting comments, raising questions, or asking for clarification. Chapter 9 comes from a paper presented at a symposium on “Jealousy, Envy, and Hatred Among the World's Religions.” Chapter 11, “Dragon Laws,” was specially written for this volume to provide a systematic outline of insights for confronting personal, social, and spiritual grandiosity. The chapter notes and bibliography include some updated references that have appeared in the intervening years.

  The issues addressed here have significant implications for the future of human civilization on Planet Earth and must be faced by all of us. Not just religious leaders and psychotherapists but people from all areas and walks of life should look within themselves for evidence of these recurring phenomena and set themselves upon a path of increasing awareness. The problem, in other words, is not only “out there” but also always “in here” as well.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  AS A CHILD IN THE PRE-CIVIL RIGHTS ERA OF THE American South, I knew something was dreadfully wrong. Cruelty and hate were woven into the fabric of everyday life along with the massive denial characteristic of sentimentalist piety. For a time as a young man active in the Civil Rights movement, I entertained the popular fantasy that the malady was unique to southern culture. It took a long journey of study and experience to realize that it is an equal opportunity affliction present in all human psychology and spiritual life. I want to begin these acknowledgments with my parents, Golden Franklin Moore, Sr., and Margaret DePriest Moore. In my father's courageous stand as an educator against bigotry and bullies I saw that resistance to injustice was not only possible but a requirement for a mature man or woman. My mother, also an educator, offered a clear sense of orientation and priorities—“Son, seek first the Kingdom of Heaven.” From her I learned about the existence of an authentic Transpersonal Center for life. They could not tell me how long it would take to find a basic “good enough” centeredness and integration in a psyche with roots in three cultures: Cajun Catholic, Russian Jewish, and Scotch-Irish Protestant. But their examples gave me strength for a long and continuing journey. They are always with me.

  I often tell people that I needed Jung's concept of the collective unconscious to build bridges between the various tribes in my psyche. It took a long time to realize that the external human family needed Jung just as much as my internal one. Here I want to thank those who introduced me to the power of the thought of Carl Jung and, later, to his school of psychoanalysis. In Dallas in 1965, Frank Bockus, a young professor, showed me the size of Jung's vision and its potential for making partners of psychoanalysis and spirituality. Frank, I will always be in your debt. My subsequent mentors in Jungian thought and practice are too many to mention here, but I want to give special thanks to analysts June Singer and Lee Roloff, who represent for many of us outstanding examples of how to live the analytical life with grace and creativity.

  I would also be remiss if I did not mention the many contributions of Texas analyst James Hall to both Jungian psychology and the dialogue between psychology and spirituality. To an aspiring young Jungian from the southwest his fine theoretical and clinical mind, along with his Stetson hat and cowboy boots, offered me a green light to pursue the analytical quest! Thank you, James.

  The roots of this book are grounded in the work of the Institute for World Spirituality. In 1987, with the help of my wife, psychoanalyst Margaret Shanahan, and two outstanding scholar-writers, J. Gordon Melton and Douglas Gillette, I founded IWS to facilitate interfaith peace and reconciliation. Our vision was to utilize psychoanalytic resources, especially the concept of the collective unconscious, to facilitate meaningful dialogue between the various religious tribes of the human family. The Institute sponsored the Paulist Press series on Jungian Psychology and World Spiritual Traditions which Margaret and I continue to edit.

  I especially want to acknowledge the steady and continuing friendship and support of my friend Phil Matthews and the No
rthern Star Foundation. Through his aid the Institute also pioneered in the facilitation of, not only high-level interfaith dialogues between serious spiritual practitioners, but also interfaith cooperative compassionate action in prison rehabilitation, microcredit initiatives for the world's poor, and research for a comprehensive encyclopedia and directory of all of the world's religious groups. The latter was envisioned as a major way to improve communication between the various spiritual tribes.

  Here I want to thank all of the many people who contributed to the work of IWS between August 1987 and December 2000. Through your cooperative efforts you made a creative contribution to the cause of interfaith peace and reconciliation. I deeply regret that I could not find adequate financial resources to continue IWS and its work. In 2003, the need is even greater than it was in 2000, and I am more convinced than ever that the vision that began the work of IWS is correct and should be promoted as widely as possible. Because of limited financial resources, however, in December 2000, Project Return in New Orleans assumed leadership for the interfaith prison initiatives and the Council for the World Parliament of Religions assumed leadership for interfaith microcredit initiatives.

  The Institute for the Study of American Religions has continued the research for the comprehensive database of the world's spiritual tribes. As I write this I have just received a copy of the first edition of the historic Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices (Melton and Baumann 2002). This most complete database on the spiritual communities of the world will continue to grow in the years to come. It will undoubtedly prove to be the most significant contribution of IWS to the challenge of interfaith communication and understanding.

  Since 2001, the Institute for Psychoanalysis, Culture, and Spirituality has continued the work of applying psychoanalytic insight and research to the continuing challenge of the psychological, moral, and spiritual maturation of our species.