Collective Consciousness

For any of you who are familiar with Jungian psychology, you may know that Jung talked about the "collective consciousness."  He said that we have a conscious mind, an unconscious mind and the collective conscious. The conscious and unconscious minds are based on our personal experiences. But the collective conscious is different in that it has no basis in personal experience and yet is shared by all people.  It consists of a common set of beliefs and ideas we all share that are called "archetypes." These beliefs are very familiar to all of us and we recognize them over and over again in stories and fables. An example of an archetype is the wise old man. Think Merlin the magician or Obi One Kenobi. We see this pattern of the wise old man in many tales.

I realized that the story of the Fall of Man also consists of very familiar archetypes. One is the  "Damsel in Distress," where the villain tries to take the fair maiden for himself. He is always older, more powerful, and wiser and more cunning. She is young, beautiful and innocent. It always requires a young hero to save her from the villain, whom she falls in love with and then lives happily ever after with.  Examples that immediately come to my mind are the Phantom of the Opera, the Princess Bride and even cartoons such as Popeye. (My favorite example as a child was Mighty Mouse who always saved his girlfriend from the evil cat before being run through the sawmill.) Many times the hero is humble with no wealth, as in the Princess Bride. In contrast, the evil prince is rich and powerful. But what the hero's got going for him is his pure heart.

In the Principle, we see the same pattern. Lucifer was older and wiser than both Adam and Eve. He was also very powerful, having been God's right hand for eons. He wanted Eve for himself, attracted by her youthful beauty as well as hoping to maintain and consolidate his power. In contrast, Adam was innocent and young, not yet possessing the wisdom he needed to understand his place in God's kingdom and Lucifer's evil intentions. He was meant to become Eve's true love at the appropriate time and then to live with her happily ever after. However, unlike the stories above, this one did not have a happy ending. Instead of saving Eve from Lucifer's evil clutches, he was brought down by her and fell under the domination of Lucifer as well.

Another archetype in this story is the good person who becomes evil, or the "Fall from Grace." Think of Darth Vader from Star Wars. Originally his destiny was to become the greatest Jedi, fighting on the side of goodness. But he succumbs to the "dark force," losing his position and instead becoming a powerful leader of the dark side. Likewise, Lucifer was God's most beloved servant. But he feared that he was losing God's love. But rather than continuing to trust God, he gave into his insecurities and turned away from God. However, had he remained faithful, he would have received even more love from God through fulfilling his responsibility to care for and raise up Adam and Eve. Think of a parent with an older and a younger child. When the older child is jealous and hurts the younger one, the parent feels pain. But when the older one cares for the younger one, the parent's love for the older child becomes even greater.

Last but not least is the archetype of the Lost Eden. We see this over and over in stories about utopias and lost paradises. This is because deep in our hearts we all know that this world is not the true world we are meant to be living in and the true life we were meant to live.

So somewhere way back in our collective conscious, we recognize the truths in this story because it's part of our collective history. But as I said earlier, when I first heard the Fall of Man, it completely went over my head. It was hard for me to believe in angels, in Adam and Eve, and in God. Even so, I had to admit that this explanation of the Fall made a lot more sense than the idea of a literal fruit being the cause of the downfall of the entire world.

Next time I will talk about life in the church and how the ideas from the Principle influenced the lifestyle of members.

For more information, watch the video "The Fall of Man" at: 
http://www.reverendsunmyungmoon.org/rev_moon_teaching.html