Hi Louisa,

I cannot invite you yet to dinner in a nice restaurant so I write you a

good Jungian analysis. In this email, I make a brief analysis from a
psychological perspective about what its going on with ISIS. In order to
understand this phenomenon at its root level, we need to employ analytical
psychology. This school of psychology says that humans share a collective
unconscious, which is filled of primordial images or archetypes and these
manifest themselves by means of symbols that appears in dreams or
imagination. These primordial images carry a great amount of emotional
charge that is released when one of these archetypes is constellated. The
most important and powerful archetype is the God archetype, also called
the Self. In dreams, imagination, and art the Self is often represented by
means of a figure with four sides (i.e. cross or square) or a circle. The
Christian Cross, the Buddhist Svastica, the Ying and Yang, the Nanji or the
mandalas are some symbols of the Self. The images below convey this idea.
Later, you will see why this is important in order to understand ISIS and
how it makes sense; bear with me for now.











In the art pictures above, we have seen the Self represented in the
art of two different cultures by means of a circle. The main function of the
Self archetype is to restore the psychic balance in the individual or in the
community. In the image below we can see a mandala drawn by a 7 year-
old while she was in psychotherapy. This draw indicates the beginning of
psychological stability and recovery.




All the archetypes have implicit two opposite sides. For instance, the
religious idea that there is a heaven but also a hell expresses this dual
nature of the archetype Self. The reestablishment of the psychological
balance of an individual or a community begins after the conscious
integration of the two archetypal opposites within archetype; however, this
doesnt happen without going through an ordeal and experiencing a good
amount of pain. At the individual level, in people with fragile psyches like
psychotics, for instance, its not rare to see them talking in mythological
language. This happens because psychotics have a very vulnerable ego
incapable of differentiating and integrating unconscious contents and they
are carried away by the powerful emotional charge of the archetypes
coming from the collective unconscious. A very similar effect happens in
vulnerable communities or countries that are behind in terms of human
evolution and that have been abused, or disrupted their collective psychic
balance, like Iraq. The people in these communities do not have enough
psychological evolution to separate God from the State; they are theocratic
societies, for they collectively live and project the archetype Self or God as
a collective external reality. The Svastica Nazi is another perfect example of
the constellation of the Self at the collective level. Here we have a
symmetrical shape with four sides (quaternio) surrounded by a circle.
Notice that the difference between the Buddhist swastika (picture below
on the left) and the Nazi swastika (right) lies on the direction of the
rotation; while the Nazi symbol rotates clock wise, the Buddhist swastika
rotates counter clockwise. Rotation to the right could mean directing
energies from the unconscious to the consciousness, which leads to living
the symbol fanatically. Counter clockwise directs the energy from the
consciousness to the unconscious, which leads to meditation and
introspection. The 45 angle inclination in the Nazi symbol could be
significant also. It expresses two pair of opposites. One opposition marks
verticality; the other, horizontality. The idea of expressing the four
directions symbolizes totality. The Christian cross expresses this same idea,
and we can see this idea in the Buddhist swastika also with flower-shape
form pointing the the four directions. Probably, Hitler, who draw himself
the design of this symbol, had in mind to create a political party that
substitutes a religion.

l.


In the early 1930s when Germany was immersed in a profound
socioeconomic crisis brought by Versalles treatys sanctions and the Great
Depression, Hitlers fanatic movement appeared. The Nazi movement was
successful at first in reducing its great unemployment rate and lifting the
country, but fanaticism took place at the collective level. Notice how these
archetypal energies represented by the same symbol are also coming back
to Western Ukraine with the Maidans Neonazi movement. It seems that
these archetypal energies affect the collective psyche of nations or
communities more intensively in periods of systemic crises. People loses
their faith when they see that the system is not working.
In the image below, we can see the collective projection of the Self in
two different ways. The image on the Self represents a community with a
lower psychological evolution (Iraq), in which the Self is projected
collectively on a religion. The image of the right represents a secular society
(most Western societies). The Western man has a degraded projection of
the Self archetype into ideologies, so it can be said that political ideologies
are low-content God projections. The less fanatic a person is in his/her
political ideology or religion, the more individualized that person is.





Now lets take a look at ISISs flag because its very self-revealing.
Again, we can see the symbol of the Self (round circle) in white color and
surrounded by black. The contrast in colors between black and white
represents the two extremes implicit on the archetype. This contrast also
can be understood as radical fanaticism. The Arabic words "Bqiyah wa-
Tatamaddad" means in English language remaining and expanding. The motto of
the ISIS flag is truly worrisome. Psychologically speaking, the Self symbol
expresses the need for psychic integration and healing for that community .
ISIS will exist as long as each one of its members does not become aware
that he/she has been abducted by archetypal energies and do psychological
work to recover his/her individuality. Economic difficulties brought by this
profound crisis may be also factor for the vulnerable European muslin
practitioner that could feel marginalized by this troubled economic system.
Nonetheless, we must not forget how this terrorist group problem was
created: the Western world has greatly abused these people with the Iraq
war. A British ex-Jihadist talks for RT in an interview
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrVFflAAM8c ) and he said something
very important about the ISIS members for us to understand. He said that
these people have no respect for human life. This lack of respect of human
life reflects how much these people are being influenced and abducted by
the power of archetypal energies. But he also said that ISIS members
feel that their religious beliefs are threatened by the Western world. The
fact that the image of the Self is in white color, which symbolizes conscious
awareness, surrounded by black (shadow, unconscious or unknown) could
express this awareness of being completely surrounded by a threat; the
threat being the Western world in this case. The US or the NATO do not
help by invading and bullying an underdeveloped country, destroying all its
structures (political, economical and social) and killing hundred of
thousands of people, and pretend that nothing has happened. The Western
worldor the Western leaderslike to use double standards and to abuse
underdeveloped people. When ISIS kills, it is called brutality. But when
Israel, the US or NATO kills underdeveloped people by the thousands, then
its okay and most Western media is deaf-mute about it. Now the Western
world have a very difficult problem that they dont know yet how to solve it.
Each country or community have a different pace of development. Its
destructive and negligent to impose or to force the modern Western
democracy upon underdeveloped countries with the dark desire of
controlling or benefiting from their natural resources. Otherwise, fanatic
groups like ISIS will reappear.




Analytical psychology is very rich in theories and nuances. Some of
the concepts I have mentioned are quite controversial and not easy to
prove from an empirical standpoint. For instance, the idea of the collective
unconscious is hard to define in a precise manner, and I have some doubts
myself about this concept. I have tried to synthesize just enough concepts
to make some sense. I hope you have enjoyed this email. Even though
modern societies have very effective repressive measures to neutralize
revolutions or generalized violence, we are living in a very exciting but
extremely dangerous transitional moment. The word "crisis" comes from
the Greek word Krinein meaning to separate or to decide. The crisis of
political ideologies, generalized corruption, moral decay, impoverishment
are problems in the present but that comes from old structures in past. We
are not only transitioning a change in the economic model but also the
change of an Aion. The need for the establishment of new ethics is
imperative for this time. If you have enjoyed this email, I may write you in
the future another email with a short analysis of this historical moment
from a multidisciplinary perspective.

Kind regards,


Andrs (merlinpit)