The Dark Moon

[Guest guest]

Here is Dr. Maguire's paper as promised. I'll send it in instalments so as not

to crash everyone's computers:

Shortly after the astronauts had set foot on the moon on July 21st 1969 I went

to see a friend, Dr. Franz Riklin a Jungian analyst, and a rare and true man, at

a clinic in the heart of Switzerland where he was recuperating from an illness.

It was a lovely summer's day and the gardens of the hospital were ablaze

with flowers. As I entered the darkened room, he turned towards me, and as he

did, he reached out to switch off the television set. But before doing so he

asked me to look at the picture where on the small screen, bulky but clearly

identifiable human forms were cavorting in an incredible, leaping but macabre

dance, on the surface of the moon. He then switched off the picture with a small

sigh of hopeless resignation and murmured 'That is not the way!' Neither he not

I referred again to the fact that men had for the first time ever, reached, and

landed on the moon.

It was however a memorable day for me, in quite a different respect, it was

the last time I saw Dr. Riklin for sadly he died some days later, his untimely

death came suddenly and unexpectedly. During the last years of his life, he had

worked a great deal upon the feminine aspect of psyche, researching into the

principle of Eros, for the principle of feminine psychic relatedness had become

far and away his chief interest and major concern. He believed that the problem

of Eros was of the most vital importance for the survival of our species.

Some five years later, in an article, Mitroff wrote that 'It was man not

mankind who in body spirit and soul took us to the moon, who landed on the moon,

who took back some of the precious moon, and finally who analysed that moon

stuff. Nowhere in all of this was the feminine principle present'. He concludes

with a most significant remark 'whether man knew it or not, the landing on the

moon constituted the supreme insult to women. It is not the issue that men alone

went to the moon, but that they went with little sensitivity, with little

appreciation and respect for the moon as the supreme symbol of the feminine

principle.'

This is the view of one man, but it is held by countless others. For,

implicit in the moon landing is the idea of the conquest of a beloved-enemy,

which had always appeared to be unassailable, there is always the connotion of

vanquishment, defloration and theft. Since that time, there has entered a new

aspect of abandonment, thus completing the image of a crime of violation,

undertaken with hubris and cold rationalism.

Should a dream of such a moon visit or moon landing be brought for analysis

by a dreamer of either sex any analyst of solemn judgement and feeling heart

would view it at least with concern. The simplest reaction would be that the

dreamer was somehow no longer 'earthed', either temporarily or permanently.

There would be the question of inflation with a concomitant increased

unconsciousness.

The reality of the actual moon invasion and the penetration into space, may

also be regarded with the same sober objectivity, in order to find the inner

meaning for man's cosmic exploration and why indeed has the moon itself been so

ravished.

The answer lies enfolded in the views of Riklin and Mitroff, and of which I

was forcibly reminded when I began to prepare this paper. My reflections led me

to the fact that the most urgent of all psychological problems of our epoch is

that of the denigrated status of the principle of femininity, the principle of

psychic relatedness, Eros, for which the moon is the great symbol.

to be continued

fa