2nd page of 6 pages
2. Judas the thinker
Let’s look at the system of consciousness described by Jolande Jacobi in „The psychology of C.G.Jung”. She put this system of consciousness by C. G. Jung on the symbol of Yin and Yang. Thereby the thinking is identical with the brightest part of the Yin-Yang-Symbol., the Great Yang. The sensation or perception includes the small black dot, the Small Yin. The feeling is opposite to the thinking and unconscious, because it is in the complete dark of the collective unconsciousness the Big Yin, while the intuition is also in the dark but contains already the bright dot, the small Yang (2).
According to the Jungian Psychology (3) Judas is a typical extraverted thinker. Judas is extravert because he is oriented to the outside of the world, what is happening, here on the deployment of the crowd. His razor sharp analysis characterises him as thinker. The auxiliary function perception helps assists the thinking, because the perception observes the behaviour of the crowd, as it is. A part of the perception is in the unconsciousness. And this unconscious perception knows the sum of the experience of the human being down to the beginning of the live. We can name this consciousness the magic consciousness. There are no symbols, which are recognised but energies. The unconscious part of Judas’ perception provides his thinking with the experience of the situation here, with the expectations and the disappointments of the crowd and with the reaction of the authorities. The reason of the crowd is the appearance of Jesus and his followers of course.
How it is obvious in the chart by Jolande Jacobi, the unconsciously intuitive feeling into the perception. This intuitive feeling is expressed in the symbols, which flow into his language. These symbols reach Judas by the words floating around the crowd
They frightened him, because he knows the consequence. But the frightened him to, because at the same time his ego is confronted with his unconsciousness. The unconscious mind begins to picture to his ego. That is why his great emotions. Because we can really ask what affects him to go with Jesus, when he is afraid? It is the fascinosum tremendum of a soul-image, the image of the Saviour, Judas like the crowd projects in Jesus.
As it is shown on the chart by Jolande Jacobi the unconsciously intuitive feeling pushes in the perception. This intuitive feeling is expressed in the symbols, which flow into his language. These symbols, which have reached Judas, are coming from the words floating around by the crowd. They scare him, because he knows the consequences. They frighten him, but also because, while his ego is confronted with his unconscious. The unconscious mind becomes manifest in his ego. That is why he shows such a great emotionality. Because we can wonder what moves him to follow Jesus, when he is so afraid? It is the fascinosum tremendum of the soul-image, the image of the Saviour that Judas projects in Jesus as the crowd does.
Unconscious contents have a dynamic that can be compared with the energy of the sea. The human being is at the mercy of this energy. To not having to deal with it openly, he projects the unconscious content onto a suitable object. As an extroverted thinker who focuses only on objective, external given facts, Judas must reject the mental image of the Redeemer. He takes such a notion as “myth from the man” for to refuse it as a talk of God at the same time. The soul image of the Redeemer intuitively captured causes discomfort, because it does not accord to the reality which Judas perceives. Misgivings are arisen, suspicious and fears which cause Judas to reject Jesus. Judas in the first scene of “Jesus Christ – Superstar” realises that it is something of Jesus, which puts everybody in a rush of joy. This ecstasy recorded him also at the first meeting with Jesus, this spontaneous feeling of “This is IT!” What Judas grasped intuitively at this first meeting, was not only the man Jesus, but also the archetype of the self (or of the saviour), manifested by Jesus.
In the crisis the human ego immerse in the unconscious to find new contents and solutions. In early times this immersion in the unconscious was a matter of ritual. Erich Neumann describes this way of ritual as the “Way of Mystery”. Thereby the human ego, in our example the rational Ego of Judas, is first confronted with the own personal shadow, after then with the unconscious forms of the collective conscious, here with feelings and intuition. How the later scenes of the rock opera Jesus have shown, Jesus succeeded in this way. Jesus sees now his task to show the way to the other people.
The misunderstanding of Jesus is that he has been constantly confused the archetype. The archetype is an energy in the unconscious and appears in images, which the human being projects onto suitable objects or persons. It is the no coincidence that the name Christ is added to Jesus, that means Jesus the Messiah, Saviour. Jesus in the New Testament was a human manifestation of the archetype of the self. The archetype of self is beyond space and time, while Jesus was a earthly person in space and time. Both, in the rock opera as once in the New Testament, Jesus was mixed with the archetype of the self. That is why Jesus has this peculiar ambivalence, a mixture of megalomania and submission.
The Jungian psychology understands by the Self the archetype which unites all opposites within itself and therefore cancels them. The Self gets the better of both, the Great Father whose rules and arbitrariness and the Great Mother in her fruitful and dead aspect. For Christians the archetype of Self was obvious once in the appearance of Jesus of Nazareth. But because to the Self belongs the integration of the female aspect, women appear in the Gospels. And now they were given the central role of proclaiming of the resurrected Christ. Because Jesus was not physically resurrected, the proclamation at the empty grave to the women alludes to the integration of their male unconscious. The Risen Christ was a projection of unconscious animus which guides them the way to the wholeness.
Of course, in a patriarchal system this was not accepted. Paul for example was looking for suppressing the women at the grave by all means. That’s way he ordered: “The woman has been silent in the church” (mulier taceat in ekklesia). He preferred the the Great Father and the patriarchal systems instead of the human wholeness and the archetype of Self. The history of Christianity has documented the dominance of the Great Father. The archetype fo Self has appeared from time to time, but bounced against the manifestations of the Great Father again and again. This motif is worked out very well by Tim Rice, the author of Jesus Christ- Superstar. Judas has decided in favour of Jesus for all time (“I’ve been your right man all along”), but he is the man, who will surrender Jesus at the Temple priests.
At the first meeting with Jesus, Judas has been taken by a fascination as it is reaching now the crowd. He was previously ready for departure; to leave the shelter of daily life it has become difficult and tedious. But after the primary euphoria, despair is beginning to spread out: “It was beautiful, but now it’s sour…” And how is a patriarchal man reacting in his despair? He reacts with rage and anger! – “Anger” was once the resource of gods and men to break out of the mother’s feelings of security, as Jean Gebser showed in his books. In the patriarchal conscious the motherly feelings of security is equal to the collective unconscious.
Text and Design: Esther Keller-Stocker, February 2010
I'm looking forward to your comments and your suggestion! - Contact!
