Until some point, people live in mythical perception: bugs talk, dandelions sing, monsters live under the bed, the pot quarrels with the kettle, toys can get hurt if you don’t pay attention to them… Amulets-stones, talismans-papers, words-spells have a special meaning and save you from any threat – from a big bad wolf, a black spider, an evil word, a grumpy lady, a harsh old man, a terrible disaster. Then a person becomes an adult, and his or her mythical thinking gives way to logic and “conscious consciousness”; a mythical nature becomes a ghost, something forgotten and ridiculous, while own strength and control skyrocket. Now a person takes care of his or her own safety.
Suddenly, a war comes to the door and destroys all controls over one’s own life, sweeps away the stable sense of security, and leaves nothing. A person is no longer able to control own safety. And all over sudden the psyche comes to the confused consciousness with a little bucket and a shovel and invites it to play in the sandbox. While they are playing, the psyche reminds the consciousness that there are forces higher than man and brings back childhood rituals, amulets-stones, talismans-papers, words-spells. The psyche asks the “conscious consciousness” not to take on too much, but rather to draw “protective circles” in the sand…
This kind of regress in thinking is how the psyche cares for you. It tries to protect the consciousness from the threat of external environment and person’s inability to influence these circumstances. The psyche restores early defensive mechanisms to re-impose the experience of danger on them and find own mechanisms of control. And this is good. It’s good to be aware of this process. After all, we remember the “mind games” of totem people and their mythical thinking.
The following is the quote from Hermann Hesse’s “The Glass Bead Game”.
Although it was impossible to dispel their mortal terror by appeal to reason, this terror could still be guided, organized, given shape, so that the confusion of maddened people could be made into a solid unity, the wild, single voices merged into a chorus. But there was no time to be lost. Knecht stepped before the people, loudly crying the well-known prayers that opened public ceremonies of penance and mourning: the lament for the death of a tribal mother, or the ceremony of sacrifice and atonement in the face of perils such as epidemics and floods. He shouted the words in rhythm and reinforced the rhythm by clapping his hands; and in the same rhythm, shouting and clapping his hands all the while, he stooped almost to the ground, straightened up, stooped again, and straightened up. Almost at once ten or twenty others joined in his movements. The white-haired mother of the village murmured in the same rhythm and with tiny bows sketched the ritual movements. Those who were still flocking to the assemblage from the huts at once joined in the beat and the spirit of the ceremony; the few who had gone off their heads collapsed, and lay motionless, or else were caught up in the murmur of the chorus and the religious genuflections. His method was effective. Instead of a demoralized horde of madmen, there now stood a reverent populace prepared for sacrifice and penance, each one benefiting, each one encouraged by now having to lock his horror and fear of death within himself, or bellow it crazily for himself alone. Each now fitted into his place in the orderly chorus of the multitude, keeping to the
rhythm of the exorcistic ceremony…
