SOCIETY AND SYMBOL”

THE MECHANISM OF MYTHS: How SYMBOLS WORK

The way that mythologies work their magic is through symbols. The symbol works as an automatic button that releases energy and channels it. Since the mythic systems of the world include many symbols that are practically universal, the question comes up: Why? And how does the universal symbol come to be directed toward this, that, or another cultural intention? Now, this subject is rather intricate, but I think I can present it in a few clear lines.

Are symbols built into the psyche or imprinted afterward? Animal psychologists have noticed that if a hawk flies over little chicks that have just been hatched from the egg and have never seen a hawk before, they run for shelter. If a pigeon flies over, they do not. Models have been made of wood imitating the form of a hawk. When such models are drawn overhead on a wire, the chickens run for shelter; if the same model is drawn across back- ward, the chickens do not. Now, since we must have initials nowadays, this is called an IRM, or innate releasing mechanism, also known as a stereo- typed reaction.

On the other hand, when a little duck hatches from its egg, the first moving creature it sees become,as it were ,its parent. It attracts itself to this feature,and then attachment can not be erased.This on-birth bonding process is known as an imprint.

Now, the question with respect to the human psyche is whether the greater number of the responses are stereotyped or imprinted. The stereo. typed response, as in the case of the hawk and the chickens, is a relationship, as though there were a precise image of that hawk etched into the brain of those chicks. You might ask yourself, Who is responding to the stimulus? Is it the little chicken, who has no experience of hawks? No. Rather, it is the chicken race, you might say. lock-key

The chicks’ reaction to a real or constructed hawk exemplifies what Jung calls an archetype: a symbol releasing energy in terms of a collective image. Those chickens never experienced a hawk before, yet they re- sponded to it. Whereas the funny little duck who has attached itself to a mother hen is quite peculiar in his way; he is an individual, not a mere type. The bond between duck and hen is the result of an imprint.

What distinguishes imprints from something you’ve simply seen and been interested in is that they come at a unique moment of psychological readiness, one that lasts for only a fraction of a minute. Once made, the imprint is definitive and cannot be erased.

As it turns out, we have found it impossible to determine any stereo- typed images in the human psyche. For our discussion, then, we will have to assume that there are no stereotyped innate releasing images in the human psyche of very much significance. The imprint factor is the domi- nant one.

So then the question comes, Why is it that there are universal symbols? One can see in the mythologies, in the religions, in the sociological struc- tures of every society the same symbols. If these aren’t IRMs, built into the human psyche, how do these get there?

Since these symbols don’t arise from inborn mechanisms and can’t be culturally transmitted (cultures vary so widely), there must be some con- stant set of experiences that almost all individuals share.

As it turns out, these constant experiences are, in fact, in the period of infancy. They are the experiences of the child’s relationship to (a) the mother, (b) the father, (c) the relationship of the parents, and finally (d) the problem of its own psychological transformations. These universal experiences give birth to the ELEMENTARGEDANKEN,the unchanging motif of the world’s cultures.