CULTURAL ANXIETY

By Rafael López-Pedraza*

During a discussion about man's problems, Jorge Luis Borges observed how
the so-called Western man and his culture have their roots in a book - the Bible - that
comes from the East. That is, although this book is an oriental product, no one
can evade its influence and the consequences it has forged in human culture
western.

The Bible begins with a creation myth. Creation myths are found in the
literature from all cultures, but we must accept that the biblical creation myth,
that in other cultures would not occupy such a prominent place, adds a special touch to
our culture because it is at the base of what we call our religious belief.
God created man "in his own image. Religiously speaking, man
occidental is a believer: he must have faith. This myth turned belief has been central in the
religious life of the Western man and, of course, central also to contain his
psyche and its madness (1).

As a western man, who lives in the historical traditions of his geography and of his
race, I feel this oriental product within me and I accept its presence in my life. The essence of
the Bible is monotheism: the worship of a single God and the jealousy and anger of that God towards
other gods or other cults. This belief has extensively permeated the world in which
we live: our religiosity, our way of life, the ideas of our culture, our
politics, the sciences and, lastly, something equally important, the studies of
Psychology. Monotheism is deeply rooted in the psychology of everything.
western, whatever its geography, social condition or education.

Thus, the Bible, the book of monotheism, although geographically foreign to man.
Western occupies such a prominent place in their psychology that those who could
to be considered as genuinely Western books have retreated within
what we call the unconscious, or they are just topics for scattered minorities. In fact, the
The Bible is basically in opposition to Western books, an opposition that is made
patent in the books of mythology: the books of pagan polytheism, which are the books of
the many gods with their images, the richness of the multiple forms of life. The
Greek mythology offers us the most complete catalog of images that has ever existed.
produced and she has formed the material of tragedy, the sources of poetry and of
literature has nourished life poetically, populating the earth with images, and has given
foundation of philosophy.

Within this, we must also include the other numerous mythologies of the world.
Western: Norse mythologies, the hidden traditions and legends of the Celts, the
mythologies, legends and poetic conceptions of the indigenous American peoples, etc.

These are the books that relate to what we call in Jungian psychology the
collective unconscious.

Then there are the books that talk to us about the origins of life on Earth and of the
evolution of man, these books, with their stimulating discussions on the races
humans and human behavior, deal with the oldest and most primitive history
of man and, more humbly, do not say that humanity is the culminating work of
the creation of God, but simply another animal species at another level of evolution;
In this last point, we see how great is its contradiction with the creationism of the Bible.

The Western man has written many books throughout his history - books that
they update the old myths, which tell us the lived history - and there is also the great
achievement of his literature, where essential aspects of his psyche are revealed; all of which
is part of current studies in psychology. However, all that richness, which
it is at the level of the collective unconscious, it is not equivalent to the Bible -the book that gives us
arrived from the East - because it produces a special effect: it creates an identification with
the text, a collective identification; something that other books do not evoke, or if they do, they
it deals with an identification that typically remains at individual or levels of
small groups.

In the medieval Spanish tradition, there seems to have been a certain awareness of the
identification provoked by the Bible. The Bible has never been a book for the
majorities. For the Church, it has rather been a reference book for scholars and a
source of amplification for saints and mystics. Cervantes, in the major book of our
literature warns us about the madness that reading brought upon our lord Don Quixote,
too intense, of the Books of Chivalry. I sense in this consciousness an ancient
and a complex tradition that seeks to prevent any literalization of the written word.

Westerners, especially since the Reformation, have been interpreting

these eastern biblical tales range from a foolish identification to a rejection
skilful or brusque that tries to distance itself from the book. The fact is that the Bible, with its
Oriental ingredient, confounds Western psychology precisely because
triggers a collective response. It seems that the conception of a God
almighty, lacking an image, in which the believer has faith, provokes that type of
psychological identification. (I have always thought that the Freudian conception of
transfer has the same components as the old Hebrew dependency in a
unique God, lacking an image). And, insofar as the Bible leads towards identification,
It's difficult to talk or write about her psychologically. It's a moving religious book.
Through faith and millions of people, today, identify with it. But it is also the
religious book of the Jews, the center of their lives and traditions and, because of that
religiosity, there is little or nothing that can be extracted from it as psychology. I have always been
astonished by the fact that, despite the large number of psychology students
Jewish origin, no major studies have been conducted on the psychology of Judaism. If
If there has been any contribution, it has been very small considering the immense...
importance of this book for our culture. But perhaps a psychological study of
Judaism is impossible; so far what has been done is more of a kind of
psychological exegesis of the Bible, or it has been included quite
indiscriminate in the studies of comparative religions, up to the method of
amplification of Jungian psychology.

In recent years, Jungian studies have paid more attention to the

themes of monotheism and polytheism, viewing them in terms of polarities
extremely relevant to the psyche of Western man and to dynamism
from psychotherapy. It is an approach that differs greatly from the method of
Jungian amplification and what distracts us from the focus of what our should be
the most urgent concern as Westerners: to differentiate between monotheism and polytheism
in our Western psyche. Moreover, it is a differentiation that must be
undertaken with a sharp awareness of the historical and cultural conflict existing between
those two influences on the Western psyche. (2)

What has been done is nothing more than timid attempts to differentiate monotheism and the
polytheism. But my intention in this writing is to discuss this point in the terms of a
conflict, and a fundamental psychological conflict. Moreover, I believe that accepting the
discussion of this conflict is essential, because it locates psychology studies in
the place that belongs to them (whether we are aware of it or not), which is where our
the psyche is more distressed; a distress that we disguise as story, as religion or as
politics. It is as if a taboo had been operating within the studies of
psychology. And, as the attempts to reach this fundamental point began only
Recently, the impact of its implications has been minimal.

We know that during the 17th century, when the studies of the sciences began
natural, these were psychologically based on the premise that science does not
had nothing to do with religion. In fact, what made the men of those
the times they gathered to talk about science was that, historically, it had become
It is impossible to express religious differences. Modern science is the offspring of wars.
of religions full of anxiety, blood, and cruelty. The scientific dialogue made possible a
way of relating, aside from the madness of the main religions. Also
we know that the cradle of modern psychology is in the natural sciences. And even if
we presume that psychology has strayed from its origins, it seems that the distance
it is still not very big. (We insist on the inconvenience of talking and discussing about
psychology adopting the attitude of the natural sciences, using their same rhetoric; a
rhetoric that does not adapt to the complexities of the psyche. This same way of
thinking we see it applied to the humanities: essays on poetry, by
example, which treats poetry as if it were also part of the studies of
natural sciences. This creates tremendous confusion and most of the time their
result, at least in psychology studies, is an annoying jargon that invades
a large part of the psychological discussions.) Thus, it is understandable that,
As I said before, it is practically taboo to talk about psychology of living religions.

It is not necessary to remember that it was C. G. Jung who began to promote the studies of
psychology along the path of the religious. Setting aside those historical complexities, one feels
that there are probably deeper resistances within us against consideration
of our psyche in terms of the polarities of monotheism and polytheism; it's as if,
more than the historical complexes we have inherited, there existed an intimate inner taboo,
as if the conflict afflicted our basic nature.

Monotheism and polytheism constitute two fundamental fields of the psyche.

Western and it is essential that we are deeply aware of both. It is
we need to be more astute in order to recognize what arises from the monotheistic side
of life - collective consciousness, belief, faith (the influence of the Eastern book) - and what
emerges from the most repressed side, the pagan and polytheistic: the great variety of images
Archetypal. But, even more importantly, we must perceive and understand that conflict.
interior and the anxiety they produce, from the beginning, those two pillars of the soul
western.

E. R. Dodds, in his book Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety, examines the
experiences and religious conflicts during the early centuries of Christianity, which
he calls "times of anxiety," inspired by a poetic phrase coined by W. H.
Auden. It was a time when the conflict between traditional paganism and the new
Christian monotheism burst forth openly; a time that, in a way, can be
to compare with ours, which are also "times of anxiety." Dodds' book
about what was historically for him an era of anxiety, prompted me to have a vision
broader understanding of anxiety and to consider its work within a more psychological context.
I would say that the Western psyche has always lived in anxiety caused by the
constant conflict between pagan mythologies - the numerous gods with their images
differentiated- and the unique and image-less God of monotheism. It is an anxiety that
it arises from a conflict of cultures. Therefore, there has always been what I would dare to
to call a cultural anxiety. The deepest conflicts of man are cultural and
this is something that psychology cannot evade (3).

Dodds' book gives us a historical perspective, underscored by Auden's phrase, which

it implies that the feeling of cultural anxiety becomes more evident, sharper, in
periods of historical tensions. But it is from the tensions that the beginning starts to occur.
the reflection on what has always been there and has been taken for granted. And, here, I
I would like to encourage some reflection on this topic of polytheism and monotheism.
noting the obviousness of these two aspects of the Western psyche and asking myself:
Why has psychology taken so long to start thinking about monotheism and the
polytheism within ourselves and realizing that these two realities
Historical issues are at the very root of our conflict? I am aware that this is about
an attempt to reflect from the perspective of Jungian psychology, but at
to start from another angle.

The study of psychology has been conceived within the duality of self/unconscious, but
both concepts appear as coverings that lack the images of the true
underlying conflict. However, this duality is our inheritance in psychology: a
way and only one way to see the psyche.

What we have actually inherited is a monotheistic predisposition. It is as if a

the cameraman was filming with a lens that only focuses on the perspective
vertical of the consciousness of the self and the unconscious. But one realizes, once that the
the film has been revealed that what appears in the movie are concepts and symbols, not
images. I would say that the dichotomy I/unconscious tends to conceptualize what arises from
unconscious and this hinders the relationship between the Self and the unconscious. Whatever the
the conception we have of the Self, it is impossible for me to imagine the Self as a receiver of
Images. Traditionally, it is the imagination and the soul that receive images, and
this is valid for psychological processes and for psychotherapy. Now, I would like to
propose that, without changing the topic of our filming, we change the lens of the
camera. So, when filming, we will be able to capture, with a much more precise focus, what
it arises from the Judeo-Monotheistic side of the psyche and what comes from the Pagan-Polytheistic side.
As a result, it becomes possible to start differentiating and obtaining a clearer picture.
of the individual psyche that lies between these two polarities and suffers from the
anxiety born out of conflict. But, for this, we must be particularly
aware of what monotheism tells us within ourselves, while
we are busy focusing on polytheistic images, since the lens that our Self
monotheistic has given us is automatic.

Change the perspective of the self to a consciousness that encompasses both monotheism
as polytheism is, for me, of paramount importance. And that shift in point of
view is only achieved through a 'realization'. In his book Re-visioning Psychology
(4) James Hillman says that the latest works on Judeo-monotheism were
carried out by Sigmund Freud in Moses and Monotheism and by Jung in Response to
Job. (The framework of studies in psychiatry and psychology has primarily relied on
concepts arising from empirical clinical observations on mental illnesses.
Since the beginning of the century, the symbol seemed to dominate the studies of the unconscious. The
the use Freud made of the symbol, understood by Jung as sign and symptom (semiotics),
It obviously originated in his studies on hysterical conversions at the end of the
century; on the other hand, Jung began his psychiatric work with psychotic patients and this
allowed him to carry out his great discovery of religious symbols in the
unconscious of those patients. Here the word symbol is used correctly,
because the original term -symbolon- means the union of something that has previously been
divided. And the symbol is at the base of many of Jung's ideas about opposites
and the reconciliation of opposites. In his book Psychological Types,
I feel that Jung used the symbol and the image interchangeably, giving them the same value.
He then became more specific and defined when dealing with archetypal images.
images became more differentiated, providing us today in that way a field
of broader exploration, where I consider that psychological work develops.
more appropriate and the symbol is considered an attribute of the image. With psychotherapy of
the image has opened a new perspective on hysteria; in psychosis, we feel that
the imaginary responses to the patient's unconscious symbolism foster a better
therapy. And a new finding of the image in psychosomatic disorders offers
a completely new approach to these evils. In examining this, Hillman
it conveys a sense of boredom in a way, implying that the Judeo-Christian source
it is exhausted and that exploration has now shifted towards pagan polytheism.

Now, we gladly support this change of direction, as it is undoubtedly there.

where a whole treasure of images is stored and where they have gone
displaced psychology studies, but we must not confuse the work of scholarship
without overlooking its importance and utility - with the objective of studying the psychic, which,
from my point of view, it would consist of conceiving it as an internalized psychic conflict.

We can conduct numerous studies on pagan myths (5) and, despite that, we do not
to become aware of the cultural anxiety generated by these two powerful forces of
monotheism and polytheism in the psyche. We can conduct numerous investigations
comfortably isolated within our monotheistic predisposition and repeat what a
heir of the studies of natural sciences did when, starting from his own
monotheism, took a polytheistic myth -the myth of Oedipus- and turned it into the original cause
of neurosis, without realizing that the polytheistic myth contains within itself a
unlimited polytheistic imagination; imagination very far from its point of view
monotheistic and scientific.

Personally, I find it difficult to have a vision of the psyche based on opposition.

I/ unconscious. It seems to me a rather unpsychological opposition that inherits that tradition.
monotheist of the identification of the Self with monotheism and, therefore, starting point
for the repression of what is not monotheism. While the other perspective that
I propose: to be aware of both, monotheism and polytheism, seems to adapt.
better to the study, to the discussion of psychic processes and to psychotherapy. When
at least for me it is easier to locate myself within this point of view. Sometimes one gets
ask if the word "psychology" has been adequately applied to the studies that
they bear that name. We must realize that studying the psyche from the point of
the view of the I is more absurd than it is thought.

So let me explain a little more my point of view on this: when in

place to situate ourselves in it I, we maintain ourselves within the perspective of the psyche,
we can better realize our monotheism and have a greater capacity to
detect when it is acting. Obviously, we cannot notice it when
we find ourselves in the I, since the I inevitably involves the point of view
monotheistic and, therefore, represses what is not monotheism. It is essential to recognize
the monotheistic rhetoric in order to read its discourse. We have too much tendency to give
by assumption the monotheistic aspect and, as I said before, this is what contributes to
greatly to that cultural anxiety that we live. We can no longer continue speculating about
the psyche, working to make our soul (soul-making), without having an appreciation of
the complexities and ramifications of monotheism in our psyche and in our life.

For the analyst interested in this proposal -become aware of monotheism and of
polytheism-, the challenge would be to learn to better understand the difference between the
monotheistic rhetoric and polytheistic rhetoric: to forge a memory as abundant as
it is possible to have different styles. What for a man of the Renaissance was the
result of a 'unified memory', for the modern analyst it would be a
differentiation, through its rhetoric, of the material that emerges from the dominant side and
monotheistic of the culture and that emanates from the most repressed pagan side. From the point
From the perspective of psychology, the achievements of the Renaissance man would seem chaotic to him.
modern man, because there is no basic differentiation within his anxiety
cultural. The art of psychotherapy would consist of reflecting based on a type of
memory, which can memorize as much as differentiate between monotheism and polytheism and,
making one's way through cultural anxiety, making the conflict conscious.

Notes and bibliographic references:

(1) For the psychology of creation myths see Marie L. Von Franz. 1072. Patterns of Creativity
Mirrored in Creation Myths. Spring Publications.

(2) An important contribution to the subject of this work is provided by Rivkah Schörf Kluger (1974),
in Psyche and Bible. Zurich. Spring Publications, part I, p. 3, where it states that 'we must also
seriously consider the idea of the chosen people, for it belongs to the main strain of experiences
fundamental religious ideas of the Old Testament. The danger of this idea, its 'shadow' so to speak, is the
hubris, the danger that the collective ego, driven by individuals who identify with it, can take
possession, like an inflation, of that content that originates in the self and overwhelms the personality.

(3) E.R. Dodd. 1965. Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety. Cambridge University Press. (Hay
1975. Pagans and Christians in a Time of Anguish. Madrid. Ediciones Cristiandad.

(4) James Hillman. 1977. Re-visioning Psychology. New York. Harper Colophon Books, p. 226

(5) Martín P. Nilson. 1949. A History of Greek Religion. Translated by F.J. Fielden. Oxford: Clarendon Press, p.
217. (There is a Spanish translation: 1961. History of Greek Religion. Buenos Aires: Eudeba.)

Rafael López-Pedraza was born in 1920 in Santa Clara, Cuba, and in 1949 he settled in Caracas.
Venezuela. In 1962, he travels to Europe and studies Analytical Psychology for 11 years at the C.G. Institute.
Jung from Zurich. In 1974, he returned to Caracas and began his private psychotherapeutic practice. From 1976 to 1989
I gave seminars on Classical Mythology at the School of Letters of the Central University of Venezuela. It is
individual member of the International Association for Analytical Psychology and author of the books: "Hermes and
sus hijos", "Anselm Kiefer : la psicología de 'Después de la Catástrofe'", "Dionisos en Exilio" y "Ansiedad
"Cultural" from which we have extracted the present text.