Interview With Kristo: Part Two
Kristo was so forthcoming in the first part of our interview, that I decided it to break it up. Here's part two. To check out who Kristo is, what functions he thinks dreams have, and how he feels about dream interpretation using Jungian Analysis, check out part one.
LJC: What is your favourite Jungian archetype, and why?
KRISTO: That is a great question! One night I was watching the Simpsons and saw (again) the episode when Apu, the Quickie Mart character was going to be deported back to India if he didn't get his citizenship (I think).Anyway...there was a very funny scene with him wearing a 10 gallon hat and trying to speak like a Texan (at least that's the way I remember it). He was, after all, trying to BE Western and show that he had assimilated himself into the culture. That same night Psyche cooked up an extraordinary image of a powerful figure standing above me on a rock cliff that I had been climbing on a very tall ladder. As I reached the top of the ladder...which did not reach the cliff edge...I saw that the figure was wearing a 10-gallon hat ala Apu and held a hammer in one hand. I watched as he swung the hammer and hit the rock of the cliff right above my head and this left a very particular mark in the stone. I drew the figure in my dream journal and later found out that it was the symbol of the cross of San Birgitta...who is the patroness of Sweden. What was most exciting at the time, was that I was struggling to get a genuine grip on precisely what Jung meant by an archetype. The word comes from the Greek "Typos" which ultimately means that it makes a physical impression. In terms of psychology it means that it makes a physiologic / experiential impression, i.e. it is something that physically and psychologically grabs us. What I observed was actually called an incusation...and is precisely how a manual type-writer works. It makes a physical impression on the paper which is simultaneously filled with ink. I woke up with an experiential understanding of a vital concept that I might have otherwise wrestled with in vain for years. (My goodness...even Robert Bly has said that he hates the word archetype.) In my case the archetype itself, which is still unfolding its nature and slowly revealing its secrets, seems to concern the concept of Western / Eastern consciousness. Jung has actually said that in terms of the evolution of consciousness, Europe (which is where we ultimately come from psychologically...through Greece, via Rome, etc.) is merely a peninsula of Asia. We like to think that our rational, logical way of looking at Nature is superior,
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