Symbols speak straight to the unconscious part of our mind and some of the most powerful symbols we deem to be Archetypes. In this episode we explore the many definitions and uses of Archetypes, from psychology to advertising, and how they are related to the quest for wholeness.
Carl Jung’s Archetypes - a brief overview of Jung’s theory of the mind and its four core Archetypes
Archetypes in Literature - a quick overview of Archetypes in literature and how they differ from Jung’s Archetypes
‘Mean’ Joe Greene Coke commercial
J’Adore Commercial with Charlize Theron
The 12 Brand Archetypes - advice article on how to use archetypes in your company branding and advertisement with video examples
We want to hear from you! Please rate and review us wherever you find this podcast. Join our Patreon: patreon.com/yourmythicu
Symbols speak straight to the unconscious part of our mind and some of the most powerful symbols we deem to be Archetypes. In this episode we explore the many definitions and uses of Archetypes, from psychology to advertising, and how they are related to the quest for wholeness.
Carl Jung’s Archetypes - a brief overview of Jung’s theory of the mind and its four core Archetypes
Archetypes in Literature - a quick overview of Archetypes in literature and how they differ from Jung’s Archetypes
‘Mean’ Joe Greene Coke commercial
J’Adore Commercial with Charlize Theron
The 12 Brand Archetypes - advice article on how to use archetypes in your company branding and advertisement with video examples
We want to hear from you! Please rate and review us wherever you find this podcast. Join our Patreon: patreon.com/yourmythicu
Hello, and welcome back to Mythic U. I'm Erin Branham.
Karen Foglesong:And I'm Karen Foglesong.
Erin Branham:And this episode we are chatting about archetypes, what they are, how they function, why they're important, Karen, why should we care about archetypes?
Karen Foglesong:They're being used on you all the time. Truthfully, archetypes are a type of symbolic language. And they work for me because it's a way to describe the world when language fails. And it's also a way that you can relate to the rest of your community because whether or not we are aware of archetypes or agree with them or not, most of us respond to them on a gut level. Like think of things like Harry Potter or Thor or Star Wars, especially the original Star Wars, specifically in its own time period, is. this is the hero's cycle and the hero's an archetype and we like it, we like to watch it over and over again. And I know there's many people out there going Harry Potter and Star Wars are not the same. But, but they are in this very basic structural level, right? It's still the hero. The archetypes, like I said, even if you don't know what the archetypes are, have never heard the word. You have been brought up with a certain set of symbols, say in a culture and those are working on your psyche, whether you're aware of them or not. How's that?
Erin Branham:Cool. Yeah, definitely, I was poking around a little bit, because it gets the word gets thrown around a lot archetypes. And it does go, it goes actually all the way back to ancient Greeks. And that's it actually means like main image or something like that in Greek, and Jung picked it up. And this is actually where Jung's model of the consciousness comes from, right? You have the Ego and the Persona and the Anima and the Animus and the Self - those are archetypes Yes, in his psychology. And then he also went on to talk about the kinds of roles that you would totally recognize from a story like Star Wars, Hero, Sage, Creator, you know, Artist, like all these different Rebel, right, these kinds of things.
Karen Foglesong:Yes, Mother, Father, definitely.
Erin Branham:And Campbell, really seem to hold that Archetypes emerge straight from universal human experience, that like every human being's first experience is of their mother's body. Therefore, the mother archetype and all the things that come with it, every human experiences, day and night, even if you're blind, you experience the difference between day and night. It is a fundamental thing of human existence. So like that polarity, light and dark, yes, you're gonna find that showing up even across cultures, because it's so fundamental. That's what I think of archetypes is core, fundamental, as universal as universal can get kinds of symbols. Because you were talking about then there's sort of like cultural symbols and cultural artifacts that come that are not universal to all humans, but are specific, like to your experience. So what's your understanding of like, an archetype? Like what are we talking about here today?
Karen Foglesong:So like you've pointed out, archetype is a word that's bandied about all over the place. And part of that is because literature uses the word archetype to talk about structures within a story, like Luke from Star Wars is the Hero. Obi Wan is the Sage or the Mentor, or Pocahontas is the Hero and the willow tree is the Mentor So in grade school, and high school, middle
Erin Branham:or the Guardian. school, you probably got the word archetype probably came up because your Lit teachers, have you pull apart the story, right? And then in psychology, we get the archetype. And I think you did a great job of differentiating between Jung and the root of the word and Campbell's, where Campbell's taken it. And I kind of think of it similarly, but I also think of it as a pre language language, or a language of the subconscious. So it's like a dream language. It's like the language that your dream self speaks. Yeah. And that was why I had to go look up what Jung said about it, because I think of it that way, too. And then I was like, oh, no, well, he is, in his way had written a whole bunch of other kind of stuff, like I say about that the Ego and the Persona and the Self and all of that, which I always just thought of as sort of his model of the mind. I didn't think of those as Archetypes.
Karen Foglesong:Yeah,
Erin Branham:so that was a really interesting, but that has always made a lot of sense to me like I've done some dream work. And that is very much about identifying the symbols in your dreams as as messages from your unconscious mind to your conscious mind. That you're trying to work through some issue in that deep part of yourself. And your conscious mind is not all that involved.
Karen Foglesong:Right?
Erin Branham:And so your dreams are throwing these symbols out to your conscious mind trying to get your conscious mind involved.
Karen Foglesong:Yeah.
Erin Branham:And then we don't pay attention to them. We don't really - we dismiss them. But there's really like great information and those symbols that are coming up from your unconscious.
Karen Foglesong:Yeah, it's true. And people that know that my schooling includes depth psychology often come to me and asked me, What does this dream mean? And they always hate my answer. Because if you're going from a Jungian perspective, then all the characters in your dream, are you. There's no prophecy other than what you are connected to the universe through, you know, like, it's not, if you dream about your dad, hitting you in the head a dozen times, it's not really your own father is going to hit you in the head. It's about like how your psyche views the father in itself, like, and it's not just like how you think of dad of your dad, it's also how your psyche, in the placement of your psyche, the area where your masculine ideals are at, the Father will be reflected there, right? So my first answer to them is always well, it's all you. And that's where that's where I lose them.
Erin Branham:Like, I know, when we did that, we when we when we had this rule, we had the dream group, we had a rule where you were not allowed to tell somebody what their symbol meant, right? And so they would say I saw a staircase and you would your response would be okay, what is a staircase? Explain it to me like I'm from Mars,
Karen Foglesong:right? Yes, exactly.
Erin Branham:Get down, down down to the fundamental aspect of what that symbol is and what it might and then you explain, pull it apart. And that's a lot of what we're talking about, like this is a way to live to create a spirituality or a set of symbols. That makes some sense to you. What means you got a lot of work to do. Yes, it's not Yeah, there's no, this is not a trick answer. This is not the like, we're gonna pick you up and move you to the finish line. No, it's like, you gotta get in there. Definitely and hash it out. But it's loads of fun. So
Karen Foglesong:yeah. And and this is why I tend to lean more towards Jungian psychology than Freudian based psychology because Jungian based psychology says it's up to you. You have to do the work. There's not a pill I can give you the It wasn't your mommy's fault. It was like, you have to figure out what those symbols mean to you.
Erin Branham:Right.
Karen Foglesong:So we can talk about like mommy means caregiver, mommy means, but
Erin Branham:not everybody.
Karen Foglesong:It's not true for everybody. Yeah, it's not true for everybody. So what we can say is that mommy, as an archetype is this super feminine, not super feminine, as in like, flowery or soft, like the definition of feminine, but this role that the highest place of the feminine sits for you. And if your mommy was mean to you, then that's not going to be
Erin Branham:sweet and nurturing space for you
Karen Foglesong:You know, a happy place. Oh, so archetypes are playing out in our dreams. They're playing out in our world, we, we write about them. And we're showing them to each other in our movies, even somebody who doesn't know anything about archetypes, if they do like a little home movie. If you compare that to a modern movie, you'll see that they're kind of fulfilling these specific roles within that movie or within their creation. Right?
Erin Branham:Right. Because we have certain patterns of storytelling.
Karen Foglesong:Yes. Patterns of storytelling
Erin Branham:that revolve around this stuff.
Karen Foglesong:Yes. Yeah. So where I'm trying to talk about today is where we see archetypes on a daily basis. And one of those places is in our television commercials that are pushing kind of a group consensus about what our culture is like, what our reality is going to be like, how we function with one another, those kinds of things.
Erin Branham:Oh, I love that. Because it's just I imagined, like archetypes are the super powerful communicators, and ads want to manipulate everybody, yes.
Karen Foglesong:Right.
Erin Branham:Like they're trying to do it fast. They're trying to do it that hard and catch as many people as they can.
Karen Foglesong:Yes, as quickly as possible, right? 30 seconds actually. It's like more like 27 seconds. Once they you know, get it worked into the programming.
Erin Branham:Absolutely.
Karen Foglesong:So we're not all watching the same TV shows. But in general, we're all watching the same commercials. So this is a way that we can look at archetypes in a more general sense because you may have not have watched Harry Potter or you may not have watched Star Wars, but you probably did see, you know, a drug commercial or I get tickled nowadays because when you and I were kids, the feminine hygiene commercials were all these, like, when my favorite was a white horse in a field, always, you know, like this chick sitting on a horse and a field. And now like this generation has a couple sitting in a canoe, and they spring a leak, and the girl pulls out a tampon and sticks it in the hole you know, like,
Erin Branham:I haven't seen that, that's great,
Karen Foglesong:very different. So let's look at the television is kind of like our cultural campfire. Like if we're a tribal community, and we're sitting around the campfire sharing stories, to talk about our communal experience, the television has become our campfire. Basically, that's what we're sitting around.
Erin Branham:I would agree with that. I think that's an interesting artifact of our upbringing as Gen Xers. I'm not sure the TV is the cultural campfire it used to be but we'll talk about
Karen Foglesong:Yes.
Erin Branham:Meaning it's split off. Yeah. Right. But during our childhood, right, you grew up in the 60s 70s 80s It absolutely was the cultural campfire of the entire Western world, right,
Karen Foglesong:You either Dynasty person or a Dallas person, and you didn't mix. I can't think of what was on the other stations because I was a Facts of Life girl. So but there was, you know, Facts of Life was on Channel Five, I think. And then other groups were around, you know, because if there's only three TV stations, the other thing that will shift about the television commercials is because I've been paying attention to this for a long time. So if you're in a different region, obviously, if you're in a different country, the TV commercials will be different. And even within the United States, if you're in the south, the television commercials will be a little bit different than the ones that are playing in Las Vegas, it might still be the same product. But you know, just basic things are different. So they'll be a little bit different. So you're gonna see that kind of differentiation around the campfire too. The commercials that I picked for today's discussion, I think are pretty universal. And I picked one from some around the 70s, late 70s With Mean Joe Greene. From football, so some of you may recognize him. Some of you may not
Erin Branham:if you're under the age of 45. Look it up on YouTube.
Karen Foglesong:There you go. look him up on YouTube. There you go. Right named
Erin Branham:Joe Greene coke commercial. Trust me, it'll be
Karen Foglesong:Yes. And we have the link to the specific
Erin Branham:Yeah. When I was reading this, it reminded me of right there. commercial in our notes at the end of the show. Right? Yeah, we've got on there. Okay, so you have just been watching this
Karen Foglesong:Yeah. commercial and you have this big African American man limping off the football field. And he's going through the vom. And if you guys don't know this, the vom are those little entries
Erin Branham:And he's gotten recruited to coach the like that the Zamboni comes out at the hockey game. The you know, the football players run out when you're at a big stadium. But these this vom goes all the way back to Roman coliseums. Right. So this is important. It's like putting us in our setting. Right? This is a great warrior. This vom shows us that he's a great warrior because he's coming through this entryway that is historical, right? Okay, so he's going back, he's leaving the field of battle and he's going back to the locker room. And right here tells us your archetype, right? Here's the warrior, leaving the field of battle. He's injured. He's walking off the field, right? Okay, so this is very peewee football league that Binkley is in and he shows up stylized football is very stylized form of war, but this is what we recognize in our culture, right? a Bloom County comic. Again, referring back to our gray on Gen X cultural history, Bloom County and it was like Milo's granddad who was the you know, the conservative avatar in that series literally like in his world war two uniform with all of his like medals and and a hard hat like a helmet on. And he's standing there yelling at these terrified skinny little boys. And he says Men, Football is war. God, I love it.
Karen Foglesong:Okay, so that's perfect. I haven't ever seen that particular one, but that's perfect. Yes. So go with me on this stylized war, right. Okay, now we have this tiny little Caucasian boy that is politely trying to get this warriors attention right? Excuse me. Excuse me, sir. Right. And the old warrior obviously needs to tend to his wounds. He's injured and he wants to be left alone, right. This is and remember this is all happening in 30 seconds or less. Right? Okay. So the young man is carrying an elixir he has a Coca Cola, an icy cold Coca Cola. That is going to make the warrior feel better. And he offers this drink, this elixir three times and is refused three times. Now this is another magical number. Like, if you're looking at symbols, right, three wishes, three knocks, this indicates to our psyche that we are in the realm of magic. We know this, we recognize it, even if you don't think about it consciously. Your subconscious is recognizing this. Okay? So Mean Joe Greene is known for being mean, right? That's where his nickname comes from. And he's injured. But this wonderful magical Coca Cola makes him smile, right? And of course, this is the slogan have a coke and a smile. I think coke has been using that for generations, right?
Erin Branham:They've been after this. Coke is a magical elixir that transcends all boundaries, like goes all the way back to I'd like to teach the world to sing. Yes. Another 70s Classic. That was where I think they picked it up. Right. And then they even wrap that into Mad Men. I don't know if you ever watched Mas Men, but that at the end of the whole thing, the horrible Donald Draper who has been this drunk, misogynistic, miserable person, he invents the I'd like to teach the world to sing. That's the last thing that happens.
Karen Foglesong:Oh, that's brilliant.
Erin Branham:So go figure that right? It was interesting. Definitely.
Karen Foglesong:I could chew on that for a while.
Erin Branham:Definitely.
Karen Foglesong:Okay. So what else are we looking at here? The time period is the mid 70s. Racism is pretty harsh at this time. You guys, we were just coming out of segregation, right? So I was born in 71. I know it's impolite to give away your age as a woman, but I don't really care. I'm really proud. I made it this far. So my high school, my vice principal was the principal from the African American school, right? They just mush them together. And of course, still the principal was a Caucasian man still, because you can't be in charge at that time if you're an African American, right. So the point I'm picture I'm trying to make here is that it's not a good time to be of a different color in this country. I don't know when it was, I think it's better now. But especially in this point in time. So we have this super powerful warrior guy. And this tiny, little, small, Caucasian kid, who is the Possessor of the magic elixir, or the coke in this case, and really important for the advertisers to get across is that it sets up this idea that the magic elixir is actually good for athletes, right? Not only like you pointed out, they're crossing boundaries. But we're trying to say that this sugary drink is good for an athlete, right? So. So we're crossing between health and non health. We're creating space to cross racial lines. And that's true magic. And of course, you should buy Coke, right?
Erin Branham:Absolutely.
Karen Foglesong:Look at the social inequality there, though. Like this little boy who's not a warrior has power in this situation. Right is carrying the magic elixir, and has the power to interrupt the warrior on his journey. Right,
Erin Branham:right to turn Mean Joe Greene into a smiling happy, feels better, all of those things. So have you seen their latest one, their latest commercial, which is it's called a round the table around the world. And it shows all of these different families of many different ethnicities, right? Like there's Korean and family and Latino family and an East Asian family and South Asian family and white people and all this stuff, they're all eating their distinct foods while drinking Coke. Well,
Karen Foglesong:I think I have seen that one. And it goes
Erin Branham:in and out from the food and back around the table. So you see everybody that goes into the food, and then it shows coke and they've all got the Coca Cola, because coke transcends all the boundaries. Coke brings us together. Right? Like, that's the message that they're trying to give to us.
Karen Foglesong:Yeah, and we're swapping, you know, diabetes for family gatherings. But hey, you know, if, if a coke gets you through that family gathering, and nobody's mean to each other, I say go for it. I think
Erin Branham:so, I mean, I think that's really fascinating, because advertising works on that sort of fact that because I was thinking about this and as we were writing it, I was like, Yeah, but why should I care? I don't pay any attention to ads. I'm a great anti consumer. I just they can bounce right off of me. Right, but it sounds like you're saying Nope, they go straight. They just skip your conscious mind.
Karen Foglesong:Yes.
Erin Branham:And go straight to your unconscious and start
Karen Foglesong:I am the same way I believe that I am not racking you up. affected by commercials because I know the secret right? But yes, even if you consciously only see a football game and a coke your unconscious has registered the different variables, the warrior is an archetype that plays heavily in our psyches. We all have battles to fight or demons to bring to heel. So the power of archetype makes us see and hear this message on a deeper level than we think like the warrior internally would be who we would need to activate out of our personalities to make a battle, like whatever it is, you know, you want to change something about yourself, an addiction, you're having trouble at work, those are all battles that we're fighting on a daily basis. And then I was thinking about this too, while we were writing that even if you mute your television, your unconscious mind is still registering the flickering image. So it's still picking up the archetype movement?
Erin Branham:Sure, well, I'm in because you don't need sound to recognize the Wounded Warrior going down the van. Yeah, like that is an image you've seen over and over and over again, you know what it means, you know, even if you don't hear even I was thinking about that the innocent child, the innocent magical child, or the child, the innocent child that can bring in magic, that's a archetypal image that we've seen over and over and over again. So it definitely is getting right in there. And very effective manipulation there.
Karen Foglesong:We love them both. And one last thing here is that the racial disparities, as we've said, reinforce the status quo of our culture. And of course, this is acknowledging the shift, the racist can mix enough to share a coke. Remember, it's magic. But the young white boy is still clearly in charge of the situation, which indicates that even a seasoned warrior may be tamed or subdued by the elite. Right? So I know like some people are going to be going What?. It's just a coke commercial, right?
Erin Branham:That's part of why they chose to do that set of images
Karen Foglesong:is also playing on the story patterns that you talked about,
Erin Branham:right like that, that regardless of it, we all know the point of ads is to manipulate us. Yeah, that is what they are trying to do. So that is a very, very interesting breakdown.
Karen Foglesong:If you follow through and you go buy an ice cold coke, you're gonna get a little rush from the purchase of this coke, because your subconscious has already put it on its shopping list. It's the magic elixir, right? So and then you're gonna get the sugar rush, the chemical process, and by the time you come down from that you will focus on something else and you won't even remember
Erin Branham:you got manipulated.
Karen Foglesong:Yep, it's all gone.
Erin Branham:That is clever. You gotta get it. Gotta give something to it, that it does actually work. Okay, do you have another one for us?
Karen Foglesong:Yeah, I have one more. I mean, we can go through any if you want to fling out one but these are ones that are effective examples. So and this, this one again, is available on YouTube also. And this is the I think I'm pronouncing this right. J'Adore, Dior perfume. Does that sound about right? I don't think it's a ya sound.
Erin Branham:But I think it's like a J'taime. Alright, sounds French.
Karen Foglesong:There you go. Yes. All right. Charlize Theron is the star of this commercial. And I love this commercial. It just fascinates me endlessly. And this one came out I think around 2019. So it's a lot more modern. So first, we have this dark mysterious interior with half nude women and Ghazi material laying out on platforms, there's incense in the air. And all these images are going to invoke temples and sacred interiors for us. And this indicates to the subconscious that this is something that it really should be paying attention to. Because the sacred interiors are its language, right? So this tunes us in Oh, right there. Then we have a perfect blonde woman in the perfect pool of not just normal water, but golden water. Since shimmering, it reflects. And again, we're indicating on earthly or extra extraordinary stuff, right? And again, 2019 But we're still focused on the white woman is the center stage, right? And she's in special placement. She's new. She's the only one that's completely nude, and she's in this magical gold water. Right. So the viewer is in fact Discovering the secret place that is reminiscent of ancient temples and the unconscious recognizes it.
Erin Branham:Devlin I took a look at that because I hadn't seen it before and it seemed very like said the fact that she's the only one who's nude in the whole thing is very much about teasing her nudity. Yeah, right. She's looking down, she looks up she moves forward. She starts to rise out just right to the like nipple line
Karen Foglesong:and the boobs float just right!
Erin Branham:And then she gets out they but they show you her naked feet then they backlight her so that you can see the shape, but not the details. Like it's very much about like that, that teasing the nudity. Like that's how they build some tension in there. Yes, seduction?
Karen Foglesong:Absolutely all this pagan imagery, right? And we're in a Christian culture, right? None of these things are in, in church when you go. So where's this magic temple? Right? So this is my favorite part of this commercial. I love showing it to people and going Did you see the cross and you're like, what, what grace, but right in it, like it's in the middle of all this pagan imagery, they pull out. And if you look at it, the pool is in the shape of across the entire pool. There's women lounging all around the cross. But that quick flash of that cross, lets your subconscious off the hook. If you're a Christian, oh,
Erin Branham:how does that matter if you're not seeing it if you'd like it's so quick that you're barely even seeing it?
Karen Foglesong:because your unconscious is grabbing it right? It's the language that it speaks its dream language. And once the cross is there, then the Christian stamp is on it. And you are good to go. You can like kind of interact with this golden pool. It's you have permission, right? The unconsciousness not only seeing it, but it's grabbing it as permission to be included in this decadent scene. And inherent in Christianity is this guilt for any natural urge, right? Anything that is considered animal, there's guilt about it, because this sets up a love hate dynamic within us. So there's a little bit of guilt at this decadent scene is kind of titillating, right, we've talked about the seduction, and it's,
Erin Branham:And that's always been like the very direct and but it's like safe danger. Because there's this quick release. There's this mild tension built about the seduction and the Oh, it's it's not, you know, it's not the right symbols, but it's still alluring. And then we have permission, and then the tension eases and the cross is right there in the middle of it. So another way is that these are the cool people are the beautiful people and we want to be included among them. All of us do we always want to be in the inner crowd. It's pack animal behavior, right? So remember, capitalism needs us to feel like there's something wrong with this. Because there has to be something wrong with you so that you'll go buy, right if you already smell nice. If you already look good. If you already don't need a diet, if you you know, then there what are you buying? So are you one easy kind of thing to see that right. You just here's a beautiful person. Here's the thing they use, use this thing of the beautiful people? And most of us don't think we are so if you don't think so. Or you will never be this message tells us that if you go buy this perfume, you'll be included in and you'll be like, yeah, beautiful person is like the the collection of beautiful folks. Right? simplest equation in most ads, but I definitely thought this was very funny. Like, this ad was very interesting because of the way it kept teasing, as you say, I think that kind of titillation is very Christian. Right? It's not a full embracing of sexuality or sensuality. It's sex and nudity are forbidden. You know, they're sinful, therefore, they're tempting. So there's your tension, but it's a very adolescent kind of attention. Yeah, like, as I'm watching it, I was like, why is this putting me in the place of 13 year old boy, am I gonna get to see your boobs? Like, I don't even want to see Charlize Theron's boobs.
Karen Foglesong:You're waiting for it there.
Erin Branham:You can't help. But and that goes to like, sort of the things that are in our culture is that that's a big deal in our culture, if you actually get to see some nipples, on a - on a woman, I see men's nipples all the time, but God
Karen Foglesong:help us I wish we didn't have to, but you know.
Erin Branham:So, so these are striking me very much a sort of archetype is a mirror image. But archetypes are everywhere, right? They're in art. They're in stories. They're in history, or at least the interpretation of history. Do you have a favorite example of an archetype? That's like truly powerful, something that speaks to you because it's like archetypal energy.
Karen Foglesong:I tend to lean towards most of my life, I leaned towards kind of like, feminine warrior, like an Artemis type of archetype.
Erin Branham:That was one of my big ones, but was like Woman Warrior. I was raised on Wonder Woman - and Amazons.
Karen Foglesong:Wonder Woman was Yeah, Wonder Woman is it? And Jo from Facts of Life.
Erin Branham:Jo, so you go right. Definitely. That's that was there's a modern interpretation. You know, we've had a rich field of warrior woman with the whole superhero movie era that will apparently never ever end.
Karen Foglesong:Comic books are the perfect storyboard for movies, man.
Erin Branham:Oh, I know, but my God - it's just a lot. I liked superheroes and comic books. And I'm like, I don't want to see another one. Too many. Too many. We went to see The Woman King this weekend.
Karen Foglesong:Oh, is that good?
Erin Branham:Yes, it was fantastic movie. I don't think it's terribly historically accurate. And sort of the way it sets up. It's a little bit of an underdog story. And my understanding is that is not actually the relationship of the Dahomey to the rest of the tribes in the area. They were not underdogs. Quite the opposite it appears from what I've looked at. But I've done very little really looking at but but in terms of like being a story about warrior women, it is fantastic. Because there's enough of them typically, right? In most of our stories, we have one, maybe, right? If she's there at all, you get one. So this was fascinating, because it's about a corps of warrior women. So there are several and they're different. And they have distinct personalities, and they're different kinds. And just the fact that you get to see more than one - wildly refreshing.
Karen Foglesong:And is there a man that comes in and saves them at the end? Or do they save themselves?
Erin Branham:There is a very, very beautiful eye candy man who does nothing.
Karen Foglesong:Eye Candy man oh, my gosh. So hard not to just, you know, flip it to be equal. But I do so enjoy the eye candy man. I do. I didn't know I was missing it all this time. Yeah, I would have to watch the movie, too. Right? Like
Erin Branham:Right. And he is pretty, but that's about all there is in terms of that. It is very, very much a woman story. that archetype, I think is somewhat different. This is So I appreciated that. I'm glad to see that. I think it's interesting. We could do a whole thing I think on sort of what's the difference between the warrior man archetype and the warrior woman archetype. Yeah, because they are different. But You're home. Yeah, that's what that's the student that wrote it would take me some time to think about it. where we get into Campbell's heroic cycle. And which, if you've done any kind of screenwriting, or you've ever heard of The Hero with 1000 Faces, or you know, if you've seen Star Wars, you've seen the heroic cycle, hero gets called to adventure has to go through obstacles go down into the belly of the beast, bring back a boon that saves his tribe basically is like the basic cycle of it. And typically, what he wins in the end is a woman, right? Like or he returns to the female or he comes back. And Campbell taught at Sarah Lawrence College, which was a women's college. And one time he had one of his students come up to him and go, Okay, this is great. But it's a man story. What's the woman's story of this? And he said, Oh, no, women don't have a story. You're just You're home. You're the you
Karen Foglesong:she wrote a book right called The Heroines -
Erin Branham:Did she actually write it
Karen Foglesong:Yeah, The Heroines Journey,
Erin Branham:then? So then yes, as somebody else came out and wrote, wrote The Heroine's Journey, and then I read about that, which is different. But what I realized is the hero cycle of Campbell, is the heroic cycle for somebody who is in power in a culture, who is accepted, who has the ability to access, that's why it's male, usually, it's a white male, the feminine heroic cycle, or the heroines journey, is the story of somebody who does not already have power in the society because
Karen Foglesong:they don't necessarily need to be associated with gender. It's just about the power structure.
Erin Branham:Yeah, I didn't think so. When I sat when I finally sat down and read them both, I did not think it had to do with gender, I think it has to do with power structure. And because the hero's cycle assumes that the hero is somebody who can hold power in that culture, right, even if they don't have it right now, they can hold it there they are, of they're structured in such a way that they can, and that other one, the heroine cycle is of somebody who needs to release themselves from the society's oppression and find themselves outside of the role that society has given them. So it is like said, I don't think it's gendered at all, personally, right? I think it works out that way in reality, that that tends to be a man's story and this tends to be a woman's story. But I mean, good lord, think of colonialism and all that this every person of color story to Yes, yeah, they're very interesting.
Karen Foglesong:I would agree
Erin Branham:Do you have any others that you really like? is an interesting as similarly, I go through that
Karen Foglesong:Yeah, I feel like I associate in my older age and I find more and more that I'm like, and I don't know what with the Trickster more commonly, because the Trickster supplies, the solution, seemingly out of nowhere, but it really is just an amalgamation of interactions that they've had, you know, and the Trickster can shift the situation. And it could just be that I'm going through menopause and I'm not associated, like so bound by the gender anymore. You know, that let's I hadn't really thought about it being in terms of where could be too that I am in my life right now. because I'm more and more sort of like non binary sounds alright. Like I could do that. I can see where that would be a big advantage. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't think about it in terms of menopause like, well, you know, sort of done. Yeah, various things that women do. And when the, when the hormones let go of you for five seconds, like, oh, it was like, suddenly like, whoa, why was I worried about that? Like, what?
Erin Branham:See, I thought that was more like life transitions. I was telling everybody, I was like, Oh, it's great when you're 50. Because it's like you've been carrying around this big basket full of other people's expectations all your life. You cross 50. And you just go That's heavy. Why am I carrying that shit around?
Karen Foglesong:Yeah. There's that too, don't you made a really good point in passing to your relationship to an archetype absolutely shifts as you grow and individuate both psychologically, and well, I would say psychologically, chemically and physically, like, all of those things, will shift your perspective. And absolutely, according to Jungian theory, if there's something going on in your psyche, and you're refusing to deal with it, the archetype that that is associated with will turn more and more into a monster,
Erin Branham:which is neurosis.
Karen Foglesong:Yes. I had this recurring dream when I was younger that this creature would chase me through my dreams, it was kind of reptilian, but it wasn't a snake or a frog. It was kind of a morphic, you know. So anyway, as I did this archetypal work, I came across the theory that if something is chasing you, you have to stop and turn around and face it, right? And the minute that I was able to get myself, my dream self to stop and turn around and face it, it just fell apart. I mean, I suddenly noticed that it was some child in a frog, a furry Frog Suit, and it disappeared. And I was chasing it. Like, why have you been chasing me? Why? Like it it just and then eventually, it just dissipated. I never had the dream again. So like, I don't consciously have an answer for you of what I was dealing with. But even if you solve the problem in your dreams, it plays out in your psyche, right? So
Erin Branham:exactly. In a weird sort of ripple way. I had a similar thing like that, where I had repeated dreams of being, of driving a car on a highway on an on an elevated interstate, right? Sometimes it would morph into the Mississippi bridge. Right, Karen, I both grew up around Memphis. And there is a great big bridge I 40 that goes over the Mississippi River, which is a mile across at Memphis, it is a big ass River.
Karen Foglesong:My favorite is that one exit ramp that they've never completed. And it just stops. Just the it's still there. It's still there.
Erin Branham:So sometimes it'd be on the bridge. And also, if you drive up and down the Mississippi River at other places, there are bridges that go way up high, because ships need to be able to get underneath them. So sometimes you'll find yourself on this bridge where you're where you're like facing the sky. And in the driver's seat. Yeah, you just sort of trust that there's going to be another side to it. So you just have these anxiety dreams of being on those kinds of roads going up high and I couldn't see the other side. And then I would realize it was going very fast. And then I would realize my eyes were closed. Whoa. Which is terrifying. And I just could always imagine myself laying there asleep trying to open my eyes because I'm having a grip of this nightmare. So I'm sitting there going for an open my eyes. So tell us in the dream group, I'd had this dream for years, decades, even tell it in the dream group. And somebody just looked at me and they said, quit trying to control it. Why are you trying to control the car? Quit trying to control it. And maybe you'll fly. And I was like, Oh, wow, that's an interesting concept. And within two or three days, I had a dream I was driving on I 40. It was very specific. And the car started to roll off into the side like the gravelly side, the shoulder of the road. And and I started to get freaked out. And I thought just let it go. Let's see what happens. And I did indeed fly. And I had one of those wonderful like movie dreams. Wow. You know, like it goes on forever. And there's like plot points and different characters. And I still remember pieces of it because it was something else. I never had that dream. Wow. Never had the anxiety dream again. Wow. And I was like, wow, definitely. And I just know I'm sure I at some point shed some desire to control some part of my life.
Karen Foglesong:That's beautiful. That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah.
Erin Branham:That was a that was one of my best ones. Like one of my best dream experience. I was thinking about the archetypes and you know what one of my favorite ones is? The Crew. The Crew. I like The Crew, The Crew, The Crew, the found family, the band of misfits that come together. I'm a Star Trek person. Right. Yeah, like Star Trek and Watership Down are the two.
Karen Foglesong:Those are great crew movies. Yeah
Erin Branham:Two things that are like all about and I realized that I was sitting there going, it's one of the problems that you have with Trek is there's a bunch of archetypes. But the truth is, is you tend to love all of them. That is very much an ensemble space. Yeah, and Watership Down is just like so much about The Crew. And I've really more and more come to really love the idea of the crew and found family and life, creating life meaning through achieving something as a group, that's a very powerful archetype. It's interesting, because I see it showing up more and more like, we seem to be experiencing some level of a shift away from the singular hero to the ensemble of interesting characters who are doing something together.
Karen Foglesong:I'm really excited by that.
Erin Branham:It's nice, I like it. I'm very, we went through a big again, coming up, like in the 70s, and 80s. We were it was a very singular hero kind of time. It was very, the great man of history, theory of history was everywhere, right? Why did this happen? Because Napoleon was there.
Karen Foglesong:No other short man would have done.
Erin Branham:Exactly. And so we were constantly just hearing about this, like how this singular person changed everything. But I think that we've really certainly since probably, since the aughts have seen more and more of a trend towards groups of Harry Potter, even like Harry Potter, like Harry, is boring as all get out.
Karen Foglesong:I disagree.
Erin Branham:Oh, Harry is the most generic hero, ever. He would not be interesting if it were not for Hermione, and Ron and the rest of the cast around him.
Karen Foglesong:I would go with you on that. It is the crew. That is interesting.
Erin Branham:It's the crea that's interesting. Not him personally.
Karen Foglesong:Right. I think that that is purposeful, that he's not meant to be the star. Because like you said, we're shifting.
Erin Branham:I agree, it's more of an ensemble kind of a story. Yeah, it really, there's and the further you get into it, right, the ensemble grows and grows. And then there's little groups of ensembles in there with all it's, like, very rich world. But yeah, I love the crew.
Karen Foglesong:It still ends up being that like there's this one point that he has to be alone. Oh, sure. So it kind of collapses in on itself happened there. But
Erin Branham:she definitely I think within the individual stories, there's tends to be a kind of heroic cycle in the individual books, because yeah, you almost always end up with Harry facing something alone at the end, which always begs the question for me is why everybody at Hogwarts doesn't go hey, it's April, we should leave because Voldemort is gonna show up sometime in the next six weeks. So
Karen Foglesong:I always my thing with magical movies is that everybody has all this magical power, but they won't work together. Like, God. Okay, I know you're not the super guy. You only can do this thing with your wand. But if all five of you do that one little thing at the same time with your wand then you have
Erin Branham:which is why I love
Karen Foglesong:the crew. Right? I love it too, because I'm hoping that it helps us to move from this kind of monotheistic, mono, Hero, mono everything to the poly, where we can be more accepting of one another.
Erin Branham:This is what we were talking about before that like the idea of Jung's ego, these are these are archetypes the ego the ego is a part of you that wants, the ego is the part of you that's vicious, the ego is the part of you that that goes after things. And the ego is very singular. It is very much I am out for me and I am out for me as the archetype within the whole being. It is all about me that is the ego and the self is all about wholeness. The self the ego does not want to experience pain, it's going to avoid pain. The self was like hey man, pain is part of existence. We should experience that. Egos like f you, I'm out of here. And I thought about that in terms of what we were talking about that like there's a singular quality versus the wholeness quality. And that that like right, you're the crew is kind of more of a symbol of the wholeness, quality, and that if everybody brings what they have to the deal, I have to admit like I'm not a huge fan of all I mean, I will watch all the Marvel movies and they're fun and the Avengers and whatnot in blahdy blah. But my favorite part of the whole big giant extravaganza of the last two movies with the bazillion people in them is Ant Man. Right like they keep throwing Ant Man in there to do something like right at the right moment because it's such a weird little power.
Karen Foglesong:Yes.
Erin Branham:But at this particular moment, man, nobody's gonna be able to do it like him, that's why I love Watership Down man when the strongest biggest warrior rabbit is down and dying, who brings in the final thing? the little tiny scared Pipkin is the only one who can fit in the hole to bite the peg through so that Bigwig can be free. It's just beautiful. Like everybody brings a talent. And the reason I love that book so much is because it's the leader and it is so much about. I am here to facilitate this, bringing everybody and all of their powers together so that we as a group can survive. And I have such admiration for that.
Karen Foglesong:Facilitate. Yes, not save, facilitate. That's right. Yeah, absolutely. I agree that it Yeah. Makes. I've never asked you what your favorite archetype is. And I feel very remiss right now in this moment, but it makes total sense to me that you are into the crew.
Erin Branham:Crew has great crews. Beautiful, infinite diversity in infinite combinations.
Karen Foglesong:Like when I said Artemis and The trickster, did you go? Oh, yeah, that's Karen.
Erin Branham:Oh, for sure. 100%. Artemis is definitely, and the trickster. didn't pause on the trickster. The Trickster is such a great. Such a great thing. I don't know that I I love the trickster. I don't know that how much of it I have in myself. But it's why I love comedy. Right. What are comedians, but yeah, Tricksters? Yeah, right. They lead you down a road and then go.
Karen Foglesong:And I've always liked the Trickster because of the gesture to like that's the one persona that can tell the king he's full of it.
Erin Branham:Right, the wise fool the one who through madness can speak truth to power.
Karen Foglesong:Yes. truth to power. So the Trickster has always been interesting to me, because that's the one that goes like that. You know, we're going straight. Everybody's being straight. And the tricksters like Oh, yeah.
Erin Branham:Like, definitely, and who is helping the tricksters to upend the social order, right is to say, yeah, if you're powerful, then you're going to be low. If you're low, you're going to be powerful. That's what I do. Right? Like I Yes, I flip the rules. I flip the script on everybody. And I don't care. I don't care what happens, right. Like, I'm just here to like, mix it up.
Karen Foglesong:Yeah. So here's the caveat with the Trickster is that I eventually learned through studying it that the only way that the Trickster is effective is if there is a strong leader. If there is already strength, like a movement forward, then the Trickster has purpose.
Erin Branham:Oh, that's a very good point. If you didn't have the order, what would the Trickster do?
Karen Foglesong:Yeah, it's like night and day, there are two sides of the same coin, and you can't have one without the other. So
Erin Branham:Fascinating. That's very true.
Karen Foglesong:That's one of the sucky parts about growing up. Because, you know, in the in the throes of the hormones, you're like, we're gonna burn down the world and make it better. Oh, well, I need the crew.
Erin Branham:And then they realize, oh, some of these things are inherent. Yes. Gotta have the crew. I was funny. I'm thinking about that, in terms of Star Trek has a lot of tricksters and it works very well, because it is - the core setup of Star Trek is almost military space. Right? Right. It's all about order. It's all about order. It's about chains of command. It's about everybody knows what they're supposed to be doing right now. So that we can all work together, which is great and everything. But that's why they do so well with trickster characters, because you can always throw somebody into that. And it's automatic problem.
Karen Foglesong:Yes. Automatic like Q of Next Gen. Q. And Q is an interesting character, because he's also the power structure. And he's the trickster.
Erin Branham:Well, he has the power, but he's not the power structure. Right. And he's not trying to bring people in to his structure and be like, be a part of this. He wants to pop in and blow their structures into chaos.
Karen Foglesong:That's true. That's true. But he's more he's definitely more powerful than the humans that he's interacting with.
Erin Branham:100% definitely very powerful. But I think that I guess you're right, often implied about the trickster, I think is that they have much more power at their disposal. That's why they're scary, right. Tricksters are also sort of scary, because they do have this. If nothing more, they generally have the ability to go keep messing with me. And I will turn this into total chaos. Yeah, I'm just giving you a taste. Right now.
Karen Foglesong:There's a Native American myth, and I can't think of what tribe it is. But the gist of it is that Raven, in this culture, Trickster is the Raven often, and he manifests to get light on the on the world and there, but it's a really weird story. And it's why it's one of my favorites because there's already a world and there's a man and a woman. And the Trickster turns itself into a drop of water, so that the woman swallows him so that he can be the baby that she births. And then there's all this familiar interaction of the baby crying and Father complaining that the baby's spoiled. And then still being kind of grandfatherly and giving the baby what it wants and what the baby wants is inside this magical chest. And once he has it, he lets it go and it becomes the sun. And then it becomes the moon.
Erin Branham:Right? All the light in the world. So sun was in the box.
Karen Foglesong:But that implies that the Trickster has the knowledge to kind of, you know, like, see what needs to happen and insert itself as a character to make the story play out. Does that make sense? Like, which implies vaster knowledge
Erin Branham:what to say? Like there's always kind of this then, right, that's thing around the Trickster that they know more that they're telling. They have more power than they're letting on that they like you said, that's part of what makes them sort of interesting and scary, because that's all I think that's what's interesting about him tricksters, they often have power, they're not really interested in power. They don't want to set up the structure. They don't want to rule everybody. They're like, yeah, I could, but I don't wanna.
Karen Foglesong:Who wants to do that?
Erin Branham:That involves rules! I am not interested.
Karen Foglesong:Exactly. And I think that dichotomy, that balance is happening inside of all of us all the time. I think that's a great example. Like, we know, we need to go to bed, because we need to have a certain amount of sleep to be functional. But there's a part of us, it's like, Screw that, I'm gonna watch my, you know, zombie flick, or I'm gonna read this cartoon, or, you know, whatever it is, like, we know what has to happen as a responsible person, but then there's a part of us that wants to rebel against that all the time, too. So I think it's reflective of our own psyches.
Erin Branham:Well, exactly. And this goes back to what we were talking about with Jung and the self and wholeness. Which is, is your spirituality system, Is your mythic system that you create for yourself, Or that you interact with whatever, Is it going to foster that wholeness? Or is it going to foster you splitting parts of your personality off and saying, I can't have that, which is one of my big issues with Christianity is that Christianity says that some things are good. And some things are bad, some natural impulses you have are good and some natural impulses you have are bad, and you must reject the bad one, right? You have to reject them, you have to get rid of them, you have to cut them off. They're bad, they're terrible, you shouldn't have they're of the devil, their neg-, like just everything is about you cannot have those as a part of your personality. Well, I can't function that way. Right? Like, that doesn't work. That's why that doesn't work for me. And that's why when I read it, I was like, this does not seem true to me. Because that just doesn't seem like a healthy way to live. Personally, I'm not bagging on anybody who does because I think there are ways to make to reconcile all of that within Christianity. I'm just not willing to do all of that work. When I'm like, there are other belief systems or there's That's a brilliant quote. Yeah, that's awesome. other mythologies out there that allow me to fully embrace all the different parts because I'm like, very, we're both into Jung, like wholeness is where it's at. I am very interested in achieving wholeness or experiencing it in some way. There was a great quote, let me find this here because it was relevant to all this by James Hollis, who's a great Jungian psychologist. "The ego will do whatever it can to make itself more comfortable, but the soul is about wholeness. And this makes the ego even more uncomfortable. Wholeness is not about comfort or goodness or consensus. It means drinking this brief, unique deeply rooted vintage to its dregs." That was a good one. Yeah. So we're after wholeness here at Mythic U
Karen Foglesong:Wholeness, yes, and helping each other to feel more comfortable in our skins. Like that's, that's what it's all about. Right? Not -
Erin Branham:Accept ourselves, accept ourselves in the world. Definitely.
Karen Foglesong:I have run into that issue. Many times as I'm studying different religions, I get to the point where they're starting to negate the physical world. And I understand that I do get that. But there has to be a reason why we manifested as physical beings. Like, if we were spirit creatures, and
Erin Branham:It can't be all bad or what the hell are we doing here?
Karen Foglesong:there has to be a reason why we did this you know. So my point is not to judge like you said I don't want to judge any religion that is working for somebody if it's working for you, that's awesome. But the like the constraint of like, okay, now you're at a magical point. Now you just must let the physical world go. So somebody's going to bring me food like or my spiritual journey is going to lead me to a point where somebody will bring me food or like in that, that question is answered like in the Hindu religion, you feel this urge and you, you do you just sit down somewhere in some - if God wants you to eat that day somebody will bring you food, you know, like, there is a literal, yes to that answer, but I'm thinking more. How do you balance that? Like, to me a wholeness also means balancing the spiritual with the physical manifestation.
Erin Branham:Absolutely, certainly we have to cope with the physical manifestation. So I'm not into anything that's just like, it's bad. Thank you? Not really.
Karen Foglesong:Okay mentioned colonialism earlier. And I also think that this is, it's kind of part of the way we raise ourselves up is by separating ourselves from the animals. And so any natural urge is considered like animal or Mother Nature and should be constrained or shaped. It's kind of the same way we treat nature, you know, like, don't work with it, you conquer it.
Erin Branham:Well, but that goes back to Christianity, and the Lord gave them dominion upon the earth. Yeah. And that was, so it was like, this is all just here for you to use, and have at it, right. And that's where your mythology rolls into how you interact with the world.
Karen Foglesong:I've been really grateful modern Christians are interpreting that to mean, they are the tenders of the garden, rather than it is their garden. Certainly
Erin Branham:rash. Yes, certainly. Some of them there's a nice green movement in Christianity, which is in progressive Christianity, which I love. I know a bunch of progressive Christians, and they're awesome. Yes. Because they are about that. They're like, well, we're supposed to be stewards of the earth. And yes, we are supposed to actually in reality right now help the poor. That is actually what we're supposed to do. Jesus said that.
Karen Foglesong:And it's not a metaphor. What can you do about it? Right? Of course, you can change the channel, you can not watch literally, like turn off your television occasionally. And then you won't be bombarded with these archetypes, right. Or you can also just start recognizing what is being said to you consciously. If you know while we said about the Charlize Theron commercial, the perfume, then you can shift your thought pattern about it. You don't have to be a player of it. I say make a game out of it. Teach your kids tell them to pick out what are the symbols and the archetypes in the commercial so that they're a savvy capitalists later. How's that? Right?
Erin Branham:Yeah, won't be led around by their noses.
Karen Foglesong:Don't be led around by your nose.
Erin Branham:Thank you so much. We'll see you next time. Bye.
Karen Foglesong:Thanks for joining us. Yeah.
Erin Branham:Thank you for joining us at Mythic U. We want to hear from you. Please visit our website at mythic u.buzzsprout.com That's MYTHICu.buzzsprout.com. For more great information on choreographing your own spirituality. Leave us a comment and donate if you have the means and the interest. If you'd like to support our work more regularly, please visit our Patreon and become a member of Mythic U. Depending on the level at which you join members receive early access to new episodes, bonus episodes and free Mythic U gifts.