There was once a king who would not allow his daughter to marry. He kept her shut up in his castle and turned all her suitors away. One fine day she asked him pretty please and since it was indeed such a fine day, if she could not walk briefly in the meadow below the castle walls? Eventually the King agreed but warned her not to go too far… lest some harm come to her.
The Princess walks out into the meadow and there she finds a young man who is sooo handsome she immediately falls in love. He is, of course, a Prince from a neighboring kingdom. Each return to their respective fathers saying they want to get married. The Jealous King flies into a rage, closes the castle gates and challenges the young Prince to lay siege to his walls if he wishes.. which is just what he does. After a while the Prince realizes the castle is empty, everyone has escaped through underground passages. Only the King and Princess remain. The King implores his daughter’s obedience but she refuses and in a fury he casts a terrible spell upon her which turns her into three animals; a rabbit, a lion and a dragon.
The Prince searches high and low for the Princess but to no avail. Nothing but pesky and somewhat dangerous creatures. In despair he sends his troops home, continuing to search alone. In a nearby wood he comes across an Ancient Crone who tells him the secret of the King’s curse. He must return to the castle and find the animals, kissing each one three times.
At their wedding feast the Old King is included on the guest list, though further down the table than he might have liked.
This subversion of the Princess by the Jealous King can be looked at a number of different ways. One way to view this story is at face value, as an allegory for current events, a good example being the recent claim of harassment, false imprisonment and illegal gagging orders made against American virologist Dr Mikovits at the bequest of King Fauci who had other ideas about what should become of her HIV research, all of which then escalated into spell casting tsunamis of propaganda against her, millions spent on silencing something…
which could not possibly be.
Er, I thought Fauci was the good guy?
It depends on who your standing next to on the podium, can we continue?
of course..
Another way of looking at this story is to imagine that all the characters and interactions are parts of oneself. Fairy tales and myths are public dreams which, like dreams, can be seen as both describing outer events in an allegorical way but also as an emerging outcrop of consciousness from within. The problem with approaching either dream or fairy story from this subjective point of view, where all the characters and events are given the slant of an entirely inner pageant, is that you are then denied the luxury of projection upon which so much interaction and internal cohesion depend. The symbols involved can no longer be regarded as some quaint matter simply for other folk’s consideration. They not only have to do with us but act upon us.
‘The individual is then faced with the task of putting down to his own account all the iniquity, devilry, etc. which he has blandly attributed to others and about which he has been indignant all his life.” CG Jung
Given the understandable resistances involved, what might it mean that the inner king has imprisoned fair maid and cast this divisive spell? Could the metaphors involved refer to some crucial psychological dynamic within the individuation process? If so, what might that be?
The problem with growth and change is that it shakes previously sturdy self-constructs and leaves behind the familiarity of old ways of being. You have to suck at something new, trade in your old strategies and values for others as yet untested. This is why initiatory thresholds and transformations of any kind are generally difficult and unpleasant, necessitating much merrymaking to compensate the dread. They often require ritual, observance and loads of relatives to contain the transition which involves a process dubbed ‘de-integration’ by analyst Michael Fordham; you get pulled apart but not to pieces.
Not everything in the psyche is going to be happy about this. The instinct for self preservation wants to prop up the old structure, even if it does not serve the impulse to growth with which it is then bound to clash. This is why support for Trump increased at the beginning of the Corona virus outbreak in America despite his utterly incompetent handling of the situation. The Devil you know is safer than the angel you do not.
..’and so I keep down my heart and swallow the call-note of depth dark sobbing.’ R.M Rilke
The Jealous King is the ‘old outmoded dispensation’ in the psyche, the dominant function for a particular stage of life which has served its part and become redundant as a way forward, the alchemical calcinatio where the soul feels dried out and dusty, where no more marrow can be sucked from your situation.
Such circumstances provoke crisis. The wheel of life has turned but not found new expression, the tools and strategies of yesteryear no longer adequate for today’s challenges. And yet despite this we all tend to drag our feet and hang on to old structures, sabotaging potential and silencing emerging consciousness.
‘Instinctive forces does not reason. They assume from the immense experience of Nature’s ways that it will serve best to be stabilized according to initial experience, most commonly [among] those whose strong need for a maternal figure has followed them into middle age.’ J Liedloff
Fortunately, love and life find a way. The new shoot eventually manages to squeeze past the psyche’s defenses, often by virtue of a chance encounter or some seemingly insignificant event which then catalyses change, though not without bitter conflict and feeling besieged by the very flood of energy you have been hoping for.
Finally, the threatened dominant function, walled in but without the usual resources at its disposal, resorts to dissociative tactics, a spell which divides and incapacitates. For a while the new form of life seems desperately imperiled or at least at sixes and sevens.
‘The integration of contents that were unconscious and projected involves a serious lesion of the ego… a decomposition of the elements indicating dissociation and collapse of existing ego structures,.. closely analogous to schizophrenia.’ C G Jung.
Not much fun. Our story seems to be suggesting that the process of becoming more conscious involves considerable inner conflict and suffering which can decommission ‘normal’ functioning.
‘The energies and attention of the individual are often so engrossed that the power of coping with normal life may be impaired.’ R. Assagioli.
There is a real risk that emerging consciousness cannot be integrated. Fortunately, the Ancient Crone makes an appearance just at the moment of despair and tells the Prince what to do. She is Old Mother Earth, the Principle of Co-operation and Relatedness, a power deeper and more potent than that of the King. She understands not only the malady but also the cure, the fragmented potential has to be loved back to wholeness, the scary lion and the terrifying dragon along with the sweet bunny. If the Princess can be loved in her totality, warts and all, there will be transformation. The Jealous King doesn’t have to be killed, just deposed. He can even go to the wedding feast so long as he accepts a lesser place at the table.
