Oregon Friends of Jung

The Muses of Truth and Transformation: Timeless Tales for Troubled Times
2022-10-21 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Zoom Webinar, OR, United States
A timeless tale sums up our contemporary conflicts: two women claimed the same newborn baby, so the sage declared, “Cut the baby in two and give each woman half.” The first woman nodded, while the other cried out, “No! Spare the baby, give him to her.” Although most familiar from the Bible, the story is a folktale found in different cultures and offering relevant archetypal insights. Partisans today may act like the first woman, insisting on their position even if it means killing innocent people – think jihadists and lone mass murderers. Politicians are willing to “kill” legislation that does not fit their ideology, even if it splits the body politic. When faced with unyielding opponents, earlier cultures reflected on deadly conflicts and put their insights into metaphorical stories – folktales – and passed them on. Only stories that rang true to people in many cultures survived, leaving us time-tested archetypal wisdom for resolving conflicts.
This lecture recounts such folktales and shows how they help us identify distinct types of truth – factual, mythic, oath-taking, pragmatic and home types of stories.
