This episode explores the Gnostic worldview, flourishing in the first centuries of the Common Era, which offers one of religious history's most radical apocalyptic visions. It is founded on a profoundly dualistic  understanding of reality: the material cosmos is a prison, and humanity is a tragic hybrid—a divine spark of light trapped in corrupt flesh and matter. The influences of Gnostic thought are traced in a succession of artists and visionaries from William Blake to D.H. Lawrence.

For those who want more information on booking for the Archetypal Constellations workshop "Resourcing Our Future", led by Richard Olivier, here is the link:  https://www.wholepartnership.com/booking/resourcing-our-future-a-masterclass-on-archetypal-constellations-with-richard-olivier/

The apocalypse isn't just an ancient myth, but an archetype, a pattern that still shapes our world.  The same emotional and psychological forces that drove medieval peasants to embark on doomed crusades or to whip themselves in public, are the very forces driving political movements today. The archetypal forces that drove these millenarian movements  are very much present in the politics of the Western world at this moment.

The Christian apocalyptic tradition is explored, focusing on the prophecies and warnings of the Gospels and the Book of Revelation. These texts contain a dramatic narrative of cataclysmic events: the end days, the Second Coming, the Rapture, the chosen few, the final judgment, Armageddon, the defeat of Satan, and the reign of Christ’s kingdom. This tradition has provided a reference point for Western civilization across the millennia and is still active today. Its archetypal content is emphasized, as well as its psychological roots.

The deepest archetypes are symbolic narratives, like dreams, that reveal the nature of the psyche itself—its origins, for instance, or even its potential ending. The Book of Genesis serves as an example of the former, while this episode explores the latter—the theme of the apocalypse—through various writings in the Jewish tradition, including the Books of Daniel, Ezekiel, Zechariah, Isaiah, and Enoch. This is not simply ancient history, but is highly relevant to our contemporary world, for we live in an Age of the Apocalypse.

The archetype of the Self is Jung's answer to the crisis of civilization in our age. In a world grappling with the relativism and indeterminacy of post-modernism, where grand narratives have collapsed and meaning seems fluid, with a host of other modern philosophical ailments that breed anxiety and nihilism, the Self offers an inner, inherent source of meaning and direction. It suggests that beyond the shifting sands of external opinions and cultural trends, there is an enduring core, a guiding principle within each individual. It is an antidote to the spiritual rootlessness of our age and a light for those seeking an authentic and meaningful life beyond superficial materialism or ideological extremism.

The earliest archetypal images with an implicit mythological narrative are presented: The Venus of Laussel – the earliest great mother archetype with an age of around 24,000 years; and the Fallen Shaman in the Paleolithic Cave of Lascaux at 16,000 years ago. The former is feminine-coded (nurture, nature, reproduction, love) and the latter is male-coded (gnosis or higher knowledge obtained through the individual quest, sacrifice and transcendence). These two great archetypes, synthesized, are needed now more than ever for our crisis -ridden age.

An account of a healing séance ceremony from a Siberian tribe opens the episode. Evidence of the shamans on the cave walls is given especially for the French caves of Lascaux, Trois Fréres, Gabillou, and Chauvet. The images in the “shaft” at the end of the Lascaux cave are highly enigmatic but a mythological interpretation is hinted at as it is one of the earliest archetypal representations of humanity and underlies many religions, spiritual movements, and also Jungian archetypal psychology.

The Upper Paleolithic, that is the period  dated from around 50-11 thousand years ago, reflects a period of cultural, behavioral and technological change that distinguishes modern humans from earlier homo species.

Four examples of the earliest archetypal images, beliefs, and practices are given and for which we have hard evidence taking us back many tens of thousands years deep into the last ice age. These are 1. burial practices; 2. images of the Great Mother; 3. cave paintings, rock-art, figurines, and statues;  4. shamanism. Their relevance to the contemporary world is indicated - a theme of great importance and to be taken up as this mini-series progresses.

This episode explores:

The first archetypal images of humanity for which we have evidence.

The areas of the world where this evidence is found: South Africa, Indonesia, India, Australia, the Americas, Siberia. We leave the famous cave paintings of France and Spain until next episode.

The dates of the cave painting and rock art that have survived and recently been discovered. These stretch back into pre-history for tens of thousands of years.

What are the links between these early images and shamanism?

The ten archetypes underlying the book "Archetypes at Work" have an astrological basis in the ten heavenly bodies (including sun and moon) in our solar system - each with their archetypal nature and their influence upon human character and destiny ... "the planets are around us and in us".