Democracy in Peril

ABSTRACT

Similar to the volatile, divisive times that Jung found himself in when he created The Red Book over a century ago, democracy today is under siege by a worldwide neo-fascist movement. This dire moment for the survival of democracy is also the kairos to advance consciousness. At this critical moment in history, we are being offered the occasion to enter into a blind spot to create vision so that we don’t get lost in power. The preservation of democracy, a dispensation of the Eternal Feminine, is vital for the advance in consciousness upon which the survival of democracy and our world may well depend.

KEY WORDS:

• advance in consciousness
• democracy
• Eternal Feminine
• Jung
• political
• spiritual
• succubus
• The Red Book
• Trump

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Carol Henning for permission to use the photograph of the side-by-side movies entitled A Dangerous Method and Shame.

NOTE

References to The Collected Works of C. G. Jung are cited in the text as CW, volume number, and paragraph number. The Collected Works are published in English by Routledge (UK) and Princeton University Press (USA).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mary Y. Ayers

MARY Y. AYERS, PhD, LCSW-C, is the author of Mother-Infant Attachment and Psychoanalysis: The Eyes of Shame, winner of the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis Gradiva Award (2004), and Masculine Shame: From Succubus to the Eternal Feminine (2011). “Alternative Facts: A Jungian Interpretation of the Trump Phenomenon” (2019), “Descent of America: Acknowledging Our Loss of Soul for the Sake of Redemption” (2020), and “The Way of What is to Come: A Jungian Guide to the Coronavirus (2021), were all previously published in Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche. She currently works in private practice in Maryland where she specializes in analytic work with children and adults.