Australia: Shadow and Cultural Complex in the Antipodes

Abstract

ABSTRACT“Australia: Shadow and Cultural Complex in the Antipodes” examines Australia’s penal colony history in which eighteenth-century convicts and settlers survived the trauma of migration and imprisonment by stoic repression. As such, a society developed that fears the unconscious and its shadow content, thus preventing the individuation process from being part of the cultural norm. These qualities—of repression and stoicism—are now respected cultural traits and evidence of an authentic Australian identity. The metaphysical culture of the Aboriginal has been disrespected by the dominant non-indigenous population. The psychic split between the two cultures mirrors the psychospiritual split within the individuals of the non-indigenous culture, in which self-awareness, self-reflection, and exploration of the unconscious are seen as weakness, or defects of character. Healing the split in the culture between the indigenous and non-indigenous peoples would require answers: education in the alchemical and genetic natures of both cultures and awareness of the history of human migration out of Africa. The DNA of the Cosmic Serpent supplies a psychic foundation to the education of the non-indigenous and indigenous peoples. This is vital to understanding that both cultures were nurtured by and sprang from a common taproot, the alchemical rhizome.