Following the Raven: The Paradoxical Path Toward a Depth Ecopsychology

Abstract

Abstract Comparing two very different genres of writing, Richard Nelson's nature writing about his experiences among the Koyukon tribe in northern Alaska and Carl Jung's work on the primitive psyche, this article highlights the need for modern, Western people to recover an indigenous relationship with the natural world. Jung declares that one of the biggest tragedies of Western civilization is the loss of the numinous that has resulted in the dehumanizing of the natural world. Examining Jung's controversial use of the terms “primitive” and participation mystique, we discover that what modern man has considered to be a more “civilized” higher state of consciousness has been wrongly equated with ego-consciousness, thus resulting in a limited understanding of the unconscious psyche. This article points out that the way beyond the “cult of consciousnesses” is to attend to that which the rational mind does not understand: dreams, symptoms, and the presence of archetypes. By doing so, the Western heroic ego, al...