Theos-Talk Archives (August 1996 Message tl00535)

Does anyone remember those cartoons that used to appear in magazines of the 50's
and early 60's (pre-hippie, post beatnik) that showed a man in sackclothe and
sandals with beard and dirty hair carrying a sign: "THE END IS NEAR".  I seem to
remember a lot of them.  He represented a complete turning away  from the I LUV
LUCY consumerism of the time.  He was a strange enigmatic figure who was ignored
or made fun of, because he was so obviously our of step.

He seems to me to represent the psychological type that Jung called the
introverted intuitive and represented historically by the Old Testament
prophets.  If you remember the movie "Excalibur" by John Boorman (a favorite of
mine), Lancelot goes from being the knight in shining armor to a flagelant
iteneratant preacher with a small flock following him through the the
devastation caused by his love affair with Guineverre which poisoned Camelot.
He is similar reduced to obscurity that is less that useful and a little funny
in a pitiable way.

This type is alway out of time, a little ahead, a little behind.  It comes to
the same thing of not being "with it" in the current collective consciousness,
but immersed in the inner world of the collective unconsciousness.
A different voice, a different drummer but a necessity to follow despite
everything.

I wonder if this type is a little predictable in its wide swing from desire to
preaching repentance.  The apocalypse some of us envisioned as imminent in the
70's has been postponed a long time.  As we reach the milenial tuning point,
there will of course be a looking back, a rememberance a repentance, a refocus
of energies toward the future

The job of the repentant one seems not so much as to be self-flagelating in
killing out desires, but to be useful again as he was destructive before.

Namaste
Keith Price