The Sky Cracked its Poems

The Sixties, Jung, Hillman, and the rise of the puer

The Sixties went into my blood and has never quite gone away. Many years later after reading Jung and Hillman I began to reflect on my encounter with the Sixties from an Archetypal Perspective.

I have James Hillman’s book Senex and Puer at home. According to Glen Slater in the foreword, Jung (and Hillman) use the Latin terms, senex and puer for ‘old man’ and ‘youth’. They personify the poles of tradition , stasis, structure and authority on one side, and immediacy, wandering, invention and idealism on the other. The senex consolidates, grounds and disciplines, the puer flashes with insight and thrives on fantasy and creativity’.

That reminds me of the Sixties, which in some ways was like a clash between the ‘óld man’ and the youth. Between their two different ways of seeing the world(and apprehending the world). ‘A polar division between senex and puer is all about us outside in the historical field’ says Hillman. A polar division was all about us in the Sixties, between the ‘óld man’ who embodied the traditional spirit and it’s stasis, structure and authority, and the long-haired Sixties youth and their wandering, idealism and creativity.

When I look towards the Sixties, it is the puer eternal ‘winged’ youth I see the most. The Sixties Adventure was like a puer adventure, in many ways. There were puer longings and yearnings in the Sixties. There was an adventurous free spirit. There was a puer spirit and it was there in the self-exploration and discovery of the long-haired Sixties youth. The Sixties was like the rise of the puer and the youth were carrying the new spirit of the times.

It was there in ‘The Times they are a Changin’, when the eighteen year old Bob Dylan asked the old senators and congressmen ‘not to stand in the hallways or block up the doorways’’. According to the Sixties youth, it was the ‘old man’ who was in the hallways of power was standing in the way of the new spirit of the times. And the freewheelin Bob Dylan captured the Sixties zeitgeist when he asked them not to stand in the way of change.

The Sixties youth had a nose for the telltale signs of the senex. In the slang of The Sixties subculture ‘Square’ and ‘Straight’ were referring to negative aspects of the ‘old man’. According to the youth the óld man’ had a devotion to the past, a rigid conservatism, a heavy Saturnian style and taste, an authoritarianism (an authority that couldn’t be challenged), a fixation on ‘law and order’. But to the Sixties youth there was something in the air, and there was a new spirit rising up, whether the ‘óld man’ liked it or not.

But just to mention the long haired Sixties youth could send the ‘óld man' into a rage. He was making charges against the youth and pointing towards their moral degeneracy. He had heard about ‘Sympathy with The Devil’ from the Rolling Stones and that was enough. He had heard about ‘The Summer of Love’. According to the ‘old man’ the Sixties youth needed to forget about the Jimi Hendrix Experience and ‘cut their hair and get a real job’.

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The puer ‘wants to turn everything into spirit or make everything new’ said Hillman. It was Jimi Hendrix who wanted to turn everything into spirit and Bob Dylan who wanted to make everything new.

Jimi Hendrix was like the archetypal puer. He wanted to kiss the sky. He wanted to fly way over yonder from the ordinary world into the ‘wholly other’ world of the spirit. Some of his songs were as spiritual as anything in a Church. ‘The Electric Church’ was for the youth who wanted to turn everything into spirit. He was like Icarus who wanted to fly towards the sun. Bellephron storming into heaven on a winged horse. Euphorion flying euphorically upwards. He was like Horus who wanted to fly higher than his Father’s world.

And along with Bob Dylan Timothy Leary also wanted to make everything new. He had the puer spirit when he said ‘tune out’ and ‘turn off’ and ‘turn on’ to the new. That meant to ‘turn on’ to the new imagination. It was puer when Crosby Stills Nash and Young said ‘We can change the world’. There is something puer about wanting to change the world.

Joni Mitchell showed some of the idealism of the puer Sixties youth in ‘By the time we got to Woodstock’, when she said ‘Maybe it was just a music festival, for that time of year, or ‘maybe it was the time of man’. Maybe, it wasn’t just a music Festival she seemed to be saying but it was the time for change and that is why the Sixties youth had met together at Woodstock.

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I would like to point towards a conversation that has been happening in Jungian psychology for some time, about the puer personality(and also about the psychology of the puer).

Don’t get me wrong, I love the Sixties, and its puer spirit that was announcing itself in the world. but I was younger then and I am older now, and I have read Jung, and Marie Louise Von Franz and Hillman since then. And it is not as if the puer doesn’t have some shadow aspects. And it is not as if the Sixties youth didn’t have any shadow. And Jungian Psychology has sometimes seen some of the shadow aspects of the puer eternal youth.

We all remember Icarus who tried to fly too close to the sun and had his wings burnt and plunged into the ocean. Quite a few of the Sixties youth met a fate like that, they didn’t always specialize in living past 28. Some of them didn’t ever make it back to earth from the Special Sixties World.

And even I can now see some of the adolescence of the Sixties. Some of the over idealism. Some of the over optimism, maybe. Some of the puer Sixties youth could have got too ‘high’ at times (or dangerously unfettered from the earth). They could have been swept away by the puer spirit of the times, or overly identified with puer longings and yearnings. Even I would have to say the Sixties was a little crazy at times or even reckless. Sometimes it seemed like the youth loved ‘peak’ experiences even more than ordinary life.

‘When that which has wings can touch the earth’ said Jung. And we could say, if the Sixties youth who wanted to kiss the sky could just get at least one foot on the ground. If they could just bend down and kiss the earth. If they could just temper some of that wild soaring spirit and come down to earth. Or put down some roots in the earth, then the sometimes overly ambitious, idealistic and optimistic youth could really begin to take birth in the world.

But I also like some of James Hillman’s revisioning of the puer. He saw legitimacy in some of the puer ambition. ‘‘The main problem with the puer’ he said ‘'is that they don’t take their vision seriously enough’'. And he also said 'Without this archetypal component affecting our lives there would be no spiritual drive, no new sparks, no going beyond the given, no grandeur and sense of personal destiny'. Hillman often saw things from the side of the puer, because Senex style systems and structures have tended to dominate the world.

And it is interesting that Hillman first began writing about the puer in 1967 when the puer Sixties spirit might have been at its peak. It is like án ‘'árchetype of the spirit’ he said. And Hillman acknowledged some of the puer daring, and the puer vision. He might just say if the puer who loves the lofty ‘heights’ or the ‘peaks’ of the spirit, could just ‘deepen’ a little. If the puer youth could just grow down, or descend into the soul, which anyway always loves ‘depth’. And this ‘deepening’ might even bring more substance and more ‘depth’.

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I have had many years to think about the Sixties now. I will always love the Sixties and its puer spirit. I grew up in a small and conservative country town, and it felt like a breath of fresh air to me. I can still remember the sense of adventure and the self-exploration and discovery.

And the puer long haired Sixties youth must have contributed something to our society, because even the Establishment are falling over themselves backwards, to honor them now. Giving Bob Dylan a Nobel Prize for literature, and we now have Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Mick Jagger and Sir Ray Davies from The Kinks. Leonard Cohen is sadly missed and Joni Mitchell a living treasure, and everyone even seems to love Keith Richards now.

It did bring a new spirit of the times. And the Sixties is mostly now seen as a ‘blossoming’. As Hillman says “without the enthusiasm and eros of the son(or daughter), authority loses its idealism. It aspires to nothing but its own perpetuation, leading but to tyranny and cynicism, for meaning cannot be sustained by structure and order alone”.

But having said that it is complicated. Hillman also said 'To be true to one’s puer nature is to be true to some of its gambols, gestures and sun struck aspirations’. And to be true to the puer nature of the Sixties, we might also have to be true to some of its wild sunstruck aspirations. it is possible there were times when the youth got swept away by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Anyway, I could have listened to too much Crosby Stills Nash and Young. In some ways it has been a relief to have lost some of the innocence of youth, along with its naivety, and its recklessness, and to get a foot on the ground.

Even idealism can be an addiction according to Jung. And even I have seen how important it is to ‘grow down’ more into the soul. To see both the positive and negative aspects of the puer, somehow seems more realistic. Don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting that everyone should just revert into the senex. The óld man’ or the senex consciousness can easily lose a good relationship with the child or the youth (and within themselves), and it is also just as possible to get ‘possessed’ by the senex as it is by the puer.

But it seems to me the Sixties youth were good at seeing the negative aspects of the óld man’, but not any of the positive aspects. I can get Hillman’s idea about finding some rapprochement with the senex or the óld man’. The ‘óld man’ can also be a wise old man or mentor. Like Daedalus in the story of Icarus who counselled him to take a middle way. And in another way, coming to terms with the óld man’ is like coming to terms with Saturn, and the Saturn within ourselves and some of the limitations and constarints of ordinary life.

The soul is not young or old, or it is both’ Hillman said. It is a combination of both senex and puer we might need within ourselves. It could be that the youth might need some of the hard earned wisdom of Saturn, or the consolidation and grounding. The aim is not to be too dominated by the ‘old man’ or by the youth. The youth might need some of the old man, and the old man might need some of the adventurous free spirit of the youth. The way I would put it, is if the ‘psyche’ is a boarding house as Hillman once said. Then two of the main residents might be the óld man’ and the youth and we could listen to them both.