Scuze Me While I Kiss the Sky

Jung, The Sixties and the rise of the puer

I grew up in a small and conservative town in Western Australia. In the last two years of primary school a new teacher came to our school. I had never met anyone quite like him before. He was well read and thoughtful and progressive. Half intellectual and half Hippy. For our English classes he played the latest Sixties Albums and then opened things up for discussion. That is when the Sixties spirit first went into me and somehow blew me open.

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.

The Sixties Adventure was like a puer adventure, in many ways. There were puer longings and yearnings. There was an adventurous free spirit. There was a puer yoputhful spirit. It was there in the self-exploration and discovery. The Sixties was like the rise of the puer. It was the long-haired Sixties youth who 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 freewheelin Bob Dylan it was the ‘old man’ who was in the hallways of power and he was just asking them not to stand in the way of the new spirit of the times.

In the slang of The Sixties subculture ‘Square’ and ‘Straight’ were referring to negative aspects of the senex. The Sixties youth had a nose for the telltale signs 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 the youth knew there was something in the air, there was a new spirit rising up, and it was happening 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 mostly 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.

Along with Bob Dylan, Timothy Leary also wanted to make everything new. He had the puer spirit when he said ‘tune out’, ‘turn off’ and ‘turn on’ to the new imagination. Jack Keruoac had the puer spirit when he said ‘there is nothing behind us and everything before us as is ever so on the road’. It was puer when the French students said ‘Ímagination au poivoir’ (the imagination takes power). It was the imagination of the youth they wanted to take power. It was puer when Crosby Stills Nash and Young said ‘We can change the world’. There is always something puer about wanting to change the world.

Bob Marley had the puer spirit because all he ever had were songs of freedom. 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, but maybe it was like the ‘kairos’ or the right 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 the 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 even I can now see some of the adolescence of the Sixties. Some of the over idealism. Some of the over optimism, maybe. The Sixties youth could have got too ‘high’ at times. They could have been swept away by the puer spirit.

The Sixties was a little crazy or reckless at times. There were times when they were dangerously unfettered from the earth. Put it this way, the Sixties youth weren’t specializing in consolidation or grounding. They didn’t always personify the poles of tradition , stasis, structure and authority. Sometimes they just seemed swept away by puer longings and yearnings. The Sixties youth loved ‘peak’ experiences even more than ordinary everyday life.

It is not as if the Sixties youth didn’t have any shadow. 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 seemed to meet 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.

‘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 kneel down and kiss the earth. If they could just land on the earth that might be a start. If they could just temper some of that wild soaring spirit and come down to earth where there are usually some normal commitments as well as aspects or ordinary mundane life. If they could just put down some roots in the earth, they could begin to take birth.

And if you read Marie Louise Von Franz for long enough about the problems of the puer, you can start thinking these fresh-faced youth are nice people, they often have spiritual or artistic leanings, we like them, but they don’t seem to do commitment that well. They might have a mother ‘çomplex’ and can remind us of Exupery’s The Little Prince who keeps on flying off to other planets and the puer personality could be a neurosis. I love Marie Louise Von Franz, but even I wouldn’t like to get involved in a street fight with her.

But, I also like some of James Hillman’s revisioning of the puer. Where he saw a legitimacy in some of the puer ambition. He 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’. ‘

The main problem with the puer’ he said ‘'is that they don’t take their vision seriously enough'. 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 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’. 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. As mentioned before 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 adventurous spirit of the Sixties.

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.

The Sixties is mostly seen as a ‘blossoming’ these days. It did bring a new zeitgeist or spirit of the times. And 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 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’. I might say we might also need to acknowledge some of the sun struck aspirations of the Sixties. It is possible some of the youth were swept away by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. 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 idealism and its recklessness, and to get at least one foot on the ground. Even idealism can be an addiction according to Jung.

The first thing I would say is all ex-puer long haired Sixties youth and anyone else with puer longings and yearnings could be given a free copy of Marie Louise Von Franz’s book on the Little Prince. That shows some of the problems of the puer personality. Or be introduced to Hillman’s ideas on ‘growing down’. Or his Essay on ‘Peaks and Vales’ which should be required reading. And that is where he makes an important distinction between the spirit that loves the ‘heights’ and the soul that loves the ‘depths’. Which seems like an important distinction for any adventurous and free-spirited youth.

And Hillman’s idea it is important of finding some rapprochement with the ‘old man’. What I might say now is that the Sixties youth were good at seeing the negative aspects of the óld man’, but not any of the positive aspects. 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. Don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting that anyone revert into the senex, but just to find some rapprochement and to see some of this óther’ side of the ‘‘old man’.

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 constraints 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 is not one or the other but both. It could be that the youth might need some of the hard-earned wisdom of Saturn.

The way I would see it 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 and the ‘‘old man’’ might need some of the adventurous free spirit of the youth. We might need to give room to them both. if the ‘psyche’ is a boardinghouse as Hillman once said full of unusual residents then two of those residents are the óld man’ and the youth and we could listen to them both.

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This is a passage from Thomas Moore from his book Care of the Soul. To me it gives an approach which is helpful and that gives room to the senex and the puer, the ‘‘óld man’ and the youth within ourselves.

A man in his fifties came to me once and told me with considerable embarrassment that he had fallen in love.

'I feel stupid,' he said. 'like an adolescent.'

I hear this often, that love arouses the adolescent. Anyone familiar with the history of art and literature knows that from the Greeks on down love has been portrayed as an untamable teenager.

'Oh you have something against this adolescent?'

'Am i ever going to grow up?' he asked in frustration.

'Maybe not,' I said. 'Maybe there are things in you that will never grow up. Doesn't this sudden influx of adolescence make you feel young, energetic and full of life?'

'Yes,' he said 'and also silly, immature, confused and crazy.'

'But that's adolescence,' I responded. 'It sounds to me like the Old Man in you is berating the Youth. Why make being a grown up the supreme value? Or, maybe I should ask, who in you is claiming that maturity is so important? It's the Old Man, isnt it?'

I wanted to speak to the figure who was being judged and attacked. This man had to find enough space in himself to allow both the Old Man and the Youth to have a place, to speak to each other and over time, maybe over his entire lifetime, to work out some degree of reconciliation. it takes more than a lifetime to resolve such conflicts. In fact, the conflict itself is creative and perhaps should never be healed. By giving each figure its voice, we let the soul speak and show itself as it is, not as we would wish it to be. By defending the adolescent, being careful not to take sides against the mature figure, I showed my interest in his soul, and the man had an opportunity to find a way to contain this archetypal conflict of youth and age, maturity and immaturity. In the course of such a debate the soul becomes more complex and spacious.

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"Old men ought to be explorers -T. S. Eliot