98. Hysteria & Myth- The Psychology of Res. Appearances

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Hysteria and Myth: The Psychology of theResurrection Appearances

Christopher Knight

At the paschal proclamation "Christ is risen", the traditional response

"He is risen indeed" springs readily to the believer's lips. If we ask an individual believer what this response means, however, we may get any one of anumber of answers. For some, the proclamation receives its theological forcefrom the essential historical truth of the gospel accounts of the finding of theempty tomb and of the subsequent appearance of the risen Lord. Though theymay be willing to admit that the accounts have undergone accidental or interpretative elaboration in the course of their oral transmission and subsequentredaction, it still seems to such believers that a remnant of a body of originaland reliable eyewitness testimony is to be perceived behind that elaboration.

Without some such core, they argue, any"belief"

in the resurrection would bemeaningless. For others, however, the gospel accounts are to be taken seriously not as historical but as poetic truths. Such accounts are the product, theyassume, either of mythical expression of perceptions which were originally"purely spiritual", or else of experiences with their roots in some sort of "hysteria".

These assumptions have rarely, however, been investigated in any detail,and until made more credible by psychological or anthropological study willinevitably seem suspect to the theologically conservative as mere scepticism.

One such avenue of exploration is certainly open, however, provided that werecognise the dreamlike character of the experiences reported. If we canacknowledge that such things as sudden appearance and disappearance anddelayed recognition of identity are the very stuff of dreams, then it maybe thatwe can begin to understand the origin of the accounts in terms of thepsychological source of dream imagery. Because dreams have severalcharacteristics in common with certain types of abnormal waking "visions",such an approach may allow us to begin to understand the nature of thevisionary experience (if such it was) which give rise to the accounts that havecome down to us.

That dreams do have certain characteristics in common with some types of



HYSTERIA AND MYTH 39

which, as is well known, so impressed C. G. Jung that he felt forced to posit a"collective unconscious" - a psychic reservoir, common to humanity, whose"archetypes" manifest themselves in, and can be inferred from, the obvioustraces of mythological images in dreams and in certain types of mentaldisorder. In the latter, especially, there is sometimes "an astonishing development of mythological imagery which could never be accounted for by the individual's own experience". '

In a Jungian understanding, these archetypes are of particular importancein understanding religious experience, in that a particular archetype

looked at from the inside, that is from within the realm of the subjective

psyche ... presents itself as numinous, that is, as an experience of fundamental importance. Whenever it clothes itself in adequate symbols ... ittakes hold of the individual in a startling way, creating a condition of 'being deeply moved' the consequences of which may be immeasurable.

2

Indeed, whenever an experience of the numinous is reported, the Jungianwill inevitably look towards some sort of archetypal root of that experience. Inthe case of the resurrection appearances of Jesus, however, the archetypalcharacter of the experiences involved is unquestionable, and in no waydepends upon the spiritual impact which they undoubtedly had. One does not

have to be an uncritical Jungian - nor, indeed, a sceptic about the accounts'historicity - to recognise their mythical echoes, which did not go unremarkedeven in early Christian times, when familiarity with and proximity to a livingpagan tradition made them evident. In modern times, too, they have been thesubject of comment at least since the time of Frazer's Golden Bough, whosereaders could hardly avoid the echoes of the gospel accounts of the resurrection and of its liturgical celebration when they read of the ancient ritesassociated with the death and resurrection of Attis at the vernal equinox, at theclimax of which "The resurrection of the god was hailed by the disciples as a

promise that they too would issue triumphant from the corruption of thegrave".

3

What is clear from psychoanalytic case study - irrespective of whether theJungian exploration of it is considered valid or adequate - is that, in certainunusual mental states, especially at times of great emotional stress or need,there occur visions of a dreamlike character, containing imagery which reflectsthat of ancient and primitive mythology, and which may be a vehicle for anexperience of the numinous. Given this factor in human psychology, thehistorian who is able to acknowledge the presence of all these factors in the

resurrection appearance accounts seems to be faced with a compelling accountof the psychic mechanism through which they began their formation.



40 HYSTERIA AND MYTH

example, by several well-documented cases in this century whose content hasbeen "the Virgin Mary"). Jung himself analyses a related type of phenomenon- which he labels the "visionary rumour" - in terms which seem extraordinarilyapplicable to Jesus' resurrection appearances, even though he is talking aboutsomething quite different. He talks, for example, of a prerequisite to theexperience of such visions being "an emotional tension having its cause in asituation of collective distress or danger, or in a vital psychic need".

4

Moreover, he recognises the affinity of the phenomenon to the explicitlyreligious visions of "the crusaders during the siege of Jerusalem, the troops atMons in the First World War, the faithful followers of the Pope at Fatima,Portugal".

5Indeed in the context of his own study on a modern manifestation

of the phenomenon, he particularly notes a situation "calculated as neverbefore to arouse expectations of a redeeming, supernatural event".

6

According to Jung, the way in which an archetype manifests itself in avisionary rumour will, to some extent, be culturally determined. Thus, forexample, he sees its chief manifestation, in modern times, in the sighting of UFOs or "flying saucers", it being "characteristic of our own time that, incontrast to previous expressions, the archetype should now take the form of anobject, a technological construction, in order to avoid the odiousness of mythological personification".

7Because of this cultural dimension to what is

likely to be "seen" in a visionary experience, it is not without significance,when we attempt to apply the concept of corporate psychic projection to thelate Judaistic culture of those who experienced the risen Christ, that "One of the most remarkable developments during this period was the rise of a belief inlife after death conceived in terms of resurrection".

8For although death and

resurrection is a universal archetypal theme, which is found in the mythologyof almost all cultures, its projection onto a particular historical individualmight seem questionable as a hypothesis if the concept of individual resurrection were unknown to those in whose unconscious the projection had its

origin. Given the prominence of the belief in resurrection in some strands of late Judaism, however, the hypothesis if anything gains in credibility when thiscultural criterion is applied.

If it is accepted that this psychological mechanism provides at least a tentative hypothesis to account for the origin of the resurrection appearanceaccounts, then an important and, ironically, surprisingly "conservative" consequence arises as its most immediate application. This is in the area of NewTestament criticism, since an acceptance of this hypothesis means thatwhatever the validity of the various methods of tracing the evolution of

accounts of miraculous "events" of archetypal content, we must question thewidespread implicit assumption that "things couldn't actually have been

i d lik th t b thi lik th t d 't h " F if



HYSTERIA AND MYTH 41

both well-known and in the main rightly accepted. Yet implicit in much of theargument is the notion that an ascension "event" which left those who

experienced it "gazing intently into the sky" (Acts 1:10) can have no historicalbasis when the "place" of heaven is so clearlya culturally-determined mistake.In terms of the archetypal projection hypothesis, however, it is quite possiblethat some such event could have been experienced, for what the psychic eye"sees", as we have noticed in the UFO context, depends not upon what is ob

jectively possible but on what is culturally considered possible. When we takeinto account that the ascension motif is certainly archetypal, with a particularprominence in late Judaism,

9it would almost be surprising, in fact, if in the

context of a series of "resurrection" visions there were not at least some

manifestation in experience of the ascension theme.Nor are the ramifications of our apparently radical hypothesis necessarily

revolutionary when it comes to wider theological issues. Though it can on thesurface be interpreted as implying that the Christian faith is based on merepsychological projection, such an interpretation makes certain empiricistassumptions which are far from self-evident. The question of the role of innatemental faculties in perception has been the subject of age-long philosophicalspeculation, made all the more fierce in recent years by analyses of languagesuch as Chomsky's, with its concept of an innate "universal grammar", and

of the way in which abstract mathematical concepts, when "projected" ontothe material universe, find there a corresponding reality. The "commonsense" assumption that a perception is either a mere projection from the mindof the perceiver or else a simple fact of empirical reality is one which wouldnow be considered questionable by many.

Precisely how the traditional arguments of this sort can be extrapolated tothe area of the unconscious and its archetypes is far from clear. For this reasonit is important to note, perhaps, that Jung himself had something - albeit veryprovisional - to say on the matter. Looking at evidence for the objective realityof the UFOs which he saw as a prime example of psychological projection, (asfound in records of radar tracking, for example), he began to ponder the relationship between psychic projection and empirical reality. It seemed to himthat what was involved was not a choice between the two, but something farmore complex. While being clear that "the notion of a materialized psychismopens a bottomless void under our feet",

10he was led by this and other

features of his experience to postulate a total reality "grounded on an as yetunknown substrate possessing material and at the same time psychicqualities",

11though he could get no nearer to defining this than as somehow

related to "synchronicity" - the sort of meaningful coincidence which theChristian tends to interpret in terms of divine providence.



42 HYSTERIA AND MYTH

"observer" in physics at the subatomic level, for example, is a matter of heated philosophical debate. Few acquainted with that argument would,

perhaps, go as far as David Böhm in expressing an answer to it in terms of what he calls the "implicate order". Not a few, however, are beginning to takeseriously the difficulties of separating observer and observed which lie behindhis argument that "If matter and consciousness could ... be understoodtogether, in terms of the same general notion of order, the way would be opento comprehending their relationship on the basis of a common ground".

12

Whether the relationship between or even existence of Jung's "as yetunknown substrate" and Bohm's "common ground" can ever be convincinglydemonstrated and explored has yet to be seen. What is clear, however, fromthe fact that such concepts are being discussed in a rational way, is thatcriticism of our hypothesis cannot rely on simple empiricist assumptions. Therelationship between mind - conscious and unconscious - and what "commonsense" takes (perhaps wrongly) to be purely "out there" in reality, is, perhaps,far more subtle than we realise.

"Christ is risen" may not, then, be an acclamation about which we canlegitimately ask the questions which immediately occur to us. The distinctionbetween psychological artefact and empirical reality may be one which isuseful at the level of pickled onions and the nightmares which they are reputedto induce but, like all approximations with a limited field of validity, one forwhich there will be phenomena for which it is inappropriate and even positively misleading unless understood as an approximation. The languages of psychological projection and empirical reality may be no more than complementary half-truths which await supersession by a more all-embracingunderstanding which incorporates both. All that can be said at present,perhaps, is that our archetypal projection hypothesis, if it gives a fascinatingprovisional answer to certain historical questions, poses in a very stark waycertain philosophical ones with which we have hardly begun to grapple.

Footnotes

1. F. Fordham, An Introduction to Jung's Psychology, 3rd ed., Harmondsworth, 1966, p. 25.2. C. G. Jung, Introduction to Woman's Mysteries by M. E. Harding, New York, 1955, pp.ix f.3. J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, abrig. ed., London, 1957, p.461.4. C.G. Jung, Flying Saucers - A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies, London, 1959, p.8.

5. ¡bid., p.2.

6. Ibid., p.21.

7. Ibid., p.23.8. D. S. Russell, The Jews from Alexander to Herod, Oxford, 1967, p. 148.

9. See e.g. J. M. Robinson, "Ascension" in The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible,Nashville, 1962, vol. 1., p.245.

10. Jung, Flying Saucers, op. cit., p. 151.



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98. Hysteria & Myth- The Psychology of Res. Appearances

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