January 7, 2020

“Georgia!”

That’s how my email to you today was supposed to begin. I drafted a newsletter yesterday around 10 am in a state of joy at the miraculous, extraordinary, stunning Senate wins of Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. I was awash in gratitude for the relentless voting-rights advocacy and political tenacity of Black women like Stacey Abrams, Nsé Ufot, LaTosha Brown, Felicia Davis, Tamieka Atkins, Helen Butler, and Deborah Scott who gave a nation hope and results where most pundits thought there was a lost cause.

Remember the mantra: Listen to Black Women.

I drafted that email to you yesterday morning in shock—joyful shock—at what had occurred.

What unfolded next was emotional whiplash.

For hours yesterday, I sat speechless, rubbing my forehead in rage and disgust. I was speechless, of course, because our Capitol—my Capitol and your Capitol—was invaded by the most unconscious, entitled, and misinformed among us. It felt personal watching those people, nay, those white men, riffle through our representatives’ papers and desks, shout from the Senate chambers, and wander unchecked through the halls of our democracy.

I felt nauseous and violated. I felt furious.

I was furious at the unbelievable restraint that the police used against this white mob. Furious at the restraint because they seemed able to do just about whatever they pleased, and furious because it was in such painful contrast to the force that has been used on non-riotous Black Lives Matter protestors for months.

So yesterday, I grieved the loud, full-color display of White Supremacy and toxic masculinity running amok throughout our government—as looters, rioters, and elected officials.

If you’ve seen the images of men with their feet on Pelosi’s desk, her office vandalized, robbed, and destroyed, you know the particular loathing they feel for a woman in power.

Those men need to get their anima checked.

If you’ve seen the noose hanging outside the Capitol, the Confederate flags waving, and the shirts celebrating the Holocaust, you know the particular hatred they feel for African Americans, people of color, and Jews.

Those men need to get their shadows checked.

Let’s sing it together: Pro-jec-tion!

Every ounce of their rage is a projection of their own unbalanced and suffering psyches.

The reality of what is happening in America—and has been happening in America forever—needs to be named. White Supremacy and Patriarchal dominance are psychological viruses with profound powers of destruction. The two were at play throughout colonialism and slavery, they were at play throughout WWII, and they are at play today.

What we need instead of lopsided fealty to the ideas and lives of toxic whiteness and toxic masculinity, is wholeness. Balance. Integration. Consciousness. We need self-inquiry, not projection. We need love of Self and Other, not hatred-of -others masking hatred-of-self.

We are deep in Trickster territory here. Every individual’s capacity to discern reality is being tested.

Bit by bit, we are working to name reality and elevate reality, not the White Supremacist and sexist lies that elevate the few while oppressing the many. We have been encouraged to drink that widespread propaganda for centuries. But they are just lies we tell ourselves. They are not psychological truths.

Maybe what is happening in this moment in history, as we witness Black women’s peaceful, measured, and determined organizing in Georgia cast in immediate contrast to white men’s entitlement and violence is enantiodromia: Jung’s word for the tendency of all things to change into their opposites. Perhaps, this governing principle of psychological development is at work when what has too long toiled in the shadows is being elevated, little by little, into the light of consciousness.

May this year offer us something extraordinary.

Not another war, more violence, and more wins for White Supremacy and toxic masculinity. But a reversal of all that. Perhaps, I dare say, we could move towards greater consciousness, greater balance, greater awareness collectively about what is in the shadow, and a greater love for the wounded anima throughout society too.

xo, Satya

Satya Doyle Byock, Director of The Salome Institute of Jungian Studies