THE PROBLEM IS PROJECTION — AND THE DARK SHADOWS IT CASTS. For anyone to ascend to the heights of popular power in a society, he (or, rarely, she) must provide an adequate “hook” on which the mass of people can hang their archetypal projections.
The primary archetypal image at play here is the Sovereign. Like all archetypal images, the natural and appropriate field of play for the Sovereign is the inner world of the individual soul. When it’s projected onto a person in the outer world, the opposites in tension within the ruling image can wreak havoc in a society. The mass of people projecting the image remains unconscious of its inner meaning and value, while the person upon whom the projection lands appears to become more than human or even quasi-divine. If the popular leader in turn identifies with the projected archetypal image, the power of the image is amplified and the shadows cast by both the society and the leader become darker and more impenetrable.
Consider what you know about sovereigns from history, literature, cinema, and the news. On the one hand, we know the legends of “good” sovereigns like King David or King Arthur. They are humble, kind, honest, brave, and caring “servant leaders” — perfect “Boy Scouts,” if you’ll allow me to mix metaphors. Yet, anyone who really knows the stories knows that even these good kings have their tragic flaws, their dark sides. On the other hand, we also know of “evil” sovereigns like King Ahab in the Bible or Prince John, the nemesis to Robin Hood. These leaders are arrogant, cruel, duplicitous, cowardly, and ruthless tyrants.
In the Roman world at the time of Jesus, Octavius (the adopted son of Julius) became known by the title “Augustus Caesar” — which we could translate as “Our Revered Sovereign.” Inscriptions of the day referred to Augustus as son of god and savior, the bringer of peace on earth and goodwill toward all. He was the great benefactor, patron and patriarch of the empire. He also was responsible for building a cruel, ruthless, oppressive and violent imperial domination system against which resistance was futile. (Yes, think of the Borg in Star Trek.) The shadow cast by the Roman sovereign is plain to see.
A pair of problematic sovereigns we know from more recent history were both known to their people as “The Leader” — that is, as Der Fuhrer in German and Il Duce in Italian. The movement they led, fascism, took its name from the fasces, the bundle of sticks tied around an axe that was the symbol of Roman imperial power. These leaders both carried and identified with the archetypal Sovereign image their people projected onto them, and both soon revealed the blackest darkness of their own and their societies’ shadows.
The same psychological dynamic appears to have been at play in the United States in recent years — at least since 2015, if not long before. What else explains the unexpected rise of and cult-like devotion to a leader like Donald Trump? The celebrity status Trump cultivated as a reality TV star made him larger than life for his fans, for whom he inhabited the archetypal image of the brilliant and successful (if somewhat clownishly ruthless) boss and business leader.
In other words, Trump cultivated for himself a public image as a contemporary manifestation of the Sovereign. For, if corporations are the modern, symbolic equivalents of medieval fiefdoms and kingdoms (and they are), then corporate CEOs are the modern, symbolic equivalents of the petty tyrants and kings of the Dark Ages. Unfortunately, like those medieval tyrants, Trump also cast a large shadow teaming with cruelty, divisiveness, lies, and narcissistic inflation, which brought into view the collective, inflated and often unconsciously racist shadows of his followers.
So, the trouble with following “the Leader” is that it is so often based on the unconscious and one-sided projection into the outer world of an inner, archetypal, soul image — in this case the image of the Sovereign. Because of the projection, the chosen leader appears to the mass of his followers to be a brilliant, shining, supremely wise and good demi-god. The leader becomes an inhuman figure who not only casts no shadow, but also affirms the shadow-less self-delusion of his righteous followers. Unfortunately, all their shadows remain active, unseen but manifesting through their behavior.
The solution to this projection problem is to increase consciousness through introjection. Self-examination, given enough time and effort, will reveal that the projected qualities and values are one’s own. When you withdraw the projection from “the Leader,” you see that the emperor has no clothes. Ironically, it’s largely correct for the Sovereign to say, “I alone can fix it,” but it’s only so in the enchanted soul-world of the psyche. In the outer world, people growing in consciousness need to put aside “the Leader” and choose democratic social systems for governing themselves through increasingly authentic interpersonal relationships.
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