Two Individuation Modes of Chinese Hero Myth in the Framework of the Heart of Psychology

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.201127.120How to use a DOI?

Keywords

the Heart of Psychology, archetypal image, Chinese hero myth, Self-archetype, individuation, Pan Ku, Kua Fu

Abstract

In the approach of the Heart of Psychology, based on “the myth is a METAPHOR for workings of the archetype, this paper finds that the classic heroic mythology of Pan Ku (盘古) and Kua Fu (夸父) embodies the two aspects of the Chinese cultural individuation — natural development and trauma transformation: the former is the dynamic symbol of the development of psychic life, psychic noumenon develop from chaos (unconscious order, the primordial Self) produce the central Self (the deity of Pan Ku), and divided into two extremes of yin and yang simultaneously, to form a “split and orderly structure of the yang (heaven) — ego (the human form of Pan Ku) — yin (earth)”, and then to the death of ego (the human form of the Pan Ku), and to reconstructing an integrated state of wholeness (conscious order) at last. It reveals the Chinese cultural development rule of “both opposite and complementary each other” (相反相成). The latter reveals that spiritual yin and yang, the opposites between two extremes, follow the “extreme-shift-moderate” path as per the rule of “Things always reverse themselves after reaching an extreme. (物极必反)” It includes the lopsided growth of the psychic “Yang” part, the compensatory growth of the psychic Yin part, the trauma due to imbalance between “Yin” and “Yang”, and the transformation of two parts neutralized; a three-stage individuation pattern starting from yang (fire, conscious) to yin (water, unconscious) and then to “neutralization” (和) of the two elements, before obtaining the integral psyche.

Copyright

© 2020, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Ruitong Guo
AU  - Yashu Pan
PY  - 2020
DA  - 2020/11/28
TI  - Two Individuation Modes of Chinese Hero Myth in the Framework of the Heart of Psychology
BT  - Proceedings of the 2020 Conference on Education, Language and Inter-cultural Communication (ELIC 2020)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 600
EP  - 605
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.201127.120
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.201127.120
ID  - Guo2020
ER  -