james hillman on animals

8/3/2019 James Hillman on Animals

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JAMES HILLMAN ON ANIMALS:ACORRESPONDENCE

Interviewed by John Stockwell

JS: You speak now of "ensouling the \\lOrld . "How does this re la te to concerns tha t peoplehave about the destruction of nature and theextinction of species, about cruelty to animals and ki l l ing them?HI:Ll:MAN: According to prevailing Western (orNorthern) consciousness, th e world i s merelymatter, not al ive, and without soul. Whatdifference does it make what we do with everything tha t i s not human--it i s alreadydead. strip-mining i s good, according toth is view, because it helps humans in whomthe soul i s exclusively located. So, you cansee tha t the idea of anima mundi, as the soulin the \\IOrld, upsets th is prevailing a t t i -tude. eosrrology has to change, if you wantto l ibera te animals fran thei r Western predicament. And the f i r s t step in changing cosIll:)logy i s returning the soul to the \\IOrld,thereby releasing soul fran entrapnent inhuman subjectivism.JS: What has polytheist ic consciousness todo with th is? Is there sane relat ionship toa possible way of l i f e tha t \\IOuld re ta in roanfor the variety of species to survive?HI:Ll:MAN: Support for variety i s not thecrucial aspect of polytheist ic consciousness.After a l l , Noah's Ark also supported variety.More significant in th is consciousness i stha t wherever you look into polytheist icreligions--Egypt, E s ~ , India, Mesopotamia,t r iba l societies--you find tha t animals aredivin i t ies . Anything one does with them mustbe with thei r accord, else on e i s alienatedfran them (as we are) . So, polytheist icconsciousness implies rel igious respect foranimals--al l animals.

JS: A bioregionalist i s a person who seeksto base his/her l iving upon the characterist ics of the natural place, attempting to l ivehere in this place, si tuated within a watershed, an d tha t within a bioregion defined byi t s specific mix of fauna an d f lora and oftenBEIWEEN THE SPEX:IES 4

J;bysiograJ;bically. A reinhabitant i s evenIll:)re concrete in th is pract ice.

When I read your several pleasing essayson ci ty l i f e , taken fran talks given for theDallas Ins t i tu te of Humanities and Cultureand The Center for Civic Leadership in Dallas , I found in them much about which abioregional ist or reinhabitant would be fm -thusiast ic . I t ca n be seen tha t were itpossible to take an at t i tude toward the urbanenvironment tha t would tend to ensoul, andthen actually ensoul, those objects, thefreeways and towers, an d so on, tha t then afundamental transformation of ou r at t i tooe\\IOuld be accanplished. I t \\IOuld be a t rans-formation which \\IOuld play back beneficiallyinto our relat ionship with nature and otherspecies. I \\IOnder, however, whether to suggest this project does not in fact lend addi t ional s tatus to certain of the main sourcesof the destruct ion of nature, namely, thosefreeways and towers, with the resul t tha t theinmense pressure they exer t upon naturalplace i s rat i f ied rather than resisted an drel ieved. So much additional construction oftowers going forward while we undertake theinmense task of ensouling the massive constructed \\IOrld might be thought to continuet.o enta i l concanitant destruction of nature .Would it not be bet ter to res i s t such construct ion, i f possible bring down much tha thas been constructed, an d in ci t ies to approach the ensouling of the \\IOrld in relat ionto visions of the ci ty a t a Ill:)re human scale?

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HILLMAN: Where I am in sympathy with bothbioregionalism an d re inhabita t ion as you havedescribed them, we have to face a very simplefact : contemfOrary consciousness is thoroughly urbanized an d teclmologized. Naturei s no longer adequately ilnagined as the GreatMother who susta ins us: instead, sh e hasbecane a very f ragi le , endangered old lady, asenile case who has to be protected an d preserved. The Twentieth Century seems to haveended the rule of Nature an d replaced it withthe rule of Technology. So, the issue todayis double: both maintaining what we ca n ofnature an d extending the soul into teclmology. Here, I follow my fr iends Robert sardel 10 and Wolfgang Giegerich, who are attemptingto re-vision the urban and the teclmologicalin terms of the Incarnation, the word becaning f lesh , the f lesh of the materia l world,actual things--fran ashtrays an d f lush-toile ts to the nuclear banb. As long as thesacred and the soulful are exclusively an dsentimentally l imited to natural things, thena l l other things, l ike freeways and towers,became Satanic or soulless. This divisionwil l k i l l us: it i s the old C hris t ian divi sion between the realm of Christ and that ofCaesar. Every effor t has to be made to facethe realm of Caesar, the ci t i es , an d to re think them in terms of the anilna mundi whichencompasses a l l things, constructed and natura l . Once we can see with an anilnated eyeand read buildings fo r the i r psychic import ,and t ru s t our eyes, we wil l not have suchextreme OPfOsit ion between urban an d rura l .It i s not t ha t freeways and towers as suchare wrong, but the arrogance, paranoia, an dspeed which they embody. They merely concret i ze and exhibit massively those qual i t ies ofsoul which appear as well in human beings andin natural objects. We need desperately notto harden the l ines of confrontation betweenadvocates--developers and conservers--butrather to soften the f ront iers in our thinking about where the soul i s located. Unt i lwe recognize soul in man--made things, and notonly in snai l -dar ters and whooping cranes, wecondemn freeways and towers in to being for ever rconsters without souls . So , of coursethey cannot help but have a deleterious eff ec t on t he i r environment and wil l continueto be erected as Satanic derconstrations.

JS: In several of your books, yo u have characterized the turn to the East, the return tothe land, the return to the primit ive , andthe turn to animals as wrongly chosen direct ions . You sa y that these ways f a i l to re

cognize that which i s rcost al ive an d re sourceful in our Western consciousness, namely , the archetypes/divine persons of f i r s tthe Greek experience and then other Westernexperience s t i l l al ive in our own. You ad dthat in turning toward animals, there i s ar isk of barbaric animality. As I understandwhat you are saying, th i s i s because theabsence of ilnagination, of ilnages, psyche,the ilnaginal, the fa i lure to give thei r dueto the divine persons who al ive in ourexperience as Western people i s connectedwith the harm tha t we v i s i t ufOn nature . Weare l ike Ajax slaying animals, because we arenot suff ic ient ly imaginal.

OUr idea, however, as advocates foranilnals, i s to turn toward the anilnal throughcaring, through appreciation, through respectan d reverence for other l iving species, eventhrough a recognit ion of our shared ident i tywith other species. We turn toward anilnalsas toward others having r ights . We turn ashumans do to one another, in the cCIllIIOOn cannnmity. We also turn as a shapeshif ter ,exploring empathetically and i lnaginatively,an d then ethical ly , th is larger senSE;! ofkind. We return to anilnals, seeking to cr i t ique our present in terms of what we oncewere and, hopefully, wil l continue to be,even rcore so.

Will you carment?

HILLMAN: When I made those remarks against5 BE.lWEEN THE SPOCIES


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returning to an:illlality, I meant only onething: our beCXJllling non-verbal, gruntinggoofs--"Animal House." I was using the tenn"animality" in the usual, insul t ing sense:dumb, brute, wild. I was addressing thats ty le of simplist ic therapy tha t has given upon language as expression of soul an d cal lscrawling and screaming "reconnection with theanimal body. " When pat ients are urged towriggle l ike a snake or hug l ike a bear, theyare encouraged to be as ugly and violent asonly hmnans can be. These therapies do notnotice the beauty of actual animals and thatreconnecting to the animal means get t ing to aIOOre sensi t ive, IOOre ar t ful and humorousplace in the psyche. Thus, these therapies Iwas condenming, in the name of finding theanimal soul, actual ly re-enact our Westernt radi t ion 's contempt.

Besides , giving up on language betraysour own human nature. I think tha t the hmnanform of display, in the ethologist 's sense of"display," i s rhetoric. OUr abi l i ty to sing,speak, t e l l ta les , rec i te , orate i s essent ia lto our love-rraking, boasting, fear-inspiring,terri tory-protect ing, surrendering, and off -spring-guarding behaviors. Giraffes and t i -

sense of"animal, I therefore heart i ly engers have splendid coats; we have splendidspeech. Returning to an:illIality , in your

"dorse, as you know, for instance, fran myrecent seminars with Gary Snyder, Gioia Timpanell i , and Robert Bly, and also fran mylectures on the subject going back to thes ix t ies , a l l of which have been aimed a tevoking the animal as psychic presence. Ihave been t rying to foster self-recognit ionof hmnan being as an:illIal being.JS: Bioregionalists and reinhabitants havenoticed tha t indigenous peoples, who residedin the i r natural region usually for a longtime, had becane shaped by the ir place intopeople whose relationships with the naturalworld were respectful and IOOre reciprocalthan we f ind ours to be'. Inmigrants, IOOst ofus, by contrast , were shaped P1ysiografhically elsewhere than where we now are. OUrescalating assaul t on nature derives fran ourbeing t ransiet l ts , fran our being in aplace we do not recognize, an d from the canpensative effor ts we make' to l ive as i f wewere in that other place we came fran. wellDdify the geograP1Y here which we do notrecognize, t ry to shape it l ike the old, orsimply root it up or pave it over, so that a tleast we can fantasize the old defensivelyagainst the earth voices of a place unfamil

ia r to us. Reinhabitants seek instead torecognize place as th is place, with i t s spec i f ic character, seek to l ive here. Thean:illIals, plants , rocks, and waters of th isplace are specif ic. Considering now SanFrancisco Bay, the l i fe of indigenous peoplein this place, under i t s influence, shaped byi t , gave r i se to divine persons, Kuksu andpossibly Coyote aIOOng them, who are exqui-si tely appropriate to nature an d the potent i a l i t ies of hmnan l i fe here. Attempting toapproach these local figures through studyand through the imitat ion or even enactmentof the r i tuals of peoples for whan thesefigures were al ive, i s one way of tuning into the actual nature of th is place, of learning to see, even to see through the pavement.They are figures of regulation, offering thesuggestion of limits within which to l ive.Acquaintance with these local persons i s heldby reinhabitants to be a highly importantfactor in contending with those forces whichare destroying this place. The reccmnendat ion to turn away fran the attempt to becaneacquainted with these figures appears torec:orrmend giving up this means of finding outwhere we are. Ajax, slayer of animals, mistook the scene. Hercules does not appropriately re la te to where he arr ives, in theUnderworld. I t would be held tha t Dionysus,for' example, i s disoriented in Shasta (northern cal i fornia) , though perhaps less sothan Ajax, and offers not much contact withthe actual place. By knowing hi m one ratherknows Greece, which i s jus t the t rouble, forthe Greeks and other figures of the inmigrantt radit ions are perhaps present as pioneersan d forty-niners too, even i f we ca n agreethat the eternal nature of a god does notpermit him to be other than his character ,though it be changeable, indicates, no matterwhere he i s .

By attending to the persons of Westernconsciousness. it would seem, what one getsare visions of the City on the Hil l (SanFrancisco) or the Athens of the West (Ber-keley) . But are these notions suff icientlyecological to remain hmnane? At the veryleast , the persons of our Western imaginationwould seem to be well advised to themselvesbecame reinhabitants through acquaintancewith the ancient figures of this place.Being precise in thei r mythic structures,howeyer, can they be so polytheistic?HILLMAN: "To see through the pavement"--whata lovely metaP1or! Who could be against i t?

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Yet, I hear the voice of Gaia in your quest ion . You see, fran the perspective of anarchetypal psychology, every posit ion presents the voice of a "God," an i.maginativetrope that governs the viewpoint. The emphas is on geography and physiography, on earth,plants , rocks, etc. , seems to bespeak theperspective of Gaia (who today i s tending toreplace old Jahweh with a new and fanat icalmonotheistic consciousness). The danger ofthis perspective--which i s , nonetheless, veryappealing--is tha t i t , too, becanes a l i t e r -alism; i . e . , Dionysus has meaning only inGreece, whereas i f you l ive in the Pacif icNorthwest, you must see through the l i t e r a lpavement into the l i te ra l Native Americanmyths and styles , for they once l i t e ra l lyinhabited tha t soi l . Reinhabiting couldbecx:me a kmd of imitat io Christ i t ransferredto an imitation of pre-white cul ture.

I do not want to offend you, or Gaia, orthe Native Americfu"1s of the pacif ic Northwest, or those who follow the path of re inhabitation. Yet, psychologically, whereverwe IlOve, we :i.rrmigrants, we sons and daughtersof Europe, mainly, speaking English with i t s

roots in Northern Europe and Latin and Greek,with our civ i l iza t ion ' s custans, dogmas, an dlaws, and our Bible, we see through the pavemant only according to our own t radi t ion.OUr eyeballs and ears were made in Palestineand Athens, in Rane, Florence, and I.Dnd.on-even i f we study Zen, change our name into

Sanskrit, or chant native American songs.Because of our background, we can never hearthe rocks speak without the distort ions webring with our hearing, in our unconsciousbaggage. My task ha s been to unpack theimmigrants' trunks, to ins i s t tha t the set -t l e r s look a t what they are transporting withthem fran Palestine and Rane in the ir a t t i tudes in which l ies history. Dionysus andGaia, an d especially Christianity, continueto affect what we Americans do and say. Anyway, even i f I am a l l wrong, doesn ' t it takecenturies for a se t t le r to hear the earth ofa place, to becane soil-soaked?JS : In your essay ent i t led "The Animal Kingdan in the Human Dream" (Eranos Yearbook,1982), you write, IlOvingly:

We know the record of exterminat ion . The animal kingdan fran thecaveman through Darwin on the Galapagos an d Melville on the whaler i sno IlOre. Insecticides l i e on theleaves. In the green hi l l s ofAfrica the bull elephants arebrought to thei r knees for the irtusks. We long for an ecologicalrestorat ion of the kingdan that i simpossible. (emphasis added)

Please elaborate. Is the protection of nature a los t cause? But we and nature l ive onin dream and imagination?

HILli'1AN: The protection of nature i s noble;so, it i sn ' t a los t cause. I t i s an ac t ofdevotion to Gaia, l e t us say--and also toDionysus, who was called "zoe", or l i fe .However, whether nature, in the Rananticsense of Wordsworth and Rousseau an d theHudson River school of painting, can continue--that I surely do not know. I do thinktha t "nature" i s already pretty well gone,except in our sentimental nostalgia. "Nature" seems to be under a two-pronged attack.We can dist inguish between the attack onactual soi l an d wetlands, actual species. an dforests , an d the attack on the Ranantic ideaof nature as locus of Beauty, as God's vei l ,or as a nourishing M:lther. I think we canprotect plants and soi l without having tosubscribe to the Ranantic idealization ofnature. And, I think we ca n protect plantsand soi l , e tc . , without being IlOralistic--ourDuty, thei r Rights, our Guilt over ancientabuses, Reasons for this protectivework? I ca n suggest three:

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a) it i s a devotion;b) it i s pract ical cannon sense to main

ta in the eon-old biosIhere;c) it extends the idea of soul, and the

experience of animation, fran our subjectivePersonalism, so tha t the individual human i sless isolated and sick.Of course, protecting plants and soi l , etc . ,i s also probably good for the plants and thes o i l - b u t I am confining myself to reasonswhy self-centered Western humans might support this protect ive work.JS : In tha t same essay, "The Animal Kingdanin the Human Dream," you write of an "aesthet ic and ecological Perception" visi ted byevents const i tut ing a "manentary restorat ionof alen," and tha t for "that short eternalwhile" there i s "an original co-presence ofhuman and animal." How do you see the imageof the Peaceable Kingdan? To which divinePerson or Persons does th is image belong?HILLMAN: Could you rrove the "Peaceable Kingdan" fran a utopian ideal , fran beaaning aprojec t (which requires "execution" and mustbe achieved by wil l power) to a psychologicalexperience readily available?

My fhrase, "that short eternal while" inwhich there i s "a n original co-presence ofhuman and animal" bespeaks an experienceanyone can have when playing with a cat , whenclose to a horse 's breathing, when hearing abird ca l l . An extraordinary chord of camnmion, which, I believe, must also be sensed Pythe animal, maybe even the bird. The contemporary infatUation with the new Animal Pioneers (Jane Goodall, the Kalahari couple, andth e observers of elefhants, t igers , wolves,etc . ) invi tes anyone to tha t psychologicalexperience of the Peaceable Kingdan. I toccurs ItOst frequently, however, r ight a theme, in bed, dreaming. And I believe, too,tha t this sor t of experience gives us a veryancient sense of the animal as a d ivinity .JS: How do you view the act iv i ty an d thinking of the animal r ights/ l iberation rrovement?Could you reccmnend direct ions the rrovementmight profi tably take?

HILLMAN: I must decline saying anythingspecific about the animal r ights rrovement,because I don ' t know enough. I 'm generallyleery of programs and rrovements wherever theytend to obscure psychological insight .(Christ ianity i s a good example of an excel

l en t program tha t resul ts in psychologicalunconsciousness regarding the program's ownshadow. ) However, the idea of Rights i s tooLockean, too secular and legal is t ic . I tseems l ike another anthropexoorphism--imagining animals as underprivileged people whomust be included in the social contract .Perhaps they want to be; I just don ' t know.Does anyone? However, i f the coSllDlogyshi f t s and we imagine them ensouled, i f ourPerception shi f t s and we see thei r beauty, i four humanism shif ts and we reCXJgIlize our owninf la t ion, then the dignity tha t r ights wouldgrant to animals would already have beenrestored. I prefer to go a t this issue, notby extending our humanistic const i tut ionalr ights , but by re-visioning secular humanismi t s e l f .JS : I f you were asking yourself questionsabout ou r relationship with animals, whatquestion would you consider was the ItOstimportant? What answers would you in i t ia l lypropose?HILLMAN: My answer wil l probably surpriseyou, and even disappoint you. M::lst importanti s bet tering the human/animal re la t ion indreams. Everything comes to a head there:our derogatory eartesian-ehrist ianism, ourmeat addiction, our insect icides; a l l ouralienation fran animals an d arrogance towardthem show up nightly in dreams where animalsare feared, attacked, eradicated--so tha t theego can awaken in the morning as a se l f centered hero ready to enter the campaign ofi t s dai ly business. Hercules, slayer of animals. I have found people with the strongestsympathy toward animal causes s t i l l acting asanimal ter ror is ts in the i r dreams. A changein consciousness may also begin in dreams,wheR the dreamer allows the fierce black dogto approach or the snake's fang to pierce hisor her skin. And, a grea t em:>tion i s re leased, a transfonnative reCXJgIlition, upondreaming of a skirmed pony, a drO\t/lled bi rd, af ish lying bel ly up. When these images aretaken deeply to hea r t - a s scmething going onr ight inside my O\t/ll psyche, my soul--the r es tfollows. I haven't even mentioned the mar-velous dream animals tha t cane to teach ' thedream ego, or save i t , or impress it withbeauty and power.

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james hillman on animals

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