{"id":151275,"date":"2014-07-15T09:42:17","date_gmt":"2014-07-15T06:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/espirited.com\/under-the-rainbow-or-about-loneliness-as-an-archetypal-experience\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T03:25:51","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T01:25:51","slug":"under-the-rainbow-or-about-loneliness-as-an-archetypal-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/espirited.com\/en\/under-the-rainbow-or-about-loneliness-as-an-archetypal-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Loneliness as an Archetypal Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

James Hillman\u2019s The Soul\u2019s Code<\/em> is an extraordinary book. It is imbued with pathos and passion, poetic imagery and soul-healing symbolism, through which Hillman \u201cdeclares war\u201d on traditional psychology\u2014one that kills the human soul with dry reports, reductionist theories, and diagnoses that pathologize the human spirit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI intend to declare war on the tradition of the biographical method that assumes the past and tradition determine the present,\u201d he writes.<\/em>
And he adds: \u201cI want psychology to be grounded in human imagination, not in statistics and diagnostics. I want individual cases to be approached with poetic thinking, so that we may see their true content\u2014as contemporary fairy tales rather than scientific reports.\u201d<\/em>
(The Soul\u2019s Code, p. 52)<\/em><\/p>\n

Hillman resists the construction of theories about human beings based on statistical averages and the subsequent forcing of the mystery of the human spirit to fit those theories. For him, \u201chuman life is more than what theories ascribe to it\u201d<\/em>, which is why he chooses to explore the biographies of extraordinary individuals\u2014through whom \u201cthe extraordinary reveals the ordinary in magnified and more vivid form.\u201d<\/em> In doing so, he comes closer to the archetypes: those transpersonal sources of images and ideas that are the true wellsprings of creativity, inspiration, and talent. The only difference between \u201cordinary\u201d and extraordinary people, according to Hillman, is that the latter have more direct access to them.<\/p>\n

One such extraordinary individual is Judy Garland<\/strong>\u2014\u201cthe American actress and singer, regarded by many as the greatest singer of the golden age of Hollywood musical film.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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Archetypal Loneliness<\/h2>\n

\u201cThe story of Judy Garland\u201d tells of loneliness amid world-wide fame. What accounts for the loneliness that accompanies every life? It is not the exclusive mark of stars in their Hollywood mansions, nor of the elderly in nursing homes. Loneliness is also part of childhood. In the child\u2019s heart it may be intensified by fear of the dark, strict parents, or the absence of friends. Yet its source seems to lie in the solitary uniqueness of each divine spirit\u2014an archetypal loneliness<\/strong>, inexpressible in the vocabulary of children and scarcely more accessible to the expressive means of adults.<\/em><\/p>\n

Moments of despondency cast us into a sea of loneliness. Waves of loneliness wash over us after childbirth, divorce, or the death of a long-term partner. The soul withdraws and mourns alone. Notes of loneliness slip even into the noisy celebration of a birthday or the triumph of success. Is this merely a hangover\u2014a compensatory low following unusual highs? It seems that nothing can withstand it. The entire network that binds us outward and downward into the world\u2014family, friends, neighbors, loved ones, small habits, the results of long years of work\u2014appears to mean nothing at all.<\/em><\/p>\n

We feel strangely depersonalized and very far away. No connection anywhere. The spirit of loneliness reigns.<\/em><\/p>\n

To protect ourselves from such moments, we have philosophies that explain them and medications that deny them\u2026 (and yet) \u2026 these approaches to loneliness\u2014social, therapeutic, moral, and existential\u2014rest on two assumptions that I cannot accept.<\/em>
First, each claims that loneliness is identical to physical isolation and therefore can be remedied through some form of physical action: repentance for sins, therapy, or the heroic realization of one\u2019s life project by one\u2019s own hands.<\/em>
Second, they all assume that loneliness is inherently unpleasant.<\/em><\/p>\n

But if there is an archetypal sense of loneliness that accompanies us from the very beginning, then to be alive means to feel lonely. Loneliness comes and goes regardless of the measures we take. It does not depend on physical isolation, since it may descend upon us while we are surrounded by friends, lying in bed with a lover, or standing before a cheering crowd at a microphone. If we accept loneliness as archetypal, it becomes necessary\u2014it ceases to be an expression of sin, fear, or error. We can accept its strange independence and free it from identification with physical isolation. Moreover, it ceases to be unpleasant once it receives its archetypal explanation.<\/em><\/p>\n

If we look more closely\u2014or rather, feel loneliness\u2014we will see that it consists of several elements: nostalgia, sadness, silence, and a longing for \u201csomething different,\u201d not here and not now. For these elements and images to appear, we must focus on them rather than on remedies for the fact that we are literally physically alone. Hopelessness intensifies when we search for a way out of despair.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 James Hillman, The Soul\u2019s Code, pp. 75\u201378<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Archetypal<\/p>\n

Hillman writes beautifully. The life of Judy Garland is one of the clearest demonstrations of loneliness as an archetypal experience rooted in the deeper layers of the human psyche. She had no external reasons to feel lonely. Her success was more than \u201cstellar\u201d\u2014her talent was praised by the greatest artists of her time, and she was spoken of as \u201cthe greatest actress who ever lived and likely ever will\u201d<\/em> (Fred Astaire). Yet instead of leading to boundless joy, this resulted in the exact opposite: an intensely unhappy personal life and profound inner devastation\u2014\u201cambulances rushing to the hospital, stomach pumpings, blackmail, a throat slashed with broken glass, stage fright, public scandals, handfuls of pills, heavy drinking, sexual promiscuity, confiscated wages, being thrown out onto the street, black despair and paralyzing terror\u201d (p. 72).<\/p>\n

According to Hillman, Judy Garland\u2019s life represents an unsuccessful attempt at \u201cdescending downward\u201d<\/em>\u2014from the realm of the non-human (that is, the archetypal) into the human world, the densest and heaviest aspect of the Spirit\u2019s manifestation. In her life he sees a vivid example of the extreme pain of incarnation, where descent downward \u201cmeans aging, confusion, and death.\u201d<\/em> He also finds in it living proof that at its core, loneliness is an archetypal experience. Even if this is not as clearly visible in ordinary human life, loneliness is not identical with physical isolation or the lack of shared intimacy. It is a basic fact of human existence, and as such the appropriate way to deal with it is not struggle but befriending it<\/strong>\u2014getting to know its many faces.<\/p>\n

This means reaching its very roots, where we discover the longing for Home\u2014that place \u201cOver the Rainbow,\u201d<\/em> as the song that made Judy Garland famous is called.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe place of her acorn is \u2018over the rainbow.\u2019 Even in her final stage appearances, bloated and ill, inadequate and terrified, she enchanted the audience precisely with the song from The Wizard of Oz<\/em>, which carried both the audience and herself upward.\u201d (p. 73)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n