Copyright (c) 2010 Dave Smart

My usual response to television commercials is either to walk away and do housework while they run, or check out what's on another channel. But every now and then one really hits me, not necessarily to buy the product or service advertised, but more likely the psychological effect, one possibly not intended by its creators. A couple of commercials have hit me recently.

In one, created by an animal advocacy group, the plight of dogs trained for (illegal in this country) dogfights, was illustrated. "Dogs forced to fight by their owners" it said, and beyond what they showed I could see the horror: weary, injured and exhausted dogs no longer wishing to continue the fight, but being forced by their handlers to do so until the other dog was killed - or he was killed himself. What struck me was: what a horrible way for any creature, human or animal, to live - or die. Has such circumstance ever happened to humans? We know from history that it has. The gladiators of Roman days had to fight to the death in the arenas, to please the crowds, who had been manipulated into a frenzy to demand blood. And not just the Romans. A Chinese poem says:

Minister of war, We are the kings claws and teeth. Why should you roll us from misery to misery, Giving us no place to come to and stay?

Indeed, in our day, the occultocracy, which is what we call the intelligence community of United States, Israel, UK and other nations' intelligence services in their effect upon our lives, knows all too well that 'intelligence' means 'information about the enemy'. So what happens if there is peace, and therefore no enemy? The intelligence community must ensure, or try to ensure, that it does not come to that. I think of a STAR TREK episode where two protagonists at war on a planet, were found by the Star Trek crew to be victims of the culture from another planet that was secretly exacerbating their conflict, manipulating it to continue by balancing their forces, so that it would remain a continuing stalemate, and in some way harvesting their emotions of conflict and hatred. The present world situation has alarming parallels.

The television commercial about the dogs is thus a paradigm of a continuing situation among humans as well as animals. It is a waking dream - or more aptly, a waking nightmare.

In the other television commercial, created by an insurance company, there were a series of scenes of someone being a 'good Samaritan' to a stranger: retrieving a lost toy, giving a cup of coffee to someone who had none, pushing someone out of the way of a falling box, and so on. But in each scene there was a witness, who in the succeeding scene would himself be a good Samaritan. The message, possibly unintended by the creators, was of karma, but of good karma: the energy of good Samaritanism can be like a living, growing thing. It is another waking dream.

A world of waking dreams is the essence of the philosophy Santayanism, which is the development of the ideas of philosopher George Santayana (1863-1952), who saw both historical events and personal events in each person's life as the re-enactment of legends from the various mythologies of cultures around the world. Mythologies are not only ancient, but modern and contemporary. They are reflected in movies, TV episodes; supermarket paperbacks, especially science fiction; and yes, even television commercials.

Jungian psychology and philosophy is closely related to Santayanism. A basic tenet of it is: you create your own reality. But, you do so by choosing what legends to re-enact. If you do not choose them at some level, conscious or otherwise, they will choose you.

But how do I go about creating my own reality?

You begin by identifying the recurring patterns in your life: those things that seem to "always happen to me". You can sit on your pants and whine "why does this always happen to me?", or you can understand that at some level you have chosen particular myths - or allowed them to choose you. Your list of patterns become your catalog of myths and, once you have identified them, there will be those you like and those you don't.

But before you begin throwing overboard those that you don't like, remember: they are a part of you. They are there to teach you something, and the lesson may not be quite over. In dream work it is recognized that everything that happens in a dream, from its opening sequence to the point where you wake up from it, is meant to happen. So it is with a waking dream. But what you can do is, create a picture of your Future Self and in that, what legends you would re-enact in some form suitable to today's world. In the re-enactment, the technology and language would be today's, but the energy, the ways of doing things and the spirit of them, would be as in the ancient legends.