Living Myth Podcast 485 - Under the Spell of Power and Greed

Added: 2026-04-29

[00:00:10]Welcome to the Living Myth Podcast with Michael Me, where this shifting, changing world is looked at from a mythic perspective.

[00:00:20]This episode begins with the ancient tale of the Titans, the mythic giants who wrecked havoc at the beginning of civilization and arise again when human cultures become powerdriven and chaotic.

[00:00:33]In psychological terms, the condition of titanism appears in those who use chaos to gain power and use it solely to aggrandise themselves.

[00:00:44]Sustaining those false uses of power requires that people continue to give their own power to those seeking to become deified.

[00:00:54]For power is no godsend in itself and can only become a blessing when it is used to help those in need and to protect those suffering injustice.

[00:01:21]The idea of history repeating itself can also be seen as a matter of incurable issues of humanity that simply won't go away, that keep recurring, that won't stay buried, and cannot simply be put behind us.

[00:01:39]Particularly at the end of an era, time itself seems to flow backwards as if some things that we would rather not face have to be faced before time can move forward again.

[00:01:55]In times of radical change, as cultural structures and institutions break down, that which has been long denied and repressed, returns and often does so with a vengeance.

[00:02:09]In times like that, the sins of the fathers are visited upon the sons and the daughters as old wounds and conflicts and raw emotions as well as archaic energies rise to the surface and refuse to be pushed back down.

[00:02:28]The conditions in which we now live involves a return of the repressed where all the conflicts in life seem to be present at the same moment. Where people become increasingly polarized and divided and where those who have the most power often have the least knowledge about what to do with that power. but even more tragically can have no understanding about the everinccreasing need for finding ways to heal what turn out to be the old and recurring wounds of humanity.

[00:03:13]One way to find some ground to stand upon would be to realize that we are not simply in another historical dilemma that might be resolved through reason or in logical ways, but rather we are in a mythological condition that requires that we see the world in more psychological and imaginative ways.

[00:03:39]As each day now seems to bring greater troubles, whether it be in the shape of a new and sudden war or the threat of worldwide economic collapse or revelations about the increase of violence in many parts of the world. I find myself thinking about the original struggle for civilization as told for instance in old Greek myths.

[00:04:09]In those old stories, the first great task of the gods of civilization was to defeat a race of giants that were called the titans and thrust them down into Taurus, which was the sunless abyss below the surface of the earth.

[00:04:29]The Titans were to be kept there as what we think of as civilization could only develop when their archaic energies were held at bay. The Titans were not just giants. They were called the strainers as they were full of hubris and they strained to be seen as gods who did not need to follow any rules.

[00:04:55]Hubris is the ancient Greek term for the condition of unrestrained pride, an exaggerated self-importance that involves a yawning emptiness on the inside that leads to unbounded excess on the outside.

[00:05:11]Titanism is a particular form of hubris that develops when individuals or groups reject common decency, basic morality, and even the sense of human mortality as they seek to act and be seen as gods.

[00:05:30]The Titans originally appeared in the time of chaos that came before civilized culture began. But they were also said to appear again during periods of cultural upheaval when the fear of a collapse of civilization is present.

[00:05:48]In that sense, Titanism is both precultural and postcultural and can make a return whenever the world becomes chaotic again.

[00:06:01]We are in such a time when the web of life loosens, when uncertainty comes to rule, and therefore when repressed aspects of the unconscious rise to the surface and become revealed and released. And when that happens, it is as if the Titans have returned.

[00:06:23]As the sense of meaning and trust drains from cultural institutions, unconscious psychic energies like the Titans are loosed upon the world. In such a time all aspects of life can be psychically charged as archetypal material and raw emotions rise from the depths of the unconscious and can invade the minds and hearts of people.

[00:06:52]The condition of titanism involves excessive desires for power and exaggerated threats for using that power. Both of which are now on display in the posturing and rhetoric of many modern leaders, some of whom claim divine attributes like being omnipotent or all powerful and even omnisient or all- knowing.

[00:07:18]In the realm of the Titans, nothing is sacred except excess momentary satisfactions of greed and a need for dominance. On one hand, the Titans are full of themselves. On the other hand, they are insatiable and endlessly ravenous because they are empty and hollow inside.

[00:07:38]Under the spell of titanism, everything is done simply for effect, simply to make a big appearance, for there is no real reflection or sense of responsibility.

[00:07:52]Having lost the sense of inherent meaning in their own lives, those affected by titanism tend to attack and destroy whatever does carry meaning.

[00:08:03]Titanism can be seen as the growing shadow of mass cultures where massive problems develop and mass communications makes possible expressing raw emotions as is the case of all the wild statements, threats of cruelty and a willingness to obliterate anyone who doesn't agree who can be deemed as other.

[00:08:31]Those affected by Titanism prefer jargon and crude speech and empty rhetoric.

[00:08:38]They also prefer fantasies to genuine facts and actual reality. And having lost all sense of empathy for the suffering of others, they see violence and destruction as being justified.

[00:08:52]Like giant forces arising from the depths of the underworld, Titanism appears where unconsciousness prevails, where people refuse psychological shadings, and where immaturity and lack of emotional growth passes for passion.

[00:09:10]In mythological terms, whenever uncertainty comes to rule and life seems to turn upside down, there is an increasing danger of being possessed by escalating fears, anxieties, and aggressive tendencies that can intensify on both individual and collective levels.

[00:09:32]In myths, the Titans were primitive and univilized and also untethered and therefore powerful.

[00:09:42]And when the world enters a period of upheaval and archaic energies are unleashed, it becomes more important to have some understanding of the nature of power.

[00:09:57]The word power originates from the Latin roots potter p meaning to be able and pus p o t i s simply meaning powerful.

[00:10:11]The related word potus p o tus can mean a drink or a drought but can also mean to be drunk.

[00:10:22]Thus the old idea that power typically intoxicates those who come to handle it.

[00:10:29]For power is no blessing in itself and can only become a blessing when it is used to help those in need and to protect those suffering injustice.

[00:10:42]To put it another way, unless power is being used for the benefit of others and for an increase of civilization, it will be used against others and in service of uncivilized purposes.

[00:11:03]From ancient times until the present moment, the presence of power will generate power issues and will quickly create a shadow side of whatever is involved.

[00:11:17]Everything that exists in this world casts a shadow and a particularly potent shadow will appear wherever an imbalance of power arises.

[00:11:28]In order to see how power imbalances develop and become increasingly destructive, we have to look at the psychological dynamic of projection.

[00:11:40]Amongst the many mysteries and ironies of human life, we can find the psychological fact that we may only become conscious of what exists within ourselves by projecting it out onto those outside ourselves.

[00:11:56]In order to learn and grow and even to remain engaged in life, a person must cast their inner psychic contents onto outer people and situations in the world. In other words, in order to become more conscious and aware of our inherent abilities and potential powers, we project them onto models who can reflect those qualities back to us. Our parents tend to be the first people we hang our hopes upon, but also the first that we hang our projections on.

[00:12:30]Typically, children project what seems most powerful, magical, and transcendent onto their parents. After all, they seem to have magically produced us and initially appear as much larger, much more knowledgeable, and much more powerful than us. As we grow, it tends to be the teachers and seemingly heroic figures that we encounter upon whom we project that which we secretly seek to awaken in ourselves.

[00:13:02]To be clear, it is ultimately not the powerful people we meet who are the genuine goal of our projections, but rather it is a deeper, more conscious connection to our own naturally gifted and secretly aimed self and soul.

[00:13:20]The admiration, esteem, and even adoration that we have for those who appear magical and powerful to us is a natural development that can lead to a greater sense of selfmpowerment or else can lead us into a situation where the other becomes more powerful while we become increasingly disempowered.

[00:13:45]This condition of becoming disempowered can be seen in the common yet intricate dynamics that exist between teachers and students, between leaders and followers, and even between healers and patients.

[00:14:01]When a situation remains mostly unconscious, the dynamics of power will lead to circumstances in which one person seemingly becomes all knowing and all powerful while the other feels increasingly unknowing and powerless.

[00:14:18]This age-old dynamic that was present back at the beginning of human civilization can be seen as a splitting of the archetype.

[00:14:30]Each archetypal pairing, whether it be teacher and student, healer and patient, leader and follower or guru and devotee, involves contrasting and potentially opposing poles that naturally generate elemental tensions.

[00:14:49]The archetypal split appears when the student or patient or follower projects too much of their own power onto the other person involved.

[00:15:03]At that point, the shadow aspects in the teacher, healer or leader will be activated and intensified.

[00:15:13]In other words, when in that kind of position, we can project all or most of our power onto the other person, thereby disempowering ourselves, but also overempowering the shadow of that person. An extreme example of this splitting the archetype happens when a person in a leadership position develops a god complex.

[00:15:38]This has happened many times throughout history as the Caesars in Roman times, Napoleon and Mussolini and many other autocrats are examples of self-deification in which leaders act not just as dictators but also as demigods.

[00:15:58]Of course, it is the willingness of the followers that enhances the power and seemingly godlike qualities of the leader as the act of submission and unending loyalty inflates the leader while also seeming to relieve the follower of responsibility for all the dire.

[00:16:25]The old term charlatan was used to describe someone who pretends to levels of knowledge, skill, and important that they do not truly possess.

[00:16:36]When a leader becomes caught in the charlatan shadow, they not only increasingly claim godlike powers, but they must also increasingly continue to keep their followers weak and wounded in order to sustain the false sense of superiority.

[00:16:58]The message too often overlooked in the case of hubris on the part of leaders who claim the hero savior cloak is that when a mortal person claims godlike abilities, the emptiness inside them grows ever deeper until they typically undermine themselves.

[00:17:24]This kind of titanism and distortion of power appears in situations where people refuse psychological shadings and where immaturity passes for real passion and where blind excess and the drive to power become not just the means but the endgame.

[00:17:47]In that sense, the term charlatan refers not just to the quack who seeks to fool others, but also to the fact that those who become charlatan leaders also fool themselves.

[00:18:05]See, mythologically, we are in one of those times when the institutions of civilization can no longer contain and protect us from the rapidity of radical changes and the eruptions of archaic energies, raw emotions and unconscious drives.

[00:18:29]In such times, we have to become more psychologically aware in order to find ways to hold together the archetypal pairings that are repeatedly in danger of being split in ways that cause us to be increasingly split and divided inside ourselves.

[00:18:53]At the end of an era, it becomes more important to be able to hold together the ends with the beginnings. For those are the archetypal pairings in every story, whether it be the individual or the narrative of the entire world.

[00:19:13]Within that overarching sense of paired opposites, we find the other essential pairings such as teacher, student, wounded healer, and genuine leader who learns the shadows of power and therefore finds ways to serve all who might follow.

[00:19:37]An old meaning of maturity describes it as an increasing ability to withstand and even understand the tension of opposites.

[00:19:48]And the word individual literally means undivided. That is to say, the one not divided on the inside and therefore more able to withstand great pressure and uncertainty coming from the outside world.

[00:20:04]When the tension of oppositions can be held long enough, the result is creation or in the sense of a world undergoing radical change, recreation.

[00:20:17]As an old idea would put it, the only meaningful outcome of a genuine conflict or struggle between opposites is creativity.

[00:20:30]And when we find ourselves in the hard times, in the troubled times, when civilization itself is not only under threat, but seems that it could possibly be overwhelmed by titanic forces coming both from inside the unconscious of people and from outside circumstances.

[00:20:53]We are being called to find and live in deeper ways. the original gifts of our souls and the potential power that we inherently have to contribute in some way to the healing and renewal of the world around us.

[00:21:13]There is surprising hidden knowledge and wisdom and creative power that has existed in the souls of people throughout time and that tends to awaken in the most troubled times. And we can see that in the lives of the poets and the dreamers and the healers and the genuine leaders that have also existed throughout time. Here's a poem from one of them. Rea Marie Rilka.

[00:21:44]Just as the wing and energy of delight carried you over many chasms early on, now raise the daringly imagined arc holding up the astounding bridges of life. Miracle doesn't only lie in the amazing living through and surviving danger. Rather, miracles become miracles in the clear effort and the achievement that is earned. To work with the things of the world is not hubris when building associations beyond words. For then denser and denser the pattern of creativity becomes and being carried along by life is not enough. So take your well disciplined strengths and stretch them between two opposing poles because inside human beings is where God learns.

[00:22:49]Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Me live by joining his free online event, The Soul of Change on Thursday, April 30th. Register and learn more at mosaicvoices.org/events.

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