Watched “Dracula Untold” which was an “ok” movie. There were a few archetypal scenes mostly between Dracula and the original Vampire, and Dracula and his wife.
The interesting parts with the original Vampire are in this scene:
“Sometimes the world doesn’t need another Hero, sometimes, what it needs is a Monster.”
This scene can also be taken in a purely psychological perspective; Dracula went into a cave for self realization, and merged with his shadow. Many spiritual gnostics, and prophets went into caves to mediate. Jesus did it for 40 days and 40 nights.
In the end, he went through a sort of spiritual eucharist, where he imbibes blood the essence of his shadow to become the monster he knows himself to be.
From a Jungian perspective Dracula would be a person that is intimately in touch with their shadow. As Dracula certainly is; he knows he is a monster inside, and this deal with a real monster externalizes this realization.
The examples that are counter to that, are the villagers he turns into Vampires to help him fight the Turks. They try to kill Dracula at first when they realize what he has become, out of fear. They were not at all in touch with their unconscious.
After Dracula turns them, through an enantiodromia they all turn “evil” and are possessed by the “demon” of the blood.
Dracula on the other hand, remains – personality wise – the same person he was. A monster who loves.
This was a better retelling of the Vampire Mythology, though they could have done more. The main actors themselves did a good job though.
This reminds me of a quote from Carl Jung’s autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections (p. 377.):
There is a fine old story about a student who came to a rabbi and said, “In the olden days there were men who saw the face of God. Why don’t they any more? The rabbi replied, “Because nowadays no one can stoop so low.” One must stoop a little in order to fetch water from the stream.
The initial quote is it self meaningful today; that is the mind of the modern man is interestingly out of balance, and ignorant of itself, of both the light and darkness within. Sometimes to get pearl one must dive into the muck and mire of the psyche. But that is unpleasant, so most hardly go there.
But in relation to the movie, it also points to power. Power, when given to a person that has not realized their monstrous side will grow the unconscious monster until it fully takes over. God-Hood, if people were suddenly given the realization or power of one, would drive most of humanity mad; an egoic inflation.
And unfortunately we are in this state currently. The Ring of Power in the guise of technology has been slipped on our finger and we do not have the wisdom needed to resist using it for evil ends, out of thinking we are doing good. Whether it is Social Media that is driving polarization, or the Smart Phone which is driving disconnection on an individual level, technology is being abused, and slowly driving us mad.