Reply #66: The (ancient) Greeks had an interesting take on this

[jobendorfer]

See Euripedes' _The Bacchae_.

The Anthesteria as a safety valve for the necessary, periodic eruptions of irrationality.

Poor old Pentheus became exactly what he most hated: the God himself.

I've always wanted to see this done with Tiresias in the guise of Ken Kesey (or any of the other Pranksters),
Dionysos as Jim Morrison, and Pentheus as Jerry Falwell, or closer to my own home state's collection of
batshit loonies, Lon Mabon.

C.G. Jung analyzed the Nazi period of Germany in a series of papers in _Civilization In Transition_,
treating it as an eruption of mass archetypal possession. Unfortunately, while descriptive, his
papers were not prescriptive.

Rule number one: when you're in the grip of an archetype, you won't listen to anyone who tries to
lead you out of it.

In five years of practicing psychotherapy, the only cure I found for it was time.

J.