Hi Kate. Thank you very much for your very kind words and I’m really glad you enjoyed the article. I’ll definitely do my best to keep publishing these articles as often as I can 😉 Hope to hear from you again soon!

Hi Arlen

I’m very sorry but I can’t find your post anywhere in the website so probably it didn’t go through.

I performed a few tests just to ensure that the posts are shown and it seems to be working, so would you mind submitting your forum post here again please?

Thank you very much for your patience!

Hi Arlen! Great comment, many thanks!

I think your reading of Jung’s Animus is spot on. However, my understanding is that the Animus can appear as different male figures in dreams (even within the same dream). Jung mentions that the type of male figure will depend on the stage of development as you wrote, but it seems there’s no constraint on the number of dream figures that can appear, so long as they all represent that particular Animus stage (for example, a first-stage Animus can appear as Tarzan and then later as Superman in the same dream; but I’d say Tarzan and Gandhi in the same dream would be unlikely).

You do make a very interesting point that the Cowboy may have a prominent role in Diane’s psyche. This is consistent with him being the initiator as well as terminator of Diane’s dream, since he shows up shortly after Diane starts dreaming, and is the cause for her waking up from the dream (when he says: “Hey pretty girl! Time to wake up!”).

One important flaw in my interpretation is that I analysed Diane’s Animus as if she were straight, when in fact Diane is lesbian. Alas, Jung says little about Animus/Anima in same-sex relationships, so I decided to omit this point from my analysis. However, it would be interesting to discuss it further although I think that discussion will be more appropriate for the forum. If you like, you can start a new thread here, and I’ll be happy to dig up on this.

Hi Ztoicfox. Many thanks for the kind words, I’m really happy that you enjoyed the article. It’s comments like yours that really make my day :). Cheers!

Hi Cris. Yes, perhaps “lacklustre” was a poor choice of a word. But I was refering to the visual elements of the mural. To me, they simply don’t do justice to the intrinsic message of the painting, which I find profound.

However, art is subjective, and my opinion is really just that, an opinion. I tend to lean more towards classical art than abstract/cubist art, and my article likely reflects this inclination.

Thanks for your comment Cris! I think you have nicely summarised Picasso’s intentions with Guernica and the impact it had on the audience with this comment.

I admit I could have given more focus on Picasso’s sentiment towards the war, which naturally needs to be taken into account in any analysis of Guernica. I mentioned it in passing at the end of the Review section, but I should have probably elaborated on it.

I fully acknowledge Guernica’s potentiality as an anti-war symbol and this, by itself, is noteworthy; it is in fact one of the aspects of the painting that fascinates me. Unfortunately, reviewing the work as a whole, I do not think the quality of the painting is on par with the message it embodies.

Hi Ellis! Great comment, thanks for sharing! Indeed, I’ve always felt that the album Lateralus is in itself a description of an entire alchemical journey. However, I also believe that the concepts present in Tool’s songs (including Schism) probably extend beyond Hermeticism and other esoteric teachings. I once watched an interview with Maynard in which he explained quite articulately the nuances of – if my memory doesn’t fail me – Saturn’s orbit, and how it related to “The Grudge”. Tool’s exceptional ability to combine these different pieces of knowledge, and create such harmonious music is truly unique in my view. Entire PhDs could be written about this 🙂