Tracking the White Rabbit: A Subversive View of Modern Culture

152 Pages·2002·11.745 MB·English

by  Lyn Cowan

Tracking the White Rabbit
Since its beginning, depth psychology has attempted to change the status
quoof individual and cultural life by probing beneath surface appear-
ances. This collection of essays looks at aspects of our culture as
psychological events instead of framing them as primarily political or
even social concerns.
Lyn Cowan explores a number of subjects, considering what possible
meanings and implications for change might lie behind the conventional
attitudes toward such subjects as:
• Abortion
• Gender and sexuality
• Language
• Memory
• Melancholy
The author puts forward the argument that, although “psychology” and
“subversion” are not usually thought of as belonging together, they should
be. She argues that a subversive psychology ought not to be confined to
the consulting room or limited to clinical diagnoses and treatments. These
essays invite the reader to view some of the problematic areas of everyday
life from the underside of the psyche. Such a view, presented clearly with
humour and insight, offers a way to think differently about usual things,
and yields fresh meaning to some of the pressing dilemmas of our time
and how we as individuals may respond to them.
Lyn Cowanhas worked as a Jungian Analyst since 1980. She served as
Director of Training and President of the Inter-Regional Society of
Jungian Analysts. She teaches and lectures internationally while making
her home in Minnesota.

Tracking the White Rabbit
A subversive view of
modern culture
Lyn Cowan
First published 2002 by Brunner-Routledge
27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex BN3 2FA
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Taylor & Francis Inc
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
This edition published in the Taylor and Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
Brunner-Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
© 2002 Lyn Cowan
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cowan, Lyn, 1942–
Tracking the white rabbit : a subversive view of modern culture / Lyn Cowan.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1–58391–198–7 (pbk.)
1. Psychoanalysis and culture. 2. Jungian psychology. 3. Jung, C. G.
(Carl Gustav), 1875–1961. I. Title.
BF175.4.C84 C69 2002
150.19′54—dc21 2001043344
ISBN 0-203-98934-1 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 1–58391–198–7(Print Edition)
For Bonnie,
who fortunately never finds my excuses credible

Contents
Acknowledgments xi
Preface xiii
Introduction 1
1 Tracking the White Rabbit: notes on eccentricity 10
2 Feeding the psyche: junk words and corn-fed music 25
3 Women and the land: imagination and reality 36
4 “Taking The Dark With Open Eyes:” hidden
dimensions of a psychology of abortion 42
5 False memories, true memory, and maybes 55
6 Styx and stones: hatred and the art of cursing 69
7 The archetype of the victim 84
8 Homo/aesthetics, or, romancing the self 94
9 Sexual encounters of the third kind 102
10 Blue notes: some reflections on melancholy 120

... when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket,
and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it
flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with
either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning
with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time
to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
In another moment, down went Alice after it, never once considering
how in the world she was to get out again.
(Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)