Synopsis: Mr.-Spock is court martialed for taking over the Enterprise in order to take his former commander, Captain Pike, to the forbidden planet of Talos IV.
I will discuss both these episodes together because their story is too interwoven to be separated, along with the original pilot for Star Trek, “The Menagerie,” which in a cleaver plot point, is used by the Talosians to explain the motivation behind Mr. Spock’s actions.
There are at least two interesting depth psychological theories seen throughout “The Menagerie,” and I will briefly touch on both. The first comes from Carl (C. G.) Jung, the idea of anima and animus projection; the second from James Hillman’s further exploration of Jung’s concept of the image and its primary relationship with the soul.
Basically, Jung calls the inner feminine drives within a male the anima, and the inner male ones within a woman the animus (1921/1969). Because of the androcentric culture that Jung was living in, and in which we do as well, there is a lot of baggage that comes with making these terms seem to be identified with gender stereotypes. In fact, just creating a duality around gender is no longer appropriate, and Jungians and post-Jungians have tried to extricate the concept from gender identity for quite a while: but this post will not address that controversy. Here I just want to explain the idea of anima and animus projection, which can be seen at work in this episode. Basically, anima projection is when a male sees a woman that seems to embody his inner ideal female counterpoint to his maleness; and when a woman sees a man that seems to embody her ideal counterpoint as well (Jung, 1959/1969). This is driven home specifically when Vina tells Captain Christopher Pike: “They read my thoughts, my feelings, my dreams of what would be the perfect man. That’s why they picked you. I can’t help but love you. And they expect you to feel the same way.” Of course, love is not that easy, not even in science fiction.
As for the idea of the central position of the image to depth psychology, Hillman agrees with Jung that psyche is image, but then expands upon this to name psychological work, or image work as “soul-making” (1978, p. 176). Therefore, the ability to work with images creates soul. Vina even admits to Pike that the Talosians own her. The Talosians are able to go farther than that, they are able to bring images or dreams to life. Vina explains to Pike: “I can become anything, any woman . . . you’ve ever imagined . . . Let me please you . . . pick some dream you’ve had and let me live it with you.” The power to alter reality is why it is forbidden to go to Talos IV. To bring dreams into realities – this is a power of the gods. A starship is no match for that ability, not even the Enterprise.
References:
Hillman, J. (1978). Further notes on images. Spring, 1978, 152-182.
Jung, C. G. (1969) Psychological types. In R.F.C. Hull (Trans.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 6). Princeton University Press. (Original work published in 1921)
Jung, C. G. (1969). The syzygy: Anima and animus. Aion: Researches into the phenomenology of the self. In R.F.C. Hull (Trans.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 9ii, pp. 11-22). Princeton University Press. (Original work published in 1959)
Original post created 15 January 2021
mydailysoultrek 