Synopsis: The crew of the Enterprise are sent to intercept a stolen Federation shuttlecraft, which contains six individuals looking for the planet Eden.
“The Way to Eden” contains at least a couple depth psychological themes.
One theme, that it is not the destination but the journey to get there, is such a common tale in current Western culture, that we may not even realize the depth psychological roots at play in it. For example, The Hero’s Journey emphasizes the way in which one makes the return home with the boon to society, the wisdom acquired on the journey. What is most important is how one lives along the path on which the wisdom is acquired. In starting the adventure, we learn to realize what parts of our unconscious we will confront and how we handle those aspects of our psyche under the pressure in the self-contained vessel of the journey.
Another theme, that the gods are symptoms, refers to the idea that what has wounded us the most is also the thing that can guide us either to our true place in the anima mundi – the soul of the world, or, as in this case, to destruction. In this episode the group seeking Eden, a return to the primitive, is led by a brilliant scientist, Dr. Sevrin, who also carries a disease that is caused by the artificial existence of his modern world. The illness can be inoculated against in an advanced society, but if he makes contact with a culture that is not as advanced, it will wipe them out. Much as the European explorers wiped out the indigenous peoples of North and South America. Instead of trying to work to heal the wound that modern living gave him, or honor his daimon, he chose to try to escape it and to suppress the need to acknowledge and accept this part of himself, and it leads to his death.
Original post created 30 March 2021
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