Synopsis: An alien probe enters Captain Picard’s body so that he is able to recall the memories of an ancient civilization.
In this episode Captain Jean-Luc Picard is suddenly stricken down on the bridge of the Enterprise by a probe that has projected energy into his body. This is an analogy of what it can feel like when unconscious bits of material enter our consciousness.
The crew of the Enterprise, most especially Commander William Riker and Dr. Beverly Crusher, try their best to separate the energy field from Picard, but when they do, they see that his life is threatened by the severance, and they reestablish contact with the probe’s energy. Riker and Crusher have no choice but to let the energy pass through Picard in order for it to do what it intended to do.
In “The Inner Light” Picard is finding himself in the in-between place, or what Archetypal Psychologist James Hillman would call the metaxy, much as Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge and Ensign Ro Laren were caught between different realities in the episode just prior to this one, “The Next Phase.” This place where soul is made. Or in these two episodes, it seems that this in-between place is where souls are saved.
In “The Next Phase” being in an in-between place allowed La Forge and Ro to save their comrades aboard the Enterprise, in “The Inner Light” being in the in-between place allowed Picard to bring back to life souls that had disappeared over a millennium before, when their star went nova. In archetypal psychology the making of soul can save, or bring meaning to, our lives.
Original post created 22 October 2021
mydailysoultrek 