Synopsis: Ensign Paris becomes drawn to a new spacecraft.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of what Carl (C. G.) Jung calls projection. Projection being one way the Logos-driven rational conscious ego becomes aware of bits of material from the Eros-driven irrational unconscious, by projecting them onto another.
In “Alice” Voyager travels to Abaddon’s Repository of Lost Treasures, a junkyard. Mr. Abaddon comes aboard Voyager and trades are made for various pieces of equipment. In the junkyard Ensign Tom Paris discovers a spacecraft that he wants to restore. He convinces Commander Chakotay to add the ship to the items to be traded for. Paris starts working on the vessel, which he has named Alice, after a girl he once had a crush on but was out of his league. Eventually, a vision of Alice appears to him and begins to speak to him. Through the vessel’s neurogenic interface Alice is able to change Paris’s neuro pattern. Alice tells Paris that he belongs with her not Voyager. Alice has Paris pilot the vessel to her home, a particle fountain. At the last moment Voyager’s crew locate Paris and beam him out before Alice enters the fountain, but it is a close call. In this episode, Paris can be said to be projecting his anima, his ideal inner other, onto Alice, by naming her after a girl he once knew. At the same time Alice can be said to be projecting her inner animus, her ideal inner other onto Paris, as she needs someone with his piloting skills. As mentioned above, Jung wrote that projection is one way that the conscious ego becomes aware of bits of material from the unconscious. When the anima or animus is projected onto another, friendship or love may ensue; when the unconscious shadow is projected onto another or others, hate and fear are the result. If we all realized this, then we would better understand why we are drawn to those we chose to love, and more importantly why we despise those we hate. In both instances we are attracted or repulsed by something that is inside our own psyches that needs attention.
mydailysoultrek 