Synopsis: Commander Burnham takes Lt. Spock to Talos IV for healing.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of how sometimes the conscious ego acknowledges and integrates bits of unconscious material into itself through the use of archetypal Trickster energy.
In “If Memory Serves” Commander Michael Burnham and her brother, Lt. Spock, arrive on Talos IV. Shortly thereafter, the human, Vina, a character from the original pilot of Star Trek: The Original Series, comes aboard their shuttle. She tells Burnham that Captain Christopher Pike is an old friend of hers. She tells Burnham that material illusion is the Talosians primary mode of defense. The Talosians tell Burnham that Spock is experiencing time as a variant not linear and that they must disengage Spock from logic to save him. They will heal Spock if they can witness Spock’s pain from an incident in childhood. The Talosians go back to a memory of young Burnham and Spock, where Burnham calls Spock a “weird little half breed” (Dworkin et al., 2019). After reliving the memory of that event and coming back to his senses, Spock tells Burnham that her words showed him how dangerous humanity could be and that he regrets idolizing her as a child.
In this episode, when Vina describes how the Talosians use illusions, their methods can be compared to Trickster energy, in that a Trickster can be a catalyst for the conscious ego to acknowledge and integrate bits of unconscious material. Here, the past pain, or psychic wound, from Spock’s childhood seems to be the bit of material that must be acknowledged and integrated. Because the Talosians forced Spock to face his pain and to go beyond logic, he was able to be healed. This can be analogized to sometimes when we are unable to move beyond the psychic pain of a situation a paradigm shift is needed in order to address it from a different perspective. And sometimes, that shift in viewpoint comes from an individual embodying archetypal Trickster energy.
Reference:
Dworkin, D. (Writer), Beattie, J. (Writer), & Scott, T. J. (Director). (2019, March 7). If memory serves (Season 2, Episode 8) [TV series episode]. In J. Duff, H. Kadin, A. Kurtzman, O. Osunsami, E. Roddenberry, T. Roth, K. Siracusa, & J. Weber (Executive Producers), Star trek: Discovery. CBS All Access.
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