The Archetypalisation of Bob Dylan

In which the author discovers a new way of seeing the world

This is why I read.

Every now and then, a good book will slap me in the face with a way of looking at things that is perfectly obvious and yet cosmically novel. Today, it was John Moriarty:

“Nowadays, in many societies, it is expected of persons that they will become inimitable, unique individuals. There have been and are societies, however, where a contrary outcome to our growing was or is desirable. Archtypalization not individuation is the goal. In medieval Christendom, for instance, there were persons who, in the hope of becoming an Alter Christus, another Christ, attempted, sometimes with fierce ascetic determination, to suppress of eliminate what was unique and individual in them.”
— John Moriarty, Dreamtime p.43

You know what this makes me think of? Bob Dylan. In the early days of his career, Dylan would tell people he was an orphan and had no family (something his family were more than a little confused and hurt by). He changed his name and was, let’s say, comfortable with bending the truth.

More than anyone else I’ve ever studied, Dylan obliterated his individual identity. He Archetypalised himself, cultivating a mythology and dissolving into it. Where most artists write to express their authentic selves, Dylan made himself a conduit. In a 60 Minutes interview in 2004, Dylan talks about that early writing and he describes it as magic (check out this great YouTube short).

The more I think about it, the more this Moriarty quote illuminates something that has always been mysterious for me. I find myself reflecting on the best songs I’ve written. I’ve had some minor experiences with songs falling out of me fully formed, especially in my early 20s. Despite being completely green at songwriting and guitar, I found lyrics pouring out of me rich with archetypal symbolism. This was the same time I was drenched in spirituality and philosophy; I was on fire with Zarathustran zeal. A few years later, I wrote some half-decent songs with a similar effortlessness when heartbroken.

This makes more sense to me now. I’ve thought about the heartbreak trope of writing songs and poetry. The hypothesis I formed out of it was that the more you feel, the clearer the signal comes through. But the Dylan example never really fit with the hypothesis, except in the broadest sense of feeling a lot.

Now it makes more sense: it’s about embracing archetypal possession—Archetypalisation, as Moriarty puts it. Surrender to the archetypal by eliminating your uniqueness. How fundamentally and deliciously antithetical to all the wisdom of individualism.

Not that it’s a path I want to follow, but how fascinating to understand it as an alternative route. Less Nietzsche’s “become who you are” than Rumi’s “Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.”