The storm can be quite horrifying—yet still somehow enthralling. Horrible and dreadful images and pictures of gods in primitive cultures continue to attract us—think of the superhero movies that populate our movie theaters and cable channels. These competing images lead us to feelings of profound admiration or profound disgust—often both. This is the perfect psychic storm. Somehow, a power from outside time or space seems to intervene and lead us to an experience that penetrates and changes our inner psyche. And we don’t know how this happens. It is beyond our control or true comprehension.
I suggest that true freedom evokes a psychic storm. It is a numinous experience. When we first encounter freedom it is both enthralling and frightening. We are drawn to freedom and simultaneously seek to escape it. I found that this ambivalence exists in abundance when interviewing the citizens of Estonia for the book I co-authored with Berne Weiss in 1994. There was the all-inspiring songfest when Estonians began to sing their national songs despite Soviet bans on this music. I suspect that these songs were just as much a numinous experience for those in attendance at the songfest as the performance of an oratorio by Bach, sung by a massive choral group and orchestra – in fact the Estonian singing was probable even more numinous – for it was saturated with not only the joy of once again singing (and listening to) an Estonian anthem, but also the fear, anger and pride associated with violating the Soviet regulations.
Escape and Neurosis
We face the exhaustion and deep fear associated with new-found freedom. We want to run away and hide from the psychic storm. Erich Fromm speaks to this yearning for escape, as do Jung and Otto. We escape from freedom or we create or accept an illusion of freedom. According to Fromm (1941), there is another course open to each of us. We can simply give up our freedom and then try to overcome the aloneness associated with personal constraint (lack of freedom) by eliminating the gap that has arisen between our individual self and the world. We submerge our own identify and even the identity of the collective. This alternative, neurotic course of escape, according to Fromm, is characterized by its compulsive character. This neurotic pathway resembles that taken when we are threatened and in a state of panic: we look around us for help and are willing to sacrifice our own individual integrity to become safe (or at least feel safe).
