The terrorist attacks of September 11 shocked the world's imagination. Barely past civilization's most bloody century, once again we are reminded of the depths of human potential for inhumanity.

Barry Mills, M.D., Forensic Psychiatrist

The terrorist attacks of September 11 shocked the world's imagination. Barely past civilization's most bloody century, once again we are reminded of the depths of human potential for inhumanity. In contrast to recent horrors of genocide, it is the sudden, decentering terror of these images that particularly haunt our memories. Jennifer Reeser responds poetically in "September 11, 2001."

How can I ever put those scenes to bed —
the bodies tumbling from the upper floors,
imaginings of all the private wars
which must have marked the dying of the dead?

William Webster, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, states "What happened September 11 is not so much a failure of intelligence but a failure of imagination. We are going to have to think unthinkable things" (cicentre). James Hillman believes terrorism is the natural consequence of a fundamental flawed approach to consciousness that devalues imagination. Hillman's archetypal psychology views imagination as a neglected third cognitive function between intellect and sensation. A reality that only accepts sensation (body) and spirit (intellect) but denies soul (imagination) will repeatedly find itself terrorized by volcanic eruptions of myth into life.

We have to tie terrorism to its roots in our religious consciousness. A terrorist is the product of our education that say that fantasy is not real, that says aesthetics is just for artists, that says soul is only for priests, imagination is trivial or dangerous and for crazies, and that reality, what we must adapt to, is the external world, and that world is dead. A terrorist is a result of this whole long process of wiping out the psyche. Corbin said to me one time, 'What is wrong with the Islamic world is that it has destroyed its images, and without these images that are so rich and so full in its tradition, they are going crazy because they have no containers for their extraordinary imaginative power.'" (Hillman 187, 1989)

In archetypal psychology, respect is given to the "private wars" of soul. Symbol, metaphor and mythopoesis are respected in all experiences rather than a monocular perspective on causation, solutions, and pathology (Watkins, 77). Like the Romantic Movement of the 19th Century, archetypal psychology arose as a reaction against Enlightenment fundamentalism which "feasted" on measurement and quantification (Slattery 19). Karl Kerenyi emphasizes how such traditional models of education proved insufficient to prevent fascism (Downing, 12 Nov.). Similarly, the tools of terrorism studies are insufficient. Denial of imagination lives at the core of terrorism. Terror reaches out not only on the battlefields of our body and minds but deep in the private wars of our personal and collective myths. Tom Moore says the experience of terror is the tearing of the ego (Moore 173). In response to such events, a re-visioning is in order. We must not only think the unthinkable — but imagine the unimaginable.

Since the 1970s a new academic field of "terrorism studies" began to explore this plague of terrorism (Crenshaw 406). In the literature, "terror" is defined as intense, overpowering fear but "terrorism" is more ambiguous (terror). There are at least 100 definitions of terrorism with clearly no accepted agreement (Zulaika 12; 97). Such disarray underscores the inherent limitations in a conceptual hermeneutic of terrorism. Martha Crenshaw says the term is often polemical and rhetorical (406). George Washington would meet criterion for a terrorist under many definitions. Americans who supported Nelson Mandela during his incarceration would be subject to incarceration under current counter-terrorism laws (Zulaika 236). The political power to label a terrorist maybe as important as logical criterion — one mans terrorist is another man's freedom fighter (Zulaika 152).

To be sure on this matter there are blatant double standards throughout the world. The Kurds are freedom fighters in Iraq and terrorists in Turkey, or vice versa, depending on where you sit. To be sure, the kind of sudden shifts that we have often seen in Western policy and language invite cynicism. The banned terrorist Ahmeti becomes a valued partner in a peace process. The CIA-funded, heroic, anti-Soviet fighter Osama bin Laden becomes the world's most wanted terrorist. The former terrorist (or was it freedom fighter?) Menachem Begin wins the Nobel Peace Prize. (Ash)

In Apocalypse Now, Colonel Kurtz questions "what do you call it when the assassins accuse the assassin?" Fundamental assumptions in terrorism studies appear tautological - terrorists are the enemy and our enemy is the terrorist. Countries are opposed within a simplified hierarchy where "we" are always at the top and terrorists at the bottom (Zulaika 13). Defining terrorism appears outside the domain of rational clarity and taxonomic classification.

The ancient Greeks recognized Logos and Mythos as two qualitative styles of truth (Lincoln 3). Logos emphasizes abstraction, objectivity, philosophy, science, quantification, and rational discourse. Mythos prioritizes imagination, creativity, subjective experience, narrative, and symbolic discourse. Terrorism studies place preferential value on science and explanatory models (Crenshaw 405). However, Logos is based on its own values that reality is orderly, reasoned, causal, objective, non-random and rational. These assumptions underscore the core assumptions of science. Thomas Kuhn posits that the history of science is remarkable for episodic paradigms that "for a time" provide universally accepted solutions (viii). Only as each new paradigm is discovered, the underlying mythic "givens" of the previous paradigm are then realized. The "ever increasing on-slaught of information" with endless searches for causes, profiles and solutions ironically manifests Logos' own myth of objectivity and truth (Romanyshyn 198; Hillman 277, 1989). In ancient Greece, order, clarity, systems, causes and categories were invoked by Apollo and it is this god who still delimits contemporary terrorism studies. Hillman emphasizes the importance of recognizing the enemy's myths and George Lakoff concludes "metaphors can kill" (Hillman 163, 2000; Lakoff 1). Any discussion involving human phenomenon is remiss to not acknowledge the immense power of myth to seize and influence psychic life (Hillman 90, 1995).

Jaroslav Stetkevych suggests that Islamic culture's defining characteristic is the denial of myth (3). A product of the prior pagan Bedouin age, al-jahiliyah, myth is devalued as the "age of ignorance." However, covert survival of a pre-Islamic archaic Bedouin mythos continues to persist in modern Arab Islam. Specifically, the tribal Bedouin warrior valued heroic manliness, muruwah, combined with "intemperance, fierceness, single-minded, [and] self-sacrificial heroism (Stetkevych 8; 6). Together, Stetkevych believes this produced an "unconfessed neomythography" in the Qur'an and Arab Islamic culture (3). The terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center followed the Wahhabi sect of Islamic fundamentalism. This product of the most conservative historical Sunni school, Hanbali, is renowned for complete rejection of interpreting the Qur'an and strict literal application of divine law — shari'a (Williams 69). Wahhabism forbids females to attend school, show their face or even laugh in public — literal manifestation of the Bedouin masculine hero in modern Islam.

The destruction of the city Thamud is one of the few explicit Qur'anic myths (Holy Qur'an 3203). Considering such rarity, the role of this myth in the imagination of Islam is of special importance. While raiding a Byzantine outpost, Muhammed discovered a grave containing a bough of gold. Last survivor of the doomed pagan city Thamud, the grave and bough belong to the "blue-eyed devil" Qudar (Stetkevych x; 22). In response to this discovery, Muhammed tells his followers a story of the prophet Salih who admonished the pagans of Thamud for spreading iniquity. In response to a demand for proof of his power, Salih provided the She-Camel of God, naqatu Allahi. This symbol of feminine power gave unlimited milk to the Thamud on the condition that she retained access to all the Thamud's water an alternate days. However, the Thamud ignored the warnings and Qudar slew the She-Camel of God. The Thamud was hence destroyed by God in a great cataclysmic "scream" of mass destruction (Stetkevych 16).

Stetkevych indicates there is a traditional motif in pre-Islamic mythology of the feminine censures, adhilah — an admonishing counter-voice to the masculine hero (98). However, no such feminine voice is transferred to this Qur'anic myth. Moreover, the image of the golden bough in Quadar's grave remains unexplained and requires amplification. In classical antiquity the dead protected themselves and gained access to the underworld through the golden bough (Stetkevych 85). Similarly, in another pre-Islamic narrative, Gilgamesh receives the "secret of the gods" through a magic branch — golden bough (Stetkevych 105). It becomes particularly disturbing to note this unacknowledged mythological connection between Quadar, slayer of unlimited feminine power, and keeper of the sacred golden bough — secret of the gods. Stetkevych suggests that Muhammed replayed the mythological role of pre-Islamic Salih in his own personal heroic myth (33). However, Muhammed may also play the role of Quadar as the slayer of feminine power. Salih, God's prophet of doom, and Quadar, quintessential destroyer of feminine power, archetypally becomes the primary mythological images of the Qur'an. A literal interpretation of such myth begins to unravel the archetypal underpinnings of terrorism in contemporary fundamentalist Islam.

Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love, seems unlikely to invoke in the background of terrorism and Islam. However, terror is the archetypal shadow of beauty. It is precisely the absence of Aphrodite, manifested in formal sexualized repression, which is implicitly relevant to terrorism. According to Apuleius, in Aphrodite's absence, there exists "one vast disorder, one hateful loathing and foul disregard for all bonds of love (Neuman 31). Similarly, Ginette Paris comments "[...] real cultural poverty is expressed by the total absence of Aphrodite" (32). Terrorist Mohamed Atta refused to touch women and forbade females to visit his grave (Reuter's). Such radical Wahabbi misogyny invokes the Ericthonios and Pandora myths —masculine attempts to deny the reality of reproduction and viewing women as a necessary curse (Downing 10 Sept.). Christine Downing calls attention to the implications for deep suspicion of feminine power (19, 1981). Instead of Freudian phallic images, the twin towers of the World Trade Center may be imagined as great maternal breasts invoking images of Minoan Mycenaean Mother Goddesses. What flawed attempt at initiation into matriarchal consciousness possessed these terrorists to simultaneously destroy and physically merge with such grand architectural breasts? Like Qudar, Atta now rests in a grave of ritual sacrifice against Aphrodite. As the Taliban flee Kabul, the first response of women is to symbolically lift their sexual repression by removing their veils. Likewise, Paris indicates that Aphrodite's work is to "transform the brutal genitality of Ouranos, who had an obsessive desire to cover Gaia entirely" (15). Both Carl Jung and Thomas Mann saw fundamental aspects of the German psyche, a cultural Gemninschaft, that made Germans susceptible to Naziism (Downing, 12 Nov.). The equivalent phenomenon in terrorist Islam is radical denial of the feminine. Warplanes marked with flags of the United States bomb the Taliban but it is Aphrodite, "bringer of doom" who exacts her revenge (Downing 208, 1981).

Rather than the Goddess of Beauty, contemporary terrorism studies make mass cultural projections in dark mythological images. Zulaika and Douglas comment that terrorism studies lack a perspective of multiplicity and are mostly exercises in moral indignation (197; 218). From a privileged distance the terrorist is even diagnosed as psychotic (McNamara 1). Such lack objectivity is uniquely exemplified by the taboo on interviewing terrorists. (Zulaika 225; 182). There must be no discourse, no exchange of perspective, and no touching the evil terrorist. The terrorist becomes the modern equivalent of witchcraft, archetypal wildman and barbarian. Joseba Zulaika and William Douglas demonstrate how the terrorist is the mythological figure of the loathed villain, the ultimate bogeyman, the quintessential demonic figure of our time (104; 150; 189). Terrorists are monstrous "dog headed cannibals," incarnations of evil so inhuman that they have no rights where annihilation is the only acceptable policy (Zulaika 230; 15; 157).

In the contemporary Mythos of terrorism, an epic drama arises between ultimate good and supreme evil — the terrorist battles the oppressor empire and the counterterrorist battles the barbarians at the gate . Each side finds itself in a narrative of martyrs, knights and monsters —unknowingly joined with a self-sustaining "umbilical cord" (Zulaika 235). Downing emphasizes the danger of failing to recognize the mythological substrate of human existence where actors are "swallowed up by some fatally determining mythic pattern" (2, 1981). Hillman sees the real tragedy in Thebes in the manner by which the polis imagines themselves to heroically expel evil (107, 1995). Mythos suggests the most profound suffering may be from the style by which one responds to suffering. To exemplify, the Pentagon now hires screenwriters to assist the military in anticipating terrorism scenarios (Brodesser). Such surreal transformation of artist into warrior underscores the heroes' seductive power. However, the masculine hero is but a single perspective — one style of character with his own story, strengths and flaws. Moralistic positions meet the ego's psychological need for quick moral closure but neglect ambiguity and paradox. In appreciating the poetic nature of human existence Mythos inoculates against possession by any one actor.

A predilection for flight into the masculine hero is not the only characteristics shared by participants in this drama. Terror exists as a common historical image in the religions of Islam, Judaism and Christianity. Yahweh's biblical command for Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, has captivated imaginations for centuries (Genesis 22:1). Structural analysis of this myth suggests six separate mythemes including: ritual, violent, sacrifice of the innocent and suspension of the ethical, for transcendent religious purposes. These six mythemes evoke a qualitative ritualistic violence strongly suggestive of terrorism. The modern religious terrorist temporarily suspends their own moral prohibitions and commits a ritualized act of violence against innocent persons for the purpose of pleasing god. Traditional theological exposition of the Abrahamic myth emphasizes the absurd transcendent faith of Abraham in his decision on whether to comply with God's command to sacrifice his son. However, Yahweh prevents the sacrifice dramatically proclaiming "for now I know that you fear God" (Gen 22:12). In this revocation, Yahweh minimizes the theme of faith and response. An alternative mythopoetic reading is to view the central image as one of inducing fear. Yahweh's intent is to terrorize Abraham! In the religious history of western civilization, fear is Hermetic psychopomp —mediator to Abraham's encounter with the divine. Considering the role of Abraham as father of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the common cultural reification of fear must be fully appreciated in discussion of terrorism.

There exists natural resistance to accepting fear, terror and violence. However, our cultural identity is one of revolution, genocide, righteous warfare, assassinations, mass murder and systematic violence (Schenk 128; 120). Constant images of serial murder, true crime, psychopathy, and horror captivate attention and provoke outrage in contemporary media. Such simultaneous repulsion and fascination of darkness reveals the implicit archetypal relationship between terror and beauty. Horror and love are metaphysically intertwined in the human predicament. Such realizations do not come easily through intellect but rather, require profound experiences in the flesh. For example, our collective ethos is shocked in, nevertheless immensely popular films, as Colonel Kilgore says "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" and General Patton laments "I love it so - war that is" (Apocalypse, Patton). The world recoils in indignation as Karlheinz Stockhausen describes the September 11 attacks as the "greatest work of art ever" (True - Stockhausen). However, to respond to such images only with horror and heroism is to respond only morally from the ego. It is to remain vertically on the surface of reality while ignoring profound depths. Violence, fear, and terrorism are archetypal components of the human condition.

Like Oedipus, we only move forward when we see "[ ...] the blinding eye-opening truth that we are the culpable and not the cure" (Hillman 147, 1995). The Logos of terrorism studies invokes civilization to rid the world of this modern plague. However, Mythos does not seek to "solve" problems in the manner of Logos. Hillman posits that it is "monstrous" to view life as an Oedipal riddle to be solved (145, 1995). Locked within a scholarly one-party Mythos of explanatory models, projections, pathology and taboos, terrorism studies tread on the surface of a profoundly human predicament. The value of Mythos resides precisely in its pull to a deeper alternative perspective. Dark images ask to be experienced and not solved. Downing says that myth only asks us "simply to attend lovingly and precisely to the images spontaneously brought forward." (2, 1981). Attention to the poetic quality of dark experiences is necessary regardless of effectiveness in seeking solution. Heroic "no tolerance" effort to exterminate such phenomenon at all costs fails to acknowledge the degree to which darkness is universal - even necessary. Downing says

[ ...] it was not at all a case of overcoming my fear, over overcoming my fragmentation or my hurts - but precisely a discovery that such overcoming is beside the point. The fear, the pain, the incompleteness, the woundedness, the dying were there. They were my pain and my fear and my fragmentation, but I had come to a kind of objective relations to them. The fear was no longer fearsome I could just let it be, rather than trying to run away from it. I saw then that wholeness did not mean not being in parts, that health did not mean not hurting. (Downing, 47, 1981)

Mythos suggests that fear is not to be exterminated but poetically acknowledged as an independent reality.

René Girard says violence is sacred (Girard 10). Oural asks why must holy places be dark (Lewis 249). To view terror only as political horror is to read literally and not poetically. "Appearing as it does - suddenly, forcefully, seemingly without cause, overwhelmingly" violence provides opportunity for connection between human and transcendent (Schenk 129). Perhaps, September 11 will mark a cultural awakening out of a post-Vietnam naivete — that violence, even political violence, is necessary. No longer will the polis feel the heroic obligation to police the world or, conversely, conveniently bomb Baghdad from comfortable cockpits at 50,000 feet. We are initiated into the embodied blood and guts of civilian casualties and brutal ground war. In order to fully appreciate beauty we must appreciate darkness. We must know fear as Abraham and dog-headed cannibals. We will feel the terror as both Quadar and the She-Camel of God. Like Kilgore and Patton, we must too love war — even the pungent horror of napalm. Dark images of violence, terrorism, and betrayal must exist for humans to mature beyond "primal, Eden-like trust" (Hillman 266, 1989). In her poem, "Hours After the Attack on the World Trade Center," Reeser writes:

I've cried this morning to a liquid shred
to see one hour's potency, to see
the desperate faces of the knowing dead
choosing to die in flight instead of heat.

Three black birds hurried skyward once the last
abomination pierced the southern tower,
as if, like mine, their courses had been cast
to seek the Kingdom, glory, and the power

and brood upon the first great desecration.
"Then there was war in Heaven," Saint John wrote.
The fire which scarred that moment of our nation
was nothing less than falling rebel host.

Mythos compels us to journey into the heat of Hades instead of die in the abomination of flight.

Like other dark experiences of violence, terrorism becomes an archetypally necessary event. "I kill and I make alive" (Deut. 32:39).

The journey to Hades is, however, incomplete without homecoming. Darkness must be both embraced and transcended. Kerenyi suggests the importance for humans to possess a fearless knowledge of the dark, demonic, radically natural side of man along with a sense of piety — recognition of human limitation and something transcendent (Downing, 12 Nov.) (italics added). Ronald Schenk says "violence creates self" precisely because it requires acceptance of our darkness and our limitations. (134). Rather than Achilles, Odysseus is a more appropriate character for responding to terrorism. One must be willing to move horizontally into the abyss and return awakened with profound decentering insights. To return from Hades with our own golden bough is to know terrorism as St. John knows terrorism - as a war in Heaven. To "know" terrorism as the gods — as Aphrodite, Bogeyman, Abraham, Quadar and the Rebel Host is more profound than to just "study" terrorism. Nietzsche understood this journey:

Only great pain, the long, slow pain that takes its time, [...] compels us to descend into our ultimate depths. I doubt that such pain makes us better, but I know that it makes us more profound. In the end, lest what is most important remain unsaid, from such abysses, from such severe sickness, one returns newborn, having shed one's skin, more ticklish and malicious, with a more delicate taste for joy, with a tenderer tongue for all good things, with merrier senses, with a second dangerous innocence in joy, more child-like and yet a hundred times subtler than one has ever been before. (211)

September 11 thus marks the onset of a cultural Nekyia for all participants in this epic drama of collective and private wars. In such darkness there is opportunity to move to the margins of experience - to Soul.

Works Cited

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Ash, Timothy G. "Is There a Good Terrorist?" The New York Review of Books 29 Nov. 2001: 30-33.

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———. "Approaches to the Study of Myth." Mythology Graduate Lecture. Pacifica Graduate Institute. Santa Barbara. 12 Nov. 2001.

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———. "Look Out: Three Occasions of Public Excitation." Slattery and Corbett 161-174.

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Reeser, Jennifer. "September 11, 2001." Response of Poetry Home.
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http://www.geocities.com/poetryafterseptember112001/reeserpoem.html

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Romanyshyn, Robert. "Yes, Indeed! Do Call the World the Vale of Soul Making: Reveries Toward an Archetypal Presence." Slattery and Corbett 193-203.

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Watkins, Mary. Invisible Guests; The Development of Imaginal Dialogues. Woodstock: Spring Publications, 2000.

Williams, John Alden. The Word of Islam. Austin: U Texas Press, 1994

Zulaika, Joseba, and William A. Douglass. Terror and Taboo; The Follies, Fables and Faces of Terrorism. New York: Routledge, 1996.

© Barry Mills 2001. All rights reserved.
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