Vlado Solc | Ball Games from a Depth-Psychological Viewpoint

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In the game, earthly reality becomes fleeting, a moment thrown behind the shoulder and folded into the past. The mind loosens its habitual boundaries and prepares to accept the unimaginable, stepping into a realm governed by different laws. Here it is relieved of the weights that bind it to ordinary life and becomes, if only for a while, free, unbridled, and touched by the divine (Hugo Rahner).

Unrestrained passions, crowd-madness, and the ecstatic swings between euphoria and wrath appear most vividly in the collective dramas of politics, war, and competitive sport. They also surface in religious gatherings and musical concerts, where the psychic temperature rises and the emotional field becomes charged. The danger always lies in the splitting of affect—whether the crowd collapses into the dualistic moral categories of us and them, heroes and enemies. Once this bifurcation takes hold, the group is seized by archetypal forces that can overwhelm individual consciousness.

Ball games have long been one of the principal cultural vessels for these strong energies. For millennia they have offered humanity a symbolic container in which the primordial struggle between life and death, order and chaos, light and shadow, may be enacted. One might therefore ask whether the ball game and religion share a deeper kinship. Do they both serve, in their own ways, the development and enlargement of consciousness? And is this still true today?

The oldest archaeological evidence of ball games comes from Central America and reaches back more than 3,000 years. Yet the Maya likely played the game known as pitz as early as four and a half millennia ago (Ekholm, 1991). Similar traditions appear in Egypt and Mesopotamia only later. But these ancient ball games were not sports in the contemporary sense. Although crowds filled specially constructed arenas, the games were primarily sacred rituals. Their purpose was to initiate participants into the mysteries of the cosmos, to appease the deities, and to stimulate the fertility of the earth.

Vlado Solc | From Illusion to Conscious Suffering: A Jungian View of Politics, Possession, and Redemption

In recent decades, we have observed how high politics and society are being increasingly influenced by low motives and emotional drives such as envy, frustration, manipulation, deception, or revenge. The division of society has intensified, accompanied by aggression and the entrenchment of one-sided positions. In the United States in particular, we are witnessing a rise in irrational attitudes, conspiratorial thinking, and accompanying attacks on pluralism, minorities, those who hold differing opinions and “others.”

The article is an extended and revised version of the one originally published in Vesmír, which was based on an interview that Vlado gave to Psychologie.cz.

Alchemical Nigredo
A decade before Donald Trump’s emergence on the political scene, those impulses had begun to be heard in American society. Psychologically, we might view this as an emergence of the “narcissistic archetype.” Possession by this archetype manifests in the ego as self-absorbed, self-centered focus, where “mine” is presented as universal, righteous, correct, and perfect. Thus, a sense of entitlement arises to impose this ideal upon others, even at the cost of one-sidedness, control, or cruelty. Mythical Narcissus rejected Echo’s love and remained enchanted by his own reflection. This indicates an emotional detachment, splitting off the psychic poles of thinking and feeling—that is, a loss of contact with the soul, the heart—typically accompanied by a loss of compassion, intuition, perspective, and understanding of higher motives. Things that were previously subjected to moral scrutiny are now – under the new paradigm – reconsidered as a new value; bold acts are no longer feared—because now it is done in the name of truth. The new truth! But where is the “old” truth? It is now pushed away by the complex that got constellated. And Trump emerged as a major object of the collective projection of this complex within the American psyche. As the chosen Über-Narcissus, he legitimized shadow emotions—rage, entitlement, xenophobia—emotions that had previously been repressed under the weight of collective scrutiny. Thus, he allowed the collective shadow to manifest openly, without burdening shame.

This opened the door to authoritarian dynamics and narcissistic manipulation. When society becomes psychically fragmented—when people lose both internal and external cohesion—they often seek a dominant figure to restore a sense of order: someone emotionally expressive, seemingly confident and strong. As a rule manipulators and narcissists then contain the chaos during turbulent times and offer temporary relief by directing the collective shadow outward—by way of scapegoating towards the state, immigrants, minorities… Anyone perceived as different. The forms of oppression in a family controlled by a narcissist are quite similar to those by which a totalitarian state controls its citizens.