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CounterPunch
February
1, 2003
Jung and the
Space Shuttle
Symbol and Synchronicity
with the Columbia Disaster
by JERRY KROTH
The loss of the Columbia space shuttle is suffused
with symbols begging for attention. Columbia is named, in part,
after Christopher Columbus and symbolically points to the very
discovery of the American nation. Strangely, on the threshold
of America's preemptive invasion of Iraq to eliminate its weapons
of mass destruction, the shuttle's hold contained the first Israeli
astronaut who in 1981 himself participated in a preemptive attack
on an Iraqi nuclear reactor to eliminate its capacity for developing
weapons of mass destruction. An uncanny echo, but certainly not
the only one.
As we are on the precipice of a war with
Iraq, the whole Arab world screams that it is not Iraq but America's
relationship with Israel and the Palestinian crisis that is the
root cause of all Arab anti-American sentiment and certainly
all terrorism. Suddenly the Columbia crashes with an Israeli
astronaut over George Bush's home state as debris rains down
on "Palestine, Texas." One cannot help but hear these
mysterious reverberations.
Similarly, just as the very essence of
Israel is intimately connected to the holocaust as a place of
refuge against the worst evil ever perpetrated by man against
man, so we cannot help but notice another coincidence: Israel's
astronaut was the son of a holocaust survivor.
These synchronicities drape themselves
over the landscape of our sadness, almost overshadowing the advent
of the America's next major war. But perhaps the word is not
overshadow but foreshadow, and the meaning of the Columbia disaster---if
we are to hazard a guess about these coincidences---is that it
is the American relationship with Israel that is leading toward
disaster. Certainly many in the Islamic world will see this as
a preternatural sign that America's connection to Israel will
result in its annihilation.
On the other hand, if our focus is on
Israel, then the meaning might be that it is Israel's relationship
with America which is leading it toward disaster, not the other
way round, and here we have a more immediate meaning since an
invasion of Iraq will more likely result in retaliation upon
Israel than upon the U.S. mainland.
Psychiatrist Carl Jung's teachings about
synchronicities-as-oracles might echo similar sentiments. The
fact that all this happened on the first day of the Chinese New
Year---a terrible omen in ancient China---adds another element
of foreboding. Let us hope such things are egregious speculations
and that there is no symbolic significance here, merely meaningless
coincidences, a few loose tiles, a painful accident, and the
loss of very dear people whose parent's grief galvanizes a nation's
remorse.
Jerry Kroth,
Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Counseling Psychology at Santa
Clara University. He can be reached at: anya@znet.com
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