Peter Brennan

“he ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles said that two forces – love and hate – govern the universe. Love fuses things together. Hate splits them apart. In a foundation myth of ancient Egypt, the god Osiris was killed by his brother Set, and his body cut into many pieces and scattered across Egypt. His wife collected all of the dismembered parts together and then, with the help of Anubis, the god of embalming and funerary rites, and Thoth, the god of magic, she restored Osiris’s body to life. This is a creation myth based on fission – the god is torn apart – followed by fusion – the god is reassembled. Dr. Frankenstein, the modern Thoth, the scientific Thoth, fused body parts of dead criminals together then animated the creature. Human society is full of fusion forces that bring people together, and fission forces that break them apart. Fusion forces unite. Fission forces divide. We now live in a Fission Phase, with extreme polarization evident everywhere. There’s no sign of any Fusion Phase coming to the rescue any time soon.”
― Peter Brennan, Fusions Versus Fissions: Are You a Joiner or a Splitter?

“The Shadow Archetype is the dark side of the psyche, the dark side of the “force”, representing wildness, chaos, the irrational, the unknown, the intoxicated, the out-of-control … all things Dionysian. Dionysus is the Shadow of Apollo. The Id is the Shadow of the Superego. If you want to have a healthy psyche, you must accommodate your Shadow, one way or another. You must have a Shadow space, where that energy can be explored, harnessed and sublimated.”
― Peter Brennan, Fusions Versus Fissions: Are You a Joiner or a Splitter?