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| WISDOM AND ELDER WEB RESOURCES on AHPWEB.ORG
Our words can make a difference - We are all magicians |
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WEB RESOURCES The Wisdom and Elders focus of this issue of AHP's Perspective is well reflected in current popular culture. In John Granrose's The Wise Old Man: Gandalf as Archetype in The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf's archetypal role helps the individual along the path to individuation in the context of a fairy tale...While all the archetypes work in some way toward the goal of individuation, those particular to Gandalf include the "wise old man," which is the "archetype of wisdom and power". Jung's description of this archetype is in The Archetype of the Magician. Kathleen Jenks' Mything Links' portal also contains excellent sets of links to sites relating to Crones and Sages Jung's work addresses the developmental tasks of midlife, leading toward individuation. CG Jung page "The old man figure is described as representing knowledge, reflection, insight, wisdom, cleverness, and intuition, as well as moral qualities such as goodwill and readiness to help, which make his spiritual character clear" The Old Ones issue of Parabola magazine (Volume 5, Number 1) includes Wisdom The attainment of wisdom is the transformation of intellectual knowledge into real, personal experience. We speak of wisdom in terms of "seeing the truth" or "seeing things as they really are". When this kind of direct understanding of the nature of reality is gained, it is equivalent to the attainment of enlightenment.Wisdom. NUS Buddhist Society The Perennial Philosophy website is not a description of the work of Aldous The "wisdom traditions" of most cultures includes mysticism. The "Short List" from the Mysticism in World Religions website provides well organized sets of quotations in comparative religion Aging and Culture Robert Frost’s statement on aging, the poem The Road Not Taken is posted on the Cultures/Aging section of the EMuseum on Minnesota State University, Mankato’s web site. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
We may all be growing older, but we don't all agree on what this means. Many cultures have different perceptions of their elders. Cultures differ in their beliefs on appropriate roles for the elderly and what activities their aged population should perform. Aging and Culture In the United States, Americans tend to have the perception or misconception that becoming elderly means the end of the ability to grow creatively and intellectually. Anthropological and psychological data show that the ability to increase creatively and intellectually is not limited by time and age. In fact, age is often an advantage to creative growth. Playing jazz was seen as putting together musical ideas in a new and inventive way, and the larger the stock of ideas and figures the more experience one has in putting them together, the more creative the jazz player. Jay Sokolovsky's Cultural Context of Aging web site is dedicated to worldwide perspectives promoting the teaching and research of the cross-cultural and qualitative study of aging. Aging and Death in Folklore includes negative aspects of elders within the hundreds of links comprising Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts The Encyclopedia of Hotcak (Winnebago) Mythology represents an example from a culture that historically has revered elders: Native American: The Old Man and His Four Dogs. Other examples include Sufism, Zen, the Eastern Church, etc. Each have long traditions of the Holy Fool or spiritual tricksters serving to free others from delusion. These traditions include ways to wisdom and transcendence that include an emphasis on wonderment. The peak experience is a sudden surge of meaning. The question that arises now is: how can I choose meaning? If Maslow is correct, I can't. I must be 'surprised' by it. It is a by-product of effort. Colin Wilson New Pathways in Psychology: Maslow and the Post-Freudian Revolution The following resources are available to aid in the above quests. In a recent issue relating to meaning in later life Ronald Manheimer, the guest editor of the Generations Journal (of the American Society on Aging), provided the Introduction: Is It Practical to Search for Meaning? (Vol. XXIII, No. 4 -Reasons to Grow Old: Meaning in Later Life ) "Redeeming the meaning of aging and later life is a mission in which we all have deeply vested interests. " The issue also contains Drew Leder's "quarrel with the successful aging model "Aging into the Spirit: From Traditional Wisdom to Innovative Programs and Communities , an aspect of the emergent "Conscious Aging" movement. The Spiritual Eldering Institute is a multi-faith organization dedicated to the spiritual dimensions of aging and conscious living, to affirming the importance of the elder years, and to teaching individuals how to harvest their life's wisdom and transform it into a legacy for future generations. As a result of this "inner work," elders can be wisdom-keepers, mentors, agents of evolution and healers of the planet. The Second Journey site emphasizesMindfulness, service and community in the second half of life. The site also has a good set of links for networking Allan Chinen's current work also focuses on the "tasks" of middle age: Fairy tales no less than myths convey the "wisdom of the ancestors". In a recent interview about Midlife and the Shaman/Trickster Chinen describes the trickster as a teacher having both a hidden wisdom and a generativity, These ideas also relate to the above descriptions of the Holy Fool or Holy Trickster. "How could the Holy Spirit, one of the most sacred parts of the Christian tradition turn out to be the Trickster? But the parallels are so astonishing, I thought, that they cannot be ignored. It certainly comes up in the myth of Parsifal and the Holy Grail. In some versions, the Holy Ghost acts as a Trickster leading Parsifal on and helping him. The major theme would be that the Holy Ghost serves the same function and has the same characteristics as the Shaman/Trickster." "...Ignorant innocence is not the same as wise or sophisticated innocence. The Child is innocent because he is ignorant . This is very, very different from the 'second innocence' , of the wise , self-actualizing , old adult ... To have the unitive consciousness in which he is able to see the B-realm, to see the beauty of he whole cosmos, in the midst of all the vices, contentions, tears and quarrels. Through the defects, or in the defects, he is able to see perfection." –Maslow Home | Education | Association | Publications | Events | Resources
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Elders and Guides: A Conversation with Joseph Campbell, where he describes the influence of his mentor Heinrich Zimmer. Campbell helped to extend the perspectives of comparative mythology to include many of the above ideas grounded in Jung's work 
Huxley , instead it cites an older source, the Hermetica , to define a path leading to enlightenment or Gnosis.
. "The message of 'elder tales' is that despite inevitable declines, the possibility of psychological and spiritual renewal remains. Yet personal illumination and transcendent experiences are not the final goal in elder tales. A greater challenge comes next: bringing spiritual inspirations into everyday life and using the insights to help the next generation. This is the elder's role as mediator, linking the numinous and the mundane for society's benefit. The aging individual then becomes an elder, in the fullest and most positive meaning of that term, a source of wisdom, inspiration, and guidance for the next generation."
Association for Humanistic Psychology