Statement of the Problem

My dissertation centers on the following question: “What patterns emerge when we consider the archetypal or transpersonal dimensions of play?” For inspiration, I focused on the Telesphoros side of Jung’s Bollingen stone while examining three different cultural creations, Chicago (Marshall, 2002, motion picture), Disneyland, and Mary Poppins (Stevenson, 1964, motion picture) as the prima materia of this alchemical exploration of play, I also consider the following specific questions:

-What are the implications of the liminal and paradoxical nature of play?

-What are play’s cosmic, comic, cosmological, and chaotic messages?

-What might the Cosmic Game look like?

-What are play’s holotropic, that is, moving-towards-wholeness qualities?

End of section, continue to Organization of the Study