Playing the Cosmic Game:

Exploring Play’s Archetypal Aspects Through the Kaleidoscope of Culture 

by

Karen Pohn

 

This artistic dissertation uses a bricolage method combining hermeneutics, heuristics, van den Bergian phenomenology, and transit astrology to examine the archetypal aspects of play as a web site. The dissertation is an example of bricolage, and thus the method is indeed part of the message. The web site: www.cosmicplay.net, contains a series of depth psychological essays which explore cosmic play, or the Hindu notion of lila, through cosmology and mythology, chaos theory and depth psychology, and finds that this “Cosmic Game” is an ever-present and eternally returning pattern of death and rebirth. Grof’s cartography of the psyche provides a map for the journey through the varied terrains that are explored, while pictures and conversations help to keep the dissertation playful.

The web site also examines the “Cosmic Game” through the “Kaleidoscope of Culture” where three different cultural creations, Chicago (Marshall, 2002, motion picture), Disneyland, and Mary Poppins (Stevenson, 1964, motion picture) are explored, and different archetypal aspects of cosmic play are revealed. These cultural creations are considered against the backdrop of the time they were created and that they portray, and they also reflect the archetypal themes that were present in the cosmos at these different times, revealing the universal nature of these cosmic play patterns.

In Chicago, the pitfalls and perils of play are considered, mirroring the Saturn-Pluto planetary archetypal complex. Disneyland shows the promise of play reflecting the Uranus-Neptune planetary archetypal complex, and Mary Poppins illuminates the transformative power of play, which characterizes the Uranus-Pluto planetary archetypal complex.