Many myths and legends from across time and cultures, feature a hero. It’s an archetype in which the hero has supernatural powers or is presented with objects that give supernatural powers to the owner. With these he or she overcomes an heroic journey against impossible odds. The Odyssey, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, Aladdin, Beowulf and many many other such stories tell this tale over and over, from the bedsides of children to the studios of Hollywood.
Superman is a character who emerged from freeze frame images in a comic book. Alongside him we might parade a pantheon of other hollow heroic figures so enamoured of children and adults.
The name ‘Superman’ encapsulates everything we need to know about the character. He is in some way greater than an ordinary human. And yet, in our hearts we know that every human is limited by the physical world and it is impossible to fly, win fights and lift cars.
Ironically, whilst every human is not superhuman, every human is super. The miraculous functioning of an ordinary human being in mind and body, enables us in a lifetime to learn the skills which will overcome any adversity.
And yet, humans act as if they do not know this. We crave miracles.
For instance, winning a lottery is a chalice held before millions who feel in need of the personal power and prestige that large amounts of money is promised to bring.
Psychologists will say that the ego is the source of the desire to become empowered without doing the work on oneself.
Religions of all colours offer a path to superhuman powers. They promise that we can all be ‘better than we are’ in a moral and / or material sense. Religions use stories of saints and prophets who obtained supernatural powers such as Padre Pio who could levitate just as well as Superman. The practical advantage is less important.
Saint Padre Pio
In parallel to old world saints and prophets, in the modern world Royal Families and politicians are given ‘superhuman’ status. They acquire an aura of being transcendent human beings through acquiring a theatrical disguise from the ‘wardrobe’ and ‘make up’ departments. Royal families parade in military uniforms that have often been unearned and politicians reach positions of power by being meaner than a mafia boss.
Politicians explain with great sincerity noble aim after noble aim, but because they are human and are only making hollow promises and fail and fail again in the process of achieving their promised aims; the pots of gold. Manipulating complexity is not in their power so they speak in slogans and catchwords.
This fakery is the paradox experienced by Dorothy in her search for the ‘Wizard of Oz’. The wizard is of course very ordinary and Dorothy’s magical assistants are each flawed inadequate s, just as certain current Presidents and their circle of supporters are.
Those holding an office in which they feel completely incompetent experience ‘imposter syndrome’. When unmasked, the King suddenly finds himself sat on a throne that he never really wanted.
The consequence of ‘flying high’ in myths legends and real life, is that the fall is a long way down.
Realising one’s own frailty and weakness as a human being can feel like defeat, depression, humiliation and total lack of self worth. Modern societies ‘treat’ such feelings as if they are at best not normal, and worst, a disease. If the depressed person does not feel strong enough to endure the feelings they encounter, external stimulants such as sex, drugs and alcohol are misused. If these are used in excess then society again diagnoses a disease; something over which one has no control.
No blaming the ego’s hollow jests and whispers then.
But there is a phase of personal development known as the ‘dark night of the soul’. It is not treated as outside of personal control but a situation from which one can emerge. In the pressure of ‘depression’, one can gain an inner wisdom and understanding. Jesus went through this or something similar in the desert for a month or so. The supernatural enemy for him was anthropomorphised as ‘the Devil’ and the supernatural inner strength that Jesus found, overcame ‘His Royal Lowness’ – the bringer of darkness.
The soul of man has to learn uncomfortable lessons, like King Lear in Shakespeare’s final scenes of that play. The King has given away his kingdom (his soul) and faced the devil in the guise of his own daughters who pretended to love him, but do not. The King ends his proud life on a blasted heath in a storm, mourning the death of the one daughter who loved him. Through the whirligigs and screams in the tormenta, his lowly court Jester explains to the King, how false egoistic pride, brought his downfall.
At this present time in world history, one can only feel that humans have handed power to many such hollow crowns to narcissistic leaders, oligarchs and technology wizards. Those who should be leading us along the road to common happiness have only their own interests at heart, such as accumulating absurd amounts of wealth. They are tin men without hearts.
From all perspectives we are not living in a 1960’s comic book with heroes to help us, but a 2001 Space Odyssey horror movie in which the computer is about to unplug the humans.
And if these thoughts make you fearful then perhaps there is one superhuman character still to appear on stage. He or she, is the ‘returning prophet’; the ending of the story in which there is a ‘second coming’. In the West people expect Jesus the Christ to appear in some way. Perhaps, but personally I think the ‘second coming’ will be a second chance to overcome the devil within, discover there is no Wizard of Oz, no winning lottery ticket, no Superman or Superwoman, no wise King and Queen, no political slogan that is true, no celebrity worth copying, no prophet about to turn water into wine.
We are all the heroes and heroines of our own stories and we need no fantasist s to mislead and distract us away from our own inner path to redemption. And the trigger for such a transformation, I suggest, is humility because modesty has always been proven to be more powerful than pride; whether in politics, religion or anything else.
There is no power within us other than our Divinity
which only appears when all of our illusions are unmasked.
