Choose the Better Story: Don’t be a Victim of the Polarizing Dracula Syndrome!
I’m honored to have my article about resisting polarizing stories that divide and conquer our better natures featured in archetype innovator Carol Pearson’s blog.
It’s all about choosing the better story — and resisting the seduction of lesser stories that turn us into victims of propoganda and shut down our imaginations and relationships. In these polarized times, it’s too easy to think our “enemy” is evil or stupid or worse, not even human. The Dracula Myth is the seductive story of our time — and we must move beyond it to connect in a healthy way.
The Dracula Myth is especially current today, because it rose out of a fear of contagion and political unrest as a result of plagues:
“According to New York Times writer Jason Zinoman, the myth comes from the dark ages, when during, plagues of contagious disease, infested towns were isolated and abandoned, imagined as devastated by a vampire. He writes, “While sex has long been a simmering subtext to this monster, the vampire myth has proved to be remarkably flexible, metaphorically, evolving to reflect acute topical anxieties within the culture.” This ancient anxiety resurfaced in 2020 with imaginative disinformation about the Covid vaccine, which supposedly turns us into zombie vampires, an idea adapted from the 2007 film I Am Legend, and mirroring the 19th century anti-vax movement during the influenza epidemic.
Myths are sometimes more powerful than archetypes, because they’re such familiar stories, and archetypes strengthen their impact. They feel true, so we suspend our disbelief and dive in! But archetypes are the lived patterns behind the myth, not the myth itself. Getting conscious about the way we’re living archetypes means myths can teach us instead of seducing us.
The Dracula myth warns us not to surrender our conscious will. Ironically, it also seduces us with absolutes that awaken the fearful certainties of righteous morality. We buy into the Dracula myth’s good vs. evil seduction when we magnify that irrational ego-centered inner voice that likes to shout, “It’s true! I feel it!” and “I am right!” That road ends with objectifying disagreement as a marker of evil intent. Oppositional thinking is comforting, but makes it impossible to ground ourselves in facts or relationships. Absolute binaries also exile the Realist archetype, an ally who might otherwise help us avoid being crippled by fear and unthinking certainty.
It’s time to throw away our crosses, holy water, and wooden stakes! We can’t stay on the saintly pedestal that keeps us possessed by imaginary Draculas. The comforting moral absolutes in this myth obscure the real questions archetypes can help us ask….
Let Dracula go. He was never here. Develop your archetypes in ways that lift up compassion and unity. Let your Lover rise to support those you love, embracing desperate and wounded neighbors and coworkers, hungry for connection. Lead towards a world where wooden stakes are repurposed to support tomato plants and build grape arbors for a feast fit for a true Ruler. Live your own best stories.”