“Soap bubbles”. Vera Nilsson (1927).
Abstract: The puer aeternus (eternal youth) is an archetypal image found in mythology that also
denotes a neurotic condition in which the maturational process becomes arrested. This condition depends on an
inability to take root in life. In the present era, this condition has reached epidemic proportions. To understand
contemporary societal and political changes, it is necessary to grasp the “Peter Pan syndrome,”
which is well-known to psychotherapists. Not only does this represent a tragedy for individuals who risk wasting
their lives — this psychological rootlessness poses a threat to our civilization.
Christianity’s influence on Western humanity’s ethos is analyzed.
Keywords: Peter Pan, The Little Prince, infantilism, cultural dissolution, Mel Faber, M-L von Franz, St. Augustine, Christianity.
Introduction
Puer Aeternus first appears in Ovid’s Metamorphoses as a reference to Iacchus, the child-god of the
Eleusinian mysteries. This divine figure, later associated with Dionysus and Eros, emerges from ancient
mother-goddess cults and represents cycles of death and rebirth. Like similar deities across ancient
cultures — Tammuz, Attis, and Adonis — Iacchus embodies themes of
regeneration, resurrection, and perpetual youth. The term has since evolved beyond its mythological origins to
describe a psychological pattern in men characterized by a pronounced maternal complex, serving both as an ancient
archetype and a modern psychological concept. A lexicon defines the term according to psychological
terminology:
Puer aeternus. Latin for ‘eternal child,’ used in mythology to designate a child-god who is forever young; psychologically it refers to an older man whose emotional life has remained at an adolescent level, usually coupled with too great a dependence on the mother. [The term puella is used when referring to a woman, though one might also speak of a puer animus — or a puella anima.]
The puer typically leads a provisional life, due to the fear of being caught in a situation from which it might not be possible to escape. His lot is seldom what he really wants and one day he will do something about it — but not just yet. Plans for the future slip away in fantasies of what will be, what could be, while no decisive action is taken to change. He covets independence and freedom, chafes at boundaries and limits, and tends to find any restriction intolerable […] Common symptoms of puer psychology are dreams of imprisonment and similar imagery: chains, bars, cages, entrapment, bondage. Life itself, existential reality, is experienced as a prison. The bars are unconscious ties to the unfettered world of early life. (Sharp, 1991)
This feeling of being fettered characterizes today’s ideological mindset. It is now typical among leftist,
feminist, and black “liberation” groups to claim that they are constrained by societal structures
created by the oppressive White Patriarchy (symbolic of the demanding father figure). The demands of adult life can
indeed be difficult to endure, especially during times of economic hardship. However, when an ideology is created
from this youthful concept, society becomes bound to produce a multitude of alienated people each year. It is
imperative that this ongoing epidemic be better understood. Freudians call it the ‘Peter Pan syndrome,’
which is the title of Dan Kiley’s book from 1983. (However, he provides no references to Jungian authors
who had already researched the problem.)
The puerile form of narcissism has not yet received full attention from the psychological community. In comparison,
there exists a vast amount of literature on the Oedipal form of narcissism, which is connected with narcissistic
personality disorder. Whereas Oedipal narcissism is the specialty of Freudians, the puer aeternus is the specialty
of Jungians. Marie-Louise von Franz analyzes a figure corresponding to Peter Pan, namely
“The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. As an archetype, the puer
aeternus represents something valuable and wonderful, although identification with it leads to tragic consequences.
An important difference is that the puerile narcissist is decidedly more sociable than the Oedipal type. The latter
becomes a nuisance in workplaces because the little King Oedipus has no notion that he can be wrong, which
causes problems when deciding how to resolve matters. Yet such persons can be quite industrious. The puer aeternus
is different. I once knew a handsome and friendly puer who, although he was an adult man, genuinely believed that
he could live without money. What need did he have for the facts of reality? He could just as well settle on
asteroid B-612, like the Little Prince. M-L von Franz characterizes the puer aeternus:
Precisely because the puer entertains false pretensions, he becomes collectivized from within, with the result that none of his reactions are really very personal or very special. He becomes a type, the type of the puer aeternus. He becomes an archetype, and if you become that, you are not at all original, not at all yourself and something special, but just an archetype […] One can foretell what a puer aeternus will look like and how he will feel. He is merely the archetype of the eternal youth god, and therefore he has all the features of the god: he has a nostalgic longing for death, he thinks of himself as being something special, he is the one sensitive being among all the other tough sheep. He will have a problem with an aggressive, destructive shadow which he will not want to live and generally projects, and so on. There is nothing special whatsoever. The greater the identification with the youthful god, the less individual the person although he himself feels so special. (von Franz, 2000, p. 121)
A teenage boy who refuses to accept responsibility might become a grown man who refuses to accept
responsibility. Yet not all of them will become vagrants or alcoholics. Rather, their irresponsibility is typically
hidden behind a respectable façade. The most characteristic trait of the puer is that he will refrain from
taking root in the present, instead continuing to hover like a helium balloon through his life. Although the puer
is often capable of maintaining employment, he is incapable of taking a passionate interest in his work. For
example, a puer working as a software developer will take no genuine interest in algorithmic techniques or the
advanced features of programming languages.
Instead, he is likely to adopt a strangely indifferent attitude, as if he were floating in the air, even when the
company risks bankruptcy. It is merely a provisional job, after all. If he is married, that too is a provisional
arrangement. The prevalence of the puerile syndrome explains why people in the present era change partners so
frequently. Several authors have noted their proclivity for short-lived romantic attachments (cf. Yeoman, 1998,
p. 28). Neither the puer nor the puella possesses the capacity for genuine emotional attachment. They have no
strong passion for anything or anyone, but remain dissolute and unfaithful in the general
sense — a moral incapacity characteristic of the pueri aeterni.
The puerile society
I maintain that the puer aeternus syndrome has emerged as an enormous problem of our time and even poses a threat
to Western civilization. It underlies the prevailing cultural and moral relativism in the Western world. The puer
aeternus refuses to take root in our common heritage. He has no love for our great cathedrals or for our
intellectual tradition. Cultural unfaithfulness, combined with the refusal to mature, has given rise to an ideology
of multiculturalism according to which “anything goes.” There exists a belief that all cultures,
theories, religions, personalities, and ethnic groups are interchangeable because they are not essentially
different. The “ideology of sameness” impedes individuation, keeping people trapped in the kindergarten
of uniformity.
Yet the current ideology of sameness builds upon a puerile form of indifference towards culture and ethnicity. The
puer aeternus, since he lacks enthusiasm for learning, never develops a proper understanding of anything. Among the
pueri aeterni are many politicians and journalists who remain indifferent to our Christian legacy. Nor have they
investigated Islamic culture or delved into anthropology and psychology. It is only in their capacity as
“empty balloons,” floating above reality, that they are able to claim that “anything goes.”
Had they acquired proper understanding, they would realize that many differences of culture and human nature are
fundamental — contradictions and incongruities that inevitably lead to destructive
consequences.
But the puer aeternus is not troubled by such concerns. He has no passion for our civilization, since he is
essentially loveless. Behind the façade, he feels no responsibility whatsoever for our cultural heritage.
Relativism means that there really is no such thing as right or wrong. Conservative philosopher Roger Scruton
employs the term ‘oikophobia’ (’ecophobia’) and defines it as “the repudiation of
inheritance and home.” He argues that it is “a stage through which the adolescent mind normally
passes.” In adulthood, it is a feature of certain, typically leftist, political impulses and ideologies that
espouse xenophilia (preference for alien cultures) (cf. Wiki: ‘Oikophobia’).
Former Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said in a recent interview (Dec 24, 2014) that “Sweden
belongs to the immigrants — not the Swedes.” When flying over Sweden, he could see that
there is plenty of space for new inhabitants (the puer aeternus is fond of airplanes, says M-L von
Franz). In a speech in Södertälje in November 2006, he claimed that “only barbarism is domestic”
and that “all advancement derives from abroad” (something that earned him the nickname “Freddy
the Barbarian”).
A Prime Minister who says such things about his own country and people cannot be of sound mind. There is a complete
lack of objectivity, monumental naïveté, as well as the characteristically puerile lack of grounding in culture.
Yet Reinfeldt, as the self-professed quisling of the modern era, is not an uncommon example, because politics is
replete with pueri aeterni. This inevitably leads to the disintegration of culture. The following prescient excerpt
was written more than 70 years ago by sociology professor Pitirim Sorokin (1889 – 1968).
Sorokin says that when any socio-cultural system enters the stage of its disintegration, it first enters a phase of
inner self-contradiction in the form of irreconcilable dualism. It soon becomes formless as it develops a
chaotic syncretism of undigested elements taken from different cultures:
An emergence of a chaotic syncretism in a given integrated culture is another general symptom of its disintegration. The classical example is given by the overripe sensate culture of Greece and Rome. In that stage it became, in the words of Tacitus, “the common sink into which everything infamous and abominable flows like a torrent from all quarters of the world” […]
This all-pervading syncretism is reflected in our mentality, in our beliefs, ideas, tastes, aspirations, and convictions. The mind of contemporary man is likewise a dumping place of the most fantastic and diverse bits of the most fragmentary ideas, beliefs, tastes, and scraps of information. From Communism to Catholicism, from Beethoven or Bach to the most peppy jazz and the cat-calls of crooning; from the fashion of the latest movie or best-seller to the most opposite fashion of another movie or best-seller — all coexist somehow in it, jumbled side by side, without any consistency of ideas, or beliefs, or tastes, or styles […]
Viewed from this standpoint, our intellectual life is but an incessant dance of jitterbugs. Its spineless and disjointed syncretism pervades all our social and mental life. Our education consists mainly in pumping into the mind-area of students the most heterogeneous bits of information about everything […] Our ethics is a jungle of discordant norms and opposite values. Our religious belief is a wild concoction of a dozen various “Social Gospels,” diversified by several beliefs of Christianity diluted by those of Marxianism, Democracy, and Theosophy, enriched by a dozen vulgarized philosophical ideas, corrected by several scientific theories, peacefully squatting side by side with the most atrocious magical superstitions […]
This jumble of diverse elements means that the soul of our sensate culture is broken down. It appears to have lost its self-confidence. It begins to doubt its own superiority and primogeniture. It ceases to be loyal to itself. It progressively fails to continue to be its own sculptor, to keep unimpaired the integrity and sameness of its style, that takes in only what agrees with it and rejects all that impairs it. Such a culture loses its individuality. It becomes formless, shapeless, styleless. (Sorokin, 1957, pp. 241-54.)
Due to ongoing cultural dissolution, the pueri aeterni are growing in numbers. The ISIS warriors who travel from Europe to join the Islamists are mostly recruited from the puer group. They are typically portrayed as “lost youth” who have suddenly found a passionate connection with life, namely becoming part of the murderous machine. It was found that one traveler had purchased the book “Islam for Dummies” before departing, which is very telling. Probably Adolf Hitler, before he fell prey to his obnoxious shadow — during which time he lived as a vagrant and also maintained good relations with Jews(!) — can be diagnosed with the puer aeternus syndrome. The characteristic neurotic solution of the puer consists in a compulsive descent from an aeronautical lifestyle:
The strange thing is that it is mainly the pueri aeterni who are the torturers and establish tyrannical and murderous police systems. So the puer and the police-state have a secret connection with each other; the one constellates the other. Nazism and Communism have been created by men of this type. The real tyrant and the real organizer of torture and of suppression of the individual are therefore revealed as originating in the not-worked out mother complex of such men. (von Franz, 2000, p. 164)
This phenomenon explains why the pueri aeterni so commonly defame people as “Fascists” and reactionary “hardasses” — it is because they are projecting their own shadow. [1] Nazism, Communism, Islamism, and Fascism belong to the authoritarian shadow of the puer aeternus. This is the megalomaniacal phantasmagoria that serves as a new foundation when the puer attempts to leave behind his “pluralistic,” acultural, and rootless condition. Von Franz explains:
In the practical life of the puer aeternus, that is, of the man who has not disentangled himself from the eternal youth archetype, one sees the same thing: a tendency to be believing and naive and idealistic, and therefore automatically to attract people who will deceive and cheat such a man […]
As you know, Christ is the shepherd and we are the sheep. This is a paramount image in our religious tradition and one which has created something very destructive, namely, that because Christ is the shepherd and we the sheep, we have been taught by the Church that we should not think or have our own opinions, but just believe. If we cannot believe in the resurrection of the body — such a mystery that nobody can understand it — then one must just accept it. Our whole religious tradition has worked in that direction, with the result that if now another system comes, say Communism or Nazism, we are taught that we should shut our eyes and not think for ourselves, that we should just believe the Führer or Kruschev. We are really trained to be sheep!
As long as the leader is a responsible person, or the leading ideal is something good, then it is okay. But the drawback of this religious education is now coming out very badly, for Western individuals of the Christian civilization are much more easily infected by mass beliefs than the Eastern. They are predisposed to believe in slogans, having always been told that there are many things they cannot understand and must just believe in order to be saved. So we are trained to be like sheep. That is a terrific shadow of the Christian education for which we are now paying. (ibid. pp. 42-43)
Mel Faber (2010) criticizes religion from a similar perspective and alleges that “the doctrinal, ritualistic core of Christianity harbors a magical process of infantilization” (Faber, 2010, p. 19).
There is just too much supportive material [to] miss the overwhelming emphasis upon infantilizing the worshiper, upon transforming him or her into an utterly dependent, utterly submissive, utterly obedient “little child” following after the explicitly parental figures of the Almighty Lord and His pastoral Son from Whom he or she continuously seeks provision and protection through prayer. (ibid. p. 12)
Allegedly, Christian religion exploits our early experience of being a helpless, dependent little child in the
care and protection of an all-powerful parent. The religious feeling stems especially from the early period that is
lost to our explicit recollection. The unconscious longing for the parental figure is projected onto the religious
narrative, which acquires divine dimensions. Thus, spiritual awareness is predicated upon infantile attachment to
an internalized, all-powerful parental presence. Faber maintains that “it is precisely the
‘engram’ of the first relationship [at which] Christianity aims its traditional or sacred
‘cues,’ the substance of its doctrinal and ritualistic enactments” (ibid. p. 57). The
devotee can feel the connection within, and thus the unconscious associations have a seductive effect, which
leads to blind faith in religious narrative. The result, Faber explains, is collective infantilization, because we
are required to adhere to the rules and dutifully propitiate the Parental God. To be saved, Christian style, is to
become innocent as a child and to surrender wholly to authority.
Saint Augustine of Hippo
Modern Christianity, as a secular misinterpretation of historical faith, may indeed have contributed to this trend.
However, I suggest that both von Franz and Faber misinterpret Christianity”s historical function and
role. If it has had such an infantilizing effect, then it is difficult to explain why Christian civilization rose
to power and came to outshine all other civilizations. Christian faith answered an inner thirst for fellowship with
the divine while also providing a predominantly transcendental view of the sacred. St. Augustine
(354 – 430) renounces the antique ideal of divine orderliness in the earthly realm and instead
elevates the City of God as the ideal (Augustine, 2015). He contrasts worldly striving after power and glory, the
pursuit of earthly joys, and the grasping after transitory things with the eternal City of God, whose citizens live
according to the spirit, not according to the flesh. The City of God, which can be acquired through faith,
“has lived alongside the kingdoms of this world and their glory, and has been silently increasing”
(Augustine, Kindle Loc. 135).
The Earthly City, on the other hand, is divided against itself. It is characterized by conflict, vice, and pride,
and the relentless search for terrestrial and temporal benefits. In contrast, Augustine emphasizes ideals that
transcend the worldly, connected with the rational soul. What gives peace to the soul is the “well-ordered
harmony of knowledge and actions” (cf. Augustine, Kindle Loc. 15769-71). Central is the investigation or
discovery of truth so that we may arrive at useful knowledge by which we may regulate life and conduct. The
invisible spirit — which encompasses truth, morality, and inner
harmony — takes precedence over outer societal orderliness and worldly success. In his
masterpiece, St. Augustine manages to refute the notion of the earthly Utopia, which had become an ideal in the
Roman epoch. This change of perspective that emphasizes the transcendent had already begun with St. Paul. It
laid the foundation for modern civilization and is also the psychological basis for the scientific mindset.
Faber contends that becoming a child of God, subordinating oneself to the transcendental Godhead, is the same as
becoming a naive and credulous lackey of societal authority. But the Christian message of faith and the ideal of
becoming an obedient “little child” of God does not imply credulousness in worldly matters.
Accordingly, Jesus says: “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as
serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matt. 10:16). In fact, acquiring a foothold in the transcendental
realm — the City of God — is a requirement for authentic psychological
detachment and autonomy. The early Christians rejected many demands of earthly authorities. Thus, it is hardly
Christian religion that has given birth to the puer aeternus.
Faber claims that Christianity represents “a magical, prescientific mode of discourse” that serves to
infantilize its followers, “urging them to rely for security and behavioural guidance on faith, on the
existence and the perfection of overarching parental spirits from the beyond, as opposed to their own human reason
and good sense” (Faber, 2010, p. 291). As a matter of fact, as the “childlike” side of
personality is provided for by the church, it allows the pragmatic side of personality free rein in the material
world, precisely because the latter is being deflated as a goal of personality. It is pointless and vain to quest
after worldly perfection in the form of an orderly earthly paradise. Since Christianity endeavored to separate the
transcendental domain from the immanent, the gods and spirits that dwelt in temporality, and all sorts of
superstitions, persistently dwindled in parallel with the advance of Christianity.
Yet with the advent of modern times, people began to leave the embrace of the church. For this reason, we have seen
an enormous upsurge in idealistic beliefs projected onto the earthly condition. Communism and Fascism stand out as
the most destructive worldly belief systems, but the plague continues in our current era in the form of
multitudinous infantile “-isms.” In a way, it represents a regression to pre-Christian mentality,
although pagan religious creed is now called “ideology.” The ideologists all inhabit the Earthly City,
whose mythic founder was Cain. According to Augustine, it is equivalent to Babylon and Confusion. Thus, Christian
faith has served as a bulwark against pagan and naive mentality, which conflates the spiritual with the worldly. To
become a child of the Savior was the recipe for civilizational and scientific success, as rationality, morality,
and interiority rose as guiding stars (cf. Winther, 2011).
Critics of Christianity, such as Faber, do not recognize that tenets of faith (virgin birth, resurrection, etc.)
refer not to the earthly condition but to the City of God. Nor are critics aware of the separate ideals of the
spiritual and the transitory. The religious message is seen as “the veiling, or the denying, of the
inescapable biological realities that not only mark us but define us as natural creatures in the world”
(Faber, 2010, p. 193). Allegedly, it would be better to see things as they really are rather than live a
lifetime of comforting illusions. But this is a caricature of Christian religion, which does not consign the
believer to a life of reverie. On the contrary, human nature is seen as flawed, stained by original sin. Worldly
existence, although tolerable, is permeated by strife, suffering, and decay. Augustine explains that it is actually
the citizens of the Earthly City who are in pursuit of an illusion.
As for those who have supposed that the sovereign good and evil are to be found in this life, and have placed it either in the soul or the body, or in both, or, to speak more explicitly, either in pleasure or in virtue, or in both; […] — all these have, with a marvellous shallowness, sought to find their blessedness in this life and in themselves. Contempt has been poured upon such ideas by the Truth, saying by the prophet, “The Lord knoweth the thoughts of men” […] “that they are vain.”
For what flood of eloquence can suffice to detail the miseries of this life? […] For when, where, how, in this life can these primary objects of nature be possessed so that they may not be assailed by unforeseen accidents? Is the body of the wise man exempt from any pain which may dispel pleasure, from any disquietude which may banish repose? The amputation or decay of the members of the body puts an end to its integrity, deformity blights its beauty, weakness its health, lassitude its vigour, sleepiness or sluggishness its activity, — and which of these is it that may not assail the flesh of the wise man? Comely and fitting attitudes and movements of the body are numbered among the prime natural blessings; but what if some sickness makes the members tremble? […] What shall I say of the fundamental blessings of the soul, sense and intellect, of which the one is given for the perception, and the other for the comprehension of truth? But what kind of sense is it that remains when a man becomes deaf and blind? where are reason and intellect when disease makes a man delirious? […] And what shall I say of those who suffer from demoniacal possession? (Augustine, Kindle Loc. 15409-29)
Modern infantilism does not stem from Christianity. Rather, I theorize that many pueri aeterni are essentially
different from the mature Western personality. They live in a radically different conceptual universe, as if
floating around in a bubble. Psychoanalysis has always underestimated the constitutional differences among human
beings. I believe that “patriarchal” personality, denoting the individuating personality, is
essentially different from “matriarchal” (mother-bound) personality. The principle of individuation
takes root in early childhood and only in certain individuals. So the matriarchal personality does not
‘evolve’ into the patriarchal because it represents a different branch of the human tree. The two human
branches correspond to the City of God and the Earthly City.
I would characterize many adult men in the Western world as ‘dorks’ or ‘drones.’ In my
country, they have ascended to power in government and institutions. As criminal psychopaths ruled Germany in the
thirties, so do the drones rule much of the Western world in the present era. They are like little twigs, little
phalluses, on the trunk of the Mother tree. Their personality resembles that of a twelve-year-old who will never
truly adapt to reality, mentally remaining in his boyhood room. Such people are “playing” a boyhood
game in which the world is Mama’s paradise, where motherliness and multiculturalism prevail. The drones are
almost like a different species that the church managed to enclose in its garden but which is now ascending to
power. Arguably, they have always been present. It is just that they have, through societal changes, become more
conspicuous in modern times. Immigration contributes to a considerable increase in their numbers.
The puerile ideal of pluralism
The theory around the puer aeternus can also help us understand why Jungian psychology has difficulties advancing
to a respectable academic level. By all evidence, psychology, much like politics and journalism, is being swamped
by pueri aeterni, or at least people poisoned by the “pluralistic relativism” of our times. Thus, a
well-known Jungian analyst and author can say:
For me, Jung has left behind a number of wonderful toys which I can carry into my playground. This Jungian inheritance is mixed together with toys left behind by Freud, Klein, Bion, Winnicott, Kohut and many others. My “Jung” wanted us to play with these toys, mix them up, make new things with them, and invent new games. My “Jung” did not want us to mummify, safeguard, or enshrine his ideas — but I believe he did want us to embrace the spirit of inquiry that all of his ideas emerged from. (Winborn, 2015)
Moreover, a well-known Jungian analyst has proclaimed “the diversity of psychology and the psychology of
diversity” (Samuels, 1989, ch. 12). Yet he has effectively refuted the idea of theoretical pluralism
because it is somehow obvious that it cannot work. The scientific community would dismiss it as whimsy since it
flies in the face of the empirical paradigm. However, the puer aeternus has no problem with this because he has no
passion for science or for the Platonic and Aristotelian pursuit of truth. Science is merely a way of
“toying” with the plurality of theories while traveling in one’s balloon. It requires a
superficial attitude, which means that theories are not properly understood. In fact, they are genuinely
contradictory. Many are scientifically obsolete, while others have harmful consequences for the patient. Of course,
thinkers of this ilk do not care about the future survival of psychology. The puer takes no real interest in its
theses anyway. He has no desire to dig deeper, to substantiate and develop psychological theory. To the puer, all
things are toys, like pieces on a game board.
Psychologist James Hillman prided himself on being a puer aeternus, whereas Jungian analyst Daryl Sharp and
psychoanalyst Dan Kiley both claim to have overcome their condition. It is evident that the puer aeternus
problem is increasing. It is sometimes difficult for immigrants to adapt to a new culture, which leads to
rootlessness. M-L von Franz criticizes the way in which modern welfare society infantilizes
its members through economic dependency. Moreover, our culture seems to generate a mentality of fantasy and
ideology. The puerile community is very fond of nebulous words like ‘multicultural dynamics,’
‘oppressive structures,’ and ‘complex and multidimensional.’ Society is viewed as a huge
multifarious hodgepodge that cannot be analyzed. In this way, one need not relate to the facts of reality.
Much of today’s societal problems stem from a psychogenic incapacity for growing up. Rather than developing
realistic consciousness, many citizens remain idealistic in the naive sense, retaining the immature and utopian
mindset of adolescence. This implies that consciousness is being infected by the unconscious fantasy world, as
conscious and unconscious are not sufficiently separated. To subscribe to an ideology and to have utopian
ideals — that is, to live in a fantasy world — is characteristic of many
modern citizens. It is characteristic of the pueri aeterni who remain unaffected by the facts of reality. It was
this very mindset that St. Augustine successfully attacked by achieving a separation of spiritual meaning and
worldly existence. This served to untangle consciousness from the archetypal imaginary realm.
Could there also be a genetic component to this puerilization? Historically, women’s economic dependence
meant they typically married ambitious men capable of supporting a family. With women’s economic independence
and the social safety net, mate selection may now prioritize different traits, such as physical attractiveness or
social charm, rather than traditional markers of financial stability or ambition. This shift in selection pressures
could theoretically influence population genetics over time.
The remedy
Carl Jung argued that “hard work” is the remedy. It does not merely serve the function of societal
adaptation. It is a way of becoming absorbed in something, which means that one takes root in unexciting existence
rather than hovering like a balloon. Yet Jung and M-L von Franz question whether hard work
is always the right answer. Jung also had a notion of “going through” the problem rather than finding a
resolution. In this way, one may emerge healed at the other end, having thoroughly passed through the neurotic
phase. This reminds me of Wim Wenders’s road movies. Perhaps a puer aeternus should try to immerse
himself in the problem by leading life like a vagrant, moving from motel room to motel room in a thoroughly
provisional existence. During this phase, he is “totally committed to being a vagrant,” which creates
an interesting oxymoron.
However, I submit that St. Augustine’s time-honored solution — to acquire a spiritual and
trinitarian passion — remains the foremost remedy. The movement towards a transcendental ideal,
inaugurated by Christianity, caused the demise of religious worship of the many immanent divinities of the
classical era. It effected the disentanglement of consciousness from the archetypes of the unconscious, which was
necessary for the advancement of realistic consciousness. The mother complex implies that the conscious ego is
stuck within the motherly unconscious. My point is that the separation of spirit and world causes a detachment of
conscious and unconscious. It constitutes a remedy against the mother complex, of which the puer aeternus and the
Oedipus complex are different forms. The trinitarian form of mysticism requires renunciation of the worldly and a
more or less ascetic lifestyle. It serves to rise above worldly identification. Arguably,
St. Augustine’s countermeasure against worldliness remains a workable solution to the problem of the
puer aeternus.
