Zombies are a product of our modern collective conscience. This archetype is so prevalent currently, with the popular AMC series Walking Dead. (I love that gory show, although I am behind in viewing the second season.) We even have an example of the myth coming to life and the 6 o’clock news with the Miami man who viciously attacked and chewed on the face of an older homeless man. Tests showed that he only had marijuana in his system. Was he operating on a mental level that allowed the zombie archetype to express itself through him? We will probably never know why he preformed such a horrific crime.
Originally zombies came from an ancient African voodoo belief that a corpse could be put under the spell of a sorcerer who reanimate it and control it like a mindless automation. many say the practice still goes on it Haiti today. George Romero gave Zombies a scarier twist in “Night of the Living Dead” (1968) by retaining the “rising from the grave” element but losing the idea of the controlling sorcerer. Romero also introduced the idea of a “bite” turning people into zombies and that there was no controlling force or reason/explanation for their existence. That gave the archetype a modern twist and power.
So we have to ask ourselves what are zombies trying to tell us? What is our “collective unconscious” trying to tell us, with so many zombie examples around us? It seems to me that zombies are a symbol for the great indifference of our population, to our politics, to our gas prices, to our wars, to our everyday automaton 9 to 5 life. We are the protagonists but we are also the zombies. Our deepest unconscious minds are telling us to “wake up.”
Had not considered this twist on the Zombies and our collective unconscious.
Don’t you think also that we somehow identify with the Zombies with our “cubical mentality”? That by being a cubical dweller we are part of being unconscious even at work? Scary stuff.Don’t we all feel a need to escape from that mindlessness that is corporate America even for a little while?
This is awesome stuff. Thanks for bringing it up.
Yes! We even worked in a cubical environment together! The thing is that we operate in layers upon layers of unconscious everyday. I think the zombie archetype is just a symbol for our era right now. Thanks so much for posting!
I thought you might find this interesting… http://zombease.com/2012/07/11/zombie-tarot-review/
Wow that’s a pretty cool deck! Thanks!