ABSTRACT
“Emotion” is a word that tends to put intellectuals off. The myth of the Apocalypse is a case in point: a magnificent evocation of cosmic destruction leading to world renewal, whose emotional power possessed the mind of John of Patmos completely. One way to think rationally about an inner experience of the myth of apocalypse is to categorise it in Jungian terms as the result of the activation of what Jung called the archetype of rebirth, the archetype that represents the human potential for inner transformation. For, as long as the archetypal need for rebirth and transformation is cynically manipulated by self-serving politicians and psychopathic leaders, there will always be a constantly renewed source of potential young terrorists in love with the myth of apocalypse. The myth of Job reveals a dimension of scapegoating that cannot be accounted for by shadow projection alone.
