ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that mysticism is one of a number of individual and social phenomena that may be considered derivatives of what it proposes to call the apocalyptic complex. Other derivatives of the apocalyptic complex include apocalypse proper, messianism, millenarianism, fundamentalism, religious cultism, and utopianism. The chapter also proposes the term “apocalyptic complex” for fantasies, dreams, illusions, beliefs, images centre about the death– rebirth sequence or its reverse, even in the absence of the full apocalyptic syndrome. The apocalyptic complex then includes true apocalypse, along with other social phenomena such as messianism, millenarianism, and fundamentalism. In dreams that conform to the apocalyptic complex we encounter the same archetypes that we find in classical apocalypses. For other individuals, however, mood regulation is inefficient and a constant challenge and it is they who exhibit the apocalyptic complex. Because the apocalyptic complex is the expression of a basic unconscious mechanism, it appears in many products of mental life, behaviour, fantasy, creative endeavours, and dreams.
