ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the collective rather than the personal unconscious, as author explores the concept of atonement through a psycho-spiritual lens. It is about alchemy within the political world how the alchemical metaphor contributes to reconciliation. The chapter conceptualizes atonement in both analytic and alchemical terms using gestalt psychology to illustrate the meaning. It is an idea of central importance which warrants closer examination. Atonement is an archetypal idea. An archetype is an irrepresentable, unconscious, pre-existent form that seems to be part of inherited structure of the psyche and can therefore manifest itself spontaneously anywhere, at any time. Atonement is often avoided by manic reparation, a neurotic/defensive wish for premature closure, possibly a Tricksterish device, to avoid tolerating the suffering involved in bearing the difficulties being described. In restorative justice the criminal faces his/her victim. This idea has been gathering momentum for only about a decade.
