ABSTRACT
Passed down over generations and from culture to culture, “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens now qualifies as a folktale. Scrooge’s metamorphosis involves a specific sequence of comprehension modes. Scrooge begins with his “home story,” the unquestioned beliefs he follows in his life, e.g., “The business of man is business.” That narrative is shattered by a mythic experience, namely his encounter with the ghost of Marley. His late friend sends the Three Christmas Spirits to help Scrooge change his miserly ways and the Spirits function as skillful psychotherapists. Christmas Past takes Scrooge to long forgotten experiences, which reawaken Scrooge’s long repressed emotions. This allows him to feel them in the present, e.g., with sympathy for the crippled Tiny Tim. Confronting his own death in the future gives Scrooge another horrifying mythic experience, which prompts him to completely change his ways. All these changes in virtual experience hold in real-life when he awakens on Christmas Day, just like with virtual therapy today, e.g., with phobias and PTSD. We may call this transformative series of comprehension modes the “reforging sequence” and it is visible in successful psychotherapy, life crisis transitions and initiation rituals.
