The Marvel Age Star Wars YouTube Channel Has Launched!

We just launched Marvel Age Star Wars, a YouTube channel where we are reviewing the old Marvel Star Wars comic starting with issue 7. Check it out and subscribe if you like!

Check out the channel and be sure to subscribe!

THE COSMIC UNCONSCIOUS now available in print and Kindle Editions!

We live in a world where cultural conceptions of psychology and mythology are increasingly overlapping, thanks to a centralized system of information sharing. The common thread responsible for this synthesis of ideas is a globally shared popular culture. Regardless of who we are and how we’re raised, we consume the same media or, at least in large part, we all have access to it. As information technology rapidly evolves, the alarmingly escalated rate at which we are able to consume this media is changing not just the way we communicate, but the way we think. Our very consciousness is being altered as a result. But this is how it has always been. Whether we study this phenomenon through the lens of personal psychology, cultural anthropology, philosophy, or philology, we can see that ever since man was first able to construct metaphor, the means with which he did so determined how he perceived both his external reality and his internal identity. The focus of this book will not be to analyze how our cultural and personal sense of identity are changing, but to emphasize the ways in which they have always remained relatively the same. The primary classical works I will use as a reference will be CG Jung’s study of the collective unconscious and its archetypes. I have drawn from the original German texts wherever possible, but the English translations of the works I’ll most often consult are The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, Psychology of the Unconscious, and Modern Man in Search of a Soul. My earnest effort will be to honestly present Jung’s ideas alongside my own, though this risks re-interpreting his original text in a way that suggests more of a collaboration than is really possible. It is not my intention to in any way appropriate or distort the meaning of these ideas, only to present them in a fun new way for those who have not had the pleasure of studying Jung’s work before. In order to harness Jung’s ideas and hitch them to a familiar metaphor, I mean to analyze them in reference to the story structure of the STAR WARS films. The STAR WARS mythology has on many levels already attempted to introduce us to the concepts of the collective unconscious and the archetypes, but I fear we’ve gotten so caught up in the metaphor that we may have missed what it can teach us about ourselves. While STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI met with some unexpected criticism for its deconstruction of its own internal mythology, I think it might be one of the best modern examples of what the Jungian archetypes can teach us about the psychology of the unconscious and how our interpretation of unconscious thought has helped us form and cultivate our shared mythology. As Jung identifies the more relevant forms of the archetypes, we can examine their appropriate analogs in the STAR WARS mythology. This book presupposes that you may not have a working knowledge of the conscious and unconscious psyche or of cultural representations in mythology, so I’ll attempt to explore the requisite works that provide the foundation for that understanding. The philosophical writings of Friedrich Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer (among others) will also play a necessary part in this exploration. Because I will be discussing the nature of consciousness as well as the unconscious, I will also be examining speculations on primitive consciousness offered up by the likes of Carl Sagan and Julian Jaynes. And because this is an exercise in comparative mythology, it would be incomplete without some analysis of Joseph Campbell’s work on that subject as well. My last book, The Myth Awakens, was mainly preoccupied with the influences of various mythologies on the STAR WARS story. This book will be much more concerned with how those motifs were influenced by shared psychology and the narrative thread that will hopefully allow it to maintain that focus will be the plot structure of THE LAST JEDI in particular.

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Cloud City After Dark: A STAR WARS Podcast – CCAD016 – Last Jedi Predictions

Sean and Andrew get ready for THE LAST JEDI by going over their last minute expectations of the new STAR WARS movie. How will the philosophy of the Jedi and the Sith be represented? What is the fundamental Taoist philosophy of the Jedi and the Sith? Get ready to have your mind blown.

And don't forget to buy Sean's new book, THE MYTH AWAKENS, which explores the mystery and the philosophy of EPISODE VII! Now available on Amazon... just sayin'...

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Cloud City After Dark: A STAR WARS Podcast - CCAD015 - Unknown Regions

Sean and Andrew continue their pre-EPISODE VIII discussion of what the future may hold. The secrets of Snoke's orgins in the Unknown Regions, the fate of Grand Admiral Thrawn, and the Jakku operations of Gallius Rax... This one's got it all, folks.

You can follow even more theories of what might be and what might have been in Sean's new book, THE MYTH AWAKENS, available on Amazon in Kindle and print!

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Cloud City After Dark: A STAR WARS Podcast - CCAD014 - Balance of the Force

Sean and Andrew catch up on STAR WARS theories leading up to the release of the new STAR WARS movie. Gotta get this stuff out there now, since the movie’s quickly rendering these theories obsolete.

On that note, look for Sean’s book, THE MYTH AWAKENS, on Amazon, for more wild STAR WARS theories!

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EXCERPT FROM "THE MYTH AWAKENS, PART ONE"!

HOT NEW EXCERPT FROM MY BOOK THAT I WROTE THAT I'M SELLING!!!!!

Here’s another example of a visual effect that initially seems like it’s just there be cool but is actually symbolic of deeper meaning in the story: Before Poe is captured, he fires at Kylo Ren. Astonishingly, Kylo is able to stop the blaster bolt in mid-air. This is so shocking to Poe, in fact, that he is too stunned to offer any further resistance. At the end of the scene we see that Kylo just as casually allows the bolt to complete its original course, striking the spot where he had previously been standing. This imagery of the bolt, which looks like a lightning bolt hanging in mid-air, likens Kylo to mythical masters of the elemental aspects of the storm. Even his lightsaber looks more like a living flame or a harnessed thunderbolt than those seen in other STAR WARS films. Palpatine evoked the same imagery in a much more powerful way in EPISODE VI, when he literally hurled lightning at Luke Skywalker. Storm Gods and their accompanying imagery play a major role in mythology, for good or ill. Later on I think we’ll see their symbolic importance in this story as we begin to understand more about Kylo’s nature and his past.

IT'S $2.99 FOR PART ONE OR FREE IF YOU'RE A KINDLE SELECT MEMBER!

The Myth Awakens, Part One!

Download THE MYTH AWAKENS PART ONE for FREE through Kindle Select! 

With the first STAR WARS trilogy, George Lucas successfully translated the classic hero’s journey from ancient myth into the mainstream understanding of modern popular culture. We witness young Luke Skywalker, a humble farm boy, receiving a Heaven-sent message with a call to adventure which leads him to a kindly old wizard who gives him a magic sword and takes him beyond the limits of the world as he has always known it. From there he storms a fortress, saves a beautiful princess, travels through the belly of the beast to discover his true nature in a celestial temple, and comes into contact with a spiritual power that allows him to face off against a black knight and destroy a near-indestructible monstrosity capable of devouring entire worlds. It is a story resonant with the classic mythological motifs that Joseph Campbell identified in the first part of his book, THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES. George Lucas followed up on Luke’s adventure by outlining the history of Luke’s father Anakin Skywalker, the hero fated to doom the galaxy to the evils Luke would later be tasked with undoing. In Anakin we find a more primordial archetype of the hero. His fate is not defined by moral pretext, but rather by a mandate to uncreate the world he is born into and recreate it in his own image. This too is echoed in THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES, but instead of following the young hero as he assumes the role of the World Redeemer, the hero of the prequel saga is the pitiless embodiment of the Cosmogonic Cycle. He is the inevitable dissolution of one generation and its ideals as it is being succeeded by the next. So we have two trilogies of films covering the spectrum of classic hero stories and archetypes. This also represents George Lucas’ complete contribution to the STAR WARS saga in film. Is there anything left to say? When Lucas sold the franchise to Disney in 2012, it certainly seemed that the core story was over. Even when Disney announced that they were planning a third trilogy of films that would continue the story in EPISODE VII, the question remained as to whether there was anything new that could be introduced to the overall mythology of STAR WARS. In order to address that question, it’s worthwhile to analyze the latest addition to the saga as its own story, as a continuation of the original films, and as a return to the mythic themes the STAR WARS movies have always so successfully explored.