How Do We Become Orphans?
(The Orphan Archetype, Its Characteristics and Needs)
Dr Aydin Areta

We all regard the world as ordered, safe, and reliable until that state suddenly changes. At that point we are thrown into the unknown, and the child within us is forced to confront the world’s chaos; psychologically we fall from the child into the orphan.
If childhood represents a state of unconsciousness in which we have not yet become aware of the darkness of the world, the orphan marks the first time we become conscious of chaos and the archetypes of the unconscious enter consciousness.
The loss of our innocence and simplicity is our fall from paradise. Becoming aware of good and evil is like the first time the human being encounters the serpent in the protected garden of creation.
This encounter with the first danger and the first darkness present in the world is humanity’s fall from the paradise of innocence into the complexity of the world, and the hero’s journey begins from this point.

Our orphan becomes filled with pessimism, helplessness, loneliness, and disappointment, and needs power, consciousness, and hope in order to overcome suffering.

In this presentation, Dr Areta discusses the characteristics of the orphan archetype and its needs.

Video link from the YouTube channel “Steps in Illumination”:
https://youtu.be/AOQZctLxvbs

Post submitted by:
Samira Ghobadi