--> This scene contains a tremendously powerful and dangerous figure who needs some special attention, so I am going to appeal to an expert authority for help in explaining Paracelsus. From Women Who Run With the Wolves, by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés:
Paracelsus = Vincent's PredatorIn a single human being there are many other beings, all with their own values, motives, and devices. Some psychological technologies suggest we arrest these beings, count them, name them, force them into harness till they shuffle along like vanquished slaves. But to do this would halt the dance of wildish lights in a woman's eyes; it would halt her heat lightning and arrest all throwing of sparks. Rather than corrupt her natural beauty, our work is to build for all these beings a wildish countryside wherein the artists among them can make, the lovers love, the healers heal.
But what shall we do with those inner beings who are quite mad and those who carry out destruction without thought? Even these must be given a place, though one in which they can be contained. One entity in particular, the most deceitful and most powerful fugitive in the psyche, requires our immediate consciousness and containment--and that one is the natural predator.
While the cause of much human suffering can be traced to negligent fostering, there is also within the psyche naturally an innate contra naturam aspect, an "against nature" force. The contra naturam aspect opposes the positive: it is against development, against harmony, and against the wild. It is a derisive and murderous antagonist that is born into us, and even with the best parental nurture the intruder's sole assignment is to attempt to turn all crossroads into closed roads....
Although it may symbolize itself similarly or differently in men's psyches, it is the ancient and contemporary foe of both genders....
Wherever the predator lurks and works, everything is derailed, demolished, and decapitated.
The Mob = Malevolent extensions of Paracelsus; thus Pascal-B is revealed to represent not merely aggressive but predatory paranoia, and Jamie-B the sort of heedless curiosity that does not lead the soul to enlightenment, but instead lures the self toward captivity and death in the jaws of the Dark Man, the lair of the immeasureably destructive mage, the halls of the false father, the clutches of the inner Bluebeard
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Now, again from Estés:
Angel/Catherine-B = Vincent's Wild Woman ProtectorIt is crucial for us to remember that when we have dark man dreams there is always an opposing, that is, a balancing power, poised and waiting to help us. When we initiate wildish energy in order to balance the predator, guess who immediately shows up? Wild Woman comes driving over whatever fences, walls, or obstructions the predator has erected. She is not an icon, to be hung on the wall like a retablo, religious painting. She is a living being who comes to us anywhere, under any conditions. She and the predator have known each other a long, long time. She tracks him through dreams, through stories, through tales, and through women's entire lives. Wherever he is, she is, for she is the one who balances his predations.
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Estés (plus a bit of Zara):
Action = Vincent resists the philosophical and emotional violence of Paracelsus without resorting to violence himself, and the Angel whisks Vincent to inner safety before the Predator's lethal blow can strike him downInstead of reviling the predator of the psyche, or running away from it, we dismember it. We accomplish this by not allowing ourselves divisive thoughts about our soul-life and our worth in particular. We capture invidious thoughts before they become large enough to do any harm, and we dismantle them.
We dismantle the predator by countering its diatribes with our own nurturant truths. [Here I switch to the "Remember Love" episode text for the dialogue example...] Predator: "He shall be the greatest who is the loneliest, the most hidden, the most deviating. The human being beyond good and evil." Vincentself: "Beyond good and evil lies only death." [Now Estés...] We dismantle the assaults of the natural predator by taking to heart and working with what is truthful in what the predator says and then discarding the rest. [Me: At no time in this dream does Vincent deny his own potential for greatness, his power to make choices and act, or his responsibilities to himself and his world. In dialogue with Paracelsus, Vincent does not deny the presence of loneliness, hiddenness, and deviation within his identity. But he firmly rejects the predator's attempt to separate Vincent from his love-oriented morality.]
[Estés:] We dismantle the predator by maintaining our intuitions and instincts and by resisting the predator's seductions. If we were to list all our losses up to this point in our lives, remembering times when we were disappointed, when we were powerless against torment, when we had a fantasy filled with frosting and frou-frou, we would understand that these are vulnerable sites in our psyches. It is to those desirous and underprivileged parts that the predator appeals in order to hide the fact that its sole intention is to drag you to the cellar and leech your energy as a blood transfusion for himself.
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Estés:
Costly Choice: Vincent embraces the vulnerable sites in his psyche in order to protect them from self-destructive tendencies within himself at the expense of enduring the fear and pain that arise from the ensuing inner conflictBut fortunately for us, when the predatory element...is on the move, it leaves behind unmistakable tracks in her dreams. These tracks eventually lead to its discovery, capture, and containment....
Practice listening to your intuition, your inner voice; ask questions; be curious; see what you see; hear what you hear; and then act upon what you know to be true. These intuitive powers were given to your soul at birth....
By retrieving these powers from the shadows of our psyches, we shall not be the victims of internal or external circumstances.
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Motivation: Vincent listens to what all his psyche-pieces have to say, then does battle with the predatory intruder when it reveals itself, because he wants to maintain his integrity of SelfEstés:
When a woman works to espy the predator of her own psyche, and if she will acknowledge its presence and do necessary battle with it, the predator will move to a much more isolated and unobtrusive point in the psyche. But if the predator is ignored, it becomes increasingly and deeply hateful and jealous, with a desire to silence the woman forever.
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Estés:
Lesson Learned: To quote the Angel, "Knowledge and beauty are fragile things. They need protection"; Vincent reclaims the knowledge that he embodies hope and possibility, and that his holistic Vincentself is both privileged and responsible to defend the truth and beauty living within himThe dark man in women's dreams appears when an initiation--a psychic change from one level of knowing and behavior to another more mature or more energetic level of knowledge and action--is imminent. This dream occurs to the as-yet-to-be-initiated, as well as to those who are veterans of several rites of passage, for there is always more initiation. No matter how old a woman becomes, no matter how many years pass, she has yet more ages, stages, and more "first times" awaiting her. This is what initiation is all about: it creates an archway which one prepares to pass through to a new manner of knowing and being....
The threat of the dark man serves as a warning to all of us--if you don't pay attention to the treasures, they will be stolen from you. In this manner, when a woman has one or a series of these dreams, it infers that a huge gate is opening to the initiatory grounds where her revaluing of her gifts can occur. There, whatever has been incrementally destroying her or robbing her can be recognized, apprehended, and dealt with.
~ Zara