When I was a child I had what I called ‘the dangerous friends’ (‘de farlige venner’ in danish).

As opposed to my mother and my true childhood friends I referred to them using ‘the‘ instead of ‘my‘. Sometimes – securely hidden in a magical cave we made from pillows and blankets – I would share stories about them to my sisters and childhood friends. With just a small flash light, that could be turned on and off for extra drama, our ears and eyes were wide open as these stories were shared secretly.

They were the reflection in my young psyche of a very real phenomena that pose a huge impact on the health (or lack thereof) in our collective and individual psyche, and therefor also the health of our society.

From a perspective of psychology these ‘dangerous friends’ are powerful archetypes that step in to service, when our vulnerable infant and childhood selves faces circumstances that are overwhelming.

In environments that are psychologically and/or physically violent, you have the option between these ‘deals with the devil’ or physical, emotional and spiritual breakdown. Needless to say they kind of ‘come with the package’ in our current circumstances.

The agreements we make with the archetypes/ dangerous friends, forms a false self that a part of us identify with, and once that happens we are apparantly ‘locked in’ to a false belief system of how the world operates.

When facing injustice, and we want to react against this injustice, that reaction itself is founded in these archetypes and therefor only reinforces the psychological prison maze part of us are in.

Deep inside we know this, and we have the choice to either go ahead and play by the rules, because apparantly ‘that is how the world is’ or we have the choice to be true to our inner knowingness of what is right and – like the son of Odysseus – wait for the right moment to act. Patience and anger management is required.

To extract a parasite you do not jab and poke at it, that would only increase the entanglement, what you do is you contact your true inner masculinity – which is and has always been here – to create the environment where the parasite gravitates towards the surface. It is what we call the ego.

And from there you shake off what you don’t need any longer and deep healing occurs.

Joyful will,

Johan Tino

– cofounder and daily leader of Tinkuy