Within the depth-psychology corpus, ‘Army’ operates on at least three distinct registers. First, and most extensively, it appears as the seventh hexagram (Shi) of the I Ching, where it is glossed variously as ‘multitude,’ ‘troops,’ and the disciplined movement of collective force under a rectifying leader — a figure for inner psychological mobilization, the marshaling of psychic energies toward a purposive end. Wang Bi, Wilhelm, Anthony, Huang, and the Taoist commentators each bring this hexagram into contact with themes of discipline, orderly retreat, legitimate authority, and the danger of ego-usurpation when wrong elements seize command. Second, in Hillman’s archetypal psychology, the army and its presiding deity Mars become occasions for probing the Western — specifically American — repression of the martial imagination, and the pathological consequences of displacing Ares into nuclear abstraction. Third, in William James, the army’s explicit moral demands (contempt, ferocity, the suppression of reasoning) stand as the starkest challenge to humanistic ethical frameworks. Across all three registers a common tension persists: the army as necessary, ordered power capable of redemptive discipline, versus the army as site of savagery, ego-inflation, and collective shadow. The I Ching tradition consistently subordinates military force to moral rectitude; Hillman insists on its recovery as imagination; James holds the two in unresolved confrontation.
HEXAGRAM 7 [Shi / The Army] — If an army’s constancy is subject to a forceful man, there will be good fortune and with this no blame. Army means ‘the masses.’ Constancy means ‘rectitude.’
Wang Bi establishes that the hexagram Army (Shi) equates military force with the masses governed by rectitude, making moral discipline the precondition of any legitimate marshaling of collective power.
, The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi, 1994thesis
We receive this hexagram when we are about to be challenged by a trying situation or ‘war,’ whether the trial be an objective problem, self-conflict, or a situation which threatens our emotional independence.
Anthony translates the Army hexagram into an explicitly psychological register, reading it as an injunction to subjugate the ego through inner discipline when confronted with trials of any kind.
, A Guide to the I Ching, 1988thesis
‘Live and let live,’ writes a clear-headed Austrian officer, ‘is no device for an army. Contempt for one’s own comrades… and, above all, fierce contempt for one’s own person, are what war demands of everyone.’
James cites the army’s categorical demand for the suspension of ordinary moral reasoning and compassion as the sharpest expression of how martial psychology fundamentally inverts civilian ethical standards.
, The Varieties of Religious Experience Amazon, 1902thesis
Veterans who are honest with themselves will admit the experience in battle has been a high point in their lives. Despite the horror… that curious combination of earnestness and lightheartedness so often noted of men in battle.
Hillman identifies the paradoxical positive affect reported by soldiers in battle as the primary psychological datum requiring archetypal explanation, not dismissal.
, Mythic Figures, 2007thesis
We may be a violent people but not a warlike people — and our hatred of war makes us use violence against even war itself.
Hillman diagnoses American culture’s failure to assimilate the Mars archetype, arguing that the repression of the martial imagination channels it into a more destructive, uncontrolled violence.
, Mythic Figures, 2007thesis
Not to think, not to imagine is the behavior of Eichmann, said Arendt. So let us go on thinking all we can about Mars, now in distinction with the nuclear.
Hillman invokes Arendt’s ‘banality of evil’ to argue that failure to consciously imagine martial force — to distinguish it from nuclear annihilation — is itself a dangerous psychological act.
, Mythic Figures, 2007thesis
Wrong elements have usurped control, either in the external situation, or within ourself… If this ego self-image takes control during a war, the war will produce ‘corpses.’
Anthony reads the Army hexagram’s warning about ‘corpses in the wagon’ as a psychological caution against ego-usurpation of the self’s legitimate authority during inner conflict.
, A Guide to the I Ching, 1988supporting
In face of a superior enemy, with whom it would be hopeless to engage in battle, an orderly retreat is the only correct procedure, because it will save the army from defeat and disintegration.
Wilhelm’s commentary on the Army hexagram establishes tactical retreat as a form of wisdom, opposing the ego’s compulsion to fight regardless of circumstances.
, The I Ching or Book of Changes, 1950supporting
If the multitude assumes leadership of the army (rides in the wagon), misfortune will ensue… Let the eldest lead the army. The younger transports corpses; Then perseverance brings misfortune.
The Wilhelm-Baynes rendering emphasizes right hierarchy within the army as the precondition of success, with misrule by the unqualified producing only casualties.
, The I Ching or Book of Changes, 1950supporting
‘The elder son takes charge of the Army,’ because of the way he practices the Mean. ‘The younger son would use carriages to transport corpses’: the one appointed is unsuitable.
Wang Bi’s commentary links the army’s outcome directly to the moral fitness of its commander, making the Mean the criterion of effective martial leadership.
, The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi, 1994supporting
If one rushes to act without understanding the firing process, that is like an unruly army, which is disastrous regardless of whether its intentions are good or bad.
Liu I-ming’s Taoist commentary uses the army as a metaphor for the alchemical process, where ignorance of proper procedure — like military indiscipline — produces catastrophe irrespective of intent.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986supporting
3 yin: The army has casualties; bad luck. If one acts ignorantly on one’s own without knowing the method of advance and withdrawal of the firing process, courting danger on the chance of striking it lucky, though one seeks long life one instead hastens death.
Cleary’s rendering of the Taoist I Ching interprets army casualties as the inner consequence of undisciplined self-cultivation, rendering the military image a direct analogue for failed inner work.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986supporting
Originally Shi meant multitude. At present, it means teacher as well as troops or army. Both Wilhelm and Blofeld translate Shi as the Army.
Huang situates the etymology of Shi — encompassing multitude, teacher, and army — demonstrating that the hexagram’s martial image is inseparable from the concept of instructive, ordered collective force.
, The Complete I Ching: The Definitive Translation, 1998supporting
yin: Trumpeting humility, it is profitable to use the army to conquer one’s land… Even then, if profit is gained only after using the army to conquer them, how much the more so for those who are remote from and opposed to oneself.
The Taoist commentary deploys the army as an image for the coercive force required when genuine inner humility is absent, pointing to the irony of needing force to establish what should arise naturally.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986supporting
Battle is a joyous thing. We love each other so much in battle… A sweet joy rises in our hearts, in the feeling of our honest loyalty to each other.
Bly cites the chivalric tradition’s articulation of battle-joy and male bonding, contextualizing the martial experience within a broader archetypal exploration of the warrior’s positive affect.
, Iron John: A Book About Men, 1990supporting
The 1,300 Swiss fell to the very last man, but by their sacrifice they stopped the further advance of the enemy. The heroic death of these 1,300 men is a notable incident in Swiss history.
Jung uses the historical army engagement at St. Jacob as active dream material, illustrating how collective martial sacrifice carries deep patriotic and psychological charge within the individual unconscious.
, Collected Works Volume 18: The Symbolic Life, 1976supporting
In the spring of 1917, in order to beat being fired from school, I became ‘patriotic’ and joined the army… In the army, I became a periodic alcoholic — the periods always coming whenever I could make the opportunity.
A first-person AA narrative treats army service as the biographical context in which compulsive drinking became entrenched, illustrating how the military environment could catalyze addiction rather than discipline.
, Alcoholics Anonymous, Fourth Edition The Official ‘Big, 2001aside
The investigation of veterans from World War II and the Korean War… introduces two commonly acknowledged legacies of war for the veterans: the ‘No Legacy: The War is Over’ involves a denial of any feelings or reactions to the wartime experience.
Pargament draws on studies of war veterans to identify two post-military coping trajectories — denial and pathogenic symptomatology — framing military experience as a defining test of religious and psychological coping resources.
, The psychology of religion and coping theory, research,, 2001aside