灰姑娘心想事成的秘密

                
                
今晚在一个惬意的晚餐时间，我们的朋友鲁柏和约瑟看了一个根据灰姑娘童话故事制作的电视节目。按照我先前所给的定义，这个童话故事是一个神话。当然，看起来这样一个儿童故事好像和任何深奥的事，比如已知世界的创造这么严肃的成人话题没什么关系。而任何关于事件本质的科学数据看起来似乎最不可能从这样一个来源中找到。
首先，灰姑娘的故事有一个快乐的结局，当然，它也因此变得非常不切实际，照许多教育家的说法，它没有使儿童准备好去正确面对人生不可避免的失望。仙女教母绝对是讲故事的人想像出来的事，而许多严肃、诚恳的大人会告诉你，做白日梦和许愿毫无用处。
可是，在灰姑娘的故事里，那个女主人公虽然穷又身份卑微，却设法实现了一个圆满而似乎不可能的目标。她想要参加一场华丽舞会而见到王子的愿望，引发了一连串的神奇事件，没有一样遵循着逻辑的定律。那忽然出现的仙女教母利用日常生活中的普通物品，将它们瞬间变形。于是我们就有了南瓜变的马车，还有其他同样神奇的变化。
这故事一直对儿童有吸引力，因为他们认出其背后的合理性。那个仙女教母是“架构二”里个性化元素的一个创造性的化身——因而是“内我”的一个化身，挺身而出帮助凡间的自己达成愿望，甚至当这凡间自己的意图看似不合乎正常人生的实际架构时。当内我以这样一种方式反应，甚至那平凡、普通、看似乏味的环境就突然变得充满了新的活力，而显得对当事人“有利”了。
Tonight, during a pleasant supper time, our friends Ruburt and Joseph watched a television production based upon the Cinderella fairy tale. According to the definition I gave earlier, this fairy tale is a myth. Surely it may seem that such a children's tale has little to do with any serious adult discussion concerning anything so profound as the creation of the known world. And most certainly, it may appear, no scientifically pertinent data about the nature of events can possibly be uncovered from such a source.
For one thing, the Cinderella tale has a happy ending, of course, and is therefore highly unrealistic , according to many educators, since it does not properly prepare children for life's necessary disappointments. Fairy godmothers are definitely a thing of the storyteller's imagination, and many serious, earnest adults will tell you that daydreaming or wishing will get you nowhere.
In the Cinderella story, however, the heroine, though poor and of low estate, manages to attain a fulfilling and seemingly impossible goal. Her desire to attend a spectacular ball, and meet the prince, initiates a series of magical events, none following the dictates of logic. The fairy
godmother, suddenly appearing, uses the normal objects of everyday life so that they are suddenly transformed, and we have a chariot from a pumpkin, and other transformations of a like nature.
The tale has always appealed to children because they recognize the validity behind it. The fairy godmother is a creative personification of the personalized elements in Framework 2 — a personification therefore of the inner ego, that rises to the aid of the mortal self to grant its desires, even when the intents of the mortal self may not seem to fit into the practical framework of normal life. When the inner ego responds in such a fashion, even the commonplace, ordinary, seemingly innocuous circumstances suddenly become charged with a new vitality, and appear to "work for" the individual involved.
——摘自《个人与群体事件的本质》（The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events）Laujenny 校译
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