In my reading of Joseph Campbell I was struck by his analysis of Freud from his mythological and Jungian point of view because I suddenly saw a parallel with American Advertising. Freud pulled the transcendent dimension of man down to the sex dimension and turned the symbols of transcendence upside down by interpreting them in terms of the lower instead of the higher nature.

Advertising does exactly this by taking the symbols of transcendence, the symbols the soul relates upon to lift itself up, and diverting the heart to form, to products. The heart is aroused, and then the ad sticks a beer in its hand. In this our secular consumer culture is a sock turned inside out. Our symbols of transcendence have been hijacked and used to imprison us in form, in history, and then sells us products as salvation.