In 1936, Carl Jung published an essay that would prove uncomfortably prescient. Writing as Nazi Germany spiraled toward catastrophe, he argued that rational explanations for what was happening—economics, politics, grievance—missed something fundamental. The German people, Jung suggested, were in the grip of an archetype: Wotan, the ancient Germanic god of storm and frenzy, “the unleasher of passions and the lust of battle.”
Wotan, Jung wrote, is “a restless wanderer who creates unrest and stirs up strife.” When this archetype takes hold of a collective psyche, ordinary moral reasoning becomes suspended. People who would normally resist brutality find themselves swept into what Jung called a state of Ergriffenheit—a kind of possession or seizure by forces beyond conscious control.
The shooting of Renée Good on January 7, 2026 in Minneapolis offers a chilling window into how Wotanic possession manifests in our own time—not in the pageantry of torchlight rallies, but in the bureaucratic language of official press releases and the immediate dehumanization of victims.
The Machinery of Dehumanization
Within hours of killing Renée Good, the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement characterizing her as a “violent” rioter who “weaponized her vehicle” and attempted to run over an ICE officer in what the agency called an “act of domestic terrorism.” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem claimed Good had been “stalking and impeding ICE all day.”
These were not the statements of officials grappling with the gravity of having killed a citizen. They were the reflexive utterances of a possessed collective, speaking in the voice of the storm god himself. The language was designed not to explain but to justify, not to mourn but to condemn.
The reality, as it emerged through witness accounts and video analysis, told a different story. Good was a 37-year-old poet and mother of three who lived in Minneapolis with her wife and six-year-old child. Her ex-husband said she “was not an activist.” Video footage showed her turning her steering wheel to the right, away from the agent who shot her, just over one second before the first of three gunshots was fired.
Yet before her body was even cold, before any investigation could begin, the machinery of state dehumanization was already running at full speed. She was not Renée, beloved wife and mother. She was “violent.” She was a “rioter.” She was engaged in “domestic terrorism.”
The Suspension of Due Process as Sacred Ritual
Jung described Wotan as “a superlative magician and artist in illusion who is versed in all secrets of an occult nature.” One of Wotan’s most powerful illusions is making the abandonment of justice feel like justice itself.
An ICE agent fired three shots and killed Good as the vehicle moved past him, as Good was maneuvering forward but away from the shooter. There was no trial, no hearing, no opportunity for her to face her accusers. The time between the first two gunshots was approximately one second. In that single second, the agent became judge, jury, and executioner.
President Trump and federal officials defended the shooting, claiming the agent acted in self-defense. This framing requires us to accept that an armed federal agent, part of a massive 2,000-person enforcement operation, was so threatened by an unarmed mother in her car that summary execution was the only reasonable response.
When the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension attempted to conduct a joint investigation with the FBI, federal authorities revoked their access to evidence, making it nearly impossible for any independent inquiry to proceed. This is not the behavior of a government confident in the righteousness of its actions. It is the behavior of a possessed collective closing ranks against scrutiny, protecting its own regardless of the facts.
The Archetype Revealed
Jung argued that archetypes reveal themselves through collective behavior that defies rational explanation. What rational calculus explains shooting an unarmed woman three times in barely over a second? What moral framework justifies labeling her a domestic terrorist before any investigation? What conception of justice involves federal authorities blocking state investigators from examining evidence?
These actions make sense only when understood as manifestations of an archetypal possession. Wotan demands sacrifice. He demands that someone be made into an example. And he demands that we all participate in the ritual degradation of the victim, transforming a poet and mother into a monster who deserved what she got.
ICE as Vessel for the Storm God
Jung observed that when Wotan seizes a nation, certain institutions become his primary vessels—organizations that transform from bureaucratic structures into instruments of archetypal will. In 1930s Germany, this role was filled by various party organizations and state security apparatus that gradually shed their nominal functions to become tools of purification and terror.
In the current American moment, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has undergone a similar metamorphosis. What began as a federal agency with defined enforcement responsibilities has been transformed into something far more expansive and frightening: a paramilitary force operating with sweeping powers, minimal oversight, and explicit presidential protection from accountability.
Consider the scale and character of the operation in which Renée Good was killed. This was not routine enforcement. It was a 2,000-person deployment described by officials as “shock and awe.” The language itself reveals the possession—these are military terms applied to domestic law enforcement, the vocabulary of conquest brought home.
President Trump has repeatedly positioned ICE as his personal instrument, praising agents who act with maximum aggression and explicitly protecting them from legal consequences. When ICE agents opened fire on people nine times since September 2025, killing four, the response from the administration was not concern but celebration. Each shooting was defended immediately, each victim transformed instantly into a threat that justified lethal force.
This is how institutions become possessed by archetypes. ICE is no longer constrained by its nominal mission of immigration enforcement. It has become a force that can operate anywhere, shoot anyone who “impedes” it, classify observers as terrorists, and block investigation into its actions. It has become untouchable, unaccountable, and increasingly willing to use lethal violence.
Jung wrote that Wotan “seizes everything in its path” and that those possessed by the archetype become “restless, violent, and unconquerable.” ICE’s transformation from a federal agency into a roving force that can kill with impunity and immediate justification represents exactly this kind of archetypal seizure. The institution has become a vessel for forces that exceed and overwhelm its bureaucratic container.
The language of “domestic terrorism” is particularly revealing. Several Minnesota state officials said Good was acting as a legal observer of ICE’s activities at the time of the incident. But in the grip of Wotanic frenzy, observation becomes stalking, presence becomes impediment, and driving away becomes an act of war.
What we are witnessing is not law enforcement run amok but the transformation of an institution into an archetypal vessel. ICE agents are no longer simply doing a job—they are participating in a sacred mission of purification and exclusion. The “undesirables” must be removed, and anyone who observes, questions, or impedes this mission becomes an enemy combatant subject to summary execution.
This is why the pattern repeats with such mechanical precision: shoot, dehumanize, block investigation, defend. It is ritual behavior, the enactment of archetypal scripts that override individual judgment and institutional restraint. The agent who shot Renée Good may have believed he was acting in self-defense, but he was also acting as an instrument of forces far larger than himself—forces that have seized an entire institution and bent it toward purposes that transcend immigration enforcement.
Jung wrote that when Wotan takes hold, “we are always convinced that the modern world is a reasonable world,” yet rational explanations fail to capture what is truly happening. We tell ourselves this is about border security, about law and order, about protecting federal agents doing their jobs. But beneath these justifications lies something older and darker: the ecstatic violence of a god who demands blood, channeled through institutions that have been transformed from bureaucratic structures into instruments of sacred terror.
The Cost of Possession
Renée’s wife, Becca Good, said in a statement: “Renée lived by an overarching belief: there is kindness in the world and we need to do everything we can to find it where it resides and nurture it where it needs to grow.”
This is what was lost when the shots were fired: not a terrorist, not a threat, but someone who believed in kindness. Someone who, according to her wife, believed “that all religions teach the same essential truth: we are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole.”
Jung warned that when a people fall into the hands of an archetype, they become both its agents and its victims. The ICE agent who pulled the trigger, the officials who immediately labeled Good a terrorist, the federal authorities who blocked investigation—they are all caught in Wotan’s grip. They have become instruments of the storm god’s will.
The transformation of ICE into an untouchable paramilitary force represents one of the most dangerous aspects of archetypal possession: the creation of institutions that operate beyond legal constraint, that can kill without consequence, that transform ordinary people into warriors in a cosmic struggle against “undesirables.” The agents themselves may believe they are simply enforcing immigration law, but they are participating in something far more primal—a ritual of exclusion and purification that has repeated throughout history whenever the storm god returns.
This is why presidential protection matters so profoundly. When Trump defends every shooting, praises every act of aggression, and blocks every attempt at accountability, he is not merely supporting a federal agency. He is sanctifying its violence, transforming killings that might otherwise provoke moral reflection into sacramental acts that bind the possessed collective closer together. Each defense of ICE becomes a ritual affirmation: the agents are righteous, the victims are enemies, and questioning this sacred mission is itself a form of betrayal.
But the greatest victims are always those who refuse possession, who insist on their humanity and the humanity of others even as the collective descends into frenzy. Good was the ninth time that ICE agents had opened fire on people since September 2025. Four other people have been killed during federal deportation operations. Each death follows the same pattern: shoot first, dehumanize immediately, block investigation, claim self-defense.
Breaking the Spell
Jung’s essay on Wotan was not simply an analysis—it was also a warning. He wrote in 1936, before the full horror of what was coming had revealed itself. He understood that when archetypes seize a collective, the results are catastrophic unless consciousness can reassert itself.
The response to Renée Good’s death—the immediate demonization, the blocking of investigation, the reflexive defense of state violence—reveals how deeply the Wotanic archetype has taken root. But consciousness can still push back.
Thousands have gathered in protests and vigils. Minnesota’s U.S. senators have sent a letter to the Attorney General urging the Department of Justice to include state investigators in the FBI’s investigation. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has asked federal authorities to “embrace the truth” and include local experts in the investigation process.
These are acts of resistance against possession. They insist that Renée Good was human, that her death demands investigation not justification, that due process matters even—especially—when the state claims emergency powers.
Jung believed that archetypes could never be destroyed, only integrated consciously. We cannot wish Wotan away. The archetype of storm and frenzy, of collective fury and sacred violence, will always exist in the human psyche. But we can choose whether we serve it blindly or face it consciously.
The choice before us is simple: Will we accept the official narrative that transforms every victim into a villain who deserved their fate? Or will we insist on something more difficult—the truth that an unarmed mother was killed by armed agents of the state, that this killing was justified without trial or investigation, and that this pattern will continue until we break free from the archetype’s grip?
Jung wrote that it is “terrible to fall into the hands of a living god.” Renée Good fell into those hands on a Minneapolis street. The question is whether the rest of us will wake from the spell in time, or whether we will continue serving the storm god’s appetite for blood, one justified execution at a time.
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