Abstract
The bitterness of strife within and between depth psychology organisations has often been noted and deplored. This paper offers a different perspective. It suggests that a pattern of ‘coming together and splitting apart’ is archetypal, unavoidable and essential to the search for a creative authority and a language in which to express it. It explores this pattern through creation myths and as lived out in the ‘father-son field’ between Freud and Jung. It further amplifies the search for authority through the legends of the Flood, the Tower of Babel and Pentecost, all of which remain relevant to contemporary organisational struggles.