COSMOGONIA

Ritual recreates the universe in a symbolic mirroring whose structure depends on the cosmology underlying the culture and is intimately connected with the mask, either in the wearing that hides the true face, or in the adoption of a public face. Together, ritual and mask facilitate the apprehension of identity and its connections with paradox by placing the mystery of change outside of life’s ordinary reasonableness into the domain of magic and power. This change and transformation is enacted by the sacrifice of the ritual.

The mask/persona appears as a consciously created personality or identity, fashioned out of part of the collective psyche through socialization, acculturation and experience.

The persona is a mask for the "collective psyche", a mask that 'pretends' individuality, so that both self and others believe in that identity, even if it is really no more than a well-played role through which the collective psyche is expressed. Jung himself regarded the "persona-mask" as a complicated system which mediates between individual consciousness and the social community: it is "a compromise between the individual and society as to what a man should appear to be". But he also makes it quite explicit that it is, in substance, a character mask in the classical sense known to theatre, with its double function: both intended to make a certain impression on others, and to hide (part of) the true nature of the individual.  

In the ritual, the artist then aims to assist the individuation process through which he regains his "own self" – by liberating the self, both from the deceptive cover of the persona, and from the power of unconscious impulses.