Dialogical Gnosis
Creating a Living Relationship with Your Ancestors
by Iona Miller, (c)2012
‘The Work’, to Jung, involved firstly accessing archetypal forces resident in the collective unconscious such that they entered into a meaningful discourse with consciousness. Active imagination is one of the techniques Jung developed to encourage this consciousness/unconsciousness exchange of energies. Symbols communicate archetypal patterns and conflicts originating in the personal or collective unconscious to consciousness.
Our quest for psychological integrations is a pilgrimage of archetypal encounters. The anima and animus, the process of individuation, the mythopoetic archetypes of the collective unconscious--all spring to life in the fiery imagery of the vision quest. In our visioning we link earth and sky, body and spirit, the infernal and sublime.
Our quest for psychological integrations is a pilgrimage of archetypal encounters. The anima and animus, the process of individuation, the mythopoetic archetypes of the collective unconscious--all spring to life in the fiery imagery of the vision quest. In our visioning we link earth and sky, body and spirit, the infernal and sublime.
Dialoging with Ancestors Using the Intensive Journal Method
http://intensivejournal.org/index.php
http://intensivejournal.org/index.php
Of course, interpretation is not the only Jungian method. There is also active imagination. Active imagination requires an ego-image that is curious and inquisitive. The ego-image actively engages the non-ego image in a dialogue. Active imagination is a conversation between the ego-image and the non-ego image. It is not a dictation but a negotiation. In this sense, active imagination is a variety of diplomacy. It is not only a "talking cure" but also a "listening cure." In active imagination, the ego-image talks to the non-ego image and listens to it, and the non-ego image talks to the ego-image and listens to it. Active imagination is interactive imagination. Both the ego-image and the non-ego image pose questions, and both provide answers. There is no imperative, I would emphasize, for the ego-image to capitulate to the non-ego image. In active imagination, the only obligation is for the ego-image to entertain seriously and consider critically what the non-ego image has to say. What the non-ego image has to say is not necessarily the "truth." It is an opinion that the ego-image may either accept or reject. In the process, not only may the non-ego image persuade the ego-image, but also the ego-image may convince the non-ego image. The non-ego image may transform the ego-image, and the ego-image may transform the non-ego image. In active imagination, the ego-image is just as much an "image of transformation" as the non-ego image is. http://www.jungnewyork.com/imaginology.shtml
You see, man is in need of a symbolic life – badly in need. We only live banal, ordinary, rational, or irrational things . . . but we have no symbolic life. Where do we live symbolically? Nowhere except where we participate in the ritual of life. . . .
Have you got a corner somewhere in your house where you perform the rites, as you can see in India? Even the very simple houses there have at least a curtained corner where the members of the household can perform the symbolic life, where they can make their new vows or their meditation. We don’t have it; we have no such corner. We have our own room, of course, – but there is a telephone that can ring us up at any time, and we always must be ready. We have no time, no place.
We have no symbolic life, and we are all badly in need of the symbolic life. Only the symbolic life can express the need of the soul – the daily need of the soul, mind you! And because people have no such thing, they can never step out of this mill – this awful, banal, grinding life in which they are “nothing but.” . . . Everything is banal; everything is “nothing but,” and that is the reason why people are neurotic. They are simply sick of the whole thing, sick of that banal life, and therefore they want sensation. They even want a war; they all want a war; they are all glad when there is a war; they say, “Thank heaven, now something is going to happen – something bigger than ourselves!”
These things go pretty deep, and no wonder people get neurotic. Life is too rational; there is no symbolic existence in which I am something else, in which I am fulfilling my role, my role as one of the actors in the divine drama of life. --Carl Jung in 1939 to the Guild for Pastoral Psychology, London
Have you got a corner somewhere in your house where you perform the rites, as you can see in India? Even the very simple houses there have at least a curtained corner where the members of the household can perform the symbolic life, where they can make their new vows or their meditation. We don’t have it; we have no such corner. We have our own room, of course, – but there is a telephone that can ring us up at any time, and we always must be ready. We have no time, no place.
We have no symbolic life, and we are all badly in need of the symbolic life. Only the symbolic life can express the need of the soul – the daily need of the soul, mind you! And because people have no such thing, they can never step out of this mill – this awful, banal, grinding life in which they are “nothing but.” . . . Everything is banal; everything is “nothing but,” and that is the reason why people are neurotic. They are simply sick of the whole thing, sick of that banal life, and therefore they want sensation. They even want a war; they all want a war; they are all glad when there is a war; they say, “Thank heaven, now something is going to happen – something bigger than ourselves!”
These things go pretty deep, and no wonder people get neurotic. Life is too rational; there is no symbolic existence in which I am something else, in which I am fulfilling my role, my role as one of the actors in the divine drama of life. --Carl Jung in 1939 to the Guild for Pastoral Psychology, London
Lynchpin Ancestors, Game Changers, Wild Cards, Weak Signals, Foresight, Horizon Scanning, Shapers, Scanners or "Early Warners", Stakeholders
• Wild Cards are high impact and low perceived probability events (e.g. unexpected systems failures or sudden
transformations resulting from breakthrough or incremental innovations). Wild Cards are often presented as
negative events. However, they can also be positive.
• Weak Signals are ambiguous events, often referred to as “seeds of change”, providing advance intelligence or
“hints” about potentially important futures, including Wild Cards, challenges and opportunities. Weak Signals lie
in the eye of the beholder and are generally influenced by the mental frameworks and subjective interpretations
of individuals with limited information about emerging trends, developments or issues in a particular time and
context. Their “weakness” is directly proportional to levels of uncertainty about their interpretations, importance and implications in the short-medium-to-long-term. Thus, Weak Signals are unclear observables warning us about the possibility of future “game changing” events.
• Foresight is a systematic, participatory, prospective and policy-oriented process which, with the support of
environmental and horizon scanning approaches, is aimed to actively engage key stakeholders into a wide range of
activities “anticipating, recommending and transforming” (ART) “technological, economic, environmental, political, social and ethical” (TEEPSE) futures.
• Horizon Scanning (HS) is a structured and continuous activity aimed to “monitor, analyze and position” (MAP)
“frontier issues” that are relevant for policy, research and strategic agendas. The types of issues mapped by HS
include new/emerging: trends, policies, practices, stakeholders, services, products, technologies, behaviors,
attitudes, “surprises” (Wild Cards) and “seeds of change” (Weak Signals).
• Wild Cards are high impact and low perceived probability events (e.g. unexpected systems failures or sudden
transformations resulting from breakthrough or incremental innovations). Wild Cards are often presented as
negative events. However, they can also be positive.
• Weak Signals are ambiguous events, often referred to as “seeds of change”, providing advance intelligence or
“hints” about potentially important futures, including Wild Cards, challenges and opportunities. Weak Signals lie
in the eye of the beholder and are generally influenced by the mental frameworks and subjective interpretations
of individuals with limited information about emerging trends, developments or issues in a particular time and
context. Their “weakness” is directly proportional to levels of uncertainty about their interpretations, importance and implications in the short-medium-to-long-term. Thus, Weak Signals are unclear observables warning us about the possibility of future “game changing” events.
• Foresight is a systematic, participatory, prospective and policy-oriented process which, with the support of
environmental and horizon scanning approaches, is aimed to actively engage key stakeholders into a wide range of
activities “anticipating, recommending and transforming” (ART) “technological, economic, environmental, political, social and ethical” (TEEPSE) futures.
• Horizon Scanning (HS) is a structured and continuous activity aimed to “monitor, analyze and position” (MAP)
“frontier issues” that are relevant for policy, research and strategic agendas. The types of issues mapped by HS
include new/emerging: trends, policies, practices, stakeholders, services, products, technologies, behaviors,
attitudes, “surprises” (Wild Cards) and “seeds of change” (Weak Signals).
The Mystic Vortex
The gateway between the physical and spirit realms is known as a vortex. Geomagnetic vortex sites are often called Dragon’s Lairs and link the Dragon ley lines in a vast Earth grid. The Serpent life-force is the spiraling life-force energy that moves through the portals. Shaman consider these Serpent vortices inter-dimensional doorways. These vortex sites facilitate spontaneous synchronization of the anomalous geomagnetic event, EEG brainwaves, and Schumann Resonance which amplifies the vortex effect (Miller & Lonetree, 2010). This resonance produces a sense of high well-being and paranormal effects.
Within the energy body, vortexes manifest as chakras. The vortex in our DNA (Starfire) enables vision, illumination, lucid dreaming, and memory through death. Genetic memory is invoked to explain feelings and ideas inherited from our ancestors as part of a "collective unconscious". Entering the primal transformative spiral means entering the vortex of the internal structuring process, the natural kaleidoscope of shapes.
In a vortex of consciousness, questions and answers form in the scintillating swirling ether that also symbolizes the Collective Unconscious. Ezra Pound defined the vortex as, "a radiant node or cluster" "from which, and into which, ideas are constantly rushing." An image is a compositional vortex. Soulful images weave a vortex of longing. In the flow, the forces impel us. As we spin deeper into the creative vortex we are flooded with knowledge -- gnosis.
The interaction of fields, and the formation of a vortex of energy, the attractor, represents the beginning of our consciousness structure. This process culminates in the formation of separate identity, the ego. In therapy or shamanic Dreamhealing, the vortex can also heal. For example, an image of a deep red stab wound with a black center might become a swirling vortex pulling the dreamer and guide into a blackness. It is cold and empty, and the spinning of the vortex dismembers the dreamer. In fact, he experiences a sense of being disintegrated. The old self dies, so the transformed self image can be reborn, completing the transformational cycle.
The unconscious lends itself to the language of chaos. The whirling, twisting motion of a molecule of water in the chaotic world of non-laminar flow through a pipe is analogous to chaos consciousness. The disorienting, dizzying surrender to the vortex, tornado, or whirlpool is a surrender to chaos, an experience of no form and total confusion and disorientation. We penetrate deeper into the psyche -- into the vortex of the internal structuring process -- through progressively de-structuring patterns of organization.
It is like the experience of committing oneself to the fire and becoming it, then as the random flickering of the flames and torrid heat, disintegrating into pure energy. It means becoming the boiling, flowing, every-changing molten magma at the core of the earth, or the root of a volcano. A spiral or a vortex exerts a magnetic draw and the journeyers are drawn into it. Sensations of spinning and being drawn deeper often cause the journeyer to report intense dizziness and disorientation. Often there are feelings of flying apart, limbs and eventually all parts of the self flying off in the centrifugal forces experienced in the vortex.
These are all descriptions of the personal, subjective experience of total chaos. Always, after passing through this state, the new order which emerges of self-image, thought, emotion, and sensory perception reflects the new and less dis-eased state of being. The deeper self-image undercut or superseded the old belief system, and began to create a new order of being, a new way of perceiving self and world. The new image provides a magnetic nucleus around which to order the personality, and often the physiology.
Carl Jung likened complexes to impersonal psychological vortex points, into which we are drawn. We mediate it through myths, ritual, art and dreams. The vortex is a focal point or eddy in the vast ocean of consciousness, in the individual stream of consciousness. It is an icon of the Flow State, from which creativity emerges. For active, trancendent consciousness, the center of the vortex is primordial emptiness, the gap between breaths, the stillpoint of illumination which is a royal marriage with the eternal. Our future is a vortex of emergent fateful change. Mythemes of the Vortex form their own widening gyre.
Chaos is self-organizing, self-iterating, and self-generating. It is an evolutionary force. The tendency of new forms emerging from chaos is toward a higher degree of adaptation, hence evolution. This "recycling" of consciousness leads to a self-referential vortex. Chaotic systems revolve around nexus points, known as strange attractors, because of their unpredictable quality. Rather than being "point-like," they are more like vortices within vortices. The Philosopher's Stone is like a psychic lodestone (or vortex). It acts like an inner magnet, ordering the contents of our consciousness around it (through feedback loops) in chaotic, yet meaningful fashion.
The gateway between the physical and spirit realms is known as a vortex. Geomagnetic vortex sites are often called Dragon’s Lairs and link the Dragon ley lines in a vast Earth grid. The Serpent life-force is the spiraling life-force energy that moves through the portals. Shaman consider these Serpent vortices inter-dimensional doorways. These vortex sites facilitate spontaneous synchronization of the anomalous geomagnetic event, EEG brainwaves, and Schumann Resonance which amplifies the vortex effect (Miller & Lonetree, 2010). This resonance produces a sense of high well-being and paranormal effects.
Within the energy body, vortexes manifest as chakras. The vortex in our DNA (Starfire) enables vision, illumination, lucid dreaming, and memory through death. Genetic memory is invoked to explain feelings and ideas inherited from our ancestors as part of a "collective unconscious". Entering the primal transformative spiral means entering the vortex of the internal structuring process, the natural kaleidoscope of shapes.
In a vortex of consciousness, questions and answers form in the scintillating swirling ether that also symbolizes the Collective Unconscious. Ezra Pound defined the vortex as, "a radiant node or cluster" "from which, and into which, ideas are constantly rushing." An image is a compositional vortex. Soulful images weave a vortex of longing. In the flow, the forces impel us. As we spin deeper into the creative vortex we are flooded with knowledge -- gnosis.
The interaction of fields, and the formation of a vortex of energy, the attractor, represents the beginning of our consciousness structure. This process culminates in the formation of separate identity, the ego. In therapy or shamanic Dreamhealing, the vortex can also heal. For example, an image of a deep red stab wound with a black center might become a swirling vortex pulling the dreamer and guide into a blackness. It is cold and empty, and the spinning of the vortex dismembers the dreamer. In fact, he experiences a sense of being disintegrated. The old self dies, so the transformed self image can be reborn, completing the transformational cycle.
The unconscious lends itself to the language of chaos. The whirling, twisting motion of a molecule of water in the chaotic world of non-laminar flow through a pipe is analogous to chaos consciousness. The disorienting, dizzying surrender to the vortex, tornado, or whirlpool is a surrender to chaos, an experience of no form and total confusion and disorientation. We penetrate deeper into the psyche -- into the vortex of the internal structuring process -- through progressively de-structuring patterns of organization.
It is like the experience of committing oneself to the fire and becoming it, then as the random flickering of the flames and torrid heat, disintegrating into pure energy. It means becoming the boiling, flowing, every-changing molten magma at the core of the earth, or the root of a volcano. A spiral or a vortex exerts a magnetic draw and the journeyers are drawn into it. Sensations of spinning and being drawn deeper often cause the journeyer to report intense dizziness and disorientation. Often there are feelings of flying apart, limbs and eventually all parts of the self flying off in the centrifugal forces experienced in the vortex.
These are all descriptions of the personal, subjective experience of total chaos. Always, after passing through this state, the new order which emerges of self-image, thought, emotion, and sensory perception reflects the new and less dis-eased state of being. The deeper self-image undercut or superseded the old belief system, and began to create a new order of being, a new way of perceiving self and world. The new image provides a magnetic nucleus around which to order the personality, and often the physiology.
Carl Jung likened complexes to impersonal psychological vortex points, into which we are drawn. We mediate it through myths, ritual, art and dreams. The vortex is a focal point or eddy in the vast ocean of consciousness, in the individual stream of consciousness. It is an icon of the Flow State, from which creativity emerges. For active, trancendent consciousness, the center of the vortex is primordial emptiness, the gap between breaths, the stillpoint of illumination which is a royal marriage with the eternal. Our future is a vortex of emergent fateful change. Mythemes of the Vortex form their own widening gyre.
Chaos is self-organizing, self-iterating, and self-generating. It is an evolutionary force. The tendency of new forms emerging from chaos is toward a higher degree of adaptation, hence evolution. This "recycling" of consciousness leads to a self-referential vortex. Chaotic systems revolve around nexus points, known as strange attractors, because of their unpredictable quality. Rather than being "point-like," they are more like vortices within vortices. The Philosopher's Stone is like a psychic lodestone (or vortex). It acts like an inner magnet, ordering the contents of our consciousness around it (through feedback loops) in chaotic, yet meaningful fashion.
Ancestors, holistic health and healing:
http://adamatman.com/audio/radio%20show%20-%20Ancestors.mp3
Holographic Self Exploration through the Ancestors
Memories Create Relationships
http://adamatman.com/audio/radio%20show%20-%20Ancestors.mp3
Holographic Self Exploration through the Ancestors
Memories Create Relationships
The voyage began at age 11. “On my way to school,” Jung recalled in 1959, “I stepped out of a mist and I knew I am. I am what I am. And then I thought, ‘But what have I been before?’ And then I found that I had been in a mist, not knowing to differentiate myself from things; I was just one thing among many things.”
Thirty years later, Jung had a bookbinder make an enormous volume covered in red leather into which he poured his explorations into himself. These explorations included some psychedelic drawings of mythical characters of his dreams and waking fantasies — explorations that Jung feared would make people think him mad.
About halfway through the Red Book — after he has traversed a desert, scrambled up mountains, carried God on his back, committed murder, visited hell; and after he has had long and inconclusive talks with his guru, Philemon, a man with bullhorns and a long beard who flaps around on kingfisher wings — Jung is feeling understandably tired and insane... This is when his soul, a female figure who surfaces periodically throughout the book, shows up again. She tells him not to fear madness but to accept it, even to tap into it as a source of creativity. “If you want to find paths, you should also not spurn madness, since it makes up such a great part of your nature.”
“The basic message he’s sending is ‘Value your inner life.’ ”
Jung says: “I too believe that I’ve completely lost myself. Am I really crazy? It’s all terribly confusing.”
The professor responds: “Have patience, everything will work out. Anyway, sleep well.”
“I worked on this book for 16 years. To the superficial observer, it will appear like madness. It would have developed into one, had I not been able to absorb the overpowering force of the original experiences. With the help of alchemy, I could finally arrange them into a whole. …I knew how frightfully inadequate this undertaking was, but despite... much work and many distractions I remained true to it, even if another possibility …”
“The years of which I have spoken to you, when I pursued the inner images, It was written in 1957 – four years before he died — at a time he still felt it prudent to keep the object under wrap:
“Everything else is to be derived from this. It began at that time, and the later details hardly matter anymore. My entire life consisted in elaborating what had burst forth from the unconscious and flooded me liker an enigmatic stream and threatened to break me. That was the stuff and material for more than only one life. Everything later was merely the outer classification, the scientific elaboration, and the integration into life. But the numinous beginning, which contained everything, was then.” were the most important time of my life,” reads a paragraph placed at the front of the “Red Book.”
Thirty years later, Jung had a bookbinder make an enormous volume covered in red leather into which he poured his explorations into himself. These explorations included some psychedelic drawings of mythical characters of his dreams and waking fantasies — explorations that Jung feared would make people think him mad.
About halfway through the Red Book — after he has traversed a desert, scrambled up mountains, carried God on his back, committed murder, visited hell; and after he has had long and inconclusive talks with his guru, Philemon, a man with bullhorns and a long beard who flaps around on kingfisher wings — Jung is feeling understandably tired and insane... This is when his soul, a female figure who surfaces periodically throughout the book, shows up again. She tells him not to fear madness but to accept it, even to tap into it as a source of creativity. “If you want to find paths, you should also not spurn madness, since it makes up such a great part of your nature.”
“The basic message he’s sending is ‘Value your inner life.’ ”
Jung says: “I too believe that I’ve completely lost myself. Am I really crazy? It’s all terribly confusing.”
The professor responds: “Have patience, everything will work out. Anyway, sleep well.”
“I worked on this book for 16 years. To the superficial observer, it will appear like madness. It would have developed into one, had I not been able to absorb the overpowering force of the original experiences. With the help of alchemy, I could finally arrange them into a whole. …I knew how frightfully inadequate this undertaking was, but despite... much work and many distractions I remained true to it, even if another possibility …”
“The years of which I have spoken to you, when I pursued the inner images, It was written in 1957 – four years before he died — at a time he still felt it prudent to keep the object under wrap:
“Everything else is to be derived from this. It began at that time, and the later details hardly matter anymore. My entire life consisted in elaborating what had burst forth from the unconscious and flooded me liker an enigmatic stream and threatened to break me. That was the stuff and material for more than only one life. Everything later was merely the outer classification, the scientific elaboration, and the integration into life. But the numinous beginning, which contained everything, was then.” were the most important time of my life,” reads a paragraph placed at the front of the “Red Book.”
In 1873 the philosopher and proto-psychologist Herbert Spencer “traced the origin of religion in the respect given to ancestors combined with beliefs in ghosts and fairies caused by dream experience. According to Spencer the ghosts of ancestors were transformed into gods (1):”
“Using the phrase ancestor worship in its broadest sense, as comprehending all worship of the dead, be they of the same blood or not, we conclude that ancestor worship is the root of every religion (Spencer 1873:422).”
Ancestor worship is closely related to soul worship and belief in spiritual entities, agents, or beings, and although one doesn’t preclude the other, it would do us well to note that one doesn’t necessitate the other, either (Henning 1898:375).
In Jericho, a plastered-over human skull gives us the first physical indication of explicit ancestor worship and totemization, dated to approximately 8000 years ago (Lamb 2012:85).
Henning agrees that soul and ancestor worship are the start of historical religion, and cites the German scholar Bernhard Stade in agreement with his views on ancient Israeli religious beliefs:
“It is probable that ancestor worship is by all means the oldest stage of the belief in spiritual beings, and that from this belief originated the primitive conceptions of the state of man after death. Thence it comes that the oldest social divisions of mankind, the family and the gens, have doubtless originated with many peoples from the worship of ancestors (Stade 1888:406).” Is idolizing an ancestor the same as appeasing a spirit?
“Using the phrase ancestor worship in its broadest sense, as comprehending all worship of the dead, be they of the same blood or not, we conclude that ancestor worship is the root of every religion (Spencer 1873:422).”
Ancestor worship is closely related to soul worship and belief in spiritual entities, agents, or beings, and although one doesn’t preclude the other, it would do us well to note that one doesn’t necessitate the other, either (Henning 1898:375).
In Jericho, a plastered-over human skull gives us the first physical indication of explicit ancestor worship and totemization, dated to approximately 8000 years ago (Lamb 2012:85).
Henning agrees that soul and ancestor worship are the start of historical religion, and cites the German scholar Bernhard Stade in agreement with his views on ancient Israeli religious beliefs:
“It is probable that ancestor worship is by all means the oldest stage of the belief in spiritual beings, and that from this belief originated the primitive conceptions of the state of man after death. Thence it comes that the oldest social divisions of mankind, the family and the gens, have doubtless originated with many peoples from the worship of ancestors (Stade 1888:406).” Is idolizing an ancestor the same as appeasing a spirit?
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"One of the most harmful illusions that can beguile us is probably the belief that we are an indivisible, immutable, totally consistent being....Each of us is a crowd. There can be the rebel and the intellectual, the seducer and the housewife, the saboteur and the aesthete, the organizer and the bon vivant--each with its own mythology, and all more or less comfortably crowded into one single person." --Piero Ferrucci, WHAT WE MAY BE
"We conceptualize self in terms of dynamic multiplicity of relatively autonomous I positions in an imaginal landscape. The I has the possibility to move, as in a space, from one position to another in accordance with changes in situation and time. The I fluctuates among different and even opposed positions. The I has the capacity to imaginatively endow each position with a voice so that dialogical relations between positions can be established. The voices function like interacting characters in a story." --Hermans, Kempen & van Loon, "The Dialogical Self"
“There is an infinite reality beyond the material world, a reality that is the basis for all we know and that is beyond what most of us think we can experience, or even imagine.” “When we begin to experiment and live from this idea of an interactive living universe, very surprising can happen.” --Peter Fairfield
"Rather there is the potential for discovering the footprints and patterns of all of the archetypes and more in one’s past. Conventionally these have been seen as including good and evil, right and wrong, pure and corrupt and not necessarily in this order. Levy (2012) calls the negative pattern "wetiko", an indigenous North American Indian term for the evil of unconstrained ego. RP’s role is to assist one, or a group, to uncover these patterns. However, how best to deal with them, enhance or constrain is a matter of ‘therapy’." --Paul Wildman
"We conceptualize self in terms of dynamic multiplicity of relatively autonomous I positions in an imaginal landscape. The I has the possibility to move, as in a space, from one position to another in accordance with changes in situation and time. The I fluctuates among different and even opposed positions. The I has the capacity to imaginatively endow each position with a voice so that dialogical relations between positions can be established. The voices function like interacting characters in a story." --Hermans, Kempen & van Loon, "The Dialogical Self"
“There is an infinite reality beyond the material world, a reality that is the basis for all we know and that is beyond what most of us think we can experience, or even imagine.” “When we begin to experiment and live from this idea of an interactive living universe, very surprising can happen.” --Peter Fairfield
"Rather there is the potential for discovering the footprints and patterns of all of the archetypes and more in one’s past. Conventionally these have been seen as including good and evil, right and wrong, pure and corrupt and not necessarily in this order. Levy (2012) calls the negative pattern "wetiko", an indigenous North American Indian term for the evil of unconstrained ego. RP’s role is to assist one, or a group, to uncover these patterns. However, how best to deal with them, enhance or constrain is a matter of ‘therapy’." --Paul Wildman
THE BLOOD & THE BONE
Ancestors Gone and Yet to Come
Inherent Wisdom: 'Foresight through Insight on Hindsight!
"We have not understood yet that the discovery of the unconscious means an enormous spiritual task, which must be accomplished if we wish to preserve our civilization." C.G. Jung
We all have a need for meaning that drives us to search deeply within and without ourselves for connection and creativity. Meta-meaning pulls us to discover from within, by breaking through old paradigms to discover what is waiting to be born. We can experience a personal archaic renaissance through reflexive practice (RP), turning our attention back toward the deep time of our being and all it contains. The universal field isn't just manifesting itself all around us. The field is coming through us and expressing itself in our inner subjective domain as well.
A method helps these deeper underlying patterns to come into focus and be seen, identified, even communicated with and ultimately fitted together like pieces, or shards, of a higher-order jigsaw/mosaic and simultaneously a deeper order grounding/embodying. Not merely the ‘subjects’ of our inner process, we become the ‘objects’ of a deeper, mythic, archetypal and divine process that is incarnating through us. We are the conduits through which the universe, in becoming consciously aware of itself, is waking itself up. Self-reflection i.e. reflexion, is therefore the best service we can do for ourselves and the world.
Such reflexive practice is self-referential. Retrospectivity is often found at the heart of creativity and poetics. "Reflexivity" refers to recursion, of referring back to a starting point, an original position, a beginning state. There is a loop in the time course of an action, where that action goes "out" to something, then comes "back" to oneself. Self-reference is the act, let us say, of paying attention being "bent" back towards the self that is paying attention. Self-description is the act of description being directed back toward the person actually doing the description. The "loop" structure is from you, your "self", back into or towards your self.
Wildman suggests, "accept the challenge of looking backwards from time to time over the years and let the patterns emerge, to surface the deep structures, patterns, processes, insights and connections. Not only individuals, but also organizations, communities and cultures could well undertake such an approach." It is a response to the need to seek for general explanations. Transcendent research embraces the spiritual, symbolic and physical realities of being fully human.
Internal Encounters
It is through this reflexive - even meditative, poetic, noetic process (one of apperception) that we believe we can gain vital noumenal (understanding, perception, discernment) insights. Out of the spaces can come the patterns and linkages so vital to understanding. Process work helps us uncover these deeper patterns and linkages. It might even be a form of deep futures reverse causation -- psychoretrocausality. What might conventionally be seen as an effect that exists in the future could in some way be a causal agent affecting the outcome of events that occurred before it in linear time.
Immersion leads to a recognition of intuitive knowledge and tacit understanding (incubation) generating enhanced awareness and knowledge of (illumination) one's inner world which in turn suggests the validation of this knowledge. Finally, the process concludes with an integration of these illuminations (creative synthesis) into the way the we see the world. We may even be entranced by images, intuitions, and dreams that can connect themselves to our personal quest. An unshakeable connection exists between what is out there, in its appearance and reality, and what is within us -- the internal world of reflexive thought, tacit knowledge, feeling, and awareness.
We are a braided emanation of our ancestral lines. There is a world of characters within us, waiting to share their knowledge and their gnosis with us, if we but ask. We may also explore awakening and finding our divinity within. Hypnosis and self-hypnosis have been used for years if not aeons. for such self-knowledge, therapeutic and healing purposes. Besides our ancestors, we all host an inner healer, a critic or judge, an inner child and a host of other "discarnate" participants in our multimind.
The basis of the human psyche seems to be a collective of selves -- a multimind in a multiverse. Independent and autonomous, they relate with one another mostly unknown to the outer awareness. The "multistate paradigm" of human nature extends toward a psychology and spirituality that is polytheistic, even pantheistic. Parapsychology is primarily a social science, though we try to bring in measuring tools of the physical sciences. The best evidence still comes from
people who witness the phenomena. The only way to study consciousness, whether of the living or the dead, is through the experiences of people.
Meta-Cognition
Dialogue is a form of imagery which creates and sustains a worldview through the means of imaginal conversations. Within the fabric of multiple centers or vortices within the psyche, an on-going dialogue emerges which ranges from selftalk (ego to ego), through "group" discussion (ego with subpersonalities), to spiritual dialogue (ego with transpersonal entities), even ancestral spirits. Beyond the dialogical realm lies the unspeakable experience (untranslatable) of the Void or Clear Light, the realm of archetypal light and sound as pure consciousness.
The "Word" helps us create and define reality. Conversation as well as observation defines our reality. Dialogue of the self with its various conscious and unconscious forms creates a series of "virtual realities" which form the basis of self-simulation and world-simulation. These forms are limitless in number, far beyond the classic archetypes such as persona, anima/animus, etc., suggesting the notion of "radical pluralism."
Dialogical Gnosis
Gnosis, wisdom from within, can arise in imaginal dialogues with our Ancestors, by adapting Ira Progoff's Intensive Journal technique to the process. Non-literal, imaginal, dialogical "discussions" often turn up material that can be proofed through history, archaeology, genealogy and genetic genealogy. This is yet another special case of "knowing more than we know we know." The simple technique can be used by anyone, virtually anywhere.
While not an official part of the the journal process, it can be readily adopted both with or without the rest of the program. Such imaginal conversations give a voice to the deeper constituents of our unconscious psychophysical system, and can even reveal unknown details about the functioning and fate of our physical organism. As such, it is a therapeutic tool which reflexively plumbs the depths of the collective unconscious and personal ancestral base.
The technique functions as a "ghost bridge", but not in the literal way of speaking with the dead used by mentalists and psychics. It is a conscious act, unlike dream contact with deceased or ancient ancestors. The process can be facilitated by pictures and art of the chosen ancestor, and pictures of their ancestral homes and lands that prompt memory and imagination.
Dialogue and questions open the way for myriad possibilities. Immersing oneself and trusting the process opens a virtual world, a holographic domain that is multidimensional. It is capable of influencing us by changing our attitudes, which affects our psychophysical, hormonal, and energetic being. It isn't 'real' or 'unreal', but takes place in psychic reality -- that is, the realm of the psyche which is both physical and imaginal.
Gestalt theory contends that we are all of the figures within our dreams, and well as the ground underlying them. Jung extended this notion inferring that we each contain and can contact many figures of the collective unconscious "within" us. Today, we speak of the quantum and holographic encoding of our DNA and our holographic memory, which is analogous to the Akashic Field of the East.
Dialogue is a social device we can employ in our noetic exploration. When we intentionally enter a conscious dialogue meditation we understand that we are evoking a portion of our self with its inherent wisdom. We may personify and amplify that feeling in numerous ways, including artistic means, or perhaps Tarot cards, and other means of divination. While the process shares some features of automatic writing and channelling, one maintains consciousness and critical thinking, not confusing the planes. It is more a process of "letting go", allowing than dissociating, of associating and amplifying than trance.
Wikipedia describes Progoff's method:
The intensive journal method is a psychotherapeutic technique largely developed in 1966 at Drew University and popularized by Ira Progoff. It consists of a series of writing exercises using loose leaf notebook paper in a simple ring binder, divided into sections to help in accessing various areas of the writer's life. These include a dialogue section for the personification of things, a "depth dimension" to aid in accessing the subconscious and other places for recording remembrances and meditations.
The original Intensive Journal contained only 16 sections, but was later expanded to include five additional sections as part of Progoff's "process meditation" method. It has been the inspiration for many other "writing therapies" since then and is used in a variety of settings, including hospitals and prisons, by individuals as an aid to creativity or autobiography, and often as an adjunct to treatment in analytic, humanistic or cognitive therapy.
Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American English) is a literary and theatrical form consisting of a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more ("dia" means through or across) people or imaginal characters. Its chief historical origins as narrative, philosophical or didactic device are found in classical Greek and Indian literature, in particular in the ancient art of rhetoric.
Once you are proficient in the technique it can also be employed as a group discussion, along the lines of NLP's subpersonalities, Boardroom or "part's party" discussions. Another source of therapeutic suggestions is Assagioli's Psychosynthesis, which likewise can employ dialogue. It can be combined with the Gestalt two-chair technique, but with a written record one has the additional benefit of a permanent record, which might yield additional depth over time.
Bohm's Dialogue
Physicist David Bohm proposed a dialogue technique with different aims. He introduced the concept of a dialogue stating that dialogue can be considered as a free flow of meaning between people in communication, in the sense of a stream that flows between banks. These “banks” are understood as representing the various points of view of the participants.
In a Bohm dialogue, twenty to forty participants sit in a circle for a few hours during regular meetings, or for a few days in a workshop environment. This is done with no predefined purpose, no agenda, other than that of inquiring into the movement of thought, and exploring the process of "thinking together" collectively. This activity can allow group participants to examine their preconceptions and prejudices, as well as to explore the more general movement of thought. Bohm's intention regarding the suggested minimum number of participants was to replicate a social/cultural dynamic (rather than a family dynamic). This form of dialogue seeks to enable an awareness of why communicating in the verbal sphere is so much more difficult and conflict-ridden than in all other areas of human activity and endeavor.
Participants in the Bohmian form of dialogue "suspend" their beliefs, opinions, impulses, and judgments while speaking together, in order to see the movement of the group's thought processes and what their effects may be. According to Dialogue a Proposal [Bohm, Factor, Garrett], this kind of dialogue should not be confused with discussion or debate, both of which, says Bohm, suggest working towards a goal or reaching a decision, rather than simply exploring and learning. Meeting without an agenda or fixed objective is done to create a "free space" for something new to happen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohm_Dialogue
Bohm claims, "...it may turn out that such a form of free exchange of ideas and information is of fundamental relevance for transforming culture and freeing it of destructive misinformation, so that creativity can be liberated."
Principles of Dialogue
"Bohm Dialogue" has been widely used in the field of organizational development, and has evolved beyond what David Bohm intended: rarely is the minimum group size as large as what Bohm originally recommended, and there are often other numerous subtle differences. Specifically, any method of conversation that claims to be based on the "principles of dialogue as established by David Bohm" can be considered to be a form of Bohm Dialogue. Those principles of "Bohm Dialogue" are:
Usually, the goal of the various incarnations of "Bohm Dialogue" is to get the whole group to have a better understanding of itself. In other words, Bohm Dialogue is used to inform all of the participants about the current state of the group they are in.
"We have not understood yet that the discovery of the unconscious means an enormous spiritual task, which must be accomplished if we wish to preserve our civilization." C.G. Jung
We all have a need for meaning that drives us to search deeply within and without ourselves for connection and creativity. Meta-meaning pulls us to discover from within, by breaking through old paradigms to discover what is waiting to be born. We can experience a personal archaic renaissance through reflexive practice (RP), turning our attention back toward the deep time of our being and all it contains. The universal field isn't just manifesting itself all around us. The field is coming through us and expressing itself in our inner subjective domain as well.
A method helps these deeper underlying patterns to come into focus and be seen, identified, even communicated with and ultimately fitted together like pieces, or shards, of a higher-order jigsaw/mosaic and simultaneously a deeper order grounding/embodying. Not merely the ‘subjects’ of our inner process, we become the ‘objects’ of a deeper, mythic, archetypal and divine process that is incarnating through us. We are the conduits through which the universe, in becoming consciously aware of itself, is waking itself up. Self-reflection i.e. reflexion, is therefore the best service we can do for ourselves and the world.
Such reflexive practice is self-referential. Retrospectivity is often found at the heart of creativity and poetics. "Reflexivity" refers to recursion, of referring back to a starting point, an original position, a beginning state. There is a loop in the time course of an action, where that action goes "out" to something, then comes "back" to oneself. Self-reference is the act, let us say, of paying attention being "bent" back towards the self that is paying attention. Self-description is the act of description being directed back toward the person actually doing the description. The "loop" structure is from you, your "self", back into or towards your self.
Wildman suggests, "accept the challenge of looking backwards from time to time over the years and let the patterns emerge, to surface the deep structures, patterns, processes, insights and connections. Not only individuals, but also organizations, communities and cultures could well undertake such an approach." It is a response to the need to seek for general explanations. Transcendent research embraces the spiritual, symbolic and physical realities of being fully human.
Internal Encounters
It is through this reflexive - even meditative, poetic, noetic process (one of apperception) that we believe we can gain vital noumenal (understanding, perception, discernment) insights. Out of the spaces can come the patterns and linkages so vital to understanding. Process work helps us uncover these deeper patterns and linkages. It might even be a form of deep futures reverse causation -- psychoretrocausality. What might conventionally be seen as an effect that exists in the future could in some way be a causal agent affecting the outcome of events that occurred before it in linear time.
Immersion leads to a recognition of intuitive knowledge and tacit understanding (incubation) generating enhanced awareness and knowledge of (illumination) one's inner world which in turn suggests the validation of this knowledge. Finally, the process concludes with an integration of these illuminations (creative synthesis) into the way the we see the world. We may even be entranced by images, intuitions, and dreams that can connect themselves to our personal quest. An unshakeable connection exists between what is out there, in its appearance and reality, and what is within us -- the internal world of reflexive thought, tacit knowledge, feeling, and awareness.
We are a braided emanation of our ancestral lines. There is a world of characters within us, waiting to share their knowledge and their gnosis with us, if we but ask. We may also explore awakening and finding our divinity within. Hypnosis and self-hypnosis have been used for years if not aeons. for such self-knowledge, therapeutic and healing purposes. Besides our ancestors, we all host an inner healer, a critic or judge, an inner child and a host of other "discarnate" participants in our multimind.
The basis of the human psyche seems to be a collective of selves -- a multimind in a multiverse. Independent and autonomous, they relate with one another mostly unknown to the outer awareness. The "multistate paradigm" of human nature extends toward a psychology and spirituality that is polytheistic, even pantheistic. Parapsychology is primarily a social science, though we try to bring in measuring tools of the physical sciences. The best evidence still comes from
people who witness the phenomena. The only way to study consciousness, whether of the living or the dead, is through the experiences of people.
Meta-Cognition
Dialogue is a form of imagery which creates and sustains a worldview through the means of imaginal conversations. Within the fabric of multiple centers or vortices within the psyche, an on-going dialogue emerges which ranges from selftalk (ego to ego), through "group" discussion (ego with subpersonalities), to spiritual dialogue (ego with transpersonal entities), even ancestral spirits. Beyond the dialogical realm lies the unspeakable experience (untranslatable) of the Void or Clear Light, the realm of archetypal light and sound as pure consciousness.
The "Word" helps us create and define reality. Conversation as well as observation defines our reality. Dialogue of the self with its various conscious and unconscious forms creates a series of "virtual realities" which form the basis of self-simulation and world-simulation. These forms are limitless in number, far beyond the classic archetypes such as persona, anima/animus, etc., suggesting the notion of "radical pluralism."
Dialogical Gnosis
Gnosis, wisdom from within, can arise in imaginal dialogues with our Ancestors, by adapting Ira Progoff's Intensive Journal technique to the process. Non-literal, imaginal, dialogical "discussions" often turn up material that can be proofed through history, archaeology, genealogy and genetic genealogy. This is yet another special case of "knowing more than we know we know." The simple technique can be used by anyone, virtually anywhere.
While not an official part of the the journal process, it can be readily adopted both with or without the rest of the program. Such imaginal conversations give a voice to the deeper constituents of our unconscious psychophysical system, and can even reveal unknown details about the functioning and fate of our physical organism. As such, it is a therapeutic tool which reflexively plumbs the depths of the collective unconscious and personal ancestral base.
The technique functions as a "ghost bridge", but not in the literal way of speaking with the dead used by mentalists and psychics. It is a conscious act, unlike dream contact with deceased or ancient ancestors. The process can be facilitated by pictures and art of the chosen ancestor, and pictures of their ancestral homes and lands that prompt memory and imagination.
Dialogue and questions open the way for myriad possibilities. Immersing oneself and trusting the process opens a virtual world, a holographic domain that is multidimensional. It is capable of influencing us by changing our attitudes, which affects our psychophysical, hormonal, and energetic being. It isn't 'real' or 'unreal', but takes place in psychic reality -- that is, the realm of the psyche which is both physical and imaginal.
Gestalt theory contends that we are all of the figures within our dreams, and well as the ground underlying them. Jung extended this notion inferring that we each contain and can contact many figures of the collective unconscious "within" us. Today, we speak of the quantum and holographic encoding of our DNA and our holographic memory, which is analogous to the Akashic Field of the East.
Dialogue is a social device we can employ in our noetic exploration. When we intentionally enter a conscious dialogue meditation we understand that we are evoking a portion of our self with its inherent wisdom. We may personify and amplify that feeling in numerous ways, including artistic means, or perhaps Tarot cards, and other means of divination. While the process shares some features of automatic writing and channelling, one maintains consciousness and critical thinking, not confusing the planes. It is more a process of "letting go", allowing than dissociating, of associating and amplifying than trance.
Wikipedia describes Progoff's method:
The intensive journal method is a psychotherapeutic technique largely developed in 1966 at Drew University and popularized by Ira Progoff. It consists of a series of writing exercises using loose leaf notebook paper in a simple ring binder, divided into sections to help in accessing various areas of the writer's life. These include a dialogue section for the personification of things, a "depth dimension" to aid in accessing the subconscious and other places for recording remembrances and meditations.
The original Intensive Journal contained only 16 sections, but was later expanded to include five additional sections as part of Progoff's "process meditation" method. It has been the inspiration for many other "writing therapies" since then and is used in a variety of settings, including hospitals and prisons, by individuals as an aid to creativity or autobiography, and often as an adjunct to treatment in analytic, humanistic or cognitive therapy.
Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American English) is a literary and theatrical form consisting of a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more ("dia" means through or across) people or imaginal characters. Its chief historical origins as narrative, philosophical or didactic device are found in classical Greek and Indian literature, in particular in the ancient art of rhetoric.
Once you are proficient in the technique it can also be employed as a group discussion, along the lines of NLP's subpersonalities, Boardroom or "part's party" discussions. Another source of therapeutic suggestions is Assagioli's Psychosynthesis, which likewise can employ dialogue. It can be combined with the Gestalt two-chair technique, but with a written record one has the additional benefit of a permanent record, which might yield additional depth over time.
Bohm's Dialogue
Physicist David Bohm proposed a dialogue technique with different aims. He introduced the concept of a dialogue stating that dialogue can be considered as a free flow of meaning between people in communication, in the sense of a stream that flows between banks. These “banks” are understood as representing the various points of view of the participants.
In a Bohm dialogue, twenty to forty participants sit in a circle for a few hours during regular meetings, or for a few days in a workshop environment. This is done with no predefined purpose, no agenda, other than that of inquiring into the movement of thought, and exploring the process of "thinking together" collectively. This activity can allow group participants to examine their preconceptions and prejudices, as well as to explore the more general movement of thought. Bohm's intention regarding the suggested minimum number of participants was to replicate a social/cultural dynamic (rather than a family dynamic). This form of dialogue seeks to enable an awareness of why communicating in the verbal sphere is so much more difficult and conflict-ridden than in all other areas of human activity and endeavor.
Participants in the Bohmian form of dialogue "suspend" their beliefs, opinions, impulses, and judgments while speaking together, in order to see the movement of the group's thought processes and what their effects may be. According to Dialogue a Proposal [Bohm, Factor, Garrett], this kind of dialogue should not be confused with discussion or debate, both of which, says Bohm, suggest working towards a goal or reaching a decision, rather than simply exploring and learning. Meeting without an agenda or fixed objective is done to create a "free space" for something new to happen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohm_Dialogue
Bohm claims, "...it may turn out that such a form of free exchange of ideas and information is of fundamental relevance for transforming culture and freeing it of destructive misinformation, so that creativity can be liberated."
Principles of Dialogue
"Bohm Dialogue" has been widely used in the field of organizational development, and has evolved beyond what David Bohm intended: rarely is the minimum group size as large as what Bohm originally recommended, and there are often other numerous subtle differences. Specifically, any method of conversation that claims to be based on the "principles of dialogue as established by David Bohm" can be considered to be a form of Bohm Dialogue. Those principles of "Bohm Dialogue" are:
- 1. The group agrees that no group-level decisions will be made in the conversation. "...In the dialogue group we are not going to decide what to do about anything. This is crucial. Otherwise we are not free. We must have an empty space where we are not obliged to anything, nor to come to any conclusions, nor to say anything or not say anything. It's open and free" (Bohm, "On Dialogue", p.18-19.)"
- 2. Each individual agrees to suspend judgement in the conversation. (Specifically, if the individual hears an idea he doesn't like, he does not attack that idea.) "...people in any group will bring to it assumptions, and as the group continues meeting, those assumptions will come up. What is called for is to suspend those assumptions, so that you neither carry them out nor suppress them. You don't believe them, nor do you disbelieve them; you don't judge them as good or bad...(Bohm, "On Dialogue", p. 22.)"
- 3. As these individuals "suspend judgement" they also simultaneously are as honest and transparent as possible. (Specifically, if the individual has a "good idea" that he might otherwise hold back from the group because it is too controversial, he will share that idea in this conversation.)
- 4. Individuals in the conversation try to build on other individuals' ideas in the conversation. (The group often comes up with ideas that are far beyond what any of the individuals thought possible before the conversation began.)
Usually, the goal of the various incarnations of "Bohm Dialogue" is to get the whole group to have a better understanding of itself. In other words, Bohm Dialogue is used to inform all of the participants about the current state of the group they are in.
Preparation
Temple Sleep a traditional way of non-interpretive dream incubation and healing. It also refers to hypnosis, and by extension to self-hypnosis.
Egyptian priest, Imhotep. (I-em-hotep, he comes in peace) is the great-grandfather of Hypnosis, or suggestive therapy, which can be traced back over 4000 years to ancient Egypt. The Egyptians used healing sanctuaries for curing all sorts of problems, both physical and mental, most of which today would be classed as psychological problems. Before falling asleep they were influenced by suggestions, in the hope of provoking dreams sent by the gods.
These healing sanctuaries were called "Sleep or Dream Temples." In these temples, the sick person was put into a trance like sleep; priests and priestesses then facilitated healing dreams to gain knowledge about the illnesses and to find a cure for the illnesses. Such dreams were themselves epiphanies with the inner healer. It is that contact, not interpretations, that is healing.
Healing took place while the person being cured was in a deep trance-like sleep. The god Asklepius could perform miraculous cures in the dreams. The priests used chanting and magical spells to put the patient into a trance, known as incubation. A person could be kept in this state for up to three days, during which time the priests using suggestions would help the person, through their dreams, to make contact with the god, thus helping them to obtain a cure for their illness. The temples were a place of spirits, and mysterious powers, a place to find mental and physical healing.
The people looking for a cure or an insight to their problems were called Seekers. The Seeker did not just go in to the temple; they had to wait for the right time to come. A Seeker had something on their mind, an ailment, an issue, and an inner quest to discover themselves. They came on a pilgrimage to seek an insight into their problems, to contact the healing god, to get a new vision that would heal, guide, or provide comfort.
They had to cleanse the body, mind and soul. They would meditate, fast, take hot baths, and make a sacrifice to the god. They looked for signs in their dreams. They would dream of the god healing them. A good dream would be one in which the god or a serpent would cure the wound by touching it. The dreams of the seeker contained the insightful seeds of their own healing.
Ritualistic methods include purifying baths, trance-inducing chanting, and symbolic sacrifices, The Greek treatment was referred to as incubation, and focused on prayers to Asklepius for healing. A similar Hebrew treatment was referred to as Kavanah, and involved focusing on letters of the Hebrew alphabet spelling the name of the Hebrew God. Sir Mortimer Wheeler unearthed a Roman Sleep temple at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire in 1928, with the assistance of a young J.R.R. Tolkien.
When a candidate for initiation into these mysteries had been prepared through various disciplines, the priest (hierophant) then led the candidate into a cave or tomb where he or she was put to sleep. The priest suggested the etheric body leave the initiate for three and a half days. During this time it was joined to the astral body and received through it impressions from the spiritual world. When the etheric body was brought back into the physical, the initiate was awakened by the priest and remembered what was experienced in the spiritual world. But while the etheric body was out of the physical, the latter would have appeared to an outsider to be dead.
SECOND SIGHT
http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_13_3_cohn.pdf
Second Sight and Family History: Pedigree and Segregation Analyses
This study concerns second sight, a psychic ability that has for centuries been believed, in Scotland and other traditions, to be hereditary. The ability manifests itself through the person having spontaneous vivid imagery through different senses which apparently gives information about a spatially or temporally distant event. A total of 130 family histories were constructed and examined using segregation analysis. Second sight seems to be consistent with an autosomal dominant mode of inheritance, particularly for small family sizes. People with the trait were also evenly distributed with respect to their birth order position, in line with the expectations of a genetic model. It is argued that if other studies find a similar mode of inheritance in other cultures, then second sight could be a creative mental ability where the hereditary aspect lies in the sensitivity of the sensory systems which convey the experiences.
Invoking the Gods
There is nothing to prevent us from including in our dialogues the calling up of godforms, who are found both in Jungian practice as archetypes and within our antic family lines. For example, having Aphrodite, Zeus, or Odin included in your genealogy adds an air of familiarity to the essentially universal phenomenon.
What you might ask of a grandparent might be very different than what a mere mortal might request of the gods. One should likely approach this as a ritual activity or at least an exercise in sacred space, which opens the timeless realm to penetration and assimilation of entangled information from the deepest layers of Being. Below is an example of Venus or Aphrodite. Many such dialogue outlines appear in my online book, PANTHEON: ARCHETYPAL GODS IN DAILY LIFE. http://holographicarchetypes.weebly.com/pantheon.html
PANTHEON, as a manual of personal self-discovery, is a practical guide to recognizing and realizing the origins and development of our individual characters and characteristics. As such, it leads to a growth of self-knowledge, and gives us insight into the traits and behaviors of our acquaintances and intimates. Pantheon provides not only background knowledge for reference, but also practical psychological technique which we can implement in our journey toward understanding.
One can gain access to the deeper psyche, soul, or imagination through both the rational and experiential methods. These are self-analysis and active imagination. Active imagination includes consciousness journeys deep into the psyche, identification, and internal dialogues with personified archetypes. It is the dialogical method. This is a way of building experiential relationships with archetypal forces--harmonizing with them, honoring them. These are "as if" real relationships, not taken literally.
These internal dialogues can be useful, revealing the autonomous dynamics and agendas at work in our lives. They reveal things to us we know, but don't know we know. We can use many methods for this communication, such as journal work, hypnosis, or ritual. These are moments where we create and enter sacred space. These relationships reveal the meaningfulness behind the many complications in our modern lives. The more we approach our individual wholeness, through expanding our awareness and experiences, the more we are likely to encounter these divine principles from the realm of imagination.
DIALOGUE WITH APHRODITE
Suggestions are given to kick-start the process but it can go in any productive direction you wish to follow, based on your own instinct and intuition. The goal as in any discussion is creating rapport with your counterpart -- a resonance or harmonization of essential nature, mood, and being that promotes perhaps even a quantum entanglement.
You are already entangled through your genetic heritage, whether or not you express genes from that particular ancestor. They are with you in a holistic or holographic way, where the part is contained in the whole, and the whole in every part. The same method can be employed with our less-divine ancestors. The content of your inquiry should be matched to the qualities, wisdom and timelines of your respondent.
Most people are interested in juicy tidbits, foreknowledge, signs or information about their once and future lovelife. We may be able to extract it, but we may or may not like what we find. If wishful thinking intrudes, the psychological exercise become an elaborately-staged daydream. We need to remain open yet focused, aware at a deeper level than normal.
Background
We all experience the personal aspects of Aphrodite as love and lust, and all forms of sensual pleasure. Neither men, women, nor the gods were immune to the charms of this goddess. In women she appears as the irresistibly attractive "other woman," mistress, flirt, or gold-digger. She creates the Don Juan type of personality. More positively she manifests in the deep physical and spiritual love between spouses, and in the perfect host or hostess, socially.
In projection, she appears as that other whom we find irresistibly attractive and sexy, despite social sanctions against such feelings. Or, we can project a magnetic rival. Through invasion or possession, we become that magnetic personality. Those who act out her promiscuity expose themselves to the dangers of various venereal diseases, including aids, legacy of the sexual revolution. By ceasing to identify exclusively with this archetype, we can dialogue with her in active imagination. She can inform us of the subconscious aspects of our relationship to our own sexuality.
The Archetype
Aphrodite is one of the most active and pleasantly aggressive of the goddesses, so she is easier to connect with than a remote goddess, like Artemis. When anima is projected in the physical world, Jung claimed she appears in three stages of development: 1) naive or elementary, 2) manipulative flirt, 3) conscious or inspirational. Aphrodite corresponds with the sophisticated manipulator, she uses her sexuality to get what she wants -- that is her script and game. She is no innocent thing, unaware of the devastation her charm can wreak. She knows what she has and uses it to her advantage at every chance.
She is dark, full-blooded and passionate. When we are unconsciously identified with her we are controlled by her unconscious power motives. Someone may lure us into an enchantment by being very charming at first. Perhaps the aim is immediate sensual gratification, or worse, aiming to disrupt a marriage. This type then uses seeming indifference to make themselves more desirable. They use wiles and tricks to attract another's attention, gifts, and strokes. They deliberately exploit the anima/animus projections of another onto themselves, using it for personal advantage. This is the motivation of the flirt. In an egotistical identification with Aphrodite, a person becomes a lady-killer or man-killer, the stud, sex kitten, gigolo, whore, or other role-bound image.
Preparation
The strength of the identification depends on what others archetypes are at work in the soul. For example, a strong Hera aspect would constantly be urging toward marriage rather than remaining as mistress or philanderer; Athena would caution consideration of the implications on career of promiscuous behavior or reputation; Artemis would move us to be more modest and pious if not chaste. On a more pragmatic level, Artemis might say that to steal another's man violates the sisterhood all women share.
Considering the various aspects and manifestations of Aphrodite, think back over all the ways she has entered your life over the years, creating pleasure or leaving a trail of pain. Remember your sexual awakening, first love, your rivals, attention-getting gambits. Consider what areas of your life are in disharmony with her principles, or where you may have identified with her too exclusively. Consider how your attitudes toward sexuality may have changed over different periods in your life.
The Method
Sitting quietly in a dimly lit room with your journal open, visualize any of the familiar images of Aphrodite or Venus from sculpture and paintings of the masters. Alternatively, she may take a modern form as an admired actress or actor who you find irresistible, but this mortal form could never carry all of the archetypal potencies, so it is best to work toward visualizing a traditional forms.
You may also use a Tarot card such as THE EMPRESS, which corresponds with her. Greet her and begin discussing those questions that are unresolved regarding your physical and aesthetic passions. Then let her speak about any subconscious patterns she may know about you. Be careful--she may try to seduce you or use her wiles in any number of ways. She will guard any attention you shower on her jealously, unless your inform her about certain aspects of your mortal life. Let her know your human limitations and your ethical standards within which she must learn to operate. She is passion personified.
APHRODITE IN YOUR LIFE
1. What were your emotional reactions to your first sexual experience?
2. Have you ever fallen in love-at-first-sight? Did the other reciprocate? How long did this feeling last? Did it develop into mature, realistic love?
3. Have you ever been addicted to any sensual pleasures?
4. Have you ever felt insecure about your looks or attractiveness and been compulsively driven to prove that you were sexy or desirable ? What effect did this have on those around you?
5. Were you ever the "other woman" or "other man"? How did you feel about it?
6. If you have ever ben "dumped" by a lover for another, what qualities of the goddess did that other embody that you weren't manifesting with your partner?
7. Is there a "lost love" for whom you still yearn or feel nostalgia?
8. Are you considered vain person by friends or foes? How much time and money do you spend keeping yourself attractive? Are you frequently before the mirror, primping and fussing? Do you worry about the physical results of aging?
9. Is courtship or romance an extremely important aspect of love to you. What types of situations do you consider romantic?
10. Describe your romantic ideal: age, style of dress, behavior, education, income bracket, etc.
11. How many times a day do you become conscious of your sexual fantasies? Do you dream about sex frequently? Describe a recent sexual fantasy or dream.
12. How do you feel about pre-marital and extra-marital sex? Have you felt differently about this at other times, depending on your evolving morals or whether you were married or single at the time? Do you feel different about sexual standards for yourself and others?
13. Have you ever had a strong physical attraction for another who was socially forbidden to you--a teacher, doctor, employer, psychotherapist, etc.?
14. Have you ever had to learn how to sublimate sexual feelings into a more platonic type of relationship? or toward a higher ideal than personal desire?
15. Have you experienced the excitement of illicit or secret sexual relations? Were you addicted to this intense feeling of potential danger? What events brought the situation into the light of scrutiny by others?
16. Do you feel guilty over past sexual encounters or experience shame for past sexual adventures you might now consider immoral or ill-advised?
17. What is the balance between power motives and devotional love in your current relationships? Do you try to manipulate your lover(s)?
18. Do you use affairs or sexual fantasies to escape from the pressures of other aspects of life which seek your immediate attention for your development?
19. How are your mothering and nurturing qualities qualities being used right now? What creative prpjects are growing and developing? What are you attracting to you?
20. Who is inspiring and nurturing you? How are you indulging your senses?
The dialogue can move from a structured to a less structured form. Such mundane inquiries open up the process to flow where you can ask more personal, less interviewing style questions, letting the responses flow. When you find yourself responding with surprise at the responses of "the other", the process is working, making the psyche fluid and permeable. No one needs to know the content but yourself. It is a message from your deeper self. Such exercises stimulates inspiration and creativity.
Multimind
The dialogical tendency of the psyche has been noticed and used by both mystics and psychologists. Examples include meditative encounters with wise figures, such as Christ, the Beloved, an Inner Healer, guide or shaman figure. The dialogue might even take place with an animal or object. Other pluralistic spiritual constructs include the chakra system and the multiple states of consciousness circuit of the Tree of Life in Qabala.
Examples from psychology include "self talk," cognitive restructuring, ego states, psychodrama, "invisible guests." Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) and Psychosynthesis have the technique of the "Parts' Party," round-table discussion, or board meeting, giving voice to the various semi-autonomous subpersonalities. It provides a forum for the airing of conflicting views, empathic alignment, circumspect judgment, and personification of conscience. Transactional Analysis (T.A.) posits three dialogical ego-states--Parent, Adult, and Child. The dialogical content consists of "scripts, games and rackets."
Gestalt psychology uses dialogue such as the "two chair technique" to create imaginal spaces for therapeutic process. In these "virtual realities," point-of-view is shifted between the various entities imaginally engaged in the dialogue. The participant becomes the imaginal other, and speaks "as if" that other. The self takes the actual perspective of the other, outside the self. That other may be one or several dream figures, as well as familiar or unfamiliar people, in an imaginary social world. The other is "felt" to be there. Oneself is conceived of as I (self as subject) or Me (self as object, viewed as the main figure in the story of one's life).
I is observer; Me is observed. I is an author; Me is an actor in the psychodrama. I construes another person or being as a position I can occupy and this position creates an alternative perspective on the world and self. If that "other" is transpersonal in nature, the engagement becomes one of the ego with the unconscious (I-Thou), emphasizing the bodily nature of thought and imagination. The "I" constructs an analog space and metaphorically moves in this space. I is not a center of "control" but actively engaged with the autonomous flow of primal consciousness.
Transpersonal theory is wholly based on the "Dynamic-Dialectical Paradigm," conversations between the ego and the dynamic ground of psyche (Washburn, 1988). Its static representation is the "Structural-Hierarchal Paradigm." In the therapeutic context, Jungians refer to this dialectical process as "active imagination," engagement of the ego and the unconscious. Active imagination is patterned after the alchemical meditatio, which consisted of an imaginal dialogue between the alchemist and his alchemical process, personified in various forms. Active imagintion is a process in which the imagination and the images it throws up are experienced as something separate from the ego--a "thou" or an "other"--to which the ego can relate, and with which the ego can have a dialogue (Edinger, 1972, Ego and Archetype).
It is a dialectic of development, like the Hegelian "thesis, antithesis, and synthesis." Narration (storytelling) puts the general human condition into the particulars of experience. It locates experience in space and time, even imaginal space and time. Imaginal others, despite their invisible quality, are typically perceived as having a spatially separated position.
Metaphor -- what the experience is like -- is the structure producing coherent, ordered experiences. The metaphors are usually those of physical experience. Creative engagement with chaos means direct experience of self as a changing, pluralistic, multi-dimensional entity. This existential philosophy of "dynamic co-consciousness" is process-oriented, rather than "state-oriented" even though we employ the term state to imply a stable-yet-transitory condition. This is not an experience of a static "self" moving through process, but rather existential experience of self as process.
Based on a plurality of perspectives, a plurality of consciousness, a plurality of worlds, this notion means giving breath to many voices. Dialogue reveals the essential pristine nature of the character's psyche, and psyche's character. Our consensus consciousness is not our natural condition, but a construction within cultural constraints. This construction is semi-arbitrary. The constructivist approach in psychology conceives of the self as dialogical, a view that transcends both individualism and rationalism (Hermans, Kempen & van Loon, 1992). It is a concept of self that takes the role of the body, or embodied nature of the self into consideration. It is based in the notion that story telling is cross-cultural.
Narration is a root metaphor. These stories help order world and self. We can investigate this dialogical realm which is familiar from mysticism. It creates a mind-space with multiple positions possible for multiple selves. The result is a multiplicity of dialogically interacting selves, in a variety of "as if" (virtual) realities.
The free flow of fantasy as internal dialogues with various aspects of the self allows for creative development of higher thought. These fictions, like myth, may not correspond to reality, but they contain "constructs" which are freely fashioned of empirical elements. Constructs are ways in which some things are construed as being alike and yet different from others.
Co-consciousness on the individual level means plurality of selves; Plurality of consciousness is available to "both" participants simultaneously, from the infinite field of possibilities.
Suggestions are given to kick-start the process but it can go in any productive direction you wish to follow, based on your own instinct and intuition. The goal as in any discussion is creating rapport with your counterpart -- a resonance or harmonization of essential nature, mood, and being that promotes perhaps even a quantum entanglement.
You are already entangled through your genetic heritage, whether or not you express genes from that particular ancestor. They are with you in a holistic or holographic way, where the part is contained in the whole, and the whole in every part. The same method can be employed with our less-divine ancestors. The content of your inquiry should be matched to the qualities, wisdom and timelines of your respondent.
Most people are interested in juicy tidbits, foreknowledge, signs or information about their once and future lovelife. We may be able to extract it, but we may or may not like what we find. If wishful thinking intrudes, the psychological exercise become an elaborately-staged daydream. We need to remain open yet focused, aware at a deeper level than normal.
Background
We all experience the personal aspects of Aphrodite as love and lust, and all forms of sensual pleasure. Neither men, women, nor the gods were immune to the charms of this goddess. In women she appears as the irresistibly attractive "other woman," mistress, flirt, or gold-digger. She creates the Don Juan type of personality. More positively she manifests in the deep physical and spiritual love between spouses, and in the perfect host or hostess, socially.
In projection, she appears as that other whom we find irresistibly attractive and sexy, despite social sanctions against such feelings. Or, we can project a magnetic rival. Through invasion or possession, we become that magnetic personality. Those who act out her promiscuity expose themselves to the dangers of various venereal diseases, including aids, legacy of the sexual revolution. By ceasing to identify exclusively with this archetype, we can dialogue with her in active imagination. She can inform us of the subconscious aspects of our relationship to our own sexuality.
The Archetype
Aphrodite is one of the most active and pleasantly aggressive of the goddesses, so she is easier to connect with than a remote goddess, like Artemis. When anima is projected in the physical world, Jung claimed she appears in three stages of development: 1) naive or elementary, 2) manipulative flirt, 3) conscious or inspirational. Aphrodite corresponds with the sophisticated manipulator, she uses her sexuality to get what she wants -- that is her script and game. She is no innocent thing, unaware of the devastation her charm can wreak. She knows what she has and uses it to her advantage at every chance.
She is dark, full-blooded and passionate. When we are unconsciously identified with her we are controlled by her unconscious power motives. Someone may lure us into an enchantment by being very charming at first. Perhaps the aim is immediate sensual gratification, or worse, aiming to disrupt a marriage. This type then uses seeming indifference to make themselves more desirable. They use wiles and tricks to attract another's attention, gifts, and strokes. They deliberately exploit the anima/animus projections of another onto themselves, using it for personal advantage. This is the motivation of the flirt. In an egotistical identification with Aphrodite, a person becomes a lady-killer or man-killer, the stud, sex kitten, gigolo, whore, or other role-bound image.
Preparation
The strength of the identification depends on what others archetypes are at work in the soul. For example, a strong Hera aspect would constantly be urging toward marriage rather than remaining as mistress or philanderer; Athena would caution consideration of the implications on career of promiscuous behavior or reputation; Artemis would move us to be more modest and pious if not chaste. On a more pragmatic level, Artemis might say that to steal another's man violates the sisterhood all women share.
Considering the various aspects and manifestations of Aphrodite, think back over all the ways she has entered your life over the years, creating pleasure or leaving a trail of pain. Remember your sexual awakening, first love, your rivals, attention-getting gambits. Consider what areas of your life are in disharmony with her principles, or where you may have identified with her too exclusively. Consider how your attitudes toward sexuality may have changed over different periods in your life.
The Method
Sitting quietly in a dimly lit room with your journal open, visualize any of the familiar images of Aphrodite or Venus from sculpture and paintings of the masters. Alternatively, she may take a modern form as an admired actress or actor who you find irresistible, but this mortal form could never carry all of the archetypal potencies, so it is best to work toward visualizing a traditional forms.
You may also use a Tarot card such as THE EMPRESS, which corresponds with her. Greet her and begin discussing those questions that are unresolved regarding your physical and aesthetic passions. Then let her speak about any subconscious patterns she may know about you. Be careful--she may try to seduce you or use her wiles in any number of ways. She will guard any attention you shower on her jealously, unless your inform her about certain aspects of your mortal life. Let her know your human limitations and your ethical standards within which she must learn to operate. She is passion personified.
APHRODITE IN YOUR LIFE
1. What were your emotional reactions to your first sexual experience?
2. Have you ever fallen in love-at-first-sight? Did the other reciprocate? How long did this feeling last? Did it develop into mature, realistic love?
3. Have you ever been addicted to any sensual pleasures?
4. Have you ever felt insecure about your looks or attractiveness and been compulsively driven to prove that you were sexy or desirable ? What effect did this have on those around you?
5. Were you ever the "other woman" or "other man"? How did you feel about it?
6. If you have ever ben "dumped" by a lover for another, what qualities of the goddess did that other embody that you weren't manifesting with your partner?
7. Is there a "lost love" for whom you still yearn or feel nostalgia?
8. Are you considered vain person by friends or foes? How much time and money do you spend keeping yourself attractive? Are you frequently before the mirror, primping and fussing? Do you worry about the physical results of aging?
9. Is courtship or romance an extremely important aspect of love to you. What types of situations do you consider romantic?
10. Describe your romantic ideal: age, style of dress, behavior, education, income bracket, etc.
11. How many times a day do you become conscious of your sexual fantasies? Do you dream about sex frequently? Describe a recent sexual fantasy or dream.
12. How do you feel about pre-marital and extra-marital sex? Have you felt differently about this at other times, depending on your evolving morals or whether you were married or single at the time? Do you feel different about sexual standards for yourself and others?
13. Have you ever had a strong physical attraction for another who was socially forbidden to you--a teacher, doctor, employer, psychotherapist, etc.?
14. Have you ever had to learn how to sublimate sexual feelings into a more platonic type of relationship? or toward a higher ideal than personal desire?
15. Have you experienced the excitement of illicit or secret sexual relations? Were you addicted to this intense feeling of potential danger? What events brought the situation into the light of scrutiny by others?
16. Do you feel guilty over past sexual encounters or experience shame for past sexual adventures you might now consider immoral or ill-advised?
17. What is the balance between power motives and devotional love in your current relationships? Do you try to manipulate your lover(s)?
18. Do you use affairs or sexual fantasies to escape from the pressures of other aspects of life which seek your immediate attention for your development?
19. How are your mothering and nurturing qualities qualities being used right now? What creative prpjects are growing and developing? What are you attracting to you?
20. Who is inspiring and nurturing you? How are you indulging your senses?
The dialogue can move from a structured to a less structured form. Such mundane inquiries open up the process to flow where you can ask more personal, less interviewing style questions, letting the responses flow. When you find yourself responding with surprise at the responses of "the other", the process is working, making the psyche fluid and permeable. No one needs to know the content but yourself. It is a message from your deeper self. Such exercises stimulates inspiration and creativity.
Multimind
The dialogical tendency of the psyche has been noticed and used by both mystics and psychologists. Examples include meditative encounters with wise figures, such as Christ, the Beloved, an Inner Healer, guide or shaman figure. The dialogue might even take place with an animal or object. Other pluralistic spiritual constructs include the chakra system and the multiple states of consciousness circuit of the Tree of Life in Qabala.
Examples from psychology include "self talk," cognitive restructuring, ego states, psychodrama, "invisible guests." Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) and Psychosynthesis have the technique of the "Parts' Party," round-table discussion, or board meeting, giving voice to the various semi-autonomous subpersonalities. It provides a forum for the airing of conflicting views, empathic alignment, circumspect judgment, and personification of conscience. Transactional Analysis (T.A.) posits three dialogical ego-states--Parent, Adult, and Child. The dialogical content consists of "scripts, games and rackets."
Gestalt psychology uses dialogue such as the "two chair technique" to create imaginal spaces for therapeutic process. In these "virtual realities," point-of-view is shifted between the various entities imaginally engaged in the dialogue. The participant becomes the imaginal other, and speaks "as if" that other. The self takes the actual perspective of the other, outside the self. That other may be one or several dream figures, as well as familiar or unfamiliar people, in an imaginary social world. The other is "felt" to be there. Oneself is conceived of as I (self as subject) or Me (self as object, viewed as the main figure in the story of one's life).
I is observer; Me is observed. I is an author; Me is an actor in the psychodrama. I construes another person or being as a position I can occupy and this position creates an alternative perspective on the world and self. If that "other" is transpersonal in nature, the engagement becomes one of the ego with the unconscious (I-Thou), emphasizing the bodily nature of thought and imagination. The "I" constructs an analog space and metaphorically moves in this space. I is not a center of "control" but actively engaged with the autonomous flow of primal consciousness.
Transpersonal theory is wholly based on the "Dynamic-Dialectical Paradigm," conversations between the ego and the dynamic ground of psyche (Washburn, 1988). Its static representation is the "Structural-Hierarchal Paradigm." In the therapeutic context, Jungians refer to this dialectical process as "active imagination," engagement of the ego and the unconscious. Active imagination is patterned after the alchemical meditatio, which consisted of an imaginal dialogue between the alchemist and his alchemical process, personified in various forms. Active imagintion is a process in which the imagination and the images it throws up are experienced as something separate from the ego--a "thou" or an "other"--to which the ego can relate, and with which the ego can have a dialogue (Edinger, 1972, Ego and Archetype).
It is a dialectic of development, like the Hegelian "thesis, antithesis, and synthesis." Narration (storytelling) puts the general human condition into the particulars of experience. It locates experience in space and time, even imaginal space and time. Imaginal others, despite their invisible quality, are typically perceived as having a spatially separated position.
Metaphor -- what the experience is like -- is the structure producing coherent, ordered experiences. The metaphors are usually those of physical experience. Creative engagement with chaos means direct experience of self as a changing, pluralistic, multi-dimensional entity. This existential philosophy of "dynamic co-consciousness" is process-oriented, rather than "state-oriented" even though we employ the term state to imply a stable-yet-transitory condition. This is not an experience of a static "self" moving through process, but rather existential experience of self as process.
Based on a plurality of perspectives, a plurality of consciousness, a plurality of worlds, this notion means giving breath to many voices. Dialogue reveals the essential pristine nature of the character's psyche, and psyche's character. Our consensus consciousness is not our natural condition, but a construction within cultural constraints. This construction is semi-arbitrary. The constructivist approach in psychology conceives of the self as dialogical, a view that transcends both individualism and rationalism (Hermans, Kempen & van Loon, 1992). It is a concept of self that takes the role of the body, or embodied nature of the self into consideration. It is based in the notion that story telling is cross-cultural.
Narration is a root metaphor. These stories help order world and self. We can investigate this dialogical realm which is familiar from mysticism. It creates a mind-space with multiple positions possible for multiple selves. The result is a multiplicity of dialogically interacting selves, in a variety of "as if" (virtual) realities.
The free flow of fantasy as internal dialogues with various aspects of the self allows for creative development of higher thought. These fictions, like myth, may not correspond to reality, but they contain "constructs" which are freely fashioned of empirical elements. Constructs are ways in which some things are construed as being alike and yet different from others.
Co-consciousness on the individual level means plurality of selves; Plurality of consciousness is available to "both" participants simultaneously, from the infinite field of possibilities.
REFERENCES
At a Journal Workshop by Ira Progoff, 1975.
The Practice of Process Meditation by Ira Progoff, 1980.
At a Journal Workshop: Writing to Access the Power of the Unconscious and Evoke Creative Ability by Ira Progoff, 1992. ISBN 0-87477-638-4
Miller, Iona, Pantheon, Archetypal Gods in Daily Life, OAK, 1984.
Miller, Iona, THE VARIETIES OF VIRTUAL EXPERIENCE: VIRTUAL REALITIES BEYOND THE DIALOGICAL SELF, Chaosophy 93, Asklepia Foundation. http://holographicarchetypes.weebly.com/multimind.html
Ancestral Memory
Try this for an awesome thought
In the split second moment of conception, the two streams of genetic information from your parents, handed on from generation to generation over literally hundreds of millenia, combined in one single cell that was to become you. It ensured that you became a totally unique living record of the lives and ways of your ancestors. And we are not just talking about the way you look - we are talking about your ancestral memories, the complete set of instincts and response patterns that were responsible for the survival of those two genetic streams in the first place. The instincts and response patterns that you were actually born with.
Read the paper that follows, then take the test to discover which one of the three basic human personalities you are - Warrior, Settler or Nomad. Of course, if you're really impatient, you can take the test now click here.
This paper has appeared on Dr. Bryan Knight's web site:
Ancestral Memory and Neurosis by Terence Watts
This paper is an outline of the hypothesis that ancestral memory may cause conflict which commences at the very beginning of the experience of life, by which I mean the moment of birth. It proposes that ancestral memories from two different parental genetic chains come together to create the potential for discord in the psyche, and/or are acted upon by external influences to cause conflict which will have to be resolved in some way if the individual is to be content in life. It is a hypothesis that is concerned more with psychotherapy as opposed to hypnotherapy, though much of the information is useful in the latter discipline.
Before The Beginning
Although we are taught that man first appeared on earth around 3 million years or so ago, there is no proof that those creatures were actually our ancestors. Some scientists believe we are related to the very early species and/or to the later Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man, while others believe that we are a separate race entirely, first appearing between 90,000 and 200,000 years ago. It doesn't much matter, really, as far as we are concerned; if we are related, then we have inherited their savagery; if we are not, then we had enough of our own to deal with theirs, for they were around until about 30,000 years ago, by which time Modern Man was an established species.
Homo Sapiens was probably nomadic in existence until about 10,000 years ago, when they started to form settlements and domesticate plants and animals - the earliest attempts at civilization.
So there had already been many thousands of years of ancestral savagery; for some it was kill or be killed and take what you want; for many, it was keep your head down and out of trouble; and for the rest, every time danger threatened it was run like the wind. The fight/flight/freeze response surely has its roots here.
There have been hundreds of generations of violence, plagues, famine, witches, warlocks and wizards, crusades, wars, fantastic inventions and even more fantastic events since those days.
Interbreeding passed on mixed genetics; environment ensured a goodly amount of neurosis and general anxiety. So truly, each and every human being is unique, because the computations of the effects of that environment upon the genetic exchanges are almost infinite. And when you take a look at the whole evolutionary process on a percentage basis, it's no wonder that we all of us still exhibit primitive behavior quite often.
The Wandering Savage
Even being generous and assuming that Homo Sapiens, our race, did not appear until around 100,000 years ago, we are no more than one half of one percent modern, the rest primitive. 99.5% of our psycho-genetic make-up has not reached the level of the middle ages and by far the vast majority of it is still that of a wandering savage.
Evolution moves slowly and it will be a very long time yet before the human race truly becomes as we try already to be. In the meantime, most of our race are going to be born with conflict - or potential for conflict - already in place, the resolution of which is unlikely to be at birth, but probably as and when needed, or maybe even never.
Perhaps, in the rare situation where there is no conflict, either within or externally, this may result in the super-confident personality, the 'together' person who finds the process of living an easy one to cope with from the very beginning and who tends to be successful in most of their undertakings. The one who makes living look easy, in fact. And to that individual, it IS easy, since his or her ancestral urges are in harmony with his existence, allowing the individual to easily adapt, dominate, or simply not care.
Ancestral memories would not be of actual events - it is not to be confused with the idea of past life or reincarnation - but of reactive response patterns and emotional states brought about by environment. Early tribes whose main way of life was subservience, aggression, nomadic urges, famine fear, etc. These circumstances could, over many generations, create minute changes in the content of the amino acids that form part of the DNA chain, aided by in-breeding and the process of natural selection at work. These genetic changes would obviously be passed on to the progeny, probably affecting actual brain chemistry, so that each generation was progressively more inclined to the predominating characteristic. They would have been predominantly Warriors, Nomads, or Settlers. So there would be a predisposition at birth towards the behavior patterns of the tribe an individual was born into. But the tribes could not have remained pure indefinitely.
The nomadic behavior of some ensured that interbreeding and cross breeding soon guaranteed that each individual carried the genes for different behavior patterns, though there would almost always be a single dominant one - or dominant set, since a behavior pattern is unlikely to be created by a single gene. It's certainly possible, though, that an individual can be subject to two opposite and equal urges being 'built in' to the psyche, as it were, so that there is a permanent state of flux between, say, the urge to pacify and the urge to dominate. These conflicting urges would have caused conflict in an environment where the rest of the tribe were still committed to, or appearing to be committed to, just one of those behaviors.
So neurosis, the feelings of being a misfit in some way, would have been created. It indicates that neurotic behavior patterns could even be in some way instinctive - in that they could be inborn' rather than created by experience - which raises serious questions, not to be approached here, about the efficiency of the principle of natural selection.
It's worth recognizing the fact that while it is possible that there were as many as 150,000 generations of our ancestors as savages, there have been only around 100 generations since the advent of Christianity and the guilt and sometimes excessive superego development that goes with it. The prehistoric gene still carries an awful lot of weight, and it is in constant conflict with the Ego in even the most healthy individuals. At birth, each and every one of us is already subject to this vast history of genetic and behavioral influence.
We are born genetically programmed with a predominance towards one of those three tribal behaviors - the Warriors, Settlers, or Nomads.
And then life happens…
The Birth Predisposition
The birth predisposition is probably a physical part of the Right Brain, and therefore 'hard-wired' and unchangeable without the intervention of surgery, clinical intervention, or other physical damage such as illness or accident. It is possible that an individual with a severely uncomfortable 'hard-wired' conflict may be unlikely to find an alleviation of their problems via therapy of any sort. Essentially, they are suffering from one of the forms of psychosis, and it will typically become most evident in their late teens. Although behavioural therapy can help in these cases, brain-chemistry altering drugs would be the most likely path to the relief of those apparent symptoms, which are likely to be very specific and very profound.
A readiness to profound anger, depression and excessive aggression, all for no real reason, are good examples. Fortunately, these cases are either rare, or the adaptability of the human psyche resolves the conflict before it becomes apparent. At birth, the logical left brain is almost empty - evidenced by the low number of synapses, the measure of brain activity - and like a sponge, starts soaking up information, every new stimulus, avidly and immediately. It can't NOT. And since the logical brain IS pretty much empty, everything perceived, though not necessarily understood, assumes high importance and is accepted without question. Repeated a few times, it becomes a fundamental belief, since we have few prior experiences for comparison and we have not yet discovered doubt to make us wary.
Cuddles, Comfort, Pain and Violence
The birth predisposition, the genetic ancestral memory, is nothing more than a set of responses to stimuli, rather than a belief and expectation system; from the very moment of birth onwards, though, those responses start to shape the way will become, forming the bedrock of our personality.
Our first experiences are our yardstick of the world however good or bad they are; they are what we learn to expect and they result in a fundamental behaviour set that is designed around those expectations. Cuddles, comfort, pain, violence, and the situations which cause them are all equally accepted as being normal and our reactions to them are governed by that birth predisposition. Most of the time, thanks to the adaptability of the human psyche, the basic pattern of being thus formed allows us to function at least fairly comfortably - which is just as well because it can seldom truly change very much, if at all. It is probable that we continue to create those fundamental beliefs at least throughout the Oral stage of our development, because at that time we are busily adapting to our environment in order to survive. At that time, we have no way of knowing that what you see is NOT necessarily what you get, so everything that befalls us is always indicative of the way life is, as far as we are concerned, and we have to learn to deal with it in some way.
It is only as we mature and begin to develop the more finely tuned emotional responses that the human animal is capable of, that we begin to recognise the truth; that few things are perfectly good or perfectly bad. Along with that recognition comes the ability to offset one circumstance against the other and accept what seems to be a reasonable compromise. But the decisions we make in that direction are at a purely conscious level; the subconscious has its own unchanging view of things, and where it perceives an event is bad, it will create a feeling of unease, even though we may have made a decision that seems to reflect what we really want. That is how our subconscious always perceives things for the whole of our lives. Good or Bad. Black or white. And until that later emotional development, the identification procedures and demands of the ID are not modified enough by the influences of the SUPEREGO to soften the impact upon the EGO; so everything is perceived as either good or bad, responsible for pleasure or unpleasure, and an experience to be stored for future evaluations and comparisons.
By the time we are about ten years old, we have discovered how we fit into the world, the likelihood or otherwise that our desires and expectations will be fulfilled, and what is expected of us. The affects of life and experience upon our birth predisposition have shaped and moulded our own unique personality and we are now the sum total of our ancestors, our triumphs and our disappointments, and our reactions to the behaviour of others.
We also have an intense knowledge of how others seem to think of us and without some sort of intervention, this overall view of ourselves will change very little for the rest of our life; not that we actually continually see ourselves as being only ten-years-old, just that our opinion of ourselves in relation to others will remain pretty much constant from then on. So if, for example, we have perceived that adults are going to belittle us or hurt us in some other way, then we may experience problems as we grow older and begin to mix predominantly with adults; the subconscious continues to perceive them as a source of threat. This, I am certain, is the origin of inferior feelings and low self esteem in the adult, and also the reason that the onset of maturity so often heralds psychological difficulty; it is possible, too, that paedophilia has its origins here. And if there have also been difficulties with peer socialisation during the early years, then there may be feelings of complete isolation and separateness as an adult. So our early years are fraught with uncomfortable possibilities and combinations of influences; in spite of it all, though, the majority of individuals safely reach maturity able to deal comfortably with the stresses of existence as long as life goes reasonably well. But sometimes, life goes far from well, and sometimes, fate is ungenerous if not brutal.
It is then that we may begin to feel that we simply cannot cope. We need help.
Role Of The Psychotherapist
The role of the psychotherapist is to help his/her client gain a better understanding of self - to discover, perhaps, who they really are; to discover and use positive resources within and to resolve doubts and anxieties that may have been suffered for many years. There are very many forms of psychotherapy being practised and taught, each with its own advantages and disadvantages, each with its dedicated followers. It is good to be eclectic, but not too much so; energies may become dissipated and, for most of us, it is probably better to have a favoured modus operandi into which we can incorporate other knowledges and resources that we may acquire over the years. I prefer an essentially cognitive/behavioural, client-centred approach, probably because my initial training was in hypnoanalysis and I therefore have a bias towards the doctrine of cause and effect. We should all work where we have the highest level of conviction and, for me, that conviction is that problems arise in the psyche in the ways already outlined - as a result of birth predisposition and subsequent events, rather than purely as a learned behaviour.
There does not have to have been any crisis which would be universally viewed as traumatic; there does not have to be a single causal event or mishap which is at the root of all the individual's problems. Our problems may be due to nothing more than the fact that when we are born we are reared by people whose way of being is fundamentally different from our own predisposition.
There does not have to be a 'villain of the piece', and even when there is, it is not necessarily the case that s/he is the cause of our client's difficulties. That said, it is when we are confronted with the neuroses of others during our formative years that most damage is done. It is here that we find the roots of all the complexes, in particular the masturbation and/or guilt complex, as well as sublimated instinctive drives, embarrassment about perfectly 'normal' behaviour patterns (dating, eating in public, etc.), shame about body and bodily functions, phobias (often by example: if mother is afraid of spiders, then they must be creatures to be feared), general anxiety (again, often learned by example), etc.
A neurotic parent will tend to produce a neurotic child; two neurotic parents can scarcely do anything else. Even where the behaviour of others during those formative years has been emotionally and psychologically stable and therefore non-injurious, even where nothing other than support and encouragement has been extended towards the developing individual, there may still be problems arising from the developmental process.
An individual may struggle to solve problems with a firm, no-nonsense attitude, because their family has insisted that this is the way it must be - the Warrior instincts - whilst they would secretly prefer to adopt a negotiating or reconciliatory approach, that of the Settlers; they might learn that practicality earns respect, whilst all the time experiencing the imaginative, Nomadic, flights of the creative mind; or perhaps be taught that it is 'normal' to be one of the general crowd, while every instinct is that of the scholar, the introvert, with a thirst for knowledge and understanding.
These and other contradictions can cause, at least, feelings of uncertainty, at worst, feelings of being inadequate or a misfit. If the 'secret' urges are eventually fulfilled, then there will probably be no resultant neurosis; it is when the individual suppresses them, that they make their presence felt in the form of symptoms. Then, they have often been denied for so long that there is no longer any conscious knowledge of their existence, just a feeling of being different in some way, which is often translated as being 'odd' or 'weird'.
Attempts to change or modify any behavioural or thought process without resolving any beliefs, mistaken or otherwise, that are the cause of that behavioural or thought process are likely to result in a long haul to emotional health and may even then provide only a relatively temporary respite from discomfort. The client's own resources are at least as viable as the client's own conflicts and come from the same root - the birth predisposition and early experience. They just need finding, focusing upon, and using.
The Initial Consultation
Whatever our therapeutic persuasions, the initial consultation is an important time, both for client and therapist. The client is seeking reassurance that their condition can be helped; they are also anxious, believing that we have more 'secret knowledge' than we actually do.
They can often imagine that every single word they say, every gesture, stutter, twitch and intake of breath, every shuffle of the foot, every hesitation for thought, may be taken out of context and somehow assume great importance as far as the therapist is concerned. They usually know little or nothing of what we actually do, or how we do it, and they may even fear that we are going to pronounce them beyond help, or worse, possibly verging on some sort of insanity. What we have to remember is, that in this rarefied state of concentration and anxiety, which often verges on hypnosis, our own behaviour is of paramount importance. We can use the situation to engender transference, overcome resistance, and give our client's belief system a swift boost. In other words, we can make that all-important 'difference for today' that is going to set our client on the road to a swift recovery even before we begin therapy.
These days, it is the swift recovery that is sought and, in most cases, the swift recovery for which should conscientiously strive.
Gathering Facts
Probably the most important part of this initial consultation is the gathering of facts, from which we can assess whether or not we have the necessary resources ourselves to help the client, or if we should refer them on to either some other form of therapy or orthodox medicine. The professional must know his limitations and if s/he believes s/he doesn't have any, then that is the biggest limitation of all.
There are three questions to which I always want the fullest possible answers.
1. Details of the presenting symptom(s).
2. What the client wants therapy to achieve.
3. What they feel is stopping them from achieving it on their own.
As far as question 1 is concerned, what it is, how long it has existed, and what the client believes to be the cause of it all are obviously essential information.
Symptoms are quite often coping mechanisms, like aerophobia and claustrophobia (often related, of course) and we need to look for associated hidden agendas or secondary gains. Where the symptom serves no apparent purpose, though - the fear of birds and moths, for instance, the indirect symptom - we may not need to probe so deeply. The cause is not particularly important, here, nor would it be easy to find, so a more direct approach is indicated. Reframing and the use of metaphor or fantasy are both useful approaches, though there are obviously others. In all cases, though, we need to discover the individual's own resources to work with.
Question 2 is important, because it tells us whether the client has realistic expectations of what we can do, or if, instead, s/he is hoping for some sort of 'magic' to be performed. I am never satisfied with a straightforward 'Want to get rid of my symptom' type of answer; I need them to tell me how they want to be, how they want to feel, what they want to be able to do that they can't do now.
For many, this may the first time they have directly addressed this particular aspect of their difficulties and it therefore focuses their mind on what they want to achieve. It is also an encouragement for them to look forward beyond their difficulties, to perceive that there may be an end in sight. In other words, another 'difference for today'.
Question 3 tells us something of the resources we need to help our clients find. If what they tell us seems congruent with the answers to questions 1 and 2, all is well and we can soon begin to start work.
It may be, though, that what they tell us here seems to be transparently inappropriate. In these cases, we can attempt to elicit the REAL reason they believe they need help and when we are convinced they are telling us the truth as they perceive it, we should respect that it is the operative part of what our client perceives to be his/her difficulty in life. If there is still a lack of congruence, I then tend to assume that this one is the only full answer they have given and ask more questions about their symptom(s) or their aspirations until I find out what was missing.
If we don't ascertain exactly where they are and where they want to go, then neither we, nor they, will know when they've got there! For many people, simply defining full answers to those three questions can give them a much-needed sense of direction and put them on the road to recovery even before we have done any real work.
Separating The Client From The Symptom
Any form of client-centred therapy cannot easily run to a format style of treatment, since every client is going to have a unique set of difficulties and resources with which to overcome those difficulties. Just about the only thing that I do on almost every first session is to encourage the client to realise that s/he is not the symptom, to remove any label as soon as possible.
If the client says s/he is claustrophobic, I reply that there is no such thing as a claustrophobic individual; I tell those who claim to be aggressive the same thing - that there is no such thing as an aggressive individual; I will even sometimes insist to the jealous person that jealous people do not exist. These apparently fatuous remarks produce something that I value highly in a client; a heightened state of attention and concentration. I wait for a moment or two while they struggle to work out what I could possibly mean, or if they have not heard me properly, wait for the small frown that almost inevitably appears before I explain that the claustrophobic individual is just a normal person who is temporarily suffering the symptom of claustrophobia; the aggressive individual becomes a normal person who finds it easy to access assertiveness or anger; the jealous person, of course, is a normal person who feels unsure of his/her abilities to maintain the interest of any other individual.
They usually quickly grasp the difference between actually being something and suffering it, and this simple reframe has, once again, already made that 'difference for today' even if nothing else is achieved during that session.
The Direction Of Therapy
From session two onwards, the direction that therapy takes will depend on the individual who seeks it. In any one client, it might involve some of the following (in no particular order):
Accessing times when they felt well and times when they did not.
Realisation and acceptance that change is both possible and necessary.
Looking for how they want to be, rather than how they fear they will be.
The setting of short, mid, and long-term goals.
Assessing what they need, and what they have, to achieve those goals.
Understanding the principal of 'ownership of problems'.
Understanding the difference between positive and determined thought.
Recognising the existence of hidden agendas and/or secondary gains.
The development of a coping strategy.
Recognising their projections onto others.
Learning that what others think of them is none of their business.
Letting go of the past negative events or emotions.
It might involve any of those but, then again, it might not, because I work with what the individual brings with him/her.
What is certain, though, is that if I do my job properly with a co-operative client, then that client will leave my office after each session with a conviction that something is different.
The Conclusion.
It is not important what the therapist thinks the client should think/be/feel, etc. What is important is that at the conclusion of therapy - when the client leaves the therapist's office for the very last time - s/he should feel a sensation of upliftedness, a conviction that life can be rewarding, and an even stronger conviction that their life will be as rewarding as any.
If therapy has been successful, they have a new understanding of themselves and how they fit into the world; they have discovered the resources they need to cope with the pitfalls, and joys, of life and living; they have a growing sense of self-worth and confidence. They are happy. In this paper I have attempted to indicate my beliefs about the origins of conflict and the ways that I might best help a client to resolve them. For this reason, there is no in-depth review of what I actually do, or the way I do it, on any one session.
At a Journal Workshop by Ira Progoff, 1975.
The Practice of Process Meditation by Ira Progoff, 1980.
At a Journal Workshop: Writing to Access the Power of the Unconscious and Evoke Creative Ability by Ira Progoff, 1992. ISBN 0-87477-638-4
Miller, Iona, Pantheon, Archetypal Gods in Daily Life, OAK, 1984.
Miller, Iona, THE VARIETIES OF VIRTUAL EXPERIENCE: VIRTUAL REALITIES BEYOND THE DIALOGICAL SELF, Chaosophy 93, Asklepia Foundation. http://holographicarchetypes.weebly.com/multimind.html
Ancestral Memory
Try this for an awesome thought
In the split second moment of conception, the two streams of genetic information from your parents, handed on from generation to generation over literally hundreds of millenia, combined in one single cell that was to become you. It ensured that you became a totally unique living record of the lives and ways of your ancestors. And we are not just talking about the way you look - we are talking about your ancestral memories, the complete set of instincts and response patterns that were responsible for the survival of those two genetic streams in the first place. The instincts and response patterns that you were actually born with.
Read the paper that follows, then take the test to discover which one of the three basic human personalities you are - Warrior, Settler or Nomad. Of course, if you're really impatient, you can take the test now click here.
This paper has appeared on Dr. Bryan Knight's web site:
Ancestral Memory and Neurosis by Terence Watts
This paper is an outline of the hypothesis that ancestral memory may cause conflict which commences at the very beginning of the experience of life, by which I mean the moment of birth. It proposes that ancestral memories from two different parental genetic chains come together to create the potential for discord in the psyche, and/or are acted upon by external influences to cause conflict which will have to be resolved in some way if the individual is to be content in life. It is a hypothesis that is concerned more with psychotherapy as opposed to hypnotherapy, though much of the information is useful in the latter discipline.
Before The Beginning
Although we are taught that man first appeared on earth around 3 million years or so ago, there is no proof that those creatures were actually our ancestors. Some scientists believe we are related to the very early species and/or to the later Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man, while others believe that we are a separate race entirely, first appearing between 90,000 and 200,000 years ago. It doesn't much matter, really, as far as we are concerned; if we are related, then we have inherited their savagery; if we are not, then we had enough of our own to deal with theirs, for they were around until about 30,000 years ago, by which time Modern Man was an established species.
Homo Sapiens was probably nomadic in existence until about 10,000 years ago, when they started to form settlements and domesticate plants and animals - the earliest attempts at civilization.
So there had already been many thousands of years of ancestral savagery; for some it was kill or be killed and take what you want; for many, it was keep your head down and out of trouble; and for the rest, every time danger threatened it was run like the wind. The fight/flight/freeze response surely has its roots here.
There have been hundreds of generations of violence, plagues, famine, witches, warlocks and wizards, crusades, wars, fantastic inventions and even more fantastic events since those days.
Interbreeding passed on mixed genetics; environment ensured a goodly amount of neurosis and general anxiety. So truly, each and every human being is unique, because the computations of the effects of that environment upon the genetic exchanges are almost infinite. And when you take a look at the whole evolutionary process on a percentage basis, it's no wonder that we all of us still exhibit primitive behavior quite often.
The Wandering Savage
Even being generous and assuming that Homo Sapiens, our race, did not appear until around 100,000 years ago, we are no more than one half of one percent modern, the rest primitive. 99.5% of our psycho-genetic make-up has not reached the level of the middle ages and by far the vast majority of it is still that of a wandering savage.
Evolution moves slowly and it will be a very long time yet before the human race truly becomes as we try already to be. In the meantime, most of our race are going to be born with conflict - or potential for conflict - already in place, the resolution of which is unlikely to be at birth, but probably as and when needed, or maybe even never.
Perhaps, in the rare situation where there is no conflict, either within or externally, this may result in the super-confident personality, the 'together' person who finds the process of living an easy one to cope with from the very beginning and who tends to be successful in most of their undertakings. The one who makes living look easy, in fact. And to that individual, it IS easy, since his or her ancestral urges are in harmony with his existence, allowing the individual to easily adapt, dominate, or simply not care.
Ancestral memories would not be of actual events - it is not to be confused with the idea of past life or reincarnation - but of reactive response patterns and emotional states brought about by environment. Early tribes whose main way of life was subservience, aggression, nomadic urges, famine fear, etc. These circumstances could, over many generations, create minute changes in the content of the amino acids that form part of the DNA chain, aided by in-breeding and the process of natural selection at work. These genetic changes would obviously be passed on to the progeny, probably affecting actual brain chemistry, so that each generation was progressively more inclined to the predominating characteristic. They would have been predominantly Warriors, Nomads, or Settlers. So there would be a predisposition at birth towards the behavior patterns of the tribe an individual was born into. But the tribes could not have remained pure indefinitely.
The nomadic behavior of some ensured that interbreeding and cross breeding soon guaranteed that each individual carried the genes for different behavior patterns, though there would almost always be a single dominant one - or dominant set, since a behavior pattern is unlikely to be created by a single gene. It's certainly possible, though, that an individual can be subject to two opposite and equal urges being 'built in' to the psyche, as it were, so that there is a permanent state of flux between, say, the urge to pacify and the urge to dominate. These conflicting urges would have caused conflict in an environment where the rest of the tribe were still committed to, or appearing to be committed to, just one of those behaviors.
So neurosis, the feelings of being a misfit in some way, would have been created. It indicates that neurotic behavior patterns could even be in some way instinctive - in that they could be inborn' rather than created by experience - which raises serious questions, not to be approached here, about the efficiency of the principle of natural selection.
It's worth recognizing the fact that while it is possible that there were as many as 150,000 generations of our ancestors as savages, there have been only around 100 generations since the advent of Christianity and the guilt and sometimes excessive superego development that goes with it. The prehistoric gene still carries an awful lot of weight, and it is in constant conflict with the Ego in even the most healthy individuals. At birth, each and every one of us is already subject to this vast history of genetic and behavioral influence.
We are born genetically programmed with a predominance towards one of those three tribal behaviors - the Warriors, Settlers, or Nomads.
And then life happens…
The Birth Predisposition
The birth predisposition is probably a physical part of the Right Brain, and therefore 'hard-wired' and unchangeable without the intervention of surgery, clinical intervention, or other physical damage such as illness or accident. It is possible that an individual with a severely uncomfortable 'hard-wired' conflict may be unlikely to find an alleviation of their problems via therapy of any sort. Essentially, they are suffering from one of the forms of psychosis, and it will typically become most evident in their late teens. Although behavioural therapy can help in these cases, brain-chemistry altering drugs would be the most likely path to the relief of those apparent symptoms, which are likely to be very specific and very profound.
A readiness to profound anger, depression and excessive aggression, all for no real reason, are good examples. Fortunately, these cases are either rare, or the adaptability of the human psyche resolves the conflict before it becomes apparent. At birth, the logical left brain is almost empty - evidenced by the low number of synapses, the measure of brain activity - and like a sponge, starts soaking up information, every new stimulus, avidly and immediately. It can't NOT. And since the logical brain IS pretty much empty, everything perceived, though not necessarily understood, assumes high importance and is accepted without question. Repeated a few times, it becomes a fundamental belief, since we have few prior experiences for comparison and we have not yet discovered doubt to make us wary.
Cuddles, Comfort, Pain and Violence
The birth predisposition, the genetic ancestral memory, is nothing more than a set of responses to stimuli, rather than a belief and expectation system; from the very moment of birth onwards, though, those responses start to shape the way will become, forming the bedrock of our personality.
Our first experiences are our yardstick of the world however good or bad they are; they are what we learn to expect and they result in a fundamental behaviour set that is designed around those expectations. Cuddles, comfort, pain, violence, and the situations which cause them are all equally accepted as being normal and our reactions to them are governed by that birth predisposition. Most of the time, thanks to the adaptability of the human psyche, the basic pattern of being thus formed allows us to function at least fairly comfortably - which is just as well because it can seldom truly change very much, if at all. It is probable that we continue to create those fundamental beliefs at least throughout the Oral stage of our development, because at that time we are busily adapting to our environment in order to survive. At that time, we have no way of knowing that what you see is NOT necessarily what you get, so everything that befalls us is always indicative of the way life is, as far as we are concerned, and we have to learn to deal with it in some way.
It is only as we mature and begin to develop the more finely tuned emotional responses that the human animal is capable of, that we begin to recognise the truth; that few things are perfectly good or perfectly bad. Along with that recognition comes the ability to offset one circumstance against the other and accept what seems to be a reasonable compromise. But the decisions we make in that direction are at a purely conscious level; the subconscious has its own unchanging view of things, and where it perceives an event is bad, it will create a feeling of unease, even though we may have made a decision that seems to reflect what we really want. That is how our subconscious always perceives things for the whole of our lives. Good or Bad. Black or white. And until that later emotional development, the identification procedures and demands of the ID are not modified enough by the influences of the SUPEREGO to soften the impact upon the EGO; so everything is perceived as either good or bad, responsible for pleasure or unpleasure, and an experience to be stored for future evaluations and comparisons.
By the time we are about ten years old, we have discovered how we fit into the world, the likelihood or otherwise that our desires and expectations will be fulfilled, and what is expected of us. The affects of life and experience upon our birth predisposition have shaped and moulded our own unique personality and we are now the sum total of our ancestors, our triumphs and our disappointments, and our reactions to the behaviour of others.
We also have an intense knowledge of how others seem to think of us and without some sort of intervention, this overall view of ourselves will change very little for the rest of our life; not that we actually continually see ourselves as being only ten-years-old, just that our opinion of ourselves in relation to others will remain pretty much constant from then on. So if, for example, we have perceived that adults are going to belittle us or hurt us in some other way, then we may experience problems as we grow older and begin to mix predominantly with adults; the subconscious continues to perceive them as a source of threat. This, I am certain, is the origin of inferior feelings and low self esteem in the adult, and also the reason that the onset of maturity so often heralds psychological difficulty; it is possible, too, that paedophilia has its origins here. And if there have also been difficulties with peer socialisation during the early years, then there may be feelings of complete isolation and separateness as an adult. So our early years are fraught with uncomfortable possibilities and combinations of influences; in spite of it all, though, the majority of individuals safely reach maturity able to deal comfortably with the stresses of existence as long as life goes reasonably well. But sometimes, life goes far from well, and sometimes, fate is ungenerous if not brutal.
It is then that we may begin to feel that we simply cannot cope. We need help.
Role Of The Psychotherapist
The role of the psychotherapist is to help his/her client gain a better understanding of self - to discover, perhaps, who they really are; to discover and use positive resources within and to resolve doubts and anxieties that may have been suffered for many years. There are very many forms of psychotherapy being practised and taught, each with its own advantages and disadvantages, each with its dedicated followers. It is good to be eclectic, but not too much so; energies may become dissipated and, for most of us, it is probably better to have a favoured modus operandi into which we can incorporate other knowledges and resources that we may acquire over the years. I prefer an essentially cognitive/behavioural, client-centred approach, probably because my initial training was in hypnoanalysis and I therefore have a bias towards the doctrine of cause and effect. We should all work where we have the highest level of conviction and, for me, that conviction is that problems arise in the psyche in the ways already outlined - as a result of birth predisposition and subsequent events, rather than purely as a learned behaviour.
There does not have to have been any crisis which would be universally viewed as traumatic; there does not have to be a single causal event or mishap which is at the root of all the individual's problems. Our problems may be due to nothing more than the fact that when we are born we are reared by people whose way of being is fundamentally different from our own predisposition.
There does not have to be a 'villain of the piece', and even when there is, it is not necessarily the case that s/he is the cause of our client's difficulties. That said, it is when we are confronted with the neuroses of others during our formative years that most damage is done. It is here that we find the roots of all the complexes, in particular the masturbation and/or guilt complex, as well as sublimated instinctive drives, embarrassment about perfectly 'normal' behaviour patterns (dating, eating in public, etc.), shame about body and bodily functions, phobias (often by example: if mother is afraid of spiders, then they must be creatures to be feared), general anxiety (again, often learned by example), etc.
A neurotic parent will tend to produce a neurotic child; two neurotic parents can scarcely do anything else. Even where the behaviour of others during those formative years has been emotionally and psychologically stable and therefore non-injurious, even where nothing other than support and encouragement has been extended towards the developing individual, there may still be problems arising from the developmental process.
An individual may struggle to solve problems with a firm, no-nonsense attitude, because their family has insisted that this is the way it must be - the Warrior instincts - whilst they would secretly prefer to adopt a negotiating or reconciliatory approach, that of the Settlers; they might learn that practicality earns respect, whilst all the time experiencing the imaginative, Nomadic, flights of the creative mind; or perhaps be taught that it is 'normal' to be one of the general crowd, while every instinct is that of the scholar, the introvert, with a thirst for knowledge and understanding.
These and other contradictions can cause, at least, feelings of uncertainty, at worst, feelings of being inadequate or a misfit. If the 'secret' urges are eventually fulfilled, then there will probably be no resultant neurosis; it is when the individual suppresses them, that they make their presence felt in the form of symptoms. Then, they have often been denied for so long that there is no longer any conscious knowledge of their existence, just a feeling of being different in some way, which is often translated as being 'odd' or 'weird'.
Attempts to change or modify any behavioural or thought process without resolving any beliefs, mistaken or otherwise, that are the cause of that behavioural or thought process are likely to result in a long haul to emotional health and may even then provide only a relatively temporary respite from discomfort. The client's own resources are at least as viable as the client's own conflicts and come from the same root - the birth predisposition and early experience. They just need finding, focusing upon, and using.
The Initial Consultation
Whatever our therapeutic persuasions, the initial consultation is an important time, both for client and therapist. The client is seeking reassurance that their condition can be helped; they are also anxious, believing that we have more 'secret knowledge' than we actually do.
They can often imagine that every single word they say, every gesture, stutter, twitch and intake of breath, every shuffle of the foot, every hesitation for thought, may be taken out of context and somehow assume great importance as far as the therapist is concerned. They usually know little or nothing of what we actually do, or how we do it, and they may even fear that we are going to pronounce them beyond help, or worse, possibly verging on some sort of insanity. What we have to remember is, that in this rarefied state of concentration and anxiety, which often verges on hypnosis, our own behaviour is of paramount importance. We can use the situation to engender transference, overcome resistance, and give our client's belief system a swift boost. In other words, we can make that all-important 'difference for today' that is going to set our client on the road to a swift recovery even before we begin therapy.
These days, it is the swift recovery that is sought and, in most cases, the swift recovery for which should conscientiously strive.
Gathering Facts
Probably the most important part of this initial consultation is the gathering of facts, from which we can assess whether or not we have the necessary resources ourselves to help the client, or if we should refer them on to either some other form of therapy or orthodox medicine. The professional must know his limitations and if s/he believes s/he doesn't have any, then that is the biggest limitation of all.
There are three questions to which I always want the fullest possible answers.
1. Details of the presenting symptom(s).
2. What the client wants therapy to achieve.
3. What they feel is stopping them from achieving it on their own.
As far as question 1 is concerned, what it is, how long it has existed, and what the client believes to be the cause of it all are obviously essential information.
Symptoms are quite often coping mechanisms, like aerophobia and claustrophobia (often related, of course) and we need to look for associated hidden agendas or secondary gains. Where the symptom serves no apparent purpose, though - the fear of birds and moths, for instance, the indirect symptom - we may not need to probe so deeply. The cause is not particularly important, here, nor would it be easy to find, so a more direct approach is indicated. Reframing and the use of metaphor or fantasy are both useful approaches, though there are obviously others. In all cases, though, we need to discover the individual's own resources to work with.
Question 2 is important, because it tells us whether the client has realistic expectations of what we can do, or if, instead, s/he is hoping for some sort of 'magic' to be performed. I am never satisfied with a straightforward 'Want to get rid of my symptom' type of answer; I need them to tell me how they want to be, how they want to feel, what they want to be able to do that they can't do now.
For many, this may the first time they have directly addressed this particular aspect of their difficulties and it therefore focuses their mind on what they want to achieve. It is also an encouragement for them to look forward beyond their difficulties, to perceive that there may be an end in sight. In other words, another 'difference for today'.
Question 3 tells us something of the resources we need to help our clients find. If what they tell us seems congruent with the answers to questions 1 and 2, all is well and we can soon begin to start work.
It may be, though, that what they tell us here seems to be transparently inappropriate. In these cases, we can attempt to elicit the REAL reason they believe they need help and when we are convinced they are telling us the truth as they perceive it, we should respect that it is the operative part of what our client perceives to be his/her difficulty in life. If there is still a lack of congruence, I then tend to assume that this one is the only full answer they have given and ask more questions about their symptom(s) or their aspirations until I find out what was missing.
If we don't ascertain exactly where they are and where they want to go, then neither we, nor they, will know when they've got there! For many people, simply defining full answers to those three questions can give them a much-needed sense of direction and put them on the road to recovery even before we have done any real work.
Separating The Client From The Symptom
Any form of client-centred therapy cannot easily run to a format style of treatment, since every client is going to have a unique set of difficulties and resources with which to overcome those difficulties. Just about the only thing that I do on almost every first session is to encourage the client to realise that s/he is not the symptom, to remove any label as soon as possible.
If the client says s/he is claustrophobic, I reply that there is no such thing as a claustrophobic individual; I tell those who claim to be aggressive the same thing - that there is no such thing as an aggressive individual; I will even sometimes insist to the jealous person that jealous people do not exist. These apparently fatuous remarks produce something that I value highly in a client; a heightened state of attention and concentration. I wait for a moment or two while they struggle to work out what I could possibly mean, or if they have not heard me properly, wait for the small frown that almost inevitably appears before I explain that the claustrophobic individual is just a normal person who is temporarily suffering the symptom of claustrophobia; the aggressive individual becomes a normal person who finds it easy to access assertiveness or anger; the jealous person, of course, is a normal person who feels unsure of his/her abilities to maintain the interest of any other individual.
They usually quickly grasp the difference between actually being something and suffering it, and this simple reframe has, once again, already made that 'difference for today' even if nothing else is achieved during that session.
The Direction Of Therapy
From session two onwards, the direction that therapy takes will depend on the individual who seeks it. In any one client, it might involve some of the following (in no particular order):
Accessing times when they felt well and times when they did not.
Realisation and acceptance that change is both possible and necessary.
Looking for how they want to be, rather than how they fear they will be.
The setting of short, mid, and long-term goals.
Assessing what they need, and what they have, to achieve those goals.
Understanding the principal of 'ownership of problems'.
Understanding the difference between positive and determined thought.
Recognising the existence of hidden agendas and/or secondary gains.
The development of a coping strategy.
Recognising their projections onto others.
Learning that what others think of them is none of their business.
Letting go of the past negative events or emotions.
It might involve any of those but, then again, it might not, because I work with what the individual brings with him/her.
What is certain, though, is that if I do my job properly with a co-operative client, then that client will leave my office after each session with a conviction that something is different.
The Conclusion.
It is not important what the therapist thinks the client should think/be/feel, etc. What is important is that at the conclusion of therapy - when the client leaves the therapist's office for the very last time - s/he should feel a sensation of upliftedness, a conviction that life can be rewarding, and an even stronger conviction that their life will be as rewarding as any.
If therapy has been successful, they have a new understanding of themselves and how they fit into the world; they have discovered the resources they need to cope with the pitfalls, and joys, of life and living; they have a growing sense of self-worth and confidence. They are happy. In this paper I have attempted to indicate my beliefs about the origins of conflict and the ways that I might best help a client to resolve them. For this reason, there is no in-depth review of what I actually do, or the way I do it, on any one session.
"Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels' hierarchies?
and even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart:
I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure,
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Every angel is terrifying.
Voices. Voices. Listen, my heart, as only saints have listened:
until the gigantic call lifted them off the ground;
yet they kept on, impossibly, kneeling and didn't notice at all: so complete was their listening.
Not that you could endure God's voice--far from it.
But listen to the voice of the wind and the ceaseless message that forms itself out of silence".
--Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies, The First Elegy, Shambhala Publications, Inc., 1992.
and even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart:
I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure,
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Every angel is terrifying.
Voices. Voices. Listen, my heart, as only saints have listened:
until the gigantic call lifted them off the ground;
yet they kept on, impossibly, kneeling and didn't notice at all: so complete was their listening.
Not that you could endure God's voice--far from it.
But listen to the voice of the wind and the ceaseless message that forms itself out of silence".
--Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies, The First Elegy, Shambhala Publications, Inc., 1992.