Take good care of yourself. Like a little bird in the woods look around and decide what is most appropriate for you to eat, to engage in, and where to be that is most beneficial for you. With natural discernment protect yourself from harm. As a little bird in nature, let instinct guide you and let your quick wit and wisdom be always ready to keep you happy and healthy. In nature all play their part to perfection, for in nature there is no other way; as within so without. You too are part of nature, like that little bird in the woods. Let your thoughts today be of this.
I would be neglectful indeed, in my duty as a licensed psychotherapist, were I not to validate the obvious current world predicament: walking the razor’s edge of latent collective psychosis. I would also be neglectful in my duty as a transpersonal psychotherapist were I not to share my vision of the multidimensional drama that veils our vision, just as the sands of the Sahara now blanket the world. Beyond the veil of ignorance coated by those desert sands lies the path of heart, the path of our redemption.
Psychosis, in modern psychological nomenclature, depicts a mental state where the ego, as the central governing force of the personality, sinks into the abyss of unconscious forces, as the personality becomes a rudderless ship taken over by the turbulent forces of nature. That violent nature, generally subdued by the matador, is overrun by the bull, the ultimate surge of a bull market, an inflation that refuses to yield to the axiom: what goes up must come down.
In earlier times, when modern psychology was expressed in spiritual terms, our current situation would be understood as the activation of the gods, what we now term the archetypes, competing with their enormous instinctual energies, in a game of chess with humans as their channeled pawns.
From a transpersonal perspective, the war we are in is ego vs archetype. When archetype possesses ego we risk psychosis. Ego’s challenge in such an onslaught, is to endure. To endure is to resist the enticing power and energy of the archetypes, the fine print of which is a truly Mephistophelian contract: total possession, loss of soul, slavery to the activated archetype.
Archetypes are spirit entities that program a species, the deeply subconscious patterns that rule instinctual life. They enjoyed total domination for millennia until the birth of human consciousness, an event that introduced the possibility of refusing or manipulating the emotional intensity and compulsion of instinct.
This power wrestled from the archetypes upset their balance and control over human life. Suppression and repression of instinct renders archetypes dormant but not dead. Jung wrote often, before the outbreak of WWII, that Wotan, the restless wanderer god of pagan origin, was stirring from the primordial depths, seizing control of the collective German psyche.
Inspiration from the archetypes seeks outlet in human life and is channeled, by human egos, in highly emotional spirited messages. The power and energy of these spirit forces are contagious, stirring frenzy in the masses. Their identifying mark is their disdain for reason, the human ego prison guard of instinctual energies. There is no reasoning with an archetype, instinct alone prevails.
Endurance is the capacity of the ego to weather the storms of passion without falling prey to possession. From a chakra perspective this is accomplished by containing the kundalini energy, the energy of the archetypes, forcing it to rise to the level of the heart chakra.
Pragmatically, this means refusing to engage the emotions of anger and sadness that feed the archetypes. Instead, go inward and exert calm over the excited kundalini emotion that begs outlet in excited action. Calm the autonomic nervous system with its typically unregulated dominance over the body. Send its energy through the breath to the cool respite of the heart chakra.
The heart chakra is the direct link to the Buddhic plane, the home of truth, love, and compassion. Kundalini at the level of the heart acquiesces to serve the High SOUL, as the true guide to right action. The pressure of world survival now is to rise to the level of action in conformance with true need over subjective want, it’s that simple.
All humans of all political persuasions are subject to this rising tide of kundalini energy seeking refuge in planetary survival. May the eyes of the masked and the unmasked meet in loving embrace.
From a transpersonal perspective, our current brush with psychosis is really our collective walking along the razor’s edge above the abyss, as we seek the solidity of higher ground.
Humanity is charged with raising the spiritual level of the planet beyond the blind control of the archetypes. The heart center is our destiny. May we endure this grueling transformation fueled with love for all. All for one, one for all.
I am writing to the future, the day this will be published, the morning after the midterm elections. For the record, my final edit for this blog was on the morning of November 6, 2018, well in advance of outcomes in time and space. My intent is that the electorate free its mind from manipulation and vote from the heart for the greater good of all. I will accept the outcome of the election as a true reading of the status of our collective soul now.
Tripartite: heaven and earth with the light of the intellect in between… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
I define mind as soul, the subtle body companion of our physical body for the duration of our lives in this world. The soul is a tripartite structure consisting of the inherent collective unconscious with its instinctive knowing, the ego with its intellect and capacity for reason, and the high self that is guided by infinity through intuition and love.
Recently, we have seen the rapid emergence of instinct, with its passionate emotions, take charge of world governance. This is an archetypal response, from the collective unconscious dimension of the soul, to the Earth’s current major reshaping and the primal dread it awakens at our animal core. Survival is its battle cry.
Our reasoning mind has either been convinced of instinct’s call to arms, and leant it support, or opposed its radical approach, embodying, instead, calls for greater unity and compassion.
The question for this midterm was whether the escalating instinctive approach would continue to grow, or a movement toward more inclusive values would begin to assert itself.
Regardless of outcome, the Earth will continue its radical changes, and the human animal will continue to experience fear and anxiety in response. The problem for humans, as well as all species on Earth, is that the environment is shifting into unknown territory, where old tried and true instinctive responses cannot effectively assimilate the current dangers.
The intellect that has the capacity to analyze a problem and oppose even its own nature to effect a solution may be equally disadvantaged if it cannot detach from personal interest or the thrill of unbridled emotion. Furthermore, the real solution to survival in this changing world might require opening to the guidance of an intuition that transcends pure reason.
Clearly, cooperation by all parts of the tripartite soul would best prepare us to ride the tide of our evolutionary challenge. From our instinct emerges the alarm of real threat to survival. From our intellect emerges the ability to analyze and act in our best interest. From our high self comes the experience of pure love, which binds the world together in common interest. Thus, the combination of instinct, intellect, and love are the winning ticket.
Regardless of the outcome of this election, our evolutionary path requires us to access the fullness of our tripartite soul to find our way. Regardless of the outcome of the election, every individual is free to travel this evolutionary path within the confines of their own physical body and tripartite soul.
In fact, the greatest of leaders throughout history were masters of their tripartite souls, to such a degree that they inspired humanity to higher spiritual directions, merely through the presence of their evolved personalities.
Focus now on evolving the personality through acknowledging the anxiety from below, through thinking objectively and initiating right action, and by finding inspiration and intuitive solution from the love and wisdom that comes from above. This is the tripartite ticket to facing one’s deepest issues within, as well as managing one’s reactions to the volatility expressed without.
Never feel powerless; you are the agent of change. Change the self, change the world.
As a clinician, I would diagnose the world as currently suffering from Acute Stress Disorder. This diagnosis differs from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder only in time: we are currently encountering the overwhelming stress, and reactions to stress, well-known in PTSD, most acutely in our daily encounters with oncoming world events.
On a psychological level, acute stress is met by the activation of the survival instinct, which manifests in reactions of fight, flight, or freeze. These reactions are archaic responses, universally programmed in all humans, that generally override the thinking, reflective, choice centered part of our brains, the neocortex, which generally goes dormant when we feel threatened. Thus, our behaviors become instinctively, versus consciously, directed reactions to stressors.
We see the fight reaction in the political and social media battles throughout the world. We see the flight reaction in the mass migratory patterns of human populations fleeing the earthly disasters and dangerous political conditions of their familial homelands. We see the freeze reaction in withdrawal into depression, as well as into the numbness of addiction.
Although instinctive reactions are nature’s time-honored survival strategies, they are not always the most efficient or appropriate responses to a crisis, nor do they really penetrate the true depth of an issue. Deeper levels of consideration require the ability to reflect objectively, which cannot happen when the neocortex is offline. Thus, the ability to restore the thinking function to normal capacity is critical. But how?
Breathe. Mindful breathing has the physiological effect of blocking stress producing hormones and inducing a relaxation response to the body. From there, thinking comes back online and can provide a broader perspective. The greatest challenge to breathing when stressfully activated is to separate from the actions dictated by the fight, flight, freeze instinctual program. Sometimes a vigorous walk, run, or private scream is a helpful release before breathing. When battling another person, it is generally best to separate for awhile, rather than try to force a resolution. Not to do so often results in a continued and escalated battle.
Although the neocortex is the biological thinking center of the brain, the mind and consciousness itself are actually part of the soul or energy body. This is most evident in the mind’s ability to act in opposition to its biological programming. When we choose to breathe when deeply stressed, we are acting in opposition to our biological programming. We rise above our animal nature to access spirit consciousness and choice.
The heart center in human beings has its energy body connection in its interconnected relationship to all of life. Thus, from the heart center we are able to feel love, which enables empathy, care, and support beyond one’s instinctive survival drive, which cannot extend beyond the narcissistic province of me and mine. This spirit center elevates the human being from the dominance of the survival drive at its animal level, which we witness pervasively throughout the world at this time.
As Mother Earth continues her drastic reformation of the globe, a major healing crisis, we are likely to see all animal species, particularly the human, responding through instinctual survival programs. For humans, these instinctual survival programs will increasingly pit human against human. These instinctual survival programs lack empathy, love, and a greater understanding of the changes we are all being confronted with.
In spite of the dire state of world affairs, it is possible to consciously rise above these instinctual survival programs and maintain and increase greater love and understanding. The ability to be empathic truly does lie at the heart of the evolved human being. With intent we can find our way to higher ground.
Seek sanctuary in heart-centered breathing to counter pure survival behaviors that lack soul. Find the higher ground of love and understanding, even as our species grapples with major change. As individual cells of this great body of Mother Earth, we can, individually and collectively, introduce soulful healing energy into our planet’s current major healing crisis.
All newborn babies turn their heads toward the nipple and make sucking movements. This is an inborn program called the rootingreflex that prepares the baby to procure nourishment in the form of milk from the breast. Jung called these universal inborn mental programs, that orchestrate such necessary adaptation and survival behaviors, archetypes. At nature’s insistence newborns are born with an entitled energy to suckle nurturance from the breast.
Entitlement has its roots in nature itself. The energy that the archetypes are naturally endowed with is the energy of entitlement. When an archetype is activated it is potentiated with powerful energy, the energy of entitlement, that allows it to achieve its fulfillment.
The entitled energy of the hunger instinct fuels our ability to work and accumulate goods, property, and money, allowing us to meet our most primal of needs. This instinct is quite primitive and has its roots in narcissism, with the primary focus given to the satisfaction of the body’s primary survival needs.
As we grow, our narcissistic fixation naturally enlarges to include the family, a unit dedicated to survival as a group. The family carves out its ownership of its living space, not to be transgressed by non-family members without an invitation. The family is poised to accumulate for itself and defend its ownership against the competing needs of others. Thus, there is a legitimate basis for entitlement in human physical existence: survival.
Jung observed that archetypes also give rise to spiritual values in humans. This spirit instinct in human beings often comes to life as a result of sacrifice. The initiation rituals of yesteryear that brutally tore the young from their entitled dependence upon family and sent them off to experiences outside of the known and familiar—the world of mother, father, and extended family—are one example of such sacrifice.
Through the archetype of ritual sacrifice, youth became adults and took on greater responsibility for the group beyond family of origin. Vestiges of theses archetypal strivings are seen today in the stylized piercings, tattoos, and drug adventures of young people seeking to cross the bridge to adulthood through some kind of self-initiated ritual sacrifice.
When spiritual values emerge they signal a maturity that takes into consideration the needs of others, beyond the narcissism of me and mine, awakening an energy of compassion that extends to all living beings. This spirit entitlement employs its energy to consider and care for everything beyond the self. Spirit orientation is in opposition to the hoarding attitude of the narcissistic orientation. Spirit employs its personal energy to care for the greater whole and accepts itself as part of that greater whole. Spirit orientation acts to extend entitlement as a broader human right.
Narcissistic orientation bemoans having to give away that which it needs and wants. Spirit, on the other hand, can tend to neglect, negate, or even denigrate the needs of the physical body, its working vehicle for this life.
I would propose that we are presently in an energetic World War between these two instinctual orientations: body instinct and spirit instinct. The current world leader, our own President, exemplifies entitlement at a very primal level. That is, its inherent right to consider only the needs of itself over the needs of the more inclusive world. The degree of support accorded this leader reflects how accurately he taps into the narcissistic underpinnings of survival at the primal, animal, level in all human beings.
What has given rise to our current state of world affairs is a breakdown in the application of the technology of sacrifice to effect spiritual transformation. At one extreme is a failure of the institutions of the modern world to provide effective rites of initiation at key stages of life. Without these rites many people fail to individuate into true adulthood and thus remain fixated at a child’s level of orientation toward the world, entitled and demanding.
At the other extreme is a total renunciation of the body for the benefit of the spirit. One example is the requirement of celibacy in the Catholic priesthood; sacrifice the lower for the sake of the higher. Though this technology of sacrifice was successful in establishing a life oriented toward altruistic concerns, it has created a tremendous body-shadow backlash. Just look at the incidences of sexual abuse among the ranks of the Catholic priests. The entitlement of the repressed sexual instinct has emerged from hiding, deviously preying upon the young and innocent.
In the political arena we see a similar eruption of repressed primal instinct asserting its entitlement to accumulate resources for itself only, casting out the unfamiliar ‘other’ to fend for itself. This is the shadow of American altruism, bursting forth now with a vengeance.
The determination of this entitlement is expressed in its blatant use of lies, misinformation, and manipulation as a necessary and acceptable means to care for its basic needs. No amount of reason or scientific proof can shake it from its deeply seated conviction that it is entitled to care only for its own needs.
At present the lines are firmly drawn between body and spirit, it’s either one way or the other. There is no room for compromise, as each side is absolutely in touch with their inalienable right of entitlement. And they are both right; we are animals and we are spirits. Perhaps the ultimate solution is encoded in the axiom: asabove so below. The needs of the body are as important as the needs of the spirit, the needs of the self are as important as the needs of the planet.
Where might there be adjustments to bring these two into better confluence? As the Pope laments the abuses of his church he might consider the fact that nuns have probably almost never committed sexual abuse, despite their same commitment to celibacy as their priestly male counterparts. If the technology of celibacy is to be maintained, perhaps nuns should be invited into the priesthood to lead the way.
On an individual level, we are invited to truly tune in to the wants and needs of our animal selves, as well as our spirit’s longing for greater wholeness with the universe. For instance, the practice of sacred sex joins body, spirit, and other, in joy, pleasure, and union at a physical/spiritual level.
On a planetary level, the Earth’s body has taken the lead. We are in the beginnings of massive transformation at a planetary level that will force us to be more in step with the true needs of the Earth’s body and atmosphere. For humans this is a spirit/body reconciliation. Respecting the body of the planet is both a spiritual love, moving beyond just the narcissism of self, as well as a deep connection to the physical: self and planet.
The key to reconciliation of our warring instincts is recognizing the legitimacy of entitlement for both body and spirit. Behind the off-putting extremism of today’s headlines are individuals identified with either one orientation or the other.
Can you outwardly appreciate the one-sidedness of your neighbor, but also its legitimacy, in some form? Can you inwardly recognize the one-sidedness of your own orientation and, yes, validate it in some form too? Can you give value and a place to the opposite side, whether it be body or spirit? That is the way to become an integrated, balanced whole being.
