Nostalgia

Life is stranger and more fascinating then most of us glimpse. Our brain has an instinctive tendency to quickly turn the numinous into the bland in order to save resources. If our ancestors stood in awe at the magnificent color and pattern of the tiger stalking in the bush, we wouldn’t have made it this far. However, it is beneficial to peak behind the curtain and examine some of the awe we take for granted.

One of these ideas that pulsate behind the curtain is what infancy actually is. We take for granted the psychological Atlas-esque task the infant must go through, a task all of us accomplished, in order to become conscious. This is a task psychology, specifically psychoanalysis, pays significant attention to.

(RAWism note: This post’s perspective is influenced by the Jungian reality tunnel as remixed by my unique bias.)

Jung’s significant discovery, and an idea I try explaining to all my friends, is that there is a Collective Unconscious. Most people understand that there is an Unconscious aspect of the human psyche, but most people understand this unconscious as a repository of the individual’s collective experiences. A different way to look at this is that most people see the Unconscious as the roots of a single tree, while Jung sees the Collective Unconscious as the entire earth, which connects all trees through the soil it produces. Both are true, we each have an individual unconscious, but deeper, we also all share a Collective Unconscious.

Jung’s further discovery is that there is an instinctive organizing function within each individual he termed the “Self.” The Self is the organizing energy that shapes the seed into the Oak tree. The Self is the organizing energy that helps us grow into our genetic potential. However, the human has something unique that no other organism seems to share. We have the conscious ego, thus the freedom of choice to participate in our growth or to resist it. It is this uniquely human quality that this post is focused on, which arises in infancy.

The ego is the crown and the curse of human nature. 

In our first months of life outside the womb, we had no ego. The potential latent ego was in complete identification with the Unconscious. The infant feels like a deity. There is no concept of death, or separateness, or suffering. We need only make noise and we are caressed, held, fed, and cleaned after. We had no concept of the other, of mother or father, those things were energetic extensions of ourselves. We were identified with the entirety of experience. We were whole.

And this feeling, this is nostalgia. The birth of our ego shatters nostalgia. The birth of the ego separates the infant from the Unconscious. The wholeness becomes fragmented. The energetic force that pleasured us with food and warmth, is now identified as an Other being (infant’s caretaker.) The infant now realizes it is dependent. This realization is a fear more intense then we can consciously understand.

The birth of consciousness, of the ego, wounds the individual. Our entire life, if you are courageous enough to grow, is a continues cycle of ego-self union and ego-self separation.

The Golden Age illusion

Every human goes through this process. All of us have this psychic wound. Personally and historically, humans have resisted their urge to growth and yearned for the infantile nostalgia. This yearning shows itself in Utopian myths, and in any metaphysics that promises an end to suffering. Conscious life will always have suffering, death, and evil, but it is equal to the benefits of free will, love, and creativity.

A symbolic look at the Eden myth highlights this entire process. The Garden of Eden is the human psyche. Adam and Eve represent the Individual.  Yahweh represents the urge to remain in the Unconscious state. The fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good an evil represents the ego. And, like the Gnostic perspective, the hero is this myth is the serpent, which represents the Self, the urge to grow from a place of unconsciousness into a place of consciousness.

Once the ego is acquired, the individual must leave the security of the infantile nostalgic state. The curses Yahweh delivers are the curses the ego must inherit with consciousness; death, suffering, and evil.

(A quick side note; the Jungian perspective believes that myths are expressions of the Unconscious and are symbolic. So what is being done above with the Garden of Eden myth is standard procedure and is done with all myths.)

Pragmatic Perspective

The reason I explain this is to help the curious from being deceived. Any belief system or metaphysical system that offers any version of the “Golden Age” myth or a kind of perpetual state of nonsuffering is at its best the unconscious fantasy of a charismatic leader or writer, and at worst, a technique to exploit the immature and weak for the pleasure or profit of the leader.

Life is a constant dance of opposites. There is no destination. To believe so is only going to amply your suffering. Embrace the dynamism of life. Learn to dance. All growth grows out of conflict and resolution. Resisting this will stunt your growth. Stunted growth causes inflation, (a topic of another post), and inflation causes falls. (Think Icarus myth.)

“He who feels punctured
Must once have been a bubble,
He who feels unarmed
Must have carried arms,
He who feels belittled
Must have been consequential
He who feels deprived
Must have had privilege. “

Lao-Tzu

***

Exercises:

Review your beliefs, goals, and fantasies. Can you find evidence of a hidden or not-so-hidden infantile yearning for nostalgia? Why do you want this? What aspect of growth are you resisting?

Whatever aspect of growth you are fearing, imagine something simple and small you can do to get closer to this fear. (For example, if you are afraid of cutting off a connection to a person who you know energetically feeds off of you, go a day where you don’t communicate with them. Write about how you feel at the end of the day.)

Look at your metaphysical beliefs. What about this unprovable (and non-disprovable) belief system attracts you? Is it offering you a version of the Golden Age illusion? What behaviors are you holding onto that you know keep you from growth? What benefit are you getting from ignoring these?

***

I love you. Embrace the dance. Namasteezy. 

The Religious Function

The human condition is weird. We are simultaneously the shitting ape and also the consciousness that creates. The ape is our root that connects us to nature. S/he is nudged along by primordial instincts. Consciousness is our crown of choice. We are free to choose how we regulate, dissipate, and creatively express our instincts.

One of humanities instincts is the religious function. Jung argued that the pragmatic purpose of this instinct was to alleviate the paralysis consciousness creates. Our freedom of choice leaves space for the fear of acting incorrectly. For primitive man to overcome this fear, he needed some kind of reassurance, some kind of experience that validated her choices.  

This is only speculation, because the why doesn’t particularly matter here. What matters is that there is a potential within every individual to experience something which imbues the individual with the deepest sense of trust and security. What matters is this feeling, something no assemblage of words can ever convey. This event, Jung calls the religious experience.

“(The religious experience) is a rapture whose breadth and depth is the despair of prose.”

RAWism note: The experience is an instinct we all have. The metaphors and symbols we use to assimilate the experience into consciousness and to convey to others, is entirely subjective. Do not get tripped up by the metaphors and symbols. Use whatever reality tunnel helps you understand the experience. What is important is that you directly experience the manifestation of instinct.

Rationalism, Dogmatism, and Patriotism

These three reality tunnels have unique relationships to the religious function. The rationalist thinks he’s thrown the religious function out without realizing that his devotion to reason and logic is the religious function itself. He is like the man riding the donkey who exclaims to his friends how he’s gotten rid of his donkey.

The modern religious person who ascribes to a certain belief system is also confused. Jung draws a distinction between religion and creed. Religion is a subjective relationship to certain metaphysical beliefs, while a creed is a collection of beliefs which are taught and accepted. Religion is an experience, a creed is taught. Most modern religions subjugate the individual to relay on external symbols and institutions for a connection with the divine. A true religion is a system that helps the individual cultivate a genuine, personal relationship with the divine.

And now the patriots. These people are the loudest because they are the most insecure. These are the people who project the religious function onto the State, the Government, or a political party. A neurotic is an individual who has a split psyche. Man is the microcosm of the macrocosm. Our society looks like a neurotic who unwillingly but slowly is becoming aware of his neurotic consciousness.

The Individual Experience

The religious function is an instinct all humans inherit. What most of us overlook is that we are riding the donkey. The God metaphor, whatever it means to you, is a representation of some part of your Unconscious. Whatever you understand of God are qualities that exist within you. The thing the metaphor “God” tries to convey is completely incomprehensible. The most we can do is experience a slice. This slice is the unique religious experience your unique psyche can perceive.

God is within. Everything is. Whatever is without is unknowable. Don’t let any belief system (BS) keep you from your personal experience with the divine.

“The world is not governed by facts or logic. The world is governed by BS. Never believe totally in anybody else’s BS. Never believe totally in your own BS.”

***

If you’ve had a religious experience, and you’re willing, please share it with me on social media in a message.

Namastay. I love you. 

For Five Friends

This one is going to be different. My ego wanted to write a post about "The Guru is within," but my Unconscious has a different post in mind.

I read "Man and his Symbols" for five hours today. The synchronicity was too much to ignore. Page after page, I kept coming across paragraph after paragraph of information that directly connected to different friends going through different stages of growth. So, instead of sending five long individual texts, I'm going to offer my perspective and advice to each of you in this post. You'll know which one is yours and I'll try to be vague enough to protect your privacy. All of this is filtered through the Jungian perspective of the psyche.

(If any of you want me to remove your section after you read it, I respect that completely and I will delete it. This comes from a place of love and I love each of you.)

1) You had a DMT experience where you were laying down and a woman lovingly poured some kind of multi-colored liquid-esque substance over you. This is an archetypical image of baptism. As a male, the bridge between your Ego and your Self is represented by a woman, called your Anima. Essentially brother, you have some deep guilt and shame about something (we all do.) Your waking dream was showing you that your Unconscious forgives you. Forgive yourself too.

A quote I like, "Accept the fact that you are accepted, despite the feeling that you are unacceptable."

2) You had a DMT trip where you were on a journey and a female was guiding you. You traveled through a swamp then started ascending up some kind of hill or mountain in a circular motion. You got near the top and you no longer had your guide. You may have integrated this further, but at the moment you came back to consciousness, you were a little sad. You felt you had done something wrong. I don't think you did.

I read a passage that talked about the archetypical pilgrimage, where the hero is accompanied by a female guide. The similarities are too similar to ignore. This represents a kind of initiatory rite. The purpose is to give the Ego enough strength to move into the world as an individual, away from the womb-like security of being near mom and dad.

Your DMT trip explicitly represented your intention. It showed you that you are at the edge of your adolescent life. At the edge, the guide cannot help you over. You didn't fail anything man. This last part of the hero's journey is up to you. (The hero's journey is the oldest and most common archetype which helps the adolescent move from childhood to adulthood.) You're good.

3) You shared a dream with me where a white crocodile was in your house and kept you and your mother in your room. You were afraid of the creature but it wasn't acting aggressive, it was just there.

I tried offering my advice the day after you had it but I read a passage today that offers a better understanding of what your dream meant. The day before a dream is the primary source for the dream content. The day before your dream, you may not realize this, but you did something incredibly brave and you didn't fail. You pushed your limits, maybe not consciously, to a new edge.

In dreams, an animal that can both live on land and in water represents what Jung called, "The Transcendent function." Basically, the crocodile represented your readiness to leave childhood. Your mom in the dream represents the mother-bond you have. The dream being in your room also adds to the interpretation that the dream was essentially showing you that you have the power to go out into the world as an adult. Naturally, your ego is afraid of this power and the subsequent responsibility.

This is an important dream. Your ego is a little afraid. I predict that you are going to have many more significant dreams until you move out. Record your dreams and share them with me and I'll try helping.

4) You're life is being radically disorganized. You've been given advice from dozens of friends. This passage is for you;

"It is exactly the same in the initial crisis in the life of an individual. One is seeking something which is impossible to find...In such moments all well-meant, sensible advice is completely useless. None (of the advice) helps. There is only one thing that seems to work; and that is to turn directly towards the approaching darkness without prejudice and totally naively, and to try to find out what its secret aim is and what it wants from you."

To listen, record your dreams and the apparently random images that come to you. Your dreams are going to show you what you need to see. Share them with me and I'll genuinely try to give unbiased feedback. I sincerely believe that if you listen, you'll get the answers. And a deeper part of me knows that you already have the answers and you aren't accepting them.

5) This is the heaviest one. I think I should read the entire section out loud to you. It is eerie how spot on in correlates to your life. I'll do my best to some it up.

As a woman, your Unconscious represents the connection you have with your Self, (easiest metaphor here is that this is the godly part of your psyche) as a man in your dreams. Your perception of this male, what Jung calls the Animus, is largely molded by the relationship you had with your father.

Depending on the bond you had with your father, the Animus can be a source to your creative genius, or, if the relationship was not nurturing, the Animus can be horribly destructive.

If the bond with the father is bad, the Animus shows up in dreams as a group of men. They rob, steal, or rape. The conscious expression of the negative Animus is thinking and speaking in "oughts," "should haves," and "supposed tos." The negative Animus creates unshakable and unrealistic convictions.

The negative Animus leads to the woman having thoughts like, "Nothing is good enough." "Nothing matters." "None of this is as it is suppose to be." At its extreme, it can lead to the woman killing herself.

The book says that the way to deal with this is to become conscious of the Animus. The Animus is not you. It is not your Self. It is a function of your psyche that is warped by your conscious relation to your father. Your situation is more critical than I am prepared to handle. I don't know how to help you but next time I see you I'm going to read this section to you and answer any questions you have.

There are very talented Jungian analysts in Houston. It may be something you're meant to do.

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Phew. Okay. All of this is just a perspective. It's one that clicks with me and I like to look through this reality tunnel. What matters is what belief system (BS) enriches your personal experience of life. Because all you have, ever, is your experience. Play with different BS systems and don't accept anyone's BS dogmatically.

"The world is not governed by facts or logic. The world is governed by BS. (Belief Systems). Never believe totally in anybody else's BS. Never believe totally in your own BS."

I love you. Share your dreams with me. Jung says he's interpreted 80,000. I'd like to reach that number one day.