The number 5 in Tarot and the role of "Satan" in psychological growth

In the tarot, in each suit, five is the number which upsets the stability of the preceding card, four. Five is the number of "Satan": four is completion, but the first and partial completion. Five is the necessary upset to the partial and inadequate completion of four, which represents worldly success, or the success of the ego. Five is seen as evil for the same reason the monsters of our dreams are evil - to the ego anything that takes away from it what it thinks it wants is evil. Myths are the dreams of the collective, and in Christian mythology Satan represents the force which destroys what the ego wants. This destruction clears the way to true completion, but only through hard work. Five is the number of the serpent in the garden - it destroys the easy, unconscious, immature paradise, but in doing so, leads to the possibility of true growth, but only through hard work and pain. From Edinger's Ego and Archetype:

"Since Yahweh and Satan are working together, they can be considered as two aspects of the same thing, i.e., the Self. Satan provides the initiative and dynamism to set up Job's ordeal and hence represents the urge to individuation which must break up the psychological status quo in order to bring about a a new level of development. The serpent played the same role for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden."

(Ego and Archetype, page 80, on the myth of Job)

In Christianity, Yahweh represents the Self, but only the light half. Satan is the shadow half of the Self, the part which provides the impetus for growth. It is part of the Self but, since the immature ego can't see in shades of grey, the Self must be divided up into white and black, good and evil, or Yahweh and Satan. In the same way that to a young child their parent is Good (when they give them what they want) or Bad (when they deny the child what it wants), the Self is is split into the good Yahweh and the destroyer, Satan.


Edit

The son of chaos: Satan and the role of Mercurius/the intellect.

"Ego and Archetype": Inflation and the psychology of politics

I'm reading Ego and Archetype by Edward F. Edinger and it's bringing up several ideas which I will explore in various posts - the first one is on Edinger's concept of inflation.

He identifies identification of the ego with the Self as the cause of inflation. I disagree - the identification with the the Self is healing. I think inflation is caused by the false inflation of the ego - where the ego tries to take on the role of the Self unto itself. When the ego tries to give itself a sense of meaning and value, cut off from the Self, it runs into problems like narcissism. Edinger does say that healing is caused by re-establishing a connection with the Self, which I agree with.

I wonder if this is related to coming from a Christian worldview? I'm not sure, but all of his examples are from Christian theology and mythology. Christianity would view identification with the Self (or "God") as sacreligious and anathema so it's possible - I'm 1/4 into the book and I have yet to see an example from a fairy tale or a non-Christian myth.


Individualism and right wing ideology

On page 59 Edinger describes a dream that vividly outlines the process of this re-establishment of connection with the ego - and not only re-establishment but giving control over to the Self - and I thought of the preoccupation in the United States with individuality and the concept of the importance of the control of one's destiny. There's an almost pathological (if not actually pathological) obsession with not letting others control one's self. I can imagine the reaction of your typical American to the dream, which includes consciously giving over control of one's body and one's very thoughts to the "Central Source of Energy and Law" and how it would be interpreted as some sort of evil Communist plot to take over our minds and wondered if this very attitude wasn't a part of American pathology.

I do a lot of work on various political issues and one thing people consistently come up with as a part of their resistance to various social initiatives (health care, high speed rail, bike share) is the loss of personal control. This fear is a large part of the basis of right wing politics, with it's horror of the "nanny state," but can also be found in other political groups, libertarians in particular but even among self identified progressives, especially those who are strong proponents of what they believe to be "real" democracy (ie. that which isn't under the control of corporations.)

This appears to be closely related to the tendency of conservatives to "splitting"- dividing people into all good or all evil. Anyone who promotes ideas that frighten them are communists or helping the terrorists. Conservatives often express a complete inability to understand perspectives different from their own and, in fact, a strong tendency to demonize them. There's a strong thread of fear and paranoia, and the attendant tendency to attack, even try to annihilate, their opponents, with attitudes and behavior becoming more extreme the further to the right ones goes.

On analyzing dreams

I've been dreaming a lot lately... a LOT! At first it was almost impossible to remember but now they're shooting out of my brain every morning like a freaking firehose, to the point I'm having problems keeping up with them.

Anyway, with all this dreaming, I wanted to explore dream analysis more, and I found a great site. Some quotes that stood out are:

Jung felt that the dream acted as a mirror for the ego – revealing that which was missing from the consciousness of the dreamer. For Jung the dream acted as a teacher and guide on the road toward wholeness. The dream acted in such a way as to amend a lop sided or partial perspective on life. A series of dreams would develop, balance and refine the conscious awareness of the dreamer.

The ego cannot escape its destined encounter with the unconscious. Take for example the problem of love and hate. What we fail to see in ourselves we often find attractive in other. What we deny within, we battle outwardly. So too, the circumstances of our life are often designed to teach us exactly what it is that we need to learn. Illness often conceals a hidden wisdom. The ego cannot escape the unconscious just as we cannot escape our own birth.

The dream serves as a bridge between the conscious and unconscious mind. For the dream belongs to the twilight zone of consciousness – where the ego and the unconscious meet. The conscious element of the dream lies in its remembrance, the unconscious element lies in its mystery and perplexity. Half conscious, half unconscious, the dream unites the known and the unknown. To listen to the dream is to listen to the unconscious. Through doing so one relieves the need for the unconscious to force itself.

A dream serves as a mirror. In looking into the dream you see yourself from another angle. For a correct analysis of the dream, it needs to be appreciated as a statement of fact, albeit from an alternate perspective. A dream does not tell you what to do, rather it show you what you are doing.

Process

The writer suggests the following:

1. Write the dream down
2. List all the components of the dream (people, places or circumstances)
3. Write down all your associations to the dream elements
4. Amplify the dream (taking various themes and symbols from the dream and finding similar material in mythology, psychology or others areas related to the study of symbolism)
5. Think about recent events and go over the material, tossing and turning the dream in your head

This process is similar to what I already do, with some useful additions; amplifying the dream and thinking consciously about recent events. I do both already but in a hit or miss kind of way, but I think these two steps, done consistenly, will help draw out more from the dreams than I've been getting. I feel like there's a lot there but I'm missing it, and I hope this will help. I have a dream from a couple of night ago to try this out on.

Quote of the day

From The Complex: Path of Transformation from Archetype to Ego by Erel Shalit.

"To Jung [as compared to Freud] it is consciousness that is short-sighted, while the unconscious is honest and healing. If we do not bring a conscious relationship to it, however, the unconscious may become chaotic, even lethal."

(page 8)

I finished the Hades Moon book and I want to write a post about it but I'm still thinking it over. There was a lot there, and I'm actually re-reading it. But for now, I'm reading Shalit's book over breakfast  :)

Thoughts on the animus/anima

I always thought the animus (or anima, if you're a man) was the archetype of the opposite sex that you expressed the most. Now I wonder...

I figured my animus was Hermes because I have several Hermes-like traits, even though I feel nothing for him and he never appears in any active visualizations. By contrast, I have done a LOT of work with my inner Hades (who has a deep connection to my archetype, Persephone). So now I'm thinking... maybe our animus is actually the archetype, or archetypes, that our own archetype matches with romantically? Which would make sense, as those are the people with whom we can do the most spiritual work, and grow the most with. Perhaps we seek a romantic partner who is a manifestation of that inner animus to carry on the work with on a different level.

It just doesn't make sense that our animus would be so completely non-existent in our inner world. And now that I think of it, when I read romances, this is the kind of story I'm the most drawn to. Although I can appreciate any well written story that has engaging characters, it's stories about weak, diffuse, lost women and chthonic men that I find the most compelling. So, like everything else in our lives, our reading habits can help us understand what's going on inside us.

... One further note: For someone who used to read, and watch movies, as much as I did, I'm finding it almost impossible to do so now. It might be because I'm finally living what I used to read about, but I don't think that's actually it. My Persephone has a very strong will - I used to think she (and I) was lazy, or incapable of getting work done. I realize it's because she needed to find her true work, her life's labor. And now that she's found it, she isn't interested in anything else. If I could do this from the time I woke up to the time I collapsed into bed, I think it wouldn't be enough for her.

I'm not sure how long this is going to last. While I struggle to get my basic needs done (like cleaning my apartment... or keeping my job!) it's exciting to have all this energy and focus.



Also... if I'm right and this is the case, then gay people would be "double souled" - they have both a male and female archetype... and matching animus/anima's. Pretty busy in there!

Why I still consider myself an atheist

And why it matters. What it boils down to is what I said in How do archetypes heal us: The gods don't want to be worshipped. They want to be manifested.

I've been thinking about religion and soul work and whether or not I would still say I'm an atheist, and if it even matters and I've come to the conclusion that yes, I'm still and atheist. And yes, it matters.

As I've stressed again and again, it's vital to keep these two worlds separate. They can interpenetrate, and they certainly influence each other, but they are two separate worlds, and to mush them together is to invite disaster. First off, the objective world does exist. There are natural laws, they exist, and they determine what will happen. Everyone should have a grounding in rational thought because we are all citizens of the world; our fellow human beings, and even the Earth itself, are relying on all of us to be as clear thinking as possible. Whether it's in politics or with issues of global warming and peak oil, we need to understand clearly what are the causes of our problems, and what we can do to solve those problems, and then go out and do them. And quite honestly? The world is in too deep a pile of shit for us to get out of it without bringing to bear ALL of our resources.

That being said, we must make room for magic and mystery in our lives. Without it our souls will whither and starve... and, ironically, we will actually be far less effective than we could have been if we'd connected to that part of ourselves. I spent the last ten years of my life completely immersed in the world of reason and politics. I could have made much more of a difference if I had healed myself before that. But even more than that... we need soul in our lives, just as much as we need love, purpose, and connection. We can't even have any of those things if we haven't connected with our deep selves and released the garbage that's covering it up.

Finally, blindly clinging to comforting religious dogmas is actually completely antithetical to true soul work. If you are hiding from your fears of the big, bad world - or, even worse, your own inadequacies - behind the shield of a Big Daddy, or a willful determination that nothing bad ever exists, or whatever your spiritual pacifier of choice is, then you have actually cut yourself off from your soul. Religion can be used by the ego to protect itself just like anything else can, whether it's working for high status, or to look sexually attractive to others, or to be smarter or more accomplished than others, all of that is just the ego trying to protect itself. This is not to say that there's nothing to be learned by people's religious belief, even when it's part of a psyche-pathology. In fact, as we know from our soul work, our defenses are the very place we need to go to learn and grow. And we can explore these religious stories for the goldmines of soul stories that they are.

True depth work requires that we face life fully - face ourselves and life itself - stare right into the face of our fear and inadequacy and powerlessness. To strip away from the ego all of the ways it protects itself from what it fears. This is the only way we can become whole... and the only way we can live in this life to the fullest. We need compassion for ourselves and others; an embracing, kind, affectionate interest. And when the "inner god" asks us to let go of our protective self deception, we need to be kind to ourselves, too. But we must let them go if we are to become whole.


As usual, this is a work in progress. Although my fundamental beliefs haven't changed, even with this recent descent into the underworld, things could always change. They'll certainly evolve.

Life as art

I've been poking around Depth Psychology Alliance's website - amazing source of information and inspiration - and was struck by the following blog post by C.Victor Posing:

Tension and Release

All great music has the pattern of “tension and release.”  This process creates a main theme, and then starts to intensify by adding intervals (scale music notes) to reach a state of tension,  and then gives a release.  This creates interest and complexity in the composition.

Likewise,  in our spiritual path there are added obstacles to create a feeling of tension in the form of uneasiness, or abandonment, which causes us to seek and search out the reason for this feeling.  Then, we build up a desire once again for that closeness, and oneness with the Divine, and the feeling of “bliss” returns.  This is the natural process of transformation

On the one hand, it's vital that we see difficult times - those times of "tension" - as good friends who bring us the gifts we need to grow. Every obstacle, both inner and outer, is an opportunity to learn and grow. But recently, even beyond the need to grow, I've been feeling more and more as if our lives are like art. In a post from a couple of days ago Wrestling with angels, I wrote the following, which I felt was so meaningful that I changed this blog's subheader to include it.

The point isn't the having or the getting, but the wanting, the feeling. It's like making great art... or appreciating it. What matters are the feelings you experience, and the way that experience alters you; deepens your connection to yourself, to others, and to life. So one can say that our lives themselves are a great art.

The soul is not the ego - in many ways it stands opposed to the ego. The purpose of the ego is to protect the self. The purpose of the soul is to live, to experience, to feel deeply. While we need the ego to survive, if it gains control of our mind, our lives are reduced to small, petty, fear filled things. The ego is a great servant, but a terrible master - we need it to survive, but it must be subordinate to the parts of us that have a larger picture of life.

Times of difficulty are both opportunities for us to release ego fear and ego defensiveness, unburying true inner selves... but they are also of value in and of themselves. We go to great art to be moved - all of our feelings, not just the pretty ones. When an art form shies away from the painful feelings, we call it "saccharine," "artificial," "shallow." In order for our lives to be rich, full of meaning and depth, we need the difficult times as well as the easy ones, the pain as well as the joy. That pain not only makes our joy more intense, it is itself something our soul craves, as the soul desires above all to live a full, human life.


Edit:

Something else I thought of that follows tension and then release patterns: sneezing. And sex. Actually, many things related to the body follow that pattern.