To truly appreciate the contents of both the scientific and occult paradigms, we must first have a clear comprehension of the organizing principles of the thing that created these paradigms to begin with--the human mind.
As we have already seen, there are many problems associated with modern science's view of human behavior, be it normal or (seemingly) abnormal. What we want to do in this chapter is continue what was started in the previous chapter. In the following discussions we will continue to utilize both scientific and occult concepts as we quest after a clear and encompassing view of human psychology.
Here I will discuss the gestalt nature of our thinking
processes. The gestalts of meaning within which our minds operate
I call "contexts". Through understanding the contextual
organization of our minds in our day to day thinking, we will be
in a much better position to appreciate the subtleties involved
in both scientific and occult thinking and any relationship we
may posit between the two. And once we have clarified the fact
that we think in gestalts, in part two of this chapter I will
characterize this process by defining the nature of the ego and
its relationship to personality, these being the two fundamental
ingredients of the gestalt processes of the mind.
"I think, therefore I am." This popular quote is attributed to René Descartes, the famous 16th century philosopher whose ideas have had a vast impact on the development of the Western intellect. What Descartes was attempting to do was to express the most obvious and selfevident fact of our experience. To Descartes this amounted to perceiving the result of the process of realization, or more specifically, the process of self-realization ("I think"), and through this process attribute existence to himself ("I am")-and the rest of us for that matter. In Descartes's term it seems so clear and obvious. Yet restating his conjecture in other terms begins to reveal some of the hidden complexity in Descartes's seemingly simple statement. I do not want to go off on a critical analysis of Descartes's thought. The purpose of starting with his famous quote is that I would like to begin to look at the issue: what is the most obvious and self-evident fact of our being?
Now, the situation we are interested in here is much more involved than such a simple question, or simple interpretation of Descartes' quote would imply. The question itself is a mere indicator. It points to deeper needs and motivations. Talk-language and words-are only the surface of our mental, or more broadly, psychological experiences. It is easy to get caught in the subtleties of verbal expression at the expense of missing this point. We may sit and discuss clever mental abstractions, dress them up in any terms we choose; scientific, occult, philosophical, political, religious. These are only decorations. The terms of our verbal expressions are merely the outer surface (or inner wall, if you like) of complex configurations of attitudes, memories, perceptions, habits, emotional responses and the like. These factors are the seemingly hidden underside of the concepts, ideas, thoughts and such that manifest on the verbal and intellectual levels. When I say I want to get to the point, what I mean is I want to focus on this configuration of factors and how they shape and mold verbal and intellectual behavior. We may operate with ideas solely within the framework they themselves define, but this is only blinds us from the hidden undersides of such frameworks. And these hidden undersides of the frameworks of thought in which we operate are the true essence of these frameworks.
In modern psychology there is the idea of the subconscious, whether it be along the lines of Freud's concept and seen as a place of repressions, or seen in the light of Jung's concepts as a Collective Unconscious, or the variations that abound on such ideas. What I am speaking about here in regard to the hidden underside of ideas are the hidden subjective aspects of the physical personality, but it is not a subconsciousness. I do not like the notion of subconsciousness as is taught in modern psychology because it implies that there are things hidden and inaccessible from the consciousness of individuals. As I will discuss in a later chapter in more detail, this type of alienation is characteristic of Western science. At this point, I would like to redefine the concept of "subconsciousness" in such a way as to show that the hidden undersides of thought are readily available to an individual's awareness. It is not that we have a subconscious that is distinct from our personality, it is that there are aspects and factors of our subjectivity which are not held in our awareness at any given moment.
I will not deny that there is a vast unconscious side to our existence, and as a matter of fact, our unconsciousness is the entirety of Nature that exists outside the ranges of our conscious comprehension. But with regard to ideas about the unconsciousness as understood in modern psychology, in terms of concepts of the subconscious, it is better replaced by the notion of the planes. The planes, astral, mental and so on, are the spaces, or worlds that are the substrate of our personalities, and as such are akin to modern ideas about the subconscious. When seen as planes, these ideas take on a literal reality which is simply not implied in the abstract concepts of the subconscious. The main distinction here is that the planes are a public domain, in a sense (as is Jung's concept of Collective Unconscious), whereas the idea of the subconscious in psychology is thought of mainly as a private domain. The only private region in our psychology is our personalities, and this is only so because we are so little aware of our inherent psychic gifts as I have previously discussed. The public nature of our personalities will be explained in the chapter "A New Concept Of Motion". What I would like to show here is that our personalities form a gestalt organization in which all parts affect and reflect all other parts constantly. But this organization is not subconscious in any sense of being inaccessible to an individual. This gestalt organization is as wide open to scrutiny as any other phenomena if only the proper framework is adapted for its understanding.
And this leads us the concept of the underside of ideas. Another useful metaphor is that an idea or concept, fact or data is but the tip of the iceberg, and that which is hidden below the surface forms the bulk of what is actually going on. Metaphors aside, the fact I am focusing on is that ideas are the carriers, couriers of the point, but not the point itself. The point itself is meaning and intent. Ideas are carriers of meaning, they are carriers of intent. Alternatively, ideas can be thought of as guideposts of meaning and intent. Social convention itself is the unconscious, or conscious in some cases, agreement that certain words, phrases or ideas are to indicate certain states of meaning. In computer terms, an idea is the address location, the meaning is the actual state at that address.
To discuss meaning and the relationship between meaning and ideas is a very complex topic. The forms of ideation used are necessarily subtle and recursive. That is to say we are thinking about thinking, attempting to understand understanding. But it is easy to cloud the issue by focusing on the recursive nature of the issues at hand. This is one example of how contemporary intellectual distinctions obscure the point. It would be easy to get lost in a discussion of Gödel's theorem at this point.
Instead, what I would ask of the reader is to look at how the facts one is aware of fit into a greater configuration of attitudes. For every fact has associated with it particular emotions. And I do not mean this in the sense that facts map to some given emotion following some abstract procedure. Actually the case is the exact opposite. It depends on the individual person, their history and experience. Each person has their own unique emotional connections to any given fact. And most often, each individual has many emotions attached to any given fact. One cannot be fooled by the standardizing or leveling force of social convention, for in spite of these seemingly agreed upon meanings, we each color the elements of our personalities in completely unique fashions.
To clarify the relation between facts and emotions we must introduce a new concept, that of "context". In one respect, the idea of context is the realization that in isolation, facts possess no meaning whatsoever. Facts are only meaningful within some type of context. There are many familiar words related to the concept of "context" as I am using it: synergy, gestalt, attitude, point of view, world-view, paradigm, weltanschauungen and even, as I have stated, subconscious. Each of these concepts sheds a partial light on what I mean by the word "context". I spent time earlier discussing Kuhn's notion of "paradigm", but this idea can be expanded out much more broadly than Kuhn took it. To Thomas Kuhn, a paradigm is a gestalt and holistic frame of meaningful reference by which a scientist understands Nature.
But we need not limit the idea solely to scientists. For if we look at the essential feature of our minds, what we will see is that each and every one of us quite automatically operates within a gestalt frame of reference in our day to day lives. This gestalt frame of reference is essentially our personality (or in occult terms it is our "aura"). Our personality provides a matrix within which we conceptualize the events and facts about us. And on an even broader level, the actual gestalt context that we operate within is the entire frame of our experience. But our experience is always conceptualized and filtered through our mind, thus it is at the level of mind that this gestalt behavior that I am calling a "context" resides. Because of this, as I will discuss below, a context is the fundamental unit of human communication.
It is the contextual organization of our mind that replaces the notion of subconscious. For, at any moment in our awareness, the contextual organization of our mind indicates that most of what our personality is is implied in what is being expressed. But the implied is reflected in the expressed, much in the same fashion that a piece of a hologram contains the whole within it. Again, this is another example of applying the Hermetic Axiom. Our personality as a psychological entity is self-similar at all of its various levels.
Let us explore deeper the contextual organization of our minds. The fact "1+1=2" has a meaning completely different in the context of elementary school mathematics than it does in the context of advanced number theory. Likewise, the same fact has a completely different meaning in the context of, say, a business transaction or the context of cultural anthropology. It is only by explicitly defining our context that we may proceed to understand the meaning of the facts and ideas used to express that context. In our day to day discourse we rarely ever actually define the contexts within which we operate, because we really have no need to do so. We very automatically and instinctively understand each other via contexts. I'll elaborate on this ahead.
Yet, if we accept the proposition that facts have no meaning in themselves and are only meaningful in some type of context, we are still somewhat over simplifying the situation. Take our "1+1=2" example from above. In some sense, there is a meaning to this fact that is common in all of the above mentioned contexts. It is not my intention here to attempt to distill this meaning from these contexts, for this would only result in the creation of a new context which includes the fact "1+1=2" in it. I would be losing the point to get caught up in such a discussion. Instead, I ask the reader to see intuitively, or imaginatively, the four contexts and to see how the notion "1+1=2" has a common meaning within each. The point of such an exercise is to see that contexts are not as rigid definers of cognitive meaning as I may have initially implied. Just because two contexts are different does not mean that a fact cannot possess the same meaning or cognitive value within them. So how is it then that contexts distinguish the meanings of a given fact?
The answer is that different contexts allow a given fact to possess different implications. In essence, a context gives a fact a different shade of meaning. A fact has overtones, so to speak, and different contexts bring out different overtones of meaning of a given fact. The situation is analogous to the way in which middle C sounds differently if played on a piano, a guitar, or a trumpet. Each instrument may be playing the same note, yet each instrument brings out certain overtones that color or shade the actual quality of the tone.
When we realize that different contexts give different shades of meaning to a given fact, then we get a clearer idea of how a context determines the meaning of a particular fact or idea. The context determines the implications of the fact. Or in other words, the context serves to rank the fact within some type of priority scheme. This priority scheme is a complex and highly specific configuration of cognitive (mental) and emotional (astral) components, each interlocked with the other in a highly synergistic fashion. It is this priority scheme that is the gestalt underside of a fact, the hidden underside of the iceberg. The facts only possess meaning in the terms explicated out by this priority scheme. It is a tautological situation: the meaning indicated by the fact implies the context, but the context defines the meaning of the fact. In this sense, all thought is circular and selfcontained (this is a function of what I call the "Möbius geometry" of the ego as discussed in part 2 below).
What is this hidden priority scheme which is the essence of a context, and how does it color and define the meaning of any given fact? On a specific level, this priority scheme is a function of our interests, motivations and purposes, or lack thereof. However, we can take a more general view of these. What we must realize is that, in our minds, we operate on two levels simultaneously. That is, there are two faces to cognitive processes. On the one hand, there is the level of thoughts, words, ideas, facts, or essentially a symbolic or outer level. On the other hand, there is the inner level of meaning and intent. This is essentially the distinction between form and substance. The form side of our mental experience is easily understood, because it is easily displayed by words and pictures, marks etched on paper, sounds pushed through air. The substance side of our mental experience is very ephemeral for it can only be pointed to via the form side of our experience. On another level, the form side of our mental experience is essentially arbitrary, but the substance side is fixed and unique. We could use any symbol we wish to convey the meaning conveyed by the symbol "5", but the meaning of this symbol exists quite independently of the symbol itself. Yet the irony is that the substance can only be understood through the form. We know, we feel the meaning, yet we are always forced to convey the substance of our cognition through some type of formed expression. Again the situation is circular and selfcontained: meaning defines form, but form captures and conveys meaning. Ultimately the two levels are so intimately intertwined that there is only really one level; that of our mental experience. But in terms of the context I am presenting about contexts, the distinction is useful for clarifying my points.
Thus we ask again, what is the priority scheme of meaning that is a context and how does this entity define the meaning of any given fact or set of facts? A context is ultimately an attitude or set of related attitudes that links symbols together in a unique and particular fashion. The general form of such attitudes is simple in the abstract, but extremely diverse and complex in terms of our actual mental and emotional experience. In the abstract, the meaningful substance of any context can be broken down into a simple emotional response of "these things are good, but these things are bad". The actual nature of "goodness" and "badness" is uniquely dependent upon the particular terms of the context. But all contexts possess this simple and fundamental polarity or dichotomy of meaning, of substance.
If we look at human emotional responses, that which is felt to be good is essentially that which we feel an attraction for at some level or another, and that which is bad is that which we feel a repulsion towards on some level or another. Thus a context defines a fact by assigning it some degree of emotional attraction or repulsion (the ultimate origin of this emotional attraction or repulsion is related to the ecological nature of our personalities, and this will be fully discussed in the chapter "A New Concept of Motion"). What this means in practical terms is that ideas and emotions are always intertwined to a vast degree in our day to day subjective behavior, as I have discussed.
It is through contexts that we understand and communicate with each other. Again, this is a very instinctive process, and we are usually unaware that our communication is actually contextual in its nature. Contexts are often implicit frames of reference in our day to day communication. The point here is that it is generally not acknowledged how complex processes of human communication are, and how dependent these are on unspoken factors.
The fact that human communication occurs via contexts is a very difficult concept to address. Again, it is because the process is so close to us that we do not see it for what it is. Also, we cannot discuss this process without discussing the fact that often, in our everyday interpersonal discourse we do not communicate as fully as is possible.
Since the mind operates at a gestalt level, so does our communication. As I've already said, words and ideas are but indicators of meaning. It is the meaning and intent that is the essence of communication, not the words or even the thoughts behind the words, though this intent is (in a sense holographically) reflected in words and thoughts. When we have effectively communicated with another individual, this implies that we have successfully conveyed the gestalt of meaning and intent that is in our mind to another's mind. Effective communication implies that the other person understands the meaning of what we have communicated as we understand that meaning.
Often in our culture though, communication does not work like this. What tends to happen in our culture is that we do not effectively communicate the gestalt that reflects our intent. Instead, we will communicate some particular meaning or intent (via words of course), and the other person will interpret this in terms of the gestalt in their own mind. This is the essence of decontextualization; the other person has taken our communication and not interpreted this in the terms that were conveyed, but instead has interpreted it in terms already present in their mind. This is not communication, it is decontextualization.
In simpler terms, decontextualization is misunderstanding. When we discuss the weather, or a football game, or our car, we don't encounter this problem; these are simple topics with well defined social meanings and the communication is usually effected correctly. But as well, these are shallow levels of communication. When we attempt to discuss more abstract concepts, or when we try to put our personal (emotional) feelings into words, we are dealing with levels of meaning that are not socially well defined. It is in these cases that communication often does not occur and misunderstanding, or decontextualization does. Thus, in our culture, we tend to operate socially at relatively simple levels of mind and emotions simply because our society does not acknowledge or understand the nature of real communication.
Let me illustrate what I am saying here with an example. One example with which I am highly familiar is in the teaching of science in the classroom. This is an example of attempting to communicate abstract concepts that are parts of very specific gestalts of meaning. As I said in the first chapter, science as it is taught today in the universities is already decontextualized from its historical context, but it is further decontextualized as well. Instead of the teacher conveying the concepts so that the meaning of the concepts is understood in a scientific context (i.e. in terms of say, actual laboratory practices), what happens is that the concepts are conveyed in the context of passing examinations. The student does not learn the material as it is meant to be taught, or as it is applied in real life, but memorizes it so as to pass an examination. This is the implicit context within which communication occurs in the classroom. Later, the student has to relearn the concepts in a "real life" situation. Or more precisely, the student has to re-rank the facts in a different priority scheme to apply the facts in "real life" circumstances (I know that this is what happened to me when I got my first real job doing biochemistry). Thus, this is an example of misunderstanding. Incidentally, the media also does the same thing with scientific ideas when it communicates them by abstracting such concepts from their literal usage amongst scientists. There are further complicating factors here as well in the teaching of science. For example, often there are many unspoken metaphysical and philosophical attitudes associated with the teaching of science, and the student instinctively picks these up because of our instinctive nature to communicate gestalts. So what we are really dealing with here is a process of enculturalization.
To summarize what I have said to this point, there are essentially three factors that I have described which are basic components in our psychology: 1. intent or meaning, 2. thoughts and 3. words. Intent creates thought, thought creates words. These are causal relationships. But I have argued that our minds are a gestalt matrix which is expressed as our personality. Thus, meaning, thought and words are all inter-reflecting components of the personality. They are all self-similar. The primary implication of this view is that there is nothing hidden in our psychology. All of our expression at any level, reflects or is self-similar to, all other levels. Thus the surface expressions of words and thoughts directly reveal the inner meaning or intent underneath. But, since we communicate in gestalts to begin with, we are immediately in contact with the inner intent, or one is at least to the extent that one understands real communication. Real communication is the reception of the gestalts of other people's minds and personalities. Real communication involves a chameleon-like ability to mold momentarily to the gestalt of another. I have also discussed that, in general, we operate at a mostly unconscious level in regards to the actual processes of communication, and the result is that much misunderstanding and decontextualization is present in our day to day discourse.
Thus, both the mind and human communication are gestalt and contextual processes. This notion of "context" that I am presenting here is meant to illustrate the contextual nature of these processes. Contexts, in this sense, can be thought of as configurations of meaning that dwell, in some physiological sense, in our central nervous systems, as well as in our essentially nonphysical personalities. At these levels we must realize that we are dealing with an ecological situation. By the processes of human perception and cultural transmission we are imbibed, or infected, from our earliest social experiences with our culture's contextual configurations of meaning. Once such configurations become established in our central nervous system (and this process we may think of as the development of personality and ego--see the discussion below) then any new, socalled "facts" are inserted in these configurations on the basis of how well they reinforce the existing structure. The point here is that we must realize that processes operating at the level of individual personalities, processes of human communication, and processes of human social interaction are extremely intertwined. Such processes and their relationships will be clarified as we proceed throughout this section.
On this level, even the notion of "context" is only
a useful fiction. For our minds are actually composed of
associations of culturally created symbols held together in a
gestalt arrangement by emotional bonds and cognitive content
which are the substantial meaning of the symbols. And such
emotional and symbolic configurations have grown as an ecosystem
within our central nervous systems and are fed by our culture and
our individual experience, and are intimately grounded in the
organization of both our physical bodies and our nonphysical
psyche. Our self-concepts and our communication with others are
intimately interwoven with social definitions. But to truly
appreciate these notions we must delve even deeper into the
organization of our psychological make-up.
We will now begin to discuss the ecological nature of our minds and personalities. What I will do in the following discussion is argue that there are essentially two fundamental factors in our normal waking subjective experience. These are ego and personality. Both are different, though interrelated, processes. To begin this discussion, we ask the question: What is the Ego?
"Ego", "egoism", "egotistical"; these are relatively common words used in our society. Usually these terms are used to indicate that a person is behaving in a snobbish or conceited manner, as for example when we say something like 'He's so egotistical about his looks'. Aside from this common level of usage I would like to discuss what I feel the ego is in terms of being a component of our psychological makeup.
I can only think of two other definitions for the word `ego'. The first is Freud's definition of the ego as being one of the trinity of id, ego, and superego. The other definition is the meaning Charles Leadbeater attributed to this term. Without going into any great detail, I will discuss briefly each of these author's definitions so as to make it clear that my approach to the definition of the ego is delineated from these two.
In Freud's case, his definition can only be understood in terms of his psychological trinity. Freud apparently views our psychological anatomy as consisting of the three main components I listed above: the id, ego and superego.
The id is the part of our psyche containing our most primitive instincts, drives and aggressions. Freud's counter-Victorian mentality no doubt did much to emotionally bias his thinking, but in many respects, his idea of the id, minus the emotional and judgmental connotations, is very similar to the Hindu concept of Kundalini in that the id, like the Kundalini, represents essentially the physiological or biopsychic forces and factors at the root of our psychological makeup.
At the other end of the psychological spectrum, according to Freud, is the superego. This contrasts to the id in that the superego is the part of our psyche molded by essentially societal forces, socially induced repressions, values and morals, concepts of right and wrong and such.
In between these two levels of the psyche lies the ego. The ego, in Freud's scheme, is in some respect the product of , according to him, the conflicting forces of instinct and society. Freud's concept of the ego is essentially our personality, our normal consciousness, but understood in terms of being molded by the often conflicting factors of the id and superego.
This is the essence of Freud's concept of the ego, that it is the essence of the personality or consciousness of an individual and, in some sense, represents the synthesis of which the id is the thesis and the superego the antithesis. Through this trinity, Freud is expressing his perception of the complex relationship between physiological, psychological and sociological factors.
Undoubtedly there is a high degree of validity to Freud's notions in spite of obvious criticisms which it is not my purpose to go into here. Yet there is a high degree of ambiguity to Freud's definition which separates it sharply from the definition I shall shortly present.
Leadbeater's usage of the word "Ego" is as different from Freud's as a computer is different from a brain. When Leadbeater speaks of the Ego (which he always capitalized in accordance with his definition of the word) he is referring to a concept far removed from anything associated with the word, either in common usage or in terms of modern psychology. The closest concept I can think of that is similar to Leadbeater's use of the word Ego is "the soul", except that Leadbeater's definition is much more precise than any meanings usually ascribed to the word "soul". Leadbeater's Ego is the essential spiritual and completely nonphysical essence behind the personality and has little to do with the actual personality other than being its power source and occasionally a source of inspiration. What Freud called the "ego", Leadbeater called the "personality". To get a real understanding of Leadbeater's definition of Ego, one must be generally familiar with many Theosophical notions such as reincarnation, the planes, astral bodies and the like. Since these have all been discussed to some extent already, I will assume the reader to have at least a familiarity with such concepts. Given this basis we can say that Leadbeater's concept of the Ego is that it is the permanently reincarnating entity behind any of its various incarnations. This entity dwells essentially on the buddhic plane and incarnates after periods of dormancy by manifesting itself in bodies of mental, astral and physical matter. The Ego is eternal and is a spark of the divine essence that Leadbeater calls the Monad.
Leadbeater's concept of the Ego contrasts sharply with Freud's concept of ego. Each implies an entirely different metaphysical approach to life and human nature, and each refers to altogether different levels of human existence, though interestingly, both concepts were expounded around the same time historically. Freud's concept of "ego" closely matches the concept of "personality", both as it is commonly used and as Leadbeater used the term "personality". Leadbeater's view of Ego has nothing to do with anything normally experienced in the life of an ordinary individual. Leadbeater's Ego is the "soul" or "higher self" spoken of in occult literature. Aside from the fundamental difference in definition, the other factor that delineates Freud's and Leadbeater's concepts is that Leadbeater's definition is very precise in pinpointing a very specific level of existential/experiential, albeit nonphysical, process whereas, like I said above, Freud's view is very imprecise in this respect.
What I envision the ego to be is modeled after Leadbeater's in the sense that I am thinking of a very specific level of process operating in a very specific fashion. However, the actual definition I shall present is much more in keeping with Freud's concept of the ego as related somehow to personality. The use of the word "ego" gained a widespread social usage only after the popularization of Freud's concepts, and in some respects, my concept of the word is an attempt at a more precise formulation of Freud's concept, minus the associated concepts of id and superego. On the other hand, what I see the ego to be is fundamentally grounded in concepts that are elements of Leadbeater's Theosophical world-view, concepts that Leadbeater himself innovated and defined. So what I am essentially doing here is redefining Freud's concept of the ego in terms of Leadbeater's occult view of things.
To define the ego in occult terms we must begin by realizing that our psyche has an anatomy just as does our physical body. Leadbeater lays out exactly and precisely what this anatomy is. It is our nonphysical anatomy; what I will call the anatomy of our psyche. Here I will use the term psyche to denote generally the entire content of our subjective consciousness: our minds, thoughts, feelings, memories, attitudes, expectations, hopes, intelligence, intuition, our dream experience, fantasies and daydreams, and the whole gamut of relatively rare psychic phenomena that occur within our subjective experience such as telepathy, deja vu etc. and anything else that is a part of our subjective experience.
This definition of the psyche, I should point out, is not mine, but is based upon the definition put forth by the entity Seth in his book The Nature of the Psyche1, a book channeled through Jane Roberts. Seth's concept of psyche is very broad (as we have seen with most of his thinking), including not only what is listed above, but essentially all the rest of Nature, both physical and nonphysical. Seth's view is so broad, that to say there is an anatomy, or any kind of structure, to what he calls the "psyche" is to miss the point he is trying to make. Fortunately this need not concern us here, for I am not trying to make the same points Seth was or even attempt to speak from the levels Seth does. My interest is in defining the ego as a functional unit within our psyche, and at the level I am attempting to conceptualize this there is most definitely structure and anatomy to our psychological makeup.
I am to an extent drawing a strong analogy to the traditional anatomy of the physical body when I talk about the anatomy of the psyche. As the physical body is made up of various organs and functionally related and interrelated parts like livers and skeletons, arms, legs, eyes, and the rest, so too is it with our psyche, which is made up of a mind, a spectrum of emotions, intuitional faculties, dream faculties, perceptive faculties, and also an ego. Fundamentally our ego is an organ within our psyche just as our brain is an organ within our physical body.
To more precisely locate the structure and function of the ego as an organ within our psyche, we must first develop a picture of the overall anatomy of our psyche. This we can accomplish by turning to Leadbeater's Theosophical definitions of the constitution of a human. What we are about to embark upon is a brief discussion of occult anatomy vis-à-vis Leadbeater that is somewhat more involved than the earlier discussion.
According to Leadbeater, the physical body of a human that we perceive with our physical senses is but one of several "bodies" that a human actually possesses. A human possesses other nonphysical bodies not perceivable by our physical senses that are, in a sense, layered over or within the physical body. Leadbeater calls these "vehicles" and these are the means or instruments by which the Ego expresses itself on the planes of Nature other than the physical. The vehicles are the etheric, astral, mental and buddhic bodies. Each of these bodies exists on its own plane and is readily perceivable by one possessing the ability to perceive on that plane, and each serves a definite and obvious function in the overall life of the human. As well, each body has its own characteristic structure in terms of the matter of the plane to which it belongs. Each of these nonphysical vehicles will now be briefly discussed so as to create a picture of the anatomy of the psyche.
According to the claims of clairvoyants2, the etheric body appears as a "body of light" that is a whitish blue in color, has the actual shape and appearance of the physical body, and extends within an inch or so of the physical body. The function of the etheric body is to convey physical sensations into the consciousness of the Ego (and therefore into the part of the Ego's consciousness that is the incarnating personality as well). The physical body does not feel (in the sense of experiencing sensations associated with the skin, as opposed to "feelings" in the emotional sense) nor does the brain directly convey sensations into consciousness. Physical sensations such as hot/cold, balance, pain, texture and the whole gamut of sensory input are conveyed by the physical senses and relayed through the brain and physical nervous system to the etheric body (via the chakras) which then registers the sensations into consciousness. This is why sleeping or anesthetized people do not feel pain or any other physical stimuli, because these conditions indicate that the etheric body has dissociated from the physical body. Subjectively, the etheric body is felt to be the physical sensations associated with the physical body such as those listed above.
The next body is the astral body. The astral body is the body of emotional perception and emotional feeling as distinct from physical sensation. To the clairvoyant, the astral body is seen as an ovoid sphere of neonish light, extending some feet beyond the physical/etheric bodies and including these within its boundaries. The ovoid shape of the astral body is itself a dynamic cloud of swirling, ever changing colors, reflecting the dynamic and relatively transient nature of human emotions (again, see Figure 6). To the nonclairvoyant, the astral body is felt subjectively as one's emotions such as rage or happiness, jealousy, or kindness, or any of the other emotions within the spectrum of human emotional responses.
Next is the mental body. Again the clairvoyant perceives this as roughly an ovoid sphere of an even more subtle and delicate type of light, extending some distance beyond the astral body, and including the three previous bodies within its boundaries. Here images can be seen to form and fade rapidly reflecting the thoughts within the consciousness of the personality. And as well, such images impart a type of sympathetic resonance to the surrounding mental plane matter, creating an identical image in this matter that will behave in a variety of ways depending on the nature of the thought; this is a thought-form, as has been discussed. Colors are present here like in the astral body though they are of a more permanent character, reflecting the more stable nature of habits of thought as opposed to the changes in moment to moment emotions represented in the astral body.
Finally, for all intents and purposes, the deepest and final body in occult anatomy is the Buddhic body. This again appears as an ovoid sphere extending outwards and encompassing the previous bodies. Little color or activity is observed in this body by those who claim to perceive at this level, and this reflects the general level of evolution of the human race as a whole. What I mean by this is that, subjectively, the buddhic body is the seat of what we might call, for lack of a better term, "spiritual awareness". Spiritual awareness is what R. Bucke called "cosmic consciousness" and is the essence of the true mystical experience. Such a faculty is little developed in the ordinary human being who tends to operate primarily at emotional and mental levels.
We have now provided a relatively precise definition of the anatomy of the psyche, and within this context we shall define and localize the functional process of what I consider to be the ego. What I have tried to convey is a picture of the human psyche in which we see a structure or anatomy to the subjective side of ourselves, and this structure is that described above concerning the various nonphysical bodies and the fact that they surround and interpenetrate the physical body.
Granted, the above descriptions are based on clairvoyant observation and testimony and do not in the least appear this way to us in our subjective perceptions. But likewise, to our subjectivity, the Earth (from our native vantage point on its surface) appears flat and the Sun and stars appear to revolve around the Earth. And as we have indirect means of confirming the actual rotation of the Earth about the Sun, without going into outer space to actually see the situation, so it is with the clairvoyant description of the psyche. We do not need to be clairvoyant to verify the truth of such descriptions because indirect, as well as direct means are available for us to verify the truth of this model. I have discussed this point in detail elsewhere so I won't belabor the point here (see the chapters "Occult Means Of Perception" and "The Psychological Value Of Quantum Theory").
Thus, the human psyche is the sum of these nonphysical bodies as they intercept and surround the physical body. In occult terminology, the totality of these nonphysical bodies is called the "aura", this being the emotional, mental and spiritual atmospheres surrounding an individual. Modern occultists are beginning to refer to the various bodies, or auras as "energy fields". I prefer the traditional term "aura". In this discussion though, I will refer to the totality of our nonphysical bodies as our "psyche", since we normally do not perceive auras, but we are constantly aware of our own subjectivity within our psyche.
Conceptually, this view of the human psyche is like an onion with its many layers, except, though the various vehicles seem to be layered, they are not, and they actually interpenetrate each other and fill the same space. To make an analogy, this situation is similar to the way that the space occupied by a wet sponge consists of not only the material of the sponge but as well by the water saturating the sponge, the air that saturates the water and sponge, and the subatomic milieu that saturates the air, water, and sponge.
Unlike the sponge however, the spaces occupied by our psyche are mostly nonphysical, the only physical level is that associated with the physical body. The etheric body is part of the physical plane as occultists describe it, but relative to our normal subjectivity in which we do not objectively perceive etheric matter, we may take the etheric body to be nonphysical as well. Thus, our psyches, according to the Theosophical scheme, exist primarily outside of physical space and time, though they intersect with it via the physical body. This fact that the physical body is the nexus point for our primarily nonphysical psyche is of paramount importance in defining the ego as I see it, a point which we shall shortly discuss in detail. Essentially then, this is our view of the anatomy of the psyche; the various interpenetrating layers of nonphysical bodies (etheric, astral, mental and buddhic) intersecting the physical world through the physical body, each serving a critically important function in our overall subjective behavior.
And with this picture in mind we can now return to our initial concern of determining more precisely exactly what the ego is. When I said the physical body was the nexus point or point of intersection of our nonphysical bodies this was somewhat inaccurate. In actuality, the physical body is the overall framework that grounds our essentially nonphysical psyche to the physical world. The actual point of intersection of our nonphysical psyche with the physical world, this actual point is what I consider to be the ego. Thus, what I will call the ego is a funnel, passageway, tunnel, or channel by which our primarily nonphysical psyche expresses itself in the physical world. The ego is this mechanism or process. In this sense, what our ego is to the anatomy of our psyche is somewhat analogous to what the heart is to the anatomy of the physical body; a valve, a place central to flow, a mechanism that drives circulation.
To even refine this picture somewhat, we can realize that the picture of the anatomy of the psyche drawn out above is lacking in one overridingly important feature; the dynamism of our subjectivity. I alluded to this in mentioning the swirling motion of colors (i.e. dynamic nature of the emotions) within the astral body, but I didn't drive the point home--and now I will. Like our physical bodies, our psyches are in a constant dynamic flux at every level and in every respect. The psyche shares the characteristic with the physical body that, though it has the appearance of a stable form, it is in actuality, a constantly transforming dynamic arrangement at all levels of its structure, a "dissipative structure"3, to use current scientific jargon.
In terms of the static "ovoid spherical" description given above to the astral, mental and buddhic bodies, we can replace this with a dynamic description of something more akin to spherical whirlpools spinning and swirling at any conceivable rate, of colors transforming, blending and bleeding into each other in a dancing interweaving of shapes and textures that subjectively translates into our day to day and moment-by-moment thoughts and feelings, dreams and fantasies, hopes, fears and anxieties; in other words, the whole gamut of our dynamically moving subjective experience.
And just for the record, this dynamic spinning motion that I am attributing to the astral, mental and buddhic bodies is not simply a spinning motion like a toy top. That is, it is not a rotating motion that spins through 360 degrees and returns to its origin. It is a different type of motion that has no actual counterpart in our physical experience, and it could be accurately called a "Möbius spinning". It is a spinning motion that seems to rotate through itself much the way a Möbius strip folds back onto itself. For illustrations of Möbius geometry, see Plate 1. I will clarify this concept and its bearing on the nature of the ego below.
We can now refine our picture of the ego as the nexus point of intersection between our nonphysical psyche and our physical body by realizing that the ego is the Möbius center of the whirlpool of our psyche. The psyche is the whirlpool, or cyclone, tornado, or cesspool, as the case may be, and the actual center of this is what I call the ego, and this center is localized around a particular physical body. The precise physical points of localization in which the ego intercepts the body, according to occult teachings, involve the pineal and pituitary glands found in the brain (this is, I believe, what Descartes was referring to when he spoke of the pineal gland as "the seat of the soul"). The ego is the dynamic, two-way gate which allows in one direction our physical experiences to pass into our nonphysical psyche, and in the other direction the ego passes the products of our nonphysical psyche--imaginings, fantasies, inspirations, thoughts and feelings--into our physical experience.
Now, in terms of our subjective experience, what this means is that the ego is the essential "I" of the physical personality. It is the "I" which on one hand has physical experiences living a physical life in a physical realm, and on the other hand is the "I" who feels emotions, thinks thoughts and produces nonphysical responses to physical experience. The ego is the center of the personality, it is the point of nucleation around which swirls or condenses, as the case may be, the memories and emotions, thoughts and sensations that are the personality.
As I see it, the ego is the dynamic control center of the physical personality. And as such it obviously is the vital and significant part of the physical personality. The ego is a control source in the sense that a semiconductor is. Though unlike a semiconductor which only has two states, the ego has many states. It is a gate, an energy gate, with many potential states, that is, many potential ways to channel the energy that passes through it. As such it determines where the energy goes. Thus, as well as a controller, the ego is an energy source of sorts, being a nexus point for many types of energies. Physical, etheric, astral, mental and buddhic energies impinge together simultaneously on and through the ego, which then gates this energy in accord with internal feedback mechanisms, these being determined at first approximation by the ecosystem of thoughts surrounding the ego (this ecosystem being the personality).
Furthermore, as pointed out above, the geometry of the ego as a nexus point is not a simple circular or spherical opening but a Möbius opening. Let me explain at this point what the concept of Möbius means in mathematical terms, then I will explain how this concept is related to the geometry of the ego.
Now, in mathematics, the word "Möbius" applies to a special type of a surface geometry, which is illustrated in Plate 1. If you take a strip of paper, twist it once, and paste the ends of the strip together, you will obtain a Möbius surface. This type of a surface geometry is in contrast to a regular surface, such as a normal bracelet that has a width to it. In the case of a normal bracelet, there is a definite inner surface and a definite outer surface. If you start at some point on the outer surface of the normal bracelet and trace a line around the circumference, you will end up back at the point from which you started on the outer surface. Likewise with the inner surface. Most importantly, with a normal bracelet, when you trace out the circumference in such a fashion, you will never start on the outer surface and end up on the inner surface or vice versa. Mathematicians call this an "orientable" surface, which means it has two distinct and separate sides; an inner and an outer side.
Now a Möbius surface, which is easily produced as I described in the previous paragraph, is different from an orientable surface. If you make a Möbius strip and attempt to trace the circumference of this surface, you will find that, instead of ending up at the point you started from, you will end up at the point underneath your starting point. To end up at the point from which you started, you will have to trace out two full circumferences. What has happened with the Möbius surface is that we no longer have a distinct inner and outer surface. With the Möbius surface, there is now only one surface. That is, the inner surface becomes continuous with the outer surface. Mathematicians call a Möbius surface a "nonorientable" surface because it does not have a distinct inner and outer surface.
And it is this property of the nonorientability of the Möbius surface that is possessed by our egos. What I am saying here is that the ego, as I am defining it, has a very definite geometry and this is the geometry of the Möbius surface. As the point of connection between the physical and nonphysical components of our overall anatomy, the ego is "pointing in both directions", so to speak. The ego points in the direction of our objective, outer physical experience, but it simultaneously points in the direction of our inner, subjective and nonphysical experience. We can think in dualistic terms that there are two distinct "sides" to our experience, these being the objective and the subjective. But such a view is obviously wrong in some sense because we dwell in both objective and subjective spheres simultaneously. Such a dichotomous view sees the ego as being like the normal bracelet (or orientable surface) as having two distinct sides. What I am saying here is that our ego, as the point of intersection between the physical and nonphysical, is more analogous to the Möbius surface in that it does not have two distinct sides, but only appears to do so. Our subjectivity is continuous with our objective existence, and these are continuous in the same sense that the inner and outer surface of the Möbius strip are. Thus we exist simultaneously in objective and subjective spheres of experience.
Such a Möbius geometry also explains where the self-reflective property of our subjectivity derives from. To help understand the meaning of this statement, liken our ability to be self-reflective to two mirrors set up to mirror each other's reflections. This produces an infinite regress of image within image within image, etc. This property is very much like me thinking about me thinking about me thinking...etc.. The geometry of the ego, the Möbius point that is the ego, is very much like these mirrors. However, a better metaphor might be what one would see if they stood at the center of a sphere whose entire inner surface was a mirror. This property is a result of the Möbius geometry in that we "see" into both objective and subjective directions simultaneously, and this sets up a type of "cognitive or psychological feedback" (for lack of better terms) in our psyche that has essentially the same effect as setting two mirrors face to face. It is this point, or surface of actual feedback that is the literal Möbius space of our moment by moment awareness. It is at this point around which nucleates the elements that make up the personality (these being thought-forms of the astral and mental varieties, as we shall discuss in up-coming chapters).
Now I am aware that I am using this concept of Möbius loosely. I have referred to the "shape" of the ego in quite a few different ways: as a Möbius point, a Möbius surface, a Möbius space, a Möbius spinning motion. Now I believe that there is a definite mathematical and geometrical validity to the Möbius nature of the ego, and in this respect, each of these terms has a definite validity. Yet in major respects, this ideas is also metaphorical. The main use of thinking of the ego as being Möbius in its nature is because the Möbius concept allows us to take something that seems to have two sides (inner and outer surfaces in the case of a strip of paper, or a subjective and an objective side in the case of our psychology) and resolve these two sides into one. That is, the Möbius geometry provides a means of defining a continuous relationship between two apparently opposite things. But again, I want to stress that, even though this idea has a useful and heuristic intellectual value, I am here being quite literal as well. Our ego, the point of intersection between our physical and nonphysical psychological components, is literally, in some sense, Möbius in its geometry.
Thus, it is this geometrical property of the ego that gives rise to our ability to say "I...". Therefore, the Möbius, power/energy, and gate functions of the ego give rise inherently to the main qualities we associate with subjective "I" oriented behavior: 1. self-reflection (the Möbius geometry of the ego), 2. will and self-motivation (the power or energy function of the ego point), and 3. self-control as the ability to focus and channel willpower (the gate function of the ego point).
It should be stressed that this picture described above of a functional ego only applies to a physical personality. A discarnate human who no longer has a physical body, a quite acceptable concept in terms of occult and Theosophical contexts, as well no longer has an ego as I am defining the term. The ego is the interface between the physical body/physical personality and the nonphysical psyche that is behind or within the physical being. When the physical body is permanently gone (i.e. at "death"), then there is no longer an ego as I am defining the ego. An incidental corollary to this is that communication with "dead" people would be difficult or misleading because they no longer operate in terms of having an ego, or central control center. In a "dead" person, this function gets (presumably) transferred to the Ego (Leadbeater's definition), and the Ego entity most likely does not operate in terms easily conceivable to a physical personality.
Likewise, this model of the ego explains the nature of the dream state. Through intentional effort, one can flip inside out, so to speak, so that our normally internal subjective world becomes seemingly external in our perception, and thus the external world of our normal consciousness becomes internal relative to the Möbius point of the ego. Such a flipping inside out is what happens when we dream at night. This is also the mechanism behind any mode of travel in the nonphysical planes ranging from lucid dreams to out-of-body experiences through to the advanced abilities of the trained seer. However, in these cases of lucidity, what has happened is that the continuity between the seeming subjective and objective features of the personality have become so continuous as to be indistinguishable. In a sense, my use of the word ego has a meaning that is analogous to Leadbeater's concept of Ego, in that each of these concepts refers to a more-or-less permanent dynamic center around which revolves a more-or-less stable psychological entity. Leadbeater's Ego may have an existence of millions of years (if such time designations even make sense in a nonphysical context!), whereas the physical personality exists for roughly eighty years, but that is not the point. The idea is that Leadbeater's Ego is the point or center around which forms a stable entity: the incarnating soul with its mental, astral and physical bodies. The ego as I am defining it is the point around which forms the stable entity we think of as the physical personality. Again, we are faced with the situation "As above so below". The ego as I am defining it is a process self-similar to the Ego as Leadbeater defines it.
Since the concept of ego as I am presenting it here is one of the basic elements of our physical personalities, it is in this sense that this definition of the ego is a refinement of Freud's definition. Freud's definition of ego deals essentially with the physical personality and so does my concept of the ego. However, since we have turned to Leadbeater's Theosophical contexts, we no longer need to keep the notions of id and superego since these are easily replaced by more useful and refined concepts.
The id, representing as it does biopsychic functions and forces within the physical personality, is replaced by understanding the feedback generated by and through the ego (as I have defined it) with regard to how the physical and nonphysical structures interact. Such occult notions as kundalini, chakras and the etheric body become useful in this regard. And such notions coupled to modern genetic, medical and psychiatric concepts would give a vast understanding of the essentially physical, biopsychic levels to the human being.
And on the other hand, the idea of superego is replaced by a whole battery of concepts derived from Theosophical teachings relating to thought-forms and how these impact on an individual (as will be discussed in upcoming chapters). Again, the coupling of such notions with current thought in anthropology, sociology and the like give a vast understanding of the global forces that can impact on an individual human being.
Now that we have established this new definition or model of what the ego is, the obvious question is: So what? What good is this new definition? At this point we will begin to explore some of the ramifications of conceptualizing the ego in the terms I have done above.
First, as briefly mentioned above, this model explains at least two classes of psychic phenomena: the nature of the discarnate human, and the dream state, including lucid dreams. These are not trivial matters. From parapsychological and psychological perspectives, this model illustrates the explanatory power of coupling scientific and occult notions (in a geometrical context).
In this regard though, we come to the issue of verification. How can this model of the ego and its relevance to the above parapsychological phenomena be verified by experimental means? Well, for one, the way I realized the essence of this model was by directly perceiving the fact of my own sense of self when under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs (which is discussed in "Biological Perceptions").
However, this method is not effective in all cases even with
the same individual. A second possible line of verification could
be the direct apprehension of this fact via yogic methods. J.J.
van der Leeuw describes his own personal mystical experience in
terms identical to how I describe the process of dream lucidity,
and, it is likely he achieved this experience through meditative
means. His description is:
"...when we succeed in going through our centre of
consciousness and emerge on the other side, we do not so much as
realize a new world around us as a new world within us. We seem
to be on the surface of a sphere having all within ourselves and
yet to be at each point of it simultaneously."4
This "centre of consciousness" of which van der Leeuw speaks is indeed exactly what I am calling the "ego". The ability to pass through this point is a function of the Möbius geometry of the ego. And his metaphor of this experience in terms of spherical geometry is quite similar to those I presented above. I think it is reasonable that metaphors vary somewhat due to the subjective nature of experiencing the ego in this fashion. Yet, again, I want to stress that this ego point I am defining here is exactly our sense of "I-ness" in our normal waking consciousness. The ego obviously possesses strikingly different properties depending upon from which plane it is viewed.
In terms of legitimized science, and especially the psychological sciences in which this discussion is relevant, these hardly amount to verification. But as I pointed out elsewhere, the bottom line to all my discussions in this work is that today we are in the midst of paradigm transformations and scientific revolutions (as defined by Thomas Kuhn), and within the paradigm I am developing here these are quite legitimate means of verification. Thus, we will simply have to wait for those of the old paradigm to die off.
Now, though this model has a usefulness to parapsychologists, does it have any relevance in terms of our normal psychology and everyday subjective experience? Indeed it does. This model provides a means to understand our normal daily personality and the pathological states it can potentially fall into. Let us discuss this point now in some detail.
In this model, the ego is seen to be the control system of physical experience. The ego, my and your sense of "I-ness", is the central control center or manager of the personality. The personality itself is the configuration, arrangement, gestalt of thoughts and emotions, as well as sensations that surround the ego on the physical level. In terms of the nonphysical anatomy of our psyche that is discussed above, our physical personality is the reflection, or projection of our nonphysical psyche into our physical waking experience. Our nonphysical psyche encompasses our physical personality, and our physical personality is a self-similar reflection of our nonphysical psyche. They are related, in one respect, as is an image to its reflection, not geometrically as mirror images, but in the sense of projecting an image into or unto another medium. In this case it is the projecting of the nonphysical psyche into the medium of the physical plane. The personality is the reflection of our psyche that fills our brain and body.
I want it to be perfectly clear that I am distinguishing between the ego and the personality; the ego and the personality are two totally different, though related, phenomena. As I stated in Part 1 of this discussion, the personality as I see it is literally an ecosystem of nonphysical entities, a "persona" that covers or surrounds the ego point. This ecosystem is itself the literal basis of the gestalt nature of our minds. These nonphysical entities, the thoughts and ideas, feelings and such that make up the subjective content of our personality are literally organisms that are symbionts with use5 (this concept is discussed in detail in the chapter "A New Concept Of Motion"). We need ideas and they need us, thus there is a symbiotic relationship. However, we are the host organism, and the thoughts and feelings making up our personality are the symbiont. It is the ego's responsibility to manage this ecosystem which defines its personality.
This situation is highly analogous to the symbionts of our physical bodies. Our skin, intestinal tract, mouth, genitals and other body locations are sites of symbiotic interaction with bacteria. In the same sense that we must eat healthily and wash correctly to maintain this bacterial ecosystem and its functional relationship with our bodies, so too we must do the same with our personalities and the symbiotic, nonphysical organisms that make up our personalities.
Thus we have an imminently practical model of the relationship between self (ego or "I-ness") and personality. This model is practical because it suggests readily the nature of psychological hygiene and psychological disease. Within the context of this model, it becomes apparent what types of pathologies the ego can encounter through an unhealthy relationship to the ecosystem of symbionts that is its personality.
Let us begin the discussion of psychological disease by considering what happens if we do not wash ourselves. When we do not wash ourselves, germs (bacteria) and other physical entities begin to grow out of control all over our body. They make us smelly, soiled and prone to further invasion by other organisms such as fungi and insects (lice, etc.). Under such unhealthy conditions, these organisms literally invade our physical bodies, steal our energy away from us and can eventually kill us if they are not checked.
It is exactly the same case for our psyches if our ego does not keep its personality clean. The ecosystem of our personality is just like the ecosystem that lives on and in our physical body. The thoughts, feelings and attitudes that make up our personality are organisms whose primary intent, just like the bacteria that live on our skin, is to stay alive. These organisms of the personality are not concerned about the ego and its body, only themselves, just the same way that bacteria do not even know that they live on us. If we allow the organisms of the personality to grow unchecked, which they readily will just like bacteria, then the effect is the same as if we don't wash our physical body. The personality will become dirty, smelly and soiled. The natural energy flow functions of the ego will be blocked. The personality will become heavy and weighed down by the accumulations produced by the unchecked multiplication of thoughts and emotions, and this will stifle the ego. The personality will be diseased; it will not operate properly under these conditions. A diseased personality will lead to poor psychological and social behavior. As well, the psychological disease state will eventually spread to the physical body by sympathetic resonance processes.
Now let's take this analogy and put it on a more personal level because the previous paragraph is interesting and all, but highly abstracted from our actual experience. The essential question is: What is this state of psychological disease in terms of our subjective awareness, our actual state of mind day to day? What I am really talking about here is habits, habits of thought and habits of emotion. Since these things are symbionts, it is natural that we should have these habits. I need a name for example (calling me "Don" over and over again is a habit of thought), and I develop characteristic patterns of speech and thought and of emotional reaction to circumstances. The problems come when the habits start to dominate. I smoke too much, or I swear all the time without thinking about it, or I can't control my temper, or I am so caught up in my beliefs that I can't accept new things that are not a part of my beliefs. It is only when these kinds of circumstances begin that the ego is beginning to lose hold of the organisms in the personality. Thus, adverse circumstances come about; I get sick from smoking too much, or I lose friends because of my temper, or I cling to out-moded and obsolete ways because of my belief system. And unless the ego checks these habits and corrects them the damage will accelerate in a negative feedback loop until the ego is almost powerless and at the mercy of the habits it has allowed to accumulate in its personality. At this point, one dies from cancer for having smoked their whole life, or one is a mean and lonely old person with no friends because of an uncontrollable temper, or one has severely retarded other's innovations as a result of being too caught up in their own beliefs.
This stuff is all very real. We don't understand that our egos, our sense of who we are, is different from the ideas that surround this sense. This is a very common teaching in the occult. We think we are the ideas in our mind, and the ideas, given an inch, will go a mile. Our personalities become walls, fortresses and we become overwhelmed by the forces that we are supposed to be managing. The result is that it clogs up the works, clogs up our minds and emotions. Neurosis set in, psychic walls are built, repressions form holding in stagnant and unhealthy energy. We become like a dam ready to burst.
But the energy does come out somehow; we get sick and become physically diseased, or we treat ourselves and others badly, and we have strange dreams when we sleep at night. We allow our habits to become our life way beyond any healthy extent and they use us to perpetuate themselves. And this effect is not only on an individual and personal level but at the social level as well. Whole societies will destroy each other over ideas, beliefs and ways of life. The whole process of society itself is a tribute to the power of thoughts in our life.
In the final analysis it is, of course, an issue of balance. We need ideas and they need us. It is only when we don't keep the ideas in check that they will begin to interfere with the natural courses of human experience.
Notes: Chapter 10
1Roberts, (1977).
2For clairvoyant descriptions of the human nonphysical vehicles see Hall, (1972), Leadbeater, (1980), Karagulla and Kunz, (1989).
3A dissipative structure is, according to Ilya Prigogine: "Unlike equilibrium structures, dissipative structures are maintained in non equilibrium environments in which there is an exchange of matter and/or energy with the outside world" (from Prigogine, 1974).
A dissipative structure is a complex structure that exists in space and time due to the presence of nonequilibrium driving forces. This is a concept from the theory of irreversible thermodynamics. Now, in applying this concept to nonphysical phenomena such as auras, or the nonphysical bodies, we are obviously not dealing with physical space-time structures. However, the use of the term "dissipative structure" in the context of nonphysical realities is meant to imply that nonphysical phenomena are subject to the same laws and processes as are physical nonequilibrium phenomena. That is, the laws of thermodynamics are expected to hold in the nonphysical worlds. Time and irreversible evolution do have meaning in the context of nonphysical realities, as the quote by Leadbeater on page 93 would seem to indicate. How the behavior of nonphysical thermodynamics could be formulated mathematically would be completely dependent upon how the planes of Nature are mathematically modeled in relation to the physical plane. That is, a first requirement for the construction of a thermodynamics of nonphysical phenomena would be to have an accurate model of what time is in the context of nonphysical realities. Unfortunately, this is not an easy issue in any sense.
4van der Leeuw, 1968, page 41.
5This is not a new idea. See the last chapter of Dawkins,
(1976) where he presents the idea of "memes". I am
describing memes here albeit from a more personal or subjective
perspective. The relationship between memes and thought forms is
discussed in detail in the chapter "A New Concept Of
Motion".
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