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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Oct 30, 2016 - 07:47am PT
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^^^^^^^^^^^^
Go-B:
I’m reading about Shamanism right now, and I’m also reading about Jung’s ideas and experiences. Multiple personality disorders (dissociation) tends to be one of the center events under discussion from both sides, although shamans talk refer to it as a loss of soul.
There is little doubt to me that we are compilations of the many facets of personality. Jung (and Freud) called these complexes and archetypes, and Jung argued that a complex (or more) can gain energy, will, and autonomy beyond what the ego (an assumed identity) knows. A being becomes unbalanced and loses wholeness. Jung’s objective was self-realization, wholeness, and ways for the conscious to know and live with the unconscious in an integrated fashion. (Shamans talk in terms of spirits, but Jung thought that it was basically the same thing—just different worldviews, perhaps not unlike Ward’s, Mark’s, and HFCS’s above.) A shaman uses rituals, trance, and familiarity to navigate a mystical participation with Nature (where the inside is merged with the outside) through images, dreams, symbols, and myth with a tribe member who has lost his or her soul.
We seem to take for granted that we are a single personality (a unified consciousness) that is in control and knowing of itself. Anyone who looks closely at his- or herself over time can hardly come to those conclusions, IMO. One can hardly know one’s own mind.
PSP, you’d be interested to note Jung wrote in one of his books: “Thoughts are like animals in the forest or people in a room or birds in the air. If you see people in a room, you would not think you made those people or that you were responsible for them.” (Not bad for a German psychologist, huh?)
Werner, you’re pretty funny. We have two garages. The second is a multi-purpose garage. It’s also an art studio. Here is a piece that I’m just now starting, and the mask is something my wife has just finished up.
My best regards, MH2, and Jgill.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Oct 30, 2016 - 09:50am PT
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Oct 30, 2016 - 11:13am PT
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Neat mask, Mike. Happy Halloween all!
We've talked about multiple personality syndrome before. I'm curious if there are reports of those so afflicted engaging in meditation, and, if so, if anything was revealed in the process. It seems to me that a study of this condition might provide insight into the topic of this eternal thread. MPD appears to reinforce the Zen position that one's "I" is an artifice.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 30, 2016 - 02:28pm PT
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i-b-goB
Social climber
Wise Acres
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Oct 30, 2016 - 02:57pm PT
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Hey MikeL,
Proverbs 16:32 He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty,
And he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city.
Luke 8:26 Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. 27 And when He came out onto the land, He was met by a man from the city who was possessed with demons; and who had not put on any clothing for a long time, and was not living in a house, but in the tombs. 28 Seeing Jesus, he cried out and fell before Him, and said in a loud voice, “What business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg You, do not torment me.” 29 For He had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For it had seized him many times; and he was bound with chains and shackles and kept under guard, and yet he would break his bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert. 30 And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. 31 They were imploring Him not to command them to go away into the abyss.
32 Now there was a herd of many swine feeding there on the mountain; and the demons implored Him to permit them to enter the swine. And He gave them permission. 33 And the demons came out of the man and entered the swine; and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.
34 When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they ran away and reported it in the city and out in the country. 35 The people went out to see what had happened; and they came to Jesus, and found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting down at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind; and they became frightened. 36 Those who had seen it reported to them how the man who was demon-possessed had been made well. 37 And all the people of the country of the Gerasenes and the surrounding district asked Him to leave them, for they were gripped with great fear; and He got into a boat and returned. 38 But the man from whom the demons had gone out was begging Him that he might accompany Him; but He sent him away, saying, 39 “Return to your house and describe what great things God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him.
Jesus cast out demons of many kind but all those under their influence were not in controll or at peace!
http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Jesus-Casting-Out-Demons
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 30, 2016 - 08:10pm PT
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Is it true that Multiple Personality Disorder is caused by demons?
Has exorcism worked in any such cases?
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 30, 2016 - 08:14pm PT
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That's better. Now we are not talking about the material footprint believed to be associated to mind.
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i-b-goB
Social climber
Wise Acres
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Oct 30, 2016 - 08:20pm PT
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John 8:34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. 35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. 36 So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 30, 2016 - 09:16pm PT
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Speaking of mental states (like open awareness), it remains an open question whether a person under a hypnotic spell will obey an order that conflicts with their moral code.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Oct 31, 2016 - 07:53am PT
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Jgill:
Hmmm, you might try this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/magazine/26zen-t.html from 2009’s New York Times Magazine.
I’m sorry to say that I don’t think there are answers to these questions. Just various narratives, theories, and viewpoints. I don’t think there can be answers, either. Things are just too complicated for us to understand what appears to be a great intelligence (call it what you will, even “evolution”) underlying everything. Go figure.
I think you have to play with everything, and I mean “play” as in being “playful.” Play until what you’re doing is no longer play. Then put that down and go on to playing with something else.
We are, I’d say, something akin to a “strange attractor.” Weird things are being drawn to us all the time. What a strange life we all find ourselves in. Our reality is the ultimate Rorschach Test. What you believe you see is what you are predisposed to see. But there’s really nothing solid or meaningful here / there. It just looks like it.
Hope you enjoy this article. It provided more questions than answers when I stumbled across it. I guess that’s how I like things.
I think most every really good psychoanalyst that I came in contact with over the years were all shamans.
I also think there can hardly be anything more rewarding and fulfilling than work . . . just plain work. It’s something one can sink his or her soul into.
Be well.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 31, 2016 - 07:56am PT
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What is "Work?"
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 31, 2016 - 07:59am PT
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Bottom line.
Mind is never unconscious, never.
Once the gross materialist mental speculators actually understand consciousness itself then they can really move forward.
Until then they will remain ultimately clueless.
That is your "work" to do ........
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Oct 31, 2016 - 08:10am PT
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Jgill:
BTW, I have heard that exorcism *has worked* with folks diagnosed with MPD, but I’ve heard that those folks tended to fit within more primitive, dogma-and-creed points of views. We live in a more pluralistic society, so a traditional shaman or exorcist might be more akin to a psychologist or psychotherapist these days. What used to be demons and spirits stealing our souls in olden times have been replaced by alienation, anomie, estrangement, depression, hysteria, etc. in today’s modern times.
We can thank Marx, Veblen, Weber, even Nietzsche, and others for showing what Pogo presented to us: “We have met the enemy, and it is us.” In these regards, the witch doctor or the medicine man or the shaman attend to the same issues: being lost, soulless, and not relating in an integrative way to our social environments (however you want to define “environments”).
What would it have taken to exorcise dysfunctional points of view from groups of people in their time? What does it require to be a full human being? (Oh-oh. We’re off the reservation again.)
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 31, 2016 - 10:16am PT
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What does it require to be a full human being?
No shortage of answers, there. Start with having your genes sequenced, if you are in any doubt.
I would also like to say that the ability to deceive other people is part of being a full human. But even more important is an ability to detect deception from other people.
In the movie Ex Machina all the main characters engage in deception, but curiously don't anticipate it very well in others.
That movie asks the question whether a person or machine really means what they say or otherwise express, or is just pretending.
Your brain may be creating the feeling that you exist. Does it really mean it, or is it just pretending as a way to get you to produce another brain with similar genes?
The movie The Usual Suspects has that line about the Devil's greatest trick was convincing the world he didn't exist. A greater trick would be convincing you that you exist.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 31, 2016 - 04:21pm PT
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"How could he have spent his life cultivating unity of body and mind, oneness with all beings and the ability to apprehend reality directly, unmediated by thoughts or concepts or what Zen considered the arch delusion of 'the self' — only to be haunted by the feeling that he lacked the most basic unity of all?"
Interesting article, Mike. Thanks for the link. I would not have thought such internal conflicts would exist in a dedicated Zen master. Can the abandonment of one's "I" in meditative practices lead to a kind of internal invisibility rather than a sense of oneness? If one has psychological issues is it always advisable to seek enlightenment in this way?
Is it possible that JL and others, whose commentaries revolve about the lack of material substance in what are normally seen as physical objects, are projecting a quality of their own existence? When does "oneness" lead to emptiness? I hope this is not the case. It probably isn't.
Thanks to those few of you who are steering this conversation into map-less territory.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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^^^^^
John,
Who doesn’t have psychological issues?
It’s not my sense in spiritual practices that one abandons the “I,” but rather puts it into perspective. Abandoning the “I” would seem to me to present a hierarchical view: “there are things that are superior and paramount, and there are other things that are subordinate.” Opposed to a hierarchical view could be a more integrative view—a view that emphasizes completeness rather than perfection. So, there is the “I,” and then there is a whole bunch of other stuff that competes with the ego and completes it (dynamically, in constant tension).
Isn’t the brain supposed to be holographical? Aren’t some functions working with data from other functions located in other parts of the brain? Isn’t that what has made brain mapping difficult? Don’t we have a left and right hemisphere that work together? Don’t we have a consciousness and an unconsciousness that seem to communicate somewhat invisibly and in a language other than spoken fragments we hear in our heads? Isn’t there supposed to be a triune brain structure that references a primitive set of instincts, a a more evolved limbic system of (emotional and almost unperceived) hormonal chemistry, and in relatively modern parts that effect discursive calculative strategizing? Isn’t the brain particularly plastic, with many augmenting redundancies? Isn’t part of cognition outside of the brain (in physical aids, in memory in muscles)? If there really is an ego, where is it and what is it? Am I and my consciousness a committee / plurality of personalities, urges, and self-interested preferences, or am a One, a unified consciousness, a pure subjectivity? Am I forever unfolding—maybe even a surprise to myself?
There are so many unexplained and unperceived things about “me.”
I’m sort of with Jung. I’m open to fuller integrations of all the facets that I can sense in this thing I call (my) life. But, it includes not just me, not just this inner space / experience I call “mind.” It’s all that other so-called objective stuff outside of “me” and “mind.” That includes: democrat, republican, sociology, physics, religion, science, art, and everything and everyone who is not of this mind right here and right now. Integrative seems to mean allowing everything to just be; it means using the word “and” far more than the word “but”; letting go (talking my hands off the wheel a bit); trying to hear more than my own thoughts and words; and probably saying “I don’t know” a lot.
Emptiness tends to describe much of what I just wrote here; . . . and, yeah, emptiness also seems to be trap that I fall into often. Everything seems to be a trap.
Geez, . . . being awake seems really hard to do. It shouldn’t be, you know?
(“Work” is full engagement with reality, MH2--until it happens.)
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WBraun
climber
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It's completely impossible to abandon the "I".
It's never ever been done nor can it be done.
The "I" is the individual living entity itself.
The gross materialists should make an honest attempt to actually understand the "I" and consciousness before anything.
This is the actual "root" of life itself ......
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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I read the article Mike; really interesting and shows how fascinating and variegated things are. As Pema Chodron so succinctly says "you start where you are". But then again truly seeing where you are is usually quite elusive.
Fascinating for the ZM to expose to us and himself how seriously damaged his childhood was and yet how he excelled in sports and academics all the way to a PHD and professorship and then on to ZM. And then on to psycho therapy to look again in a different way and to seemingly come out somewhat more available or sensitive today.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Apropos of this discussion, I had an unusual experience this morning as I lay in bed on my back with no pillow under my head. I do this for an hour or so before arising. Normally I drift in and out of consciousness, sometimes slipping into a hypnagogic state from which I used to have experiences in the Art of Dreaming. Today I seemed to transition abruptly into a strange room, perhaps in a foreign land, and most remarkably into another personality.
We each have a feeling of how we "fit into" our lives and our environment, although strangely ineffable. We know it's "us" and are familiar with our "I". So it was startling to suddenly shift with no warning into another personality. And to make matters worse I felt I was actually being pulled into another being. With an effort I resisted and found myself "myself" again, but with a memory of the experience.
Later I went to the park and did a few pull-ups and felt more centered in my current psyche!
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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I wonder what the other personality felt? That they were being possessed by a demon? Good of you to pull back.
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