THE
COGNITIVE MODE INHERENT IN
PRE-OEDIPAL PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
By
Gertrud B. Ujhely, Ph. D., R.
N.
from the C. G. Jung Training
Center, New York, N. Y.
1980
The case loads of
contemporary psychotherapists consist primarily of persons suffering from
so-called pre-oedipal psychopathology:
borderline syndromes, schizoid phenomena or narcissistic character
disorders. Current psychoanalytic
literature and professional meetings of psychotherapists from all denominations
are devoted to efforts at better understanding these disturbances and finding
ways of more effective therapeutic intervention.
As is known by those who
have studied philosophy or who at least have read Hillman’s seminal work Emotion (l), Aristotle said that "in
order to understand some things completely one must know 1. the material of which they are made, 2.
the form or law of their structure,
3. the active agent or
agency that effected the imposition of the form upon the matter, and 4.
the final purpose or end that the effect is adapted to serve." (2) In other words, one must know their
material, formal, efficient and final causes.
A great deal of work has
been done on describing the formal cause of pre-oedipal psychopathology.
Although there is no agreement among the authors as to differential diagnosis
and psychodynamics of these conditions, certain overall outlines of the formal
cause are agreed upon.
Persons suffering from pre-oedipal psychopathology generally are able to function quite well in their work life and in interpersonal relations which are not too intimate, and yet they are prey to attacks of intense oral rage which is directed against others or themselves. Their object relationships vacillate between superficiality and clinging dependency and manipulative demandingness. They have little tolerance for stress and are hypersensitive to criticism. They exhibit an outward calm, while inwardly feeling chaotic and inferior, especially with respect to persons in authority. They tend to suffer from any combination of two or more neurotic, seemingly psychotic, psychosomatic or sociopathic symptoms and they tend to complain of diffuse free-floating anxiety, of a pervasive sense of emptiness and of existential despair or of a vague feeling that things are not as they should be with them.
Although there may be
transitory experiences of depersonalization and estrangement, especially within
the context of the transference, their reality sense is not really impaired, nor
does their condition deteriorate in the long run. But there is a certain characteristic
ego weakness in all persons suffering from pre-oedipal psychopathology and a
lack of superego integration, both of which vary with the developmental level
they have been able to achieve. Although parts of the ego may have reached
adulthood, there is a fluidity of the ego and a permeability of its boundaries
to archaic self and object representations with resulting identity diffusion,
occasional regression to primary process thinking and an inability to sublimate
impulses. These phenomena are
characteristically dealt with by means of splitting into opposites, projective
identification, acting out, denial, avoidance and
shallowness.
Also characteristic for
persons suffering from pre-oedipal psychopathology is a lack of object constancy
which goes hand in hand with the phenomenology described above. As a result
objects are related to as parts which can be manipulated in accordance with need
states and which are both idealized and devalued. The image of absent objects
often cannot be evoked, which results in separation anxiety and the inability to
mourn. At the basis of the
pathology is an inability to integrate aggressive and libidinal drives, or, in
light of object relations theory, to unify the positive and negative aspects of
object and self. (3)
The efficient cause is
attributed to sociocultural, intrafamilial and interpersonal factors, such as
the breaking up of not only the extended but also the nuclear family,
uncertainty of the future, mobility, affluence and the breaking down of
traditional religious and social values. (4) It has been attributed to developmental
lags on the part of the parents, especially separation anxiety on the part of
the mother. (5) Insufficiently good
mothering results in a surplus of aggression in the patient himself which in
turn causes the splitting into opposites which is so characteristic for
pre-oedipal psychopathology. (6)
The material cause consists of the overwhelming anxiety which is triggered by the experience of envisioned or actual object loss and or the threat of constitutional or induced rage which could destroy the other or oneself. (7) Overwhelming anxiety can also be caused by shame connected with either being the center of attention or with not being seen and hence not existing at all. (8) It can also be caused by the threat of the other’s or one’s own envy. (9) The attempt to ward off this anxiety by splitting or by withdrawing cathexes from one's ego boundaries (10) creates the uncanny affect and reality states characteristic for pre-oedipal psychopathology and a particular kind of cognitive experience. This cognitive experience is equivalent to Gebser's magical structure of consciousness (11), Jung's participation mystique and Piaget's realism. (12)
What about the final
cause? Some authors, in particular
Balint (l3) and Kohut (l4) see the symptomatology of pre-oedipal conditions as
an attempt on the part of the patient to reconnect with the point where his
developmental processes have gone awry, so that a new, corrective development
can be initiated. All authors agree that the symptoms of ego splitting, feelings of generalized uneasiness and
emptiness, and the difficulties in coping and self actualization serve, though not effectively, to preserve the
person from disintegrating anxiety and rage.
To my knowledge, none of the
authors, including Jungian writers such as Perry (l5), go beyond the idea of
magical wish fulfillment in light of almost cosmic helplessness. They do not go
beyond the idea of self-preservation or, at most, self-renewal in their search
for a final cause of pre-oedipal psychopathology. And yet, one of Jung's
greatest contributions to the knowledge of the psyche was his repeated assertion
that psychological and sometimes psychopathological phenomena have a final
cause, that is, that they have a
purpose and a meaning which go well beyond the preservation of the
ego.
It is true that pre-oedipal
symptomatology and its concomitant cognitive structure represent an arrest of
psychological development on a level prior to that required of us in our
complicated Western world. To look at this syndrome as a phase which must be
overcome and relegated to repression, however, is doing injustice to a layer of
the psyche which is crucial to a new psychic totality toward which mankind seems
to be moving: that of individuation
in the Jungian sense, or that of an integral structure of consciousness
which Gebser foresees. Jaynes
too attributes to this layer of the psyche, he calls it the bicameral mind (16), a value of its own
and also a purpose which goes beyond that of the
individual.
Given that there are so many
persons nowadays who function from the vantage point of primary process, by
whatever name one wishes to call it, the age-old yet ever new question of
Parsifal, "To what purpose is your ailment?" is not too farfetched. On the way toward attempting some
tentative answers to the above question we must, first, define causa finalis.
From a plethora of
statements describing the term (17)
I have arrived at the following operational
definition:
1. The final cause is
determined by its essence (i. e., the causa formalis) which prescribes what a
thing is to be.
2. Implied in the term final
cause is a sense of forward direction, a goal, a desired
purpose.
3. This goal can also be
seen as the last stage of a developmental process.
4. The final cause leads
toward completion of an inherent pattern (telos) and thus creates and perfects a
whole.
5. The force moving the
pattern toward its goal, although
permeating the phenomena, goes beyond them across space and time and has
foreknowledge of what is to be. It
is connected with God or the Gods.
6. There is an ulterior
purpose to this development which is for the Good, hence contains
value.
7. It is this value which
gives justification and meaning to the forward process and which answers the
question "why," "for the sake of what" it is happening.
***************
Let us now, out of this
definition of the final cause, try to formulate questions to which the remainder
of this paper will address itself.
1. What is the essence (causa formalis) of the cognitive mode of pre-oedipal
psychopathology?
2 What is the aim of this cognitive
mode?
3. Of what developmental
process is it the last stage?
4. What
strands does it contribute to the pattern of wholeness?
5. What forces outside the
phenomena are directing their course?
6.
What good or value is inherent in the cognitive mode of pre-oedipal
conditions?
7. What,
therefore, is the meaning of the prevalent pre-oedipal symptomatology? For the
sake of what is it occurring?
***************
First, then, to the
question: What is the essence of the cognitive mode of
pre-oedipal psychopathology?
The cognitive mode of
borderline conditions, schizoid phenomena and of narcissistic character
disorders, although it differs in severity and although it is usually
concomitant with the cognitive mode of mental or ego consciousness, corresponds
to the reality plane of primary process, variously called the magical structure of consciousness, participation mystique or realism. By whatever name one might call
it (and I shall use primarily Gebser's term), it is none else but the
instinctive, dynamic, affective pole of the archetypal psyche (18) and follows
its own natural laws. In the
so-called primitive and in the child the magical structure coincides with the
degree of awareness that can be expected and thus is considered to have
legitimate validity. In the contemporary Western adult it is not considered to
be a legitimate aspect of the conscious personality, the ego. At best it is allowed to plague the ego
as a phenomenon of the unconscious, in the form of shadow, animus, anima or
Self, or of a persistent complex from the past.
The magical structure of
consciousness is analogous to the mythical son of the mother, who is always at
the mercy of her recalling him. It is equivalent to the realm of the servants of
the Great Mother: the realm of the cabiroi, the dactyls, the tom thumb and the
dwarfs. (19) Just as depicted by
these figures the person on the magical level of consciousness is identified
with the active pole of being in which one must always be doing (i. e., making something), in which one is
concerned with power (might) and in
which one is prey to or attempts to exert magic. (20) On this level of consciousness the worth
of one's being is measured by the amount and quality of one's performance:
success makes one a good person while failure annihilates one's personal worth.
Thus, the outcome of any action does not only represent success or failure,
winning or losing, but the entire self is at stake. Criticism of one's actions
therefore always implies criticism of one's personhood on this level of
consciousness, which makes it very difficult to offer up one's work or
activities to the scrutiny of others.
This in turn lessens the possibility for exchange, learning and
development, which is one of the reasons for the tenacity of pre-oedipal
states.
One also guards oneself from
criticizing the other's actions for fear of arousing a sense of loss of worth in
him.* (*Wherever used in this
paper, the use of the masculine, i. e., “him,” “his,” etc., shall refer equally to “her,” “hers,”
etc.) And so one's displeasure with
the other mounts, until it erupts eventually as pure affect and thus, as
self-fulfilling prophecy, disrupts the relationship with
him.
Not to be able to act is tantamount to being weak and powerless and thus cause for shame. To be the recipient of another's act, whether one of kindness or hostility, is seen as being passive and hence being reprehensible. Receiving forces one into reciprocating in kind: "an eye for an eye," as specified by the talionic law.
There is one exception: in
the benevolent presence of a feminine being, whether it be the mother, the woman
lover or the man's anima, or one's psychotherapist in any one of these
manifestations, a person on the magical level of consciousness can, for brief
moments, allow himself to be loved for his essence and not only for what he can
do. Such experiences of being
valued intrinsically are rare however for such a person. And so he must spend
most of his time in being active and, just like the little creatures of the
mother realm, in guarding and defending his still undeveloped, vulnerable
central treasure, the God within in statu
nascendi, his inner worth, in the hope that if he really proves
himself, he will be allowed to sink
into the bliss of pure being for all eternity.
Although there is a great
deal of suffering on this level of consciousness, it happens against one's
will. Since suffering has to do
with being passive, with having to be receptive to pain and with being under
someone’s or something else's power, it is seen as not legitimate and as
threatening to one's autonomy. The same goes for receptivity to any kind of
experiencing. Without allowing for suffering and experiencing, however, learning
and unfolding of the deeper central value cannot occur. Perhaps this is why these mythological
figures remain as small as they are.
The magical, pre-oedipal
structure of consciousness corresponds to a state of emergence into unity of
being out of a state of identity with nature and nonbeing. (21) The "not as yet centered ego is
dissipated over the world of manifestations" (22) and consciousness is as yet located in
the world and not in oneself. (23)
The person residing on that plane of consciousness is still very much in
touch with the souls of animals and plants, and even of things. He can
communicate with them in their language and experiences their joys and
sufferings as if they were his own.
He is also in touch with the still nature-close archetypal dimension of
human souls, but not with the human, conscious aspect of their
personalities. And so plants,
animals and things are more akin to,
and are perceived as being more human, by someone living on the magical
level of consciousness, than are real human beings. For the latter are perceived as powers
which must be catered to or warded off.
He does not perceive himself as fully human either, nor does he expect
others to perceive him as such.
And yet there is a beginning
awareness of self, a sense of one's existence as a separate being, which is
coupled with terror of annihilation and ensuing return to nothingness. Existence, oneness of self as it emerges
out of a state of identity with the environment, can prevail, but only in tandem with a
benevolent significant other.
Unconditional affirmation by this other is experienced as necessary for
being; opposition, or, worse, withdrawal on the other's part amounts to threat
of annihilation of self and resultant nothingness.
Although there is awareness of the objective
difference between self and other, there is lack of differentiation concerning
the subjectivity of each. The
person on the magical level of consciousness literally lives in a world of
subjectivity, of being subject to and subjected to powers. There is no
connection from one human being to another, but everyone and everything is seen
as existing in relation to oneself: either as benevolent or malicious. That of which the other is least aware
of in himself, i. e., his shadow side and archetypal dimension, exerts a
powerful effect on the person residing on the magical level of consciousness and
permeates his whole being. In self
defense he either attempts to deny the other's subjectivity and thus gain the
upper hand, or, if this is impossible, he at least blames the other for
victimizing him with it.
This phenomenon of
heightened subjectivity is due to the fact that in the magical world there is no
sense of three-dimensionality and thus no perspective toward either self or
other. It is a two-dimensional
world in which self and other are bound together by mutual polarity bonds which
hold each of the partners in their grip.
This mutual bondage is one of complementarity, analogous to the
complementarity of archetypes, with only one pole lodged in each person. Thus, when one person feels or acts as a
child, for instance, the mother in the other is mobilized. Yet, at the same time the child in the
other becomes active and looks for the mother in the first. What is impossible for a person residing
on the magical level of consciousness is to be a mother for his own child or a
child for his own mother. Hence one
needs and wishes for the other to complement one's unipolar identity and at the
same time fears to be drawn into having
to complement that of the other.
Similarly there is a
complementarity in needs and feeling tones between self and other: if the other is suffering one feels a
demand put on oneself to be supportive, while at the same time a desire to be
cruel to him is also evoked. One
feels oneself forced to perform the demanded action, and must deny to oneself
the experience of wanting to resist it, for fear of alienating the other to whom
one is tied.
And so one experiences
oneself at all times as responsible for or at least to the other, but also
experiences the other as responsible to and for oneself. The other's suffering is experienced as
being caused by oneself. At least
one might have prevented it and therefore it behooves one to do something about
the other's suffering. If the other
is angry again the cause must be found in oneself. Yet, similarly the other is expected to
alleviate one's own suffering and anger, since he is experienced as being their
cause. This phenomenon is similar to what Jung has described about a tribe which
lived in participation mystique with one another
and in which one group provided certain foods to the other group and vice versa,
but in which neither group could conceive of providing itself with the foods.
(24) At most one can, as described
in the manifestation of splitting, flip from one opposite pole into the other,
but no connection between the two is seen and one of the poles, depending on
one's identification, is considered as a "not me" state.
The polarity bonds thus
entail a sense of compulsion, of being forced into a role without having any
choice. One has, in fact, no
choice, as long as one archetypal pole is lodged in the other and one's own need
makes one dependent on the other and as long as the other's need forces one to
be tied to him.
Actually need is not
experienced as such on the magical level of consciousness, for that would imply
weakness which is unacceptable both in oneself and the other. What is experienced is a demand, or,
more, a command for action. (25)
Non-compliance is tantamount to non-existence. For who does not comply is not who he
ought to be; and any negation of the act implies negation of the person who does
not perform the act. But also, as
we have seen, being depends on validation and unconditional affirmation by the
significant other, hence the existence of both is necessary and dislike or
criticism of either is dangerous to the survival of both.
What one seeks from the
other and is willing to return in kind is love. But love has a particular meaning on the
magical level of consciousness. It
means self sacrifice. Unless the
other sacrifices his needs to prove his love, one continually doubts his
sincerity. But also, in order to
prove one's own love for the other one must sacrifice one's supreme value to
him, which engenders rage on the part of the Self and guilt for being
enraged.
More specifically: self-sacrificing love entails a request
from the other that one be the most important aspect of the other’s life, that
one be available whenever the other needs him and that one not burden the other
with his own needs. The other
is, of course, prepared to do the same for
oneself. But what happens if the
other fails to consider the first as of paramount importance, or if he changes
his mind, or if he disappears for a while?
Then all the parts of oneself which one has discarded in favor of the
other rear their ugly heads. There
emerges doubt of the other's sincerity.
And there emerges self accusation for having made the wrong choice in the
other and thus being a fool and serving as the laughing stock of the community.
There is no memory left of the former bliss of mutual self-sacrificing love, nor
of the bliss of having been the center of attention of the other. What one is left with is hate of the
other and self hate and terror of nonbeing through being cut off from the other
by one's own destructiveness.
Much as one wants to be free
from bondage and thus free to choose, one finds oneself constantly chosen
without having asked for it, just
as the people of Israel were chosen by Jehovah without having had any say in the
matter. One chafes against fate
which leaves one no choice of parents and siblings and other relatives. And, although originally one may have
chosen one's mate, before too long one finds oneself in a bond of obligation to
him.
Although one wants to be free to choose,
one cannot really make a choice between alternatives, for two reasons. First, making the wrong choice would
reflect on one's personal worth and be cause for shame and expulsion from the
good graces of the other. Secondly,
and I think that this is the crucial factor, in making a choice one must admit
to the existence of duality. But
the concept of two is intolerable to a person operating from the vantage point
of magical consciousness. Only one
can exist on this level, and twoness or multiplicity must be subordinated to the
one. Conflict and strife can never
be resolved by allowing both to exist
and arriving at a possible third solution. Magical consciousness implies one or the other. (26) Since both are necessary for the
survival of the one, as we have seen, one cannot conceive of a resolution of the
conflict nor even recognize that conflicts are necessary to human
growth.
Since there is no capacity
for choice, there is also no capacity for commitment on the magical level of
consciousness, neither to the
other, nor to one's work, nor to an idea. There is only a network of binding
obligations in which one finds oneself enslaved. No wonder that a person residing on the
magical level of consciousness suffers from constant resentment against his
existential state and against those whom he experiences as keeping him locked
into it.
This resentment is coupled with a pervasive
sense of guilt and fear. One feels
guilty about not quite being able to be what the other wants one to be. One feels guilty about the affect which
arises in one's depth in defiance against the other's demands for
complementarity to him. And one
feels guilty for not being able to stand for one's authenticity and for needing
the other's affirmation and guidance of one's as yet so weak and childlike
Self. Also, one is afraid of one's
destructive power and of the other's potential to retaliate. Most of all one is afraid of the ever
lurking threat of loss of other and thus disappearance of
oneself.
And so the encounter with
the other is suffused with color tones of affect switching from blissful love to
ice cold non-caring; from the impotent rage of the victim to murderous
suspiciousness, from peaceful togetherness to the anticipation of impending
doom. The more one tries to
extricate oneself from one's bondage, the tighter the knot. One remains a particle in a force field
which is colored by affect and by something eerie and numinous, a force field in
which one experiences neither oneself nor the other as human, but rather as
something which oscillates from the abominable to the sublime and back
again. The middle, neutral parts of
the spectrum do not exist in this force field in which either oneself or the
other is felt to be a mere point or as filling all available space. To use the
term projection for this phenomenon would be wrong, for that would imply
exteriorization of something that lies within the personality. It resembles rather the motions
iron particles have to undergo
under the influence of a magnet. It
also resembles the power exerted on free or unstable valences to combine with
one another.
In this field reaction with
the other there is no such thing as cause and effect. Each action is simultaneous, i. e.,
synchronistic, with each reaction.
Thus I may feel offended by your withdrawal from me, but you withdraw because you sense my
being offended by you.
Any new encounter or
alteration of a previous order which requires adaptation is seen as a potential
threat to one's security and status quo of power. Hence it endangers the central, still vulnerable core for whose sake
one's power stance exists in the first place. To adapt is seen as being weak and
giving way and thus exposing the God's vulnerability to the other's
power.
Similarly, since the other
and oneself arc only dimly perceived in their suchness, constancy provides for
at least some stable points of orientation and thus for some security. Hence a person functioning out of the
magical structure of consciousness tends to guide himself not by the ever
changing world of phenomena, but rather by laws, regulations and rules. If these are broken, he finds himself
resubmerged in the chaos of nonbeing from which his awareness has barely
emerged. Any kind of disorder,
spontaneity or unpredictable behavior on the part of the environment is met with
the flailing and rage of someone who is drowning and fighting for
air.
In order to perceive other
or self in constancy, each person's many changing facets are denied for the sake of a
stable image or idea which represents their essence. Any discrepancy from this central idea
or image is either eliminated or else leads to a new image. This new image does not represent a new
aspect of the person, but rather
the person becomes that which the new image represents. Thus a faux pas on the part of the other
who was heretofore seen as a benevolent being is likely to turn one's image of
him and hence the other himself into a monster.
If the other refuses to
match one's desired image of him, he may be discarded for another "other" who fits the image better. Or else one tries to be satisfied with
just the image and renounces the hope to find another who will coincide with
it.
No wonder, then, that a
person living on the magical level of consciousness feels totally trapped and
that he longs for freedom from the
bondage to the other, from having to
be affirmed by him and from having to
pay the price of role complementarity for this affirmation. And yet there is no direction in this
longing for freedom. For freedom to implies that both the need and the
capacity for its actualization be lodged in the same person and this, as we have
seen, is not yet the case in the magical realm.
There is a certain
circularity to the magical structure of consciousness, in which thoughts and
feelings go round and round and where there is no linearity of progress. What one aspires to is unity,
perfection, the absolute and harmony.
That is, everyone and everything should harmonize perfectly with one's
experience and with one's view of the world in terms of absolute goodness and
beauty, without impingement of any
dissonance.
On the magical level of
consciousness time is also two-dimensional. There is an eternal past and an eternal
future, but no sense of now. Good
experiences do not count, unless they promise to last for ever. And bad experiences are intolerable
because they are not expected to pass.
Two-dimensionality underlies
also the law of all or nothing on which the magical structure
of consciousness is based. There
are no gradations of value and there is no ability to differentiate part from
whole or essence from periphery.
This fact too makes it so difficult for a person on the magical level
consciousness to make choices.
Also, it adds to one's inability to be criticized. For, if the other does not like one
aspect of oneself, he is experienced as dismissing one's whole being. And, conversely, one cannot afford to
dislike one aspect of the other, for fear of denying and thus destroying and
hence losing all of him. No wonder
that criticism is not negotiable for a person who lives on the magical level of
consciousness and that to tell him that he is hypersensitive to it is merely
adding insult to injury.
The lack of ability to
differentiate also goes for thought and action on this level of awareness. To
covet one's neighbor's wife is tantamount to having an affair with her, and
hence it is better to dismiss the thought.
Two-dimensionality is
furthermore the case with respect to wish and idea, which are seen as the true
reality. Their incarnation into a
three-dimensional structure, though desirable, is not within the realm of
possibility, because it would fall
short of the perfection of the blueprint.
Hence there is a constant search for finding that which would match the
innate image of perfection and a constant frustration and disappointment in the
limitations of oneself, the other and the world. Some people on the magical level of
consciousness therefore find it better not to harbor ideas and wishes any
longer, so that they will not have
to suffer ongoing disillusionment.
This is reinforced by our contemporary school system in which the mental
level, with its denial of any reality other than objective reality, reigns and where subjective reality is
pooh-poohed as non-existent.
Will is also
two-dimensional, in that it is
connected with the wish and idea of what one wants rather than with the limitations of one's own or the
object's suchness or with the process that might lead to the desired end. Thus one might will it to remain summer
or one might will to be thin yet neglect to change one's ways of eating.
(27) Although one realizes that
something is wrong between the idea and the follow through on it, one does not
revise the idea, but forgets past failures and forever starts
anew.
In other words, the reality
of the magical level of consciousness is that of one's vision of
perfection. Objective reality,
though perceived, is not acknowledged as being real but judged for falling short
of true reality. One seeks forever
that which one's imagination is creating, that which corresponds to one's own
image: likeness. The identity of
sameness must be overcome, because it threatens one's own barely emerging
separate being with becoming swallowed up again. Otherness, on the other hand, is too dangerous, for
disagreement or even definition of oneself, would remove the mirroring which one
needs in order to belong. What one
looks for from the other is acknowledgement of one's perceptions and one's
thoughts and feelings, one's body and of the world one has created as being
one's own while yet being within the range of possible experiences of the
other. This creates likeness
between self and other while, at the same time, confirming the separate
existence of each.
On the magical level of
consciousness the symbol is concrete reality. Hence, words do not denote objects but
stand for the object itself. Also,
once a word is uttered it can never be taken back or rectified. It has a concrete reality of its own and
implies command to or judgment of other or self.
One has to have and to possess what one
wants while at the same time being possessed by one's desire. (28) What one wants is also what one needs,
only that the concrete object is taken for its symbolic
essence.
In itself the magical
structure of consciousness is not pathological. On the contrary, it is the creative
ground of one's being. It stands
for one's central treasure, one's supreme value, the God that is to be
actualized by one's particular life.
Only when it substitutes for ego consciousness does it become
pathological; that is, when the ego
is in total identity with the magical layer of the psyche without simultaneously
having a perspective to it.
The magical structure of
consciousness is always present in a latent state as a layer of the psyche which
does not disappear with the emergence of new layers. If, however, one removes the upper layers, by sensory
deprivation, for instance, or by an active attempt at introversion, or if they
become eroded by constant stress, or if there is an upheaval of the psyche as a
result of inner pressure, the lower
strata of the psyche will come to the fore. Once in a while the prevailing
circumstances are such that the higher layers of the psyche cannot gain a
foothold at all. This is usually
the case in the pre-oedipal conditions under discussion. In order to preserve himself and his
central value against the threat of annihilation by an inimical world which
floods him with the intrusiveness of its unowned subjectivity and thus does not
recognize his own uniqueness, the individual finds himself forced to cling to
his magical ways.
In summary, then, the answer
to our first question, What is the essence of the cognitive
mode of pre-oedipal psychopathology?, might sound as
follows:
It is the instinctive,
dynamic, affective pole of the psyche which serves and defends the treasure of
the mother realm, i.e., one's inner child, the Self in statu nascendi. It is a state of emergence into being in
which there is still a mystic participation between oneself and the subjective
aspects of plants, animals and
things, as well as the unconscious psyche of humans. It is an active mode of being in which
one's worth is determined by one's performance. It takes place in a numinous force field
between subject and object, which keeps both in mutual bondage and in which need
equals demand, commitment equals
obligation and love equals self sacrifice.
Freedom, choice and bliss of being are longed for, while one suffers from
resentment, guilt and fear.
The magical structure of
consciousness is two-dimensional with respect to time, space and gradation of
value. Its reality coincides with
idea, wish and will, which constitute perfection, the absolute and harmony. Objective reality, though perceived,
unless it fully matches one's image of what should be, falls short of one's
standards and hence is unacceptable.
On the magical level of
consciousness one requires affirmation of one's uniqueness which must, however,
involve likeness with others and neither identity with them nor difference. One also requires
stability.
The magical structure of
consciousness is the creative core of the psyche which springs to the fore
whenever the awareness of being comes into existence and which engulfs us
whenever ego consciousness is not yet or not anymore at
hand.
Two: What is the aim of the cognitive mode of
pre-oedipal psychopathology?
In Freudian literature the
magical layer of the psyche is seen as one of childishness, of instinct, of wish fulfillment, as one which does not want to come to
terms with hard, unpleasant reality.
Denial of separateness is seen as characteristic for this level of
awareness.
Although there is truth to
these assertions, I do not see them as depicting the essential aims of the
magical layer of the psyche. From
what I have said so far there emerge two central
objectives:
1. To have one's uniqueness, one's central
value, that of which one is the servant, the mother's child, the Self in statu nascendi, acknowledged and
affirmed by the significant other.
2. To be allowed to enter into and belong
to the realm of human beings in terms of one's likeness to them while still
being separate and unique.
***************
In order to attain these
central objectives the following contributory objectives must be
met:
1. Love in the form of sacrifice on the
part of other and self.
2. Creation and maintenance of a stable,
harmonious and secure environment which corresponds to one's ideas of the
absolute, perfection and harmony which can be controlled by exercise of
idea, wish and
will.
3. Outstanding performance in order to
attain worth in the eyes of the other and oneself.
4. Finding one's complement in the other
while having to allow for having to complement the other for the sake of one's
own and the other's needs.
5. Under unfavorable conditions: hiding,
guarding and defending one's central treasure by walling oneself off from the
disharmony and intrusiveness of the environment or by pitting one's however
feeble powers against the threat of anonymity and
nothingness.
***************
It is not true, as we can
see from this summary of objectives,
that the object world and reality are denied on the magical level of
consciousness. Instead they are
often too painfully in evidence for this level of awareness, as Whitmont has
also pointed out. (29) What is
sought is that they cease to permeate one's existence in a negative way but come
to one's unobtrusive aid. There is
awareness of the power of the affective aspect of reality and, rather than a
denial of separation, an urgent need for it.
One might say, then, that
the magical structure of consciousness aims at separation from the influence of
an environment with whose subjective aspect it is as yet too closely and
painfully interwoven. It aims at
benevolent recognition of one's value, of which it is aware but for which it
cannot as yet speak. And it aims at
establishing and maintaining its own power and stability through control of an
environment which is perceived as overpowering and changing all the time and to
which to adapt would, in light of one's incapacity to do so, imply weakness and
loss of face.
Here is an example from my
clinical practice: a man in his early fifties, probably an introverted feeling
type and highly sensitive and creative, was born into a family where the mother
was extremely extraverted and the father weak and barely ever present. The mother had been unable to understand
the patient's essential nature and was in no way able to validate his
qualities. Any progress the patient
made as a child, his mother measured in terms of collectively approved
standards. When he was unhappy, or
angry, or when he tried to exhibit his prowess, his mother would break out into
hysterical lamentations and accuse him of wanting to send her into an early
grave. This patient learned to
build a wall around his core which is virtually impenetrable. At the same time he relates to others in
ways in which he thinks others expect him to behave. This wall appeared in his initial dream
as an impenetrable barrier behind his face. Beyond the wall was a magnificent garden
in which a shy two-year-old played.
This man has earned several
higher degrees and has obtained high level positions in his field of endeavor,
both in the hope of impressing and pleasing his mother. He has always felt himself to be
different from others and feels isolated and shunned by humanity. He despises his differentness and yet
would not want to exchange it for the attributes of others. There was once a person who was like him
in all respects and the two got along famously. But then there was a misunderstanding
followed by a quarrel and the friendship died on the spot and could never be
revived again.
In his therapy with me he
longs to reveal his treasure, his exceedingly rich inner life, so that it may be
affirmed by me. Yet, at the same
time, he keeps me at a distance and puts up his wall more often than not, for he
fears that I shall intrude into his space and exercise control over it. Besides, I might become witness to his
suffering which he sees as weakness and then he would have to destroy me. In the meantime he lets me know in no
uncertain terms how I do not
correspond to his image of what I should be while at the same time he
resents his dependency on me.
Three: Of what developmental process is the
cognitive mode of pre-oedipal psychopathology the last stage
?
In most people there is an
ascent and descent of consciousness as they traverse the course of their
lives. Being in a state of identity
with the magical layer of one's psyche is a normal phase of development during
early childhood as one emerges from unconsciousness into one's uniqueness as
well as into becoming a member of one's community. During the descent of consciousness in
old age the magical level represents that stage of development in which the
mental level must be abandoned for the sake of a closer reconnection with the
beings of nature before one returns to becoming a substance of nature
oneself. I think, therefore, that
the attachment to birds and homeless cats by older people is not merely a sign
of the alienation characteristic of our times, but that it represents a renewed
openness toward that of which, before long, one will again become a
part.
Normally, on the ascending
scale of consciousness, the identification with the magical layer is superseded
by the mental or ego level of consciousness which, in turn, will hopefully be
replaced by an integral consciousness in which due respect is given to the
magical layer along with the archaic,
mythical and mental mode. (30)
Certain people, more and more in our time, however, do remain in identity
with the magical mode of awareness and at most develop defensive structures such
as pseudo egos to safeguard it.
Whether on the ascending or
descending curve of consciousness,
the magical structure must be considered as an interim state of not yet
or of not anymore, a state of self (and Self) defense and of self (Self)
preservation. It is reminiscent of
a spore which can survive in that particular mode of being indefinitely, or at
least until it encounters a more clement environment.
Both the soil and the
surrounding atmosphere must be conducive toward the spore's imbedding itself and
toward the unfolding of its potential.
The ground is analogous to the mother in the concrete sense and also in
the sense of family matrix. The
atmosphere can be seen as analogous to the father and to the climate of the
outer world.
In the many cases of persons
suffering from pre-oedipal psychopathology with whom I work, neither soil nor
atmosphere have been conducive to their Selves' unfolding. Often the parents themselves live on the
magical layer of consciousness and look to their children for nurturing and
validation. These parents are
intrusive and deny their children's subjectivity.
The mother of one particular
patient, for instance, herself a motherless child since age two, cannot tolerate any kind of separation
move on the part of her son. Only
she is permitted to occupy the center of his attention. A happy or problematic event in her
son’s life will cause her to make numerous phone calls a day to him in order to
remind him of her existence. This
particular patient, a highly creative playwright, has not dared to develop his
talent for fear of his mother's envious rage.
In another case the father
interfered systematically with the patient's original loving attachment to her
mother. He belittled not only the
mother as a person, but also her and any other woman's femininity and feeling
life. This woman, in order to
remain in the good graces of her father and not be annihilated by his sarcastic
remarks, disowned her own femininity and feeling life and thus never became
imbedded in the matrix which she needed for her own development. For the remainder of her life she looked
for a foothold for herself in the feminine soil of other women, so that she
could learn to be and to become.
Yet at the same time she had to remain on her guard for fear of revealing
the negative feminine side in herself which had been activated by her
father. Although she developed
professionally, she made little progress in personal matters. Then she was exposed to a father figure
in the form of a male therapist who cherished her femininity without making any
demands on it, a mother figure in
the form of a female therapist who was totally accepting of her undeveloped
sides and a group which represented a new family matrix in which she was
accepted for what she was rather than for who she was and for what she could
do. It was this three-fold
combination which gradually allowed her to emerge from the magical structure of
consciousness and to open up to other modes of awareness.
Let us look at the
phenomenon of having to remain a spore with respect to collective developments
of our time. Why is it that so many
people have to remain in this interim state nowadays? Why is there no longer a match between
individual and society either in comfortable complementarity as in the tribe
described by Jung, or at least in comfortably following in the footsteps of the
older generation by the younger as it was the custom only several decades
ago? What is different now about
the generation gap and the interlocking between individual and collective, both
of which are, after all, perennial phenomena?
I think that the older
generation with its value system of a collective God out there, with its
Protestant work ethic and its distortion of Christ's statement of loving the
other as oneself into loving him more than oneself, finds itself baffled by a
new generation which seems to value only what it likes to do and not what it has to do, which is not willing to
sacrifice present pleasure for uncertain future rewards and which considers its
own personhood as more important than anything else. Instead of being able to validate this
new generation, the older one must, in light of its own values, deny those of
the younger one as selfish and not legitimate. And yet, as we have seen, unless
validated by a significant other at first, one cannot take a positive, that is,
related stand for one's value.
Furthermore most work
situations require that the institutional values and productivity be the
determinant for the employee, while today's employee wants recognition for his
uniqueness as a person and for the unique contribution he makes to his
work. He does not want to conform
to role requirements that go with status, neither in behavior, dress, nor length
of hair or fingernails.
And so youngsters will
refuse to study when their teachers are rude to them, in spite of their parents'
admonitions that unless they graduate from high school they will not make it in
this world. Adults will refuse to
work longer than for a few days in nine-to-five jobs, because they consider them as demeaning
and depersonalizing and because they do not want to be part of the commuter
herd. Or else they will perform the
duties required of them, but their heart is not in their work or in their social
interactions and life becomes more and more empty for them. They want to bring out their own
individual masterpiece in order to make their imprint on society, but when asked
about its nature, they do not have the slightest idea of what it might
be.
To put it into other words:
Neither the original matrix that is to prepare him for life, nor the later
social circumstances are willing or able to validate what the person suffering
from pre-oedipal psychopathology is trying to stand for and actualize. Hence they cannot provide either soil or
climate for him to take root or unfold.
He has the choice of sacrificing himself for a collective which does not
share his values and to die on the vine as it were, or else of remaining
encapsulated in complete identity with his Self. And so his quest remains an unanswered
question, an unfulfilled potential which is no longer of the past age, but not
yet able to articulate the new.
The Jungian literature has
long been familiar with this phenomenon, which is seen as that of puer
psychology. (31) The puer does not
live and unfold his potential in the present, but keeps talking about future,
and sometimes past, accomplishments.
I agree with Satinover (32)
that work prescriptions are not the answer and that, as Schwartz also
says (33), the essential problem
lies in a faulty relation between ego and Self. But that is just the problem I have
highlighted all along: before the
ego can relate to and stand for the Self, the Self needs to be validated by a
benevolent significant other. Given
that the Self of the new generation is different from that of the preceding one
in that it encompasses a different cluster of values, validation cannot occur,
since the older generation has its own difficulties with "otherness." Not only parents but also
psychotherapists with an outlook of the previous generation, much as they want
to be of help, try to mold the person on the magical level of consciousness into
pre-existing values and ideas, such as the need for opposition of consciousness
to the unconscious and the proscription of inflation in the form of
grandiosity.
What is needed from parents
and psychotherapists is validation of the emerging individual Self and the
teaching of skills of mediating it to others while learning to respect their
individual Selves. But more about
that later. Let us now return to
the sequence of questions raised in the beginning of this paper.
Four: What strands does the cognitive mode of
pre-oedipal psychopathology contribute to the pattern of
wholeness?
As the energy pole of the
human psyche, the magical layer of consciousness makes up the dynamic,
instinctual, affective and passionate side of human nature. In some ways the magical structure of
consciousness is not yet human at all, but is an aspect of the numinous
archetypal layer of the psyche, that of monsters as well as that of the Gods in
their most benevolent ways. It is
part of the realm of feminine power, of nature itself, of circularity,
complementarily, of eternal return and of human and divine sacrifice. So, we might say that the magical layer
of consciousness connects us with, indeed keeps us as part of nature, part of
its beauty as well as part of its cruelty, part of its coldness as well as part
of its passion, part of its monstrosity as well as part of its boundless
love.
There is another strand
which leads in the opposite direction and that is the strand of order. Although
gripped by the passions of nature, and perhaps even because of this, a person on
the magical level of consciousness keeps trying to create permanence, stability,
predictability and regulations and laws, just as the jealous, vindictive,
self-centered God of the fires of Sodom and Gomorrha and of the waters of Noah's
flood also created the world out of Tohu Wa Bohu and gave the Jews the Mosaic
Law. We might say, then, that the
magical structure of consciousness itself stands for the archetype of order
which is none other than the Self. (34)
A third strand moves the
magical layer onto a more human plane.
It grapples with a highly important social psychological issue, that of
relative value of other and self.
It grapples with this issue in relation to love and sacrifice, freedom
and bondage, choice and obligation, fate and autonomy and, last, but not least, the inevitability
of guilt toward either the other or oneself.
Finally, the magical
structure of consciousness contributes what may be the most important strand of
this fourfold pattern of wholeness:
that of each human being serving his individual God. Whether he knows it
or not, the person residing on this level of awareness is, just by virtue of his
subjectivity, subject to, i. e.,
bound in a religious sense, to his central value. Although he cannot as yet stand openly
for his value and mediate it in a related way and can only preserve it by
simulated compliance to other values or by rebelling against them, he knows that
that to which he is bound exists and that it is different from the existing
values and from the collective God.
True, he may resent his differentness or the emptiness resulting from his
conscious or unconscious concealment of his value. He may even wish fervently and
"desperately to be other than himself."
The problem of pre-oedipal
psychopathology and its cognitive mode does not lie in the four strands which
the magical structure of consciousness contributes to the pattern of
wholeness: that of the instinctual
nature pole of the archetypal psyche, that of order, that of self -
versus social interest, and
that of service to an individual God.
The problem lies in the ego attitude toward these strands. For what is wrong with persons suffering
from pre-oedipal psychopathology is that they either disown these strands or,
what amounts to the other side of disowning, that they are in identity with
them.
Thus, a person with
pre-oedipal psychopathology will come for psychotherapeutic help because he
finds himself frequently overcome with rage or passion and feels that he should
have an even-tempered personality.
He may seek help for being too rigid, too compulsive, or else for not
being able to bring himself to do productive work. He may also seek help for having to sell
out to others against his better judgment and against his will, or for a chronic
inability to get along with them. Usually he complains of a pervasive sense of unease and
emptiness.
As one works with these
patients it becomes increasingly clear that they become overcome by moods of
depression and futility when they have not been able to stand up for what is
important to them in relation to significant others or authority figures and
that they become filled with divine rage,
which more often than not they disown, when their conscious or unconscious
value has been ridiculed or in some way put down. But when they are questioned why they do
not stand up for their value, they will find innumerable excuses and
rationalizations: "I could not do
this to her, it would hurt her feelings," or, "It would not be nice, he depends on me," or, "They should know
what I am worth, I should not have to tell them." They feel badly about themselves,
whether they explode with rage or whether they keep silent, because neither
articulates their value in the right way.
One minute they believe that they themselves are unrecognized Gods, the
next minute they doubt their right to inhabit this planet. They know that they have a contribution
to make, but they are afraid that others will belittle it and fear that it will,
perhaps rightfully, be taken as foolish, which, as we know from the way the
magical level works, will turn them into fools, hence outcasts from society, as
well.
The point is that they
cannot find the right connection to their own, central value by themselves. They need someone who can see it and acknowledge it and
affirm it both in its light and dark manifestation. They need someone who can say yes to
this value and who can show it up to them as the most precious aspect of their
personality which must be owned and stood for in a positive way. This entails getting permission to be
relatively non-caring for the suffering of others and to care for the well-being
of oneself. (35) It also entails
the learning of skills of communicating this self caring in ways that on the
whole are not too hurtful to the other
one.
In order to be a helper to
persons suffering from pre-oedipal psychopathology one must have relinquished
much of collective valuation of oneself and must, as Jung pointed out
repeatedly, relinquish all
theorizing and labelling. It takes
a fine ear to discover the God in statu
nascendi who is different from all other Gods in the patient under all the
rubble of self deprecation and accusation of others. This God, not the patient himself, must
then be adored, and the person harboring Him must gradually be enticed to
participate in this adoration. The
patient must be taught to serve his God by protecting Him as a lion mother does
its young, and by allowing Him to
find expression by lending Him his voice, in creative effort as well as
vis-ŕ-vis others.
The woman I have mentioned
before who had denied her positive feminine Self in compliance with her father’s
desires as she perceived them, found herself one day gripped by a flood of
fantasies which had to do with feminine sensuality, lust for life, dancing and
luscious meals accompanied by wine.
These fantasies alternated with others which described arduous wanderings
through desert land and lonely mountainsides and solitary work on her writing
for weeks on end. Throughout these
fantasies a guiding feminine figure initiated her into these sensuous pleasures
as well as directing her to go forth on her lonely road.
It took years before this
woman dared to share her fantasies with others, for she was terrified that what
she considered her ultimate treasure would be ridiculed by them. Besides, she was not sure herself
whether her subjective outpourings were not merely sentimental trash when looked
at with detached objectivity. She
was surprised and relieved when those who read her fantasies found themselves
moved to tears and had an inkling of the life force which permeated this piece of
writing.
It took several more years
before some of the joyous aspects of her fantasies could be allowed to be lived
out in real life situations, when mirrored by an outer other. Under such circumstances the woman was
able to experience her joyful feminine Self, her life archetype. But she did not yet trust and follow her
inner guide when it directed her to resume her solitary wandering and
writing. Instead she blamed the
outer other for interfering with her needs, which of course, primed the other to
make a counterattack on her supreme value.
Her neglect of assuming responsibility for the voice within caused hurt
of self and hurt of the other.
In learning to integrate the
meaning of her fantasies and of the guiding Self figure who governs them, this
woman has the opportunity of actualizing a unique kind of existence, which,
although it does not follow collective patterns, need not be considered as
pathological. She must learn to
stand for the fact that she is not the kind of person who spends her life in
close proximity and intertwined with that of another. Much of her life must be spent in lonely
searching and productivity. On the
other hand she must realize that she is not a recluse either, and that she must
allow for and participate in the Dionysian aspects of life. Her way is one of alternation of lone
searching and work with joyful celebration with others and not one of
simultaneity of both. Each side
must be honored and stood for and each side must be allowed to be relinquished
for the other side when the inner voice says it is time.
Another woman whose mother
had been a chronic, self-centered invalid and both parents of whom had mourned
the fact that she was not a son, felt herself compelled to deny her
individuality when relating to men to the point that she had to take a drink and
cloud her awareness before she could go to bed with one of them. She would accede to any demand on the
part of her lovers, however inconvenient for her, while at the same time her
resentment against the lover and her self loathing would increase steadily. And yet, although she was aware of her
resentment and her self loathing, she did not connect these feelings with her
behavior toward men. What she
complained about was a pervasive sense of emptiness and futility, a desire to
produce something worthwhile and yet a feeling that she had nothing whatsoever
to offer.
From early on in her life
she was told by her mother in the form of a judgment that she was unlike herself
but rather like her father's sisters whom the mother detested. So, although quite feminine herself,
this woman never dared to take an oppositional stance toward men, for fear of
losing the little bit of likeness, of validation of herself, which she could get
through compliance.
My efforts to help her to
get in touch with her feminine core through introversion, active imagination and
meditation were all in vain. They
merely served to make her feel more inadequate. Then, one day, she discovered
belly dancing. She practiced it for
hours without anyone's prompting.
And, gradually she developed a center in herself which was both feminine
and spiritual. She found herself
drawn to Sufism. She still has to
make excuses for herself when she must say no to men, but she is able to say no
and she has learned to make requests of them on her own behalf without
anticipating total rejection.
Another woman was, when she
entered adolescence, beaten, berated and ridiculed by her mother and literally
cast out of the house just at the point when she graduated from high school.
Since then she had a terror of developing herself further professionally, while
at the same time considering herself as extraordinarily endowed. Although she could defend her children
against negative critics, she
shrank away from any potential critic of herself. During the course of her therapy with me
she did venture to enter a school of higher learning. She did extremely well, except in that
area which corresponded to her inferior sensation function. In her last semester she had a professor
who made fun of her poor performance in front of the whole class and who
threatened to fail her. As a result
she found herself paralyzed for several weeks and unable to complete any of her
assignments. Instead, she retreated into bed, every day after
school. She considered withdrawing
from the program. She even
considered changing professions.
But something in her would not give in. Finally she approached the professor and
told him that she admired him and his knowledge and skills, but that she
resented the way he treated her.
She told him that he had no right to fail her, for she knew she had a
talent which, however, needed guidance and help. She told him that as a teacher it was
his duty to help her and to lend her a hand in areas where she felt helpless
rather than criticizing her for not performing at the level of his
expectations.
I was tremendously moved by
her story. Who, in the past, would
have confronted a professor in this manner? Who would have told a professor as she
did that his belittling her in front of everybody did something to her which
made her fall apart and made it impossible for her to actualize the talent which
she knew she had? What was
important to her was not to win the battle with the teacher, to gain the upper
land, but to stand for her value and not to have anyone trample on it
again.
By this courageous act, the
consequences of which are still in abeyance, this woman, in a situation parallel
to that which she experienced with her mother, i. e., one of entrance into life,
was able to initiate healing of an old wound. She was now able to take a stand on
behalf of her injured value which, as an adolescent, she had lacked the
confidence to do.
Five: What forces outside the phenomena are
directing their course?
What are the forces, both on the psychological and collective
plane that will cause a person to enter, remain on and emerge from the magical
level of consciousness? I am not
referring to the efficient and material causes of pre-oedipal psychopathology
which are not the subject of this paper, but rather to the forces to which the
magical level of consciousness is perhaps an appropriate or at least justified
response.
We know from our work on
ourselves and with our patients that forces are at work with respect to the
magical level of awareness which cannot be combatted by will power or
reason. Only by recognizing and
acknowledging that we are in the grip of the magical layer of our psyches, by
virtue of the quality of our experience and by the nature of our thought
processes, and by asking what need or value has been injured or put into
question, can we extricate ourselves from it.
We know further that
evolutionary forces of development will, under auspicious circumstances, bring a
child into the magical level of awareness and will gradually lead it out of
there toward the mental level of ego consciousness. But to what force does magical
consciousness as a kind of entrenchment respond?
It serves as compensation to
our contemporary collective mental consciousness which espouses linearity of
progress, rationality, individuality and separation in the sense of perspective,
objectivity and difference. (36)
For, as we have seen, the magical level of consciousness consists of
circularity, eternity,
subjectivity, the irrational and likeness, and it reanimates a lifeless
objectified world.
Also, considering the
dissolution of the societal and religious values of our time and the
experimentation in role relationships, might not the magical level of
consciousness with its rigidity and longing for structure be an attempt to get
the threatening chaos under control as exemplified by the appeal of political
conservatism? Furthermore, is not
the so-called narcissism, i. e., love of self, a compensation for our altruistic
pseudo-Christian and also the socialist ethic?
Here is an example of a
young woman who came from a family which still existed in the mentality of their
Old World peasant origin, while she herself had taken steps toward an open
marriage and toward several professional degrees. In many ways her personal development
had taken her far away from her matrix, which, besides, she preferred to
disown. One of her early dreams had
to do with her wanting to travel to a far Eastern land. The man at the toll booth gave her
permission to proceed under condition that she take her parents along with
her.
And here is another example,
this one from the social sphere: I
know of a graduate program in one of the healing professions which prided itself
on its scientific orientation. It
claimed, in fact, to elevate the
profession itself to a science and had no patience whatever with any aspect of
the healing arts. But, lo and
behold, one of the professors became interested in investigating,
scientifically, of course, the practice of laying on of hands. By now the program has become famous
throughout the country for its contributions to the investigation and practice
of faith healing.
The above points allude to
forces to which the magical structure of consciousness serves as
compensation. Might there be also a
force which this mode of awareness,
even though in the form of psychopathology, serves to
express?
We know that the age of
Pisces is nearing its end and that the age of Aquarius is on the horizon. In
this new age each one of us will be asked to carry his urn on his own shoulders
for the sake of watering his own
patch of land. The source of the
water for his particular urn is collective, but the responsibility for filling and
carrying the urn and for the way of dispersal of its contents is his own. This
requires a different kind of psychological make-up from that of the age of
Pisces. I am not an expert in
astrology, but from what I can gather from the sources at my disposal, there
seems to be a certain congruity between the psychology of persons suffering from
pre-oedipal psychopathology and that of the Aquarian man.