SATAN AND EVIL IN THE HEBREW BIBLE AND SOME DEPTH PSYCHOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS

Paper presented by Michael Bogar, Fall Quarter 2012 at Pacifica Graduate Institute

for the Hebrew and Jewish Mythology class taught by Dr. Christine Downing

Ah, what’s puzzling you

Is the nature of my game, oh yeah…

~ Mick Jagger, lyrics from Sympathy for the Devil

This paper will explore the Hebrew word shatan as found in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), especially the ways in which the ideas about satan relate to God, evil and suffering in the Hebrew world. I will then conclude with a few observations about these satanic images from the perspective of depth psychology.

The Hebrew word shatan (שָׂטָן) appears fewer than a dozen times in the Hebrew Bible, whereas the word LORD (Yahweh) appears 6,828 times, and the word God (elohim) appears 2,602 times. These numbers surprise most Americans who believe the character of Satan to be God's ever present archrival throughout the biblical narrative. However, an examination of the use of the word shatan, often occurring as satan, in the Hebrew Bible reveals a very different story--a story of scant appearances and developmental significance. We must first emphasize that the word shatan is a verb which means adversary or opponent, typically designating someone who impedes the path of progress. The verb shatan is used of human actions. For example in I Samuel David, before he became the king of Israel, sided with the Philistines who were about to go into battle against the Hebrews. The Philistine generals, knowing that David was a Hebrew, were afraid that he might turn against them in the clash: "But the Philistine commanders...said, 'Send the man [David] back, that he may return to the place you assigned him. He must not go with us into battle, or he will turn against (shatan) us during the fighting'" (29:4). In another place the word shatan is used by David when telling a soldier to mind his own business: "David replied, 'What does this have to do with you?...What right do you have to interfere (shatan)?'" (2 Sam. 19:22). So we see that the verb shatan can refer to human adversarial actions.

However, it is important for this paper to see that the first use of the verb shatan is employed to refer to an act of Israel's LORD God. This occurs in Numbers as the Hebrew prophet Balaam rides his donkey along a narrow path while on an assignment to prophesy against his own people, Israel. The story tells us that the Angel of the LORD came to block (shatan) the path of Balaam:

Balaam got up in the morning, saddled his donkey and went with the princes of Moab. But God was very angry when he went, and the angel of the LORD stood in the road to oppose him (shatan). Balaam was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him. When the donkey saw the angel of the LORD standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand, she turned off the road into a field. Balaam beat her to get her back on the road. (22:22-23, italics mine)

The phrase, "to oppose him," is from the Hebrew verb shatan. Notice that it is God who is doing the shataning or opposing in this instance. God's involvement in shataning is also seen in I Kings: "Then the LORD raised up against Solomon an adversary (shatan), Hadad the Edomite...And God raised up against Solomon another adversary (shatan), Rezon son of Eliada...Rezon was Israel’s adversary (shatan) as long as Solomon lived, adding to the trouble caused by Hadad. So Rezon ruled in Aram and was hostile toward Israel" (11:14-25). Here the word shatan is used in its nominal form. It ought to be noted that the early Hebrews had no notion of a ubiquitous evil character named Satan who was opposing their God. This is an idea that would blossom much later in their history, and achieve full bloom in the New Testament. The early Hebrews generally traced all events, good and evil, back to the One true God. This can be seen in the Hebrew Bible where God appears to be involved directly or indirectly in an act of evil--collaborating with an "evil spirit". The word shatan is not used in this account, but the fact that an oppositional kind of behavior originates with God makes this passage noteworthy for our study. In I Samuel God rejects Saul as king of Israel by removing his Holy Spirit from the errant monarch and sending instead an evil spirit to oppress him:

Now the Spirit of the LORD had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD tormented him. Saul’s attendants said to him, “See, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. Let our lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the lyre. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes on you, and you will feel better”...David came to Saul and entered his service. Saul liked him very much, and David became one of his armor-bearers. Then Saul sent word to Jesse [David's father], saying, “Allow David to remain in my service, for I am pleased with him.” Whenever the [evil] spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him. (16:14-23)

Four times in this brief passage we read that an evil spirit (הרָעָ֖ רֽוּחַ) was sent from the LORD to torment Saul. It is clear from this account that both pleasurable and pathological emotions were under the control of and associated with the purposes of the Hebrew God. There is no psychological state of mind that is not somehow connected with the divine plan. This Hebrew notion of all polarities deriving from the One God is also true of morality. In I Kings we discover that the LORD God is also in charge of truth and lies. The polytheistic King Ahab listens as his 400 sycophant prophets assure him of victory in an impending battle against Ramoth Gilead. However, one cantankerous monotheistic prophet named Micaiah warns Ahab:

I saw the LORD sitting on his throne with all the multitudes of heaven standing around him on his right and on his left. And the LORD said, "Who will deceive Ahab into attacking Ramoth Gilead and going to his death there?" One suggested this, and another that. Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before the LORD and said, "I will deceive him." "By what means?" the LORD asked. "I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouths of all his prophets," he said. "You will succeed in deceiving him," said the LORD. "Go and do it." So now the LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours. The LORD has decreed disaster for you. (22:19-22)

This is reminiscent of Zeus sending a deceptive dream to Agamemnon regarding an imminent battle with the Trojans (Iliad, Book II.28). Most Americans would expect such behavior from the "fickle" Pagan Gods, but are shocked to discover that the Hebrew deity is just as capable of deception as the Greek Zeus. Keep in mind that Hebrew monotheism had no tolerance for cosmic dualism. There was a sole Source, God, considered to be the ultimate Manager of all significant emotions and actions, moving the drama of human history forward. Ironically, such absolute monotheism did not preclude humans from making choices and being held accountable for immoral decisions. This mind boggling paradox between divine sovereignty and human free will can be found in a story about King David taking a census for military and taxation purposes. Notice the glaring differences as the same story is described in two different parts of the Hebrew Bible:

1. “...the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he [the LORD] moved David against them to say, ‘Go, number Israel and Judah.’” II Samuel 24:1

2. “Then Satan stood against Israel and incited David to number Israel.” I Chronicles 21:1-2

3. “And David said unto God, 'Is it not I that commanded the people to be numbered.'" I Chronicles 21:17

Which is it? The LORD (JHWH), Satan or David that commanded the people to be numbered? Either the Hebrew authors made an error of a cosmically colossal proportion, or they saw God and Satan as somehow working in tandem, while still holding David as personally responsible. There is no attempt to reconcile these differences. The Hebrews seemed to be more concerned about simply recording the psychological phenomena as they experienced them.

The best known reference to Satan in the Hebrew Bible occurs in The Book of Job:

One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and the Satan also came with them. The LORD said to the Satan, “Where have you come from?” The Satan answered the LORD, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it." Then the LORD said to the Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil." “Does Job fear God for nothing?” The Satan replied. “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.” The LORD said to the Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.” Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. (1:6-12)

In short, Job presents a cosmic economy ruled by a celestial Sovereign surrounded by an assortment of subordinates called the "sons of God" (בְּנֵ֣י הָֽאֱלֹהִ֔ים), sometimes translated angels or messengers. A few clues are scattered throughout the Jobian narrative revealing that these "sons of God" can commit errors (4:18), are untrustworthy (15:15), shout for joy at God's mighty works (38:7) and are often incapable of helping humans (5:1). Job also insists that he has his own heavenly guardian (16:19), a notion affirmed by one of his associates, Elihu (33:22-30). Of importance to our study is the fact that one of these "sons of God" is called "the Satan". The definite article (the) appears throughout the narrative indicating that the word Satan is more like a title than a personal name. "The Satan" is more like a job title for one of these "sons of God," whose cosmic occupation is to scout the earth in behalf of the divine Sovereign in search of evidence implicating a citizen as unworthy of God's favor. We see from the narrative that Satan was very familiar with Job, suggesting that his righteousness was due to God's blessing and special protection. Satan proposes that Job's pious attitude would change if his life circumstances were altered for the worse. God approves of the plan to create suffering in Job's life, but qualifies it by limiting Satan's initial act of cosmic terrorism to involve only the annihilation of Job's wealth and children. In this account we begin to see the verb shatan morph into a noun, ha shatan (the Satan), revealing a more personified adversary. It also appears that the Hebrew authors were calling into question the simplistic Mosaic system of reward and punishment based on obedience and disobedience to God's Law. I suggest that they were also beginning to take the occurrences of pathological phenomena more seriously as such sufferings related to the One True and "Good" God.

In the post-exilic Book of Zechariah (519 BCE), "the Satan" appears again. The prophet Zechariah shares a vision in which he sees Joshua the Hebrew high priest clad in rags and mourning over the destruction of their beloved Jerusalem. Joshua stands before the divine judgment seat where the Satan is positioned "at his right side to accuse him" (3:1) while the Angel of the LORD acts as Joshua's defense attorney. Yahweh declares that the high priest's repentance is adequate grounds for acquittal. The Satan loses the case. As in Job, we see God and the Satan working together to appraise a man's character. The context makes it clear that this social narrative was didactic, intended for the larger Jewish audience. Each hearer was to place his or her self in the place of Zechariah, seeing that any past wrong doing (evil inclinations) could be forgiven through repentance. The court-like scenarios in both Job and Zechariah appear to be more psychological and metaphorical than metaphysical. Each listener is to ask, "How would I do in such a trial?" Again, the writers are more existential and phenomenological than theological.

From these two latter passages a picture emerges portraying the Satan as a kind of cosmic detective and prosecuting attorney working together with Yahweh on the souls of humans. In 1939 Adolphe Lods undertook a detailed study of the satan in Job and Zechariah, concluding that the satan character was analogous to the well known Ancient Near Eastern spies working for their despotic suzerains in matters of state security, similar to modern secret governmental agencies like the American C.I.A. or Russian K.G.B.. Lods cites the Greek writer Xenophon (.d 354 BCE) who composed a biography of the Persian ruler Cyrus the Great titled Cyropaedia (The Education of Cyrus), describing the education of the idyllic tyrant ruling over his grateful subjects. Xenophon mentions that Cyrus employed special agents trained to be the "Eyes and Ears of the King," acting as spies in order to locate and root out those who might cause problems in the kingdom (8.6.16). Lods speculates that the satan character found in Zechariah and Job may have been inspired by these Persian undercover practices, especially since the Jews had been held captive and released during the reign of Cyrus. Henry Kelly in his book, Satan: A Biography, summarizing Lods, writes:

...the organization of the inspecting network became especially well developed under Cyrus's powerful successor, Darius I, who came to power in 522 and died in 486 BC. Zechariah's visions of the satan accusing the high priest should...be taken...as an activity of the field-inspectors who return to court to make occasional accusations as his "research" warrants. This would reflect the situation in Jerusalem early in Darius's reign, and, if the author of the Prologue to Job was influenced by Darius's organization of government agents, it follows that he was writing after Zechariah. Lods is inclined to date him accordingly, while admitting other possibilities (...the date of Job is still much debated). (26-27 italics mine)

The upshot of these passages which connect the LORD and the shatan in the Hebrew Bible teach us that their God reigns over all. There are other statements from the Hebrew scriptures that substantiate this:

• “The Lord said to Moses, 'Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord?'” Exodus 4:11

• “See now that I myself am he! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand.” Deuteronomy 32:29

• “Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come?” Lamentations 3:38

• “I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things." Isaiah 45:5-8

• “When a trumpet sounds in a city, do not the people tremble? When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it?” Amos 3:6

Morton Kelsey writes: "God, the giver of all good things, was seen equally as the dispenser of misfortune and pain, including sickness of all kinds" (Healing 34). God wrestled with Jacob and dislocated his hip (Gen. 32:32), threatened to kill Moses for not circumcising his son (Ex. 4:24-26), killed Uzziah for simply reaching out to steady the tottering ark of the covenant as it was about fall from a platform (2 Sam. 6:7-10). The Mosaic covenant explicitly views God as the source of all blessing and cursing, health and disease:

If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God…However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you…The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish…the Lord will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses. He will bring on you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you. The Lord will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed. (Deut. 28:1-61)

I remind the reader that this is the system that is challenged in the Book of Job where God becomes slightly distanced from pathologizings by having an agent called The Satan to do his dirty work. The chasm between God and evil deeds would widen in the subsequent centuries.

Let us now explore some psychological implications of this study. First off, it must be emphasized that myths, in our case the biblical myth of the satan, grow out of the ordinary experiences of human beings in a given cultural milieu. Particular Hebrews with their individual and collective experiences produced the mythic image of the satan (the adversary) because their lives were filled with conflict and suffering--physically and psychologically. When it comes to stories, we must never forget that the human experience comes first--then the story to make sense of it--not the other way around. The story may graphically depict what appears to be an adequate and complete explanatory representation of the cosmos, but we must avoid that trap. Every story is better viewed as a participatory image for the individual soul--as a reflective mirror or window to see through rather than a completed metaphysical or theological representation or final explanation. James Hillman writes, “myths are not explanations…they are stories, as our fantasies are, which project us into participation with the phenomena they tell us about so that the need for explanation falls away” (The Myth 195-202). The error of many theologians, metaphysicians, psychologists, sociologists and politicians is that of explicitly or implicitly forcing the experiences of individuals to conform to a particular cultural myth, philosophy, theology, political ideology or statistical study. A certain amount of mimesis is to be expected, even encouraged in children, but ultimately the mythical accounts are not meant to be copied, but rather used as a way into one's individual soul-making--into one's uniquely unfolding character and destiny. Put plainly, the biblical shatan presents ideas, images and stories which may or may not help one to make sense of her/his own internal and external challenges in life. Do not be conned into lopping off or distending your own soul and destiny in order to conform to the frozen myth of some ideological sect.

Now, it is possible to go to the other extreme--that of dismissing the myths altogether as outmoded products of ignorant primitives. While we must insist that individual human psychological experiences are primary over culturally conditioned myths, we must also stress that humans did not and do not originate the archetypal images. Mythopoeic expressions are rooted in the archetypes. Humanly constructed stories are attempts to find meaning in our daily emotions, thoughts and situations that reflect archetypal patterns. For us that means that the biblical satan imagery with all of its grotesque and troubling images may be humanly constructed, yet is archetypally founded. Hillman writes, “We can imagine nothing or perform nothing that is not already formally given by the archetypal imagination of the Gods” (Loose Ends 142-43, 180). Again, put simply, the reason the Hebrews constructed these stories which have attracted millions of followers over the centuries arises from the psychological fact that something bigger than human experiences is going on. Let's explore some of these "goings on" with reference to the satan.

Eric Neumann recommends a psychological view of the biblical Satan, associating him with the Jungian Shadow--the obscure and unfamiliar periphery of the personality that "normally encounters the ego, the centre and representative of the light side and of consciousness, in the form of a dark, uncanny figure of evil--to confront whom is always a fateful experience for the individual" (Depth Psych. 137, italics mine). Neumann's view is neither theological nor metaphysical, but rather a straightforward recognition of that ubiquitous human phenomenon--the meeting of one's conscious will with what seems like another "will" emerging from some mysterious "other". This is the biblical "shatan," the obstacle, the adversary, the oppositional "no" to the beneficial "yes" of Yahweh. Neumann points out that for the Hebrews, such encounters with "the dark side" were to be viewed as an "always...fateful experience for the individual". By fateful I think Neumann means to stress that the monotheistic Hebrews viewed all of life as being encompassed by their One God, and that every problematic shatanic (oppositional) encounter was momentous, auspicious, purposeful and part of what the 19th century German theologians called heilsgeschichte (salvation history). We see this perspective in Numbers 22 where the first mention of shataning (blocking) is attributed to the Angel of Yahweh. It is not a long stretch to see why many have extended this shataning action, although not the actual word, back into the Eden story as the Serpent shatans (blocks) the path of access to the Tree of Life by encouraging Eve to eat from the Tree of Death (Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil). The wily Serpent is not portrayed as some eternal dark entity, but as purposefully created by The LORD God and placed in the Garden, apparently as part of the original "good" creation. Theologians have debated for centuries as to whether Eve's and Adam's imbibing of the fruit that originated their awareness of duality was an aberration or part of the divine plan. It seems to me that the question is misplaced when we realize that the Hebrew God is considered to be the cosmic suzerain, forcing us to acknowledge the spiritual and psychological purposefulness of all adversity.

In relation to the opening Edenic story regarding "knowing good and evil," I think it is instructive that the last significant story of Genesis closes with an assessment of good and evil as well. Joseph, having been betrayed by his brothers, falsely accused of rape by Potiphar's wife and thrown in prison, sums up all of his "adversarial" experiences by proclaiming to his brothers, "You intended to do evil to me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives" (Gen. 50:20). The Eden and Joseph stories regarding the function and relationship of good and evil not only frame the entire Genesis narrative as supporting God's ultimate and fateful providence, but sets the tone for the subsequent Hebrew canon. The Hebrews appear to affirm what William Blake wrote in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, "Without contraries is no progression" (4). While the word shatan is not mentioned in Genesis, the seed idea is clearly present. Their experiences, by the time they composed their scriptures, confirmed the necessity of spiritual and psychological conflict in order to move any story (history) forward. On this topic Jung, in "A Psychological Approach to the Trinity," writes:

The shadow and the opposing will are the necessary conditions for all actualization. An object that has no will of its own, capable, if need be, of opposing its creator, and with no qualities other than its creator's, such an object has no independent existence and is incapable of ethical decision...Therefore Lucifer was perhaps the one who best understood the divine will struggling to create a world and who carried out that will most faithfully. For, by rebelling against God, he became the active principle of a creation which opposed to God a counter-will of its own. (CW 11:196, par. 290)

No matter how hard humans try to eliminate opposition and suffering from the world, an effort I commend by the way, there appears to be an archetypal satanic substratum (unconscious) that will always manifest new existential challenges. I believe this is part of what Hillman wanted to convey in his Terry Lectures when he said that pathologizing is a key idea for soul-making, describing one of the psyche's functions within the human to be an "autonomous ability to create illness, morbidity, disorder, abnormality, and suffering in any aspect of its behavior and to experience and imagine life through this deformed and distorted perspective" (Re-Vis. 57). It seems that the Hebrew notion of the satan as an agent of Yahweh fits Hillman's psychological observation--something in the natural world and human nature itself manifests oppositions--presenting a kind incongruous cosmology of unity between seemingly opposing forces. If that is so, then the satan represents this innate and autonomous function found in the human psyche. This appears to be what the Talmudic Rabbis had in mind when they conflated the satan with human nature: "Satan and the yetser (evil inclination of the heart) and the angel of death are one" (Babylonian Talmud 16a). This reminds us of Freud's observations in Beyond the Pleasure Principle as he discusses the role of peculiar "repetition compulsions"--the tendency to repeat pathological thoughts and behaviors which run contrary to the basic desire for pleasure. This is a complex and complicated issue, but one of Freud's comments is pertinent to our study: "The manifestations of a compulsion to repeat exhibit to a high degree an instinctual character, and when they act in opposition to the pleasure principle, give the appearance of some 'demonic' force at work" (35 italics mine). With regard to this, Freud spoke of a "destiny neurosis" manifested in "the life-histories of men and women...[as] an essential character-trait which remains always the same and which is compelled to find expression in a repetition of the same experience" (293). These "instinctual compulsions" often contradict or oppose (shatan) the analysand's search for pleasure. Eventually Freud would stress that such an adversarial "instinct is an urge inherent in organic life to restore an earlier state of things" (308) eventually arriving at his concept of the death drive.

Michael Conforti speculates that these Freudian pathological impulses or Jungian archetypal presences can be called psychic fields. In Field, Form and Fate he speaks of psychic "field-influencers" or representative patterns which transcend the will of the subjective ego, drawing persons into certain, specific experiences for individuation or making a soul. Sometimes these are adversarial, showing up as troubling dreams, bizarre fantasies, spontaneous addictive behaviors, compulsive love relationships and a host of other unexpected life events--akin to the biblical satan. For the recipient of such dreams, fantasies and compulsions, it may very well seem as if a personified adversary were assailing the psyche. Conforti sums it up well: "I believe that an investigation of the workings of these archetypal fields and the development of an archetypal field theory may compensate for our culture's increased disregard for psychic [non-egoic] autonomy, the wisdom of nature, and the role of unseen forces in the individual and collective psyche" (58).

A contemporary example of how these adversarial and pathological challenges are showing up in 21st century America can be found in the March 11, 2013 issue of Time magazine in a story titled, "Serial Killing: How TV dramas, good and bad, have become addicted to blood" (50). When asked why people consistently prefer television shows that are rife with highly pathologized images, the author writes:

Violence is your grandma's entertainment and your nephew's. What they see is life as a relentless struggle and their fellow man as their potential executioner. Whether in suburbia or in 1920s Atlantic City or in a fantasy kingdom, people want what they want and are glad to build their dreams on a pile of skulls. (Time March 11, 2013)

In 1978, Meg Greenfield in Newsweek, after the Jonestown mass suicide in the Guyanan jungle, noted that everyone had a quick explanation. Secularists blamed religionists, religionists blamed socialist radicals, progressives blamed capitalists and American racism, etc. Greenfield noted that humans seek quick explanations that make "the night less frightening [and] domesticate the horror by making it fit our prejudices and predilections," however, in reality the horror arises from "the dark impulses that lurk in every private psyche [and] the jungle is only a few yards away" (132).

The Hebrew union of a satanic oppositional impulse working together with the living LORD God is akin to the Taoist notion of darkness and light being distinct yet unified--a single circle encompassing the opposites, signifying that this earthly existence contains a mixture of light and darkness, good and evil, peace and war, and all opposites. The Hebrews and the Taoists seem to be affirming some kind of developmental process through a kind of psycho-spiritual isometrics. The satan is a human term applied to the ubiquitous human phenomenon of encountering internal and external obstacles--a mythical construct for an infinite archetypal Process and/or Being. At this level the debate over whether the satan is a person, an internal impulse, a symbol of free will gone bad, etc. is moot. These symbolic descriptions all contain phenomenological truth regarding human existence, yet none captures the eternal essence completely. I would like to conclude with a passage from Plato’s Timaeus:

If then, Socrates, amid the many opinions about the gods and the generation of the universe, we are not able to give notions which are altogether and in every respect exact and consistent with one another, do not be surprised. Enough, if we adduce probabilities as likely as any others; for we must remember that I who am the speaker, and you who are the judges, are only mortal men, and we ought to accept the tale which is probable and enquire no further…Wherefore, using the language of probability, we may say that the world became a living creature truly endowed with soul and intelligence by the providence of God.

The Timaeus reminds us that there are many opinions about the gods, the origin of the universe and all of the puzzling stuff that occurs around and within us. We are allowed guesses and probable solutions--but never absolutes around these big issues. I suspect that our compulsion to make sense of human suffering is an aspect of suffering itself, perhaps even a "satanic" soul-making activity. With Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones we might end by acknowledging through his lyrics from Sympathy for the Devil: "Ah, what’s puzzling you / Is the nature of my game, oh yeah…". Oh yeah, indeed.

The Modern Fascination with the Brain: The Religion of Cranialism and Politics of Neurocracy

This new and thriving religion of "Cranialism," is the materialist's latest retreat into naturalistic reductionism. If the govt. seizes complete control of health care, then they can set their standards for "mental health". If the brain is merely a material organ--like the heart or lungs--then our ideas and emotions make be broken like legs or infected like teeth. Then the mental health doctors can define how a "normal" brain thinks and feels. And if your brain is declared "mentally dysfunctional" by the "professionals", that that sick brain must be treated and repaired according to their norms. I think part of the motive for millions of dollars being sunk into brain research has to do with a bio-social engineering approach to politics and culture.

I don't care if you are on the left or the right, as a Libertarian I don't want the govt. defining who is and is not mentally "healthy". When I told someone I was probably going to vote for Romney, she seriously blurted out, "Are you mentally ill?!" There you have it. Disagree with me, and you have a brain disease. Accusing someone of mental illness these days is the equivalent of ancient people accusing someone of demon possession or of being a witch. The moment the verdict is declared--demon possession or mentally ill--you are in need of treatment by the professional priests or psychiatrists.

As Thomas Szasz points out, mental illness is the modern version of the Inquisition. Put the govt. in control of DSM, and you have an updated version of the medieval Malleus Maleficarum. Once you are diagnosed as "not normal" according to the current orthodoxy, you can be fixed. At that point the dialogue goes from a healthy soul-making discussion of ideas to that of who has the healthy mental ideology. Shades of Russian, Chinese, Cuban and North Korean re-educational camps. And not that far from a form of religious theocracy--perhaps Statist Cranial Neurocracy.

I propose, from an archetypal perspective (or spiritual view), that the brain is merely the conduit of ideas and feelings that come to us, through us and only the, as us. We are conduits for images, ideas, emotions and eventual actions. My eogic interaction with their visiting perceptions allows "me" to interact with them, dialogue, reflect and assimilate or excrete them--like food. This is soul-making. This view sees the mind as independent of the brain (and perhaps other organs) prior to their interactions. I am NOT reduced to brain-organ.

I like to use this analogy for the hard core materialists: "Imagine that you could transport some primeval character, who had never seen a television or cell phone or any such technology, into a modern room with you. Then you turn on the flat screen TV monitor hanging on the wall, and there appears an image of Jimmy Fallon doing his monologue. Then you ask that ancient person where Fallon is located. He would likely say, 'He is a little person, inside that box.' And that is a very reasonable answer. But you reply, 'No, he is 500 miles (25 sunrises) from here in a place called Los Angeles.' The fellow replies, 'How is he getting into the box?' You respond, 'Well, there are invisible signals (images, voices, ideas) in the air entering this room. In fact, there are hundreds of such signals (images and sounds) all around us. We just need the right apparatus (mechanical circuitry in the box) to capture the signals (ghosts) and turn them into images that talk.'" Magic--invisible images and ideas appear in a little box.

In this analogy, of course the brain is our "television monitor" replete with amazingly intricate hard wiring and processive technology that allows us to capture the myriad signals in the air (Sheldrake'smorphic fields, Confortti's archetypal fields, Jung's little people dwelling in the Psychoid realm, Corbin's Mundus Imaginalis, Jesus' Kingdom of Heaven, etc.). Perhaps our personal daimon (see James Hillman's The Soul's Code} controls the psychological remote control that chooses the particular configuration of channels we each receive for our personal soul-making experiences (akin to Keat's hornbook in his School of Soul-making). 

This analogy doesn't prove that there is consciousness apart from the brain. But it does illustrate that immaterial, or at least invisible to the naked human eyes and ears, signals do work in conjunction with the material monitor--transmitted by a kind of Hermes-like technology that translates and interprets from one realm to the other. Why then would it not be at least possible to have an amazingly complex material brain-monitor replete with 100 billion interconnected cells, chemical synapses, and an intra-somatic neural wiring system, etc., as well invisible signals we call consciousness in Mind, or Psyche co-operating with that brain?

When I share this in class, I always see someone gazing eerily and imaginally around the room as if conscious for the first time of the many imperceptible signals filling the air--as if realizing we live daily in the midst of audio and visual invisibles. 

This analogy fits in well with Barfield's/Steiner's anthroposophical "spiritual theories"--the notion that spectral messengers exist in the ethers, and may be"captured and translated" by a part of the mind. This akin to a theory by neurologist Andrew Newberg in his book Why God Won't Go Away. A growing group of so called neuro-theologian'snow talk about the "god-part" of the brain. 

We modern material reductionists may be quite ignorant, or as Bergman said in an interview about his movie Scenes from a Marriage: "We Westerner's are emotionally illiterate."

Another book that masterfully takes on this simplistic materialist view of consciousness is A Mind So Rare, by Merlin Donald. One reviewer said, "Merlin Donald takes on the role toward the study of the human mind that Gould, Lewontin, and Rose take toward the study of human evolution. He tries valiantly to bring us back from what he sees as the brink of an awful and unwarranted reductionism." Donald utilizes literature (art) as neglected data for brain/consciousness studies--especially the chapter titled "The Governor of Mental Life," and page 78 "A Literary View".

Alcoholics Anonymous: Twelve Universal Steps to Spiritual Experience

Most people I meet seem to think that the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous are primarily concerned about drinking too much alcohol. That is entirely erroneous. The twelve steps are universal treads on a stairway to spiritual experience. The dilemma of every addict is a spiritual one--whether they are obsessed with booze, chocolate cake, work, controlling a family member or  any other situation that causes unremitting mental and emotional torment. When the human personality is separated from the larger Spiritual Source, suffering is inevitable.

After Bill Wilson co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935, he contacted the Swiss psychotherapist Carl Jung viacorrespondence in 1961. Wilson wanted Jung to know that the doctors psychological ideas contributed a significant tread to the twelve steps, namely, the need for a profound reorganization of consciousness via spiritual experience. Jung replied: The "craving for alcohol [is] the equivalent, on a low level, of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness, expressed in medieval language: the union with God."

The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous are about each individual finding his/her own personal spiritual experience with a view toward transforming character, and displacing our painful addictive behaviors. Properly functioning A.A. groups do not provide group therapy or self help, although far too many slip into these flawed routines. Effective A.A. groups actually DO the twelve steps, in succession, with a mentor. These are action steps--not theoretical principles. These twelve steps vigorously performed in sequence are universal ceremonies found in all of the world's religious traditions.  They address the alienated soul's desire and need for spiritual connection, providing an unambiguous path toward a longed-for spiritual bond. The aim is to retether the wandering individual back to the Divine--to the numinous Archetypal Beings Who bring new life into our evolving personalities. Over the next three months we will be examining these twelve steps as a path into spiritual experience, as an aspect of the soul-making process. Put on your hiking boots and come prepared to take an active journey into your own unique spiritual experience.

Why Does Everyone Want to Write a Book?

I have had a sense for the past decade that books are approaching their epistemic or cognitive threshold. Something new is needed--something other than 2nd hand narrative, indirect perception or stale "how to" techniques for the herd. I read recently that approximately 2,200,000 new books are published in the world each year. There were 328,259 published in the U.S. alone in 2010; another source says 500,000 in the U.S. in 2010.

I love books, adore books, devour books--but feel they are nearing their end. How many books can one read? Which ones with so many choices? It is overwhelming and impossible to keep up with even a single field of study. Between books, magazines, mp3s, audio recordings, newspapers, journals, blogs, television, cinema, computer, video games, etc., we are inundated by 2nd hand images that are externally generated ("ex-generated") rather than internally generated ("in-generated") or connected to the fresh and personal Imaginal Realm or Collective Unconscious available directly to each of us. I understand that ex-generated images may act as links (symbols) to help activate in-generated images, but they are not synonymous. It's the difference between frozen idols and living images. It's the difference between reading a menu and sampling the food.

This was substantiated recently by movie director Steven Soderbergh who is retiring because he is tired of making films. When asked why in the Feb. 4, 2013 issue of the New York magazine, he said: "It's a combination of wanting a change personally and of feeling like I've hit a wall in my development that I don't know how to break through. The tyranny of narrative is beginning to frustrate me, or at least narrative as we've currently defined it. I'm convinced there's a new grammar out there somewhere. But that could just be my form of theism."

Yes! A new form of grammar, conceivably connected to some form of theism. Perhaps the reason everyone and his pet pig wants to write and publish a book is due to the psychological necessity of having ones own personal life-plot, of a compulsion to tell our soul's story. The Living Word in each of us knows that it must become ever more fleshy, but we keep reducing the flesh to words and images. Each person is the story--a first-hand account of an inevitable and necessary plot--or as Paul said, "You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone" (2 Cor. 3:2). Perhaps the new alphabet is psychological, spiritual and individual. Perhaps the so called New Age "channeling" fixation/phenomenon is the forerunner of something more substantial, personal and vital. Perhaps Walsh's Conversations With God is a primer for Go Have a Conversation With the Gods!

I have been reading a lot of Owen Barfield these days, and his Coleridgeian notion of personal participation in the imaginal realm, similar to Jung's Active Imagination and Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophical works (How to Know Higher Worlds, Staying Connected: How to Continue Your Relationships With Those Who Have Died, and Start Now!: A Book of Soul and Spiritual Exercises). These all address dialogical interaction with the archetypal "persons" present to our consciousness--moving beyond the veil of ordinary consciousness. Perhaps our modern book-glut and literary epidemic is a sign that we are approaching a new epoch--a quantum psychology that will rock the world as much as the printing press and the internet; something like a kind of spiritual intra-net. It is likely a few decades off, or not. But something is up. One can take only so much virtual reality and hand-me-down imagination before the next layer of reality must be experienced. Soderbergh's statement really strikes me, "I'm convinced there's a new grammar out there somewhere. But that could just be my form of theism." With Roger Waters and The Wall we ask, "Is there anybody out there?" Perhaps all of that "Junk DNA" inside of us is waiting to be activated as the new biological means to access and commune with the netherworlds only a few have known up 'til now.

Plato’s Cave & Video Games: Is Virtual Reality Killing Us?

Many puzzle over Plato’s book, The Republic, with regard to whether or not he is opposed to or in favor of art in society. On the one hand he calls for a ban of certain kinds of mythical literature, but then later utilizes mythical stories to get his points across. It’s likely that Plato sees both a negative and positive place for art and myth as you take the entire Republic into consideration. I want to focus for a moment on why he might see art in a negative light.

Plato’s opposition to artistic images is illustrated by the human cave-captives chained to their benches, frozen in positions that force them to stare at moving puppet shadows on the back of the cave wall--images projected through a light in a balcony behind the frozen spectators. Plato's concern is that this kind of "artificial" art keeps one from turning around and seeing the more real forms and eventually the Source(s) from which the artistic shadows arise. This is the negative side of art for Plato. Too much art keeps one blind and stupid--oblivious to the reality behind the images.

Perhaps we can see this in the modern world as an overexposure to television, cinema and video images—even books and magazines. Notice: “overexposure,” not simply exposure. I love television, cinema and my computer--but I also know that all of those mediums can be abused to my detriment.

With overexposure, perhaps ones personal imagination atrophies—shrivels away, or is never developed in the first place. This is bad enough on just the personal level with regard to mental development, but if, as depth psychology suggests, our imaginations are conduits, connected to a dynamic Psychic Imaginal Realm from which new creative material enters the human soul—then we are excluding or even eliminating a kind of psycho-spiritual “Star Gate” into the infinite Source of personal development, individuation, intuition, spirituality, soul-making, or whatever terminology you like.

Perhaps that is why Plato was opposed to an overexposure to art, or to certain types of art. The psyche and personality atrophies. Zombies are born. The doorway to new psychic consciousness through imaginative play dependent on internal images is never built, or if built, becomes closed and nailed shut. It is one thing to play in a virtual world, and another entirely to have the virtual world play inside of you. Many believe that the personalities and psyches of children are fashioned through "mere" play in the early years--play that utilizes a maximum amount of internal imagination, and a minimal amount of prefabricated external images. It is like the difference between an athlete watching a workout video and actually doing the workout. It is like the difference between reading a menu, and eating the actual food. The imagination must access the living Imaginal Realm, and metabolize the fantasy images in order to grow and evolve a personality. This goes on during the course of ones entire life--not just childhood. Many adults too turn into Zombies when overexposed to external television, cinematic and computerized images. This can be countered by engaging with the external images: reflect, introspect, reimagine scenes that puzzled or pleased you; write about, draw, paint or sculpt what you have seen and what it means. External images and events must be personally and imaginally experienced before they are assimilated by the soul, and incorporated into the personality.

Look into the eyes of some of these new mass murderers. There is nobody home—the self has shriveled up. Perhaps they have closed and bolted the door into the dynamic Psyche. They have degenerated into a bland Zombie, a replica of the soul-less virtual images they have encountered without the activity of their own personal imaginations.

MENTAL HEALTH AND THE FAIRNESS FALLACY: RE-VISITING THE CUCKOOS NEST

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the emerging field of global mental health has defined mental health as "the area of study, research and practice that places a priority on improving mental health and achieving equity in mental health for all people worldwide" (Patel, V., Prince, M. JAMA, 303, 1976-1977).

Not only do I find it troubling that a group of professionals are trying to define mental health globally, but that they are also placing a priority on "achieving equity in mental health for all people worldwide". On the surface this appears to be a compassionate and well intended goal, but when we read between the lines, we find a potential Orwellian nightmare lurking in the shadows. Link this group's work with nationalized, and then internationalized "health care," and you have a professional/political power structure that not only defines who is mentally "healthy," but then has the power to enforce "equity" on the global community. If we give people like Mayor Bloomberg the executive power to tell us how much sugar we can ingest into our bodies to remain physically "healthy," it is not a big leap to imagine a psychiatric group appointed by a "governing body" that defines what ideas and emotions we can ingest and express. This idea ought to be terrifying to all political parties in favor of liberty and individualism.

Many of us maintain that there is not a one to one correspondence between physical and psychological systems. Human consciousness is much more than the neuro-chemical interactions in the brain. Those seeking psychological "equity" often view the brain as one might view a car engine or computer hard drive, assuming universal normative mental and emotional functions which can be measured and repaired by trained technicians. This "psychological positivism" would then set the standards of mental normalcy and "equity," tweaking the "abnormal" brain as they would a computer to make it operate according to the technical global standards of wellbeing. This is already being done to a large extent by the multi-billion dollar a year pharmaceutical companies selling drugs that create "equity" in the brains of children and adults

Those who have rightly condemned the religionists for past practices of zombie-like indoctrination, Inquisitions and witch hunts had better wake up to the fact that we are moving in a similar direction, but on a global scale! Emotional global equity? Really? We are not machines, and human consciousness is not synonymous with the physical brain box. Systems Theory has made it clear that much trouble arises when we try to transfer the ideas of one system onto another. For example, most of us would not want a car mechanic doing brain surgery on us, nor would we want a brain surgeon repairing our car. Both brains and cars are composed of atoms and molecules, using the positivist model, but the way those systems operate are entirely different, requiring different standards of equity and approaches to the way they function. The same is true of physical "health" and mental "health".

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[i] JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association, is a weekly peer-reviewed medical journal published by the American Medical Association.

Soul-making Therapy vs. Tradtional Therapy

Put simply, the difference between soul-making therapy and traditional therapy is that soul-making therapy is about becoming emotionally and psychologically literate, traditional therapy is about healing the sick psyche. The soul-making therapist is not a doctor or healer, as in so many modern therapies. The role of the soul-making therapist/counselor is to teach one the alphabet and emotional skills so the individual can see how soul is being made in every feeling, thought, attitude, encounter and action--including sleep. That does not mean obsessive attention to every little detail in life, but rather the ability to know when an event is significant and how to read and respond to it. Soul-making therapy ought not be costly. The costly approach is the traditional therapy that makes one dependent on the therapist-as-healer/messiah. Soul-making aims at freeing you from all “professionals,” and is actually very liberating, even libertarian.

Also, a soul-making approach is about immediate action. Most traditional therapies employ an endless routine of digging up the past and gathering information for the future. Even if the action is "wrong," it is always instructive, activating the next level of consciousness awaiting the choice and deed, or misdeed. It is actually very simple. Everyone, at every moment is making soul. Most just don't know it and have not been taught to participate with it. One cannot, NOT, make soul--one can only be aware or not aware of the process--and be literate or illiterate about reading the sea of symbols in which we constantly swim.

The paradox about soul-making is that the very psyche that is confused and lost is also compelling you to seek. Just as a seed simultaneously breaks apart in the soil, and sinks roots down into the darkness as necessary steps toward unfolding the plant—so the soul must disintegrate as it reintegrates. Both occur simultaneously and are typically indistinguishable, especially in the early phases. This means there is no way to do it wrong. But as humans, we may minimize the suffering by acquiring a literacy of ideas that allow us to assimilate the insights that swarm around inside of us every minute. There will always be some amount of pain in soul-making, but ignorance increases and exacerbates the pain.

Again, this is put simply, but we must begin somewhere.

What is Consciousness for? or, Why Are We Conscious?

Let's imagine the idea of consciousness beyond the limited box of positivism, beyond mere materiality. What if consciousness works as an experience-gathering medium for an "organism" or field of personality that operates outside of the physical body? What if consciousness acts as the mouth and stomach of this "field-organism," ingesting, digesting and metabolizing experiences in order to make a psyche or soul that survives physical existence? Perhaps this is why all humans have an innate sense of infinity and immortality. What if the brain operates more like a television, a medium that gathers and projects invisible signals from distant sources in order to transmit them to a “Watcher,” for his/her education. This accords with John Keats, the 19th century Romantic poet, notion of soul making: http://www.mrbauld.com/keatsva.html. Perhaps each of us is an extension of our larger Self in this University of Physicality and Emotionality, with a brain, body, feelings and choices to be part of a larger creative project. Perhaps this Big Bang matrix is like a womb, gestating new beings, moving them from humans to HUMANS.

FOR THOSE WHO DON'T LIKE THE WORD "GOD", TRY "GODDING"

Words are wonderful. They allow us to know and experience so much more than we could without them. However, like plucked fruit or flowers, words nearly always go bad. That is the case with the word "God" for some in our modern world. A few of us have lost the ability to believe in or trust a particular religious depiction of God, yet we have not lost a sense of the Presence of “something” divine. We could say that we still enjoy the celestial flowers and fruit, but not after they have gone bad in the religious container.

In C.S. Lewis' book, Till We Have Faces, the protagonist named Orual comes into a temple and sees a newly completed statue of a beautiful young goddess. The priest informs Orual that the marble image represents a woman who "has only just begun to be a goddess. For you must know that, like many other gods, she began by being a mortal". Orual asks him, "And how was she godded?" The priest then tells the story of how a mortal was "godded".

I like Lewis' word, "godded". It implies the result or end of a process which we might call "godding". I find myself these days, when asked if I believe in God, saying that I trust in "godding". I then go on to explain that I view every internal and external life experience to be part of the "godding" process--of making each of us immortal, of being made into the image and likeness of God. I see "God" as a verb, a dynamic process of movement--a sacred wind (Holy Spirit) blowing across the landscape of my soul sculpting the topography from mortality to immortality, from a generic human to a unique personality.

Many do not know that all of the deities in human history began as verbs, or by godding: Zeus as thundering. Aphrodite as beautifying. Vishnu as rescuing. Kali as destroying. YAHWH as being. Satan as opposing. Allah as qu'raning (reciting). And so on. I am here imaginaing the Gods as verbs, active participants in the human soul-making endeavor. This earth is the realm of godding, with an aim toward making each human godded or god-like. That is the purpose of this planet.

I also like that Lewis' priest tells Orual "the story" of the young woman's godding process, of "how a mortal was godded" over many years of lived experience. In the New Testament Paul writes that “We are becoming God’s masterpiece...a letter written to be read by others...” The word “masterpiece” is translated from the Greek word poiema, the origin of our word for “poem.” Great poetic and artistic masterpieces are created line by line and stroke upon stroke via a skilled artisan over time. John Keats calls Lewis' "godding" process, soul-making. The Apostle Peter says the purpose of this godding process is that we "may participate in the divine nature by escaping the decay caused by selfishness" (II Peter 1:4). The godding process turns human mortality into immortality, finitude into infinity.

But how does one have faith in “something” like this? What do we call it? How do we trust it? How do we address it? Answer: As a verb. Or rather, we perceive God as divine action in every moment. The “Word” is not the audio or visual symbol, but the archetypal “___ing” -- the process, the actor, the agent of “____ing”. I can no longer merely intellectually believe or trust in “god,” but in Godding. 

Try ceasing to view God as a noun, or name. All nouns are frozen verbs, captured actions. Just as we are human “be-ings”, so to the divine is divine “be-ing”--action, process, an active Presence Who is not merely present, but presencing behind and through all that is present. Now there is a metaphysical mouthful, or maybe New Age mumbo jumbo--but you get the point. Divinity is a verb. With Lewis, I call it Godding.

Our current myth of the Big Bang may be the result of Godding. All movement is Godding--cosmic, psychological, relational, emotional, political, historical, scientific, etc. Each human is a kind of mini version of the Big Bang occurring in his/her psyche. Each soul is in the process of inventing, birthing, adventing, mating, hunting, eating, digesting, defecating, warring, thinking, feeling, willing, building, creating, living, dying, rebirthing, resurrecting. 

My primary religion then is “ingism” – or what I choose to call soul-making, psycho-poeisis, or what the Eastern Orthodox Church calls theois, the art or skill of godding. Each of us, like the deity in C.S. Lewis' story is in the process of godding with the aim of being godded, or made into a immortal be-ing.

Let me further suggest that Godding is not the same as "unicorning" or belief in unicorns. The human experience of Godding arises from an innate human compulsion--unicorning does not. Unicorning is recognized as a fantasy constructed from the realities of horses and horns, but the existence of such a creature is known to be a fairy tale. Godding is not in the same category. Just as beautying, justicing, truthing, loving, etc. exist a priori, so is the ubiquitous human compulsion toward Godding. Transcendent qualities like Beauty and Justice are ontological entities--as real and common as grass and rocks—that is why they cannot be willed away or forgotten. Justice or fairness is a good example: Crowd in front of a man in a supermarket line and he will be compelled to justicing. Truth is another: Lie to a woman about something personal to her and she will be compelled to truthing. Tell that man or woman that there are unicorns or tooth fairies, and they will think you teasing or insane. Unicorns and tooth fairies are not in human consciousness like truth, beauty, justice and godding. That is why atheists are so obsessed with un-godding--just as a criminal is obsessed with wiping out justice. These eternal, archetypal entities may be annoying, but they are not made up by the human mind.

I see godding not as metaphysics, but middle-physics—the link between physics and metaphysics—the link between nature and cultural religion. 

Godding is what compels humans in every culture to find Gods or ultimate authorities, religions, rituals, stories and other “sacred” phenomena. But Godding is different than God. To speak of God is like taking a photograph of Godding, freezing an isolated frame of the dynamic movement Itself/Herself/Himself. 

Godding is the divine equivalent of William James observation that human thought is a "stream of consciousness," always moving; Heraclitus' flowing river into which no one can step twice, always re-positioning.

Our modern world is transitioning into something not yet known--a new kind of godding. Of course many of the old frozen religious nouns and plucked religious flowers are still vibrant and thriving for many people—and will continue to be so for some time. But for those who can no longer trust or believe in a particular "God"--you might want to say you believe in "godding".

What is Soul-making Counseling?

https://www.michaelbogar.com/

A Soul-making therapeutic approach is not like typical psychotherapy which most often views the client as mentally or emotionally sick and in need of a "cure" or "restoration to normalcy". This is obviously a valid and beneficial approach. Soul-making on the other hand does not view emotional disturbances as automatically stemming from an illness, but rather as normal and necessary internal birth pangs indicating the imminent emergence of a new personality.

Soul-making does not focus on restoration but rather on regeneration. Psychotherapy seeks to go back to a prior "healthy" condition while Soul-making therapy seeks to move ahead toward a more complete self.

The goal of Soul-making therapy is not to fix, cure or change your problematic emotions, but to work with them as the containers and carriers of a new aspect of self that wants to be born. In order to do this one must become emotionally literate--to learn a new psychological alphabet that is seldom taught in this culture, enabling one to read and converse with the troubling emotions. We are not dealing with a sick brain but with a living psyche. While there are clearly times that the brain is organically damaged and in need of curative restoration, that is not our approach. We work with a wise psyche that has purpose in our fears, anxieties, failures and depressions.  

Part of what Soul-making therapy does is to set reassess the word "normal". You are not a statistic, nor are you meant to be "like" anybody else, in spite of what some psychotherapists, self help teachers, politicians and ministers might say. Soul sees all emotions as normal and necessary, especially in the midst of our messes. The soul speaks to us through our dysfunctions, addictions and disorders.

Often the intention of these disturbing emotions is to slow one down long enough to reflect deeply in order to go deeper, to wander through tangled experiences thoughtfully and meaningfully rather than unconsciously sprinting to the finish line of health and success. Soul is not primarily concerned about security, certainty or how much money you make, yet ironically people who cultivate their souls are often more likely to become more secure and successful in everything they do.

I always suggest that people continue their other therapeutic and spiritual programs which aim at bottom line results. Soul-making therapy is not meant to replace other therapies or spiritual practices. There is room for all.

Finally, I highly recommend two books: The first is by James Hollis, The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Midlife, and the other is a book by James Hillman, The Soul's Code: In Search of Character and Calling. These books will assist the reader in becoming emotionally literate, moving him/her toward the experience of seeing and doing life differently.

This is my approach. It is not for everyone. If interested, click on this link: https://www.michaelbogar.com/services

I look forward to your call.

206-459-4474

YOUR CRAVINGS BRING PSYCHO-SPIRITUAL COMPLETION

"If you only follow your own desire according to its own indications it will never go too far, it will always lead to its own defeat." Marie Louise von Franz, from Alchemy, An Introduction

In this statement, I hear Marie von Franz saying that our incessant cravings for pleasure and happiness always contain within them an ultimate defeat. The new car, new home, new lover, yummy bowl of ice cream or a great movie I've been looking forward to--I desire it, get it, and then it's gone. Then what? Most of us simply fill the mind, heart and hands with the next anticipated desire, even when we know that it too will come and go. But then a moment arrives in life, or several moments, when we ask, "Is this it? Just one unfulfilled craving following the next?"

The conscious person is left with at least two alternatives when such questions arise: One, become really super spiritual and learn to stop desiring. Two, continue to desire while realizing that every unfulfilled aspiration is leading me toward a goal. Von Franz is recommending alternative number two. You see, her quote comes from a book about alchemy. Alchemy refers to the process of transforming one thing into another thing, an entirely different thing than the first. Her comment about desire leading to defeat is not a negative assessment, but very positive. She is not suggesting that we ought to get rid of our desires, but simply realize that they will always leave us empty and needy, but that each new desire and each subsequent defeat moves us closer to the ultimate goal--which is completion. Please do not ask me what "completion" is. I have no clue--any more than I could have told you when I was five years old what it would be like to be twenty or fifty. But I knew that such ages or "completions" existed. C.S. Lewis said, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” I think Lewis is suggesting that every desire is God-given, but that the continual disappointments remind us that eventually the desire can and will be fulfilled by "another world". I once heard a Rabbi put it like this, "Every time we connect to something or someone that we desire, the cord is cut and we fall into disappointment. But God reties the rope, each new knot drawing us one inch closer to completion." I love that image. There is purpose in every desire, every defeat, and every retying. Enjoy your desires. Fulfill your desires. Acknowledge the defeats. Know you are moving to a goal--the goal of making your unique soul.

Government Controlled Health Care and Mental Illness

 My biggest concern over government controlled healthcare has less to do with party politics and more to do with giving any govermental body control over our minds. Once the government gets hold of the ever expanding Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV-TR, 2000, Fourth Edition, which now has almost 1000 pages worth of mental illnesses, they hold the equivalent of The Malleus Maleficarum. This ancient text, first published in 1486-7, was the standard medieval text on witchcraft. It remained in print throughout the early modern period. Similar to the DSM it describes what is normal and what is not and the ways to "fix things" that don't fit into "normal" society. Thomas Szasz calls the modern  Western proclivity to resort to accusations of "mental illness" as being the equivalent of the Catholic Inquisition. We no longer accuse people of being possessed in order to ostracize them socio-politically, but resort to labeling them with pathologizing terminology. Szasz argues that the old religious model has been transferred to the modern medical psychiatric model. Same result: One receives an "authoritative" label, stigmatization follows, and then one is handed over to the state run institutions to be removed from normal society, treated and "fixed" or incarcerated by the new priests--therapists and social workers.

Recently, someone I know discovered who I was voting for in the 2012 presidential election and wrote me a concerned email saying, "Some of your friends think you have lost your sanity." I had to smile. The same person would mock Christians for accusing someone of demon possession, but unquestioningly resorted to the modern scientistic parallel of being possessed by "mental illness". I was clearly not in "the right, or left mind". I assured her that I was certainly insane, as the word in-sane can mean "partly there". I also made it clear that we are all somewhat insane, and thanked her for the compliment. Watch out for people who think they are sane--they are the most dangerous kind of people.

Now, back to the government controlling "mental health". Imagine either a democrat or a republican majority, or even both parties conjointly, appointing those who adjudicate what is "normal" and revising the DSM, which is done every few years, to reflect their judgments--adding illnesses like criticizing the president, disagreeing with the majority, being a Tea Party member or Occupy Wall Street member. It is a very short step to adding new mental illnesses to the "Book" and seizing control of the minds of the citizens, just as the Church tried to do in parts of Europe with their "Book" in the 15th century. I think Orwell called Governmentally run mental healthcare the Ministry of Love.

FOR THOSE WHO DON’T "FEEL" GOD’S PRESENCE

The modern Sufi writer, Idries Sha, notes that most modern spiritual programs determine the success and enlightenment of the spiritual student by her/his mystical experiences and feelings of bliss. To put it mildly, this is dispiriting to those who have no such experiences, or to those who have such experiences and can’t seem to find them again. Shah says this about that, “...according to Sufi ideas and practice, it is precisely those who do not feel subjective states, or who have at one time been affected by them and no longer feel them, who may be real candidates for the next stage [of spiritual development].”

In other words “spirituality” is not necessarily measured by “feelings of numinous connection”. This is a profound Sufi teaching, suggesting that advanced Truth and “spirituality” are most often experienced in the times of disconnection and feelings of ordinary daily life, or times of feeling distant from the divine Presence. Junaid of Bhagdad, a Sufi teacher who lived in 900 A.D writes: “Truth comes after ‘states’ and ecstasy, and takes its place”. Some mystics call this the “Presence of Absence,” suggesting that Absence is a living Experience that takes us more deeply into soul-making than any ecstatic sensation of bliss. The Hebrew psalmist wrote:

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me

and the light become night around me,”

even the darkness will not be dark to you;

the night will shine like the day,

for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

~ Psalm 139:11-13

This Psalm recognizes that the divine knitting or weaving together of one’s soul takes place in the light and the dark, in moments of numinous light and moments of murky absence. Divine activity takes place even in the darkness of the womb--every mundane moment forms a divine womb where we are being fashioned into the image of God.

Remember this next time you wish you had more mystical experiences or numinous feelings of divine Presence. Remember this when a guru or teacher tells you that ultimate spirituality is a feeling of divine bliss. Like romantic love, feelings come and go, but the Presence of the Divine and opportunities for Truth-knowing are in every moment of the day. Make yourself a little sign like the one Carl Jung had carved in Latin above the door of his house in Kusnacht, Switzerland: "VOCATUS ATQUE NON VOCATUS DEUS ADERIT," which says in English: "Called or not called, the deity will be there." Jung said he placed it there for his clients to see each time they came for therapy—reminding them that the divine usually does not show up in the way one expects.

The Normalcy and Necessity of self-Annihilation

“All things in creation suffer annihilation (fanā) and there remains

the face of the Lord in its majesty and bounty.” ~ Qur'an, Sura 55:26–27

The Arabic word fanā means “to pass away” or “to annihilate," referring to the often painful obliteration of the individual human ego that keeps one from experiencing the majesty of the infinite God. Fanā is one of the necessary steps taken by the Islamic Ṣūfī adept in pursuit of union with the pure love of God, often through unceasing contemplation on the attributes of God. Most Ṣūfīs view fanā as a negative state or a first step in preparation for the positive state of experiencing the revelation of the divine attributes and union (tawḥīd) with God. This is not an easy step. It requires the dissolution of the ego-self while remaining physically alive.
I am struck by this Ṣūfī notion of fanā as it relates to James Hillman's archetypal psychology, specifically his idea of pathologizing. Hillman describes pathologizing as "the psyche's autonomous ability to create illness, morbidity, disorder, abnormality, and suffering in any aspect of its behavior and to experience...life through this deformed and afflicted perspective... necessarily...central to the soul" (Re-Visioning Psychology 55-57). Elsewhere Hillman discusses the therapeutic process and the troublesome pathologizings which sometimes lead analysands to suicidal thoughts and urges: “Where the death experience insists on a suicidal image, then it is the patients ‘I’ and everything he holds to be his ‘I’ is coming to its end” (Suicide and the Soul 75). In other words, there is something native to the human psyche that requires the fanā or obliteration of the current "I" before new life may emerge. This suggests that all of life's experiences, especially the so called "negative" and painful, contribute to the making of a soul. The Ṣūfī poet Rumi states it beautifully:

This human soul is like a hotel.

Every morning there is a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a nastiness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain all of them!

Even if a mob of mourners arrives

who violently sweep the rooms

and destroy all of the furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He or she may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The depressed thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them all at the door warmly,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

--Rumi

If you feel like you are dying, or that an old quality or relationship is eroding, remember that such experiences are normal and necessary. Take a lesson from the Sufis--cooperate, assist and let the death take place without a struggle.

Preparing for the End, and the Beginning

 The Book of Revelation, also known as The Apocalypse of John completes the biblical story of spiritual development. Let's remember that the author named John was not a literalist, but a symbolist. A symbolist is one who expects the reader to see through the surface of a story to the inner personal significance. In The Gospel of John, Jesus speaks to a religious professional named Nicodemus who interprets Jesus' comment literally: "You must be born again." The perplexed Nicodemus then asks, "How can a man enter into his mother's womb and be born again?" Jesus replies, "How can you possibly teach others about spiritual things when you cannot understand spiritual symbolism?" (my paraphrase). This little exchange is a key to reading John's writings. They are to be read symbolically.

The Book of Revelation is for those spiritually advanced souls who have sufficiently experienced enough of life to see that there must be more to it than pleasure and pain, success and failure, marriage and divorce, education and ignorance, etc. All of these experiences are normal and necessary for spiritual development, but they are meant to lead us to deeper and deeper experiences leading to a more complete personality--a personality that blends the human and the divine into a new being.

The Book of Revelation portrays shocking images of the advanced soul in a state of personality annihilation, the peeling away of worn out goals and lost dreams. Physical aging forces one to look in the mirror, viewing bodies and past lives as they evaporate like a morning mist. The horrific and beatific images in the Revelation are meant to cause us to reflect as we prepare for the end of this phase of existence. That preparation requires us to obliterate the old and anticipate the new--the "new heavens and new earth". But both must be done together. Most people would rather dismiss the book or turn it into something literal rather than do the hard work of reflection that brings renewal. The Sufi poet, Rumi, put it like this:

This human soul is like a hotel.

Every morning there is a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a nastiness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain all of them!

Even if a mob of mourners arrives

who violently sweep the rooms

and destroy all of the furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He or she may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The depressed thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them all at the door warmly,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

--Rumi

Freezing the Infinite in a System: C.S. Lewis's Critique of Anthroposophy

Before C.S. Lewis made a decision to become a practicing Anglican Christian, he was engaged in thinking about spiritual and psychological matters--matters beyond objective, rational literalisms. Lewis protested the temptation to be drawn into the certainty of metaphysical and occult "systems of truth" with their established categories which froze the infinite. One might wonder if his eventual strong adherence to orthodox Christian theology belies his wariness of freezing the infinite. Here is a letter Lewis wrote in 1926 at the age of 28. In this letter he chastises Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophical system of metaphysical certainty:

"No one is more convinced than I that reason is utterly inadequate to the richness and spirituality of real things: indeed this is itself a deliverance of reason. Nor do I doubt the presence, even in us, of faculties embryonic or atrophied, that lie in an indefinite margin around the little finite bit of focus which is intelligence—faculties anticipating or remembering the possession of huge tracts of reality that slip through the meshes of the intellect. And, to be sure, I believe that the symbols presented by imagination at its height are the workings of that fringe and present to us as much of the super-intelligible reality as we can get while we retain our present form of consciousness.
 
My scepticism begins when people offer me explicit accounts of the super-intelligible and in so doing use all the categories of the intellect. If the higher worlds have to be represented in terms of number, subject and attribute, time, space, causation etc (and thus they always are represented by occultists and illuminati), the fact that knowledge of them had to come through the fringe remains inexplicable. It is more natural to suppose in such cases that the illuminati have done what all of us are tempted to do:—allowed their intellect to fasten on those hints that come from the fringe, and squeezing them, has made a hint (that was full of truth) into a mere false hard statement. Seeking to know (in the only way we can know) more, we know less. I, at any rate, am at present inclined to believe that we must be content to feel the highest truths 'in our bones': if we try to make them explicit, we really make them untruth.
 
At all events if more knowledge is to come, it must be the wordless and thoughtless knowledge of the mystic: not the celestial statistics of Swedenborg, the Lemurian history of Steiner, or the demonology of the Platonists. All this seems to me merely an attempt to know the super-intelligible as if it were a new slice of the intelligible: as though a man with a bad cold tried to get back smells with a microscope."