Post by Promethius on Feb 19, 2007 22:42:29 GMT -5
The Significance of Psychology in the Occult
By Promethius
[Author's Note: This was intended to be a short introduction into the forum, but it has become an essay that roughly discusses Psychology in relation to our practices. The material here has factual bases, but the opinions are none but my own. You may choose to accept or reject them as you please. Feel free to comment and discuss material presented. This post is subject to change for the sake of reorganization or the correcting of typos. Copyright Promethius, February 19th 2007. ... there seems to be sections covering things such as dream interpretation...I encourage asking either way.]
Hello, and welcome to the Jungian Psychology section of the boards. As implied by the name, this section is going to be confined to the subject of psychology (not necessarily only Jungian, though), and will eventually contain articles and threads discussing the human mind. Some of you may possibly be wondering how conventional studies of the mind are, in any way, related to the occult arts and spirituality. Open your eyes and take a look at the world around you, and you will understand just how significant the understanding of the mind is.
To pose an example, I am sure many of you know people that have turned their backs to our ignorant society and have decided to reject conventional knowledge and science with it. This is a dangerous mistake that many aspiring spiritualists and occultists make, because while we have indeed rediscovered and utilized the metaphysics, society has made many invaluable observations about life that we must integrate into our practices. The supernatural is a force that can never be fully understood because of the limits of the human mind, and yet proper discipline and mastery over our souls has allowed to us bend these forces to our will.
Many men have formulated complex theories and institutions centered on explaining the unexplainable. These wise men found their own personal truths and spread their light to their respective cultures. These cultures have in turn constructed their own objective beliefs of how the universe operates and were able to utilize the force of the supernatural therein. The problem that we must consider, however, is the fact that so many of these cultures’ beliefs have been extremely illogical, disproven, and inconsistent with beliefs of any culture on hand you could compare one with. Why then were these people able to work their wills so effectively?
Because of symbolism. Symbols are both the keys to the most profound truths, and the masks that prevent us from reaching them. The aforementioned peoples attributed the universe to their own system of beliefs in order to symbolically relay how they want their desires to become true. To further demonstrate this point, let us take into consideration a scenario that all of us have probably experienced – the creation of a psiball. No one knows with complete certainty what psi is, but it is very likely that it is the slush in a slushy before the colored flavoring is added (to give an example). This has been a subject of debate between psions and magicians for a while, but for now, let us put the fact aside and assume that this were indeed so.
Psi is non-physical, and thus, it inherently has no physical feeling associated with it. Why then do so many people feel some type of tingling or magnetic feeling when using it? Symbolism. There is no way we could actually completely comprehend the nature of something non-physical physically, and so our expectations of what it should feel like get relayed to our soul, the non-physical variable actually responsible for the handling of psi energy, which allows the effects indicative to our success happen. This brings about the controversy of whether all of these sensations are fabricated psychologically (fake), but we all know the supernatural as fact.
These symbols come from various subconscious impressions we receive from the world around us. The feeling we often receive from psiballs, for example, most possibly come from all the sci-fi and anime shows we have been watching, which do a pretty good example of having the viewer be able to actually ‘feel’ the ball of energy. The commonalities these feelings have amongst each individual person probably comes from the amount of similar media sources we have been exposed to.
The ancient cultures discussed earlier did not have many similar objective beliefs, but when studied closely, psychologists found that the symbolism behind many of their beliefs tended to be much the same. These symbols also came from the amount of similar experiences the people of said cultures experienced – this was named the collective unconsciousness. One experience that nearly all people have stored in their subconscious mind is their own birth. This is usually coupled with a female nursing them and a male providing for them until they are old enough to become independent.
Indeed, the above illustrations are two examples of the manifestations that occurred because of those experiences. The woman, in the ancient world, had become the universal symbol of obedience, submission, and nurturance. These virtues were imposed on the women, and they were expected to act accordingly. The woman example is a universal symbol, and is thus known as an Archetype. An Archetype does not imply that every individual interprets the symbol exactly the same; societies in general do seem to, however. I am completely certain that the Amazonians would not see women in the same light the rest of the world did. This demonstrates that many of these symbols found in religion were not objective, but were subjective depending on the culture.
Applied to the occult, this could mean that the many monsters and various energies some of you may be dealing with are not as objective as they may appear. ‘Fire energy’ for example, may only be the fabrication of your own mind, programmed to attain certain qualities when summon it to yourself. I have found that this were most likely the case, though it is possible that the energy could be programmed by some other source. You may or may not believe in this theory, but it is indeed worth some consideration, for it may have a strong significance in your practices.
With this in mind, we move on to the other aspect of psychology: behavioral psychology. This may seem less complex and essential than the understanding of symbols, but they do come together, hand-in-hand. The basic understanding of this science is that human beings have three drives: a survival, a sexual, and a social. In a nutshell, the survival drive is the one that allows one as an individual to survive, the sexual ensures the survival of our kind, and the social is our function to relate with our kind.
Since most of you have the luxury of reading this on the Internet, it can be assumed that your survival and sexual instinct are satisfied. This means that neither you, nor the human race (or your ‘people’) are not in any immediate danger, and thus you do not have to operate in a maximum-security fashion. If this were the case, in accordance to the occult, the only thing to be considered here is the social drive. It is a very strong drive that pushes the individual to do what he must in order better himself in front of a community. It is natural, and it is egoistic in nature, but the drive is present in each human being.
“It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” – Ralph Waldo Emmerson
The strongest individuals are those who know who they are and can hold their ground without being wavered by the allure of society’s acknowledgement. The social drive can only be controlled by discipline and knowledge. It comes from knowing what you are, and realizing what is around you. ‘Overcoming’ the social instinct, however, is the wrong way to go, for ignoring any part of the self only leads to succumbing to lower instincts. Controlling is moderation, and is the way the wise men have instructed us to go.
With that said, one should do their best to function within society if it does not conflict with one’s beliefs. One should become educated before jumping to any rash conclusions at all. Rejecting society just for the sake of rejecting it tends to be rampant amongst many (especially present in teenagers), and this often turns out to be a way to look appealing to society in the first place. Being non-conformist about everything is impossible, since doing so only leads you to conform to a chain of non-conformists anyway. To reiterate a previous point in this light; we should not reject society’s studies just because they are from society.
The social drive is necessary to be understood, because from it comes class, and from there, the ego. Our ego is, in its common usage, self-confidence and our desire to bop up to the top of the social ladder. I fear that when dealing with the world of the unseen, many of us become trapped to our own egos, and let our fantasies carry us away from true spirituality and occult advancement. We begin to use the occult as a way to feel higher than other people because of our knowledge, when truly, and unfortunately, many of us have none. The occult and its online communities becomes a way to pepper our lives with excitement and an escape to a more desirable world. This leads to the danger we know as delusion.
With the otherkin phenomenon, for instance, I fear that many people are fabricating their past lives. Many reasons for this come into mind, the two prominent being some desire to be a representation of strength and beauty or desire to fit in with a desirable community. People flower their supposed past lives with desirable physical traits and archetypes of desirable mental traits. It’s all about desire. Personally, I have also found that many otherkin were inconsistent with their recollections. With closer speculation upon the matter, we find that many claim to be creatures of fantasy or mythology. The first problem that usually comes to mind is that many of these creatures are proven to be created by human minds, as they are riddled with many symbols of various cultures therein. The mere fact that there is no evidence of these creatures existing anywhere should also strike as a bit odd.
This is not to say that the phenomenon is not possible, however, because it certainly is. I am certain that there are people around that have had true experiences. The point that should have been taken is that human motive and need for self-acknowledgement do come into play – and they hit us very strongly. It is important that we stay as true as we can to ourselves in our journey, and we try to see things as objectively as possible in order to gain true knowledge for ourselves. It is a practice of the Hermeticists early in their path to record in a journal all of their good and bad personality traits. Day by day, they go about trying to correct the negative traits as much as they can, reluctantly crossing them off the list as necessary. This scrutinizing practice also applies to their magickal practices; while it is encouraged to be confident, one must view their feats with as much objectivity as they can. We should try to view our beliefs and practices in a similar light.
I am sure many of us can agree on the fact that discipline, honesty, and drive are the virtues that lead a person to be successful. In the fantastic world of the occult, great importance is laid upon the understanding of the mind. In order to truly thrive in our endeavors, we must learn to see things objectively and be in control of our own desires. This forum will be for articles that attempt to explain the mind, and for threads that discuss questions one may have about it. I encourage discussion on the subject of symbols, and attempts at dream interpretation. If ever you are in need of discussing anything related to the mind or magick in general, please feel free to PM me.