Posts Tagged Ego
“Diminution & Expulsion at the Third Trimester: The Why & Way of Mind, or Ego, Separating from Universal Consciousness … Ejection from “Eden” Happens to Everyone During Fetal Malnutrition: Suffering Builds a Character”… Ch 53 of *Dance of the Seven Veils II: *Prenatal/Perinatal Psychology, Mythology, & Your Divine Self* by Michael Adzema. Free. Downloadable chapter
Posted by sillymickel in History on March 26, 2023
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Click for a free downloadable copy of this chapter from *Dance of The Seven Veils II: Prenatal/Perinatal Psychology, Mythology, and Your Divine Self*, with my compliments.
*Dance of The Seven Veils II…Infant to Prenate, Veils Four-Six* is Volume 3 in The Path of Ecstasy Series by Michael Adzema
*Dance of the Seven Veils II: Prenatal/Perinatal Psychology, Mythology, and Your Divine Self*…Infant to Prenate, Veils Four-Six* is being released in paperback and ebook in March 2023.
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Diminution & Expulsion at the Third Trimester:
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The Why & Way of Mind, or Ego, Separating from Universal Consciousness … Ejection from “Eden” Happens to Everyone During Fetal Malnutrition: Suffering Builds a Character
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“In such manner … are the patterns of ego & ‘mind’ separated & severed from underlying & forgotten (but not unfelt) patterns of archetypal, karmic, psychic, & universal Self existing as body. The newly emergent conceptual bank is ripe for the impressions of society & culture.”
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The first fall from grace in coming into Form for all of us involves the events around conception … our peri-conceptional events. Before Form we were No-Form … formless. We existed, for we are immortal. But without form. You might say our existence lie in the No-Form State. In coming into Form, we fall from grace … each of us, just as Lucifer (who is a metaphor for us) did.
It is not that we made a mistake in doing that. We are essentially Divine, so there are no errors. It is only our early Pain, especially our prenatal & perinatal pain, that causes us to make what is perfect into something that is wrong or bad. Indeed, this chapter will help to explain how we do that in regards to death … in creating death at all, since we are immortal. This coming into Form from No-From & this first fall from grace is explained in detail in the forthcoming volume in Dance of the Seven Veils. That is the third volume, which is subtitled, Peri-Conceptional/Transpersonal Psychology, Mythology, & Your Original Face … Cellular to Soulular.
Coming from No-Form into Form existence is related to what Ken Wilber (1977) has called the primary dualism. In this we create matter & non-matter. Yet time is not created. Our existence in the womb, as in the No-Form State, is timeless. There is no past & future. This is where we get our ideas of an Eternal Now.
Then something happens. We create time in the course of our perinatal experiences, beginning during our travails when we are still in the womb during the third trimester when things have started to get rough.
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The Secondary Dualism — The Beginnings of Diminishing Divinity & of Our Becoming Just an Idea
Ontogenetically, it follows then, the second fall is birth & correlates with Ken Wilber’s secondary dualism, which he relates to the creation of time. As Wilber (1977) puts it, “the why of time’s genesis … it is nothing other than man’s avoidance of death.”1
Wilber continues as follows, quoting Benoit (1955): “It is with the arising of the Existential Level that there occurs the infamous debate of ‘to be or not to be’; because at the moment man severs his organism from his environment, then
Suddenly he becomes conscious that his principle is not the principle of the universe, that there are things that exist independently of him, he becomes conscious of it in suffering from contact with the world-obstacle. At this moment appears conscious fear of death, of the danger which the Not-Self represents for Self.
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The Creation of Death in Encounter with the World-Obstacle
We see that fear of death arises out of suffering from contact with the “world-obstacle.” The metaphorical reflections of this, biologically, are the fetus’s encounter with suffering in the later stages of pregnancy. The fetus encounters the “world-obstacle,” the uterus, with the confinedness in the womb & its attendant suffering increasing daily & hourly. The fetus becomes even more conscious of this obstacle — & more identified with its physical form — in reaction to the Energy eruption from frustration.
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The Wall: The creation of pain, time, & death occurs with the encounter with the “World-Obstacle.”
So it is here, farther along in the gestation process, that we feel the separation (from Divinity) with the encounter with the wall of the uterus. People use that metaphor: “I hit the wall.” In other words, “I’ve reached my limit.” This hearkens back to that time in the womb.
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S. Giora Shoham (1990) writes, “In the midst of his omnipresent egocentricity, he experiences disastrously hostile surroundings”3 Though Shoham likens this to the “expulsion” phase of birth, this experience actually begins a little earlier, during the BPM II phase of birth — that is, in the late stages of pregnancy prior to the onset of labor.
Let me clarify this. With the primary split, what I am calling Veil Seven, occurring with the creation of sperm & egg from no-thing-ness, one’s intention can be different from the intention of Other.
Indeed, one perspective on this is that a difference in intention causes the creation of sperm & egg. That is to say, the foundation of the world is wrought of an initial rebellion from God. & with this we can compare the myth of Lucifer, which explains why, as I have put it, Lucifer represents everyperson.
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Or as I view it, which I believe is the less “tainted” of the two perspectives & thus more likely to be true, the creation of the world begins out of Divinity’s intention to expand Experience through a process of forgetting, which makes additional experience possible. Or, more succinctly, God “just wants to have fun.”
Regardless, up until this point in the developments prior to birth, these two intentions have rarely been at odds: The self’s intentions to grow & to expand have been nurtured & aided, in a wonderfully synchronistic way, by the Other — in this case, specifically, by the environment of the mother’s body.
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Toward the end of pregnancy, however, the organism’s intentions to grow & expand are contrary to the environment’s intentions to resist its further growth in response. By this I mean simply that there are limits to the elasticity of the womb & the mother’s body, which result in its becoming an increasing & contrary factor, creating pressure & “weighing in” as a force against the fetus’s growth. To the fetus, however, with the possibility of a different perspective — a “bi-focal” world arising with the primary split — it is as if the environment has “turned against” or “betrayed” it.
At any rate, this friction of opposing intentions (or perspectives) is Energy, just raw Energy until it is labeled. As Wilber (1977) put it: “As an example of this entire movement, let us again use the mobilization of anger, as when a person strikes me. The actual strike itself, in its simplest form, is just a movement of the universe, but as the primary dualism starts to occur, I sense a mobilization of energy arising within me. At this stage — before the primary dualism hardens — this energy is still pure, informal, intemporal….”5
The Creation of Pleasure & Pain
In our example, of course, it is not someone striking the fetus. It is something — felt at times as someone — opposing the fetus’s uninhibited growth. The pattern is the same, however, in that “in its simplest form” the actual blocking of the fetus’s free movement “is just a movement of the universe.”
However, then the prenate does what indeed we all did. Since we were not “wholly” enough to accept this pure energy as simply our energy, our Divinity — this is a consequence of the primary split in the creation of Form out of No-Formness, or Veil Seven, coming about at conception — we make it “wrong,” we “label” it pain. This, of course, is not conceptual labeling here since concepts do not exist as yet. Rather, it is pure, organismic avoidance/rejection … a kind of cosmic mistrust of the events that are occurring. We re-create this in later life every time we turn away from the discomforts & challenges of life instead of facing & embracing & learning the lessons for which these unwanted events have come to enlighten us.
Nonetheless, in us, as prenates — “labeling” this confinedness in the womb, or “walling-in,” as “wrong” — we seek to escape from it into a world of “right.” Therefore, out of the original creation of self & Other or organism & environment — with its concomitant of organism & obstacle (world-obstacle) — we have created the splitting of primary Energy into energy inside & energy coming from outside, into right & wrong, & therewith, pleasure & pain.
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We create time to escape from an insufferable Now … therein we create death.
Furthermore, since we cannot escape pain into space (we cannot move away or out … yet), we create another duality: the duality of time — of past & future. Remember what was said earlier about Janus, the two-faced god, representing beginnings & the fact that it faces in two directions, past & future. Thus, time.
The fetus, in that time prior to birth (“up against the wall”), seeks to escape into memories of a sweetness just recently removed. With this move we have created the duality of life & death, of being & nonbeing. We have created nonbeing in that we are trying to escape the Now into the past, which is a mere memory, an idea, a reflection only of the Now. Herein we have the beginnings of our self becoming just an idea. Not an experiential, fully feeling entity, or Self.
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Furthermore, in this way it can be said that the genesis of time lies in the mechanism of regression, or the drive to return to the womb … regardless that initially that time in the womb one seeks to create is an earlier womb state & one actually is still in the womb while seeking it! So it is that, also, we have the beginnings, the earliest template actually, of all later neurosis, which involves a retreat from the present, the Now, into an earlier time — a regression — that was blissful or more pleasurable.
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The Creation of Loneliness & the Expulsion from Paradise at Birth
S. Giora Shoham (1990) provides additional light on this second phase of separation. He mistakenly relates the second phase of separation to that between early & later orality during the toddler stage of development, meaning approximately age two to three. However, for reasons having to do with this annoying (to me) fear of intellectuals to entertain the notion of prenatal consciousness, his second phase instead fits more perfectly with the phase of separation at birth, my Veil Four. Shoham would have put it there, too, if he were operating out of a model acknowledging prenatal memory & consciousness & thus requiring placement of his previous phase, phase one, in the womb.
Shoham notes, first of all, that the second phase of separation involves being ejected from “pantheistic togetherness” & that it is related to the mythical “expulsion from paradise.”6 Considering what has been said so far & what is known about the experience of being in the womb & of being born … for example, BPM I, followed by BPM II & BPM III, in Grof’s terminology … it should be clear how the experiential & mythical components Shoham cites relate to the experience of birth. Instead.
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Therefore, in the next part of this book, having to do with Veil Five, prenatal malnutrition, we will see how more accurately the beginning of that expulsion from pantheistic togetherness occurs a little earlier, during the third trimester. Nonetheless, birth is the culminating & graphic depiction of that expulsion.
Indeed, it might even be said that the phase of fetal malnutrition, Veil Five, relates to that time in Eden when, with this beginning of mistrust of the Divine, Eve is tempted by the serpent, which would be the umbilicus, with its placenta, & the mother in general. So it is that mistrust, temptation, crime & guilt — indeed, in the womb, with the onset of hypoxia & confinedness, one begins to feel guilty, for one wonders what one has done wrong to cause this change of state so drastically from bliss to horror — & separation from Divinity are the characteristics of both the time in Eden around the eating of the apple & the time in the third trimester.
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Birth as “Stern Judgment”
Furthermore, Shoham writes that this expulsion from paradise “sees God condemning man to a cursed land in which he will live in sorrow all his temporal life.”7 This statement expresses, indeed, the consequences of birth pain on a person’s life. However, his statement that “the pantheistic neonate learns through deprivational interaction … that he is not with everything but against everything”8 is not quite true. By “deprivational interaction,” Shoham is referring to the insufficient satisfaction of needs which must, to some extent, occur postnatally with feeding, comfort, closeness deprivations.
Thus, with this instead occurring in the womb, it is not through deprivational interaction (not yet, anyway) but through confrontational interaction with the uterus in the manner previously described that the neonate first learns such a hard lesson: Which is that its size is contrary to its environment’s “intention” for it to “not grow.” However, in that Veil Five relating to the third trimester is characterized, along with confinedness, with reduction or nutrients & oxygen (you will see why in the next part, on the next Veil), there is that element of deprivation in the womb as well.
Regardless, as Shoham then points out, this event, surely enough, “gives way to the loneliness & encapsulated existence of the human individualized separatum.”9
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The upshot is that we become separated from our true self & our Divine nature at birth; at birth a second duality arises in us. Or, in my framework, being more elaborate, it is the fourth separation, following the ones at conception, the womb, & prenatal malnutrition. Or taking it to its beginnings in the womb, at the time of prenatal hell, Veil Five, with the separation of intentions — that is to say, for the child to grow, for the uterus (mother) to resist growth — there is the beginnings of that separation & ultimate loneliness. “This separation,” like the earlier separation in the creation of sperm & ovum (we get into that, also, later on, with Veil Seven, which has to do with conception), “is also perceived by the organism as a catastrophe.”10 It is coupled with a transition from grace in the womb “to the harshness of temporal stern judgment.”11 For stern judgment, read birth.
Why is birth “stern judgment”? It is so because something happens in the womb that is with us for the rest of our lives. This coming up against the uterine wall is seen as a judgment by the fetus. I will explain why in a little bit. Especially we will deal with this in the Veil to come, Veil Five, “Prenatal Hell … Third Trimester Malnutrition & Hypoxia.” It is this aspect of the third trimester guilt, & the time in Eden after eating the apple, that is most associated with Shoham’s other quality of this expulsion.
First, let me point out Shoham’s statement “the light of Infinity was boundless, eternal, imperceptible, & nondifferentiated” before creation.12 Furthermore: “The motivation of the emanating Infinity in forming separate entities was to be able to confer grace on them.”13 This makes sense, “because within the unity of Infinity there can be no giving & no receiving.”14 In this statement, we see that Shoham’s understanding of the why of the entire separation is similar to mine, which is that it is not about rebellion against God but about the Divine’s intention, in my words, “to have fun,” in Shoham’s, because otherwise there could “be no giving & receiving.”
I feel my explanation is the better one, by the way, in that Shoham’s view does not explain why Divinity would even want “giving & receiving.” I mean out of everything, how does that come out as being the sui generis of it all. In the vernacular, “Why is that even a thing?” Whereas my take on it explains that “giving & receiving” are aspects of the experience of God. Further, his explanation does not encompass why there would be the opposite of “giving & receiving” that is to say, pain, evil, hate, & suffering. Mine does, in that all are aspects of expanding the parameters of Experience, in glorification of the All-That-Is, which is what I put forth as being the sui generis of Existence & Divine Intention.
However, Shoham’s prime motive of “giving & receiving” does bear fruit of its own. For it follows from it that one has to have an Other in order to have the joy of flowing in & flowing out. There was no flow-in, flow-out prior to the time of the creation of Form.
However, Shoham claims that “the differentiation of the emanant is effected by its swallowing of harsh Dinim (stern judgments).”15 So originally, after the creation of sperm & egg, after the creation of form, the “differentiation” — that is to say, the continued elaboration of form, of the individual — is brought about by the encounter with stern judgments. On the adult level, we would say “suffering builds character.” Better put, “suffering builds ‘a character’ (all right).”
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Loss of Harmony of Intention
However on the prenatal level, this means that after the original duality there is the continued possibility, not only for there to be giving & receiving (flowing in, flowing out), but for there to be differences in intention between the self & the Other. & it is through the successive encounters with these differences or frictions of intention that the organism is stimulated to differentiate. In other words, the prenatal organism must grow in order to survive.16
More & more the fetus comes up against “harsh reality” & this causes it to become more & more differentiated, to become more & more complex & less & less unitary. The prenatal penultimate of this occurs, as mentioned, in the final stages of gestation in the fetus’s coming up against the resistance of the womb, which results in a major differentiation or complexity — the creation of another duality. But all along, as well, there have been the “swallowings” of harsh Dinims that have resulted in differentiation & increased complexity: the incompleteness & inferiority feelings of the sperm & egg (they have only half the number of chromosomes, after all) leading to the need to unite, the “survivor guilt” of the fertilized egg leading to cell multiplication, & the foundationlessness of the blastocyst leading to the need to implant in the uterine wall.17
Yet for this entire time in the womb, while there are obstacles, there are also ways around them, not to mention the experience of grace all about (being synchronistically nurtured by the womb). It is akin to a stream flowing downhill, over & around rocks & debris; no stopping it. As a fetus, one’s intention is to grow & grow & grow. So you’re expanding, you’re becoming blissful — you’re “blasting, billowing, bursting forth with the power of ten-billion butterfly sneezes.” Then all of a sudden: Boom! You hit a wall. Now there is no bubbling blissfully over it, no courseway around it; no exit.
It is felt as a stern judgment: “What did I do wrong?” & this causes one to differentiate more. You no longer say: “Wow, I’m the whole universe.” Now you have to say: “I’m not what I thought I was.” This is the incipient Ego talking. In a way, there is fear: there is this “aggressor” (the womb); you have to “defend” in a way. & the beginnings of defenses are most accurately the beginnings of Ego & of Ego boundary.
To Summarize
To summarize, “The breaking of the vessels generated vileness in divinity & then vicariously in creation.”18 While Shoham considered this “breaking of the vessels” to be birth, you are aware that I consider those vessels broken to be that of the ovarian sac of the mother & the testicles of the father — both of which are instrumental developments in creating the event of conception. That is, the creation of sperm & ovum created the possibility of corruption, of difference in intention from that of the Divine. That is the beginning of “evil,” which is the opposite of “live.” Or, another way of saying that, that is the beginning of having intentions other than the Divine’s intention which are pro-life & goodness, to have one’s that are self-destructive, anti-life, & thus its opposite, evil. That is why the prenatal matrices I delineate are matrices of evil, the origins of evil. We’re getting there. Just hang on.
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The Pitiable Result
Then, “the expulsion of man from pantheistic paradise, resulted in the creation of the first human polar archetypes.”19 So with birth, beginning in the third trimester, there is the creation of the first polar archetypes — the creation of past & future, space & time, & birth & death.
In such manner, then, are the patterns of Ego & “mind” separated & severed from underlying & forgotten (but not unfelt) patterns of archetypal, karmic, psychic, & universal Self existing as body.20
The newly emergent conceptual bank is ripe for the impressions of society & culture. Hence, we see emerging & impinging on that “tabula rasa” the biosocial bands. These are the impressions of parent & community, as described under the processes of Veil Three, the primal scene & loss of selfhood; & Veil Two, rites of passage & Identity. (See Dance of the Seven Veils I.)
With all that I have advanced under consideration, now, you see that the end result of the series of “falls from grace” that we go through in the course of our leaving the Godhead & coming back into Form existence is a pitiful portrait of a human. The process is consistent with one revealed as well in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, where the cycle of reincarnation involves descents from greater awareness in the course of coming into Form.
The “Wrathful Deities” of the Prenatal
Additionally, The Tibetan Book of the Dead describes a pattern of descent from an opportunity, in our after-death state, for mergence with The Clear Light of the Void, into various bardos. These bardos are regions encountered in that descent — from the Divine possibility of mergence with The Clear Light — with each region corresponding to lesser, more devolved, states. That is, until emergence in Form, specifically. birth, occurs.
In Falls from Grace, I showed how several of those bardos, occurring just prior to birth, coincided with the experiences we now know to occur during our state of existence as egg cells in our mother’s bodies, as sperm inside our fathers, & during our womb existence. They are lesser states from the Light, yet the most profound descent occurs at birth, at that point completely living in a Form existence & dominated, now, by Time. Prenatal — specifically that of fetal malnutrition during the last trimester of gestation (we’ll get into that next Veil) — & perinatal trauma causes this first major shutdown, this first major forgetting of our Divinity.
Indeed the second to the last bardo before birth, the Chonyid Bardo, characterized, according to The Tibetan Book of the Dead by the emergence of fearful & wrathful deities, correlates to our time just before birth of fetal malnutrition. Most certainly, as you will see, our womb existence can be described as encountering blissful (during BPM I, Veil Six) then horrifically painful (fetal malnutrition, Veil Five), periods of the first two, then the third, trimesters, respectively.
And from that bardo, it is said we proceed into the Sidpa Bardo, the “bardo of rebirth,” where we encounter visions related to a next birth. Typically, this might include hallucinations arising from karmic material as well as of sexual imagery of passionately embracing men & women. This is clearly related, then, to birth itself, Veil Four. & the intertwined images of lovers is provocatively suggestive of memory of the coming together of the chromosomal strands of DNA, which initiates the next cycle of birth, as well as it symbolizes the desires that bring about incarnation in Form to begin with. Note, however, that we flee from the wrathful deities into this sexuality, conception, & rebirth, for we are not ready for the Clear Light of liberation.
The lining up of these bardos, with their blissful & hellacious correlates … karmically propelled, mind you … with the Veils I am proposing (Four through Six) is why I say that at birth & during fetal malnutrition our karmic strands are indelibly imprinted on our character. It is also why I claim we flee into birth into the world, being unable to retain our Divinity amid the assault of heavenly & demonic experiences. Which indeed we do: We escape from the excruciating pain of pre-birth fetal malnutrition by being born. It is that prenatal hell, which is the next Veil — involving the compression & hypoxia occurring to virtually all of us during the third trimester of gestation — that we are ever trying futilely, pathetically to put behind us.
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“In the Sweat of Thy Brow” & Mortality
Furthermore, it is clear that by being tossed out of the Garden — forced to fill up our days with grueling hard work, for men, & forced to repress one’s sexuality & be dominated by men, for women — so much of our time & attention would be taken up so that we would no longer have the leisure allowing us to fall into & realize (to “feel through to”) our prenatal & perinatal trauma & the wisdom & knowledge of immortality that lies beyond it (which is enmeshed within the joy grids & the spiritual grids). Thus “God’s punishment” of ejection from Eden, metaphorically speaking, does take us away from our knowledge of our immortality.
Although early gatherer-hunters did have such leisure time & they did, & do, engage in shamanic practices & trance states, available to all in the community, young & old. In these practices, sometimes with the help of entheogens — literally, “creating the divine within” — or what are commonly called psychedelics (meaning, “mind expanding”), though not always, & sometimes employing non-drug psychotechnologies of consciousness expansion, these primal people actually have been able to re-capture that knowledge of our immortality. Sometimes they have been able to “feel back through” the traumatic experiences blocking it & to re-experience that state — associated with our early prenatal state — of connection with Divinity.
Yet consider, has our situation in modern times changed all that? You might say we have no spare time & we must fill up our days struggling to survive, to make money. However, if that is so, how does one account for the immense amount of time postmodern humans spend shopping, entertaining, being entertained by media, playing video games, taking the kids all about & everywhere, imbibing or smoking intoxicants & partying, spectating & talking about sports, watching television, & on the internet socializing. Just an aside, but maybe it is simply a matter of priorities that keeps us from regaining again what we lost at the beginning of time.
Added to that, consider how much time people spend in boredom, whatever they are doing. It is not just adolescents who consider most of what they are doing to be “bo-ring.” It is just that teens are more honest about their lives & less removed from a memory of a time of wonder that is everyone’s childhood where life was delicious, fresh, & new, anything but boring. If you are honest, you will admit that the great majority of the time you spend, even in activities, is less, often considerably less, than “juicy.” This is the life we are given by civilization, removed from vivid, unpredictable, endlessly exciting & rewarding, & profoundly growthful & spirit-infused experience. There is no ADD (attention deficit disorder) among pre-civilizational peoples. Why would one’s mind wander when the present is so thoroughly engaging, so thoroughly interesting? Our lives in modernity are truly shallow & empty compared to the deep & fully feeling lives we had in Nature … are capable of … & could have again.
In which case, maybe the day has finally dawned for a return to Eden. Let us take up that auspicious prospect next. We take now a look at what is preventing our happiness, our return to Eden, & what can be said about changing that … about going hOMe.
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The link below takes you to a pdf copy of Chapter 53, “Diminution & Expulsion at the Third Trimester” of *Dance of the Seven Veils II*
To read and/or download a copy, click link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rJu57XqfuLDEouGBZcAxg5air5pb3KsM/view
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The book itself, *Dance of the Seven Veils II* will be out in a matter of weeks. So this is a sample chapter.
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It is time now to regain the primal legacy of belongingness in Divinity & Nature which we lost when we claimed ourselves “crown of creation” & peak of the evolutionary pyramid. This book is a powerful aid in regaining one’s authentic self.
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“…if we do not regain our truer & underlying humanity, & instead, coming forth as we normally do, we continue acting out of our pain grids, we are not going to have a ‘human’ experience…”
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“…or even an Earthly life experience to be detailing & exploring, in the future, let alone people to hear about them.”
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In looking at these matrices embedded in us through our cellular & womb & birth experiences, it will be possible to have our best chance to get a look at existence outside of these matrices—the No-Form State.
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If you like & agree w these ideas & want more attention on them, feel free to download the chapter & pass it around, as you wish; use it to share this perspective.
& please send any comments/reviews of the book to me at
sillymickel@yahoo.com
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The idea being I might be able to use your comments in describing it in my own sharing on social media.
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#myth #feminine #BPMI #women #Genesis #spirituality #patriarchy #reincarnation #HolyChalice #TreeOfLife #joygrids #psyche #beliefs #TheGarden #transpersonal #mystic #psychedelic #metaphysics #holotropic #liberation #placenta
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#HolyGrail #spiritual #serpent #PainGrids TreeOfKnowledgeOfGoodAndEvil #TheFall #PMEs #experience #pantheism #PrenatalMatricesOfEvil #OriginsOfEvil #crowded #deprivation #claustrophobia #frustration #revulsion #poisoning #burning #authenticity #anthro #templates #worldview #duality #cellular #conception #tao #HumanNature #personality
#anthropology #Jung #Adzema #aliveness #breathwork #Creation #shamanic
#archetype #religion #PrimalScene #RitesOfPassage #SurrenderSpirituality #ControlSpirituality #bigotry #war #pollution #economics #SecondaryAltriciality #quantum #overpopulation #brain #sperm #existence #Reality #Unity #PericonceptionalExperience #perception #dualism #identity #fun #bio #story
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The Myth of Intelligence: Most of what is applauded as intelligent in modern societies is merely the linking together of socially approved and *audience flattering* cliches.
Posted by sillymickel in authenticity, books, Culture War Class War, Falls from Grace, God, intelligence, Michael Adzema author, Planetmates - the Great Reveal, truth, Wounded Deer and Centaurs on November 1, 2015
Most of what is applauded as intelligence in modern societies is merely the clever linking together of strings of socially acceptable cliches.
Most of what is applauded as great intelligence in modern societies is merely the linking together of socially approved and *audience flattering* cliches.
You don’t think so? Analyze the speech of any greatly admired civic leader or political figure.
Meanwhile, the truth and real intelligence lie uninspected and overlooked… requiring as they do, a certain letting go of the comfortable blanket of ego into an arena of the fearfully unexpected.
An arena fertile with the life energizing aspects of real self and of rebirth into authenticity..
But there are actually none among us who travel outside of the comfort zone of the familiar into the wisdom of insecurity, without being prodded by pain and discomfort … sometimes the discomfort of the familiar having become soured and sapping of life….
Bottom line:
People think folks are intelligent who enable people in their desire to wither away in the cesspool of ego pleasuring.
Actual life renewing truth is overlooked and relegated to the pool of the Unapproved and Hidden, both in cultures and in ourselves.
And that’s why God invented pain.
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#pain #God #intelligence #growth #truth #ego #rebirth
For relevant works by Michael Adzema, see
Culture War, Class War: Occupy Generations and the Rise and Fall of “Obvious Truths,”
http://www.amazon.com/Culture-War-Class-Generations-Obvious/dp/1492864021/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Planetmates: The Great Reveal,
http://www.amazon.com/Planetmates-Great-Reveal-Return-Grace/dp/1496083326/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Falls from Grace: The Devolution and Revolution of Consciousness,
http://www.amazon.com/Falls-Grace-Devolution-Revolution-Consciousness/dp/1499297998/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
and the upcoming,
Wounded Deer and Centaurs: The Necessary Hero and the Prenatal Matrix of Human Events
http://www.tsu.co/sillymickel/90305834 Wounded Deer cover and “Return to the Centaur”
http://www.tsu.co/sillymickel/90100809 “We Are the Centaurs, My Friends”
“Four Blueprints of ‘Human Nature’: The earliest roots of greed, war, pollution, sexual assault, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anal compulsiveness … and genocides and the Holocaust”
http://sillymickel.blogspot.mx/2015/10/four-blueprints-of-human-nature.html
*
http://sillymickel.blogspot.mx/2015/10/a-sample-from-my-latest-book-chapter-11.html
For any books by Michael Adzema, see Michael Adzema at Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Adzema/e/B00J7F0URC/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1445368199&sr=1-1
“People who are chained to the products of their hands are never happy or free, regardless how much of that product comes back to those hands.”
Posted by sillymickel in activism, authenticity, being yourself, Culture, economics, Generations, globalrevolution, History, individualism, life, meaning, nonconform, occupywallstreet, philosophy, Politics, psychology, spirituality on June 4, 2014
The Planetmates reveal why civilization equals suffering, Marxism, free life and human misery, enslavement: “The huge structures of civilization are monuments to, and are equal in size to, the size of the freedom lost”:
— from Planetmates: The Great Reveal , which is now available in print and e-book format. at Amazon
Falls from Grace: The Devolution and Revolution of Consciousness — is also available in print and e-book formats.
To purchase any of Michael Adzema’s books, available in print and e-book formats, go to Michael Adzema’s books at Amazon.
To purchase a signed copy of any of my books, email me at sillymickel@gmail.com … Discount for blog subscribers.
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Ego, Water Foraging, Standing, Narrow Pelvis, 20-Month Gestation, Pain: In the Seventh Prasad, The Planetmates Reveal the Root of All Our Evils
Posted by sillymickel in History on August 21, 2013
Bipedalism and Birth Pain: How Humans Managed to Become so Different … and Tragic — It All Began with Water-Foraging…
The Great Reveal from the Planetmates, The Seventh Prasad: Becoming Human, Bipedalism Caused Birth Pain
Planetmates Release The Seventh Prasad
Ego, Water Foraging, Standing, Bipedalism, Narrow Pelvis, 20-Month Gestation, Pain
Turtle Is First Consciousness at The Seventh Prasad.
“[T]he caretakers...parents...become both the models and the delivery systems for this diminishment and perfect wrongness of Consciousness.”
The Seventh Prasad – Becoming Human, Bipedalism Caused Birth Pain
Instrumental in creating this Ego are the caretakers, the fully growns, often but not always the parents, especially the mother initially. The fully growns become both the models and the delivery systems for this diminishment and perfect wrongness of Consciousness.
Of course, humans were not humans for millions of years; your predecessors were Planetmates and Earth Citizens like us. 
There came a time when small groups of your forebears, living near swamps and oceans and gathering their food in the shallow waters, spent long periods of time in that water and found it easy and beneficial to lift themselves up on their hind legs, more and more. 
Over hundreds of thousands of years, this activity led to bipedalism on land as well.
Unfortunately, this supposed benefit over time created narrower pelvic bones and narrower pelvic/vaginal openings in your females. There was a time preceding this when your females had pelvic bones that were wide enough to give birth to twenty-month old newborns. These newborns were as ready as Earth Citizens for physical existence when they were born, and they were born without the difficulties and pain that characterizes human birth, for both mothers and fetuses.
Video Commentary by SillyMickel Adzema
What follows is a video of a reading of The Seventh Prasad, with commentary, elaboration, and context, by SillyMickel Adzema.
“The Seventh Prasad” From The Great Reveal by The Planetmates – the audiocast
The link above takes you to the audio-only version of my commentary on The Seventh Prasad, exactly as is in the video. Click on the link to go the the audio site, or you can listen to it here using the audio player below.
http://ecdn0.hark.com/swfs/player_fb.swf?pid=tjgqynnjxr
Image of The Seventh Prasad, Of “The Great Reveal” By The Planetmates
Summary/ Abstract of “The Seventh Prasad” — by SillyMickel Adzema
Your fully grown caregivers are instrumental in creating this Ego. They are both the models and the delivery systems for this diminishment and perfect wrongness of Consciousness. Prior to this, for millions of years, however, your forebears were planetmates and Earth Citizens like us. 
But your split began when your forebears, living near swamps and other water, foraged in the shallow waters and thus found it advantageous to stand on their hind legs in the water for longer and longer periods of time. 
This survival advantage in foraging into the deeper waters led, over a long time, to bipedalism on land also. This supposed benefit, however, led to narrower pelvises; and in your females narrower pelvises created more painful births, which led to a tendency toward newborns being born earlier and earlier — 
for at smaller sizes these prematures would mean less pain for mothers as well as the newborn itself. At the beginning of this trend, mothers had pelvic-vaginal openings that could accommodate 20-month gestated newborns — newborns who would be nearly as functional at birth as other planetmates. And these infants were born, like planetmate births, without the birth pain and trauma for mother and newborn that came later after you became bipedal.
Continue with The Great Reveal from the Planetmates, The Eighth Prasad: Straying from Nature – Prosperity Won Out Over Happiness for Early Humans
Return to The Great Reveal from the Planetmates, The Sixth Prasad: Ego as Opiate
To Read the Entire Book … No Cost, On-Line … Go to The Great Reveal from The Planetmates
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Continue with The Great Reveal from the Planetmates, The Eighth Prasad: Straying from Nature – Prosperity Won Out Over Happiness for Early Humans
Return to The Great Reveal from the Planetmates, The Sixth Prasad: Ego as Opiate
To Read the Entire Book … No Cost, On-Line … Go to The Great Reveal from The Planetmates
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Ego as Opiate for Disease of Humanness … Turns Flaws Into Supreme Accomplishments, Wrong-Gettedness: The Sixth Prasad from the Planetmates
Posted by sillymickel in activism, authenticity, being yourself, Culture, globalrevolution, History, individualism, occupywallstreet, philosophy, Politics, psychology, spirituality, uniqueness on August 19, 2013
Planetmates Aren’t Holding Back: “Your Ego is an Opiate for the Disease of Humanness,” They Say.
The Great Reveal from the Planetmates, The Sixth Prasad: Ego as Opiate
Planetmates Release The Sixth Prasad
Twisted Unwholesome Roots, Wrong-gettedness
Below is the entire text of what I received. Oh, yes. I’m sure everyone will just love the hell out of what the planetmates are saying now!! (ha ha ha!!!)
Fox was First Consciousness at The Sixth Prasad.
"This mitigation [of your lack, your scar] is accomplished through the creation of an alien consciousness construct which serves to both separate humans from the realization of your lack...also it serves as an alternate but OPPOSITE construction of self—opposite from the truth of your nature...."
The Sixth Prasad – Ego as Opiate for Disease of Humanness
So instead of the truth that, for reasons unknown, you were unfortunate enough to be deprived of the full and perfect nurturing of a near perfect divine Nature, as other species are, until they are ready to be in flesh… instead of the obvious truth — obvious to all other species — that this prematurity leaves a scar of hurt and rejection,
for starters;
but also, helplessness and hopelessness, second; and third, that this occurs right at the beginning of known flesh existence so as to create the very unusually twisted unwholesome roots of humans; but then, fourth, this lack must be somehow mitigated for the species to not die out of pure despair, right at the outset. This mitigation is accomplished through the creation of an alien consciousness construct which serves to both separate humans from the realization of your lack, to essentially muffle
or obscure your horrible and precarious plight from your awareness, acting like what you would call an opiate essentially, but also it serves as an alternate but OPPOSITE construction of self — opposite from the truth of your nature — taking all your flaws, like language, and turning them into supreme accomplishments, in this way acting as a euphoriant. This alien consciousness construct, this child as well as parent of all your wrong-gettedness, is what you call Ego.
Video Commentary by SillyMickel Adzema
What follows is a video of a reading of The Sixth Prasad, with commentary, elaboration, and context, by SillyMickel Adzema.
“The Sixth Prasad” From The Great Reveal by The Planetmates
– the audiocast
The link above takes you to the audio-only version of my commentary on The Sixth Prasad, exactly as is in the video. Click on the link to go the the audio site, or you can listen to it here using the audio player below.
http://ecdn0.hark.com/swfs/player_fb.swf?pid=hqdpnglkqz
Image of The Sixth Prasad, Of “The Great Reveal” By The Planetmates
Summary/ Abstract of “The Sixth Prasad” – by SillyMickel Adzema
Instead of the truth that you were unfortunate enough to be deprived of the full and perfect nurturing of a near perfect divine Nature, as other species are, until they are ready to be in flesh; 
instead of the obvious truth that this prematurity leaves a scar of hurt and rejection, also, helplessness and hopelessness; and that this occurs right at the beginning of known flesh existence so as to create the very unusually twisted unwholesome roots of humans; your true state is further hidden by the fact that your unfortunate and tragic separation from goodness must be covered up for your species to not die out of pure despair right after birth!
This obscuring of your horrid plight is accomplished through the creation of an alien consciousness construct, which serves, both to separate you from the realization of your lack — acting like what you would call an opiate, but also it serves as an alternate but OPPOSITE construction of self — opposite from the truth of your nature — taking all your flaws, like language, and turning them into supreme accomplishments, in this way acting as a euphoriant. This alien consciousness construct, this child as well as parent of all your wrong-gettedness, is what you call Ego.
Continue with The Great Reveal from the Planetmates: The Seventh Prasad – Becoming Human, Bipedalism Caused Birth Pain
Return to The Great Reveal from The Planetmates, The Fifth Prasad: Your “Wordism,” A Word Cave Prison
To Read the Entire Book … No Cost, On-Line … Go to The Great Reveal from The Planetmates
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Loving Warriors and Silly Heroes: The Necessary Hero Dances Above Dissonance, Lightens Up in the Face of Stress, and Sees Divinity Not Demons Behind It All
Posted by sillymickel in activism, allegory, authenticity, being yourself, Class, Comedy, Culture, economics, Generations, globalrevolution, History, Humor, individualism, nonconform, occupywallstreet, philosophy, Politics, psychology, spirituality, uniqueness, US on August 1, 2013
Play Cards with Your Dragons: The New Hero’s Cycle Involves Surrender Not Struggle, Sacrifice Not Slaying, Compassion Not “Toughness,” and Silliness Not Stoicism
Apocalypse – No! Chapter Thirteen: Peaceful Warriors and Silly Heroes
You Just Can’t Slay a Volcano: The Necessary Hero Uses Surrender, not Struggle … For Why Would You Not Be Borne Up by a Universe That Is You
We Need Compassionate Warriors, Not Fighters: It’s Not Enough Just to Slay Dragons, We Need to Jump Into Volcanoes
Volcano-Jumping: A Different Heroic Response
This different kind of heroic response—which characterizes the perinatal arena and is sorely needed at this time in history—is exemplified in another contemporary movie of cult status. We will deal with it in some detail to bring out the elements of the kind of hero that is now required to stop the cycles of destruction that have currently driven us to the abyss…to the very edge of a “volcano.”
In “Joe Versus the Volcano,” the main character, played by Tom Hanks, is given a heroic task. But unlike a typical hero’s cycle task which stereotypically involves the slaying of a fire-spewing dragon, Joe is asked to give up his life by jumping into a fire-erupting volcano.
The connection between volcano and dragon is that at the second-line or psychodynamic level the fire-spewing aspects of the perinatal, which might be compared to a volcano, can be seen as “embodied” or reduced in the form of a dragon. In the same way, the volcanic energy of perinatal feelings is initially embodied in easier-to-face and “dragonized” psychodynamic, second-line, or childhood traumas and feelings.
You Just Can’t Slay a Volcano
But what may seem to work at the second-line or psychodynamic level—the conquering or slaying of negative feelings…and notice that I said “seem”—has no place at all at the perinatal. For here the pain energy is overwhelming and pervasive. Thus the difference is analogous to that between facing the energy of a dragon and facing that of a volcano.
The Heroes We Need – The New Hero’s Cycle
First Anima, Then Community
Keep in mind that this movie shows Joe, earlier on, going through all the major stages of the hero’s cycle—the retreat from mundane reality, the sailing off into a new and exotic realm of existence and adventure.
It even depicts a typical “dragon slaying”—the hero’s conquering of inner fears and risking of one’s life for another that results in the uniting with anima energy–the saving of the damsel. So earlier on there is a dealing with psychodynamic energy, just as in “Nothing but Trouble” Chevy Chase deals with psychodynamic material and enacts a dragon slaying by risking his life to rescue Demi Moore from a giant chopping machine. 
But, also similarly, this results in the opening up of another level, requiring a completely different—indeed, opposite—response. Thus, in “Joe Vs. the Volcano,” Joe is asked to give up his life to save an entire community, not merely to risk his life to rescue his anima, his feeling self.
Risking It All
The ensuing plot has interesting elements as it shows Joe having to decide whether to sacrifice his newly won relationship with his anima ally for the benefit of an entire—but anonymous—community. This demonstrates that at a progressed level of the spiritual process—that having to do with one’s inter-connection with the larger community of living things, not just one’s personal unconscious—one must risk even one’s newly regained creativity, inner child playfulness, and personal feelings, i.e., one’s anima.
But in telling fashion, in order to make the higher “community” sacrifice the anima elements that have been let go of, symbolized by Meg Ryan as the anima damsel, end up going with Joe to his chosen fate and are borne up, renewed, along with him.
Borne Up by a Beneficent Universe
On Joe’s part, the climax shows the same quality of a beneficent Universe aiding a true and dharmic heart. Joe (with his anima) face what they think is death. Instead they find themselves “borne up” by the volcano, not consumed; and they are deposited (reborn) in a typical perinatal watery surround—the ocean, symbolizing therefore a spiritual birth. This is a perfect depiction of how surrender, not “heroic” resistance, is done and why it needs to be done currently, as I have been pointing out.
“Away From the Things of Man”
In the end, the main characters are floating in the middle of a wide open sea—signifying the immensity of potentiality that is now open, and facing a gigantic moon on the horizon—symbolizing the beneficent nature of the Universe to which they are opening, that is, it is beautiful and lit with 
possibilities.
They are seen sitting on only their luggage—symbolizing the “stripped down” nature of the self, that is, stripped of ego trappings of status, vainglory, defenses, and so on. Their final comment at the very end of the film is that they do not know where they’ll end up but only that it will be “away from the things of man”—indicating their desire to never go back to the drama of ego and its puerile catacomb pathways of darkened experience.
The Universe Is You
We see then that in this movie, like “Nothing but Trouble,” the heroic response required is surrender, not resistance or control, and that the response from the Universe is cooperative and helpful, and hardly antagonistic as was feared, especially at earlier levels.
.
This is in keeping with the discovery at the perinatal, which borders it on the transpersonal, that in fact the Universe, not only is not antagonistic, not only is beneficent and helpful, but in fact is no different from oneself, indeed is oneself…and one begins to wonder why one would ever expect not to be borne up by a Universe that is now seen as inextricably united with one’s Self.
Note
While the interpretation of Joe Versus the Volcano presented in the video below – Joe vs. the Volcano: Losing my Soul, Part One – is annoyingly suffused with theological terminology – hell, devil – and suffers from the paranoia that happens lacking a perinatal or even a Jungian understanding, it does succeed on a more superficial level of basic insight. It does get the highly metaphorical and philosophical import of the film and picks up on major themes of the movie. It strikes me as having the problem of just understanding religion while knowing nothing about psychology. And it suffers, as I’ve put it elsewhere, from the problem of projecting one’s perinatal underbelly onto the Universe or of funneling revelation through the filter of personal pain.
Silly Heroes and Evolution in Attitudes to the Perinatal: The Necessary Hero Jives with the Monsters, Dances Above the Dissonance, and Is Ever Aware of Divinity Everywhere
What the World Needs Now … Is Loving Warriors and Silly Heroes: Jiving with Your Monsters, Dancing Above the Dissonance, and The Universality of Divinity Remembered
Responses to the Perinatal
Returning now to “Nothing But Trouble,” an aspect of it that has significance for dealing with perinatal issues is the way different characters are shown responding to the embodiment of arbitrary justice, the judge. In the wonderfully Kafkaesque courtroom scenes, we see several different types of people—representing different responses to unconscious material—hauled before the judge. The musicians, signifying artists, creative people; the hedonistic criminals; and the main characters, representing average people, each present distinct attitudes, which are responded to differently by the representative of the unconscious, the judge.
Jiving With Your Monsters
The musicians are able to create rhythm and flow. Therefore they are able to get through the experience unharmed. Indeed, they are even able to elicit a response from the judge—getting him to join in. In this way we see how creative people can actually use perinatal material and get it to cooperate for desired ends. We might consider how this relates to the writing of “Nothing but Trouble” itself.
Peter and Dan Aykroyd, in creating this movie, are, like the musicians in the movie, getting the unconscious to “play along,” to create something beyond what either the writer or the unconscious could accomplish separately. Much of what is interesting in art is done this way: The deeper fear-evoking material is allowed to come in and enrich, enliven, freshen with new ideas and perspectives, stimulate, and invigorate the creative production.
Beware the Tar Baby
On the other hand, the arrogant banker contends with evil, and, like Brer Rabbit with tar baby, gets stuck.
Notice also that the really contentious ones—the alcoholic drug-using criminal hedonists—are completely lost. Thus the two extremes, as well as the average person are depicted.
Lighten Up!
But the truly striking element that indicates an advanced way of dealing with the perinatal material is shown in the genre of the movie itself. As a comedy, it shows a non-attached and transcendent approach. 
Chevy Chase and Demi Moore, especially Chevy Chase, show an aloofness and silly playfulness in the face of horror and death that has spiritual implications. Like a Tibetan mystic, Chase refuses to get sucked in to the involved drama confronting him. Like a Christian saint about to be martyred, he jokes, teases, and gets silly with the instruments of horror and evil. Similarly, Demi Moore humors and plays cards with her would-be monsters.
Silly Heroes
Standing within the Witness higher self, they are able to take the entire situation lightly—acting and reacting in the moment to each unique situation as it presents itself. One moment Chevy Chase is confronting his own demise, the next moment he is in a love scene. He alternates a frightful encounter with relaxing and smoking a cigar.
.
.
If we want to know what real and transcended behavior is, we might do well to get our hints in the depictions of unattached playfulness — as presented by modern Western actors like Bill Murray, Demi Moore, Tom Hanks, Chevy Chase, Robin Williams, Bruce Willis, and Jim Carey—rather than in the repressively calmed not-with-it-ness—not-witness—that is sometimes mistaken for spiritual attainment.
Darkening Down
Incidentally, this element of humor shows an entirely different way of dealing with the perinatal than most other movies that deal with this kind of material. The movie, “Brazil,” is a good example of this difference. Not only is “Brazil” cast in an eerie, somber, and tragically hopeless and futile 
air—indicating that one’s response here is to “believe in” the reality of such material—but the only escape in this movie is in a purely conceptual, fantasy way.
The main character cannot face the horror ultimately. He flips out into a reassuring dream sequence brimming with BPM I and BPM IV imagery. Interestingly, reflecting the pattern of progression of our expressions in feeling therapies, the dream includes a BPM III scenario to get him to those later bucolic realms.
But in “Brazil” these are only daydreams. This fact shows a refusal to face this perinatal material or to surrender to it. Rather, in fantasy, one overcomes the horror. It is as if one continues using familiar ego techniques—hero’s journey methods, dragon-slaying methods—for dealing with material on a deeper level where they no longer work—where they are in fact counterproductive.
Thus, these techniques can only succeed in dreaming. Terry Gilliam, the creator of “Brazil,” shows us that the hero, in reality, is doomed.
However, one might interpret the main character’s escape into fantasy as a victory over evil forces. That the ending lends itself so readily to such an interpretation is a telling indictment of the state of progress of some of us in dealing with perinatal material. Apparently, there are those so lost that the only success possible seems to be in insanity or death.
Evolution In Attitudes to the Perinatal?
However, in “Nothing but Trouble,” the main characters do face and deal with all the material. Sometimes they fight it; sometimes run from it; sometimes play with it; sometimes joke, tease, spar, or get silly with it; sometimes are swallowed by it and carried along…but always they are creatively facing and dealing with it. This different air about and attitude towards the perinatal material can be said to be an advance from the earlier movie, “Brazil,” representing perhaps a progression of our collective consciousness in our attitudes and manner of dealing with the perinatal.
Dancing Above the Dissonance
Such a prospect is, indeed, the auspicious legacy of such a creative project. Though it is doubtful they did so consciously, the Aykroyd brothers and the producers of “Nothing But Trouble” deserve our gratitude for their efforts in lighting forward our collective reality endeavor.
Beyond that, we can take hope in the possibility that Western culture may be rising itself, however minimally at first, above the dramas of light and darkness that have plagued it for so long. The Manichean tendency can lead only to ever-spiraling cycles of resistance and assault. Yet we are seeing currently, not only an erosion of defiantly uni-dimensional ego perspectives, not only a movement toward facing and dealing with our inner darkness, but an integration of opposing forces, a dancing above the leela—the play—of light and dark.
The Universality of Divinity Remembered
The perennial understanding of the universality of divinity, both within and without us, in the lowest as well as the highest of places, is the bright at the center of the perinatal bedlam about us. We are guided as well by this gleaming, a rising moon of promise and possibilities.
Continue with Apocalypse – No! Chapter Fourteen:
To Move the World – A Race Against Time
Return to Apocalypse – No! Chapter Twelve: Atman Projects Versus Surrender Solutions
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How Can You Be Borne Up, If You Won’t Let Go? Spiritual Experience Is Distorted by One’s Birth Trauma … The Necessary Hero Descends Into the Perinatal Below
Posted by sillymickel in activism, allegory, authenticity, being yourself, Comedy, Culture, Generations, globalrevolution, History, individualism, life, meaning, nonconform, occupywallstreet, philosophy, Politics, psychology, spirituality on July 18, 2013
When Everything Appears to Be Conspiring Against You, You Might Want to Stop Fighting Rebirth: Atman Projects Versus Surrender Solutions and a Different Hero’s Journey
Apocalypse – No! Chapter Twelve: Atman Projects vs. Surrender Solutions
The Necessary Hero and Descent Into the Underground–When There’s “Nothing But Trouble,” You Know You’re in The Perinatal Below
A Different Kind of Hero’s Journey for Our Times Is Depicted in the Cult Classic, “Nothing But Trouble”
A Perinatal Flick
A film of postmodern times that is bold with revelation for us is the cult classic, “Nothing but Trouble,” which was released in 1991.
It is an especially potent example of the rising pre- and perinatal influence in the media we’ve been discussing as well as the different heroic response required in these strangest of days because of it. It is all this, plus a twist: As a comedy it represents an unlikely approach to such material and themes. More about that later.
It was produced and written by Peter and Dan Aykroyd and stars Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Demi Moore, and John Candy.
Its reception by modern audiences mirrors exactly the perception in general, to date, that has been had of the perinatal material it depicts so well. For despite the movie’s star power and the popularity of its co-creator, 
Dan Aykroyd, it was met with overwhelmingly negative reviews and received six Razzie nominations, garnering one. I fully expect that until we know better I can expect much the same kind of reaction to this book, because of the perinatal perspective it is revealing of the dark underside of everyday pleasantries and sugar-coated media realities. Yet there is hope for all that we will integrate this hard-to-face yet redemptive material in the fact that the movie does have a strong following among some in our population, just as at present there are some who are not in denial of the bittersweet perinatal vision being revealed.
The Lure Into the Underworld and Call to Adventure
The perinatal adventure of “Nothing but Trouble” begins innocuously with the main characters “leaving the beaten path” on a rather ordinary trip out of the city. Interestingly, the Brazilian couple who have forced themselves on the main characters of Chevy Chase and Demi Moore in making the trip act as impish other-worldly instruments in the change of route.
Joseph Campbell pointed out that the “call to adventure,” which marks the beginning of the descent into the transformative nether regions, may be instigated by the merest chance or blunder. [Footnote 1]
Campbell also writes that the heralds of such a rite of spiritual passage are often loathly and underestimated characters. The Brazilian couple—as gaudy, overbearing, quirky, and from “down under”—perform just this function of luring into the underworld. Thus, they remind us that it is the quirky yet underestimated element in our familiar daily experience that opens us up to the process whose ramifications are huge by comparison.
The Merest Blunder, The Adventure Begins
Sure enough, this innocent-appearing outing is soon disturbed. The merest blunder of map reading results in an ominous tour of an eerie town and its somber and menacing-looking inhabitants. This is followed by a high-speed car chase as the police attempt to pull the innocents over for a bogus traffic violation.
In the tour of the town, it is as if the ego is shown getting a preview or having a precognition of what lies ahead and attempts to flee back into its safe familiar environs.
But of course, this emerging piece of unconscious material will not be denied and is able to capture the fleeing ego that we see safely ensconced in its trappings of status and power—symbolized by the BMW with car phone. At this point the main characters, representing the ego, are led, under guard, into the bizarre town of Valkenvania—the encounter with unconscious perinatal begins.
Perinatal Elements
The Junkyard of the Psyche
Campbell says that in the unconscious deep, to which one is beckoned, “are hoarded all the rejected, unadmitted, unrecognized, unknown, or undeveloped factors, laws, and elements of existence.” [Footnote 2]
Likewise, the set in “Nothing But Trouble” is replete with refuse. Bits of history—of rusted and broken refrigerators, automobiles, kitchen appliances, assorted junk, and pieces and parts of all the preceding…the wreckage of the past—are strewn about as well as heaped in clusters to construct the architecture and delineate the outlines of the drama. The correlation with subconscious remnants of forgotten memories and past emotional experiences is obvious.
Thus the drama evolves in the dumping ground and junkyard of the psyche—where all the rejected tidbits of experience have been relegated.
Stripped of Ego, Perinatal Begins
After being separated from the automobile—that is to say, the ego stripped of defensive trappings of status and worldly position—the characters are rather quickly shuttled into encounters with a myriad of perinatal elements. A few of the obvious ones are as follows:
Mr. Bonestripper, which is a roller-coaster type ride whose entrance is a large vagina dentate mouth that swallows, chews up, and kills. Notice the roller-coaster ride aspect of Mr. Bonestripper, which reflects the emotional extremes and changingness of perinatal, specifically Basic Perinatal Matrix III (BPM III), events. [Footnote 3]
- The chutes inside the house and of Mr. Bonestripper indicate birth canal symbolism.
Sexual elements, indicating BPM III influence, are manifest in the scantily clad heroine and the penis-nose of the judge.- The dark foundry symbolizes the foundation work of the psyche as well as the ominous and eerie aspects of perinatal experience.
- The slave labor surroundings represent similar feelings in the enforced and helpless character of doings just prior to and at the time of birth.
- Notice that the body—the car, the “Beamer”—gets trimmed down, the excess removed, symbolic of the cutting away of past attachments and concerns of a worldly nature, one’s “status” reduced.
- Chevy Chase as the main character is at one point forced into a marriage with a huge woman, who is tellingly androgynous in that she is played by John Candy. In her threatening and suffocating embraces we see symbolism of the crushing womb.
- The entire site of these doings is surrounded by a watery trench. This obviously reflects the amniotic surround in the womb.
- Police and guns point to the authoritative character of perinatal doings—in other words, do, or else!
- Death/rebirth symbolism of the perinatal exists in the form of skeletons and huge piles of skulls and bones.
Scatological, that is to say, fecal symbolism is seen in the “bat-room,” which contains an enormous pile of wet bat-shit…excuse the wording, but it really is shit and not feces.
- The arbitrary nature of justice in the courtroom speaks to that perinatal feeling that one tiny thing, event, or action, has huge and horrifying ramifications.
Big Babies
The most obviously perinatal element, however, is the gargantuan and grotesquely flabby infant twins in diapers. Perinatal feelings are indicated in their extreme crying neediness. 
Their freshly newborn quality is evident in their fleshiness, which reminds one of the overweight appearance of some newborns, which is usually lost a little later on in infancy. The glossy, waxy sheen on their bodies is reminiscent of the skin of a newborn, which, fresh out of the womb, is wet and slippery, covered in amniotic fluid and cervical mucosa.
A Spiritual Interface
An interesting aspect that indicates the transpersonal, or spiritual, interface with the perinatal is an attic room—a higher mind of memory, kind of like an Akashic record—where all past IDs—identifications—and reports of them—newspaper clippings—are displayed.
Though, interestingly enough, in true perinatal fashion, a macabre lens is used to view these lives—only the reports of their tragic disappearances are seen. I believe that this is a wonderful depiction of how transpersonal information is distorted by perinatal material—the implications of which are far reaching for the pronouncements of so-called spiritual, or psychological, authorities who have not dealt with their perinatal undersides.
Trusting Higher Forces: Say “Good Night,” John Wayne, and How Can You Be Borne Up If You Won’t Let Go? When All Seems Lost…. You Might Want to Stop Fighting Rebirth
When It Appears the Whole World Has Been Conspiring Against You, You Might Want to Let Yourself Be Blessed
Multilevel Feelings
Just When You Thought….
However an important element in this movie, “Nothing But Trouble,” which is different from artistic representations that deal with only the personal or psychodynamic, is the way the ending opens up under it to a new level, a whole new arena, of issues. Those of us in experiential therapies or breathwork are only too aware of how the perinatal opens up to one, revealing a greater expanse and pervasiveness of dis-ease, at a certain point after dealing with the personal and the psychodynamic.
This layered, or multilevel quality of the movie is shown when the main characters, having heroically escaped through personal effort, find themselves returning to the perinatal realm. Thinking that they have the forces of authority and light on their side, they expect this time to be able to put the evil away once and for all.
But When All Seems Lost….
To their immense surprise, it appears that the whole world has been conspiring against them—a telling perinatal feeling. The evil is discovered to be pervasive, as if infiltrating every corner of the universe—another perinatal feeling. Even the thoroughly trusted elements of light 
turn out to be on the side of the darker forces—a vantage point that is part of the hopelessness that characterizes the classic no-exit BPM II scenario. And just like in the womb, then, when all seems lost, something new happens, an explosion or eruption of sorts, which brings down the old world and its structures in a violent conflagration.
Atman Projects Versus Surrender Solutions
This hopeless and futile aspect of the perinatal realms — as opposed to the merely personal or psychodynamic ones—lends itself to its distinctive response—which is surrender, not resistance. Unlike the hero of Campbell’s hero’s cycle whose task is to slay the dragon using the sword of analytical or cognitive powers, the correct solution here at the perinatal is to let go of all designs, manipulations, and attempts at control and to put oneself into the hands of the seemingly irrational and chaotic Universe, come what may.
How Can You Be Borne Up, If You Won’t Let Go?
The Universe’s response in the movie — the upsurge of fire from below the earth that brings down the evil structures—demonstrates the theme of being saved by higher forces when one finally is able to surrender. In the same way, in our perinatal experiences, we find ourselves “borne up” and elevated when we once are able to submit to the upsurge of fear-evoking perinatal emotion.
Indeed, when Chevy Chase is seen rolling and setting fire to barrels of oil in a superhuman nick-of-time rescue attempt—in typical “hero’s journey” style—I had an odd disjointed sense that we had switched modes. The element seemed incongruous.
Say “Good Night,” John Wayne
But, then again, not so. For the movie shows that the successful escape performed through one’s own effort is, in actuality, futile.
In perinatal terms, such heroics are illusory “atman projects” that ultimately fail against the onslaught of perinatal material, which must be surrendered to, not heroically resisted or conquered.
Interestingly, the eventual surrender solution is echoed earlier on when Chevy Chase is about to go through the chomping jaws of Mr. Bonestripper, the devouring womb. His response, at the prospect of his imminent failure, is to pray—to call on higher forces.
Trusting in Higher Forces
Amazingly, the machine breaks at that moment, signaling the response of such “external” or higher forces. He alone, of all the others who have faced that fate, goes through the machine unscathed.
Notice also that he says “Thank you, Lord” afterwards.
Thus it is not on one’s own powers that one makes it through 
perinatal material, rather it is by the relinquishing of such attempts at control and 
the relying and trusting in higher forces. We are reminded that Dante required the angelic Beatrice to show the way through purgatorio and inferno to paradisio.
The Message
In the next chapter, we will use another postmodern film to expand on these themes. This will allow us to fill out an emerging pattern, as we then compare it with “Nothing But Trouble” and other perinatal evidence.
So let us watch, now, as the pattern, like a photo emerging in solution, reveals to us its features, thus delivering to us the message it has come to bring.
Footnotes
1. Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968, p. 51.
3. As a reminder, BPM III events (Basic Perinatal Matrix III events), using the typology set forth by Stanislav Grof in his many works, are the events surrounding the actual birth struggle of the infant during delivery. These parts on the perinatal in film make mention also of BPM II, which is related to the time of severe compression and constriction of the fetus in the latter stages of pregnancy and prior to the actual onset of delivery—which are characterized by feelings of “no-exit”; of BPM IV, which is concerned with the feelings of release, triumph, being saved, and whatever else occurs immediately after delivery; and of BPM I, which is related to the state of the fetus earlier in pregnancy—prior to compression—which is often conceived to have “oceanic” and “blissful” qualities, though not always.
Continue with Apocalypse – No! Chapter Thirteen: Peaceful Warriors and Silly Heroes
Return to Apocalypse – No! Chapter Eleven: Control Versus Surrender … Heaven Leads Through Hell
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The Journey to Light Leads Through Perinatal Darkness: Correcting the Arrogant Modern Ego … Religions Are About Control … Spirituality, Surrender
Posted by sillymickel in activism, authenticity, being yourself, Culture, Generations, globalrevolution, individualism, life, meaning, nonconform, philosophy, psychology, spirituality on July 13, 2013
Will We Survive? Putting Our Society “On the Couch”: Control vs. Surrender, Death vs. Life … The Path to Heaven Leads Through Hell
Apocalypse – No! Chapter Eleven: Control Versus Surrender … Heaven Leads Through Hell
Does It Look Like We’ll Duck Armageddon? The Information Tsunami, Ego Erosion, and Movies Are Collective Dreaming
Are the Changes Needed to Avoid Apocalypse Occurring? The “Royal Road” to Our Collective Mind, Putting Our Society “on the Couch”
Is there any evidence that the changes that need to happen for us to stave off apocalypse and save our world are actually occurring?
The “Royal Road” to Our Collective Mind
I have mentioned there are studies of the psychology of generations, beginning with the Baby-Boomers or Sixties Generation, 
that show both an increased access to the perinatal as well as a tendency to act out perinatal influences in less harmful…though more blatant…ways than generations prior. We have seen that this tendency goes hand in hand with actual engagement in activities to counter the negative perinatal act-outs that exist in our environment, 
for example, campaigning against war, pollution, racism, violence, and so on.
But in “Chapter Three: The Perinatal Media,” I introduced the common anthropological tenet that the projective systems of a culture—that is, its art and artifacts—can be analyzed to get a glimpse into the worldview of a particular society. For our purposes, I pointed out how our movies are especially potent glimpses into our collective consciousness as well as our collective unconscious. You might say that our cinema is the “royal road” to our collective unconscious.
Movies As Collective Dreaming
Our flicks perform admirably well as collective dreams in that, unlike the other products of our collective consciousness such as other art and artifacts, they are multimedia stories, much like dreams are. But more than that, they are shared by more of the populace than any other art form. I am not including TV separately as an art form, since I put it in the same category as films, especially when many films are broadcast on TV and much else on TV also has the same character of being multimedia stories.
Finally, the strength of a particular element of the collective consciousness can be easily determined by the popularity of a particular movie that represents it or by that element’s increasing inclusion in a number of films. For example, in “The Perinatal Media,” I discussed the emerging new elements of faces coming out of walls and forceful oral insertion.
Putting Our Society “on the Couch”
All together, these mean that, just as a psychotherapist might analyze a client’s dreams to get an idea of his or her unconscious workings and contents, one can interpret mainstream movies to get an idea of the workings and contents of our society’s “collective mind”—both conscious and unconscious.
This is no more complex than saying that when we see things in movies that people rush to see, they are drawn to it because those things are also in their own minds. 
And the more they flock—the greater the success of a movie—the more pervasive in a society are those themes, elements, and contents. Certain aspects—themes or elements in films—are said to really “resonate” with people and therefore people make the movies that contain them popular and successful.
When this is said, it only means that people are consciously or unconsciously drawn to things that exist within themselves. Conversely, no existence inside? No interest.
So in this and upcoming chapters I will use films as the dreaming out loud of our collective mind. Put less esoterically, I will be analyzing a few examples of mainstream movies for their content, and I will be assuming the content I find there exists as well in the society that has watched it…has dreamt it.
I will also be assuming that movies that are mainstream, by which I mean can be found readily for sale as DVDs on-line or in retail stores and have become part of the popular conversation are indicative of pervasive elements in our collective consciousness and unconscious. 
They can be looked at for the unacknowledged workings of our society as a whole.
I will not deal with the actual numbers of people who have attended particular movies. For I will assume out of the tens of thousands of movies that are produced each year—by small and large producers—those that have made it into the theaters of virtually all the communities of our society, and from there onto the DVD lists and the shelves of stores of all those communities, have by those facts alone demonstrated their resonance with the collective social mind. Otherwise, we would get into the maelstrom of analyzing critic’s opinions of these movies; and with that, to modify a saying, opinions are like asses: everyone has a different one.
Something’s Happening Here … Again
One final point about the heuristic value of the analysis of films for the workings of the collective mind: Elements and themes in movies change over time. I have shown how new elements may be evidence of new elements of our collective unconscious minds coming into consciousness in detailing how the faces-in-the-wall element has developed. (See “All in All It’s Just Another Face in the Wall.”)
But when old, familiar plots have different outcomes, this is important as well. When elements change or evolve over time, this speaks of something going on. This points to changes or evolutions in our collective consciousness. And when elements and themes and plots change or evolve rapidly, we can accurately 
say that the changes in consciousness are equally swift.
These are some of the tools we will be using in this and upcoming chapters as we take a look at a few examples of mainstream films and what they might be reflecting back to us about our own society’s changes in consciousness. But first let me say something about what may turn out to be the most important of the thematic evolutions or changes in film elements that we have been seeing.
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Information Avalanche and Pre- and Perinatal Themes
In the last half century we have been hearing a great deal about the need to expand consciousness to balance the negative effects of the extremes of technological advance. Fortunately this change of consciousness is to some extent inevitable—or at least greatly aided—by certain side effects of the technological explosion…specifically in the area of telecommunications.
Ego-Eroding Information Deluge
As cultural boundaries are eroded by a multicultural information avalanche, people are forced to lower their inner defenses and ego boundaries. Confronted by such incoming information people will either take some of it in, learn, and thereby grow beyond their former selves or they will need to expend themselves in an all-out effort to shore them up.
A potent example of the first, currently, is the way people worldwide are opening to and learning from each other using social media via the internet; the revolutionary potential of this creation of an open global consciousness is 
already showing itself in uprising for democracies and economic justice virtually everywhere on Earth. A clear example of the second—where folks are putting everything into blocking out information and beating back the personal growth that would result—is in the backlashes to these liberal forces, which are also occurring throughout the world—as a Tea Party in the United States and as the fortification of authoritarian regimes from China to Syria and Turkey, from Iran to Israel.
We have seen that the first response—where folks allow the discomfort inherent in personal growth—is typical of a more advanced form of child-caring that is centered on the needs of the child. We know also that the latter reaction goes with child-caring centered on the needs of the care-givers, or parents…and not the child. In this latter instance of parenting, it is understandably called child-rearing or raising a child as opposed to child-caring. We have noticed that the first response goes along with increased self-analysis and introspection and the latter one with acting out, aggression, and culture war.
Information Tsunami Pushes Consciousness Revolution
So, this tsunami of information in all areas, where previously we could smugly hold forth ego-satisfying views, pushes both toward an overthrow of those narrower perspectives and the establishment of broader, more encompassing ones as well as toward an ever increasing irrationality in fending off this information, at any and all costs.
I discussed at length in a previous section how this informational upswelling has led to a need to process it all in new social formats and the rituals of the talk and reality shows.
“Consciousness Raising” As “Shoveling It”
For the most part, this growth or expansion of consciousness, when it happens, is seen as a linear increase and correspondingly is labeled a “raising” of consciousness. 
This is true whether we are talking about societal or individual progress.
Ken Wilber’s transpersonal theory is the most popular version of such a ladder-style path. In it the process of growth is analogous to that of climbing a mountain or shoveling compost into a pickup truck—one simply moves upward or piles it on. [Footnote 1]
But there are those who think otherwise.
Yes, Tina Turner, We Do Need Another Hero … a Different Kind: The Path to Heaven Leads Through Hell
Religions Are About Control; Spirituality, Surrender. Let Go, Let God to Correct an Arrogant Modern Ego
The Path to Heaven Leads Through Hell
Those in the know about the pervasive pre- and perinatal influence on personality and behavior, and especially those of us actively engaged in working through the effects of such early traumas, are fully aware, like Dante, that the path to heaven leads through hell. We have found that the path to the transpersonal light leads through the psychodynamic and perinatal darkness, that the path up and the path down are parts of the same path outward. [Footnote 2]
A Dark and Hideous Shadow World
Our experience has been that the information avalanche and multicultural onslaught have eroded our personal boundaries to an influx, not only of transpersonal bliss-love-compassion, but equally—and very often, initially—to a dark and hideous shadow world, a backwards bizarro world, of pernicious and insidious disorganized feelings comprised of elements ancient, infantile, pathological, biological, scatological, and perinatal. These are some of the forms spiritual emergence can take, especially initially. And they are the ones most likely to be seen as spiritual emergencies.
Pre- and Perinatal Themes in Cinema
Therefore, it is interesting to see these views confirmed by the bubbling up of psychodynamic and perinatal themes in our collective consciousness as evidenced by current films, books, and music. I have mentioned the pre- and perinatal themes and symbolism in films and explained why, along with other elements of postmodern times, they are evidence of something significant occurring in the consciousness of our age—an emerging perinatal unconscious.
But there is another element evolving in current films which has to do with a changing or evolving collective attitude toward these perinatal elements. And along with a changing attitude, there is evidence pointing to an evolving collective response to it.
Control vs. Surrender, Death vs. Life
“Control Spiritualities” and Patriarchal Cultures
Specifically, a different kind of heroic response, which characterizes the perinatal arena, can be said to characterize the postmodern movies replete with perinatal symbolism. Most striking of all, this different kind of heroic response corresponds to a different kind of spirituality than what is commonly portrayed in this society, or at least has been the norm up until now.
For basically there are “control” spiritualities and “surrender” spiritualities, with rarely the twain meeting. “Control spiritualities” are adapted to patriarchal cultures and involve the use of the ego to “control” and be in charge of even the realms of the supernatural. This is so because an ultimate evil—a devil or Satan—is postulated, which is given equal weight along with God in determining one’s ultimate fate. This type of spirituality is normally what is called religion.
“Surrender Spiritualities” and God As Being Good
But there is another brand of spirituality that is based on a belief in the ultimate goodness and rightness of All That Is. God’s goodness being essentially the dominant force in the Universe, herein it is considered safe to “surrender” in one’s relation to Reality, to expect that one will be guided correctly, in fact perfectly, in the act of letting go. Thus letting go is not to be feared—as in the control spirituality—but is to be practiced and fostered. In this perspective, which we might call surrender spirituality, control is seen as the problem, not the solution.
“Control” and “Surrender” Psychotherapies
Of course these two approaches to spirituality represent two approaches to psychotherapy as well. 
The control attitude is the dominant mode of psychoanalytically-based approaches—those in which the “demon” of the id is postulated.
The attitude of “letting go” and “surrender,” on the other hand, is the dominant mode of the experiential psychotherapies, which are themselves rooted in the tradition of humanistic psychology with its belief in the ultimate goodness of the human organism and which thus allows a faith in the ultimate rightness of human processes.
“Hero’s Journey” As “Control” Psychotherapy
Since the control attitude, in any of its manifestations, requires the postulation of an ultimate evil against which one must remain vigilant and must fight, the common “hero’s journey” myth—with its typical fighting and slaying of supposedly evil parts of the personality and reality symbolized as dragons and other monsters—is a prevalent focal myth to this attitude. Corresponding to this myth are the emphasis on disciplines and practices seeking to develop the ego and the will…over against the dangers that are postulated to exist in the Universe requiring these disciplines and, so-called, ego developments.
A Different Heroic Response in “Surrender” Paths
Since the “feeling” therapies and the other spiritual and experiential psychotherapeutic modalities with which they are allied are so different in attitude to the traditional “control” attitude, should there not be corresponding differences in myths to exemplify them? Indeed, there are.
In history, the surrender spiritualities have had correspondences in myth in which the dragon is not 
fought, conquered, and slain, but rather is either tamed and becomes one’s ally or pet—Saint Margaret is the prime example in the West, but this is a depiction prevalent in the East—or else one is swallowed by the “dragon” or monster and, after a while, is reborn.
Jonah is the prime example in the West for this latter depiction. But again this reaction to the fearful dissociated aspects of the personality, or the Shadow, is not a common one in the Western patriarchy, and it is much more common in traditional cultures and in the East.
A Shift to “Surrender” As a Corrective to a Western Overweening Ego?
All of this may be changing in recent times in the West, as once again the humanistic attitude and the new spiritual perspectives, as well as the experiential psychotherapies such as primal therapy, make us increasingly aware of the ultimate beneficence of the body, and of the Universe beyond even that, and of the importance of surrender and letting go as a corrective to the overweening control and defensiveness of the diminutive Western ego.
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Continue with Apocalypse – No! Chapter Twelve: Atman Projects vs. Surrender Solutions
Return to Apocalypse No! Chapter Ten: Where There Is Hope, Cultural Rebirthing
Footnote
1. See especially Ken Wilber, The Atman Project. Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1980.
2. See, for example, Michael Adzema, “A Primal Perspective on Spirituality,” Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 25(3), 83-116. Reprinted online at the Primal Spirit site at “A Primal Perspective on Spirituality.”
Continue with Apocalypse – No! Chapter Twelve: Atman Projects vs. Surrender Solutions
Return to Apocalypse No! Chapter Ten: Where There Is Hope, Cultural Rebirthing
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What’s Involved in Stopping War and Ecocide and the Necessary Mess of Transformation: Hard to Believe, But We’re Getting Saner
Posted by sillymickel in activism, authenticity, being yourself, Class, Culture, economics, Generations, globalrevolution, History, individualism, life, meaning, nonconform, occupywallstreet, philosophy, Politics, psychology, spirituality on July 2, 2013
The Cycle of All Events, the Evolution of Parenting, and Auspicious Collective Regressions: Being Crazy in an Insane World Might Mean You’re the Sane One
Chapter Nine: Regressions in the Service of Society — Messy Healing
There Is a Cycle to All Events … The Spiral Dance, Why We Can’t Get No Satisfaction, and Where There Is Real Hope
The Spiral Dance – The Cycle of All Events: Wedded to Rebirthing Rituals, the Inevitability of Disappointment, and Where There is Real Hope
Wedded to Rebirthing Rituals
At the point when the perinatal unconscious arises, individuals — and collectively, society — have the choice to turn toward the emergence of these feelings or to turn away from them.
In turning toward these feelings we embrace, feel, and if we go deeply enough into that, we relive the roots of them and resolve them finally.
In turning away from them we shun them, act them out, and are enslaved by them…thus we act unconsciously, trance-like, zombie-like.
If we face these inner forces—we call that feeling them…in this instance, feeling through or reliving one’s birth—we integrate them and heal the underlying trauma, the perinatal trauma.
Or the individual and society can avoid this going within—as depicted in the peace symbol—and can choose instead to act them out, which is the peace symbol upside down—the Satan symbol, the pentagram.
In acting them out, one distracts oneself from the uncomfortable feelings, which though not focused on, are still there. 
One tries to be “strong” in the face of feelings but one is actually driven and directed by them—they “take over one’s mind.” 
This is the source of the idea of spirit possession and in general of the idea that a devil or Satan can take over one’s soul.
So in running from our feelings we are captured and enslaved by them, we are forced to act them out in ways we would not otherwise choose which are negative to horrible but in all cases self-sabotaging. Of course war is the most horrible, most self-sabotaging, greatest, and most all-consuming form of such acting-out…the greatest struggle.
Humans are characterized by a particular kind of birth process.
It is a coming into being that is traumatic and which is related to our distinction of standing upright and thereby decreasing the pelvic opening as well as suffocating the fetus prior to birth. The fact is that because of this “distinction” we are destined to go through periods of rebirthing purificatory rituals, whether for good or ill. [Footnote 1]
For we are psychologically wedded to reliving that which we could not fully experience at the time because of the overwhelming quality of pain associated with it.
A “Spiral Dance”
These rebirthing rituals we are doomed to repeat, one way or the other. We are going to act out this primal pain—this birth trauma—in an unending cycle of feelings having these components
- Periods of feelings of expansion
- Closedness or entrapment, guilt, and depression
- Aggression
- Release
Then back around again.
In winning the “war” or having the success or achievement, there begins the same cycle of expansion followed by entrapment. Losing the war…the struggle, the battle…is akin to death, even if there is no death. There is numbness and repression…akin to a kind of “limbo”…before life can begin anew. A reconception is necessary.
The Pattern of Our First Nine Months Imprints Us For Our Entire Human Lives
The reemergence of hope in individuals and societies is biologically equivalent to conception. And following this reconceiving, there is a similar cycle of reemerging strength—akin to the expansion that follows winning. 
Then there is continuing depression or overarching gloom and helplessness feelings coupled with revenge feelings and blame as individuals and societies stew in the vessel of indecision, inaction, and doubt. This is quite like the closedness and guilt which follows achievement-success-victory. Note, however, that the revenge and blame feelings here are aspects of the BPM II matrix, just as is closedness and guilt.
Can’t Get No Satisfaction
And then the cycle is the same again. Specifically, there is aggression against the oppressor (War and revolution both see the foe as an oppressor, even if one is actually the one who is the aggressor.) What follows upon fighting is release or “death”; and so on around. The “happily ever after” that inspires such battle truly only exists in fantasies and fairy tales. Prosperity and feelings of success are unfortunately doomed, on this physical plane of existence, to be short-lived.
Where There Is Real Hope
It would seem we are fated to never be happy, for long. But progress is possible; 
herein lies our only real choice in the entire scenario. For we either work through these cycles in some deep psychologically 
transformative way that helps us deal with and pass beyond the difficult and painful parts of the cycle as well as helps to fade the imprints’ potency in determining our behavior 
or we are doomed to act them out in the external world in ways that we are blindly unaware are not congruent with the actual facts of our circumstances and are harmful to ourselves and others around us.
We are fated to experience these cycles of birth, and we will either act them out disastrously or we find ways 
of dealing with them inside of ourselves in some way—and some ways are better than others for doing this—so that we can have some inner distance from these patterns and therefore some conscious ability or choice around our actions when these pushes and pulls arise.
Railing Against the Darkness: The Vanity of Will, The Impotence of Reason, Progress Requires Regress, and Healing Is Nothing if Not Messy
Railing Against the Darkness, The Vanity of Will, The Impotence of Reason, and Social Progress Requires Regression
The Vanity of Will, The Impotence of “Reason”
What we absolutely don’t have, yet arrogantly think we do, is the ability—through will or reason alone—to choose light over darkness, to replace these inner veils of distortion with clarity of thought and perception and hence of positive behavior and actions while in the midst of them.
Trying to reason with and to obtain truly desired outcomes is about as possible as trying to reason with a lizard and convince it to conform to one’s wishes for its behavior. For good reason: Indeed our rational mind is as split off from the “reptilian brain” inside us within which these imprints circulate and from which they arise as are we from the consciousness of a gila monster.
What We Call “Reason” Is Largely Just Rationalization
This impotence of intellectual understanding in the face of these patterns of self-destruction occurs because 
these schemas are rooted in memories existing in an emotional and entirely dissociated part of the brain, which is hardly touched by neocortical admonishing of any kind. As deMause correctly points out,
[The fetus’s] “early experiences have been found to be recorded in a separate early neural network—a dissociated emotional memory system centering in the amygdala, quite distinct from the declarative memory system centering in the hippocampus that is established in later childhood.” [Footnote 2]
Disclaiming these cycles, which inevitably pass through darkness, and reliance on “will-power” to change one’s patterns, which includes self-sabotage, has been exposed in its impotence in modern times. We see as evidence the growing acknowledgment of the ineffectiveness and, indeed, counter-effectiveness of psychoanalysis. [Footnote 3]
Railing Against the Darkness
So the question begging to be asked is “What do we do about it?” What do we do about these pernicious cycles?
And when these elements erupt in society in harmless, possibly healing ways, how do we view them? Do we, as Mayr and Boelderl do in their article, “The Pacifier Craze: Collective Regression in Europe,” decry the regression…as if by disclaiming it we could somehow keep the cycle from happening? [Footnote 4]
Mayr and Boelderl write, for example, that the situation of collective regression in Europe “strikes us as being high-explosive [sic] and bitter enough.” [Footnote 5]
In another place they exclaim, “What is horrible about this insight [about the increasing collective regression in Europe] is the additional observation that regression is becoming still more radical.” [Footnote 6]
This response of railing against the “Darkness” is a Freudian response. Yet it is not even a neo-Freudian one, since regression in the service of the ego—which began to be seen as ever more important by neo-Freudians—is not acknowledged, let alone considered.
Social Progress Requires Regression
That regression in the service of the ego is not considered is confirmed by Mayr and Boelderl in their statement that “[R]egression by definition is a process of repression and a defense mechanism.” [Footnote 7]
These are surprising words, in light of the concept of regression in the service of the ego and awareness of the clinically based evolution of psychotherapeutic theory since Freud’s original postulations, over a half-century ago.
They are even more awry if one considers the universal, cross-cultural, implementation by societies of rebirthing rituals to handle the same kinds of forces we are confronted with. 
The anthropological literature is rife with these accounts.
Further, Grof has meticulously shown that regularly going into altered states of consciousness where one confronts this material is a prime function of cultures, and it occurs nearly universally although it is woefully lacking in Western culture for the most part.
Moreover, these words by Mayr and Boelderl indicate a conflict with or ignorance of the fact that deMause’s theory of evolution of historical change requires regression on the part of parents, while parenting their children, as the primary “engine” of sociopsychological progress.
For deMause writes,
“[T]he ultimate source of all historical change is psychogenesis, the lawful change in childrearing modes occurring through generational pressure…. Psychogenesis depends upon the ability of parents and surrogates to regress to the psychic age of their children and work through the anxieties of that age better the second time than in their own childhood.” (op. cit., 1982, p. 135, emphasis mine.)
But this mistake by these two social scientists would not be all that important if it was not the perfect example of the kind of uninformed attitude we have, generally speaking, in Western societies about these forces. This attitude is reinforced by a Judeo-Christian tradition of specialness and scapegoating in the West. It is a pervasive feeling about these things; specifically it, itself, is the actual defense. While this is a widespread reaction to our inner realities it is far from science, and even further from the truth or reality about these things.
“Stop It!” … Yeah, That’s Gonna Work
At any rate, if we adopt this Western, Judeo-Christian, Freudian tactic of decrying the darkness, we are as effective in derailing the cycle of violence and war as Freudians are in what amounts to admonishing their clients to “stop it!” when it comes to their neurotic self-sabotaging.
For people cannot will themselves to merely stop their cycles of neurotic self-sabotage and self-destruction, which are the individual manifestations/ acting out of their birth traumas. As mentioned these directors of action operate out of a different part of the psyche, and brain, than one’s conscious willing part. They are simply not accessible, so hardly amenable, to rational or willful input. And changing one’s thoughts to affect them is about as helpful as rearranging the furniture on the deck of the Titanic.
Being Crazy in an Insane World Might Mean You’re the Sane One: Auspicious Collective Regressions
People Who Have It All Figured Out Are the Ones to Watch Out For … Emotional “Sickness” Might Indicate More “Wellness”
Regression in the Service of the Ego
With the exposure of the ineffectiveness of the Freudian tactic of intellectual understanding has come the Freudian movement’s disintegration into schools advocating various other strategies for change.
These schools/strategies include the psychiatric—the use of drugs; the neo-Freudians who acknowledge and use regression in the service of the ego 
and abreaction; the humanistic-existential approaches, stressing the “experiential”; and the Jungians and neo-Jungians, who would seek the resolution of these cycles in their inner archetypal acting out, resulting in an eventual rootedness of the ego in a higher Self (a spiritual center) beyond or transcending the cycles. [Footnote 8]
Other approaches include the bulk of the spiritual, new-age, or transpersonal means that are flourishing these days. These alternative paths basically differ from all others in their belief that one can simply 
bypass these perinatal pulls and pushes and go directly to the Light or the Self by dismissing the birth cycles, or the Darkness or Shadow, through affirming the Light, meditating the Darkness out or the Light in, changing one’s thoughts, creating one’s reality, and various combinations of these.
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Finally, these newer schools and strategies for healing include those of what might be called experiential psychotherapy, which includes primal therapy, holotropic breathwork, some forms of (experiential) meditation (Vipassana meditation, for example), Reichian and 
bioenergetic approaches, some forms of hypnotherapy—experiential ones—ones that involve reliving traumas—and virtually all the techniques, treatments, and correctives that are espoused in the field of pre- and perinatal psychology.
The point is that from a good number of these other-than-Freudian perspectives—and all of those that acknowledge the importance of 
regression in the service of the ego—and from the perspective of the entire field of experiential psychotherapy, the answer to the cycles of violence, war, and death-rebirth is to stop the acting out, not 
by simply intellectually decrying it—as if one can actually talk oneself 
out of one’s inner fears and one’s Darkness/Shadow—but by reliving those cycles of violence at their origins…their primal roots. In the case of perinatal forces, those forces from “the dark side,” this is accomplished by reliving the violence of birth, a perinatal trauma that is thoroughly and masterfully delineated by Grof and deMause. [Footnote 9]
Auspicious Collective Regressions
But from this perspective of experiential psychotherapy—one completely 
congruent with and grateful of deMause’s contributions in psychohistory as well—regression, in Europe, or elsewhere, is not seen as something to decry, disclaim, be horrified of, or be seen as dangerous but is seen as an opportunity. Regression is certainly not seen as a form of defense but as the opposite of that. Regression is part of a process of diminishing one’s defenses against one’s internal reality of pain and trauma.
Thus, examples of blatant collective regression as in Europe—more so to the 
extent they are relived, released, and integrated—are entirely auspicious for the eventual elimination of war as a collective device of acting out—defending against—the painful feelings coming from one’s personal history which one carries around, all unknowingly, and which pervade, in one way or another, in forms subtle and not so subtle, every moment of one’s consciousness in the present.
From this experiential psychotherapeutic perspective, we have a different feeling about developments like those that Mayr and Boelderl describe as collective regression in Europe and Lawson describes as occurring at rock concerts. [Footnote 10]
From a more enlightened viewpoint these cultural phenomena should have us, if not dancing in the streets, at least hopeful of a gradual decrease in the use of war and violence. 
Why? It is because the youth who display this “regression” so blatantly were brought up by an “advanced” form of child-rearing than that of previous generations, that they have fewer defenses, fewer layers of obfuscation covering up their unconscious psychodynamics; consequently the regression is seen more clearly in their behavior. [Footnote 11]
Unflinching Belief Related to Total Dissociation
Why is this important? DeMause points out that people do go to war, and that 
prior to it their perinatal dynamics come to the fore, as evidenced by perinatal-laden words and images in the media and in leaders’ speeches used to describe the situation and its dynamics. Thus, our leaders take us into war, they act out their perinatal dynamics…and we in following them act out ours…in such gruesomely overt ways because these dynamics are so hidden, repressed, and overlaid with defenses that the conscious mind has absolutely no access to, and hence insight into, them as being part of one’s unconscious dynamics.
Consequently the conscious mind is completely able to convince itself that those dynamics are actual, real, and doubtless parts of the situation and therefore require an actual, real, and extreme response. The amount of resolve required to act out war can only be wrought of an unflinching belief in the rightness, the absolute correctness of one’s perspective of the situation and therefore of that extreme course of response. And that can only be brought about by a total dissociation from one’s perinatal traumas, and a complete and utter projection of it on the outside—the enemy, to be specific.
Blatant “Sickness” Related to Being Real
The contrary is also true: When there does not exist that total and complete dissociation of the perinatal trauma—when it is, as in Europe and rock concerts currently, closer to the surface, less defended against, less repressed and, hence, more blatant—it is more accessible to consciousness and less likely to be acted out in the extreme as in war. Instead it is more likely to be acted out in less extreme forms, such as jumping into mosh pits, carrying pacifiers, listening to baby tunes about the, very real, difficulties of being a baby, and so on.
Finally, it is more likely to be actually allowed to emerge in consciousness and be relived, and thereby “healed”…and gone beyond, to be replaced by something more benign and more socially constructive, and thus to be removed forever as a motivation to war or violence. This is the auspicious view of the developments described by Mayr and Boelderl. [Footnote 12]
Janov was the first to point out that a permanent resolution of underlying trauma initially entailed an aggravation of symptoms and symbolic acting out. That is to say, the underlying dynamics become more blatant and apparent in behavior. [Footnote 13]
Janov was also the first to note that the acting-out and overt neurotic was closer to being “real,” and therefore really sane, than his or her highly functioning and “normal,” but repressed, rigidly defended, and unfeeling neighbor. [Footnote 14]
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The Most Evolved Parenting … Boomers and Millennials … and The Cyclical Nature of History: I Know It’s Hard to Believe But We’ve Been Getting Saner
Thanks to You We’re Getting Saner: The Most Evolved Parenting … Boomers and Millennials … and The Cyclical Nature of History
Evolution of Parenting – We’ve Been Getting Saner
Finally, the correctness of the view that being “crazy” in an insane world might be more sane has been borne out in recent history. DeMause describes an evolution of parenting from ancient times to the present which involved ever decreasing psychosis and violence and increasing caring and consciousness of the needs of children. He connects this decrease in violent child caring to ever decreasing violence and psychotic acting out in societies.
DeMause labels the most common modern parenting mode the socializing mode. Short of the quite recent helping mode—which only really rose to prominence in the last three decades—the socializing mode is the most advanced and most humane.
Lest there be any confusion, I wish to point out that my own theoretical 
understanding differs from deMause’s in one important respect. While I agree with his evolution of child-rearing over the course of civilization and within recorded time, I believe he is wrong about prehistory and what primal peoples were like and the kind of child-caring they engaged in. He depicts prehistoric societies as psychotically oblivious of the needs of children, engaging in, first, infanticidal; then, second, abandoning; then, third, ambivalent modes of child-rearing. Whereas it seems to me the overwhelming evidence and increasing numbers of anthropologists point to a natural “organic” child-caring being employed in the the mists of the past quite a bit more “advanced” than even many modes employed today.
I believe the change from the loving parenting we see in many primal peoples and in Nature among many of our planetmates to the infanticidal, abandoning, and ambivalent modes he has described for early historic cultures is a product of that ever increasing control of Nature that went into full gear with the agrarian revolution, some ten to twenty-five thousand years ago. So, I am saying that brutal parenting was a consequence of “civilization” and was at its worst at the beginnings of recorded time.
But I agree we have been gradually evolving to better modes of child-caring over the history of civilization to the most sane and psychologically beneficial modes employed in recent decades, which, you might want to note, are very much like the modes of the earliest humans. I describe why and how we lost our connection with Nature and loving ways of parenting—how we left “Eden”—in my book and blog “The Great Reveal.”
The Cycles of Time
I believe my understanding shows once again how much of what modern folks thought of “development”—including it being linear and increasing from “darkness” to “light” with ourselves always at the top (conveniently)—is wrong and merely part of an anthropocentric bias and an ethnocentric heritage. For more and more, as we lay down those blinders to reality, we notice the evidence of the cyclical nature of everything—from our lives (ashes to ashes) to the physical Universe’s expansion and contraction, to the vibrations at the subatomic level, the waves in the sea, the turning of the Earth and the revolutions of the solar systems, and I contend now also, the so-called “history” of our species on Earth. This is the thoroughly postmodern idea that human time is also cyclical, with over and again peoples returning to earlier halcyon times only to “fall” away from them.
The Worst of Times Quality of Current Events
This idea of time as cyclical not linear is in keeping with Eastern philosophies, as well as indigenous ones. Hindu thinking currently has us at the depths of the Kali Yuga, the worst part of the cycle right now, with matters to be reversed very soon and the best of times just ahead. And, as I have been describing in my books Falls from Grace and Primal Renaissance and will be directly pointing out in my upcoming book, Primal Return, we are currently seeing a most necessary return to a more harmonious way of being and a more natural self. And with it, requiring it, to some extent preceding it, we are evolving to the most advanced mode of loving parenting.
The “Best of Times” Nature of Our Parenting
Psychohistorian Glenn Davis, following deMause, analyzed the most advanced form of child-caring short of the most recent helping mode—the psychogenic parenting mode deMause termed socializing—and found that it comprised four submodes. In order, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century and each one a more “evolved” and humane one than the previous one, they are the submodes of psychic control, aggressive training, vigorous guidance, and delegated release. [Footnote 15]
Oh, Be-HAVE. WWII Generation … Received Aggressive-Training and Vigorous-Guidance Parenting
Davis concluded that in America the Vietnam War was perpetrated by individuals belonging almost entirely to the aggressive-training and vigorous-guidance psychoclasses. [Footnote 16]
Questioning Authority and Oneself Is Good. Boomers … Received Delegated Release Parenting
Yet the Vietnam War was brought to an end largely as a result of the efforts of an antiwar movement whose largest component was a Sixties youth brought up under a more advanced delegated-release child-caring mode. [Footnote 17]
The delegated release mode, which resulted in the phenomenon of Sixties youth and the counterculture, is the most “advanced” mode short of the helping mode.
“Let’s Collaborate” – Millennials. Received the Most Advanced Parenting – Helping … “We Just Want You to Be Happy.”
The helping mode is the child-caring mode employed widely by the Sixties generation for their children, the Millennial Generation, also known as Generation Y. So, a helping mode of parenting was enjoyed by the children of a delegated-release psychoclass, the Boomers. Sixties youth are seen, psychologically, to have the most the most “advanced” ego structures short of their children taught within a helping mode. [Footnote 18]
What’s Involved in Stopping War and Ecocide – Peace Is Painful: But Better Psychotic Than Warring
![100604-hitler-020_thumb[1]](http://apocalypseknow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/100604-hitler-020_thumb1.jpg "100604-hitler-020_thumb[1]")
Ending War and Humanicide—Peace Is Worth its Price of Suffering: Better “Emotionally Disturbed” Than “Healthily” Fighting in War
![rock concert_thumb[2]](http://apocalypseknow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/rock-concert_thumb2.jpg "rock concert_thumb[2]")
Walking In Another’s Moccasins
![clip_image008[1]](http://www.donaldedavis.com/DEC99NEW/GOPDEMO.jpg "clip_image008[1]")
It is obvious that these Sixties youth did not have the same unflinching and unqualified belief in the absolute rightness of their country’s position in Vietnam as did many of their parents. ![clip_image009[1]](http://s1.hubimg.com/u/4766428_f260.jpg "clip_image009[1]")
This is obviously the case in a psychoclass of youth chanting a generational mantra, “Question authority!” and whose more extreme members would at times even go over to the perspective of seeing the war from the eyes of the “enemy,” the Other.
As I mentioned earlier, among the Sixties Generation we saw Jane Fonda’s journey to Hanoi, the waving of North Vietnamese flags by protesters, ![clip_image011[2]](http://theodoresworld.net/ExtremeRedZone/kerry_vc-vi.jpeg "clip_image011[2]")
and the carrying of little red books on the sayings of Chairman Mao. These are obvious indicators that the generation as a whole was open to seeing the war from the North Vietnamese perspective: That is, as a conflict perpetrated by a foreign nation that was hypocritical in its espousal of democracy in that it prevented democratic elections that would have without doubt elected Ho Chi Minh and instead it installed a puppet-ruler in the South, making Vietnam a virtual colony of the United States. From this perspective, the ![clip_image013_thumb[3]](http://apocalypseknow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/clip_image013_thumb3.jpg "clip_image013_thumb[3]")
Vietnam War was for the Vietnamese as much a war for independence as the American Revolution was for the U.S.
This is just an example of how there are two sides to every issue and how an attempt at empathy or “walking in The Other’s moccasins”—made possible by a closeness to a perinatal unconscious that is also an opposite perspective than that of the conscious mind—can lead, at the minimum, to the reluctance necessary to prevent engaging in at least the most blatant and horrific forms of violence…against others, but consider also, against Nature.
The Perinatal Generation
At any rate, is there evidence that this undermining of the self-righteous position necessary for the instigation and carrying out of war and ecocide—this ability to see at least somewhat from The Other’s perspective and not just one’s own—is in truth correlated with a closeness to perinatal dynamics, a closeness to the unconscious for that generation of youth, those of the Sixties? The answer: Absolutely yes!
As mentioned in a previous part, sociologist Kenneth Keniston did psychological studies of members of the Sixties Generation.
He was inspired to do so through his noticing that he was seeing something really unusual and radically different in these youth than what he had ever seen. This led to his fascination with discovering what made them so different. And he documented his findings in two books—The Uncommitted: Alienated Youth in American Society and Young Radicals: Notes on Committed Youth. Roughly speaking he chose to study the unconscious dynamics of both the “alienated-hippie” and the “activist” sectors, respectively, of that generation. [Footnote 19]
Blushing Troll-Handlers
At the risk of repeating myself, I wish to remind the reader that a reading of his books—keeping in mind that Keniston knew nothing of perinatal dynamics at that time, and few people did, for that matter—reveals a degree of perinatal imagery, fantasy, and acting out—especially among “the uncommitted”—enough to make a troll-handling, pacifier-wearing, mosh-pit jumping youth of today to blush! [Footnote 20]
Self-Analysis and Psychological-Mindedness
Because of this peculiar perinatal access, I don’t believe it is any coincidence that Keniston also found an unusual amount of inner reflection—questioning oneself—alongside the more well known questioning authority. This he labeled “overexamined life” for the alienated sector and “psychological mindedness” for the activists.
![goths_thumb[2]](http://apocalypseknow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/goths_thumb2.jpg "goths_thumb[2]")
![The Wall Movie 1982 (3)_thumb[2]](http://apocalypseknow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/the-wall-movie-1982-3_thumb2.jpg "The Wall Movie 1982 (3)_thumb[2]")
Better Emotionally Disturbed Than “Healthily” Engaging in War
So, being close to one’s perinatal imprints, being less defended against one’s inner unconscious painful memories, leads to one being able to question not just oneself—and therefore to be a catalyst to personal growth and a quest for truth—but also the actions of one’s society. It is a counterbalance to our tendency to act out in violence to others as in war and to Nature as in ecocide. It means people will suffer more inner turmoil and pain, will feel more psychologically “disturbed,” and will be less likely to take it out on others, will be less likely to make others or the environment “pay” for what happened to them.
Let us contrast that with its opposite. DeMause writes,
Hitler’s projection of his fears…into Jews and foreigners helped him avoid a psychotic breakdown and enabled him to function during his later life, as long as others shared his delusion of poisonous enemies.
Therefore acting out collectively, as in war, can prevent a psychotic breakdown in certain individuals.
Better Psychotic Than Waging War
But when the consequences of acting out one’s birth trauma, collectively, is millions of people—including oneself—dead, not to mention the uncountably large loss of material and personal resources, it is clear that by comparison a psychotic breakdown is a more benign alternative for either the individual or the society in which that or those individuals act.
Similarly, not providing the outlet of war as a collective birth ritual…oftentimes, for the soldier involved, euphemistically called a “rite of passage”…would allow the genuine neurotic breakdowns, the collapse of people’s defenses, and their opening up to their underlying perinatal dynamics. Thus accessed, they can be healed, or in the least they would prevent the kind of unflinching belief or self-righteousness required for war and violence.
Some folks might even be motivationally paralyzed—receiving information from the unconscious that contradicts and undermines the stance and beliefs of their conscious ego. But when that egoistic stance is slanted, commonly, towards war, violence, selfishness and greed and corresponding environmental apathy, then better one would be indecisive, overwhelmed, and doing nothing.
The Price of Emotional Pain Is Minuscule Compared to That of War
Yet it is true that this neurotic breakdown, of at least a small amount, on the scale of society would result in the kind of collective regressions that Mayr and Boelderl, and Lawson describe. That is, the cause of peace, of the saving of human lives, requires that people pay the price of encountering their primal pain.
![PercyJackson_Characters_thumb[2]](http://apocalypseknow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/percyjackson_characters_thumb2.png "PercyJackson_Characters_thumb[2]")
![clip_image019[1]](https://apocalypseknow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/clip_image0191.jpg?w=375&h=248 "clip_image019[1]")
By all measures, this peace price is minuscule. It is even more worth it when you take into account the fact that many people, after initially “breaking down” for lack of a collective…and highly destructive…act-out like war/aggression, will actually succeed in reconstructing a self more in line with reality, through the dynamics and means categorized under the term regression in the service of the ego, desccribed above. Regardless of professional help…which would be nice but is not always available or practical…some people just find a way.
![world-peace-090420e_thumb[1]](http://apocalypseknow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/world-peace-090420e_thumb1.jpg "world-peace-090420e_thumb[1]")
Continue with Chapter Ten: Where There Is Hope, Cultural Rebirthing
Return to Apocalypse No! Chapter Eight:
Derailing the Cycles of War and Violence
Footnotes
1. A. Briend, “Fetal Malnutrition: The Price of Upright Posture?” British Medical Journal 2 (1979): 317-319.
2. DeMause, op. cit., 1995, p. 12, emphasis in original.
3. See, for example, Alice Miller, For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence, trans. by Hildegarde and Hunter Hannum. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, especially “Vantage Point 1990,” pp. vii-ix.
4. Daniela F. Mayr & Artur R. Boelderl, “The Pacifier Craze: Collective Regression in Europe.” The Journal of Psychohistory 21 (1993): 143-156.
5. Ibid., p. 144.
6. Ibid., p. 148, emphasis mine.
7. Ibid., pp. 149-150.
8. Regarding the “experiential,” I should make clear that this approach is, from the perspective of the experiential psychotherapeutic approach I will be describing shortly, actually the superficial symbolic acting out of these underlying and powerful cycles in a way that is only a little less impotent than the Freudians.
9. DeMause, op. cit., 1995.
10. Alvin H. Lawson, “Placental Guitars, Umbilical Mikes, and the Maternal Rock-Beat: Birth Fantasies and Rock Music Videos.” The Journal of Psychohistory 21 (1994): 335-353.
11. Mayr and Boelderl claim quite wrongly and quite strangely—as if to make the facts not conflict with DeMause’s psychogenic theory, or as if to cover up some hole in their analysis—that those caught up in the pacifier craze were raised under the intrusive and socializing parenting modes (op. cit., 1993, p. 145) and yet, in 1992, were between the ages of 15 and 30 (Ibid., p. 143). This is hard to understand because these youth would have been born between the years 1962 and 1977 in advanced Western countries of mostly Western Europe—Italy, Germany, Austria, all of Europe, and even the U.S. (Ibid.).
However, the intrusive and socializing modes are associated, by DeMause, with the eighteenth century and the nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, respectively, in the Western world (DeMause, op. cit., 1982, p. 62). On the other hand, the helping mode begins mid-twentieth century in the Western world (Ibid., p. 63).
The conclusion from this is that these youth, described by Mayr and Boelderl, would have been greatly influenced by the helping mode. They would be expected, at least, to have received the most advanced methods of child-caring overall in the world at this time—considering DeMause’s theory—since they are the most recent progeny of the Western world!
Indeed, if these cannot be considered products of the helping mode, who can be? In order for Mayr and Boelderl to dispute this and claim they were exceptions to the rule and were raised under intrusive and socializing modes, they would have had to do a study demonstrating this, or at least cite one done. And this they do not do.
12. Michael D. Adzema, “Reunion With the Positive (Self), Part 1: The Other Half of ‘The Cure.’” Primal Renaissance: The Journal of Primal Psychology 1(2): 72-85. Reprinted on the Primal Spirit site.
13. Arthur Janov, The Primal Scream: Primal Therapy: The Cure for Neurosis. New York: Dell, 1970.
15. Glenn Davis, Childhood and History in America. New York: The Psychohistory Press, 1976.
16. Ibid., especially Ch. 7, “The Great Society and the Youth Revolt,” and p. 240.
19. Kenneth Keniston, The Uncommitted: Alienated Youth in American Society. New York: Dell, 1965; Young Radicals: Notes on Committed Youth. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1968.
20.While these aspects of youth are laid out by Keniston, a fuller delineation of these dynamics are to be seen in my work-in-progress, tentatively titled The Once and Current Generation: “Regression,” Mysticism, and “My Generation.” [Stay tuned.]
Continue with Chapter Ten: Where There Is Hope, Cultural Rebirthing
Return to Apocalypse No! Chapter Eight:
Derailing the Cycles of War and Violence
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SillyMickel Adzema
Culture War, Class War 
Where There Is Hope and What Did You Expect Awakening to Look Like? Look Hard Enough, You Just Might See the Seeds of Light Amidst the Darkness Surrounding.
Posted by sillymickel in activism, authenticity, being yourself, Class, Culture, Generations, globalrevolution, History, individualism, life, meaning, nonconform, occupywallstreet, philosophy, Politics, psychology, spirituality on July 7, 2013
Chapter Ten: Where There Is Hope, Cultural Rebirthing
Societal Self-Analysis and Talk Show Soul-Searching for Peace … Sorry, I Know You Wanted to Hate Reality Shows.
The Price of Peace Is Inner Sight: Societal Self-Analysis, an Internet Reformation, and Talk Show Soul-Searching for Peace
Societal Self-Analysis
Culture War Replaced Cold War
We see the workings of these opposing tendencies to look away from problems or to embrace them by examining the reactions in America to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The disappearance of this huge object for distraction from inner unhappiness, about which one could rationalize the use of defensiveness and scapegoating, led to continued turning away through the emergence, in America, of a search for other societal scapegoats and therefore the “Republican revolution.” Culture War replaced the Cold War as the way one could be comfortably ignorant of one’s insides and self-assuredly distracted, self-righteously engaged.
This removal of a collective punching bag or scapegoat also resulted in a healthy turning toward the darkness within and a collective self-analysis in America. This reaction has brought to the fore many of our social and political shortcomings.
Talk Show Soul-Searching
We also witnessed the rise of reality shows as part of this societal pull to see beneath the covers of what is thought to be real. Now, progressives and intellectuals have lots of fun vamping about how superior they themselves are to such interests, as exemplified in reality shows. This can only be the position of elitists out of touch with the ways ordinary folks live their lives.
Sitcom Socialization
To make my point, let me back up a bit. The swagger that the Left, and intellectuals in general, display around reality shows is the same superiority they have expressed for decades concerning sitcoms. First, let me say that I consider most sitcoms and reality shows to be rather boring and a bit inane with their laugh and soundtrack framing.
Yet, when I was a child, growing up in a medium-sized city in the coal country of Pennsylvania and coming from a very traditional family, it was only through such sitcoms that I had a chance to find out what a different style of family and parenting would be. Today, I would laugh at a “Father Knows Best.” But it was a step up and into socialization from the “Father Knows Little” or “Father Not Around” of many in my social stratum when I was a kid. This exposure allowed me, and many of my generation, to seek for more in our life and for better interpersonal family relationships…and eventually better parenting.
A Modern “Priesthood”
This is where righties have it right when targeting “hollywood” for many of the changes in our culture over the last half century…though they see that as a negative influence. But intellectuals and lefties blow an opportunity and lose support among ordinary folks through an unconscious haughtiness and a cultural snobbery they are blind to but display in their turning up their noses at popular culture.
Luckily, as an anthropological social scientist, I can study popular culture and get away with it, though not without some snide commentary coming my way from progressive and professional circles. They simply will never understand an intellectual who can speak to working folks because he’s one of them. They simply don’t get my attempts to package the crucial understandings of modern science and social sciences, on which the existence of our very world depends, in words that are not primarily directed to and meant to appease the gods of academia. They consider themselves important within their tiny professional circles, thinking they are changing the world when no one even knows what they are doing beyond that constrained perimeter.
Keeping the People Down
Indeed the attitude of academics and progressives about popular culture, especially talk and reality show tv programming and although they would be appalled to ever think it, is no different from the attitudes of the Catholic church and the clergy about matters of faith during medieval times. There, too, we had an elite wanting to “keep out the unwashed.” There, too, we had a distinction between people in the know and the rabble, with the anointed ones requiring ordinary folks to go through them for matters of truth and faith. We had then also this sharp distinction between the “high culture” of the Church and aristocracy—exemplified in the chamber music of the time—and the “low culture” of the masses—exemplified by the folk music of the troubadours of that day.
Nowadays this poo-pooing of tv culture by intellectuals is the same kind of attempt to funnel reality to the masses through the filters of a new “priesthood.” The cultural purists and intellectual elites would prefer that for truth you go through them in academia, where you ‘d have to pay a toll of course, just as the priests of the Middle Ages required you to pass their way on the road to the divine.
Therapy for the Masses
At any rate throwing off the snootiness of intellectualism, I contend, allows us to notice that sitcoms, reality shows, and talk shows serve functions in society that are, overall, beneficial in advancing our culture and catalyzing increased growth. They may not reflect, yet, where intellectuals and progressives think we should be, but for many they show something beyond where they are.
We should know that they are overall helpful in our cause from the fact that conservatives want to attack hollywood and limit freedom of expression on any airwave. The fact that many reactionaries want to keep their children out of schools, home-schooled, and away from tv sets should be telling progressives something about the value of popular culture.
Rebirth Denied
American Rehab
If there weren’t reality shows, folks would have a harder time knowing appropriate ways for men and women to act with each other. The gains of feminism would not have spread so widely or as fast if they were not being modeled and reinforced repeatedly on talk and reality shows.
They demonstrate parenting and social skills—“politically correct” ones, in the good sense—to folks who would otherwise not know any better than to behave crudely and abusively. They bring the world, geography, travel, and history to the masses.
Intellectuals quibble about the quality of that, which comes across as quite childish, for it arises as if out of a jealousy of others getting the attention they want and out of a fear of competition for informational matters around science, culture, and humanities. It strikes me as more than ironic that those on the Left who would wish people to wake up from their zombie slumber would want to push programs of literature or drama where truths are filtered through the consciousness, and unconscious, of the artist, while wishing to deprive folks of a direct look—however contrived, it is actual reality and not scripted—at the world around them and people’s actual unplanned behavior and spontaneous reactions to unusual events.
Seeing people’s behavior in some of these shows does often remind me of the dynamics I’ve seen in therapy groups, and some of the personal changes in the participants mirror some of the evolutions I’ve seen in folks undergoing deep experiential psychotherapy. The audience participation part often sounds like group therapy or an intervention. I’ve been struck by how some of the group processes in the show remind me of family day in rehab, with folks reflecting back what they see in each other and how others’ behavior has affected them. These are all things that conservatives cringe at…actually hate. Yet liberals, except for notable exceptions like Jerry Springer, are not seeing the opening they have here. Lefties are fighting rather than using these forces, which are in the direction of personal growth and, cumulatively, much needed societal change.
As a psychologist and simply someone who loves people, I am fascinated by some of the things I see in these shows. They can be heart-wrenchingly real at times. So it occurs to me that folks who disparage these shows, comparing them with literature and dramatic productions, is another thing where some are wanting to have their reality filtered, managed, and packaged for them, lest it be too “disruptive” to their prejudices of things.
The Price of Peace Is Inner Sight
The upshot of all this is to say that just as a lack of a Cold War caused both collective acting out—another war, a Culture War—and collective inner searching via television talk shows, documentaries, and such.
So also the prevention of “hot” wars on an international, not just intercultural, scale and the cause of peace in general require such inner soul-searching and such confrontation with one’s darker sides. And if we must, it is better to endure the psychotic acting out of a culture war—with its battles played out on the airwaves—than an actual war.
For is there any doubt that either of these or any combinations of these alternatives, however uncomfortable and even violent…on a smaller scale…at times, is a small price to pay compared to the price of outright war and violence which, by any measurement, is a cost horrifyingly huge and unacceptable?
America Currently Refusing to Pay Such Price
The converse of this is also true: When the dramas wanting to be discussed are suppressed in the mainstream media, it is as stifling of the growth of a nation as an individual’s growth. Unfortunately we have seen this as well recently. There have been massive worldwide and nationwide Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, massive Wisconsin union outpourings, and events in Japan and about Fukushima that the American people really want to and need to know and discuss, but they are being blacklisted from being broadcasted on.
There has been a change in government in Iceland, with banksters being jailed, that Americans are not hearing about; there have been demonstrations in Japan about their insane response to their tragedy, which Americans won’t be told about; there have been massive demonstrations in Israel against the colonial policies of their own government that curiously do not make it into the offerings of news programs. These are things that in the Nineties would have fed the talk on tv and stimulated the necessary societal hashing out for there to be a chance of going beyond them.
What Is the Cost of Denial? Of Complacency?
Internet Revolution Is Another Reformation
Luckily all this is changing as the internet and social networking have upended the academic elitists, swarming around and over their petty barriers of intellectual privilege. The blogsters and “rabble” of the net have taken over the cultural dialogue of the time as assuredly as Martin Luther and the Reformation changed religion forever and helped to bring to an end the cultural stagnation of the Middle Ages and to ignite an Age of Reason and of Enlightenment.
We Could Use More “Narcissistic” Generations: Know Thyself … Let the Buck Stop Here!
Moratorium … Let the Buck Stop Here! We Could Use More “Narcissistic” Generations
“Know Thyself” ~ “Narcissistic”?
Self-Discovery, Soul-Searching, Psychological-Mindedness, Self-Analysis – Sixties Generation
“Let It All Out? No, Leave Some of It In!” – Pat Buchanan, Fifties Generation
These highly defended and fear-minded conservatives, prone to projection, are incapable of appreciating the integrity of an inner-thinking generation like the Boomers are. These outer-minded authoritarians would not get, would outright hate those who “questioned authority” in the Sixties.
Let the Buck Stop Here!
If Not Us, Who? If Not Now, When?
We had seen normal ways of doing things to be impotent and often dangerous and most importantly leading to apocalyptic endings in our near future. This understanding is what was responsible for all the “non-normal” behaviors my generation displayed—communes, confrontations, clothes, relationships, organics, alternative ways of everything…an entire counterculture. We have been laughed at for essentially being ahead of the curve on the messages of modern events. We have been called crazy for our inconvenient prophecies, virtually all of which are now coming to pass.
While I and my cohorts, to use just one example, spoke out on the dangers of nuclear energy and in particular the insanity of building plants on fault lines, the professional pundits scoffed and boasted they lived near nuclear plants. This was thirty years and more before the world ever heard the word, Fukushima. The examples like this are endless. We saw all these unworkable endings and asked ourselves, “What would be a real way of doing that?” “What would be a workable, sustainable way?” “What would be a sane and happy life, ethic, and lifestyle.” “What would be a loving, peaceful mode of being?”
While we sought to redo culture from scratch, building it on perennial and unimpeachable principles, the threatened elders and the jealous youngers, who would soon enough come behind, poked fun from within the confines of their assured and comfortable wrongness.
They called us narcissistic for thinking we could look at ourselves and the world and dare to think we could change it from ancient ways. They thought we were making ourselves important that way, putting on airs, even. Actually we were shouldering responsibility we did not want—yearning for a simpler, less serious time—but which we accepted for the sake of all those who would come after, knowing their very existence depended on our actions. We took faith in the touchstone of love itself—the only thing that did not crumble under examination—and sought to bend all emerging along its outlines.
What others will never get is that our “overexamined life,” our “psychological-mindedness,” our perinatal propensities, and our soul-searching and self-analysis were not about being narcissistic. It was about needing to start everything anew as a rational response to the horrors we saw about us in our culture and in the world… horrors which we were correct in trying to address at the time. For their existence today, because of our inability to be completely successful in remedying them, are bringing about all the political, economic, and environmental armageddons I’ve been discussing in this, and its related, books. And we knew, and still know, that only some change huge and radical will help us, and for that we need to find and stand upon the deepest and firmest of ground within us. That is what we’ve been looking for, are still looking for…only now we have lots of company .
Better Hitler Had Jumped Into Mosh Pits: A Drive to Healing, the Hard Rain Fallin’, and Millennial Promise
A Drive to Healing and What Did You Expect Peace to Look Like? Better Hitler Had Jumped Into Mosh Pits
A Drive to Healing
We cannot expect that everyone will heal their birth traumas when they arise into consciousness during periods of peace. However, we can expect—especially now that there is understanding of these dynamics and there are techniques and modalities available for healing them—that some people will!
Furthermore, even the more ritualistic and superficial yet blatant regressions to infancy, birth, prenatal, or even prior to that—for example, as Mayr and Boelderl describe in Europe—are not the indication of a “death drive” or “death instinct” as these researchers claimed. [Footnote 3]
What Did You Expect Peace to Look Like?
Better Hitler Had Jumped Into Mosh Pits
What Might We Expect?
Millennial Promise
“A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall”
From the roads and TV screens of America the scenery can often appear bleak. Sure, heavy changes are coming down…but what should we expect? “A hard rain’s gonna fall,” sang Bob Dylan. And that’s what it takes to blossom the spring. Look hard enough, you just might see the seeds of Light amidst the darkness surrounding.
Evidence in Our Collective Dreaming
Next we will take a look at one of the projective systems of our society, specifically, our cinema, to see if it shows evidence of the change of consciousness that we have here been describing as necessary to derail the cycles of war and violence that have plagued our species for millennia uncountable and have led us to the brink of extinction.
Films are both the collective dreams of our society as well as the only truly
widely shared method of collectively experiencing a nonordinary state of consciousness. Thus they are telling, in the messages they contain, as well as powerful in their impact on the audience, who in this mild nonordinary state of consciousness are more open to suggestion and to receiving mental impressions and information.
We will look to examples from films of the last few decades for indications that our collective consciousness is actually changing and that there are grounds for hoping that we will be able to stave off apocalypse…creating instead the quantum leap to an Earth rebirth.
Footnote
1. For “overexamined life”see Keniston, op. cit., 1965; for “psychological-mindedness” and “self-analysis” see Keniston, op. cit., 1968, especially p. 81.
2. Davis, op. cit., especially Ch. 7, “The Great Society and The Youth Revolt.”
3. Mayr and Boelderl, op. cit., p. 149.
Continue with Apocalypse – No! Chapter Eleven: Control Versus Surrender … Heaven Leads Through Hell
Return to Apocalypse No! Chapter Nine: Regressions in the Service of Society — Messy Healing
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