Koan

Bodhidharma, woodblock print by Yoshitoshi, 1887 via Wikipedia

What is the sound of one hand clapping? What is the color of the wind?

These apparently nonsensical questions exemplify the Zen Buddhist koan. Designed to tease the brain, koans push the disciple to reply to a questioning master through intuition instead of conventional logic or accumulated experience.

If the disciple doesn’t get the ‘right’ answer (according to the master’s alleged wisdom) in some Buddhist schools they may be struck by a bamboo rod.

A Freudian thinker might view this as an institutionalized form of sadism and/or masochism that activates a complex which stems from an abusive scene (from childhood or otherwise). Spiritually-minded believers, however, would see that as a simplistic and culturally biased interpretation.

For believers, the koan comes from a legitimate historical and legendary tradition, traceable to the sage Bodhidharma. And its use (and perhaps physical scolding for ‘wrong’ answers) apparently helps the aspirant to achieve satori, which believers say is an ultimate experience that’s difficult to describe.

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¹ “Kōans originate in the sayings and events in the lives of sages and legendary figures, usually those authorized to teach in a lineage that regards Bodhidharma (c. 5th–6th century) as its ancestor. Kōans reflect the enlightened or awakened state of such persons and sometimes confound the habit of discursive thought or shock the mind into awareness.” (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dan)

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Masochism

Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis, smoking cigar via Wikipedia

Masochism is a Freudian term denoting a sexual perversion in which a person says they become sexually aroused and enjoy it when another person inflicts pain on them.

While this phenomenon was once entirely underground, a fairly recent Canadian TV documentary revealed that some people believe they are doing nothing wrong by spanking or being spanked for a fee in a controlled situation.

Typically a client takes a submissive, bound posture while a ‘dominatrix’, usually dressed in black leather, spanks them on the exposed buttocks.

The practice might possibly involve unresolved psychological complexes caused by early abuse mingled with a mythic fascination with the aggressive or perhaps evil side of medieval history (e.g. warfare, exploitation, torture).

Meanwhile, several court cases can be found on the web where people are being legally charged for such activities taking place in what is technically called a ‘common bawdy house.’

Search Think Free » Anima, Koan, Sadism, Turning Against the Self

References:

• Charles Rycroft, A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis, Harmondsworth: Penguin 1977, p. 88.

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Numinous

contemplation: alicepopkorn / Alice / Cornelia Kopp

Professors of Religious Studies often say the term numinous was coined by the German Lutheran scholar Rudolf Otto (1869-1937) to describe personal experiences of spiritual power.

But as far back as 1647 Nathaniel Ward wrote in The simple cobler of Aggawam in America:

The Will of a King is very numinous; it hath a kinde of vast universality in it.¹

The term derives from the Latin numen, usually translated as “the presence of a god or goddess” or the “will, manifestation or power of a deity.”

The most ancient example is in a text of Accius cited by Varro: “Alia hic sanctitudo est aliud nomen et numen Iouis” (“Here, the holiness of Jupiter is one thing, the name and power of Jupiter another).”²

For Otto, numinosity originates from outside the self. But as a personal experience, one perceives it within the self. A higher process than the magical, the numinous takes many forms. Not one to jumble all spiritual experiences into an artificial homogeneity, Otto says the numinous has primitive, daemonic and dark sides, as well as an elevated, noble and pure character.

Otto calls the absolute and purest experience of the numen “the Holy.” Unlike the darker, dimmer aspects of the numinous, this apparently highest aspect involves an experience marked by a feeling of “Awefulness,” “Overpoweringness,” “Energy” or “Urgency.”

Sometimes Otto implies that the numinous is identical among all religions. Other times he reveals a definite Christian bias, suggesting that the numinosity experienced through the Bible and by various Christian mystics is ultimate and uncorrupted.

From today’s standards, Otto’s definition of numinosity might seem a bit vague and unsystematic. But his work is rightly regarded as a milestone and continues to have a profound influence on depth psychology and comparative religion.

The term numinous was adapted by C. G. Jung to depict a spiritual experience involving some kind of alteration of ego-based consciousness–i.e. “altered states.”

For Jung, we experience numinosity when an archetype of the collective unconscious is activated. Depending on combined factors such as the psyche’s condition, degree of ego stability, and the nature of archetypal source, numinosity is either psychologically healing or destructive.

Joseph Campbell says that numen finds parallel expression in the “Melanesian mana, Dakotan wakon, Ironquoian orenda and Algonquian manitu.”

But it’s unwarranted to blindly assume that these terms necessarily point to identical spiritual presences and related experiences.

Along these lines, the Romanian scholar, Mircea Eliade, says numinosity exhibits diverse intensities, qualities and effects. And from the perspective of dance, Deidre Sklar adds:

While the experience alternately called presence, or unity, or numinosity may be the same across spiritual traditions, “ways of doing” are different. Presence comes in a multitude of flavors. “The virgin,” is different than “Buddha” or “God the Father.” Kneeling in prayer before the virgin is a different bodily experience than sitting cross-legged in meditation. Both the natures of the divinities and the ritual practices performed in their names are elaborated in distinct communities to do different work upon soma.³

Sigmund Freud reduced the numinous to a person recalling a unified “oceanic bliss” that every fetus apparently feels within the mother’s womb. Perhaps Freud’s greatest shortcoming was his inability – or perhaps unwillingness – to study spirituality on its own terms, at its own level of experience. This sad state of affairs has been repeated and reinforced by those who uncritically accept a materialist paradigm instead of looking at spiritual development with open eyes.

Before Otto, Jung, Campbell, Eliade and Freud, the philosopher Immanuel Kant spoke to a realm of the noumena. The noumena are objects and events independent of the senses. Although Kant claimed that we cannot know the character of a particular noumenon, he believed we can ascertain the existence of noumena by virtue of the “intelligible order of things” in the observable world of phenomena.

It should be noted that the terms noumena and numinous are not directly related, etymologically speaking. This has lead some scholars to dismiss any possible semantic connections between the two terms. But even if two words are etymologically unrelated, this  does not necessarily mean their connoted meanings have no relation. In short, some believe that Kant’s noumena may be sources of numinous experience but are not the numinous itself. Examples could be found in religious schools (and their attendant mystics) leaning toward naturalistic pantheism, such as Zen Buddhism and Taoism.

But the idea of numinosity isn’t quite that simple. Indeed, mystics from various traditions write about different “levels” and types of numinous experience. And even within a single spiritual tradition, descriptions of the numinous vary dramatically in terms of both quality and intensity.

Consider, for example, the ordinary Christian churchgoer who claims to feel an invisible peaceful presence inside a Church in comparison to a full-fledged saint like St. Teresa of Ávila who describes a variety of all-absorbing states of numinous rapture.

In Paradise Lost the celebrated poet John Milton depicts Satan’s dismay when he sees the dingy gloom of hell that he’s confined himself to after losing the glorious light of heaven.

“Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,” Said then the lost archangel, “this the seat That we must change for Heaven, this mournful gloom For that celestial light?”

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¹ Oxford English Dictionary.

² Schilling, Robert. “Numen.” Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Lindsay Jones. Vol. 10. 2^nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 6753-6754. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale.

³ Deidre Sklar, “Reprise: On Dance Ethnography.” Dance Research Journal, Vol. 32, No. 1 Summer, 2000: 70-77, p. 72.

At Earthpages.org:

• An Outline of Rudolf Otto’s The Idea of the Holy
• C. G. Jung and Numinosity
• Celibacy, Sex and Spirituality

Search Think Free » Archetypal Image, Sri Aurobindo, Ego, Holy, Inflation, Michael Jackson, Joachim of Fiore, Mysticism, Numen, “Numinosity,” Paranoia, Participation Mystique, Power, Psychosis, Sri Ramakrishna, Religion, Sargon, Symbol, St. Faustina Helen Kowalska, Vampires, Vulcan

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Oedipus Complex

Oedipus at Colonus by Jean-Antoine-Theodore Giroust 1788 French Oil (5): Photographed by mharrsch / Mary Harrsch

In Greek myth Oedipus was the king of Thebes who, in trying to avoid a prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother, actually unwittingly did so.

The celebrated Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud named one of his most important ideas after the tragic story of Oedipus.

According to Freudian psychoanalytic theory, an Oedipal complex develops after the male infant becomes fixated to his mother during the Oedipal phase of ego development (ages 3-5).

During this time, the infant develops bizarre beliefs which only a child’s mind could produce. He sees or perhaps hears his father and mother lovemaking (called the “primal scene”) and perceives his father as a threat.

His fear intensifies when seeing the father’s penis, which leads the child to irrationally assume that he, himself, has been castrated. The child then demonizes the father and identifies with his apparently ‘all-good’ mother.

He resolves this potent complex by eventually identifying with the father and the external, worldly demands that the father represents to the child.

If his complex goes unresolved, his choice of – and demands from – lovers and marriage partners in subsequent years reflects lingering unconscious infantile, mother-based expectations, which are unrealistic and not grounded in the reality principle.

Freud believed that this was a natural process.

Current trends in psychoanalysis trace the Oedipus complex to earlier conflicts apparently present in the first few years of psychosexual ego development.

While some say that psychoanalysis is a science, others see it as a joke with little or not empirical support to validate its fanciful claims. Although the spirit of Freud’s approach is still present within psychiatry, especially with the almost unquestioned status of the concept of the “unconscious,” the actual content of many of his ideas has fallen by the wayside.

As such, most countries recognize medical psychiatry as a credible discipline (with legal powers and associated responsibilities) while giving less weight to non-medical psychologists and social workers.¹

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¹ In Canada, for instance, psychiatry is covered by national health care whereas non-medical therapies (such as Jungian and other holistic psychological approaches) are not.

Search Think Free » Electra Complex, Melanie Klein, Stages of Psychosexual Development, Totem

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Object

Freuds ( tipo andy warhol ): Paulo Marquez

In Freudian theory the object is that which a subject directs energy toward in an attempt to gratify instinctual desires.

Just how a person relates to the object varies according to their psychological maturity.

In Freudian discourse the object usually refers to another person, aspects of a person, or a full or partial symbolic representation of a person.

When an object refers to another complete person replete with human rights and dignity, the object is a whole object.

Search Think Free » Cathexis, Fixation, Projection, Repression, Splitting, Stages of Psychosexual Development

References:

• Charles Rycroft, A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis, Harmondsworth: Penguin 1977, p. 100.

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Projection

Freud exhibition: Amira Elwakil

Projection, literally “throwing in front of oneself,” is a Freudian defense mechanism which Charles Rycroft¹ points out has two meanings:

1. Believing inner mental activity is outwardly real, as in dreams and hallucinations
2. Attributing one’s own mental activity to an external object²

A disturbing aspect of the first type of projection would be found in the violent psychotic who can’t distinguish between their violent inner fantasy world and their personal acts of violence. These people walk around, as it were, in a kind of waking dream state, not realizing that they’re harming real people as they live out their darkly twisted desires, “defend” against non-existent threats or, perhaps, obey the promptings of inner demons.

An example of the second type of projection would be a mother with no respect for her daughter’s individuality who continually complains that her child has “no respect” for elders, even though the child is respectful of elders.

Projection need not be negative, but it often is. Freud, in a letter to C. G. Jung, jokes that one should not be “led like Faust see a Helen [of Troy] in every woman.”³

Joseph Campbell says projection may be positive, providing the activated content is mutually beneficial. For instance, a young man and woman in the grip of projection reenact the archetypal contents symbolized in the Romeo and Juliet or Tristan and Isolte stories. Here we see the “perfect” other in our new partner’s eyes, if but for a while, until reality creeps in or maybe bites.

Jung, too, recognizes that projection may be positive but only as long as the archetypal contents are ‘alive’ and facilitate mutual growth. Some psychological theorists ask if we can ever strip ourselves from projection, wondering if relationships are merely mutually agreed upon fantasies or temporary infatuations.

In response to this, others like Erich Fromm say our ability to love others makes us uniquely human. For Fromm, to reduce this divine mystery to a psychoanalytic interpretation is to do great injustice to the sanctity and beauty of love.

Perhaps the goal is to recognize and progressively go beyond projections to reach a more profound mode of relationship, realizing that we’ll probably always fall a bit short of perfect, genuine and selfless love for others.

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¹ Charles Rycroft, A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis, Harmondsworth: Penguin 1977, pp. 125-126.

² For Freud, the term “object” can also refer to other people.

³ Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, New York: Vintage, 1965, p. 363.

» Eros, Agape, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Book of Job, Denial, Diamond Sutra, Philia, Symbol, Tibetan Book of the Dead, Transference, Witch, Witches Hammer

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Pleasure Principle

Sky Diving Sigmund Freud by Archie McPhee

Sigmund Freud believed that human beings begin life by seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. This “pleasure principle” can take the form of relieving instinctual tensions, generated by the id, through activity or by means of hallucination.

When one becomes older and the ego matures, one normally advances to the reality principle, where gratification through childish activity or hallucination is replaced by socially acceptable behaviors.

This new behavioral repertoire is, ideally, appropriate to the various demands of the entire inner and outer environment.

Unfortunately, however, Freud had a somewhat pessimistic view, seeing mankind as the “walking wounded”–that is, forever saddled with psychological complexes never fully resolved nor surpassed.

References:

• Charles Rycroft, A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis, Harmondsworth: Penguin 1977, p. 121.

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Parapraxis [Plural: Parapraxes]

FC&P New York Cocktail Party shoot: Is he envious of my ciggie? by Alexandra Xubersnak (Miss SmokingAngel 2010?)

In the Psychopathology of Everyday Life Sigmund Freud says parapraxes are unintentional acts resulting from an unconscious wish, desire, attitude or thought (London: Penguin, 2002 [1901]).

This could entail forgetting names and sequences of words. But classic examples of parapraxes are slips of the pen or tongue.

Imagine someone at a cocktail party accidentally saying “I love your horse” instead of “I love your house.”

For Freud the hidden meaning always points to the person making the slip. In the above example she or he could be an avid equestrian or possibly an intensely sexual person, the horse being a well-known symbol of virility. Along these lines, Freud attributed tremendous significance to the libido.

C. G. Jung picked up on the idea of parapraxes and tried to explain their occurrence with his concept of the shadow. Jung’s notion of the shadow has both personal and collective aspects.

An irruption of shadow contents into daytime activities could stem from an unresolved personal complex, the larger forces of the collective unconscious or some combination of the two.

Unlike Freud, Jung believed that unintended slips don’t always have to refer to the person making them. They can point to an entire situation among several or many people.

Charles Brenner, M.D. believes that parapraxes have profound implications. Although many dismiss accidents and mistakes as mere flukes brought on by stress, distraction, sleep deprivation or malnutrition, Brenner says

In the mind, as in physical nature around us, nothing happens by chance, or in a random way (Elementary Textbook of Psychoanalysis, New York: Anchor Books, 1957, p.2).

Perhaps one way of differentiating healthy from unhealthy attitudes toward parapraxes is to see if one learns something of value from their occurrence.

At Earthpages.org:

• Parapraxes, Accidents and Necessary Mistakes – Article that expands on this entry

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Reversal

A broader idea than turning against the self, this Freudian defense mechanism occurs when the ego converts an instinctual impulse into its opposite behavior. For instance, the miser becomes a philanthropist and the pervert a prude.

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Stages of Psychosexual Development

Freud, explícame tú esto: tnarik / Eduardo

Sigmund Freud‘s theory outlines four early stages of psycho-sexual development in which the ego and libido are developed:

1. The oral stage of 0-1 years where infant gratification is achieved through sucking the primary object¹ of the mother’s breast (or substitute objects)
2. The anal stage of 1-3, in which sexual gratification is achieved through the child’s control over and actual production of feces. From his or her toilet training the child first learns the reality of restrictions from the external world
3. The latency period – occurring between the phallic stage and adolescence – in which the child pays less attention to the body and more to the acquisition of essential life skills
4. The genital stage at which time the adolescent’s attention is oriented to developing mature, loving human relationships with others

According to Freud’s theory, so-called normal individuals proceed through these stages without major difficulties while some become fixated at a given stage. Fixation in this sense refers to an unconscious attachment to a particular object of libidinal gratification.

For instance, the alcoholic fixated at the oral phase substitutes liquor and the bottle for the mother’s nipple. Whereas those disregarding or, conversely, obsessed with cleanliness, order and regularity would be fixated at the anal stage.

In general, fixation manifests in excessive behavior such as excessive housecleaning and/or extreme emotional states such as depression, fear, anxiety and forced elation.

For Freud, normal human development pretty much ends at the genital phase. Behaviors such as celibacy, fasting and prolonged solitude may be viewed as pathological by Freudians. Other more holistic thinkers, however, see this as a reductive and potentially dangerous approach, one suggesting spiritual ignorance, immaturity and perhaps sin.

The International Institute for the Advanced Studies of Psychotherapy and Applied Mental Health sums up Freud’s theory as follows:

Although Freud’s theory of psychosexual development was extremely influential and continues to be taught in professional psychology programs today, empirical research has failed to generate significant support for these ideas and it is generally not an accepted model among practicing psychologists. Additionally, this theory has drawn criticism for being constructed on sexist ideas. Regardless, terminology associated with the stages of psychosexual development has found wide popular usage in a variety of registers and fields of activity.²

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¹ Freud’s usage of ‘object’ includes other people.

² http://www.psychotherapy.ro/resources/constructs/psychosexual-development/

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