Zoe Chase:
I have a repeat grocery order delivered weekly so the other evening I had the very unusual experience of pushing a trolley around in a large supermarket. There were some men shopping alone and there were some women shopping alone. I hardly noticed these single men and women, but I was acutely aware of the four or five married couples who were ... See Moreshopping together. I could not hear the actual words they exchanged but I could hear their voices and I could see the way they physically related to each other.
Even from a distance of 10 meters I was acutely aware of the very particular negative factors in their relationship, a very precise and detailed perception which is far too complex to put into words. My attention was not drawn to the single men and women who were shopping alone, but when a couple go shopping as a pair this seems to hugely amplify the characteristics of their relationship which is very powerfully radiated around them. I'm mentioning this here because I'm guessing it has something to do with R-Complex but I don't know what?
JA:
My views on R-complex are based on Melanie Klein's theories and that of other psychonalytic writers on early childhood development, and how that relates to pathological, normal, and regressive states in adults. What Kleinian and even Lacanian theory point to, is that early childhood processes appear very... See More different from rational adult thinking. It seems that these are processed in very different parts of the brain. That there is a totally different way of processing reality that is also part of who we are is connected to my studies on shamanism. It is the goal of those who pursue shamanism to get in touch with that part and figure it out, so that instead of functioning as part of our unconscious, in a harmful way, it can be turned towards healling.
So that's a little of the background of my theory. What more is there? Really we can expect to see R-complex being expressed when people are under stress. Shopping can often be a very stressful activity. R-complex involves a binding mechanism relating to the unconscious mind, whereby two or more people relate as if they were one mind, each performing separate functions of that one mind, but with nobody as a whole, seperately functioning person.
This doesn't have to be negative, I'm sure, even in adults. but generally, one or more will be given the role of emotionally processing the events that the group experiences. The others will take on the role of rational actors, who do not need to do emotional work, but can make cold and logical decisions. This is how R-complex regulates gender roles, so that two adults are no longer two, but function as a unity of one mind -- functionally specialising as complimentary elements in a larger, combined brain.
Monday 30 November 2009
Sunday 29 November 2009
R-complex and object relations
The conclusions I have drawn about the reptilian brain have been my own. In effect I have made my conclusions as a by-product of writing my PhD. If you want to find out more about how the reptilian brain functions, you could do worse than look at some of the psychoanalytic writings dealing with the early stages of childhood development. If there is a sense in which 'ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny' it is evident in the way that children move away from operating from a 'desire oriented ego' to a 'reality oriented ego'.
The former seems to be related to the earlier stages of our evolutionary development, and has quite a different orientation on the world than that of our more complex thinking processes. It is oriented towards the world on the basis of need (including need for nurturing and a need for a sense of control) and desire for pleasure. The early childhood ego mentally distorts reality in order to give it a sense of satisfaction when the material elements it seeks to satisfy itself with are missing. This is how it defends itself against fear, or the sense of abandonment. By distorting reality. So distorting reality is a 'primitive' ego defence.
Adults continue to use the primitive part of brain to deal with power relations and issues of dominance and submission -- especially in moments of anxiety and extreme fear. Anything that threatens one's survival, even symbolically, will tend to evoke this mechanism, which enables one to adjust to power relationships as they exist at the expense of rational thinking.
Melanie Klein is the founding investigator concerning this level of consciousness.
A shaman symbolically faces his own 'death' and survives it. On that basis, he is able to conquer R-complex, which works in the subconscious mind to force compliance to existing power systems. Having faced his own 'death', he is an exception to the rule of normal human behaviour (which is ruled, subconsciously, by R-complex). As an exception, he often becomes very aware of how influential R-Complex is, in the overall society.
The former seems to be related to the earlier stages of our evolutionary development, and has quite a different orientation on the world than that of our more complex thinking processes. It is oriented towards the world on the basis of need (including need for nurturing and a need for a sense of control) and desire for pleasure. The early childhood ego mentally distorts reality in order to give it a sense of satisfaction when the material elements it seeks to satisfy itself with are missing. This is how it defends itself against fear, or the sense of abandonment. By distorting reality. So distorting reality is a 'primitive' ego defence.
Adults continue to use the primitive part of brain to deal with power relations and issues of dominance and submission -- especially in moments of anxiety and extreme fear. Anything that threatens one's survival, even symbolically, will tend to evoke this mechanism, which enables one to adjust to power relationships as they exist at the expense of rational thinking.
Melanie Klein is the founding investigator concerning this level of consciousness.
A shaman symbolically faces his own 'death' and survives it. On that basis, he is able to conquer R-complex, which works in the subconscious mind to force compliance to existing power systems. Having faced his own 'death', he is an exception to the rule of normal human behaviour (which is ruled, subconsciously, by R-complex). As an exception, he often becomes very aware of how influential R-Complex is, in the overall society.
Friday 27 November 2009
"Women are more emotional"
In my soujourns far and wide into the very corners and orifices of the Internet, I am surprised to find some downright antiquated views still abounding. So much -- so very much -- of culturally inculcated prejudices can be traced back to the use of primitive defence mechanisms.
The idea, for instance, that women are "more emotional" than men ought not to be read as a propositional statement concerning the notion that women express more emotions than men do, or that they are more in touch with their emotions, or that women's emotions are more in control of women than men's emotions are in control of men. To even engage with the question as a propositional statement is erroneous, because the notion of women's ostensibly greater emotionality does not, in fact, emerge into the world as a product of analysis, or observation. It is in fact not an idea that derives from the processes of the higher mind at all, but rather it is a statement deriving from the lower parts of consciousness -- R-complex. It emerges from the parts of the mind that are primarily concerned with operations of desire and expressions of need.
(I do not deny that philosophers and politicians may come along in due course and wish to interpret the statement as if it had rational meaning or was empirically valid. They are free to do so, to the degree that their perspectives on the matter go uncontended.)
My own experiences point to a totally different reality -- and to the degree that these do not accord with the dominant paradigm they will be disregarded as 'unrealistic' and/or as corroborating evidence for women's presumed states of overwrought emotionality: "How dare she contend against the System! See! What more evidence is actually needed? She's totally out of control!"
While it is true that going against the grain of such an entrenched system of beliefs can often feel like a kind of madness, knowledge of how primitive defence mechanisms actually work is my substantial ally.
It is this knowledge that stands up for me in a time of patriarchal madness, and says: "Hey, sista, when he proclaimed, 'women are more emotional', didn't you hear that tone of pleading in his voice, begging for comfort and reassurance that life will become easier? In fact, when he spoke of women's 'inherent' emotionality, wasn't he begging you on a personal level: "Please! -- become more emotional for me! I'm doing hard time here. The ideology of pure, undiluted rationality -- which I merely seem to embrace -- is doing me in. I don't think I can keep up pretending for one more day, unless some female steps in and takes some of the burden from me. She could work as a decoy, drawing others away from recognition my pain. It could be her job. She could process my pain and confusion. I cannot make sense of it. It's her job!"
Therefore he utters, "women are more emotional." But why does he say it?
Would he ever be able to answer truthfully:
"Because I have a need!"
The idea, for instance, that women are "more emotional" than men ought not to be read as a propositional statement concerning the notion that women express more emotions than men do, or that they are more in touch with their emotions, or that women's emotions are more in control of women than men's emotions are in control of men. To even engage with the question as a propositional statement is erroneous, because the notion of women's ostensibly greater emotionality does not, in fact, emerge into the world as a product of analysis, or observation. It is in fact not an idea that derives from the processes of the higher mind at all, but rather it is a statement deriving from the lower parts of consciousness -- R-complex. It emerges from the parts of the mind that are primarily concerned with operations of desire and expressions of need.
(I do not deny that philosophers and politicians may come along in due course and wish to interpret the statement as if it had rational meaning or was empirically valid. They are free to do so, to the degree that their perspectives on the matter go uncontended.)
My own experiences point to a totally different reality -- and to the degree that these do not accord with the dominant paradigm they will be disregarded as 'unrealistic' and/or as corroborating evidence for women's presumed states of overwrought emotionality: "How dare she contend against the System! See! What more evidence is actually needed? She's totally out of control!"
While it is true that going against the grain of such an entrenched system of beliefs can often feel like a kind of madness, knowledge of how primitive defence mechanisms actually work is my substantial ally.
It is this knowledge that stands up for me in a time of patriarchal madness, and says: "Hey, sista, when he proclaimed, 'women are more emotional', didn't you hear that tone of pleading in his voice, begging for comfort and reassurance that life will become easier? In fact, when he spoke of women's 'inherent' emotionality, wasn't he begging you on a personal level: "Please! -- become more emotional for me! I'm doing hard time here. The ideology of pure, undiluted rationality -- which I merely seem to embrace -- is doing me in. I don't think I can keep up pretending for one more day, unless some female steps in and takes some of the burden from me. She could work as a decoy, drawing others away from recognition my pain. It could be her job. She could process my pain and confusion. I cannot make sense of it. It's her job!"
Therefore he utters, "women are more emotional." But why does he say it?
Would he ever be able to answer truthfully:
"Because I have a need!"
Wednesday 25 November 2009
Human regression and the 'lizard brain'
It is important to bear in mind that those who do regress to the point of being dominated by 'lizard brain" are no longer, functionally, human. We tend to think of regression as a linear system containing elements of continuity. We might imagine a general movement in psychological development from simplistic thinking to modes of thinking that are more complex. In reality, human development has two major stages:
1. the stage --called pre-Oedipal in psychoanalytical literature -- in which we are dominated by the lizard brain.
2. the later stage of development where ego has the executive power over the mind (that is, in a relatively healthy, 'normal' individual).
(This pattern of development refers to the normal human who has not undergone shamanistic experience and transformation. In the case of the shaman, the need they feel is to balance the two sides of the psyche, represented above, so that neither side particularly dominates, but both are able to communicate, in harmony. A fully shamanised individual will have cognitive and emotional access to their lizard brain, but will not be dominated by it. That state of being is difficult to achieve -- and often difficult enough to maintain. Conversely, in the case of a 'normal' individual, being dominated by the lizard brain is always a risk, when that happens, it inevitably has a destructive outcome for such individuals.)
Back to my point: It is important to realise that when somebody is being dominated by their 'lizard brain', they have lost an important part of their humanity, and so there is no value in reasoning with them. To express concern for them is even worse, since they have usually managed to justify their loss as a gain. To be no longer capable of feeling human sensations -- human sorrow, anguish and regret, but also human happiness and participation in the lives of others -- seems to them to be a huge relief. Pity for them is misplaced, for they are no longer burdened with the pain that comes from having to concern oneself with ethical issues, and pity reminds them that these ethical dimensions to human experience still exist. Instead, like the Italian fascist, Attila, in the film, 1900, they would rather die a violent death in commemoration of the violence of the life they'd lived.
Lizard brain has no conscience, and so regressing to its state can seem like liberation from the oppression of conscientiousness. Such regression may be due to intolerable pain (for instance when the conscious mind finds it cannot process the degree of pain due to its weightiness, and so simply takes a break from itself). However, the fascistic point of view is the only one that puts a positive spin group regression to this state and dares to call it "strength". The capitalistic point of view does not go nearly so far, and attributes being dominated by 'lizard brain' as merely the strength of 'individuals'.
Pity, however, is misplaced, when bestowed on those who encounter their strength though regression, and take their cues for how to act from the lower part of the mind.
1. the stage --called pre-Oedipal in psychoanalytical literature -- in which we are dominated by the lizard brain.
2. the later stage of development where ego has the executive power over the mind (that is, in a relatively healthy, 'normal' individual).
(This pattern of development refers to the normal human who has not undergone shamanistic experience and transformation. In the case of the shaman, the need they feel is to balance the two sides of the psyche, represented above, so that neither side particularly dominates, but both are able to communicate, in harmony. A fully shamanised individual will have cognitive and emotional access to their lizard brain, but will not be dominated by it. That state of being is difficult to achieve -- and often difficult enough to maintain. Conversely, in the case of a 'normal' individual, being dominated by the lizard brain is always a risk, when that happens, it inevitably has a destructive outcome for such individuals.)
Back to my point: It is important to realise that when somebody is being dominated by their 'lizard brain', they have lost an important part of their humanity, and so there is no value in reasoning with them. To express concern for them is even worse, since they have usually managed to justify their loss as a gain. To be no longer capable of feeling human sensations -- human sorrow, anguish and regret, but also human happiness and participation in the lives of others -- seems to them to be a huge relief. Pity for them is misplaced, for they are no longer burdened with the pain that comes from having to concern oneself with ethical issues, and pity reminds them that these ethical dimensions to human experience still exist. Instead, like the Italian fascist, Attila, in the film, 1900, they would rather die a violent death in commemoration of the violence of the life they'd lived.
Lizard brain has no conscience, and so regressing to its state can seem like liberation from the oppression of conscientiousness. Such regression may be due to intolerable pain (for instance when the conscious mind finds it cannot process the degree of pain due to its weightiness, and so simply takes a break from itself). However, the fascistic point of view is the only one that puts a positive spin group regression to this state and dares to call it "strength". The capitalistic point of view does not go nearly so far, and attributes being dominated by 'lizard brain' as merely the strength of 'individuals'.
Pity, however, is misplaced, when bestowed on those who encounter their strength though regression, and take their cues for how to act from the lower part of the mind.
Tuesday 24 November 2009
are women attracted to 'bad boys'? dispelling a myth
I speak from a heightened perspective concerning much of mainstream Western culture -- since I was not born within this culture (and certainly not the mainstream of anything much) and so find a lot of behaviour that others would consider to be 'natural' to be alien and worthy of interpretation.
In terms of this, I have made it my goal to understand a particularly unattractive phenomenon of Western culture. I say this is "Western" because it does not in any way relate to any ideology that was around me when I was growing up. The phenomenon is as alien to me now as it was the day I arrived in the West in 1984. The only difference, now, is that I've learned to anticipate it everywhere, and to be ready to maintain a much greater psychological distance from Westerners than I was earlier inclined to do.
The aspect of Western culture I am referring to is the ideology of "Your freedom is my unfreedom." The complementary sense of this notion is "My freedom is your unfreedom." I wasn't brought up with it -- and if you were to ask them directly, most Westerners would say they weren't brought up with it either. All the same, actions and behavioural practices belie claims concerning which ideologies one has or hasn't been brought up to believe in, implicitly. The idea that my gain is your loss is part and parcel of late capitalist thinking, whereby for me to get the promotion, it is in my interests to make you look particularly bad. Reaganomics and other pernicious ideologies -- take, as an example, Ayn Randism -- give the Westerner a particularly unpleasant odour about him. One is advised to stay at least three feet away from him at all times. The important point about all this is that such an attitude betrays the higher mind, and brings 'lizard brain' -- a regressive part of the human mind -- into predominance.
The problem with this approach to life I've been describing -- besides the fact that it keeps women away in droves -- is that is lacks egotism. Yes -- you heard me right. For "lizard brain" never has our real, long-term interests in mind. Rather, it is all for the feeling of domination in the moment, and devil take the hindmost (the hindmost being, ultimately, you -- for nothing is more assured in an amoral world than you luck running out and others moving in to eat you.)
The idea of living without ego seems glorious to some -- but Ayn Rand misunderstood how her mind was functioning when she fell for the criminal type, believing him to be a superior kind of human in his amorality. She was just doing what women who lack understanding of depth psychology can occasionally do -- projecting features of her own higher mind onto the lizard brain of another, and so giving it the appearance of complexity and personality that it was otherwise lacking. Those qualities she attributed to it do not pertain to amoral lizard brain, itself. She was attracted, therefore, to her own ideas about the criminal, and not to the criminal as he really was. So much for the idea that women are attracted to 'bad boys' -- rather, we should understand that a limited number of women, (indeed!), are attracted to their own illusions.
Lizard brain is not attractive to the majority of women because it lacks the qualities of personality that make a biological male into a human. Personality is a feature only of the neurological structures of the higher mind. For someone to be operating primarily from the basis of their lizard brain is a signpost that they have tragically regressed.
We can never really know exactly why the regression occurs.
Something could have happened to deform them as children, or maybe the pain and brutality of the world got the better of them, causing their real personality to retreat inwardly.
The consequence is that 'lizard brain' gets to take charge, and it is inclined to express its fury. Attitudes and behaviours of blaming women for one's problems, or lashing out against the weaker members of society, are all signs that lizard brain has got the upper hand over the higher mind. The lizard brain is that which splits the consciousness of the upper mind to the point that one is convinced that all the pains and difficulties of the world come from the outside of oneself. Lizard brain is quick to perform the disassociation between oneself and any notion of inner badness -- thus a convenient scapegoat is found. That scapegoat is usually "women" -- although it may just as easily be a particular woman. Lizard brain, being amoral, is not too fussy, but will latch onto the scapegoat that is most convenient; somebody local and present in the victimiser's environment will do just fine.
Lizard brain will do almost anything at all to facilitate its feeling of survival, since survival is the name of its game. When one falls into reliance upon lizard brain and its powers, one is giving off the evolutionary signal that one is running out of resources in terms of making it in the world. Maslow's pyramid of needs is worth considering here, because safety/security issues are at a level of need almost as far as you can get from the heights of self-actualisation. In evolutionary terms, reliance upon lizard brain and its ways of 'thinking' means that you are down there, at the bottom of the human pile, having substantially regressed due to fear or pain or cowardice.
And women -- unless they are a little crazy, or like Ayn Rand -- do not find this condition to be at all attractive.
Woman want someone who is brave enought to be self-actualising. A different kind of "bad"-- for sure.
In terms of this, I have made it my goal to understand a particularly unattractive phenomenon of Western culture. I say this is "Western" because it does not in any way relate to any ideology that was around me when I was growing up. The phenomenon is as alien to me now as it was the day I arrived in the West in 1984. The only difference, now, is that I've learned to anticipate it everywhere, and to be ready to maintain a much greater psychological distance from Westerners than I was earlier inclined to do.
The aspect of Western culture I am referring to is the ideology of "Your freedom is my unfreedom." The complementary sense of this notion is "My freedom is your unfreedom." I wasn't brought up with it -- and if you were to ask them directly, most Westerners would say they weren't brought up with it either. All the same, actions and behavioural practices belie claims concerning which ideologies one has or hasn't been brought up to believe in, implicitly. The idea that my gain is your loss is part and parcel of late capitalist thinking, whereby for me to get the promotion, it is in my interests to make you look particularly bad. Reaganomics and other pernicious ideologies -- take, as an example, Ayn Randism -- give the Westerner a particularly unpleasant odour about him. One is advised to stay at least three feet away from him at all times. The important point about all this is that such an attitude betrays the higher mind, and brings 'lizard brain' -- a regressive part of the human mind -- into predominance.
The problem with this approach to life I've been describing -- besides the fact that it keeps women away in droves -- is that is lacks egotism. Yes -- you heard me right. For "lizard brain" never has our real, long-term interests in mind. Rather, it is all for the feeling of domination in the moment, and devil take the hindmost (the hindmost being, ultimately, you -- for nothing is more assured in an amoral world than you luck running out and others moving in to eat you.)
The idea of living without ego seems glorious to some -- but Ayn Rand misunderstood how her mind was functioning when she fell for the criminal type, believing him to be a superior kind of human in his amorality. She was just doing what women who lack understanding of depth psychology can occasionally do -- projecting features of her own higher mind onto the lizard brain of another, and so giving it the appearance of complexity and personality that it was otherwise lacking. Those qualities she attributed to it do not pertain to amoral lizard brain, itself. She was attracted, therefore, to her own ideas about the criminal, and not to the criminal as he really was. So much for the idea that women are attracted to 'bad boys' -- rather, we should understand that a limited number of women, (indeed!), are attracted to their own illusions.
Lizard brain is not attractive to the majority of women because it lacks the qualities of personality that make a biological male into a human. Personality is a feature only of the neurological structures of the higher mind. For someone to be operating primarily from the basis of their lizard brain is a signpost that they have tragically regressed.
We can never really know exactly why the regression occurs.
Something could have happened to deform them as children, or maybe the pain and brutality of the world got the better of them, causing their real personality to retreat inwardly.
The consequence is that 'lizard brain' gets to take charge, and it is inclined to express its fury. Attitudes and behaviours of blaming women for one's problems, or lashing out against the weaker members of society, are all signs that lizard brain has got the upper hand over the higher mind. The lizard brain is that which splits the consciousness of the upper mind to the point that one is convinced that all the pains and difficulties of the world come from the outside of oneself. Lizard brain is quick to perform the disassociation between oneself and any notion of inner badness -- thus a convenient scapegoat is found. That scapegoat is usually "women" -- although it may just as easily be a particular woman. Lizard brain, being amoral, is not too fussy, but will latch onto the scapegoat that is most convenient; somebody local and present in the victimiser's environment will do just fine.
Lizard brain will do almost anything at all to facilitate its feeling of survival, since survival is the name of its game. When one falls into reliance upon lizard brain and its powers, one is giving off the evolutionary signal that one is running out of resources in terms of making it in the world. Maslow's pyramid of needs is worth considering here, because safety/security issues are at a level of need almost as far as you can get from the heights of self-actualisation. In evolutionary terms, reliance upon lizard brain and its ways of 'thinking' means that you are down there, at the bottom of the human pile, having substantially regressed due to fear or pain or cowardice.
And women -- unless they are a little crazy, or like Ayn Rand -- do not find this condition to be at all attractive.
Woman want someone who is brave enought to be self-actualising. A different kind of "bad"-- for sure.
Monday 23 November 2009
Saturday 21 November 2009
Dominance, psychological slavery and enlightened awareness as a means to recovery
How do we get coerced into accepting a role within the status quos of power systems without our knowledge?
The answer is long and quite complex. We all have three brain systems that evolved at very different stages. The lowest of these is R-complex. The reptile brain is a function without insight, for one would have to employ the higher brain – the cerebral cortex -- in order to be able to analyse. It is also without the ability to process emotions that relate to being a person and having a personality. It is more primal than that, and capable of rage, but not emotional intelligence. It is concerned merely with feelings of dominance and submission and is tuned into process this kind of data. Most people would not be aware that such a brain system exists – indeed some people seem to operate primarily by using the upper two brain systems – the neo-cortex (to process complex thought) and the limbic system (processing emotion). They seem less aware than others that R-complex exists. I consider my "shamanic initiation" to have involved becoming aware of R-complex.
When I speak about my innocence concerning life, in my memoir, it is largely this lack of knowledge about how power systems work on us at a psychological level that I am weighing up. I had no idea that power systems were operating all around me – including affecting me on a subconscious level – until I had reached the end of my tether in terms of trying to mentally process a particularly noxious case of workplace bullying, and make sense of it.
Neither intellectual analysis, nor self questioning on an emotional level produced any kind of explanation of what I'd been experiencing. There was obviously something going on at an even deeper level than either of these other approaches were able to discover on their own terms. All systems – even brain systems – have their own internal form of logic and self-consistency. What I was capable of experiencing and observing was that 'something' was operating in my workplace environment that had little to do with emotional give-and-take in the everyday sense. It was something that resisted intellectual analysis, too. And yet it had its own particular logic to it. Then, suddenly some realisation snapped into place, and it was as if I could see power relationships operating with my inner eye – I had discovered what I later came to know as R-complex!
Since that time of suddenly becoming more aware of how things worked around me, I have noticed that people are aware of this factor of life to very varying degrees. Nobody is immune from the effect of group power dynamics – what Jung referred to as "the participation mystique" – which is the domain of R-complex. We are all, to some degree, the victims of group power plays, as well as the willing participants (for involvement produces pleasure). This is what Nietzsche's Zarathustra meant when he said that some rule themselves but most are only ruled. So long as R-complex remains a factor that influences us from the level of the subconscious, we are only ruled. Shamanisation, however, means becoming aware of this factor in society at large, and how it operates upon us. Thus one can recognise that nature of R-complex, observe instances of its expression, and intervene in various situations to prevent the domination of R-complex when this seems likely to happen. (Fascism would be an instance of the domination of society by R-complex.)
Another factor that one has to become aware of, in order to thrive, are the number of people who have become mentally ill as a result of not being able to resist the domination of the minds by R-complex. In the case of a healthy mind, the higher parts of the brain rule over the lower parts, sometimes allowing them various avenues for self-expression. R-Complex and its drive to experience dominance would be mediated by considerations of ethics and emotional consideration of others. But in the case of the mentally ill, this is not so! Rather, the lower parts of the mind have gained predominance over the higher parts. A shaman, who recognises that there are two parts to the mind, is best able to recognise when this has happened.
The nature of R-complex is to elude analysis and diagnosis made on a purely intellectual basis. R-complex facilitates a way of relating to others that is devoid of the capacity to recognise and respond to their human characteristics, and it may operate independently from the higher mind in many instances. At other times, it operates in group dynamics in order to dehumanize the participants, and reduce them to a function of the operation of the whole. Only the higher mind is capable of recognizing and responding to actual, individual person. The mysterious and ruthless aspects of R-complex are appealing to many on the Right, and are particularly compatible with fascism. The loss of the higher mind is desired by many people on a subconscious level. They desire release from the work of the intellect and from having to process the subtle nuances that pertain to adult relationships. To lose oneself to R-complex can seem desirable, admirable, and even godly. (Hitler, no doubt, sought to radiate the unmoved and unmovable qualities of R-complex in order to appear to be above and beyond human needs and desires, when he was merely way below them.)
One should understand how R-complex fits us to play roles of which we may not even be aware. In a society where patriarchal values are the norm, men and women play their respective roles (involving dominance and submission, respectively) without consciously giving their consent to these roles. Rather their consent is manufactured for them at the level of the unconscious, by R-complex!
R-complex also reinforces what Nietzsche referred to as "herd morality", for it allows those whose minds are not so well developed (because they rely more upon R-complex in order to get along, rather than on the functions of the higher parts of the mind) to dominate those whose emotional and intellectual development is more advanced. This is why Nietzsche's Zarathustra had pity for the "higher man" and suggested an alternative avenue for him – that he becomes shamanised (that is, he should learn to see how R-complex operates in order to be able to defend himself.) The "overman" is actually the shamanised man. In terms of shamanistic logic (ie. knowledge about how the human brain functions), Hitler is the quintessential "underman" who falls backwards, in evolutionary terms, to rely upon R-complex, rather than using the gains of evolution to try to create a bridge to the overman.
The temptation to fall backwards will always be a temptation for humanity. There is a very functional cleverness that comes into operation when one embraces backwardness and intellectual stupidity. "The stupidity of the good is unfathomably clever," said Nietzsche, in Zarathustra. He was referring to those dominated – largely subconsciously, but not necessarily in the mentally ill sense – by R-complex. It is a significant fact that R-complex is unfathomably clever in its ability to put the intellect (ie. the higher mind) on the back foot. The survival mechanisms entailed in the reptile brain facilitated the survival of our primeval ancestors a long time before the higher brain stem came along. One should not be surprised then, that it is able to facilitate survival in a way that seems to be unfathomably clever from the perspective of the higher mind's cognitive faculties.
How does one who has succumbed to R-complex – a fascist like Hitler, or somebody who has a severe personality disorder – manage to dominate those whose minds and moral sensibilities are more well developed? The one under the spell of R-complex tries various triggers on the population, almost almost randomly, in order to discover what gets a response – more specifically, what can produce, in the experimenter, a sensation of dominance. If R-complex triggers a reaction, it feels gratified. R-complex learns from that and will do the same thing again. Those who are operate in this way, habitually, will generally have an upside down function to their brain, whereby the reptile brain controls and utilises the functions of the higher brain, rather than the other way around. So it will subvert good will (others' good will --but even the disordered subject's own) in order to feed its appetites for a feeling of dominance. That is why it is useless to employ one's cognitive functions in order to communicate with the disordered.
One must use one's analytical powers to understand this behaviour, but one cannot go so far as to be able to communicate effectively with one so disordered. The reason why such people rarely make any sense is because of their upside-down brain, with a reversed order of executive hierarchy. Lizard brain is in charge -- and it does not feel itself to be in the proximity of anything human. Humans we are and those who operate exclusively from this domain are self-deluded.
The answer is long and quite complex. We all have three brain systems that evolved at very different stages. The lowest of these is R-complex. The reptile brain is a function without insight, for one would have to employ the higher brain – the cerebral cortex -- in order to be able to analyse. It is also without the ability to process emotions that relate to being a person and having a personality. It is more primal than that, and capable of rage, but not emotional intelligence. It is concerned merely with feelings of dominance and submission and is tuned into process this kind of data. Most people would not be aware that such a brain system exists – indeed some people seem to operate primarily by using the upper two brain systems – the neo-cortex (to process complex thought) and the limbic system (processing emotion). They seem less aware than others that R-complex exists. I consider my "shamanic initiation" to have involved becoming aware of R-complex.
When I speak about my innocence concerning life, in my memoir, it is largely this lack of knowledge about how power systems work on us at a psychological level that I am weighing up. I had no idea that power systems were operating all around me – including affecting me on a subconscious level – until I had reached the end of my tether in terms of trying to mentally process a particularly noxious case of workplace bullying, and make sense of it.
Neither intellectual analysis, nor self questioning on an emotional level produced any kind of explanation of what I'd been experiencing. There was obviously something going on at an even deeper level than either of these other approaches were able to discover on their own terms. All systems – even brain systems – have their own internal form of logic and self-consistency. What I was capable of experiencing and observing was that 'something' was operating in my workplace environment that had little to do with emotional give-and-take in the everyday sense. It was something that resisted intellectual analysis, too. And yet it had its own particular logic to it. Then, suddenly some realisation snapped into place, and it was as if I could see power relationships operating with my inner eye – I had discovered what I later came to know as R-complex!
Since that time of suddenly becoming more aware of how things worked around me, I have noticed that people are aware of this factor of life to very varying degrees. Nobody is immune from the effect of group power dynamics – what Jung referred to as "the participation mystique" – which is the domain of R-complex. We are all, to some degree, the victims of group power plays, as well as the willing participants (for involvement produces pleasure). This is what Nietzsche's Zarathustra meant when he said that some rule themselves but most are only ruled. So long as R-complex remains a factor that influences us from the level of the subconscious, we are only ruled. Shamanisation, however, means becoming aware of this factor in society at large, and how it operates upon us. Thus one can recognise that nature of R-complex, observe instances of its expression, and intervene in various situations to prevent the domination of R-complex when this seems likely to happen. (Fascism would be an instance of the domination of society by R-complex.)
Another factor that one has to become aware of, in order to thrive, are the number of people who have become mentally ill as a result of not being able to resist the domination of the minds by R-complex. In the case of a healthy mind, the higher parts of the brain rule over the lower parts, sometimes allowing them various avenues for self-expression. R-Complex and its drive to experience dominance would be mediated by considerations of ethics and emotional consideration of others. But in the case of the mentally ill, this is not so! Rather, the lower parts of the mind have gained predominance over the higher parts. A shaman, who recognises that there are two parts to the mind, is best able to recognise when this has happened.
The nature of R-complex is to elude analysis and diagnosis made on a purely intellectual basis. R-complex facilitates a way of relating to others that is devoid of the capacity to recognise and respond to their human characteristics, and it may operate independently from the higher mind in many instances. At other times, it operates in group dynamics in order to dehumanize the participants, and reduce them to a function of the operation of the whole. Only the higher mind is capable of recognizing and responding to actual, individual person. The mysterious and ruthless aspects of R-complex are appealing to many on the Right, and are particularly compatible with fascism. The loss of the higher mind is desired by many people on a subconscious level. They desire release from the work of the intellect and from having to process the subtle nuances that pertain to adult relationships. To lose oneself to R-complex can seem desirable, admirable, and even godly. (Hitler, no doubt, sought to radiate the unmoved and unmovable qualities of R-complex in order to appear to be above and beyond human needs and desires, when he was merely way below them.)
One should understand how R-complex fits us to play roles of which we may not even be aware. In a society where patriarchal values are the norm, men and women play their respective roles (involving dominance and submission, respectively) without consciously giving their consent to these roles. Rather their consent is manufactured for them at the level of the unconscious, by R-complex!
R-complex also reinforces what Nietzsche referred to as "herd morality", for it allows those whose minds are not so well developed (because they rely more upon R-complex in order to get along, rather than on the functions of the higher parts of the mind) to dominate those whose emotional and intellectual development is more advanced. This is why Nietzsche's Zarathustra had pity for the "higher man" and suggested an alternative avenue for him – that he becomes shamanised (that is, he should learn to see how R-complex operates in order to be able to defend himself.) The "overman" is actually the shamanised man. In terms of shamanistic logic (ie. knowledge about how the human brain functions), Hitler is the quintessential "underman" who falls backwards, in evolutionary terms, to rely upon R-complex, rather than using the gains of evolution to try to create a bridge to the overman.
The temptation to fall backwards will always be a temptation for humanity. There is a very functional cleverness that comes into operation when one embraces backwardness and intellectual stupidity. "The stupidity of the good is unfathomably clever," said Nietzsche, in Zarathustra. He was referring to those dominated – largely subconsciously, but not necessarily in the mentally ill sense – by R-complex. It is a significant fact that R-complex is unfathomably clever in its ability to put the intellect (ie. the higher mind) on the back foot. The survival mechanisms entailed in the reptile brain facilitated the survival of our primeval ancestors a long time before the higher brain stem came along. One should not be surprised then, that it is able to facilitate survival in a way that seems to be unfathomably clever from the perspective of the higher mind's cognitive faculties.
How does one who has succumbed to R-complex – a fascist like Hitler, or somebody who has a severe personality disorder – manage to dominate those whose minds and moral sensibilities are more well developed? The one under the spell of R-complex tries various triggers on the population, almost almost randomly, in order to discover what gets a response – more specifically, what can produce, in the experimenter, a sensation of dominance. If R-complex triggers a reaction, it feels gratified. R-complex learns from that and will do the same thing again. Those who are operate in this way, habitually, will generally have an upside down function to their brain, whereby the reptile brain controls and utilises the functions of the higher brain, rather than the other way around. So it will subvert good will (others' good will --but even the disordered subject's own) in order to feed its appetites for a feeling of dominance. That is why it is useless to employ one's cognitive functions in order to communicate with the disordered.
One must use one's analytical powers to understand this behaviour, but one cannot go so far as to be able to communicate effectively with one so disordered. The reason why such people rarely make any sense is because of their upside-down brain, with a reversed order of executive hierarchy. Lizard brain is in charge -- and it does not feel itself to be in the proximity of anything human. Humans we are and those who operate exclusively from this domain are self-deluded.
Friday 20 November 2009
Thursday 19 November 2009
On Nietzsche
Shamanistic initiation can be understood as entailing a "spiritual crisis", which leads to the expansion of the mind. Whereas there are those who become mad and learn nothing from their madness, a shaman is one who has learned something from his initiatory madness. His powers increase, rather than diminish, through the experience. Instead of identifying oneself with the narrow level of consciousness that is determined by the ego and its needs, the initiate takes into account the whole self in its totality. This includes the forces operating within the unconscious, which strive for power, and facilitate creative openings in the subconscious. One who survives shamanic initiation does not always entirely escape long-term damage caused by an experience that destroys much of his previous way of thinking and being in the world. Yet, he is also for all that – in many ways – a more complete human being than those who have not been so initiated.
Wednesday 18 November 2009
what is a male? Is it an email?
There are those who say that feminists are against masculinity, that we feel threatened by it and want to make everyone the same as a poor weak selves. These people about in stereotypal thinking that has no links with any sort of reality. it's purely on an ideological level. And it is also originally on an ideological level that certain types of masculinity are formed and maintained. To have to have laws and institutions that maintain male supremacy over women is already a sign of abject weakness, in my view. Women already have to deal with not being protected by society or the law, so why should men need little sheep pens that make them feel nice and cosy? We have to tough it out. Why shouldn't they?
It all comes down to the fact that a spurious masculinity has been created -- one that cannot face hardship.
But masculinity used to mean the ability to do just that, without running to hide in the skirts of various pro-"masculine" ideologies.
It all comes down to the fact that a spurious masculinity has been created -- one that cannot face hardship.
But masculinity used to mean the ability to do just that, without running to hide in the skirts of various pro-"masculine" ideologies.
Sunday 15 November 2009
will to chance, Bataille
From: will to chance, Bataille
Let no one doubt for an instant! One has truly not heard a single word of
Nietzsche's unless one has lived this signal dissolution in totality; without it,
this philosophy is a mere labyrinth of contradictions, and worse; the pretext for
lying by omission (if, like the fascists, one isolates passages for purposes which
negate the rest of the work).
Let no one doubt for an instant! One has truly not heard a single word of
Nietzsche's unless one has lived this signal dissolution in totality; without it,
this philosophy is a mere labyrinth of contradictions, and worse; the pretext for
lying by omission (if, like the fascists, one isolates passages for purposes which
negate the rest of the work).
Saturday 14 November 2009
Friday 13 November 2009
Tuesday 10 November 2009
Saturday 7 November 2009
Some anonymous moron called "Mark"
Some anonymous moron who goes under the name of "Mark" has bothered to gesticulate in an ape-like fashion at me concerning the fact that although I might possibly be a "nice girl" I am not doing him any favours by using academic language on my blog.
I accept that he is not an academic, by the sounds of things, and that he doesn't like mah way of talkin'.
But logic would dictate that he simply buzzes off then!
I accept that he is not an academic, by the sounds of things, and that he doesn't like mah way of talkin'.
But logic would dictate that he simply buzzes off then!
will power and self: the shamanistic couplet
It has been a very personal quest to figure this out, and that is why I have become very irritable when life has got in the way of this endless parsing of data. It has to do with the difference between an orientation towards the Ego, or towards the Self, and how I orient myself in relation to these.
"The self" is roughly equated with Nietzsche's "abyss" (a kind of nihilistic serenity that is at odds with conformity to social mores and conventions, but can exist alongside them.) It is also, in my thesis, associated with the pre-Oedipal identity (as opposed to the Oedipal identity, which is, of course, ego oriented). We all have both self and ego, but few people realise this. To be able to realise it is to effectively double one's identity -- which is shamanistic!!!!
I had been trying to understand the Western ego for some time. I was particularly trying to understand it when I did my honours dissertation. I find that although it is a psychological construct that we all share, the degree of emphasis that Ego is given, in relation to the Self, is strongly a feature of cultural determinants and conditioning.
The Japanese and black Zimbabweans (and to a lesser degree, also white Zimbabweans) tend to give a stronger functional emphasis to the Self and its perceptions, rather than to the Ego and its evaluations, in the ways that they orient themselves towards the world. This means that their perceptions are imbued with a stronger sense of Animism and (for want of a better term), "jouissance", in comparison to those whose approach is relatively more Ego-oriented.
I understand, now, that it is a well established error that imagines a more ego-oriented approach to have something to do with stronger will power. This is a fundamental insight that I have gained through studying Marechera. One who is oriented, relatively, more towards the Self than towards the Ego can, in fact, have tremendously strong will power. The combination of will power with a STRONG orientation towards the Self (rather than towards the Ego, in the way that one experiences the world) is to be associated with shamanism, as a spontaneous product of a cultural and (therefore, also) neurological orientation towards perception.
One simply is not a shaman without strong will power, as the whole of shamanistic training is in fact geared towards developing stronger will power in order to handle more shocking and mind-blowing perceptions. To handle these perceptions well enables one to be more oriented towards the Self and less oriented towards the Ego.
The shaman's devaluation of an ego-oriented relationship to the world also has much in common with other mystical traditions. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(illusion)
"The self" is roughly equated with Nietzsche's "abyss" (a kind of nihilistic serenity that is at odds with conformity to social mores and conventions, but can exist alongside them.) It is also, in my thesis, associated with the pre-Oedipal identity (as opposed to the Oedipal identity, which is, of course, ego oriented). We all have both self and ego, but few people realise this. To be able to realise it is to effectively double one's identity -- which is shamanistic!!!!
I had been trying to understand the Western ego for some time. I was particularly trying to understand it when I did my honours dissertation. I find that although it is a psychological construct that we all share, the degree of emphasis that Ego is given, in relation to the Self, is strongly a feature of cultural determinants and conditioning.
The Japanese and black Zimbabweans (and to a lesser degree, also white Zimbabweans) tend to give a stronger functional emphasis to the Self and its perceptions, rather than to the Ego and its evaluations, in the ways that they orient themselves towards the world. This means that their perceptions are imbued with a stronger sense of Animism and (for want of a better term), "jouissance", in comparison to those whose approach is relatively more Ego-oriented.
I understand, now, that it is a well established error that imagines a more ego-oriented approach to have something to do with stronger will power. This is a fundamental insight that I have gained through studying Marechera. One who is oriented, relatively, more towards the Self than towards the Ego can, in fact, have tremendously strong will power. The combination of will power with a STRONG orientation towards the Self (rather than towards the Ego, in the way that one experiences the world) is to be associated with shamanism, as a spontaneous product of a cultural and (therefore, also) neurological orientation towards perception.
One simply is not a shaman without strong will power, as the whole of shamanistic training is in fact geared towards developing stronger will power in order to handle more shocking and mind-blowing perceptions. To handle these perceptions well enables one to be more oriented towards the Self and less oriented towards the Ego.
The shaman's devaluation of an ego-oriented relationship to the world also has much in common with other mystical traditions. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(illusion)
Thursday 5 November 2009
real individualism
In actual fact, it is not even possible to treat a person as if he or she were an individual if you do not allow that they dwell within a political and social context not of their own making, and that there are some things they cannot control. It is this very struggle to come to terms with the aspects of the world that they didn't create that defines subjectivity. Even more than that, it is by engaging in a struggle both within and against aspects of one's environment that enables subjectivity to come into existence!
To treat an person as if their individuality already pre-existed their struggle for subjectivity is to rob them of their potential, and to steal away what ought to have been their most prized possession.
To conflate the person and his or her subjectivity with the nature of his or her environment is to do utter damage to that person. One is hardly the product of their environment in a narrow, very simple sense. Or, if one truly is just a product of one's environment, then it is assumed that one has been limited, by the event of not having to struggle to attain one's very subjectivity.
Both the consumerist rightists and the easy-going leftists are the enemies of individualistic subjectivity.
To treat an person as if their individuality already pre-existed their struggle for subjectivity is to rob them of their potential, and to steal away what ought to have been their most prized possession.
To conflate the person and his or her subjectivity with the nature of his or her environment is to do utter damage to that person. One is hardly the product of their environment in a narrow, very simple sense. Or, if one truly is just a product of one's environment, then it is assumed that one has been limited, by the event of not having to struggle to attain one's very subjectivity.
Both the consumerist rightists and the easy-going leftists are the enemies of individualistic subjectivity.
Tuesday 3 November 2009
Lacan and shamanism
There are problems with Lacan's system of thought, from a shamanistic viewpoint. The fundamental crux of the problem lies here:
The paradigm of shamanism disagrees. Or I do, on it's behalf. The shamanistic paradigm -- which involves conceptual doubling of the self -- is arguably related to an abnormal psychology, but the shaman's use of their mind nonetheless constitutes a profound adaptive leap in consciousness. Lacan's split subject is belied by shamanistic knowledge, which allows for a simultaneous dualism of consciousness whereby the lower and the higher minds are in communication with each other.
This adaptation represents an advance in human consciousness, since the different parts of the mind are brought together to work in tandem, not in opposition.
In other ways, Lacan's paradigm readily lends itself to a shamanistic viewpoint. One can view the three levels of consciousness of Lacan's paradigm as generally relating to the three levels of human neurological structure. The cerebral cortex handles the work of the "Symbolic", in Lacan's system. The lower, "limbic system", is responsible for producing the discourse that pertains to Lacan's "Imaginary"; and that which operates at the level of registering "the Real" is R-Complex -- the reptilian brain, which is the oldest part of the human brain system in evolutionary terms.
Once can see the mental products of the limbic system and R-complex as forming one side of Lacan's subject, and the mental products of the cerebral cortex as forming the other side, with an effective bar of psychological repression keeping them apart. Thus, one can process ideas from either one side of the mind, or from the other side, but not simultaneously from both -- according to Lacan's system.
By contrast with this representation of the mind and its mode of functioning, shamans can access information coming from all levels, at any time.
So it is that I have learned to consciously allocate a division of labor to the different parts of my mind. Concerning issues of power -- especially when there is an allergy within normal society, to dealing with such issues directly -- I consciously hand over the responsibility to work on improving my political status in the world to R-complex. (R-Complex is able to bypass all excuses generated by the consciousness of conventional society, in order to get to the bottom of issues of power, and restore balances. It is ferocious, though, and one often has to return to the use of conscious mediation to protect certain targets against the exacting coldness and determinism of R-Complex's destructive fury.)
Matters of sexuality are handled by the limbic system, without the necessary interventions of the conscious mind, if one is shaman.
Intellectual knowledge draws on all three systems of discourse, stemming from the three systems of the brain, and their separate spheres of knowledge, which are allowed to interact under the guidance of the cerebral cortex.
The task of a shaman is to use one's conscious knowledge of how these other systems of the mind work in service of the higher mind's practical goals.
Lacan’s subject—the subject of the “return to Freud,” the true subject of psychoanalysis—is none other than the split subject: the barred S. ...
The bar functions here as and/or. The elements split by the bar convey exclusive meanings, only one of which can be taken at a time. ... One side of the bar—an exclusive choice—must be chosen. Thus the subject—S—is split into two (parts/aspects), only one (path) of which can/must be chosen/followed.
[See: http://massthink.wordpress.com/2008/06/13/the-lacanian-subject-according-to-fink-the-barred-s-alienation/ ]
The paradigm of shamanism disagrees. Or I do, on it's behalf. The shamanistic paradigm -- which involves conceptual doubling of the self -- is arguably related to an abnormal psychology, but the shaman's use of their mind nonetheless constitutes a profound adaptive leap in consciousness. Lacan's split subject is belied by shamanistic knowledge, which allows for a simultaneous dualism of consciousness whereby the lower and the higher minds are in communication with each other.
This adaptation represents an advance in human consciousness, since the different parts of the mind are brought together to work in tandem, not in opposition.
In other ways, Lacan's paradigm readily lends itself to a shamanistic viewpoint. One can view the three levels of consciousness of Lacan's paradigm as generally relating to the three levels of human neurological structure. The cerebral cortex handles the work of the "Symbolic", in Lacan's system. The lower, "limbic system", is responsible for producing the discourse that pertains to Lacan's "Imaginary"; and that which operates at the level of registering "the Real" is R-Complex -- the reptilian brain, which is the oldest part of the human brain system in evolutionary terms.
Once can see the mental products of the limbic system and R-complex as forming one side of Lacan's subject, and the mental products of the cerebral cortex as forming the other side, with an effective bar of psychological repression keeping them apart. Thus, one can process ideas from either one side of the mind, or from the other side, but not simultaneously from both -- according to Lacan's system.
By contrast with this representation of the mind and its mode of functioning, shamans can access information coming from all levels, at any time.
So it is that I have learned to consciously allocate a division of labor to the different parts of my mind. Concerning issues of power -- especially when there is an allergy within normal society, to dealing with such issues directly -- I consciously hand over the responsibility to work on improving my political status in the world to R-complex. (R-Complex is able to bypass all excuses generated by the consciousness of conventional society, in order to get to the bottom of issues of power, and restore balances. It is ferocious, though, and one often has to return to the use of conscious mediation to protect certain targets against the exacting coldness and determinism of R-Complex's destructive fury.)
Matters of sexuality are handled by the limbic system, without the necessary interventions of the conscious mind, if one is shaman.
Intellectual knowledge draws on all three systems of discourse, stemming from the three systems of the brain, and their separate spheres of knowledge, which are allowed to interact under the guidance of the cerebral cortex.
The task of a shaman is to use one's conscious knowledge of how these other systems of the mind work in service of the higher mind's practical goals.
Sunday 1 November 2009
how shamanism heals trauma
"The common accusatory stance towards perpetrators and victims reinforces such a constricted state of mind and narrows the range of opportunities for traumatized individuals to reenter the libinized social matrix." ---49.
Emery, Paul F. & Emery, Olga B. "Psychoanalytic Considerations on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder." Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy 19.1 (1989): 39-53.
Shamanism, however, enables a re-entry in the libidinised matrix, by compelling you to encounter psychical forces as they are, that is as contingent forces (and to view yourself as a contingent being.)
This is in contrast to the traumatised mind's tendency to understand psychical forces as traumatic absolutes, which were directed at you personally.
Such a traumatised perspective wastes much of ego's energy because of an investment in the idea of absolute forces – ie. the idea that there are absolute victims or absolute perpetrators – which, in turn, leads to a "repetition compulsion" .
And the "repetition compulsion" involves constantly trying to itch a wound, as if to grasp some non-existent revelatory meaning, assumed to lurk behind the original experience of the trauma.
By contrast, shamanistic experience reveals that life is contingency, and that such an absolute meaning does not exist to be found, but that life has much to offer by virtue of its being contingency. It is by means of this very different experience of the nature of reality that shamanism cures.
Emery, Paul F. & Emery, Olga B. "Psychoanalytic Considerations on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder." Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy 19.1 (1989): 39-53.
Shamanism, however, enables a re-entry in the libidinised matrix, by compelling you to encounter psychical forces as they are, that is as contingent forces (and to view yourself as a contingent being.)
This is in contrast to the traumatised mind's tendency to understand psychical forces as traumatic absolutes, which were directed at you personally.
Such a traumatised perspective wastes much of ego's energy because of an investment in the idea of absolute forces – ie. the idea that there are absolute victims or absolute perpetrators – which, in turn, leads to a "repetition compulsion" .
And the "repetition compulsion" involves constantly trying to itch a wound, as if to grasp some non-existent revelatory meaning, assumed to lurk behind the original experience of the trauma.
By contrast, shamanistic experience reveals that life is contingency, and that such an absolute meaning does not exist to be found, but that life has much to offer by virtue of its being contingency. It is by means of this very different experience of the nature of reality that shamanism cures.
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