Psychological projection from a New Age perspective

Let's Spread the Word: Wetiko | Reality Sandwich:

'via Blog this'

An article, linked to above, is worth reading.  It may come across as New Age, but I also arrived at the same conclusions through my careful, far more academic study and observation.

I also concluded that the patriarchal religions perpetuate this deformed state of consciousness, by encouraging men to project their darkness onto women.

Intellectual shamanism reverses this process by insisting that one develop a relationship with oneself.  As the article says:

[The pathological person's] will becomes dedicated to hiding from the truth of what they are doing, a truth which endlessly pursues them, as they continually avoid relationship with themselves.  [Emphasis mine].

My intellectual shamanism is concerned with the structuring of the human psyche and with remedies through restructuring and forming a relationship with other parts of yourself, that may have become alienated from the whole.  Accepting one's dissociated and split state, one goes looking for them.  This does not involve blind searching, but active and reasoned looking.

The moralistic tone of the article, especially where it suggests that "excess" or boundary-crossing are always "evil" reveals much of the limitations of New Age psychology.  Whether these are "evil", or corrective of pathology depends on how you use them.  Otherwise, it's like saying that dynamite is bad under all circumstances -- because it causes destruction. Few things are intrinsically bad in and of themselves -- and sometimes a degree of destruction is necessary, in order to recover full health.

Mike Ballard I think they're mystifying sado-masochism with the word 'Wetko' in order to appeal to the religiously minded. Trangression is an empty catalyst in and of itself. Transgression can go toward nihilism or acceptance of a new, better authority over the person. It can also go towards strengthening the character of the subject through the realisation that reified abstractions should not be allowed to dominate and destroy our freedom as sovereign individuals.Jennifer Frances Armstrong That's a good way to put it -- sado-maoschism. But I think there is a danger of DE-mystifying it, too, when we assume that we can just name it and see it for what it is. It really does seem more like a black hole that sucks us in through the primitive parts of our brains, which it calls into operation.