I don't think Bataille's system is really related to a system of regression, which I have been describing in terms of traditional shamanism. Traditional shamanism takes the individual back to a dependency state and then restores the mind, in a sense reprogramming it with a more coherent sense of reality, whilst removing the force of the painful memories. I understand this idea theoretically more than in terms of what may be practically possible -- at least for all people at all times (although perhaps I am erring on the side of doubt). All shamanism involves some measure of reprogramming and reintegration of parts that had gone missing from one's core being -- that are needed in order to make up the whole.
In the case of Bataille, the way I read him, he was able to integrate the negative, lower elements of life that he would tend to try to escape from, only after he had made his effort toward transcendence. Without the fatigue that comes from this effort, I would say, there is no ability to integrate. Despair is the integrative principle. Fatigue is the opening/receptive principle. But initial effort is above all the disciplining and ordering principle, which is also necessary to give shape to the experience. Of course I read him through the lens of my own experience as well as through conjecture.
So Bataille and traditional shamanism are different, especially as regards their methodologies. But they are the same in the sense of the project, which is to discover the terrain of the mind and to integrate it more thoroughly.
As I said, I use some conjecture here, based on personal experience and so on. To me, the effort I make toward transcendence (the masculine principle) can become a form of developing resources (self nurturing), which makes integration with the difficult or seemingly impossible or hateful aspects of one's experiences more likely. I think that modern man (the contemporary human being, but especially of Bataille's time) is divided from himself, above all by principles of civilisation, so the aspects of life such a violence, sexuality and the sense of being fully in the body, in the skin, are implicitly denied if not renounced. To return to them makes for a fuller being, at least one that acknowledges the highs and lows better. One becomes less schizoid or divorced from oneself than the moral-minded man.
Getting back to traditional shamanism, in that case regression is facilitated by singing or changing or drumming, and/or with the assistance of mind-altering substances. The shaman thus regresses the subject to a dependency state. Once there, the subject can relearn about himself and about the world. But this is because the shaman is a healer, with highly developed intuitive skills and a mythological framework to impart. We all live in a framework of myths, anyway. There are Freudian myths, free market myths, other salvation and redemption myths. Some of these are healthier than others. To be integrated better (a sign of health) one can use a framework that is healthier than the one that one is implicitly relying upon.
I think most of us really don't know what myths we are relying upon, which are animating us. Some will make it harder to reach wholeness. Christianity is a very negative myth for women, for instance, since it tends to divide the psyche rather than allow for its integration.
Feminine relaxation is just bodily relaxation. There's a certain sense in which the earth is feminine and the sky is masculine, although we would be better to see these as symbolic categories rather than defining human differences.
That's all I can come up with right now.
In the case of Bataille, the way I read him, he was able to integrate the negative, lower elements of life that he would tend to try to escape from, only after he had made his effort toward transcendence. Without the fatigue that comes from this effort, I would say, there is no ability to integrate. Despair is the integrative principle. Fatigue is the opening/receptive principle. But initial effort is above all the disciplining and ordering principle, which is also necessary to give shape to the experience. Of course I read him through the lens of my own experience as well as through conjecture.
So Bataille and traditional shamanism are different, especially as regards their methodologies. But they are the same in the sense of the project, which is to discover the terrain of the mind and to integrate it more thoroughly.
As I said, I use some conjecture here, based on personal experience and so on. To me, the effort I make toward transcendence (the masculine principle) can become a form of developing resources (self nurturing), which makes integration with the difficult or seemingly impossible or hateful aspects of one's experiences more likely. I think that modern man (the contemporary human being, but especially of Bataille's time) is divided from himself, above all by principles of civilisation, so the aspects of life such a violence, sexuality and the sense of being fully in the body, in the skin, are implicitly denied if not renounced. To return to them makes for a fuller being, at least one that acknowledges the highs and lows better. One becomes less schizoid or divorced from oneself than the moral-minded man.
Getting back to traditional shamanism, in that case regression is facilitated by singing or changing or drumming, and/or with the assistance of mind-altering substances. The shaman thus regresses the subject to a dependency state. Once there, the subject can relearn about himself and about the world. But this is because the shaman is a healer, with highly developed intuitive skills and a mythological framework to impart. We all live in a framework of myths, anyway. There are Freudian myths, free market myths, other salvation and redemption myths. Some of these are healthier than others. To be integrated better (a sign of health) one can use a framework that is healthier than the one that one is implicitly relying upon.
I think most of us really don't know what myths we are relying upon, which are animating us. Some will make it harder to reach wholeness. Christianity is a very negative myth for women, for instance, since it tends to divide the psyche rather than allow for its integration.
Feminine relaxation is just bodily relaxation. There's a certain sense in which the earth is feminine and the sky is masculine, although we would be better to see these as symbolic categories rather than defining human differences.
That's all I can come up with right now.
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