Category: Psychology

archetype

Posted On by bertie

Last Saturday it was King's Day again in the Netherlands, the traditional celebration of the fact that the country in which I live is ruled in name by a king, formerly queens. In my hometown, this is celebrated through a huge free market, which attracts a lot of people from all over the country. It was never my thing, but I've been in on it for about ten years, especially since my girlfriend, whom I met over ten years ago, is crazy about it. And because, not long after I got to know her, I revived an old hobby, namely the collection of long-played records, called vinyl or short-played album. However, this year I had no puff and lay around like a dishcloth in my house, which is near one of the most famous locations of that free market. My girlfriend was already out early, but was proud of me two hours later with thirty second-hand lps under her arm.

I've been playing these records for a few days now. It's mostly very old jazz. I have been listening to jazz regularly for a year or two and have a very modest collection, which largely consists of recordings by Miles Davis. This is quite different. The early jazz is lighter, sometimes even more cheerful. There's a box called "Collector History Of Classic Jazz" with five lp. Longplayer 1 starts with fascinating drum roll that the title "Examples Of African Tribal Music" has been given, so that's what the origin of jazz is. Tonight I'm ready for long player 3, whose music sounds like pretty old blues. On side 2 the text of the fifth song, with the title still unknown to me at that time, "Three Woman Blues" draws my attention.

The text of this issue is as follows:

♪ I ain't never loved ♪
But three women ruled my life.
The first was my mother,
The second was my sister
And the third was the girl that wrecked my life.

A wave of recognition went through me. But more important than that: Someone else, long ago had the same experience! In another time, another country, with a completely different background and in a completely different society probably. Soon I wondered if there was a pattern, if many more men felt it or experienced it? The step towards the idea of an underlying archetype was quickly made. Now if there is, that would make my problem much lighter and easier to handle. After all, the whole situation and life history, which I've been struggling with for a lifetime, suddenly looks very different in this light. The three supreme women then are only puppets in a game of a, albeit very powerful, inherited psychic phenomenon in my collective unconscious, which I myself am a willless victim of (become). And what's that like for women? Is the archetype manipulating them in a manly way? Through the experiences with a father, a brother and the first puppy to break their hearts? It gets you to think about and especially to relativize all that insoluble anger, frustration and impotence. Suddenly I felt less heavy and the energy started to flow a bit. Well, a little? I'm late at night typing this in my computer. What is music healing, I change my mind for the umpteenth time in my life.

ummagumma II

Posted On by bertie

What is it exactly what I felt and why, when I made the album Ummagumma From Pink Floyd for the first time 55 years ago? What was that immediate profound fascination with that music? Below I'm going to try to make clear what made the unconscious recognition possible, using a chapter from the collected works of Carl Gustav Jung that I read this morning. At first, it is probably useful when I talk about the psychological approach of a work of art, in Jung's work it was literature. I took the liberty of using his approach to this music, as I think I recognize it in that music.

CG Jung distinguishes two methods of creation, the psychological and the visionary. For my story, which must remain very concise, only the visionary is enough, partly because I find what I am looking for. What strikes me directly is that the psychological explanation of, in this case the visionary art on the album Ummagumma, is a primal vision of chaos and darkness that would be incompatible with certain moral categories. These three categories are: standards, values and attitudes. Standards and values refer to behavior, while attitude pertains to the person acting.

Let me start with the latter. It probably pertains to an experience that seems incompatible with the personality or fiction of the composer's consciousness. The conflict leads to wanting to make it invisible, the displacement towards the unconscious of the experience in question. Furthermore, I am not going to go here because reducing the visionary experience to the personal experiences of the creators, the experience makes it something figuratively, a surrogate, loses the primal character and the primal vision becomes a symptom, a psychic neurosis of the maker, so to speak, and the chaos is reduced to a spiritual order. This statement will soon return within the limits of the ordered cosmos. That's not what I experienced when I was listening and a whole new world opened to me. The only order I could distinguish were the music notes played on the musical instruments.

The source of the shared experience here must be taken seriously though it seems that the mind will feel compelled to intervene in this obscure metaphysics to prevent the world from sinking into dark superstition. Maybe because I was so young and was completely open because of my fascination, the last thing happened to me. A listener who doesn't unknowingly identify himself with the atmosphere and message that is contained in these songs and doesn't understand this music is probably a rich fantasy, artist grilling or derailed poetic freedom. Maybe there was a more everyday love experience among the members of the band or one of them. The passion behind it is in any case palpable and leaves some less deep minds lost. The experience of the maker has become a real symbol, an expression for an unknown reality. It has become a fact, a psychic reality with as much value as a physical reality, for me anyway.

The feelings, the passion, of both the members of Pink Floyd, and mine lie within the consciousness, the object of the vision outside, which makes it mystical or magical. The band between the music and the band on the one hand and me on the other is for good forged, although the members of Pink Floyd will not have noticed any of that. The feeling that is summoned to me is that of things that are naturally secret. They're mysterious and creepy, an illusion because they're hidden by the ratio, the mind. They hide from such things out of fear of God.

The cosmos represents the consciousness, the sun and the faith of the day here, while the chaos stands for the nightly fear, the moon and the unconscious. This tension creates the question if there is anything alive on the other side. My soul was drawn out of the human, in the above human, which is also called the divine. This is, of course, a very strong and profound experience at the age of nine, the profound consequences of which at that time were completely inconceivable. Was it a trick of the unconscious to give me an omen in this threatening and ominous way that something will happen?

The laws, moral and practical, which man has invented to protect us from the madness of fear of metaphysics, the eternal fire of God, which may be too close here, fall out of here and do not last in this young mind of mine. The beauty of this darkness was to me so awesome and encompassing that it was like a revelation of a new unknown religion. This is what brought my fascination up from the deepest source of my being, my unconscious and his archetypes. The fascination lies in the experience and in the source and is still there, now almost 55 years later.

Every time the collective unconscious penetrates the experience and joins the time consciousness, a creative act has taken place that pertains to the whole period, it is a message to contemporaries.

love

Posted On by bertie

As a man the love of women is as far as it deviates from such a different caliber, that I would like to ignore it here, you still have several choices in the Western world, to focus the love you have on different goals. Experience shows that loving multiple objects or subjects soon leads to unbridgeable tensions. On the one hand because passions often require an enormous amount of time, energy and concentration. On the other hand, because the object or object of love usually does not settle for a shared, let alone second place.

Then what are these choices? For the sake of completeness, let's start with the most superfictional like money, career and possessions to own it. However, a man can also be caught by an interest that sometimes results in passion for art, science, music or sport. This often leads to a somewhat monomanic attitude. However, a man can also be completely seized by the love of a woman or to God. This also shows that there are several possibilities. I would not like to speak directly of choices here, although ultimately it will be when the present love settles in the heart or brain of the man in question.

A man's love for a woman or man may be sexually motivated, or possess any other external reason. He may even decide to commit to that one woman in marriage forever or as long as possible. This love is one we could call worldly. On the internet I saw a definition of courteous love that described this as a characteristic. The courteous love is, in my opinion, a very different and rather a love that is best known here from the Middle Ages and then seemed to experience its heyday.

The courteous love of a man is, in my opinion, the love of a woman, I have never met man to man, or it must be the Greek eros rid of the more earthly experiences. It was the love of a knight for a often married damsel. The object of love is preferably somewhat or totally unreachable for one or more reasons. It, necessarily sometimes, renounces the sexual component of love, or at least coitus brings with it an increased, channeled and sublimated libido that eventually penetrates and or assimilates all levels at which this love takes place. Of course, this love knows many conventions, but what is most striking is its unselfishness, although I suspect there are limits to that. This love especially comes to us, ordinary mortals, in an inexhaustible amount of poetry, over many centuries. Known poets are of course William Shakespeare and Sir Philip Sydney, but honor there are too many to mention. Of course, the stories about Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet and Lancelot and Guinevere are well known. Dichten is of course the artistic expression of passion through love. See also, for example, the Song of Solomon and the Psalms of King David.

Love to God and His love usually seems to be on a very different level. It is a love that is spread worldwide, like all other forms, although many will think differently, because his or her God is the only one and cannot be shared with a people or religion with another name. On the other hand, the thought that God doesn't exist all over these days. Love to God is on the one hand the profane, that of the church or flock, and on the other hand the sacral of priests and the many other qualities of initiates. Known example of all sacrificing love to God is of course the Bible story of John the Baptist and his devotion, which is also love, to Jesus. This love is also accompanied by great sacrifices, although the sacrifice here is what it is all about and not the result of love as with, for example, courteous love. The sacrifice Jesus made is an example to which ultimate love can lead. I would like to leave it at that, but I hope to come back to this.

the group

Posted On by bertie

A group is defined as a set of two or more persons who interact because they recognise themselves or part of themselves in each other or because they pursue a common goal. Not insignificant is the idea or feeling to belong to the group and to be accepted by her. The group as a whole has an identity in its perception and in the perception of the others outside the group.

Being part of a group is seen by the group itself, but also in general as the highest good. Operating for the purpose of the common goal and going together for that purpose and making sacrifices for it is seen as forming character.

A football team might be a good example. A team is defined as the close cooperation of a whole within which the qualities of the, in this case individual players, are appreciated for what they are, as a utility to the larger whole and the goal of the group, the team. Which coincides with winning as many games as possible and ends as high as possible in the competition in which one plays, at least when there is a payment of football.

In our collective society, the individual is subordinate to the importance of the state, church, association or the company in which one may, unexpectedly, find oneself. There is hardly room for those who disagree. Taking a stand or developing a vision is soon perceived as threatening to the collective and should be crushed. Anytime, anytime. You can also see this dynamic within a circle of friends.

A truly authentic personal individual development is a tear away from the environment or the web in which one is located. It is a struggle that never seems to be fought and a lonely road, when one is not in a group of like-minded individuals.

Many people at this time have an innate gene it seems to be for solidarity and subjugation of one's own interests, the individual development in this case, and are willing to conform far to the prevailing mores. At least until the bomb bursts once. Sometimes it turns out to be enough and someone or a group separates themselves from the larger whole, which can lead to Kafkaian situations with sometimes serious, threatening situations. Not least for the rebellion.

The ideal of the group, the freedom of all or at least the greater or higher general interest can therefore also be perceived as very oppressive, unfree and restrictive. The greater good lies, however, for some, if not many, in the pursuit of personal ideals, whether inside or outside the whole of conventions or agreements agreed by others. It seems that the ideal of the group is slowly crumbling or that the Inclusiveness of groups is becoming increasingly limited.

desire II

Posted On by bertie

Desire then, in my case is once again either the root of greed or its sprouting and sad often leads to frustrations and eventually anger. I mean this not in the light of the dualist moral split of Western thinking, but as an experience fact. I know both materialistic desires and spiritual/spiritual desires. It's secrets that lure.

It is the experience that something is missing. A thought, an object, an idea or object suddenly becomes extremely important and cannot and cannot be missed. I have to have it and I will have it right away. The wish must be fulfilled whether it is within reach or not, whatever. It's like there's a consciousness narrowing, like I'm going blind to everything else that is. Nothing is more important than the object, the person, or the idea of what the desire pertains to. Even the feeling plays a role. At first I was happy and satisfied, with the new insight that alras disappeared.

There are different desires. For example, there are sexual, material, spiritual and religious desires. Are they all from the same source, the same (un) displeasure or is there a difference between spiritual and material needs for example? I imagine spiritual desires come from the soul and sexual desires are more physically bound. That intense desire for that woman or man you once encountered is more a desire of the heart. Then where do material desires come from? That new jacket, which, perhaps, used shoes that look so shockingly cool or could be very nice, where did that apparent lack come from? A theory I heard today is that it's the search back to the mother's womb, for a sense of security.

According to the Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, born before 1900, all desires can be traced to a life drive or a death drive. Carl Gustaf Jung, his disciple for a short time, thought there were four universal desires, linked to the different archetypes that form the structure of the collective unconscious result in different types with the same desire, but each with its own content.

There are the seekers for paradise, for the ultimate good and perfect life. For example, the sage thinks that this state can be achieved by reflecting on knowledge and finding a higher self through logos, or, as Alan Watts argues, going the way of the Tao, finding and becoming yourself. The rebel is a different kind of world improver, he or she believes in a form of struggle, revolution, overthrowing sacred houses. He or she kicks herself forward after his or her desire as it were. This is contrary to what is called the common man. His motto is known: just do it, then you act crazy enough. The group is the highest good, that is where he or she wants to belong. The artist seeks his salvation in creating an idea of control.

Is that it? Is not desire more than a form of control over something that is not (yet) there? Is the fulfillment of the wish and the temporary feeling of happiness that comes with it (only) having the idea of control? Only, I guess, what remains after control is a fact? There will be a new desire! Control is then a desire! The satisfaction of the somewhat older generations in particular, as it seems, is also temporary. Apparently there's another engine that keeps us yearning for new, different horizons.

clear

Posted On by bertie

The future is too bright, he's too intelligent, at least that's what Max thinks, only a few years old. It frightens him to be different and not to be understood. He may be wise to his age, that's what the adults say his environment, but he doesn't understand why he's not like the other kids. In kindergarten, Max must spend three years there, because he was born three weeks too late, Max often stares at the adjacent primary school. That's where it gets different. That's where they're gonna understand him. Something he thinks in primary school about high school and high school about the academy for visual arts and later on about the university where he wants to study English.

Actually, Max wants to study psychology, but he's not good at math and he can't nail that on his own. The evening school is a joke and he decides to do a collegium doctrine. Learning at school has always been a problem. Max doesn't understand the subject or it's totally uninteresting in his eyes. At home, he's always busy finding himself alone in his room, each time with new interests. He rarely finishes what he's so passionate about. Empty seems to be his future when Max is thirteen years old and the boredom is obvious. He chooses to become a mediocre teenager and adapt to the mores at school. That seems to work for a few years.

The boredom stops when Max is twenty and the nightlife of the big city dives. There he is not understood, but the future is clear, too clear. The people around him don't trust it. And again Max thinks, "I'm too intelligent, the future is too frightening." Lonely he withdraws to his room, this time for good. He reads and writes a lot during the night hours, when it is quiet and the loneliness seems less large because no one is there. He's going too fast, too far, and he's falling apart. A lot of years of help, which doesn't really help, with small revivals and larger falls determine the time.

His armor is large and his body sours. Max gets diseases. The light goes out and everything gets heavier. Death and evil get stuck and everything seems lost. How could it have come to this? The ties to life have been severed, the unity of mind and body, of nature and of being broken. Being sick turns out to be very unhealthy. Yet there comes a moment when the light returns. From that day on, he put himself fully into making some of his life, although very few still understand anything about him. It hurts, of course, but he's on a mission. He lives his passions and tries to go his own way. And he still does, and often Max is happy.

From two sides

Posted On by bertie

As it storms outside and rains hard, I try to find peace and balance to follow the spiritual path from the middle. Bipolar, a left half in the autism spectrum and a right half in the schizophrenic spectrum of the brain are a side effect of creativity. Creativity of creative, material and psychological leads to spirituality. Spirituality is one of the advantages of the REM state.

The right half, the place of fantasy and emotions, as part of the large brain, part of the cerebral cortex, is controlled when it goes well by the rational, logical thinking and analysis of the left half. The corpus collosum . the bundle of nerves that separates the hemispheres of the brain, also called the brain beam, acts as a bridge or blockage for the processing of information. It seems that in autism, which is physically expressed not only in one place of the brain, but in larger networks over longer distances less jobs are visible in this brain beam. Which would be a consequence rather than a cause of autism. The idea is that people could function without a brain beam. The two hemispheres can still communicate with each other and the brain can develop normally.

It seems that there is no excuse so to the possibility to look up the middle road when you are not already there. Bipolar in practice means as much as blowing back and forth between two extremes, one moment cheerful, driven and optimistic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . By moment I mean a period of time that is relative. The state of mind in which someone is in may last an hour, a day or for example months. Someone can then always stay in the same state of mind. In any case, a middle road is a long way to go.

Here too, meditation, yoga and Mindfulness can help, in addition to medication that is also there. Creative people are more likely to become bipolar than less creative fellow people. Creativity in turn is again a prerequisite for spirituality, for spiritual behavior. Spirituality is almost always a struggle between the light and the dark, from two sides, to make a choice for extremes it seems. But what if you don't make the choice and are both late? The middle road, the road of the TAO. The resulting uniformity does not have to be boring, but can be an enrichment and offer opportunities for development that you may not now think possible.

Sensitive context?

Posted On by bertie

Context is alles voor sommigen. Maar wat wanneer je context ongevoelig bent of lijkt te zijn?

Hij hult zich in stilzwijgen, geen reactie, helemaal niets en hij maakt niet eens oogcontact. “Wat ben je stil, waar denk je aan? Heb ik iets verkeerds gezegd? Hij zit maar achter zijn computer, hele dagen kan hij met iets bezig zijn, onafgebroken, gefocust, maar mij ziet hij niet staan.” Komt er wel iets binnen?

Context ongevoelig, uiterlijk emotioneel en empathisch blind, maar van binnen gebeurt er van alles. “Tommy can you hear? Tommy can you see me? Tommy can you feel me?” – de rockopera Tommy laat het mooi zien. Waar hoort hij thuis, waar past hij bij?

De huizenhoge golven van gevoel van binnen, de woede, de angst, maar ook de liefde. Explosies. Prikkels, prikkels, prikkels, wat zijn het er veel! Dit is niet te doen! Was hij maar niet zo eerlijk. Eerlijk, zeg maar gerust onbehouwen, onbeschoft en ongevoelig is hij.

Sociaal onhandig is hij, nooit weet hij wat te zeggen, of hoe contact te maken en een hekel aan prietpraat heeft hij. Dingen heel letterlijk nemen, metaforen hebben geen betekenis. Veranderingen zijn uit den boze, alles heeft zijn plek, zijn tijd en zijn ritme. Houdt alles onder controle, zijn omgeving weet er alles van, met zijn geordendheid valt niet te spotten. Control freak. Maar wel heel trouw. Eén op één contact gaat het nog wel, maar met meerdere vrienden erbij is het aan het gesprek deelnemen nauwelijks te doen. Hij valt stil.

Het oog voor details is jaloers makend of toch niet? Waar is het grote plaatje? Waar is het overzicht? Waarom duurt het zo lang voor het kwartje valt?

Hij weet nog precies waar, wanneer hij welke langspeler gekocht heeft en vaak ook wat hij er voor betaalde. Muziek is een wereld apart. Een wereld waar hij tot leven komt.

Buiten de kaders kunnen denken, goed in herkennen van patronen en regelmatige structuren en een perfectionist, nauwkeurig ook. Uren kan hij ergens aan werken tot het goed genoeg is. Of … is het wel goed genoeg?

Veel vraagtekens. Komt je dat bekend voor? Ken je zo iemand? Laat hem of haar in zijn waarde, zoek er niet teveel achter, hou het rustig. Blijf een beetje voorspelbaar als het kan en verander niet teveel, in ieder geval niet te snel. “See me, feel me, touch me”. Ben jij zo iemand? Probeer er over te praten met iemand die je vertrouwt.

energy consumption

Posted On by bertie

Man, mammals in general, have developed the possibility of contextual thinking through consciousness, to prevent too much energy being lost in chasing unfeasible tendencies. This energy saving is necessary because our warm-blooded body needs a lot of energy to stay at a temperature of about 36.8 degrees. If man or animal followed his tendency to react with an action at every event, he would soon be exhausted in energy. That this is not just a mechanical reaction, but a learning process proves, among other things, the experiment with the dog of Pavlov, who knew by conditioning that there will be food when the bell sounds. So it can happen that animals do not just act but wait for the coast to be safe, for example when crossing a busy road.

Uit experimenten blijkt dat de geschiedenis van ervaringen wordt opgeslagen en dat daarvan geleerd kan worden. Er is een systeem ontstaan dat de stroom van onbewuste indrukken afzet tegen gelijke opgeslagen ervaringen en deze peilt. Dit gebeurt in de hersen in de Anterieure Cingulate Gyrus, een witte ceintuur om de hersenbalk in het Limbisch systeem van de hersenen. Dit laatste wordt ook wel het zoogdierenbrein genoemd. Het zoekt uit of een prikkel bewust moet worden, waarna meestal een handeling volgt, die energie kost. Wist je trouwens dat het menselijk brein tot 20% van de dagelijkse energie-inname verbruikt?

De mens of het dier, kan, wanneer de informatie in een context is geplaatst, zelf beslissen of het het nodig vindt energie in een actie te stoppen. Maar wat gebeurt er met als emotie aangevoerde prikkel tot handelen wanneer er geen gevolg aan wordt gegeven? Wordt dat in ergens in het brein opgeslagen? Om te voorkomen dat er een enorm vat aan conflicterende impulsen ontstaat in het brein is er de REM slaap. Tijdens het dromen in de slaap worden onderdrukte impulsen uitgeleefd op een veilige manier doordat de spieren van het lichaam die de beweging uitvoeren ontspannen worden en niet kunnen reageren op de prikkels.

Het hele proces is vergelijkbaar met parallel processing van computers, die natuurlijk een afspiegeling zijn van wat er in de natuur al was, zoals veel uitvindingen. Hoe meer informatie gelijktijdig kan worden verwerkt, hoe groter het brein, wat de theorie dat grote breinen intelligenter zijn kan verklaren. Hoe meer plek om de informatie te gelijker tijd te verwerken hoe meer mogelijkheid dit af te zetten tegen de ervaringsgeschiedenis binnen een bepaalde context. Het lijkt erop dat mensen binnen het autisme spectrum dit in meer of mindere mate minder goed kunnen. Ik schijn zelf mij ergens in het autisme spectrum te bevinden en heb moeite aan te komen, sterker nog ik val heel makkelijk af. Blijkbaar verdoe ik teveel energie met het najagen van bijzaken.

participation mystique

Posted On by bertie

Vandaag weer eens geprobeerd iets te regelen via een website op internet. Verkeerde wachtwoord, nieuw wachtwoord aangevraagd en ingevoerd. Helaas moet ik nogmaals een wachtwoord aanvragen om mij onverklaarbare redenen en daarna wordt mijn account geblokkeerd, omdat er teveel niet valide inlogpogingen zijn geweest. Een paar dagen ervoor heb ik al geprobeerd mijn vraag via de telefoon opgelost te krijgen, waarbij na twintig minuten in de wacht zitten, of eerder geïrriteerd rondlopen, tot twee keer toe de verbinding verbroken werd.

Wat verlang ik op zulke momenten terug naar een leven in de Gouden Era, een in mijn ogen Tolkien-achtige wereld, waar ik in mijn nakie door de bossen kan rennen, terwijl de zon altijd schijnt en het leven mijn toelacht. In een pure pre-maatschappij-achtige oerstaat waarbij ik diep contact ervaar met de natuur: de bomen en planten, de dieren op de grond en in de lucht. Een animistische paradijselijke toestand waarin alles goed en weldadig is en ik niets nodig heb, behalve heerlijk helder sprankelend onbedorven bronwater en onbespoten bessen en ander fruit om van te leven.

Geen zorgen over geld, niet dat ik die nu heb, maar het hele leven lijkt er in deze era toch om te draaien, geen ziektes, geen problemen van medische of psychische aard, geen bezit, geen macht anders dan magische of mystieke. Regelmatig betrap ik mijzelf erop dat ik de wereld en de maatschappij vanuit dit vergezicht de maat neem en dan helemaal klaar ben met het huidige leven in onze westerse maatschappij. Maar ja wat kan ik doen? Ik ben niet zo’n idealist die zich terugtrekt op een afgelegen boerderij aan de rand van Nederland en zijn eigen groente gaat verbouwen. Hoewel ik een heilig respect heb voor de mens die dat wel doet.

Eigenlijk bevind ik mijzelf in een alles of niets situatie. Zwelgend in materialisme met mijn geluidsinstallatie en platenverzameling en mijn fotocamera’s proberen iets van genot te vinden in deze aardse wereld of een totale vlucht in een betere hogere metafysische wereld waar ik geen toegang tot heb. Ik denk dan dat ik misschien wel direct gereïncarneerd ben vanuit mijn eerste jagers-verzamelaarsleven, naar ongeveer halverwege eeuw waarin ik geboren ben dit keer. De overstap is te groot. Er zit niets anders op dan te wachten tot ik dood ga en misschien kan reïncarneren via de schoot van een vrouw die zo’n 14.000 jaar geleden leeft.