Life and Life-Energy

Chapter 5

Table of Psychological Correspondences

I. Phases of transformation of psychic energy in the formation of identity: The Rebirth Mechanism

II. The archetypal family: Father, Mother and Child. The domestic drama as metaphor for psychic renewal: Conflict, Death, Insemination, Pregnancy, Birth.

III. The 3 physical energy cycles: Potential accumulation ; Potential to Kinetic cycling ; Kinetic discharge.

IV. The fundamental emotions: Depression (attachment to Past), Anxiety (to Present), Anger (to Future).

V. The categories of Time: Past, Present and Future. Their incorporation in the Instant.

VI. Philosophical categories: Being, Non-Being, Becoming.

Local and Global Linkages of Emotional Interaction

The psychological state underlying someone’s behavior exerts a strong influence on the mental states of persons dependent upon or attached to him. This influence extends far beyond the local context of human relationships. These external chains of transformations of life energy complement the internal cycles within each individual to which we have given the name of the Rebirth Mechanism.

The entanglement of internal and external dynamics lays down a multiply-branching network which, through connections between communities, may reach across nations and even the entire planet. The complex interactions of emotive networks contribute to the creation of a global mental climate. Indeed the degrees of separation between the psychic connections of persons may be much smaller than we believe. Zen Buddhism has a keen grasp of this phenomenon. Our inter-connectedness is formed from invisible yet surprisingly durable threads, so that a single heedless act may cause calamity at a long distance from our immediate circumstances.

Taking its inspiration from hypnotists such as Anton Mesmer, the Christian Scientists maintain that a single poisoned heart can contaminate the mental, and even physical, health of the entire planet. There is considerable exaggeration in this of course, but one does see it on a small scale in normal human interactions. In popular jargon, the phenomenon becomes the condition known as “bad vibes”. In the 21^st century these intangible webs of psychic determinism have been materially enhanced by the development of Internet and the vogue for Social Networking.

In the internal mechanism of psychological adaptation, contingent Identity (Being) is affronted, challenged or undermined by external events (Non-Being). The withdrawal of conscious energy from mental structures creates a vacuum in perception. This state, akin to the death of the body, is at the origin of the Unconscious Mind. The energies aroused by this traumatic seed engender a state of psychological pregnancy (Becoming), from which the child of the spirit, the reborn self, will emerge, conditioned in a manner both creative and destructive, by previously unresolved psychic structures. This is the internal mechanism.

The external linkages and cycles which inter-connect the internal processes of individuals are as follows:

I. A state of Depression in myself arouses tendencies towards

Anxiety, worry and insecurity in my dependants, or in those bound to me by psychological attachment.

The grieving person withdraws into a shell, which renders him indifferent to the outer world. He may take comfort in memories, dreams and imagination. At the same time he withholds the conscious attention that would allow him provide protection to others. If they are dependent on him, they will respond with worry, fear of the future and anxiety. Imagine a child crying because it has burned its hand, while his depressed mother sits in a chair, reading a book.

II. A condition of Anxiety in myself can arouse the sentiments

and behavior patterns of a state of Anger in my dependents. The thermal cycle of conversion of potential energy into heat, kindles the reactive state of hostility through suppression and application of force.

The anxious person may seek relief in drugs, vices and other psychological and physical opiates. His possessiveness leads to clashes and fights as he and his neighbors compete for property and territory. Such competition shifts the emphasis from gaining possession of the initiating source of energy, to the secondary objective of winning. So great is the need to win, that the prize itself may be sacrificed. Think of the overly anxious mother who prevents her child from going outdoors because of exaggerated fears of possible dangers. The child must fight off the mother to escape.

III. A condition Anger in myself arouses tendencies

towards Depression in persons attached to me. The intention of the hostile individual is to gain control of the present by commanding the future. This blocks the future aspirations of his subordinates. The blocking of the future annihilates hope. The annihilation of hope leads to despair; out of despair comes Depression.

There is, at the same time a distinction between the inner state of feelings of the individual, and the emotional release that is externalized by behavior. A good analogy is provided by the phenomenon of color: a green leaf is also red: the green is reflected by its substance, while the red is absorbed as heat and enters into the process of photosynthesis. Thus:

I. The external expression of Depression is grief. The

anger and frustration that the grieving person feels are internalized in the form of an unrelieved and incurable bitterness. One can characterize Depression as a state of Anger turned against oneself.

II. The Anxious person will externalize his mental chaos while at the same time he internalizes his acute unhappiness. At the base of his frantic gyrations from one idle enthusiasm to the next, lies an incurable dissatisfaction with life. No anxiety is more acute than that which is coupled with enforced boredom. The combination with the spectre of an

uncertain future makes such suffering all the more acute. The

miseries of imprisonment and solitary confinement stem from such

anxiety.

III. In the same way, the Angry person externalizes his frustrations in the form of rage, while internalizing his fear of the future, that is to say his Anxiety. Although the behavior of an angry individual may take the form of directed violence, the internal person is helpless in the grips of instability and chaos. One seeks through anger to restore or sustain some tangible reference frame, some secure foothold in a turbulent world. Insecurity is the keynote: insecurity causes panic, giving rise to the need to bring about the restoration of order through the use of force. Anger is counter-anxiety.

Each of the primary emotional states arises as in reaction to

some perceived external reality: one does not normally experience

fear or grief, guilt or shame, unless there is something to be afraid

of, a loss to be grieved, a deed acknowledged as wrong, a loss of

self-respect. One reacts defensively towards a perceived threat,

positively towards a perceived benefit. The sequence of phases

involving dependency, transformation and activity are reiterated,

both in Man and Nature, through the coupling of energy storage

with energy liberation. One finds them in the cosmic cycles of

biology, chemistry, physics and cosmology, the carbon-nitrogen

cycle of living interdependency on the earth, the hydrogen-helium

energy cycle in the sun, and so forth.

In the simplistic model of the electrical circuit, the potential-kinetic

coupling of energy is present in the transformation of

chemical energy in a battery (exchange), its suppression through

resistence ( kinetic), and storage in a stored in a capacitor.

The homology of the physical and psychic cycles of energy

transformation unifies all of Nature, inner and outer, as an awe-inspiring

and stupendous architecture. The description of this

unity is part of the heritage of European philosophy, being

present as far back as the world systems of the pre-Socratic

philosophers, notably those enunciated by Anaximander,

Heraclitus and Anaxagorus.

This “doctrine of correspondences” resurfaces in the belief systems of the medieval alchemists, who developed a language of symbolic substances that simultaneously describes chemical reactions and the stages of spiritual transformation. Our expression, “to sublimate” comes from this tradition.

Bound Energy; Free Energy

The spontaneous creativity that characterizes the living

nature is driven by the power of life-energy. Suffering arises from

the binding of life-energy to features of the inanimate cosmos. As interpreted by the ideas presented in this essay, "mental illness" is the external manifestation of the suppression or reduction of the innate creativity of life-energy to the unregenerative, conservative cycles of

physical energy transformation: Potential, Thermal and Kinetic,

corresponding to the mental states of Depression, Anxiety and

hostility.

Those aptitudes which are normal to the spiritual being,

sensitivity, love, empathy, compassion, tolerance and so on, are

blocked through the enslavement to causal mechanisms.

Behavior patterns latent in the Unconscious reduce free vitality to

a banal materialism . Such bondage cannot be overcome by reason

alone, but only through a process of adjustment that assimilates

the root conditions of the illness to the holism of a higher state.

The flow of life-energy through the human psyche is either

free or obstructed. In some sense we've returned (hopefully at a

higher level of sophistication) to Franz Anton Mesmer's theory of the magnetic fluid. When the flow is obstructed our psychic energy is bound up in some unresolved shocking or traumatic experiences. A sick

mind is therefore one in which a sick mental process is operative.

Life-energy in its bound state is likely to exhibit such traits as

egoism, vanity, self-love, self-pity, cynicism, neurotic guilt,

obsessions, rigid patterns of behavior, and blind clinging to a self-referential system of beliefs impervious to all argument. Apposite

to each negative trait of the mind in bondage there is a

corresponding state in the mind that is free. In the psycho-analytic system, bound psychic energy is called a “cathexis”, its release a “catharsis”.

Life-energy is therefore present in the human psyche in two

conditions, bound and free. The former is limited in potential and

in action. The other is unfettered and potentially limitless.

Let’s consider some quotations. The first is from an essay by William James: "The Energies of Men “(William James; Writings 1902-1910, page 1226; Library of America, 1987):

“The existence of reservoirs of energy that habitually are not

tapped is most familiar to use in the phenomenon of 'second wind'.

Ordinarily we stop when we meet the first effective layer, so to call it, of

fatigue. We have then walked, played or worked 'enough' so we desist.

That amount of fatigue is an efficacious obstruction, on this side of

which our usual life is cast. But if an unusual necessity forces us to press

onward, a surprising thing occurs. The fatigue gets worse up to a critical

point, when gradually or suddenly it passes away, and we are fresher

than before. We have evidently tapped a level of new energy, masked until then by the fatigue-obstacle usually obeyed. There may be layer after layer of this experience. A third and a fourth 'wind' may supervene.

Mental activity shows the phenomenon as well as the physical, and in exceptional cases we may find, beyond the very extremity of fatigue distress, amounts of ease and power that we never dreamed ourselves to own, sources of strength habitually not taxed at all, because habitually we never push through the obstruction, never pass those early critical points. "

From Erich Fromm: “Escape From Freedom” (Avon 1972)

“The word ‘power’ has a two-fold meaning. One is the possession of

power over somebody, the ability to dominate him. The other meaning is

the possession of a power to do something, to be able, to be potent. The

latter meaning has nothing to do with domination; it expresses mastery

in the sense of ability....

Thus, power can mean one of two things, domination or potency. Far

from being identical, these two qualities are mutually opposed.

Impotence....results in the sadistic striving for domination...Power, in the

sense of domination, is the perversion of potency.”

From Heinrich Zimmer: “Myths and Symbols in Indian Art

and Civilization” (Princeton University Press, Bollingen Series VI, 1974)

Expounding upon Hindu philosophy, Zimmer makes reference to Maya and shakti. Maya designates a very general phenomenon, akin to the author’s “life energy”. Shakti corresponds to Fromm’s notion of ‘power’:

"Maya is any illusion, trick, artifice, jugglery, sorcery or work of

witchcraft; an illusory image or apparition, phantasm, optical illusion;

Maya is also any diplomatic trick or political artifice designed to

deceive....At the same time, Maya is the supreme power that generates

and animates the display: the dynamic aspect of the universal Substance.

Thus it is at once, effect (the cosmic flux), and cause, (the creative

power). In the latter regard it is known as Sákti, “Cosmic Energy”. The

noun sákti is from the root sák, signifying ‘to be able, to be possible’.

Sákti is ‘power, ability, capacity, faculty, strength, energy, prowess; regal

power; the power of composition, poetic power, genius; the power or

signification of a word or term; the power inherent in cause to produce

its necessary effect; an iron spear, lance, pike, dart; a sword."

Although ‘shakti’ translates as spiritual energy, it does not

always manifest itself in a loving form: its presence can be

discovered in the action of the sword, the might of the tyrant, in

poetic power or genius, even in the compassion of a saint. Shakti

is Maya directed by living motivation. Such motivation may be

free, thus wholly conscious , or bound, therefore partly conscious

and partly unconscious. In the malevolence of the tyrant one finds

a living energy that is identical in every respect to the passion

firing the altruistic love of a saint. Fromm’s categories of power and potency relate to an identical resource of psychic vitality. It is the state of mind alone which establishes the distinction between them.

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