Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Of Toxic Oneness and the God of Gators - Reorientation Assisted by Edward F. Edinger's Jungian Input

Lady Liberty out in the Bay signalling despite more
than bluured chaos of divided waters, some rough, 
some smooth in after dusk city glow.  


Regarding toxic oneness I begin with a dream of duality given account of by Jungian analyst, Dr. Edward Edinger:

"The wine of Dionysus shares with the blood of Christ the qualities of reconciliation and communion. The dream of a young minister, which came to my attention, illustrates this point strikingly:

"Dream (abbreviated): I am to celebrate communion. In the sacristy, which looks like a kitchen, the communion wine is to be prepared by mixing two separate wines--a dark blue wine and a red wine. The latter is a bottle with a yellow label that looks like a Scotch label and is marked "Paul". At a round table, two men are sitting. One is a political leftist, the other a rightest. Up to now they have maintained a facade of social amenity but now they are becoming hostile to one another. I suggest that they ventilate at the gut level and resolve their feeling relationship. At this point the scene darkens as in a theater play and a red-yellow spotlight focuses on a small table between and behind the two men. On the table is a bottle of the warm red wine with the Scotch label clearly marked "Paul." Then there is total darkness and the tinkle of glasses, sounding as though they've been clinked and perhaps broken. The sense is obvious in the dream. I think: they've drunk the red wine in their discussion, attained comradeship, became drunk and in the process, fallen asleep and dropped their glasses. My response is delight in the aesthetic way this has been portrayed and anxiety about the fact that the service needs to begin and we do not now have the ingredients for the communion mixture."

"This dream presents the interesting image of two wines--a blue one and a red one--perhaps symbolizing spirits of Logos and Eros. It shows that the dreamer has achieved a "lesser coniunctio", meaning marriage, a reconciliation with the shadow, but the "greater coniunctio" signified by the full communion service with both wines is not yet ready to take place.

"Regressive dissolution and conscious reconciliation of differences are sometimes confused or contaminated with one another. The blood or wine of Christ or Dionysus can cause either."

-Edward Edinger, Ego and Archetype, The Religious Function of the Psyche", pg. 248-249

In Edinger's book, Anatomy of the Psyche, Alchemical Symbolism in Psychotherapy, pgs. 66-67, he reports the same dream and comments:

"The dreamer's psychology is not known to me in depth; however, it is evident that Dionysian and Christian symbolism are here combined. Although the union of the two wines—perhaps Logos and Eros—remains to be achieved, a solutio [the alchemical process of dissolving solids into liquid form] has occurred that dissolves the opposition between leftist and rightest, although at the price of consciousness since they fall asleep. In this case, as is often true, there is a confusion between authentic reconciliation of opposites though greater consciousness and a regressive dissolution which blues awareness of the opposites."

Ego and Archetype was published in the early 1970's. Since Edinger's books are largely drawn from his analystical practice, lectures and Jungian training seminars, one can assume that the dream reported above occurred in the 1960's, a volatile time of war and political unrest attempting to bring about a collective coniunctio of racial, gender, political and regional opposites, of "red states" and "blue states" though these attributions of colors to politically affiliated U.S. states was not then used. This fact makes the dream even more interesting as it heralds the use of "red states"/"blue states" currently in use.

Although a political "solutio" apparently occurred in the Civil Rights Act of the 1960's, and long, too long overdue, an authentic psychosocial coniunctio has yet to be achieved in the "land of the free". It can be historically argued that for all the lauding of the American democratic "melting pot" (coniunctio language and imagery) the authentic coniunctio Edinger refers to in the dream above has not yet occurred though it is "written" on paper in the U.S. Constitution. As the dream suggests, authentic reconciliation of the opposites (the both coniuntios, lesser and greater) are hardly ever achieved personally much less socially/collectively.

Given the recent resurgence nationally of unrepentant racism, regionalism and pathological patriotism with fanatical religious tints, the theater lights, to borrow from the dream image above, are turned up bright upon stage and auditorium illuminating sleeping actors and audience, both unconscious for it is a terribly humbling and at times humiliating thing to confront one's own unconsciousness and personal shadow. Easy platitudes and gestures of reconciliation, wishful statements of "oneness" and even the pietistic/patriotic mouthing of truths as yet to be understood much less integrated "that all men are created equal", may and do create momentary emotional states of "oneness" (as wine does reduced to sincere though mawkish sentimentality--and America is one of the most sentimental of collectives moving from one addictive sentiment to the other but without depth of feeling matched/mated with insight and integration) but are reduced to glibness and hollow repetition unable to disguise real reptilian/primitive instincts perceiving the red or the blue as a threat and acting accordingly but with self-righteous, Bible and flag-draped "authority" attached to murderous, separating intentions.

Each individual must confront the reptile, the lizard within and rather than take it to "the theater", costume it in angelic robes, wipe its ass with sweet unguents and spraying perfume all around (cosmetics-are-us) one must like Job see the chthonic dark side of not only self but of God. Jung's as yet to be assimilated much less understood intuition that in integrating our own opposites we are integrating those of our gods points us to do our own inner work which is more likely to create authentic cultural change than all the extroverted acts in the world.

In another Edinger book, The Psyche In Antiquity, Vol. One, in the chapter on Mani, the originator of Manicheanism, an account is given from Manichean texts of the battle between the "sons of light" (Light = all good) and the "sons of darkness (Dark = all evil). The sons of light are defeated in a cosmic battle of good and evil. In the tricksterish image of authentic psyche which votes for neither good or evil, light or dark, but accepts and contains both, the sons of darkness as victors eat the sons of light. In so eating the sons of light the sons of darkness are contaminated by the sons of Light and are therefore made less evil! Edinger astutely (and relievedly) points out that one is "perfected" (etymologically, perfection means "complete" as is in ripening which implies a process of maturing in space and time) not by imitating the sons of Light, curtsying to one another with a "peace and blessings" and a "namaste", but by consciously "eating" assimilating (or at least struggling) both dark and light. Becoming identified or identifying others as either does not "perfect" or mature/develop ripen an individual or culture.

To repeat in order to stress the problem of evil is not resolved (solutio-ed) by identity with either side of the opposites but by tolerating the tension between the opposites; the image of Christ in the middle of the vertical and horizontal poles of the cross depicts this suspension and meaningful suffering which leads to the reconciling third image of resurrection which is not an ascension into all good and Light (this is clearly depicted in the imagery of the Book of Revelations where Christ-once-the-Lamb-of-God returns apocalyptically as the Avenging Ram of God exacting vengeance upon "evil" thus illustrating, too, that clearly the Christian religion has failed to solve the problem of the opposites, of good and evil, but this is another essay, one already written in many of Jung's later books.

A man dreamed for years of being pursued by dark men of various racial groups. These men were threatening and for years in dreams he avoided them, ran from them but in spite of his efforts to flee was forced in dream scenario after dream scenario to fight them, to confront them. These "dark" men carried rejected values forced into shadow by clan, clergical groups and culture, they were projected to be the "sons of darkness" as in the Mani text above. As he worked these repressed, despised, rejected and projected aspects of shadow self the dreams and the client transformed, became more human, less identified with All Good/Light. He recovered the values of the Dark, the night, the instinctual/chthonic aspects of human beingness and existence. 

In confirmation of this he dreamed of hearing a strange but familiar voice in almost complete darkness. In a space "in between" the more distant city illuminated with a blue light on the horizon and an intense immense solid blackness the voice called from the this darker than dark region. He strained his eyes to see into this darkness and ultimately saw two small lights close together punctuating the blackness. With fear and trembling he turned fully toward that darkness and traced his way slowly toward the lights which did not grow brighter as he approached but emanated instead an intense visual vibration. As he grew closer he smelled rich odors of mud, trees, water; he heard lapping sounds and knew that he was on the edge of a swamp. The voice, louder now, beckoned him to enter further. Mustering his last bit of courage, knowing his fate had led him to this encounter, he stepped into the swamp boldly, splashing loudly. As he awakened from the dream he saw that the lights were the eyes of a larger than life alligator and realized that this was no ordinary gator but the "God of Gators" -

Upon awakening he wrote:

I know only that deep night,
that way beyond sentimentality,
that way over and beyond
"the Path"but into the thicket,
the swamp, where the
god of gators waits,

submerged,

calling to me to step less
lightly upon the world.


One must recognize the all too easy temptation and avoid a toxic "Oneness", being overly identified with and thus overvaluing of one opposite over the other. Toxic Oneness is similar to that drunken solutio of wine and many ecstatic religions/religious experiences where one is emotionally "dissolved" and suddenly "one" with others, with the universe, but upon sobering up into the hard dark night or the bright harsh light of day, realizes that one is comprised ever again of both dark and light. The reconciliation of the opposites may be glimpsed in wine and "god" drunkenness but is without lasting gains nor is this state sustained. Rather, the most difficult work of ongoing confrontation with the unconscious, the personal and archetypal, the shadow in its various forms, and ongoing attempts at least to reconcile the opposites within oneself leads to greater wholeness.

This most valuable work implies assent, rendered in time, to hang, as the Hanged Man card of the Tarot depicts, upon the cross of the opposites undergoing a sacred process not created by one's self or will but by what Jung calls the Self, that central organizing transpersonal factor/dynamic beyond ego requiring something beyond gator selves and fetishized local deities of light. This suspension upon the cross is called by San Juan de la Cruz "the dark night of the soul". It is an emptying process called kenosis. It's parallel is found in all religions, major and minor throughout human history and the world. The suffering is not gratuitious and arbitrary but has a telos, a purpose though it can only be gained by enduring and by the benefit of recorded human history which traces in time the unfolding pattern of consciousness-making dependent about and resultant upon the very opposites of dark and light, instinct and reason, nature and spirit, unconsciousness and consciousness.

Although it is completely understandable, a premature dissolving into Oneness without the necessary engaging in the most difficult crushing work of confronting the opposites within oneself and enduring the suspension within and between dark and light, then for all the good intentions and utterly valid needs for soothing and hope, such a oneness is toxic which continues and reinforces the split within every human, human culture, and existence. Religions and spiritually-oriented communities and institutions would do well to recognize the Manichean splitting off cosmological, theological, psychological into all good and Light which only feeds the split and the sons of darkness which we already are.

**

This book was published in 1993...The Guru Papers, Masks of Authoritarian Power is encyclopedic in dissecting the various aspects of psyche involved in toxic oneness....worth owning if in recovery from pathological religion and trying to do so:

Friday, March 28, 2025

Lean Against the Mountain - Me & Blue Cliff - A Zennish Sesshin


[All photos by Warren Falcon.  All rights reserved]


Today I am the Buddha who quits. - Jack Kerouac

Every revelation partook more of significant darkness than of explanatory light. - Herman Melville, Moby Dick


Blue Cliff Record — my equivalent: 

Gray Chasm Stammers

once pretending toward zen
Blue Ridge Mountain records years, late now in hand - 

who was this person?

D'just arrived from Lookout Mountain shadow, 
Calvin's grim stain aka my first middle and last name - 
I only knew then that I would no longer write it or any 
name until I had gained a sense of who, what, how, why:

"At yet another Lookout,
escaped the first one to
Mountain Retreat, more
fog rolls in, not seeing
my hand, can only feel 
a face, know at last how 
blind I really am."


"Blue Cliff master asks,

What is this I?

Not that again? I complain.
How dull. How boring.
How unanswerable.

BC - Turn then to shapely thought
turned by shapely mind.

A mandrill's ass, I answer.

An easy point, says he, be free of self hatred.
It is all too easy to negate. Ease is the gate of hell
thus the problem of American pragmatism and 
positive thinking.

Wha'? Tell me more, BC.

Easy to negate - easy to affirm. One squirms between the two,
either/or - reifying one or the other is idolatry.

OK? (me leaning in to hear more).

Pragmatism crept into American spiritual movements early on...
easier to think "as if" but soon's a whiff of sulphur and brimstone at the end. 
The ends do not necessarily lead to the intended means aka redemption.


Me -Then I lean against the mountain.


BC - Too much effort yet not enough stride, 

ride clouds over mountain, 
settle over a glen. 

Stillness is there. 
Or can be.

Come hot sun it all ends.
Was it ever there?
Rest your thoughts...

Angelus Silesius observes
"the rose lives without why"

Sigh

I lean against the mountain,
I have come from a far away place, BC.

As have we a.. Rest awhile. 
Your feet know what to do even if you don't. 


I lean against the mountain.

I have wasted so much time and still young.


So am I, says BC, quality of mind is everything.
Don't believe me because I say it. One attains it in the 
strangest of ways. Cannot tell you what that might be 
but if 3 times 3 equals 9 all is lost, but who is counting
or getting lost, for that matter.


I lean against the mountain.


Do not lean, BC advises - Attain.


I give up, I say.


BC - Now you are on the way - 

trials and travails.

Happy trails.

Hail and well met, Traveler.


Loose tongues, their slips - allowed.

Loose lips on the other hand...
why many a zen master counsels

"Go drink tea" - give your lips 
something to do besides flap.

KATZ! - Japanese word for

BITCH SLAP



from Scripts for the Pageant by James Merrill


March 28, 2925 Post Scripts Lips Still Flappin'

"Still at zen-hish-ness-nest - as I've said elsewhere (go here)
my zen I call "cheating zen" since it, zen, depends on cheating
in the word game, fair trade, fingers crossed behind of the back.

But now, too, my zen is summed accordingly:

FAT CHANCE!

For best results in zen of zen and other spiritual solutions 
the grit hits the road when one arrives at a mystical yet very
real X on the map in the transformation game, town called

ROPE'S END.

When arriving there, the welcome sign reads:

ABANDON ALL HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE.

Old Possum, T. S. Ersatz writes it clearly:

"For hope would be hope for the wrong thing."

I once shared T. S. Four Quartets with BC late 1970's and explained, from Christian mystics perspective, the meaning of the word "kenosis" aka emptying.  When I repeated the word he looked at me, shouted -

GESUNDHEIT!! 


Monday, March 17, 2025

But There IS a Thread (Rhymes W/Dread Not All The Time) - Of Giacometti, Empty Space, Chattanooga Smog-Draped Post-Calvin Despair, Bad Coffee, Greasy Hash Browns, Last Booth in the Diner of the World Unfurling

Soundtrack for what follows or veers below: Arvo Pãrt's "Spiegel im Spiegel (Version for Cello & Piano)"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3NcZxuvr6g&list=OLAK5uy_mkVJAbkQluwC0FY8I85J0BaiT2KSWzuIQ&index=3


          


"Giacometti sees empty space everywhere. Surely not everywhere, you will say, for some objects touch others. But this is exactly the point. Giacometti is certain of nothing. Not even that."


[But, I argue with Giacco - we are good friends and argue and ague often and offal - there is surprise which, as surprise, as happen, word of which means NOW, HERE, INSTANCY - which insists, indeed touches. What memory is for. Resonance of such aka

"on extended wings..."

"Much there is...."

"So much depends..."


"Beneath each eye there's some familiar look we refuse
We map our way to sleep in the palms of shy or frightened hands"


Jean Paul Sartre's essays on Giacometti impacted me positively and greatly as I was departing Christian barnacled piers of theology and culture which were/became poison to me. Sitting in a Steak and Eggs in downtown Chattanooga 1975 or so, having purchased a paperback of Sartre essays, Situations [link below, free to read at archive dot org], I opened to the Giacometti one, and an hour later, cup after cup of very bad coffee and whatever greasy plate I ordered, I nearly floated out of the joint psychologically, the beginnings thereof, rejoined and re-jointed the way a Giac. sculpture is, compressed, thinned so thin yet heavy, grounded, and placed or re-placed/presence-ed in now, so I "floated" more reality based in just where I was since Sartre was about that, the "what is" and in his articulation about the artist's dwelling within and without in the what presents and is apparently the "real" or "realer" I felt freer to sit closer to the tormented mal- and un- formed parts of me known and not but intuited, rather, felt....moods often mugging me or dragging out of bed (pallet on the floor) heavy with it all, Sartre located me in what presents as me and as life and inspired me even more to write, to art, to learn more, and to meet and greet the greasy plates of the real and

surreal, the bad coffee, the cheap Cherry Eric Cigars (ICH!) trying to be so grown up lol but they did smell great but I could barely taste food, beverage which was probably why I could eat Steak and Eggs hash browns, saturated with pork fat and the cigarette ashes the cretinous chef t the griddle dangled as if glued there to his bottom lip, ashes dropping on what was slabbed and spatula-ed around on the griddle, perhaps the secret to Steak and Eggs success, that special ingredient along with gods know what, but marvelously, deep South, "Christhaunted" undaunted insistence of violent deity proffering salvation from Its own violent nature [see Book of Job, see text on Jonah, et. al.] on road signs, highway signs ,reminding one and all pilgrims presti-peregrinators driving by that THE END IS NEAR sign (and I asked then and now - has IT even begun, the Beginning and to what ends "because I hope to not re: "Because I do not hope to turn again" - or return for that matter), JOHN 3:16, steeples tall or dilapidated, actually veritably

Giacometti-esgue, demarking "po' folks' w/Bibles and prolly authentic faith and "evidences thereof" since need was/is for grace to disrupt human displacement, varietals plenty dependent upon place, culture, et al....so, as an old Chinese poet proclaimed long ago having discovered grace long hard and slow, that what was sung in younger years finally arrived as grace near the end, that

"the ancient hymns have overtones."

And so does Giacometti. Really.

NOTE on "faith" - Sartre "redeems" the word extracted from traditional religious uses and abuses hibbity glibbity - I hear poet Theodore Roethke's first line to his poem "The Sequel" -

"Was I too glib about eternal things...."

I could and have preached many an impromptu sermon to hapless converters who would "hope to turn me again" to Barnacled Piers, Inc., reductions of Irreducible Mystery which, Virginia, has a history, even pre-history (see John C. Caputo, that there was a beginning before "the Beginning" - a Pre-ginning and, alas, but can't be helped the iterative beginning and beginning on some metaphysical foundations specter of "meaning". But I'll end here to say that Sartre uses the word/concept "faith" in terms of living in good or bad faith with/to/for self, other, existenz, hash browns,

corner of Crackhurst and Waffle House and back again, all amor fati

The eye observes, swerves to miss the Mexican kid chasing the ball into Same Ol' Street ('same as it ever was' - David Byrne) , notes it with caffeine amphetamine laced and traces "the visionary company" of love's'stubbed cigarettes, sputum maps coughed and spat, no need for genius, which used to mean something but not any more so 

on with the boring center line endlessly 

dividing though broken on purpose suggesting 

a way to veer. 


No guide needed here. 

Fear is the drive shaft, 

and longing turns the wheel. 


**

The Paintings of Giacometti by Jean Paul Sartre opens at this link:

https://archive.org/details/situations00sart/page/175/mode/1up

**


Dear Incomprehension

That distant gazebo of a small
town wears white lights garlanded
round, and snow.

A boy without gloves reads alone.

He is no fool who takes his time and
place to know.

*

In Your Mercy - Malcolm Holcombe