Thelema and Psychodynamics
-
Recently i've been studying Freud's psychodynamics theories and started to mix the concepts with Thelema and magick practices. These thinking led to some interesting comparisons and understandings on how both theories could work in parallel.
I find it worth noting that both concepts were developed almost simultaneously, and i don't think Crowley or Freud had contact with each others work. At least not until the 1920's. Could some more informed person corroborate my assumption?Freud's theory works around the dynamics between three forces:
Outside world: this is "real life". The world in it's physical manifestation.
Id: the basics desires. It's our emotion on a more instinctual basest manner. It prefer instant gratification despite the risks and costs attached to that. On Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the Id is Mr Hyde.
Super-ego: the conscience and guilt. The judge applying self-punishment when perceiving your intent is wrong, the concept of wrong being very personal, although universal in some aspects.Trying to balance the dynamics we have the Ego. The ego's job is to appease the Id, while avoiding the super-ego, taking into account the outside world.
My take is that the concept of the Knowledge and Conversation with you HGA is somewhat akin to get the Ego to undress the Id and get an understanding of it's core desires and objectives, as one's True Will. Further along the path, the act of crossing the abyss means to release the super-ego by understanding and accepting that there's no wrong in the path of your True Will, as well as getting the impulses of the Id at peace with the Ego.
So, what are your opinions on this? I believe there's some serious potential in the association of these concepts. There's a lot more to Freud than Oedipus Complex…
-
@Shiva Tseba'oth said
"My take is that the concept of the Knowledge and Conversation with you HGA is somewhat akin to get the Ego to undress the Id and get an understanding of it's core desires and objectives, as one's True Will."
I have to disagree. Besides making common error of confusing discovery of True Will with attaining to the K&C, your description just doesn't describe the K&C at all. (The necessary concepts to describe this don't exist in Freud's theories at all, though they do emerge in Jung's.)
"Further along the path, the act of crossing the abyss means to release the super-ego by understanding and accepting that there's no wrong in the path of your True Will, as well as getting the impulses of the Id at peace with the Ego."
That's a good theory, and there are some interesting ideas to develop there; but, again, this isn't what crossing the Abyss is about. For one thing, it involves a disidentification from the ego (in the sense that identity was held previously).
But perhaps more important is that this confrontation with the Freudian super-ego likely will have come much earlier. At least very substantial parts of this will have been encountered (as some variation of the 'dweller on the threshold') in the approach to Tiphereth and the K&C. If not sufficiently addressed there, it's certainly going to kick the snot out of the adept in Geburah.
I think the barrier you're bumping up against is that Freud functionally disavowed the exact type of spiritual aspects of the psyche which you are attempting to describe in terms of his theories. Their essential components don't exist in his theories.
-
@Jim Eshelman said
"I think the barrier you're bumping up against is that Freud functionally disavowed the exact type of spiritual aspects of the psyche which you are attempting to describe in terms of his theories. Their essential components don't exist in his theories."
Yes, and I think you're right to point to Jung as the place to look for it. I used to be a bit wary of Jung (for a long time I favoured Freud, thinking that the extensions of his work by his successors were too much, too soon, just an attempt to be "original"), but since looking at McLennan's interpretation of Jung (through evolutionary biological lenses), I think I see more what he was getting at.
Basically Freud is a subset of Jung. Jung says that ALL our instincts poke through to consciousness via dreams and "borderland" experiences. The sexual instinct is but one among many - the others being the other Archetypes. "Our instincts", in this broad usage, means: yearnings-for-triggers. Instincts are body-activity patterns that function automatically, that get triggered on the appearance in the environment of the appropriate signs. e.g., hormonal changes in adolesence incline the child to start seeking sexual activity (it sees sexual signs in its environment, and these trigger its body into hunting-for-sex mode). The Archetypes therefore represent our instincts, our non-conscious programming - but when you think about it really deeply, that includes not just what goes on inside the skin bag but also outside it, it includes all the way down to the non-conscious programming of the world we call "physics", which means, on the psychological level, "God".
Or to put it another way, everything I am is supported by non-conscious processes that have their own life and integrity (indeed, it may have been a whole way of getting about the world at one time). Those include brain events (body-controlling processing), but brain events are themselves built on chemistry events, which are in turn built on physics events. "Everything I am" ultimately includes everything. All these "levels" of being *speak *in our minds in some way: at the superficial levels, we have our programming that expects and looks for "mother" in the world, for "father", for "friend", for "lover", for "wisdom", etc., etc., and then the seeking, the yearning, goes right down to "God", to the ultimate, ultimate, to the ultimate Substance that gives character to creation. That instinct too, the instinct for Existence to behold its own creation and delight in it, speaks in us.
Now each of these is a "god" or an "angel" or a "demon" or a "spirit", to us. "It" speaks to us in dreams and we can (supposedly) encounter it in astral travel. The Archetype is our representation, in symbols we understand, of one of these deep instincts in us, and, sometimes, the deep "instincts" that are the cosmic forces of the Universe.
That would be the theory anyway, FWIW.
-
@Jim Eshelman said
"
@Shiva Tseba'oth said
"My take is that the concept of the Knowledge and Conversation with you HGA is somewhat akin to get the Ego to undress the Id and get an understanding of it's core desires and objectives, as one's True Will."I have to disagree. Besides making common error of confusing discovery of True Will with attaining to the K&C, your description just doesn't describe the K&C at all. (The necessary concepts to describe this don't exist in Freud's theories at all, though they do emerge in Jung's.)"
I guess Freud's Superego would correspond to Ruach/Daath and True Will is what emanates from beyond that. However, there does seem to be some correspondence between KCHGA and "undressing the Id" since, as yourself pointed out, Liber LVX contains lots of Nephesh imagery. Would it be more accurate to say KCHGA involves the sanctification of Nature?
-
@he atlas itch said
"I guess Freud's Superego would correspond to Ruach/Daath and True Will is what emanates from beyond that. However, there does seem to be some correspondence between KCHGA and "undressing the Id" since, as yourself pointed out, Liber LVX contains lots of Nephesh imagery."
I think your scale is off. Superego, as he defined it, is an aspect of subconscious, so below Ruach level, and nowhere near Daath. (I agree that it has some behavioral characteristics of Ruach, but I think these are just subconscious' tendency to mirror.) It's Saturnian characteristics are perhaps best explained by the Path of Tav.
Pure Will emerges into the psyche far below the Abyss, and even below Tiphereth. You've put it way to high on the Tree. (Critical TW breakthroughs characteristically happen at Yesod, but I'd rank that as an observation and not an attribution.)
You're onto something, though, in your remarks on the approach to K&C. "Undressing the Id" seems pretty late there - in the A.'.A.'. system that would have gotten a serious handling at Yesod, and some serious 'completion' at Netzach, and a whole lot of Drano in Dom. Lim. But, even then, the working of the Paths of A'ayin and Nun en route to Tiphereth still have their own unique "tour of Hell" quality for many.
"Would it be more accurate to say KCHGA involves the sanctification of Nature?"
Not a bad phrase. Potentially misleading sometimes, but not bad.
Crowley is quite clear in Liber Samekh that the union occurs in subconsciousness. (The method of Liber Samekh has one consciously existing in the field of subconsciousness, so there is much collaboration of the various layers of the psyche.) The Nephesh images are quite indicative of the field in which the sanctification occurs. (It took me a long time to realize that the imagery of K&C in Tiphereth is substantially imagery of the Nephesh, while those symbols and ideas most prevailing in discussions around the Ordeal of the Abyss are Ruach symbols.)
-
Would it be reasonable them the concept that the True Will is in the core of the Id?
@Jim Eshelman said
"
"Would it be more accurate to say KCHGA involves the sanctification of Nature?"Not a bad phrase. Potentially misleading sometimes, but not bad."
I fail to understand this.
What is the definition of Nature? -
93,
@Shiva Tseba'oth said
"What is the definition of Nature?"
Probably everything 'out of your control'--or so seeming.
93 93/93