BUSH'S PSYCHIATRIC PROFILE: HE'S CERTIFIABLE
by Paul Levy
One good thing I can say about President Bush is that he's gotten me interested in politics. Before he came to office, I was mainly interested in spiritual matters, and considered politics a "distraction." There was something that I noticed getting played out through George W. Bush as president, though, that really got my attention. I was having a reaction to, and being triggered by something in him. In his campaign he promised us a foreign policy with humility, and yet, his actions seemed so arrogant, so full of hubris. I was sensing a deep incongruity in him, like there was some unfinished psychological process that he was unconsciously playing out. The problem was, though, that because of his position, his unconscious was playing itself out and being dramatized on the world stage, where it was negatively affecting the lives of billions of people. I saw that he was unwittingly evoking and literally creating more of the very situation that he was claiming to be fighting against. It was as if he was fighting against his own shadow, which is a battle that can never be won. There seemed an element of craziness in it.
I would like here to speak forth the marginalized voice. This voice is often joked about, but it is deadly serious. It is like there is an elephant in the living room, and more and more people are pointing at it. The emperor has no clothes, and people are noticing. Situations like this literally demand to be named. There is a field of fear and cover-up that gets constellated around someone like George Bush that inhibits people from speaking the truth. This is analogous to how people were afraid to disagree with Bush after 9/11 for fear of being called terrorists. ("You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists.") But the truth needs to be uttered.
George W. Bush is ill. He has a sickness of the soul, a psycho-spiritual dis-ease which is very prevalent and symptomatic of the times we live in. Because it is an illness that is in the soul of all humanity, and because he seems like such a "regular guy," it is very hard to recognize. The fact that Bush is sick might be a shock to some, but when you simply look at what I am pointing out, it is not hard to see. And once you get in focus what I am describing, it is easy to see it from then on, because it is so obvious. This is why most people miss it. It might involve changing your perception in a radical way, or maybe simply recognizing that these words articulate what so many of us experience and know in our hearts, but never had the words for.
I know this disorder intimately well because my father suffered from the exact same condition. Dealing with this illness in my father almost killed me, but because of my ordeal, I have unique insight into its dynamics. There are a number of ways of describing it, as it is a multi-faceted complex whose underlying, self-generating dynamic is to resist, at all costs, self-reflecting. At the root of this process is a deep dissociation, where the person splits-off from their own darker half and projects the shadow "out there," and then contracts against and tries to destroy their own dis-owned shadow. To quote C. G. Jung, one of the greatest psychologist of the twentieth century," The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided (not in touch with both the light AND dark parts of themselves) and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves."
It is not that the threat of terrorism is not real, but that Bush's policies in dealing with terrorism are actually putting fuel on the fire. The way Bush is fighting terrorism is actually the very act which is invoking and creating more of it in the first place. Talking about Bush's policies on terrorism and his pre-emptive invasion of Iraq, Al Gore says, "Instead of making it better, he has made it infinitely worse. We are less safe because of his policies. He has created more anger and righteous indignation against us as Americans than any leader of our country in the 228 years of our existence as a nation……He has exposed Americans abroad and Americans in every U.S. town and city to a greater danger of attack by terrorists because of his arrogance, willfullness, and bungling." Iraq, instead of being, as Bush declared, "the central front in the war on terror," has now become, as Gore points out, "the central recruiting office for terrorists." Gore continues, "the unpleasant truth is that President Bush's utter incompetence has made the world a far more dangerous place and dramatically increased the threat of terrorism against the United States." As the International Institute for Strategic Studies points out, the Iraq conflict "has arguably focused the energies and resources of Al Qaeda and its followers while diluting those of the global counterterrorism coalition."
Bush is not in conscious relationship to a part of himself, which is then possessing him from behind, beneath his conscious awareness, and enacting itself through him. By disassociating from his own shadow and projecting it onto a supposed "other," and wanting to destroy the other, he has become possessed by the very same darkness he is trying to destroy, just perpetuating the never-ending cycle of violence. It is truly a diabolical, infinitely-regressing, self-perpetuating, closed, negative feedback loop that is completely inverted and crazy-making. This is the repetition compulsion of the traumatized soul gone awry, to daemonic proportions. In the repetition compulsion, the way the person tries to resolve their trauma is the very act which recreates it. To err is human, to persevere ("stay the course") in error is truly diabolical.
By projecting the shadow, to again quote Jung, "it deprives us of the capacity to deal with evil." Jung stresses the importance of consciously developing what he calls one's "imagination for evil," which is to consciously recognize one's potential for evil and integrate one's dark side into one's wholeness, which includes both light and dark. If we have no imagination for evil, to quote Jung, "evil has us in its grip…….for only the fool can permanently disregard the conditions of his own nature. In fact, this negligence is the best means of making him an instrument of evil."
By projecting the shadow, Bush is unwittingly being a conduit for the deepest, archetypal evil to possess him and act itself out through him. At the same time, ironically enough, he is identified with the light and imagining that he is divinely inspired. He then believe that any action he desires is justified in the name of God, as he can rationalize it as being God's will. This is a very dangerous situation, as Bush has become identified with and possessed by the hero, or saviour archetype. This figure is religious in nature, as it derives from the transpersonal, archetypal dimension of the collective unconscious. Being inflated with the hero archetype, he (archetypically) wants to save the world from evil and liberate the planet.
This behavior is symptomatic of the religious right, which Bush is now recognized to be the leader of, as well as fundamentalism (be it Christian or Moslem, or whatever form this polarization takes). They identify with only one side of the polarity (the light), and are fanatically convinced of the rightness of their viewpoint, which they consider non-negotiable. People who disagree with them are seen as threats and agents of the Devil, who need to be destroyed. Could it be there is a deep sense of insecurity, of dis-ease, about the fundamentalist's fanatically held beliefs? The fundamentalist splits-off from, and projects outside of themselves (and actually dreams up into materialization) their dis-owned shadow, in the form of the Devil (one of whose inner meaning, besides "the liar," is "the adversary"). And then they try to kill the adversary, or "enemy combatant," who is seen to be the Devil incarnate. But fighting the Devil is radically different than loving God.
Bush's illness is sociopathic in nature. By projecting the shadow, he is genuinely unable to accept responsibility for his actions, always scapegoating and blaming others. Denial is a key part of his arsenal, and it is so pervasive and insidious that he doesn't even know he's in denial (he's in denial that he's in denial…..). He is truly unconscious, as if he is dreaming. In addition, this kind of denial cultivates an infinite web of deceit that is always hiding from itself. If a single individual was acting out an analogous inner process in their life that Bush is enacting on the world stage, they would be diagnosed with having a schizoid, dissociative disorder, with self-destructive tendencies. Due to the deep split in his nature which has led him to so steadfastly project the shadow, instead of being one with himself (whole), President Bush is literally "beside himself."
Psychologically speaking, one facet of Bush's condition is what is called "malignant narcissism." This is a narcissist who reacts to others who don't support and enable their narcissism, with sadism. I have never seen so many books come out by past members of any presidential administration which are all holding up a mirror (whose inner meaning is "shadow holder"), and reflecting Bush's shadow (too bad Bush doesn't read books). The Bush administration always reacts in the same way- by trying to destroy the messenger. This is exactly how a mean-spirited, malignant narcissist behaves. Characteristic of malignant narcissism is an overwhelming lack of genuine compassion (to put it mildly), as they relate to others (including the environment) as objects to satisfy and support their own inflated, narcissistic self-image (so much for "compassionate conservatism"). Malignant narcissists have contempt for anyone who disagrees with them (as it threatens their narcissism). The Bush Administration will label those who disagree with them un-American, unpatriotic, even going so far as to call people who disagree with them terrorists. Malignant narcissists also have contempt for the rule of law (which they, in their narcissism, believe they are above), and thereby often flagrantly violate. Professor Sulak Sivaraksa likens Bush to two other malignant narcissists, Hitler and Stalin. Sivaraksa argues that Bush's declaration of an "axis of Evil," Hitler's "Final Solution," and Stalin's "pogrom of peasants" were actually analogous attempts "to perfect the world by destroying the (perceived) impurities." Another modern day malignant narcissist is none other than Saddam Hussein. Talk about shadow projection.
What is scary is that part of Bush's condition is his willingness to do everything and anything to hold on to the position of power that he finds himself in, as he has become addicted to power. As Jung points out, when someone prefers power, from the psychological point of view, they could be rightfully said to be possessed by the Devil. Not only does Bush not see the depraved nature of the situation he has fallen into, he doesn't want to see it. Being in the role of having power, there is a counter-incentive to self-reflect, which just reinforces the inpenetrability of the complex. As Al Gore mentioned, this is Bush's Faustian pact with the Devil. When someone strikes this Faustian bargain, Gore points out, "as always happens- sooner or later- to those who shake hands with the devil, they find out too late that what they have given up in the bargain is their soul."
At the root of Bush's whole process is an unwillingness and inability to experience his own sense of sin, of guilt, and of shame. He is clearly unable to feel any remorse and experience his own weakness and vulnerability, his own sense of failure. This threatens his narcissism too much. By projecting out the shadow (which Jung simply refers to as "the lie"), Bush then lies to himself and others, and believes his own lies. This can have a very gripping effect on the listener, because he appears so convinced of what he is saying. This entire process, combined with his complete unwillingness to self-reflect, is the very dynamic which allows the deepest evil to enact itself through him. By being unwilling to experience his shame he humiliates, shames, and curses (like a demon) the entire world.
The negative patriarchy, the dark father (darth vader) is one aspect of the deeper, archetypal process that has seized Bush, and is unconsciously playing itself out through him. The mythic, negative father is a power-intoxicated devil, so to speak, that is based on control and power over others. Inwardly, it is a manifestation of, and compensation from, fear and weakness. It is an expression of a rigid, egocentric ("bring 'em on"), old paradigm mentality that does not learn from its mistakes, and has wounded, tortured and killed millions over centuries. The negative patriarchy (the old king) is dissociated from and threatened by eros, from feeling, from the feminine, from the heart, from relatedness, even from mother nature and the environment (which it objectifies and tries to dominate, instead of being in relationship with), and from love. Jung points out that the true leaders, heroes, and saviours of mankind are not only "always those who are capable of self-reflection, and who relieve the dead weight of the masses at least of their own weight," but teach "the old truth that where force rules there is no love, and where love reigns force does not count."
The great German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche talked about an extremely pathological condition that he called the "pale criminal," which is a chillingly accurate description of Bush, and helps to even more fill out his psychiatric profile. Jung felt that the pale criminal idea of Nietzsche was so profound that he referred to it in articulating a particular type of malevolent personality disorder. To quote Jung, the pale criminal "simply will not and cannot admit the he is what he is; he cannot endure his own guilt, just as he could not help incurring it. He will stoop to every kind of self-deception if only he can escape the sight of himself. ……which consists essentially in one hand not knowing what the other is doing, in wanting to jump over one's own shadow, and in looking for everything dark, inferior and culpable in others….but since nobody can jump out of his skin and be rid of himself, they stand in their own way everywhere as their own evil spirit." Jung continues that the pale criminal's unconscious identification with one side of the polarity, his "God Almightiness, that is to say all those qualities which are peculiar to fools and madmen and therefore lead to catastrophe……merely fills him with arrogance and arouses everything evil in him. It produces a diabolical caricature of man, and this inhuman mask is so unendurable, such a torture to wear, that he tortures others……disrupts the laws of humanity, and sins against all the rules of the human community; …..he has to keep his crime secret…..he is the most violent breaker of the bond of the human community."
Nietzsche referred to it as a "pale" criminal because if the person self-reflects and looks in the mirror, they would have their breath taken away when they see who they have become, and become pale at the sight of themselves. It is not my habit to diagnose and pathologize people, but in this case it is both necessary and a relief, as it is giving voice to the truth. What Bush is doing is nothing other than criminal, a genuine case could be made for him to be "criminally insane." He is an embodiment of what Jung would call the "statistical criminal" that lives inside of all of us, in a state of potential, and that can manifest under the right conditions. The Bush administration is breaking the moral code, the law of the planet, what Jefferson called "a decent respect for the opinion of mankind." Like a bully who is in a position of power and privilege, the Bush regime abuses their power simply because they can. With the Bush administration, it is as if a bunch of criminals have co-opted our government. They should be tried for war crimes. Or at least, put in psychiatric prisons and treated till they get well. At the very least they should not be allowed to run the country.
Bush certainly doesn't fit our image of someone with an extreme case of delusion and hysteria. When one falls victim to one's own deception, as Bush has, it has a very mesmerizing effect on others, as he appears so convinced of what he is saying. To quote Jung, "Nothing has such a convincing effect as a lie one invents and believes oneself." Bush has the seductive coherence of someone who is fanatically identified with one side of a polarity. He can be very "charming," having a certain type of charisma that can entrance those who don't see through his subterfuge.
The situation is very analogous to when seemingly good, normal loving Germans supported Hitler, believing he was a good leader and that he was trying to help them. The German people didn't see the deeper process that Hitler was possessed by and was incarnating through him. It makes me think of the great Thomas Merton, who commented on the case of the obviously demented Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann, "One of the most disturbing facts that came out in the Eichmann trial was that a psychiatrist examined him and pronounced him perfectly sane."
President Bush is suffering from a hard to recognize, but very real illness, a psycho-spiritual disease of the soul. Bush's malady is quite different from schizophrenia, for example, in which all the different parts of the personality are not connected to each other, and there is a state of chaos. As compared to the dis-order of the schizophrenic, Bush can sound extremely coherent, and seem so normal, which makes the syndrome he is suffering from very hard to get in focus and see. This is because the healthy parts of his personality have been co-opted by the pathological aspect, which uses them for its service. Because of the way the personality self-organizes coherence around a pathogenic core, I would like to name Bush's illness "malignant egophrenic (as compared to schizophrenic) disorder," or "ME disorder," for short. If ME disorder goes unrecognized and is not contained, it can be very destructive, particularly if the person is in a position of power.
Whereas Hitler's evil was overt, Bush's is much more hidden, secret and covert. Just like Hitler struck a chord deep in the German unconscious, Bush is touching something very deep in the American unconscious psyche. People who vote for Bush are somehow blind to what to others is very obvious, as if they have become hypnotized and fallen under the spell that Bush is casting. They are suggestible and susceptible to the same malady that Bush is embodying, as if they have a predisposition for it (based on their own trauma, dissociated psyche and tendency to project the shadow). People who vote for Bush are unknowingly colluding with and enabling in the co-creation of his self-perpetuating pathology, which they are now collaborating in and a part of as well. The people who are supporting Bush become unwitting agents themselves of the very illness that has taken over Bush, and in an interconnected web, they all co-dependently feed off of and reinforce each other's unconscious fear and shadow projections. Building up a life of it's own, it is like a virus that is threatening to take over our country.
Similar to Germany during the time of Hitler, it is like a mass, collective psychosis is manifesting in our country. These seemingly good, normal, and loving Americans who support Bush's certifiably insane behavior and vote for Bush, not only see nothing wrong with their actions, but are in fact "proud" of it. The question arises, if people don't recognize that what Bush is doing is an expression of a deep imbalance, what does one have to do to be recognized to be out of balance?
ME disorder is non-local in nature, in that it is a disease which collapses the boundary between inner and outer. Synchronistically, the inner, psychological landscape of the malignant egophrenic actually externalizes itself and configures the seemingly outer world to play out, in full-bodied form, its inner dynamic. The people in Bush's field who are enabling him are themselves embodied, mirrored reflections of the healthy parts of his inner psyche that are supporting his pathogenic core. Bush's inner process is both literally, as well as symbolically, getting dreamed up into materialization. People are getting drafted into playing out roles in Bush's inner process, which of course are the very perfect role that they need to play for their own process, too. This disease is so hard to see because so many seemingly good, normal and loving people are supporting Bush. Like I've been trying to point out, Bush has fallen so asleep that his unconscious process is getting dreamed up in, through, and as the world process, in encoded but fully embodied and visible form. For all who have eyes to see.
The prevalence in our culture of the blindness to what Bush is doing is itself an expression of a sickness endemic to our culture at large. Bush is embodying and being a conduit for an illness that exists deep inside the soul, not only of every American, but of all of humanity as well, which is one of the things that makes it so hard to recognize. We are all dreaming up George Bush into incarnation to play the role he is playing. He is an embodiment of a figure that lives deep inside the collective unconscious of all of humanity. George Bush is the embodied, mirrored reflection of a part of ourselves. It is hard to recognize this, as to recognize this is to look in the mirror and not contract against a part of ourselves. This is to step into compassion.
As this deep, dark shadow emerges into our world, this is an expression, or manifestation, of "something deeper." If there's a shadow, this means that light is nearby. Jung talked about that enlightenment is about making "the darkness conscious." To quote him, "as long as Satan is not integrated, the world is not healed and man is not saved. But Satan represents evil, and how can evil be integrated? There is only one possibility: to assimilate it, that is to say, raise it to the level of consciousness……in which the devil no longer has an autonomous existence but rejoins the profound unity of the psyche…. (then) the opus magnum is finished, the human soul is completely integrated……to do this, he is obliged to struggle with evil, to confront his shadow, to integrate the devil." We have all dreamed up President Bush to pick up a role in our inner psyche and incarnate it in full living color so that we could see it, embrace it and integrate it.
It is such a Mind Warp that Bush is a born-again Christian, a fundmentalist, and the recognized leader of the Religious Right. There is a certain up is down, inverted, crazy-making and warped, logic to the underlying dynamic of his illness. We can also call Bush's sickness "Warping Malignant Dissociative" disorder, or WMD disorder. It is extremely dangerous to become connected with, in relationship to, and support Bush, as the disease is contagious and literally "warps" the psyche of anyone who doesn't recognize its nature and supports it.
It should be pointed out that George Bush does not exist in isolation, in a void, just like we can never understand a child's psychology without looking at the family that he or she is embedded in as well as an expression of. Bush has been dreamed up by the entire field, not just America but the entire world. Bush is picking up and incarnating a role that is in the collective psyche of all humanity. He is embedded in, an expression of, and like a marionette on a string, manipulated, used and victimized by, a deeper matrix of cover-up and deceit that has taken on an autonomous life of its own. What I am saying about George Bush is just as true of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condaleeza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, John Ashcroft and the rest of the Bush administration. It is like a typical enmeshed, entangled co-dependent and dysfunctional family, where everyone colludes in protecting the abuser. The Bush Administration is an expression of a deeper, interdependent process, a whole, insidiously self-generating and self-organizing system. The entire Bush regime is complicit, as they are all collaborating with and enabling each other. Bush could never play the role he is without being supported by his crony capitalist friends in a perversely symbiotic and parasitic relationship. You can't separate out the Bush regime from the corporate, military, industrial complex, which reciprocally support and feed off each other like vampires, and whose underlying lust is for power. This entire interconnected web, including the media and the people who vote for Bush, can all be seen to be tentacles of a virulent pathogen that is potentially gaining more and more sovereignty. Like in a sci-fi movie, we have all dreamed up a Frankenstein monster that has taken on a life of its own and truly threatens us all.
What I am pointing at is happening right in front of our face, for all who have eyes to see. All we have to do to see is open our eyes and look. If we don't look at what is happening, if we turn away, ignore it, and contract against it, we are lying to ourselves. Then we are colluding with and secretly supporting and feeding the demon, so to speak, by our passivity. Our inaction is, in fact, an expression of our lack of compassion.
There is a great danger when we see evil, though. To quote Jung, "It is a fact that cannot be denied: the wickedness of others becomes our own wickedness because it kindles something evil in our hearts…..the sight of evil kindles evil in the soul." If we solidify Bush as being evil, and react with righteous indignation, we are guilty of the very same thing we are accusing Bush of (i.e, projecting the shadow) and have ourselves become a conduit for the very evil we are reacting to. Genuine and heartfelt compassion is the key to breaking out of this trap.
Buddhism considers that people are not inherently evil, even though their behavior can be considered to be evil. The problem is that they are ignorant of their true nature, which includes, embraces and transcends both the light and dark parts of themselves. In a dream I had with President Bush, I was trying to explain to him about shadow projection, but he just wasn't getting it. Feeling the same exasperated feeling that I used to feel with my father in similar situations, I said to Bush, "In Buddhism, what you are doing….it is called ignorance." George Bush is the incarnation, in full-bodied form, of what the quality of ignorance would look like if it had a body.
Bush deserves our deepest compassion, for he is the embodied reflection of a part of ourselves. And compassion is sometimes fierce, and it sometimes says "no," and sets a boundary. Genuine compassion is not what is called "idiot compassion," which just enables the person in their asleepness. True compassion in our current situation involves doing everything we can to remove Bush from office, for his good, as well as our own.
Bush, in a very real sense, has been dreamed up into incarnation by all of us. It is an old political axiom that people get the government they deserve. It pains me to say that George Bush is the full-bodied reflection, on the emotional, psychological, political, and spiritual level, of the unevolved, and immature state of the American psyche.
What is playing itself out on our planet is itself a materialization of the deep dissociation and polarization going on deep inside the psyche of all humankind. What is happening in our world is not separate from us, it is something we are all collaboratively creating and dreaming up together into full-bodied incarnation. Recognizing this, we realize that, at every moment, we are invited to snap out of our spell and creatively step into life in a fully engaged and actively participatory way. As compared to just observing as a passive, helpless observer, we are demanded to step into our power, find out voice, and act.
We are all somewhat dissociated, we are all somewhat asleep and unconscious, we are all in a state of trauma, we all have a dark side. To the extent that any of us are asleep, we act out our unconscious, but on a much smaller scale in our life than Bush, usually in the area of interpersonal relationships. The problem is that President Bush, as leader of the free world, is acting out his unconscious, inner dissociation, in fully embodied and visible form, in, through, and as the world process, in a way that's negatively impacting all of us. The danger, to put it simply, is that he might not just be taking down our country, but our planet as well.
We, as a people, need to recognize the severity of the crisis our country is in, and act. It is an extremely dangerous situation that Bush happens to be in the driver's seat of the most powerful country in the world, and he is steering the ship to shipwreck, or as the retired Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni, who headed Central Command before becoming President Bush's personal emissary to the Middle East, put it, "over Niagara Falls." It is like we are in a car going over the speed limit, being driven by an adolescent who has fallen asleep at the wheel. It is our responsibility, as awake adults to recognize our situation and do something about it. If not, we have no one to blame but ourselves. This is what Al Gore was trying to tell us in his speech when he ended with the quote by Abraham Lincoln, "We- even we here- hold the power, and bear the responsibility."
My father, like Bush, was a regular, normal guy, who was very bright and coherent, and could seem very loving. The virulent pathogen, malignant egophrenia, like some sort of deadly, other-wordly virus, incarnated itself through my father, taking him over so fully that he never even suspected what was happening. By being a carrier of this disease, he became a portal through which the field around him "warped" in such a way so as to feed and support his pathogenic process. It was like a non-local field of denial and cover-up got constellated around my father to protect him. My entire family, including the mental health system, got "drafted" into his process in such a way that they colluded with and enabled him in his illness. By not recognizing the nature of my father's illness, the mental health community, whose job and responsibility it is to deal with pathological situations such as this, became the very agents themselves that propagated the disease. It was a completely crazy-making, and diabolical situation (the inner meaning of diabolos is that which separates and divides). As if in some sort of sci-fi nightmare, any attempt I would make to point out what was happening, would get perversely inverted and turned against me. I was then seen, both by my family and the mental health system, to be the one who was sick, like I was carrying their dis-owned, and projected shadow. Tragically, both of my parents died thinking I was the crazy one. This deadly disease completely broke up and destroyed my family. Living through this harrowing experience has been truly initiatory, as it has given me a certain insight and authority that I never could have received otherwise.
I have no family left, as this deadly disease has literally consumed them. I am trying to point out that this same virulent pathogen is incarnating in the collective field, in the macrocosm, in the world at large. Just like this pathogen used my father to incarnate itself into my family system, this deadly disease is using President Bush as a portal to birth itself into the greater human family.
This malignant and virulent pathogen that I am calling egophrenia is like a self-replicating virus. We can even say that it is the "bug" in the system that has in-formed and given shape to all of the divisiveness of human interaction and relationship. ME disease is as old as the human species, but we are now at the point in our evolution where we can finally recognize it, see it, give it a name and diagnose it. The DSM-IV, the psychiatric diagnostic manual, is continually expanding and including new diagnosis, as we deepen our understanding of and map the contours of the human psyche. It is profoundly important that the mental health community at large recognize this age-old disease which, unrecognized and misdiagnosed until now, has wreaked havoc all throughout human history, and is actually at the root of our current world crisis.
When we see the nature of this deadly disease, and name it, we take away its power and liberate its energy. ME disorder is related to what Jung would call an "autonomous complex," which are split-off parts of the psyche that can literally possess the ego and act themselves out through us, as they have developed a seemingly independent life and will of their own. These autonomous complexes react violently to being seen, just like vampires can't stand the light of consciousness, as to see them takes away their autonomy and omnipotence. Interestingly enough, indigenous cultures call these autonomous complexes "demons." We "exorcise" a demon, so to speak, by naming it. This is the power of the word ("And first there was the word"). By naming it, we build up a "container" (an alchemical term) around it, so that it can't possess us from behind and act itself out through us. Once the disease is contained, we can begin to metabolize it, assimilate it, and alchemically transmute it into medicine.
I was deeply wounded and traumatized by the effects of my father's illness, barely escaping with my life. I am beginning to feel that maybe my experience with having to deal with this disease in my family was a disguised form of blessing. It has given me a unique perspective, in which I can potentially help others, by pointing out the dangers of this very deadly disease of the soul. For this, I am grateful.
A healer, Paul Levy is a visionary artist, and a spiritual and political activist. He can be reached at rulucid@aol.com