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2007 from AwakenInTheDream Website recovered through WayBackMachine Website
George W. Bush is ill. He has a psycho-spiritual dis-ease of the soul, a sickness that is endemic to our culture and symptomatic of the times in which we live. It is an illness that has been with us since time immemorial.
Because it is an illness in the soul of all of humanity, it pervades the
field and is in all of us in potential at any moment, which makes it
especially hard to diagnose.
This is because the healthy parts of his personality have been co-opted by the pathological aspect, which drafts them into its service.
Because of the way the personality self-organizes an outer display of coherence around a pathogenic core, I would like to name Bush's illness "Malignant Egophrenia" (as compared to schizophrenia), or "ME disease," for short.
If ME disease goes unrecognized and is not contained, it can be very
destructive, particularly if the person afflicted is in a position of power.
We can view Bush - and his entire administration:
Instead of relating to any part of this field as an isolated entity, it’s important to contemplate the entire interdependent field as the "medium" through which malignant egophrenia manifests and propagates itself.
ME disease is a field phenomenon and needs to be contemplated as such.
Bush's sickness is our own.
Being non-local, this disease pervades and underlies the entire field and can therefore manifest anywhere, through anyone, and at any moment. The disease's non-local nature makes the question of who has the disease irrelevant, as we all have it in potential. It is more a question of whether or not we are aware of our susceptibility to fall prey to the disease.
This
awareness itself serves as an immunization protecting us from the pernicious
effects of the illness, thereby allowing us to be of genuine help to others.
A non-local, reciprocally co-arising and interdependent field of unconscious denial and cover-up constellates around Bush to enable and protect his pathology.
People who support Bush are actually complicit with and enabling Bush’s
madness in a co-dependent, self-reinforcing feedback loop that is "closed,"
which is to say it is insular and not open to any feedback from the "real"
world.
All of
Bush’s supporters mutually reinforce each others’ unconscious resistance to
such a degree that a collective, interdependent field of impenetrability is
collectively conjured up by them that literally resists consciousness.
By supporting Bush, they collaborate with and become parts of the
greater, interconnected, and self-organizing field of the disease.
By not seeing this and supporting Hitler, they became agents used by this non-local, deadly disease to propagate itself.
This is why Jung says,
What happened in
Germany was a collective psychosis, and this is what is taking place in our
country right now.
The way Bush is fighting terrorism is in actuality the very act invoking and creating more of it in the first place. Bush is so dissociated from the darkness within himself that he splits off from it, projects it outside of himself, and then tries to destroy it. He is fighting against his own shadow, a battle that can never be won.
Bush’s inner process, because of the position of power he
finds himself in, is being dreamed up and played out on the world stage.
To quote noted psychologist Rollo May, the daemonic is,
[Please note: comments in brackets are the author’s emphasis unless stated
otherwise].
The person who is taken over doesn't suspect a thing, as the field secretly conspires, colludes with, and enables their psychosis. For example, Bush, in his delusion, imagines he is divinely guided.
His supporters want to believe this to feed their own adolescent fantasies of wanting to have a divinely inspired leader take care of and protect them. Because of this need, they invest in Bush’s delusion, which just confirms to Bush all the more that he is indeed God’s instrument.
Bush and his followers
are co-dependently and reciprocally feeding and supporting each others’
unconscious narcissistic needs in a truly pathological and ultimately
self-destructive co-dependent relationship.
By projecting the shadow like this,
they locate the evil "outside of themselves," which ensures that they don't
have to recognize the evil within themselves. Ironically, by fighting
against their own shadow in this way, they become possessed by the very
thing they are trying to destroy, thereby perpetuating a never-ending cycle
of violence. Jung comments on this very situation:
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. [vi]
Jung stresses the importance of consciously developing what he calls our "imagination for evil," [viii] which is to consciously recognize our potential for evil. This recognition means embracing and integrating our dark side into our wholeness, which is made up of both light and dark.
If we have no imagination for evil, to quote Jung,
By projecting the shadow, Bush unwittingly becomes a conduit for the deepest, archetypal evil to possess him from behind, beneath his conscious awareness, and to act itself out through him.
At the same time, ironically enough, he identifies with the light and imagines that he is divinely inspired. To quote Jung, a person in a position of power who has become dissociated like Bush,
He then believes that any action he desires is justified in the name of
God,
rationalizing it as being God's will. Unable to self-reflect, he is
convinced of the rightness of his viewpoint, which he considers
non-negotiable.
This incongruity brings into bold relief the severe dissociation characterizing Bush's condition. His inflation blinds him to the destructive consequences of his actions, and is one of the easier aspects of his pathology to recognize. Being inflated due to an unconscious identification with an archetype is, in essence, an expression of having forfeited one's humanity, a state in which humility becomes impossible.
"An inflated consciousness," to quote Jung:
Having the most powerful man in the world be unconsciously identified with
and inflated by an archetype is a very dangerous situation for everyone
involved, which is all of us.
Succumbing to the temptation of power, Bush has become corrupt, which is the inevitable consequence when one prefers power over truth. The original sin of the Bush administration is love of power for its own sake. Bush has fallen into a vicious cycle where he has become addicted to power.
To quote Senate minority leader Harry Reid,
Bush’s unrestrained lust for power is like an alcoholic’s compulsive thirsting for and being controlled by alcohol.
Bush is like the typical
substance abuser, only in his case, the substance he is abusing is power,
and the family system that is the recipient of his abuse is the entire
world.
To quote Karl Rove, the administration
is willing to do "whatever it takes" to stay in power.
When a person becomes addicted to unrestrained power, they make a Faustian pact with the Devil, selling their soul in the bargain. Having let the "genie" out of the bottle, a person stricken with Mad Emperor disease discovers that, instead of the genie serving and empowering them, they ultimately become obedient and a slave to the genie.
A person who has fallen into this perverse state has, because of their interminable arrogance, literally hypnotized themselves and become their own victim, totally losing their internal freedom in the process.
People in this state
of utter depravity, such as Hitler, Stalin, Hussein and George Bush, are
truly possessed by an overwhelming lust for power that compels them to
perpetrate endless violence on others. They believe that there is no higher
authority - pronouncements to the contrary - and hence, feel they can literally
get away with murder.
Because of his unending greed, Bush is allowing himself to be used by others, manipulated by darker forces like a puppet on a string. Having sold his soul, he is for sale to the highest bidder.
At the same time, these seemingly "external" darker forces are an expression of something deep within himself that he has become a stranger to.
Unless recognized, this pathological situation always results in self-destruction.
To quote Jung,
The indigenous author Jack Forbes, author of Columbus and other Cannibals, describes those who are suffering from this malady as being infected with a literal illness, a virulent and contagious disease he calls wetiko, or "cannibal sickness."
Those so afflicted consume, so to speak, the lives of others - human and nonhuman alike - for private purpose or profit, and do so without giving back anything of their own lives. They simply exploit others, be it people or the environment, as objects to satisfy their own unending narcissistic hunger.
Like a vampire, they feed off of other peoples’ blood.
William James described it well, "Evil is a disease."
He’s clearly unable to feel any remorse
and experience his own weakness and vulnerability, his own sense of failure.
This is too great a threat to his narcissism. Another way of describing
Bush’s psychic numbness is to say that he cannot, under any circumstances,
allow himself to feel.
Bush then falls into an endless loop of hiding from his own lie, which is to say, from himself. This process allows Bush to become taken over by egophrenia and become a conduit for the disease to incarnate its malignant aspect through him.
As the Buddhist Maharatnakuta Sutra says,
Commenting on this resistance to self-reflection and endless cycle of
self-deception, Jung says,
They pretend to be seekers after God in order not to have to face the truth
that they are ordinary egoists. [xiv]
Being the incarnation of this disease, he is its
revelation in human form.
Bush’s unconscious, dis-association from himself manifests as a compulsive, "involuntary one-sidedness" that results in primitive, uncivilized and truly Neanderthal behavior.
Because of
Bush’s position of power, he expresses his inflexibility in the most brutal
of ways.
Like Faust, he is bound to make a pact
with the devil and thus slips off the straight path. [xvi]
In addition, Jung makes the point that pathological liars are in the habit of:
Monk and author Thomas Merton, commenting on the case of the obviously demented Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann, points out,
A key feature of malignant egophrenia is that it is very hard to recognize when someone is a carrier, because the person can seem so normal and even endearing.
The person afflicted can be very "charming" and have a charisma that can entrance those who don't see through their subterfuge. Just as Hitler struck a chord deep in the German unconscious, Bush is touching something very deep in the American psyche.
Both Hitler and Bush dreamed of and are exponents of a "new order," which is one of the reasons people fall for them.
Like Hitler, Bush is acting out on the world stage an under-developed psychological process that deals simplistically with issues such as good and evil.
It’s as if he hasn't grown out of and fully
differentiated from the realm of mythic, archetypal fantasy that is typical
of early adolescence. This immature aspect of Bush's process speaks to and
resonates with those voters who support him, as it is a reflection of their
own under-developed inner process.
There is a safety, a comfort, a familiarity in being accepted and embraced by the prevailing mass psychology of the collective. There is a secret attraction to be on the side that seems "right," to be on the side with power, to be on what is perceived as the winning side.
The cost is high, however, as we lose both our sanity and our
"Self" in the process.
People who support Bush are suggestible and susceptible to the same malady Bush is embodying, as if they have a predisposition for it (based on their own trauma, dissociated psyche, and tendency to project the shadow).
Supporting
Bush is a sign that a person not only doesn't see the deadly illness that is
incarnating itself through Bush, but is an expression that this disease has
taken up residence in their being and is using them to do its bidding.
Malignant egophrenia is crazy-making. It induces a very hard to recognize form of insanity. When we fall prey to egophrenia, we are unable to recognize that we are taken over, as we become bewitched by our own projections, accusing other people of doing what we ourselves are doing.
For example, Bush is guilty of the very thing he accuses Saddam Hussein of when he calls Hussein,
Similarly, Bush is talking about himself when, referring to the terrorists, he says we are,
He is unknowingly giving
voice, shape and form to his unconscious shadow.
When we are taken over by egophrenia, we always see the
problem as existing in someone else.
Bush made a telling "Freudian slip" when he said,
In this slip of the tongue, Bush was unknowingly giving voice to the unconscious shadow, the part of himself whose intentions are the polar opposite of what he consciously imagines and represents them to be at that moment.
Bush’s shadow was speaking through him, revealing what was being
acted out through his unconscious. Bush had become transparent, blowing his
own cover in the process. Egophrenia is a form of psychic blindness in which
we have become so unconscious that we literally project out our own
blindness and imagine that others, instead of ourselves, are the ones who
are not seeing.
Collective
psychosis is like that.
It is through our unconsciousness that this non-local pathogen flavors our perceptions to suit its purposes. By not recognizing the nature of the disease, the mental health community becomes its unwitting agents, helping the disease to propagate.
What clearer sign do we need of a
collective psychosis than when our mental health system itself, whose job it
is to monitor such phenomenon, not only doesn't recognize that there is a
collective psychosis running rampant in our society, but are themselves
infected with it?
This is based on an illusion, for the individual is embedded in the greater field - family system, society, and planetary culture - and is an expression of this multi-textured field.
The
individual and the field around them interpenetrate and condition each other
so fully that they can't even be regarded as two separate aspects that have
become joined together, but rather must be seen as inseparable parts of a
greater whole.
Consequently, instead of being viewed through the lens of the fragmented,
separate self, it requires a more holistic vision that recognizes the
existence of the interdependently co-arising field. It’s not a question of
integrating ME disease into the existing DSM-IV, but instead of radically
expanding, up-leveling, and re-visioning our understanding of the nature of
illness itself.
It is like instead of contemplating one finger on a glove, we can recognize the hand moving the finger in relation to the other fingers, which are recognized to not be separate from each other.
Instead of studying the individual fingers, we can focus our
attention on the underlying hand animating and in-forming them.
The circle is a lower-level reflection of a higher-dimensional entity (the
sphere), just as Bush being a sociopathic criminal is a lower-level
expression of a deeper and more pervasive process non-locally expressing
itself throughout the interconnected field.
We are
always ethically responsible for our Faustian bargains.
By recognizing the nature of this collective psychosis, we snap out of being part of it. Malignant egophrenia, unrecognized and misdiagnosed until now, has wreaked havoc all throughout human history, and is at the very root of our current world crisis. To the extent we are unaware of the nature of this collective psychosis, it has us in its grips and will unconsciously be acted out through us in a destructive manner.
The choice is truly ours.
Like a sci-fi movie, we have dreamed up a
higher-dimensional Frankenstein monster that has taken on a life of its own
and truly threatens us all.
Like a true
Manchurian candidate, Bush is being manipulated, used and victimized, like a
puppet on a string, by a deeper matrix of cover-up and deceit that has been
perpetrated by him and his very regime - and has now taken on an autonomous
life of its own.
The disease is archetypal in nature, which is to say that it has eternally re-created itself and played itself out over the course of history. We can even say that it’s the "bug" in the system that has in-formed and given shape to all of the conflict and disharmony of human relationships. ME disease is as old as the human species.
However, we’re now
at the point in our evolution where we can finally recognize it, see it,
give it a name, and diagnose it.
We are only able to know it as it
reveals itself to us, by contemplating its multi-dimensional expressions.
Just like we approach an overwhelming abuse or trauma by studying its
symptoms, we come to know egophrenia by contemplating its reflections.
Jung said,
Jung warned that a difficult task lay ahead of us after the mass insanity of the Second World War.
He pointed out that after the "demons" abandoned the German people, these negative energies weren't banished. Jung elaborated by saying,
Projecting the shadow literally
opens the door for malignant egophrenia to take up residence in our being.
It causes him to reject water, for example, so that the virus cannot be spit out of the mouth. This is analogous to how Bush supporters reject the facts, which if considered, would cause them to snap out of their spell.
The rabies virus ultimately controls and enslaves its victims, taking away their creativity and mental freedom, as it forces them compulsively, like a vampire, to further the propagation of the virus.
Autonomous complexes work in exactly the same way; they can warp and destroy the whole psyche of the person (or nation) so afflicted, infecting the surrounding field in the process.
Journalist Jacques Julliard of "Le Nouvel Observateur" recently has recognized this state of affairs when he simply states,
Once the virus has eaten up and consumed its host, it leaves him for dead and moves on to its next victim. Etymologically, the word rabies is related to the word "Lucifer."
Malignant egophrenia will shape-shift
and do everything in its power to resist being seen. It’s elusive,
mercurial, and very much a trickster. The disease obfuscates itself,
creating any number of distractions to hide behind, and will even react
violently to being seen, for being seen takes away its omnipotence and
autonomy.
As Jung described:
The importance of seeing the nature of the disease we are dealing with cannot be overstated. Jung goes on to say,
When we see a demon, we know its name.
Naming it is exorcistic, as it dis-spells the demon's power over us. To name something is to symbolize it. The word "symbolic," which means that which unites, is the antidote and antonym to the word "diabolic," which means that which divides and separates.
George
Bush claimed to be "a uniter, not a divider." However, he has only united
one thing - the majority of the world against us. To see this diabolical
aspect of what is coming through Bush, namely, that he is an instrument
creating separation, is to be seeing with symbolic awareness.
The energy bound up in the compulsion to endlessly re-create the disease becomes liberated and available for creative expression.
The prescription for this disease is simply for enough of us who see it to connect with each other in lucid awareness so that it can be contained, metabolized, and healed. We can put our collective realization together and dream a much more grace-filled universe into incarnation.
This is an evolutionary impulse from the universe
in which we are invited to participate.
The fact that such a dark shadow is emerging in our world is an expression that light is nearby, as shadows are themselves an expression of light.
Demons are actually blessings in drag. Lucifer is truly
the bringer of light.
Symbolically encoded in egophrenia's literal manifestation is the key to its re-solution. Symbols are the language of dreams. A symbol brings together and reconciles two contraries into a greater whole. A symbol concurrently reflects and effects a change in and of consciousness itself.
A
symbol is both the expression of, as well as the doorway into a more
transcendent, higher-dimensional part of ourselves.
This can be very entrancing, particularly with the evidence right in front of our face. People are dying.
Seeing symbolically doesn't negate the literal dimension but instead complements and completes it, as both are true simultaneously. The literal and symbolic dimensions of reality interpenetrate each other so fully that they can't be seen as two separate things joined together, but rather are interdependent parts of a greater whole.
The birth of symbolic awareness not
only more fully completes our picture of the nature of the universe we live
in, but gives us access to the way to actually deal with this deadly
disease.
Instead of authoring our life as if we are writing prose, when we connect with our mythopoetic imagination, we create and express our life through the eyes of a poet.
To mythopoetically re-imagine the prevailing myths of our culture, which have become rigidified, imprisoning and suffocating, is to creatively give birth to the universe as an ongoing work of art. We are the creative artists through which the revelation of the universe as art becomes manifested.
All that is needed for malignant egophrenia to reveal its blessing is for us to recognize its revelatory
function.
Malignant egophrenia is a modern day plague of Egypt.
If we don't see what it is symbolically
revealing to us, malignant egophrenia will destroy us. It's a gesture from
the universe, beckoning us, demanding we integrate it and thereby receive
its blessing. By prompting, pressuring and challenging us to come to terms
with it and receive its gifts, malignant egophrenia has the potential to
awaken us, thereby furthering the evolution of the species.
ME disease is a genuine horror that causes destruction, or as the Bible calls it, an,
Contrary to escaping into a dream world or flying off into the
self-soothing fantasies of the imagination, egophrenia demands we incarnate
into full-bodied form, in this present moment.
The darkness of the disease is a portal
into the light. Because it is not separate from the light, the darkness
itself is the expression of the light.
This is to say that when a dark, demonic power is dreamed up into fully materialized form, such as is happening in our world right now, this is an expression that this particular energy is in the process of potentially becoming integrated into the wholeness of our being.
Its full-bodied manifestation is the medium through which this process of transformation takes place. This physical universe is the dimension in which the energy bound up in the infinitely regressing feedback loop of the disease is dreamed up, accessed, and transmuted.
The agency which
accomplishes this process of assimilation is consciousness itself.
Egophrenia is our consciousness materializing into form so as to expand and
evolve itself. The disease is the conduit through which consciousness grows
into greater orders of freedom. In the disease, consciousness is revealing
itself to itself, which is to say that the disease is an unfolding
revelation.
The cure for egophrenia is the very
expansion of
consciousness which it necessitates and demands. Encoded into the disease is
its own cure.
This is to have the realization that we are
interconnected and not separate from one another, that we are parts of and
contained in a greater being. We wouldn’t be able to have this expansion of
consciousness without egophrenia, which means that egophrenia is a
"potential" blessing in a very convincing disguise that it's not.
Bush is an embodied, mirrored reflection of a part of ourselves, just like we, reciprocally, are a reflection of a part of him. His disease is our disease. Bush and his regime are a living, full-bodied reflection of our collective shadow, as we are of theirs. We have all dreamed each other up to play out these archetypal roles, in full living color, so that we can see and start to integrate these parts of ourselves.
Embracing these parts of ourselves that we see so clearly reflected in Bush and Co. is the first step towards healing our situation, because it dispells the polarization and separation that are the root factors preventing reconciliation.
Bush and Co. are playing out roles existing deep inside the collective psyche of all of humanity. If Bush and Co. weren’t around, there would be someone else sent by "central casting" to pick up and play out these very same archetypal roles.
Compassion spontaneously arises when we
truly recognize these fear-ridden parts of ourselves.
If we don't look at what’s happening, if we turn away, ignore it, and contract against it, we are lying to ourselves. Then we’re colluding with and unknowingly feeding the disease. Our looking away is a form of blindness. Our looking away is a form of ignorance. Our looking away, our contraction, IS itself the disease.
Our resulting complacency and inaction is, in fact, an expression of our lack of compassion.
Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. said,
There is a great danger when we see evil, though.
We cannot bear witness to evil and remain unaffected - something inside of us becomes ignited when we experience evil. Malignant egophrenia forces upon us the responsibility to come to terms with the evil inside our own hearts. If we solidify Bush as being evil and react with righteous indignation, we are guilty of the very same thing we’re accusing Bush of, i.e., projecting the shadow.
We then become a conduit for the very evil we’re reacting to.
Who among us has not been guilty of being a channel for ME disease at one time or another? Who among us has not been guilty of falling asleep and unwittingly acting out our unconscious?
Unlike Bush, most people simply incarnate the disease
locally, within the domain of their sphere of influence, which is usually
their family system.
We may think,
However, this very arrogance leaves us open to falling prey to the virus.
We may think,
However, to have
these attitudes is to fall under the seductive spell of the bug, causing us
to disconnect from and give away our power. In this way, we forsake one of
our greatest spiritual treasures, the act of discernment.
True compassion demands us to be willing to consciously step into our power, mediated through the heart, and to find the courage to speak our true voice:
With Bush as president, it’s as if we’re in a car going over the speed limit being driven by a drunk adolescent who has fallen asleep at the wheel.
It’s our responsibility to recognize the extreme danger of our situation and come together to do something about it, whatever that might be. If not, if we continue to passively and helplessly watch what is playing out in front of our very eyes, then we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Abraham Lincoln said,
Now is the time to join together and creatively express our true voice.
As the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. said,
Malignant egophrenia is a true "reconciling symbol," in that it unites the opposites.
Malignant egophrenia is both a deadly disease and the highest blessing co-joined in one phenomenon. Is it a wave or a particle? It is a true "coincidentia oppositorum," a conjunction of opposites, an expression of divinity.
The question is,
The choice is truly ours.
All that is needed is for
enough of us to recognize what is being revealed, and to creatively act from
this realization. REFERENCES
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