The Madness Of George W. Bush“The
Jungian analysis by Paul Levy, of Bush and the culture which
maintains him, reaches deep into the American psyche. It should
be studied and digested by everyone. If the citizenry would
recognize that Bush's egomania is acting out a national illness,
we would all be saner. If the US could integrate the "shadow"
which Bush projects upon "the axis of evil," perhaps we could
achieve world peace and start to solve global problem. A MUST
READ.” Carol S. Wolman, MD, Board Certified in
Psychiatry
By Paul Levy
05/18/06 "Information
Clearing House"
-- -- 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 we live in. It’s an illness that has
been with us since time immemorial. Because it’s an illness
that's 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. Bush's malady is quite different
from schizophrenia, for example, in which all the different
parts of the personality are fragmented and not connected to
each other, resulting in a state of internal chaos. As compared
to the dis-order of the schizophrenic, Bush can sound quite
coherent and can appear like such a "regular," normal guy, which
makes the syndrome he is suffering from very hard to recognize.
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 egophrenic (as compared
to schizophrenic) disease,’ 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.
In much the same way that a
child's psychology cannot be understood without looking at the
family system he or she is a part of, George Bush does not exist
in isolation. We can view Bush and his entire
Administration (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, etc), as well
as the corporate, military industrial complex that they are
co-dependently enmeshed with, the media that they control, the
voters that support them, and ourselves as well, as
interconnected parts of a whole system, or a "field." 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’ though 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.
THE
DISEASE IS NON-LOCAL
Being a field phenomenon,
malignant egophrenia is non-local in nature, which means that it
is not bound by the limitations of time or space. 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 that protects us from
the pernicious effects of the illness, thereby allowing us to be
of genuine help to others.
Bush, like all of us, is both a
manifestation of this deeper field and simultaneously an agent
effecting this field. He’s become so fully taken over by the
disease, all the while not suspecting a thing, that he’s become
a "carrier" for this deadly disease, thus infecting the field
around him. He’s become a portal through which the field around
him "warps" in such a way as to feed and support his pathogenic
process. A non-local, reciprocally co-arising and interdependent
field of unconscious denial and cover-up gets constellated
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.
Bush supporters are not merely
disinterested in seeing that they are in denial of reality; on
the contrary, they actively don’t want to look at this, which is
to say they resist self-reflection at all costs. Bush and his
supporters perversely interpret any feedback from the real world
which reflects back their unconsciousness as itself evidence
that proves the rightness of their viewpoint. All of Bush’s
supporters mutually reinforce each other’s unconscious
resistance to such a degree that a collective, interdependent
field of impenetrability gets collectively conjured up by them
that literally resists consciousness.
People who don't recognize Bush's
illness and support him are unconsciously colluding with and
enabling in the co-creation of the pathological field that is
incarnating itself into the human family. People who support
Bush become unwitting agents through which this non-local
disease feeds and replicates itself. By supporting Bush
they are collaborating with and becoming parts of the greater,
interconnected and self-organizing field of the disease.
The situation is very analogous
to when seemingly good, normal, loving Germans supported Hitler,
believing he was a good leader trying to help them. The German
people didn't realize that the virulent pathogen malignant
egophrenia had taken possession of Hitler and was incarnating
itself through him. By not seeing this and supporting Hitler,
they became agents used by this non-local, deadly disease to
propagate itself. This was a collective psychosis, and this is
what is taking place in our country right now.
This is exactly what Jung was
warning us about when he said "The gigantic catastrophes that
threaten us today are not elemental happenings of a physical or
biological order, but psychic events. To a quite terrifying
degree we are threatened by wars and revolutions which are
nothing other than psychic epidemics. At any moment several
millions of human beings may be smitten with a new madness, and
then we shall have another world war or devastating revolution.
Instead of being at the mercy of wild beasts, earthquakes,
landslides, and inundations, modern man is battered by the
elemental forces of his own psyche."
THE LIE
It is not that the threat of
terrorism is unreal, but that Bush's policies in dealing with
terrorism are actually fueling 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. It is as if he is
fighting against his own shadow, which is a battle that can
never be won. Bush is so dissociated from the darkness within
himself that he splits off from it and tries to destroy it.
Bush’s inner process, because of the position of power he finds
himself in, is getting dreamed up and played out on the world
stage. ME disease is unique in that it collapses the boundary
between inner and outer. Egophrenia is an inner disease of the
soul that expresses itself via the medium of the outside world.
We could even say that the inner core of egophrenia actually
in-forms and gives shape to the outer universe so as to express
itself.
By creating more of the very
thing he is fighting against, Bush is enacting the repetition
compulsion of the traumatized soul. In Bush’s case, it is
the repetition compulsion gone awry, to daemonic proportions,
getting acted out on the world stage. To quote noted
psychologist Rollo May, the daemonic is "any natural function
which has the power to take over the whole person [or whole
nation]…..the daemonic can be either creative or destructive
[i.e, demonic]…..violence is the daemonic gone awry."
The daemonic aspect of the
disease develops a certain autonomy and literally possesses the
person or group, as it is self-generating, self-perpetuating and
self-organizing in nature, like a closed and negative feedback
loop. The person who is taken over doesn't suspect a thing, as
the field secretly conspires and 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 to take care of and protect them. Because of
this need they invest, so to speak, in Bush’s delusion, which
just confirms to Bush all the more that he indeed is God’s
instrument. Bush and his followers are co-dependently and
reciprocally feeding and supporting each other’s unconscious
narcissistic needs in a truly pathological, and ultimately
self-destructive co-dependent relationship.
At the root of Bush's pathology
is a deep dissociation. Like the terrorists, he has split-off
from his own darker half, projecting the shadow ‘out there,’ and
then tries to destroy this dis-owned shadow. By projecting the
shadow onto each other, Bush and the terrorists are each seeing
their own shadow reflected in the other. They see each other as
criminals, as the incarnation of evil. By projecting the shadow
like this, they locate the evil ‘out there,’ which ensures that
they don't have to recognize the evil within themselves. It's
interesting to note that the inner meaning of the word mirror is
’shadow holder.’ 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. To quote C. G. Jung, one of the greatest
psychologists 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."
Jung simply refers to projecting
the shadow as “the lie." It’s interesting to note that one of
the inner meanings of the word Devil is ‘the liar.’ Projecting
the shadow, to quote Jung, "deprives us of the capacity to deal
with evil." Jung stresses the importance of consciously
developing what he calls our "imagination for evil," 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, "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 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 “even runs the grave risk of
believing he has a Messianic mission, and forces tyrannous
doctrines upon his fellow-beings.” He then believes that any
action he desires is justified in the name of God, as he can
rationalize 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 is a very dangerous situation, as
Bush has become unconsciously identified with and possessed by
the hero, or savior 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 to liberate the planet.
This is the height of irony
since, in reality, Bush is acting as an unwitting conduit for
evil by instigating wars and taking away people's freedoms. This
incongruity brings into bold relief the severe schizoid split
that characterizes Bush's condition. His inflation blinds him to
the real consequences of his actions and is one of the easier to
recognize aspects of his pathology. 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.
Bush has fallen into a state that
is the embodiment of arrogance. Succumbing to the temptation of
power, Bush has become corrupt, which is the inevitable
consequence when one prefers power over truth. He has fallen
into a vicious cycle where he has become addicted to power. Bush
and his regime are compulsively driven to do everything and
anything they can to hold onto the position of power they find
themselves in. Not only do they not see the depraved nature of
the situation they have fallen into, they don't want to see it.
Being in the role of having power, there is a counter-incentive
to self-reflect, which just reinforces the strength of the
pathogen.
The inner name of ME
disease is ‘Mad Emperor’ disease, as it is what happens when a
person in a position of power falls prey to and become seduced
by that power. As Al Gore points out, people who are after
dominance and power “satiate their hunger for more power still
by striking a Faustian bargain. And 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 process is
an unwillingness and seeming inability to experience his own
sense of sin, guilt and shame, as if he is afraid of being
exposed, of being found out. He’s clearly unable to feel any
remorse and experience his own weakness and vulnerability, his
own sense of failure. This threatens his narcissism too much.
One aspect of Bush’s pathology is ‘malignant narcissism,’ as he
reacts sadistically to others who mirror back his guilt and
don’t support and enable his narcissism.
This inability to experience his
shame and guilt sets in motion a self-perpetuating cycle of
denial, cover-up and projecting the shadow, all of which are
based on a lie. 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 a conduit for egophrenia to take him over
and incarnate its malignant aspect through him.
Jung comments on this resistance
to self-reflection and endless cycle of self- deception by
saying "Hysterical self-deceivers, and ordinary ones too, have
at all times understood the art of misusing everything so as to
avoid the demands and duties of life, and above all to shirk the
duty of confronting themselves. They pretend to be seekers after
God in order not to have to face the truth that they are
ordinary egoists."
Falling victim to one's own
deception as Bush has can have a very mesmerizing and gripping
effect on others, as he appears so convinced of what he is
saying and is able to project this conviction. To quote Jung,
"Nothing has such a convincing effect as a lie one invents and
believes oneself, or an evil deed or intention whose
righteousness one regards as self-evident…..things only become
dangerous when the pathological liar is taken seriously by a
wider public. Like Faust, he is bound to make a pact with the
devil and thus slips off the straight path.” Bush has the
seductive coherence of someone who is fanatically identified,
like the typical fundamentalist, with only one side of an
inherently two-sided polarity. Thomas Merton, commenting on the
case of the obviously demented Nazi war criminal, Adolf
Eichmann, points out "One of the most disturbing facts that came
out in the Eichmann trial was that a psychiatrist examined him
and pronounced him perfectly sane."
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 certain type of charisma that can entrance those who don't see
through their subterfuge. Concerned about nothing other than
himself, a person stricken with egophrenia is in reality
indifferent to other people’s suffering, all the while
professing his compassion, like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Just like Hitler struck a chord
deep in the German unconscious, Bush is touching something very
deep in the American psyche. 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.
Whereas Hitler’s evil was more
overt in its cruelty and sadism, Bush’s dark side is much more
hidden and disguised, which makes it particularly dangerous.
People who vote for Bush are somehow blind to what is very
obvious to others. It’s as if they’ve become hypnotized and
fallen under the spell that Bush is casting. Why would people
vote for someone stricken with malignant egophrenia? People who
support Bush 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). 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.
A
COLLECTIVE PSYCHOSIS
It is a very dangerous situation
we are in- because of the position of power Bush and the
religious right find themselves in, they can literally dream up
and create the very apocalypse that they are imagining is
prophesized, like a Self-fulfilling prophecy. In a perversely
self-reinforcing feedback-loop, the more death and destruction
happens, the more this confirms to them the truth that their
deluded end-time scenario is actually happening as prophesized.
In a diabolical self-validating vicious cycle, Bush and the
religious right are ignoring the role they are playing in
creating exactly what they are using as evidence to prove the
rightness of their viewpoint. ME disease is a world where up is
down, as its flawless illogic is convoluted and inverted at its
core.
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 talking about himself
when he accuses Saddam Hussein of being “a man who has defied
the world,” and “a man who has made the United Nations look
foolish.” Part of the disease is that when we point at it and
call it by its true name - as being a form of insanity called
ignorance - people who are stricken with the disease will see us
as the one's who are crazy. Unless we recognize the insidious
nature of this disease, there is a crazy-making field around it
that will make us a part of itself. Collective psychosis is like
that.
There is only one reason why the
mainstream psychiatric community is not studying this contagious
psychosis as it spreads through Bush, his regime, and the
surrounding field. They are not studying this disease
because they haven't yet recognized that the disease even
exists. To the extent that any of us are unaware that this
non-local pathogen pervades the field we become hooked by it
through our own unconscious blind-spot. 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?
The DSM-IV, the psychiatric
diagnostic manual, is continually expanding and including new
diagnoses as we deepen our understanding of and map the contours
of the human psyche. The problem is that the DSM-IV is an
expression of an ‘old paradigm’ way of thinking in that it looks
at mental illness as it exists in individuals, regarding the
individual as an object existing separate from the field around
them. 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. Egophrenia expresses itself non-locally
throughout the entire field. 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’s profoundly important that
the mental health community at large recognize this age-old
disease with which we are all afflicted. Doing this changes this
community from being part of the problem to part of the
solution. The disease literally feeds on our unawareness of it.
The recognition of the disease is itself the beginning of the
cure. 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 get acted out through us in a destructive manner.
The choice is truly ours.
One of the signatures of ME
disease is that it hooks people through their unconscious
blind-spot, so when people are afflicted by this deadly disease
they are truly asleep to what is getting acted out through them.
Bush himself 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. This disease, if it
gets out of control, means self-destruction for both victim and
perpetrator. There are no winners. The entire interconnected web
that supports Bush can be recognized to be tentacles of this
virulent, non-local pathogen that, to the extent that it is not
seen, is potentially gaining more and more sovereignty. 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 all of us.
THE
IMPORTANCE OF NAMING THE DISEASE
Malignant egophrenia is both an
expression of and at the root of the extreme polarization and
dissociation in both the human psyche and the world process at
large. 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 relationship. 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.
Malignant egophrenia is truly
diabolical in nature and is what the ancient, indigenous
cultures would call a demon. Jung warned us that a difficult
task lay ahead of us after the mass insanity of the second World
War. He points out that after the ‘demons’ abandoned the German
people, these negative energies weren't banished. To quote Jung
"the demons will seek a new victim. And that won't be difficult.
Every man who loses his shadow, every nation that falls into
self-righteousness, is their prey." Projecting the shadow
literally opens the door for malignant egophrenia to take up
residence in our being.
What the ancient people called
demons Jung calls autonomous complexes, which are
split-off parts of the psyche that can possess a person and
seemingly develop an independent will and quasi-life of their
own. These autonomous complexes can't stand to be seen in much
the same way a vampire can't stand the light. 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.
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 entire
world against us. To see this diabolical aspect of what is
coming through Bush, namely, that he is an instrument that is
creating separation, is itself to be seeing with symbolic
awareness.
Naming the disease, we are able
to (alchemically) contain it, so that it can't possess us from
behind and act itself out through us unconsciously. Once the
disease is named, it’s anchored to consciousness so that it
can't vaporize back into the unconscious. This de-potentiates
the disease, beginning the process of re-integrating it back
into the profound unity of the psyche. The energy that was 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.
Encoded in the disease is its own
medicine. Hidden in the daemonic is our guiding spirit, our true
genius and inner voice. This is why Jung calls the daemonic the
"not yet made real creative." 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.
A
MODERN DAY PLAGUE OF EGYPT
Malignant egophrenia is
manifesting itself, both literally and symbolically, hidden yet
visible for all who have eyes to see, simultaneously veiling and
revealing itself. 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 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.
People don't see egophrenia
because they don't recognize the symbolic dimension of
existence, but rather are absorbed in the literal dimension of
reality. It is very convincing to (only) take things literally
and see these literal facts as "the (one) truth," as events in
this world ARE literally happening. They're as real as real can
be. 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 that are 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. Egophrenia is truly initiatory,
as it is a wake up call to symbolic awareness, which is a higher
dimension of our being. All that is needed for malignant
egophrenia to reveal its blessing is for us to recognize its
revelatory function.
Jung says "Everything could be
left undisturbed did not the new way demand to be discovered,
and did it not visit humanity with all the plagues of Egypt
until it finally is discovered." 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 us
to 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.
The fact that malignant
egophrenia is manifesting in fully visible form in our world
right now is an expression that this particular energy is
available for assimilation in a way un-imaginable until now.
When an unconscious content is ready to be integrated, it always
gets dreamed up into fully materialized form. This is the
dimension in which the energy bound up in the infinitely
regressing feedback loop of the disease can be accessed and
redeemed.
This quantum leap in
consciousness that is being offered us by egophrenia is fully
imaginable into actualization in this very moment. If we can
make use of its lessons, ME disease becomes a portal into a more
whole and integrated part of our being, both individually and
collectively. Egophrenia is introducing and initiating us
into the dreamlike nature of reality, where this universe is
like a mass shared dream that we are all collaboratively
dreaming up into full-bodied materialization together. This is
to have the realization that we are interconnected and not
separate from one another, as if 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.
Being a non-local field
phenomenon, the malignant egophrenia epidemic is something all
six billion of us are collaboratively creating and dreaming up
together. 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 them up to play out these
archetypal roles, in full living color, so that we can see and
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 the situation. This is because it
dispells the polarization and separation which is the root
factor preventing reconciliation. Bush and Co. are playing out
roles that exist 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.
GENUINE
COMPASSION AS ACTIVISM
The malignant egophrenia epidemic
is happening right in front of us. It is self-evident for all
who have eyes to see. 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. To quote Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. "One who
passively accepts evil [allowing it to happen] is as much
involved in it as the one who perpetrates it."
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." 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? If, when we see this virulent
pathogen, we contract against it and react in any way, be it in
judgment, hatred, anger or revulsion, we’re helping to
perpetuate the diabolical polarization that is the signature of
the disease. Our reacting in this way, which is typical of many
political activists, is itself an expression that we ourselves
have the disease, or to say it more clearly, the disease has us.
This disease literally has the
potential to humble us. We may think- not us, we could never
catch this disease. However, this very arrogance opens us up to
being hooked by the pathogen. We may think- let's step out of
our arrogance, for who are we to know anything? Let's be an
enlightened bodhisattva and not judge what Bush is doing, for
who are we to judge? Or let's be an enlightened psychiatrist and
not diagnose, name or pathologize Bush in any way, for we don't
want to cast any spells. 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. Being a spiritual warrior embraces and includes the
most extreme discernment, which is the ability to differentiate
and is a function of seeing clearly. Discernment is different
that when we are unconsciously caught in judgement, which is a
reaction to and contraction against something. Wielding the
wisdom of discernment is an expression of having genuine
compassion.
Compassion is sometimes fierce,
though. Sometimes it says "no," and sets a boundary. Genuine
compassion is not always smiley-faced, otherwise known as "idiot
compassion," which just enables and reinforces asleepness.
Genuine compassion is not passive. It propels us to act for the
benefit of all beings. 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: The malignant egophrenia
epidemic has induced a form of criminal insanity in the entire
Bush regime that we are all complicit in by allowing it to
happen.
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. To quote Abraham Lincoln, "We- even
we here- hold the power, and bear the responsibility." Now is
the time to join together and creatively express our true voice.
As the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. says "Our lives begin to
end the day we become silent about things that matter." Our
only limitation is in our own imagination.
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, do we recognize what is
being symbolically shown to us by egophrenia, or not? The inner
meaning of the word apocalypse is ‘something hidden being
revealed.’ Will these apocalyptic end times we are in be an
initiation into a more expansive part of our being? Or will it
destroy our species? The choice is truly ours. All that is
needed is for enough of us to recognize what is being revealed,
and to creatively act out of this realization.
A healer, Paul Levy is a
spiritual and political activist. He is in private practice,
helping other people who are also spiritually awakening to the
dream-like nature of reality. He can be reached at
paul@awakeninthedream.com.
Please feel free to pass this article along to a friend if you
feel so inspired.
http://www.awakeninthedream.com/html/
© 2005
Paul Levy
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