- I suspect this is a man, and trained experienced professional, who tries to do the right thing. I would not speculate what this turning of the Presidency will be. But it seems like something has legally developed that no amount of bullying or name calling will be effective, even for a president. Mr. Comey appears to have stood up to the president when that is what his job description required. I hope there are many more such people scattered around in high places ..integrity it's called.
Friday, May 19, 2017
JAMES COMEY, AND HIS STORY, IS LIKELY A TURNING POINT IN MR TRUMP'S PRESIDENCY... May 10, 2017
PRESISDENT TRUMP EXPERIENCES STRONG CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITS... May 17, 2017
Something very important and very American I think happened today. Our president(from illness, ignorance or malevolence?) , with the power the office gives, had been able to use the nation, world and our laws and institutions as a toy for his own personal whims. It appeared nothing could stop the horrible train wreck from reaching its destination. Now with the unexpected and timely appointment of a special prosecutor even the president has hit a wall that every human must hit in our own way: The reality that there is some impersonal law or restriction that is far bigger than our personal ego and will. This in a very rich sense can be a primary religious or spiritual experience. It is how genuine humility is formed in the human personality.
This event today gives the nation and the president a chance to return to solid ground which had been far left behind for months. I fear Mr. Trump is not interested in or has value for real solid ground but instead chooses time and again to live in in his own untrue constructions of reality. And carry many others with him.
Hopefully this sobering but necessary kind of process is one every American and every human can learn from. This 'hitting the wall' is a fundamental nature of our personal and collective human situation.
We can be grateful for the one who had the political will to make this personal decision - Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein and for Robert S. Mueller III , the special prosecutor, who seems very prepared by life and training to take on this important task for the nation. He is a professional in that important sense of being ethically disciplined, something tragically missing in President Trumps character. He surely deserves our support and prayers as the nation seeks to find grounded stability. We were likely headed for something worse than most of us have let ourselves imagine.
There can be little doubt that it is the steady professional 'best and changing truth' reporting by our national major news outlets and papers that have been instrumental in this happening. The 'mainstream media' in its imperfections has kept before us the issues of Russia involvement in our free elections and the dynamics involved in the president firing James Comey, head of the F.B.I. Without a free and straight shooting press such turns toward greater national truth would not happen when powers such as the white house or other would seek to cloud it or cover it up.
Hopefully this sobering but necessary kind of process is one every American and every human can learn from. This 'hitting the wall' is a fundamental nature of our personal and collective human situation.
We can be grateful for the one who had the political will to make this personal decision - Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein and for Robert S. Mueller III , the special prosecutor, who seems very prepared by life and training to take on this important task for the nation. He is a professional in that important sense of being ethically disciplined, something tragically missing in President Trumps character. He surely deserves our support and prayers as the nation seeks to find grounded stability. We were likely headed for something worse than most of us have let ourselves imagine.
There can be little doubt that it is the steady professional 'best and changing truth' reporting by our national major news outlets and papers that have been instrumental in this happening. The 'mainstream media' in its imperfections has kept before us the issues of Russia involvement in our free elections and the dynamics involved in the president firing James Comey, head of the F.B.I. Without a free and straight shooting press such turns toward greater national truth would not happen when powers such as the white house or other would seek to cloud it or cover it up.
Monday, March 20, 2017
A JUNGIAN TYPE VIEW OF THE LINCOLN AND CHRIST STORIES.......March 20, 2017
I'm at Cooks Chili Parlor on West North Grand Ave in Springfield, IL. I'm having oatmeal and homemade bread.I Hope to not bite my lip as it is still numb from the dentist.
I revisited Lincoln's tomb just now. I'm struck again , "My God what consciousness has wrought." I know none of us can have made conscious more than the tip of the iceberg of what Carl Jung calls the Collective Unconscious. This is a present day psychological way of thinking about the source of all that is or can be, of God or the Self. We all can and do experience its contents becoming conscious, some probably more than others.
While again trying to comprehend the great moral advance in American culture heralded by Lincoln's courageous encounter with life's tensions; I felt, like so many have, the rush of archetypal, sacred like, emotions.
With that stimulation fresh I'd like to describe some basic premises of the work of Swiss psychistrist Carl Jung, a resource that much helps me explain some of my own experiences and unexpected changes in personal points of view.
What Jung may not have always made clear to the typical reader is that the complicated mythological development he describes(Such as in his very late little book "Answer To Job") which resulted in the Christ Story becoming culturally universal- was weaved, from archetypal energies, by the not perfectly developed conscious mind of the Collective Unconscious. Not by human plan but something beyond human consciousness, yet even that great God power was not fully conscious of itself.
From exceptional leaps in personal human consciousness, such as Jung experienced, some have in recent centuries been able to 'see' or comprehend that psychological fact(The imperfect God consciousness) and also help make it conscious to others.
This in turn comes to mean that 'God' , in God's need, at times is 'heard', in its own suffering tensions, by the human. And, like us when we are really heard, God has been made more morally conscious of Itself. The Biblical record as a whole describes this process of the evolution or transformation of the God consciousness. As it also shows the same happening to the human who contains within ourselves the full and exact image of the creator. This is the psychological situation for both the Divine and all humans. This is an insight not possible until modern times and still only partially conscious.
What we call God and Human are seen working collaboratively for the increased consciousness of both. This is to be expected because the human really is made in 'God's image', both it's perfection and imperfection. This idea remains a great challenge for our usual Western religious point of view. It feels at first too much like blasphemy and stirs a reaction of guilt and fear. But it actually offers a sounder understanding I think of many urgent questions and inner disturbances. And such an idea honors an enhanced more conscious fullness of God which is so needed for an already begun new epoch of global human evolution.
The imperfect mind of evolution, of God, (Think of it as like God's ego)was not fully conscious of its own creativity and much more. Many of the most remembered Old Testament stories picture this lack of ethical consistency in the God image of Yahweh. Such as his quickness to hot anger, thin skinned jealousy, ignoring its own ethical laws, blaming the human for all errors and extreme punishments of any who offend him. These are ever present along with a genuine desire to be loving, faithful and dependable. And the God is pictured as being talked out of such moral lapses by the cautious words and better judgment of his human creatures such as Abraham, Moses and Job. The result always being that the God is influenced to a higher ethical decision, God 'changes' its imperfect mind.
These images of God's imperfection are being noticed by many and are seen at first in direct and troubling opposition to the image of God as transformed and morally elevated in Jesus the God-Man of the New Testament.
God's highest creation, the human, is described in the Biblical narative as made in God's spiritual/psychological image. And the human ego we know from honest personal adult experience is also not at first conscious of the full meaning of its own creative works and behaviors.( This is a common confession of many of the world's most creative geniuses and more conscious very ordinary people.)
It is as if God and Human are dependent on each other's conscious feedback and mirroring for mutual fuller moral and self awareness.
Similarly, on a smaller scale, this same process is true of all culture changing events, such as the Lincoln story. In this same way we humans are first affected unawares by spontaneous and strong rich emotion by the activated archetypes of the Collective Unconscious(Which are always unconsciously dormant within us all. Much like the biological instinct is already present for a bird to build a very specific kind of nest.) And then, maybe now or later, we become conscious that we have been so affected by such archetypal autonomous energies..
This way we come to know, be conscious of, something important about the nature of our personal archetypal 'religious ' like experiences (ones that are far broader than only formal organized creedal religion and which always go beyond our rational thinking). These experiences are what make and shape the meaning of our fully human lives. By having some awareness of these natural internal processes we become more conscious beings. And we can trust the same is true of all other humans as well.
Being somewhat conscious of these internal processes need not take away the wonder(numenosity) or authority of such experiences. But allows us to know the natural psychological principles underlying such emotional life changing and enriching phenomena. And the great epoch making evolutionary ransformations they bring, for good and bad, to humanity's course. (We still most humbly know these living internal autonomous factors, called archetypes, are far beyond our most conscious rational grasp. And we have no way of knowing, and may never, the why of these things.)
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: There are very practical and needed implications of thinking of God and Human this way. Here are a few:
1. It helps us move away from the archaic notion that God is a 'being' out there much like us only far more powerful and perfect in its morality and use of its power. Such a God is completely unaccountable and as the Bible stories show can often get as off track ethically as the human creature. It means that everything that goes wrong is not always and only human failure, though there is plenty of that. This outgrown image of God is called an anthropomorphic view of the divine. Science and especially Quantum Physics has pushed modern humans to move to a much broader view of God where God is fully present within us and also embedded in all that is beyond us.
2. It does not mean that God can't be thought of as that to which we can personally relate but it also means that God is an embedded continually active mind factor in all of creation and in the deepest strata of our human Collective Unconsciousness; that the Collective Unconscious, which can now be explored, is what most reflects the reality of God to modern persons. This means we are all connected to God similarly and can potentially become more conscious of what that connection means in terms of the meaning and challenges of our personal and collective human life.
3. This view of God not being a perfect mind but an evolving one is not at odds with real science like anthropomorphism is. It is very consistent with the central science theorem of universal evolution. This means that one thing we can always count on is that everything which has come from God is in a state of evolving, of changing from one level to another over, what seems to us, long periods of time. Some more progressive traditional theology has accepted evolution about most parts of the universe but not usually about the deepest origins of the universe or what we call God. It is logical that if the creation bears the image of the creator that, like the creation, God also is an evolving reality. And as described above that involves the mind of God and the ethical moral consciousness of God; that it is changing. The changes are potentially toward the better and in need of evolving human consciousness to help God in God's development just as the human is need of reflections of the divine in order to become more morally conscious, more fully human and divine. It is a mutually dependent collaboration of God and Human that is so needed to address the problems the world urgently faces.
Without such a potential change the imperfect human consciousness, with its increased power of the past several centuries, is nearly certain to destroy both itself and the creation. This is the path we are most noticeably on at present. Peace on Earth can be a meaningful hope only to the extent that the moral consciousness of both God and Human are making progress through much creative human and divine suffering.
4. This view means the idea and experience of God , which can only be carried by the human consciousness, can affect humans who are not moved by any of the forms of institutional religion toward any 'belief' in God. This opens up a way , without negating their best thinking or their conscience, to consider a God image maybe for the first time. This would mean such persons could confess their authentic hunch of something that is 'more than' personal or collective human ego as a best explanation of the fullness of reality. That the universe and human experience is not simply physicality and rational materialism.
5. It implies that more traditional religious people would no longer live with the motivation , " I'll do good so that I might be rewarded now or later by the Great God." This motivation is of a lower more self centered level and does not really give the human something to aspire to with the most valued parts of themselves. It would instead make ones motivation to live, strive and yearn , " to be honest, loving , compassionate and fair" in our dealings so that which is God becomes more that way also. Alone our human striving may be seen as futile but with also an increasing moral consciousness of the God factor it can become a practical hope of a new epoch. This all means that God needs us humans as much as we need God, and that all of life is for the purpose of expanded moral consciousness via the Human-God interdependence . This world view offers a genuine hope and reason to work for the goal of Peace on Earth and good will to all humankind.
I revisited Lincoln's tomb just now. I'm struck again , "My God what consciousness has wrought." I know none of us can have made conscious more than the tip of the iceberg of what Carl Jung calls the Collective Unconscious. This is a present day psychological way of thinking about the source of all that is or can be, of God or the Self. We all can and do experience its contents becoming conscious, some probably more than others.
This process can be the source of major life changes in personal and collective views of life and the world. It can also be a dangerous overwhelming of the far smaller but amazingly essential conscious human ego.
 |
| A Suffering Luncoln |
With that stimulation fresh I'd like to describe some basic premises of the work of Swiss psychistrist Carl Jung, a resource that much helps me explain some of my own experiences and unexpected changes in personal points of view.
What Jung may not have always made clear to the typical reader is that the complicated mythological development he describes(Such as in his very late little book "Answer To Job") which resulted in the Christ Story becoming culturally universal- was weaved, from archetypal energies, by the not perfectly developed conscious mind of the Collective Unconscious. Not by human plan but something beyond human consciousness, yet even that great God power was not fully conscious of itself.
This in turn comes to mean that 'God' , in God's need, at times is 'heard', in its own suffering tensions, by the human. And, like us when we are really heard, God has been made more morally conscious of Itself. The Biblical record as a whole describes this process of the evolution or transformation of the God consciousness. As it also shows the same happening to the human who contains within ourselves the full and exact image of the creator. This is the psychological situation for both the Divine and all humans. This is an insight not possible until modern times and still only partially conscious.
What we call God and Human are seen working collaboratively for the increased consciousness of both. This is to be expected because the human really is made in 'God's image', both it's perfection and imperfection. This idea remains a great challenge for our usual Western religious point of view. It feels at first too much like blasphemy and stirs a reaction of guilt and fear. But it actually offers a sounder understanding I think of many urgent questions and inner disturbances. And such an idea honors an enhanced more conscious fullness of God which is so needed for an already begun new epoch of global human evolution.
The imperfect mind of evolution, of God, (Think of it as like God's ego)was not fully conscious of its own creativity and much more. Many of the most remembered Old Testament stories picture this lack of ethical consistency in the God image of Yahweh. Such as his quickness to hot anger, thin skinned jealousy, ignoring its own ethical laws, blaming the human for all errors and extreme punishments of any who offend him. These are ever present along with a genuine desire to be loving, faithful and dependable. And the God is pictured as being talked out of such moral lapses by the cautious words and better judgment of his human creatures such as Abraham, Moses and Job. The result always being that the God is influenced to a higher ethical decision, God 'changes' its imperfect mind.
These images of God's imperfection are being noticed by many and are seen at first in direct and troubling opposition to the image of God as transformed and morally elevated in Jesus the God-Man of the New Testament.
God's highest creation, the human, is described in the Biblical narative as made in God's spiritual/psychological image. And the human ego we know from honest personal adult experience is also not at first conscious of the full meaning of its own creative works and behaviors.( This is a common confession of many of the world's most creative geniuses and more conscious very ordinary people.)
It is as if God and Human are dependent on each other's conscious feedback and mirroring for mutual fuller moral and self awareness.
Similarly, on a smaller scale, this same process is true of all culture changing events, such as the Lincoln story. In this same way we humans are first affected unawares by spontaneous and strong rich emotion by the activated archetypes of the Collective Unconscious(Which are always unconsciously dormant within us all. Much like the biological instinct is already present for a bird to build a very specific kind of nest.) And then, maybe now or later, we become conscious that we have been so affected by such archetypal autonomous energies..
This way we come to know, be conscious of, something important about the nature of our personal archetypal 'religious ' like experiences (ones that are far broader than only formal organized creedal religion and which always go beyond our rational thinking). These experiences are what make and shape the meaning of our fully human lives. By having some awareness of these natural internal processes we become more conscious beings. And we can trust the same is true of all other humans as well.
 |
| The Empty Tomb |
Being somewhat conscious of these internal processes need not take away the wonder(numenosity) or authority of such experiences. But allows us to know the natural psychological principles underlying such emotional life changing and enriching phenomena. And the great epoch making evolutionary ransformations they bring, for good and bad, to humanity's course. (We still most humbly know these living internal autonomous factors, called archetypes, are far beyond our most conscious rational grasp. And we have no way of knowing, and may never, the why of these things.)
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: There are very practical and needed implications of thinking of God and Human this way. Here are a few:
1. It helps us move away from the archaic notion that God is a 'being' out there much like us only far more powerful and perfect in its morality and use of its power. Such a God is completely unaccountable and as the Bible stories show can often get as off track ethically as the human creature. It means that everything that goes wrong is not always and only human failure, though there is plenty of that. This outgrown image of God is called an anthropomorphic view of the divine. Science and especially Quantum Physics has pushed modern humans to move to a much broader view of God where God is fully present within us and also embedded in all that is beyond us.
2. It does not mean that God can't be thought of as that to which we can personally relate but it also means that God is an embedded continually active mind factor in all of creation and in the deepest strata of our human Collective Unconsciousness; that the Collective Unconscious, which can now be explored, is what most reflects the reality of God to modern persons. This means we are all connected to God similarly and can potentially become more conscious of what that connection means in terms of the meaning and challenges of our personal and collective human life.
3. This view of God not being a perfect mind but an evolving one is not at odds with real science like anthropomorphism is. It is very consistent with the central science theorem of universal evolution. This means that one thing we can always count on is that everything which has come from God is in a state of evolving, of changing from one level to another over, what seems to us, long periods of time. Some more progressive traditional theology has accepted evolution about most parts of the universe but not usually about the deepest origins of the universe or what we call God. It is logical that if the creation bears the image of the creator that, like the creation, God also is an evolving reality. And as described above that involves the mind of God and the ethical moral consciousness of God; that it is changing. The changes are potentially toward the better and in need of evolving human consciousness to help God in God's development just as the human is need of reflections of the divine in order to become more morally conscious, more fully human and divine. It is a mutually dependent collaboration of God and Human that is so needed to address the problems the world urgently faces.
Without such a potential change the imperfect human consciousness, with its increased power of the past several centuries, is nearly certain to destroy both itself and the creation. This is the path we are most noticeably on at present. Peace on Earth can be a meaningful hope only to the extent that the moral consciousness of both God and Human are making progress through much creative human and divine suffering.
4. This view means the idea and experience of God , which can only be carried by the human consciousness, can affect humans who are not moved by any of the forms of institutional religion toward any 'belief' in God. This opens up a way , without negating their best thinking or their conscience, to consider a God image maybe for the first time. This would mean such persons could confess their authentic hunch of something that is 'more than' personal or collective human ego as a best explanation of the fullness of reality. That the universe and human experience is not simply physicality and rational materialism.
5. It implies that more traditional religious people would no longer live with the motivation , " I'll do good so that I might be rewarded now or later by the Great God." This motivation is of a lower more self centered level and does not really give the human something to aspire to with the most valued parts of themselves. It would instead make ones motivation to live, strive and yearn , " to be honest, loving , compassionate and fair" in our dealings so that which is God becomes more that way also. Alone our human striving may be seen as futile but with also an increasing moral consciousness of the God factor it can become a practical hope of a new epoch. This all means that God needs us humans as much as we need God, and that all of life is for the purpose of expanded moral consciousness via the Human-God interdependence . This world view offers a genuine hope and reason to work for the goal of Peace on Earth and good will to all humankind.
Saturday, March 18, 2017
MEALS ON WHEELS PROGAM THREATNED BY PRSIDENT'S BUDGET... March 18, 2017
Regarding the discussion going around about Mr Trump's CUTTING THE MEALS ON WHEELS PROGRAMS which so many see as a very positive and caring American tradition. It is not as simple as many FB posts make it but neither is it insignificant.
I think we can all agree that most bumper sticker posts are not any full picture. We may should take time to make our personal comment with posts than to just quickly put them up for they sound 'right' to our present strong feelings. It reveals us letting someone else speak for us in very simplistic terms. This is a downside to FB posts on serious topics. And some complain if someone tries to make a thought out statement instead of just passing on the simplistic blurb.
Yes, Mr Trump's initial budget does not necessarily directly cut the Meals On Wheels program. Such statements like this always over simplify. But it would be a serious mistake to not recognize the very real shift in basic values this budget represents. One that many, still often to my astonishment, adore. This budget of Mr Trump's is strongly saying that people who have basic survival needs due to near or full poverty family situations are ' not trying hard enough' to take care of themselves independent of government. This attitude , imo, ignores the nature of our presently evolved capitalist societal system with its built in inequalities. It surely appears in direct contrast to how the Jesus Story pictures His understanding of the plight of the poor in society and the more wealthy's responsibility to them. That view can be stated as,' access to basic earth resources, and basic human needs, belongs to all humans and those with political power are obligated to attempt to make it so.' I don't think it can be reasonably doubted such was Jesus' central message to his culture's power structure. It got him killed as it has many other ethical martyrs.
We are sitting on a social volcano which this budget represents one extreme . It leans strongly toward resenting the poor who, often in America and worldwide, are present among minorities and ethnicities. Most of us adults have all heard such resentment from the demographic majority ordinary persons in barbershops, bars and beauty shops for decades.(It is not usually something someone will say in open public conversation but it is very real in private.) Now we have a president who fully agrees and says so and does so. This is our present but long forming divide come to full fruition as I see it and am troubled by.
I , sometimes misunderstood, do not think either party or side of our debilitating national polarity, presently has 'the right' clear solution. It is escaping all sides to various extents. But it seems to me that many of us are due a far reaching change in our world and ethical view of our place and role as conscious responsible humans. ...We seem appropriately in need of what has been called in pervious epochs of human development as 'Divine intervention.' A true metanoia 'from above' in New Testament language.
A beginning point is for us each to be aware of such a need and move away from our statements and excuses , in private and public, of our absolute rightness regarding the dangers we face.
I think we can all agree that most bumper sticker posts are not any full picture. We may should take time to make our personal comment with posts than to just quickly put them up for they sound 'right' to our present strong feelings. It reveals us letting someone else speak for us in very simplistic terms. This is a downside to FB posts on serious topics. And some complain if someone tries to make a thought out statement instead of just passing on the simplistic blurb.
Yes, Mr Trump's initial budget does not necessarily directly cut the Meals On Wheels program. Such statements like this always over simplify. But it would be a serious mistake to not recognize the very real shift in basic values this budget represents. One that many, still often to my astonishment, adore. This budget of Mr Trump's is strongly saying that people who have basic survival needs due to near or full poverty family situations are ' not trying hard enough' to take care of themselves independent of government. This attitude , imo, ignores the nature of our presently evolved capitalist societal system with its built in inequalities. It surely appears in direct contrast to how the Jesus Story pictures His understanding of the plight of the poor in society and the more wealthy's responsibility to them. That view can be stated as,' access to basic earth resources, and basic human needs, belongs to all humans and those with political power are obligated to attempt to make it so.' I don't think it can be reasonably doubted such was Jesus' central message to his culture's power structure. It got him killed as it has many other ethical martyrs.
We are sitting on a social volcano which this budget represents one extreme . It leans strongly toward resenting the poor who, often in America and worldwide, are present among minorities and ethnicities. Most of us adults have all heard such resentment from the demographic majority ordinary persons in barbershops, bars and beauty shops for decades.(It is not usually something someone will say in open public conversation but it is very real in private.) Now we have a president who fully agrees and says so and does so. This is our present but long forming divide come to full fruition as I see it and am troubled by.
I , sometimes misunderstood, do not think either party or side of our debilitating national polarity, presently has 'the right' clear solution. It is escaping all sides to various extents. But it seems to me that many of us are due a far reaching change in our world and ethical view of our place and role as conscious responsible humans. ...We seem appropriately in need of what has been called in pervious epochs of human development as 'Divine intervention.' A true metanoia 'from above' in New Testament language.
A beginning point is for us each to be aware of such a need and move away from our statements and excuses , in private and public, of our absolute rightness regarding the dangers we face.
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
THE DANGERS OF PSYCHIC INFECTION FROM AN UNHEALTY AUTHORITARIAN LEADER..March 6, 2017
WHILE OUR PRESISENT CRANKS OUT STATEMENTS APPEARING AS PRODUCTS OF A COMPROMISED MENTAL CAPACITY THE REAL WORK OF THE PRESIDENT AND THE GOVERNMENT GOES UNDONE HERE AND ABROAD.
There are many historical precedents of where an authoritative personality/leader's personal mental health issues have collectively affected unawares his strong supporters with the same dangerous symptoms. Some such expected symptoms would be a leader who believes he is uniquely selected by history to be the 'only one' who can heroically lead the people to great freedom and prosperity. This grandiose estimate of ones self would be expected to be accompanied by paranoia( 'my enemies are many and are after me'), use of uncompromising name calling as a preferred tool for relating with any who legitimately disagree, an inability to operate within the boundaries of normal physical and social facts, a continuous need for personal validation of one's rightness and approval, and an inability to work cooperatively and consistently with other legitimate authority and stake holders.
 |
| COLLECTIVE DELUSION |
Unless I am blind there appears to be such a story happening in front of us. The dangers are more than most of us let ourselves think about. Nothing quite like this has ever threatened America before. Our hope is there are enough sounder minds close to the president and in congress , which have not been clouded by the psychological chaos; who find the courage to openly stand against the leader when the signs of mental incompetence are obvious.
Such a moment is likely unfolding now. Those exercising a sounder mind must conscientiously speak out if it is shown, as it is so far, that the president has no verified evidence for his charge that the former president wire tapped his campaign office.
We need to keep in mind, without assigning any specific citizen as being so affected, that there is indeed tragic historical evidence of collective mental health and moral collapse. And that such a psychological phenomena can indeed be set in motion by a *archetypally (as if beyond the mere human realm) experienced mentally unhealthy authoritarian leader.
The nation's need today is many citizens , and hopefully some near our president , some of his own party in congress; persons who have not forgotten such things have happened before and can be happening again.
*Some explanation: When any of us are under 'archetypal' influence we experience being part of something that is godlike and we are mesmerized. We tend to give ourselves over to the certainty of its promises. It can be like a truly religious experience. Physical facts and logic are easily overridden by the excitement and inflation caused by the archetypal images and energies.
Obama also was charismatic and set in motion for his fans an archetypal 'savior' like experience. A big difference though is Obama consistently presents an image of a healthy and well reasoned person and does not state obvious physical untruths like this president does repeatedly. Nor did Obama constantly question the legitimacy of our democratic institutions like is daily now done.
Archetypal influences , though often a necessary source of human hope and emotional energy, are always dangerous and need to be always questioned by ourselves. They can cause us to ignore obvious facts and give us a reason to abandon our ordinary logic and 'common sense.' . In other words we can become collectively mentally fragile and unstable under their influence. And we lean on an excited group consensus rather than on our personal reason and critique. We can become collectively infected psychically.(The same energy we see depicted in any lynch mob scene in a movie. It has a life of its own and individuals become just a part of the unquestioning crowd.)
This is the dynamics of how murderous dictators have come to be accepted by the mass of otherwise ordinary folks.(The German people before Hitler were among the most educated in the world but the archetypal energy over swept their good judgment as they fell for the dark racist promises of the stirred up archetypes. ) If the archetypal images are negative , violate demonstrated facts and are inhumane a whole group of persons can revert to basic barbarism . We are experiencing a very dangerous psychological situation with the archetypes that have been set loose around this new President's personality..
Sunday, February 19, 2017
HISTORICAL TRENDS BEHIND THE PRESENT AMERICAN SOCIAL/POLITICAL CHAOS....February 19,2017
Astonishingly the new president in the first first month declares that the COURTS and FREEDOM OF THE PRESS are among his and the 'American people's enemies.' These are the two realities that most check America from ever coming under some kind of autocratic rule. It might be hard to imagine a more unconstitutional attitude.
This has also driven Americans to, with clear and self righteous conscience, suck every material comfort and amusement from the earth that we can and given license to take far more from nature than we need simply because it's there. These attitudes have often been supported by formal education emphasis and much of formal religion.
To control and manipulate everything we can for maximum short term pleasantness, amusement and comfort is the unspoken and irresponsible goal of Rationalistic Consumer Materialism. This leads to a pernicious disrespect for the natural care of the planet, diminished relationships built of mutual trust and honesty and to a belief that 'more for me and mine is always better'. Success of human life really has come to be measured by material wealth and political power. This stands opposed to actual deepest human need and development. It ignores the demands of the human soul.
So we overtly, even if irrational, adore the wealthy and materially powerful no matter the compromised ethics and character that often, with exceptions, necessarily characterize the most 'achieving' humans in a Consumer Capitalistic society. These materialistic values are still strongly active across all economic and most education levels, even though they work against our having more safe, healthy and less anxious lives
Our point of view, our world view, at this point is not really religious or ethics based and it is failing to give a serious damn about future generations or citizens who are in or on the edges of poverty, or the health of the planet. And we , in much collective denial of this threatening situation, still claim to so greatly love our children and future generations. Our collective behavior and materialistic values might give us pause.
Much of this is unconscious so most of us have truly not let ourselves know better. Ignorance and lack of awareness is the key root of our worst sins and the demands and capacity to change from these destructive long developed norms are fully present and pressing at the door. We have soulful learning to do that is more than what is in our typical history books. There is an urgent need to 'know our true selves' . This includes our darker unconscious motives that run unchecked as well as unknown potential good and neighborly compassion we can trust are also in the depths of human hearts.
The present daily images of ignoring common facts, creating ones own reality, material extravagancies and a self possessed President hold all these unsavory often unconscious factors up before us like a giant mirror . It says to us all, "This is who you are now or where you yearn to go. Is it time yet to change some of your ways and expectations for successful human living? Is your way any longer effective or productive for sustainable quality human life? It is up to you. "
This complex evolutionary web is not just the fault of one or other side of the present political spectrum, and certainly not just the president. Because it is an evolutionary process there is no value in assigning blame. It is simply what it is. What is important is that individuals 'be aware' of the situation, name and own it for what it is. “Conservative” and “liberal” are equally important mindsets and practices , both essential for healthy personal and collective life. The continuous political fighting likely is only a distraction from the real threats we all face but remain the unaddressed elephants in the room.
.
There is reason for a collective HOPE in this present complexity, HOPE of a religious or archetypal nature as all deeper human hopes I think must be. That hope can include that the narcissistic irrational chaos and over materialized self aggrandizing images associated with our white house symbolize a last crazed seizure of an enshrined crass materialism called Consumer Capitalism.
Humans have the capacity, and it must happen for our species to survive, to adapt to new evolutionary conditions as we pass through major eons or epochs of development. (Presently the planet and other life would be safer without us being here. This is a recent development due to human technology and unchecked consumerism. A more alert and responsible form of intelligent consciosness may be required now by evolution. And evolution would do just that if human consciousness fails its immediate task.)
No world view- religious, scientific or other, in its most developed form is ever eternal . Eventually, perhaps major shifts occurring every 2000 years, a long held effective world view becomes ineffective and obsolete for pressing new times. The presently weakening world view of America and the West is the result of global evolution reaching a one sided and unbalanced state where the planet is threatened with chaos. We seem to now be at the cusp of such a necessary change in epochs.
A deeply grounded HOPE which seems needed and reasonable to anticipate is for a major rebalancing shift in American human consciousness; a newly evolved perspective that will lead to truly higher ground where Sacred- Human love may make a quantum leap. Such a posdible transition of eons is never one that existing traditional moral codes, religions or political parties can take sole credit for. Instead a whole nation or a large diverse culture can come to realize they can experience and participate in nothing less than the natural movement of a frightening but redeeming God factor in their midst.
My opinion is the present societal situation developed over decades and longer does not have a 'one side is right' solution. It is much larger and we all , including our forebears, have had a hand in its historical development. I suspect it is the natural evolution of the materialistic frame of mind which was necessarily at the heart of the European Renaissance(Age Of Reason)and scientific mindset ( which gave us all the dazzling advancements of science and technology.) The atmosphere of that Renaissance was America's strong matetialistic beginning and , though once brilliant and essential, has led over time to our present Consumer Capitalistic materialistically possessed society.
Our first American powerful elites were mostly Deists, not church going Christians, which set them free from literally taken traditional religious dogma. This freedom to explore the material world was necessary for science to flourish( But religious fundamentalism has now re-surged in many forms worldwide and is a scientific step backward and something that inadvertently nurtures our dominant Rational Materialism world view.)
All of this , for good and ill, is our foundation, all of us. And we have finally run into the downside of what has become a one sided unworkable approach to life and human meaning and development. Phrases that describe this situation are Consumer Capitalism and Rational Materialism and are America's basic worldview in most aspects in our post modern culture. The downside of these mindsets gone too far and outgrown for new times include the consistent physical deterioration of the planet and its complexities along with wealth and power outrageously accumulated for a small percent of the population.
Our first American powerful elites were mostly Deists, not church going Christians, which set them free from literally taken traditional religious dogma. This freedom to explore the material world was necessary for science to flourish( But religious fundamentalism has now re-surged in many forms worldwide and is a scientific step backward and something that inadvertently nurtures our dominant Rational Materialism world view.)
All of this , for good and ill, is our foundation, all of us. And we have finally run into the downside of what has become a one sided unworkable approach to life and human meaning and development. Phrases that describe this situation are Consumer Capitalism and Rational Materialism and are America's basic worldview in most aspects in our post modern culture. The downside of these mindsets gone too far and outgrown for new times include the consistent physical deterioration of the planet and its complexities along with wealth and power outrageously accumulated for a small percent of the population.
 |
| Isaac Newton- Renaissance Scientist |
This has also driven Americans to, with clear and self righteous conscience, suck every material comfort and amusement from the earth that we can and given license to take far more from nature than we need simply because it's there. These attitudes have often been supported by formal education emphasis and much of formal religion.
To control and manipulate everything we can for maximum short term pleasantness, amusement and comfort is the unspoken and irresponsible goal of Rationalistic Consumer Materialism. This leads to a pernicious disrespect for the natural care of the planet, diminished relationships built of mutual trust and honesty and to a belief that 'more for me and mine is always better'. Success of human life really has come to be measured by material wealth and political power. This stands opposed to actual deepest human need and development. It ignores the demands of the human soul.
So we overtly, even if irrational, adore the wealthy and materially powerful no matter the compromised ethics and character that often, with exceptions, necessarily characterize the most 'achieving' humans in a Consumer Capitalistic society. These materialistic values are still strongly active across all economic and most education levels, even though they work against our having more safe, healthy and less anxious lives
Our point of view, our world view, at this point is not really religious or ethics based and it is failing to give a serious damn about future generations or citizens who are in or on the edges of poverty, or the health of the planet. And we , in much collective denial of this threatening situation, still claim to so greatly love our children and future generations. Our collective behavior and materialistic values might give us pause.
Much of this is unconscious so most of us have truly not let ourselves know better. Ignorance and lack of awareness is the key root of our worst sins and the demands and capacity to change from these destructive long developed norms are fully present and pressing at the door. We have soulful learning to do that is more than what is in our typical history books. There is an urgent need to 'know our true selves' . This includes our darker unconscious motives that run unchecked as well as unknown potential good and neighborly compassion we can trust are also in the depths of human hearts.
The present daily images of ignoring common facts, creating ones own reality, material extravagancies and a self possessed President hold all these unsavory often unconscious factors up before us like a giant mirror . It says to us all, "This is who you are now or where you yearn to go. Is it time yet to change some of your ways and expectations for successful human living? Is your way any longer effective or productive for sustainable quality human life? It is up to you. "
This complex evolutionary web is not just the fault of one or other side of the present political spectrum, and certainly not just the president. Because it is an evolutionary process there is no value in assigning blame. It is simply what it is. What is important is that individuals 'be aware' of the situation, name and own it for what it is. “Conservative” and “liberal” are equally important mindsets and practices , both essential for healthy personal and collective life. The continuous political fighting likely is only a distraction from the real threats we all face but remain the unaddressed elephants in the room.
.
There is reason for a collective HOPE in this present complexity, HOPE of a religious or archetypal nature as all deeper human hopes I think must be. That hope can include that the narcissistic irrational chaos and over materialized self aggrandizing images associated with our white house symbolize a last crazed seizure of an enshrined crass materialism called Consumer Capitalism.
Humans have the capacity, and it must happen for our species to survive, to adapt to new evolutionary conditions as we pass through major eons or epochs of development. (Presently the planet and other life would be safer without us being here. This is a recent development due to human technology and unchecked consumerism. A more alert and responsible form of intelligent consciosness may be required now by evolution. And evolution would do just that if human consciousness fails its immediate task.)
No world view- religious, scientific or other, in its most developed form is ever eternal . Eventually, perhaps major shifts occurring every 2000 years, a long held effective world view becomes ineffective and obsolete for pressing new times. The presently weakening world view of America and the West is the result of global evolution reaching a one sided and unbalanced state where the planet is threatened with chaos. We seem to now be at the cusp of such a necessary change in epochs.
A deeply grounded HOPE which seems needed and reasonable to anticipate is for a major rebalancing shift in American human consciousness; a newly evolved perspective that will lead to truly higher ground where Sacred- Human love may make a quantum leap. Such a posdible transition of eons is never one that existing traditional moral codes, religions or political parties can take sole credit for. Instead a whole nation or a large diverse culture can come to realize they can experience and participate in nothing less than the natural movement of a frightening but redeeming God factor in their midst.
Saturday, February 4, 2017
"YOU THINK THIS COUNTRY IS SO INNOCENT ? " President Trump's ethics struggle...February 4, 2017
Tonight
President Trump said, “ You think this country is so innocent?”
I'm glad to hear that challenging statement for it is true. Many
Americans would usually be strongly provoked by such a statement. But
it is true and history abounds in reminding us how we, along with our
moral accomplishments, have terrorized both our own citizens
beginning with slavery and denying others civil rights, and other
countries in some of our warring efforts. To own
this difficult reality is to come to a higher consciousness and able
to be more ethical in the future. To make ethical
progress.
Sadly
Mr. Trump did not make his statement in the context of grieving our
national shadow and expressing a kind of true repentance for wrongs
done. But in the context of condoning the war crimes against Crimea
and others by present Russian leader Vladimir Putin. The
president made his statement as a rebuff to any who are expressing
concern that while he is wanting to generally ban Muslim countries
and refugees, he also said tonight in this same context, “It is a
good thing that we get along with Russia.”
These
seemingly thoughtless inconsistencies I think expose the President as
frequently failing to give serious thought to ethics and
'right' and 'just' behavior from ones self toward others. Our
Christian heritage could still provide our Christian citizens with
the reasons and courage to own our own shadow ( “First, clean the
inside of your own cup”, for example ), to recognize unethical
attitudes and behaviors in our own story. And to also not rush
to approve, for our own convenience, unethical behavior in others (“
Unethical companionship corrupts good morals.”). This seems to me
what Mr. Trump has consistently been doing with respect to Mr. Putin,
his apparent most admired foreign leader. Do Americans want to
condone this kind of unethical imbalance our President is displaying?
Or do we let him know we expect a change from him?
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