Intuition

(first in a series of loosely-related pieces)

In his article 'The False Enlightenment', Tobias Lars (more of him in a further post) tells a story. I paraphrase but it goes something like this:

Father God was busy creating the Universe, but Mother God felt uneasy. "There's something off with what you are creating" she remarked. "What's the problem?" came Father's retort. "I don't know; can't put my finger on it. But it just doesn't feel right." "For Christ's sake, woman. Spit it out! I haven't got all day, you know." "I dunno, but there's something not right." Not given to patience, Father God went ahead at full speed anyway. Thus he created the universe we now live in, given over to psychopathic rulers, self-serving unnecessary warfare, dishonour, dishonesty, and wanton destruction of people, animals, plants, and the rest of the living environment.

It is only recently that I have succeeded in fully facing up to the degree that my life has been

guided by intuition. Important (for me) decisions, changes in life direction, have taken place on the basis of vague yet simultaneously precise feelings of what is right and proper, and what is mistaken. To translate these actions into the language of reason has happened further down the line; it has sometimes taken years.

In modern times, Lady Intuition does not make a problem-free guide. I am reminded especially of the period in my life some thirty years ago, when I was chairman of a Buddhist centre in London. I would sometimes be hailed to attend 'summit meetings' with chairmen of other Buddhist centres. Some of them were quick-minded, quick-witted types, the sort that would have been at home on 'Newsnight' with Jeremy Paxman in his prime. Not me. All manner of very important subjects would be up for discussion, dissection, and decision-making. While these thinking types were having a whale of a quickfire time, I would be sitting there like Mother God: "There's something not right here, but I don't know what. Can I have some time, please? A day? A week? A year or two?"

It's about one hundred years since Carl Jung came up with his theory of personality types, based upon what he called the four functions of the psyche. Each human has a 'dominant function'; these four could be arranged as a quaternity, as in a mandala. The four functions are sensation, intuition, thinking, and feeling.

One of the great things about this typology is that Jung presented all four functions as 'equal': there was no hierarchy implied or intended, they were simply different ways that the mind could experience and apprehend reality. Starting way back when, however, western mainstream culture has come to value some functions as 'superior' to others. Specifically, thinking, rational thinking, has come to be the hallmark of culture and civilisation, while the other functions have been relegated to the 'primitive'. It is 'thought' that distinguishes us from the lowly beasts; thought which elevates humankind to something different. This is our heritage from the Enlightenment and before, nowadays taking on the dark cloak of reductionist scientific materialism. It is the story of 'civilisation' that has been woven into official truth, the great Ascent of Man.

This is actually bullshit, a tale told to remove us from a good deal of our birthright, much of our magnificent energy. It is a one-sided apollonian lie, one that heralds the rational as bringer of light, while condemning those unruly 'pagan', natural energies to the dustbin of falsehood, error, demonology. As a device of oppression it has worked remarkably well.

In modern culture - and in a place like the Buddhist organisation I worked, where the presented paradigm was adopted without question - being guided by intuition as well as 'ideas' can be hard work, especially if you have turned up this time round as a male. It goes against the grain to release yourself into the embrace of Intuition without having everything sewn up nicely in a framework of rationality first. It feels dangerous, irresponsible even, and needs to be learnt, in my case at least. This is another effect of cultural conditioning, however, the notion that thought somehow makes things safer, more 'right'. Sure, intuition is sometimes spot on and sometimes wide of the mark; but relying overmuch on the thinking faculty (or relying overmuch on any one faculty, at the expense of all others) can have even more devastating effects. Most atrocities committed by humans upon other humans have come with a well-fashioned package of apparently rational thoughts and ideas to justify and back them up. Ideas that might not be watertight, but good enough to pull the wool over the eyes of the great majority.

Intuition has another quality which makes it a bit scary to many. It comes in sideways, or seemingly from nowhere - or from somewhere else. It appears unbidden, unexpected, sometimes unwelcome. In its mystery lies its value. It can be a channel into the 'other', the non-rational, into other dimensionality. In the Tarot, intuition comes in the form of the Moon. Creature of the night, bringing gifts of magic and mystery, shining a wan light, shifting and elusive as clouds dance across her face in the night sky, obscuring the silver planet. And it comes as the High Priestess, manifestation of dark beauty, enigmatic holder of secrets, lady of the mystical, deep connection to what is true but which cannot be properly formulated in words. This is the trick, to make the foundations of a tyrannical culture shiver: learn to live comfortably with what is known to be deeply true, but which cannot be readily expressed in words. Sacred channelers of intuition, we salute you.

"That which lives on reason lives against the spirit" wrote Paracelsus (1493 - 1541) provocatively.

Image: High Priestess, Thoth Tarot

    

Head west, head west....

Just returned from a couple of weeks on the west coast (Scotland, not California - not a Beachboy in sight). The weather was sufficiently good to be able to get out a lot, rather than sit indoors all the time watching the rain streaming down the window pane. Hence the silence from Pale G.V. Here are a few pics from that blessed corner of the planet (OK, clever clogs, planets don't have corners....).

 

Anima

My approach to the shamanic journeying I was doing as the twentieth century breathed its last was predominantly psycho-spiritual. It was part of my own exploration of mind/psyche/consciousness. A basic intuition that has accompanied me during most of my life is that there is more going on than immediately meets the eye. Conversely, anything which helps to push back the boundaries, expand the field, is prime fare for the menu. The journeying, with its paradigm-shattering revelations of..... well, something.... fitted the bill perfectly.


What I was doing was not, strictly speaking, very 'shamanic' at all. Traditional shamanism is concerned primarily with healing, both physical and psychological. The shaman would undertake a journey to the lower or upper world in order to divine the cause of disease, either by direct perception or through the aid and guidance of a helpful spirit. The shaman might suck out or otherwise banish a disease from the ailing person, or go on a journey to bring back a soul or soul-part that had gone missing from a person. I was no healer in this sense - at least as far as I knew - but lined up proudly in the tradition of psychonaut, explorer of world and consciousness. This was not a career path I had consciously chosen; some things just seem thrust upon us.

One morning a large brown envelope thumped onto the floor beneath the letterbox. Large brown envelopes normally bring unwanted news from the tax people. In this case, however, the contents were welcome. The package came from my friend and fellow shamanic voyager, and contained a pile of photocopies (still de rigueur in 1999), from a book called 'Man and his Symbols'. This is a tome comprising a compilation of essays on aspects of Carl Jung's psychology written in easier-to-read-than-normal language. The book is kind-of by Jung himself: of the five sections, one was written directly by him; the others are transcribed from his words by several of his followers.

As with the night-sea journey, Jung once again came up trumps for me. He became a unique clarifier of some of the strange things which took place on our journeying. This time round, it was the female figure or figures that my friend and I invariably encountered at a particular juncture of the voyage. Having descended into the lowerworld, we would often meet a female of some description or another. She would seem to be a catalyst for the trip to come: following the encounter, we would typically drop into a cavern or down an enormous precipice, or maybe fly across vast thick jungle or through an infinite night sky. On my journeys the lady occasionally appeared in the guise of a warrior, or as a huntress dressed in animal skins. Most frequently she manifested more like a medieval princess or other member of royalty, exuding a distinguished serious air, decked out in full-length flowing robes with equally long and flowing hair to match. 'In the middle of the piazza was sitting a woman who clearly was the queen. She was mature, probably late thirties, with quite a long face and a rather long nose. She was clothed in a long green dress, elegant and made of silky material.' (extract from my shamanic journeying diary). Sometimes she would accompany us on our journeys, sometimes not. And in one sequence of lowerworld visits she turned up again and again as the same being, black hair and cape, and I took her as a teacher.

What all this was about I had no idea. What was I supposed to do with these women in the lowerworld? I wondered whether I was supposed to have sex with them, although that normally seemed inappropriate. Then the photocopies arrived, and I could hardly believe what I was reading. Jung's notion of 'anima' described precisely what - or who - I had been meeting on my journeys.

While some of what 'Man and his Symbols' has to say about anima raised question marks in my mind - largely as a result of cultural and social changes since it was written - the focal revelation left me thunderstruck. Anima, said Jung, mediates between Ego and the Collective Unconscious, or between Ego and the Self, as he calls it. She stands at the gateway between our everyday mode of existence and the deeper layers, everpresent yet normally unconscious. She is mediatrix of the unknown. This is precisely the function she was undertaking during our shamanic voyaging. And as such, she may turn out to be a constant companion of the dedicated explorer of mind.

To unpack more completely anima, nothing beats the not-so-easy-to- read yet nevertheless considerable genius 'Anima' by James Hillman. In this book, our archetypal psychologist casts a sharp, critical eye over many of Jung's assertions and assumptions about anima. He points up how some of Jung's attributes of anima are not intrinsic to the archetype itself, but instead culturally-dependent accretions. In particular, as gender roles have changed, and as how we typically view gender has changed, so have the precise characteristics we attribute to anima changed. Yet her function as mediatrix remains the same.        

Significantly, Hillman also unhinges anima from some of the couplings and qualities often taken by Jung and his followers as inherent to her. Eros is one; when I wondered whether I should try and have sex with the figures from the shamanic journeys, I was falling prey to this lack of distinction between anima and eros. Not all sexual attraction towards women is anima-inspired, argues Hillman: this is laying far too much on every passing urge and fancy a typically horny male may have. And there are plenty of archetype-type female figures who are not anima. A quick, semi-spontaneous multicultural trawl throws up Hera, Hecate, Mothers Earths and Earth Mothers, Gaia, crones, Diana and other huntresses, Xena and other warrior queens, Virgin Mary and Magdalene the prostitute, not to mention bunches of frenzied maenads. Mistake one of those for anima and you'll soon find yourself in trouble.

Conversely, not every anima sighting provokes erotic feelings. Hillman also does a great job of taking to pieces Jung's simple oppositional notion that the unconscious is mediated by anima in males, and by animus in females. Not necessarily so, claims Hillman. Archetypes are universal, transcending natural gender, and the functions of animus and anima are distinct and different. Anima is unique in her role as mediatrix, and female humans need to explore the unconscious, 'make soul' in Hillmanesque jargon, in the same way as do males.

That's about it on anima for now, I think. Happy imaginings.

Images: Ninfa Marina by Bernardo Buontalenti
             Temperance: Dark Fairytale Tarot

Castle

The weather has been relentlessly cloudy in this little part of the universe thus far this summer. In years past, I have proven myself capable of navigating with map and compass across cloud-topped mountain peaks for hours on end. At present, though, the delight of such a pursuit eludes me. We did manage to get to Dunottar Castle, on the coast south of Aberdeen, however. I am not normally a castles-person, but this is something different. The ruins are perched precariously on the edge of a cliff-rimmed promontory, and the atmosphere is striking. Even the normally-prosaic French Michelin guide to Ecosse manages to break out into 'On pense aux pirates, Vikings, fantomes' before reverting to the safer territory of dates of kings, queens and miscellaneous other statistics. Come to think of it, I don't know why we might think of Vikings: they'd been and gone centuries before the castle was built.