summary of the archetypes

the human ordeal of consciousness and willful achievement, well put by Robert Wilkinson in this summation, "Life energy is initiated in Aries, substantiated in Taurus, explored in Gemini, grounded in Cancer, renewed and creatively expressed in Leo, refined and ordered in Virgo, balanced in Libra, purified in Scorpio, expanded in Sagittarius, organized in Capricorn, solidified into a vision in Aquarius, and ended/perpetuated in Pisces."

mistress knowledge

biting off more than one can chew can be an endearing quality, except when the struggling chomper's a polemicist who's proving inflexible of the changes or recantations required by mistress knowledge, someone apparently unaffected by the evolving and starker clarity of self evident counter report.

a better man bows to the fullest complexion possible on his subject, a lesser one digs heels in on old decisions and biases, making a mockery of any system of investigation's ability to grapple with inconvenient facts. tut tut.

here's a link to the article,
and below a reply from James DeMeo, PhD,
Director, Orgone Biophysical Research Lab, Ashland, Oregon

ADVENTURES IN THE ORGASMATRON
How the Sexual Revolution Came to America
By Christopher Turner
Illustrated. 532 pp. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $35.
REVIEWED BY CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

In the classic confessional memoir “The God That Failed,” Arthur Koestler describes some of the characters who made up the constituency of his Communist Party group in Berlin in the early 1930s:

“Among other members of our cell, I remember Dr. Wilhelm Reich. He . . . had just published a book called ‘The Function of the Orgasm,’ in which he had expounded the theory that the sexual frustration of the proletariat caused a thwarting of its political consciousness; only through a full, uninhibited release of the sexual urge could the working class realize its revolutionary potentialities and historic mission; the whole thing was less cockeyed than it sounds.”

Pausing briefly to ask oneself how the word “cockeyed” translates into Berlin vernacular, one next inquires how the theory could have been more preposterous than at first appeared. Apart from his life of tireless and sensational debauchery, Koestler himself was famous for hitching his wagon to various movements of the paranormal and the extrasensory; he might have been expected to give Reich’s oddball theories a try even as both men spun off from the dying planet of Soviet Communism. But what is extraordinary is the number of apparently level and careful people who, in pursuit of the better and bigger orgasm, were prepared to lower themselves into Reich’s jerry-built “orgone box” and await blissful developments. One is not so surprised to read of the enthusiasm of try-anything-once artists like Allen Ginsberg, Henry Miller, William Burroughs and Norman Mailer. But how must Albert Einstein have felt, while engaged on his two weeks of study of orgone properties? (He did at least conclude that the “box” was an insult to the laws of physics.) Did Saul Bellow not succumb to the queasy feeling that he might be looking like a sap?

... read the full book review here and below a reply to this article from James DeMeo ...

What a shame that you did not personally investigate Dr. Wilhelm Reich's biophysical work, before accepting at face value what the non-scientist faux-literary and travel-book author Christopher Turner, has pronounced in his deeply flawed and biased "Adventures in the Orgasmatron". The title alone should have given you some pause. But it is fashionable these days to always laugh at the poor sot in the stocks, whomever it might be, against whom we can throw all our emotional crap, like the Muslims throw stones at the Devil-pillar in Mecca. Everyone then feels so much better. Was that you?

To inform: I've investigated Reich's biophysical work over decades, including his orgone energy accumulator, and can personally report (and have done so in many published articles and books) that his findings are both sound and reproducible. Review these, for example:
http://www.waterjournal.org/volume-3/demeo
http://www.orgonelab.org/DeMeoEdgeScience.pdf
http://www.orgonelab.org/DeMeoToTSubtleEnergies.pdf

I'm not alone in that regard, of having replicated Reich's biophysics. Do you even know the published literature on this issue? Does any of that matter to you? Or must one have a big name, and big publisher sponsor an ad campaign and reviews for the Times to get your attention? Do you know anything about the history of scientific discovery, and repression? How the “mainstream” always goes with the reactionary pogroms against new discovery?

Turner surely knows the evidence in favor of Reich's biophysics -- he attended scientific conferences where such information was presented – which shatters his central thesis of "Reich the Crackpot". He deliberately does not mention any of it. He also fabricates a deceit against Reich, through a faux guilt-by-association with every kind of sexually-twisted example from the late 20th Century – also ignoring Reich’s frequent denouncements of the same.

You once wrote a book about Orwell, noting with accuracy something he said: "Lies of Omission are the worst kind of lie". Precisely because the ignorant won't even know they are being led into dangerous waters. That pretty much defines the Turner book, as well as what you just did, lending your otherwise good name towards yet another public auto-da-fe abuse of Reich's corpse.

Reich's work is a testament to the dangers of book-burning – I note, you said nothing about that. You might review my article "New Information on the Persecution and Death of Wilhelm Reich" to see how it wasn't the old "McCarthites" who engineered his death in prison, and the book-burning, but rather liberal-left-atheist Reds of various hues, including members of two notable Soviet spy rings. You can damn well read the article to learn the details. Here:
http://www.orgonelab.org/ReichPersecution.htm

This is doubly regrettable for you personally, because the orgone accumulator has a notable capacity to often (but not always) shrink tumors, reduce the physical pains associated with cancer, and stimulate a return of appetite, energy and vitality to those withering away, depending upon how far it has gone.

I'd always considered you a man of principle and decency, but this time you've gone way off the rails. If you can center yourself, and not merely react to my strong words, you might ask, just what is going on, and why, that people are so exercised after 50+ years after Reich's death, that they want not only to blame the worst aspects of the New Left sexual rebellion on him, but to also make yet another merciless round of "analysis" (eg, defamatory sex-smears and jokes) about the orgone accumulator -- which in spite of what the AMA or FDA might proclaim, is an authentic scientific and curative device!

Regards,

James DeMeo, PhD
Director, Orgone Biophysical Research Lab
Ashland, Oregon, USA

PS. For my several scientific books on this and related subjects, do an Amazon.com search on my name.

AURUM by Edward C. Whitmont, M.D.

excerpted from PSYCHE AND SUBSTANCE
GOLD is the metal of the sun. For untold ages, it has held fascination for mankind. Gold has been the "royal" metal furnishing the king's solar halos: their crowns. Universally it is a symbol of imperishable value. Even when gold no longer supplies the actual coinage it nevertheless continues to represent the basic standard of currency. Evidently the collective psyche harbours an unconscious awareness of a supreme symbolic significance inherent in gold.

In Hermetic tradition gold is held to be part of a cosmic "functional" triad comprised of sun, heart and gold as corresponding, synonymous entities. It is noteworthy that the sun rhythmically "pulses" in a way that is analogous to the heart. It contracts and expands about .002% of its diameter (or about 3K) in approximately two hours and forty minutes.

For alchemy gold represented the solar principle and the highest goal of spiritual transformation. ("Our gold is not the gold of the vulgar" was an alchemical saying.) Astrologically, the solar principle stands for the life will in the individuating human consciousness, the sense of self-value, honesty, responsibility, pride, willpower, vital strength and the capacity to exert control, all vested in the heart.

Among many Indian tribes the rising sun was greeted by breathing upon one's hand and offering one's breath to it as the source of life. In a more gruesome ritual, the Aztecs would tear out the living heart of their sacrificial victims, preferably prisoners of war or nobles, and hold it up as an offering to its "father" the sun.

These traditions bear witness to the deeply felt correspondence between the substance of gold, the sun and the sun-like organ, the heart. It is interesting in this connection that the center and source of consciousness as well as the life will were traditionally associated with the heart, the organ of feeling, rather than the brain.

Astrologically, our consciousness is seen as anchored in the two "lights," the assertive "greater light" the sun and the receptive "lesser light" the moon. Both are polarized by their "antagonist" Saturn, the principle of limitation, who rules the metal lead and the bony skeleton which defines and limits our existence in time and space. Under Saturn's influence the sun becomes "black," the sol niger of alchemy, representing decay, depression and death. Hence the goal of the alchemical opus was the transmutation of earthbound Saturnian stuff, of lead, into spiritual essence, into gold.

The sun is the center of our universe. But like human consciousness and human will, the sun is still subordinate to a higher center, the center of the galaxy which, according to newest observations, is a black hole: a mysterious entity in which time, space and substance as we know them are vitiated. Thus, the solar principle expresses also the problem of human individuality, balanced and polarized between life and death, between the dark mystery of the transcendent "center" above and the Saturnian limitation below, to both of which our light of consciousness and sense of individual life are subordinate.

As focal points of consciousness the sun and moon also rule our chief sensory orientations - the outgoing sun ruling the outer-oriented attitudes of smell (associated with Muladhara, the basic Saturnian earth chakra) and of vision. ("Were not the eye to sun akin, how could we ever behold the light?" -Goethe.) Hence gold affects heart and circulation, the bony skeleton (ruled by Saturn), eyes and nose. Correspondingly, the receptive moon rules the inner-oriented gesture of hearing; hence the moon, like permeable and receptive Calc. carb., Phosphor or Pulsatilla, has a greater affinity to the ears.

The pathology of Gold fits personalities of a serious, over-responsible and depressive character.

The solar types are would-be rulers, "kings," that feel actively responsible for the destinies of their "subjects" and for the burdens they themselves have assumed.

Usually, they are active and intrinsically strong people who feel they bear heavy responsibilities often experienced as overwhelming. Their pathology expresses the tension between their sense of responsibility, their will and felt call to control people and circumstances, as over the existential limitations they encounter.

Physically they tend to be ruddy, dark-complexioned, plethoric, active and strong, sometimes heavy-set. Or, the other side of the spectrum: oldish-looking, low-spirited "overwhelmed" children, often boys with atrophy of the testicles.

Responsible fathers or heads of families, (regardless of whether they happen to be males or female), effective business and executive types with strong willpower, they occupy highly responsible functions, and like the mythological Atlas who had to carry the weight of the whole globe on his shoulders, they frequently carry more than they can. Burdened by an often over-scrupulous conscience that overshoots the mark, and inclined to take matters too seriously, they tend to see predominantly the dark side of problems and of life. (Impressively enough, this is also a symptom of disturbed physical vision: seeing only the lower half of objects.)

They have a hard time tolerating contradiction. Yet they do not show their anger or worries, do not say much and tend to withdraw into solitude.

But swallowing rather than expressing their emotions intensifies inner as well as outer tensions, eventually to the point of explosive breakdown. To these situations they respond with self-criticisms, self-accusations, and heavy, often unjustified, feelings of guilt, worthlessness and self-condemnation.

Readily overwhelmed by a load that feels or actually is too heavy for them, they are given to anxiety and restlessness about trifles, about the future and about their health. They tend to feel neglected and deserted and become silently brooding, show aversion to other people including even their immediate kin, and tend to isolate themselves.

Ultimately this may lead to hopeless despondency, depression and despair, emotionally no less than physically (despair about pain), to a loathing of life and suicidal tendencies. Often these types may be found among seemingly strong and silent people who suddenly commit suicide.

Noise bothers them, but the solar types are uniquely sensitive and made to feel organically better from music. (Kent's repertory lists only Aurum and Tarantula under this rubric.)

Apparently, music conveys solar light and life strength. We are reminded of the Biblical image of King Saul having lost his connection with God and in deep depression: "... and whenever the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hand; so Saul was refreshed and was well and the evil spirit departed from him." (1 Samuel: 16, 23)

Apollo, the Greek sun god, is also a musician. Traditionally, from the sun issues the "harmony of the spheres," and Goethe opens his individuation drama Faust with the archangel's intoning:

"The sun sounds forth in ancient fashion
In brother sphere's competing song."

Like sun-kings, the Gold types feel oppressed mentally and physically when hemmed in. They have to be on the move and feel better by walking around.

Clinically, the Gold scope includes also ailments from anger, fright, contradiction and disappointed affection and unhappy love.

The aggravations at night, in the winter, in cold weather, as well as from heat, the desire for open air and improvement from bathing fit well with the solar pathology.

Strongly rooted in a sense of ego, Gold types have a great tolerance of alcohol and may drink a lot, but not like Phosphor in a search for easy ecstasy. Instead Gold types drink in order to temporarily lighten the burden of their worries and responsibilities. Yet, in extreme cases the addictive outcome is the same. On the other hand, like Phosphor the carrier of light, Aurum the solar principle and Sulphur the carrier of sol-sun are anidotal to, as well as in their pathology generating a susceptibility to, consciousness-lowering drug dependency.

reclaim somatic ground

if you can't afford psychotherapy and need to defrag, just stand naked in front of a fulllength mirror for more than a few minutes. the judgements and the assessment of body parts quiets down if you stand in that reckoning gaze with the self for long enough. then, as if by magic, the soft motherly animal forces of the earth start to rise in your perceptions and you startle to see your own body as a gentle beautiful flower full of light and story, just like every other body out there.

this kind of shift in the way we experience ourselves would take such stress off of our interfacing. we withhold so much of our own energies hating our bodies, it makes us weak and ineffectual. there's no benefit to be had, neither darwinian nor epigenetic, from self-hatred.

artwork by Arrington de Dionysos

animals touch their kind extensively and to their benefit. our denatured minds have so fucked us over in terms of our embodiment patterns and ways of interrelating between bodies, but the good news is we're becoming aware of our touch deficit and our lack of access to safe, respectful, nurturing touch.

ANAHATA

anahata
Excerpted from C.G. Jung's 'The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga' courtesy Gary Sparks

"Above the diaphragm you come into anahata, the heart or air center, because the heart is embedded in the lungs and the whole activity of the heart is closely associated with the lungs."

"When you have come into the whirlpool of passions, of instincts, of desires and so on, what follows after?"

"[I]n anahata they are lifted above the surface of the earth."

"[Y]ou begin to reason, to think, to reflect about things, and so it is the beginning of a sort of contraction or withdrawal from the mere emotional function. Instead of following your impulses wildly, you begin to ... disidentify yourself from your emotions, or so overcome your emotions actually. You stop yourself in your wild mood and suddenly ask, 'Why am I behaving like this?'"

"[I]n anahata a new thing comes up, the possibility of lifting himself above the emotional happenings and beholding the. He discovers the purusa [FN: the primeval man or ... the luminous man] in his heart, the thumbling, 'Smaller than small, and greater than great.' In the center of anahata the ... small flame means the first germlike appearance of the self."

"[T]ake a patient in analysis who has reached the stage of manipura, where he is an absolute prey to his emotions and passions. I say: 'But you really ought to be a bit reasonable; do you see what you do? You cause no end of trouble to your relations.' And it makes no impression whatever. But then these arguments begin to have a pull; one knows that the threshold of the diaphragm has been crossed—he has reached anahata. You see, values, convictions, general ideas are psychical facts that are nowhere to be met with in natural science. ... They become visible only in anahata. Now, according to tantric yoga, the purusa is first seen in anahata: the essence of man, the supreme man, the so-called primordial man then becomes visible."

"The next animal is the gazelle, again a transformation of the original force. The gazelle or antelope is not unlike the ram, living upon the surface of the earth—the difference being that it is not a domesticated animal like the male sheep, nor is it a sacrificial animal. It is not at all offensive; it is exceedingly shy and elusive, on the contrary, and very fleet of foot—it vanishes in no time. When you come upon a herd of gazelles, you are always amazed at the way they disappear. They just fly into space with great leaps. There are antelopes in Africa that take leaps of six to ten meters—something amazing; it is as if they had wings. And they are also graceful and tender, and have exceedingly slender legs and feet. They hardly touch the ground, and the least stirring of the air is sufficient to make them fly away, like birds. So there is a birdlike quality in the gazelle. It is as light as air; it touches the earth only here and there. It is an animal of earth, but it is almost liberated from the power of gravity. Such an animal would be apt to symbolize the force, the efficiency, and the lightness of psychical substance—thought and feeling. It has already lost a part of the heaviness of the earth. Also, it denotes that in anahata the psychical thing is an elusive factor, hardly to be caught. It has exactly the quality that we doctors would mean when we say that it is exceedingly difficult to discover the psychogenic factor in a disease."

"So the crossing-over from manipura to anahata is really very difficult. The recognition that the psyche is a self-moving thing, something genuine and not yourself, is exceedingly difficult to see and to admit."

"Each of the four lower centers has an element belonging to it—muladhara, the earth, svadhisthana, the water, then comes fire in manipura, and finally air in anahata."

gordian knots

whatever we really _are_ is the thing that's really beautiful about us. often we're blind to this aspect and so we rely on each other to reflect back at ourselves our own attractiveness! and then we pretend that the fineness we see in the world and in others isn't also in ourselves! that's a gordian knot, my friends.

the humans who don't buy into our rhetoric in a completely goodnatured way are also the people who don't want to loose the beautiful neutrality they can offer us. benefit of doubt, keeping neutral and optimistic, that's the fire between friends transmogrifying dross to gold.

there's no direct road to any gratification that doesn't turn to ash in the mouth. so be the road that runs everywhere and has nothing left to consume that isn't already embedded in its own nature...

MANIPURA

manipura
Excerpted from C.G. Jung's 'The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga' courtesy Gary Sparks

"[I]f you pass through that danger [the devouring quality or attribute of the sea] you reach the next center manipura, which means the fulness of jewels. It is the fire center, really the place where the sun rises. The sun now appears; the first light comes after baptism. This is like the initiation rites in the Isis mysteries, according to Apuleius, where the initiate at the end of the ceremony was put upon the pedestal and worshiped as the god Helios, the deification that always follows the baptismal rite. You are born into a new existence; you are a very different being and have a different name."

"[M]anipura is the center of the identification with the god, where one becomes part of the divine substance, having an immortal soul. You are already part of that which is no longer in time, in three-dimensional space; you belong now to a fourth-dimensional order of things where time is an extension, where space does not exist and time is not, where there is only infinite duration—eternity."

"[D]esire, passions, the whole emotional world breaks loose. Sex, power, and every devil in our nature gets loose when we become acquainted with the unconscious. Then you will see a new picture of yourself. That is why people are afraid and say there is no unconscious, like children playing hide-and-seek."

"A man who is not on fire is nothing; he is ridiculous, he is two-dimensional. He must be on fire even if he does make a fool of himself. A flame must burn somewhere, otherwise no light shines; there is no warmth, nothing."

"In manipura the ram is the symbolic animal, and the ram is the sacred animal of Agni, the god of fire. That is astrological. The ram, Aries, is the domicilium of Mars, the fiery planet of passions, impulsiveness, rashness, violence, and so on. Agni is an apt symbol. It is again the elephant, but in a new form. And it is no longer an insurmountable power—the sacred power of the elephant. It is now a sacrificial animal, and it is a relatively small sacrifice—not the great sacrifice of the bull but the smaller sacrifice of the passions. That is, to sacrifice the passions is not so terribly expensive. The small black animal that is against you is no longer like the leviathan of the depths in the cakra before; the danger has already diminished. Your own passions are really less a danger than to be drowned in unconsciousness; to be unconscious of one's passion is much worse than to suffer from passion. And that is expressed by Aries, the ram; it is a small sacrificial animal of which you don't need to be afraid, for it is no longer equipped with the strength of the elephant or the leviathan. You have overcome the worst danger when you are aware of your fundamental desires or passions."