Freud and Spirituality

The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the femine soul, is "What does a woman want."
(Sigmund Freud)

I was reading a book about the unconscious by Antony Easthope and can't say much about its quality given that I have no training in psychology. I thought it was interesting and well written; one thing I would say though, I find it sad to see that Freud - just because he was so smart during his days - still obsesses our experts. Is is really that hard to see that Freud was a classic male voice of the 19th century? Try today's female perspective instead - not one that has been trained by the male-dominated psychology discipline - but one who thinks about love, happiness, social connections and what we really want with a fresh set of eyes. Well, I guess we already have it, it is called spirituality :)

My spiritual journey started a few years back when I observed that you not only send yourself subconscious messages, other people do too. Say you think of something and someone comes along and reacts to your thoughts. Once you start looking for it you will find this inter-connectedness everywhere. We are one, as they say, and you can very much experiment with that concept. It is a lot of fun really.

Think of the Tao - as we always call it - as a giant virtual reality show that mirrors your own belief system back to you. Believe in greed and competition and you will find it, in scarcity and sin, and you will find it too. Believe in abundance, peace and love and this too is something you can attract for yourself. Sure, you can try to "game" the system and attract whatever it is your heart desires the way the Law of Attraction folks recommend. But there will always remain an element of fear and restlessness because you are not taking the core spiritual issue by the horns: we are here to realize that we are not an ego.

                            Tao                  ego


Tao                    Divine                Matrix

subconscious    Holy Now          Freud


In the diagram above I have tried to show the interaction of the Tao, the ego and the subconscious. Once the Way starts interacting with the ego you have a glimpse of the Matrix that mirrors back to you whatever it is you aspire. When the Way meets the subconscious you are left with the holy Now. The consciousness melts in the holy Now while the subconscious receives everything it desires.

The scientifically correct - though quite narrow - world of studying the ego in its interaction with the subconscious in isolation of the spiritual world is the environment Freud started exploring. You can study it and will certainly learn a lot of important things about yourself. Don't get lost there though. It is lonely, it is dark and love is unfortunately not experienced in this world.

By Zeitgeist

PostScript: When I deposited this note I found an interesting Freudian slip, the auto-correction of Apple changed the word feminine of the above Freud quote into famine. I am sure it says something about my own attitude about what women really want given that my type is exactly the same analytical, mind-driven male perspective that Freud represents. So what! You find the mistake, you override it and you apologize in a post-script. That is what a spiritual path is all about. You decide on a direction, you take the journey, sometimes it is uphill, while often it is downhill. Don't be afraid of your subconscious. There is incredible wisdom hidden beneath. Sure there are some dark corners but after a little cleaning and after opening a couple of windows, all you find is love there :)

The White Buffalo Woman

I was on my way to a conference room to practice a presentation with some other colleagues. To my surprise I reached the room a couple of minutes early and I was just about to sit down when I noticed the art on the wall, it displayed a white buffalo. 'Wow', I thought to myself, 'didn't my sister-in-law just yesterday talk about the white buffalo story?' Unfortunately I couldn't really remember the story so I decided I would just quickly go back to my office and google the expression. I found a story of a white buffalo women who was revered by the Sioux tribe but unfortunately couldn't gather much more as the meeting was about to begin. When I arrived back in the room people had already gathered and soon after our trial run started. All the presenters were male, but we had one woman who had joined the discussion for the first time. She was in charge of the conference where this presentation would be held and wanted to see how it was progressing. As we were talking she quietly took notes but found also enough time to work on some other projects she had brought into the room. As she was looking up towards me I couldn't believe my eyes, there she was, sitting right below the white buffalo painting. It was as if she and the buffalo had merged at that magical moment: 'the white buffalo woman', I thought to myself.

It turned out that the group was surprisingly contentious. While this meeting was supposed to be a discussion of our final presentation, some still wanted to make changes and there was even a heated discussion going on what exactly the conclusions of our talk should be. I kept relaxed throughout the meeting and just listened to the suggestions of our moderator. She did everything right, helped us with titles, encouraged us to have different opinions and was even humorous about the whole thing. The white buffalo did her magic in this meeting. It is amazing what power psychological power ancient symbols still have in todays society. C. G. Jung would have enjoyed this meeting very much.