Living in the consciousness soul, man experiences isolation, loneliness, materialism, loss of faith in the spiritual world, above all, uncertainty. The soul has to make up its mind and to act in a positive way on its own unsupported initiative. And it finds great difficulty in doing so. For it is too much in the dark to be able to see any clear reason why it should, and it no longer feels the old (instinctive) promptings of the spirit within. ~ Owen Barfield, Romanticism Comes of Age

We are now the sons of God; and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like to him: because we shall see him as he is. ~ 1 John 3:2

Types of People

Plato identified three forces in the soul: eros, thumos, and nous. These correspond to the willing, feeling, and thinking functions of the soul, each of which has its own relatively independent centre. The once-born will be centred in one of the three centres:

1. Centre of gravity is sensations and movement
2. Centre of gravity is the feeling function
3. Centre of gravity is the thinking function

The Psyche

Psyche, for our purposes, refers to the soul life and all its functions: thinking, feeling, willing. The Real I, or Self, transcends the psyche. A result of the Fall is that one’s self-identification fell from the Self to the I of the Personality, or Ego. The Ego is the conscious part of the psyche, but it accounts for just a small part of the psyche, most of which is unconscious.

Self-observation reveals that the Ego is not unified, since there are multiple, potentially hundreds of I’s, each claiming to be the Ego. Some of them may work together, creating a psychological “complex” which takes on a life of its own.

The Ego falsely believes it is one, because of

• the unity of the body and
• a common name.

In extreme cases, like multiple personality disorder, the different complexes even take on their own names. The task is to integrate the various parts of the personality and move the centre of gravity up from the Ego to the Self. Integration means to make whole, which means to make holy. Thus, it is a spiritual task, not merely a psychological process. That is probably why Carl Jung could claim that most of his patients were non-religious.

Resistance of the Ego

The Ego resists this process, which it regards as death. In a way it is, since the Real I then takes its rightful place, replacing the Ego. You often hear people say something like, “I need to contact my higher Self.” Of course, the Self is never an object, but always a subject. A claim like that shows the Ego’s resistance to the Self. In the The Parable of the Coach, the Ego is like the coachman who refuses to take the orders of the Master in the cabin.

Image and Likeness

We are born in the image of God, although the likeness has been lost or severely distorted. The image is beyond words and thoughts, so that our awareness of it is a mystical experience.

The likeness is the image as reflected in the soul or psyche. There are three stages:

• Gnosis: Gives form to the mystical experience
• Magic: Leads to action
• Philosophy: Makes the ideas communicable

The psyche is perturbed by negative emotions, obsessive thoughts, and insistent desires. Moreover, much of it is subconscious and not readily available to the conscious mind. That is why the likeness of God gets distorted in the psyche. Hence, it is necessary to purify the psyche so that it reflects God’s likeness perfectly. We will briefly examine the distortions in the feeling and willing functions here; the intellectual function will be discussed later.

Existence of Demons

As was mentioned in the previous post on Demonic Possession, the feeling and willing functions are under the influence of demons. We are not referring to any Hollywood-style depictions. Rather, the demons are known by their effects, which can be described. This is actually an important teaching. That is because it shows that our psychic functions are not intrinsically evil, but are under the heavy influence of outside forces. This was recognized in the baptismal rite prior to 1968, which used to include an exorcism. In particular:

In the traditional Roman baptismal liturgy, we find a sequence of exorcisms that directly represent baptism’s role as releasing us from the devil’s possession.

See The Significance of the Exorcisms before Baptism for more details. Unfortunately, the exorcism was subsequently removed, so anyone baptized after that year may experience more problems.

So this is hardly a novel teaching and is verified by experienced exorcists. For example, listen to the beginning of this talk:  Levels of Spiritual Warfare.

There is a purpose to demonic possession: to provide the friction required to become more virtuous or conscious. Although they are part of God’s plan, that does not make them somehow “good”, as some false teachings assert.

I will use the terms Luciferic and Ahrimanic to refer to the demons affecting the emotional centre (astral body) and willing function (etheric body) respectively. Keep in mind Valentin Tomberg’s reservations about the cavalier use of those terms in certain anthro circles to account for all sorts of unrelated phenomena. Nevertheless, they are useful.

Disordered Emotions

In sound functioning, the Intellect will determine what is good, just, noble, moral, rational, prudent, or loving. The Emotions and the Will then follows the intellect. This is not the case with psychic distortions. A person finds himself subject to the capriciousness of passions, particularly of negative emotions.

Work must be done on three levels:

• willpower,
• emotional life
• thought control

These must be ordered, educated, and shaped. By self-observation, the contradictions in one’s psychic life become visible; in particular, one must learn to resist the outward expression of negative emotions.

Disordered Will

The will is a force that manifests differently in the different levels:

• Mineral: electromagnetic forces
• Vegetable: Tropism
• Animal: Desire
• Human: Will

In a disordered will, a being is motivated by desires, which then distort the thinking function to justify the desire and then to determine a way to act on it. On a more primal level, one simply follows impulses such as like/dislike, attraction/aversion, and so on, quite apart from any intelligence.

The human will is still a gnomic will, that is, it depends on deliberation. This leaves the will open to doubt, viz., it becomes double-minded, hearing the second voice. This often leads to confusion and distress rather than to liberation. This is the fate of the man who is awakening to his Real I. He then finds himself alone spiritually, without traditional support. Refer to the Barfield quote on the consciousness soul in the epigraph.

The True Will, on the other hand, means that a person is acting according to his real, unfallen nature. This is the purified will, because it will only one thing. In this case, what one believed through custom, habit, conditioning, and so on, no longer suffices. Such a person chooses his beliefs because he wills them.

Imagery

The demon acts on the Will through imagery. However, it cannot manufacture images, but has to rely on pre-existing images. That is why it is so important to monitor the images the one pays heed to. Our contemporary world is full of manufactured images, designed to manipulate and control people. That is why the use of TV, movies, and related media should be reduced if not eliminated.

Although some may think this topic is off-colour, I am convinced that in this day and age, specific examples are necessary. Therefore, we can provide a study of how the use of imagery works in distorting the Will.

Men and women are typically dominated by one main feature. A very common feature is Lust, since it is so tightly tied to pleasure. Take the case of Jim, for example, who is civilly divorced, although still married, morally. Having succumbed to temptation, he goes to the confessional. He starts by confessing erotic thoughts. The priest asks him if he willingly entertained them. That is because the spontaneous arising of such thoughts is not ipso facto sinful. This is completely unlike secular psychology which presumes that such thoughts are indicative of one’s deepest nature. Not at all: our deeper nature is to be in the image and likeness of God, i.e., centred in our Real I or Self.

Therefore, we attribute the initial image to the Ahrimanic demon, not to some repressed desire within. The priest then asks Jim if he looks at pornography. That is because the demon cannot create the imagery, but only rearrange what is already there in one’s mind. Hence, the priest is looking for the real source in external causes. Jim denies watching pornography, but explains that he has had many girlfriends, so that the memory of sexual activity with them provides ample imagery. Thus, the demon can use Jim’s own life experience against him.

This is actually good news, since our faults can be forgiven. By understanding how these outer forces act on our inner psychic life, we can learn to be liberated from such forces.

Postmortem Purification

This should make it clear why postmortem purification is usually necessary. Death does not by itself remove the psychic distortions, making the divine likeness impossible without further work. Then, in the Beatific Vision, one knows God as he is, in his essence, not just in his energies.