Throwing Out The Subconscious or Unconscious Mind

[Stosh]

Dreambliss , Ok, you want to see subconscious before you believe it exists. Theres lots of indicators, and you can see those. But theres an admission fee.

The fee is posted as follows.

You are required to accept, any manifestation which you did not consciously include, as to have been supplied by your subconscious.

If youre good at visualization, this should be a very short ride.

Do you accept the terms? Or will you consider the fee null and void due to the somewhat circular reasoning that If you became aware of it, it wasnt ever subconscious.

Edited March 22, 2015 by Stosh

[Nungali]

Basically you are saying things cannot exist that you are not aware of.

 

I dont think it is really a philosophical position at all (as you , in no way, were able to philosophically argue your view ... it was just basic denial of a human faculty we all have  that you have chosen NOT to believe in as it suits some fantasy you also believe that you have not yet, really, been able to put into practice. 

 

" Really then it does not matter to us if there is some hidden or hard to access part of our mind,"   you missed the point again .... the original premise postulates wet boots,  cracking your head on a rock, getting lost ...

 

you won't see those things in the analogies offered to you  ... you dont want to see those things ....  

 

But it was an interesting take on things ... if it could really happen - the man (really) without an unconscious mind !

 

I will leave you with one final question (even though you appear to be exiting .... although you said you were going to walk through the maze of my questions later )

 

When you remember something, you are aware of it, it is in your consciousness ,  yes ? 

 

Do you have times when you know something ... and you know that you know it ... but for the life of you, you just cant remember it, you just cant get it into your conscious awareness.

 

Then .... bing!   You remember ... its all there !

 

Where did it go and where was it stored and where did it come 'back from' during the time of forgetting ? 

Edited March 22, 2015 by Nungali

[Nungali]

 

But as far as I can tell none of you have presented any compelling evidence, as to A. What exactly is the benefit of believing in the existence of some aspect of your mind outside consciousness? And B. How exactly do you know the subconscious mind exists? What proof do you have?

 

No ? 

 

I believe the dynamic here is closer to :

 

 You seem to be asking people whether they believe the subconscious exists or not - or at least what we think about your idea of denying its existence... we're trying to show you examples of why you're limiting yourself and you're taking it as an opportunity to try to prove that you're right... It's a game that unfortunately has everyone lose. 

 

 

 

 

 

I guess I feel that since you seem to be disagreeing with my decision, or finding fault with it, or finding it insufficient or limiting, that the burden of proof rests with you as to exactly why your belief in this hidden, hard to access part of the mind is better than my current disbelief in it.

 

because you veered towards acknowledging it does exist ... but you chose to believe it isnt relative to you because you dont want to have one. ... so it doesn't exist for you.

 

The biggest beef is probably your assertion that you can change your whole psychic anatomy by an act of simple mental visualisation ....   basically, that's just denial.

 

Why does one person who denies a human faculty, when everyone else thinks the opposite, even going back in time and all locations humans have lived (whether they used the term 'unconscious mind' or another one ... large chunks of human social culture have utilised it) say the burdon of proof lies with everyone else.

 

Actually, if you are going to state something totally out of the norm .... that even the people here that agree with you about the LoA , dont agree with you about no unconscious  ... it is you that burden of proof turns too.

 

And you have done terribly with that. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In other words, I have not been convinced, despite your very best efforts. But the purpose of this thread has been accomplished. I stated what I was going to do, I got the feedback and various viewpoints I was looking for.

 

So thank you, all of you, for giving me your various perspectives on my decision and this subject! I appreciate all the energy, effort and time that went into your replies.

 

The overall consensus seems to be that the majority of you believe in some aspect of the mind outside consciousness, that you do not find a belief in this to be disempowering, and furthermore, that my chosen disbelief in it is limiting at the least, and self destructive at the most. Also that my disbelief is not empowering at all, and is actually denial. Do I have that about right?

 

I guess that's it from me for now.

 

 

Add  .....    and the more it is denied, the more it will try and influence you 'surreptitiously' . And ;  you still have one, even if you dont like it.

 

 

Edited March 22, 2015 by Nungali

[Nungali]

(doubled post)

Edited March 22, 2015 by Nungali

[Michael Sternbach]

But it was an interesting take on things ... if it could really happen - the man (really) without an unconscious mind !

 

The fully enlightened one, perhaps.

 

When you remember something, you are aware of it, it is in your consciousness ,  yes ? 

 

Do you have times when you know something ... and you know that you know it ... but for the life of you, you just cant remember it, you just cant get it into your conscious awareness.

 

Then .... bing!   You remember ... its all there !

 

Where did it go and where was it stored and where did it come 'back from' during the time of forgetting ? 

 

Also, unwanted thoughts can flood the mind from all inner directions... Where do those come from?

[Marblehead]

Also, unwanted thoughts can flood the mind from all inner directions... Where do those come from?

Likely while conscious from the ego.

[Michael Sternbach]

Likely while conscious from the ego.

 

Some of them, anyway... However, the ego is only partially conscious, if Freud is to be believed.

Edited March 23, 2015 by Michael Sternbach

[Marblehead]

Some of them, anyway... However, the ego is only partially conscious, if Freud is to be believed.

I will leave that for others to speak to even though I would likely agree with it.

[Stosh]

Some of them, anyway... However, the ego is only partially conscious, if Freud is to be believed.

What part is it that YOU say is conscious?

[gatito]

Most people conceptualise thoughts as objects that are a bit like a cat that wanders into the room having already existed elsewhere (and which disappears to somewhere else and continues to exist when it leaves the room).

But perhaps thoughts are more like colours?

For example, where is the colour red when you're not seeing it either in front of you or by visualising it? (And I'm not talking about a red object but about the colour red.)

This is a very subtle way of deconceptualising something about which very little can be said because, by definition, there's no direct evidence that anything other than the current thought exists. (A memory is just a current thought).

Edited March 23, 2015 by gatito

[Nungali]

Some of them, anyway... However, the ego is only partially conscious, if Freud is to be believed.

 

Its all via the connection through Mercury,  he regulates the forces of the Moon (polarised by Venus and Mars - psychological 'drives') .

 

I cant put up my astro psychological Tree here (where various lines show divisions or overlaps of Ego, Id, Unconscious, Superego, etc

 

But this 'wrong' diagram might help ?

 

[Marblehead]

This is a very subtle way of deconceptualising something about which very little can be said because, by definition, there's no direct evidence that anything other than the current thought exists. (A memory is just a current thought).

I think you may have gone too deeply into the concept of "nothingness" with that paragraph.

[Marblehead]

But this 'wrong' diagram might help ?

Nope.  Didn't help at all.

[Michael Sternbach]

What part is it that YOU say is conscious?

 

Rigorously, what is conscious is only what is in the spotlight that the mind is constantly aiming at its contents. But according to the common definition, the conscious is the are where things can easily be accessed. Example: You may try not to think of the imminent visit of your mother-in-law, although, alas, you remain consciously all too aware of it.

 

What Freud probably meant when he said that the ego is partially unconscious (as Nungali's descriptive diagram shows) is that it rests on a psychological ground that it is well familiar with and takes for granted. A comfort zone (as long as the ground isn't shaking too hard) composed of instinctive and emotional reactions and beliefs, thus a zone of overlap with both the subconscious per say and the super-ego. What is appallingly missing from the Freudian model is the inclusion of the super-conscious or spiritual part of the self. Researchers like Jung and Assagioli remedied this with their models to a certain degree.

 

It goes without saying that in traditional metaphysical systems all these levels of the self are well known (that's where Jung got a lot of his ideas from). So I set out to treat them in an astrological context in my next post which will at once be my reply to Nungali.

[Michael Sternbach]

Its all via the connection through Mercury,  he regulates the forces of the Moon (polarised by Venus and Mars - psychological 'drives') .

 

So Mercury is directing the thoughts from the subconscious (lunar) parts of the Ego to the conscious parts and vice versa? That's interesting, because in Mythology, Mercury was indeed the one deity who could easily access all the different levels of the world,

 

Your definition of Venus and Mars as psychological drives is interesting. In Freudian terms, they would be related to the Id as the source of both the survival related reactions (Mars) and the sexual urgings (Venus). It also brings to mind that in the Heliocentric view of the Solar System, the Moon is on the side of the orbit of Venus at one time, on the side of Mars at another, thus collecting the subtle influences of both and transmitting them to Earth eventually. This is a two way process, of course.

 

The Moon thus also seems to connect the Anima and the Animus which should be thought of as psychologically present in every individual regardless of gender in an enlarged Jungian model such as Astrology provides. This ties in with the Moon being dark (Yin, "feminine") when at the farthest extension on her orbit around the Earth on Venus' side, whereas she is fully illuminated (Yang, "masculine") when closest to the orbit of Mars. In line with the two major phases of the Moon, there are ancient references to her as being two-faced, or Luna and Lunus.

 

I cant put up my astro psychological Tree here (where various lines show divisions or overlaps of Ego, Id, Unconscious, Superego, etc

 

 

Too bad - I'd love to see it! Maybe you can try to describe it, at least?

 

But this 'wrong' diagram might help ?

 

 

Yes, it does. Naturally, it suffers from Freud's omission of the Superconscious (not to be confused with the Superego) - unless we take the Sun on the upper right as a hint at the latter.

 

More about the Superego and the Superconscious to follow on this channel.

Edited March 23, 2015 by Michael Sternbach

[Michael Sternbach]

Extending further out into the Solar System, we next meet Jupiter who - at least in the spiritually more closed kind of people - manifests himself in form of the organized religion and basic ethics that  tie together the socio-cultural collective.

 

Saturn represents the outer limits of the conscious personality. Like Jupiter, he stands for the individual's relation to the social belief systems, however more in terms of restrictions. It is in tune with the Hermetic/analogous perspective that this planet is not only the outermost of the visible and traditionally known planets, but also contained within his characteristic ring.

 

In certain terms, Saturn represents an Archetypal Father figure which is reflected in the physical father especially in the latter's role as the conveyor of the rules of a society. And the Mother is represented by the Moon, of course. Saturn and the Moon are opposite planetary forces just like Mars and Venus. But being opposites, they directly connect to each other; maybe that's paralleling the way the Superego becomes partially unconscious?

 

Beyond Saturn (the keeper of the doors of time) there are further planets unbeknownst to the ancients who created Astrology. They were looked for and found because of mysterious aberrations in Saturn's orbital behaviour caused by the their gravity. This reflects how the Unconscious was discovered due to the effects it has on the conscious personality. The discoveries of  new outer planets roughly coincided with milestones in the understanding the unconscious psyche such as provided by Freud and Jung.

 

It is well known that the Outers (as far as Astrology is concerned, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto) in a natal chart represent an individual's access to psychic and transcendental dimensions of experience. But their influence can also compromise the structure of the conscious personality, leading to delusion and mental illness. Especially if they destabilize the psychological comfort zone that is provided by the Moon (and/or the mental processes of Mercury) as astro-medical experience shows. The Moon or personal subconscious can be seen as a gateway to the trans-Saturnians who are connected to collective and universal levels in "psychic" space.

 

Opening up to the Outers therefore affects the conscious personality in ways that range from psychotic experiences to highly inspired and/or enlightened states - or, for that matter, any combination thereof as the biographies of many geniuses tell us.

 

Anyway, traversing Saturn's sphere and opening up to the transcendental world of the Outers often involves existential crises, some of them summarized as the Dark Night of the Soul.

 

Yet beyond the outer planets of the Solar System begins the realm of the fixed stars, which the mystics wants to expand his consciousness to, and whose forces the magician wants to pull right down to Earth.

 

But I haven't said anything much about Sun yet - oh boy, what an omission!

 

Coming up later on this channel.

Edited March 23, 2015 by Michael Sternbach

[noonespecial]

Ignoring the contents of the subconscious will not make them go away, it's reality is not even an issue, in fact it is a key component of the work.

Edited March 23, 2015 by noonespecial

[Stosh]

Rigorously, what is conscious is only what is in the spotlight that the mind is constantly aiming at its contents. But according to the common definition, the conscious is the are where things can easily be accessed. Example: You may try not to think of the imminent visit of your mother-in-law, although, alas, you remain consciously all too aware of it.

 

What Freud probably meant when he said that the ego is partially unconscious (as Nungali's descriptive diagram shows) is that it rests on a psychological ground that it is well familiar with and takes for granted. A comfort zone (as long as the ground isn't shaking too hard) composed of instinctive and emotional reactions and beliefs, thus a zone of overlap with both the subconscious per say and the super-ego. What is appallingly missing from the Freudian model is the inclusion of the super-conscious or spiritual part of the self. Researchers like Jung and Assagioli remedied this with their models to a certain degree.

 

It goes without saying that in traditional metaphysical systems all these levels of the self are well known (that's where Jung got a lot of his ideas from). So I set out to treat them in an astrological context in my next post which will at once be my reply to Nungali.

Assuming you can run both programs simultaneously, Ill proceed as follows ,

I really like that iceberg diagram.  And I am examining what it suggests, the lit part of the berg, is what we are currently aware of at any given moment.

 It suggests that one is never conscious of the ID. But if a person is happy or has desires , they know about it , and so at least part of that ID needs to also be in the lit area. 

 

The ego, or the person who I think I am , may be very strongly judgemental , having been raised that way , so If my ego agrees with the superego , that its verdicts are both reasonable as well as right, It is no longer simply mediating between the Superego and the ID , so we should erase at least some of the line dividing ego with superego and if I am self indulgent I am siding with the ID, so some of that line should be erased as well. 

 

If both my superego and id , along with my ego , were all at least partially above the water, then I would be aware of all of that and my identity would actually be all three, not just in the ego. 

 

This would give me the ability to identify with A my desires, B my judgements, C my rationality. Those feelings would all be considered by me to have originated from me and would constitute my Identity to the extent that I was aware of them. If you ask someone 'normal' about their feelings , they will say they are all their own. When stuff arises they arent aware of , then it possibly seems as if its from somewhere else.  

So what part of the psyche places ownership on any given  emotion behavior judgement? Im thinking it has to be the preconcious, not the ego.

 

So when one meditates they clear the preconscious , lose their sense of identity but maintain awareness and retain data - unexamined. 

Edited March 23, 2015 by Stosh

[Michael Sternbach]

Continuing from my previous post,

 

It was not very clear to me initially what the Sun exactly stands for in the Astrology of the personality. Different authors seemingly diverge in their understanding. In particular, some see the Sun as a symbol of the conscious personality or Ego; for others it represents the native's Soul/Inner Self/Higher Self.

 

Eventually, I reached the surprising conclusion that the conscious personality in essence coincided with the their higher self which nothing other than the expression of their full potential. In Zen, they say that this mind is the Buddha mind.

 

However, the full actualization of the conscious mind presupposes a spontaneous or cultivated path of Internal Alchemical development which can be understood astro-psychologically as overcoming the psychological obstacles presented by Saturn, thus breaching his sphere and accessing the trans-Saturnian/Transcendental regions that are reaching out to the stars...

 

Interestingly, as the Sun is a star himself, and in direct communication with the Outers as his antennas reaching out into the Galaxy, their activity will kindle the Fire in his very core. Thus the conscious personality transmuted by its contact with the Outers will be filled with the Light of its innermost Self - which is symbolized by the central dot in the astrological symbol of the Sun.

 

Thus the conscious personality is becoming enlightened.

 

This also illuminates a certain degree of truth in the LoA teachings with their emphasis on the conscious mind as an independent, quasi divine creator. While concealing the whole, often challenging process that would - hopefully - one day lead it there.

 

But of course, the story doesn't end with the Solar personality, since there is an even "higher" - yet far more remote astro-psychological center waiting to be actualised: The Center of the Galaxy that our star, the Sun, revolves around.

 

I may have omitted to mention that the activation of astrological influences in the subtle anatomy leads to an activation of the chakras that directly correspond with them.

 

But that would be another post...

Edited March 23, 2015 by Michael Sternbach

[Michael Sternbach]

In conclusion (?) of my previous post,

 

I observe that the actualization of higher potential leading to an extraordinary degree of power over one's external circumstances is indeed possible, however, it necessitates a process of Internal Alchemy underestimated or (purposefully?) neglected by typical LoA representatives.

[4bsolute]

Wondering how many of you actually had self experience

and not simply repeat information.

 

"Hey look, this is my information!" - I have to meditate on this behaviour, because I hold it myself. And I dont see it as beneficial anymore.

Everyone in your close vicinity can feel if you only radiate thoughts or actual multi-levelled life-experience.

Edited March 23, 2015 by 4bsolute

[Michael Sternbach]

I try not to talk about things that I don't have personal experience with. With the exception of the Big Bang and Black Holes, perhaps.

[Michael Sternbach]

So Nungali,

 

Can we agree that the astrological imprints a person carries around with them have something to do with the experiences they are making? Otherwise there would be no astrological predictions possible...

[Nungali]

Yes.  I am not the one saying I cant be imprinted .... I came with an imprint, various forces tried to restamp me; some succeeded some didn't .

[Nungali]

Wondering how many of you actually had self experience

 

and not simply repeat information.

 

"Hey look, this is my information!" - I have to meditate on this behaviour, because I hold it myself. And I dont see it as beneficial anymore.

 

Everyone in your close vicinity can feel if you only radiate thoughts or actual multi-levelled life-experience.

 

I have actually had self experience  ....    I experience myself all the time.