The Middle Pillar Read online

  Figure 2: The Tree of Life.

  Since the translation of Eastern texts has been made available, many psychologists have pounced on several Chinese terms for inclusion within the technical nomenclature of their own systems. One such term selected by Jung to have reference to a concept such as explained above in connection with the Yechidah, is Tao.6 This term, so ambiguous to the Western mind accustomed to precision and accurate definition, has been variously translated as God, or a goal, or heaven. The sinologue Wilhelm prefers the word “meaning” and Jung employed it as having a closer association with the conception which he wished to explain, for it is precisely this factor in consciousness which, eventually, provides a meaning for life and for man. And in the diagram which is provided in The Secret of the Golden Flower to which Jung wrote an erudite and profound European commentary,7 the placing of the psychic factor Tao is similar to the position of Yechidah upon the Qabalistic Tree of Life.

  Though I wish to avoid metaphysics so far as is possible, certain theories demand expression. In order to retain accuracy with simplicity, it must be stated that the Qabalistic tradition posits a universal stream of life, described in terms of light, behind as it were the monad. That is to say, the Yechidah, so far from being an ultimate division in itself, is but one particular point or section of the universal life or the collective unconscious, and owes its separate existence to that pulsating stream behind it.

  It is interesting here to record that Groddeck surmised that the unconscious, in the ordinary Freudian sense, is the precursor of reason, the brain-mind; whereas the it8 produces the unconscious, the brain, and everything else that belongs to life. The unconscious is a part of the psyche, the psyche a part of the it. He also believed that whatever happens in or through a man, from the moment of conception to the occurrence of death, even what he reasons out for himself and does of his own free will, everything is directed by this unknown it.

  If we wish to consider the self in its widest sense as consisting of so many layers of consciousness, not unlike an onion, having ten peelings or skins, then the Yechidah is the deepest, or central layer. Those immediately above it—and it must be remembered that this is figurative speech, and that the spatial analogue does not hold good here—are what we name the Chiah and Neshamah. These would correspond to the anima and the animus in the system elaborated by Jung.

  Again referring to the Chinese mystical text commented upon at length by Jung, we will see that according to the Chinese the whole of nature is permeated by two principles, one positive or masculine, the other negative or feminine. These are named the yang and the yin.9 These two principles are present in the human psyche, and looking at it from the widest possible point of view, we could assume that the conscious level of the mind is the yang, and the unconscious is the yin. But this division, because it is the widest generalization, is inadequate and is capable of further classification. Because within the mind there are both positive and negative elements, factors which are those of thought and feeling. This holds true also of the unconscious, and though we have referred this to the yin, within its sphere there is both a yang and a yin operation.10 If we refer to one of the deepest levels of the unconscious, then this yang and yin operation is what Jung means by the animus and anima, and what the Qabalah indicates by Chiah and Neshamah.

  It may be useful to quote definitions of these two psychological principles to provide authoritative explanations as we proceed. One pupil of Jung’s, Joan Corrie, the author of ABC of Jung’s Psychology, says the following:The anima is in contact with the objects of the inner reality—the images of the collective unconscious—as the persona is in contact with the objects of external reality. The anima is an archetypal figure that might almost be described as the precipitate of man’s age-long impressions of woman—not his conscious reasoned ideas, but the unconscious inherited mould into which she is cast.

  The anima is a correspondence of the Neshamah which is feminine and passive, representing the true spiritual vision of intuition or the imagination.

  Here it may be interpolated that it has always been an axiom of the magical system that the being which is active physically is passive spiritually and vice versa. In many an occult work do we find some such statement as this:Man is termed the positive member of the two sexes. In reality only his physical body is positive. His etheric body is purely negative.... On the other hand, while the female is commonly supposed to be the negative of the two sexes, it is really her physical body that is negative, for her etheric body is positive, and the real creative pole of the sexes.

  It will readily be conceded that every person is psychologically bisexual.11 He is a combination of both masculine and feminine elements, and within him operate the yang and the yin. In man the feminine elements, and in the woman the masculine or positive traits, are alike unconscious. And the deepest and truest archetypes of these unconscious traits are in the anima and animus, the Chiah and Neshamah. Here, after a fashion, is the explanation of the frequently observed phenomenon of the unparalleled tenderness and love of which many a man is capable, and the harsh and cruel lengths to which certain types of women may go when infuriated or aroused.

  True, therefore, to its compensating or balancing principle, the soul or unconscious of a man has a feminine bias which we refer to the anima, while that of a woman has a masculine bias, the animus. This latter is defined as a constantly changing figure, its energies in a state of continuous fluctuation. The animus is not a persistent unvarying figure as is the anima. The typical woman finds her conscious feeling expression centered in one person of the opposite sex; she is monogamous externally. But, internally, her unconscious is apparently polygamous, “for the name of her animus might be ‘legion.’ He represents the logos principle,12 the masculine reason of her unconscious nature.”

  On the Tree of Life, this animus principle is equivalent to Chiah, the will; this word also means life, animal life. This principle is the first creative vehicle of the es, as its other pole is Neshamah, understanding and love. The will is in essence a dual principle; it presupposes a beginning and an end. For obviously to will a thing is at once to admit that you have not that thing. To desire to be a thing is to assume that you are not the thing desired. True love, however, is centered always upon one object, an object with which the lover seeks to identify himself to the exclusion of all else. It is this love which fundamentally is implied in the term anima. To love is to understand. Understanding bestows insight and intuition. This is anima.

  Tao, animus, and anima, or Yechidah, Chiah, and Neshamah, constitute the innermost core of what we have chosen to call the psychic onion, the primordial principles operating in the deepest levels of the unconscious. It might be said that this is the level which is always in direct contact with the racial and universal levels of the collective unconscious—that dynamic and ubiquitous stream of life and vitality of which the Yechidah, together with its vehicles, comprise just one particular center of consciousness.

  Before proceeding further, and since I have used the onion as a metaphor of the self, it may be wise to quote a paragraph of Groddeck’s Exploring the Unconscious: We all of us fancy that we must have a core at the center, something that is not merely shell; we would like to hold within us some specially dainty kernel, to be a nut protecting the future, the everlasting. And we do not realise, cannot realise, that we have in fact no kernel, but are made up of one leaf on top of another from outermost to innermost, that, in fact, we are onions. But in the onion every leaf shares its essential nature. The onion is honest right through, and only becomes dishonest, rotten, if it tries to grow a kernel different from the rest of it, and to destroy the peel as though it were something false, something no honourable onion should acknowledge.... Everything in us is a peeling, but in every peeling is the essential nature of the whole. The self is an onion self.

  This is similar to the Buddhist conception.

  The triad of principles just considered, the Supernals,13 being the more primitive part
of the psyche, the ancient center which harks back to the countless epochs of the distant past, we must now turn our attention to its compensating and balancing aspect, the conscious ego. This clearly is a much more modern and recent development in the ageless history of the self—a comparatively modern evolution—a channel by means of which we have become conscious of the original primeval and fundamental unconsciousness from which we have emerged. And because of this development of awareness concerning these deeper levels of ourselves, so are we able to examine and understand them. It is by this particular evolution that we are able to make conscious the content of the unconscious. This definition of evolution is practically identical with the definitions of both psychology and magic—that is, that their objects are to expand the horizon of the mind, to enlarge the sphere or scope of consciousness itself. These methods are those of evolution itself.

  In magic, this conscious ego is denominated the Ruach. It comprises those spheres on the diagrammatic Tree of Life which are numbered from four to eight inclusive. It is an aggregate of functions rather than an integrated and single unit—which is probably one reason why some psychologists believe that this part of us is as yet very unstable in its formation. Also that the unfavorable and faulty circumstances surrounding the childhood of most people greatly enhance the tendency to disintegration which already exists. This aggregate comprises memory, will, feeling, and thinking, clustered about the ego itself, which is the central sphere—five in number. Its life-blood is the current of thought and perception just as the life-blood of the Supernals is the libido, the current of life and energy. The Jungian concept of the ego, or conscious mind, is the persona, the personality which comes into relation with external things. It is a mask. It is the individual’s mode of adaptation to the world, his character as it appears to be and as he quite often himself conceives it. It is an evolved mechanism to acquire contact with the outside world, so that by means of experiences thus obtained the it, or the Yechidah, may come to a self-conscious realization of its own divine powers and high nature.

  It is in connection with this persona, this thinking Ruach that we would do well to reflect upon two aphorisms of the Eastern psychological systems. At first sight, it would appear that they are mutually exclusive and contradictory. In one Eastern book it is written, “The mind is the slayer of the real. Let the disciple slay the slayer.”14 This alone will be a problem to the average student. In the West, generally speaking, the universe is considered as having two large divisions, the physical and the mental or spiritual, the two latter being spoken of as synonyms. So that if the mind itself is defined as a hindrance to the perception of reality, most of us would be plunged in a rather difficult quandary.

  The second is “The essence of mind is intrinsically pure.” Should we desire to translate terminology, we will find I think that the Jungian Tao, or the very deepest level of the unconscious, is as near an exact definition of “the essence of mind” that we could find. It is only a popular and false misconception of psychological concepts that relegated the unconscious into a mere receptacle of the evil shadow-beings of human nature. Some have considered it exclusively as a receptacle retaining the primeval slime deposits, harboring the most violently explosive material. But in point of fact, as but little practical acquaintance with the problems of analysis proves, the unconscious does not harbor exclusively explosive motives. The unconscious stream only becomes explosive when the Ruach, the conscious mind, has repressed its legitimate and just activity. The taint of the Ruach is a self-sufficient conscious outlook. Its vice is an over-refined and emasculated attitude towards life. A river dammed somewhere along its channel is bound to flow over, and when this does occur the river cannot be blamed. Should there be necessity to erect a permanent or even a temporary dam, suitable precautions should be taken to ensure that some other channel is kept open whereby the excess waters may seek their outlet. So also with the unconscious. Itself—the essence of mind which is intrinsically pure—it is neither dangerous nor explosive. But if the individual be prevented from having access to life due to some maladaptation to environment, some failure fully to express both the yang and the yin of his nature, that repression acts as a constant source of irritation, presenting always some likelihood of a psychic explosion.

  It is this false dam, the obstacle which is erected along the river’s course—psychological resistance—which is the “mind” which slays or prevents the realization of reality. How many of us really understand life and the world as they really are? That is without projecting upon our perceptions, the desire of what we should like to be? Few have insight into our deepest motives, the real causes of our attraction to our friends, of revulsion from our enemies. There are not many, I surmise, who can at all times account for their actions in terms of consciousness. The majority of us are moved a great deal of the time by involuntary compulsion. It is a true saying that habits are a necessity imposed upon us by evolution to ensure the smooth functioning of the psyche. But they are necessary only in so far as they do permit the psyche to function freely. And with many it is just that mass of habits and predilections which is the barrier to the free activity of the psyche. To question people as to the purpose of their habits, a survey of their activity and why they were formed originally, is to obtain much illumination as to what is implied by the phrase “The mind is the slayer of the real.” In point of fact, it is not the mind which inhibits our perceiving what is real, what is worth-while and desirable in life. It is the false development of mind—that mass of prejudices, emotional biases, improperly formulated philosophies and superstitions, relics of the inheritance from misguided parents—which is here denoted.

  And until we do understand its nature and perceive its extent, never shall we be freed from its dominion, or released from its compulsion. And until we have thoroughly understood our own behavior, motives, and the mechanism of our own attractions and repulsions, we have no insight.

  Possibly then we should be able to perceive that underlying this conscious mind—which hitherto we assumed as the sole reality, the only criterion of judgment—is a vast area of inspiration and beauty which is the intrinsically pure essence of mind. If we could open ourselves, or become fully conscious of, this essence so that its content without distortion were capable of ascending within sight of our focus of consciousness, then should we begin to realize as never before the true nature of life and its problems. “In such a case,” remarks Dr. Jung in his Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology, “the unconscious vouchsafes us that furtherance and assistance which bountiful nature is always ready to give man in overflowing abundance. The unconscious possesses possibilities of wisdom that are completely closed to consciousness.... It creates prospective combinations just as our consciousness does, only they are considerably superior to the conscious combinations both in refinement and extent. The unconscious may therefore be an unparalleled guide for human beings.”

  When this state or condition of consciousness has been arrived at, when what formerly was unconscious has been brought within the horizon of consciousness, the entire character of life becomes changed and illuminated. Previously it was a thing of fear and horror. Nearly all men, underneath, possess some sense of inferiority and insecurity. All seek in one way or another to rise above that inferiority, and to discover some rock of security to which they may feel anchored. It is when we have attained to a realization of the “pure essence of mind” that inferiority is practically banished and security obtained; and then we can deal with life and our fellows.

  The ninth sphere or Sephirah on the Tree of Life is that of the Nephesh, which means the animal soul.15 It is the sphere proper of the animal instincts and urges, what may in truth be called the Freudian unconscious—that which was conscious at one time or at one stage of development but which has since been lost to consciousness. It is regarded as comprising those psychic faculties which are not conscious. All the various automatic, habitual, and routine actions; all the things that we say and do “witho
ut thinking” and all the thousand things we never really “do” at all, these processes are assigned to the unconscious realm, to the principle of the Nephesh. To it is related the cerebellum, the hind section of the brain, and it is intimately connected with the glandular and sympathetic nervous systems. As such it is that part of our being which regulates the circulation of the blood, the pulsation of the heart, our digestion and respiration. All the promptings of desire and the urges of passion that spring unbidden within us, have their seat in Nephesh. This is the underworld of the psyche through which we get comparatively close to nature, to the elemental side of life. It is the undermind in which function the primary instincts of self-preservation and reproduction. It is the seat of the sex instinct itself. The Jungian concept of the unconscious might be the appropriate term for this side of life, as is held by the Freudian school, whereas the much abused word superconscious would be distinctly descriptive of the Supernal Sephiroth of the Yechidah, Chiah, and Neshamah16 corresponding to the Jungian unconscious.

  The tenth Sephirah is that of the physical brain and the active physical body.17 Here it is that we find the receptacle in which the other principles have their abode, and the instrument through which they function. This tenth sphere, Malkuth, the sphere of action, we may consider as active, as yang, when compared to Yesod, the yin, which we may define as the seat of the impelling instincts, predatory lusts, and animal impulses. On the other hand, the Ruach, which is an active thinking principle, we likewise may describe as yang in relation to the yin of the Supernals, which are quiet, passive, and hidden behind the scene. Malkuth has innumerable other correspondences, but a consideration of these does not at the moment concern us.