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ladytetra777Lecture VIII, "The Divided Self," continues the inquiry of the previous chapter: if religious experiences can bring about a sickness of the soul, what does the progression of that disease look like? James' answer: a divided self, comparable to the psychic fracturing described in the works of Jung. Where James discussed the person overcome with spiritual happiness in Lectures IV and V as experiencing their lot in life as a "natural good", the spiritually sick person is inclined to distrust this experience (166-167), as seemingly entailed by their sickness. James discusses salvation as one form of cure in this lecture, a medicine that varies per person, and as such is metabolized by the soul at different rates. The goal for the spiritually sick person is to heal the divided self through achieving psychic unity, a process described by Jung in the Red Book in which he healed his sick soul through interacting with portions of his psyche in a series of vivid dreams.
James portrays St. Augustine's account from his Confessions as one detailed example of what the divided self looks like. Augustine himself says, "I was hesitant to die to death, and live to life; and the evil to which I was so wonted held me more than the better life I had not tried," (172-173). James restates this as "when the higher wishes lack just that last acuteness... [that] enables them to burst out of their shell and quell the lower tendencies forever" (173). This discordance, this lack of harmony, is what characterizes the divided self for James. It is here that I think of the work of ceremonial magick: to align all the parts of the self, or as Jung accomplished through his dreams, integration.
My current understanding through practice is that images like the Tree of Life represent higher qualities that all life has a particular participation in contingent on the individual. This runs parallel to the archetypes: Jung discusses conversations with the Hermit, but this is the archetype insofar as he projects himself onto it and the roles and qualities of his dream mentor correspond to this specific archetype. I see the same in magick: one may ask Venus for help in writing a song, but it is this interaction that further aligns the practitioner with their inner artist. These examples move toward the salvific cure aforementioned by James, albeit in a gradual process.
James acknowledges that the religious experience is not the only means by which one may unify the disparate parts of their psyche (175), and also that various experiences may cause further splintering (178), the religious experience of unifying the divided self can be marked by its happiness and clarify of purpose following a period of inner turbulence. Fletcher letting go of his anger and worry in a moment of realization, seeing they have the capacity to be let go of (181) and Tolstoy's gradual shift to a simple, down-to-earth lifestyle (184-185) demonstrate James' point that this salvation may come immediately as in the former, or gradually in the later, but in the case of Bunyan feature the same change of heart without the pronounced ecstasy (186-187). Despite the radical differences in the lives of these men and the inner union they respectively achieve through religion, James makes it clear that there is no singular objective path. This is necessary for me to hear as a Golden Dawn practitioner; I have heard before that the system of magick is the only way to achieve true inner union within the capacity of one lifetime. Seeing other practices has always left me with a seed of doubt to that claim, and James taking a fine-tooth comb to these religious experiences only further opens me up to other possibilities.
Another point of note is the similarity I am seeing with the previous text I read for seminary, Plummer's Many Paths of the Independent Sacramental Movement. The Divine is not something that has an object point of contact; it is personal, and as that text interviewed priests celebrating the eucharist alone, it follows that the means to use a religious experience to heal oneself can be as equally personal if that is what works for a person.
The more I read this text, the more it is clear to me why I am here in seminary. Commitment issues with a single path of magickal practice is a symptom of my own fractured psyche. I can take up projects like reading a book or going to a weekly club and see to them through, yet something will often happen where I stop. It is the guitar I always return to, always play it unplugged when I feel sad, and yet, I have not performed on a stage in just over four years now. I have yet to figure out how to regain the confidence to do this once more, and just as I'm thinking I don't *have to* do one form of magick, I may not *have to* do a set task on the guitar to perform again.
James portrays St. Augustine's account from his Confessions as one detailed example of what the divided self looks like. Augustine himself says, "I was hesitant to die to death, and live to life; and the evil to which I was so wonted held me more than the better life I had not tried," (172-173). James restates this as "when the higher wishes lack just that last acuteness... [that] enables them to burst out of their shell and quell the lower tendencies forever" (173). This discordance, this lack of harmony, is what characterizes the divided self for James. It is here that I think of the work of ceremonial magick: to align all the parts of the self, or as Jung accomplished through his dreams, integration.
My current understanding through practice is that images like the Tree of Life represent higher qualities that all life has a particular participation in contingent on the individual. This runs parallel to the archetypes: Jung discusses conversations with the Hermit, but this is the archetype insofar as he projects himself onto it and the roles and qualities of his dream mentor correspond to this specific archetype. I see the same in magick: one may ask Venus for help in writing a song, but it is this interaction that further aligns the practitioner with their inner artist. These examples move toward the salvific cure aforementioned by James, albeit in a gradual process.
James acknowledges that the religious experience is not the only means by which one may unify the disparate parts of their psyche (175), and also that various experiences may cause further splintering (178), the religious experience of unifying the divided self can be marked by its happiness and clarify of purpose following a period of inner turbulence. Fletcher letting go of his anger and worry in a moment of realization, seeing they have the capacity to be let go of (181) and Tolstoy's gradual shift to a simple, down-to-earth lifestyle (184-185) demonstrate James' point that this salvation may come immediately as in the former, or gradually in the later, but in the case of Bunyan feature the same change of heart without the pronounced ecstasy (186-187). Despite the radical differences in the lives of these men and the inner union they respectively achieve through religion, James makes it clear that there is no singular objective path. This is necessary for me to hear as a Golden Dawn practitioner; I have heard before that the system of magick is the only way to achieve true inner union within the capacity of one lifetime. Seeing other practices has always left me with a seed of doubt to that claim, and James taking a fine-tooth comb to these religious experiences only further opens me up to other possibilities.
Another point of note is the similarity I am seeing with the previous text I read for seminary, Plummer's Many Paths of the Independent Sacramental Movement. The Divine is not something that has an object point of contact; it is personal, and as that text interviewed priests celebrating the eucharist alone, it follows that the means to use a religious experience to heal oneself can be as equally personal if that is what works for a person.
The more I read this text, the more it is clear to me why I am here in seminary. Commitment issues with a single path of magickal practice is a symptom of my own fractured psyche. I can take up projects like reading a book or going to a weekly club and see to them through, yet something will often happen where I stop. It is the guitar I always return to, always play it unplugged when I feel sad, and yet, I have not performed on a stage in just over four years now. I have yet to figure out how to regain the confidence to do this once more, and just as I'm thinking I don't *have to* do one form of magick, I may not *have to* do a set task on the guitar to perform again.