{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_69219/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_69219","id":"gutenberg_69219","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69219","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","Psychoanalysis"],"text":"PSYCHOANALYSIS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS\n\n\n\n\n                   Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious\n\n\n                                   BY\n                             D. H. LAWRENCE\n\n                                NEW YORK\n                             THOMAS SELTZER\n                                  1921\n\n\n\n\n                  Copyright, 1921, by\n                  THOMAS SELTZER, INC.\n\n                  All rights reserved\n\n\n                  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA\n\n\n\n\n                                CONTENTS\n\n\n   I. PSYCHOANALYSIS _vs._ MORALITY 9\n\n  II. THE INCEST MOTIVE AND IDEALISM 26\n\n III. THE BIRTH OF CONSCIOUSNESS 45\n\n  IV. THE CHILD AND HIS MOTHER 64\n\n   V. THE LOVER AND THE BELOVED 83\n\n  VI. HUMAN RELATIONS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS 102\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER I\n                     PSYCHOANALYSIS _vs._ MORALITY\n\n\nPsychoanalysis has sprung many surprises on us, performed more than one\n_volte face_ before our indignant eyes. No sooner had we got used to the\npsychiatric quack who vehemently demonstrated the serpent of sex coiled\nround the root of all our actions, no sooner had we begun to feel\nhonestly uneasy about our lurking complexes, than lo and behold the\npsychoanalytic gentleman reappeared on the stage with a theory of pure\npsychology. The medical faculty, which was on hot bricks over the\ntherapeutic innovations, heaved a sigh of relief as it watched the\nground warming under the feet of the professional psychologists.\n\nThis, however, was not the end. The ears of the ethnologist began to\ntingle, the philosopher felt his gorge rise, and at last the moralist\nknew he must rush in. By this time psychoanalysis had become a public\ndanger. The mob was on the alert. The \u0152dipus complex was a household\nword, the incest motive a commonplace of tea-table chat. Amateur\nanalyses became the vogue. \u201cWait till you\u2019ve been analyzed,\u201d said one\nman to another, with varying intonation. A sinister look came into the\neyes of the initiates\u2014the famous, or infamous, Freud look. You could\nrecognize it everywhere, wherever you went.\n\nPsychoanalysts know what the end will be. They have crept in among us as\nhealers and physicians; growing bolder, they have asserted their\nauthority as scientists; two more minutes and they will appear as\napostles. Have we not seen and heard the _ex cathedra_ Jung? And does it\nneed a prophet to discern that Freud is on the brink of a\nWeltanschauung\u2014or at least a Menschanschauung, which is a much more\nrisky affair? What detains him? Two things. First and foremost, the\nmoral issue. And next, but more vital, he can\u2019t get down to the rock on\nwhich he must build his church.\n\nLet us look to ourselves. This new doctrine\u2014it will be called no\nless\u2014has been subtly and insidiously suggested to us, gradually\ninoculated into us. It is true that doctors are the priests, nay worse,\nthe medicine-men of our decadent society. Psychoanalysis has made the\nmost of the opportunity.\n\nFirst and foremost the issue is a moral issue. It is not here a matter\nof reform, new moral values. It is the life or death of all morality.\nThe leaders among the psychoanalysts know what they have in hand.\nProbably most of their followers are ignorant, and therefore\npseudo-innocent. But it all amounts to the same thing. Psychoanalysis is\nout, under a therapeutic disguise, to do away entirely with the moral\nfaculty in man. Let us fling the challenge, and then we can take sides\nin all fairness.\n\nThe psychoanalytic leaders know what they are about, and shrewdly keep\nquiet, going gently. Yet, however gently they go, they set the moral\nstones rolling. At every step the most innocent and unsuspecting analyst\nstarts a little landslide. The old world is yielding under us. Without\nany direct attack, it comes loose under the march of the psychoanalyst,\nand we hear the dull rumble of the incipient avalanche. We are in for a\ndeb\u00e2cle.\n\nBut at least let us know what we are in for. If we are to rear a serpent\nagainst ourselves, let us at least refuse to nurse it in our temples or\nto call it the cock of Esculapius. It is time the white garb of the\ntherapeutic cant was stripped off the psychoanalyst. And now that we\nfeel the strange crackling and convulsion in our moral foundations, let\nus at least look at the house which we are bringing down over our heads\nso blithely.\n\nLong ago we watched in frightened anticipation when Freud set out on his\nadventure into the hinterland of human consciousness. He was seeking for\nthe unknown sources of the mysterious stream of consciousness. Immortal\nphrase of the immortal James! Oh stream of hell which undermined my\nadolescence! The stream of consciousness! I felt it streaming through my\nbrain, in at one ear and out at the other. And again I was sure it went\nround in my cranium, like Homer\u2019s Ocean, encircling my established mind.\nAnd sometimes I felt it must bubble up in the cerebellum and wind its\nway through all the convolutions of the true brain. Horrid stream!\nWhence did it come, and whither was it bound? The stream of\nconsciousness!\n\nAnd so, who could remain unmoved when Freud seemed suddenly to plunge\ntowards the origins? Suddenly he stepped out of the conscious into the\nunconscious, out of the everywhere into the nowhere, like some supreme\nexplorer. He walks straight through the wall of sleep, and we hear him\nrumbling in the cavern of dreams. The impenetrable is not impenetrable,\nunconsciousness is not nothingness. It is sleep, that wall of darkness\nwhich limits our day. Walk bang into the wall, and behold the wall isn\u2019t\nthere. It is the vast darkness of a cavern\u2019s mouth, the cavern of\nanterior darkness whence issues the stream of consciousness.\n\nWith dilated hearts we watched Freud disappearing into the cavern of\ndarkness, which is sleep and unconsciousness to us, darkness which\nissues in the foam of all our day\u2019s consciousness. He was making for the\norigins. We watched his ideal candle flutter and go small. Then we\nwaited, as men do wait, always expecting the wonder of wonders. He came\nback with dreams to sell.\n\nBut sweet heaven, what merchandise! What dreams, dear heart! What was\nthere in the cave? Alas that we ever looked! Nothing but a huge slimy\nserpent of sex, and heaps of excrement, and a myriad repulsive little\nhorrors spawned between sex and excrement.\n\nIs it true? Does the great unknown of sleep contain nothing else? No\nlovely spirits in the anterior regions of our being? None! Imagine the\nunspeakable horror of the _repressions_ Freud brought home to us.\nGagged, bound, maniacal repressions, sexual complexes, f\u00e6cal\ninhibitions, dream-monsters. We tried to repudiate them. But no, they\nwere there, demonstrable. These were the horrid things that ate our\nsouls and caused our helpless neuroses.\n\nWe had felt that perhaps we were wrong inside, but we had never imagined\nit so bad. However, in the name of healing and medicine we prepared to\naccept it all. If it was all just a result of illness, we were prepared\nto go through with it. The analyst promised us that the tangle of\ncomplexes would be unravelled, the obsessions would evaporate, the\nmonstrosities would dissolve, sublimate, when brought into the light of\nday. Once all the dream-horrors were translated into full consciousness,\nthey would sublimate into\u2014well, we don\u2019t quite know what. But anyhow,\nthey would sublimate. Such is the charm of a new phrase that we accepted\nthis sublimation process without further question. If our complexes were\ngoing to sublimate once they were surgically exposed to full mental\nconsciousness, why, best perform the operation.\n\nThus analysis set off gaily on its therapeutic course. But like\nHippolytus, we ran too near the sea\u2019s edge. After all, if complexes\nexist only as abnormalities which can be removed, psychoanalysis has not\nfar to go. Our own horses ran away with us. We began to realize that\ncomplexes were not just abnormalities. They were part of the\nstock-in-trade of the normal unconscious. The only abnormality, so far,\nlies in bringing them into consciousness.\n\nThis creates a new issue. Psychoanalysis, the moment it begins to\ndemonstrate the nature of the unconscious, is assuming the r\u00f4le of\npsychology. Thus the new science of psychology proceeds to inform us\nthat our complexes are not just mere interlockings in the mechanism of\nthe psyche, as was taught by one of the first and most brilliant of the\nanalysts, a man now forgotten. He fully realized that even the psyche\nitself depends on a certain organic, mechanistic activity, even as life\ndepends on the mechanistic organism of the body. The mechanism of the\npsyche could have its hitches, certain parts could stop working, even as\nthe parts of the body can stop their functioning. This arrest in some\npart of the functioning psyche gave rise to a complex, even as the\nstopping of one little cog-wheel in a machine will arrest a whole\nsection of that machine. This was the origin of the complex-theory,\npurely mechanistic. Now the analyst found that a complex did not\nnecessarily vanish when brought into consciousness. Why should it? Hence\nhe decided that it did not arise from the stoppage of any little wheel.\nFor it refused to disappear, no matter how many psychic wheels were\nstarted. Finally, then, a complex could not be regarded as the result of\nan inhibition.\n\nHere is the new problem. If a complex is not caused by the inhibition of\nsome so-called normal sex-impulse, what on earth is it caused by? It\nobviously refuses to sublimate\u2014or to come undone when exposed and\nprodded. It refuses to answer to the promptings of normal sex-impulse.\nYou can remove all possible inhibitions of the normal sex desire, and\nstill you cannot remove the complex. All you have done is to make\nconscious a desire which previously was unconscious.\n\nThis is the moral dilemma of psychoanalysis. The analyst set out to cure\nneurotic humanity by removing the cause of the neurosis. He finds that\nthe cause of neurosis lies in some unadmitted sex desire. After all he\nhas said about inhibition of normal sex, he is brought at last to\nrealize that at the root of almost every neurosis lies some\nincest-craving, and that this incest-craving is _not the result of\ninhibition of normal sex-craving_. Now see the dilemma\u2014it is a fearful\none. If the incest-craving is not the outcome of any inhibition of\nnormal desire, if it actually exists and refuses to give way before any\ncriticism, what then? What remains but to accept it as part of the\nnormal sex-manifestation?\n\nHere is an issue which analysis is perfectly willing to face. Among\nthemselves the analysts are bound to accept the incest-craving as part\nof the normal sexuality of man, normal, but suppressed, because of moral\nand perhaps biological fear. Once, however, you accept the\nincest-craving as part of the normal sexuality of man, you must remove\nall repression of incest itself. In fact, you must admit incest as you\nnow admit sexual marriage, as a duty even. Since at last it works out\nthat neurosis is not the result of inhibition of so-called _normal_ sex,\nbut of inhibition of incest-craving. Any inhibition must be wrong, since\ninevitably in the end it causes neurosis and insanity. Therefore the\ninhibition of incest-craving is wrong, and this wrong is the cause of\npractically all modern neurosis and insanity.\n\nPsychoanalysis will never openly state this conclusion. But it is to\nthis conclusion that every analyst must, willy-nilly, consciously or\nunconsciously, bring his patient.\n\nTrigant Burrow says that Freud\u2019s _unconscious_ does but represent our\nconception of conscious sexual life as this latter exists in a state of\nrepression. Thus Freud\u2019s unconscious amounts practically to no more than\nour repressed incest impulses. Again, Burrow says that it is knowledge\nof sex that constitutes sin, and not sex itself. It is when the mind\nturns to consider and _know_ the great affective-passional functions and\nemotions that sin enters. Adam and Eve fell, not because they had sex,\nor even because they committed the sexual act, but because they became\naware of their sex and of the possibility of the act. When sex became to\nthem a mental object\u2014that is, when they discovered that they could\ndeliberately enter upon and enjoy and even provoke sexual activity in\nthemselves, then they were cursed and cast out of Eden. Then man became\nself-responsible; he entered on his own career.\n\nBoth these assertions by Burrow seem to us brilliantly true. But must we\ninevitably draw the conclusion psychoanalysis draws? Because we discover\nin the unconscious the repressed body of our incest-craving, and because\nthe recognition of _desire_, the making a mental objective of a certain\ndesire causes the introduction of the sin motive, the desire in itself\nbeing beyond criticism or moral judgment, must we therefore accept the\nincest-craving as part of our natural desire and proceed to put it into\npractice, as being at any rate a lesser evil than neurosis and insanity?\n\nIt is a question. One thing, however, psychoanalysis all along the line\nfails to determine, and that is the nature of the pristine unconscious\nin man. The incest-craving is or is not inherent in the pristine psyche.\nWhen Adam and Eve became aware of sex in themselves, they became aware\nof that which was pristine in them, and which preceded all knowing. But\nwhen the analyst discovers the incest motive in the unconscious, surely\nhe is only discovering a term of humanity\u2019s repressed _idea_ of sex. It\nis not even _suppressed_ sex-consciousness, but _repressed_. That is, it\nis nothing pristine and anterior to mentality. It is in itself the\nmind\u2019s ulterior motive. That is, the incest-craving is propagated in the\npristine unconscious by the mind itself, even though unconsciously. The\nmind acts as incubus and procreator of its own horrors, _deliberately\nunconsciously_. And the incest motive is in its origin not a pristine\nimpulse, but a logical extension of the existent idea of sex and love.\nThe mind, that is, transfers the idea of incest into the\naffective-passional psyche, and keeps it there as a repressed motive.\n\nThis is as yet a mere assertion. It cannot be made good until we\ndetermine the nature of the true, pristine unconscious, in which all our\ngenuine impulse arises\u2014a very different affair from that sack of horrors\nwhich psychoanalysts would have us believe is source of motivity. The\nFreudian unconscious is the cellar in which the mind keeps its own\nbastard spawn. The true unconscious is the well-head, the fountain of\nreal motivity. The sex of which Adam and Eve became conscious derived\nfrom the very God who bade them be not conscious of it\u2014it was not spawn\nproduced by secondary propagation from the mental consciousness itself.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER II\n                     THE INCEST MOTIVE AND IDEALISM\n\n\nIt is obvious we cannot recover our moral footing until we can in some\nway determine the true nature of the unconscious. The word unconscious\nitself is a mere definition by negation and has no positive meaning.\nFreud no doubt prefers it for this reason. He rejects _subconscious_ and\n_preconscious_, because both these would imply a sort of nascent\nconsciousness, the shadowy half-consciousness which precedes mental\nrealization. And by his unconscious he intends no such thing. He wishes\nrather to convey, we imagine, that which _recoils from_ consciousness,\nthat which reacts in the psyche away from mental consciousness. His\nunconscious is, we take it, that part of the human consciousness which,\nthough mental, ideal in its nature, yet is unwilling to expose itself to\nfull recognition, and so recoils back into the affective regions and\nacts there as a secret agent, unconfessed, unadmitted, potent, and\nusually destructive. The whole body of our repressions makes up our\nunconscious.\n\nThe question lies here: whether a repression is a primal impulse which\nhas been deterred from fulfilment, or whether it is an _idea_ which is\nrefused enactment. Is a repression a repressed passional impulse, or is\nit an idea which we suppress and refuse to put into practice\u2014nay, which\nwe even refuse to own at all, a disowned, outlawed idea, which exists\nrebelliously outside the pale?\n\nMan can inhibit the true passional impulses and so produce a derangement\nin the psyche. This is a truism nowadays, and we are grateful to\npsychoanalysis for helping to make it so. But man can do more than this.\nFinding himself in a sort of emotional _cul de sac_, he can proceed to\ndeduce from his given emotional and passional premises conclusions which\nare not emotional or passional at all, but just logical, abstract,\nideal. That is, a man finds it impossible to realize himself in\nmarriage. He recognizes the fact that his emotional, even passional,\nregard for his mother is deeper than it ever could be for a wife. This\nmakes him unhappy, for he knows that passional communion is not complete\nunless it be also sexual. He has a body of sexual passion which he\ncannot transfer to a wife. He has a profound love for his mother. Shut\nin between walls of tortured and increasing passion, he must find some\nescape or fall down the pit of insanity and death. What is the only\npossible escape? To seek in the arms of the mother the refuge which\noffers nowhere else. And so the incest-motive is born. All the labored\nexplanations of the psychoanalysts are unnecessary. The incest motive is\na logical deduction of the human reason, which has recourse to this last\nextremity, to save itself. Why is the human reason in peril? That is\nanother story. At the moment we are merely considering the origin of the\nincest motive.\n\nThe logical conclusion of incest is, of course, a profound decision in\nthe human soul, a decision affecting the deepest passional centers. It\nrouses the deepest instinctive opposition. And therefore it must be kept\nsecret until this opposition is either worn away or persuaded away.\nHence the repression and ultimate disclosure.\n\nNow here we see the secret working of the process of idealism. By\nidealism we understand the motivizing of the great affective sources by\nmeans of ideas mentally derived. As for example the incest motive, which\nis first and foremost a logical deduction made by the human reason, even\nif unconsciously made, and secondly is introduced into the affective,\npassional sphere, where it now proceeds to serve as a principle for\naction.\n\nThis motivizing of the passional sphere from the ideal is the final\nperil of human consciousness. It is the death of all spontaneous,\ncreative life, and the substituting of the mechanical principle.\n\nIt is obvious that the ideal becomes a mechanical principle, if it be\napplied to the affective soul as a fixed motive. An ideal established in\ncontrol of the passional soul is no more and no less than a supreme\nmachine-principle. And a machine, as we know, is the active unit of the\nmaterial world. Thus we see how it is that in the end pure idealism is\nidentical with pure materialism, and the most ideal peoples are the most\ncompletely material. Ideal and material are identical. The ideal is but\nthe god in the machine\u2014the little, fixed, machine principle which works\nthe human psyche automatically.\n\nWe are now in the last stages of idealism. And psychoanalysis alone has\nthe courage necessary to conduct us through these last stages. The\nidentity of love with sex, the single necessity for fulfilment through\nlove, these are our fixed ideals. We must fulfil these ideals in their\nextremity. And this brings us finally to incest, even incest-worship. We\nhave no option, whilst our ideals stand.\n\nWhy? Because incest is the logical conclusion of our ideals, when these\nideals have to be carried into passional effect. And idealism has no\nescape from logic. And once he has built himself in the shape of any\nideal, man will go to any logical length rather than abandon his ideal\ncorpus. Nay, some great cataclysm has to throw him down and destroy the\nwhole fabric of his life before the motor-principle of his dominant\nideal is destroyed. Hence psychoanalysis as the advance-guard of\nscience, the evangel of the last _ideal_ liberty. For of course there is\na great fascination in a completely effected idealism. Man is then\nundisputed master of his own fate, and captain of his own soul. But\nbetter say engine-driver, for in truth he is no more than the little god\nin the machine, this master of fate. He has invented his own automatic\nprinciples, and he works himself according to them, like any little\nmechanic inside the works.\n\nBut ideal or not, we are all of us between the pit and the pendulum, or\nthe walls of red-hot metal, as may be. If we refuse the Freudian\n_pis-aller_ as a means of escape, we have still to find some way out.\nFor there we are, all of us, trapped in a corner where we cannot, and\nsimply do not know how to fulfil our own natures, passionally. We don\u2019t\nknow in which way fulfilment lies. If psychoanalysis discovers incest,\nsmall blame to it.\n\nYet we do know this much: that the pushing of the ideal to any further\nlengths will not avail us anything. We have actually to go back to our\nown unconscious. But not to the unconscious which is the inverted\nreflection of our ideal consciousness. We must discover, if we can, the\ntrue unconscious, where our life bubbles up in us, prior to any\nmentality. The first bubbling life in us, which is innocent of any\nmental alteration, this is the unconscious. It is pristine, not in any\nway ideal. It is the spontaneous origin from which it behooves us to\nlive.\n\nWhat then is the true unconscious? It is not a shadow cast from the\nmind. It is the spontaneous life-motive in every organism. Where does it\nbegin? It begins where life begins. But that is too vague. It is no use\ntalking about life and the unconscious in bulk. You can talk about\nelectricity, because electricity is a homogeneous force, conceivable\napart from any incorporation. But life is inconceivable as a general\nthing. It exists only in living creatures. So that life begins, now as\nalways, in an individual living creature. In the beginning of the\nindividual living creature is the beginning of life, every time and\nalways, and life has no beginning apart from this. Any attempt at a\nfurther generalization takes us merely beyond the consideration of life\ninto the region of mechanical homogeneous force. This is shown in the\ncosmologies of eastern religions.\n\nThe beginning of life is in the beginning of the first individual\ncreature. You may call the naked, unicellular bit of plasm the first\nindividual, if you like. Mentally, as far as thinkable simplicity goes,\nit is the first. So that we may say that life begins in the first naked\nunicellular organism. And where life begins the unconscious also begins.\nBut mark, the first naked unicellular organism is an _individual_. It is\na specific individual, not a mathematical unit, like a unit of force.\n\nWhere the individual begins, life begins. The two are inseparable, life\nand individuality. And also, where the individual begins, the\nunconscious, which is the specific life-motive, also begins. We are\ntrying to trace the unconscious to its source. And we find that this\nsource, in all the higher organisms, is the first ovule cell from which\nan individual organism arises. At the moment of conception, when a\nprocreative male nucleus fuses with the nucleus of the female germ, at\nthat moment does a new unit of life, of consciousness, arise in the\nuniverse. Is it not obvious? The unconscious has no other source than\nthis, this first fused nucleus of the ovule.\n\nUseless to talk about the unconscious as if it were a homogeneous force\nlike electricity. You can only deal with the unconscious when you\nrealize that in every individual organism an individual nature, an\nindividual consciousness, is spontaneously created at the moment of\nconception. We say _created_. And by _created_ we mean spontaneously\nappearing in the universe, out of nothing. _Ex nihilo nihil fit._ It is\ntrue that an individual is also generated. By the fusion of two nuclei,\nmale and female, we understand the process of generation. And from the\nprocess of generation we may justly look for a new unit, according to\nthe law of cause and effect. As a natural or automatic result of the\nprocess of generation we may look for a new unit of existence. But the\nnature of this new unit must derive from the natures of the parents,\nalso by law. And this we deny. We deny that the nature of any new\ncreature derives from the natures of its parents. The nature of the\ninfant does _not_ follow from the natures of its parents. The nature of\nthe infant is _not_ just a new permutation-and-combination of elements\ncontained in the natures of the parents. There is in the nature of the\ninfant that which is utterly unknown in the natures of the parents,\nsomething which could never be derived from the natures of all the\nexistent individuals or previous individuals. There is in the nature of\nthe infant something entirely new, underived, underivable, something\nwhich is, and which will forever remain, _causeless_. And this something\nis the unanalyzable, indefinable reality of individuality. Every time at\nthe moment of conception of every higher organism an individual nature\nincomprehensibly arises in the universe, out of nowhere. Granted the\nwhole cause-and-effect process of generation and evolution, still the\nindividual is not explained. The individual unit of consciousness and\nbeing which arises at the conception of every higher organism arises by\npure creation, by a process not susceptible to understanding, a process\nwhich takes place outside the field of mental comprehension, where\nmentality, which is definitely limited, cannot and does not exist.\n\nThis causeless created nature of the individual being is the same as the\nold mystery of the divine nature of the soul. Religion was right and\nscience is wrong. Every individual creature has a soul, a specific\nindividual nature the origin of which cannot be found in any\ncause-and-effect process whatever. Cause-and-effect will not explain\neven the individuality of a single dandelion. There is no assignable\ncause, and no logical reason, for individuality. On the contrary,\nindividuality appears in defiance of all scientific law, in defiance\neven of reason.\n\nHaving established so much, we can really approach the unconscious. By\nthe unconscious we wish to indicate that essential unique nature of\nevery individual creature, which is, by its very nature, unanalyzable,\nundefinable, inconceivable. It cannot be conceived, it can only be\nexperienced, in every single instance. And being inconceivable, we will\ncall it the unconscious. As a matter of fact, _soul_ would be a better\nword. By the unconscious we do mean the soul. But the word _soul_ has\nbeen vitiated by the idealistic use, until nowadays it means only that\nwhich a man conceives himself to be. And that which a man conceives\nhimself to be is something far different from his true unconscious. So\nwe must relinquish the ideal word soul.\n\nIf, however, the unconscious is inconceivable, how do we know it at all?\nWe know it by direct experience. All the best part of knowledge is\ninconceivable. We know the sun. But we cannot conceive the sun, unless\nwe are willing to accept some theory of burning gases, some\ncause-and-effect nonsense. And even if we do have a mental conception of\nthe sun as a sphere of blazing gas\u2014which it certainly isn\u2019t\u2014we are just\nas far from knowing what _blaze_ is. Knowledge is always a matter of\nwhole experience, what St. Paul calls knowing in full, and never a\nmatter of mental conception merely. This is indeed the point of all full\nknowledge: that it is contained mainly within the unconscious, its\nmental or conscious reference being only a sort of extract or shadow.\n\nIt is necessary for us to know the unconscious, or we cannot live, just\nas it is necessary for us to know the sun. But we need not explain the\nunconscious, any more than we need explain the sun. We can\u2019t do either,\nanyway. We know the sun by beholding him and watching his motions and\nfeeling his changing power. The same with the unconscious. We watch it\nin all its manifestations, its unfolding incarnations. We watch it in\nall its processes and its unaccountable evolutions, and these we\nregister.\n\nFor though the unconscious is the creative element, and though, like the\nsoul, it is beyond all law of cause and effect in its totality, yet in\nits processes of self-realization it follows the laws of cause and\neffect. The processes of cause and effect are indeed part of the working\nout of this incomprehensible self-realization of the individual\nunconscious. The great laws of the universe are no more than the fixed\nhabits of the living unconscious.\n\nWhat we must needs do is to try to trace still further the habits of the\ntrue unconscious, and by mental recognition of these habits break the\nlimits which we have imposed on the movement of the unconscious. For the\nwhole point about the true unconscious is that it is all the time moving\nforward, beyond the range of its own fixed laws or habits. It is no good\ntrying to superimpose an ideal nature upon the unconscious. We have to\ntry to recognize the true nature and then leave the unconscious itself\nto prompt new movement and new being\u2014the creative progress.\n\nWhat we are suffering from now is the restriction of the unconscious\nwithin certain ideal limits. The more we force the ideal the more we\nrupture the true movement. Once we can admit the _known_, but\nincomprehensible, presence of the integral unconscious; once we can\ntrace it home in ourselves and follow its first revealed movements; once\nwe know how it habitually unfolds itself; once we can scientifically\ndetermine its laws and processes in ourselves: then at last we can begin\nto live from the spontaneous initial prompting, instead of from the dead\nmachine-principles of ideas and ideals. There is a whole science of the\ncreative unconscious, the unconscious in its law-abiding activities. And\nof this science we do not even know the first term. Yes, when we know\nthat the unconscious appears by creation, as a new individual reality in\nevery newly-fertilized germ-cell, then we know the very first item of\nthe new science. But it needs a super-scientific grace before we can\nadmit this first new item of knowledge. It means that science abandons\nits intellectualist position and embraces the old religious faculty. But\nit does not thereby become less scientific, it only becomes at last\ncomplete in knowledge.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER III\n                       THE BIRTH OF CONSCIOUSNESS\n\n\nIt is useless to try to determine _what is consciousness_ or _what is\nknowledge_. Who cares anyhow, since we know without definitions. But\nwhat we fail to know, yet what we must know, is the nature of the\npristine consciousness which lies integral and progressive within every\nfunctioning organism. The brain is the seat of the ideal consciousness.\nAnd ideal consciousness is only the dead end of consciousness, the spun\nsilk. The vast bulk of consciousness is non-cerebral. It is the sap of\nour life, of all life.\n\nWe are forced to attribute to a star-fish, or to a nettle, its own\npeculiar and integral consciousness. This throws us at once out of the\nideal castle of the brain into the flux of sap-consciousness. But let us\nnot jump too far in one bound. Let us refrain from taking a sheer leap\ndown the abyss of consciousness, down to the invertebrates and the\nprotococci. Let us cautiously scramble down the human declivities. Or\nrather let us try to start somewhere near the foot of the calvary of\nhuman consciousness. Let us consider the child in the womb. Is the f\u0153tus\nconscious? It must be, since it carries on an independent and\nprogressive self-development. This consciousness obviously cannot be\nideal, cannot be cerebral, since it precedes any vestige of cerebration.\nAnd yet it is an integral, individual consciousness, having its own\nsingle purpose and progression. Where can it be centered, how can it\noperate, before even nerves are formed? For it does steadily and\npersistently operate, even spinning the nerves and brain as a web for\nits own motion, like some subtle spider.\n\nWhat is the spinning spider of the first human consciousness\u2014or rather,\nwhere is the center at which this consciousness lies and spins? Since\nthere must be a center of consciousness in the tiny f\u0153tus, it must have\nbeen there from the very beginning. There it must have been, in the\nfirst fused nucleus of the ovule. And if we could but watch this prime\nnucleus, we should no doubt realize that throughout all the long and\nincalculable history of the individual it still remains central and\nprime, the source and clue of the living unconscious, the origin. As in\nthe first moment of conception, so to the end of life in the individual,\nthe first nucleus remains the creative-productive center, the quick,\nboth of consciousness and of organic development.\n\nAnd where in the developed f\u0153tus shall we look for this\ncreative-productive quick? Shall we expect it in the brain or in the\nheart? Surely our own subjective wisdom tells us, what science can\nverify, that it lies beneath the navel of the folded f\u0153tus. Surely that\nprime center, which is the very first nucleus of the fertilized ovule,\nlies situated beneath the navel of all womb-born creatures. There, from\nthe beginning, it lay in its mysterious relation to the outer, active\nuniverse. There it lay, perfectly associated with the parent body. There\nit acted on its own peculiar independence, drawing the whole stream of\ncreative blood upon itself, and, spinning within the parental\nblood-stream, slowly creating or bodying forth its own incarnate\namplification. All the time between the quick of life in the f\u0153tus and\nthe great outer universe there exists a perfect correspondence, upon\nwhich correspondence the astrologers based their science in the days\nbefore mental consciousness had arrogated all knowledge unto itself.\n\nThe f\u0153tus is not _personally_ conscious. But then what is personality if\nnot ideal in its origin? The f\u0153tus is, however, radically, individually\nconscious. From the active quick, the nuclear center, it remains single\nand integral in its activity. At this center it distinguishes itself\nutterly from the surrounding universe, whereby both are modified. From\nthis center the whole individual arises, and upon this center the whole\nuniverse, by implication, impinges. For the fixed and stable universe of\nlaw and matter, even the whole cosmos, would wear out and disintegrate\nif it did not rest and find renewal in the quick center of creative life\nin individual creatures.\n\nAnd since this center has absolute location in the first fertilized\nnucleus, it must have location still in the developed f\u0153tus, and in the\nmature man. And where is this location in the unborn infant? Beneath the\nburning influx of the navel. Where is it in the adult man? Still beneath\nthe navel. As primal affective center it lies within the solar plexus of\nthe nervous system.\n\nWe do not pretend to use technical language. But surely our meaning is\nplain even to correct scientists, when we assert that in all mammals the\ncenter of primal, constructive consciousness and activity lies in the\nmiddle front of the abdomen, beneath the navel, in the great nerve\ncenter called the solar plexus. How do we know? We feel it, as we feel\nhunger or love or hate. Once we _know_ what we are, science can proceed\nto analyze our knowledge, demonstrate its truth or its untruth.\n\nWe all of us know what it is to handle a newborn, or at least a quite\nyoung infant. We know what it is to lay the hand on the round little\nabdomen, the round, pulpy little head. We know where is life, where is\npulp. We have seen blind puppies, blind kittens crawling. They give\nstrange little cries. Whence these cries? Are they mental exclamations?\nAs in a ventriloquist, they come from the stomach. There lies the\nwakeful center. There speaks the first consciousness, the audible\nunconscious, in the squeak of these infantile things, which is so\ncuriously and indescribably moving, reacting direct upon the great\nabdominal center, the preconscious mind in man.\n\nThere at the navel, the first rupture has taken place, the first break\nin continuity. There is the scar of dehiscence, scar at once of our pain\nand splendor of individuality. Here is the mark of our isolation in the\nuniverse, stigma and seal of our free, perfect singleness. Hence the\nlotus of the navel. Hence the mystic contemplation of the navel. It is\nthe upper mind losing itself in the lower first-mind, that which is last\nin consciousness reverting to that which is first.\n\nA mother will realize better than a philosopher. She knows the rupture\nwhich has finally separated her child into its own single, free\nexistence. She knows the strange, sensitive rose of the navel: how it\nquivers conscious; all its pain, its want for the old connection; all\nits joy and chuckling exultation in sheer organic singleness and\nindividual liberty.\n\nThe powerful, active psychic center in a new child is the great solar\nplexus of the sympathetic system. From this center the child is drawn to\nthe mother again, crying, to heal the new wound, to re-establish the old\noneness. This center directs the little mouth which, blind and\nanticipatory, seeks the breast. How could it find the breast, blind and\nmindless little mouth? But it needs no eyes nor mind. From the great\nfirst-mind of the abdomen it moves direct, with an anterior knowledge\nalmost like magnetic propulsion, as if the little mouth were drawn or\npropelled to the maternal breast by vital magnetism, whose center of\ndirective control lies in the solar plexus.\n\nIn a measure, this taking of the breast re-instates the old connection\nwith the parent body. It is a strange sinking back to the old unison,\nthe old organic continuum\u2014a recovery of the pre-natal state. But at the\nsame time it is a deep, avid gratification in drinking in the sustenance\nof a new individuality. It is a deep gratification in the exertion of a\nnew, voluntary power. The child acts now separately from its own\nindividual center and exerts still a control over the adjacent universe,\nthe parent body.\n\nSo the warm life-stream passes again from the parent into the aching\nabdomen of the severed child. Life cannot progress without these\nruptures, severances, cataclysms; pain is a living reality, not merely a\ndeathly. Why haven\u2019t we the courage for life-pains? If we could depart\nfrom our old tenets of the mind, if we could fathom our own\n_unconscious_ sapience, we should find we have courage and to spare. We\nare too mentally domesticated.\n\nThe great magnetic or dynamic center of first-consciousness acts\npowerfully at the solar plexus. Here the child knows beyond all\nknowledge. It does not see with the eyes, it cannot perceive, much less\nconceive. Nothing can it apprehend; the eyes are a strange plasmic,\nnascent darkness. Yet from the belly it knows, with a directness of\nknowledge that frightens us and may even seem abhorrent. The mother,\nalso, from the bowels knows her child\u2014as she can never, never know it\nfrom the head. There is no thought nor speech, only direct, ventral\ngurglings and cooings. From the passional nerve-center of the solar\nplexus in the mother passes direct, unspeakable effluence and\nintercommunication, sheer effluent contact with the palpitating\nnerve-center in the belly of the child. Knowledge, unspeakable knowledge\ninterchanged, which must be diluted by eternities of materialization\nbefore they can come to expression.\n\nIt is like a lovely, suave, fluid, _creative_ electricity that flows in\na circuit between the great nerve-centers in mother and child. The\nelectricity of the universe is a sundering force. But this lovely\npolarized vitalism is creative. It passes in a circuit between the two\npoles of the passional unconscious in the two now separated beings. It\nestablishes in each that first primal consciousness which is the sacred,\nall-containing head-stream of all our consciousness.\n\nBut this is not all. The flux between mother and child is not all sweet\nunison. There is as well the continually widening gap. A wonderful rich\ncommunion, and at the same time a continually increasing cleavage. If\nonly we could realize that all through life these are the two\nsynchronizing activities of love, of creativity. For the end, the goal,\nis the perfecting of each single individuality, unique in itself\u2014which\ncannot take place without a perfected harmony between the beloved, a\nharmony which depends on the at-last-clarified singleness of each being,\na singleness equilibrized, polarized in one by the counter-posing\nsingleness of the other.\n\nSo the child. In its wonderful unison with the mother it is at the same\ntime extricating itself into single, separate, independent existence.\nThe one process, of unison, cannot go on without the other process, of\npurified severance. At first the child cleaves back to the old source.\nIt clings and adheres. The sympathetic center of unification, or at\nleast unison, alone seems awake. The child wails with the strange\ndesolation of severance, wails for the old connection. With joy and\npeace it returns to the breast, almost as to the womb.\n\nBut not quite. Even in sucking it discovers its new identity and\n_power_. Its own new, separate _power_. It draws itself back suddenly;\nit waits. It has heard something? No. But another center has flashed\nawake. The child stiffens itself and holds back. What is it, wind?\nStomach-ache? Not at all. Listen to some of the screams. The ears can\nhear deeper than eyes can see. The first scream of the ego. The scream\nof asserted isolation. The scream of revolt from connection, the revolt\nfrom union. There is a violent anti-maternal motion, anti-everything.\nThere is a refractory, bad-tempered negation of everything, a hurricane\nof temper. What then? After such tremendous unison as the womb implies,\nno wonder there are storms of rage and separation. The child is\nscreaming itself rid of the old womb, kicking itself in a blind paroxysm\ninto freedom, into separate, negative independence.\n\nSo be it, there must be paroxysms, since there must be independence.\nThen the mother gets angry too. It affects her, though perhaps not as\nbadly as it affects outsiders. Nothing acts more direct on the great\nprimal nerve-centers than the screaming of an infant, this blind\nscreaming negation of connections. It is the friction of irritation\nitself. Everybody is implicated, just as they would be if the air were\nsurcharged with electricity. The mother is perhaps less affected because\nshe understands primarily, or because she is polarized directly with the\nchild. Yet she, too, must be angry, in her measure, inevitably.\n\nIt is a blind, almost mechanistic effort on the part of the new organism\nto extricate itself from cohesion with the circumambient universe. It\napplies direct to the mother. But it affects everybody. The great\ncenters of response vibrate with a maddening, sometimes unbearable\nfriction. What centers? Not the great sympathetic plexus this time, but\nits corresponding voluntary ganglion. The great ganglion of the spinal\nsystem, the lumbar ganglion, negatively polarizes the solar plexus in\nthe primal psychic activity of a human individual. When a child screams\nwith temper, it sends out from the lumbar ganglion violent waves of\nfrictional repudiation, extraordinary. The little back has an amazing\npower once it stiffens itself. In the lumbar ganglion the unconscious\nnow vibrates tremendously in the activity of sundering, separation.\nMother and child, polarized, are primarily affected. Often the mother is\nso _sure_ of her possession of the child that she is almost unmoved. But\nthe child continues, till the frictional response is roused in the\nmother, her anger rises, there is a flash, an outburst like lightning.\nAnd then the storm subsides. The pure act of sundering is effected. Each\nbeing is clarified further into its own single, individual self, further\nperfected, separated.\n\nHence a duality, now, in primal consciousness in the infant. The warm\nrosy abdomen, tender with chuckling unison, and the little back\nstrengthening itself. The child kicks away, into independence. It\nstiffens its spine in the strength of its own private and separate,\ninviolable existence. It will admit now of no trespass. It is awake now\nin a new pride, a new self-assertion. The sense of antagonistic freedom\nis aroused. Clumsy old adhesions must be ruthlessly fused. And so, from\nthe lumbar ganglion the fiery-tempered infant asserts its new, blind\nwill.\n\nAnd as the child fights the mother fights. Sometimes she fights to keep\nher refractory child, and sometimes she fights to kick him off, as a\nmare kicks off her too-babyish foal. It is the great _voluntary_ center\nof the unconscious flashing into action. Flashing from the deep lumbar\nganglion in the mother to the newly-awakened, corresponding center in\nthe child goes the swift negative current, setting each of them asunder\nin clean individuality. So long as the force meets its polarized\nresponse all is well. When a force flashes and has no response, there is\ndevastation. How weary in the back is the nursing mother whose great\ncenter of repudiation is suppressed or weak; how a child droops if only\nthe sympathetic unison is established.\n\nSo, the polarity of the dynamic consciousness, from the very start of\nlife! Direct flowing and flashing of two consciousness-streams, active\nin the bringing forth of an individual being. The sweet commingling, the\nsharp clash of opposition. And no possibility of creative development\nwithout this polarity, this dual circuit of direct, spontaneous, honest\ninterchange. No hope of life apart from this. The primal unconscious\npulsing in its circuits between two beings: love and wrath, cleaving and\nrepulsion, inglutination and excrementation. What is the good of\ninventing \u201cideal\u201d behavior? How order the path of the unconscious? For\nlet us now realize that we cannot, even with the best intentions,\nproceed to order the path of our own unconscious without vitally\nderanging the life-flow of those connected with us. If you disturb the\ncurrent at one pole, it must be disturbed at the other. Here is a new\nmoral aspect to life.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER IV\n                        THE CHILD AND HIS MOTHER\n\n\nIn asserting that the seat of consciousness in a young infant is in the\nabdomen, we do not pretend to suggest that all the other\nconscious-centers are utterly dormant. Once a child is born, the whole\nnervous and cerebral system comes awake, even the brain\u2019s memories begin\nto glimmer, recognition and cognition soon begin to take place. But the\nspontaneous control and all the prime developing activity derive from\nthe great affective centers of the abdomen. In the solar plexus is the\nfirst great fountain and issue of infantile consciousness. There,\nbeneath the navel, lies the active human first-mind, the prime\nunconscious. From the moment of conception, when the first nucleus is\nformed, to the moment of death, when this same nucleus breaks again, the\nfirst great active center of human consciousness lies in the solar\nplexus.\n\nThe movement of development in any creature is, however, towards a\nflorescent individuality. The ample, mature, unfolded individual stands\nperfect, perfect in himself, but also perfect in his harmonious relation\nto those nearest him and to all the universe. Whilst only the one great\ncenter of consciousness is awake, in the abdomen, the infant has no\nseparate existence, his whole nature is contained in the conjunction\nwith the parent. As soon as the complementary negative pole arouses the\nvoluntary center of the lumbar ganglion, there is at once a retraction\ninto independence and an assertion of singleness. The back strengthens\nitself.\n\nBut still the circuit of polarity, dual as it is, positive and negative\nfrom the positive-sympathetic and the negative-voluntary poles, still\ndepends on the duality of two beings\u2014it is still extra-individual. Each\nindividual is vitally dependent on the other, for the life circuit.\n\nLet us consider for a moment the _kind_ of consciousness manifested at\nthe two great primary centers. At the solar plexus the new psyche acts\nin a mode of attractive vitalism, drawing its objective unto itself as\nby vital magnetism. Here it drinks in, as it were, the contiguous\nuniverse, as during the womb-period it drank from the living continuum\nof the mother. It is darkly self-centered, exultant and positive in its\nown existence. It is all-in-all to itself, its own great subject. It\nknows no objective. It only knows its own vital potency, which potency\ndraws the external object unto itself, subjectively, as the blood-stream\nwas drawn into the f\u0153tus, by subjective attraction. Here the psyche is\nto itself the _All_. Blindly self-positive.\n\nThis is the first mode of consciousness for every living\nthing\u2014fascinating in all young things. The second half of the same mode\ncommences as soon as direct activity sets up in the lumbar ganglion.\nThen the psyche recoils upon itself, in its first reaction against\ncontinuity with the outer universe. It recoils even against its own mode\nof assimilatory unison. Even it must break off, interrupt the great\npsychic-assimilation process which goes on at the sympathic center. It\nmust recoil clean upon itself, break loose from any attachment\nwhatsoever. And then it must try its _power_, often playfully.\n\nThis reaction is still subjective. When a child stiffens and draws away,\nwhen it screams with pure temper, it takes no note of that from which it\nrecoils. It has no objective consciousness of that from which it reacts,\nthe mother principally. It is like a swimmer endlessly kicking the water\naway behind him, with strong legs vividly active from the spinal\nganglia. Like a man in a boat pushing off from the shore, it merely\nthrusts away, in order to ride free, ever more free. It is a purely\nsubjective motion, in the negative direction.\n\nAfter our long training in objectivation, and our epoch of worship of\nthe objective mode, it is perhaps difficult for us to realize the\nstrong, blind power of the unconscious on its first plane of activity.\nIt is something quite different from what we call _egoism_\u2014which is\nreally mentally derived\u2014for the ego is merely the sum-total of what we\n_conceive_ ourselves to be. The powerful pristine subjectivity of the\nunconscious on its first plane is, on the other hand, the root of all\nour consciousness and being, darkly tenacious. Here we are grounded, say\nwhat we may. And if we break the spell of this first subjective mode, we\nbreak our own main root and live rootless, shiftless, groundless.\n\nSo that the powerful subjectivity of the unconscious, where the self is\nall-in-all unto itself, active in strong desirous _psychic_ assimilation\nor in direct repudiation of the contiguous universe; this first plane of\npsychic activity, polarized in the solar plexus and the lumbar ganglion\nof each individual but established in a circuit with the corresponding\npoles of another individual: this is the first scope of life and being\nfor every human individual, and is beyond question. But we must again\nremark that the whole circuit is established between _two_\nindividuals\u2014that neither is a free thing-unto-itself\u2014and that the very\nfact of established polarity between the two maintains that\ncorrespondence between the individual entity and the external universe\nwhich is the clue to all growth and development. The pure subjectivity\nof the first plane of consciousness is no more _selfish_ than the pure\nobjectivity of any other plane. How can it be? How can any form of pure,\nbalanced polarity between two vital individuals be in any sense selfish\non the part of one individual? We have got our moral values all wrong.\n\nSave for healthy instinct, the moralistic human race would have\nexterminated itself long ago. And yet man _must_ be moral, at the very\nroot moral. The essence of morality is the basic desire to preserve the\nperfect correspondence between the self and the object, to have no\ntrespass and no breach of integrity, nor yet any refaulture in the\nvitalistic interchange.\n\nAs yet we see the unconscious active on one plane only and entirely\ndependent on _two_ individuals. But immediately following the\nestablishment of the circuit of the powerful, subjective, abdominal\nplane comes the quivering of the whole system into a new degree of\nconsciousness. And two great upper centers are awake.\n\nThe diaphragm really divides the human body, psychically as well as\norganically. The two centers beneath the diaphragm are centers of dark\nsubjectivity, centripetal, assimilative. Once these are established, in\nthe thorax the two first centers of objective consciousness become\nactive, with ever-increasing intensity. The great thoracic sympathetic\nplexus rouses like a sun in the breast, the thoracic ganglion fills the\nshoulders with strength. There are now two planes of primary\nconsciousness\u2014the first, the lower, the subjective unconscious, active\nbeneath the diaphragm, and the second upper, objective plane, active\nabove the diaphragm, in the breast.\n\nLet us realize that the subjective and objective of the unconscious are\nnot the same as the subjective and the objective of the _mind_. Here we\nhave no concepts to deal with, no static objects in the shape of ideas.\nWe have none of that tiresome business of establishing the relation\nbetween the mind and its own ideal object, or the discriminating between\nthe ideal thing-in-itself and the mind of which it is the content. We\nare spared that hateful thing-in-itself, the idea, which is at once so\nall-important and so _nothing_. We are on straightforward solid ground;\nthere is no abstraction.\n\nThe unconscious subjectivity is, in its positive manifestation, a great\nimbibing, and in its negative, a definite blind rejection. What we call\nan _unconscious_ rejection. This subjectivity embraces alike creative\nemotion and physical function. It includes alike the sweet and\nuntellable communion of love between the mother and child, the\nirrational reaction into separation between the two, and also the\nphysical functioning of sucking and urination. Psychic and physical\ndevelopment run parallel, though they are forever distinct. The child\nsucking, the child urinating, this is the child acting from the great\n_subjective_ centers, positive and negative. When the child sucks, there\nis a sympathetic circuit between it and the mother, in which the\nsympathetic plexus in the mother acts as negative or submissive pole to\nthe corresponding plexus in the child. In urination there is a\ncorresponding circuit in the voluntary centers, so that a mother seems\ngratified, and _is_ gratified, inevitably, by the excremental\nfunctioning of her child. She experiences a true polar reaction.\n\nChild and mother have, in the first place, no objective consciousness of\neach other, and certainly no _idea_ of each other. Each is a blind\ndesideratum to the other. The strong love between them is effectual in\nthe great abdominal centers, where all love, real love, is primarily\nbased. Of that reflected or moon-love, derived from the head, that\nspurious form of love which predominates to-day, we do not speak here.\nIt has its root in the _idea_: the beloved is a mental objective,\nendlessly appreciated, criticized, scrutinized, exhausted. This has\nnothing to do with the active unconscious.\n\nHaving realized that the unconscious sparkles, vibrates, travels in a\nstrong subjective stream from the abdominal centers, connecting the\nchild directly with the mother at corresponding poles of vitalism, we\nrealize that the unconscious contains nothing ideal, nothing in the\nleast conceptual, and hence nothing in the least personal, since\npersonality, like the ego, belongs to the conscious or mental-subjective\nself. So the first analyses are, or should be, so impersonal that the\nso-called _human_ relations are not involved. The first relationship is\nneither personal nor biological\u2014a fact which psychoanalysis has not\nsucceeded in grasping.\n\nFor example. A child screams with terror at the touch of fur; another\nchild loves the touch of fur, and purrs with pleasure. How now? Is it a\ncomplex? Did the father have a beard?\n\nIt is possible. But all-too-human. The physical result of rubbing\nfur is to set up a certain amount of frictional electricity.\nFrictional electricity is one of the sundering forces. It\ncorresponds to the voluntary forces exerted at the lower spinal\nganglia, the forces of anger and retraction into independence and\npower. An over-sympathetic child will scream with fear at the touch\nof fur; a refractory child will purr with pleasure. It is a reaction\nwhich involves even deeper things than sex\u2014the primal constitution\nof the elementary psyche. A sympathetically overbalanced child has a\nhorror of the electric-frictional force such as is emitted from the\nfur of a black cat, creature of rapacity. The same delights a\nfierce-willed child.\n\nBut we must admit at the same time that from earliest days a child is\nsubject to the definite _conscious_ psychic influences of\nits surroundings and will react almost automatically to a\nconscious-passional suggestion from the mother. In this way personal sex\nis prematurely evoked, and real complexes are set up. But these derive\nnot from the spontaneous unconscious. They are in a way dictated from\nthe deliberate, mental consciousness, even if involuntarily. Again they\nare a result of _mental_ subjectivity, self-consciousness\u2014so different\nfrom the primal subjectivity of the unconscious.\n\nTo return, however, to the pure unconscious. When the upper centers\nflash awake, a whole new field of consciousness and spontaneous activity\nis opened out. The great sympathetic plexus of the breast is the heart\u2019s\nmind. This thoracic plexus corresponds directly in the upper man to the\nsolar plexus in the lower. But it is a correspondence in creative\nopposition. From the sympathetic center of the breast as from a window\nthe unconscious goes forth seeking its object, to dwell upon it. When a\nchild leans its breast against its mother it becomes filled with a\nprimal awareness of _her_\u2014not of itself desiring her or partaking of\nher\u2014but of her as she is in herself. This is the first great acquisition\nof primal objective knowledge, the objective content of the unconscious.\nSuch knowledge we call the treasure of the heart. When the ancients\nlocated the first seat of consciousness in the heart, they were neither\nmisguided nor playing with metaphor. For by consciousness they meant, as\nusual, objective consciousness only. And from the cardiac plexus goes\nforth that strange effluence of the self which seeks and dwells upon the\nbeloved, lovingly roving like the fingers of an infant or a blind man\nover the face of the treasured object, gathering her mould into itself\nand transferring her mould forever into its own deep unconscious psyche.\nThis is the first acquiring of objective knowledge, sightless,\nunspeakably direct. It is a dwelling of the child\u2019s unconscious within\nthe form of the mother, the gathering of a pure, eternal impression. So\nthe soul stores itself with dynamic treasures; it verily builds its own\ntissue of such treasure, the tissue of the developing body, each cell\nstored with creative dynamic content.\n\nThe breasts themselves are as two eyes. We do not know how much the\nnipples of the breast, both in man and woman, serve primarily as poles\nof vital _conscious_ effluence and connection. We do not know how the\nnipples of the breast are as fountains leaping into the universe, or as\nlittle lamps irradiating the contiguous world, to the soul in quest.\n\nBut certainly from the passional conscious-center of the breast goes\nforth the first joyous discovery of the beloved, the first objective\ndiscovery of the contiguous universe, the first ministration of the self\nto that which is beyond the self. So, functionally, the mother ministers\nwith the milk of her breast. But this is a yielding to the great _lower_\nplexus, the basic solar plexus. It is the breast as part also of the\nalimentary system\u2014a special thing.\n\nIn sucking the hands also come awake. It is strange to notice the\npictures by the old masters of the Madonna and Child. Sometimes the\nstrange round belly of the Infant seems the predominant mystery-center,\nand sometimes from the tiny breast it is as if a delicate light glowed,\nthe light of love. As if the breast should illumine the outer world in\nits seeking administering love. As if the breast of the Infant glimmered\nits light of discovery on the adoring Mother, and she bowed, submissive\nto the revelation.\n\nThe little hands and arms wave, circulate, trying to touch, to grasp, to\nknow. To grasp in caress, not to reive. To grasp in order to identify\nthemselves with the cherished discovery, to realize the beloved. To\ncherish, to realize the beloved. To administer the outward-seeking self\nto the beloved. We give this the exclusive name of love. But it is\nindeed only the one direction of love, the outgoing from the lovely\ncenter of the breast\u2014the nipples seeking, the hands delicately,\ncaressively exploring, the eyes at last waking to perception. The eyes,\nthe hands, these wake and are alert from the center of the breast. But\nthe ears and feet move from the deep lower centers\u2014the recipient ears,\nimbibing vibrations, the feet which press the resistant earth,\ncontrolled from the powerful lower ganglia of the spine. And thus great\nscope of activity opens, in the hands that wave and explore, the eyes\nthat try to perceive, the legs, the little knees that thrust, thrust\naway, the small feet that curl and twinkle upon themselves, ready for\nthe obstinate earth.\n\nAnd so, also a wholeness is established within the individual. The two\nfields of consciousness, the first upper and the first lower, are based\nupon a correspondence of polarity. The first great complex circuit is\nnow set up _within the individual_, between the upper and lower centers.\nThe individual consciousness has now its own integral independent\nexistence and activity, apart from external connection. It has its right\nto be alone.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER V\n                       THE LOVER AND THE BELOVED\n\n\nConsciousness develops on successive planes. On each plane there is the\ndual polarity, positive and negative, of the sympathetic and voluntary\nnerve centers. The first plane is established between the poles of the\nsympathetic solar plexus and the voluntary lumbar ganglion. This is the\nactive first plane of the subjective unconscious, from which the whole\nof consciousness arises.\n\nImmediately succeeding the first plane of subjective dynamic\nconsciousness arises the corresponding first plane of objective\nconsciousness, the objective unconscious, polarized in the cardiac\nplexus and the thoracic ganglion, in the breast. There is a perfect\ncorrespondence in difference between the first abdominal and the first\nthoracic planes. These two planes polarize each other in a fourfold\npolarity, which makes the first great field of individual,\nself-dependent consciousness.\n\nEach pole of the active unconscious manifests a specific activity and\ngives rise to a specific kind of dynamic or creative consciousness. On\neach plane, the negative voluntary pole _complements_ the positive\nsympathetic pole, and yet the consciousness originating from the\ncomplementary poles is not merely negative versus positive, it is\ncategorically different, opposite. Each is pure and perfect in itself.\n\nBut the moment we enter the two planes of corresponding\nconsciousness, lower and upper, we find a whole new range of\ncomplements. The upper, dynamic-objective plane is complementary to\nthe lower, dynamic-subjective. The mystery of creative opposition\nexists all the time between the two planes, and this unison in\nopposition between the two planes forms the first whole field of\nconsciousness. Within the individual the polarity is fourfold. In a\nrelation between two individuals the polarity is already eightfold.\n\nNow before we can have any sort of scientific, comprehensive psychology\nwe shall have to establish the _nature_ of the consciousness at each of\nthe dynamic poles\u2014the nature of the consciousness, the direction of the\ndynamic-vital flow, the resultant physical-organic development and\nactivity. This we must do before we can even begin to consider a genuine\nsystem of education. Education now is widely at sea. Having ceased to\nsteer by the pole-star of the mind, having ceased to aim at the cramming\nof the intellect, it veers hither and thither hopelessly and absurdly.\nEducation can never become a serious science until the human psyche is\nproperly understood. And the human psyche cannot begin to be understood\nuntil we enter the dark continent of the unconscious. Having begun to\nexplore the unconscious, we find we must go from center to center,\nchakra to chakra, to use an old esoteric word. We must patiently\ndetermine the psychic manifestation at each center, and moreover, as we\ngo, we must discover the psychic results of the interaction, the\npolarized interaction between the dynamic centers both within and\nwithout the individual.\n\nHere is a real job for the scientist, a job which eternity will never\nsee finished though even to-morrow may see it well begun. It is a job\nwhich will at last free us from the most hateful of all shackles, the\nshackles of ideas and ideals. It is a great task of the liberators,\nthose who work forever for the liberation of the free _spontaneous_\npsyche, the effective soul.\n\nIn these few chapters we hope to hint at the establishment of the first\nfield of the unconscious\u2014at the nature of the consciousness manifested\nat each pole\u2014and at the already complex range of dynamic polarity\nbetween the various poles. So far we have given the merest suggestion of\nthe nature of the first plane of the unconscious and have attempted the\nopening of the second or upper plane. We profess no scientific\n_exactitude_, particularly in terminology. We merely wish intelligibly\nto open a way.\n\nTo balance the solar plexus wakes the great plexus of the breast. In our\nera this plexus is the great planet of our psychic universe. In the\nprevious sympathetic era the flower of the universal blossomed in the\nnavel. But since Egypt the sun of creative activity beams from the\nbreast, the heart of the supreme Man. This is to us the source of\nlight\u2014the loving heart, the Sacred Heart. Against this we contrast the\ndevouring darkness of the lower man, the devouring whirlpool beneath the\nnavel. Even theosophists don\u2019t realize that the universal lotus really\nblossoms in the abdomen\u2014that our lower man, our dark, devouring\nwhirlpool, was once the creative source, in human estimation.\n\nBut in calling the heart the sun, the source of light, we are\nbiologically correct even. For the roots of vision are in the cardiac\nplexus. But if we were to consider the heart itself, not its great nerve\nplexus, we should have to go further than the nervous system. If we had\nto consider the whole lambent blood-stream, we should have to descend\ntoo deep for our unpractised minds. Suffice it here to hint that the\nsolar plexus is the first and main clue to the great alimentary-sexual\nactivity in man, an activity at once functional and creatively\nemotional, whilst the cardiac plexus is first and main clue to the\nrespiratory system and the active-productive manifestations. The mouth\nand nostrils are gates to each great center, upper and lower\u2014even the\nbreasts have this duality. Yet the clue to respiration and hand activity\nand vision is in the breast, while the clue to alimentation and passion\nand sex is in the lower centers. The duality goes so far and is so\nprofound. And the polarity! The great organs, as well as the lymphatic\nglands, depend each on its own specific center of the unconscious; each\nis derived from a specific _dynamic_ conscious-clue, what we might\nalmost call a soul-cell. The inherent unconscious, or soul, is the first\nnucleus subdivided, and from its own subdivisions produced, from its own\nstill-creative constellated nuclei, the organs, glands, nerve-centers of\nthe human organism. This is our answer to materialism and idealism\nalike. The _nuclear unconscious_ brought forth organs and consciousness\nalike. And the great nuclei of the unconscious _still_ lie active in the\ngreat living nerve-centers, which nerve centers, from the original\nsolar-plexus to the conclusive brain, form one great chain of dual\npolarity and amplified consciousness.\n\nAll this is a mere incoherent stammering, broken first-words. To return\nto the direct path of our progress. It is not merely a metaphor, to call\nthe cardiac plexus the sun, the Light. It is metaphor in the first\nplace, because the conscious effluence which proceeds from this first\nupper center in the breast goes forth and plays upon its external\nobject, as phosphorescent waves might break upon a ship and reveal its\nform. The transferring of the objective knowledge to the psyche is\nalmost the same as vision. It is root-vision. It happens before the eyes\nopen. It is the first tremendous mode of _apprehension_, still dark, but\nmoving towards light. It is the eye in the breast. Psychically, it is\nbasic objective apprehension. Dynamically, it is love, devotional,\nadministering love.\n\nNow we make already a discrimination between the two natures, even of\nthis first upper consciousness. First from the breast flows the\ndevotional, self-outpouring of love, love which gives its all to the\nbeloved. And back again returns to the ingathered objective\nconsciousness, the first objective content of the psyche.\n\nThis argues the dual polarity. From the positive pole of the cardiac\nplexus flows out that effluence which we call selfless love. It is\nreally self-devoting love, not self-less. This is the one form of love\nwe recognize. But from the strong ganglion of the shoulders proceeds the\nnegative circuit, which searches and explores the beloved, bringing back\npure objective apprehension, not critical, in the mental sense, and yet\npassionally discriminative.\n\nLet us discriminate between the two upper poles. From the sympathetic\nheart goes forth pure administering, like sunbeams. But from the strong\nthoracic center of the shoulders is exerted a strong rejective force, a\nforce which, pressing upon the object of attention, in the mode of\nseparation, succeeds in transferring to itself the impression of the\nobject to which it has attended. This is the other half of devotional\nlove\u2014perfect _knowledge_ of the beloved.\n\nNow this knowledge in itself argues a contradistinction between the\nlover and the beloved. It is the very mould of the contradistinction. It\nis the impress upon the lover of that which was separate from him,\nresistant to him, in the beloved. Objective knowledge is always of this\nkind\u2014a knowledge based on unchangeable difference, a knowledge truly of\nthe gulf that lies between the two beings nearest to each other.\n\nIn two kinds, then, consists the activity of the unconscious on the\nfirst upper plane. Primal is the blissful sense of ineffable transfusion\nwith the beloved, which we call love, and of which our era has perhaps\nenjoyed the full. It is a mode of creative consciousness essentially\nobjective, but yet it preserves no object in the memory, even the\ndynamic memory. It is a great objective flux, a streaming forth of the\nself in blissful departure, like sunbeams streaming.\n\nIf this activity alone worked, then the self would utterly depart from\nits own integrity; it would pass out and merge with the beloved\u2014which\npassing out and merging is the goal of enthusiasts. But living beings\nare kept integral by the activity of the great negative pole. From the\nthoracic ganglion also the unconscious goes forth in its quest of the\nbeloved. But what does it go to seek? Real objective knowledge. It goes\nto find out the wonders which itself does not contain and to transfer\nthese wonders, as by impress, into itself. It goes out to determine the\nlimits of its own existence also.\n\nThis is the second half of the activity of upper or self-less or\nspiritual love. There is a tremendous great joy in exploring and\ndiscovering the beloved. For what is the beloved? She is that which I\nmyself am not. Knowing the breach between us, the uncloseable gulf, I in\nthe same breath realize her _features_. In the first mode of the upper\nconsciousness there is perfect surpassing of all sense of division\nbetween the self and the beloved. In the second mode the very discovery\nof the features of the beloved contains the full realization of the\nirreparable, or unsurpassable, gulf. This is objective knowledge, as\ndistinct from objective emotion. It contains always the element of\nself-amplification, as if the self were amplified by knowledge in the\nbeloved. It should also contain the knowledge of the _limits_ of the\nself.\n\nSo it is with the Infant. Curious indeed is the look on the face of the\nHoly Child, in Leonardo\u2019s pictures, in Botticelli\u2019s, even in the\nbeautiful Filippo Lippi. It is the Mother who crosses her hands on her\nbreast, in supreme acquiescence, recipient; it is the Child who gazes,\nwith a kind of _objective_, strangely discerning, deep apprehension of\nher, startling to northern eyes. It is a gaze by no means of innocence,\nbut of profound, pre-visual discerning. So plainly is the child looking\nacross the gulf and _fixing_ the gulf by very intentness of pre-visual\napprehension, that instinctively the ordinary northerner finds Him\nanti-pathetic. It seems almost a cruel objectivity.\n\nPerhaps between lovers, in the objective way of love, either the\nvoluntary separative mode predominates, or the sympathetic mode of\ncommunion\u2014one or the other. In the north we have worshipped the latter\nmode. But in the south it is different; the objective sapient manner of\nlove seems more natural. Moreover in the face of the Infant lingers\nnearly always the dark look of the pristine mode of consciousness, the\npowerful self-centering subjective mode, established in the lower\nbody\u2014the so-called sensual mode.\n\nBut take our own children. A small infant, as soon as it really begins\nto direct its attention. How often it seems to be gazing across a\nstrange distance at the mother; what a curious look is on its face, as\nif the mother were an object set across a far gulf, distinct however,\ndiscernible, even obtrusive in her need to be apprehended. A mother will\nchase away this look with kisses. But she cannot chase away the\ninevitable effluence of separatist, objective apprehension. She herself\nsometimes will fall into a half-trance, and the child on her lap will\nresolve itself into a strange and separate object. She does not\ncriticize or analyze him. She does not even _perceive_ him. But as if\nrapt, she apprehends him lying there, an unfathomable and inscrutable\nobjective, outside herself, never to be grasped or included in herself.\nShe seizes as it were a sudden and final, objective impression of him.\nAnd the conclusive sensation is one of _finality_. Something final has\nhappened to her. She has the strange sensation of unalterable certainty,\na sensation at once profoundly gratifying and rather appalling. She\n_possesses_ something, a certain entity of primal, pre-conscious\nknowledge. Let the child be what he may, her knowledge of him is her\nown, forever and final. It gives her a sense of wealth in possession,\nand of power. It gives her a sense also of fatality. From the very\nsatisfaction of the objective finality derives the sense of fatality. It\nis a knowledge of the other being, but a knowledge which contains at the\nsame time a final assurance of the eternal and insuperable gulf which\nlies between beings\u2014the isolation of the self first.\n\nThus the first plane of the _upper_ consciousness\u2014the outgoing, the\nsheer and unspeakable bliss of the sense of union, communion, at-oneness\nwith the beloved\u2014and then the complementary objective _realization_ of\nthe beloved, the realization of that which is apart, different. This\nrealization is like riches to the objective consciousness. It is, as it\nwere, the adding of another self to the own self, through the mode of\napprehension. Through the mode of dynamic objective apprehension, which\nin our day we have gradually come to call _imagination_, a man may in\nhis time add on to himself the whole of the universe, by increasing\npristine realization of the universal. This in mysticism is called the\nprogress to infinity\u2014that is, in the modern, truly male mysticism. The\nolder female mysticism means something different by the infinite.\n\nBut anyhow there it is. The attaining to the Infinite, about which the\nmystics have rhapsodized, is a definite process in the developing\nunconscious, but a process in the development only of the\nobjective-apprehensive centers\u2014an exclusive process, naturally.\n\nA soul cannot come into its own through that love alone which is unison.\nIf it stress the one mode, the sympathetic mode, beyond a certain point,\nit breaks its own integrity, and corruption sets in in the living\norganism. On both planes of love, upper and lower, the two modes must\nact complementary to one another, the sympathetic and the separatist. It\nis the absolute failure to see this, that has torn the modern world into\ntwo halves, the one half warring for the voluntary, objective,\nseparatist control, the other for the pure sympathetic. The individual\npsyche divided against itself divides the world against itself, and an\nunthinkable progress of calamity ensues unless there be a\nreconciliation.\n\nThe goal of life is the coming to perfection of each single individual.\nThis cannot take place without the tremendous interchange of love from\nall the four great poles of the first, basic field of consciousness.\nThere must be the twofold passionate flux of sympathetic love,\nsubjective-abdominal and objective-devotional, both. And there must be\nthe twofold passional circuit of separatist realization, the lower,\nvital _self-realization_, and the upper, intense realization of the\nother, a realization which includes a recognition of abysmal\n_otherness_. To stress any one mode, any one interchange, is to hinder\nall, and to cause corruption in the end. The human psyche must have\nstrength and pride to accept the whole fourfold nature of its own\ncreative activity.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER VI\n                  HUMAN RELATIONS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS\n\n\nThe aim of this little book is merely to establish the smallest foothold\nin the swamp of vagueness which now goes by the name of the unconscious.\nAt last we form some sort of notion what the unconscious actually is. It\nis that active spontaneity which rouses in each individual organism at\nthe moment of fusion of the parent nuclei, and which, in polarized\nconnection with the external universe, gradually evolves or elaborates\nits own individual psyche and corpus, bringing both mind and body forth\nfrom itself. Thus it would seem that the term _unconscious_ is only\nanother word for life. But life is a general force, whereas the\nunconscious is essentially single and unique in each individual\norganism; it is the active, self-evolving soul bringing forth its own\nincarnation and self-manifestation. Which incarnation and\nself-manifestation seems to be the whole goal of the _unconscious_ soul:\nthe whole goal of life. Thus it is that the unconscious brings forth not\nonly consciousness, but tissue and organs also. And all the time the\nworking of each organ depends on the primary spontaneous-conscious\ncenter of which it is the issue\u2014if you like, the soul-center. And\nconsciousness is like a web woven finally in the mind from the various\nsilken strands spun forth from the primal center of the unconscious.\n\nBut the unconscious is never an abstraction, _never to be abstracted_.\nIt is never an ideal entity. It is always concrete. In the very first\ninstance, it is the glinting nucleus of the ovule. And proceeding from\nthis, it is the chain or constellation of nuclei which derive directly\nfrom this first spark. And further still it is the great nerve-centers\nof the human body, in which the primal and pristine nuclei still act\ndirect. The nuclei are centers of spontaneous consciousness. It seems as\nif their bright grain were germ-consciousness, consciousness germinating\nforever. If that is a mystery, it is not my fault. Certainly it is not\nmysticism. It is obvious, demonstrable scientific fact, to be verified\nunder the microscope and within the human psyche, subjectively and\nobjectively, both. Of course, the subjective verification is what men\nkick at. Thin-minded idealists cannot bear any appeal to their bowels of\ncomprehension.\n\nWe can quite tangibly deal with the human unconscious. We trace its\nsource and centers in the great ganglia and nodes of the nervous system.\nWe establish the nature of the spontaneous consciousness at each of\nthese centers; we determine the polarity and the direction of the\npolarized flow. And from this we know the motion and individual\nmanifestation of the psyche itself; we also know the motion and rhythm\nof the great organs of the body. For at every point psyche and functions\nare so nearly identified that only by holding our breath can we realize\ntheir _duality_ in identification\u2014a polarized duality once more. But\nhere is no place to enter the great investigation of the duality and\npolarization of the vital-creative activity and the mechanico-material\nactivity. The two are two in one, a polarized quality. They are\nunthinkably different.\n\nOn the first field of human conscious\u2014the first plane of the\nunconscious\u2014we locate four great spontaneous centers, two below the\ndiaphragm, two above. These four centers control the four greatest\norgans. And they give rise to the whole basis of human consciousness.\nFunctional and psychic at once, this is their first polar duality.\n\nBut the polarity is further. The horizontal division of the diaphragm\ndivides man forever into his individual duality, the duality of the\nupper and lower man, the two great bodies of upper and lower\nconsciousness and function. This is the horizontal line.\n\nThe vertical division between the voluntary and the sympathetic systems,\nthe line of division between the spinal system and the great\nplexus-system of the front of the human body, forms the second\ndistinction into duality. It is the great difference between the soft,\nrecipient front of the body and the wall of the back. The front of the\nbody is the live end of the magnet. The back is the closed opposition.\nAnd again there are two parallel streams of function and consciousness,\nvertically separate now. This is the vertical line of division. And the\nhorizontal line and the vertical line form the cross of all existence\nand being. And even this is not mysticism\u2014no more than the ancient\nsymbols used in botany or biology.\n\nOn the first field of human consciousness, which is the basis of life\nand consciousness, are the four first poles of spontaneity. These have\ntheir fourfold polarity within the individual, again figured by the\ncross. But the individual is never purely a thing-by-himself. He cannot\nexist save in polarized relation to the external universe, a relation\nboth functional and psychic-dynamic. Development takes place only from\nthe polarized circuits of the dynamic unconscious, and these circuits\nmust be both individual and extra-individual. There must be the circuit\nof which the complementary pole is external to the individual.\n\nThat is, in the first place there must be the _other individual_. There\nmust be a polarized connection with the other individual\u2014or even other\nindividuals. On the first field there are four poles in each individual.\nSo that the first, the basic field of extra-individual consciousness\ncontains eight poles\u2014an eightfold polarity, a fourfold circuit. It may\nbe that between two individuals, even mother and child, the polarity may\nbe established only fourfold, a dual circuit. It may be that one circuit\nof spontaneous consciousness may never be fully established. This means,\nfor a child, a certain deficiency in development, a psychic inadequacy.\n\nSo we are again face to face with the basic problem of human conduct. No\nhuman being can develop save through the polarized connection with other\nbeings. This circuit of polarized unison precedes all mind and all\nknowing. It is anterior to and ascendant over the human will. And yet\nthe mind and the will can both interfere with the dynamic circuit, an\nidea, like a stone wedged in a delicate machine, can arrest one whole\nprocess of psychic interaction and spontaneous growth.\n\nHow then? Man doth not live by bread alone. It is time we made haste to\nsettle the bread question, which after all is only the A B C of social\neconomies, and proceeded to devote our attention to this much more\nprofound and vital question: how to establish and maintain the circuit\nof vital polarity from which the psyche actually develops, as the body\ndevelops from the circuit of alimentation and respiration. We have\nreached the stage where we can settle the alimentation and respiration\nproblems almost off-hand. But woe betide us, the unspeakable agony we\nsuffer from the failure to establish and maintain the vital circuits\nbetween ourselves and the effectual correspondent, the other human\nbeing, other human beings, and all the extraneous universe. The tortures\nof psychic starvation which civilized people proceed to suffer, once\nthey have solved for themselves the bread-and-butter problem of\nalimentation, will not bear thought. Delicate, creative desire, sending\nforth its fine vibrations in search of the true pole of magnetic rest in\nanother human being or beings, how it is thwarted, insulated by a whole\nset of India-rubber ideas and ideals and conventions, till every form of\nperversion and death-desire sets in! How can we _escape_ neuroses?\nPsychoanalysis won\u2019t tell us. But a mere shadow of understanding of the\ntrue unconscious will give us the hint.\n\nThe amazingly difficult and vital business of human relationship has\nbeen almost laughably underestimated in our epoch. All this nonsense\nabout love and unselfishness, more crude and repugnant than savage\nfetish-worship. Love is a thing to be _learned_, through centuries of\npatient effort. It is a difficult, complex maintenance of individual\nintegrity throughout the incalculable processes of interhuman-polarity.\nEven on the first great plane of consciousness, four prime poles in each\nindividual, four powerful circuits possible between two individuals, and\neach of the four circuits to be established to perfection and yet\nmaintained in pure equilibrium with all the others. Who can do it?\nNobody. Yet we have all got to do it, or else suffer ascetic tortures of\nstarvation and privation or of distortion and overstrain and slow\ncollapse into corruption. The whole of life is one long, blind effort at\nan established polarity with the outer universe, human and non-human;\nand the whole of modern life is a shrieking failure. It is our own\nfault.\n\nThe actual evolution of the individual psyche is a result of the\ninteraction between the individual and the outer universe. Which means\nthat just as a child in the womb grows as a result of the parental\nblood-stream which nourishes the vital quick of the f\u0153tus, so does every\nman and woman grow and develop as a result of the polarized flux between\nthe spontaneous self and some other self or selves. It is the circuit of\nvital flux between itself and another being or beings which brings about\nthe development and evolution of every individual psyche and physique.\nThis is a law of life and creation, from which we cannot escape.\nAscetics and voluptuaries both try to dodge this main condition, and\nboth succeed perhaps for a generation. But after two generations all\ncollapses. Man doth not live by bread alone. He lives even more\nessentially from the nourishing creative flow between himself and\nanother or others.\n\nThis is the reality of the extra-individual circuits of polarity, those\nestablished between two or more individuals. But a corresponding reality\nis that of the internal, purely individual polarity\u2014the polarity within\na man himself of his upper and lower consciousness, and his own\nvoluntary and sympathetic modes. Here is a fourfold interaction within\nthe self. And from this fourfold reaction within the self results that\nfinal manifestation which we know as _mind_, mental consciousness.\n\nThe brain is, if we may use the word, the terminal instrument of the\ndynamic consciousness. It transmutes what is a creative flux into a\ncertain fixed cypher. It prints off, like a telegraph instrument, the\nglyphs and grafic representations which we call percepts, concepts,\nideas. It produces a new reality\u2014the ideal. The idea is another static\nentity, another unit of the mechanical-active and materio-static\nuniverse. It is thrown off from life, as leaves are shed from a tree, or\nas feathers fall from a bird. Ideas are the dry, unliving, inscutient\nplumage which intervenes between us and the circumambient universe,\nforming at once an insulator and an instrument for the subduing of the\nuniverse. The mind is the instrument of instruments; it is not a\ncreative reality.\n\nOnce the mind is awake, being in itself a finality, it feels very\nassured. \u201cThe word became flesh, and began to put on airs,\u201d says Norman\nDouglas wittily. It is exactly what happens. Mentality, being automatic\nin its principle like the machine, begins to assume life. It begins to\naffect life, to pretend to make and unmake life. \u201cIn the beginning was\nthe Word.\u201d This is the presumptuous masquerading of the mind. The Word\ncannot be the beginning of life. It is the _end_ of life, that which\nfalls shed. The mind is the dead end of life. But it has all the\nmechanical force of the non-vital universe. It is a great dynamo of\nsuper-mechanical force. Given the _will_ as accomplice, it can even\narrogate its machine-motions and automatizations over the whole of life,\ntill every tree becomes a clipped tea-pot and every man a useful\nmechanism. So we see the brain, like a great dynamo and accumulator,\naccumulating _mechanical_ force and presuming to apply this mechanical\nforce-control to the living unconscious, subjecting everything\nspontaneous to certain machine-principles called ideals or ideas.\n\nAnd the human will assists in this humiliating and sterilizing process.\nWe don\u2019t know what the human will is. But we do know that it is a\ncertain faculty belonging to every living organism, the faculty for\nself-determination. It is a strange faculty of the soul itself, for its\nown direction. The will is indeed the faculty which every individual\npossesses from the very moment of conception, for exerting a certain\ncontrol over the vital and automatic processes of his own evolution. It\ndoes not depend originally on mind. Originally it is a purely\nspontaneous control-factor of the living unconscious. It seems as if,\nprimarily, the will and the conscience were identical, in the pre-mental\nstate. It seems as if the will were given as a great balancing faculty,\nthe faculty whereby automatization is _prevented_ in the evolving\npsyche. The _spontaneous_ will reacts at once against the exaggeration\nof any one particular circuit of polarity. Any vital circuit\u2014a fact\nknown to psychoanalysis. And against this automatism, this degradation\nfrom the spontaneous-vital reality into the mechanic-material reality,\nthe human soul must always struggle. And the will is the power which the\nunique self possesses to right itself from automatism.\n\nSometimes, however, the free psyche really collapses, and the will\n_identifies_ itself with an automatic circuit. Then a complex is set up,\na paranoia. Then incipient madness sets in. If the identification\ncontinues, the derangement becomes serious. There may come sudden jolts\nof dislocation of the whole psychic flow, like epilepsy. Or there may\ncome any of the known forms of primary madness. The second danger is\nthat the will shall identify itself with the mind and become an\ninstrument of the mind. The same process of automatism sets up, only now\nit is slower. The mind proceeds to assume control over every\norganic-psychic circuit. The spontaneous flux is destroyed, and a\ncertain automatic circuit substituted. Now an automatic establishment of\nthe psyche must, like the building of a machine, proceed according to\nsome definite fixed scheme, based upon certain fixed principles. And it\nis here that ideals and ideas enter. They are the machine-plan and the\nmachine-principles of an automatized psyche.\n\nSo, humanity proceeds to derange itself, to automatize itself from the\nmental consciousness. It is a process of derangement, just as the fixing\nof the will upon any other primary process is a derangement. It is a\nlong, slow development in madness. Quite justly do the advanced Russian\nand French writers acclaim madness as a great goal. It is the genuine\ngoal of self-automatism, mental-conscious supremacy.\n\nTrue, we must all develop into mental consciousness. But\nmental-consciousness is not a goal; it is a cul-de-sac. It provides us\nonly with endless _appliances_ which we can use for the\nall-too-difficult business of coming to our spontaneous-creative\nfullness of being. It provides us with means to adjust ourselves to the\nexternal universe. It gives us further means for subduing the external,\nmaterio-mechanical universe to our great end of creative life. And it\ngives us plain indications of how to avoid falling into automatism,\nhints for the _applying_ of the will, the loosening of false, automatic\nfixations, the brave adherence to a profound soul-impulse. This is the\nuse of the mind\u2014a great indicator and instrument. The mind as author and\ndirector of life is anathema.\n\nSo, the few things we have to say about the unconscious end for the\nmoment. There is almost nothing said. Yet it is a beginning. Still\nremain to be revealed the other great centers of the unconscious. We\nknow four: two pairs. In all there are seven planes. That is, there are\nsix dual centers of spontaneous polarity, and then the final one. That\nis, the great upper and lower consciousness is only just broached\u2014the\nfurther heights and depths are not even hinted at. Nay, in public it\nwould hardly be allowed us to hint at them. There is so much to know,\nand every step of the progress in knowledge is a death to the human\nidealism which governs us now so ruthlessly and vilely. It must die, and\nwe _will_ break free. But what tyranny is so hideous as that of an\nautomatically ideal humanity?\n\n\n\n\n \u25cf Transcriber\u2019s Notes:\n    \u25cb Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).","title":"Psychoanalysis and the unconscious","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":15573}