The Religious Life: A Psychological Perspective

By Sylvia Swain

The Ego Complex

Phiroz has always presented religion as the prime purpose of mankind, saying, “Man is a religious animal.” A study of the Jungian psychological models has confirmed that our psychology has derived from a sense of the numinous, i.e. the sacred quality of life. In a letter Jung wrote:

… The main interest of my work is not concerned with the treatment of neuroses but rather with the approach to the numinous. But the fact is that the approach to the numinous is the real therapy and inasmuch as you attain to the numinous experiences you are released from the curse of pathology.

The religious life, then, and the healthy life, is the life which nurtures the quality of the sacred. We sometimes think of it as a journey to a destination which is unknown to us; then the old joke comes to mind that, if we want to go to such a remote place, we should not start from here! However, the religious life not only starts from here, but it continues in the here and now as a way of life. It is a way of life which involves constant effort and mindfulness because it is a way of transcendence which itself is not a distant goal but is the ultimate human capacity to be realized throughout life, as and when the experiences of life are lived out in the religious mode, and the work completed. In the face of such a tremendous possibility it is natural to feel inadequate, but it is, as Phiroz tells us, a matter of growth and all forms of growth have humble beginnings. Neither the egg or the acorn can know its ultimate destiny until it has relinquished its egghood or acornhood and the later stages of growth and transformation have been accomplished. In human spiritual life an analogy for the egg is the ego; according to Jung the ego is the organ of consciousness and it has its particular way to make.

In the mythology of religion the story of the garden of Eden is one of many analogies for the dawn of human self-consciousness. With the expulsion from Eden, man began his separate, individual existence. In pain and suffering he discovered good and evil, conscience and responsibility. It was taught that we are born in sin. It is now explained that we are born into a complex. Jung said:

Our consciousness issues from a dark body, the ego, which is the indispensable condition for all consciousness… The ego, ostensibly the thing we know most about, is in fact a highly complex affair full of unfathomable obscurities … in the source of light there is darkness enough for any amount of projections, for the ego grows out of the darkness of the psyche.

Collected Works volume 14 paragraph 129

Each life begins in the womb in a physical and psychological darkness. When we are born we see the light of day, and brain and mind begin to experience the world of the senses. Only experiences of a certain intensity can stimulate a moment of conscious awareness and evoke a response; firstly a cry, later a smile, and at this early stage moments of consciousness register randomly like tiny islets scattered across the face of the deep. As the brain grows, periods of wakefulness get longer, the outer world intrudes sufficiently on the inner world to activate an archetypal urge to individual psychic life.

Before the crystallization of consciousness takes place we live in a spontaneous, choiceless life, simply expressing instinctive drives or sleeping, and during this time everything is experienced as one world; there is no distinction between self and other, no such separate concepts are possible. As development proceeds, there is an increasing intensity of pleasant and painful experiences, of stimulation and frustration, as if coming from a separate place beyond our world, and we then discover a world “out there” which does not necessarily come when we call or even if we scream! But a world which does sometimes come to disturb us when we do not want it to. Gradually we learn to distinguish between ourselves and that other world and to learn to communicate with it. We then begin to appreciate that it offers us incentives and deterrents which get us to modify our previously spontaneous behaviour. We learn control, we formulate judgements based on what is experienced as pleasant and unpleasant, and our one world divides into two; a world which attracts and a world which repels; we become capable of choice!

At the same time as we are learning to make our own choices in this complicated world, the adults around us are making things more complicated by trying to impose some of their choices and values as social ethics. The life that we would like to live is depicted as “dirty, naughty, selfish and unkind”, and we are offered ethical alternatives of “the good, the clean, the nice and the helpful.”

Now things get even more complicated as self-consciousness comes in and with it self-evaluation. From being an unquestioned centre in an unconscious world, a kind of Eden, we increasingly find ourselves feeling like isolated entities who are trying to make a small space for themselves in a strange and critical environment. We begin to feel fear, shame and guilt, things that are quite unbearable at this early stage. We want to feel safe and to do that we need to feel good and acceptable, and so we make our first ethical decision. It is an ethical decision in so far as it is taken in response to ideas of good and evil. However it is unethical in that in the process we deny and disown a fundamental part of the total self. This action is called repression, which means that, having identified with our chosen “good”, we have disidentified with our unwanted “evil”, which has now become the “not-self”, and the “not-self” becomes the nucleus, in the personal unconscious, or shadow, as Jung called it, of all the primitive and unwanted aspects of the personality. Thus self and “not-self” are an unconscious interdependent polarity owing their existence to choice, and thus the fundamental characteristics of the ego complex can be seen to have their origins in pain, conflict and division.

Jung said that at the heart of the neurotic complex there is to be found an ethical problem, and we can see from this early complex just how deep-seated our ethical problems can be. No-one escapes; the shadow formation is the inescapable price we pay for becoming conscious. Jung put it this way:

… in the long run nobody can dodge his shadow unless he lives in eternal darkness.

Collected Works volume 10 paragraph 362

Now we can see how important it is not to confuse oppression, such as the recrimination from the family, with repression, which is an inner mechanism which can occur in response to it. If we feel we were damaged by an outside agency in early life, we tend to feel that we cannot help but be a damaged person no matter what we do, and so we take on that damaged identity.

If we do this, then it is we who are setting the limits on our own development. The good news is that mind itself cannot be damaged in the sense that the body can be damaged. If someone chops off one of our limbs, that is palpable damage. But the psyche can only be conditioned by the influence of others if we accept that conditioning and take on ourselves a mantle of guilt or inferiority, but if we investigate ourselves we can see the truth of what we are.

Sometimes people are conditioned to think too well of themselves. They become spoilt and over-confident, and this is an even harder lesson to learn once the truth comes out. We are not our neurosis, but a mistaken attitude of self-blame and guilt may well be responsible for it.

Jung said:

We should not try to get rid of a neurosis but rather to experience … what its purpose is … A neurosis is truly removed only when it has removed the false attitude of the ego. We do not cure it — it cures us.

Collected Works volume 10 paragraph 361

Such suffering, then, is not a terrible mistake from on high, but we often need to go into it quite deeply before we can understand its meaning.

Mythologically, the bid for consciousness is an heroic venture, equivalent to stealing the fire of the Gods. Initially the tender embryonic ego needs protection, it cannot bear the pain, and repression is a form of defence mechanism enabling forgetfulness, just as the persona is a protective garment as well as a means of relating.

When we repress, a choice is made, and the selections we make are in response to inner needs as well as to outer pressures. The making of choices indicates an awareness of good and evil, and the knowledge of good and evil is the end of our innocence. Innocence means “incapable of doing harm” (Latin innocens) and its opposite means noxious, so in the process of becoming conscious, we human beings become “noxious”, i.e. capable of harm. However, it is said that consciousness stands above innocence, and so man, who has the gift of choice, stands above the angels, who do not. There is a high price to pay for this gift which brings with it such great potential, and that price is that from now on, as Erich Neumann put it: “The shadow forms part of the nuclear structure of our individuality.”

Our smooth flat innocence has now acquired a black dimension, giving perspective to individuality; giving us a responsibility and shaping our fate. In Memories, Dreams, Reflections (page 88), Jung tells of a dream which both frightened and encouraged him. In it he was struggling against a mighty wind through dense, flying fog, and carrying cupped in his hands a tiny light. “Suddenly”, he said, “I had the feeling that something was coming up behind me. I looked back and saw a gigantic, black figure following me. I was conscious in spite of my terror that I must keep my little light going through night and wind, regardless of all dangers. When I awoke I realised that the figure was a spectre of the Brocken, my own shadow on the swirling mists, brought into being by the little light I was carrying. I knew too that this little light was my consciousness, the only light I have. My own understanding is the sole treasure I possess, and the greatest. Though infinitely small and fragile in comparison with the powers of darkness, it is still a light, my only light.” Further on, he says: “I recognised clearly that my path lead irrevocably outward, into the limitations and darkness of three-dimensionality. It seemed to me that Adam must once have left Paradise in this manner; Eden had become a spectre for him, and light was where a stony path had to be tilled in the sweat of his brow.”

However we look at things, it is clear that the life of choice and consciousness is not an easy option but always a challenge. The ego has to learn to live between a series of opposing tensions. It has to meet the requirements of the outer world and yet not to deviate too far from its own given nature. To go too far in any direction causes instability and suffering. In myth and legend, the ego is always the hero or heroine and is the “I” in our dreams.

In contrast to the tiny ego light, the shadow is a strong invisible influence in our lives. Cut off from consciousness, it seeks expression in devious ways. Apart from those famous slips of the tongue and sudden outbursts which we claim are “not the real me at all!”, it has the device of projection, a totally unconscious process whereby everything we have disowned and forgotten through repression is attributed to some other person, group of people, or nation. The tragedy of this is that we really believe it, and until we see ourselves as we are, we are quite unable to see others as they really are, and thus they become our scapegoats.

The use of projection and justification is indicative of immaturity of ego and a very dim little light which cannot penetrate the dense swirling fog. If however we see the truth of this, what can we do about it? We can take on more responsibility for our own “noxiousness”. Jung suggests in its place we use the more ethical alternative of suppression, or control, which is a conscious, moral choice. Suppression of our primitive drives requires conscious commitment; to operate it takes willpower, discipline and self-sacrifice, in fact all the religious virtues which the immature mind would rather pray for than practise. Of suppression, Jung said:

Suppression may cause worry, conflict and suffering but it never causes a neurosis. Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.

Men like Jung and William Blake, who wrote the famous lines: “Man is born to joy and woe”, do not allow us to forget that each life must hold its share of “legitimate suffering.”

If we suppress our primitive urges with conscious discipline, we accept the legitimate sacrifice and suffering which that entails, and as a consequence we live not only more consciously and more realistically but more healthily, psychologically speaking. In the same passage Jung says: “One is rather inclined to be lenient with sinners who are unconscious of their sins. But nature is not at all lenient with unconscious sinners. She punishes them just as severely as if they had committed a conscious offence.”

In Man and his Symbols (page 163), Jung puts it like this:

It even seems as if the ego has not been produced by nature to follow its own arbitrary impulses to an unlimited extent, but to help to make real the totality — the whole psyche. It is the ego that serves to light up the entire system, allowing it to become conscious and thus to be realised.

We are meant to understand that initially the ego chooses to exclude certain aspects in order to go on to concentrate on establishing itself as the focal point of light, but that there is a limit to this outward direction. The time has to come for the shadow to be acknowledged as a part of the total psyche.

The third aspect of the ego complex is the persona. Persona means mask. Personae are the masks we wear on the stage of life. Our persona is the face we put on; it is the face which protects our inner privacy and which we try to “save “ on occasions. It has been called the archetype of conformity because it is largely based on all those collective ideals as social requirements, in deference to which the ego originally made its sacrifice of instinctive life when the foundations of the shadow were laid down. Its function is dual, to create the appropriate impression to facilitate good relationships both socially and professionally, but also to conceal and protect those inner, personal aspects which do not belong to our social role.

Persona formation can take place consciously in order to facilitate the achievement of our ambitions, in which case we train ourselves up as if for a part in a play; as Shakespeare said: “All the world’s a stage”. Or it can happen unconsciously through a process of identification with people who exemplify our ideals. In this case the parent of the same sex may provide us with an example to follow, or a teacher or any person of influence in our lives. In dreams, the persona development is often represented by clothing or the lack of it, whether it fits properly or, more ominously, whether we are fused to it.

The assumption of a persona comes more readily or successfully to the extrovert, who is naturally socially oriented, than it does to the introvert who attaches more significance to the inner world than to the outer. This may not be a bad thing because anything which draws the ego too far from its total reality can be dangerous; the persona can be too good!

A good example of the persona role in action is given by Dr. J. Hall in his book Jungian Dream Interpretation (page 18). It is that of the doctor who, with his correct bedside manner and air of authority, and wearing his white coat, can perform potentially embarrassing examinations and so on, and this works very well. However, says Hall, “The converse persona, that of the patient, is one physicians have notorious difficulty assuming when they themselves are ill.” It is true that doctors make the worst patients.

He also identifies three persona danger areas. Firstly, there is the excessive development producing the stereotype of the role; secondly, an inadequate development which does not do one justice; thirdly, there can be identification with it. Excessive development produces an exact fit, but perhaps too much psychic energy has been tied up in it and thus people may feel that there is no real person underneath. Inadequate development produces a personality which is too vulnerable to hurt and rejection, because insufficiently protected. The third of what he calls the persona malfunctions produces the most serious of the problems. Identification always produces the worst psychological problems because the ego is identified with something not itself and so it has lost touch with its own reality; but with mindfulness this never happens. In this case, being unable to separate from its social role, whatever threatens the role, threatens the ego. One can imagine the seriousness of the situation of, say, a parent with no other resources than the role of parent, when the children leave home, or the case of those whose work has been their life and who have failed to cultivate wider interests or any alternative sense of identity, when they have to retire. They suffer an identity crisis. Terrible feelings of boredom and emptiness can ensue, causing depression, and professional help is needed. These are consequences of identification with the persona and avoidance of one’s duty to the inner reality. Ideally, the ego needs to be able to detach itself from the persona in order to know whether that persona constitutes a valid presentation or not. On the positive side, there is also the possibility of its being used as a means of training and transforming the ego; unconscious capacity may be developed initially through adapting a persona role and subsequently integrating it as a developed function; in other words, we practise a skill which later becomes, quite naturally, a part of our personality and functioning.

Having set out the three-fold structure (shadow, ego and persona) of the ego complex, what more needs to be said about it? The depth, intricacy and interrelatedness of its structure provide its extraordinary potential in the evolutionary scheme of things. To what distant frontiers might this potential lead? The ego-function begins a process which eventually can lead the human being to the numinous goal; but, unlike the physical processes of the egg, the final result is not achieved automatically because the psychological ingredient of self-awareness which it brings to human life is always subject to choice and motivation whether it leads to pathology or to the numinous.

Continued in part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5

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