Psychoanalysis and Magic

[Aodh]

It's funny, all things considered. I find myself to be less of a Jungian and more of a post Lacan, post Deleuze & Guattari, Freudian (Hi Nuhad!). I dunno, maybe this will change... I just have trouble with self defining eternal 'essences'.Then again, there's math...
-Ibisis
Well, I have to say that there is only one thing that truly annoys me about Frued's work, his focus on the Mother as the biggest influence in a males life as well as his relative dismissal of teh problems of women.

Addressing the first point: Within today's Western society, as well as my own life, Mother's as a whole are not exactly the housewife whose sole purpose is to dote over her child which they were "supposed to be" in Freud's day. Because of this, I find the notion that every little issue that a child has can be tied back to his Mother (because of course she was the largest influence in his life!) rather innapropriate for our modern society.

My second point: Basically, I just dislike how Frued tends to place blame on women in general (Such as with his focus on the Mother). From what I've been exposed to of a Freudian perspective, things such as rape could be attributed to the woman's own fault or "hidden desires" and what not, which I personally find volatile.

In any case, I haven't done much reading up of Freudian psychology in quite a while and this is based on old and quite possibly skewed recollections (which no doubt could have been flavored by the stereotypes that exist about Freud, which I've been re-exposed to as of late in my Psychology I class).

END-NOTE: I guess if you decide to respond to this, we could make a seperate thread. That would drive me to research Freud again so that my arguements, if fairly flawed, could be fixed. I mean, I know I didn't end up disliking Freud for no reason but the big things that stand out in my mind DO seem to be a bit cliched.

[Anibis]

I am copying two posts from the Armchair reading thread to here. Lets talk about Psychoanalysis, and the lines of thought it set into motion: Freud, Jung, Adler, Reich, Lacan, Guattari, and others, and what their work has had to do with Magick.

-Ibisis

[Anibis]

I pretty much agree with you, Aodh, on the Problems in Freud. I am NOTHING like a 'Freudian' in any sense related to his doctrines. Basically what I see is that we have this fluid, mobile sexual life-force: the Id. It becomes mediated and expressed in the workings of the ego. I guess that's about as far as I follow Freud. I don't, however go with Jung into archetypes, but rather have a sense that what happens is that the ego 'crystalizes' the Id onto certain signs or symbols. These vary from culture to culture. It means that we have symbols that are charged with our libido, and those in turn affect how we interact with the world and, as it were, with society as a whole. Lacan argues that the Unconscious was structured like a language, and that Society 'the Father' was a linguistic architecture. A 'symbolic order' or phallus. The mother in this case would have been the people, the milleux. Deleuze and guattari basically take this whole model and de-polarize it. They technologize the symbolic arrays that the id 'cathexes' onto, and thus make the management of symbolic orders possible for individuals and groups. THink renegade symbols systems (sound familiar?). They consider their method to be 'rizomatic' meaning like a root system, or say, a potato plant (It it grows horizontally), as opposed to 'arboric' (involving a verticle hierarchy).The rhizomes link up horizontally across the 'plane' of the socius, rather than structuring in tiers, like the phallus (or the TOL) does. Anyways, they wrote a great book called 'Anti-Oedipus', which addresses alot of this and I think is very valuable for magickians... Well, that's my shpiel.
-Ibisis

[fr.novumorganum]

Although much contemporary theory has corrected some of the gender bias that was in Freud, there is much in his work that is of value; indeed I think much of the pop criticism of his work often comes from general currency and not a reading of it. Some of his superstructure is wrong, butmany of his base inquiries are still the right path.

I am far from a traditionalist, but I have gained much from readings of Everyday Life, Civilization and its Discontents, and his dream work.

there is much too, i think, to eros and thantos, if we just tease out the interplay between them, the dance that is so common in much of what we discover in the chapel perilous...solve et coagula to begin...

However, any discussion of Magick needs to consider the work of Regardie and Hyatt in combining pyschanalysis and Reichian therapy with magick.

[m1thr0s]

Freud was a terrible shrink. He was a brilliant marketing person though...He managed to sell the medical community on something they didn't even want to have anything to do with. That takes skill, and some serious genius...

But as a shrink he was a complete freaking nitemare...

m1thr0s

[fr.novumorganum]

I wouldn't want him as an analyst, but I do want to read his theory...same thing I guess.

[m1thr0s]

like a lot of good promotional people he had a lot of very powerful core concepts going on...he had the medical community by the balls so to speak and they couldn't deny their own levels of denial when it was slammed square in their faces. But his followup was abysmal...he relied on his students for that and rightfully so...most of them were much better analysts than he was. But once the ball was set in motion he found himself unable to significantly modify his own positions, even though he secretly wanted to in many cases as indicated in many of his personal correspondences etc... that's the price you pay sometimes for being a catalyst against a lot of opposition...

I think the study of his life and work is fascinating but as a shrink the guy was the absolute pits...I think he actually knew this himself. He never really did take on that many patients...just enough to keep the ball rolling...

m1thr0s

[MythMath]

Id rather be fishing...

(bumpersticker on Freud's cabriolet...)

[feranaja]

Aodh, have you read any Jung? Although the feminist critique of Jung is very strong I think you will find a much more sophisticated view of gender in his work, as opposed to Freud, who for me was unbelievably important as a ground breaker, an opener of the Way so to speak, but Jung's model of the psyche goes way, way beyond - Freud's sexism is well documented and very quaint, in light of the developments in the field since his day.

What do you think of Robert Bly, I've heard the same said about him, but I find his work extremely powerful for men and women alike. Possible topic idea here so as not to digress from Freud...
fera

[Nuhad418]

Post-Freudian study is very good for developmental stages and early childhood psychology. I have had the great pleasure of having contact with a number of Freudian and post-Freudians while at school. I respect their research and theories much more than when I was reading Freud on my own. Its interesting to see the theories in action. From an occult perspective I would say people like Freud and Klein are essential for understand early stages of development (I thing most occultists I know assume has no influence over them any longer) and people like Jung and to some extent Grof are useful in looking at the later stages of life.