Archetypes of Wisdom

in The Bible, Psychology, & Psychoanalysis

Let’s journey through ancient and modern words, ideas, and images. As we do so, we’ll explain 20 core concepts central to psychology & psychoanalysis as well as the Bible. Together, they begin to reveal and illuminate the evolution of the Human Soul.

These ideas involve wisdom about the journeys of our Souls. They highlight good values about how to best grow, develop, and evolve in life. How far can we really go? How fulfilled can we feel? How can we achieve power and enjoy love? What kind of power? What kind of love? This list of 20 is far from exhaustive—but it’s a start.

First, we’re born from God, carried in our mother’s womb, then born from her into this World and our family. Then we’re born from the womb of our birth family… into our childhood community. Later, we’re born into our adult family, community, family, and career. Then we’re born into the World of humanity. Eventually, we’re born from the womb of Earth back to our Heavenly family. We’re forever being born from one World or existence into another. No wonder we need the seventh day of each week to sit and relax!

Preview

These 20 chapters present our first 20 concepts. Though conveyed in different languages and models, each idea is presented through the eyes of both religion & science. Each phrase or sentence covers one or two chapters. The following tells the whole story:

Once our (1) Soul is (4) born into this World, we learn about mitzvahs (2) and sins (3) so we can develop a conscience—to judge right from wrong, and healthy from unhealthy. We suffer psychic injuries & deaths (5) and physical ones. Reincarnation (6) has our Soul returning to this World—across generations, even longer. The Soul “embeds” in a human “host” each time it returns—the host usually is unaware. Across incarnations, the Soul continues to unfold toward being whole. God gave each of us our Soul, which contains a “blueprint” of our unique destined development. It reveals how we’ll look and function when fully developed. Angels (7) bring us messages from God to help us evolve.

As we evolve and actualize our Soul, we grow from more slave-like to more master-like (8). As our Soul evolves, we resurrect (9) aspects and potentials that had lain buried, dormant, and forgotten in our unconscious. Heaven (10) is how we feel and relate to others when the way God wishes us to be has been achieved… even if just for a moment. It is how and where sacred Souls gather and commune by His wishes. Hell (11) is the emotional, psychological, and spiritual place we plunge into when Sins irreversibly poison our lives and isolate us from humanity. All warm human connections and comforts are lost when we feel in Hell.

We consciously feel or unconsciously sense we’re unworthy—as we see we’re cast out by humanity—ostracized by our sins. We may only realize how alone we feel—we may not yet realize that it is based on something that the warm eyes of the World have turned away from us. Purgatory (12) is like a holding cell where we stay when our sins—the ways we’ve damaged ourselves, others, & the World—have prevented our enjoying Heaven on Earth, but haven’t yet doomed to descend all the way to Hell.

When we’ve resurrected and unfolded our Soul, we’re empowered and ready to create Heaven on Earth (13). As our conscious minds learn more about our unconscious instincts, men learn about their feminine side—their “anima” (in Hebrew, Shekinah; in Islam’s Quran, it’s Sakinah). Conversely, women learn of their masculine side—their “animus” (Jung) (15). The Shekinah can refer to either gender and actually means “God’s presence or aura.” The Sabbath reveals God’s Shekinah as did the burning bush at Mt. Sinai (14). The Shekinah usually reveals God’s presence utilizing or creating fantastic natural events… such as rivers parting, or ten plagues demanding the Pharaoh, “Let my people go.”

Our Soul’s unfolding accelerates when we learn to identify and express feelings of remorse regarding how our destructiveness—our sins—have hurt others & ourselves. When we atone and make reparations for our sins (16), we ask to be forgiven. If our apology and plea are accepted, we’re forgiven (17) and redeemed (16). When we admit we’ve sinned and hurt others, we feel shame (18). When we sin, we defile God’s (19) creations. Living on Earth corrupts our Earth Soul (20) which dulls our Divine Soul’s connection to this World.

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Chapter 1: Soul

Our Soul is both the seed of who we’re becoming and the grown flowering plant.

God gave each of us a unique Soul that was meant to fit—as a single long thread—into humanity’s tapestry. Hebrew wisdom—embraced by Muslims & Christians—describes how God created 600,000 different Souls, the number of Hebrews leaving Egypt with Moses. Each Soul can produce unlimited variations allowing for enough souls to go around, however much our population grows. Our Soul contains the equivalent of blueprints of our unique development… of how we’ll look and function. That Divine blueprint inevitably gets shaped and partly corrupted by life’s experiences.

We can choose to heal injuries, resolve obstacles, and cleanse corruption so we and others are “free” to continue “the journey of the unfolding Soul.” Rabbi Manis Friedman describes two Souls: an “Earth Soul”—shaped by life, degraded by wounds & disappointments—and a “Divine Soul” that has direct wisdom from and connection with God.

The more corrupted our Earth Soul is from life’s injuries & disappointments, the more we act with primitive, hurtful instincts… with less moral consideration. Our Earth Soul’s corruption inhibits our Divine Soul’s expression and communication. Similar “wounds and scars” provide obstacles for Winnicott’s more secular “True Self.” Our corruption leads to a protective False Self—that reacts, serves, and defends, rather than making empowered choices to create the life we seek.

When uncorrupted, our Divine Soul can be a powerful conduit through which God enters this world to work His magic. We can be vessels through which His energy brings love, life, and light into our lives and the World. As we do God’s work in this World—our Soul unfolds.

Trauma and fear cause “rigid defenses” and “ego fragmentation.” These scientific notions from psychology’s psychoanalytic theory help us know how corrupted one is, which experiences damaged them, and so “what needs fixing.”

The True Self is a more experiential term, made popular by D. W. Winnicott, father of the British School of Object Relations—a branch of the psychoanalytic tree. When we’re being our True Self, what we say, think, feel, and do “feels true.” The Soul is a more metaphysical term grounded in Biblical notions. If we live spiritually, our Soul increasingly opens in this world and shapes our life and character… and the World’s.

Winnicott proclaimed the True Self is the source of all creativity. Similar to our Soul, our True Self is who we are—both are God-created—though I don’t know if D.W. ever discussed God in his works. He might’ve said we’re born with our True Self, but I don’t believe he commented on where our True Self came from—before it and we were born. Like an electric light, did the True Self go from “off” to “on?” Did it suddenly go from not existing to existing? Or, did it come from God—so it has eternal life in His kingdom—with occasional visits to this World?

If we choose to grow spiritually—the more we evolve, the more our Soul unfolds. In rare instances, a Soul can fully unfold in one lifetime. Usually, the Soul needs to keep coming back over many separate lifetimes. When our soul’s unfolding is complete, it no longer has to keep “reincarnating.” Then, it migrates elsewhere. Through dreams, visions, revelations, and insights our Soul guides our waking mind (ego), which in turn guides us.

Perhaps there is a “part” of the ego, in at least some, that allows communication with our “Divine Soul”—and so, with God. Perhaps the “all-knowing” Divine Soul is the source of Jung’s “intuitive function” and Henry Elkind’s “Transcendent-ego.” Freud postulated an “ego ideal” in the Super-ego, but I don’t believe he endowed it with the kind of dynamic creative authority to communicate with a Divine Soul, God, or anything Divine or supernatural. Perhaps a “spiritual” center exists in our mind—but it’s not in our cortex—it’s in our ancient brain stem… in our pre-limbic system.

Dreams are like a movie screen onto which our largely unconscious Soul projects “messages” to guide our Ego. A creative, spiritual person prefers to depend upon their Soul, not ego, to guide their lives. A Soul “knows”—an ego calculates.

Freud believed we have primal urges and emotions within our Id. The Id contains our unconscious instincts and operates with libido—or libidinous energy. Freud proclaimed the usefulness of discovering and understanding the “treasures” that lay buried—suppressed and repressed—into our unconscious. He proclaimed, “Where there is Id, there shall be Ego.”

Freud referred to these “psychic treasures” as if they were embedded gems, lying on the ocean’s bottom. Though he never explained it as such, he viewed the ego as the secluded headquarters that used the sensory motor powers to record and analyze the world around us—and to devise and pursue strategies to achieve our goals. So our ego could order us to—like a submarine—spot each buried nugget on the ocean’s floor, dig it up, clean it off, and transmit a video of it and its “readings” back to ego headquarters.

Perhaps the Soul is far more effective and understanding and choosing how to intervene in the world than the ego ever could be—as the Soul is Divine… and the ego is not. Rare is the individual who speaks as clearly from his Soul as most do from their egos.

The power of our consciousness may be more dynamic than submarines reporting to command center ego about buried psychic gems. Maybe there’s “something” in our unconscious that’s trying to get our ego—us—to see important things. Perhaps there’s something in our dream images—our disassociated self—that wants to reunite with us. Jung said all dream elements are disassociated aspects of the dreamer. Perhaps this can also be said of many of our psychic experiences. Perhaps what we experience “out there” is also… within us. In other words: they are us.

A Mishnah (a Rabbinical story clarifying a Biblical passage) explains: we have God’s wisdom of the universe until our birth—nearly all lose it when an angel says, “Shush,” putting its finger under our nose forming the indented vertical line. For the rest of our lives, we try to restore that lost wisdom. Perhaps a few never fully lose that original connection to Divine wisdom.

Perhaps it’s our Soul that knows its blueprint and tries to send us messages. The Soul is the conduit that allows God to give each of us guidance… whether or not we listen. I doubt the Soul “just analyzes data and video-transmits the nuggets back to Central Control,” It more likely grabs and hurls the nuggets at the ego to make it see what it should’ve long ago noticed & acted on. Could it be the Soul that guides us to find and see truth… such as by understanding our dreams?

Including the “Soul” in psychoanalytic understanding allows us to explain our being Divine vessels for God. If we can unfold our Souls—we gain His boundless energy, confidence, and community to enjoy and belong to. Choosing to live spiritually and believing in God should increase, not decrease, independent thought and should deepen the spiritual connection with one’s self, others, and the Divine.

Perhaps it was this ability to grow spiritually—with greater emotional self-awareness and communication skills—that helped Homo sapiens beat out Neanderthals. Perhaps with rare exceptions, Neanderthals didn’t believe in or respect God. Instead, they worshiped their most powerful, intimidating, charismatic leaders—who became their “idols.”

With crossbreeding, humans became like many countries: a collection of distinctly different states. There were many non-Homo sapien humanoids, besides Neanderthals. Homo sapiens crossbred with many of them. This produced many genetic combinations in all of us that remain to this day.

Perhaps God’s choice of Adam, Abraham, and their descendants was His choice of Homo sapien—they were best able to receive his moral code of how all should relate to themselves, each other, Earth… and with Him—the One God. Homo sapiens can unfold their Souls to channel God. Maybe only they could do this and their “cousins” could not.

Were wiser and more spiritual Abel and Jacob more Homo sapien, while Cain and Essau—who had more hair, muscules, and were more aggressive and impulsive—were more Neanderthal? Is that why Cain killed Abel? Is this why their mother maneuvered the second son Jacob to inherit from Issac instead of first-born Essau?

What if each of us is an interbred descendant of that era with smaller DNA parts from several ancestors who can’t understand or communicate with their Creative Source… alongside more “spiritually-friendly” DNA parts that can? Then what? How would this impact our ability to unfold souls?

How does a Divine Soul “break through” layers of “Divine-unfriendly genetic layers?” Perhaps that’s part of the predicament we find ourselves in today. Moral people live in a world where some of their neighbors are not moral. Having a neighbor with different values is not the same as having a neighbor who has no higher values beyond greed and satisfying hungers. Every time someone becomes a spiritual believer and lives by their beliefs—the confusion and turmoil on Earth become a bit less.

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Chapter 2: Mitzvahs

Mitzvahs and sins are the “dos” and “donts” of the Bible. They’re helpful deeds that increase the integrity of the Soul of oneself, others, Nature, Society, the Universe, or God. In contrast, sins are hurtful deeds that lower the integrity of Souls.

Mitzvahs preserve God’s sacred creations, while sins corrupt and degrade them. Mitzvahs and sins form a system that allows parents, teachers, and spiritual leaders to reinforce moral development and discourage values and actions that degrade “the sacred” and corrupt moral living.

If there’s a way to redeem our sins and create a far better future it comes from generating many good deeds—mitzvahs—on a daily basis. Mitzvahs generate the spiritual blood with which we build and enjoy life as God envisioned. He envisioned Heaven on Earth as the Garden of Eden.

We can study the 613 mitzvahs—largely collected and organized by Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon, known as Maimonides. He was affectionately called Rambam. By studying all of them, we can learn the ways we can do good deeds and the correct way to do them.

While some mitzvahs one could “figure out” as they live their life, we’d never live long enough to have enough experiences where we’d have the opportunity to discover all possible good deeds (& sins). It’s a well-thought-through list.

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Chapter 3: Sins

Not only “bad people” sin. We all do… all the time. Often, we don’t know we’re sinning. This is why many have no idea how hurtful many of their attitudes and actions are. He who denies his sins and remorse cannot yet begin the journey of enlightenment.

The first step in the journey of enlightenment—of soul completion—occurs when one realizes they are as destructive as they are creative (Klein). This is when they face their “Shadow” (Jung)—their “dark side.” Though upsetting, facing one’s Shadow allows one to decrease one’s sinning and channel more of God’s energy into this world.

There may be stories within stories when it comes to “Adam & Eve” and the “Garden of Eden.” Of course, they felt shame that they’d sinned—they were told so in no uncertain terms by an angel sent by God. For sinning, they were banished from this wonderful, beautiful, safe, and nurturing Garden of Eden—which was “Heaven on Earth. Maybe their only “sin” was their bodies maturing faster than their minds and morality. Hormonally driven pangs of hunger for love, knowledge, and power raced ahead of their ability to obey God’s wish for spiritual mastery.

One could say when we sin, the animal in us dominates the angel… the Id overwhelms the Ego. The animal wants what it wants—the angel seeks a positive effect.

I don’t believe “Adam & Eve” is a story of judgment and punishment. Perhaps by simple developmental growth, we all enter into puberty and maturity and are impacted by new intense hungers and emotions. Instinctual passions explode, however good our upbringing is. Moral development requires us to wisely regulate these fits of hunger.

Adam and Eve may simply have outgrown childhood innocence. “Knowledge” of their darker instinctual drives entered their awareness—thus: the Tree of Knowledge was what they learned from their Id. This is a story about facing the darkness of the unconscious instinctual World—not about human sin. The snake is our “lowly instinct.”

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Chapter 4: Birth

When we think of birth, we think of a baby coming out of its mother, with the umbilical cord getting cut—which forces the child to cry as he learns to “live on his own.”

This image of birth shows the birth of the baby’s body. A soul is also born into this world and begins to have its current lifetime of experiences. We undergo both a physical and a spiritual birth. Perhaps that Soul had many experiences in the womb pre-birth too.

Spiritual births can also occur during our lifetime as new dimensions of our Soul find a way to enter into this world. This can involve big upheavals. We all cry at birth. But later psychic and emotional earthquakes—though unsettling to pass through—can also lead to a fuller, more meaningful life.

These volcanically transformational times are like lava moving towards a destined surface eruption. Events can trigger these building eruptions. The transformational “volcanic eruption” usually comes from a combination of urgently surfacing lava with trigger events on the surface that weaken the barrier land mass.

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Chapter 5: Death

What happens when we die?

Rabbi Manis Friedman says,

“What’s dead is dead; what’s alive is alive.”

He means a Soul, like God, has always existed—either “here” or “there.” But, our bodies were dust… and will soon be dust again. He explains,

“When we die, our soul… keeps living, while our body… returns to being dead.”

Of course, the next question is,

“If the soul stays alive when we die, then: “Where does it go?”

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Chapter 6: Reincarnation

One needs the notion of the Soul to understand reincarnation. It’s the Soul that keeps coming back to evolve and unfold fully after enough enlightenment. This usually takes a number of lifetimes to complete. However, Freud did not directly discuss the Soul nor examine similar “mystical” phenomena… like reincarnation.

Many, like the Buddhists, believe a young child and a wise old man are very much alike—both “see” the same “sacred universe.” Freud largely bypassed the first several months of life. His developmental theory calls this “the autistic period.” He didn’t focus on the most primitive, earliest experiences in life. After this first half year, Freud increasingly focused on the child’s mental activity as he or she travels through what he called the “psycho-sexual stages of development.”

In contrast, Melanie Klein saw deeply into early primitive experience. She examined destructive envy and jealousy and the resolution of “the paranoid-schizoid position.” She explained how one needs to “escape” this stage to be creative. In the paranoid-schizoid universe—one sees people as “all good” or “all bad.” One escapes this unstable place only when they feel guilt and remorse over realizing how much they’ve hurt people. This can be hard if one has seen oneself as a victim in life. All too often, yesterday’s victim is tomorrow’s perpetrator.

By “making reparation” to those we’ve hurt—like “atoning for sins”—we can heal and emerge from self-contempt, depression, and despair. Accordingly, we become more creative, mature, and empathic towards others and ourselves. We cease to see people as “all good” or “all bad.” We come to view them in a more complex, multi-dimensional way. With remorse and wanting to make reparation for our destructiveness, we realize within all of us is an ongoing battle between creative and destructive forces.

Henry Elkind also extended psychoanalytic theory to early development in the first year of life. He spoke of the “pre-mother-other”—an authority before our mother, perhaps the sun, moon… even God. He coined the phrase “T-ego” (“transcendent ego”) which I believe was how our mind experienced reality when we were a newborn… before we even realized (at about 8 months) that we are a Soul within our own body. He knew that during this time we have a pure direct connection to the Divine.

I was lucky to be able to take his classes in the late 1970s in New York City’s West Village Greenwich Institute for Psychoanalytic Training. He seemed to propose extending Freud’s theory to define a part of the ego for handling spiritual experiences—whether by an infant or an enlightened Buddhist Master. In both instances, one feels “as if one” with those people and things he experiences.

In “The First Year of Life,” Rene Spitz researched the newborn’s intense need for empathic holding and contact, especially in the first days and weeks. He concluded that many babies were dying due to their not being held and spoken to within their first weeks, even if all physical needs were met. They simply “lost the will to live.” He called this the “marasmus syndrome.” Hospital practices for the care of newborns were radically altered across the country as a result of this research.

Reincarnation has our Soul returning across lifetimes and generations in its yearning for completion… for a full unfolding. I’m not sure how some believe in a Soul while not addressing from where this Soul comes. At the end of the day, to believe there are things and energies that are sacred and Divine without believing there’s a God that created them seems to take some fancy metaphysical footwork.

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Chapter 7: Angels

What are angels?

It was Rabbinically debated for a long time: “How many angels can you fit on the head of a pin?”

This question contrasts physical and spiritual reality. The question can’t be answered since a pin exists in physical space, but an angel does not. Angels do not exist in physical form, yet they usually appear as human figures sent by God for a purpose—like protecting someone or delivering a message.

The Angel of Death delivered the last of ten plagues to the Pharoah to force him to free enslaved Hebrews—as Moses commanded, “Let my people go.” A great Rabbi once taught me that the second part of that statement that’s always left out is: “Let my people go—so they may serve G-d and bring about the Heaven on Earth he wishes.”

Perhaps angels appear through and between actual humans… the way electricity flows through a copper wire. The electricity is not the wire—nor is it matter in this physical universe—but this current is real and impacts the physical world we live in.

The human “carrier” may have no idea they’re being used as a “Divine vessel” when they’re someone’s angel. Sometimes between two people, each can appear as the other’s angel simultaneously. Perhaps that’s what happens when two “fall in love.” Often one calls their lover, “My angel.”

There are many more levels to our conscious mind and its unconscious “dark underworld” than most realize. Because of this, there are many levels of information two people can transmit to each other even during brief eye contact with a stranger. Communication is conscious or unconscious—it is verbal or nonverbal. Within the category of non-verbal communication, there are many kinds.

Profound life-altering visions and realizations occur based on the psychic experiences of whoever is contacted by an angel.

The Bible describes a number of angels who deliver messages and guidance from God. Let’s take a brief look at what psychoanalytic concepts might describe phenomena relevant to angels as they assist humans. All angel contact iinvolves a relaxing of psychic boundaries between people to allow special communication to take place.

Kohut, Kernberg, and Searles explain how during a “grandiose merger” two individuals “meld together” so each experiences greater self-esteem and empowerment by being bonded to and identified with the other. Similar to grandiose mergers, John Gedo describes “twinship relationships” that seem to operate similarly, in some ways, to the Bible’s angels. Though these relationships further empower the recipient, they can also cause devastation when the other “twin” leaves or doesn’t cooperate. Unlike most angel encounters, such twinship relationships are emotionally volatile due to the involved extreme emotional vulnerability and possessiveness. Twinships involve the corrupted Earth-Soul far more—angel encounters tend to be between Divine Souls.

Angels involve more balanced constructive, momentary experiences than Gedo’s twinships that span months and years. Gedo focused on exceptionally creative people who seemed elevated to higher places due to special twinship relationships—such as Freud and Jung, and Van Gogh with Gaugin.

“Projective identification” also involves a kind of melding together of two people, with one or both projecting disowned aspects of themselves onto the other. In a couple, the man may not be able to see himself as loveable, so he projects his loveable self onto his girlfriend and can’t believe how loveable she seems. She can’t see herself as strong and intelligent, so she projects that onto him and sees him as irresistibly smart and strong. Psychoanalytic notions, like these, are normally used to analyze pathological or primitive functioning. They need to be adapted to define creative spiritual development.

Contact with an angel, however momentary, is boundaryless. This boundlessness allows angels very intimate contact with their human “target”. With boundaries between the angel and target relaxed the energy and thoughts of G-d flow through the angel and into the human. Emotions and thoughts are transmitted between angels and humans, similar to mental telepathy. In contrast to “pathological merger,” the angel and human never regressively lose the ability to function—in fact, the human’s mental sharpness and emotional self-awareness tend to heighten.

These psychological notions can explain how so much can be rapidly transmitted between people—or angels and people—than most could imagine—with a huge impact. A moment’s contact with a stranger can lead to a powerful psychic transformation.

Have you known someone in childhood or more recently who suddenly seemed very important to you? Perhaps it was a partner who was the first peer by whom you felt seen and cared about. Maybe it was a policeman you felt protected by… or a doctor you felt saved you. Maybe it was a smiling stranger whose face you’ll never forget.

Perhaps the experience of angels involves genuine moments between people where profound experiences, realizations, or revelations occur. In the Bible, God can influence or talk with people directly, and He can also impact and guide people by steering other humans to influence them.

We can be strongly impacted by these moments—they might forever memorialize a key spiritual realization, a major developmental step achieved, or a profound acceptance of some truth. Sarah was told she would have a child at age 90: Issac. Isaac would give rise to the Hebrew people. Abraham was told by God to listen to his wife when she demanded he send away his first son, Ishmael, with his mother Haggar. Ishmael and Haggar were told by an angel that despite being alone and with little food or water in the middle of the desert, they’d survive, and Ishmael would give birth to the Arab nations.

We often remember that person or moment. We recall or dream of them, even if we don’t know why. Angels help us take the next step in our Soul’s unfolding.

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Chapter 8: From slave to master; Exodus & Mythology’s genies

The Bible’s wisdom is not only shared with words, it’s conveyed via dramatic metaphorical stories—most embedded in historical events and characters. Ancient wisdom is also echoed in mythological tales. For example, genies appear in many tales.

Using magic, they grant wishes to whoever uncorks the bottle or rubs the oil lamp in which the genie has come to be trapped. In “Alibaba & the 40 Thieves,” Alibaba contacts a genie by rubbing an oil lamp. In another tale, “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad,” Sinbad rubs a special lamp, repeating, “From the land beyond beyond… From the World past hope and fear… I bid you genie, now appear.” The genie emerges from the lamp and grants Sinbad three wishes.

After the last wish, the genie—a young ten-year-old boy—pleads to Sinbad and his partner to throw the lamp, with him in it, into a volcano’s lava—his greatest wish is to trade his magical powers to be a human for a lifetime. While he’d lose his magic and eternal life, he could have adventures sailing the seven seas with Sinbad.

Sinbad, with his saved and restored Princess and crew, sets sail. He barks directions as he notices the 10-year-old boy has become the sailor who steers the ship’s giant wheel. “Aye, aye, captain,” the boy smiles.

How many learn to serve and please others better than we can serve ourselves? Most of us. The genie illustrates our plight. We’re trapped in a space created by parents who, whether they realized it or not, taught us to serve them more than ourselves. We learned to grant them endless wishes.

Narcissistic parents conditioned us to enhance their happiness while we were kept as if corked up in a bottle or oil lamp. The journey of empowerment allows us to break free to live our own lives. Maslow called this journey self-actualization. Mahler called it the journey of individuation. Joseph Campbell called it the journey of the Hero. Buddhists call it the path of enlightenment.

If we wanted to condense the Bible into two word, perhaps it might be “spiritual empowerment.” God guided Moses to lead 1.2 million people (half Hebrews) out of enslavement in Egypt, where they’d been held captive for nearly four centuries… and to bring them to the Promised Land of Israel that God bequeathed to His Chosen People. Why did it take 40 years to reach there when Israel was three weeks away by camel?

Moses’ job was far more than merely transporting bodies. He unexpectedly needed four generations to teach and re-instill in his people free independent, moral thinking and values. He had to purify, upgrade, resurrect, and empower minds and hearts that enslavement had dulled, degraded, and corrupted. Then they’d be ready to create Heaven on Earth in the Promised Land.

Many, perhaps most of us, are on our own journey—our own Exodus. We’re trying to escape the confinement of our conditioned ways, false self, corrupted Earth Soul, fear, self-doubt, state of unconsciousness, and overly rigid or lax defenses. We seek a place where we can build our life and kingdom… based on who we are… given our unique soul.

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Chapter 9: Resurrection

Would the wisest men of the World—religious, spiritual, or atheist—believe as the Bible says: “When the Messiah comes, the dead shall be resurrected, they shall rise from their graves, and… once again, be alive”?

Of course, this is a fantastic thought. There are many scientific difficulties in accepting such a thing as possible. But, is to exist and be alive to read these words less fantastic? Maybe a rebirth or resurrection isn’t far more incredible than our original birth.

Scientifically, I have the most trouble with how missing or horribly degraded tissue would regenerate perfectly. The devout believer would say, “But, if you believe in God you know he creates miracles every day. You know he could perform any miracle. It’s the human mind that declares something a miracle or impossible.” Of course, WE couldn’t do that in our current state of science—but that doesn’t mean He couldn’t.

Actually, we already can clone the DNA found in the blood of a fifty million-year-old trapped mosquito, who’d sucked the blood of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, then gotten sealed in gypsum and preserved. If Man can restore a 12-foot high, 40-foot long, 16,000 pound T-Rex from 90 million years ago—illustrated nicely in the movie series, “Jurrasic Park”—why do we doubt God could use the bones dating back thousands of years to the beginning of our history and do the same?

Words and stories can form metaphors that contain and convey enormous amounts of information. Dreams are often rich metaphors. Creative therapists know how to decipher or interpret what dreams or metaphors seem to say or teach. Could the Bible have meant “reincarnation” when it used the word “resurrection?” Could it be teaching us to bring to life and live fully today what our ancestors hadn’t been fully able to?

At “the time of the Messiah,” one could imagine we’re all more mature and can collectively come together as a species—we’d be able to more fully live life than our ancestors in many way. Wouldn’t we be able to more fully experience and express the feelings, hopes, & dreams of our ancestors? Many of these “yearnings” are passed down to us—however diluted by time—we may be more fully extending their lives.

They probably felt much of what we do but weren’t evolved enough to understand or express themselves as well… in some ways. As our Soul opens fully “when the Messiah comes,” would ancestors “come to life” through us? Might we be “channeling” them? If so, would these be resurrections?

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Chapter 10: Heaven

Heaven is addressed and valued far more in the New Testament than in the Bible. Christ cautioned others—in true Hebrew tradition—to emphasize here and now. The strong emphasis on Heaven and Hell in the afterlife did not come from the Hebrews nor from Jesus. Though Jesus did believe there was some sort of afterlife with some sort of Heaven, he agreed our energy was best spent creating “Heaven on Earth.”

What can we do here and now? We can do mitzvahs. We can protect the helpless. We can make the World a better place. We can teach morality to our kids. We can seek light so we can give light. Where we are in our journey of enlightenment determines what we are ready to experience and how able we are to help others.

Since the beginning of time, Heaven has been seen as way high upward… near the Heavens in the sky… glowing with light… filled with goodness and peace. It’s been seen as God’s sacred dwelling place. If all images of the Bible are also metaphors for actual human experience—then Heaven is enlightenment.

Normally corrupted and corrupting parts of our mind—the parts that overly judge, live in fight or flight mode, or seek to use or hurt people are gone. Those usually “malignant monitors and voices” that belonged to our Earth Soul no longer function. We now see and feel in a different way. In Heaven, things exist in a Divine, not Earthly way.

From the beginning of man’s worshipping one God, it was believed the most deserving humans, when they died, went to a place called Heaven and joined with God. More “liberal” religious leaders believed all could get there somehow; they didn’t really need to “earn” the right to enter Heaven based upon Earthly deeds. Most viewed whether we got into Heaven and got a “good place” in it as influenced by how we lived.

Still others, aren’t convinced there’s a “there” to get to in the way we’re speaking. It seems whether or not there’s a “there,” that using the metaphor of Heaven as “God’s abode that functions by his wishes” can serve as a powerful “first sketch” to begin to imagine a society we could fashion here on Earth.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all serve as angels helping each other—just as God uses angels to help him? Could we create the same sorts of wise, loving order he does before Man comes along to corrupt things? Could we, God’s children, become like God, our father, as we try to generate His Heaven here on “our” Earth?

In His Heaven, there’s no strife or conflict. There are no clashing egos. It seems those there are closer to “pure being”—without the typical Earthly neurotic fragmentation into character and its uniquely colorful but biased hurtful traits and mannerisms.

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Chapter 11: Hell

All agree: Hell is not a place to vacation in. There are differing points of view of this “place.”

Only a few religious schools of thought have ramped up a fevered pitch of raging threats of how people would “eternally burn in Hell” if they sinned. While people keep sinning, their lives will probably suffer accordingly. But, to use a punitive “you’ll burn in Hell,” style of generating Divine behavior seems a doomed strategy.

For one thing, its tone is raging, not loving. It teaches attack and judgment, rather than loving empathy. To punitively criticize isn’t a mitzvah—or it’s a badly tarnished one. Repeating, “Don’t sin,” doesn’t teach or role model the “correct mitzvah behavior.”

The Bible mentions a dark hole or place people go when they die, without much elaboration on it. Satan appears in the Bible as God’s 1st Angel who later becomes a fallen angel by believing God’s power was his power. Satan’s character before he “falls” was not what it came to be in the New Testament. Later Satan is seen as King of the Underworld. Eventually, he’s seen as evil and diametrically opposed to “all-good” God.

Few realize in his first role as God’s Top Angel, Satan fairly and neutrally assessed and reported to God on all humans across their lifetimes regarding all their sins, whether they’d learned to do better, and how many mitzvahs they’d performed. This way, God could follow and monitor if and how his children were evolving—how wisely and morally they were learning to exercise their free will… to choose to live by his values.

In psychoanalysis, the more hopeless and despairing the individual feels, the more removed and detached they feel from others. This easily recycles into their being more upset and agitated, as they absorb how intolerable their isolation feels. The greater the torturous feelings that keep recycling within, the closer that person’s experience comes to a sense of Hell and “eternal damnation.”

It shouldn’t be surprising that the most abusive, neglectful, dehumanized environments give rise to children who incur the greatest psychological damage… despite streaks of creative defiance to protect as much of their Divine Soul as they can. The worst of what the most challenged children must feel as they go through their childhoods must be like our image of Hell. It’s beyond hopeless. Death seems better.

Couldn’t the “fires of Hell” be the horrific pain of feeling rejected as unloveable… and our feeling unable to escape that verdict? Any hope the child had of finding a secure, loving place would be stripped away—the way flames can burn flesh off of bones.

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Chapter 12: Purgatory

If one’s childhood damage isn’t too bad… but still bad—if one’s amount of sinning wasn’t too awful… but still awful, then instead of going to Hell, one is put into a cell for “temporary confinement.” One isn’t placed in that cell by the police, they’re placed there by insensitivity and malevolent intent. Blind or hurtful decisions activate poor karma.

In Purgatory, some connection to our Divine Soul remains so we can still hope for the love and other human comforts that we now lack in our “spiritual jail cell.” It is empty, lonely, and far from the warmth of human civilization. If we learn how our actions got us there, we can atone for our sins and be “released” to return to human civilization.

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Chapter 13: Heaven on Earth & the Garden of Eden

The Garden of Eden was located in where Iran is today. It was more than just a spectacular garden. It was a paradise where beauty and peace seemed assured. While it was “real” and not “make-believe,” Biblical descriptions also impart a psychological and spiritual tone of child-like innocence, love, and security for those in that sacred space.

The Garden of Eden was and is considered “Heaven on Earth.”

While the story says it was the evil snake that tempted Eve who tempted Adam who ate the forbidden apple from the Tree of Knowledge which got them evicted from the Garden by a stern angel, one can view the story from a “non-egocentric vantage point.” What does that mean?

Many Rabbis believe God wrote the Bible in a style and way we could understand. In other words, it was “dumbed down” to our primitive mental development and self-awareness. In his early development, the child puts himself in the center of the universe of all that happens. When parents divorce, the child feels if he hadn’t failed in some way they’d still be together as a family. They believe what happens is their doing.

Even when grown, we can experience and act egocentrically. Imagine you’re angry and you have an especially furious thought or fantasy. Just then, there’s an unexpected crack of thunder overhead. For a moment, you might wonder if your anger caused or was caused by the thunder. You ask, “Did I do that?”

In the science fiction thriller, “Carrie,” a teenager’s thoughts become reality. She hated someone who’d been abusive to her—as she felt rage, a bucket of blood fell upon that young person’s head. Many years earlier, her mother had been abusing Carrie in the kitchen—knives in the kitchen suddenly rose up and flew through the air—sticking in the wall around her Mom—stopping her abuse for the moment.

So, what would the story of “The Garden of Eden” be like if it hadn’t been dumbed down so we could understand it?

Instead of being a story about “sin” and how we should avoid temptation, it would be a story of human development. Adam and Eve were about 12 years old and entering puberty. When we reach puberty, the Id—which Freud taught is the source of our instinctual energy (libido)—is erupting in its universal birth into our fuller human development. This has a profound effect on our lives.

One second we’re innocent children with high-pitched voices who want mom and dad to be pleased with us, want our fellow ball players to see us as heroes, or want our friends to agree we’re incredibly handsome or beautiful since we grew our hair long. Suddenly, we have low voices, hairy bodies with odors, and defined muscles. We lust after eye gazes from special others whom we fantasize about and are obsessed with. Overnight, we change from playful to possessive.

The story of the Garden of Eden told to a “less dumb audience than us” would be a tale of a boy and a girl who bonded strongly as innocent children—then were born into puberty together where raging instinctual hormones and emotions ravaged and sorely tested the innocent and Divine fabric of their love.

Eating the apple from the tree of knowledge involved their becoming aware of their raging hormone-intensified emotions, beginning to learn what these emotions meant, and how to master and guide them. The snake is—our serpentine Id! It is not evil—it only seems so threatening from the egocentric view of a pre-puberty child.

Every time Adam or Eve lose their place in the wonderful Garden of Eden, they can be returned if they simply say to their partner something like,

“I’m so sorry I raised my voice in anger to you, I regret how I hurt you with my words. I was legitimately upset for those reasons, but I shouldn’t have hurt you.”

Losing our place in Heaven on Earth happens when “Id intrusions” damage our innocent psychic infrastructure (Ego) and relationships. Regaining our place takes atoning for our sins. Redemption—the return to a communal loving family—is a very real thing that most clients unconsciously seek. This lesson involves a true cure for the client—not just temporary symptom reduction.

Only by “outgrowing” the Garden of Eden can we continue our journey of human development. As we “learn from the Tree of Knowledge,” we satisfy Freud’s guidance, “Where there was Id, there shall be Ego,”

Klein’s advice is, to “make reparation based on remorse for our destructiveness.” She felt this allowed us to become creative, and balanced, and to love in a mature way. The Bible counsels us to “atone for our sins and to seek redemption.”

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Chapter 14: Anima (Shekkinah)

For Jung, the “Anima” is the psychic female side of a man. The Anima consists of his feminine qualities—like emotional openness, empathy, and sensitivity to relationship and communal issues. The man typically disguises or conceals from public view—often from his own sight—these feminine traits.

In Judaism, “Shekinah” is most often applied to the Earthly manifestation of God’s presence. God’s Shekkinah is always femine. When was Moses was atop Mt. Sinai, the sky’s dramatic colors, the burning bush, the booming sounds, and unusual events were all God’s Shekkinah. So, there’s a bit of a parallel between God’s having a Shekkinah and Man’s having an Anima. Whether how a man relates to his Anima “runs parallel” to how he relates to his real-life wife or girlfriend is still debated.

The notion we have many “sides” or “dimensions” is not unique to the Hebrew or Abrahamic traditions. The Mayan people—perhaps the most spiritually and scientifically advanced South American culture—embraced the notion that man, like all things, has two sides, not one. If a man seems “friendly,” there may be other sides that aren’t so good, however hidden. The “good” may be “real” but, not ALL that’s real. The Mayan Empire began by 1500 BC—6000 years after Adam & Eve and 600 years after the Bible’s Abraham.

The Mayans got their name from “Maya”—one of several significant Gods who “perpetuates and governs the illusion and dream of duality in the phenomenal Universe. For some mystics, this manifestation is real. Each person and place has its own unique Spirit with its own powers and personality. Each person, each physical object, from the perspective of eternity, is like a brief, disturbed drop of water from an unbounded ocean.”

The Mayans had evolved to grasp the existence of a “Spirit World” with “Gods” possessing higher powers who constantly impacted their lives. They felt stripping away illusions and seeing truth allowed them to become invulnerable to being controlled by Gods or humans—who often use such “magic” to intimidate and control.

Perhaps it’s Society that asks men to seem strong on the outside. Men are taught that they should exude confidence—if needed, they must kill for food or to defend family. Yet, what wife wouldn’t want a husband who could also hear and empathize with her feelings? What children don’t want to feel their Dad’s love—whether by gesture or word?

The man’s masculine persona protectively shields his vulnerable emotional side. From behind this shield, the Anima helps guide the man’s use of his power in moral, socially conscious ways. “She” helps him know which fights to fight, the Spiritually inspiring reason to fight if one must, and which enemies to seek friendship with.

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Chapter 15: Animus

The Animus is a woman’s masculine side. Behind her genuine innocence and playful charm, she can also be intelligent, clever, and powerful. Her persona of disarming vulnerability can protectively shield her own sometimes substantial masculine powers.

Do we have these two “sides” from internalizing the roles of “hunter” and “child bearer & home keeper” over thousands or millions of years? Have these dual roles of husband & wife provided the perfect balance to keep human evolution moving forward?

In the beginning, most female clients are terrified to learn of dimensions of themselves they’d repressed or suppressed for a lifetime—often at the guidance of parents and Society—such as their wish to be powerful. They’ve been told they should limit themselves to using their human empathy, moral values, and social sensitivity. In contrast, their spiritual qualities are often lacking in their male counterparts.

But women have as much of a right to develop their masculine side as they do their dominant feminine side. Owning their animus requires owning their killer instincts. Freud wrote, “All thought is future behavior being practiced now.” To develop the animus means literally being able to kill. To develop the anima means literally being able to love.

If one wants to be successful in business one needs this killer instinct. If one wants to portray rage and violence in their art, then one must be able to feel it within themselves. It’s not easy to harness the power of the animus… either for women or men.

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Chapter 16: Atonement & Redemption

Pain & how we respond to it plays a huge role in the development of spiritual life.

There is pain from the moment of our births—when our umbilical cord is cut between us and our mother, and we’re suddenly “on our own.” Pains of all kinds follow throughout our lives. People hurt us and situations disappoint. Things happen all the time, unexpected things, accidents. But, when we get too afraid to live a full life, then our poor attitude towards pain needs to be addressed. There are lessons not being learned.

When it comes to responding to pain, some “take it on,” get up, and continue. They examine what caused their pain and learn better “life skills.” In contrast, others become fearful and swear off areas of life to “never go near again.” In a popular song, Dionne Warwick sang how she would never fall in love again due to the pain of a loss. While being honest about the pain, she showed the healthy part of her by adding to her commitment to never fall in love again… “at least ‘til tomorrow”:

What do you get when you fall in love?
A guy with a pin to burst your bubble
That's what you get for all your trouble
I'll never fall in love again
I'll never fall in love again
What do you get when you kiss a guy?
You get enough germs to catch pneumonia
After you do, he'll never phone ya
I'll never fall in love again
Don't you know that I'll never fall in love again
Don't tell me what's it all about
'Cause I've been there and I'm glad I'm out
Out of those chains, those chains that bind you
That is why I'm here to remind you
What do you get when you fall in love?
You only get lies and pain and sorrow
So for at least until tomorrow
I'll never fall in love again
No, no, I'll never fall in love again

Those willing to face and learn from their pain will learn there are two kinds: the kind you didn’t intend, and the kind you know you contribute to. With the kind that happens based more on other people or events, we can learn who or where to avoid… or, how to not trigger a similar painful event. For example, we learn not to hang out with a certain crowd that loses control too often. With pain that happens due to our actions, we can learn to change our ways. For example, when we feel threatened by someone, we can calmly point out their actions make us uneasy. We can say this without attacking.

It can be a difficult task: to apologize to someone whom initially we perceived as an “attacking enemy.” But if we needlessly hurt them while “winning a point,” our being correct in the argument is of less importance relative to our hurtful tone or comments.”

If you apologize for hurting or provoking your “enemy” and they forgive you, you can be redeemed. Your corrupted Earth Soul can be purified. If you apologize to your partner, your atonement could restore both of you to the Garden of Eden. This would require your partner to believe and accept your remorse and your “making reparation.”

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Chapter 17: Forgiveness

In some religions, forgiveness is granted by a High Priest… like Aaron, Moses’ brother, whom God made the first High Priest. Later, a High Priest could be the Pope for Christians or a top Inam for Muslims. “Going to confession with a Priest” is still practiced today in the Christian religion. More modern times have forgiveness increasingly offered by us “common folks” rather than exclusively by top religious leaders.

Just as it takes maturity to say, “I’m sorry.” It takes maturity to be able to forgive. If parents are still in what Klein calls the “paranoid-schizoid stage of development,” then they’re still splitting people into all good and all bad. If a parent believes their child should be “all good”—when the child misbehaves the parent believes something “bad” or “evil” has come over them. A more primitive parenting style attacks the “evil” by screaming, “Stop being so bad or I’ll punish you: Be good now—or else!”

Unfortunately, all children have both “pleasing and displeasing ways.” An uncorrupted child has all sorts of contradictory emotions and needs… including a healthy need to rebel and become more independent. They are never all good or all bad, though their parents may insist they be so.

If parents can’t see no child is ever “perfect” or “all good”—that this wouldn’t even be healthy—then they can’t have empathic compassion for their child. Instead, they’re driven to attack what they see as bad behavior rather than witness and nurture their child’s naturally creative True Self or Soul.

In more cultures than most realize, parents do not raise children to have enriching full lives that also contribute to a better World as God would like. Instead, they raise their children to keep them company and care for them in their old age. Sadly, this enslavement system involves an intentional stunting of their children’s growth so they will never feel confident and healthy enough to leave home and have a life of their own.

The spouse that let’s their partner cripple their children in this way and doesn’t use all their power to stop this awful sin is just as much of a sinner for not saying, “No.” Those parents that repeatedly hurt their children with such harsh, punitive practices are not just lacking better parenting skills, they’re operating with corrupted values and enslavement agendas. These parents will rarely apologize for their sins. They sin purposefully to accomplish an immoral goal.

I’ve seen many family systems use highly developed cult-like mind-control tactics to enslave their children in this way. The strongest children are the ones who make their way to my office, asking for help in escaping what they still carry around inside of them.

They escaped their childhood home, only to sense their minds still controlled by the horrible attitudes and paranoid tensions of their original household. They need re-programming to place their True Self in control and let their Divine Soul live & breathe.

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Chapter 18: Shame

Some psychoanalytic thinkers make the emotion of “shame” the cornerstone of their work. Perhaps this is because when our development gets arrested, we often experience shame based on things we can’t do as well as peers… perhaps socializing, being a good athlete, or getting good grades in school. We feel shame we’re “not as good” as these other people.

To the trained eye, shame always highlights where someone has been badly wounded—or where parents abandoned the child when the child needed love & guidance. The child eventually feels unloved and unloveable based on attack or abandonment.

Shame emanates from feeling unloved and unloveable. Klein referred to these “unloved children” as “bad breast children.” They grew up feeling deep shame about themselves, many also feeling jealous and envious of the World’s “good-breast children” who do, in sharp contrast, seem loved—as if they were… the Chosen Ones.

If the individual stays stuck in this place of shame, they will sink into Purgatory… then maybe descend further into Hell if they lose all hope. When one no longer feels loveable—there’s no hope for redemption, love, or a joyous visit to the Garden of Eden. Then, we eternally burn in the fires of Hell—being alive feels like a burden or a curse.

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Chapter 19: Divine

God ultimately creates everything in this Universe—good things along with evil ones. So, “Divine” must mean more than God-created… or everything would be Divine.

Being Divine is a quality of all those places, things, and people in our physical universe where God flows. God created our Souls—giving each of us a unique one. He then flows through our Souls into this World while we’re alive. So, our Souls are Divine.

Ancient wisdom teaches us that our corrupted Earthly Soul forms a crust over our Divine Soul. Psychoanalytic theory calls that crust our “defenses” (Freud) or “character armor” (Wilhelm Reich). Reich was the father of character analysis—he believed only some of us break out of this crust to fully sprout like a flowering plant. Reich introduced what some have termed a pseudo-scientific concept of “orgone” which could be translated as our “Divine energy.” Freeing our orgone to fill and guide us was his goal.

In his unique “psychological vocabulary,” Wilfred Bion termed what we’re calling Divine energy as “K” and corrupt energy as “- K”. K means “with meaning.” In contrast, - K means “anti-meaning.” He defines the schizophrenic condition as one dominated by - K. So, K seems to measure something close to the “degree to which one is spiritual,” while -K seems to measure the “degree to which one is corrupted.”

Twice a generation a “Zaddick”, the holiest of Rabbis, is born. He comes to heal or bypass his Earth Soul in a way that all agree he can nearly fully channel Hashem. He is practically beyond sinning. Those who come in contact with such a holy person are often radically transformed in dramatic though unexpected ways. The Zaddick would get a perfect score with Bion’s notion of “K.”

Our Temples are holy and sacred due to their purpose which is to serve God and guide humans according to God’s teachings. In Temples, we can directly engage with Him such as by sacrifices, prayers, or asking for guidance.

To the extent we keep trying to live truer to our Soul, God flows more fully through us during our lives—impacting us and all around us profoundly. This is one of several answers to the question: What’s the meaning or purpose of Life?

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Chapter 20: Corruption of the Divine

The greatest desecration of God’s wishes can be seen in the horrific devastation, death, and despair caused by Man’s perpetual wars and his cruelty to his fellow humans. More subtly, we can do great damage by living with indifference, self-absorption, and unconsciously—while we avoid consciously facing many urgent decisions.

Living through these damaging events corrupts the Earth Soul which becomes like a muddied magnifying glass. The Divine Soul God gave us can no longer channel His light into this World as effectively, since the lens has been clouded. With our Divine Soul blocked, we do fewer mitzvahs and God works less magic through us.

Man’s callous disregard for his lands and wildlife seems clear. The reason our planet is damaged to the point of endangered is our collective greed and narcissism which often earns the word “savage.” Some leaders have a savage greed for money and power without moral concern for God’s creations—like others and Earth.

We too often act for Earth-Soul pleasures, while not heeding Divine-Soul wisdom. Even if we haven’t read the ancient books of wisdom, starting with the Bible, we can listen closely to our conscience… nestled within our largely unconscious Soul. Our conscience is one way God can speak to us… another is through our dreams.

Reaching Heaven, enlightenment, rediscovering the Garden of Eden, and having clinical symptom relief—all becomes possible when we listen to the Divine and try atoning for our sins. Keep a journal to note your dreams and the strongest emotional experiences each day. Get to know your Earth Soul and your Divine Soul. These are some ways to reverse the corruption of the Divine. There are others.

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Postscript

Spiritual Psychoanalysis seeks to integrate the wisdom and practices of religion, the science of psychology, and the Democratic values of empowerment. It seeks to find the best ways to integrate the spiritual notions of God and Soul into the Science of Psychology and Psychoanalysis—and into clinical practice and education.

It attempts to bridge the gap between belief in God and observing scientific rigor. It searches for the tunnel connecting ancient and modern wisdom—for the rainbow connecting the Divine with the mundane and practical.

What can we do each moment to enhance our lives and make them more holy? We can do Mitzvahs. What mitzvahs are there? There are 613—and they can be studied. Does any branch of science feel that moral development in our children isn’t important? No.

Perhaps some of the solutions to our modern-day woes lie in the ancient wisdom of ancestors and civilizations long past. The all-encompassing metaphorical wisdom conveyed in the Bible has never been surpassed by any other book.

Perhaps we need to go backwards to go forwards.

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Spiritual Exercises for Emotional Self-Awareness

Psychoanalytic theory says emotions reveal where our conscious mind and unconscious instinct touch—where our ego and id meet. Emotions are like the shoreline that connects land and ocean.

If we learn from our emotions, we tend to become more enlightened, empowered, and spiritual. So, understanding emotions is important. It’s the only way we can fully unfold our Soul.

These are some basic exercises to develop your ability to learn from your emotions. What will you need? You’ll need: the tools for your chosen art form, your imagination, and one or more witnesses.

• Describe the happiest experience you recall.

• Describe the most scary, upsetting experience you recall.

• What is one thing you most would want to apologize for and ask for forgiveness?

• Create a work of art to convey the experiences contained in # 1, # 2, and, # 3 using any artistic modality: painting drawing, sculpture, poetry, writing, musical instruments, singing, dancing, acting, pantomime, etc.

• Find a friend or relative you trust to be honest about their emotions and invite them to sit down for at least a half hour to experience and witness your art. They should, without judgment, express what they feel as they view your art over this time. They’re not to critique but to reflect back their emotions of how your art affects them: what emotions, memories, thoughts, or fantasies are triggered or induced? For the first half of the time, only witnessing words should be shared. Then the artist can respond, ask questions, and interact with his or her witnesses.

• Find or create a witnessing group of 4-8 reasonably self-aware, spiritual, emotionally articulate, group-friendly souls like yourself. Once per week, meet live or on Zoom to witness at least one member’s art creation. A rotation should be defined so everyone knows when they present. There should be a regular or weekly leader who is responsible for keeping communication styles and focus appropriately. The first bit of time should be open for any reactions to the previous week’s presentation or any other “unfinished business.”

• Study what “good witnessing” is. We’ll have more to say about empathy, mercy, kindness, spirituality, playfulness, and insightfulness that help generate good witnessing. Also, check out Alice Miller’s “The Drama of the Gifted Child,” and Winnicott’s “Playing & Reality.”