{"id":746,"date":"2013-05-08T12:49:08","date_gmt":"2013-05-08T19:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elizabethbader.com\/elizabethbadersblog\/?p=746"},"modified":"2021-03-26T22:03:22","modified_gmt":"2021-03-27T05:03:22","slug":"freud-on-the-spiritual-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elizabethbader.com\/elizabethbadersblog\/freud-on-the-spiritual-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"Freud Encounters the Spiritual Journey: An Early Theory of Holes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Freud_ca_1900\"<\/a>The Theory of Holes<\/a> articulated by Hameed Ali (A. H. Almaas) and Faisal Muqaddam explains how essence can be recovered during the spiritual journey.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Sigmund Freud articulated many elements of the theory nearly a century ago.<\/p>\n

Religious \u201cSensation\u201d as the Basic Ground of the Ego<\/i><\/p>\n

Freud wrote his masterpiece Civilization and its Discontents<\/i> when he was 73 years old, in 1927. He had just recently characterized religion as an illusion in The Future of an Illusion.<\/i>\u00a0 But a friend, who we now know was Romain Rolland, had written to Freud:<\/p>\n

\"portrait<\/a>
Romain Rolland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

Your analysis of religions is fair. But I would have liked to see you analyze spontaneous religious feeling<\/i> or, more exactly, religious sensation<\/i> …<\/p>\n

I understand by that \u2026the simple and direct fact of the sensation of the “eternal”<\/i> (which may very well not be eternal, but simply without perceptible limits, and in that way oceanic)…[1]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/h1>\n

The Development of Ego as a Defensive Structure <\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Freud\u00a0had never experienced the \u201coceanic feeling.\u201d[2]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 But in thinking about the possible \u201cgenetic\u201d origins of this boundless feeling, he theorized that perhaps it was present in infancy but blocked as the ego develops.\u00a0 As he said:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

An infant at the breast does not as yet distinguish his ego from the external world as the source of the sensations flowing in upon him\u00a0… [O]riginally the ego includes everything, later it separates off an external world from itself.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This happens as:<\/p>\n

\n

One comes to learn a procedure by which, through a deliberate direction of one\u2019s sensory activities and through suitable muscular action, one can differentiate between what is internal \u2014 what belongs to the ego \u2014 and what is external \u2014 what emanates from the outer world . . . This differentiation, of course, serves the practical purpose of enabling one to defend oneself . . . (pp. 27-29).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In short, Freud said that originally the infant\u00a0lives in an “oceanic” universe, and only later learns to live in the \u201cshrunken residue\u201d that constitutes the adult ego:<\/p>\n

\n

Our present ego-feeling is, therefore, only a shrunken residue of a much more inclusive \u2014 indeed, an all-embracing feeling which corresponded to a more intimate bond between the ego and the world about it (p. 29)<\/em><\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Note here that in Freud\u2019s view the process of losing the sense of interconnectedness\u00a0was largely somatic. Through the development of suitable “muscular action[s],” the body loses its capacity to feel the unity of the interpersonal field.<\/p>\n

The Oceanic Feeling Never Completely Leaves Us<\/i><\/p>\n

In Freud\u2019s view, the \u201coceanic\u201d feeling was never completely eradicated. He likened the contents of the human psyche to the city of Rome, which has ruins co-existing with more modern structures, \u201cdovetailed\u00a0 into the jumble of a great metropolis. . .\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Theory<\/a>
Roman Ruins: Symbol of the Unconscious<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As in Rome, so too, he said, in the mental apparatus \u201call the earlier phases of development continue to exist alongside the latest one” (p. 32). However, “in suitable circumstances (when, for instance, repression goes back far enough) . . . [the earlier phases] can once more be brought to light (Id).<\/p>\n

Summary<\/em><\/p>\n

Freud pointed the way to the Theory of Holes<\/a>\u00a0articulated by\u00a0Hameed Ali (A. H. Almaas) and Faisal Muqaddam. \u00a0 He theorized that there is another dimension in us\u00a0 beyond the “shrunken residue” of the ego. The\u00a0blocking\u00a0of the “intimate bond between the ego and the world about it . .” (p. 29)\u00a0 occurs when\u00a0the infant’s primitive will is directed toward the body to establish\u00a0mechanisms of defense. But the boundless dimension never leaves us completely and can be brought to light again.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
\n

[1]<\/a> Letter from Rolland to Freud, 5 December 1927, 264-266, as quoted in Fisher, David James.\u00a0Romain Rolland and the Politics of Intellectual Engagement.\u00a0<\/i>Berkeley: \u00a0University of California Press, copyright 1988. http:\/\/ark.cdlib.org\/ark:\/13030\/ft538nb2x9<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents, trans. by James Strachey, reprinted from the Norton Standard Edition (W. W. Norton & Co., 2010), p. 24. All page numbers are from this edition.<\/p>\n

Photo Credits:\u00a0 Baltic Sea Argonowski\u00a0 (Autorskie zdj\u0119cie).\u00a0 Romain Rolland:\u00a0 Photo by Gisele Freund<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

\n <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Theory of Holes articulated by Hameed Ali (A. H. Almaas) and Faisal Muqaddam explains how essence can be recovered during the spiritual journey. 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