46. How are Your Spirits? Let’s Ask Them.

Something needs to be said about the everyday experience of spirits; they are just there, entering and leaving the centre stage of our being moving us as we go through the day. At night we see them in dreams. Such was the case for my first 45 years, unawares; they would remain unrecognised as they lived through me.  

Then during the spiritual awakening, they would come to me as another person would, but experienced vividly inside. I could describe them as an image in the imagination. They would speak, but without my input into what they said, as in dreams. They also came to me while I was awake. I could be surprised by their appearances and what they said, and these were aspects of myself appearing before me.

It is as though they are different to me, something else within, but that is not the case. The paradox is that while they do not look like me, or say what I am thinking, they are a part of me. When I listened carefully to what they said, with self-honesty, I can recognise them as part of me, an attitude usually. You are the part of me that criticises me, you are the part of me that distracts me away from difficult confrontations, you are the part of me that gets anxious, you are the part of me that causes me to hate myself……etc. With the right understanding and interaction with them, I have been able to reconcile these attitudes within myself. I can will them into my expression, but they no longer run wild in me. That is a huge potential for psychological wellbeing …..and a spiritual direction of travel, as I have found.

What I am calling spirits here have been well recognised in Mythology (eg Ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman), by Plato (Forms), in Focusing (Parts), by Roberto Assagioli in Psychosynthesis and other psychological disciplines (subpersonalities or sub characters) they can be found wherever there is humanity, of course.

When they group together, and they may cooperate and they may conflict, they form a complex, and these clusters of spirits form such entities as the ego, or the superego, or the anima or feminine side of the male and animus the masculine side of the female, described by Carly Jung; and so on. So they can exist individually but often in collusion or conflict with each other.

They have in my experience always been of a dichotomy, a part of a complementing pair. There is an inclination to adopt those who fit with our self-image and reject others, so one of the pair is favoured and, the other is rejected by the ego of the person. The former being idealised and identified with and the latter cast away as not me. It would appear that trauma had caused the split, or maybe necessity for getting through earlier life; what was needed to get on, and what was needed to avoid painful situations.

For example, part of my postgraduate medical training was in trauma care, which included some surgical training, and so a part of my self-identity was as someone who would repair wounds and other injuries. During my spiritual awakening, I would dream of a knife assassin, professional, efficient, competent, focussed, the shadow of my surgical healer persona. Only when I disidentified from the healer, did the assassin, and he was scary, become absorbed into a larger self. The energy of his polarised spirit diminished.

So the spirit that comes is likely to be the one of a pair cast away, now looking for recognition and conscious expression in our thoughts and actions. They do not pile in at once, it would appear that they come in an orderly sequence the right one at the right time for the position of the subject on the spiritual journey,

I think it is fair to say that they have a love for the whole of what we are, that is the person they live through. So they want the best for us which is why they are so keen to take control. They fear we may not achieve what we need to achieve and suffer a repeat of traumas of the past. I therefore also find them intensely loveable. Unfortunately, they often go about it in the wrong way, which can give them the impression of being demonic.

Carl Jung said that the unconscious was amoral, having no moral compass. However, I believe all those that I have met are inherently good, with good intentions for the person. When a spirit is expressed consciously, we might be able to bring ourselves to act in a way that we think is right. When they are expressed unconsciously, that is not necessarily so, becoming a narrow motive without a view to the wider consequences. The spirit is striking out alone through us, rather than acting within a greater whole and being unaware of any wider issues.

For me, they usually manifest with a human appearance and may be contemporary, or historical. Sometimes they present as animals. Excluded, rejected for such a long time, they can be menacing and violent, more powerful and assertive, which makes them more difficult to manage in the inner experience. I have given an example of one presenting as an inanimate object (Mr Snooty https://wordpress.com/post/theanthonygoodinfo.data.blog/671 ). In this way, their conscious expression becomes diminished or less appropriate. They do not go away, they evolve so that the only way to deal with them is to help them evolve constructively.

They can become exhausted with overuse. Some call this archetypal burnout. I described this in my racing driver, whom I overused for many years. Relentless speed and accuracy as I went through my life, particularly at work. He needed a rest.

They of course manifest in other people. So often I seem to have a timely meeting in the world of spirit calling me inside. There is some kind of timely connectedness that causes this to come forward between people when required for the evolution of the soul. So it is not just the inner calling, they call out to us through other people. As within so without. In florid moments or awakening, the outer world could be seen as a dream, and the distinction between dream and outer life blurred, sometimes causing confusion when recalling life events, and finding they were dreams. It takes a certain inner-outer understanding, a certain mindful focus to recognise this, which I have to a small extent from a long-time dream working. So in effect, I am meeting what is in me in other people.

“Which part of my whole are you?”

Images from Pixabay; Ivanovagood, Subhamshone, RyanMcGuire, 6335159.

It is said that Self requires them for its expression through us in the world. They are the levers and pulleys of human behaviour, for the ego, the alter ego and the Self. Bringing them into the whole, healing the splits enables this to happen.

Carl Jung discussed their collective expression in a culture or community, and there are ample examples of groupthink, collective action, for better or worse.

I do not pretend to know all there is about the nature of these entities, which are the personifications of aspects of character. If you tune in at this level I hope this is helpful, and if you don’t, I hope it will help you better understand those who do.  I will write about my experience in dealing with them and the benefits that come from this in the next post.