5. Higher Unconscious or Superconscious
The higher unconscious or superconscious is the inner dynamic, subconscious region from which we receive our creative intuitions, inspirations, illuminations, and insights that extend and surpass normal capacity. John Firman and Ann Gila (2002) in their book Psychosynthesis: A Psychology of the Spirit interpret the superconscious (or higher unconscious) as the repository of repressed and split-off human potentials and impulses toward “higher” qualities of character and states of being that we banish from consciousness
as a way…to protect our capacities for wonder, joy, creativity, and spiritual experience from an unreceptive, invalidating environment. This repression of our higher human potential…forms what is called the higher unconscious. (Firman & Gila, 2002, p. 31)
Assagioli simply saw the superconscious as the psychic region through which heroic, altruistic impulses and spiritual energies are transmitted, whether originally repressed or not. It is “a living reality, with an existence and powers of its own…[and] comprises the states of being, of knowing, and of feeling…of our evolutionary future” (Ferrucci, 1982, pp. 43-44).
What we may be. The superconscious regions of our being constitute glimpses of “what we may be” (Ferrucci’s phrase) both individually and collectively as a species. It represents our potential development that becomes actualized when and if the individual becomes aware of and is able to draw upon the energies and wisdom of the Higher (transpersonal) Self.
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6. Collective Unconscious
The collective unconscious is the Jungian region of collective psychic reality that contains a dynamic, living knowledge bank built up as a result of eons of experience as a species. This knowledge is partially expressed in the myths, fairy tales, religious symbols, and art artifacts of our race. The idea that the past experience and knowledge of an organism, species, or race can be transmitted unconsciously from one generation to another is elaborated by Rupert Sheldrake’s recent theory of “formative causation” (Sheldrake, 1981, 1990). The hypothesis of formative causation proposes that the form, development, and behavior of individual living organisms are shaped and maintained by collective, nonphysical, psychic “morphogenetic fields” which are themselves molded by the form and behavior of past organisms through direct connections across space and time.
The psyche is not isolated. The collective unconscious is contained in the unconsciousness of each and every human psyche and is transmitted across time and space as a kind of “spiritual DNA” (Hardy, 1987, p. 32). Each individual psyche can draw upon as well as contribute to this collective bank of knowledge. In other words, “our psyche is not isolated. It is bathed in the sea of what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious… In Jung’s words, the collective unconscious is ‘the precondition of each individuals psyche, just as the sea is the carrier of the individual wave” (Ferrucci, 1982, p. 44). “The isolated individual does not exist; every person has intimate relationships with other individuals which make them all interdependent. Moreover, each and all are included in and part of the spiritual super-individual Reality” (Assagioli, 1993, p. 31).
Thus, the nature of the person in psychosynthesis, as in other depth psychologies, assumes that the conscious is contained within the unconscious, which is both personal and collective. Self-knowledge is about being in touch with the ‘I’, within the context of the Higher Self, the soul. (Hardy, 1987, p. 33)
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7. Higher (Transpersonal) Self
The higher (transpersonal) self or noumenal “I” is that portion of our greater, larger identity that is directly linked to the conscious “I”. “The working hypothesis here is that the Transpersonal Self is at the core of the superconscious, just as the personal self, or ‘I,’ is at the core of the ordinary personality” (Ferrucci, 1982, p. 131
Not to be confused with the artificial construction that Freud called the “superego”, the inner transpersonal Self is that permanent center of identity that is the supporting and sustaining source of the conscious self, and that is responsible for the reappearance of the conscious “I” upon awakening. It operates within the region of the superconscious and the collective unconscious. “The Higher Self [is]…‘the spectator of the human tragic-comedy… the still centre of the superconscious, just as the personal self or ‘I’ is the centre of the ‘elements and functions of the personality’” (Hardy, 1987, p. 31).
The transpersonal self as an aspect of the conscious self. The conscious self or ego is considered to be the reflection of the Higher Self, projected into the three-dimensional world of time and space. Assagioli writes:
There have been many individuals who have achieved, more or less temporarily, a conscious realization of the Self that for them has the same degree of certainty as it is experienced by an explorer who has entered a previously unknown region…. The self is above, and unaffected by, the flow of the mind-stream or by bodily conditions; and the personal conscious self should be considered merely as its reflection, its ‘projection’ in the field of the personality. (quoted in Hardy, 1987, p. 30)
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The nature of the transpersonal self. Just as the outer, reasoning conscious personal self looks into outer reality, so does the inner, creative unconscious transpersonal Self look into inner reality, that psychological dimension of awareness from which our conscious ego emerged. Having its primary existence outside three-dimensional space and time, the transpersonal Self gave birth to the personal, egoic self that we recognize as our usual conscious self. Having put a portion of itself, a part of its own consciousness in a different parcel, so to speak, so that it formed a physically attuned personal, egoic consciousness, the transpersonal Self gave birth to an outer egoic self whose desires and intents would be oriented in a way that the inner, superconscious transpersonal Self alone could not be (Roberts, 1974). Piero Ferrucci (1982) clarifies:
The personal self is a reflection or an outpost of the Transpersonal Self – enough to give us a sense of centeredness and identity. It lives at the level of individuality, where it can learn to regulate and direct the various elements of the personality. Awareness of the personal self is a precondition for psychological health…. The Transpersonal Self, while retaining a sense of individuality, lives at the level of universality, in a realm where personal plans and concerns are overshadowed by the wider vision of the whole. The realization of the Transpersonal Self is the mark of spiritual fulfillment. Personal and Transpersonal Self are in fact the same reality experienced at different levels: our true essence beyond all masks and conditionings. (Ferrucci, 1982, p.45)
There is one self, but within that one self there are many selves. Assagioli affirmed the apparent existence of two selves in us – a manifest, outer-directed personal self and a latent, inner-directed transpersonal self. The ego-directed immediate conscious self is generally unaware of and may even deny the existence of the other, inner transpersonal self which does not ordinarily reveal its existence directly to the conscious I, except through the use of appropriate active methods (e.g., Raja Yoga, meditation, guided imagery) or spontaneously through a process of natural inner growth (e.g., Bucke’s cosmic consciousness).
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