I am going to wander in this post. When I’m not sure how to start, I just start.
Abreaction means “to react away from”, from the German Abreagierung.
Sublimate: Chemistry .
a.
to convert (a solid substance) by heat into a vapor, which on cooling condenses again to solid form, without apparent liquefaction.
Freud:
Psychology . the diversion of the energy of a sexual or other biological impulse from its immediate goal to one of a more acceptable social, moral, or aesthetic nature or use.
If it is not obvious, I am not a big fan of Freud. To the extent one can dislike someone he has never met, and who died long before I was born, I dislike him. Still, he was brilliant.
I toured a whiskey distillery last week, and was struck by the process of distillation, and I am struck now in noting the appropriateness of quasi- or literally chemistry terms for emotional processes.
There are only two psychotherepeutic modalities in common expression in our world which take as their PRIMARY goal the process of abreaction: Dianetics and Holotropic Breathwork. In Dianetics–and I am using the word loosely, not knowing too many of the details, many of which are perhaps not in the public domain to begin with–they do what is called “auditing”, which as I understand the process involves hooking someone up to what amounts to a lie detector–I believe I read somewhere it is two metal handles one holds which conduct electrical impulses and detect sweat, etc.–and having someone say a series of words, and waiting for a reaction. If one occurs, that person is to go as deeply as possible into those emotions.
This process seems to me potentially useful, but of course Scientology as a whole is a mess. They sue everyone and everything, demand more and more and more money from people, and obviously have some very odd beliefs, like the idea of Thetans. Whatever merits the process may have, it seems not to get expressed in freedom from greed, from vanity, from power lust, or in increases in the capacities for kindness, love, generosity and patience. If any of you fools want to sue me, spare yourself the trouble and just post your intent in comments, and I will just delete this. It is not necessary for my argument.
Within Breathwork, what I have learned is that there is a skill in activating what might be called the liminal side, the side beyond which it all fades to confusion in the reasoning mind. One of the women in my last session could activate instantly. I watched another guy breath relentlessly for hours without anything happening. It is a skill.
And it is a skill that can be practiced daily. For my own purposes, I developed what I am calling Microactivation. Microdosing LSD is apparently an area of some interest in some quarters. I am simply borrowing the metaphor.
You can do this simply by exposing yourself to stimuli and allowing/facilitating a reaction. H.R. Giger is an obvious example. I bought myself Max Ernst’s “Une Semaine de Bonte” for this purpose. I had previously found it incomprehensibly violent and weird, but realize that a lot of this would qualify as Matrix 3 in the Grof paradigm, and that in their inchoate way–in their post WW1, traumatized, searching way–perhaps they were partially on the right path. (the bird-headed man, by the way, who takes the woman away in Eyes Wide Shut, is right out of Ernst). I bought myself a “graphic novel” (bound set of comic book) for this purpose. Hawkeye.
And I have been isolating and emphasizing a negative inner voice that has been there, I believe, since before I could walk. As I think I shared, in what was for me a very emotional post, my “spiritual guide” is a set of buzz saws, five of them, arrayed in a wedge. I have read enough that I listened. I am taking it at its word. I am using it. Over the past few weeks or month, I have visualized being killed perhaps fifty or a 100 times a day, in every possible way. I walk into the buzz saw of course, which goes through my chest and cuts me in half, but am buried alive, beaten, my throat slit, decapitated, dismembered, burnt, dissolved in acid, crushed, dropped from height, drowned: everything I can think of, everything which comes to me.
And it occurred to me that what this is, is a sort of hook which is baiting the actual traumas. A man whose life and work I admire greatly–Jack Schwarz–described this process in the perhaps quaint or even silly term psi-phoning, which encapsulates both the process of psychic resonance/connection, and the siphoning of poison out of wound.
This morning I had a very powerful experience from early childhood, of being feeling abandoned by my mother. It was extraordinarily unpleasant, but what I have learned is that if you develop the habit of leaning into these sorts of experiences, of embracing them, of pulling them in, rather than them forcing their way in–intruding–in to you, their duration is short, as indeed this one was. And I felt better, much better. I am becoming calm, to my core.
And it occurs to me that with my apparent self abuse, my weirdness, my “My god this guy is fucked up”, my process, I am practicing welcoming negativity and unpleasantness into my life. Here is the thing: it was THERE, it was secretly infecting and directing all sorts of maladaptive behaviors, but without my awareness. Now that I am aware, my full self can make more informed decisions.
I would offer this analogy. You know someone, but not well. You are not sure if you like them or not, but you go on a trip with them, you get to know them well, and now you KNOW you don’t like them or want them in your life.
I will give you another name: Roberto Assagioli, who created a process he called psychosynthesis. His thesis–as I understand it, my exposure to him being limited to an essay in Stan and Christina Grof book “Spiritual Emergency”–was my experience, which is that people have multiple “selves” which are often in conflict with each other, unconsciously. The process of psychological and then spiritual growth lies in contacting these “selves”,and reconciling them.
Return to the chemical meaning of “sublime”. It means converting a solid to vapor and back to a solid. You make all these “selves” vaporous, and bring them back in a new, more useful form.
Well, this is not time wasted, but time I should have spent doing “daylight” work. That will have to do for now.
Peace.
Actually, I will add, this is a lot of highly personal stuff. I prefer not to think about who all may be reading this. At the same time, my conviction is solid that in the end, when we understand it all, we will realize there was never any hiding anyway, and my sense is that these musings and these de facto confessions might benefit someone, spark an idea, a project, a personal renewal or other worthwhile and useful activity.
Use your time today well. Learn something, feel something, see something, and see someone. You will never be better than you are now, and there is nothing that will remain when the spiritual flames are done. I don’t understand this, but contradictions make life more fun.