Ecstasy

                                                     Ecstasy

 

 

 

             

“It was clear to me that the sole function of psychiatric science was to divert attention from a true elucidation of the sexual conditions of existence.”

Wilhelm Reich

(The Function Of The Orgasm)

You know you're getting closer to some (as yet disclosed aspect of truth), when people at certain times, and in certain institutions, burn your books, imprison, and try desperately to silence you. This was the case with Wilhelm Reich and his post Freudian scientific writings about sexuality and politics.

Sexuality is highly misunderstood, misappropriated, repressed, etc but it is clear to me that the biopsychosocialspritual aspects of human sexuality is about as fundamental as we can get on what it is to be human. Let's explore just one nuance of sexuality which is the psychology and mythology of ecstasy.

The Greek God Dionysos is the god of the grape harvest, wine making and wine, of ritual madness, fertility, theatre and religious ecstasy in Greek mythology. Alcohol, especially wine, played an important role in Greek culture with Dionysus being the symbolic catalyst for states of intoxication that transformed and transferred one's ego beyond the individual to the larger group context. This provided a strong Feminine balancing to the masculine Apollonian aspect of Greek society.

This psychology of mystical intoxication is the basis for mysticism and the wisdom traditions such a the Eleusinian Mysteries (initiations held every year for the cult of Demeter and Persphone). The essence of ecstasy is the change in state beyond what one usually takes to be one's perceived identity, into new and strange places. The experience of going beyond, outside, and transcending one's sense of identity is blissful, the greater the degree and distance one feels from who they used to think they were, to who they feel they are now (Houston, can you hear me now?!), the greater the bliss! Although, of course, pacing and guidance are highly recommended!

Sexuality is a very deeply wired psychoneuroemotionalspritual part of our hardware that facilitates an experience in which one quite quickly moves outside themselves, and experiences a sense of unity (as well as a host of other feelings, thoughts, and perceptions). This is quite pleasurable, and nature has made us this way with good reason and design! Nature Herself can be seen as one big orgy!

In the West, we have our Garden of Eden story, which has been co-opted to induce guilt over our flow of natural energy in our bodies, minds and hearts. You can see how easily these natural human tendencies can quickly become psychological inducements to guilt, such as sexuality, eating, how one looks, whether one is likable or not, the list is endless, and hence the need for the field of psychosocial interventions both on an individual and social level.

Freud made his way into a Victorian society that was anti-Semitic, and so sexually repressed they put leggings on bare piano stools because they were deemed lewd and pornographic. He was a product of his times, as well as the limits of the field he was newly championing. Just his idea that the individual has a formative unconscious that impedes and interferes with our lives is a huge contribution (Jung would extend this notion into the collective unconscious.)We owe Freud a huge debt in my view, and I think he's really been misread/misrepresented, especially not read for the culture and times he lived.

 The post Freudian's, Anna Freud, Jung, and all that came after such as; Reich, Eric Erickson, R.D. Laing (not the singer), all the Gestalt folks like Fritz Pearls, the bio-energetic people like Alexander Lowen, somatic experience people (Peter Levine) that works with trauma and the body, mindfulness approaches (Jon Kabat-Zen), the list goes on and on, of healers and teachers that have been instrumental in helping people come back into their bodies and get beyond their guilt and disassociation from their natural state which is very ecstatic, like children and animals.

The Renaissance in the 14th-17th centuries can be seen as a return to the beauty and normality of human sexuality, as well as an embrace of the strong need for Feminine values and the aesthetic of Mother Nature Herself. As Joni Mitchell sang “We've Got To Get Ourselves Back To The Garden” of delights in being alive in a human body and having the ability to go beyond our own conditioning of who we are, which leads to ecstatic experience.

“Make Love Not War!”