Finished......July 20th, 2009.
We have been down this path before. I will probably be building 'personality models' til the day I die. I am never completely happy with the last one and always striving to do better on the next one.
I keep trying for simplicity -- and keep ending up with complexity.
However, now as I have just started to read internet interpretations of the 'I Ching', maybe I don't need to feel so bad. The 'I Ching' apparently has 64 hexagrams in its model of whatever the model is representing -- life, philosophy, psychology, 'The Way'...
Here is my East meets West DGB version of the 'I Ching'. I say this without having a clue what is in the 64 hexagrams of the 'I Ching'. One day I will perhaps sit down and try to understand it but in the mean time I will work on building the type of model I seem to feel most comfortable working with right now -- a combined mythology-philosophy-psychology model.
There is a smaller version and a larger version. And we will deal with 'squares' or 'circles' rather than 'hexagons'.
The Smaller Model looks like this and has 20 parts to it:
1. Gaia's Topdog (Feminine, Maternal) Ego (pertaining to the earth, rootedness, security safety, groundedness...a 'feminine' or 'yin' ego state.)
2. Hera's Topdog (Feminine, Maternal) Ego (pertaining to marriage, family, and again rootedness and stability, again a 'feminine' or 'yin' ego state).
3. Cupid's/Aphrodite's Topdog Ego (pertaining to love and romance, both a yin and yang, male and female ego state...pertaining to the longing for holistic dialectic male-female, yin-yang union).
4. Narcissus' (Masculine) Topdog Ego (pertaining to sexual and/or egotistic and/or intellectual arrogance and self-absorption...mythologically a masculine-yang God but equally applicable to both sexes...)
5. Dionysus' (Masculine) Topdog Ego (pertaining to the pursuit of pleasure, hedonism, sensuality, seduction, sexuality, wine and alcohol, drunken exhuberance and celebration, recreational drugs...and their potential for obsession, addiction and self-destruction...Again, equally applicable to both sexes...)
6. Apollo's (Masculine, Paternal) Topdog Ego (pertaining to the pursuit of reason, truth, ethics, morality, justice, righteousness...again equally applicable to both sexes)
7. Zeus' (Masculine, Paternal) Topdog Ego (pertaining to the pursuit and/or demonstration of power, authoritarianism, dictatorship, ultimate leadership, and often the narcissistic sense of 'entitlement' that comes with this pursuit and/or demonstration of power...Have you ever seen male elephant seals vying for power during mating season? They are all trying to be the 'Zeus' of all elephant seals. Same with lions. Dare I say it is mainly a masculine thing. Nope. At least not in the world of humans. Equally applicable to both sexes.)
8. to 14. represent the 'Underdog' versions of each of these first seven 'Topdog' ego-states.
15. The Central-Mediating-(Hegelian)Ego
16. The 'Dream-Catching and Creating' Subconscious Ego (Operates under the surface...creates dreams, nightmares, fiction, fantasy, symbolism, art, mythology...)
17. The 'Subconscious Transference Template' (Organizes and integrates all historical experience, good and bad memories, especially childhood ones, turns these into 'transference re-creation, repetition, and compensation compulsions...also organizes different 'anima' and 'animus' 'projection ideals' role models and mentors as well as 'anti-role models and anti-mentors which becoms included in our transference complexes...and passes these on up to our 'Dream Catcher and Creator')
18. The 'Subconscious, Genetic, Mythological Transference Template (Organizes and integrates myths, mythological figures, archetypes, Gods, Anti-Gods, Heros and Villains, Idols and Anti-Idols, and passes these up to our Dream Catcher and Creator...)
19. The Genetic, Potential Self....The blueprint or embryo of the personality...ready to expand and blossom in any of many possible different directions...or to buried in toxic life and/or self-poisons...
20. The Holistic Psyche...Includes all 19 elements of the preceding parts....turned into a creative and/or destructive, constructive and/or deconstructive whole...Comes from a Greek myth involving a love affair between 'Psyche' and 'Cupid'. Thus, the 'Psyche', regardless of how many defenses we surround ourselves with, in the end, is still very sensitive and 'addicted' to 'Cupid' (i.e. romantic love...See the 'Cupid and Psyche' myth below...)
What is missing here is all of the other DGB 'Middle-Zone-Adult Philosopher's Ego States' of which we have only listed one above (Hegel's Central-Mediating Ego).
This latter model including all (or many of) 'The Different Philosopher's Ego-States' would make up the 'larger version' of The DGB Personality (and Separated Ego-States) Model'.
This larger model would start from the 20 ego-states listed above and climb higher and higher -- much like the full philosophical version of Hegel's Hotel -- perhaps to see how close we can get to the 'I Ching's 64 hexagons'.
At this point, I will guess maybe about 40-50 'ego-states' -- mythological, philosophical, and subconscious transference-memory-and-fantasy ego-states all told. But you will have to read the next essay to find out.
This we will work on tomorrow.
-- DGB, July 20th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are still in process...
.....................................................................................
Cupid and Psyche
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sculpture of Cupid and Psyche, c. 1808.
The legend of Cupid and Psyche (also known as The Tale of Amor and Psyche and The Tale of Eros and Psyche) first appeared as a digressionary story told by an old woman in Lucius Apuleius' novel, The Golden Ass, written in the second century A.D. Apuleius likely used an earlier tale as the basis for his story, modifying it to suit the thematic needs of his novel.
It has since been interpreted as a Märchen, an allegory and a myth.[1]
Contents
* 1 Legend
* 2 Relations and origin
* 3 As Platonic allegory
* 4 Later adaptations
* 5 References
* 6 External links
Legend
Envious and jealous of the beauty of a mortal girl named Psyche, Venus asks her son Cupid (known to the Greeks as Eros) to use his golden arrows while she's asleep so that when Psyche awakes, Venus (Aphrodite to Greeks) would have already placed a vile creature for her to fall in love with. Cupid finally agrees to her commands after a long (and losing) debate. So as he flies to her room at night, he turns himself invisible so no eyes can see him fly in through her window. He takes pity on her for she was born too beautiful for her own safety. As he slowly approaches, careful not to make a sound, he gets one of his golden arrows ready. He leans over her while she is asleep and before he could scratch her shoulder with the arrow, she awakens, it startles him for she looks right into his eyes (even though he was invisible). This causes him to scratch himself with his arrow, falling deeply in love with her. He couldn't continue his mission for every passing second he finds it more appalling, he reports back to Venus shortly later and this enrages her, she places a curse on Psyche that keeps her from meeting a suitable husband (or any husband at that). As she does this, it upsets Cupid greatly, for as long as that curse stays on Psyche, he will no longer shoot arrows, which will cause Venus' temple to fall.
Finally after months of no one (man or animal) falling in love, marriages, or mating, the Earth starts to grow old, which causes a concern to Venus for nobody praises her for Cupid's actions. This finally gets her to agree to listen to Cupid's demands, she gave him one thing to have his own way and that one thing he desired was Psyche, being upset, Venus finally agrees to his demands only if he begins work immediately. He accepts the offer and takes off, shooting his golden arrows as fast as he ever could, then everything was restored to the way it should be, people fell in love and got married, animals far and wide would mate, and the Earth began to look young again.
When all continue to admire and praise Psyche's beauty, but none desire her as a wife, Psyche's parents consult an oracle, which tells them to leave Psyche on the nearest mountain, for her beauty is so great that she is not meant for (mortal) man. Terrified, they have no choice but to follow the oracle's instructions. But then Zephyrus, the west wind, carries Psyche away to a fair valley and a magnificent palace where she is attended by invisible servants until night falls and in the darkness of night the promised bridegroom arrives and the marriage is consummated. Cupid visits her every night to sleep with her, but demands that she never lights any lamps, since he does not want her to know who he is until the time is right.
Hugh Douglas Hamilton's "Cupid and Psyche in the natural bower", 1792-1793
Cupid allows Zephyrus to take Psyche back to her sisters and bring all three down to the palace during the day, but warns that Psyche should not listen to any argument that she should try to discover his true form. The two jealous sisters tell Psyche, then pregnant with Cupid's child, that rumor is that she had married a great and terrible serpent who would devour her and her unborn child when the time came for it to be fed. They urge Psyche to conceal a knife and oil lamp in the bedchamber, to wait till her husband was asleep, and then to light the lamp and slay him at once if it is as they said. Psyche sadly follows their advice. In the light of the lamp Psyche recognizes the fair form on the bed as the god Cupid himself. However, she accidentally pricks herself with an arrow, and is consumed with desire for her husband. She begins to kiss him, but as she does, a drop of oil falls from her lamp onto Cupid's shoulder and wakes him. He flies away, and she falls from the window to the ground, sick at heart.
Psyche then finds herself in the city where one of her jealous elder sisters live. She tells her what had happened, then tricks her sister into believing that Cupid has chosen her as a wife instead. She later meets her other sister and deceives her likewise. Each returns to the top of the peak and jumps down eagerly, but Zephyrus does not bear them and they fall to their deaths at the base of the mountain.
Psyche searches far and wide for her lover, finally stumbling into a temple where everything is in slovenly disarray. As Psyche is sorting and clearing, Ceres appears, but refuses any help beyond advising Psyche that she must call directly on Venus, the jealous shrew who caused all the problems in the first place. Psyche next calls on Juno in her temple, but Juno, superior as always, gives her the same advice. So Psyche finds a temple to Venus and enters it. Venus orders Psyche to separate all the grains in a large basket of mixed kinds before nightfall. An ant takes pity on Psyche and with its ant companions separates the grains for her.
L'Amour et Psyché, 1819
Venus is outraged at her success and tells her to go to a field where golden sheep graze and get some golden wool. A river-god tells Psyche that the sheep are vicious and strong and will kill her, but if she waits until noontime, the sheep will go to the shade on the other side of the field and sleep; she can then pick the wool that sticks to the branches and bark of the trees. Venus next asks for water flowing from a cleft that is impossible for a mortal to attain and is also guarded by great serpents. This time an eagle performs the task for Psyche. Venus, outraged at Psyche's survival, claims that the stress of caring for her son, made depressed and ill as a result of Psyche's lack of faith, has caused her to lose some of her beauty. Psyche is to go to the Underworld and ask the queen of the Underworld to place a bit of her beauty in a box that Venus had given to Psyche. Psyche decides that the quickest way to the Underworld is to throw herself off some high place and die and so she climbs to the top of a tower. But the tower itself speaks to her and tells her the route that will allow her to enter the Underworld alive and return again, as well as telling her how to get past Cerberus by giving the three-headed dog a small cake; how to avoid other dangers on the way there and back; and most importantly, to eat nothing but coarse bread in the underworld, as eating anything else would trap her there forever. Psyche follows the orders precisely, rejecting all but bread while beneath the Earth.
Engraving representing the Ancient Roman sculpture of Amor and Psyche at the Capitoline Museums, Rome, Italy
However when Psyche has left the Underworld, she decides to open the box and take a little bit of the beauty for herself. Inside, she can see no beauty; instead an infernal sleep arises from the box and overcomes her. Cupid (Eros), who had forgiven Psyche, flies to her, wipes the sleep from her face, puts it back in the box, and sends her back on her way. Then Cupid flies to Mount Olympus and begs Jupiter (Zeus), to aid them. Jupiter calls a full and formal council of the gods and declares that it is his will that Cupid marry Psyche. Jupiter then has Psyche fetched to Mount Olympus, and gives her a drink made from Ambrosia, granting her immortality. Begrudgingly, Venus and Psyche forgive each other.
Psyche and Cupid's daughter was Voluptas or Delight, the goddess of "sensual pleasures", whose Latin name means "pleasure" or "bliss".
Relations and origin
In Greek and Roman mythology, Psyche was the personification of the passion of love. She was the youngest daughter of the king and queen of Sicily. She was the most beautiful person on the island and suitors flocked to ask for her hand. In the end she boasted that she was more beautiful than Aphrodite (Venus) herself, and Aphrodite sent Eros to transfix her with an arrow of desire and make her fall in love with the nearest person or thing available. But even Eros (Cupid) fell in love with her and took her to a secret place and eventually married her and had her made a goddess by Zeus (Jupiter).
Though concerning gods and goddesses, Apuleius' Cupid and Psyche was generally relegated to the status of a "mere" folktale, or in English a fairy tale or in German Märchen. Through a common Perrault's Mother Goose Tales and following popularity of other such collections in 17th century did folk tales become recognized in Europe as a legitimate literary genre.
As Bruno Bettelheim notes in The Uses of Enchantment, "Beauty and the Beast" is a variant version of Cupid and Psyche.
As Platonic allegory
Apuleius's narrative of Cupid and Psyche has frequently been viewed as an allegory of Platonism:
“ The tripartite division of the soul, the desire of the soul to be united with the divine, the fall of the winged soul to the earth because of its evil burden, and the distinction between the heavenly and the vulgar types of love are Platonic ideas, which, according to some scholars, resemble specific events in the tale of Psyche; thus Psyche's name, the portrayal of her character in relation to her two sisters, her futile attempt to seize Cupid and fly with him to the sky, and the ambiguous role the goddess Venus and her son Cupid play in the heroine's life are themes that seem to transform Apuleius' literary fairytale into a philosophical allegory.[2]
