| |
Akhenaton and Monotheism
Posted By: Claude Rifat
Date: Saturday, 20 January 2001, at 1:51 a.m.
Forward:
[Adrian F. van der Meijden]
I gathered the pragmatic intellectualisation. Intellect is not
all there is to us.[Claude Rifat]
I agree with the fact that intellect is not all.In fact,it seems to me
that intellect is just but the surface, the "cortex", of things because
our realities are, essentially, made of emotions. We are led by the
Heart and, very rarely, by the Intellect. In fact, a pure Intellect
would not be a Man anymore but a machine.Emphasis on intellect has been a peculiarity of those societies
which replaced lived experience by abstract, worded experience.This phenomenon can be tracked back to the egyptian god-king
pharaoh Akhenaton, 3300 years ago.Akhenaton inaugurated the era of the intellect by abstracting reality
which was, previously, sensed.Abstraction led to monotheism, monothought, and coercion of the
mass by a few. So, abstraction, is the mother of all oligarchies
and, incidentally, of our present-day mono-"world", submersed into
unsolved problems, because these problems cannot be solved by
monotheists and "monocogitans" (monothinkers).The period of Akhenaton, 3300 years ago, is an absolutely crucial
period in the development of the psyche of mankind because, for
the first time, the Heart was replaced by the Intellect for political
purposes of general coercion. This danger was so well perceived
by the successors of Akhenaton, Horemheb, Sethi the 1rst and
Ramses II, that they erased Akhenaton out of existence and Egypt
reverted to ordinary polytheism and polythought. Strangely, 3300
years later, it is a half Egyptian who has to raise again so to
denounce the perversion of the distorted psyche of Akhenaton !Abstraction created monotheism and monothought which, in turn,
created a permanent intra-cerebral conflict in the brains of those
subjugated by monotheism. This permanent intra-cerebral conflict
thus created a state of permanent dissociation of the psyche, the
Heart becoming separated from the Intellect, that is a learned and
culturally transmitted psychopathology.This learned psychopathology is, for example, nowadays,
responsible for most of the so-called "mental diseases" such as
depressions and anxiety which arise from a culturally induced
deficit of Sociability.Deficit of Sociability leads to behavioural impairments because man
is, essentially, a highly sociable, promiscuous, species since millions
of years and not an asocial creature, as some ideologies - based on
hyper-individualism - try to convince us.Interestingly, the dissociation of the psyche is what gave
monotheists a slight advantage over more normal, non-dissociated,
polytheists !This is a very interesting observation because, ordinarily,
psychopathologies are psychotoxic and self eliminate. However, in
this case, the psychopathology was not severe enough to get
eliminated through the generations.We are, here, confronted with a case of creative psychopathology
for the very reason that intracerebral conflict led to increased CNS
metabolic activity of those individuals expressing this pathology.Increased metabolism is linked with increased intelligence while it
is, also, linked to psychomotor stereotypes, thus the appearance of
increased compulsive obsessional mental patterns in monotheists,
as a result of relative hyperdopaminergicity of the brain.This increase in base-line compulsive obsessionnal mental patterns
stimulated culturally psychopathologised individuals to develop
more abstractions, thus keeping the psychopathology in a stable
steady state instead of disappearing and, so, motivated
psychomotor action.The monocogitans european man went to the "conquest" of "the"
confabulated "world" as a result of its increased psychomotor
agitation due to inner suffering.So, interestingly, the domination of the planet by european
monotheists is a direct consequence of the dissociative
psychopathology which is the substrate of the psychomotor
agitation of Occidentals as compared to oriental polytheists who
remained "backwards" because they remained more
"serotoninergic" and, consequently, less psychomotorly agitated.Ultimately and very logically, the most dissociated Europeans (the
Protestants) achieved higher dissemination of the European culture,
becoming, also, and "naturally", the dominant force of agitation all
over our planet and, at the same time, the dominant force of
entropisation of both the noosphere and the biosphere.Abstraction led to the development of the intellect through the
stimulation of the left brain and "tyranny" of this hemi-brain on the
right brain which, in turn, led to constant psycho-affective
castration, due to lowering of natural Sociability.This lowering of Sociability led to increased levels of aggression,
thus promoting dissemination of the individuals suffering from this
psychopathology and this, of course, in a process of continuous
positive feedback cycle.Progressively, words tended to take a life of their own until that, in
advanced monotheistic societies, words replaced the reality of the
Heart.Words became, in these societies, the expression of reality while, in
fact, words originated because of dissociation !The elaboration of a reality made of words, these words becoming
obligatory intermediates and mediators - because of dissociation -
between the Intellect and endo and exorealities alienated
monotheists from their own Self, as compared to polytheists who
continued to remain non-differentiated in a sensing system made of
the Heart + Intellect.The dissociation between the Heart and the Intellect, in
monotheists, led to cultural hypertrophy of the left brain - as
already observed by my late colleague Dr. Henri Laborit - and this
hypertrophy led to the paradoxical development of rational
thought!So rational thought can be seen, historically, as developing from a
psychopathology, a most interesting discovery !!!As rational thought evolved from a psychopathology then,
obviously, rational thought contains psychopathologies and these
are invisible to those who were born and educated in monotheism,
the monocogitans.The author of these lines differentiates from monotheistic
Occidentals by the fact that, due to historical factors, he did not
dissociate into a separate Heart and Intellect because his
personality was created in the concrete world of non-abstractions.
This stems from the fact that this author did not enter in contact
with monotheistic, dissociated, monothought until he was 8 or 9
years old. So his mind stayed like the mind of ordinary polytheists,
which means a global, polythinking, mind characterised by the
absence of this pathological dissociation of monotheism.As this author was subsequently raised into a monotheistic
environment and, especially, an extreme monotheistic environment
(Protestantism), he could feel, since his childhood that something
was very abnormal in this environment but could, of course, not
express it in words until he was taught, at the school of
monotheists, how to express things in sequential lines of abstract
words.So what is invisible to those who have been educated, since their
childhood, in monotheism and monothought is very visible to a
person who was not submitted to this castrating "deculturation"
and deshumanisation.>From his point of view, then, any behaviour which stems from a
dissociative background cannot lead to a full understanding of real
phenomena.To put mankind back to the tracks of Reality the dissociation which
took place 3300 years ago should be processed, in monotheistic
societies, so progress and wisdom can illuminate, again, the future.
Processing, here, means full acknowledgment of the
psychopathology and consequent interruption of its cultural
transmission to new generations.To cure the ills that monotheists have created they have to ensure
that their children return to polythought normality through the
definitive erasure of learned dissociation.This means processing 3300 years of monocogitans culture!
-------------------------------
[The following was added on 15 January 2001]
-------------------------------A developmental unbalance between the abstract, "left brain", and
the concrete, "right brain", seems to be at the origin of the
development of Rationality, in our species, through a phenomenon
of perceptive distanciation which, in turn, creates abstraction and
blunting of affect, two necessary predispositions to the elaboration
of rationality.The language system of the left brain introduces a distanciation
with perception of exoreal spatiality,thus inducing the appearance
of an abstract world where the Beeing perceives himself as a
detached virtuality from the exogenous reality. Detached, here,
means that this virtual image of the Self is devoid of emotions and
evolve in an a-emotional reality which is distinct from the
emotional, ordinary, spatial reality.This system of distanciation introduces a novelty into the psyche of
man because he can, later on, see himself as an outside actor
instead of a connected participant. In this way,the psyche
dissociates through the construction of an abstract world which is
detached from the spatial experiences of concrete reality.The abstract world so starts to take a life of its own in the human
psyche.As long as this abstract world stays in biunivocal relationship with
the spatial, concrete, world, there is no unbalance of the psyche.
However, as soon as this abstract world, nourishing itself from its
own creations, takes the control over the spatially concrete world,
starts to exist possibilities of creation of learned psychopathologies
because the abstract world of the left brain will be able to oppose
itself to the spatial, concrete, world of the right brain and, in the
most extreme pathologies, deny this concrete world.When Man started to give more attention and importance to the
abstract constructions of his left brain, instead of relying on the
spatial and concrete constructions of his right brain, then he put
himself in potential or full-blown psychopathology because it is a
pathology (schizophrenia) to sense the world without emotions.There is a psychopathology as soon as the left, abstract, brain tries
to detach itself from the right, concrete, brain which is fully in
contact with both phylogenetical endo and exorealities. The right
brain has been, phylogenetically, structured so to always remain in
contact with social endo or exorealities through the expression of
emotions. However, the left brain can elaborate any abstract,
"fantasycal", structure and impose it to the right brain through
"rationality". This is often seen, for example, in some religions and
in mathematics or "physics" (quantum mechanics as seen by the
iconophobic Niels Bohr).The appearance of the left brain has given to Man the ability to
blunt his emotions, thus blunt his phylogenetically programmed
behavioural sociable reactions to others.This blunting of emotions is achieved through rationalisations and
distanciates the person from his actions. A familiar example is the
case of an Inquisitor persecuting his victim or of the pilot
bombarding a town inhabited by creatures similar to himself but
which he does not perceive anymore as creatures made of flesh
and emotions because they have been abstracted in his psyche.Stanley Milgram, in his famous and landmark study "Obedience to
Authority", has nicely demonstrated how abstracting reality could
give rise to potential monsters absolutely similar to those ordinary
Germans who participated in the destruction of the Jews.The work of Milgram is epoch making because it, clearly,
demonstrates that monstruous behaviours are deeply seated in
abstractions and express themselves only according to historical
circumstances.Thus the German who sends a Jew to his death, by a simple
signature on a paper, is no more different from the pilots and
butchers who threw a nuclear bomb on the heads of innocent
civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.The inhuman is inextricably linked to the abstract and can, so,
express anywhere, anytime, in societies which abstract the world.
Consequently, the more a Society relies on the abstract, instead of
the direct sense organs, and the more it evolves towards the
monstruous.In ordinary "primitive" societies, men cannot blunt their emotions
when confronted with the suffering of other men and this ensures a
feedback control of individuals over one another, like in other
animals, feedback which does not exist anymore in "modern"
societies, the very reason why a bureaucrat can decide the death of
hundreds or thousands of persons without any emotional response.Blunting of emotions, when confronted to a fellow human beeing, is
a learned psychopathology mediated through the left brain which
takes control of the phylogenetically vastly older right brain. In the
blunted affect, abstract structures of "rational" words inhibit the
normal emotions which should be present without these abstract
structures.The distanciation from emotions operated by the left brain can lead
to permanent psychoaffective dissociation, as it is observed in the
psyche of monotheists where abstract structures of words can,
effectively, blunt or suppress normal emotions in times where they
should be needed.Phylogenesis becomes partially obliterated in the psyche of
monotheists because abstract word structures can effectively
suppress emotions thus transforming men into potential, machine-
like, monsters because these men create a "rational" construction
of words in order to justify, in fact, the existence of their emotional
dissociation."I have to kill you because you are a Jew"; "I have to kill you
because you are an atheist", etc, all barbarian actions which are
justified in the left, hemi-mind, of the oppressors through rational
structures made of words. For example, in Germany, once it was
"rationally" established that Jews were infra-humans, then it was
no more a problem for ordinary Germans to execute Jews because
structures of words had, magically, transformed the Jews into non
humans. In our present-day, protestant-derived, mercantile
societies similar "rationality" is used to inflict violence on the
psyche of children who are exposed, from all sides, to intense
destructuring information through commercials. The Heart says
that such violence is a rape of the psyche but mercantile Rationality
says it is a "logical" necessity and, so, this necessity is inflicted on
hundreds of millions of children who are, daily, raped in their
psyche and, thus, prevented from developing normally according to
concrete spatiality. Mental coercion of hundreds of millions of
children is,thus,permitted because some arbitrary structures of
words allege that this is a rational behaviour. However,
fundamentally, both the physical killings of the Jews by the
Germans and the informational killings of children's psyche proceed
from isomorphic causes and rely on equally blunted or entirely
suppressed emotions.Can you imagine any sane mother forcing her child to watch
commercials all day because the rationality of mercantilism says
that children should be psychically raped in order to become
"consumers"? Can you imagine any sane mother giving up a child
to a Nazi because Nazi rationality says that if a child can be tagged
with the word "jew", then this child should be suppressed out from
existence?All these follies arose and, still, are going on because rational
structures of words, established in an hemi-brain, inhibit the normal
functioning of the other hemi-brain.When structures of words can suppress the expression of
phylogenesis so as to inflict pain or entropy on human beeings,
then these structures of words are pathological.In fact, Rationality could only arose from pathological minds
because it goes counter to the phylogenetic ordinary expression of
the Heart.This is the reason why we observe a long time lag between the
apparition of homo sapiens and the late apparition of Rationality
because, as long as man followed his heart, as would say my dear
P., then Rationality as it is conceived, nowadays, could not have
any chance to come into existence.A mother giving her child to an abstract structure stemming from a
rationalisation, such as "the defense of the nation" is behaving in
opposition with the logic of the right brain and if she can do so it is
because she is pathological, due to an unbalance between the right
and left hemi-brains.The blunting or suppression, of normally expressed emotions in
"primitive" societies, in the psyche of "non-primitive" monotheists,
is very similar to what we call negative schizophrenia in psychiatry.
So I termed this blunting of affect schizophrenia type II (see note).This lowering of emotional response is a *learned*, culturally
transmitted, psychopathology and this psychopathology self
reproduces through the unbalance of the left, abstract, brain over
the right, concrete, brain.Psychoaffectivity is strictly controlled by the left, abstract, brain in
judeo-christian monotheism and, in particular, in its protestant
variation where structures of words are trying to detach and
entirely dissociate themselves from the spatial, concrete, structures
of the right brain.This is a most preoccupying situation, as the structures of words
created by the left hemi-brain can not only suppress normal
emotions spatially generated but, also, give rise to cortico-limbic
hallucinations (emotional hallucinations) and these are
extraordinartily dangerous for Society. Cortico-limbic hallucinations
are very easily generated by words (yes,words can be
hallucinogenic)and they explain the historical appearance of mass
slaughter. They are widely and constantly used by politicians,
religious leaders, terrorists, or want-to-be manipulators as a means
of social control.The structures of words fabricated in the left hemi-brain, induce a
permanent neuronal conflict (intracerebral war) with the structures
elaborated in the right brain, conflict which ensures the stability of
the psychopathology."Modern", "logical", monotheists have great difficulties to conceive
psyche of "ancient", "non-logical" psyche like, for example, the
psyche of my forefathers the ancient Egyptians.How is it possible that "non-logical" psyche were able to construct
such monuments as pyramids without an elaborate sequential,
abstract, system of reasoning? However, these psyche were,
indeed, logical but not in a psychopathological, sequential and
abstract, mode.The logic of polytheists is a polylogic contrary to the monologic of
monotheist. Polylogic is constructed with the whole, integrated,
psyche as opposed to monologic which is constructed only with a
hemi-brain : the left, abstract, brain.Polylogicians use their whole senses in order to perceive and
construct both endo and exorealities while monologicians use only
an hemi-brain.Mathematics is the ultimate word structure of monologicians and
the very reason why, for example, such monologicians as quantum
mechanists have failed to produce a physical theory of the
microcosm.In the abstract microcosm of mathematicians any construction of
words can appear more real than the authentic spatial reality into
which we are embedded!This has given rise to many paradoxes which do not reflect
exoreality but, more correctly, the structural organisation of the
hemi-psyche of mathematicians.An example of structurally bizarre word construction is the creation
of the duality of waves and particles, a duality which can be
suppressed rather easily, at least in approximate terms, as shown
by a still obscure physicist, Ross Tessien, by using the spatial
polylogic of the right brain.As the term "hemi" implies such psyche are deficient as compared
to balanced psyche using, harmoniously, both the left and right
brains in mutual retrocontrol.Interestingly,it appears that Rationality arose from such a
deficiency as the left, sequential, brain having disconnected from
the right, had to relearn reality, from zero, and in its own image!Unbalancing the equilibrium existing between the left and right
brain gave rise to Rationality because, suddenly, the left brains
could not properly communicate anymore with their right brain
which did not need Rationality because it knew, thanks to
phylogenesis, all the way, what the left brain did not know!So the left brain started to reconstruct, but sequentially, the world
thus producing an artificial, distorted image of reality and of things
which were, already, fully known to the right brain(at least in
domains related to direct perception).There exists, in the psyche of monotheists, a permanent conflict or
realities, conflict betwen the abstract left structures and the
concrete, spatial, right structures.As, in final analysis, it is the right structures which have been
selected by phylogenesis in order to put central nervous systems in
biunivocal relationship with Reality, this permanent conflict can only
be pathological as the imaginary left word structures can become
entirely dissociated from the concrete, spatial, reality.What is a left hemi-brain if only a system creating imaginary,
abstract, structures which, when they try to control a behaviour,
become **ideologies** !The dominance of the left brain over the right brain is, thus, a
differentiating psychopathology because it, historically,
differentiated nervous systems into two different types:a) Normal central nervous systems where right and left hemi-brains
are in equilibriumb) Pathological central nervous systems where one of the hemi-
brain dominates over the other hemi-brainPolytheistic societies express the fundamental biological normality
of type a, as "opposed" to the biological abnormality of type b.Claude Rifat
------------------------------
Note:
However, this schizophrenia type II was not such a severe
pathology so as to disappear spontaneously. On the contrary,
schizophrenia type II was a creative psychopathology and gave to
those persons afflicted from it a slight advantage!This advantage manifested itself through an increase in
psychomotor activity, evidently mediated by relative
hyperdopaminergicity of the brain, and through an increase of
compulsive-obsessional behaviours.The psychomotor activity favoured both Rationality and expansion
of persons bearing this pathology while the compulsive-obsessional
behaviours favoured Rationality and sectarian rituals.This triggered a positive feedback in the brains of these persons,
thus favouring their dispersion all over the world.It is easy to see how the compulsive-obsessional dissection and
fragmentation of the previously spatially perceived and lived world
could give rise to the appearance of rational thought in man.-------------------------------
Claude Rifat
* http://www.dogandh.demon.co.uk/claude/ (From Dreams to
Consciousness, 1976-1998)KARL JASPERS FORUM FOR TARGET ARTICLES
The texts of the Forum are available from the table
of contents at the following web sitehttp://www.mcgill.ca/douglas/fdg/kjf
by hypertext transfer from the table of contents.Also available is a statement of purpose for
the Forumhttp://www.mcgill.ca/douglas/fdg/kjf/0-purpos.htm
and guidelines for contributors are at
http://www.mcgill.ca/douglas/fdg/kjf/0-KJINST.htm
Abbreviations and Conventions (recommended):
TA Target Article;
C Commentary;
R Response;
N Short Note;
Numbers in brackets refer to paragraphs :
square brackets [1] in articles and responses,
pointed brackets in commentaries and notes;
round brackets (1) point to the list of references.
Authors may use other formalities if they prefer;
in that case please define them at the beginning of
your text.All texts remain available for comments.
Please avoid ad hominem arguments and abusive
language in all communications.Participants receive weekly updates (no fees are
involved). For this and for all other
correspondence please address the editor,Herbert F J Muller
http://http://www.dogandh.demon.co.uk/claude/(FromDreamstoConsciousness,1976-1998)
| |
© Charles N. Pope, US Library of Congress. All rights reserved.