The End of Addiction: A Depth Psychological View of Alcoholism

The End of Addiction: A Depth Psychological View of Alcoholism by Brenton L. Delp Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology Pacifica Graduate Institute 25 March 2014 ii © 2014 Brenton L. Delp All rights reserved iii I certify that I have read this paper and that in my opinion it conforms to acceptable standards of scholarly presentation and is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a product for the degree of Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology. ____________________________________ C. D. Taylor, Ph.D., L.M.F.T. Faculty Advisor On behalf of the thesis committee, I accept this paper as partial fulfillment of the requirements for Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology. ____________________________________ Tina Panteleakos, Ph.D. Research Associate On behalf of the Counseling Psychology program, I accept this paper as partial fulfillment of the requirements for Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology. ____________________________________ Avrom Altman, M.A., L.M.F.T., L.P.C. Director of Research iv Abstract The End of Addiction: A Depth Psychological Approach to Alcoholism by Brenton L. Delp Many theoretical approaches to alcoholism consider this condition to be a disease, yet one of the best known methods of treatment for alcoholism, that of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), considers a higher power, or God, to be central in recovery from this affliction. The thesis of this work is to examine the phenomenological aspects of alcoholism through a historical analysis of the concept of disease, as well as its correlate, sin. It will also utilize the ancient notion of causality, as developed by the philosopher Aristotle, as a hermeneutic model of analysis for this elusive phenomenon. Continuing with this theme, I then examine the imago-Dei (“image of God”) as a historical phenomenon and hermeneutic means of interpreting not only the phenomenon of alcoholism but also the contents of the unconscious in general. v Acknowledgements I would like to thank Pacifica Graduate Institute for all its support and direction during my time there and extend personal appreciation to all the individual instructors in counseling psychology and to all my fellow alum of track D. I would also like to thank Patricia Sutton, my editor, and C. D. Taylor, my thesis advisor, for their suggestions and corrections toward greatly improving this thesis. vi Dedication I would like to thank my family, especially my mother, father, and two sisters, for putting up with me for all these years. I would also like to thank Bill Wilson and the founding members of Alcoholics Anonymous for giving us alcoholics the gift of hope. Table of Contents Chapter I Introduction ..................................................................................................1 Chapter II Literature Review.........................................................................................5 Alcoholics Anonymous and Depth Psychology .....................................................5 Bill Wilson’s Letter to Carl Jung .............................................................................5 Carl Jung’s Letter to Bill Wilson .............................................................................7 Chapter III A Brief History of Sin and Disease..............................................................9 The History of the Disease Model .........................................................................10 History of the Idea of Sin .......................................................................................13 Free Will, Sin, and Disease ....................................................................................17 Alcoholism: Disease or Sin? ..................................................................................21 Chapter IV Alcoholism and Aristotle’s Four Causes ...................................................26 Causa Efficiens ......................................................................................................29 Causa Materialis....................................................................................................31 Causa Formalis......................................................................................................33 Causa Finalis .........................................................................................................38 The Dark Side of God ................................................................................41 Fear of God ................................................................................................46 Mercurius as the Dark Light of Nature ......................................................52 Chapter V Conclusions ................................................................................................58 References ..........................................................................................................................63 Chapter I Introduction I beseech you, brethren, (ye know the house of Stephanas, that it is the first fruits of Achaia, and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints.) 1 Corinthians 16:15 (King James Version) The purpose of this thesis is to explore the phenomenon of alcoholism; I believe theory dominates this field of investigation at the expense of observation, therefore, prematurely prejudicing the different views of addiction and alcoholism. I propose the use of an ancient model of causality, with its four modes of expression as developed by the Greek philosopher Aristotle, as a hermeneutic model, attempting to better clarify this controversial subject’s elusive phenomenology. In doing so, I hope to show how the different theories of alcoholism reflect particular philosophical presumptions of causality: that these different perspectives are multiple expressions of a greater, more comprehensive whole. As the title of this thesis claims to be about the end of addiction, I also approach the exploration of the causa finalis (“final cause”) of addiction hermeneutically, that is, through the interpretive mode of the archetype, and in particular its teleological expression, which is how the Swiss psychologist and founder of analytic psychology, Carl Jung, approached the psyche and its transformative potential. In order to do this, I explore the idea of the God-image as fundamental to understanding, not only Jung’s theory of the psyche but also the nature and cause of alcoholism. There is a further question that must be considered: the idea of alcoholism as disease, as well as the need to compare and contrast this with its historical correlate, sin. 2 Why this paper is an examination of these two ideas and their influence on the different views of alcoholism is because I believe the depth psychological approach ultimately returns us to the older, more archaic meaning of the terms sin and disease. I also mention the fact that underlying this work is the metaquestion of how these ideas, theories of explanation, and psychological models of interpretation assist the therapist in his or her relationship with the alcoholic and, more generally, with the affliction of the soul, or afflictio animae, that affects the population at large in its various troubled guises and forms. There are two principles of methodology that guide this thesis; the first is the already mentioned hermeneutic method of analysis, and the other is the heuristic approach to research. This thesis is heuristic in its general development as articulated in the work of humanistic psychologist Clark Moustakas (1990), from his book The Process of Heuristic Research: Design, Methodology, and Applications. According to Moustakas, there are six phases to the heuristic approach, which briefly are as follows: The first is initial engagement with a topic, problem, or question, followed by an immersion in this clinical interest, which may engage the researcher whether waking, sleeping, or even dreaming. Phases 3 and 4 involve the incubation and illumination of this process whereby the individual’s research settles in the unconscious, retreating from conscious deliberation, eventually giving birth to new ideas, corrections in distorted thinking, and revealed understanding of hitherto hidden meanings. Finally, in Phases 5 and 6, is the actual written articulation, or explication, of the work and, hopefully, a creative synthesis revealing a mastery of the material under investigation, a culmination of unity that orders the investigated material into a meaningful whole (pp. 27-32). 3 My original vision of this thesis was simply the relationship between Alcoholics Anonymous and Jungian psychology, their similarities and differences as well as possible common historical influences. Eventually, it grew into a wider question of alcoholism as disease (reflection on the medical model) and its relation to alcoholism as sin or obsession of the mind (relation to archetypal self and the unconscious). As both Alcoholics Anonymous and Jung’s depth psychology deal with issues of God and the unconscious, I felt I needed an additional point of comparison, and differentiation, which the historical evolution of the God-image provided. As for the hermeneutic aspect of this paper, I realized that the thesis would require a means of interpretation that could provide some objectivity and historical perspective, while allowing the unconscious and my subjective experience an opportunity to reveal themselves in the guided themes and hoped for meaningful reflections, as well as provide a basis for continued exploration. Unfortunately, I can cover only the bare essentials of this method and its importance to the subject matter. As mentioned, I use Aristotle’s four causes, as well as Jung’s formulation of the archetype, to provide a historical and philosophical interpretive framework. The archetypal perspective is a hermeneutic tool used to interpret experience, but as the history of this idea shows, the idea connotes more than just perspective and does not lend itself to any simple definition. According to author, philosopher, and cultural historian Richard Tarnas (2006) in his book titled Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View, For our present purposes, we can define an archetype as a universal principle or force that affects—impels, structures, permeates—the human psyche and the world of human experience on many levels. One can think of them in mythic terms as gods and goddesses, in Platonic terms as transcendent first principles and numinous Ideas, or in Aristotelian terms as immanent universals and dynamic indwelling forms. One can approach them in a Kantian mode as a priori categories 4 of perception and cognition, in Schopenhauerian terms as the universal essences of life embodied in great works of art, or in the Nietzschean manner as primordial principles symbolizing basic cultural tendencies and modes of being. In the twentieth century context, one can conceive of them in Husserlian terms as essential structures of human experience, in Wittgensteinian terms as linguistic family resemblances linking disparate but overlapping particulars, in Whiteheadian terms as eternal objects and pure potentialities whose ingression informs the unfolding process of reality, or in Kuhnian terms as underlying paradigmatic structures that shape scientific understanding and research. Finally, with depth psychology, one can approach them in the Freudian mode as primordial instincts impelling and structuring biological and psychological processes, or in the Jungian manner as fundamental formal principles of the human psyche, universal expressions of a collective unconscious and, ultimately, of the unus mundus. (p. 84) I believe this thesis opens up and asks many more questions than it answers, but it will have succeeded if it provides a mode of investigation for further inquiry and a neutral platform for individual researchers to come together in a spirit of collaboration. As there are four modes of causality, each particular mode requires expertise in the specific way it looks at the world and its phenomenal expression. Chapter II Literature Review Our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize that we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Anonymous, 2001, p. 164 Alcoholics Anonymous and Depth Psychology Early in 1961, Bill Wilson, one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) wrote a letter of thanks and appreciation to Jung. It was a letter explaining Jung’s influence on the formation and foundation of Alcoholics Anonymous. I want to look at this letter, as well as Jung’s response, in that I believe Alcoholics Anonymous follows, for the most part, the traditional and orthodox perspectives of the Christian West. This is not a criticism of Alcoholics Anonymous but what, I think, is a misunderstanding of how Jung differs in viewpoint from not only mainstream Christian thinking but also with many in Alcoholics Anonymous and in the field of alcohol treatment in general. In this thesis, I want to demonstrate, through the writings and ideas of Jung, the alternate and profound vision he expressed concerning the psyche and its phenomenology, and, how this relates and affects the treatment of alcoholism specifically and therapy in general. I do not believe that Jung’s phenomenological views of the psyche are fully appreciated, or understood, in the overall exploration, assessment, and treatment of alcoholism. Bill Wilson’s Letter to Carl Jung As noted, the impetus for Wilson’s letter to Jung relates to the historical beginnings of Alcoholics Anonymous and Jung’s influence on this development. It began 6 when Jung treated a man named Rowland H. for alcoholism, which at first appeared promising. Wilson, as cited in the book Alcoholics Anonymous (Anonymous, 2001), related that after treatment, his physical and mental condition was unusually good. Above all, he believed he had acquired such a profound knowledge of the inner workings of his mind and its hidden springs that relapse was unthinkable. Nevertheless, he was drunk in a short time. (p. 26) After returning to Jung, Rowland begged the doctor to tell him the whole truth, and he got it. In the doctor’s judgment he was utterly hopeless. . . . “You have the mind of a chronic alcoholic. I have never seen one single case recover, where that state of mind existed to the extent that it does in you.” Our friend felt as though the gates of hell had closed on him with a clang. (pp. 26-27) The man asked Jung if there were no exceptions? “Yes,” replied the doctor, “there is. Exceptions to cases such as yours have been occurring since early times. Here and there, once in a while, alcoholics had what are called vital spiritual experiences. To me these occurrences are phenomena. They appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. . . . With many individuals the methods which I employed are successful, but I have never been successful with an alcoholic of your description.” (p. 27) The next link in the chain of events that was to establish Alcoholics Anonymous as it is today occurred when this man, Rowland H., was taken under the care of an organization called the Oxford Group. Wilson recalled in his letter to Jung the principles of its program and the fate of Rowland: You will remember their large emphasis upon the principles of self-survey, confession, restitution, and the giving of oneself in service to others. They strongly stressed meditation and prayer. In these surroundings, Rowland H. did find a conversion experience that released him for the time being from his compulsion to drink. (as cited in Barefoot’s World, 2001, para. 7) Those familiar with Alcoholics Anonymous will see in this simple summation from Wilson most of the spiritual principles found in their program of recovery from 7 alcohol. Rowland passed on his gift of recovery to another man, using these principles of the Oxford Group; his name was Edwin T. Edwin T. was to bring the message of recovery to Wilson, who recorded the events this way: Fortunately I had fallen under the care of a physician—a Dr. William D. Silkworth—who was wonderfully capable of understanding alcoholics. But just as you had given up on Rowland, so had he given me up. It was his theory that alcoholism had two components—an obsession that compelled the sufferer to drink against his will and interest [emphasis added], and some sort of metabolism difficulty which he then called an allergy. The alcoholic’s compulsion guaranteed that the alcoholic’s drinking would go on, and the allergy made sure that the sufferer would finally deteriorate, go insane, or die. (Wilson’s Letter, as cited in Barefoot’s World, 2001, para. 10) But upon seeing his friend Edwin, he noticed that he was in a very evident state of “release” which could by no means be accounted for by his mere association for a very short time with the Oxford Groups. Yet this obvious state of release, as distinguished from the usual depression, was tremendously convincing. Because he was a kindred sufferer, he could unquestionably communicate with me at great depth. I knew at once I must find an experience like his, or die. (Wilson’s Letter, as cited in Barefoot’s World, 2001, para. 11) Wilson reported that he too was to experience this release and said, “This book [William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience] gave me the realization that most conversion experiences, whatever their variety, do have a common denominator of ego collapse at depth” (Wilson’s Letter, as cited in Barefoot’s World, 2001, para. 14). Carl Jung’s Letter to Bill Wilson Jung’s reply to Wilson mentioned ideas that I explore in some depth in this paper. This first idea is contained in one statement that Jung made to Wilson: “You see, ‘alcohol’ in Latin is ‘spiritus’ and you use the same word for the highest religious experience as well as for the most depraving poison. The helpful formula therefore is: spiritus contra spiritum” (Jung’s Letter, as cited in Silkworth, 2014, para. 6). 8 Spiritus contra spiritum roughly translated could mean several slightly different ideas: against the spirit of the spirits, Spirits against the effects of the spirits, or a spiritual experience to counter the addiction to the spirits (alcoholism). The other statement of Jung’s to Wilson of particular interest to this paper was made in regard to the alcoholic: “His craving for alcohol was the equivalent, on a low level, of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness, expressed in medieval language: the union with God” (Jung’s Letter, as cited in Silkworth, 2014, para. 2). These spiritual experiences and the theoria used to contemplate, explain, and contain such experiences, are considered in detail with this paper. First, I must examine the history of the ideas of sin and disease, always keeping in mind that physician William D. Silkworth contended that alcoholism is, at its core, an “obsession that compels the sufferer to drink against their will and interest” and the experience of Wilson as to this phenomenon of “release” (as cited in Barefoot’s World, 2001, para. 10). Chapter III A Brief History of Sin and Disease Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place and governs the unwilling. And being restrained it by degrees becomes passive until it is only the shadow of desire. Blake, 1994, p. 2 It must be noted here that I am assuming a chronic and severe case of not only alcoholism but also the more general terms addiction, or chemical dependency. For a long time, alcoholism was considered a weakness of the soul or, more specifically, a weakness of one’s moral nature. The medical and treatment community had argued long and hard to get society to change their notion of alcoholism from moral weakness, or sin, to disease. Unfortunately, this was done, largely, by using a 19th-century model of disease, the community arguing from the premise that alcohol has a known cause and that this cause is presumed to be of a physical nature. According to author and therapist Richard Fields (2010), the American Medical Association declared alcoholism a disease on the basis of three criteria: (1) Alcoholism has a known etiology (cause), (2) the symptoms get worse over time, and (3) alcoholism has known outcomes. The outcomes of alcoholism are dependence, physical symptoms, and eventual death. For more than thirty years, research has indicated an increasingly strong case for a genetic component of alcoholism: this validates the disease model. The 12-step approach is based on the disease model. It has been described as an informal biopsychosocial spiritual model. The disease model assumes alcoholics/addicts were predisposed to addiction by genetically transmitted biological factors. (p. 30) In response to the mentioned quotation from Fields and the American Medical Association (AMA), I examine the history of the idea of disease and the underlying 10 worldview, or views, behind these differing notions of disease. This involves not only the differing definitions of disease but also what is called diseased, as it appears that this latter object of study is one of the factors that contribute to societies’ differing definitions of disease. Through these worldviews, I examine two fundamental perspectives that, I believe, are still influencing the notions of disease and the diseased. One would be the Judeo-Christian theological and mythological perspective and the other, the philosophical notions of the ancient Greeks. I explore, specifically, the Judeo-Christian perspectives of sin by examining the historical antecedents, as well as the theological context behind this idea, and compare and contrast this with ideas held about the origins of the world, as well as man and woman’s place in this world. The reason for this exploration is that, in my opinion, Alcoholics Anonymous’s program of recovery is based in Judeo-Christian precepts rather than in the contemporary disease model of addiction. I will be exploring how the notion of sin developed out of the ancient Jewish tradition and evolved through Christianity into new interpretations of the ancient Jewish mythologems (“a basic theme” in all cultures), such as the Fall in the Garden of Eden. In my opinion, there is a particular archetypal component that underlies the preconceptions and assumptions of both the disease concept of alcoholism, as well as the idea that alcoholism is an expression of sin and, more importantly, that both these ideas are ultimately inadequate when dealing with the unconscious phenomenon that underlies this particular condition of alcoholism. The History of the Disease Model According to philosopher Sir Henry Cohen (1955), The notion or concept (of disease) which it conveyed has varied with the ideas held about the nature of disease through the ages. The differentiation of disease as dis-ease, with its pain and suffering contrasted with health has been recognized from the earliest times, though its existence has been denied by the Stoics in 11 ancient times and, more recently, by quasi-religious cults. Primitive man was not deeply concerned with the nature or cause of disease. He sought its cure. And his purpose was not wholly selfish; sympathy for his fellows is revealed in his writings as one of the dominant human instincts. (p. 155) Taking a look at this notion of disease through the ages, specifically its Western formulation, it should be acknowledged that particular social or cultural factors influenced its origin and development and that this distinctly affects the notions and ways disease is imagined. Cohen (1955) mentioned, “The earliest views on the nature of disease, its cause and its cure by eradicating the cause stem from the fact that in the early history of mankind religion, philosophy, and medicine were a single discipline” (p. 156). Again, Cohen pointed out that due to this factor there “arose the most primitive concept of the nature and cause of disease, namely that it is due to the influence of evil spirits, a concept appropriately labeled demoniacal” (p. 156) and that “the idea of diseases as separate entities springs in part from this demoniacal concept and was fostered by the description of ‘diseases’ by the ancient writer” (p. 156). It will be shown that this idea and notion of “entity” influenced not only the concept of disease but also of sin and that although this idea is beginning to lose its importance in the modern notion of disease, at least in the physical sciences, it is of the utmost importance in the way depth psychotherapists imagine the idea of both sin and disease. The importance of this may not be apparent as theological terms and ideas are, for the most part, irrelevant in popular scientific research, except as maybe historical curiosities. However, for the therapist, this is not necessarily true of their clientele, for a relevant number of clients still find these theological explanations and concepts important: They influence the way they view the world, therefore, making it important to know what ideas the patients use and what underlies their understanding of the world and their place in it. 12 A second notion of disease can be found from the particular context of Greek philosophy, which did not have such a contaminated overlapping of separate disciplines, and as Cohen (1955) stated, The concept of disease as a deviation from the normal owes its birth to the abstract nature of Greek thought. For the Greeks, reason was the master. Observation of Nature was a low menial who could be disregarded if she contradicted the master. Indeed pervading the whole of Greek thought is the attempt to conceive Nature without an adequate knowledge of its parts; to generalize from inadequate particulars. (p. 157) Developing a more philosophical idea of disease, Cohen (1955) mentioned that “during the second and third centuries B.C., the teachings of Aristotle, and their emphasis on observing nature, were exerting greater influence, and with this arose the school of Empiricists” (p. 157); further, “the Empiricists observed the workings of Nature; unlike the Dogmatists, they did not aspire to unmask by reason the final cause of the things observed” (p. 157). This means that Aristotle, and his school, had difficulties with this underlying premise that truth could be revealed directly; rather, they thought it had to be looked for in nature. This problem of truth and the idea of an a priori world of form versus an empirical world without this distinction, or rather that this distinction is purely intellectual, proved to be a point of contention in the ancient world of philosophy (as shown in Aristotle’s later writings), as it still is today. As this thesis cannot be an exhaustive examination of the history of the idea of disease, but rather a brief perusal, I am going to move forward in time and look at the notions of disease as it came to be formulated in the 19th century. Cohen (1955) pointed out that “the significance of anatomy and physiology in medicine and in the interpretation of disease was but little appreciated before the nineteenth century” (p. 158); the shift in how philosophers imagined disease changed as the cosmological notions of the world 13 changed. Cohen said this development could be seen: “The emphasis which these works placed on the lever-like action of muscles and joints, and the analogy of the circulation with pumps, valves, and conduits led to the concept of medicine which treated the body as a machine” (p. 158). Cohen then went on to make the important distinction for contemporary medicine when he stated, The distinctive contribution of the nineteenth century, however, to the concept of disease was the recognition of its causes. Bacteria as the necessary and specific causes of such diseases as typhoid, tuberculosis, cholera, were unmasked; the significance of the endocrine imbalance, of nutritional deficiencies, of genetic influences was soon recognized; the part played by social, occupational, and economic factors, and the psychological contribution to the aetiology of disease were all made clearer. (p. 160) Cohen (1955) concluded his historical analysis by recognizing that “with this background we are in a position to appraise the present status of the two concepts of disease which we earlier recognized as pervading the history of medicine in the past 3,000 years” (p. 160) and that these two concepts still remain and function in the general understanding of scientific and medical research. The first is the entity model and, secondly, the “deviation from the normal” (p. 160). Cohen, after disregarding the first model, or the entity concept, made a bold assertion about this second model when he said, It is this concept which should dominate our teaching and our approach to medicine. In brief it may be stated thus: (a) disease indicates deviations from the normal—these are its symptoms and signs; (b) symptoms and signs are commonly found to recur in constant patterns; these are the “syndromes” or “symptomcomplexes.” (p. 160) History of the Idea of Sin I would like now, to turn toward the concept of sin and flesh out its basic definition from the ancient Jewish conception through the ancient and medieval notion of 14 certain Christian theologians. Again, this concept is important in that I argue that alcoholism reintroduces ideas of disease and sin that were current in the ancient world and that these conceptions are useful in the depth psychological approach to alcoholism. Perhaps the seeds of the Apostle Paul’s notion of the law of sin can be seen in the following ancient Jewish idea of sin, as cited by Jewish historian Justus Köberl: Man is responsible for sin because he is endowed with free will (“beḥirah”); yet he is by nature frail, and the tendency of the mind is to evil: “For the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gen. Viii. 21; Yoma 20a; Sanh. 105a). Therefore God in His mercy allowed man to repent and be forgiven. Jewish theologians are divided in regard to the cause of this so-called “original sin”; some teach that it was due to Adam’s yielding to temptation in eating of the forbidden fruit and has been inherited by his descendants; the majority, however, do not hold Adam responsible for the sins of mankind. (2002, para. 1) Contrast this with what would eventually dominate Christian theology, its development and evolution of Hellenistic influence on the originally Jewish conception of sin, coupled with new developments in the imago-Dei (“image of God”) as revealed in the increasingly theological emphasis on Christ and the devil. One formulation believed that Sin (1) originated with Satan; (2) entered the world through Adam; (3) was, and is, universal, Christ alone excepted; and (4) has no remedy but in the sacrificial death of Christ; availed by faith. Sin may be summarized as threefold: (1) an act, the violation of, or want of obedience to, the revealed will of God; (2) a state, absence of righteousness, and (3) a nature, enmity toward God. (Scofield, 1967, p. 1214) Although the theological background has shifted, which I believe to be the result of ongoing archetypal developments involving humankind’s relation to the divine figures within the psyche, it could also be argued that the change was also, in part, determined from the marriage of Jewish ideas with Greek philosophical thought. It still, however, appears that the essential notion of sin is still an act, nature, or state in violation of the divine will, as it was with the older Jewish conception. The theological shift might also 15 be seen as a response to many of the diverse theological, mythological, and philosophical systems emerging at the time. Author and scholar John N. D. Kelly, in his book Early Christian Doctrines (2000), summarized it this way: The formalized doctrine of original sin was first developed in the 2nd-century by Irenaeus, the Bishop of Lyons, in his struggle against Gnosticism. Irenaeus contrasted their doctrine with the view that the “fall” was a step in the wrong direction by Adam, with whom, Irenaeus believed, his descendants had some solidarity or identity. (p. 2) On the other hand, it appears that these so-called Gnostics or Gnostic Christians believed that Adam’s disobedience was to be the first step toward redemption of sin. Historical scholar of early Christian writings Willis Barnstone in his introduction to The Secret Book of John, as found within The Other Bible (1984), which contains many Gnostic writings, said that some Gnostics believed that sin and evil came about not through Adam and Eve’s original disobedience but through God’s very act of creation of the world and Adam, which he did with arrogance, vanity, and in ignorance. . . . They began the process of redemption through their first act of disobedience to the Creator God, by eating from the Tree of Gnosis (knowledge) also called the Tree of the Thought of Light. (p. 51) According to Kelly (2000), St. Augustine of Hippo, himself a former Manichaean Gnostic, “taught that Adam’s sin is transmitted by concupiscence, resulting in mankind becoming a mass damnata (mass of perdition, condemned crowd), with a much enfeebled though not destroyed, freedom of will” (p. 2). This situation is the result of two fundamentally different mythological and philosophical views of God, creation, and man. As will be shown, one view holds that darkness and evil, along with goodness and light, exist in God, the other, that evil and sin originated with man and the devil, that evil is merely the privation of good. 16 I now move the discussion from these somewhat general theological arguments on the origin of sin and evil to the more specific manifestation or phenomenological descriptions of sin. The specifics are important when comparing the ideas of disease and sin with alcoholism. As Augustine spoke of concupiscence, so the Apostle Paul (King James Version) spoke of a law of sin, where he said, I do not understand what I do. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I (Romans 7:15), now, then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing; for to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. (Romans 7:17-18) Paul recognized a freedom of will but also found “another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members” (Romans 7:23). Note that it is not only the law of sin that is at issue but also this unredeemed flesh or body that seems to be the abode or source producing this sinful and carnal mind. In this very important point of contention among early Christians, the Crucifixion and resurrection of Christ was supposed to redeem humanity’s fallen nature, although it could be argued that this did not work out, at least in the phenomenal world. Two theological or mythological motifs surrounding this dilemma began to take shape with one side in contentious and, eventual, violent opposition with the other. The orthodoxy claimed the initial victory by suppressing the ideas of the other, although the specific idea of the redemption of creation was to be taken up again in earnest during the Middle Ages, disguised in alchemical symbolism. Paul continued, O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (Romans 7:24), “for to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Romans 8:6-7). For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. (Romans 8:13) 17 The solution to this difficulty, for Paul, is found in Christ. This idea of Christ as God was archetypally and conceptually developing and evolving out of the original idea of a Jewish messiah. Compare this with what Paul said: But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you (Romans 8:11). For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:2) Finally, in his letter to the Galatians, Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ: Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20). Clearly, from these passages of Paul, both Christians and Gnostic Christians could see their own particular perspectives and theology expressed in the nascent ideas he presented. The reason for this, in my opinion, is that the opposites that are contained in the Godhead are just beginning the process of differentiation and separation. These ideas are also seen in the principles of the Oxford Group and the program of recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous, the idea of a higher power and turning one’s will over to this power. The archetypal configuration between Paul’s epistles and Alcoholics Anonymous’s steps of recovery are thus almost identical, at least in relation to a higher power. Free Will, Sin, and Disease I want to examine this idea of concupiscence, or law of sin, in more detail as I think this crucial to the exploration of the idea of disease and sin, in particular with the phenomenology of alcoholism; recalling the idea that it is both an obsession and compulsion, it is a true pathos and passio in the original sense of suffering as one is pitted against one’s own self-interest and volition: The conflict is within one’s mind, body, and soul. I use as a reference the medieval theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas (1952). It must 18 be noted that he was using the word passion in the sense of desire and not necessarily suffering: For this reason we observe that those who are in some kind of passion do not easily turn their imagination away from the object of their affection, the result being that the judgment of the reason often follows the passion of the sensitive appetite and consequently the will’s movement follows it also, since it has a natural inclination always to follow the judgment of the reason. (p. 145) In Aquinas’s philosophy, a clear distinction is being made between the passions of the sensitive appetite with reason and will, where reason and will are distinct volitional and rational powers of the soul. The problem, then, is between appetite and rational judgment; judgment being the prerogative of reason and volition and about what is good, whereas appetite is the source of compulsion and physical desire. Aquinas (1952) said, “Although the passion of the sensitive appetite is not the direct object of the will, yet it occasions a certain change in the judgment about the object of the will” (p. 145); further, The will is not directed save to the good or the apparent good. Now when a passion draws the will to that which is really good, it does not influence the reason against its knowledge; and when it draws it to that which is good apparently, but not really, it draws it to that which appears good to the reason. But what appears to the reason is in the knowledge of the reason. Therefore a passion never influences the reason against its knowledge. (p. 145) The discussion begins to move into the idea of being forced or persuaded to act against one’s volition or free will, which is important to recognize as a symptom in both mental illness in general and alcoholism in particular. To be moved against one’s will suggests that there is a second will or agent in the soul, not under the same authority. Just as with Paul, so this other agent was usually reduced or identified with the flesh, with the devil or some principle of evil—at least when it came to the cause of sin. Notice here that it is not necessarily moral weakness. The main reason, according to Catholic doctrine, and the impetus for the development of the privatio boni, or “privation of good,” is that 19 the cause of evil, and therefore sin, cannot come from God. (The main argument is that evil is the privation of good, but as with other themes previously seen, there is much more going on in the archetypal background. The context and impetus of this privatio boni is the argument for the essential goodness of God. God is posited to have created all things in existence, hence, the problem of evil. Since God created everything, and there is evil, the logical conclusion to such a premise is that God created evil. Therefore, one reason against this conclusion is to argue that evil is not really a substance, but merely the privation of the substance of good). It is fascinating to note, especially when trying to describe mental illness and alcoholism as disease, that even in the philosophical materialism of contemporary science is found this tendency to reduce everything to physical causality, unconsciously continuing, in part, the theological notion that all ills, sickness, and disease originate in the physical substrate, thereby demonstrating the argument that sin and disease have a common archetypal root. From the perspective of contemporary researchers, the human body would seem a very logical place to investigate, as 19th-century discoveries in medicine and disease had shown. However, there is one very interesting distinction between Paul’s notion of the law of sin and the modern theory of disease: where cure is to be sought or found. The idea in early Christianity, that all matter, or flesh, is cursed later changed to matter being the substance where cure or salvation is found, a development that finds expression in the alchemical or hermetic philosophers of the Middle Ages; the idea progressed, in hardly recognizable form, into contemporary scientific and medical philosophical premises. This problem produces a split in Western consciousness, in that, from a theological point of view, solution and cure are not sought in the body or physical matter; it is still sought in the 20 spiritual, or transpersonal, realm, whereas in science, the cure, understandably, is fundamentally sought for in matter. I realize this is a simplified picture of things, but I think it is more or less accurate. Both sides, I believe, have ample evidence to support their positions. In explaining the nature and cause of alcoholism, this unconscious rift becomes agonizingly apparent to those paying attention to the underlying, unconscious assumptions of both sides. The archetypal development is reflected in this eventual divergence and hostility between theology and science, each staking their claim to certain areas of experience and expertise, in which each gives the other no quarter. Aquinas (1952) continued, Since the object of the will is a good or an apparent good, it is never moved to an evil unless that which is not good appear good in some respect to the reason; so that the will would never tend to evil, unless there were ignorance or error in the reason. (p. 147) Finally, he drew the following conclusion: For the act is a sin in so far as it is voluntary, and under our control. Now a thing is said to be under our control through the reason and will. And therefore the more the reason and will do anything of their own accord, and not through the impulse of a passion, the more is it voluntary and under our control. In this respect passion diminishes sin, in so far as it diminishes its voluntariness. (p. 150) It seems reasonable to assume that through (or under) the influence of the spirit of alcohol, the will, as well as reason, is affected. Yet it is another thing altogether when the alcoholic, in a state of complete physical sobriety, decides to drink knowing full well the potential (or do they?) risks involved in having a drink. Here lies the crux of the problem, as will and reason are seemingly overridden by an appetite, or more generally, the unconscious, which includes the body and its appetites, overpowered even to the extent of madness and death. I believe the bias of the present age is one that attempts to reduce this madness or insanity to physical causality only, whereas the depth psychologists are 21 inclined to explore this dark unconscious region of the passions and how these affect the conscious intentions of its victims. I also believe that these passions form the basis or substance out of which treatment and future resolution are to be found. Alcoholism: Disease or Sin? As I previously mentioned, to present a clear idea of disease and alcoholism, particularly in terms of causality, it is important to state at the start what assumptions are involved in the definitions. I have tried to outline a historical progression of the idea of disease, as well as one working definition of disease, but there are, of course, others. I have also attempted to describe, historically, the idea of sin and its phenomenology, the reason for this, in my opinion, being to help grasp the psychological nature of alcoholism. Also, alcoholism tends to be seen in one or both of the aforementioned ways, that is, as the result of daemoniacal influences or a disease. This becomes especially important when discussing treatment approaches. I believe it important to mention my use of the word daemoniacal as opposed to demoniacal, as this latter word probably more than most is biased by age. Demonic is without exception equated with evil, daemoniacal causes one to pause due to its relation with the other Latin word daimon, with both latter terms used to described spirits of the natural world, not necessarily malevolent or malefic—as I am not trying to describe the alcoholic’s desire or concupiscence as evil, necessarily. The whole premise of this paper is containing, developing, or giving birth to the light and dark aspect of the godhead or self, which cannot be done while maintaining absolutes in the divine realm or collective unconscious: that is, if we force ourselves, prematurely, to make a choice between one part of God, or nature, from another, one acceptable and one unacceptable. 22 As an aside, and it is interesting to note, in some modern cinematic representations, modern vampires and zombies are sometimes referred to as disease, and the attempt is to isolate a cure for their eradication. I have found that most people will accept the fictional hypothesis that the living dead, or zombies, can be caused by a human-made virus or even something extraterrestrial, as long as it is physical. But almost no one I talk to is sympathetic to the idea of a metaphysical, or unnatural, origin to these demonic creatures; they reject the premise, for example, that when hell is full, the dead will roam the earth, which more closely resembles an archetypal explanation and therefore would appear more appropriate when dealing with mythological forms of expression. I mention this to show how deeply these philosophical biases, because archetypally rooted, penetrate even into popular culture, not just science and philosophy, but average everyday thought. I would argue that there are really only two general categories of disease: the physical and the psychological, reflecting a split in the collective consciousness of the researchers, which leads to a sort of phenomenological dualism, or in this age, a tendency to reduce the psychological phenomenology to some physical or physiological component. I find it difficult to fit alcoholism into either of these categories; to assume the notion of disease as an entity, a physical entity, then mental illness and alcoholism would not be included in the disease model, for although there are genetic correlations with alcoholism, no precise location in the body has yet to be found that would qualify as the entity, unless, of course, one is willing to discuss an incorporeal entity. If the premise is shifted to include criterion other than this such as the deviation from normality, then one can include in the disease model mental illness and perhaps alcoholism, although for 23 two different and distinct reasons. With mental illness, the deviation can be physical, for example, a biochemical imbalance, but also both mental and behavioral deviation. With alcoholism, it would seem that any deviation from normalcy would have to be almost entirely behavioral. I say almost because one could argue that the alcoholic’s reaction to alcohol is abnormal. That is, the reaction to alcohol deviates from the normal, although both physically and psychologically. It might also be argued that certain biochemical conditions or brain states suggest alcoholism. These conclusions are either highly speculative or a posterior, meaning that the changes or deviations are the direct result of the use of the substance, not an inherited condition or tendency. I am excluding, as I have mentioned, genetic components that do suggest an inherited condition that correlates with the manifestation of alcoholism; however, as yet, I am aware of no single genetic link for alcoholism such as that found in say Parkinson’s disease. If, however, research were able to discover the link, then treatment of alcoholism would probably resemble that of the treatment for Parkinson’s disease. I must disagree, at least in part, with the previously mentioned quote from the American Medical Association that argues a cause for alcoholism and in turn argue that alcoholism, in fact, does not have a single known cause. The fact that research tends to support is not material evidence for physical causality; it is correlative, which is, of course, not causality as I understand it. I am, in this case, using material evidence as criterion because the contention is that the cause is material; therefore, evidence has to be material, not statistical or derived deductively, such as, for example, studies on family history. I do agree with the authors when they say the symptoms get worse over time. I believe, however, an alternative explanation could be used to describe these symptoms as 24 side effects of the drugs, or medications, taken. If an individual is taking an antidepressant, antianxiety, or antipsychotic medication and he begins to develop serious side effects from the drug over time, would the American Medical Association and others in the medical community consider his mind or body diseased as a result of the medication? The medical practitioner might, however, describe this as poisoning through excessive toxicity. One assumes that the individual is developing adverse reactions to the medication; therefore, cannot massive amounts of alcohol taken in ever-increasing amounts over time be seen in a similar way? Jungian analyst Luigi Zoja (2000) in his book Drugs, Addiction and Initiation: The Modern Search for Ritual argued the point this way: Despite all attempts made to ritualize the use of drugs, there are two errors which are committed in turning to these substances—naiveté and shortsightedness. Not only are the toxicological obstacles insufficiently taken into account, but the corresponding cultural and psychological obstacles are underestimated. The body reacts by showing signs of poisoning, and, since it is not capable of integrating the experience, so does the psyche. (p. 59) It should also be clear that the disease model had little, if any, influence on the initial conception of Alcoholics Anonymous, unless the definition included the idea of disease as metaphor. Although the reverse could be argued, that Alcoholics Anonymous had an effect on the medical model of alcoholism, I do believe that the disease model has been adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous over time but that it is used more anthropomorphically or metaphorically than medically. In my opinion, this is because the solution to alcoholism, as found in the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous, addressed the problem mainly as an “obsession of the mind” or “spiritual malady” and that the power of God, as “the alcoholic understands God” (Anonymous, 2001, pp. 12, 23), is used against this power behind the obsession, which is all predicated, of course, on the 25 assumption that the alcoholic has achieved a level of physical sobriety. This becomes the essential question and topic in the final chapter on the causes of addiction. I also believe the antiquated model of sin to be useful in this discussion, although in the Pauline sense and not as one of moral weakness or degradation. The idea, however, of deviation from the will of God or enmity with God can be interesting as well if, instead of the word God, the phrase “the unconscious” is used, or the idea of an archetypal imaginalis, that is, a realm of the imagination where divine transpersonal forces are at work within the interior of the psyche—what the Gnostics sometimes referred to as the pleroma. In recognizing that the unconscious is nature, one can then see that to deviate from one’s own nature is one form of expression of the ancient and medieval notion of sin. I also believe it of extreme importance, and that this discussion would be better served, to think of causality as Aristotle did, in its four aspects: material, formal, efficient, and final. Chapter IV Alcoholism and Aristotle’s Four Causes Woe unto you that desire the day of the lord! To what end is it for you? The day of the lord is darkness, and not light. Amos 5:18 A further exploration of the phenomenological expression of alcoholism is through the lens of the philosophical idea of causality, in particular, the notion of the four causes as Aristotle originally developed the idea. I use Aristotle’s notion of causality as I believe it will further facilitate the hermeneutic approach to the phenomenon of alcoholism. By hermeneutic, I am talking about perspective, as well as a form of amplification, or circumambulation, of the unconscious imagery and numinous dynamism that accompanies this archetypal experience. According to Jung, as cited in Jungian analyst Edward Edinger’s book, The New God-Image (1996), the “archetype is not just the formal condition for mythological statements but an overwhelming force comparable to nothing I know” (p. 130). As phenomena are often complex and varied, it is important to have a theoretical foundation that allows for the exploration of these facts of experience as viewed from multiple angles. As psychologist James Hillman wrote in his book Emotion (1964), Amplification includes statements of facts and statements of essences. It is empirical and scientific in being open to all sorts of evidence. It is objective in that it does not restrict meaning to a system of private conventions set up by any one school of thought. And it is phenomenological as it allows the phenomenon under scrutiny to have its full say. (p. 16) 27 This suggests that inquiry should delve into some background material, which is important in terms of staying true to the hermeneutic method as it allows the images, symbols, symptoms, and whatever else is found to have full exposure in the matter, without unnecessarily covering it over with theories of explanations. Full exposure can be achieved, for example, by recalling Aquinas’s philosophical notion of the appetite, as I believe alcoholism to contain within its phenomenology this function of appetite. This is not to reduce alcoholism to appetite but rather to begin an exploration and examination of this area of experience from one of alcoholism’s modes of expression. It also provides an opportunity to witness how other ages have attempted to explain, as well as view, human experience. As Hillman (1964) pointed out, “The historical method provides us with a way of reviewing the phenomenology of theories as they appear through time” (p. 17). In comparing and evaluating the ancient and medieval minds, Aristotle’s idea of causality, as well as looking at the phenomenon of alcoholism through the lens of modern depth psychology, will show the resemblance to a criterion that Hillman (1964) mentioned in his work relating to these four causes, in that “this method fulfills our requirements of a special method of types which can embrace disparate kinds of explanation, integrating them into one because this one forms a coherent system covering all the possibilities in the field” (p. 19). Let me explain further my reasons for using Aristotle’s notion of causality. Hillman (1964) explained that “these four causes—Formal, Efficient, Final and Material—are irreducible to each other. Thus they are each necessary to satisfy the question ‘why’” (p. 20). Further, They complete each other and are mutually interdependent for meaning. Together they form a complex through which each gathers its meaning. Each stands to the 28 whole as an aspect of that whole. Each is a phenomenological appearance of the whole, not a mere part of it. They do not make up a whole as simples form a collection, but rather each is the whole seen from one side. (p. 21) Hillman asserted, “The method must do more than combine; it must integrate” (p. 246). So here is seen the purpose and benefit of such an approach. It is difficult enough just to sift through all the available information, data, and opinions on these topics, but it is another thing altogether to try and reduce to order all this varied material. But order cannot be induced arbitrarily; a starting point is needed, a point that resonates with meaning as well as understanding. However, Aristotle himself said that people demand that a reason shall be given for everything: for they seek a starting-point, and they seek to get this by demonstration. . . . But their mistake is what we have stated it to be; they seek a reason for things for which no reason can be given; for the starting-point of demonstration is not demonstration. (As cited in Hillman, 1964, p. 246) It may still seem strange and unnecessary, but the benefit of using the model of causality is the proper function of Logos, in the traditional and classic sense. Not only is it in the sense of reducing chaos to order, but it is also in allowing the expression of the “thing” to reveal itself, the setting up of a formal structure that permits the phenomenon a voice, or means to be heard. Hillman (1964) expressed this when he said, We do not need to force one set of categories into the other. Our categories, to say it again, are not extracted from the theories themselves; they are taken over from our model. But they are taken over consciously from antiquity in the light of modern depth psychology, and so they are not modern substitutes or disguises for some half-conscious and ancient model of thinking. (p. 248) So let me ask again, what is the importance of seeking a cause? As Hillman (1964) stated it, “Cause” gives the answer to the question “why”. It provides explanation. This, the broadest use of the term, is analogous to aitia, ratio, Gund, or “reason”. It is generic and goes beyond the specific problems of causality as cause-and-effect. 29 These problems do not belong to the concept “cause” as such, but to one of its specifications, the causa efficiens. (p. 249) So exactly what is meant by cause, and specifically what is meant by each cause? As previously mentioned, the main purpose of this inquiry is to ask the question why, and each cause contributes, or reflects, an answer to this theme. Causa Efficiens I begin this inquiry with what we usually think of today as cause and effect by examining the causa efficiens, the efficient cause, or as Hillman (1964) put it, “What initiated a motion” (p. 250). Unlike the contemporary misconception, or more limited conception of cause then effect, Hillman recognized that the efficient cause is not separate, neither in time nor in space, from the event of which it is an aspect. We do not take cause-and-effect as two distinct events, but as related aspects of the same event. This qualification is important. Without it, that is if we stick within the traditional cause-and effect limitations of efficient cause, we are led to a mechanical and isolated view of the human person. (p. 251) This isolation of particular elements of the causal explanation demonstrates, to a certain extent, why current Western scientific notions often focus on the physical materialism of events taken out of context from their more complex whole. To speak of what initiated the motion is to imply that something is in motion, not in a strictly physical sense but in a more general sense of action, or actuality, the sense of becoming. The efficient cause in alcoholism, I would argue, is alcohol itself, as that which initiated the motion: Therefore, different substances are different specific efficient causes. This would mean that although there are many similarities with alcoholism and cocaine addiction, for instance, there is still a distinct difference in one of its causes. One societal reaction, for example, to the efficient cause is the so-called just-say-no approach, which attempts to preempt the process of addiction by persuading individuals not to experiment 30 with alcohol (as well as drugs). This reaction at least recognizes the powerful forces behind the efficient cause. One theory that could fall under both the efficient cause and the formal is the way Jungian analyst and author David E. Schoen presented his theory on addiction, and this, from his book The War of the Gods in Addiction (2009), would more properly fall under the formal cause, but I think it is also relevant and interesting if looked at from this notion of efficient cause. It must first be explained that for ancient men and women, these powerful intoxicating substances were apprehended as spirits, as mentioned by Jung in his letter to Wilson (as cited in Silkworth, 2014). In addition, each intoxicating substance had its own particular spirit. For instance, alcohol would have a spirit distinct and different from, say, the spirit of the coca plant. Schoen (2009) believed that there is a spiritual evil in addiction, what he called archetypal evil, and that there is a permanent hijacking of the entire psychic system; the normal ego complex and all its functions are as if put under a powerful diabolical spell that suspends and paralyzes them—the whole kingdom and everything in it. The addiction then replaces the old system with an entire ruling ego system equipped to perceive, judge, and act in a skilled, adaptive, and self-serving a way as the originally functioning, normal ego complex system. (p. 41) Although Schoen theorized from a traditional psychoanalytic and Jungian perspective, I believe there are also hints at the old idea that these intoxicating substances had their own spiritual agency and have, in fact, taken over possession of the individual under its intoxicating effects, much like the witch or sorcerer who places the innocent victim under a curse or spell. In Schoen’s (2009) premise of absolute evil is the idea of “unintegratable” (p. 61) darkness in the world that cannot be redeemed. As an example of confusing the traditional Christian theological notion of evil and Jung’s position on the subject, Schoen interpreted Jung’s reference to evil in the letter to Wilson by saying that 31 Jung is suggesting here an ultimate archetypal battle of the powers of good and evil for the souls of human beings. He is positing, I believe, in these final days of his life, powerful archetypal transpersonal realms of spiritual darkness, evil and destruction, pitted against the spiritual powers of light and good and healing transformation. (p. 25) In my opinion, he accurately reflected the idea that “in Judeo-Christian myth, evil in the universe derives from two basic sources, one divine (archetypal), and one human (mortal)” (Schoen, 2009, p. 52). However, I believe he missed the theme as to the other side of Christianity, its dark medieval sister as represented by the hermetic philosophers who did not necessarily depict darkness as opposed to good or the light, as in orthodox Christianity’s dualistic conception of the imago-Dei. Rather, hermetic philosophers attempted to free the divine darkness and reunite it with its other, light half. Absolute or archetypal evil is apparently the natural result of the attempt to develop, or create, in the Godhead, an absolute or archetypal good, a summum bonum. In response to Jungian analyst Lionel Corbett’s explanation for evil, Schoen replied, “Perhaps Corbett might argue that it is the positive light side of the Self archetype that ultimately destroys, neutralizes, or redeems the negative dark side of the Self” (p. 56). Is it destroy, neutralize, or redeem? That is the crucial distinction to be made, which I shall be addressing in the last section on the causa finalis. Causa Materialis Next, I explore the idea of material causality, or the causa materialis. Hillman (1964) said material causality asks, “What is the nature, the stuff” (p. 258); he further stated, “The material cause, by dictionary definition (OED) is ‘that of which something consists or out of which it is developed’” (p. 258). Because of the limitations of space, I cannot cover as many of the nuances as I would like of each particular definition of 32 substance and matter. For example, what is meant by these terms and by the details involving the diversity, development, and complexity of a concept such as matter and material substrate? However, examining the history of science, and particularly philosophy, shows that the idea of matter has taken many forms and has come to mean different things to different thinkers as well as to different cultures throughout history. For example, as Hillman (1964) maintained, “A foremost distinction must be made at the outset: the concept of matter, like that of the material cause, is relative” (p. 259); “matter is an abstract principle, as materia prima and materia secunda,” but it can also mean “chaos, associations with the feminine, and therefore, the mother of all things, a passive and suffering principle”; “matter is res extensa and it is building stuff. It is inertia, it is energy, and it is a field of force” (p. 260). Each one of these definitions of matter has its historical context in addition to its particular philosophical, psychological, and mythological expressions. I must be content to let each statement stand for itself and realize that when talking of matter, whether consciously or unconsciously, one of these meanings inhere to it as principle or as an archetypal idea a priori. They are eternal ideas that happen to the mind, or condition the mind. These are the building blocks for what is to be developed conceptually and consciously out of the anima rationalis, or rational soul. According to the idea of material causality, when examining alcoholism, what must be asked before why. What, is the causal principle that considers the biochemical and genetic aspects of the disease, the physiological basis of addiction. Thinking hypothetically, I would argue that alcoholism is first an expression of appetite, an impulse, passion, instinctual desire, or an “obsession that compels” the alcoholic against 33 their interest and will. What if desire is the material cause of alcoholism? Not all humans desire the effect produced by alcohol, but by definition, all alcoholics desire this effect. As the material basis of alcoholism, this appetite, its satisfaction or release, is the stuff, or substance, out of which the condition of alcoholism is born; that is, this desire or compulsion is an expression of a material being, a living substance, or using the words of St. Paul, the deeds of the flesh. Desire is the psychic expression of a genetic or biochemical component manifested as this material basis. It can also be argued that this is the central problem for alcoholics: the inability to deny this desire, for the continued use of the substance creates potentially tragic consequences. I contend that current and contemporary scientific materialism can see alcoholism only from the material and efficient notions of causality that, as will be shown, is a serious limitation, not only in the formulation and conceptualization of alcoholism proper but also in the prescription of treatment. Causa Formalis Now, as to the causal principle of form, the causa formalis, the discussion moves beyond the contemporary philosophical assumptions and prejudices of scientific materialism with its hidden, and not so hidden, atheistic assumptions into the perspectives and prejudices of past ages. It is important to acknowledge this temporal distinction in order to better understand Aristotle’s idea of form as Hillman (1964) related: Matter and form are correlates. For Aristotle, form is “prior to matter and more real”. “For the form, or the thing as having form, should be said to be the thing, but the material element by itself must never be said to be so” (as cited in p. 266) More specifically, it is the search for “pattern and quality” (p. 267). As Hillman stated, These explanations answer the question “why”, neither in terms of stimulus cause nor substantial basis, but rather in terms of the essential quality in which it 34 defines, differentiating it from all other events. The search is for that which makes a thing what it is and not some other thing. This essence is “. . . something besides the concrete thing, viz. the shape or form.” (p. 267) This last idea, identifying form with shape, can be somewhat misleading as philosophers have argued that form is more than “shape,” that a things quiddity, or essence, cannot be grasped exclusively by sense perception and reason but rather must be intuited directly. Therefore, the terms quality and pattern denote a more elusive meaning of the term form, as with depth psychology and the use of the word image. Image is more than a pictorial representation of a “thing”; it can also present as circumstance, or situation, or reflect some kind of feeling or emotion. Aquinas (1952) said, “Some inclination follows every form” (p. 427), in reference to the powers of the soul; that is, it is form that gives impetus to action. One obvious difference in regard to contemporary perspectives on the formal cause is that the ancients considered essence and form more real than the phenomenal world, whereas today not only is the physical world considered more real, but it is also generally argued that it is reality, as hints of the evolution of this philosophical notion have already shown. In my opinion, material causality fails to make a meaningful distinction in terms of the many so-called addictions, for example, alcoholism as opposed to a gambling addiction. From a physiological or biochemical perspective, one cannot, I believe, derive the subjective experience of addiction (e.g., gambling, narcotic, sexual, etc.) from the biochemical brain state of the addict, as both are sui generis, or irreducible, one from the other. This remains, however, a main avenue of research in contemporary science, although I would argue, on philosophical grounds, that this thesis is untenable and would therefore be impossible to demonstrate. In referring to research in general, if only one 35 avenue of research is undertaken, it should not be surprising if evidence is found for that perspective only. Likewise, it should not be surprising if evidence for other perspectives is not found, since an alternative explanation is not sought; therefore, how could it be found. In science, believing (or faith) has as much to do with what one sees as the converse, deriving what one believes from what they see; in my opinion, belief shapes and conditions the vision, or lens, through which one is looking. Other, different theories of addiction fall under the category of the formal cause. Let me begin with Hillman (1963) in his foreword to The Cocaine Papers by the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, where he explained, Freud’s experiments with cocaine belong within a tradition. Creative minds have often been drawn in this direction. Many poets, painters and musicians took drugs, to say nothing of alcohol. . . . Today, orthodox psychiatry and the avantgarde seem agreed that psychopharmacology is that field offering the most promise for our troubled minds. It has been proposed that the new drugs may not only be used for treating and curing “mental illness”, but that these phantastica may be able to revivify our civilization and its discontents by bringing us back to religious delight. (p. vi) Hillman (1963) continued, This pattern in traditional symbolism is represented as the “healing elixir” or “herb of immortality”, brought back from a remote land, bearing an alien name, processed in a special way, distributed ritualistically, and potent even in minute quantities. Its negative effects can be toxic especially when ingested by those not right or ripe for it. Its positive effects include healing, rejuvenation and liberation. These ideas, carried by myth and ceremony, are so universal that we must consider the probability that we are being confronted with an archetypal phenomenon. (p. vi) This explanation points toward more than just a biochemical reaction of stimulus and subject. The focus of attention is now placed upon a psychological foundation, such that psyche is a formal, as opposed to material, substance and that the idea, or archetype, of healing and rejuvenation affects psyche, even drives or compels psyche to pursue an as 36 yet unattainable experience. Zoja (2000) went into more specifics on this theme by relating the cycle and process of addiction with the death and rebirth ritual, as well as the idea of initiation, that each alcoholic and addict goes through. He related the individual’s experience with drugs and alcohol with the greater societal or cultural patterns out of which the individual develops, and stated that death and initiation are archetypally related terms. Not only has death and initiation both been repressed, but they belong to the same area of repression. It is in the world of drugs that the theme of death is continually activated. (p. 58) Further, “When one’s family values, affections and ideals are all dead, then one searches for a life experience worthy of that name, even if it is a question of a purely subjective experienced shared by a restricted few” (p. 58). Finally, Zoja (2000) noted, We can see in the hangover a process of correction, both physical and psychological. The artificial excess of youthful vitality is transformed into heaviness, into a saturnine experience in which one’s limbs seem leaden and one’s thoughts gloomy, a sort of precocious senility. . . . At first glance, the painful hangover seems a state of deathly emptiness, while drunkenness one of lively fullness. We justify many creative people’s tendency to drink or take drugs in terms of their intense vitality—the artist is closer to the deepest roots of life, and drunkenness is an outlet for his almost constantly overflowing stream of libido, since this very libido searches out for suprapersonal expression and is not content with being confined to ordinary experiences. In truth, the artist is closer to the deepest roots of life and of death. For this reason he is drawn both to drunkenness and to the emptiness of the next day, which are, respectively, an archetypal summary and metaphorical expression of life and death. (p. 69) It might be argued that the libido Zoja is referring to, this substance induced libido, is in the end life destroying, whereas it began as life embracing and creating. If I may refer back to an earlier argument on the passions and its compulsive influence on the psyche, it might be argued that these instinctual phenomena can occasion a certain change in the will; it might be wise to consider anew this power of the passions now that another level, 37 or mode of analysis, has been introduced into the discussion. As has been shown, in the Christian Middle Ages, sin, as well as evil, was often equated or associated generally with the fallen nature of the physical world, and the feminine was often the symbolic representative of the sexual drive and concupiscence in general. I am far from arguing for a return to the time when alcoholism was considered an act of sin and moral degradation, as I believe I have sufficiently explained. Rather, I am merely exploring the relation between choice and the involuntary compulsion and self-destruction apparent in alcoholism and the deeply felt images these passionate desires evoke, or are evoked by. Therefore, in talking about a certain involuntariness, I would like to explore a little deeper the source, or cause, of this compulsion from the perspective of depth psychology and to think of the passions, at least in their destructive expression, as the flesh, or the body, and its deeds—but further, that it does not have to be limited to this, as the cravings are more than just a natural inclination to something physical. Another expression might be an overwhelming longing or perhaps, as was mentioned, a daemonic force of some kind, manifesting as an irresistible compulsion more powerful than human reason and will. I believe that imagining this desire as a longing for the hidden feminine, or a reaction to the dark side of God attempting to incarnate in contemporary man and woman, as not only hermeneutically useful but also historically and, therefore, psychologically justified. In terms of Zoja’s (2000) idea of the libido’s longing for suprapersonal expression, I find that author and astrologer Liz Greene (2000), in her book The Astrological Neptune and the Quest for Redemption, drew these themes together as she related, “The hallmarks of the longing for redemption are, first, that it is a longing, 38 second, that it is compulsive and absolute, and often collides violently with individual values; and third, that its goal is not relationship, but rather, dissolution” (p. xi). Greene (2000) described this compulsive longing, which also describes the alcoholic’s irrational behavior, or this phenomenon of craving, in depth psychological terms when she stated that it is not the stern morality of the inner censor which impels us to generate transcendent images of redemption. It is the unconscious psyche itself, which seeks to transform its own compulsive and doomed instinctuality through the mediating influence of the symbols which it creates. In other words, what we call God is really Nature, the chthonic nature described by Freud’s id, seeking freedom from its own death-shadowed inertia through evolution not only of form, as Darwin would have it, but of expression and of consciousness. And the instrument of this transformation is that eternally elusive faculty which we call the imagination. (p. xii) It could be argued that Greene’s description of Neptune’s longing for redemption also describes the alcoholics longing for the death experience, the dissolution of tension, or the powerfully numinous effect produced by the substance alcohol; perhaps another way of articulating this idea from the point of view of formal cause would be to say that alcoholics have Neptune influencing their lives. Greene (2000) described this redemptive state, comparable to both the astrological effects of Neptune as well as the alcoholic experience, in that “Neptune symbolizes a longing and a predilection for emotional and imaginal experience of a peculiarly primal and therefore ‘otherworldly’ kind” (p. 163). These astrological ideas of Greene lead the discussion into the final cause for alcoholism, its teleos, or the ends to addiction. Causa Finalis This section represents the culmination of this thesis. I must admit that the unconscious played a large role in the organization and presentation of the material in this 39 section. I believe that everything in the previous sections provided the raw material for the unconscious to work on, that I became merely the instrument of something nobler and more comprehensive that sought to express itself through the ideas found in these pages. In my opinion, the unconscious is capable of greater depth and vision than the powers of the intellect, and the symbols and images themselves worked out and generated a momentary solution to the ideas presented here. I believe this something was able to tie all the previous loose threads of argument into a complete whole starting with what Aristotle called the causa finalis, or final cause, that is, the teleological expression of causality. Final cause is what determines movement from potential to actuality, or a thing becoming what it was meant to become. Aristotle argued that if a thing undergoes a continuous change and there is a stage which is last, this stage is the end: It is that for the sake of which a thing exists, or the achievement of the event (as cited in Hillman, 1964, p. 277). Hillman, while discussing the concept of emotion, made a statement about the final cause that I believe to be important in the general analysis of psychological causality: “Transformation is the wider concept; the changes aspects of it. The changes in conscious representation; in direction and intensity of energy and in the soul’s partial activities are all aspects of the transformation going on” (p. 279). Transformations are assumed aspects of psychic change and an important point to acknowledge in attempting to describe the alcoholic condition, its representation, contemporary cultural presentation, the spontaneous dynamic imagery of the unconscious, as well as the causal conditioning influence on consciousness, again using the mentioned heuristic concepts of causality to gain a fuller, more comprehensive realization of this process. In my opinion, the depth psychologist is uniquely suited to answer the question of finality, or at least provide the 40 most relevant material for further discussion, by first and foremost recognizing the reality of the unconscious, as this is a necessary prerequisite for understanding the formal and, more importantly, final cause of addiction, both individually and collectively. The final cause is the formation, development, and elaboration of century-long processes deep within the unknown regions of the human psyche. This is why it is important to analyze multiple perspectives, for if consideration is given only to the individual and his or her own personal history, the discussion will remain on a naive level, ignorant of the greater factors at play in any psychopathological condition or syndrome. We will never grasp the more comprehensive whole out of which these particular conditions are born. Each individual man and woman is the manifestation of century-old developments, mere temporal instances in the history of collective conditions and forces, which will continue long after the individuals have passed. In order to grasp the final cause, that is, the teleological expression of a symptom’s unique manifestation, the discussion must first grasp the realities of the archetypal psyche, the transpersonal forces that underlie and condition the personal conscious situation. In addressing the final cause in alcoholism, I believe it essential to deal with what may be considered the central symbol of the unconscious, the imago-Dei, particularly the dark feminine side of this image. The discussion of this image and its phenomena will lead naturally, I believe, into an analysis of the psychotherapeutic integration of the contents of this primary collective dominant. There are two problems that this investigation faces in regard to the image of God; the first is that this phenomenon has apparently been explained away, whereas the second point of view holds that the image is real, in an archetypal sense, but is split into a 41 light and a dark half—that, at least, is the view from the Westerner’s position, and the discussion will continue from this relative cultural perspective. Edinger (1996) explained it this way, The metaphysical world is understood as the projection of human psychology, so that the whole transpersonal dimension that used to be experienced as part of the realm of the gods is explained away euhemeristically. It is the common modern viewpoint. According to this description then, the ego outgrows the gods. The result is that it is left in a dissociated state, because it is cut off from the transpersonal dimension out of which it came. Since a dissociated state is not satisfactory, Jung goes on to speak of the other way of looking at it: from the standpoint of the archetype. From that standpoint the evolution of the god image is thought of as a dynamic process of development in the archetype itself. It does not just reflect the development of human consciousness but is an image of its own inner evolution. (p. 110) Let me emphasize here the importance of recognizing that this is a two-way dialectical process. Both the individual and the dynamic agency behind the archetypal image are affected by this colloquy. Jung hinted at this when he described the contemporary situation of his day: The indispensable dark side has been left behind or stripped off, and the feminine aspect is missing. Thus a further act of incarnation becomes necessary. Through atheism, materialism, and agnosticism, the powerful yet one-sided aspect of the summum bonum is weakened so that it cannot keep out the dark side, and incidentally the feminine factor, any more. “Antichrist” and “Devil” gain the ascendancy: God asserts his power through the revelation of his darkness and destructiveness. (Jung, as cited in Edinger, 1996, p. 110) The dark side of God. If that is the situation today, and I believe it is, then it is important to review the antecedent events, the development of these archetypal dominants that created the peculiar circumstances facing modern man and woman, especially the relationship to the unconscious forces and conditioning factors of the collective psyche. In order to do this, it is necessary to make some explanatory comments about the language to be used, as well as a more comprehensive explanation as to the 42 reasons for the focus on the so-called God image. I look at the ideas found in Jung’s book Answer to Job (1958/1973) and his essay “The Psychology of the Transference” (1946/1966) as my main sources of inquiry into the historical development of the archetypal figures of God and self. It is important to keep in mind that this discussion is about psychological facts of experience: about what is meant by psychological and how experience is conditioned by suprapersonal images and energies, not about things in themselves. Jung (as cited in Edinger, 1996), responding to a critic who did not understand the view of this psychological epistemology, said, Buber, having no practical experience in depth psychology, does not know of the autonomy of complexes, a most easily observable fact. Thus God, as an autonomous complex, is a subject confronting me. . . . Likewise the self is a redoubtable reality, as everybody learns who has tried or was compelled to do something about it. Yet I define the Self as a borderline concept. How does Buber know of something he cannot “experience psychologically”? How is such a thing possible at all? If not in the psyche, then where else? You see, it is always the same matter: the complete misunderstanding of the psychological argument: “God” within the frame of psychology is an autonomous complex, a dynamic image, and that is all psychology is ever able to state. (pp. 138-139) Consider this next quotation from Jung (as cited in Edinger, 1996), keeping in mind the previous discussions on concupiscence and being driven against the will, When I say that I don’t need to believe in God because I “know”, I mean I know of the existence of God-images in general and in particular. I know it is a matter of a universal experience and, in so far as I am no exception, I know that I have such experience also, which I call God. It is the experience of my will over against another and very often stronger will, crossing my path often with seemingly disastrous results, putting strange ideas into my head and maneuvering my fate sometimes into the most undesirable corners or giving it unexpected favourable twists, outside my knowledge and intention. The strange force against or for my conscious tendencies is well known to me. So I say: “I know Him.” But why should you call this something “God”? I would ask “Why not”? It has always been called “God”? An excellent and very suitable name indeed. (p. 136) 43 This digression was necessary to make clear that the words and language used in the following discussion refer to phenomena of experience. Jung often used the word empirical to describe realms and areas of experience that are demonstrable, even if isolated within the therapeutic, or speaking historically, religious process. In Answer to Job, Jung (1958/1973) used the historical approach, the language of mythology and the language of traditional Jewish and Christian theologians. This makes it very difficult for people on both sides of the religious controversy. To those sympathetic with modern empirical psychology, it appears that Jung believed and thought as the orthodox Christian theologians. On the other hand, theological critics considered his ideas heretical precisely because he did not hold himself to the traditional dogma and hermeneutics of ecclesiastical authority. In previous reflections, it should now be understood that there is an important distinction between image and the source of the image, between the imago-Dei and any presumed metaphysical hypostasis behind this image. From a depth psychological approach, the concern is with how the image manifests in and to the conscious mind; that is, we are concerned with phenomena, and not, as Immanuel Kant (1781/1998) discerned in his book The Critique of Pure Reason, with the noumena, or the “thing in itself” (p. 187). According to Jung, the ancient Jewish conception of God differed from the contemporary image in that the opposites, that is, God’s light and dark aspects, still existed in a contaminated and undifferentiated state. Jung (1958/1973) stated that He (Yahweh) is everything in its totality; therefore, among other things, he is total justice, and also its total opposite. At least this is the way he must be conceived if one is to form a unified picture of his character. We must remember that what we have sketched is no more than an anthropomorphic picture which is not even particularly easy to visualize. (p. 10) 44 The opposing qualities, good and evil, light and dark, masculine and feminine, exist in a state of unconsciousness within this ancient image of God. Jung (1958/1973) believed that the episode with Job symbolized a heightened state of development between God and man, that man had become more conscious than God and that because of this, God needed to incarnate in man to correct and compensate this state of affairs: In his omniscience, of course, this fact had been known from all eternity, and it is not unthinkable that the knowledge of it unconsciously brought him into the position of dealing so harshly with Job in order that he himself should become conscious of something through this conflict, and thus gain new insight. Satan who, with good reason, later on received the name of “Lucifer,” knew how to make more frequent and better use of omniscience than did his father. It seems he was the only one among the sons of God who developed that much initiative. At all events, it was he who placed those unforeseen incidents in Yahweh’s way, which omniscience knew to be necessary and indeed indispensable for the unfolding and completion of the divine drama. Among these the case of Job was decisive and it could only have happened thanks to Satan’s initiative. (p. 42) The signs of this coming incarnation began to be felt a century or two before the time of Jesus. Eschatological intimations began to appear, and according to Jung (1958/1973), Proverbs and gnomic utterances seem to be the order of the day, and a real novum now appears on the scene, namely apocalyptic communications. This points to metaphysical acts of cognition, that is, to “constellated” unconscious contents which are ready to irrupt into consciousness. In all this, as we have said, we discern the helpful hand of Sophia. (p. 41) You will notice that the apocalyptic utterances are also accompanied by the personification of Sophia, or the Wisdom of God (e.g., Proverbs, Chapter 8). The thesis, however, is that the contemporary God-image is incomplete and inadequate due to the lack of the dark, as well as the feminine, component in the divine image, and this comes from the premise that the original incarnation was to manifest only the light and good side of God. Jung (1958/1973), in speaking of the coming incarnation, connected the 45 Jewish personification of the sapientia-Dei with the idea of the Mother of God, Mary: “The divine immaculateness of her status makes it immediately clear that she not only bears the image of God in undiminished purity, but, as the bride of God, is also the incarnation of her prototype, namely Sophia” (p. 36). In a later passage, Jung (1958/1973) wrote of her son, The new son, Christ, shall on one hand be a chthonic man like Adam, mortal and capable of suffering, but on the other hand he shall not be, like Adam, a mere copy, but God himself, begotten by himself as the Father, and rejuvenating the Father as the Son. As God he has always been God, and as the son of Mary, who is plainly a copy of Sophia, he is the Logos (synonymous with Nous), who, like Sophia, is a master workman, as stated by the Gospel according to John. This identity of mother and son is borne out over and over again in the myths. (p. 38) Before discussing the present state of the unconscious and the contemporary Godimage, it is imperative to unpack all these antecedent historical and archetypal events to better clarify how the unconscious phenomena develop out of the ancient Jewish conception of God through the Middle Ages, in particular with the hermetic and alchemical philosophers who are to pick up where the presumed incomplete, or partial, incarnation left off. The Christian theologians, as well as the alchemical philosophers, continued to work out the implications of the divine incarnation in the centuries that follow, although from two distinct and different mythological premises. It can be seen from the ideas presented above that there are issues with the feminine and specifically the dark elements of God’s nature. It is well known that the Christian conception of God is one of an all-powerful and all-good God. With the exception of the idea of the Holy Ghost, God is also Father and Son, that is, masculine, it appears that the feminine side was diminished over the course of the early centuries of orthodox Christian development, whereas the numinous aspect of God’s dark side began to manifest in the material world 46 of creation as discovered by the alchemical investigators. What happens to the Luciferian reflection of God after the incarnation? Jung (1958/1973) stated one possibility (in reference to Luke 10:18) regarding Lucifer that involved a vision of Christ. “He saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven. In this vision, a metaphysical event has become temporal; it indicates the historic and— so far as we know—final separation of Yahweh from his dark son” (p. 48). The dark side of God had been prophesied to have fallen into matter itself. Fear of God. This amazing revelation would appear again in medieval speculations in the form of seemingly unrelated alchemical investigations. Jung, in his essay titled “The Psychology of the Transference” (1946/1966), summarized it this way: The specifically alchemical projection looks at first sight like a regression: god and goddess are reduced to king and queen, and these in turn look like mere allegories of chemical substances which are about to combine. But a regression is only apparent. In reality it is a highly remarkable development: the conscious mind of the medieval investigator was still under the influence of metaphysical ideas, but because he could not derive them from nature he projected them into nature. He sought for them in matter, because he supposed that they were most likely to be found there. It was really a question of a transference of numen the converse of that from the king to the god. The numen seemed to have migrated in some mysterious way from the world of the spirit to the realm of matter. But the descent of the projection into matter had led some of the old alchemists, for example Morienus Romanus, to the clear realization that this matter was not just the human body (or something in it) but the human personality itself. The prescient masters had already got beyond the inevitable stage of obtuse materialism that had yet to be born from the womb of time. But it was not until the discoveries of modern psychology that this human “matter” of the alchemists could be recognized as the psyche. (p. 230) The integration of the repressed and unknown contents of the God-head represent a fundamental aspect of the depth psychological approach to the unconscious, that is, the collaboration of consciousness with the dark and mysterious depths of the natural psyche, which was to find its medieval expression symbolized by the coniunctio Solis et Lunae, 47 that is, the conjunction of Sol and Luna, alchemical symbols for the King and Queen or human representatives of divinity, as well as symbolic expressions for the opposites in nature, represented as the royal Sun and Moon. Ideally, in this thesis, I would like to have used the dreams of alcoholic men and women to demonstrate, empirically, how the unconscious represents itself in relation to alcoholism: the transformations that unfold as consciousness confronts and responds to personifications and forces bubbling up from the unconscious wellsprings of its luminous nature, the nocturnal aspect of psyche confronting and uniting with the diurnal mind in the course of analytic treatment. Unfortunately, I cannot do this but instead must show, historically, how the God image continued its transformation in the Middle Ages and why this is relevant, not only for the treatment of alcoholism but also for psychotherapy in general. At the least, it is a necessary complement and supplementation of the individual material. The apotheosis of this investigation on alcoholism, the search for the meaning, the achievement, and the ends of addiction, can be found hidden in the old recipes of chemical transformations as recorded by our alchemical predecessors. The fundamental or main mythological motif, behind the royal art of alchemy, can be summarized in this way (Jung, 1946/1966), The sea has closed over the king and queen, and they have gone back to the chaotic beginnings, the massa confusa. Physis has wrapped the “man of light” in a passionate embrace. As the text says: “Then Beya (the maternal sea) rose up over Gabricus and enclosed him in her womb, so that nothing more of him was to be seen. And she embraced Gabricus with so much love that she absorbed him completely into her own nature, and dissolved him into atoms.” (p. 247) This maternal embrace threatens the fledgling ego with annihilation while hiding the divine image of God in man. Although this is just one particular representation, the 48 central theme of this myth is found over and over again, not only in alchemy but also among the so-called Gnostic Christians before them. In this mythic theme, the divine aspect of creation is caught in its own creation; therefore, the divine spark that she seeks is below and is hidden, as opposed to being sought for, exclusively at least, from above. Orthodox Christianity, particularly medieval Christianity, strove for the heights, which is where God was assumed to be, whereas hell and its infernal characters were generally looked at as the inhabitants of the underworld. Dante’s Divine Comedy is a classic example of medieval Christianity’s vision of heaven and hell. Redemption came from above, the ransom was paid, and then the redeemer returned upward (ascended). Nothing of worth came from below, which is one of the many reasons for the secrets of the alchemists: They were messing around with devilish things, for science was often seen as the dark art of the fallen angels (see, for example, the Enoch literature). Redemption is not only of man’s moral nature but, more importantly, of creation itself. In another myth, from The Secret Book of John, as found within The Other Bible (Barnstone, 1984), Sophia, the personification of the sapientia-Dei, or Wisdom of God, is trapped in physical creation, and Christ is sent down from heaven to free her from this prison. Matter and spirit are joined, not in a harmonious way but in a state of conflict and hostility. The goal in alchemy begins with the separation of these elements that necessitates a future reunion and reanimation. This reunion of the elements will be founded on love and mutual reconciliation. In other words, consciousness must be separated from its unconscious identification, or hostile relationship, with this dark light of the maternal psyche. Once it recognizes the transpersonal powers for what they are, as both harmful and creative, through a building up of the masculine spirit, the Great Work 49 then becomes the prerequisite of the alchemical and, alternately, therapeutic process to unify and harmonize the position of the two psychic systems, subsuming the ego to this central organizing principle of the self. Although scientific definitions tend to lose the living vitality of the experience that it is trying to express, it would, nevertheless, probably be formulated something like this; the unconscious is able to enter consciousness, and consciousness, given a new center of awareness, would no longer be guided by that of the ego. This, then, is what is meant by the term self, again, symbolically represented by the coniunctio Solis et Lunae. It should be clear to modern psychotherapists that the idea of the coniunctio, or conjunction of opposites, especially in relation to the transference phenomenon in therapy, is to be understood symbolically and not just literally or concretely. As Jung (1946/1966) pointed out, This means that the union of opposites in the royal art is just as real as coitus in the common acceptation of the work, so that the opus becomes an analogy of the natural process by means of which instinctive energy is transformed, at least in part, into symbolical activity. The creation of such analogies frees instinct and the biological sphere as a whole from the pressure of unconscious contents. Absence of symbolism, however, overloads the sphere of instinct. (p. 250) According to Jung (1946/1966), “The idea of the coniunctio served on the one hand to shed light on the mystery of chemical combination, while on the other it became the symbol of the unio mystica” (p. 169), that is, the mystical union with God. Some examples of the prima materia of the alchemists are concupiscence, instinctual desire, or an obsession of the mind. Jung said that these unconscious and chaotic contents lie heavy on the patient; for, although they are present in everybody, it is only in him that they have become active, and they isolate him in a spiritual loneliness which neither he nor anybody else can understand and which is bound to be misinterpreted. (p. 175) 50 This situation is especially true of the alcoholic, who through the use of an intoxicating substance, has “activated” the unconscious in powerful ways. Schoen (2009) believed at least some of these activated contents to be “unintegratable” (p. 61) aspects of “Archetypal Evil, or Archetypal Shadow,” and personified, I think correctly, these addictive energies as vampires and zombies. He said, You don’t negotiate with a vampire. . . . You don’t make deals with the Vampire; you don’t accommodate a compromise. You run for your life. You hold up crucifixes and surround yourself with the consecrated hosts of the Eucharist. (p. 69) Schoen’s theoretical perspective vacillates, in my opinion, between the causa efficiens and the causa formalis, in that he appears to hold to traditional and orthodox Christian perspectives on evil and the devil, with its unredeemable and absolute nature, thereby, separating evil from psyche as if it were a metaphysical substance. I agree that the alcoholic and addict need abstain from all mind and mood intoxicants, as it appears the only hope of dealing successfully with the unconscious, but evil, in the form of diabolical desire and obsession, has been let in the door, and the reality soon dawns that, in the final analysis, there is no returning to the protective confines of a Garden of Eden, hence, no return to the Mother. The devil is loose! The privatio boni notwithstanding, Schoen seems to forget that the alcoholic cannot flee the devil, the vampire, or the living dead; he has already invited them into his home, usually unknowingly. Once these powerful, evil forces are in, they cannot simply be wished away. What is he to do when the Eucharist, cloves of garlic, and the power of the cross have been found to be ineffectual? Origen’s ancient question of whether the devil is capable of redemption becomes, again, topical. With regard to working on these powerful and sometimes overwhelming affective states in the therapeutic consulting room, Jung (1946/1966) mentioned that 51 the alchemists aptly personified it as the wily god of revelation, Hermes or Mercurius; and though they lament over the way he hoodwinks them, they still give him the highest names which bring him very near to deity. But for all that, they deem themselves good Christians whose faithfulness of heart is never in doubt! (p. 189) I believe Schoen misunderstood Jung’s views on evil, the devil, and ultimately God’s dark side, which confronts man and woman, as a true afflictio anima. According to Jung (1946/1966), All opposites are of God, therefore man must bend to this burden, and in so doing he finds that God in his “oppositeness” has taken possession of him, incarnated himself in him. He becomes a vessel filled with divine conflict. (p. 34) This idea of divine conflict brings up discussions of suffering and intimates a notion as to its meaning and purpose. Writer and philosopher Miguel de Unamuno, in his book The Tragic Sense of Life (1912/1954), wrote this in regard not only to suffering but also to what I see as the darkness in God: The cure for suffering—which is the collision of consciousness with unconsciousness—is not to be submerged in unconsciousness, but to be raised to consciousness and to suffer more. The evil of suffering is cured by more suffering, by higher suffering. Do not take opium, but put salt and vinegar in the soul’s wound, for when you sleep and no longer feel the suffering, you are not. And to be, that is imperative. Do not then close your eyes to the agonizing Sphinx, but look her in the face, and let her seize you in her mouth, and crunch you with her hundred thousand poisonous teeth, and swallow you. And when she has swallowed you, you will know the sweetness of the taste of suffering. (p. 165) Further, according to Jung (1946/1966), The contents of the unconscious are indeed of the greatest importance, for the unconscious is after all the matrix of the human mind and its inventions. Wonderful and ingenious as this other side of the unconscious is it can be most dangerously deceptive on account of its numinous nature. Involuntarily one thinks of the devils mentioned by St. Athanasius in his life of St. Anthony, who talk very piously, sing psalms, read the holy books, and—worst of all—speak the truth. The difficulties of our psychotherapeutic work teach us to take truth, goodness, and beauty where we find them. They are not always found where we look for them: often they are hidden in the dirt or are in the keeping of the dragon. (p. 189) 52 These statements reflect a serious attitude of reservation and caution. Individuals are dealing with the creative and life-giving forces of the unconscious mind, as well as with daemonical and elusive powers or agencies; therefore, the medieval investigators were mindful to invoke, through prayer and supplications, the likewise helpful and beneficent forces of these same transpersonal powers. It appears the uniting of the dark side of God’s nature requires not only a thorough knowledge of the unconscious but also a genuine fear of God. In dealing with and attempting to integrate the dark and feminine components of the God-image into human consciousness, I believe it important to add a further note regarding the attitude and the mental seriousness with which these forces should be confronted. Jung stated (1946/1966) that The Deo concedente is not just a rhetorical flourish; it expresses the firm attitude of the man who does not imagine that he knows better on every occasion and who is fully aware that the unconscious material before him is something alive, a paradoxical Mercurius of whom an old master says: “And he is that on whom nature hath worked but a little, and whom she hath wrought into metallic form yet left unfinished.” It is like a fragment of primeval psyche into which no consciousness has as yet penetrated to create division and order, a “united dual nature,” as Goethe says—an abyss of ambiguities. (p. 191) But Jung also wrote that the unconscious is not just evil by nature, it is also the highest good: not only dark but also light, not only bestial, semi-human, and demonic but superhuman, spiritual, and, in the classical sense of the word, “divine”. The Mercurius who personifies the unconscious is essentially “duplex”, paradoxically dualistic by nature, fiend, monster, beast, and at the same time panacea, “the philosophers’ son,” sapientia Dei, and donum Spiritus Sancti. (p. 192) Mercurius as the dark light of nature. It appears that Mercurius, or Hermes, is a personification of this dark light of unconsciousness and is a central and, therefore, uniting figure in the divine hierosgamos or chymical wedding. He is also the instinctive nature of man and woman in their concupiscence and, as previously mentioned, 53 represents the prima material, or primordial substance, as starting point of the procedure. In relation to alcoholism, it is important to remember that the idea of craving for alcohol and the obsession of the mind to drink, especially knowing that to drink is to die, are phenomenal aspects of addiction well known to sufferer and treatment professional alike; they also provide us with the basic ingredients for the initial therapeutic darkness, confusion and suffering, often called massa confusa or nigredo, that is, the initial state of the alchemical opus. The requirement is that the therapist and alcoholic pay close attention to the contents of the unconscious, the dreams, fantasies, desires, passions, images, and figures that come forth to the surface from its depths. The alchemists used matter, unknowingly of course, as the matrix, container, and substance of their fantasies and imaginings; it would seem important that therapy, too, utilize a similar procedure. In the sense that matter was the canvas on which the alchemist could project his imaginal and unconscious fantasies upon, the assumption is that therapeutically these same imaginal powers or agencies need expression today. Although as therapists we cannot use matter as the alchemists did to project upon, we can actively imagine these collective unconscious contents further through active imagination and creative fantasy, taking a more active role in confronting and engaging with the unconscious. This procedure appears to produce, initially, a feeling of incest and fear. Jung pointed out (1946/1966) that “the fear that surrounds this complex—the ‘fear of incest’ is quite typical and has already been stressed by Freud. It is further exacerbated by fear of the compulsive force which emanates from most unconscious contents” (p. 215). This unconscious was also symbolized as the left hand of God: The left-hand (sinister) side is the dark unconscious side. The left is inauspicious and awkward: also it is the side of the heart, from which comes not only love but 54 all the evil thoughts connected with it, the moral contradictions in human nature that are expressed most clearly in our affective life. (p. 211) This state seems to initiate or symbolize the beginning of the procedure of incarnation in woman and man, even if it is experienced as quite the opposite. Jung put it this way: It is not immediately apparent why this dark state deserves special praise, since the nigredo is universally held to be of a somber and melancholy humour reminiscent of death and the grave. But the fact that medieval alchemy had connections with the mysticism of the age, or rather was itself a form of mysticism, allows us to adduce as a parallel to the nigredo the writings of St. John of the Cross concerning the “dark night.” This author conceives the “spiritual night” of the soul as a supremely positive state, in which the invisible—and therefore dark—radiance of god comes to pierce and purify the soul. (p. 271) Jung continued: “This blackness is called earth.” The Mercurius in whom the sun drowns is an earth spirit, a Deus terrenus, as the alchemists say, or the Sapientia Dei which took on body and substance in the creature by creating it. The unconscious is the spirit of chthonic nature and contains the archetypal images of the Sapientia Dei. But the intellect of modern civilized man has strayed too far in the world of consciousness, so that it received a violent shock when it suddenly beheld the face of its mother, the earth. (p. 272) The alchemical fountain is another apt symbol for Mercurius, where his unity is portrayed as a triad, for example. “It is repeatedly emphasized that he is a trinity, triunus or trinus, the chthonic, lower, or even infernal counterpart of the Heavenly Trinity, just as Dante’s devil is three-headed” (Jung, 1946/1966, p. 206). These ideas suggest the alchemists’ fascination with God’s image as it is reflected through its material or physical creation. The fountain symbolizes the situation that forms in the therapeutic relation between the unconscious forces and the conscious mind attempting to make contact with them. It reflects, also, the welling up of these instinctual forces from the depths of the soul. In talking about the triune nature of Mercurius, it is important to note that Jung 55 (1946/1966) attempted to demonstrate that four is the number of wholeness, that the alchemist reflected this in images of the four separate elements, the state of chaos, and ascends by degrees to the three manifestations of Mercurius in the inorganic, organic, and spiritual worlds; and after attaining the form of Sol and Luna (i.e., the precious metals gold and silver, but also the radiance of the gods who can overcome the strife of the elements by love), it culminates in the one and indivisible (incorruptible, ethereal, eternal) nature of the anima, the quinta essentia, aqua permanens, tincture, or lapis philosophorum. (p. 207) The “axiom of Maria” (Jung, 1946/1966, p. 207) is the symbolic, formulaic progression 4 to 3 to 2 to 1. Four represented “the initial state of wholeness and is marked by four mutually antagonistic tendencies” (p. 207), for example, the cross and its four directions, as symbolized by the Crucifixion of Christ. Next to appear in the progression is 3, as a result of the crucifixion begets a masculine number and nature, and out of that comes the feminine number 2. It is interesting to note that the alchemical procedure reflected, or is rooted, in the same archetypal expression: a collective development of the Jewish Godimage after the Christian incarnation, as this undifferentiated God-head became three—as seen through the emerging Christian Trinitarian image of God. The alchemical recipe continues in that 3 becomes 2; that is, the masculine trinity unites with its previously lost dark femininity; it was (re)discovered by the alchemists in the form of the natural chthonic trinity of Mercurius, which becomes a dual unity of light and dark because of its now masculine and feminine quality. Finally, “Male and female inevitable constellate the idea of sexual union as the means of producing the one, which is then consistently called the filius regius or filius philosophorum” (p. 200). What, again, does all this strange alchemical symbolism have to do with alcoholism and its treatment? I believe it reflects in the most genuine and authentic way, 56 as well as giving historical perspective to, the expression of unconscious imagery and its dynamic evolution in human consciousness. The therapist arms herself with a language capable of understanding and giving expression to the phenomenal experiences emanating from the unconscious. Jung (1946/1966) said, In other words, he must approach his talk with views and ideas capable of grasping unconscious symbolism. Intellectual or supposedly scientific theories are not adequate to the nature of the unconscious, because they make use of a terminology which has not the slightest affinity with its pregnant symbolism. The waters must be drawn together and held fast by the one water, by the forma ignea verae aquae. (p. 270) The aqua permanens (everlasting and eternal water), or theoria, necessary to grasp and hold these elusive and mysterious images, is used to assist those that seek, in finding meaning and purpose. Jung (1946/1966) continued, The psychological interpretations of this process leads into regions of inner experience which defy our powers of scientific description, however unprejudiced or even ruthless we may be. At this point, unpalatable as it is to the scientific temperament, the idea of mystery forces itself upon the mind of the inquirer, not as a cloak for ignorance but as an admission of his inability to translate what he knows into the everyday speech of the intellect. (p. 272) I next return, briefly, to the ideas that disobedience held the key to redemption, that the original, hidden, and unredeemed image of God was implanted in man and that the appetite, or the flesh, represents, in a concrete and symbolic sense, the mysterious and obscure region of the unconscious in need of salvation. That is, the concretization of the spirit through illumination of the body and its truth, the seeking and production of the lapis philosophorum. Jung (1946/1966) speculated about the meaning of these dark primordial symbols and made the point that “the snake symbolism certainly points to the evil principle, which, although excluded from the Trinity, is yet somehow connected with the work of redemption” (p. 277). This, it seems, holds the key to greater consciousness 57 and individuation. This section concludes with an ancient Gnostic doctrine of salvation, quoted by Hippolytus in Jung’s book Aion (1959/1968a): But this is the serpent. For it is he who brought the signs of the Father down from above, and it is he who carries them back again after they have been awakened from sleep, transferring them thither from hence as substances proceeding from the Substanceless. . . . Thus, they say, the perfect race of men, made in the image of the Father and of the same substance (homoousion), is drawn from the world by the Serpent, even as it was sent down by him; but naught else is so drawn. (p. 185) Therefore, Jung (1959/1968a) was able to conclude that “the consensus of opinion interpreted the Redeemer equally as a fish (that is, Christ) and a serpent; he is a fish because he rose from the unknown depths, and a serpent because he came mysteriously out of the darkness” (p. 186). Chapter V Conclusions You only know one driving force, And may you never seek to know the other! Two souls, alas! Reside within my breast, And each is eager for a separation In throes of coarse desire, one grips The earth with all its senses; The other struggles from the dust To rise to high ancestral spheres. Goethe, 1808 & 1832/1984, p. 30 In my investigations and research on alcoholism, I was able to find but a few instances and demonstrations of unconscious material, in particular, dreams and active imagination, in relation to alcoholism and the individuation process, at least as Jung presented the process. Schoen (2009) mentioned dreams of the alcoholic in his book but seemed more interested in specifically “using” dreams and the dreamers reaction to using in these dreams, that is, to using drugs and alcohol in the dreams, and whether the dreamers thought it felt great, awful, or somewhere in between. (p. 132). I have Jung’s book Psychology and Alchemy (1944/1968b) in mind or his essay “Psychology of the Transference,” as found in The Practice of Psychotherapy (1946/1966), as examples of the spontaneous expression of unconscious phenomenon and its relation and integration with individual and collective consciousness. Even Hillman, in The Myth of Analysis (1977), used historical material to help uncover the mythic structures and their archetypal evolution and development in relation to the underlying therapeutic process. This, in my opinion, is the same fundamental procedure Jung used, but instead of working with 59 individuals and their unconscious material, Hillman was working with the mythos of the therapeutic community. Schoen (2009) reported his idea of archetypal evil, which he thought beyond redemption and psychological integration, in a personal dream that I believe central to the theme of this paper: I was assigned the job or task or role of carrying and transporting by hand a small, round container the size of a coffee cup, which was filled to the brim with the most potent, deadly, toxic concentration of archetypal evil imaginable, one tiny drop of which would destroy the whole world and all of humanity. My job was to walk very carefully, to keep my balance and not to slip or fall until I had carried this vessel without dropping or spilling any of its lethal contents to a preordained ritual site, where I was to gently place the container on the ground in the center of an eternally burning, moderate-sized wooden campfire, which would then be able to contain and neutralize the archetypal evil, as in a crucible, and which would protect humanity from being destroyed by it. I feel as if I have the weight of the world on my shoulders as I walk and concentrate with all my might not to stumble or spill a drop. I am terrified I will fail and am completely drenched in sweat from the tension and pressure. I successfully place the container vessel of evil in the center of the sacred fire, step back, and feel as if my life task has been accomplished. (p. 150) This dream suggests, among several themes, the idea of individuation and its daunting task of responsibility, sacrifice, and courage. I believe it also represents the numinous reality of the God image, represented, in this instance, as a mysterious substance. It has further alchemical ideas of container, or vas hermeticum, along with the symbol of the mandala, or sacred circle, implying that assimilation of this dark power would require assistance from an equally divine source. It also recalls the image of the ancient Jews and the Ark of the Covenant (e.g., 2 Samuel, Chapter 6), their precautions and anxiety appearing to have been much like Schoen’s dread of this “mysterium tremendum,” or tremendous mystery, that uncanny sense of “daemonic dread,” as German theologian Rudolf Otto (1917/1970) so aptly described in his book The Idea of 60 the Holy (pp. 12-25). Just as Sophia assisted Yahweh with the original creation of the world and the initial incarnation of God’s light and good side, so now it appears things still require the good will of beneficent transpersonal powers, a true Spirtus contra spiritum, God, to help mediate or protect against God, which, it can be argued, was Christ’s archetypal role as a redeemer figure. All this hints at the Great Work, or magnus opus, of the alchemical mysterium coniunctionis, that mysterious union of opposites, symbols already mentioned, such as Sol and Luna, that have an advantage over the Christian symbols of not having developed into the absolute antagonism of light against dark. There was still, for the alchemists, darkness in the light and light in the darkness. This dream shows remarkably well the tremendous power inherent in the unconscious psyche and, as I believe this thesis uncovers, the potential implications and additional solutions to treatment of alcoholic addiction, and the affliction of psyche in general. It indicates, at least, a complementary or alternative vision and treatment approach to the exclusive, dominant reliance on the image of a masculine solar deity. Consider Jung’s (1946/1966) recognition that despite the closeness of the analogy, the lapis is not to be understood simply as the risen Christ and the prima materia as God; the Tabula smaragdina hints, rather, that the alchemical mystery is a “lower” equivalent of the higher mysteries, a sacrament not of the paternal “mind” but of maternal “matter.” The disappearance of theriomorphic symbols in Christianity is here compensated by a wealth of allegorical animal forms which tally quite well with mater natura [Mother Nature]. Whereas the Christian figures are the product of spirit, light, and good, the alchemical figures are creatures of night, darkness, poison, and evil. (p. 316) Again, this is not to be hostile or unnecessarily critical of the conventional approach or of the continuing importance of the traditional imago-Dei. It may well be the most effective, and necessary, approach in the majority of cases, but there may be an 61 increasing and, therefore, serious need for expanding and understanding the central archetype of the self and the problem of its integration and assimilation, not just for the individual alcoholic but for the general development of collective consciousness in culture and society. I hope I may indulge in some reflections of a personal nature, as the implications of the ideas contained in this work for the therapeutic practitioner are, in my opinion, important. How does a person work therapeutically with someone he or she unconsciously despises, or even hates? Of course, they cannot. So we, as therapists, are then left with working upon only those whose adjustments to life are not morally reprehensible to us. Take the extreme examples: the repentant rapist and pedophile, the man who beats his wife and begs for forgiveness yet continues, and the mother who murders her children and then must live the reality of this. Are they beyond our compassion and noble commitment to an individuated life? If our dark and hidden compulsions, our evil drives, and deluded fantasies cannot come from God, then where? perhaps from the devil? Then our problems at least pose little moral conflict, for evil is then always projected on someone or something else. On the other hand, if we, as a society, no longer give thought to the transpersonal dimension of our lives, then our conclusion must be that these realities come from us or worse; we are ourselves this perversion of nature. In this way a powerful hubris is created within the psyche whose solution seems always to end in medication and confinement. Perhaps counselors and therapists with enough courage to challenge their own fears and repulsions can find solace in the proposition that God has a dark quality and that this darkness seeks life, and maybe, to a certain extent, it is our repression that produces such evil, or least produces 62 its weight and power. I would suggest that our psychic maladies benefit from the recognition of the divine qualities, both light and dark, creating the depth and strength necessary to carry another to a higher suffering. In my mind, this would seem more in line with, or in the spirit of, the idea of the passion of the Christ, a willing sacrifice to appease the terrible wrath of God. References Aquinas, S. T. (1952). The summa theologica. In Encyclopedia Britannica. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago. Anonymous. (2001). Alcoholics anonymous. New York, NY: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services. Barefoot’s World. (2001). Bill Wilson’s letter to Dr. Carl Jung, Jan 23, 1961. 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