משבר ואמונה, אובדן האגו, ב. דפרסונליזציהCrisis and Faith, I Ego Loss, 2 Depersonalization
א׳
1Lacking adequate understanding of the nature of the problem, certain trends in modern civilization have attempted to escape the disintegration. One of them we see in the search for what is often referred to as a higher consciousness, as if by some magic man might be saved from his contemporary predicament. Especially among younger people there is the tendency to find a savior in some guru, some mystical cult, Eastern mysticism, drugs, etc. What is implied in most of these trends is essentially a surrender of personal existence in exchange for a high measure of liberation from personal responsibility. Man, who has been depersonalized by science in theory and by modern technology in practice, tries in his desperation to embrace his depersonalized condition as a virtue that may serve him as the very source of his salvation.
ב׳
2Although what used to be known only a few years ago as the drug culture is now in decline (though not, of course, drug use or addiction), it may be enlightening to look closely at some of its features. Most of them are shared by the more authentic forms of oriental and other types of mysticism that are now more and more replacing the drug-induced mystical experience. We shall consider the claims that were made on behalf of the drug culture; we shall examine their validity, and finally we shall analyze the reasons that were responsible for its currency.
ג׳
3Timothy Leary, one of the chief interpreters of the drug culture, and some of his associates describe the mystical quality of their drug-induced experience in the following words:
ד׳
4“All the harsh, dry, brittle angularity of game life is melted. You drift off—soft, rounded, moist, warm. Merged with all life….your individuality and anatomy of movement are moistly disappearing. Your control is surrendered to the total organism (i.e. the universe, our interpolation). Blissful passivity. Ecstatic, orgiastic, undulating unity….All is gained as everything is given up …” Most of the other authors who treat of the subject, write in the same vain. One comes across statements like, “When the ego controls dissolve in a milieu of trust, the world within is glowing, serene and meaningful …”5The Psychedelic Experience, A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, by Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, Richard Alpert, p. 59. The surrendering of control and the merging into the All are the ever-recurring themes. Often it is called the ego death. One of the LSD enthusiasts would wax poetic and sing:
ה׳
5The ego is dead—
ו׳
6Killed during its last hysterical ravings,
ז׳
7To become we.6Sidney Cohen, Beyond Within, Atheneum, New York, 1967, p. 112.
ח׳
8The desire to get rid of the self is obvious everywhere. Aldous Huxley, in his little book The Doors of Perception, spoke of becoming a non-self. The goal is to give up individual consciousness and, by dissolving into the universe, replace it by what is called cosmic consciousness. In a sense it is very similar to a Hindu type of mysticism, differing only in that it dispenses with the long and arduous discipline and leaps to the goal in the instant of drug-induced ecstasy. With ego death comes blissful passivity. Man gives up all his ambitions, there is no more desire to act; he is freed from all hang-ups. Since nothing really matters very much, all aggressiveness disappears and tolerance increases. The knowledge of the meaning of life is no longer dependent on the unreliable speculative and discursive intellect. It comes to one by intuition. Laws of logic are cast aside. One “feels” the meaning of life. Opposites are no longer contradictory. Universal unity does not only pre-empt the laws of contradiction; it is also universal reconciliation that surpasses the categories of good and evil. It is beyond good and evil. Finally, as one is delivered of the “world of selves,” one becomes also free of moral judgment and utilitarian considerations, one has been emancipated from the world of self-assertion. In this state one finds true enlightenment and love. One knows that brotherhood is real. One is absorbed into a perfect world of universal harmony and love, perfect beauty and all goodness.
ט׳
9What is the validity of these claims? Do they make sense? Let us look first at the ethical implications. Oneness, peace, harmony, freedom from hang-ups and frustration, love and brotherhood, are the age-old dreams of man, the longings of his heart and soul. Of the heart and soul of man! But what can be their meaning in an egoless state, when man’s individuality has been dissolved, when the “I” has become one with “It” and with “That”? Complete identification between oneself and other people is a noble ideal…as long as there is me and you, me and other people, I and Thou. But what is the value of identification between one non-self and other non-selves? Indeed, if there are no selves, and individuality has dissolved, where is there a problem? Nor can there be hang-ups and frustrations where there is no ego. But again, it is not man who has been delivered of them, rather it is the hang-ups and frustrations that got rid of man. It is not much of an achievement that in psychedelic mysticism one is free of self-assertion, cocksureness, and aggressiveness. In a state of ego-death how could there be self-assertion! The problem is how a man, a human being, can free himself from those rather unpleasant traits. An ego-less being will, of course, be as free of moral judgment as the color green is free of the temptation of adultery. Ethics, morality and judgment are meaningful only in the realm of the personal life; they have no place in the universe of non-selves. One may escape from problems and from oneself by the dissolution of the human individual.
י׳
10All the misdirected enthusiasm of this type of mysticism is due to the confusion between oneness and unity. Unity is an ideal only between selves. Oneness is not unity; it is dissolution of selfhood; it is union between entities without selfhood. Oneness requires the extinguishing of all traits of personal existence. Unity is good; oneness is neither good nor evil, it is in the dominion of value neutrality below the threshold of good and evil. When that young poet in psychedelia celebrated the death of his ego that was killed in order to become “We,” he did not know what he was talking about. “We” is the union of “I” and “Thou.” (Buber mentions that he meant to write a book on “We” as a sequel to his I and Thou). Once the “I” is killed and the “Thou” is dead too, there can be no “We” either. A herd of non-egos is not “We.”
י״א
11The confusion is most pitiable when ego death is interpreted as the embracing of brotherhood and the revelation of love. One wonders what brotherhood could mean among non-selves. How can one non-self identify itself with another ego-less, non-individual! Timothy Leary instructs the “Traveller” in psychedelia to use the moment of ego-lessness for the attainment of love. One cannot help wondering what on earth he is talking about. What is ego-less love? What is love without an I and a Thou?
י״ב
12Aldous Huxley, who started it all, had a deeper understanding of the drug-induced cosmic consciousness. Describing “the manifest glory of things,” he says that his participation in it left no room for any other concern, “above all the concerns involving persons. For persons are selves, and in one respect at least, I was now a Not-self, simultaneously perceiving and being the Not-self of the things around me. To this new-born Not-self, the behavior, the appearance, the very thought of the self it had momentarily ceased to be, and of other selves, its one-time fellows….seemed enormously irrelevant.”7The Doors of Perception, Harper and Row, New York, pp. 18, 22, 34. This, of course, is appropriate to the condition of ego-loss. It confirms Leary’s “blissful passivity.”
י״ג
13Many writers on their experiences are under the same kind of delusion we have examined thus far. They would testify to “the feeling of passivity that was overwhelming.” They speak of the absence of the capacity for feeling, of taking an interest in anything, of the ecstasy that comes from losing the ever-present feeling of being oneself, of letting go of the overpowering flood of emotion, of loving and hating. Such interpretations all confirm the same phenomenon. In the state of “blissful passivity” one is incapable of feeling anything or taking an interest in anything. Of course, in such a condition there can be no hate, intolerance or aggressiveness, but neither is there room for either love or brotherhood. Losing one’s ego and merging with everything else may be blissful, but it is not brotherhood. The effortless absence of self-assertion and intolerance, while in a state that negates the possibility of either, is mistaken for universal love.
י״ד
14The same criticism applies to the other claims. The drug-user is enlightened, he “feels” intuitively the knowledge of the meaning of all existence. But what is meaning in the domain of ego-dissolution? The problem of the meaning of life exists only for the individual human being. Once the ego is dissolved, the problem of meaning cannot arise. Then again it is maintained that the “Traveller” on his trip through psychedelia rejoices over the perfect freedom that he has achieved. Freedom is one of the immortal ideals—of man; an ideal for man only because it may be denied to him and he can only become himself, his own self, in a condition of freedom. But a non-self, a non-individual, a non-ego, is always what it is; it can neither be oppressed nor can it be liberated. Freedom for a non-self can only mean being free from having to be a self. So might the dead, too, rejoice over their complete freedom.
ט״ו
15Despite the fact that this kind of “mysticism” is on the way out, such a critical analysis of it is necessary in that it illustrates an attempt to cope with the problems of the collapse of values, the disintegration of meaning and the despair of alienation. It affirms man’s ethical and moral disorientation on the level of normal consciousness, and his estrangement from the universe. It maintains, by implication, man’s spiritual bankruptcy on the personal level of life.
ט״ז
16This chemically-manufactured cosmic consciousness surrendered all hope at resolving the human dilemma by restoring man to the metaphysical dignity of personal existence. It accepted the irrelevance of the individual that follows from the purely scientific interpretation of reality as final. However, it tried to save man from the scandalous status of being Nature’s little indiscretion by putting him back into the universe, united with it in authentic oneness. Unfortunately, this way one heals alienation much too radically; man overcomes his alienation by losing his selfhood, and the rest of the struggle for the recovery of values is lost. This is a desperate attempt to find a cure for the spiritual exhaustion of Western civilization: withdraw man into the womb of the universe, recall him from his distinct humanity into the cosmic ocean and all problems …no, are not solved; but the struggle is over, for man has departed.
י״ז
17One must have some respect for Camus’ Meursault in The Stranger, whom we discussed earlier. He at least has the courage to face this cold and indifferent universe that has become modern man’s heritage, in the stupidity of all its limitless size and vastness. He is too intelligent to seek “love” by submerging his ego in the All. He retains his own selfhood in the full authenticity of its meaninglessness and finds “brotherhood” with the cosmic indifference that is the share of us all.
י״ח
18True, chemically-induced mysticism is fading away, yet it is important to understand the issues involved. The mystical tendency of the times, though rejecting chemical manipulation, pursues the same goals that inspired the drug-culture. The ideas are very similar. Solutions are seen in the surrender of individuality, in cosmic oneness, in the achievement of some form of cosmic consciousness and thus, reaching reconciliation, peace and love. In these tendencies, and other less-significant religious cults and fads, the common denominator is modern man’s inability to face the problems of his existence in responsible personal choices and decisions. Man seems to be unable to cope with his own personal reality. He is anchorless in a universe that is drifting in an ocean of meaninglessness.