ANCESTRAL TRAUMA
(& the Epic of Consciousness)
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By Michael Tsarion
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There have been a thousand holocausts, which have occurred in a thousand ways and will recur, both by fire and by water and by many other means - (Priests of Egypt to Solon the Greek)
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What if Charles Darwin's ideas on natural selection and survival of the fittest explain only half the story of human evolution? What if there’s a great deal more to know about how we became homo sapiens - “the wise ones?” How did we become the thinking, feeling beings we are?
What if “junk DNA” is a repository of programming through time of an emotional nature. Specifically, what if junk DNA is made up of deeply embedded traumatic experiences inherited from ancient times? What does it mean for consciousness and daily existence?
Neuroscientist Mark Sohms is one of a few experts who now accept that feeling is the basis of consciousness, not intellect and reason. These are in fact epiphenomena of interoception - the process experienced as we feel and check back minute by minute to recheck those feelings.
Consciousness is now officially recognized as a process of feeling how we feel hundreds of times a day. Again, what we know as intellect, reason, logic and even language, are emanations of this nonconscious process of interoception. They developed to assist us in the process of feeling.
Danny Vendramini comfirms that this new theory has merit, given that a great deal of our biological and neurological makeup evolved due to emotional programming. In The Second Evolution, he writes:
What if “junk DNA” is a repository of programming through time of an emotional nature. Specifically, what if junk DNA is made up of deeply embedded traumatic experiences inherited from ancient times? What does it mean for consciousness and daily existence?
Neuroscientist Mark Sohms is one of a few experts who now accept that feeling is the basis of consciousness, not intellect and reason. These are in fact epiphenomena of interoception - the process experienced as we feel and check back minute by minute to recheck those feelings.
Consciousness is now officially recognized as a process of feeling how we feel hundreds of times a day. Again, what we know as intellect, reason, logic and even language, are emanations of this nonconscious process of interoception. They developed to assist us in the process of feeling.
Danny Vendramini comfirms that this new theory has merit, given that a great deal of our biological and neurological makeup evolved due to emotional programming. In The Second Evolution, he writes:
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In a nutshell, teem theory claims that under certain conditions, intense emotions (like those experienced as the result of a traumatic personal experience) can be permanently encoded into an area of an animal’s genome called noncoding DNA, so-called ‘junk DNA’. Once encoded, these traumatic feelings can be inherited to offspring as emotions, innate behaviors and even complex instincts.
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In his earlier seminal work, Mankind in Amnesia, Immanuel Velikovsky proposed a similar theory. He was ridiculed and ignored for saying that the entire human race - everyone living today - carries within them inherited scars of trauma from ancient cataclysm.
As with cases of PTSD we tend to dissociate from disturbing memories. So it is, said Velikovsky, with ancestral trauma. We've done what we can to completely suppress all memory of the terror experienced due to prehistoric pandemonium.
As with cases of PTSD we tend to dissociate from disturbing memories. So it is, said Velikovsky, with ancestral trauma. We've done what we can to completely suppress all memory of the terror experienced due to prehistoric pandemonium.
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It is one thing to know and understand what happened in the past, but quite another to realize that those remote events still influence our thoughts, sensations and behavior…the suppressed trauma of humanity is still etched in our subconscious and influences us in everyday life - Lynn E. Rose (Mankind in Amnesia)
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It is, therefore, true to say that what we know as "consciousness" is a filter or censor prohibiting traumatic memories from breaking through to disturb and cripple the ego.
The great Comyns Beaumont agreed. He too argued that our planet was wrecked by a massive comet known as Phaeton. Other names were given to this giant fiery serpent in the heavens, and there’s not a tribe or nation that hasn’t preserved details of the comet’s arrival and destructiveness in their myths and legends. Indeed, the coming of the celestial body is summarily dismissed by moderns because it is a leitmotif found in myths and legends. Skeptics simply say it’s a matter of a fantastical “mythological cycle” that need not be taken seriously.
The great Comyns Beaumont agreed. He too argued that our planet was wrecked by a massive comet known as Phaeton. Other names were given to this giant fiery serpent in the heavens, and there’s not a tribe or nation that hasn’t preserved details of the comet’s arrival and destructiveness in their myths and legends. Indeed, the coming of the celestial body is summarily dismissed by moderns because it is a leitmotif found in myths and legends. Skeptics simply say it’s a matter of a fantastical “mythological cycle” that need not be taken seriously.
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Almost every culture preserves myths describing humanity’s endurance of terrible past events involving major loss of life on a global scale...Nothing in our modern experience comes close to matching these stories of global disaster - Paul A. LaViolette (Earth Under Fire)
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In Past Shock, Jack Barranger briefly reminds us that the effect of worldwide devastation was not simply physically destructive. It was also, he emphasizes, psychologically destructive.
Darwin also completely disregarded the work of the founders of the science of geology - Sir Roderick Murchison, William Buckland and Adam Sedgwick – of the early nineteenth century, who gave the names, still in use today, to almost all the geological periods - Cambrian, Permian, Ordovician, Cretaceous, etc. He also circumvented by silence the founder of mammalian paleontology and ichthyology, Georges Cuvier. These founders of earth science produced consistent data showing that catastrophic events on a global scale had founder of mammalian paleontology and ichthyology, Georges Cuvier. These founders of earth science produced consistent data showing that catastrophic events on a global scale had repeatedly interrupted the flow of natural history. Darwin followed Charles Lyell, who was a lawyer by education and who argued the theory of uniformity...it was his book which Darwin read when he traveled on the H.M.S. Beagle and which, as he acknowledged, was his Bible - Immanuel Volikovsky
I take this concept up in my book Atlantis, Alien Visitation and Genetic Manipulation, stressing therein that modern man habitually succumbs to draconian government control precisely because of his traumatized condition. I also make it clear that until this wound at the center of the psyche is faced and healed, nothing will ever change on our planet. We will continue to need demagogues of one sort or another to keep us feeling safe and secure. No amount of political reform will change our compulsive dependency on tyranny. Nothing will undermine the rotten hierarchies under which we toil.
In my book I also trace the origins of evil to earth cataclysm and subsequent traumatization of the psyche.
Historically speaking, the violent events in the sky happened a short time ago. Although researchers give conflicting dates, that isn’t the significant issue. It only interests those focused on the physical effects and consequences of the comet’s impact. It’s less important to those determined to address the psychological effects.
In my book I also trace the origins of evil to earth cataclysm and subsequent traumatization of the psyche.
Historically speaking, the violent events in the sky happened a short time ago. Although researchers give conflicting dates, that isn’t the significant issue. It only interests those focused on the physical effects and consequences of the comet’s impact. It’s less important to those determined to address the psychological effects.
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There comes the dark dragon flying, the shining serpent, up from Dark-of-moon hills; Nidhogg flies over the plain, in his wings he carries corpses; now she must sink down - (The Poetic Edda)
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Comyns Beaumont (1873-1955) and Immanuel Velikovsky (1895-1979) were committed and informed catastrophists, who bravely took on the scientific and religious establishmernt. Their monumentally important discoveries about prehistory are corroborated by those of Ignatius Donnelly and Julian Jaynes. (Here for more...)
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From this psychic fallout we not only get the rule of autocrats, but also of theocrats. It’s a matter of crown and cross - the control of the mind and the emotions. As long as the wound remains unhealed, the imperious demigods at the top of the totem-pole need fear no end to their exploitative dominion.
In the late nineteenth century we saw the advent of psychoanalysis. As far as I am concerned, this marked a moment when, for the first time, the mind was able to make a quarter-turn toward its inner wound, and sincerely seek healing.
In the late nineteenth century we saw the advent of psychoanalysis. As far as I am concerned, this marked a moment when, for the first time, the mind was able to make a quarter-turn toward its inner wound, and sincerely seek healing.
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The boundless sea rang terribly around, and the earth crashed loudly: Wide Heaven was shaken and groaned; and high Olympus reeled from its foundation under the charge of the undying gods; and a heavy quaking reached dim Tartarus and the deep sound of their feet in the fearful onset and of their hard missiles. So, then, they launched their grievous shafts upon one another; and the cry of both armies as they shouted reached to starry heaven; and they met together with a great battle-cry. Then Zeus no longer held back his might; but straight his heart was filled with fury and he showed forth all his strength. From Heaven and from Olympus he came forthwith, hurling his lightning - Hesiod (Theogany)
And the heat and blaze from both of them were on the dark-faced sea, from the thunder and lightning of Zeus and from the flame of the monster, from his blazing bolts and from the scorch and breath of his stormwinds - ibid |
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The success of Darwin, the speedy acceptance of his theory by academia, and the penetration of his theory into all things spiritual and material of the last hundred years was due to his assurance that the frame of this globe had never been shaken - Immanuel Velikovsky
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Throughout previous ages, the psyche of man has attempted to address the wound in different ways, some of them quite remarkable. For example, what we know as “mythology” is nothing less than the epic of consciousness, telling and retelling in myriad ways the great story of cataclysm, terror and hurt.
This is partly because the raging fire-spitting serpent or dragon in the sky was, from time immemorial, regarded as a force of evil. It’s memory, as said, is burned into our brains, into our very genetics. It is a deep ever-bleeding gash in our racial memory.
As part of the psyche’s attempt to restore sanity, the legend of the “hero” took birth. The psyche of man was not about to remain in a frantic fragmented state. Where there is a devil or demon, a cyclops or hydra, there must also be the special one to go forth and conquer it. Hence, we get the “combat myth.”
This is partly because the raging fire-spitting serpent or dragon in the sky was, from time immemorial, regarded as a force of evil. It’s memory, as said, is burned into our brains, into our very genetics. It is a deep ever-bleeding gash in our racial memory.
As part of the psyche’s attempt to restore sanity, the legend of the “hero” took birth. The psyche of man was not about to remain in a frantic fragmented state. Where there is a devil or demon, a cyclops or hydra, there must also be the special one to go forth and conquer it. Hence, we get the “combat myth.”
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Whoever should study ancient cults and mysteries, Osirian, Dionysian, Orphic, Eleusian, and others, would find that they came into being to symbolize, to repeat, to imitate the events of the past and the fates of planetary gods - Immanuel Velikovsky
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As I show in my article From Heaven to Earth, almost every leitmotif found in the legends of the world can be traced to bizarre events in the heavens. This holds true for the famous images of religion. Indeed, the Bible is chock full of cosmic images. It’s the same with heraldry and commercial logos.
Myth and storytelling were, therefore, important ways in which the trauma was somewhat exorcised. Today, the same thing goes on, only now it is an exorcism via movies. During the 1970s for example there were numerous "disaster" movies, which, when understood correctly, evoke emotions and memories of primeval terror. Other movies with supernatural or horror themes also kindle the deep-set wound within. Expensive special-effects have their "special effect," albeit on the subliminal level. (Think of the destruction of the planet Alderan and Death Star scenes in the first Star Wars movie.)
Many an “unexplained” ghost-story, alien sighting or UFO sighting is relevant to this matter. It is all a matter of primal fear. The fact is that the sky was a zone of terror and awe, which is one reason we looked up when uttering prayers. It’s why a zodiac of fixed signs or houses was devised. It was vital that order and regularity were restored after the havoc of the comet passed. The twelve divisions in the sky were later transposed to clocks and watches, in the form we know today. Our secular lives are organized hierarchically to offset fear and anxiety. Annual calendars, as well as various feasts and celebration days were organized to bring us a semblance of predictability and regularity. Ancient astromancers divided the zodiac and year into equinoxes and solstices for precisely this reason. In the Old Testament, God promises to never again visit the earth with cosmic upheaval. In lands such as Egypt, tall solid structures, like the Great Pyramid, were constructred to signal and celebrate the return or order. In Celtic lands, mighty stone mounds and ritual centers were carefully built to help galvanize traumatized people.
Many an “unexplained” ghost-story, alien sighting or UFO sighting is relevant to this matter. It is all a matter of primal fear. The fact is that the sky was a zone of terror and awe, which is one reason we looked up when uttering prayers. It’s why a zodiac of fixed signs or houses was devised. It was vital that order and regularity were restored after the havoc of the comet passed. The twelve divisions in the sky were later transposed to clocks and watches, in the form we know today. Our secular lives are organized hierarchically to offset fear and anxiety. Annual calendars, as well as various feasts and celebration days were organized to bring us a semblance of predictability and regularity. Ancient astromancers divided the zodiac and year into equinoxes and solstices for precisely this reason. In the Old Testament, God promises to never again visit the earth with cosmic upheaval. In lands such as Egypt, tall solid structures, like the Great Pyramid, were constructred to signal and celebrate the return or order. In Celtic lands, mighty stone mounds and ritual centers were carefully built to help galvanize traumatized people.
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One of the most important annual rituals performed in ancient Egypt was known as the raising of the Djed. The Djed column, also known as the Tat or Tet pillar, was slowly raised from a horizontal to a vertical position. It represented the fallen body of Osiris, who in turn represented the polar axis, shaken and "bent" by cataclysm. Obelisks and towers in the center of circular civic "squares" also share this symbolism.
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We are not free of the ancient dread yet, however, and what happened in the ancient past can happen again. People of modern times tremble at thunder and lightning, and adore their urban environments, where city lights remain on day and night, blotting out the stars. We get a feeling of safety amid the concrete, plate glass and steel.
At various annual ceremonies we send up fireworks and balloons. Why? We frighten children with scary tales about witches on broomsticks and boulder-throwing giants in the sky. Many gods of antiquity are depicted holding magic tridents, thunderbolts and spears. Today’s popular comic super-heroes can all be traced back to earlier mythic figures who, as heroes, possessed the power and intelligence to overcome fearsome demonic adversaries.
Relegating actual catastrophic events from history to mythology served as an effective coping-mechamism. It was instrumental to the healing process. Over the millennia a semblance of sanity and relative normalcy returned. But it’s a fragile state of affairs that can breakdown at any time. The innumerable wars, battles and political conflicts we’ve endured for millennia are the direct result of ancestral trauma. Indeed, we’d have no politics without it.
At various annual ceremonies we send up fireworks and balloons. Why? We frighten children with scary tales about witches on broomsticks and boulder-throwing giants in the sky. Many gods of antiquity are depicted holding magic tridents, thunderbolts and spears. Today’s popular comic super-heroes can all be traced back to earlier mythic figures who, as heroes, possessed the power and intelligence to overcome fearsome demonic adversaries.
Relegating actual catastrophic events from history to mythology served as an effective coping-mechamism. It was instrumental to the healing process. Over the millennia a semblance of sanity and relative normalcy returned. But it’s a fragile state of affairs that can breakdown at any time. The innumerable wars, battles and political conflicts we’ve endured for millennia are the direct result of ancestral trauma. Indeed, we’d have no politics without it.
In the aftermath of cosmic and terrestrial devastation, a second neurotic syndrome arose. I speak of it as an “antipathy to nature,” and show that it is the cause for our egregious ruination of the environment and demonization of animals (the very word means "evil spirit").
Our subconscious attitude can be expressed thusly: The earth hurt us, so we can justifiably hurt the earth. It’s exactly what we’ve been doing throughout the ages.
Our subconscious attitude can be expressed thusly: The earth hurt us, so we can justifiably hurt the earth. It’s exactly what we’ve been doing throughout the ages.
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Primitive man had no clocks or calendars. They did not know they were on a revolving planet, or about the solar system and universe. They didn't know about the size of the earth, or that many other lands existed beyond the horizon. They recorded no past times and did not contemplate the future in any abstract historical sense. Paleolithic man was not curious and formed no "theories." When the sky flared up, when thunder rolled and if meteors shot above their heads at night, let alone massive comets with tails extending for over a million miles, their response was pure terror. This terror is forever encoded within everyone's psyche and DNA. Does this explain our modern infatuation with dragons, dinosaurs and superheroes?
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It’s highly irrational to have this necrophilous attitude toward nature, since it only means that we will destroy ourselves in the end, not the earth.
It is vital that we holistically address both the ancestral trauma and irrational antipathy to nature. They are the main reasons why progress is so slow, and why contlicts of major proportions continue breaking out in every corner of the world.
Emotional trauma is encoded in our DNA. Each of us has inherited it from past times. I maintain that by way of the law of resonance, smaller traumas happening to us openly in domestic and social settings stimulate the greater cache of trauma sleeping below. The more surface disturbance, the more the beast within alarmingly stirs. It’s a recipie for disaster.
The trouble is that although we know nothing about the dynamics of ancestral trauma, the World Controllers and Puppet-Masters know everything about it. Our ignorance in this regard puts us at their mercy.
Many there are who speculate on the physical effects of earth cataclysm, but there’s hardly a single one addressing the psychological damage done to our ancestors who were anything but passive observers of it all. The psychic walls erected as protection against the memory of past tumult work well enough to keep it all at bay. We do not care to have the nightmare return to compromise what little sanity and ego-control remains. Nevertheless, repression is merely internal oppression. An inner state of apartheid is not ultimately sustainable.
It is vital that we holistically address both the ancestral trauma and irrational antipathy to nature. They are the main reasons why progress is so slow, and why contlicts of major proportions continue breaking out in every corner of the world.
Emotional trauma is encoded in our DNA. Each of us has inherited it from past times. I maintain that by way of the law of resonance, smaller traumas happening to us openly in domestic and social settings stimulate the greater cache of trauma sleeping below. The more surface disturbance, the more the beast within alarmingly stirs. It’s a recipie for disaster.
The trouble is that although we know nothing about the dynamics of ancestral trauma, the World Controllers and Puppet-Masters know everything about it. Our ignorance in this regard puts us at their mercy.
Many there are who speculate on the physical effects of earth cataclysm, but there’s hardly a single one addressing the psychological damage done to our ancestors who were anything but passive observers of it all. The psychic walls erected as protection against the memory of past tumult work well enough to keep it all at bay. We do not care to have the nightmare return to compromise what little sanity and ego-control remains. Nevertheless, repression is merely internal oppression. An inner state of apartheid is not ultimately sustainable.
Gnostics deal with the trauma by deeming the earth a hellish place that must be begrudgingly endured for a short time. Religion teaches us about a supernatural world into which we can escape while alive. It awaits us after death, and is a veritable paradise. Utopians believe the earth will be transfigured into a garden of Eden sometime in the future. The lion will lie down with the lamb. Hindus, and other races, speak of past golden ages of peace and plenty. The Norse recall a time of “Ragnarok,” when the world of the old gods fell into ruin. Jews and Christians tell of ten plagues and a universal flood that covered the whole earth. Many other Biblical books and apocryphal texts speak of horrendous paroxyms, while the creation myths of Sumeria, Babylon, Akkadia, Egypt, India, Mexico and Ireland speak of massive terrestrial upheavals and warring gods. Do we ever inquire into where it all comes from?
And what about the cocktail of bizarre human phobias - particularly fear of falling, high places, open spaces, claustrophobic enclosures, noises in the sky and of certain insects and animals? What of the odd behavior of certain animals, such as eels, salmon, turtles, lemmings and coyotes, etc? Is it all just a matter of irrational behavior and thinking, or is it more akin to what Plato described as anamnesis or phylogenetic memory?
And what about the cocktail of bizarre human phobias - particularly fear of falling, high places, open spaces, claustrophobic enclosures, noises in the sky and of certain insects and animals? What of the odd behavior of certain animals, such as eels, salmon, turtles, lemmings and coyotes, etc? Is it all just a matter of irrational behavior and thinking, or is it more akin to what Plato described as anamnesis or phylogenetic memory?
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The great American catastrophist Ignatius Donnelly (1831-1901) wrote two pioneering books on prehistoric cataclysm entitled Atlantis: The Ante-Diluvian Continent and Ragnarok: Age of Fire and Gravel. He was granted permission from his friend President Abraham Lincoln to take the Challenger out into the Atlantic Ocean to make the world's first expedition in search of Atlantis. Soon after the president was assassinated and the project was sadly shelved. We can only guess what effect the discovery of the lost continent would have made on world affairs. His detailed work discredits the Uniformitarian paradigm, and confirms that catastrophe is not just a matter for myth, legend and fiction. Richard Milton's Shattering the Myths of Darwinism, and Alan and Delair's Cataclysm, are also highly recommended. (Here for more...)
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Psychologist Otto Rank went so far as to speculate that what we call the “unconscious” exists precisely because of traumatic past events. Indeed, Velikovsky was a professional psychologist and close friend of Freud and Rank. Decades prevously, English mystic William Blake espoused a similar concept of the psyche. It’s a matter of profound dissociation. We can speculate that it’s also the reason for the divided brain. What information lies buried in the so-called Right-Hemisphere? Did the Left-Brain come online as a kind of censor blocking content from the other side?
And what about the origins of the so-called Thanatos Instinct or “Death Wish?” We all have it, but it’s more pronounced in crowds. Indeed, Rank believed it drives us to immerse ourselves in the lives of others, into herd-think. It’s the means by which we seek to escape being sovereign selves. But is there more to it than this? Is it simply a manifestation of a congenital weakness or infirmity at the center of the old brain?
Are we capable of finding the truth about ancestral trauma and its effects? One hardly thinks so, since it means touching on the wound of wounds. The pain is still too great, the wound far too raw. It wasn’t attempted by our forebears, and it’s not something moderns are keen on. We’re intent only on running away and avoiding it. Hence the ego’s many defence-mechanisms and advent of the superego, which not only censors disturbing wordly content from compromising ego function, but also content from the Id or inner world. What, we ask, is so threatening about the deep psyche, and will we ever have the courage to find out?
And what about the origins of the so-called Thanatos Instinct or “Death Wish?” We all have it, but it’s more pronounced in crowds. Indeed, Rank believed it drives us to immerse ourselves in the lives of others, into herd-think. It’s the means by which we seek to escape being sovereign selves. But is there more to it than this? Is it simply a manifestation of a congenital weakness or infirmity at the center of the old brain?
Are we capable of finding the truth about ancestral trauma and its effects? One hardly thinks so, since it means touching on the wound of wounds. The pain is still too great, the wound far too raw. It wasn’t attempted by our forebears, and it’s not something moderns are keen on. We’re intent only on running away and avoiding it. Hence the ego’s many defence-mechanisms and advent of the superego, which not only censors disturbing wordly content from compromising ego function, but also content from the Id or inner world. What, we ask, is so threatening about the deep psyche, and will we ever have the courage to find out?
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It (the id) contains everything that is inherited, that is present at birth, that is laid down in the constitution - Sigmund Freud
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The reaction against efforts to bring to the surface of consciousness repressed contents that struggle to stay repressed can be violent and cause an outburst of hatred - Immanuel Velikovsky
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In Mankind in Amnesia, Velikovsky mused that so deep is our desire to evade the scars of internal trauma, that we’ll settle for many another neurotic state if it keeps us from attending to it. This compulsion for dissociation may even be the cause of the divided brain, as well as the unconscious (or id).
Probing beneath ego-defences to approach the psychic lands of fire and brimstone arouses enormous anxiety and anger. Consequently, we will wade in violence and murder rather than turn to face the horror within. We crave distractions of any kind, as long as we can evade memories of a terrestrial bottomless pit into which the whole human race once tumbled. Although we have displaced the lightless hell, sheol, avernus or hades to the subterranean world, it actually resides as a racial memory within the subconscious. We bring hell back into the daylight world when this simple fact is dismissed or forgotten.
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Probing beneath ego-defences to approach the psychic lands of fire and brimstone arouses enormous anxiety and anger. Consequently, we will wade in violence and murder rather than turn to face the horror within. We crave distractions of any kind, as long as we can evade memories of a terrestrial bottomless pit into which the whole human race once tumbled. Although we have displaced the lightless hell, sheol, avernus or hades to the subterranean world, it actually resides as a racial memory within the subconscious. We bring hell back into the daylight world when this simple fact is dismissed or forgotten.
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Michael Tsarion (2022)