The Superconscious
Bois, Jules
THE COMMONWEAL November a6, 1924 ful ones, are convinced that their differences from ...
...It pretends to be the new truth, and it is as old as the lint lie...
...Our modem Apostate Julians disinterred dead beliefs, but such a ghastly mummery is not long in vanishing under the wrcck of idols to which no necromancer could impart a lasting lifc...
...Libido is the "evil wish" rooted in the corrupt spot of our naturc...
...The first temptation is clothed in the stem garment of official science...
...if we do not dam our Dead Sea, discouragement, scepticism, cynicism or, what is worst, intellectual pride, with its misleading assumptions, will move back up the Jordan (our eveuy day state of soul) and will pollute its stream...
...V The preceding vignettes purport solely to visualize a truth...
...This second and secondary "me" of ours has no creative genius...
...ro matter-of-fact minds is fitted our first simile, THE COMMONWEAL November 26, 1924 drawn from two biological principles inherent in the constitution and functioning of our good...
...If the opposing body of old-fashioned Protestant theology has waned, there has grown up instead among liberal Protestants a naturalistic humanitarianism, which grows more and more aggressively dogmatic, and which is of course much farther removed from the whole Catholic Weltanschauung...
...His psychoanalysis delights in dissecting morbid complexes, as Goethe's Mephisto displayed for Faust the Sabbath of Walpurgis Night...
...The other enticement is wrapped in all the tinsel of a faded nautch-girl, feigning youth with the pera verse rites of the Orient...
...Pantheism and selfapotheosis...
...they escape chemical analysis, as the superconscious has hitherto been intangible to psychological approach...
...But in our heart, too, are running fresh waters, such as those of the other Palestinian lake, the Sea of Tiberias...
...In other words, "intolerance of ideas" certainly tends towards "intolerance of persons...
...III To begin with let us note that Freudism and Neo-Paganism rest on the same foundation, nebulous and truncated...
...Now these two movements produce balance and unity, provided the later, namely, the subconscious, be tamed by the other, our superconscious self, enabling us to enjoy our entire strength and a worth while destiny...
...THE COMMONWEAL November a6, 1924 ful ones, are convinced that their differences from Protestants are neither insignificant nor theoretical, but full of profound social consequences...
...It is the urgent duty of all educated Americans to join in fighting the crude intolerance which is capitalized by such organizations as the Ku Klux Klan, and which has followed with hideous unexpectedness the union sacr6e of the war...
...Drink on, 'ci November 26, 1924 THE COMMONWEAL 63 critis sicut dci...
...The author of The Book of the High Romance has found a happy phrase embracing these innumerable chapels, churches, sects, secret or open, and has called them Nco-Paganism...
...and thc winds of the great expanse rush in to fan the inner fire...
...These are the tomes...
...We can, however, no more live without vitainines materially than our soul can breathe deep life without the superconscious...
...I-low shall we name the second...
...Patriotic Catholics and Protestants can unite in combating the spread of a movement so incalculably fertile in evil, not by denying their differences, but by seeing these differences as they really are, by acknowleaging each other's good faith, and by emphatically r~~tsolving to strive together for their country's welfare in spite of the sad heritage of a divided Christendom...
...We arc made drunk, the better to be robbed...
...Possibilities of friction must apparently remain, as long as human nature is tempted to advance the cause of what is seen as vital truth in ways incompatible with charity towards those believed to be in error...
...But soon the sirens arc metamorphosed into harpies...
...The one a soulless psychology, materialistic and determinist, exultantly diminishing our stature and vilifying our character...
...It is legion...
...but it awaits only a faltering of our will, a sign of weakness, to emerge on the surface and invade us...
...Freud, who came considerably after the noteworthy scientists above cited, has performed but one scrvicc: he unmasked it, unintentionally perhaps, by inflicting on it -a Latin word which dearly expresacs its main function—the Libido...
...A power greater than human," the Pope declared, "must be called in to teach men's hearts, awaken in them the sense of duty and make them better.~~ "More than human," indeed is that power since it descends from Sinai and Golgotha...
...and so it becomes for us the umpire of Providence, for such a wisdom is seldom taught in our colleges and universities...
...There drhik to their fill false prophets, charlatans of every order and disorder, mediums, healers who should begin by healing themselves—and those bar tenders of psychic saloons, worse than all others, since the vended drug poisons the soul first of all...
...The first school, as we have said, culminates in Freud, with his acolytes and scattering of adherents, Gustav Yung, Beatrice M. 1-linkle and many others...
...but this iconoclast decapitates us of our highest nature...
...At this seabottom accumulates the lethiferous salt, which destroys [ike false wisdom...
...Legion and parody...
...the other, the toxines—as the name indicates, toxic, recalling the subconscious...
...There also lie the submerged bents and instincts, that are themselves ruins, and they work to our ruin...
...in Prance, Pierre Janet...
...This current below the waters of consciousness, though obscure, has beat and will long be, I fear, the abstade when we desire to be good and strong...
...antithetical to the Sulphuric Sea, as the superconscious is a contrast to the subconscious...
...Life is often alone in charge of this initiating task...
...THE SUPERCONSCIOUS By JULES BOIS IN AN essay on Christianity, Cardinal Gibbons quoted an inspiring sentence taken from an encyclical letter of Leo XIII, which should serve as a motto to any real psychology, not limited to the analysis of our ordinary and animal functions, and ought to be the slogan of a thorough education to be imparted to children and young men...
...We well know that our narrow and outward personality is a poor receptacle of the spirit...
...We have been eating them ever since man and things that have life appeared on the planet...
...The promise of material happiness alternates with the kingdom of this world, the cultus of Mainmon and Astarte...
...The amoral hypocrisy hidden in obscure recesses of the instinct, Freud has excused and systcmatized...
...The spring of conscience in us, it is, too, the fiery chariot of the supernormal breath...
...With more ease than the mere intellectual, does the simple man without cerebral conceit and guided by his conscience, often enjoy this privilege When we are intoxicated by vain reasoning and verbal culture, we lose contact with nature's and supernature's finer energies...
...Its promoters were, in England, Frederic Myers...
...that is why, lacking a better name, we have called it supereonsciousness...
...The following mpauimon will better please poetical imeflects...
...in America, William James...
...By cvii alchemy it is transformed (as in the mcdiaeval legend) into a dried leaf...
...As for the subconscious, it is a lumber room, an attic, and, at its best, a reserve store house, in short a minimum of consciousness and a negation of conscience, a channel through which something fertile and liberating cannot pass...
...and self-worship the supreme religion...
...Evil destiny Is your warden and death is stronger than life...
...You men," it says, "are anchored to heredity, you cannot disentangle yourselves from your native temperament and baseness...
...Recent generations have been called upc~ to choose between two snares...
...there He taught us and worked miracles...
...Our soul—that icilor Paicutine "—wasias something which corresponds to the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee...
...However, in the most dreadful crises of our destiny, we are saved only by this aid, which bequeaths inspiration as well as conversion, regeneration as well as power...
...human still because it shines in our spiritual masters, the heroes and the saints, pierces through the man of genius, true to his mission, and could be stirred up in all of us to quicken the best of our nature...
...All this is queer and equivocal enough, but in no way original and new— cxcepting for the ignorant and aimless rich who try to kill time at five o'clock lectures...
...The Dead Sea can be likened to our subconscious, which encloses Conan Doyle's derisive imps, Freud's Libido, and, what is of more import, the accursed Cities of the Plain, the Seven Capital Sins, set on fire by remorse...
...Legion indeed I It wears the masques of Lucifcr, especially those of Prometheus and the Angel of Light...
...It is made especially to respond to sense perceptions...
...The ordinary psychologist, who is but little more than a physiologist, sees our psyche merely as a faint phosphorescence above our organs...
...The personal god is the last idol...
...All of us long for a more abundant and harmonious life, putting an end to our inner conflicts, and unifying our divided selves...
...Our subconscious self is the refuse of science and philosophy, with a good repertory of heresies once in fashion and out-of-date theodicics...
...But no, the ancient serpent was too modest in his promises...
...we move heavily under the coat of mail woven by this material and mechanical civilization of ours...
...and the other a spurious metaphysics, resurging from the dust of occultism and from Asiatic fireworks—an intoxication and a mirage...
...Still this gold is cheap and falsifled...
...We ourselves pro...
...but we are ignorant of the fact . . . We have used them always, but we have discovered them only within the last few years...
...Quite the reverse is that which in us carries on £ wsmic thrill to a maximum of consciousness and a maximum of conscience...
...Neo-Paganism will fail as it has failed in the past...
...Their absence makes life impossible...
...In Neo-Paganisni the subconscious becomes thc Golden He-Goat, a friend, besides, of the Golden Calf...
...Still this does not alter the fact that since the first days when man appeared on earth, he could not have withstood so many trials, created civilization, risen into regions where we have a presentiment of the eternal verities, and, better still, have broken down the barriers of egoism and have done righteously, without the use of this invisible superconscious power within him—which Libido and complexes would never have accomplished...
...In the body, they resemble the bad psychic complexes in the mind, which in great part are the result of our own work, and must be incessantly eliminated, instead of being cultivated and fortified as they are by the Freudian would-be cure...
...Drink of my cup," it sings, "and my philter will carry you beyond sickness, old age, misfortune, sin ani death...
...Now it was Libido holding the upper hand...
...In place of argument a few analogies will enlighten us on the conflicting nature of the two poles of the soul, one positive, thc other negative, situa~tcd on each margin of our conscious scif...
...Plorinus feels very astonished to be seated near Paracelsus...
...Such despicable enterprises flourish on the conditions which this essay would help in remedying: confusion, wilful or otherwise, of racial and social issues with religious ones—misconceptions of doctrines—mistrust of those with whom we differ...
...It takes sad pride in amplifying our worst drawbacks...
...sometimes we have bowed before the Titan deified...
...Tumultuous, rich in stored-up memories forgotten by our conscious self, it discloses a curiosity shop, a defaced Pantheon, a witch's and wizard's grotto, such as the Flemish painters have caricatured, wherein all the discarded gods and demons elbow each other...
...U opens the windows towards the Infinite...
...It has hitherto been regarded as mysterious because we were ignorant of its rules...
...By repression, civilization has driven it deep into subconsciousness...
...Before them the subconscious bad not been "isolated" amid thc composite torrent of our personality...
...and above it are outspread tempests and mirages...
...but they may, at the same time, sharpen our discernment and incline us to think...
...and after having believed themselves to be gods, these children of Maya awaken the prisoners of abasement and despair...
...Should they avoid Charybdis, the pessimistic and agnostic attitude towards life, they would run aground on the hidden rocks of over-optimism...
...This possibility is at hand...
...This rich unity and coalescence in a great principle of conduct—this unity whereto we ordinary men tend, too inconstantly—will be~ as Cardinal Gibbons also asserts in the essay pitviously quoted, "the shadow of the divine life, the eondition of a new sanctity...
...There is in us, thank God, the rise of the sap, physical and spiritual, perpetually in contention with the ebb of death...
...But it is necessary to understand that unity and peace do not' arise from below, that is, from the subconscious "evil wish...
...I say—'You are God Himself.' I am the revelation of man, the unanimous wisdom cf yore with the freed spirit of tomorrow...
...In Nw-Paganism the samc unleashing of our anarchic impulses is attempted...
...Allan Kardec connives with Stanton Moses...
...Not only does it blow out that dawning glow which every young man in his hours of enthusiasm and faith feels as though piercing through his brow...
...We have, at His command, cast the net of meditation and prayer, and we have caught the marvelous draught of solace and inspiration...
...The vitamines seem to have been not as yet "isolated...
...Thesc many "new isms" also live on and by, the subconscious—nay, they glorify 'and deify it...
...they come to us from above, from the power which must be obeyed, being Itself law and order...
...Those rcflectivc moonbeams are grinning, spectral, sometimes fascinating, maddening...
...The Persian 1kb shakes hands ~vith Nietzsche...
...This self is a fact among many others, which has value only in relation to these other facts...
...It is their superconscioumness.-.-their genius—that has disciplined the great men who are our appointed guides, whatever be their line of activity...
...again it was the god Pan...
...The joy which comes from a satisfied conscience has its sweet reflection in the quiet mirror of this divine pool...
...They are substances, as yet ill-defined, whose presence in food is essential to our well-being...
...This false science and this false philosophy arc each buttressed by the subconscious, which they confusedly denominate the unconscious...
...Yet, whatever imprudence or cruelty has been shown in the past by Christians of all kinds, surely no Christian is justified in letting this tendency prevail, and certainly no Catholic can find support in his Church's teachings for a zeal for orthodoxy which ignores charity, seeks to gain unfair advantages, or refuses to serve with those of different religion the country to which both owe allegiance...
...This our Lake of Galilee, has also once been touched by the feet of Christ...
...Sometimes we werc fascinated by the vicious instinct...
...Though no one has ever set eyes on a vitamine," says Benjamin Harrow, "vitamines are real things, and quite indispensable as part of our dietary...
...dccc them, they are germs of death...
...It takes an outlet in our dreams, insipid, frivolous or monstrous, which, like bats, beat the wing heavily in our psychic caverns...
...Our transgressions as well as our inherited and acquired ailments—this is Libido...
...Here are easily detected the curses of the three fates, finally labelled in the psychiatry of Freud...
...It is a harvest of blessed fruits and profitable actions, that we reap on its enchanted shores...
...But the good gold coin of our will is quickly lost, if deposited in this vaunted bank...
...It is now known what the vitamines are, or rather, what is understood by the word...
...It entered into traditional psychology rather late, a little more than half a century ago, and naturally has been accorded an exaggerated importance...
...Iv On the other hand, the superconscious is a substantial and permanent dynamism...
...the one, eminently beneficent, the vitamines, corresponds to the superconscious...
...Ncverthelcss k is the bottomless well of illusion...
...If we assent, it tries to damp us in our body, identifying our noble self with the lower...
...Strangely similar is the r6le of the superconscious in the mind...
...There, be it undcrstood, it has always played its part as a dissolvent...
...Lincoln, Dante, Shakespeare, Pasteur, were coherent through their fidelity to a high thought...
...and Emerson k quite sorry to be compromised with Quimby...
...On the other side, there are in our organism minute cells which toil secretly to poison us, and, in truth succeed...
...II How many of us have wavered between these two witcherics...
...Neither the Freudists, however, nor even the NwPagans have discovered the subconscious...
Vol. 1 • November 1924 • No. 3
