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The Soul and its Mechanism - Introduction
A broad and general division is outlined for us by Dr. Prince as follows: "Psychologists are divided into three camps - the self-psychologists, the selfless psychologists and the middle grounders. The first group maintain that the content of every conscious process includes a self - an awareness of self, a self-consciousness. Hence that all consciousness is a consciousness or awareness of something by a self. "The second group, the selfless ones, claim to be unable to find any self, or consciousness of self by introspection; deny its reality and hold that mental processes function without any such reality. The 'I' and the 'You' are merely compulsory expressions required by the necessities of language." - Prince, Morton, Psychologies of 1925, p. 223. Western psychology in the mass is clearly materialistic. It is mechanistic, thriving in an age of machines and machinery. The position of the Western mechanistic psychologist is, therefore, almost impregnably strong, for it is based upon known truths and demonstrated facts. He can prove his position and cite his cases, and his knowledge of the mechanism of man which he claims is the entire man, is based upon experiment and tests, with objective and tangible results. [26] Against this materialistic psychology, the criticism which emerges immediately is the almost exclusive consideration that the Western Psychologist gives to subnormal, deficient, and pathological cases. The supernormal, the genius, and the so-called highly spiritual individual have been neglected, and much that is beautiful, essential and true to the average man is explained away. Had He been subjected to psychoanalysis, Christ would no doubt have found Himself neatly tabulated and classified, as suffering from a "Jehovah complex" and regarded as subject to hallucinations. Yet the type of structure that He used, and the quality of the "consciousness characterizing His nervous system" was such that He has set His mark upon the ages. How can such a structure again be duplicated? What can be done to reproduce a similar mechanism? Modern psychology is only at the threshold of its career, and Walt Whitman visions the greater field thus: "Hurrah for positive science! Long live exact demonstration!..." Your facts are useful, and yet they are not my dwelling, I but enter by them to an area of my dwelling" - Whitman, Walt, Leaves of Grass, p. 10. In sharp contrast with the Western School is the Eastern one of which the introspectionists and mentalists in the West, though arising independently, [27] are but a hazy reflection. Eastern psychology deals with that which it claims lies back of the form. It is spiritual and transcendental. It assumes a soul and a spirit and all its deductions and conclusions are based on this premise. It fully admits the form and the structure, but lays the emphasis upon the one who uses the form and the energy with which he drives it forward. It is the psychology of life and energy. From time immemorial this has been the thought of the East, and it is clearly pictured in that venerable scripture of India, The Bhagavad Gita: "The Supreme Spirit, here in the body, is called the Beholder, the Thinker, the Upholder, the Taster, the Lord, the Highest Self. "Illuminated by the power that dwells in all the senses, yet free from all sense-powers, detached, all supporting, not divided into powers, yet enjoying all powers. "Without and within all beings, motionless, yet moving, not to be perceived is That, because of its subtlety, That stands afar, yet close at hand. - XIII, 22, 14, 15. "These temporal bodies are declared to belong to the eternal lord of the body, imperishable, immeasurable. - II, 17. "They say the sense powers are higher than objects; than the sense powers, emotion is higher; than emotion, understanding is higher; but higher than understanding is He." - III, 42. Thus Oriental psychology deals with the cause, with the creator, with the self, whether that self [28] is the human divine self, functioning in its own little world of mental, emotional and physical activities, or the great Self, in whom all lesser selves live and move and have their being. It claims its great Demonstrators, and has produced those claiming to know the Self, and through that knowledge to be in touch with the subjective Self, with the Over Soul. These claims, they state, can be substantiated and proven by any who will study their methods and submit to their special training. In the sphere of the energizing Self, of the spirit behind and beyond, their position is as clear as that of the Western psychologist in the realm of the energized form. The defects of the two systems are plain and produce deplorable results in each case. The West emphasizes the mechanism, and its tendency is towards the denial of the soul and of a motivating intelligent power. For it, man is but dust of the ground and into his nostrils was never breathed the spirit of God. The East recognizes the physical but scorns it, and, in so doing, becomes responsible for the miserable physical conditions of the Orient. Serious as these defects are, is it not true in this field also that in union there is strength? If the Self exists - and this must be demonstrated - and is the conscious divine Soul, can it not be aware of the physical plane as well as of its divine affiliations? If it is the dominant energy, producing all manifestation - and this too must be proved - cannot that energy be adapted to the [29] structure which it uses in such a wise and significant manner that the best results may be achieved? Cannot the scientific knowledge of the West about the form, and the accumulated and inherited wisdom of the East about the nature of the Soul be brought together intelligently so that a perfect expression of the Soul may be produced through the medium of the mechanism? Cannot matter reach upwards towards mind and Soul and Spirit - call it what you will - and cannot Spirit, assisting that urge upward, perfect the vehicle through which it demonstrates, and thus shine more radiantly? It is in this hope that I write - the hope of combining the materialistic and introspective psychologies, and of harmonizing the West and the East, and so indicate that in their union lies strength and reality. [30]
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