[sjahari hollands]

I notice that Iain is giving a talk on this same topic ;at Duke University in April

[sjahari hollands]

I have that book and read it last year. The relationship between this and Jung’s work with Synchronicity is quite interesting. This book was part of a web course on synchronicity given by the Centre for Applied Jungian Analysis. I encouraged them to invite Iain.

There is a lot of overlap.

[sjahari hollands]

thanks for these references. I have been investigating Disenchantment as well as Max Weber from the Jungian Point of view. Everything connects.

And this makes me want to return to Osler’s writing as well. There seems to be little left of it in teaching clinical skills.

[sjahari hollands]

I am looking mainly for specific examples where these ideas are being applied in the work we do as physicians.

I will give one.

As an Internist in a community hospital I was extremely busy with very long days. The time I had available to see patients was very limited.

Nevertheless in my career I never had the complaint from patients that I didnt spend enough time with them. And that is often the complaint when people see their doctors. They come away saying that he barely interacted with them. I would probably have spent less time with them myself and yet the patients had the sense that I was taking all the time in the world.

I believe that was due to the level of sustained attention (RH) I was bring to the interaction. And the time we had together seemed like an eternity (duration).

The biggest complaint that people have in medicine across the board is that there is not enough time. I believe this is because we have lost that sense of enchantment that can expand a few seconds into an eternity.

[sjahari hollands]

It certainly seems to me that Henri Bergson is totally in line with the ideas Iain is expressing.

Cant see any discord there.

[sjahari hollands]

Interesting Post. It seems to me that we are in a continuous dance between the 1 and the 2 and that we find truth, beauty, creativity when the two are in balance, toggling back and forth. The actor on stage is totally in the present moment, while simultaneously having the script tucked in there somewhere in the background.

[sjahari hollands]

In the same way McGilchrist made me interested in William James so I have been reading him. In his discussion of Pluralism he references Fichte a lot.

[sjahari hollands]

what is the “it” that cycles through the various stages. Or what is the “I” within the “we”? What is the identity that does this work? Couldnt the word soul be used for that?

[sjahari hollands]

After listening to Mark’s talk, I got his book on Dante’s Inferno on Audio and am working my way through it.

Dipping into the Paradisio it seems clear to me that Dante must have experienced a kind of ascension of the soul like both Jesus and Mohammed experienced. There are many stories in the indigenous cultures that describe something similar. The spiritual guide of my spiritual practice also experienced this and it was the basis of Subud (that practice). the unique thing about Dante is that he had the ability to approach the experience poetically.

Now Iian in his work skirts around all this but does not address it directly.

I see the RH as a tool for the soul, just like the LH is. But it is not the soul itself. It seems that the soul has access to that realm of all the primal stuff (unus Mundi?) And that there is a life in that realm which Dante and these others experienced.

ANy thoughts?

[sjahari hollands]

Hi Rodney and Zak.

I will find the references. Jung’s highest aspiration was to be a scientist. He wanted his discoveries about the archetypes to be confirmed scientifically and was disappointed that it couldnt happen in his life time. He sensed that this should be possible and predicted that one day it would happen. It has in the last few years. I can give you the references that support this current work.

My own view is that Iain’s work dovetails perfectly with the ideas I outlined. He is on the same page as Atsmansbacher on this idea of panentheism or Neutral monism.

Let’s talk about myth and metaphor. Iain is constantly referencing them. They are a reality in the way of life and relationships. We could talk about the myth of the Mother. It exists in us. All of us. It is a way of being in the world.

To think that the only things that exist are the things we see in the physical world is an attitude of the LH.

To understand that there is also a world of existence, the world of the psyche, made essentially of the same stuff that the physical world is made of, brings us closer to an understanding of what our lives are about.

Myths are real. The metaphors in these myths are actually pointing to something that exists. They are a part of reality, just as much as the chair I am sitting on is.

Jung named these metaphors archetypes. He discovered and described many of them and how they work.

Sjahari

[sjahari hollands]

thanks for your reply Whit.

The way I am looking at things now is to see these hemispheres – trying for a metaphor here – maybe like little machines that we have. Or servants maybe? Or Noblemen in the court?

So there is me. Myself. And then I have these two guys who help me get along in the world. My LH with all its language and ability to get things done. Represent things and so on. And my RH with all its insight and betweenness and creativity and ability to really see things.

In a way maybe I am disagreeing with Iaian here because I dont believe the RH should be the master and the LH the emissary. The RH should be more like the Prime Minister, and the LH is the Minister of Finance or something. And the The King is me.

[sjahari hollands]

Rodney, I found your posting above quite fascinating and profound as a way of being.

Maybe this should be a seperate discussion topic, but I am interested in how all the ideas being presented here dovetail with the ideas coming out of the Jungian field and in particular the phenomenon of synchronicity as explored by Harald Atmanspacher.

He is a well respected physicist and also writes about panentheism which Iain also subscribes to. His term for this is Neutral Monism.

The core idea there is that the physical world and the psychic world are both made of the same stuff. They are simply two different manifestations of that stuff. And since they are made of the same stuff they can actually influence each other.

Archetypes exist in this psychic realm. And it is interesting that they are actually being identified now as real entities by neurobiologists, both in our brains, and also at the cellular level.

It is these archetypes that create synchronistic events. They do it because they can do it. And I guess occasionally they do it for a purpose.

Maybe I should post this as a seperate discussion? I think it is very closely related to the ideas being explored through Iain’s work.

[sjahari hollands]

I appreciate your insight here Rodney. And the others.

As I reflect on my question I am beginning to see that the real issue here is not that the RH has abdicated its role, but that I have. It is my Self, that needs to step up here and become the master in my own house, using all the power and creativity and love available to me. I have these capacities.

Iain’s work therefore is simply a metaphor for these aspects of the self. That metaphor has a manifestation in the world of matter as the anatomy of the Right Hemisphere of the brain, which is where it is located as quantum particles and neutrons, but it is much more than that. This Self actually has an existence of its own in the realm of the invisible world, the psyche, which is seperate and distinct from the anatomy. And it will be there after I die, (if it has developed enough by then. )

I am glad I asked this question here, because it is allowing me to discover something new.

[sjahari hollands]

I would be interested in this session

[sjahari hollands]

It is the same here. I am talking about spending 3 minutes with a patient. When there is that kind of RH attention then time seems to enter another realm of duration.

I dont think there is anything special about me. Definitely not. It’s just that most physicians are so much in their LH and that is where time becomes an issue. When in the LH there is never enough time. In the RH experience time is not an issue in the same way. I think that medical students can find this way of being and that they understand this from other aspects in their lives. Sports for instance where this is well known. The one student I had got it immediately.