Projectile Projection

[Joan Marie]

Why is "projection" regarded as an unfortunate tendency in psychiatry, but as a vital necessity in religion?


In honour of Lon Milo DuQuette who inspired this question via dodalisque, I will draw from the Thoth Tarot.

And here is what I got:

9 of Swords - Cruelty

Knight (King) of Wands

6 of Swords - Science

I'm seeing the middle card, the Knight of Wands, (I always forget that in Thoth the Knight is the King, and there is no King) this Knight is the fiery force of projection to be used for either ill purposes, the 9 of swords Cruelty, or for the glorification of Religion which is well depicted on the 6 of Swords with that Cross in the center, but the card is called Science, and the relevance of that is not clear to me yet. Checking the BoT, Mr. Crowley says that the 6 of Swords represents the highest development of mind and morals, hardly won and almost impossible to hold onto and if that doesn't describe "religion" I don't know what does.

I think the answer to the question, "Why is "projection" regarded as an unfortunate tendency in psychiatry, but as a vital necessity in religion?", lies in the application of it, the motivation or intention behind it. First we have to understand that projection is a coping mechanism, like denial, or repression or disassociation. And coping mechanisms are not always unhealthy per se. For example, at a terribly sad funeral you may disassociate as a way of keeping yourself together during the service for the benefit of others. It a question of are you using the coping mechanism to cope or to avoid something. Those are different.

Let's start with the idea of projection in psychiatry being regarded, generally, as an unfortunate or unhealthy tendency. It must be causing problems or there wouldn't be a shrink involved. So back to my 9 of Swords, the projection is either causing or is caused by cruelty. A person who is projecting this way is only living half a life because they are unable to even feel their own emotions, understand their own logic and their own mind. They are living in a lie, held prisoner by that lie imagining themselves as always the righteous one. Which is not only untrue, it's a rather dull way to be. And they are often the only one who does not see that.

Keep this in mind about seeing oneself as the righteous one as we move to the religious aspect.

Additionally living in this lie, this fantasy, it's impossible to truly experience other people because we aren't seeing them as they are. We aren't learning. All this makes life feel smaller.

Moving on, in religion, we ascribe al the highest development of mind and morals (the 6 of Swords) to the God figure and by extension, to the clergy and to the capital "C" Church. But mostly to God.
But imagine how limited that is. We can't ascribe any quality we can't name, or can't understand but we do our best to imagine what a perfect human would be and then we say that's what God is. We can have moments of grace and greatness, but only God can keep that up 24/7/365. That's the only way we can really imagine God as being better than us, that he can always do that without fail and never give in to baser instincts. But still, our gods don't possess any quality we don't have ourselves. They just have much more of it.

That's why the Gods we create are a bit dull. We simply lack the capacity to imagine qualities beyond those we know. So yes, in order to create our religions we had to learn to project our highest imagined selves onto the Deity.

In both cases, projection as an unfortunate tendency in psychiatry AND as a vital necessity in religion, share the quality of severely limiting one's own possibilities to experience everyday life and spiritual life.

This whole question reminded me of a scene in the film "The Ruling Class" where Peter O'Toole plays a man who thinks he's Jesus Christ and when the psychiatrist asks him when he first realised he was Jesus, he answered, "One day I was praying and I realised I was talking to myself."

[dodalisque]

Congratulations, JM, a virtuoso performance. I didn't really understand my own question but I think I am closer to understanding it now. I always like your readings because they sound like someone thinking out loud, improvising as in a live face-to-face reading, gradually allowing the reading to piece itself together from observed details.

The titles on the Thoth cards can be misleading, but I really like the way the cards contain the astrological/qabalistic/elemental components of the formula used by the Golden Dawn for generating the meanings of each card. This allows us get "under the hood" and fine-tune our interpretations. I like the Thoth more and more each time I see it and need to spend more time with it. The artwork is tremendous, of course. Did you know that Lady Frieda Harris, who did the artwork for the Thoth, supported herself in India after the death of her husband, a senior Cabinet Minister in the British government, by selling paintings under the name of Jesus Chutney? I'm sure I've told you before but it's a favorite anecdote.

I'm just going to start talking about your reading, but not to correct or question it, just to wrap my head around it and try to translate it into my own words. Please correct me if I get it all wrong.

9 of Swords: Mars (Harshness) in Gemini (Intellect); 9 (Yesod/Density) in Air (Thoughts)

You're right that "projection" in psychology is a sort of "coping mechanism". I had never thought of it that way. It is also the way consciousness/perception itself works. Perhaps the way we all look at the world, before attaining enlightenment, is a projection. Psychologists use it mostly as a kind of derogatory word to suggest that we are not seeing the world-as-it-is but merely projecting a story or series of expectations onto it. The world we see is a self-generated illusion. Projection is the enemy of truth.

Falling in love is the classic example of this. For the first 6 months or so, if we're lucky, our beloved is perfect and we enter a blissful state of union. We suddenly feel protected from the harshness of our existential loneliness. That is because we are projecting our need for a partner to perfectly complete us onto the features of our beloved. We are not seeing their true identity as a separate individual. Gradually discrepancies start to unavoidably force themselves on our attention and they no longer seem perfect and we decide we made a mistake and we are not in love with them after all. Falling out of love is like waking up from a wonderful dream. Perhaps that is what the figure on the RWS 9 of Swords is waking up to, the loneliness of her own solitary bed.

This seems closely related to the idea of the Jungian shadow that members on CoT have discussed. Animus/anima, I don't know the proper lingo. The missing part of ourself that we project onto our lover is the "good shadow", but I suppose that often also includes elements of the "dark shadow". Part of my dark shadow is a fear of dealing with the practicalities of life, like filling out tax forms and making the effort to find a decent job. That's where my Capricornian sensible wife comes in. I realise that almost all of my girlfriends have been earth signs (Capricorn/Taurus/Virgo). Perhaps my hippy-dippy dreaminess is what they need from me. (When I say "dreamy" I'm not talking about looks, unfortunately. I wish.) I should also point out that this union of male and female is of course the gender metaphor at the centre of the tarot. On the World card we complete our own consciousness by establishing within our own psychology a union between our ego and our shadow/projected self.

The Thoth 9 of Swords shows us a wall of swords cutting us off from reality. We are, as you say in your reading, "held prisoner" within the limiting confines of our own illusions/projections. Illusions are the territory of the suit of Swords, the intellect. "The mind is a liar, " as Sri Chinmoy says. Osho (aka Rajneesh) says that "Insanity can only exist in the mind." So the card on the left, the 9 of Swords, relates to the downside of projection in the world of psychology. I like the way you pick up the colors on the card as "dullness". Your artist's sensitivity to color makes the Thoth a good deck for you.

6 of Swords: Mercury (Thinking) in Aquarius (Innovative); 6 (Tiphareth/Harmony) in Air (Understanding)

By having a nice anonymous relaxed distant God, sitting there like a psychologist blandly awaiting our projections so he can study them and make us aware of them as projections, we are completely free to project as much as we want. In meditation we sooner or later come face to face with our good and bad shadow, in spades, without the distractions and disappointments of a fleshy mortal relationship.

But I'm sure that if you can't love a human you will never be able to love God. It's the same process actually. That's why both the cards you drew were from the same suit of Swords. I think I disagree that our Gods are a "bit dull". If anything they are too exciting, too magnificent or terrifying. Our life in the material world is horribly boring and dull in comparison, compared to what we know in meditation to be the majesty of our complete self. A love affair with God is one that never gets old.

So projection in religion is our way of coming face to face with our complete self. We are using the mechanism of projection to our advantage. But I suppose the question was badly worded. I don't really mean religion but an "authentic spiritual life". They are not always, or often, the same thing. Crowley, who detested Christianity, and even had a sort of personal grudge against it, would have hated to have the Rosy Cross of Enlightenment that is in the middle of the 6 of Swords, and magnified is the design on the back of the cards, be confused with the Christian cross. Lon Milo's astonishing book about the Thoth goes into detail about the symbolism of the Rosy Cross. The Gods of religions are pretty dull, I agree.

The central card seems to be a definition of projection itself. Knight (King) of Wands; rearing horse and flames (creative, upward shooting but controlled power/focussing will power on high goals); black horse with one horn (instinctual force/focussed energy directed at a goal); burning torch (bringing light and new vision); yellow background (enlightenment/perception); militarism and armour (self protection/ conceit/intolerance/egoism).

Strange that it is a common experience to see faces and shapes in the flames of a fire, projections of our imagination. Pyromancy, perhaps. I usually rely for my definitions of Thoth cards on books by Banzhaf and the great Lon Milo Duquette. Speaking of whom ... great segue ... this passage below is the one that gave me the idea for the question from Lon's book, "Ask Baba Lon", a collection of letters from seekers and answers by Lon about life and magick.

As I have mentioned before elsewhere, I was a disciple of the Indian guru Sri Chinmoy for about 20 years and still consider myself a devoted admirer. Temperamentally I eventually had to admit that I am not evolved enough or disciplined enough to do justice to his great path. My spiritual search has shifted into other channels that suit me better. You don't put kindergarten children into university. It would be wasted on them. My wife is still a true disciple. She has the right stuff.

So this passage explains brilliantly how the guru/disciple relationship works, and how projection works to our advantage in the spiritual life. I am still puzzled why it happened to me, finding a personal guru, and feel incredibly blessed and honoured. Falling in love with a guru and finding your true teacher is exactly like falling in love with a human. In fact it is that. Your friends can't understand what you see in her. You don't even understand it yourself, but just their presence makes you feel great for some inexplicable reason.

The importance of the crucifixion in Christianity irritates the hell out of me. Being in a room with the guy when he was alive - that's where the magic was and what we should focus on in our attempt to connect with the spirit of Christ. The cross is just an instrument of torture, a symbol, and a crying shame. Apologies to those who strongly disagree. I don't ever want to pretend I know what I'm talking about. Disciples are a pretty rag-tag bunch compared to their master. Jesus is the perfect example, but I personally rate Sri Chinmoy a lot higher than Jesus. I also rate my wife more beautiful than Sophia Loren. So here's Lon's thing:

"As you know, in the east there is the venerable tradition of the Guru (master) and Chela (student). This simple system has served to transmit sacred knowledge and disciplines from generation to generation for thousands of years. It works and it works well. But in order for it to work, the Chela must be driven by something more than a zeal to learn, and the Guru must be possessed of something more than a mastery of the subject.

The Chela must be able to accept the Guru as God made visible. The Chela must be able to project upon the Master all the qualities of infinite wisdom, omnipotence, and omniscience that one would associate with God. The Guru must be loved as God, trusted as God, obeyed as God, served as God.

You might think this is a stupid and even dangerous attitude to take towards another human being. But consider for a moment the potential for learning when you believe with all your heart that the teacher knows absolutely everything. There is literally nothing you cannot learn at the feet of such a master. Of course, the Guru is only human and has limits to what he or she can consciously teach. But if the Chela is unaware of those limits, his or her capacity for learning more than the Guru is actually teaching is boundless.

And what does the Guru need to possess to make this arrangement work? The Guru must possess superhuman restraint - restraint not to believe his or her own press - restraint not to abuse the Chela's unbounded love and devotion - restraint to reflect the purity of the student's love back upon the Chela - restraint to keep his goddamned hands off the attractive Chelas - restraint to keep his or her school, ashram, or movement from turning into a cult. Such restraint is yogic discipline of the highest order - to be worshipped as a living God and not blowing it."

I notice that the Knight in the centre of the reading is a King or Guru and he is holding the horse back with tremendous restraint. I would also add that not much or any verbal teaching needs to go on in the Guru/Chela relationship. The mind will always argue with or misunderstand whatever is presented to it in words, which are clumsy tools for conveying meaning at the best of times. It's more mysterious and instinctual than that, like falling in love at first sight with someone from across the room. The heart of the Chela is tuned in to the Guru's consciousness more directly without the necessity for words. Words can disrupt the purity of your projection. Silence is more eloquent. The more I spent time around my Guru the more I realised that his consciousness, the flavor of it, is the whole of my personal spiritual Path. Who knows why? I don't think I've wandered too far off topic for once. I just want Lon to have the last word with something else I noticed in his book:

"You don't have to belong to any organisation to be a magician. You don't have to be a magician in order to gain enlightenment. You don't have to gain enlightenment in order to be relatively happy in this incarnation. And you don't have to be relatively happy in this incarnation in order to eventually fulfill your ultimate destiny."

[Joan Marie]

Raised catholic, I too have always found the focus on the crucifixion to be really troubling. As a kid I was seriously freaked out every Sunday morning by the bloody tortured image of a man hanging at the back of the alter.
I will try and dig it out later, but I have a photo I took of the single bloodiest, grimmest crucified Christ I have ever seen and it was located in the breakfast room of a B&B farmhouse in the Tirolean alps. It was positively gruesome and every morning I had to deal with this thing staring at me with its gaping eyes and oozing wounds as I selected which flavour of marmalade to put on my toast.

As an aside, I forgot to mention in my original post how pulling that 6 of Swords with the crucifix in the middle was a bit too on the nose for the position I had already determined was for the "religion" part of the question, but I did find it amusing for sure.

I want to take a stab at something you said about the question should have been more worded towards one's personal spiritual path than religion. That does throw another light on things and I'd like to take a look at the question in that light.

For right now though I just want to comment on a couple of things.

The Chela must be able to accept the Guru as God made visible. The Chela must be able to project upon the Master all the qualities of infinite wisdom, omnipotence, and omniscience that one would associate with God. The Guru must be loved as God, trusted as God, obeyed as God, served as God.

You might think this is a stupid and even dangerous attitude to take towards another human being. But consider for a moment the potential for learning when you believe with all your heart that the teacher knows absolutely everything. There is literally nothing you cannot learn at the feet of such a master. Of course, the Guru is only human and has limits to what he or she can consciously teach. But if the Chela is unaware of those limits, his or her capacity for learning more than the Guru is actually teaching is boundless.

And what does the Guru need to possess to make this arrangement work? The Guru must possess superhuman restraint - restraint not to believe his or her own press - restraint not to abuse the Chela's unbounded love and devotion - restraint to reflect the purity of the student's love back upon the Chela - restraint to keep his goddamned hands off the attractive Chelas - restraint to keep his or her school, ashram, or movement from turning into a cult. Such restraint is yogic discipline of the highest order - to be worshipped as a living God and not blowing it."

This sounds, I think, like another topic that could maybe use a bit of exploration here and that is "Faith." Faith is something that gets a bad rap, often preceded by the word "blind" but is there any other kind? Or what does that even mean, "blind faith?"

This is a word I've heard a lot in my life and I have to confess I usually dismiss the entire concept of faith as being something for fools and zealots. And I think faith often ends in disappointment. Think of the story behind that Beatles song "Sexy Sadie" which alludes to your comment about Gurus showing restraint and keeping their meathooks off the cuter, wider-eyed followers.

But this passage makes me think differently about the idea of Faith. There is something to it and I'd like to ponder it a bit. Maybe do a draw.

I have more to comment about on your response but this is all for now.

Thanks for all your nice comments about my reading style by the way.

[Lionsmane]

I don't think imagination comes from the mind, but from the heart, which I equate somewhat with Schopenhauer's concept of 'the will'. To my mind, projection in the psychological sense is when we aren't mindful of the information coming from our heart, which itself does not project, but joins essences. Instead, we keep our image of an ideal safe by holding it in our mind, and then we look for objects in the world to set fire to with this image. Its a way of keeping an image static. When you bring an image into the world, it is magic, you set fire in the abyss with your wand. But if it comes frmo a dynamic place, you are comfortable with your will projected dynamically, ie alive rather than dead. It's a different mode of projection. Grief is the wall through, as the lungs hold grief, and its difficult to tune into the heart space until you've gotten through that. The 9 of swords is related in the sword journey to the 3 of swords, and the 3 of swords was originally associated with marriage. Perhaps this points to a deeper mystery of how relationships are relevant. 'Falling in love' seems codependent, there could be a fairer way of going about relationships. Not something I have mastered.
I guess each knight projects an idea in a different mode. But the heart is the compass, it is the only reliable teacher. The best teachers teach you how to think, how to learn in every moment, so they themselves must still be students. Restraint to allow space, like a structured vortices or vessel to allow someone to overcome their fear and shame to really delve into their own grief and not pass it off onto the next person, collapsing that boundary out of loneliness. This can get old at times, parenting can be exhausting. I personally also dont find a projected authoritarian god in the world in any aspect except as the devil, and I dont find all gods dull. Lightning gods are pretty exciting. I don't think the material world is dull and boring. But often these differences are down to semantics, because how could any person hold different feelings truly?
I think the example of a funeral works well. Many cultures encourage spontaneous grief. They even pay people. Wailing women. In my culture, we put the person on ice while the friends and family work out a hierarchy of grief. I don't attend these events because they disrupt my dreams.