The rock star is a persona. The ego is the bearer of awareness, which
is a huge responsibity…

On numinous experiences and the ego: I think I sorta come at it from the opposite direction or something. Most of the time I'm down right afraid to embrace my ego.. and that's something I think I need to work on. And I guess, thinking about it now, the less I embrace my ego, the sorta easier it is to… I'm not sure the word.. but for some things ego can be like extra baggage that encumbers your journey.

Most of the time my highest goal is something numinous. Like trying to break through.

That's not to say numinous experience doesn't shake my foundations.. or like.. doesn't have a lot of awe associated with it… or that I don't freak out and question my sanity.. But I think if you're experience with it is pro-active.. then.. as Campbell said.. the difference between a psychotic and a mystic is the mystic swims in the water the psychotic is stuck in.

The then I read this recent blog post by Franklin McMahon http://www.franklinmcmahon.com/embrace-your-ego... on the importance of embracing your ego… for business purposes.. and.. while I think I disagree with much.. I did start to wonder “well, what if I do embrace my ego?” Should I treat it like an archetype where I recognize but am careful not to identify with it? Or should I go so far as to identify with it.. but just try and stay mindful that it's not the whole of the story?

LOL, yeah.. so the Ego is what scares me!

My experience has been anywhere fron slight anxiety to outright dread,
depending on the level of engagement…it goes back to that oft
repeated qoute of Jung's that ” the experience of the Self is always a
defeat for the ego.”

Most people's relationship to the numinous, it seems to me, has many layers of intermediation to the extent to which there is very little consciousness of it at all.. to the extent that it all sounds like just a superstition.. and so I would tend to think that an encounter with the red book would be like.. they would feel no connection between it and there own layers of protections.. but clearly they would meet it with the same sorta attitudes they meet with it within them selves..

We have a different god.. a different set of ideas we are devoting our selves to.. we modern world beings.. from which flows our sense of what to value. To journey to this something else.. this numinous thing.. to our values.. what madness! Never mind going on a journey deep enough to find new values!

In this sense I don't feel like the numinous is really the feared thing so much as the wrath of the new god.. and then perhaps all numinous stuff is to be interpreted this way.

It's a little like.. the difference between temporal based fears of the numinous versus eternal fears of the numinous.. that is that the real numinous is.. this might sound crazy to say.. but when you look at the culture we give very young children.. we warp some of the archetypes in soft fuzzy outfits.. as if we are telling our kids something about this worlds relationship to the world they are coming to us from. “Look what we've figured out.” The creators of this culture being like the ambassadors of the temporal world to the eternal..

And then.. of course.. they get into college.. and they question the carrot.. and the stronger among them perhaps harden to the stick? Or perhaps that's just what rock'n roll is about?

Err… but that's not a fear relationship to the numinous.. that's more just a soul urning.. the very sorta thing that if followed leads to places where numinous encounters are less threatening. It's the identification to the Matrix sorta thing.. and the taking up of Darth-Vader-Hood.. that's the issue. Which of course the new god has been very skillful at making unconscious.

I am greeted by the strange question of this social web.. what does it mean to our children that they can encounter the culture created by other ages ambassadors? Will we eventually come to a point where in.. all directions might be fed? Jesus, I never thought about that… The future of socialization…

Well I don't know where I am at this point in the train of thought.. I guess it all seems sorta complicated?

But yeah.. reading a thing like that.. if you don't already have a framework for understanding this stuff.. well without reading it.. I'd imagine it would be difficult.. to then further it and read it with these sorts of modern prejudices… Mmmhmmm…

So I suppose the best that can be done is to participate in the surrounding conversations?