Formerly, humanity lived in a three dimensional universe where, from an earth one inhabited with one's neighbour, one looked forth to heaven above and to hell below. Forgetting God, a person's vision has lately been reduced to a single dimension; one now thinks of one's activity as limited to the surfaced of the earth - a plane whereon one moves nor up to God or down to Satan, but only to the right or to the left. The old theological division, of those who are in the state of grace and those who are not, has even way to the political separation of rightist and leftist. The modern soul has definitely limited its horizons; having negated the eternal destinies, it has even lost its trust in nature, for nature without God is traitorous.

Where can the soul go, now that a roadblock has been thrown up against every external outlet? Like a city that has all its outer ramparts seized, a person must retreat inside himself. As a body of water that is blocked turns back upon itself, collecting scum, refuse, and silt, so the modern soul (which has none of the goals or channels of the Christian) backs upon itself and in that choked condition collects all the sub-rational, instinctive, dark, unconscious sediment that would never have accumulated had there been the normal times.

People now find that they are locked up within themselves, their own prisoner. Jailed by self, they now attempt to compensate for the loss of the three dimension universe of faith by finding three new dimensions within their own mind. Above their ego, their conscious level, they discover, in the place of heaven, an inexorable tyrant whom they call the superego. Below their consciousness, in place of hell, they substitute a hidden world of instincts and urges, primitive longings and biological needs, which they call the id.

This conception of the human person as consisting of three layers or regions has been emphasized by Sigmund Freud. It forms an essential element in the psychoanalytic doctrine of human nature. The most important feature of this doctrine is the belief that one's conscious mental life, one's experiences, and one's conduct are determined, not by what one knows, feels, or intends, but by forces largely hidden from one's consciousness. The ego, or consciousness, is only the battlefield where an incessant war is fought between a person's biological, primitive urges and the powers embodied in the superego.

These power take the place of conscience, they originate, not in an awareness of a natural law and of a person's obligation in face of the divine law, but from social pressure, environmental influences brought to bear on the plastic mind of the small child. Because the fulfillment of the primitive urge is placed under control by society (as in the training of toilet habits), this urges become "frustrated."

Their original aims cannot persist in our consciousness because of their intolerable conflict with environmental standards. Thereby, they become "repressed." The child thus takes over all laws, viewpoints, and values of the adult world when he accepts these standards as his own. He does this by identifying himself with the person whom he would view as an antagonist in a primitive society. Thus, the superego arises and acquires its contents - the rules, taboos, and ideals that happen to be those of the child's surrounding world.

According to such a modern conception of the subjective life, the human appears as a captive within his own mind and as a victim of forces that he or she cannot recognize. To free themselves, if that be possible, the person must know more about their prison. This is one reason for the great popularity psychiatry enjoys today. This science promises to explain humans to themselves, to enable them to cope better with their tragic situation. A certain type of psychiatry tries to explain man by a theory that the conscious is devoid of value, that only through the unconscious may modern man hope to discover a way out of his unhappiness.

The conscious, in this belief, is both forced from below by the id and put under pressure from above by the superego. Conscious man is helpless between them. Psychiatry then becomes a sort of iron file, whereby a person hopes to escape out of this mental prison where he has locked himself, acting as his own turnkey.

This psychoanalytic theory sees the clue................

                                                                     Page 2

If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -