Thoughts for 8/4/2010

Three concepts of the definition of Esoteric
1. Inner processes- like thoughts, to know thyself, ie internalised. Maybe relates to preconscious /conscious interchange
2.Hidden as this is dangerous information or knowledge. Codes, symbols, metaphors, non-verbal communication.This becomes an alternate language, hidden in full view to everyone, This is a communal process, very dependent upon the Other. Oral knowledge and tradition.
3. Unconscious, spiritual, totally inner process, beyond words.
Some thoughts then about Freud.
Freud's psychoanalysis is aimed at verbalising 1.
Freud knew the symbols and metaphors, Hassidic stories, jokes and cultural aspects of his Jewish community. How many of the symbols in the ten years he was with the B'nai B'rith, did he know? He had esoteric knowledge type 2. So therefore only those who have the same knowledge can interpret the reality from the false self.
Was psychoanalysis type 3 but probably at a lower level than attainable if you go to the source of the esoteric knowledge (Zohar, Tanya, Torah etc).

In Bakan's book, Bakan, D. (1958). Sigmund Freud and the Jewish mystical tradition. Princeton, van Norstrand.
'Freud was a member of the Yiddish Scientific Institute
(YIVO) in Vilno'. Now there is something I did not know. Lots of information about Freud is 'hidden'.
Freud said
'Once again our people is faced with dark times requiring us
to gather all our strength in order to preserve unharmed all
culture and science during the present harsh storms. The significance
of YIVO of Vilno among our other institutions you
know better than I do'
This reminds me of the processes of the falls of Jerusaleum, the role Enoch, Noah, Moses had to play to conserve the accumulated wisdom. There is a wonderful part of Virgil's Aenid when Troy is sacked and Aenus realises that the responsibility of safe custody of the wisdom of the people is in his hands, literally in the scrolls. Knowledge is so powerful. These are parallels. Bakan talks about the possibility that Freud saw himself as the/a Messiah. This is a different Messiah to the Christian model it seems to me.It is a person who has knowledge and can lead his people to safety. As Bakan says there are a number of types of knowledge. So Freud sees himself as Hannibal, Moses and Oedipus. So did he leave a trail for others to find the deeper meaning of his works, coded symbols, metaphor and are these art of them? Am I right that Moses and Monothesism is the rosetta stone to understanding Freud's work.

Thank you Bakan by the way- I did not know the answer as to why the Moses statue had horns- now I do. Michelangelo was not Jewish, as far as I know.

Ellenberger- must be Jewish. His model of the history of ideas is a spiritual one. I have long argued about the tree of knowledge having so many branches, specialities, subspecialities that it has become fragmented and no-one knows what one group is doing, so we keep re-iventing the wheel. The fragmentation is related to Humanism and Cartesianism argues John Carroll (The wreck of western culture(2004) Melbourne: Scribe publications). He has published a book called Ego and Soul (2008) which sounds like I should read it.