1 result for (book:deavf2 AND session:921 AND stemmed:behavior)
[... 3 paragraphs ...]
2. Jane’s mention of reincarnation came from my idle speculations at our evening meal, after we’d been told about how a local man and woman had embarked upon a radically new joint life-style, to the consternation of many in our area. I’d wondered whether aroused reincarnational ties might have played a part in the couple’s actions. Such factors simply aren’t usually considered in “modern” social analyses of people’s behavior—yet sometimes they might actually play a very important role. However, I certainly don’t mean that supposed reincarnational relationships can or should be used to justify present-life behavior. Many other psychological elements are involved in any human situation.
[... 15 paragraphs ...]
The Christ figure represents the exaggerated, idealized version of the inner self that the individual feels incapable of living up to. He feels he is being crucified by his own abilities. He may—or of course she may—on other occasions receive messages from the devil, or demons, which on their part represent the person’s feelings about the physical self that seems to be so evil and contradictory in contrast to the idealistic image. Again, there is great variety of behavior here.
Such people, however, in their fashion refuse to accept standardized versions of reality. Even though they are so uncertain of themselves that their psychological patterns do follow those of culture, religion, science, or whatever, they try to use those patterns in their own individual ways. They are actually in the process of putting their own personalities together long after most people have settled upon one official version or another—and so their behavior gives glimpses of the ever-changing give-and-take among the various elements of human personality.
[... 5 paragraphs ...]
There were no schizophrenics in the time of the pagans, for the belief systems did not support that kind of interpretation. This does not mean that certain behavior did not occur that you would now call schizophrenic. It means that generally speaking such behavior fit within the psychological picture of reality. It [did so] because many of the behavior patterns associated, now, with schizophrenia, are “distorted and debased” remnants of behavior patterns that are part and parcel of man’s heritage, and that harken back to activities and abilities that at one time had precise social meaning, and served definite purposes.
[... 8 paragraphs ...]