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We begin our journey here, at the afore mentioned "Great Unknown." This is the realm of the mystic, the philosopher, the spiritual guide, and the healer.
As I discussed in the introduction, this layer represents what each theorist assumes to be the source of all things, including everything from the symptoms and painful events in layer five to the source of human suffering itself. Thus, in this layer, each theorist, depending on their biases, imagines the contents differently.
What kinds of things do they imagine?
The Freudians call what is in this layer, the "unconscious." The Buddhists call it the "ghosts of wanting" (human desire). And Jungians call what is in this Layer "the collective unconscious."
Please note that regardless of the name assigned, these names are simply labels for a guess at the actual source of human existence, including the source of our suffering. Obviously, none are based on empirical evidence. Thus this layer resides below the dashed-blue empirical / non empirical line.
In addition, each theorist, in his or her own way, also acknowledges an even more primal "source" from which these guesses at the source of our existence precede. This primal source is also known by many names, from the "God" of the Christians and Muslims to the "nothingness" of the Zen Buddhists and Existential Philosophers.
Again, these names are simply labeled metaphors, and I say "metaphors simply because these assumptions are based more on faith and imagined logic than on any empirical evidence.
They also all share the feature common to all metaphors which have been given human characteristics. By this, I mean they all share features like the ability to think and feel, and the ability command us and to get us to withdraw.
Am I saying I do not believe in God? No, I am not. I am simply saying that like the anthropologist Joseph Campbell often said, these references are simply personal metaphors, and as metaphors, they indeed do have value. But should you forget they are metaphors and then treat them as literal reality, then you base your understanding of human personality on what is merely an attempt to picture what is beyond our ability to picture; an attempt to quantify what is beyond quantifying.
Does this mean these metaphors do not influence us? Certainly not. They absolutely do influence us. Often for the better. None the less, basing sciences and healing arts on imagined metaphors without acknowledging them as metaphors is simply foolish. And hardly scientific.
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