3] The Battle of the Titans

When we say "Psyche" we do not visualize that wondrous lady, who was to become the personification of the soul, so lovely that Eros (Cupid), the god of love, fell in love with her and swept her to a beautiful isolated castle, yet forbidding her to look at him since he was a god. Whence upon her disobedience he abandoned her but she ceaselessly searched for him, performing difficult and dangerous tasks, until at last she was reunited with him forever and made immortal. Rather, we get a feeling of something immaterial within our skull and in symbiosis with the brain, something wavy and never at rest and, to repeat what was said in the previous chapter, something immaterial or at least very subtle, like the electric field generated within the brain.

Psyche is defined as "Originally the principle of life, but used generally as equivalent to mentality, or as a substitute for the mind or soul." [2] or "The human soul" [3] or "The mind; especially in psychiatry, the mind considered as an organic system reaching all parts of the body and serving to adjust the total organism to the need or demands of the environment" [3] - "... the psyche comprises: 1 - symbolic activity, organized into psycho-dynamic mechanisms dependent upon the function of the cerebral cortex, and 2 - reactions determined by the physiologic activity of an ‘emotional circuit’". [4]

Experimental data collected from neurological research leaves no doubt: tiny electrodes inserted intra-cranially into selected areas of the brain give rise to altered states of perception and hallucinations [5] while electrical fields do alter perception, mood or the brain's physiology. [6] and we may proceed further: from electroencephalography we plainly see that if a person gets in a comatose state the electrical response becomes flat - all psychic processes are apparently suspended and the person lives in a vegetative state - with no perceptible psychic or mind activity and this makes it clear that Cupid's beautiful beloved is nothing but an electric field and that, even if psyche and mind are thought of as insubstantial they are so much so as any electric field is: the electron having mass and field we may well say that the psyche is as substantial as the keyboard on which this typing is being done even if it cannot be transformed into an electrical bulb or the moth flying around it ... that might happen a few generations hence! While not yet ready to apply for a patent for this "Electronic Model of the Psyche" smashing some good metaphysical concepts, due consideration should be given to the fact that the era of biological computers [7] is no more a chimera but just around the corner: computers which in the sight of the more pessimists might evolve to spell the doom of humanity. But that is another story.

Back to our theme, it appears clear that the backward, savage and even stupid people of archaic times were not really so much so: the class, or elite, driving around their human herds was perfectly conscious of what they were doing while imbuing the common folk with mythological figures, and this consciousness is reflected by the fact that these mythological figures were, as well attested through historical and comparative research, charged with force - or power - so that their adhesiveness to the psyche of the people was most likely to take place, and it did! and to the psyche they stuck themselves for millennia down to the contemporary era. There is no mythology which does not have a heaven stuck somewhere up above in the sky where the gods, endowed with countless celestial gifts, powers and attributes, do not at one time or another engage in terrible and mortal fights, the mythological War of the Titans, and that is exactly was is going on, constantly, within our psyche, within our inner sky.

The archaic savants mentioned above were also well aware concerning the concepts of polarity, expressed as positive and negative forces - or power - and the balance and the function of these myths forced into the herd's collective mind was that of achieving a social equilibrium favorable to progress and evolution. It also came to pass, with the recognition that balance was an antithesis to chaos - that the distractions of the mind for those souls in search of light and truth were counterbalanced with exercises which, with the passing of time assumed the form of those traditional psycho-physical exercises which are well known: hermitage, yoga, Trappism, seclusion, the swirling - or dancing - Dervish, martial arts and so on.

Here we see that this mental pantheon, this heritage deep within the core of our being and which at times comes to the surface and expresses itself mostly in symbols - more frequently so in the dream state - had a well planned specific purpose and place in history. What has changed is our mentality in our hectic civilization of knowledge and technology which encompasses us so much so that these myths should - rather than be discarded - metamorphose into something more akin to our times. Indeed, the widespread irreligiousness, the affiliation to all sorts of strange doctrines of spiritual evolution derived from more traditional systems or ready-made for the occasion and sure enough for the gullible, the explosion of a nuclear weapon as well having entered the circle of the archetypes active within our psyche, these are all indications that this transformation is on its course but, we may add, is this transformation on the right course?.

Concerning the psyche we know speak about the two main processes within it as integration and disintegration, the latter caused by stress, uncertainty, sickness and a host of other factors and which, untreated, culminates in phobias, psychosis, and psychosomatic disorders which may lead all the way up to utter insanity. The former, integration, just the reverse as the word implies, brings a state of insight peace and harmony within the individual expressed as psychological balance.

So, in a nutshell, we have brain and psyche and the simple fact that we have no paws, claws, hooves or wings is that which makes us aware of it. An evolutionary addition of a thin layer of cells on the convolutions of some primates's brains did the trick through which some monkeys were endowed with intellectual qualities which brought them to the dominion of the planet, kings above all other forms of life with the high sounding epithet homo sapiens sapiens!

It is this innate awareness that gives us hints of the rich life which thrives within our our bony box amidst colorful mysteries and dramas hidden in the folds and fogs of time. And since every symbiotic process gives way to another process, the symbiosis between brain a psyche gives birth to something extremely important for us and here we come across an unfathomable something still more mysterious and difficult to comprehend which we call the human mind and which, in turn, has gained power and control on the machinery (brain and psyche) which lies at its origin while at the same time being a tangible expression of the same. On the other hand, if the symbiotic process between brain and psyche goes awry then we loose our sanity or, in common parlance we get a sick mind, or we get out of our mind or loose it, eventually becoming insane to a certain degree which may reflect the imbecile, the idiot, the paranoiac, the schizophrenic and so on by degrees up to total insanity and eventually a straitjacket.

And here it is where the great and life-long "Battle of the Gods", whose outcome within our psyche may be psychic integration or psychic disintegration, assumes its paramount importance. We have to reach a balance, the classical middle way which only can get us successfully through our existence with the feeling that we lived it to its expectations regardless of what may follow afterwards, should anything follow it since whatever we may believe no one - to my knowledge - has ever come back to recount us but for the figments of imagination of deluded souls who stick to strange notions or untenable doctrines and creeds.

And so here we come to the great concept and, yes, the reality of the mind which, if properly nurtured and used becomes the great leading horse of our chariot. Here a distinction should be made insofar as mind is concerned in that we may say human mind in which case it will reflect the collective mind as an expression of the achievements of the species, the human's mind which clearly points to the mind of an individual and the divine mind which, not difficult to guess in this context, will indicate the sum total of what is hidden within our deep unconscious or, in other words, the contents of our psyche. This too should be taken in consideration: apart from the physical world which can be clearly perceived by our senses everything else is formulated in an hypothetical realm, all abstract conceptions are creatures of the mind and they exist as such - there is no tangible proof that it may be otherwise. So that if we say non-existence we express a conceptual hypothesis formulated by the mind, if we speak of an universe without dimensions we are on the same stand, there simply cannot be something that is not nor something that is without substance and form, the void itself implies an enclosure to exist, the no-mind concept itself requires a mind to express it and yes, try to express it: you have to go behind your mind to a state which cannot be conceived by the mind and if any such state or condition exists it is beyond the mind's power to grasp it but through a deep faith in some sort of doctrine belonging to this world, given to us by human beings whoever and whatever they are believed to be, and to some religious system adopted by its inhabitants.

Lost the peoples of the world are
In the wilderness of their fancies.
Obstinately searching without
What within they ARE.
On all sorts of fantasies they stumble.
With crystal clear waters a well
Where to quench their thirsty souls
In a labyrinthine path lost is.
Shrouded the brilliance is of the spiritual sun
In the cloak of their materialism.
Empty the priest's, bhikshu's and mullah's words are.
They spell only doom since they are apart.
Cast aside angels, devils and jiins,
Go beyond the beatitude of the Buddha's Nirvana
And the stupor of Rumi's wine cups.
Creatures of the mind they are,
Leave your mind behind.

Leave your mind behind? Crazy! but we will have to return to his abstrusity, if not absurdity, meanwhile we will go back to the War of the Titans with another element in the context, the mind, so that the whole picture becomes brain, psyche and mind and as such complete - inclusive of the main attributes of the mind - namely intellect, imagination, insight and will. Now, however, leaving aside the cabbage-like structure within the skull which belongs to the field proper of neurology which we are not concerned with here but for the fact, not expressed in neurology, that it might be the genetic storehouse of the titans which we might have inherited not only by way of tradition but, deeply engrained as they are, quite likely also by genetic imprinting, we will confine ourselves to a few remarks between the interaction of psyche and mind as two things apart.
We may visualize the psyche as the titan's battleground, the myths as the forces in the battle, the symbols as the armaments employed in the battle. Fanciful? Well, yes, but just a few lines above imagination was attributed to the mind, so let us use it - it is an extremely powerful tool without which we would have had no Leonardo da Vinci, nor an Einstein or a Dante. The battle itself is concerned with achieving psychical integration or to be lost in mental disintegration. The mind, no doubt, is the ruling factor in the battle in accordance with its discriminative power, its acquired life-experience, the seeds which sprouted within its soil - by which the kind and degree of knowledge which it has acquired are meant - and the actual place which it has in the environment encased in a bony box moving around the globe and subject to all the environment's constraints.

Man's place in the environment and the resulting conditions forced on his mind is the first element to be considered as this is, to all effects, the main force acting on the psyche since survival is at stake. From personal experience everyone knows what elation, happiness and love may mean for mental sanity as well as the difference that stress, desperation, misery and suffering may make. These are the main forces acting on our existence and as such the causative agents of our mental reaction and a balance must be achieved - so far as it lies within our power - between these extremes. The world is not really kind to us and humanity, nolens volens, is adding his disastrous contribute in terms of exploiting and destruction of the environment, wars, pollution, indoctrinations and so on and this is not really helpful in terms of balance and sanity. Hence favorable conditions may arise pushing not just the individual but also the masses to the search of some compensatory factor since deep within we still have a memory - and a nostalgia - of the lost paradise and either by reverting to old myths or by the creation of new ones which might have little in common with the garden of Eden we may set astride on the path of some sort of individual or social reform which might improve our lives.

Hence we have come to the point where to brain and psyche a third element has been added, the mind, so that now we have brain, psyche and mind. Brain and mind are, as of yet, not completely accepted as separate entities in professionally specialized circles, some have only brain and others have both brain and mind. We will stick to the second view, with a due remark about the psyche. From the Electronic Model of the Psyche it may be surmised that brain is one thing and the psyche another, so with just a few additional lines to further elucidate this concept it is worth taking into account the fact that every single element has a given self-resonant frequency in the electromagnetic spectrum. Since this emitted radiation is part and parcel of the element in accordance with its nuclear structure, while the element and its radiation may be considered as two distinct physical entities, we come to the same dilemma: are they two things or a single thing?

Looking at the brain's morphology as a vast collection of elements we may visualize an extremely complicated radiant field with such an intricacy that " pattern " is not possible, at least from our point of view and since " pattern " implies " order " the brain is a reactive biological organism whose proper function is chaos. The electrical field created by these innumerable interactions however enters into the picture as an ordering factor due to the intrinsic polarity of the tiny electric voltage and currents active within the brain which leave no choice: either this way or that way, in other words "yes" or "no", just like in digital electronics. This field, so ordered, becomes also some sort of memory storage whereby the stimuli encountered are retained and released, in some sort of language which is not really clear to us. And here we have the same dilemma as we had for the elements which make up our microcosm and macrocosm. But there is little point in insisting on whether it is one or two, on the plane of evidence neither can exist without the other. The manifestation of mind appears when the organism's primal stage is complete and interacting with the environment, as it has been clearly demonstrated by the functions which are acquired gradually after birth while the cortex develops towards maturity. The sensations reaching the brain give it further motives to grow and mature so that to keep up with this process within the strict limits dictated by its genetic heritage a mechanism for discernment must be innate within it. This mechanism of discernment may well be what we call mind, the fact remains that at a certain stage brain and mind appear as two different things since mind, according to its environmental experience, has a tendency to take the upper hand and dictate to the brain and, as well, to become the interpreter of the brain. So here we are face to face with the same dilemma, who is who? For sure we can say that in nature there can be no manifestation of mind without a brain and for sure we cannot say it the other way around, in other words that mind cannot exist unless supported by a brain. Here we have taken the brain for what it appears to be, namely as a tool for the exteriorization of mind within its own realm. Hence we may ask ourselves whether mind pre-exists the brain and is in need of a way to express itself or if it is a result of the ordering of the electromagnetic fields within the brain's pattern.

The question is not really solved, but since the language's terms are different, since descriptions are different, we will throw away whatsoever complicates the matter in the physical as well as in the metaphysical fields and adopt the assumption that brain and mind are two things completely apart.