Everyday About Death: Dead Parts And Other Passions

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Tonight is not the same night.

And do not push annoyingly on your ear

About your fitness and belly dancing!

Today I saw how an ancient old woman

I tried to give the cat away at the subway.

I went. After all, I thought - from hunger..

I wanted to give four hundred rubles, But you should have seen the old woman's eyes!

"Take a cat, I will die soon …"

In the world, in the dust of everyday life

Suddenly there was emptiness.

The old woman was not afraid of her death, I tried to save the cat from her …

Vladimir Khaletsky

By virtue of the instinct of self-preservation, everything associated with death causes fear, disgust and disgust: from rot and cadaverous smell to cut nails and hair. Freud substantiated the universal, and perhaps the biological, death instinct (thanatos) as a universal constant of our psyche. We know its manifestations in many self-destructive acts, but the obvious desire for death is still perceived as savagery or insanity.

When E. Fromm wrote about Hitler's necrophilia, and the leader of the "People's Temple" sect in distant Guyana initiated the death of thousands of his followers, it was perceived as a pathology far from us. But when the mayor of Moscow met in the 90s with Seko Asahara, the leader of the murderer sect Aum Shinrike, now banned in Russia, and the president elected by the Russian people predicted open doors to Paradise for all of us, this is already about the madness that has taken possession of millions and the triumph of necrophilous cults in our house.

What do the horror stories of the dead tell about?

From the collection of A. N. Afanasyev "Russian folk tales".

In one village there lived a husband and a wife; they lived merrily, according to love; all the neighbors envied them, and the good people, looking at them, rejoiced. Here the mistress became heavy, gave birth to a son, and from that birth she died. The poor man grieved and cried, most of all he was killed about the child: how to feed him now, to raise him without his own mother? Hired some old lady to follow him; all the better. Just what a parable? During the day, the child does not eat, he always screams, there is nothing to comfort him; and night will come - as if he is not there, quietly and peacefully sleeping. Why is this so? - thinks the old woman. - Let me not sleep the night, maybe I will reconnoiter. At midnight she hears: someone has quietly opened the door and walked up to the cradle; the baby was quiet, as if the breast was sucking. On the next night and on the third again the same thing. She began to talk about it to the peasant; he gathered his relatives and began to keep the council. So they came up with: not to sleep one night but to spy: who walks and feeds the child? In the evening, everyone lay down on the floor, put a lighted candle in their heads and covered it with an earthen pot. At midnight the door opened into the hut, someone approached the cradle - and the child was quiet. At this time, one of the relatives suddenly opened a candle - they were watching: the deceased mother in the same dress in which she was buried, kneeling, bending over to the cradle, and feeding the child with her dead breast. Only the hut was lit up - she immediately got up, looked sadly at her baby and quietly left, without saying a single word to anyone. Everyone who saw her turned to stone, and the baby was found dead.

This fairytale motif is presented in Andre Green's concept of a dead mother - as a metaphor. This is a mother who is physically alive, but mentally dead, as she is depressed and feeds the child with poisoned milk. In an adult, the complex of a dead mother manifests itself in powerlessness to resolve conflicts, enter into love relationships, use their abilities, set and achieve goals, and, in general, not live their own life, abandoning it.

In the process of analysis, in each such case, a child's depression is revealed, associated with the early loss of a loving object. The mother's sadness and a decrease in her interest in the child come to the fore in the client's depression.

The most severe cases, similar to attachment to the dead, are associated with the previous death of another child at an early age or an interrupted pregnancy. This reason is forced out of consciousness as it is kept secret or is not given due attention. Meanwhile, a person lives as if he bears the dead body of a deceased brother or sister.

A few more illustrations from the master of fairy tales about the dead, Wilhelm Hauff. Age limit 12+.

"Cold heart"

Coal miner Peter Munch dreams of easy money, a rich and carefree life. To this end, he sells his hot living heart to the evil spirit of the forest - the Dutchman Michel - and in return receives a cold heart. Now Peter has a lot of money, but wealth does not bring him joy - after all, a cold stone heart is not capable of either rejoicing or grieving. Realizing this, Peter seeks to regain his real heart, and he succeeds with the help of the Spirit - the Glass Man.

There is nothing dearer than a clear conscience, kindness and humanity, says V. Gauf. And if he made a mistake, then it is not fatal and life will provide an opportunity to fix everything.

"The story of the severed hand"

A certain stranger in a red cloak invites Dr. Tsaleikos to cut off the head of a dead girl. The doctor agrees for a good reward, and then he finds out that the girl was alive - she was just asleep! And he killed her. After a while, it became known about his crime, and by the verdict of the court he lost his left arm.

Violation of the fundamental law does not kill, the service of Death does not remain without consequences. The separation of the head and body has always been about death, and the same in symbolic form about cutting off feelings by means of explicit or implicit violence against a person. Anyone who executes another in this way, even without knowing it, himself becomes dismembered and deprived of vital functions. If after such a person is not even tormented by conscience, then he is already dead finally and irrevocably. In a fairy tale, pangs of conscience accompany the doctor all his life, and it means that a spark of life is still preserved in him.

"Ghost ship"

A mystical story about a flying Dutchman, on which terrible events are happening at night. Shipwrecked, Akhmet and his servant see a strange ship in the sea and decide to climb on it. On deck, they find the dead, covered in blood. The head of the dead captain is nailed to the mast, near which his corpse stands. Akhmet and his servant, seized with horror, are trying to get rid of the terrible tormented ghouls, but none of them can be moved. The heroes remain on the terrible ship, but the dead come to life at night, devour, feast and swear among themselves. It turns out that the terrible curse of a monk killed by pirates has been imposed on the ship.

The tale tells that when we are alive find ourselves in a serious crisis, experience trauma and lose faith (murder of a monk), we can see with our own eyes the world of the dead, where nothing changes and only again and again with obsessive constancy at night in the twilight consciousness will be played the same situation. A captain with a head severed from his body and with a body devoid of mind will never lead his ship to the port of destination. His ship, personifying the self of man, will endlessly and senselessly rush through the waters of the unconscious.

How do dead parts appear and then activate?

The main reasons are trauma that is not lived through and is not integrated into consciousness. Something that remains thrown aside and left to die outside of consciousness. A wounded soldier left on the battlefield when the main forces were forced to retreat.

Life with the dead leads to death, when we cannot bury and live with him, as if he were still alive.

Chronic trauma associated with someone's relentless control when someone significant becomes the jailer of our thoughts, feelings and desires. Manifestation of control to someone with violence supposedly out of good intentions, because of their own fears and lack of trust in another is about slow murder.

The most reliable way to control your child, wife, husband is to kill him. Corpses behave predictably, at least during the day and until you turn your back on them. The clothed option to turn your loved one into a zombie, into a log, into a pig and any other creature devoid of subjectivity and soul.

If you find yourself in depression and apathy, you do not see the point in anything, you are afraid to live, you freeze in front of uncertainty, you are afraid of everything new, you don’t trust spontaneity and strive for control - this means that some dead part has activated in you.

It is important to understand here that it is not really something terrible and in no way looks like a corpse tied to your body.

She often looks like an abandoned, useless, abandoned child. Since there are doubts about the possibility of reviving it, I want to get rid of it, forget it, not remember it, hide it, bury it, but no matter how hard we try, it will remind of itself in symptoms and dreams.

In many horror films, the worst thing is the infant or child who suddenly starts acting like a monster. This is the attitude of our consciousness - to be afraid and to distance ourselves from this childish part that needs to be accepted. But she is constantly denied this.

A significant part of psychotherapy is precisely about making the client see, stop being afraid and accept his inner child with his trauma and pain. In fact, it is in this seemingly dead part that life's greatest potential is.

The problem of psychosomatics

For self-knowledge, we need the Other, in which we are reflected as in a mirror. The psychic self, being released from the body, sees it as the Other and can observe its strength, weakness, illness, aging. Sometimes your body is perceived as a dead person, from which you want to get rid of, and this happens everywhere. I live in the head and do not want to sink to the bodily.

The voids of the body - the absence of a good mother and / or father figure inside - are filled with necrotic material and the body is perceived as a dead person or a dead animal tied to me.

In extreme cases, the help of a surgeon is required, cutting off the necrotic and restoring the purity of the body according to all the rules of antiseptics. In more frequent cases, we are talking about a psychosomatic illness that is perceived as partially alive with impaired function.

A functional disorder turns into a structural one and this is called a disease in the physical sense. Disease as a harbinger of death becomes a lifelong companion, a corpse with which a marriage once took place has already been untied, but infection by dying has occurred. Death is not outside the door, but inside your own body. And only trained physicians are able to contact her, measure body temperature, determine localization with their sophisticated devices, prescribe medications, cut out inflammation and destroyed tissue from the body.

Psychologists talk about an inner effort that unites the activity of the soul with the body, religion about the spiritualization of the body. But few people believe that the body can turn into a temple and prefers to use dead water and antibiotics (against life) from the arsenal of traditional medicine to revive the corpse.

Not only the progress of science, but also the mass media brought us the image of a zombie - a hungry and soulless body. In the theory of psychotherapy, the thesis about automated, unconscious behavior of a person is widely known, and in the practice of psychotechnology, they try to fix malfunctions and restore the operation of a zombie machine, bypassing animation.

Desire for death

The fear of life comes from the presence of the dead in oneself. The dead do not want to look at the living, as well as the living at the dead. Hence the setting to look for the sick and the injured outside, in order to harmonize the dead inside and outside.

Codependent relationships are formed when a seemingly healthy person is looking for someone suffering from one or another addiction and often actually dying. The codependent carries the patient on himself, controls his every movement in the same way as in another ancient torture when a patient with syphilis was tied to a healthy person.

Instead of discovering and reviving the dead in themselves, people are engaged in salvation - they go to Africa on humanitarian missions, join volunteer groups, go to work in hospitals and hospices, become social workers, psychologists, rescuers of homeless animals, etc. The climax is the profession of a pathologist. in which it is already quite obvious who is cheerful, warm and alive, and who is cold and dead.

In the dissecting room, as in a cemetery, it is quiet, calm and solemn - the dead inside unites with the dead outside.

memento Mori

Sometimes, in order to overcome trauma, revive and resurrect, you need to conclude a contract with the Devil himself. Like that Bulgakov's Margarita, one must accept the invitation and become the queen of the ball to greet the rebellious dead. They approach, bow, kiss the hand and, thank Satan, step back without embracing or kneeling.

Even in such a scenario, contact with the dead can be torture, but passing through it, if all rituals and conditions are met, heals and transfers to a higher level of vital activity. Mikhail Bulgakov tells about this and is evidenced by all the transitional rites of initiation, in which a symbolic death is lived. On the same basis, therapeutic practices are built, in which the necrotic must be seen, outlived or animated, if it is still possible.

Beginning with sorcerers and shamans rushing to the Lower World, healers of the Middle Ages, digging up corpses for anatomical research, and up to today's psychologists, healing was associated not only with the highest grace, but also with the patronage of dark forces. And the practitioners themselves were caught in a special relationship with the owner of the Lower World, the Devil, spirits, etc., right up to the modern Unconscious. Oh, this depth psychology!

Plunging into the dead, we look for life and manifestations of animation there.

A child, in order to find a living thing, disassembles and breaks toys. Anthropologists and archaeologists, excavating graves and ancient cities, restore the lives of people of previous eras from the remains. Ancient hunters and murderers of all times try to see the elusive spark of life in the eyes of dying prey. Sadists are satisfied with the pain and groans of another person as a manifestation of life, domestic provocateurs receive a burst of strength when they hear the screams of indignation. Someone cuts their own hands to see the blood and feel more alive, someone simply groans and moans without any external compulsion.

Man in all his civilized and wild manifestations intuitively guesses that death lurks in life, and death reveals the secret of life.

Death is rebirth

The gloominess of the theme of death is directly related to the linear perception of time and the lack of understanding that the finality of anything is relative. If we look at the change of seasons, the repeated alternation of periods of a person's life, then we understand the cyclical nature of time. Autumn is followed by winter, winter is followed by spring, life leads to death, and death to rebirth. We have died many times already, but have been reborn and continue to live in a new quality. For something new and good to be born, something old needs to become obsolete, ill and die - childhood affection for its parent, old love, old ideas and habits.

For birth, conditions are required, including for the birth of a person's I, which does not occur immediately and needs obstetrics. Birth anxiety (separation anxiety) interferes with growing up and moving to the next stage of life with its tasks, and a person needs spiritual "midwives" in the person of relatives, friends, mentors and specialists.

For something to be reborn again, you also need suitable conditions, outside help and faith in the possibility of rebirth, despite the futility of efforts, the inevitability of death and the presence of dead parts in your soul.

Resuscitation - defrosting

How do dead parts come to life in the psyche, and by what manifestations can one understand that this is happening?

First, the level of anxiety and anticipation of the inevitability of change increases. This is accompanied by increased feelings of guilt, self-shame, and increased expansive aggression. If autoaggression and resentment accompanies and accelerates dying, then aggression directed outward, dissatisfaction, irritability testifies to the revival and the emergence of the boundaries of one's Self. It is getting no better, but already clearly more alive. Those who are used to seeing us dead, calm and controlled during this period experience noticeable discomfort.

Next, feelings appear that can already be attributed to a positive series and fullness with life:

curiosity and interest in life, passion, impatience, confidence, pride, joy, inspiration, delight, gratitude, respect, sympathy, love, tenderness, trust. All of them testify that they managed to connect to the source of life for a while, forgetting about death. Living these feelings, we no longer drink poisoned milk or vinegar, but wine and honey, not dead, but living water.