In the early part of last month Martha and I went to see Star Wars III which is supposed to wrap up the series and to explain how a noble Jedi warrior became the evil Darth Vader. The attraction was actually not only curiosity but also money. We couldn’t resist the lure of paying only $3 for the both of us when it would have cost us more than three times that had we gone earlier to the neighborhood Megaplex. These are the market forces in action. The Megaplex gets the initial run of the movies and is usually, after the first 3 weeks or so, three quarters empty. A smaller chain then picks up the same movie and sells the tickets for a flat rate of $1.50 regardless of age. People learn to wait and the cinema was packed.

            Apart from the hundreds of flying objects shooting at each other for no ostensible reason Mr. Lukas did manage to get a lesson across which may, however, not have been picked up by most people in the audience. For those who have not seen the film let me summarize the essence. Under the wise and diligent leadership of middle aged Obi-Wan Kenobi, young Anakin Skywalker grows into an extraordinarily morally good and physically superb Jedi who will do anything to defend the Republic from the forces of looming authoritarianism. But after hearing that the woman he dearly loves will die when she gives birth to his son, Luke Skywalker, he becomes desperate. The evil Chancellor of the Republic who aspires to Caesarism seduces Anakin by promising him that if he were to use not only the Force of light but also that of darkness he could overcome death and his beloved would live. Although the good and kind Anakin struggles valiantly against this idea, his love for the woman overcomes his scruples and in the ensuing inner battle the handsome Jedi loses and turns into the gruesome Darth Vader.

            The phrase that “only by combining the forces of darkness and light can you achieve complete power” might not have struck me had I not composed a few weeks earlier a little poem about a water Lilly while spending a weekend morning at our ponds.  It was in German and I shall not reproduce it here but simply give its content. We admire the beauty of the white flower among its green leaves but don’t realize that this beauty depends on the roots which are grounded in the muck. Dry out the mud and the flower dies. Thus, the forces which literally require darkness for their work to come to fruition are not to be shunned but are vital.  On the other hand if there were no sunshine the mud would freeze and there would likewise be no flower. Thus it is true that only the combination of light and dark are essential for life as we know it and the “dark side” is not to be shunned but patiently and cautiously explored.

            As mentioned in War & Mayhem it was Schopenhauer who pointed out our natural inclination to: “dislike thinking of things that are injurious to our interest, pride, or wishes. How difficult is the decision to subject them to exact and serious investigation.” Nietzsche then picked up the thought and wrote: “A genuine Physio-Psychologist has to fight with unconscious resistances in the heart of the investigator; it goes against the grain.  . . . Wherever one not only sees, but wants to see hunger, sexual desire and vanity as the original driving forces of human actions there the lover of insight should listen to very carefully.” Freud made it his life work but he and his followers remained stuck in the mud - the libido - and neglected to consider in their therapeutic efforts the spiritual dimension of the human being.

            This failure was remedied by Viktor Frankl whose 100^th birthday is celebrated this year and whose work I have already mentioned previously (September 1, 2003: “For the Goyim They Sing”). His method of Logotherapy recognizes the power of instinctual forces and works towards directing them to a higher meaning in a difficult life situation. Once the purpose and meaning of that situation has become clear, life can proceed in a healthy and integrated manner. What made his life and teaching authentic is that he had survived nearly three years of Nazi concentration camps without hate or rancor. He was a physician who had devoted himself to treat the psychiatrically and neurologically ill before deportation and he returned to these tasks thereafter. Although initially physically shattered by the effects of his ordeal - which had also cost him his wife, parents and brother - he overcame all these difficulties and reemerged a stronger and better person. This might not have come about had he not met, a year after his return, a young nurse at the Allgemeine Poliklinik who gave him the unselfish love he was in desperate need of at the time. They married had children as well as grandchildren and as Frankl himself put it she had turned him from a homo patiens - a suffering person - into a homo amans – a loving person. He died in 1997 at the ripe old age of 92 years. Although physically frail his spirit had remained undaunted.

            Frankl‘s work has found world-wide acclaim but in the United States it is still eclipsed by Freudian disciples of various sects. I use the term advisedly because Freudian type of psychoanalysis is a secular religion which you have to subscribe to lest you will be cast out. The reason why the names: Sigmund Freud, Simon Wiesenthal and Eli Wiesel are known to everyone in the U.S. but that of Viktor Frankl to only relatively few tells us something about our culture which we also ought to face up to. Wiesenthal’s death and funeral in Vienna last month gave rise to articles of praise even in The Salt Lake Tribune but Frankl‘s 100^th birthday in March of this year has gone unnoticed by our media.

            But let us return to Star wars III because there is another lesson about the nature of the dark side. What did the “evil ones” want? The answer is simple: power! Why do people want power? Because they are afraid of losing something, whatever that something might be. It might be fear of loss of property, life of a loved one or ones own, illness, prestige, one’s “good name” and so on. This fear creates greed and these two evils combined appear to be the driving forces of our current culture.

            “Know Thyself,” said the old Greeks and it’s still the best advice one can get. But, as mentioned, we don’t want to face our inner demons and when something goes wrong there is always “the other” who can be blamed.  The events of the past month are no exception. Hurricane Katrina revealed the dark side of America for all the world to see. We knew of its existence but didn’t want to face the consequences. The fact that the vast majority of Katrina’s victims were of African descent makes the “dark side” even literally true. This led to the inevitable charge of racism, which is, however, again only an attempt to deflect blame. There was no ill will, just inertia and incompetence at all levels of government, in addition to the inability to anticipate as well as well as to cope subsequently with the disaster. Within less than a week the myth of the “Homeland Security Department” was dispelled and it had become obvious that the creation of that office was actually a hindrance rather than help for victims of natural or man-made disasters. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Administration, had worked infinitely better before the creation of Mr. Chertoff’s office and the billions of dollars which have been spent on this useless bureaucracy have been wasted. In the tradition of government, regardless which party happens to be in control, it is inevitable that more money will be thrown after bad. Creating programs with layers over layers of newly created departments is after all the only way governments know how to deal with self-created problems.

            While racism was not an issue in this disaster this does not mean that negative attitudes between Blacks – as they referred to themselves in the 1960’s and 1970’s – and Whites don’t exist. It subsequently dawned on the Black leadership that the word is actually only the English translation of the Spanish word Negro and they advocated a name change to African-American which is now the officially sanctioned term. But changing a name does not change an underlying substantive issue. It is a fact that poverty and concomitant crime are widespread in this segment of our society and that the Whites’ fear of the Blacks and vice versa is deeply rooted in the history of this country.

            Know thyself demands that we also face up to this topic and I am aware that I was no exception to this wide-spread fear. Martha and I used to live from 1958 - 1990 in Lilly white Grosse Pointe but worked in downtown Detroit. We, therefore, had a front row view of the progressive decay of this city. It had started with a massive influx of poor blacks from the South into the inner city. White business owners became nervous and relocated to the suburbs. Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” program exacerbated the problem. When racial integration of the public school system became the law of the land parents drew the line. The white population of Detroit refused to have their children transported by bus from their local neighborhoods into the inner city and voted with their feet. They moved as far away as possible into suburbia. The city lost its tax base and the riots of 1967 accelerated the slide into further decay. This is another example of how a well meant idea which ignores human nature leads to the opposite of the intended result.

            First the businesses on Kercheval, which was my snow emergency route when Jefferson, the main east west artery, was clogged, began to be boarded up. The houses were vacant and yards overgrown with weeds. One morning a few minutes before eight when I drove by Martin Luther King High School on Lafayette Street I noted that the pupils on the way to school, all black, didn’t have backpacks or books. It surely surprised me. “Don’t they have any homework?” I wondered. Decades later our current President asked in his usually mangled syntax: “Is our children learning?” Unfortunately the only answer we can give him is a resounding: No! You can throw all the money you want on buildings, computers and other gadgets but unless children are motivated and forced by parents and teachers to learn the basics rather than be allowed to engage in frills there will be no positive results.

            There are two other Detroit vignettes that bear mention. We used to go with the children downtown to the movies. “Willard” was the last one we saw there and that dates it to 1971. We had been slightly late and the theater was already dark when we sat down. After the lights had come back on and we were beginning to leave we noted with surprise that we were the only white faces in a sea of black ones. Nobody bothered us but we did feel uneasy and a sense of not belonging here. I experienced this sensation in spite of the fact that my nursing staff, for instance, was predominantly black and we enjoyed excellent working relations. This provided a lesson: we don’t mind individual relationships with people of different color or backgrounds but we fear the aggregate – the masses.

The other event occurred two years later. I had to attend Circuit Court sessions and when I parked the car at a nearby lot I didn’t believe my eyes. In the shack where a white fellow handed me my ticket there leaned against one wall a rifle, against another a shotgun and in the open desk drawer there was a revolver. In amazement I asked him: “Is this for real?” “Where d‘you think, you are man? You’re in downtown Detroit!” was the answer. Well, here it is; crude fear and willingness to kill.

            In the meantime Detroit, under a succession of black mayors, has deteriorated further. It is now at least 80% black and on my last visit two years ago I noted with dismay that even on Jefferson, in what used to be nice neighborhoods, many stores are boarded up, others have been torn down and nature reasserts itself with weeds. Our daughter in law told me that, when a visitor had come across the river from Windsor, Canada, and saw these conditions she asked in amazement: “Has there been a war?” No, not yet; but with this disparity in living conditions between the city and the suburbs, and with a populace that is armed to the teeth it is likely to be only a matter of time before there is a major explosion. This may not be limited to Detroit but affect many inner cities of our country which have been turned into what used to be called slums. This is the dark side of America which we usually don’t show our visitors or on TV.

            But let us not blame the looting we saw in Detroit and Los Angeles during the riots, in New York during the blackout, and now New Orleans, on the black population of those cities. Iraqis looted Baghdad and even my dear Viennese looted numerous stores, including that of my mother, during the few days after the Nazis had left and the Russians had not yet taken over. Once they were here they also had their share of it but that was expected. Thus looting and other crimes are bound to take place in any country anywhere in the world and should be expected to occur whenever there is no civilian or military police that enforces order. The Nazis knew how to prevent looting in the aftermath of bombing raids. Looters were shot on sight and that was a highly effective deterrent. This was easy to do under a regime whose slogan was: “der Einzelne ist nichts, das Volk ist alles.” The individual meant nothing the nation everything.

            In America we tend to adhere to the opposite extreme. Individual lives must either be saved, or prolonged as the case may be, sometimes even under circumstances that will never permit the person to become a functional member of society. These are philosophical differences the merits of which can and will be endlessly argued. As in all other situations the extreme positions ought to be shunned and the golden mean of well thought out reason ought to rule. Unfortunately this is not yet the American way. Nevertheless one ought to work towards it and instead of attempts at global solutions by Congress; local ones should be pursued with experimental demonstration programs before they are mandated for the country.

            While these comments addressed the dark side of our nation they are still only shades of grey because the real darkness remains for the most part under lock and key in the deepest recesses of our own individual minds. This is where our ultimate fears, which are of a very personal nature, reside. For everyday life they can safely remain there in the otherwise mentally healthy individual. There are good reasons why we shy away from our innermost fears and when we need to deal with them it should be done, as mentioned above, carefully. The inner demons, who reside in all of us, should not be trifled with because once released they can overwhelm the mind and lead to psychosis. This is also the reason why Freudian type psychoanalysis can be dangerous for the patient as well as, in some instances, the psychiatrist. 

            Who and what are these demons? There are two ways to approach this question.  One is through classic literature and in the West especially Greek mythology. Here we find all the superhuman and subhuman creatures the human mind was capable of conceiving. The other is through biology. Let us deal with mythology first because it provides the forms and combines the supernatural with the natural.

The ancients knew of the dual nature of the sacred: its goodness and its horror. The Greek word daimon from which our demon is derived had several meanings which we regard today as opposites. Among them were: divine being, guardian spirit, evil spirit, devil, specter, demon, fate, evil, death. Thus, when Socrates talked about the demon that drove him on he referred to the inner divinity whose voice he had to obey even at risk of death. This dual aspect of the holy was preserved in the Latin language in the word sacer.  All my professional life was devoted to understanding the mystery of morbus sacer, the holy illness, which we currently call epilepsy. Sacer does stand for: sacred, holy, and consecrated; but also for: accursed, devoted to destruction. These apparent paradoxes resulted from a view of the world where people lived in nature and who saw it in its creative as well as destructive aspect. For them all of nature was not only alive but had inherent spirits which were given different names. In order to tame the unfavorable aspects and to express gratitude for the favorable ones various rituals evolved but there was never any doubt about their divinity because mankind was aware of its relative weakness over the forces surrounding it.

We deride the naiveté of the Greeks for anthropomorphizing their gods and attributing to them all the human emotions we experience and where the only difference was that gods could do everything we do and more, in addition to having gained immortality. When we realize, however, that Greek mythology also insisted that gods and men were derived from the same substance, except that the former came first, then there is no longer need for derision. When Agamemnon started his prayer on the plain before Troy with: “Father Zeus who rulest in Ida” this was not some abstract mental conception like our current “Our Father who art in heaven.”  No, he regarded himself literally as the great-great- etc. son of Zeus and so did all the other Greeks. With the triumph of the Jewish religion where fatherhood is attributed to Abraham we have lost this inherent knowledge. This in turn paved the way towards a purely materialistic view of the world from which demons are to be banished by executive fiat. That this did not work is obvious to anyone who wanders around our world with open eyes.

In regard to biology the principle that phylogeny repeats ontology is taught in all our schools but the possible consequences are not considered. It is true that in embryonic life the human being like all other mammals goes through the phases of ameba, fish, reptile, monkey and it is tacitly assumed that there is no mentation that accompanies these various aspects. The fact that we don’t remember it does not necessarily mean that it did not exist. When I say mentation I obviously don’t mean “thought” in either visual or verbal form but rather some crude awareness of comfort, discomfort and later on at birth: pain and fear. Freud spoke of the “birth trauma” and he may well have been correct. Vaginal birth is no pleasure for either mother or baby and memories are being laid down. Subsequent early childhood experiences shape the personality and when unfavorable can have lasting detrimental effects. This occurs through the establishment of neuronal circuitry and their conditioning which are unconcious processes. Although positive experiences usually outweigh the negative ones the latter don’t vanish they just get filtered out. But filters are not necessarily tight they can be porous and when the early animal nature of the human being comes to the fore either as a result of illness, drugs, dreams, or through voluntary dabbling there can literally be hell to pay. What was inchoate before will now have shapes and forms that are no pleasure to behold. They need not be the gargoyles on our churches or the fantastic creatures of Hieronymus Bosch, threatening appearances in human form suffice. It is the accompanying emotion which counts which is usually fear and in its extreme stark horror.

This is the realm of our minds where the “sacred” lives and from where it will reemerge in our final hours as I have briefly mentioned in the August 26, 2004 issue: “Perception of Reality.” The Tibetan Book of the Dead or its more accurate subtitle The After-Death Experiences on the Bardo Plane, according to Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup’s English Rendering is of great interest in this context. It is of value not only to the student of esotericism but also to the neuroscientist. Since I belong professionally to the latter group I shall try to summarize the contents briefly from a modern Western standpoint. According to Buddhist belief the deceased, unless he was a highly accomplished Lama, will go through various stages for a period of 49 days after which rebirth occurs. The purpose of the book was to explain to the person who had just died all the visions and accompanying emotions he is going to experience on the Bardo plane which is the state between death and rebirth.

The person is told that immediately after the last breath has been exhaled he will initially experience the “Primary Clear Light” of radiant consciousness unencumbered by any form and accompanied by the sensation of pure bliss. The person is urged to use all his powers of concentration to remain in this state because this is the ultimate final liberation. Although this boon is potentially available to all of us we lack this power to concentrate laser-like, one-pointedly and begin our way through the Bardo. During the first seven days “peaceful deities” are encountered but with each image the deceased is admonished to disregard them and instead concentrate on the light. The person is told over and over again that these images have no reality by themselves but are merely emanations of ones personal consciousness.

If the person is unable to do so, because of lack of concentration on the task, the next seven days will be filled with the appearance of the “wrathful deities.”  While the “peaceful deities” are accompanied by a subjective feeling of comfort and pleasure, the wrathful ones provoke fear and terror. But again, and this is the key element for our discussion, the deceased is earnestly entreated by his guru: “Oh nobly- born fear not, flee not, be not awed, know it to be the embodiment of thine own intellect.” If the person is able to do so liberation will be achieved. With each passing day the visions and accompanying physically painful as well as mentally terrifying subjective sensations will increase but if the person is able to recognize them merely as products of his own mind he can still attain liberation.

Inasmuch as this recognition requires intense mental training while the person was alive most individuals are unable to do so and continue to wander on for the rest of the 49 days towards rebirth. Nevertheless even at this late stage liberation is still possible through intense concentration on the words of the guru. If that fails a rebirth which allows the individual to grow towards the goal that has been missed during the previous life is to be looked for. Human life is regarded as a great privilege (therefore the guru’s address: “Oh nobly-born”) because it is the only way for the intellect and spirit to grow and that is what our purpose on this planet should be.

This is neither the time nor the place to engage in the scientific pros and cons of the events as outlined above. Suffice it to say that from the neurologic point of view the insistence, that these phenomena are the workings of one’s own mind rather than due to outside occurrences, is eminently sound. When we furthermore condense the 49 days into 49 or so seconds we might even arrive at a scientific basis. During my days in training at Vienna’s Neuro-Psychiatric University Hospital I had come across a book which mentioned a rather macabre experiment that had been carried out during the French revolution when the guillotine was working overtime. Someone had measured how long the severed head’s eyes would roll to the side from which its name was called. As I recall it was about 38 seconds which seems reasonable from all we know about cerebral functions. What went on in this person’s mind during those seconds is, of course, anybody’s guess but it reinforces the Hindu-Buddhist idea that there is nothing more important in our life than our last conscious thought.

This brings us back to the question that was posed earlier. How did the noble Anakin Skywalker become the evil Darth Vader? He wanted to harness the powers of the dark side to do good; but he wanted power over the fate of others rather than his own. That is not given to the human being and as religion tells us even Satan can’t give life on his own, he needs our free will to cooperate and subsequently merely uses us as tools for his pleasure. Thus the question is: what do we want the power we are seeking for? If it is to bend others to our will then the best advice is to abstain from the attempt because the outcome is not in our hands. On the other hand if power, even from “the dark side,” is sought to understand our place in this universe we can do so, but carefully! We will be confronted by terror, especially in our dreams. Under these circumstances we need another human being whom we can trust implicitly and with whom we can discuss what is happening. In everyday life it would be best if this were our marital partner who has no other vested interest than our well-being. Under these circumstances the need to exercise power over others will disappear and both partners will grow intellectually as well as spiritually.