23. Belief and magic, knowledge and art.

Once I waited for a train at a railway station in Katowice. (It is a city in my country, that is, in southern Poland). Waiting is boring, so I walked around the shops that were in the station and nearby. Among others, there was an older woman with a table on which books and other things were spread out. I opened one of the books, and I appeared the illustration which I am presenting below.

Above we can see a scheme from the Polish edition, and below I put the same illustration from the English version of this book.

This scheme coughs my attention because it is similar to Ancient Typology. And also we have on it basic psychological functions that Carl Gustav Jung distinguish in his “Psychological Types”.

For this illustration only, I bought this book. It turned out that it is a book about magic entitled “Esej o magii, jej podstawach, rozwoju i miejscu we współczesnym życiu, S.T.C.M.O”. (In English—SSOTBME: Essay on Magic, Its Foundations, Development and Place in Modern Life). This book is written by Lionel Snell (or he used these pseudonyms: Ramsey Dukes, Lemuel Johnston, and others)

It is his website:
http://ramseydukes.co.uk

And it is his YouTube channel, where we can listen to his fascinating and deep considerations:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-NwOu0WV5Qd_U4zOP33sw

So, the above diagram was for me surprisingly similar to the Mandala of Characters I am creating. It means, similar is:
— the construction of this diagram, which is analogical to the Ancient Typology.
— and there are on this diagram basic psychological functions according to Jung’s “Psychological Types”.

Besides, in this diagram, there are four more terms, which in my opinion are analogical to adaptive-defensive mechanisms.

The author of the above diagram also drew inspiration from Jung’s theory, and he added knowledge from other fields. That is, he used, among others, his interests in philosophy, and magic.

In conclusion, since the above scheme is analogical to the Mandala of Characters, I think it is worth taking a closer look at it.

The author of the above diagram presents four “tendency indicators” (or “direction indicators”), which are.

• Intuition,
• Logic,
• Feeling
• and Sensation (or Observation).

Besides, in the above diagram, we can see the following thinking methods:

• Artistic,
• Religious,
• Magical,
• and Scientific.

Below, I use the quote from the above mention book, to show what relations are between:
— tendency (or direction) indicators
— and thinking methods.

In principle, the above description is analogical to the Ancient Typology. Specifically, analogical are relations which occur:
— between main Elements,
— and qualities of these Elements.

Let me remind you that the main Elements are:

• Fire,
• Water,
• Air, and
• Earth.

In turn, the qualities of the Elements are:

• moist-wet,
• cool-cold,
• dry, and
• hot.

As I said above, the theory presented in the above diagram is analogical to Jung’s work, because in this theory are used so-called “tendency indicators” (or “direction indicators”).

And these “tendency indicators” we can relate to basic psychological functions that Jung distinguished. So, here we have some differences in naming, but the character of these concepts is similar. It means:
— in Jung’s typology we have: Thinking, Feeling, Intuition, and Sensation,
— and in the above theory we have: Logic, Feeling, Intuition and Sensation.

Along with the word “Sensation”, the author of this theory has also used the word “Observation”. Therefore, in the quote I presented above, we can read about “Observation”, and in the above diagram, we can see the word “Sensation”. Then, for our considerations, I think, we can treat “Observation” as “Sensation”.

All in all, we only have a small difference in terms that are between:
— “Thinking”, in Jung’s typology, and
— “Logic” in theory above.

So, I think that the ideas from the above theory and the diagram above we can use in the Mandala of Characters. To do this, we only need to rearrange the elements in the diagram above to match them to the Mandala of Characters.

This rearranging is actually simple. It is because we need only to reverse the diagram above. That is, move elements from right to left, and vice versa.

Let us arrange the individual elements from the above theory. Thanks to this, everything will match our previous considerations about the Mandala of Characters.

Please look at the diagram below.

So, we have:

• Four tendency indicators:
  — Logic (Thinking),
  — Feeling,
  — Intuition, and
  — Sensation (Observation);
• and four thinking methods
  — religious,
  — artistic,
  — magical, and
  — scientific.

So:

• religious thinking—uses Logic and Intuition,
• artistic thinking—uses Feeling and Intuition,
• scientific thinking—uses Logic and Sensation,
• magical thinking—uses Feeling and Sensation.

All in all, it appears that the only novelty compared to what I wrote in the previous chapter are the so-called thinking methods. However, these thinking methods I found interesting, and they inspired me. In my opinion, the very idea of these four thinking methods is very accurate. Thanks to that, I realized that we actually have four basic thinking methods.

Personally, I had the opportunity to experience these methods. It means, first of all, I think here about religious and magical thinking.

When it comes to religious thinking, in my youth, I was very religious. I like to pray, and I could do it for hours. Besides, when I was a child and teenager in Poland was communism. And communist regimes in Poland and other communist countries, according to the quote from Karl Marx theory, believed that "religion is the opium of the people". So, they fought with religions and superstitions, and they tried to remove them from our life.

When I was stuck in this communist reality, religions already had 30 years of fighting them by communism regimes. Churches looked very neglected, most of them were not renovated during the communist era. Priests were on their own, and they had to be very determined to keep going on in this challenging situation for them. However, the Polish Church was still strong and influential. On the one hand, because religious traditions were still very firm and stable. On the other hand, the Polish Church expressed anger which people have against the communist regime. Expressing anger for ordinary people was actually unattainable. The majority of people preferred to not exposing themselves and their families on troubles and problems.

The average people guided themselves by the principles such as,
— “Lepiej się nie wychylać”, namely, “better not to lean out” (English equivalent: “better to keep a low profile” or “better to stay off the grid”).
— “Pokorne ciele dwie matki ssie”, namely, “A humble calf will feed from two mothers (English equivalent: “humility gets you everywhere”). — “Jakoś to będzie”, namely, “it will be somehow”. (I don’t know what is the English equivalent for this saying, probably I can translate it in this way: “it will work out somehow” or “we will get through it somehow”, or “just go with the flow”.). — etc.

In all of this, however, my situation was interesting in this way that I was born in communist reality. And I did know other reality than the communist one. All in all, I was under two pressures:
— on the one hand, we were taught atheism and communist philosophy in school.
— on the other hand, I felt pressure from the older generation, which was still very religious.

So, as children and young people, we had to somehow find the way for ourselves between two life philosophies. In this situation, I and many of my colleagues we found such a way that we were officially atheistic and unofficially Christian.

In a sense, we had to deal with two religions, because both communists and the church did their best to spread their faith. And for me, in principle, atheism is still a kind of religion.

However, when it comes to the moral side, it turned out that there is only one right way. It means, if Christianity was fought by communists, there was no other morally right way than to be on the side of Christianity. And it was very necessary to be against communism (even unofficially), because communism imposed its atheistic religion by force.

In addition to the moral duty to be on the side of Christianity, I personally was also fascinated by Christianity, and at the same time, I was afraid of it. In turn, I was not afraid of “atheistic religion”, but atheism was not so fascinating for me.

However, nevertheless, that atheism was connected with communism, I also admitted that atheism in many points is right. There were many reasons and arguments making atheism also interesting. So, it was strange, but I had also hidden sympathy for atheism.

All in all, I had a big dilemma. I should morally stand on the side of Christianity, but I also liked atheism.

This situation made me a believer in both Christianity and atheism.

Atheistic religion was logical, firm, scientific, wise, etc.

In turn, learning Christianity in my situation, was like discovering some “ancient forbidden secrets and knowledge”.

In a way, learning Christianity was an amazing adventure for me. Prayers and religious rituals provided me with deep experiences. In short, it was “cool”. And after deep prayer, I felt better, sometimes even I felt great. Of course, it was not always like that, and I was often also bored during various religious services. Some services I liked more than others. And other people often distracted me, and I thought what other people think about me, how I should behave appropriately according to them. So, with time I found out that actually, I prefer to do it alone. I got into the swing of it that I even experimented with various religious practices. For example, I went to church when it could be empty. Then, I could enter into prayer deeper. Now, I think that it was some kind of religious meditation.

Once, when I was alone in the church, I was celebrating the Way of the Cross. I entered into religious considerations very profoundly. I did not even notice that my priest came into the church, and he watched me for some time. When he came closer to me, it took me a while to get out of my religious reflectiveness. At first, I thought it was one of the characters from the Way of the Cross.

My priest was obviously delighted. Overall, I was lucky that he liked me a lot. He even saw in me a priestly vocation, and he hoped that I would become a priest. And since he found me alone in the church in religious reflectiveness, he even called me his friend, and sometimes shared with me, how he prays. All in all, I had many opportunities to be with him because I was an altar boy.

My priest was very charismatic. At the same time, however, he had a difficult character. From time to time, he was very nervous and impulsive. He was typical, as we are saying in Poland, pre-war priest. That is, he kept the old traditional way of being Christian and priest. For example, he did not believe in evolution. He was very radical and hardly tolerant of what he thought was not in line with Christian commandments. So, some people he favored and did not respect others. He lived modestly. He did not watch TV. Fascinatingly, he talked about various saints. His sermons were interesting and well prepared. However, he did not always stick to Christian topics. In his sermons, there was a lot, as we are saying now, “hate speech”, especially towards the communist regime. But people accepted and liked it at that time because he expressed their hidden anger towards this regime. Nowadays, however, it would simply be hate speech, which does not fit the Christian spirit. Interestingly, we can see now that in Poland, many older priests and bishops still sometimes use hate speech. They are very criticized for that. However, they do not seem to understand that they are simply using hate speech.

Returning to the times of my youth and my priest, despite his disadvantages and difficult character for me, he was a very interesting and fascinating man. Also, he liked praying. Praying was his passion, which helped him got through in what he did. That is, in being a priest, when it was very difficult to be a priest. And praying probably helped him to control his complicated character.

Besides, my priest was like my father. It means, in a sense, he replaced my father. My father was a very addicted alcoholic, and at that time, he was drunk 3-4 times per week. All in all, he was either drunk or sobering up. Sometimes my father used to be very aggressive when he was drunk. So, I was very afraid of him, and I was very ashamed of him. That’s why I tried to spend as much time as possible away from home. My colleagues called me even “powsinoga”, that is gad-about or loiterer.

So, my family at that time was, as it is now said, dysfunctional. At that time, however, I had little idea that my family was dysfunctional because there were many such families in my village. Generally speaking, alcoholism in Poland was then a very big problem.

In this situation, my friendship with my priest gave me a lot. Especially, sharing with him the passion that was praying.

As it turned out later, my period of being an altar boy coincided with the last years of my priest’s priesthood. At some point, he began to get very sick. As an altar boy, I saw his failing health closely, and I felt helpless, seeing him suffering and unable to help him. After all, my priest was no longer able to manage our parish. Next, for some time, he was seriously ill and died.

This story is very unusual for me. This uniqueness is also emphasized by one another fact. My priest, after his death, appeared in my dreams for 20 years. Finally, he died in one of my dreams, and since then, I did not have dreams with him.

As for my father, he stopped drinking after his fifty, and next, he was an excellent grandfather for my children. When I was a child, I would not even think that it is possible.

In the meantime, I was gradually moving away from religion. And now I am not a religious believer. It was simply a process that lasted about 15 years. Slowly, point by point, I reviewed and analyzed various aspects of my religious faith. I was changing them slowly.

In connection with religion, I would like to refer to atheism here. Atheism, as I wrote above, was also a religion in the communist era. The difference was that in Christianity, we should believe in something else that in atheism. Or our convictions are different in Christianity than in atheism. However, in both, we believe in something, or we are convinced about something.

As I wrote above, in my case, it happened that I believed in both Christianity and atheism. In retrospect, I also see that generally:
— The Christian religion has helped me a lot to be less afraid.
— The “atheistic religion”, in turn, helped me think rationally and realistically. Thanks to atheism, I was able to control myself more consciously.

Christianity was terrifying for me, but is was also fascinating. However, all in all, it helped me be less afraid. In fact, Christianity was for me like a good story, which was giving me many experiences. Later I discovered that after a deep prayer, I felt like after leaving the cinema, after watching a movie that fascinated me. When we are leaving the cinema often, for some time we are strongly impressed by what we just saw. Sometimes it takes half an hour, sometimes longer, I had a similar feeling after deep prayer, for some time I was very impressed by it.

As for the atheistic religion, atheism has never given me such intense and profound experiences as Christianity. Atheism, however, is rational and realistic. Atheism, in general, helped me think. Atheism helps to ask questions and helps to answer these questions. It allows us to have doubts and helps us dispel or resolve these doubts. Thanks to atheism, doubts are not our enemy, but one of our best friends.

Generally speaking, I have recently discovered that actually I was not a Christian, I was an atheistic Christian.

And what do I believe in now?

I think I could say that I just believe in belief. I believe in the phenomenon of belief. For example, recently, sometimes, I like to wonder how people felt in ancient Greece when they believed in thousands of gods or deities. Ancient religions were probably more terrifying than Christianity and other religions, where there is only one god. Although, actually, Christianity also has many gods, in the sense that we also pray to the saints. Thus, saints are also divine beings, in some sense, they are like demigods. Ancient religions, however, were more elaborate, the gods had different characters and various complicated stories. Thanks to this, ancient religions contain great psychological knowledge. And this ancient psychological knowledge hidden in ancient mythologies is still inspiring us.

So, I think we can imagine how looked like believing in ancient times. And just imagining that we are in ancient religious reality is already an extraordinary experience. For example, to imagine that someone in ancient times was praying to Zeus with equal fervor, as I prayed to my Christian god. I think, like me, I had the impression that I felt the presence of God, someone in antiquity had the impression that he felt the presence of Zeus or other ancient gods.

Similarly, I was lucky to have a deep and open conversation about belief with people of other faiths, for example, Islam. And I was surprised by the fact that my religious experiences are actually identical to my religious experiences of deeply religious Muslims.

I think the difference in religious feelings and experiences in different religions is small, or there is no difference between them. And that is why, among others, I said that I just believe in belief.

Faith is generally a very interesting phenomenon, and it is worth having respect for it. Personally, I also do not feel competent enough to say briefly, what belief or faith is? However, I think, among others, we can say about the belief that it is—a method of thinking. So I refer here to the thoughts of Lionel Snell (or Ramsey Dukes). He distinguished religious thinking as one of four methods of thinking. We can see this in the diagram I placed at the beginning of this chapter.

Now I finish my considerations about the religious method of thinking, and I move on to the next thinking method, which is—magical thinking.

In my life, as wee as religious thinking, I also had the opportunity to come across magical thinking.

It was in Poland in the 1980s and 1990s. At that time I was a teenager. These were tough times. This hard period began with a very severe winter at the turn of 1978 and 1979. There were many heavy snowfalls together with heavy frosts throughout the whole country. Entire Poland was literally paralyzed for two months. It was because of heavy snowfall and frost persisted, and roads and railways were impassable. Because of heavy frost water supply pipes were bursting, and the electrical network was constantly failing. Then came spring and there was actually a kind of flood, because the water from melting snow washed away many sections of the roads and railways. And in general there were a lot of things to fix.

At the same time, the Solidarity movement was growing rapidly. In a short time Solidarity became a movement which has 10 million members. The population of Poland at that time was 35.5 million. The Solidarity movement feeling its strength began to conduct strikes on a very large scale. The strikes in 1980 and 1981 actually paralyzed the whole country. In this situation, the communist regime found such a solution that they introduced the so-called— martial law, which lasted a year and a half. At the time, the whole of Poland was controlled by the militia (that is, police) and army. The main activists of Solidarity were interned, that is, about 10 thousand people.

All in all, the severe winter, strikes, and martial law together made up 5 years of crisis. This led Poland to a very deep economic crisis.

In the following years, the crisis deepened even more. In the meantime, the Soviet Union and entire communist bloc also hit a deep economic crisis. The communist regime in Poland, having no idea how to get out of this hard situation, began talks with the Solidarity movement. Thanks to this, firstly we had partly free election, and next entirely free election, thanks to which the communist regime in a peaceful way was removed from power. However, economic crises continued. The Polish economy needs yet more than 10 years of modernization and reforms before the economy began to function in a stable way.

All in all, we had 20 years of a very difficult economic situation in Poland. That is the last 10 years of communism and the first 10 years of democracy.

Now, I will return to magical thinking. This kind of thinking, in the years of crisis in Poland, so to speak, became very popular. Especially the last 10 years of communism have fostered such thinking. It means, two factors fostered this:
— a severe economic crisis, which I just mentioned,
— and the so-called Iron Curtain.

Because of the Iron Curtain, the western world was inaccessible to us. The average citizen could not go abroad. It means we can go somewhere in the communist bloc area. And when somebody wanted to go to the non-communist country, he needs special permission. Next, such a trip was under the very strict control of the communist regime.

All in all, if we could not leave the country where was the severe economic crises, what was left for us? In short, one option left, that is, we had to hope for a miracle. Or in other words, we could count on magic.

So, then, the popularity gained various magical theories and practices, which could help change our situation for the better, for example:

• Various meditation techniques that can bring good health and successes.
• Various methods of self-healing.
• Bio-Energy Therapy, or Bio-Energy Healing.
  At that time, crowds attended the sessions of various healers. Healers from all over the world come to us, and they were very popular. For example, I heard a lot about Filipino healers.
• Hypnosis.
  Then, even on public television therapeutic sessions of the famous hypnotist Anatoly Kaszpirowski were broadcasted.
• • Dowsing, radiesthesia.
  Dowsing services were very popular. Specialists in this field helped to find so-called water veins, that is groundwater (specifically—aquifers). Dowsing specialists marked the best areas for digging a water well. They are able to find aquifers up to few meters under the ground. (Currently, with the help of instruments measuring the electrical resistance of the ground, aquifers can be found deeper, up to ten meters or more under the ground).
  According to dowsers, water veins can also have a negative impact on people. So, dowsers helped locate the right place to build a home, the best place to sleep, rest, and work. Besides, dowsing was used to find diseased organs in the body; to cleanse the human energy field (namely, aura); to remove negative radiation of objects and charge them with positive energy; to recognize the sex of the child during pregnancy; to detect whether somebody has sympathy or antipathy towards us; to find the appropriate diet, and many, many others. At that time, I was very impressed with the radiesthesia. I also bought a special pendulum, and I tried to learn to use it in private.
• Healing with shapes and symbols.
  On sale were various healing shapes or symbols. For example, they were printed on a piece of fabric, which could be put under a bed sheet. And thanks to it during sleep, we could be healed or regenerated.
• Healing amulets and talismans.
• Journals and books.
  Journals and books about various magical topics had high sales.
• Acupuncture and reflexology (or zone therapy).
  • Acupuncture and reflexology (or zone therapy). Foot reflexology is the only alternative method that I still use in my life. I do not know how much it helped me, but I just like to do it because it is easy to use. Under my desk, I have a few massage rollers and balls, and for example, now I can massage my feet while writing.
• Psychotronics
• Feng shui
• Astrology
• I Ching
• Affirmations
• Music therapy
• Chromotherapy
• Tarot
• and many, many others.

Besides, at that time when I was young in Poland also became popular:

• Enneagram,
• Carl Gustav Jung’s theories,
• psychoanalysis and various types of psychotherapeutic methods,
• meditation,
• yoga,
• philosophies of the East and the paths of spiritual development, such as Buddhism,
• dream analysis,
• etc.

In short, Poland in the 1980s and 1990s absorbed like a sponge, various alternative or magical methods from all over the world.

I also participated in, for example:

• — in rebirthing sessions
• I was on a course, where I studied various spiritual techniques, among others so-called “fire-walking”.
• I attended to fair and festivals of alternative medicine and lifestyle,
• I bought some amulets and symbols that were supposed to bring me success,
• I bought types and CD-s with affirmations and healing music to bring me health and prosperity,
• I read about magic, alternative medicine and lifestyle, for example Kahuna magic, numerology, books of Leonard Orr, Louise Hay, Osho, and others.
• I read books about meditation and Buddhist practices, for example, Thich Nath Hanh books,
• I was very fascinated by two Polish professors:
  — Włodzimierz Sedlak — priest and biologist, founder of the Polish school of bioelectronics, the electromagnetic theory of life, and the concept of “wszechprónia”. (I did not found English therm, probably we can translate it as “Omni-vacuum” or “Omni-space”).
  — Julian Aleksandrowicz — internist, professor of medicine, humanist, social scientist, promoter of blood donation, pioneer of Polish ecological thought. I was especially fascinated by the Professor's book entitled “Sumienie ekologiczne”, that is, “Ecological conscience”, published in 1988. Professor Aleksandrowicz postulated that ecological conscience should be popularized in society. This idea was really pioneering because the ecological conscience still hardly is spreading in our social consciousness. I think it would be worth to popularize the concept of “ecological conscience” widely.
• I wrote down and analyzed dreams,
• etc.

All in all, in my life, along with the religious world, the magical world also appeared. In other words, magical (or alternative) thinking has appeared alongside religions thinking. And I was very involved in both of these methods of thinking.

In general, I have a fondness for religious and magical thinking. And both are familiar to me. It is so although I am not a believer (in the typical sense of the word—believe), and I am no longer “magical” or “alternative”. For instance, I do not do Buddhist practices; I do not read horoscopes; I am not interested in predictions; I do not practice long meditations; etc. Sometimes, I only analyze my dreams and regret that I do not spend more time on them. It is because now I am mainly dealing with the Mandala of Characters. However, many of my dreams are about Mandala. So, actually, it turns out that I am still close to my dream world.

In conclusion, from the perspective of my life, it is quite obvious that religious and magical thinking really exists and they are very real. And each of us probably, to some extent, uses these methods of thinking.

Some people have probably noticed that I included in the magic, for example, analysis of dreams, psychoanalysis, meditation, Enneagram, Jung's theories, etc. I did it because in my youth these theories and practices were very magical to me. Generally, it was magical for me to do something in my inner world. That is, doing something in my psyche.

And, in principle, what it is doing something inside ourselves? In principle, it is Introversion. It means, according to the Mandala of Characters, it is an adaptive-defensive mechanism, which is Introversion.

So, my life experience shows that magical (or alternative) thinking is simply Introverted thinking.

I have not said anything yet about the other two methods of thinking. That is, about scientific and artistic thinking. However, I think that each of us has an idea of what these thinking methods are. For example, each of us had (or have) to do with them at school. Or to a greater or lesser extent at work.

I will briefly say that:
— Scientific thinking we can associate with the adaptive-defensive mechanism, which is Perceiving.
— In turn, artistic thinking we can associate with the adaptive-defensive mechanism, which is Judging.

All in all, I think we can agree that we actually have the following thinking methods:

• scientific,
• artistic,
• religious, and
• magical (or alternative).

Since there are such methods of thinking, I decided that it is worth to put them on the Mandala of Characters.

However, I have made some modifications. During the development of the Mandala, I found out that:
— instead of the word “science”, it is better to use the word “knowledge”.
— and instead of the word “religion”, it is better to use the word “belief” or “trust”.

I think that both “science” and “religion” are semantically too broad.

Regarding the word “magic” in English, there is a popular phrase “hoping for a miracle”. In Polish, we use “counting for a miracle”. I was particularly interested in putting together the words “hope” and “miracle”. It makes me realize that there is a psychological connection between these two concepts.

Above, I talked about the times of the long economic crises in Poland. And about the fact that at that time:
— we hoped that our magical or alternative actions would improve our situation,
— and we hoped that a miracle would happen in the sense that we hoped that the situation of our country somehow will change and the crisis will somehow end.

Hope is therefore associated with the concepts of “miracle”, “magic”, alternative”, etc.

Thus, after my modification, the thinking methods concern:

• knowledge,
• artistry, (or art),
• belief, (or trust),
• and magic (or hope).

So, I have added the mentioned above thinking methods to our four auxiliary reference points of our psyche.

Bibliografia: