The Madness of George W. Bush: A Reflection of Our Collective Psychosis

[NAO]

I found this article by Paul Levy in early Spring 2004. I still enjoy it, even though I've read it many times.

Today, Buzzflash linked to a revised, abridged version of the article. Below find their link, and the link to Paul Levy's site. Awakeninthedream has a whole series of articles about Bush and the neo-cons written from a Jungian depth psychology perspective.

BuzzFlash - progressive independent media
http://buzzflash.com

The Madness of George W. Bush: A Reflection of Our Collective Psychosis by Paul Levy (revised, abridged version)
http://baltimorechronicle.com/011305PaulLevy.shtml

Awaken In the Dream - the writings of Paul Levy
http://www.awakeninthedream.com

*********************

excerpt from The Madness of George W. Bush

George W. Bush is ill. He has a psycho-spiritual disease of the soul, a sickness that is endemic to our culture and symptomatic of the times we live in. It’s an illness that has been with us since time immemorial. Because it’s an illness that's in the soul of all of humanity, it pervades the field and is in all of us in potential at any moment, which makes it especially hard to diagnose. In much the same way that a child's psychology cannot be understood without looking at the family system he or she is a part of, George Bush does not exist in isolation.We can view Bush and his entire Administration (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, etc), as well as the corporate, military industrial complex that they are co-dependently enmeshed with, the media that they control, the voters that support them, and ourselves as well, as interconnected parts of a whole system, or a "field." Instead of relating to any part of this field as an isolated entity, it’s important to contemplate the entire interdependent field as the ‘medium’ though which malignant egophrenia manifests and propagates itself. ME disease is a field phenomenon, and needs to be contemplated as such. Bush's sickness is our own...

Bush supporters are not merely disinterested in seeing that they are in denial of reality; on the contrary, they actively don’t want to look at this, which is to say they resist self-reflection at all costs. Bush and his supporters perversely interpret any feedback from the real world which reflects back their unconsciousness as itself evidence that proves the rightness of their viewpoint. All of Bush’s supporters mutually reinforce each other’s unconscious resistance to such a degree that a collective, interdependent field of impenetrability gets collectively conjured up by them that literally resists consciousness...

The situation is very analogous to when seemingly good, normal, loving Germans supported Hitler, believing he was a good leader trying to help them. The German people didn't realize that the virulent pathogen malignant egophrenia had taken possession of Hitler and was incarnating itself through him. By not seeing this and supporting Hitler, they became agents used by this non-local, deadly disease to propagate itself. This was a collective psychosis, and this is what is taking place in our country right now...

This is exactly what C. G. Jung, one of the greatest psychologists of the twentieth century, was warning us about when he said "The gigantic catastrophes that threaten us today are not elemental happenings of a physical or biological order, but psychic events. To a quite terrifying degree we are threatened by wars and revolutions which are nothing other than psychic epidemics. At any moment several millions of human beings may be smitten with a new madness, and then we shall have another world war or devastating revolution. Instead of being at the mercy of wild beasts, earthquakes, landslides, and inundations, modern man is battered by the elemental forces of his own psyche."

full article at above link...

[Eye_on_prize]

1. Thanks NAO, for posting this. funny. I know Paul, and he asked me to post

this for him (he's not registered DUer yet) on DU, which I came here to do, and *poof* there it is...already posted by you. cool.

I emailed Paul the link, so hopefully if there is any discussion he'll be able to register and participate.

I really believe Paul is saying something important in his writings for all of us. He points the way toward a shift in our collective consciousness that creates a tangible possibility of "snapping out of it", coming to our senses, overcoming our denial, and mustering the compassion needed to decisively defang the Dragon.

Paul has a website too, where many other articles appear. The site is http://www.awakeninthedream.com My favorite article there is "It's Time to Wake UP".

Hoping some other DUers pick up on this.

[selmo7]

2. I saw this posted at the Buzzflash site

and sent it out to friends as MUST READ. Thanks for posting this.

No truer words could be spoken imo.

Thank you Paul for your tremdendous wisdom and insight and articulation of that. Our leaders are never really elected, they are a reflection of the psyche of the people.

From out of the darkness, let there be LIGHT~~~

I will definitely be checking out your web site and reading more.

“Encoded in the disease is its own medicine. Hidden in the daemonic is our guiding spirit, our true genius and inner voice. This is why Jung calls the daemonic the "not yet made real creative." The fact that such a dark shadow is emerging in our world is an expression that light is nearby, as shadows are themselves an expression of light. Demons are actually blessings in drag. Lucifer is truly the bringer of light. “