Tonight I could also avoid speaking, as you have already said all I can say in some way; or rather, the way we planned to talk about the "Oedipus complex”Shines through in many places of what you have touched.
However, it is better to speak the same, so as to try to give an order to this topic which, as you have noticed, is rather complicated.
On the other hand, this whole cycle and also what will happen afterwards will always be just as complicated, and this also gives an explanation as to why teaching meetings are so sparse and, all in all, also so short, as they put too much meat on the fire. on these matters it would, no doubt, do more than create more confusion in all of you.
Then: the Oedipus complex.
First of all, there is a question that had been asked and which is best addressed immediately: "Does it always exist or not?".
Certainly not, as the same studies have found that in certain societies (in particular less "civilized" societies) no trace or presence of the Oedipus complex has been found. What explanation, then, to give to this?
This means that, then, the Oedipus complex is not an absolutely necessary thing, indispensable for the growth of the individual, otherwise it would undoubtedly present itself anywhere, in any situation, but it is born under the pressure of particular conditions. Therefore it cannot be said (as some of you said) that it arises from the needs of the child and, ultimately, not even from the needs of the parent; this at least in a general sense, valid for everyone.
The fact remains that, in most of your societies, we find the presence of this factor defined as "Oedipus complex", to which our friend Freud, however, gave some connotations that, according to our point of view, do not have that pre-eminent importance that has been attached to them.
These connotations are the sexual aspect and the idea of competition.
On the first, perhaps you will agree; on the second, I think, a little less. Or am I wrong?
D - It depends on what you mean by "Oedipus complex".
So, let's go ahead calmly: it's a complex subject, just to make a play on words, and quite difficult to outline; so let's be careful and forgive me if there may be some confusing moments. On the other hand, there is also a non-optimal physical condition of the instrument and, therefore, the equipment I use does not allow me to be perfect as usual (modesty aside)!
So: I was saying that, according to our point of view, in the context of the Oedipus complex, sexuality cannot have that important and prominent place that has been attributed to it by psychoanalytic and Freudian currents in particular.
Let us therefore consider the child.
When the child is born, it certainly has its evolutionary basis, it certainly has a beginning of personality that it will be what it must have, so it will be structured from the outset on certain schemes; however, without any doubt, he has no real sexuality; or for the child there certainly exists (not from 3 years old but from before) even a sensation of pleasure that can also be associated with the sexual organs, however from there to affirm that the child behaves in a certain way towards his parents as he hears sexually attracted to one or the other parent, the step is very long!
In fact, this would mean giving the sexuality of the child of a few years an activity that is somehow conscious, aware, and this is not the case at all.
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The child's sexuality - that part of sexuality which at least manifests itself in the child - is still one epidermal, physiological sexuality, therefore not directed towards a particular sexual object but addressed and manifested towards all the things that arouse certain sensations: even eating, being satisfied as a stomach, being caressed are all sensations of pleasure.
It is a situation, it is a stimulus that in some way can be compared, in the child, to a sexual stimulus, but it has neither male nor female connotations. Do you agree on this? Well I'm glad.
When born, the child therefore has this ability, these feelings of pleasure which then clearly, with the passage of time, will become fixed in a more purely sexual direction.
However, he was born a bit like a page to write on, therefore as a whole that must be formed under the pressure of what surrounds it, and also under the pressure of what comes from its hidden, "esoteric" part.
Now what happens? It happens that the child is not yet complete, it is not yet a united being, but a being that is forming, that is creating, that is shaping itself through the various thrusts and needs that are developing; through, also, the contacts with the various bodies that constitute it.
You know (someone even hinted at it) that up to 7 years there is not yet even the complete connection of the astral body, therefore there is not yet a consciousness, a complete awareness of sensations and desires; however, feelings and desires are the main things that move, that are part of the life of the child's consciousness, and you can see this every day at this age.
The figures of the parents, for the child, they are the ones who must provide him with the models to create his own "Io”, To create one's manifestation within the physical environment.
He, therefore, looks to the parents (without being aware of it, of course, it is a mechanism that occurs spontaneously) to take from them what he deems "good" in order to constitute himself in the best way.
In fact, think about it carefully: the child never observes his parents to take their wrong behaviors from them (perhaps sometimes he does, because he does not yet realize what is right or wrong) but mainly tries to take from them what a he likes in parents.
Here, therefore, that the parents themselves have a very important function for the child, who by incorporating the best aspects that he detects in the parents, incorporating them within sé, should come to form that united individual who will then grow, mature and give way to all his experiences.
At this point, what is defined comes into play in your society Oedipus complex. Why do I say "in your society"? Because, in reality, the Oedipus complex does not arise from a need of the child, it does not even arise as it might seem to some of you discussing the tale of Ananda, from the needs of the parents, but instead it arises from the very way your society is structured.
It is your society that creates the Oedipus complex, as a reaction to its structuring ("of society" ed.). In fact, yours is a society in which the individual is split, the individual is male or female, and it is enough to observe the roles that male and female have in society to realize this dichotomy (not as real as desired and , in some way, conditioning) is imposed on the person.
Thus, the child who, as we said, takes his parents as a model, instead of becoming a united individual in your societies, he starts from the very beginning as a split individual, a separate individual, as the two figures are experienced differently because they behave differently, they are inserted differently, they act differently and are considered within society, and he is unable to unite these points which he experiences as conflicting, even though he realizes that there is good in both.
Q - When you spoke before about "our society", did you mean perhaps Western society, more than anything else?
Not only the western one.
D - There are groups, even today, that do not have this differentiation of roles.
They are very few and on the verge of extinction. On the other hand, let's not forget one thing: this is an observation that I am making, but remember that we had said in the past about the sexuality, which is the basic element that serves for the development of your consciousness, for theevolution of your race, therefore it is also a necessary point to cross.
So it was necessary for the race to evolve in this way by laying these foundations, because through them then sexual conflicts arise, sexual problems and, therefore, evolution develops through this modality, this way, this impulse.
Q - In the absence of one or both parents, how does a model develop in the child?
You rightly said that it makes no difference, because the child still needs to introject into himself those aspects that are missing and, when he does not find a person very close to him who offers him those missing parts, then he turns his gaze elsewhere and, therefore, it takes from people a little less close what it can serve, what he loves, what he finds important or interesting.
Q - Isn't being born practically a boy or a girl already a split?
I wanted to get to this too.
This is an idea from a certain point of view wrong, as certainly physiologically an individual is already born male or female in theory, at least however the child does not yet think in the terminology of male or female; that is why I said that attributing a sexual character to this Oedipus complex does not make any sense: the child does not think in these terms, but in terms of what he likes, what he wishes to have in himself and that the others around him they have.
It is "after" that the identification of the sexual role comes and it is therefore "after", at that point, that the whole sexual typology will move, from adolescence onwards.
But the child, at least up to a certain age, does not think of himself as male or female; unless, of course, in the family they do not condition him to observe life in that particular perspective from an early age.
D - But the physical situation will then condition him to choose a certain role.
The physical situation, of course, will later lead him to take on his role in society, which however will follow the roles he observed in the family.
It is at this point that problems with sexual identification arise.
Remember that the physiological part of the individual is one thing, and how the individual lives internally his way of being is quite different; and that the physiological part is not even that important is true precisely because it can exist a male physiological part and an interior component, on the other hand, tends to be female, even if the discourse between masculine and feminine will perhaps be examined later with more calm, because it is always more a conditioning, an imposed dichotomy, than a reality of facts.
Of course, modern research seems to want to lay a foundation for being male and female not only at the physiological level but also at the brain level, at the genetic level and so on. Yes, it could be true and, to a large extent, it is also true, but there is something, however, still beyond, above all this, something that is neither male nor female, and which affects these aspects; these aspects that genetic science is "avalanche" discovering are, in reality, still secondary effects of the whole situation.
D - I would like to say a little thought about when children are imposed on toys for boys and toys for girls, when maybe they have the pleasure of choosing interchangeable toys, without absolutely following certain roles.
Of course; it is precisely for these reasons, for these factors that I gave the paternity of the birth of the Oedipus complex in your society to the conditioning of society and therefore to society itself, not to a real need for the child.
D- So would it be possible to have a somatically split and inwardly united individual?
Of course. In fact, that's exactly what I wanted to get to.
The ideal condition, the one that the individual, your race, should reach, to fulfill, is precisely that of being not internally split but united: to bring together the masculine aspects and the feminine aspects without being conditioned by what the society imposes on him or by what his physique, in reality, also imposes on him.
How many times do you observe a woman and say: “she is very tough, she behaves like a male” or how many times you mock a man because maybe he is moved by watching a show on television!
These are certainly conditioning and nothing else, but within each of you in reality (and we have always said this, since the beginning of our interventions) there is a male part and a female part; and also think about it for a moment: how could it be otherwise when you, in the course of your various experiences, have now been male, now female, now perhaps neither male nor female, and the experiences you have drawn from these lives are inscribed in your Akasic body , they are part of you.
So you have within yourself both poles of individual sexuality (and then we say individual sexuality but in reality it is not just a sexual pole, but it is a set of factors, a constellation of factors that constitutes a certain type of experience, a certain type personality and so on).
Q - In case there was an individuality that had only male incarnations, would it still have female elements too?
It doesn't happen. You can say, “But one who is in the third incarnation and has had three male incarnations?
But forget some things. The first thing you forget is that, before being man, he was an animal and therefore already as an animal he had the possibility of being male or female; another thing that you forget (just you, who are so good at going to look for the concepts explained by other sources by applying them to what we are saying, and so often you do it improperly!) is the speech of "feel"Similar that put lived experiences in the cauldron (Scifo refers to the fusion of equivalent feelings, ed), so much so that sometimes it happens, as we said, that it is possible not to live an experience directly but to acquire it from the experience of others, made by others, for example with regard to the nuances of being male, of being female.
So, if you have had three incarnations as male beings, you have a feeling that is equal to that of other individuals who have also been female and, therefore, you participate in some way in this femininity ... but we will talk about this again when we talk about Jung and of archetypes.
As you can see, it will be a very long and complex speech, and it will take you - I think - a few years away. As long as you don't run away first or if you don't come to our side!
Do you agree on everything? Do you want some more in-depth explanation? Scifo
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I had read this chapter a few days ago, straight from the book. The way in which Scifo presents to us what Freud called the Oedipus complex seemed very pertinent to me. In reality, sexuality has nothing to do with it, since in those years (from three to five) the child does have a concept of pleasure but not of sexual pleasure, and there is no rivalry, in this sense, with the parent of the same. sex, but there is, as Scifo rightly points out to us the parent as a model from which the child takes what seems good to him.The child draws these aspects that he likes from both parents or from the one that best suits the purpose.
Very interesting interpretation. Although I believe that the theory of sexuality in children, as Freud conceived it, has already been questioned. I will document.
On the other hand, it suggests how much personal experience, culturally, socially and privately connoted, not to mention the thrusts of "feeling", can be decisive in conceiving a theory. Moreover, Freud himself used his own "personal experience" in his theoretical elaborations, making a conscious and precise methodological choice, without considering that his own experience cannot represent something "objective", but it is burdened by implicit assumptions that they condition the experience itself.
One above all, in fact, to project in the child a mental structure that belongs to the adult, the sexual one. Sometimes the conditioning is so "transparent" and "obvious" that it is invisible.
I was quite familiar with Freud's interpretation, however a dubious view on the oedipal concept that he illustrates, related to the sexuality of the child.
A reading that leaves me a little perplexed.
At times it seems to me that I perceive aspects that are questionable from a logical point of view.
Other, deeper parts are of great teaching.
I thank.
When it is said that the child takes as an example, for the construction of his own self, the attitudes he considers "right" of his parents, it makes me reflect.
The child therefore does not experience the dichotomy in the sexual sphere, as instead the literature affirms and the culture of a certain society guides, but he has the ability to introject behavior on the basis of a choice: this is good, this is not.
It is not clear to me now, but I believe that this passage needs to be deepened.
The Oedipus complex and its nuances during the age
I have always thought of the incarnation between male and female, as a logical and functional alternation to evolutionary learning. For this reason there have never been great questions on the question, moreover, from what I remember, I have found more interest in the myth of Oedipus than in the complex subsequently elaborated by Freud.
As always, there is something to thank for these writings ..
Always very interesting knowledge elements.
I have always had a cautious eye on social and family conditioning.
The theme of conditioning returns.
Any conditioning, even that operated on the child, I would say almost always unconsciously, is a means of learning.
If the conditioning is within society, it is certainly a driving force towards a societal evolution.
What strikes me most is the definition of splitting of the individual by this type of conditioning. So a sort of duality with which society is impregnated and which perpetuates unconsciously