As I described in my last post, the novel Aeolia and the Laughing Flower was ‘dictated’ by what I call my mind-behind. It is kind of fun to examine, then, what the mind-behind had to say about Peronnik’s Tale, and how this tale was used in the story.
In the second part of this post, I compare the general process outlined in the novel with a Jungian notion of ‘outgrowing your problems’.
For me, one of the most important aspects of the novel is that each character who seeks or has sought psychic relief, renewal or knowledge, has their own Grail, and their own Laughing Flower which leads them to it, not to mention their own illusions, dragons and Shackled Man; a story which fits only my own situation is not of public interest.
Further, and the second core requisite for me to make the novel public, was that the process of renewal is completely free from drugs, gurus, higher powers, advanced meditation techniques requiring years of tutelage and practice, or wordy and mind-bending philosophies needing a PhD level education. Instead, each character is led naturally, by a modicum of inner reflection, instinct, a little help from their friends and, most important of all, their own inner natures to the desired conclusion. In this last regard, I remind the reader that the Pole Star Immortal represents the inner desire to find and then move toward your own ‘true north’, that O’Lou is resilience in the face of the ‘Night Journey’, Artio the original fierce maternal instinct beaten down by adversity, and so on.
The fact that two of the characters are immortals in a fictional realm means to me, only, that they are simpler than humans and hence easier to write about. Their difficulties are more easily seen and their outer situations a little more exotic and hence more entertaining, perhaps, than those of humans who are so very complex even while in the midst of the most apparently mundane lives.
In the novel, there are three core problems, three Grails, and three Laughing Flowers, one each for the three characters who took on the challenges in Peronnik’s Tale. On reflection, core problems seem to be both internal and external, but only the internal problems, the consequences of external ‘dragons’ from which safety is a necessity for healing to commence, can be addressed directly by an individual.
For Ellie:
Core problem: fragmentation of the personality caused by childhood trauma
Laughing Flower: True Connection
Grail: a coherent sense of self
For Kayz:
Core problem: a sealed psychic centre, induced by the parents’ trauma
Laughing Flower: an inner Tiger spirit
Grail: creativity.
For the Demon Master:
Core problem: a divided psyche caused by a severe psychic assault
Laughing Flower: his other half, the Leopard
Grail: to end the curse, which turns into, to become whole.
Ellie’s and the Demon Master’s Grails are similar but different. The Demon Master was a whole, authentic Being before the assault which cleaved him and so there is a known, whole, Demon Master to be regained. But Ellie began dissociating in early childhood, and there is no way of knowing what the grown authentic Ellie might have been in the absence of her chronic childhood trauma. Thus, Ellie wanted only to be coherent. In fact, she achieved more than that, or rather, her inner healing processes yielded a stronger result for her.
The Demon Master’s process has aspects which, on the surface, resemble the standard Jungian process of ‘Integrating the Shadow’, since the Leopard is the uncultivated half. However, the cleaving of the Leopard Demon was the result of an assault, rather than pressure from societal and familial expectations and taboos. To me, the Demon Master’s case is closer to the simplest kind of Post Traumatic Stress, also known as ‘primary structural dissociation’, in the model detailed in The Haunted Mind [1].
Integration of the two halves, in the case of the Demon Master/Leopard, required an ‘acting core sense of self’, the Mauktika Pearl, which is an artefact deriving from an earlier Goddess of Transcendence. There is little doubt that this Pearl represents one of the main functions of the Self, the inner tendency for wholeness and authenticity. This psychic force will hold the Demon Master/Leopard together until the authentic Self can be fully healed or regenerated. In my life, the ‘holding me together’ was undertaken by Aeolia, who is arguably a transcendent Being.
Kayz’ process is the unsealing of a core part of the inner psyche, his creativity, and the sealing was done to hide his identity for his protection. When a core part of a human child’s psyche is sealed, there is a substantial precipitating pattern of abuse or neglect of some kind on the part of parents or other significant figures, and it is the child itself who does the sealing to ensure survival; this is true even when the parent(s) are oblivious as to the true nature of their actions, such as one sees in cases of emotional neglect in ‘loving’ families.
The unsealing of Kayz required the development of an ‘inner tiger’ who could cope with the hyper-awareness and the intensity needed to withstand the germination of what was sealed, in this case, his creativity.
My own experience has aspects of all three cases. For both Ellie, who represents a simplified and ‘cleaned up’ version of myself, and the Demon Master, a new core sense of Self was introduced to mediate between the Parts, and this feels transcendent, that is, beyond any known self, and certainly feels beyond those Parts acting as manager, witness, or any Part playing the role of a so-called Apparently Normal Personality. Further, as for Kayz, I can tell you that courage is needed to allow sealed aspects of Self to be activated, a process which requires safety and kindness. What was sealed, in my own case, were my emotions which for anyone is the most intimate aspect of the sense of Self.
This variety can be summarised as: There might be a general framework, and a set of common elements, but there is no precise algorithm for psychic renewal. This is because while there are only so many psychic forces and self-generated hormones to effect the needed renewal, the diversity in personality and experience is immense. Not only must each person find their own Laughing Flower appropriate for their own Grail, but the path through the challenges, the interpretation of the shackled man, the snake-maned lion, the Korrigan with his flaming sword, the dragons, the Field of Pleasures (addictions) and the Forest of Illusions, is for each their own. Further, for any one given person, not all challenges are relevant; I think that the only challenge universally relevant will be to determine the Laughing Flower. While this diversity may seen daunting, it is exactly this which makes the journey so much fun, so unique, so satisfying and so ‘just so’, for each person.
Caption: Pond with fallen flowers. From the author's ‘Not a Shadow but a Fountain’ series. Collage in acrylic ink. 2025.
Comparison to a Jungian process of ‘outgrowing your problem’.
It is interesting to compare the processes detailed in my novel, to Jung’s ‘outgrowing your problem’ as discussed in the conversation, Changing the Foundation of Personality: The Secret Power of Attitudes [2].
As soon as I read, a long time ago now, of ‘outgrowing your problem’, I knew that this was what I had to do. Having achieved this goal, I was interested to learn what these experts had to say about it, in this much more recent podcast.
The context of the discussion is of people undergoing Jungian analysis, so I presume that problems with illusions, addiction, shadow behaviours and symbolic ‘dragons’ such as the various psychological complexes described in this kind of psychoanalysis, are being dealt with, alongside the personal growth described.
The method, as presented in this podcast, is to allow the unconscious to find a new ‘attitude’ without being interfered with by a conscious self, or by values absorbed from family and society. The outcome is that this new attitude, which naturally manifests itself in due course if the process is kept free from conscious control, provides a new perspective from which problem is outgrown. The analogy given is that of climbing to the top of the mountain versus staying in the foggy, damp valley. The claim is that the new attitude is equivalent to a change in the foundation of the personality.
I can see the Jungian method outlined being relevant for a great many people, and many of my Parts would benefit from it: more than a few have their own unhelpful attitude, and for these there will be a change of perspective which would address each Part’s difficulty. However, the problem of fragmentation, of an inner disconnection, is not within any one Part but between them; the difficulty to be corrected was not one of attitude, but with the ever-shifting ground state of my personality.
Without a doubt I have, indeed, a new foundation for my psychic life and emotional reality. But after listening to this podcast I was left feeling that the process described fell short of my own experience in significant ways and by some margin.
There is one main point of contact of the described process with my own achievement of coherence, which is the use of fantasy without fear. In my case, it is to find the ‘Laughing Flower’. But at no point in this podcast’s discussion is there mention of a visceral reverie-like meditation which will produce a re-wiring of the brain via self-generated hormones. There is no apparent analogue of ‘crossing a river with Death’ nor any need to address the heart of darkness, to ‘kill Rogear’, mentioned as being necessary. That level of ‘do or die’ bravery isn’t part of the Jungian process described; that said, I’m willing to bet that these podcaster’s clients did feel brave and needed to be brave, to achieve what they did.
To conclude, I do have a better view of many, many things from those which the Parts had earlier, and hence what the Witness Part could have pieced together, but I do not feel that my cure involved any process analogous to someone climbing a mountain from out of a foggy valley. Rather, I have been reconstituted from wisps and threads and am now living in an altogether new place, one I could not earlier have guessed existed.
Next post: Who is Aeolia?
Thoughts and reflections 3.
[1] The Haunted Self, Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization. Onno van der hart, Ellert R.S. Nijenhuis and Kathy Steele. Norton and Co., New York, London, 2006.
[2] Changing the Foundation of Personality: The Secret Power of Attitudes
YouTube channel: This Jungian Life. January, 2025.