Friday, September 6, 2013

The Oral Phallus

So long as the father substitute is taken as one's ego ideal energy is directed in a straight line towards maturation or learning the skill or knowledge or wisdom he has to teach.

An anal and oral transference might be included with this phallic transference, especially with children and adolescents who don't have much understanding of the social order.

Often times with patients I've come to see that the anal father is represented by the grandfather or mother seemingly from the natural logic that one's parents (of the phallic level) have less power than their parents.

Whoever appears as the father substitute occupies a meta-position that is more than what they stand for. When one is a grad student one's professor (qua father substitute) is not just simply the person who represents passage to the next level of accreditation but is somehow greater than this symbolic arrangement. Similarly the anal father as one of the head functionaries in the state, educational, or entertainment industries is felt to be "great", "superlative" or perfect so far as human life goes. The oral father is more than this, he or she is magical and has powers that defy normal conventions.

When the castration complex/masculine protest occurs then the father substitute is no longer taken into the ego ideal. Insofar as someone who would be a father substitute is encountered than rivalries occur that follow the deutero (narcissistic) or proto regression (or also a specific primal scene repetition could occur if a fixation occurred there).

The castration complex captures that one is attempting to obtain the mother's phallus (symbolically). The phallic image given to the child from the deutero (narcissistic) stage or the earlier, primitive, and greater power that she represents at the proto stage. As I've mentioned in previous posts, this power comes from the negation of the finite to form some sense of an infinite of which we can have no positive grasp of. The symbols, derived from the parents, fill this negativity with something positive but it is mere image or picture and not a "thought". Without the father substitute in the ego ideal one is chasing negativity and the faustian restlessness of feeling one approximates this perfection or possesses the phallus may give a momentary triumph or exaltation but it soon disappears. One now has to make way to the next achievement, to the next lover (since the one you've just had must be inferior if she loves you and your inferiority), or find other people to seduce into holding you in high regard (from a situation similar to the problem with the lover).

These things become deepened and more consuming at the anal and oral stages. Anyone who has worked in hospital wards is familiar with the religious discussions of God, Devil, and people who are powerful and famous often show up in the communications as well. Because of earlier defusions these "madmen" are honest in communicating how they see themselves in relation to the anal fathers and the anal phallus projects of overthrowing rulers or having the "key" to the most important knowledge or understanding (upon which one's culture is built). Those without earlier defusions who regress to the anal stage may be professors or intellectuals who begin to work on interminable projects that will create something important and new and change the existing paradigm of thought. However, these people will still often cover up this motivation.

I called this post the oral phallus because I wanted to say more about the ego ideal of the oral phallus from an altruistic position. I overheard some Christians talking today about 'God's plan' and how one of them lost her keys and when she found them she also found something else she had been looking for. I realized the altruistic compliment to the egoistic castration complex of the oral ego ideal. The egoistic protest results in the omnipotence of wishes in which one tries to appear 'magical' like the oral father substitute or in a proto defusion seeks to live away from others (maybe in nature like an old sage, or maybe without personal relations in a crowded city). There are Reiki energy healers who advertise that they can also send their healing energy to people at any distance and thus have a magic that isn't directed to show their power but is to help others. Additionally, just as the oral phallus can represent a point where someone strives for an omnipotent self-control in which they can remove themselves from the phallic and anal levels of having recognized social power and end up as survivalists or ascetics who are all alone, I think there are altruists who wonder around without any plans and are beholden to the will of God, fate, karma, energy, (etc.). The focus here isn't on one's will being magical but being in a magical world.

I've also come across an example of the oral object drives in a relationship in which a man keeps a woman and undermines her connections to other people by telling her that bad energy or curses will stick to her if she goes out of the house alone and he isn't there to protect her. This is more powerful than that anal object relation in which a man wants to jealously possess a woman and can't abide her being around men. She has been told that even if she spends time with an animal that some bad energy might go into it from her and it is so small it might get sick and die. He is the powerful magician and she cannot be separated from her protector lest she is harmed by the bad energy in the world.

As one last note, the Oral deutero psycho-sexual stage of the hand seems to be very important in energy healing.




The magician who is exhibitionistically employing his power (as opposed to healing) often employs sleight of hand and the traditional costume emphasizes the hands with white gloves.

          

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