The Mystical Other

On Our Endless Search for Eden

Introduction

A few weeks ago, the enigmatic metal band Sleep Token released a new album. If you’re not familiar with them, they are well known for their ability to wade through genres, weaving an interesting tapestry of emotional longing. What sticks out to me is that nearly every single song is written about pining for some lost love. Every single one. The lead singer, who goes by Vessel, is able to deliver such a heart wrenching performance, describing in explicit detail the many different forms of yearning so dearly for that which one cannot have.

Sleep Token is doing phenomenally well with the public, largely due to their masked, cryptic performance and unique blending of musical styles. But part of their popularity can also be undoubtedly attributed to the way they convey this pervasive feeling of longing. On some level, we all know what it is like to yearn for someone; that magical other that can come and finally complete us. Whether it takes the form of some fantasy lover, or a past relationship that ended on bad terms that you just can’t seem to get over, this yearning is so deeply woven into the fabric of our psyche that it is something we must discuss.

This article was largely influenced by The Eden Project by James Hollis. This book discusses from a Jungian standpoint, this innate need to find our magical other. It’s a short, easy read that I highly recommend if you’ve ever found yourself in this particular predicament.

Take Me Back to Eden

There is something deep, archaic, and powerful operating in the depths of the psyche. Something so immense and strange, we almost have the feeling that we should not uncover it. The mysterious forces of love and attraction are indeed mysterious. When we feel this magical pull begin to overcome us, there is little that can be done about it. There is an overwhelming urge to move towards that magical other, as if under a spell.

And indeed it is a spell. In terms of Jungian psychology, we could say that we have become possessed by our Anima or Animus. The mysterious “other half” of our personality, bathed in mythic moonlight and enticing nectar divine. We don’t see a person, we see every god or goddess woven so beautifully in the tapestry of their being. Finally, we think, “I’ve found the one.”

But how many “ones” do you think have been found in the average person’s life? It is fairly rare that we only experience this feeling once in our lives. Usually, after a honeymoon period where the spell is in full effect, the dream-like aura surrounding this person begins to fade. You see them less as a heavenly being and more as the sweaty, stinky ape that they are.

At this point, maybe you are able to love this person for who they are and not as what you projected on them. Maybe you’re not and begin the search all over again. Either way, a loss of intense proportion has taken place. The dream has eroded and cold reality has taken its place.

So what was the original intent? What were we hoping to find in this dream-lover that suddenly appeared in our life? Was it to merely satisfy our egoic craving for intimacy? Possibly. Though if we dig deeper we can find the root of such desires. And what we find isn’t always the same as what was on the surface.

Behind every desire to connect with someone, is really a desire to re-connect. Even before we meet someone and fall in love, we feel this inner longing to merge with this fantasy person. “If only we could find the perfect soulmate,” is something that plays, sometimes completely unconsciously, in the back of our hearts and minds.

This desire, this longing for the beloved, is really the same as the religious impulse to connect with God. On some level, we feel the paradise of wholeness. We have a sense that if only we had this one person we would be in utter, endless bliss. Indeed, the etymology of the word religion means to tie back to; to reconnect with.

This is the timeless myth of the Garden of Eden. At some preconceived point in our origin, we were in complete harmony and endless paradise. Then, for reasons not in our control, we were cast out, forever to be yearning to return.

Why do we experience this dramatic loss? In his book, The Eden Project: In Search of the Magical Other, Jungian analyst James Hollis writes about this heart-wrenching process:

“Consciousness is achieved only through the loss of the Other, and the perception that the Other is truly Other. This is the source of the baby’s cry and of Edvard Munch’s famous work, The Scream” (Hollis, pg. 17, 1998).

In essence, the perception of Eden is merely an illusion. At least, our perception of Eden as something external, something that we must make our way back to in order to be complete. Our vision of Eden, probably stemming from remnant wisps of memory in the womb, are incomplete (or maybe even something well beyond our temporal form). Trying to experience this feeling of oneness is impossible without first experiencing the consciousness produced from the separation.

If we look at the growth patterns of consciousness we can see how this is so. The infant, though most likely possessing a distinct center of awareness in the form of a proto-ego, experiences consciousness in a merged state. It can’t tell the difference between who it is, and what the world around it is. It is all one experience. As the child grows up, an ego begins to form, establishing clear boundaries around who it is and what the world outside of itself is.

This process is incredibly delicate yet extremely necessary. Push the child too fast, and they will be forced to experience too much separation pain too quickly. Don’t push them at all, and they remain stuck in a deluded narcissistic state of being the center of the world.

This process of increasingly realizing who the self is, and what the external world of “other” is, is what generates expanding consciousness. The resulting rift, as it were, pries open the ego attachment that is unconsciously merged with the world and shows it exactly where the borders lie. The void that is left is filled with consciousness.

Perhaps on some level, our psyche knows this. We unconsciously, yet driven by a deeper unknown purpose, become overly attached to that which we end up losing. I’m not exactly sure why some people seem to be operating around this more than others. Obviously there are people who experience this attachment and never have to face the pain of losing what they hold dear. For others, this is not so. It seems that somewhere, deep within them, a force knows that the pain caused by losing the magical Other will produce an increase in consciousness.

Is Eden real? Real in the sense that we can actually come into this intuited dream-land of peace and harmony. The answer is yes, though it is not something that we will ever find outside of ourselves. The sad truth is that the magical Other will always remain an Other. What we may find instead is that we already contained exactly what we were searching for.

Even in Arcadia

The Kingdom of God is within you. I’m sure you’ve heard this before, even if you’re not familiar with religious texts. Don’t worry, I’m not about to start preaching. I’m merely following the metaphor.

The interesting truth of our desires is that we already have a sense of what it will feel like when we get them. Otherwise, how would we know what to desire? We think that by getting something, it will feel a certain way. So why do we need this something to feel that way if we already have an idea of how it will feel?

This idea is critical. When we understand this, we can begin to look deeper into our desires. We can ask ourselves, “What am I actually desiring right now”. This can be asked as many times as it needs to be. Often you will get to the root if you keep persistently asking. And more times than not, what you are really desiring is not the thing you think you want.

At the core of our psyche is a central, unifying principle called the Self. I wrote about it here. The Self is a transcendent center of wholeness that guides, oversees, and provides order to our consciousness. It is, in essence, our real self, our inner God-image. The Self is constantly trying to integrate more consciousness into our limited experience. When we feel a desire, this is the queue from deep within that something wants to be integrated.

I don’t think it's fair to say that all desire is based on unconscious fragments that are trying to unify with the totality of your conscious experience. We will discuss this more in the next section. It really depends on your own specific level of consciousness. For the majority of us, Eden is still something far outside of us. There is a basic structure to the unconscious dynamics of desire that I will discuss below:

First, the desire is linked to a behavior, or something in the external world. Maybe it’s striving after money, or a person, or longing to be recognized for your art. Whatever it is, there is a distinct externalized behavior associated with it. When coming from the Shadow—the rejected parts of our personality—these behaviors will likely be destructive. They may take the form of addictions or obsessions that are sapping our vitality.

This behavior is linked to a fragmented part that is trying to become conscious. This is the figure in the Shadow. These parts have autonomous identities. They have their own needs, wants, and drives. Maybe it’s a part of you that is 7 years old, and is holding onto a traumatic memory that you haven’t been able to integrate. It will continuously impart the need to enact the behavior until you get in contact with the underlying part and figure out what it really wants.

When we do this, we can put energy towards that thing in our lives, honor the lost part, and revel in the increased feeling of vitality and wholeness as a piece of who we are has now been brought home. We are that much closer to returning to Eden.

In addition, the behavior itself is often symbolic of what is trying to make itself conscious. One of the most important aspects of desire to understand is that it is entirely a projection. We want that thing because we have projected an unintegrated piece of ourselves outwards onto that thing, and think that the only way we can be whole is to literally possess that thing.

In reality, like I mentioned, the part is already within us. We, for some reason, have decided that the only way we can experience this part of ourselves is through some Other. This could be a person as much as it could be a job or experience.

The truth is that our entire conscious experience is built around projection. We are only able to know something to the extent we know ourselves. No matter how hard we try to obtain something outside of us, it will always fall short because what we were looking for was actually inside of us all along.

We are already walking hand-in-hand through Eden.

Eros

In Greek mythology, Eros was the God of Love. More than that, he was both the oldest God—present in every primordial expression of life-force—and the youngest—being renewed every moment. Technically, Eros means desire. In Latin, desire comes from the words, de sidus, or “of the star.” In essence, Eros represents our urge to find our guiding star.

Eros as a psychological principle is very important in Jungian psychology. Eros represents our basic ability to experience love. To want union with another in the first place. Whenever we feel the urge to merge, to connect with some Other, we are in the presence of Eros.

Eros has largely been reduced to mere eroticism in today's culture. Certainly, sexual connection is still a form of connection. Speaking archetypally, Eros represents a much richer stream of consciousness. Eros is any desire to connect in any way shape or form.

This fundamental desire is what is emanating from our Self. Our Self desires to be whole. It seeks connection with the Other because it wants to experience itself in its fullness. It may be strange to label the desire for spiritual union with the world as the same as the desire for meaningless hook-ups, but fundamentally, there is only one Eros. What differs is the degree of consciousness surrounding such an act.

When we begin to wade through our shadow and reclaim the severed, distorted, life-denying parts of ourselves that are just trying to have their voices heard and return home, we begin to feel Eros in its full depth and richness. No longer do we desire meaningless pursuits of pleasure, but we find a more buddhic sense of striving towards the eternal bliss that Eros carries.

This is the attainment of nirvana, or the return to Eden. When we feel whole, attuned to our Self and integrated in our highest potentials, we are coursing with life-force and deep, pervasive love for the cosmos, ourselves, and every living being within it.

Such is the reward of reclaiming projections, and moving through the suffering caused by the loss of the magical other.

The Sad Reality of Wholeness

The sad reality of wholeness is that nothing—and I mean nothing—will ever make us feel complete and whole. Only we can find that energy within.

It’s all a psychic game. We are pulled this way and that, yearning for someone new each week. Maybe if I change my hair I’ll feel happy. Maybe if I get a new car I will finally not be depressed. It doesn’t work that way. If we don’t learn to recognize, integrate, and ultimately escape the endless hall of mirrors, we will always be suffering at the hands of fate.

This is the sad truth. But don’t feel discouraged. This doesn’t mean we have to relinquish our desires, far from it. We are only able to truly integrate and elevate our shadow compulsions when we deeply honor and acknowledge what we want. A false sense of piety around desiring very little is only incredibly pretentious. We are only set free through the truth. And that means being truthful to ourselves as well.

Don’t also mistake what I’m saying for a need to relinquish all of material reality. Again, this is far from the truth. What is being surrendered is the attachment to the material world of the magical Other. By reclaiming and integrating our projections, we are not unconsciously identified with them. If they suddenly go away, we are not stuck feeling like we lost a piece of who we were.

In this sense, we are actually able to enjoy the world in a more profound and real way. We can experience it and others as they truly are, which is quite the gift. So many of us are entrenched in our projections that we rob each other of seeing people as they truly are. No pedestalization, no demonization.

This is the essential essence of Buddhism, and the end goal of the Individuation process.

When we stop expecting the world to show up in a certain way, we are free to experience it as it actually is, and what a blessing that is.

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