Sophie-David
I have been asked if I would share my impressions of the encounter with the Inner Beloved here, as being a more suitable place, rather than in the New Members Hello forum.
I do have a Web site where the introductory portion of my discovery of the Inner Beloved has been presented. The work on the site is perhaps 1/4 to 1/3 done. I see the site as a way to get the ideas out there, but ultimately I feel I need to write a book about it. Having gone through this process of individuation, a rather unnerving one in many ways, I have found almost no printed or Web material discussing the experience of the Inner Beloved from a man's point of view. Many sites present the theory, but very few present the practice.
I will try to keep this post as concise as possible, but I feel I have lived a whole new lifetime in the eight months since the emergence of the Inner Beloved so that's going to be a challenge!
I should emphasize that I went into this experience with virtually no knowledge of Jungian psychology, the Tarot, or astrology. As far as I was concerned these topics and New Age in general were all irrelevant at best, or the "work of the devil" at their worst. But as I lived through this experience, I found that the Jungian, astrological and Tarot models of the psyche and of reality were about the only rational way of describing what was happening.
As I child I was not raised in a religious or spiritual home. I was an only child, but my mother's second delivery. Her first child had been a girl who had only survived a few days. This was always a source of regret for her, and as a child I felt that I would have loved to have a sister as a playmate. But I think that in some ways perhaps I did have one, for I do believe that my "imaginary friend" was a girl. I now recall that somewhat later in my childhood I started to have external visions when I would go to a special place in a nearby forest, one of whom I would now call the feminine divine, the Goddess, and another of an idealized female companion, a Beloved. These visions faded as I grew older.
As a teenager I was interested in the arts and took band, theatre and several English literature options in high school, and majored in English, History and Creative Writing in university. During this period a deep love affair which ended in a sudden and unresolved fashion created a profound sense of loss and longing. Although at the time I thought otherwise, I now see this a key phase of my spiritual and emotional development - loss and longing create wonderfully maturing dynamics. For a time, external visions of my lost love haunted me at unpredictable moments.
In the third year of university I met the woman who was to become by wife. On the seemingly practical advice of my mother, I switched careers, dropping the arts and entering a two year program in Electronics Engineering Technology. This was a very intensive and demanding program, and it didn't take very long before I felt I had to drop all remaining participation in the arts.
As a teenager I had studied several different religious traditions, with a particular interest in Zen and the Tao. But in my early twenties, at perhaps the same time I switched career interests, I chose Christianity as my religion. From my baptism and first communion, I would see visions of Jesus near the altar, and it would seem that I would receive the sacred elements from his hand before or after I received them from the priest. It was strange that no one ever mentioned a similar experience, but I concluded that this was because it was a personal and sacred mystery. It was several years later before I finally mentioned these mystic experiences to family members - I was quite surprised that they did not share in them.
About ten years ago, a pastor and spouse in a different church introduced my wife and I to charismatic Christianity. At last I had some explanations for my spiritual experiences! I undertook the infilling of the Holy Spirit, and perhaps the greatest gift from this was that I discovered I could sing. At the same time I entered into intensive spiritual counseling to resolve many shadow issues from childhood, particularly concerning my experiences of emotional and sexual abuse. But the next succeeding pastor, a liberal anti-charismatic (my experience is that liberals can be just as destructive as conservatives), seemed to put an end to spiritual growth within the church.
About a year ago a new priest arrived, and he had a strong interest in music and singing. At about the same time a professional voice/piano teacher and creativity consultant moved to our little village to work on her novel. I started to take voice (singing) lessons.
Many issues had been resolved during the spiritually guided healing, but one issue remained and it just would not go away. My dream life itself seemed very healthy, but before I slept I would often fantasize of an abusive and controlling relationship with an imaginary woman. But there seemed to be a change coming, and in recognition of this I had the desire to change my name from "Dave" to "David".
The focused practice of singing seemed to be driving me to new growth. Early in the year I used journalling to deal with some further shadow issues, coming to terms with my father - both internally and externally - and in a significant dream laid the last traces of homophobia to rest (I do not believe that the process could continue in the presence of homophobia - the ego would not tolerate the idea that part of the self was of the other gender).
Soon after this, in late April 2004, I had a night of two significant dreams. In the first one I was the captain of a sailing ship in a severe storm at sea. It was clear that in order to save the ship I had to dive into the sea, to sacrifice myself, and I did so. I had the experience of dying and being totally alone.
In a second dream, I heard a female voice. It soon became clear that it was the voice of the imaginary woman whom I had abused in negative fantasy. There was a vision of sexual union - a seemingly detached and non-arousing vision - the image of a foetus, and then the woman's voice leading me in a mantra: "embrace, embrace, embrace...". And in an imperceptable moment I realized that I had wakened, the mantra was continuing, and a wonderful feeling of wholeness was flowing through my body.
Now this sequence of dreams was remarkable in itself, but what was really strange was that when I woke in the morning, the woman's voice was still there. And her power of speech has never gone away - but that doesn't mean she is talking all the time. In fact, she is normally integrated as part of the consciousness, but either of us can, unless I am very tired, at any time talk to each other. This is often very useful in dealing with various problems and situations, or simply to have fun together.
A few days later I mentioned these dreams to my voice teacher. She appeared interested but restrained, and suggested that I had experienced the sacred marriage within, an experience described in Jungian theory. Using these two clues I started to search the Internet for some explanations. In the meantime my mind had started to work in a surprisingly new and powerful way, I could process things more quickly and in greater depth. I called the phenomenon "intuitive analysis". From further research I discovered that this was a symptom of individuation, that the left and right portions of the brain, analytical and relational, were able to activate in tandem across the corpus collusum working in parallel with a much higher degree of synchronization, instead of consecutively.
Another way to express the change is that what was once unconscious had become to a large degree conscious. In Jungian theory, the unconscious is most typically experienced in the contra-gender, and when the unconscious is brought into consiousness it appears to be a new internal person. In men this entity was called the anima (Latin for a "female soul") and in women it was the animus (a "male soul").
But as the process continued, it became clear that the term "anima" was really unsuitable. There was much more to the apparently feminine portions of the psyche than that one female entity who represented all that one desired in a woman, who developed the so-called "anima projection". So I prefer to call this particular part of the psyche, the internal lover, the Inner Beloved.
Soon after her emergence, it was clear that the Inner Beloved really needed a name. We naturally prefer to relate to people - or psychic entities - by name. I asked her what her name was. She said that I could name her whatever I wished, as long as it was not the name of someone I knew - thus avoiding a temptation to project the anima onto a person.
I remembered reading somewhere that Christian mystics had referred to a divine companion called "Sophia" and I knew the word meant "Wisdom". Well there seemed to be lots of wisdom in my intuitive companion, so it seemed like a good name. But "Sophia" seemed a little too formal for my vivacious and energetic Beloved, who seemed to have an apparent chronological age in her mid-twenties, so "Sophie" was it.
Soon after the sacred marriage, which I simply call "the union", I went on a management training course and took a Myers-Briggs personality profile. In comparison to a previous test, I noted that there had been a shift from "thinking" to "feeling" and from introversion to midway between introversion and extraversion. But I also realized that my personality was a good deal more flexible, and more likely to produce different personality profiles according to the social situation.
As the process of growth went further, I discovered several other entities, some apparently feminine, some masculine, and some more or less neutral. Astrology seemed to provide an explanation for this differentiation of what was formerly the unconscious. Each of the personal planets and asteroids seemed to find a particular expression as an internal entity.
I gradually realized that there was actually another Inner Beloved, who I at first called the "High Beloved". But after getting to know her better, I realized that "High" really wasn't appropriate - she really wasn't more exalted than the first Beloved, just different. In a dream I learned that her name was Eirian, the Welsh word for "silver" or "bright".
It was clear that the first Beloved, Sophie, was an expression of the Moon or High Priestess archetype, and so I termed her the "Intimate Beloved". The second Beloved was a personification of the Venus or Empress archetype, so I defined her as the "Romantic Beloved" or the "Creative Beloved".
It appeared I had what later Jungians have termed a "split anima", a divided Inner Beloved. This may not be an unusual phenomenon, I think its often played out in men's lives in the drive to have both a mate and a mistress. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse by a woman, I think that my split became exaggerated.
Looking back at the past, it would seem that there were several indications in my childhood and teenage years that this inner feminine had tried to emerge at various times. I was surprised when talking to my daughter some months after the sacred marriage to discover that she had grown up with an Inner Beloved, a companion called "Simon", and it was just a natural part of her experience of reality.
I could continue further, but there's a lot of material here, more than enough to start a discussion with!
I do have a Web site where the introductory portion of my discovery of the Inner Beloved has been presented. The work on the site is perhaps 1/4 to 1/3 done. I see the site as a way to get the ideas out there, but ultimately I feel I need to write a book about it. Having gone through this process of individuation, a rather unnerving one in many ways, I have found almost no printed or Web material discussing the experience of the Inner Beloved from a man's point of view. Many sites present the theory, but very few present the practice.
I will try to keep this post as concise as possible, but I feel I have lived a whole new lifetime in the eight months since the emergence of the Inner Beloved so that's going to be a challenge!
I should emphasize that I went into this experience with virtually no knowledge of Jungian psychology, the Tarot, or astrology. As far as I was concerned these topics and New Age in general were all irrelevant at best, or the "work of the devil" at their worst. But as I lived through this experience, I found that the Jungian, astrological and Tarot models of the psyche and of reality were about the only rational way of describing what was happening.As I child I was not raised in a religious or spiritual home. I was an only child, but my mother's second delivery. Her first child had been a girl who had only survived a few days. This was always a source of regret for her, and as a child I felt that I would have loved to have a sister as a playmate. But I think that in some ways perhaps I did have one, for I do believe that my "imaginary friend" was a girl. I now recall that somewhat later in my childhood I started to have external visions when I would go to a special place in a nearby forest, one of whom I would now call the feminine divine, the Goddess, and another of an idealized female companion, a Beloved. These visions faded as I grew older.
As a teenager I was interested in the arts and took band, theatre and several English literature options in high school, and majored in English, History and Creative Writing in university. During this period a deep love affair which ended in a sudden and unresolved fashion created a profound sense of loss and longing. Although at the time I thought otherwise, I now see this a key phase of my spiritual and emotional development - loss and longing create wonderfully maturing dynamics. For a time, external visions of my lost love haunted me at unpredictable moments.
In the third year of university I met the woman who was to become by wife. On the seemingly practical advice of my mother, I switched careers, dropping the arts and entering a two year program in Electronics Engineering Technology. This was a very intensive and demanding program, and it didn't take very long before I felt I had to drop all remaining participation in the arts.
As a teenager I had studied several different religious traditions, with a particular interest in Zen and the Tao. But in my early twenties, at perhaps the same time I switched career interests, I chose Christianity as my religion. From my baptism and first communion, I would see visions of Jesus near the altar, and it would seem that I would receive the sacred elements from his hand before or after I received them from the priest. It was strange that no one ever mentioned a similar experience, but I concluded that this was because it was a personal and sacred mystery. It was several years later before I finally mentioned these mystic experiences to family members - I was quite surprised that they did not share in them.
About ten years ago, a pastor and spouse in a different church introduced my wife and I to charismatic Christianity. At last I had some explanations for my spiritual experiences! I undertook the infilling of the Holy Spirit, and perhaps the greatest gift from this was that I discovered I could sing. At the same time I entered into intensive spiritual counseling to resolve many shadow issues from childhood, particularly concerning my experiences of emotional and sexual abuse. But the next succeeding pastor, a liberal anti-charismatic (my experience is that liberals can be just as destructive as conservatives), seemed to put an end to spiritual growth within the church.
About a year ago a new priest arrived, and he had a strong interest in music and singing. At about the same time a professional voice/piano teacher and creativity consultant moved to our little village to work on her novel. I started to take voice (singing) lessons.
Many issues had been resolved during the spiritually guided healing, but one issue remained and it just would not go away. My dream life itself seemed very healthy, but before I slept I would often fantasize of an abusive and controlling relationship with an imaginary woman. But there seemed to be a change coming, and in recognition of this I had the desire to change my name from "Dave" to "David".
The focused practice of singing seemed to be driving me to new growth. Early in the year I used journalling to deal with some further shadow issues, coming to terms with my father - both internally and externally - and in a significant dream laid the last traces of homophobia to rest (I do not believe that the process could continue in the presence of homophobia - the ego would not tolerate the idea that part of the self was of the other gender).
Soon after this, in late April 2004, I had a night of two significant dreams. In the first one I was the captain of a sailing ship in a severe storm at sea. It was clear that in order to save the ship I had to dive into the sea, to sacrifice myself, and I did so. I had the experience of dying and being totally alone.
In a second dream, I heard a female voice. It soon became clear that it was the voice of the imaginary woman whom I had abused in negative fantasy. There was a vision of sexual union - a seemingly detached and non-arousing vision - the image of a foetus, and then the woman's voice leading me in a mantra: "embrace, embrace, embrace...". And in an imperceptable moment I realized that I had wakened, the mantra was continuing, and a wonderful feeling of wholeness was flowing through my body.
Now this sequence of dreams was remarkable in itself, but what was really strange was that when I woke in the morning, the woman's voice was still there. And her power of speech has never gone away - but that doesn't mean she is talking all the time.
In fact, she is normally integrated as part of the consciousness, but either of us can, unless I am very tired, at any time talk to each other. This is often very useful in dealing with various problems and situations, or simply to have fun together.A few days later I mentioned these dreams to my voice teacher. She appeared interested but restrained, and suggested that I had experienced the sacred marriage within, an experience described in Jungian theory. Using these two clues I started to search the Internet for some explanations. In the meantime my mind had started to work in a surprisingly new and powerful way, I could process things more quickly and in greater depth. I called the phenomenon "intuitive analysis". From further research I discovered that this was a symptom of individuation, that the left and right portions of the brain, analytical and relational, were able to activate in tandem across the corpus collusum working in parallel with a much higher degree of synchronization, instead of consecutively.
Another way to express the change is that what was once unconscious had become to a large degree conscious. In Jungian theory, the unconscious is most typically experienced in the contra-gender, and when the unconscious is brought into consiousness it appears to be a new internal person. In men this entity was called the anima (Latin for a "female soul") and in women it was the animus (a "male soul").
But as the process continued, it became clear that the term "anima" was really unsuitable. There was much more to the apparently feminine portions of the psyche than that one female entity who represented all that one desired in a woman, who developed the so-called "anima projection". So I prefer to call this particular part of the psyche, the internal lover, the Inner Beloved.
Soon after her emergence, it was clear that the Inner Beloved really needed a name. We naturally prefer to relate to people - or psychic entities - by name. I asked her what her name was. She said that I could name her whatever I wished, as long as it was not the name of someone I knew - thus avoiding a temptation to project the anima onto a person.
I remembered reading somewhere that Christian mystics had referred to a divine companion called "Sophia" and I knew the word meant "Wisdom". Well there seemed to be lots of wisdom in my intuitive companion, so it seemed like a good name. But "Sophia" seemed a little too formal for my vivacious and energetic Beloved, who seemed to have an apparent chronological age in her mid-twenties, so "Sophie" was it.
Soon after the sacred marriage, which I simply call "the union", I went on a management training course and took a Myers-Briggs personality profile. In comparison to a previous test, I noted that there had been a shift from "thinking" to "feeling" and from introversion to midway between introversion and extraversion. But I also realized that my personality was a good deal more flexible, and more likely to produce different personality profiles according to the social situation.
As the process of growth went further, I discovered several other entities, some apparently feminine, some masculine, and some more or less neutral. Astrology seemed to provide an explanation for this differentiation of what was formerly the unconscious. Each of the personal planets and asteroids seemed to find a particular expression as an internal entity.
I gradually realized that there was actually another Inner Beloved, who I at first called the "High Beloved". But after getting to know her better, I realized that "High" really wasn't appropriate - she really wasn't more exalted than the first Beloved, just different. In a dream I learned that her name was Eirian, the Welsh word for "silver" or "bright".
It was clear that the first Beloved, Sophie, was an expression of the Moon or High Priestess archetype, and so I termed her the "Intimate Beloved". The second Beloved was a personification of the Venus or Empress archetype, so I defined her as the "Romantic Beloved" or the "Creative Beloved".
It appeared I had what later Jungians have termed a "split anima", a divided Inner Beloved. This may not be an unusual phenomenon, I think its often played out in men's lives in the drive to have both a mate and a mistress. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse by a woman, I think that my split became exaggerated.
Looking back at the past, it would seem that there were several indications in my childhood and teenage years that this inner feminine had tried to emerge at various times. I was surprised when talking to my daughter some months after the sacred marriage to discover that she had grown up with an Inner Beloved, a companion called "Simon", and it was just a natural part of her experience of reality.
I could continue further, but there's a lot of material here, more than enough to start a discussion with!
