Horus-Maat Lodge Mandala – Hoor-Paar-Kraat – Studies – Psychology

The First Stage

It starts with the Jungian theory of the complex, a conjunction of desires, feelings, experiences, and perceptions that forms a structure in the unconscious that then is objectified as a theme, such as a status, like that of being a doctor.

If we identify our ideal desires, feelings, experiences, and visions of the world, from there, we can be informed of our manifestations that don’t correspond to them, finding our shadow (another Jungian concept) or shadows. 

The shadow should be found as an unconscious aspect of our personality that must be personified by a certain archetype. We should identify as well the desires, emotions, memories and perceptions of the shadow. As these aspects are brought to awareness and isolated, their ties and knots in the unconscious begin to loose and they cease being clusters and complexes, leaking power.

Once we have worked our shadow, we can take the next step and work with the anima and the animus. The animus is the unconscious masculine side of a woman, and the anima the unconscious feminine side of a man and they stand as gateways to transcendence. The animus and the anima are, in Jung’s theory, the two source archetypes and they are the two pillars on which the Self (the conjunction of all psychic components) is erected.

When we meet the anima or animus, gathering its complex, that is, its desires, feelings, perceptions and memories, we can use it for endless creativity on one hand, and gain self-awareness by recognizing its manifestations and discerning them from the common reality.

The animus/anima can be used for knowledge and conversation whenever emotional behavior is disturbed: the anima or animus communicates archetypal images and a conversation takes place about these images.

The Second Stage

After the magician has mastered the shadow and the anima/animus, (s)he can build his or her persona. Anyone familiar with Maat Magick will remember Nema’s concept of dancing the masks. Jung’s persona, applied in this context, is no different.

Jung believes we build a persona in our early preparation and passage to adult life. We build the persona, the mask, in order to communicate with and control to a certain extent the external (social) world and its reactions to us.

The self is strong when the persona is flexible, it is weak if the persona is rigid and identifies itself with the status of the doctor, the mask of the magician, etc. In such cases, if a person’s persona breaks, her psychic structure can dangerously shatter and, additionally, it tends to narrow the channel of psychological development in such a way that, for instance, the musician becomes his musical instrument, the teacher the book he teaches, the magician his or her wand. If you break the instrument, you can then break the wielder. Worst, when people become their persona (that functions through the world around them), they can never go beyond the environment in which they live. They become solely what is expected of them.

When we find a rigid persona in ourselves we must identify where it connects to the collective consciousness and cut its ties to the collective, disintegrating the malfunctioning mask and having it dissolve. Another task is to dislodge the persona from the archetypes it plays, for the persona is not the archetype but the rigid style in which that archetype is played. The dissolution of the persona is, in turn, an encounter with Truth, a concept central to all Maatian Priests.

Traps to avoid after disintegrating the persona are: pretending we are still who we were before this dissolution; reviving the persona on a superficial level; building a persona that is the opposite of the previous persona.

These are ways in which the persona will take control once again.

Without a persona, the self will find the world to be a playground of illusions, but the self must reconnect with the outside by building a new persona, this time to be used consciously, with the awareness of an actor playing a role or an astronaut using a space suit to touch the outer realms. Ideally, this persona should be flexible, navigating in society without eclipsing the (True) Self.

Jung does give us some tools that we can use in building our own persona or personas (such as Nema giving us masks connected to the Tarot Trumps).

There are eight main Jungian models:

Extraverted Thinking
Principled, idealistic, objective, rational.

Introverted Thinking
Influenced by ideas, independent, often fearful of intimacy.

Extraverted Feeling
Adaptive, relating well to the external.

Introverted Feeling
Sympathetic, pleases others, may be dependent, reserved.

Extraverted Sensation
Realistic, concrete, pleasant and friendly.

Introverted Sensation
Calm and passive, restrained, controlled and controlling.

Extraverted Intuition
Enterprising, outgoing, can be irresponsible.

Introverted Intuition
Mystical, dreamer and artist. Can be obsessive.

We may build a complex or several different complexes for each of the types, creating a character for each with dreams, memories, emotions, and perceptions of the world. The main thing is that we remain aware these memories, desires, emotions, etc are real only as tools, but fictional in any other way. We encase this character with a graphic (sigil) and a gesture or sound so that when the personality type corresponding to the character is needed it can be invoked and the mask worn.

When someone idealistic, principled, objective and rational is needed, like in an intellectual circle, the personality Extraverted Thinking may be called upon. But if someone is given a job as a maid, the Introverted Feeling personality type may be invoked instead. A driver will more easily make use of Introverted Sensation. The Magician, of course, can make good use of Introverted Intuition, while a doctor will likely invoke Extraverted Sensation.

The idea, however, is that we are able to use any and each of the personality types, so that our persona is truly flexible and simply uses these sub-personas as ways of expressing the Self in an external environment.

If this is well mastered, we may get to the point where we create a personality type that is as similar to the Self as possible, and we begin to constantly practice this wider personality type. Such a character must be extroverted and introverted, intuitive and prone to sensation, rational and emotional, judgemental and perceiving. The Jungian scenario we are used to puts it this way:

(Extraversion vs. introversion.
Sensation vs. intuition.
Thinking vs. feeling.
Judging vs. perceiving.)

We are to have this form lose all oppositions and to have the light of the mind embrace all aspects together. Upon success, there will be no separation between the conscious and the unconscious, both are integrated as one and this leads to the process of self-realization and actualization, that is, to what Jung calls individuation.

Individuation is the process of becoming whole, the complete fulfillment of the collective qualities of the human being and it also implies becoming one’s own self which, as Jung himself put it, “brings to birth a consciousness of human community precisely because it makes us aware of the unconscious, which unites and is common to all mankind. Individuation is an at-one-ment with oneself and at the same time with humanity, since oneself is a part of humanity.”

Now, we have a gateway to the concept we, at The Horus Maat Lodge, call N’Aton, the true product of individuation.