Home
Doors
Essays2007
Essays2008
Essays2009
Essays2010
Wisdom
Gallery
Links
Bios
Contact
|
..:: Enlightenment
XI / Games ::..
By
Alan Schneider
This eleventh essay in the
Enlightenment Series deals with one of the most common human
psychological failings – phony social role playing conducted for various
kinds of dubious spiritual, psychological, and material rewards. This
harks directly back to the essence of the ego as a social
fiction, but one that we are genetically and neurologically
constructed with as a vital and inevitable survival mechanism. While
It remains true that only the Self (i.e.God) is ultimately real, we are not
fundamentally able to experience that Self through the native sensory
perception that is so close to the ego. Social games, on the other
hand, are right next door to our sensory perception! Hence,
acculturated social game playing is an almost universal human
activity.
In his two landmark works,
Games People Play, and the more technical Transactional Analysis,
psychiatrist and social psychologist Eric Berne detailed long ago the
basis and causation for social gaming. What he did not do was
incorporate the insights of Jung’s transpersonal psychology into his
theory of social gaming, something that I will attempt to do in this
essay. Why do people play social games when they are subconsciously
geared toward such unproductive and unpleasant outcomes? The key to
understanding our game motivation lies, in fact, precisely in
their unconscious psychological dynamics within the total mind. What
is present in our consciousness, but not directly acknowledged in our
awareness, will inevitably control our lives and behavior, usually to
some detrimental outcome.
A most important concept integral to social gaming is that of
Attention. Attention is the grand currency of social interaction,
even of consciousness in general, and is seen in almost all social
processes. Attention is inherently reinforcing and the motivation behind
much human behavior. When we acknowledge another's contribution to or in
an interaction, we are essentially giving that person something Berne
termed a "stroke" - a symbolic contact from ego to ego that may not even
be perceived as such, but is still socially real and relevant. Strokes
exist in many forms (e.g. verbal, written, stylized, advertised), are frequently
subconscious, and nonetheless craved by the ego as expressions of social
worth and validation. Strokes are an alternative source of
gratification, every bit as significant as food, sex, art, music, and so
on. As social beings, we all need and solicit each others
attention.
The roots of social gaming
originate observably in early childhood, and inferentially
in the personal Karma that we bring with us into a given incarnation.
Although none of this can be absolutely scientifically verified, if we
accept the premise that all consciousness originates in the Self, then
the probable dynamic runs as follows. The Self exists in a perpetual
state of Love, Light, and Being. Because the Self is Love, this
embraces that concept in all of its possible flavors – romantic, erotic,
agape (selfless), personal (self-oriented), parental (nurturing),
universal, and in possibly many other forms that human beings cannot
conceive of. Because the Self Loves its condition of Being, it
spontaneously radiates forth an infinite variety of expressions of that
Love in the form of “Lovelettes” – more or less discreet sub-expressions
of the Primal Love absolutely present in the Self. Some of
these Lovelettes are vibrating at the correct frequency to become – to
be – human Souls. At one and the same time, these Souls are
both linked to and dissociated from each other – this is the Self’s mode
of spiritual reproduction.
At another, much lower
vibrational level, the biological reproduction of physical bodies is
also taking place as another expression of the Self as Love. Those
bodies are the vessels of Karma for the Souls, and this is a social
process – Karma is a social reality – mediated by the body,
physical senses, and the ego through the first three Chakras. Because
the Self is infinite, and functionally embraces all possibilities, the
totality of its Love embraces many outcomes that are abhorrent to the
ego – apparent sufferings and misfortunes – but these are also evidence
of the Divine Love of the Self, whether we can accept and understand
them on the human level of personal experience or not. The gift of the
Self’s Love to the Soul(s) is perfect in every way – even the most
horrendous suffering abates in severity when viewed from the Soul’s
perspective of grace and compassion, and this is the correct
one. The ego’s perspective is selfish and flawed, and this is
the implicit root cause of social gaming – the opportunity to transcend
Karma, and social and cultural conditioning, and enter into the
transpersonal level of understanding – the Soul level, and the
Self/Love/Light/Being that it is attached to. Essentially, this is
God’s Gift of Love in the form of the perceived human condition.
The world of dense form
experienced in the senses is no less real than the direct experience
of the Self by the Self – it is simply occurring at a much
lower vibrational frequency, and there may be additional frequencies
even lower than that. Perhaps Chaos is such an even-lower frequency.
Perhaps non-existence is another even-lower frequency. Perhaps
the archetypes of the “Lower Astral Plane” – demons, monsters, and
devils – are additional even-lower frequencies. However, we know
the dense realm of physical form through the action of the senses, and
these others are more hypothetical in varying degrees. And we also
know the world of social interaction as an extension of dense physical
form in this way.
Our bodies are disconnected
from each other – we do not share each other’s immediate experiences,
thoughts, feelings, sensations, or perceptions. Paradoxically, it is
in the self-experience of the individual ego that we are most closely
associated with each other – hence Deepak Chopra’s penetrating
description of it as a social fiction. The ego derives its
existence only through social interaction and reinforcement, but these
are almost universal in human experience and the human condition – we
are pre-programmed by evolution to physically recognize and socially
seek each other out as survival mechanisms. Unfortunately (or
perhaps not) we remain rooted in the subject-object perception that
is the ego’s hallmark, the us-them orientation that is the basis
of all human conflict. Unfortunate, because this is such a profound
obstacle to the attainment of inner peace and freedom from suffering,
not so, because this obstacle can be overcome by the determination
to discover and live within the Truth of Consciousness. This Truth is
the opposite condition of social gaming.
There are a number of
inherent features of ego-awareness that are fundamentally negative in
character, but they all boil down to the ego’s mortal fear of
discovering that it does not really exist. What could be more
terrifying than this fear – than living under the shadow of such a
shocking discovery? In order to protect itself from this devastating
revelation, the ego resorts to psycho-social game playing in all its
varied forms, a most unfortunate (if understandable) decision, because
to say that “I” do not really exist is not to say that nothing
really exists – the Self is the embodiment of totality and existence –
but the ego cannot know this from its limited perspective born in the
physical senses. The Self can only be known through meditation,
prayer, and spirituality – not the thought and logic used by the ego to
manipulate itself and its environment, and this is the key construct
operating in social gaming – manipulation to obtain gratification. All social games are fundamentally manipulative in
character.
Very possibly the ego is
created as the result of fear-ridden negative reinforcement and
conditioning – corporal punishment, hunger, deprivation, isolation,
abuse, and rejection. These circumstances are all transpersonal
and
Karmic in nature, but begin to assume an independent existence as
behavior modification agents once they are active on the Physical Plane,
creating the subconscious propensities to seek the primitive and
counterproductive “payoffs” that are the goals of game playing, and all
of this long before the personality and ego itself are fully formed.
Because the ego is a social
phenomenon, it needs to invest its activities with legitimacy and
survival value. The foundation of social gaming is maintained by the
denial of its true motivations and consequences – we must believe that
what we are doing in life is necessary and productive, and nothing
else. The flaw in this process is seen in the phenomenon of victim
formation as an accepted norm in modern society. This is the
direct outcome of the us-them orientation that is called for in ego
logic – there must be an “us” – a set of good, deserving people –
opposed by a “them” – another set (or sets) of evil, scurrilous people
that have no redeeming traits – to satisfy the egos inherent nature as a
difference engine, always comparing conditions to each other. On the
inter-social level the “others” (them) are often criminals, or
minorities, or the underprivileged or social misfits. On the
extra-social level, the “others” are enemy countries, foreign cultures
with strange norms, and identifiable foreign political movements that we
find threatening or inconvenient or obstructive. But we must
have them to justify our games and tactics; otherwise, we must
recognize that we are all each other’s brethren under God involved in
the common struggle of existence. We must have victims to justify our
games, and above all to draw the ego’s attention away from the
realization of its non-existence that it so fears. All game playing
involves the identification and segregation of some victim or class of
victims as an integral portion of its operation.
Once this element of “them”
has been established, the gaming process can move forward to the
manipulative actions needed to secure the subconscious and surface level
results sought for, but always at the victim’s expense. Berne
identified a virtual thesaurus of social games, and social psychologists
continue to add more annually as new variants are discovered. As has
been previously noted, the subconscious payoffs for games are often
quite primitive, involving the gratification of many infantile desires
that may have existed previous to the formation of the personality
itself – the need to suckle, the need to eliminate, the need to
investigate, the need for rest and security. If any of these is not
handled appropriately by the adults present in the infant’s environment,
gaming in later life will be the result. The surface payoffs are
frequently more obvious, but not necessarily more honest – material
rewards of many kinds, prestige, status, social recognition, personal
security, and vindication. The primary factor that must be evaluated
here is the cost to the victim(s) in the game, and its relative level of
propriety. If a consequence, or set of consequences, is devastating to
the victim’s life or life-chances or opportunities, the existence of a
social game in progress is very probable.
Given the dominance of the
first three Chakras in the human consciousness of the lower mind, it is
unlikely that social gaming will ever be replaced by the awareness of
higher mind, total mind, and Enlightenment. This does not, however,
imply that those of us who have made significant inroads in the area of
higher mind and attendant spiritual development should remain unaware of
the social threat posed by the predominant game orientation of the world
macroculture. On the contrary, the implication here is that all of us
need to study this manipulative process in some detail, and be aware of
the vibrational indications present when we are being subjected to
social gaming. The consciousness of lower mind is not invariably dull
– it demonstrates (at least in the case of some people) a level of what
might be referred to as “animal cunning”, accompanied by a certain
suspicious attitude toward anything or anyone visibly different, or
perhaps simply visibly less conformist. I have learned through bitter
personal experience to offer my availability to other’s wishing to know
of my perceptions very carefully, and in measured doses as well. Our
condition as physical organism is still in its evolutionary infancy,
and, as an admittedly paranoid Christian friend of mine once said
“They’re always looking for someone to Crucify!” Such is the misery
of lower mind, the only mind that many of us know, if we even know
that.
The thesaurus of social games
is far too extensive to list here – I would refer the reader to any
number of publications treating this subject, including the
aforementioned Games People Play. However, a couple of examples
of the subconscious and surface dynamics of sample games would probably
be helpful for the reader’s comprehension. For this purpose, I will
select the games “Let’s You and Him Fight” and “The Mommy” from Games
People Play, two fairly simple examples.
In “Lets You and Him Fight”
there are generally at least three “players” – a heterosexual female
associated with a second player as an established primary partner (a
heterosexual male) and a third heterosexual male as a victim, although
the primary male may also be a victim. The motive on the part of the
female is the desire for control over men as a means of garnering their
attention (quite possibly subconscious, although not necessarily so),
stemming from her unsatisfactory relationship with her customarily
emotionally distant, unavailable father. In severe cases, the father
may also have been a physical or sexual abuser. The female’s pressing
inner psychological need for attention, recognition, and acceptance by
her father takes the adult form of soliciting additional male attention
beyond the primary male relationship in her life – specifically, love
affairs with other men. The additional factor of resentment for the
remote father, coupled with a desire for revenge against men in general,
tends to create social situations in which the two males encounter each
other. The female may also confront the primary male partner with the
affair eventually. If she then chooses to solicit the optional male
to intervene with the primary male, the stage is set for the game, and a
violent episode or episodes between all three is very probable, ending
up in the ER, the courtroom, or the morgue (in the worst case). The
males both also have their meshing game orientations with the female in
terms of their relationships with manipulative, unavailable mothers.
In an interesting variant, the female may have also arranged with a
third male to exit the scene while the first two males fight it out,
but this will only result in the third male becoming the new primary
male when the game begins again, as it inevitably will in the absence of
genuine therapy.
In “The Mommy”, a related
dynamic to “Lets You and Him Fight” exists, in that the protagonist is
again a female with unresolved issues regarding the unavailability of
her father. The mother was possibly also unavailable as well,
resulting in all-around deficiency in parenting, and a very poor self
image and low self esteem for the adult female. When this female
succeeds in becoming pregnant, in or out of wedlock, and delivers her
child, the stage is set for “The Mommy” to begin, as seen in the
suffocating overprotection of the unfortunate child – the primary
victim. Overprotection is a very harmful posture in child rearing,
leaving the adult victim totally unprepared for coping with a world that
is utterly unprepared to grant him or her their wishes as did the female
mother. The subconscious dynamic of this game is the wish on the part
of the mother for parental recognition and acceptance, expressed in
adulthood as overprotection of the dependent child. This is a very
common social game around the world today, producing legions of spoiled,
neglected, overprotected adults that are unable in many cases to even
establish any kind of successful, stable relationships
anywhere. Alcoholism and substance abuse are common problems with
these people, as is compulsive underachievement and low self esteem.
There is a well known
structure in therapy called the Victim/Persecutor/Rescuer triangle that
describes an important aspect present in both of these two game
examples. In the case of “Lets You and Him Fight”, the supposed
victim is the female, the persecutor the primary male, and the rescuer
the optional male. However, as the rescuer acts against the persecutor
on behalf of the victim, he becomes the new persecutor of the
primary male, who subsequently becomes the new victim, and
(amazingly) the female then has no choice but to assume the role of the
rescuer of the primary male from the optional male. The potential
exists for the roles to revolve around the triangle indefinitely until
one participant decides to do something authentic to break the cycle –
then the whole game falls apart as the participants begin to realize
what was happening all along. In the case of “The Mommy”, the initial
victim is the child, the persecutor is the mother, and the rescuer is
any third party that intervenes for some reason, at which point the
triangle is established, and the role transition can begin. The Truth
of Consciousness in these cases is that the only authentic human
role is identification with the Self as the One Reality, transcending
all social roles through active compassion. In this sense, the entire
human social process is suspect as social gaming of one extent or
another, with the possible exception of those processes directed
toward Self Realization, and even these are questionable without
therapeutic grounding and insight.
The honing of the intuitive
capability is one of the best defenses against malicious social game
playing. Intuitive messages come directly from the superconscious
mind – i.e. the higher mind – and tend to be very reliable indicators of
the presence, operation, and extent of lower mental activities around
us. These lower mental activities are also sometimes revealed by
indirect evidence: sudden changes of friend or coworker social response
patterns in negative directions, the arrival of suspicious email or
correspondence, upticks in unpleasant interactions with others for no
apparent reason – all announce the advent of possible social gaming with
you as the intended victim. The question remains to be
considered regarding what is the best course of response once the
probable presence of a game in progress has been intuitively sensed.
This is a sticky matter
indeed, particularly during such stressful socioeconomic times as
these. My personal tendency is to do as little as possible and wait
the situation out until some overt action takes place from one of the
supposed game participants. At this point, an appropriate response may
be possible, terminating or at least delaying the game, but this is not
guaranteed – the latent anger, resentment, and frustration of the human
condition always tend to drive social gaming forward unless the
underlying dynamic of Fear has been genuinely replaced with Selfless
Love and unconditional positive regard for the welfare of the individual
and society.
It can be argued that the
very fabric of local and international culture upon which we must all
rely for our survival (such as it is), depends upon and requires the
intricate social role structure that is one side of the same coin having
social game playing as the other – and that the two processes are
functionally inseparable, an argument that I tend to accept as a valid
one. Under this consideration, our human existence still comes down to
the same condition of Balance that must be maintained between the
priorities of higher and lower mind in the total mind of the individual
and the race – the Psyche. Perhaps the ultimate key to this Balance,
and hopefully shifting it consistently to the preponderance of the
higher mind, lies with education in the Truth of Consciousness –
that we are all each others brothers and sisters in higher perception
and manifestation, regardless of how separated we may seem to be in the
lower expressions of the body, physical senses, and ego. The essence
of education is the open sharing of personal, individual truth through
social discourse, validating the best elements of all the Chakras in
support of spiritual growth and Enlightenment.
- With Love, Alan -
(Copyright 2010, by Alan Schneider)
Return to Top
|