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Plato’s Doctrine of Recollection
Plato’s doctrine of recollection, however, addresses such criticism by saying that souls are born with the concepts of the forms, and just have to be reminded of those concepts from back before birth, when the souls were in close contact with the forms in the Platonic heaven. Plato is thus known as one of the…
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Ekstasis and Jung
Ekstasis and Jung (The Reopening) Jung quietly reopens the door. He reframes ekstasis as encounter with the unconscious—archetypal, symbolic, meaningful. He refuses to call it pathology unless integration fails. Active imagination, dreamwork, and symbolic confrontation are disciplined forms of ekstasis. He restores the ancient insight without abandoning modern rigor. The passage presents an important turning…
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A Dialogue on Ethics, Death, Responsibility, and Neuroscience
Socrates: If the mind or soul precedes the body, Platohagel, then our first question must be this: How ought one to live under such an arrangement? For ethics always follows ontology. I. Ethics Reconsidered Socrates: If the soul is primary and the body secondary, then is ethics merely the management of impulses? Platohagel: No. Ethics…
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A Dialogue on Ek-sesthai — Standing Outside Oneself
Socrates: When you invoke ek-sesthai, Platohagel, what do you take it to mean? Platohagel: To stand outside oneself—to be displaced from the ordinary center of identity. Socrates: Good. And note carefully: this “outside” is not madness by necessity. It is not dissolution, but de-centering. One steps out of the narrow ego without vanishing altogether. Now…
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Eskesthai(Ek-sesthai) to Ekstasis
The Ethical Risk of Ek-sesthai Socrates: But now we must be careful. Not all standing-outside is truthful. There is: ek-sesthai toward meaning, and ek-sesthai toward dissolution. Jung warned of this sharply. When the ego abdicates without integration, archetypes possess rather than instruct. The gods do not educate the unprepared; they overwhelm them. Platohagel: So ecstasy requires…
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Trace Ekstasis from Plato → Plotinus → Jung
Very well. Let us proceed in the order you propose: first, the error; then, the lineage. I. How Modern Psychology Mislabels Ekstasis Socrates: Modern psychology begins from an assumption: that the ego is the proper center of mind. From this, a consequence follows. Any state in which the ego is decentered appears pathological by default. Thus…
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Recognizing Authentic Ekstasis — Beginning with the Image
