What is Dionysophy?

The Problem of Desire

People are creatures driven by desire and, like every great religion teaches, desire is both invincibly powerful and rarely pure. If man and woman are driven by desirousness, they are driven mad by its ecstasy. Under the name of Dionysus, we find Hades.

Whether this crude desire is called passions, concupiscence, deadly sins, idol worship, yetzer hara, or mimetic desire, its sulphuric vapours threaten the wise laws of the world with its excessiveness. The primitive and chaotic force of passions is an infernal longing that strips man of his humanity, endlessly desiring what is impossible, never satisfied with the best, and eventually disappointed when obtaining it.

This sinful nature of man, sometimes attributed to mere ignorance but more often than not a supreme expression of brutality and stupidity, has required to rise walls of stoic asceticism in order to tame, if not eradicate, man's barbarism. Highly moral and ethical people have been practising extreme forms of asceticism in order to protect themselves from the daemonic seduction of the material world.

And yet asceticism is an incomplete ideal. Without a complementary pole, it leads to world renunciation, in an attempt to trade this world for the next one.

The Advent of Depth Psychology

At a psychological level, ascetic practices have greatly enhanced the autonomy of the ego from external factors but at the cost of severe dissociations. Too often, one is cutting through one's own being to perfect oneself spiritually.

Despite the effectiveness of asceticism, there are drives within man that are outside the control of the will. Often taking the form of addictions or compulsions, some passions are beyond all logic, all common sense, and will resist all disciplinary attempts at being put under conscious control.

Such compulsive behaviors thus do not belong to consciousness but to the unconscious. The ego quickly realises it is not alone in its own house.

Man and His Symbols

If biology constitutes a basis for addiction, compulsive behaviours are not always explained by material substances. In some cases, the addiction is symbolic.

Some symbols have such a dominating influence over people that they will rob them of a normal life. The interrupting and recurring symbols in someone's life are best understood as totems, meaning primordial sacred emblems whose contemplation catalyse a transformation of consciousness. Fetishes, for instance, are such totems.

For better or for worse, the presence of totemic symbols liberates dormant psychic energy. Under the dynamism of an affect, a relationship has emerged between a symbol and an as of yet unknown part of the psyche. Most of the time, this is a manageable problem, but all hell breaks loose when this magnetic attraction constellates an archetypal affect.

Towards an Integrative Practice of Archetypal Affects

When an archetypal affect is constellated by a totemic symbol, no amount of conscious effort can get rid of the problem. Archetypal affects are volcanic emotions, immune to willpower, invincible to moderation. Only an integrative approach has any chance to deal with them.

Within such a framework, a non-judgmental approach to the affect will reveal that a projection has taken place. A symbol has acquired numinous significance because it represents something infinitely valuable to the development of the personality. In other words, the symbolic value provides a hook onto which an unintegrated but fundamental dimension of the psyche is hanging on.

When this insight is experienced by the individual, the process of recollection can start and the personality can be renewed. When enough integrative work has taken place, one can hope that a mature religious approach to life can be restored; one that understands the difference between letting nature fulfill itself in us and being intoxicated by a distant spirit.