What is the “symbolic verse” at “the poisoned tree?”
“Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat….”
~John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I
The symbolic verse at the poisoned tree may be analyzed in two different ways that demonstrate the difference in how men and women traditionally utilize violence.
One, castration. And begs the question, “What poisoned the tree?” This is symbolic of Freud’s Oedipus in the denial and castration of the little boy/girl from sexually possessing their respective opposite gendered parent. The tree has been cast down in abjection, rejection, and denial. This is more commonly perceived as “masculinities.”
Two, nurturance. While something may have poisoned the tree, the tree could be nurtured and cared for thereby bringing it back to health and wellness. This is symbolic of the pre-Oedipal arrangement and the nursing mother with her suckling child, and Julia Kristeva’s quote, “Mother writes in white ink.” It’s the inclusive embrace of a shared intimate experience between two people that says, “I will not let you die.” This is more commonly perceived as “femininities.”
In examining the first few verses of John Milton’s epic poem “Paradise Lost,” the poem opens with the following:
“Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe, [First, the symbolic castration of the Oedipal arrangement symbolized as the castrating phallus with expulsion from “paradise”]
With loss of Eden, till one greater man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat . . . [Second, the symbolic pre-Oedipal arrangement our ancient male patriarchs have usurped for themselves symbolic of the neonate's experience with the female breast. For the “one greater man” in psychoanalysis, is none other than the maternal breast in the symbolic space of our neonatal experience with the mother. Yet, somehow, a male deity is always implied as “Saviour” in Western religions. This directly conflicts with the Truth behind feminine sex effective production. A female gender role the little girl will be expected to play someday.]
Perhaps, just maybe, the secret truths hiding behind the answers to the psychoanalytic question that was asked in the title of this writing will reveal a person’s insightfulness regarding “the symbolic space” in all of its variant “symbolic terzets,” as something belonging to the psychotic text of Western male culture as well as belonging to the pre-Oedipal symbiosis in the neonatal experience before Oedipus.
Since there is a ‘perverse core’ latent within each one of us that is capable of being activated under certain circumstances, all perversions are rooted in the sexual drive with our respective Oedipal arrangements, and all perversions are creative solutions to a problem faced by the child. In
“the traumatic events that have molded each individual psyche lead to an infinity of psychic inventions, all intended to deal with the calamities of separation and otherness, of sexual and generational differences, and finally of aging and death.” . . .
‘All the world’s a stage,’ and that all the men and women in it are ‘merely players’ expressed Shakespeare’s deep conviction that we do not readily escape the roles that are essentially ours. Each of us is drawn into an unfolding life drama in which the plot reveals itself to be uncannily repetitive” (McDougall, 1985).
Comparing the symbolic space or the symbolic verse to its presentation of symbol formation, especially the experience of being involved by music, led Dietmut Niedecken to think that exclusion may not be the only possible way of working over the primal scene. In her work with patients, she compared the interplay between the father and the mother as similar to a musical terzet in classical music. “Two human voices can sing a love duet while an instrumental part accompanies it and adopts its own position towards it that is heard not as excluded but as belonging; in a fugue, two voices can join each other in a stretto, while a counterpoint is interwoven in it so that the three parts combine to produce an interwoven whole. Such forms of experience suggest to me that the primal scene experience must also be conceivable as a terzet, and I began to wonder where I could find such a form of the ‘primal scene as terzet (Niedecken, 2016).’” To clarify, in music, the Italian term stretto in a fugue is the imitation of the subject in close succession.
In my life-long interest in Christian theology with its age-long themed conflicts surrounding forces of “Good” and the “Evil,” psychoanalysis is the academic tool with which one can gain a dexterous understanding in revealing the primal secrets one takes great lengths to hide. According to Freud, the human psyche has always been linked to notions of unpleasure, mental pain, and libidinal stasis, this is a dammed-up state of being that Freud believed was responsible for the formation of neurotic or psychotic symptoms.
Freud believed that libidinal tension could find resolve in the expression in sublimations and in the discovery of objects and activities that bring satisfaction to the person whose psychic structure allows for such developments. For example; physical exercise, creating works of art, playing or creating music, competitive sports, and writing literature or poetry. In other words, since there is an infinite number of ways in which libidinal tension may resolve, avoid, transform, or otherwise deal with psychic tension and mental pain, the release of the static libidinal state and the disappearance of the unpleasurable state depend on the direction taken by the psyche in its laboring efforts (McDougall, 1985).
All weapons, no matter what shape they take, are rooted in primal scene fantasy and the Freudian castration complex known as Oedipus. The motive behind the entire Oedipus Complex is to subjugate and conquer with the phallus, and as I have said, the phallus can take many different shapes and forms. In some of the most recent military advancements in military science, symbols of the primal scene have taken the shape and form of electronic targeted assaults, electronic targeting systems both in cyber warfare and space science with its use of satellites and global positioning systems. In short, telecommunications. Boys never have to give up their phallus. Little girls, denied phallic power, either acquiesce in submission to the phallus or invent creative perversions to identify and join with it. It is for this reason; the fields of engineering and physics explode with the associated genitalia belonging to the phylum of the “phalli.” Journalism, writing, art, music, and competitive sports are just a few other areas in which sublimation is achieved and where psychic tensions can dissolve. Electronic targeting and electronic targeting assaults on the human body and mind belong to the psychotic text of Western culture, belonging to the phylum of masculinities, and it further implies, that the possessor of such masculinities carrying out the activities of gang stalking, electronic targeting, and electronic targeted assaults on the mind/body has failed to achieve sublimation with their individual psychic tensions.
Now, let us return to “the symbolic verse” at “the poisoned tree.” The long, slow drag of narcissistic relationships behave much like the long-term sequelae of gang stalking, electronic targeting, and electronic targeted assaults/torture (Sheridan & Roth, 2020). The difference in this method of castration is in its passive-aggressive mode of operation in the assaults given to the victim. These assaults belong to the same “symbolic verse at the poisoned tree.” That is to say, it belongs to the masculine symbolic which can only be attributed to the male gender in percentage points only. We know from research and homicide statistics that there is a relatively small population of women who utilize male violence in the same ways men do (Fox & Fridel, 2017).
In ‘The dissolution of the Oedipus complex,’ Freud examines different ways in which the Oedipus complex may come to an end — through inevitable disappointment and hopeless longing, for instance, or that it will simply pass away because ‘time has come for its disintegration, just as the milk teeth fall out when the permanent ones begin to grow’ (Freud 1924, p. 315). He rejects both, however, in favor of the castration complex, in favor, that is, of a massive traumatic event that centers on the fear of castration. In this sense the boy gives up his mother not gradually, that is, working through ambivalence and reality testing, but suddenly, with a bang, so to speak, due to the dread of castration. In order to save his penis — his masculinity — the boy gives up the mother and identifies with the castrating father. What follows the dissolution of the Oedipus complex is not the establishment of a parental couple but, on the contrary, its destruction. What follows is an idealized/castrating father ruling over a desexualized ego and a repressed maternal world. Ernest Jones, in opposition to Freud, saw the phallic phase as following the Oedipus complex (1927). He maintained that to save his penis the boy gives up mother and substitutes her by his penis. In this reading of the outcome of the Oedipus complex masculine narcissism incorporated in the penis replaces the longing for mother and the accompanying dread of castration. Whichever way we read it, however, the castration complex is central to the outcome of the Oedipus complex (Weiland, 1996).
As Weiland has stated, there lacks in psychoanalytic theory the establishment of a parental couple that co-exists without one having to give up their status as the superior, dominant, aggressive partner. At least, I haven’t been made aware of one if one does in fact exist. The implication made here is that since traumatic events mold each individual psyche in different ways, the infinity of psychic inventions cannot be under-estimated for both the little boy and the little girl. These perverse inventions allow us to deal with the calamities of separation and difference, not only of sexual and generational difference but with aging and death as well.
With regard to the phenomenology of the spirit behind the creation for behaviors such as gang-stalking, electronic targeting, and electronic targeted assaults it’s wise to consider Niedecken’s “symbolic space terzet” where two human voices can sing a love duet (parents) while an instrumental part accompanies it and adopts its own position towards it that is heard not as excluded but as belonging (child). In a fugue, two voices can join each other in a stretto, while a counterpoint is interwoven in it so that the three parts combine to produce an interwoven whole. Consider the following:
“Each secret-theater self is thus engaged in repeatedly playing roles from the past, using techniques discovered in childhood and reproducing, with uncanny precision, the same tragedies and comedies, with the same outcomes and an identical quota of pain and pleasure. What were once attempts at self-cure in the face of mental pain and conflict are now symptoms that the adult “I” produces, following forgotten childhood solutions. The resulting psychic scenarios may be called neuroses or narcissistic disorders, addictions or perversions, psychoses or psychosomatoses but they originate from our childlike I’s need to protect itself from psychic suffering (McDougall, 1985).”
When analyzing content narratives in psychoanalysis, take caution in your evaluation, making sure to make yourself aware of the illusions existing on the psychoanalytic stage, the seduction employed to deceive the on-looker from the Truth hiding behind the psychoanalytic curtain.
Source:
Joyce McDougall. (1985). Theaters of the Mind: Illusion and Truth on the Psychoanalytic Stage. New York. Basic Books.
Niedecken, D. (2016). The primal scene and symbol formation. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 97(3), 665–683.
Sheridan, L., James, D., & Roth, J. (2020). The Phenomenology of Group Stalking (‘Gang-Stalking’): A Content Analysis of Subjective Experiences. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(7),
Freud, S. (1924) The dissolution of the Oedipus complex. In Penguin Freud Library, Vol. 7.
Jones, E. (1927) The early development of female sexuality. In Papers on Psychoanalysis. London. Maresfield Reprints.
James Alan Fox, & Ph.D. Emma E. Fridel. (2017). Gender Differences in Patterns and Trends in U.S. Homicide, 1976–2015. Violence and Gender. (4)2.
Christina Weiland. (1996). ‘Matricide and Destructiveness: Infantile Anxieties and Technological Culture.’ British Journal of Psychotherapy (12)3; 300–313.
