Idk how this happened but we’re gunna talk about prophets and prophecy.

To set the stage, lets check in with the Jungians.

Erich Neumann, jungian psychoanalyst and someone Jung openly admitted explained the unconscious more clearly than Jung himself ever did, describes three levels of development humans grow through.

Neumann called these stages:

1. The Mother Stage
2. The Father Stage
3. The Individuation Stage

Because of reasons I’ll share another time, I’ll be calling them:

Lv. 1: The Realm of the Mother
Lv. 2: The Realm of the Father
Lv. 3: The Realm of the Dreamer

The Realm of the Mother is infancy and intimacy.

If we received the blessing of the mother at this stage,
we walk the world with a sense of worthiness
woven into the very fabric of our soul.

If we did not receive the blessing of the mother at this stage,
(which simply means secure, present, stable attunement),
we will walk the world with a legendary task ahead of us,
there will likely be abusive relationships and addictions,
but we too can find the blessing of the Mother.

If you’re reading these words, by definition you have developed beyond this first stage. No doubt, like all of us, you have dragons buried in your soma from the pains of this stage, but, like all of us, you made it to the Realm of the Father.

The Realm of the Father begins as our ego finds itself separate from the world.

The inklings of this stage starts at 3.

The fruit of this stage reveals itself when we taste competence.

Competence is when the ego has attuned to reality sufficiently enough as to be able to change reality from what is to what the ego wants it to be.

I wanted to put a basketball through a hoop. I felt the pleasure of having the desire and not having the competence, and then through practice and training, developed the competence.

That's the blessing of the Father.

Competence is a light that casts a shadow that feels like judgement.

You either can or you cannot thread the needle.
You either can or you cannot start a fire.
Proof the math equation.
Drive the car.
Build the bridge.

The realm of the father doesn’t care that you’re Jessica’s son.
The realm of the fathers cares whether or not your arrow will hit the deer.
The realm of the father is where we have to learn and master skills.
It is where we earn our place in the community through our role.

Competence doesn’t create judgement, but it does create true boundaries between those who can and those who can’t.

The trap of the mother’s realm is that you never compete for competence. You get fat on the tit of unconditional love.

The trap of the father’s realm is that you become a zombie. Your obsession with the role you serve kills the whisper of your soul.

The third stage, what Neumann calls, The Individuation Process, is when the Ego, after having firmly establishing itself in the community’s web of value, maybe as a doctor, or engineer, programmer, or sales executive; they begin to experience what we call the ‘midlife crisis.’

Jung believed the soul comes a’knockin around our 40s.

Weird passions swing in.
Might start fckn the coworker.
Might start planning the divorce.
Might join a cult.

The individuation process, stage three, begins when the ego starts having a relationship with The Unconscious.

The Unconscious, what I’ll call The Dreamer, speaks in dreams, visions, and somatics.

The Dreamer not only has something to tell us, it has a whole world it wants to show us.

The Dreamer will ask you to do things you’re afraid to do.
The Dreamer is the bearer of your Magnum Opus, your great work.
The Dreamer also contains all the possible emotions a human can feel.

Every horror and rapture ever comprehended, and yet to be apprehended, pulses in the realm of the Dreamer.
In your Dreamer.

Jung’s Dreamer demanded he birth The Red Book.

Martin Luther King Jr’s Dreamer demanded he digest racial hate with his leadership.

I’m going to tell it to you straight;
No one’s individuation process is casual.

Your Dreamer is going to scare the shit out of you.
​Your Dreamer is going to ask you to do the things you’re most afraid to do
(that you know in the privacy of your tender heart are the things you most want to do).

To get a taste for how deep the well of stage three goes, check out Jung’s Red Book.

But there is something Jung didn’t tell us,
there’s a fourth level.
One he lived, but didn’t write about.

It’s being a prophet.

The Fourth Realm: Prophet

Disclaimer: what I am sharing from this point on is not Jungian ‘canon.’ From this point forth I’m doing a heresy shuffle. This is just what I think, and your subscribed to my newsletter so, here we are.

I was familiar with the broad levels mentioned above, but I hadn’t heard them clearly articulated (Jung rarely presents a clean model like the one above).

Michael Philips of The Third Eye Drops shared this with me on a podcast we did together and in my arrogance and audacity, I suggested there is a fourth level.

I think there’s a fourth stage. I think Jung lived it, but didn’t explicate it because he believed it would distract people from his psychological work.

The fourth level is prophecy.

I think when you learn how to listen and dance with the contents of the unconscious, and you train your capacity to tell yourself the truth and to do the things your whisper asks, your ego grows, and there’s a level of development where the Ego becomes robust enough to handle a ‘lightening strike’ from the Dreamer.

The lightening strike is the carrier of a vision, of something that could be.

The 4th level is incredibly difficult, but I think it’s the natural development that comes from learning to listen to The Dreamer.

Because the fourth level of the individuation process, a level Jung didn’t explicate, but which he lived out, is interdependent.

Level 3 is for the Ego is to connect to the internal community.

Level 4 is when the Ego is gifted a vision of what could be done with the external community.

Prophecy is for the community.

But let’s get real clear on prophecy.

Let’s Clarify: Prophet, Oracle, Fool

So, here is the map I’m proposing:

Lv. 1: The Realm of the Mother
Lv. 2: The Realm of the Father
Lv. 3: The Realm of the Dreamer
Lv. 4: The Realm of the Prophet

First, lefts define what I mean by prophet.

With a bow to Seán Ólaoire, a Prophet is different than an Oracle.

An Oracle sees what will be and shares that vision. They don’t lead campaigns or move crowds to action.

Nostradamus by this definition is an Oracle (to the degree you think he got shit right).

A prophet is different.

Prophets reach a level of attunement with the GOOD, TRUE, BEAUTIFUL where they receive a vision of what could be if they gave their lives to the vision.

This is a real deep thick root to grok.

A prophet is someone who receives an authentic vision of something pregnant in the Collective Consciousness.

They say a thing will happen, and then through complete dedication and aim at that dream, they start to bring that timeline into the communal timeline.

A prophet sees a vision, than acts on it's behalf.

Relentlessly.

But prophecies aren’t destined to be.

History has birthed many a prophet who did not see their visions become reality.

Prophecy doesn’t mean your vision will happen.

Prophecy means your vision can happen.

The frankness is if you’re reading this and I do my job, you’ll be one of these people some day.

And to continue the frankness, the chances of you becoming dangerously inflated from it is high.

And lastly, there is the risk that your vision shatters you, either in it’s initial strike, or because of how difficult it will be to carry out.

So what do we do?

What We Need: An Ecology For Prophecies

Let’s start at the ground and go slow.

1. Humans have an unconscious mind.
2. Our unconscious mind is exponentially more computationally intelligent than our conscious mind.
3. Our unconscious mind attempts to communicate with us.
4. In the same way our conscious mind can have an insight about a puzzle, our unconscious can have insights
5. The puzzle our unconscious is working on is The Future.
6. Unconscious insights arise as feeling-tone-images (dreams and visions that quicken the blood)
7. The charge of this insight can shatter an Ego; and this is often the trigger to a psychosis.
8. If the Ego survives the charge, and tends to it like an alchemist embarking on their next great Opus,
   • You see something like Jung’s Collected Works,
   • MLK’s Dream for black and white kids,
   • Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violent resistance.
   • Helen Keller’s University for the Deaf and Blind
   • Milton’s poem that became Christian Canon.
   • Sojourner Truth’s “I a Woman too anit I” litany.
9. Prophecy is not fate, it is an invitation to our great work.
10. 9 out of 10 don’t receive (or don’t notice) their prophecy.
11. 9 out of 10 who do, are destroyed by it because they don’t know how to handle it

Let’s learn how to handle it.

What is Prophecy?

Prophecy is when the conscious mind glimpses a vision of a future timeline that could be.

Prophecy tends to come in the language of dreams, as emotionally charged images.

Prophecy tends to be massively disruptive, often totally shattering, and carries with it a responsibility that the individual doesn’t want.

A prophet is someone who accepts the responsibility that comes with the vision, and dedicates their life to bring the vision to life.

Carl Jung and is exodus from consensus reality into the black of the unconscious is a great example of how to grapple with prophecy.

He didn’t go running outside telling people what he saw and how they should listen to him.

He didn’t allow the energy of the vision to possess him and turn him into a demagogue.

He didn’t literalize the visions and act out messages that would harm himself or his family.

He painted the visions.

He transcribed the voices.

For years, while he continued to see patients, while he continued to eat dinner with his family, every evening he would sit in a room without being disturbed and he would paint and write.

He’d let the voices talk to him, he’d allow his imagination to fall into the visions.

He would argue with the voices. He would wrestle with them.

And then he spent more than 50 years slowly translating those experiences into the language of his time; science.

He gave hundreds of lectures. Sat with thousands of patients and students. Slowly distilling his visions into pragmatic tools for his community.

Martin Luther King Jr wrote and gave hundreds of speeches and organized non-violent protests as he shared his prophecy for a racially equal world.

Gandhi was a lawyer before he allowed himself to be yoked by the Bhagavad Gita. His prophecy was the vision of a liberated India.

Helen Keller lived without external vision, but was carried by an inner vision of creating a world that would better serve the blind and deaf.

At it’s heart, prophecy is an audacious vision of a possible future that is for the community. It is for other people. It is not selfish. It is a call to a great responsibility.

Jung flirted with psychosis. MLK and Gandhi were shot. Keller endured frustration few of us can imagine.

You’ll know it’s prophecy when you’d really rather not.

The Delusional Icarus

The Prophet and The Fool both get struck by lightening, but where the Prophet gets a glimpse of truth, the Fool believes a lie.

MLK, Hellen Keller, and Gandhi, where prophets.

They saw incredible visions of what could be and moved heaven and earth to bring their vision into manifest reality.

The Fool is the 27 year old DJ that really thinks they’re the second coming of Christ and that their favorite podcaster should interview them.

The Fool is the 31 year old who thinks the fate of the world depends on me getting them in contact with Joe Rogan so they can tell Joe the special secret thing.

The Fool is the 35 year old who thinks their vision for their business justifies them harassing investors to give them huge amounts of money.

The Fool is the 41 year old who believes their vision justifies leaving their wife and two children to travel to India to sit with the gurus.

The Fool is when we believe the lie that protects one of our wounds.

The Prophet feels like Sisyphus. They smile as they toil towards what feels impossible.

The Fool feels like Icarus. Their eyes are wide, their words exaggerate, their behaviors are erratic.

The Prophet plods smoothly, calm and relentlessly when encountering obstacles.

The Fool spams between inflation and depression, quick to rage or hysterics when encountering obstacles.

I realized this week that if I do my job well, and if my intuition about the psyche and the time in history we’re all sharing;

Which means a lot of us are gunna get confused when the lightening comes.

Discerning Delusion From Dharma: Lucy or Bodhi?

As archetypical images, let’s call in Buddha and Lucifer.

Buddha represents a mind in tune with their Dharma.

Lucifer represents a mind enamored by their own lies.

We all oscillate between Buddha and Lucifer hundreds of times a day.

We’re listening to Lucifer when we’re unconsciously fused with one of our lies.

Science calls this kind of thinking rumination.

It is when we are unconsciously fused with our negative explanatory style.

We’re listening to Buddha when we consciously defuse from our automatic thoughts.

Science calls this kind of cognition metacognition.

It is when we are able to notice our patterns of thought and behavior as an object that can be observed and changed.

If the lightening of insight strikes when we’re ruminating, we’re in danger of becoming the Fool.

If the lightening of insight strikes when we’re metacognitive, we’re in the presence of life changing lucidity.

Chances are that if you are not capable of metacognition and believe you carry in you a prophetic vision, you’re Icarus about to take flight.​
​
Suggestions:

1. Meditate
2. Learn to listen to your dreams
3. Learn how to do parts work
4. Pursue mastery in a physical skill
5. Pray

Song I'm Listening on Repeat

​9Kings - Thook​

Quote I'm Enjoying

“The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight.”
-Joseph Campbell

“What would Love do here?”
-Jack Kornfield

“How noble and good everyone could be if, every evening before falling asleep, they were to recall to mind the events of the whole day and consider exactly what has been good and bad. Then, without realizing it, you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day; of course, you achieve quite a lot in the course of time."
-Anne Frank