Anxiety Disorders and Platonic Asceticism
by Eric S. Fallick
You inquire, my fellow celibate renunciant ascetic, about anxiety disorders and depression and how a Platonist renunciant and ascetic may be able to deal with them better than ordinary worldlings. You mention about how some Stoic ideas and ways of thinking and also so-called Buddhist mindfulness practices have been adopted in some contemporary psychotherapy and wonder if Platonist principles could be similarly applied. You say you would like me to touch on these topics. I have also heard a little about psychotherapists adopting some Stoic ideas and, indeed, that cognitive therapy may actually have derived from that source (though I'm not sure). In any case, while they may use some of the Stoic principles and ideas, being modern secular psychology, they discard the values and spirituality and morality and discipline and such degree of asceticism as it has of Stoicism, which, while very much below Platonism, is, of course, its most important part. The use of so-called mindfulness for secular psychotherapy has little to do with actual Buddhism (and, in fact, as I have indicated, most of what presently goes on under the name of Buddhism also has little to do with actual Buddhism!), and, as I have mentioned before, I don't think that the whole popular 'mindfulness' practices have any valid metaphysical and spiritual basis.
I don't think I can, or ever will be able, to touch on anxiety disorders and depression as they relate to the many, to worldlings, to the masses of ordinary people. They live in a different world than we do. They are altogether mad from beginning to end and little in touch with reality. I can't even understand very well the worldlings whom I have to deal with all the time in earning a living, etc., etc.--I can only just observe their delusion. Their values are the opposite of ours and the things that they fear and desire are the opposite of us. Even with contemplative ascetics, I don't think I can say much about depression since that is not a problem for me and I haven't looked into it and since I don't have it it is not something I can learn about from introspection and experience. I can, however, speak about anxiety disorders as they pertain to sincere renunciants and contemplative ascetics. I myself, in fact, as I have mentioned in passing before, have an anxiety disorder, OCD, which runs in my family, but which in my case is caused by the frightfulness of the isolated circumstances that I have been in for so many years and which, in fact, you share (and, as I have mentioned before, also has to do with my Mahayana Buddhist and institutionalized Buddhist monastic karma from the past). Actually, anxiety disorders in general and OCD in particular seem to be something of an occupational hazard of contemplative ascetics and mystics, judging from the available records. For example, it is commonly reported in the records and teachings of the Christian mystics, and probably easier to find there only because of the kind of records and writings they kept. It is also common in the people I have known who have been interested in one degree or another in this Path--for example, both one. some of whose correspondence I have forwarded to you, and the long-time worldling householder, but supportive and interested, friend, who used to maintain eumaiosllc.com, but has now withdrawn so that it has gone defunct, have OCD, a hermit who I once knew had anxiety disorders, etc.
So maybe, if you are interested to hear, I can say a little about my own experience, which may help to answer somewhat your question about unique Platonic insights into the matter. Anxiety disorders are caused by fear. Fear with which we are not in contact, so to speak, or aware of or dealing with directly builds up and comes out as the anxiety disorder and its symptoms. What I fear, though, is not even on the radar screen of ordinary worldly people and vice versa. I try to directly face and acknowledge and deal with my fears, but, despite continued efforts, I am not able to alter the fearful situation and isolation in which I have been for so many years and can't always be focused on the fear when dealing all the time with the world and worldlings if I am to function. (Social isolation is also well known to cause fear and anxiety--and that is, of course, the situation that we both find ourselves in, alone without fellow travelers who understand us and to whom we can talk as equals freely.) The only thing that I really fear is not attaining the telos, being separated from the One, continued reincarnation in individuated sensate existence in space-time. For many years and currently, I have only been surrounded by and always only in contact with and forced to deal with as equals (even though they are not) and dependent on for my physical survival and necessary human contact only ordinary deluded worldlings going the exact opposite way of me deeper and deeper and further and further into birth and death and away from the Good. I have felt and do feel like the only sane person in an insane asylum, and this, just as being a human being, generates much fear of being pulled from the Path or ruined by these foolish people. Actually, many people have told me that no one else (except you and maybe a few others!) could do what I have done and continue to do and that I am actually very brave. Various people from my Catholic priest turned semi-contemplative monastic friend to health professionals have told me that this circumstance is enough to make anyone have an anxiety disorder and have to take an SSRI. This, perhaps, can be understood by many, even ordinary, people, at least by analogy and the basic principles of human psychology. The other aspect of my fear can only, though, be understood by somewhat accomplished contemplative ascetics. When one touches, even a little, the Good or the One, and even only Nous, in contemplation, it is the most wonderful thing imaginable and sensate existence appears as in itself the most horrible thing imaginable. To briefly have this experience in contemplation and then have to return to the ordinary sense world--and many times worse, to the totally unsupportive and adverse environment in which we both live without anyone who understands--causes great 'separation anxiety' and is very frightful in itself. In all this, however, it is only the lower self, of course, that is experiencing all this fear and anxiety disorder as a result of karma. The higher self is still in touch at some level with the unchanging higher hypostases, and it is turning to this that I ultimately have to strive to deal with the fear. I have to try to remember that my understanding and direction and determination in the Path, which I have maintained and ever strengthened for many years despite being all alone with no support whatsoever of any kind, comes from the Absolute within me and isn't dependent on external things and won't be destroyed by the crazy people and world around me. I have to remember that everything actually works by karma and I am not actually so dependent for having circumstances in which to survive and pursue the Path on mad people who would love to pull me off the Way. I have to keep practicing until the vision of the Good is clear enough that I have the gut level, as well as conceptual level, understanding and confidence that I have progressed far enough that it is certain that I will eventually attain re-union with the One and can never be separated with it, in which case I can bear anything else that happens. I know all this in the higher self at the core of my being, despite all the travail that the lower self is continually going through in working through this karma and circumstances and fear, which is, I guess, why I am and have been able to do it while others can't or don't even know that they have to. I could go on and on, but this is already getting quite lengthy, and hopefully has shed at least a little light on your questions and shown a little that, yes, as you say, the spiritual are able to understand and manage these problems differently than the worldly and are superior in that regard.
As I said, I am not in a position to speak about depression, but I suspect that depression stands in the same relation and dynamics to anger as anxiety disorders do to fear. I would not want to see Platonism profaned by trying to use it for or as a psychotherapy or a basis for such. Nor do I think such a thing is even possible. Philosophia, Platonism, is most transcendent and, like it or not, beyond the reach of, not suitable for or for, the many (including or especially psychologists and psychiatrists!) and cannot be approached or even really understood by them. Platonism cannot be turned to mundane, worldly ends including helping ordinary people be healthy, wealthy and wise and pursue their worldly desires more effectively and comfortably through psychotherapy. It cannot be divorced from values that are not acceptable to secular psychology and psychotherapy and it doesn't have the kind of principles that can be isolated from their context and applied to profane ends. Iamblichus and Proclus and their followers did their best to destroy Platonism by making it a thing of this world, and an attempted Platonist psychotherapy would be some notches further below this. The Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Sufi and Jewish contemplative systems have already been destroyed in the modern world by trying to make them popular and for worldlings all and sundry, and some are already trying to do this with Platonism as well.
©2016 Eric S. Fallick
