Beside Myself
A Story of Divergent Paths Finally Meeting at the Crossroads
By
Rev. Dr. Todd F. Eklof
March 30, 2014
In his autobiographical work, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, psychologist
Carl Jung readily admitted his awareness of having at least two different
personalities since his childhood, which he referred to as his No. 1 and No. 2.
Somewhere deep in the background I always knew that I was two persons. One was
the son of my parents, who went to school and was less intelligent, attentive,
hardworking, decent, and clean than many other boys. The other was grown up—
old, in fact—skeptical, mistrustful, remote from the world of men, but close to
nature, the earth, the sun, the moon, the weather, all living creatures, and above all
close to the night, to dreams, and to whatever "God" worked directly in him…1
Although Jung considered himself unusual in being able to recognize his two
personalities, he didn’t think there was anything wrong with him. “The play and
counterplay between personalities No. 1 and No. 2, which has run through my whole
life,” he said, “has nothing to do with a ‘split’ or dissociation in the ordinary medical
sense.”2 Personality No 1 was the personality that everyone else saw in Jung.
“Through No. 1's eyes I saw myself as a rather disagreeable and moderately gifted
young man with vaulting ambitions, an undisciplined temperament and dubious
manners, alternating between naive enthusiasm and fits of childish
disappointment…”3 The other personality, which nobody saw but him, was more of
an inner personality, far more developed and holistic than No. 1. “No. 2 had no
definable character at all; he was a vita peracta [a complete life story], born, living,
dead, everything in one; a total vision of life…”4
This is an extraordinary statement when we stop to consider it. He’s
suggesting that, even in childhood, there was a part of him that was already
complete, containing everything he was and would become—a “total vision” of his
life. This is precisely the point of psychologist, James Hillman’s bestselling 1996
book, The Soul’s Code, asserting that all of us are like Jung, having the visible
personality everyone sees that grows and develops, and something invisible, beside
us, guiding us toward our destiny that is already complete.
C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflectoins, Jaffe, Aniela, ed., Winston, Richard & Clara, trans.,
Vintage Books, New York, NY, 1961, 1963.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
1
Beside Myself
Hillman’s theory is decidedly on the nature side of the nature/nurture
argument, suggesting that our personalities, like our appearance, reflect a congenital
predisposition. Here’s one of my favorite examples from his book;
i.e., Amateur Night at Harlem Opera House. A skinny, awkward sixteen-year-old
goes fearfully onstage. She is announced to the crowd: “The next contestant is a
young lady named Ella Fitzgerald… Miss Fitzgerald here is gonna dance for us…
Hold it, hold it. Now what’s your problem, honey? … Correction, folks. Miss
Fitzgerald has changed her mind. She’s not gonna dance, she’s gonna sing…”5
As you might have guessed, Fitzgerald brought the house down. “Was it
chance that suddenly changed her mind?” Hillman wonders, or “Did a singing gene
suddenly kick in?”6 He gives numerous similar examples of famous people who
began manifesting the unique talents they became known for during childhood. So
he calls this the Acorn Theory, suggesting we are born complete, with our entire
personality already packed tightly inside us waiting to unfold, just as the tiny acorn
holds all that is necessary to become the mighty oak. If its environment is hospitable
enough for it to grow at all, be it a little stunted from poor soil, or bent out of shape
reaching for limited sunlight, it can only grow into an oak tree—stunted and a little
bent out of shape, but an oak tree nonetheless.
This may seem an unusual, if not a mildly upsetting thought, especially
coming from psychology, but it isn’t unusual. Throughout human history people
have attempted to articulate this same notion through various cross-cultural myths
and motifs. Stories of guardian angels, spirit guides, and the Arabic, jinn, the root of
words like genie, gene, genetic, and genius, are universal. The Greek word for such a
guide, the one that Hillman likes to use, is daimon, or, as we say in English, “demon.”
Although it has become a frightening word, thanks to the Church, which has a
history of forcing individuals to repress their own truths, “demonic,” literally means
to authentically demon-strate what’s deep inside you, your acorn, you’re No. 2
personality, your genius. “The soul of each of us,” Hillman writes, “is given a unique
daimon before we are born, and it has selected an image or pattern that we live on
earth.”7
Carl Jung seems to be unique, given that he could see his daimon from the
start. “In my life No. 2 has been of prime importance,” he said, “and I have always
tried to make room for anything that wanted to come to me from within.”8 But if
there is such a thing as a No. 2 personality in each of us, a daimon that carries the
total vision of our lives, that is, as Jung said, already “grown up—old, in fact,” most of
us don’t know it. The larger part of who we are can be as invisible to us as it is to
everyone else. Perhaps we feel it in the background, coaxing us in certain directions,
Hillman, James, The Soul’s Code, Random House, New York, NY, 1996, p. 10.
Ibid., p. 10f.
7 Ibid., p. 8.
8 Jung., ibid.
5
6
2
Beside Myself
interpreting its handiwork as mere coincidence and luck, but don’t realize what it is
or how important.
Since reading Hillman’s book toward the end of the last century, I have often
seen, what I consider, the daimon in others, the thing that has remained consistent
throughout their entire lives, and I often wonder if the dissatisfaction some
experience is because they’ve not yet been able to fulfill their calling or express their
authentic genius, what is original in them. More importantly, at least for me, I accept
Hillman’s peculiar theory because it helps me make sense of my own life.
When I was only five years old I began saying I wanted to grow up and
become a minister. I once even constructed a pulpit for myself and recruited my
siblings to attend a funeral I conducted for a dead bird I found on my way home
from school. My family wasn’t a churchgoing family, or very religious, so my early
interest in ministry was odd. The only clergy I remember being exposed to was
Carlos Ramirez, a character on the late 1960s television show, The Flying Nun,
played by Sally Field. Ramirez was actually a night club owner who had a crush on
Sister Bertrille of the Convent San Tanco, and would do anything for her, including
dress as a priest on occasion to help get her get out of a jam. Given that I was only 4
years old at the time, I didn’t catch this nuance of the plot, and assumed Ramirez, my
role model, was actually a priest.
My mother, who was somewhat terrified of religion—more because of its
theological implications—Hell and punishment—than any personal religious
trauma she’d ever experienced, used to dismiss my calling by saying, “You’ll change
your mind a thousand times before you grow up.” This was a horrific thought to my
young mind, and I use to pray, “Dear God, please don’t let me ever change my mind.
Let me grow up to become a minister.” But, by the time I reached adolescence, a
troubled adolescence at that (Whose wasn’t?), I forgot all about my clerical
aspirations and became like a ship without a rudder on a cloudy night, directionless
with no thought of my future.
As a teenager I dropped out of high school, got a G.E.D., with no desire to ever
return to the hell society called school. I began looking for a job but in the early
1980’s unemployment was higher than it is today and there was little work to be
had, especially for an 18-year-old dropout with no skills. My Southern Baptist
minister had been urging me to go to college for some time, a prospect I loathed.
But, homeless, jobless, and desperate, I decided it would at least get me three hots
and a cot until something better came along.
Of course, as a high school dropout, I wasn’t exactly college material.
Fortunately, my minister, Scott Allen, was the son of Jimmy Allen, a former President
of the Southern Baptist Convention, who was also an alumnus of great influence at
Howard Payne University, a Southern Baptist Liberal Arts college in Brownwood,
Texas. He pulled some strings and got me admitted on academic probation, with the
agreement that I would pass the ACT and manage to keep my grades up. I was
3
Beside Myself
supposed to take the ACT the morning of registration but, without an alarm clock, I
arrived at the testing location 15 minutes late. Keep in mind I hadn’t studied for it
and could not have passed it even if I had. It so happens the College Dean answered
my knock at the door and told me I was already too late to begin the test. I was a
little relieved; one, because I didn’t like tests, and, two, because it meant this avenue
was closed and I would be forced to try something other than putting myself
through the torture of more education.
“Does this mean I can’t register,” I asked.
“No, no,” the Dean responded, “We’ll let you register, but you’ll have to take
the ACT next time it’s offered and you certainly won’t be allowed to graduate until
you do.”
“Okay,” I said, a little disappointed. And that was the last time I ever heard
anything about the ACT.
Once enrolled, I decided I would study the only subject of interest to me,
religion, which just so happened to mean I was on a tract for ministry. I not only
learned about religion and ministry, I had to prepare for it by learning to preach,
going on mission trips (to Wyoming of all places), and working at a church that
chose to ordain me before I’d graduated. But soon after I began my seminary studies
the whole religion seemed crazy to me. I no longer believed in it, thanks to my
liberal arts education, and dropped out again, both from seminary and Christianity.
In order to make a living, I got a second degree in communications, and
ended up working 16 years in TV news and corporate video production, a field I
became quite adept at, but was unfulfilling for me in every way. Meanwhile, my No.
2 personality kept pursuing its original interests, almost without me noticing, and I
slowly stepped back into ministry many years after converting to Unitarian
Universalism. It began with me speaking a little now and then. Then speaking
regularly. Then being ordained and called to a church. Then going through a decade
preparing to earn the proper credentials for UU ministry. I was nearly 41 when my
two worlds collided, when I took a public stand as a UU minister in favor of samesex marriage, getting me fired from my secular job. That’s about the time I looked
back and realized everything I’d been actively pursuing my entire life had been
frustrating and disappointing. Either my hard efforts didn’t pay off at all, or they
weren’t what I thought they’d be once I achieved them.
Meanwhile, the prayers of the five-year-old boy were being answered all
along, with no intention on my part at all. He went to college to study ministry,
against my will, was ordained, against my better judgment, ended up being ordained
and called as a Unitarian Universalist minister, even though I’d dropped out of
seminary and began another kind of career. But when we finally met at the
crossroads, when my two lives, my two personalities, finally converged, I realized
everything meaningful in my life had happened effortlessly on my part. I merely
stepped through the doors No. 2 was quietly opening for me, even as my No. 1 was
working up a sweat trying to break through trap doors that were almost nailed shut.
4
Beside Myself
That’s when I learned to let go, to stop struggling, to stop trying to control my future
and to begin trusting the flow of my life, my guiding spirit, my guardian angel, my
original genius. Ever since my No. 1 and No. 2 have been working in harmony, and
my life feels complete and fulfilling. This doesn’t mean it’s always easy and doesn’t
take great effort. But all my hard work feels good and rewarding because it suits me
now.
I’m going to close with an excerpt from the application essay I was required
to write for the University of Creation Spirituality several years ago about what I
intended to do with my degree. This was a school in Oakland, California started by
theologian Matthew Fox. It was a difficult question for me to respond to because, by
then, I’d already learned not to burden myself with frustrating intentions, but to just
go with the flow. What resulted was a piece of writing I still consider the best I’ve
ever written:
My entire life has been an opus, though not of my own handiwork. Something
unseen, Divine I think, seems to have taken an interest in me and oft reminds me to
stop interfering with the process. "The clouds pass and the rain does its work, and
all individual beings flow into their forms." The kindly old Dragon has been patiently
repeating its great lesson to this dense pupil most my life, but I only began hearing
the quiet beneath its roar fourteen revolutions ago, and am only now beginning to
truly listen. "Arrogant dragon will have cause to repent."
In learning humility, however, Ch’ien, the Creative, changes into Kuai, Breakthrough. A breakthrough indeed; sitting still, keeping quiet, letting the old Master
work. Now that’s a breakthrough! Breaking through this hard head of mine, through
this hardened heart, this stone chest and gut. Breaking through the tears, the fears,
the clinging clutch. Breaking through clouds and veils. Fourteen revolutions ago I
stopped dreaming so I could start dreaming. Out of these dreams the Dragon first
broke-through, turned the whole world upside down, or maybe just me, made a ball
roll uphill, put me on a one way bus going the wrong way, took me to work by
sending me home, where I learned how to get things done by sitting still and
keeping quiet.
The man on the hill found an acorn,
"Inside the end is born,"
Tossed it down, I caught it,
$23 USA, I bought it,
Hook, line & sinker,
Made me a brand new thinker,
But the same old man I will become
With the same old past still ahead of me.
The man on the hill is calling, so is the Fox, and the bigger Fox with no hole, and
many others too, including my own silence, calling, calling, calling me with one voice
back to the future. So many voices singing in harmony. Shall I disrupt this angelic
5
Beside Myself
choir by singing a solo, singing my off key intentions? I will not be, but I am for now.
True perfection seems imperfect,
yet it is perfectly itself.
True fullness seems empty,
Yet it is fully present.
True straightness seems crooked
True wisdom seems foolish.
True art seems artless.
The Master allows all things to
happen.
She shapes events as they come.
She steps out of the way
and lets the Tao speak for itself.
Perhaps I can speak of my pattern with no guarantee I’ll repeat myself in the end
when things get started. Shiva is still dancing after all and the creation is still being
spun, so I hesitate to speak of things to come until I get there. Minister, prophet,
preacher; that’s the pattern inside my acorn. As a boy, only five trips around the sun,
the acorn put forth a shoot dressed in a black robe and white collar. Oddly, there are
no religious mirrors in the boy’s home, except the little black and white box that
sometimes picks up boring static left over from the Big Bang. Therein lived my
inspiration, Carlos Ramirez, whom my memory says was priest at the convent San
Tanco. 20/20 retrospect insists he was only a nightclub owner. If the boy had
realized this maybe I’d be behind a bar today, or bars. Still, Carlos must have donned
a collar in an episode or two, for the image engraved deep into my neural network
reprises itself, along with his kindly smile, bright eyes, filled with love and
compassion, and passion for the little girl flying over the Field. Perhaps false Father
Ramirez was the real father I longed for, and longed to become, the father inside my
acorn.
Thirteen revolutions around the sun, having spent too much time on the road
most traveled, ego bound, and Father Ramirez the nightclub owner stops smiling
and closes his eyes for a while. But the acorn keeps growing and the Dragon hasn’t
lost interest even though the boy has. Sired by violence, nurtured with neglect, the
boy forgets the secret the Angel pressed against his lips the first time the sun rose.
Hoping to be an actor now he begins acting out, then gets born again, straightens up
his act, but the damage is already done, the making of a born again dropout.
The dragon swoops and scoops against his will and drops him off at the University
where he shouldn’t have been admitted. But mistakes and miracles happen,
paperwork gets lost, the prerequisite ACT (another act) is delayed, then forgotten
altogether. I don’t want to be here, I shouldn’t be here, but here I am again! Nineteen
trips around the sun and the fish out of water finally learns to swim. He loves
6
Beside Myself
schooling with other fish. He swims into a philosophy degree and into ordination,
then gets scooped up again, this time with a net, and is dropped off in a fish tank at
the Southern Baptist seminary. The other fish don’t seem to mind, but this one keeps
trying to leap into the think tank instead. Alas, he only manages to drop out again.
Flopping on the floor like a fish out of water, desperately flopping toward the
ocean, he falls accidentally on purpose into TV, probably still seeking his mirror,
Carlos Ramirez. Ten revolutions around the sun, successfully flopping, telling others
the news, but no news is good news. Still, he never stops swimming toward the
ocean, and the merciful old dragon, tired of watching him flop and flounder, swoops
and scoops him up and drops him in. Just like that! Only thirty-five revolutions past
the first sunrise.
Now the end is about to begin and the boy must finish what he started. But he
accomplishes this without really trying because trying is too trying. The tides will
push and pull him where he needs to be, and is. Ramirez awakens. Now he hears the
Fox howling, calling him to the land of oaks, near the city by the bay, where the boy
saw the first sunrise setting almost thirty-nine revolutions ago.
Tell us the telos regarding revolutions of learning revolutionary ideas in the land of
oaks? No easy quest for one who adores the Great Mystery. Turning to Sheldrake,
however, "things are as they are because they were as they were," then the pattern
suggests minister, prophet, preacher singing in harmony with the Fox, and the Fox
with no hole, Jung, Eckhart, Sheldrake, Harvey, Swimme, Dossey, the Man on the Hill
and so many others, including my own silence. Together we embrace and together
are embraced by the mysterious womb of creation while Shiva dances to her song.
7