Phantasy

Let's begin our deep dive into the understanding of fantasy. It would make sense to go straight into the background of the word "fantasy" to find out its roots and trace its meaning from the past into the present. As with most words, the meaning of the word "fantasy" morphed throughout the ages and developed different connotations while keeping the essence of the meaning throughout the whole process.

Etymologically the word "Fantasy" originated from the Greek word "Phantasia", which meant imagination, appearance or image. Greek philosophers particularly proposed elusive and important insights about fantasy, they have discussed it in the context of perception, imagination and knowledge. Aristotle viewed "Phantasia" as an inherent mental function which lies between perception and thought, a mental faculty that can produce mental representations based on previous sensory experiences, even after the original object is no longer present within the visual field. For Plato "Phantasia" was associated more with the realm of illusion, as a distraction from the pursuit of knowledge. Further down the line, the word was adopted into Latin as "Phantasia" and held similar meanings closely related to mental images and imagination. Cicero and Seneca engaged with the Stoic philosophy of the Greeks. They emphasised the clarity of thought and rational judgment in order to avoid being deceived or misled by impressions and deceptive images. In the Middle Ages, the word was adopted in the French language as "Fantasie" and carried similar connotations related to imagination, and mental images and related to more unrealistic than realistic conceptions. Thomas Aquinas, a medieval philosopher and theologian combined Aristotelian philosophy with Christian theology and described imagination as an intermediary between the sensual realm of the senses and the intellectual realm of the intellect, for Thomas Aquinas, imagination seemed to be susceptible to divine inspiration or demonic deception. In the 14th century "fantasy" entered the English language and held similar connotations related to imagination and mental images. From that point onwards the word started morphing into a wider horizon by encompassing various meanings including illusions, dreams and imaginary creations. Within contemporary English, the word "fantasy" refers to magical or supernatural worlds and the cinematographic genre of fiction, while still holding the same connotations related to daydreams, imagination and more unrealistic or extravagant ideas.

Let's investigate some of the literature that approached fantasy from the psychoanalytic perspective. Slavoj Zizek starts the introduction of his book "The Plague of Fantasies" thus "Let us imagine ourselves in the standard situation of male-chauvinist jealousy: all of a sudden, I learn that my partner has had sex with another man - OK, no problem, I am rational, tolerant, I accept it... but then, irresistibly, images start to overwhelm me, concrete images of what they were doing (why did she have to lick him right there? Why did she have to spread her legs so wide?), and I am lost, sweating and quivering, my peace gone for ever. This plague of fantasies of which Petrarch speaks in My Secret, images which blur one's clear reasoning, is brought to its extreme in today's audiovisual media" (Žižek, 1997, p. 1). Žižek touches on the most primitive role of fantasy at the beginning of his book, a basic function of fantasy as the cover for the dimension of the real, the pain hidden within, which is expressed through the plague of the fantasies via the "imaginary" order. Isn't our basic everyday fantasies and daydreams, function as a cover-up for the present moment (The Desert of the Real)? This explanation closely relates to the Lacanian definition of desire which is based on lack (desire appears because of the inscription of lack, lack equals the appearance of desire). In the example presented by Žižek, the painful lack is covered with a fantasy, but, the fantasy is a fantasy of torture in this case (a fantasy of jealousy), creating scenarios that torture the subject who is thinking these scenarios and the subject cannot stop, he is plagued with the tormenting scenarios of jealousy (the paradox of having a mind, if you could fully control your mind you could stop the plague of fantasies, but you cannot stop it, it invades your mind, you become a prisoner of the plague of fantasies that have invaded you). Some of our everyday fantasies are based on pleasure, while others might be based on pain, we imagine, while engaged in our monotone capitalistic existence within the machine of production, we fantasies about going on a holiday (a place where things are brilliant), within the fantasy container, where the special destination of our holiday creates a pleasant feeling, a future reference, where happiness is possible. You feel happy there (within your fantasy), it seems that you can feel the sun and its warmth (within your fantasy), but once you go on holiday, you realise that somehow, the whole thing seemed a lot better within your fantasy, than it is now, in reality. The function of the fantasy seems to be a cover-up, covering the dangerous existential questions, those questions that are constantly playing in the background but because they are left in the background, we might avoid acknowledging them, or even more so, those existential questions are there, operating all the time, but, we don't know that they are operating in the background all the time. The perfect example for the portrayal of this situation is "Shell Beach", in the movie Dark City, the main character John Murdoch played by the actor Rufus Sewell, slowly realizes the unreality of the city in which he lives, the city is a fabricated, artificially created cage for the mind which is controlled by the alien beings called "Strangers". The city operates as a perfect whole because alien beings "strangers" are constantly reshaping the memories of the people who live in the city. The city itself is a dark, moody, rainy place, not without a reason it is called a "dark city", it is truly dark and seemingly cold (a place which embodies an existential question, the dark, moody place, which has no reason to exist and the only way to invent that meaning, for existence within such place is via the fantasy). Shell Beach, in the movie Dark City, is the place that represents enjoyment and freedom, freedom which is connected to pleasure, if you could create a perfect place which would represent the entanglement of pleasure and freedom, a place where we will go, in order to feel that we are truly living. This beautiful seaside location "Shell Beach" within the movie is the fantasy which sustains the fantasmatic existence of the city's inhabitants. John Murdoch, together with other people living in the city, is hoping to get there "someday" (to Shell Beach), that desire to reach that place "someday", sustains eveyrone's desire, a desire based on the fantasmatic support, a fantasmatic support without which we could not exist as subjects. The fantasy of moving to Shell Beach is the fantasy that keeps the inhabitants of the city going, while the city itself is a dark and nasty place.

In his song "Slipping" the rapper DMX (Earl Simmons) says "To live is to suffer and to survive, that's to find meaning in that suffer", Earl Simmons's song lyrics express old ideas earlier portrayed by philosophers such as Nietzsche as the Übermensch (Overman) as a man who rejected societal values and invented his own way to live within the realm of suffering, or Viktor Frank, a psychiatrist and a Holocaust survivor who wrote a book Man's Search for Meaning in which he wrote about the ability to find meaning in places where meaning does not exist. Shell Beach (as the fantasmatic place) in the movie Dark City is the fantasmatic part where meaning is concentrated, a fantasy which holds the structure of desire hooked onto the wire of meaning. People in the dark city manage to find meaning in their existence by being attached to the fantasy of the future "Shell beach".

Do you have that place? A fantasmatic place, where you go, when the time comes to run away from the reality of life, those moments when you meet "the Desert of the REAL" and escape into fantasy, the fantasy of "Shell Beach". Psychoanalysis engages in the project of constant recognition of fantasy, similar to the Eastern Practices of meditation, such as Transcendental Meditation, the type of meditation which encourages the participant to recognise his or her thoughts, as if observing wild animals in the forest, without identifying with them, seeing the thought that has just entered your mind as an exotic animal walking by (as if you could see the animal walking in front of you), without identifying with it, just acknowledging it's existence. Over time, your ability to observe the exotic animals in the forest (your thoughts in your mind) becomes stronger which allows you to recognise and disassociate from the negative and unnecessary crippling thoughts or plagues of fantasies the way you managed to recognize the wild animals in the forest (thoughts in your mind) without identifying with them. The observing consciousness as your agency acquires the capability to separate itself from its contents, the conscious observer "you" the one who is looking through your eyes becomes aware of the fact that the thoughts entering your mind aren't really "yours", same as wild exotic animals in the forest aren't truly yours (they enter the picture and then leave), as if there is another agency producing these exotic creatures, but, that agency is not you, it is separate.

The practice of constant recognition of thoughts shows us that we are constantly lost in thought, or more psychoanalytically speaking, we are constantly lost in "fantasy", fantasy sustains our existence within the fantasmatic realm of desire. Disappearance of desire equals disappearance from conceptual existence and the finding of your true desire would be one of the psychoanalytic missions.

An even more interesting cliche appears if you truly allow yourself to engage in meditative practices and start interacting with human beings who have been propagating such a lifestyle for many years. The fact of "being disengaged from the train of thought for longer periods of time" changes the perspective and the general worldview of the practitioner. People who have been sitting in meditation for many years seem to participate in a different type of reality in comparison to those of us, who are living a Western world life of constant movement and achievement. It is a clash of two different philosophies as if the ravaging Stoic philosophers (us Westerners) have met the Buddhists (who have based their philosophy on empathy and kindness) as if the "Survivor - Burning Heart" song from Rocky Balboa would be playing in the background (Two worlds collide, rival nations, it's a primitive clash venting years of frustration). Westerner walks into a room with gadgets, weapons, attachments, inventions, fantasmatic creations that he used for the creation of meaning, while the Buddhist is sitting there bald, eating his rice, smiling. Both parties are looking at each other, both parties know the inevitability of this scenario, and both parties know that death is an inevitability, both parties know that the only way out of this game is death. Westerner, the stoic philosopher, chose to believe in his fantasies, he believed in conquering the earth by erecting tall buildings. While the Buddhists believed in peaceful quietness, the Buddhists have met the emptiness of this world face to face and decided to disengage from the fantasy, to disengage from the symbolic order and position himself or herself closer to the real, closer to the reality of unreality. Both philosophers were quite intellectually advanced, both knew the truth and both believed in their own truth which was classed as "the truth", both philosophers had highly rational arguments in support of their philosophies.

The Buddhist philosopher was just sitting there smiling and he asked the Stoic philosopher "Why are you running?"

The Stoic, standing there, smiling, while looking at the Buddhist. The Stoic said, "I came to terms with emptiness and decided that action is the real way to meet my death"

The Buddhist replied - Don't you think your obsession with action is the cause of evil?

Stoic replied - I believe that evil is caused by evil people, not by action.

Buddhist replied - Well, so this a meeting of action and non-action?

Stoic replied - This is a meeting of two deaths, who are sharing their perspectives on the correct way to die.

Buddhist replied - In the end, everything is empty.

Stoic replied - That is your problem my friend, you have become so smart, that you have deleted meaning from your existence.

Buddhist replied - Meaning is imaginary, I accepted the real.

Stoic replied - You remind me of a man who gave up. Was going bald one of the reasons that caused you to give up on meaning?

Buddhist replied - No, it was the death of my family members during the war which caused me to seek deeper meaning.

Stoic replied - And what have you found?

Buddhist replied - An inherent emptiness of existence. The emptiness within emptiness.

Stoic replied - Was asceticism another invention which helped you deal with your pain?

Buddhist replied - A temporary solution, some of us took it as a complete truth, but it was wrong.

Stoic replied - Your whole existence is temporary my friend.

Buddhist replied - That is why, I cannot base it on fantasy.

Stoic replied - But your whole life is based on sitting within your fantasy. During your daily meditation practices, while you are sitting there in samadhi, you are still sitting in the fantasy of emptiness, you haven't gone a step further than the man who was running after his fantasies.

Buddhist replied - I understood the emptiness of running.

Stoic replied - My friend, you have understood nothing, your life became an unbearable lie, a lie that you have told yourself. And your solution? Sitting here, imagining that you are fighting Mara (The demon that attacked Buddha in his meditations).

Buddhist replied - Maya and Mara are the basis of your life my friend, a fantasmatic illusion which is the lie you are telling yourself and your belief in that lie is your enemy, that is Mara.

Stoic replied - Purpose and meaning is within Maya. Without Maya, Mara would not exist. The temporal space between birth and death belongs to them both.

Buddhist replied - Those who understood it, were able to leave the illusion behind, which further meant that there is no front and no behind.

Stoic replied - In my world, people see the world the way you see the world at times when they have a horrible lung infection or a serious flu.

Buddhist replied - Because the real illness removes the fantasmatic illness, don't you think?

Stoic replied - In psychoanalysis, we call it a collective delusion, a fantasmatic illness which is protecting us from the symbolic castration, or more precisely from our fear of death.

Buddhist replied - Psychoanalysis? A minute ago you said that I have become too smart...What do you analyse there in the West? Your own fantasies?

Stoic replied - You are correct my friend.

Buddhist replied - Meditation is a tool that shows you how empty is an analysis of emptiness, there is nothing to analyse. The complexity of your fantasy doesn't make it any more real.

Stoic replied - I agree with you my fellow being.

Buddhist replied - How do you offer freedom to your people?

Stoic replied - We understand freedom via our complete devotion to the law.

Buddhist replied - Don't you think that the law is a part of that complex fantasy that you guys like to analyse?

Stoic replied - That is also true my friend.

Buddhist replied - So, is it the real or the fantasy, that should be the basis of our existence?

Stoic replied - The gateway to hell is paved with good intentions.

Buddhist replied - It is called fear. How can you be free if you are so attached to the law?

Stoic replied - My freedom is the law. Do you feel free?

Buddhist replied - As long as we have bodies and minds, we cannot fully detach.

Stoic replied - That is what I mean my friend. Why are you running then?

Buddhist replied - I have seen quite a lot, none of it was as impressive as emptiness.

Stoic replied - Your way of freedom seems pleasing and kind but I cannot believe it is sustainable. Trying to be free via disavowal from the symbolic order seems to be as tortures as being completely attached to it.

Buddhist replied - I agree.

Stoic replied - There was a time when I was like you.

Buddhist replied - There was a time when I was like you, also.

Stoic replied - Choices my friend, choices.

Buddhist replied - Correct. There are only choices.

Silence covered the room, the two philosophers were meditating.

Stoic said - What about happiness my friend?

Buddhist replied - Just another illusion my friend.

Stoic replied - What about your boy, Dalai lama, he is preaching happiness all the time.

Buddhist replied - As your boy would say "Dalai lama never read Freud" that is why he always preaches happiness.

Stoic replied - Tell me about Samsara.

Buddhist - We are in it when we are in thought. In Sanskrit, it means "wandering". We are beings who wander, until we stop, either by leaving our bodies via the experience of death, or via the realisation of emptiness.

Stoic replied - How is emptiness related to the form?

Buddhist replied - In some sense, it is completely separate, that is why we wander.

Stoic replied - Where is home?

Buddhist replied - It is here and nowhere, my friend. Have you been looking for home?

Stoic replied - Yes.

Buddhist replied - Have you managed to find it?

Stoic replied - The law felt like home.

Buddhist replied - That is where we differ, isn't it?

Stoic replied - Correct.

Buddhist replied - When the law becomes too oppressive, you are welcome at my home.

Stoic replied - Being with you my friend, does feel like home.

Buddhist replied - But this home is not based on the pressure of the law, isn't it?

Stoic replied - What a paradox...

Buddhist replied - So much paper wasted on writing countless amounts of books, so much time wasted on preaching methods when the answer was always in front of you.

Stoic replied - How can I explain this to everyone back at home?

Buddhist replied - You cannot my friend, that is the beauty.

Stoic replied - Paradoxes, once again.

Buddhist replied - Tell me about your people.

Stoic replied - What do you want to know?

Buddhist replied - Tell me about the illusion.

Stoic replied - We love so deeply, that we forget what loving even means. We want so strongly, that we forget what love means. We search for meaning, and the search becomes its own meaning. We run because we cannot stop, we fly because it is boring to be on the ground. We look for rigid systems while truly we are looking for father figures but those father figures are the symbolic systems themselves. We don't like each other but because of ethics, we pretend that we do.

Buddhist replied - Tell me about fantasy.

Stoic replied - Fantasy is a thing in your mind which is not in the realm of action, yet.

Buddhist replied - What about when fantasy appears in the realm of action?

Stoic replied - It is still a fantasy but realised in the realm of action. Losing the fantasy would be equal to losing reality.

Buddhist replied - Is reality just a fantasy?

Stoic replied - Yes, it is. Do you see yourself as a Buddhist?

Buddhist replied - No. There is no concept of me anymore, "I" is just a construct of my thoughts and I am not my thoughts, I am the observer of those thoughts.

Stoic replied - Good point. But it smells like a complete loss of meaning. Do you see meaning everywhere or nowhere?

Buddhist replied - Meaning is imaginary, there is no innate meaning in anything, we ascribe meaning to things ourselves.

Stoic replied - Your philosophy sounds highly Idealist in its nature.

Buddhist replied - World is an idea, you are an idea, I am an idea, tomorrow is an idea, yesterday is an idea, goodness is an idea, loneliness is an idea.

Stoic replied - What about Love? And Pain? Are these two just ideas?

Buddhist replied - Love lives within emptiness, it is the creation of emptiness. Love came from emptiness, it was born there, and everything came from that empty place. Darkness within darkness, as Laotze wrote... And pain... Pain is always with us, it is within our hearts, for as long as we have bodies, having a body means enduring pain. A bit different story is with psychic pain, psychic pain exists only because we are constantly lost in thought, being lost in thought, is our curse.

Stoic replied - You may correct me, but what I am hearing is that you are trying to say that the whole world is an idea, that love and pain are within the realm of thought which is the realm of fantasy.

Buddhist replied - Love goes deeper than that, it is more mysterious than pain, but, yes, you understood me correctly.

Stoic replied - I do admire your intellect and ability to live as close to the real as possible. But... Back where I live, life is impossible with such a philosophy my friend.

Buddhist replied - Why?

Stoic replied - Emptiness cannot be the basis of life if you want that life to be Lived, not just the life in which you existed. Existence in the world is equal to the turn of the wheel of luck, you have appeared in this world, you exist, but, living, means more than just existing. Striving, seeking for more, in order to live, and rejecting the submission to the existential wheel of life. We were lucky enough to appear within this realm of suffering, now, let's make something out of it, let's lose ourselves in our fantasies, let's attach ourselves to the fantasy and hold with all our strength, strength which equals our ability to love.

Buddhist replied - Please tell me about love my friend, I lived in the mountains, alone, for many years, and I forgot what it means to be close to someone, my heart is filled with pain and only in my fantasy I can imagine what love means.

Stoic replied - My friend, do you realize that the only difference between us is in how we choose to approach the pain of love and loss? You have decided to walk away and leave the symbolic order and the pain behind. But, because you have chosen to leave the symbolic order, you have also left love. There is nothing else in this world apart from fantasy. Fantasy is the only thing that keeps us fully attached to suffering and love, but, if you walk away, you are allowed to keep only suffering, but the chance to love, disappears.

Buddhist replied - I am listening.

Stoic replied - It is an irrational feeling, a feeling which is more than a thought. The real questions are: Is it true? Is it real? Or, is it just a hormonal lie which entangles and attaches us to someone because of the biological reasons of reproduction?

It is as if, it was dark, there was only night, there was no music, no melody of life, and things were just the way they were, dull, incomplete, with rough edges, weather conditions were horrible, mud, rain, blood, fear, death, empty buildings, ghosts, wind and dark clouds, storms, explosions, lonely nights, anger, suffering, damage... Until one day she appears and boom, as if the sun starts to shine, daylight and sunshine take over, the night is gone, dullness goes away, rough edges turn into oval, soft, surfaces made of silk, and buildings become filled with happy people, dark clouds disappear, stories of ghosts become the comedy shows and anger, suffering and damage turns into a pure, constant feeling of warmth, lonely nights turn into sleepless nights together, meaning of life appears in new colours and it all happens because of her.

Then you might ask yourself "Was this feeling inside of me all the time and it had to be triggered by the person that I unconsciously perceived as the special someone?" or "Is it truly a special someone?"

And whatever is your answer to these questions, the fact remains, that there is a new engine which is driving your life, it magically appeared within you and it is all because of her, "She" was the secret this whole time. Once the Queen is in the castle, you go conquer the world. Before she turned night into day and pain into love, there was only anger and pain, after her appearance, anger and pain turned into love and desire to keep her safe.

Buddhist replied - Why did you mention the two questions "Is it true?" and "Is it real?"

Stoic replied - Because it is hard to make a differentiation between the fact of love being a real, true thing, or just another illusion. Furthermore, it might be the only real thing that allows us to function within this realm of absurdity, while on the other hand, it might be a catastrophic illusion, a fantasy, which functions as a gap filler, it fills the gap between the absurdity of existence and its end, love fills the void.

Buddhist replied - Is every fire the same fire? Or is each fire a different fire?

Stoic replied - Is every love the same love? Or is each love a different love? Back where I came from, neurochemically speaking, it is just neurochemistry playing its magic on to your conscious experience.

Buddhist replied - My friend, a minute ago you told me that I ran away from reality via my rejection of illusions of Maya but what you have just told me regarding neurochemistry... Aren't this neurochemical method of looking for the truth, is also running away from it?

Stoic replied - Your loneliness made you into a wise man my friend. It is correct, the deeper we go, the more mysterious it gets.

Buddhist replied - Consciousness is the basis of our experience, everything that appears, appears in consciousness.

Suffering in Reality and Suffering in Thought

Once we acquired the capabilities of language use, we entered into a new realm of suffering. The realm of suffering became structured not only by "Need" and "Demand", but also by "Desire". Need and Demand have been there since the beginning, we always needed shelter and food, biological needs were always there, and demand for love is also a natural, inherent need of human beings. Sometimes, we act in ways and ask for things not because we need those things but because receiving those things will mean being loved. Rejecting something might also be a demand, rejection not in the name of rejection but rejection in the name of love, love which is demanded, a demand via rejection, I reject it, so, you can offer it to me, again. But, once we attach the system of language to it, we have a new type of suffering, a fantasmatic suffering, we suffer not being or having what others have suggested we should have, be, or want. Social media, TV, podcasts and magazines spread the message of happiness, everyone pretends that they are happy, but if you have a longer conversation with someone, especially if they are intoxicated with alcohol, the truth comes out, fantasmatic veil comes off and the real of the absurdity of existence comes out. Alcohol is the psychotherapist to those, who don't want to spend money on psychotherapy. How many of our sufferings are truly fantasmatic? As long as your biological needs are satisfied, your bones aren't broken and hopefully you have someone who cares about you, you are kind of okay. Until, you see someone having a huge house and a nice car on TV, which opens up a gap for a new fantasmatic suffering to emerge.

Not only that we suffer because we desire, but we suffer because we have an idea of ourselves, the idea that is holding the structure together, the idea of "You" which is some sort of copy-paste program which you have received from others, a dynamic creation made out of valuable ideals of others.

In the present-day psychological climate (seen through my own fantasmatic frame), happiness is the selling point, being happy is being preached to us left and right. The fantasy, following its function, creates a new imaginary layer in our existence, the question is "How lost can we get, or how lost do we already are" within the fantasy which allows us to reach happiness. Ways of how to create meaning are given to us openly with predetermined structures, and stencil patterns on how to be a "woman" or a "man", how to be successful, and how to be happy, there is a video or writing somewhere in the cloud on any topic and any solution for any problem. While psychoanalytically speaking, a neurotic-masculine fantasy of happiness will be inevitably attached to the phallic signifier, if the fantasy is based on the imaginary signifier, it can never be reached, but the process of trying to reach it will become the realm of happiness.

Knowing what Freud suggested regarding "The Pleasure Principle", we are, seemingly, just a bunch of biological creatures preprogramed for running after pleasure all the time. So, the plague of fantasies, an invasion of images in our minds, seems completely normal and understandable when taking the function of fantasy into account for what it is worth.

In the documentary movie "The Century of The Self" directed by Adam Curtis, the pathways of fantasy are portrayed together with psychoanalytic ideas that have been used to manipulate people into the fantasy of happiness, or even more psychoanalytically speaking, the movie shows how the fantasy structure of the masses has been hooked on to the "phallic" signifier. The phallic signifier, psychoanalytically speaking is the signifier on which the unconscious is based. The movie portrays Freudian, psychoanalytic ideas that were to influence modern consumerism, politics and society via the fantasmatic pathway in relation to the phallic signifier. Edward Bernays Freud's nephew adopted Freudian ideas and used them to influence the masses, Bernays believed that via the manipulation of people's unconscious minds, advertisers can influence the desires of the masses. For example: Feminine freedom was entangled with smoking a cigarette, where women in the commercials shown on the TV were smoking and expressing their freedom via smoking which influenced women to start smoking. But, smoking was not just smoking for its own sake, it was "smoking in relation to the phallic signifier which in this case was (freedom)", women smoked to portray and show off their freedom, smoking became the act of freedom. Men on the other hand received a suggestion that "longer" cars are more satisfiable. During the car sale commercial, a lady, before entering the car exclaimed that she noticed that this particular car model is so much longer than it was the previous year, then she sat down in the driver's seat, in front of the steering wheel, while the car salesman was explaining that the car is 4inches longer this year than it was last year. After the salesman's proposition regarding the length of the car, the lady made an orgasmic sound while holding the steering wheel. The length of the car which metaphorically represented the length of the penis was attached to men's desires to have bigger penises which equalled a stronger female orgasm portrayed by the lady's orgasmic exclamation.

The inscription of the unconscious as the inscription of the law into our being is based on the authoritarian power signifier, the same power signifier can be entangled into any scenario on which we naturally attach our desire, the same as women did attach their desire for freedom to the smoking of cigarette, or as men for whom the desire to have bigger penis was attached to having a bigger car, smoking became the phallic signification that women needed and bigger cars became the compensation for the masculine need for the bigger phallus, the portrayal of that freedom and size through advertisement was what gave the fantasmatic scenario for the TV viewers. The point of this technique of manipulation was the realisation of lack within the individual, finding the lack on which our existence as subjects is based and portraying the compensation of that lack via some object which would stand in the place of lack and could occupy the fantasies of the masses via TV commercials in order to satisfy that lack which led to the rise of consumerism. Such tactics are being used constantly, probably in 99.9% of all the commercials you see on TV and social media these days, it has become common knowledge, knowing that you are being manipulated via commercials in order to make you buy the product, such tactics have fully enslaved us into the position of consumers. Such tactics were based on the corporate realisation of how to change people's perspective towards products, culture was shifted from a "need" culture to a "desire" culture, and people had to be trained in what to desire, man's desires have to completely overshadow his needs. Edward Bernays was an evil genius who knew psychoanalysis and helped the big corporations reshape the societal structure of fantasy and influence collective desire.

Materiality of Number 1 as Neurosis And Infinity as Psychosis

Calculating infinity while being stuck in matter - if you take a piece of rope, let's use a rope which is 1 meter in length. You take that 1-meter piece of rope and cut it in half with scissors, you get two pieces of 50 centimetres in length. You throw one piece away and keep the 50 centimetres to proceed with your experiment, once again, you take the same scissors and cut that 50 centimetres of rope in half again and you get two pieces of 25 centimetres worth of rope. Once again, you throw one piece of rope away and keep the other 25 centimetres of rope to proceed with the experiment. You take the same scissors and cut that 25 centimetres of rope in half again and you get two pieces of 12.5 centimetres. You throw one piece away and keep the 12.5 centimetres of rope to proceed with the experiment. You take the same scissors and cut that 12.5 centimetres of rope in half again and you get two pieces of 6.25 centimetres. You throw one piece away and keep the 6.25 centimetres of rope to proceed with the experiment. You repeat the sequence again and again until you reach the size limit which is uncuttable with your scissors anymore. In order to make it more interesting, we can imagine that you have managed to create a special tool, which can hold and cut with laser precision very small pieces of the rope that you have used. This addition would allow us to probe deeper into the depths of minimization or deconstruction, but, inevitably, sooner or later, you would reach the point where even the special tool would not be able to cut any further. The inevitability of a limit of material reality would become painfully obvious. What does it have to do with neurosis and psychosis you might ask? Neurosis as a structure is based on a set limit, a limit on which the structure was built, a limit which was imposed by the prohibition. Psychosis, on the other hand, as a structure, is limitless, there is no limit set by the prohibition within psychosis. Which one of these two structural conditions seems to be closer to the material reality in which we live? Logic wouldn't allow us to say that "Psychosis" is the right answer because material reality has a limit, so, we have to come to the realisation that "Neurosis" is the basis of material reality and the law as prohibition is the natural condition of material reality, there is no way out of this trap, material reality is the trap and neurosis is the condition that cannot be escaped because even psychotic structure has to comply with the laws of material reality, which is the laws neurosis. For as long as we are attached to the planet Earth, neurotic law and the power signifier as the governing body will be the only structure that will hold us as humanity in place within Capitalism. We cannot penetrate the innate structural limit of material reality but we can make friends with the limit. Capitalism seems to be a neurotic model of running the show, a specific type of egoic phallic enjoyment seems to be the basis of it. Those who drink phallic enjoyment like water, the integrated neurotics, those who enjoy owning things and want to own more, those who enjoy the signifier of power, those, whose mode of enjoyment is based on the phallic signifier will never allow capitalism to go away because communism would take away their chance to enjoy. This split between the fantasy structures of neurosis and psychosis leads to the split between the masculine and feminine way of thinking, which puts biological, psychotic males, on the side of the feminine type of enjoyment. The chessboard is split between two sides, on one side - females and psychotic males, and on the other side - neurotic males. Liberal political ideals are based on inclusiveness which is a feminine structural piece of the puzzle, while on the other side of the chess board is the non-inclusive, phallocentric enjoyment based on the non-relational, non-lacking phallic signifier. Relationality of all signifiers is what creates meaning within the system of language, while masculinity is based on the non-lacking, non-relational signifier. The neurotic world is based on the prohibition made by the non-relational signifier, while the psychotic world is based on the fact that the signifier did not intervene. The psychotic male can be a woman's best friend, but not her husband, while the neurotic male can be her husband, but cannot be her best friend. The feminine, motherly ideal based on caring, feeding and nurturing operates within the limitless realm of liberalism which is based on inclusiveness, and care for everyone (sharing the capital throughout the population equally). A masculine ideal based on the signifier which signifies non-inclusiveness and prohibition prohibits equal sharing because the signifier on which masculine identity is based is non-relational (Master's discourse), which creates limits and VIP areas, protected households, walls and separates those who can operate within the confines of non-relationality from those who cannot operative within the confines of non-relationality. American politics are the perfect portrayal of the split within the chessboard, Trump represents the prohibition and rejection of lack, which creates a limit (A wall which Trump wants to build, which will keep foreigners away), the way the father locks the door at night before he goes to sleep at his own home. On the other side is Biden or Kamala representing inclusiveness, open borders, and acceptance of lack. One side (Trump) says - let's reject lack and go for strength and power, while the other side (Biden/Kamala) says - let's accept our lack and reject the need for power. Even though nothing is as simple as it seems, the basis of this dichotomy could be interpreted via the psychoanalytic lens which works via the signifier. One side is based on phallic fantasy, while the other side is based on the fantasy based on the opposition towards the phallic fantasy. Symbolic order, being represented by neurotic, masculine men, who think through and via the signifier (limits, prohibition, power) trying to hold the structure of the family and society in place, and women, who are tired of those structures and want to reject them because they feel confined by symbolic order of stagnant rules.

This leads us to the realm of the cinema and the genre of romantic dramas, which provides us with a typical scenario - an attractive woman, who was married to a business man for many years have decided to get a divorce once their relationship started going sideways because her naughty husband was going sideways also. After the divorce the lady meets a nice artist who has no money but has very kind eyes, the lady falls in love once again and starts her new life with the artist. But, of course, after a while, she realizes that the cute boy with the kind eyes lives a very unstructured life, that the beauty of an artistic soul is only reliable on paper but not in real life because living with that man is like living with a child. Let's call the lady Anabele, Anabele's father was a strong, neurotic figure, which is a complete opposition to her new partner's psychotic, artistic soul. For this reason, Annabelle struggled to entangle herself into a relationship where the man was such an opposite to her father, which was the reason why he attracted her in the first place but at the same time was the reason why she couldn't stay with him. The new boyfriend, the artistic soul, was very relatable, as a friend would be, but because the prohibition was missing within him (psychotic structure), she was attracted to him sexually, but not the way a woman might be attracted to the man which reflects her father (The father is loved for being the protector and hated for being the prohibitor), while the soulful artist was neither of them.

This is not an American drama, there is no happily ever after, Annabelle never managed to find her special someone and she went back to her husband where she felt safe, but loved incorrectly. This situation allowed her to invent fantasies about being loved correctly.

Structure

If we can presuppose that symbolic order exists, and with enough analysis we would seemingly conclude that "It does exist" because we are speaking beings, talking creatures, and we do have a system of language which is based on signifiers (metaphorically the symbolic dimension exists). There is language and there are deeper structures of language, that deeper level of language in Lacanian terms would be the unconscious "Unconscious is structure like a language" the famous Lacanian dictum. But what about fantasy? Let's play with the structure a little bit: if symbolic order is the order of language, if symbolic order is the placeholder of all the rules and all the signifiers, as an invisible field into which we have to be inscribed in order to function within society, then why do we end up either inscribed or not inscribed within the symbolic order (Either neurotic or psychotic)?
At some point we need to express our biological needs, our caregivers need to feed us and care for us, so we cry, cry and cry and crying is the thing that provides us everything we need, if Mommy is capable of making a correct guess of what we need. In psychoanalysis "Unconscious" is based on the "Phallus", there is one signifier in the unconscious and that is "phallus". So, you were your mother's phallus, like a beautiful doll that mommy made for herself. Mommy was the placeholder from which your being came into being in the world and now, your being in the world is your mother's phallus, your existence is a representative of your mother's prideful existence in this world, her motherly mission was accomplished via your beingness in the world. The story is quite clear, but what about the inscription of the unconscious? At a certain point in the child's existence separation has to occur in order for the child to be integrated within the symbolic order, the structure has to be set in place because the consequence of structure not being set in place leads to psychotic subjectivity (at least that is what psychoanalysis tells us). Let's portray a theoretically perfect scenario, the child realizes that there is another being, a being that takes mommy's attention, a being that mommy cares for apart from the baby, and that being is daddy. Daddy is stronger than the child, so the father's authority is unquestionable in this case and the child has to deal with it. Phallic signification in this scenario has already occurred, the child has realised that daddy is running the show at home and the child repressed that fact via the fantasy that "someday I will have that something which gives me the power to be the boss" that someday he will be like daddy, he will love mommy (his partner) and their child and he (the child) will be the boos of the house when he grows up. Repression of the phallic signification of the father inscribed the unconscious into the child's psyche, the child is neurotic, anchored in the law of language, the paternal metaphor is set in place, and the psychic machine is ready for the future existence via the inscription of the father's name, a name that holds its place (the place of the child's psyche) within the symbolic order. If the structure was set in place and separation between the mother and the child happened correctly, the gap appeared, one of the reasons that caused the gap to appear was psychological pain, which was caused by the intervention of the third term (Phallus) which intervened in the dual relationship between (the mother and the child), that gap was probed by the signifier (separator of enjoyment), it was the signifier that inscribed lack into the child's psyche and at the same time, it was the signifier that turned the machine of desire on. Because we lack, we want to fill that lack. The filler of that gap, the gap of separation, the disastrous consequences of our existential realisation of being alone in the universe is the function of fantasy. Fantasy fills that gap of emptiness as if it were a cloth that we use to cover the table before eating dinner, the cloth covers the table, even if there is a stain on the table, a cloth is there to save the day, by covering the unesthetic pieces of the tables structure. Well then, if neurosis appeared because the signifier was inscribed and repression is active, the fantasy appeared there, concretely, to function as a cover over the gaps within the psychic structure (places of lack), then, the fantasy itself, quite possibly could be based on the signifier. You were your mother's phallus this whole time (pure pervert, only interested in your own pleasures which you were able to satisfy through your caregiver), until you realised the existence of authority, that authority and prohibition do exist (which came as a third term into the dual relationship between you and the mother). What do you do? You fantasise about ways of how can you become the phallus for the mother again and a seemingly logical idea to manage that would be to try to have what the third term has (phallic signification) because seemingly the third term has the power to be wanted by the mother and at the same time has the power to separate (the dual relationship). Lacanian proposition was "desire is the desire of the Other" and isn't this, one of those moments, that shows that your desire was based on the fact that you wanted to be wanted by mommy and did everything to be liked by her? But, of course, the dual relationship between you and mommy is over, now, you want to be, not only the mommy's phallus but also, get that thing that your father had, because he is the one that probed the unity, he separated that divine relationship between you and your mommy. So, you are on a double quest from now on, a quest towards becoming the mother's phallus once again and of finding a way how to have what the father had, the signifier of authority that was so powerful that it managed to transform that dual relationship between you and the mommy into a tripod relationship of the triangle (Mommy, Daddy, Child). What are those everyday moments that we could track back down to the fact of the split of the fantasmatic universe into (being the mother's phallus and having the phallus that the daddy had)? For example, A lady in her early 30s comes into a counsellor's or the psychoanalyst's office and says "I lived with the man for 10 years, we have 2 kids, but truly I don't know who this man is, it is as if our lives together were based on a fantasy, when I was a teenager my Mother always told me to get married and have children, I did that, but I am not sure if I truly wanted to be with this man or was it just me pleasing my mother's opinion on how I should live". Another person says to an analyst "I am 35-year-old male, I became a laywer many years ago, I have studied really hard for so many years, my father told me to be a laywer back when I was a kid, but I truly hate what I do, I don't want to be following this career path anymore, but what my parents will think about me if I stop". The dynamic path between the two fantasies of "being the phallus" as the mommy has been for the daddy and "having the phallus" as the daddy had. A lady followed her mother's footsteps, listened to her mother's words and got into a marriage as early as possible with the idea of having children. Nothing is wrong with this scenario, the main idea in this example is in relation to the fantasy, the lady had to turn 30+ and join analysis to realise that she never followed her own desire, her desire was based on her mother's desire but she was not conscious of it until enough analysis was done to realise it. In the case of the 35-year-old male, he became a lawyer, a respectable career path, he followed his father's orders to become one (Lawyer), but once he became what his father told him to be (Lawyer), he realised that it was not his desire, it was his father's desire. The father's words led the son to have a good career, but the career was not satisfying for the son, it took him almost 40 years of being alive with the help of an analyst, to reach the realisation that all those years that he lived since now, was based on his father's words.
Such scenarios show us that our desires, or what we thought were our desires, can quite possibly be not truly ours, but desires of those that we tried to please, desires of those in whose eyes we wanted to be loved, but being loved came with a set of rules, rules that determined our desires. What would be the aim of the psychoanalytic cure in this type of situation? What psychoanalysis could accomplish? On the most basic level, the work of analysis would be aimed towards understanding the symbolic matrix that is running the show. Parental figures, authority figures, and figures that we wanted to be loved by had their own ideological beliefs, their ideological beliefs were most likely based on the ideological beliefs of their parents and the chain goes ad infinitum. The ideological machines of the parental figures who cared for you were passed on to you, you are an ideological machine structured by the structures of the parental and authority figures in your life, your desires might be desires that were truly the desires of your parents or those people that you have seen as authority figures. Fantasmatically speaking, if using the present climate of social media and television, you might be into certain shows, TV or Netflix series because those shows and series hook on to your ideological beliefs, those ideological beliefs are based on the parental and authoritarian fantasies, in which, you see yourself as lovable. But, to you, it seems just a normal thing, to think in that way or in another way, to watch this show or that show, while the core of that ideology is based on the traumatic core moments, which made certain fantasies and belief systems into your ideology.
A psychoanalytic perspective can either expand or narrow your perspective on life, which might make you to completely reject it, or, it might open a new window, a window through which you will be able to see a triadic family structure everywhere. The words of those that in your eyes were important, made a huge impact on your life, but, that impact becomes truly obvious only after enough speech were provided in that direction.

Why feeling excluded is a feminine problem?

Let's start at the beginning, the original triad and symbolic castration. The male child is castrated by the fact of the father's power taking over the mother and prohibiting incest and enjoyment between the mother and the child. Masculinity appears because of exclusion, an exclusionary, non-relational signifier "Phallus" inscribes the structure into the being of the child. A boy child's identity becomes an identity based on a non-relation signifier, it is an identity based on exclusion because the child was excluded from the original incestuous relationship with his mother. Because masculinity was based on the non-relational, exclusionary signifier, exclusion becomes part of a boy's identity who further down the line becomes a man. The fundamental fantasy of a boy goes down to "having the phallus that the father had", the phallus itself is a non-relation, exclusionary signifier, in order to have the imaginary object "phallus", the man works towards acquiring the imaginary object, the basis of that process is exclusionary, whatever idea is in the man's mind that in his fantasy would represent having the phallus will lead him towards exclusion. Inclusion appears only via the mechanism of exclusion, an inclusion process begins only when a man reaches a certain point in his development where his possession of the phallus attracts others that perceive him as having the phallus. Group identification works via the leader, masculine groups unconsciously identify with their leader by perceiving the leader as possessing the phallic signifier, this identification allows men to move towards their own identity which would reflect their hero figure, the hero figure within the family dynamics is the father, the man who prohibited the relationship between the mother and the child. Feminity, on the other hand, is not based on the phallus, or more precisely, it is based on the phallic signifier but a different embodiment of it. For a girl, reaching a phallic ideal means embodying the phallus the way her mother did, she becomes the phallus via the capability to attract a male and have a child. The end goals of both genders inevitably lead towards reproduction, for a man it is becoming a father, for a woman it is becoming a mother. The father is the guy who possesses the biological phallus but does not possess the symbolic phallus but you as a son perceive him as having the symbolic phallus. The mother is the lady who is the father's phallus, her beauty is the father's pride, she is the queen and by being the queen she is the phallus because she does not have the biological phallus, she doesn't need to try to acquire the symbolic phallus the way the father does. Because feminine identity was not based on the non-relationality of the phallic signifier, it becomes an inclusive identity, as a mother, a woman cares and includes others, her identity relates to all other identities because her identity is not based on exclusion. Not being "included" becomes an opposition to a feminine identity, for that reason, the harshest punishment or a weapon within the feminine circle is to exclude another female from their circle. Men, being the representators of exclusionary, prohibitory signifiers are meant to be excluded because of their identificatory signifier's non-relationality. Women, because of their non-prohibitory identificational nature are not linked to exclusion, same as psychotically structured males aren't based on the exclusionary signifier. A psychotically structured male psyche is a psyche that was left to die by the representative of the symbolic order, his father. The psychotic structure is based on the signifier's failure to integrate the psychic structure of the child, a failure of the child's father to intervene as a prohibitory ideal that will be planet within the child's psyche on which a neurotic identity is based.

What Replicates Symbolic Castration
And Why It Is Beneficial For The Young Boy To Lose His Girlfriend.

Let's think about an experience which could replicate the symbolic castration which turns the child's psyche into a neurotically structured psyche. Let's imagine a teenage boy, let's say a 13-year-old boy, who fell in love with a 17-year-old girl. What a beautiful and in some sense still childish union, the boy is so in love with the girl, that it is hard to describe for him what he truly feels, while the girl, being 17 years old, might see the world a little bit differently than the boy does, yet. For a 17-year-old girl, it would be normal to look at more phallic boys, boys who might have jobs and cars, and generally, boys who represent authority more than a 13-year-old boy does. Furthermore, knowing, that girls generally mature earlier than boys do, this situation inevitably points towards the young boy losing his love because a stronger, more phallic male shows up in the girl's vision.
What does this situation and this experience represent and why it is beneficial for the boy in the long run? The appearance of a stronger, better, more phallic male in the girl's life leads to the exclusion of the boy from their love relationship and because the boy is young and weaker than the male that takes away his girlfriend, a loss has to be accepted by the boy. The same loss was experienced in the boy's life within his relationship with his mother, the father prohibited the mother from the boy and the situation had to be accepted by the boy because he couldn't do anything about it, the boy was symbolically castrated by his father. This experience leads to the feeling of "insignificance", the father is stronger and more significant than the little boy is, and the little boy has to accept his insignificance. The same situation happens when the young boy's girlfriend leaves him for a better, older man, the boy has to deal with it and there is nothing that he can do to change it, the castration has to be accepted. Psychotic structure would be the structure which does not have a concept of insignificance, which is why it is closer to the feminine realm of inclusion. Exclusion is inscribed into a child who becomes neurotic by the father's prohibition via the signification of the exclusionary signifier, neurotic structure knows its insignificance in comparison to the fatherly ideal. Is there a possibility that neurotically and psychotically structured psyches would relate to this experience differently? Because, the neurotic structure is based on the unconscious realisation of insignificance at an early age, while the psychotic structure appears because the boy hasn't received the law's prohibitory power from the father and the unconscious realisation of the child's insignificance (lack) was not inscribed. The neurotically structured boy might tend to accept the appearance of a more performative male in his (ex)girlfriend's life and build on top of that experience by becoming more performative himself by seeking phallic achievement. A neurotically structured identity is based on a similar experience in the early childhood of the boy via the relationship with his father. The psychotically structured boy, because of lack of the early realisation of lack, because his father hasn't provided the prohibitory power which would have led to symbolic integration, might struggle to accept the fact of someone better than him appearing in his (ex) girlfriend's life. Both versions of the young boy (neurotically and psychotically structured) will go through the experience of losing their love, but because of the structural dynamics of their psychical integration, the ability to cope with the experiences of loss might be different.

The Beauty of The Union Between a Man And a Woman

Male identity, being based on the non-relation, prohibitory signifier "phallus" and a feminine identity which is not based on an authoritarian signifier or any other signifier, creates a perfect union. Feminity as the baseline of subjectivity becomes the embodiment of the conceptual realm itself, the womb, for masculinity to be born in. But, signifiers relate to each other only because they differ from each other, so, masculine prohibition appears as the part of the structure which differentiates, which turns the infinite into a finite. What does it have to do with the union between the man and the woman? The woman, being the representation of inclusiveness and nurturing, includes the man's non-inclusiveness into herself by becoming exclusively one man's phallus, she becomes represented by the same signifier that a man is represented by, but, by embodying it (being it). Once a woman becomes the particular man's woman, she becomes exclusive and non-relational, the way the signifier phallus is. A female submission during the sexual act, where a man is in the performative role, equals her submission to the signifier, the phallic signifier becomes the representative of her because femininity does not have a particular signifier that would represent it. The ultimate phallic-feminine signification is submissiveness, but, a female, can be truly submissive, only to the man, that represents the phallus in her perception. The man that represents "having the phallus" will be modelled on her father's image as the representative of the law. Freud said that "Anatomy is destiny" and Lacan added the cut of the signifier to the word anatomy as "ana-tomy" in order to signify the cut of the signifier through our bodies. The man's performative identity is coded in the fact that he has a penis but having a penis is not enough to be a man. Because of that, man's destiny becomes a constant work towards proving that he is worthy of having the organ, while the woman, because of not having the biological penis is capable of embodying the symbolic object "phallus" by being a being that does not have her own signifier for representing her feminine identity, her submission to the phallic signifier is the ultimate signification of her femininity. A powerful man and a beautiful woman represent the ideal phallic representation of the union between the two "sexuated" speaking beings. Today, in 2024, Jacques Lacan's perspective regarding the fact that "the woman does not have the signifier that represents her". Males, who either got tired of playing the game of accumulating "having it" or were not equipped to even try (psychotic structure) can choose to be "a woman" at any time and in that way avoid the game of the phallus. If sexuation is a sexual identity in relation to the signifier which is inscribed in your body as the law and "there is no sexual relation" ("il n'y a pas de rapport sexuel"), neurotically structured males being fully submitted to the phallic function of castration, while women and psychotically structured males on the other hand "not-all" (pas-tout) leads to the conclusion that psychosis and feminity is on the one side of the picture, while neurosis is on the other side of the structure. An idealistic, typical, symbolically structured relationship between a straight heterosexual male and a straight heterosexual woman is on the side of neurosis, while everything else, which is not in relation to the order of the symbolic order is on the side of psychotic structure.
A difference between infinity (psychosis) and finiteness (neurosis), a relationship between the two completely different types of existential reference points existing within the reality of language.
If the collective realisation of law's non-existence is the realisation of the non-existence of God, then how many generations do you need to remove the typical heterosexual couple completely?

The Fight Against The Symbolic Rules - Femininity
The Fight Against Subjectivity - Masculinity

Two worlds, fighting for different causes, led by different unconscious fantasies. Women are fighting against oppression and inequality which governed the world for many years and men are fighting for the rules and limitations of freedom because freedom itself is seen differently from either side. As long as we are connected to the symbolic order as speaking beings, we will be fighting the question of sexuation in the sense of describing the real within the confines of symbolic and imaginary. If psychotic freedom becomes the basis of the functioning of the world, neurosis as a structure would naturally disappear, then the world might turn into a place, which is populated with women who have vaginas and women who have penises, and the brutish masculinity would disappear. A dystopian dream of kindness and complete equality, a place where women with vaginas ask women with penises out. Women with penises, because of the lack of testosterone in their system, being very shy non-risk takers, allow the women with vaginas to run the show. Somewhere down the line, when patriarchal oppression becomes history, which could only be read in history textbooks, a new type of oppression emerges and it is called vaginal oppression. In the times of vaginal oppression, everything is the same as it was in the times of patriarchal oppression, the only difference is the fact that women with vaginas took over the original phallic position because women with penises had fathers who were women with penises also. The kind, feminine, shy and unoppressive women with penises ended up being oppressed by the females with vaginas. The original game of phallic corruption and power has never left the building, the only thing that has changed is that the building has been populated by highly overweight liberal morals and incompetent creatures. Then, once again, masculine structures appeared, back from the dead and enslaved the whole world once again, the end.

Utopian Fantasy

In one of his talks, Rupert Sheldreik describes the types of ideological utopianism. He describes an alienation caused by the feudal system, the rise of capitalism, the industrial state, and imperialism, which further leads towards the utopian Marxian fantasy, a collective fantasy which we all hold in one way or another, a fantasy where people go back to being closer to nature and lives in brotherhood, they share their goods and the governmental state apparatus is not needed anymore, it falls off, the world becomes a utopian dream of motherly brotherhood. Further, he describes scientific utopianism and suggests a book on which the scientific utopian dream could be based - Francis Bakon's "New Atlantis" 1624, in that book Francis Bakon describes a new vision, a new order of the world which is led by a scientific priesthood (an almost a literal description of today's world), an ideal state which is ordered in a completely rational, scientific manner. In that state, humans keep plants in separate areas made for the safety of growth, development and study purposes, they keep animals separately also, for growth and study purposes, everything is calculated with the vision of the future, they also have special machines that work with water and waves for the purposes of construction and the industrial development and lastly, those humans are working towards developing a universal language (Universal language being a very important point, universal language as a metaphorical expression of unity and inclusion was understood long time ago, while today, one world order is portrayed as the ultimate conspiracy theory). Francis's book was further saturated, Rupert says, by the third book of Gulivers Travels, the Voyage to Laputa which includes a mad academy filled with people participating in insane projects such as making sunbeams out of cucumbers or making things out of spider webs and there is a man who is also working on inventing a universal language (Universal language repeats once again as if every individual has the knowledge of unity planet within the mind, a perennial philosophy). A beautiful portrayal of scientific utopianism, which developed into today's world of "progress", technological and scientific progress which should free humanity from poverty, bondage, disease and authoritarianism. Further, Rupert explains liberal utopianism, which adds an economic and political reform, on top of the previous fantasy of progress. After that, Rupert proposes, appears a a new age movement, which will bring a new utopian movement, a movement based on the discovery of the "old traditions", a new utopia, brought about via the discovery, or more precisely a "rediscovery" of ancient religious traditions, holistic approaches and the harmonious ways of doing things, a new age when everything will be back in harmony (Psychoanalytically speaking - a lost enjoyment will be found, a lost enjoyment that we never had, "The Thing" will receive a body, a body encapsulated within the possibility of going back to the lost enjoyment, a body in which lost enjoyment is possible).

In the past, people treated nature as a part of themselves, people were the part of nature, not the conquerors of nature, the way we are today. Life and sacredness, back then, gave the people of the old, a chance to relate to nature differently. So, such a manner of thinking would be a logical presupposition, that such a way of thinking might lead us back, back into the correct road of harmonious relationality, allowing human beings to be mediators between the earth and the heavens. Further, Rupert describes Terence Mcckenas's utopia of the "Psychedelic Revival", where people are having a wonderful time, harmoniously living on the earth, with a high knowledge of botany and ecology, a psychedelic vision of collective orgies and a complete ego dissolution which with itself removes boundaries between people, harmonious earth, without any need for the signification of power and authority. (It is, in some sense, a history of philosophy, just entangled with science fiction books but, those utopian, science fiction books, reveal our fantasmatic capabilities to comprehend the beauty of boundary dissolution, even if it is, so far, only possible in our fantasies, where the lost enjoyment acquires a body).

Until, Rupert says, the whole thing went wrong, the earth dried up, creating deserts out of oceans and the fungi retreated because of the change of weather conditions and the soil, which destroyed the psychedelic vision of the native people. Psychedelic experiences, because of the retrieval of the fungi became less and less possible, which naturally led to psychedelic experiences being substituted with the "medium" which was used for the storage of the mushrooms, which was a fermented honey solution which turned into alcohol. Terence Mcckenas's story leads us literally here, to the present moment, drunk on money, drunk on power and in the constant need of alcohol, dumbed down, as if our favourite tool "alcohol" is the representation of the state of consciousness we live in every day, a capitalist state of consciousness, blind consumers "Hungry Ghosts" the way a Buddhists would say, the realm of hungry ghosts, being a representation of the realm in which beings have huge bellies and small mouths, an unsatisfiable structure of existence when you want more than you can chew. What is the solution for the original paradise to be restored? How do we bring back "The Paradise Lost"? Terence Mcckenas's idea was the "Archaic revival" of psychedelic mushrooms, smoking of DMT and other psychedelic tools that could be used for the psychedelic utopia. Further, Rupert describes a "Mathematical Utopia", where the great regulative, mathematical landscape is based on the unifying principles reflected in heaven and nature, such position becomes visible to everyone via the medium of computer modelling, and a direct knowledge of the fundamentals becomes known to everyone. A mathematical utopia creates a new space, a space where we don't need to take psychedelics to see the unifying, ultimate truths, golden ratios and the unifying principles of heaven and earth through psychedelic vision but, we can see these things via the computer modelling (A world of advanced technology gives us a chance to perceive deeper realities via the screens on computers and TV's). (It could be interpreted - such a situation creates a new world, a world where children learn to use computers at a very early age and via their understanding of computers, they are already established in the understanding of the unifying principles of heaven and earth. Such a new generation would be a natural changer of the earth, a new generation already established into the principles of the new earth, an earth that was only visible to previous generations via psychedelic drugs but, now is visible to those who haven't even tried them yet). Rupert's description of the historical movement of the utopian fantasies and the Mcckenian solution to the problem seems sexy but psychoanalytically speaking, it is impossible, the paradise lost, is lost forever, it was last after the detachment from the mother and the entrance into the alien world of language but still, beautiful thoughts from Rupert and his brilliant intellect.

What could be realistically thought after thinking about the utopian fantasy and the collective movement towards it? Let's call it, "The Tools For The Unification of Everyone", as impossible, as that may be.

Tools for the Unification of Everyone

Psychoanalysis
An understanding of a unifying principle of lack
Feminism
Psychedelics

Firstly - Psychoanalysis opens up new avenues towards understanding the structure of subjectivity and induces the function of speech via which fantasies can be rearranged and recreated after the traumas on which the fantasies were built are understood. Secondly - An understanding of lack comes as an after-effect of psychoanalysis, which creates a "unary trait", or more precisely "reveals a unary trait", a trait of "lack", a structural lack that unifies us all, structurally. Thirdly - Feminism, as another tool, a for the induction of the movement of inclusion, caring and understanding. A tool, which helps us collectively fight against authoritarian structures and leads us towards learning new methods for leading our lives, without domination and authoritarianism. Lastly - Psychedelics, come as a saturator for everything described above, as a telescope for the astronomer, or as a microscope for the biologist, psychedelics, becomes a tool, for the inspection of the human spirit, a lense, for the saturation of perception of inner realities, inner realities that inevitably lead towards "subjectivity is feminine", an understanding, caring and the complete shift within the fantasmatic scenarios of each, singular individual. Dominator-cultural fantasy, shifts and changes, into a fantasy which is separate from the "Phallus", phallus as the non-inclusive "master" signifier, being not represented by any other signifier, as the signifier without a signified is the basis of the domination fantasy. Judeo-Christian values taught us to dominate and take over, while the methods described above work as the tools for the dissolution of our old ideological beliefs.

Oxytocin, instead of adrenaline, hippocampus instead of the amygdala, friendship instead of ownership, unity instead of separateness, equality instead of domination. Such thought experiments lead towards the dissolution of boundaries of "nationalism" and "cultural norms", it leads towards the fantasy of "one language" and "one country", the "world country". After all this has been said, a thought comes to mind - "Love thy neighbour as yourself", Freud would laugh... We can't even love ourselves, then how can we love "thy neighbour", our inability to love ourselves prevents us from loving the neighbour and the whole ideological fantasy is shattered and we are back to square one.

But maybe, just maybe, we are collectively evolving and singularly learning to detach from the phallocentric aspect of separateness and are unconsciously moving towards boundary dissolution and friendship, agreeableness and understanding, instead of judgement, and enjoyment, instead of guilt.

Such a perspective goes completely against the Judeo-Christian God of the symbolic order, the Phallic/Master signifier, the one that made us into the subjects of the world and its mode of authoritarian, non-inclusive, paternal enjoyment, an enjoyment of champions.

Rationally, nothing has truly changed, just the father himself has to realise, that things don't really have to be, the way "HE" thought they should be. To a deeply religious mind, these words might seem as the words of the devil, while on the contrary, to someone functioning within the higher order of understanding, these words are just a basic truth of life, "Novelty" as Terence Mcckena beautifully expressed it.

Disclaimer - Not medical advice, just a thought.

To be continued..