Carl Jung defines the ego as the center or focal point of consciousness, analogous to the fovea in the retina. For Freud, the ego is one of the three parts of the personality, the other two being the id (instincts) and superego (collective overseer); for him the ego is concerned with reality testing.

            It seems to be very difficult to talk about "the" ego without considering "it" a kind of object or thing. Common phrases attest to that, such as, "He has a big ego" or "One needs to build up ego strength." While everyone who talks about ego agrees that "it" has a function, "it" also appears to have an implicit structure for most people who write or talk about "it."

            I would like to propose another image of ego and its function, utilizing a combination of Jung's concept of archetypes and an electrical device, the solenoid. Archetypes refer to energy centers in the psyche that give rise to images. According to this idea, we all develop images for everything we experience; through the images we are, to a limited extent, able to apprehend what our perceptions represent. I think of archetypes as organs of the psyche, analogous to the organs of the body. Every relatively normal human is born with a distinct set of bodily organs, each of which has a unique function: the heart pumps blood, the lungs transfer oxygen to the blood and expel waste gases from it, the kidneys remove excess liquids and extraneous chemicals, and so on. Each of the archetypes also has a unique function. The primary difference between the two types of organs is that we can touch and see bodily organs, whereas archetypes must be inferred from behavior and from imagery, dreams, and fantasies that we are able to portray or describe. We can only directly perceive behaviors and images that infer and represent archetypes; we cannot directly perceive archetypes. We sense their functions through our projections and intuition. Once they are understood, some people can experience archetypes intuitively with as much clarity as they can sense bodily organs.

           
A few of the most common archetypes are mother, father, child, wise old man, wise old woman, hero, witch, ogre, dog, cat, frog, dragon, tree, flowers, gas, water, ocean, river, iron, silver, gold, diamond, and stone. We can be identified by an archetype or we can become affected with one. To be identified with one means to be driven by its energy. To be affected by an archetype suggests that one is identified with another archetype. For example, one can be identified with the inner Child and be affected by the inner Critic (negative aspect of the father) who attacks with a put-down statement such as, "You made a terrible mistake; that shows how stupid you are!" The victimized Child's responses are likely to be guilt and either withdrawal or attack.

            Many years ago, I had a profound inner visionary kind of experience that led me to the hypothetical conclusion that at all times we (what has been called our egos) are identified with one archetype or another. At the time the visualization occurred, I was feeling very down - a combination of dark sadness and depression. In my meditation, I found myself utterly alone and prostrate on a featureless planet on which I was the sole occupant. I felt weighed down by the pain of existence (weltschmerz?), awe at the sight of the universe around me, and a profoundly deep sadness. I was experiencing all these feelings, when suddenly, I was no longer ON the planet; rather, I was out in space looking down at myself, and I was feeling deep compassion for the me that was prostrate on the planet. From that vantage point, the planet looked like a huge ball, and, while I could empathize with the distantly tiny me on the planet, the observer me was not at all depressed. That me felt only love, concern, and sympathy for the prostrate me. After a few moments, I suddenly experienced myself to be farther out in space overlooking the entire scene: the me on the planet and the me looking down at that me. In this third position, I had no feelings other than an intense interest in what I was observing. What a dramatic sight!

            After that, Intervals became shorter and shorter as the number of "me's" looking down at all the other "me's" multiplied until my head spun, each one situated further and further out in space looking down on all the "me's" below my highest vantage point. At some point --in self-protection, no doubt - I withdrew from the meditation quite shaken. What did it mean?

            Eastern religions speak of the inner "witness" that oversees whatever we experience or do, but in my vision there were witnesses witnessing witnesses to the nth degree! It occurred to me shortly after that experience that whatever I call 'I' is not stable or not always the same, and the ego - that which I call 'myself' -- can switch identities at different rates of speed and at different times. "So," 'I' asked 'myself', "What determines the identity at any particular time?" and "What initiates the changes that occur?" (The discussion concerns normal behavior, not Multiple Personality or Dissociative Identity Disorder, where individual parts of the personality - rather than each representing a unique archetype -- essentially move in to take over the consciousness of the personality.)

            Perhaps it is because I studied electrical engineering (B.S., Caltech, 1960) that my imagination came up with the image of a solenoid, which seems to represent the ego most clearly for me. A solenoid is made up of a coil of wire wound many times around a hollow cylindrical core in which a bar of iron is placed. It is most commonly used as an electrically operated dead bolt. When direct electric current (as from a battery) is sent through the wire coil in one direction, the bar moves rapidly through the core one way, and when the electric current is sent through the wire in the reverse direction, the bar leaps through the core in the opposite direction. Thus by throwing a switch one way or another, a door, for example, can be latched or unlatched.

            Now, imagine a solenoid-like psychological device with an infinite number of different "wires" coiled around a single open core. On one side of the cylindrical core is what affects us, and on the other side is the mind/personality that is affected and responds. There is nothing within the core, and the "wires" become "activated," so that information flows from inside out and from outside in.

            This device offers an image of a part of the structure of the personality in which all experience comes through the core in an inward direction and all behavior goes through the core outwardly. In other words, everything we do passes in one direction through the solenoid, and everything we perceive passes in the other direction. In a way, we might say that the penetrating, performing, outgoing, yang aspect of the personality functions in one direction and the receptive, containing, in-taking, yin aspect functions in the other direction. For me, ego is defined by what happens within the core of the solenoid, rather than the solenoid itself; that is, ego is function, not structure. So the solenoid is an image of that which generates ego function, but it is not the ego itself. (I acknowledge the paradoxical title of this essay.)

            The main idea is that each "wire" of the solenoid receives its energy from a unique archetype. The "wires" determine the nature, quality and quantity of what passes through the core - in either direction. As a simplified example, consider a scenario in which someone within earshot says, "I'm thirsty," or you alone, within yourself experience thirst, as if the body were saying, "I'm thirsty." The most prominent archetypes of the personality are, in my experience, mother, father, and child, in their positive and negative aspects. What, then, does the listener do? If it is the Child archetype that is activating the solenoid at the time, the thought or response might be, "I'm thirsty too" or "Me too; won't someone get us some water?" or "What do you want me to do about it?" or "Don't hate me if I don't get you some water" or "Get it yourself!" If the Critic (negative father) is concurrently activated, it might deliver the message, "You should be a good person and get some water for X!" or "If you ignore X and X's thirst, you are BAD" or some such comment that instills guilt in the child. The positive Father might be encouraging and have a constructive suggestion, such as, "It's easy to satisfy your thirst; you can do it! Just go to the cupboard, get a glass, and pour water from the sink spigot into it." The positive Mother is likely to say something like, "Oh, you dear person. I'll get you some water; just a moment!"

            The archetype can serve not only as the source of energy to the solenoid, but it has other functions as well. As we mature from infancy, we are supplied with - and sometimes creatively develop - images to represent the archetypes. It is through the images that the archetypal energies flow. An archetype can be represented by different images, and an image can sometimes represent more than one archetype. For example, the witch can represent the destructive negative Earth Mother, such as in the stories "Hansel and Gretel" and "The Two Brothers," and she finds her images in such goddesses as the Indian Ragda and Kali, a black hole, a whirlpool, a dragon, and many others. The witch can also represent Mother Nature, as in the stories "Rapunzel," in which the sorceress raises and nurtures the girl into maturity, and "The Beautiful Vasilisa," with the Russian witch, Baba Yaga, who can be as rewarding and helpful as she can be destructive, depending upon how she is treated.

            The point I am making here is that although an archetype may give rise to different images and a single image may represent different archetypes in different contexts, the energy behind any particular archetype is what activates the psychological solenoid to give rise to an image that gives meaning to the archetypal energy. I have often wondered if perhaps the archetypal energy arouses and Image-Maker part of us that synthesizes the image, and in that way brought meaning to consciousness of the otherwise unknowable archetype. Life offers many sources of an image that can come to represent an archetype: an experience, a pattern of experiences, or an image from a fairy tale, movie, novel, or comic book. In our daily activities, at any particular moment, it seems that a particular archetypal energy (or combination of energies) is activated and gives rise to an image (e.g., the positive, caring mother or father and the world the image we have of it), which determines how we function and behave. That can happen either consciously or unconsciously, i.e., with an activated, observing Witness or without it, respectively.

            ADDENDUM TO "EGO AS SOLENOID"

            The concept feels right, but my thinking function gets bogged down in trying to verbalize all aspects of what I intuit. Archetypes that need special consideration are the Image-maker/creator, the Interpreter, and the Witness. Also, inner activities can act in a Yang way that is treated by one's own Yin principle. For example, the Image-maker creates an image to represent something and presents it to another part of us; a reproof by the inner Critic attacks the inner Child; or the Witch observes the Child in a painful situation and somehow works with the Interpreter and Image-maker to create an image of pain that continues indefinitely unless the Child does her bidding. In my view, the Witch is responsible for predictions about the future, such as "You'll never be successful" or "He won't forgive you" or "If you climb the ladder, you'll surely fall down and break your neck." And it is the Child who often receives her predictions and responds with fear and anger.

            The Witness simply observes all that happens, without feeling or judgment. The Interpreter analyzes and explains meaning to another, receiving part or parts of us - be it the Witness, the Hero, the Parent, or whatever. For example, if the Witch is frightening the Child, the Interpreter might explain to the rest of the personality, "The witch is at it again, and the child is believing her." In response, the positive aspects of the Parents might join forces to comfort and reassure the inner Child. While we might be conscious of this inner drama, it can also proceed quite automatically. But when we reflect on what's happening within our minds, such that we can relate the process to ourselves or to someone else, a part of us focuses on those actions, and that part is what we have called ego. But the question that arises very loudly is this: is ego any different from whatever archetype is activated or controlling the personality at any particular moment?

            To explain my imagery of the multiple "me's," I think the one on the planet represents a suffering soul, the observer with feelings may be a parental archetype, and the remaining observers are all Witnesses, expressing the idea that the Witness can witness itself witnessing to infinity - a difficult concept, but I see no other explanation.

            END OF ORIGINAL ESSAY