The Crossroads of Philosophy, Psychology, and Religion: An Introduction to Shlomo Giora Shoham

Shlomo Giora Shoham is a researcher of nearly everything. He was trained in law, criminology, and psychology but has since devoted his time to writing on psychology, philosophy, religion, and the nature of reality. His works have been a continued interest of mine since I stumbled across his work in the library during my undergrad. At the core of much of his work is a theory of personality. He suggests that personality is made up of two opposing vectors: the separant and the participant.

The participant vector is the identification of the self with a person or persons, an object, a life form, or a symbol outside the self. It is also the self’s striving to lose its separate identity through fusion with this external entity. Meanwhile, the opposing vector is separation, or the separant vector. It is defined as the aim to sever and differentiate the self from surrounding life forms and objects. This seems fairly self explanatory. One part of the personality longs to become included in something, to become one with something or someone else. The other longs to be an individual, to stand apart from other beings and objects. Everyone has both vectors to varying degrees. One person might have a stronger separant vector while another might be more participatory in nature.

Neither aspect ever truly leaves an individual. The strain to overcome the separating and dividing pressures never leaves. Nor does the striving to partake in a pantheistic whole. The latter can take many forms: if one avenue towards its realization is blocked, it surges out from another channel. That being said, actual participation is unattainable by definition. The objective impossibility of participation is augmented by the countering separating vectors and both are instinctual and interactive.

At any given point in our lives there is a disjuncture, or a gap, between our yearning for participation and the subjectively defined distance from our participatory aims, how far we view ourselves from attaining this. (AAD, xxi). This disjuncture or gap is called the Tantalus Ratio, after the Olympian demi-god who could not ever reach the fruit he so longingly reached for. Nor could he ever drink from the crystal-clear stream next to him. The water would always disappear right before he went to drink.  

This ratio creates a strain between the longing for participation and the subjectively defined distance from our participatory aims. The intensity of this strain is determined by the factors that comprise the Tantalus ratio, which Shoham describes, and is the motivating force underlying an individual’s action. The participant and separant vectors provide the crude psychic energy behind actions and behavior. Meanwhile the Tantalus Ratio and the strain  that it generates provide the motivational directions for the individual’s actual behavior.

Shoham is in part responding to Freud and the other psychoanalysts theories. He is clarifying and fixing Freud and his disciples mistake of not clarifying the mechanisms of fixation. And because of this atthe heart of his premises is that the Tantalus ratio is most powerful at the outset of life and decreases in potency with each developmental stage, until it wanes in old age.

According to Freud’s original formulation of fixation, psychosexual energy is directed towards the erogenous zones, which also represent the major psychosexual development phases. If an infant is either overindulged or severely deprived in a specific developmental phase, the individual will muster a relatively large amount of psychosexual energy in order to overcome the frustrations the overindulgence or deprivation generates. The individual will also harness the energies to create alternative, defensive outlets because the normal manifestations of which have been blocked by the overindulgences or deprivations. This causes the growth processes to be stopped or injured at that developmental phase and the infant’s personality is not built properly.

Shoham suggests that Freud himself was not clear as to the nature of fixation and because of that he took many things for granted. One of which was the unconscious. Freud’s unconscious psyche appears to be a perfect data bank, one that stores all impressions, and all possible interactions of these impressions in a timeless progression. A fixation is thus an anchor of sorts on a given context of these impressions. The problem is that Freud doesn’t say how this anchoring comes about. So Shoham proposes an explanation based on the developmental phases of the personality core.

If the processes of transition from one developmental phase to the next are too painful, developmental wounds are formed and the psychic energies rush to mend it. Shoham envisions the developmental processes as an interplay between the separating forces of growth and interaction and the participating urge to revert back to an earlier developmental phase. The energy from this dynamic interplay between the vectors is the Tantalus Ratio as stated above.

If the separating effects of deprivational interaction are too intense or violent at any time, the developmental process is temporarily disconnected. This leads the participant vector and the energies of the Tantalus Ratio to repair the injury by covering it in developmental scar tissue, just as the body would with a physical wound. But, because development is a continuous process, as is life, the wound and scar tissue are still exposed to conflict and more pressure. They are unable to heal fully, just as a physical wound would be unable to heal if it was continually being scraped or pounded on. Because of this continual exposure, ever-thickening layers of scar tissues build up. These, a result from the trauma of fixation, are like a painful wart protruding from the skin on the bottom of a foot. It is painful because of the pressure constantly placed on it and the excessive scar tissue that might build up makes the whole area around the wart sensitive. This makes that entire area around the foot weak and vulnerable. Developmental wounds function similarly.

The nature of fixation is the combined outcome of the traumatizing injury and the excessive and frantic patching of the layers of developmental scar tissue through the psychic energies of the Tantalus ratio in an attempt to heal the wound as it is still being wounded. The harsher and more continuous the trauma, the thicker the layers of defensive scar tissue. A fixation is an over-traumatized developmental experience, more conspicuous and more sensitive, and consequently more vulnerable than the rest of the developmental texture of the personality, just as the wart and surrounding area are more vulnerable than the rest of the foot.

Unlike Freud’s fixation, Shoham’s fixation is not related to pathological regressions, but to the crystallization of character traits and personality types. Regression then, is not conditioned by fixation but rather is a defensive flight to an earlier developmental phase. The longing for that earlier developmental phase is present in the participation vector of the personality core. The severity of fixation is related to the magnitude of the developmental trauma and the corresponding intensity of defenses mustered by the Tantalus Ratio. Just as there can be a fixation of the participant vector, there can also be a fixation of the separant personality vector. These are related to the crystallization of a separate self at later orality out of the pantheistic mass of totality and early orality. This is the ontological base-line by which the self is defined by the nonself, the object. This formation of the self marks the cutting-off point for the most basic developmental dichotomy, from birth and early orality to the phase where the ego boundary is formed around the emerging individual.

Any fixation that might happen in the first phase is not registered by a separate self (this self is not capable of discerning between objects, which are the source of fixation-causing trauma, and themselves as the recipient). The entity that experiences this is a non-differentiated pantheistic totality. However, if the traumatizing fixation happens at the later oral phase after the objects have expelled the self from their togetherness by a depriving interaction with it, then this self might be in a position to be able to attribute the cause of pain and deprivation to its proper source (the objects).

This personality typology is anchored on the developmental dichotomy of pre- and post- differentiation of the self. If the personality was fixed before the formation of the self it is a participant or a Tantalic type (after Tantalus, whose punishment has already been described). If the traumas fixate personality after the crystallization of the self then the Sisyphean (separant) type is bound to emerge. Sisyphean is named after the Greek demi-god Sisyphus who was punished by having to roll a stone to the top of a hill and whenever he got close to the summit the stone would roll back down and he would have to start over again.

He envisions this as a sort of continuum.  From least separant possible to most separant possible and from least participant to most participant. Pure separant or pure participant personalities, cultures, etc. are impossible. Everything contains at least a slight amount of the other type of personality.

Least Separant qualities <———————– > Most Separant qualities        
Least Participant qualities <———————– > Most Participant qualities

Shoham applies this Tantalic/Sisyphean or participant/separant dichotomy to virtually everything: politics, the world’s religions, social character, mythologies, psychology, philosophy, etc. However, to say that all his work is is the application of these vectors would be doing him a great disservice. In other blog posts I will explore some of his other ideas more in depth. However, below I will give some examples of his application of the participant/separant vectors to various ideas.  

Social Character and Cultures

Shoham suggests that his core personality continuum can be applied to the social characteristics of groups or cultures. The family and other socializing agencies transmit the norms and values of the group, which the individual then internalizes. The social characteristics are not a complete composite portrait of a culture. It only can portray the essential traits and does not include the nuances or peripheral traits. And, just like individuals, societies and cultures can be placed on a continuum of participant and separant traits as well, or at least slices of a culture can be, as it is impossible to fully capture a culture’s totality in something as short as this.

The first contrast Shoham notes is between separant and partipant cultures is the degree of orientation towards action. The polarization of social characters has influenced the thought and development of observers and cultures throughout history. One example is of Paramenides and Heraclitis. Paramenides founded the Eleatic school of philosophy on the basis that reality is static. This is the basic tenant of inaction common to the participant ideals of Toaism, Hinayana Buddhism, the Muslim Sufis, and the quietist Hasidim. Meanwhile, Heraclitis postulated a universality of flux, the strife between opposites that sweeps everything into a dynamic flow of change. This is the basis of Hegelian dialectics, as well as of the Marxist creed of historical materialism, which postulates salvation through action.

The second contrast is between unity and plurality. The participant cultures say that one must rid one’s thoughts of the illusory perceptions of the senses in order to reach the monistic wholeness behind the deceptions of plurality. Shoham suggests this is why the Parmenidean sphere, which represents an all-present wholeness, is a parallel to the three-dimensional mandala which is a prevalent symbol of the Tantalic cultures of the Far East. Meanwhile, the separant conception of reality follow Pythagoras and Heraclitus who saw the universe as ordered into measured pluralities that follow the universal formula of sequence and dynamic harmonies within inter-related boundaries.

The third contrast is between the ideal of constancy in the participant cultures and that of relationship in separant ones. If plurality is an illusion and the veil of Maya, and the sole reality is unity, then all relationships are also illusory, because unity cannot interact with itself. For the Sisyphean cultures relations with space and time and with other human beings are the frame of reference of human life, and must be coped with by integration, adjustment, and solidarity.

The fourth contrast is the emphasis of separant cultures on reason, formula, and models that explain man and his universe. However, reason, system, and comprehension kill as they cognize. What is cognized becomes a rigid object capable of measurement and subdivision, while intuitive vision incorporates the details in a living, inwardly felt unity as the participant would see it.

The fifth contrast is of Sisyphean tool-orientation which is geared towards the manipulation of objects and the Tantalic symbol-oriented culture in which ideas and belief systems are centered on inwardly contemplative individuals, immersed in “doing” their own thing.

Myths

Shoham, like Eliade and Jung, uses myths not only as an illustration of theoretical premises but as their empirical anchors. Because myths reflect the occurrence of events at a high level of abstraction they also can reveal the principles or designs that underlie events. He follows Jung in saying that “Myths cannot be divorced from the human personality.” Shoham argues that myths are also projections of the development of the species, as paralleled in the development of the individual.

For example, as the Apocalypse of Baruch states that “every man is the Adam of his own soul”, this can be interpreted to mean that every human experiences original sin as a stage of development which would make the myth of the fall a projection of the individual, yet universal, human developmental experience. But, myths can only become archetypal projections of human experience if that certain experience is widespread. So, the more common a particular developmental experience is, the greater the probability that it will become a mythical projection. Shoham suggests that the universality of the myth of the fall indicates that the corresponding developmental phase (the separation of the individual self from the unified whole of early orality) is, in fact, experienced by every human being. Myths, however, have many layers and so the myth of the fall can also be understood as a projection of the crystallization of the self at early orality. Myths can sever as an empirical anchor for both core personality dynamics and the structure and processes of social characters. He calls this method “mytho-empiricism.”

Myths can also be expressions of overt behavior and covert dynamics, both of the here-and-now and transcendence. Shoham says that their dimensions can range from micro-myths (which include names of people and places representing experiences or quests) to meta-myths (those of Sisyphus and Tantalus which represent the polar types of human behavior in individuals and groups).

Shoham also views myths as containing both participant and separant vectors within their stories. For example, he views Judaic myths are more participant, whereas Greek myths are situated on the separant pole. For him separant cosmogenic myths involve the reordering of ever-existing matter, while participant cosmogenic myths depict the transition from non-being to being, deemed “death” or exile from the timelessness and boundlessness of spirituality. Separant myths are time bound, whereas participant ones transcend time, tending toward the ahistorical and circular. Sisyphean-dominated cultures and myths are diachronic, moving from one point in time to another, whereas the Tantalic-dominated cultures and myths are synchronic, with time spans either overlapping or nonexistant.

The Self

For Shoham, the concept of the self involves consistency and continuity. The self is the consistent and continuous inner sameness of the individual in relation to his environment. This can be disturbed, however, in cases of hallucinations, mystical experiences, and in cases of madness. The personality cores come into play here. Shoham calls the participant core of the self ani. Ani translates as “I” in Hebrew, but in the Kabbalistic tradition ani and ain (nothingness) are interchangeable and synonymous.  So, the ani, the “I”, longs for participant non-being and as such is the Tantalic objectless component of the self. The interactive object-related component of the self is the atzmi, which translates to “myself.” The root of atzmi is etzem, meaning “object”, which accounts for its relation to the separant vector.

Shoham says that the atzmi is the interactive, relational self which reaches out towards the objects around it. The ani, on the other hand, transcends space and time and reaches inwards towards a pre-differentiated unity. The ani does not need to have an object. In cases such as meditation, mystical experiences, madness, drug-induced euphoria, or even in orgasms the ani has no awareness of itself as being separate from its surroundings. The boundaries of the self dissolve, ego dissolution, and temporary objectless unity can occur. The ani, in its pure form is objectless and non-relational. Logic, deduction, and inference do not apply to it. The atzmi, however, must have a subject and an object. There must be a perceiver and a perceived. The atzmi can also perceive the body and the ani, which is the ontological self, as objects. It is, by definition, a relational entity and can be studied by its interactions with its surroundings.

The ani precedes the existence of the atzmi, as the non-differentiated entity before birth and at the early stages of orality. It is then separated and confined within spatio-temporality by the deprivational interactions with its surroundings as mentioned earlier. In other words, the self moves from a wholly participatory state to a state of separation which is due to non-idealistic interactions with objects other than itself.  The ani is mostly unconscious because its source is anchored in pre-differentiated non-awareness where space and time of consciousness have not yet developed. The ani is, according to Shoham, suspended in a Bergsonian duree-like flow of a continuous presence. It further projects onto the transcendence archetypes of the Upanishadic Purasha, the Kabbalist Adam Kadmon, and the Gnostic primordial man. It drives a predominantly holistic view of the universe as many mystics have held. The ani regards the discrete pluralistic views of reality that the atzmi holds as partial views. The ani is not governed by the rules of causality. Causal simultaneity and synchronicity are just different manifestations of the same phenomenon stemming from one single source, while the atzmi holds space, time, and linear causality as inherent. 

The third aspect of the self is the ity, which means “with me” in Hebrew. Shoham says that the ity is the syntheizer of the dialectical conflicts that occur within the self. It is the structured Tantalus Ratio located within the self. It is the coordinator of human action because of its synthesizing function, which can be related to the Freudian concept of the ego. The ity determines its ability to contain the self within a dynamic system in balance based on its strength or weakness in relation to the strength or weakness of the ani and the atzmi. It is not, however, the executive or commander as Freud and Jung’s ego would be. It is a force, a dialectical one created by the pressures acting on it from within and without. This dynamic systems-in-balance is a microcosm of the universal system-in-balance which pervades all mythos and physical reality. It stems from the holonic property of life forms and objects. Holonic is a term created by Arthur Koestler that refers to the hierarchy of sub-wholes which function as part of a hierarchy and as quasi-autonomous wholes at the same time. They are Janus-faced as Koestler would say. They face turned upward, towards higher levels is that of a dependent part. The face that is turned downwards towards its own constituents is that of a whole that is self-sufficient. 

System-in-balance

Shoham views the necessity of a system-in-balance or equilibrium to be a necessity for life forms and objects at all levels of existence, and much of what he does is tracing these mytho-empirical anchors. These, he suggests, are found throughout physics and especially at quantum levels (he’s a fan of David Bohm’s work).  He suggests the fragile nature of humans’ system in balance on all three levels of their being: biological, personal, and social. For example, Shoham discusses the role of outside stimuli on Sisyphean and Tantalic personalities. He suggests that, on the biological level, the activist Sisyphean type needs the initial arousal more than the Tantalic type to initiate his functioning.  On the personality level, the Tantalic persons are averse to stimuli while the Sisyphean persons yearn for them. And, on the social level, the Sisypheans are group performers while the Tantalic ones are loners. He uses these three traits to show the vulnerability of the system in balance for all three levels which are interrelated to the person as a holonic entity. When one level is exposed to trauma, they try to mend themselves on another level as discussed above. But, if this mending is not successful, the individual might die or become insane/alienated. Here, Shoham suggests that there isn’t any intrinsic difference between the vulnerability of man’s system in balance and God’s system in balance. Both require mending if they have been disrupted. This is what allows for constant change in both humans and the divine. They are both in the constant process of becoming. It is in this becoming, in this system in balance that provides the precedent for revelation and creativity. Revelation can only flow through a balanced infrastructure. It is then transmitted to others and to God as a Universal Thou. Through creativity, humans are the connecting link between what Shoham calls the mindless, valueless demiurgos and the powerless and silent Godhead. Humans are what create the equilibrium between psyche and soma, or between God and his creation. 

An example of this Shoham gives is in the Kabbalah.  The sefirot are divided into three heads: left, middle, and right. The right side is dominated by attributes of God we would describe as participant-tantalic (wisdom and grace). The left side is separant-sisyphean dominated (intelligence and stern judgement). The middle presents a dialectical synthesis (crown, glory, and kingdom). Shoham suggests that the sefirotic structure is  holonic and permeates all of creation and transcendence. It is what postulates the meta principle of system in balance which regulates the ability of God and humans and their relationships. It is in Lurianic Kabbalah that the light which radiates from infinity and builds the worlds is the kav hamida (the ray of balance) which is what builds the world in measures and balances. A disharmony between the divine light that flows from infinity and the emanated containers (vessels) which were meant to hold Knowledge and the Tree of Life caused the “breaking of the vessels.” The purpose of mending is to restore the harmony between countenances of divinity. The mending of the broken vessels and the scattered sparks of divinity is humankind’s duty in the world. In doing so humankind can overcome spatio-temporality. By their good deeds in the world, their Sisyphean tasks, humans can be redeemed and achieve a union with divinity, their participation. Each act is one in the continuous process of mending. This is but one example of the systems in balance at work. 

He has written an enormous corpus of work on a variety of subjects. For example, he characterizes his book The Myth of Tantalus as explaining how the individual psyche develops from a pantheistic unity until it is ejected, through conflict and deprivation, from its sense of holistic oneness to that of a separate entity. In his book The Violence of Silence, he describes how the individual strives towards other humans, flora, fauna, and even inanimate objects, trying to achieve as deep of an encounter as possible. In The Promethean Connection he examines the link between consciousness and quantum mechanics and tries to trace the dynamics by which the human cognitive processes may “collapse” a nondescript, hazy “soup” of energy into a well-defined state. In Salvation Through the Gutters he provides a comprehensive interdiscipinary work on the philosophy and theology of crime. He uses ideas and concepts from psychoanalysis, theology, religion, literature, developmental psychology, and the Kabbala to present an interpretation of deviance in terms of behavioral and biopsychological developmental processes.

References/Further Reading

Shlomo Giora Shoham. Ark in the Authentic Domain. Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006.
—– The Mytho-Empiricism of Gnosticism: Triumph of the Vanquished. Sussex Academic Press, 2003.
—– The Violence of Silence: The Impossibility of Dialogue. Transaction Books, 1983.
—– And Man Created God. Cambridge Scholars Press, 2011. 
—– “The Tantalus Ratio: A Scaffolding for Some Personality-Core Vectors.” The Journal of Genetic Psychology 126 (1975), 119-144.
https://www.tau.ac.il/~shoham/