About Charisma

I must apologise for my lack of attention to this blog, I understand that you’ve also been busy this week (as always!) – on the west coast of the United States of America?

Taking that particular scene from Pulp Fiction a little further didn’t Jules then tell Vincent that a dog wasn’t a filthy animal, because a dog had personality, and personality goes a long way ..?

You mentioned Carl Gustav Jung, I don’t know a lot about him but have been reading some references to him on the web this past week. Did you know that when he first met Sigmund Freud they apparently had a non-stop 13 hour long conversation? Freud’s son is on record as saying that during dinner Jung spoke directly and exclusively to Freud, ignoring the very existence of the rest of Freud’s family!

Jung did subscribe to dualism as you mention, the idea of good and evil, the yin and yang, the two sided nature of everything. He (apparently) managed to reconcile dualism with monism in this work Mysterium Coniunctionis. I find no evidence for his belief if any in a triune nature from what I have read so far. There are some things that sparked in my mind as I was investigating Jung:

He was into the Philosopher’s Stone and Alchemy. We talked about this stone in previous appends, so I found this connection statistically uncalled for. Jung time and again pointed out the affinity and contrast between alchemical figures and those of Christianity, demonstrating a sort of mirror-like analogy not only between the stone of the philosophers and the image of Christ, but between alchemy and Christianity themselves. Alchemy, said Jung, stands in a compensatory relationship to mainstream Christianity, rather like a dream does to the conscious attitudes of the dreamer. The Stone of alchemy is in many respects the stone rejected by the builders of Christian culture, demanding recognition and reincorporation into the building itself. Maybe this has something to do with my Christian friends not letting their children watch Harry Potter?

Jung also believed in the charismatic healer. I’m talking psychoanalysis here. Freud believed in a “method” for treating “mentally ill” patients. These “poor unfortunates” could be helped through the application of psychoanalytical method, the treatment often involving hypnotherapy, where the “answer” would usually have something to do with the patient realising that his problems were of a sexual nature (and the repression thereof). Freud felt that healing could be garnered through fastidious attention to a detailed method whereas Jung on the other hand believed that the patient could only really be healed through the charismatic personality of the doctor administering the method. I found this interesting coupled with that scene from Pulp Fiction that you started off!

So then I started to think about charismatic people. While I do believe that there have been many charismatic women throughout history, the term is usually applied to men. As an insult you might hear the phrase “he has had a charisma bypass” but you rarely hear the insult “she has had a charisma bypass”. Either all women have natural charisma, or it is not expected of them? Furthermore, our very our Prince Charles is getting married today and I cannot think of a better example of an individual totally lacking in any sort of charisma whatsoever, if indeed there are different sorts.

Incidentally, UK parliament has now dissolved in advance of the general election which takes place on May 5th. The leader of the Conservative Party, the opposition to Tony Blair’s government (Michael Howard), has himself been described as someone who has had a “charisma bypass”!

Then there is you oh bagwell, singularly you have scored the highest feedback marks from the recipients of your presentations, and I believe that partly you do so through your charismatic delivery. Reading your posts to this blog one cannot fail to get a sense of your charismatic personality and good charm.

Do you believe that Jesus was a charismatic teacher and leader? I feel that he may well have been. Was it these personal characteristics that helped people to follow him, or was it predominantly the miracles?

I am going to the Palisades tomorrow and need to return to the UK on Thursday so I unfortunately will not see you on this trip my brother.

Current music: The Godfather Soundtrack (aka Italian dinner music)

PS. We have had our first comment from Elaine to my “Power of three” append! Thank you Elaine, I’m still going with Jesus as the ID because he had personality.