The Great Dismemberment: Trauma-conomy and the path to Wholeness
Reclaiming the Sacred Self in a Divided Society
The paradox of healing and the modern world is a weird one. Healing has brought me to a place of wholeness, but the world isn’t designed for people who’ve stepped out of its narrow frameworks. It feels like being whole means you can no longer operate in the world that is. The thing is when we look at Western Society, most people live fragmented lives, shaped by societal expectations, roles, and unconscious patterns. Society itself is built around these fragmented dynamics. These ego-driven systems. Modern systems prioritize productivity, competition, and conformity over self-awareness and authenticity.
It uses trauma as the fuel for civilisation. Many societal structures are upheld by people coping with unprocessed trauma, seeking validation, security, or power to compensate for inner wounds. With this as well, we can see that conflict is the currency of society. It’s systems thrive on duality, us vs. them, success vs. failure, scarcity vs. abundance. This conflict-driven mindset underpins much of human interaction. When someone healed and embraced wholeness, they are no longer operating from the same fragmented dynamics. They have stepped out of the game where scarcity, validation, or ego-driven pursuits define ones choices. But society hasn’t evolved to support this state of being. Society is sadly now in its current state about seeking instant satisfaction, consumerism and various ways to hide the pain of psychic dismemberment.
To those still operating from trauma or ego, wholeness can feel threatening. It holds up a mirror to their unhealed wounds, often triggering defensiveness or rejection. Employers, communities, or systems see wholeness as nonconformity or even weakness. For example, a three-year healing journey like my own might be viewed as "laziness" in a world that glorifies non-stop productivity.
The Dismemberment of the Self
As I wrote in “The Inner Child and the Warrior: The Spiritual Roots of Social Justice”, Most people including Christians are unconscious of these dynamics tied to the scapegoat complex. It is their own big true “sin”. To keep nailing Jesus to the cross. As from a Jungian lens he is a symbol of the Self. The archetype of wholeness. Yet this wholeness is demonized, scapegoated and cut apart. This has been going on since the beginning of civilisation itself. I wrote about it too in “The Eternal Dance: Ego, Duality, and the Shadow of Humanity”. With Gilgamesh and Enkidu. The death of the primal man, and with it the splitting of the soul of man into two. Something hated and something clung to, which can never be obtained, due to the nature of said splitting. Instead of being about psycho-spiritual development as the ancient Pagans made it to be, to reconcile this split and manage the tensions this produces, Enkidu the beloved friend of Gilgamesh has become in the eyes of many Satan. This horrid beast of primal man that is whole and innocent. It is as if seeing a child and calling it fallen and evil, for it is whole and not yet fragmented and broken.
We tear ourselves apart into paradoxes and contradictions, trying to serve and please virtue and being a good person. We make of ourselves ghost mommies, denying our own needs and humanity. Yet the true good person is a whole one. Yet we demonize half of ourselves, so we never can truly be good. We try to act like it, but will always fail to truly BE good. Now throughout millennia of human history, the fragmentation of the archetypes, such as for instance the feminine into fragments instead of the wholeness of the Sovereignty Goddess, we are stuck with pieces of a former whole. Personal and Cultural complexes. Coping mechanisms we all have constructed and are formed the moment societal conditioning starts to take place.
In this way every child undergoes the horrors of all previous generations. The slow dismembering of the Self into fragments. Torn apart by the Titans of culture. This is why language is both a blessing and a curse. It allows us to pass through information, yet at the same time this is how personal and societal complexes can get past on from one generation to the next. Through our stories. The narratives we tell ourselves and about others. Which then next inform people’s behaviours, and we perpetuate the trauma’s caused by the myriad of horrors that befell humanity. The trauma we go through is not just our own, it is intergenerational, and within the entire structure of society itself with its narratives. In that way a woman alive now still in some way goes through the trauma of the witch hunts that distorted the feminine. As trauma is not only past on within the family, but in societal stories.
Really the only way back towards wholeness, is to have to undo all the conditioning we went through, and do the arduous journey of putting back together the pieces of the whole. What we all have repressed due to our own personal trauma, but in the bigger sense the cultural trauma we have endured. All the distortions of the various concepts such as masculine, feminine, light, dark, order and chaos.
The Real Purpose of Civilisation
Yet the real purpose of civilisation is not mere survival, order or belonging. The entire framework of civilisation itself in its most ancient sense is a psycho-spiritual civilizational framework of psycho-spiritual development of its people. To allow the healthy flourishing of said people and their off spring. Leading to both prosperity, connection to the whole (think divine, nature and each other) and the furthering of the development of the culture. This has historically been a fundamental aspect of what pagan civilization aimed to achieve. While survival and order are necessary for any functioning society, the ultimate goal of civilization is the flourishing of life. This means fostering environments where people can develop emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically, leading to enriched cultural practices and community cohesion. To nurture people into healthy, connected beings, contributing to culture and community.
Rites of Passage
In the ancient pagan days, we had rites of passages for young men and women. Guided by protector deities and role models like Artemis and Apollo. The young children (boys and girls) between age 5 to 8 where taught about the environment and the wisdom of nature under the care of Artemis. Where later young adolescent women as Arktoi would go through the Arkteia rite of passage. Becoming bears of Artemis, wearing the sacred Krokotos robe. Where they with other peers, guided by the priestesses of Artemis could learn about womanhood, from other women. Where they could be safe to explore who they are, so they could enter society as healthy, caring, strong and independent women.
Where the young adolescent men as ephebe of Apollo, the Fianna of Ireland, and in the more ancient sense Koryos warrior, went through this rite of passage instead. The Fianna for instance had three mottoes. Purity of our hearts. Strength of our limbs. Action to match our speech. They were guided by an elder who became a mentor figure for them, whilst on their journey in the wilderness. So the young men of the tribe would become healthy, strong, compassionate and independent men. Men who can protect their tribe like wild wolves, yet be gentle and kind to their families. Those who guided these young people through it and the linked deities like Apollo and Artemis, were the protectors of the youth. A role for instance the amphipoloi of Artemis would be proud of. They were those who after having gone through the rites themselves served as guides and protectors.
This is why the Korybantic Path is so important. They are the protectors of the inner child, who protect them from the Titans. The forces of self-betrayal, hyper-rationality and chaos, that come to destroy that sacred inner child within us. The seed of the soul, that is yet to blossom into wisdom and beauty. As parents and society as a whole we are the stewards of the future generations. The thing is that the parents of today raise children, who become the parents of the future. So in the ancient times every child went through these rites, to ensure that they could become healthy, grounded and connected individuals. Officially part of society. Where they were not even allowed to marry unless going through them, thus forbidden from marriage and having a family.
The reason being simple. If we do not protect and nurture the young and help them, through these rites to grow and become healthy grounded people, fit to be healthy parents, we rob not only them of their future, but we rob all future generations of theirs. In a more modern sense we understand this as intergenerational trauma. Parenting practices affect not just individual families but the fabric of society as a whole. Thus these rites were and are highly important for any civilization if it wants to thrive and not fall into decay. Modern society might see this as “weakness” or even “coddling” children. Yet how do we promote growth, if we traumatise and fragment people and cause them suffering. There will always be things to deal with in the world as a whole. People might break a leg, get sick, people die and all that. It will always happen, that is indeed inevitable. Yet being cruel to a child won’t make them more “strong”, only emotionally numb and disconnected from their true Self. This way we set up people to fail and produce themselves further broken families. Where the trauma compounds upon each other, until we get a society that scapegoats others and is at each others throats. Yet maybe it is time to go inward for many people and to focus on their healing?
