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Vol. XIX, No. 1
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the coming of the world civilsation.
And the twentieth century, as we have described in this study. opens a new civilisational curve, with the dicovery of the subatomic and the sub-psychic cosmos. While the first two curves expanded towards the external world and functioned primarily at the level of the Ego, the second curve is expanding towards the internal world and is going to function primarily at the level of the Self. .
In the evolution of the Ego,i.e, of Civilisation, Freud identified three progressive stadia : the oral stage, the anal
ge. the genital stage, which may be characterised as physical, mental, spiritual stages. Contemporary civilisation refused to go beyond the oral stage, of consuming and other oral and bodily satisfactions. It is imprisoned in collective egoism and narcissism in a way that exploitation of the planet and the fellow human beings is derailing the evolutionary processes as such. The gap between man and man, and man and nature has brought about such an acute pathological condition in our total civilisational context that we will have to venture meta psychic analysis and therapy aiming at a collective healing. The goal sought in such a collective psycho-analysis is not individuation or self-actualisation, which is the case in individual analysis. What we seek collectively is liberation, human liberation. Collective liberation-internal and external
Such collective internal. i.e. spiritual, liberation has been the goal of religions. But the internal liberation has also an external dimension, a historical dimension. While the Eastern civilisations stressed the inward liberation, the Western civilisation emphasised its outward, i.e. historical connotation, i.e. freedom from need, and freedom for the pursuit of happiness, and achieved these goals in the course of the modern period. But this external liberation still remains the central historical goal of the non-Western civilisations. Whether they will also have a chance to achieve the goal which the West has achieved is the crucial
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