Character Maturity As A Spiritual Challenge

Character Maturity As A Spiritual Challenge

Reimar Banis

Character and Psychoenergy

Character – basic personality – is usually considered to be an opaque entity that one simply has to live with. It wouldn’t normally occur to most people that their character could be changed, or that it could have anything to do with personal difficulties, even illnesses. I maintain, however, that a person’s character is intimately related to psychoenergetic disorders. Disturbed psychoenergy leads in turn to reduced vibrations and even discordant polarization, which then lowers the ability to withstand stress and, over the long run, can provoke illnesses.

Moreover, these disturbances interfere with one’s self-perception, and the ability to express one’s needs correctly. Since that basically encompasses the entire person, disturbed psychoenergy has a direct relationship to a person’s character; ultimately, in fact, it’s the flipside of the same coin – so it’s no surprise that harmonizing psychoenergy often has a positive effect on a person’s character. It can even lead to people discovering a deeper meaning in their lives, one which usually has a religious dimension. To this extent, personal and spiritual growth would seem to be closely interrelated.

Psychosomatic Energetics

About ten years ago, I developed a new alternative-medicine method, Psychosomatic Energetics (PSE), with which one can determine, within minutes, which emotional conflicts a person has. This is done with the aid of specific homeopathic compound remedies that enter into resonance with the conflicts, small test vials of which are introduced into a person’s energy field, which alter the reaction to whichever energy test one is administering, whether kinesiological, electroacupuncture or some other procedure. For most people, one will find just a single conflict (out of 28 possible) that acts both energetically as an “energy thief” and upon the subconscious in a subversive and self-destructive manner. Over the course of a number of months of PSE treatment, new conflicts will usually surface one after the other. Eventually, most patients will exhibit a particularly large conflict known as the Central Conflict.

In time, it became clear that people with the same Central Conflict are remarkably similar character-wise. For instance, people with the Rage conflict are often overly accommodating: this is how they subconsciously see to it that they’ll be exploited by others – which ultimately incites rage. Now of course, people with the Rage theme don’t consciously intend to bring this about, yet it happens to them all the time. Psychologically, this behavioral pattern is referred to as belonging to the choleric personality (in whom the bile overflows) or as being synonymous with a depressive character type (because pent-up aggression is known to “de-press” one emotionally). 2

Character Diagnosis

One would normally ascertain a person’s character by means of laborious psychological tests, but now it can be done in a manner of minutes with the aid of Psychosomatic Energetics. It normally takes a long time to get to know a person that well. The people who best know a person’s character type are family members, close friends and the person’s spouse. It is thus understandable that most of my patients are so surprised that a stranger like myself can know them so well. My evaluation is based entirely on the character type, whose script I know and can therefore predict reliably how a person feels generally and how he or she will behave in certain situations.

Over the course of several months’ therapy with Psychosomatic Energetics, I observe, in two-thirds of the cases, that their Central Conflict at some point becomes active. Knowing the Central Conflict tells me what character type a particular person is. If, after the test, I explain to the patient what’s up with their character type, this often proves to be emotionally an extraordinarily enriching opportunity to understand themselves and their fellow humans better. Surprisingly, patients are for the most part largely unaware of their own emotional theme, kind of like not noticing the glasses at the end of one’s nose. On the other hand, if one sees it reflected from the outside, it usually becomes clear at once.

Character and Energy Centers

I’d first like to briefly define what I mean by character. Normally, this means the sum total of a persons’ innate and acquired characteristics; my interpretation goes beyond this, because I am convinced – based on numerous indications that I cannot, for reasons of space, go into in more detail here – of the karmic permanence of character. Just as one carries one’s Central Conflict from one incarnation to the next, one always possesses roughly the same character type. And yet, for me “character” is also something acquired, although to a lesser degree than current personality research presupposes.

Historically, the concept of character harks back to the masks worn in early stage plays: the ancient Greeks spoke of persona (this is also whence the term personality is derived) when referring to an actor’s mask. Just as the mask enables one to foresee an actor’s behavior, one’s character sees to it that, in everyday life, one’s characteristics and behavior will be foreseeable. Character is thus something like a script that subconsciously guides and influences us – as a rule, without our noticing it – and ensures that others can “get a handle on” us and act accordingly.

The oldest system of character analysis comes from Hippocrates, the founding father of western medicine. In the Modern Era, his classification system was adopted unchanged by psychoanalysts such as Schulz-Hencke and the psychologist Hans Fig 1 Theater masks (Latin persona) 3 Eysenck, which to my mind speaks well for the scientific robustness of this system – and for the fact that people in ancient Greece were, in their essence, basically the same as we are today. My research has shown that this system agrees amazingly well with certain psychoenergetic energy centers (the so-called Chakras). Because conflicts are always anchored to specific energy centers – such as the Rage conflict in the upper abdomen (3rd Chakra), one can assign the four Hippocratic character types to these energy centers (see Fig. 2).

Ancient Temperament Melancholy Sanguine Choleric Phlegmatic H. Schulz-Henke and his disciple Fritz Riemann Schizoid Hysteric Depressive Obsessive-compulsive Chakra (except Heart) 1 & 7 (Pelvis and Crown) 2 & 6 (Lower abdomen and Brow) 3 (Upper abdomen) 5 (Neck) Fig. 2 – Ancient temperaments, modern psychiatric concepts and associated energy centers According to this, if one detects a Central Conflict in the neck region (Emotional emptiness or Hasty conflict), then one is dealing with a phlegmatic (obsessive-compulsive) character. My tests on thousands of patients has now shown that this is virtually always the case, as long as one concentrates on a character’s core symptoms. For phlegmatics, for example, this includes a predominantly intellectual orientation or a high degree of perfectionism.

Characteristics of the Character Types

Based on experience with Psychosomatic Energetics, nearly every person can be unequivocally assigned to a specific character type (see Fig. 3) – including, interestingly enough, in many cases even young children. This agrees with the latest findings in personality research, according to which specific character traits can be detected in children from the age of 3 on, which will persist for the rest of their lives. With very simply-structured people, it’s sometimes hard to come up an unambiguous classification. Still and all, the nominal success rate is more than 90% of all cases.

Sanguine type Melancholic type Choleric type Phlegmatic type Lively-sensual and exciting, empathizes well with others, enjoys intensely, enthuses easily, avoids commitments Somewhat reserved, rationalist, strategic, has trouble warming up to others Externally aggression-inhibited, caring-altruistic, social conformist, empathic, emotionally warm Loves structure and order, perfectionist, likes things to run smoothly, rationalist Fig. 3 Typical characteristics of the four character types Each of the four character types has either a more emotional or a more intellectual orientation – which means that every person is missing an essential mental component that he or she has subconsciously “tuned out”. For instance, overly 4 emotional people have trouble handling money intelligently, or drawing up a prioritized task list and sticking to it. Their mission should therefore be to work on developing their rational side, so as to get along better in everyday life. The opposite holds for intellectuals, who have trouble reacting spontaneously, for example, and expressing their emotions openly and sincerely.

Spiritual Growth and Conflicts

Time and again, whenever I examine mentally mature, psychoenergetically advanced people, I notice something interesting: they very often no longer have a definite intellectual or emotional orientation because they’ve already taken the important developmental step of overcoming their character-typical lopsidedness. Presumably, they have been working on their character throughout many past incarnations. Such “old souls” come across to others as inherently harmonious and well-adjusted. They stand out because they are better able to express what their actual desires and needs are. Most of these patients have a high Causal Level (above 80%). They usually believe strongly (even if they’re atheists) that the world we live in is, as a whole, meaningful and benevolent.

In this context, spirituality is often erroneously equated with belief in a deity, but that seems a bit biased to me. I think that the Salutogenesis model (Hygiene) best illustrates what the deal is here. This model was first worked out in the seventies by the medical sociologist Aaron Antonovsky, as he looked into what kept people healthy even when subjected to extreme provocations. He examined about a thousand women in Israel who had been interned in Nazi concentration camps. In so doing, it struck him that about a third of the women exhibited no signs of emotional, physical or social trauma. Apparently, these women were far better able to endure the horrors than the rest – and the big question was why. In his interviews, Antonov came across a trait that he dubbed a “sense of coherence” which, in his opinion, had helped maintain these women’s health. This sense of coherence can be designated as a general feeling of implicit trust.

In my opinion, one automatically develops this kind of primal trust in Creation as soon as one has resolved the greater portion of one’s emotional conflicts. Normally, this involves an enormous effort in the form of a maturation and learning process. With spiritually advanced persons, this has presumably extended over many incarnations. My experience in daily practice has shown that such a process proceeds much more rapidly once the conflicts have been energetically dissolved, e.g. with Psychosomatic Energetics. I’ve noted particularly strong and lasting effects as soon as patients eliminate their Central Conflict. They often re-acquire the primal trust (sense of coherence) that Antonovsky spoke of. At the same time, I observe in them a rounding-out of their personality, as emotional and intellectual character traits more and more reach a mutual equilibrium.

Spiritual growth involves, above all, overcoming the emotional dark side that is bound up with the conflict contents of the Central Conflict. In psychology, the shadow is made up of those psychic components that we subconsciously reject and therefore “airbrush out of the picture”. But since we basically really do have these components within us (although denying them), we are prone to project them onto others. In a 5 patient with the Rage Central Conflict – a choleric type – the shadow consists of his own repressed aggressive impulses, so he will tend to idealistically glorify his pacifism while at the same time demonizing others who seem too aggressive to him. Aggression-inhibited people need to learn, first, to really take note of their own needs and desires, and then to practice openly expressing them instead of constantly swallowing their anger and demonizing others.

Although many people are aware of the need to change their behavior, it is often, as we all know, practically speaking quite hard to accomplish. One is thwarted by subconscious resistance that has to do with one’s own emotional conflicts. My experience, and that of many other therapists who practice along similar lines, has been that conflicts can be lastingly dissolved by the use of certain homeopathic compound remedies. In the subtle energy field (the so-called Aura), conflicts seem to act like a blockage. If these conflicts are eliminated, emotional equilibrium is often restored to an amazing degree, thereby initiating emotional maturation processes, often without any need whatever for external intervention such as discussions. It would seem that most people can regenerate their once fallow potential on their own, and heal themselves, as soon as the inhibiting psychoenergetic blockages have been cleared away.

Bibliography

Banis, Reimar: Durch Energieheilung zu neuem Leben [New Life through Energy Healing] Via Nova Petersberg 2002

Eysenck, Hans: The structure of human personality Transaction Publishers 1998

Murphy, Michael: Der Quantenmensch – ein Blick in die Entfaltung des menschlichen Potentials im 21.Jahrhundert [Quantum Man – A Glimpse into the Unfolding of Human Potential in the 21st Century] Integral Scherz-Verlag Munich 1998

Wilber, Ken: Wege zum Selbst [Pathways to the Self] Kösel Munich 1984.

Woolger, Roger: Die vielen Leben der Seele - Wiedererinnerung in der therapeutischen Arbeit [The Many Lives of the Soul – Recall and Recollection in Therapy] Hugendubel Munich 1992.

Author’s address: Dr.med. Reimar Banis, MD Facharzt für Allgemeinmedizin Grossmatt 3 CH 6052 Hergiswil SWITZERLAND 6