The Paradoxical Ego
Published on 20. August 2017
Book
Hardback
128 pages
978-1-872240-32-9 (ISBN)
Description
Three particular themes are basic to this study. First, that the human race and its environment are involved in a slowly progressive process of revelation and understanding of its inherent features. And that we are all participating in this ongoing evolutionary cycle. Second, and closely related to the first tenet, man is not separable from his environment. We all share in this cyclic development. Third, that our egoic structures, with the data and experiences they involve, can play a key role in our personal understanding of this ongoing developmental process. The role of the ego is paradoxical. It can be a relatively stable reference used to enhance personal insight concerning its own dynamic structure and similar aspects of its environment. Or it can be maintained with a rigidity that hinders progressive learning. That is, the ego unit has the dual possibilities of affording a focus aiding progressive insight, or becoming a barrier that temporarily diminishes it. The aim of this study is therefore to reduce possible restrictive rigidity as we investigate the role of the egoic unit in seeking greater understanding of its own dynamic structures and their similarly dynamic environment. To pursue this aim we refer to insights from medical practice, philosophy and science. The underlying awareness of an evolving consciousness means that the insights and ideas presented are shared in the expectation that they too will be modified in due course. But if they help provoke interest and insight concerning the paradoxical nature o f our personal processes, they will have served their purpose.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Altrincham
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 12 mm
Weight
347 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-872240-32-9 (9781872240329)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Eugene Halliday was an accomplished artist, writer and speaker who came to be recognised as a teacher of philosophy and a proponent of not only the idea but also the fact that each and every individual is essentially responsible for that life in which they are centred and owe it to themself to develop that life. His teaching was to show that self-conscious reflexion and integrated focusing of one's energies will allow the individual to become aware of an internal life force which is its own real and natural authority.
Born in 1911, Halliday's parents were Music Hall artistes: his father a violinist, his mother a singer. They gave him an unusual education which, doubtlessly, would have aided his ability to understand, relate and interpret concepts of philosophy, psychology, scriptures of major religions and the science of his day. He studied at the Manchester School of Art from 1928 and in the 1930s worked for Allied Newspapers as an illustrator and cartoonist. During WW2 he was a conscientious objector and worked as a commercial artist. His work was shown in the Manchester Academy of Fine Art and other galleries, and he began giving talks on philosophy. Soon he became the catalyst for a community of creative people, which included refugees from Nazi Germany. This led to the founding of two organisations, the International Hermeneutic Society (I.H.S.) and the Institute for the Study of Hierological Values (Ishval-now known as Eugene Halliday Association).
In the mid-1960s Halliday moved to Cheshire. He continued to write, lecture and devise classes for self-developmental work, with the aim of refining sensitivity and heightening consciousness, until his death in 1987. He was a man wholly dedicated to the development of the potential of his fellow beings - which was his definition of Love.