constructed by us in order to 'hide' the deeper soul parts of ourselves. The
part that allows us to function with our peers and society with a
superficial persona that we wear like a mask. Many folks actually have
constructed very elaborate personas in order to justify the ways in which
they harm others daily just by going to their job, and the ways in which
they harm themselves and loved ones through the many intricate and societal
acceptable ways there are in which to do this.
I think the term best used to describe these patterns is "Valence".
Jung's concepts in part are these.
Ego. The central complex in the field of consciousness. (See also self.)
The ego, the subject of consciousness, comes into existence as a complex
quantity which is constituted partly by the inherited disposition (character
constituents) and partly by unconsciously acquired impressions and their
attendant phenomena ["Analytical Psychology and Education," CW 17, par. 169.]
Jung pointed out that knowledge of the ego-personality is often confused with
self-understanding.
Anyone who has any ego-consciousness at all takes it for granted that he knows
himself. But the ego knows only its own contents, not the unconscious and its
contents. People measure their self-knowledge by what the average person in
their social environment knows of himself, but not by the real psychic facts
which are for the most part hidden from them. In this respect the psyche
behaves like the body, of whose physiological and anatomical structure the
average person knows very little too. ["The Undiscovered Self," CW 10, par. 491.]
In the process of individuation, one of the initial tasks is to differentiate the ego from the
complexes in the personal unconscious, particularly the persona, the shadow and anima/animus.
A strong ego can relate objectively to these and other contents of the unconscious without
identifying with them.
Because the ego experiences itself as the center of the psyche, it is especially difficult to resist
identification with the self, to which it owes its existence and to which, in the hierarchy of the
psyche, it is subordinate.
The ego stands to the self as the moved to the mover, or as object to subject,
because the determining factors which radiate out from the self surround the
ego on all sides and are therefore supraordinate to it. The self, like the
unconscious, is an a priori existent out of which the ego
evolves.["Transformation Symbolism in the Mass," CW 11, par. 391.]
Identification with the self can manifest in two ways: the assimilation of the ego by the self,
in which case the ego falls under the control of the unconscious; or the assimilation of the
self to the ego, where the ego becomes overaccentuated. In both cases the result is inflation,
with disturbances in adaptation.
In the first case, reality has to be protected against an archaic . . . dream-state;
in the second, room must be made for the dream at the expense of the world of
consciousness. In the first case, mobilization of all the virtues is indicated; in
the second, the presumption of the ego can only be damped down by moral
defeat.[The Self," CW 9ii, par. 47.]
And you wrote:
The ego in occult terms is the part of personality that must 'die' in order
to be transformed. The initiate would go through a 'death' experience of
that constructed part of the self that is not the true Self.
This is not how Alice Bailey writes or references a vast number of Occult Wisdom Schools. She relates the Ego to several parts of the Astral Body. Largely the Ego interfaces in the subconciouse & unconscious parts of subtle bodies.
More soon
In Love & Light
Markess
