Excerpt About Ego Death

The Idea of Ego Death is a Misnomer
One important thing we see here is that there is no ego separate from the soul. The proverbial ego of spiritual terminology is nothing but the ego-self, the soul structured through ego development. There is no ego as an entity; there is only the soul that can become ego by becoming structured with mental forms. Therefore, the idea of ego death is a misnomer. There is no entity that dies, for the soul does not die. All that happens in such experiences is that an ego structure dissolves, and the soul field is liberated from its influence. More accurately, the soul ceases to structure her experience through these mental forms. This can bring about the dissolution or transcendence of one's identity, but this identity is a feeling that arises from the soul being structured by a particular self-representation. A representation dies, but no entity. Depth psychology itself, as in psychoanalytic theory, does not recognize an ego that is an entity. Ego in psychoanalytic thought is nothing but a mental structure, or a system of mental structures, and the processes and capacities that go into its development and functioning. In fact, some theoreticians consider the ego to be nothing but the organizing process itself. "The basic proposition we wish to develop is that the concept of ego, as it has evolved through its several definitions in the course of psychoanalytic theory construction, has become synonymous with organizing process." (Blanck and Blanck, Ego Psychology II, p. 15)

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