This article is part of our series entitled “Portraits of the imperious self”:
► you may read the general presentation of the series here: Portraits of the imperious self (1): an ethics of transformation
► to view all the articles of the series, see: Portraits of the imperious self

The “imperious self” truly deserves its name: it is insistent, invasive, and tyrannical. The harmful psychological energy produced by the activity of our character weak points is so powerful that it can become irresistible. It drives us to act contrary to correct divine and ethical principles. As we will see here, this “anti-self” is as cunning as it is imperious. Its scheming plots are often insidious, going as far as faking the voice of our reason and even diverting some of our spiritual impulses to its own advantage, all without our even realizing it.

The ideal of the imperious self, if it had one, would be the “free movement” of its impulses toward their satisfaction; and yet we are endowed with a set of defence mechanisms that counter this free movement, in particular our reason that stems from our self, our moral conscience that stems from our superego, and our faith or our will to transcendence that stem from our superid. In order to let its harmful excesses to nevertheless flow freely, the natural tendency of the imperious self is to invade or even annex these instances of our celestial dimension so as to put them to work for its own purpose, thus paving our psyche with quick and secure pathways to manoeuvre with ever greater speed and discretion.

The annexation of our reason

We have seen how the imperious self can inoculate our reason with false principles in order to make it work in keeping with its own ends, the way a virus would do. Generally, as soon as we decide to act in line with our process of perfection, the imperious self responds with a barrage of arguments to prevent us from going into action: “You really don’t need to help him; he’s old enough. You’re even doing him a favour leaving him to fend for himself. You’d only be making him weak”; “What’s wrong with reading this letter? The envelope was open, and she won’t know; it’s really not a big deal”; “I really should say something—people can’t continue thinking he is a good person; they need to know”; “Why not take the money? They’re so rich they won’t even notice”; “Why go to all this effort when nobody even notices?” These are only a few examples from the countless and most varied excuses the imperious self can produce to justify our most anti-ethical behaviours.

The hijack of our superego

I do a lot of volunteer work at a homeless shelter and spend a lot of my free time there. There is so much to do, and we are so understaffed with an ever-increasing number of people in need. Lately, however, my wife has been complaining about my frequent absences, saying it has forced her to handle all the family responsibilities by herself. She also blames me for not spending enough time with my two sons, who she thinks need more time with their father. This fall, she talked me into going on a family vacation. The dates, however, happened to coincide, with the fundraising period of the homeless shelter, a critical moment which all the activities for the year ahead depend on. Because I had made a promise to my wife and we had no other time that worked in our schedules, we went ahead with our vacation. However, I couldn’t shake the feeling of guilt toward my friends at the shelter, who were quite surprised when they learnt I wouldn’t be on deck with them this year. Our vacation didn’t go very well. There were several arguments, especially with my eldest son, who is entering adolescence and whose behaviour is really unbearable. I also just kept feeling guilty about lazing in the sun while my friends were putting in so much effort at the shelter.

After giving it some thought, this father eventually came to question the way he was living. He realized that his volunteer work with the homeless, though seemingly very noble, was in reality a way to avoid his family responsibilities—especially the difficult task of confronting a challenging child who reflected a much less flattering image of him than he received from his friends at the organization, who saw him as a leader; or from the homeless, to whom he was in a position of benefactor. Under the pretext of helping others, he was actually neglecting the rights of his wife and his children all while nurturing his pride and, paradoxically, his selfishness. The guilt he felt for going on vacation with his family was actually playing into the hands of his imperious self. Under the virtuous disguise of altruism the imperious self managed to infiltrate his moral conscience in order to keep it silent on his true shortcomings as a father and spouse and have it raise its voice on the imagined shortcomings in his role as a member of a charity organization.

Another example of a superego at the service of the imperious self is the tendency to focus on secondary details to the point of losing sight of what is essential. If a person is very religious, the imperious self can trigger a guilty conscience about some ritual practice that they did not complete, distracting them from the real concrete confrontation with it. If we have set a practice to work on ourselves and improve our behaviour, the imperious self will draw our attention to our most superficial shortcomings including even non-harmful excesses of the id: I will tend to blame myself because I couldn’t resist the temptation to eat the entire chocolate bar, because I slept in, or because I watched four episodes in a row of my favourite TV series[1]. Disciplining one’s id (by trying to have a healthy diet, getting enough sleep, getting regular physical activity, being tidy, etc.) can possibly help in the fight against the imperious self, but limiting one’s fight to these issues is nothing less than a ruse the imperious self uses to occupy our conscience with accessory details and make us lose sight of the essential. The essential consists in taking the imperious self by the horns and purifying our self; not only adopting a healthy lifestyle but also, and most importantly, developing human virtues such as generosity, altruism, faith, tolerance, humility, gratitude, chivalry, a balanced and correct view of the events in our lives, etc.

The colonization of our superid

The superid produces the will to transcendence that naturally drives us toward everything that surpasses and transcends us. This desire for the absolute is part of our nature; the imperious self is unable to completely shut it off, but it can deviate its energy and use it for its own benefit. This is how a person can develop an unbridled and unreasonable passion for a movie star, an idol or even their loved one. Others will immerse themselves in occult practices, parapsychological activities and other spiritual amusements[2] that not only do not contribute to the development of their celestial dimension but are actually harmful. This tactic allows the imperious self to artificially quench a person’s thirst for transcendence, through values that favour its own development and hinder the development of the celestial soul.

More subtly, the imperious self will tend to present the pleasures of the superid—pleasures such as spiritual dreams, or extremely pleasant spiritual emotions one may sometimes experience during prayer—as the primary goal of our spiritual work. We start expecting a pleasant reward for every effort we make, to the point where, when for some reason it doesn’t come, we become discouraged and give up every effort.

[1] These behaviours are given as examples, but in reality, it’s not the actions themselves that matter most; rather, it’s the context that helps determine whether the excesses stem from the id or the imperious self. If they are not harmful nor detrimental for oneself or for others, such behaviours do not stem from the imperious self.

[2] Ostad Elahi compares this type of activity to spiritual drugs.

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