you begin to pick the flowers, gripping them in your hands, forgetting that they are alive, and the flowers slowly start to die. Later it occurs to you that you could make perfume and cosmetics from the flowers, sell them, or even create a flower faith, and worship them like icons. This would also represent a form of idealization because, either way, dependency would be created between yourself and the object of your love; in this case the flowers. At this stage there is no trace left of the love that existed in that moment of simply enjoying the vision of the flower-filled valley. Can you see the difference?
Love generates positive energy which carries you onto corresponding life lines. Idealization on the other hand creates excess potential, generating balanced forces intent on mitigating its impact. The effect of balanced forces is different depending on the situation but the result is always the same. In general terms it can be described that balanced forces ‘debunk myths’. Depending on the object and level of idealization involved, the debunking may be stronger or weaker in effect, but balance is always restored.
When love changes into a dependent relationship it is inevitable that excess potential will be created because the desire to possess something creates an energetic ‘drop in pressure’. Dependent relationships are determined by a statement of conditions such as: “if you …this, then I …that”. There are endless examples of the conditions peoples place on relationships: “If you loved me you would drop everything and come with me to the end of the world. If you won’t marry me it means you don’t love me. If you praise me I will go out with you. If you don’t give me your spade, I’ll drive you out of the sandpit”, etc.
As soon as one thing is compared to another, or juxtaposed with another, balance is destroyed. We often hear that “we are like this and they are like that!” as an expression of national pride, but in comparison to which nations, and where does this feeling of insecurity come from? Whenever contrast is made, be it positive or negative, balanced forces will eliminate the excess potential it creates. The impact of balanced forces will primarily work against the person creating the potential. Their actions are either aimed at pulling the parties involved apart or at uniting them, which in turn leads to a clash, or to mutual agreement.
All conflicts are based on contrast and contradistinction. An initial statement is made such as: “They are different to us”. Then the statement is developed further. “They have more than we do. Let’s take some of theirs”. “They have less than we do. We must give them some of ours”. “They are worse than we are. We must change them”. “They are better than we are. We must fight them”. “They don’t behave like we do. Something will have to be done about it.” All these comparisons in their various guises lead to conflict. They originate with feelings of discomfort within one individual and end in war and revolution. Balanced forces can eliminate contradictions via confrontation and via acceptance but given the fact that pendulums can feed on aggressive energy more often than not, pendulums often nudge the situation towards confrontation.
Below are several examples of the consequences of various types of idealization.
Idealization and Overvaluation
Overvaluation is when a person is imagined to have qualities they do not in fact embody. On one level the illusions of the mind are quite harmless. On the energetic level however, they generate excess potential because potential is created wherever there is a flux in quantity or quality. Overvaluation is a projection and concentration of qualities there where they are not present in reality. There are two types of idealization. In the first type an individual is portrayed as having qualities which are in fact totally uncharacteristic. In order to eliminate the resulting inhomogeneity in the energy field, balanced forces have to create some kind of counter force.
For example, a dreamy and romantic young man creates a mental image of his beloved, portraying her as an angel of pure beauty. In reality it turns out that the young women in question is a grounded individual, who loves having a good time and shows no interest in sharing the dreams of the love-struck young man. Whatever the circumstances, when a person creates an idol of another and places them on a pedestal, the myth will sooner or later be debunked and the necessary disillusionment follows.
In this context the story of the writer Karl May is quite remarkable. May was the author of some popular adventure novels set in the American Old West and best known for the characters of Winnetou and Old Shatterhand. May’s novels were written in the style of first person narrator, creating the impression that he had personally participated in the events portrayed in his books, thereby earning great admiration. May’s works are as vivid and rich as a film and so the reader could well assume that the story was a factual account. May’s plots were so exciting that he was dubbed ‘the German Dumas’.
Numerous Karl May fans identified the writer with the famous cowboy Old Shatterhand. His admirers could hardly have considered any different; after all, they had found an object of admiration and imitation, and one who lived close by, making his persona even more powerful. Imagine their surprise when it was announced that Karl May had never even visited America, and some of the works had been written during his time in prison. The myth was debunked, the illusion dispelled, and the writer’s former fans became his execrators. Who was to blame? After all, the readers created the idol themselves and along with it, a dependent relationship: “Yes, you are our hero, but only if the book is a real life story”.
In the second type of idealization, a person’s attention is focused not on a person with illusory qualities but on rose-tinted dreams and castles in the air. The dreamer lives with their head in the clouds as a way of escaping the ugliness of the reality of life. Obviously, excess potential is created in this situation. To tear down the castles in the air, balanced forces make the romantic individual face harsh reality. Even if the person in question is capable of distracting hundreds with their idea, thereby creating a separate pendulum, the utopia will be flawed because it is based on the bias of excess potential. Sooner or later balanced forces will stop the pendulum’s sway.
Here is another example of how an overvalued object exists as an ideal. A woman is imagining what her ideal husband would look like. The more she convinces herself that her future husband must be of a certain type the stronger the excess potential that is created. The excess potential can only be neutralized by a person who embodies qualities which are the exact opposite of what the women wanted to find in her partner. When she meets someone and later discovers what they are really like, the woman asks herself how she “could have been so blind”. The opposite can also occur. If a woman focuses on how much she hates drunkenness and rudeness in a man she may fall into the trap of building a relationship with an alcoholic or a man who bad mouths her. Often people find they have to deal with the things they find totally unacceptable because in addition to creating excess potential their thought energy radiates at the frequency of their non-acceptance. Life often brings people together who are very different and who would appear to be totally incompatible. Balanced forces bring people together who have opposite qualities of potential, in that way striving to neutralize the imbalance created by one or the other.
The influence of balanced forces can be seen especially clearly in children because children tend to be more sensitive to energy than adults and behave more naturally. If a child is praised too much they will start being deliberately naughty. Children lose respect for and even end up despising adults that let the child twist them around their little finger. If a parent does all they can to turn their little boy into a well brought up goody-two-shoes, the child will probably end up breaking out and getting involved with some kind of street gang. If a parent tries to create a wunderkind out of their child the likelihood is that they will loose all interest in their studies. The more the parent burdens the child with after school clubs, activities and private lessons, the more likely the child is to grow up with a dull personality.
The best principle in bringing up children is to behave towards the child (and not only towards children) as if they were guests, i.e., giving them attention, respect and freedom of choice, without creating excess potential
