Ego death

For other uses, see Ego death (disambiguation).
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Ego death is a "complete loss of subjective self-identity".[1] The term is used in various intertwined contexts, with related meanings. The 19th-century philosopher and psychologist William James uses the synonymous term "self-surrender," and Jungian psychology uses the synonymous term psychic death, referring to a fundamental transformation of the psyche.[2] In death and rebirth mythology, ego death is a phase of self-surrender and transition,[3][4][5][6] as described later by Joseph Campbell in his research on the mythology of the Hero's Journey.[3] It is a recurrent theme in world mythology and is also used as a metaphor in some strands of contemporary western thinking.[6]

In descriptions of drugs, the term is used synonymously with ego-loss[7][8][1][9] to refer to (temporary) loss of one's sense of self due to the use of drugs.[10][11][1] The term was used as such by Timothy Leary et al.[1] to describe the death of the ego[12] in the first phase of an LSD trip, in which a "complete transcendence" of the self[note 1] occurs.

The concept is also used in contemporary New Age spirituality and in the modern understanding of Eastern religions to describe a permanent loss of "attachment to a separate sense of self"[web 1] and self-centeredness.[13] This conception is an influential part of Eckhart Tolle's teachings, where Ego is presented as an accumulation of thoughts and emotions, continuously identified with, which creates the idea and feeling of being a separate entity from one's self, and only by disidentifying one's consciousness from it can one truly be free from suffering.[14]

  1. ^ a b c d Johnson, Richards & Griffiths 2008.
  2. ^ Ventegodt & Merrick 2003, p. 1021.
  3. ^ a b Taylor 2008, p. 1749.
  4. ^ Plotkin 2010, p. 467, note 1.
  5. ^ Rosen 1998, p. 228.
  6. ^ a b Atkinson 1995, p. 31.
  7. ^ Leary, Metzner & Alpert 1964, p. 14.
  8. ^ Merkur 1998, p. 58.
  9. ^ Dickins 2014, p. 374.
  10. ^ Merkur 1998, p. 60.
  11. ^ Harrison 2010.
  12. ^ Leary, Metzner & Alpert 1964, p. 12.
  13. ^ White 2012, p. 7.
  14. ^ Tolle 1999.


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