I want now bring to your attention the case of a number of secondary school children who , while excelling earlier, but as they reach the age of  17 or thereabouts slowly begin to decline for reasons unknown to themselves or even the teachers. Sometimes the matter becomes so serious for the caring parents that they seek  even psychiatric help.  The  subjects that  I have isolated for mention here are  usually very bright and are capable of very intelligent conversation but who slowly decline. This problem is also seen to occur among both the boys and girls with characteristic Baum features of their own.

The girls tend to draw the following type of Baums psrticularly in C and D.

:  As you see the Baums from A to D you can a general TREND--- the portion above the ground becomes LESS and LESS while that BELOW the ground become  MORE and MORE. Finally the whole Baum goes underground with globular fruit-like things hanging on creepers BENEATH the ground.

The boys, on the otherhand while going completely underground  they tend to draw a set of  branching roots with  elongated tubers  along the roots.
 

Such one of the subjects while being very intelligent but decline because they slowly lose thei capacity to pay attention to what is being taught by the teacher . They have the habit of SWITCHING OFF halfway and let their mind wander into a world of fantasies. Their cognitive processing is dissociated from classrooom context and gets trapped into the inner world of ideas that quite often the subjects are aware but are unable to do anything about. They suffer from some kind of maentala paralysis. Their preoccupation with the inner world as opposed to the outer world becomes almost an obsession.  Because of this there comes to prevail DISINTERESTEDNESS in classroom interactions and other social activities. They tend to withdraw from both the physical and social world because of their ENCHANTMENT with the inner world  of fantasies. In my conversations with them I also learned that such subjects are AWARE of a such dvelopments within themselves  but feel they cannot do anything about it except worry . Frequently they also feel frightened because of lose of control over own thought processes. They feel they are being trapped into a strange world of fantasy but are unable to escape from  it.

Now the central question is : Why the slow disppearance away from the open world ABOVE the ground into hidden  world BELOW the ground? Unless we get an adequate explanation of this change in cognitve processing we cannot  solve the problem and help the students to recover what they have lost.

I have dealt with it extensively and rather techically in the paper "Tantric Psychology, Personality Types and Siddha Medical Science" but I shall mention the central notions here briefly. The  human psyche  is always being pulled  by fundamental metphysical enties of Natham (Yang) Bindhu(Yin) separately and jointly. The psychic pressures established by Natham brings about cognitive processes of the  thinking and analysing type(Ida kalai Nadi) and that of Bindhu, the feeling and emotional type(Pingkalai Nadi). The joint fuctioning of both  Natham and Bindhu bring about cognitive processing of the ILLUMINATING TYPE that also simulateneosly destroys the IGNORANCE already there.(Suzi munai Nadi). Here I must mention that the Idakalai are enunciated by Natham(YANG) and Pingkalai  by Bindhu(YIN )  and suzimunai by their joint presence.

Now when the Baums gradually go underground, it means their psychic functiong is pulled deep into the  PINGKALAI i.e. to the exclusive dominace of Bindhu which on its own breeds the cancer of the cognitive: the uncontrolable and excessive production of ideas and fantasies. The Natham (Yang) is that which CONTROLS and  regulates and puts an ORDER or LOGIC into thinking. One can link up this with Freudian  REALITY principle. When the STRONG presence of Yang, the Animus is eliminated for some reason other, we have BAUMS of the above type with what can be called the cancer of the cognitive.

The treatment then consists in doing something that would RESTORE the presence of NATHAM (Yang) in their psychic functioning. This consists in creating sitauations in which the courage and bravery  of the subject are put to test and he/she is made to respond AGGRESSIVELY. Such induced agressions serve to restore Natham and hence the Masculinity that comes along with it.

Before  I decribe the Baums of students who are likely to fail in exams and those who do exceptionally well I want you to have chart infront of you. It is a simple chart that you can draw  just by following the instructions I give.

1. Draw a circle say 4 inches in diameter and then draw a moon  on the left, just outside the equatorial line and a sun on the opposite side. At the point just above the North Pole draw the Sun and Moon together and similarly at the South Pole  a circlular dark patch.  The Moon is the Bindhu(Yin) , the Sun is the Natham(Yang), both together is the Tao, the Ammaiappar, the Androgynous Reality or the Natham_Bindhu Complex, henceforth the NBComplex. The Dark Patch below is the Giggosum, the Anavam in Saiva Siddhanta Philosophy. The word is derived from the Sumerian root gig- meaning bitter, black etc.

These are termed SIVA TATVAS,  a terminology that I will retain for want of a better term and shorten it  to S-TATVAS. These are elementary principles that are present in the psychic structure of EVERY person and therefore UNIVERSAL. Furthermore they PULL all the psyches and always unto themselves creating TROPISMS of various kinds that constitute, psychologically speaking the instinct-like psychic pressures or the motivational dynamics. The psychotropisms , which is anglisization of the NADI concept of Siddhas are as follows:  Charmenotropism that created by Bindhu , Lumenotropism that created by Natham, Numenotropism that created by the NBComplex and Giggotropism that  by  Giggosum.  These pressures in turn crystalize cognitive processes of various kinds: enchanting processes by the Charmeno, disenchanting by Lumeno, Engracing by the Numeno and Disgracing by the Giggo. All the cognitive processes are one of these types no matter what the sexuality and culture of a person is. These are PSYCHOLOGICAL UNIVERSALS that constitue the psychological make up of an individual,  the individual differences, that certainly exists, arising due to the relative dominance of one type over the others.

What I have summarised briefly as above is the essence of Tantric Psychology whose history goes back to the beginings of civilisation itself, something that we can trace to the Sumerian times itself, to the refelections of the Siddha medical practioners who existed even in those ancient times and who appear to have used dream analysis as central in their diagnostic procedures. But I rediscovered these same ancient system that also seems to have existed in China through exploring the Unconscious through Access Tests.

With these preliminaries now I want to  return to the topic, our down to earth concern as teachers and parents why students fail in learning.

Let us call the SPACE created by the pressures the NB-SPACE which is short for Natham Bindhu Space. All of us  LIVE in this space, travers a path in this Space each time we move in our understanding. So this Space also constitutes our HERMENEUTIC world, the world of our UNDERSTANDING. Now when the cognitive processes are of the type where the Giggo is stronger than others we have the crystallization of cognitive processes that are NOT conducive for academic excellence. And this happens , generally speaking, under TWO cases viz. when Giggo> Charmeno and Giggo> Lumeno. In other works a students becomes academically weak when cognitive processes are in the lower left hand  and right hand quadrants.

The Baums of the Giggo>Charmeno:  Trees with large fruits quite often just a single fruit hanging on a branch; quite often in D Baums that are chariot-like structures with wings indicating flying freely in space. Such boys or girls tend to be very romantic spending considerable amount of time day dreaming, discoing, writing love letters, talking with friends about the boys or girls they fancy and so forth.  Learning of the sort demanded by the school system becomes cognitively very demanding and hence frequently avoided by them.

Now the the Baums of the Giggo>lumeno : Trees with radiating branches with sharp spear-like formations everywhere. The D may even have gruesome animal-like figures with sharp teeth.

Such students are agressive, probably a criminal in the making and who thinks he can get whatever he wants, including love, through force and direct or indirect pressure. Quite often forms gangs and threaten fellow students and bully them. In some case extortions are also indulged in. The same attitude prevails in Learning too.  They don,t seek to UNDERSTAND and thereby learn;  tend to think of crooked ways to pass exams . Such are the students who tend to cheat,  copy and so forth.

Since this posting is already too long, I'll describe the Baums of the academically excellent in the next posting.