Day Trading & Forex Forum

Freud realized that the basic problem with people is that, to the extent that they are dominated by past patterns, they lack a truly free will.  “Where id was, there ego shall be,” was his formulation of the idea that self-awareness is the philosopher’s stone that unlocks our inner gold from its base surroundings.  The alchemist Theobald von Hoghelande recognized this in 1594 when he declared, “The art requires the total man.”  So it is with the art of trading.  The exclusive focus on profit and loss triggers our fears over success, failure, inadequacy, gratification, and self worth, making alchemical “puffers” of us all.  The philosopher’s stone is within: in the realm of a liberated will.  A small footnote to Elizium, taken from the Chaldean Oracles, advises:

Stay not on the precipice with the dross of matter, for there is a place for thy image in a realm ever splendid.

Trader Psychology

What have I learned as a trading psychologist?  Just this: In newly revisiting the nightmares of our depths, we become more total; more capable of Will.  To find one’s purpose and passion in life and yoke it to an unfettered will: what greater and nobler challenge could there be?  “Love is the law, love under will,” was Crowley’s formulation: the ideal of placing passion in the service of one’s capacity for directed action.

Gurdjieff emphasized that effort is the currency with which we purchase our will’s development.  Yet without adversity and challenge, there is no need for effort.  Imagine a universe without gravity.  Our muscles would never develop, as nothing could possibly test—and develop—their strength.  It was Colin Wilson’s seminal insight that human beings need emotional gravity for self-development.  This is the purpose of all suffering, great and small: to provide the counter-forces by which we can develop the muscles of will through directed effort.  It is human nature to avoid suffering: to consign it, like Cthulhu, to the depths.  Yet there it lies dead but dreaming, entering our thoughts and actions, refusing to accept banishment. 

How ironic it is that we overcome suffering by embracing and facing it, ferreting it out and repeating it so often that its voice is stilled!  It is as if our worst fears and memories are crying out, “Smother me or suffer”:  immerse yourself in me, rework me, or be dominated by me.  The markets pose us with obstacles—and even suffering—on a regular basis.  In their complexity and uncertainty, they offer unparalleled challenges to our ordered minds.  Facing those challenges, we face ourselves, and become ever more the total individual, the true discoverer of the philosopher’s stone.  Mercy grants us limits in correlating the contents of our minds; providence provides for the possibility of achieving ever-greater correlation.

This article is my way of acknowledging the many philosophical, spiritual, and musical influences on my work.  With the help of Google and the direct and indirect references in this article—and their direct and indirect references—you, like Borges, can be well on your way toward discovering the Library.  Sweet dreams…