The Territorial Imperative

Animal origins of Property by Robert Audrey

Symbols & Color

• Crown: Self Determination – King Set
• Automobile: Mode Group
• Pharaoh: Exalted Orientation, broad scope all or nothing.
• Clubs: Action Axis
• Border Color: Gold – King Set

Implications of the Upright Position or Positive Pole

“Fortune favors the bold. Fortune favors the Brave.” The Latin proverb pretty much identifies the positive pole of Aggression in Dynamism. Living so close to one of the world’s largest pieces of megalithic flat rock, El Capitan in Yosemite, I’ve seen people hanging by a single line, or a single hand hold, 2,000 feet up on a sheer face of a stone wall. “That takes balls”, I’d think to myself. Yeah, “balls to the wall”, another part of me responds. Willing engagement and the burst of energy that can provide, makes this characteristic a real risk taker. Hanging around with a younger soul or young person in Aggression can be what we might call “Mr. Toad’s wild ride.” When it comes to achievement or confronting a fight, it was Mark Twain who colloquially but precisely spoke about what matters in a clash, “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.” In the positive pole, Aggression is a Mode designed to add a boost of raw fury to a person who may desire that extra punch needed to be triumphant over difficult tasks. Here the emotion of anger is not required for behavior of aggression to be carried out. But one must feel resolute and determined that once their forces are committed, they are all in!

Card messages in the Illuminated position.

+ Dynamism

(impetuous, forceful, vigorous, lively, insistent, assertive)

1. “I came, I saw, I conquered!” Caesar understood that attaining a goal means declaring your objective. Fight for what you want.
   
2. Dynamism weds to boldness like a glove protecting a fist. Capable of quick action this card calls for you to strike out and clear an obstacle, with force if necessary. It is time to risk and attack.  Assert boldly!
3. Be assertive; engage them! Wage the campaign on your own terms. Whenever possible, do it on your own home turf, as well.
4. Time to go on the attack. Sometimes the best defense is a strong offense.
5. Strike out, use force to clear an obstacle. You win!
6. Take the high ground. When you have reached the top notice that the advantage is yours.
7. Sometimes the best defense is a strong offense. Time to go on the attack.
8. If circumstances have reached a stalemate, nothing will move until the block has been cleared. This might be done with surgical precision or brute force. If no action is taken the project is likely to simply languish.
9. Assert boldly! Time to risk an advance. Thrust and parry.
10. Dynamite! That is what you need to pull out of yourself. Be a dynamo and full speed ahead.
11. A person with verve (life force) attracts attention like moths to a flame. Bask in it, emulate it, but be careful not to burn up or burn out.
12. “I’ve had all I can stands and I can’t stands no more.” said Popeye the Sailor just before he pulled out his trusty can of spinach to bolster strength and bravery. Doing so is a really good idea right now.
13. Aggression is the main mode of dominance and survival on the physical plane. It is potent and is often final. Yet, do not doubt that it is the boldest strategy for which you should fully commit, once involved. You can become “king of the hill.”

Quotes Illustrating this Pole

• “How a society channels male aggression is one of the greatest questions as to whether that society will survive. That’s why I am not against violence in the media, I am against the glorification of immoral violence.” Dennis Prager
• “Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose.” Bette Davis, quoted in Witty Words From Wise Women
• “Aggression is different from anger. Anger is an emotion; aggression is a behavior. There are better ways to deal with anger than behaving aggressively. Aggressive talk, gestures or behaviors belong to the old way of being. Once we tune in to a higher level of consciousness, aggression is as unnecessary as is the hand-held plow in modern day agriculture.” Gwen Randall-Young, Growing Into Soul
• “Men are not gentle, friendly creatures wishing for love, who simply defend themselves if they are attacked, but … a powerful measure of desire for aggression had to be reckoned as part of their instinctual endowment.” Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents

Implications of the Reversed Position or Negative Pole

“Attack first, ask questions later.” The male Mountain Gorilla, called a Silver Back, is one of the most powerful animals on Earth! While it tends to avoid violence, any perceived threat is met with a show of Belligerence and territorial dominance that may render them beaten to a pulp. Since human beings are
also a simian species, it is possible to notice when the “800 pound gorilla” enters the room. As apes with consciousness (Homo Sapiens), awareness of violence stimulates our own reactions and brings our own hostility to the surface. Anger, even hatred, is part of this Mode in this pole. Once unleashed it must be endured until the adrenaline depletes.

Card messages in the Shadow position.

– Belligerence

(Destabilizing, violent, bullying, Attacking, Destructive, Epic Meltdowns, Reactive, Obnoxious, Pushy, Selfish, villain, assault, pugnacious, explosive, abusive)

1. The reaction of a soul in continual pain is belligerence. Hostility born of distrust and blame contend that lashing out first, is warranted. War and the enmity that drive it are the hammer and nail that builds coffins; not just for the vanquished but also the victor. No spoils just spoilage! Something is seething and ready to become mayhem. Violence without plan, purpose, or reason is vicious. Who’s on attack? Look out for hysteria.
2. Is someone kicking you in the teeth? You have a fight on your hands so come out swinging.
3. Abusing others under the guise of your cause, creates enemies and turns a fight into war.
4. If circumstances have reached a stalemate, nothing will move until the block has been cleared. This might be done with surgical precision or brute force. If no action is taken the project is likely to simply languish.
5. Violence is the first stance of the incompetent. Once it has been used that is it! No other options. Think about surrender, Seppuku, or sincere apology.
6. Violence without plan, purpose, or reason is vicious. Who’s on attack? Watch out for hysteria!
7. Someone is seething with envy and wants to take something from you; a war over property is on.
8. Vicious harassment is going on. Hysteria is building in the background. Who’s the attacker?
9. Masculine energy is the source of aggression. Not male per se. In fact, one of the great conflicts in societies is that males are rewarded for aggression; females punished for it. Today, there are many high masculine energy women who are aggressive. You may have to turn and face a social setting where you confront status quo and with appropriate defiance say “Fuck ‘em!”
10. A villain is afoot. It could be someone else, or something evil brewing in you? Just know it’s angry.
11. The reaction of a soul in continual pain incites belligerence. Hostility born of distrust and blame contend that lashing out first, is warranted. War and the enmity that drive it are the hammer and nail that builds coffins; not just for the vanquished but also the victor. No spoils, just spoilage!
12. Violence does not require any weapons just hatred. The courts are full of civil people dishing emotional and verbal torment on each other. Stop the cycle of wounding. Call a cease fire!
13. Gaslighting is a form of passive-aggressive attack so effective that the attacker can remain almost invisible while the victim is undermined and loses their ground of being or trust. Look carefully to be sure that if a conflict exists, it is out in the open.

Quotes Illustrating this Pole

• “There are historic situations in which refusal to defend the inheritance of a civilization, however imperfect, against tyranny and aggression may result in consequences even worse than war.”  Reinhold Niebuhr
• “Wars of aggression are popular nowadays with those nations convinced that only victory and conquest could improve their material well-being.” Ludwig von Mises
• “Aggression is the first step on the slippery slope to selfishness and chaos.” Anne Campbell, Men, Women, and Aggression

Relevance in the Michael Teaching

When and where do you get aggressive?

Of all the Overleaves, Aggression Mode has had the most effect on human history.  As the King, Action Mode, the amount of sheer energy propelling this goal makes anyone a force to be reckoned with.  Quick to react and seldom if ever really interested in negotiation, Aggression Mode contains elements of a “winner take all” mentality that especially shows itself in Younger Soul Ages.

Aggression Mode looks and feels like masculine prowess and my shore up someone whose feminine energy is high or wants the ability to act in accord with their impulses. This can break and Essence free of any number of patterns where asserting their rights, perhaps even unruly and confrontational, wins for them that peak experience of being that goes along with the total focus in the moment that anger or confrontation tends to galvanize.

Aggression is usually a “balls out” short blast of exertion or all out charge, unlike its counterpart of Perseverance which is more of a “trench warfare” endurance test or a siege upon a castle. It likes to achieve it goals by “bowling over” the opposition.  The only way it may achieve a long term victory is when it is tempered by a disciplined approach, or has a disciplined ally to assist with it. Essences engage Aggression Mode when desiring a life to push boundaries and to willingly incur Karma. These lives are often rich with experience. Outcomes can be bold or bloody (more often than not figuratively speaking) but they seldom are calm or even. Aggression does not abide by “win-win” when it is in full gear.  It is a winner take all, spoils to the victor, only the strong survive mind set that can rise and fall much like a climactic episode.

Aggression under stress, or someone with it and other abraded Overleaves might temper externally focused hostility but then find themselves with ulcers or hypertension and in need of pain killers.  Tantrums are a sign of Aggression in the negative pole of belligerence. Uncontrolled fits of rage or outbursts of destruction often go hand-in-hand.

Essences use this Mode sparingly because of the tendency of Aggression to render someone out of control, not just violently but even in their ability to think clearly. It is not uncommon that a Personality may have little or no history managing the kind of overwhelming urges that accompany this Mode. Internalizing aggression not only can create disease conditions, but lead to total emotional outbursts which can and do create change. And by change, the result often looks quite a bit like wreckage.

Cultural Meaning

Evolutionary theory states that competition drives are asserted and informed by Aggression. War is to Aggression as romance is to Passion, virtually inseparable! But violence is not the only direct formulation which Aggression reveals itself. Historically such groups as the Berzerkers, Mongols, Cossacks, Zulus, Apache, Samaria, Vikings, and Nazis relished aggressiveness as being a mark of their worthiness to survive.

Migrating from the battlefield to the playing field, Aggression in the modern era has morphed sport backward. What once were considered contests for entertainment to often they now have the flavor of combat, particularly in football, especially in the professional ranks. In the last 10 years, American news reports greater numbers of former players suffering and dying from debilitation conditions directly related to injuries like concussions or skeletal damage incurred while on the field. So much for “play”! Other sports like mixed-martial-arts have replaced a once honorable but still pugilistic sport like boxing.  Once contestants and competitors these men have emerged as the gladiators of modern times and enter into organized combat. Then there are the “fans” whose behavior in the stands and after “games” resembles more like a mob than a rooting section. This is how people indulge in Aggression vicariously.  And with the glamorizing of sports with sexy and macho overtones, you can also be sure it raises the testosterone of not only the rivals, but also of the viewers watching and absorbing all of that hostility and intensity. But unlike the players on the field whose bodies are engaged in a massive disgorge vitality to exhaustion, the fan at home is left with the adrenaline but not outlet other than perhaps a wife, child, pet, or convenient alcoholic beverage. In Britain, they call these fans “lager louts” and their media is filled with the antics of sporting aggression and alcohol for decades.

And don’t get me started on violent video games and prejudice and hostility related episodes in children. Children that become grown-ups; whether that means mature adults or not only time will tell.

It is important to note how many people, uncomfortable with direct confrontation or socialized against outburst of anger, engage what has been termed “passive-aggressive” behavior.  Sabotage of other people’s successes or their well being accompanies aggression unexpressed.  Resentment is the emotion upon which pent-up anger moves below the radar. Active-aggressive people can and do “inspire” this in others who might feel victimized, intimidated, or perpetrated upon in some way. But the problem of passive-aggressive behavior seeps out with more than just the alleged source of the offenses. Much of the what occurs today, until an explosion of rage offers the outlet with the implied proviso of denial of responsibility with the statement: “you just made me so mad, I finally had enough.” It is this mindset which makes the mob such a violent, destructive and uncontrollable force once the threshold of fear has been breached and the flood gates opened. On a individual level, we can see the effect of pent-up aggression results in extreme acts of mayhem.  Ever heard of “going postal?”

Famous Examples

Donald Duck, General George Patton, Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler, Mike Tyson, Sandra Bernhardt, Beyonce Knowles, Donald Trump, Rusch Limbaugh, Incredible Hulk, Football, Julius Caesar, Ted Nugent, Joan of Arc

You might have this Overleaf if…

1. When it comes to fun or a fight, you are often the first to jump in.
2. Sometimes, when really angry, people say that you go way overboard.
3. I love a contest!
4. I am afraid sometimes that I might lose my cool in the midst of really heated interchange.

by Stephen Cocconi ©2011, Updated 2024

For a Tarot Session or Channeled Consultation call: 209.768-4956 or email Stephen at channeling@themichaelteaching.com