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Saturday, 12 July 2025

Fate Free Will and Destiny


Fate, Free Will, and Destiny: The Subconscious as Fate in the Human Journey


Abstract

This essay explores the intricate dynamic between subconscious forces, such as unresolved trauma and super-ego conditioning, conceptualised here as fate, and their relationship to free will and destiny. It investigates whether destiny is an external cosmic order or internally generated as karma arising from beliefs and actions. Further, it examines whether human experiences function as both shaping forces and tests that reveal the true nature of the self. The essay is structured in three parts: first, a historical overview of humanity’s diverse approaches to fate, free will, and destiny; second, an exploration of alternative, less-utilized ways humanity might engage this dynamic; and third, a direct philosophical analysis of the core question. By integrating perspectives from philosophy, psychology, religion, and metaphysics, the essay provides a comprehensive framework for understanding human agency within the broader cosmic and internal contexts.


Introduction

The tension between fate, free will, and destiny has preoccupied human thought since antiquity. Across cultures and epochs, humanity has sought to understand to what extent our lives are preordained, how much control we truly have, and what ultimate purpose or conclusion our experiences serve. This triadic dynamic becomes even more complex when considering the subconscious, the internal realm of unresolved trauma and conditioned moral judgments, as a force that can bind or shape human behaviour as if it were fate.

In the mythic and psychological frameworks introduced in Blueprints for Mythic Creation and The Burden of Knowing, fate is often portrayed as an external, cosmic order. Yet, modern understanding of the subconscious challenges this, suggesting that fate may be generated internally, through the consequences of beliefs, choices, and conditioning, what many traditions identify as karma.

This essay unfolds in three parts. First, it surveys historical explorations of fate, free will, and destiny. Second, it considers alternative methods of inquiry and engagement rarely used or fully realized by humanity. Third, it confronts the question: Is destiny cosmic or internally generated? Are our lives tests revealing who we truly are? What implications arise from these possibilities?


I. Historical Explorations of Fate, Free Will, and Destiny

1. Ancient Traditions: Predestination and Cosmic Order

  • Greco-Roman Thought: The Moirai (Fates) spun, measured, and cut the thread of life, representing an inescapable destiny. Yet Stoicism proposed alignment with logos—cosmic reason—where accepting fate and exercising rational agency coexist.

  • Eastern Philosophies:

    • Hinduism and Buddhism develop the doctrine of karma, framing destiny as the outcome of past actions, thoughts, and intentions—thus internally generated and dynamic rather than fixed.

    • The Taoist concept of Wu Wei emphasizes effortless action aligned with the flow of the cosmos, blurring free will and fate into harmonized unity.

  • Abrahamic Religions:

    • Judeo-Christian traditions wrestle with divine omniscience and human free will, creating paradoxes around predestination and moral responsibility.

    • Islam balances divine decree (qadar) with human accountability, alongside mystical traditions like Sufism that stress spiritual transformation beyond fate and ego.

2. Philosophical Developments

  • Determinism vs. Libertarian Free Will: Philosophers like Spinoza proposed deterministic universe governed by causality; Kant argued for moral autonomy grounded in freedom of will; existentialists emphasized radical freedom to create meaning despite absurdity.

  • Psychological Views: Freud identified the unconscious as a powerful determinant of behavior, shaping destiny from within the psyche, often unknown and unrecognized.


II. Alternative or Underutilized Modes of Exploring Fate and Free Will

1. Collective and Transpersonal Approaches

  • Most modern societies emphasize individual agency but often neglect collective unconscious influences. Exploring fate through collective trauma, social conditioning, and ancestral memory could deepen understanding.

2. Dreamwork and Imaginal Realms

  • The exploration of shared dreamworlds and imaginal spaces (per Henry Corbin and Jung) offers a rarely utilized avenue to consciously engage subconscious fate, allowing insights into patterns shaping destiny.

3. Conscious Alchemical Transformation

  • Alchemical psychology, the inner “forge” of transforming shadow into light, can be consciously applied to re-shape subconscious determinants. This self-directed transformation, while recognized in esoteric traditions, remains largely marginalized in mainstream thought.

4. Experiential Mysticism and Direct Knowing

  • Mystical traditions across cultures point to direct experience beyond dualities of fate and free will. Systematic use of meditation, trance, or contemplative practice as tools to transcend conditioning could be more broadly embraced as methodologies to engage destiny consciously.


III. The Core Question: Fate as Subconscious Conditioning Versus Cosmic Destiny

1. The Subconscious as Fate

  • Unresolved trauma and super-ego conditioning operate as internal “fate,” constraining choice through repetition compulsion, limiting self-awareness, and binding individuals to karmic cycles.

  • This internal fate is dynamic yet obscured, creating the illusion of external inevitability.

2. Free Will: Choice Within Constraints

  • While subconscious forces limit agency, human consciousness retains the capacity for reflective awareness and choice.

  • Free will, therefore, emerges as a tension between determinism (subconscious fate) and conscious intention.

3. Destiny: Cosmic or Karma?

  • Destiny can be conceived as either:

    • A fixed cosmic order beyond human influence, or

    • An emergent property generated by cumulative individual and collective beliefs and actions (karma).

  • Many traditions collapse these distinctions, viewing destiny as co-created by cosmic law and personal transformation.

4. Experience as Test and Revelation

  • Life’s challenges function as “tests” revealing the true nature of selfhood.

  • This process resembles mythic trials where the hero confronts shadow, learns wisdom, and integrates unity and separation.

  • Destiny is thus a process, not a static endpoint.


Conclusion

The dynamic between subconscious conditioning as fate, free will, and destiny reveals a complex, interwoven interplay. Historically, humanity has oscillated between seeing fate as cosmic decree and as internally generated karma, reflecting a dual understanding of human agency.

New approaches that integrate collective unconscious influences, imaginal realms, conscious psychological transformation, and mystical experience promise richer engagements with fate and destiny.

Ultimately, whether destiny is cosmic or internally constructed, human experience can be understood as both shaping and testing our essential nature. This reframes fate not as an external imposition but as an invitation to self-awareness and transformation, where free will is exercised within and beyond the subconscious, guiding us toward the realization of our true self.


Bibliography / Works Cited (by title & author)

  • The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious — Carl Gustav Jung

  • Man and His Symbols — Carl Gustav Jung

  • The Denial of Death — Ernest Becker

  • The Hero with a Thousand Faces — Joseph Campbell

  • Cosmic Consciousness — Richard Maurice Bucke

  • The Bhagavad Gita — Translated by Eknath Easwaran

  • The Tao Te Ching — Lao Tzu (Translated by Stephen Mitchell)

  • The Power of Now — Eckhart Tolle

  • Freedom and Destiny: Gender, Family, and Popular Culture in India — Patricia Uberoi

  • The Varieties of Religious Experience — William James

  • The Perennial Philosophy — Aldous Huxley

  • Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi — Henry Corbin

  • The Untethered Soul — Michael A. Singer

  • Freedom Evolves — Daniel Dennett

  • Being and Nothingness — Jean-Paul Sartre

  • The Myth of Sisyphus — Albert Camus






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