What have the apostle Paul’s troubles with ”flesh” to do with treatment of bullying and what in brain physiology corresponds to his definition of ”flesh”?

All humans have experienced failure of good intentions. We are especially note this in others.  We can detect how wisdom teachers, ethic professors, and gurus deviate from their own preaching about controlling aggressions. I will never forget how an instructor in non-violent communication course blamed a challenger in his audience thereby using a language the guru himself a minute ago had condemned as violent.

This problem becomes current in treatment of bullying. It is difficult to talk calmly with bullies, even if they are just “suspects”.

Wisdom teachers can, as well as we others, when being in a calm mode, understand all this. The most known classic in this insight would be the apostle Paul who complained: "The good that I would, I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do". (Romans, Chap. 7,19.) The interesting thing is Paul’s wise putting the blame on the "flesh"  i.e. a concrete material substance (and not an evil spiritual principle like the devil) as the cause of not being able to fulfil his intentions. I can imagine that the Prophet Muhammad or Buddha have corresponding views.

 Paul’s blaming his inability on the “flesh” (or the “old man” in him) – expressed something which brain physiology could verify hundreds of years later: the limbic system (“flesh”) overruns the cortex where intelligence and good intentions are stored when the enemy image is released. I have described this even to 12-year olds with the help of a drawing you can find in the Manuel to ACBM – All in the Class Become Mediators to present the conclusion that “if you become part of a conflict the enemy image, which is stored as an inherited archetype in the limbic system, is triggered. When this happens our intentions do not help; they are run over by an emotional storm that is so strong that it takes command over the spirit.

What can help in an indignant conflict is an external third party. Someone who consciously avoids of being a judge. Someone who can be a therapeutic mediator and absorb his doubts that his conversation partner is a bully in his curiosity to find out how he thinks and how we can find a shared solution.

When I think about the wisdom teacher who broke out in “coyote language” this occurred at the end of the day when he was tired. It is clear that the ability to listen to the other side depends on our body status. As the readers of the link The phases in SCm illustrated have noticed, the phases III and IV open with the therapeutic mediator offering beverages and snacks before the meeting. This in order to facilitate for the parties involved to avoid the dominance of the “flesh” or “the limbic system” when the intention is to listen to the other side.

There is in the theology of the latest decades a trend that starts with a you-me relationship (Martin Buber’s ich-du). There is a saying: “no I without you”. Or in psychoanalytical terms: “ego” who is dependent on “alter”. According to my opinion the ego-alter relation is symbolised by the relation between two parties: the Father and the Son. The question arises: why does the Christian theology have a trinity, what does the Holy Ghost symbolise? One says: the Holy Ghost symbolises peace and is contained in both the father and the son.

I have pondered on that issue during the first decades of my life. When I realised that my first Persuasive-Coercion-method was built on the “I-you” relation and did not lead to peace without the submission of the son’s/student’s "you" to the father’s/teacher’s “me” I realised why a third-party-component was necessary: the peace maker for the sake of peace itself. Or in plane language, confidentially to them who believe in my assurance that I am not religious: the therapeutic mediator represents in his work the third component in the Christian symbolism: the principle of peace making.