The Aristocratic Personality: Viewing Through a Different Lens
Topics:
“The Aristocratic Personality: Viewing Through a Different Lens”
“Being Aristocratic Doesn’t Necessarily Mean That You Have Money”
“The Tendency to Romanticize Certain Timeframes”
“It’s Not About What They Have; It’s About Who They Are”
[NOTE: This is a combination of excerpts from two different 2022 sessions.]
SESSION 20220828 Excerpt
Participants: Mary (Michael) and Vivienne (Eliza)
VIVIENNE: I don’t know why, but I want to tell you about the walking tour we went on in Aix-en-Provence of 17th century and 18th century homes of aristocrats. We’ve been going for years to Aix, and I didn’t know about this aspect of it and I was so excited! It was very interesting, and it gave me a lot of comfort that though these people were long gone there was this remainder, and I just felt that atmosphere of the aristocrats again. I would really like to move more into that and less into the feeling of the mundane where I’m always worried and anxious and trying to fit in. I would really like to be able to step more into that aristocratic personality than I have done to date.
ELIAS: And you can. In that, it’s once again, a matter of how you perceive you, not necessarily how other people perceive you. Not necessarily how other people behave with you, but how YOU behave with you and how YOU perceive yourself, and therefore how you carry yourself, how you behave, the choices that you make, and in that, how you move through life.
VIVIENNE: I’m still working on it. It feel like a long time coming, though.
ELIAS: I understand, but it’s a matter of recognizing that most of your ideas of aristocracy are somewhat askew, that most of your ideas of aristocracy are expressed from the perspective of the peasantry. (Both laugh) Therefore, the peasantry expressed the perception of the aristocracy as all being wealthy, but from the perspective of the peasantry, MANY people would have been perceived as wealthy when they weren’t, necessarily.
And in that, it’s a matter of recognizing that this is a matter of how you perceive yourself more than how you are perceived by others. And let me say to you, this is the piece that most individuals still don’t quite understand, that regardless of what you have monetarily, if you are moving in a direction in which your perception of yourself IS that you are aristocratic, and if you are behaving in that manner regardless of your financial situation, other individuals will perceive you in that manner also. And in that, they likely will perceive that you have some amount of wealth, simply because that’s how they perceive individuals in that aristocratic personality.
Therefore, it doesn’t actually matter, and it’s not actually about the financial aspect, or what you have, or what you DON’T have. That is the least of it. And in that, this is the piece that so many individuals still don’t understand, that the perception of people being of the aristocracy having money, that ALL comes from the people that don’t have money. That all comes from the people that are from the peasantry.
But in that, as you move out of the era of people expressing that aristocratic personality because it WAS perceived as including some element of wealth, what you’re not recognizing is that that was the reason that there was a downfall with people of the aristocracy. That is the reason that people moved in a direction of not wanting to express that type of personality any longer, because it was perceived as associated with wealth, even though it didn’t actually have a tremendous amount to do with wealth.
But because the peasantry perceived in that manner, people were killed. And therefore, those people with those types of personality stopped being as flamboyant about it, and stopped being as obvious about it – because it was dangerous. Not because they had money, but because the peasantry perceived they had money, and therefore the peasantry revolted against them and many of them were killed.
And therefore in that, it’s a matter of recognizing that you’re looking at this personality type through the lens of the peasantry. Because you’re looking at this personality type from the position that YOU’RE in, which actually, if you were expressing yourself more in that capacity of being that aristocratic personality, or EXPRESSING it, behaving in that manner, I would say people would automatically perceive that you have some degree of wealth – even now.
VIVIENNE: I don’t want to get killed for it, though!
ELIAS: Now, but what I am saying is that you would be expressing that naturally, and YOU wouldn’t be perceiving that you are wealthy. You DON’T perceive that you are wealthy.
VIVIENNE: No.
ELIAS: But other people would anyway.
VIVIENNE: I see.
SESSION 20221101 Excerpt
Tuesday, November 1, 2022
Participants: Mary (Michael) and Vivienne (Eliza)
VIVIENNE: We discussed it in my last session about the aristocratic personalities and the peasantry viewing them as wealthier, because from the peasant point of view they were, and then the aristocratic personalities trying to subdue that. Is there a sort of racial memory of this that is affecting people? Because myself and maybe other aristocratic personalities, we do still kind of tend to be subdued because we don’t know how to express it, and then when we do sometimes people can get reactive to it, or maybe we’re influenced by the idea of equality being right. So, what is influencing in there, please?
ELIAS: I would say, as I expressed previously, that in your present time framework what is most influencing of you is your tendency to be romanticizing.
And in that, most of you do what YOU’VE been doing for a considerable time in your life about different time frameworks, and romanticizing those time frameworks, and looking at them as being better, or having more, or being more genuine, and in that, looking at different time frameworks and expressing how you THINK that that was better and that it was more real; it was more genuine; YOU would be more genuine if you were in that time framework. And you are, in that romanticizing, attempting to PULL that past association into now, and it doesn’t fit.
And what you don’t realize is that in relation to past centuries and aristocratic personalities, that many of the wealthy individuals didn’t actually HAVE an aristocratic personality. They weren’t actually aristocrats. There were a few, but remember, what have I said is a quality of an aristocratic personality? That they’re flamboyant! In that, what is going to stand out?
In relation to, let us say, a wealthy family, if there is one individual that has an aristocratic personality, they’re going to stand out. They’re going to be the individual that is looked at. And in that, then even through time that’s going to be the personality that you’re going to associate with wealth and position. But that flamboyant personality, generally in relation to wealthy individuals, was NOT looked at as good. Those were the individuals in the family that were looked down on, because they weren’t necessarily stoic; because they did go into the streets and want to be engaged with other individuals; because they were connecting; because they wanted to serve. THAT was not necessarily something that was looked upon as being good or attractive at the time.
VIVIENNE: Right.
ELIAS: And in that, I would say that it’s a matter of looking at these things from a more genuine perspective – which is what I have been expressing to all of you, but most of you haven’t necessarily connected with that yet and therefore haven’t understood it yet. And in that, you haven’t necessarily recognized what I am expressing to you about it’s not about wealth; it’s not about status; it’s not about HAVING expensive things; it’s not about having a castle.
And in that, even in the recent time framework in which many of you were engaging watching your television in association with your program of “The Gilded Age,” which glamorized that considerably, I would say that there were certain individuals as the characters – not as the actual people; the actual people were considerably different – but in looking at the characters, I would say that yes, there were several characters that you could identify as having an aristocratic personality, and NONE of them were the individuals that were what you think. Because it's not about what they have; it’s about who they are.
Now in this, as an individual now, you like nice things but that’s not because of your aristocratic personality. It’s simply that that’s a preference, that you like nice things. Another individual with an aristocratic personality might tend to move in a direction of being quite eclectic. Another individual might move in a direction of perceiving that the nice things to them are something entirely different; they may not have to do with things such as clothing, or vehicles, or a house, they may have to do with very different types of expressions. And that’s the point, is that it’s all very individual. And in that, the factor that you like nice things isn’t necessarily a matter of your personality type; it’s a matter of preference.
And in that, what I would say is, it’s something that definitely you can acknowledge yourself, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting nice things, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be attractive. There’s nothing wrong with wanting wealth, either! But it’s a matter of looking at your wants and evaluating those wants in relation to what is motivating that, and whether the motivation for that is coming from “not enough” or whether it’s coming from what you already have and wanting to build more OF that.
Therefore, this is the piece that so many individuals have been misunderstanding for quite some time as we have been engaging this subject of the aristocratic personality. It’s not about those things, and the reason that so many of you have difficulty with this subject is because there is that significant factor of romanticizing.
Even in the Gilded Age, let me express it was not what you think. Yes, there was a tremendous amount of competition in relation to wealth and power, and I would say actually moving in directions of some quite extraordinary gaudiness in how each individual perceived that they could outdo the other.
VIVIENNE: (Laughs) Yes, yeah.
ELIAS: It wasn’t about personality; that was about wealth and status. And that was not about personality types, that was about individuals moving in directions of establishing themselves in relation to the old and the new.
Therefore in that, I would say that there is a considerable amount of confusion and misinterpretation in relation to a personality type and the subject of wealth, power, status and influence.
VIVIENNE: Yes.
Copyright 2022 Mary Ennis, All Rights Reserved.