Enantiodromia

Enantiodromia (Greek ἐναντιοδρομία " mating " ) is that of Heraclitus of Ephesus ( about 535-475 BC) developed notion of the steady mutually opposing action of forces inherent in all living things as the fundamental law of being and cosmic rhythm.

Heraclitus put it: Panta Rhei = Off will warm cold, day of night, from winter which made ​​life death "Everything flows, converts and transforms into its opposite. ". We climb into the same river, and yet not the same; we are, and we are not. After that, it was also impossible to determine definitively what is good and evil. And any assessment is merely a imagine.

The communication scientist and psychotherapist Paul Watzlawick took up this idea again and pointed out that too much of a good thing always Envelopes into evil. Too much patriotism generating chauvinism, too much security coercion or too much butter cream cake nausea.

After Clifford A. Pickover enantiodromia is also the process in which a belief is transformed into its opposite. Pickover gives the example of the Damascus experience of the Apostle Paul of Tarsus.