November 5, 2005

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                         A TRANSPERSONAL VIEW OF WAR B

 

 

         WAR AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR COSMO-CENTRISM AND IMMORTALITY

      DURING THE EGOIC STAGE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                   Francoise Hall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Number of words: 26,553

 

 

 

 

 

                                         A TRANSPERSONAL VIEW OF WAR B

 

         WAR AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR COSMO-CENTRISM AND IMMORTALITY

      DURING THE EGOIC STAGE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS

 

THE STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE

The universe is composed of holons B nests within nests within nests indefinitely.  The universal-integral world view describes this holonic Kosmos, from subconscious to self-conscious to super-conscious (SES p. xiv).

 

HOLONS

A holon is a whole which is simultaneously part of another whole.  The universe is composed of holons, ad infinitum at either end of the magnitude scale.  A hierarchy of holons (a holarchy) is the fundamental structural principle of the universe.  Growth occurs in stages of increasing orders of wholeness (SES pp. xiv, 25, and 28-29). 

 

Around 1550 C.E., APseudo-Dionysius@ coined the word hierarchy (sacred governance).  [Note: the coiner of the term is not the first century Christian mystic, Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, as was thought in the Middle Ages].  Arthur Koestler (1905-1983) coined the term holarchy as a more accurate description of the structure of the universe (SES p. 26; Encyclopedia).

 

EVOLUTION

The evolution of the universe is a Apunctuated,@ Aemergent,@ self-transcending process.  Radically novel and incredibly complex holons come into existence in huge leaps, quantum-like fashion, without evidence of intermediate forms.  Erich Jantsch (c.1969) described evolution as Aself-realization through self-transcendence.@  The drive to self-transcendence is built into the very fabric of the Kosmos itself (HE p. 23).

 

The Kosmos has a formative drive, a direction, a telos, a principle of order out of chaos.  This drive is the organization of Form into increasingly coherent holons, each having a greater depth (consciousness, Spirit) than its predecessor.  The Kosmos is going somewhere.  Chance is defeated.  Where matter is favorable, life emerges.  Where life is favorable, mind emerges.  Where mind is favorable, Spirit emerges.  Each level transcends and includes its predecessor.  The ground of the Kosmos is Emptiness.  Spirit is ever-present at every level or dimension, but it is not merely a particular level or dimension.  It transcends all, includes all, as the groundless Ground, the Emptiness of all manifestation.  Consciousness is what depth looks like from the inside, from within (HE pp. 26-27, 35, 38 and 40-41).

 

AThe ultimate metaphysical principle is the creative advance into novelty,@ said Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947).  Creativity is part of the basic ground of the universe.  New colons emerge out of a creative ground B Emptiness, God/Goddess, Godhead, Tao, Brahman, Dharmakaya, etc. . . (HE p. 225).

 

 

 

 

 

 

EIGHT APPROACHES TO ANY ONE INDIVIDUAL HOLON

Holons arise as subject and object, in both singular and plural forms.  Thus, each individual holon has four domains (aspects, facets, dimensions).  Spirit exists in and as all four of these domains (HE p. 226; EoS p. 247).

 

Within each of the four domains of every holon, the location of the observer may be either inside or outside the event being reported.  Thus, within each domain, there are two perspectives from which observations can be made (SG p. 44).

 

Integral methodological pluralism analyzes any observation according to these eight major perspectives (four domains, in each of which there are two perspectives).  These perspectives, in fact, drive eight of the most widely used human methodologies (SG pp. 44-45).

 

Each holon can be viewed from the perspectives of:

1.                  The Interior-Individual.  This is consciousness.  It has no simple location and can be accessed only by communication and interpretation (hermeneutics), by dialogue, by the inter-subjective sharing of interiors.  In this dimension, the universe has value, meaning, intention, depth and quality (HE p. 86-87).

 

The primary rule of hermeneutics (the art and science of interpretation), is that all meaning is context-bound (HE pp. 98-99).

 

Representatives of this viewpoint include Gautama Buddha (563-483 B.C.), Plotinus (205-270), Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Aurobindo Ghose (1872-1950), Carl Jung (1875-1961), Jean Piaget (1896-1980), and Jurgen Habermas (1929-) (HE pp. 86-87; EoS p. 9; SG p. 57).

 

The validity claims of this aspect of holons are truthfulness, sincerity, integrity, trustworthiness (HE p. 107).

 

An AI@ looked at from its own inside leads to concepts such as phenomenology, introspection and meditation.  An AI@ looked at from without, Aobjectively,@ leads to structuralism B to such observations as stages of development (SG pp. 45-46).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.                  The Interior-Collective (Cultural).  Cultural meanings have to be accessed from within, in a sympathetic understanding (HE p. 95).

 

Representatives of this viewpoint include Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911), Max Weber (1864-1920), Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002), Jean Gebser (1905-1973), and Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996) (HE pp. 86 and 95; EoS p. 9).

 

The validity claims of this aspect of holons are justness, cultural, inter-subjective fit, mutual understanding, rightness (HE p. 107).

 

A Awe@ looked at from its own inside leads to concepts such as hermeneutics, participant observer, and sympathetic resonance.  A Awe@ looked at from its own without, in an anthropological disposition (still focused on the inter-subjective, that is, still focused on meaning, genealogy and semantics), leads to cultural anthropology (SG pp. 45-46). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.                  The Exterior-Individual.  This is form.  It is a surface which has simple location and can be seen (perceived) empirically, with either the senses or their extensions.  Its objective behavior can be observed.  It can be accessed by monologue.  In this dimension, the universe is devoid of value, meaning, intention, depth and quality.  It is disqualified, ruled by a monological gaze.

 

Representatives of this viewpoint include John Locke (1632-1704), John Watson      (1878-1958), B. F. Skinner (1904-1990), and those whose viewpoint is empiricism, behaviorism, physics, biology and neurology (HE pp. 86 and 88-89; EoS p. 9).

 

The validity claims of this aspect of holons are truth, correspondence, representation, propositional (HE p. 107).

 

An AI@ taken to be an object, looked at  from its own inside leads to the concept of autopoiesis (a self-making system).  An AI@ taken to be an object, looked at from its own outside leads to empiricism (SG pp. 45-46).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4.         The Exterior-Collective (Social). This is the behavior of societies.  The approach is positivistic, naturalistic, empirical, behavioral, monological.  Values are seen as subservient to the social system.

 

Representatives of this viewpoint include Auguste Comte (1798-1857), Karl Marx (1818-1883), Talcott Parsons (1902-1979), Gerhard Lenski (1924-), and those whose viewpoint is systems theory (HE pp. 86 and 96; EoS p. 9). 

 

General systems theory, Afunctionalism,@ views societies as organic systems, with each of their parts (religion, education, customs, etc. . .) serving a useful or necessary function.  This function may be manifest (having a recognized value), or latent (neither recognized nor consciously intended). 

 

For functionalism, Lao Tzu (fl. 550 B.C.), Gautama Buddha (563-483 B.C.) and Jesus Christ (3 B.C.-36 C.E.) were not really intuiting a transcendent ground of being B which is what they said they were doing (their manifest intent).  Since there is no objective evidence, no empirical referent for this Atranscendental ground,@ what these sages were really doing was serving some sort of merely latent function unknown to them.  The transcendental ground, as transcendental ground, never enters the picture, contrary to everything the sages themselves actually said on the subject (SG pp. 63-64).

 

The validity claims of this aspect of holons are functional fit, systems theory web, structural-functionalism, social systems mesh (HE p. 107).

 

A Awe@ taken to be a social system of dynamically interwoven objects (systems theory), looked at from its own inside leads to the concept of social autopoiesis (self-making social systems).  A Awe@ taken to be a social system of dynamically interwoven objects, looked at from its own outside, leads to concept of structural-functional systems (SG pp. 45-46).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE TENETS OF HOLONS

The following tenets of holons describe the pattern which manifested things display as they arise out of Emptiness.  This pattern is how holons evolve to their Source.  The pattern embodies a creative drive to greater depth (consciousness), which ultimately unfolds into its own infinite ground in pure Emptiness.  But that Emptiness is not itself an emergent.  It is rather the creative ground (prior to time) that was present all along.  It was present all along as the interior depth of every holon, a depth that increasingly shed its lesser forms, until it shed forms altogether (HE p. 226).

4.                  Holons compose Reality.  Holons, not things or processes compose reality (SES p. 43).

 

5.                  Holons have Four Fundamental Capacities.  (These can be visualized as a cross B with agency and self-adaptation as the horizontal arm, and self-transcendence and self-dissolution as the vertical arm):

a.                   Agency: As a whole, a holon remains itself, preserves itself.  It has relative autonomy.  It has a Adeep structure,@ an intrinsic form or pattern, an agency, a code, a regime.  This is a  horizontal dimension.  Changes in this dimension are Atranslations.@  Translations are changes in surface structures.

 

The agency of any given holon translates the world according to the terms of its deep structure.  Holons respond only to that which registers (fits) their world space.  That is, holons can respond only to those stimuli that fall within their world space B their world view.  Everything else is non-existent.  Thus, holons do not simply reflect a pre-given world.  Rather, according to their capacity, they select, organize, give form to, the multitude of stimuli cascading around them.  Their responses never simply Acorrespond@ to something Aout there.@  They recognize, or register, and thus respond to, only those items that fit the coherence of their deep structure.   Holons are not heteronomous units operating by a logic of correspondence, but rather are relatively autonomous units operating by a logic of coherence.

 

The study of what holons can respond to is the study of their shared world spaces, the common world that all holons of a similar depth will respond to, their shared culture.  Anything outside that world space is not registered.  The world looks different at each level because it is different at each level.  At each higher level, holons look at it with new eyes, and thus bring forth new worlds not previously existing (SES pp. 48, 52, 66-68 and 78; HE pp. 78-79).

 

 

b.                  Self-adaptation: As a part, the holon must fit in B communion.  This is also a horizontal dimension.

 

c.                   Self-transcendence: A holon can transform itself into something novel and different, emergent.  This is a vertical dimension.  Changes in this dimension are Atransformations,@ Aself-transcendence@ B water from two hydrogen and one oxygen atoms, for example.  Transformations are changes in deep structures.

 

In transformation, a new form of agency emerges, and thus a whole new world of available stimuli becomes accessible to the new holon.  Greater depth brings other worlds into this world, constantly.  Nature progresses by sudden leaps and deep-seated transformations rather than through piecemeal adjustments.  Development is a constant conversion of Aotherworldly@ into Athis worldly@ via a deepening of perception brought about by the emergence of new holons (SES pp. 49-50 and 66-67).

 

d.                  Self-dissolution: When holons disintegrate, they do so along the same vertical sequence as that in which they were built.  This implies a primitive, holistic system memory (SES p. 52).  

 

6.                  Holons emerge.  Holons develop in quantum-like leaps.  New holons come into being through creative emergence (novelty), Asymmetry breaks,@ self-transcendence.  While the higher level Arests on@ the lower, it is not caused by or constituted by the lower.  The higher is in part emergent, discontinuous, revolutionary.  The higher emerges by way of the lower, coming through the lower, but not from it (SES p. 74 and HE pp. 40-41; SG p. 85).

 

Holons are fundamentally indeterminate in some aspects.  It seems difficult for any densely connected aggregate to escape emergent properties.  All science is, therefore, reconstructive.  Determinism arises only in two situations:

a.                   As a limiting case, where a holon=s capacity for self-transcendence approaches zero B rocks, for example B and then the science that studies them can be predictive.

 

b.                  When a holon=s own self-transcendence hands the locus of indeterminacy to a higher holon (SES pp. 54-56).

 

7.                  Holons emerge holarchically.  Holons emerge as a series of increased whole/parts.  As expressed by Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), AThe many become one and are increased by one@ (SES p. 56).

 

 

 

 

8.                  Emergent Holons transcend but include their Predecessors.  All of the lower is in the higher holon, but not all of the higher is in the lower.  All the basic structures and functions are preserved and taken up in a larger identity, but all the exclusivity structures and functions that existed because of isolation, set-apartness, partialness, exclusiveness, separative agency, are simply dropped and replaced with a deeper agency that reaches a wider communion.  The holon Atranscends but includes,@ Anegates and preserves.@  An example of this process is Hawaii becoming a state of the United States instead of remaining a country unto itself (SES pp. 59-60).

 

9.                  Holons at One Level of a Holarchy relate to those at Different Levels.

The level of a holon in a holarchy is established by:

a.                   Qualitative emergence.

b.                  Asymmetry B Asymmetry breaks.@

c.                   An inclusionary principle B the higher includes the lower but not vice versa.

d.                  A developmental logic B the higher negates and preserves a lower, but not vice versa.

e.                   A chronological indicator B chronologically, the higher comes after the lower, but all that is later is not higher (SES pp. 62-63).

 

The relationship between levels is such that:

a.         The Lower Holon sets the Possibilities of the Higher: The higher cannot ignore the lower level B if my body falls off a cliff, my mind goes with it (SES p. 61).

 

a.                   The Higher Holon sets the Probabilities of the Lower: The higher holon organizes and patterns the in-determinism that in isolation, the lower-level holon would show (SES p. 62). 

 

7.                  Each Layer of a Holon is in relational Exchange with Holons of the same Depth in the Environment.  As holons evolve, each layer of their depth continues to exist in, and depend upon, a network of relationships with holons in the environment which are at the same level of structural organization.  As human beings, for instance, each of our three levels (matter, life and mind), maintains its own existence by means of a system of relational exchanges with holons around us which are of the same depth B our physical body relates to other physical bodies (gravitation, light, water, weather, etc. . .), our biological body relates to the biosphere, and our mind to our culture (SES pp. 73-74).


 

 

8.                  Holarchies have ADepth@ and ASpan.@  Holons make up holarchies (hierarchies).  The number of levels in a holarchy defines its Adepth,@ its vertical dimension.  The number of holons at its highest level defines its Aspan,@ its horizontal dimension.  Atoms have a small depth but enormous span.  Humans have a much greater depth and a much smaller span.  Thus, depth, not population size, establishes the order of richness, the order of qualitative emergence (SES p. 64). 

 

9.                  The Destruction of a Holon entails the Destruction of all the Holons above it, and none of the Holons below It.  When holons dissolve, they regress to the next lower level.  However, if any lower level is destroyed, all the higher levels automatically go with it. 

 

The greater the depth of a holon, the more significant it is to the Kosmos because it embraces more of it B primates, for example.  However, the less the holon is fundamental because relatively fewer other holons depend on it for their own existence.  The lesser the depth of a holon, the more fundamental it is to the Kosmos because it is a component of so many other holons B atoms, for example.  However, the less the holon is significant because it embraces within itself so little of Kosmos (SES pp. 69-71).  

 

10.              Holons co-evolve.  The Aunit@ of evolution is not an isolated holon but a holon plus its inseparable environment.  All agency is always agency-in-communion.  Individual and social/environmental evolve heterarchically to new holarchical levels of each.  The universe is not composed of individuals but of holons B   Adividuals@ (SES pp. 71-72).  

 

11.              Evolution consists of Holons which develop directionally.  Aside from regressions, dissolutions, arrests, etc. . ., evolution tends in the direction of ever-increasing depth (ever-greater consciousness).  This is the basic drive of evolution.  Indicators of the directionality of evolution include:

a.         Increasing complexity: The evolution of the universe is the history of an unfolding of differentiated order, complexity (SES pp. 74-75 and HE p. 40).

 

b.                  Increasing Differentiation/Integration: Evolution is a change from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity, to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, through continuous differentiations and integrations  (not Darwin=s Adescent with modification@).  In human beings, the aggressive drive is the drive to differentiation, and Eros is the drive to integration (SES pp. 75-76).

c.                   Increasing Organization/Structuration: Evolution moves from the simpler to the more complex type of system, and from the lower to the higher level of organization.  Thus, a group of species with a recent common ancestor forms a clade.  A group of species with the same level of structural organization forms a grade B that is, the species have a similar level of depth (SES p. 78).

 

d.                  Increasing Agency (Relative Autonomy): The greater the depth of a holon, the greater its relative autonomy, that is, flexibility in the face of changing environmental conditions.  A fox can maintain its internal temperature relatively independently of changing weather, whereas a rock=s temperature fluctuates immediately with every passing circumstance. 

 

                                               Holons are relatively autonomous vis-a-vis their juniors and relatively subservient vis-a-vis their seniors.  As parts, holons are subject to the larger forces and systems of which they are a component and which limit their expression.  The initiation of action is often moved to a higher holon B as when my country declares war and I am included, like it or not (SES pp. 78-79).

 

e.                   Increasing ATelos:@ The deep structure of holons tend to Apull@ them in the direction of their actualization in space and time.  The deep structure of an acorn (its DNA) Apulls@ it in the direction of the oak.  Limited contexts find resolution, not by anything that can be done on the same level, but only by transcending that level, by finding deeper and wider contexts.  For holons as parts, deeper and wider contexts exert a pull, a telos, on present limited contexts.  God could be an all-embracing chaotic Attractor, acting throughout the world by gentle persuasion toward love (SES pp. 81-85 and HE p. 40). 

 

12.              Evolution consists of a Succession of Holarchies, each with more Depth and Less Span.  The Adepth@ of a holarchy reflects the number of levels which it comprises.  The Aspan@ of a holarchy reflects number of holons it has at its highest level.  In relation to a holon=s predecessor, the greater the depth, the less the span.  Thus, the span of mental holons is much less than the span of living holons, which in turn is much less than the span of material holons B Athe pyramid of development@ (SES pp. 64-65). 

 

The greater the depth of a holon, the greater its degree of consciousness.  The spectrum of evolution is a spectrum of consciousness.  Thus, a spiritual dimension is built into the very fabric, the very depth, of the Kosmos (SES p. 65). 


 

 

 

 

THE INDIVIDUAL HUMAN HOLON

The human holon has different levels B matter, body, mind, soul and spirit, and each of these levels manifests itself in the four dimensions of all holons B intentional, cultural, behavioral and social (HE p. 104).

 

ONTOGENY: INDIVIDUAL HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Evolution on the whole appears in humans as psychological development and growth.  The same Aforce@ that produced humans from amoebas, produces adults from infants, and civilization from barbarism.  Each emergence is a de-centering, a transcendence, that finds more of the Aexternal world@ to be actually Ainternal,@ part of its very being.  At each stage, the deep structures are given (discovered, re-membered) and the surface structures learned. 

 

Translation integrates, stabilizes and equilibrates its given level.  Transformation goes beyond its given level.  It is a revolutionary re-organization of past elements with the emergence of new elements.  It is synonymous with transcendence.  Each time, the experience of transcendence involves an interpretive component, and this component cannot proceed without various backgrounds (HE pp. 204 and 212; AP p. 49; UE p. 322; SG pp. 92-93).

 

In both ontogenetic and phylogenetic evolution, whenever the wisdom of a previous stage is forgotten, pathology results (SG p. 31).

 

 Stage       Age

 

1.         0-2 years          Sensory-motor Period (Archaic World View).  At birth, the infant is Auroboric@ (a serpent which eats its own tail, thus forming a self-contained, pre-differentiated mass, Ain the round,@ ignorant unto itself).  The infant transcends this archaic fusion state and emerges (hatches) as a grounded physical self.  It transcends its physio-centric identity, its Amaterial@ self (SES pp. 220; HE p. 158; AP p. 9).

 

The infant=s physical body is now separated from the environment, but its emotional body is not.  The emotional self still exists in a state of indissociation from other emotional objects, in particular the mothering one (SES pp. 220 and 232). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.         1 2 year          Typhonic Period (Egocentric World View).  The infant transcends its embeddedness in the undifferentiated biosphere.  It differentiates its own biopshere from the biosphere of those around it, its feelings from the feelings of others.  This is the phase Margaret Mahler (1897-1985) called Aseparation-individuation@ B the differentiation and integration of a stable emotional self.  The child=s identity is bio-centric, its world space Atyphonic@ (half human, half serpent), ruled by his limbic system, and its world view is egocentric.  By around age three, the child has both a stable and coherent physical and emotional self, and the development of the noosphere begins in earnest (SES pp. 224 and 232; HE p. 99; AP p. 13).

 

3.         2 years Pre-operational Period (Archaic-magic World View).  The noosphere emerges (language).  Images and symbols are initially fused and confused with the external world.  The world view is egocentric and cannot construct a hierarchy. 

 

By the end of the second year, there is physical Aobject permanence@ B the capacity of the infant to understand that physical objects exist independently of him or her B that is, that the physical world exists independently of one=s egocentric wishes about it (SES pp. 220, 223, 232 and 253).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2-4 years          Early Pre-operational (Magic World View).  Magical cognitions continue to dominate the entire early pre-operational period.  Thus, the first major layer of the noosphere is magical.  The newly emerging images and symbols do not merely represent objects.  They are thought to be concretely part of the things they represent.  A word acts upon a thing, a gesture will protect one from a certain danger, a pebble will bring about the growth of water lilies, etc. . .  The secret of the universe is to learn the right type of word magic that will directly alter the world.

 

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) described the primary process.  Its laws are:

Displacement: Two different objects are Alinked@ because they share similar parts or predicates B a relation of similarity (if one Asian person is bad, all Asians must be bad).  This confuses different holons because they share similar agency.  Displacement is a metaphor.

 

Condensation: Different objects are related because they exist in the same space B a relation of contiguity (a lock of hair of a great warrior Acontains@ his power in condensed form).  This confuses different holons because the share similar communions.  Condensation is a metonym (SES pp. 225-227). 

 

4-7 years          Late Pre-operational (Magic-mythic World View).  This is the early egoic period.  When the omnipotent magic of the individual no longer works, it is transferred to others B Dad, God.  AMaybe I can=t order the world around, but Daddy (or God, or the volcano spirit) can.@  Hundreds of gods and goddesses, all capable of doing what the subject can no longer do, come onto the scene, and miraculously alter the patterns of nature in order to cater to the subject=s wants.  The secret of the universe is to learn the right rituals and prayers that will make the gods and goddesses intervene and alter the world for the subject (SES p. 227. UE p. 230). 

 

The archetypes of Carl Jung (1875-1961) are for the most part magico-mythic motifs and Aarchaic images@ which should be called Aprototypes,@ because they have been collectively inherited from our pre-rational past (the magic and mythic dimensions of human awareness).  They are not the transcendental archetypes or Forms found either in the West, as in Plato (?427-347 B.C.) and Georg Hegel (1770-1831), or in the East, as in the Mahayana tradition (200 C.E.), the Trikaya doctrine of the Mahayana tradition (350 C.E.), and in Shankara (788-820, founder of Advaita Vedanta, the non-dual and the most influential school of Vedanta) (SES pp. 227, 256 and 232; HE pp. 213 and 216-217).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4.         7 years Concrete Operational Stage (Mythic-rational World View).  The mind begins to differentiate from the body.  It transcends its merely bodily orientation absorbed in itself (ego-centric), and begins to enter the world of other minds.  To do so, it must learn to take the role of other.  The child begins to form an early noosphere identity, an identity centered on a role.  His world view is socio-centric (and thus ethnocentric).  The view constructs myths and dominator hierarchies.  Morality is conventional.  In those nations where the mythic holons govern, military expansionism is the rule.

 

Yahweh is a mythic level production B a geocentric, ego-centric, anthropocentric, local volcano god whose true structural colors are shown by the fact that He touches human history only by interfering with it, either to Areward@ or Apunish@ His Achosen@ peoples, or, more often, to smite their enemies miraculously, and by the fact that otherwise He spends His time Aturning spinach into potatoes@ (SES pp. 232-233, 235, 253, 261 and 360-361).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.         11-15 years      Formal Operational Stage (Rational World View). The ego emerges as a self clearly differentiated from the external world and from its various roles (personae).  This is the tertiary dualism.  (The first dualism is the manufacture of space, the second, the manufacture of time).  The world view is world-centric.  Reason frees the mythic structure and makes possible invisible worlds.  Thinking is ecological, understands relativity, and is non-anthropocentric.  Justice, mercy, compassion, reciprocity, equality based on mutual respect for individuals, and the dictates of conscience based on rights and responsibilities, make their appearance.  The awareness is synthesizing and integrating but still tends toward a dichotomizing logic, a logic of either/or, rather like Aristotelian logic.  In this stage, the mind is looking at the world.  The awareness is global.  The identity is with all human beings (SES p. 235, 238, 240, 242-243 and 259; HE pp. 191 and 203; SC p. 232; EoS p. 266).

 

The Characteristics of Rationality:

Rationality:

m.                Is hypothetico-deductive or experimental.

n.                  Is highly reflexive and introspective.

o.                  Grasps multiple perspectives.

p.                  Brings forth an ego identity from the previous role identity.

q.                  Is ecological or relational.

r.                    Is non-anthropocentric.

s.                   Brings a new space of deeper feeling and greater passion B  the explosive idealism of the true dreamer who can cognitively imagine all the possibilities (SES pp. 385-391).

 

Death: As in all the previous stages, the self has difficulty coming to terms with its mortality.  It constructs immortality symbols through which it projects its incapacity to face death.  These are vain attempts to beat time and exist everlastingly in some mythic heaven, some rational project, some great art work.  It lies about its responsibility for its own choices, preferring to see itself as a passive victim of some outside force.  It lies about the richness of the present by projecting itself backward in guilt and forward in anxiety.  It lies about its fundamental responsibility by hiding in the herd mentality, getting lost in the Other.  It fashions projects of deception to hide itself from the shocking truth of existence (HE p. 194). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6.                                 Vision-logic (Aperspectival World View). The person has a synthesizing and integrative awareness which adds up the parts of the universe and sees networks of interactions, without dichotomizing logic.  This awareness supports an integrated personality, a self which inhabits a global perspective.  The self is the centaur which represents the integration of mind and body, noosphere and biopshere, in a relatively autonomous self.  Rather than being only a subject, the mind is also an object.  The observing self is looking at the body-mind and the world.  While all perspectives are relative, nonetheless some have more value than others.  As depth increases, consciousness shines forth more noticeably.  The world view is world-centric (HE pp. 139, 141, 191, 198 and 326; EoS p. 266).

 

Death: At this stage, the self realizes its own finitude.  Neither magic, mythic gods nor rational science will save it.  This stage is marked by existential dread, despair, angst, Asickness unto death@ (HE pp.  193-194).

 

The Ecological Crisis: Only from a global, post-conventional, world-centric stance can individuals recognize the actual dimensions of the environmental crisis, and in addition, possess the moral vision and fortitude to take steps on a global basis (HE p. 329).

 

7.                                 Psychic, Global Soul (Psychic, Yogic, Shamanic World View).  The world view is Agross@ or nature mysticism (what the Buddhists call Nirmanakaya).  The person is able to temporarily dissolve the centaur=s sense of a separate self, and find an identity with the entire gross or sensorimotor world, all living beings.  The self is the AEco-noetic self,@ the AOver-soul,@ the AWorld Soul@ (HE pp. 139, 200, 202-203, 211 and 227; EoS p. 266; SG pp. 26, 33 and 39).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8.                                 Subtle (Subtle, Saintly World View).  At this stage, the self unites, fuses, with the deity (what the Buddhists call the Sambhogakaya).  The world view is subtle or deity mysticism (HE pp. 139 and 200; EoS p. 266).

 

Archetype means Aoriginal pattern,@ Aprimary mold.@  The transcendental archetypes or ideal Forms seen at this level of awareness are the subtle seed-forms upon which all of manifestation depends.  These are the Forms found in the West, in Plato (?427-347 B.C.) and in Georg Hegel (1770-1831), and in the East, in the Mahayana tradition (200 C.E.), the Trikaya doctrine of the Mahayana tradition (350 C.E.), and in Shankara (788-820, founder of Advaita Vedanta, the non-dual and the most influential school of Vedanta).  These Forms are the creative patterns which are said to underlie all manifestation, and which give pattern to chaos and form to Kosmos (SES pp. 227, 256 and 232; HE pp. 213 and 216-217).

 

The entire Kosmos emerges straight out of Emptiness (Primordial Purity, Nirguna Brahman, Dharmakaya), and the first Forms that emerge are the basic Forms upon which all lesser forms depend for their being.  There is a Light of which all lesser lights are pale shadows, there is a Bliss of which all lesser joys are anemic copies, there is a Consciousness of which all lesser cognitions are mere reflections, there is a primordial Sound of which all lesser sounds are thin echoes (HE p. 217).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9.                                 Causal (Causal, Sagely World View).  The world view at this stage is causal or formless mysticism (what the Buddhists call the Dharmakaya).  The self dis-identifies with any and every object in awareness, because no object in awareness is the observing self.  The self, the seer, the witness is pure subjectivity, which can never be seen, can never be an object.  It is an opening, a clearing, an Emptiness, a vast spaciousness in which all objects (mind, body and nature) float by.  There arises a sense of freedom, of release, of not being bound to any of the objects one is witnessing (HE pp. 139, 200 and 222; EoS p. 266).

 

Patanjali (c.150 B.C.) described bondage as Athe identification of the Seer with the instruments of seeing,@ that is, with the little subjects and objects, instead of the opening, clearing, emptiness in which they all arise (HE p. 223).

 

The pure source of awareness does not arise in space, nor does it move in time.  It is ever-present and unvarying.  It is prior to life and death, to time and turmoil, to space and movement, to manifestation, even to the Big Bang.  It exists prior to time.  It never enters the temporal stream because it is timeless, eternal, free of time (not everlasting).  It is unborn and undying.  Space, time, objects, all merely parade by and then cease to arise at all (nirvikalpa).  All objects, even God as a perceived form, vanish into cessation.  The self is the witness that is pure emptiness.  It does not suffer because it is not touched by the fragments of space, time and objects (the world of Form, samsara).  It is the causal un-manifest, Emptiness (HE pp. 223-224 and 237).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10.                               Non-dual (Non-dual, Siddha World View). The world view at this stage is non-dual mysticism (what the Buddhists call the Svabhavikakaya B the integration of nature, subtle and formless mysticism).  This stage is not a separate level but rather the self, dis-identifying from even the witness, recognizes the reality (Suchness) of all levels, all states, all conditions.  The self embraces the entire spectrum of consciousness, transcends all, includes all.  Awareness is no longer split into a seeing subject in here and a seen object out there B the sense of being a seer, a witness, vanishes.  There is only pure seeing.  Consciousness and its display are not two B there is nobody watching the display of the Kosmos arising moment to moment.  There is only the display.  The Emptiness of the witness is one with every form that is witnessed.  The self does not look at the sky.  It is the sky.  AForm is Emptiness and Emptiness is Form.@  The real world is not given twice, once out there and a second time in here.  The real world is given once, immediately, as one feeling, one taste.  There is no plural (HE pp. 139, 200 and 226-228; EoS p. 266).

 

The primordial recognition of One Taste, the recognition (not the creation) of the fact that you and Kosmos are One Spirit, One Taste, One Gesture, is the great gift of the non-dual traditions.  When I am not an object, I am God.  And every I in the entire Kosmos can say that truthfully.  I am then an opening, a clearing, in which all things arise ((EoS pp. 295, 299 and 302).

 

I cease to exist as a separate self and exist instead as a vehicle of Spirit.  From the ground of ever-present awareness, I will arise as Samantabhadra, whose ever-present awareness takes the form of a vast equality consciousness, an Avalokiteshvara, whose ever-present awareness takes the form of gentle compassion, as Prajnaparamita, the mother of the Buddhas, whose ever-present awareness takes the form of a vast spaciousness, the womb of the great Unborn, in which the entire Kosmos exists, or as Manjushri, whose ever-present awareness takes the form of luminous intelligence, or as Yamantaka, fierce protector of ever-present awareness and samurai warrior of intrinsic Spirit, or as Bhaishajaguru, whose ever-present awareness takes the form of a healing radiance, or as Maitreya, whose ever-present awareness takes the form of a promise that, even into the endless future, ever-present awareness will still be simply present.  These are simply a few of the forms of my own resurrection (EoS pp. 304-306).

 

When the great Zen master Fa-ch=ang was dying, and a squirrel screeched out on the roof, he said, AIt=s just this and nothing more@ (EoS p. 308).   

 

 

 

THE ATMAN PROJECT B HUMAN ATTEMPTS TO FIND SPIRIT

The psychological development of humans has the same goal as natural evolution B the production of ever-higher unities, all the way to the Ultimate Reality, Ultimate Unity, Spirit, Buddha, God, Atman.  (In Hinduism, Brahman is the ultimate and universal reality of pure being and consciousness, and Atman is the inner essence of the human being).  From the outset, the soul intuits its Atman nature, and seeks to actualize it as a reality.  This is the drive to actualize Atman (AP p. 117; Encyclopedia under Upanishads). 

 

The Atman Project is created by the split between subject and object.  At each stage of development, humans attempt to attain the ultimate Unity within the constraints of their present stage.  Not finding it, they seek it in ways that prevent finding it and force symbolic substitutes.  Only at the end of psychological growth is there final enlightenment and liberation in and as God (AP pp. xiv, 43, 117-118 and 120; UE p. 82).

 

Once the sense of a separate self is created out of prior Wholeness, the self is faced with trying to perpetuate its own existence (Eros), and avoid all that threatens its dissolution, including transcendence (Thanatos, the power to transcend illusory boundaries, sunyata, seamlessness, which appears to the self as a threat of literal death and physical mortality).  In place of eternity, the self substitutes (subjectively) immortality strivings and death-denial, and (objectively) immortality symbols and substitute sacrifices (AP pp. 118-119; UE pp. 157 and 259).

 

The Atman project has four dimensions: 

1.                  Subjective:

a.                   Eros: Eros is the desire to recapture the prior Wholeness which was obscured when the boundary between self and other was constructed.  However, the self has not reached the non-dual stage (Atman), and therefore, there is no recaptured Wholeness.  The self must rely on a substitute.  Instead of finding actual and timeless wholeness, the self substitutes the wish to live forever.  Instead of being one with the Kosmos, it substitutes the desire to possess the Kosmos.  Instead of being one with God, it tries itself to play God.  These wishes are based on the correct intuition that the real Nature of the self is infinite and eternal, but on the incorrect assumption that this intuition can be applied to a separate self, can be achieved at a level of development below the non-dual, that one=s ego should be God B immortal, cosmo-centric, death-defying, all-powerful (AP pp. 120-124).

 

 

 

 

 

 

b.                  Thanatos: Death terror arises in one form or another wherever there is a boundary.  It is inherent in the sense of a separate self.  AWherever there is other, there is fear@(the Upanishads, the last section of the literature of the Vedas, mystical writings of Hinduism, composed beginning c.900 B.C.).  The self denies death and finds tokens of transcendence through substitute sacrifices (AP p. 121-124).

 

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939): AThe desire to kill replaces the desire to die [through transcendence]@ (AP p. 124). 

 

2.                  Objective: 

a.                   External, in the Service of Eros: This dimension consists of wants, desires, properties and possessions, goods and materials.  The self searches for wealth, fame, power and knowledge, all of which it tends to imbue with either infinite worth or infinite desirability.  Since it is infinity that the self wants, all of these external, objective, and finite objects are merely substitute gratifications.  The world of objective substitute gratifications is the world of culture.  Culture is the major human realm of objective compensatory activity (AP p. 125; UE p. 18). 

 

b.                  External, in the Service of Thanatos: This dimension consists of substitute sacrifices (AP p. 125).  

 

Among these substitute sacrifices is war:

*          Otto Rank (1884-1937): AThe death fear of the ego is lessened by the killing, the sacrifice, of the other.  Through the death of the other, one buys oneself free from the penalty of dying, of being killed@ (AP p. 124). 

 

*          Ernest Becker (1925-1974): A[War is] the offering of the other=s body in order to buy off one=s own death@ (AP p. 124).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PHYLOGENY: CONSCIOUSNESS AND WORLD VIEWS

 

B.C.

8,000,000,000 The ABig Bang.@  (Previously thought to be 15,000,000,000 years ago) (UE p. 25;  UE p. 320 footnote).

 

       6,000,000          To around 200,000 years ago.  Pre-Homo sapiens: Australopithecus africanus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus.  This is the archaic-uroboric period.  The pleroma-uroboros is the symbol of the primitive awareness during this period B embedded in physical nature (pleroma is an old gnostic term which signifies the potential of physical nature), and dominated by animal-reptilian impulses (uroboros, a serpent eating its own tail, that is, self-possessed, narcissistically all-enclosing).  Man=s world and man=s self (the newly evolving center of his experience) are basically undifferentiated.  Man has no conception of time (he is pre-temporal), and there is no real comprehension of death.  This is the structure of consciousness which lies behind the universal myths of a Garden of Eden B a time before the Afall@ into separation and knowledge with reflection, a time of innocence (UE pp. 26, 32 and 65).

 

          700,000        Foraging (Hunting and Gathering) Societies.  The world view is archaic animistic.  Magic reigns.  Spirit is located Aout there,@ interwoven with the earth-body.  The very earth is our blood and bones and marrow, and we are all sons and daughters of that earth, in which, and through which, Spirit flows freely (HE pp. 45-46, 53, 64, 173 and 322). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

        200,000           The ATyphon@ (Body-self) Stage of Consciousness.  This stage lasts until 9,500 B.C.  Neanderthal man (200,000-50,000 years ago) arises.  The self is still undifferentiated from the body, and hence is a body-self, but this body-self is now separate from the natural world.  Moreover, this new focal self seems central to the natural world and must be defended against all odds.  And thus, in this dim past of pre-history, there arises the awakening of a defended Aself-in-here@ versus Athe world-out-there@ (UE pp. 43-44 and 46).

 

Though the self is distinguished from the naturic environment, it remains magically intermingled with it.  Cognitive processes confuse subject and object, and whole and parts.  This is the primary process of dreams.  It is the Aparataxic mode@ where the undifferentiated wholeness of experience (uroboros) is broken down into parts which are still not connected in any logical way, though they are connected by magical association and contamination (UE p. 45).  

 

The increasing keenness of consciousness brings an increasing awareness of vulnerability.  Our earliest certain evidence of religious ritual, the Neanderthal (early typhonic) graves and bear sanctuaries, point to an attempt to cope with the imprint of death.  Time becomes both a means of repressing death (for to deny death is to demand a future in which man can project himself), and a substitute for eternity (time allows one the illusion of continuing).  The typhon lives in the simple, passing present and knows that he is a separate individual living in the discrete present.  The new self seeks to preserve the present and consciously carry it forward to the next present, and the next, and the next, as a promise that death will not touch it now.  The typhon has a constant time demand, a demand that the present move perpetually to its successor.  The daily hunt deals death so man can live.  Groups consist of 40-50 individuals.  There is no warfare as we know it (UE pp. 62 and 64-65, 67,  69, 72 and 95).

 

          70,000          Language consists of intentional calls (UE p. 98).

 

          50,000          Cro-Magnon man (50,000-10,000 years ago) arises.  Language includes modifiers (UE p. 98).

 

          35,000          Language includes commands (UE p. 98).

 

          20,000          Language includes nouns (UE p. 98).

 

 

 

 

            9,500         ALow Mythic-membership@ Stage, Horticultural Societies.  This stage lasts until 4,500 B.C.  Humankind discovers farming.  The world view is magic.  The religion is that of the Great Mother.  Spirit is located Aout there,@ in the biosphere, and Heaven is Aup there.@  Spirit demands sacrifice B the central and pervading notion being that certain specific human steps must be taken to come into accord with Spirit, that there are steps on the way to having a more fully realized Spiritual awareness (HE p. 48, 53, 64 and 322; UE p. 93).                 

 

The world of farming is the world of extended time, of making present preparations for a future harvest, of being able to gear the actions of the present toward significant future goals, aims and rewards.  Time is seasonal, cyclic (UE pp. 94 and 211). 

 

Man pictures the future and apprehends his own mortality more vividly.  Ceremonial graves are a common practice.  Aggression and mass homicide, in the form of war, begin.  Language, which has the capacity to represent a sequence or a series of events symbolically and project it beyond the immediate present, is the vehicle of man=s new temporal consciousness.  By transcending the present in language, the new self also transcends the body.  Cognition is mythic B a mixture of magic and logic.  Immortality still resides in the invisible world of power (UE pp. 95-98, 110, 120, 122 and 296).

 

            9,000         Simple agricultural practices appear simultaneously in several places in the Levant and Iraq.  Towns are of around 200 people.  Language includes the age of names. Kingship begins (UE pp. 98, 109 and 175).

 

            7,500         The cult of the Great Mother begins.  Its early period lasts to 3,500 B.C., in the Levant.  The Great Mother is a simple biological nourisher and fertility token magically amplified to cosmic proportions.  She reflects the early mythic-membership level of reality, which is close to the body, instincts and nature, and which, therefore, forms myths and symbols about those lower levels.  The Great Mother demands human sacrifice B substitute sacrifices to handle Thanatos.  Early Adivine@ kings are mythically viewed as her consorts and after reigning for a span of years, are killed (UE pp. 125-126, 130, 141-142, 153, 158, 177).  

 

            7,000         Innumerable farming settlements exist throughout the Near East (UE p. 110).

 

            6,000         Food surplus allows the emergence of specialized classes, such as priests, administrators and educators, who are free for more detailed and specialized tasks than hunting or farming (UE p. 102).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            5,000         The Sumerian civilization begins as a pre-historic village culture in South Mesopotamia.  By 3,000 B.C., it would be a flourishing civilization (UE p. 98; Encyclopedia).           

 

Agricultural colonization has spread throughout the Tigris-Euphrates and Nile Valleys.  Some cities have 10,000 inhabitants.

 

Soon the world=s high civilizations, with the greatest and most enduring classical mythologies, would arise B those of Sumer (c.3,500 B.C.), Egypt (c.3000 B.C.), Mycenaea (2,800 B.C.), Babylon (2,500 B.C.), the Indus Valley (c.2,500 B.C.), China under the Shang dynasty (c.1500 B.C.), the Maya (c.300 C.E.) and the Aztecs (c.1500) (UE p. 98; SG p. 112; Encyclopedia). 

 

            4,500         AHigh Mythic-membership@ Stage.  This stage lasts until 2,500 B.C.  Civilization has begun.  The city-states and theocracies of Egypt and Mesopotamia flower.  Kingship blossoms.  Egypt has mortuary cults, builds pyramids, and invents mummies and golden death masks.  Immortality now resides in the visible world.  Death is overcome by the accumulation of time-defying monuments (UE pp. 110, 121-122, 175 and 187).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            3,500         The Sumerian civilization (c.3,500-2,350), is the first of the higher civilizations.  The Great Mother has become a metaphysical symbol B the Great Goddess, the arch personification of the power of Matter, Space and Time, within whose bound all beings arise and die.  Everything that has form or name, including God personified as good or evil, merciful or wrathful, is her child, within her womb.  Thus, in this mythic-membership period, certain individuals must have intuited the subtle realm of a Oneness which underlies and gives birth to all the lower levels B space, body, mind, time and world.  These individuals must have understood that the manifest world is a great production, a mahamaya (from ma or matr in Sanskrit, meaning production), and, therefore, fundamentally One.  Their actual vision must have empowered the supernatural image of the Great Goddess, the One whose body is all manifestation.  The Great Goddess reflects a metaphysical truth B that all is One (UE pp. 141-142 and 153-154).

 

The membership level self has enough complexity to bind Thanatos and extrovert it B thereby fatefully converting Thanatos into murderous aggression.  The original death terror becomes death-dealing.  Thanatos, the pull of transcendence, the drive to return the separate self to Unity consciousness, arises whenever there is a boundary, and works for the dissolution of that boundary through transcendence.  To the bounded self, however, it appears as a terrifying death impact B a death impact which, at the membership level, the self extroverts into the aggressive form of murder known only to humankind.  Homicide is a substitute sacrifice to appease Thanatos while also avoiding transcendence.  Violent hatred is almost entirely a cognitive and conceptual elaboration which extends quite beyond mere biological aggression which, by and large, is always in the service of evolutionary trends.  The same can hardly be said of human murder and war.  Beginning at the membership stage, the history of mankind is the history of the wholesale substitute sacrifices and murderous wastage that have specifically marked Homo sapiens (UE pp. 159-161 and 264).

 

            3,200         Specialists have produced the alphabet, mathematics, writing and the calendar B the first truly and purely mental productions of humans.  Money, a symbolic, mental form of material transfer, comes into existence.  Labor is symbolized as wages (UE p. 103).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            3,000         Agrarian Societies.  The world view is mythic.  Agrarian societies invent mathematics, writing, metallurgy B and specialized warfare.  Men begin building the first great military Empires, mythic-imperial Empires, which unify disparate and contentious tribes into biding social orders (HE p. 52). 

 

In Sumer, among the early city-states of Ur, Uruk, Kish, Lagash and others, the war machine arises and modern, massive warfare of one state against another is born.  The ability to wage war and impose collective human sacrifice has remained the identifying mark of all sovereign power throughout history (UE pp. 165-166 and 296).

 

Contemplative endeavors arise (deep subjectivity, interior awareness, meditation and contemplation) which locate Spirit Ain here.@  Steps toward a more fully realized Spiritual awareness are arrayed in a AGreat Chain of Being@ which is the universal sequence of hierarchic levels of increasing consciousness (HE pp. 52 and 64; UE pp. 10-11).

 

As long as physical labor (plowing) is necessary for subsistence, a premium is placed on male physical strength and mobility.  No known agrarian society has the concept of women=s rights (HE p. 54). 

 

Egypt becomes a unified kingdom under King Menes (3,110-2,884 B.C.) and a high mythic-membership civilization develops which would last 3,000 years, until 322 B.C., with the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great (UE p. 98; SG pp. 112-113; Encyclopedia).

 

On the mainland of Greece, the Mycenaean civilization begins (c.2,800 B.C.).  It would last until 1,200 B.C., when it would fall to invasion by the Dorians (UE p. 98; Encyclopedia).

 

The Babylonian Empire would develop in South Mesopotamia (c.2,500 B.C.) and a civilization would arise which would include the states established by the city rulers of Ur, Uruk, Akkad and Lagash.  In 1750 B.C. King Hammurabi (fl. 1792-1750 B.C.) would issue a code of law for the management of his large empire (UE p. 98; Encyclopedia).

 

In India, the mythic-membership Indus Valley civilization would arise (c.2,500 B.C.) and would last until c.1500 B.C., when it would fall to invasion by the Aryans (SG p. 112; Encyclopedia).

 

 

 

 

            2,500         AThe Low Egoic Period@ (in the West B Europe and the Near East).  This period lasts until 500 B.C.  The egoic structure of consciousness emerges.  The old cosmologies and mythologies of the goddess mother begin to be transformed in favor for male-oriented, patriarchal mythologies (UE pp. 187-188 and 192).

 

The ego B the unique individuality emerges.  A new type of myth, the hero myth, now expresses this major development.  The myth describes an individual hero who triumphs over the Great Mother (or one of her consorts, such as the old serpent-dragon-uroboros, or over a Great Mother derivative, such as Medusa with serpent-monster hair, or over a Great Mother offspring, such as Typhon).  For the first time in history, these myths describe the new egoic structure of consciousness winning the battle with the Great Mother, not allowing itself to be sacrificially swallowed up and returned within her, in subconsciousness.  The dragon guards the ego, and that is what the hero must liberate.  For the Greeks, the victory of Zeus over Typhon, the youngest child of Gaea, the goddess Earth, secures the reign of the patriarchal gods of Mount Olympus over the Titan broods of the Great Mother.

 

In the East, the Great Mother begins to get transformed into the Great Goddess.  In the West, however, the ego would dissociate (rather than  differentiate), from the Great Mother, suppress her, and thus (except for Mary) leave her out completely from subsequent mythology.  No Great Goddess arises in the West.  The Judaeo-Christian-Islamic religions are patriarchal religions in the extreme, without a trace of the subtle level Goddess (UE pp. 192-198).

 

In the orthodox religions of the West, the spheres of the Divine and the Human would not evolve to the point where they would become one.  They would stop at the subtle (Sambhogakaya) realm, and (except for a few individuals, of which Christ is an example) would never truly grasp the Dharmakaya.  The Western orthodox world view, would split God from Man, without a higher synthesis to One, and in addition, split Man from Nature (mind from body) (UE p. 262).

 

In Sumer, the Adivine@ king convinces those around him that a substitute sacrifice of somebody else would do just as well as the sacrifice of himself.  Man now has a visible god always present to receive his offerings, and for this, he is willing to pay the price of his own subjection.  Historically, there has never been any fundamental change in the massive structure of domination and exploitation represented by the state (UE pp. 178, 181 and 183).

 

            2,000         The Celts (2,000,000-350 B.C.) first arise in Western Europe (UE p. 30; Encyclopedia).

 

 

            1,500         In the Near East, the male-oriented, patriarchal mythologies of thunder-hurling gods are now the dominant divinities (UE p. 192). 

 

The written records and mythologies of this period scream out in psychological anguish in ways never before voiced or recorded.  Records explode in grief, doubt and sorrow.  The moral problem of suffering moves to center stage where it would remain to and including the present time.  For the first time, in both East and West, there occurs a yearning for release from what is felt to be an insufferable state of sin, exile or delusion.  This is what the theologians ever since have called the Fall of Man.   Factors contributing to this Fall include:

c.                   Man becomes aware of his own separation from nature, and this leads to a natural sense of guilt.

 

d.                  Individuals (egos) consciously feel their alienation from Spirit, as never before.

 

e.                   There is the possibility of additional guilt, due to neurotic disorders.

 

f.                   The very strength of the heroic ego leads it to the illusory assumption that it is perfectly self-sufficient and independent, and this it can do only by repressing, not only the lower levels of consciousness from which it has finally emerged, but also the higher realms, which should have been its destiny.  There thus arises that peculiarly Western egoic mood B cool, rational, abstract, isolated, bravely over-individual, solid, shy of its emotions, shyer of God B an atmosphere of hubris (from the Greek hybris, the Apride that goeth before a fall@).  This new ego B built upon a repression of the Below and a denial of the Above, upon a disdain of necessary Earth and a refusal of actual Heaven B this doubly defended consciousness, with its visions of cosmo-centricity, would proceed to remake the Western world and eventually underwrite an entire civilization (UE pp. 303-309).

 

By 1500, China has a unique and fairly uniform culture over almost its entire territory.  The Shang (Yin) dynasty (c.1523-c.1027 B.C.) is the first historic dynasty.  Society is agricultural and complex, with a bureaucracy and defined social classes.  Writing is well-developed and the first Chinese calendar is in use.  This is the great age of bronze casting (SG 112-113; Encyclopedia).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1,300   History as the chronicle of events in a society begins to exist.  Because of the dissociation of the ego from both body and God (because the ego has dissociated itself from the body and thinks itself God), history becomes a chronicle of the ego=s power-laced feats, and not a chronicle of the evolutionary steps toward Atman B one of those steps being, of course, the death and transcendence of the ego itself (UE pp. 212 and 214-215).

 

1,250   In the Near East, Moses= revelation on Mount Sinai (c.1250 B.C.) has all the features of a subtle level apprehension B a numinous Other that is Light, Fire, Insight, and Sound.  Moses does not claim to be one with or identical with that Being (SG p. 80).

 

In India, at about the same time, a subtle level religious insight is expressed in the Vedas (the oldest scriptures of Hinduism, the most ancient religious texts in an Indo-European language) (SG p. 80).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1,000   The egoic, heroic, individualistic period brings with it levels of murderous aggression yet unknown in the history of the world.  The mass atrocities which Tiglath-pileser I (1115-1077 B.C.) inflicts on the Assyrians are an example.  The new ego, even more self-conscious than its mythic-membership predecessor, is more vulnerable, more guilty, more death-terrorized, and therefore more willing to deal joyously in massive substitute sacrifices.  It is not just that kings would crusade in wars, but that people would ecstatically support their wholesale slaughters.  Joyful release would accompany the outbreak of war (UE pp. 296-297).

 

During the egoic area, the war machine would spin out of control.  The sacred or semi-sacred restraints were gone (or perverted into Aholy wars@).  Wars increasingly would be fought over ideas rather than simple property or goods, and hence the sheer destruction of all goods, people and property would become acceptable.  Not goods but abstractions would now be the objects of war.  The new sense of self, drunk with power and cut loose from its organic typhonic and membership roots, would secure its token Atman feelings by marching through piles of disfigured finite objects.  At stake was the community=s immortality account, and the more you could rob others of immortality by killing them, the greater would be your own immortality account.  Thus would proceed the new egoic Atman project, attempting both to gain cosmic self-esteem, and replenish (or avenge) the shortages in its immortality account (UE pp. 297-298).

 

The new powers of the ego accompanied by its new inherent terrors, would result in new, wildly exaggerated substitute gratifications (such as hedonistic over-indulgence), and new, wildly exaggerated substitute sacrifices (such as mass homicide, oppressive exploitation, massive slavery, class alienation and violent inequality) B all of which would cripple the levels of exchange both in oneself and in those who would happen to fall under one=s influence or power.  Thus would be the ego=s attempts at token cosmo-centrism and symbolic immortality (UE pp. 298-299).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   900  The sages of the Upanishads begin composing (c. 900 B.C.).

 

   700  The Greek civilization (700-146 B.C.) begins. It would end when it would fall into the hands of Rome (Encyclopedia).

 

               600        The great axial sages make their appearance B Zoroaster (c. 628-c.551 B.C.), Gautama Buddha (563-483 B.C.), Confucius (c.551- ?479 B.C.), Lao Tzu (fl. 550 B.C.), Parmenides (b. 515 B.C.), Socrates (469-399 B.C.), Plato (?427-347 B.C.) etc. . .  All are men.  Their insights show a realization of spiritual Truth and Reality infinitely richer and more sophisticated than those of their predecessors (HE pp. 53-54; EoS p. 55). 

 

The notion of a historical fall from Eden is present, but the idea that humans are actually evolving toward Spirit is not conceived.  History is viewed as devolution B a continuous fall from God.  The world of manifestation is devolving away from Spirit.  God lies in our collective past.  The Garden of Eden is yesterday.  The Golden Age lies on the road behind us (EoS pp. 56-57).

 

The societies are feudal agrarian with a mythic world view.  Morality (that of the warrior, the duty-bound, and the ethnocentric) does not see the value of universal compassion, which it interprets as a sign of weakness.  In mythic and mythic-rational syncretism, the three spheres of art, morality and science are in significant ways globally fused.  For instance, a scientific Atruth@ is true only if it fits the religious dogma, and all true art depicts some aspect of mythic organization (SES pp. 398 and 401). 

 

   500  AThe Middle Egoic Period@ (in Europe and the near East).  The period lasts until 1500 C.E.  The dissociation of the ego (mental) from the typhonic and membership structures (body-bound), the mind from the body, is now a permanent element in the European tradition and the distinguishing mark of European and Western man.  Reason and instincts are at war.  The ego is the new self and pretends to be God B cosmo-centric and immortal.  Permanent concepts have become substitutes for everlasting life (Eros).  The body has become the thing sacrificed as a substitute for the death of the ego (Thanatos).  The rational (static) ego devitalizes and mechanizes the (dynamic) body.  Time is historical, linear and conceptual (UE pp. 188, 199, 200, 202 and 206-209, 211 and 225).

 

The Roman civilization (c.500 B.C.-476 C.E. ) begins.  It would end with the deposition of the last Roman emperor by the Goths (Encyclopedia).

 

 

 

   150  In India, Patanjali (c.150 B.C.) writes the Yoga Sutras, which, throughout South Asia, would become a general system for Hindu and Buddhist spiritual disciplines.  It is directed at attaining higher consciousness and liberation from ignorance, suffering and rebirth (HE p. 53; Encyclopedia).      

 

                 50       In India, Mahayana Buddhism emerges as a definable movement with the appearance of the Mahayana sutras, a new class of literature.  Its main philosophical tenet is that all things are empty, devoid of self-nature.  Its chief religious ideal is the Bodhisattva, who vow to postpone entry into nirvana until all other living beings are also enlightened (Encyclopedia).

C.E.

     36 In the West, Jesus Christ, whose causal level apprehension is, AI and the Father are one,@ is crucified (SG p. 80). 

 

In India, at about the same time, a similar causal/ultimate level understanding is being expressed in the Upanishads, with statements such as AThou art That,@ AThis Atman is Brahman,@ AI am Brahman@ (SG p. 80).

 

   150  In India, Nagarjuna (c.150 C.E.), founds the Madhyamika School of Mahayana Buddhism.  AThe other world is this world rightly seen@ (SES p. 356; HE p. 305).

 

   200  In India, Mahayana Buddhism grows (EoS p. 55).

 

In the West, Plotinus (205-270), like Nagarjuna, teaches, AThe other world is this world rightly seen@ (HE p. 305).

 

   300  In South Mexico and Central America, the Maya civilization flourishes (300-600).  It would then decline and collapse by c.1100 (UE p. 98; Encyclopedia).

 

   350  The Trikaya doctrine of Mahayana Buddhism flourishes (Internet).

 

   500  In China, Bodhidharma (c.500 C.E.) founds Ch=an (Zen) Buddhism.  It is based on meditation.  Its basic tenet is that enlightenment is the direct seeing of one=s original Mind, original Nature (EoS p. 56; Encyclopedia).

 

In China, Chih-I (538-597) founds T=ien T=ai Buddhism (EoS p. 56; Internet).      

 

In the West, in 476, the last Roman emperor abdicates (Encyclopedia).

 

 

 

 

 

               600        In China, Tu-shun (557-640) founds Hua Yen Buddhism.  It holds that all phenomena arise simultaneously from the ultimate, universal principle of the Dharma realm.  This universal principle and all manifested things mutually interpenetrate without obstruction.  All phenomena both embody the Absolute, and reflect each other (EoS p. 56; Encyclopedia). 

 

   750  In Tibet, the Indian monk Padmasambhava (c.750) founds Vajrayana (Tibetan) Buddhism  (EoS p. 56; Encyclopedia).

 

   800  In India, Shankara (788-820) founds Advaita Vedanta, the non-dualist school of Vedanta, one of the six classical systems of Indian philosophy.  Shankara views Brahman, the Self, which is pure reality, pure consciousness, pure bliss, as the ultimate reality.  The world has come into being from Brahman and is wholly dependent on it.  Brahman exists both without qualities (nirguna), as the Absolute, and also with qualities (saguna), as a personal god who presides over the world of appearance.  Rituals are for those of inferior spiritual capacity.  Spiritual liberation is achieved by attainment of knowledge of the Self, and eradication of the ignorance whereby the illusory multiplicity of the world is seen as real (EoS p. 56; Encyclopedia).

 

In the West, in 800, Pope Leo III crowns Charlemagne Roman emperor, reviving the title of Roman emperor in the West by claiming that the Roman Empire was merely suspended, not ended, when the last Roman emperor abdicated, in 476 (Encyclopedia).

 

   950  In India, Tantric Buddhism, with its complex meditation practices, develops (EoS p. 56; Encyclopedia).

 

In the West, in 922, Hussein ibn Mansur al-Hallaj (857-922), Arabic-speaking Persian, Muslim mystic and poet, whose causal message is, AI am the Truth,@ is  executed (SG p. 104; Encyclopedia).

 

In the West, in 962, the Holy Roman Empire is formed with the coronation by Pope John XII, in Rome, of the German king, Otto I as emperor.  It is a mythic empire which would last until 1806 (Encyclopedia). 

 

1,100   In India, Ramanuja (1017-1137) argues against Shankara, advocating a qualified non-dualism (EoS p. 56; Encyclopedia; Internet.  All these sources give the same dates for Ramanuja=s life).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1,300   In the West, Meister Eckhart (c.1260-c.1328), German mystical theologian teaches a non-dual view.  He is wrongly charged with heresy and dies after his appeal is denied.  In 1329, Pope John XXII issues a bull condemning as heretical seventeen of Eckhart=s propositions (SES p. 356; SG p. 104; Encyclopedia).

 

            1,500         AThe High Egoic Period@ (in Europe and the Near East).  The period lasts to and including the present time (UE p. 188).

 

In Mexico, the Aztecs have achieved a high civilization which, in 1519, falls to  invasion by the Spanish, led by Hernan Cortes (1485-1547) (UE p. 98; Encyclopedia).

 

            1,600         Industrial (in the West).  The Enlightenment B from Rene Descartes (1596-1650), to John Locke (1632-1704), to Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) B sets in motion the development of Modernity, marked by industrialization and rationality.  The approach to knowledge is the representation paradigm B ANewtonian,@ ACartesian,@ Amechanistic,@ Amirror of nature,@  Areflection.@  The paradigm leaves out the self who is making the maps of the world, the Amap-maker.@  The view assumes that the thought process is so basically different from the real world that it can either reflect the world accurately and holistically, or inaccurately and atomistically (HE pp. 53-54, 58-60 and 64-65).

 

Industrialization removes the emphasis on male physical strength, replacing it with gender-neutral engines.  The women=s movement emerges for the first time in history B Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) writes her treatise, Vindication of the Rights of Women, in 1792 (HE p. 54).

 

Modernity recognizes evolution B the Great Chain of Being unfolds in evolutionary time (HE p. 323).  

 

In Italy, Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), Italian philosopher, metaphysician, satirist and poet, is burned to death for heresy by the Inquisition (SG p. 104; Encyclopedia).

 

                        In Japan, Hakuin (1686-1769) revives traditional forms of Zen Buddhism (EoS p. 56; Encyclopedia).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            1,700         The Age of Reason (in the West).  Reason (the formal operational stage) emerges as the basic organizing principle of society.  Two trends characterize the age:

1.         ANo more Myths!@:

Based on this philosophical battle cry, the new egos of Modernity:

a.                   Achieve the differentiation of art (the AI@ sphere), morality (the AWe@ sphere), and science (the AIt@ sphere).  In art, this means the beginning of portraiture [such as by Jan van Eyck (c.1395-1441)] and the birth of the novel (SES pp. 381-383, 392, 425 and 427).

 

b.                  Achieve the separation of church and state (SES p. 392).

 

c.                   Achieve an increasingly clear differentiation the noosphere and biosphere, which leads to the emergence of liberation movements (women, slaves, untouchables).

 

d.                  Legally, demand free and equal subjects of civil law.

 

e.                   Institutionally, demand morally free subjects.

 

f.                   Politically, demand politically free subjects as citizens of a democratic state B that is, subjects with more relative autonomy than the tightly bound mythic-membership roles in dominator hierarchies.  Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) defines autonomy as the courage to think for oneself and not rely on socially given rules and dogmas (SES pp 381, 389, 392 and 397-398).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.                  ANo more Ascent!@:

Disillusioned by 1000 years of frustrated upward-looking, the new rational-ego lowers its sight to the glories of the manifest world (SES p. 380).

 

Based on the battle cry, ANo more Ascent!@ the Amodern West@:

a.                   Gives recognition as reality only to exterior, empirical, sensorimotor objects and thus converts the Kosmos from a Great Holarchy (the Great Chain of Being) to an empirical interlocking order of surfaces (pp. 384 and 425).

 

b.                  Derisively rejects church religion and refuses any pre-rational, anthropomorphic, mythic God figure B killing God, as summarized by the dictum of  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), AGod is dead.@ 

 

c.                   Together with its denial of a mythic God, also denies virtually the entire corpus of mythological belief.

 

d.                  Assuming that the great contemplative philosopher-sages [from Plotinus (205-270 C.E.) to Meister Eckhart (c.1260-c.1328)] were mythic, since they were speaking out from mythically situated cultures, and missing the fact that these sages had themselves significantly transcended both myth and reason, the Amodern West@ also refuses virtually everything these sages have to say.  It proclaims all gods dead, including any trans-rational, non-anthropomorphic, super-conscient God.  ANo more Ascent!@ means AAscend to Reason, but no further!@ (SES pp. 405, 409 and 423).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

e.                   The Amodern West@ increasingly knows and manipulates a Adisenchanted,@ Adisqualified@ and objectified world, dominated by an Ainstrumental,@ Atechnical@ rationality.  The universe is a massive interlocking order, a great net of systems theory, merely empirical and physical, able to be seen with the senses or their extensions.  In both the natural sciences and the religions, quality (interior depth) is measured in terms of quantitative fit with the great interlocking order (exterior span).  Monological reason marginalizes all non-reason.  Internal nature (interiors, the body) is  repressed.  Reason thus itself destroys the humanity it first made possible (SES pp. 427, 432-433, 452 and 465-466). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1,800   Modernity.  The idea of history as evolution, a growth toward God, slowly replaces the idea of history as devolution B a fall from God.  Georg Hegel (1770-1831) and Friedrich Schelling (1775-1854) state this new conception explicitly.  Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) views evolution as a universal law.  Charles Darwin (1809-1882) applies evolution to biology.  Aurobindo Ghose (1872-1950) gives the idea a profound spiritual context.  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) makes this new view famous in the West.  Adi Da Samraj (1939-, also known as Da Free John) and Radhakrishnan Sarvepalli (1888-1975) apply this shift to the understanding of evolution.  Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) initiates a dialogue between physics and spirituality (EoS pp. 56-59).

 

The Aneo-perennial philosophy@ still has the One, timeless and absolute Spirit of which the entire universe is but a manifestation, but that world of manifestation is now evolving toward Spirit.  God lies in our collective future.  The Garden of Eden is tomorrow.  The Golden Age lies down the road, in front of us.  Evolution is Spirit-in-action, the stages of the return of Spirit, as Spirit, to Spirit.  One of those stages is a humanistic-scientific-rational stage.  This is in contrast to the wisdom traditions which rarely acknowledge evolution, much less cultural or spiritual evolution (EoS p. 57 and 59-60).

 

In India, the Hindu mystic Ramakrishna (1836-1886) concludes that all religions are valid means of approaching God.  Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) carries Ramakrishna=s message of universal religion to the West (EoS p. 56; Encyclopedia).

 

In the West, in 1806, the Holy Roman Empire comes to an end with the renunciation of the imperial title by Francis II (Encyclopedia). 

 

In the West, in 1838, Auguste Comte (1798-1857) coins the term Asociology,@ thus for the first time fully differentiating the concept of Asociety@ from that of Athe state@ (SG p. 59).           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1,900   In India, Aurobindo Ghose (1872-1950), the greatest of all Vedantic philosophers, rejects the traditional ideal of world-renunciation and negation of physical existence.  He bases his philosophy on the principle of the descent of divine force and consciousness into both the individual and the universal processes of nature and history.  He describes evolution as the effect of progressively higher forces, of which the highest is the Asupra-mental@ force which initiates man=s final transformation into a state of perfection (EoS p. 56; Encyclopedia).

 

            1,950         Informational (in the West).  The world view is existential.  The great post-modern discovery is that neither the world nor the self is simply pre-given.  Beginning with Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and running through Georg Hegel (1770-1831), Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), Michel Foucault (1926-1984) and Jacques Derrida (1930-), post-modern theorists attack the mapping paradigm.  The mind forms the world more than the world forms the mind (Kant).  The mind (the subject) can only be conceived as one that has developed.  The self, Athe map-maker,@ is a product of that which it seeks to know and represent, and evolution itself is a spiritual unfolding (Hegel).  Nietzsche develops a Agenealogy@ of world views.  The consensus is that world views develop (Hegel, Karl Marx (1818-1883), Nietzsche, Heidegger, Jean Piaget (1896-1980), Jean Gebser (1905-1973), Robert Bellah (1926-), Foucault and Jurgen Habermas (1929-).  The mind cannot deviate from the Current of the Kosmos.  AThat which one can deviate from, is not the true Tao@ (Zen saying).  At each stage of development, the world looks different because the world is different (HE pp. 60-61, 63 and 64; UE p. viii). 

 

Post-modernity recognizes that humans are co-creators of their own evolution, their own history, their own world spaces B because nothing is pre-given.  The world is not just a perception, it is also an interpretation. 

 

In contrast, traditionalists (anti-modern religious thinkers) are trapped in the agrarian world view, denying the essence of both modernity (the differentiation of mind from body), and post-modernity (nothing is pre-given) (HE pp. 323-324). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            1,980         Bare Beginning of the Psychic Stage (in the West).  The mind, like the environment and the body before it, is starting to crystallize out in consciousness.  We are collectively starting (but only starting) to break free of our own thought processes, cease identifying exclusively with them, transcend them, and thereby open ourselves to the next step in evolution (UE p. 323).

 

Working against the evolution of average consciousness into the psychic level, are the facts that:                                                                         

c.                   Most of Humanity is still below the Egoic Level: A vast majority of humanity is not yet stable at the rational-egoic level, being still caught in uroboric, typhonic, magical, and mythical desires, bodily self-protective stances, and even refusing to recognize or respect other personal selves.  One does not and cannot reach the transpersonal without first firmly establishing the personal (UE p. 343).

 

d.                  The Low Level of Consciousness in National Governments: National governments (which have a disproportionate hand in present and future history), are today, with a few exceptions, organizations of thinly rationalized typhonicism, animalistically self-protective, and therefore perfectly willing to destroy the entire world simply to prove their own cosmo-centric ability to do so.

 

e.                   The New Age Movement contains much Regression: In America and Europe, where the New Age is most loudly announced, a significant majority of individuals are suffering from the lack of support by their civilization for truly rational and egoic structures.  Many are regressing to pre-personal, cultic and narcissistic pursuits, claiming all the while being actually pursuing transpersonal reality, or at least Ahumanistic freedom.@  The New Age movement is a mixture of a few truly transpersonal individuals and masses of pre-personal addicts (UE pp. 343-344).

 

If a Holocaust engulfs us all, it will not prove that reason has failed, but that, for the most part, it has not yet been fully tried (UE p. 349).

 

Today, the most widespread popular theme of the newly emerging spiritual orientation is that of nature mysticism, Gaia worship, together with a considerably re-interpreted shamanism focused on ecological consciousness and gross realm unity (SG p. 39).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TABLES 1 AND 2

Table 1 summarizes the ontogenic and phylogenic evolution of the human holon, in the four domains common to all holons.

 

Table 2 identifies some well-known theorists who have studied each of the four domains.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                         TABLE 1: HIERARCHIES (HOLARCHIES) OF HOLONS (a)

 

        Intentional

        (Subjective)

              AI@

 

          Cultural

    (Inter-subjective)

            AWe@

 

        Behavioral

         (Objective)

              AIt@

 

             Social

     (Inter-objective)

             AIts@

 

        Truthfulness,

            Sincerity

                 (b)

 

         Cultural Fit,

Mutual Understanding

                                 (b)

 

       Objective Truth

 

                 (b)

 

       Functional Fit

 

                 (b)

 

Prehension

 

Physical

 

Atoms

 

Galaxies

 

 

 

Pleromatic

 

Molecules

 

Planets

 

Irritability

 

Protopasmic

 

Prokaryotes

 

Gaia system

 

 

 

Vegetative

 

Eukaryotes

 

Heterotrophic ecosystems

 

Sensation

 

 

 

Neuronal organisms

 

Societies with division of labor

 

Perception

 

Locomotive

 

Neural cord

 

 

 

Impulse

 

Uroboric

 

Reptilian brain stem

 

Groups/families

 

Emotion

 

Typhonic

 

Limbic system

 

 

 

Symbols

 

Archaic

 

Neocortex (triune brain)

     Hominids

 

Tribes

     Foraging (c)

 

Concepts

Pre-operational

 

Magic-animistic               Blood lineage

     Body identity

 

Complex neocortex

 

Tribal/village/kinship       Horticultural (c)

      Neolithic society

 

Conventional,                   concrete                       operations

Rules

 

Mythic-membership,

     Dominator                        hierarchies

     Role identity

 

Structure-functions 1

(Yet unknown)

 

Early state/empire

     Agrarian (c)

 

Post-conventional, Formal operations

 

Egoic/Rational/

Mental (d)   

     Autonomy                    Ego identity

 

Structure-functions 2

(Yet unknown)

 

Nation/state

     Industrial (c)

 

Vision-logic/

Existential/Integral-          aperspectival

 

Centauric

 

Structure-functions 3

(Yet unknown)

 

Planetary

     Informational (c)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Footnotes to Table 1:

(f)                SES pp. 0, 125, 142-145, 155, 162, 165, 169-176, 184-185, 191-194, 197-198, 389, 402 and 446.

 

(b)         Validity Criteria.

 

(c)          Mode of material production and technology.

 

(d)         This stage arises around 500 B.C.  It is then that the first great religions take as their starting point, not the appeasement of gods and goddesses out there through magic or mythic ritual, but  rather a look within B as Jesus of Nazareth would say, AThe Kingdom of Heaven is within.@  In Europe, the stage reaches its fruition around 1600, with the complete differentiation of the noosphere from the biosphere, and the rise of the modern state with the separation of church and state.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

              TABLE 2: THEORISTS AND DISCIPLINES ASSOCIATED WITH THE

                                   FOUR DOMAINS OF THE  HUMAN HOLON (a)

 

        Intentional

        (Subjective)

              AI@

 

          Cultural

    (Inter-subjective)

            AWe@

 

        Behavioral

         (Objective)

              AIt@

 

             Social

     (Inter-objective)

             AIts@

 

Validity Claim:(b)

Truthfulness,

Sincerity

Integrity

Trustworthiness

                 

 

Validity Claim: (b)

Cultural Fit,

Mutual

     Understanding

Justness

Rightness

 

Validity Claim: (b)

Objective Truth

Correspondence

Representation

Propositional (c)

 

 

Validity Claim: (b)

Functional Fit

Systems Theory Web

Structural-                    functionalism

Social Systems Mesh

 

Methodology:

     Dialogical

          Interpretive

              Hermeneutic

                     Study of

 

 

 

 

 

Consciousness

 

Methodology:

     Monological

          Empirical,                         Positivistic

                     Study of

 

 

 

 

 

Material Forms

 

Gautama Buddha

     (563-483 B.C.)

Plotinus

     (205-270)

Sigmund Freud

     (1856-1939)

Aurobindo Ghose

     (1872-1950)

Carl Jung

     (1875-1961)

Jean Piaget

     (1896-1980)

Jurgen Habermas               (1929-)

 

Wilhelm Dilthey

     (1833-1911)

Max Weber

     (1864-1920)

Martin Heidegger

     (1889-1976)

Hans-Georg

     Gadamer

     (1900-2002)

Jean Gebser

     (1905-1973) Thomas Kuhn

     (1922-1996)

 

 

John Locke

     (1632-1704)

John Watson

     (1878-1958)

B. F. Skinner

     (1904-1990)

Empiricism

Behaviorism

Physics, biology,               neurology

 

Auguste Comte

     (1798-1857)

Karl Marx

     (1818-1883) Talcott Parsons

     (1902-1979)

Gerhard Lenski

     (1924-)

Systems Theory

 

(a)          HE pp. 86-87 and 95-96; EoS pp. 9 and 12-16; SG p. 57.

 

(b)         A validity claim is a Atype of truth.@

 

(c)          In propositional truth, a statement is said to be true if it matches an objective fact B  AIt is raining outside.@   If the map matches the territory, the statement is said to be a true representation, a true correspondence.  Thus, AWe make pictures of facts@ (EoS p. 13).

 

 

 

THE TWO FALLS OF MAN

1.                  The Fall as interpreted by Science B occurring c.2,000 B.C.: Scientific evolutionary theory (as expressed by Carl Sagan, for instance), dates the Fall to the transition of Man from subconsciousness to self-awareness, to when Man Afell@ out of his subconscious slumber in nature, magic and myth, and awoke as a self-conscious ego, able to reflect, and hence worry about his fate.  This Fall crystalizes in early egoic times, around 2,000 B.C.  In this scientific view, historical Eden is a pre-personal immersion in nature.  This Fall is a psychological one, representing a self-reflexing awareness of an immersion in a world of finitude, hunger, pain and mortality (UE p. 315; SG p. 21).

 

2.                  The Fall as interpreted by Mystics B occurring c.8,000,000,000 B.C.: All esoteric religions [Christian mysticism (gnosticism), Vedanta Hinduism, Mahayana Buddhism, etc. . .], subscribe to the view that reality is hierarchical B composed of successively higher levels of reality B or, more accurately, levels of decreasing illusion, since all levels are ultimately illusion, there being only Sprit at all times.  These levels go from the lowest material plane to the ultimate spiritual realization.  This is the AGreat Chain of Being@ (UE pp. 315-316).

 

According to this cosmology, Spirit periodically Agets lost@ by throwing itself outward as far as possible to create all the various levels as manifestations, expressions, kenotic (self-emptying) objectifications of itself.  In doing so, Spirit temporarily Aforgets@ itself and thus Aloses@ itself in each descending level, each  level then consisting of less consciousness.  Having less consciousness than its predecessor, each level is less able to grasp consciously, to fully remember its predecessor.  Each level forgets its senior level(s) (UE pp. 316-317).

 

Since all levels are created by a forgetting of Spirit, all levels are already forgetful of their Source, their Suchness, their Origin (and their Destiny).  All already seem to be living in separation from Spirit, in alienation, in sin, in suffering,  dismembered, fragmented (UE p. 317).

 

But this forgetting is ultimately only an illusion because each level is still nothing but Spirit.  The reality of each level is only Spirit.  The agony of each level is that it appears, that is, it seems to be separate from Spirit.  Spirit is not lost, destroyed or abandoned at each level, it is only forgotten, obscured, hidden.  And the sum of these higher but unconscious structures is the Ground Unconscious, where all the higher structures exist in a potential form, ready to unfold into actuality, emerge in consciousness (UE pp. 317-318).

 

 

 

 

 

Involution is the enfolding, the turning-in of the higher structures into successively lower ones (into the ground unconscious).  Evolution is the subsequent unfolding of this enfolded potential into actuality, the unfolding of the higher through the lower, from the Ground Unconscious where it already exists as potential.  The higher level reaches existence only by passing through the lower one (UE pp. 317-318). 

 

In this view, the Big Bang is the explosive limit of involution, at which point matter was flung into existence out of its senior dimensions B ultimately, out of Spirit.  According to astronomers, the material universe simply was not there prior to that time.  Where involution proceeded by successive forgetting (amnesis), evolution proceeds by successive remembering (anamnesis).  Evolution is a laboring toward Spirit, driven by Spirit (UE pp. 320-322).

 

Sin is not something that the sense of a separate self does.  It is the sense of a separate self.  It is not that the separate self has a free choice of whether to sin or not.  It is that the very structure of the separate self is sin.  For sin is separation, and original sin is the original separation B that primal movement of the soul away from Spirit, a movement enacted during involution (UE p. 326).  

 

Creation is the theological fall because it marked the illusory separation of all things from Spirit.  Thus, even in historical Eden, original sin (original separation) was not absent.  Humans were already living in a world of multiplicity, separation, finitude, and mortality.  The theological fall happened billions of years before mankind even emerged.  What was absent in Eden was an awareness of original sin, not original sin itself (UE pp. 326-327).

 

But Creation is a fall only because it marks the initial illusory separation of all things from Spirit.  It is a necessary but not sufficient cause of sin.  It does not prevent enlightenment.  Man perpetuates the fall by every moment incessantly re-enacting the activation and identification of a sense of separate self.  By his forgetting, by his ignorance of only Spirit, he prevents the return to Spirit.  Thus, original sin, the theological fall, is not so much separation (creation), as separation forgetful of Source.  It is not multiplicity, but multiplicity divorced from Unity.  Original sin is not the existence of time, space, death and guilt per se, but the existence of time without eternity, space without infinity, death without sacrifice, guilt without redemption (UE pp. 327-328). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The theological fall then did occur but is continuing to occur now.  All things fell from their Heavenly Estate.  All entities fell from remembrance of Spirit.  And man, to the extent that he fails to assume and live this Source consciously, to the extent that he lives as a separate self, participates in the state of original sin, the original alienation from Spirit.  For humans, original sin is the separate self and the whole world of multiplicity not consciously lived as One.  This is why, indeed, all selves (even infants) are born in original sin.  The sense of a separate self is original sin by its simple and otherwise even innocent existence.  All traditions are unanimous that the theological fall occurs prior to biological birth, so that the infant is already born in sin, already living in a world of suffering (UE pp 326 and 328; SG p. 22). 

 

In this view, mankind (and all things) did fall from real Heaven.  The Fall is a metaphysical one, representing the loss of a conscious oneness with Spirit and the consequent immersion in a world of sin B that is, a world of duality, finitude and mortality, one that appears (to the ego) to be separate, alienated from Spirit (UE p. 330; SG p. 21).            

 

SALVATION           

Enlightenment (liberation, release, salvation) occurs when both the scientific and the theological falls are overcome through the resurrection (the regaining) of a conscious oneness with Spirit.  Enlightenment is the asymptotic limit of growth (SG pp. 22, 76 and 145).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TWO MODES OF KNOWING

When the universe as a whole seeks to know itself, through the medium of the human mind, some aspects of that universe must remain unknown.  Our innermost consciousness, as knower and investigator of the external world, escapes its own grasp and remains as the Unknown, the  Unshown, the Ungraspable.  As G. Spencer Brown (1923-) noted, the world we know is constructed in order, and thus in such a way as to be able, to see itself.  But in order to do so, it must first cut itself up into at least one state which sees, and at least one other state which is seen.  In this severed and mutilated condition, whatever it sees is only partially itself.  In any attempt to see itself as an object, the world must act so as to make itself distinct from, and therefore false to itself.  In this condition, it will always partially elude itself.  As British astronomer and physicist Arthur Eddington (1882-1944) noted, ANature thus provides that knowledge of one-half of the world will ensure ignorance of the other half.@  And as Huang Po (?-849) stated, ALet me remind you that the perceived cannot perceive@ B in other words, that since my Aself@ can be perceived, it cannot be that which is perceiving (SC pp. 17-18 and 72).

 

The attempt to know the universe as an object of knowledge is thus profoundly and inexorably contradictory.  And yet, this type of dualistic knowledge wherein the universe is severed into subject vs. object, is the cornerstone of Western philosophy, theology and science.  The philosophical topics debated today include the dualisms of truth vs. falsity (logic), good vs. evil (ethics), appearance vs. reality (epistemology), instinct vs. intellect, wave vs. particle, positivism vs. idealism, matter vs. energy, thesis vs. anti-thesis, mind vs. body, behaviorism vs. vitalism, fate vs. free-will, space vs. time.  Such dualisms have plagued Western thought since the Greeks (500 B.C.).  A principal reason why this dualistic or Adivide-and-conquer@ approach has been so pernicious, is that the error of dualism forms the root of intellection, and is, therefore, next to impossible to uproot by intellection (SC pp. 18-19).  

 

In Europe, since the Greeks [500 B.C., for example Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)], Man had been observing, comparing, and classifying his observations, but there was no system of thought about nature which provided a systematic method for facilitating the process of discovery itself.  Then, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) and Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) simultaneously and independently formulated the principle that the laws of nature are to be discovered by measurement.  Within a century, the new science of measurement, of quantity, promised the knowledge of the Absolute and Ultimate Reality which had heretofore escaped Man=s grasp (SC p. 20).

 

Two other ideas became welded with that of quantity: (1) Reality was objective, and (2) Reality could be verified.  All knowledge was to be reduced to objective dimensions, to the Aprimary@ objective qualitites of number, position, and motion, while the subjective aspects, the Asecondary@ qualities of the emotions, senses, and intuitions were to be completely exterminated, for they were ultimately unreal.  Soon, Auguste Comte (1798-1857) would declare, ATrue observation must necessarily be external to the observer,@ and thus proclaim unreal the subject part of the subject vs. object dualism.  All propositions were to be confined to that which was objectively measurable and verifiable (SC pp. 20-21).   


 

 

 

Around 1900, however, quantum physics led to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (Heisenberg, 1901-1976).  The position of an electron is changed by the very act of measuring it B that is, by even just a photon.  The assumption that one could measure the universe without affecting it, was untenable.  The measured object can never be completely separated from the measuring subject because both are one and the same (SC pp. 22-24).

 

In 1931, Kurt Godel (1906-1978) authored the Incompleteness Theorem, a mathematical demonstration to the effect that every encompassing system of logic must have at least one premise that cannot be proven or verified without contradicting itself.  AIt is impossible to establish the logical consistency of any complex deductive system, except by assuming principles of reasoning whose own internal consistency is as open to question as that of the system itself.@   Again, objective verification is not a mark of reality (except in consensual pretense).  If all is to be verified, how do you verify the verifier, since he is part of the all? (SC pp. 24-25).

 

To approach deeper reality, we need to discover the actuality of the territory from which all the maps of the world are drawn  B the territory that dispenses, temporarily at least, with all maps whatsoever.  What is demanded is a non-symbolic, non-dualistic, Aintimate@ knowledge of the reality behind the symbols of science (SC p. 30).

 

As recognized by many B for instance, Taoism, Vedanta, Zen, Christian theology, William James (1842-1910) and Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) B we have available to us two basic modes of knowing, of which only the second one is capable of giving us knowledge of Reality:

1.                  Symbolic: This is the map, inferential, Aconventional,@ conceptual, comparative, abstract, representational, dualistic knowledge (science in general).  The identity of the knower is the self, an isolated individual, and all else, the known, seems substantially alien and foreign. 

 

But the process of abstraction is ultimately Afalse@ in the sense that it operates by noting the salient features of an object and ignoring all else.  To abstract is to create Athings@ by selectively attending to one aspect of the field and ignoring all else.  A Athing@ is but a narrowed bit of selective attention, the Afigure@ sliced from the total sensory gestalt by ignoring its inseparable Abackground.@  Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) notes, AAbstraction is nothing else than omission of part of the truth@ (SC pp. 31-33, 37, 40, 58 and 83).

 

2.                  Intimate: This is direct, Anatural,@ intuitive, immediate, non-dual knowledge.  The identity of the knower is the whole because the knower is felt to be one with all that is known (SC pp. 33, 40 and 42).

 

 

 

THE COMMUNICATION OF REALITY

Non-dual knowing is Reality because it takes itself as its Acontent.@  Knowing and Real coalesce.  Since modes of knowing correspond to levels of consciousness, it follows that the Real is a level of consciousness.  Reality is what is revealed from the non-dual level of consciousness.  It is a state of awareness wherein the observer is the observed, wherein the universe is not severed into one state which sees and another state which is seen (SC pp. 40-42). 

 

This Reality cannot be verbally communicated.  It can be pointed to in three ways:

1.                  Analogically: Reality can be communicated in terms of what it is like, such as omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, infinite being, absolute being, supreme bliss, unexcelled wisdom and love, infinite consciousness.  This analogical way is used in almost all popular forms of religion but especially in Christianity, certain forms for Tantra, and Hinduism (SC pp. 43-44). 

 

Myth is one form of the analogical approach to the absolute, and represents a clothing of the Infinite in positive, metaphorical and finite terms.  Myth embodies perhaps the nearest approach to absolute truth that can be stated in words B for instance, the creation of the world out of virgin matter B the birth of Christ from a Virgin Mother (SC pp. 101-102).

 

2.                  Negatively: Reality can be described as having no describable qualities, because every quality ascribed to it necessarily excludes its opposite, and hence places limitations on an Absolute which has no limitations.  In Vedanta, this is expressed by the phrase, Aneti, neti@ B the Absolute is Anot this, not that,@ not any particular idea or thing but the Aunderlying reality@ of all.  Like with a sculpture, the finished product is arrived at only by chipping away all obstructions (SC pp. 44-45). 

 

Buddhism refers to Reality as Void B void of thoughts, void of conceptual elaboration, void of separate things.  All thoughts and propositions about reality are void and invalid.  Buddhism also refers to Reality as Asuchness@ B the real world as it is, not as it is classified or described.  And the real world of Suchness is referred to as the Void, because Reality is devoid of distinction (SC pp. 45, 59 and 66).

 

3.                  As an Injunction: This is a set of instructions, an invitation to discover Reality for oneself.  Reality is pointed to indirectly by setting down a group of rules, an experiment which, if followed faithfully and wholly, will result in the experience of Reality.  The taste of a cake, for example, is literally indescribable but can be conveyed in the form of a set of instructions, a recipe.  This injunctive way of pointing to how Reality can be reached, forms the core of Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism, and can be found in the mystical aspects of Islam, Christianity and Judaism (SC pp. 45).  


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE ILLUSIONS OF SPACE AND TIME

Reality: Reality is universally described by the metaphor of Absolute Subjectivity because this hints that Reality lies in what appears to be the direction that we call inward, subjective, toward the very center of our being, a center so deep and profound that it is the center of Spirit as well.  In this sense, Spirit means Adepth,@ the Witness within each of us.  Man as the Knower, the Witness, the Absolute Subjectivity is Reality.  Man as an object of knowledge, as a perceived phenomenon with a veil and a mask, is the ego, the individual person (from the Greek persona, Amask@), the separate and alienated self (SC pp. 70-71 and 75-76).

 

Space: The split, the space between the Asubject in here@ and the Aobject out there@ is a subtle illusion.  The real Self does not know the universe from a distance, it knows the universe by being it, without the least trace of space intervening.  And that which is spaceless is and must be infinite.  Infinity is completely present at every point of space.  All space is here (SC p. 79).

 

The primary dualism occurs when Man identifies solely with his organism as existing in space B inside vs. outside, organism vs. environment, self vs. not-self, subject vs. object, perceiver vs. perceived, conscious vs. unconscious, being vs. nullity, existence vs. non-existence, life vs. death.  The primary dualism of space occurs simultaneously with the secondary dualism of time (SC pp. 94, 116, 162 and 293-294).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time: With time as with space, all of eternity is completely present at every point of time.  All time is now.  Reality is eternal.  The real world has the whole of its existence simultaneously.  It presents itself as a multi-dimensional, non-successive, simultaneous pattern of infinite richness and variety.  In contrast, thought is sequential, successive, one-dimensional.  To say that nature does not proceed in a line is to say that nature does not proceed in time.  It has the whole of its existence simultaneously, and that is the nature of Eternity.  Strictly speaking, we are never directly aware of a real past at all.  We are only aware of a memory-picture of the past, and that memory exists only in and as the present.  Similarly for the future.  Any thought of tomorrow is nevertheless a present thought (SC pp. 79-80 and 83-85).

 

Time is conjured up by thought.  It is the Aline@ of successive bits of narrowed attention upon which thought strings out its objects (concepts).  Time derives from the successive way thought views the world.  But by habitually viewing nature in this linear, successive, temporal fashion, we soon arrive at the conclusion that nature herself proceeds in a line, from past to future, from cause to effect, from before to after, from yesterday to tomorrow B completely ignoring the fact that this supposed linearity of nature is entirely a product of the way we view it (SC p. 84).

 

This is the how of the genesis of time.  The why of the genesis of time is man=s avoidance of death (SC p. 86).

 

The secondary dualism occurs when man identifies solely with his organism (body-mind) as existing in time B before vs. after, life vs. death.  The awareness is then centered on man=s separate existence in space and time.  This dualism culminates in the vision-logic stage of consciousness, with its aperspectival world view and its existential dread, despair, angst, and Asickness unto death.@  Culture is what man does with death.  The secondary dualism of time occurs simultaneously with the primary dualism of space (SC pp. 94, 116 and 118, 124, 136, 221-222 and 294).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN SPIRITUAL UNDERSTANDING

In modern times, both the quality of humanity=s spiritual understanding, and the form of its presentation, are deepening and becoming more adequate, not less (EoS p. 56). 

 

History shows that there has been a continuing evolution and deepening of spiritual understanding, past the axial period, right up to and including modern times.  In India, Mahayana Buddhism began to grow around 200 C.E.  In China, Ch=an (Zen), T=ien T=ai, and Hua Yen Buddhism underwent extraordinary growth around 650 C.E.  In Tibet, Vajrayana Buddhism started around 750 C.E.  In India, Tantric Buddhism was developed around 900 C.E.  And in Japan, the traditional forms of Zen Buddhism were revived by Hakuin (1686-1769).  In India, Vedanta Buddhism was founded by Shankara (788-820), was contested by Ramanuja (1017-1137), and amplified by Ramakrishna (1836-1886).  Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950) was the greatest of all Vedantic sages, and Aurobindo Ghose (1872-1950) was the greatest of all Vedantic philosophers (EoS pp. 55-56).   

 

For example, the doctrine of a progressive temporal return to Source (evolution) appears only in the axial period.  And even then, the direction is backward B yesterday was the Golden Age, and time ever since has been a devolutionary slide downhill.  While the notion of a historical fall from Eden was ubiquitous, the idea that we are, at this moment, actually evolving toward Spirit was simply not conceived in any sort of influential fashion in the axial period (EoS p. 56).

 

During the modern era, the idea of history as devolution (a fall from God) has been slowly replaced by the idea of history as evolution (a growth toward God).  This is explicit in Georg Hegel (1770-1831), Friedrich Schelling (1775-1854), Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), Charles Darwin (1809-1882), Aurobindo Ghose (1872-1950), and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955).  The One, timeless and absolute Spirit of which the entire universe is but a manifestation is still there, but that world of manifestation is now evolving toward Spirit, not devolving away from Spirit.  God lies in our collective future, not in our collective past.  This neo-perennial philosophy is the best and most appropriate from of Truth we now have.  A humanistic-scientific-rational stage is one of the stages that Spirit, as Spirit, takes, in its return to Spirit (EoS pp. 55-59).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE HORRORS OF AUSCHWITZ

Can we make judgments about some cultural productions being more evolved, more valuable  than others?  If evolution is operating in the human domain (as it operates on everything non-human), how can we account for Auschwitz? (EoS p. 64).

 

How can we account for Wounded Knee (last major massacre of the Indian Wars, 1890), Benito Mussolini (Italian dictator, 1922-1945), Joseph Stalin (Soviet dictator, 1928-1953), The Gulag (the Soviet system of corrective labor camps under Stalin), Hitler (German dictator, 1933-1945), Auschwitz (German concentration camp, 1940-1945), Hiroshima (target of the first atomic bomb dropped on a populated area, 1945) Idi Amin (Ugandan military dictator, 1971-1979), Pol Pot (Cambodian dictator, 1975-1998), Chernobyl (nuclear power station accident, Ukraine, 1986)? (EoS p. 60).

 

Central explanatory principles for the advance and regression of the evolutionary thrust in humans include:  

1.                  The Dialectic of Progress: Each new and more complex level in evolution brings with it problems not present in its predecessors.  New potentials are accompanied by new potential horrors.  Atoms do not get cancer.

 

The traditionalists fail to understand this dialectic of progress, and they include only the bad in modernity and only the good in the mythic-agrarian age (EoS pp. 66 and 68).

 

2.                  Differentiation and Dissociation: Differentiation can go too far into dissociation B mind and body can be dissociated instead of only differentiated (EoS p. 66).

 

The retro-Romantics confuse differentiation and dissociation, decrying every new and necessary differentiation as a downfall.  But the acorn has to differentiate in order to grow into an oak (EoS pp. 66 and 69).

 

3.                  Transcendence and Repression: At each stage of evolution, the senior holon can repress, deny, distort, disrupt the junior, instead of transcending and including it.

 

The retro-Romantics confuse transcendence and repression.  They fail to see that the solution to the horrible pathologies which have often crept into the ongoing march of evolution, is a removal of the obstacles that prevent the acorn from going to its own self-actualized oak-ness.  The solution is not an idealization of acorn-ness (EoS pp. 67, 69 and 70).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4.                  Natural and Pathological Holarchies: That which transcends can repress.  Normal and natural holarchies can degenerate into pathological, dominator holarchies, where an arrogant holon refuses to be both a whole and a part, wanting to be only a whole.

 

Liberal social theorists do not understand the difference between a natural and a pathological holarchy.  The only solution to pathological holarchies is to embrace the normal and natural holarchy which integrates the arrogant holon back into its rightful place in a mutual reciprocity of care, communion and compassion.  The solution is not the elimination of all holarchies, because without holarchy, not wholes but heaps remain, and the integration of heaps is not possible at all (EoS pp. 67-68 and 70). 

 

5.                  Higher Structures and Primitive World Views: Tribalism lacks the means to destroy the biosphere.  Given the advanced technologies of the rational ego, however, tribalism can be devastating (EoS p. 68).

 

Auschwitz is the result of the many products of rationality used by an ethnocentric mythology of blood, soil and race, a mythology rooted in the land, romantic in its disposition, barbaric in its ethnic cleansing.  Auschwitz is the end game of tribalism, not reason (EoS p. 68).    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE SPECTRUM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Domains of Consciousness

Like all holons, consciousness has four domains:

1.                  Individual Subjective: This is the perspective of the individual from the inside.  It is the first-person phenomenal view.  AI see all my various feelings, hopes, fears, sensations and perceptions@ (EoS p. 273).

 

2.                  Inter-subjective: This is the shared world view (archaic, magic, mythic, rational, etc. . .), and comprises ethics, customs, values, and inter-subjective structures held in common by those in the collective, whether this collective is family, peers, corporation, organization, tribe, town, nation or globe (EoS p. 273-274).

 

3.                  Individual Objective: This is the objective, Ascientific@ view of the individual in which consciousness is the product of objective brain mechanisms and neurophysiological systems (EoS p. 273).

 

4.                  Inter-objective: This is the outside of the collective, its objective structures and social institutions B for example, its physical buildings and infrastructures, its techno-economic base (foraging, horticultural, agrarian, industrial, informational), its quantitative aspects (birth and death rates, monetary exchanges, objective data), and its modes of communication (written words, telegraph, telephone, internet) (EoS p. 274).

 

States of Consciousness

States of consciousness are general realms of being and knowing.  The great three Anormal,@ Aordinary@ states of consciousness are being awake, dreaming and being in deep sleep (EoS pp. 259 and 264; SG p. 17). 

 

AAltered,@ Anon-ordinary@ states of consciousness appear to include peak experiences, religious experiences, meditative and contemplative states, drug states and holotropic states (EoS p. 259).

 

States of consciousness do not show development.  This is in contrast to increasing consciousness which does (SG p. 26).

 

 

 

 

 

Levels of Consciousness

States of consciousness (with their correlative bodies or realm) contain various levels  which can also be seen as structures of consciousness.  For example, the waking state can contain the pre-operational, the concrete operational or the formal operational structure.  In Vedanta, these structures (levels) are known as koshas (sheaths).  Within these structures of consciousness, there are phenomenal states, such as joy, happiness, sadness, desire etc. . . (EoS p. 261).

 

The deep structures of consciousness B sensory-motor, typhonic, pre-operational, concrete operational, formal operational, vision-logic, psychic, subtle, causal and non-dual (Brahman, the asymptotic limit of growth) B are relatively a-historical, collective, invariant, and cross-cultural.  Their surface structures, however, are everywhere variable, historically conditioned, and culturally molded (SG pp. 76 and 91).

 

Below the non-dual level, each level of the spectrum of consciousness represents the identification of Absolute Subjectivity with one set of objects as against all others (SC p. 95).

 

Developmental Lines

More than a dozen different developmental lines (streams) traverse the same basic levels of consciousness, each line having its own architecture, dynamic, structure and function.  The lines develop relatively independently of each other, and are loosely held together by the self-system.  While individual developmental lines unfold in a sequential manner,  there are at least twelve of them, so that overall growth shows no such sequential development, being instead radically uneven and individualized.  For example, a person can be at a very high level of cognitive development, a medium level of interpersonal development, and a low level of moral development B at the same time (EoS pp. 186 and 193; SG p. 40).  

 

These developmental lines include affective, cognitive, moral, interpersonal, object-relations, self-identity, etc. . .  All structures of consciousness unfold in a developmental, stage-like sequence, and true stages cannot be skipped.  For instance, in the cognitive line, there is sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational, formal operational, vision-logic etc. . .  None of those stages can be skipped because each incorporates its predecessor in its own make-up (EoS pp. 186 and 263-264).

 

Meditation can profoundly accelerate the unfolding of a given line of development, but does not significantly alter the sequence or the form of the basic stages in that development line.  The lines evolve faster, but through the same series of stages of consciousness (Wilber Stage III) (EoS pp. 186 and 221).

 

 

INTEGRAL METHODOLOGICAL PLURALISM

Any integral study of consciousness must include all four (4) domains of the consciousness holon, and within each domain, two (2) possible perspectives, one from within and one from without the being(s) which is (are) observed.  In addition, an integral approach must include at least the three (3) main states of consciousness, the approximately ten (10) levels of consciousness development, and the approximately twelve (12) developmental lines which traverse these levels.  This is a total of at least 2,880 possible approaches.  (This is what Wilber calls the Aall-domains, all-perspectives, all-level@ approach) (EoS p. 274; SG p. 45).

 

THE LOCATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Consciousness is not located in the organism, even though to the individual, it appears to be.  Rather, like any other holon, consciousness is distributed across all four aspects of every holon, anchored equally in each B intentional, cultural, behavioral and social.  For instance, without a background of cultural practices and meanings, individual intentions do not, and cannot develop B as the occasional cases of Awolf boy@ demonstrate.  In the same way that there is no private language, there is no strictly individual consciousness.  Again, an integral study of consciousness needs an Aall-domains, all perspectives, all levels@ approach (EoS pp. 243, 246-247 and 284).

 

PRESENT MAJOR APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Assumed location of consciousness:

1.                  Consciousness is in the Physical Brain:

a.                   Cognitive Science: This approach views consciousness as anchored in functional schemas of the brain/mind, in either of two fashions:

i.                    A simple representational fashion (the Acomputational mind@).

ii.                  An emergent of hierarchically integrated networks (EoS pp. 243-244).

 

b.                  Neuropsychology: This approach, anchored in neuroscience, views consciousness as intrinsically residing in organic neural systems of sufficient complexity (EoS p. 244).

 

c.         Clinical Psychiatry: This approach, which focuses on the relation between psychopathology, behavioral patterns, and psychopharmacology, views consciousness as residing in the neuronal system B in the neurophysiology of the organism (EoS p. 244).

 

d.         Psychosomatic Medicine: This approach views consciousness as intrinsically interactive with organic bodily processes, as evidenced by psycho-neuro-immunology and bio-feedback (EoS p. 245).

 

2.                  Consciousness is in Interior Intentionality:

a.                   Introspectionism: This approach, by introspective psychology, existentialism and phenomenology, views consciousness as best understood in first-person accounts B the inspection and interpretation of immediate awareness and lived experience (EoS p. 244).

 

b.                  Individual Psychotherapy: This approach, which treats distressing symptoms, views consciousness as primarily anchored in the adaptive capacities of individual organisms (EoS p. 244).

 

c.                   Developmental Psychology: This approach views consciousness as a developmentally unfolding process, with a substantially different architecture at each of its stages of development (EoS pp. 244-245).

 

d.                  Eastern and Contemplative Traditions: These traditions view ordinary consciousness as but a narrow and restricted version of deeper and higher modes of awareness, which are evoked only by specific injunctions, such as yoga and meditation (EoS p. 245).

 

e.                   The Quantum Approach: These approaches view consciousness as intrinsically capable of interacting with, and altering, the physical world, generally through quantum interactions:

i           In the human body, at the intracellular level (microtubules).

ii.                  In the material world at large (Psi) (EoS p. 245).

 

3.                  Other Approaches:

a.                   Social Psychology: This approach, which includes the ecological, Marxist, constructivist, and cultural hermeneutic, views consciousness in one of two fashions:

i.                    Embedded in networks of cultural meaning.

ii.                  Largely a by-product of the social system itself (EoS p. 244).

 

b.                  Non-ordinary States of Consciousness: Through the use of psychedelics, which they say act as Anon-specific amplifiers of experience,@ people using this approach aim to disclose aspects of consciousness which might otherwise not be apparent (EoS p. 245).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

c.                   Subtle Energies: This approach has confirmed the existence of subtler types of bio-energies beyond the four recognized forces of physics (strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic and gravitational).  Known in the traditions as prana, ki, and chi, these subtler energies play an intrinsic role in consciousness and, for example, are responsible for the effectiveness of acupuncture.  This bio-energy both transfers the impact of matter to the mind, and imposes the intentionality of the mind on matter (EoS pp. 245-246).

 

d.                  Evolutionary Psychology and Socio-biology: These approaches view consciousness (and behavior) in functional terms, as expressions of evolutionary pressures which have arisen because of the evolutionary advantage they confer (EoS p. 246).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A SCALE OF VALUES

The criterion for depth, and thus the scale of adjudication for considering one holon better than another, is its holistic embrace.  How much of the Kosmos does its internal structure contain?   Objectively, how many types of holons are in its make-up?  Subjectively, how much love (Agape) is built into its structure? (SG p. 36).               

 

In a developmental holarchy, each succeeding stage is higher because it has more consciousness, and hence, a greater capacity for love, care, compassion, concern, relationship and justice.  This is why it also has more rights.  The higher the place of a holon in a holarchy (higher-archy), the more care and the less oppression it is inclined to possess, a fact which follows from the definition of a holon, and which has been confirmed by research.  Nested holarchies are the means to reduce prejudice, oppression and Aisms,@ such as racism, sexism and species-ism (SG p. 8).  

 

Genealogy (hermeneutic developmentalism) is one of the great contributions of constructive post-modernism.  It differs from pluralism by its dimension of depth.  Both pluralism and genealogy attempt to navigate the plethora of interpretations which post-modernity has bequeathed us.  Both agree that there is no single, pre-given world, no single interpretation of reality that can compel rational consensus, no single value system that argument can convincingly support.  The post-modern world is pluralistic, a world of ineradicable diversity, multi-culturalism and multiple value systems. 

 

Genealogy, however, transcends pluralism, in that it traces any particular response a person might give and follows that response over time.  The value judgment, Ahigher,@ is made by the very persons giving the responses.  The developmental sequence is not, therefore, a meta-narrative imposed on the subjects by an outsider, but rather is pronounced on the sequence from within, by the subjects themselves, as they reflect on their own responses over time.  Their judgment is that their responses over time consist of a value sequence, later, higher stages being better.  Theirs is a hermeneutic judgement from within.  Genealogy is pluralism plus history, and, in its most sophisticated form, is developmentalism (SG p. 11-12). 

 

And that Abetter@ is stunningly similar across belief systems and across social groups (SG p. 13).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AN AXIOLOGY (THEORY OF VALUES)

1.                  Ground Value: All holons have equal Ground value.  All are perfect manifestations of Emptiness (Spirit).  Every holon is an expression of the absolute (HE p. 330).

 

2.                  Intrinsic Value: As a whole, every holon has intrinsic value, the value of its own particular wholeness, its own particular depth.  The greater the wholeness (depth, consciousness) of a holon, the greater its intrinsic value (the value in itself), because more of the Kosmos is enfolded into its being.  The ape is more intrinsically valuable than the atom (HE pp. 330-331).

 

As a whole, a holon has rights, which are the conditions necessary to sustain its wholeness, its autonomy.  Rights express the conditions for the intrinsic value of a holon to exist, for its wholeness, its agency, its depth to be sustained.  If a plant does not receive water, it dissolves into sub-holons (HE pp. 331-332).

 

3.                  Extrinsic Value: As a part, every holon has extrinsic, instrumental value, value for other holons.  It is part of a whole upon which other holons depend for their existence.  The atom has enormous extrinsic value because it is a part of so many other wholes (HE p. 331).   

 

As a part, a holon has responsibilities for the maintenance of the whole of which it is a part.  These are the conditions that it must meet in order to be part of the whole.  Responsibilities express the conditions for the extrinsic value of a holon to exist, to sustain its partness, its communion, its span.  If these responsibilities are not met, then the holon ceases to be a part of the whole.  It is ejected or actually destroys the whole (HE p. 331).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE INTEGRATIVE VISION

Wisdom: Wisdom knows that behind the Many is the One.  It sees through the confusion of shifting shapes and passing forms to the groundless Ground of all being.  Wisdom (prajna) sees that this world is illusory.  Brahman alone is real (SES p. 337).

 

Compassion: Compassion knows that the One is the Many.  It knows that the One is expressed equally in each and every being, so that each is to be treated with compassion and care.  Compassion sees that Brahman is the world (SES p. 337).

 

Ascent and Descent: For Plotinus (205-270 C.E.), all development is envelopment.  The Path of Ascent (Reflux) of the Kosmos traces, in reverse order, its Path of Descent (Creation, Efflux).  At each stage of Ascent, the lower has to be Aembraced@ and Apermeated.@  Descent and embrace should occur with each stage of Ascent and development (SES pp. 347-348).  

 

Eros and Agape: The general notion of Plotinus (205-270) which conceives of a multi-dimensional Kosmos interwoven at each and every stage by Ascending and Descending patterns of Love (Eros, transcendental wisdom, the lower reaching up to the higher) and Agape (compassion, the higher reaching down and embracing the lower), has exerted a profound influence on virtually all currents of Christian thought, up to, and even beyond, the Enlightenment (SES pp. 347-348).

 

Phobos and Thanatos: When Eros and Agape are not integrated in the individual, then

1.                  Eros appears as Phobos, that is, fear of the lower levels, fear of being Adragged down,@ Apulled down,@ contaminated or dirtied by the lower.  Phobos is Eros in flight from the lower instead of embracing the lower.  It is transcendence without embrace, negation without preservation.  Phobos is Eros without Agape, Ascent divorced from Descent.  Phobos is the source of repression and dissociation.  Ascenders are driven by Phobos, often expressed as fear of earth, body, nature, woman, sex, and sense (SES pp. 349-350 and 360).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.                  Agape appears as Thanatos, that is, regression to the lower levels.  It is the higher not just embracing and caressing the lower but regressing to the lower and remaining stuck in it.  Thanatos is Agape in flight from the higher instead of expressing the higher.  It preserves the lower but refuses to negate it.  Agape kills the higher in the name of the lower.  Thanatos is Agape without Eros, Descent divorced from Ascent.  The end game of that reductionistic drive is death and matter, with no connection to Source.  Thanatos is the source of regression and reduction, fixation and arrest.  It attempts to save the lower by killing the higher.  Descenders are driven to destroy the world in their attempts to make this finite world into one of infinite value B which it is not.  They are destroying this world because it is the only one they have (SES pp. 349-351).

 

Evil    

Anguish and evil are the result of Man=s attempt to deny death and his consequent fetishizing of immortality symbols.  Man, conscious of his mortality, suffers, and in his attempt to avoid death, has historically brought more evil, more destruction, and more anguish upon the world than the Devil himself could incarnate.

 

Underlying Man=s evil are:

3.                  Eros: Strivings for immortality, an attempt to substitute time everlasting for timeless transcendence.  But the sense of self is illusory, only the product of a boundary.  Hence likewise, ultimately, death is only an impression.  There is no such thing as mortality, except as an illusion which Man keeps before himself as fear during his lifetime.  When the sense of self dies, all that dissolves is not a real entity but a boundary, a boundary that was never real, that was always only imaginary (UE pp. 359-360).

 

4.                  Thanatos: Once individuals create the illusion of a self with boundaries, they fear its dissolution, and then there follows, inevitably and relentlessly all the horror-filled logic of wild and panicked lashing out at all obstacles, be they human or material, which seem to threaten one=s immortality prospects.  And for this, there is only one solution B to go one step further and, by transcending the self, transcend death as well.  To move from self-consciousness to super-consciousness is to make death obsolete (UE pp. 359-360). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE NON-DUAL WORLD VIEW                                                                                   

According to the non-dual world view, Reality is neither this world nor the other world.  Reality cannot be described either easily or accurately.  However, it can be shown directly, apprehended directly in immediate awareness through contemplative practice in community.  Among others, the non-dual view has been expressed by:

*          Plato (?427-327 B.C.).

 

*          Mahayana Buddhism, which emerged as a movement in 50 B.C., the chief religious ideal being the Bodhisattva, with their vow to postpone entry into nirvana until all other living beings are similarly enlightened and saved.

 

*          Nagarjuna (c.150 C.E.), founder of the Madhyamika School of Mahayana Buddhism.  AThe other world is this world rightly seen.@

 

*          Plotinus (205-270 C.E.).  AThe other world is this world rightly seen.@

 

*          Meister Eckhart (c.1260-c.1328), German mystical theologian.

 

*          Vedanta, based on the Upanishads, one of the six classical systems of Indian philosophy.

 

*          Tantra, an esoteric tradition of ritual and yoga known for the elaborate use of symbolic speech (mantra) and symbolic diagrams (mandala).  Tantric practices use both ritual and meditation to unify the devotee with the chosen deity (SES p. 356; HE p. 305; Encyclopedia).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ABSOLUTE REALITY

Absolute Reality includes at least the following:

1.                  The One is the Good to which all Things aspire.  The Absolute is the Summit and Goal of all evolution, all ascent, all manifestation.  It provides the motive, the action, the Apull@ of all things to actualize their own highest potential, whatever that potential might be.  It is the return of the Many to the One (SES p. 356).

 

2.                  The One is the Goodness from which All Things flow.  It is the Origin and the source of all manifestation, at all times, in all places.  There is a timeless creativity, an overflow of the One into the Many.  The One as Goodness is the first cause of all causes.  This world is itself a Avisible God.@  The world is God as the Many (SES p. 357).

 

3.                  The Absolute is the Non-dual Ground of both the One and the Many.  Reality is equally and both Good and Goodness, One and Many, Ascent and Descent,  Omega and Alpha, Wisdom and Compassion.  Reality is neither only Summit (Omega) or Source (Alpha), but rather is Suchness B the timeless and ever-present Ground which is equally and fully present in and as every single being, high or low, ascending or descending, refluxing or effluxing.  As Origen [Origines Adamantius (?185-?254)] expressed it, AGod is all in all.@

 

Without direct access to the unifying and unspoken One, the two paths, Ascending and Descending, become logically incompatible and utterly irreconcilable (SES pp. 357, 365 and 407).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE EVOLUTIONARY UNDERSTANDING OF NON-DUALITY

Among others, the evolutionary understanding of non-duality has been attained by:

*          Friedrich Schelling (1775-1874).  Schelling viewed nature as a Aself-organizing dynamic system B the objective manifestation of Spirit@ (HE pp. 298 and 301). 

 

For the past 2,000 years, the single, most defining battle in the Western tradition has been that between the AAscenders@ and the ADescenders.@  Schelling realized that this dissociation could not be overcome by a return to the immediacy of feeling, Ato the childhood, as it were, of the human race.@  He maintained that we have to go beyond reason to discover that mind and nature are both different movements of one absolute Spirit, a Spirit that manifests itself in its own successive stages of unfolding.  Nature is objective Spirit, mind is subjective Spirit.  Spirit goes out of itself to produce objective nature, awakens to itself in subjective mind, and then recovers itself in pure non-dual awareness, where subject and object are one pure immediacy that unifies both nature and mind in realized Spirit.  The Spirit that is realized in a conscious fashion in the supreme identity, is, in fact, the Spirit that was present all along as the entire process of evolution (SES p. 517; HE pp. 295, 298 and 302-303).

 

*          Aurobindo Ghose (1872-1950).  Aurobindo did for the East what Schelling had done for the West B conceptualize evolution as an evolution of Spirit (SES pp. 148-149).

 

A TRANSCENDENTAL VIEW OF EVOLUTION

AThe history of the world, with all the changing scenes which its annals present, is the process of development and the realization of Spirit.  Only this insight can reconcile Spirit with the history of the world, [and see] that what has happened, and is happening every day, is not only not >without God,= but is essentially God=s work@ [Hegel (1770-1831)] (HE p. 301).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WAYS TO PERCEIVE REALITY

Hubert Benoit (1904-1992) has described the process which gives rise to our concepts, mental images and mental objects.  Benoit worked within the framework of AEnergy mobilization@ in which our Energy is constantly rising from Abelow,@ from the non-dual level, where it is pure, informal, non-objective, timeless and spaceless, and operates now, Ain a moment without duration.@  As it mobilizes, this Energy Awells up@ from within, and converts itself into Aimaginative-emotive processes@ (taking on form as thoughts, and direction as emotions).  As it does so, it disperses and disintegrates.  This Amobilization of Energy@ and its subsequent Adisintegration into forms@ is happening at each and every moment, but can most easily be observed in certain situations (SC p. 298).

 

In an instance of fright, for example, there are a few seconds of passive awareness when our Energy is beginning to mobilize but is not yet experienced as shock.  This Energy, pure and without form, then disintegrates into thoughts and emotions of shock and fright.  Concepts, thoughts, emotions, and mental objects snap up and disperse our Energy, thereby introducing a screen between the self and Reality (SC p. 298). 

 

In his book, The Supreme Doctrine (New York, Viking, 1955), pp. 190-191, Benoit describes how when our attention operates in the passive mode, thought-concepts arise.  Ordinary, passive attention is awakened by the mobilizations of Energy in the organism, and is then faced with a fait accompli, without option at this late stage but to let the Energy disintegrate.  The machinery of image production is passive attention.  As soon as thoughts and concepts are formed, the chance of contacting Realty has been missed (SC pp. 298 and 307).

 

Active attention, on the other hand, operating in a state of autonomous, unconditioned vigilance, prevents the disintegration of the Energy, thereby also preventing imaginative-emotive forms from rising.  It cuts off thought-forms at their source, superintending the mobilization of Energy and actively perceiving its birth.  Its interest is the informal movement which is the birth of the formal movements.  In this state of ASpeak, I am listening,@ there is absolutely nothing objective to perceive.  Mental concept-objects (thoughts) do not arise, and since it is this screen of conceptualization that appears to separate me from the world, AI@ and Athe world@ are no longer separate.  AI@ and Athe world@ become one in the act of a pure non-conceptual seeing.  There remains no objective world Aout there@ to perceive.  The Aworld looks at itself@ in a non-dual fashion.  There is seeing, but nothing objective seen.  This Aattitude of vigilant expectations@ constitutes the Ainner gesture,@ which forestalls thought-concepts and thereby puts one directly in touch with Reality.  We do not have to suppress thought.  We have to evoke the Ainner gesture@ of active attention (SC pp. 298-301).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE THREE COMPONENTS OF SKILLFUL EXPERIMENTS

Benoit=s description has the three components which are at the core of other Skillful Experiments:

1.                  Active Attention: The ASpeak-I-am-listening@ attitude.

 

2.                  The Suspension of Thought: The suspension of the primary dualism B that is, the suspension of all dualistic symbolic-map knowledge, conceptualization, objectification, mental chatter.  As expressed by Huang Po (?-849), Asitting in a Bodhimandala,@ that is, sitting in a place where the enlightenment can erupt at any instant.

 

3.                  Passive Awareness: A special seeing that is seeing into nothing (objective).  This is the non-dual level (SC pp. 302-303).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE POWER OF RELIGIONS

Religions may be assessed by means of two scales B their legitimacy, that is, their power to foster growth within a given level of consciousness (horizontal growth), and their authenticity, that is, their power to foster transformation to a higher level of consciousness (vertical growth).

 

The two scales by which a religion can be assessed:

1.                  Legitimacy: Legitimacy is a measure of how well a given spirituality provides meaning, integration, and value at a particular level of consciousness.  A legitimate religion is one that validates translation, usually by providing:

a.                   Sufficiently good Amana@ (food) for a particular level of consciousness.  Mana refers to the Afood@ at each level of the compound human individual B physical food (food, water, air, shelter), emotional food (feeling, touch-contact, sex, love, belongingness), mental food (interpersonal communication, reflexive self-esteem, meaning, symbol, truth), spiritual food (God-communion, depth, illumination, insight).   

 

b.                  Sufficiently good immortality symbols to help ward off the taboo of death.  Until final liberation, there is always some form of immortality project.  While with each higher level of structural organization, the need for the compensatory value of such projects decreases, they are not fully uprooted until the sense of a separate self is itself uprooted.  Prior to that time, life remains a battle of mana versus taboo.

 

A crisis in legitimacy occurs whenever the prevailing mana and immortality symbols fail their integrative (Aglue@) and/or defensive functions.  Legitimacy is a horizontal scale, a measure of the degree to which a religion is successful within a particular level of consciousness (SG pp. 33, 84, 93, 96 101 and 103).

 

Chinese Maoism (the ideology of Chinese dictator Mao Tse-tung, 1935-1976) had a fairly high degree of legitimacy but a very mediocre degree of authenticity (SG pp. 103-104).           

 

American Acivil religion@ (a mixture of exoteric, Protestant, biblical myths and nationalistic immortality symbols) also has a fairly high degree of legitimacy and a very mediocre degree of authenticity.  This Acivil religion@ faced a legitimacy crisis during the 1960's (SG pp. 103-104).

 

 

2.                  Authenticity: Authenticity is a measure of how well a given spirituality promotes transformation to higher levels.  An authentic religion is one that primarily validates transformation to a particular level deemed to be most centrally religious.  A crisis in authenticity occurs whenever a prevailing religion is faced with challenges from a higher-level view.  Authenticity is a vertical scale, a measure of the degree to which a religion is powerful in transforming its devotees to a higher level of consciousness (SG pp. 33 and 102-103).      

 

Mahayana Buddhism declined in India, but it was not because its tenets were per se inauthentic, for they still embodied causal level practice.  It declined because Vedanta Hinduism, regenerating itself via Shankara and claiming more historical roots, became more legitimate (SG p. 104).

 

Vedanta is a causal-authentic religion, but it will probably never achieve widespread legitimacy in America (SG p. 104). 

 

In the West, in fact, most esoteric spiritual tenets, no matter how authentic, have never gained much legitimacy, witness:

*          Jesus Christ (36 C.E.), Jewish teacher and prophet, in whom Christians have traditionally seen the Messiah and whom they have characterized as Son of God.  He was born around 3 B.C. and, after a brief public ministry, during the term of Pontius Pilates as prefect of Judaea, was crucified around 36 C.E.  Jesus= esoteric-causal message was, AI and the Father are one@ (SG p. 104; Encyclopedia).

 

*          Hussein ibn Mansur al-Hallaj (857-922), Arabic-speaking Persian, Muslim mystic and poet, popularly known among Muslims as Athe martyr of mystical love.@  al-Hallaj=s description of his union with God, AI am the Truth,@ led to charges of heresy for which he was tortured and executed (SG p. 104; Encyclopedia).

 

*          Meister Eckhart (c.1260-c.1328), German mystical theologian.  He communicated in various ways his non-dual view and sense of God=s nearness to humanity.  Wrongly charged with heresy, he died after his appeal was denied.  In 1329, Pope John XXII issued a bull condemning as heretical seventeen of Eckhart=s propositions (SG p. 104; Encyclopedia).

 

*          Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), Italian philosopher, metaphysician, satirist and poet.  Tried for heresy by the Inquisition, in Venice, he was imprisoned and burned to death (SG p. 104; Encyclopedia).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.                  Legitimate and Authentic Religions: Religions which have been both legitimate and authentic include:

*          Ch=an (Zen) Buddhism during T=ang China (618-907 C.E.).  This was a time of territorial expansion.  Buddhism was temporarily suppressed.  Civil service examinations were based on Confucianism.  It was an age of great achievements in poetry, sculpture and painting (SG p. 104; Encyclopedia).

 

*          Vedanta Hinduism in India from the time of Gaudapada (c.700 C.E.) and Shankara (788-820 C.E.), to the intensified British occupation (c.1900) (SG p. 104; Encyclopedia).

 

*          Vajrayana Buddhism in Tibet from the time when Padmasambhava (c. 750 C.E.) fashioned Tibetan Buddhism out of early Mahayana Buddhism, to 1931, when Mao Tse-tung (1893-1976) founded the People=s Republic of China (SG p. 104).

 

EXOTERIC AND ESOTERIC RELIGIONS

Religions may be compared according to the degree to which they are exoteric or esoteric:

1.                  Exotericism: An exoteric religion is usually a form of belief system used to invoke or support faith, both belief and faith being preparatory to esoteric experience and adaptation (SG p. 100).

 

2.                  Esotericism: An esoteric religion is an inward and/or advanced aspect of religious practice, intended to culminate in mystical experience, or at least have this as a goal (SG p. 101).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

USAGES OF THE WORD ARELIGION@

Religion has many largely mutually exclusive meanings and definitions.  These include:

1.                  A Non-rational Engagement: In this view, religion belongs, or at least originates, in a dimension other than the rational-scientific.  For instance, science and rationality are not religious.

a.                   To theologians, this is positive, in that religion deals with valid but non-rational aspects of existence, such as faith, grace, transcendence, satori.  It is something one can grow into.

 

b.                  To positivists, this is negative, in that religion is non-valid knowledge, not real cognition B though admittedly, it is emotionally Ameaningful@ to humans.  It is something that one hopes to outgrow (SG p. 98).

 

1.                  Fixation/Regression: This is a primitivization theory.  More narrow than the above and always derogatory, this usage views religion not only as non-rational but specifically as pre-rational B only and solely childish illusion, myth and magic, without other alternative possible (SG p. 100). 

 

2.                  A meaningful, integrative Engagement: In this view, religion consists of seeking meaning, truth, integrity, stability, subject-object relationship (exchange),  Amana@ (food) on any one given level of consciousness.  Whether the activity appears Areligious@ or Asecular@ is immaterial.  If it is a search for meaning, it is religious.  For instance, AScience was Einstein=s religion@ (SG p. 99).

 

3.                  An Immortality Project: In this view, religion is fundamentally a wishful, defensive, compensatory belief system (an immortality project), part of a necessary defense system created at all levels of consciousness, except the non-dual, to help veil the apprehension of ultimate and inescapable mortality.  While often theological, this belief system may also be rational and secular.  The rational ego may have science, like the childish ego has myth, and the infantile ego, magic.  When Ernest Becker (1925-1974) said, AMarxism is the religion of the Soviets,@ he meant that for the Soviets, Marxism was perhaps a search for Amana@ (as in 3. above), but it was also a death-denial (SG p. 101). 

 

4.                  An Evolutionary Growth: In this sophisticated view, religion is the transformative drive in general.  The religious impulse means dying to any given level of consciousness so as to find increasingly higher structures and higher Amana@ (truth), which will eventuate in the non-dual God-Realized Adaptation.  This is the sense in which Georg Hegel (1770-1831) and Aurobindo Ghose (1872-1950) use the term religion.  All evolution and history is religious, since it is a process of increasing self-realization in which alienation is overcome and Spirit, as Spirit, returns to Spirit (SG p. 100).

 

 

MODERNITY AND RELIGION

In the face of the increasingly purposive-rational world views of the present time (secularization, individualism and rationalism), the older mythological world views, based primarily on exoteric mythic-membership and traditional conformity, have begun slowly but inevitably to lose their cogency.  The process of legitimation has begun to shift toward rational adjudication and humanistic-secular appropriation.  For most cultures, the integrative-stabilization forces inherent in the rational level of adaptation and organization, are still far from achieving their structural potential.  Yet, the mythic-membership structure seems to have reached the inherent limit of its integrative and truth-disclosing capacities (SG p. 112).

 

The paradigm of mythic-membership unity seems to be, AEverybody has to think the same thing, share the same symbols, and have the same father-god-king in common.@  The paradigm of rational-individual unity seems to be, ALet=s do different things together, share different symbols, and exchange different perspectives.@  The latter is a legitimate form of integration (inducer of social stability), which, however, does not cater to the conformity-traditional paradigm (SG p. 114).

 

The Arc in Time of the Mythic-membership Structure:

*          The mythic-membership structure first emerged around 9,000 B.C., in certain farming cultures, where it slowly replaced the paleolithic magic of the great hunts. 

*          It matured in the high civilizations of classic mythology:

C                  Egypt (3,000-322 B.C.).

 

C                  The Indus Valley Civilization, in India (c.2,500- c.1500).

 

C                  China under the Shang (Yin) dynasty (c.1523-c.1027 B.C.).

 

*          It peaked in medieval Europe (400-1450) under mythic-exoteric Christianity.

 

*          It began to decline, in Europe, around 1650, when each successive decade was largely defined by those persons and events that disclosed the inadequacy of the mythic mode and made plain its obsolescence B Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543), John Locke (1632-1704), Isaac Newton (1642-1727), Auguste Comte (1798-1857), Charles Darwin (1809-1882), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), Sigmund Freud (1856-1939).  There are and will continue to be repressions/fixations to this mode, both in individuals and societies at large, but its force as a cogent and legitimating translator of reality is defunct.  It can no longer provide mana of a sufficiently high degree, and can no longer convince most educated individuals to believe in its mythic immortality symbols (SG pp. 112-113).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many have concluded that the trend toward rationalization is anti-religious, but it is, in fact, pro-authentic-religious by virtue of being post- and trans-mythic, leading eventually to psychic (yogic) and higher levels of structural adaptation.  The major contribution of rationality might be to de-mythologize Spirit, stripping from it its sub-conscient magic and myth, such as infantile and childish associations, parental fixations, wish fulfillment, dependency yearnings and symbiotic gratifications (SG p. 115).

 

In the larger evolutionary view, the rational denial of God contains more Spirit than the mythic affirmation of God, because it contains more developmental depth, and thus, in fact, more Spirit. There is more Spirit in reason=s denial of a mythic God than there is in myth=s affirmation of that God.  Large-scale transformative trends will probably come through those who have already adequately mastered the rational-individuated operative base (SG pp. 35-36 and 130).

 

THE APRE-@ AND APOST-@ FALLACY

In any recognized developmental sequence, where development proceeds from Apre-X,@ to AX,@ to Apost-X,@ the stages which are Apre-@ and Apost-@ tend to be confused and equated not only because they are both Anon-X,@ but also because, at first glance, they appear similar. 

 

Reductionism is the interpretation of the Apost-@ in terms of the Apre-,@ such as Sigmund Freud did when he reduced post-conventional, trans-rational and super-conscious stages to pre-rational, infantile and oceanic fusion.

 

Elevationism is the interpretation of the Apre-@ in terms of the Apost-,@ such as the Romantics and retro-Romantics do when they elevate infantile, childish and pre-rational stages to transcendental, trans-rational and trans-personal structures (SG pp. 14-15).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                     FIGURES

 

Introduction: The Serpent as Symbol of Levels of Consciousness

Historically, more than any other animal, the serpent has been viewed as everything from the most evil of devils to the highest of all gods.  This is because the serpent is used as a symbolic representation of levels of consciousness.  And specifically the serpent is the animal selected to represent these levels because the serpent-uroboros is the lowest basic stage to which Consciousness descends in Creation.  Hence, when Consciousness ascends back to its Source, it often takes the form of serpent power.  (It takes this form in sudden consciousness manifestations to the mind=s eye).  It is an example of the lowest being returned to the highest.

 

The level of consciousness is represented by the location of the serpent in relation to the human body.  If crawling on the earth, coiled at the base of any structure, or in the lower half of the body (especially merged to the abdomen or trunk, as in the typhon), the serpent represents consciousness in its lower stages of evolution, where it governs food, sex, blood, death, etc. . .   The serpent which represents these lower stages of consciousness is Aevil@ because the aim is to move to a higher level.

 

If, on the other hand, in an ascendant position, vertically coiled in criss-crossed fashion, elevated on a cross, or at or beyond the human head, the serpent represents consciousness in its  higher stages of evolution B stages rightly viewed a Divine (UE p. 150). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS OF STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT

Developmental Stages:

The Pleroma-Uroboros Stage:

a.                  Australopithecus: Australopithecus (4,000,000-1,000,000 years ago), an extinct genus of the hominid family, is an example of Ahumans@ in the uroboric period.  He is advanced beyond all prior evolutionary stages (beyond all the lower levels of the Great Chain of Being: matter, plant, reptile and mammal), but he is embedded in, and dominated by these lower levels.  His exchanges with his environment are around matter and food.  Australopithecus was bipedal and had an average cranial capacity of 525 cc (in contrast to the present world average of 1350 cc.) (UE p. 33; Wilson pp. 49 and 52; Encyclopedia).

 

b.                  Brass Shield from Africa: AUroboros@ is the primordial mythic symbol of the serpent eating its own tail, and signifies embedded in lower life forms, self-possessed, narcissistically all-enclosing, in Areptilian@ paradise.  It is the symbol of primitive awareness  residing in physical nature (pleroma) and dominated by animal-reptilian impulses (uroboros).  It is the structure lying behind the universal myth of a Garden of Eden B a time of innocence before the Afall@ into separation, knowledge and reflection (UE pp. 26 and 30).

 

c.                   Celtic Woodcut: The uroboros, as in figure b.  The Celts were a group of tribes living in Western Europe, 2,000,000-350 B.C. (UE p. 30; Encyclopedia).

 

d.                  I AW ABPACA: The uroboros, as in figure b. (UE p. 40).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.         The Typhonic Stage

a.                   Cro-Magnon Man.  The typhonic level of consciousness is dominated by body-bound mentality and instincts.  Man at the typhon level is driven by his emotional-sexual energies (prana, the second and third chakras).  His mind is largely undifferentiated from his body and produces only images and paleo-symbols. 

 

The earliest Homo sapiens, Neanderthal man and Cro-Magnon man are examples of this level of consciousness:

i.                    Neanderthal man (200,000-50,000 years ago) is representative of the low typhonic period.  He was almost entirely pre-verbal, possessing only images which he interpreted by means of a primary process, and he had only crude paleo-symbols.  He had an average cranial capacity of about 1600 cc., in contrast to the present world average of 1350 cc. (UE p. 69; Wilson pp. 49 and 52; Encyclopedia).

 

ii.                  Cro-Magnon man (50,000-10,000 years ago) is representative of the high typhonic period.  He was still largely pre-verbal but unlike Neanderthal man, probably had modifiers, commands and some nouns, as well as more complex paleo-symbols.  He made polychrome paintings on cave walls, finely crafted tools out of stone and bone, and jewelry out of shell and ivory (UE p. 69; Encyclopedia).

 

b.                  The Sorcerer of Trois Freres: This etching portrays man-as-typhon.  The dancing legs and the full beard which descends to the chest are those of a man, the hands are the paws of a bear, the round eyes are those of an owl, the pricked ears those of a stag, the bushy tail that of a wolf or wild horse, and the sexual organ, prominent and positioned beneath the tail, is that of a feline, perhaps a lion.  But, the figure represents an entity distinct from its surroundings.  It is not a pleromatic-uroboric self.  But it is magically (confusedly) composed of all sorts of different parts.  It is, in fact, a Aman@ still interconnected with the bodies of nature (and, of course, still interconnected with his own body) (UE p. 47; Encyclopedia).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

c.                   Paleolithic Cave Drawing: This drawing from the Paleolithic Period (2,000,000,000-10,000,000 years ago), found in the cave site of Trois Freres, France, shows overlapping figures B magic.  It is not that magic is a hallucinatory or primitive mis-perception of an otherwise clear and distinct reality, but rather that magic is a correct perception of a primitive and lower level of reality.  It is not a distorted perception of a higher reality, but a correct perception of a lower reality.  Primitive magic is the accurate Areflection@ of the pranic level, the level of emotional-sexual energies, of pre-differentiated reality which operates by associations and contagions.  Magic reflects this vital nexus.  The magical primary process is not so much wrong as partial, not so much inaccurate as incomplete (UE pp. 52-53).

 

d.                  Venus Figures: These figures are from the Paleolithic Period  (2,000,000,000-10,000,000 years ago), and represent the earliest form of the Great Mother which has been found.  The Great Mother (the Great Environment, the Great Surround) dominates both the typhonic and early membership structures of the child.  She is embedded in these levels in a way quite unlike that in any other subsequent stage of development.  She is a correlate of bodily existence itself, a representative of a global, separate and vulnerable existence in space and time, and as such, engenders both a desire for a Great Protectress and a fear of a Great Destroyer.  In Paleolithic caves, mural paintings portray the animals of the Great Hunt, but sculptures represent the female figure.  Men hardly enter the picture, and when they do, appear either masked or with their form magically modified (UE pp. 127-128).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

e.                   The Typhon: The classic typhon is half serpent, half man, but any figure structurally half animal and half man is a typhonic figure (UE pp. 46 and 48).

 

f.                   Typhonic Figure No. 1: As in Figure e.

 

g.                  Typhonic Figure No. 2: As in Figure e. 

 

h.                  A Totem: This is an example of magic typhonicism.  Man is structurally linked to animal ancestors.  Totemism expresses man=s original fusion with his world B the landscape and the fauna.  In totemism, man regards a certain animal as an ancestor, a friend, or some kind of powerful and providential being.  The sense of kinship felt by a human member of the totem for the totem animal and ancestor, and for all animals of that species, is carried to the point of identity (UE p. 50). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.         Mythic Membership Stage

a.                   The Great Mother Nos. 1 and 2: The Neolithic period (7,500-1500) encompasses the cult of the Great Mother.  In the earliest period of her cult (c.7,500-3,500 B.C.), she was focal figure of all mythology.  She was a biological nourisher and fertility token, magnified magically to cosmic proportions and worshiped.  She was the bountiful goddess Earth, the mother and nourisher of life.  Her connection with Man was simple, natural and biological (UE p. 141).

 

These two figures are classic representations of the uroboric Great Mother, the Serpent Mother.  The presence of the serpent-uroboros intimately connected with or to the Mother, indicates her typhonic form.  The serpent also represents the phallus of the Great Mother, who is always hermaphroditic, that is, virgin in the sense that with regards to intercourse, she belongs to no man whatsoever.  She is forever the same, while men are but interchangeable bearers of the consort phallus.  She is both mother and lover, and hence her consort is both her son and husband (UE pp. 132-133).

 

b.                  The Great Mother No. 3: The Great Mother again portrayed  structurally as a typhon B half human, half beast.  This figure represents the developmental connection of the Great Mother with:

i.                    The Uroboros as Uroboros: The uroboros is literally connected to the mother, undifferentiated from her.  In this connection, the uroboros represents the close connection of the Great Mother to the alimentary stage (first chakra).

 

ii.                  The Hermaphroditic Constitution of the Great Mother: The uroboros is symbolic of the phallus of the hermaphroditic Great Mother.  In this connection, the uroboros represents the close connection of the Great Mother to the emotional-sexual stage (second chakra) (UE p. 231).

 

c.                   The Great Mother No. 4: In this figure, the uroboros is differentiated from, but is still closely associated with the mother (UE p. 231).

 

4.                  The Egoic Stage

a.                   Ixion: During the period of the axial sages (600-500 B.C.), life began to be viewed as a fiery vortex of delusion, desire, violence and death B a burning waste.

 

In the teachings of the Buddha, the image of a spoked wheel always turning became a sign of:

i.                    The wheeling round of sorrow and pain.

ii.                  Release in the sun-like doctrine of illumination. 

 

                                               In Greek mythology, Ixion was chained by Zeus for eternity to a revolving fiery wheel.  In Greek mythology, Zeus (root meaning: Abright@ or Asky@) was supreme among the gods, ruling from his court on Mount Olympus.  He was the symbol of power, rule and law.  Ixion is the egoic structure, and the wheel is the round of samsara (the world of Form).

 

This figure shows an Etruscan bronze mirror from around 350 B.C.  The Etruscan civilization (750-350 B.C., in what is today Tuscany and part of Umbria), was the highest civilization in Italy before the rise of Rome (UE p. 306; Encyclopedia). 

 

b.         Zeus defeating the Typhon: This is a classic hero myth.  The mental ego emerges from the typhonic realms (UE p. 193).

 

c.                   The Devil: The gods of one stage of development become the demons of the next stage.  The reason is that what is appropriate at one stage becomes archaic, regressive and infantile at the next.  From the higher stage, the lower stage seems something to scorn, battle, subdue.

 

This figure is that of the ultimate devil, ASatan,@ as portrayed in late Western mythology.  It is simply the old typhonic structure:

i.                    It is half man and half animal, and, therefore, typhonic (like the Sorcerer of Trois Freres, who was in his time a supreme god).

 

ii.                  Its serpent (awareness) has evolved only through the lower three chakras B food, sex and power B which is characteristic of the typhonic stage.

 

iii.                It is hermaphroditic B infused with the Great Mother.

 

 

 

 

 

Often symbolized as a serpent, the Devil reaches its arch-personification as the typhon ASatan@ because this stage of consciousness contains both the serpent-uroboros and the lower aspects of human nature (emotional-sexuality and magic).   

 

In the West, the battle against the uroboros and the typhon went too far, and produced not just differentiation and transcendence but dissociation and repression.  The dissociation of ego-mind from body-typhon was often severe, and the typhon, cut off from conscious participation, assumed menacing proportions.  Indeed, Satan, appeared to take on an ultimately and absolutely evil significance.  This was because the West did not Agive the Devil its due.@  Neither Satan nor the Great Mother was integrated into the new mythology of the Sun (male) Gods.  Instead, the heroic ego alienated itself from the body. 

 

Dissociated, the typhon now showed up in two extreme forms:

i           The Witch=s Sabbath: Obsessive over-indulgence, hedonism, obsessive genital sexuality, perversions, exclusive aestheticism, dominance of the pleasure principle, degenerate emotionalism.

 

The Witch Hunt: Repressive puritanism, hyper-intellectualism, schizoid mentality, arid abstractionism, history divorced from nature, an ego terrified of body.

 

In the East, however, the battle did end in differentiation and transformation, and the old myths of the serpent, typhon, and Great Mother were integrated into a new higher mythology.  The East did have its satan figures, and thus acknowledged their existence.  They were viewed as lower manifestations of God, sometimes even as protectors of the Dharma.  In this way, though they were given recognition as valid, they were not to be worshiped for themselves (UE pp. 216-217).   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

d.                  A Witch=s Sabbath: The practitioners are well-dressed, civilized, cultured B almost too cultured.  An excessive zeal to embrace the mental realms and deny the animal aspects of the human compound individual, is precisely the attitude that leads to the alienation of the typhonic realms, and hence, their subsequent obsessive-compulsive allure (UE p. 220).

 

e.                   A Witch=s Hunt: Witches being hanged in England.  The witch hunt is the precise and formal inverse (mirror image) of the witch=s sabbath.  Both the witch and the witch hunter suffer from the same dissociation of mind and body, but they take up stances on opposite sides of the boundary.  The witch is obsessed with the typhon, the hunter of the witch, terrified of the typhon (UE p. 220). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.                  The Psychic Stage

Egyptian Headdress: The adept kings of Egypt bore the Uraeus, (ASacred Serpent@) on their forehead, an emblem signifying their achievement of the sixth chakra (Ahigher mental-psychic powers,@ the level of the neocortex).  The sixth chakra was said to be located between and behind the eyebrows, the Athird eye@ (UE pp. 151-152).

 

Subduing the Serpent: This is during the Egyptian civilization  (3,110-322 B.C.), which was a high mythic-membership civilization (UE p. 151).

 

Egyptian Initiation: This is an example of subduing the Aevil@ serpent, so as to release its creative force (kundalini,   consciousness) (UE p. 151).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4.                  The Subtle Stage      

a.                   Kwannon Bosatu, Japan.  The Neolithic period (7,500-1500) encompasses the cult of the Great Mother.  In the earliest period of her cult (c.7,500-3,500 B.C.), the Great Mother was focal figure of all mythology and worship B the bountiful goddess Earth, the mother and nourisher of life.  Man=s connection with her was simple, natural and biological.  She was a biological nourisher and fertility token, magnified magically to cosmic proportions (UE p. 141).

 

In the temples of the higher civilizations, however, even the first one, Sumer (c.3500-2,350), the Great Mother as a local patroness of fertility, had evolved into a metaphysical symbol B the arch- personification of the power of Space, Time and Matter, within whose bounds all beings arise and die.  She was the symbol of the substance of their bodies, the configurator of their lives, and the receiver of their dead.  Everything that had form or name, including God personified as good or evil, merciful or wrathful, was her child, within her womb.  The Great Mother had become the Great Goddess, now revealing a higher structure of consciousness.  The Great Goddess was symbolic of the subtle Oneness of actual transcendence, she was a representative of Spirit.  This is how she is considered today in the Orient (UE pp. 141-142).  

 

Kwannon Bosatu, the Buddhist Goddess of Compassion, is an excellent representation of the Great Goddess.  Her head is surrounded by two halos of light and a ring of fire B indicators of the subtle level oneness which she has achieved (UE p. 148). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

b.                  Great Goddess Kali, India: When viewed in her highest form, as wife of Shiva (one of the greatest gods in Hinduism, Lord of the Cosmic Dance), Kali is a perfect example of the assimilation of the old Great Mother image into a new and higher corpus of Great Goddess mythology.  This assimilation did not happen in the West, with the possible but rather tepid exception of Mary, who nevertheless was thoroughly expunged by the Protestants.

 

Goddess Kali is usually pictured with all the old symbols of the devouring Great Mother B sacrificial knife, skulls, blood, serpent.  However, she has the halo of subtle-level light surrounding her head, which is never found in Great Mother icons.  In her pure metaphysical form B and this is how the true saints and sages (for instance, Ramakrishna, 1836-1886) worshiped her B she is always the Great Goddess, never demanding human blood sacrifice but rather always calling for the interior sacrifice of the sense of a separate self.

 

The importance of this scheme is twofold:

i.          The old mythology of the Great Mother is maintained in most of its forms, but integrated and transformed in a higher mythology which serves actual sacrifice in awareness, not substitute sacrifice in blood.

 

ii.         The old, terrifying imagery of the devouring Great Mother is retained, as a reminder that the life of the separate self is indeed surrounded by pain, suffering and ultimately death B and that one must transcend the self in order to transcend that anguish.  Kali then, is the perfect Great Goddess.  She preserves but transcends the Great Mother, and thereby integrates the lower with the higher (UE p. 196; Encyclopedia).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

c.                   The Great Goddess.  See under Kwannon Bosatu.  The Great Goddess is not merely of the earth, but has her head reaching into heaven.  Her head is halo-encircled.  As the chain in her left hand shows, she controls the earth and the underworld, but as the chain on her right hand and the cloud above her head show, she herself is transcended and controlled by the ultimate causal Being beyond her. 

 

During the low egoic period (2,500-500 B.C.), the self transformed itself from one identifying with the body to one identifying with the mind.  This transformation was almost universally represented as a transition from earth to heaven, and from darkness to light.  In mythology (and society), it was often paralleled by a transition from matriarchy (the Great Mother) to patriarchy (the Sun Gods).

 

Thus, in the earliest versions of the Great Goddess insight, before the Sun Gods (before 2,500 B.C.), it was not understood that there was a higher Being beyond the psychic or subtle levels (beyond the Goddess).  Only with the coming of the Sun Gods would the subtle level be truly understood and surpassed.  But the Great Goddess was certainly one the first figures to rise up from chthonic earth and set her head in subtle heaven (UE pp. 146 and 227).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.                  The Causal Stage (Dharmakaya)

Gautama Buddha (563-483 B.C.): This is a Cambodian sculpture dating from around 1050 C.E.  Gautama Buddha was one of the first Eastern sages to grasp the Dharmakaya clearly and unequivocally.  His profound insight was the almost exact analogue of Jesus Christ=s, although the cultural manifestations and philosophical accouterments were quite different. 

 

The seven serpents represent the seven major levels of being through which Buddha=s consciousness has passed prior to, and as a condition of his supreme enlightenment.  The reach of the serpents beyond the brain centers indicates their ultimate transcendence.  The serpents represent the absolute return of consciousness to its highest and prior abode B beyond mind, body, world and self (UE p. 258). 

 

Jesus Christ (3 B.C.-36 C.E.): The heart is the causal and ultimate heart, as intuited via identity by all Dharmakaya sages (UE p. 257).

 

Nagarjuna (c.150 C.E.): Nagarjuna=s metaphysics held that the mind imposes phenomenal categories upon noumenal Reality, but that by clearing awareness of conceptual elaboration and subject/object duality, the absolute Noumenon itself could be intuited via prajna.  As for all sages, this was a direct realization (satori, enlightenment, liberation) (UE p. 260).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS

1.                  Serpent Power in Voodoo: This is an ancient voodoo symbol.  The basic features of voodoo were brought to the West by slaves from West Africa.  Voodoo contends that all of nature is controlled by spiritual forces which must be placated through offerings and animal sacrifice.  Ecstatic trances and magical practices play and important role in its ritual (UE p. 152; Encyclopedia).   

 

2.                  The Risen Serpent Lord: This is from a carved vase inscribed by King Gudea of Lagash, 2,025 B.C.  Lagash, a Sumerian city-state, was then under the rule of the Babylonian Empire (UE p. 150).

 

3.                  Serpent Power in Judaeo-Christianity: AAnd Yahweh said to Moses (c.1250 B.C.), >Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole.  Everyone who when he sees it, is bitten, shall live=@ (UE p. 152).

 

4.                  The Great Chain: Yoga was systematized by Patanjali (c.150 B.C.).  According to kundalini yoga, the human has seven major chakras (stages, levels, centers of psychic energy).  When around the body, the two curved lines represent the sympathetic and parasympathetic currents, and when at the level of the brain, they represent the left and right hemispheric functions.  The chakras are:

First B anal, matter (fecal matter).

Second B sex (genitals).

Third B gut reactions (emotions, power, vitality).

Fourth B love and belonging (heart).

Fifth B discursive intellect (voice box).

Sixth B higher mental-psychic powers (neocortex).

Seventh B transcendence (at and beyond the brain) (UE p. 38; Encyclopedia).

 

5.         The Caduceus: The symbol of two intertwined serpents appeared early in Babylonia (2,500 B.C.).  Since about 1550 C.E., it has been used in the West as a symbol of medicine (UE p. 39; Encyclopedia).

 

The sequence in the evolution of consciousness is illustrated on p. 102.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                             MY CONCLUSION

 

War is an Atman Project B a sacrifice of others which substitutes for the sacrifice of the self at any particular level of consciousness below the ultimate.  The self, having drawn a boundary between itself and the rest of the Kosmos, is afraid to die.  It wants to be immortal and holds on to its present level of consciousness by killing another as a substitute for dying to itself B as a substitute for transcending its present level and reaching a higher one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                REFERENCES

 

Columbia Encyclopedia. 2000. Sixth Edition.  New York: Columbia University/Gale Group.

 

Wilber, Ken.

1977/1993. The spectrum of consciousness. 20th Anniversary Edition. Wheaton, IL: Quest Books. (Abbreviated as SC).

 

1980/1996. The Atman project B a transpersonal view of human development. Wheaton, IL: Quest Books. (Abbreviated as AP).

 

1981/1996. Up from Eden B a transpersonal view of human evolution. Wheaton, IL: Quest Books. (Abbreviated as UE).

 

1983/2005. A sociable God B (1983 subtitle: a brief introduction to a transcendental sociology), 2005 subtitle: toward a new understanding of religion. Boston: Shambhala. (Abbreviated as SG).

 

1995/2000. Sex, ecology, spirituality B the spirit of evolution. 2nd edition, Revised.  Boston: Shambhala. (Abbreviated as SES).

 

1996. A brief history of everything. Boston: Shambhala. (Abbreviated as HE).

 

2000/2001. The eye of spirit B an integral vision for the world gone slightly mad. Boston: Shambhala (Abbreviated EoS).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                           ***

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                        TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

THE STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE.................................................................................... 2

 

HOLONS........................................................................................................................................ 2

 

EVOLUTION................................................................................................................................. 2

 

EIGHT APPROACHES TO ANY ONE INDIVIDUAL HOLON.............................................. 3

 

THE TENETS OF HOLONS.......................................................................................................... 7

 

THE INDIVIDUAL HUMAN HOLON..................................................................................... 12

 

ONTOGENY: INDIVIDUAL HUMAN DEVELOPMENT...................................................... 12

 

THE ATMAN PROJECT B HUMAN ATTEMPTS TO FIND SPIRIT...................................... 21

 

PHYLOGENY: CONSCIOUSNESS AND WORLD VIEWS.................................................. 23

 

TABLE 1: HIERARCHIES (HOLARCHIES) OF HOLONS.................................................... 44

 

TABLE 2: THEORISTS AND DISCIPLINES ASSOCIATED WITH THE FOUR DOMAINS OF THE  HUMAN HOLON............................................................................................................ 46

 

THE TWO FALLS OF MAN....................................................................................................... 47

 

SALVATION................................................................................................................................ 49

 

TWO MODES OF KNOWING................................................................................................... 50

 

THE COMMUNICATION OF REALITY.................................................................................. 52

 

THE ILLUSIONS OF SPACE AND TIME................................................................................ 53

 

THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN SPIRITUAL UNDERSTANDING...................................... 55

 

THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE HORRORS OF AUSCHWITZ....... 56

 

THE SPECTRUM OF CONSCIOUSNESS................................................................................ 58

 

INTEGRAL METHODOLOGICAL PLURALISM................................................................... 60

 

THE LOCATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS................................................................................. 60

 

PRESENT MAJOR APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS..................... 60

 

A SCALE OF VALUES............................................................................................................... 63

 

AN AXIOLOGY (THEORY OF VALUES)............................................................................... 64

 

THE INTEGRATIVE VISION.................................................................................................... 65

 

THE NON-DUAL WORLD VIEW............................................................................................. 67

 

ABSOLUTE REALITY............................................................................................................... 68

 

THE EVOLUTIONARY UNDERSTANDING OF NON-DUALITY...................................... 69

 

A TRANSCENDENTAL VIEW OF EVOLUTION................................................................... 69

 

WAYS TO PERCEIVE REALITY.............................................................................................. 70

 

THE THREE COMPONENTS OF SKILLFUL EXPERIMENTS............................................. 71

 

THE POWER OF RELIGIONS................................................................................................... 72

 

EXOTERIC AND ESOTERIC RELIGIONS............................................................................. 74

 

USAGES OF THE WORD ARELIGION@................................................................................. 75

 

MODERNITY AND RELIGION................................................................................................ 76

 

THE APRE-@ AND APOST-@ FALLACY.................................................................................. 77

 

FIGURES...................................................................................................................................... 78

 

VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS OF STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT..................................... 79

 

THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS.............................................................................. 92

 

MY CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................... 93

 

REFERENCES........................................................................................................................... 103