Carl Jung

Circle Symbolism and Consciousness Part 7 - Conclusion

April 23, 2008 – 5:19 pm

Prospectus

The Rebirth of Alchemy

The main reason for this exposition on the nature of subject and object has been to give a conceptual basis to support my upcoming animations on consciousness and circle symbolism.  However, this essay also has another purpose, to create contexts that support a clear conceptual understanding of alchemy in terms of Jung’s theories of the human psyche. 

I consider alchemy to be the science of the whole, its parts, their relationships, and their transmutations.  For example, splitting water results in two different substances - hydrogen and oxygen.  Each derived substance has very different qualities than their common parent.  If we performed the experiment without knowing what to expect we’d most likely be very surprised by the transmutation of form, substance, and qualities.  The surprise would most likely be just as great if we combined the two gasses hydrogen and oxygen and recovered that amazing substance called water.

These amazing changes in state are the basis for circle symbolism.  When we look at a chemical equation of the notation or symbols for a molecule we see a schematic language for structure, flow, transformation, and transmutation.  Likewise when we look at an electronic symbol we often see the flow and transformation of electric potential represented in a circle.

Alchemy like chemistry worked with material substances and their transformations, but unlike chemistry, it included the characteristics of the living human subject.  Alchemy recognized that the human body, and most importantly the human psyche, is composed of mixed or divided elements.  These elements of the human psyche are in some ways transmutable like chemical substances.  However, unlike manipulating chemical substances the coherency of our mental states is of more than external importance to us as human beings.  If human consciousness is transmutable and can reach a higher order unification with life - its timeless necessities and its ceaseless novelties, then it’s something worth implementing in its own right.

s33.  “If a dying man does not know this germinal vesicle,” says the Hui Ming Ching,” he will not find the unity of consciousness and life in a thousand births, nor in ten thousand aeons.”

In conclusion, I’ve expressed my ideas on what subject and object are in order to help clarify a number of confusing contemporary issues.  These are:

The Priority Of Life

Contrary to current dogma, life is not intrinsically the creation of inorganic objects or dust, but rather all inorganic objects, forces, space, time, etc., are the creations of life.  As radical as this view might seem to many I believe there are well founded reasons and countless examples that attest to this whereas the contrary views of ‘dust first’ are based on dogmatic assumptions with the count of observable examples being exactly nil.  However, while according by my views, the dogmatic assumptions are inaccurate they’re still based on the observable fact that the artifacts of life only appear later in the geological record.

The conclusions based on this observation however, are assumptions attempting to explain the process behind this observation and not observable examples of that process.  An observable scientific example of non-living substances turning into living ones can’t be found anywhere.  While countless examples of living substances becoming non-living, are found everywhere.

The Living Earth

The second issue concerns revising ideas as to the forms of life.  The manifested subject includes countless orders of beings from planet Earth to the smallest microbe.  This means planet Earth is a living being just as much as any human being.  That planet Earth has parts that are considered inorganic is explained by the views I’ve proposed.  Some people call the concept of a living Earth the Gaia hypothesis, but in my view to call a living Earth a hypothesis is absurd since we live on a green Earth and humans are a part of this Earth’s ecology.  To then acknowledge we are alive but the Earth that gives us birth isn’t alive, strikes me as extremely myopic.

The Bottom Line Is That You’re Creative

One of the more confusing issues for many of us is whether we as human beings share in the creativity and reality of the universe at large.  Consequently, I wanted to show that manifested subjects are in the final analysis and in their deepest heart the same as the primal un-manifested subject, the basic difference between them not found in their shared nature, but in the different types of relationships each has to the created universe.  I wanted to indicate the sense in which each manifested subject has within them some of the unconstrained power of the primal subject in spite of the apparently heavy constraints of manifested reality.

Realignment Of Religious And Scientific Assumptions

I’ve rearranged the concepts of subject and object from their normal confusion in order to support critical requirements for both religious and scientific thinking.

Religion: 

I believe the concept of an un-manifested unconstrained subject fits the needs of various religions in a variety of ways.  For example, it works with Buddhism in that it brings the subject back into view in a way that’s consistent with the truth of shunyata but without leading into the extremist views of many contemporary Buddhists. Many of these extremist views go so far as to deny any reality to the subject, which undercuts all their arguments for any type of karma or support for any types of purposeful actions.

Taoism too benefits from this realigning of concepts relating to subject and object by recognizing the secret workings of the Tao in all things and seasons.  The Tao is un-manifest but manifest.  It is part and it is whole.  To be in tune with the Tao is to be in tune with a mysterious power, which acts in complete freedom, not abstractly, but through everyday activities, as if from within them.  This mysterious Tao is indeed un-manifest but its activity can be tuned into and used by human beings.

I have to admit the support for theistic ideas like those of Christianity are less well developed in my treatment of subject and object because the concept of an un-manifest primal subject doesn’t go well with images of a bearded God sitting on a throne.  However, the primal subject does fit the bill exceptionally well for a God who brooks no images.  The Holy Spirit in turn might be seen as God’s emanations while the Son of God would be the germinal vesicle talked about in the Hui Ming Ching that is born of the son of man, which in my rendering would be the manifested subject.

I also believe my description of subject and object supports Vedanta by means of defining the primal subject as pure undifferentiated awareness.

Science: 

I also have to admit much of my exposition doesn’t apply to current science since current science has no understanding of life let alone the nature of the subject.  For example, current science believes life comes from what is non-living rather than the non-living comes from the living.  To this day science is still trying to produce some type of life from inorganic compounds, but without any success.  By contrast, one can simply look at one’s fingernails to see how living skin hardens and breaks off.  Alternatively, one can look at a sea creature that creates a shell from its own being.  En-mass these discarded shells are held to comprise entire layers of geological strata in a variety of ancient seabeds.

As I see it, what is intrinsically valuable in natural science are its methodologies, but its theories are far too narrow and rigid, valid for non-living objects but not for life.  Nevertheless, the steadily accumulating evidence indicates that science will be forced to change its views in the future.

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Circle Symbolism and Consciousness Part 6

April 23, 2008 – 4:44 pm

Noesis

Consciousness

I’ve now arrived at the question, ‘where is consciousness in all this?’ I would say consciousness occurs due to the reflection of the manifested world of objects upon the pure awareness of the primal subject.  As such, consciousness is a mixed state between the two.  On the one side, it’s absolutely dependent on the ultimate presence of pure awareness in the primal subject while on the other side the content of consciousness is made up of the emanations and objects of the created universe.

What I’m calling pure awareness is quite different than consciousness in that pure awareness is intrinsically independent of all manifestations.  When no manifestations are present pure awareness is.  When manifestations are present pure awareness is.  Consciousness in contrast is the manifested state of pure awareness.  Pure awareness as I’ve defined it is one of the attributes of the primal subject.  For the same reasons the primal subject is not constrained by its creations, so is pure awareness - a quality of the primal subject, also independent of manifestations.

In another post, I described the unification of all object/space moments in sentient experience to be the same as an illumined living awareness of a reality as yet undifferentiated.  In my opinion the greatest stumbling block to understanding what such a reality is has to do with not being able to conceive that it is not only as real as our everyday world but quite independent of our everyday world for its existence.  As human beings, we accept only of what we can explicitly experience, whereas the pure awareness I’m referring to has more the character of the final backdrop to the individual things we notice.

The Show is Already in Progress

The relationship between pure awareness and objects is similar to the blank movie screen and the moving lights cast upon it.  When we’re watching a movie we’re completely oblivious to the blank screen but completely affected by the storyline shown on it.  The film is composed of transparent and colored areas on its surface which when placed in front of a bright light source like a projector sends out rays of colored lights to land upon the blank screen and unfold a possibly heart-wrenching human drama.

Human consciousness is at base dependent on a universal self-existent quality of sentient experience.  In fact all concepts of experience of any sort presuppose some minimal quality of sentience.  If this quality of sentience is seen independently of any modifications or qualities it can be known as pure awareness.  As such it acts as a reflector of whatever is there.  If nothing is there it reflects nothing just as well as it reflects things.  Its nature is truly independent of things.  It supports shunyata or Buddhist emptiness just as well as samsara which is loosely translated as the same old everyday world.  In a similar sense pure awareness is like the movie screen which is independent of whatever is shown on it.

Consciousness however, is something quite different.  Consciousness is similar to what we experience when we’re sitting in a movie theater and are fully engaged with the story that’s unfolding.  The significant thing about consciousness in light of this movie example is that what we’re seeing on screen may have no actual counterpart in our object-oriented universe, yet we’re capable of being engrossed in it and reacting to it as if it’s fully real.  Even when we know it’s not real!

Consciousness is completely dependent on the superimposed forms that appear to modify the living subject in a way similar to clothing.  As such in terms of its focus and phases consciousness is contingent on the densities, cycles and phases, and peculiarities of presentations of the manifesting emanations and/or objects.  However, in as far as consciousness is based on the primal subject it’s independent of the manifestations of life and is seen to be nothing other than pure awareness.

I’d like to note for the general reader that I’m using the term awareness in a special way to distinguish it from consciousness. You probably won’t find the term awareness in the dictionary as I use it here.  In a general dictionary and in common usage awareness and consciousness are used as synonyms, which is why I refer to pure awareness in contrast to awareness and mixed consciousness rather than consciousness.

Some of the apparent paradoxes that result from the concepts I’ve put forward are that the primal subject who experiences no constraints at all finds itself in the guise and clothing  of a manifested subject who is by definition who they are solely due to the constraints found in their universe - but not quite.  The manifested or consequent subject still retains some measure of freedom and creativity irrespective of their physical constraints.  This freedom, however, is only recognized in themselves to the extent they have aligned themselves with the primal subject within them.

They Tell Me I’m An Insignificant Dot

Another apparent paradox is due to concepts of scale and space.  Namely, that the created universe of objects appears immeasurably greater in size than the manifested subject.  In the extended daily world the seemingly objectified subject appears very small against the backdrop of seemingly endless space, but this inversion of primacy is only relative.

Even greatly reduced in scale and greatly modified in form, consciousness must still be found somewhere in existence because the emanations of the living undifferentiated subject are nowhere else than with it.  The manifested i.e., embodied subject appears very small in scale as an object when compared to the vastness of space, but this strangeness is in perspective only.  It occurs due to the relative condensation/expansion of what is inherently an undifferentiated continuum transmuted through a singular activity into the complements of space and particles.

Similar paradoxes occur with respect to localization of consciousness.  Consciousness is specific to the content of the manifested subject and its relative place within the created universe.  At the same time however, consciousness is founded in pure creative awareness, which is independent of any particular manifestation or any localization whatsoever.  Descartes dictum “I think, therefore I am,” becomes in my view “I am, therefore I think.”

In the higher order reality consciousness is no longer consciousness of objects but instead becomes pure awareness without any sense of the separate objects found in objective experience.  The highest reality is fully real, alive, aware, luminous and quite independent of our reality which is really only one possible expression of the creative potential in the primal subject.  In fact our daily world is completely dependent on the invisible originating power of this higher reality.  We as manifested subjects experience ourselves as its agents, exploring and working through the creation, in every conceivable manner we can find.

The general law here is that reality goes from the invisible to the visible and dissolves back again.  This means when a higher order state differentiates into a dependent dimension, the qualities of the higher order state change as they enter into their new dimensional transformations.  The intrinsic and integral qualities of the primal subject are initially expressed as emanations which are similar in kind to the primal subject’s attributes.  But as these emanations continue to transmute further they may eventually be fractured and rearranged into qualities quite alien to their original emanations.  These fractured, rearranged and frozen qualities are what we call objects.

At The Crossroads Of Life And Consciousness

While new qualities emerge as the subject experiences itself superimposed by matter the new qualities still bear haunting resemblances to their higher order parents.  Pure living awareness for example, when differentiated becomes consciousness and manifested life as one pair of axes with space and matter constituting another pair.

Of the first pair, consciousness seems almost fugitive when compared to the in-your-face forces of burgeoning life.  But what consciousness gains as independent experience in the subject, manifested life loses by becoming ceaselessly changing, chaotic, irrational and even violent toward the manifested subject.  Similarly, what manifested life gains in novelty, surprise, and indomitable necessity, consciousness loses by appearing as a either a mere spectator or externally driven actor in life’s events.

Of course what I mean by life above is manifested life separated out from primal life.  Like water separated out into hydrogen and oxygen, primal life separates out into manifested natural life and consciousness.  The question then becomes, what would it be like if I could combine the forces of daily life and consciousness into their higher order reality?

s33.  “If a dying man does not know this germinal vesicle,” says the Hui Ming Ching,” he will not find the unity of consciousness and life in a thousand births, nor in ten thousand aeons.”

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Circle Symbolism and Consciousness Part 5

April 21, 2008 – 5:19 pm

Emanation

The Consequent Subject

Until now I’ve only considered the primal subject and its emanations in the singular.  I haven’t yet described the nature of the consequent subject - the subject when seen as clothed in the manifestations of its emanations or in the manifestations of other subjects.  But how can the primal subject also be many subjects?  This again is due to the peculiar nature of the relationship between the primal subject and its manifestations in that each phase of its manifestations stands isolated from the living primal subject and is visible in every part.  Further, every such part is simultaneously a unique perspective and a unique living subject with its own history abstracted and felt as a single propagation from within the entire spectrum of emanating transmissions.

The result is the primal subject through its manifestations becomes many clothed subjects and many points of view.  But each point of view now finds that it is fixed, not rigidly but through relationship only, into the spectrum of its manifested but still emanating experience.  Each clothed subject no longer simply experiences what it is emanating but also what other subjects are emanating.

The nature of the interaction of the clothed subject, its own emanations and the emanations of other clothed subjects is that they mutually interpenetrate and also constrain each other depending on their phased oscillations.  These phased oscillations may reinforce or negate each other.  They also continue to emanate with their transformations being experienced as spectrums of varying qualities and effects.

Objects

From the above description we may see that a universe has arisen but it’s still only an inner universe.  It’s a self-consistent universe that remembers its source and recognizes its genesis even as it marvels at its unfolding nature.  Such a universe hasn’t become objective in the normal sense of the word.  But what are objects?

What we can say about objects is that in contrast to emanations they are fixed relative to their dimensions; they have definite attributes, forms, and laws of interaction.  The fundamental nature of objects is that they’re completely constrained in 3D space in 6 directions, they are endlessly conglomerate - that is complex and interwoven in their parts, and that their parts are defined by space as well as by patterns of force.

Objects when the emanations of various clothed subjects radiate as energy rays creating both slope and angular momentum which results in different directions and bands of energy.  These energies extend simultaneously as rays and spirals in circular motions which either sync with or negate similar emanations from other subjects. When synced and reinforced they gain in energy relative to their environment.  When negated they appear to create regions empty of structure and force.  These apparently empty regions are really regions of equilibrium between forces such that their net forces appear to be nil.  As these energies continue to propagate they form different dimensions based on complexity and constraints.  These continue to get more and more dense and complex.

A clothed subject as opposed to a primal subject experiences itself at the confluence of emanations of many beings.  Besides its own emanations it experiences the emanations of all other beings which in turn manifest the content or objects of its world.  It uses the objectified emanations of many beings by which to interact with and clothe itself.  So besides perceiving the emanations of many other clothed subjects the clothed subject also encounters their objects in its world and uses some of these to clothe itself.

Objects in the world are not alive unless they’re functioning as perspectives for manifested subjects.  In this sense bodies are intermediate objects that can act as points of perception and activity for the manifesting subject.  Bodies are able to act in this way because in their cellular makeup they have something undetermined, undefined, unconstrained, something flexible and to a limited degree chaotic, which life as energetic emanations can to some extent influence for a while.

Space and Matter

One of the most important of these transformations is the differentiation into space and matter.  Space and matter are mutually arising phenomena that manifest as the emanations of a higher order reality.  Space and matter literally arise when higher order energy emanations separate from each other.  The difference is expressed as angular momentum resulting in the coagulation or densification of energy into conglomerate and generally globular forms of movement.

Differentiations in energy emanations literally result in the simultaneous creation of particulate forms of matter and their complement called space.  Space and particles naturally arise as part of one process through curvatures or separations of a higher level force.

In esoteric alchemy this general process resulting in simultaneous condensation/rarefaction was called coagula.  The reverse process or the loss of differentiation was in esoteric alchemy called solve.  But I’d like to bring to the general reader’s attention that my usage here doesn’t conform to the contemporary translations of the alchemical terms.  As they’re defined here coagula et solve occur in every transformation, the only difference being the desired direction of the operation and the consciousness of the subject.

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Circle Symbolism and Consciousness Part 4

April 21, 2008 – 5:01 pm

Shell

Emanations as Creations

So far we’ve considered the primal or unconditioned subject and its emanations as two separate things.  But the emanations of the unconditioned subject don’t immediately disappear or dissolve because they continue and undergo further transformations.

The emanations of the primal subject extend as rays of energy from an unseen source.  This emanating energy radiates and is the first manifest expression of the primal subject.  But as the subject’s emanations extend further they begin to spread out and transform themselves.  The transformations continue to variate and grow exponentially defining complex phenomena and eventually different dimensions based on the density of their manifestations and the complexity of their resulting constraints.

It’s important to note however, that the earliest emanations are not yet any type of force but acquire force only as they become increasingly constrained due to their separating out.  These radiating emanations don’t manifest initially as time, space and matter, but they do manifest as the simplest expressions of extension and pure growth.

I also believe it’s important to stress at this juncture that the relationship between the primal subject and its manifesting emanations isn’t a two way street.  There is something very asymmetrical between them in that the primal subject’s emanations arise naturally from the primal subject but the primal subject isn’t fully contained in its manifesting emanations.  Yet at the same time the primal subject’s emanations in spite of their continuing on and extending can’t be anywhere else other than with the primal subject.  This peculiarity is due to the fact that primal subject exists prior to space and time.  The primal subject indirectly creates space but isn’t in space.  Yet space is nowhere other than with it.

But if the primal subject isn’t in any way constrained by its emanations and their transformations what’s the nature of the relationship between the primal subject and its emanations?  I would say the primal undifferentiated subject experiences these emanations not as constraints on its unconstrained nature but as superimpositions of its manifestations upon itself.  The primal subject is loosely speaking clothed in these superimpositions of its manifested nature, but just as a particular set of clothing doesn’t create a human body, so the superimposed emanations cannot constrain the primal subject.  What they are instead is the presentation of the universe of the primal subject’s creations.

Another relevant point is that while the primal subject isn’t visible that doesn’t mean it’s not real.  In fact, in spite of its being un-manifest in any way in its natural state, the primal subject is the least constrained reality there is and because of this it’s the most real thing there is.  And as the primal subject is alive and completely aware it experiences the nature of its emanations even though they’re no longer part of its inner nature but have extended from it.

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