Wholeness

felix_dakat · September 21, 2020, 12:50am

A warning to philosophers from Jung’s Red Book:

And a means of moving past disgust toward wholeness:

My experience confirms this. When I only see one side of an issue my cognitive dissonance is great. When I become aware of the other side of the polarity, I transcend myself and consciousness becomes fuller. Growth in consciousness is dialectical. Dialogue can be a means of growth when one is open to the truth of the other.

Jung’s Red Book is an extended hypnagogic journey as is Kafka’s The Trial .

felix_dakat · September 21, 2020, 5:19pm

Gratitude/Thankfulness–it can change your perspective from darkness to light!

Gratitude also increases consciousness. When you take a person or thing for granted you are not conscious of them or it.

felix_dakat · September 21, 2020, 5:57pm

…for any composite thing, death brings dread. However, though I cannot escape the dread of death, I can feel something of the eternal satisfaction of the Witness.

I am a Witness. Being a Witness doesn’t bring with it any fame or admiration, but it carries its own timeless pleasure, a sense of immortality that in some inexplicable way transcends the inevitable death that lies ahead. It engenders the instinctive feeling of fellowship with eternal wisdom, since the Witness knows it is already ensconced in a realm beyond change and dread.

The fact is that every conscious thing is such a Witness, and every conscious thing senses that this is the case. But not every conscious thing actually becomes aware of its true nature. For that reason, many conscious things have an exaggerated fear of death, and, in their fear, they mock those who can acknowledge the real situation. They see them as arrogant.

Crabtree, Adam. The Land of Hypnagogia (pp. 77-78). Kindle Edition.

Crabtree’s hypnogagic insight above is akin to Kierkegaard’s understanding of the single individual’s existential relation to the Infinite in his eponymous writings.

felix_dakat · September 22, 2020, 5:15pm

‘For the historian of religions, every manifestation of the sacred is important: every rite, every myth, every belief or divine figure reflects the experience of the sacred and hence implies the notions of being, of meaning, and of truth. As I observed on another occasion, “it is difficult to imagine how the human mind could function without the conviction that there is something irreducibly real in the world; and it is impossible to imagine how consciousness could appear without conferring a meaning on man’s impulses and experiences. Consciousness of a real and meaningful world is intimately connected with the discovery of the sacred. Through experience of the sacred, the human mind has perceived the difference between what reveals itself as being real, powerful, rich, and meaningful and what lacks these qualities, that is, the chaotic and dangerous flux of things, their fortuitous and senseless appearances and disappearances” (preface to The Quest: History and Meaning in Religion [1969]). In short, the “sacred” is an element in the structure of consciousness and not a stage in the history of consciousness. On the most archaic levels of culture, living, considered as being human, is in itself a religious act, for food-getting, sexual life, and work have a sacramental value. In other words, to be—or, rather, to become—a man signifies being “religious” (ibid.).’
Eliade, Mircea. A History of Religious Ideas Volume 1: From the Stone Age to the Eleusinian Mysteries . The University of Chicago Press. Preface.

Challenger:

I would challenge this quote on the basis that Eliade appears to be assuming his own biases and then using that as the starting point for his observations. In particular, I have problems with this section: “…it is difficult to imagine how the human mind could function without the conviction that there is something irreducibly real in the world; and it is impossible to imagine how consciousness could appear without conferring a meaning on man’s impulses and experiences. Consciousness of a real and meaningful world is intimately connected with the discovery of the sacred.” I have a couple of points of contention with this statement. First, I have no idea what he means by “something irreducibly real”. Religious language frequently is guilty of this kind of opaqueness. Pushing the world of quantum theory aside, in terms of everyday experience, of course the human brain makes assumptions minute by minute of the irreducible reality that it is interpreting. That is a statement of the obvious. He then moves on to imply that the discovery of “meaning” and “the sacred” is a necessary element of “consciousness”. I would offer that this seems to be true only to the person who has already assumed the existence of the sacred. It is just as possible that consciousness would lead to concluding that all is devoid of meaning and ultimate value. This, of course, is the nihilist position and the existentialist dilemma. Finally, the ascribing of sacredness is just as possibly one stage in the evolution of human consciousness, rather than a necessary element, and certainly rather than its goal.

Me:

Challenger

Me

Challenger:

Me

“Forgetfulness of being” occurs whenever we attend to something else. When you awake in the morning, the state of awakeness may or may not be the object of your consciousness. When you are conscious of needing to relieve yourself, you aren’t thinking about being awake, etc. There is always a figure and ground in consciousness. When intention brings one to the fore, the rest sinks into the background. What is in the background is momentarily unconscious. “Pre-conscious” the psychoanalysts call it. Intentionality in the sense I am using it is a philosophical concept defined as “the power of minds to be about, to represent, or to stand for, things, properties and states of affairs”. I agree that consciousness is theoretically a product of evolution. How far down does consciousness go in the phylogenetic chain? Alfred North Whitehead thought that feeling was the subjective concomitant of energy and that even atoms could feel. But that would not be consciousness such as we are discussing. Focused attention is certainly possible for other species. Predators such as hawks certainly are capable of focused attention. But, self-reflective consciousness–consciousness of being conscious-- seems to be limited for the most part to human beings. Or so it seems to me.

felix_dakat · September 25, 2020, 12:06am

People who are “open to experience” tend to be intellectually curious, creative and imaginative. Personality researchers have shown that such people literally see the world differently.
Less open people experience latent inhibition, a brain function that filters out extraneous visual and cognitive input. But highly open people are less subject to such cognitive inhibition.
Because their perception allows more information to flow into their visual system, more open people tend to see things that others block out. Researchers also found that open people can feel very complex emotional states because seemingly incompatible feelings break through into their consciousness simultaneously.

Openness to Experience: The Gates of the Mind
People who are “open to experience” literally see the world differently

By Luke Smillie on August 15, 2017أعرض هذا

Openness to experience
Openness to experience is a general appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity, and variety of experience. People who are open to experience are intellectually curious, open to emotion, sensitive to beauty and willing to try new things. They tend to be, when compared to closed people, more creative and more aware of their feelings. They are also more likely to hold unconventional beliefs. High openness can be perceived as unpredictability or lack of focus, and more likely to engage in risky behavior or drug-taking.[36] Moreover, individuals with high openness are said to pursue self-actualization specifically by seeking out intense, euphoric experiences. Conversely, those with low openness seek to gain fulfillment through perseverance and are characterized as pragmatic and data-driven—sometimes even perceived to be dogmatic and closed-minded. Some disagreement remains about how to interpret and contextualize the openness factor.[
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_ … ity_traits

Openness to experience seems to correlate highly with interest in mental imagery. Does focusing on mental imagery actually enhance openness and creativity?

Here’s an article that suggests that with children it can: researchgate.net/publicatio … 20products.

and this one with college students as well:
frontiersin.org/articles/10 … 01870/full

felix_dakat · September 25, 2020, 2:33pm

The noosphere is a philosophical concept developed and popularized by the biogeochemist Vladimir Vernadsky, and the French philosopher and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Vernadsky defined the noosphere as the new state of the biosphere and described as the planetary “sphere of reason”. The noosphere represents the highest stage of biospheric development, its defining factor being the development of humankind’s rational activities.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noosphere

Collective unconscious (German: kollektives Unbewusstes) refers to structures of the unconscious mind which are shared among beings of the same species. It is a term coined by Carl Jung. According to Jung, the human collective unconscious is populated by instincts, as well as by archetypes: universal symbols such as The Great Mother, the Wise Old Man, the Shadow, the Tower, Water, and the Tree of Life. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_unconscious

In theosophy and anthroposophy, the Akashic Chronicle is a compendium of all human events, thoughts, words, emotions, and intent ever to have occurred in the past, present, or future. They are believed by theosophists to be encoded in a non-physical plane of existence known as the mental plane. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akashic_records

My hypothesis is that awareness of one’s own mental images can bring one into contact with the hypnagogic/imaginal realm which is the potentially conscious sphere of the collective unconscious/noosphere/Akashic record. If so, psychic wholeness would include such spiritual consciousness.

felix_dakat · September 26, 2020, 4:11pm

Philo of Alexandria ( c. 20 BCE – c. 50 CE), also called Philo Judaeus, was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who sought to harmonize Jewish scripture with Greek philosophy. Philo wrote that God created and governed the world through the Logos. The Christians picked up Logos theology from Philo beginning with the canonical Gospel of John, Chapter 1 verse 1: “In the beginning was the Logos and the Logos was with God and the Logos was God.”

Significant references of Philo’s to the Logos include the following:

Philo, On the Creation X (36) (p. 6)
The incorporeal world then was already completed, having its seat in the Divine Reason [Logos]; and the world, perceptible by the external senses, was made on the model of it;
PHILO, ON THE CREATION LI (146) (P. 21)
… Every man in regard of his intellect is connected with divine reason [logos], being an impression of, or a fragment or ray of that blessed nature …
Philo, Allegorical Interpretation III XXXI (96) (p. 61)
… But the shadow of God is his word [logos], which he used like an instrument when he was making the world. And this shadow, and, as it were, model, is the archetype of other things. …
Philo, On the Cherubim – Part 1 XI (35) (p. 84)
… it is not the pursuits which you follow that are the causes of your participation in good or in evil, but rather the divine reason [logos], which is the helmsman and governor of the universe …
Philo, On Husbandry XII (45) (p. 178)
… For God, like a shepherd and king, governs (as if they were a flock of sheep) the earth, and the water, and the fire, and the air and all the plants, and living creatures that are in them, whether mortal or divine; and he regulates the nature of the heaven, and the periodical revolutions of the sun and moon, and the variations and harmonious movements of the other stars, ruling them according to law and justice; appointing as their immediate superintendent, his own right reason [logos], his first-born son, who is to receive the charge of this sacred company, as the lieutenant of the great king; …
Philo, Who Is the Heir of Divine Things XXVI (130) (p. 287)
… it was the untaught God who divides them, and that he divided all the natures of bodies and things one after another, which appeared to be closely fitted together and united by his word [logos], which cuts through everything; which being sharpened to the finest possible edge, never ceases dividing all the objects of the outward senses, …
Philo, Who Is the Heir of Divine Things XXVII (140) (p. 287)
… God, having sharpened his own word [logos], the divider of all things, divides the essence of the universe which is destitute of form, and is destitute of all distinctive qualities, and the four elements of the world which were separated from this essence, and the plants and the animals which were consolidated by means of these elements.
Philo, Who Is the Heir of Divine Things XXXVIII (188) (p. 292)
… if there is anywhere anything consolidated, that has been bound by the word [logos] of God, for this word is glue and a chain, filling all things with its essence. And the word, which connects together and fastens every thing, is peculiarly full of itself, having no need whatever of any thing beyond.
Philo, Who Is the Heir of Divine Things XLVIII (234) (p. 296)
… the two natures are indivisible; the nature, I mean, of the reasoning power in us, and of the divine Word [logos] above us; but though they are indivisible themselves, they divide an innumerable multitude of other things. web.engr.oregonstate.edu/~funkk/ … iloCreaV20

To Philo, God is the incorporeal, eternal, indescribable, essential Being of the world. Reason can describe no quality to God, since every quality is a limitation.

To conceive God as having human form is a concession to the sensuous imagination. God is everywhere; “what place can a man find where God is not?”

But God is not everything. Matter is also eternal and uncreated. However, matter has no life motion or form until infused with the Divine Force.

To create the world by giving form to matter, and to establish relations with humanity, God used a host of intermediary beings called angels by the Jews daimones by the Greeks and ideas by Plato. These, says Philo, may popularly be conceived as persons, but really they exist only in the Divine Mind as the thoughts and powers of God.

Together these powers constitute what the Greek philosophers called the Logos or Divine reason thus creating and guiding the world. As can be seen the above quotations from the works of Philo, the Logos has both transcendent and immanent aspects. In the fractal universe we are in the Logos and the Logos is in us.

C.G. Jung then discovers psychological evidence of the Logos as an archetype of the collective unconscious.

By Logos I meant discrimination, judgment, insight, and by Eros I meant the capacity to relate. I regarded both concepts as intuitive ideas which cannot be defined accurately or exhaustively. From the scientific point of view this is regrettable, but from a practical one it has its value, since the two concepts mark out a field of experience which it is equally difficult to define.

As we can hardly ever make a psychological proposition without immediately having to reverse it, instances to the contrary leap to the eye at once: men who care nothing for discrimination, judgment, and insight, and women who display an almost excessively masculine proficiency in this respect. … Wherever this exists, we find a forcible intrusion of the unconscious, a corresponding exclusion of the consciousness specific to either sex, predominance of the shadow and of contrasexuality. [“The Personification of the Opposites,” CW 14, pars. 224f.]

Frith Luton, Jungian analyst, says of Jung’s conception of Logos:

Here author Robert Wright, & Massimo Pigliucci, stoic philosopher, discuss the history of the Logos image including criticism of Jung’s and Peterson’s treatment of the concept. (They admit to cursory knowledge of Peterson.)
youtu.be/FJr9_zGqOPU

Concerning the Logos ,Peterson writes in Maps of Meaning:

In the Judeo-Christian tradition it is the Logos–the word of God-- that creates order from chaos, and it is in the image of the Logos that man ["Let us make man in our image after our likeness (Genesis 1:26)] is created. This idea has clear additional precedents in early and late Egyptian cosmology as (we shall see). In the Far East, similarly, the cosmos is imagined as composed of the interplay between Yang and Yin, chaos and order, [Peterson has this backwards]– that is to say, unknown or unexplored territory and known or explored territory. Tao, from the Eastern perspective, is the pattern of behavior that mediates between them (analogous to En-lil, Marduk and the Logos) constantly generating, destroying and regenerating the universe. For the Eastern individual, Life in Tao is the highest good the way and meaning, the goal toward which all other goals must remain subordinate.[pg 100]

If the Logos is imagined as masculine, one wonders if there is a feminine equivalent in the Judeo-Christian. And we find that there is–Sophia:

While Wisdom is viewed as a hypostasis in Judeo-Christian scriptures, she is a full-blown goddess in world mythology as for examples, Isis of the Egyptians, Athena of the Greeks, Minerva of the Romans, Saraswati of the Hindus and others. This points toward the universality of feminine Wisdom as a universal archetype.

Ecmandu · September 27, 2020, 10:37pm

Felix, some beings create by just thinking a being into existence; no sex, no gender to make it happen:

This male/female logos is absurd to them.

You’re talking to a cosmic consciousness right now. Not THEE cosmic consciousness (those beings always get fucked up).

felix_dakat · September 28, 2020, 1:35am

Ecmandu, my link to the divine is the images of my mind. Beyond that lies the pleroma. Here’s how Jung described it:

The dead came back from Jerusalem, where they found not what they sought. They prayed me let them in and besought my word, and thus I began my teaching.

Harken: I begin with nothingness. Nothingness is the same as fullness. In infinity full is no better than empty. Nothingness is both empty and full. As well might ye say anything else of nothingness, as for instance, white is it, or black, or again, it is not, or it is. A thing that is infinite and eternal hath no qualities, since it hath all qualities.

This nothingness or fullness we name the PLEROMA. Therein both thinking and being cease, since the eternal and infinite possess no qualities. In it no being is, for he then would be distinct from the pleroma, and would possess qualities which would distinguish him as something distinct from the pleroma.

In the pleroma there is nothing and everything. It is quite fruitless to think about the pleroma, for this would mean self-dissolution.

CREATURA is not in the pleroma, but in itself. The pleroma is both beginning and end of created beings. It pervadeth them, as the light of the sun everywhere pervadeth the air. Although the pleroma pervadeth altogether, yet hath created being no share thereof, just as a wholly transparent body becometh neither light nor dark through the light which pervadeth it. We are, however, the pleroma itself, for we are a part of the eternal and infinite. But we have no share thereof, as we are from the pleroma infinitely removed; not spiritually or temporally, but essentially, since we are distinguished from the pleroma in our essence as creatura, which is confined within time and space.

Yet because we are parts of the pleroma, the pleroma is also in us. Even in the smallest point is the pleroma endless, eternal, and entire, since small and great are qualities which are contained in it. It is that nothingness which is everywhere whole and continuous. Only figuratively, therefore, do I speak of created being as a part of the pleroma. Because, actually, the pleroma is nowhere divided, since it is nothingness. We are also the whole pleroma, because, figuratively, the pleroma is the smallest point (assumed only, not existing) in us and the boundless firmament about us. But wherefore, then, do we speak of the pleroma at all, since it is thus everything and nothing?

I speak of it to make a beginning somewhere, and also to free you from the delusion that somewhere, either without or within, there standeth something fixed, or in some way established, from the beginning. Every so-called fixed and certain thing is only relative. That alone is fixed and certain which is subject to change.

What is changeable, however, is creatura. Therefore is it the one thing which is fixed and certain; because it hath qualities: it is even quality itself.

The question ariseth: How did creatura originate? Created beings came to pass, not creatura; since created being is the very quality of the pleroma, as much as non-creation which is the eternal death. In all times and places is creation, in all times and places is death. The pleroma hath all, distinctiveness and non-distinctiveness.

Distinctiveness is creatura. It is distinct. Distinctiveness is its essence, and therefore it distinguisheth. Therefore man discriminateth because his nature is distinctiveness. Wherefore also he distinguisheth qualities of the pleroma which are not. He distinguisheth them out of his own nature. Therefore must he speak of qualities of the pleroma which are not.

What use, say ye, to speak of it? Saidst thou not thyself, there is no profit in thinking upon the pleroma?

That said I unto you, to free you from the delusion that we are able to think about the pleroma. When we distinguish qualities of the pleroma, we are speaking from the ground of our own distinctiveness and concerning our own distinctiveness. But we have said nothing concerning the pleroma. Concerning our own distinctiveness, however, it is needful to speak, whereby we may distinguish ourselves enough. Our very nature is distinctiveness. If we are not true to this nature we do not distinguish ourselves enough. Therefore must we make distinctions of qualities.

What is the harm, ye ask, in not distinguishing oneself? If we do not distinguish, we get beyond our own nature, away from creatura. We fall into indistinctiveness, which is the other quality of the pleroma. We fall into the pleroma itself and cease to be creatures. We are given over to dissolution in the nothingness. This is the death of the creature. Therefore we die in such measure as we do not distinguish. Hence the natural striving of the creature goeth towards distinctiveness, fighteth against primeval, perilous sameness. This is called the principium individuation is. This principle is the essence of the creature. From this you can see why indistinctiveness and non-distinction are a great danger for the creature.

We must, therefore, distinguish the qualities of the pleroma. The qualities are pairs of opposites, such as—

The Effective and the Ineffective.
Fullness and Emptiness.
Living and Dead.
Difference and Sameness.
Light and Darkness.
The Hot and the Cold.
Force and Matter.
Time and Space.
Good and Evil.
Beauty and Ugliness.
The One and the Many. etc.
The pairs of opposites are qualities of the pleroma which are not, because each balanceth each. As we are the pleroma itself, we also have all these qualities in us. Because the very ground of our nature is distinctiveness, therefore we have these qualities in the name and sign of distinctiveness, which meaneth—

These qualities are distinct and separate in us one from the other; therefore they are not balanced and void, but are effective. Thus are we the victims of the pairs of opposites. The pleroma is rent in us.

The qualities belong to the pleroma, and only in the name and sign of distinctiveness can and must we possess or live them. We must distinguish ourselves from qualities. In the pleroma they are balanced and void; in us not. Being distinguished from them delivereth us.
When we strive after the good or the beautiful, we thereby forget our own nature, which is distinctiveness, and we are delivered over to the qualities of the pleroma, which are pairs of opposites. We labor to attain to the good and the beautiful, yet at the same time we also lay hold of the evil and the ugly, since in the pleroma these are one with the good and the beautiful. When, however, we remain true to our own nature, which is distinctiveness, we distinguish ourselves from the good and the beautiful, and, therefore, at the same time, from the evil and the ugly. And thus we fall not into the pleroma, namely, into nothingness and dissolution.

Thou sayest, ye object, that difference and sameness are also qualities of the pleroma. How would it be, then, if we strive after difference? Are we, in so doing, not true to our own nature? And must we none the less be given over to sameness when we strive after difference?

Ye must not forget that the pleroma hath no qualities. We create them through thinking. If, therefore, ye strive after difference or sameness, or any qualities whatsoever, ye pursue thoughts which flow to you out of the pleroma; thoughts, namely, concerning non-existing qualities of the pleroma. Inasmuch as ye run after these thoughts, ye fall again into the pleroma, and reach difference and sameness at the same time. Not your thinking, but your being, is distinctiveness. Therefore not after difference, as ye think it, must ye strive; but after your own being. At bottom, therefore, there is only one striving, namely, the striving after your own being. If ye had this striving ye would not need to know anything about the pleroma and its qualities, and yet would ye come to your right goal by virtue of your own being. Since, however, thought estrangeth from being, that knowledge must I teach you wherewith ye may be able to hold your thought in leash.gnosis.org/library/7Sermons.htm

Parmenides called the same “Being Itself”.

Wittengenstein said of the same:

“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”

Tao Te Ching says: “The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.”

So, what are you talking about, and how do you expect to be understood?

felix_dakat · September 28, 2020, 1:44pm

The Logos informs how our minds shape reality. A person’s processes are psychologically channelized by the way they anticipate events. Expectations influence events.

felix_dakat · October 1, 2020, 5:28pm

“…philosophy opens up a refuge for men where no tyranny can reach: the cave of inwardness, the labyrinth of the breast; and that annoys all tyrants.”

Friedrich Nietzsche, “Schopenhauer as Educator”

felix_dakat · October 1, 2020, 6:51pm

Two impediment to exploration of the cave of inwardness:

heteronomous religion,

scientism.

Two sources of nihilism.

Nietzsche’s poem:

In Plato’s allegory the philosopher goes into the light of day and then preaches to those in the darkness of the cave. And Nietzsche’s allegory Zarathustra goes into the cave and then preaches to those in the light of day. Thus does Nietzsche picture turning the values of the Enlightenment on their heads.

felix_dakat · October 2, 2020, 6:12pm

Most people in the West and in the US in particular see themselves as autonomous. In other words they’re law on to themselves. Now in the history of Christianity the church once imposed heteronymous law. If there is a higher source of law, a theonomy, what is it? How can we know it? What are the consequences of living according to it or not? If life is a matter of winning the game of all games then it seems we should make a serious effort to understand and play by the rules. But how?

felix_dakat · October 4, 2020, 4:43pm

I contemplate the Tao Te Ching as often as I do the wisdom of Bible. I entertain the proposition that the major religions have a common esoteric core.

Ierrellus · October 5, 2020, 11:43am

Aldous Huxley’s The Perennial Philosophy finds the common denominators of the world’s religions.

MagsJ · October 5, 2020, 12:35pm

Yes… that pivotal point in human history, where the divergence of the main genetic lineages, created the main religious or Pagan strands of worship or being.

felix_dakat · October 5, 2020, 1:02pm

I’ve cited huxley’s book on this thread before. The perennial philosophy is also referred to as the perennial wisdom. If the deep unconscious of humanity is collective as Carl Jung proposed it would not be surprising if the deepest archetypes of human wisdom were to reappear throughout human history. Wholeness which is the theme of this thread is such an archetype.

felix_dakat · October 5, 2020, 1:14pm

Indeed. Huxley himself makes that point:

Dan1 · October 6, 2020, 6:19am

What if their common esoteric core has to do with them being humanized?

felix_dakat · October 6, 2020, 2:10pm

Hi Dan. That seems to imply that they were inhuman to begin with. How so? And if so, then how could humanizing them be at their core?