Pantheon

PANTHEON
Holographic Gods
by Iona Miller, 1983-2015

“The serpent, if it wants to become the dragon, must eat itself.” --Francis Bacon

“It is convenient that there be gods, and, as it is convenient, let us believe there are.” --Ovid

"Since the gods are without doubt personifications of psychic forces, to assert their metaphysical existence is as much an intellectual presumption as the opinion that they could ever be invented."
~Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 387

"the coniunctio is one's hieros gamos' of Gods and not a love story between mortals".
--C.G.Jung, psychology of translation, 292

" If you follow Jung, each archetype, creating a pattern of behavior and a model image, informs the conscience and consciousness has its own style ... because consciousness refers to a process that has more to do with the images that with the will, most with the reflection than the ordering activity, with the thoughtful look which penetrates into the "objective reality" rather than by manipulating the same. " --James Hillman

Meaning is born as 'knowing' from
the symbol that was pregnant with it.
Myth always feels real – otherwise it would not be myth, and would have no effect.

"We are lived by powers we pretend to understand."
- James Hillman

All ages before ours believed in gods in some form or other.
Only an unparalleled impoverishment in symbolism could enable us to rediscover
the gods as psychic factors, which is to say, as archetypes of the unconscious.
No doubt this discovery is hardly credible as yet.
~Carl Jung; The Integration of the Personality p. 72

Myth is the natural and indispensable intermediate stage between unconscious and conscious cognition.
True, the unconscious knows more than the conscious does; but it is knowledge of a special sort, knowledge in eternity, usually without reference to the here and now, not couched in the language of the intellect.
Only when we let its statements amplify themselves does it come within the range of our understanding; only then does a new aspect become perceptible to us.
This process is convincingly repeated in every successful dream analysis.
That is why it is so important not to have any preconceived, doctrinal opinions about statements made by dreams.
As soon as a certain "monotony of interpretation" strikes us, we know that our approach has become doctrinaire and hence sterile. ~Carl Jung

Gods are personifications of unconscious contents, for they reveal themselves to us through the unconscious activity of the psyche. -- Jung, Psychology and Religion, Page 163.

Traditional folk tales and multicultural myths can be used as powerful tools because they are repositories of ancient wisdom about the human condition and because they teach the language of symbolism, imagery, and metaphor. These wisdom tales can help us gain insight into behavior and can function as effective catalysts for bringing about change. Through storytelling, we can learn the language of metaphor, which can help us intuit the existence of deeper meanings and truths.

In our language a mythological god is an archetype and an archetype is always at the same time an instinctive pattern, an instinctive basis. Of the archetype of the mother, the biological basis would be motherhood, or of the archetype of the coniunctio, it would be sex.

http://us.fotolog.com/yosoylafe/11528507/

Our mind is the scene upon which the gods perform their plays, and
we don't know the beginning and we don't know the end.
~Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 1306

Like any archetype, the essential nature of the self is unknowable,
but its manifestations are the content of myth and legend.

Kerenyi, Science of Myth

Semantic, Symbolic & Noetic Field

Fields are domains of influence. Storytelling describes a deep field of myth and archetype. Elements are woven together by narrative, metaphor and illustration. A semantic field is a set of words grouped by meaning referring to a specific subject, much like symbols are held in the subtle net of an image. The language of symbols is older than the Ouroboros, Vortex, Yin-Yang, Ankh, Pentagram, Solar Cross, Circumpunct, Vesica Piscis, or Flower of Life.

Noetics, direct knowing, is the connection between mind and the physical universe - how the ‘inner cosmos’ of the mind (consciousness, soul, spirit) relates to the ‘outer cosmos’ of the physical world - the somatic field of our psychophysical being. A noetic field consists of all mutually interdependent facts and symbols. All are components of the Ritual Field of mythic sensibility.

The mythic field is the realm of the unconscious. The form of myth emerges as patterns from the field of the Collective Unconscious. Pattern is a language, using fields to describe dynamic relationships and energetics. Each pattern is a field. The field of myth is emotional -- emergent, resonant, challenging -- inviting ritual enactment to animate and embody it. Thus, we recognize and develop our own style of mythic consciousness, stepping in to join with others, daring to live our larger lives within the field of historic life. Such journeys are rites of passage.

Components of the unconscious emerge in conscious life. Personal myth, (a biochemically-coded internal model of reality and a field of information), shapes individual behavior as cultural myths influence social behavior, Symbolic content is a mythic field. Shift the field, change the myth. Rituals shift the field. Transcendence parallels the emergence of myth as new life experience. Jung described the transcendent function as a reconciliation of conscious and unconscious elements, remapping our boundaries. Adaptation is a combination of individual and group work.

REBECCA LEVEILLE-GUAY, Eros / BRADLEY PLATZ, Artemis

BRENTON BOSTWICK, Dionysus

LEE HARVEY ROSWELL Hephaestus / TERRY RIBERA Poseidon

CARRIE ANN BAADE Asclepius

HANNAH YATA Demeter / ADAM CALDWELL Persephone

PREFACE
Archetypal Expressions
Archetypes in Action

“My soul would sing of metamorphoses.
But since, o gods, you were the source of these
bodies becoming other bodies, breathe
your breath into my book of changes: may
the song I sing be seamless as its way
weaves from the world's beginning to our day.”
―Ovid, Metamorphoses

Archetypes generate (or "cause") an endless variety of transformations that are experienced as images and ideas had in dreams, fantasies and visions. These images, ideas and beliefs bear the mark of personal and cultural conditioning, and the archetypes themselves are involved in the development of consciousness. The archetypes produce all of the universal material in myth and ritual drama. Archetypal experiences tend to be numinous and transpersonal in their
impact upon personal development, for they are the eruption of archaic and timeless meaning into the personal world of the ego.

The archetype exists as the intersection of spirit and matter. We are now beginning to understand in a scientific way how this intersection might be possible, if by "spirit" we mean the order of the quantum sea. Human experience becomes the localized instantiation of the universal - the transcendental - through the medium of neurognosis. And neurognosis is precisely the local embodiment of the structure of the sea, and at the same time the structures mediating consciousness.

"When the gods arrive on stage, everything becomes silent and the eyelids close. Plunged into oblivion by this experience, we re-emerge and without knowing exactly what is happened, we know only that we have been transformed.". ---James Hillman

"The body as a whole, so it seems to me, is a pattern of behavior, and man as a whole is an archetype." ~Carl Jung; Letter to Medard Boss June 27, 1947l

Archetypes are forms or images of a collective nature which occur practically all over the earth as constituents of myths and at the same time as autochthonous individual products of unconscious origin. Archetypes may be considered the fundamental elements of the unconscious mind. Hidden in the depths of the psyche they are systems of readiness for action and at the same time images and emotions. Indeed, they are its psychic aspect. --Carl Jung

"In them, as distinguished from the "empty" spaces, the energy charge of the unconscious collective psyche is concentrated, acting in a manner of speaking, AS THE CENTER OF A MAGNETIC FIELD. If the charge of one (or more) of these "nodal points" becomes so powerful that it "magnetically" (acting as a "nuclear cell") ATTRACTS EVERYTHING TO ITSELF and so confronts the ego with an alien entity, a "splinter psyche" that has become autonomous--then we have a complex." --Jung & Jacobi

"Archetypes are archaic and deeply unconscious potential patterns of psychic functioning. Unconstellated, they are extremely diffuse and vague. They become more chiseled and precise as they emerge into psychic life as patterns of perception, behavior, motivation, and attitude. Archetypes are innate in the sense that they are sourced in psychic regions that are prior to and much more general than the individual's precise personal experiences and acquisitions. The belong to the collective unconscious, which is not personal, just as culture is not personal. One is born into it. Archetypes are not inherited memories or ideas but rather potential patterns of motivation, action, and reaction (defense), which emerge in a variety of human situations as responses to challenges and to environmental fields that call for adaptation – the mother/infant and other family relationships, the call to heroic action in peer groups and society, the chance for love, the threat of death, etc." --Murray Stein, “Symbols and the Transformation of the Psyche ”

"This entelechy principle can be expressed symbolically as a god or a guide. We feel its presence as the inspiration or motivation that helps us get life moving again after times of stress or stagnation. There are many ways to engage the symbolic forms of the entelechy principle..." --Jean Houston, The Hero & the Goddess, 1992

Gods are personifications of unconscious contents, for they reveal themselves to us through the unconscious activity of the psyche. -- Jung, Psychology and Religion, Page 163.

Malinowski

‎"Let there be no doubt that I am the assemblage of our ancestors, the arena in which they exercise my moments. They are my cells and I am their body. This is the favrashi of which I speak, the soul, the collective unconscious, the source of archetypes, the repository of all trauma and joy. I am the choice of their awakening. My Samadhi is their Samadhi. Their experiences are mine! Their knowledge distilled is my inheritance. Those billions are my one." --Frank Herbert, The God-Emperor of Dune, p. 260.

“The field of cosmic consciousness they experience is a cosmic emptiness—a void. Yet, paradoxically, it is also an essential fullness. Although it does not feature anything in a concretely manifest form, it contains all of existence in potential. The vacuum they experience is a plenum: nothing is missing in it. It is the ultimate source of existence, the cradle of all being. It is pregnant with the possibility of everything there is. The phenomenal world is its creation: The realization and concretization of its inherent potential.” --Ervin Laszlo, Science and the Akashic Field

“Laszlo proposes that it is scalar waves that encode the information of space and time into a timeless, spaceless quantum shorthand of interference patterns. In Laszlo’s model, this bottom-rung level of the Zero Point Field—the mother of all fields—provides the ultimate holographic blueprint of the world for all time, past and future. It is this that we tap into when we see the past or future.” --Lynn McTaggart, The Field

"Human beings and all living things are a coalescence of energy in a field of energy connected to every other thing in the world. This pulsating energy field is the central engine of our being and our consciousness, the alpha and the omega of our existence. 'The field,' as Einstein once succinctly put it, 'is the only reality.'"- Lynne McTaggart, The Field

“It would be most satisfactory ... if physics and psyche could be seen as complementary aspects of the same reality.” --Wolfgang Pauli, 1945 Nobel Prize in Physics

On the conscious (sun) and the unconscious (moon/soul) respectively;
"The task of the right eye is to peer into the telescope,
while the left eye peers into the microscope."
—Max Ernst

"When the gods arrive on stage, everything becomes silent and the eyelids close. Plunged into oblivion by this experience, we re-emerge and without knowing exactly what is happened, we know only that we have been transformed.". --James Hillman

What is the Psychè, the soul? James Hillman says us that the soul is not "a concept but a symbol" who resist - like all living symbols - to all definitions providing metaphors for basilar systems of human thought." He adds in his grounded "psicofania": "The soul is the component that makes possible the MEANING and transforms events into EXPERIENCE".

This experience is the 'PSYCHE', image taking the form of changing reality that surrounds us and lives in us, maker of meaning and emotion (what "moves from") and taking us back to an intimacy and a liminality otherwise inexpressible. These inner and outer worlds remain for one more invisible, inaccessible and inexpressible if Soul does not make his appearance and guide us towards the experience of life. Soul is the archetype of life itself, says Jung ...

For most of human history we had no idea how the world or ourselves worked. Most pre-scientific interpretations of universal forces involved spiritual or religious entities -- evil, elemental or ancestral spirits, or god and goddesses that manipulated reality for their own mysterious ends.

The gods found, ground, establish, and substantiate reality. The return to primordial origins is fundamental to all mythologies -- expressing a spontaneous regression to the ground that pierces through the world of appearances to 'reality', to immediacy. We experience our own origins through a kind of identity, through countless beings before and after oneself as the germ of infinity.

Our journey re-unfolds those same images which stream out of the ground, out of the abyss. In this way we are "grounding" ourselves. When we dive down to our own foundations we find the world of our common divine origin. Ceremony translates the mythological value into an act. The world of the ancestors is a subterranean storehouse of everything that grows and comes to birth.

We like to think we have outgrown the religious or spiritual superstitions of by-gone eras, but the fact remains that we still couch our interpretations of cosmic forces in theoretical or metaphorical terms. We can sweep away false assumptions and still retain our metaphorical relationships. The confluence of non-physical psyche and body forms our experience of reality. It is analogous to wave-particle duality.

Carl Jung proposed a convenient hypothesis for the unknown. Complex psychic phenomena share dynamic core elements. The "collective unconscious" is a vast information store containing the entire religious, spiritual and mythological experiences of humanity. According to Jung, these inherited ancient archetypes exist deep with the human psyche and heavily influence our psychophysical being. We access the noumenal via archetypal phenomena.

Archetypes are transubjective psychic systems -- emergent representations of emotions as images. Most of our responses are precipitated unconsciously. If we know the patterns, we can recognize their dynamic emergence in self, others and world. They arouse passion, not just inform the intellect. We know what we know because of images. Our embodied experience of reality is both "inner" and "outer", corporeal and psychic. Psyche is now likened to a dynamic field of energy.

The emotional image is an emergent psychological reality patterned by archetypes. If we know the patterns, we can recognize their dynamic emergence in self, others and world. Archetypes as constructs are difficult to explore or support in a reductive empirical view, as psyche is more than mind or a brain state. It is untestable.

Jung himself admitted the concept of the archetypes as embodiment and sentience could be revisioned and reformulated at any point. But neurobiology cannot explain emotional imagery. Psychology is about experience and meaning, not just brain states. Personal reality is a confluence of subjective and objective reality.

Worldview

The zeitgeist of an era is its worldview -- interwoven foundational or archetypal ideas. Our worldview is still mythic (representing man's original psychological experience) and controls and shapes unconscious instinct. Zeitgeist is German for 'time-spirit. The very notion of zeitgeist itself is archetypal -- a living principle -- the Spirit of the Times, the dominant influence of a particular period. The zeitgeist "god" emerges in time, establishing the current of that Age.

Quantum theory is the cornerstone of every natural science from physics, chemistry, biology and cosmology. It explains how the universe came into existence. Quantum field theory applies to both micro and macro size objects and accurately describes all of the energy and matter interactions in the universe. It also tells us that even our empirical view of reality is necessarily highly personal. It is our particular covert and overt relationships and experiences with archetypes that characterize us as unique.

Science is the zeitgeist of the 21st Century -- a confluence of quantum physics, cosmology, biology, chaos theory, and self-organizing systems.. A theory of information underlies classical and quantum physics as a model of how reality works. Information is as fundamental to physics as energy and matter.

A holographic concept of reality (Quantum Holography, QH) is rooted in quantum Information physics. We holistically quantify and process information about the world around us. The source field acts like the reference beam that illuminates holograms. Living organisms) exhibit quantum coherence and also carry information non-locally.

John Gowan, Jr. says, "Life is a molecular conservation domain of information, and life is the most creative force in the Universe. The two phenomena are connected; life is creative precisely because it has learned how to conserve information through its genetic system (via heritable genes), multiply information through reproduction, diversify information through sexual differentiation and dispersal, and evolve information through the negentropic process of natural selection."

"Humans, in turn, are the most creative of life forms because they represent a further iteration of the biological fractal: humans are creative because they have learned to use abstract, symbolic information in the same way that life uses molecular information through the genetic system of DNA. Humans conserve information through the structure of language and memory; they make this information concrete or manifest through the symbology of an alphabet (or pictograms) and writing, they reproduce this information through printing and electronic technologies; they disseminate and diversify this information through many cultures; and they evolve this information through the empirical selective process of science."

Memory is encoded as an interference pattern of quantum emissions from any material entity that carries information non-locally about the event history, including the entire space-time history of living organisms. Edgar Mitchell suggests that the primary means for accessing nonlocal transcendent information is via the process of resonance.

Information is simply what is contained in patterns of matter or energy. The meaning that is derived from these patterns is developed in the mind of the percipient based on prior experience (e.g. knowledge and memory). In other words, all events are subject to interpretation and that in turn is based on the prior experiences and beliefs of the perciever. The more knowledge and experience we gain the more likely we are to interpret an event closer to actual reality.

QH suggests the whole of creation learns, self-corrects, and evolves as a self-organizing inter-connected holistic system. Non-local quantum correlations exhibit the capacity to admit and absorb information at all scale sizes, guiding emergent processes with built in storage and retrieval mechanisms for vast quantities of information. The non-local quantum correlations observed in particles, and the non-local QH associated with molecular and larger scale objects provides information at all scale sizes to guide emergent processes.

All matter absorbs and reemits photons (quanta of energy) from and into the source field. Non-local quantum correlation between entangled quantum particles are the root cause of the phenomenon experienced as perception (through a form of resonance) in more complex matter. QH appears to be the mechanism of the non-local carrier of information for molecular and larger scale matter through the source field.

The base information-state of the universe is Zero Point, the virtual vacuum, beyond time and space. This source or Zero Point Field is the blueprint of existence. Ultimately, we can trace back everything to a collection of electric charges in continuous contact with this endless sea of energy. The field explains the instantaneous, ‘ghostlike’ transfer of information between entangled quantum particles. .Our interaction with this source field determines our past, present and emergent future, patterned by dynamic archetypal processes.

Ground Zero

The Zero-Point Energy (ZPE) field as electromagnetic quantum fluctuations represents an almost unlimited, ubiquitous energy source that permeates and sustains all matter and exists everywhere (even the vacuum of outer space). The Heisenberg uncertainty principle unambiguously demands that short-lived virtual photons pop in and out of existence (along with positron-electron pairs).

Mass and energy have been superseded in primacy for describing how nature works: information is the fundamental entity underlying all of physical reality -- information > laws of physics > matter. Theories of computation include all physical transformations. Formal statements of conservation laws are unified with the stronger operational ones, expressing the principles of testability and of the computability of nature (methodological and metaphysical respectively) as laws of physics. Such laws (i.e., 2nd Law of Thermodynamics) are emergent allowing exact statements.

Known physical laws, relativity, quantum mechanics, and thermodynamics, are all laws about information, especially limits on the speed, quantity, and quality of information transfer. Relativity limits speed; quantum mechanics limits quantity. The wave function of a system of quantum particles encapsulates all that is known about the system; it is essentially an information field. We aren't sure if the fundamental information is embedded in space-time or if information creates space-time itself.

A similar fundamental but more qualitative process follows cosmic laws at the personal level in individuation, the individual transformative process of coming to wholeness at a conscious level. If our minds are integral parts of the universe and information is fundamental, then consciousness is fundamental. A metaphorical correlation of imagery from science and depth psychology yields fruitful contemplation. Understanding the multiscale nature of life and consciousness requires more than physical science.

Dynamic archetypal patterns emerge from the timeless primordial field that is the ultimate source of all force and form.
Form is more than the result of the properties of matter; it is entangled with consciousness, symbols and imagery. The field is more than a mass of shimmering energy in the background of our existence. Our separate existence is replaced by this all-encompassing connection. In such a model, we influence our ancestors as much as they influence us.

All information is available in the Zero Point Field. Artists are interpreters and translators rather than creators. Their talent is not a miracle, but tuning into the field, whether in creativity, dreams, or process work. When the field tunes into us, we experience synchronicity as a resonance of inner and outer meaning.

Laszlo called the Zero Point Field an information carrier. "This quantum vacuum is the origin of mind and matter – a blueprint of the universe. Even our own memories are not stored in our brains, but are stockpiled like holographic information in the field. Our brains are mainly receivers and processors of this information. When they resonate with certain frequencies they gain access to specific information."

In the field there is no difference between a memory and a new experience. The brain retrieves ‘old’ and ‘new’ information the same way. Psyche is seamlessly interrelated with Cosmos. Jung's notion of archetypes and the archetypal nature of cosmos are the primordial perceptual elements of this process of infinite self-transformation. Feedback, turbulence and emergence harness chaos.

Fractals

Like archetypes, fractals are dynamic images that characterize natural phenomena -- self-similar patterns on different dimensional scales. In this sense, the hologram is a lower dimensional field of a fractal image - infinitely embedded structure. Holograms have many interesting properties related to their fractal structure. Corresponding symbols and imagery are the fractal expressions of archetypes. So we can think of archetypes as higher-dimensional fractals.

Fractals signify infinite compression. Their inner structure has the same pattern as their outer structure. Fractality describes the geometry of waves of energy or charge. Fractals manifest as wave patterns that evolve ad infinitum. In mathematics, a self-similar object is exactly or approximately similar to a part of itself (i.e. the whole has the same shape as one or more of the parts). Really, a fractal is nothing more than an algorithmic Mobius-like transformation of the coordinates of space.

Soljacic, et al suggest self-similarity and fractals are driven by soliton dynamics. The most deconstructed archetypal forms are vortexes, toroids, solitons, and singularities. A soliton is a self-reinforcing solitary wave (a wave packet or pulse) that maintains its shape while it travels at constant speed. Our chromosome continuum acts like a dynamical holographic grating, which displays or transduces weak laser light and solitonic electro-acoustic fields.

Solitons

DNA can be viewed as a liquid crystal gel-like state that acts on incoming light in the manner of a solitonic lattice. A soliton is an ultra stable wave train that arises in the context of non-linear wave oscillation. The DNA reading process can be modelled as a complex mechanical oscillator capable of producing solitonic wave transmissions. DNA, modelled as a kind of rotary pendulum can be simulated as a chain of non-linear oscillators. Complex dynamic patterns arise when taking into account the non-linear covalent connections between nucleotides.

The same researchers suspect the ability of chromosomes to transform their own genetic-sign laser radiations into broadband genetic-sign radio waves. The polarizations of chromosome laser photons are connected nonlocally and coherently to polarizations of radio waves. Thus, we have an explicit physical analogue for the traditional mystical apprehension of inner Light and the Audible Life Stream.

This is the main information channel of DNA, the same for both photons and radio waves. Superposed coherent waves of different types in the cells interact to form diffraction patterns, firstly in the acoustic domain, secondly in the electromagnetic domain -- a quantum hologram -- a translation proccess between acoustical and optical holograms. (Miller, Quantum Bioholography)

Solitons are caused by a cancellation of nonlinear and dispersive effects in the medium. (The term "dispersive effects" refers to a property of certain systems where the speed of the waves varies according to frequency.) Fractals may emerge from spatial and temporal solitons. Fractals are generated by the dynamics of solitons that undergo abrupt changes along their propagation paths; this method of fractal generation is universal.

Nonlinear systems that support solitons can often, (under proper conditions,) give rise to self-similarity and fractals on successively smaller scales. Such fractals can be observed in most soliton-supporting systems in nature. Solitons are all exactly self-similar, and deep-saturation solitons are all approximately self-similar. Large deviations of the pulse from the soliton existence curve will lead to the appearance of fractal structures driven by soliton dynamics. http://www.mit.edu/~soljacic/frac_euro_fin.pdf

Morphogenesis

Essence precedes existence. Consciousness couples with physicality. In this morphogenesis, we see life reflected through the meaningful depths of these forms. They cannot exist in pure, imaginal, or manifest forms in the world without confounding us. In a holographic model, the source field corresponds to the laser source, archetypes correspond to the objects recorded, and the matrix of existence corresponds to the photographic film.

Our notions of all aspects of reality require updating to keep pace with scientific discoveries. Such models or theories also function as metaphors to help us comprehend more accurately the nature of the incorporeal yet undeniably real, including holism and complexity. Fractals and chaos theory have contributed to our understanding of deeper reality. Fractals share holographic properties.

The holographic concept of reality is more than a metaphor. The universe is a dynamic superhologram and we each are indissolubly embedded within it. We are organized together and inextricably connected at the core. The center of this mandala is primordial emptiness (vacuum fluctuation) which is the mother of all force and form. Jung called it the Pleroma.

Spacetime, Energy, Matter and Light are the components of creation. The finest component is a coherent organization of spacetime structure. Matter and mind are the geometric correlates of space and time. Quantum criticality implies fractality. One dynamic process welds the virtual to the physical. Mind and consciousness have a non-local, non-linear holographic nature. Mass hologram production includes a chain of processes that is a robust system of growth.

The universal holographic field couples waves that cross-talk noise in multiplexed fractal forms. Perceptual holograms are image fractal aggregates -- animated self-similar harmonic fractal images. The aggregates are simulated as fractal patterns in the mind and imagination as well as at the physical level. Matter extends itself into space creating form. Existence is a negentropic scalar pump. Manifestation pumps its essence from the scalar potential of the vacuum into the full spectrum of the electromagnetic domain.

Pure, dimensionless or manifest information itself is a holomorphic field. Information processing is the conversion of latent (zero-dimension) implicit information into manifest information -- holographic representation. Information processing occurs through holographic projection and encoding. Thus, archetypes are holomorphic fields that manifest pure information through some n-dimensional holographic “cascade”.

At the center of everything virtual ensembles cyclically arise from and disaggregate back into the physical vacuum. A potential event arises from the physical vacuum as a virtual ensemble. That potential somehow comes into relationship with another potential and hooks up, however briefly, in that timeless, insubstantial, holographic realm. Virtual ensembles contact other virtual ensembles creating what science calls the qubit, quantum bit, or sub-quark.

So we now have fractal geometries, punctuated equilibrium, power laws, and quantum thresholds. These distributions, the distance between, the space in between electron orbitals are pure Fibonacci numbers. The configuration of fractals absolutely complies with Fibonacci numbers from the atomic to cosmological scales.

Mass is the product of underlying gravitational field effect interactions that make up nuclear particles. This tells us that mass is a product. Absolutely everything is information, organizing and creating the universe we live in. Fractal scaling is an implicit representation of information content.

Life appears to be rooted in a holographic system of coherence and interference. Order and patterns are the cornerstone of holography. A hologram is a fractal map of a region of regular space. Holographic transformations encode and project fractal differentiation and integration through feedback. Biologist Bruce Lipton supports the hypothesis that fractal mathematics and geometry are at the formative heart of biology and evolution.

Light itself encodes information as electromagnetic waves. This light is transduced from the vacuum by the holographic blueprint of our DNA. The brain and body operate on holographic principles at the quantum, electromagnetic, biophotonic, wave-genetic, molecular, cellular, neural, and systemic levels. Fractal organization controls structures all through the body.

Our superhologram is composed of grids created by a source consciousness. Grid cells may be the structural perceptual apparatus. These grid neurons encode a cognitive representation of 3D space in fractal sampling grids. They derive their name from the fact that connecting the centers of their firing fields gives a triangular grid.

The holographic matrix of the grid neurons resembles the mystic Flower of Life, or Buckminster Fuller's archetypal concept of the isotropic vector matrix - the primal universal pattern. Isotropic means “all the same”, vector means “line of energy”, and matrix means “a pattern of lines of energy”. In this multidimensional matrix the vertexes are everywhere the same and equidistant from one another. This omnitriangulated grid supersedes and is more flexible than the standard XYZ coordinate system. Any 90-degree angle in Fuller's system appears only as a side effect.

Tom Bearden describes how convergent light waves bleed into electrogravity when they meet and cancel out along three different axes (i.e. x, y and z, although not always right angles, of course). Conversely, when electrogravity is converged to cancel out, it bleeds back into light waves (hence the reciprocal relationship between light and electrogmagnetism).

Cosmos & Consciousness

The attempt to explain the nature, origin, and perhaps destiny of the universe is as old as humankind itself and has informed the content of myth, religion, and philosophy. As we extend our notions of the macrocosm and microcosm, our conceptualization of archetypes (aka gods and goddesses) likewise evolves. We resort to the supernatural, the magic of the extreme and the mundane, when comprehension fails.

There is a pre-physical, unobservable domain of potentiality in quantum theory -- countless nonlocally entangled quantum states of different magnitudes. It is the basis of fundamental interconnectedness and wholeness of Reality. We are connected to distant space and time not only by our imaginations but also through a common cosmic heritage.

Cosmic renewal correlates with individual psychic renewal. Jung noted, "Our psyche is set up in accord with the structure of the universe, and what happens in the macrocosm likewise happens in the infinitesimal and most subjective reaches of the psyche."

The structure of the universe is both fractal and holographic. The interaction of multiple fields creates virtual holograms -- the blueprints of form in the wave structure of manifest reality. Holograms conserve certain properties. Fractal geometry is the mathematical expression of a fundamentally holographic universe. When diversity accumulates, a system goes through a phase transition that proliferates forms and form-content relativity at that level. Scale and complexity create 'emergent' phenomenon.

Characteristics or a qualities emerge unexpectedly from a complex system that is stable enough to store information yet evanescent enough to transmit it. Fractal structures are equally complex at each self-similar level of scaling. The variations are infinite but similar. In a holographic structure each part contains the whole. Fractal forms reflect and are reflected by the whole. One form emerges from another. Increasing complexity is a fact of Nature in cosmic evolution.

Energy is the key scientific and numinous concept. Jung equated physical energy with what he called objective psychic energy. The evolution of the cosmos is a dynamic creative process with four stages: stability, stress, crisis and reorganization (solve et coagula). Psyche follows the same pattern. Our insights, revelations, and synchronicities (meaningful coincidences) are holographic processes. Universal principles pattern, structure, and permeate the human psyche and the world of human experience on many levels ("As Above, So Below").

Change comes from the expansion of configurational patterns over time. Jung observed that certain dreams, myths, hallucinations and religious symbols are shared by many people and cultures. Cultural structures and practices are: 1) fractally self-similar; 2) part-whole relations that recur at all scales; 3) fractal self-similarity has implications for character; 4) the model of fractal holography helps us perceive similarities at different scales in seemingly unrelated phenomena.

Our brains learn to edit out many of the frequency patterns, leaving selective subsets of information available to our conscious awareness. Seemingly random phenomena only appear chaotic because we are have filtered out the critical information necessary to discern the true underlying pattern, or order of infinitely higher degree. We believe we are observing chaos without any underlying pattern since we perceive only a fraction of available information. http://www.statpac.org/walonick/reality.htm

Polarity, Pattern, Process

Paradigms embody scientific knowledge in a conceptual system and experimental methodology for understanding and investigating our experience. Like a living organism, a paradigm maintains itself by feeding on data that it can digest and propagating itself through time. If the paradigm is exposed to anomalous data that it cannot digest, however, it begins to be stressed and pushed away from its former state of stability. If the anomalous data persist, a crisis results in a reorganization of the structures that characterized the very identity of the paradigm. http://www.integralscience.org/cosmic.html

The alchemists called the animated matter in the macrocosm the world soul -- the interpenetration of psyche and matter. Jung found the holistic order of psyche and matter mirrored in the alchemical notion of the unus mundus and synchronicity -- the harmony or disharmony surrounding the individual. Synchronistic events in the inner world behave as if outside and the outer world behaves as if inside. Archetypes are the elements of such primordial self-organizing patterning potential.

So, the cosmos (as well as culture and psyche) is

fractal (the same pattern of wholeness is found at every scale), and
holographic (the wholeness is present everywhere and within every entity), as well as
synergetic (the whole is greater than and unpredictable from the sum of the parts)
emergent (complex systems & patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions).

Vacuum fluctuations (connected to everything and everywhere) define the uncertainty principle. Reducing its energy density, cosmos sacrifices its unity in the creation of forms. These limited self-interactions are the basis for the stability of distinct forms. Complexity arises from self-organization. Stabilized particles bind together into more complex forms and novel composite forms.

The first emergence is the universe. At the point of emergence a complex system has an inconceivably vast array of possible configurations. Through synergistic association of elementary entities, composite beings emerge with their own unique identities. Fractal models or holographic models don't explain emergence.

Fractal geometry maps reality in a numerical fashion as it exists in the micro and macro realms. They show that simple iteration appears to liberate the hidden complexity as creative potential. The discovery of chaos theory [sic] showed an *underlying order,* a kind of memory operating in non-linear, evolving systems. Everything from stars to our genes manifest expressions of complexity rising over the course of cosmic time.

Obviously, the cosmos, at least locally, has produced complex and highly organized systems. Life, mind, consciousness, and healing may be emergent properties, as the the emergence of dynamic structure. Neither scale nor complexity are a fingerprint of design. Chaos becomes pattern. To understand is to perceive pattern. Incarnations of nature, archetypes are primal patterns that mold nature, energy and matter, including that of ourselves.

Fractal geometry illustrates that shapes have self-similarity at descending scales. In other words, the form, the *information,* is enfolded--already present in the depths of the cosmos as nonlinear internal feedback. Expansion of the Universe generates *information.* But for information to occur, a spontaneous, self-organizing order has to emerge from out of chaos. Such systems are always likely to give rise to greater complexity. The edge of chaos represents the ideal balance between stability and propensity to explore change. Beauty is a harmony of contrasts.

Because of its very nature a chaotic system cannot be decomposed. If consciousness is pure information it is not limited to physical form. Its patterning may emerge from chaotic dynamics operating at the quantum level, where the "no-thing" of pure information becomes a structured "some-thing," through intentionality coupled with chaotic determinism (self-organized emergent order). The undecomposable level of chaotic consciousness is experienced as the pure, unconditioned imprint of the whole.

Fractals are one of the keys to life, reflecting the multidimensional nature of consciousness. Digital mapping is broadcast within the electromagnetic spectrum and throughout eternity. The wholeness of each fractal level contains many probabilities as superpositions. Countless quantum states of different magnitudes impinge into 3D forms. Apply this to holography and we may have something approaching reality.

The holographic "blueprint" manifests the outward appearance from different probabilities. A complete gradient of contexts from the microscopic to the macroscopic can be kindled or regenerated from a virtual-state holographic matrix which contains all the states and probabilities. Our perceptions manifest fractal organization from the virtuality of the potential gradient spectrum. http://www.fractal.org/Bewustzijns-Besturings-Model/Source-of-Fractals.htm

In a radically holistic, holographic universe, even time and space can no longer be viewed as fundamentals. Concepts such as location break down in a universe in which nothing is truly separate from anything else, including time and three-dimensional space. "Knowing" is a field connection. Fractal distribution of galaxies may be interpreted as a signature of holography ("fractal holography'').

The human body is not an object in space, but seamlessly welded to the cosmic fabric of reality. We are not merely a phenomenal body of flesh, but one of awareness, of consciousness, a living interface of inner and outer field phenomena. The brain is not confined to our skull, but permeates our whole being through the intracellular matrix and sensory system, as well as the strong EM fields generated by the beating heart. The multidimensional nature of consciousness is a holographic energy expression of a non-spacetime condition.

Archetypes are rooted in or emerge from the holographic source field as attractors that govern their evolution over time, or rather a set of physical properties toward which a system tends to evolve. Just as the attractor for life is the efficient liberation of bound energy, the attractor for consciousness is the liberation of bound psychic energy, the energy that is contained in the unconscious, both collectively and individually.

The archetype's evolution through the set of possible physical states is nonperiodic (chaotic). Chaotic systems manifest as self-similar fractal or reiterative structures that repeat at all levels of observation. Its set of states defines a fractal set. Patterns repeat at all scales. Organization is present within the randomness but its future state remains unpredictable.

Holograms contain many dimensions of “compressed” information in a subtle network of interacting frequencies. Interference patterns of waves can be visualized interacting like ripples on a pond. At the quantum level they create matter and energy as we perceive them as lifelike 3-dimenional effects. Consciousness and matter share the same essence, differing by degrees of subtlety or density.

The essence of the transformative process is revealed in the fractal nature of imagery and symbols--i.e. their ability to encode, enfold, or compress the informational content of the whole. Strange attractors condition and govern the transformative process through the complexity of information in dynamic flow. Emergent consciousness is not an epiphenomenon of the brain. Rather it is the transformational process of non-manifest, undifferentiated consciousness emerging into manifestation.

All potential information about the universe is holographically encoded in the spectrum of frequency patterns constantly bombarding us. The infinite set of states never settles into equilibrium, periodicity, or resonance. Transpersonal experience creates a new interpretation, or perspective on reality. Systems arise from positive feedback and amplification. Thus, archetypes introduce erratic behavior that leads to the emergence of new situations, including creative insight.

"In a letter to P.W. Martin (20 August 1945), the founder of the International Study Center of Applied Psychology in Oxted, England, C.G. Jung confirmed the centrality of numinous experience in his life and work: “It always seemed to me as if the real milestones were certain symbolic events characterized by a strong emotional tone. You are quite right, the main interest of my work is not concerned with the treatment of neuroses but rather with the approach to the numinous. But the fact is that the approach to the numinous is the real therapy and inasmuch as you attain to the numinous experiences you are released from the curse of pathology. Even the very disease takes on a numinous character” (Jung 1973, 1: 377). . . The individuation process, as proposed by Jung and his followers, typically includes experiences of a numinous nature." (Stein)

Individuation is a deeply symbolic "Journey" of analysis and synthesis, making multifaceted psyche conscious from its symptomology -- ego's unconscious identifications and archetypal power and influence. First comes detachment and separation of archetypal elements. We confront the awesome and numinous "Other" with astonishment and wonder, deepening the process until we gaze into the blank face of cosmic Void.

The Kabbalists introduced a blessing to be recited before all positive commandments: “Behold I perform this commandment for the sake of the yihud [unity] between the Holy One, blessed be He, and the Shekhinah”. Every
human act serves to advance the communion within the divine. The mysteries connect the span of life with the symbol of death and renewal. The central symbol of the“process” is the creation of the world, its destruction and restoration.

But, this path doesn't end like the mystics in worshipful union with the Divine as either Void or Plenum, but in the unique stabilized wholeness described by alchemists as the ultima materia or the Philosopher's Stone -- a sort of Unified Field Theory of the psyche. Rather than being about "God", it is about human potential. Each life is specific and special – at once unique and reflective of myriad lives within lives. In a holographic concept of reality the part is not only contained within the whole, the whole is contained in every part, only in lower resolution.

The wave-particle nature of light goes to the heart of quantum mechanics and in much the same way the dual incorporeal essence and manifest aspects of archetypes describe the magnetic dynamics which form and define the psychic field. From the cosmos -- the dynamic matrix, the “mind stuff” – infinitesimal “particles” and human beings emerge, all capable of intercommunicating, not only locally but also, instantaneously, beyond space/time.

We are increasingly substituting organic models for mechanical ones, and shifting from structure-orientated to process-orientated thinking. Wholeness is neither a dogma nor ideology but a living, dynamic, all-pervasive principle. We can view the world in terms of universal flux of events and processes. Differentiation is the essence of creation.

Classical science is about taking reality apart, and then examining those parts, Systemic science is about experiencing the resultant Whole of parts relating together. Examination of a single part does not reveal the wholeness of parts. The truth lies in the relationships between parts -- not what things are called but what things are doing together.

According to Jung (1916): "What you should never forget is that the Pleroma has no qualities. We are the ones who create these qualities through our thinking. When you strive after differentiation or sameness or after other qualities, you strive after thoughts which flow to you from the Pleroma, namely thoughts about the non-existent qualities of the Pleroma. While you run after these thoughts, you fall again into the Pleroma and arrive at differentiation and sameness at the same time. Not your thinking but your being is differentiation. That is why you should not strive after differentiation and discrimination as you know these, but strive after your true nature. If you would thus truly strive, you would not need to know anything about the Pleroma and its qualities, and still you would arrive at the true goal because of your nature. However, because thinking alienates us from our true nature, therefore I must teach knowledge to you, with which you can keep your thinking under control." (Translation by Stephan A. Hoeller, © 1982)
http://www.gnosis.org/library/7Sermons_hoeller_trans.htm

As expressed by Robert Newman, "The source of our life and potential is our fundamental and transpersonal awareness; that formless force is our life-itself. Our primary awareness is our transpersonal nature. There's a longing for awareness because we're already touching it. The tendency to awaken is based on our inherent capacity for recall in awareness-itself. The past has no power to stop you from being present now, where the magic of life is; but the hyperactive mind/emotion is only still in short gaps, natural breaks, before we lose awarenress of space, whether we do religious practice or not. Living in the present moment is unlimited life. Presence is a whole body phenomenon that transcends the body. Presence becomes a globalized sense of aware aliveness."

Cosmic & Psychic Dynamics

The Cosmos has many faces, including ours among them. We are all taking part in a deep mythological, archetypal, and cosmic drama of death and rebirth at the individual and global level. The creative process unfolds in each of us as it does in the world and universe. We are ourselves part of the canvas. We are characters in the story, driven by a multitude of personified cosmic characters.

"The hero or genius arouses our admiration for essentially the same reasons as a work of art. Heroism, for example, is beautiful because it is the result of integrating a multiplicity of contrasting experiences (strength and frustration, joy and tragedy, rebellion and resignation, life and death) into the unity of a single person’s story. Genius is beautiful because it requires the integration into a creative unity of a multiplicity of ideas, feelings and experiences that could lead to madness in a narrower personality. Because of the precarious nature of heroism and genius we esteem them more than the everyday modes of human existence. Similarly we might value a universe in which contradictions are constantly being unified into an aesthetic whole: entropy and evolution; order and chaos; novelty and continuity; permanence and perishing." http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=1948&C=1815

From the dawn of time, mankind has instinctively taken on and embodied archetypal forms (meta-forms) and patterns of behavior, both unconsciously and with spiritual purpose. This invisible groundplan molds both individual and collective psychic behavior. Psychic patterns, shared across cultures in countless energetic forms are buried deep in the manifold essence of our collective unconscious.

Carl Jung had a concept of the Collective Unconscious: “In addition to our immediate personal consciousness, (which we believe to be the only empirical psyche), there exists a second “inherited” psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.”

Ancestor worship is probably the oldest recognition of spiritual beings. Ancestors are discarnate helping spirits. Primitive conceptions of our state after death originated in this shamanic belief. Primordial belief in souls and spirits originates in energies and images that come from the unconscious. It is also the root of superstition. We must make a distinction between fantasy and imagination. Imagination happens to us; it is an autonomous force or energy, welling up from the depths as the water of life. We yearn for the Mystery of existence, our concealed wellspring -- the source of life.

Dr. Stanley Krippner says, "Shamans were the first dreamworkers...if someone could imagine or dream an event, that action was considered to be, in some sense, real." Souls correspond to the autonomous complexes of the personal unconscious (subconscious). Spirits are those of the collective unconscious, the inner universe. There are definite enduring forms in the unconscious psyche. Much depends on the interconnective density of the dominant factors of basic mental capabilities. Deeply hidden wisdom is expressed in the collective spirit that also pulsates within the individual soul. Such knowledge is accumulated over countless generations.

Archetypes bring spirit down to earth. Images lead into the realm of soul, which joins those of matter and spirit. They are the myriad forms of Nature's "to be". Highly symbolic forms, gods and goddesses arose from our elemental depths, altered states of consciousness and participatory wisdom to inform collective culture. The soul expresses itself in the symbolic language of dreams and esoteric doctrines which convey their messages. Some contend the archetypes emerge from cultures, not the unconscious. Campbell (1968, 1974) argued that most archetypal forms originated in Sumer and Akkad around 2500 B.C.

Culture consists of three layers: artifacts, values and beliefs, and underlying assumptions -- shared learning, experience, and problem-solving. Participation mystique links unconscious individual egos to larger and smaller groups. It provides the attractor that makes an individual want to be part of a given organization. It is the conduit for expressing collective sentiments by each person in the group. It is the nature of our subconscious to objectify inner as well as outer experiences. Multiple archetypes are expressed in each individual as behavioral patterns.

Culture normalizes a shared set of values. Values become underlying assumptions. Archetypes are the template of individuals and organizations, providing their psychic energy. This foundation is why our current institutions exhibit illness. The organizational shadow includes what has been repressed because the organization does not allow it by its rules, procedures or values. The buildings are sick and the organizations, such as banking, government, and academia are sick. (Levy)

The collective unconscious plays out through the existence of similar symbols and mythological figures in different civilizations – cross-cultural analogies. Stein contends that a symbol, "is different from a metaphor in that what it is communicating or presenting to consciousness is utterly untranslatable into any other terms, at least for the time being. Symbols are opaque and often bring thinking to a standstill. Metaphors are transparent and must be so if they are to do their job. They help us think in creative ways 'outside the box'."

For Jung, symbols were always grounded in an unconscious archetype giving it energy. "A symbol presents an unconscious content making its way toward consciousness. . .The symbol is alive only so long as it is pregnant with meaning.. . . symbols play a dynamic role in potentially moving the psyche forward in a development toward greater wholeness, rather than holding it back." http://www.murraystein.com/symbols.html

Archetypal symbols are embedded in our collective subconscious, and, when exposed to them, we demonstrate awe, natural attraction and fascination. Feeling is contained within the psychic structures, but also creates them. Occult symbols can therefore exert a great impact on people, even if many individuals were never personally introduced to the symbol’s esoteric meaning. Staged psychodrama by the hidden hand of powers that be exploits this natural tendency for collective psychological struggle played out as a trance-enhanced multimedia techno opera of supercharged imagery.

Jose Delgado reminds us that, "To behave is to choose one pattern among many. To think we must proceed in some orderly fashion repressing unrelated ideas; to talk we must select a sequence of appropriate words; and to listen we need to extract certain information from background noise. . .We are optically and acoustically assaulted by scientific literature, news media, propaganda, and advertisements. The defense is to inhibit the processing of sensory stimuli. Conscious and unconscious behavioral inhibition should not be considered passive processes but active restraints, like holding the reins of a powerful horse, which prevent the disorderly display of existing energies and potentialities".

Archetypes create self-serving tacit assumptions that lead us to mistake certain beliefs for reality because each is only a relativistic viewpoint. They create immanent phenomenological experiences in existential reality, levels of cognitive awareness, and transcendental abstract speculations. Archetypal shift happens when focus migrates from one archetypal field to another. Each archetypal field contains traces from similar previous encounters. This residue takes the form of thoughts, images, and energy tones.

Jung thought that life altering archetypal experiences may be the origin of consciousness. Supernatural beliefs are a universal part of religions, perhaps because they carry deeper meaning (such as group identity) and are so emotionally satisfying. Our minds are capable of deceiving us into believing anything. When our own lack of critical thinking or abject denial fail, the archetypal Trickster arises from the collective level.

Supernatural beings have powers that are projections of our own power fantasies, such as smiting evil. The original gods represented the creativity of the life force and the vagaries of misfortune along with their feminine partners expressed as partnerships. Very ancient Gods simply gave us a sense of meaning in the existential quest for our own becoming in the fragile diversity of nature.

Archetypes form the immaterial basis of life. They represent our human potential, contained or encoded in clusters of related symbols. Symbols stand for abstract regularities in the world, Hofstadter asserts. Human brains create vast repertoires of these symbols, conferring the “power to represent phenomena of unlimited complexity and thus to twist back and to engulf themselves via a strange loop.”

Consciousness itself occurs when a system with such ability creates a higher-level symbol, a symbol for the ability to create symbols. That symbol is the self. The I. Consciousness. This self-generated symbol of the self operates only on the level of symbols. Mysteries multiply because the symbol is generated by the thing doing the symbolizing. http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/337947/title/Self_as_Symbol

Symbols are inevitably imperfect attempts to represent archetypes since they can only express a portion of it. Pure archetypes are essentially content-free. The nature of the exchange between the divine and the ego is like fire - pure, intense, pulsating, even if only for a moment.

Yet even with this model as our guide we should be cautious so we don't fail to understand the most basic issues of the relation of appearance to dynamics. Models remain interpretations of observations and this is particularly so of the metaphysical basis of sacred psychology, quantum theories, and consciousness. We are describing the abstract structure of a set of dynamic units, the 'possibilities' that are the members of that set.

Dynamic units are indivisible in both space and time; potentialities are as real as actualities and can be actualized at any place and time, given adequate mechanisms. Different sorts of dynamic units yield up information in rather different ways. Actualization goes on throughout the fabric of the universe all the time, but what is actual depends on complex issues of divergent and convergent paths.

Archetypes are visual symbols or energetic imprints that exist in our psyches, and appear at multiple levels of organization. The archetypal dimension of reality appears in the form of unfiltered psychic experience -- mythic figures and narratives from various cultures, gods and goddesses, transcendent Platonic Ideas, etc. We might imagine them as structural coding of nested fields.

We might ask if they are actually transcendent to life, or merely help us transcend functional errors by widening our behavioral repertoires in a constantly changing body/world. A good deal of our subconscious effort is devoted to maintaining a mind map of reality updated inside our heads, but there is no reason to assume consciousness arises solely from this dynamic. Idealistic transcendence remains an elusive concept.

Our models remain provisional. Yet, the felt-sense is real. In his Red Book, Jung described the primordial force as overwhelming to the point one no longer recognizes oneself and is consumed by fear of the inescapable. You come to know what a real God is, he tells us.

"Now you'll think up clever truisms, preventive measures, secret escape routes, excuses, potions capable of inducing forgetfulness, but it's all useless. The fire burns right through you. That which guides forces you onto the way. But the way is my own self my own life founded upon myself The God wants my life. He wants to go with me, sit at the table with me, work with me. Above all he wants to be ever-present! But I'm ashamed of my God. I don't want to be divine but reasonable. The divine appears to me as irrational craziness. I hate it as an absurd disturbance of my meaningful human activity. It seems an unbecoming sickness which has stolen into the regular course of my life. Yes, I even find the divine superfluous." (Jung, Red Book)

Archetypes are nested, structural-energetic emergent motifs. Once filled out, they enter consciousness, becoming subject to interpretations and qualities such as structured duality. All of us are the myth-makers and co-creators of the 21st century. Myth has become an important core feature of modern spirituality and self-understanding, and even within the best-practice of genealogy and gnosis.

These unconscious mental phenomena are at the root of our self-reflective consciousness and projected frameworks or worldviews. Archetypes take the form of personified mythological figures, as deities. The shift from spirits within natural forms to supernatural ("above nature") gods and deities signified a new religious paradigm, that of polytheism, or "many gods." The matrix of complex 'archetypal form' generates other forms (symbols and images) by selecting suitable parts.

Like the spirits of earlier religions, the existence of these gods explained many things. Their 'human' characteristics could be kind, ambitious, quarrelsome, jealous, angry, or wise. Some were evil, others were forces for good. They also took an active interest in human affairs, taking care of people in need, and administering a degree of cosmic law and order. Those who behaved badly were punished by the gods, either in their own lifetimes or in the afterlife–which by then had gathered its own rich mythology–while the repentant would be forgiven their misdeeds. (Russell) http://www.peterrussell.com/SG/Ch8.php

Explanations transform the world. These polytheistic patterns persisted in the psyche even with the adaptive shift in spiritual paradigms to monotheistic, atheistic, pantheistic, and scientific worldviews. These paradigms are still colliding, redefining the relationship of the individual and society. But preoccupation with individualism cannot be sought at the expense of collective work. Collective work or work in the service of others (compassion) makes a significant difference to the quality of life for all humanity. Soul is also in the world, as well as our inner realm.

Jung insisted that our individuation is not about becoming "divine" like the transpersonal Gods, but in distinguishing, relating, and freeing ourselves from them in a creative way that constitutes a self-initiatory path -- a life lived with a unique, particularized connection to source, meaning, depth, and soul. He encouraged becoming more fully human. Most of us have experienced the power present in a collective field – moments when a deep well of meaning suddenly opens, expanding awareness.

We yearn for self-awareness, self-knowledge, an objective opinion or appraisal and comprehension of nature and our nature because we need the empirical world as a reflection by which to "see" ourselves. These reflections take numerous typical forms projected from and onto the zero-point ground of being and nonbeing. As godforms, they are ideal; as our personal complexes, less so -- as radically split-off elements, demonic. As the archetypes pattern the individual psyche they are subject to particularized distortions of their pure form. Each archetype has its polar opposite. Our authentic suffering comes from enduring conflicting opposites warring within us.

Holding the tension of the opposites and not succumbing to the resistance and urge to split is essential to bridging the gap between ego-consciousness and the unconscious. If we don't succumb to the urge to identify with one side or the other, the third, completely unexpected image, comes into view -- one that unites the two in a creative new way. When we hold the tension between the psyche and the ego, eventually consciousness expands to accommodate the previously unconscious content.

The transcendent function serves as a bridge between rational thinking and archetypal sensibility. This facilitates a renewed connection between the human psyche and the natural world. What is inside the psyche is projected outwardly, much like a hologram appears in multidimensional form when its wave form is illuminated by a coherent laser beam. Everything interpenetrates everything. When we are living within harmony with the Unified Field, we flow.

Holographic Archetypes

Archetypes are holographic parables -- cosmic messages, and highly complex mathematical equations. Both a hologram and an archetype function as a kind of lens that converts a meaningless blur of frequencies (the primary reality) into a coherent image. Our brains mathematically construct "hard" reality by relying on input from a frequency domain. An archetype, like a hologram never really changes -- it just is. However from each of the infinite points of view we have a dynamic ever-changing experience.

Our brains operate as a holographic frequency analyzer, decoding even space and time as constructs of the human brain. Berkovich likens the holographic paradigm to the concept of “Cloud Computing”. Individual brains are not stand-alone computers but collective users getting shared access to portions of the holographic memory of the Universe. http://structurevisualspacegroup.blogspot.com/2010/10/holographic-model-of-human-memory-and.html

Holograms encode and decode frequencies from a jeweled net of light. A hologram” according to Seth Riskin of MIT, “represents how the human brain, and light information interact to create the experience of three-dimensional space. Holography represents deeper technological access into light’s capacity as an image and information carrier.”"

Pribram saw the holographic brain as a lens, mathematically converting the frequencies it receives through the senses into our inner world of perceptions. We are holographic "receivers"; our DNA functions as an antenna. Floating through a kaleidoscopic sea of frequency we extract and transmogrify into physical reality but one channel from many extracted out of the superhologram. "Objective" reality ceases to exist in an infinitely connected, deconstructed manifold of potentials with certain strong tendencies to formation. Moving beyond our normal ego boundaries we may transcend individual consciousness.

Such "holographic godforms" define our bio-psycho-social roles and ways of being, our aspirations and our deepest frustrations. Each godform typically has physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects around which personality 'crystallizes'. We call them 'holographic' because of their primordial, informational, and multidimensional nature. There is a direct relationship between the external realm of matter and the realm of psyche. Everything in reality has to be seen as a metaphor; even the most haphazard events express some deeper underlying symmetry and meaning.

The gist of the holographic theory is that: "Our brains mathematically construct 'concrete' reality by interpreting frequencies from another dimension, a realm of meaningful, patterned primary reality that transcends time and space. The brain is a hologram, interpreting a holographic universe." And that includes the dreaming brain. In dreams we spontaneously construct a parallel reality that may include telepathic dreams, lucid dreams, transpersonal dreams.

Karl Pribram postulates a neural hologram, made by the interaction of waves in the cortex, which in turn is based on a hologram of much shorter wavelengths formed by the wave interactions on the sub-atomic level. Pribram believes the brain is itself a hologram. Thus, we have a hologram within a hologram, and the interrelatedness of the two somehow gives rise to the sensory images. There is a more fundamental reality which is an invisible flux that is not comprised of parts, but a holistic inseparable interconnectedness.

Holograms have an astounding capacity for information storage in slightly offset multidimensional "layers". The holographic model has been suggested as a "physics of consciousness". The universe itself may be a giant hologram, quite literally a kind of image or construct created, at least in part, by the human mind. The hologram is an analogy for events in space-time, quantum states, or static entities of some nature. In their emergent manifestation archetypes are self-replicating patterns.

We become quantum entangled and structurally bound to those meaningful patterns within. Transformation is a first-order change of interholographic conversion. Engulfment of our entire entity could be likened to spirit "possession" by an ultramagnetic archetypal attractor. We could also liken the splitting off of a complex to fractal bifurcation - the splitting of a main body into two parts.

Archetypes make us wake up and pay attention to what they are doing. Jung said, "Nothing happens in which you are not entangled in a secret manner; for everything has ordered itself around you and plays your innermost. Nothing in you is hidden to things, no matter how remote, how precious, how secret it is. It inheres in things." He claimed we yearn "to hear of him who was not darkened by the shadow of earth, but illuminated it, who saw the thoughts of all, and whose thoughts no one guessed, who possessed in himself the meaning of all things, and whose meaning no thing could express."

Physicist Fred Alan Wolf offers a quantum mechanical model for the emergence of self awareness from holographically-generated dream images. He claims,

"Self-awareness arises from the ability of a simple memory device, an automaton in the brain, to obtain images of holographically-stored glial cell memories and, most importantly, through a quantum mechanical process, to also obtain images of itself. Each self-image is composed of a quantum-physical superposition of primary glial cell images and an image of the automaton containing those images. These self-reflective images are ordered according to a hierarchy based on increasing levels of self-inquiry conducted during the dreaming process."

This idea is based in part on the work of Nobili and of Albert. Nobili's work shows that ionic wave movement (that is similar in form and structure to quantum waves but different from them in certain essential details) occurs in the glial cells of the brain making it an ideal medium for supporting and producing holographic imagery.

Nobili (1985) proposed that Na+ and K+ transport through glial cells in the form of oscillating currents producing wave patterns that satisfy a Schrödinger Wave equation. Contrary to lightwave holography, Schrödinger wave holography is far more efficient in producing holograms in glial tissue. He also discovered that the close proximity of signal sources and receptors in the cortex was ideal for both production of reference waves and information wave recovery. Complete details for the mechanism for glial imaging/holography are in his paper. Nobili, Renato. "Schrödinger wave holography in brain cortex." Physical Review A Vol. 32, No. 6, p.3618-26. Dec. 1985.

Archetypes are the elements of the soul. They are exemplary forms or prototypes -- an informational code -- the original schema or dynamic patterns that model all things of the same kind. For Plato, they were the primordial forms of the universal mind. We recognize the world within us through their patterns. Being universal, archetypal forms can be found everywhere. They are the essence that sustains life.

We ourselves as living organic systems are very complex holographic entities so we can become resonantly entrained with specific archetypal attractors in the psychic field. Archetypal forms repeat nature's characteristic patterns from the largest to smallest scale. Dynamically, “archetypal” forms are underlying instinctual patterns of behavior which reflect how the unconscious “imagines” reality into being. Psyche, our "larger self", reveals itself in symbolic form through manifestations of the archetypes. They organize experience giving it collective meaning.

Each archetype has its structural parameters. They organize how we experience certain things. Their dreams are our realities. Within the myths a jumbled myriad of possibilities play through the personality seemingly at random. Yet each has its agenda and characteristic mode of appearance. The activation of a mytheme in a life is decoded by noticing its corresponding imagery and effects, in dreams and waking life. Archetypal energies awaken us to live a larger life where we are all healers, warriors, visionaries and teachers -- but many potentials remain latent or formless.

An individual's personal myth or mytheme can be conceived as an activated chaotic attractor, a magnetic vortex. In another phase of life, the focus and narrative could change to other patterns. Sometimes these transitions are fairly smooth, sometimes competitive, other times catastrophic, sweeping the old structure away in an uncontrollable fashion.

Before psychophysical embodiment in the experiential world, archetypes are like "empty sets". As a morphism, each archetype is a structure-preserving mapping of energetic information. Such "zero objects" or identity elements are the "pre-existent" blueprints (entities or components) for ways of being and becoming -- inborn forms of intuition. The Self is the common denominator of all symbolic sets. Archetypes and symbols share the holographic quality that the whole is contained within each part. They are are not separate "parts", but facets of a deeper underlying unity that is ultimately holographic and indivisible.

Archetypal images designate patterns, typical basic forms, prefigurative determinants, and the tendency to repeat the same psychic experiences. They conceal the unborn eternal archetype (unconscious nucleus of meaning) while they reveal particularized meaning and form. Such ‘oculi piscium’ (fishes eyes)” are fiery soulsparks of the World-Soul, the light of nature, divine sparks of the spirit, according to Jung.

Specified but incorporeal forms, at the deepest level archetypes are the wave-like counterpart of our corporeality, figuratively and perhaps literally made of pure light and nonbeing. Divine light symbolizes the flow of feeling and of emotional understanding (“emotional intelligence”). The dialectic dialogue between the poles, the physical and the spiritual, is the source of divine light; it is the alchemic “work” (the opus), the psychological "process". This animated matrix is the root of form, as the Heart Sutra says, form is not other than void. Jung suggested in his notion of the nondual 'pleroma' that nothingness is the same as fullness.

Memory is not confined to the brain or mind. Because our entire organism is our psycho-physical structural memory, biography becomes biology. This why Jung suggested, "the gods have become diseases." Repressed shadow conflicts and unlived potential easily become physical problems embedded in deep tissues, often with symbolic overtones. The body mirrors our psychic state.

The living matrix is the molecular system that is the actual biophysical locus of the so-called subconscious, unconscious and intuitive processes. Structure is genetic and acquired memory, including muscle memory of the fundamental polarized dynamic of approach/avoidance. Deep tissue massage eradicates negative muscle memory by reworking the myofascial and connective tissue. Many cultural practices or roles can be seen as de facto ritual abuse in the way they are collectively forced upon us repetitiously, whether they 'fit' or not. Serial abuse creates repressed rage and depression.

Psychodynamic process therapies work on the psychophysical organism in a way analogous to deep tissue massage, destructuring and freeing up libido or psychic energy. What gets 'processed' is the bound energy. When deeply buried memories and experiences are expressed energy begins to flow more freely. Ideokinesis is a general term applied to mental imagery that affects posture and movement.

The body, emotions and thought field are unblocked by changing the attitudes and emotional reactions to memories. It requires engaging and processing through the emotional or right brain, not just the rational left brain mind. Our conscious self remains unaware of what our body knows, even though it is conditioned by it.

New postures arise from many options. Most archetypal imagery addresses the whole body and not just a part. Archetypal imagery can expose the importance of areas that are small or distant from a location of complaint, often unexpectedly. We assess any changes we sense.

Complexes

Feelings that are not dealt with through emotional release become repressed, and what we repress controls us. Chemical responses become structural traits and functional problems. Cellular, genetic and epigenetic memory are arguably even more primordial levels of information encoding through deep time. When we behave out of character, we wonder what got into us. Some personalities are more complex than others. Complexes are deeply significant in our lives.

In psyche and soma, what makes us feel better is deemed "good" while what makes us feel worse is deemed "bad". The catch-22 is that what we think, feel and believe to be good or bad is preconditioned by archetypal interplay and this is one source of ambivalence, confusion, chaos and mood swings. When this process opposes or thwarts rather than nourishes us, we call it a complex. Complexes are organized experiences patterned by the psychic energy of archetypes as they take form.

We all have a team of voices within, that either work for or against us. Something incompatible, unassimilated, and conflicting exists that can be an obstacle or act as a stimulus to greater effort, opening new possibilities. The complexes themselves are essential, healthy components of the psyche -- the generic forms and dynamic structure of the psyche -- unless they have been twisted by fate. The personal unconscious is the realm of the complex and personalized expressions of archetypes.

Unresolved issues carry a high emotional charge. If an 'entity' expresses through mythical or universal transpersonal imagery, it originated in the collective unconscious. If it is contaminated with individual, personalistic material, if it appears as a personalized conflict, then it emerged from the personal unconscious. We are not unified, consistent personalities. The basis of the human psyche seems to be a collective of selves--a multimind in a multiverse. Independent and autonomous, they relate with one another mostly unknown to our outer awareness.

Jung likened a complex to a rhizome representing the content of a neurosis -- a matrix of complexes, of symptoms, and of dreams. Dreams mirror the underground processes of the psyche, the 'roots' of the disease. Murray Stein points out, "this psychic symptom is a metaphor, in that it is borrowing the language of physicality (cancer, illness) and applying it to the psychic domain. This transfer of language from one domain to another is what poets do when they employ metaphors."

"He is in the grip of a complex, and this psychic factor - powerful, autonomous, and unconscious – is symbolized as a cancer. It must be analyzed and made conscious so that the very real suffering caused by the symptom-symbol can be transformed into psychic suffering. Perhaps other psychic resources can thus also be constellated, which will assist in bringing about the free flow of energy (libido) into more life enhancing tasks and goals." http://www.murraystein.com/symbols.html

Personification is a convenient way of relating to inner states or over-protective false ego states. They are sources of internally-generated self talk and internal debate that further influences our thinking, feelings, and behavior. They are mere facets of the whole or core personality, rather than independent of it. It is "bad" if it renders the core personality fearful or helpless, even though the core personality can generally override it. The persona or social mask is a prime example of a dynamic meant to protect the core in public life.

Subpersonalities

What Jung called complexes are more commonly termed subpersonalities, split-off emotional groupings of felt-sense, perspectives, memories, and beliefs. The less integrated we are, the more they influence us. These 'subways of the subconscious' form at different ages, and range from the sexual persona to the sage. Archetypal characters follow an established plot pattern to accomplish predefined goals.

Adaptations turn into distinct subpersonalities. Because we compulsively, reactivly, or unknowingly slip into them, we can be one type of person, then sometimes another. Unintegrated in the adult personality, they can become problematical. Such partial personalities or energy patterns are fragments of archetypes, like exiled gods and goddesses.

Complexes can appear as split-off subpersonalities or personifications that help us cope with certain aspects of life, such as Rebel, Judge, Child, Victim, Trickster, Skeptic, Warrior, Patriot, Parent, Professional, Protector, Controller, Buddy, Boss, Little Professor, Saboteur, Martyr, Outcast, Scapegoat, Partner, Muse, Artist, Hetaira, Fortune-Teller, Gossip, Innocent, Orphan, Adventurer, or Seeker, Hero/Heroine, etc.

Subs can deal with major issues, such as Love, Knowledge, Compassion, Quest, Humor, Discipline, Healing, Immortality, and Enlightenment. They originate in the cultural unconscious, social roles, internal conflicts, fantasy images, repeated trauma or stress. They mature at uneven rates. New complexes can arise in the spiritual crisis of midlife.

When the complex is cleared of the emotional baggage of the personalistic expression, its true, pure, archetypal center shines through. The personal was superimposed over the transpersonal, but that can be changed by raising it into conscious awareness. Then the nucleus or archetypal core shows through.

When the conflict seems unresolvable for consciousness, when its desires are continually thwarted, we often find that it is the contents of the collective psyche that are intractable. If a complex remains only a greater or lesser strange attractor in the deep psyche, if it doesn't swell up with too much personal baggage, then it usually stays positive. It functions as the energy-giving cell from which all psychic life flows. But if it is overcharged it can turn negative, in the form of neurosis or psychosis.

Unlimited by number, each of us has about a dozen of these unconscious pattern sets which have independent conflicting agendas, needs, impulses, desires, principles, eccentricities, and aspirations. They can appear as different genders and even be different personality types, in terms of extroversion-introversion, and characteristic functions like thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition.

Challenges and events that affect one subpersonality can ripple through the others. But we can become deliberately aware of what areas of life tend to be ruled by a subpersonality patterns and consciously examining those contexts, rather than waiting until the subpersonality has already risen to control. They can be healthy or pathological, positive or negative.

Therapies that connect subpersonalities and increase self-awareness include NLP, Psychosynthesis, and Transactional Analysis. We can extend our consciousness through dialoguing with them. Dialogue is a form of imagery. Rather than enemies, they are alternative strategies that function beyond our conscious control. They only become harmful when they control us inflexibly because we over-identify with them. The therapeutic cycle includes acceptance, cooperation, alignment, integration, and synthesis.

Only a certain number of complexes, varying with the individual, can be made conscious. No one can ever fathom the entire contents of the psyche or self. To attempt to do so would be superheroic, an ego error. It is grandiose to consider. The remaining complexes continue to exist as "nodal points" as "nuclear elements," which belong to the eternal matrix of every human psyche. They remain potential and do not express.

The complex is a meaningful feeling-toned group of representations in the unconscious. It is a manifold of symbolism all compulsively relating to the same archetype that distorts our energetic field. When the charge of one (or more) "nodal points" becomes so powerful that it "magnetically" attracts everything to itself, it confronts the ego with an autonomous alien entity.

Unlike the contents of the personal unconscious which seem to "belong" to us, the contents of the collective unconscious seem alien (Not-I), as if they had invaded from outside. The reintegration of a personal complex has the effect of release and often of healing (mental and physical). But the invasion of a complex from the deep collective psyche is a disturbing, even threatening, phenomenon.

The most powerful and ubiquitous autonomous subpersonalities come from a source having nothing to do with our daily life. They have to do with the deepest irrational contents of the psyche--that which has never been conscious before. Jung termed them shadow, anima/animus, and self.

The Shadow

The figure of the Adversary or Antagonist emerged in the myths of many cultures in the earliest times. It signifies a polarized psyche, suspended between the opposites, rather than freely circulating within the whole field. One representation of archetypal shadow and collective evil is The Devil. Jung claimed the Devil comes to all desirous solitaries "with smooth tongue and clear reasoning" knowing "the right word at the right moment", to lure us to his desire.

In alchemical writing, the shadow is the healing power, the antidote to disease. As the epitome of opposition, it is also symbolized by figures whose essence is “the other”. Jung understood a wide range of alchemic symbols and noticed the shadow appears in the shape of strange and threatening animals such as the wolf, snake and dragon.

The shadow is not experienced directly by the ego because it is part of the unconscious, so instead it is projected onto others. It includes our defense mechanisms: acting out, autistic fantasy, denial, devaluation, displacement, dissociation, idealization, intellectualization, isolation, passive aggression, projection, rationalization, reaction formation, repression, somatization, splitting, suppression, and undoing.

Such emergence in the collective or individual psyche signifies the constellation and energetic challenge of a meta-conflict (Good vs. Evil), the outcome of which will remain in doubt until these energies are either subdued or integrated. The solution of the protagonist (ego)-antagonist duality lies in the Observer Self -- an unidentified source of transfinite information that reconciles the opposites.

Toxic chemical and hormonal responses can be triggered by events in the present that remind us of the past. Locked in by fear and pain, we revert to feelings of insecurity, low self esteem, lack of confidence, lack of abundance, lack of joy etc., stuck and replaying old traumas and insults, again and again. This disturbs self-organization and self-regulation at the psychogenic root.

The nervous system governs the range of emotional expression, quality of communication, mobilization, and the ability to regulate bodily and behavioral states. The autonomic nervous system animates affective experience, emotional expression, facial gestures, communication and contingent social behavior.

Jung contends, "Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is." We might say, the less it is embodied in conscious awareness the more likely it is to go "into" or disturb the body, structurally and symptomatically. It is everything we deny and disown in ourselves, and therefore project outwardly and "stuff" inwardly. In part it is our link to more primitive animal instincts, superseded in early childhood by the conscious mind.

Jung saw the imagination as a bridge, over which the Psyche ("God") can cross from unconsciousness into consciousness. In the mythopoetic approach, The Devil is both the Ur-Adversary, and a tremendous source of strength, a nearly inexhaustible source of energy. Battling him gives us strength. Submitting to him completely is ego-death. The Adversary can be represented by death and dark symbols.

Jung referred to distinct images of Dragons in a number of his works. He initially cites it as the arch-enemy of the Hero archetype, drawing mainly from the New Testament and Gnosticism. The mother Dragon threatens to overwhelm the birth of the God, thus the ego must defeat the Dragon before becoming the Hero/heroine. He later views the Tiamat-Marduk myth as the basis of the Mercurial Serpent image - the Dragon that both destroys and creates itself and represents the Prime Material (or Philosopher's Stone).

The hero/heroine and adversary archetype often resemble each other symbolizing their relationship as two parts of the same whole. Similarly, the treasure which is the goal of many legendary heroes is seen as life itself, the resolution of the struggle between conscious and unconscious; through introversion, the entering of the cave, the treasure is regained, the self reborn.

Joseph Campbell called archetypes the "masks of God", because of their diversity and multidmensionality. Others suggest Lucifer as a "mask" of the Adversary, a motivator and illuminating force of the mind and subconscious. As higher intelligence, understanding and vision, the higher self and reason, Lucifer is seen as the Angel/Lord of Light, Divine Light and Pure Energy He is an initiatory rather than a Biblical character. Like God, he is a Mystery. The Self appears as evil incarnate because the polarities of good and evil are intrinsic to human life. Even spirit can be an adversary to the soul.

Jung identifies the adversarial Dragon directly with the unconscious, the natural state of consciousness vanquished by the Hero. The mother Dragon and the Mercurial Serpent are closely linked as creators. In Jung's idea of the Dragon as an archetype it may be a representation of the life-giving mother, though this is not true for all civilizations. The spirit of evil is fear, the forbidden desire, the adversary who opposes not only each individual heroic deed, but life in its struggle for eternal duration as well.

We have to fall back on Jung's statement that an archetype is a collective cultural artifact for Chaos. The Babylonian Tiamat is a Sumerian archetype. The Egyptian archetype is a snake which destroys life and has to be defeated before life is reborn - in other words the Prime Material. The Chinese archetype is that of the life-giver, the lizard which emerges with the onset of the spring rains.

Jung never contemplated the Hebrew God and the adversary the Devil (Satan) as literal persons. The occult is about energy, not personality. The Devil represents for us what Jung has called the collective shadow. It is a truism that we disown and project our own negativity through the shadow. "The opposite principle" splits the ego at work seeking to privilege its own insecurity. A healthy ego is capable of living with anxiety, ambiguity and ambivalence, without trying to always solve them. The spirit of evil is fear, negation, the adversary who opposes life, bondage, dissolution and extinction in the unconscious.

The reality is that life is anxious, life is ambivalent, life is ambiguous -- not just good or bad, black or white. The more we try to solve or resolve that or split it off, the more we're going to fall into a fundamentalism of some kind—military, political, theological, economic, psychological. The greater the light, the greater the shadow.

What we need is a more nuanced approach to the field -- the myriad psychological forms of gods and goddesses in dynamic interaction, in contemporary terms.

Jung believed to be spiritually alive and balanced we must perceive ourselves as part of a cosmic purpose. Our symptoms and difficulties are trying to transform us. In Quantum Mind and Healing, Arnold Mindell suggests, "Besides looking at symptoms as something to change or heal, you might also look at them this way: "From the viewpoint of dreamland, body symptoms are unsung songs. No body process is "wrong". Illness is simply a suitcase with unpacked musical gifts. Your symptoms are not just a part of an ill body but a group of parallel worlds waiting to be "sung".

We can renew our personal consciousness by examining all of our assumptions about ourselves and our lives, to assist us in growing beyond our difficulties to uncover our hidden potentials. Archetypes, embody our adversaries and allies and allow us to take up a conscious relationship with them.

Archetypes are universal principles, or forces that affect, impel, structure, and permeate the human psyche and the world of human experience on many levels. We can think of them in mythic terms as gods and goddesses. Essentially, archetypes are living symbols we all share in common. They reside in our psyche as patterns of potential but they also manifest in the physical world and in the depth dimension of soul through the imaginal process -- our stream of consciousness.

There is always an imaginal subtext or mythic overlay to the objective physical experiences of our lives. We react to both realities. Mythological motifs and recurrent expressions reawaken certain psychic experiences, formulated in an appropriate way. The remarkable thing is that 'the cure is in the poison'; that is, the healing is contained within the very process that plagues us through sickness, self-delusion, stuckness, fear, despair, pain -- and a poor self-image. Jung's individuation process, separating ourselves consciously from archetypal roles and collective imperatives, challenges us to become more fully engaged in life and a transformative way of life.

Analyst Bud Harris says, "Jung considered these things—that we usually dislike or despise about ourselves—as containers of a divine spark. At first they appear as blocks to our full development, such as the achievement of our goals or hopes and dreams, including those of having relationships built on love and trust. But, within these very blocks are the seeds, even the roadmaps and the energy, that when opened and tapped lead us to wholeness, which means the ability to live as fully as possible." He suggests we (1) Fully engage in life, (2) Reflect upon life, (3) Bear the burden of that conflict, and (4) Live the transformation.

Loss of soul is loss of self. If you are depressed, you have disconnected from the life giving place of energy, the bridge between the conscious and the unconscious. "Being that has soul is living being. Soul is the living thing in [us], which lives of itself and causes life" (Jung, CW 9/1, par. 56). Living spirituality grants us access to the numinous. Spirituality, allows our consciousness to be changed by the experience of the numinous. This is essential to confront and counteract the depression and confusion resulting from our existential condition.

We learn to listen more to the unconscious and its expressions, to discover and integrate our disowned parts and pursue an ultimate wholeness and balance. through continuous transformation. Difficult at times, it forces us to question our basic assumptions about who we are and what we value, again and again, even though our ego always prefers comfort and safety to transformation.

In mythology, defeating the dragon and winning the maiden is a metaphor for being heroic enough to leave the passive, dependent world of the illusory security of living unconsciously. We win our engagement with life through consciousness, mindfulness, and diffuse awareness -- unifying masculine and feminine energies within. When we experience ourselves, our being, as rooted in the unconscious and our instinctual lives, we are rooted in the feminine principle or the ground within ourselves. Becoming whole and renewing mystic vision is a spiritual necessity.

This is not self-improvement nor self-actualization, because it is not a heroic developmental process with a mundane social goal of security and prestige, but a way of life. It is about transformation and breaking through limitations -- conscious realization of our complex unique personality, including its strengths and weaknesses. Self-knowledge helps us recognize the importance the unconscious as a partner in informing our lives.

Facing the unpleasant reality that the pursuit of self-knowledge, we question every aspect of conventional wisdom, of our religion, or lack of religion, our notions of what love is, our approaches to problem solving, our ideas of peace and the value of struggle, of the value of suffering, and the meaning of unhappiness in our lives.

Jung suggested that the layer in our psyche he called collective unconscious provides the archetypal "geological" structure. Long forgotten memories strive to reveal itself in coded images and symbols, Jung called “archetypes.” Myths, fairy tales, legends, fantasies, and dreams give content to the events in our psyches. They underlie historical continuity and 'inhabit' a timeless, transcendent dimension. The collapse of time and space is characteristic of psychic experience. The energy created by the tension of opposites forms the raw material for a process.

The imaginal is a natural alternative level of reality, which is the spiritual aspect of our soul, but that doesn't mean we have to take psychic reality literally. We are part of a bigger reality that can change our perspective that has been within us since the beginning of time. We can learn the artless art of watching images in the psyche's mirror.and mindfulness of self. The imaginal is the voice of the transcendent. Imagination mediates between conscious and unconscious (outer and inner). It embodies the first images and the common matrix of myth and language.

Psyche "dresses up" the archetypes with our personal experience. Because they affect our attitudes, they impact what we believe, how we think and feel and our subsequent behavior. They are patterns of meaning and order that extends through every level. We know them largely by their EFFECTS. Images themselves are the embodiment of meaning. Metaphors of nature mirror our nature and processes of birth, death and renewal.

The gist of the holographic paradigm is that there is a more fundamental reality. There is an invisible flux not comprised of parts, but an inseparable interconnectedness. The holographic paradigm is one of reciprocal enfolding and unfolding of patterns of information. All potential information about the universe is holographically encoded in the spectrum of frequency patterns constantly bombarding us.

'Hologram' may be more than a metaphor for the emergence and expression of manifestation. Metaphors provide a reference point without defining reality. Thus metaphors are instructive. They are a central Way of leaping the epistemological chasm between old and new knowledge, old and new ways of essential being. Metaphorical understanding is the norm.

Hopefully the last in a series of mechanical models, the notion that the brain is like a computer is shifting toward more sufficient, more holistic analogies. Our understanding of complex, mysterious things always proceeds from metaphor to metaphor. When a metaphor changes new perspectives open in an ephochal shift that the old metaphor denied. We are all conditioned to think about our minds and selves on a very deep, very unconscious, very reflexive level. An effective metaphor must link up with revolutions in the realms of religion, spirituality, parapsychology, art, music, literature, and more.

Metaphors help us make this leap. A metaphor is the expression of an understanding of one concept in terms of another concept, where there is some similarity or correlation between the two; understanding one concept in terms of another. Perhaps universal history is the unfolding of several metaphors. Mental pictures and verbal processes meet in metaphor which promotes retrieval of images and verbal information that intersects with information aroused by the topic -- implying meaning.

Metaphors Be With You

Archetypes developed over millions of years to provide us with information about life's experiences. Myths are metaphorical representations of the content of the archetypes and can be used to provide us with information about life's experiences.

One value of myth and ritual is the unbidden psychological effect of having the archetypal forms pulled from the unconscious world into the conscious world. It enables us to gain insight into the sources of our fears, reactions, behaviors, and perceptions. Another value is as blueprint for handling specific situations that we experience in the cycle of our lifetimes.

Archetypes are root metaphors. Metaphor is not merely a superficial phenomenon of language, but shapes our judgments, and structures our language. Displaying many facets, metaphor pervades our everyday non-theoretical language.

A metaphor is a holistic schema, a unifying framework that links a conceptual representation to its sensory and experiential ground. It embodies the gestalt and ecological properties of thought. We can even imagine the physical as a metaphor for psychic transformation. Intense physical experiences go deep within our being and those memories are stored deep within the tissue and organs. Such experience is accessible as epistemological metaphors - how we know what we know, and what that experience is "like".

The network of underlying metaphors form a cognitive map, a web of concepts organized in terms which serve to ground the abstract. Archetypes embody this metaphorical quality. They help us enter a problematic situation in order to solve it, to explore it, and explore the world restructured by the metaphor. We can tap the source of creativity, healing and holistic restructuring through imagination and metaphor.

The possibilities for concepts and for thought are shaped in very special ways by both the body and the brain that evolved to control it. Each archetype can be literally or metaphorically illustrated by a consciousness state, particularly if we include dreamlife.

In fact, they are all present within each and every one of us when we turn our attention inward. It is as if archetypes 'happen to us'. We can observe what appears while we were just 'allowing it to happen'. But then don't just leave it there, engage it, grapple with and challenge it, confront it, enter into a dialogue with whatever you have come face to face with.

In Jung's biological model, archetypes exist embedded in the collective unconscious. The archetype is a primordial image whose content manifests only when it has become conscious and therefore informed by the material of conscious experience. The archetype in itself is empty and purely formal, nothing but a capacity or potential. The archetypal image makes the archetype appear in consciousness allowing us to form an active relationship with it.

Plato suggested we are each born with a unique daimon or guardian before we are born, and it has selected an
image or a pattern that we will live on earth. The daimon is the soul companion that guides us, but at birth we forget. The daimon remembers, however, what belongs to us, and therefore, it is our daimon that is the carrier of our destiny. It is essentially identical with Jung's notion of the Self.

Dr. Mae-Wan Ho echoes Jung's theory in biological terms. She postulates that, "a pure coherent state for the entire system would be a many-mode quantum electrodynamical field with a collective phase over all modes. It may be attainable only under very exceptional circumstances, as during an aesthetic or religious experience when the ‘pure duration’ of the here and now becomes completely delocalized in the realm of no-time and no-space.”

Metaphorical analysis displaces the assumed meanings of metaphors, especially if we expect those metaphors to provide stable epistemological connections. Alternative readings of metaphors, like altered states of consciousness, illustrate how knowledge and truth are displaced once they are detached from habits, memes, positivism, intended meanings, or predetermined uses, allowing us to rethink the narratives of our lives. More important than the stability of any methodological labels or particular methods is the way in which a specific processing technique is used as well as how that changes our possible interpretations and outcomes, including our self-image.

When metaphors are synchronistic, emergent, spontaneous, self-organizing expressions of our dynamic stream of consciousness, they are an imaginal encoding of information that bridges the domains of conscious and unconscious worlds, material and transpersonal realms. Such metaphors can be deeply transformative--more than mere language, a technology for changing our behaviors, feelings, thoughts, and beliefs. Intentional contact and immersion in these metaphors can transform our spirit and soul.

How can we know or describe anything about the changes we have not yet experienced, change that by universal consensus takes us beyond the realm of everyday reality, for which our words and concepts have been fashioned? Metaphors contain a subtle communication by containing meaning in a delicate net of imagery. In psychotherapy and mysticism, both, it is characteristic of the Self to speak to the ego-personality in the language of myth and metaphor. It allows us to grasp some image of that which remains as-yet-unknown. The Self is an archetypal idea that coordinates and balances the relationship between the ego and psyche as a whole. One metaphor describes it this way.

Consider a symphony orchestra performance; the Self can be thought of as the conductor and the musicians coming together in an effort to extract the best music from the best talents; whereas the ego is the orchestra's manager who makes the humble but necessary decisions about bookings and tickets, hotels and transportation and meals. The manager is obviously not the music, and it would be catastrophic to confuse the manager's role with that of the conductor, but without the manager's services, the orchestra doesn't play. (Irene Gad, M.D., Ph.D)

Classical metaphors of transformation are embodied in the primordial wisdom traditions. Metaphors are strongly related to process-oriented psychotherapy and immersion in the stream of consciousness [itself a metaphor]. The process of individuation is largely coded in terms of metaphor and metaphorical transformations through the union of opposites. The notion and phenomenon of metaphor raises as many questions as it answers. Metaphors do not directly describe perceptual reality, but its language helps us imagine an "as if" reality -- the depth of the imaginal psyche.

The role of conscious and unconscious processes in metaphor production and interpretation is ubiquitous. The role of "seeing as" permeates the development of consciousness. It reflects interactions between archetypes, imagination, perception and cognition; how bodily and neural processes create and constrain imagination. Language, concept and world are the three realms of metaphor which is a mode of cognition.

In metaphorical reality, death and rebirth is a common occurrence. We die to our old form and waken to a new way of being. There are latent patterns and images that we recognize and give form to when they are activated, like seed potentials. New life comes from the darkness of our own unconscious creative process.

http://books.google.com/books?id=HfhEAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT3&dq=butler,+Archetypal+Psychotherapy:+The+clinical+legacy+of+James+Hillman+%28Research+in+Analytical+Psychology+and+Jungian+Studies%29&hl=en&sa=X&ei=f0BdU8K7H4SUyAT67IKQBw&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Archetypal Psychotherapy: The clinical legacy of James Hillman
By Jason A. Butler

Archetypal Psychology

Jung modeled the Self as the harmonization of such opposites as masculine/feminine, good/bad, hero/adversary, etc. It also contains the patterns for experience of the cyclic nature of life's crises points. Its contents include the quest for meaning and the cycle of death and rebirth. Containing everything, it represents the maximal potential of any individual.

The Self provides an inner model of oneself in an idealized future. It confers experiences of the highest value through powers beyond one's conscious abilities. It is a mode of transcending the mundane world. Therefore, Self is both personal and transcendent. This gives divine worth to each individual manifestation of human nature, and dignity to everyone's' personal experience. The archetypes, symbolized collectively by the Self, shape and define human behavior, attitudes, thoughts, feelings, and the very body itself.

Archetypes are vessels that inspire and contain our awe and dictate our emotions. In deliberate rituals, we contact or identify with them, and they permeate the psyche modulating and balancing the system. We begin invocations by creating the holographic image of the godform. In the reverse passive process of possession, the process is largely unconscious and may go unnnoticed. If you identify with an archetype, you lose your humanity, your individuality. You get inflated by it. You get taken over by it. And you may remain blind to or in denial of the whole cycle.

The Collective Unconscious is essentially a hologram. Nonlocal consciousness is not confined to specific points in space, including brains or bodies, nor to the present moment. Imagination is unbound. It is an ordering principle that can inject information into disorganized or random systems. It can operate beyond mere awareness, unconsciously, drawing on individual and collective consciousness, as well as the world or environment.

Symbols arise from and are embedded in the environment as holographic fields of energy. They are morphogenic veils of primal forces. If your brain acts like a self-contained hologram, it is possible your consciousness is actually a piece of a much larger hologram of overall human consciousness. Jung noticed that patterns spontaneously appear over and over around the world. They also appear as our Ancestral Memories or holographic wisdom field.

In the archetypal world, everyone is the same, all around the world... we are all Gods, and our emotional addictions to pain and suffering, contempt, insecurities, doubt, failure, is holographically-recorded and can be holographically healed. All archetypes are a form of human expression that is both holographic and physical. Physical formations of archetypal sequences cause humans to behave in parallel manners to each ancestor that is associated.

Integration is a function of intentionality -- conscious and unconsciously maintained or incorporated. Integration occurs both without effort, as a redesign of the central processor of our minds, and voluntarily as a deliberate effort to understand, find meaning, and as rectification of our behavior towards others and towards ourselves.

Imagination is structured by the archetypal potentials of the unconscious. Archetypes structure the possibility to generate and entertain such ideas even in dreams. The archetype itself cannot be known but structures everything we come to know. Their totality functions as a psychic organ. Universal themes appear in distinct cultural garb. The psychoid field imposes holistic function. Autonomous inner forces arouse compelling opportunities to enact archetypal behaviors. They guide our perceptions and behavior, usually without our awareness.

With archetypes comes the potential for wisdom, relatedness, sociality, ambiguity, paranoia, projection, identification, denial, inflation, subpersonalities (fragmentation), defensiveness, obsession, hypnotic dissociation, the contagion of participation mystique, mythologizing, complexes, compensation, self-delusion, and transcendence. Compensation may calm or disturb consciousness.

There is no imperative for the ego to integrate these alternative perspectives, private and public myths. The unconscious can produce deep wisdom and utter nonsense. It is up to the ego to discriminate. The value of myths is purely heuristic, not pragmatic. Mythological consciousness has a persona, cultural and archetypal dimension that manifest in dreams, fantasies, delusion and visions.

The concept of a God, archetype or god-form is not necessarily an absolute but appears to be more than symbolic. We perceive and label their symbol clusters which we identify through pattern recognition. Such energy is ontological and epistemological -- it informs us 'how we know what we know'. Epistemological metaphors -- how you know what you know and what it's like -- are a gateway to the subconscious, as are dreams and symptoms. They veil our conception of reality. By analogizing, rather than interpreting, we simply ask, "What is this image like?" Analogies carry us into many meanings, amplifying, not restricting the image.

Epistemology is the study of knowledge; how we know something. Epistemological metaphors are the symbolic language of our unconscious and underlie every thought and feeling we have. When you are sad or when you are happy how do you know that you are sad or happy? There is a metaphor that contains all the history and memories associated with that particular state. It might be a deep dark hole or a bright blue sky; it could be a heavy weight or a bright shining light; it could be a bottomless pit or a shining lake, but every ‘sad’ or every ‘happy’ will be individual idiosyncratic and unique.

We can use our holographic minds to facilitate realization of our 3-D visualizations. Attitudes also are related to our body chemistry, to stress hormones and lifestyle. Emotions control the immune system. The psychosomatic network can be easily accessed through hypnosis. There is a biological, emotional, mental and spiritual aspect to healing. Interrelating metaphors enable a cycle of transformation between epistemological modes.

Multidimensional perception of deep natural processes informs our unconscious being and behavior. In the holographic model of consciousness, the processing of mental forms occurs within the context of a part/whole relationship, where the identified part exists within the code of the whole. This paradigm can be applied to the energetic archetypal field.

"Each grain (brain) of a hologram (pantheon of gods) contains the whole image at very low resolution. As more grains (brains) are involved, the hologram (pantheon) gains more detail. As the hologram becomes more and more detailed, those details influence the behavior of the brains." (Burt Webb)

The interactive dynamics of holographic gods are recounted in myths. They are our motivating factors, operating like cyclic, bipolar and strange attractors within our psyches, shifting our energetic gears. Some forces are more user-friendly than others. There are wisdom keys that help us understand these discrete states of consciousness more fully. They are the substanceless blueprints of all form, hinting at deeper Mystery.

Reality is fluid, dynamic process that is multi-dimensional, multi-leveled, multivalent, and meaning-full. That reality is subtle, expressing an ontological relationship between the self and the universe. To be human is necessarily to participate in reality, whose perception is potentially active, conscious, intentional, and creative).

Functioning like "psychic DNA", archetypes are the strange attractors organizing the psyche. The psychoid level of archetypes is analogous to the heritable DNA biohologram, whereas their expressive nature can be likened to epigenetics. Epigenetics is typically defined as the study of heritable changes in gene expression that are not due to changes in DNA sequence. Every cell in the body has the same genetic information. What makes cells, tissues and organs different is that different sets of genes are turned on or expressed.

Environmental factors and our choices alter the way genes and archetypes are expressed and characterize our being. Jung claimed that "the gods have become diseases." The field of epigenetics is now revealing a molecular basis for how heritable information other than DNA sequence can influence gene function, morphology, and plasticity. These advances also add to our understanding of transcriptional regulation, nuclear organization, development and disease.

Archetypes characterize and particularize perennial wisdom, language, images and ideas (theories), and emotion-laden complexes. Sometimes, such complex expression looks like pathology or pathologizing but psyche is trying to tell its perennial story in particularized form. We exist in relation to ourselves, to others, to myths, to images, or to archetypes. Their expression is the essence of our being.

Typical archetypal correspondences come alive through direct conscious experience. The sight of even one aspect of the hologram is enough to grasp the unity of the macrocosm. Pure and abstract energetic forms, like holograms, contain within themselves all possible combinations and expressions. Aspects of nature are reflected in our own natures. But we don't recognize and fully act in accordance with our divine nature, so we are subject to the severe and often capricious rule of "divine forces", and the corresponding passions within ourselves. By its very nature, gnosis permeates and enlivens all things.

"...it can only be embodied, i.e., manifested, actualized, in time and space. Less a method of knowing than a fluid way of knowing, "feminine" gnosis is deeply rooted in the body and in Nature, which contains the body. "Feminine" gnosis is produced by Nature, supported by Nature. Like Nature, it is characterized by emergence, process, and infinite creativity.

Like esoteric gnosis, "Feminine" gnosis approaches Nature as a repository of signs, a book which must be read, interpreted; more than that, however, "feminine" gnosis approaches Nature not only as a repository of actual signs, but as a repository of potential signs, like a book which is still being written by us in participation with Nature. "Feminine" gnosis places great value on personal experience, i.e., the subjective. It is a way of knowing which entails opening, not closing. It is a way of knowing in which a subject opens onto an object, and thereby enters into relation with it, and experiences a change in being as a result. " (Karen Clair Voss, http://www.istanbul-yes-istanbul.co.uk/gnosis/istanbul.htm)

Holographic Gods

Over aeons, ritual observances produced reassuring order and security in a very uncertain world. If you had a problem, chances are some mything being had it first, and moreso. Christianity suppressed, reviled and demonized the ancient pagan gods but could only reallocate rather than eradicate their forces. Their primordial correlates remained. Because they are invisible and subjective doesn't make them any less potent.

The Age of Enlightenment dismissed their spirituality, and Freud's psychology reduced them conceptually to projections. But we err if we think of them as evil or nonexistent. Jung saw them in a more positive, if abstract, light, as unconscious symbols. But the gods are in no way limited to this and continue filling the space between primeval Divinity and mankind.

It is our comprehension of their deepest meaning that remains primitive, even though we know that they aren't agents of Satan. Debate about the reality and nature of spiritual entities continues. The old biases and contempt for anthropomorphic deities is still with us, even as those very forces inform and deform as continuously as ever. To what degree and how they are real has been codified in archetypal psychology, extending Jung's theory of the heroic monomyth and Self into a dynamic polytheistic field.

Archetypes as described by Jung , play out their eternal patterns with little regard for our puny human personalities, which are both their medium and their externalization in the mundane world. Collectively, they house or encode our diverse identities in their shifting dynamics. All these essential qualities exist as potentials within us. Which ones get expressed depends on circumstances and the environment.

Functioning like "psychic DNA", archetypes are the strange attractors organizing the psyche. The psychoid level of archetypes is analogous to the heritable DNA biohologram, whereas their expressive nature can be likened to epigenetics. Epigenetics is typically defined as the study of heritable changes in gene expression that are not due to changes in DNA sequence. Every cell in the body has the same genetic information. What makes cells, tissues and organs different is that different sets of genes are turned on or expressed.

Environmental factors and our choices alter the way genes and archetypes are expressed and characterize our being. Jung claimed that "the gods have become diseases." The field of epigenetics is now revealing a molecular basis for how heritable information other than DNA sequence can influence gene function, morphology, and plasticity. These advances also add to our understanding of transcriptional regulation, nuclear organization, development and disease.

Archetypes characterize and particularize perennial wisdom, language, images and ideas (theories), and emotion-laden complexes. Sometimes, such complex expression looks like pathology or pathologizing but psyche is trying to tell its perennial story in particularized form. We exist in relation to ourselves, to others, to myths, to images, or to archetypes. Their expression is the essence of our being. When our dominant archetypes change we go through transitions.

Archetypes are formative principles and structural elements, as well as typical preconscious modes of apprehension and action. Frey-Rohn characterized them as, "...not only the focal point of ancient pathways but also the center from which new creative endeavors emanated... "The archetypes, then being inherent in the life process, represented forces and tendencies which not only repeated experiences but also formed creative centers of numinous effect ".

Archetypal images designate typical basic forms, prefigurative determinants, and the tendency to repeat the same psychic experiences. They conceal the unborn eternal archetype while they reveal particularized meaning and form.
Holographic archetypes effectively echo their nested-structure and resonant patterns throughout the field as phenomenological, biophysical, literal and symbolic "reflectaphors". They are fractal expressions and reiterations of psychic life. Archetypal morphogenetic fields (or attractors) arise harmonically within nested domains.

The interweaving transient forms of the holographic archetype include the hologram, psychic structure, wave-genetics, and synchronicity. As cosmic forces and patterns, the archetypes are holographic, existing in their own dimensional spaces, unfolding as nature presents opportunities for expression. When we embody them, and can see through the process, they become manifest, living realities -- a meta-text to our own desires and lifestyles.

For millennia priests and shamans have taken on the sacred roles, embodying the purely spiritual for their communities, uniting the heavens and earth. They manifest their divine splendor and awesomeness in our microcosmic lives. Light, energy and life-force span the cosmos as holographic connectors with the whole. Holographic patterns in the mindbody manifest in the outer world, from essence to synergistic tangibility.

Holographic gods remain true to their own primordial patterns and domains of influence, effectively exerting their wills over our own and apparently usurping or overriding our rational agendas and plans for our own lives. Which of these patterns intrudes on our lives determines whether we are in resonance with the broader environment or at odds with it and ourselves. Try as we might, we cannot separate ourselves from this spiritual component that underlies our existence and all existence, as archetypes are in no way limited to the human sphere.

Holographic Gods produce their own forms of archetypal intoxication; they can possess, frustrate and even defeat our best intentions. But we are not the eternal slaves of these behavior paradigms. Jung's methods of individuation and other transpersonal therapies open the way to developing more conscious relationships with these cosmic patterns, leading to more individual freedom from archetypal role-boundedness and spiritual parochialism.

The story of gods in our lives and the universe is still being written. Extra-dimensional truths are encoded in the descriptions traditionally described as gods and goddesses. The ancient classical gods are well documented, but the Gods of the gaps are less well-known, occupying those parts of the Universe that are unexplored and unexplained, that science is just beginning to explore, such as the so-called god particle.

Holographic Gods challenge own own beliefs in God or not, putting them to the secular acid test. The catch-22 is that even all those notions are conditioned by the very archetypes we seek to illumine, whether or not we identify with them consciously. They are just as likely to produce misguided inner authority as perennial wisdom. Whether we like it or not they enter us, intrude on our personal dramas, by modulating the playing field in the game of life.

All archetypes are a form of human expression that is both holographic and physical. Physical formations of archetypal sequences cause humans to behave in parallel ways to each associated ancestor, experience or process. Integration is a function of intentionality -- conscious and unconsciously maintained, or incorporated. Integration occurs both without effort, as a redesign of the central processor of our minds, and voluntarily as a deliberate effort to understand, find meaning, and rectify our behavior towards self, other and world. Sometimes when we lose ourselves in transcendent experiences, we somehow come back reborn and full of compassion. We are nurtured by the depths.

Images, like the holographic universe, have a deeper enfolded dimension. Memories aren't localized in one place, but are spread across the associative areas of the brain. Associative areas aren't set aside for particular functions like speech production, language comprehension, and memory encoding. Instead, they are responsible for all "miscellaneous" tasks. Each associative area seems to contain echoes of all of the information. Symbols arise from and are embedded in the environment as holographic fields of energy. There are innumerable morphogenic veils of primal forces.

Archetypal realities, passed on through DNA, are expressed in distinctive neuronal tracts in the brain. They include customs and laws regarding property, incest, marriage, kinship, and social status or roles; myths and legends; beliefs about the supernatural and cosmos; gambling, adultery, homicide, schizophrenia, and the therapies to deal with them. A mythic and visionary language of immediate experience encompasses themes of deepest, highest, and ultimate concern.

Jean Shinoda Bolin describes the unfolding process of individuation: "As you get older, your path becomes increasingly a realization that you have moved in an authentic way along the journey. There are the archetypes in both men and women: goddesses in every woman, gods in every man. . . Most men and women find that they’re a mix of different archetypal energies, much as we are all mixes of human talents."

In a holographic universe, even time and space can no longer be viewed as fundamentals. Concepts such as location break down in a universe in which nothing is truly separate from anything else. Time and three-dimensional space also have to be viewed as projections of this deeper order. Core mystical experiences of transformation usher us into this holographic domain of pure frequencies, altered states of consciousness, and revelations.

Altered states open the way to polyphasic depth, expressing and engaging meaning. We learn to tolerate the irrational and holographically experience the simultaneity of cosmos and individual life. At its deeper level, reality is a sort of super hologram in which the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously, informed by the depth dimension of psyche or the imaginal.

This suggests that given the proper tools someday we might reach into the super-holographic level of reality and pluck out scenes from the long-forgotten past. Or not. A fantasy of such penetration or phenomena inside the head is not the same as that penetration. A fantasy of enlightenment is not stabilized enlightenment. But it may be pro-active step in the right direction.

Cope, Theo A., Fear of Jung: The Complex Doctrine And Emotional Science,
http://books.google.com/books?id=d121r5CzNl8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Fear+of+Jung:+The+Complex+Doctrine+And+Emotional+Science&hl=en&sa=X&ei=11D8UL_tIMrhigKE64CgAg&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Fear%20of%20Jung%3A%20The%20Complex%20Doctrine%20And%20Emotional%20Science&f=false

Stein, Murray, “Symbols and the Transformation of the Psyche ” http://www.murraystein.com/symbols.html

Miller, Iona, 1993 IMAGE PROCESSING: THE FRACTAL NATURE OF EMERGENT CONSCIOUSNESS

Marin Soljacic,(1) Suzanne Sears,(1) Mordechai Segev,(2,3) Dmitriy Krylov,(2) and Keren Bergman,(2), Self-Similarity and Fractals Driven by Soliton Dynamics http://www.mit.edu/~soljacic/frac_euro_fin.pdf

Mitchell, Edgar The Quantum Hologram And the Nature of Consciousness Edgar D. Mitchell, Sc.D.1, and Robert Staretz, M.S. , Journal of Cosmology, 2011, Vol. 14. http://journalofcosmology.com/Consciousness149.html

Jung and Kerenyi, The Science of Mythology, http://books.google.com/books?id=5DLNW0T1eOoC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

by Mat Atkinson, 2012

PANTHEON - Holographic Godforms by Iona Miller

Note (1999): When I began my own study and practice of pathworking, it became readily apparent to me that there was much more to be learned about godforms in Jungian literature than in all the Qabala and Magick books put together. But no one had been very comprehensive nor systematic about their presentations. Pantheon is a broad survey or study of the archetypes as discussed in the literature of Jungian Psychology.

Typically, the Jungians discuss archetypes by using the Greek godforms, since they are generally more familiar from school days and considered more "user-friendly". But pantheons are a cross-cultural phenomena, so a table of correspondences is provided to translate into other cultural pantheons.

This is not neo-paganism. These gods and goddesses are not presented as objects of worship or veneration, but as universal autonomous forces with their own agendas which weave constantly through our outer and inner reality. They are relevant in daily life because they are the motivating factors behind our beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and behavior. We can hardly hope to be self-directing individuals without some knowledge of their patterns and effects on our lives and souls.

In this work, the correspondences of godforms to chapters is patterned after the Paths and Tarot Trumps. A godform is corresponded with each Trump through astrological attributes. This makes Pantheon useful to students of Tarot, Qabala, astrology, and Jungian thought.

When I first wrote it in 1983, it was the first and only compilation of this material in one convenient source. Since then, Jungian ideas became mainstream and several analysts and other Transpersonal Psychologists have offered many workshops and written excellent books on "personal mythology." These include such eminent personalities as Joseph Campbell, Jean Houston, Robert Bly, Jean Shinoda Bolin, and Stan Krippner, to name just a few.

Yet, this volume still has something unique to offer with its workbook format, suggestions for further study, and the qabalistic spin. Myth has become an important core feature of modern spirituality and self-understanding, and even within the best-practice of genealogy and gnosis.

HOLOGRAPHIC GODS
Table of Contents

Uranus
Hermes
Artemis
Aphrodite
Athena
Hera
Eros & Psyche
Hestia
Demeter/Persephone
Hephaistos
Zeus
Themis
Poseidon
Thanatos
Artemis & Apollo
Pan/Priapus
Ares
Rhea
Hekate
Apollo
Hades/Dionysus
Cronos

FOREWORD

"...to behave is to choose one pattern among many." -- Jose Delgado

In the journey of life we all encounter forces and behavior patterns which seem beyond our capacity to understand and control. We say and do things we never believed we were capable of, and then claim we "must have been beside ourselves." Or, "I wasn't myself." Our subconscious minds provoke us into behavior we would never consciously choose. Some of these are self-defeating or self-sabotaging and come through our shadow, while others let us glimpse that we are more creative, talented, or wise than we ever thought possible.

These gifts come from the transpersonal end of the spectrum. At first glance, each individual's problems, experiences, and innate qualities seem unique. Yet, from another perspective, we all share the common inheritance of a mythic dimension of life, which psychologist Carl Jung termed the "collective unconscious."

We are walking compendiums of universal forces from which the details of our individual stories flow. Every story is a unique version of universal themes, the infinite in the finite. We are the very embodiment of universal themes of life, death, and rebirth. All of our human potential for both "good" and "evil" comes through this subconscious source. It reveals itself through dreams, visions, art, fantasy, imagination, and myths or tales in all cultures.

These themes and myths contain a value far greater than their creative or literary merits. Not only do myths inform us of the origins of thought and philosophy, they also reveal an ancient, sacred dimension of human experience. The realm of the collective unconscious is "populated" with mythical figures which are described as gods and goddesses. Each has a retinue of corresponding moods, landscapes, personality traits, preferences, etc.

These figures personify man's qualities or modes of being in the world. Each has particular characteristics. Knowledge of these characteristics or styles can enhance our personal journeys of self-discovery, and give us insight into our own motivations and choices. Through personally discovering these godforms within and without, we gain access to a deeper understanding of both ourselves and others.

We all share the journey of self-exploration, even though different aspects of it appear to each of us. Certain of the gods and goddesses may play a major or dominant role in our lives and those of our loved ones, but our imagination or psyche contains them all. The more of these basic patterns of life we have access to, the greater our experience of this mythic dimension of life which makes our conscious day-to-day lives even more meaningful.

The point is not to consciously live one myth, or even one's myth, but to live mythically, in touch with that fabled dimension of experience. The realization of our purpose, path, or personal potential has often been considered a "key" to life's meaning. To realize the fullness of one's personality and to develop our native abilities and personal characteristics to the highest degree possible is a worthy long-range goal. This has been the orientation of the human potential movement, and the personal goal of self-actualization, or self-realization...to experientially understand that, "I am That."

PANTHEON - Holographic Godforms, as a manual of personal self-discovery, is a practical guide to recognizing and realizing the origins and development of our individual characters and characteristics. As such, it leads to a growth of self-knowledge, and gives us insight into the traits and behaviors of our acquaintances and intimates. Pantheon provides not only background knowledge for reference, but also practical psychological technique which we can implement in our journey toward understanding.

We can gain access to the deeper psyche, soul, or imagination through both the rational and experiential methods. These are self-analysis and active imagination. Active imagination includes consciousness journeys deep into the psyche, identification, and internal dialogues with personified archetypes. It is the dialogical method. This is a way of building experiential relationships with archetypal forces--harmonizing with them, honoring them. These are "as if" real relationships, not taken literally.

These internal dialogues can be useful, revealing the autonomous dynamics and agendas at work in our lives. They reveal things to us we know, but don't know we know. We can use many methods for this communication, such as journal work, hypnosis, or ritual. These are moments where we create and enter sacred space. These relationships reveal the meaningfulness behind the many complications in our modern lives. The more we approach our individual wholeness, through expanding our awareness and experiences, the more we are likely to encounter these divine principles from the realm of imagination.

This journey toward wholeness is easier to integrate into daily life with a psychological framework for containing and accommodating a wide range of images, emotions, moral views, styles of thought, beliefs, and even dress. When we know the characteristics of the various archetypes, we find them relected back to our consciousness from the environment.

We can learn to view their effects on our lives directly and gain in personal, social, and spiritual freedom. If we fail to become consciously aware of their effects, their spontaneous activation may produce devastating effects on the personality. They can create internal divisions in the psyche which may lead to the disintegration of personality. This can result in disease, self-destructive behavior, or even culminate in death.

As we mature into adults, many of us are forced by environmental factors to travel roads which do not follow our natural predispositions. This may create conflicts or crises in our lives, which require either change or understanding. Some of us are forced, for example, to work in occupations which do not really suit our personalities. For some it becomes a challenge to be met and accepted; others of us just feel like "square pegs in round holes."

Pantheon (Holographic Gods) is designed to help us recognize and realize our talents and natural predispositions. In this manner, many misplaced persons should be able to develop latent talents in areas where they could excel through natural aptitude, at the same time finding a sense of self-fulfillment on the job and in relationships.

INTRODUCTION

THE CONCEPT OF ARCHETYPES

The work of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung (1875-1961) has become of greater and greater interest to the general public. His works or their summaries are part of almost every seeker's list of books to read. The growing interest in Jungian Psychology (or Depth Psychology) stems from the fact that it answers the needs of many people as a means for relating to "internal" as well as "external" reality. These people are seeking a fuller understanding of the meaning of life in such areas as dreams, fantasy, compulsive behaviors, and self-exploration or spiritual enrichment.

The main focus of Jung's work stressed the search for meaning and the development of individuation, psychological wholeness, or integrity of the personality. Jungian therapy opened the door to the collective unconscious for many, not only to their subconscious desires and motivations but also to their higher spiritual aspirations and potentials. Jungian psychology describes the meaning of symbols and events on the spiritual quest for self-actualization in non-religious terms. It is extremely useful for self-analysis.

By gaining a working knowledge of the temperaments of our various facets and how they interrelate, an integration or synthesis of personality becomes possible. This results in high well-being and increased creativity. In practical terms, Jungian therapy includes developing awareness of internal guiding principles, or archetypes. You don't need a personal therapist to discover these archetypes within. We can discover them ourselves if we know what to look for during periods of reflection or introspection.

Knowing the patterns, they can strike us directly when we catch ourselves in the act of watching them act through us. An archetype is an innate, or in-born pattern, part of our hardwiring, which functions as the underlying matrix behind any event. They are not necessarily transmitted through our genes, but they are fundamental to our method of perceiving nature, God, and man. They are the very substance of our experience of life.

They act like filters or lenses for our perception. Archetypes may be seen as embodiments of specific functions, and their characteristic patterns may be personified by giving each a name. In this way, we can learn to recognize archetypes when they appear in our lives affecting styles of behavior, thought, emotions, attitudes, and dress. By personification, identifying and naming them, we can take up a meaningful relationship with these characters of our internal world.

We gain the option of holding imaginal discussions with them about their attitudes, desires, and opinions. The Jungian perspective sees the human perception of "reality" as originating in a projection from an internal motivating factor (or archetype) onto our environment. Since we do not perceive the universe of experience directly, but through the filters of our senses, we experience archetypes through sight, touch, taste, smell, and sounds, and the metaphorical equivalent of these senses in our imaginal life. They also appear in human typology, and the various functions of feeling, sensation, intuition, and thinking.

Because of their nature's we are introverted or extroverted, thinkers or feelers, knowers or doers. They are constantly maneuvering our human lives as if we were puppets. In the ancient past, when these powers of the archetypes over the human will were intensely dramatic, or negative, this phenomenon was termed "possession," and it could be demonic or spiritual in nature. On a more common level, archetypes are constantly affecting our value judgements, priorities, emotional relationships, work situations, and daily life responses in the physical world in an unconscious way.

Sometimes these appearances of archetypal patterns are appropriate, in tune with conscious goals; but sometimes the archetypes seem to have a goal of their own, independent of (and perhaps self-destructive to) our personalistic ego desires. "They" don't seem to know or care what we want. How can we be self-directing when their influence is capricious and subconscious? Civilization is largely the result of mankind's conscious understanding and taming of primitive instinctual forces of the archetypes. With fewer and fewer "taboos" to control our society, we need to understand our own emotional upheavals so that we aren't overwhelmed by them.

We can evolve to an understanding of our subtle and not-so-subtle inner urges, in which case they cease to compel us and begin to work on our behalf. Thus, we can grow out of counterproductive behaviors into the ability to actualize our higher goals. It is these underlying matrix patterns within the psyche which produce the outer behavior. When we can see that archetypes are motivating factors, it is also possible to intuit how a knowledge of their particular characteristics cold be useful in understanding the complexities of life.

But, are these gods and goddesses real in the objective sense? Can they really slyly manipulate our behavior without us noticing them? According to Jung this is true, and we all share this condition. Even those trained in these areas maintain psychological "blind spots" where we fail to see the archetypes moving us. Jung saw man, not as an isolated individual, but as being linked with the whole of mankind (and mankind's abilities) through the collective unconscious. This unconscious manifests in the multiple forms of gods and goddesses. These figures take different, though analogous forms in the various mythologies of the world's cultures.

Thus the goddesses Isis (Egyptian), Artemis (Greek), and Diana (Roman) all share a common essence and use the same lunar symbolism. The same generic form is also behind the Catholic's Blessed Virgin Mary, and all are derived from the theme of Celestial Queen. These forms, or archetypes, should not be thought of as nouns (things), but rather as semantic metaphors. They represent powers or qualities, but when we personify them it is "as if" we take up a relationship with another entity. They assume an anthropomorphic form in imagination in order to make a dialogue easier. This dialogical exchange is just a variation of the I-Thou communications of mysticism.

PERCEIVING ARCHETYPES IN DAILY LIVING
by Iona Miller

Knowledge of the various archetypal forms helps the ego determine what in life is personal and human, and what is compulsive acting-out of ancient divine patterns, which are instinctual in nature. The more we approach our individual wholeness, the more likely we are to encounter these divine principles from the field of archetypal experiences. They are unavoidable, whether we are totally unconscious of them, or not.

We begin to see archetypal forces operating under their own laws in various phases of human life and endeavors. They influence us on personal, social, and national levels. They come in the ever-changing guises of phobias Irrational fears), prejudices, complexes (interference by an archetype or group of archetypes with the conscious personality), and our runaway ego-trips. They play through our culture in art, literature, and the movies we so frequently view and in the stories we love.

When seen objectively in stories, we can identify with or despise them, but when their effects are subjective, we are entirely "carried away," "beside ourselves". Sometimes, we choose them to feel special and create drama in our otherwise listless lives - we mistake them for love, for destiny, for the voice of God, for supernatural "signs" in an unenlightened, even superstitious manner. They lie behind religiosity, pathology, and romantic vs. mature love.

Archetypes also lie behind fascinations, crusades, and enchantments of individuals and nations. They produce the phenomena of "love at first sight" and create fads and set trends or styles in the recreation and fashion worlds. They can be contagious as in the case of cults, or political and religious movements. The great attraction of sports is also archetypal in nature.

People will go to war and fight to the death an fanatical "true believers" to defend some political or religious principle. The belief system is influenced by the myth behind it. Charismatic leaders capture the projections of leadership through expressing the subconscious desires of the crown, or herd consciousness (like Adolph Hitler or Jim Jones). Activation of these archetypal powers opens the door for both good and evil, and creates an arena for the emergence of ethics and morals.

Ultimately, though self-awareness is a personal matter we should all tackle individually. Self-knowledge benefits society as a by-product of creating transformed individuals who can "make a difference."

Archetypes also account for the "mysteries" of life. They are behind the fascination with the great unknown. Expressions of this sense of awe, wonder, or mystery pervade such phenomena as ESP, psychic healing, Bigfoot, the Occult, the UFO controversy, etc.

Culturally modified archetypes are behind the modern drive to discover your "roots." These roots are probably physical in that they reflect your genetic heritage. But for some, they are psychological roots, drawn from patterns with which one feels kinship or relatedness. Whatever our belief system, from scientific to religious, rest assured there are a group of archetypal forces behind them.

When we consciously relate to archetypes, they begin to have a personal context, or meaningful place in our lives. This enlarges our ability to experience the transpersonal dimension of the psyche, or soul. By personification, we come to know the qualities and manifestations of the gods in "digestible chunks." We learn more deeply about them on ever-increasing octaves of experience. psychic energy (libido) may, therefore, be thought of as quantized (discreet packages).

We can begin to see Hermes, Athena, Zeus and Themis operating in our lives, even if we can't fully understand the reality they represent in its totality. We can be aware of its effect in our personal domain. In this perspective, the essential focus on "reality" occurs where inner material is being projected from the unconscious into your environment. This affects your work, relationships, as well as your spiritual transformation or process of changing to become what you aspire toward.

The deep mind manifests through these archetypal patterns, personified as gods and goddesses, communicating messages to the conscious ind. with an awareness of how these patterns recur, it is possible to influence your destiny. Many of us are somewhat self-defeating or even self-destructive. We could all benefit by understand these driving archetypal processes, which takes us beyond the normal boundaries of self and society. We suffer from our attenuated version of the archetype.

When you are out of proper relationship to the archetypes you can become "dominated" by them, to the detriment of your life goals and personality choices. They take over and live life through us, in a parasitic fashion when we are not aware of the growth of their agendas within us. When identified, we think these stereotypical thoughts are our thoughts, these feelings our own, this behavior our choice.

It is possible to learn to actively balance exaggerated dominance by any form through applied Creative Imagination. The basic myth themes represent all kinds of life situations, including realities of outer and inner experiences. If the personality is too one-sided, it is possible to revise it by consciously developing the qualities represented by complementary god-forms. This balances the personality and enriches life.

Intro 3:

ARCHETYPES AS A METHOD OF SELF-ANALYSIS & SELF-HELP

Self actualization has to do with high functioning in both the outer and inner worlds of our lives. We can be successful in social and professional life and still be psychologically naive, without a conscious connection to our inner life. Having integrated ourselves into the outer world we can enter our inner world by examining our relationships with the archetypes. Archetypes can't always be subjected to intellectual analysis since they can be elusive.

Direct experiential contact is much more important than analysis. This comes by noticing the archetypal patterns in dynamic motion, or deliberately setting aside time for Active Imagination or perhaps journal work. A conceptual understanding of the range of archetypal manifestations is a useful tool, which we acquire through study, reflection, and application of knowledge. When we notice a pattern in motion in our lives, we can amplify our awareness, tune in on the issue the archetype is highlighting, and discover our feelings consciously related to that dynamic.

Archetypes represent a paradoxical synthesis of opposites and are therefore neither "good" nor "bad" as a prognosis on one's psychological condition. Krippner identifies fourteen mythic polarities: creation vs. apocalypse; nurturance vs. deprivation; achievement vs. failure; completion vs. fragmentation; affirmation vs. cynicism; acceptance vs. debilitation; hope vs. despair; reconcilation vs. polarization; wisdom vs. ignorance; celebration vs. betrayal; rebirth vs. death; questing vs. passivity, and intimacy vs. separation.

What is desirable is the experience of archetypes consciously, not any certain archetypes over others. Each archetype has its values and drawbacks, strengths and weaknesses, conflicts and harmonies. We seek to know the range of archetypes which are within us when we enter the inner adventure -- the hero's or heroine's journey of self-discovery in "foreign countries" -- the unconscious. In this manner we gain in humanity, versatility, wholeness.

Ultimately, the archetypes appear to synthesize together in the grand reconciling figures of the higher Self, which represents our wholeness or illumination. The inner guiding principle of the Self manifests to the conscious mind as the various archetypal forces with their eternal myth-themes or life-patterns.

We know directly when we have been touched by an archetype whenever we experience an exaggerated, irrational, over-emotional reaction. When we seem "out of control" it is because we are taken over by the dominating power of the archetype and are temporarily its slave. This affords us the opportunity to discover a layer of ourselves--that which watches this process impassively and objectively -- The Witness.

Self-analysis gentles some of the fury of the unbound self of the subconscious by developing understanding between conscious and subconscious drives, between the archetypal agenda and the simple human needs of the human personality. Our behavior can only become purposeful and coherent when inner and other goals harmonize. If we turn our attention inward to the archetypes and consider them valuable, they become our allies or guides.

If we watch ourselves continually for those moments when conscious control breaks down, we get insight into the realm of the gods, as well as our shadow, anima/animus, and Self. Watch what creates enthusiasm, anger or depression in yourself and others. Try to peer through to the god-form at the core of symptoms and situations. In this manner we can learn to relate to the play of events from a dispassionate perspective, mellowing over-reactive instinctual tendencies.

We can either be ruled by the archetypes, ridden roughshod, or learn to govern along with them by cooperating with the trends revealed by the psyche, and willingly exploring those spaces. Eventually, the archetypal figures which began as an arcane concept and seemed like strangers will become your constant companions and valued friends and advisors. Some may remain closer to you than others, but all will lie within your spectrum of acquaintance. A sense of inner self-assurance develops and an inner world every bit as enticing as the physical becomes yours.

Intro. 4
THE VALUE OF THE GREEK PANTHEON

Western cultural patterns and scientific thinking have their roots in early Greek philosophy. Even today, a knowledge of Greek myth is included in all basic educations. The value of Greek myth is that it is well-suited for modern people, interested in increasing self-awareness since these gods and goddesses are familiar from schooldays. Here, the Greek pantheon functions less as a religion and more like a psychological framework, accommodating a wide range of psychic fragments and dynamic patterns.

To access this range of attitudes, viewpoints, and corresponding symbols, one cultural pantheon (or family of gods) is actually as useful as another. The key to its utility for personal transformation is a feeling of "resonance" with the archetypes and developing inability to determine a consistent set of characteristics within it.

One value of the Greek pantheon lies in its almost universal familiarity. The rich store of Greek mythologies contain numerous entertaining tales of behavior, to which almost anyone can relate. In viewing these heroes, bunglers, healers, tragedies, and exaltations we see little parts of ourselves in their non-personalized forms. The criterion for self realization includes conscious experiences with the realm of the divine, an ongoing I-Thou dialogue with the gods and goddesses. The elegance, accessibility, and comprehensive nature of the Greek pantheon helps us to rediscover the archetypes of our mindscape and culture.

But perhaps you dance to the tune of a different drummer, or come from an Asian or native culture. Even so, you be able to use these principles to discover keywords to translate the Greek forms into the pantheon of your choice. Tables are provided for this purpose, but you might augment with your own research.

The polytheistic orientation of current psychological practice offers a useful counterpoint to monotheistic religions, which can polarize dimensions such as good and evil. A pantheon represents all points of the spectrum, overlapping and interacting, including essentially human foibles and pathologies. They are all there. Both monotheistic and polytheistic realities constitute psychic reality. They are equally valid approaches, as human history has shown, seeing the one in the many or the many in the one.

Despite individual ethnic backgrounds, our Western cultural heritage traces back to the modes of thought developed by early Greek philosophers. This polytheistic complexity reflects the many complications of our modern lives. The pagan background of religion is shown in examples like the Catholic calendar where days of saints have taken the place of ancient pagan holy days.

The main reason and another major advantage of the Greek pantheon is that a large body of contemporary literature already exists concerning these forms, particularly in Jungian archives. Many common problems have been examined at length by Jungian psychologists, and we can take advantage of this research by applying it in our own quest. These Greek figures may then provide us with forms and categories to aid our understanding of the archetypal dimension.

RELATIONSHIP OF ARCHETYPES TO THE TAROT AND ASTROLOGY

Those familiar with astrology or the Tarot Trumps have entree to the archetypal world of PANTHEON already. They will be meeting their old friend: Venus, mars, Jupiter, or "the magician," "the wise old man," "virgin," "savior," and "devil."

Though Pantheon is not a tarot book, per se, it may be used to augment your divinations or readings. Each god is corresponded with its corresponding trump number. Chapter number = trump number. Use it to see what god is at the core of the tarot trump, and how it may affect your life and feelings. Those well versed on the nature of the planers and signs in astrology will definitely learn some new facets of the archetypes to add to their tools of the trade...to flesh out their ideas of the planetary forces and their interaction.

Archetypes express themselves through their fundamentals patterns of symbol formation. Certain symbols tend to cluster around the nexus point of the archetype. It acts like a "strange attractor" to order those correspondences in a non-linear, chaotic way that is unique in each unfolding. Out collective inheritance is not one of ideas, but of pathways or modes, or states of consciousness, with their classical thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Each godform or archetype has characteristic states of consciousness. Like the tarot trumps these archetypal pathways provide an underlying unity for diverse forms of symbolism. The Tree of Life, tarot, and astrology are metanarratives or systems that hold all of them together in a subtle network.

The powers represented by the tarot trumps and astrological planets are with us in every facet of life, from the most mundane to the most exalted. These powers reside in the earlier and deeper levels of the psyche, but reveal themselves through dreams, myths, and great ideas.

By working with astrology, tarot, or godforms in imagination we open the lines of communication to the subconscious and learn to decipher the messages. These sacred aspects of the archetypes are not separated from their profane images. They manifest directly in a very substantive form. This form is eternally unique. Archetypes gain life and meaning when their motif is embodied or filled out through our personal experience.

Although the origins of the tarot are not clearly defined, these strange and beautiful cards form a system of communications through multi-leveled symbols. They very accurately predicted the archetypes of the collective unconscious as "discovered" and described by Jung and his followers.

Whoever their ancient creators were, they had psychological insight into the workings of the soul of man, and on the nature of the universe. That awareness is inherent; it emerges when the visionary looks within. The tarot is not only a system of divination, but also constitutes a sort of Book of Life. The trumps represent pictorial depictions of pure archetypal forms, as revealed to the various mystics who created each pack.

Since each Tarot trump has an astrological attribution and a god-form, it is a pictorial representation of the Forces of Nature (instinctual forces). Through symbolism, it provides a pictographic presentation of the major aspects of existence.

The position of the card shows the relationship of these different aspects among one another. It may be described as the divine forces of individual creation or emanation, including its purpose and direction. By meditating on the tarot trumps, we activate certain archetypal forces within ourselves, bringing them into consciousness.

The basis of the tarot lies in the Hermetic mystical system known as the Qabalah. The Qabalah also describes mankind's basic inherited pathways. The tarot cards correspond with the 22 letters of the sacred Hebrew alphabet, and the 22 paths of the Tree of Life (the basic Qabalistic consciousness map). By this system of interrelated archetypes, ideas could be exchanged without the necessity of either spoken or written word. Pictures rather than words express ideas, making communication about eternal verities easier between those who speak different languages.

Tarot in its Qabalistic form sets out to show the relation between God, Nature, Mankind, and the Universe. The practical value is that it reveals the harmonies preexisting between signs, symbols, and archetypes, letters, and numbers. It is a bit more abstract than interacting gods and goddesses who behave much like humans with one another. However, it brings all the corresponding symbolism into play and allows us to categorize most objects and behaviors.

Both tarot and the Tree of Life function like a generic filing-system of symbolism and human behavior. A symbol emerges precisely to awaken in our consciousness the memory of that which we inherently know, but don't know we know. If it was conscious, it would be a thought, not a symbol. We can use the tarot imagery in this way as a tool for developing self-realization.

The use of the tarot evokes the associations which we have already formed in the past. Symbols are intended to arouse a thought by means of suggestion, thus causing the truth which lies hidden to be revealed. This book corresponds tarot paths with members of the Greek pantheon. This ensures an orderly unfolding and helps organize the diverse symbolism presented.

Ouspensky once said that only a symbol can deliver us from the slavery of words and formulas, and allowus to attain the possibilities of thinking freely. Jung implied much the same with his free association experiments and technique. Imagination is the "royal road" to our experience of archetypal adventure. The collective aspect of the archetype stimulates the imagination, leading each of us to our unique personal experience of the divine. Our insight helps us see them at work in our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual lives.

Next: The Four Levels of Experience

Intro 6
THE FOUR LEVELS OF EXPERIENCE:

The Tree of life represents the emanations from the Divine Being which created (and IS) the Universe. The Paths leading down from the top (Kether) are stages in the process through which the Universe came into being. If these paths are symbolically and mystically traversed in reverse order, starting at the bottom (Malkuth) and climbed upward, they are the way of the soul's experiential ascent to the divine -- THE PATH OF RETURN (self-realization or enlightenment).

The paths represent access to subjective or personal experience of the unchanging objective energies of the 10 Spheres of the Tree of Life. Each Path belongs to one of the Tarot trumps, whose symbolism contains the key to the Path's nature. No two persons are likely to interpret the symbolism of the card in exactly the same way.

As in life, we may travel the same roads, but we focus on different landmarks along the way. There is a great diversity of opinion, even among "initiates," as to the meaning of these symbols. However, the patterns are quite distinctive and easily associated with the archetypes of the Greek pantheon. The gods and goddesses personify the quality of each path.

The members of the Greek pantheon are introduced by their corresponding Tarot trump. This association allows access to those symbols for a more personal meditation. It is by this multi-sensual (visual, visceral, etc.) image that the goddesses and gods enter our consciousness. This visual image assists personification and identification. Use the Tarot card as a take-off point for our visualization of the godform when trying to dialogue with it, such as imagining Hestia as The Hermit, Aphrodite as The Empress, or Hermes as The Magician.

The format of Pantheon is modularized into four planes of awareness, or "worlds" of experience, to use the Qabalistic term. Each plane resonates with the other planes, giving a depth to the symbolism. Rather than considering these worlds as "real or unreal," we can imagine them as virtual realities. They are simulations symbolic of higher truths, but filtered through our own perception and information-gathering system. Our input system is conditioned by our early experience and other factors, such as belief systems.

Each world is a form or view of the same phenomenon. This depth of symbolism yields a broader perspective from a specific level of awareness. By imaginally "becoming" these symbols you open up whole new states of consciousness for yourself, far wider than your typical human responses.

We live in a universal web of consciousness. But our culture has programmed us to limit our awareness drastically. Some of this programming cuts us off from our bodies and sensuality, other injunctions limit our ability to feel, while others suggest we don't think for ourselves.

The visual image of the god-form assists personification and the process of identification with the god-form. You can experiment with using the Tarot card as a take-off point for your visualization of the god-form when trying to dialogue with it. The card may function as a doorway down the path which leads to the archetype. Just follow the symbols back down deeper and deeper into the more fundamental and primal levels of the psyche.

The "worlds" are categorized in each chapter as follows:

PHYSICAL FORM represents the actual manifestations which affect our five senses. This physical plane is the most accessible region of the subconscious mind. To a great degree our minds do manifest our reality. Just because events are experienced as "real" does not mean they are a content of consciousness. This awareness does not occur until one "plumbs" the psychic depths and can see through to the archetypal core of the situation. This level includes the solidity and tangibility of physical objects. This is where the archetype affects the body through perception or disease.

EMOTIONAL IMAGE represents the world of forces behind the veil of physical things, the Astral Plane. This is where archetypes are perceived in images or mind-pictures. These images on the astral are eternal shape-shifters and change rapidly from one moment to the next. This is the realm of reams and divination, the lunar planes of psychics and mediums. This is the level of intense feelings or affects and creative patterns. It is a formative world where archetypes effect the emotions.

INTELLECTUAL IDEA stands for the region of psychological conceptions concerning archetypes. Known as the (non-Euclidean) geometrical realm of the Causal Body, it is a crystallization of the archetype of the Self. It represents the re-integration of the multiple forms in the figure of the higher Self. It is the level of rational mental thought where psychological understanding occurs. Here a love of images is nurtured and archetypes affect styles of thinking and spontaneous ideas.

SPIRITUAL MYTH represents matrix patterns before they descend into material manifestation, the realm of pre-geometry and information theory. It is from these primordial spiritual myths, this mythic level of the psyche, that form manifests. On this level archetypes communicate through intuition and affect one's spiritual life through belief systems. It is an experience of the Divine. All myths are sacred eternal patterns.

Next: Archetypes as a Means of Self-Realization

Intro8
PRACTICAL TECHNIQUES FOR FINDING AND REALIZING THE GODS WITHIN:

Even with all this discussion on archetypes and imagination, you may still find yourself at a loss how you can recognize and contact these internal forces. The answer is practice, and taking the time to notice what forces are at play, interweaving with your life and your goals. What is fostering you, nourishing you, your ally? What opposes you, thwarts your will, sabotages your dreams for the future?

Two techniques are immediately accessible. One, from Jungian Psychology is known as ACTIVE IMAGINATION. The second, from the Hermetic Qabalah, is known as PATHWORKING. Both build a thorough understanding of the nature of imagination. They are experiential journeys, waking dreams with symbolic interaction with the subconscious that have consequences in real time. Both methods culminate in a spontaneous internal dialogue with personified archetypes, who become guides of the soul.

Soulful exploration of this undiscovered country is possible through imagination -- through consciousness journeys. In fact, soul or PSYCHE IS IMAGINATION. It is both a realm of experience and a human faculty. The mythic layers of the psyche are welded to our thoughts, emotions and behaviors, even our spiritual ideals. Emotions are unlearned reactions to external or internal events, while feelings are thoughts about those reactions. The realm of soul lies between, and joins together those of matter and spirit. In other words, the realm of imagination lies between the physical world and perceptions and the spiritual level of conceptualization and direct epiphany.

We needn't go to sleep to experience this rich inner world. In fact, we frequently get glimpses of it in our daydreams. But daydreams are something our ego makes up to serve its own desires. We make things up in daydreams to be the way we want them. Deeper levels of the imagination simply "happen to us." The scenario doesn't serve the ego, but the higher Self, our wholeness. So compensating factors may be at work and reveal their dynamics. At this level, imagination is autonomous, and we simply immerse ourselves in that stream of consciousness.

Therapeutic process work provides a way and place for applying watchful or sustained attention to our inner imagery. A process helps us penetrate even deeper into the levels of the imagination, or universal consciousness field. The imagination forms a middle ground where life and meaning merge, and are revealed as emergent images.

Imagination is the realm of sacred psychology which approaches the gods through imagining and personifying, rather than through ritual, prayer, and sacrifice with a religious orientation. Imagination is a primary reality with a non-verbal, non-linear logic of its own. Archetypes function like the "strange attractors" of deterministic chaos, ordering the jumbled contents of the psyche. We can learn to orient ourselves to internal and external reality by noticing and responding to the images, sensations and emotions we experience in imaginal encounters. We can make friends with these inner figures, or at least form relationships.

Comprehensive theories of the imagination distinguish three types of imaginative experience: 1) everyday conscious imagining; 2) Jung's active imagination and other process work; 3) archetypal or visionary imagination that is spontaneous. Therefore, active imagination gives anyone entree to the world of imagination. Once you learn this technique, you might try the "visionary" mode, simply by emptying and opening yourself. You can do it either with extreme arousal, such as dancing to exhaustion, or with relaxation techniques. Both will produce vivid experiences. They can be entered as dialogues of ego and Self, I and Not-I, or through direct identification.

The imaginal world is the result of an overlapping of our emotional and higher mental faculties. In metaphysical terms, it consists partly of the Astral and Causal levels of experience. These terms are antiquated, implying a causal relationship. Archetypes are deterministic. Unpredictable at any given moment, they operate in distinguishable parameters and patterns. This is characteristic of a "chaotic system," one that is complex, dynamic, and subject to turbulence. The imaginal world reflects this chaotic, bizarre pattern. It is paradoxical, neither perceptual nor conceptual, but intermediate -- and visceral, as well.

The three modes of interaction of the conscious and subconscious forces in imaginal encounters may be summarized as follows:

1). EVERYDAY CONSCIOUS IMAGINING is where the ego is under the illusion that it is controlling the content of the vision. The ego feels proud of its "fantasy of control" over the fabric of the imagination. But the subconscious has its own surprise in store for the ego, and may respond sooner or later with a wake-up call that shatters the illusion. A powerful eruption of images and emotions can arise that is totally beyond the ego's control or ability to contain them. The ego is swept helplessly into the stream of consciousness.

At this point the ego's image of itself dissolves, fragments or is torn apart. This is known as ago-death. The shattering of the old form of the fragile ego makes way for rebirth in a new form. First, personality is profoundly disrupted. There may be images of dismemberment, apocalypse, near death, etc. The opposing power of the subconscious drives are now brought to the surface in daily life, demanding some form of reconciliation. When we are in crisis, we can no longer cope through our ordinary means of "keeping it together."

2). ACTIVE IMAGINATION is a means of addressing this problem. We gain self-knowledge rather than being merely overwhelmed and impotent to face the challenges life is offering us. Our stunned ego can eventually develop a means of coping with these inner forces; in fact, it is an imperative. When we actively engage the imagination, symbols of the Self appear spontaneously to reintegrate the fragmented personality. This is the cyclic process of rebirth or resurrection. Jung noticed the Self appeared often in mandala forms. We see them in dreams, art, visions, and religious iconography.

Active imagination also involves controlling the direction the imaginal journey takes, but not for the benefit of the ego. It means deepening the process. It ensures the progressive unfolding of an imaginative sequence. Ego works with the tendencies of the psyche, seeking guidance from inner figures to achieve movement into a new situation or level of being. This results n an increased awareness of your internal processes. Active imagination works through visualization and multi-sensory images (kinesthetic, visceral, audial, olfactory). Sometimes the senses meld and appear in non-ordinary ways, such as tasting music.

The practice of active imagination requires six steps:

STEP 1: The preliminary phase requires focusing on your immediate life problems or aspirations. You establish the intent or goal of the operation. If there is a problem or issue, it should be identified. The excursion into imagination should have a well-defined purpose.

STEP 2: Next, empty your mind, dropping into a reverie, or natural trance. Become physically and mentally relaxed. Assume a position where you are comfortable but will not fall asleep. Empty the mind of ego's train of thought. If thoughts crop up, just watch them come and go, dismissing them if they deal with your outer life.

STEP 3: This is the phase of letting go to your unconscious stream of images and letting that absorb your attention. If you are pathworking, visualize the corresponding Tarot Trump at this point, and enter into its virtual scenery. Focus on this image, but not enough to arrest the activity taking place spontaneously. Don't make a frozen picture of it, but don't let it change too rapidly, either, or you will become overwhelmed. If that happens flow with the dizzying whirlpool and let it take you deeper and deeper, and find what is there. The point is to participate fully in the drama, rather than watching yourself like a movie. You must be there with your own values, intentions, wounds, and will.

STEP 4: Active imagination requires an ethical confrontation with the archetypal forces to be truly transforming. You must enter the inner drama with your true personality, not as your ideal. Leave your images of heroism and grandiosity behind. Be the unique person you are in inner, as well as outer life. Once the imaginal experience begins, the ego is engaged and compelled to participate. Take advantage of the opportunity to ask these forces just what they are seeking from you as a mortal being. See if the god-form has any gifts or treasures for you to take back into the day-world.

STEP 5: The gifts of these forces take many forms, some of which are physically and emotionally healing. The idea of this stage is to apply what you have learned in the encounter and make it practical. The god-form may have ordered or asked for certain behavior on the part of the ego. If this does not contradict cultural, moral or ethical laws, you may experiment with these inner directions. Mostly they seek attention. In any event, the contact is established and you know where and to whom to return if there is further need of "discussion."

STEP 6: If you have an intriguing inner journey, and meet the godform in imagination by directing the unfolding of the fantasy, give it some form of expression in your external life. For example, write it down in your journal of inner events or dreambook, paint what you saw, sculpt it, dance it, or play the music you heard there.

NOTE OF CAUTION: There is the chance of repressed unconscious forces breaking through into daily life, overwhelming the ego. If you feel emotionally unstable, seek a therapist to function as a guide on your inner journeys. There is a great deal of energy locked up, or stuck in past traumas, which needs to be released. Active imagination is a means of facing up to and dealing with these shadowy problems.

Active imagination may bring unusual manifestations in its wake, including psychosomatic changes in blood pressure or heartbeat. These are from strong emotions and can be worked through by consciously relaxing yourself, or being physically expressive. Or, you might experience a strong sense of euphoria as the ego identifies with the archetypal forces during the event. There might be a reactionary let-down, but it won't last long.

Synchronistic events, or seemingly magical, meaningful coincidences may appear. Don't let your judgment be blurred by excitement. This is a normal occurrence when working on the inner levels and provides additional insight on the dynamics at work.

GUIDELINES FOR PRACTICE include the following:

1). Maintain a critical distinction between wish fulfillment and the experience of true imagination.

2). There is no rush to experience every god-form or Tarot Path via imagination. Take it slowly, learning and assimilating each new experience thoroughly before going farther.

3). Insure your freedom from interruption during your imaginal excursion.

4). Establish a time limit. It is a good idea to have a trusted friend nearby to monitor you.

5). Record results in your journal of self-discovery, including physical reactions and synchronicities.

6). Never do an active imagination which concerns living people. This especially includes intentional sexual visualizations. This is unethical from the magician's point of view, as it is an encroachment on their True Will. It is a misapplication of the technique.

7). Ground exercises in active imagination by applying the experiences gained in pathworking to daily life.

8). Try to establish contact with your personal "inner guide" who will always offer protection if requested and allowed to do so.

PATHWORKING:

Pathworking, using the qabalistic diagram the Tree of Life has much in common with active imagination. It means taking an imaginal journey to the 'location" of an archetypal form or dynamic group of symbols. Once you recognize imagination is the realm of the soul, you can develop a method for exploring the soul through imagination. The paths of the Tree of Life function as metaphorical "in-roads." Their correspondences (mindscapes, colors, animals, plants, symbols, etc) produce a gestalt awareness of soul through its own system of metaphorical language.

There are three primary modes of pathworking:

1) a trance-like state where the ego is overwhelmed (possibly through drug use) and incapacitated by the forces of the unconscious,

2). "active," and

3). "passive" pathworking.

The first is a regression of consciousness, producing hallucinatory rather than imaginal experiences. Active pathworking is analogous to active imagination. The major purpose of a pathworking is to produce a conscious contact with the archetypal powers connected with the particular path. There are active and passive forms of pathworking, but do not let this glib terminology lead you astray. "Passive" in this sense does not imply the ineffective attitude of type-1 experience. Both active and passive styles are desirable to develop. Passive pathworkng is analogous to visionary imagination, not ego-driven.

Active pathworking is an exercise of the creative imagination. It is an excursion or consciousness journey into the astral plane using clairvoyance. It is a combination of ego, will, and imagination. Pathworking produces a dynamic imagery experience. It surpasses sensory information processing, but precedes conceptual lucidity. This is not a trance state where the images transform freely from one to another, but a disciplined artform, such as music, painting or dance.

Clairvoyance means seeing the inner world with increasing clarity. This clarity comes through the ego's conscious participation. The main use of active pathworking is for introspection.

In pathworking, the will forces the image to maintain certain parameters. They are determined by the qabalistic correspondence system (for the classic attributions, see Aleister Crowley's 777, or The Qabalah of Aleister Crowley").. The "will," in turn, is brought into direct non-verbal contact with the non-rational, with mystery. In other words, the communication is visual or multi-sensory rather than verbal, much like an RPG game.

Pathworking is a dynamic process which requires us to react to situations immediately through our feelings or instincts. It is similar to (but more profound than) some of the X-games which reflect the mythic theme of The Quest. The difference is, in pathworking the Will maintains a sense of responsibility for the ego's behavior on the inner planes. You are more your self, not playing another. All of your faculties are kept alert. Thinking and emotions are immersed in the situation. The ego's forceful elaboration helps ensure unfolding of a particular imaginative sequence.

An active pathworking traces the routes described in Qabalah as the transition stages between spheres. Consciousness moves along them from one state of consciousness to another, following a thread or path of imagery.

A pathworking begins in one sphere, and culminates in the sphere immediately higher on the Tree of Life. For example, the path Art leads from Yesod to Tiphareth, from the lower emotions to the spiritual heart. Some of its correspondences include the moon, color blue, Sagittarius, the centaur, and the goddess Artemis. So, a sample pathworking might consist of a moon-lit journey into a magical forest in the depth of winter, finding a centaur as an ally, and culminating in a conversation with the goddess.

Anytime two particular terminals are used, the traveler establishes a contact with both the "place" and the "entities" who inhabit that psychological "area." With repetition, the imaginal reality of the place is confirmed through personal experience. You can evoke this experience from your own imagination if you try, and become a regular visitor to these spiritual regions.

Always remember, in pathworking return to your point of origin. This is one main reason the ego must be able to maintain concentration and follow-through. If you use a Tarot Trump as the gateway to your experience, definitely pass through it on your way "out." Visualize all you saw on your approach fleeting by on your "return." Ground your pathworking by returning consciousness to its normal condition.

3). VISIONARY IMAGINATION (or archetypal imagination) is analogous to passive pathworking. All images are archetypal, in that they carry enfolded information about primal realities. This form of imaginal journey is termed passive since ego-consciousness is present, though it does not interfere with the emergence and unfolding of psychic imagery.

True vision is a non-directive process. This passive pathworking is actually more advanced because the traveler must employ his creativity or ability to synthesize information. The practitioner requires an ability to deal with the opening of the lower, as well as higher mind. We want to penetrate to super-celestial regions, not suffer an invasion from the primitive unconscious.

This form of pathworking uses a doorway of some type to initiate the experience. This might again be a Tarot card, god-form visualization, or an I Ching hexagram, last night's dream image, etc. The difference is that instead of following procedural instructions on where to go and what to visualize, you allow the pathworking itself to present images spontaneously.

What are describing is revealed in the world's great art. Leonardo da Vinci, Michaelangelo, William Blake, etc. were all visionary artists. Whenever they lived, they exemplified the Renaissance-type of spirit, which lives close to soul and the world of myth and personified archetypal forces. These show on the canvas as demons, angels, gods and goddesses - now in modern forms.

This passive pathworking may be likened in some respects to what is termed "archetypal imagination" in leading-edge Jungian psychology. It is an authentic visionary mode of experience, which produces keen insight through psychological perception.

We need to examine the meaning of "archetypal" if our purpose in pathworking is contacting archetypal powers which embody its dynamic process. Archetypal theory has four general premises:

1). Archetypes are located in the imaginal world of the soul, and are called gods and goddesses since ancient times.

2). Psychopathology, or the negative manifestation which leads to human problems is emphasized. The shadow is confronted in its physical, behavioral, and psychophysical manifestations..

3). Archetypes are extremely important to human behavior and seem to carry a quality of "unkownness" and holiness or divinity.

4). The ego comes to realize it is only one psychological perspective and understands its relative lack of control over the psyche and physical organism.

Archetypal imagination transcends active imagination by offering a method where we can learn to redeem some dignity through our suffering. In archetypal psychology, pathologies (archetypal afflictions) are recognized as an essential component of the human soul. Jung said, "The gods have become diseases."

Therefore, psychologists have explored the divine by insight into the light and dark aspects of the gods. Greek myth is full of different versions of divine images of darkness, death, and perversion, reflecting the world of mental illness and personality disorders. Who could imagine sending Ares for anger management classes? These divine forces are so powerful the ego cannot really "do" anything to them.

Like the Qabalah, archetypal psychology recognizes many varieties of consciousness reflecting the plurality and freedom of styles within the structure of myth. Since there are no procedural constraints in this passive pathworking, what can we expect to experience in this awakened visionary mode? This is the realm of true inner plane contact with the deities revealed through folk tales, classical myths, and in psychology through dreams. Any attempt to engage in the inner life brings a deeper relationship with the unconscious.

To experience a luminous visionary imagination we must become acquainted with the archetypes through personifying their potent forces. An archetypal topography, or psychic road map is of inestimable value here. Qabalah is a generic road map of the psyche. It provides the possibility of interaction of an individual with the divine, immortal forms.

There is a long tradition throughout history which regards personifying as a necessary mode of comprehending the world and our personal existence. It is a way of ensouling psychic powers and getting to know them intimately. Personifying allows us to discriminate among, and love or cherish these forces which make up our very being.

Personification is a path with heart, since it allows us to imagine both through and beyond what our eyes see into the primordial dimension of celestial beings. Living is a special way of "knowing" which arises from personification. The strong feelings aroused by subjective experiences of the soul speak volumes to the heart.

We can develop a passionate engagement with the mythic dimension, gaining access to our creative imagination. Through getting to know the gods within, we learn to see visions and hear voices. We may talk with them and they may talk with each other without us losing our grip on ordinary reality.

We can speak directly to these archetypal forces within. When we do, the basic transformative formula is always the same. In terms of self-analysis there are three distinct steps.

1). IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM. Name the neurotic pattern to loosen its grip on your identity and seek the help of inner spiritual guiding principles. This means you will have to suffer consciousness of your condition. No more "ignorance is bliss." When we recognize our bad habits they seem to amplify. Actually we are much as we have always been, but we have never turned our attention in this direction before. We may suffer a terrible, proud ego (Zeus), or a tendency to dishonesty with ourselves and others (Hermes), or an irresistible urge for an affair (Aphrodite), etc. But our plight will no longer be unconscious once we have named it.

2). Accept that suffering and find meaning in it. Don't be a passive victim; face up to the shadow of outgrown behavior patterns and power-trips. Confront the negative forces of the psyche by mustering inner strength. Once you name a neurotic pattern, you claim it as a part of yourself; to deny this fact is to deny one's wholeness. When you consciously relate to its source, the 'problem' is automatically transformed. It is crying out for attention.

3). Try to accept and manifest the potential strength of the inner self once it is called up. In other words, once you have an imaginal contact with the archetype, try to contact its potential for positive transformation. Experience the more exalted qualities of the archetype as well as its instinctual, compulsive side. For example, the courage and loyalty of Mars, not just the bravado and violence. Don't give up, because to passively withdraw means to stay stuck in neurotic patterns.

Confront inner and outer crises with the reserves of strength accessible through creative imagination.

PRACTICAL TECHNIQUES FOR FINDING AND REALIZING THE GODS WITHIN:

Even with all this discussion on archetypes and imagination, you may still find yourself at a loss how you can recognize and contact these internal forces. The answer is practice, and taking the time to notice what forces are at play, interweaving with your life and your goals. What is fostering you, nourishing you, your ally? What opposes you, thwarts your will, sabotages your dreams for the future?

Two techniques are immediately accessible. One, from Jungian Psychology is known as ACTIVE IMAGINATION. The second, from the Hermetic Qabalah, is known as PATHWORKING. Both build a thorough understanding of the nature of imagination. They are experiential journeys, waking dreams with symbolic interaction with the subconscious that have consequences in real time. Both methods culminate in a spontaneous internal dialogue with personified archetypes, who become guides of the soul.

Soulful exploration of this undiscovered country is possible through imagination -- through consciousness journeys. In fact, soul or PSYCHE IS IMAGINATION. It is both a realm of experience and a human faculty. The mythic layers of the psyche are welded to our thoughts, emotions and behaviors, even our spiritual ideals. Emotions are unlearned reactions to external or internal events, while feelings are thoughts about those reactions. The realm of soul lies between, and joins together those of matter and spirit. In other words, the realm of imagination lies between the physical world and perceptions and the spiritual level of conceptualization and direct epiphany.

We needn't go to sleep to experience this rich inner world. In fact, we frequently get glimpses of it in our daydreams. But daydreams are something our ego makes up to serve its own desires. We make things up in daydreams to be the way we want them. Deeper levels of the imagination simply "happen to us." The scenario doesn't serve the ego, but the higher Self, our wholeness. So compensating factors may be at work and reveal their dynamics. At this level, imagination is autonomous, and we simply immerse ourselves in that stream of consciousness.

Therapeutic process work provides a way and place for applying watchful or sustained attention to our inner imagery. A process helps us penetrate even deeper into the levels of the imagination, or universal consciousness field. The imagination forms a middle ground where life and meaning merge, and are revealed as emergent images.

Imagination is the realm of sacred psychology which approaches the gods through imagining and personifying, rather than through ritual, prayer, and sacrifice with a religious orientation. Imagination is a primary reality with a non-verbal, non-linear logic of its own. Archetypes function like the "strange attractors" of deterministic chaos, ordering the jumbled contents of the psyche. We can learn to orient ourselves to internal and external reality by noticing and responding to the images, sensations and emotions we experience in imaginal encounters. We can make friends with these inner figures, or at least form relationships.

Comprehensive theories of the imagination distinguish three types of imaginative experience: 1) everyday conscious imagining; 2) Jung's active imagination and other process work; 3) archetypal or visionary imagination that is spontaneous. Therefore, active imagination gives anyone entree to the world of imagination. One you learn this technique, you might try the "visionary" mode, simply by emptying and opening yourself. You can do it either with extreme arousal, such as dancing to exhaustion, or with relaxation techniques. Both will produce vivid experiences. They can be entered as dialogues of ego and Self, I and Not-I, or through direct identification.

The imaginal world is the result of an overlapping of our emotional and higher mental faculties. In metaphysical terms, it consists partly of the Astral and Causal levels of experience. These terms are antiquated, implying a causal relationship. Archetypes are deterministic. Unpredictable at any given moment, they operate in distinguishable parameters and patterns. This is characteristic of a "chaotic system," one that is complex, dynamic, and subject to turbulence. The imaginal world reflects this chaotic, bizarre pattern. It is paradoxical, neither perceptual nor conceptual, but intermediate -- and visceral, as well.

The three modes of interaction of the conscious and subconscious forces in imaginal encounters may be summarized as follows:

1). EVERYDAY CONSCIOUS IMAGINING is where the ego is under the illusion that it is controlling the content of the vision. The ego feels proud of its "fantasy of control" over the fabric of the imagination. But the subconscious has its own surprise in store for the ego, and may respond sooner or later with a wake-up call that shatters the illusion. A powerful eruption of images and emotions can arise that is totally beyond the ego's control or ability to contain them. The ego is swept helplessly into the stream of consciousness.

At this point the ego's image of itself dissolves, fragments or is torn apart. This is known as ago-death. The shattering of the old form of the fragile ego makes way for rebirth in a new form. First, personality is profoundly disrupted. There may be images of dismemberment, apocalypse, near death, etc. The opposing power of the subconscious drives are now brought to the surface in daily life, demanding some form of reconciliation. When we are in crisis, we can no longer cope through our ordinary means of "keeping it together."

2). ACTIVE IMAGINATION is a means of addressing this problem. We gain self-knowledge rather than being merely overwhelmed and impotent to face the challenges life is offering us. Our stunned ego can eventually develop a means of coping with these inner forces; in fact, it is an imperative. When we actively engage the imagination, symbols of the Self appear spontaneously to reintegrate the fragmented personality. This is the cyclic process of rebirth or resurrection. Jung noticed the Self appeared often in mandala forms. We see them in dreams, art, visions, and religious iconography.

Active imagination also involves controlling the direction the imaginal journey takes, but not for the benefit of the ego. It means deepening the process. It ensures the progressive unfolding of an imaginative sequence. Ego works with the tendencies of the psyche, seeking guidance from inner figures to achieve movement into a new situation or level of being. This results n an increased awareness of your internal processes. Active imagination works through visualization and multi-sensory images (kinesthetic, visceral, audial, olfactory). Sometimes the senses meld and appear in non-ordinary ways, such as tasting music.

The practice of active imagination requires six steps:

STEP 1: The preliminary phase requires focusing on your immediate life problems or aspirations. You establish the intent or goal of the operation. If there is a problem or issue, it should be identified. The excursion into imagination should have a well-defined purpose.

STEP 2: Next, empty your mind, dropping into a reverie, or natural trance. Become physically and mentally relaxed. Assume a position where you are comfortable but will not fall asleep. Empty the mind of ego's train of thought. If thoughts crop up, just watch them come and go, dismissing them if they deal with your outer life.

STEP 3: This is the phase of letting go to your unconscious stream of images and letting that absorb your attention. If you are pathworking, visualize the corresponding Tarot Trump at this point, and enter into its virtual scenery. Focus on this image, but not enough to arrest the activity taking place spontaneously. Don't make a frozen picture of it, but don't let it change too rapidly, either, or you will become overwhelmed. If that happens flow with the dizzying whirlpool and let it take you deeper and deeper, and find what is there. The point is to participate fully in the drama, rather than watching yourself like a movie. You must be there with your own values, intentions, wounds, and will.

STEP 4: Active imagination requires an ethical confrontation with the archetypal forces to be truly transforming. You must enter the inner drama with your true personality, not as your ideal. Leave your images of heroism and grandiosity behind. Be the unique person you are in inner, as well as outer life. Once the imaginal experience begins, the ego is engaged and compelled to participate. Take advantage of the opportunity to ask these forces just what they are seeking from you as a mortal being. See if the god-form has any gifts or treasures for you to take back into the day-world.

STEP 5: The gifts of these forces take many forms, some of which are physically and emotionally healing. The idea of this stage is to apply what you have learned in the encounter and make it practical. The god-form may have ordered or asked for certain behavior on the part of the ego. If this does not contradict cultural, moral or ethical laws, you may experiment with these inner directions. Mostly they seek attention. In any event, the contact is established and you know where and to whom to return if there is further need of "discussion."

STEP 6: If you have an intriguing inner journey, and meet the godform in imagination by directing the unfolding of the fantasy, give it some form of expression in your external life. For example, write it down in your journal of inner events or dreambook, paint what you saw, sculpt it, dance it, or play the music you heard there.

NOTE OF CAUTION: There is the chance of repressed unconscious forces breaking through into daily life, overwhelming the ego. If you feel emotionally unstable, seek a therapist to function as a guide on your inner journeys. There is a great deal of energy locked up, or stuck in past traumas, which needs to be released. Active imagination is a means of facing up to and dealing with these shadowy problems.

Active imagination may bring unusual manifestations in its wake, including psychosomatic changes in blood pressure or heartbeat. These are from strong emotions and can be worked through by consciously relaxing yourself, or being physically expressive. Or, you might experience a strong sense of euphoria as the ego identifies with the archetypal forces during the event. There might be a reactionary let-down, but it won't last long.

Synchronistic events, or seemingly magical, meaningful coincidences may appear. Don't let your judgment be blurred by excitement. This is a normal occurrence when working on the inner levels and provides additional insight on the dynamics at work.

GUIDELINES FOR PRACTICE include the following:

1). Maintain a critical distinction between wish fulfillment and the experience of true imagination.

2). There is no rush to experience every god-form or Tarot Path via imagination. Take it slowly, learning and assimilating each new experience thoroughly before going farther.

3). Insure your freedom from interruption during your imaginal excursion.

4). Establish a time limit. It is a good idea to have a trusted friend nearby to monitor you.

5). Record results in your journal of self-discovery, including physical reactions and synchronicities.

6). Never do an active imagination which concerns living people. This especially includes intentional sexual visualizations. This is unethical from the magician's point of view, as it is an encroachment on their True Will. It is a misapplication of the technique.

7). Ground exercises in active imagination by applying the experiences gained in pathworking to daily life.

8). Try to establish contact with your personal "inner guide" who will always offer protection if requested and allowed to do so.

PATHWORKING:

Pathworking, using the qabalistic diagram the Tree of Life has much in common with active imagination. It means taking an imaginal journey to the 'location" of an archetypal form or dynamic group of symbols. Once you recognize imagination is the realm of the soul, you can develop a method for exploring the soul through imagination. The paths of the Tree of Life function as metaphorical "in-roads." Their correspondences (mindscapes, colors, animals, plants, symbols, etc) produce a gestalt awareness of soul through its own system of metaphorical language.

There are three primary modes of pathworking:

1) a trance-like state where the ego is overwhelmed (possibly through drug use) and incapacitated by the forces of the unconscious,

2). "active," and

3). "passive" pathworking.

The first is a regression of consciousness, producing hallucinatory rather than imaginal experiences. Active pathworking is analogous to active imagination. The major purpose of a pathworking is to produce a conscious contact with the archetypal powers connected with the particular path. There are active and passive forms of pathworking, but do not let this glib terminology lead you astray. "Passive" in this sense does not imply the ineffective attitude of type-1 experience. Both active and passive styles are desirable to develop. Passive pathworkng is analogous to visionary imagination, not ego-driven.
Active pathworking is an exercise of the creative imagination. It is an excursion or consciousness journey into the astral plane using clairvoyance. It is a combination of ego, will, and imagination. Pathworking produces a dynamic imagery experience. It surpasses sensory information processing, but precedes conceptual lucidity. This is not a trance state where the images transform freely from one to another, but a disciplined artform, such as music, painting or dance.

Clairvoyance means seeing the inner world with increasing clarity. This clarity comes through the ego's conscious participation. The main use of active pathworking is for introspection.

In pathworking, the will forces the image to maintain certain parameters. They are determined by the qabalistic correspondence system (for the classic attributions, see Aleister Crowley's 777, or The Qabalah of Aleister Crowley").. The "will," in turn, is brought into direct non-verbal contact with the non-rational, with mystery. In other words, the communication is visual or multi-sensory rather than verbal, much like an RPG game.

Pathworking is a dynamic process which requires us to react to situations immediately through our feelings or instincts. It is similar to (but more profound than) some of the X-games which reflect the mythic theme of The Quest. The difference is, in pathworking the Will maintains a sense of responsibility for the ego's behavior on the inner planes. You are more your self, not playing another. All of your faculties are kept alert. Thinking and emotions are immersed in the situation. The ego's forceful elaboration helps ensure unfolding of a particular imaginative sequence.

An active pathworking traces the routes described in Qabalah as the transition stages between spheres. Consciousness moves along them from one state of consciousness to another, following a thread or path of imagery. A pathworking begins in one sphere, and culminates in the sphere immediately higher on the Tree of Life. For example, the path Art leads from Yesod to Tiphareth, from the lower emotions to the spiritual heart. Some of its correspondences include the moon, color blue, Sagittarius, the centaur, and the goddess Artemis. So, a sample pathworking might consist of a moon-lit journey into a magical forest in the depth of winter, finding a centaur as an ally, and culminating in a conversation with the goddess.

Anytime two particular terminals are used, the traveler establishes a contact with both the "place" and the "entities" who inhabit that psychological "area." With repetition, the imaginal reality of the place is confirmed through personal experience. You can evoke this experience from your own imagination if you try, and become a regular visitor to these spiritual regions.

Always remember, in pathworking return to your point of origin. This is one main reason the ego must be able to maintain concentration and follow-through. If you use a Tarot Trump as the gateway to your experience, definitely pass through it on your way "out." Visualize all you saw on your approach fleeting by on your "return." Ground your pathworking by returning consciousness to its normal condition.

3). VISIONARY IMAGINATION (or archetypal imagination) is analogous to passive pathworking. All images are archetypal, in that they carry enfolded information about primal realities. This form of imaginal journey is termed passive since ego-consciousness is present, though it does not interfere with the emergence and unfolding of psychic imagery.

True vision is a non-directive process. This passive pathworking is actually more advanced because the traveler must employ his creativity or ability to synthesize information. The practitioner requires an ability to deal with the opening of the lower, as well as higher mind. We want to penetrate to super-celestial regions, not suffer an invasion from the primitive unconscious.

This form of pathworking uses a doorway of some type to initiate the experience. This might again be a Tarot card, god-form visualization, or an I Ching hexagram, last night's dream image, etc. The difference is that instead of following procedural instructions on where to go and what to visualize, you allow the pathworking itself to present images spontaneously.

What are describing is revealed in the world's great art. Leonardo daVinci, Michaelangelo, William Blake, etc. were all visionary artists. Whenever they lived, they exemplified the Renaissance-type of spirit, which lives close to soul and the world of myth and personified archetypal forces. These show on the canvas as demons, angels, gods and goddesses - now in modern forms.

This passive pathworking may be likened in some respects to what is termed "archetypal imagination" in leading-edge Jungian psychology. It is an authentic visionary mode of experience, which produces keen insight through psychological perception.

We need to examine the meaning of "archetypal" if our purpose in pathworking is contacting archetypal powers which embody its dynamic process. Archetypal theory has four general premises:

1). Archetypes are located in the imaginal world of the soul, and are called gods and goddesses since ancient times.

2). Psychopathology, or the negative manifestation which leads to human problems is emphasized. The shadow is confronted in its physical, behavioral, and psychophysical manifestations..

3). Archetypes are extremely important to human behavior and seem to carry a quality of "unkownness" and holiness or divinity.

4). The ego comes to realize it is only one psychological perspective and understands its relative lack of control over the psyche and physical organism.

Archetypal imagination transcends active imagination by offering a method where we can learn to redeem some dignity through our suffering. In archetypal psychology, pathologies (archetypal afflictions) are recognized as an essential component of the human soul. Jung said, "The gods have become diseases."
Therefore, psychologists have explored the divine by insight into the light and dark aspects of the gods. Greek myth is full of different versions of divine images of darkness, death, and perversion, reflecting the world of mental illness and personality disorders. Who could imagine sending Ares for anger management classes? These divine forces are so powerful the ego cannot really "do" anything to them.

Like the Qabalah, archetypal psychology recognizes many varieties of consciousness reflecting the plurality and freedom of styles within the structure of myth. Since there are no procedural constraints in this passive pathworking, what can we expect to experience in this awakened visionary mode? This is the realm of true inner plane contact with the deities revealed through folk tales, classical myths, and in psychology through dreams. Any attempt to engage in the inner life brings a deeper relationship with the unconscious.

To experience a luminous visionary imagination we must become acquainted with the archetypes through personifying their potent forces. An archetypal topography, or psychic road map is of inestimable value here. Qabalah is a generic road map of the psyche. It provides the possibility of interaction of an individual with the divine, immortal forms.

There is a long tradition throughout history which regards personifying as a necessary mode of comprehending the world and our personal existence. It is a way of ensouling psychic powers and getting to know them intimately. Personifying allows us to discriminate among, and love or cherish these forces which make up our very being.

Personification is a path with heart, since it allows us to imagine both through and beyond what our eyes see into the primordial dimension of celestial beings. Living is a special way of "knowing" which arises from personification. The strong feelings aroused by subjective experiences of the soul speak volumes to the heart.

We can develop a passionate engagement with the mythic dimension, gaining access to our creative imagination. Through getting to know the gods within, we learn to see visions and hear voices. We may talk with them and they may talk with each other without us losing our grip on ordinary reality.

We can speak directly to these archetypal forces within. When we do, the basic transformative formula is always the same. In terms of self-analysis there are three distinct steps.

1). IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM. Name the neurotic pattern to loosen its grip on your identity and seek the help of inner spiritual guiding principles. This means you will have to suffer consciousness of your condition. No more "ignorance is bliss." When we recognize our bad habits they seem to amplify. Actually we are much as we have always been, but we have never turned our attention in this direction before. We may suffer a terrible, proud ego (Zeus), or a tendency to dishonesty with ourselves and others (Hermes), or an irresistible urge for an affair (Aphrodite), etc. But our plight will no longer be unconscious once we have named it.

2). Accept that suffering and find meaning in it. Don't be a passive victim; face up to the shadow of outgrown behavior patterns and power-trips. Confront the negative forces of the psyche by mustering inner strength. Once you name a neurotic pattern, you claim it as a part of yourself; to deny this fact is to deny one's wholeness. When you consciously relate to its source, the 'problem' is automatically transformed. It is crying out for attention.

3). Try to accept and manifest the potential strength of the inner self once it is called up. In other words, once you have an imaginal contact with the archetype, try to contact its potential for positive transformation. Experience the more exalted qualities of the archetype as well as its instinctual, compulsive side. For example, the courage and loyalty of Mars, not just the bravado and violence. Don't give up, because to passively withdraw means to stay stuck in neurotic patterns.

Confront inner and outer crises with the reserves of strength accessible through creative imagination.

MYTHICAL LIVING: A METAPHORICAL PERCEPTION OF EXPERIENCE
by Iona Miller, 1983

CREATIVE MYTHOLOGY is another application of awareness of the gods within, or archetypes, in personal mythology. It is the result of combining creative imagination with a mythical perspective on life. When we see through to the mythic patterns enacted in our lives on an on-going basis, we are living mythically as a lifestyle. Our personal history becomes a metaphorical analog of ancient, divine patterns, weaving an eternal tapestry -- Penelope's suitors, Sisyphus' endless toil, the Fisher King's never-healing wound, star-crossed lovers, wunderkind, homebody, philanthropist, etc. Our personal mythology can be revealed by our favorite fairy tale or movie, since we identify with the figures in these dramas and tend to act them out.

Our personal mythic enactments can provide a focal point for our meditation concerning the nature of our existence. We can catch ourselves in the act of being larger than the personal self. When we get caught up in the crises of our archetypal complexes, we are again and again faced with the basic questions of life: "Who am I, where do I come from, and where am I going?" When we consciously seek an answer, we are looking for the meaning of existence. We seek to unfold our awareness of totality, and we begin to see the gods everywhere.

Myth supports all the levels of our human civilization which includes spiritual, social, and individual (or psychological). We seek a return to the mythic dimension to find out how we personally relate to the cosmic order. In the modern search for meaning, we are thrown back on our own resources. For a time, the social limits no longer apply, since they don't provide an adequate model for our experiences.

During this period we gain a vivid relationship to the symbols and dynamics of the subconscious, and reestablish this vital connection. In this rebirth or renewal, symbols take on the highest personal value. What seemed a lifeless concept, takes on depth and life. Development of our latent subconscious powers becomes possible, balancing out the personality.

Myth represents a paradoxical world with exquisite differentiation. For example, the Greeks had different specific names for the gods in their various facets. Thus Hermes could be simultaneously the god of writers, merchants, and magicians besides that of thieves, liars, and opportunists. In each of these aspects he would have a different appellation, or modifier to his name to identify the specific aspect of Hermes in action. Most of the gods also have an infernal or chthonic aspect. It embodies their negative or shadowy nature.

Don't look at myths as prescriptions for living when you find yourself caught in a particular one, or oscillate, or cycle among several. They do not provide solutions to our personal problems if we can but read ahead a few pages; they have their own agendas with our lives -- embodying these natural forces. They won't tell us what step to take next, or right from wrong. Even if we view their manifestations as 'signs from God", they aren't reliable signs as we tend to read them in a biased way, the way we would like things to be.

We obtain their value from participation in mythical consciousness, finding the gods as mythic metaphors living through our daily lives -- our connection with the eternal, the primal, the great cycle. We participate with them in a sort of dance when we recognize their mythic enactments in us in progress, and notice and pay attention to that. Noticing is a form of worship, based on where we place our value and attention.

Mythical living provides us with a background which starts us imagining, penetrating deeper into ourselves, gaining in self-awareness, psychological sophistication. It is a mode of reflection, of direct perception. Myths do not show us the center of ourselves; they reveal that there are several centers, all interrelated with one another in dynamic relationships. We contain the whole pantheon, in a sense.

Personification is also a key for mythical living. It is the mode of viewing these archetypal processes from a psychological perspective, rather than literally or as mere metaphor. We can see them as divine forces, gods and goddesses with which we can have a relationship, a conscious dialogue. This method helps us to love the gods and focus our attention on them, as part of our personal mythology. Man has a symbiotic relationship with the gods. Their names give us the ability to call upon them for their boons.

This process of devotion takes place in the imaginal realm of the heart, and has the power to transmute our outer fate into our inner destiny. It allows our true individuality to emerge. To achieve this, we must turn toward the archetypal realm and actively seek admittance, identify underlying mythic conflict, find the roots of that conflict in the past, and learn to recognize when a guiding myth is no longer an ally and get in touch with mythic renewal -- your new emerging myth.

CHAOS THEORY AND PSYCHOLOGICAL COMPLEXES
by Iona Miller, ©1991

ABSTRACT: There is a similarity between the "strange attractors" of chaos theory and Jung's notion of psychological complexes which may be more than metaphorical. The complex is a meaningful feeling-toned group of representations in the unconscious. It is a sort of manifold of symbolism all relating to the same archetype -- variations on a theme, enfolded in the infrastructure of our subconscious mind. Attractors exhibit their self-iterating capacity in the psyche by demonstrating their attractive or seductive power as phenomena, ideas, theories, moods, and behaviors. The scientific metaphor provided by chaos theory allows us to describe the psyche in terms congruent with physical reality as presently understood in CDS (complex dynamical systems).

That people should succumb to these eternal images is entirely normal, in fact it is what these images are for. They are meant to ATTRACT, to convince, to fascinate, and to overpower. They are created out of the primal stuff of revelation. --C.G. Jung, COLLECTED WORKS, Vol. 9

If the charge of one (or more) of the "nodal points" becomes so powerful that it "magnetically" (acting as a nuclear cell") ATTRACTS everything to itself and so confronts the ego with an alien entity...that has become autonomous--then we have a complex. --Jolande Jacobi, COMPLEX, ARCHETYPE, AND SYMBOL

According to classical Greek myth, only Chaos existed in the beginning. The random element eventually produced Gaea, the deep-breasted earth, or matter. For matter to exist, the force of attraction also had to appear (super-celestial Eros). Uranus, the starry heavens, the evolutionary impulse, is Gaea's first-born child.

In other words, the first descent of matter into the threshold of concrete existence came from a chaotic matrix. Chaos, the gaping maw of open space, is a pure cosmic principle. This cosmic trinity of chaos, matter and attraction lies at the heart of chaos theory, the field of complex dynamical systems (CDS).

Just as the ancient pantheon helped to orient the Greeks as a foundational perspective, CDS provides tools for constructing cognitive maps that really work in a practical way to give us an edge, or advantage, in our own evolution. It gives us phenomena, models, and metaphors such as deterministic chaos, "strange attractors," turbulence, stretching time and folding space, and nonlinear phenomena.

Several Jungian psychologists, most notably Ernest Rossi, have observed that the new science of chaos theory, with its strange attractors, is suggestive of some of Jung's most basic assertions about the psyche. In fact, they have noticed that the concept of "strange attractors" is archetypal in its appeal. In the sciences in general this concept of chaotic attractors has taken on the quality of an activated archetype in collective awareness.

The attractor once again exhibits its self-iterating capacity by demonstrating its attractive or seductive power as a phenomenon, idea, and theory. Chaotic systems display certain characteristics including complex feedback loops, self organization, holistic behavior, inherent unpredictability.

Many of these qualitative descriptors apply directly to Jung's concept of the psyche. It is easy to begin drawing analogies with his concept of the self, complexes, archetypes and their seemingly chaos-infusing effects on the ego and its concepts of control and orderliness.

Jung came upon his theories of the psyche through first-hand empirical observation of his clients. He shared an interest in their hopes, dreams, problems, belief systems, and myths which gave their lives meaning. Jung trusted his perception of psychological phenomena when outlining the characteristics of the complex dynamical system we call psyche.

The complexity of the psyche reflects not only on the issue of mental health and well being. Even more fundamentally it relates directly to issues of survival and evolution. A complex system is more creative and flexible at solving all the problems life has to offer. Heinz Pagel in THE DREAMS OF REASON, (Simon & Schuster, 1988) has suggested that science has neglected the basic relationship between chaos, order, and evolution:

Complex systems exhibit far more spontaneous order than we have supposed, or order evolutionary theory has ignored. But that realization only begins to state our problem...Now the task becomes much more trying, for we must not only envision the self-ordering properties of complex systems, but also try to understand how such self-ordering interacts with, enables, guides, and constrains natural selection. Its worth noting that this problem has never been addressed.

Psychologist Abraham Maslow described the human developmental process as a series of periodic risers beginning with basic survival issues and culminating in self-actualization. The ability to execute one's free will increases exponentially. This is because energy or libido formerly wrapped up in "stuck" patterns becomes available to the ego to use as it chooses.

Despite the fact that Jung had a profound yearning to see a kind of "unified field theory" between physics and psychology, he continued to support his own observations, rather than restrictively tie them to the limited scientific metaphors of his day. Physical science had not yet caught up with Jung's concepts.

His concept of depth psychology based on archetypes (read "attractors") escaped the Procrustean bed of a limited physical worldview. The new sciences at last provide some vindication for his stance that psyche is not different from matter.

In their article, "Jungian Thought and Dynamical Systems" (PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES, Spring 1989, Vol. 20, #1), May and Groder summarize the main feature of Jung's ideas which relate to chaos theory:

Jung's descriptions of psychological phenomena are very similar to system descriptions coming from the new science of chaos...Jung described regular recurrent qualitative forms (archetypes) contained in the specifics of human interaction; he emphasized the polar interactional nature of human phenomena (anima/animus, shadow/light); and he noted the potential for patterns of events related in a way beyond the immediate cause/effect relationship (synchronicity).

"Chaos" is a mathematical/ physical science of dynamical interactions that reveals regular qualitative forms and describes relatedness beyond immediate cause/effect. One of Jung's great contributions was his insistence on the validity of such phenomena in the face of the restricted scientific metaphor of his time. Chaos and dynamical systems now provide "hard" science terms that fit and support Jung's observations.

The scientific metaphor provided by chaos theory allows us to describe the psyche in terms congruent with physical reality as presently understood. It provides a comprehensive metaphor for uniting physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual realities. This is strongly reminiscent of the Hermetic axiom, "As Above, So Below." It provides a bridge for unfolding "heaven on earth," a means of manifesting and grounding spiritual energy, that is not only creative but healing.

A state-of-the-art empirical foundation is essential for any well-grounded philosophy of life and realistic self-concept. It helps us evolve out of the body/mind or nature/spirit split instilled during the era of mechanistic science. Great minds, like Jung, have been moving in this direction waiting for science to catch up.

Consciousness may be an all-pervasive field, but awareness can be imagined more like a flashlight that can be selectively focused on different areas. One can broaden the beam and expand awareness of self to include more and more consciousness through such experiences as psychotherapy, meditation, and a mental grasp of the physical nature of reality.

Newtonian mechanics is great for describing the movement of planets and star systems. Quantum mechanics, with its inherent uncertainty, non-locality, and fuzziness, describes the mysteries of the sub-atomic realm. Humans participate in both, to be sure, but rather than only macro- and micro-systems, we also need one that fits the human scale.

This model needs to be compatible with human capabilities and experience. Humans, though partaking of the macroscopic and microscopic worlds normally focus awareness in a median range. In this median (mesocosmic) range, it seems chaos reigns supreme.

We see chaos in the various forms of turbulent movement and natural growth in nature. We see it in the flight of birds, the seeds of a sunflower, the rapids of a river, the patterns of weather, and much more. And, we see it in our destinies. We even try to find some meaningful ordering principle within that chaos to call divine.

This model of purposeful, though intuitive chaos is perhaps one underlying aspect of the concept of karma. It may not be apparent to an individual why certain types of experiences come, but there seems to be an underlying order and purpose, even though it may remain unconscious.

The choices implied by the free will inherent in chaotic systems seems to switch some responsibility onto the evolving ego and away from chance fate. An act of free will represents rational insight trained upon past experience, self interest, and potential reward.

Chaos theory gives us a visual mathematical language for charting strange attractors in dynamical systems. They can be applied within an individual psyche or to interactive relationships. This technology has already been applied to human behavior. Order and chaos in the emotional realms have been studied by mathematicians and psychiatrists.

Their studies [see PSYCHOLOGY TODAY, May 1989, pg. 21] produced models of a person's chaotic and unstable behavior in comparison to their stable behavior. Stable behavior can be imagined as being like the sky, unstable like mountains, with little pockets or "caves" of serenity within them. According to Jerome Sashin of Harvard Medical School, "if we can get people's mental state to fall into one of those caves, their behavior would stabilize." Perhaps dreamhealing, through the chaos, is the quickest route there. It often goes directly into a symbolic "cave."

Even mental illness may relate to the phenomena of strange attractors in the brain or emotional field. Some researchers believe, for example, that a number of mental disorders, such as manic-depressive illness and schizophrenia, occur when biological regulatory systems cease to operate at their normal, fixed point and change suddenly to another stable but abnormal point.

In chaos theory, when an attractor disappears due to sudden catastrophic change, the system becomes structureless and experiences a term of "transient chaos" before another attractor is found. We can experience identity crisis during major life passages.

Perhaps it is not by chance that Jung's theory of the complexes shares a semantic and essential relationship with complex system dynamics. Both complex and archetypes function like strange attractors, drawing numerous associations around themselves. These psychic nexus points are instrumental in the foundation of belief systems, emotional response, and behavior.

Each archetype has its parameters, but within the myth there are a jumbled myriad of possibilities that play through the personality seemingly at random, at least to the casual observer. Yet each has its agenda and characteristic mode of appearance. The activation of a mytheme in a life is decoded by noticing its corresponding effects, in dreams and waking life.

An individual's personal myth or mytheme might be conceived of as an activated chaotic attractor. In another phase of life, the focus could change to others. Sometimes these transitions are fairly smooth, sometimes competitive, other times catastrophic, sweeping the old structure away in an uncontrollable fashion.

The ego can suffer greatly from this jerking around by the deep forces within, especially if it doesn't have enough information about its purpose to derive meaning from the experience. For some, the disruption may lead to a psychotic break, while for others it opens the door to new freedom and an expanded sense of self, and creativity.

There are many questions which arise within the model of human development based on chaos theory. We can conjecture about why certain attractors or complexes form. We really don't know why some may become prominent and others fade into the background. But we do know that when two or more are competing for divergent behavior and attitudes, the resulting psychic split can be painful, setting up a deep conflict which may not be easy to resolve.

Free choice may be a factor, but our choices are limited by our attitudes concerning what we believe is possible for us. The only solution is to dive to the deepest levels, seeking revolutionary transformation...a quantum leap in consciousness. The first step in understanding how these attractors affect us has to do with our personal complexes, our distorted experiences of raw archetypal power.

CHAOS AND COMPLEX

There are certain obvious parallels between strange attractors and the psychological phenomena of complexes. The complex is a feeling-toned group of representations in the unconscious. It is sort-of a manifold of symbolism all relating to the same archetype -- variations on a theme, enfolded in the infrastructure of our subconscious mind. Complexes may be "hardwired" into our psychic system. We never exist without them and their varying degrees of influence.

Complexes consist not only of meaning but also of value, and this depends on the intensity of the accompanying feeling tones, according to Jung. All of them may show somatic as well as psychic symptoms, and combinations of the two. An unconscious complex acts like a second ego in conflict with the conscious ego, an alter ego.
This conflict places the individual between two truths, two conflicting streams of will, threatening to tear them in two. A complex can engulf or overpower the ego through partial or total identification between the ego and the complex.

A complex may be projected in the form of spirits, sounds, animals, figures, etc. A deeply unconscious conflict might appear as a UFO sighting or even abduction, or some other psychic phenomenon. It is an initiatory call to Mystery.
The ego can take four different attitudes toward the complex:

1. total unconsciousness of its existence
2. identification
3. projection
4. confrontation

But only confrontation, or conscious empathic identification, can help the ego come to grips with the complex and lead to its resolution. Switching back and forth between ego and complex diffuses polarization.

For Jung, the complexes were "focal or nodal points of psychic life, which must not be absent, because if they were, psychic activity would come to a standstill." They constitute those "neuralgic points" in the psychic structure, to which undigested, inacceptable elements, elements of conflict, will cling.

Carrying our complexes is usually painful, embarrassing, and a burden. But just because they are painful does not prove that they are pathological disturbances. We always pathologize, but to what extent, and how do we act on that? All human beings have complexes. They constitute the structure of the unconscious part of the psyche and are its normal manifestations. From the behavioral perspective, personality traits are strange attractors.

Jung asserts that, "Complexes obviously represent a kind of inferiority in the broadest sense--a statement I must at once qualify by saying that to have complexes does not necessarily indicate inferiority. It only means that something incompatible, unassimilated, and conflicting exists--perhaps as an obstacle, but also as a stimulus to greater effort, and so perhaps, as an opening to new possibilities of achievement." Jung also held that certain complexes stem entirely from an actual situation, above all those which appear in the spiritual crises of middle life.

Some complexes have never been in consciousness before. They grow out of the unconscious and invade the conscious mind with their weird and unassailable convictions and impulses. They interfere with the ego complex and functionality.

Jung also believed that certain complexes arise on account of painful or distressing experiences in a person's life. When we experience trauma, we may "get a complex" about something. These unconscious complexes are of a personal nature. They are one source of [post traumatic] subliminal stress.

But there are also others, autonomous subpersonalities, that come from a source having nothing to do with our daily life. They have to do with the deepest irrational contents of the psyche--that which has never been conscious before. Jung termed them shadow, anima/animus, and self.

Unlike the contents of the personal unconscious which seem to "belong" to us, the contents of the collective unconscious seem alien (Not-I), as if they had invaded from outside. The reintegration of a personal complex has the effect of release and often of healing (mental and physical). But the invasion of a complex from the deep collective psyche is a disturbing, even threatening, phenomenon.

The parallel with the primitive belief in souls and spirits is obvious. This is where those energies and images come from. Souls correspond to the autonomous complexes of the personal unconscious. Spirits are those of the collective unconscious.

In psychotherapy, only a certain number of complexes, varying with the individual, can be made conscious. No one can ever fathom the entire contents of the psyche or self. To attempt to do so would be superheroic, an ego error. It is grandiose to consider. The remaining complexes continue to exist as "nodal points" as "nuclear elements," which belong to the eternal matrix of every human psyche. They remain potential and do not unfold into the objective world.

Although psychic energy operates continuously, it is "quantum-like" in nature. The quanta in our comparison are the complexes, innumerable little nodal points in an invisible network.

According to Jung and Jacobi,

In them, as distinguished from the "empty" spaces, the energy charge of the unconscious collective psyche is concentrated, acting in a manner of speaking, AS THE CENTER OF A MAGNETIC FIELD. If the charge of one (or more) of these "nodal points" becomes so powerful that it "magnetically" (acting as a "nuclear cell") ATTRACTS EVERYTHING TO ITSELF and so confronts the ego with an alien entity, a "splinter psyche" that has become autonomous--then we have a complex. [Emphasis added by editor].

If that entity expresses through mythical or universal transpersonal imagery, it has originated in the collective unconscious. If it is contaminated with individual, personalistic material, if it appears as a personalized conflict, then it has emerged from the personal unconscious.
In summary complexes have:

1). two kinds of roots - infantile trauma or actual events and conflicts.
2). two kinds of nature - pathological or healthy.
3). two kinds of expression - bipolar, positive and negative.

Complexes, as strange attractors of undefined psychic energy, actually are the generic forms and dynamic structure of the psyche. The complexes themselves are essential, healthy components of the psyche, unless they have been twisted by fate.

What comes from the collective unconscious may be intense, but it is never "pathological." All our sickness comes from disturbances in the personal unconscious. This is where pure complexes are colored by our individual conflicts.
When the complex is cleared of the emotional baggage of the personalistic expression, its true, pure, archetypal center shines through. The personal was superimposed over the transpersonal, but that can be changed with therapy, by raising it into conscious awareness. Then the nucleus or archetypal core shows through.

When the conflict seems unresolvable for consciousness, when its desires are continually thwarted, we often find that it is the contents of the collective psyche that are intractable. If a complex remains only a greater or lesser strange attractor in the deep psyche, if it doesn't swell up with too much personal baggage, then it usually stays positive. It functions as the energy-giving cell from which all psychic life flows. But if it is overcharged it can turn negative, in the form of neurosis or psychosis.

Erich Neumann commented in THE ORIGINS AND HISTORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS:

We can see in pathological cases, in fixed or compulsive ideas, manias, and states of possession, and again in every creative process where "the work" absorbs and drains dry all extraneous contents, how an unconscious content attracts all others to itself, consumes them, subordinates and co-ordinates them, and forms with them a system of relationships dominated by itself.

When the conscious mind cannot cope with these contents, the result is fragmentation, disorganization, disintegration -- chaos. The role of the complex is determined by its interaction with the conscious mind, what states it creates. Without understanding, it de-stablizes the personality.

But in so doing, it opens the possibility of re-stabilizing at another level. It takes understanding, assimilation, and integration of the complex to appease its destructive energy. Otherwise the conscious mind falls victim to a regression and is engulfed by the deep psyche. Back to square one of the hero quest -- dragon-slaying.

The danger, anxiety, and stress produced during a confrontation with complexes of the transpersonal psyche can create a personal catastrophe. Catastrophic chaos usually leads to what is called a bifurcation or splitting of the energy in two different directions. The experience may be shattering. But sometimes regression serves the process of evolution and leads to creative transformation and renewal of the self. Therefore, the potential benefit makes the risks worthwhile. It may lead to artistic creativity and expression.

REFERENCES:

PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES, Vol. 20, Number 1, Spring-Summer 1989.

Jacobi, Jolande, COMPLEX, ARCHETYPE, AND SYMBOL, Princeton University Press, 1959.

Neumann, Erich, THE ORIGINS & HISTORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS, Princeton University Press, 1954.

Ionasphere Homepage Chaos Theory http://www.oocities.org/iona_m/ChaosTheory/CTintro.html

A Living Principle

There is a pre-physical, unobservable domain of potentiality in quantum theory -- countless nonlocally entangled quantum states of different magnitudes. It is the basis of fundamental interconnectedness and wholeness of Reality. The cosmos is fractal (the same pattern of wholeness is found at every scale) and holographic (the wholeness is present everywhere and within every entity), as well as synergetic (the whole is greater than and unpredictable from the sum of the parts).

Fractal geometry maps reality in a numerical fashion as it exists in the micro and macro realms. Fractals are one of the keys to life, reflecting the multidimensional nature of consciousness. Digital mapping is broadcast within the electromagnetic spectrum and throughout eternity. The wholeness of each fractal level contains many probabilities as superpositions. Apply this to holography and we may have something approaching reality.

In a holographic universe, even time and space can no longer be viewed as fundamentals. Concepts such as location break down in a universe in which nothing is truly separate from anything else, including time and three-dimensional space. Fractal distribution of galaxies may be interpreted as a signature of holography (``fractal holography'').

The human body is not an object in space, but seamlessly welded to the cosmic fabric of reality. We are not merely a phenomenal body of flesh, but one of awareness, of consciousness, a living interface of inner and outer field phenomena. The brain is not confined to our skull, but permeates our whole being through the intracellular matrix and sensory system, as well as the strong EM fields generated by the beating heart.

Archetypes are rooted in or emerge from the holographic source field as attractors that govern their evolution over time, or rather a set of physical properties toward which a system tends to evolve. The archetype's evolution through the set of possible physical states is nonperiodic (chaotic). Chaotic systems manifest as self-similar fractal or reiterative structures that repeat at all levels of observation. Its set of states defines a fractal set. Patterns repeat at all scales. Organization is present within the randomness but its future state remains unpredictable.

Holograms contain many dimensions of “compressed” information in a subtle network of interacting frequencies. Interference patterns of waves can be visualized interacting like ripples on a pond. At the quantum level they create matter and energy as we perceive them as lifelike 3-dimenional effects. Consciousness and matter share the same essence, differing by degrees of subtlety or density.

All potential information about the universe is holographically encoded in the spectrum of frequency patterns constantly bombarding us. The infinite set of states never settles into equilibrium, periodicity, or resonance. Transpersonal experience creates a new interpretation, or perspective on reality. Systems arise from positive feedback and amplification. Thus, archetypes introduce erratic behavior that leads to the emergence of new situations, including creative insight.

"In a letter to P.W. Martin (20 August 1945), the founder of the International Study Center of Applied Psychology in Oxted, England, C.G. Jung confirmed the centrality of numinous experience in his life and work: “It always seemed to me as if the real milestones were certain symbolic events characterized by a strong emotional tone. You are quite right, the main interest of my work is not concerned with the treatment of neuroses but rather with the approach to the numinous. But the fact is that the approach to the numinous is the real therapy and inasmuch as you attain to the numinous experiences you are released from the curse of pathology. Even the very disease takes on a numinous character” (Jung 1973, 1: 377). . . The individuation process, as proposed by Jung and his followers, typically includes experiences of a numinous nature." (Stein)

Individuation is a deeply symbolic "Journey" of analysis and synthesis, making multifaceted psyche conscious from its symptomology -- ego's unconscious identifications and archetypal power and influence. First comes detachment and separation of archetypal elements. We confront the awesome and numinous "Other" with astonishment and wonder, deepening the process until we gaze into the blank face of cosmic Void.

The Kabbalists introduced a blessing to be recited before all positive commandments: “Behold I perform this commandment for the sake of the yihud [unity] between the Holy One, blessed be He, and the Shekhinah”. Every
human act serves to advance the communion within the divine. The mysteries connect the span of life with the symbol of death and renewal. The central symbol of the“process” is the creation of the world, its destruction and restoration.

But, this path doesn't end like the mystics in worshipful union with the Divine as either Void or Plenum, but in the unique stabilized wholeness described by alchemists as the ultima materia or the Philosopher's Stone -- a sort of Unified Field Theory of the psyche. Rather than being about "God", it is about human potential. Each life is specific and special – at once unique and reflective of myriad lives within lives. In a holographic concept of reality the part is not only contained within the whole, the whole is contained in every part, only in lower resolution.

The wave-particle nature of light goes to the heart of quantum mechanics and in much the same way the dual incorporeal essence and manifest aspects of archetypes describe the magnetic dynamics which form and define the psychic field. From the cosmos -- the dynamic matrix, the “mind stuff” – infinitesimal “particles” and human beings emerge, all capable of intercommunicating, not only locally but also, instantaneously, beyond space/time.

We are increasingly substituting organic models for mechanical ones, and shifting from structure-orientated to process-orientated thinking. Wholeness is neither a dogma nor ideology but a living, dynamic, all-pervasive principle. We can view the world in terms of universal flux of events and processes. Differentiation is the essence of creation.

Classical science is about taking reality apart, and then examining those parts, Systemic science is about experiencing the resultant Whole of parts relating together. Examination of a single part does not reveal the wholeness of parts. The truth lies in the relationships between parts -- not what things are called but what things are doing together.

According to Jung (1916): "What you should never forget is that the Pleroma has no qualities. We are the ones who create these qualities through our thinking. When you strive after differentiation or sameness or after other qualities, you strive after thoughts which flow to you from the Pleroma, namely thoughts about the non-existent qualities of the Pleroma. While you run after these thoughts, you fall again into the Pleroma and arrive at differentiation and sameness at the same time. Not your thinking but your being is differentiation. That is why you should not strive after differentiation and discrimination as you know these, but strive after your true nature. If you would thus truly strive, you would not need to know anything about the Pleroma and its qualities, and still you would arrive at the true goal because of your nature. However, because thinking alienates us from our true nature, therefore I must teach knowledge to you, with which you can keep your thinking under control." (Translation by Stephan A. Hoeller, © 1982)
http://www.gnosis.org/library/7Sermons_hoeller_trans.htm

As expressed by Robert Newman, "The source of our life and potential is our fundamental and transpersonal awareness; that formless force is our life-itself. Our primary awareness is our transpersonal nature. There's a longing for awareness because we're already touching it. The tendency to awaken is based on our inherent capacity for recall in awareness-itself. The past has no power to stop you from being present now, where the magic of life is; but the hyperactive mind/emotion is only still in short gaps, natural breaks, before we lose awarenress of space, whether we do religious practice or not. Living in the present moment is unlimited life. Presence is a whole body phenomenon that transcends the body. Presence becomes a globalized sense of aware aliveness."

GNOSIS
DIRECT KNOWING, EMERGENT WISDOM, PSYCHE AS A SOURCE OF KNOWLEDGE

…nature exists without human aid, can deal with her processes herself, has everything in herself to bring about transformations, to move from the depths to the heights and down into the depths again. ~Jung, Modern Psychology, Page 42. We can experience gnosis not as a medieval belief but because
it happens to us unsought and unexpected. Gnosis is not Gnosticism. It doesn't require belief, scripture, or Apocrypha. The transformative perspective, observable in its real effects, unlocks the hermeneutics of the creative imagination. The life of the unconscious goes on within us without our conscious knowledge.

Gnosis is an emergent property, not merely an introverted religious attitude. Embracing gnosis does not mean embracing Gnostic dogma or medieval doctrines -- participatory convictions based on personal desires and fears. The secret is inside the creation and based in the study of nature and our own nature. We become more integrated by bringing more of the unconscious and mythic into consciousness.

Can we find the absolute in the depths of our soul -- the very source of symbols? Even physics declares our personal experience is profoundly subjective. There are two principle attitudes -- devotion and gnosis. Gnosis is not a philosophy, nor a way to rationally comprehend the world.

All that is knowable is our immediate subjective experience. Our most personal "I" is our core subjective experience which is identical to awareness. That awareness is the ground where the objects of awareness -- sensations, thoughts, images, memories, and emotions -- fluctuate and intermingle. Fundamental awareness has no intrinsic form, content, or characteristics. So awareness is less about the dualism of mind and matter or polarized good and bad, but more about the dualism of awareness and the contents of awareness.

Gnosis is not a ready-made religion but a more comprehensive view allowing psyche to speak for itself in dream, active imagination, synchronistic phenomena, premonitions, mythic living, and creative expression. "Self-redemption" is an arduous path that leads through self-deception. Insights in self-understanding come through grace, not labor or merit.

Gnosis is a spontaneous personal event of primordial psychic experience. Empirical experience of the psyche may appear in modern dreams and experiences of the collective unconscious may be reflected in gnostic literature, but are not derived from it. Those lacking such experience can never understand it, but that does not nullify its existence. Getting it conceptually is not the same as knowing it experientially, thus, all "esoteric" secrets remain concealed from the uninitiated.

Continually recurring fundamental ideas can arise from the archetypal potentials of objective psyche. Generally similar ideas are modified by era and context. We can recognize their archetypal core. Archetypes are the psychophysical interface of emotion and energy, linking inner and outer realms.

Such numinous assertions and feelings produced by psyche may or may not express universal 'truths'. We perceive the psyche with intuition, but not everyone has discriminating intuition and clarity. Our universal vision is as limited as our rational and irrational human vision.

True gnosis is an expansion of consciousness, but according to one's concepts, beliefs, and assumed truths (psychological presuppositions), intuition can produce understanding or danger and destruction. Jung observed that belief is transformed into gnosis by individuation. Eternal knowledge or perennial wisdom is not intellectual.

We imagine we are imagining "the real" but such consciousness can be used correctly or incorrectly. Because the psyche and archetypes are bi-polar they can produce either wisdom or utter nonsense. There is the path through the labyrinth that is a descent to the underworld, but there are also false paths, deceptions, and dangers on that path. Rationality cannot eliminate the irrational but is part of the same phenomena. Beliefs arise from lack of experience and knowledge of psychic dynamics. More than one heart has been misled.

Some manifestations are simply misguided inner authority or inferior notions, ideas, images, motivations, emotions, and the disturbances they create. A sense of certainty is no guarantee of accuracy. Experience is mythic, projective, and subjective. All of it adds up to nothing without psyche's infusion of value and meaning -- living psychological process. Conscious and unconscious comprehension are united by myth, which is preconscious and therapeutic.

We must be modest, not mistaking 'our truth' for 'the truth'. Yet, it remains important to continue to pursue the search for truth in our lives. We are led inside ourselves by the assimilation of myth -- an inner journey. Sapientia Dei is revealed through the archetypes. The holistic perspective on external and internal mirrors the alchemical "unus mundus." Today the same Gnostic or alchemical symbols and motifs arise from the collective unconscious. But the Promethean creative spirit goes largely unnoticed.

Gnosis is a general human phenomena which can appear any time, anywhere, independent of tradition. Experiential knowing is a spontaneous creative phenomenon that reflects a rich reserve of ideas and images absorbed consciously and unconsciously, newly organized in novel ways -- familiar material placed in a surprising and creative context -- an achievement of particular genius.

Copyright © 2010-2015 Iona Miller, All Rights Reserved.
iona_m@yahoo.com
FAIR USE NOTICE
This site may contains some copyrighted material which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. This constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law, in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

PANTHEONHolographic Godsby Iona Miller, 1983-2015

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

PANTHEON
Holographic Gods
by Iona Miller, 1983-2015