NOTE: The observant reader will perceive that concepts originally developed in this chapter have been cut and pasted into some of my subsequent work, notably Psychedelic Shamanism and The Cracking Tower.As it became unlikely over time that the present document would ever see print, I shamelessly mined its material for more publishable venues. I beg the reader’s indulgence for this. The data are complex, closely argued, and easily bear repetition.

 

CHAPTER TWO

THE DIMENSIONAL NATURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

 

As wide as is this space [around us], so wide is this space within the heart. In it both sky and earth are concentrated, both fire and wind, both sun and moon, lightning and the stars, what a man possesses here on earth and what he does not possess: everything is concentrated in this [tiny space within the heart].
Chandogya Upanishad , 8.1.5.

This much we know for sure:

1. We are born in a physical body which experiences a spacetime dimension of reality on a planet which orbits a star in a multiverse of other stars.

2. We live for an indeterminate number of revolutions of this planet around our sun, but seldom more than a hundred.

3. We die. That is, our body permanently loses consciousness and is re-absorbed into the basic compounds and elements which comprise the planet.

We're born, we live, and then we die. Nobody can argue with that: We are temporary creatures in this spacetime dimension.

We have no memory of consciousness before our birth. The events which occurred previous to our awareness here are known to us as "history." Like the newspaper version of events in the present, history is an uncertain image of what may have happened in the past, and the events of the future are even more nebulous.

All that we can know empirically takes place in the present -- a present in which consciousness is periodically interrupted by sleep. During these dormant cycles, our awareness is eclipsed by a darkness which is occasionally punctuated with dreams wherein ambiguous images act out enigmatic dramas. For the most part we ignore these cerebral events. Some people claim no memory of them at all, and in most quarters it is considered a measure of one's grasp of reality to ignore dreams and remain focused on practical matters: the getting of a living and the engagement with what will tomorrow be called history, but today is called "real life."

Thus it is that the temporary and intermittent consciousness of a physical spacetime dimension is generally considered the standard for what is real, and the dark and nebulous, night-time awareness of a dimension akin to eternity is deemed illusory and unreal. And since human life in spacetime is both uncertain and ephemeral, it is a common cultural assumption that the consciousness which animates the human body is equally temporary: We are impermanent, even incidental creatures, and that's all there is to it.

If there were no such things as dreams and other autonomous emanations from the unconscious psyche, this view would be justifiable. But the fact is that the materialistic conception of reality which still dominates Western thought can only be sustained by ignoring the night-time half of our awareness. To claim that the day is real, but the night is not is simply incorrect.

It may well be said that the contemporary cultural consciousness has not yet absorbed into its general philosophy the idea of the unconscious and all that it means, despite the fact that modern man has been confronted with this idea for more than half a century. The assimilation of the fundamental insight that psychic life has two poles still remains a task for the future. (1)
Jung -- Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Psychic life, which is to say human life, has two poles: the conscious and the unconscious. By conscious is meant the subjective experience of being in a body which is aware of both an external world of objects and an internal world of thoughts, feelings and drives. By unconscious is meant the subjective experience of unwilled autonomous thoughts, feelings and drives which emanate from "somewhere" within our awareness. These latter usually take the form of dreams, hypnogogic imagery and unwilled affects or emotions. In the symbolism of the psyche, consciousness is associated with light, and the unconscious is associated with darkness.

These daytime and nighttime realms of awareness are commonly experienced as a continuously shifting continuum ranging from alert wakefulness to deep dreamless sleep. Hence, it may be logically inferred that the two realms are one, though we usually experience them as separate. (The continuum "in itself" is a whole, though we perceive it as many different states of being -- from outer to inner and back again.)

It must be emphasized that both conscious and unconscious awareness is subjective. Each of us perceives our apparently common world from the unique point of view of a separate, individual personality. This is because we live in a multiverse, not a universe. (Logically speaking, only the universe itself is capable of perceiving itself as One.) From the standpoint of everyday awareness, the concept of a universe is an abstraction -- we can imagine it as One, but we experience it as many. (For the moment I am ignoring the experience of the mystic, which is precisely the shifting of awareness from the many to the One. The overwhelming mass of humanity is still dealing with multiplicity.)

Hence, each differentiated, self-conscious entity by definition perceives subjectively: From the scientist who devotes his life to the pursuit of "objective" truth, to the most irrational hysteric, we cannot avoid the fact that each of us is a separate, individual, subjective observer of a multiverse. And let us not forget that this multiverse is both inner and outer, since those who pay close attention to the events in their unconscious soon discover a "beyond within" at least as infinite as the outer realm of stars and galaxies.

This is not to claim that there is no objective universe, only that all non-mystical experience of it is of a multiverse. To that extent, there are as many multiverses as there are observers. The universe itself may be thought of as the sum total of all subjective experiences of it, plus what it is "in itself."

"Objectivity" then is only a relative standard of perception -- an utterly essential and invaluable concept, but ultimately incapable of realization via ordinary rational processes. True objectivity (the mystical state of consciousness), since it is One, by definition transcends all categories of differentiation and is hence incapable of being described. It is one of life's greatest ironies that true objectivity may only be experienced subjectively!

Human perception then, is identical with subjective awareness which is divided into two distinct realms of "that which is perceived": an internal realm (the mind, both conscious and unconscious), and an external realm (the physical multiverse, also called spacetime). This is the ground of what it is "to be," and all metaphysics, all psychology, must begin from this point.

Metaphysics, literally the study of that which lies "beyond the physical," can semantically only refer to realms of consciousness. That which cannot be identified with the exterior multiverse (the matter-energy continuum) belongs to the realm of awareness -- perhaps not always exactly the "unconscious" per se, but certainly including the interior multiverse we have so labelled. Metaphysics is that branch of philosophy which deals with ultimate questions of reality. (Obviously, in order to know how to live properly one should have a concept of what, if anything, life is all about.) Unfortunately, the realm of metaphysics lies beyond the relative objectivity of the scientific method, therefore the possibilities of erroneous perception are amplified enormously.

Psychology is the study of the human psyche. Because it deals with ineffable inner states, it is also largely immune to scientific method, and hence vulnerable to error. If only there were some way of finding universal patterns in the psyche and of correlating these patterns with the aims of metaphysics, we would have a plausible standard by which to live properly -- which is to say: to make valid choices in our lives.

The great Swiss psychologist C. G. Jung devoted his life to the exploration and study of the unconscious realms of the deep psyche and their interface with the questions of metaphysics. One of his main contributions to the field was his differentiation of our often unruly inner images into comprehensible categories. Jung re-defined the human psychic template on the basis of empirical scientific observation: rather than the gods and demons of a complicated theology, he differentiated no less wonderful inner drives, complexes and archetypal forces which comprise the raw hidden energies informing our choices. Those who are interested in tracing his line of reasoning will find that Jung's description of the psyche is a modern paraphrase of the ancient Gnostic conception of the multiverse.

In a television interview held shortly before he died, Jung was asked if he believed in God. "I don't believe...", he began, and then after a dramatically long pause continued: "...I know." This is the unmistakable statement of a Gnostic -- one who "knows." Gnosticism is "knowing" as opposed to "believing" -- a distinction described in the Taoist proverb: "He who knows does not speak. He who speaks does not know."Knowing in this sense can only be experienced, and it cannot be communicated except indirectly via symbolism. Perhaps the proverb could be more succinctly stated as: "Believers speak, knowers can only point." A full and true gnosis then, is the subjective experience of objectivity -- that attainment of Oneness which is beyond description because description is differentiation, and differentiation is, by definition, not Oneness.

Analytical (Jungian) Psychology is a gnostic system, as is the Kabbalah, the mystical branch of Judaism. There are many such systems -- among which are Tibetan Buddhism and the psychic world-view of "Seth," the discarnate personality who spoke through the late trance medium, Jane Roberts. Gnostic symbolism, no matter where it comes from, is amazingly consistent and suggests a core gestalt or operating template within the unconscious psyche. Recent research into the functions of the left and right hemispheres of the brain support a gnostic view of the personality, as does evidence now emerging from the study of Multiple Personality Disorder. These and other findings provide a new doorway into the study of the unconscious.

Briefly, crudely, and from the author's necessarily subjective synthesis, the gnostic model of the cosmos is something like the following:

1. Differentiated existence (the multiverse) was created when a Divine Unity emanated from itself paired opposites called "syzygies," which are mated male and female powers.

2. From the symbolic intercourse of these paired opposites was born a vast multiverse of worlds and dimensions: both what we call "physical" worlds as well as worlds of matter so subtle that we would label them thought, emotion or intuition. This multiverse is called by gnostics the "Pleroma," which means "fullness" in Greek. It is indeed a fullness, for it constitutes everything that exists in all possible dimensions of differentiated reality.

3. Powerful hierarchies of intelligent entities evolved to take their niches in these subtle realms -- much in the way we inhabit our physical dimension. Because of the limitless differentiation within the Pleroma, these intelligences of necessity express all possible nuances of being and meaning: from gods and angels to daemons and devils; from the personalities of starfish to the patterns within the genetic code.

4. Our spacetime world was created by more or less inferior "inner" powers -- not by the supreme Godhead, which is a seamless unity, but by lesser intelligences who use our world for the purpose of experiencing a physical dimension through the human body and psyche.

5. Human beings are essentially the slaves and puppets of these entities. The gnostics called them "archons," which is the Greek word for "authority," or "ruler." Because the human psyche is a microcosm of the multiverse, each of us is a composite being -- not a unity, but a multiplicity. It is only our illusion of unity which enables the archons to rule our lives, and we experience their rule in the form of thoughts, emotions, drives and instincts.

6. The gnostics assert that Yahweh, the god of Judaism and Christianity (and by extension any differentiated deity) is not the supreme Godhead: any deity with a distinct personality cannot be identical with the Godhead because the latter is a unity which transcends all characterization.

7. "God" (with a capital "G"), for the gnostic is not a being, but a state of being. One either experiences this ineffable state of consciousness, or experiences a state of separation from it. It follows that to defer to the lesser archonic powers is to ensure one's continued bondage to a differentiated existence in the Pleroma.

8. The gnostic, realizing this situation, seeks to transcend the Pleroma, the multiverse, and attain a state of Oneness in the Godhead, the universe as it is "in itself." Since gnosticism postulates re-incarnation as one of its main tenets, to be united with the Godhead meant that any individual soul who could accomplish this was freed from re- birth in the multiverse.

 

We will now briefly look at Jung's conception of the psyche and see why it is considered a gnostic system. (For the purposes of this chapter I will try to confine myself to the Jungian version of gnostic terminology as much as possible because it reflects the scientific expectations of our era.)

Jung differentiated three main foci within the greater psyche: the ego, the archetypal complexes, and the Self. It is absolutely essential that the reader understands these distinctions, as the proper comprehension of this interpretation of the psyche is utterly dependent upon them.

THE EGO COMPLEX

The ego is the complex of conscious awareness of a physical spacetime dimension. You are almost certainly focused in your ego mode of perception as you read these words. (We will discuss the role of the ego in more detail later.)

THE ARCHETYPAL COMPLEXES

The archetypal complexes are not as easily comprehended -- Jung identified them with the instincts, but also implied that they were something more. If one carefully monitors the feelings, emotions, appetites and drives which spontaneously emerge into awareness from the psyche, but refuses to act on them or identify with them, one soon begins to realize that these forces behave exactly like autonomous entities. That is, they behave like others. This is a subtle as well as disturbing distinction to make, because we are used to seeing ourselves as unified, rather than composite beings.

The so-called unity of consciousness is an illusion. It is really a wish-dream. We like to think that we are one; but we are not, most decidedly not. We are not really masters in our house. We like to believe in our will-power and in our energy and in what we can do; but when it comes to a real show-down we find that we can do it only to a certain extent, because we are hampered by those little devils the complexes. Complexes are autonomous groups of associations that have a tendency to move by themselves, and to live their life apart from our intentions. I hold that the personal unconscious, as well as the collective unconscious, consists of an indefinite, because unknown, number of complexes or fragmentary personalities. (2)
Jung -- Analytical Psychology -- its Theory and Practice

This is to most people a truly fantastic idea which is usually rejected out of hand if it is even considered at all, yet recent research supports the concept. The phenomenon of Multiple Personality Disorder has received considerable study in the past few decades, and contemporary versions of Jung's observations are being hypothesized to explain its bizarre symptoms. John O. Beahrs, a psychologist studying Multiple Personality Disorder, postulates the theory of Co- consciousness:

Co-consciousness (is)...the existence within a single human organism of more than one consciously experiencing psychological entity, each with some sense of its own identity or selfhood relatively separate and discrete from other similar entities, and with separate conscious experiences occurring simultaneously with one another within this human organism ...The theory of co- consciousness assumes that each part of any human individual has some sense of selfhood of its own, discrete from that of other parts and the Self proper... Co-consciousness assumes that each part of this "unconscious" must have its own ongoing conscious experience. There can be no such thing as an unconscious, in any absolute sense. "Unconscious" can only be relative to one particular part. (3)
John O. Beahrs -- Unity and Multiplicity

Using the modern terminology of psychology, both Jung and Beahrs are describing the ancient gnostic concept of "archons" -- those inner rulers who express themselves through human awareness. One of the very first steps to be taken in inner work is the differentiation of one's conscious ego from these archetypal complexes. This is why such work can be so dangerous -- it doesn't take much imagination to realize that we are dealing with the same forces which overwhelm and fragment the personalities of psychotics.

The ego-complex -- that component of the psyche which consists of the conscious awareness of a spacetime dimension -- is but one of an indeterminate number of other complexes within the greater (unconscious) psyche. Despite its illusions to the contrary, the ego is not the subject of consciousness, but only one of many objects.

But, inasmuch as the ego is only the centrum of my field of consciousness, it is not identical with the totality of the psyche, being merely a complex among other complexes. Hence I discriminate between the ego and the Self, since the ego is only the subject of my consciousness, while the Self is the subject of my totality. (4)
Jung -- Psychological Types

A helpful metaphor for understanding this idea is seen in the structure of the solar system in which the sun is the central reality, or Self, and the satellite planets are its projected complexes. We no longer accept the naive geo-centric idea that the sun and planets revolve around the earth, yet the equally erroneous ego-centric model of consciousness still predominates. Doubtless a naive observer on Mars or Jupiter would see his planet as the axis of the solar system as well, and it may be legitimately hypothesized that each autonomous complex dwelling in the unconscious psyche (Pleroma) has a point of view not fundamentally different from this basic illusion. Since they empirically behave like others, there is no reason to assume that the archetypal complexes (archons) are not as separate in their dimension of the psyche as we are in ours.

Such a fantastic idea contradicts all common sense, contradicts the persistent illusion that each of us is a unified being. What sort of hypothesis could reconcile these observations with our everyday experience?

We are logically obliged to start from where and what we are: subjective observers. Therefore we must begin with consciousness itself. We know that our brain and senses are activated by the autonomous energy of awareness. A human corpse has a brain and organs of sense, but no consciousness. The materialist states that consciousness is an epiphenomenon of the organs through which it is manifested, but there is evidence to suggest that this is just backwards: what if consciousness were an a priori fact, and the organs of consciousness (the body and its network of senses) were merely a spacetime vehicle for the manifestation of essentially multi-dimensional sources of energy?

Are thoughts and ideas created out of something? Thoughts surely exist, and perhaps all thoughts need a brain, but the brain is the mode of realization of the thoughts, not their cause. Brains alone do not create thoughts any more than computers create calculations. Thoughts can be created by other thoughts, but that still leaves the origin of thoughts unexplained. Sensations lead to some thoughts; memory also produces thoughts. Most artists, however, would regard their work as a result of spontaneous inspiration. If this is so, creating a painting -- or at least the idea of a painting -- is a form of creation out of nothing. (5)
P. Davies -- Superforce

Note the following empirical facts:

1. Consciousness is autonomous -- one cannot shut it off. Even during sleep, images continue to emerge from the psyche. Try to go for even a few seconds without any thought in your head -- it can't be done except through incredible discipline, and even then for only limited periods of time. The Zen master has gained some control of his consciousness, but he hasn't stopped it. Consciousness flows like a continuous wellspring from within.

2. Consciousness is aware of an outer and an inner reality. "Outside" is what we call spacetime, a state in which perception soars upward from the seemingly solid earth to an ever-increasing infinity of stars and galaxies on one hand, and downward into a realm of subatomic particles which eventually disappear into mathematical abstractions on the other. "Inside" is a continuum sinking from full awareness into a domain of fantastic dreams and yet another infinity of darkness beyond. Like the Roman god Janus, the god of portals and gateways who sees in two directions at once, our ego perception is located on the threshold separating these inner and outer realms.

3. Spacetime consists of three spatial dimensions, plus time. Again note that consciousness is the point in the middle which makes these distinctions -- all directions are determined from the subjective observer's point of awareness. Each entity is the center of its frame of reference, its consciousness. Now consider one definition of time:

Time is conceived as a line along which a point travels from the past toward the future. That point is the present moment. Being a point, it is necessarily infinitely short. Clearly the physicist's time has no experiential reality. An infinitely short time cannot be experienced. Since the present is all that exists, the past having gone and the future not yet being here, such a concept of time is inadequate even for the description of inanimate reality. But it is the best of which we are capable. (6)
M. Clynes -- Sentics -- the Touch of the Emotions

If the present, if NOW, is an infinitely short point, what determines this NOW but consciousness, and how may consciousness be distinguished from time itself? Time and consciousness seem to be virtually inseparable:

...Time (is) bound up in consciousness. Man experiences time, can detect all time's endless changes and yet can he ever be sure it exists of its own right, out there, independent of him? Scientists as well as philosophers are concerned with such questions and indeed the objectivity of time and its separation from consciousness is perhaps one of the central issues in trying to understand time from a scientific viewpoint. (7)
Michael Shallis -- On Time

Since we cannot step outside of our awareness to see if time exists independently of its observation by consciousness, differentiation between the two becomes essentially meaningless. Time, therefore -- that infinitely flowing, infinitely short point we call "NOW" -- seems to exist at the subjective center from which we perceive the three dimensions of space.

What may be inferred here is another dimension -- surely if time can be considered a "dimension" which upon reflection is logically inseparable from our own awareness, then the implication is that consciousness itself could also be a dimension. And the "infinitely short point" could be seen as a wellspring of autonomously flowing energy emanating from this other dimension -- a continuous explosion from within: a kind of psychic Big Bang that creates and sustains each individual's multiverse of awareness. (This is a mirror of the macrocosmic Big Bang, which is still in progress, since all the objects in space are still moving away from each other at mind-boggling rates of speed.)

The quantum physicists now postulate an eleven-dimensional multiverse (Davies, 1985), and say that the seven "extra" dimensions are in some strange way "rolled up" inside of our familiar spacetime four. This seems both inelegant and arbitrary because it discounts our own outer and inner experience. If the hypothesis of consciousness-as-dimension is correct, it would explain the universal claim of mystics that a whole panoply of worlds exists within the psyche. ("The Kingdom of Heaven is within you," etc.) It would explain dreams as symbolic images of these inner dimensions, and explain the near-death phenomenon of entering a dimension of light and intelligence (Moody, 1976). Death then, might be something like an implosion, an inward withdrawal of consciousness from a physical body into another dimension, or many dimensions -- as many as eleven, perhaps: or even more.

Jung's investigations into the nature of the psyche led him to postulate the concept of "synchronicity," or meaningful coincidence -- a phenomenon which seems to contradict materialist notions about cause and effect. For example, how can oracle responses, such as emanate from the I Ching, consistently reflect meanings which are psychically relevant to the question asked? How can dreams predict the future? (A relatively common experience.) Logically, to transcend time is to leave one dimension, the temporal, and enter another; and if a portion of our psyche, such as the "dream-maker," can do this, then what does this tell us about the nature of the psyche and of other dimensions? Jung says:

The “absolute knowledge” which is characteristic of synchronistic phenomena, a knowledge not mediated by the sense organs, supports the hypothesis of a self- subsistent meaning, or even expresses its existence. Such a form of existence can only be transcendental, since, as the knowledge of future or spatially distant events shows, it is contained in a psychically relative space and time, that is to say in an irrepresentable space-time continuum. (8)
Jung -- Synchronicity

Jung explores two ideas here: teleology ("the hypothesis of a self-subsistent meaning"), and the logical necessity to postulate dimensions beyond spacetime to account for synchronistic phenomena. "Psychically relative space and time" suggests consciousness in relation to higher dimensions; and "an irrepresentable space-time continuum" refers to the seeming impossibility of describing dimensions beyond spacetime.

The essence of our perception of the multiverse is that we perceive it both from within the multiverse itself and from within our own subjective awareness inside of a physical body. Some concept of dimension is therefore essential to our understanding. Closer examination of our own awareness (dreams, altered states, etc.) suggests that there is an interior multiverse seemingly as infinite as the exterior. Part of this interior multiverse consists of a "consciousness at large" (Jung's collective unconscious), which is focused in dimensions contiguous to this one. We are the denizens of a three dimensionsal "cube" (the "cube of space" of the kabbalists) which is but one facet of a hyper-cube transcending three dimensions. Because various methods of consciousness alteration give us access to the experience of this "hyper-cube" it follows that consciousness at the very least must be an interface between spacetime and these other dimensions.

If our consciousness can detect phenomena which transcend three dimensions, then there must be more than three dimensions, and consciousness must in some way be connected to them. (If it wasn't they would be unperceived and unknowable.) It follows that if all dimensions are integral, then what happens in any one of them must affect the whole, and a careful observer at any point within the system (i.e., in any dimension) should perceive hidden consistencies (such as synchronicity) which could be interpreted as "purposive," or teleological. Because of the difficulties in conceptualizing the higher dimensions, philosophers often approach them by reasoning from analogy:

The key idea is to reason by analogy. The fourth dimension is to three-dimensional space as the third dimension is to two-dimensional space. (9)
R. Rucker -- The Fourth Dimension

Jung's observations plus analogical reasoning suggest a hypothesis of consciousness as "perpendicular" to spacetime, and therefore emanating from other dimensions. The word perpendicular refers to a line or plane at right angles to another line or plane. Thus, we say that a square plane is perpendicular to a straight line and that a cube is in turn perpendicular to a square plane. What is perpendicular to a cube? This is impossible for me to visualize externally, because I am subjectively perceiving from three-dimensional space. It is easy for me to perceive a point, line and plane "objectively;" indeed, any child can readily comprehend dimensions below three, but even mystics get confused when trying to describe four-dimensional space. I thus use the term "perpendicular" in a special sense here to convey the idea of being at any angle or direction that transcends the boundaries of a dimension. (The idea of "right angles" is not necessarily relevant to the concept except as an aid to visualization.) Jung's use of the word "transcendental" would in the quotation above mean "extra-dimensional," and fall within my special definition of "perpendicular."

One key to understanding these ideas is to approach them in terms of the difference between subjectivity and objectivity. Since we cannot be objective except in a relative sense, "objectivity" must be a function of the imagination. I can imagine what objectivity is, but I cannot be objective. To see the universe as universe one would have to be outside of it. To be able to see three dimensions objectively, one would have to perceive them from the fourth spatial dimension. For a human being, dimensions of three and less are external; dimensions higher than three are internal. The only way one can perceive four spatial dimensions is subjectively because the only "perpendicular" direction away from three dimensions for a three-dimensional entity to go is inside. Hence, for a three-dimensional entity all spatial dimensions higher than three would have to be mental or psychic. A four-dimensional being would be experienced by a three-dimensional being as an inner voice or hallucination: as an interior phenomenon.

Pause for a moment and try to imagine four-dimensional space. It is right next to you, but in a direction you can't point to. No matter how well hidden you may be, a four-dimensional creature can see you perfectly well, inside and outside. (10)

R. Rucker -- The Fourth Dimension

It is highly plausible that the only four-dimensional entities that human beings encounter come from within. The literature of mysticism is replete with descriptions of altered states of consciousness which deal with the perception of other dimensions. For the most part, these are the descriptions of naive observers. We could go on indefinitely with examples taken from mythology, religion and mystical philosophy, but shall confine ourselves to the primary error which has blocked our comprehension of what the mystics were trying to tell us: the naive use of the word "Heaven" to describe what is essentially an internal dimension. Semantically, "Heaven" means "above." Our inability to conceive or visualize more than three spatial dimensions confines our description of what is essentially indescribable anyway to three-dimensional concepts. How else could an unsophisticated observer describe it? Heaven in this conception isn't above, it is within -- and it isn't all "Heaven" (in the sense of harmonic goodness) either: this is the Pleroma of the gnostics, Jung's Collective Unconscious, and it encompasses all modes of consciousness, from archangels to demons.

A correlate of this error of confusing inner with outer realities is the basic illusion of "objectivity." To conceive of the three spatial dimensions as "out there" is to set the observer aside and ignore the primary fact of perception itself as the foundation upon which all observations are made. Perception comes first, then the three spatial dimensions are seen to radiate from it. That one can observe three dimensions without putting the observer in the center (i.e., I can observe the three dimensions of a house without being inside of the house) confuses the issue, but does not negate the fundamental truth that I am always at the center of the spacetime surrounding me.

The fact that each individual observer is the center of his/her world implies a universal dimension from which separate consciousnesses are emanated into spacetime. This lends credence to Jung's concept of the Objective Psyche, the so-called Collective Unconscious. Again, we are talking about the Pleroma -- the domain of the gnostic archons: Jung's archetypal complexes. These personified entities operate from their differentiated realms to not only affect our behavior, but to actually comprise the energy which animates us. The concept is not a new one:

Marduk laid a reed on the face of the waters, He formed dust and poured it out beside the reed; That he might cause the gods to dwell in the dwelling of their hearts' desire, He formed mankind. (11)
Sumerian Tablet , 6th Century B.C.E.

Such ideas seem fantastic to the point of absurdity, yet no more so than the observations of modern physics in which subatomic particles actually emerge from nothingness, exist for an infinitesimal fraction of time, then disappear into nothingness again. Semantically, such an event is nonsense, yet it is an observed fact which transcends the capacity of language to differentiate meaningfully.

Symbolism within the Western Mystery Tradition, the heritage of gnostic thought, describes a reality in conformance with the above hypothesis. For example, the so- called "Cube of Space" is a kabbalistic diagram which assigns each of the major arcana of the Tarot deck to a position on or within a transparent cube -- the quintessential figure of three-dimensional reality. Each Tarot arcanum, of course, symbolizes an archetypal force within the Pleroma. The image we are concerned with here is the Universe or World card, which is placed at the exact center of the cube. This card is portrayed in most decks as an androgynous figure emerging from an oval. This vaginal-shaped oval is called a "mandorla," and it symbolizes the doorway between Heaven and Earth. (The Virgin of Guadeloupe of Catholicism is also centered within such a figure.) This symbolically suggests the idea of emanation from within -- everyone who was not born by Cesarian Section entered spacetime as a separated and differentiated being through such a "doorway." There are many significant symbolic associations with this arcanum, but the only one we are concerned with here is the concept of consciousness emerging from an inner center -- from a Pleroma inhabited by hidden forces.

Tibetan Buddhism also describes a Pleroma inhabited by archetypal complexes or archons. In the terminology of the Bardo Thodol, or Tibetan Book of the Dead, these are the "Peaceful and Wrathful Deities" (angels and devils) which are encountered by the ego after the death of the physical body. Note that these archonic powers are specifically related to one's personal ideation and describe the human heart with the same symbolism as the Cube of Space:

These forty-two deities of the sambhogakaya will emerge from within your heart and appear before you; they are the pure form of your projections, so recognize them. Oh son of noble family, those realms too do not exist anywhere else, but lie in the four directions of your heart with the center as fifth, and now they emerge from within your heart and appear before you. Those images too do not come from anywhere else, but are the primordial spontaneous play of your mind, so recognize them in this way. (Emphasis mine) (12)
Bardo Thodol --Freemantle/Trungpa translation

Thus we see again that the unconscious psyche, the Pleroma, is associated with autonomous, differentiated entities which are identical with our mental processes, and that the focal point of consciousness is conceived as a center of emanation from an interior multiverse. (The Sambhogakaya of Buddhism is conceptually the same as the gnostic Pleroma.)

The literature of schizophrenia and that of mysticism (e.g., Swedenborg) describe the same inner reality from two points of view -- one is fragmented, the other unified. The difference between them is that the mystic is able to maintain a focus within the observing ego-complex, whereas the shizophrenic's ego-complex has been shattered beyond the ability to focus.

The ego functioning of the schizophrenic has at least three cardinal features. 1. a vulnerability to disorganization of executive functions of the ego; 2. a relative lack of autonomy from internal drives and external stimuli; 3. an inability to maintain a reliable and enduring concept of reality. These overlap and interrelate. (13)
R.W. Gibson, MD, et. al. -- The Ego Defect in Schizophrenia

This implies that the healthy ego-complex is the choice- maker in this dimension -- it ideally can choose which of the energies clamoring for attention within the psyche will be allowed expression in spacetime. The ego-complex is actually little more than a focal point within a physical body which acts as a switching mechanism -- it presumably has little energy of "its own" but does have the freedom to allocate an incredible reservoir of power according to its own choices.

If the ego is only a choice-maker, upon what value does it base its decisions? Most individuals "choose" their experience on the basis of a complex gratification of archetypal appetites and urges -- that is, their decisions usually originate from other complexes within the psyche. Because it identifies with the physical body which it is inhabiting, the ego-complex has the illusion that it is gratifying its own urges, rather than that other complexes plugged into the separate and individual senses are using the body for the gratification of their need to come into contact with the objects of sense. This is how the archons keep us enslaved to their will.

Normal ego-awareness is usually too solidly focused in spacetime to perceive its affects as "others," but where the ego has broken down, as in Schizophrenia or Multiple Personality Disorder, the "archons" are clearly evoked:

Audible thoughts; voices heard arguing; voices heard commenting on one's actions; the experience of influences playing on the body (somatic passivity experiences); thought-withdrawal and other interferences with thought; diffusion of thought; delusional perception and all feelings, impulses (drives), and volitional acts that are experienced by the patient as the work or influence of others. When any of these modes of experience is undeniably present and no basic somatic illness can be found, we may make the decisive clinical diagnosis of schizophrenia. (14)
K. Schneider -- Clinical Psychopathology

It is a subtle lesson indeed to perceive that the ego is usually just going along for the ride, rather than steering the vehicle. In truth, it is only when the ego consciously steers the vehicle that it is fulfilling its proper function in the psyche. To the extent that satellite complexes within a composite entity express their energy without reference to the nucleus, the entity is fragmented and incoherent. Schizophrenia and Multiple Personality Disorder are just exaggerated and extreme forms of what a deluded ego calls "normal" consciousness.

Most mental experience is participated in by spirits who don't know themselves as anything other than your own feelings. Honed down to this fine level, the only thing left that is really yours is the struggle to choose. Those who aren't choosing are going the way the spiritual winds blow. So the pitiful picture of the hallucinated psychotic is really an exaggerated picture of everyone's situation. (15)
W. Van Dusen -- The Presence of Other Worlds

If the ego is only one of many objects of consciousness, and not its subject, the crucial and obvious question is: where and what is the source of consciousness? Where and what is the sun to which the ego is but one of many satellites? Indeed, the entire goal of inner work is for the ego to contact this energy, to comprehend it to the best of its ability, and ultimately to willingly assume the role of servant to the will of this source. The ego is ideally the overseer or foreman of the psyche, who allocates the energy of the archetypal complexes under the direction of the psychic nucleus. Jung calls this nucleus the Self.

THE SELF

The Self, like the archetypal complexes, is not easily differentiated within the psyche. It sometimes takes a fair amount of effort to discern this entity. Often the most common realization comes through a dream. Anyone who has ever experienced the numinous power of a fully comprehended dream has probably experienced the Self. What creative force within my unconscious mind is capable of presenting me with information that far transcends my conscious awareness? Who is the dream-maker?

Because the ego's first experience of the Self is usually so powerfully shattering, it is often interpreted as a contact with "God." Jung recognized this phenomenon, and stated that the Self corresponds to a "god-image" in the psyche. That is to say, the image of God or a god-like entity, such as Christ, is a spacetime symbol which fits the inner template of the Self within each individual. The naive observer usually assigns a known correlation to explain an unknown phenomenon: "I just had a profound inner experience -- it must have come from God (Jesus, Mohammed, etc.)"

Jung was an empiricist, and refused to speculate beyond his observed data. He repeated many times that he had no idea at all of who or what "God" is other than a universal symbolic representation of the Self which is latent within every human psyche. Although we must respect the scientific foundation of Jung's empiricism, it leaves some very crucial questions unanswered. The Kabbalah, as a religious- philosophical system, is able to take the step that Jung would not allow himself to make publicly.

Briefly, and rather crudely, the conception is this: the Self is the evolving entity within the psyche. As the sun is to its solar system (which it created), the Self is to its satellite complexes. Each complex (including the ego complex) exists within its own dimension of awareness. The ego-complex observes the greater psyche from the relative and subjective position of a spacetime dimension -- just as the earth is a uniquely differentiated point of observation in relation to the rest of the solar system. The ego experiences the Self and the archetypal complexes as forces within its own consciousness just as it experiences the sun and planets as forces outside of the physical body. Once it is able to differentiate these forces and sort them out it realizes that it plays a very unique and important role in the overall evolution of the psyche.

The ego is a projection of the Self into a spacetime dimensional body for the purpose of gaining experience. At physical death, the ego is released from this vehicle and its essence is somehow re-absorbed by the Self. In the course of its long evolution the Self will emanate an indeterminate number of egos into spacetime. The objective of these emanations is to develop awareness through a full spectrum of experience, and at a certain point to use this awareness to re-unify the psyche within the vessel of the physical body.

It is essential to realize that the Self is not God -- the Self is a differentiated archetype (an archon, if you will), far superior to the limited ego, but it does not represent an ultimate state of consciousness. Before the Self can "ascend" from its dimension in the Pleroma to unite with the Godhead, it must re-unify all of its satellites into one cooperatively functioning whole. The ego is absolutely essential to this process of re-unification.

From the unconscious emerges the ego -- a fruit grown by the Self specifically for the furtherance of its own evolution. Implicit is the concept that the Self is not yet perfect, is indeed itself evolving, and though it possesses powers which the ego can hardly conceive of, it is not "God" in the sense of a totally perfected being. (16)
E. Neumann -- The Origins and History of Consciousness

Perhaps the most difficult realization of inner work is the acceptance of the fact that the ego, being a differentiation of the Self, is incapable of attaining a state of unified awareness "on its own." The persistent illusion of psychic unity gives the ego the impression that it does the work, and it receives the reward. Only the Self is capable of directing the Work, and once the Work has begun there are many battles fought between the two -- battles which the ego, if it remains true to the process, usually loses. There is little in life more difficult than this, which explains why so few enlightened beings are encountered in this dimension of reality. The proper function of the ego is that of choicemaker for the Self -- period.

How does one accomplish this? What "objective" sources of authority are available which enable the ego to make informed, intelligent choices in its conduct of the Work?

The I Ching is an empirically valid means of contacting the reality of the greater, or unconscious, psyche. (Again, "unconscious" means that it is unconscious to the ego, not that the forces within it are unconscious in their own dimensions.) "Empirically valid" means simply that the I Ching works. That is, anyone who seriously experiments with the oracle will quickly discover a meaningful correlation between the question posed and the answer received.

The scientific method, the preferred standard of perception for our era, is predicated upon cause and effect relationships and the "objective" repeatability of phenomena. ("Objective" here means that the data must conform to the subjective experience of those who adhere to the rules of the scientific method.) There is nothing wrong with this -- to recognize the subjectivity of all differentiated awareness is not to denigrate the relative objectivity of relatively shared experience. It is essential that we be as rigorous as possible in the way we choose to observe our existence in spacetime without deluding ourselves that we can normally perceive objective reality as subjective observers.

The I Ching offers an empirical or subjective experience which cannot be validated (i.e, repeated) by scientific method. Consequently, it is often repudiated by those with no experience of it. To claim that it is "unreal" however, is the same as saying that there is no truth in dreams, that falling in love is unreal, or that any experience is invalid if it cannot be measured against a preconceived "objective" standard of acceptability. To observe this is not to imply that we should defer to every image and impulse within the psyche: that would be synonymous with psychosis. The proper role of the ego-complex is that of choice-maker, which means the responsible differentiation and evaluation of experience according to an existentially unavoidable, subjective point of view.

Nowhere is it implied that this is easy to do.

As a scientist trying to comprehend the depths of the human psyche, Jung was constantly confronted with these problems:

The experience you had with the I Ching, calling you to order when trying to tempt it a second time, also happened to me in 1920 when I first experimented with it. It also gave me a wholesome shock and at the same time it opened wholly new vistas to me. I well understand that you prefer to emphasize the archetypal implication in synchronicity. This aspect is certainly most important from the psychological angle, but I must say that I am equally interested, at times even more so, in the metaphysical aspect of the phenomena, and in the question: how does it come that even inanimate objects are capable of behaving as if they were acquainted with my thoughts? (17)
Jung -- Letters, January 3, 1957

Because he refused to speculate beyond his empirical data, Jung was unwilling to postulate a cause-effect relationship between the questions he posed to the oracle and the answers he received -- how can throwing three coins six times create an image which responds to the questions asked? There is no discernable link between question and answer -- nothing that we would call a cause and effect relationship, anyway -- and yet there is meaning! Jung's synchronicity theory is his attempt to get around this problem by hypothesizing a strange "coincidental" relationship between the unconscious psyche and spacetime reality. However, for all of the intricacies of reasoning in its exposition, this is really just the recognition that there are no accidents in the multiverse: there is only an ignorance of cause. If spacetime is the four-dimensional reflection of a multi- dimensional reality which includes dimly perceived realms akin to consciousness, "cause and effect" become a continuum of relationships which disappears into the Pleroma: "unconscious" to the perceiving ego perhaps, but not to levels of awareness transcending the limitations of spacetime. To say that there is no causal relationship between an answer obtained by a configuration of falling coins and the subjective question in the mind of the one who throws them is to be unaware of the unbroken continuum connecting mind with matter.

But perhaps this is in some sense beside the point -- in the privacy of the above letter, Jung admitted that the metaphysical aspects of the question were more compelling than his psychological or scientific concerns. Once one makes a firm conscious connection with the transcendent Self, the mechanics of the connection become, if not exactly irrelevant, then at least relatively unimportant. After all, no one really knows what electricity is either, yet we use it every day.

It is the hypothesis of this book that the I Ching oracle (whatever may be the mechanics of its operation) is a valid means by which the ego and Self may communicate regarding spacetime choices pertaining to the Work.

FOOTNOTES

1. Jung, C.G. -- Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Vintage, NY, 1963, Pg. 169

2. Jung, C.G. -- Analytical Psychology, its Theory & Practice, Vintage, NY, 1970, Pg. 81

3. Beahrs, J. O., Unity and Multiplicity -- Multilevel Consciousness in Hypnosis, Psychiatric Disorder and Mental Health, Brunner/Mazel, NY, 1982, Page 182

4. Jung, C.G. -- from Psychological Types, in The Basic Writings of C.G. Jung, Modern Library, NY, 1959, Pg. 247

5. Davies, Paul, Superforce, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1985, Pg. 199

6. Clynes, M. -- Sentics -- the Touch of the Emotions, Doubleday, NY, 1978, (Page reference lost)

7. Shallis, M. -- On Time, Schocken, NY, 1982, Pg 14

8. Jung, C.G. -- Synchronicity, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1973, Pg 90

9. Rucker, R. -- The Fourth Dimension: Toward a Geometry ofÿ Higher Reality, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1984, Pg. 8

10. Ibid, Pg. 18

11. Graves, R. & Patai, R. -- Hebrew Myths, Greenwich House, New York, 1983, Pg. 22.

12. Freemantle, F., & Trungpa, C., The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Shambhala, Boston, 1975, Pg. 51

13. Gibson,R.W., MD., et. al. -- "The ego defect in schizophrenia," in Usdin, G.L., MD., ed., Psychoneurosis & Shizophrenia, Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1966, Pg. 89

14. Schneider, K., Clinical Psychopathology, 5th ed. Grune & Stratton, NY, 1959, Pg. 133-134

15. Van Dusen, W., The Presence of other Worlds, Swedenborg Foundation, NY, 1981, Pg. 138

16. Neumann, E., The Origins and History of Consciousness, Bollingen Series XLII, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1970 (Page reference lost)

17. Jung, C.G. -- Letters, Vol. 2, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1975, Pg. 344