TRANCE, ART, CREATIVITY
CHAPTER I: PREFACE; INTRODUCTION; SYNOPSIS OF THE BOOK

(page vi)

"The final conclusion is that we know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power."
-Walter Grierson
 

"Miracles do not happen in contradiction to nature, but only in contradiction to that which is known to us of nature."
-St. Augustine
 

"The "I" who observes the universe is the same "I" who controls it. The concept of separate "I's" is a myth."
-E. Schroedinger
 

"There is nothing abnormal in the world-there is only the lack of understanding the normal."
-Swami Puri
 

"Our unconscious existence is the real one, and the conscious world is a kind of illusion, an apparent reality constructed for a specific purpose like a dream which seems a reality as long as we are in it."
-C. Jung
 

"What we see is not nature, but nature exposed to our method of questioning."
-W. Heisenberg


"One conclusion was forced upon my mind at that time, and my impression of its truth has ever remained unshaken. It is that our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the finest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness quite different. . . . No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded. . . ."
-William James


 
The theme of this book quoted from page 379:
"In the juncture between the individual and the general mind, duality is abolished, and through knowledge more and more complete, the one becomes the other."

The abbreviation "PA" in cites refers to Psychological Abstracts; the "DA" to Dissertation Abstracts.

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(page xv)

PREFACE

The preface to a book is a device invented to allow an author to explain why he has made an ass out of himself in public. Most people are like the Roman governor in Acts who in a similar situation said to St. Paul: "Thou are beside thyself; much learning hath made thee mad." Paul, at least could plead the excuse of a theophany or what we would now call a psychedelic experience. The present author, having no such authority, has perhaps only himself to blame. Why would anyone brought up in Boston do such a thing?

There is something very therapeutic in leveling with one's readers and bearing witness to the truth as one sees it. And this is the real reason both for the book and for the candid air of this preface. The author really does not know beyond the shadow of a doubt that the wild-eyed hypotheses on page 10 are true. But time will take care of that; if they are false an already obscure career will have been further dimmed. But if by any chance they are true, or even heuristic, then the advance of behavioral science will have been at least slightly hastened. For they attempt to "explain" an increasingly embarrassing number of "exceptions" to a positivistic behavioral scientific orthodoxy which looks more and more Ptolemaic, - exceptions which many of us feel, like the Ptolemaic epicycles, foreshadow the advent of a wider and better theory.

This book is concerned with a taxonomy of the cognitive representation of experience arranged in a hierarchy from very poor to very good. The theme of the book addresses itself to the most important issue which exists for man: how to get in touch with the Ground of Being without losing ego-consciousness. The taxonomy, therefore, goes from a state of complete cognitive chaos (such as schizophrenia) through other types of dissociation and trance (which are regarded as prototaxic modes), to a middle ground of parataxic mode which involves the successive totemization of the numinous element by the conscious ego through successive stages of archetype, dreams, ritual, myth, and art, finally to the syntaxic mode in which there is some cognitive control (involving creativity, biofeedback, and meditation among others). Such an analysis is a continuation of ideas presented in Development of the Psychedelic Individual. In that volume the explication was given a developmental presentation, which is absent

(page xvi)

from the present book. Instead we have here focused on a more careful examination of the various modes of representation, which may be considered as ascending values of the main parameter.

If this seems like a freeway to Nirvana in place of the tortuous path trod by countless saints and gurus of the past ages, one can only reply that conditions have changed. It now seems more important to smooth the pathway so that multitudes of average people may start the pilgrimage, rather than to restrict it to a few daring souls. The fact that under these comfortable circumstances a smaller percentage is likely to scale heaven's pinnacles in a single lifetime seems less important than the effect on world peace and prosperity by reason of the orthocognitive lives of multitudes.

Knowing that this book endorses meditation and regards mystic experience as a goal of human development, the critical reader may ask what is new about this; religious leaders have advocated such objectives for a long time. What is new is (1) that psychological analysis is for the first time able to bring this area under some general organization so that "the average sensual man" is now offered the possibility of looking at a vista or possessing a map of a territory hitherto unknown except to saints and mystics; and (2) it now appears possible for "the average sensual man," without making a profession of sectarian belief, to make creative and meditative progress towards this goal.

What this has accomplished is, in effect, to give scholars and intellectuals binoculars to look upon reality from a distance which has hitherto prevented them from understanding its nature; or to put it another way, it has now become possible for a creative person to understand cognitively psychedelic events which previously defied rational understanding and were experienced only affectively. The saint renounced the world, became good, then wise; the psychologist still in the world, now can become wise, and hopefully good.

This book deals with some exceedingly abstruse concepts (such as those which require the use of untensed verbs for full elucidation). Because of our cultural bias, these ideas are new and difficult to understand; because of the author's recent acquaintance with them, he is often labored and difficult in his efforts to explain them. The consequence is that this is not an easy book, and any reader will find that much is demanded of him, and that it may be necessary to reread a paragraph. In some cases the author has attempted to tie down an ephemeral concept by an analogy or example. The reader should be warned that analogies are not exact, and that examples often are contaminated with the natural anthropomorphic bias of our species. We have been authoritatively cautioned about new wine

(page xvii)

in old bottles, and the Charley Brown in all of us finds it hard "to understand the new math with an old math mind."

Some readers may object that this book makes demands of them in the vocabulary of psychology, mathematics, physics, medicine, and other sciences. But it is not surprising that an explanation of ultimate reality requires more mental effort than watching a football game on TV. The price of cognition of the numinous element in the syntaxic mode is some study; but surely for a reader of your intelligence that is preferable to the paroxysms of the prototaxic or the pictorials of the parataxic.

While the reader may regret the frequency of the use of mathematical analogy in these pages, he really cannot expect an undemanding book about the most complex aspects of nature. We may expect that nature is very orderly but very complex. Surely we cannot ask that it adjusts itself to the superficialities of our little minds. Would we be content with a Creator no brighter than ourselves? As Piaget correctly observed, the most logical paradigms assume finally a mathematical form.

We do not pretend that this formulation is a complete survey of all possibilities nor do we insist that the relationship noticed here between prototaxic modes, parataxic modes, and syntaxic modes are fully comprehended. Indeed, it is obvious that they are oversimplified, for we have often caught glimpses of more complex relationships between these elements which because they were in parataxic or presentational form, we have not been able to express cognitively.

Some readers have questioned as to whether there should be any pejorative disvaluing of the prototaxic stage. We point out that this disvaluing, if any, is not that the stage is evil, but that it is a lower manifestation of the real. The universe of physical reality is somehow connected to the normal state of consciousness, perhaps being an effect of that state. When the cognitive ego is excursed from the normal state into an ASC1 (as it most completely is in prototaxic manifestations such as trance), we therefore get the clearest departures from the normal laws of physics (as in fire-walking) and the clearest examples of their supersedence by the laws of metaphysics. The spectacular effects of the prototaxic trance do not elevate it to the level of syntaxic meditation and satori, whose effects would be even more admirable were we as completely able to achieve them.

Some readers may object to the occasional use of value-laden criteria such as goodness-badness. The author confesses he was once bothered by this usage, feeling like most liberals that public display of values was only to be compared to public display of genitalia. In his case, however, discovery of the Osgood Semantic Differential (Osgood: 1957) was a great remover of guilt. Briefly, Osgood found that of all the

(page xviii)

adjectives used to describe things, events, and persons, three grand clusters were evident: (1) those relating to value (badness-goodness), (2) those relating to potency (weakness-strength), and (3) those relating to activity (activity-passivity).

Dear reader, count the adjectives on the front page of your favorite newspaper, listen if you can to a half-hour of television, or eavesdrop on the conversation of a group in the powder or locker room talking of the opposite sex, and you, too, can be cured of your intellectual horror of displayed values. For as Osgood showed, it is an existential fact that such values exist embedded in our language itself. Indeed, if these heroic measures are not enough, ask yourself the thoughtful question: "What is the order of adjectives modifying a noun in English?" and you will again come out with the Semantic Differential.

Since writing the previous book, Development of the Psychedelic Individual, the author has been given unsolicited advice by numerous well-meaning individuals of various persuasions of religious belief to the effect that his purview and constructs are lamentably narrow and short of the mark. It is very possible that these missionaries are right. We have no quarrel with those who posit grander theories; chacun a son gout. But let the reader remember that this author is writing from the point of view of a behavioral scientist, (not a religionist), who is trying to make sense out of the universe of experience with the minimal hypothesis necessary to do so.

The author wishes particularly to disavow any pretensions that the chapters on such subjects as dissociation, trance, hypnotism, dreams, myths, and art are complete or even comprehensive reviews of those fields. The author is naive in these areas, and is well aware that experts will easily be able to adduce better, later, and more complete examples than the ones cited. What he has attempted is to place this material - incomplete as it must be - into a logical framework of meaning with respect to the numinous element and its relationship to the individual consciousness, so that more complete analyses can later be carried out by those more familiar with the particular field. The value of the book, if any, rests upon the power of the general gestalt concept, not the weaknesses and lacunae in any particular example cited.

A necessary condition in establishing the validity of alleged phenomena is first to establish their reliability. Thus it is that when the same phenomena continue to be reported by different observers, with different biases, in different cultures, and under different situations, that we are bound, having established the first criterion for validity, to attend to them with increasing care.

Before proceeding further with the concept of reliability and measurement,

(page xix)

let us make a brief comment that statistical method is our tool and not our master. Quantification is a desirable goal, but it is not the only one. Consider the wise works of Daniel Yankelovich:
 

The first step is to measure whatever can be easily measured. This is okay as far as it goes.
The second step is to disregard that which can't be measured or give it any arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading.
The third step is to presume that what can't be measured easily isn't very important. This is blindness.
The fourth step is to say that what can't be easily measured really doesn't exist. This is suicide.


One charge that is held out against the validity of all kinds of paranormal phenomena including creativity is that the effects are not replicable on demand. While replicability is certainly a sufficient condition for the reliability and later the validity of an alleged effect, it is by no means a necessary one. Few would care to challenge the validity of the process of human reproduction on the grounds that when a man has sexual intercourse with a woman only in a minority of instances does she thereby become pregnant.
In place of replicability one might propose:

 
1. Does investigation of the moot phenomena lead to useful application which cannot otherwise be easily explained? (e.g. industrial use of brainstorming)

2. If the phenomena are not replicable on demand, are they widely reported in different times and cultures?
(e.g. mystic experiences)

3. Does the theory which accounts for the phenomena possess elegance, higher meaning, or increased understanding of nature?
(e.g. synchrotron light)

4. Is the matter heuristic, that is, does it lead to further expansion and understanding of the primordial nature of things?
(e.g. collective preconscious)


Perhaps a more serious charge to be brought against the author is that he has played fast and loose with other writer's constructs and has done some violence to them in expanding them to fit his own views. Examples might include the prototaxic, parataxic, and syntaxic modes of Sullivan, the collective unconscious of Jung, the concept of dysplasia of Sheldon, the use of jhana numbers for the lower procedures of the syntaxic level to name only a few. To this the best reply that can be made is that if there is truly negative transfer in the enlargement of these concepts, then they will not prove heuristic or useful and will quickly be forgotten; on the other hand if there is positive transfer - if the two constructs reinforce

(page xx)

each other (as perhaps the junction of the Erikson affective and the Piagetian cognitive stages or the combining of the Sullivan-Van Rhijn theories may serve to illustrate), then true scientific progress has been made by the enlargement of an initial concept to explain more of nature.

The same argument and rebuttal applies to the use of mathematical and verbal analogy in many instances in the book. All analogies run the danger of doing violence to the intricacies of a new subject, but have the potential to make it more meaningful by co-opting it onto some existing knowledge. Again, only time can tell whether a particular analogy serves a useful function or not.

In physical science one frequently finds a law (such as F = ma) which can best be understood by means of a table of F for various values of m and a. In the developing behavioral sciences, things are not initially as clear; what we often find (as will be displayed on these pages) is an independent variable connected to a parameter and constant(s), where the law is obscure; but one can display the relationship in a taxonomic table of a hierarchy of change in the parameter, which results in a hierarchy of change in the independent variable. It is probable in these cases that the so- called parameter is in reality a continuous variable, and that the discrete values which it seems to assume are due to the (constant and not variable) property of modifying adjectives, in other words, due to the structure of language itself. We have emphasized the construction of such tables or taxonomies in this book for the purpose of substituting for the earlier and less useful all-or-none concept, the more useful construct of one continuous variable or parameter influencing another. Thus we go from ideographic description which often involves epithets to a nomothetic relationship which appears much like a physical law, and which can be replicated and validated.

Some positivistic readers may find it difficult to believe that the physical universe requires the adjunction of the psychic universe fully to explain it. Let such persons recall that an exactly similar situation prevails in mathematics, where the palpable domain of real numbers is best understood by the adjunction of the much less easily intuitable domain of complex-imaginary numbers. We may never be able to intuit imaginary numbers completely, but to those who understand it, the equation epii = -1 is both logically satisfying and aesthetically complete.

Even physics if deeply pursued reveals the fact that ultimate particles are of a different order of reality in time and space than the "solid" chair or table which make up the universe of "tangible" objects. For one thing, they are not "categorical" in the same sense

(page xxi)

(e.g.the complementarity principle that photons are both particles and waves). In addition they possess queer interactions (e.g. that electrons have position or momentum but not both at once). Finally they interact in space-time in a different way than macroscopic objects.

The cognitive mistake made by positivistic science is to regard the physical world as a "given," in other words, to mistake the phenomenon for the noumenon. For all phenomena are junior to the state of consciousness in which they are experienced. Consequently, instead of proceeding into a cul-de-sac by asking "Is this or that event real?" we need to ask the anterior question "In what state of consciousness are they experienced?"

In the former writings we have used "the collective preconscious" and "The Spirit of Man" to designate the "numinous element." We now feel that the latter term is better and more accurate. The numinous element is often first perceived through the collective preconscious but we seem now less sure than earlier that they are the same. While we once liked "The Spirit of Man," we have become aware that this is too anthropomorphic an appellation, and that the numinous element extends to and throughout all nature, and not just man; besides to some the word "spirit" connotes a person or a personality. We are more sure that the numinous element functions as an impersonal force. We therefore like this term because it has less loading on the word numinous (few people know what it means) and the loading on the word element is negligible, since we think of it as an object or thing.

Many people, both orthodoxly and occultly religious, may be offended that the concept is impersonal. Again, it is useful to point out that this is a hypothesis and not an article of religious belief. Saying that the numinous element acts as if it were impersonal is like saying that electricity acts as if little electron balls were running along electric wires at very high speeds: both are useful constructs (not to understand the nature or essences of either electricity or the ground of being) but to help us at the present time make intelligent use of their presently discovered properties. The author has no quarrel with those who wish to erect a Pantheon on such a scientific superstructure. But we must distinguish between a minimal acceptable hypothesis to explain natural (and paranormal) phenomena, and a religious philosophy.

It might be thought that an analysis of the prototaxic, parataxic, and syntaxic modes of contact with the numinous element would exhaust all the possibilities of such intercourse but the facts are otherwise. There appears to be a class of unusual instances where persons in the ordinary state of consciousness are jerked into an

(page xxii)

ASC merely through contact with an adept who possesses the power to effect this startling change. We have called such instances "psychic contagion." Examples given in this book include those in section 2.48. But the issue is important enough for further research.

Prospective publishers are always asking what public the author writes for, as if they could only be placated by finding that there was some large, dull, unwashed group which could be titillated, seduced, or bullied into buying it - as if an author, like an organgrinder's monkey must wait for a crowd to perform for a penny, or prostitute himself to the whims of his customers like a whore on a wharf. Well then, we write not for a public reader but for a private one, one who is inner-oriented, not swayed by the ballyhoo of the masses. This reader is intelligent enough to be a positivistic scientist, but has sense enough not to be one. He is cynical enough not to believe most advertising, but honest enough to recognize the truth when he hears it. He knows that there are more things in the world than Horatio dreamt of, and he is willing and curious to find out about them. He recognizes that man does not live by bread alone, but he would sample the added leaven. He neither distrusts quantitative science, nor does he worship it as a god; he recognizes it as a useful tool, a means to the end of understanding. He is not superstitious, but he does recognize that there are events in the world which science is still in the process of explaining. Above all, he sees meaning and order in the universe, and he seeks to conceptualize events in ways which increase that meaning and order. For such a reader, we write; he is as dear to the author as he is rare. So dear reader, know thyself by these presents.

The basic issue on which this book and all others like it must stand or fall is the alleged regnancy of the percepts. If our senses do in fact put us in touch with an ultimate reality represented by the physical world whose nature they faithfully and constantly report, then all this effort is the merest nonsense; on the other hand, if the percepts one has of any given vivency are subordinate to the state of consciousness one is in, then all is changed. This book, then, constitutes the evidence and argument that things are not "loose and separate" but are somehow related to the mind that cognizes them. Obviously the philosophical consequences of such a view are profound, but we cannot pursue them here. Instead the reader is invited to consider the evidence and make his own decision.

Some readers have complained after looking over the manuscript that the quotations are too long and dull, and things would be more entertaining and expeditious if they were relegated to footnotes or done away with altogether. But dear, intelligent reader, you are not

(page xxiii)

here to be titillated (if that is what you want, read Playboy or Viva). You are present at a much more serious occasion; much more like a court-room trial at law than a book. The defendant is positivistic scientific materialism, the charge is fraud and conspiracy, the witnesses (and what a phalanx of experts!) are those very gentlemen whose quotations are in question, the prosecuting attorney is the author, reason is the judge, and you, dear reader, particularly those younger readers into whose hands this may perchance come someday, have already been sworn as the jury. It is a criminal trial for it is the public who is the plaintiff. Will you do your duty faithfully to listen to the evidence, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and make your decision thereby?

*****

Footnotes:
1. Altered State of Consciousness.
(Footnotes hereafter will be found at the end of the chapters. For the reader's convenience a short glossary of unusual words is printed on the inside front and back covers, as well as a repeat of the footnote pages above).

*****

FOOTNOTES:
to Chapter I on page 23
to Chapter II on page 172
to Chapter III on page 243
to Chapter IV on page 389
 
 

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(page 1)

Chapter One

1.0 INTRODUCTION

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe"; a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.
-Albert Einstein
1. 1 SYNOPSIS
 

This book is concerned with a taxonomy of the cognitive representation of numinous experience arranged in a hierarchy. The theme of the book addresses itself to the most important issue which exists for man: how to get in touch with the ground of being (the numinous element) without losing ego-consciousness. The taxonomy therefore goes from a state of complete cognitive chaos (such as schizophrenia) through other types of dissociation and trance (which are regarded as prototaxic modes), to a middle ground of parataxic mode which involves some amelioration of the relationship with the conscious ego through successive stages of archetype, dreams, ritual, myth, and art, finally to the syntaxic mode, in which there is some cognitive control (involving creativity, biofeedback, and meditation) among others. Such an analysis is a continuation of ideas presented in The Development of the Psychedelic Individual. In that volume the explication was given a developmental presentation which is absent from the present book. Instead we have here focused on a more careful examination of the various modes of representation, which may be considered as ascending values of the main parameter.

(page 2)

Apollonian, Faustian, and Promethean man exemplify a paradigm of relationship between the conscious ego in man and what we shall hereafter refer to as "the numinous element," which is the central thesis of this book. This historical relationship is typified in various styles of the human condition in today's world in an associated paradigm of three modes of cognitive relationship to experience. These modes were discovered independently by Sullivan (1953:xiv) and Van Rhijn (1960), and may be described using the Sullivan terminology as follows: prototaxic (experience occurring before symbols), parataxic (experience using symbols in a private or autistic way), and syntaxic (experience which can be communicated). Sullivan coined the phrase "consensual validation" to characterize the consequent validation of symbolic representation which he pointed out led to healthy development.1

Van Rhijn's theory (1960) is that the subconscious receives a mixed input of stimulus, memory, and libido loadings which is then fed to the higher areas of the cortex. Using Sullivan's terminology, it may percolate through the symbolic level into conscious thought - the most desirable result. If rejected there, it may still find expression through parataxic representation as a presentational sign which includes gesture, body language, myth, ritual, and art. If rejected there, it may still find a lower outlet through prototaxic representation which includes the symptom formation of psychosomatic illness manifestations. Thus the mental health potentiality of full cognition and the mental illness potential of less than full cognition is reinforced. Less than full symbolic cognition of experience results at best in parataxic and presentational images of art and archetype, which is the organism's way of working off the excess energy unused in full cognition, and at worst in neurosis, and psychosomatic externalization of the misspent energy onto the psyche, body, and immediate environment.

Speaking of the Van Rhijn hypothesis, Caldwell (1968:282) says:
 

The levels of symbolic translation are laid out in a hierarchy of sophistication. At the top . . . is direct verbal symbolization. Below it are presentational symbolizations, which include gesture, myth, ritual, and art. Below this are the more primitive "symptom formations," the term psychoanalysis uses for the psychosomatic and physiological manifestations of neurosis such as headaches, eczema, colitis, and the like.


We have elsewhere (Gowan:1974) presented in detail our thesis concerning the prototaxic, parataxic, and syntaxic modes of experience particularly in relation to the developmental characteristics of the

(page 3)

numinous element. Those readers not familiar with this explication may wish to consult Development of the Psychedelic Individual for clarification. Here we give the bare outlines of the theory without the supporting evidence for our espousal of it and without any of the developmental aspects.

It appears in three modes, prototaxic, parataxic, and syntaxic, whose delineation composes the content of this volume. Each mode has a number of sub-routines to which we give the name of "procedures." These aspects take place in an altered state of consciousness,2 involving some kind of juncture or union between the individual and the general, and are often accompanied (especially in the prototaxic mode) by some dissociation or hair-raising, uncanny affect involving awe or dread in some instances. In addition, there may be psychic or psychedelic effects or manifestations. Before describing these modes in detail it is desirable to say something about the numinous element.
 


1.2 THE NUMINOUS ELEMENT

We start by postulating the existence of the numinous element as contrasted with, and anterior to the phenomena of nature. The numinous element has had many names throughout history, often that of some aspect of the Deity; Jung identified it as "the collective unconscious;" we have called it in earlier writings "the collective preconscious" and "The Spirit of Man." We now find the phrase "numinous element" a preferred one, partly because "numinous" describes the quality exactly. While a relatively unknown adjective, it is not tarnished with affective loading. The word "element" testified to the impersonal aspect, which we regard as so important.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to state exactly what the numinous element is.3 The Aztecs called it "Smoking Mirror" which indicates its reflective impersonal aspect.4 It appears to us as fluidic and watery, without form,5 and hence in this sense "void." The Hindus call it "the clear light of the Void." Such a difficulty in characterization is implicit in its name, for it is part of the noumenon. It is hence more easy to adopt the Eastern "neti, neti" posture, and to state what it is not, and mention some ways in which it appears. The numinous element is not personal, not individual, not finite, not mortal, not rational, not human, not limited in power or intelligence, not time or space bound. It is perhaps best regarded as a primal vis or force, like electricity.

We may like to think of the numinous element as a giant computer (which emphasizes its impersonal aspect), having access to all knowledge,

(page 4)

intelligence, and power, but accessible to each of us under the proper conditions. Such conceptualizations (either Deity or machina) are only partial stereotypes for the noumenon, an entity which by definition cannot be fully cognized.

The phrase "numinous element" was coined by Otto (1928:7), who says: "I adopt a word coined from the Latin numen (to) form a word numinous. While it admits of being discussed, it cannot be strictly defined." He says (1928:6) that it is "a special term to stand for the holy minus its moral factor, . . . and minus its rational aspect altogether." And again (1928:xvii): "Numinous and Numen will then be words which bear no moral import, but which stand for the specific nonrational religious apprehension and its object." To this Otto gives the name, "numinous element" (1928:xvi).

Otto further characterized the numinous element by a Latin phrase mysterium tremendum(literally "an awe-ful mystery"), then in a Germanic thoroughness he cites (1928:13, 20, 23) three characteristics of tremendum; (1) the element of awe-fulness, (2) the element of overpoweringness, and (3) the element of energy or urgency. He also cites two characteristics of mysterium (1928:25,31); (1) the wholly other, and (2) the element of fascination. He says further of it (1928:13):

 
It may burst in sudden eruption up from the depths of the soul with spasms and convulsions or lead to the strangest excitements, to intoxicated frenzy, to transport and to ecstasy. It has its wild and demonic forms, and can sink to an almost grisly horrors and shuddering. It has its crude barbaric antecedents, and early manifestations, and again it may be developed into something beautiful, pure, and glorious.
He continues (1928:14):
 
Of all modern languages English has the words awe and aweful, which in their deeper and most special sense approximate closely to our meaning.
He continues (1928:15):
 
Its antecedent stage is demonic dread with its queer perversion, a sort of abortive offshoot, the dread of ghosts. It first begins to stay in the feeling of "something uncanny," "eerie" or "weird."
And again: (1928:17):
 
Though the numinous element in its completest development shows a world of difference from the mere demonic dread, yet . . . the peculiar quality of the "uncanny" and the "aweful"
(page 5)
... survives with the quality of exaltedness and sublimity, or is symbolized by means of it.


The Bible is full of this respect for the numinous. "The wrath of God," "The fear of the Lord" are both well known phrases frequently found in the Old Testament. Here are some other examples:
 

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.  Hebrews:x:31

I will tread them in mine anger and trample them in my fury.  Isaiah:53:3

He treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.  Rev:19:15


It is important that we recognize the overwhelming aspect of the numinous element, whose approach to man can be as awe-ful and dangerous as high voltage electricity. Indeed, as a plenary elemental force, which appears as a daimonic element, it has many aspects of high voltage electricity - such as lightning. One would never think of playing with high voltage electricity without the most careful insulation preparations, and a similar precaution is necessary with the numinous element. All people who have written about it have emphasized this aspect, for one would be foolhardy not to.

This book is concerned with how to get in touch with this ground of being without exposing oneself to these dangers. In the prototaxic mode, the price of admission is simply no less than the excursion of ego-consciousness and the loss of memory of the encounter. In the parataxic mode, the matter is handled through ritual and images. Even the fuller understanding of the syntaxic mode does not allow (in its lower manifestations) complete absence of this negative aspect, as carried on through the osmosis of creativity, the self-reference of orthocognition, and the passivity of meditation.

It goes without saying that any approach by the conscious mind to the numinous element is not without its dangers. Elsewhere (Gowan 1974:134) we have seen the traumatizing effect of the "not-me" on the young child at stage three, and we have detailed the dissociation occasioned by the premature rupture of the conscious overlay, exposing the collective preconscious in our discussion of developmental forcing (Gowan 1974:187). But as Jung (1971:123) points out, the juncture between the conscious ego and the numinous element must be effected with some care so that the latter does not take over. In discussing individuation (which is his word for self-actualization) he has this to say (1971:123):

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The aim of individuation is nothing less than to divest the self of the false wrappings of the persona on the one hand and of the suggestive power of primordial images on the other . . . But when we turn to . . . the influence of the collective unconscious, we find we are moving in a dark interior world that is vastly more difficult to understand than the psychology of the persona, which is accessible to everyone . . . It is another thing to describe . . . those subtle inner processes which invade the conscious mind with such suggestive force. Perhaps we can best portray these influences with the help of examples of mental illness, creative inspiration, and religious conversion.


In a previous passage (1971:118) Jung points out that individuation is not identification with the collective unconscious, for this leads to a naive megalomania "in the form of prophetic inspiration and desire for martyrdom." Considering all this, it is not surprising that the path of the mystic has been called "the razor's edge."

Wherever in the world of man or nature one finds insulation, it is there for a reason. No less necessary is the insulation which separates the conscious mind from the generalized preconscious, for if it were not there, the ego would be overwhelmed and driven to madness by the superordinate and chaotic aspect of the numinous element. For the conscious mind is a finite tool, encased in space and time, and it can make sense of only a small amount of the universe at a given time. This situation again suggests that care should be taken in so important an undertaking and that efforts to contact the numinous element should proceed from pure motives, lofty ideals, and a firm resolution never to bring harm to others or to nature as a result of our actions.

The integrity of the ego is preserved by a rather narrowly defined channel in the volume of perceptual intake. It is this well-defined band that actually sustains the ego. Take it away and we lose consciousness (as in sleep or other altered states); increase it with perceptual overload or percepts which cannot be cognitively assimilated syntaxically and we have the trauma usually induced by a numinous experience. The so-called continuity of the ego is not independent but is the resultant of a carefully balanced perceptual intake.

Troward (1909), among the earliest writers, has the clearest picture of the preconscious mind or "The Spirit of Man," which he terms the "subjective mind." He notes that it has powers far transcending those of the conscious mind, including what we would now call psychedelic. He also declares it to be the builder and protector of the body and states (1909:26), "In other words it is the creative power

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in the individual." He says further (1909:29), regarding hypnosis, it "is the normal state of the subjective mind," mentioning that, "wherever we find creative power at work, we are in its presence" (p. 30). He concludes with this remarkable declaration (1909:31):
 

The subjective mind in ourselves is the same subjective mind at work in the universe giving rise to the infinitude of natural forms with which we are surrounded, and in like manner giving rise to ourselves also.


Despite the power of the subjective mind, its natural state of suggestibility makes it infinitely suggestible to the will of the conscious mind when properly impressed, Troward tells us, and consequently, it (like a genie) places all its power at the disposal of our conscious mind provided we think of the condition we wish to produce "as already in existence" (p. 34) in the realm of the ideal.

The remarkable advance of Troward's thought is that he places the limitation of suggestibility on an entity formerly regarded as either the Deity or some tutelary manifestation. Consider the following:
 

Your object is not to run the whole cosmos, but to draw particular benefits, physical, mental, moral, or financial into your own or someone else's life. From this individual point of view, the universal creative power has no mind of its own, and therefore, you can make up its mind for it. When its mind is thus made up for it, it never abrogates its place as the creative power, but at once sets to work to carry out the purpose for which it has thus been concentrated and unless this concentration is dissipated by the same agency (yourself) which first produced it, it will work on by the law of growth to complete manifestation on the outward plane. (Troward 1909:60)
 
Troward (1909:85) tells us exactly how this is to be done:
 
1. There is some emotion, which gives rise to

2. A desire;

3. Judgment determines if we shall externalize this desire; if approved,

4. The will directs the imagination to form the necessary spiritual prototype;

5. The imagination thus centered creates the spiritual nucleus;

6. This prototype acts as a center around which the forces of attraction begin to work, and continue until

7. The concrete result is manifested and becomes perceptible.


Troward (1909) identified the numinous element as "subjective mind," having the dual properties of unlimited intelligence and power,

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but without personality, hence subject to the will of each of us when properly related to it. This same entity is the protector and maintainer of man's health and vitality, and hence the source of his creativity and psychedelic experiences. Powerful as it is, it is within conscious control, and the regnancy of man over nature resides in this potential control he may exercise over the genius of his species. Such a concept lifts man to a new level of thought and action, and gives to him godlike qualities and responsibilities.

This concept can be summarized as follows. That the numinous element which we know as the preconscious:
 

1. is a unity, and a plenum;
2. exists in a state of complete suggestibility;
3. has memory of all matters, past, present, and future, and
4. is able to control, maintain, and safeguard the body and its health, and influences conditions and events.


Regarding this impersonal character of the numinous element, Pearce (1971:46) says:
 

Attributing characteristics of personality to this function is a projection device which turns the open end into a mirror of ourselves trapping us in our own logical devices.
 
Singer (1972:83) says:
 
The collective unconscious may be thought of as an impersonal or transpersonal consciousness because as Jung says: "It is detached from anything personal and is entirely universal .
 
Singer (1972:84) adds:
 
The wonder of the collective unconscious is that it is all there, all the legend and history of the human race, with its unexorcised demons and its gentle saints, its mysteries and its wisdom, all within each one of us . . .


One of the difficulties with religious belief has been that man has tended to ascribe deity to any example of infinitude. But this problem can be looked at more scientifically. Mathematically, for example, we know that there is a difference between aleph null (the smallest transfinite number), and aleph one (the number of all real numbers). Both are infinite, but one is infinitely greater than the other. This may be a helpful paradigm to apply to the relation of the collective preconscious, and some possible Ultimate Reality beyond it. We prefer to look at the numinous element from an operational viewpoint in its relations with the individual consciousness, without

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speculating on more philosophical and teleological aspects.

Since mankind never seems to cease trying to personalize the numinous element, and to stereotype it with various aspects of personality, we shall try to avoid such behavior, since we consider it an impersonal force. But if we were to give it a quality of personality, surely one of the priorities would be a sense of the comic. This may seem strange to those who regard the numinosum as the "mysterium tremendum" of Otto, but one cannot look at the world of experience without seeing aspects of this high comedy in action. Keel (1971) feels that the UFO's represent a hostile trojan-horse type of activity. We would read the same data as cosmic buffoonery. The trickster archetype of Jung is a fundamental one. Even the close relationship between humor and creativity is suggestive. The universe of non-ordinary reality may contain many frightening and inscrutable aspects, but it also contains two things with which we are familiar here and now - comedy and music.6

Because we look upon the numinous element as vastly powerful, or consider the preconscious mysterious, or the "not-me" terrifying, or, as a result of our religious upbringing, impute Divine qualities to this entity, we fail to note one of its great limitations and hence needs. It is constrained always to act in accordance with whatever suggestions are made to it, that is as if it were permanently hypnotized. In other words it is truly like a genie of the Aladdin tale, very powerful but completely ready to carry out ours, or anyone else's will. This limitation leads at once into its constant need, a perfected will to direct it. And indeed it is the lack of this will in ourselves and others that often leads to the flighty accident-prone nature of history, which is full of mishaps and casualties because it has not been consciously designed and directed by man.

The concept that the numinous element, (the collective preconscious), needs help from the rational consciousness in perfecting its manifestation in the world of experience, may seem strange to many people, but this view of reality, which makes man a co-creator, may actually be nearer the truth than the superseded idea that he is a reactive creature in a universe already created. For such an explanation contains a plausible hypothesis for the existence of evil as a lack of complete manifestation of the good, brought on not by a captious or wrathful deity but by the omission of psychedelic control and co-creation by man himself.

Because we have been conditioned to think of "God" as "He" and not "it," and as perfected and completed instead of being in the process, we find it difficult to imagine a numinous entity which changes and becomes more complete with our own developmental stages. Yet that

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developmental process in the individual is in one sense the effort of the numinous element to perfect and complete itself, rising to the level of rational will and consciousness through the developing life experience of each one of us. We thus experience in each successive developmental stage of our lives a more completed and developed numinous element and hence are more continually comfortable with it. This comfort increases as we gradually learn how in some measure to control the preconscious. The "not-me" which, through various kinds of dissociated experiences (such as night terrors), frightens the child, is an almost completely chaotic manifestation of experience. The preconscious experienced through alpha biofeedback is more tractable and more in rapport with, and in control of, the external environment.

The function of rational consciousness, and particularly the will which results from self-conscious involvement in the world of nature, is not for just the experiencing of nature, but for its understanding and control. If man does not use his self-consciousness to harness and employ the preconscious he wastes his own opportunity and also deprives the numinous element from rising in this one instance to the self-conscious level. Man is necessary for the evolution of the universe! Indeed, he is inevitable!
 
 

1.3 THE THREE ILLUSIONS

As we are concerned with the relationship of consciousness to reality, we advocate three hypotheses as educated guesses. They are:

 
1. The physical universe is associated with our ordinary state of consciousness (OSC), and does not represent ultimate reality;

2. Ultimate reality is also outside time, as it is outside space;

3. Ultimate reality also transcends our sense of separate personal consciousness.

Space, time, and personal consciousness, hence are the three illusions.


Remarkable and outrageous as these postulates may seem, there is considerable evidence to support their possibility. Let us remember that since we have no knowledge of the physical universe except through the sensorium associated with our normal state of consciousness, the whole physical universe and hence all the laws of physics are subordinate to that state. This, of course, is the position of the phenomenologists. But once this possibility is granted, one gets an entirely different look at the human condition, for it is possible that we are imprisoned in space, time, and personality, "shut from

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heaven with a dome more vast," or as Maxwell Anderson so well put it "Lost in the Stars."

For further understanding of this curious situation, we revive an archaic word "vivency" and define it as: "The apparent reality associated with a certain state of consciousness." In our OSC7 this vivency includes the physical universe. While, compared to ultimate reality, a vivency is an illusion of the associated state of consciousness, it is not a chaotic or illogical dream. It possesses laws, properties, and predictable characteristics, and while it is not a plenum or complete set, in that its laws, etc. are but special cases of higher laws, it does represent certain aspects of reality, and to those immersed in our vivency some of the benefits are cognition, causality, orientation, time sequence, stability, safety, etc.

Furthermore, the word "illusion" is perhaps too strong in expressing the exact relationship, and needs qualification. For each state represents reality according to its associated state of consciousness, being but the externalization of that consciousness, and the laws and properties of that external state are hence one with the laws of that state of consciousness. But as each state of consciousness may have differing properties, so the laws and properties of each external state of nature may vary. The error is to assume that the external physical universe (the natural environment of the OSC) represents "ultimate reality" and that all other apparent external vivencies are illusions. In actuality, the external physical universe is the vivency of the OSC, and its laws are those of the OSC. When we enter an ASC8 we enter some vivency of the NOR,9 of which the laws of our external universe are only special cases. It is more correct to say that in such an instance the laws of our external physical universe are "extended" rather than that they are "suspended." It is very important to insist that the laws and properties of any vivency are one with the laws of the associated state of consciousness, for it at once follows that when any part of the OSC is in operation, to that degree we are in the vivency of ordinary reality and under its laws. This effect is universally seen in "miracles," when whereas a specific and particular natural law may have been set aside (or better "extended" as in firewalking, for example), the other laws and properties of physics of the natural external universe do not dissolve in chaos, but continue to be observed10.

In attempting to assess the importance of these principles upon one's everyday experience, it is useful to discriminate between the theoretical and the practical. A helpful analogy may be drawn in this regard from the effect of Einsteinian relativity on classical

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physics. The effect was profound theoretically, since it opened our concepts to a grander view of the universe than before. Practically, however, the Einsteinian universe was so little different from the Newtonian universe that the most careful experiments had to be designed to measure the differences. We feel that the same considerations apply in this instance. The physical effects of annexing the psychic realm may be relatively minor; but the expansion of purview is profound.

To summarize: briefly the illusion is that consciousness is localized in space, in time, and in personality.11 In reality it extends beyond space, beyond time, and beyond individual personality. For theater to simulate life most effectively requires the classic unities of time, place and ego-action. But no one would claim that the reality of life does not extend beyond these. But as the dramatic unities are helpful in reducing the scale of life to a stage play, they are also useful in reducing the scale of the cosmos to that of our understanding.
 
 

1.31 Space: The Physical Universe

Ultimate reality is not represented by the physical world. The physical universe and its percepts are an illusion much like a dream, which seems real in our state of consciousness being a property of that state. The laws of the physical universe are also properties of the normal state, and are but special cases of larger laws which pertain to the metaphysical world. The way of reaching this metaphysical world, that is of liberation from the physical universe and its percepts, is through an altered state of consciousness. In this altered state of consciousness the larger laws are seen to operate.

Much as positivistic science may promulgate the regnancy of the physical world and the immutability of its laws, the facts of the matter are (as have been well understood by the Phenomenologists and Existentialists), that the sensory data of the physical world are subordinate to our normal state of consciousness. Since we do not have perception of the physical universe except through our sensorium, we have no knowledge of the state, if any, in which it exists when unperceived by our senses. We can deal only with the "appearance," the phenomenon. This table appears "hard and durable." Even physics tells us that it is a mighty constellation of electromagnetic vortices moving at incredible speeds. The concept of hardness and durability is a myth of our sensorium; it is not a property of whatever aggregation of electronic force represents a table to us.
Jung ( Works:8:353) makes plain the primacy of psychic experience:
 

All that I experience is psychic. Even physical pain is a psychic
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image which I experience; my sense impressions - for all that they force upon me a world of impenetrable objects occupying space - are psychic images, and these alone constitute my immediate experience, for they alone are the immediate objects of my consciousness. My own psyche even transforms and falsifies reality, and it does this to such a degree that I must resort to artificial means to determine what things are like apart from myself. Then I discover that a sound is a vibration of air of such and such a frequency, or that a colour is a wave of light of such and such a length. We are in truth so wrapped about by psychic images that we cannot penetrate at all to the essence of things external to ourselves. All our knowledge consists of the stuff of the psyche which, because it alone is immediate, is superlatively real.


In postulating that the physical universe is an illusion we do not mean that it is a chaotic dream without law. A better analogy would be to state that its laws are but special cases of larger laws (as plane trigonometry is of spherical trigonometry, or metric geometry of projective). The universe of events appears "frozen" into time, space, and personal consciousness as a peculiar property of what we call the ordinary state of consciousness (OSC). Within this domain the ordinary laws with which science is familiar hold, but the domain is a subset of a larger plenum, the universe of non-ordinary reality (NOR). It follows that so long as any part of OSC remains, we appear locked into the physical world. This at once indicates that the most efficacious way to enter NOR is to do away with OSC and enter an ASC, such as trance. But even with this happening the OSC does not fall apart but only starts to "melt around the edges." Thus fluidity and flux comprise the miracles of ASC and trance.

Let us try to imagine for a moment how a superordinate reality existing outside the spatial universe would be manifested to those of us in it. While it is extremely difficult to intuit such matters, a few speculations may be useful. In the first place the full aspect of such a plenum could not be expressed by any given set of coordinates (that is by any given place), for this locus would be a mere trace. In a manner similar to the situation in time, it is very possible that the resultant manifestation would be a spatial cyclical property (something for which we have no word in English) in which various loci (places) would possess similar numinous characteristics in much the same manner as the nodes on a long vibrating string.12 These favored locations would become the sites of temples or other forms of invocations of the ASC of NOR ( in other words, holy sites).

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1.32 Time17

The second illusion is that ultimate reality is bounded or comprised in time. Actually ultimate reality is outside space-time. Time, like the universe of physics, is an illusion, much like a dream which seems real to our normal state of consciousness, being a property of that state. The way of reaching outside this continuum, that is of liberation from space-time, is likewise through an altered state of consciousness. In such an altered state one enters the "Eternal" now and leaves space and time behind.

Let us try to imagine for a moment how a superordinate reality existing outside of time would be manifested to those of us in a time-bound universe. While it is extremely difficult to intuit such matters, a few speculations may be useful. In the first place the full aspect of such a plenum could not be expressed by any given value of t, for this event would be a mere trace (as when a line intersects a plane in a point). In the second place, it is very possible that this trace-event would have a cyclical or recurrent property, for the integral (or summation) of such anniversaries or recurrences would constitute the best manifestation of the plenum which could be expected in time.

Such recurrences would appear to us to take a wave form, most probably a sinusoidal or sine-curve form (although the occasional possibility of an exponential form which builds to infinity, vanishes, and then builds again in recurrent cycles should not be discarded). It is interesting that we find these "carrier" sine-curve type waves in many aspects of natural phenomena.

But in addition to this annual festival aspect, of which we shall hear further in the section on myth and ritual, there is another possibility. It is that in those areas accessible both to the superordinate plenum and to the time-bound ego, there might well exist a kind of mythic time, in which "events never were, but were constantly recurring." We find this very property in myth. It is the property which makes Merlin speak of Arthur as the "once and future king."13

In the manner of a partial derivative, let us hold a given action of space constant, and integrate over time. We then have what we call "the durative topocosm," the cosmos of a given location over time, as in the example "the Golden Age of Athens." Because we are clutched into experiencing time as a series of successive instants, it is very difficult for us to intuit the concept of the durative topocosm as extending over time. Perhaps a useful analogy would be that the climate of a given locality is part of the durative topocosm, but we experience the climate serially as a series of undulating weather fronts with alternating highs and lows, which are but waves in a durative medium which we call "climate"16.

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We would laugh at an individual who, during a rainstorm would say "the climate is changing; it does nothing but rain." or who would perhaps remark at the onset of evening: "It is growing dark, the sun is extinguished." We know enough to know that day succeeds night just as sunshine does rain. These undulations in the day and in the weather are to be expected and do not affect adversely our lives or the climate. There is similarly psychic weather, and psychic undulations in energy; there are times to be creative and times to rest from creativity. But these, like the weather and day and night, are phases of the wavelike aspect with which we perceive the durative topocosm which is our psychic climate. And as we exist and are greatly affected by the physical climate, we also exist and are greatly affected by the durative topocosm. This is the realm in which our orthocognitive14 visualizations occur. And because they exist here (outside of time), they appear to us as "untensed," that is of having been perfected, of being perfected, and as about to be perfected. When one visualizes one's body as being healthy, it is in the same tense as "the sun shine" - the absolute. "The sun shine" means the sun shone yesterday, shines now (perhaps up above the clouds), and will shine tomorrow. This is the difficulty of expressing concepts in the durative topocosm in our language of tensed verbs.

As T. S. Eliot (1943) tells us in "Burnt Norton":
 

Human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
what might have been and what has been
Point to one end which is time present.

While the concept that the numinous element exists outside of time is often portrayed in parataxic form, it is (because of the tensed-verb structure of our language), very difficult to bring it through to syntaxic expression. But we must never forget that the numinous element exists outside time and space, and is in the Eternal Now - a universal present which is the envelope of action as we conceive it, and which embraces what we call past, present, and future. Hence that aspect of it which we are able to perceive, clutched into the time-illusion of our ordinary state, is but a surface or intersection of our time consciousness with an entity which exists in a higher dimension much as a silhouette or shadow of an object crosses our path when we are near the object. The real substance of the numinous element is not projected and hence not perceived; only its trace is available to our senses (although in psychedelic experiences we may have

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intimations of the essence). Even when we intuit its unpercepted properties, they appear to our time-clutched minds as having happened before, or bound to happen again, or some other aspect of eternal recurrence.15 Such characteristics, together with the precognitive effect, when met in our experience should alert us to the presence of the numinous element. To the degree that our individual egos effect juncture with it, we may (temporarily) gain these powers, such as profiting from precognitive safeguards, or being able to snatch nascent ideas from the breaking curl of the Zeitgeist wave as they form in the cultural consciousness; others will call this creativity.

It may be that the numinous element exists in four dimensions of hyperspace. The one we cannot intuit, we experience as time, hence in our individual lives it seems to us that time is always growing later, and we cannot intuit reality as existing at other times than the present. But the mnemonic and precognitive aspects of the preconscious make it obvious that it does so exist.

The numinous element from its very nature is plenary. But a plenum is a set which is full, so that as Crovitz (1971:7) points out, the only movement in it must be a kind of circular permutation. (If a room is full of people playing musical chairs, the people will have to move in circular fashion to change chairs.) Since cyclic motion is the only possibility in a plenum, eternal recurrence would appear as a property of the numinous element when expressed in time, one periodic manifestation of which would be the Zeitgeist.
 

1.33 Ego
 

The third illusion is that the separate self, the ego, is real. Actually the concept of the ego, of the separate self, is also a dream which seems real to our normal state of consciousness being a property of that state. The way of reaching outside ourselves, that is, of liberation from this divided state is also through an altered state of consciousness wherein all things are seen "to have a non-sensuous unity."

Let us try to imagine for a moment how a superordinate reality existing outside of our individual egos would be manifested to us in this separate ego-bound state. While it is extremely difficult to intuit such matters, a few speculations may be useful. In the first place, the full aspect of such a plenum could not be expressed by the person at any given time, for his conscious understanding at such a time would be only a trace of the totality. In order therefore for integration to occur, it would be necessary for the ego to go through a series of steps or stages of a cyclical nature in which attention was successively focused on the world of experience, the ego itself, and other egos. Actually, this is precisely what we find to be the case, and we have explored this developmental process in detail in our two previous books, Development of the Creative Individualand Development of the Psychedelic Individual.Periodicity in personality might also require the concept of reincarnation.

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1.34 Conclusion

If all this is illusion, it is only fair to ask why we appear to be in such a dream state. While it is not possible to answer this question fully in our present state of partiality, it does seem plausible that:

(1) the partition of the noumenon into separate selves,
(2) immersing it in space and time, and
(3) consigning it to a universe of physical percepts,
must in some way be beneficial or conducive to a sense of
(1) free will,
(2) developmental progress, and
(3) cognitive or syntaxic representation.
These three tasks, accomplished in the course of human life must in turn have some bearing on the main business of the metaphysical universe, which appears to be a full cognition of the All by the All.

Psychologists have defined a "lucid" dream as one in which the individual knows that he is dreaming. But the step from dream to waking is simply a step up the stages of consciousness. So we should recognize and define as "lucid livers" those who in our ordinary state of consciousness know that they are also in a dream from which they will sometime awaken to a higher state. Even the knowledge of the possibility that one is dreaming in the ordinary state of consciousness (as compared to a higher state) is very freeing in the ability of the individual to imagine other possibilities and vivencies. This, in turn, if it does nothing else, elevates life from a mere animal grubbing for food and survival, to something more in keeping with the dignity of the human being, animal enough in that he eats and excretes, but also godlike in that his mind soars to the stars.

But in the smoke of battle, it is difficult to see all things clearly. So the reader must be contented if we end this chapter with a series of parables, designed to lift by stages the author's and the reader's purview to higher potentialities without disturbing either to the extent that the new ideas are rejected as "crazy." Mark Twain once said that every new idea goes through three stages: First people say it is impossible, then they say it conflicts with the Bible, and finally they end up believing it.

Imagine a garden hose with an adjustable nozzle, and the water pressure turned on at the spigot. Will water come out of the nozzle? This depends on the adjustment of the nozzle. I think we have a good analogue of the relationship of individual intelligence to the collective energy; it is the nozzle adjustment which results in a drip

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or a torrent. Furthermore, although it is not usual, the nozzle adjustment can be changed (karma).

To explain the Buddha's saying that the soul neither exists nor does not exist after death, let us imagine a rabid basketball player named Joe, who thinks that playing basketball is the be-all of existence, and feels alive only when in a game. Joe has a teammate, Charlie, who is playing with him in a game, and who gets out on fouls. Suppose Joe now asks: "Is Charlie still around?" The answer is both yes and no. It is yes if Joe means, does Charlie still exist; it is no if Joe means is Charlie still in the game and able to make points. The fact is that time is like the time of a basketball game, an arbitrary measurement set in the Universal Now. While we are clutched into time, we can score points (make merit). When we get pulled out of the game, we are out of time, but we are still in the Eternal Now of the collective preconscious.



Imagine a rural railroad line which runs through a series of deserted towns and stations. Trains continue to traverse the wilderness route however, leaving and picking up freight and baggage which accumulates at the way stations and is then removed in a random and haphazard fashion. Now imagine that in each town there lives in solitude one rather paranoid hermit who believes he is alone in the world, and regards the station with its piled up wares, which keep appearing and disappearing, as a nightmarish situation which had best be avoided. Let us further imagine, however, that one hermit, braver than the rest and more innovative, explores the station in his town, and begins to realize that instead of being an object of dread and superstition, it is actually a station on a railroad which runs on a schedule, and hence can become both a communication facility to the outer world and a source of goods and services to him. He cleans up and organizes the premises and regularly makes shipments and requests supplies which are delivered in due course.As a resulthe becomes happy, prosperous and sophisticated, in a word, completely in command of his environment. The other hermits having somehow heard about this man's good fortune regard him either as very lucky or very wicked. Actually he has only succeeded in conquering superstition and in making the best of his situation.

The parallel here between this story and the creative individual's use of his preconscious mind is very striking. The conscious mind represents the hermit, an ego which does not realize its power to control the environment through the preconscious. The preconscious

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is represented by the railroad station, at first a source of anxiety and dread, but later one of abundance. Unlike the separate hermits, the stations are connected by a railroad, and it is this fact in regard to the collective preconscious which is the key point in our metaphor. Because of this connection, goods and services of the whole system are available at any station where the hermit has the courage and sense to order them.

The preconscious in each individual is a manifestation of a "collective preconscious" or "not-me" which is the same essence in different individuals, and therefore forms a common bond or connection between them like blood in different organs of the body. Furthermore this essence is totally responsive to the will of the conscious mind which can learn to control it and create out of it anything necessary, useful, or desirable. We order the goods by telling the preconscious what we want, and by keeping in thought the realization that the order or archetype thought has already been accomplished. We imagine or see the outcome of our unspoken thought. We can do this for ourselves or others with regard to health, environmental events, or any other condition or situation in which we are involved. The power of consciousness is the power to impress our will on the preconscious and fertilize it so that it will produce the situation we have willed.
 
 

1.4 THE THREE MODES: PROTOTAXIC, PARATAXIC and SYNTAXIC

In pursuit of our theme that the central business of life is contact of the individual ego with the numinous element, we have introduced the issue, defined the numinous element, and discussed the tripartite illusion that consciousness is bounded by space, time, or personality. As a conclusion, and practical corollary to all this, we find that in our vivency, there appear to be three modes of contact between the individual ego and the numinous element. These have been named (using Sullivan's terminology) as prototaxic, parataxic, and syntaxic. This theme is diagrammed in Figure I. The diagram is divided into three parts:
 

a) prototaxic experience (characterized by loss of ego);

b) parataxic experience (characterized by the production of images whose meaning is not clear or categorical);

c) syntaxic experience (where meaning is more or less fully cognized symbolically, with ego present).
 

Three popular names for these three modes form the title of this book, namely trance, art, and creativity, respectively. Within these

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modes there are various methods of contacting the collective preconscious, which we shall refer to as "procedures." These range from schizophrenia at one end, to satori at the other. A systematic discussion of these procedures forms the remaining bulk of the book.

The diagram details the relationship between the cognitive, individual ego and the numinous element as appearing in the generalized collective preconscious. It is arranged in a stepwise hierarchy from "lower" (left) to "upper" (right). (A child would stereotype this hierarchy as from "bad" to "good.") More accurately, as one goes from left to right, one ascends a parameter which appears to have the following characteristics (see table):

  table21.html

Inspection of these descriptions reveals that the parameter is really developmental process in the individual and the species, but as that task has been explicated elsewhere (Gowan 1972, 1974), we shall turn here to a detailed explication of the modes and procedures.

Before so doing, it is necessary to note, however, than even this more precise statement does not completely clarify the nuances of the differences between the modes. This will be left for more careful explication in the chapters to follow. While readers may generally agree with the placement of the various procedures into the three broad modes, there will doubtless be some argument about their relative positions. The author grants this placement as arbitrary,

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for example, the order as between myth and ritual.

No individual can be in touch with the generalized numinous element without some dissociation from ordinary state of consciousness. Hence the reader should not infer that in the paradigm where the hierarchy is said to go from lack of ego control to ego control that there is a normal state of consciousness with normal ego function in the highest (right hand side) experiences. Certainly this is not the case, for one of the main characteristics of these higher altered states is the change in ego function; in fact the very name "altered state" indicates that this change has taken place. It may very properly be asked then, if ego function is altered in all altered states, from highest to lowest, what is the difference between the higher states and the lower ones. This difference which exists as a taxonomic hierarchy or gradation of different levels of the parameter can be spelled out with the following characteristics:
 

a) will: in the higher states there is evidence of will; the individual will has been carried out by the numinous element (as in a creative product); in the lower states there is no such evidence, the preconscious seems to spew out whatever material adventitiously comes; will is hence like the hand on the tiller.

b) memorability: in the higher states there is generally memory of the experience; in the lower states there most usually is not.

c) ego function: in the lower states the ego seems to disappear (there is excursus); in the higher states the ego is changed but does not seem to vanish in the same way.

d) crudity-refinement: in the lower states the character of the experience appears crude (dissociative ramblings, psychic tricks such as poltergeist phenomenons, half formed words, glossolalia); in the higher levels we get works of art or other creative products; high level ideas, etc.


The process of development in our individual lives and the process of evolutionary development for our species is simply an "immense journey" from the prototaxic through the parataxic and eventually to the syntaxic mode of representation of the numinous element, or the movement from trance, through art to creativity.

One finds an intuitive awareness of the relationship between developmental process and mystical unity in Teilhard de Chardin's writings, especially in The Phenomenon of Man (1960). He avers that all matter has a psychic aspect - that consciousness is universal in all life. Evolution is the ascent of this consciousness, and this ascent of life is a movement veiled by morphism. Evolution presents growth in complexity of forms, not mere proliferation; this, the qualitative law of development, culminates in the development of the brain. He

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sees development as discontinuous with stage leaps producing differences in kind. He refers to a planetization of consciousness - a superconscious entity based on the unanimous collection of individuals, and his "omega point" is this conscious union. The cognitive aspect of this is knowledge, but the affective aspect is love,in his terms "amorizing" the universe.

FOOTNOTES

1. (see Bloom 1954, Frank (Kepes 1966:3-5).
Prototaxic
trance
psychomotor
signs
Parataxic
art
affective
images
Syntaxic
creativity
cognitive
symbols

2. "Consciousness" is regarded as an undefinable "given"; for "altered state of consciousness," (ASC), see Tart 1969.

3. since it is an impersonal, ineffable Absolute.

4. The other Aztec deity, Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, typifies the ripple born of wind and water: hence "the breath of life" (Radin 1927:61).

5. The occultist will recognize this description of the numinous element as applicable to mercury, as "having no qualities of itself", but "able to assume any form" (Mitchell 1972:147).

6. Satprem (1968:15) quotes Sri Aurobindo as saying: "A God who cannot smile could not have created this humorous universe."

7. OSC = ordinary state of consciousness.

8. ASC = altered state of consciousness.

9. NOR = non-ordinary reality.

10. It is suggestive that in any ASC, there is characteristic distortion of time, space, and ego, the psychedelic drug experience being an excellent example.

11. Satprem (1968:196) puts the same idea thus: "We are shut up in a personal body only through a tenacious visual derangement."

12. This sort of thing is curiously reminiscent of the Watkins ley lines of England (Mitchell, 1973) and other prehistoric straight lines drawn for unknown purposes on the earth's surface.

13. And reminds one of T. S. Eliot's phrase: "My end is my beginning."

14. See Chapter IV, page 320, also glossary.

15. A good example is the Adamic ecstasy of Chapter IV.

16. "Durative topocosm" is defined on page 206.

17. See Ornstein R. On the Experience of Time, Penguin, 1969.