The Ever-present Origin. Part One

Chapter 4 

Mutations as an Integral Phenomenon: 
An Intermediate Summary

1. Cross-sections through the Structures

Having attempted to present the various consciousness structures in their temporal sequence, in "longitudinal section" as it were, we should now, before addressing the most important attendant problems, turn to a summary that presents them in "cross-section" from a different vantage point. Besides ensuring an orderly survey, this will also demonstrate that, when speaking of the structures which constitute us, we are dealing with an integral phenomenon. Each and every one of us is not just the sum or "result" of the mutations described, but their embodiment as a whole - a whole that also contains latently the possible further mutation to aperspectivity (which we will describe in Part II below).

Two considerations are fundamental to this provisional summary, one with respect to its manner of presentation, the other to its main organizing principle. We must bear in mind that the cross-section in its entirety which is to organize the material we have discussed so far will necessarily consist of various thematically ordered sections. Our task, then, is to summarize the various mutually interdependent characteristics of the individual structures in their respective unfolding throughout the course of the mutational sequence. This will provide the main point of departure for our summation: we shall have to inquire into the unfolding of the individual characteristics, forms of manifestation, and interrelationships of the respective structures.

Basic to this mode of consideration is the circumstance that we can ascribe to the individual structures certain characteristics within their given relationships to space and time. We have found two categories that serve to express these relationships: dimensions and perspective. When we summarize our previous discussion of the individual structures in the form of a cross-section, the following structuration becomes evident for each of the categories mentioned. When read from the top down, it indicates an unfolding structuration, when read across a complementary structuration:

We are now able to see how every mutation of consciousness that constituted a new structure of consciousness was accompanied by the appearance and effectuality of a new dimension. This clearly underscores the interdependence of consciousness and a space-time world; for each unfolding of consciousness there is a corresponding unfolding of dimensions. An increase in the one corresponds to an increase of the other; the emergence of consciousness and the dimensioning imply and govern each other. What we have defined as perspectivity is accordingly only one, although essential, aspect of the respective space and time relation - an aspect which only stands out when viewed from the present-day perspectivally rigidified world. This shows that consciousness-unfolding and -dimensioning are accompanied by an increasing reification or materialization of the world. These two facts beget further new facts, suggesting thereby a kind of symmetry which in a remarkable way underscores the complex problem we can define as the problem of measure and mass. This in turn will illuminate a fourth actuality, namely the symmetry evident in the succession of the mutations, a regularity that is revealing with respect to the mutations in their entirety, as well as to the relationships of the individual structures in themselves, and can, accordingly, shed light an our present-day situation.

This should indicate that our intention is not to systematize but rather to elucidate the living and working interrelationships, and to convey vividly the vital and effective facts that result from these interrelationships.

Before directing our attention to the cross-sections of further unfolding characteristics of the structures, whose next grouping includes their respective sign, essence, and properties, we must consider for a moment the ascriptions made above for the integral structure that result from their particular relation to space and time. Its four-dimensionality represents ultimately an integration of dimensions. It results in a space-and-time-free aperspectival world where the free (or freed) consciousness has at its disposal all latent as well as actual forms of space and time, without having either to deny them or to be fully subject to them. To what extent this space-time freedom can be realized in life, to what extent it is compatible with the occurrence of presentiation, and to what degree it can be related to what we call the diaphainon - these are questions which are resolved to the degree that we become aware of further elements that make up the individual structures.

Let us now turn our attention to further cross-sections. If we recall the previously mentioned sign, essence, and properties for each individual structure, the following new cross-section results: 

As in the case of the dimensioning, it is again evident from the sequence of signs that we can observe an increase or expansion in the course of the mutational series. Our choice of signs is not arbitrary but rather an organic outgrowth of our exposition of the individual structures. The signs do not distort or denature the objectively given state of affairs any more or less than in any instance in which we describe or represent something; every description or representation contains an alien factor not present in what is described, inasmuch as we are compelled to impose an order on something undeniably organic that confronts our linguistic and conceptual means, and to arrange sequentially an obviously complex event.

The signs convey the extension of the point to a circle, the break-up of the circle by the triangle, that is, the division of the circle into sectors - the quantitative increase and extent of the mutations. Conversely, we can see in the rearrangements that determine the given essence of the structures a countermovement; the increase of dimension by which consciousness gains extent and scope is inversely proportional to the qualitative characterof the individual structures, which undergo in each instance a reduction or diminution of value or intensity. The incrementation of consciousness does not correspond to an increase within the relationship to the whole, even if that were possible, but rather to a lessening or weakening of this relationship.

In qualitative terms, then, the expanding consciousness reduces its own system of interrelationships. Unity is only a reduced wholeness; yet an inceptual consciousness in man is possible only once this unity has been achieved. Polarity further expands the arena in which consciousness operates, providing the tension necessary for everything that lives and unfolds. At the same time, the originary presence of the whole is lessened or dimmed. It can no longer be experienced to its original degree as wholeness but only through an act of completion or complementarity. And, as noted earlier, the further dimensional increment that drives polar self-complementarity into the dualistic division and measurability of oppositions does not even allow for an act of completion but at most for an act of unification which is always fragmentary. (These reductive "Potentialities of the Structures" will be presented in the very next cross section below.)

There seems, therefore, to be a qualitative reduction of wholeness that corresponds to the quantitative augmentation of consciousness which, by dimensioning, creates its own system of interrelationships. The increasing expansion, extension, or growth of consciousness evident in the mutations is inversely proportional to the reduction of the integral system of interrelationships which it has apparently lost. When viewed in this way, the dimensioned world seems to be one splitoff from the whole. The quantitative spatio-temporal system of relationships increases to the degree of the growth of consciousness and is recognizable in the increase of dimensions and reification. Yet there is at the same time a proportional decrease of the pre-spatial and pre-temporal presence of origin; man is no longer in the whole. Henceforth he is to an ever-greater degree merely a participant in the whole, although the whole ultimately cannot be lost since the archaic structure or origin is irrevocably present.

What takes place here is perhaps less a weakening or distantiation from origin than a remarkable kind of rearrangement. To us, accustomed as we are to thinking in terms of subject and object so as to be capable of mental thinking, this presents itself as a rearrangement of intensities similar to consciousness, in which what is rearranged is carried over from the objective world - or universe, i.e., world in its entirety - into man. Man becomes the bearer or agent of the originary "consciousness" (or whatever we may wish to call it), and his earthly conditionality, via his spatializing and temporalizing, renders terrestrial that which is integral and related to the whole. 

Man, however, is not just a creature of earth; he is also a creature of heaven, if only because he breathes this heaven with every breath (if one will permit the somewhat loose physical description). In every breath the "substance" of even the most remote heavens is present if only to an infinitesimal degree. Now, to the extent that he is a creature of the heavens, what we have just observed to be a diminution or an augmentation, a loss or a gain, may seem for the moment somewhat perplexing; but it would be even more perplexing if man were only a creature of earth and heaven. Since he is more than this - and, because quantitative terms are irrelevant here, we could also say: less than this - we could perhaps, in the further course of our discussion, extricate this state of affairs from its dualistic cul-de-sac or, in mental terms, its statement of gains and losses, particularly as we will be able to verify a number of inceptions including some that free us from the compulsion of dualism.

If we are to summarize in a third grouping those aspects which can bring us a step further toward resolving the questions that have arisen, this cross-section will have to make evident what we have designated as the "Potentialities of the Structures." To the extent that these are potentialities which consciousness opens up through its mutations, we must be aware of the particular aspects of world with which the respective potentialities of consciousness associate, that is, which aspect takes on the nature of consciousness for a given structure. In addition we must also become aware of the energy - the movement and dynamism - which is the agent or initiator in man of the particular consciousness emergence. If we do this, we can in mental terms note the particular accentuations of consciousness in the familiar categories of subject and object which result in the following cross-section (the ascriptions in parentheses cannot be discussed until later):

From this it will be evident that the incrementation of consciousness goes hand in hand with a "diminution" of the relation to the realizable whole; we do not lose this relation to the whole completely only because the presence of origin cannot be lost, and consequently, it lends to all of the structures which mutate from it and constitute us this same imperishability.

The next cross-section, by contrast, shows how an increase occurs in the sequence of the aspects of world realized in consciousness, which is accompanied by a simultaneous increase in the powers of emergent consciousness by which consciousness is increasingly able to become a reality. Whereas the tenor of the magic structure is definitely one of nature realized in emotion, and that of the mythical structure is one of the psyche realized in imagery, the tenor of the mental structure is one of a spatial world realized in thought. Now it is true that the powers which make possible these realizations increase in number and become conscious and usable; but there is a simultaneous narrowing of the realized aspect of world which at first glance appears incongruous: nature and the psyche, both incommensurate, are more all-encompassing than the spatial world apprehended by the measuring thought which culminates in perspectivity.

The dilemma can perhaps be resolved if we turn to a summary of aspects that can be brought together under the headings of the degree and the relation of consciousness of the respective structures. Here we encounter the symmetry spoken of earlier that may provide some assurance where the apparent inconsistencies of the phenomena could tend to become confusing. 

This symmetry will be apparent from the following cross-section:

Our inclusion of deep sleep and sleep under the rubric of consciousness in this cross section may be justified by the fact that we do not attribute consciousness to these two states (which might be designated as a somnolent and somniative, i.e., dream consciousness respectively), but only a form or degree of consciousness in view of their function in the awakening process reflected by the mutational series. This also renders invalid the prevalent dualistic pairing of an Unconscious as opposed to Consciousness.

The symmetry to which we have just referred is evident in what we might call the pulse or the breath rhythm inherent in the mutations when considered as a whole. The archaic structure might be thought of as the silent pause before breath; and when we apostrophize this structure in a somewhat unilateral manner as a "silent pause," we should also bring to mind the inaudible singing latent in every pause: the musica calladaor "silenced music" of which St. John of the Cross once wrote. The magic structure in turn, inasmuch as it is definitely outer-related toward nature, is a first exhalation, one which we do not wish to postulate for the moment as also a form of "being exhaled," as this could immediately elicit the undeserved reproach of being animistic, a likely charge by the dualistic and anthropocentric mentality prevalent today. But the mythical structure - definitely inner-, i.e., psyche-related - is by comparison to the magic structure definitely suggestive of exhalation; here we find the psychic equivalence of the "inhaling of the heaven" to which we referred earlier. And this "inhalation," as it were, in the mythical structure is even more evident if we consider the mental structure which "follows," for it is again decidedly outward-related to the world and thus shows a distinctly exhaling character.

These conclusions based on the inner-outer relationship of the various structures parallel the data presented in the preceding chapter: the opening up and mastery (and consequent consciousness emergence) of nature by magic man, of the psyche by mythical man, and of the objectified world of space by mental man. In this way the mutational series closes to form a living whole in the symmetry recognizable in the alternation of breath, the organic succession of inhalation and exhalation, as well as in the pulse of the structures.

We have, to all appearances, lent to this symmetry an organic character, giving the mutational process a one-sided biologistic aspect which, to the extent that the biological is predominantly natural, necessarily takes on a magic taint. But we can also understand this symmetry as a polar event, thereby emphasizing its complementary rather than unitary moment. In so doing, however, we run the danger of mythologizing and will have to strive to understand the regularity in terms of our still dominant state of consciousness, comprehending mentally in a sequence what would be diaphanously apprehended as a whole. Since this state of diaphanous consciousness and its form of realization have only been initiated and not yet achieved, we will of necessity have to agree on the mental basis.

We can fathom this symmetry in mental or rational terms and extricate it from the biological-natural magic as well as the psychic-polar mythical spheres by viewing inhalation and exhalation not as a unitary process (specifically as undifferentiated breathing) or as a complementary process (although it is also that), but by understanding it as an antithesis. Yet even this is not sufficient in itself; we must be able to measure the antitheses or antipodes. Only what is measurable can be posited as an opposite, or for that matter posited at all. And, as will be evident, we have taken the first step toward a mental positing and measuring at the very first mention of symmetry. In order to comply adequately with the demand of conceptual measurability as required by the mental structure, we can examine this symmetry in question in terms of the conceptual pair of measure and mass.

We have selected this pair of terms in the first place despite its apparent antithesis, because it is still able to demonstrate its rarely fathomed character as a primal word in the root common to both words. And although everything subsumed by such a conceptual pair bears the stamp of mental antitheticality, it does so only to the extent that it is articulated. In inarticulate form such a pair also embraces polar, unitary, and originary elements. We have selected this pair in the second place because it allows us to observe other revealing phenomena; we would recall in this connection the increase of consciousness and dimensioning, the reification of the world, as well as the apparent contrary movement of the incrementation of consciousness viewed against the diminishing relationship to the whole.

Here we have arrived at a particular juncture: all of the questions and problems that have surfaced in the previous cross-sections come together and are united in the common denominator of the conceptual pair of "measure and mass." This result provides a natural conclusion to the present discussion and forms the link between our previous deliberations and the inferences that remain to be drawn from them. We shall, accordingly, interrupt for the moment our summation of indi­vidual characteristics begun above in order to establish a provisional statement of account.

To facilitate this, we shall summarize all of the previously worked out cross-sections schematically in a form that should be understood not only in vertical cross-section (from the top down), but also in horizontal cross-section (that is, from left to right). We shall also have to extend our "synoptic survey" by an additional cross-section (no. 8, and also the synoptic table at the end of the volume) which serves to illustrate a further aspect of the problem of measure and mass as it relates to the efficient as well as deficient phases of the particular consciousness structures, and expresses their respective qualitative and quantitative forms of manifestation. To be able to clarify this problem of measure and mass with a view toward our first provisional statement of account, we must digress for a moment to clarify the matter of primal words and the particular background unique to the conceptual pair "measure and mass." 

2. A Digression on the Unity of Primal Words

3. A Provisional Statement of Account: Measure and Mass

4. The Unique Character of the Structures (Additional Cross-sections)

Two difficulties present themselves in these deliberations with which we must contend. The first is inherent in the demand of any treatise for a sequential presentation, which is necessarily contrary to the simultaneity of an integral mode. In a given moment where we must deal with various strata of the problems at hand, not merely the various aspects but the very problems themselves tend to intersect. If we isolate only one aspect for discussion, the ordered and sequential presentation is undoubtedly beneficial; but only in part, for we shall have had to forego in the meantime the integral perception and presentation of the particular question in all its aspects.

We have attempted to resolve this first difficulty by immediately pointing to the multiple aspects or strata of a question as we discussed it, a procedure that has uncovered and established a considerable number of interrelationships. Accordingly, constant reference has been made to matters already discussed in other contexts; but we have also had to anticipate certain things lest we find ourselves caught in the dualistic cul-de-sac.

This stratiform multiplicity inherent in our questions in which their entirety becomes visible has necessitated a stratiform and multiple mode of presentation. But as such a method can be considered inherently inconsistent - a method is only able to assess and evaluate one matter at a time - we have designated our approach as "diaphany" which, in contrast to method, at least allows the integral simultaneity to be made transparent. It defines, then, how the integral simultaneity can be made diaphanous despite the necessity of a sequential presentation and the impossibility of its being presented in customary expository form.

The second difficulty rests in our attempt to elaborate something "new" within the framework and limitations of "old" language. The words and concepts of our present-day language are to a great extent rigidified along the lines of the perspectival world. It is true that the language of poetry (as we indicated in our book Der grammatische Spiegel) at least attempts to accommodate itself to the new and novel phenomena striving to take shape, but this is confined mainly to initial indications which, moreover, remain mostly unnoticed. We have endeavored to overcome this obstacle by attempting to "loosen up" language, taking into account not only the present-day perspectivistic conceptual connotation of the words but also their integral nature.

Once again we would like to summarize various specific characteristics, attributions, and qualities of the respective structures in cross-section in four groupings. The necessity is particularly acute here since we have been repeatedly forced to allude to certain matters whose clarity and scope become evident only in summary or retrospect. Let us, then, proceed to recapitulate those things which were not immediately evident from our sequential presentation, and for this the "synoptic view" - complemented and supplemented by the following cross-sections - will afford us the integral view, the simultaneous presence which is necessarily more or less lacking in our mode of exposition.

We shall attempt once more to organize the material under some specific headings, summarizing it in the following four groupings:

1) the basic attitudes of the individual structures, as well as their psychic and physical-organic emphasis;

2) the forms of realization and thought;

3) the forms of expression and manifestation; and the forms of assertion or articulation;

4) the temporal, social, and general interrelationships which distinguish the individual structures.

If we arrange the material discussed above with respect to the basic attitude of the respective structures, noting what we might call the bearer or agency of energy in the first instance as well as the organ emphasis in the second, the following summary emerges (the attributions for the integral structure are in anticipation of their discussion and verification which come only in the course of our further discussion, and are placed accordingly in parentheses):

This summary will present few surprises in the light of what has been said earlier. It will be unnecessary, for example, to elaborate on the vital basis of magic and its guiding force in the conscious-weak instinct, its support in drives which can become conscious, and its expression - notably of identity ör identification - in emotion. Nor will we need to comment an such attributions as the psychic accentuation of the mythical or the cerebral emphasis of the mental structures.

Cross-section 10, on the other hand, may at first glance be surprising, although our ascription to the magic structure of the auditory organ, the ear (which also corresponds to the labyrinth and the cavern), is perhaps evident by now. But the ascription of the viscera to the magic structure is understandable only if we recall several facts. The divining of entrails as a means of foretelling events belongs to the time we have designated as the magical, and its labyrinthine aspect is palpably evident. And the homogeneity of the viscera, as well as their essentially non-directional arrangement, definitely place them in relation to the magic vital consciousness.

The viscera simply have a more eminent position within the larger unity of organs in the magic structure; their functions are more decisive than those of the other organs. How decisive may be discerned from the fact that they served as the source for divining destiny and events for the magicians and medicine men. We can comprehend this curious procedure - which is only seemingly a nonsensical superstition - by remembering that the viscera represent the intertwined unity which we have ascertained as characteristic of the magic structure of consciousness. Magic man, actively partaking and completely intertwined in the magic vitality, was surely able to sense a disturbance or indisposition - the immediate occasion forsuch oracles and prophecies - within the visceral texture as it lay spread out before him, for such a display was not only coincidence, since indeed, in magic everything is co-incidental.

The importance of the ear, on the other hand, derives from the primordial notion of the "receptivity of the ear." Sound or tone is procreative; the ear, the projected likeness of the cavern and the labyrinth, is receptive and, consequently, is also parturient: it gives birth to the rnagic world.

We can discern the degree to which tone is a primordial force that works via the magic structure to shape the world if we observe the meaning of the Latin word carmen. It signifies a "song" or "poem," but originally meant a "religious and magical incantation." Singing in this sense is a charm for spell-casting, which is to say an effecting by tone or sound. Even today such words as French charme, Spanish encantado, English "charming" are imbued with this basic sense which expresses the "charm" or "spell" that men or objects are able to cast an us.

Since the relation between tone and spell indicates their inseparability as well as their pre-eminently magic character, it will not be surprising that we feel justified in ascribing the predominant role within the magic structure to the ear as well as to the inner "vital" organs. The magic world, as well as an essential part of our present constitution, came forth from the magic tone which - becoming effective via the ear - evoked a world. It is this same tone, like that of the jungle drums, whose rhythm is one of the most vital expressions of magic man, that gave birth to dance. Dance is tone become visible: the medium of conjuration and of "being heard" by the deeper reality of the world where man is united with the rhythm of the universe.

Whereas the viscera or intestines are evidence of unity or identity - the prefix "in-" means not only "in" but also "one" - the pulse of the heart is an expression of polarity, like the mouth which can both speak and remain silent. (In its unitary function the ear can only hear.) We have already spoken of the root kinship of the words "myth" and "mouth." And although etymologists have not as yet demonstrated whether the German word for mouth, Mund, can be traced to the same root (mu), we believe nevertheless that we have sufficiently established the primacy of the mouth with respect to the mythical structure.

As for the heart, the Gospel of St. Luke (2:19) records, in an appropriately mythical manner, that "Mary pondered these words in her heart," while the Gospel of St. Matthew (12:34) clearly expresses the mythical correspondence and relation between the heart and the mouth: "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." Even today we refer to the heart as the organ of courage and disposition, and such phrases as "take heart" when we mean "have courage" and our synonymous use of "stout-hearted" and "courageous" are not just coincidences. Even apart from this, Creuzer's somewhat willful etymology which relates mythos with the German word Gemüt, "mind, heart, disposition," is not entirely far-fetched.

Whereas in the mythical structure one "ponders" or "holds" something in one's heart, we speak today in the mental structure of "keeping an eye on something," again an expression that is most likely not just coincidental. This turn of speech is merely one of the subtle hints suggestive of the primacy of the eye which comes to dominate the mental structure. The perspectival world is primarily visual, just as the unperspectival is primarily sensorial and the pre-perspectival primarily emotional.

But the perspectival world is at the same time the world of thought, just as the unperspectival was a world of contemplation and the pre-perspectival one of hearing. In the world of thought, in the mental structure, it is the brain which is the primary inner organ. Once again the close relationship of the mental to the magic structure is evident, for the brain too has the nature of a labyrinth. As long as its functions remain dominant, thinking will be unable to escape from its ambiguity, despite its attempts to elude it. 

In the ninth and tenth cross-sections we have made only tentative ascriptions for the integral structure, and those that we are able to make here will acquire their legitimacy only in the course of our further discussion, particularly in the light of the manifestations which remain to be discussed in the second part of the present work. But we can perhaps venture to make several ascriptions for the integral structure in the next grouping without causing misunderstandings. This eleventh grouping is a cross-section through the forms of realization and thought of the respective structures which will be emended and completed in the course of the remaining discussion. 

A summary of the discussion up to this point yields the following cross-section:

It will be found that these ascriptions hold true when they are also read horizontally and considered together with the other attributions, a task which is facilitated by the "SynopticTable" printed at the end of the volume. The magic structure is more or less characterized by the unitary empathy and sense of identification and identity just as the mythical structure is characterized by the polar complements of imagination and utterance, contemplation or "vision," and vocalization or "voicing" inherent in myth. The Basis of the rational form of thought is expressed by the antithesis of conceptualization and reflection, as in Vorstellen and Nachdenken with their respective suggestion of "before" and "after," as well as by seeing and measuring. As for the attributions for the integral structure presented above, they have presumably been discussed in sufficient detail so that we can forego further comment here, at least with respect to cross-section 11.a; the attributions in 11.b for the integral structure are best understood when read together with those of the other structures.

It is of fundamental importance that we clearly distinguish between "irrational" and "arational," for this distinction lies at the very heart of our deliberations. Arationality has nothing to do with irrationality; their only connection exists in the fact that arationality is not possible without irrationality, or for that matter without the pre-rational or the rational. All three form the basis of arationality. Our entire endeavor of making the individual structures distinguishable in the course of making them visible is primarily intended to prevent the possible confusion of arationality with irrationality.

It is only natural that the rational mind will find it difficult to grasp this basic distinction between the two, for its quantitative means are hardly applicable to the realization of the transparent, arational structure. The rationalist will perhaps mistakenly confuse the lack of measurability characteristic of diaphaneity with the unfathomability of the irrational. There is of course no proof that we are even justified in speaking of a lack of measurability with respect to the diaphainon, for it may well be that diaphaneity is free of measure.

However we may wish to define it, arationality is never identifiable with irrationality or prerationality. There is a fundamental distinction between the attempt to go beyond the merely measurable, knowing and respecting it while striving to be free from it, and rejecting and disregarding the measurable by regressing to the immoderate and unfathomable chaos of the ambivalent and even fragmented polyvalence of psychic and natural interrelations. Projective geometry has long since demonstrated that the rejection of measurability can by no means be equated with chaos. And so this suggestion may perhaps serve to anticipate what we hope to clarify gradually in the succession of these pages and those of the second part so that it may be transparent and thus evident.

The third grouping which summarizes the forms of expression and manifestation can be represented as in cross-section 12 and 13 on the following page. With regard to these attributions it should be noted that those of the magic structure are not to be understood in any way pejoratively. The denigrating characterization of "idols" today, for example, which proceeds from a one-sided religious viewpoint, despoils the sacred intensity of what such idols originally represented. We have no right to look disparagingly at this form of an awakening religious consciousness, particularly as we ourselves are still "superstitious," if in no other sense than in our rejection and persecution of superstition.

The natural succession in cross-section 12 of idols-gods-God is not a value judgement but rather an illustration of the formation and increasing objectivation of the perceptive faculty of consciousness. The centripetal direction towards one God prefigures the centering of the human ego that takes shape in the mental structure as ego-consciousness. A similar process of formation is evident in the gradual supplanting of idols by symbols which are in turn displaced by dogma. Whereas the idol has an unlimited unitary validity, the Symbol is always polar and ambivalent, that is, ambiguous as well as equivocal; and dogma - rigid and one-sided - creates an antithesis between adherents and those who reject it.

Commensurate with the fragmentation into separate sectors that takes place in the mental structure, dogma has currency and validity only within a single sector, the religious-theological. Other fragmented and intellectualized sectors, in the instance of the symbol, are recognizable in allegory as a rationalized form of conceptuality already dissociated to a great extent from the psyche. As such, allegory forms an antithetical and intellectualized expression of the imagistic-didactic rather than religious sphere. The fragmentation is also evident in the formula and the formalistic tendency which are constitutive for the rationalistic stamp of the natural sciences and the sciences of the mind.

This process of consolidation of consciousness, finally, is mirrored in the transposition that takes place from ritual through mysteries to ceremony and method; each is preceded by its earlier pre-form, which is in every instance of lesser consciousness intensity and dimensions. When understood in this way, the interrelationship between these various instances should prove instructive with respect to various phenomena and their examination.

Since we have ventured to make several partial attributions for the integral structure we must hasten to add that the term "divinity" appearing under the rubric of forms of expression must not be taken to be a reference to the religious sphere. We will see later the degree to which "the divinitary" is not a religious term in a strict sense but is rather based an what we described as the "preligious." And we would also mention that praeligio represents neither a form of religious antipathy, nor a type of substitute religion. The preligious aperspectival world can no more dispense with the religious than the religious can do without relegio or its magic preform, proligio.

Preligion is merely an expression of the aperspectival form of "religion" which integrates the archaic presence, and its presentiation is neithetr forward- (or future-) directed, nor backward- (or past-) oriented; but religion forms an irrevocable constituent of its foundations. And when we recall in this connection our discussion of both presentiation, which is a realization or effectuation of presence, and the diaphainon or diaphaneity, this reference to the preligious character of the divinitary will come as no surprise. (We shall return to this question in our discussion of cross­section 16 in chapter 7 of Part I below.) Nor will the material in cross-section 13 which is discussed above in the second section of the present chapter evoke any astonishment. 

The material contained in the fourth and concluding grouping has also been discussed for the most part above. The three cross-sections which summarize this grouping deal with the temporal, social, and general relationships of the respective structures and provide the following survey:

The temporal relationships in cross-section 14.a have been in our estimation sufficiently explored above, and the same is true of those in cross-section 14.b. We wish, nevertheless, to make some additional supplementary remarks concerning patriarchy. We noted earlier the connection between the patriarchal and emphasis on the "right," directed thought, and "rights" and law-giving in our discussion of Lycurgus and Solon (who, incidentally, was the first to have coins minted). It is the mental structure which first places emphasis on the principle of masculinity, and there is a causal connection between Solon's legislation and the matricide documented in the Oresteia which even touched the realm of the gods: Zeus devoured a mother, Metis, who was pregnant with Athena. 

Or, stating another way, both lwegislation and matricide proceed from the same-newly-forming consciousness structure. The tremors and shock unleashed by this murder must have been overwhelming; they can be felt in Greek tragedy, in Aeschylus' trilogy of the Oresteia as well as in the aftershocks that appear even today. Indeed, the consequences are today more distinct than ever before. 

Matricide is synonymous with the elimination and collapse of matriarchy. Yet we must not forget that matriarchy had by then become deficient. Bachofen, for instance, has written, "Mankind has not forgotten that the time of feminine dominance visited experiences of the bloodiest kind over the earth." The matricide extensively reduced, although not quite destroyed, what was once the sanctity that had turned into atrocity within the once-valid mythical structure, along with the remaining foundations of that structure itself. Orestes' actions bring on the collapse of one world and the dawn of another with the full force and attendant circumstances of such cataclysms.

The temporal relationships in cross-section 14.a have been in our estimation sufficiently explored above, and the same is true of those in cross-section 14.b. We wish, nevertheless, to make some additional supplementary remarks concerning patriarchy. We noted earlier the connection between the patriarchal and emphasis on the "right," directed thought, and "rights" and law-giving in our discussion of Lycurgus and Solon (who, incidentally, was the first to have coins minted). It is the mental structure which first places emphasis on the principle of masculinity, and there is a causal connection between Solon's legislation and the matricide documented in the Oresteia which even touched the realm of the gods: Zeus devoured a mother, Metis, who was pregnant with Athena.

Or, stating another way, both legislation and matricide proceed from the same-newly-forming consciousness structure. The tremors and shock unleashed by this murder must have been overwhelming; they can be felt in Greek tragedy, in Aeschylus' trilogy of the Oresteia as well as in the aftershocks that appear even today. Indeed, the consequences are today more distinct than ever before.

Matricide is synonymous with the elimination and collapse of matriarchy. Yet we must not forget that matriarchy had by then become deficient. Bachofen, for instance, has written, "Mankind has not forgotten that the time of feminine dominance visited experiences of the bloodiest kind over the earth." The matricide extensively reduced, although not quite destroyed, what was once the sanctity that had turned into atrocity within the once-valid mythical structure, along with the remaining foundations of that structure itself. Orestes' actions bring on the collapse of one world and the dawn of another with the full force and attendant circumstances of such cataclysms.

A downfall of the soul such as man then experienced must have been horrendous, particularly as the new structure could not fully unfold before this collapse. The demands and the pains placed upon man by this emergent structure are reflected in the exertions and struggles of the ancient heroes to assert themselves in the world. The demeanor of Odysseus - or of any other Greek hero - which manifests his boastfulness and self-adulation, is symptomatic of his compulsion to bridge the gap rent by matricide, as well as to assert himself.

Those vainglorious monologues of the Greeks, which have always seemed embarrassing because of their boastfulness and exaggeration, are accordingly an expression of the mania and compulsion of these heroes to regard themselves as seriously as the already emerging mutation demanded. Only a man still unsure of himself is given to boasting as the only way of establishing his status; this is why the ancient Greek had to assure himself by swaggering: he had destroyed the security of his maternal world and stepped outinto the diurnal brightness of the columnar solar temple.

What was then taking place in moderation, counterbalanced by the cults of Demeter and Artemis (and later by the worship of the Virgin Mary), became increasingly and perilously one-sided with the onset of rationality. It is almost as though the material-crazed man of today were the ultimate victim of the avenging mother - that mater whose chaotic immoderation is the driving force behind matter and materialistic supremacy. Besides, a world in which only the man or the father(or his representative, the son) has status and worth is ultimately inhuman.

Here lies the root of the most dangerous phenomenon of the so-called humanistic age: militarism. Patriarchal inhumanity exists particularly because the father is viewed only as, and nothing but, father; the emphasis is on his paternity and not on his humanity. The woman of this age, to the extent that she has any status at all, is seen correspondingly as only a woman and not as a human being. The "humane" age, notably the era beginning with perspectivity, is most likely the least human, and the most inhumane ever.

Yet despite this assertion we do not wich to join Mereschkowski or Bergmann in proclaiming a return to a new matriarchal world. This would be tantamount to turning back the wheel of time. What must happen is rather a change in attitude by the male, who will have to forego many of his presumptions such as the arrogance that everything, including wife and child, belongs to him. He will have to give up this presumption in order that a world can come to be without maternal or paternal dominance, that is a non-masculinized world where man and woman together honor the human, and think not merely in terms of the human but of humankind in its entirety. This would mean that as matriarchy was once succeeded by patriarchy, patriarchy should be succeeded by an "integrum," as we haue designated it. In this integral world neither man nor woman, but rather both in complement as human beings, should exercise sovereignty.

Negligent propagandists of Heraclitus' phrase "War is the father of all things" - such as the power-obsessed paternalistic militarists and politicians, and some interpreters of Heraclitus infected with this same mentality - have failed to realize because of their one-sided patriarchalism that the sentence might well be only fragmentary. It has neuer occurred to them that - as in the case of all statements by Heraclitus - the phrase makes sense only when completed by its polar complement. What we have is apparently only a fragment of a larger writing that is not extant, and it is symptomatic that only this part has survived. The partial sentence, "War is the father of all things," may, in one version or the other, have been originally completed by such words as "Peace is the mother of all things." And even if this or any other complementary thought had never been written by Heraclitus, such a complement was still present in its silent meaning, for he dedicated his book of famous fragments "On Nature" to Artemis of Ephesus, the "Great Mother." It was her image that Orestes once brought from Tauris to Greece at Apollo's behest to release himself from the Erinyes.

We have dwelt on this mother-father problem because of its importance for contemporary Western humanity, as any father-confessor or psychologist could attest at length. Moreover, the problem of the son previously addressed is equally inseparable from this context. The son can become human only when he desists from killing others in the name of the father or the son. For centuries Western civilization has burdened itself with this shameful offense which, like any deed, sooner or later reverts to its doer.

Anyone with ears to hear can already discern the approaching echo sounding from the (unillumined world of) the "woods." We are beginning to ask: "Have there been as many deeds for life as for its destruction?" And most of all we are beginning to inquire whether the question can even be asked in such measured, dualistic, and irresponsible terms, for irresponsible means unanswerable unless we were to invest some father-god with renewed avenging power.

But with that we limit the answer to a mere response, placing the problem into an insoluble causal and dualistic context. An answer that "does away" with our questions and deeds will definitely never emerge from this context. This is only the ego, fearful of itself - the ego querying itself, the reflection of the mass (or amassed) "We." This ego will never receive an answer, only a dark muteness: a silent echo more terrible than a sounding one.

With this mention of the "ego" we have temporarily come to the last of our cross-sections, 14.c. It may serve to illustrate our description of how man's ego emerges and increases from mutation to mutation, culminating in the deficient mental Phase with its overemphasis of ego and its pendulation between isolation and rigidification (egocentricity), as noted earlier. It will, consequently, not be unexpected that we speak of the integral structure as being "ego-free." As for the two concepts "apsychic" and "amaterial" (to which we shall return), they express the aperspectival manner of considering the psyche and matter much in the Same way as the term"arational" served to convey the nature of aperspectivity wich respect to the rational.

The cross-sections 1 through 11.a/b, and 12-14 discussed above have been included in the "synoptic Table” at the end ot the volume, without any claim to completeness (which is, in any event, unattainable). Nonetheless, they may serve as a basis for the deliberations that follow and can shed some light an the further course of our investigations.

5. Concluding Summary: Man as the Integrality of His Mutations 

It should by now be evident that in showing the structures which constitute us we have also gained a theoretical as well as practical means for clarifying our own lives. All of the deliberations (Überlegungen) we have advanced are to begin with what the word suggests: namely, the spatializing superimposition of thought onto phenomena and objects. Viewed in this way they are partly a blanketing, partly a superstructuring. And if we go, as we must, a step further we shall have to take into account that such deliberation, which in this Sense is merely a spatializing construct, does not of itself achieve anything. 

We have, accordingly, repeatedly emphasized that the structures we have outlined exist not only on paper but are in fact part of the phenomena and actualities which constitute us. To be sure, these actualities in the way we have presented them have an inherent organizing scheme, as does any form of representation, which contains an element of distortion or violence. And yet our organizing scheme applies to living processes which of themselves correct the schematic rigidities where they would be too powerful. We have already considered this corrective force inherent in all life in the gradually expanding design of our "Synoptic Table." The table is intended to be, not a straitjacket of rationalistic patchwork, but, in its demonstrable overlappings, an attempt in mental fashion to show man viewed in terms of his principal components as an entirety.

It is with such elucidation and clarification that we are concerned, not with explanations or deliberations. Nor are we inclined merely to interpret, since interpretations imply a one-sided relationship to the imaginary or imagistic and the mythical-psychic in us. And we are equally disinterested in presenting conceptualizations which unilaterally relate to the measuring and measurable spheres in us and in the world - that is, to the rational and material aspects.

But even assuming that our discussion were actually to provide us with a survey of ourselves - our reactions and actions - as we might hope for: what is gained thereby? This is a rational, that is a perspectivistic, goal-oriented question, and this is precisely why we are raising it. For even when viewed from the one-sided utilitarian viewpoint such a survey of those things that give our life its main emphasis can have a clarifying effect. If we apply the knowledge and insight laid out in the "Synoptic Table" directly to ourselves and to others, we will gain a better understanding of many actions and reactions since we will have come to see their roots and conditionalities.

The significance of this becomes evident when we realize that in every human being the one or the other structure predominates over the others. This brings about extremely obstructive consequences for us since we respond to certain events inadequately without noticing the inadequacy of our reactions and their negative effect on us. For example, someone at home in a predominantly magic attitude will find it difficult to cope with the demands of life posed by themythical, not to mention the mental, structure. Instead of responding to a rational demand in a disciplined and directed way, and to a mythical demand in an encompassing and equalizing manner, such a person can only react to the dictates of drive and instinct, that is, in emotional, non-committal, and chaotic or predominantly magic responses. This means that he or she will founder in the face of important questions of life (such foundering is mainly expressed in major, protracted, and chronic illness).

In addition, life has a tendency to find its equilibrium. Since we live in a consciousness structure pervaded, as ours is, by conceptions of perspectivity, we must bring this structure into balance with the others if we are to act against life itself. The fact that we achieve such an equilibrium by living an integral and not merely a fragmented life is the basic condition that makes possible the mutation which could possibly surmount the dualistic dead-end into which we have maneuvered ourselves.

Let us note the decisive fact that man is the integrality of his mutations. Only to the extent that he succeeds in living the whole is his life truly integral. But we should go one step further: only if life is integral in this sense of equally living-to-the-full the structures which constitute us does it encompass the emerging structure not only potentially, but in an actual and acute sense.

By this time it should be evident that we are not merely toying here with thoughts, but are turning our mind to the prime difficulties that face the realization of an integral life. For life, after all, is not just a sum of vital aspects; the Vitalists failed to realize the fundamentally one-sided and magic nature of their vitalist preoccupation.

We must again approach here, by way of summary, a phenomenon that is truly terrifying so long as we remain unenlightened about it. We refer to the incursion of deficient magic phenomena into our world - the regression noticeable everywhere of our rational attitude to one of deficient magic. It is not as if the mythical attitude alone is over-activated today, although the imagistic aspect of the cinema or the inflation of psychic imagery made conscious are clear testimony of a process of unbridled and uncontrolled regression to the deficient mythical structure. Far stronger than this is the regression to the deficient magic structure. The relation of both the magic and the mental structures toward something outside of themselves - that of the magic to nature and of the mental to the world - results in a stronger affinity between them than between either and the mythical.

We have pointed out this regression to the magical several times; we would recall here our discussion of the basic component of Vitalism as well as our indication of the parallel deficient forms of sorcery and utilitarian thinking with their goal and purpose orientation. We would also recall the remarkable correspondence between the labyrinthine aspects of the viscera and the brain which T. S. Eliot has also pointed out. And lastly, even if we disregard the emphasis on "making" and power inherent in both structures in their deficient phases, we find an indication of deficient magic forms of manifestation in the tendency noted earlier toward collectivization or mass-phenomena in the one instance, and isolation in the other, whose antithetic tension threatens to tear apart our perspectival world.

Collectivization and mass-phenomena, for that matter, may well be nothing other than a reactivated magic clan-attunement in deficient form. Political parties are a compelling example, particularly the extreme ones dominated by the fanatically blind point-relatedness of the magical. And isolation or individuation may well be nothing more than the reactivated magic point-like unity become deficient. While the beginnings of individuation and the clan formed a unity in the magic structure, they are today rationally torn asunder and, driven to extremes, have in their deficiency a destructive effect.

Or, stated differently, we might say that the hyperobjectivation achieved by the ratio brings about isolation, whereas the hypersubjectivation - the overemphasis of the Ego - leads to the limits of Ego-capacity where the ego, reverting to its psychic conditionality rather than mastering the psyche, is itself ruled and condemned by it: it is absorbed by the unconscious, by immoderation, by the mass.

All remedies proposed to combat this danger turn out to be unsuitable. Political parties of "unity" or unified states attempt to regulate the problems of isolation or collectivization, although they reveal their own deficient character by their one-sided demands for power. The attempt is made to improve the circumstances of deficient magic by means of deficient magic, an attempt, as it were, to drive out the devil by invoking Beelzebub.

Let this one example suffice to show the basic point: wherever we encounter a predominance of insistent requests (and fanaticism is a request blindly elevated to a demand which not only petitions but compels); wherever we find a prevalence of the idea of unification in whatever form - a doctrine of unity, the establishment of an association, a huge organization, a one-party state and the like; wherever we encounter a stress on the concept of obedience, as in an overemphasis an the military, or of belonging and belongings, as in the property claims of capitalistic trusts or family patriarchies; and in general wherever we meet up with overweening emotionalism as in mass assemblies, propaganda, slogans, and the like, we may conclude that we are dealing mainly with essentially deficient manifestations of magic. 

Their deficiency can be recognized by their very claim to exclusivity, as if they alone had validity or worth in contrast to the validity of other structures and forms of manifestation. Yet one may well ask what is to be gained by our classification of these phenomena as being deficiently magical. The answer is that because we know how they come to be, and recognize their conditionality, we no longer have to face them unaided. Even though we may be unable to do anything against such phenomena, we can at least avoid becoming submissive to them. We can view them with a certain detachment, secure in the knowledge that a deficient acquisition of unity does not lead to strength but rather of necessity, and naturally, to brutal power and, ultimately, to impotence.

After what has been said, examples of an overly mythical conception come easily to mind. Wherever we encounter an immoderate emphasis on the imagistic, the ambivalent, the psychic - on unbridled phantasy, imagination, or power of fancy - we may conclude the presence of a deficient mythical attitudethatthreatens the whole or integrality.

And, too, wherever we are caught up in the labyrinthine network of mere concepts, or meet up with a one-sided emphasis on willful or voluntaristic manifestations or attempts at spasmodic synthesis (trinitary, tripartite, dialectical), isolation, or mass-phenomena, we may assuredly conclude the presence of a deficient mental, that is, extreme rationalistic source.

This manner of observing the manifestations which we encounter must not, however, be applied mechanically or indiscriminately; only their immoderation orexcess are deficient. Where they emerge in moderation these phenomena are today still efficient and effective. We must not lose sight of this fact, for if we do we place ourselves into question. It is not the measure alone which is decisive; it is the moderation contained in measure along with the immoderation, the measured as well as the immeasurable as expressed in the root of the words measure and mass. 

This summary, then may have served to illustrate that:

1) All structures constitute us;

2) All structures must be lived commensurate with their constitutive values if we are to live a whole or integral life;

3) No structure may therefore be negated; negation enters when one structure or the other is overemphasized, whereby this accentuation is transferred to its deficient manifestations, which are always quantitative; 

4) Certain designations, ascriptions; and characteristic concepts attributed to the individual structures render their effectuality evident. 

With this result we come to the end of our chapter. The foundations that constitute each of us and thus also a possible new mutation may by now have become apparent at least to a certain extent. Nonetheless, before we can turn to the possibilities and first manifestations of the new consciousness or the new mutation, we must address in three short chapters some additional measures in order to preclude misunderstandings.

We cannot forego these measures since among the new and modern phenomena there are too many that, though forgotten, are merely reactivated manifestational forms. Inasmuch as they have been forgotten they give the appearance of being new and are erroneously valued as such. Certain modern artistic trends are a good example: surrealism and dadaism, for instance, are only regressions and notinceptions of a new mutation. They are to a certain extent the rubble covering the foundations; and on occasion they are even deliberate and conscious efforts to destroy these foundations.

We must, therefore, establish some additional means for distinguishing with certainty the seeming from the actual "new." For this we append three additional considerations to supplement our discussion so far. The First addresses the question of space and time, the second the question of soul/psyche and spirit, and the third the forms of realization and thought. Without having clearly demonstrated the conditionality of space and time, without having established what is psychic and what is presumably spiritual, and without having gained insight into the forms or types of realization and thought processes within each individual structure, we will be un­able to make evident the "new."

Without such clarification we would be constantly in danger of reverting imperceptibly to the merely unitary space-timelessness of the pre-rational, or to the immoderation of purely psychic irrationality, or would remain confined in mere quantitative, rational thought. If we wish to gain insight into the arational and the aperspectival, this must be strenuously avoided. Only such insight into the mutation to the integral structure that is in process can transform our consciousness and our humanity into an effective whole. It is this structure, after all, that also encompasses what is to come: the future, which even today is our co-constituent. For not only we form it; it shapes us as well, and in this sense the future, too, is present.

> back to summary