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Integral World: Exploring Theories of Everything
An independent forum for a critical discussion of the integral philosophy of Ken Wilber
Giorgio Piacenza Giorgio Piacenza is a sociologist student in the Certificate program leading to a Master's degree in Integral Theory at JFK University.

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Exploring Lexi Neale's "AQAL Cube Octodynamics"

Toward a New Integral Model?

Giorgio Piacenza

Introduction

I think that Mr. Neale's "AQAL Cube" is a more integral extension of Ken Wilber's essential quadratic model.

I recently returned to Lima from the historic Citizen's Hearing on Disclosure. The Citizen's Hearing in Washington, DC was of high human quality and mind-blowing, objective evidence was presented to six former congressmen and congresswomen not only regarding the intelligent ET presence on Earth (evidencing a unique Second Tier science) but –sadly- on the non-democratic procedures that have been implanted in the U.S. to secretly deal with this issue. The implications of an actual and complex transdimensional ET presence are astounding for anyone needing a different kind of information also pertinent to create an integral culture. They hearing (well attended by retired U.S. and foreign captains, majors, coronels, intelligence operatives, a former Canadian Minister of Defence and a Brazilian Senator ) also revealed the existence of a shadow parallel government running ET research with much power but without checks and balances. What does this have to do with this essay? Well, it brings to mind that most people in the regular “integral” community are still not willing to consider non-ordinary issues of great importance for which –in order to better understand them- the current Integral Model should be expanded.

This is basically a reaction paper based on Lexi Neale's “AQAL Cube Octodynamics” which, I think is a theoretical improvement on Integral Theory which can serve to begin to tackle the reality of non-locality which is connected with psi events, survival of the mind after bodily death, quantum mechanics and the science, metaphysics and technology of the latent, cultural transformative bombshell called “the ET presence.” We need a better integral model to “make sense” of these crucial issues which present a different vision of reality that ought to be embraced/integrated. However, many of the world's problems today continue to arise accompanied by how we deeply re-create an attitude of irrational resistance to integrative advances (like Lexi Neale's “AQAL Cube”) which seem to be inimical to what we have personally and previously invested time and effort to try to understand and assimilate. Integrating integrative models is the next step required now with a greater integrative attitude beyond what Wilber has so far developed. This is needed to make of Integral Theory a more actualized and meaningful theory beyond the traditional search for a post postmodern philosophical sociological, psychological stances. There are important facts and ideas that (just because they feel outlandish to our First Tier instincts and-or are taboo to our social fears) we have not been willing to undertake. These are facts that also arise either from planetary-wide issues invoking us all or – if well understood and coalesced – could inform and connect with Integral Theory (and other integrative models) to help humanity evolve into the next great cultural transformation.

Besides our discourse on levels and stages of development in which we gradually include more perspectives and more of “reality” this rejection, this resistance has been a profound, attitudinal historical experience and even today in the post postmodern world we are striving to create there are mistakenly and implicitly considered “taboo” subjects in the "Integral Community." However, without incorporating these subjects Integral Theory may remain ineffective as an explanatory or guiding model for shedding some light on quantum phenomena and aspects of our own being which do not conform to classical, linear explanations. In fact, as Lexi Neale suggests and I'm paraphrasing, this is indicative of holding on to a First Tier thinking amidst a Second Tier proposal.

I ascribe to the concept that truths can be integrated under more encompassing patterns. Today I'm writing a monograph exploring how Integral Theory enhance the methodology and theoretical understanding of credible forms of Exopolitics (understood as a political science, a cultural paradigm-changing academic field and a politically active movement). I sense the need for this approach but fear that it may probably have not much of an audience...yet. Two integrative fields that should reinforce each other may be too much to ask for at this time when –according to my private assessments) Integral and integrative visionaries hold on to their particular vision still without FEELING INSTINCTIVELY INCLINED to recognize the integrative and-or integral vision of others even if they could enrich their understanding with each other's visions which could be understood as supplementary and complementary. However, as integralists, we must try to integrate all the valid fields of knowledge and praxis already functioning under integrative approaches. The integral “field” (making sense of what seemed to be irreconcilable opposites) must increase its scope in order to be able to tackle all the complex problems which fundamentally require a new global understanding on the nature of reality itself.

We need to consider more than what developmental psychologists have discovered. For example, we may need to consider how the incarnational process and our brains (acting as reducing valves for the Mind geared into physicality) might also enhance unnecessary ego-defending distinctions to our disadvantage as incarnate and evolving spiritual beings. This reduction of insight seems to come along with incarnation and with the acquisition of what Dr. Eben Alexander would probably also agree to call the "Gross Mind," a self-defining, classically prejudiced mind which –like the shining Sun- does not allow us to see what lies beyond (the stars in space) during the day. According to many teachings we have forgotten far too much of our role in the multi-leveled Cosmic structure and way too rigidly attached ourselves to local (physical-classical) survival rules and instincts that impinge pre-verbal strong sentiments on us guiding us in much of what we think and do and in much of what we spontaneously accept as "real" or "credible" or "important."

Thinking that Integral Theory represents a new stage in evolution emerging in the Kosmos needs to take into consideration what could unclog this deeply seated attitude. Why are “things otherworldly” so pathologically ridiculed? Will the ridicule automatically end upon reaching the second Tier, “integral” stage? Perhaps our exclusivist tribal attachments, polarized politics, constant religious subdivisions, bullying, crime, abuse of power, cruelty, corruption, selfishness and excessively violent historical conflicts repeating themselves from one generation to the next are examples of a more deeply embedded situation than the normal course of development of pre-integral “stages.” Perhaps, besides pre-integral stages there are inter-realm blockages on our incarnating consciousnesses that may make developmental stages more rigid than what they need be and tend to sway each stage into its shadow aspects more than would otherwise be. Can we get a more thorough understanding on why we are as we are not only from religions, evolutionary sociobiologists and anthropologists but from individuals genuinely contacting beings observing us from outside our established reality?

Non-dual teachings and teaching an ethics of compassion and-or respect for others (the scope of that circle of “others” varies) have been an antidote to selfish, inhumane impulses but I think that today we also require a scientific Integral knowledge to reinforce the intuitive perception of Love and respect which those teachings naturally elicit or at least are imposed through social control. I think that this loss of vision occurs upon incarnation and is more fundamental than what developmental psychologists have so far been able to research and this -unfortunately- has not been discussed in Integral Theory circles.

There are crucial issues that "orthodox" Integral Theory circles simply (without no genuine reason other than fear of rejection or ridicule) prefer to avoid. The issue of other realms interacting with who we are is downplayed, the findings of survival researchers or experiencers like Eben Alexander is relegated to other “non-integral theory related” private discussions. The serious evidence that we are indeed being visited by a variety of extraterrestrial beings using transdimensional technologies to circumvent time and space limitations is not carefully looked into. Thus, different culturally transformational discoveries adding to a truly integral view remain separate. The barriers are made of attitudes used not to look into serious evidence to the contrary.

Please research; read Richard Dolan's “A.D. After Disclosure” Find out what is brewing in terms of Survival Research and Alternative Physics. The more credible Exopolitical findings accumulating over six decades of research, whistleblower information, leaked and carefully analyzed secret government documents, scientific findings such as Dr. Roger Leir's and the COMETA Report in France, official and semi-official declarations, military interventions, multiple witnesses and credible experiencer witness testimony address some of this but also points to the need for developing a trans-realm science in order to understand how space-time limitations are overcome (most likely through interactions with the non-physical or, rather, pre-physical Subtle Realm). Pretending to be the emerging stage in human evolution or the utmost integral thinkers in the intellectual, practical and spiritual world; the clearest guiding force poised for cultural change without acknowledging these crucial issues is seriously incoherent. If the reason is fear, it is false. If it is tactical (to first gain acceptance in the orthodox academic world) it's too timid to be evolutionary-revolutionary.

There are different integrative worlds that must collaborate and meet. The Meta Theory and the practice of “Integral Theory” must expand to be truly “Integral” regardless of whether it is acceptable or not in the regular academic world. This is why Lexi Neale's work with his “AQAL Cube” or “AQAL Cube Octodynamics” and other similar work is quite important. It opens the door to start connecting the Integral Model with non-local “psi” phenomena and a science that transcends but includes Green altitude, “holistic,” egalitarian quantum physics and cosmological interpretations by incorporating the concept of HIERARCHY under an order and organization comprehending the three main realms of being.

Discussion

I think that Mr. Neale's “AQAL Cube” is a more integral extension of Ken Wilber's essential quadratic model. It touches upon a non-integrally researched area that may link the model to quantum physics and to an exploration of how our conscious experience is also situated in a non-local type of Mental/Subtle Realm. In my view, how objects are enacted in our ordinary quadratic, classical, physical experience relates with this connection. The “Cube” transcends the typical emphasis on self-development and developmental psychology that normally attracts individuals to Integral Theory congealing it as a tool for practical applications applicable to the realm of classical physical experience. The “Cube” could be instrumental in making Integral Theory relevant for evolving a mostly holistic “Green altitude” quantum physics into an “Integral Physics,” an area of development for Integral Theory that has been sorely missing for the Metatheory to be more relevant in the scientific world.

While the “AQAL Cube” introduces more perspectives (the insides are connected with four more clearly established vertices, thus forming a cube when extended out of the original flat quadrants), I see it as instituted on the same pre-quadratic “dimensions” and including the five elements. However, it offers more clearly delineated “perspectives” to consider. Again, the extension starts by giving the “insides” of each quadratic perspective their proper representation by projecting them onto a 3D representation that completes the eight vertices of a cube. The flat representation of quadrants with insides and outsides (also known as the eight methodological “hori-zones”) jumps out into a 3D representation in which the insides are recognized quantum-like as “non-classic” and “non-local.” Naturally, our spatial 3D experience which includes qualitative, non-local aspects in personal psychology, singular autopoiesis, intersubjectivity and self-organizing, interobjective systems can be more clearly modeled using a 3D geometric figure. It provides more “space” for representing what was previously more tightly cramped. It represents the larger “space” or “capacity” consciousness can use to take more perspectives or understand more. Thus, qualitative aspects of experience (always present if we care to recognize this) which can also be represented or expressed in the flat 2D AQAL square can be more clearly defined in the 3D AQAL Cube. Thus, more of first, second and third person perspectives which Consciousness can take can be more clearly distinguished.

Perhaps the top AQAL Cube-forming extensions diagrammed by Lexi Neale should be labeled as “Extensions of Physical Consciousness into the non-local Subtle Realm” and the bottom ones as “Representations of Classical Physical Consciousness.” However, in my view, there are various types of non-locality and we should not consider the quantum and Subtle Realm, “both-and,” relational type of non-locality as the ultimate Non-Dual non-locality. We should not consider anything non-physical or not constrained by time and space as purely Non-Dual. Not even the Causal Realm's type of non-locality is purely Non-Dual.

In the “AQAL Cube for Dummies” which Mr. Neale advanced to me he correctly expresses that “Non-Locality is not of this Physical Universe.” I also read that Non-local Quanta can be “everywhere at once” but, nonetheless, I think that we must qualify this by considering that this particular type of “non-locality” is under statistical constraints to coherently conform our physical universe to the completely space-less and time-less non-locality of the Subtle Realm. Unseen quantum states existing in a “potential” or semi real state as Werner Heisenberg suggested conform to specific probabilities of giving either certain space-based characteristics with some accuracy or certain time-based characteristics with some accuracy upon measurement and (by extension) upon conscious observation. Reversing these constraints may be a key to manipulate classical space-time. We would learn how to cancel the causal and retrocausal components, re-imprint them from the Subtle Realm and separate them once again returning them to a lower physical symmetry. Perhaps the generation of allegedly non-local “scalar waves” (representing the “non-local,” “global” or “whole” aspect of holons) for instance apparently achieved by Professor Konstantin Meyl provides some clues on how to do this. The generation of these waves might depend upon the cancellation of causal and retrocausal influences and these waves would be how we experience the interphase between the Subtle and classical Physical realms but from the physical perspective.

In my view, the basic freedom of expression which interiors experience in the much more ontologically and experientially “real” “Subtle Realm” (which is not experientially-defined by the dimensional parameters of time and space and which is partly described in works like the Vashistha Yoga and is being partly disclosed by advanced out-of-body explorers like Jurgen Ziewe, William Buhlman, Waldo Vieira, Robert Monroe, Sylvan Muldoon, Kirpal Singh and Robert Bruce) is “reduced” into a lower symmetry to interact in a pre-established, determined ways with the formal characteristics of our particular physical universe. All of this could be integrally explored with an expanded scientific method.

What we experience in quantum mechanics as “non-locality” would be a stable kind of interaction between the Subtle Realm type of causality and the Physical Realm type of causality generating patterns which sustain the main characteristics and continuity of our particular physical universe (itself a subset of possible physical universes that can form by way of constraints imposed on the Subtle Realm). We are not giving up causality but a form of causality we are more accustomed to experience consciously. As Neale points out, the insides of the regular AQAL quadrants would correspond with what scientists like Roger Penrose and Stuart Hammeroff think of as “Quantum Consciousness.” What I'm saying is that this might be an intermediate state between realms. I also point out that -in a disembodied state and from a relative perspective- the Subtle Realm self is not the ultimate self but that in its Subtle quadratic insides there would be yet another connection with its self in the Causal Realm. Then again, neither the Causal Realm self would still be situated and not be the utmost expression of the Non-Dual Self.

While all realms possess quadrants, they primarily operate under different rules. For instance, the Gross or Physical Realm would primarily manifest correlations between fundamentally distinct and not mutually reducible quadrants. The Subtle Realm would primarily manifest under the pre-quadratic, fundamental “dimensions” (Interior, Exterior, Singular, Plural) and their relational “both-and” logic in which neither can exist without the other. This is why I say that in this realm the Exterior (singular and plural) quadrants are co-equal with the Interior (singular and plural) ones. The logic and causality are different. Another type of logic and causality would also exist for the Causal Realm. In this logic, exterior objects are not defined in relation to each other, in equal relation with interiors but only through interiors, escaping the rigidities of comparative logic. In this realm, exteriors would be like simplified, re-united expressions of Interiority actualizing the ideal principles that subsume them all.

We could speak of the “metaphysical cause” (outside of the appearances of duality) and of the “experiential cause” as lived by consciousness when embedded in a particular realm or (as Lexi Neale suggests) when focused with “at-tension” and holding on to that level. In my view, the metaphysical cause reflects how things in the Kosmos are (pure subjectivity) without duality and the experienced cause reflect how things seem or appear to be (when primary dual distinctions, the pre-quadratics “dimensions” and the quadrants arise in experience). In the Physical Realm the metaphysical effect (exteriors-objects) would experientially prevail over the metaphysical cause (interiors, subjectivities). In the Subtle Realm the metaphysical effect (exteriors-objects) and the metaphysical cause (interiors, subjectivities) would be experienced as equally important and the exteriors of this realm would faithfully reflect subjective meanings and –in turn- provoke new ones. In the Causal Realm the metaphysical cause would be experienced as prevailing over the metaphysical effect. In fact, based upon itself, the metaphysical effect would be found empty of inherent meaning as Nagarjuna illustrates with his use of the “Neti-Neti” or “neither-nor” type of logic.

In the Physical Realm, things are well-defined (serving “at-tention” under an “either-or” logic). In the Subtle Realm things are relational and co-creatively equal (serving “at-tension” under a “both-and” logic) with interior subjectivity. In the Causal Realm, things are inherently indefinable (serving “at-tension” under a “neither-nor” logic) and ultimately dependent on the mutual immanence of subjectivity. The three realms would each primarily express one of the three logics but would also relate with each other under the three logics so that they would interact, mutually define each other and be mutually immanent.

The different rules of cause-effect among the realms would allow for interactions that can be explored in a scientific manner, for instance to start expanding our understanding of why quantum mechanics follows the “controlled non-locality” or statistics and rules it does. This type of semi-constrained “non-locality” would correspond to the insides of the physical quadrants as they interact with the outsides of the Subtle Realm and the distinction between local and non-local experience (or between space-time constrained and semi space-time constrained) would be like differentiating between “actual” and “potential” reality. Thus, I think that these long-standing Aristotelian and Scholastic metaphysical categories (the “actual” and the “potential”) must be revived to expand Integral Theory in relation to the three main realms which Wilber occasionally refers to without much elaboration.

After considering quantum-relativistic equations (such as Klein-Gordon's) that can unify quantum mechanics with Einstein's Relativity, I think that the classical space-time, dimensional parameters we experience (and which correlate with physical constants like the speed of light, the mass of the proton, etcetera) in classical physicality derive from a degree of separation between the causal and retrocausal, entropic and negentropic influences allowed within quantum mechanics (although we normally remain unaware of the latter in our classical, conscious, linear, entropy-increasing, macro-scale experience). The retrocausal and primarily negentropic (which might also include space aspects and not just time aspects) would remain mostly hidden or (in relation to our experience) in a “potential” state. This distinction would be what produces our physical universe out of the possible or potential physical universes contained in the Subtle Realm. Furthermore, the retrocausal factor would –for the most part- remain unexpressed to our conscious experience but always ready to re-unify our physical universe with the Subtle Realm. The degree of actuality of the retrocausal factor would cancel out with ordinary time-forward space-time forming a link between our physical universe and its Subtle Realm “parent.” Perhaps the (either invisibly compacted or in an out-of-reach membrane form) higher spatial dimensions referred to in Superstring Theories actually refer to these links between physicality and the Subtle Realm since the Subtle Realm itself would not display space or time dimensions as we know them in a physical sense.

The type of stable, statistically-described, non-local, semi-deterministic restrictions seen in quantum mechanics may be given by the degree in which causal and retrocausal quantum level influences form structures by maintaining a specific degree of constant mutual cancelation thus returning a portion of physicality to its origin in the higher space-less and time-less symmetry of the Subtle Realm while maintaining a fundamental set of stable interactions with our particular physical universe for it to persist.

In my view the organizations that ensue between the Physical and the Subtle realms during this stable arrangements are what some esotericists (like Rudolph Steiner) referred to as the “ethers.” On this issue, I'm not denoting the static reference frame and tenuous substance posited as the “luminiferous ether” which was apparently discarded by the Michelson-Morley experiments. I'm referring to another kind of ether or ethers, perhaps akin to the one sustaining the structural qualities of space-time and which Einstein deemed necessary. These might be fluid but structurally stable intermediate states connecting with the Subtle Realm as well as distinct, membrane-like states. They would connect and simultaneously separate. They would depend on stable patterns of cancellation between the actual causal and the hidden retrocausal elements derived from the Subtle Realm and would flow in an out of both realms constantly transferring organization and entropy-negentropy patterns from one realm to the other. They would be like holon “boundary-nexi” between actually experienced physical events (in which the experience of quadratic Interiors is predominantly causally dominated by quadratic Exteriors) and active subtle events (in which the experience of quadratic Interiors and Exteriors is mostly causally co-equal, reciprocal and mutually created). In this constantly recreated flow a portion would remain sustaining physicality and another portion having subtle characteristics and interacting with the Subtle. This is an attempt to start explaining how two distinct realms of being based on different metaphysical principles might remain both distinct and interactive. Active and latent forms always interact and this “boundary-nexus” may increase during so-called “paranormal” or anomalous “transdimensional” events in which physicality becomes subtler or acquires more Subtle Realm characteristics when more of the causal and retrocausal separation that manifests physical space-time cancels out beyond its stable, pre-established average.

I think that in the Causal Realm experience is quadratically dominated by Subjectivity and or Interiors, in the Subtle Realm it is dominated by the equal, co-creative relation between Interiors and Exteriors and in the Physical Realm it is dominated by Exteriors. These three realms can be said to express three different forms of energy and bodies or vehicles for Consciousness, meaning that actual space-time is not obligatory for the expression of some forms of energy. Energy forming quadratic Exteriors would conform to metaphysically distinct expression principles. Lexi Neale's “AQAL Cube” would serve to map the links among these realms, their type of embedded consciousness and the types of energetic expressions.

In my view, the experience of “reality” under the primacy of Exteriors in the Physical Realm is given by the experiential causal priority of exterior representations. For physical experience to conform to the general metaphysical principle that generates the Physical Realm, the retrocausal influence must remain hidden or perhaps only unconsciously detected. Due to this causal priority the retrocausal aspect remains hidden in relation to experience as an experientially “potential” state. Otherwise, Exteriors would not be experienced as causally prior. We may unconsciously perceive the hidden retrocausal through our autonomic nervous system as the experiments of Dean Radin and Dick Bierman show.

The key to a future science that not only incorporates Interiors and Exteriors (or qualitative and the quantitative experiences and research methods) but causally effective, inter-realm interactions would be an improved understanding of the various kinds of relations that can arise between metaphysically distinct principles generating distinct realms and distinct modus operandi under their own logics. While the AQAL Cube's extension is an extension of qualitative physical insides into the Subtle Realm, it is a coordinated or partially restricted extension and is “non-local” from the perspective of classical physics but only to the extent that the interaction between the Interiors-Exteriors relational causality and logic of a “pure” Subtle Realm situation and the predominant Exteriors+ classical logic and causality of our physical experience is present as a restricted quantum mechanical version adapted to sustain the continuity of our particular physical universe.

I'm not certain whether Non-locality, as non-physical existence, is the seat of Consciousness as Lexi Neale seems to suggest; or that, simply speaking locality, as the Physical Universe, is the arena of its enactment. I think that the seat of Consciousness expresses itself under the constraints of each realm but is also unbounded. From my perspective, Consciousness as Non-Local in its utmost sense transcends and includes all of this. In itself it's not limited to a physical type of reality or to a “non-local,” non-physical type of reality. Its locus of control is internal to all and limited to none. However, it can manifest a Physical enaction, a Subtle enaction and a Causal enaction. From the perspective of classical physical quadratic outsides, the Subtle enaction can be considered as “non-local” and from the perspective of subtle quadratic outsides, the Causal enaction can be considered perhaps as an even higher form of non-locality.

What scientists may be slowly coming to terms with is with the influence of non-local, Subtle Realm-embedded consciousness on the enaction of coherently connected physical events. They may be beginning to understand how the Subtle Realm interacts through intermediate states (called the insides of physical quadrants) under, specified or pre-determined harmonies. The enaction of a Consciousness (that ultimately unifies all three realms) would be mediated by the allowed quantum statistical states as –for instance- the degree of uncertainty between classically detected time-like dynamical qualities of quantum states and space-like ones. Once again, this would be a controlled type of non-locality and not representative of the ultimate seat of consciousness.

It is physical space-time that is transcended when in contact with the Subtle Realm level and thus (for classical perception) it is instantly and distance-less connected under specific limitations (for instance, in the case of entangled systems, affecting the reciprocal relations between the dynamic qualities of quantum-level particles) from the quadratic “insides” when the connection with the Subtle realm becomes evident as observed in the objective quadrants under, for instance, single object autopoiesis and systems autopoiesis. However, functioning without the limitations of space-time is replaced by another type of limitation: functioning under the co-creative limitations imposed by Exteriors on Interiors or by Subtle Realm objects on a Consciousness' subjectivity when consciously aware in the Subtle Realm. However, I understand that it is less of a limitation for subjectivity and this is why a mid-level Subtle Realm life is described as more real and joyful than physical life. Space-less, Time-less Non-locality as in the Subtle Realm is the seat of consciousness for that realm; not the origin of Consciousness but a manifestation of it, like the Physical Realm in which -according to the level of union between causal and retrocausal influences- linear, exterior histories and classical causal experience predominates to various degrees. In my view, this level of consciousness corresponds to a relational “both-and” logic which Neale is linking to the “Spectrum of Consciousness” as co-evolving with the “Spectrum of Mind.” In my view the classical “Spectrum of Mind” would correspond to an “either-or” logic applicable to physical, classical experience. The non-local perspective of insides differentiated by the AQAL Cube as non-local is good but would correspond to the intrinsic form of non-locality embedded to physicality as a partial expression of Subtle Realm distance-less and duration-less inter-quadratic connections. In any manifestation of each main realm we gain awareness under structures or vehicles of interpretation and experiencing.

I would add that the quadratic insides of the Physical are defined by the quadratic outsides of the Subtle and that, correspondingly, the quadratic insides of the Subtle are defined by the quadratic outsides of the Causal. Finally, the quadratic outsides of the Causal are defined by the Non Dual All which is the quadratic outsides of all realms and in which “form is nothing but emptiness and emptiness is nothing but form” (as the famous phrase of the Heart Sutra states).

I also consider Lexi Neale's First Person, Second Person and Third Person versions of the AQAL Cube quite useful and original work worth paying attention to. Each provides eight differentiations and, for the First Person, the “distal self” persona “Me” (“Evolving Self-Image” or AQAL Cube's Octant 5) may correspond to the image we objectively present to others in the Subtle Realm. This may be the presentation of our “kosha.” As Neale shows, each “octant” can relate with specific lines (or capacities) and levels of development. Moreover, there are perspectives not completely acknowledged by Wilber and which correspond to the right hand octants. Since AQAL models also rely on recognizing what symmetrical points and areas represent in the diagrams, the First Person AQAL Cube extension (into octants 5, 6, 7, 8) logically points to some normally unrecognized perspectives. The self-system becomes more nuanced and previously unrecognized perspectives of the self-system might relate with self-organizing, non-local quantum processes.

Also connecting the 1st, 2nd and 3rd person perspectives with the Subtle Realm provides a more complete Second Tier approach capable of more usefully modeling our subjective, interpersonal and objectively-defined experiences with the importance of non-locality. This would connect more what we call “Second-Tier” Consciousness through the non-local to the influence of the Subtle Realm. Besides this, in my view, the “Cube” should also be extended into the Causal Realm in order to complete the first basic representations of a three-tiered and three-realm, more genuinely inclusive integral model.

The Interior, Exterior, Individual and Collective pre-quadratic “dimensions” (the “dimensions from which the quadrants “arise”) would remain. By extending the quadratic AQAL diagram to the non-local, Subtle Realm connection and recognizing First, Second and Third person versions of AQAL cubes we obtain 24 Fundamental Perspectives. However, I think that if we were to extend the model to represent the entire dual Cosmos we would probably extend it to connect with the Causal Realm. In this way we would perhaps obtain a 12-sided polygon (called “dodecahedron”) along with 36 Fundamental Perspectives (numerologically reduced to 9 for those that consider this important). Perhaps to model the “three tiers of consciousness” development would have to use this extension reaching Causal Realm. Then, the model would also correspond with the highest “fulcrums” in which –I think- causality and logic are structured for subjectivity to prevail over all possible, simultaneously appearing Exterior objects. However, this level of non-locality would still not be of an absolute, Non-Dual or Pure Consciousness because, while subjectivity prevails over exterior appearance and limitation, while principles may simultaneously reunite all Exterior forms, the distinction still remains.

Conclusion

The integral discourse should not be so focused on psychology and stages but also on how the integral model can become scientifically and humanly useful to understand the importance of the Subtle and Causal realms. There are vital phenomena that deserve acceptance into the integral vision. Doing so would be a Second Tier move. Without them an integral understanding of the human condition is impossible. Lexi Neale's “AQAL Cube” shows us a possible extension of the flat (still largely First Tier-understood) AQAL Square. This extension is useful to recognize and model non-local and quantum experiences as an interaction between the Physical and the Subtle Realms.

References

Alexander, Eben (2012). Proof of Heaven. Simon & Schuster: New York.

Bierman, Dick. http://www.uva.nl/over-de-uva/organisatie/medewerkers/content/b/i/d.j.bierman/d.j.bierman.html

Dolan, Richard and Zabel, Bryce (2012). A.D. After Disclosure. The Career Press: Pompton Plains.

Meyl, Konstantin http://www.meyl.eu/go/index.php?dir=10_Home&page=1&sublevel=0

Neale, Lexi (2011). “The AQAL Cube: A Second Tier Differentiation of Ken Wilber's AQAL Square” http://www.integralworld.net/neale1.html

Neale, Lexi (2013). “AQAL Cube Octo-Dynamics” http://es.scribd.com/doc/114407509/AQAL-Cube-Octo-Dynamics

Radin, Dean (2006). Entangled Minds. Paraview: New York.

Wilber, Ken (2006). Integral Spirituality. Shambhala: Boston.






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