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Integral World: Exploring Theories of Everything
An independent forum for a critical discussion of the integral philosophy of Ken Wilber
Joe Corbett has been living in Shanghai and Beijing since 2001. He has taught at American and Chinese universities using the AQAL model as an analytical tool in Western Literature, Sociology and Anthropology, Environmental Science, and Communications. He has a BA in Philosophy and Religion as well as an MA in Interdisciplinary Social Science, and did his PhD work on modern and postmodern discourses of self-development, all at public universities in San Francisco and Los Angeles, California. He can be reached at [email protected].
SEE MORE ESSAYS WRITTEN BY JOE CORBETT Archetypal Astrology and the Kosmic HolomovementJoe Corbett
Thus, in the astrological AQAL diagram, each planetary archetypal quality is matched with its corresponding quadrant.
In his seminal work on the philosophy of archetypal astrology, The Archetypal Cosmos, Keiron Le Grice points out that the solar system is an embedded system within the larger system of the universe itself, and as such it would have, like all other open complex systems, its own structures, patterns, and processes from which emergent phenomena would arise. Among those emergent phenomena would be the planetary archetypes, energies that reflect the patterns and distinct qualities of the solar system itself from its very inception, and these are the self-organizing forces that have shaped life and the history of the earth in both its human and non-human forms for billions of years. The space-time relationship of the planets with respect to the sun, the earth, and to all the other planets, determines the particular dynamic energies of the solar system at any given moment. One might say that the gravitational and electromagnetic fields of the solar system (as well as any underlying non-local fields or influences that may be present), change as the relative positions of the planets change, and this constitutes an ancient pattern of relationship that goes back to the very beginning of the solar system. With close observation of humans and events on earth in correspondence to these planetary relationships over thousands of years, astrology has become a human system for understanding the complex and subtle dynamics of the solar system through the planetary relationships and their influence on our lives. The influence of the planets are said to come from the substantive quality of the planet itself (its archetypal energy), from its distance from the sun (from personal to transpersonal the further out), where it is observed at any particular time (with respect to the background of star constellations or signs), and especially with respect to the mathematical resonances or harmonies established when they come into a 90 degree square, 180 degree opposition, or 0 degree conjunction relationship to one another with respect to the earth. All of these together, and many other relationships as well, constitute for astrology the system of complex relations within the solar system, from which emerge distinct forms and events that reflect these complex relationships. As I said above, the geometric aspects of the planets are particularly important for understanding how astrology works. The geometric angles of the planets to one another with respect to the earth set-up resonant harmonies on earth that activate the morphic-fields of the archetypes embodied by the planets when they are in harmonic aspect. One might say that a portal to the planetary archetypal energies is open-up when they come into harmonic resonance either to one another in real time, or to a past point in time, such as their position with respect to a birth chart or other historical event on earth, known in astrology as a transit. To understand what might be going on here, let me say briefly that if the informational content of the universe is stored at the planck level of the structure of space-time itself (according to the holographic principle) where gravity is constructed out of those same qubits of space-time (according to loop quantum gravity), then the dark matter which clumps together with regular matter, and is connected to it by gravity, may be the informational storehouse of the morphic fields and archetypes that seem to appear from nowhere when certain synchronicities and morphic resonances are occur between the manifest and unmanifest realms of the universe. The medium for this exchange may be the virtual particles that pop in and out of existence (according to the uncertainty principle) relaying information between the manifest and unmanifest realms. Thus, when planets come into harmonic resonance according to their particular aspect (0, 90, 120, 180, etc.), it's as if a portal to the archetypal realm of the dark matter storehouse is being opened-up whereby their energies can pour-forth in the particular form of the planets in resonant aspect, and they can then be used as evolutionary scaffolding and even as causal agents for the forms in the manifest (gross physical) universe. Here we see how the complex dynamics of the physical universe at the level of our solar system could be at play with the underlying and immaterial, unmanifest, or dark foundation of that very complexity. Just as Carl Jung's ego functions act as dynamic opposing forces in tension at the surface of life (just as the quadrants of the AQAL itself are), whose expression and dialectical resolution is assisted and resolved by the emergence of deeper archetypal forces (just as levels of development do in the AQAL), so the planets in dynamic aspect at the manifest surface of physical reality activate archetypal forces at a deeper level of unmanifest reality, and specifically, the immaterial reality of the dark matter storehouse of archetypal patterns that have been accumulated and modified over eons of physical and psychological history as habits of the universe. In this scenario, the quantum-entangled nature of space-time and matter sets-up a synchronicity between the unmanifest archetype and the manifest world based on the harmonic resonances of the planets in aspect, whereby the appearance of those archetypal energies are made manifest in humans and their history. Moreover, the ordering of the archetypes themselves in the unmanifest realm, although all of them would come from the LL quadrant of the Kosmic Collective Unconscious dark matter storehouse (see my essay, the Dark AQAL), which is essentially Kosmic Culture, they would most likely not be in a haphazard distribution for random recombination and recall, but would be patterned after the fourfold nature of the Kosmos itself that we see appearing at every level of its holonic existence. Namely, each planetary archetype would fit into a specific quadrant whereby its own energies would be formed and given expression. Thus, in the astrological AQAL diagram, each planetary archetypal quality is matched with its corresponding quadrant. Interpretive variations may apply, but the same kind of archetypal placement can be done for the Tarot and the I-Ching, as I have done elsewhere. In much the same way, at the surface level of physical reality the dynamics of interaction between organism and environment, or between molecule and molecule, constitutes an important component of Darwinian evolution. But beneath the surface at the unmanifest level of quantum entangled space-time and matter, the dynamics of harmonic-morphic resonance and synchronicity are operating to open up the portals of archetypal influence and quantum potentiality from the Kosmic storehouse of the dark matter upon manifest physical reality, making it necessary to consider a trans-Darwinian perspective. And in the case of the nucleotides of DNA (A-G-C-T), perhaps they would each occupy the four quadrants at the surface level of interaction, much as the planets do, whereby through resonances of certain geometric proportions and shapes, portals would be opened up to the archetypal storehouse that would then guide and direct evolution towards patterns and quantum potentialities (adjacent possibles) they themselves, as inert physical matter, would probably never under any reasonable mathematical odds be capable of forming on their own. Perhaps what we have here is an applied interpretation of David Bohm's notion of the holomovement. Holomovement was Bohm's term to describe the undivided wholeness of the universe as it unfolded from the implicate order (hidden and unmanifest) to the explicate order (physical and manifest) and enfolded back again from the explicate to the implicate in a continuous feedback loop of flickering energy at different levels and time-scales of the universe. From the virtual particles of empty space to the life-cycle of stars, organisms, and civilizations, all of the manifest universe is an expression of this single undivided holomovement of coming and going from the unmanifest to the manifest and back again. As the essential process by which the unmanifest and the manifest interact and are known, the holomovement is the Kosmic Seer who sees all, and the Eternally Moving Mover who moves all. By any other name, the holomovement is Spirit, the Undivided One of the eternal Now, just as it is in all Its Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Justice from moment to moment. |