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Barclay Powers is an author and futurist filmmaker. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in East Asian Studies from Columbia University and has an extensive background as an independent scholar. He has studied Chinese, Tibetan and Indian meditation, yoga and martial arts traditions for more than 30 years. Powers is currently releasing multiple media projects worldwide in film and print, related to the evolution of consciousness based on his studies with numerous masters of ancient wisdom traditions. His most recent film, The Lost Secret of Immortality, based on his book, won best spiritual/religious/Christian film at the Great Lakes International Film Festival, 2012, the Silver Palm Award at the Mexico International Film Festival, 2012 and best spiritual documentary at the New York International Film Festival, 2011. See his website at www.lostsecretofimmortality.com for information on the book, graphic novel and film.

SEE MORE ESSAYS WRITTEN BY BARCLAY POWERS

Jung and the
Primordial Solar Archetype
of Origin

Barclay Powers

The insights of Carl Jung represent a collection of psychological speculations, which are remarkably cross-culturally advanced for the time period in which they emerged. If we define the goal of being human as self-individuation, as Jung did, based on uniting the unconscious and conscious levels of the psyche, the Jungian framework is relatively accurate. However, psychological wholeness is an incomplete definition of spiritual enlightenment as defined by many of the contemplative traditions. Unfortunately, in modern times, Jung has been rejected by mainstream science because of the non-consensus reality characteristics of his research, and in particular the concepts of synchronicity, the archetypes and the collective unconscious.

Many key aspects of esotericism – kundalini, the Golden Flower, alchemy, and Tantrism had not been fully translated accurately at the time Jungian psychology was being developed. Western researchers have still not understood the connection between chi/prana refinement and spiritual awakening. Buddhist and Taoist meditation practices, for example, have still not been understood by Western science because they are based on the alchemical union of the three bodies, physical, subtle and super subtle. The super subtle body is Infans Solaris – the Embryo of Enlightenment, which lies dormant within the reproductive system of all human beings, and is the lost knowledge of the primordial wisdom traditions. Since both Jung and Western science could not acknowledge the existence of subtle body union as the goal of inner alchemy, the Coniunctio has remained a mystery in modern times.

Perhaps the greatest criticism of Jung can be said to be his imposition of a Western psychological framework upon the goal of the alchemists in an attempt to be scientific. He never understood that many adepts successfully completed the Great Work, which was an attempt to activate Infans Solaris, the Embryo of Enlightenment, which is still the basis of many Asian meditation traditions, and called the Anthropos in Gnosticism. If we define spiritual alchemy cross-culturally as the literal energetic recreation of the initial condition – the original human genetic blueprint - we end up with the long-anticipated integration of science and the contemplative religions. Theoretically, the eventual neuroscientific explanation of Tantric Buddhahood changes everything for the better in terms of defining ultimate human potential as complete brain evolution. This is the true consciousness singularity, the real cure for the amnesia, which governs modern science and civilization as a whole, which has nothing to do with artificial intelligence or becoming a cyborg. Two of the greatest problems in the conventional mechanistic reductionist worldview are consciousness itself and synchronicity. The worldview of modern science prevents the true condition of super consciousness, the holographic Dharmakaya reality body as the origin of consciousness, Infans Solaris, within the body, from even being considered as an explanation for spiritual enlightenment. Although Jung himself did not understand the actual theory of three-body unification, the Trikaya, and couldn't recognize the Embryo of Enlightenment as the dormant archaic structure of pre-birth consciousness, his insights into the symbols of the dream universe were profound. The idea that Western civilization is acting out conflicts within its own collective unconscious as it seeks psychological wholeness on both an individual and collective level is a remarkable speculation. Synchronicity itself points at a profound largely unknown connection between matter and mind, which may very well be a sub quantum unified field of origin. The possibility of an inner science based on the Bodhisattva archetype in the form of the Tantric Mahasiddha emerging in the 21st century appears likely based on the convergence of meditation, consciousness studies and neuroscience. However, it will be necessary for the kundalini to be recognized as the evolutionary energy within man, which has the potential to enable the brain to evolve to a much higher level of performance. This is problematic since the kundalini is a vitalist concept, which modern science does not acknowledge for the most part. The idea of a dormant structure of super consciousness within all human beings is the basis of many of the contemplative traditions that emphasize spiritual liberation as their goal.

The complete union of the three bodies, physical, subtle and super subtle may be the basis of a scientific explanation of complete consciousness evolution in the future. The idea that the multiverse is actually conspiring to create a scientific definition of enlightenment is realistic when the Embryo of Enlightenment, the Dharmakaya, is understood by Western civilization. Uniting inner and outer subtle and physical structures is the Hieros Gamos of the 21st century and it is global because the Internet represents the creation of a technological Unus Mundus worldwide. The long-awaited future human that is fully evolved in terms of spiritual consciousness, Homo Solaris, is really the rediscovery that the pre-birth consciousness represents the enlightened potential of all human beings as many of the wisdom traditions have insisted for thousands of years. Although ignored by global media, the Bodhisattva archetype is increasingly culturally dominant worldwide, and often linked with the concept of sustainable progress.

The reality is that any Jungian therapist or neuroscientist that completes a genuine qi gong system of inner yoga and meditation finds themselves in a world in which the kundalini serpent power that opens the third eye represents a legitimate divine origin of consciousness of some kind. As Gopi Krishna, the kundalini adept has noted, the living experience of this evolutionary energy, which was known in many ancient civilizations, demonstrates that Freud and Darwin were wrong. Gopi Krishna, like Jean Gebser, believed that the consciousness of modern man was in a state of transition to a higher condition of awareness driven by evolutionary development. The actual story of the evolution of consciousness in human beings appears to be determined by the inner science of the Coniunctio, the union of solar and lunar subtle bodies within the physical structure, which eliminates the all-pervasive amnesia, which characterizes the psyche of the human race. By recognizing the Coniunctio, or Hieros Gamos, as the central component of the mystery of the Tao or Unus Mundus, Jung virtually discovered the lost secret of enlightenment. The problem for neuroscience will be to recognize the importance of subtle body union in terms of the historical evolution of consciousness, when subtle bodies are not acknowledged by Western science. This is why saying there is no scientific evidence for the future human, Homo Solaris, is fundamentally nonsensical. The future human is merely the rediscovery that the primordial traditions have been accurate, and that the origin of consciousness within all human beings has always been enlightenment. This is obviously the true meaning of the legendary Golden Age, which merely describes ultimate human potential at any given period of time. It is inevitable that science discovers the Trikaya to be true eventually, and when this occurs the future human will merely be defined as a Buddha, a fully awakened human being. The key difference between a Buddha and a normal individual is the fact that a Buddha has recognized the Embryo of Enlightenment within himself, which enables him to see it as a wish-fulfilling jewel within all human beings. The convergence of Buddhism and neuroscience suggests that this unification of Eastern and Western models of complete consciousness evolution is already well underway.

The Indo-Tibetan Mahamudra tradition actually represents a collection of yogic and alchemical methods of achieving realization or spiritual awakening that may shed light on many of the key insights of Jung from a living lineage that continues into the present. Similarly, if we take Taoist alchemy, the basis of many modern qi gong systems in China, Dzogchen, which is actually closer to Taoism than Buddhism, and the Mahamudra lineage, we find that all three systems revolve around the Coniunctio experience calling it the union of mother and child lights. This metaphor for solar and lunar subtle body union is also used in the Hermetic tradition as the goal of alchemy with Greco-Egyptian gnostic roots. Hermetic art often depicts the solar subtle body, the Embryo of Enlightenment, as a unified male/female being, the Hermetic Androgyne. Tibetan art displays the Coniunctio as an enlightened god and goddess in sexual union.

The famous saying of the Indo-Tibetan Mahamudra tradition is that there can be no Mahamudra (supreme enlightened Gnosis) without karmamudra or sexual yoga. The Rosarium Philosophorum illustrates the fact that sexual yoga, as the basis of the Philosopher's Stone, was well known in Europe in 1550. Although it was not possible at the time Jung was writing to explain the Coniunctio cross-culturally as the highest spiritual science of many ancient civilizations, Jung's recognition of the Coniunctio and the Infans Solaris/Philosopher's Stone, as well as the kundalini and Golden Flower, was far ahead of its time. Unfortunately, Jung did not understand the concept of the three bodies – physical, subtle and super subtle, corpus, anima and spiritus as the actual physiological structures of the human body that are permanently and literally integrated by meditation, Tantric yoga and inner alchemy, when the Coniunctio is completed by the adept. His statement that the West would not be ready for the energy of the kundalini for a thousand years demonstrates a fundamental European bias based on an incomplete understanding of chi/prana and spiritual awakening.

The concept of the unconscious needing to be reconciled with the conscious mind to achieve psychological balance is a valid insight of both Freud and Jung as two of the primary pioneers of the inner world of the human mind. Freud was not interested in gnosis, and Jung never fully understood that many alchemists actually achieved the genuine illumination of the union of subtle and super subtle structures of the body worldwide. Clearly, to describe the kundalini or the Golden Flower as the unconscious is very different from the living reality of the Embryo of Enlightenment, which lies dormant within the reproductive system of all human beings.

The narrative of the Gnostics often refers to the super subtle body as the Anthropos, the human genetic blueprint/Infans Solaris, which was considered proof of divine origin. Although Jung recognized that the serpent, Christ and the Anthropos were often interchangeably used by the Gnostics, the eternal vision of the Embryo of Enlightenment, the heart of the contemplative traditions was not understood. The inner illumination of the shaman, the yogi and the alchemist was merely assumed to be the reconciliation of conscious and unconscious levels of the psyche. Even today the fact that there are two dormant archaic reptilian structures in the body, the Embryo of Enlightenment and the pineal gland, which result in super consciousness when united, has not been understood by science or transpersonal psychology. Wilber's contribution of recognition of the three bodies is important, although he uses a modified theistic, Vedic trinity of gross, subtle and causal bodies, which highly distorts Buddhist and Taoist meditation, and excludes the Embryo of Enlightenment and the Coniunctio as the goal of the complete evolution of consciousness. Grof has seen every type of transpersonal experience possible in a clinical setting but obviously never mentions the spiritual embryo/Infans Solaris, which is the goal of meditation, Tantric yoga and inner alchemy.

The experience of the union of the three bodies, the Trikaya of Buddhism, enables the adept to have the experience of the founder, embryonic enlightenment, which renders the individual equivalent to the whole. The Golden Age, Unus Mundus, Tao, or Dharmakaya are all descriptions of a post-Coniunctio state of consciousness in which the normal separation of human consciousness from its enlightened origin has been erased. The fully awakened pre-birth consciousness of the human being represents a Darwinian narrative reversal. For Western science to explain Buddhahood accurately, science itself must change completely, and acknowledge its many errors.

Much of the problem with a scientific explanation of shamanism, inner yoga, and alchemy lies in the shallowness and hubris of the reductionist materialist worldview, which often clings to an incomplete paradigm because of dogma and taboo. When the Embryo of Enlightenment is explained by science it means that human beings have some kind of archaic mechanism of divine super consciousness, which emerged in some way during primate evolution and became the basis of kundalini activation and the discovery of the complete evolution of consciousness. This means that the most ancient traditions of enlightenment actually represent the future of neuroscience. It also suggests that the Embryo of Enlightenment represents a scientifically unknown subtle body structure, which forms early in human embryonic development. Theoretically, it must play a significant role in the fetus as a dormant genetic blueprint of origin – the Buddha nature or Tathagatagharba, Embryo of Buddhahood.

Essentially, all pictures and stories of ourselves that we have been given by science are false and incomplete if the origin of consciousness is enlightenment. From the post-Coniunctio perspective of Tantric Buddhahood or complete awakening, reductionist science is delusional because it can't distinguish between theistic fiction and genuine spiritual awakening based on uniting the three bodies, physical, subtle and super subtle. When inner alchemy is eventually explained accurately, anima and spiritus, soul and spirit, are proven to be the basis of the permanent transcendence of the individual by the inner illumination that results from the union of mother and child lights, the Coniunctio. The alleged convergence of Buddhism and neuroscience is in process. When science explains the Trikaya accurately, the entire story of Western civilization changes completely for the better. Infans Solaris represents the good, the true and the beautiful as the enlightened origin of human consciousness.

The Oldest Archetype

The idea of the archetypes, ancient or archaic structures, which reside in the collective unconsciousness of the human race, is a profound Jungian insight with significant implications for the future understanding of shamanism, yoga and meditation, and inner alchemy and qi gong. The problem is one of amnesia for modern man has lost the master archetype, Infans Solaris, the super subtle body that many of the wisdom traditions were originally based on uncovering. Jung's most significant error was not realizing that a complete kundalini activation results in an actual experience of subtle body union, the Coniunctio, at the completion stage of inner alchemy or Tantric yoga and meditation. The famous Immortal Fetus of Taoism is Infans Solaris, the most archaic subtle structure of human beings lying dormant within the starting point of the body. Buddhism describes the Embryo of Enlightenment, the real Filius Philosophorum as the Dharmakaya reality body, and it appears throughout Tathagatagharba sutras, which Western scholars have not understood. The Anthropos, the genetic blueprint of the first human being, is a holographic solar subtle body, which dissolves into the lunar subtle body at the completion stage of inner alchemy. From a Jungian perspective, the entire collective unconscious is contained within this lost solar subtle body, which modern science has not yet rediscovered. What this actually means is that ancient theories of inner illumination, the reversal of the fall of man by awakening the third eye are largely accurate. The esoteric subtle body trinity, physical, subtle, super subtle, corpus, anima and spiritus, are accurate descriptions of human physiological structures. Buddhism labels the three bodies of enlightenment as Nirmanakaya, Sambhogakaya, and Dharmakaya. The Dzogchen system, considered to be the highest form of Tantric meditation in Tibet, often uses darkness (complete sensory deprivation), to achieve the union of mother and child lights, the metaphor for the Coniunctio/Hieros Gamos, known as the marriage of dragon and tiger in Taoism. Theoretically, the dark retreat is used to rapidly activate the pineal gland, or third eye. Whether the civilization refers to the Trikaya, the triplex unity, or the Trinity, the modern scientifically unrecognized potential of the activation of the enlightened origin of consciousness within the individual is staggering.

The primordial illuminated origin of human consciousness is Infans Solaris, an enlightened archaic subtle body, which lies dormant within all human beings as many of the contemplative traditions have known for thousands of years. The problem with modern science and religion accepting the rediscovery of the Embryo of Enlightenment within all human beings is far beyond skeptic versus believer. It could be argued from a Jungian perspective that the invention of the nuclear menace, which clearly reveals a suicidal impulse at the core of Western civilization, reveals a fundamental terror of origin. The terror lies in modern man discovering a true narrative of divine origin based on a kundalini/embryonic enlightenment hypothesis, which is the ultimate evolution of consciousness. The demonization of the serpent in the Bible represents the amnesia, which is eliminated by the true Gnosis of the kundalini serpent power. The knowledge of the kundalini/Embryo of Enlightenment represents an ancient worldwide tradition of esoteric wisdom, which may be much older than modern theories of the origin of civilization. Since science is based on the open-minded search for greater truth, it seems appropriate that the Dharmakaya body of absolute truth should be fully explained in the 21st century. The true narrative of human origins appears far more Gnostic than Darwinian, when the Trikaya is understood.

The unconscious: “it potentially contains that “round” wholeness which consciousness lacks, it is the most significant of all. This “round” thing is the great treasure that lies hidden in the cave of the unconscious, and its personification is this personal being who represents the higher unity of conscious and unconscious.” (Carl Jung, Collected Works of Carl Jung Vol. 9 (Part 1), page 142)