Image of the World

Back in 1983, Claremont Graduate School invited Whiteheadian philosophers and Jungian psychoanalysts to a dialogue concerning possible cross-fertilizations between process metaphysics and archetypal psychology (published as Archetypal Process: Self and Divine in Whitehead, Jung, and Hillman in 1989). James Hillman gave the keynote, wherein he admitted that “something further [was] needed” than his typical psychologizing via negativa. His endless criticism, perspectivalism, and “seeing through” came to seem like “merely another strand of Western skepticism and nihilism” (216). He reports that it was in 1979, during a lecture by David Bohm at a conference in Córdoba, Spain, that he first recognized “the terrible need for metaphysics”:

Philosophers have had much trouble naming what we think is real. Some believe that only matter is real and can be studied, and thus we have various forms of materialism. Some claim there are non-material entities and that these are just as real as material entities. Of course, there are many views that attempt to fuse these into a coherent schema. What I've been trying to do on this blog is develop my own naming convention for reality, borrowing heavily from many others. My animaterialist ramblings are an attempt to include Soul in my own view of reality. One would think, upon first glance, that Soul would be a non-material entity, and that my view would fall into a dualist framework. That is undoubtedly caused by the fact that the word, Soul, carries a lot of historical baggage, as does the word "matter." Soul is usually said to be an invisible inhabitant of the body. That is not the way I view Soul at all.

Jung has been often (rightfully) seen of being a contemporary Gnostic. However, the interpretations which Jung places on Gnosticism and the texts which Jung refers to on alchemy, were often Kabbali...

David Bohm, referring to the prevalent dualistic paradigm, says that mankind

"begins to see and experience himself and his world as actually made up of components. Being guided by this view, man then acts in such a way as to try to break himself and the world up, so that all seems to correspond to his way of thinking. He thus obtains an apparent proof of the correctness of his fragmentary self-world view, not noticing that it is he himself, acting according to his mode of thought, who has brought about the fragmentation that now seems to have an autonomous existence, independent of his will and of his desire."

Much of my current research concerns the relation of science and theology. One finds that of all the sciences quantum physics most intersects with theology. This is primarily because both are fundamentally concerned with the relations of the parts to the whole along with the coupled assumption that an undivided whole underlies the entire universe. But asserting an undivided whole means that modern reductive, atomistic, materialistic science will have to be overturned, along with its infatuation with mechanism or determinism, which began with Descartes, continued in the classical physics of Newton, and still remains in the work of the quantum physicists Einstein and Bohr.

This artwork GAIAN ENTELECHY is a tribute to this emerging visionary culture. It is a representation of the Earth spirit, of a noble consciousness that exists within the natural world. The Earth is...

Whether we like to admit it or not, we always have a choice. We can deny it as much as we want. We’re always as free as we want. There was a well written article by Cristian Mihai, discussing the connection between art and violence. In the end his question turned out to be about free will. I agree with his conclusion w’re the only ones responsible for our actions.

In his new book, The Icarus Deception, marketing genius Seth Godin describes the part of the Icarus story that is rarely told.  As you may remember, Icarus's father, Daedalus, was a master craftsma...

I recently read an article by a blogger who began by saying very plainly that dualism is not a correct view of reality, that it leads to fragmentation in all aspects of life. With this proposition, I agree wholeheartedly. Then, in attempt to discount the reductionist materialist view, they began to explain why they believe the brain is different from the mind. With this, I must disagree, but not with the usual objections we hear from materialists. In my perspective, the mind and brain should not be dichotomized. When they are said to be fundamentally different, this amounts to falling headlong back into the dualist tiger-trap. Viewing the brain as “simply flesh” and the mind as “consciousness” is dualism. This view degrades matter in an attempt to elevate mind to a higher position in the scheme of reality. It is the classic exemplification of the so-called mind-body problem.

What physicists have discovered concerning the nature of light is that it behaves as both wave and particle. This profound and paradoxical characteristic makes light a very attractive metaphorical image in explaining the true nature of reality, if one may be so bold as to attempt such a difficult task. I have said that our universe is filled with "animatter," or ensouled matter. There is no dichotomy at all in animatter. Our language brings differentiation between the abstractions we call matter and Soul. We also hear much of the so-called "mind-body problem" (which is not a problem at all, if you reject dualism).  These are mere mental constructs. Animatter is a monistic reality, where all entities in the universe share the same Soul. This is what we refer to as the World Soul, or the Anima Mundi.