Jacob's Ladder

The Meaning of Life: Ascending Jacob’s Ladder Hazy Notion Introduction The Book of Genesis tells a story about Jacob, alone in the desert, dreaming of “a ladder set up from the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and the angels of God ascending and descending”. In the vision God stood at the top of the ladder. For people of Judeo/Christian faiths this is the original idea of a pathway/stairway to heaven and mystics associated with these religions have frequently used Jacob’s Ladder as a metaphor to illustrate their mystical insights. The essence of what they describe is a relationship between mundane, earth-bound aspects of the human condition and higher ideals associated with the god-head. To make better sense of this idea of a ladder to heaven it might be useful to convert the image into one that is more accessible to contemporary language and thinking. This can be done by thinking of it as a spectrum of psychic energy. A spectrum that is comprised of progressively higher wavelengths of energy which, metaphorically, are like rungs of a ladder, or stairs, rising from the base human mental state up to the sublime. This form of energy is traditionally known as spirit and drives the inner core of the human psyche. The religious name for the inner core is the ‘soul’, or, in contemporary secular language, the ‘identity’. Under normal conditions souls/identities draw their motivating energy from the lower end of the spectrum. The god-head — that is, the image of human perfection — draws energy from higher wavelengths. From this perspective the purpose of human life is to raise soul/identity, both individually and collectively, from lower to higher wavelengths. This raising process is to go on until eventually a union is made with the model of human perfection, the god-head. The movement from lower to higher wavelengths can be seen as an aspect of a larger evolutionary process.

Evolution Evolution, or the phenomenon of growth and change, operates on three planes of diminishing grandeur. The basic and most dramatic level is the inorganic evolution that occurs throughout the universe over time periods

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of thousands of millions of years. The mechanisms of this type of evolutionary process are physical and chemical interactions. The second plane is the process of biological evolution specific to planet Earth. Conventional Darwinian evolutionary theory argues that in the struggle for life, as species continually increase their populations beyond the ability of the surrounding environment to support them, only the fittest individual representatives of those species survive. Chance genetic variations occur quite naturally which sometimes give individuals an advantage in the struggle for existence. Those individuals with the advantage survive longer, and propagate in larger numbers, and in this way the beneficial variations increase more rapidly than the less well adapted variations. As a result of this process a species will evolve over hundreds of thousands of years to be better adapted to the conditions of life on Earth. Humans commonly assume that because they have developed the ability to manipulate their environments, almost at will, they have become the fittest of all species to survive. They tend to look on themselves as having turned natural selection on its head by adapting the environment to themselves, rather than vice versa. They see themselves as not only the fittest but the best and the highest of Earth-bound species. When pressed to answer what is meant by highest it is common to point to intelligence and consciousness, particularly the consciousness of self. Associated with this common belief is another which sees the human species as the end, the goal, of biological evolution. This brings us to a speculation about a third plane of evolution — the human or psycho/social phase. Jacob’s Ladder is a description of this third type of evolutionary process. Let us assume that the momentum of biological evolution towards the modern human species petered out about 30,000-50,000 years ago. The differences between people that have been apparent since this time are due to an entirely new evolutionary phenomenon. We are now involved in a process of evolving consciousness/identity, which manifests collectively as an evolution of culture. The essential nature of this psycho-social phase of evolution is the refinement of human consciousness by movement through a spectrum of psychic energy.

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To illustrate what is meant by a spectrum of energy it might be useful to review the scientifically observable spectrum of electro-magnetic energy.

10-1410-1310-1210-1110-1010-910 -810-710-610 -5 10-4 10-3 10-2 10-1 1 10 102 103 104105 106 107 108 109

Gamma Rays

Ultraviolet

Radio Waves

Infrared Microwaves Radar

X-Rays Visible Light

T.V. FM Radio

Short Wave

AM Radio

Figure 1 The electro-magnetic spectrum is a range of wavelengths from long to short. A variety of phenomena can be detected at different wavelengths. A very narrow band of electro-magnetic energy is visible to human eyesight as light. Within this range human eyes tend to break up what is actually a continuous variation of wavelength into seven distinct colours. Psychic energy is similar to electro-magnetic energy in that it manifests as a spectrum. Humans also deal with psychic energy in the same way as they deal with visible light by breaking up a continuous variation of wavelength into useable segments. The psycho/social evolutionary process requires a continual adjustment and re-adjustment of human identity in order to move it through the Spectrum. This is achieved by tuning soul/identity out of the frequency of lower wavelengths and tuning it into the frequency of higher wavelengths. This process can be likened to tuning a radio or television set. Figure 2 below illustrates both an individual's soul/identity and a collective mind threaded on the Spectrum of psychic energy. A discussion about the

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processes of evolving consciousness requires constant reference back and forth between the individual and the collective experience. The essential choice for individuals who have sufficient insight is whether to make a personal evolutionary bid or, alternatively, whether to serve the prevailing collective mind/culture as one of its functioning units. It is difficult to do both. Jacob’s Ladder / spectrum of identity

soul / identity

collective identity / culture

Jacob’s Ladder / spectrum of identity

Figure 2 A collective mind can be likened to a living organism with a composite identity that is greater than the sum of its cellular parts. In relation to a collective mind an individual mind is a bit like a single body-cell. Each individual body-cell might have its own separate life and death but the totality of body-cells working together make up a living organism on a much grander scale. As individual body-cells die they are replaced and this allows the larger ‘collective’ life-form to live its own life with a certain independence from the micro-lives and deaths of individual body-cells. A collective mind is therefore a kind of monster slowly lumbering up the Spectrum of psychic energy. This monster requires all its participating individual minds to function together as a ‘culture’ to maintain its existence. To achieve this all the individual minds have to be tuned to the same wavelength. The monster moves as a result of all the individual minds moving together.

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As it moves onto higher wavelengths the monster becomes progressively more civilised. The individual participating minds, in turn, share in the progressive enlightenment. But the pace of collective evolution is very slow. If an individual wants to push on alone, higher up the Spectrum, in advance of the collective mind, and experience life on a higher frequency, that person must expect to become alienated from the common identity of human society.

Mapping the Mind In order to decide about this matter of either pursuing individual improvement or simply sharing in collective progress a person needs a map. With a map and, if possible, a time-table, an individual could assess the relative merits of plodding along with the herd, or striking out alone. The easiest way to draw this map is by first fixing the current location on the Spectrum of the greater bulk of humanity. Then, with the location of contemporary culture firmly fixed, the surrounding landmarks can be filled in by working backwards and forwards along the route of the Spectrum. The dimension of consciousness that humans generally agree sets their species apart

from

other animals is usually

referred to as

‘self

consciousness’. It was the attainment of self consciousness that thrust the human race onto the third plane of evolution, the psycho-social phase. So, in the broadest of terms, the mass of humanity is currently residing at a point on the Spectrum that can be labelled ‘self identity’. In the same broad terms the level below self identity can be temporarily called ‘preself identity’, and the level above it ‘post-self identity’. So far the Spectrum looks like Figure 3.

Post-Self Identity You are here

Self Identity Pre-Self Identity

Figure 3

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Self

identity

Jacob’s Ladder

separates

individual

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humans

from

their

surrounding

environment and causes them to focus on themselves as life-forms that exist independently of, and apart from, the myriad life-forms in the social and ecological systems that surround them. Although it is possible to speculate that the whole of the natural world might be eternal it is impossible to escape the fact that detached entities, such as individual humans, are temporal. So the corollary to the consciousness of a selfexistence is the knowledge that this separate individual existence is impermanent. And herein lies the rub. What possible reason can there be for our separate, individual lives? And why must we endure this special consciousness of ourselves as separate beings? Why are we denied the comfort that our Biblical ancestor Adam supposedly enjoyed, before he disgraced himself, of blending our identities with the surrounding environment? Why couldn't we have remained at-one with the Garden of Eden? Why does it feel like selfdelusion when we try to give our lives meaning with the belief that we are small parts of an eternal whole? The answer is simply that human consciousness has evolved beyond a sense of comfortable at-one-ment like this. The price of evolution is more complexity of consciousness. And the price of more complexity is often discomfiture of mind. This discomfiture is built into the evolutionary process. Discomfiture, derived from an existing level of consciousness, causes people to seek a solution through gaining higher consciousness. This quest to ameliorate existing discomfort can be illustrated by successive stages in the development of

Self identity. What propels

people through these stages of Self identity is the constant need to acquire more consciousness in order to deal with the anxiety generated by the consciousness they already have. The first stage of Self identity is the knowledge of personal mortality. This level can be called ‘survival of self’. Most people develop Survival of Self in adolescence. In order to live with the knowledge of personal mortality each successive generation has to learn a vital piece of knowledge. This is the knowledge

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of procreation — that by finding a mate, and producing off-spring, the problem of personal extinction can be partly solved. Children are halfreplicas of each of their two parents. If a child is left behind after death a part of each parent, in a sense, lives on. This part can be multiplied by the number of children. The children in turn have their children and so a chain of immortal existence can be envisaged extending into the future. It's true that the parental residue is halved with each succeeding generation but hopefully this can be compensated for by an increase in the number of descendants with each generation. In the minds of self conscious humans the purposefulness associated with reproductive potential tends to balance the sense of futility accompanying the knowledge of personal mortality. Many possibilities are available for living purposefully if life can be centred around the establishment of a family. Here the fundamental task of life is to use one's fertility as a tool of creativity and to make as many replicas of oneself as is practical. But the success of fertility identity, as a compensator for the anxieties of survival identity, requires that the individual concerned knows positively that the children that are identified as off-spring are not in fact somebody else's children. If there is any doubt in this regard the person is back at square one. In fact, to have doubts over parentage is in many ways a lot worse than having no fertility identity at all. A person who is suffering from doubt over the bona fides of offspring not only has to face the certainty of death but is also confronted with the possibility that the energy being consumed trying to deal with the problem might only be benefiting a rival. This means that the biological division of the human species into male and female offers a distinct advantage to women when it comes to the expression of fertility identity. A woman always knows when she has successfully reproduced herself because she actually gives birth to the child. A man, on the other hand, at best only knows that a woman has told him he is the father of a particular child. More often than not he won't be even told but will simply be left to make the assumption. And on what does he base this assumption? That he cohabits with a woman who has given birth; that he doesn't think she has had any opportunity or inclination to take another lover; that the child looks like

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him. Who is he kidding? He doesn't really know and he'll never know. So he decides he needs to take some steps to increase his fertility security. The most obvious strategy for a man with fertility insecurity is to try to isolate a woman so that he has exclusive sexual rights to her. Most men find it is impractical to achieve this by locking a woman up in a tower or retreating to a lonely location. The most common method of sexually quarantining a woman is through the cultural device of a binding marriage contract. Traditionally, marriage contracts provide severe penalties for any breach of a strictly monogamous sexual arrangement. Monogamous marriage alone, however, doesn't provide the kind of certainty that insecure fertility identities normally require. A more important strategy involves a further evolution of the consciousness of self beyond fertility identity. To have any real measure of inner peace self conscious men need to see themselves as being both attractive and powerful. Dominance is seen as the key to both controlling a wife and fending off male rivals. The will to dominance springs from a further expression of self identity which is one step up the Spectrum from fertility. This higher level of the self is called ‘status identity’. If fertility identity is an advancement beyond survival identity that particularly favours women, status identity is a further advancement beyond fertility identity that is particularly favoured by men. However, any casual reflection on the nature of human behaviour makes it evident that the will to status is not an exclusive male province. It just seems that way sometimes because of the male obsession with status. Men, generally, have a more urgent need than women to advance beyond fertility identity. But the dominance of women by men, in order to compensate men for their fertility inadequacy, is only one of many possible uses of status identity. Status identity is also commonly used by men to dominate other men and by women to dominate both men and other women. Since humans tend to live in groups the widespread expression of status identity has led to social arrangements based on hierarchical structures. This means ordering individuals, within collective frameworks, from highest to lowest, best to least. Status identity has become the principle of social organisation and the favoured method of achieving group

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discipline. It allows a mass of separate individuals to be welded into a collective identity. Individuals with the most status become leaders and decision-makers for the majority. Unfortunately, status identity, like fertility and survival before it, doesn't offer the final solution to life. In practice it only generates a whole new set of anxieties, particularly for those who fail to win a position of elevation on the status hierarchy. What, after all, is the definitive way of measuring the relative merits of all the aspirants for status? If you put together in a room the strongest man in the world, the most beautiful woman and the richest person and tell them to arrange themselves into a hierarchy of merit, which personal attribute will be the most powerful? Will the strong man bully the other two into submission; will the beautiful woman dominate the other two by making them feel ugly and vulgar; or will the rich person buy compliance by turning the other two into employees? In status expression there are always winners and losers. The losers aren't necessarily inferior beings by any absolute standard but are only inferior according to the established status rules at a given place and time. When a man fails to win sufficient status it has a direct impact on his sense of fertility security which, in turn, impacts on his survival security. How does a low status male defend his exclusive sexual rights, granted to him by a marriage contract, from the predatory threats of higher status males? As a consequence of the stress and anxiety of such concerns the low status male's sense of fulfilment and purpose in life is undermined. Wife bashing frequently results from a desperate attempt to feel sufficiently dominant. Most

low

status

men,

however,

successfully

avoid

becoming

too

degenerate by continually striving for status throughout their lives and keeping alive the hope and expectation that their position on the hierarchy is about to improve. To facilitate this life-long quest for status our modern society has devised a status hierarchy based on the acquisition of wealth which

offers

improvement.

everybody

maximum

opportunity

to

gain

access

to

However, although the fluidity of this money-based

hierarchy offers succour to the losers, by constantly promising a change in fortune through opportunities like gambling, it tends to maximise the insecurity of the winners by keeping many of them in a state of constant anxiety over fluctuations in the national economy.

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The contemporary status game is somewhat paradoxical for women. Having more fertility security than men they have less reason to enter fully into status identity. However, once embarked on the development of a status identity they have exactly the same potential as men. The paradox is that the more status a woman acquires the more she tends to restrict the range of her choice of fertility partners. This is the opposite of the male experience. It is largely because a woman's choice amongst men is generally restricted to those men with higher status. This is most frequently because of men’s needs rather than women’s snobbery and arises from male fertility insecurity. Monogamous relationships offer little succour for male fertility fears unless the man is dominant. A male dominated relationship usually isn't possible when the female partner has a higher position on the social status hierarchy. Nevertheless, women in contemporary market societies are generally no longer satisfied to languish in fertility identities and suffer from the total dependence on, and dominance by, men. Women have fairly easy access to status identity through education and entry into the work-force. Once there, however, they must either endure comparatively low status by remaining near the bottom of the hierarchy or otherwise risk destabilising their husband's fertility security by being competitive and climbing the hierarchy. But it's hardly better for men. The losers on the lower end of the scale live frustrated lives hoping forlornly that one day they will improve their situation. Meanwhile, high status males live under the constant threat of losing

their

acquired

status

through

financial

reversal.

Confusion,

insecurity and a record divorce rate prevails. Sensitive people find life stressful under these conditions. When stress reaches a certain point of intensity the sufferer usually has one simple requirement — peace and quiet. Peace and quiet might not be difficult to find but there is a problem to solve before it can be properly enjoyed. How does one enjoy peace and quiet without slipping back down the Spectrum through fertility identity and into the abyss of survival identity? How does one live in peace and quiet and still have a sense of purpose in life?

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The answer lies in the potential for further evolutionary advancement up the Spectrum of psychic energy. This advancement is available to any person who realises that the stress arising from collective expression of self identity is only in the mind, and that the frustrated desires and exposed fears arising from the various levels of self identity can be transcended by making mental readjustments. Many people, of course, reassess themselves and adjust their attitudes at various times during their lives. For the most part this periodic tinkering concerns the need to realign elements of self identity within the shifting patterns of the collective mind. People who undergo this type of readjustment are usually just seeking to express their self identities more effectively. This is the case when people change their career paths, or seek advice from professional counsellors. But a readjustment involving a solitary movement up the Spectrum is something of an altogether different proportion. Rather than involving a re-arrangement of self identity it is an evolutionary migration out of, and beyond, the stress of self identity altogether. A person who makes this transition discovers that the problems of alienation that arise with the consciousness of self can only be solved within the mind of the perceiver. These problems can't be solved by the self expressing itself externally in the physical world. The problems of status, for instance, can't be solved by acquiring more status. A person who undergoes such a realisation enters the realm of meditation and learns that the purpose of life — rather than being the survival, reproduction and status of the existing self — is actually to leave the self behind and evolve into higher consciousness. In relating all this back to the project of mapping the Spectrum the postself identity of the first map can now be more accurately labelled as mind identity. It is also possible to fill in some of the details of self identity on the map (see Figure 4).

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Mind Identity Self Identity

Status Fertility Survival

Pre-Self Identity

Figure 4 The pattern that is emerging on the map is one which has a number of over-themes that can be sub-divided into gradations of expression. Self identity, for instance, can be sub-divided into the three ‘tones’ of Survival, Fertility and Status. It will be established a little further on that the same three gradations of expression apply to all the over-themes and that Survival, Fertility and Status are repeated all the way along the Spectrum. But, firstly, a brief discussion on pre-Self identity is necessary. Some knowledge about this distant ancestral identity is required because, to a certain degree, the collective minds of modern people are still influenced by it. There is some difficulty in getting a clear view of this lower level on the Spectrum since it is an expression of human identity that has been largely confined to a pre-literate phase of history. But there are a couple of approaches which provide glimpses. One is to find traces of it by analysing world mythology. Another is to look at the cultural identities of people within the historical era who have resisted induction into modern social structures. It is also possible to get a grasp on pre-Self identity intuitively. If Self consciousness separates individuals from their surrounding environment, by informing them they are destined to die alone while the world goes on without them, then it is fair to assume that pre-Self identity would most likely give people a sense of unity with their surrounding environment. This is indeed the mystical interpretation of the biblical story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Before the ‘fall’ the first humans are portrayed as being at-one with their surroundings, and at peace with their creator.

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This happy state was only interrupted when the serpent tempted them with the knowledge of self identity. (Both snakes and ladders have been traditionally used as metaphors to illustrate the Spectrum of psychic energy). The oldest type of cultural organisation still existing in the modern world is a pattern generally referred to as hunter/gatherer. There are only a few isolated fragments of this cultural type left and all of these are rapidly disappearing.

Hunter/gatherer

cultures

provide

for

strong

tribal

identification with the land in general but they also promote a special personal bonding within each individual with a particular place. These special places inspire a sense of awe and belonging in the individuals concerned, appearing to have eternal lives that offer their own kind of status, fertility and survival amongst the community of places. These special places can be called territories and the level of consciousness that causes an individual to relate to life in this way can be called ‘territory identity’. OVERTHEMES

THEMES SPECTRUM

COSMOS MIND SELF TERRITORY

Status Fertility Survival Status Fertility Survival Status Fertility Survival Status Fertility Survival

You are here

Figure 5 In the updated map of the spectrum (Figure 5), Survival, Fertility and Status repeat, as what can be called Themes, all the way along the Spectrum. Meanwhile, Territory, Self, Mind and Cosmos emerge as OverThemes which contain the three repeating Themes as gradations of expression. An individual whose identity draws energy from immediately below Self identity would be in a mode that can be referred to as Status of

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Territory identity. Similarly, a person who evolves out of Self identity into the higher expression of Mind identity will first enter into Survival of Mind identity. Identification with the Cosmos is located high on the Spectrum, above Mind. A common goal of mystical practice is the attainment of cosmic consciousness, or union with God. Being at-one with God is a perennial human yearning. However, a traveller who sets off for this destination must

first

navigate

a

passage

through

the

labyrinth

of

Mind

consciousness. The pathway to cosmic knowledge is through inner space, not outer space. The new frontier is in the mind.

Identity Profiles To be viable, a person’s soul/identity should have a number of layers of consciousness with each layer drawing energy from different points on the Spectrum. The basic building blocks of a properly layered identity are the three Themes of Survival, Fertility and Status which repeat all the way along the Spectrum. Properly structured identities — both individual and collective — span all three of these Themes, but, for reasons that are explained below, only three. The requirement to maintain a constant span of three Themes presents considerable difficulty for participants in the evolutionary process. As individual

and

collective

identities

move

up

the

Spectrum

the

corresponding Theme on the lower end of the identity has to be closed down. If an identity attempts to embrace a fourth Theme the identity will become unstable and will flicker back and forth between the highest and the lowest Theme, causing these extremities to alternately pass in and out of consciousness. Identities become afflicted in this way because the highest and the lowest themes are duplicates. When this happens each of the duplicated Themes is governed by a different Over-Theme, which compete with each other to define the duplicated Theme. These competing Over-Themes will demand two very different modes of expression for the duplicated Theme. The most common problem confronting people at our current stage of evolution is the duplication of the Theme of Survival. A person can't evolve beyond Self identity, into the identity of Survival of Mind, while

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simultaneously retaining the identity of Survival of Self. The imperatives imposed on a person to survive in these two very different aspects of identity are in conflict and a person who is simultaneously exposed to both requirements for a prolonged period will be driven mad. So, the strict rule, in order to remain sane and balanced, is that identities should only span three Themes of the Spectrum at a time. The three Themes must be consecutive, but not necessarily all dominated by the same Over-Theme. The sequence of Themes making up layers of identity will rotate as identity moves up the Spectrum. An ordinary person, fully participating in a contemporary market society, will generally have the following range of the Spectrum within his or her identity.

Self Identity

Status Fertility Survival

Figure 6 A housewife who is languishing in a submissive relationship with a husband, and who has no Status identity of her own, might combine the three Themes in the following way. (It is common to relate to the family home through Territory identity).

Self Identity Territory Identity

Figure 7

Fertility Survival Status

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An artist or person who practices some kind of meditation or mysticism, and who has evolved into a higher level of consciousness, might have this profile:

Mind Identity Self Identity

Survival Status Fertility

Figure 8

Emotional Polarities of Mind Energy The root of the English word ‘emotion’ means to move up or to move out. To move a reluctant donkey along a mountain path two accessories are useful. The first is a carrot dangling in front of the donkey's nose to give it a reason to reach forward. The second is a sharp stick to prod into the donkey's behind to encourage it to move away from something. Similarly, there are two polarities of mind energy which act as complementary tools to encourage an identity to express itself and evolve. The carrot and the stick represent the complimentary motivators of attachment and aversion, desire/fear. They are the positive/negative emotional polarities of identity. The positive polarity of the emotion, in the form of desire, encourages the identity to express itself by reaching forward to attain and hold onto something. Meanwhile, the negative emotion, in the form of fear, drives the identity away from the opposite of that which is desired; an attachment to warmth produces an equal and opposite aversion to cold. This polarisation means that at any given point on the Spectrum there are two opposing emotions available. The situation can be grasped by imagining a cross. The vertical line represents upwards and downwards potential on the Spectrum, while the horizontal line represents a range of emotional expression within a given level of consciousness.

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Status Identity

Will

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Anxiety

Figure 9 The higher one goes on the Spectrum, the more refined the emotional polarities become. Each new Theme refines and modifies the quality of emotion.

Mind Identity Self Identity

Survival Status Fertility Survival

Love/Courage Will/Anxiety Desire/Fear Compulsion/Terror

Figure 10 A person whose identity is functioning on the level of Survival of Self, and who has become fully conscious of this level, will have a horizontal emotional range between the compulsion to sustain personal existence, at one polarity, and the terror of death at the other. One Theme up the Spectrum on Fertility of Self the emotional polarities are refined into the more moderate motivators of desire and fear. That is, a desire for sexual expression and the opportunity to procreate, complemented by an equal and opposite fear of sexual rejection and infertility. One further step up the Spectrum to Status of Self and the emotions have been further refined to a will/anxiety polarity. Finally, a more evolved

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person, whose identity has risen to Survival of Mind, will function with an emotional oscillation between love and courage. There is clearly a problem in using common English words for a precise technical purpose like this. But these words are only intended to convey an approximate idea of the principle at work. The relief a person experiences as a result of the emotional quality being refined by the evolutionary process is, of course, the principal incentive to evolve. The higher one goes, the better one feels. Given the choice who would not exchange compulsion and terror for love and courage?

Sub-Themes of the Spectrum The human eye responds to the continuum of variable wavelength found in the spectrum of visible light by dividing it into recognisable segments. These are the seven colours of the rainbow. Human identity responds in a similar way to the continuum of variable wavelength found in the Spectrum of psychic energy. It does this by dividing each Theme into seven distinct ‘tones’, or Sub-Themes, of consciousness. Contained within the span of the Status of Self, for instance, are seven graduated Sub-Themes of Status. This means that there are seven broad areas in which people compete for status. These seven Sub-Themes are most apparent, and most easily demonstrated, within the Status of Self Theme. However, they repeat right along the Spectrum, within each of the Themes, in the same way that the three Themes themselves repeat within each Over-Theme (see Figure 11).

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OVERTHEMES

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THEMES

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SUB-THEMES

SPECTRUM

COSMOS MIND SELF TERRITORY

Status Fertility Survival Status Fertility Survival Status Fertility Survival Status Fertility Survival

You are here (Number)

Psychic Powers Wisdom Number Style Piety Warriorship Superstition

Figure 11 Some readers might find the concept of seven repeating Sub-Themes unfamiliar. But people who have been blind from birth might have a similar unfamiliarity with the idea of colour. If there has been no personal experience of Mind consciousness it is unlikely the Sub-Themes will be self apparent. Nevertheless, readers who find themselves in this situation are asked to suspend their scepticism until they have read the description of cultural evolution a little further on. Some aspects of the Spectrum are somewhat metaphorical. The identity of Warriorship, for instance, doesn't necessarily have a person loaded with weapons and waging war. It is simply an attitude that sees status arrangements as being the outcome of conflict, and conflict as sport. Contemporary market society is collectively located on the Over-Theme of Self, Theme of Status, and Sub-Theme of Number (see Figure 11). The technical description of this positioning is the Status of Self through Number. One Sub-Theme back describes the collective identity of the type of society that historically preceded the modern age. For people of European background this was the aristocratic culture of the Middle Ages. It can be described in terms of the Spectrum as the Status of Self through Style. Back one more level — and one more epoch of European history —

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is the Status of Self through Piety. This wavelength inspired the theocratic culture of the European Dark Ages. The following brief descriptions of the Sub-Themes are given to help recognise them. However, it should be borne in mind that a person is unlikely to be able to clearly distinguish Sub-Themes of identity without personal experience of Mind identity. Describing the distinctive aspects of the Sub-Themes in words is a bit like trying to describe colours without being able to use commonly understood examples (e.g. as blue as the sky). There is also the added difficulty that instead of relating to the physical world they only relate to linguistically vague concepts of identity. 1 SUPERSTITION is an intuitive, pre-rational form of identity. It arises as the first awe-inspired introduction to a new Theme of consciousness. It's perceptions are often clouded and overlapping with those of Psychic Powers from the previous Theme. The collective expression of the Status of Self through Superstition has, in the past, sometimes incorporated religious practices involving human sacrifice. 2 WARRIORSHIP is an early, brash, assertive expression of a new Theme. It is combative and deals with challenges to ascendancy by direct confrontation. It is up-front confrontation with a minimum of thought and guile. It tends to be individualistic and might lack discipline and organisation. It is often disdainful of rules and laws but always obeys a code of honour based on confronting the negative emotions from lower Themes. On the level of Status of Self the expression of Warriorship tends to favour physical strength. This puts women at a disadvantage and women who express themselves on this level often deliberately position themselves in a submissive role through the device of femininity. In contemporary Number dominated society the arithmetic scoring of competitive sport is the most common, culturally approved expression of the Status of Self through Warriorship. 3 PIETY is the observance and interpretation of rules, codes, laws and Scriptures. An identity drawing energy from the Sub-Theme of Piety tends to see rules and laws as ends in themselves. This is particularly so when the rules are specified in writing. When there is a collective imperative to obey rules Status is given to people who are authorised

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to interpret the rules. Control over interpretation can be maintained by either restricting access to the rules, or by restricting the number of interpreters of the rules. Religion and the law are particularly attractive to practitioners of Piety identity in contemporary societies. However, most organisations have members who are more concerned about the rules governing the running of the organisation than they are with the organisation’s objectives. 4 STYLE is what aristocrats cultivate. It is class, beauty, a title, elegance. It is the quality that inspires loyalty and followers. It is the type of identity

that

fashion

leaders,

artists,

dictators,

dandies

and

entertainers must have. Mostly it is variations on the concept of beauty, which make its notions somewhat ephemeral, since taste in beauty is always changing. To compensate for this intrinsic changeability titles are often adopted within style dominated groups to give Style more permanency. A title is an indicator of rank and the degree of Style a person has attained. 5 NUMBER. The Status of Self through Number is the level of the Spectrum at which contemporary market societies collectively reside. The common denominator for measuring relative Status through Number is money. The general rule is that whoever has the greater Number is positioned higher on the Status hierarchy. This gives rise to a plutocratic elite which dominates the society through possession of measurable wealth. The day to day power of plutocrats is often exercised through their role as employers. By having possession of Number (capital) they own the means of producing more Number. Democracy is a political variation whereby political power is awarded to those who can get the highest Number of votes. Science is the highest mode of thinking in this age of Number. It is largely an obsession with the application of Number to the measurement of nature. Sciences without a natural mathematical base, like sociology and psychology, are required to statistically quantify their findings to have credibility as sciences. 6 WISDOM is a refinement of knowledge — knowledge, in turn, being a refinement of information. Wisdom should not be confused with intelligence. Intelligence is the ability to solve problems and is a tool available for identity expression at any point on the Spectrum.

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Wisdom, on the other hand, distils whatever knowledge is available so that priorities can be appropriately ordered. When relative values are correctly understood the powers of discernment and judgement are acquired. In the cultural era set to follow the current age collective identity will express the Status of Self through Wisdom. This future age will elevate people who can direct intelligence to solve problems according to a culturally-appropriate set of priorities. Our current Number motivated age, without the inclination to utilise Wisdom in weighing priorities, routinely applies intelligence in ways that are destructive. Many of the applications of intelligence by the age of Number will be seen, retrospectively, as foolishness in the age of Wisdom. 7 PSYCHIC POWER is the ability to directly affect other minds using psychic energy as a medium. It is essentially limited to the communication of feelings and the rudiments of ideas. Most people receive and respond to Psychic Powers without being consciously aware of it. This is because most people haven’t attained any degree of Mind consciousness. The hidden nature of Psychic Powers works to the advantage of its practitioners. In contemporary societies it is common for matriarchs to wield a subtle influence over family life by expressing the Fertility of Self through Psychic Powers.

Two Mind Streams It takes two distinctly different types of people to make up a properly balanced collective mind. These two types are like left and right legs that step over one another as the collective mind climbs the Spectrum. If all the Sub-Themes along the Spectrum were to be numbered consecutively then one mind stream would embrace all the even numbered Sub-Themes while the other mind stream embraced all the odd numbers. The identities of two individuals from different mind streams are as different from one another as men and women are physically different. However, this division of the human species into two mind types has nothing to do with sexual characteristics. Men and women have equal representation in both mind streams

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The are no contemporary English words to describe these two mind streams and for now they will simply be called ‘This’ and ‘That’. The traditional mystical symbol used to refer to the two mind streams has two serpents entwined around a stick. This is sometimes called a caduceus, or Mercury’s rod.

Figure 12 The stick represents the Spectrum of psychic energy (Jacob’s Ladder) while the snakes are the two mind streams that intersect with the Spectrum at a succession of alternate Sub-Themes. ‘THAT’

STATUS

SELF FERTILITY

SURVIVAL

Figure 13

‘THIS’ Psychic Powers Wisdom Number Style Piety Warriorship Superstition

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On the Status of Self Theme, ‘That’ mind stream embraces the SubThemes of Superstition, Piety, Number and Psychic Powers. ‘This’ mind stream embraces Warriorship, Style and Wisdom. Since there are seven Sub-Themes, and seven is an odd number, the specific Sub-Themes embraced by each mind stream reverse as the mind streams cross over into an adjacent Theme. This means that on the Fertility of Self Theme, for instance, ‘That’ mind stream embraces the alternate group of Sub-Themes — Wisdom, Style and Warriorship — while ‘This’ mind stream

embraces Psychic Powers, Number, Piety

and

Superstition. In this way each mind stream embraces all the Sub-Themes, but only over a span of two Themes. Mind stream type is not a choice; it is inherited and does not change throughout the life of an individual. Since people of different mind streams are never on the same wavelength with one another it means that men and women of the same mind stream are usually more sexually attracted and more compatible with one another. Where there is free choice, therefore, marriages tend to be made between men and women of the same mind type. (This is also probably true of arranged marriages since marriage arrangements are usually made by family members seeking to ensure family compatibility in new unions). People of unlike mind streams, if they are not actually repelled, are not deeply interested in each other. A child born of a mixed marriage will feel a deeper attachment and empathy with the parent of the like mind stream. As a result of inheritance, and mind stream specific sexual attraction, families and tribal groupings tend to be heavily loaded towards one mind stream or the other. This is also the case with some nations that have grown up from isolated tribal groupings. In fact, most nations have within their ‘national character’ something of a bias for one mind stream or the other. This is the reason why, when a new, higher cultural principle comes into the world, some nations find it difficult to make the necessary changes. They can't seem to get on the new wavelength.

‘This’ and ‘That’ Identity Types Normally, all the individual members of a collective mind are required to submit their personal identities to the dominance of the prevailing culture.

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In a contemporary market democracy the dominant cultural Sub-Theme is the Status of Self through Number. The form of Number that most readily converts to Status is money. Status of Self through Number is an expression of ‘That’ mind stream. No alternative Status expression, higher on

the

Spectrum

than

Number,

is

culturally

recognized.

Identity

expressions of Wisdom or Psychic Powers do not normally merit any Status recognition in our contemporary society. While all the identity expressions higher on the Spectrum are culturally ignored, everything below the level of the Status of Self through Number can be recognised as culturally valid within contemporary societies. But this recognition is only given if the lower identities have been properly adapted to the dominance of Number. This means that all ‘This’ mind stream individuals living in ‘That’ dominated plutocracies have to adapt their identity expressions to a version of Number. This requirement produces ‘This’ Status identities fashioned around Style of Number, usually Style of money, which are often coupled with Warriorship of Number, involving the arithmetic scoring of competitive sport. Although it is necessary for an identity to embrace three Themes, the three Themes do not all participate equally in the identity. They form a hierarchy. The highest Theme within an identity is the most detailed of the three, and is also dominant. The two lower Themes of identity adapt to its requirements by adjusting themselves in such a way as to reflect and reinforce the values of the Sub-Theme that dominates the highest Theme. In order to successfully achieve this hierarchy only the highest Theme of an identity is opened out to reveal the Sub-Themes. The two lower Themes are closed to the consciousness of the Sub-Themes and take on the specialised form of expression that is adopted by the highest Theme. This means that a fully participating person living in a contemporary market society dominated collectively by Number status has access to the Sub-Themes of Status of Self, which is the upper level of identity, but only has generalised expressions of Fertility and Survival. These generalised expressions of the lower Themes are dominated by the prevailing culture of Number. In this way individual identities are properly integrated and internal conflicts are minimised.

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The following diagrams show profiles of ‘This’ and ‘That’ identity types that generally prevail in contemporary Number dominated societies.

Figure 14 The

experience

of

individual

identity

in

dominated society can be summed up in a

a

contemporary

Number

simple formula: you can't

acquire significant Status without money; you will find it difficult to get married and procreate without some kind of money-earning potential; and you can't live without money to buy food and housing. In this way Status, Fertility and Survival are all ruled by Number (money).

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In homogenised contemporary societies individual representatives of the two mind streams usually appear to be quite similar. Two men, one of each type, might appear similar in many respects. Both may be wealthy, and have a keen interest in business; and both may have dedicated their lives to the acquisition of more money. But whereas one identifies more with the Status and power derived directly from the Number that he possesses — i.e. the number of dollars and the number of employees etc — the other identifies with the life-style and the things that money can buy. Often a ‘That’ mind stream type has a better understanding of how to invest money while a ‘This’ mind stream type is better at spending and enjoying it. In plutocratic, Number-dominated societies ‘This’ mind stream people are held captive by ‘That’ mind stream. It is a ‘That’ age. It was the opposite when ‘This’ mind stream dominated the aristocratic culture of the European Middle Ages. It will reverse again with the coming of the postNumber age of Wisdom. The cultural evolution of Christianised Europe has been a process of ‘This’ and ‘That’ mind streams collectively leap-frogging each other as the civilisation climbs the Spectrum.

Cultural Evolution Comparing a solitary migration up the Spectrum to a cultural migration is a bit like comparing the personalised transport of a bicycle to the mass transportation of a train. A train is faster and more comfortable for most people, most of the time. But sometimes a person might find that a particular destination can be reached sooner by travelling alone on a bicycle. This might be because of a delay in the train’s departure or because its route is indirect. The train’s progress might also be slowed by frequent stopping along the way. In order to assist travellers to make up their minds about whether to use personal transport, or stay on the train, it might be useful to look at the timetable of cultural transportation, and the route it takes. To do this the best place to start is with an overview of the sweep of ‘macro’ cultural evolution. This is the history of collective evolution through the three Themes of Self identity. There are three great periods of cultural evolution which correspond with collective progress through the three Themes of Self identity. The earliest

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collective identity of Self was a cultural pattern anthropologists call hunter/gatherer. Various levels of hunter/gatherer development reflect collective passage through the Over-Theme of Territory. But a more advanced form involved a collective expression of the Survival of Self. The next Theme of Self was collectively expressed as the matriarchal or neolithic age. The matriarchal age was agriculturally based and was an expression of Fertility of Self. Both hunter/gatherer and matriarchal societies essentially development.

belong to the pre-historical

Nevertheless, pockets of

both

period of

cultural

human

types have

continued to exist in isolated parts of the world almost until present times. The third Theme of Self — Status — is collectively expressed as modern, city-based, hierarchical culture. The evolution from hunter/gatherer to matriarchal to modern culture is the result of an evolution of collective consciousness from Survival of Self, to Fertility of Self, to Status of Self. The cultural evolution is an outward manifestation of the collective inner changes involved in movement through these three Themes. Status

MIND

Fertility

courage/love

SELF

Survival

anxiety/will

Status

fear/desire

Fertility

terror/compulsion

Future ‘Mind Age’ Culture Modern Age Culture

Survival Status

TERRITORY

Matriarchal Society Early Agricultural Age

Fertility Survival

Hunter/Gatherer Culture

Figure 15

Hunter/Gatherer (Survival) Society In advanced hunter/gatherer societies Survival of Self was the highest and,

therefore,

the

dominant

Theme

of

collective

consciousness.

Hunter/gatherer culture was pre-agricultural and usually involved a nomadic life of foraging for food. It derives its name from the tendency for social groups to be divided by gender roles. The men were hunters of

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meat while the women were gatherers of edible vegetation. This type of culture was usually dominated by elders. Age was a dominance factor because older people had more experience in the knowledge of survival requirements. They had seen more cycles of change in climate and food sources and could remember experiences of food and water shortages, and what they had done to solve these problems in the past. Age was also relevant because, in terms of Survival identity, the longer people live the fitter they prove themselves to be. Figure 15 shows the Status and Fertility levels of hunter/gatherer identity under the influence of the Over-Theme of Territory. The Fertility of Territory part of hunter/gatherer identity was culturally derived from totemic beliefs. Each geographic area or Territory incorporated an intricate map of mythical animal spirits which together made a composite symbol called a totem. Individual human identity was also incorporated into the totems and hunter/gatherer societies divided themselves along totemic lines. In many hunter/gatherer societies personal totem identity came from a mother's intuition. When a woman realised she was pregnant she identified the Territory she believed she was in when she was impregnated. She was then said to have been impregnated by the spirit of the totem representing that particular location. The resulting child was then said to have been fathered by the relevant totemic spirit. In turn, the child belonged to the particular totem grouping of the spirit and identified with the Territory associated with it. Hunter/gatherer men were not consciously aware of their procreative role, which they delegated to the spirits of the totem. Marriages and sexual relations between men and women were focussed culturally on survival needs rather than on procreation. Status of Territory identity manifested in individual hunter/gatherers as totem rivalry. Complicated rules — particularly marriage rules — regulated the relationships between people of different totems. When a man died he was thought to have returned to the totem to which he belonged. Belief in the recycling of spirits through the totem gave hunter/gatherer men the ability to live with the knowledge of their own personal mortality — foreknowledge of death being a condition of Survival

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of Self identity. However, it is likely that hunter/gatherer women did not always share in this promise of immortality. In advanced hunter/gatherer societies totemic spirits were usually exclusively male and therefore only male spirits were believed to be recycled through the totems after death. This situation presented hunter/gatherer women with an incentive to evolve higher on the Spectrum. Without any amelioration for the Terror of death they had little to lose by transcending Survival of Self identity and seeking solace in identification with Fertility of Self. But the hunter/gatherer women of ancient times had a number of things to learn before they could leap-frog over their men and transcend Survival of Self. These things may seem obvious to us now but it is only an unwillingness to recognize relatively simple ideas originating beyond our current identities that prevents all of us from making more speedy evolutionary progress. The first thing women had to learn was that men, not spirits, were responsible for impregnation and that their children were replicas of themselves and not totem spirits being recycled through their wombs. Once they realised this they could partly free themselves from despair over personal mortality. They could then see that it was themselves, not the totems, that generated human life. And that it was they who therefore had a measure of immortality. A second part of hunter/gatherer womens’ preparation for upward migration involved learning the basic principles of agriculture. Gathering wild fruits and vegetables eventually taught them how to plant seeds and return later to harvest crops. Perhaps it was the cultivation of food sources that led women to discover their own Fertility identities. Alternatively, perhaps it was the development of Fertility of Self identity that led to the discovery of agriculture. It doesn't matter which came first. The two went together to create a new kind of agriculturally-based society focussed on human fertility.

Matriarchal (Fertility) Society The highest and, therefore, the dominant level of collective consciousness in matriarchal society was Fertility of Self identity. With the evolution out

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of hunter/gatherer society women's bodies and women's skills and women's

identities

became

vastly

more

powerful

than

the

male

equivalents. Their bodies were infinitely more useful in exploiting the new knowledge that the finality of death could be circumvented by procreating. To keep men off balance new mating arrangements were inaugurated. Now, instead of wandering in a seasonal hunting and gathering cycle, communities

settled

down

on

fertile

land

to

practice

agriculture.

Permanent dwellings were built with women holding ownership of the land. Sons and daughters would live with their mother and the mother would rule the family. The daughters would inherit the property, and the male siblings would continue to live in their sisters' houses taking on a submissive role as farm labourers and guardians. Instead of being tied to husbands women were free to take as many lovers as they chose. The brothers of each new generation of matriarchs would live out their lives in their sisters’ houses, servicing other women in the community as lovers. As uncles to their sisters’ children the men would provide a domestic male role model. Our deeply entrenched sibling incest taboo has its origins in these cultural arrangements. In this type of social system, however, men were never sure of fatherhood. As a consequence the Terror of death remained a constant gnawing concern which could not be ameliorated either by the nowdiscredited totemic beliefs of spirit recycling or the new Fertility understanding of self-replication. Matriarchal women stood shoulder to shoulder, like a great wall of self-replicating flesh, between men and their male peace of mind. Women controlled the economy of the early agricultural age. Women's agricultural skills produced food more reliably and in greater quantities than the earlier male dominated hunter/gatherer economy. Women, as the leading exponents of Fertility identity, had an advantage that men seemed forever unable to match. Paradoxically, however, it was largely the result of this female success that eventually allowed men to leap-frog over women into the modern age. Matriarchal society triumphed in the two main areas the culture focussed on: human reproduction and agricultural food production. Unfortunately

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for the matriarchs it eventually became too successful in both these areas to be sustainable. Over-population and food surpluses in late-matriarchal society

created

just

the

right

conditions

for

collective

human

consciousness to spill out of Fertility and into Status identity. The

continually

expanding

populations

were

very

demanding

on

agricultural land. A kind of tribal bucolic sprawl was continually in progress. In some areas, like fertile river flats, this kind of expansion had very definite limits and when these were reached steps had to be taken to control

population

growth.

Advanced

matriarchal

societies

were

sometimes forced to adopt the drastic device of female infanticide to keep the reproduction rate down. But this type of practice tended to undermine the whole cultural rationale. In fertile regions agricultural success eventually led to surpluses of durable produce like grain. This in turn led to the need for storage facilities and eventually trading centres. Trading centres became towns. The gradual growth of an economy of tradeable goods led to a shift in power from the agricultural producers (women) to the guardians, traders and thieves (men). The modern age was born when matriarchal societies became too complex to be organised with the limited consciousness of Fertility. Urban centralisation and the division of labour require a type of consciousness that is more specialised in the task of social organisation. The new consciousness in turn required expression of the more refined emotions of Will to power (Status) and Anxiety over social insignificance. By getting control over the agricultural surpluses men invented a new cultural principle which allowed them to arrange themselves in hierarchies of social merit, and take possession of the women.

Modern Age (Status) Society The culture of the modern age harnesses Status of Self as the upper Theme of collective consciousness. There are two principal characteristics which identify Status culture. The first is that social power and cultural authority are centred in cities. The second is that the main business of Status culture is to devise methods of arranging humans into hierarchies of social merit.

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The cities where it is established act as pressure cookers where agitated humanity rubs together and individuals continually compete and infect one another with the drive for Status. When many people live closely confined in cities it is difficult for any individuals to escape from Status identity by migrating either up or down the Spectrum. Urban culture also requires a complicated machinery of social organisation in order to provide food and other essential services to the population. People can't be self-sufficient when they live in cities and are required to practice specialised occupations. The division of the society into occupational roles provides a convenient mechanism for ranking the population in order of merit. There are seven underlying principles by which this ranking can be arranged. Contemporary market-based societies utilise the organising principle of Number, which is five sevenths of the distance through the age of Status culture. This means that the mass transportation vehicle has yet to travel through two more Sub-Themes of Status before it transcends the Self. Solitary individuals who set off for Mind consciousness at this point in history are required, in effect, to leap over the Sub-Themes of Wisdom and Psychic Powers. Unfortunately, these are the very Sub-Themes which provide the most relevant preparation for Mind identity. Early departing individuals must therefore forego the mental expansion that collective experience of these upper levels of Status have yet to offer. As time goes on, and future generations of collective mind get to experience these higher Status Sub-Themes, it will become progressively easier for individuals to make their departure. The shorter the distance, the less hazardous the trip.

Religion and Time-Keeping The primary task of religion is to define the purpose of life. Secular institutions may organise and direct people in ways to fulfil a purpose but the original identification of the purpose is the business of religion. Cultural evolution is essentially an evolution of religion. Religion evolves by identifying aspects of the Spectrum and turning the various Themes and Sub-Themes it finds into gods and goddesses. These deities are models of ideal human types at various stages of the evolutionary experience. As prophets and visionaries encounter ever higher points on the Spectrum new gods are invented to represent higher values.

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The religion of the matriarchal age involved worship of female deities that governed the reproduction of life. These Fertility goddesses instructed the human race in the belief that the purpose of life was to procreate and to succeed in agriculture. At first the goddesses were Earth mothers. Later, as Fertility culture evolved to higher Sub-Themes, Fertility goddesses took on cosmic proportions. Women began to associate the menstrual cycle with the rhythms of the moon. The moon came to be seen as a deity whose regular comings and goings every twenty nine and a half days confirmed women's reproductive powers at the centre of cosmic purpose. In late matriarchal societies colleges of lunar worshipping priestesses were sometimes taught to synchronise their menstrual cycles with the lunar cycle. Measuring time and keeping track of the turning seasons were important to matriarchal society because successful agriculture requires anticipation of planting and harvesting seasons. The moon’s religious significance led to the development of lunar calendars. Under lunar time-keeping the passage of time became deeply associated with Fertility religion and, therefore, with the power of women. However, lunar time-keeping is a very imperfect way to keep track of time for agricultural purposes. This is because the cycles of the moon and the annual cycle of the seasons are not synchronised. A solar year is a complete cycle of the seasons and is 365.242 days in length. A lunation, or one cycle of the moon, is 29.53 days long. Unfortunately, the number of days in a lunation don’t divide evenly into the number of days in a solar year. This problem of synchronisation can be partly overcome by using a lunar/solar calendar. Lunar/solar timekeeping usually involves a year of 12 lunar months, which is some 11 days short of a true solar year. The surplus days of the seasonal (solar) year are then accumulated and at regular intervals, sometimes every 3 years, an extra month is intercalated into the lunar year to soak them up. A straight solar calendar, which disregards the lunar cycle and simply counts out 365 days for each year, is far more accurate and easy to use than either lunar or lunar/solar calendars. But solar calendars did not

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come into widespread use until after the arrival of patriarchal (Status) forms of social organisation. The solar calendar first appeared in ancient Egypt where life centred around the annual flooding of the Nile. This event required fairly precise prediction. The Egyptian calendar divided a 360 day year into 12 months of 30 days each. Being 5.242 days shorter than a true solar year, the start of each new year in the Egyptian calendar had the inconvenience of slipping slowly back through the seasons. But this inconvenience was apparently less troublesome than intercalating a thirteenth month every three years. Life is time. Whatever measure is used for time inevitably gets bound up in the definition of life. As long as time continued to be measured in lunations human life remained centred around Fertility. But when the sun and the solar calendar successfully challenged the ascendancy of the feminised moon these symbols in turn became deeply associated with the transcendence of Fertility and the establishment of new masculine values centred on Status. The obsession of the new masculine Status gods with moral concepts of good and evil was largely derived from juxtaposing Status consciousness with Fertility consciousness. To the patriarchal gods of the modern age Status is good while any dominant expression of Fertility consciousness is evil. Fertility culture required an emphasis on sexuality — most specifically non-monogamous sexuality. It featured orgiastic festivals of sexuality and other mating arrangements that were meant to confuse and disguise fatherhood. Female sexual freedom is an absolute threat to the male Status objectives of child identification through spouse domination and monogamy. The Judaic-Christian term ‘sin’ shares a phoneme with the name of a Babylonian Fertility Goddess, Nana-Sin. It is perhaps no coincidence that nana turns up in contemporary language as a colloquial title for a grandmother — a matriarch. Satan also has similar Fertility religion roots and is derived from Saturn, an old Fertility deity of Mediterranean origin. The conflict between good and evil has also been characterised as a war between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. The forces of light

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being the Status deity of the solar (sunlight) calendar with the forces of darkness representing the Fertility deity of the lunar (night-time) calendar.

Monotheism/Polytheism If cultural evolution is the mass migration of human identity up the Spectrum then religion is the vehicle of mass transportation. But there are two different kinds of transporters. To get an idea of their essential differences they can be likened to the two different transportation modes commonly found in department stores. Here a choice is sometimes available between an elevator and an escalator. A group of people who step into an elevator together on the ground floor arrive together upstairs. But a group of people who start together on an escalator are likely to be spread further and further apart as they go up. An escalator offers more freedom for individuals to set their own pace, but it is slower if there is a large number of people travelling a long distance. An elevator provides more group cohesion, and is faster once everyone is on-board, but it tends to be more crowded and uncomfortable than an escalator. The monotheistic, or ‘one god’ religious system, is like a elevator; the polytheistic, or ‘many god’ system, is like an escalator. Both monotheistic and polytheistic systems have basically the same functions — they define the purpose of life. Monotheism does this by specifying a single point on the Spectrum and declaring that the values inherent in the identity associated with that point are absolutely good. In English, the word ‘god’ has been conveniently formed by contracting the word ‘good’. A monotheistic god, then, is a role model for a ‘good’ identity. Monotheistic culture evolves as the religion continually redefines the concept of ‘good’ by nominating successively higher points on the Spectrum. Polytheism, the escalator, follows a different principle. Instead of declaring a single point on the Spectrum as being good for everyone polytheistic religions provide a pantheon of gods by nominating a range of points on the Spectrum. This range of alternative role models for ‘the good’ allows

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individuals to choose identity Themes and Sub-Themes that most suit their personal inclinations. Polytheism is by far the older of the two systems. Fertility cultures generally favoured religious systems which featured a range of deities representing various aspects of the Themes of Fertility and Survival. Early Status cultures, up until the Romans, carried on with this polytheistic tradition, recognising most of the Sub-Themes of Status under a variety of names. There were gods of war (Warriorship), goddesses of beauty (Style), gods of money (Number), gods of Wisdom, and so on. In the Roman system there was also an odd assortment of remnants of Fertility and Survival religions imported from throughout the empire. But the Roman system eventually became too unwieldy and divisive. The large range of choice encouraged people to spread further and further out on the steps of the escalator. As time went on physical force had to be increasingly used to maintain cultural cohesion. The main attraction of the polytheistic system is the freedom of identity offered to individuals. Each individual can choose the identity level that is most personally satisfying from a range of culturally compatible role models. However, in non-monotheistic systems the degree of individual freedom of identity has an inverse relationship to the degree of physical force that is required to maintain collective cohesion. Polytheism was well suited to group identities that were basically tribal in nature, where the grouped individuals were mostly of the same mind stream type. However, when more complex societies began to develop — like nations and empires — comprising vast tribal amalgamations where people of both mind streams were represented in balanced proportions, a need arose to develop a more disciplined religious system. About 1500 years ago Europeans were moved off their various pagan escalators and crammed into a monotheistic Christian elevator.

The Christian Elevator Historians commonly divide the Christian period of Europe into three great ‘ages’ — the Dark, Middle and Modern Ages. If these three periods are considered from the perspective of the Spectrum it is not difficult to

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discern characteristics that correspond to three Sub-Themes of the Status of Self — Piety, Style and Number. The Dark Ages were dominated by a religious elite which held power by controlling the interpretation of Christian Scriptures. European people appear to have been collectively at the level of Piety during this period, controlled by ‘That’ mind stream. The Middle Ages required a switch to ‘This’ mind stream as an aristocratic elite came into power expressing the Status of Self through Style. Finally, entry into the Modern Age required a switch back to ‘That’ mind stream. The Modern Age is dominated by a moneyed elite guiding the collective mind through the Sub-Theme of Number. Each of these periods appear to be approximately 500 years in length and it is highly likely that the Christian monotheistic vehicle has a built-in timing mechanism. If a timing mechanism has been incorporated into the Christian vehicle it is likely to have its origins in Essene mysticism. The Essenes were the third major sect of ancient Israel, the other two being the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The tradition of prophesying the coming of a Messiah originated with the Essenes. From a mystical perspective the Messiah was a person who had transcended Self consciousness and attained Mind consciousness. The Essene ideal was to have a living human role model that could demonstrate the attributes of Love and Courage. By identifying the historical Jesus as the promised Messiah the early Christians essentially founded their religion as an Essene sect. The centre of Essene religious activity at the time of Jesus was located at Qumran, to the east of Jerusalem, on the cliff-tops near the junction of the River Jordan and the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea Scrolls, found near this location, are the remains of an Essene library. The Essene monastic communities at Qumran were wiped out by the Romans in 70 AD. In the diaspora that followed Essenism merged with various Gnostic sects and then a large part of the mix was eventually absorbed into the evolving new religion of Christianity. The ideas of early Christianity were a combination of the fairly orthodox Pharisaic Judaism of the Old Testament overlaid with Essene and Gnostic ideas contained within the New Testament.

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If Christianity does indeed have an internal clock it is most likely derived from an Essene time-keeping system involving ‘world weeks’. The Essenes had used a solar calendar while both the Pharisees and Sadducees had used a lunar/solar calendar. The Essenes, while waiting for the Messiah, had anticipated the unification of Israel in all religious aspects under his leadership. To this end they worked out a system of 490 year cycles they called world weeks that attempted to resolve the disharmony of lunar and solar calendars. In this system a week of years was 7 solar years long. A world week was 490 solar years. The world week was made up of 70 weeks of years (70 x 7 = 490). The 70 week period was divided into two equal parts and one smaller part. 33+33+4=70 weeks of years or 231+231+28=490 solar years. The lunar and solar calendars were synchronised thus: A lunation

= 29.530588 days multiply by 12 for a lunar year = 354.367 days per lunar year

A solar year = 365.242 days The disharmony of approximately eleven days in lunar and solar timekeeping was a constant irritation to the people of ancient times. The Essene solution to the problem was based on thirty-three. 33 solar years = 34 lunar years plus 4.5 days (12052.986 - 12048.478 = 4.508 days) An extra lunar year therefore accrues every 33 solar years. But every 7th of these surplus lunar years has to have 13 months in order to soak up the extra days. (7 x 4.5 = 31.5 days). This intercalation of the 13th month to adjust the lunar calendar occurs every 231 solar years. (7 x 33 = 231). In the Essene system the 231 solar year period is repeated once for a total of 462 solar years. This is followed by a period of 28 solar years (4 weeks or 1 month of years) which is a period of cultural breakdown.

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During this breakdown period the collective mind sheds old cultural habits and prepares for a new age. No attempt is made to synchronise the two calendars during the breakdown period. The two calendars are then brought back into harmony with the start of a new 490 year cycle. The 490 year cycle not only resolves the differences in the lunar and solar calendars but it also allows the

precession of equinoxes to be brought

into the picture, as well. The precession of equinoxes is an approximately 25,800 year cycle caused by the earth wobbling on its axis as it rotates. A standard solar year has 365.242 days. If a world week is 490 solar years then a ‘world day’ is 490/7 = 70 solar years. Using this formula a ‘world year’ is 70 x 365.242 = 25,567 The difference between the Essene world year and the precession of equinoxes is approximately 233 years (25,800 - 25,567 = 233). This discrepancy was dealt with by intercalating 33 solar years at the end of every 7th world week — ie. every 3430 years. The idea is to have seven such intercalations throughout the course of a world year (7 x 33 = 231). The two years left over are only a small embarrassment in the grand scheme of things. However, not all Essene world week prophecy had the grandness of vision needed to incorporate the precession of equinoxes. The Book of Enoch was an important Essene vehicle used for propagating the world week calendar system. In a section called the Apocalypse of Weeks a 3rd century B.C. Essene solar prophet set out his analysis of history and predictions for the future based on 490 year cycles. According to his scheme, 490 years after Creation the Essene patron Enoch was born. The Flood occurred at 980; Abraham figured at 1470; Moses received the law on Mount Sinai in 1960; in 2450 the first temple was constructed in Jerusalem; in 2940 the temple was destroyed and 3430 years after Creation the ‘plant of righteousness’ — the Essene sect — was founded at the end of the 7th world week. The next three 490 year cycles were predictions as they were still in the future at the time the author was writing. At the end of the 8th, in 3920,

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the Restoration and the Messiah were expected. Then at the end of the 9th world week, in 4410, there would be a revelation of righteous judgement for the whole world. Finally, at the end of the 10th world week, 4900 years after Creation, there would be a last judgement after which a new heaven and new earth would appear and time would be no more. The feverish search that was undertaken about the time of Jesus by Essenes and Gnostics to locate the Messiah took place in response to this prediction in the Book of Enoch. There was considerable disputation amongst the searchers as to the correct date for the destruction of the first temple. This was unfortunate because this event, some 980 years earlier, was the only one on the list they could hope to accurately fix in history, and thereby positively identify the Messiah. Of the many who were nominated for Messiahship around this time only the figure of Jesus survived as a serious contender.

Christian Collective Progress The hypothesis to be considered is that the Essene system of 490 year cycles was incorporated in the collective mind of monotheistic Europe. Further, that it has been dictating the timing of evolutionary progress for collective minds with European Christian backgrounds. A plausible way of explaining the mechanism of this evolutionary progress is that it is a rocking motion. This rocking involves the collective mind stepping down one Sub-Theme, pausing, and then leaping ahead two. In regard to timing it involves stepping down one Sub-Theme and pausing for 231 years. This facilitates the necessary change of dominance from one mind stream to the other. Once the change of dominance has been completed, and the ethic of a new age have been firmly established in culture, the collective mind leaps ahead two Sub-Themes. The 231 years of higher culture are brought to an end by 28 years of cultural chaos and breakdown. This 28 year period is a preparation for the collective mind to step down one Sub-Theme again and switch to the dominance of the alternate mind stream. In this way the collective mind repeats the rocking process — down one Sub-Theme, pause, then up two. From this angle the first 231 years of a monotheistic Christian ‘age’ is a low period, while the second 231 years is a high period. This pattern provides for a low and high theocratic age (Dark Ages), a low and high

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aristocratic age (Middle Ages), and a low and high plutocratic age (Modern Age). It means that during the Dark Ages, for instance, the collective mind was focussed on the Sub-Theme of Superstition for the first 231 years and only moved up to Piety for the second part of the age. Similarly, during the Middle Ages it was first Warrriorship, then Style. And for the Modern Age it was Piety for the first part and then Number for the second. If such a pattern actually exists, and if it continues to hold, the age that is set to follow the Modern Age will be split between Style and Wisdom. If a fixed point could be located in this analysis of Christian history it would be possible to demonstrate the approach more graphically. It would also

be

possible

to

make

some

predictions

about

the

future.

Unfortunately, as happened to the Essenes when they tried to fix the date of the Messiah’s arrival, there don’t seen to be any points that can be fixed in history with any degree of certainty. Nevertheless, a plausible guess is sufficient to demonstrate the hypothetical pattern. The guess identifies the point in time when the balance of the European collective mind shifted from polytheistic arrangements to a monotheistic structure. That is, when a critical mass of European collective mind shifted from an escalator to an elevator. Throughout the early centuries of the Christian era adherents were content to use a calendar they had inherited from the Romans which counted time from the year of Rome’s foundation. This method of timekeeping was rooted in the ancient polytheistic traditions. However, early in the sixth century a monk from Scythia named Dionysius Exiguus produced arguments to show that Jesus was born in the year 753 A.U.C. (Anno Urbis Conditae, meaning the year of the foundation of the city — Rome). A movement then began within the Christian Church to date all events from that year. The purpose was to replace the foundation of Rome with the birth of Jesus as the historical event which marks the beginning of time. Bearing in mind that Dionysius was mistaken by a few years in the date he chose the hypothesis, nevertheless, argues that his insight into the significance of time-keeping tipped the balance and shifted a critical mass of European collective mind into a monotheistic mode.

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The year of Dionysius’s insight is somewhere in the range of 525-527 A.D. For the purpose of this exercise assume it was 526 A.D., and that this year marks the beginning of the low theocratic age. The fixing of this date provides the opportunity to demonstrate a hypothetical interpretation of European history according to the rhythm of world weeks (see Figure 16). The Low Theocratic Age (526-757 A.D) was a period when the Christian faith was propagated through Superstition. The dynamic of this period was a focused struggle between belief in the Crucifixion of God’s son, Jesus, — as being the ultimate and final human sacrifice — and belief in superstitions associated with the ancient human sacrifice traditions of European paganism. This dichotomy had been argued for centuries but in 526 A.D., in one nation, within one language group, monotheistic principles finally gained the ascendancy over a collective mind for the first time. Let us assume this first happened in the collective mind of the Italian people. The Italians, then, held onto this advantage for more than two centuries and went on to become the ‘leading edge’ of monotheistic progress into the High Theocratic Age of Christian Piety, 757-988 A.D. The Low Aristocratic Age, 1016-1247 A.D., was most probably led by France. It was a step down from Piety to Warriorship. As the rest of Europe followed suit the continent became unsettled and convulsed by war. For more

than

two centuries crusading and warfare

totally

preoccupied the minds of Europeans as they worked through their reversion to the identity of warriors. But the reversion to Warriorship was only a preparation for the leap two levels up the Spectrum onto Style. The High Aristocratic Age was led by France and the feudal system was the form of social organisation that marked this period.

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T H A T

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A.D. 2940 Psychic Powers

High Psychocratic

Psychic Powers

Subjects

2717 Number

Guru Cults Low Psychocratic

2486

Private Property Breakdown

T H I S

2458 Wisdom Style

High Gnostocratic 2227 You You are are here here 1996

Wisdom

Quest Academic Titles

Low Gnostocratic Occupational Titles Breakdown

T H A T

1968 Number

High Plutocratic

Capital

Labour

1737 Piety

Protestants Low Plutocratic

1506

Catholics Breakdown

T H I S

1470 Style

High Aristocratic

Aristocracy

Peasantry

1247 Warriorship

National Monarchy Low Aristocratic

1016

Military Evangelism Breakdown

T H A T

988 Piety

High Theocratic

Monks/Priests

757 Superstition

Laity Christianity

Low Theocratic 526 A.D.

Paganism

The Ages of Christian Monotheism Figure 16

The

German

people

came

through

as

the

leading

edge

for

the

breakthrough to Low Plutocracy. It was a return to Piety and was marked throughout by the conflict between Protestants and Catholics. However, Germany didn't retain the lead for long and was quickly overtaken as other nations of Northern Europe severed their links with Rome and reformed their Christian beliefs along Protestant lines. The Low Plutocratic Age was the era of worshipping God in the work-place, the invention of

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the work ethic, and cottage industries. During this period of Piety-focus the ethical foundations for our own High Plutocratic Age were established. The mantle of leading edge appears to have been swapped around considerably during the Low Plutocratic era between Germany, Britain and other Protestant countries of Northern Europe. But by the time the Christian collective mind was ready to take the two steps up to Number in 1737 Britain was clearly in the lead. Soon after the new identity level was reached British scientists and inventors, utilising the new consciousness of Number, began to develop new technologies and systems that made possible the mass production of wealth. The industrial revolution, the age of factories and High Plutocracy were all born together as manifestations of the collective consciousness of the Status of Self through Number. The year 1968 marks the end of the High Plutocratic in this scheme. Following this there was to be 28 years of cultural breakdown before the commencement of a new age in 1996. These specific dates, however, would only apply to the particular nation-based collective mind that was leading Christian progress at that point in time. The rest of the industrialised world would continue to practice the culture of High Plutocracy while they awaited the arrival of the new model of Low Gnostocracy. Low Gnostocracy is to be an age of Style that lays down the ethical foundations for a future age of Wisdom. Education and academic titles are likely to play key roles in ordering this period. Although the hypothesis identifies 1996 as the start of the new cultural principle an indeterminate period might have to elapse before a recognisable working model becomes available. Reflection on historical events surrounding the Protestant Reformation and the establishment of Low Plutocracy might provide a useful analogy for understanding the processes involved in the switch from one cultural Theme to another.

Solitary Journeying Many sensitive, meditative people living within modern cultures have the ability to temporarily stand above Self identity on the level of Survival of Mind through Superstition. They can stand, so to speak, at the gateway to the temple of Mind. However, a successful passage through the gateway

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requires some prior development of the emotional polarities of Love and Courage. Without this higher emotional development it is not possible to withstand the trauma involved in discarding the old Survival of Self identity. There is a plethora of philosophical traditions, mystical schools and yoga systems that teach various methods to prepare for Self transcendence. The methods that are most effective all follow the same basic formula. The formula combines both an internal and an external approach. The internal approach is one of meditation. This involves the progressive development of Mind identity by cultivating a habit of observing the flow of thoughts generated by Self identity. The part of a person’s mind that engages in observing the mental activity of the Self is, of necessity, differentiated from the Self by being its observer. The more this meditation is practiced, and the more dominant the observer becomes, the greater is the shift into Mind identity. The external approach, complementing meditation, involves a re-ordering of the person’s lifestyle in ways that frustrate the expression of Self identity. When this is done successfully the frustration brings the lower emotions of the Self into the forefront of the Self’s thinking patterns. This provides opportunities to replace these lower emotions with the Love and Courage of Mind identity. It is not difficult to figure out ways by which Self identity can be frustrated, but it is not always easy to put them into practice. Essentially, the re-ordering involves living a humble life with minimal Status; practicing celibacy or sexual disciplines to frustrate Fertility identity; and utilising disciplines like fasting or risk-taking, that raise Survival of Self emotions without seriously threatening life. Pilgrimage/wandering is a popular traditional approach that provides opportunities for aspirants to detach from the prevailing culture and combine all three.

The Psychiatric Obstacle Test Contemporary Number-dominated societies are essentially materialistic in nature and have very little useful knowledge in their cultural frameworks relating to the processes of psycho-social evolution. Traditional sources have been largely purged from the culture and no serious contemporary research is undertaken. The reason for this is simply that understanding

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evolutionary

processes

requires

identification with higher levels of consciousness, and identification with higher levels is not culturally recognised. This situation creates two conditions which are important to solitary travellers. The first is that individuals who are intent on detaching themselves

from

the

collective

mind,

to

seek

higher

levels

of

consciousness, must find their inspiration and instruction outside normal cultural sources. The second is that the culture of collective ignorance does not impede the evolutionary

process.

Psycho/social

evolutionary

pressure

remains

constant regardless of the way in which cultures deal with it. When the process is culturally frustrated it seeks release where it can. In contemporary Number-dominated societies this tends to be through spontaneously tipping vulnerable individuals into an unwanted experience of Mind consciousness. Individuals who are tipped over the edge in this way usually do not anticipate the experience and the mythological symbolism, hallucinations and intense fear they encounter on the passage into Mind consciousness causes them great distress. This distress often leads to irrational behaviour which is viewed with horror by ordinary people. The normal reaction is to place spontaneous travellers under the control of the psychiatric profession where they are diagnosed with “mental diseases”, usually schizophrenia. Standard psychiatric practice involves forced treatment with powerful drugs that cause minor brain damage and close down the higher thinking centres of the brain. The best way for intentional solitary travellers to think about the risk of unwanted treatment is to view the existence of psychiatrists as an obstacle test. The test is one of mental and physical nimbleness. The relationship of a matador to a bull might provide a useful analogy.