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Macrocosm within the Microcosm and the subjective nature of reality
If you follow the way nature is organised and notice this repeating pattern of macrocosm within the microcosm ad infinitum, then it would follow that the individual mind is a microcosm of the macrocosm- that is universal mind/consciousness and vice versa. By microcosm, I mean a temporary[1] compartmentalisation of universal consciousness. Rupert Spira suggests compartmentalisation occurs because in order for an infinite consciousness to know itself, it has to ‘temporarily’ reduce itself down to finite compartments. These ‘temporary’ compartmentalisations of consciousness (that is, our individual minds) offer the collective consciousness/source an infinite number of perspectives from which it can view itself. Therefore our individual minds act as an infinite number of ‘mirrors’ from which the universal mind/source can see itself reflected from an infinitive number of perspectives. This process of creation and reflection allows source/universe to see itself from an infinite number of perspectives and therefore become more conscious of itself and therefore evolve.
The idea that our human minds are temporarily compartmentalised units of source consciousness is in line with the concept Aldous Huxley had as the human mind functioning as a 'reducing valve mechanism' which is the crux of his work ‘Doors of Perception’. His idea was that because there is too much information out there for our brains to process- our brains act as a filter/reducing valve and only take in only as much sensory information of the outside world that we are able to process. Therefore it follows that our perception of reality is highly subjective. These doors of perception (our minds) can be viewed as billions of different perspectives through which all sentient beings are viewing reality from. Looking through the door outward we see the universe from just one point of view, looking from the door inward (e.g through meditation, introspection) we can see the universe from many perspectives at once. Therefore, this is why meditation or deep introspection is the fundamental tool we can use to reach higher levels of consciousness by widening the 'valve' or amount of information our consciousness can take in. This is why a lot of my work uses the door as a symbol of the doorway to higher levels of consciousness and the key represents the practice of increasing our levels of consciousness (e.g. through meditation, knowledge, introspection etc) which enables us to move through the doorway or veil imposed upon our higher soul consciousness at birth.
Based on this model of reality, we are therefore all experiencing reality in vastly different ways based on our individual points of view. No one point of view has any more inherent reality than the other but there is a wide spectrum within the realm of human consciousness of the amount of information these individual minds are able to process.(Here I am talking about the conscious mind not the subconscious as the subconscious mind takes in everything without us even being conscious of it). Therefore there is no absolute reality, and no single point of view actually has anymore inherent reality than the other. The concept of an absolute so-called 'reality' suddenly becomes very doubtful indeed. In fact due to the very nature of perception and consciousness it is impossible to pin down anything as really absolute. This line of thought is the inspiration behind my artwork entitled ‘Folie A Deux’ which addresses the idea we are all experiencing reality as a ‘shared hallucination’.
This also explains why there is so much conflict in the world, as due to the fact that we are all experiencing reality in dramatically different ways the nature of reality is actually different for everyone. Therefore, it follows that we will all develop different values based on our own personal experience of reality and conflicting belief systems. The inevitable conflict that results from so many different types of individualised psyches 'rubbing up' and in some cases crashing into (!!) each other inevitably leads to violence, suffering and conflict. Suffering results as our shadows, or the repressed parts of our psyche-the darker sides of ourselves (that we do our very best to ignore) come to the surface and are witnessed by our conscious mind. However, as the conscious mind shines it light on the dark hidden realms within us (our shadow self), a higher level of awareness and self knowledge results. Usually most of us try to improve that undesirable part of ourselves which was previously hidden. From this comes growth and the evolution of the collective consciousness. No longer acting from a primitive place of base instincts (fright and flight) our behaviour becomes more sophisticated as we have a better knowledge of ourselves and can therefore choose to improve. Aswell as this happening on an individual level, this also is happening to society collectively. Usually periods in history after great wars have been times of great creativity and collective growth in society. This is because the shadow within society has been purged on a very large scale.
The Erotic Drive that sustains Life
Because we experience life as temporary units of consciousness cut off from the infinite inevitably means that life is full of suffering. We feel lost, alone and not sure of our purpose. This in turn creates the erotic drive that sustains the reproduction of life on earth and its continual evolution (This is the inspiration for my work entitled ‘Erotomania’). By ‘erotic drive’ I am referring not only to the sexual drive that sustains the physical reproduction of life but also the psychic drive that causes humans to search for a partner and/or vocation that will satisfy them not only on a physical level but also on an intellectual/spiritual (aka psychic level).
So this process is happening within ourselves and also on an collective level. Beyond matter all that exists is energy or you could call it consciousness. Our personal minds (local precipitations of source consciousness) could be considered ‘movies’ or more to the point ‘mirrors’ the universe has created in order to know itself better. In fact this idea echoes the past life review that presents itself as a form of a ‘movie’ played out at the moment of death as has been reported in thousands of Near Death Experiences (NDEs) researched by Raymond Moody and many others working in this field.
Culture as a mirror of the collective consciousness
Just like the universal mind creates forms to know itself by 'temporarily' making itself finite, we do with same within our own minds. We create forms and characters in movies and toys and write stories about them as a way to better understand ourselves. This is precisely what a child is doing when they are playing with their toys. This is what adults are doing when they watch or write a movie or write or read a book or when teenagers play video games. So, it could follow that our individual minds are like ‘mirrors’ the universe has created of itself in order to view itself from many different perspectives.
Therefore it follows that, on a human cultural level, the arts and sciences are our way of knowing ourselves better on both an individual and collective level. It is indeed, what an artist is doing when creating a piece of art and also what the viewer of the art is doing when they identify with a particular piece of art. The mind is always trying to know and understand itself better.
Archetypes in Modern Society
The main theme of my Iconography collection is a development of the idea that Carl Jung had; that our culture is built upon the foundations of ancient archetypes that exist in the collective brain of source. It is true that we are not born with a psychological ‘blank canvas’ but rather the basic ‘blueprint’ of psychic archetypes are already in place in our minds before we are even born and passed down by our ancestors. Much like our bodies contain physical traces of our more primitive origins in the form of vestigial relics, our minds are already imprinted at birth with psychic archetypes of our ancestors and the whole collective mind. My Iconography Collection extrapolates this idea to propose that due to the continuous nature of evolution these archetypes are still evolving and being added to the collective consciousness through and manifesting as, recurring forms and themes we see in current popular culture. Evolution is a never ending process occurring on both the physical and psychic level.
If you examine current archetypes in popular culture, you will see the same themes are continuing to evolve and are playing out all over the world. Typical examples include the usual themes you see at movie theatres e.g. the hero versus the villain, good triumphing over evil, the impossible obstacle/challenge that is eventually overcome by the main protagonist of the film/story/game etc. The Star Wars trilogy is a very powerful example of this and the reason as I chose Star Wars as a topic for an artwork. The idea of a universal ‘force’ and the battle between good and evil are such strong archetypal ideas that they resonate strongly with the global audience because it is an inherent inborn and imprinted archetypal 'truth' imprinted within our collective and individual consciousness. This is why the Star Wars trilogy has been such an enduring tale. In fact, George Lucas developed the idea of the force by researching into several ancient religions and by doing so developed and evolved an ancient archetypal idea so that it could be more appealing and relevant to a modern audience. Some would even say we can only create from our (collective) memories and therefore these so called fictional tales are a kind of remembering of a real event that actually happened- that's a lot to digest I know, but I will just throw it out there as an idea to ponder over.
How does the Collective Consciousness evolve through time?
Interestingly enough, if you watch old movies e.g. from the 1950s- the characters seem hopelessly oversimplified and the storylines too obvious. There is the ‘goodie’ and the ‘baddie’ and the not much in-between. The woman is not a very intellectually complicated character and just wants to be rescued by the man who character is a fairly basic 'macho' idea and not that complex also. Nowadays, movies (well the more sophisticated types!) are not so black and white. You can have the hero who is trying to be good but is also flawed in many ways. The journey is about overcoming his flaws. The 'baddie' might learn and evolve through the story and eventually show more than one side to his personality and unexpectedly do something good at the end. The stories we are telling now are more complex and interesting that they were in the past- because society has become more conscious of itself. Here, I am talking about film and books that are art forms. Most box office pleasers do not evolve at all or very slowly and the same basic story lines just keep repeating over and over again. They are still popular because we are all operating at different levels of consciousness and a large proportion of society are still entertained or will find something to learn from these types of films. However, most of us by the time we are adults need a more sophisticated storyline to keep us entertained. This is simply because of the different levels of consciousness so obviously present in society as it is in continuous state of flux and evolution.
The Shadow
A lot of really decent normal kind people enjoy a good horror movie or book. If you think about it objectively; it seems strange that watching something disgusting or stressful is considered a form of entertainment. However if you look at it from a psychological point of view, this is a way both the individual and collective mind can increase its understanding of the shadow (ref. Jung) or supressed darker side that lies within us all. That is why people find these movies so fascinating- because they allow us to take a look at the shadow within all of ourselves (the repressed part of our psyche hidden in our subconscious minds). Of course, we not only create expressions of the shadow in popular culture in the form of horror films but countless genres e.g action, adventure, romance, psychological thrillers, comedy drama etc. By watching these films we give ourselves the opportunity to experience the unexpressed parts of ourselves (because of societal, practical or ethical restrictions) or suppressed parts (subconscious) of our psyche that lie within us all. The mind always wants to learn more about itself (e.g. become more conscious of itself) and the only way we can do this is by creating reflections of our thought forms in the form of toys, books, movies, tv, video games etc. In this way the collective mind creates culture as a sort of a mirror that reflects back into itself making the universal collective conscience more conscious of itself and therefore able to continually grow and evolve.
How technology is mirroring the collective mind
It could be said that evolution of the internet is just a mirroring of this collective mind and its structure mirrors the neural networks within the human brain. In this way we see the microcosm (the internet created by the human mind) created within the macrocosm (the universal mind/ source/collective consciousness). Many scientists have even suggested that the universe (macrocosm) with its galaxies mirror the structure of the human brain (microcosm) and its neural network. There are endless examples of this if you look for them. The most obvious example of this Fibonacci's spiral or the 'golden ratio'. Interestingly enough Tesla has recently released a spiral shaped battery which is another example of macrocosmic patterns reflecting themselves at a microcosmic scale and vice versa.
The fear and suffering that drives evolution
We are living in a very aggressive and fearful stage of our human evolution. Not yet in full realisation of our collective psychic unity, we feel separate and cut off from each other. Many have lost faith in traditional religious models but this loss of faith has not yet been replaced by the formation of a new spiritual paradigm which is still in the relatively early stages of evolution. The ideas of collective consciousness, synchronicity and collective evolution etc are still relatively new and not yet mainstream. (These ideas are however rapidly gaining momentum). Therefore we see this collective fear of death manifest itself in a collective neurosis of neurotic busyness and an obsession with accumulating as much material wealth as possible. My art work entitled ‘More Mad Dogs’ is a statement about this cultural climate and the ‘dog- eat-dog’ mentality that currently predominates in today's society. I believe and hope this is a just a temporary but necessary stepping stone in the evolution of our collective consciousness that has to play out before we reach the next stage in our conscience evolution which will be a beautiful stage of realising our connectivity and renewed balancing of feminine with masculine values. This in turn will unleash a new golden age of creativity and compassion. Therefore, although things look bleak at the moment we can be comforted by the fact that we are collectively advancing towards a higher state of consciousness and collective awareness. As Eckhart Tolle says ‘things are both getting worse and getting better at the same time’. The pendulum is still swinging but will eventually find balance.
Suffering is not meaningless
So, it seems the universe created duality, which leads to suffering. This was created in order so we could experience suffering/contrast and by doing so come back through our life journey to the realisation that we are all one and that suffering is merely a catalyst to realising our true nature. At the very core of our existence is the most fundamental creative force of the universe-complete unconditional love. We are made of love and will return back to love. The purpose or function of love extends far beyond our anthropocentric conception of 'romantic love'. Indeed, it seems to be the central creative force of the universe. Perhaps this is what Dante meant when he wrote his last line of the Divine Comedy that 'God is not merely a blinding vision of glorious light, but that He is, most of all, l'amour che move il sole e l'altre stelle...'The love that moves the sun and the other stars.
Suffering and overcoming suffering by surrendering to unconditional love for self and others, is the catalyst that leads us backs to the realisation of our divine nature. Suffering and the overcoming of suffering leads to the development of of empathy and compassion within ourselves. How could we possibly feel empathy or compassion if we had never suffered ourselves? This psychic development during our life journey generates more love within the collective mind. This pure unconditional love is the fundamental energy out of which everything is created. Maybe this love energy is needed to expand the higher dimensions? Could it be that those dimensions of higher vibrational frequencies that could be referred to as ‘heaven’ are built from the love we generate in this dimension? I tend this suspect this could in fact be the case.
So it does seem that suffering and the exposure of the shadow is essential for growth- both individually and collectively. I would go as far as to say this one of the fundamental functions of material existence. We do our best to bury what we don’t like about ourselves in our subconsciousness mind or 'shadow'. However, our 'rough edges' get triggered when we are confronted with certain types of challenging behaviour from people around us and we sometimes lose control and react in anger or aggression. When this happens, most of us regret it later. But the experience is not wasted- this shock at our own behaviour has meant that we have become more aware of those aspects of our shadow that we were doing our best to ignore. We are forced to realise we need to address that side of ourselves- what was subconscious is now conscious and we have now become more aware of ourselves and therefore most of us try to improve and by doing so we have evolved on a psychic level. It is vital that in order to evolve we must face our shadow within the light of pure unconditional love for self and others if we wish to evolve. Billions of individual minds are evolving in this way every day year in and year out and over the millennia leads to the advancement and evolution of the collective consciousness. The function and purpose of Love and suffering is a big subject and one I would like to explore further and expand on in the future).
The Role of reincarnation in the evolution of the psyche and soul
If you believe in reincarnation and the evolution of souls through many lifetimes (for which there is now ample scientific evidence e.g. Dr. Brian Weiss, Dr. Raymond Moody, Dr. Jim B. Tucker as only a few examples) you can see how this is the process by which the soul grows and evolves as it passes through a multitude of lifetimes. Reincarnation is of course the cornerstone of many ancient Eastern religions and was actually an accepted concept in the early forms of Christianity (the Gnostics and Cathars). I personally find this idea extremely comforting because it means that suffering is not meaningless but serves a purpose. My interest and belief in reincarnation was the inspiration behind my work ‘Various Stages of Beeing’.
Matter is Energy and Energy is Consciousness
If you think about it, thought is essentially energy (electrons moving across a synapse/membrane in the neuron). Matter when broken down to its most basic components is what? Energy! Thought is the interface where the non-material becomes material– or at least creates the appearance of reality. The traditional materialist reductionist scientific model is incompatible with this idea and is racing to catch up with it. The most recent consensus that is gathering momentum is matter is energy and energy is consciousness. Thus the universe itself is conscious - which inspired the famous quote that ‘The universe is beginning to look more and more like one giant thought’ (ref Sir James Jeans). But even if you can’t get on board with this idea, almost anyone can see that original thoughts or imagination (immaterial) are how new material objects come into existence e.g. new objects, technologies, inventions and art etc
Deconstruction of the false sense of self through meditation
So, returning to the idea that the macrocosm is within the microcosm and vice versa ad infinitum, then it follows that higher levels of consciousness and a reconnection to the infinite can be reached when this temporary compartmentalisation of consciousness which we call the ‘self’ is deconstructed. The tools to do this are through meditation which is essentially cessation of thought- or a better way to look at it - standing outside of your thoughts and becoming the observer of your thoughts- rather than identifying with them. Cessation of thought, leads to cessation of identification of the self and allows us to break through the limits of ego and its associated time/space constraints and experience infinite consciousness. Duality dissolves and complete unity is experienced as there is no longer a subject/object relationship, only pure awareness. This is essentially what the practice of meditation aims to achieve- to become enlightened and realise your true inifinite nature.
So, after matter has been created e.g. thoughts (energy)- the 'artefacts' of space and time which have no true substance or absolute reality in themselves, manifest themselves as a sort of 'cocoon' or supporting infrastructure. If we suspend thought (e.g.) matter- time and space collapse and we can transcend the constraints of space and time and experience our true infinite nature. This is what happened to me very briefly during a Kundalini I had while meditating about 10 years ago which inspired my work 'Glimpse Through The Veil'.
The best way I can describe this event was as if you could imagine my mind was a small room, and for a moment the walls and ceiling of the room disappeared and I experienced an overwhelming sense of infinity and unity with all things. I experienced a huge electric charge shooting up my spine and exiting through the crown of my head (the thousand petal lotus). My mind felt connected to an infinite source of consciousness. I was no longer myself but ‘everything’. But this was such a high energy state and so overwhelming (it felt like a very intense orgasm in the brain), I could only sustain it for a short while (which paradoxically also felt timeless) because, of course, as soon as you notice this change, the duality e.g. subject/object relationship re-establishes itself and you sink back down into a normal state of consciousness. However, what was interesting was the effect of the experience stayed with me for a few days afterwards. I felt like I had experienced a higher level of reality and this normal everday reality felt very dream-like to me. I was 'in' the world but not 'of' it. I was observing reality from the outside (This was in fact the inspiration for my art works entitled The Dream (I, II) and a ‘Dream within a Dream’). This experience took me about 10 years to process on an intellectual and spiritual level and the overall integration of this experience into my world view as resulted in my own personal ‘Metanoia’ (change in world view) which is the title of my pivotal work in my ‘Iconography Collection’. My whole perception of reality has been transformed by this experience. This is also why I use the symbol of the cobra in a lot of my work as this represents the coiled unawakened Kundalini energy that rests at the base of our spine or root chakra before it is released and awakened during a Kundalini event.
Recent developments in consciousness and quantum physics are challenging our traditional scientific paradigm
Recent studies into consciousness are pointing to the fact that consciousness exists outside our brain and our brain is not the origin of consciousness but more like a 'receiving mechanism' to a collective consciousness that exists outside the individual brain. This idea is gathering momentum and is supported by a large and ever expanding body of research from eminent scientists and medical practitioners in the fields of psychology, neurobiology, quantum physics and medicine. (ref. Dr Raymond Moody , Dr. Pim Van Lommel, Prof. Sam Parnia, and Prof. Kenneth Ring. and the work of IANDS to name but a few).
Non-local relationships are now being partially explained by advancements in quantum physics. For example, quantum entanglement could be the basis for non-local connections that manifest as paranormal phenomenon like telepathy, remote viewing, telekinesis, synchronicity, clairvoyance, and so-called mystical experiences to name a few. The famous double-slit experiment has shown by merely observing electrons their behaviour is affected - which indicates we are not just passive observers of reality but our consciousness is deeply entwined in reality e.g. we are co-creators of this universe. The materialistic reductionist perception of reality that the current traditional scientific paradigm has been founded on is currently being seriously challenged by these recent developments in quantum physics. We are on the precipice of a massive leap forward in our understanding of the nature of reality, that is, the bridging of science and spirituality. More and more progressive scientists are getting on board with this idea and are currently calling into question the limitations of our current scientific paradigm (see Rupert Sheldrake - The Science Delusion).
In summary, it seems we are all ‘temporary’ compartmentalisations of a unified field of consciousness e.g ‘god’ or ‘source’ which has fractalised itself into an infinite number of perspectives/points of view or dimensions in order to understand itself better. When we die we go back into the unity and experience infinite consciousness once again and the information we experience from our unique perspective we experience during our lifetime is absorbed back to source upon our death thus allowing source or god to expand its consciousness and continue to grow-like tentacles of light ever expanding into the black void!
Maybe this mirroring of source consciousness is what William Blake was referring to when he wrote ‘Eternity is in love with the productions of time’, and why Shakespeare described the ‘world as a stage’or 'Dream within a Dream (Edgar Allan Poe)' or 'One Giant Thought' (ref. Sir James Jeans). We have all felt at some point or another that life feels like a crazy movie we have been thrown into and we are left to improvise our way through various absurd scenarios without the benefit of a script!
This is why the arts, sciences and spirituality have such an important role in the evolution of our society. That is, to enable the collective consciousness to evolve. I am optimistic that eventually mainstream thinking will catch up with current trends in advanced thinking. In fact, you can see there is currently an acceleration in the evolution of the collective consciousness through the bridging of science and spirituality through recent developments in quantum physics, which is so well articulated by the work of Gregg Braden and many others. The internet, which is acting as a collective brain, is also enabling the formation and evolution of new ideas and ways of seeing the world at a much more rapid pace than ever before.
Those in power who are heavily invested in the status quo will naturally resist this paradigm shift. But the Cosmic Egg (aka. the current cultural status quo) must be cracked in order for collective consciousness to continue to evolve and advance. It is the role of the artists, poets, the enlightened, inventors, philosophers and dreamers and indeed every soul on this planet to continue to push this frontier forward.
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[1] ‘Temporarily’ is a bit of a misnomer here, as it implies time, but I am just using it as a convention to explain the idea. In fact, a more useful way to look at it is outside the constraints of linear time and instead look at existence vertically-matter forming at a lower level of energy vibration while non material higher energy states (e.g. spiritual) are existing simultaneously outside the artefacts of space and time (e.g. parallel universes or higher and lower dimensions etc). Consciousness is a form of energy and the Law of Thermodynamics states that energy can cannot be created or destroyed. Therefore it would follow that the universe does not necessarily need to have a beginning or end. It is only the limits of our human minds which operate in 3D and time that suggest there must be a beginning and end. The process of evolution therefore could be eternal and parallel universes could be playing out an infinite number of scenarios and permutations of evolutionary branches simultaneously. This is an idea supported by many scientists working in quantum physics today.
If you follow the way nature is organised and notice this repeating pattern of macrocosm within the microcosm ad infinitum, then it would follow that the individual mind is a microcosm of the macrocosm- that is universal mind/consciousness and vice versa. By microcosm, I mean a temporary[1] compartmentalisation of universal consciousness. Rupert Spira suggests compartmentalisation occurs because in order for an infinite consciousness to know itself, it has to ‘temporarily’ reduce itself down to finite compartments. These ‘temporary’ compartmentalisations of consciousness (that is, our individual minds) offer the collective consciousness/source an infinite number of perspectives from which it can view itself. Therefore our individual minds act as an infinite number of ‘mirrors’ from which the universal mind/source can see itself reflected from an infinitive number of perspectives. This process of creation and reflection allows source/universe to see itself from an infinite number of perspectives and therefore become more conscious of itself and therefore evolve.
The idea that our human minds are temporarily compartmentalised units of source consciousness is in line with the concept Aldous Huxley had as the human mind functioning as a 'reducing valve mechanism' which is the crux of his work ‘Doors of Perception’. His idea was that because there is too much information out there for our brains to process- our brains act as a filter/reducing valve and only take in only as much sensory information of the outside world that we are able to process. Therefore it follows that our perception of reality is highly subjective. These doors of perception (our minds) can be viewed as billions of different perspectives through which all sentient beings are viewing reality from. Looking through the door outward we see the universe from just one point of view, looking from the door inward (e.g through meditation, introspection) we can see the universe from many perspectives at once. Therefore, this is why meditation or deep introspection is the fundamental tool we can use to reach higher levels of consciousness by widening the 'valve' or amount of information our consciousness can take in. This is why a lot of my work uses the door as a symbol of the doorway to higher levels of consciousness and the key represents the practice of increasing our levels of consciousness (e.g. through meditation, knowledge, introspection etc) which enables us to move through the doorway or veil imposed upon our higher soul consciousness at birth.
Based on this model of reality, we are therefore all experiencing reality in vastly different ways based on our individual points of view. No one point of view has any more inherent reality than the other but there is a wide spectrum within the realm of human consciousness of the amount of information these individual minds are able to process.(Here I am talking about the conscious mind not the subconscious as the subconscious mind takes in everything without us even being conscious of it). Therefore there is no absolute reality, and no single point of view actually has anymore inherent reality than the other. The concept of an absolute so-called 'reality' suddenly becomes very doubtful indeed. In fact due to the very nature of perception and consciousness it is impossible to pin down anything as really absolute. This line of thought is the inspiration behind my artwork entitled ‘Folie A Deux’ which addresses the idea we are all experiencing reality as a ‘shared hallucination’.
This also explains why there is so much conflict in the world, as due to the fact that we are all experiencing reality in dramatically different ways the nature of reality is actually different for everyone. Therefore, it follows that we will all develop different values based on our own personal experience of reality and conflicting belief systems. The inevitable conflict that results from so many different types of individualised psyches 'rubbing up' and in some cases crashing into (!!) each other inevitably leads to violence, suffering and conflict. Suffering results as our shadows, or the repressed parts of our psyche-the darker sides of ourselves (that we do our very best to ignore) come to the surface and are witnessed by our conscious mind. However, as the conscious mind shines it light on the dark hidden realms within us (our shadow self), a higher level of awareness and self knowledge results. Usually most of us try to improve that undesirable part of ourselves which was previously hidden. From this comes growth and the evolution of the collective consciousness. No longer acting from a primitive place of base instincts (fright and flight) our behaviour becomes more sophisticated as we have a better knowledge of ourselves and can therefore choose to improve. Aswell as this happening on an individual level, this also is happening to society collectively. Usually periods in history after great wars have been times of great creativity and collective growth in society. This is because the shadow within society has been purged on a very large scale.
The Erotic Drive that sustains Life
Because we experience life as temporary units of consciousness cut off from the infinite inevitably means that life is full of suffering. We feel lost, alone and not sure of our purpose. This in turn creates the erotic drive that sustains the reproduction of life on earth and its continual evolution (This is the inspiration for my work entitled ‘Erotomania’). By ‘erotic drive’ I am referring not only to the sexual drive that sustains the physical reproduction of life but also the psychic drive that causes humans to search for a partner and/or vocation that will satisfy them not only on a physical level but also on an intellectual/spiritual (aka psychic level).
So this process is happening within ourselves and also on an collective level. Beyond matter all that exists is energy or you could call it consciousness. Our personal minds (local precipitations of source consciousness) could be considered ‘movies’ or more to the point ‘mirrors’ the universe has created in order to know itself better. In fact this idea echoes the past life review that presents itself as a form of a ‘movie’ played out at the moment of death as has been reported in thousands of Near Death Experiences (NDEs) researched by Raymond Moody and many others working in this field.
Culture as a mirror of the collective consciousness
Just like the universal mind creates forms to know itself by 'temporarily' making itself finite, we do with same within our own minds. We create forms and characters in movies and toys and write stories about them as a way to better understand ourselves. This is precisely what a child is doing when they are playing with their toys. This is what adults are doing when they watch or write a movie or write or read a book or when teenagers play video games. So, it could follow that our individual minds are like ‘mirrors’ the universe has created of itself in order to view itself from many different perspectives.
Therefore it follows that, on a human cultural level, the arts and sciences are our way of knowing ourselves better on both an individual and collective level. It is indeed, what an artist is doing when creating a piece of art and also what the viewer of the art is doing when they identify with a particular piece of art. The mind is always trying to know and understand itself better.
Archetypes in Modern Society
The main theme of my Iconography collection is a development of the idea that Carl Jung had; that our culture is built upon the foundations of ancient archetypes that exist in the collective brain of source. It is true that we are not born with a psychological ‘blank canvas’ but rather the basic ‘blueprint’ of psychic archetypes are already in place in our minds before we are even born and passed down by our ancestors. Much like our bodies contain physical traces of our more primitive origins in the form of vestigial relics, our minds are already imprinted at birth with psychic archetypes of our ancestors and the whole collective mind. My Iconography Collection extrapolates this idea to propose that due to the continuous nature of evolution these archetypes are still evolving and being added to the collective consciousness through and manifesting as, recurring forms and themes we see in current popular culture. Evolution is a never ending process occurring on both the physical and psychic level.
If you examine current archetypes in popular culture, you will see the same themes are continuing to evolve and are playing out all over the world. Typical examples include the usual themes you see at movie theatres e.g. the hero versus the villain, good triumphing over evil, the impossible obstacle/challenge that is eventually overcome by the main protagonist of the film/story/game etc. The Star Wars trilogy is a very powerful example of this and the reason as I chose Star Wars as a topic for an artwork. The idea of a universal ‘force’ and the battle between good and evil are such strong archetypal ideas that they resonate strongly with the global audience because it is an inherent inborn and imprinted archetypal 'truth' imprinted within our collective and individual consciousness. This is why the Star Wars trilogy has been such an enduring tale. In fact, George Lucas developed the idea of the force by researching into several ancient religions and by doing so developed and evolved an ancient archetypal idea so that it could be more appealing and relevant to a modern audience. Some would even say we can only create from our (collective) memories and therefore these so called fictional tales are a kind of remembering of a real event that actually happened- that's a lot to digest I know, but I will just throw it out there as an idea to ponder over.
How does the Collective Consciousness evolve through time?
Interestingly enough, if you watch old movies e.g. from the 1950s- the characters seem hopelessly oversimplified and the storylines too obvious. There is the ‘goodie’ and the ‘baddie’ and the not much in-between. The woman is not a very intellectually complicated character and just wants to be rescued by the man who character is a fairly basic 'macho' idea and not that complex also. Nowadays, movies (well the more sophisticated types!) are not so black and white. You can have the hero who is trying to be good but is also flawed in many ways. The journey is about overcoming his flaws. The 'baddie' might learn and evolve through the story and eventually show more than one side to his personality and unexpectedly do something good at the end. The stories we are telling now are more complex and interesting that they were in the past- because society has become more conscious of itself. Here, I am talking about film and books that are art forms. Most box office pleasers do not evolve at all or very slowly and the same basic story lines just keep repeating over and over again. They are still popular because we are all operating at different levels of consciousness and a large proportion of society are still entertained or will find something to learn from these types of films. However, most of us by the time we are adults need a more sophisticated storyline to keep us entertained. This is simply because of the different levels of consciousness so obviously present in society as it is in continuous state of flux and evolution.
The Shadow
A lot of really decent normal kind people enjoy a good horror movie or book. If you think about it objectively; it seems strange that watching something disgusting or stressful is considered a form of entertainment. However if you look at it from a psychological point of view, this is a way both the individual and collective mind can increase its understanding of the shadow (ref. Jung) or supressed darker side that lies within us all. That is why people find these movies so fascinating- because they allow us to take a look at the shadow within all of ourselves (the repressed part of our psyche hidden in our subconscious minds). Of course, we not only create expressions of the shadow in popular culture in the form of horror films but countless genres e.g action, adventure, romance, psychological thrillers, comedy drama etc. By watching these films we give ourselves the opportunity to experience the unexpressed parts of ourselves (because of societal, practical or ethical restrictions) or suppressed parts (subconscious) of our psyche that lie within us all. The mind always wants to learn more about itself (e.g. become more conscious of itself) and the only way we can do this is by creating reflections of our thought forms in the form of toys, books, movies, tv, video games etc. In this way the collective mind creates culture as a sort of a mirror that reflects back into itself making the universal collective conscience more conscious of itself and therefore able to continually grow and evolve.
How technology is mirroring the collective mind
It could be said that evolution of the internet is just a mirroring of this collective mind and its structure mirrors the neural networks within the human brain. In this way we see the microcosm (the internet created by the human mind) created within the macrocosm (the universal mind/ source/collective consciousness). Many scientists have even suggested that the universe (macrocosm) with its galaxies mirror the structure of the human brain (microcosm) and its neural network. There are endless examples of this if you look for them. The most obvious example of this Fibonacci's spiral or the 'golden ratio'. Interestingly enough Tesla has recently released a spiral shaped battery which is another example of macrocosmic patterns reflecting themselves at a microcosmic scale and vice versa.
The fear and suffering that drives evolution
We are living in a very aggressive and fearful stage of our human evolution. Not yet in full realisation of our collective psychic unity, we feel separate and cut off from each other. Many have lost faith in traditional religious models but this loss of faith has not yet been replaced by the formation of a new spiritual paradigm which is still in the relatively early stages of evolution. The ideas of collective consciousness, synchronicity and collective evolution etc are still relatively new and not yet mainstream. (These ideas are however rapidly gaining momentum). Therefore we see this collective fear of death manifest itself in a collective neurosis of neurotic busyness and an obsession with accumulating as much material wealth as possible. My art work entitled ‘More Mad Dogs’ is a statement about this cultural climate and the ‘dog- eat-dog’ mentality that currently predominates in today's society. I believe and hope this is a just a temporary but necessary stepping stone in the evolution of our collective consciousness that has to play out before we reach the next stage in our conscience evolution which will be a beautiful stage of realising our connectivity and renewed balancing of feminine with masculine values. This in turn will unleash a new golden age of creativity and compassion. Therefore, although things look bleak at the moment we can be comforted by the fact that we are collectively advancing towards a higher state of consciousness and collective awareness. As Eckhart Tolle says ‘things are both getting worse and getting better at the same time’. The pendulum is still swinging but will eventually find balance.
Suffering is not meaningless
So, it seems the universe created duality, which leads to suffering. This was created in order so we could experience suffering/contrast and by doing so come back through our life journey to the realisation that we are all one and that suffering is merely a catalyst to realising our true nature. At the very core of our existence is the most fundamental creative force of the universe-complete unconditional love. We are made of love and will return back to love. The purpose or function of love extends far beyond our anthropocentric conception of 'romantic love'. Indeed, it seems to be the central creative force of the universe. Perhaps this is what Dante meant when he wrote his last line of the Divine Comedy that 'God is not merely a blinding vision of glorious light, but that He is, most of all, l'amour che move il sole e l'altre stelle...'The love that moves the sun and the other stars.
Suffering and overcoming suffering by surrendering to unconditional love for self and others, is the catalyst that leads us backs to the realisation of our divine nature. Suffering and the overcoming of suffering leads to the development of of empathy and compassion within ourselves. How could we possibly feel empathy or compassion if we had never suffered ourselves? This psychic development during our life journey generates more love within the collective mind. This pure unconditional love is the fundamental energy out of which everything is created. Maybe this love energy is needed to expand the higher dimensions? Could it be that those dimensions of higher vibrational frequencies that could be referred to as ‘heaven’ are built from the love we generate in this dimension? I tend this suspect this could in fact be the case.
So it does seem that suffering and the exposure of the shadow is essential for growth- both individually and collectively. I would go as far as to say this one of the fundamental functions of material existence. We do our best to bury what we don’t like about ourselves in our subconsciousness mind or 'shadow'. However, our 'rough edges' get triggered when we are confronted with certain types of challenging behaviour from people around us and we sometimes lose control and react in anger or aggression. When this happens, most of us regret it later. But the experience is not wasted- this shock at our own behaviour has meant that we have become more aware of those aspects of our shadow that we were doing our best to ignore. We are forced to realise we need to address that side of ourselves- what was subconscious is now conscious and we have now become more aware of ourselves and therefore most of us try to improve and by doing so we have evolved on a psychic level. It is vital that in order to evolve we must face our shadow within the light of pure unconditional love for self and others if we wish to evolve. Billions of individual minds are evolving in this way every day year in and year out and over the millennia leads to the advancement and evolution of the collective consciousness. The function and purpose of Love and suffering is a big subject and one I would like to explore further and expand on in the future).
The Role of reincarnation in the evolution of the psyche and soul
If you believe in reincarnation and the evolution of souls through many lifetimes (for which there is now ample scientific evidence e.g. Dr. Brian Weiss, Dr. Raymond Moody, Dr. Jim B. Tucker as only a few examples) you can see how this is the process by which the soul grows and evolves as it passes through a multitude of lifetimes. Reincarnation is of course the cornerstone of many ancient Eastern religions and was actually an accepted concept in the early forms of Christianity (the Gnostics and Cathars). I personally find this idea extremely comforting because it means that suffering is not meaningless but serves a purpose. My interest and belief in reincarnation was the inspiration behind my work ‘Various Stages of Beeing’.
Matter is Energy and Energy is Consciousness
If you think about it, thought is essentially energy (electrons moving across a synapse/membrane in the neuron). Matter when broken down to its most basic components is what? Energy! Thought is the interface where the non-material becomes material– or at least creates the appearance of reality. The traditional materialist reductionist scientific model is incompatible with this idea and is racing to catch up with it. The most recent consensus that is gathering momentum is matter is energy and energy is consciousness. Thus the universe itself is conscious - which inspired the famous quote that ‘The universe is beginning to look more and more like one giant thought’ (ref Sir James Jeans). But even if you can’t get on board with this idea, almost anyone can see that original thoughts or imagination (immaterial) are how new material objects come into existence e.g. new objects, technologies, inventions and art etc
Deconstruction of the false sense of self through meditation
So, returning to the idea that the macrocosm is within the microcosm and vice versa ad infinitum, then it follows that higher levels of consciousness and a reconnection to the infinite can be reached when this temporary compartmentalisation of consciousness which we call the ‘self’ is deconstructed. The tools to do this are through meditation which is essentially cessation of thought- or a better way to look at it - standing outside of your thoughts and becoming the observer of your thoughts- rather than identifying with them. Cessation of thought, leads to cessation of identification of the self and allows us to break through the limits of ego and its associated time/space constraints and experience infinite consciousness. Duality dissolves and complete unity is experienced as there is no longer a subject/object relationship, only pure awareness. This is essentially what the practice of meditation aims to achieve- to become enlightened and realise your true inifinite nature.
So, after matter has been created e.g. thoughts (energy)- the 'artefacts' of space and time which have no true substance or absolute reality in themselves, manifest themselves as a sort of 'cocoon' or supporting infrastructure. If we suspend thought (e.g.) matter- time and space collapse and we can transcend the constraints of space and time and experience our true infinite nature. This is what happened to me very briefly during a Kundalini I had while meditating about 10 years ago which inspired my work 'Glimpse Through The Veil'.
The best way I can describe this event was as if you could imagine my mind was a small room, and for a moment the walls and ceiling of the room disappeared and I experienced an overwhelming sense of infinity and unity with all things. I experienced a huge electric charge shooting up my spine and exiting through the crown of my head (the thousand petal lotus). My mind felt connected to an infinite source of consciousness. I was no longer myself but ‘everything’. But this was such a high energy state and so overwhelming (it felt like a very intense orgasm in the brain), I could only sustain it for a short while (which paradoxically also felt timeless) because, of course, as soon as you notice this change, the duality e.g. subject/object relationship re-establishes itself and you sink back down into a normal state of consciousness. However, what was interesting was the effect of the experience stayed with me for a few days afterwards. I felt like I had experienced a higher level of reality and this normal everday reality felt very dream-like to me. I was 'in' the world but not 'of' it. I was observing reality from the outside (This was in fact the inspiration for my art works entitled The Dream (I, II) and a ‘Dream within a Dream’). This experience took me about 10 years to process on an intellectual and spiritual level and the overall integration of this experience into my world view as resulted in my own personal ‘Metanoia’ (change in world view) which is the title of my pivotal work in my ‘Iconography Collection’. My whole perception of reality has been transformed by this experience. This is also why I use the symbol of the cobra in a lot of my work as this represents the coiled unawakened Kundalini energy that rests at the base of our spine or root chakra before it is released and awakened during a Kundalini event.
Recent developments in consciousness and quantum physics are challenging our traditional scientific paradigm
Recent studies into consciousness are pointing to the fact that consciousness exists outside our brain and our brain is not the origin of consciousness but more like a 'receiving mechanism' to a collective consciousness that exists outside the individual brain. This idea is gathering momentum and is supported by a large and ever expanding body of research from eminent scientists and medical practitioners in the fields of psychology, neurobiology, quantum physics and medicine. (ref. Dr Raymond Moody , Dr. Pim Van Lommel, Prof. Sam Parnia, and Prof. Kenneth Ring. and the work of IANDS to name but a few).
Non-local relationships are now being partially explained by advancements in quantum physics. For example, quantum entanglement could be the basis for non-local connections that manifest as paranormal phenomenon like telepathy, remote viewing, telekinesis, synchronicity, clairvoyance, and so-called mystical experiences to name a few. The famous double-slit experiment has shown by merely observing electrons their behaviour is affected - which indicates we are not just passive observers of reality but our consciousness is deeply entwined in reality e.g. we are co-creators of this universe. The materialistic reductionist perception of reality that the current traditional scientific paradigm has been founded on is currently being seriously challenged by these recent developments in quantum physics. We are on the precipice of a massive leap forward in our understanding of the nature of reality, that is, the bridging of science and spirituality. More and more progressive scientists are getting on board with this idea and are currently calling into question the limitations of our current scientific paradigm (see Rupert Sheldrake - The Science Delusion).
In summary, it seems we are all ‘temporary’ compartmentalisations of a unified field of consciousness e.g ‘god’ or ‘source’ which has fractalised itself into an infinite number of perspectives/points of view or dimensions in order to understand itself better. When we die we go back into the unity and experience infinite consciousness once again and the information we experience from our unique perspective we experience during our lifetime is absorbed back to source upon our death thus allowing source or god to expand its consciousness and continue to grow-like tentacles of light ever expanding into the black void!
Maybe this mirroring of source consciousness is what William Blake was referring to when he wrote ‘Eternity is in love with the productions of time’, and why Shakespeare described the ‘world as a stage’or 'Dream within a Dream (Edgar Allan Poe)' or 'One Giant Thought' (ref. Sir James Jeans). We have all felt at some point or another that life feels like a crazy movie we have been thrown into and we are left to improvise our way through various absurd scenarios without the benefit of a script!
This is why the arts, sciences and spirituality have such an important role in the evolution of our society. That is, to enable the collective consciousness to evolve. I am optimistic that eventually mainstream thinking will catch up with current trends in advanced thinking. In fact, you can see there is currently an acceleration in the evolution of the collective consciousness through the bridging of science and spirituality through recent developments in quantum physics, which is so well articulated by the work of Gregg Braden and many others. The internet, which is acting as a collective brain, is also enabling the formation and evolution of new ideas and ways of seeing the world at a much more rapid pace than ever before.
Those in power who are heavily invested in the status quo will naturally resist this paradigm shift. But the Cosmic Egg (aka. the current cultural status quo) must be cracked in order for collective consciousness to continue to evolve and advance. It is the role of the artists, poets, the enlightened, inventors, philosophers and dreamers and indeed every soul on this planet to continue to push this frontier forward.
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[1] ‘Temporarily’ is a bit of a misnomer here, as it implies time, but I am just using it as a convention to explain the idea. In fact, a more useful way to look at it is outside the constraints of linear time and instead look at existence vertically-matter forming at a lower level of energy vibration while non material higher energy states (e.g. spiritual) are existing simultaneously outside the artefacts of space and time (e.g. parallel universes or higher and lower dimensions etc). Consciousness is a form of energy and the Law of Thermodynamics states that energy can cannot be created or destroyed. Therefore it would follow that the universe does not necessarily need to have a beginning or end. It is only the limits of our human minds which operate in 3D and time that suggest there must be a beginning and end. The process of evolution therefore could be eternal and parallel universes could be playing out an infinite number of scenarios and permutations of evolutionary branches simultaneously. This is an idea supported by many scientists working in quantum physics today.