Dynamics of Isdom

The Isdom of the Wisdom Society: Embodying time as the heartland of humanity (Part #10)

There is every reason to believe that "networking" as practiced does indeed hide important insights into the nature of the wisdom processes within Isdom. It is unfortunate that as a metaphor it has been downgraded to be synonymous in many cases with a phone call or (old boy) clubbing. It is sad that it is only the intelligence services that take "networks" seriously and proceed to use the mathematical techniques of social network analysis in order to discover their creative and controlling centres -- as a means of infiltrating them or "taking them out".

It is therefore useful to explore further the implications of the plasma metaphor of nuclear fusion as it can be used for insights into social change and transformation. The interesting parallel here with a plasma container is that of the alchemical vessel or flask whose symbolism was the subject of extensive exploration by C G Jung (Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy (The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 14)) . Jung viewed it as a container for interior work (see, for example, Adam McLean. The Alchemical Vessel as Symbol of the Soul). As noted by John Fraim:

One of the key works Jung based Mysterium on was an alchemical text titled Rosarium philosophorum. This text consists of a series of symbolic pictures which are reproduced in the Edinger book [The Mystery of the Coniunctio]. The pictures represent the Rosarium Cycle or a sequence of psychological events that repeat themselves over and over. They are cycles. As Edinger remarks, they are meant to illustrate the events going on inside the alchemical flask or the containing vessel. Edinger notes that the alchemical vessel symbolizes three different psychological contexts: 1) a process within an individual 2) a process between two people and 3) a process within a group or community, a collective process. The "vessel" that contains them needs to be defined when looking at the Rosarium pictures. The sequential stages of the pictures are the following: The Mandala Fountain; Emergence of Opposites; Stripped for Action; Descent into the Bath; Union, Manifestation of the Mystery; In the Tomb; Separation of Soul and Body; Gideon's Dew Drops from the Cloud; Reunion of the Soul and Body; Resurrection of the United Eternal Body.

Whilst Jung and his followers have almost exclusively focused on the transformations of the individual, there is a valuable resonance between such "inner" transformations and those which they evoke, sustain and render recognizable in the "external" social context. The question is what reflections arising from the "inner" dynamics are suggestive of "external" dynamics that might sustain alternative processes vital to the viability of alternative social movements? The isolation of any cognitive vessel is highlighted by the statement of philosopher Marjorie Grene: "The philosopher's room is a chamber that's sealed. All the doors are shut firmly against reality? It's this self-contained game. and an awful lot of it has no connection with anything" (in Michael Tobias, et al. A Parliament of Minds: philosophy for a New Millennium, 2000, p. xvii).

The challenge of alchemical reflections by depth psychologists is that they have a strong tendency to emphasize the duration of such processes -- implying years of personal exploration and therapeutic assistance. Jungians have, as yet, little to offer groups (see Thoughts on "Psyche at Work": Implications of Jungian analysis for social groups, 1992). In this sense they deny the reality of the moment in which the essential processes of Isdom take place. As with nuclear fusion there is a vital temporal focus to be embodied in the understandings suggested. In a sense the projection over time in extenso is a counter-productive distraction where the challenge is effectively "in intenso" -- as with nuclear fusion.

It is for such reasons that the bridge established by physicist F David Peat (Alchemical Transformation: Consciousness and matter, form and information, 1997) between the vessels of alchemical processes and those of nuclear fusion is of potential interest.

The psychologist Carl Jung gave us the image of the alchemical vessel in which processes of sublimation and purification take place. Psychotherapy provides this same kind of containment whereby a person's tensions and paradoxes are contained within the therapeutic hour, charges with such energy that they may eventually give way to active transformation. Within the alchemical vessel there's no resolution of paradox and opposition, no compromise, no simple order that ties in between. Rather, a transcendental functions required which moves beyond the limits inherent in different positions by creating new domains. But for this to happen it is necessary to have a period, and a means, of active containment. Even nuclear fusion requires the hot plasma to be contained long enough for fusion reactions to take place....

Most dramatically, form appears in the guise of the wave function. It is the global form of the wave function (symmetric or antisymmetric) that is responsible for the existence of Fermi-Dirac or Bose-Einstein statistics. The fact that such forms are non-factorizable (into spatially independent components) is the deep reason for quantum non-locality (Bell's mysterious correlation between distant particles). The global form of the wave function is ultimately responsible for collective modes in physics-plasma, superfluid, superconductor and hypothetical Frochlich systems. The form of the wave function orchestrates each of an astronomical number of particles into a highly coordinated dance.

There is a surprising resemblance between the "wiring" patterns of the magnetic "bottles" required to contain plasma for nuclear fusion and that of the transformation pathways between the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching (the Book of Changes) (see diagram; also Sacralization of Hyperlink Geometry, 1997). Such a diagram is highly suggestive of a container -- which in the taoist tradition would be understood as a container for ch'i (see the work of biochemist Ralph G H Siu: The Tao of Science: an essay on Western knowledge and Eastern wisdom, 1957; The Man of Many Qualities; a legacy of the I Ching, 1968; Ch'i: a neo-taoist approach to life, 1974). The last of these is an effort to deal with the nature of time. It has been suggested that the significance of ch'i may be intuited as a perpetual "confluence of Time, Light and Life" -- supporting self-healing practices such as T'ai Ch'i Chuan that originated as an internal martial art.

There would appear to be some possibility that the many Chinese articulations of understanding of the conditions and movement of ch'i could offer much greater detailed understanding of the dynamics of Isdom -- especially since the classics that are the focus of such studies (I Ching and Tao Te Ching) are exemplars of books of wisdom. For example, the long-explored relationship to the magic squares of number theory suggests the possibilities of relating such insights to the insights of physicists into hyperspace and associated explorations of the physics of consciousness (see Hyperspace Clues to the Psychology of the Pattern that Connects in the light of the 81 Tao Te Ching Insights, 2003). Susantha Goonatilake (Toward a Global Science: mining civilizational knowledge, 1999) has suggested that it is Asian cultural metaphors that will drive research in the coming century (see Enhancing the Quality of Knowing through Integration of East-West metaphors, 2000).

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Dynamics of Isdom