Class
Sunday, August 11th, 1974
Verbatim, unedited transcriptClick the series name to view more
CLASS at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector, NY
with Anthony Damiani (AD)
August 11, 1974
EPISTEMOLOGY; REFLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS
TOPIC: Epistemology
SUBJECT: Reflective Consciousness
SUBSUBJECTS: Brain, Psyche, Vasanas, Subtle Body
CONTENTS:
PB's disappearance in the 1950s
Reading PB, The Wisdom of the Overself, "The War and the World," on importance of altruistic individuals in world redemption
Karma and ideation as twin functions
Aurobindo: we are not conscious of external objects, only perceptions in our brains
Reading/discussing Jung, "On Psychic Energy," on mechanistic and energic standpoints
Individual as closed psychic system
Reading/discussing Jung, "Spirit and Life"; examples of reflex arcs and psychic processes
Where do images come from?
Role of brain in image formation; brain as storehouse; neural pathways to imagery; brain as amplifier/transformer
Thought experiment: consciousness in heart, not head
Focus is on psychological approach, not epistemological
Debate continues about location and nature of images, role of brain
Reading Jung, "The Undiscovered Self," on psyche as self-contained cosmic principle
Can't separate karma and ideation
Nature of images and their storage
What happens to the image after the experience?
Traces in the brain are not the image; brain damage and memory/habit retention
Reading Jung, "The Role of the Unconscious," on collective unconscious buried in the brain
Attempt to understand the mechanism of image recall; brain stimulation and image recall; mind/brain relation
Relationship between image (ideation), power (karma), and brain structure
Forces lying latent in World-Mind are potential; get actualized simultaneously as power and image
Penfield's analysis one-sided
Reading/discussing Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, on vasanas
Reading Jung, Psychological Types, definition of image
Reading/discussing Jung, "Foreword to Suzuki's Introduction to Zen Buddhism," on nature-given factor
Body/brain as nature-given factor; all conditioning has to be destroyed
Reading/discussing Mead, The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition; Synesius on imagination/common sensory
Imagination interferes, must be purified; borderland between reason and unreason
All experiences retained by subtle body
Knowledge simultaneously universal and individual
Imagination images in one nature reason and unreason
Reading Jung, "The Psychology of Eastern Meditation," on kleshas
In concentration, brain gets affected, kleshas are evoked
Continuing to read Mead/Synesius on imagination
PB: Mind to be worshipped silently, realized in the Void
BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:
Paul Brunton, The Wisdom of the Overself
Paul Brunton, The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga
Sri Aurobindo, tr., comm., The Upanishads-II, Kena and Other Upanishads
Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom
Plato, Apology
C.G. Jung, CW 6, Psychological Types
C.G. Jung, CW 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, "On Psychic Energy"; "Spirit and Life"
C.G. Jung, CW 10, Civilization in Transition, "The Undiscovered Self"; "The Role of the Unconscious"
C.G. Jung, CW 11, Psychology and Religion, "Foreword to Suzuki's Introduction to Zen Buddhism"; "The Psychology of Eastern Meditation"
G.R.S. Mead, The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition
DIAGRAMS referred to (not with this transcript version) [Transcriber note: [diagram] means the speaker is referencing a diagram as he or she is speaking. If someone is drawing or writing, with audible sounds of chalk on a blackboard, I indicate this by [drawing] or [writing].]
NOTE: For readability's sake, the following substitutions/edits made in Verbatim Transcript: cuz = because; gonna = going to; gotta = got to; yeah = yes.
TRANSCRIBED Verbatim by IT prior to 2017, reformatted by jf 2017. In 2023, IT updates prefatory matter, footer, and audio file name, changes Subject and Subsubjects, completes TOC, fixes/completes Book List, fixes errors/typos, adds new notes within transcript, reformats to accord with new conventions. Archival verbatim transcript – V12a.
AUDIO FILES: 1974 0811a, 1974 0811b. [Note 1: "Tape" and "Side" refer to original audio cassette tapes that were later digitized into .MP3 Audio Files. Note 2: These files are very faint and hard to hear. In 2024, REP Studio tries to improve the sound quality.]
1974 08/11 at Wisdom's Goldenrod
Epistemology; Reflective Consciousness
[Audio File 1974 0811a Begins]
AD: Why don't you close the back of the thing so that cool air stays in the [half/one word inaudible] You've put it on, ok.
RP: It's in the chapter called "The War and the World." Section 4 [Note: Section 3], The Personal Crisis, this is actually paragraph 20.
S: Ok.
S: Paragraph number? For those who are going to be reading.
[Transcriber note: I am using The Wisdom of the Overself by Paul Brunton, Rider and Company, London, 1943.]
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The War and the World," p. 167, RP reading]: "Mankind may…"
AD (simultaneously): I would-- I would like to say one thing. Around 1953, oh, I don't remember the exact dates, all of a sudden PB disappeared and we didn't see him for five or six years, at all, no one heard from him, saw him, knew where he was. I had a very high grade psychic who told me he was dead and I said, "Bunk. He's not dead, I-- that much I know. I don't know where he's at but--" And I kind of realized what it was about. Ok?
S: He told you? Like-- (laughter)
AD: But you'll see it yourself, you remember those years, the years of the unthinkable, the Cuban crisis developing around '62, Jung looking and seeing all kinds of statesmen, trying to figure out when the blow-up was going to take place. He had a real problem, you know, not like ours, a real one. (some laughter) Each country had 25,000 warheads. For those of us who had-- well, I-- I wasn't one of them but many of the mystics I spoke to, it wasn't that many, and occasionally they saw chaos but some of them saw actual destruction. So, let's read PB.
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The War and the World," p. 167, RP reading]: "Mankind may rend the apocalyptic veil of this problematic future for themselves. If they can quickly produce a sufficient minority of men and women who will dedicate their inner life to one of the three stages of the quest of the Overself for the sake of the common inner welfare not less than their own, or if they can produce a sufficient minority of leaders who will be permitted by their peoples to implement in action a constructive social idealism based on unselfish and non-materialistic principles, their safe passage into a brighter new age will be assured."
AD: Ok.
RP: [couple/three words inaudible]
S: 157.
[couple students at once, few words inaudible]
S (simultaneously): Probably Richard, but where are you reading from?
RP: 281.
S: Ok.
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The War and the World," p. 167, RP reading]: "Not many indeed are needed for this grand purpose, for it is rather the concentrated quality than the diffused quantity of the thought or action of these few altruistic souls which will count most in such an historic effort at world-redemption. Thus the social crisis returns always in the end to the personal crisis. Every man who makes his deep irrevocable choice whether he will live only for selfish and sensual aims or whether he will live for altruistic [and] purer ones is affecting not only his own fate but also the immediate destiny of our civilization. That such souls exist and that such leaders have begun to make their appearance affords a basis of hope amid the terrible world darkness today. The problem still remains, however, whether enough will light their lamps and light them quickly."
[short pause]
AD: Well, no comments, so, [possibly a student: no comments]. [short pause] Suppose we-- we left off at that sentence, "The rise, the abiding and dissolution of karma is a twin-function to that of its ideation." [Note: PB, The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Birth of the Universe," p. 31, 1943 edition.] And suppose we make an attempt to understand something of it. The way Richard says, let's first try to understand our personal copy of this notion. Then perhaps we could apply it to the world. But, I'm going to try in a peculiar way. I was hoping I'd get notes. We-- we read this once before in class, I'd like you to [one word inaudible] this. Most of this will be a repeat. It'll come from any quarter, any corner, I don't know, I don't care, but-- Remember this paragraph you read from?
S: Which one?
AD: Read the whole thing again.
[Transcriber note: I am using The Upanishads-II, Kena and Other Upanishads by Sri Aurobindo, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 2006.]
Sri Aurobindo [The Upanishads-II, Kena and Other Upanishads, pp. 366-367, RP reading]: "Philosophy has done well to point out that consciousness is in its essence purely subjective. We are not conscious of external objects; we are only conscious of certain perceptions and impressions in our brains which by the separate or concurrent operation of our senses we are able to externalize into name and form; and in the very nature of things and to the end of Time we cannot be conscious of anything except these impressions & perceptions. The fact is indubitable, though Materialism and Idealism explain it in diametrically opposite directions. We shall eventually know that this condition is imperative precisely because consciousness is the fundamental thing from which all phenomenal existence proceeds, so much so that all phenomena have been called by a bold metaphor distortions or corruptions (vikaras) of the absolute consciousness. Monistic philosophers tell us however [that the] true explanation is not corruption but illation…"
RP: I-l-l-a-t-i-o-n.
S: [one/two words inaudible]
RP: Like (idea-zation).
S: [couple words inaudible]
S: What does that mean?
AD: Go on Richard, go ahead.
Sri Aurobindo [The Upanishads-II, Kena and Other Upanishads, p. 367, RP reading]: "…first of the idea of not-self into the Self, and of externality into the internal, and then of fresh and ever more complex forms by the method of Evolution. These metaphysical explanations it is necessary [indeed] to grasp, but even when we [RP reads: you] have mastered their delicate distinctions, refined upon refinement and brought ourselves to the verge of infinite ideas, there at least we must pause; we are moored to our brains and cannot in this body cut the rope in order to spread our sails over the illimitable ocean. It is enough if we satisfy ourselves with some dim realisation of the fact that all sentience is ultimately self-sentience."
[44 second pause]
AD: [few words inaudible] too. (bit of laughter) Well-- [students assent] Let's see, maybe we could start off this way. Now, I had interruptions while I was (recording) it so I couldn't hear too much stuff, so I-- I got my apology ready. Now I'm going to go ahead and steal the attention.
S: [couple words inaudible]
AD: Those who interrupt won't be (allowed/around). (bit of laughter)
S: [few words inaudible]
S: [three/few words inaudible] (bit more laughter, student words)
AD: Ok. [three/few words inaudible] because I think(--/.) Now, we're going to take the position not from up here [diagram], going to take the position of the heart center, ok? Heart center [diagram]. In other words, in other words, we're going to make an attempt to follow through with this notion of the rise, the abiding and dissolution of karma (as the twin) to that of its ideation from here, from within the heart center. And, if you remember, in some of his writings he speaks about the activity that starts in the heart, goes through the brain, then through the senses--you've got eyes, goes out, ok, nose, [drawing] goes in, ears, goes out, ok. So we're going to start from that point of view. Or like he says in this exercise, the 6th exercise--
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Yoga of the Discerning Mind," Exercise 6--A Meditation on Sleep, p. 242, AD reading]: "This exercise, like the previous one, is to be practiced at night [just before sleep]. [AD: The one on sleep.] It is a fact that man [then] first loses consciousness of the feet [and] then of the lower part of his body until at last he is aware only within his head. This is the crucial moment when the world which ordinarily filters through the five senses [AD emphasis] into consciousness disappears. Only after this does he suddenly lapse into sleep. It is the pause here for a fraction of a second which has to be detected by extreme vigilance."
AD: (Had a pillow) [couple/three words inaudible] So, we have to deal with this problem. On the one hand, he speaks about karma, or, if we want to use the word, power, ok? And associated with it, ideation. And these two we have to keep together. If we-- if we talk about one side and forget the other side, alright, we'll get a partial view, if you speak about this side and forget that side, you get another partial view. And then if we add them up together, we get nowhere. (bit of laughter) So, suppose we try something like this. I'm going to try to pick on the things that we've worked with, you know, that it will be like review, we won't be-- it won't be that you have to think of different things. Structure and Dynamics of Society--
RP: [three words inaudible]
AD: Psyche. (laughter) Just a couple of paragraphs, Richard has picked out one.
RP: Yes.
S: Do it. (bit of laughter)
C.G. Jung [CW 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, "On Psychic Energy," pp. 3-5, paragraphs 2-5, AD reading]: "It is [a] generally recognized truth that physical events can be looked at in two ways: from the mechanistic and from the energic [AD reads: energetic] standpoint. The mechanistic view [AD reads: viewpoint] is purely causal; it conceives an event as the effect of a cause, in the sense that unchanging substances change their relations to one another according to fixed laws.
"The energic [AD reads: energetic] point of view on the other hand is in essence final; the event is traced back from effect to cause on the assumption that some kind of energy underlies the changes in phenomena, that it maintains itself as a constant throughout these changes and finally leads to entropy, a condition of general equilibrium. The flow of energy has a definite direction [(goal)] in that it follows the gradient of potential in a way that cannot be reversed. The idea of energy is not that of a substance moved in space; it is a concept abstracted from relations of movement. The concept, therefore, is founded not on the substances themselves but on their relations, whereas the moving substance itself is the basis of the mechanistic view. [AD: One more paragraph.]
"Both points of view are indispensable for understanding physical events and consequently enjoy general recognition. [AD adds: And] Meanwhile, their continued [AD reads: continuous] existence side by side has gradually given rise to a third conception which is mechanistic as well energic [AD reads: energetic]--although, logically speaking, the advance from cause to effect, the progressive action of the cause, cannot at the same time be the retrogressive selection of a means to an end. It is not possible to conceive that one and the same combination of events could be simultaneously causal and final, for the one determination excludes the other. There are in fact two different point of view, the one reversing of the other; for the principle of finality is the logical reverse of the principle of causality. Finality is not only logically possible, it is also an indispensable explanatory principle, since no explanation of nature can be mechanistic only. [If] indeed our concepts were exclusively those of moving bodies in space, there would be only causal explanation; but we have also to deal conceptually with relations of movement, which require the energic [AD reads: energetic] standpoint. If this were not so, there would have been no need to invent the concept of energy. [9¼ second pause]
"[AD adds: Now] The predominance of one or [the] other point of view depends less upon the objective behaviour of things than upon the psychological attitude of the investigator and thinker. Empathy leads to the mechanistic view, abstraction to the energic [AD reads: energetic] view. Both these types are liable to commit the error of hypostatizing their principles because of the so-called objective facts of experience. They make the mistake of assuming that the subjective concept is identical with the behaviour of the thing itself; that, for example, causality as we experience it is also to be found objectively in the behaviour of things."
AD: Well, I hope that kind of refreshes your attitude, your recollection of what Jung was saying here. How about-- how about that? [S: Yes.] Rich, you remember that? Richard, how would you summarize that briefly for them? (Couldn't.) (bit of laughter)
RP: You take-- well, ok then. The mechan-- the mechanistic point of view, some sort of sequence of events is such that the-- the event is really caused by the previous event somehow particularly, I don't know, and almost like billiard balls hitting, one after the other. I want this corner shot. But it says like take the sequence of events. But an energetic view just tries to rise above the sequence of events to see where the thing terminates to get an-- a direction, to say "Well, we can't understand how event A follows from B unless we understand where the whole process is tending towards and get a sort of a holistic view." So it rises above the sequence of events and has to understand where the thing is heading towards in order to explain why what happens now happens. A very good-- in the physics it would be [one/two words inaudible] (an oblique) action. [students assent] Somehow-- or let's take, I-- I guess light, you know like when light hits-- reflects off a surface, the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. And you could actually prove that if you assume the light's going to take the shortest possible path to a certain point. And it might be a little-- yes, it follows, but how does the light know when it begins that it's going to-- in every moment it's going to go to the next spot, especially (when it) go through and take a new more-- new-- the least possible path. It's just [couple/few words inaudible] how does the light know when it begins is try to understand a final point of view from a mechanistic point of view. The way the next-- the instant follows, the next place light's going to be, if you think of it as causing where the light is at the time, you say well, (brings) out the whole intelligence if light's going to the spot (but always all through) it makes a good path. That's what Jung means when he says you can't have the-- bring together a final point of view which is outside the sequence of those events with a-- with a mechanistic point of view which is right in the sequence of events and sort of explains things in such a way the event follows from previous event(s).
[59 seconds of mostly inaudible talking about mechanistic vs. energic view, AD involved but primarily students; a few words audible here and there but not enough to warrant transcribing]
AD: Alright now, we have to try to keep in mind that what we're working with here is a relatively closed system because we're going to try to consider this in terms of the-- one human being, ok. In other words, me or you or whoever is operating from this point of view here [diagram], from within myself, alright. The-- the imagery that's going to arise is going to be affecting (the images). Each one does this for himself. Yes, somebody?
[3 minutes 18½ seconds of inaudible student conversation about mechanistic vs. energic view; a few words audible here and there but not enough to warrant transcribing]
AD: Why don't we-- why don't we work with a simple example, like a squirrel going after nuts or something like that. Get down to earth. Very practical example, think of a squirrel going after nuts.
[28 seconds of inaudible student talking]
AD: Weren't the three points of view included in that activity? In other words, wouldn't the causal effect have to work without a-- a final explanation in the beginning? But it's only when the final cause is achieved that it re-- recognizes what the beginning was all about?
S: Uh-hm, right.
AD: Go ahead Richard, or Lenny.
LS: Yes. How about a really similar example from the game of pool?
AD: Game of pool, that's even easier.
LS: You know how a-- the game of pool starts, you take the ten balls and you rack them in a-- in a triangle? (bit of laughter) Fifteen balls [couple/few words inaudible] (laughter)
AD (amidst laughter): Nobody take that.
LS: You rack them in a triangle, ok, you have one ball in the center.
S: (Is that right?)
S: That's right, yes.
LS (simultaneously): And you know what happens at the beginning, you shoot the cue ball and you hit all the balls, ok, and they go flying in all those directions. Now, suppose you take [one word inaudible] your cue ball and hit all the balls, the center ball, the one that's in the center, that [one word inaudible] gone, ok. Now-- now into that movie you've got, that's a-- that's a really impossible shot.
S: Somebody (just asked you that). (some laughter)
S: (Yes.)
LS: If you had a movie of that you could trace out all the ways the balls happen to hit each other, ok, so that you could see why that center ball had to be going in a corner pocket, right, so that would be a final standpoint. But nobody in his right mind would call that [one/two words inaudible] nobody in his right mind would-- would get it done, say I'll put it back into the corner pocket. If it's really-- nobody-- you could never put the rack up [few words inaudible]
S: No for who?
S: [few words inaudible] (laughter)
S: Oh yes.
AD: Well maybe--
RG: That's right.
AD: There's-- there's a possibility there Randy, maybe as we go along maybe that'll get clarified because it is true, it's very simply said; seems to say nothing but I think a great deal is being said here. Um-- But my interest here is to catch it in the little-- in a little different way. Because if we regard the-- if we regard ourselves as a closed system, psychically as a closed system, we're going to have to deal with these two concepts, energy on the one hand, ok, and with the pictures that come up in mind on the other hand. And so we're going to have to deal with this problem in a little different way. And, I don't know, from-- from-- perhaps one of the ways to start with this was if we go back to some of the things we said, like-- [9¼ pause while AD flips through pages] I know.
[short pause]
OG: Would this [one word inaudible] agree with the [one word inaudible] pictures of mind?
AD: Huh?
OG: Would this-- wouldn't that be the vasana that's (underneath)? Because that would be that actually it's probably all cause inherent right in the middle [few words inaudible]
AD: Isn't that [S simultaneously: Maybe that's the final view.] a final point of view? What we're describing here all the time, all these fancy explanations, what was that? [10½ second pause] You don't see it?
[9 second pause]
OG: Like, there's no goal for it [one/two words inaudible]
S: Yes there is.
S: They wouldn't [few words inaudible] (S laughing)
S: That's it.
S (simultaneously): [few words inaudible] (bit of laughter)
S: They don't have ten others to focus off of in that.
S: How do you [one/two words inaudible] (bit of laughter)
RP: They do, they got to. (laughter)
S: Soap opera.
S: Right.
[12 second pause]
AD: Well, suppose we do it this way, alright. Give me a chance to get a little-- [one/two words inaudible] a little progress. I don't think it could be done. (bit of laughter) You start off with the individual as a closed system. Relatively speaking an individual is a closed psychic system, and-- Of course we could translate it as saying ahamka-- ok, we can say ahamkara. This principle seems to apply to almost any individual functioning. But the way we're going to use it now is that it acquires consciousness of itself, whether it's the faculty of sight, smell(,) (for/or) an individual. So, it acquires a consciousness of itself and through this process reflects itself in a series, in our case for instance in a series of eleven psychic principles, you know, the sense functions [couple words inaudible] perception. [short pause] [following sentence sounds almost like AD reading it] In short, a principle through which consciousness of the self or the genesis of the world comes into being, a sort of psychic fact. And, if we consider that this entity with all these organs is-- alright, is going to develop some sort of self-consciousness, ahamkara functioning there, each one of these senses, the eyes, ears, and nose is going to function in such a way that it will have an image of itself, like the eye has an image of its activity-- the image of its activity. All the sense functions tend to do that. And, Jung referred to the ego as some sort of composite self-image. Let's-- let's pick it up from that angle, ok, let's work that way for a while. Maybe-- maybe I could start-- get going. I'm going to go back to the Eliade book. See where-- [33¾ second pause while AD looks for quote] Let me-- let me repeat this here, and then-- and then we go.
[Transcriber note: I am using Yoga: Immortality and Freedom by Mircea Eliade, Bollingen Series LVI, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, Ninth Princeton / Bollingen Paperback printing, 1990.]
Mircea Eliade [Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, "The Doctrines of Yoga," "The Subconscious," p. 41, AD reading]: "[Analyzing] the psychic individuality, Patanjali discovers five classes or, rather, five"matrices" producing psychomental states…
"[Thus] the yogin must"work with" and "manipulate" these vrittis, which constitute the psychomental stream. Their ontological cause is, of course, ignorance. But, unlike [Samkhya], Yoga [AD adds: he] declares that [AD adds: the] abolition of metaphysical ignorance is not by itself enough to secure total destruction of the states of consciousness."
S: Tony?
AD: No. It was this one. [flipping pages] This'll be easier. Because this-- this-- this would be the problem. We were reading from the essay by Jung on life, "Spirit of--" "Spirit and Life"?
S: Uh-hm.
AD: That's it, [flipping pages] that's the one. Give me this book, this-- it's alright.
[students assent]
[short pause]
AD: I don't want it.
S: [three/few words inaudible]
AD: (Ok/Uh-hm).
[short pause while flipping pages]
S: Tony?
[26½ second pause while looking for quote]
AD: Richard can you read paragraph 606, 608?
RP: We start with this here, "Spirit and Life".
C.G. Jung [CW 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, "Spirit and Life," pp. 321-322, paragraphs 606-608, RP reading]: "Shall we now assume that this"living being" of which I spoke is equivalent to the psychic factor directly experienced by us in human consciousness, and so re-establish the ancient duality of mind and body? Or are there any reasons that would justify the separation of the "living being" from the psyche? In that case the psyche, too, would have to be understood as a purposive system, as an arrangement not merely of matter ready for life, but of living matter or, more precisely, of living processes. I am not at all sure that this view will meet with general acceptance, for we are so accustomed to thinking of mind and body as a living unit that it is difficult for us to conceive of the psyche merely as an arrangement of life-processes taking place in the body.
"So far as our experience permits of any inferences [RP reads: inference] at all about the nature of the psyche, it shows the psychic process as a phenomenon dependent on the nervous system. We know with tolerable certainty that disturbance of certain portions of the brain brings about corresponding psychic defects. The spinal cord and the brain consist essentially of interconnections between the sensory and motor tracts, the so-called reflex arcs. What is meant by this I can best show by means of an example. Suppose one touches a hot object with the finger: at once the nerve-endings are stimulated by the heat. This stimulus alters the condition of the whole path of conduction up the spinal cord and thence to the brain. In the spinal cord, the ganglion cells taking up the heat stimulus pass on the change of condition to the neighbouring motor-ganglion cells, which in their turn send out a stimulus to the arm-muscles, thereby causing a sudden contraction of the muscles and a withdrawal of the hand. All this occurs with such rapidity that the conscious perception of pain often comes when the hand has already been withdrawn. The reaction is automatic and is not registered consciously till afterwards. But what happens in the spinal cord is transmitted to the perceiving ego in the form of a record, or image, which one can furnish with names and concepts. On the basis of such a reflex arc, that is, a stimulus moving from without inward, followed by an impulse from within outward, one can form some idea of the processes that lie beneath the mind.
"Let us now take a less simple example. We hear an indistinct sound the initial effect of which is no more than a stimulus to listen in order to find out what it means. In this case the auditory stimulus releases a whole series of images which associate themselves with the stimulus. They will be partly acoustic images, partly visual images, and partly images of feeling. Here I use the word"image" simply in the sense of a representation. A psychic entity can be a conscious content, that is, it can be represented, only if it has the quality of an image and is thus representable. I therefore call all conscious contents images, since they are reflections of processes in the brain."
AD: Why don't you discuss that for a minute? What does he mean when he say-- when he says that these are reflections of processes in the brain? [short pause] Because, we want to-- we can understand for instance, I think we can, that there's-- the body does represent a field of energy, you know, a complex of energy which is working itself out. And it seems that when he speaks about the nervous system, something is taken in, and there's an arc, and right away, you know, then something goes out. And between incoming and outgoing, incoming and outgoing [diagram], you got a little problem. You got the problem, images come in somewhere in-- in this path, in-between these two (extreme). You know what I mean in terms of this-- Read the next line, would you?
S: Well, I mean--
AD: We've got to see if we could really get this out in the open.
S: Or the rattlesnake.
AD: The rattlesnake, yes, because, you know, that-- that [one/two words inaudible] rattlesnake [one/two words inaudible]
C.G. Jung [CW 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, "Spirit and Life," pp. 322-323, paragraph 609, RP reading]: "[The] series of images excited by the [RP reads: this] auditory stimulus is now suddenly joined by a remembered acoustic image associated with a visual image: the rattle of a rattlesnake. This is immediately followed by an alarm signal to all the body muscles. The reflex arc is complete, but in this case it differs from the previous one in that a cerebral process, a series of mental images, interposes itself between the sensory stimulus and the motor impulse [RP reads: stimulus]. The sudden tension of the body now reacts on the heart and blood-vessels and releases processes that are mentally recorded as terror."
[students assent]
AD: Again, the same thing comes up there, alright, there's a search-- a searching, then there's the correct image comes up, [student assents] one was reminded of [one/two words inaudible]
RP: Hey, hey, go ahead.
S: Uh-hm. (bit of laughter)
[short pause]
AD: So, what do you think about it Richard?
S: Say more.
S: I don't know if that--
RP: The (active/actual) idea is very hard and then, you see. In the first one you have this like, oh, the (Greek) mechanistic (group), the hand, the heat, fire [couple words inaudible] And the images comes after everything is done. But here (it would seem that you hear) this sound and then you run, there's a-- a whole [one word inaudible] you got to do for yourself.
S: But that-- does that automatically [S simultaneously: Natally--] just take flight [few words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): That's-- that's not the problem.
S: Yes, but if that-- but if-- if the autonomic nervous system is the one that has the reflex of-- of the terror recorded and the cerebral part and the images, then maybe it's closer to our psychic. And the other part might be from this animal part.
AD (simultaneously): But that's the whole question, where do these images come from?
S: [one/two words inaudible] (laughter)
AD (amidst laughter): That's the question, where do they come from, where do I pull out this image of a snake?
S: See well the images come from the common sensorium.
AD: Huh?
S: But--
S: [few words inaudible]
AD: What?
S: The images come from the common sensorium. [S: How do you know?] But the question is what--
S: That's not [one word inaudible]
S: What?
[few seconds of inaudible student talking]
AD: I'm going to-- I better sit down, I might as well be comfortable today. Where do these images come from?
S: Yes.
S: Tony? [one word inaudible]
AD: Now go ahead, give me your explanation. You tell me that the eyes see the brown, the yellow stripes on the rattle, [student assents] ok.
S: (Who knows?)
S: Well I was-- I was just trying to grasp why the [few words inaudible]
AD: It doesn't matter, let's take one instance, then we work with the other. What happened, where do these images come from? That's what I'm-- I want to pose the question. We've got to bring that question out all the way. Go ahead Avery.
AS: [few words inaudible]
AD: If it's not-- if it's a side issue I'm going to kick it out. [S: Ok.] I'm getting back to normal, go ahead.
AS: But it's ok, I understand, but something about this seems [one/two words inaudible] when you first put up the diagram talking about-- See, all of this [few words inaudible] but the way Jung was talking it seemed like that because this is all happening after in some sense, you're already within that (last thing).
AD: Now wait a minute, we left out the first part. We said we're going to take the-- we're going to take the position like Jung states. Here's a snake [diagram]. Ok? We're not going to start from within and go out. We're going to imagine their-- his point of view. Here's a snake out here but we don't know what this is, this is unknown, the object is undefined. [drawing] You get certain impulses going into-- into us, alright. If you want you say the mind goes out and brings it back. It doesn't matter, the point is where [AD knocking on diagram] did this image come from?
S: (I don't know.)
AD: Where!?
S: [couple/three words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): Go ahead, give me the Western explanation.
RP: Never. (laughter)
S (amidst laughter): Last night.
RP (simultaneously): Western explanation. (laughter)
S: But-- but again, [couple inaudible TS words] I'm trying to [couple words inaudible] what you mean by "there".
AS: The-- the [S simultaneously: But elaborated and--] Western explanation--
AD: Well how does this image arise? It arises in consciousness, you have-- you have it coming in, certain impulses, certain stimulus coming out, and then what you see is an image, an image arises in your mind. Where did it come from? Give me the explanation, the one that they all hug--"Oh well, the yellow from the yellow snake came into my eyes and into…"
S: (Qualities/Quality)(./?)
RC: And then you remembered that it was a snake.
AD: Then you remembered that it was a snake. You had frequencies traveling into your ear, right, and then these frequencies announce when they get into the cranium "I'm a snake!" (bit of laughter) Come on, come on.
S: But we started off yesterday assuming that they're interrelated, all these things are related to this ego. And we're saying that there's sensations and then somehow they touch off these images but then they are all related to this brain.
S: Yes but that's done(--/.)
RP: Even in the first, even the-- once you hear the-- when you hear the rattle rattle, you don't know the thing-- thing at all. It's unfair to say that knowing is something there. [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with RP] Yes, it's an image of confusion but never is anything you hear conscious.
AD (simultaneously): Well if you hear a sound, you get an auditory image.
RG: Yes.
RP: Yes. Ok, (so this person) one image becoming another image, the image of sound as having a feeling of unknownness followed by an image of sound of a rattlesnake, you'll scream in terror [three words inaudible] this image just came up [few words inaudible]
S: That's good.
S: Uh-hm, well you need a [couple words inaudible]
S: Uh-hm.
AD: You see how important this is?
S (simultaneously): [few words inaudible]
S: Yes, we should follow through.
AD: Well, if this-- if this snake rattles, ok, and all you get is an auditory representation, now if, you know, we look at it from the scientific point of view, this is just a frequency, this is a-- a vibration in the air.
LS: But what are you saying, you don't get your-- all your--
AD: You don't get the-- the qual--
LS (simultaneously): The attention decides, does it?
AD: Your question [S simultaneously: Fight.] "What is it?", that means you [one/two inaudible student words simultaneous with AD] want to know what sort of quality.
LS (simultaneously): That's also image, that's (all he's telling you).
RP (simultaneously): Psychic projection.
AD: Huh?
LS: That question's also presented, that's the first image.
AD: Go on.
RP: That's what you say, I've got-- got the first image [few words inaudible] because you don't get my question.
AD: What is it?
S: Yes what-- what is it? (laughter, student words)
AD: Go ahead Andrew.
AH: Isn't there--
AD: There's no lecture, thi--
AH: In the quote, isn't there-- I (can't see this) terror, the sound that's driving all these vasanas? Well, maybe I shouldn't have [couple words inaudible]
RP: When you say "What is it?", you can't [S: Right.] find a term. The image is a priority, that's what he was just saying. They're not explicable as any-- anything electrical. As far as where-- if you're taking a position, right, and Jung will attack the position of where (you also) hear it. You can't ask that question. That's the primordial image which everything is based on, back at like [three/few words inaudible] images. Primordial image.
S: Right.
RP: Every one that comes in. (If that's true got) the archetypes(--/.)
S: [three/few words inaudible]
[short pause]
RP: What-- where-- well where and what they are will accompany(--/.)
S: That's right.
C.G. Jung [CW 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, "Spirit and Life," p. 323, paragraph 610, AD reading]: "In this way we can form an idea of the nature of the psyche. [AD adds: And] It consists of reflected images of simple processes in the brain, and of [AD adds: the] reproduction of these images in an almost infinite series. [AD adds: And] These images have the quality of consciousness. The nature of consciousness is a riddle whose solution I do not know. It is possible to say, however, that anything psychic will [AD reads: it would] take on the quality of consciousness if it comes into association with the ego. If there is no such association, it remains unconscious."
AD: Good?
RP: Just-- if I don't take a stiff psychological point of view, to call it reflecting processes of the brain is speculation, going outside my phenomena. Phenomena [couple words inaudible]
S: Me too.
S: But it is affecting--
S: Yes, what (happens/happened).
[couple seconds of inaudible student talking]
S: Yes.
S: These people--
S (simultaneously): [few words inaudible]
RP (simultaneously): But you don't know, I mean, you have to start with the image of energy in it because you're saying that something in the image is more real than other things, says brain is a-- a higher reality than the psychic [couple words inaudible] attitude. Phenomenologically they're both pure energy, they're both [couple word inaudible] (And that's picked out of the conscious.) Nothing more than a flow of energy.
S: We don't like to say that.
RP: And the proper attitude is that [couple words inaudible] "Oh where do they come from?"
LS: There are times [S simultaneously: Tony?] when those processes in the brain take place and there's no reflection [couple words inaudible] reflect or [few words inaudible]
AD: Tell me, do you think that there would be imagery if certain portions of the brain were cut out for instance or certain-- I mean they could eliminate the imaging center.
S: [three/few words inaudible]
RP: Well I heard they could but he would die and you would have to replace.
AD: I'm not talking about dying, I'm talking about a living [one word inaudible]
RP: You can't be alive and dead at the same time, they [few inaudible student words simultaneous with RP] couldn't say eliminate your brain and therefore what kind of experience you have [one word inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): Well isn't it true, isn't it true that-- yes.
RP/S(?) (simultaneously): Not at all, your-- your body-- bodily organs are [one/two words inaudible]
AD: Isn't it true that in a certain type of brain surgery a person cannot perceive the world the way you-- you and I do. In other words, he will be looking at, let's say, a person sweeping but all he sees is a line with another line.
S: He sees both.
AD: There's no imagery there. Something was cut out, let's say he can't perceive that world, so that evidently the brain seems to be some sort of store-- storehouse. The processes have to go through the brain and then we can speak about an image that appears to us. I understand what you're saying Richard and it's not wrong but it's not where I'm heading. Where I'm heading is that starting from the center here [diagram], alright, and let's say like PB said there's this activity that goes on, goes to the brain, the brain so to speak amplifies and transforms these-- this activity--
S (simultaneously): Very tiny pictures.
S: And--
AD: And then this world gets externalized and becomes the object, or the way he put it here-- he put it over here quite accurate [three words inaudible]
[9 second pause]
Sri Aurobindo [The Upanishads-II, Kena and Other Upanishads, pp. 366-367, AD reading]: "We are not conscious of external objects; we are only conscious of certain perceptions and impressions in our brains which by the separate or concurrent operation of our senses we are able to externalize into name and form; and in the very nature of things and to the end of Time we cannot be conscious of anything except these impressions and perceptions."
AD: Or like when that little kid who-- who suddenly the sky was [one/two words inaudible] and located his direction and bearing (flew). So that the images here seem to have something to do with the brain.
RP: Well, the brain is a magnifier of those images, they're not-- The image doesn't come from the brain. It's just like an amplifier, only a higher (process), and then you see-- and all it does is transmit the signals. And it's true, you have a bum circuitry, you'll get distorted (signaling). But that's for guys who have brain damage. But that does-- but the image that goes in-- the image that comes out has more to do with the image that goes in than the brain.
S: The brain [one word inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): I'm sorry, [S simultaneously: Yes.] repeat that?
RP: The image that comes out, the accomplished fact of your-- of [one/two words inaudible] has more to do with the image that went into the brain than the brain itself. The brain is only the amplifier of that as (rejecting), you know, it steps up the power.
[46 seconds of mostly inaudible student talking, primarily one student giving his explanation with one/two other students saying couple/few words in between]
AD: Well let's see, if we understand what you're saying, I think what Richard is saying is that in the brain there are certain pathways, neural pathways, which when they're excited lead us to the imagery, alright. Is that what you're saying?
S: Yes, he is.
AD: Is that what you're saying?
RP: Yes, and no given image is associated with any particular part of the brain [few words inaudible] it's a transformer.
S: That's it.
RP: You damage one part and the other part can do as [few words inaudible] But the images don't start in the brain.
S: That's all (good). What if you started and said that the karma was just like a point of view [three/few words inaudible] Would you have to do it [few words inaudible]
RP: Yes.
S: Well that's why-- I mean if you see [inaudible] value, I mean, it seems that [student assents] [one word inaudible] has everything to do with [couple words inaudible] [S: Not--] everything to do with you [few words inaudible]
(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1974 0811a Ends; Side 2 Begins)
AD: Imagine this situation, this is (trying/kind of) to help you [one word inaudible] along. You have consciousness in the heart, not the head [diagram], ok. You experience consciousness in the heart and you have images. The brain has not been excited.
S: [inaudible]
RP: Don't-- but realistically you assume that the-- the outside world has more to do with the image (than/in) the brain. So if you said the tables and chairs in the room [few words inaudible] and then you could forget about the chair. So, it's something you make all the time.
S (simultaneously): But I'm just trying-- I'm asking if it exists.
S: [couple inaudible words]
RP (simultaneously): No, you said you can't imagine that the heart-- that the image that the heart gives you has more to do with the resulting image than the brain does, you said that heart--
S (simultaneously): In fact no, I'm trying to get-- I'm trying to imagine what that image in the heart center must be like and if you ima-- we imagine the heart center consciousness (if/that) you like and if there is [couple/three words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): Well close your eyes and make out you're writing a novel and you have a sequence and a series of images, right?
S: Yes.
AD: They're not applied to the world.
S: Yes.
AD: Well, your brain's working.
S: Uh-hm.
AD: But this could also take place, like he pointed out, without the brain working, you could have imagery without the brain working. What we're trying to establish is, where and what is the role of the brain in this whole set-up? Are the images in the brain cells? Or are the brain cells, so to speak, pathways to the imagery? Go ahead--
S: Yes, (uh-huh/right).
AH: Talk about-- I don't really [one/two words inaudible] talk about the physical heart, but when you talk about the brain then you're already talking about [one/two words inaudible]
AD: We're talking about the physical brain. In other words our discussion, like I try to point out here, is psychological. We are not discussing epistemology. I'm trying to say let's start psychologically and see what happens.
S: [couple words inaudible]
[student assents]
AD: Yes.
AH: From that point of view of the brain, the images are so-called [possibly one/two words inaudible] brain, but the-- the image is poised in the heart. But it seems to-- I'm confused what (is/if) the-- But wait a minute. But, from the point of view of the heart center, the one that you were just talking about--
AD: From the point of view of the heart center, from the point of view of the heart center, the whole world is there. [student assents] I'm talking from the point of view of being in the body. I'm-- I-- I'm trying to say, we're not discussing this epistemologically. We're picking up Jung's way right now. You're discussing psychologically. If you-- if you follow what we had just read, when your consciousness leaves-- you could read this for instance in the Apologia when Socrates is dying, he tells you very clearly: consciousness leaves his feet, then his legs, alright, then the last place was in the head, and then [AD snaps fingers] out. Now you don't have to read Socrates, you won't. Just watch it when you go to sleep at night. Just watch it, you see that you lose consciousness gradually, the lower limbs and then it rises and gradually boom! you're out.
S: [couple/three words inaudible] from the psychological physical point of view of the heart again, point of view, I would imagine that's got to be [one word inaudible] the image without stepping outside of that [couple/three words inaudible]
AD: Well I don't know yet, I don't know yet, see, we're trying to find out, we're trying to, you know, have a rational discussion to see if we can figure out what's going on. Because this man says we're moored to our brain and no matter which way we twist and turn and all our fancy terminology, and Jung would agree, you're never getting outside of that.
S: Does the brain react to that (personal identity)?
AD: Does the physical brain react? Well, we don't know that.
S: It might be [one/two words inaudible]
S (simultaneously): That's [one/two words inaudible]
AD: We-- from what we understand so far, the brain is some sort of amplifier, some sort of transformer. Go ahead, go ahead.
S: But didn't you imply--
LS (simultaneously): The image in the heart is the image which didn't get split into a subject and object. Then you're stuck with the sense-qualities, sense-qualities (would be) that way.
S: Yes sir.
AD: In other words, you're saying the sense-qualities would have to come from outside the object. As soon as you say the heart, you're speaking up here [diagram]. If you say sense-quality you're down here [diagram], you're in the circle.
LS: Yes, or-- so that the sense-- and in the images in the heart the sense-quality isn't there yet. And part of the sense-quality is this-- is this splitting in two, that there's the object out there and the perceiver's in here, alright, and in the heart that's isn't so yet.
AD: Uh-huh.
LS: So the brain are no-- what Jung is calling the brain is really-- it's a way of trying to get at this perceiver in here, alright, because he's got an image that's split in two again. He's got an auditory sensu-- sense-image that's kind of stripped down [three/few words inaudible] [student assents] and then he's got the other image which-- the other part of the image is the snake which means [one/two words inaudible] right? And he's really taking the image apart and trying to analyze it, [couple inaudible student words] neglects the bare-- the bare sensation, bare meaningless part of the image in the brain [few words inaudible] but the brain as well. [AD simultaneously: Ok go, go ahead.] And he's trying to grasp the meaning of certain [one word inaudible]
AD: Go ahead.
RP: I don't think the sensation's in the brain, you're independent.
S: [one/two word inaudible]
LS (simultaneously): No, but that's what Jung's trying to do [RP simultaneously: But even Jung--] is he's got-- the point is that he's got the image split in two in this way, ok, in terms of the empirical part and the meaning part.
RP: And I think they meet in the brain.
LS (simultaneously): In other words [one/two words inaudible] the brain or the thing is I should know about that body.
RP: Well, I think (you're/your) material (partly) and-- they meet in the brain, [S simultaneously: Yes, but there's a (one/two words inaudible)] and representation of the sensation in the brain or the brain life, whatever that means, there's representation of the meaning which is in the brain which is also brain life. And that's the only place where the meaning (that you/could be) put upon is essential because it's supposed to happen. You wouldn't find the sensation you're referring to.
AD: Where do you find this [one/two words inaudible]
RP: Where would I find the potential? In the body. And I think it's a-- I mean I-- you find it where you find it and you take it there.
RG: What do you mean, [S simultaneously: It's like--] the meaning in the brain? [RP simultaneously: I know like this--] Nobody ever cut open a brain and found meaning.
RP (simultaneously): He's using brain-- he's obviously using brain as a symbol for psyche, and it's in the psyche that these body [one word inaudible]
RG: But that's ina-- inappropriate to speak that way.
S: I think that's true.
S: Your physical body is--
RP: But if you--
AD: Go ahead [one/two words inaudible]
RP (simultaneously): The heart like a spirit goes up soul(--/.)
LDS: Before we talked about this I-- I thought we-- we'd talk about-- Jung's notion of the psyche as like a storehouse of all these images is that each one of us as individual human beings participates in that psyche without using the brain and I-- we can almost think there's a hierarchy of images in the sense that with only a particular kind of brain that you can see certain types of images. In other words, some people can't-- let's say metaphysical ideas or [one word inaudible] phenomena are not available to those [couple words inaudible] (certain/sort of) substance of the brain.
RG: Could I-- in that sense Louie.
LDS: Well--
AD (simultaneously): Substance of their brain?
S: Yes, the two [one/two words inaudible]
LS (simultaneously): [one/two words inaudible] I'm working with the kind of problem that we're trying to face here--stuck with a mechanical world which requires images in it, ok, and he's looking at the physical-- physical set-up to try and get a physical analogy to this whole symbol or this problem of-- of a-- of putting meaning to the mechanical. That's just what he's showing in that example, it's that mechanical rattle and all of a sudden it takes meaning and you're scared.
S: But-- but the problem--
LS (simultaneously): That's the whole-- that's the whole problem he's working.
AD: Well could--
RG (simultaneously): Not only that because there's the problem of the per-- of the mechanical rattle itself, the fact of (its/this) perception.
LS: But he's not dealing with that problem! [few inaudible student words simultaneous with LS] He's dealing with it psychologically, he doesn't care where it comes from, he's just trying to show how it's split in two that way.
S: I think it's more than that.
AD: Well let's make-- make out this man's got a halo, ok, and then the brain is over here [diagram] and something [one word inaudible] the brain. And then there's images that get reflected here [diagram], you remember like you see cartoons [few words inaudible] (bit of laughter) Reflected consciousness, ok, here [diagram]. This is just to help us schematize. And, you say there's no images in the brain, right? The images are not in the brain.
RG: Well, they're not in the brain.
S: What do you mean?
S (simultaneously): Now are they [one/two words inaudible]
RP (simultaneously): If you mean brain here, if you [S simultaneously: Well are they--] mean image there, then obviously the image there isn't in the brain here.
AD: Go on.
RP: Well, I mean let's just stick to the same example, in that same example--the image can't be in the brain.
S: Uh-hm.
AD: Go on!
RP (simultaneously): The imaging-- the image(s) [one/two words inaudible] too, outside [BS simultaneously: Ok.] the body, [BS simultaneously: Is it (one/two words inaudible)] or the body included in the image in the other words.
BS: Subjectively (be out) in the heart?
S: [few words inaudible]
AD: Go ahead Alan.
AB: [possibly another student: I think what he--] I think what he's-- and I'm probably wrong, is that he said that the psyche consists of reflected-- the reflection of processes in the brain. So it seems that what we're calling the psyche which is this world of images is a completely different medium from the physiological brain, completely separate, but it's like a plane that's parallel to the plane of the brain physiology and it's like a mirror. So when something happens in the-- in the body plane of this physiology, (as I said) neur-- you know, the neurologists say there's all these electrical stimuli going on, the neurons, is a reflection in the psychic medium which is (a/of) completely different quality. But-- but yet there's a correspondence in terms of image or meaning now.
AD: But isn't that what we're trying to understand?
S: Yes but (does it matter)?
RP: But I think he knows exactly what psyche is (and it's defined), that the brain [AB simultaneously: Why--] is living psychic processes.
AB: But why does he say they're reflected?
AS: That's that long-- that-- that very paragraph [couple/few words inaudible]
S (simultaneously): But then you'd have to explain how the images-- the images do that.
S: And I know that, you know, it wouldn't be acceptable [couple/three words inaudible]
S: Uh-hm.
AD: Well he does say "consists of reflected images of simple processes in the brain". So we're dealing here with processes in the brain that get reflected. Now what the hell does that mean!?
S: I think you got to do it (my way) or say symbol.
RG: I don't think, is it?
AD: It's no symbol!
RG: I get the feeling of--
AD (simultaneously): I hope not.
RG: No don't-- that's what he-- talk to us-- talking about [S simultaneously: (Not all.)] the brain.
AH: It's--
S: (I just/Which he) did!
S: If I may--
S: That's right.
RP: But (that's also can be seen).
S: Why not?
RP: Talk about the brain.
S: Yes. (some laughter)
S (amidst laughter): Why can't [RG simultaneously: Why not?] it [AD/S(?) simultaneously: Huh?] be the brain?
RP: Because you can't use a certain amount of--
AD (simultaneously): Wouldn't be pretend!
RP: You can't use a certain amount (more laughter) of intelligibility, like we got language, we got logic and all that, and then restrict ourselves to some stupid field.
S: That's not what we're dealing with here.
S: Can't see the (whole/hole).
RP/S(?): I thought he--
S: But Richard--
AD (simultaneously): Look, for instance, he says over here--
C.G. Jung [CW 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, "Spirit and Life," p. 325, paragraph 616, AD reading]: "[Just as] the activities of seeing, hearing, [etc.] [AD: Alright, almost all the sense qualities.] create images of themselves which, when related to the ego, produce a consciousness of the activity in question…"
AD: In other words-- in other words, the eye does have a reflection, a reflected image. In other words, when I look at an object I do have a reflection-- a refle-- reflected image. I look at let's say Tim for-- I close my eyes and for a sixteenth of-- of a second there's a reflected image of Tim. Where is this reflected? [short pause] I mean I close my eyes, I see it for a sixteenth [AD snaps fingers] of a second, then it's gone, where is it, where did it go? Where did it come from to begin with?
S: [few words inaudible]
AD: It's on your retina(?/.)
S: Slow down, you're going-- (laughter)
[few seconds of mostly inaudible student talking and laughter; continues as AD speaks]
AD: That's a good beginning, it's on the retina.
LDS: Doesn't Jung speak of function creating an organ and then that organ creating a function? We're talking about thinking.
AD: But-- but how does that help!? How does that help?
LDS: Well-- so that the brain would be an organ for whatever this psyche is, the human psyche.
AD: Say it again.
LDS: The brain would be a-- the organ created by the psyche (or/for) some kind of medium or [couple words inaudible] the images.
AD: Ok, ok. Suppose I say you're right, alright. How does the processes in the brain get reflected? Or what do we mean by that?
RG: But this--
S: Yes.
AD: Yes.
RG: This is the same-- you'd be-- you'd still have the same problem even if you were speaking of the brain's amplification of like an image from the heart, that it-- that in [couple words inaudible] you see a world. How do the-- how do the processes in the brain magnify a world through neurological processes?
AD: Good, now let's go on. Something we're-- we're cooking off something here.
LS: And the process in the brain could only get reflected if there was some kind of imagination that was using this very process as some kind of-- like their power. [students assent] I mean you have-- if you have the same set of images here as the sensual image (does that mean) you're going to get a world where the image is going to appear without sense-qualities in the imagination(?/.) Providing there is a brain, the images that appear in our imagination [one word inaudible] various kinds will follow. They're sometimes [one/two words inaudible] follow with intention, sometimes you have no choice. But there is an imagination that's taking your reasoning or using the power of the brain [few words inaudible] how the two things work.
AD: I want you to go back.
RG: I see what you're doing (but) that-- it seems to me when we say that the brain is the medium or-- or that it magnifies the image-- the-- of the imagination or of the world into a-- into an image, even a fantasy or a-- a sense-image, seems to me that the same criticism which we keep harping on, I guess the materialistic view, that there's a gap between the translation of an-- of an image and the physiological process in the [S simultaneously: That's right.] brain, and to say that the brain magnifies either an image from the heart that get-- that gets magnified through the brain or it magnifies an image in the world that gets reflected through the brain, what's the difference?
LS (simultaneously): But Richard [couple/few words inaudible] incredible difference between those two explanations.
RG: What is it?
LS: That materialist is trying to explain what the world is. In this situation he's not trying to explain what the world is, he's trying to explain how psychic processes work and that's an entirely different question, there's no gap here in that way.
S: He's not--
RG (simultaneously): I don't-- I [RP simultaneously: He's not (one/two words inaudible)] don't see why.
LS: Because he's not trying to say here's a-- here's a physiological buzz which I can detect on an instrument and then an image appears. He's dealing in the realm of images all the time. And there's a question of sensual images and images of meaning. He's never gotten outside of the image.
RP: The gap is only in your understanding in that you assume that the brain is inert, that the brain [one/two words inaudible] inert, dead, blah, electrical, chemical, and so on. [student assents] But the-- but the-- but there's an element of psyche in the brain. [student assents] It's living matter. And so it could capture the image. But of course what it does is it materializes it because there's-- there's an element of matter in the brain. So it takes this purely psychic image, matter as just being a certain kind of psyche, a lower-- it vibrates at a lower frequency, it captures it and steps it down to what we call a material world. But even this material world isn't material.
RG: I-- that still doesn't help me. I don't--
GA: Can't-- but Richard, can't you see it as one energy and the images on the psyche are just as-- as mechanical as the processes in the brain [RG simultaneously: Yes, but I don't--] and they're both a reflection of the same energy.
RG: I don't see how that's different than a-- than a-- than-- than the problem we keep talking about [few words inaudible] You could say the same [RP simultaneously: Oh no, not at all, not at all.] thing, it's one energy differentiated in two different ways.
RP: Not at all. You could-- you could-- you could say stupidity is a form of intelligence but you can't say intelligence is a form of stupidity.
S: What does that mean?
RP: You can say-- even when a person's stupid he's intelligent in a certain way, [S: He--] a certain consciousness-- a certain consciousness going on and so on, but you can't say that out of the pure unconsciousness consciousness arises.
AD: Food?
RP: So going down you can do it but coming up you could never.
S: Yes, but the point is-- the point is the question of how does this psychic energy reconnect or how does it affect--
RP (simultaneously): Oh, I don't think that's the question.
RG: They never say that it's unconscious, we do.
RP/S(?): Is that for sure?
RG: Yes.
RP: No, but they don't say it's not in the unconscious (but make sure) you do. Because that's the thing but I doubt it would mean some sea of consciousness [few words inaudible] (some laughter)
LS: No, I'm talking about lumps of flesh here. [S: That's (one/two words inaudible)] When he talks about--
RG (simultaneously): When he talks about the brain?
LS: He's talking about [S simultaneously: I give up.] living matter. He's not talking about lumps of (flesh), he's talking about sensual qualities of the body.
RG: Then why does he talk about the brain?
S: (Because that's the--)
RP: Because that is the brain! That really is the brain, there's no two brains! You don't have a brain and a computer somewhere else.
LS (simultaneously): Because the rattle [one word inaudible] that's what [one word inaudible] is used for. And you're [one/two words inaudible] as it approaches it at the moment it touches the brain, not you. (bit of laughter) He's not talking that way. He's talking only in the realm of images, sensuous images.
S: Psychic fact.
LS: A rattle's the same principle. Where's the quality from is all these sensuous images, that's the brain.
S: Uh-hm.
RG: That's totally unintelligible to me. (laughter)
S: Richard no, even if there's-- there's a problem in getting [AD simultaneously: Please, speak up.] [RG simultaneously: Totally-- but what do you mean?] to the rattle that sci-- science's instruments (would/with) measure, and the rattle that you hear at that sense [one/two words inaudible]
RP: Is the rattle what you hear?
S (simultaneously): You could maybe know about [one/two words inaudible]
LS (simultaneously): The scientist doesn't measure-- measure a rattle, he measures something outside.
RP: Right. He measures [S simultaneously: Right.] motion of a--
LS: His problem is his getting to ma-- that thing on the dial for the rattle, that's his problem but that's not the one we have here. Jung never pointed out a dial except for the rattle.
AD: Now listen to this remark, he says here--
C.G. Jung [CW 10, Civilization in Transition, "The Undiscovered Self," p. 270, paragraph 528, AD reading]: "The structure and physiology of the brain furnish no explanation of the psychic process. The psyche has a peculiar nature which cannot be reduced to anything else. Like physiology, it presents a relatively self-contained field of experience, to which we must attribute a quite special importance because it includes one of the two indispensable conditions for existence as such, namely, the phenomenon of consciousness. Without consciousness there would [AD adds: be], practically speaking, be no world, for the world exists for us only in so far as it is consciously reflected by a psyche. Consciousness is a precondition of being. [AD: This is italicized.] Thus the psyche is endowed with the dignity of a cosmic principle, which philosophically and in fact gives it a position co-equal with the principle of physical being. The carrier of this consciousness is the individual, who does not produce the psyche of his own volition but is, on the contrary, preformed by it and nourished by the gradual awakening of consciousness during childhood. If therefore the psyche is of overriding empirical importance, so also is the individual, who is the only immediate manifestation of the psyche."
AD: Now suppose you continue arguing.
S: Uh-hm.
RG: Is that in-- is that from [one word inaudible]
AD: Oh no, this is The Undiscovered Self.
S: That's nice.
RG: Yes, I mean that-- yes, it's more agreeable there.
AD: It is? Well then explain it to me, now come on boy!
TS: Seems that what you're asking is where do the images take place. And, if it's not the brain and reflection (is a--) but it seems the locus would ooze that individual out of itself.
S: What do you mean?
TS: But where (does) the image which is not the externally perceived thing [couple words inaudible] If it's like a computer it gets closer and it brings (them) together.
RP: Yes.
TS: And it's inferred the power of the-- you have that ego-consciousness, you have to imagine that I got these powers, this-- this arisal of the image of the rattle, that oftentimes (very strong) character producing its own field of experience kind of joining the locus (or) the plane.
AD: How about you, would you like to try to restate that? Yes.
RP/S(?): I can't. (some laughter)
AD: I know, but you see, you see, basically this is a-- a pivotal point of confusion at all, ok, between the connection like, the Buddhists have this problem, how could I get the television set and the picture at the same time. And I think we really have to try to see what the connection is between the images and the brain so that we could clarify, you know [one/two words inaudible] that you could make. And I want to keep talking about it and I like-- I like for the doubt to come out, we have to get this out there. Everyone clear-- his own doubt had to be, you know, kind of [one word inaudible] silence(d), you know. They're not denied. Because, we're going to deal here for instance, in order to understand this rise, abiding and dissolution of karma, we're going to deal here with a series of images or vritti or states of consciousness, one following upon another, and there's a certain sequence and ordering of these images, and these images will have to at the same time be considered as a twin function to that of power. In other words, energy and the picture they-- they-- they set, they rise together. You can't separate one from the other. I find it very distasteful to try to do that, you know. Go ahead Dickie.
RG: No, no, it's not my turn.
AD: Then, you remember when we were discussing the Buddhists they keep-- they keep insisting that the ultimate reality is this energetic standpoint, and it leaves out-- In other words, they say well we have two ways of getting-- getting to-- to the real, or the two basic ways of knowing, one is through the senses and the other is through the understanding. And-- and that problem always comes up among the greatest Buddhist Logicians, but how do they come together? How does the productive imagination, alright, impose itself on this energy? Or the way-- the same problem Kant had, how does form and matter come together and how come sometimes the form doesn't get confused with other wrong matter?
S: That's right.
RP: You can't-- you can't argue between (that extreme extent) in Buddhism but then [AD: Huh?] light does it all the time. How did-- how did the (implicate) from one sense image get into the eye?
S: That's the question?
RP: The Buddhists would say that form and matter, you know, the intelligibility and the sensibility, don't really come together and that's shown by the fact that they even decompose.
AD: But who was ever decomposing?
S: Buddha.
AD: How?
RP: By ac-- you know, by a guy-- it's really a composite and not a unity, and a composite could be decomposed, could be [one/two words inaudible] on it-- on it. Just like the [one/two words inaudible] can be decomposed.
S (simultaneously): All (Earth's elements) are in one thousand. Or you can take [couple words inaudible] emotion.
RP (simultaneously): Just like when you do the Serpent's Path (or the entity) decompose.
AD: What is decomposed?
RP: The false unity.
AD: Of what?
RP: Well, we push in-- and the Buddhists would say intelligibility from sensation.
[students assent]
AD: Ok, in the-- in what we were doing this afternoon, [RP: Oh yes, (I/you) missed that.] when we were separating-- I'm just trying to see [student assents] if the question is really a question-- you were separating the content from the consciousness. Is that what you're referring to?
RP: That's true too, that's stuck in the same example.
AD: Alright, but in the-- in the example, for instance, when we so to speak separated or, you know, put the idea out and tried to leave the consciousness there, alright, we didn't really decompose a content, we couldn't take it apart. We just pushed it away. In other words, the image, for instance, I would get of you would remain a total image. I can't decompose that image into let's say a component part. But what I can do is separate the consciousness that lights that up from the images that come into it.
S: Sure.
[student assents]
RP: [few words inaudible] and you remove that consciousness, well you don't know what it would look like, let's say you remove that consciousness, really is the component because it was that consciousness to speak about a unity. Maybe the ego for example drops into its component parts if it's seen to be a [student assents] complex.
S: Is that right?
RP: Or you can have a [one word inaudible] attack.
S: [one/two words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): But how--
S: You just came to that.
RP (simultaneously): Just (like a lot of things are constructed), frozen in some point of view, psychological development or you'll get destroyed, a little different ego [few words inaudible] think-- think that a unity-- a unity of self-- a solidity in itself?
AD: If I understand you right what you're saying is that the form essentially is just a synthesis of qualities flashing.
RP: The form? Well, the unity of the object, the unity-- unity of anything is to provide us (as) experience. The immanence of that superior thing in the so-called object provides the unity of that object and holds it together. If you remove that materiality, the-- the-- (that's pretty significant), but remove the life from the body, the body decomposes.
TS: Ok, I would just think there's some gap then Richard between the [couple/three words inaudible] talking about removing would be from the point of view of form as the fixity of the, I mean-- the meaning. [RP: Well it's--] The manifesting of it would be--
RP: The essence? No, it's not form, it's the essence.
TS: Oh I thought that's what (you-- was through) your thing a real tight form, take the form [three/few words inaudible]
RP (simultaneously): No. Alright, that's all I know how to say though. I meant that-- form (in/on) the sense of figure or form in the sense of essence.
TS: Well I think that the essence-- the essence of matter does not-- it is only immanent if the essence of matter is pure. That's why you don't-- you don't follow and those might collapse [few words inaudible] Well she said that the reason for-- If-- if you say that you remove it from consciousness and that it falls apart, then-- then you've just [few words inaudible] is forgotten, so to say.
RP: Because you're-- what remembered it is pure in itself, which can then be re-embodied in matter, if you imagine [TS/S(?) simultaneously: Matter's not (few words inaudible)] it as matter, or physical matter, and then be figured.
TS: If you're saying that that superior thing which is remembered, that'll be-- wouldn't that be original form [one/two words inaudible]
S: Yes, exactly.
RP: [one/two words inaudible]
TS: Well then the form doesn't really [one/two words inaudible]
RP: No but dig deep. The form embodied, the embodied form, what we call-- that's what we're talking about here, we're talking about embodiment of images, embodied essence.
AD: Well, I have to-- [S simultaneously: (Embodied or not) (couple words inaudible)] I have to steer away from this because basically this will be my opposite [half/one word inaudible] you know, form and-- in conjunction with matter is what gives us the unitary object that we're talking about. The consciousness has no role whatsoever. This is the way I look at it but we're-- I see what you're talking about and maybe-- maybe you have to get into that but, right now let's go back to this point, ok, because it's really the-- Go ahead, Dickie.
RG: I was just trying to pick up and follow Tim's other point(s).
AD: No, I don't want to go on with this. I want to-- I want to stick to this thing, I want-- I want [S simultaneously: Well, yes.] us to really be, you know, see that the consciousness is tied to that brain.
S: Uh-hm.
AS: I want to (discuss) [one word inaudible] with the same example.
AD: Go ahead.
AS: I don't know, it seems like there's some place along the road, like I can't-- it's hard for me to see exactly where the brain fits in, maybe you could show me. [AD simultaneously: Well I--] And it seems like the first thing in Jung's classification, the psychological process, (there's a certain sensory-- a sensible), because that too is something that's known. I guess it's the sensation that you hear from the sound. Now that image you [few words inaudible] So that's the first thing I know of, sensual perception. And then sometimes if-- if I just see something I can't quite make out what it is, I--
RP: You know that too, don't you?
AS: Yes. I know-- I know that I can't see it.
RP (simultaneously): So there's always an element of intelligibility [couple words inaudible]
AS (simultaneously): And in fact, there's-- there's a kind of like a fishing around a lot of times we talk about, it's almost like a searching for something, so that-- and sometimes you can't even really see the thing but there's feeling. You got a sensory image there, but without knowing what it is you can't quite make it out because [one/two inaudible student words] you'd-- you'd know what it was. There's something fishing around for it like in this bag of-- you might say you're looking around for the image somehow, although you're not-- you're not conscious of looking through imagery but you're sort of trying to-- there's something going on trying to get-- put some kind of meaning on sensation. It's only when the correct one comes up that you actually are aware of what the one image (is about). It's only when it's put on to that sensory image that you could actually know it. And it seems like there's some kind of fishing around going on there. Now is it that you're fishing through these images-- images which are born latent within the brain? Is that-- the only time I can become aware of these images in the brain is when they're-- when-- when they actually are put into the space-time [few words inaudible] on the pri-- some kind of matter (with) that so they are associated with [couple words inaudible]
LS: Do you think by brain he means a terrible lump of flesh, he means that the total mechanical [one/two words inaudible] [AS: Just call it--] relative to [few inaudible student words simultaneous with LS] this individual, [AS simultaneously: Yes (couple words inaudible)] (that/like) the total image of-- total storehouse of imaging-- images in all--
AS: Unless they be unconscious images that are-- that are-- that are not-- I'm not aware of, like (Michael).
LS (simultaneously): Mechanical. No, not unconscious, mechanical, really [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with LS] mechanical. [S simultaneously: What do you mean by mechanical?] I-- I mean [couple words inaudible] for example you can walk to a road sign, you don't see it let's say, and you don't know what it is and you get up real close and then you see it. The next time, even though you're the same distance as the first time there's a mechanical, you know, there's a seeing of it. Ok? There are certain images that are recorded mechanically, it's different for all of us because our experience doesn't block it.
AS: Ok well, if I follow the example, I mean what you're saying is like this image of this-- what I see that's actually distinct, now that isn't something new, ok, that some-- in some sense that always was around. And the only thing new about this imaged thing is that it's now becomes conscious, it's now-- it's now becomes projected onto the world.
LS (simultaneously): His-- (it/if)--
AS: It's the imaging. But actually there was in some sense that space, the idea of it or mechanical representation of it or something had to be present already and that would be coming from the brain (of--)
LS: No, what he's speaking of-- what Jung's speaking of mechanically there is that-- that impression, ok, is final-- is finally or-- kind of a whole sequence of images he said here, including the rattle, before the image of snake comes up, all that stuff is mechanical.
S: What about the image of the rattle?
LS: All that stuff is mechanical.
RP: These are only relative distinctions.
S: I don't really get that.
RG: What-- where do you come off making that sort of distinction between the image of rattle and the image of snake?
LS: Jung made it!
RG: Where does he come off to make it?
LS: Because it's experience, [AS simultaneously: Oh it's (couple words inaudible)] it's a phenomenological analysis.
AS: You're never experiencing the sound apart from [one word inaudible]
RG: They're both experienced in the psyche.
TS: They're both experienced (as that the object is that) you've experienced it before, that there's some sort of-- that you have [couple words inaudible] When you hear a rattle and you say 'snake' [few words inaudible] or a rattlesnake (you see him). But the-- the energy is complete and the motion is not as you see it but there is a [one word inaudible]
AS: [few words inaudible] (and/then) the other one got to [couple words inaudible] You can't-- I mean you can't do anything with that sense-- with that sound of the snake. See that's another problem I'm-- That-- that's there, that's given out there, it can't change into something else, but it seemed like there's some process, you know, oh you may try one thing, that doesn't-- an image may come up, oh, for [couple words inaudible] (laughter) I mean-- but-- but there's some kind of-- (laughter, student words) There's some kind of (quantity) besides, I mean like (on or)-- something has access to many different possible images that that can place (on/them) (from) itself.
S: Experience?
S: You're not taking the Buddhist [few words inaudible]
AS (simultaneously): Is that the brain, I mean I-- Where are the images? Let's-- I would pose this question [few words inaudible] What is the nature of these images while fishing around for them, I mean, what is-- what-- what's going on there, I'm-- they must be-- there must be a whole lot of them stored somewhere, some form, but something is going to try and figure out which one to put on to its sound. [student assents] And then I--
AD: How about, how about starting from there, ok? How about right there?
S (simultaneously): [one word inaudible] how about there [one word inaudible] this is the body.
RP: Yes but those are called associate-- associations in the body [three/few words inaudible]
AS (simultaneously): And that-- but that seems to be the whole-- the whole problem and I--
RP (simultaneously): They all start with A. They offer a few images starting with A [one/two words inaudible] B--
AS (simultaneously): No, no, no, but I don't care how you go but where are these things?
GA: Because there's--
RP (simultaneously): [one/two words inaudible] associations with that.
S (simultaneously): (But where then?)
GA: They're associated with--
AS (simultaneously): Yes but-- well, what do you mean [one/two words inaudible] in that?
S (simultaneously): What do you mean by association?
GA: They're associated with a physical brain.
AS: Well then how, is that the brain [one word inaudible]
GA (simultaneously): And if you-- What do you mean how? Through some kind of energy or some kind of--
S: [few words inaudible]
AS (simultaneously): I mean I don't know.
GA: Well what about, you know, you hear these occult explanations (if/of) a person has a violent death [few words inaudible] go back to Nature. Or you cut out a part of the brain and then it takes a while to get the memories back from the other half. Those-- somehow those images or those experiences must be connected to the physical body.
AS: I agree, somehow, but how?
AD: Well let's reverse it, alright, let's try this way, ok. Suppose-- suppose I have an experience where I see a snake, ok. Now, it has to come to me through my sense-knowledge, alright, as far as an ordinary human being, there's a snake rattle and I get this tremendous terror. Now, I saw the image and this image let's say is even molded by emotional intensity of something. I see this image of the snake, alright. Now what happens to that image?
S: After you see it?
AD: Yes, after I see it, after having experience with the snake. Let's say it even bit me. Let's make it really drastic.
RP: The next time you hear it there's going to be an interval [few words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): Well wait, wait, wait, don't say the next time, what happens there and then?
RP/S(?): [few words inaudible]
AD: It bit me!
S: Yes.
S: Well then you could [one/two words inaudible]
S (simultaneously): Then you have [one word inaudible]
AD: No, no I-- I don't buy this.
S (simultaneously): No.
AS: It would have to set up a channel in your brain. The only physio-- the only explanation I could see is that the im-- that if the brain doesn't do that I don't know what it does. [student assents] I mean it seems like there would be like this pow-- [couple/three words inaudible] power. You know like when he says it's impressed on wax, well it must be the brain is like wax that this image is on.
AD (simultaneously): In other words, in other words you're saying that the convolutions in the brain are produced by our thinking processes, something like that, that it somehow is going to get in there and structure my brain.
AS (simultaneously): Talking about-- as long as [few inaudible student words simultaneous with AS] they would say that what we call convolu-- what we see--
AD (simultaneously): Well you know, the winding brain, you know, all the winding spiral paths where we get lost?
AS: Yes ok, but that's really just an image of what that brain really means. That's only--
AD (simultaneously): Well, sure, that's all-- that's all we can do [one/two words inaudible] But it's in terms of what we're just saying now, I'm just-- I'm still curious, what happened to that image?
S: [few words inaudible]
AD: Huh?
S: [couple words inaudible]
S: No but after--
S: (What happened?)
RG (simultaneously): Ok, part of it-- [few inaudible student words simultaneous with RG] part of it has to [one word inaudible] to follow the neu-- the neurological pathways, part of it-- I would say the image part lapse into the unconscious psyche.
S: Where is that?
RP: Nowhere.
LS: Nowhere!?
S: No space(./?)
AD: Well-- well this [S simultaneously: You know, nowhere is just--] much-- will we agree that something happens let's say-- let's say if it's possible for me to repeat this experience for 365 days, alright, then something would happen to some part of my brain. It'll make some sort of trace, leave some sort of trace or some sort of marking.
RG: Right.
AD: But is that the image?
S: No.
RP: No, that is not the image.
AD (simultaneously): That's not the image.
S: Uh-huh.
AD: Ok.
RG: How could that be [S simultaneously: Tony--] the image?
AD: Well I'm just asking!
RG: If it was the image [couple words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): Because I've been drinking coffee for thirty years, I'm wondering what that's doing to my brain! (laughter)
RG: Well then there should be a pot of coffee in your brain. (laughter)
AD: But there isn't, right?
RG: No.
AD: There isn't. [few inaudible student words simultaneous with AD] But in the morning when I get up, in the morning when I get up I start looking for it. (laughter, student words)
S: Yes but how is that [couple words inaudible]
S: [couple/few words inaudible]
AD: Well (just did). (bit of laughter)
RG: One is-- one is a perceived content and the other is a-- is a-- something else, it's a-- it's a-- a little dot on the brain, I don't know what it is.
AS (simultaneously): Richard, but then they poke my brain and the image comes up [couple words inaudible]
RG (simultaneously): Yes, but the image is not in the brain, you can poke--
AD (simultaneously): But is that--
AS: I agree but--
RG (simultaneously): You can poke that dot and the image arises but that image isn't in [S simultaneously: Alright.] the brain.
AS (simultaneously): Yes but then the [S simultaneously: Where is it?] first part [S simultaneously: Yes where is it, uh-hm.] of that then-- then where is that-- what about that image?
RG: Well, the image is in some other kind of space.
AS: Not even there.
LDS: (For sure.)
AS: [couple/few words inaudible]
LDS: What you're saying is--
LS (simultaneously): Because it's-- because it's in God's mind and God's mind had to-- had to poke you with that dopey dot.
S: That's true.
S: What?
AD: Yes, there he goes in bringing in [S simultaneously: Yes but you can't--] these strange parodies. (laughter) Go ahead.
AB(?): Richard, I thought it out, I think like Tony that the psyche is a closed system so we have to agree that these images are there all the time and they don't go anywhere. But now there is a problem with the availability of these images (where) you-- Sometimes, you know, I could get an image right away and other times it's just not there, like Avery's saying you have to go fishing around. [S simultaneously: Yes and that's true about the memory too.] But maybe possibly what determines the availability of these images is-- is the brain. In other words, what we're talking about as the physical brain is some sort of transmitter which makes available these images according to maybe our thinking, like how-- how-- how often something's been ingrained in that physical brain sets up a channel so that image can flow right through. And then you cut away the-- cut way the brain or you disturb it and then you cut away the channel. But the image is still there, it's still in what we're calling the psyche, it's in some-- Dickie said some other space, it's in another realm. Now that image goes [possibly one word inaudible] back and grooves out a new channel in the brain over time--
AD (simultaneously): What image!?
[sounds like student assenting]
AH: I would like to [one/two words inaudible]
LDS: Call it power, maybe it's some kind of power or energy (that's just) like kinetic [couple words inaudible]
AD: Maybe that's closer. What do you think?
RP/S(?): Right.
LDS(?): Structure of thought.
AD: Well [three/few words inaudible]
RP (simultaneously): You drink-- you drink this coffee, [S: Almost.] and you say I'm making grooves in the brain. But if you had brain cells and you have them cut out, yes for months you wouldn't want coffee but a month later all of a sudden, wham!
AD: Agree, agree, [RP simultaneously: Yes, now it wasn't--] 100%! [RP: Ok.] Fine, now, what happened!?
S: I want--
S (simultaneously): Rich wants the coffee.
S: (No) [one word inaudible]
AD: Oh no. (laughter, student words)
AS: The brain don't want coffee.
S: No, no, no, no, but the images have-- well, the images have power [one/two words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): What do you mean by power?
S: You're asking about the images now?
S (simultaneously): Well, you don't agree.
S: You started out by saying that you don't want to speak about these images solely in terms of our ego-complex. [three/few words inaudible] it's like energy and power(,) you're saying it has (too/two). But, if you would make it a long time ago where, let's say you've also-- you have an image of-- well, I don't know, power [couple words inaudible] that, you have it. [S: Merry Christmas.] You go to sleep with this image (and/say) you even dream it, this has an ideational content and there's ultimately feelings that are delivered. But this image is [couple words inaudible] (where/or) all the [one word inaudible] will become aware of that, a certain amount of power and a certain energy, having some desire and a real [few words inaudible] But I'd say well-- [S simultaneously: You've mentioned him.] but then in [one word inaudible] way through the brain it magnify itself.
AD: Well listen to [S simultaneously: Yes, ok.] this here.
C.G. Jung [CW 10, Civilization in Transition, "The Role of the Unconscious," p. 10, paragraph 13, AD reading]: "This unconscious, [AD: And this is again from Jung."This unconscious] buried in the structure of the brain and disclosing its living presence only through the medium of creative fantasy, is the suprapersonal unconscious. It comes alive in the creative man, it reveals itself in the vision of the artist, in the inspiration of the thinker, in the inner experience of the mystic. The suprapersonal unconscious, being distributed throughout the brain-structure, is like an all-pervading, omnipresent, omniscient spirit. It knows man as he always was, and not as he is at this moment; it knows him as myth. For this reason, also, the connection with the suprapersonal or collective unconscious means an extension of man beyond himself; it means death for his personal being and [a] rebirth in a new dimension…"
AD: Alright, on and on.
[AD shuts book]
S: Where was that from?
AD (simultaneously): Is this-- Oh, forgot.
S: Is that--
AD: Civilization in Transition, the first essay, "Instinct and the Unconscious" [sic; "The Role of the Unconscious"].
S: Uh-hm. Go ahead.
S: Ok, is your--
AD: Yes, go ahead.
LDS: When we s-- when we equate--
AD: I'd rather hear him but--
S: Well, ok.
AD: No both of you, not just opposite.
S: Awww.
AD: Brain structures. (AD laughs a bit)
S: Make some more coffee..
AD: Go ahead.
LDS: Can we equate image--
AD: Go ahead, go ahead.
LDS: The way we're speaking of image here it's very interesting the way we--
AD: Because after this we're going to meditate, you're going to need it.
RG: We're not?
AD: Those of you who want to.
LDS: We can see that in having a physi-- physical experience, a real concrete experience in the world, there's a certain power and a certain capacity to change that, there's a certain momentum, and I could-- just seems that this whole idea of image is equatable with experience in that-- in that the image has a power to re-- reconstitute our physiology. The image is experience. [S: Yes but--] If you go through a particular experience enough, it reconstruct our--
S: Richard, take that example--
AB (simultaneously): No, I think [one/two words inaudible] (produce) that experience.
S (simultaneously): How about page 303 in the Hidden Teaching [couple words inaudible]
LDS (simultaneously): What did you say? [couple/few inaudible student words simultaneous with LDS] Experience produces the image?
AB (simultaneously): [one/two words inaudible] produce your experience.
S: Nice.
LDS: That's what I said.
S: [couple words inaudible]
AB (simultaneously): No, you said the image is the experience.
LDS (simultaneously): I'm equating image with experience.
AB: But we're not. You could have the image first unconscious, in quotes, and then it gets activated and you have the actual, what we're calling the experience, but the image doesn't need the experience.
AD: Now look, we're starting again, let's try this-- I got to remind you, I'm-- I'm the coffee drinker or the guy who got bit by the snake. I'm-- I want to start this way. And this experience is repeated and driven into me. We said that it leaves some sort of traces in the brain and we admit that these traces are not the images. Alright. Now we want to understand, if somebody goes there and pokes it with Zeus' thunderbolt you get the image back. How!? What are we talking about? Let's not deviate from that point. What happened?
[short pause]
S: I mean it seems that the brain-- brain certainly leads the flock or the-- or the congregation of living processes and somehow this material organ in his head must be the place where these living processes become linked with the body. And so if somehow that particular place in the brain you touch just sets up-- it has to create (an image) of the--
AD: He just pointed out you cut out that portion, alright, and it-- let's say, another portion or some other part of the brain, they both pointed this out, that another part of the brain could be taken up and used for that same activity.
[student assents]
S (simultaneously): No but the brain is a whole and so the place where there's the psyche as a whole [couple words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): But we just said, we just said that the traces are left in the brain, ok, and this part of the brain then gets cut out, alright, and the mind could use another part of the brain or when the brain regrows, let's say, it uses it again. How? How come that's possible?
RP: Well you're-- you're going to say, images do not occur at random or have to occur in orderly fashion [couple words inaudible] For example, brain in-- an image of a brain or having the brain is a precondition for certain type of other images to arise. The touching of a particular place in the brain (within it) is a precondition [AD/S(?): Oh no.] for another image to arise. You have to relate it to the living being, to structural relationships of (pure (energy/images)). They are related and that they-- I mean I-- depending on the [one word inaudible] that's all we could say. This image must occur-- this kind of image must occur particularly at that (moment).
LDS: It's a very powerful (system), very personal, very-- very much depends on the nature of the individual, right?
RP: [couple words inaudible] right there.
S: (Go ahead/Uh-hm).
S: Go ahead.
AD: Go ahead.
RG: Um--
AD: Go ahead.
RG: Gra-- granted the brain is an image, and-- and the image that's coming through the brain. Now somehow the processes that we call the brain magnifies the images in the brain, contents or the vrittis that are (in the body).
S: Uh-hm.
RP: No, that's an explanation already when you speak of image.
RG: That's the explanation we (seek/see).
S: Oh no.
RG: That's the one we--
S: Yes.
RG: Do you have a better one?
S: No.
S: You could finish.
RG: But somehow that-- those living processes which are-- We still have to account for the tran-- transition from an image of one kind through this living process into a perceived world, into the image that we perceive, and I don't-- I don't get any feeling for that, I don't get any way of understanding that. How does that take place?
AD(?): Uh-hm.
S: You take, well--
RG: (Sure.)
ME: You're talking about the brain. That part of the brain which is not [one/two words inaudible] I mean somehow that same-- that same experience must [one word inaudible] maybe to another part of the brain, but somehow without there being experiencing of that original reflection on the part of the brain (that does) phenomena.
RG: What do you mean do to another part-- But how does that, whatever part of the brain it may be, translate that image-- that preconscious image into a sensual experience?
ME: Because any image-- any image that you have or any experience that you have includes the brain function. In other-- in other words, the memory-- so--
RG: Granted.
ME (simultaneously): So if the brain functions totally within a superim-- superimposition on another part of the brain, simply means the whole-- that whole mechanism [RG simultaneously: That doesn't answer my question.] of the brain. You can't-- you can't say an image of a brain (in the head) other than the brain is included in the image [one/two words inaudible] [few inaudible RG words simultaneous with ME] You can't make that separation. You could never make that separation.
AD: Could we-- could we try this way Mike? If that part of the brain where the traces are left behind is destroyed, evidently there's something else which doesn't get destroyed, alright, and this something else is what we're really looking for.
LR: Could I-- can I ask you a question? When you said before, you mentioned the phrase consciousness sort of tied to the brain, the grooves in the brain or the habits that are formed there. I'm-- and I've-- I've tried to understand this one problem for a long time and the only way I can understand it at all is that there-- i-- is that the brain in fact does track or does contain some amount of consciousness which isn't other than itself, that is, the brain. You know-- ok. The problem that I've been having for [S simultaneously: Processes ready for life.] a long time is that when I've thought about going to sleep, the way-- the way it's described is that consciousness somehow--
[Audio File 1974 0811a Ends]
[Audio File 1974 0811b Begins]
LR: --I have when I read the explanations of how someone falls asleep, and, if that were the case, how does-- how do you then wake up, I mean, what is it that brings the consciousness back into the body that you-- There must be something in the body which-- which attracts that consciousness, which is-- I mean-- why would you wake up then if the consciousness (would go out)?
S: [few words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): Well we got enough problems! (laughter)
S (amidst laughter): (All in the body.)
LR: No that-- it's the same--
RG: The karma of your day starting.
LR: No it-- I'm--
RG: The vasanas you have would itself [one word inaudible] (embodied).
S (simultaneously): Yes [couple words inaudible] made aware of your karma [one/two words inaudible] Is that so?
LR (simultaneously): But there must be some consciousness contained in the body. If the body--
S: You just called [one/two words inaudible]
S (simultaneously): You mean, this is the same problem.
AD (simultaneously): Well, why don't we pick up the point here which I think was a clue that Avery offered us, and that was that when the physical aspect of the brain was destroyed evidently there's some sort of forces that are lying latent, some sort of power which could resume its activity as soon as an instrument is made available for it.
AS: That-- that was really [one word inaudible] a helpful explanation because you got two possibilities. First of all [few words inaudible] those contents, and Jung talked [few words inaudible] Now, whatever form that Jung is-- whatever form that's going to be contained in it, and supposing that there is somehow it's retained-- it retains its power let's say, without-- (without/out) something-- some realm outside the brain, it doesn't-- it-- it seems though it doesn't retain-- retain space-time qualities, it doesn't retain what we know in terms of qualities. Somehow whatever form is stored in it, it-- it doesn't have this empirical type of quality, it's unknown to us [few words inaudible]
S (simultaneously): [couple/three words inaudible]
RP: You were going to say brought in today.
AS: Yes but that's-- I'm not--
S: On top shelf.
AS: Two-- it seemed like there were two things or like two possibilities. Either the experience that I have that's remembered continues for [one/two words inaudible] time and this is then the form that it was, or it somehow gets de-potentiated and then could be referred to that state in some kind of [one/two words inaudible] or like goes back and then comes out again.
S: [one/two words inaudible] could happen in your brain(./?)
RG: But Avery, that's why the whole-- that's how the whole concept of the subconscious arose. They had to account for a-- a place where those images retain their (product) and this way you could have the first (state/space).
S: Yes, I mean I could see that.
S: [few words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): Well wouldn't we say for-- if you just continue the way you were going to try to get perhaps-- perhaps (Steve), that these images that are (within) the continuum of experience deposit behind them a certain way that you can structure that image is what Dickie is trying to say, and that any reactivation of that structure immediately brings alongside with it the image, so to speak, that depo-- was deposited there.
AS: It's that reactive-- but when you say reactivation brings up that image, it's almost like that reactivation recreates the sensing from the totality, it's like-- because on one hand you have this power of that image [couple/few words inaudible] on the other hand you actually have like this filled-in presentation or like the sensuous-- the sensuous image. It's not stored as the sensory image. It's not-- that power, that-- that power that can be [couple/three words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): But-- but then you would-- then again, you would-- we would be doing the same thing, wouldn't we? We would be separating this power which-- or this-- let's say this residue of energy structuralizing (a person's brain), he would be separating it from the ideation that goes with it.
AS: Well it can't help [couple words inaudible] that's true.
S (simultaneously): The image doesn't [one word inaudible]
AD: I know, I'm just saying, this is what we would be doing.
AS: So if I posit memory from my point of view, there have to be the components which sometimes is (ideating/ideated) or [one/two words inaudible] and sometimes it's not ideated, it's just [couple/three words inaudible]
S (simultaneously): Ok.
AD: Alright, but in potential, in potential, alright, is distinct, so to speak, the concept "potential" is distinct from the concept of arise, abiding and dissolution as a twin function. In other words, when we say it's potential, we're applying it to both these here, like he tries at one point. This is potential, alright, my karma and the ideation.
AS (simultaneously): Both of them.
AD: They're drawn away, alright. Then they become active again, they come up again. They come up together or they don't come at all.
S: But that's the part which (completely/complete the) ideation [few words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): Is it something like for instance when PB speaks about the fact, you're walking in the forest and you mistake a bush for a brigand. And he says if the emotional intense [one/two words inaudible] you know, more or less got projected. And he says you have to conceive of this-- like when we conceive of the World-Mind as the forces that are lying latent with it, within it, they're potential, they're not actual, alright. Given the mechanism to transform them and immediately they become actualized as a power or as a dynamism and as a picture.
S: Or even felt.
AD: Let's try.
S: [few words inaudible]
AD: Yes. The only thing is of course in that example we can imagine-- we imagine [couple/three inaudible student words] the force line as independent of any manifestation. But over here we're called upon not to do that. And in actuality we can't-- we can't really-- you can't think of force lines without at the same time picturing them in some symbolic way.
S: Yes but [inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): I'm lost, I'm lost, start again, I didn't follow.
S: When we (decide/start) (to call) in the brain that we say holds the image, and then when you're talking about it, it makes a false separation between the brain that you're talking about and the forces that-- separation of forces [few words inaudible]
AD: Yes, I'm inclined to believe that that's a faulty analogy, that Penfield's analysis only dealt with one side of the subject, and he failed to see that the brain is potentially a generator in the sense that's it, you know, a constant flow of electricity going on, you notice all the time-- (all the/one) time when the [few words inaudible] But you can't, so to speak, touch one aspect of it, alright, without the other aspect operating.
LS: When we speak of these images as thoughts, ok, alright, we're somehow trying to get perception to see [one/two words inaudible] dividing the power and so on.
AD: Yes, although those forces that are latent in the World-Mind, which given an opportunity will manifest, alright, and he even speaks about this in the sense he says, you must try to remember that the image of the thing or the essence or the soul of that thing, and the memory of it, are one and the same and cannot really be separated. But what these forces are like in the World-Mind, you can't conceive.
S: When you say they're thoughts [one/two words inaudible] we can't perceive.
[student(s) assenting]
AD: The (body-- the body) [one/two words inaudible]
S: Yes.
AD: Let me read this passage.
Mircea Eliade [Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, "The Doctrines of Yoga," "The Subconscious," p. 42, AD reading]: "The concept of vasana, [AD: or samskaras] which designates these latencies, is of primary importance in Yoga psychology; [in Patanjali's text], the term has the meaning [AD adds: of]"specific subconscious sensations." The obstacles that these subliminal forces raise on the path of liberation are of two kinds; on the one hand, the vasanas constantly feed the psychomental stream, the infinite series of cittavrittis; on the other hand, and this by reason of their specific [(subliminal, "germinal")] modality, the vasanas constitute an immense obstacle--for they are in the highest degree elusive, difficult to control and master. [AD reads this last sentence with emphasis] By the very fact that their mode of being is that of "potentiality"…"
AD: Potentiality. This is the problem we've been faced with, because these traces that are left in the brain, and we destroyed the brain, we haven't removed the potentialities so that when it manifests operate the same way. So we can get rid of the brain, sure, but we're not going to get rid of that vasana that has this potential to act that way. He goes on.
Mircea Eliade [Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, "The Doctrines of Yoga," "The Subconscious," p. 42, AD reading]: "…their own dynamism forces the vasanas to manifest, to"actualize," themselves under the form of acts of consciousness."
AD: That was what Jung said.
Mircea Eliade [Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, "The Doctrines of Yoga," "The Subconscious," p. 42, AD reading]: "Thus the yogin--even if he has long years of practice [AD reads: experience] to his credit and has passed through several stages [of his ascetic itinerary]--is in danger of finding himself defeated by the invasion of a powerful stream of psychomental"eddies" precipitated by the vasanas.
""The vasanas have their origin in memory"…"
AD: And we're right back where we started.
[short pause]
Mircea Eliade [Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, "The Doctrines of Yoga," "The Subconscious," p. 42, AD reading]: "…thus emphasizing their subliminal nature. Life is a continual [AD reads: continuing] discharge of vasanas, which manifest themselves through [AD adds: these] vrittis. In psychological terms, [AD adds: the] human existence is a continuous actualization of the subconscious through experiences. The vasanas condition the specific character of each individual; and this conditioning is in accordance both with his heredity and with his karmic situation. Indeed, everything that defines the intransmissible specificity [AD mispronounces word] [S: (Same one.)] [AD: Same one.] of the individual, [AD: That's a vasana now!] as well as the structure of human instincts, is produced by the vasanas, by the subconscious. The subconscious is transmitted either"impersonally," from generation to generation (through language, (AD reads: that is, languages) mores, civilization--ethnic and historical (AD reads: ethic and ethnic) transmission), or directly (through karmic transmigration…)."
AD: That means you inherit a certain type of brain.
Mircea Eliade [Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, "The Doctrines of Yoga," "The Subconscious," pp. 42-43, AD reading]: "(…we remind the reader in this connection that the karmic potentials are transmitted through an"animic body," (AD adds: or) linga, literally "subtle body"). A considerable part of human experience is owing to this racial and intellectual heritage, to these forms of action and thought which are created by the play of [the] vasanas. These subconscious forces determine the lives of the majority of men. It is only through Yoga that they can be known, controlled, [AD adds: and then] "burned.""
RP: But Tony, what is (certain about anesthetized) vasanas? [couple words inaudible] for them but is any physical [one/two inaudible student words] [one word inaudible]
LS: That should all be implicit in the brain.
RP: Well, I mean they're a real individual, don't you think?
S (simultaneously): Oh, you can show him in life, you can-- you can transform certain states and then you're done with them. [RP: No I mean--] And then [one/two words inaudible] [couple/three inaudible student words simultaneous with S] your life and then when you go on to the next life you inherit them.
S (simultaneously): Ok, I'll (pass).
RP: Or you [three/few words inaudible] Let's say-- let's say whatever it is has to be a vasana. Let's say whatever it is, next time you're going to get, (bit of laughter) you know, whatever the real vasana is. Like this actual like [one/two words inaudible] or something like that [few words inaudible] and the whole, you know--
AD: But then again, then again Richard, I think you're losing the point of what was found out. You see, you're ascribing to vasana a specificity that it doesn't have. It is [RP simultaneously: That's the point (couple words inaudible)] a unit of energy, yes. It isn't-- it isn't a specific content of that specification, it isn't so to speak a content of image, but the way that energy is structured, and if it doesn't have that content it must have a content similar to it.
RP (simultaneously): Yes, yes [few words inaudible]
AD: Yes. Yes, I agree with that.
RP (simultaneously): But-- well what-- it's one of the views, I mean, structuring the (view, but it's) not-- and now the structure's a unity but [student assents] to say it's one vasana and not another, some say that you've got the same (unity) in the after-state [couple/few words inaudible] you want this experience.
AD (simultaneously): Yes, if you say the essence of it.
RP (simultaneously): Yes, and you want the experience. That's [one word inaudible] (like if) you have physical body [one/two words inaudible] But you could [couple/three words inaudible] vasana, you could very well-- you could very well repeat it in the exact same form. I think it's all about (karma). (some laughter)
S: What does that got to do--
RP: What are particular vasanas? (bit of laughter)
AD: I'm sorry, just a little more.
Mircea Eliade [Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, "The Doctrines of Yoga," "The Subconscious," p. 45, AD reading]: "[Indeed], it is [in] the dynamism that characterizes the [AD reads: this] unconscious that Yoga sees [AD adds: as] the most serious obstacle that the yogin [AD reads: yogi] has to overcome. This is because the latencies--as if a strange impulse drove them to self-extinction--want to emerge into the light, want, by actualizing themselves, to become states of consciousness. The resistance that the subconscious opposes to every act of renunciation and asceticism, to every act that could result in the emancipation of the Self, is, as it were, the token of the fear [that the] subconscious feels at the mere idea that the mass of as yet unmanifested latencies could fail of their destiny, could be destroyed before having time to manifest and actualize themselves. This thirst for actualization on the part of the vasanas is nevertheless interpenetrated by the thirst for extinction, for"repose," that…"
RP: Tony, (you really have to poke--)
AD: Go ahead.
RP: There's two men, and they both have the coffee now, the co-- they love coffee, there's [few words inaudible] Yet one man is actually drinking one essence and the other man is drinking the other essence. Is it safe to say they would be buying the same thing?
AD: But wouldn't you say that this--
RP (simultaneously): (Put it there.)
AD: Yes, but wouldn't there be [one/two words inaudible]
S (simultaneously): [few words inaudible]
S: What do you mean?
S: [few words inaudible]
AD: Or like you take these two men, one goes to the-- one-- they both have (the) desire except that one was (strong/wrong), but one goes to church and the other goes to [one/two words inaudible] What are you really asking for? (some laughter)
S (amidst laughter): Yes.
AD: The one who goes to church goes to hell and the guy who goes to the [one word inaudible] goes to heaven. (bit of laughter)
RP: I've always liked that story. (laughter)
AD: Yes, you're right when you say it's the essence here that counts, it's the essence here that counts. But-- but we-- we go back one more. Get up, let me-- let me-- [S: I'm really lost. (laughter, student words)] let me make a (few quotations/twofold statement) here, huh, before we get carried away.
S: Are we speaking [couple/three words inaudible] Tony?
AD: I'm sorry?
[laughter, inaudible student talking, 11¾ seconds]
AD: I think Richard pointed out that if-- if we really knew what the essence of that vasana was, then we would be able to deal with it. But in the case of most people who are unaware of what their real subconscious motivation is they could very often be misled by the mores in the society that they're living. So each person thought that the right thing to do was to go, you know, and have sex with someone whereas actually (the part was thrown out) with some-- (somebody/something) else and there's a kind of obscuration there. But nonetheless he will be penalized for the [one/two words inaudible] participation. And, there's a fulfillment on one level and on the other level doom. But--
S (simultaneously): Ok, but what if he's that kind of person [few words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): If you have something to say you must say it out loud [one/two words inaudible] Say it, out loud.
S (simultaneously): Well that's what I'm saying, I mean what if you don't have the outer circumstances for what your inner self is asking for (because you're just following) vasana.
AD: Well if that happened [S simultaneously: I--] to be a problem in life (then) [S simultaneously: Right.] (I'd help/I hope) you deal with it. It's a big problem.
S: Yes.
S: Yes.
AD: Because many of us that were born like this [couple/three words inaudible] you search for the holy or the religious that-- that you finally found.
S: Yes.
AD: So what do you with that frustration? You go out and join the mob, right?
S: Well--
AD: Or you pay allegiance to a mythology. [three/few words inaudible] you know, communism, socialism [few words inaudible]
S (simultaneously): Yes like [one/two words inaudible] he took the scientific route Tony and said ok, people aren't going to believe the whole thing spiritual thing if I just state it. So are you trying [couple/three words inaudible] then and let the ideas go through? Is that what you mean? Are you being [one word inaudible]
S: That's good.
AD: Yes.
S: I'm sorry.
AD: Can I finish, can I finish, push the thing through now that we're going? You see how they're all getting despondent? (laughter, student words) Alright, go ahead. Go ahead. [few seconds of background student talking] Go ahead.
RG: Would you claim that Jung's talking about the brain, this physical brain? (bit of laughter)
AD: Well, what other brain do you know?
S (simultaneously): (Exactly.)
RG: I don't know any other brain. (some laughter)
S: (He's Catholic.)
S: [couple/three words inaudible]
AD: And how do you know this brain?
S: It's through perception.
AD: And what is perception?
S: Don't know.
RG: What is perception?
AD: Even Bertrand Russell was forced to admit that what I see is not that brain out there in front of me but my brain! [short pause] In this definition of image Jung says--
C.G. Jung [CW 6, Psychological Types, Definitions, pp. 442-443, paragraphs 743, 745, AD reading]: "[26. IMAGE.] When I speak of"image" in this book, I do not mean the psychic reflection of an external object, but a concept derived from poetic usage, namely, a figure of fancy or fantasy-image, which is related only indirectly to the perception of an external object. This image depends much more on unconscious fantasy activity, and as the product of such activity it appears more or less abruptly in consciousness, somewhat in the manner of a vision or hallucination… The image has the psychological character of a fantasy idea and never the quasi-real character of an hallucination, i.e., it never takes the place of reality, and can always be distinguished from sensuous reality by the fact that it is an "inner" image.
[AD skips a paragraph]
"The inner image is a complex structure made up of the most varied material from the most varied sources. It is no conglomerate, however, but a homogenous product with a meaning of its own. The image is a condensed expression of the psychic situation as a whole, and not merely, nor even predominately, of unconscious contents pure and simple. It undoubtedly does express unconscious contents, but not the whole of them, only those that are momentarily constellated."
AD: He goes on and on. By the way, I looked through the whole book to try to find out, this book and other book(s), of where these images come from. What are they, where do they go? Never-- he never speaks about for instance that kind of imagery. He only speaks about the kind of imagery that arises from the-- the way, the very structures the brain is.
[9 second pause]
S: Is that all phenomenological?
AD: Huh?
S: Phenomenology could only be concerned with that kind of (image).
AD: Well, I think-- I think there's some things about Jung that are not exactly phenomenological.
S: I would agree, but I mean that doesn't even (cut it) [few words inaudible]
S: Yes.
AD: Well, ok.
S: [inaudible]
AD: Let-- let's go a little bit further, alright. In the "Foreword to Introduction to Zen Buddhism," and we tried a couple of times to read-- where he points out--
C.G. Jung [CW 11, Psychology and Religion, "Foreword to Suzuki's Introduction to Zen Buddhism," p. 549, paragraph 895, AD reading]: "The complete destruction of the rational intellect aimed at in the training [AD: Zen training.] creates an almost perfect lack of conscious presuppositions. These are excluded as far as possible, but not unconscious presuppositions…which is anything but empty or a tabula rasa. It is a nature-given factor…"
AD: Now what does he mean by "nature-given factor"?
S: Go on.
AD: Huh?
S: Go on.
[few seconds of inaudible student talking]
AD: I mean if I told you it's a nature-given factor, what would you be looking for?
S: (It's in the heart.)
AD: Well wouldn't you go to your body that you were born with, and [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with AD] wouldn't that body include the brain? [student assents] And isn't this is what's being given, isn't this what he's talking about, the nature-given factor? Well how come you never get to it? Why do you need special training for it?
C.G. Jung [CW 11, Psychology and Religion, "Foreword to Suzuki's Introduction to Zen Buddhism," p. 549, paragraph 895, AD reading]: "The complete destruction of the rational intellect aimed at in the training creates an almost perfect lack of conscious presuppositions. These are excluded as far as possible…"
AD: Now, the rational intellect means everything you've learned, right? From the time that you were born that your mother and your father told you what to do and you never stopped doing it.
S: No, you stopped [couple words inaudible] you notice and you stop.
AD (simultaneously): No, you don't stop, you don't stop, believe me.
S: I think you stop.
AD: When you go to kindergarten your teachers tell you what to do, in society the priest-- the priests tell you what to do when you (grow/grew) up. Ev-- in other words, the rational intellect--
S (simultaneously): Yes, but (you're in reality even).
AD: You want to get up here?
S: Go ahead.
AD: You want to get up here?
RP: Now Andi tells you what to do. (laughter, student words)
C.G. Jung [CW 11, Psychology and Religion, "Foreword to Suzuki's Introduction to Zen Buddhism," p. 549, paragraph 895, AD reading]: "These are excluded as far as possible…"
AD: So we can even get an idea by "rational intellect", you know, he's saying all the conditioning that ever took place. This has got to be destroyed, in Zen Buddhism, ok? Now, he says, now maybe we'll get to what we really are like and to what this is unconscious. He goes on.
C.G. Jung [CW 11, Psychology and Religion, "Foreword to Suzuki's Introduction to Zen Buddhism," p. 549, paragraph 895, AD reading]: "These are excluded as far as possible, but not unconscious presuppositions--that is, the existing but unrecognized psychological disposition, which is anything but empty [or a tabula rasa]. It is a nature-given factor, and when it answers--this being obviously the satori experience--[it] is an answer of Nature, who [AD reads: which] has succeeded in conveying her reaction direct to the conscious mind. What the unconscious nature of the pupil presents to the teacher or to the koan by [AD adds: the] way of an answer is, manifestly, satori."
AD: Well, what do you think he's saying here now? Go ahead, yes.
S: Well, in the (form that these images are in), their independent existence, whether or not they manifest, yet somehow if they manifest through the brain and they could either hinder or help. And I think what he's saying here, that whole process which goes [one/two words inaudible] if in presenting the manifestation of those images which are completely (indistinct) and-- so they're directing those images to-- it seems to individuality, they are the same ideals that you had talked about (last Friday).
S: Yes, exactly.
S (simultaneously): Go ahead.
RP(?): Well go ahead.
S: And that the breaking of all these imposed patterns from like without I would say would allow these patterns that are from within which are innate to manifest-- manifest through.
TS: [few words inaudible] that the patterns which are [couple words inaudible] they're not perfect. They're just participating [couple words inaudible] the form of the world-image [few words inaudible] It seems like their ego wouldn't want (to join). [inaudible]
S: [one/two words inaudible]
RP: Seems to be-- seems these essences [few words inaudible] are in formlessness and the processes of [couple words inaudible] a sense of image to provide for the matrix to get these essences to manifest. But by so doing you'll feel the essence. So, it always look-- it's always looking for experience of the Absolute, you can dive back into the sense-given(--/,) the [one word inaudible] Nature, the-- and (cultivate it). You live out-- you're living in a society and you're always thinking of the Divine Mother, let's say you get a job [couple/few words inaudible] say and all that, right? But the only way to get back this way is truly de-potentialize the form, a form of the psychic essence to do that. [few words inaudible] values and (destroy/story) after. But all that goes away when you cultivate the Mother. You know the [one/two words inaudible] really wants to know after all, experience psycho-essence.
S: Yes.
AH: For sure.
[student assents]
AD: The essences in their purity reflect a structuralized being to be what you (were/are).
RP: They certify that you always be the same way.
AD: (You're/You will) always [couple words inaudible]
AS: [inaudible]
RP (simultaneously): No they're not. Oh I-- I like those [one word inaudible]
AS: No but I'm-- [S: Yes.] ok, go ahead.
RP (simultaneously): Got [one word inaudible] to you if you really (saw/solve) this whole--
AS (simultaneously): Right, let's go back. [inaudible]
[couple seconds of inaudible student talking]
AD: Well I think (what you're/Richard's) trying to say (is well Richard), look [few words inaudible] In the experience which manifests itself sensibly or in a sensible way, our preoccupation or our attachment to the sensible quality of that makes us forget that what we have to refer to here, you know, let's say the basic essences (utilizing), so we ignore that basis that we can get caught up in the sensuality and little by little we're led further and further away from the-- the being that we really are. But then there had to be a sort of close connection, right, with your physiology. Because if the brain let's say represents this basic structure through which the unconscious operates, and I'm not saying that you've got have it but-- Zen conceive of evolution without a brain-- but the way we are caught here this brain is very important, because as-- let's say as the-- this activity takes place and comes up through the brain and manifests itself, there-- a certain amount of distortion can take place. So the brain, so to speak, on the one hand, our experiences are deposited and structuralize this brain, and on the other hand, you know, when we think of, so to speak, the image being first and then the re-- recognition of the body within that image, alright, that would be, so to speak, the epistemological point of view. The psychological point of view is you're within that, alright, now you're taking the experience, it re-alters your structure, restructures the brain, ok, and then you respond according to that restructuring. But that makes the brain a pretty important thing.
[short pause]
S: I don't follow you.
AD: Huh?
S: I don't follow you.
AD: (Go ahead.)
RP: How-- when-- in the old mythology [few words inaudible] it was the liver. Well in-- in the old mythology [three/few words inaudible] the image is in the liver. That was kind of [few words inaudible] has evolved just like the soul. The brain would come (in with) the same way. [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with RP] And they were more at the Atma level.
S: [few words inaudible] liver, you would see it in the liver.
[few seconds of inaudible student talking]
S (simultaneously): I always try to put the images in the blood. (laughter, student words)
RP: And they would say exactly that. That's why (he wrote with this)--
S: [few words inaudible]
S (simultaneously): Well that's part-- that's (erosion). That's (in their--)
RP (simultaneously): --the example [few words inaudible] well yes, the exact images would have to follow the structure of the liver [inaudible]
S: I could always sit down.
S: [couple/three words inaudible]
RP (simultaneously): I think they have them laid down too.
S: They have them laid out.
S: Uh-hm.
[few seconds of inaudible student talking]
AD: Go ahead.
AS: Will it be something like-- even-- so that's what you mean psychological, talking about the brain.
S: Yes.
AS: And what we've-- well, even with psychological [one word inaudible] that would restrict the brain, and even though we're born with our brain structured in a specific way, still that itself is only [one/two words inaudible] a reflection of what [one/two words inaudible] [student assents] that total reflection or that [one/two words inaudible] too. [students assent] And-- because otherwise you get that same old thing, what happens to that part of the brain when destroyed [few words inaudible] you didn't follow that point [couple words inaudible]
[24¾ seconds of inaudible student talking]
AD: Well, if we pointed out that in the experiences that the person goes through, these deposits, mnemonic deposits let's say in the brain, and this kind of structures the energy, the (specific) energy would have to be in the linga sarira or let's say the more subtle (portions) of the (brain). And evidently that linga is destroyed and [one word inaudible] still is held accountable. So that's what-- that very experience becomes memory on which the basis of future incarnation is there.
S: [inaudible] [S: Ok.] very subtle, like a lobotomy, you know, some kind of [one word inaudible]
AD: Not that I know of.
S: But you don't fight back.
AD: You don't change the person.
[student assents]
[17 seconds of mostly inaudible student talking]
AD (simultaneously): Well first of all, first of all, you don't even have to take brain lobotomy, alright, you just consider any state of psychosis, how the fact that you don't understand the content doesn't mean that that-- he-- that person's something that's at your disposal, in other words, these contents do have a meaning but you don't have the grasp-- or a grasp of the framework to understand that meaning. [few inaudible student words] But if you take someone like Jung he'd see what those contents mean, and that doesn't mean that the person will be restored to normalcy either. But within the framework of this person those contents will be quite meaningful and that will be an expression of that person. Let's-- let's-- Let's reread now-- well what time is it?
S: [couple words inaudible]
AD: We have a few minutes to spend(--/.) I-- did you find it in this here? We read this once before, this is from the subtle-- the (physical--) Doctrine of the Subtle Body by Mead, alright. But, this whole thing has been translated, [student assents] (G.R.S. Mead).
[Transcriber note: I am using The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition by G.R.S. Mead, London: J. M. Watkins, 1919.]
G.R.S. Mead [The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition, pp. 92-93, RP reading]: "This treatise was written about 404 A.D., before Synesius became a Christian. He subsequently, about twenty-three years after, held a bishopric for some three years before his death.
"As what Synesius has to tell us is the most detailed statement on the subject known to me, I venture to append a careful and full translation which may be all the more acceptable as there exists no English version.
""7. (135D.) If to see God with one's eyes [in sensible nature] is a felicitous experience, the comprehension [of Him] by means of imagination (phantasia) pertains to a higher order of intuition.
""For this [power of imagination] is the [one] sense of [all differentiated] senses, seeing that the spirit (pneuma), [RP adds: with reason] whereby the imagination is brought into play, is the most general sensory and the first body of the soul.""
(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1974 0811b Ends; Side 2 Begins)
G.R.S. Mead [The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition, p. 93, RP reading]: ""…seeing that the spirit (pneuma), whereby the imagination is brought into play, is the most general sensory and the first body of the soul.
""It has its seat in the innermost place, and dominates the living creature, (136A.) as it were from a citadel. For round it nature has built up the whole economy of the head.
""Now hearing and sight are not senses, but organs of sense, servants of the common [sense], as it were door-keepers, who notify their mistress of the sense-objects outside, whereby the out-turned organs of sense have their doors knocked upon.
""Whereas [RP reads: However]…""
AD: What do you think (sa--) trying to (sa--) what's going on with this, with the kind of archaic language?
RP: Well, let's go back. Alright, so then this power of imagination would be seated in the pneumatic body. Ok?
G.R.S. Mead [The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition, p. 93, RP reading]: ""It has its seat in the innermost place, and dominates the living creature, (136 A.) as it were from a citadel. For round it nature has built up the whole economy of the head.""
S (possibly part of background): (David--)
[9¼ second pause]
AD: Would you read that again please?
G.R.S. Mead [The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition, p. 93, RP reading]: ""It has its seat in the innermost place, and dominates the living creature, (136A.) as it were from a citadel. For round it nature has built up the whole economy of the head.""
AD: Well what would that be?
S: [one/two words inaudible]
AD: It would have to be what?
S: I say in the mind.
S: Mind.
S: Mind.
AD: How about the brain?
[student assents]
TS: Well isn't that [S simultaneously: About to just say that.] the manas [few words inaudible]
S (simultaneously): Manas has to be working also.
AD: Well manas uses [student assents] the brain.
S: Right, right, manas rules the brain, right.
AD (simultaneously): But he's speaking about a head now, I mean--
S: Brain and senses.
[students assent]
AD: Ok?
G.R.S. Mead [The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition, p. 93, RP reading]: ""Now hearing and sight are not senses, but organs of sense, servants of the common [sense], as it were door-keepers, who notify their mistress of the sense-objects outside, whereby the out-turned organs of sense have their doors knocked upon. [short pause]
""Whereas she in all portions of her is simple sense. For she hears with the whole of the spirit [RP reads: divided (one word inaudible)] [sc. the common sensory], and sees with the whole of it; and so she does for the rest of the senses.""
AD: And what-- what is he saying there? That it's not the eye that sees but the sensorium here. The eye can't see. For instance if I look at-- or let's say I looked at an orange, alright-- a lemon, ok, and right away I taste the bitterness. Well, I never saw-- I never tasted the bitterness.
S: Right.
AD: Alright? That's not the best example but association comes into play. But basically for instance if you're sleeping you [few words inaudible] it's not something that the senses can perceive.
S: Or when you dream.
AD: Or the-- yes, ok.
S (simultaneously): But that's psychological [few words inaudible]
AD: [few words inaudible]
G.R.S. Mead [The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition, pp. 93-95, RP reading]: ""She it is who distributes the powers [of sense] among the various [sense] organs. And they each proceed from the animal [i.e. the spirit]; and are, as it were, kinds of radii, issuing from a centre and centering into it, being all one in respect of their common root, but many in their procession.
""Accordingly sense, when proceeding through the projected organs, is of a most animal-like nature. Indeed it is not sense at all before it arrives at its source. The immediate sense is more divine and closer to the soul.
""And so let no one whose imaginative spirit (phantastikon pneuma) is diseased, expect clear and unconfused visions.
""Now what its disease is, both by what things it is made blear-eyed and dense, and by what it is cleansed and purged and returns to its natural state, you must learn from the mystic philosophy, whereby also, after it has been purified by perfecting rites (teleton), it becomes God-possessed.
""Before, however, the [body of] imagination can receive God, the incomings [of sense must] flee away out of it.
""But he who keeps it pure, by living a life according to nature, has it ever in readiness, to be the most extended common-sensory, [even] in this life.
""Spirit so purified is sensible of the dispositions of the soul, and is not unsympathetic in itself [to them], as is the shell-like envelope [sc. the gross body].""
S: Read it again.
G.R.S. Mead [The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition, p. 95, RP reading]: ""Spirit so purified [RP: (one/two words inaudible) to say(--/.)"…so purified] is sensible of the dispositions of the soul, and is not unsympathetic in itself [to them], as is the shell-like envelope [sc. the gross body].""
S: The shell-like, the gross body, is somehow [inaudible]
RP (simultaneously): He calls it a good animal. [student assents] A (new orphaned) animal. An image [three/few words inaudible]
S: Yes.
RP: Just like [couple words inaudible] and I-- and, you know, you could tell exactly what stays the same using active imagination. And it happens to you and I [three/few words inaudible] the personal "I" here [couple words inaudible] is not that partial about somebody else. The whole time [one/two words inaudible] you meet somebody in image, their whole life [few words inaudible] that's actually a-- image is evoked in you because so many times [one word inaudible] the other soul but your body, your (eye/"I") is always here.
S: Yes, the common sensorium just seems like the most immediate vehicle to the gross senses because somehow it's not done with the gross senses.
S: Yes, (it can't help it).
RP: You can't see another man's soul with your eyes. But you can get a picture of it in the imagination.
AD: And that imagination, depending upon how much obscuration, you know, how much attachment, how much personal idiosyncrasy and all the rest, interfere with that image. Now many of you (have/had) the right function, intuition, and you didn't follow and then you look back and you say, if only there wasn't that psychology which, you know, made me blind to the [couple words inaudible] And we begin to see again and again how it constantly interferes. But given-- given the opportunity for this imagination to get a little purified and start operating, something like that happens in you. Alright let-- [S: Let's move on.] I'd like-- I'd like you to hear this whole thing because it's important to us.
G.R.S. Mead [The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition, p. 94, RP reading]: ""Accordingly sense…""
RP: Oh. "He it is…" [couple seconds of inaudible student talking] Ok.
G.R.S. Mead [The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition, p. 95, RP reading]: ""The latter indeed [RP: The shell-like envelope, shelly body, gross body."The latter indeed] has ever an antagonistic nature to the higher dispositions of the soul; whereas its primal and eternal vehicle [RP: Oh, it's pneumatic vehicle. (one/two inaudible student words) "…primal and eternal vehicle] is subtilised and aetherealised when [the soul] is made virtuous. But when it is made vicious, its vehicle becomes dense and earthy.
""For this spirit [RP reads: pneumatic vehicle] is precisely the borderland between unreason and reason, between body and the bodiless. It is the common frontier of both, and by its means things divine are joined with lowest things.""
AD: How about that?
S: Can you read that--
RP: Yes, the image is still [couple/three words inaudible] in the common sensorium.
AD: And the image that-- that's evoked?
RP: The image is evoked-- evoked [couple/three words inaudible]
S: Yes.
S: How does the soul [one/two words inaudible] know anything about it?
RP: Pneumatic vehicle.
S: Imagination.
RP: Or-- or the part-- yes, right.
[student assents]
RP: That means it's producing it.
S: [three words inaudible]
AD: What they refer to as the subtle body, ok, which is really the means of the growth and evolution because all your experiences are retained there and those (survive infinite) possibilities of growth. Something in you has to retain that, ok, and it's like your personal property of the World-Mind. Everything that happens in the world is retained by the World-Mind. Everything that happens to you is retained by this memory, the concept of memory that we're trying to bring out into the open little by little. I-- that term 'memory' will flabbergast you.
RG: But then somehow [three words inaudible] of like (psyche) being brought up like images to a subtle body [couple words inaudible] they're right there.
AD: Go ahead.
RP: Particularly, [S simultaneously: Subtle (one word inaudible)] you see, that's the thing, it's the borderline between reason and unreason. So like in a-- psychology begins by talking about the images [three/few words inaudible] talk about, you know [few words inaudible] But [one inaudible student word simultaneous with RP] then you-- then you-- then you get the person [couple words inaudible] you ought to abolish them, it's all [three words inaudible] let's go to a movie.
S: Exactly.
[short pause]
AD: Richard, but when you were talking about that I came up with a-- a [one/two words inaudible] In spite of the dependence of knowledge on the imagination or the imagination on knowledge, nobody's imagination will [one word inaudible]
S: No.
AD: Knowledge is always at the same time universal and individual and therefore any account which emphasizes either end by denying [few words inaudible] you're not going to (live with it). If the ne-- if the individual [one/two words inaudible] individual we can never know it for our knowledge always develops in terms of [couple/three words inaudible] Imagination is involved in all knowledge but that does not make all imagination knowledge. This is the borderline between the imagination, the reasoning [one/two words inaudible] You could have a lot of fancies, a lot of imagination, but we certainly (retain) knowledge except in the large sense that you have your own compass.
RP: That's very important.
AD: Yes, ok, I'm keeping [couple words inaudible] So that we might as well know what it is we're fighting with and [couple words inaudible] down [few words inaudible]
G.R.S. Mead [The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition, p. 95, RP reading]: ""Therefore it is difficult for its nature [RP: In other words, the subtle body.] to be comprehended by philosophy [alone].""
RP: That a philosophy would show you a [one word inaudible]
G.R.S. Mead [The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition, p. 95, RP reading]: ""8. (137B.) For it lays under contribution what suits it, from both of the extremes, as from neighbours, and images in one single nature things that are poles apart.""
S: Right.
RP: Ok, well the latter, the emphasis is the latter.
S: Read through that one again.
G.R.S. Mead [The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition, p. 95, RP reading]: ""For it lays under contribution what suits it, from both of the extremes, [RP: The reason (couple/three words inaudible)] as from neighbours, and images in one single nature things that are poles apart.""
S: And [three/few words inaudible]
S: They're apart in some of us.
S: Yes.
RP: But, you know, this inward (experience) that you have (is an entity in your) body. He says it's poles apart.
S (simultaneously): [few words inaudible]
S: [few words inaudible]
RP: Hard to say.
S: It doesn't need you.
RP: But, that doesn't mean you have access to that. An event is an access to body. But in the imagination you don't see image. This is a union of essence and body. "Well that's my mother." The essence part is the knowing of motherhood. The eyes [one word inaudible] is form, just a form. That's all, and imagination is a meeting ground between--
S: Between form.
S: Yes [couple words inaudible]
RP: An immaterial essence and a-- the body. [one/two words inaudible]
S (simultaneously): But the rational is the same thing though (which becomes) [one/two words inaudible] essences and also bring them out into the imagination into things.
[24¾ seconds of inaudible student talking]
AB: Like, already cooperating with the whole reality of the psyche trying to resolve the conflict between spirit and matter. The thing in-- in the psychic world [couple words inaudible] say coming from above you would speak of an archetype but coming from below you would speak of an (instinct) from within. [couple words inaudible] within and-- and into that, that's what-- where these two [one word inaudible] you know, opposites are brought together and made one.
RP: Yes because-- because knowing opposites will force them back together. It's brought opposites together.
S: Well you-- the way you see (subject) there, could you say that the [few words inaudible]
RP: It's called insight as well.
S: I mean somehow you can mutually [few words inaudible]
RP (simultaneously): The eye-- you know, like a-- just the sense-organ brings [couple/three words inaudible] the final cause, the methods of sense, you know, (dripping) out of it to the brain(,) (to/there's) something above the brain or deep embed-- embedded in the structure of the brain, whatever way you want to [few words inaudible] connection to an image is [one/two words inaudible] and so [couple words inaudible] to reveal a perception, this intelligible (re-perception).
S: Yes.
S: Is it possible for that fever to just take place in the brain, (it) goes back to the like-- the higher--
S: [one/two words inaudible]
RP: Oh we already said because the brain there are vile imagination(s).
S: You might just have to--
AD (simultaneously): The (breath will) slow down.
RP: You have a vile imagination. That doesn't mean you have bad essences but you're used to energizing yourself in-- in a particular form, [student assents] alright, and that's a habit that you can't get rid of. But the thing is, you're really not losing your particular habit but you're always using it for [one/two words inaudible]
S: [one/two words inaudible]
S: [few words inaudible]
S (possibly same S as above): Where these images come from?
S: Yes.
S: I mean--
RP: Well the images are in the imagination. It's throughout.
S: [few words inaudible]
RP: Well that-- you know, that-- yes.
[few seconds of inaudible student talking]
RP (simultaneously): How do we reason? How do we reason? Because the image involves names, concepts. How do we reason (with little) concepts? In the imagination a concept is embedded on the image, on the sense, you get a picture. The rabbit's over there.
AD: Would the-- you must allow also for the distortion that the personality will introduce into that.
S: [couple/three words inaudible]
RP: Yes, it may pull the wrong-- it'll pull a concept out of the-- out of the (rack--) out of an ego in a way that's according to what we call the personality. One guy looks at the thing and says it's a box. The other guy looks at the thing and [couple words inaudible] (Going by/One guy's) point of context good now. The other guy's point of context (are bizarre).
AD: Or, the way Jung puts it here, he says--
C.G. Jung [CW 11, Psychology and Religion, "The Psychology of Eastern Meditation," p. 571, paragraph 939, AD reading]: "If a European tries to banish all thoughts…"
AD: Like in meditation. And you have to remember, meditation intensifies or forces the energy into the unconscious, it starts flowing up. When it's down there it's going to pop.
C.G. Jung [CW 11, Psychology and Religion, "The Psychology of Eastern Meditation," p. 571, paragraph 939, AD reading]: "If a European tries to banish all thought of the outer world and to empty his mind of everything [outside], he immediately becomes the prey of his own subjective fantasies, which have nothing whatever to do with the [AD: meditation or the text or the] images mentioned in our [AD reads: the] text. Fantasies do not enjoy a good reputation; they are considered cheap and worthless and are therefore rejected as useless and meaningless. They are the kleshas, the disorderly and chaotic instinctual forces [AD: that Jung-- that--] which yoga proposes to yoke."
S: Uh-hm.
AD: Do you see how closely-- we're starting to get this idea, the brain, the images that we deal with, how depending upon a great deal of the way our experience in the past (is/has) structuralized and become a residue and become latent forces in us. Inheriting the next body again, these latent forces tend to manifest again using the brain but this time the brain modified by your previous experience, alright, and so that they always are interfering with this given nature, the structuralization of the brain itself. And we're speaking within psychology, remember, from epistemology we're taking another point of view. But you've got to see that within yourself, alright, or when you start concentrating, intensifying your attention, how the brain first gets affected. And that's one of the experiences you begin to have right away, you feel-- you feel a boost-- the-- the flow-- the flow of blood in the head, you know. And if the intensity of the thinking goes on then you transcend the brain, yes. But before you do you're going to have to go through those kleshas, those subjective fantasies that you've evoked! Alright? Let's finish this and-- and then we'll see that meditation becomes a little more meaningful.
G.R.S. Mead [The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition, p. 96, RP reading]: ""As to the extent of this imaginative essence, nature has poured it into many divisions of being. Indeed it goes down even as low as irrational creatures, so as the better to extend itself.
""Moreover the whole of the genera of daimones are supplied with their substance by this mode of life [or animal]. For during the whole of their existence they are of the nature of images and take on the appearances of happenings.""
[few seconds of inaudible student talking]
S: [couple words inaudible] I don't know.
AD: I'd rather [S: Alright.] have something left to talk about it than [one/two words inaudible]
RP: [couple/few words inaudible] anybody heard you.
S: Yes.
G.R.S. Mead [The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition, p. 96, RP reading]: ""As for man he is conscious of many things by means of this [essence] even when by itself, and of more when there is another [RP doesn't read the following words in square brackets] [? a daimon or spirit] with it.""
RP: There's definitely [three/few words inaudible] corrupted.
G.R.S. Mead [The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition, p. 96, RP reading]: ""As for man he is conscious of many things by means of this [essence] even when by itself, and of more when there is another [RP doesn't read the following words in square brackets] [? a daimon or spirit] with it.""
S: Yet somehow [few words inaudible]
RP: Well the another, the another is more than that. The another, and it's in square brackets, is a little bit more.
S: Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
S (simultaneously): Oh, ok.
AD: Yes, finish that up.
G.R.S. Mead [The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition, p. 96, RP reading]: ""For [the orders…]""
RP: All about the other thing. You want me to read it?
AD: Just keep reading.
RP: Ok.
G.R.S. Mead [The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition, p. 96, RP reading]: ""But the transcending of imagination…""
S: [couple words inaudible] that noise, I mean what do you say to the [one word inaudible]
AD: Would you mind your business please?
S: I am.
G.R.S. Mead [The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition, pp. 96-97, RP reading]: ""But the transcending of imagination is as difficult as it is blissful.
""For 'mind and wisdom,' says [Plato, Phileb. 59D], are beloved by him to whomsoever they come even in 'old age,' [couple/three inaudible AD words] meaning [by this] (laughter) [RP rereads:"…meaning [by this]] the power that transcends imagination.
""For the life that is pictured forth is surely of the imagination or of a mind that has recourse to [RP adds: the] imagination.""
AD: Uh-hm.
RP: Whatever that means.
AD: Just go ahead, go ahead, yes?
RP: Well--
AD/S(?) (simultaneously): Let him.
AD: They're grown-up now, come on.
RP: They're 40 pages!
AD: Go ahead! A little bit more.
G.R.S. Mead [The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition, p. 97, RP reading]: ""9. (137D.) In any case this psychic spirit, which the blessed ones call also 'spirituous soul,' becomes both a god, and a daimon capable of assuming any form, and an image [or shade], in which last the soul works out its corrections.""
RP: [inaudible]
G.R.S. Mead [The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition, pp. 97-98, RP reading]: ""For not only the Oracles are in agreement about it, likening the manner of life of the soul in the after-state [of correction] to the image-happenings in dream, but also philosophy concludes that the first lives [on earth] are preparations for the second [in the after-state].
""It is, moreover, the higher habit of mind in souls which lightens [the spirit] and wipes off the stains of the lower [habit].
""(138A.) And so by natural impulses it either rises on high owing to its heat and dryness--and this of course is [Plato's] 'winging' of the soul; moreover we find that Heracleitus's 'wise soul, dry radiance (auge)' comes to precisely the same thing.""
RP: Archetypally a dry phase. Yes sir. We don't want--
AD: High floater.
RP: We don't [few words inaudible] (bit of laughter)
G.R.S. Mead [The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition, pp. 98-99, RP reading]: ""Or, becoming dense and moist, it sinks into the depths of earth [RP: Well that's water."…it sinks into the depths of earth] by natural tendency, lurking [there], nay, thrust down into the subterrene state.
""For this region is very suitable for moist spirits.
""Life in this state is miserable and penal. Yet it is possible even [for such a spirit], when it has been purified by time and toil and other lives, to rise. For, becoming a thing of double life, it runs a double course, and companies partly with the lower, and partly with the higher [regions].
""It is this [spirit] which the first soul, when it descends, has loaned to it from the spheres, and going on board of it, as on a boat, it comes into contact with the corporeal world.""
RP: That's when you take pneumatic vehicle as a-- as a boat to come into the corporeal world.
TS: Are we-- are we all living the-- the double life?
S: [three/few words inaudible, possibly part of background]
S: I think.
S: The [few words inaudible]
RP: Well no, the innocent balance(--/.)
S: [couple words inaudible]
RP: Well even with a [couple words inaudible] it's just-- just taking a broad [one/two words inaudible] it leads a double life, that is it has [couple words inaudible] leads it towards either the higher or the lower. Because then right now-- it's always taking in these higher essences but right now (it's/its) vestibular matter is the basis of form. It helps you sort of [couple/three words inaudible]
TS: [inaudible]
RP: Yes. Just the side you'll take away, yes, complete, the form lines are actually there.
TS: Based on what [few words inaudible]
RP: Oh yes, no doubt, right but--
S: Yes.
RP: But even if you take the lowest level, the gangster still loves his life.
S: Well that's (difference between--)
[few seconds of highly inaudible student talking, possibly part of background]
RP: Well, let's go back to Proclus [couple/three words inaudible]
G.R.S. Mead [The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition, pp. 98-99, RP reading]: ""It is this [spirit] [RP: This pneumatic vehicle, the imaginative vehicle.] which the first soul, [RP: The part I think maybe is an astral planet.] when it descends, has loaned to it from the spheres, [RP: In other words, planetary spheres weave together this imaginative vehicle.] and going on board of it, as on a boat, it comes into [RP reads: in] contact with the corporeal world.
""Thereon [RP reads: Thereupon] ensues a struggle, either to take it [the spirit] spirit aloft with it, [RP: That is, the rational soul tries to take the spirit aloft with it.] or it may be even no longer to continue with it. The latter, however, is a rare case.
""Nevertheless it may be compelled to let it go, if it will not follow. For it is not lawful to be unfaithful when once the initiatory rites have been known.
""It would indeed be a [sad] disgrace for souls to return [oh high] without repaying what does not belong to them,--leaving behind in the surround [RP reads: surrounding] of the earth [instead of in the higher spheres] what they have borrowed on their way down.
""Yet even this may happen in the case of one or two as a grace of perfect initiation…""
RP: [few words inaudible]
G.R.S. Mead [The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition, pp. 99-100, RP reading]: ""But the natural state [of affairs] is that, when the soul is once engrafted into [the spirit], they either pull together, or one pulls over or is pulled over by the other.
""But in any case they are joined together until the return [of the soul] to the state whence it came.
""And so when [the spirit] is weighed down by vice, it drags down together with it that soul who allows it to be so weighed down.
""And this is the warning that the Oracles give to the gnostic seed in us: [RP: It was--]
""'See that thou verge not down into the world of the dark rays; 'neath which is ever spread the abyss, devoid of form, where is no light to see, wrapped in black gloom, befouling, that joys in images (eidola), void of all understanding.'
""For how can an infatuate life void of all understanding be a good thing for the mind? Whereas for the image this lower region is suitable, owing to the composition of its spirit being then of a similar nature. For 'like loves like.'""
S: Yes it does.
AD: Alright. We won't have no-- I-- I have no notes prepared but we'll have to tear it up and (do it again). Over here, for instance, if we go back, perhaps it might be more meaningful to you when PB said--
PB [The Wisdom of the Overself, "The Yoga of the Discerning Mind," Exercise 7--A Meditation on the Serpent's Path, p. 247, AD reading]: "Thus [AD reads: The] Mind is to be worshipped silently, thought of negatively and realized in the Void. All other worship yields either an imagination in consciousness or a sensation in the body, that is it yields a symbol of the Real but does not touch the Real itself."
AD: But do you feel that insight? Is it (ringing) now? I think we did enough here. [students assent] Put you through all that, problem exhaust, now you can have a good meditation, there'll be no apperceptive functioning. [student assents] Go ahead.
S: Is that coffee?
S: That's fine, I need it to work.
AD: I'm sorry?
S: Yes.
[14¾ seconds of inaudible student talking, students getting up]
AD: I'm going to meditate. Those who want to go home, go home. And, if you got business to attend to, go home.
[few seconds of background student talking]
[Audio File 1974 0811b Ends]
1974 08/11 V12a: CLASS: Epistemology; Reflective Consciousness. Copyright 2023 Wisdom's Goldenrod p. iii